Now I'm running and screaming [Dominique]

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You know, you would think that the whole “new girl looking for a place to sit” would have been such a dried up cliché that even the universe decided to ban it. Yet as Nancy was discovering as she glanced around the cafeteria, that was clearly not the case. Already the place was crowded with people who had clearly already made the sort of friends that they would want to spend their lunch with, sort of families away from families, but not in the way that you would necessarily take a bullet for them. More likely than not, they were just people to fill the silence with.

But for someone like Nancy, that wasn’t going to cut it…I mean, it wasn’t like she was expecting to know if someone she met today was going to be her lifelong friend, but she wanted to think that there was perhaps a chance of that. She spent so much of her childhood relying on her parents and her books for company, and maybe the occasional pet that, sadly, had no chance of outliving her, but was it really such a surprise that now she wanted to find friends apart from that. I mean, you couldn’t get her wrong, her parents were so wonderful and she wasn’t one of those teenagers that resented them by any stretch…but please. Who wanted to rely on them for the rest of their lives?

And right now it seemed like she was taking her test, to see if she was cut out for at least starting her own friendships, standing in that cafeteria with a tray in hand. At least she had run into Todd earlier, that was kind of nice…unfortunately that had made her late, which was probably why there was almost no…

Oh wait…there was one empty seat that was far away from eagerly chatting people…it wasn’t ideal, but she supposed it would have to do for the time being. Letting out a sigh, she quietly slid into that seat, her eyes briefly gazing over at the other, far more outgoing people…if she were more like that, she could probably approach them and ask if she could sit closer to them, but that just wasn’t who Nancy was. Nancy was the sort of person who watched them for a few seconds, and then proceeded to poke at the lasagna (vegetarian; there was something about eating meat when you could turn into a cow that bugged her) she had chosen for her lunch…at least, until there was something else to distract her from eating.

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Dominique didn't give two hoots about social order or who was supposed to sit where in the cafeteria. She sat where she wanted to, and where there was an empty place. And usually, nobody messed with her. She wasn't a bully; it wasn't like she went around beating people up for the hell of it or stealing lunch money off the younger kids, but she certainly could defend herself, and people had, for the most part, learned to tolerate her or ignore her. Some were still a little freaked out by her blunt lack of decency, but for the most part, they just sort of...scooted over and kept talking.

Today, though, the place was packed. There weren't a lot of seats, and the ones that were free looked like they'd been recently vacated by extremely messy eaters. Blue eyes scanned the cafeteria quickly; she knew she had precious seconds before she'd start to look like an idiot just standing there gawking with her tray in her hands.

She spotted Nancy right at the end of those few seconds, and made a beeline for the other girl's table, sizing up the newcomer before she plunked her tray down beside her. She was cute, had pretty hair...yeah, Dominique could work with this.

"Hey gorgeous," she said, diving right into her frito chili pie, which was consisted of far more cheese than either fritos or chili. "Haven't seen you around, I'm pretty sure. I'd remember a face like that. Why you over here all by yourself; you should be over there with the hot crowd." She nodded towards the pack of upperclassmen. "Not that I'm complaining."

She looked up, meeting Nancy's eyes for the first time, her own blue flashing with a smile that was both genuine and dangerous all at once.

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Nancy was well aware that most people weren’t anywhere near as shy as she was. Hell, would she hate herself as much as she did for being shy if they were? All the same, she hadn’t really expected to be interrupted from her general solitude. Because there wasn’t really much of a reason to want to sit by her, apart from practical reasons…it was pretty crowded around here, but there were enough empty seats without her, after all. So she hadn’t really been prepared for very much chit chat when she was suddenly called gorgeous while she was trying to swallow her lasagna. Seeing as being called gorgeous wasn’t really something she was used to, and she wasn’t expecting to hear anyone address her, she nearly wound up choking on that lasagna.

Thankfully, that crisis was quickly averted and she uneasily swallowed as the blonde to her right plopped down in front of her, saying a bunch of things that didn’t exactly fall under Nancy’s radar of “normal occurrence”. She wasn’t naïve. She knew flirting when she saw it, and she was well aware that girls flirted with girls. Please, with a mother like hers, who still liked to bring up Merlin and Arthur should the situation deign it appropriate, you couldn’t afford to be heterocentric in the slightest. What made this so weird was that the flirtation was being tossed in her direction.

Nancy cautiously turned her gaze over towards the other girl to get a decent look at her, eyes still a bit wide and she was definitely on the verge of blushing, particularly with the way her eyes were fixed onto her own. Managing to swallow whatever was left of that nearly fatal lasagna, she finally remembered how to speak.

“Uh, really? I…I’m pretty sure I’m still too new for that,” she answered, shifting her gaze back towards her lasagna, because there was something about that smile that reminded her a bit of any good predator. You didn’t have Trent Panic as your father without being able to recognize anything that reminded you of something that could eat you, no matter how unlikely it was that they would actually manage, seeing as she could turn the tables on them and turn into a tiger if she really wanted. Probably because she didn’t exactly want to. Wouldn’t be the best first impression, after all.

Still, it was probably a bit rude to avoid eye contact. Nancy really wanted to work on that, after all, and even though her conscience (which had a tendency to sound like her mother, not that she’d ever tell anyone that) was saying, There’s something offfff about her, you might not want to continue this…, curiosity was also getting the better of her. So she looked back at the other girl, perhaps still a bit perplexed, and that’s probably why she wound up speaking a bit quickly.

“But…yeah, I guess that’s my reason. New around here and all, you?” Realizing that that statement could be confusing, she cleared her throat. “I mean…I guess you know your way around….” Awkwardly swallow another bit of lasagna, don’t start spazzing…good Nancy, you’re behaving like a sociable human being…

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Dominique surveyed the other blonde carefully over a spoonful of undeniably unhealthy chili and cheese.

"That's stupid," she said, frankly. "If you want to sit with them, you should sit with them, then, oui? There is no law that says you have to sit alone only because you are new. But at any rate, that's no biggie now. I'm here, so you are no longer alone."

She said that matter-of-factly, because it was a fact, not with any particular smugness. She wasn't sure if the girl would rather sit by herself than sit with Dominique, but either way, she wasn't alone anymore regardless of how she felt about it.

"I've been here a while," she told Nancy in response to her question. "My brother and I. We are twins. So if you see a more feminine version of me walking around, don't be worried, it's just my brother."

She shoved another bite of chili and cheese into her mouth, following it with some chips that from the perspective of etiquette probably shouldn't have been added to that already heaping mouthful. Whatever, like she cared. It occurred to her that she hadn't bothered to offer her name, though, and that was the kind of manners she was all right with.

Setting down her spoon, she extended the hand that had been holding it across the table towards Nancy.

"I'm Dominique," she said, her pronunciation of the name impeccable in spite of the odd inflection she normally had. "Yes, I know my way around. I know plenty of places I could show you, sweetie, if you were interested."

Not the least of which was the broom closet, or the out of order bathrooms on the fourth floor of the administration building, or the dark corner between the boys's and girls' dorms that was completely shadowed on nights when the moon wasn't too bright.

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…okay, Nancy would agree that it was perhaps a little pathetic and socially awkward for her to be avoiding all the upperclassmen just because she was new, but stupid? That was a bit harsh, wasn’t it? Even her mother, the Queen of Blunt, wouldn’t have gone that far…well, actually, Della would probably sympathize entirely. Except Della wouldn’t have even cared about the upperclassmen, something that Nancy didn’t quite share. It’d be so nice, hanging out with those sorts of people, popular, loved, carefree. Even if she knew there was way more to life and friendship than that, it’d be a nice little extra frosting on the cake.

“Uh, nope, I guess I’m not,” she responded, seeing as she wasn’t at all sure what to say about the other girl’s…advice? Was that what that was? She wasn’t sure of what else to call it. There was something really peculiar about this other girl. Not the flirting, obviously, although she supposed that it was so unapologetic that it could fall under that category, plus the fact that it was with her. But there was something else too…okay, so part of it was the obvious lack of table manners, apparently. At least it wasn’t with meat. While Nancy wasn’t one to tell someone to not eat meat, to have that sort of thing thrown in her face with the other girl’s very full, occasionally open mouth? Yep, she definitely would have had to race to the nearest restroom.

“Oh, you have a brother…that’s nice…” She arched an eyebrow just a bit at the “more feminine version of me” comment. So apparently it was sort of switched in gender roles between them…Nancy would admit that the other girl definitely screamed “Tomboy”. Which was just fine, because, really, her mother wasn’t exactly a girly girl either, was she? Tomboy Nancy could definitely handle.

And at least now she had a name attached to this rather strange other girl, although that comment about knowing her way around, once again…well, it reeked of subtext. Subtext that was definitely making her cheeks want to turn pink, but Nancy willed that away. No need to jump to conclusions, even though your instincts were screaming, She is so hitting on you and you’re not sure how you feel about that, might wanna try to slow this down, girly!

She had been careful to take it slow with eating, just in case Dominique decided to shock her again, which was seeming very likely, but it was nice to have something to swallow, to sort of stall so you could think of what to say. “I’m Nancy…” she answered, accepting the other girl’s hand to shake. “And well…I’ll admit, it’d be nice. I mean, my mother went here and made sure I had the gist, but I guess it probably changed since she graduated…” And so she trailed off, since she was wondering if that was the right place to stop talking, but was lost of what to say if it wasn’t. It was a pretty common issue for her.

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"Oui," Dominique said again. "He's sort of my other half, you might say, or something like that, except not like...in a strange way, because he's my brother. Sometimes it seems like we're the same person...not that often, though, because he can also be completely lame." Of course, if anyone else had tried to call Dominic lame, Dominique would have dismembered them, but she was allowed to because she had to cover up for his oddities with their parents. It was one of those right she'd earned, she thought.

She wrapped her fingers around Nancy's, full lips curving upward into a ruby arch as she shook the hand that was given to her.

"It's so nice to meet you, Nancy," she said sweetly. Well, it really was. It wasn't hard to feign some sociable reaction. "My parents went here as well. Met here. Probably made me and my brother here, if I'm honest, even though I truly don't like to think about those sorts of things unless it's absolutely necessary."

She had, regardless of when her parents had actually produced herself and her brother, been given a few pointers about the school, but most of the knowledge she actually valued had been gathered throughout her own questionable experiences here. She knew places that weren't on the school map and would certainly never be added to the campus tour.

"What classes are you taking, baby girl?" she asked. Pet names, particularly rather sexist ones, were just sort of something that had installed themselves into Dominique's vocabulary without her really intending them to. Guys used them when they hit on her, and hey - what worked on Dominique might work on the next girl, right?

"So what year are you?" she asked, curiously. "Not starting at the beginning with the tweenies, I hope. That would suck mightily for you."