darker_london | Regents in the morning: Stephie and Imogen (Reply)

Never in her whole life had Stephie been so relieved to get up at six in the morning to get to school, because it meant finally getting out of the house. She was out on the street not ten minutes after she'd woken up- she'd wanted to dodge her family and any "For Gods sake don't start anything" comments on the way out.

There was still plenty of time before she even had to be there. Well, technically she didn't have an official starting time: it wasn't a job, just working off hours. She stopped at a bakery and had a steak and mushroom pie for breakfast, then skated round the longest was to Regents she could muster. She arrived on the grounds half an hour before school was scheduled to begin, and though she might as well have a wander around and see if anyone she knew was here yet.

And find out if Regents had a coffee machine. Dear god, she'd been a week without coffee, how was she still vertical? The idea had rooted itself firmly in her mind, so she had another purpose in mind, even if no one else did show up.

She liked the school ground alot better before the students arrived, that was for sure. She was usually one of the first students there. It was either catch a lift with her dad when he went to work early, walk the almost-hour to school through morning traffic, or catch the bus. And there was no way in hell Imogen was getting on a school bus. (She may have been striving for uniquness but she was still enough of a spoiled little rich girl to think school buses were horrifying.)

She sat crosslegged on the floor with her book- 'The Bell Jar' today- outside where her class would be this morning and stifled back a yawn. She really did need to try and start getting more sleep.

Out of the corner of Stephie's eye, Imogen looked like any other vapid silly blond girl. It was the book in her lap that shattered the illusion, and Stephie grinned to herself to recognise the girl. She kicked at a loose stone on the ground, which rolled over to Imogen's foot and bounced off, getting her attention. "Hey Brains, what's up?" It was such a relief to talk to someone again.

The stone hit Imogen's foot and she raised her eyes, ready to tell off people for kicking things at her, but then it was Stephie's face and Stephie's voice and Imogen beamed. "Not much," she told the other girl and pulled herself to her feet, pushing her book away into her backpack. "You're here early."

Stephie shrugged, "yeah, it's scary. I saw my first sunrise of the year this morning."

Imogen smiled at that. "That is scary." She pulled her bag onto her back. "Wonderful though. Because now you're here and you can entertain me!"

"Well, you could join me on my mission for coffee." Stephie suggested, picking up her board. "It'll be an epic quest of abventure and discovery, searching through corridor after corridor, sneaking into common rooms or what-have-you. Unless you know where one is or wanna bunk class and go find a cafe."

"Coffee Quest sounds good," Imogen agreed. "And skipping class sounds very tempting..." she thought about it rather seriously for a few moments. The day was all going to be uninteresting anyway... No. She sighed. "I can't," she pouted. "I have to meet my friend Scarlett and work one our English assignment."

"But," she said a little more brightly. "I do know a little cafe really close by that means I'll probably only miss half of my first class and can talk my way out of that."