Everything back to normal? Who: Davie, Harlan, and Elanna When: Anesus 5, 12:30 am Where: Starting in his room, but out and about
Once Davie had managed to get himself upstairs and to a decent meal, he decided the best thing to do with the rest of the day would be to sit in his room and hope the stairs returned to their place before the next day. He could live on one meal a day, and for now that's what he thought was easiest, but if he had to figure out new kinds of devices every time he had to get between his room and the kitchen, he was going to go nuts. As for the time he spent sitting in his room, it was mostly dedicated to flipping through the magic book he had borrowed from Cathryn and making small attempts at practice. He had told himself that he would stay awake until half past midnight so he would know what had happened, but around eleven or so, he was starting to change his mind. He hadn't gotten a decent night's sleep yet in this place, and that meant he was tired. He collapsed into bed at about half past eleven, deciding that the things that had happened so far hadn't been especially urgent, and whatever else was going to disappear tonight, he would find out in the morning.
Unfortunately, he was awakened just under an hour later by a very loud thunder clap that startled him so much he found himself sitting up in bed, looking confusedly around the room. It took him a moment to realize not only that the loud noise had been thunder and probably not some horrible thing happening to the castle, but that his room seemed unusually dark. He blinked a couple times, groggily working through what that meant. The holes in the walls were gone. Wait, gone? If the walls were back, did that mean the stairs were back, too? With a sudden wave of excitement, he got out of bed and wandered down the hallway to test that theory. And to see if anything else had happened other than what seemed to be a pretty bad storm going on outside.
Harlan had spent the entire past twenty-four hours stuck downstairs. He'd spent some time in the basement, after sunrise, and most of his time on the ground floor, but there was no way in the Center he'd ever have gotten up the rope to get to his bedroom. When the clock struck half-past that night, he didn't care about the storm-- it could rain and thunder and lightning all it wanted, for all he cared. All he looked for was the staircases.
Which, Winds be praised, were back. After a cursory look around to see if anything else had changed-- it didn't look like it, though that didn't really mean anything-- Harlan made his tired, relieved way from the main hall to the stairs. There was someone else at the foot of the stairs to the floor below, and he leaned over the banister to wave a bit, smiling faintly. He remembered that boy from Tayne's little get-together, though he had no idea what his name was anymore.
Once Davie got to the stairs, he realized he hadn't actually been planning to go anywhere. It was a relief to see that the stairs were there (and he stepped on the first one just to make sure it wasn't some kind of illusion), but then he just stopped and looked around. He didn't really have a reason to be awake aside from the thunder, so he thought maybe he would try to go back to bed. Of course, he hadn't yet discovered if anything else strange had happened, and that was going to bother him at this point.
Then he noticed someone waving to him from the top of the stairs, and jumped in surprise, landing with unusual grace at the bottom of the step he had previously been standing on, given how close he had been to losing his balance. Once able to direct his attention to the other person instead of his feet, he looked up the stairs. The boy was someone he had seen wandering around a couple of times, and he thought maybe he had heard what his name was, but whatever it was he couldn't think of it now. Of course, the way the other boy was waving suggested that maybe Davie seemed more familiar to him.
"Do I know you?" Davie questioned, stepping up onto the first step again. Maybe not the most polite greeting he could have chosen, but Davie wasn't exactly accustomed to polite.
"Ah." Harlan blinked behind his glasses. "No, not officially, though I've seen you around. I'm Harlan. I try to meet as many of the newcomers as possible, anyway." He'd even managed to greet and offer advice to most of the new humans this year, too, he'd... just missed this one, apparently. Damn. Maybe he'd been too wrapped up in having his sister here to manage the welcoming he'd managed to do the year before. "You okay? I didn't mean to startle you, there."
"Uh, yeah, I'm fine," Davie muttered, suddenly a bit embarrassed at his leap off the step a moment before. "Anyway, Harlan, was it?" He walked the rest of the way up the stairs and extended a hand. "I'm Davie. Nice to meet you." He hoped, at least. Given his prior experiences, he wasn't sure how many people he thought were actually nice to meet, but it was the normal thing to say if nothing else.
It wasn't too surprising that Harlan would have missed him, given Davie's tendency to keep to himself. Not too many people had managed to have much in the way of meaningful interaction with him as of yet, save Tayne and only because of the mandatory meeting, and Cathryn mostly thanks to the holes in the walls. Much as he was enjoying having people treat him like a normal human, he still wasn't used to having a bunch of friends or even friendly acquaintances and he figured the less people he really knew, the less people there were that would be likely to find out about his secret and spread it around.
Harlan's handshake was warm, if a bit on the weak end, but his smile usually made up for it. "Davie, it is nice to meet you." To him, anyway. He had a name to go with one of the other new faces, and an opportunity to offer whatever help and advice he could. "I'm third year here, or just starting my third, anyway. Are you finding everything here okay? Aside from the 'locked in and forced to deal with it' aspect of things, anyway." Some people dealt okay with that, some people... well, they didn't. Harlan liked to think he did okay.
Elanna, too, was in the hallway just after everything had gone back to normal. She had been planning to head outside to find an animal to feed on, but the thunder she was hearing now seemed to put a wrinkle in that plan. Unfortunately, that didn't stop her from being hungry, and she would either have to hope the livestock had been moved into the courtyard or she would have to ask someone. Probably best to check the courtyard first.
On her way there, though, she happened to run across two boys at the top of the stairs, which she noted with some relief were back to their original location. She recognized both first as sources of human blood, but shook her head and tried to push back that thought. Looking again, one of the figures was Harlan, and the other was one of the newcomers that she had seen at Tayne's meeting. He had seemed to be a little bit of a troublemaker from what she remembered, but he might have just been frustrated from having just arrived. Anyway, it seemed like she would get a chance for a second impression.
"Hello," she greeted both as she ascended the stairs. "Harlan," she addressed with a slight nod, then turned to the other boy. "And I'm afraid I don't know your name. I'm Elanna."
Davie forced back a cringe as a new person made her way into the conversation before he had a chance to respond to Harlan's inquiries. He wasn't terribly fond of crowds, and less so when the newest member of the group seemed to be a Vrykola. She seemed polite and everything, but what if she suddenly pounced on him and tried to drink his blood or something? Then again, he hadn't really seen anything like that happen yet, but you can never be too sure...
"Davie," he told her, forcing himself to ask at least somewhat naturally. He didn't extend a hand, partially because he didn't really want to touch her, and partially because she hadn't and he wasn't actually sure if Vrykolas did that. He gave her a nod, mirroring her gesture, and then returned to the previous topic of discussion.
"As for your question," he said to Harlan, "I'm fine. It's weird, but I think I'm getting used to it. It's better than home in some ways." The last part he said quietly, and regretted letting it slip as soon as it had left his mouth. He was probably going to have to clarify that statement now, wasn't he?
On the other end of the spectrum of reactions, Harlan broke into a bright, if tired, smile at the sight of Elanna. He put a hand briefly on her shoulder, not wanting to really be super-affectionate in front of a stranger, or anything. "Hi there, Elanna. Davie, Elanna's a friend of mine. She's a sweetheart."
Introductions taken care of, Harlan turned back to Davie's comment, and cocked his head curiously. "Didn't like where you came from, huh?" he said, a little sympathetically. He himself hadn't realized how suffocating it had been until he'd come here.
Even such a brief touch surprised Elanna a bit, not because it bothered her or because it was something unusual for Harlan, but because she still wasn't entirely used to it. The Vrykolas didn't exactly tend to be physically affectionate people. She smiled at his comment about her being a sweetheart, but chose not to reply. Davie's comment, too, had made her a bit curious, but she had a more important matter to worry about for the moment.
"Not to interrupt the conversation, but I was going to head to the courtyard to see if any of the animals had been brought in," she commented, then shifted her glance toward the floor. "I'm a bit hungry..." She was always meek admitting that around humans she didn't know very well, since she didn't know how they would react. She wouldn't take anyone's blood unless they were okay with it (or if she was very hungry and they were bleeding, in which case she still wouldn't on purpose but it was hard not to). In the case of Harlan, she knew he wouldn't freak out, and he would be happy to accommodate her if she needed it, but she would just rather not impose on him. He seemed plenty tired already without having some of his blood pulled out of him. "You can come with me to the courtyard, or," she paused giving an uncomfortable glance toward Davie, "I understand if you don't want to..." She would prefer company as always, and if the livestock had been brought in she wouldn't have any trouble finding something to feed upon, but she didn't want to bother them, either.
Davie nodded at Harlan's remark, deciding what to reply, if anything. After a brief moment of silence, he decided some sort of vague acknowledgement would be best.
"Yeah," he replied, "I just feel like I have a little more freedom here." He knew it sounded weird, given the explicit lack of freedom of being in this place, but it was true in a certain sense. Not being around people who automatically condemned him for what he considered not much of a reason was refreshing, to say the least. For however long that managed to last. "It's just kind of nice not being surrounded by people who already know me, you know?" He kicked himself again for that statement cutting a little too close to the whole truth, and hoped nobody would chose to question further. He was actually quite relieved when Elanna cut in with her request to go to the courtyard. Then he realized exactly what that request had meant and involuntarily took a step backward.
"Um, I guess," he sputtered, glancing at Harlan to see if he was going to follow. There wasn't really anything that obligated him to stick around, but as long as he was awake it was sort of nice to be meeting people. And while Elanna sort of freaked him about because she was a Vrykola (and a hungry one at that), she seemed nice enough so far, and he should probably learn to tolerate being around Vrykola to some extent. At least he wasn't being asked to be friends with a Lykos. He forced himself to regain composure and looked at Elanna again. "I guess as long as you're not going to try to eat my blood and I don't have to watch, I'm okay with going." He realized saying it like that was probably pretty rude, but he didn't quite care. He thought it was better to get the terms clarified in the beginning. He was willing to hang around with a Vrykola for now, but being food for one was a different story entirely.
"Believe me, I understand the extra freedom," Harlan said fervently. Maybe it wasn't the same kind of freedom-- he sincerely doubted Davie's parents and family and friends babied him because he got sick and short of breath all the time-- but he could still understand.
The question had him looking apologetic, and completely oblivious to Davie's discomfort. He was perfectly comfortable with Vrykolas, after all. "I can come to the doors with you, I suppose, but I can't go outside in that storm. I'll come in sick, and then--" Then his sister would kill him. Real mature-sounding. "Then I'll be useless for at least a week." Stupid horrible immune system.
Elanna smiled comfortingly at Harlan, not sure how to respond to Davie for the moment.
"I wouldn't ask you to come outside, anyway," she explained. She knew how bad it could be for him, and besides, she wouldn't drag people out into the rain just to keep her company for a couple minutes while she ate anyway. "I'd just like someone to walk with and talk to on the way, and after I eat." Having gotten some level of agreement from both of the boys, she took a a few steps toward the courtyard.
"And you don't need to worry, either," she told Davie over her shoulder. "I'll never take your blood unless you say it's okay, and like I said, I'm not planning on making anyone go out in the rain with me." The way he had responded to her had hurt her feelings a little bit, but not enough that it would bother her for long. Humans were often kind of scared when they first met her, and it was reassuring that he was at least making some effort toward getting over that instead of just running away from her or something.
Davie nodded at what Elanna said, and followed silently, nervously chewing on his bottom lip. She was nice enough-- he was starting to get some idea of what Harlan had meant when he said she was a sweetheart--and he believed her that she wasn't planning on somehow sneaking blood out of him, but well, the whole concept just kind of disturbed him. He decided it was probably better not to think about it too much.
"Have either of you noticed anything else weird about this building? The walls and the staircases came back, but I haven't found anything else wrong or missing yet," he pondered aloud, going back to the other subject that happened to be on his mind, and trying very hard not to think about blood and how much he didn't think it sounded like a good meal.
"Well," Harlan answered, after a grateful smile to Elanna and a weary but amiable start off in her wake, "there aren't always immediate signs of what went wrong. And it's barely past half-past now... maybe we'll find out later. Or maybe it's the storm-- sometimes it's hard to tell. But no, I haven't seen anything else out of place." Really, he'd been too focused on getting upstairs and getting to bed... but that was neither here nor there, and he refused to let Elanna feel guilty by mentioning his original goal. "You haven't seen anything, have you, Elanna?"
Elanna thought for a minute, trying to run through anything she had seen that might count as out of place. She hadn't really been thinking about it. For the period of time since something would have shifted, she had been mostly thinking about her stomach. She was grateful the stairs were back, but that was about it.
"I haven't noticed anything, sorry," she replied, pausing as she got to the doors of the courtyard. Peeking out, she noted with a smile the livestock had been brought in and were at least somewhat sheltered from the storm, meaning she could get a meal without begging someone for blood or getting completely soaked. "If you'll excuse me," she commented to her companions and quickly disappeared through the door.
Davie looked around as they walked, trying to notice if anything else was missing. So far all the walls and doors seemed to be intact. Of course, there was no guarantee that parts of the building being missing was always going to be the "challenge." He blinked a couple of times in response to Elanna's sudden disappearance when they reached the courtyard doors. He knew she was there for a reason and was going to go out into the courtyard, but that had seemed sort of hurried. He looked between the door and Harlan for a moment before posing the question on his mind.
"Does she usually disappear like that?" It wasn't actually weird, when he thought about it, just startlingly abrupt for what seemed to be such a mild-mannered girl.
"Disappear like-- oh." Harlan looked up from where he'd been looking after Elanna with a blink. "Well, she's probably hungry, if she's willing to go out into that for it." He shivered a little and rubbed at his arms, even from the brief gust of cold, wet air that had made it inside. "So getting out and away from us potential-food-type-people, and to the things she wants to actually feed from, is probably a priority." He cocked his head in the direction of the door with a wry grin, then, and added, "Besides, the quicker she disappears, the less time the door's open. It's damn cold out there." And really, it wasn't all that much better inside, but he was dealing.
Davie blinked a couple times at the comment about going out into the storm and getting away from human potential food. Somehow he had known all that, but it hadn't quite clicked. Much as he didn't like the idea of having his blood sucked out of him, it didn't quite seem fair for Elanna to have to go out in those circumstances. He frowned at the door a moment, wondering if that was how all the Vrykolas acted or if it was just Elanna. Actually, he was sure he had heard of Vrykolas feeding from humans in the compound, so it was probably her.
"Why doesn't she find a human?" Davie pondered aloud. Not that he really advocated eating human blood, but if the other Vrykolas did it, why would this one choose to wander out into this horrible weather?
"Probably because a lot of us are twitchy about being eaten," Harlan chuckled. "I'm less so than most of us, but I already fed somebody a couple days ago, and I really, really shouldn't be offering again for at least another week." Probably more like two. Or even three. He was not a healthy young man. And he was still cold, curse it. "And because she's... well, she's nice. Some Vrykolas stick with what they know-- pouncing people out in the dark. She doesn't do that."
The words sunk in on some level, but Davie's conscious mind got stuck on the bit where Harlan said he had fed a Vrykola a few days ago. He knew there were people around that were willing to do that, but somehow he hadn't quite guessed that he was talking to one. Probably because Elanna hadn't asked him about it. Of course, if they were friends, it might make sense that she would know he had just fed someone and he shouldn't again for a while. Or maybe he had fed her. Davie blinked a couple times, trying to process the information.
"You fed... Doesn't feeding a Vrykola hurt?" he asked, giving the other boy a somewhat perplexed look. He couldn't imagine having your blood eaten could be pleasant. Plus, he had been young at the time so maybe his memories were exaggerated, but he could say from experience that being bitten by a Lykos hurts a lot!
"Some, yes," Harlan nodded. "But they have a kind of magic they can do that numbs it, so all you really feel after the bite itself is just the draining part." And Harlan actually kind of liked it. Which, yeah, was a little embarrassing to say, but he didn't actually have to if he didn't want to. At least his sister wasn't ever going to know, that was for sure. "And then they can heal it up when they're done, too. Some of them are better than others." He uncurled his arms from around himself, pulled up both layers of sleeve, and showed off one of his bite scars. "They don't all scar, only the ones who aren't really very good at their magic."
Pulling his sleeve back down, he added, "It just takes a while before you can do it again-- you have to build up your blood again, you see."
"I...see..." Beyond that, Davie had no idea what to say. For a moment, he idly brought a hand to his shoulder, rubbing over his own scars though they weren't visable under his shirt. Then he stopped, realizing the action was probably a bit conspicuous. Even with healing magic, he doubted that being bitten and having your blood drained could be pleasant. And what if another one decided to just jump you and take your blood when you had already offered it to someone else not long before? Would it kill you? Or turn you into a Vrykola? Davie shuddered slightly, a clear look of disgust on his face.
It was about at that point that Elanna came back through the door. She was clearly a little damp, but not as soaked as one might expect given the weather. Thankfully she had been able to stay near the wall where the rain was mitigated by the overhanging second floor. Needless to say, she was still happy to get inside. Of course, the look on Davie's face when she came back in made her wonder what kind of conversation had gone on while she was out.
"Did I miss something?"
"I was just telling Davie about Vrykola feeding habits," Harlan said, casting her an apologetic look. Apparently it hadn't gone over very well, and now he felt a little bad, since Elanna was right there, and everything. He tried changing the subject a little. "Feel better? Did you manage not to get too soaked?" Looked like it, to him. If he had a coat to offer, he would have-- though she probably didn't need it. Silly Vrykolas and their liking the cold.
"Ah," was her first response. She wondered what Harlan had said about Vrykola feeding habits that had Davie looking quite so disturbed. Then again, Davie had seemed sort of disturbed by the concept in general, so it might not have been anything Harlan had said.
"Yes, I feel better," she added a moment later. "And the rain wasn't too bad if I stayed by the wall." She ran a hand through her hair in an attempt to remove some stray water droplets. The cold wasn't bothersome to her at all, but she wasn't so fond of being wet. At least she had managed to avoid getting soaked too badly. She cocked her head to the side and looked at Davie for a brief moment. She kind of wanted to say something to him, but she wasn't sure what to say. There really wasn't any good way to convince him that eating blood wasn't creepy, but she really wanted to change his mind about it. If it wasn't for her Sire, she wouldn't be alive right now, so it kind of hurt when people thought Vrykolas were bad in any way.
Davie noticed the look Elanna gave him, but wasn't sure what to make of it. She seemed sad somehow, but he couldn't think of anything to say. Instead, he opted to change the topic.
"So you think the storm is the challenge?" He turned his gaze toward the door as if to emphasize the point. It seemed a little odd for weather to be the challenge after the past ones had been missing walls and stairs, but he couldn't really complain.
Harlan reached over again to touch her shoulder, smiling in as reassuring a way as a shivering young man could. Then he answered Davie, looking back at him. "It's possible. After all, we're stuck inside now, for the most part. When it storms this badly, they lock the castle gates and don't let anyone out."
A clap of thunder, nearly deafening for those with enhanced hearing, shook the hall and seemed to punctuate his point. He smiled apologetically. "And, you know, there's that. A lot of the Lykos wind up with migraines when big lightning storms hit."
Davie shuddered as the clap of thunder resounded in the hallway. His hearing wasn't up to par with the Lykos, but it was a bit better than normal human hearing, and that certainly didn't help. He shook his head briefly, trying to clear his ears.
"I understand why they would," he muttered. Not that he particularly felt bad for them. If it wasn't for that one who had bitten him years ago, he probably wouldn't be as sensitive to the sound as he was. And frankly, there were a lot of times he wished his hearing wasn't as good, like now, or when he was at home and could make out some of the whispers people thought they were hiding from him. Really, the slightly advanced senses he had picked up were sometimes more of a problem than an advantage.
Elanna watched the conversation between Davie and Harlan silently, not sure what to say. The storm did seem a challenge in itself, especially for her when she had to eat. But she also noticed how tired Davie and Harlan both looked. Was it because the storm was loud or...
"I'm sorry, I've been keeping you up!" she interjected suddenly. In her hunger, she hadn't quite realized how late it was by human reckoning. They had probably both been about to go to bed when she had showed up, and she hadn't noticed because she was too concerned about her stomach. On the other hand, she had avoided biting either of them, so she supposed that was something.
Harlan was startled into a little laugh by Elanna's exclamation. "Elanna, sweetheart, you could never keep me someplace I want to be by my own volition. I was on my way to bed, yes, but I don't mind deviating a little for a friend." And really, he ought to get to bed now-- he needed warm blankets and the ability to relax, finally-- but he didn't want to be rude. Elanna was his friend, after all, and he was determined to make a good impression on poor Davie.
That didn't stop him, though, from just about swallowing his tongue in an involuntary yawn. "Winds. Sorry." He gave them both a sheepish look.
Davie raised an eyebrow at Harlan, who was apparently being too nice for his own good. He wanted to go to bed, too, of course, now that he had confirmed the stairs were back in place and the thunder wasn't something worse (though it was rather straining on the ears).
"I wasn't planning on staying up much longer, either," he commented, looking between Harlan and Elanna. Bed sounded like a rather appealing aspect, and really he couldn't be considered that rude since this was a time when a human should be asleep and he wasn't exactly friends with either of these two, anyway.
"It's okay," Elanna told both of them, flashing a warm smile. "If you need to sleep, then go to bed." She was sad to lose the company, but she didn't want either of them to get sick because they didn't get enough sleep. Particularly Harlan, who was prone to getting sick.
She was sure there would be someone else out and about, and as long as she wasn't completely alone, it was fine.