Two worlds divided

Chapter 8

It had been a full week since Miranda had moved in, she looked at her living space as she got her bag ready for this staff meeting. She looked around her room, particularly the grandma-esque pastel pink floral wallpaper; Selena had thought that her texting her flowers and pink were her favourites meant this was what she came up with. The pastel pink bedspread not being much better with the frills and white lace; it looked like it had been taken out of a fairytale princess' bedroom.

Though Miranda supposed, she could not blame a woman who had been cooped up in the school for years for not knowing that people did not typically make their bedrooms look like their grandma had decorated them. She had even been kind enough to provide her with some clothing, even if it looked one hundred years outdated, the corsets were strangely quite cute when paired with the pink, floral, tulle-lined, lace-decorated princess dress-style clothing she had brought with her.

Most of the dresses were long, dangerously close to scraping along the floor as she wore them, it was difficult to tell if this was because they were too big or just designed like that; given the past and how the women who showed their ankles. They could work as formal gowns, even if they looked like princess dresses, but, well, she could not complain, Selena was trying to be nice. Though, it could have been Nyx who went out of her way to get these, since it had been Nyx who had taken over for Selena through her first week.

She had met Matthew though, he had been assigned to her because he was once human and knew of the transition process from human to creature society. Miranda hardly ever paid attention to him though as he seemed to be rather bland, and his undead skin reflected the sun; she doubted she would ever be able to get over someone glittering in the sun, it was just weird. Matthew was kind enough to her, though it was obvious he had not left the school in a long time either, he had asked her everything about humans that came to mind, trying to see if they had any common ground.

As she further thought about the odd zombie, Miranda picked up her bag and threw on a pastel blue hoodie she had found in her local charity shop; buying clothes to keep up her meek, calm, quiet persona was the hardest part. Though the three sizes of the too-big hoodie were incredible for the cold up on the hill, apparently the creatures got even colder and wetter weather than she was used to; considering she lived in Britain, that was hard to beat. She pulled the hood up and wandered out of her room.

Her room had been in the administration building since that was where all staff activities took place, everything to do with the teachers was in that building. From living quarters to meeting rooms to offices to the staff room, that was where she had spent most of her time during her first week, trying to get used to the schedule of the school, trying to figure out how to get to her new classroom and back without getting lost.

As she walked through the old building she could not help but feel out of place with her pastel blue hoodie and light pink floral knee-length skirt, her tights being a light shimmering pick, and she wore pastel purple three-inch heels, making sure she was as light and glittering as possible. Mismatching with the gothic and dark decor of the corridors as much as was physically possible, she was looking around at the pictures on the walls of students long past, some were from when cameras were still requiring a professional stood with a sheet over them.

As she approached the meeting room and the pictures slowly became more recent she realised that Selena was in all of them, meaning she had been the one and only headmistress of Draconai school, which meant that it was named after her; not some terrifying lady of the hill. The townsfolk were rather strange, suggesting that Selena had a rather horrific relative, one who would tale townsfolk and drain them of their blood, torturing them to feed herself, she would always show up in the middle of the night and then steal young women to bathe in their blood to keep herself young. It seemed that the tale was simply the townspeople deciding to create rumours to keep young women from staying out too late at night.

She opened the door to find a long table with a few staff dotted around the room, either sitting or standing around the edge of the room in pairs. As she tried to sneak in one of the zombies turned to her and smiled, Matthew had seen her enter and was now gesturing to a seat at the table, one between himself and Selena's seat; the one at the head of the table. Nyx and Selena sat in their seats talking casually, with Selena sat ankles crossed and Nyx sitting languidly in her chair, almost slipping out of it.

Ginerva Hawks, the harpy on staff, turned to get Matthew's attention and he nodded, wondering off to speak with her. Selena turned to Miranda, nodding as she sat down, Nyx smiled and held out a hand with a strange-looking sweet in it.

Nyx chuckled at Miranda's severely confused face. "Pineapple cube with added sweetness potion... I am hoping it does not react with your human digestive system, I chose a potion that should not react but I am aware of intolerances and such, and I... am over explaining again, sorry."

The human chuckled at the sudden sense of normalcy, she had a human friend who was the same, feeling the need to explain herself for every action taken, though that was mainly due to trauma and past experiences. She nodded as she took the sweet. "Well, my guts hate lactose, but I still eat it anyway, I just take those old people's lactase pills if I feel like scooping the entire tub of ice cream into my mouth."

The magical smiled as Miranda ate it. "Every human I have met has hated pineapple cubes, I don't know why they have such a bad reputation."

Selena rolled her eyes. "They are just not in fashion anymore, dear, you know that with each generation new sweet treats come in. Why do you think I have a tub of humbugs that you all don't touch?"

Nyx sighed. "Come on, I saw them in a shop ages ago, someone has to still like them."

The headmistress shrugged nonchalantly. "Trends come and go, anyway, at least I eat them." She winked at the blushing magical.

Nyx seemed to think to herself for a moment before she sighed and got up. "Yeah, um, you're right. I need to go... to the bathroom, yeah, bad stomach, so I should... I wouldn't want to interrupt the meeting with my aching stomach so I... I'll go now, bye."

As Miranda watched the woman leave the room she frowned; that was incredibly odd, even for monsters, she looked at Selena to find her looking down at her tablet disinterestedly. She moved her chair closer. "So... that deputy of yours... bit of an odd one isn't she?"

The headmistress frowned. "I would refrain from speaking about my deputy behind her back, especially in front of me. She may be odd in your eyes, but we are... we have had a recent disagreement and she is... cautious at the best of times."

The human shrugged as Selena then elected to ignore her in favour of her tablet. She decided to glance across the table to find a scowling werewolf, her glared at her and barred his fangs, looking like a guard dog ready to pounce. Miranda let out an awkward chuckle as she waved; he simply growled, and his sister hit him in the back of the head.

She gave Miranda an apologetic look. "Sorry about him, he's like this with any new person... Especially humans"

The human looked around the room and a sea monster stared back at her, her eyeless sockets seeming to want to steal her eyes to replace her own. She bared her fangs meaning to terrify the human, it certainly worked.

Miranda stood up, she almost tipped her chair over and nervously chuckled, Selena also stood, and looked at her in confusion since the meeting had just begun. "You know... I think that the pineapple cube must have messed with my guts in some way... I uh... ah! It cramping and... oh! Ow! I should really go."

She dashed out, grabbing her bag on the way before anyone could protest; she closed the door a bit harsher than normal. This acting was starting to get annoying, she couldn't remember the last time she had sworn under her breath or the last time she had been gossiping about someone behind their back for longer than a minute. She was starting to become this cutesy little persona she had put on, it was slightly infuriating.

To make up for all the good behaviour she had been putting on recently she decided to sneak around the admin building while everyone was busy. Snooping had been one of her best skills since being a teenager, she had always been good at sniffing out odd behaviour and items; so what better place to ransack than the deep, dark, and broody headmistress' office? She even knew her way there because of the interview, so she seemed like the perfect candidate.