Lights, Camera... /SEREN\

The ballroom seemed a bit sandier than usual. In more ways than one. While Sandra’s name and equipment were scattered around the dance floor, she managed to come across a very… interesting set designer. One of the campus security guards had an affinity for architecture and also made her own set pieces, so that was one half of the budget that was easily accounted for. That unfortunately meant that she would also have to put up with the stubborn ancient being as well, but between the two of them, Sandra might have more sass.

The esteemed director herself was manning the tripod-mounted camera she acquired from the school’s media arts room, though judging from the scrunch of her countenance something wasn’t sitting right. She pulled away from the view finder and began to adjust her infinity scarf in the process. She strolled over to her set, pausing before the sand that made the surrounding area look like a metallic bunker. It was exactly what she asked for, but… “it’s too small for the shot, I’m going to need you to expand out a little bit” she plainly commanded the background.

“It’s perfect the way it is” the scenery groaned back.

Sandra felt compelled to hold her ground in order to assert her dominance on the project, but the sand golem was going to be her biggest test. While Tem was all for creating fantastic scenery, she was also very fickle about how it looked. Sandra supposed that she would just have to work around that for now, even if that meant that some of the shots might have to be cropped to play better with the just too small backdrop.

It would only be a couple shots with one of her minor characters, so she supposed it wouldn’t matter all that much in the long run. As she wandered back to her place though, a man in a nazi uniform followed closely behind her. “Do I have to wait in this outfit? Right now all I need is an opportunistic photographer to ruin my reputation completely” Mr. Lemaire stated as he began to rub his bicep, mostly to cover up the swastika.

Sandra rolled her eyes. “Eh, we had a deal. I stake out for your booty call, you play bit role in my movie. Or do you want me to inform the headmistress about that stunt you pulled. Just get into your position and we’ll get ourselves moving” Sandra sassed and then returned to her camera.

Cade shrugged and then moved over to his position.

“How’d that go by the way?” Sandra loudly questioned with a bit more humour to her tone.

“…I don’t want to talk about it” he sighed as he rubbed the back of his neck. The mere thought of that night wasn’t exactly foul, but he thought he was going to do so much better with that abstinence ring trick. Luckily he didn’t have to declare celibacy after that night though.

“Heh heh, he’s not very good” the set replied yet again.

Cade mostly replied to that comment with a glare. He was still very untrusting of the sand golem, which made him equally as distrusting to any woman who had interest in him without good reason.

A day's worth of handing out flyer's and scouting for potential members and Stella had only managed the get one person for her newspaper club. It was even questionable whether or not that said person would show up anyhow. Frustrated and tired, the young lady had been walking by the ballroom when the sound of conversation had caught her attention.

Stepping in quietly, Stella quickly noted the scenery and the movement around the room. It almost looked like a film set, spotting Sandra then the teen let out a small snicker and a very sarcastic sounding "Oh."

It really wasn't like she had anything against what she was doing, in fact filming wasn't too far off from her own personal interests. It was just that every single time she spotted Sandra she felt this inexplicable need to tease her. Maybe it was the fact that she was a smart ass when they first met, or maybe it had something to do with them getting on like fire and water. Whatever it was, Stella couldn't pass up the opportunity to bully Sandra.

"Did you have to blackmail people to come do this?" Stella called out to Sandra then, looking amused at everything around her.

Sandra had finally got the small team wrangled up and ready for the shot. It was easily a half hour in the making already considering that the sand golem was such a perfectionist when it came to set design and then Mr. Lemaire was being… Mr. Lemaire. It was like she finally had a clear mind for the filming, but of course it had to be intruded. There was a slight ring in her ear, though she could recognize the voice slightly. Her fingers reached behind her glasses to rub the bridge of her nose as she sighed. It was that skinny bitch from the newspaper club.

Why the girl was here right now, Sandra had no idea why. Maybe it was to get her back on the newspaper club because lord knows that was a sinking ship before she decided to bail on it. She supposed since there wasn’t a Starbucks on campus that the girl naturally had nowhere else to be otherwise, so it probably made sense that she would be pestering her.

As Sandra turned away from the camera, Cade covered up the swastika arm band yet again and quietly sat down elsewhere, being somewhat aware of Stella’s handiwork with the school newspaper. Besides, it seemed like there was a personal matter between the two, he really didn’t care that much unless the claws came out, but he was sure Tem would be on top of that quicker than he would be.

“It was more of a mutual agreement until Mr. Lemaire decided he didn’t want to keep up his side of the bargain” Sandra replied rather plainly as she sat on her tiny stool and kept her gaze on the infinitely taller woman. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was that made her naturally reject the air of Stella, but the more she thought on it she realized what it might have been. Stella could have easily hung out with the girls that used to bully Sandra at a really young age. The ones that used to invite her over to their sleepovers only to lock her in a closet or prank her in other ways. In fact, Sandra wouldn’t be surprised if Stella did turn out to be one of those girls.

Sandra leaned back in her chair a bit and then lightly pointed her finger at Stella. “Oh wait, were you looking for some tips?” she replied facetiously as she stroked her chin. “Because I have, like, double the crew that your newspaper club has just in this room alone” she continued as she did a double take of the room acting as though she was mystified.

Ever the professional, Stella was clad in a grey pencil skirt, white button up blouse and stylish black heels to finish it all off - easily towering over Sandra with the added benefit of her shoes. Clicking her tongue, Stella shook her head at the girl "Please, if I wanted some tips I'd go to the nail salon before coming to you." The French teen replied with ease, looking down briefly at her perfectly manicured nails. It was lucky that a new nail salon had just opened up on the island, otherwise she would have been stuck trying to pay random upper class men that were wanting to go into cosmetology.

"At least the people in my newspaper club actually want to be there," Stella said then, quirking an eyebrow at the girl. Stella then opened up her hands, palm up and let out a small defeated shrug "Well, I guess the only way to get your dreams though is to force people to do what you want. Such a shame that you won't actually know if people actually enjoy you, if you just force them all the time." Stella looked at Sandra then, gauging the girl's reaction to her teasing. Typically, Stella was only this much of a bully when she was pushing to get information that she wanted - now it just seemed as though she was just looking for a heated response from Sandra.

Perhaps Sandra was a bit too quick to pull the trigger on the insult stuff because it would seem that the two were going to quickly get into a battle of wits and all she really wanted to do was film some stuff today. Then again, she was really uncertain what she could have said that would have made the irksome reporter shove off immediately. Either way, it wasn’t a battle she needed right about now, but it was a battle she would continue to fight regardless. She had to admit though, Stella had quite the gull to do this in front of not one, but two staff members.

As Stella went on to talk about her nails or something, Sandra got up out of her chair and fetched a couple of snacks out of her big fluffy pink sweater’s pockets and began to munch a bit. She didn’t know why, but for the longest time she’s been really hungry on an almost constant basis.

When Stella mentioned her newspaper crew, Sandra immediately looked down at her gloved fist. “So… that’s like…” she trailed off as she began to count with her fingers. “You…” she looked stumped as soon as she reached her second finger. “…and you. That’s quite the diverse cast you got there, I’m glad to see you finally managed to find some like-minded people in this school” she retorted rather sarcastically.

Sandra had quite the amused chuckle at Stella’s attempt to throw shade onto Sandra’s production. “I don’t fucking care if Mr. Lemaire’s having a good time, he’s only in it for two scenes and then he’s done. And getting the spiel about forcing people to do things is quite the statement coming from you. I think that Nazi uniform would fit you better than him” Sandra laughed off as she pointed to Cade. Those types of thoughts did itch in the back of Sandra’s mind at times, but she certainly wouldn’t be revealing them right then and there. Besides, it wasn’t like she would take the source of those comments all too seriously.

“Speaking of which, I got shit to shoot” she waved off as she returned to her camera’s side, playing with the settings as though she was doing something important so that the girl could take the hint and leave already. “Go get your hair did or whatever the hell it is you people do” she disregarded as she flicked her hand in a shooing motion.

Stella smiled easily at Sandra as she replied with her newspaper club being the collective of just her and her alone. While most normal people would find it insulting, Stella was made of tougher stuff.

The young woman choose to stay silent then, letting Sandra get out whatever she was going to get out. It was when she started to wave though that Stella started to move in for the finishing blow. "I don't think I'd have the arms for the uniform anyway, you look stunning Mr. Lemaire!" Stella did a small nod a charming smile toward her teacher before turning her attention back to Sandra. "Must be a shame that your last filming attempt didn't go so well, you're probably just trying to get your mind off of it, huh?" Stella then said to the girl, her words slow and calculated.

Reaching back into her memory, Stella couldn't resist pushing this further. What had been the name of that guy she used to hang around with? F... Francis? No, that couldn't be it. Oh, wait.

"By the way, whatever happened to that guy Felix? Seemed like you really liked him a lot, looks like it didn't work out." Stella looked Sandra up and down then, a sad pitiful expression on her face.

Sandra figured that her attempts at waving the irksome reporter off wouldn’t work, but it was worth the shot. In that brief moment of silence, the anxious part of Sandra’s brain began to eat away at Stella’s previous statement that she originally shrugged off. She didn’t see Stella as necessarily right, but once she brought up her last attempt at filming something at Foresta, it kind of clicked into place. There were so many people that were eager to start production on that last one, yet when it came time to do it, everyone just sort of vanished. She used to just shrug it off as people had school to attend to, but it was scheduled for the summer, so that actually didn’t make much sense.

Sandra feared rejection more than most things, it was why she over-exerted her personality so that people could make their opinions of Sandra sooner rather than later and have her stress about it. Were people ditching her constantly because she was exerting her personality too much? Was she becoming too annoying for her closest friends to tolerate her anymore? Even worse so, was that the case with Felix? She hadn’t heard word from him in a really long time. She couldn’t tell if that was because he graduated or not considering his age. Not that she knew his age to begin with, he was so secretive she was surprised she even managed to get his name.

There were so many emotions swirling in her head and she couldn’t make heads or tails on why. She was overworked and she had so many aspects of her life that she just chose to ignore, so a breakdown was probably imminent. Why with Stella of all people she would never know, but she was certainly poking around enough to evoke a reaction.

As she blankly stared at the camera’s tiny screen, her eyes began to water slightly. A tear scrolled down her face as she tried to pull herself together to make her next witty response. Where did that come from? What was going on with her mind? Why couldn’t she think of a sarcastic remark? Why was her head filled with the missed opportunities she had to finally tell Felix her feelings toward him?

Stella wasn’t able to see her tears and she made sure she wouldn’t get the chance with a subtle stroke of her sleeve. There was a bit of an audible sniffle, however. Sandra’s even more swollen eyes peered at Tem and Cade for a mere moment. Her descent into her pit of depression was soon lifted by a rise of aggression toward the opposing female. She could do little while the two staff members were around though, so she might have to take the ‘discussion’ outside. “Take five” she managed to blurt out with some confidence in her tone toward her cast and crew.

Sandra spun her body around, still looking quite red in the face either from her crying or her rage. She made a rather direct march out the door of the ballroom, though not before she spewed “outside” to Stella as she passed her. She made no effort to stop or anything, she said her piece while she was moving.

It seemed as though Stella's goading finally made some breakthrough to the other girl. After everything was said and done though and at Sandra's reaction when she was passing by her, Stella suddenly felt a strange sense of guilt wash over her.

Not one to linger on negative feelings though, nodded in compliance before looking back at the teacher's and then turning toward the door that Sandra was walking out of. It didn't take long for Stella to follow the girl - putting at least a few feet of distance between the two of them. Stella also wasn't sure what difference it would make being in the ballroom compared to away from it. Stella after all didn't have much consideration when it came to authority and if someone was going to chastise her she'd rather it be for something that they actually saw instead of something they just assumed she did.

Once they were outside, Stella held her chin up toward Sandra "What is it then, what'd you bring me out here for?"

Sandra’s rather moody nature was radiating off of her body, in an almost literal sense considering her body’s current temperature. Every second that her mind was allowed to stew only increased that temperature, her aggression being at a boiling point. She was tired of having to deal with girls like Stella, moreover, she was fed up with her day in general. If she was given the option to sit and do nothing in her room for three days straight she would welcome it.

Her melancholy nature lead her to not caring much for anything in the moment, making ample room for her to do things that she didn’t care whether she would regret in the future, not that Sandra was one to be cautious in the first place. That being said though, once the duo were out the door, Sandra closed it to ensure that they wouldn’t be disturbed in whatever was about to happen. The winter-dressed girl wasn’t quite sure what she was going to do herself, but she was rather assured that once her eyes fell upon Stella again she would conjure up something.

In the meantime, Cade closely watched the two girls leave the room, a curious brow lifting. “What do you think she meant by stunning? She’s not gonna start spreading rumours around school, is she?” he questioned aloud as he stroked his fuzzy chin.

“Your ability to worry about something so meaningless is astonishing” the living set replied, sounding incredibly disinterested.

When the girl’s voice chimed back in, Sandra spun herself around to hone her vision on her enemy. They didn’t quite see eye-to-eye considering Sandra’s inherently shorter stature. She would have met the girl’s question with a witty remark, but unlike her 80s action star idols she didn’t have a one-liner to best equip with the situation. In light of those role models though, she did what every good hero did best, punching their way through any situation they didn’t know how to handle. A good ol’ piston punch was delivered straight to Stella’s abdomen, with the force of a… well not quite a truck, more like a low speed moped. Sandra was not quite known for her physical prowess, so at best she might have caught Stella off guard with her body blow and knocked the wind out of her for a split second or make her stumble backwards slightly.

As Sandra swung around toward Stella with a look of intensity, the reporter wasn't sure what to expect next - that is until Sandra started to come at her with all her force. Looking briefly surprised as Sandra aimed a punch at her, Stella pushed her left arm toward Sandra's fist to aim her away from her person and toward a wall instead. Stella really wasn't much for fighting and didn't really make an effort to learn it either, instead the teenager just preferred to exercise as much as she could - this alone giving just enough force behind her push.

Honestly, Stella just really didn't want her clothes to get messed up. She was all for verbal fights all day long, but physical fights meant that she would have to fix her clothes or her hair and well frankly that was a three hour difficulty that she preferred to keep to the mornings given the choice.

Despite the initial trajectory of Sandra’s piston punch, she swiftly got a fist full of dry wall. The damage of the impact was felt more on her knuckles than the structure due to her relative weakness on the physical side of things. With a slight cringe of pain, Sandra pulled her balled up hand back and shook it in the air for a brief couple seconds to try and wash the sting away as quickly as possible.

Stella was a lot faster than she was expecting, then again it wasn’t like anything about her attack was well thought out. Her mindscape was more or less an incoherent pile of junk, anxiety, and regret, only pushed more so by the fact that she hadn’t given the opposing girl the proper socking that she deserved. There was no structure whatsoever, it was just hit Stella really hard, , profit. Between all of the events that had taken place at Foresta, she had never been so overwhelmed with so much raw emotion and she had no idea why. Not that she could stop and pinpoint the source of it all.

Sandra winced again, still feeling the pain in her knuckles. Her face was still bright red, though now there were more prominent streaks of tear stains rolling down her cheeks. Her breaths were heavy and her tiny eyes were honed on Stella. She didn’t know how, but she was going to take the pesky reporter down.

In the split moment of a second, Sandra ran at Stella once more. The tiny terror sprung into the air, attempting to wrap herself around Stella with her limbs like she was going to make the biggest glopping tackle hug imaginable. It would not be as pleasant of a hug as one between two good friends considering that Sandra’s initial grab to maintain the grapple was the reporter’s long flowing locks. Again though, it was not all that well planned out as the enraged female could just as easily sent herself careening at the nearest wall should Stella be quick enough to evade the hit like last time.

It looked like Sandra wasn't stopping anytime soon and as Stella was quickly wiping her sleeves from any dust that might have had invaded them - Sandra arms connected around Stella's body and the teenage girl let out a high pitch scream. "Get off of me!" She yelled at the girl then, stepping backwards in an attempt to push one of the heels of her shoes into Sandra's toes as well as slam her against the wall behind them.

So far it seemed as though just her clothes had been affected by this fight, or whatever it was. All within the same moments of moving her feet, Stella's elbows moved back toward Sandra to jam into one of her sides if the girl didn't end up moving.

Sandra’s blind rage and aggression was quickly coming to an end. It wasn’t that she was calming down or came to a realization that she should stop what she’s doing before someone got hurt, but rather that she got incredibly lightheaded after moving so much. Her head began to spin and her previous thoughts and anxieties were being quelled as she felt her mind go blank. Her tugging on Stella’s hair became much less powerful and her general grapple weakened just a mere few seconds after she performed it.

By the time that Stella slammed Sandra into the nearest wall, the tiny teen was already clinging on to consciousness. She would question what was going on, but she didn’t quite have the cognitive function to think of that properly. After losing her grip against Stella, Sandra went completely limp and fell toward the ground. Her body just sort of laid there, almost lifeless, but on closer inspection she would still be breathing Though, a closer inspection may or may not creep the girl out considering that Sandra’s eyes were still wide open.

By the time that Stella had attempted to defend herself and Sandra lost consciousness while dropping to the floor, the young girl quickly stepped back in surprise - almost tripping over Sandra in the process. Staring down at Sandra, Stella quickly noted that her eyes were still open and in an attempt to stop whatever joke was happening the girl nudged Sandra's leg with her foot. "Get up," Stella said to the girl simply - waiting a couple moments to see any response.

Nope, nothing.

Bending down, Stella carefully looked at the girl - soon realizing that she was still breathing. Well, at least she had that going for her. Pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration, Stella let out a long sigh. Part of her wanted to leave her right here in the middle of the hallway, after all she was the one to start the fight in the first place.

For once though, Stella's nicer side won over and the teenager reached two fingers down to Sandra's neck - checking for her pulse before considering what she would do next. Stella guessed that a nurse would be her best bet... after all, they could probably heal her within minutes or just have a bed for to lie in until she gained consciousness once more.

The duo of staff members were not as quick to mobilize as they probably should have been considering the circumstances and the suspicious activity of the two students leaving the staff members sights. To be fair, Cade didn’t care too much and his head was probably somewhere else, somewhere he probably didn’t even know and Tem was fairly adamant about keeping her shape regardless of what was going on. It was a beautiful piece of art that she created, but unfortunately the sound of one of the girls’ screaming was enough to put the campus police’s mind back into ‘job-mode.’

The sand golem quickly mobilized, forming into a sand stream and flying toward the exit of the ballroom at high speeds. It was enough to attract Cade’s attention, though he was already somewhat triggered by the sudden scream as well. Odds were, whatever was happening on the other side of that door would not look good on his records and not showing some sort of concern might get him a bad report from the sand creature. In which case, the math teacher pulled off the armband on his bicep, removed the swastika labelled hat, and sprinted out the exit in order to put on a guise that he cared.

Surely enough, after Tem busted down the door, they both took notice of the unconscious student on the ground. Tem built herself up into her golem form, her trifecta of eyes glaring at the Stella momentarily as there was no doubt in her mind that she put Sandra into her unconscious state. Before she could enact her usual fear and interrogation tactics onto the teenager, Cade stopped her and pointed back to Sandra. “Before we go around pointing fingers, just a thought, we might want to make sure she’s not dead” Cade suggested in a somewhat lighthearted tone as he pointed toward Sandra’s body.

The titan continued to glare at Stella, though looked back down at Cade. She supposed that he had a point, not that she would admit to it. Instead, Tem directed her attention to the fainted one and began to approach her side. “Watch the other one, I’ll take care of this one” the sand golem commanded as she bent down to pick Sandra up.

Mr. Lemaire, once again, cut Tem’s plan sort, being quick witted and just as quick on his feet. He raced to the giant’s side. “What are you going to do? Beat her back into consciousness?” Cade interrupted hastily. “You don’t just move someone’s body when their unconscious, especially when you don’t know what’s happened to them. For all you know she’s had a concussion” he further explained.

Tem backed away once more, groaning a bit with the tiny man’s interference with every little thing that she did. “The more I hear about how fragile you creatures are, the more I wonder how you survived so long” she grumbled as she was proven wrong yet again. “Fine then, I’ll bring the nurse here. Don’t let either of these two out of your sight until I get back” she commanded once more before she broke up into a sand stream once again and fled from the premises.

With the militant sand golem out of the picture, that just left Cade to tend with the body. He supposed that he could just wait, but he had no idea when Tem would get back. The most he knew about health and safety was already displayed in his speech. He knew enough to not move a person that could have possibly suffered a concussion, but how to tend to a patient of one he had no clue.

As he looked back at Stella though, he briefly remembered something about the student. She was assigned to him as a guidance counsellor at one point. She wasn’t under his care anymore, but he knew that she was at some point, he wouldn’t have just read her file for his own personal pleasure. She had some form of water bending, though better yet he thought it had something to do with healing. “Eh, you do healy things, right? I don’t know what happened here, frankly I don’t care, but I’m gonna need you to do your thing on Sandra. If it’s anything serious, immediate treatment might be necessary. At the very least, I’ll put a good word in for you about this whole debacle” Cade offered as he stepped away from Sandra’s body and pointed to it with splayed hands.