something (wicked?) this way comes

Morgan was on a break. The libraries in New Rome were gorgeous, temple-style buildings with incredible study spaces, but sometimes it could get a bit stuffy. Especially in the summer. Morgan left her things at her desk and decided to take a stroll. She wasn't concerned about people stealing her computer - if something happened, she had cast a location spell on it and refreshed it every day. The thief would get a tailored curse.

As she strolled onto the streets of New Rome, she realized just how glad she was to leave her research behind. It was a beautiful day with a perfect blue sky and warm temperatures pleasantly cooled by occasional winds. Why stay inside by such a tempting weather? Maybe she should go to the baths, enjoy a nice afternoon in the outdoor pools.
She spotted a stand selling fresh drinks and bought herself an iced lemonade. It was nice to take a break from potions and papyri and just chill out on a bench somewhere. She sat down in a plaza, listening to the kids splashing water at each other by the fountain.
Sunglasses tipped onto her nose, sporting a t-shirt of the Hekate cabin, she was just about to put her headphones in and relax to some music when her name boomed across the square.

"Morgan? MORGAN!"

Squinting, she leaned up. A Japanese demigoddess in comfy, eclectic clothes was running towards her. Wait... could it be?

"Saki?" She jumped up. "SAKI! Is that really you?"

Abandoning her lemonade, she broke into a sprint and caught the daughter of Apollo in her arms, giving her a big spin. "Oh my gods, I can't believe it! Why didn't you tell me you were here?" She hugged her one more time. "I've missed you!"

"Oh you must have lived so many adventures, you must tell me about them all!" Morgan said excitedly. "I've had my fair share of trouble on my side, and I'm sorry I didn't keep in touch regularly. I've been so busy here!"

They sat back down on the sunny bench. Morgan couldn't quite believe she was finally seeing Saki again! She had been meaning to contact her for so long but, thanks to inattentive ADHD, she could barely reply to messages let alone send them when she needed to. But now she was here, with her, in New Rome!

"Being a witch here is incredible! You should see the facilities they have here, Saki... I need to show you. It's quite different from Circe's libraries." It wasn't necessarily better, just very different. Circe specialized in Greek magic most of all, and here Morgan was learning all about the Roman style. Curse tablets and magic wells and Latin incantations... It was fascinating to her, and she considered herself extremely lucky to be able to bridge Greek and Roman magic in her studies.

"Yes I'm a student," Morgan slid out her matric card. The picture was a bit outdated and her matriculation number was in Roman numerals but other than that it was pretty run-of-the-mill. "Well, PhD. I'll start teaching next year." She was nervous at the idea of teaching undergrads, but at the same time quite liked the idea of having a captive audience she could infodump to for an hour.

"Not a professor, not yet, just a tutor," Morgan laughed. She would only take tutorials, the lectures were still done by the big shot professors. They didn't give that much responsibility to puny doctoral candidates.
Although, in all honesty, she would love to become a professor. She knew it was tough to get a tenure, even at New Rome University, but it seemed like the kind of job she was cut out for: research on one hand, teaching on the other. She wanted to communicate magical knowledge to bright young demigods, much like Circe had done for Saki and herself. Maybe she could contact her once she got a tenure and organize a semester abroad option for girls, to learn from the sorceress herself on her island...
She filed that thought away, promising herself she'd come back to it if her academic career ever took off, and focused back on Saki.

"Oh you should totally audit some magic classes! I can get a word in with the head of School, she's my supervisor, so we could totally arrange something," she said excitedly. "You'll see, Roman magic is super cool and .... hey, what's the matter?"

Saki's shoulders had slumped and she looked a bit off, fidgeting with her necklace.

"What do you mean, it's different than what you're used to?", Morgan asked. "Did something happen?"

OOC: I still use her, though now I also use Chabeli Sastre Gonzalez :) She fits my idea of her better

OOC: I love it!

BIC: "You're kidding," Morgan said, just as Saki burst into tears. The daughter of Hekate immediately put her arms around her and gave her a squeeze. "Oh sweetie, I'm sorry," she said in soothing tones. "They're not all like that here, I promise." It was clear that Saki needed a little break. Morgan didn't blame her. Moving to a completely new environment, leaving behind her comfort zone, starting college, adapting to a new city, it was a lot. And a rude, dismissive room mate could be the straw that breaks the camel's back. She stroked Saki's hair, thinking about what she could do to cheer her back up. Student halls were a gamble like that, you could get a roommate you really liked or one you really hated. In her case, she got neither. Her 1st year roommate and her got along reasonably well but were no BFFs for life or anything. The girl - a blonde physics student - was very keen on climbing the socio-academic ladder, always running for student positions, while Morgan preferred to keep her nose in her scrolls and have fun with friends. They got along, but kept out of each other's hair.

"Hey listen, why don't we go visit my department here? I could show you my office, our greenhouses, the potion labs, the libraries... Or we could go back to mine and have some lunch, what do you say?"

“Hey, don’t be sorry,” Morgan said and gave her hands a squeeze. “You can always come to me for anything, no matter how big or small it seems. Okay? I mean it.” She smiled and got up, tugging lightly on Saki’s hand to get up with her. “So! Ready for your VIP tour of New Rome University?”

Saki happily let herself be pulled along by Morgan, as her friend's kind words settled warmly into the vulnerable place in Saki's heart. With a determined nod of her head, she shook off the last remnants of her bad mood.

"Di immortales, I am so ready," she said, grinning. "Show me all your favorite haunts!" As they walked, Saki took in the sights comfortably. Wow, this day could not have gone more differently than she had imagined - months ago when she told Mari she'd decided to move to New Rome (if she concentrated, she could still hear the echo of her girlfriend's excited shrieks in her ear as they'd hugged, hoarse and lovely) Saki had thought that by now she'd be cheerfully getting to know her roommate after having Mari's help moving in. She'd never expected to be snubbed by her roommate or more importantly, to have met Morgan again.

But the more Saki thought about it, following her friend (and kind-of-cousin) and listening to her talk, she decided she actually wouldn't have had it any other way.

"So we are here near the Porta Capena, it’s a great place to live, a bit on the outskirts but still great in terms of bars and student life," Morgan said as she walked Saki through the neighbourhood. "The faculty has buildings around the place but it’s hear at the Porta - one of the biggest crossroads in New Rome - that I have my lab." Crossroads were important in Greek and Roman magic. Hekate, their shared ancestor, presided over them. They tended to facilitate certain spells, like protection and necromancy. Or, in Morgan’s case, gave potions interesting side-effects.

She kept pointing out the big landmarks to Saki as they passed them. Here a bathhouse. There a triumphal arch. Fragrant gardens. A large mall with cool fashion. Grinning, toga’d mannequins waved at them as they walked past the display windows.

"The thing that took the most getting used to were the Lares," she told Saki hushedly. The purple ghosts had a habit of popping up unexpectedly, dishing outdated advice, or wandering through you like you didn’t exist. She’d had to banish a few from her building with special amulets. "But I completely fell in love with New Rome. I mean, look at this city!" She did a 360 with outstretched arms. "It’s incredible! I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else." She then bumped Saki with a little grin. "Except maybe Circe’s island." With a laugh, she pulled her along to a large, bustling plaza lined with red-tiled buildings. In the middle, a massive marble fountain showed the nine Muses in the middle of a concert, shooting water out of large golden instruments.
"Are you ready for something cool?" Morgan asked her with a sparkle in her eye.

Saki listened attentively as Morgan described the places they were walking past, arm hooked through Morgan's. The sun was climbing down, signaling the arrival of the evening. Sure enough, a group of students spilled raucously into a nearby bar, their laughter fading into the growing din of the place.

She perked up at the mention of Morgan's lab. "Your lab!' Saki exclaimed, and tucked her questions away for later as Morgan pointed out the landmarks and pretty architecture. She waved cheekily back at a mannequin, and then froze and shuddered. "Ugh, I already met one of those ghosts," she said with a grimace. It had just gone straight through her when she was carrying her things up the stairs, and the horrible cold feeling almost made her drop a box.

Hearing how much Morgan loved New Rome, though, Saki couldn't help but beam at her friend, nudging her back at the mention of Circe's island. "Are you ready for something cool?" Morgan asked, and the daughter of Apollo giggled. "I was born ready," she agreed.

Morgan smiled. That's what she wanted to hear. Sliding into an adjacent alley, she pulled an octogonal key from her back pocket and inserted it in the space between the mosaics lining the pavement. Turned it thrice right and once left. The floor clicked and rumbled. Mist pooled out around the feet, flooding the little alley with a fog only the most magic-inclined demigods could see through. Then the floor fell away underneath their feet.

Alright it didn't quite fall away; the spot Morgan and Saki stood on gave a little jolt and started sinking down. Everything became dark. Then, one after the other, small oil lamps started lighting up along the way, tracing dotted lines up to the surface. Morgan grinned at her friend. "There's a main entrance around the block that works with the matric card, but I thought this was cooler for your first time." As they descended through the dark, she explained that this old entrance to the faculty had been in use since the witch trials of the late 1600s. Even in demigod circles, witches had been despised and feared. It wasn't new for Romans to hate witches. You should see what ancient authors wrote about them (unironically)... For a while, a large number of Trivia's children had to go into hiding, fighting enemies in both the mortal and mythological world. Even here, in New Rome, which was supposed to protect them. There was a whole story to it that Morgan was about to give Saki in great detail - after all, she did hold a degree in history - but the floor stopped with another jolt and a modern glass door slid sideways to let them into a brightly lit marble corridor.

"After you," Morgan smiled with an extended arm.

Saki appropriately oohed and aahed as fog swirled around their feet when Morgan unlocked a door, grinning back at her friend. She shivered with the feeling of the strong magic that filled the space they were standing in - and then the ground jolted underneath them.

She squeaked in alarm at a frequency probably only dogs could hear, and her arms flew up to balance herself for a second before her brain caught up. "Oh, it's like an elevator!" she gasped, eyes wide as she looked around. The dim, warm fire of the oil lamps on their descent shed a slightly eerie but undeniably cool light on the two witches. "And you were so right, this entrance was definitely the right choice," Saki agreed.

With a mild bump, their ride stopped, and Saki had to blink against the sudden bright light and totally different vibe. "Don't mind if I do," she said cheerfully, as she stepped into the corridor. "You know, this is not what I expected from NRU at all," she admitted, curious and excited.

Morgan followed her into the corridor. "Yeah, it is quite surprising isn't it?" she said. "Gives all the other "old" universities in the world a run for their money. Here, let me," she said and swiped another set of doors open with her matriculation card.

Their footsteps echoed on the flawless marble. On either side, the walls were covered in moving mosaics depicting famous magicians: Circe and Pasiphae, Medea and Orpheus, Erictho and Meroe... and Pythagoras?

"Yep, he's not only famous for his theorems on triangles," Morgan chuckled as the depiction of Pythagoras weighed ingredients in glittering mosaics. "He could also enchant animals and cast spells to be in different places at the same time! Crazy, right?"

Saki hummed in agreement, quickly distracted by the smooth and pretty mosaics that decorated the walls. She recognized Queen Pasiphae with her crown and bitter expression, Orpheus playing his lyre, and Medea holding a swaddled child. She paused for a second at the next depiction, running her fingers lightly over the nameplate that read "CIRCE", and felt a rush of warmth as she looked up at the mosaic. Circe held up her chalice, and Saki could have sworn that she winked at her.

Saki grinned as Morgan called her attention to another mosaic. She cocked her head to the side. "Pythagoras?" She wrinkled her nose in mild distaste (she hated math), but her expression gentled into one of pleasant surprise. "That is crazy, I'd never have known!"

As they reached the end of the hall, she peered around curiously. "I'm really dying to see your work, Morgan! What have you been up to?"