Welcome to Gaia! ::

In a large, circular room, there are five four-poster beds with curtains to allow for some measure of privacy. Each student has a cabinet for her things and her trunk sits at the foot of her bed. There are windows that give one a view of the grounds.

Nicole entered the sixth-year girls’ dormitory, looked around, and noticed her cat sleeping on someone else’s bed. “Kallie, get off of there!” The grey tabby ball of fur opened one eye, rolled over, then went back to sleep. Nicki sighed and moved toward the cat. Picking up the animal, she looked down at the bedcovers. “Oh, look,” she said disapprovingly. “You’ve shed all over the duvet!” Even though Kallie was a shorthaired cat, she could still shed like crazy. There were now white and grey hairs all over the formerly clean bed. Nicole shooed her cat away, who scampered over to the small cushioned blanket that served as Kallie’s bed. Nicole sighed once again and bent to the work of cleaning the mess of fur.

After brushing away most of the offending hair, Nicki turned around and walked over to her bed. She contemplated the forest green duvet on her bed, which she had brought herself from home this year to replace the drab blue of Ravenclaw House that she had had to live with for the first five years of her education at Hogwarts. Sure, blue was a pretty colour. It’s just that it got boring after a while. Of course, Nicole would never tire of green. After all, it was her favourite colour.

Nicole bent down, picked up Kallie, and then lay down on her bed, letting the cat lie on her chest. The ceiling was boring to look at, so Nicole closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. As she let it out, all the stress from her muscles went with it. She hadn’t noticed how much her muscles hurt after the long day of school. Too much slouching in class, she chastised herself. Nicki had spent the entire day trying not to get noticed by her teachers, as she knew very few of the answers to the questions they posed. She had not gotten much sleep last night, and this had resulted in low concentration and listening skills the following day. Half the time Nicole had not been able to focus on what her teachers were saying, let alone understand and remember it. That took too much brain power. So she had resorted to staying low and hiding behind the tall people who sat in front of her. Finally something good about being short. Unfortunately, this resulted in many aches in her back at the end of the day.

A few minutes passed as Nicki simply savoured the quiet time she had. Slowly, her thoughts began to drift, her mind began to relax, and soon enough she was letting her fatigue get the best of her. The warm presence of Kallie, though heavy on her chest, was rather comforting and conducive to relaxation. The soft purring of the contented feline cleansed her worries and stresses. It didn’t matter that she had done none of her homework. She could do that tomorrow morning. The only thing that mattered was that Nicole was tired and so was her cat.

Minutes later, Nicole was still lying on her bed with her curtains open, eyes closed, completely unaware that she had fallen asleep with her robes still on.

Kayla trudged unhappily into the dorms. She flopped onto her bed and growled at herself in anger. How could she have blown up ANOTHER cauldron in potions? That was the third one this year, it was really starting to get quite expensive.

She knew she would have a detention this evening, but until then, the time was hers. She sighed and opened her current book.