Hei siella, roomie! (Matylda/Ffion

A new day and a new project awaited Matylda Sudakov-Oka.  It was kind of a gargantuan, Herculean effort for a girl who'd only really drawn on A4 paper sizes and in sketchbooks to this point.  Yet now the instructor had unveiled a new assignment - to create a full move poster sized creation.  Which by itself would be enough to give Matylda pause about what she should do with so much space.  Add to this that the theme of the project was 'myths and legends' but other wise was open ended and Matylda was stumped for a good long while.  Normally she'd be all over an open ended drawing assignment but now she just kept staring at the large sketch pad on her easel as if it were a monster waiting to strike.  She didn't dare make a single move for fear that perhaps it would lunge out at her and destroy the whole dorm with its unbelievable power.  Wait!  That was it!  There were plenty of monsters in legends, so one of them could absolutely be the subject material for this latest work of art!

With that in mind she slipped her headphones on, hit play on a heavy metal playlist and began feverishly sketching out the  base for her magnificent illustration.  Where to start? Clearly she needed a monster as the central focus of her design.  Something Japanese.. ah!  She remembered coming across a youkai called the slit-mouthed woman recently in some book or other.  A spirit that would ask someone if they thought she was beautiful and would maim or kill the poor soul depending on their answer. Easily distracted, though, by noncommittal answers or bribery.  But what if one of those spirits happened to decide to buck the trend and do things differently?  That'd be pretty punk rock!  Which led to Matylda drawing out a slit-mouthed woman in a pleated plaid skirt, platform goth boots with straps and buckles galore and an oversized t-shirt with one sleeve hanging off her shoulder.  That shirt bore the logo of Lordi, the famous Finnish heavy metal band.  The spirit also was playing some sweet licks on an axe shaped guitar because why wouldn't she be?

Soon the scenery began to develop around her and turned out to be a bird's eye view of a major city.  With thunder clouds and lightning visible at the top of the intensely metal image. As she added the tip of Tokyo Tower jutting through a storm cloud, Matylda wondered just how this monster girl was managing to fly through the sky.  Which led to the addition of a huge moth that the slit mouthed woman was riding as she played her killer solo.  All in all it was a killer spirit playing electric guitar atop Mothra amid storm clouds over Tokyo in the middle of a storm!  Yeah, this was awesome!  Matylda stopped to admire her work, pulling her headphones down as she did so.  That's when she heard the dorm room door open and she turned around to greet whatever visitor she had.  Her work was so exciting that she slipped back into her native Finnish to greet them.

"Hei siellä! Tarvitsetko apua löytääksesi jotain?" the smile on her face was infectious, though her drawing was on full display to the visitor .

Ffion headed down the hall towards the dorm that would serve as her home for the next year. A blinding smile adorned her features, despite the heavy bags she had over her back and under her arms. She had one bag stuffed with clothing, one filled to the brim with transcript paper and sheet music, one filled with toiletries and sports equipment, and a case for her violin. All together she was carrying quite a bit of weight on her person, but she didn't let that stop her. In fact, the weight barely even slowed her down. She was excited enough that the weight didn't phased her!

This new year brought with it a great deal of potential and opportunity. The Welsh girl couldn't wait to go explore the music hall, the library, she couldn't wait to see what sports teams were on campus! Her mind had been jumping all over the place, fluttering from topic to topic in her excitement. She was looking forward to the new degree of freedom she would have here. The idea of being able to better her skills without all the pressure back home was incredible, though her mother's reminder that she would regularly be checking up on her progress casted a bit of a shadow over the positive mood.

With a huff, Ffion finally arrived in front of the door to the dorm room; HER dorm room! She let the bags drop to the ground with a "thud", with the exception of the violin which she gently leaned against the wall. She had been made aware of her having a roommate, which excited her as well. She couldn't wait to see what kind of person her new roommate was!
Without thinking to knock first Ffion took hold of the knob and turned, one of her bags rolling into the doorway. She smiled widely, her hand already raised in a greeting, when she saw the other girl in the room.

Before she could say anything, Ffion was surprised by the girl speaking a language she didn't recognize. With her smile only faltering a tiny bit, she cocked her head to the side as she wondered what language that was; it wasn't a tongue she had heard. It certainly wasn't Japanese, and she hesitated a moment trying to figure out how best to respond to her.
"Ah, hi?" She said in English, a slightly nervous giggle escaping from her. She stepped forward, almost tripping on the bag in the doorway, and held her hand out enthusiastically.

"It's nice to meet you!" She decided to change her dialect to Japanese; they were in Japan, she figured she had the best chances of communicating with that. "My name is Ffion, they said I'm moving in here. It's nice to meet you!" Out of the corner of her eye, Ffion did catch site of the drawing that the girl was working on and was definitely impressed by the skill behind it, and she was very interested in the... very unique subject matter that the piece of art showcased.

Without even seeing the other girl Matylda had just shouted in Finnish.  While that might have been a big problem, the girl turned out to speak English!  That was a huge relief for her considering how awkward it would be if her roommate turned out to only speak Japanese.  At least she had a common tongue to communicate with the girl that wasn't the one that Matylda was afraid to use.  That was, until the blonde girl began speaking in Japanese, which made the Finn frown.  Maybe she didn't actually speak much English, and Japanese was  somehow her main language!  This might be absolutely terrible. 

All the enthusiasm which Matylda had felt mere moments before was gone, replaced by rampant concern and doubt.  Perhaps, she thought, she ought to just go back to her drawing and pretend she didn't understand the other girl at all. Yeah, that would allow her to just keep going with her art and not be forced to butcher the pretty Japanese language with her thick Finnish accent.  She turned back to the easel and started to add some extra details to the lining of the storm clouds.  As she added more body to them, Matylda's motions were slow and distracted rather than energetic and vibrant.  Really, pretending not to understand her roommate was just kind of rude when she got right down to it.  This girl seemed pretty nice, and she wasn't limited to just Japanese either. Matylda set her pencil down and turned around to look at Ffion and smiled a lopsided smile.

"Oh, hi!  Sorry, I just go back to my first language when I get excited," Matylda replied in English with her Finnish accent fairly obvious, "Welcome to.. our room!  I always wondered if I would get a roommate!"

She then strode right up to Ffion and held her hands out, "Want some help?  Looks like you have a lot of stuff!"

After a beat she laughed and added, "Whoops, I forgot to introduce myself!  I'm Matylda, and I'm in the visual art major.  What are you going to be studying?  Where are you from?  What are your hobbies?" The questions were rapid fire as she regained some of that confidence, knowing she wouldn't have to speak in Japanese.

Ffion watched as the girl she was due to share a room with as she continued working, wondering if maybe she hadn’t been loud enough. Between that and almost tripping as she stepped into the room, she actually became slightly nervous; had she walked into the wrong room, maybe? She not- so- subtly leans back out the doorway to peer at the number, confirming that she was in the right spot.

Settling back into the room, Ffions attention was drawn back to her new roommate as she started speaking. Her smile grew again when she realized the girl had switched from her original language to English. While the Welsh girl definitely was capable in Japanese, it wasn’t where she was most comfortable so it was nice to hear a language she was more familiar with.

“Oh, that’s alright!” In English her accent was also very noticeable, and she waved excitedly in response to the girls greeting. “I actually prefer English too!”

The musician clapped her hands excitedly when her new roommate said ‘our room’. “Thank you so much! I’ve never lived with a roommate before, I’m so excited!

“Oh! Yes, thank you so much!” Ffion walked back to the room and reached out to take the violin and one of the bags, carrying them into the room and putting them down on the empty bed that she assumed was to be hers. “I’m sorry for having so much, I wasn’t sure how much I would actually need, you know? And I figured, I can always shove it back in a closet or something. I guess I could always ship it back to my Da if I needed to, though now I think on it it may be expensive to get all the way back to Wales.”

Already showcasing her tendency to ramble, Ffion tapped her chin thoughtfully before giving a decisive nod. “The closet it is, then.”

She smiled again as Matylda introduced herself and began asking her questions, not at all bothered by the rapid fire inquiries. “Alrigh’ then, Matylda! I’m Ffion, and I’m in the composition program. My Da and I live in Wales.” She gestured to the bed, which had her violin and her bag full of sports equipment. “Other then music I play a few sports, I like exercising.”

“Where are you from, then?” The blonde girl asked, her friendly smile never slipping. “I didn’t recognize the language you were speaking.”

Given that they could converse just fine in English, Matylda's enthusiasm was back and shooting through the roof.  She eagerly assisted her roommate in getting her luggage into the room and then the closet.  Though they had just met she was quite excited about where this might lead.  As one of the odder foreign girls she tended to have a hard time getting to know other girls at school.  While her Japanese was just fine and she wasn't as nervous about using it, Matylda would always jump at the chance to speak in a different language if possible. With her roommate being what sounded like a native English speaker things just got so much easier.  Perhaps without the awkwardness of a specific language she might even get close enough to Ffion to become.. friends! 

Making a friend was a rare occurrence for her around here due to her interest in all things metal, among other things.  Maybe this time, this girl, would be different!  Her accent was hard for Matylda to place other than it sounding generally British.  Britain had a lot of accents though.  Placing this particular one was going to be very hard for someone who hadn't actually lived in or visited Britain.  Thankfully Ffion supplied that answer herself - which took Matylda a few moments to process.  Whales?  She was from a place with a lot of sea life?  Obviously she couldn't have come from literal whales because she didn't look the least bit aquatic.  No.  It must be.. Wales?  the country?  Yes, that sounded far more reasonable as an explanation.  With that she brought herself back to the present just in time to answer a question directed at her. But first, she just had to ask another of her own.

"You play music?!  That's great, what kind do you play?  Do you write songs sometimes?  What kind of music do you like to listen to?" Matylda peppered her roommate with questions, then blushed a little.  It probably wasn't good to ask the girl so many questions right after meeting her and all that.  Maybe it'd be better to answer Ffion's question first.

"Oh, where am I from?  I'm from the happiest place on Earth!" Matylda proclaimed with a proud smile quickly replacing the embarrassment on her face, "Finland!  When I get a bit excited, I sometimes talk in Finnish even though nobody around me can understand it.  Sorry I blurted it out in that language instead of something you'd understand.. I also speak Russian and Japanese.  But my Japanese isn't so good."

She then moved over to her easel and contemplated her drawing a bit more before looking to Ffion, "And when do you start classes?   Maybe I can show you around sometime!"

Ffion was growing more and more excited the longer she and Matylda conversed; after a year of taking private Japanese classes, she had become ok at speaking Japanese; she often forgot or mixed up words or phrases and sometimes her grammer wasn't perfect, but she could talk to someone on a basic level. But having someone who also spoke her primary language made her feel much more at home here, like she wasn't so out of place.

As she and her new roommate spoke and go to know each other, Ffion was unpacking and starting to try to find places for all of her belongings. Her spots equipment was rather unceremoniously shoved in the closet, while her violin was place gently at the end of her bed. As much as she loathed playing that thing anymore, she was still terrified of anything bad happening to it. She also couldn't help but smile at the continous questions; she had always had a hard time getting to know people, so this was a nice change of pace.

"Ye, I write songs. I'm actually in the composition program. I write mostly choral stuff." She smiled ever bigger when she said this, opening the bag with sheet music and starting to try to sort through all of it. "I listen to a lot of classical and pop music, but I also love modern vocal pieces. I kinda listen to a little of everything."

She couldn't help but laugh at how excited Matylda got at talking about her home country; not in a mean way, but because it was exciting to see how happy it made her. "That's so cool! This is actually the first time I've ever left Wales, so I've never been to Finland. Sometimes I do the same thing though, I speak Welsh Gaelic and sometimes it just kinda slips out."

As her new roommate settled back at her easle, Ffion stepped a little closer to look at the drawing. It was certainly unique, that's for sure! She tilted her head to the side as she looked. It must have taken a lot of talent and hard work to be able to produce art like that. "Your drawing is real interesting." She said. "I wish I could draw that well!"

"I think I start classes this week." Ffion pulled an agenda out of one of her many bags and sat down on her bed to examine it. "If it's not too much trouble, I think I would love that! It would be really nice, since I don't know where... anything is really. Except the music hall, but that's only because I auditioned there."

Gosh, the girl from Wales was a composer!  That was pretty darn cool as far as the Finn was concerned; she loved music but wasn't really much for making it herself.  From her perspective the act of creating new music was more or less a wonderful form of sorcery that only certain specialists could craft.  Whether they were the armored monsters weaving striking words into wonderful deadly verses or faerie princesses crafting beautiful songs which enthralled millions, they were all special.  Getting to share a room with such a real life magician was incredibly exciting!  Plus they both had the habit of slipping into their first language when they became excited, which itself gave Matylda ideas about what they could do - learn each other's language!  Nobody else on campus spoke Finnish, so it would be neat to teach someone a bit.

That being said, she was even more excited that her roommate didn't think her drawing was weird.  A lot of other girls at Fukui who'd caught glances of Matylda's work were patronizing at best when they commented on her work, which wasn't really helpful.  Ffion on the other hand sounded genuine in her appreciation for it!  Maybe not a metal girl like Matylda, but someone who appreciated the amount of effort that went into the art!  She smiled at Ffion and then looked back to the easel.  There were other pieces on sketch pads which Matylda had drawn in her free time, but really hadn't shown to anyone.  Perhaps this was her chance to change that!  First, though, she'd answer her roommate's queries.

"I'd love to take you around campus!  I know it really helped me when I first started here.. of course, my cousin's also a student here, so I had a built in guide whether she knew it or not.  So no music hall but everything else," Matylda tapped her chin thoughtfully, kind of plotting a tour route in her mind.  She laughed a bit as she remarked, "There are some places I haven't been to since they're not in my major, but we can sure go look at whatever is around.  I'm pretty curious about some of those other buildings.. maybe the culinary building has some extra snacks left over sometimes!"

She then asked, "So.. umm... you don't think my art's weird?  Most of the girls I show it to think it is.. but it's a lot of work, I want to get all the really tiny details done just right!  Here, let me show you another one!"

With that she grabbed a sketchpad from her desk an deftly slid a couple of fingers to a random page.  Which metal creation would it be this time?  The Roman centurion surfing on an acid wave whilst being pursued by a pterodactyl?  Maybe the hobgoblin sitting behind a desk with skulls of various creatures adorning it, cackling as lightning illuminated the accounting office where he worked?  Regardless, Matylda was really excited to share her work with someone new!  So excited that she didn't even look at which picture she'd opened to, but rather just held it out for Ffion to see.  Rather than anything metal, though, it was a soft toned sketch of a cute girl sitting at her desk and looking wistfully out the window of her dorm.  Judging by her surroundings it really resembled a Fukui dorm, and her uniform definitely matched those worn at Fukui as well. 

Matylda beamed, "Isn't it cool?!  When something catches my imagination, I just have to get it onto paper!"