Aimlessly, Hanashi followed after a boy sporting a pair of quite pleasing horns out of the side of his head. A bit like a deer, she quite liked deer. They crossed through the backyard of her caretaker’s home late at night to try to steal a few bites from their garden, which had made the still nights while the house slept more bearable. But those nights were gone now, so she could now follow after deer or in this case a boy. The boy however rushed over to a clump of students waving at a friend leaving Hanashi quite alone. Was alone the right word? There were people around her weren’t there? A pair of students by the window talking, a pair at their seats — no, that was a trio, one of them had a mouse on her shoulder — and a boy sitting on his own with a sketch pad.
Oh, wasn’t that lovely paper? Crisp and straight. The boy wasn’t wearing the school’s uniform, which seemed odd, it was so delightfully crisp! Light steps drew Hanashi to the drawing boy’s shoulder. She looked down at his drawing pad though it seemed his attention was off on the pair of girls with the mouse.
“That’s quite lovely.” She said, “the edges are nice.”
//... into the dark she stepped, but never did she feel free of the gaze...//
Aaron looked away, embarrassed and a little worried. Some students were dangerous, he learned over the years. He didn't want to risk stepping on someone's toe and making an enemy he couldn't - nor wanted to - defeat. Nelle said it herself: They'd see how many would survive the school year.
Wimbleton could be the safest place for a young monster, but for humans like him and Nelle it was a different story. He had to share a room with a vampire once, and after almost getting bitten a couple times, he was forced to bathe his sheets in garlic oil to be able to sleep at night. Aaron couldn't eat garlic for years after that. He doesn't know what happened to that boy, rumor has it his parents pulled him out of school before graduation.
Shaking away the memory, Aaron looked up at the window and saw Ellie waving at him. He smiled and waved back.
"I'm glad you're both safe." He said, noticing something else in the reflection. A commotion seemed to be happening a few rows back, between two girls - a kelpie and a girl who seemed to be human. He narrowed his brows and turned to see what was actually happening.
Towering walls. Typical gothic layout. Hideously irregular brickwork- clean and uniform in some parts, jagged and... characterful in others. You could tell exactly where in the school had been refurbished, and exactly when those refurbishments had taken place. Oh, the new science block, that was eighteenth century for sure. Oh, the girls' dorms- beautiful as they were, they were clearly a Tudor addition- she could totally tell you that even without looking at the carved marble plaque proudly displaying the year of construction. This meeting hall they were in, oh, she could date that as well. Judging by the brickwork, the type of granite used, the overall size and layout of the place- it all placed it squarely in...
"Think yer hot shite, do ya?"
Secondary school.
Aisling peeled her eyes off the walls and slouched towards the source of the commotion. Ainsley. No surprises there- neither the person, nor the timing. Starting a fight approximately half an hour into the first school day was so... well, she didn't know much about her yet, but it was typical. It seemed so typical. She lightly punched the kelpie on the shoulder.
"Hush." She frowned, "If you want to let the school know you're scared of mice, I'll ask the headmaster to make an announcement tomorrow. No point in doing it yourself, is there?"
It was just an ordinary mouse, after all. She hadn't seen anything that pointed to the contrary.
"And, great."
Aisling turned her ire to the child holding the mouse.
"You're weird, you're a weirdo, you're not like other people- we get it. Newsflash- we're all weird. That's why we're here. Maybe if you stopped hiding behind that lame excuse and actually tried to socialise, you wouldn't have to spend time in the library fuckin'... what, blowing up dogs, or whatever you said? Just a thought."
Her comment held the words of advice, but the tone of an insult. She tapped Ainsley on the shoulder again, gesturing for her to move.
"C'mon, let's go." She muttered under her breath, "Before she uses us as people-practice."
Ainsley turned the glower on Aisling after the punch, tension softening a little.
"I'm not feckin' scared of no mice, you idjit," she replied - but she looked cowed, the firepan of anger fading, settling back into simple disgruntlement.
After Aisling's retort to mousegirl, Ainsley even cracked a bit of a smile.
"Yea. Get over yerself, yer not special."
She almost made to get in Cailet's face again - but at Aisling's insistence, she only gave a parting smirk and followed after her friend.
"Dunno why you stepped in. I had it handled, y'know. Stupid little shite threatened me. Oath, if that's a normal rat, I'm a feckin' donkey."
Yesterday, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn't there! He wasn't there again today, Oh how I wish he'd go away!
While the Erlprinz’s attention was certainly drawn to the pair of loudmouthed children a few rows ahead, it would be clear to the girl who approached his shoulder that his strokes had not paused. Instead, he fixated upon drawing the pair of quarrelling students— though not as they were. No, he portrayed the monstrous, dampened girl as something bestial, horselike in nature with a pair of sharpened, bony jaws; each tooth was a knife in the mouth, the tongue a coiled appendage that wrapped around the body of the girl’s mouse as if preparing to eat it whole. The rodent was not spared any exaggerative expense, either— it too was suitably transformed into a carnivorous, raging creature, with a spined tail and tendril-like whips that extended from the mouth like sharpened whips cracking across the page. It was a scene of battle— a scene of death. The Erlprinz would have vastly preferred his idle doodling to take precedence over the current pitiful display, but alas. He was condemned, it seemed, to mediocrity. Not even the feral faeries could kill correctly, here. What a joke.
And the mediocrity continued, it seemed, with an intrusive voice from over the shoulder. The Erlprinz gave a slow look over the shoulder, features veiled beneath his shadowed hood— if there were any there at all to begin with.
"Mm." Was all he said for the moment, looking the girl up and down before turning back to his booklet. "It was a gift from my father. Soft enough to hold the charcoal well, like a tattoo-- but coarse enough to remain rigid, crisp." At that, he paused his drawing and flipped a few pages back, showcasing a variety of scenes-- some serene, others vivid in a way that drew the eye over each macabre detail. Then, he flipped forward, this time to an empty page that was brushed with a gloved finger. "Partly hawthorne pulp, donated from the homes of his people. Mainly, though, its soft quality is owned to the main component: manflesh, stripped from trespassers who come across the mounds. That's why he says it's so brittle, anyways. The body tenses as each layer is stripped, leaving each page firm, frozen in time." A sigh followed his explanation, and he closed the book with a little snap of his hand upon cover and spine. "Father says it's their way of giving tithe. We refuse to harvest trees for such a mundane object, so we make do. Why, would you like a piece?"
Reneging upon his previous action, the prince opened his booklet once more, taking a pristine page within two fingers and, with a leathery, sharp rip, pulled it free from the spine that bound it so. The Erlprinz offered the page out to the girl, its edges delightfully crisp-- just as she'd said. From the way the light caught its face, one could almost glance through it with a transluscent quality, darkened rivers running across the page like veins trapped within the page.
Hungry was the first thought that came to Hanashi as her gaze lifted from the fine crispness of the paper’s edge to the lines of charcoal that filled its body. The scene was — grotesque was it? — viscous as two terrible things aimed to strip the other of flesh and bone. Was that how the boy saw the trio who had taken his attention or readily? Only, it was a duo on the page wasn’t it? Perhaps he had meant to add her before he had been paused in his work, but of what Hanashi understood about the hands of artists who turned fine edges into something far sharper, if the boy had meant for her to be present she would have been. The paper too didn’t escape the girl’s eye, because it too was hungry in that greedy sort of way paper had for a line of ink or other such markings. It took its charcoal well and held it tight.
Hanashi listened to the boy speak, though her gaze rarely strayed from his drawings as he flipped through the pages, save perhaps for a flicker of her dark eyes to try to catch the glitter of his under the hood. “They really are striking.” She said as the sketchbook closed with a snap. It was perhaps hard to tell if she was referring to the art itself or the paper that had taken the scenes on as a tattoo, though if the paper really was so hungry in its acceptance of the charcoal were the two truly separate? If there was anything that raised a reaction out of her beyond wonderment, it was the sound of paper being torn free of its housing. A twitch of troubled concern that lingered until the boy held the paper up. She reached out for the offered sheet, not tentative as much as she was careful not to harm something so richly crafted.
“I had, for a time, a parchment fan made from the skin of a calf. A caretaker of mine lost it long ago, but it wasn’t near as fine as this.” She raised the sheet, the pad of her thumb running along the straight cut edge as she watched how the light bled through the paper. Her smile lingered, even as the curve at the edge of her lips softened. “Is it fine for me to keep? I doubt I can offer you anything in return for it.”
“Thank you, but the concern isn’t needed. It’s… appreciated.” Nelle looked over at the commotion that drew Aaron's eye, annoyed that their reunion was being interrupted. A kelpie, the girl with the rat, and what looked like some kind of fae girl were having a row, and a rather loud one at that. She watched as the two fae girls left, leaving the girl with the very ugly and ordinary rat by herself.
“Well, it’s just like a kelpie to start a fight on the first day of school. No sense of decorum.” Nel turned away, though before she did, she caught a glance of the rat’s eyes once more. If she hadn’t known any better, she would’ve said it’s eyes were bright red and glowing. She shrugged it off, as anything was possible in this school. “So how are mum and pops? Still the same?”
And to those Gods I will speak bluntly, We have an accord if you ever touch or harm him Please rest assured, you may not fear a man, But by the end to a woman, you'll kneel and plead Because I'm more than my mom taught me to be.
What was the obsession with castles? Sulyvahn groaned internally, watching the other new students gleefully chitter amongst themselves as they swarmed through the halls of Wimbleton's. Enough of the hushed whispers were excitedly pointing out various aspects of the castle that were, in fact, a castle. How droll. Yes sure they were impressive structures from a time long past, or so they said, but Ireland had no shortage of castles. Once you'd seen one ominous stone building, you'd seen most of them.
Sulyvahn surveyed the crowd, taking stock of the others who had been deemed unfit or troubled. The sight certainly didn't disappoint. Various inhuman body parts caught his eye, including a rather majestic set of antlers sprouting from a figure hunched over in one of the chairs. Sulyvahn fingered his necklace idly. He could always use new material for his carving projects. There were a couple other figures that caught his eye, not from their monstrous qualities, but for their lack thereof. A pair in particular stood to the side, returning students, seemingly ordinary humans. Sulyvahn's attention was dragged away though by shouting, a shrill voice that sounded as though every word was spit around a mouthful of bog muck.
"Ugh. Scots."
Sulyvahn grumbled to himself as his eyes slid across the room to the source of the offending voice. An eyebrow raised as he took in the damp clothes and stringy hair. She may very well have had a mouthful of mud after all. Seeing as she'd already caused a bit of disturbance, given the muttering through the students, why not add to it? Sulyvahn made his way over, intercepting the duo as they huffed off.
"Must say I'm surprised to see a kelpie here." His cheek-splitting grin twisted into a smirk. "I assumed there was some form of literacy requirement. Last I checked you lot weren't too fierce on books down in your puddles."
From where they stood Aaron couldn’t hear what the girls were saying but the conflict seemed to have been resolved. He unclenched his fist he hadn’t realized was pressed tight and followed after Nelle, looking for a couple of empty seats for them to watch the ceremony that should start at any moment.
“I don’t think they’ll ever forgive me. Father, at least.” The corner of his lips curled up, even though there was some sadness in his voice. It wasn’t like he expected things to ever change in his family, not after what he did. Some things could never be fixed. “How are your folks doing?”
Aaron pulled out a chair for Nelle in a row that was practically empty, with the exception of the boy in a cape he’d noticed earlier a few seats away. He seemed to have made a friend already.
"You owe me nothing," The Erlprinz replied, absorbing himself in his sketches once more as he resumed his initial sketch of the auditorium. "And I wish for nothing owed. Keep it. It's yours, go on. Do whatever you'd like. It's all the same to me." His tone carried a bit of a dismissive haste to it, though the words themselves were well-meant; truthfully, it seemed as if he hadn't thought much of the gesture at all, despite the girl's profound reaction to the gift. He'd seen his father's subjects react in a similar manner whenever he bore wealth and appearances to his people. A simple deed to them was an act of kindness to another. The Erlprinz would not deny her that much. "I wouldn't show it around, though. I've heard manflesh is a delicacy amongst the carnivorous."
Many of these students were queer folk indeed with the idiosyncracies they each presented. Between the Kelpie and the girl with the mouse and their absurd exchange, the student over his shoulder that loved his paper, and the-- borderline nosy student that seemed to creep closer and closer with their own companion, there was certainly a wide variety of queer folk. The Erlprince offered a stare over to the same boy who'd looked at him earlier; then, his hand began to move, idly sketching the features of the pair that'd moved to sit nearby. They were hardly the focus of the piece, but he supposed they deserved to be moved into the foreground, now, if they were so insistent upon it. Eventually, his gaze passed over the pair, looking on to his peers that lay beyond the scope of his small bubble. The kelpie and what appeared to be her friend had moved onto another student, and his deft ears picked up what appeared to be the beginnings of yet another instigation.
For all their sakes, the Erlprinz hoped that the faculty would do its damned job soon enough.
...still no answer. It was going to be one of those days, then. Tentatively, Eden reached out to tap the shoulder of the student blocking her way, and watched the tip of her finger sink into the boy's shoulder. She retracted it - quickly. Of course they couldn't hear her. They couldn't see her, couldn't touch her, they were completely unaware of her presence. All of her anxieties about the first day of classes - waking up on time, ironing her uniform, finding familiar faces in the great hall - had manifested with some part of her mind deciding that she would be hiding out in aether today. She sighed and stepped forward, walking right through the student who stood in front of her. He would feel a sudden coolness, perhaps enough to make him shiver. But he saw nothing.
Eden continued on, pushing through one student and then another, little more than an ethereal breeze as she searched for a familiar face among the crowd. There were always a handful of students who could see through the veil of the dead and the living, and they might catch a glimpse of her long, white, hair as she moved through the crowd. But to most, she was invisible. Finally, she spotted a small gathering near the edge of the room. Nelle, Aaron, and Ellie - another figure that most of the other students weren't able to see, but a welcome sight for Eden. She drifted over, occupying a space near one of the open seats. "Hi Ellie, have a good summer?"
There was happiness in her voice, but also something else. A sort of embarrassed resignation at the fact that this was how the school year was starting off. "Could you say hi to Nelle for me? I...think I'm stuck here for a bit," she explained. It wasn't an uncommon occurrence, and the twins were familiar with her occasional inability to return to the land of the living. Eden could count on Ellie to pass the greeting on to Nelle, who would hopefully pass it on to Aaron. Like a supernatural game of telephone.
Suddenly this was making a lot more sense. It really was just like middle school, after all. Well, middle school plus elementary school plus high school, but in terms of the whole mean girls contingent, this was just like middle school. Cailet had been hoping it would be different, with everyone here being... well, different, but she guessed human nature was just like that everywhere. Even when the people weren't human.
Sometimes, the best thing to say was nothing at all, so Cailet eyed the two girls as they started to walk away with a frosty sort of courtesy. Maybe it would have been best to leave it like that and not engage, but passive-aggressive midwestern politeness had been a part of Cailet's life as long as she could remember. "All right. I'll see you around. Good luck in classes. Let me know when they teach you what a mouse is."
After all, if the girl didn't know the difference between a mouse and a rat, she probably needed to be in school more than Cailet did. Algernon seemed less than satisfied with the exchange, such as it was. She reached up a hand, pulling him off of her shoulder and holding him in her lap instead, petting the soft fur on his back. "No, you still can't eat her. It's against the school rules."
It was. Cailet had read them quite thoroughly. She smiled a little bit, because she still had at least one friend. "Nothing in the rules about turning people into newts, though."
"That explains why you made such an arse of yourself."
She rolled her eyes. They weren't followed by the mousegirl, so she opted not to dwell on the subject any longer, despite hearing that final jab from across the room. It wasn't her problem. Hopefully Ainsley still had enough sense left in her to not turn around and bite back.
A third voice, spitting at them from behind, would give her enough of a bit to champ at as it was.
"Ah, dullahan." She frowned, "What hacksaw sewed your head back on? Made a right mess of it- all tongue, no brain."
Was she... offended? On Ainsley's behalf? Surely not- Aisling didn't care.
Ainsley gritted her teeth at the parting insult, but didn't bite back. It was easier to keep a level head with Aisling here. Besides, there'd be plenty of time to get back. All year to get back. Teach the little idjit a lesson.
A new voice butt into her head, pulling her out of thoughts of revenge. Ainsley blinked a few times, staring at the newcomer, taking a moment to put together what had been said - and then bearing her teeth in a snarl.
"Yea, yer heid was layin' in a ditch so long, yer brains turned to mash," she added on to Aisling's retort. "I can read perfectly fine. Read all the time. Feckin' love books, I do."
She squared her shoulders, ready to spat.
Yesterday, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn't there! He wasn't there again today, Oh how I wish he'd go away!
Post by xXxStitchesxXx on Dec 3, 2022 22:50:33 GMT
Nel took the seat next to Aaron. She noticed his eyes briefly darted toward the being a few seats down, and she herself couldn't help but stare. A boy in a cape stood talking to an average looking but not average feeling girl. Between the two of them, Nel felt her guard prickle up. The boy had tall horns that were impossible to miss, but something about the girl seemed… fake. She wouldn’t know until she got closer.
“Mom and dad are always weird about me talking to Ellie. They don’t like it. That hasn’t changed either.” As Nel turned back to face Aaron, Ellie drifted back over from whatever window she’d been reflecting off, settling into a seat. As she did, another ghostly girl came over and she grinned to see it was Eden.
“Eden! Oh, summer was… It was something. Mum and Dad are doing that thing where they won’t look at me in her reflections.” She paused to let Eden finish talking before smiling brightly. “Oh, she knows you’re here already, she can hear me. But I’ll tell her anyway.”
Ellie turned to Nel, tapping her shoulder. The two made eye contact, “Nel, Eden says hello!”
“Well, tell Eden I said hello as well. I’m assuming she’s stuck over on that side with you. Keep her company.” Nel smiled softly, her eyes glinting as she looked at the ethereal form of her sister.
“Of course I will!” Ellie turned back to Eden, smiling. “See, everything is good. You might be stuck here, but I’m here too! I missed you over the summer. Sometimes it gets lonely with just my sister around. She’ll never say it, but she misses you too.”
And to those Gods I will speak bluntly, We have an accord if you ever touch or harm him Please rest assured, you may not fear a man, But by the end to a woman, you'll kneel and plead Because I'm more than my mom taught me to be.