before Seph ran into his across-the-way skull neighbor. It was by coincidence; they had both merely opened their doors at roughly the same time, and then stared at each other over the narrow expanse of the corridor.

Seph was surprised to see that his neighbor's face was relatively familiar — that is, it had supple flesh with two eyes, a nose startlingly similar to his own, one mouth, and all the neighboring stuff too, fleshy ears and cheekbones and eyebrows whose arches softened from surprise to friendliness.

"You must be the new neighbor."

The only difference was that his skin was an odd color, a sort of off-white, with some tinge of pink and orange.

"I am," he replied, instead of raising his hand to compare his own complexion, and then he ventured further, saying, "My name is Seph."

"Greetings, Seph. I'm Alban." He bowed a little, and Seph bowed back, a little belatedly. Seeing his lateness, Alban smiled.

"You must be from the sky."

"Recently so," Seph agreed, knowing there was no way that he could avoid it. Not while he still remained unstained by the opalite wires.

"How recent?"

"Recent enough that I don't exactly know the best places to get food," Seph offered, and Alban grinned easily.

"Well, I can help you with that," he said, "though I need to get to class now. You going to be around later?"

"Likely for the rest of the day."

Alban blinked at him, eyes narrowing as if with confusion, and then laughed. "Right! I'll knock on your door later."

Labels: