Dawn Kent looked around the campus at the University of Cleveland. School had started early, as some universities do, but she had been looking forward to it. She'd bought her books, and was going over her schedule in on of the on-campus coffee-shops. People kept looking at her. She hated it. It was then she realized that she had spent so much of her life completely surround by demons, magic, mutants and aliens, that she wasn't sure how to deal with common society anymore. At Xavier's, her blood-red hair and completely green eyes hadn't been odd at all, but at university, they were. She knew she should probably dye her hair, and get contacts, but she wasn't sure she wanted to get rid of her 'new look.' It had happened when she merged with, and truly accepted the energy inside her, and honestly accepted her nature as the Key.
Nevertheless, people kept staring at her. It wasn't until she seard some whisper 'mutie,' that she realized people were assuming she was a mutant. Well, except for the people who assumed she had dyed her hair and was wearing contacts.
"Excuse me, do you mind if I sit here?" a boy with purple hair asked about the empty seat next to Dawn.
:"No, go ahead."
"I'm Kelly," the boy said, offering his hand.
"Dawn," she said, shaking it.
"You a freshman?" he asked.
"Yeah," she said, "is it that obvious?"
"Just a little. I'm a sophomore, pre-med. How about you?"
"Anthropology major," Dawn said, taking a sip of her mocha latte.
"I don't mean to be rude or anything, but are you a mutant?" he asked, gesturing to her eyes.
"No. My eyes just are what they are," she said, a little too quickly.
"It's okay if you are," he said. "I'm a mutant. Actually, most of the people around here are pretty mutant-friendly, but we do have our share of jerks."
"Okay then, you figured me out," she said, figuring it would be easier to go with the mutant thing than tell the truth. "I just graduated from Xavier's in New York. It's a school for mutants."
"Oh, I've heard of it," Kelly said. "I was wondering, would you like to go out for dinner sometime?" he asked, and Dawn blushed.
"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, lifting up her left hand to show off her wedding ring. "I'm married. My husband's starting here as a freshman as well.
"Wow," Kelly said. "You're so young. You're what, eighteen?"
"Yeah," she said, non-commitally. She still didn't know this guy well enough to tell him the truth. "We've had a few people tell us we're too young, but, honestly, we knew we were meant to be together since we first met. And over the past couple years we've gone through hell together," she said. As the expression on his face, she elaborated. "I'm from Sunnydale, California, and he's from Kansas."
"Wow," Kelly said. He'd heard that Sunnydale had been turned into a crater by some giant earthquake, and of course everyone remembered how most of Kansas had been blown up. "That really sucks."
"Yeah," she said, she looked at the clock and started to slip her books back into her schoolbag. Kelly looked at the clock as well.
"Anyway," Kelly said. "I was really nice talking to you, but I have a Bio lab. I'll see you around," he said, and the two parted way.
Dawn checked the room number on her schedule again, and headed off in search of her Anthropology 101 class.