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I arrived at the dorm in question, gazing at the door in front of me. Sighing, I noticed that I could hear a few voices from the other side. They were soft enough that I couldn't figure out what they were saying, but I estimated that approximately three people were talking. I gulped and cleared my throat, knocking on the door. I heard the conversation abruptly cut off before I began to hear footsteps approaching the door. Preparing myself, it opened to reveal a tall, lithe student with olive coloured skin, beady black eyes and short, stubby ears. Instantly, I recognized it as Sukath.

"Welcome," he greeted. Leading me inside the small apartment I could see three other students including Antus, who looked almost identical to his relative. They were all seated in a circle, and I could see two other students; one was quadrupedal with dark brown, shiny skin with large mandibles and antennae, paired with a stumpy, spiky tail. Next to them was another student with a long, thin beak and sunken eyes, their stocky body also covered in jet black feathers. What was prominent, though, was their two large wings. Based on their complexion, I assumed she was female. Sukath came into view once more and pulled out a chair from an existing stack. "You can sit here," he invited. I complied with his instruction and the conversation resumed.

"As I was saying," the quadrupedal alien spoke in an unusually low voice, "we never got caught to this day. The prank was glorious."

Antus called out to get everyone's attention. "We should probably say our names once again so our newest member knows who we all are," he directed, looking around the small circle. "Let's start with you, Zess."

The feathered alien looked upward, caught off guard. "Huh?"

"Your name," Antus said.

"Zess." The alien's erect posture was beginning to dwindle into a slouched one.

Antus displayed a small frown. "You really are a quiet one, Zess," he commented. Zess looked up once more. "That might be good in large classes where you are distant from your teacher, but here you will need to learn how to communicate. We can't help you if you don't ask questions or request for assistance every once in a while."

Zess' attention was focused on the group co-leader once more. "It's not that," she began. "It's just that I don't usually have anything to add. I also don't have many things that I want to talk about, either."

"Alright, I suppose that's understandable." Antus rotated his head a small amount until he was gazing at the smaller alien next to me.

Unlike Zess, this alien was anticipating the prompt. "Reki," he introduced. "Many people, when my name is written on text, tend to mispronounce it. They don't realize that you say it like ray-key." He shook his head, then looked over at me.

"Er..." I stammered. "Feste. My name's Feste." Looking over at Reki, I went along with his small rant. "Sometimes people also mispronounce my name, although it's not very common. I like to tell people that they can remember by thinking of the word 'infest'."

All the members of the group nodded and the two green aliens went next. "I'm Sukath and this is Antus, but you probably know that already from the poster," the leader said.

The conversation, while it had been fairly lively, started to collapse. Antus was idly checking the time and Zess was prodding at a certain patch of feathers. It was Sukath that started moving. After a brief period of thought, he stood and left the room to retrieve a sheet of paper and a pencil. "Before it becomes dark, I'll get everyone so far to register," he began, all of the attention in the room fixated on him.

"Wait a minute," Reki blurted when he received the paper, "I don't live in the school. I go home to my parents every night."

While Antus just told Reki to point out the distinction on paper, I recalled that while most students left the school immediately after the day's classes had come to a close, the portals that were capable of sending every student home didn't disappear until after the sun had set. I hadn't paid much attention to it, as I would casually walk past the portals that were still open every evening before I would begin practicing magic.

Before I could realize, Zess cleared her throat. I snapped back to reality, whipping my head around. I then took the paper and pencil. There was a table printed on the paper, with columns labelled "name" and "room number". I quickly added my name to the end of the sparse list of members and handed it back to Sukath.

The link between us began to decay once again as time passed. At this point, Antus was shooting glances at his brother, most likely to end the meeting for the night and send everyone home. However, Reki decided to fill the deafening silence. "So there was a little... mishap that I went through when I was young," he began. With everyone tuned into his speech, he continued. "I was walking around town as my parents allowed me to when I saw a group of larger, more matured people. Now, even though they obviously looked unfriendly, I still approached them wanting to make them my friends. Lo and behold, I was promptly shouted at. I began running away, though, when one of them swiped at me.

"After I ran away as fast as I could to lose them, I didn't realize just how lost I had gotten. I was probably only a few minutes away from my house, but at the time I was terrified. I thought that I was going to have to become 'wild', that I would have to live off the land for the rest of my life. I was at my wit's end before I saw a familiar building, though, and I ran back home." Reki whimpered slightly. "My parents both forced me to take a bath after that." He then began to chuckle, but the small alien quickly stifled it. With this, the group began to fall silent once more.