I say hey there, we don't play fair||OPEN-TEACHERS

He took a long, steady drag on his cigarette and the smoke coiled around his neck in pale grey-blue ribbons. If he was a talker, Tobias would probably send a heavy rebuttal towards Miakoda’s question about how dare she have the audacity to say anything to him in regards to his personal life. Tobias, however, just let his upper lip curl. It wasn’t that he intended to make an enemy of everyone he came across, but his business was his and that’s all there was too it. “Anyone ever tell you that you come off too strong?” he said as coolly as possible so that he didn’t sound as though his attitude was meant for her and her alone.

Tobias picked up his mug, “cheers,” he added as he raised it. He wondered over to the coffee station casually and began refilling his drink. “Some friend you got there, Amy,” he mumbled out of the corner of his mouth, his cigarette wiggling slightly on his lips. “Doesn’t even want a coffee…shame, really.” He turned to face the girls and nodded at Arthur politely. “It’s nice to see you again Miss, Caroline is it?” Tobias added with a small crooked grin.

Amorina smiled graciously at Caroline, a silent "Oh, stoppit", feeling the ever familiar blush creep upon her. The company in the dining hall was a welcomed change from the absence of company she had been experiencing. With all the new staff members, Foresta didn't seem as lonely as before.

Her attention drawn back to Arthur, Amorina merely shrugged. "As long as it doesn't bother you, I'd love something to eat. But how 'bout giving us a surprise? I hate asking things from people." She smiled, the tugging hunger in her stomach becoming more and more fierce. She hadn't eaten all day, too busy running around and cleaning her room.

To Tobias, Amy shrugged again. "Yes, well, she just got here today. Not afraid of people, is she?"

Miakoda watched Tobias leave and sighed. He had no idea what he was, the possibilities he had. The poison he shoved into his body... He was so out-of-tune with nature. He supressed what was inside of him instead of embracing it. Well, that was the difference between them. She was a wolf. He was not.

Taking outo a bottle of water, the 'wolf stood up, grabbed her bag, and left. She needed to find her room and start setting up. She knew she would probably see the halfling around, and that it may not end well.

As she watched the new teacher walk away, Amy shook her head. "She's definitely odd, that's for sure..."

"I'm with Amy on this one. A surprise would be nice." She had a feeling that Arthur was somebody she could get along with very nicely. She felt very... sisterly towards him. She wondered if that was because she had gotten a lot of practice with Emilio and Nikolai. Emilio because he was related to her and Nikolai because she had sort of adopted him as an honorary sibling.

Caroline had not noticed that the janitor had walked up to them until she smelled the smoke. Although her mind tried to switch into social panic mode, she forced herself to remain calm and attempt another mental sweep just to make sure she couldn't come up with his name. Luckily, he and Amy decided to share a couple comments before any attention could be drawn to herself so she kept an ear out for his name.

Drat! Amy hadn't used it! Caroline made her contribution to the conversation by saying a wry, "The term 'odd' could apply to any number of the students and staff. I'm sure she's very nice once you get to know her."

Caroline smiled pleasantly at the janitor. For a moment, she really couldn't think of a polite way to break it to him. The worst part was that he was, like many people at Foresta, attractive. She could probably do without the smoking, but his eyes were very intense. Striking. He was also really tall. If her gaze was parallel to the floor, she would be staring at his sternum.

"Likewise.... errr..." She went through the motions of somebody trying desperately to remember something, then shrugged apologetically. "I'm so sorry, but I seem to have forgotten your name." Her cheeks burned a little, but she refused to let panic and embarrassment make a bad situation even worse. She would get out of this with dignity, dammit!

Arthur frowned at Tobias as the man nodded toward him, but nonetheless he nodded back. As the dark haired woman left, Arthur looked after her as she walked out the room - a curious expression splattered about his face. His attention quickly went back the people in front of him though, and he stayed silent as they spoke about the woman that had just left.

As Amy and Caroline mentioned both wanting a surprise, Arthur nodded. He went to the kitchen to get busy on something that both of the women might like.


[ooc; soooooo braindead. T_T]

“Och, that’s alright so,” he said with a shrug. “Tobias. Might not have shared it with you actually.” He placed his mug on the counter and withdrew his faithful Altoid tin from his back pocket. It was a friendly reminder of irony that he carried with him and it had worked well on his other siblings. They had never picked up smoking and Tobias didn’t think he could quit anyway, so he kept the Altoid tin with him wherever he went.

“You know the only odd people I think, would be the normal ones. I mean no ones completely normal, are they? It’s mental.” He put the tin back in his pocket and refilled his mug, grimacing at how they could assume so easily that he would be able to get along with Miakoda. Two alphas in the same place was dangerous, even if he was a loner. It made him feel on edge. “And I don’t think you want a surprise from him. Could put catnip into your eggs or something,” he added mumbling into his coffee. So he was a bit moody. Well, really moody…like a kid that dropped all his sweats on the floor. Tobias blamed it on his cycle. He looked from Caroline to Amy casually. At one point, hadn’t he wanted Amy? It had seemed so long ago, but he did remember wanting her. Part of him still did, but Caroline grabbed him in the rawest way. It was unnerving.

Amy shrugged to everyone.

"Should I have said she was 'anti-social' instead? I've met my fair share of odd people, you all know that by working here. A lot of the kids are very nice though, almost clinging to others because we're like them. She's very... uninterested in us. Except you, Tobias. She seemed interested in you."

Shrugging again, she looked at Arthur, then around the kitchen. "Where's some water? I've been craving it so much lately..." That was true; Amorina could go a whole year without drinking water, but she wanted it so much recently. It was probably the lack of it that made her want it so much.

Her nose wrinkled a bit in a chuckle and she shook her head. "Oh I don't think he would," she laughed. "Only as much as you'd put a dog treat in my sandwich."

At least he didn't make a big deal about it. She sighed in relief, but tried to keep it quiet. No need to look like a spazz. Other than the smoking, there didn't seem to be a bit of this acquaintance that wasn't attractive. He was tall, had a nice face, spoke in an accent that could make her knees weak (it had not yet, but she was sure it could happen)... still... there was something about him she could not place. It made her excited and nervous at the same time.

Caroline chalked it down to simply not knowing him very well. Once burned, twice shy, as they say.

She listened to Amy explain and thought about it some. It hardly mattered, of course. Caroline could deal with uninterested. And she could understand why somebody would be interested in Tobias. That would certainly make things easier- if Tobias wound up dating Amy's friend, she could probably find his attractiveness easier to ignore.

Gack! Why was she thinking like this?!? Caroline wasn't usually one to think in circles. C'mon, just think about something else already. We're probably not his type and if we keep thinking about it, we'll probably do something stupid. Like ogle him blatantly. Stop that! Okay, okay. We're talking about the new girl, Amy's friend. She's uninterested. Probably because she's uncomfortable around strangers? Right, yeah, we'll go with that.... what am I doing, referring to myself as "we"?

Amy's next comment brought her out of the internal monologue. Dog treats? Caroline studied Arthur, then Tobias for a second before it clicked. "You're a Were?" Nikolai had been one of the first she had ever met... and now they were cropping up all over the place. Despite herself, she couldn't help but think of the phrase "all men are dogs." She gave herself another mental shake.

No, bad Caroline! If you don't have anything nice to think, don't think anything at all!

She kind of wanted to sit down, but knew that doing so would only make it so she would be craning her neck even further to see Tobias's face. Damn his height! It just made it easier to ogle his body! DAMMIT, CAROLINE, STOP SNEAKING OGLES AT THE GUY, YOU'VE JUST MET HIM. Besides, if he was a Were, he was probably a lot more dangerous than she realized. She wondered if she should take Amy literally and assume him a dog, or was she referring to canines in general?

Caroline was careful about what little else she said. With all of this internal spazzing going on, she was sure that whatever she didn't plan carefully would come out sounding completely idiotic. "If I recall correctly, there are water bottles in the fridge." Her answer was brief, but she was pleased with herself for saying exactly what she wanted to say and nothing more.

Tobias’ lip had curled into a sneer when she first asked. It was none of her business no matter how cute she was. She had no right asking a stranger that sort of thing. That was like asking a sick person if they had cancer in the middle of a shopping mall. She didn’t seem repulsed by this however, and he gauged her question as a curious learning so let the offence slide slightly to the back of his mind.

He noticed how Caroline continued to shoot glances his direction and he moved his hand over his face, casually, his fingers searching for a bit of toast or some part of breakfast that had gone astray. What was she looking at? Tobias shrugged at Amy’s comment not wanting to reply to any of her statements, but he wasn’t keen on having Miakoda interested in him…not in any fashion. If anything he was hopping Caroline’s looks were because she liked him, not because she found his affliction interesting. There was only one way to find out. All he had to do was ask her to a drink or something. Tobias ran his fingers through his thick hair and down the nap of his neck and said, “So…Amy what has put you in such a chipper mood?”

Damn he had chocked like a child, even his voice had cracked under the pressure. Now he was giving Caroline sneaky glances and wishing very much that he could make her a part of the conversation. He was normally so easy with the opposite sex, but Caroline was proving a difficulty and Tobias wasn’t sure how to handle it.

With Caroline's question, Amy's eyes widened and she fought for words. She thought everyone knew what Tobias was, if not from gossip then for sheer safety. Her own history with Tobias as odd and somewhat rocky, with a fair share of trouble. Wherever Toby went, excitement was sure to follow.

Her own gaze caught the sneer on his lips geared for Caroline. "Oh, no, he isn't," she laughed. "I used to have a dog and, when we were hanging out once, I put one of its treats in Toby's coffee as a joke. He always swore he'd get me back but he hasn't yet." She smiled at Tobias, giving him a "Just-Go-Along-With-It" look.

Amorina gave him a genuine smile and shrugged. "A very important person has made his way back into my life," she answered, feeling herself begin to blush. She never could seem to keep it together. Whenever she started to think about Emilio, these little butterflies would gallop throughout her body and take over.

Caroline gave the two an odd look, feeling like there was probably something more than what they were telling her. If this was the case, then was the cook in on it? Was she the only one in the room not truly privy to this thing? Trying to work through this weird conversational turn was like trying to make sense of dream-logic. Add in Tobias's strange sneer at her mention of Weres.... She just couldn't reason through all of it.

In her confusion, Caroline wound up asking absently, "So Tobias is a dog...?" If Tobias was afraid of the cook putting catnip in their food... but why would that apply to her? Was this long-standing tradition of pranking? But wait, Tobias had not been there for very long. Caroline's tea tasted sour in her mouth now. Perhaps she was intruding on something special to these people. Perhaps she should excuse herself soon.

She was relieved when the conversation took a turn towards something a little closer to home. Based on some of the conversations she'd had with her half-brother recently, she could probably guess who Amy was talking about. If she was wrong, then there would be a whole lot of drama coming along soon that she felt she'd rather avoid. However, it wasn't her place to say anything, except for the encouraging, "Do tell." After that, all she did was let a smile slip onto her lips as she dumped some honey into her tea to sweeten it some.

Tobias’ mouth hung open at Amy’s odd way of diverting the stream and it took a moment to hear what Caroline had said in response. He let out a bark like laugh, which probably didn’t help the situation. “No…no, I’m not a dog. Well, are you the type of woman that calls guys dogs? No…Amy is just being, well, Amy. Or something,” he patted Amy’s shoulder and shrugged in a don’t-do-that-again-but-thanks-anyway look. He smiled softly at the way Caroline’s face looked in confusion and he couldn’t possibly correct her further now because in an instant she would turn in fear. But he did add, “I only said that catnip shite because I could tell that cook wasn’t human. He’s got cat all over him...”

He drank his coffee and inhaled the rich, dark fumes and continued to look at Caroline over the top of his mug as he thought. How could he have been angry with her? She was adorable and beautiful. He wondered if her skin was the same colour everywhere, or if her arms were darker. Did she go out into the sun often enough? She didn’t seem the type, but she smelt solid and earthy but that could be in the clothes she wore. Tobias raised a thick brow when Amy began to go into girl-talk territory but he didn’t mind. He had two sisters after all, and them being twins had made it worse…and better.

He listened to Amy and Caroline, they’re speech patterns so different, and listened to the other teachers that were beginning to spot the cafeteria for brunch, or early lunch…Tobias wasn’t so good at keeping time. He watched Caroline’s mouth move and then Amy’s. Different women. Different beauty. Tobias didn’t realize how he paid so much attention to these differences until the moment he knew his heart had set itself on Caroline. It changed the way everything looked.