"YES! We finally made it back to the station!" Cass almost threw herself onto the ground, acting like she was kissing it, she looked at her brother. "I am never letting you fly again, why the heck did it take five hours to find a docking platform."
"Okay drama queen stop acting like we haven't seen land in years, we're not seafarers; also, I had to wait for the station to give me permission to dock."
"If you had done your job and had our credentials ready it would have taken less time. Instead I had to find them, which is what took me forever!"
"I left them in a folder that you could see without even looking for them! It's not my fault you couldn't find them. Legit, if it were a snake it would have bitten you, it was right under your damn nose!"
"Okay guys break it up. Next time Cass tell Marc where it is in advance. Marc you really need to work on being aware of your surroundings." Jazz walked between the two siblings, pointing at them respectively.
"Now, can we please all act like adults, we have a teenager with abilities, I already have enough on my plate without adding you two to the mix."
Cass rolled her eyes and Marc scoffed, "We weren't even fighting we were just arguing."
"Same thing, plus you were causing a scene."
"Fine dad!" They both giggled, reaching around Jazz to high-five each other.
Jazz facepalmed, wondering why he had to be the only sane crew member assigned to their ship.
"Wow, it's beautiful." Annabelle had followed Jazz out onto the platform and was looking at the city.
The sky was a mixture of lavender and blue, with some orange hinting through, the city itself was made of what looked like crystal. The buildings reflecting light, creating the illusion that they were casting rainbows. All sorts of races were walking around, mostly in groups. Though there were a few that were alone.
"Yeah, this is the main station that serves ARD. It functions as housing for anyone who wants to tour the academy." Cass was walking towards a shop as she spoke over her shoulder. "Come one Annabelle, it's time to shop for your clothes!"
Marc grabbed Annabelle's hand and followed his sister, Jazz walked behind, keeping an eye on the group.
"Please Cass, you've bought me more than enough! I don't want you to only spend money on me."
Marc and Jazz were following the girls, both had about ten bags on each arm.
"Nope, just one more shop, I've always wanted to dress up a little sister." Cass walked into another clothing store, the men fell onto the bench outside the store, grateful that they could finally drop the bags.
"I'm so sorry you guys, please let me help carry them." Annabelle was mortified that her two other chaperones were carrying all the bags.
Marc waved her off. "This is no where near as bad as Cass gets when it's just me and her. I usually feel like my arms are about to fall off. Don't worry about it, just go find Cass before she comes back."
He chuckled, thinking about his sister's shopping addiction. It was part of why the two were always taking research missions that no one else wanted, they needed money to support her shopping and his research.
Annabelle looked at them for a second longer, and then went into the store to find Cass. The store was comprised mainly of uniforms, there were three sections, male, female, and unisex.
Cass was standing in front of the section that had 'girl's section' on a sign above her head. "How do you feel about wearing skirts? Also, do you want to join the research portion of the academy or the diplomacy wing?"
"I'm okay with skirts, but I don't want to wear them all the time, and I was thinking that diplomat would be best suited towards my goals."
"Alright, we need to be looking for uniforms that have an olive branch over the right breast. The science division uniforms have either a beaker, wings, a caduceus, etc."
"Why do they have so many?"
"Well, a beaker is usually for scientists that work in a lab, wings mean they are engineers, and the caduceus is for medicine. Diplomats will start off with just an olive branch, but as they decide what to specialize in; language, politics etc. They will have that specialties symbol put inside the branch."
"Interesting, is it possible to learn all specialties?"
"Well, for you it might be, but for most it isn't, because you only have a certain amount of time within the academy, and they mostly focus on behavior, so some races have specific habits that they have to focus on correcting, while also learning the information."
"An example is that the Ayeri have to learn to be responsible, it's even harder if they go into the diplomacy branch, because they have to learn how to behave around other species that may expect them to be serious in everything to do, which goes against an Ayeri's very being."
"I think my biggest issue is going to be the fact that I have little control over my impulses until I awaken. It's kind of like how in young humans the frontal cortex isn't fully developed, and so they sometimes make bad judgement calls."
"I've noticed." Cass stuck her tongue out at the girl, glad she knew the main problem.
After smiling to make sure Annabelle knew she was kidding, Cass pulled out three uniforms with skirts, and then started walking around looking for a few uniforms with pants.
"So, girls and boys have different colored uniforms?"
"Yes, I think I remember the dean saying something about why, but I can't remember."
"Hmm, so girl's uniforms are blue with silver cords, what about boy's and unisex?"
"They all have silver cords, but boy's uniforms are black, and unisex are green. The reasons there are unisex uniforms are many, but the main reason they were created was because there are races that either don't have a sex, or there are some that can have multiple, so it was just easier for ARD to create a uniform that didn't reflect sex."
Annabelle found a uniform with pants instead of a skirt and grabbed one. Cass looked at her, before grabbing another three.
"This way you have three with skirts and four with pants, one for each day of the week, just make sure you do your laundry within that time." She laughed.
"Thank you, Cass, but you really don't have to buy me this much, I'd be fine with a few pairs of clothes and the uniforms."
"Uhuh, you are allowed to wear regular clothes after classes end, I'm not having my adopted sister wear her uniform all day like a nerd." She flipped her hair and walked to the front counter with attitude.
'I'm happy, but am I even going to have anywhere to put it all?' Annabelle could just imagine piles of clothes taking over her room, leaving only her bed open.