Less Anticipation and More Dread (What Can I Say? You Got A Rep, Dude.)
Stiles could understand—intellectually, sure—that Loki would eventually be sending him out into the wide world beyond Beacon Hills to broaden his training even further under a set of various teachers the further into his studies the Spark got. And yet, starting his summer between Junior and Senior years of high school, the teen couldn’t feel anything but abandoned by mentor who had managed to keep the Nemeton’s power at bay (…as well as several other unsavory and unwanted guests from taking root within Stiles’ mind and magic) and had thus far taught the amber-eyed boy everything he knew about magic and how to use it. And how to fight. And how to metalsmith. And how to use herbs in potions and poisons both. And…
The list was rather long.
But, as well-versed as Loki was in pretty much everything as far as the teenager could tell, the god had still made the executive decision that it would be a good experience for Stiles to be exposed to how other people handled magics in general and their own personal brand of power in particular (the last was rather telling, Stiles knew, if only for that familiar gleam within the Trickster’s viridian gaze).
So. Loki had made a few inquiries, traded favors, played the social circles however and whatever way he normally did and… that was how the teen found himself here, in Salem (the irony was truly overwhelming; truly), and looking up at an absolutely gorgeous house that reeked of money the way that some women just reeked of perfume.
Shifting from foot to foot, Stiles considered just turning on the heel of his beat-up Converse and hitchhiking back to Beacon Hills because… well, his sarcastic, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, oftentimes geeky, occasionally shocking wardrobe (aka: his graphic-print shirt collection) wearing self and the person who probably swanned about airily through the rooms of a house as luxurious as this…? Their paths did not cross. Like. Ever.
Tapping his fingers against a jeans-clad thigh and really and truly and honestly considering the consequences that he’d face from his teacher should he go running for the Hills (Beacon, that is)—and it wasn’t even the god part that worried Stiles the most so much as the Trickster element—it took several long, drawn-out moments before the whiskey-eyed teenager finally decided to just suck it up and try things out for a day (yes, a day) first. Decision thus settled upon, the Spark’s long fingers wrapped around the handle of his luggage case, rolling it behind himself as he approached the meandering pathway that doubled as the driveway of the oceanside manor.
Upon reaching a certain point at the driveway, however, Stiles began to slow and then eventually stopped his journey completely to stare directly in front of himself with narrowed, copper-lit eyes bright and focused upon the slightly-reflective air before him. With the Magesight activated, the teen could actually see exactly how the wards had been laid down and then built from the ground upwards—literally, in fact. Reaching out with a cautious touch, magic liberally coating his skin before he even attempted to make that first, initial contact, the Spark leaned his weight against the ward shield and watched as it bowed and bubbled, but seemed to have no intention of breaking.
Chewing on his lower lip and switching his now-metallic gaze from where the wards bubbled out from around his hand and then up to the house still a fair distance away from his current position, Stiles huffed a breath and stuffed backwards and away, expression twisting into a dark scowl.
"Hey, asshole!" he yelled, adding a touch of his Spark to amplify the sound a fair amount more. "I'm here and I'm waiting and I can just as easily go back home, you know!"
...well. Loki hadn't said anything about being polite to the people that the god had picked out to be his teachers.