self_inflictedexhile | tvd / nysm } { the salvatore school for the young and gifted

tvd / nysm } { the salvatore school for the young and gifted

Nestled just on the outskirts of the tiny town of Mystic Falls, Virginia is the Salvatore School for the Young and Gifted. As far as most of the town is concerned, the school is exactly how it's marketed - a boarding school for rich and gifted students - but a few are aware of it's real origins.

A school for young supernatural students, so that they can grow up somewhere where they didn't have to hide.

The headmaster is actually much older than she looks, having not aged a day since she was seventeen, but she's learned to dress herself up to fit the part. Her long hair is swept up into an elegant twist, her pant suit is perfect and polished, and her makeup is appropriately adult. Still, there's not a lot that can hide the youthfulness of her features no matter how hard she tries.

She's standing at the front of the school, watching as the car pulls up in front before flashing the man who arrives a bright smile and wave. Once he emerges from the car, she waves and makes her way closer to shake his hand.

"Mr. Rhodes. Welcome to the Salvatore School."

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"Yeah, so I've heard," Dylan answers.

A moment of pause follows, more than as he takes a moment to mull things over, and then finally, he lets out a breath of a laugh, though the sound is largely without humor. He shakes his head, too, before he explains, asks, "This place really is just a school for kids like us, huh?"

This place really is what Caroline says it is, no tricks.

Dorian smirks, before shaking his head. "Yeah, it is. And trust me, it's a mess sometimes because if you think human kids get into trouble, supernatural ones are just as bad. But they're good kids. They're just doing their best, and we're trying to help them do that."

"I can deal with kids," Dylan tells him, shaking his head faintly. "I got four of 'em at home." Never mind the fact that, again, none of the Horsemen are teenagers. Still, though. The point still stands. "I just -- I don't know. I guess I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, here."

For this to be some kind of trap, if not for him than for the kids. Either way. But this all feels on the level and he can't smell the lie on Dorian, so maybe not. Maybe this is real, vampire headmistress or not.

"I get that. But Caroline was a teen supernatural herself. She really does just want to do right by these kids."

The best she can, in whatever way she can.

"I guess it's up to you whether or not you want to buy in."

"Yeah," he drawls, thoughtfully. A moment of pause follows, a heavy breath out, and then he returns his attentions to Dorian where it had wandered to some middle distance. "Anyway, uh. I should probably let you get back to whatever you were doing before I barged in."

"No problem. Enjoy the rest of your tour."

And then he will go back to that research he was doing, but he doesn't seem too bothered by the fact that he was interrupted. Probably because the teenagers tend to do it all the time.

Now Dylan is free to choose his own adventure again: another teacher or poking at one of the students?

He might try one of the students, now, for all that he's not sure going that route will get him too far. Teenagers aren't likely to talk to adults on the best of days, then add in the fact that he's a stranger, who's snooping around, and well, yeah. He's not sure how this is going to go, but he feels like he needs a kid's perspective on all this, too, so he is going to give it at go.

Dealer's choice as to which kid he ends up talking to.

Well, one will come looking for him then. A brightly smiling student rounds the corner, smelling faintly like death - standard for a vampire - and he flashes Dylan a bright smile.

"Mr. Rhodes? Ms. Forbes sent me. She's getting a little tied up with administrative things but I can pick up the tour and take you if there's anything else you want to see." Then after a pause, he holds out a hand. "Milton Greasley. Most people call me MG."

Dylan is a little put off by the combination of sunshine and death that this kid apparently is, but he takes it in stride or at least tries to, going for the handshake when it's offered. Unlike he did with Caroline, he doesn't correct MG with his first name, weird as it is not to. He probably shouldn't let the students call him by his first name, right? Right.

"Nice to meet you," he offers as he takes his hand back. A shrug follows, and then, "And I'm still trying to get a feel for the campus, so ... I don't know. Take me somewhere you think I should see?"

He doubts that'll gain him entrance to any secret, evil torture chambers, if there are any around here, but maybe he can give this place the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he's more curious, now, as to what the students here value.

MG pauses, glancing around before peering over his shoulder to the library behind him. "Well, since you've already seen the library ... " He glances around, and inspects Dylan, before tipping his head back. "Do you want to check out the spell craft labs?"

"Sure," Dylan agrees, flashing him a smile. Once they're headed in that direction, and at idle, he asks, "You do magic, too?"

He's never seen a vampire do magic, but -- well, he's pretty sure that, excluding Hope, no one's seen a werewolf do magic, either, and yet here he is. For all he knows, he just hasn't run into the right kind of vampire. For all he knows, all vampires are the 'right' kind for magic, he just never got so far as to let them try anything on him, in a fight or otherwise.

"Oh, no. The only way that we know so far that you can be both a vampire and a witch is if you were a siphon before you turned. I think it's safe to say that I had zero talent in the magic department."

He doesn't seem all that bothered by it, though. Being a vampire is hard enough. He hadn't known anything about the supernatural world before he became one.

"But, sometimes I'll volunteer to be target practice or help Josie or Lizzie with their spell work. They, on the other hand, are actual siphons, and vampires are handy magic batteries."

"Fair," Dylan allows.

A pause follows, as the kid continues, and then he snorts. That's -- slightly horrifying, but then again, this is a man whose own magic, beyond just being a werewolf, was hard won by his pack. Hands off his magic, please.

He is sort of morbidly curious in spite of himself, however, and so, after a beat, he asks, "That kinda thing tire you out? Being the Energizer Bunny or whatever?"

"Yeah. I mean, they don't take that much. Kind of like a sugar crash in the middle of the afternoon, you know?"

Granted, they could desiccate him if they really wanted to, but Josie and Lizzie are his friends. They wouldn't do that.

"Plus it gets us used to it, in case they need to siphon us in the field." And by in the field, he means in case something goes wrong in Mystic Falls.

Because this is, at the end of the day, Mystic Falls.

"You guys do a lot of field work?" he asks. Yes, he knows the town can be dangerous and not everything can be avoided, but how much effort does the staff put into protecting the kids, he wonders.

"Oh, no. Usually the monsters come to us. We wound up with a couple of artifacts that were essentially monster magnets."

He's not sure if that's good or bad.

"But one time, this girl went missing in town and they thought it might be supernatural in origin so they sent us undercover at the local high school to try and see what we could find and get locator spell materials."

It's like they were spies. It was badass. But it also ended in the girl having being eaten by a giant spider creature and soul-vomit on all of their shoes.

"How'd that go?" Dylan asks, getting mixed signals from his body language. He gets that he enjoyed feeling like secret agents, but -- he shakes his head a little, frowning. He's not that much of a mind reader. Not when it gets that complicated.

"Well, she got killed by an arachnae, but we didn't know arachnaes were a thing at the time, so the bite looked like a vampire bite. And then she sort of came back to life for a minute and tried to get to the high school for help, and we thought she had been turned."

And this is where it get gross.

"We started giving her the vampire talk but then she started literally puking her insides out because it turns out that whole thing spiders do where they liquefy the insides of their victims? Yeah. Arachnaes are really gross."

Enjoy that, Dylan.

"So, it didn't exactly end well, but once we figured out it was an arachnae, the witches were able to kill it and we were able to save another girl who hadn't gotten eaten yet."

" ... okay, then," Dylan answers, eyebrows so high up on his forehead they may as well be the start of his hairline. He's seen some shit, in his time, he'd be lying if he said he hadn't (hell, he is the weird shit, sometimes, for all that his body turns itself inside out three nights out of every month), but Jesus. That takes the cake.

"Jesus," he breathes after a beat, shaking his head, at a loss beyond that. "Sorry I asked."

Edited 2020-11-09 15:44 (UTC)

"It's not always that bad. Sometimes it's just normal vampire or werewolf or witch shenanigans? Mostly the witch shenanigans, let's be honest. There's way more ways their magic can go haywire."

But they're learning. They're going to make some mistakes in the process.

Dylan snorts a little, some of his horror giving way at the idea that magic's usually the problem, here. Yeah, he's had some pretty entertaining mistakes while learning -- and probably some pretty horrific ones, too, to be honest. He knows how that goes.

"Long as it's not all day, every day, with the spiders," Dylan decides after a beat. "I can handle weird magic crap."

"Oh no. The monsters tend to have a little more variety than that. Which I think is for the best. It makes things a real learning experience."

There's a reason why MG is asked to give tours.

"Right," he drawls. Yeah, this kid is something else. To the point where he hesitates for a moment before he asks, "Do I wanna know what know, like, what the best thing that's happened around here is, in your opinion?"

He really hopes the spider-thing wasn't his idea of best.

There's a moment of quiet consideration, before he turns to Dylan with the biggest grin.

"We saved Santa from Krampus. And then got to watch Santa throw down which was ... kind of amazing."

Honestly, it really was.

"Okay, now you're just fu -- messing with me," Dylan decides, barely catching himself. Regardless, the declaration is accompanied by a frown, as he really thinks the kid's just pulling his chain, now. Vampires and werewolves and magic? Sure. Santa Claus as an actual living, breathing person? Yeah, right.

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