Kaya was uncharacteristically quiet since their return from Hogwarts couple of days ago. They had new headmaster and even mourning service and now she was anticipating what else will change. She was aware that this year they allowed not only those who were fully humans to attend the school. And also she couldn't stop noticing how much things were changing generally in the world.

She sighed sitting in the corridor. Day of their arrival at Hogsmead turned out to be a disaster despite all the security measures. What bothered her even more was a simple fact of missing former headmaster. How was it possible to just disappear and exactly at that moment? True it was messy, but they were living in wizarding world and Kaya seemed to not find any answer to her unspoken question.

Deciding to abandon these thoughts she stood up and started to walk slowly to the hall. She didn't have anything to do and she thought that it would look too suspicious if she would be spending whole time with Amber. The last thing Kaya wanted was for her bestie to know how much she was worried ever since their arrival.

Kaya glanced around her and noticed someone who seemed to be alone. Someone she didn't think she talked to before. Kaya smiled softly and started to approach the boy, hoping for to have some small talk and potentially a new friend. Hi, do you mind if I join?
@Tesla Stone as Basil Blackwood

━━━━━━━━━ Basil ━━━━━━━━━ ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ Year Three Ilvermorny Horned Serpent ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛

Basil was startled out of his careful reading as someone stepped up to him, asking to join him. He looked around, as though becoming aware of his surroundings, seeing that the table he'd sequestered himself away at was not the only place to sit, and yet this girl was still asking to join him. He slammed his book shut, hoping the girl didn't see the way he had been immersed in reading about lycanthropy. He wouldn't want her to get the wrong idea about his own nature or anything, he was just trying to find out more about the condition, now that their kind would be in the same school as him. It seemed more important after the tragedy of Hogsmeade. If only he could understand why that horror had to happen...

Still determined to make friends after his disastrous visit to Hogwarts, he moved some books out of the seat next to him and cleared out that space on the table as well, blushing at the way he'd spent probably a second too long just staring up at her.

"I- uh, sure. Yeah, you can join me," he stammered out, wincing. "Sorry, I didn't really expect anyone to... be... here," his voice got progressively quieter as he sunk into his chair, realizing how absurd it was to be sitting in the middle of a public space with other students around, and still be shocked when someone actually came up to him, "Um, I'm Basil. Horned Serpent. Nice to meet you?" he finished weakly.

Kaya stood and waited for the boy to reply. She was wondering for a second why he was staring at her. But it didn't really matter. If he wanted to keep looking at her, he could do it. Thinking about it made her once again think about her friends.

Thank you. I guess it's totally fine. She replied when he spoke. It was a bit weird perhaps to not expect anyone to be there, but then again she chose to approach him rather than stay alone. Kaya Rose, Thunderbird. Nice to meet you too. She smiled softly.

This year feels different with all the changes. Kaya said thoughtfully. New students, new talents. New tragedy. She didn't know how she felt about it. But she knew for certain: this time Hogwarts affected her in a way she never expected to be affected. She sighed. How's back here feels this year? If you want to share for sure.

Kaya was aware that her words might have been quite strange. It was their first meeting and she already started it with such topic. She didn't mind talking about something else. Kaya was just letting her thoughts wonder around. Would they be shared or just stay in the air? Kaya didn't really care about the outcome of this meeting. They could talk about anything or not talk.
@Tesla Stone as Basil Blackwood

━━━━━━━━━ Basil ━━━━━━━━━ ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ Year Three Ilvermorny Horned Serpent ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛

Basil relaxed as Kaya didn't seem to be put off by him, instead joining him with a soft smile. He quickly shoved his lycanthropy book under a larger tome on European dragons, glancing at her curiously as she asked about the year. He glanced nervously at the book, wondering if she'd seen what he was reading, but thankfully the book cover he'd put over it made it too subtle to make out the book's real subject matter. It seemed she was just asking him about the changes around the school for the sake of asking. Maybe she was doing an interview or something for the school newsletter?

Maybe he was reading too much into it, since her question was fairly open-ended. Maybe she wasn't talking about the introduction of half-breeds to the school and that resulting tragedy, and he was just jumping to conclusions. He did have issues with fairly open-ended questions like this one, so better to ask for clarification before he bungled his first conversation with his schoolmate. "What changes are you talking about specifically? There's been plenty happening this year. Honestly, the school year has been about the same for me. Go to class, work on homework... You know, the usual," he replied, hoping his cagey answer was vague enough to reply in whatever way her question had been intended.

Kaya waited for the reply, wondering what was taking him so long to reply. She looked at the bookshe was reading. Noticing how quickly he tried to hide one particular book. However, she was too preoccupied by her thoughts to actually notice what he was hiding.

The acceptance of not humans this year, Pyre, and even the way we were going to Hogwarts and place where we came. Old headmaster disappearance. Also it just looks like there's more security now at school. Plenty of things that happened and changed this year.

She replied, this time making it as specific as she could. Kaya looked at Basil. How does it feel to study now with non-humans too? Repeating her question wasn't intentional. Her voice sounded like it wasn't a big deal if he answered or not.

If he chose to not answer, she could just ask something else. Kaya just wanted to chat with someone other than her usual friend group. She smiled warmly and spoke again with a soft voice. If you don't want to talk about it, we can talk about something else. Anyway, I'm not going to judge you for whatever you think or do. I just wanted to talk to someone and hoped you could be that person.

What if he wants to know her thoughts about non-humans? That was fine. She didn't have anything against them, but also she didn't know much about them. After all their school previously didn't accept anyone except humans. This was quite interesting turn of events.
@Tesla Stone as Basil Blackwood

━━━━━━━━━ Basil ━━━━━━━━━ ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ Year Three Ilvermorny Horned Serpent ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛

With a clearer answer, Basil was much more comfortable answering Kaya's questions, even if he didn't know the responses she'd be most happy with. He'd been worried he'd assume she was talking about all the half-breeds running around school, and then she wasn't really speaking of them. He frequently misunderstood people's questions or conversation prompts, and it never went well, especially when they were new to him.

"Oh, I suppose you're right that a whole lot sure has happened this year. Honestly it was already weird enough, having to be around half-breeds and other such non-humans, and then that terrorist attack on the schools?" he shook his head, as though trying to shake out the horrible memories of the incident.

With a casual sort of brutality as he said the first thing that came to mind, and with the opinion that would be most appropriate in his own home, he continued, "I'm just surprised all the half-breeds are confident enough to come to school. It's such a horrible way to live, I'd expect them to just sequester themselves away like they always have. Live in their horrid little isolated colonies and whatnot, like they've always had to do."

As soon as the words left his mouth he grimaced, realizing how rude that could sound, especially if one of the half-breeds themselves were nearby. "Ah, that isn't to say I don't want them in the school! Any progress is good progress towards improving their lives, but aren't most half breeds such pitiable creatures? Why subject them to the bullying or ostracization they'll experience in a school such as this. All that aside, what do you think of the changes? There sure has been so much, and I guess I never thought of what other students thought of it all..."

He hoped Kaya would have a kind opinion like he did of half-breeds. They weren't deserving of hatred after all, just pity!

It's just that it takes some time to get used to it. I don't know why there's so much hatred towards them. I mean look at Hogwarts. That school accepts them for some time, and it just appears here now. She replied softly but with a sad voice. It must be hard to be one of them and attend something other than Hogwarts. But maybe it could change some day in the future.

You know, I don't know. It's sad but also they shouldn't be excluded just because of their parents, right? But at least now they will get more bullied, though maybe school will do something to help them. They should have some plan, shouldn't they? Otherwise it's just cruel. Let them study and get bullied. And they are just kids after all! She paused. She didn't hate those children. Kaya just felt sad for them.

There certainly has been so much. Do you think previous headmaster is responsible for that terrible event? I just hope things will be better for us all soon. Living constantly in fear or danger is not great. But I think new headmaster seems to be good. Though one can never know everything. She sighed.

I'm looking forward to see how this school will turn out to be in the future. Hopefully, it'll be peaceful and friendly. What do you think?
@Basil Blackwood