#rutgers

Low and rusty purr deeper

The door of their place opens and closes. Both Dagmar and Symon can hear it from their rooms. Then after a pause, Sylvi's voice calls out, "Hey...?"

"Hi." From the bedroom.

"Oh, cool, you're home..." Sylvi comes to her door and looks in. "Um...you okay?"

Grunt. "Fine."

She glances over at the door without sitting up. Odin is laying square in the middle of her chest.

And giving rusty purrs

"Cool." She's still in the doorway. "I'm glad. So...yeah." A pause. "Classes are okay?"

She shrugs, eyes closed.

"Yours?"

"Okay, I think? I guess. I mean...it's hard, right?"

"It's weird."

"Yeah." A pause. "And...it's weird how are schedules are, like, we live here but I hardly ever see you. Or Symon." She pauses. "You think he's doing okay?"

"I dunno."

"He's a sluagh, he probably doesn't want to socialize."

"Oh. I figured...I thought you guys were, y'know, closer than that."

She frowns and shrugs.

"You make any new friends yet?"

"Well...some classmates. Big lecture halls, though...it's hard. I tried to hang out with some girls, but they're sorority, and I'm not, and...well...yeah." A pause. "How's your team?"

She sits up, wrapping her arms around herself. Shrug.

"Haven't seen much of them since classes started."

She blinks. "Wait...what? I thought...there are practices though, right?"

"It's a spring sport. So I have weight training and stuff, but it's not like... basketball, or anything."

"Oh." She inhales deeply and holds it a moment before exhaling. "Okay. So." She gives a wry grin. "Feels like freshman year in high school all over again."

She nods. "Worse."

"I think...maybe we could, like, take it on? Like a battle?"

"It's still drop add til Sunday..."

"Oh...Dagmar...." She bites her lip.

"It's a long time until spring. They could find someone else..."

Dagmar gets a headbutt from Odin

Sigh, Pet.

"...please don't. Please." She might actually be begging.

A crease between her brows. "Sylvi, I don't... I don't think I can cut it."

"But...if you don't stick it out, then..."

She sinks to a seat on the floor, cross legged, with her back against the door frame.

"It just goes to show I'm a quitter?"

"No," she whispers. "I mean...If you go..." A sigh. "You know how I am."

"It just... I just..."

"You know what you're doing, where you want to go."

"I don't belong anywhere here."

She blinks. "You think I know what I'm doing?"

"Dagmar...I don't have a clue!"

"You're gonna be a teacher, I thought."

"That's the idea, yeah, there's this program and it's sort of fast track and I can see myself as a teacher maybe and it's a smart choice I guess, but...but...I mean, I'm going in a direction because it's better than just sitting in one place and waiting for stuff to happen, but at the same time I've got ZERO clue if it's the RIGHT direction, y'know?"

"I mean...it might be the wrong thing. But I don't want to let it beat me yet."

"Please stay. Please? I just...I don't want to do this alone."

"It feels alone. I'm just.... surrounded out there."

Odin looks back and forth at this banter.

"Surrounded?"

"All these strangers?"