Oui, it is time for Classe de Français

[Karma]

For any student that was to walk into the French classroom, they would be greeted with the smell of the exotic cooking and romantic instrumental Parisian music playing from a jukebox hidden by a cutout of a man dressed like a maitre'd playing a violin. Since they all had their midterm examination last week, Shan wanted to do something fun and special for them this week. That's why anyone that took French was instructed to have a very light lunch and come to class dressed to impress as best as they could.

Shan was not an easy grader and did tend to give difficult exams the few times she gave them. Because most of the class did exceptionally well on the midterm, she decided to treat them all today and give them an authentic old style Parisian experience. She herself was dressed in a very elegant pencil skirt with a matching jacket and lace shirt that she bought in her most recent trip to France, with a floppy hat to match the elegant outfit adorning the neat knot she twisted her hair into.

With the help of Bobby and Pete, she spent all morning decorating the classroom with strings of lights, large backdrops of the Eiffel Tower, getting rid of the desks in the classrooms and replacing them with metal bistro tables in chairs and hanging from the ceilings and dropping down to hang in an elegant manner, over the scene. It took a while to get it this way, as Shan was a perfectionist and Pete and Bobby were... well they just wanted to get it done. She had been determined to make things perfect from the class and even dipped into the school budget with Emma's permission to dip into the school's budget to have the food provided by an elegant French restaurant all the way from Manhattan.

"Bonjour everyone," Shan said in greeting to her students as they walked in, beaming in pride from all her hard work and the delight that her students would have in it. After all, what was the point of learning a language if they didn't get a chance to experience the whole culture behind it as well? And what better way than to let them all feel as if they just walked into the heart of Paris? None that Shan could think of, and it seemed her students agreed.

[Tempest]

Tia could only do so much to drown out Kris as he continued to babble on about how ridiculous he found the rumours of Ana kissing the new New Mutant RAM in the corridor completely and absolutely absurd and how he wasn't going to believe a word of it until he asked Ana for himself. Ana had been missing the whole of Lunch, which had made Kris very suspicious and even though Tia herself highly doubted that it was possible for Ana to like the male she threw into the pool, she didn't really want to pay it as much thought as Kris was forcing her to. She had Ana's outfit for French class floating besides her, folded properly and placed inside a plastic bag.

As Kris continued to ramble and Tia exchanged a rather reproachful look with Veronika, the Paragon trio had arrived outside the french class, the scent from the room hit Tia rather strongly than she would've expected it to. Out of curiosity, she'd subconsciously manipulated the wind around her the enhance the exotic and rather lovely smells coming from the room. It smelt almost like... well, Paris. As Tia walked in, the transformed room caught her a little by surprise and there was a look of approval in her eyes as she looked around. Tia'd visited Paris with her family a few times before and despite the fact that there were smooching couples around every corner she'd grown to like the city a rather lot.

It had a beautiful landscape, and Tia simply loved the language. She wasn't the biggest fan of French Food considering she was vegetarian and the French liked their meat a rather lot- but nonetheless, she survived on croissants and salads and vegetarian soups. She looked over at Karma, attempting a weak smile in her teachers direction and greeting her with a small nod as she took in her teacher's outfit. She hadn't eaten much at lunch due to the orders from Karma, mind you she hadn't put a lot more effort into dressing for French than she normally did: although, she did always dress pretty well. Veronika made sure of it.

[Hemlock]

"... it just doesn't make any sense!" Kris said for what must've been the thousand-th time, sighing out of frustration, his face twisting into a pout. "I mean, okay, he's rather handsome and I know that Ana dear found him slightly attractive... but I do not believe that she would be sucking faces with him in the middle of the hallw- oh my." Kris came to an abrupt halt in his whining and complaining as the reformed French classroom came into view and the amazing smelling food made itself known to Kris's senses. "Oh wow Shan! This looks fantastic!" Kris complimented, smiling wide at his French teacher.

"This must've taken you a while, yes? Well, it's amazing Shan. Really, and you look beautiful too! I must say I do like your hair!" Kris said, in his ever so flamboyant attitude, moving over to take a seat as his eyes wandered around the room appreciatively, his ramble on Ana and Jax temporarily being drowned out. "Oh my, Veronika, don't you think that backgroup looks rather great? Oh, I know Ana dear would love this- I mean, she adores France, does she not?" Kris smiled, content, for a moment before his own words triggered something in his brain. "Oh, which brings me back to my original point!" he piped up, folding his arms across his chest with a slight huff. "I just don't see how it can be true!"

[Klash]

Walking in behind the red haired beauty, Veronika, and her friends that he met at lunch, Romon looked at the room in awe. Karma had caught him earlier today to tell him about the plan for French class and instructed him to dress nicely and come hungry to class. And now he saw why, it was as if he stepped into a little restaurant somewhere in Paris. He had been learning French since he was very young, as French and English were commonly taught in school and his father spoke it fluently. He understood most of the language, but had a harder time reading it and writing it.

"Wow... you were not kidding Karma, this is wonderful," Romon said looking around in awe as he walked around the large classroom that really did look like someone put a lot of effort into it. The music was perfect, as his mother listened to it often at home and he knew it well, and it smelled absolutely amazing in the class. He never had French cooking before, but from the smell of this place, he was sure looking forward to trying it.

He was glad to see that he didn't look so out of place, as he tied his dreads back and just wore black jeans and a white button up, since he hadn't exactly brought a tuxedo with him. Karma looked like she belonged in such a setting, and he naturally admired how lovely she looked. Her excitement was contagious, as he found himself getting excited as well. "It smells amazing in here."

[Hoax]

Dor strode into the class, a wide grin on his face. He’d been looking forward to this class all morning and not just because he knew a handful of other Paragons were in it. The dozy Georgian had a deep love of languages, though there was nothing he was fluent in yet besides Spanish and good ol’ English. He could speak passable French already and German, a smidgen of Italian, and something that might have been Latin before his southern drawl mauled it into gibberish. The reading and writing parts of the language however… well, he was sub par to say the very least. Some might go as far as to say he flat out sucked reading anything other than his own native tongue.

He wouldn’t say that, but others might.

Dor’s eyes widened as he looked around the decorated room and he pulled his glasses off his nose, wiping them clean with the hem of his shirt. “Merde sainte,” he mumbled, the words coming out in French. For good measure Dor translated himself, just to make his point. “Holy shit, this looks amazin. Ah don’t think the real French coulda done any better, Karma.” The positively mouth watering aromas wafting around him were making him regret his rather large lunch, and Dor plopped himself down at one of the little tables, over hearing Kris’s comments.

“That ain’t a rumor there, Binchy. Ah thought he was tryin to suck her face off.” Dor pretended to shudder with horror and smiled at the girls. “What do you girls think of the room? Not bad. Ya can tell Karma put a lot of work into this.”

[Hardlight]

"Bonjour" Kevin said with a smile to Shan as he came into the class and looked around in amazement. "C'est Magnifique!" he exclaimed in his best French accent before he almost skipped over to sit at a table against the near wall. Behind him was a backdrop of the rolling hills and vineyards of France and before him the splendor of a fine French Bistro.

He was glad to be there since he had skipped lunch altogether and his tummy was grumbling at him something fierce, but his smile faded somewhat when he saw his friends, the Diva's they were. Such contrast to who he was inside and trying so hard to be like them had made him feel so out of sorts with himself. He was happy to have had a bit of a break from them but he did have to admit to himself that he missed them and their superior position in life. Spending time with them he had felt like he was above so many, yet the reality was something so different.

He hated who he had become. His own roommate and most of his team probably hated him as well, his roommie he was sure of, but they didn't hate him as much as he hated himself. It was the same feeling his Father had made him feel when he told him he was gay, and he swore he would never feel that guilt again. He wondered if Kris or Karma had been put through that when they came out to their loved ones but this wasn't about being gay- it was about not being true to himself and he couldn't skip past the thing with the lie detector this morning.

It didn't help that he wanted to be liked by everybody. He knew the rest of the people he hung out with, including Gavin and Ian, didn't have those worries. They were all either liked or, as most of the Diva crew and Niki too, they didn't care about being liked. Kevin was cut from different cloth. He had been 'not liked' for so long in his life, even by the people who were supposed to love him- namely his Mom and Dad, that he craved the adoration of others. He could only sigh as he slipped into his own little mental funk on the side of the room, that was, until He caught his eye.

[Allure]

"I think it's wonderful, Shan you really outdid yourself!" Veronika said looking around in awe at the room. She was really impressed with how wonderful the room looked, which only added to her amusement. Kris going on and on about the rumors they all heard at lunch about Ana was extremely amusing, but it had the red head pleased nonetheless. She had heard of the Chande family and knew that like her and Tia, the family came from very old and extremely wealthy money. Ana had good taste in breeding and men, so she of course approved this match greatly, if only to know that she wasn't going to make her friends look bad by settling for some flea bitten low class scoundrel. Veronika walked into the room in awe, taking everything in as some passed her.

"Oh it does remind me of Paris. I would love to go back this summer, perhaps meet a handsome Parisian of my own," she said with a wink at Karma as she twirled around to the music gracefully like the dancer she was since a little girl. Veronika had been taking ballroom dancing and swing dancing coupled with ballet since she was a little girl. The curses of having her mother's body was that she'd never go professional with a career as a ballerina, but she could still practice to keep her curvy European body looking svelte. "We will have dancing yes? Dancing is such a big part of Paris, we MUST have it after we eat!" Veronika declared as she demurely sat at one of the tables in the center of the large transformed classroom.

[NightShade]

Ivy walked into the classroom, ready with her French things in her bag and prepared to learn. She was surprised, however, to see that the class was decorated with a fully Parisian theme. It brought a small smile to her face as she inhaled the smells and heard the music playing. It was definitely a nice change to see rather than the normal classroom setting, so she took a seat at one of the empty bistro tables and rested her hands on it, still smiling slightly as she looked around again, enjoying the change and wondering what exactly it was for, although she was guessing a small party after having made it through the midterm. It was rather easy, for her at least. Languages were something she'd always liked, and she liked the idea of using them to write things that people necessarily wouldn't understand. She had even learned both the runic and Greek alphabets so she could write down her thoughts in her other school when she had to rant but couldn't talk. Sometimes she still did it because she thought it was fun, but she didn't do it as much now.

French was a class she liked, and it wasn't just because it came easy. She liked the way it sounded, and it felt elegant to speak and write, although she thought that her pronunciations were nowhere near as good as she would've hoped. She looked over to Karma and gave her that small smile she'd kept on her face. "Salut, Karma," she said, "I like what you've done with the classroom- I mean.. je l'adore," she said, turning slightly quiet as she remembered to speak French in French class. She was better at the writing and technical stuff more than the speaking. It made her nervous to speak up in French during exercises, and it made the way she said things sound even more badly Americanized. The less speaking exercises, the better. Maybe today we won't even have to do anything like that, Ivy thought hopefully with a small laugh to herself at the absurdity of the thought. She shook her head slightly at herself as she rested it on one hand and quietly watched the others as they interacted.

[Katana]

Leah walked into French class wearing the sames clothes she'd put on in the morning for Tech. I'm not playing dress up with these idiots., she thought as she looked at the transformed French room. The classroom looked like something out of Busch Gardens. When she was younger they'd spent four miserable hours in the car driving to Virginia for the so called 'European' tour which had included a cheesy mock up of Paris. Her mother had posted the pictures on the fridge and embarrassed her with them for months. I did the make up work. If she's not happy, she can go to hell.

The smells were a different thing. While Leah hadn't taken Karma's instructions not to eat heavily at lunch to heart, she still had room for more, and was instantly hungry again. Maybe it won't be that bad. Truth be told she was still angry from Tech. She'd made a real effort to get ready for class only to have Shadowkat lecture her afterward. It had taken all the self control she had to just nod and mumble an apology instead of storming off in a screaming huff. She'd been too annoyed to talk much after, and had pretty much ignored poor Alex. She'd gone to find him at lunch to explain. She didn't want to lose her friend by right after his apology taking her own turn to act like a moron.

"Bonjour," she said in her terrible accent as she hastily pulled a thick stack crumpled papers out of her bag. "I did...Je fait le" she couldn't think of the word for home work. "Je fait l'exercises." Good enough. She held out them out to her teacher and stole a thankful look over at Ivy. Without her help, and Ricki's, there was no way Katana would have caught up on it all. Of course she still had a lot more stuff to make up. Maybe failing and taking summer school would be easier.

[Hardlight]

Oh Lord, this just wont do at all Kevin shook his head as he watched Leah come in in the same 'outfit' she had on earlier. Well, at least it's her cleanest set of clothes, and she did wash her hair so- looking down at his beret resting on the table in front of him, knowing he wasn't going to wear it because it didn't quite go with his slacks and vest, he nodded to himself -oh Kevin, Veronika and Kris will give you the business for this but no good deed goes unpunished.

He stood up and walked over to Leah, winking at Shan with a little smile on his face to let her know he would take care of the wayward Acolyte. "Mademoiselle," he bowed slightly, and then carefully so as not to get shanked with a nasty spur of bone-shard, presented the beret for her to see before placing it on her head and cocking it off to the side. "Tres chic!" he ginned at her in his best attempt to be as friendly as he could "Avec moi, s'il vous plaît?" Taking her hand and wrapping his arm around it at the crook of his elbow he led her off to Ivy's table and pulled out a chair for her.

He had seen the look she just gave their team mate, and it had not gone unnoticed earlier as well. Kevin knew those looks, in fact he was often guilty of giving those same kind of looks himself to some of the boys, but he wasn't trying to set the two girls up on a date. He just thought of all the places for Katana to be, maybe with Ivy wouldn't be that bad. So, they might not be a couple made in heaven, but at least they could stay out of everyone else's way. Today's class was supposed to be fun and dynamic and he knew the pair of them were definitely the party-poopinest two in the room, and he was having none of it. "Ajourner pour deux?" he said looking back and forth between them as he wasn't sure how the girls would react to him being so forward as to pair them up and offering a 'Table for two'.

[Diesel]

"OOOooh MAN! Shan babe! This looks uh- tres awesome!" Ian said looking around with wide eyes at the whole scene. He hadn't wanted to take a foreign language course, but he needed the credits, and to be honest Karma was a pretty good teacher. He was by no means fluent, but he understood way more than when he started it all. It helped a lot cause with the right amount of bugging, he got Aideen to help him out with French since he found out she could not only speak the damn language, but read and write it too. Ian sucked big time at speaking it, but he could read it a hell of a lot better than before. He studied his butt off for the midterm last week, and this was all so worth it.

"Man it smells like seriously radical in here. Don't worry Shan, I always got room for more, whoa though," he said looking around and grinned at Veronika, straightening up and walking over. "Well guess what babe, we're finally gonna have that lunch together we keep talkin' about," Ian joked, as he heard Veronika say to him more than once that they'll do lunch, but they never did. "You look mad good, but hey what else is new, I don't think you ever had a day were you looked bad. I jus' like stating the obvious." He grinned and sat down next to her at the table.

He always liked Veronika a lot, she was really nice and sweet as hell. There was something about her, and he knew it wasn't just him, but when she spoke to a guy they felt like they just won the lottery or something. It was a seriously awesome feeling, and after Veronika was so cool to Liv the other day, he just wanted to chill with her. He never got why Niki didn't like her, he didn't know how someone couldn't, but his girl had a different way with people from the start. "So we get to eat, and then what else you think we're gonna do babe?" he asked looking around at the setting and waving to Romon. They chilled at lunch together and he was mad cool.

[Clutch]

From down the hall, a slightly disheveled couple walked together toward the class hand in hand. Hair was rumpled and clothes were wrinkled, but oddly enough neither seemed to care, including the model with the obsession of constantly looking her best. "You know, I think I see your head growing with every step you take," Ana said with a pointed look, as she pretty much decided that the smug grin would be permanently plastered on his face. She combed her long hair with her fingers on her free hand, trying to make it look more presentable since she knew Kris was going to freak out when he saw it.

To see Ana walk around looking disheveled with kiss swollen lips and no lip gloss, well it was a rare sight indeed. It made her own level of insecurity rise just slightly, but not enough to effect her attitude. "Seriously, you far too happy about this all. It might give people wrong idea if you walk around all day with grin like that. It the how you say, 'just got some' grin. And you did NOT get anything like that from me!" She exclaimed her eyes narrowed slightly, though a small smile threatened to make it's way to her face.

That did NOT mean she liked him though. He was still annoying and Ana didn't think she'd ever met a more big headed cockier human being in her life. However... it wasn't completely intolerable. "Oh! Do you hear that? I know the music, it's French!" Her face lit up now in excitement, and she at this point pulled Jax toward the class. France and Italy were her favorite places in the world, and the music just brought back some of the nicer memories she had of home, and some of her earlier memories involved a bit of her parents too.

"Oh!" Ana stopped in the doorway as she looked at what looked like the perfect Parisian setting. It was positively romantic, and it smelled just like the streets of Paris on a warm spring day when the restaurants opened their windows and the smells swirled in the air. She took everything in with wide eyes, getting really excited as she looked around and saw her friends dressed up. She waved at them and then at Ian and Romon when she saw them too. "Look! It wonderful yes? Oh I love France, I love Paris!" Ana said looking up at Jax with a beaming smile at Jax. She loved surprises and this one delighted her. "Look the chairs and everything perfect!" It was another rare moment to see Ana so excited, but when it came to France or Italy or Prague even, it made her just so happy to think of the high fashion capitols of the world.

[StormHawk]

"Well look at you two, your not attached at the lips anymore! I almost didn't recognize you!" Gavin said coming up behind them with a grin on her face. "I heard that the rumpled and messy look is all the rage Ana darling." His voice was exaggerated as he tipped his fedora at her with a wink. He had to admit she was really pretty, stunning even right then since he didn't often see her smile the way she was then. Man though, with all her looks and delicate features, she had a hell of a temper, and Gavin wasn't all that envious with Jax for having to deal with it. "And as usual the rumpled and messy look is most stunning on you Ana love, do save a dance for me," Gavin said with a wink and bowed down before entering the room.

He thought today they'd be watching a movie or something and wasn't planning on coming, but when he passed by the French classroom earlier and saw what was going on, well that made him change his mind entirely. He did the whole 1940s get up with the white dress shirt, black slacks, black suspenders, and of course an Esquire Jacket slung over his shoulder as he strolled into the classroom with a big grin on his face, spinning around fast just for the sake of a show. "Shan, other than looking absolutely ravishing mon chéri," Gavin said with a French accent and kissed his pretty little teacher's hand with a wink. "C'est magnifique!" He clapped his hands and grinned at the setting as he took a look at the others in the class.

"Veronika! Mon femme fatale! It looks like you have been taken by my biggest rival!" Gavin said in his French accent and gave Ian a fake glare. "We meet again Larks. This time, France will prevail!" He shook his fist at him for emphasis and gently lifted Veronika's hand to his lips and dropped a kiss on her knuckles. "Tu es pour moi la plus belle!" Gavin grinned at her and winked before he sat at the empty table nearby, looking around at all the girls with a grin. "That's right ladies, I am free for the taking. Tia, mon amour! Would you do me the honor of being my date for the next couple of hours?" He winked at her and grinned, his determination to win her over and get those smiles that he adored to come out from the younger girl.

[Torri]

Torri walked in with an plain white t-shirt and black denim capri pants. Thanks to Heather, Torri was allowed to borrow the New Mutant's black barrett and black ascot in order to have the appropriate French look. She smiled and skipped right in, stopping at the amazing scenery and smells that she witnessed immediately. "Oh wow," she said to her team leader as she slowly walked in to enjoy the music as well. "C'est tres belle." She was so excited and happy that Karma was being really nice after they had their midterm and all. Torri was pretty good with languages. And because she was so young, learning them was pretty easy. Of course she had the occasional block and Heather was nice enough to help her with some pronunciations sometimes.

"So which table should I sit at?" she asked kinda feeling a bit shy about just sitting down with anyone. Even though she loved hanging out with the older kids, Torri sometimes had the feeling that she was intruding and made sure to not be in their way. The only people around her age that were considered the "cool" kids were Tia and Veronika and that was because... well they were. Torri really looked up to them especially because they were only thirteen and fourteen. Yet they had such maturity that no one usually saw within a teenager unless they were at least sixteen.

Torri walked further into the classroom and cleared her throat softly since it felt a little dry. She really hoped someone wanted to sit with her since it looked like several people were already paired up in some way. As she skimmed the group, Torri rose an eyebrow when she noticed Ana and the new New Mutant kid holding hands. Huh!?! she thought. Ow... my head hurts.... owww.....

[Hardlight]

Oh my goodness, how adorable she is Kevin thought as he looked back and trying to ignore the strangeness he had heard rumors of at lunch standing there together holding hands he smiled at Torri. "Avec moi! S'il vous plaît." He found that expression was quite useful as he waved his former teammate to the table he had reserved after pushing in Leah at the table with Ivy.

Stepping up before the girl who he was very thankful for her being small now, not like she was when he first met her at all. For that matter she was not hardly as timid as she used to be either and he paid her the compliment of using her codename en Français. "Beau Miroitement. Me joindre s'il vous plaît?" As he pulled out a seat for her at his table.

"Isn't this incredible?" he said just vibrating with excitement, his moment of melancholy now a dust bunny of a memory and it blew away in the wind. "I can't believe this isn't really Paris! Wow! Did you know about this? I mean Karma is your uh," he didn't want to sound like he was rubbing anything in so he smiled as he pushed in her seat and sat next to her "well, your Team Leader I guess, right? So did you help with this? Because it looks lovely doesn't it? Just beautiful!"

He had to admit he missed the her on the team, but memories were funny like that and he couldn't remember the bad stuff. Or maybe he just chose not to.