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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"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.

MG takes a deep breath, because man, breaking this to teachers is never the easy part. He reaches over, patting him on the shoulder lightly before he continues heading down the hall.

"If you're going to work here, man, you're going to have to widen your expectations."

Dylan tenses a little at that touch, though for once, it's less because of what MG is or what he is, and more -- well, being told that Santa is real is a lot like being told God is real. Same omniscience, same phenomenal cosmic power, same penchant for miracles, even if Santa's a little more seasonal about his. That in mind, then, if Santa exists, then why the fuck didn't he bring him his father back, when he was a kid? He could have used a Christmas miracle, then. His mother could have. He was a good kid and his mother was a devoted wife, so where was Santa, if he really exists? It's a stupid thing to be upset about, maybe, but he's never gotten over the death of his father, not even with the coming of his revenge. So, if there was an jolly, old deus ex machina sitting around, who did nothing? It's probably easier if he just remains skeptical. It hurts less if he he just remains skeptical.

That in mind, on a breath out, he deflates that tiniest bit, and grumbles, "Yeah, I guess."

Better to keep playing the part of non-believing adult.

Well, the answer to that is that Santa was in Krampus' sack and then Krampus got swallowed by a magical tar pit that makes people forget the thing existed. And by the time the Legacies kids saved him ... your dad had been dead for a really long time.

Sorry, Dylan. Time was not on your side.

Also it's probably for the best there's a skeptic around. The kids probably need a reality check every once in a while.

"You'll get used to it once you get started. If you get started. Headmaster Forbes didn't mention if she'd sealed the deal, so to speak."

"I think that's more on my end, than hers," he says, grateful to get away from the topic, whatever the reason that Santa didn't save his father. He thinks he did pretty well, on the interview, for what it was. "I kinda wanted to poke around a little more, before I committed to anything."

"Fair enough." MG nods. If he were about to commit to a new job, especially in a new and emerging business, he would want to make sure that he covered his bases too. "You want to make sure it's the right move for you."

"Yep," Dylan agrees, nodding himself. A pause follows, and wryly all things considered (and Santa aside), he tells him, "I think I'm in, though."

He hasn't found anything too suspicious, after all, and the kids here seem like good ones, so why not?

And with that, MG beams, because it's always good when they get new teachers. "Nice. The wolves are gonna be so psyched."

They've never had a wolf teacher before. Ever.

"So people keep telling me," he answers, something like amusement creeping onto his face. It doesn't last long, before, "She really have that hard a time getting one of us to take a look at this place?"

Never mind the fact that, again, he probably wouldn't have come out here, himself, if not for the Eye vetting the school beforehand.

"Wolves tend to be harder to find." Or, at least, that's what MG happens to have overheard. Or maybe it's just the excuse that Caroline gives the students to try and make the wolves feel better. "But it's also not like they have a lot of vamp teachers here either. It's mostly humans and witches."

Which isn't exactly well rounded in the teacher department.

The distinction between humans and witches seems to suggest that there are a few non-supernatural people on the payroll, and Dylan can't say that doesn't come as a surprise. He knows a few humans that are involved in this shit, sure (like Fuller, for example, and thanks to him), but none of them would be here, teaching classes. Then again, though, he supposes they need people who can teach the standard subjects, too, and just because someone can teach you how not to be a monster, doesn't mean they can teach math class. He's not sure he could teach math class. History, maybe, but fuck whatever weird bullshit they're using to teach the order of operations, these days.

Anyway.

"Alright, fair," Dylan allows. "So we're a little cagey."

He might be able to find a few more wolves willing to come out here, though, if that's something Caroline would be interested in, once he signs on.

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