It's Not So Great To Stay Up Late Who: Paziter and Raven When: Anesus 3, 9:00 AM Where: Basement, Block 23-2 and Block 20-4
After nearly two hours of working on Harlan's inventions, Paziter was ready to call it a day. He was exhausted, both physically and mentally, so while he was raring to continue the problem of the automatic tooth-cleaner, he was also barely able to keep his eyes open.
He had had to shoo Harlan away in order to sleep. Now, head hitting his pillow, he gave a sigh of relief that his coat was blocking out the hall and that his neighbors were quiet (or absent, as the case might be). He would do very well for a few extra winks. For all that Harlan's blood had sustained him for a night and a bit, he didn't want to wear himself out too quickly. Even if Alarie had offered herself up for another meal, Paziter would prefer to save his strength!
He was, unfortunately, quite unaware that his neighbors would not remain quiet for long...
His neighbor, in fact, had spent so little time in her room that she'd never checked to so who surrounded her. It hadn't mattered till there were holes in the walls. Waking up in Avery's room, she'd sought out breakfast, gone for a run and a nice morning swim, then came back to check out what was going round the castle. Having grown up without true, solid walls, Raven's sense of privacy was slightly distorted from the rest. If she was in a tent and made a bit of noise, she was used to everyone around her hearing it. What was the big deal? A few extra windows weren't going to hurt anyone. It amused her to find that most of her castle-mates felt differently.
Padding back into her room, feet bare and hair still damp, Raven wasted no time in checking out the rounding rooms through the holes in the wall. On one side was a hall, which she found boring unless someone exciting was passing by. On the opposite wall was a bedroom, empty, and she took her time poking through it before crawling back into her own room. Moving to the wall behind her bed, Raven crawled through the hole on her hands and knees, lightly scraping one before she looked down upon Paziter. Raven grinned.
"Sleeping sweet, Pazzie?" she asked, then proceeded to pull herself the rest of the way through, regardless of the lack of invitation.
Paziter had been sleeping well, though now that was certainly not the case. If Raven's voice hadn't woken him, the fact that she was settling onto his bed was more than enough to throw the Vrykola out of sleep. He had been exhausted, which seemed to do something to help his twitchiness (or else he'd have probably been all but clinging to the vents in the roof and and hissing down at her!) but it did absolutely nothing for his manners, which were slow in coming now that he knew what Raven was all about.
The Vrykola had been startled by Raven's arrival, enough to unintentionally cede the bed to her as he squirmed out the other side, bleary-eyed, tripping over his trunk and coming to an unexpected thump! as he sat atop it. "Wha-- what are you doing in here?!" He asked, very well aware that he wasn't properly made up for any encounter, let alone one with someone he didn't like. Disheveled and rumply in his silken clothing and night cap, he was certainly a far cry from hosting company! "Get out!" Paziter felt (and looked) aghast to realize that he had a smelly, wet Raven on his bed.
"Well, that's rude," Raven said, her smile quickly fading to a frown as she made herself comfortable on his bed. "I just wanted to say hello. You didn't have to get up and run away." While she knew she was exaggerating, she had been surprised when he'd all but flown out of bed. He would have found her own reaction to be quite different, had the situation been reversed. Then again, she'd yet to stay a night in her room, so it couldn't have happened if he'd found her first.
His state of dress indicated little to her, having seen men in far, far less. In fact, it drew her attention, specifically due to the way the fabric caught the light. Though it was dark in his room, there was just enough candle light coming in from her own room to see he was wearing something soft. "What are you wearing?" she asked curiously. "Are those special sleeping clothes? Light a candle." Then maybe she could see better. Her eyes were good at night, but better when she actually had some light to go by.
"...What?" Paziter looked down, then shot her a nervous glare. "Oh no. No... no no no, you get out -- " he raised a hand, finger wagging before he even noticed. "I was sleeping, and you say I'm rude?!" He paused to swallow nervously at the lump in his throat. There was a girl in his room. On his bed. His family would have had a heart attack (or have died in stitches; nobody would have bet Paziter to wind up with such a lot after only three nights in the compound...) if they were privy to this scene. He was surreptitiously searching for something heavier with which he could cover himself and defend against the Lykos if she decided to shred up another set of clothes.
Slowly Raven crawled back up to the hole in the wall, perching there as she looked back at him. "Why do you sleep during the day?" she asked quietly, scooting backwards so that she was halfway between her room and his. She'd always been told that Vrykolas only came out at night, but it wasn't something she understood. It seemed to have something to do with the hunt, but if they weren't hunting in the compound, why did it matter? There was so much she didn't know in regards to their kind, her knowledge more along the lines of hunting them. How they actually lived was a complete mystery to her.
With Raven part-ways out of his room, Paziter seemed to relent a little, though he was by no means made to feel completely at his ease! He found a heavier shirt and wrapped it over his shoulders, turning his back on her so that he wouldn't have to look at her. "Why do you think?" he asked, feeling aggravated. Didn't she know anything? "It's irritating... to the skin." That was an understatement. Paziter didn't particularly want to elaborate, though, especially when he could imagine Raven being the sort of person to shove him in front of an open window when she got the chance, just to see what happened. 'Play'. Hmph.
"It's just a little sun," she said. "We all get burnt once in a while, though not as often in animal form. Fur does a nice job of protecting the skin. But you're so pale..." Raven supposed that he must burn easily, due to his skin tone. Though, all Vrykolas were pale. Maybe they wouldn't be if they'd just get a bit of sun? It seemed silly to suggest that he get a tan. She couldn't even imagine it. "Maybe if you had a hat." At that, Raven giggled. Paziter in a hat was a rather amusing image, at least with the type of hat her mind had picked out. "You're putting on more clothes," she pointed out. "Are you cold?"
If it weren't for the fact that Raven bugged him so much, Paziter would probably have found her naive assumptions cute, in a childish way. Right now he wasn't so amused. "No sun," he told her outright, arms crossing uncomfortably over his stomach. He worried at the elbow of his heavier shirt, more a nervous reaction than a conscious one. "I'm fine, I just don't want... don't want..." Faltering, he glanced over at the overcoat that had become his hallway curtain. Now he wished that he'd used it to seal out the Lykos, if only he'd had the forethought! "I don't want you putting holes in my clothing again," he admitted, sounding almost sulky. At least she'd crawled back into the window. She couldn't get at him from there.
No sun? Never? Surely he must be exaggerating. Raven couldn't imagine a life without sun. Sure, she liked to romp in the night as much as the next pup, but never to lay in the grass with the sun on her belly? That sounded horrible. Maybe he just had to limit his time, so as not to burn. Paziter was awfully pale. "I put holes in your clothing?" Raven asked, raising a brow. The occurance had seemed so insignificant to her that it hadn't even been properly filed away for later looking over. She'd picked on him, sure, but attacking his clothing hadn't been at the forefront of her mind. Then again, it might have been a result of some other attempt. She knew she'd purposefully instigated trouble the last time she'd run into him. "You're kicking me out because you're worried I'll ruin your clothes?" If he was that shallow, maybe she wanted to leave, and her expression said as much.
"Not only for that," Paziter began, but decided it would probably be better simply to shut his trap. Reasoning with the Lykos led down a very slippery slope, he had begun to assume... he had a feeling that if he tried to explain away his every little action, he'd probably wind up with holes in more than his clothes!
Instead, he pried a hand away from his chest to point at her, working up the best of his righteous crankiness. "Go..." he wasn't entirely convincing, but then again, he had absolutely no idea what kind of force was probably needed to get Raven to sit up and pay attention, let alone to follow a direct order. Getting a direct order out at all, now that he had time to think about it, was definitely on the far end of Paziter's comfort zone!
Raven's lip curled up, pure distaste forming on her features for the first time that day. She'd popped in in a fairly good mood, only to have it ruined almost instantly by Paziter. The boy had that way about him, cranky to the point of distressing, and she wasn't sure why she thought saying hello might be a good idea. Maybe it was because he'd almost been fun to play with the last time around. He sure knew how to disappoint.
"You're an asshole, Paz. And you need to learn some manners," Raven spat, sliding back through her hole in the wall. Though she was technically in her room, she kept talking, aware that he could hear her and see her, even follow her if he so desired. Raven doubted that was a concern. She went about her business as she spoke, looking for dry clothes to change into. "That's saying something, coming from me. You must think you're hot shit or somethin', up on your high horse with your special sleeping clothes, all worried about holes. Bet you're nice to your leech guests when they pop in. Do you kick the Humans out, or pull them in to suck on them?"
He needed to learn some manners?! Paziter clenched his jaw so hard that the muscles bulged about his cheeks; he had to stop himself from fuming, letting go of the comfort of breathing. How could Raven expect anybody to react any differently, getting barged in on when a person only wanted sleep? Everybody else in the compound was quite good at minding their own business, at being polite -- even Alarie had been polite when she was deathly worried over her brother.
And Raven was going off about... about...
Paziter raised his fist, a finger pointing straight up at the ceiling as he trembled angrily. How dare she call him and his kind leeches! He had done everything that ever he could to ensure that the humans he fed from were comfortable, that they received fair due for the exchange.
He could disarm this argument very easily by running away again, but Paziter felt a little boxed in, being attacked in his own room. "That's going too far," he hadn't moved from his spot, but if looks could kill...
"If you didn't barge in here like a wet, stinking animal than maybe I wouldn't've; you know it's polite to knock, windows or not. Me on a horse! You wouldn't know poise if it slapped you across the face!" He didn't really have time to consider that oxymoron. Paziter felt a special kind of angry that he wasn't sure he'd ever felt before. Being punished by his instructors had really only elicited a kind of shame; they knew right and he was wrong, after all. The occasional teasing he'd undergone by mischievous brothers was never in bad faith; they all had a lot of space and were all on equal terms. But Raven was definitely outside of his experience. She was so cocky, so determined to start a fight. Paziter wished he could make her disappear, though if her room truly was across from his, there was nothing that he could legally do. He felt trapped by a lesser being and there wasn't anything that came to mind to fight back with.
He certainly wasn't going to come through her window. Bleeding her dry didn't cross his mind; a Vrykola didn't bite in order to fight, even if the action could be made in violence. There was a reason that they'd been so thoroughly trained to contain their powers.