The knock on the door was startling being unexpected, and made Tor feel stupid when he jumped up as if he'd been caught doing something wrong. It was an old habit, one that fit perfectly with the space he was in. His old school dorm room.

Tor's wasn't sure, but it seemed like it had been left unoccupied in the year he'd taken off from school, almost two years now really, which made everything that had happened in his life seem just that much more unreal. Silly even.

Someone had cleaned it, but the beds were the same, and no new scents added at all except a slight hint of stale dust and possibly a little mildew.

When the door opened he found himself facing an old man, upright of carriage and lean, but with a friendly smile on his face. Kyle Hardgrove, the Dean of Lairdgren School. It wasn't really a shock, once Tor thought about it for a second, since he'd asked to meet with the man about his living situation. It was just that he'd only left the note at his office a few hours before. In a situation like this, a student simply requesting a meeting, Tor had expected to be put off for days, maybe longer on the topic. Then summoned to the office, if the Dean had time for the issue at all. It wasn't like the man had to hop to some kids whims, right?

“Dean Hardgrove!” Tor tried to make his voice sound happy to see him, which wasn't too far off; the man was always kind to him after all. Always a lot easier to like gentle people than not. “Come in, please.”

The Dean looked around the room, and Tor understood immediately what was going on, the old pale eyes searched for clues, noted that nothing had been unpacked yet and that Tor had simply been sitting on the edge of his old school bed, not doing anything. The imprint of his backside still rumpled the drab tan bedspread. They exchanged bows, his going lower than his visitors, because the school was his place and he was, in a very real way, the King here. Or at least the Captain, kind of like on a sea vessel. Either way he outranked Tor in just about every way imaginable. Tor offered the corner of his bed to sit on and sat himself down on the hardwood floor, making his head incredibly low by comparison.