Lily’s words rose Guinevere’s hidden right eyebrow inquisitively. “There are other people who control Grimm?” The words flowed off her lips with a volume that could be heard only by Lily, and with a smoothness that felt like velvet on the ears. However, the words had just slightly slipped out, so she did need to do a bit of damage control. Without skipping a beat or breaking face, she continued, “I’ve read about other people who can, but you’ve heard of other other people?” She grabbed a small bound notebook from her bag and tossed it on the table with a pen. She grasped the book, a ripple of her aura flowing over it. Flipping through it, Lily might see random drawings of Grimm or their anatomy, but mostly pen scratches, scribbles, and crossed out portions in a variety of colors of dust.

Finally arriving on a blank page, she shuffled in her seat and almost excitedly picked up her pen. With a small rush of red aura running through the device, she activated some of the liquid dust inside. This was her lab notebook, and no one would open it except her. Well, not without being blown twenty ways to smithereens. “Can you tell me what you know about these people? It would help me a lot in my research, since accounts of such people are really rare – for probably obvious reasons.”

Guinevere started thinking on how to respond to Lily’s questions – those she ‘knew’ about she had only read about in books or scrolls, and were both nebulously described and unnamed. Some random woman who could disappear into a Grimm, another who more or less subjugated every ‘living’ thing around her, and a man who seemed to be on the good side of the Krahe simply because he led them to settlements already in chaos. And herself.

Before she was able to mull over the thought too much, Lily began chattering. And she talked faster than Sepia by a fair bit – man, could she talk your ear off in an Atlasian Minute. The first man was a bit more trivial – a black orb may well have been from other sources Guinevere had only picked up on every here and there. The second one however, was interesting. As Lily was talking about how the woman looked, the pen’s chamber shifted back and forth, opening up various chambers to allow color to flow freely. A rough sketch of the woman covered half of one page by the time Lily was done talking about her features.

She humored herself with the idea of ravens as messengers; she had always liked flying on the back of a Krahe, though the emotional toll was a bit strenuous after a while. Thinking about it, she could probably get from Vytal to Pinnacle in an hour or two flying at one’s top speed with a bit of her aura reinforcing it. She might try that with Stage at some point.

The mention of Nevermores brought Guinevere back to some of the scrolls in Cela she read when she was a few years younger. Supposedly they were smaller than Krahe and a lot less more powerful, from an era when Grimm were easier to dispatch. She assumed that Lily may have just picked the name up in a history book or some such and it had stuck. Since they were effectively the same thing, she didn’t really speak up on the matter, continuing to furiously scribble in her own personal shorthand.

The fact the Barghest she spoke of was so much larger than the norm had her mentally on edge. She had heard of huntsmen exaggerating on their stories, and she might be being led down one of those rabbit holes right now. However, the interesting aspect was that this monster heeled for the woman Lily was describing. Guinevere could do that, albeit only if the Grimm was already dead. A sufficient number of feathers to destroy a tree big enough to hide in was a feat for a Krahe, by any standard. As Lily finished, she made a couple lines between her notes to link the concepts together in her mental map.

All done with that stint, Guinevere did have a couple questions, like where this woman was from, but she had her own questions to answer. Well, most of the school avoided her. Aside from Stage and a couple teachers, very few wanted to get near her. Lily probably had subconsciously noticed that Guinevere was alone while working at her table. A little more observation would show her that people were also actively avoiding the table. Maybe a little less avoidance from the upperclassmen, but anyone younger was dead sure to be avoiding the place. She didn’t blame them. They had a good reason.

She looked up from her book, closing it slightly, and leaned over the table a little bit.

“My semblance does not just work on people and objects.” She said this in a little more hushed of a tone – not necessarily a whisper, but low enough that Lily would hopefully be able to read that it was not something she freely admitted. Perhaps she would also notice a touch of… embarrassment in the inflection. Guinevere figured it would be easier to say it to her now, rather than later when someone confronts Lily about talking to the “freak.” It was not a fact she took pride in, and it certainly was not something that earned her a lot of friends. In this case, she knew Lily held a great distaste for Grimm, and thought she would be more hurt if Guinevere herself were not the one to tell her.

Regardless, she was a touch afraid of the girl’s reaction, and though she said no more to await a response, she did hunch down a little bit and tense up slightly in that light fear, should Lily decide to lunge at her over the table in anger or pain of some sort.

Guinevere’s first response was to pause Lily’s hand – she knew the contact would be coming and both shifted it back while at the same time lifting her palm. She was trying to be courteous with the rejection of touch. Not being the one to initiate it removed a large portion of her control of the situation, and that could spell a bit of mental bad news if she hadn’t settled her mind and heart before contact happened. The corners of her lips raised a little, trying to at least make the rejection a little more palatable to Lily.

Listening to her words, her smile did grow a small amount. She appreciated the kindness, but Guinevere didn’t think Lily quite understood in full what her words meant. She was a new student, and it was likely the only reason she even approached the sewing bench. Volume was picking up on the surrounding footpaths and main walkways, so Guinevere guessed that she would be able to point out the example she meant.

“I’m not terribly upset by my semblance. Yes, it may be capable of causing me pain, but in doing so, it dulls that strain on others while I help.” She looked towards the main walkway about 30 yards off. She knew the period was drawing close to an end, and with that would come her example. “When I fight, I need allies, and if mine are not around, things can go poorly. When I am fighting Grimm, I can use it to help even the numbers. Most people at Vytal don’t take too kindly to people that do that.” She slightly nodded her head to the side casually and shifted her eye to direct Lily’s attention to the early in-between-class crowd.

Many started down the path, chatting with one another. But inevitably, someone from the group would look up, and spot Guinevere at her table. At this, more than half the groups turned around, acting as though they had just accidentally turned down the wrong path. Others, wanting to take the quick course between the courtyard buildings formed an almost eye-shaped hole in their traffic, diverting closer to the walls of the buildings on either side. It was almost as if one were watching a school of fish move past a shark or a herd of animals avoiding a lion. Even those that were recognizably older, seniors and such, diverted their paths. Though she was not terribly different from them, she still was, and it showed in how the crowd reacted to her mere presence.

Guinevere let out a soft, short, humming laugh in response to Lily’s words. Not one directed at her, but one of those sort of ‘I appreciate the sentiment and will consider it’ sorts of giggles. “It’s appreciated, though it’s a bit difficult for someone who wants to be a leader [/i]or a teacher[/i] to be avoided all the time. I’m supposed to be a bit more approachable and motherly, you know?” Her voice certainly had the motherly thing down, but Lily could probably see why being an unapproachable teacher would be a bit of a bad thing from a student’s perspective.

She paused a moment, lightly pursing her lips. “I did almost forget something of my own.” She reached over to the pile of 30 or so needles, grabbed one, and a small scrap of crimson velvet about the size of her palm. Another hand reached out towards a piece of gold gossamer fabric. She pulled a length of thread from it, and it seemed to float through the eye of the needle. She needed to quickly tack this together, so she let her semblance control the needle and for the most part just held the fabric steady in her hand.

A few numbers and letters appeared stitched in gold after barely a second of frenzied needle movements. She snapped the string with a flick of her wrist and added a couple tacks of her own to frame the message. After that, she snapped the string again, and passed the now embroidered velvet to Lily. Anticipating a potentially confused look from the girl, she answered before being asked, “My scroll and address. If you drop by, don’t mind the Bear and his truck or my other teammates. Saying my name should let you avoid most lines of inquiry from the two most likely to ask questions.”

Lily would probably be able to note that the address, if she had been around a bit, pointed to one of the nicer neighborhoods in the housing district surrounding Vytal. The homes in the area were not necessarily the modest living arrangements most students lived in, though it was also certainly not in the same vein as the posh neighborhoods the students from money called home. Although to be fair, it was closer to the latter end of the spectrum.