For years Ennui University has served as a prestigious establishment to train and monitor Gifted youth for their future careers. But sinister histories lurk behind the tailored training and education of Ennui's students, and outside forces, with their own radical agendas, seek to harness the fantastic powers of the Gifteds within. When all is said and done, who is worthy of your trust and will you being willing to lay down your future, your life, for their cause?
03.11.2014 -- Welcome, welcome, welcome! After working out all of the kinks, we are proud to announce that Ennui Uni is officially open! Please feel free to have a good look around and have a chitchat on the chatbox if you have any queries, we promise we don't bite! - teeth & kit
Post by fool blevins on Nov 14, 2014 9:18:46 GMT 9.5
just give me starlight
in the cards
Fool loved the hustle and bustle of the Academy, loved sitting outside on campus with a blanket strewn on the grass, the scent of the neighboring woods in his nose. He would watch people argue and watch them kiss and watch them tease and flirt and dance, watched them be happy and sad, jittery and relaxed, and he drank it all in like he would never get enough. But today he wanted a change of pace, a new atmosphere where he could enjoy an okay cup of coffee and offer up answers to those who dared to ask the right questions.
His chapped hands tenderly cupped a wide-rimmed black coffee mug; his deck of cards sat to the right of his elbow. People would sometimes come into the Radish and look for him specifically so he spent a lot of his time watching the door, pleased when he would see eyes searching for someone and then lighten when they spotted him. Then they would usually say something along the lines of what the girl in front of him was currently saying: “Gosh, I’ve been here every day this week. You should really come on a fixed schedule.”
And he would explain, “That’s not how it works.” So she just shrugged it off and huffed as she sat down. Her cheeks were stained red and she had her shoulders hunched in as her body fought to drag some warmth from the air and soak into her gooseflesh-covered skin. “What would you like to know, dear?” he asked and set his coffee mug down, already missing the warmth that it spread through his otherwise cold fingers. Damn his anemia.
She took her cute knitted hat off of her head and shook out some straw colored hair. They framed her chipmunk cheeks and dimples popped up on the corners of her mouth when she smiled shyly. “A—a love reading, if you can do that,” she said. Ah, well these readings tended to be the most popular, along with questions encompassing fame and fortune. He smiled back at her and nodded his head, gingerly lifting his cards up off of the table. He shuffled them slowly, let his fingers linger over them like a caress, and the girl stared transfixed, blinking when she swore she could see the circular wispy patterns on the back moving like smoke.
“This card is what you want and this one underneath it is what you need.The last card will be your outcome.” He set the rest of the deck to the side and held his finger poised over the first card. She looked up from the cards to him and he said, “Now remember, this is only the path you’re on right now. The cards guide and the future is never set in stone.” The energy the cards gave off wavered under Fool’s fingers and his eyes flickered, field of vision now taking in the light purple aura of the cards as they strained to wrap themselves in Fool’s own gray and silver.
The first card depicted two water nymphs held in a loose embrace, looking down into each other’s eyes as they held one up between the two of them. The other was woven over with the roots of one of the nymphs; a small, beating heart hung over the two nymphs and caused ripples to span out on the watercolor card. The nymphs swayed and didn’t look as Fool placed his pointer finger on the edges of the card, causing more ripples to wash over the edges. “The cup here,” he said and pointed towards the cup the two of them grasped together, “signifies commitment in a relationship. But the cup in her tail tells me that this is an old relationship being renewed.” He flipped the next card and a larger heart encompassed most of it; blood dripped from six different points where three rapiers had punctured it from the top. The girl released a sharp intake of breath and Fool shook his head. “This card is what you want, remember? It signifies acceptance, overcoming a grief or struggle to find healing.”
She nodded slowly and Fool turned over the last card. More aqua colors swirled on the small canvas and Fool’s smile widened, delight dancing in his glowing blue eyes. The three mermaids swam around a bubble, dipping their cups in as soon as they poured out, as the card was upside down. “This particular one typically means the celebrations of friendships and family, but since it’s reversed, it’s telling me that a friendship will soon flourish and turn into a romance. They see a very positive future for you, my dear,” he said. The girl was smiling and her chubby cheeks might have been red from the lingering cold or red from her blushing, but she thanked him kindly and scooted out of her seat.
“A fine future indeed,” he said, scooping the cards up and shuffling them back into his deck.
Post by Rose Pekkanen on Nov 15, 2014 2:18:05 GMT 9.5
◤
◥
there's a certain degree
"of not ever giving a fuck"
Rose was spitting rain by the time she got to the cafe. It had been a cold drizzle when she had left the university grounds but now the sky was making its disapproval known--right on Rose's head. She spluttered as she pushed the glass door open and walked into the Radish. A few cursory motions were made to wring out her hair (a nearby patron made a disgusted noise at this) but it quickly became apparent that Rose's mass of ginger curls didn't feel like cooperating.
She headed to the counter and stared up at the board. There were some cute drawings of dancing beverages, but the rest was an unintelligible mass of small markings. "I'll 'ave...whateva' that is," Rose said after a long moment, letting the words flow out in her lazy Fastalucan street drawl. She pointed to a nearby table where a dark-haired boy sat, eyeing his coffee cup warily. "But plain. Don't put anything strange in there, if you please."
The barista offered Rose a glaringly bright smile as she rang up Rose's order. "Of course, of course! Anything else? No? Alright, that'll be..."
"...ma'am?"
"Oh, yeah, here." Rose's mouth twitched as she handed over a few coins, some of the few that she had scrounged from around the university. She had more of it here, and food and clothes and shelter to boot, but spending it on useless luxuries still felt wrong.
"Your coffee will be ready in a sec; you can wait over there."
Rose nodded and moved, leaning against the counter and trying again--unsuccessfully--to dry her hair. Small ice-cold fingers of water trailed down her spine and she shifted uncomfortably against the counter's edge. If there was anything she felt strongly about, it was feeling damp. But as she was about wipe the back of her neck, a steady light came from the table she'd pointed at. The guy was talking to a girl now and his eyes glowed like two stars against his pale skin.
Rose watched as he played with some cards, speaking easy fortunes to the girl. The girl drank it all in, eyes shining as the boy delivered a happy fortune.
"Huh," Rose murmured, crossing her arms and looking closer at the guy. He looked familiar--she could almost place his face, but the name escaped her. His last name sounded terrible, though--she remembered at least that. And he was rich, which made her grimace a little.
Someone tapped her shoulder and Rose turned, accepting her coffee from the barista. She breathed in earthy scent and then turned back to watch the stranger. The girl was gone, presumably off to chase her destiny, and Rose figured that now was her chance.
"I've seen you 'round before," Rose said quietly, slipping into the chair across him. "But I gotta ask--how does this work?" She tapped a finger just shy of the deck, careful not to touch them. She'd only known one other empath back in Fastaluc--an old woman named Momma Rees--who had skill enough to make the cards sparkle and light up, but Momma Rees was as wrong as often as she was right. It had stopped being impressive after you got turned down by a boy three times in a row.
She curled her hands around her mug of coffee, feeling the pads of her fingers grow tender as they pressed against hot ceramic. "I dunno what I want you to read in my cards, though,"
Post by fool blevins on Nov 15, 2014 5:19:17 GMT 9.5
just give me starlight
in the cards
Fool was naturally in tune with the aura in the world around him—he didn’t have to see it to be able to sense it. So even though his eyes weren’t doing their pretty little glowing, he could still feel the expanded auras of the people around him. Most other peoples auras were relaxed and stretched languidly from their bodies, mingling with other people’s without even realizing it. The rare few who shared some knowledge on chakras had trained theirs to stick tightly to their bodies, wary of potential prying eyes. But Fool marveled at the typical obliviousness and would stretch out his aura’s fingers to drink in flitting emotions and slight sensations. It relaxed him.
But when he was reading the cards, his aura was pulled inside of him; some of it would connect with the other person’s, but he would never dare grasp at it or move it around again. Aura couldn’t be taken from another person without damaging it. Of course, they still recovered, as humans are quite resilient, even with processes they don’t exactly know about. Corr had kept him updated on Fool’s friend, had told him he bounced back within a few days and although he was a little bit off for a while, eventually he went back to normal. He missed Corr more than anything. The Academy brought him a lot of joy, but he missed divination sessions with Corr and he missed going out to expensive restaurants with his fathers and he missed sitting outside on their terrace by their fire pit with a book in his hands.
The girl’s aura untangled itself from his and then he felt something odd, like something slimy was rubbing up against him. These auras always gave him a chill. He looked in the general direction of its beholder and poked around with his mind to pinpoint who it belonged to. There. She was turned and talking to the barista. The coffee she’d ordered was placed into her hands and then her ice cold eyes were staring directly at Fool. “I’ve seen you ‘round before, but I gotta ask—how does it work?” He looked at her warily as she sat down across from him, but he didn’t probe at all; her aura was overbearing, but it had a sort of…vacancy to it.
She reached out for the deck, but stopped a finger-length short and tapped the table instead. Fool cocked his head to the side as she continued to talk, absentmindedly shuffling his deck as she did. “I’ll do a simple five card reading for you. We don’t have to look for anything in general—the cards can decide what they want to tell you,” he said. Well, obviously she wanted a reading regardless of what he said. The purpose was murky, but that was fine.
Auras soaked into the world around him, a swaying overlay of watercolors that wavered over different forms. Rose’s aura looked like pinkish flesh smattered with moving droplets that resembled blood. Fool didn’t want to grasp it and his reluctance was visible both in his shuddering aura and in his drawn brows. But curiosity eventually got the better of him and he reached out for her, shuddering when that gaping nothing touched him. Cards slipped through his fingers and the smoky backs of them were racing. Five cards were drawn and arrayed in a circle.
“Your past is riddled with fallacies, as if something has been missing,” he said, surveying the entire piece as a whole, which didn’t exactly surprise him, but the reading was a jumbled mix centering on a concept he couldn’t put a name to. He knew it had something to do with her strange aura and it took most of his willpower not to poke around through the thin veil and see if the aura would offer anything to his. “There was a darkness that has rotted relationships,” he said, pointing to a hooved creature clutching a still heart in his hands. The Devil leered up at them, malice glittering in its ruby eyes. The deck’s aura was darkening. “He’s placed next to the four of pentacles; material possessions have more worth than the emotions of others and the Death card,” he said, pointing to a haggard skeletal figure hunched over itself as silhouettes of magnificent beasts loomed in the background. “Signifies a need to change.”
His fingers brushed lovingly over the Fool. She was a magnificent woman standing in a silken, flowing dress while white songbirds gently wrapped her in red ribbons. She stood at the top of an ornate pedestal, poised as if she were about to take a step into the oblivion. “And there is the start of a new beginning coming, a rebirth so to speak. The Devil stands next to him,” he said, shifting one finger over back to the first card in the set at the top of the circle. “So there will be a struggle of letting go; the Fool has been known to wander recklessly at the start of his journey.”
Rarely did Fool ever draw his card for anyone else because of the deck’s knowledge of its association to him. He let the cards sit on the table for a moment longer, but the aura around them churned anxiously so he shuffled them back in the deck and mentally withdrew from Rose. His eyes dulled again and his smile brightened. “So I’ve seen you around the Academy. You’re an earth elemental, right?”
Post by Rose Pekkanen on Nov 15, 2014 7:32:15 GMT 9.5
◤
◥
there's a certain degree
"of not ever giving a fuck"
Rose watched with quiet interest as he shuffled the cards. They were thick and painted with the most delicate colours. She was reminded of a watercolour, something she had seen for the first time a day ago. Suddenly she wanted to run her fingers over them and feel the smooth edges, obviously much-loved by their owner. There was something about worldly possessions that appealed to her. The idea of owning something wholly yours was one that Rose hadn't put much stock in her entire life--things were so often stolen when you are poor--but now, in this treasure hoard of a university, she felt that she could own something without the trepidation of loss.
And as he studied her she studied his cards, his hands, making eye contact only when she was sure he had had his fill. He looked terribly discomfited and she smiled her classic vacant smile. "I'm terrible sorry 'bout my aura; plenty of people don't like the look of it awful much."
She looked down and drew her shoulders up, palms still flat on the table in front of her, blunt fingers reaching for the cards until she thought she could feel the magic seep between them.
"They don't seem t' like me much either," she said. "Makin' their meaning awful clear."
Lips drew to the side as she saw fire-smoke curl around the cards. There wass a shiver in the pit of her stomach, the faintest memory of burning and smoking skin, smoking guns, but Rose pushed it down carefully. She cut it into a neat little package and tied a pink bow around it and swallowed it with the ease of practice.
“Your past is riddled with fallacies, as if something has been missing. There was a darkness that has rotted relationships,
"Heh," Rose said, bottom lip sliding sideways into the grip of her teeth. "Your cards have eyes." She eyed the rest of the cards, eyes straying to the devil. The heart was like a bloom against the field of grey and she could almost feeling it pulsing. The magic was strong now and even if she lacked empath abilities, the magnetic field between the two of them was difficult to ignore.
Rose's hand slipped into her pocket as he finished the reading. Fingers curled around a smooth river stone and polished it gently.
"Wanderin', you say," she murmured, directing lidded eyes in his "So I'm a wanderin' fool, startin' again in some reckless manner. But I'm holdin' myself back?"
She leaned back in her chair, pulling out her stone and flipping it across her fingers, comforted by the feeling of earth and stone in her presence, brushing across her skin.
"Well that's just bully. Thanks for the readin'." She didn't let show that it unsettled her, that this boy had pinpointed a quiet expectation that she hadn't listened to once in her life. The voice that said caring wasn't so awful. Until she did. And she was failed, yet again.
But was she supposed to be surprised? She supposed not--he knew his trade, better than any Momma Rees ever could.
"Yeah, I'm rooted," Rose said, smiling again. More genuine, but still sparse of anything emotional or otherwise. "But I ha'n't any affinity for the green and growin' things. How 'bout you? Ever look int' the past or are you blinkered?"
Post by fool blevins on Nov 17, 2014 4:05:37 GMT 9.5
just give me starlight
in the cards
Fool was surprised and embarrassed that she knew enough about aura to realize he was discomforted by hers. He felt equally as bad when she remarked on people not liking her much. There was certainly something inside her—or possibly lack thereof—that put her off from other people, but she was a person nonetheless, making their way through life just as Fool was, and he wouldn’t turn her away now, especially after the Fool card had decided to make an appearance.
Throughout the reading, he could get a sense of her emotions, but there was something odd about them. Like they were there, but not there, detached from her aura. It was interesting and Fool was only growing more curious. Her growing interest in his cards was making him anxious; no doubt that’s why they were fretting on the table, too. So he tucked them into the pocket of his jacket and zipped the pocket up. It wasn’t an obvious move that he was keeping them away from her, especially since he was more keen on continuing the conversation anyway.
“I’m Fool the Fool, but not a fool,” he said with a lopsided smile. “And you’re Rose the struggling wanderer, but by no means a fool.” When she thanked him for the reading, he dipped his head and tucked the topic neatly away. Being a pather, Fool didn’t know the specifics of elemental powers, but he was popular enough and well-versed in unconventional studies that he knew two elementals of the same type could differ extremely. So she could manipulate rocks and churn the earth, but she couldn’t make the flowers grow. Destructive. He was liking the girl more and more by the minute; maybe she would get him somewhere on his path through the cards.
“My past is of little consequence to me or my future,” he said with a wave of his hand. “I use aura for the cards only,” he said, paused and then added, “sort of.” His fey grin fell into pursed lips and he said, “Ennui tried to force me into using my powers offensively. They don’t seem to understand what the term pacifist means.” He shrugged and took another sip of his coffee—the shot of hazelnut was doing his taste buds wonders even though the coffee was just lukewarm now.
He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. “I like the rain,” he said. The drip drap of it against the window panes sounded lovely with the low chatter of the atmosphere, the sound of coffee beans being ground and orders being rung up. He liked it better than the coffee shop near the Transit with its rumbling train tracks and crappy coffee (although they had the best sandwiches).
Rose Pekkanen xxx. muse. fool is a simple person who likes rain, ok?
Post by Rose Pekkanen on Nov 17, 2014 4:57:28 GMT 9.5
◤
◥
there's a certain degree
"of not ever giving a fuck"
She actually laughed when he finished speaking. It wasn't the laughter that came from the belly, but it was as close as Rose could ever get to the real thing.
"Oi, what did they think you was gonna do anyhow? Give 'em readin's 'bout how they're gonna lose their keys if they give you hell? 'less you got more up your sleeve 'an I saw."
Rose shook her head and leaned back in the chair. It was a shame that he'd moved the cards--she could look at them forever--but leastways he wasn't doing the typical interrogation folk seemed to think was appropriate when they met strangers. It went so quickly from "what's your name and Gift?" to "so what was the insignificant detail about your past that you never actually told me?" Rose grunted and stretched, arms up and behind her head, back cracking against the stiff wooden chair.
"'Course, it's always a crack thing t' know how t' defend yourself, huh? Dunno if soft folk like you are ever gonna need that, though."
This was the interesting thing about him, though. Besides the accent, of course. Rose had seen rich students around the campus multiple times while exploring. They were so easy to spot with their starched clothes and rolling gaits, and by the ease that they pulled out their wallets and said "I'll buy it for you, no worries." The university was a strange alien environment where people are all classes were thrown together and Rose would be damned if she didn't get to know what the wealthy were all about. Now that she wouldn't be spit on, of course.
She grabbed her mug while he spoke. It swirled gently in the mug as she lifted it to her lips and breathed in the scent of bitter dregs. Since her stomach was turning in anticipation, it was easy enough to say that this beat the coffee subs you found in the poor sectors of Fastaluc.
Those with means argued whether or not their coffee was drip or not. She just wondered whether her "coffee" was actually boiled trash or not.
As it turned out, this coffee was the nearest thing to turn Rose into a believer. It was silk-smooth as she savoured the taste, holding it in her mouth until her taste buds were about to implode from the sensations. She almost missed Fool's words in her internal ecstasy.
"Heh. Always found rain to be useless. Rocks ha'n't any time for ee-roh-shun," Rose said, drawing out the last word carefully. She'd learned it in a lesson recently about something or the other geopoly or geogaffy or whatever it was.
"Ee-roh-shun an' curly 'air that has a helluva time gettin' wet," she added.
As the gangly young man huddled under the overhang of a vacant building, he could only think of one thing. Not anything useful (such was his luck) or even something to distract him to pass the time; just the biblical "...The heavens are open..." on an endless loop that synced all too well with his steadily increasing anxiety. Clyde wasn't a religious being, but he was well read. He'd memorized the lists of tiring, trailing novels, educational, and religious texts he'd gulped down with his red tea that'd been drowned in cold, creamy milk on the rainy days of his childhood-- back before he'd been outed all too unfortunately "outed" by his own oblivious body. But, of course, none of this would provide him the escape he needed from the incessant downpour.
And the only text he'd managed to drag along with him was a ragged, semi-ancient lug of a thing that looked like it was on the brink of crumbling to dust every time he turned a page. A reference book he'd checked out of Ennui's library, hoping to use it in the quiet comfort of his apartment. Even with the book's size, he'd been making quick progress from campus until the rain had started.
If Clyde had possessed a self-examining sense of humor, he might have found his intense, visceral amusing-- the groups of his passing peers did. His wide eyed realization once the second rain drop struck the back of his glamour's neck. His stifled cry of surprise as he scanned the streets, frantically hoping to find a sheltered area to run to. (He'd chosen the overhang out of pure convenience and its closeness to his own shuddering body). And then of course his long legged, instantly winded sprint into the semi-dry area.
Once he'd evened out the terror to something muffled by the rain, Clyde had found himself mostly stranded and mostly seething at himself for the incompetence of his instincts and partly at the clusters of people who found his plight hilarious. Of course bitterness would do nothing for him and the changeling set about trying calm down the urges in his brain to site biblical texts enough to figure out how he could sprint across the gap between his "haven" and the local coffee shop without getting wet.
Through the business' large front window, Clyde could see an assortment of students and townsfolk nestled into the comfortable upholstery, sipping steaming beverages and chatting happily.
He hated them all.
The blond shrugged his left shoulder, trying to wiggling his satchel into a more comfortable position on the shoulder of his glamour. The heavy reference book was wearing on him and the water would do little to reinforce his "outer" appearance's strength. A gulp. He peered up at the muddled grey of the sky, hating that too-- though, not as much as the patrons of "Raddish". Then, for a moment, the rain began to slow. Not with the permanence of an approaching end, but with the sleepiness of an oncoming lull.
He took a deep breath, the stink of the water making him feel sick. Another notch lower down from downpour. Clyde could feel his body, his real one tensing as he prepared for the charge. The drizzle became drips and that's when he ran; eyes clamped tightly shut so that he didn't see the red sea splits and splashes he kicked up from the newly formed puddles. He could feel the water and cold on his glamour but it hadn't touched him yet--
Then, with a bang, the lanky blond burst through the front door of the coffee shop just as the rain picked up at full force. Panting, the boy glanced around, finding the prying eyes of the establishment on him.
"S-sorry," he managed, still out of breath, "Just, uh..." he mumbled something unintelligible and then ducked his head, making a beeline for the barrista, "Do you guys do warm milk?"
He was almost pleading, eyes trained on the counter.
Post by fool blevins on Nov 18, 2014 5:07:01 GMT 9.5
just give me starlight
in the cards
Her remark about his powers had made him chuckle. There was more to Fool’s abilities than he let on, well, more opportunity than he let on. Like Fool explained to Rose, he was a pacifist so honing his other skills and exploring routes of destruction didn’t appeal to him. Messing around with people’s auras was dirty work and he would have none of it, despite the Ennui officials who were starting to get more relentless with their “asking.” “So I’m soft, huh?” he said and accepted it because he couldn’t prove otherwise. He wore his lavish life well and wouldn’t wish for anything else in the world; he had two loving fathers and more money than he knew what to do with. Someone had once attempted to pay him for a reading and he was so shocked, he nearly doubled over laughing. Needless to say, they weren’t exactly happy about that, offering their well-earned money to this boy in his fancy clothes and three hundred coin haircut. Fool never meant to come off as arrogant, but there were, regrettably, times when he didn’t know what to say or how to act without offending someone.
“I’m sure a little rain can’t hurt here or there,” he said, gaze sliding past her to look out the window. The rain sure was coming down now, making the outside world look like a mirage. It must have been freezing out there. Fool had seen his breath when he was walking down the street this morning. Something was moving around across the street out there, just a blur against the pelting rain as it bounced off of anything it touched. Fool thought nothing of it (except for the fact that whoever was out there must have been crazy) and turned his attention back to Rose.
“That curly hair of yours makes you look like a wild child,” he commented admirably. He reached out to pinch one of the locks in his fingers and give it a slight tug, saying, “Cute,” while he did.
He jumped when the door of the Radish banged open, as did nearly every other patron in the store. Drawing back in his seat as his aura moved to encompass the newcomer, he looked over to see a young man, probably Fool’s age, standing in the door looking drenched to the bone. Fool blinked. He felt bad for the poor fellow, but it was his own fault for making such a spectacle of an entrance. The pather tilted his head to the side as he probed the new honey-sweet aura. “Do you recall ever seeing him around campus? I’m sure he’s not a pather,” Fool said to Rose.
Post by Rose Pekkanen on Nov 19, 2014 3:25:04 GMT 9.5
◤
◥
there's a certain degree
"of not ever giving a fuck"
“That curly hair of yours makes you look like a wild child,”
Rose eyed him. Comments about her hair were usually followed by an outstretched hand and twitching fingers. Which--yeah, no change with this one. But there was only so much she could do, hands occupied by an empty cup and body trapped by her chair. Calves and feet knocked awkwardly against wood as her body automatically tried to back off. It was a small movement, but the lines of her body drew a startled hart, wide-eyed rabbit, hands quivering and itching with the desire to run.
Touch. Physical touch. The sensation of someone else's hands on her body, unbidden, made her want to bite and gnash and thrash her way to freedom. Only a shred of human decency kept the beast in the pit of her belly from fleeing.
And as if the world was moving through molasses, time slowed down and she saw Fool's hand approach out of the corner of her eye and though she didn't see it, she could feel the pinpricks of pain on her scalp as his hand tugged one curl down and then let it bounce. There was a buzzing along the line of her cheek, as though the ghost of his hand was caressing her skin.
"In some places it's awful rude to go about touchin' folks hair and the like," Rose said after a moment of quiet struggle. She stared at him and any enjoyment from their conversation was long gone. She could tolerate an awful lot of bullshit, but the few lines she drew were meant to be gaping chasms and she had hoped that the threat of the abyss would keep them away.
Apparently not.
But fear wasn't something Rose knew how to put into words. The way her skin crawled, the way her spine cricked and creeped. Such things were only thoughts, ideas, that clamoured for all the words Rose lacked.
Her mouth was spreading in a grimace when suddenly the door banged and Rose felt her heart jerk against her spine. Startled twice in one day--it seemed like the stars were really in alignment for her.
With it came a rush of cold air that sent gooseflesh prickling along her arms. Rose allowed herself a deep, internal sigh before tuning in to listen to Fool.
"...him around campus? I’m sure he’s not a pather."
Rose eyed the newcomer. Tall, blonde, glasses. Also soaking wet. She shrugged.
"Folk look the same t' me," she said. "'til strange things start comin' outta them. But I don't spec'late much 'bout that."
"An' naw, I dunno him," she added, watching the blonde struggle to the counter. "But it sure seems like the world is overflowin' all a sudden with mannerless folks. I'm thinkin' I'm gonna need more of that coffee."
She got up slowly, pushing out the chair with infinite patience so that it moved silently across the polished floor. Coffee mug in hand, Rose side-stepped past another table and walked over to the counter, stopping just beside the stranger.
"It's rainin' an awful lot, huh? Aren't so keen 'bout it either, myself." Rose allowed herself a quick look-over the blonde. "Oi, an' you got right soaked out there, too. Poor sap. An'--yeah, one more of those coffees, please."
Clyde had been in the middle of explaining that, yes, warm milk meant just plain whole milk heated up until it was no longer cold when he felt someone behind him. The changeling was hardly adept in his true form, let alone with the burden of his glamour, but today the danger of the rain had promoted a hyper-awareness in his semi-sturdy outer-shell. By the intruder's proximity to him, Clyde assumed they were either going to engage him or the barista and he prayed to some cruel and unknown god that it was the latter.
"It's rainin' an awful lot, huh? Aren't so keen 'bout it either, myself."
The cruel and unknown god remained cruel, unknown, and unhelpful.
Clyde swallowed and looked to his right and saw the young woman who'd spoken. He was slightly thrown off by her accent; after years of teaching himself to not get disoriented by the odd inflections in regular humans voices, often times by keeping his headphones on and at a low volume, he hadn't been prepared for the stressed vowels and dropped consonants in this girl's voice. His hindsight voice, obnoxious and correct in its constant tardiness, reminded him to start practicing with less common dialects and dictions as soon as he had the opportunity.
His thoughts were interrupted as he felt the stranger's eyes on him. Was she waiting for a response or simply trying to get a quick assessment of him? A romantically inclined one? He felt beads of sweat forming on his hairline and his stomach dipped with the sudden burst of anxiety. This one person's gaze felt worse than the entire pool of patrons' had.
"Oi, an' you got right soaked out there, too. Poor sap. An'--yeah, one more of those coffees, please."
"Well, yes, generally someone in the rain does get soaked, which is unpleasant. Very unpleasant."
His voice was bristled, though not entirely hostile. Part of him was still trying to understand if there was anything, irony, sarcasm, mockery, hiding in that odd accent of hers.
"Here's your milk," the barista pushed the mug across the counter and Clyde fumbled for his wallet. Once the transaction had been complete, Clyde snatched the mug, neglecting the handle and wincing as his glamour suffered the blossom of pain, and turned around to find a vacant table.
The cruel and unknown emerged again to laugh: every last space had at least one resident. Swallowing, Clyde glanced down at the ceramic cup, the one still burning him, and saw that it had an artist's rendition of a cartoon fairy on one side. Curious, he spun the mug around to find a comic sans "WISHES REALLY DO COME TRUE" on the other.
He wanted to sink into a chair, but remembered his immediate problem. He wished he had his head phones on, then he could just snag whatever seat was closest and ignore the conversation or reaction from the other people at the table.
Post by fool blevins on Dec 5, 2014 4:11:18 GMT 9.5
just give me starlight
in the cards
Her aura had shuddered when Fool had reached out his hand to stroke her curls. He’d expected anger, malice even, but the way the fringes of her aura danced away from his fingertips as if he had some type of venom on him was a surprise. Fear lit up in the backs of those otherwise vacant eyes of hers and for a moment he felt bad, but mostly he was curious. Regardless, she recovered with the appearance of the loud newcomer and to Fool’s disappointment, didn’t even bother to try and recognize him.
“Folk look the same t’ me ‘til strange things start comin’ outta them. But I don’t spec’late much ‘bout that.” She was certainly an interesting one, but Fool’s attention had already shifted. He poked and probed around the boy’s aura and was puzzled when he found that it encompassed only a small portion of his body. His head tilted to the side, fingers started rapping methodically on the table; absorbed as he was, he didn’t even realize Rose had pushed herself from the table and walked back up to the counter. He straightened, gaze shifting between the stranger’s back and Rose as she asked for another cup of coffee.
His body posture showed he was obviously uncomfortable and Fool laughed airily. Rose certainly had a neat effect on people. Fool was itching to do a reading for the boy with his mug of milk. The barista had only been interested long enough to give him an odd look after handing him his request. Fool was close enough to the boy and Rose to hear their clipped speech and he certainly wasn’t hiding the fact that he was watching them.
Well, he had his mug and had looked around the room, but was still standing by the counter, making no inclination whatsoever to sit down. Fool looked around the rest of the shop. There were plenty of seats open, though the shop was bustling by now and every empty chair rested at a table with a body occupying the other side of it. People were coming in slowly to take shelter from the rain, but if the boy didn’t find a place to sit, he’d lose the opportunity.
So Fool, being Fool, leaned over in his seat and dragged an empty chair over to their table, changing it from a two-seater to a cozy place for three. The chair had scraped noisily against the ground, fully intentional of course, and he looked back up with his bright blue eyes, grinning widely at the blonde-haired boy.
Post by Rose Pekkanen on Dec 16, 2014 13:01:36 GMT 9.5
◤
◥
there's a certain degree
"of not ever giving a fuck"
She made him sweat. Quite literally, at that. She kept her tired gaze on him as she payed for her coffee and watched him fumble with his mug. Scared, she'd bet. Maybe just of her (she had that effect) or maybe it was people in general, the idea of society and being judged. Of being seen.
She could relate to that.
"Call me an' oddball but I bet my left pinky finger tha' half o' dozen water 'mentals would be keen to disagree wit' you."
Not really expecting an answer, Rose turned to grab her coffee. But when she looked back the beleaguered and bedraggled blond was still standing there, hand flinching around a mug of some awful looking hot milk. His problem, she told herself, shrugging and smiling unsympathetically as she walked past him, bee-lining for the bundle of joy that was Fool and his bad manners.
Just her luck then, that Fool would loudly and graciously make room for the stranger. Not just by offering him a seat, but also making a point out of ruining the cafe's floor and the eardrums of everyone within a two-metre radius.
"Y' like people," she said, staring at Fool as she slumped into her chair. "Lookin' fer strays, if I 'ad a say. An' fixin' to read 'is cards." There was compassion in Fool, but she suspected there was a selfish motive to this obnoxious display of kindness. Nothing about the blond had caught Rose's instinct, but she couldn't see auras, couldn't know people like the grinning idiot in front of her. And she'd be damned if she was going to miss a card reading of someone Fool deemed interesting.
After all, he'd picked her out too, shrivelled heart and all.
So if the blond sat down (which he likely would, the dubiously named Radish was apparently quite popular on rainy days) Rose would lean over the table and smile a tiny flat smile and say, "He'll see your soul, tha'un will. Uses 'is third eye, I 'spect, and them glimmering, glowing cards. Told what secrets I 'ad quick as you like. Heh."
[attr="class","lucystars"]The soggy events of the day had put Clyde in an understandably fowl mood but even these flaring irritations were surpassed by the over arching awkwardness he felt standing at the counter with the sea of faces in front of him. Most of him wanted to march back out of Radish and maybe find another canvas overhang to huddle under, but the other, perhaps less impulsively terrified, bits of his logic reminded him that the downpour was the reason he'd sheltered here in the first place. He swallowed. He could still feel the woman with the odd accent behind him; the space between her flesh and blood body and his less-than-sturdy glamor making his skin, his real one, prickle.[break][break]
He was on the verge of convincing himself that he best option was to make a beeline for an older couple who seemed the type to disregard anyone under fifty-six when there came a horrible grating sound from a across the room. Clyde first reaction, mentally, was to cower, but his second, physically, was to leap into the air with the sizzling manifestation of his own surprise; both reactions, mashed together in his jittery, eager fear, caused him to duck his head and clamp his glamour's milk-mugless hand over his glamour's ears while his feet, synchronized with his own tiny figure, sprung half a foot into the air. [break][break] Landing on his palm and panging knees, Clyde managed to glance up in time to see a dark haired young man dragging one of the heavy chairs closer to where he was sitting. Then he locked eyes with the changeling, inviting him to sit in the echoes of his cacophonous handiwork. His grin was wide.[break][break]
The glamour nearly faltered, the burn from what miraculously little hot milk he'd spilled during his episode sending a blistering, roiling sensation through Clyde's real body. But he did keep it steady- the illusion steadier than the changeling's nerves. Perhaps the cruel and unknown god had turned its eye from him for a second. After all, he'd gathered a few more stares and the woman had skirted around him and joined the dark haired man at the now three chaired table. It was too much and yet...[break][break]
Defeated, he righted himself and skulked, half-empty mug in double burned hand, over to the table he'd been "invited" to sit at. [break][break]
Circling the chair once and casting a chagrinned glance at both of the table's occupants, trying to figure out if they were playing some kind of churlish prank on him. Their expressions betrayed nothing, though, and with obvious hesitance he finally sat and set the fairy mug down. For a moment there was silence and Clyde felt something slimy turn in his gut and reached for his drink, trickling it into his glamour's mouth and lapping the substance as it fell. Halfway through his sip, the woman leaned towards him, [break][break]
"He'll see your soul, tha'un will. Uses 'is third eye, I 'spect, and them glimmering, glowing cards. Told what secrets I 'ad quick as you like. Heh."[break][break]
Post by fool blevins on Jan 5, 2015 6:06:32 GMT 9.5
just give me starlight
in the cards
The blond certainly didn’t look happy about the predicament Fool had placed him in, but it only made his wolfish grin widen further. His eyes kept flickering with light, blue eyes blazing and dulling over again as he tried to contain his excitement over the new aura. It was golden like honey with bits of mottled green swirling amidst it, but Fool was still more interested in how it seemed so powerful, yet it wasn’t large enough to encompass the blond’s entire body. He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles and laughed shortly when Rose spoke again.
“And here I was thinking you didn’t believe a word of what I’d said,” Fool said good-naturedly toward the girl.
He tilted his head to the side, hand darting toward his pocket and then withdrawing with his deck again. The watercolor swirled gently over the surface of the top card as if it were lovingly caressing Fool’s fingers. “I wouldn’t go as far to say I can see souls, but I can see you’re different.” He leaned forward towards the blond, his blue eyes glowing fiercely. “Why does your aura stop here, hm?” he said and held his hand out, tracing the wobbling yellow blur in the air over Clyde’s chest. He was tempted to at least brush his fingers against the boy’s shirt, but Rose’s earlier reaction had him feeling more controlled than usual; besides, he looked like he wanted to be touched as much as Rose had, which wasn’t much at all.
“The cards won’t tell me, but they’ll tell you what you need to know.” He shifted his weight to his side and propped his chin on the palm of his hand. “So what’ll it be?” he said, his lips still curved in a sly line.
Post by Rose Pekkanen on Jan 6, 2015 4:27:29 GMT 9.5
◤
◥
there's a certain degree
"of not ever giving a fuck"
Rose just laughed. "Hard t' go wrong, boy, tellin' a poor girl tha' she cares more 'bout things than people. I'll 'ave food in my belly 'fore a thievin' sister any day, Fool."
Not that she thought him dim. But he seemed to lack gravity, something that she felt was endemic among the wealthy. Everything was a grand joke, a rolling play that he could pull out of at any moment if he so wished. She, and the rest like her, had to pull themselves out with broken limbs and smashed fingers.
The reading hadn't told her any more than she knew, and the cynic inside of her was naturally suspect. Here she was, a stain of poverty on Ennui University's spotless campus; half of what had made her who she was was in plain sight for anyone to see.
And everyone needed a change. It wasn't just her. She knew that.
"'An I reckon y' already know tha' I'm curious."
Rose looked on keenly as Fool took out his cards, taking a moment to watch them quaver and dance across thick paper. As he spoke she turned her head, auburn curls bouncing as she watched on with interest as Fool's hand hovered, almost shivered, over the blond's chest.
She couldn't see auras, but she could guess. "Prolly didn' feed 'is soul 'nough veg when 'e was little," she said with a snort. But she fell back into silence after that, slumping back in her chair and watching the blond carefully. His reaction to his reading, she felt, would be fascinating.
NOTES: shit post but i dont think theres much for her to do atm, so heres her being a little shit ♥ TAGGED:Clyde Mannette, fool blevins
