Log/Thread: Annabelle, Darius, & Trent "study" WHO: Darius, Annabelle, and Trent WHEN: Monday 14 October 2013, after classes have finished for the day WHERE: Empty Supernatural Studies class NPCs: Sybil Ingram
After a hectic Monday of classes, Annabelle still couldn’t believe she’d sort of managed to get into trouble on her first official day at the school. She’d thought at the end of the day, she would go back to the dorms and start studying before dinner but at the end of the Supernatural Studies class, the teacher had said she was expecting the three of them back there at the end of the day to have at least an hour’s ‘study session’ to make up for their talking in class. She seemed very skeptical that Trent would actually be tutoring them, but when Anna turned up in the classroom, the teacher was just packing up to leave.
“Miss Keely,” she said as she moved past, “I expect that the three of you will cover the topics we went through in class today and the first weeks’ work as well since both yourself and Mr Prose have missed a large part of this semester. If Mr Kane is so eager to teach you what he’s learned in my lessons-” she barely resisted rolling her eyes at that remark, “-then I would expect he teach you well.”
She held a book against her chest and excused herself as she breezed out of the room. Anna rubbed the back of her neck and rocked back and forth on her heels before she put her bag down on the floor with a resounding thud. If they were going to study - or talk (which she figured was infinitely more likely) - then they needed a desk layout that was conducive to that kind of activity. She pulled the chairs out and began rearranging three of the desks so that they were facing each other in a sort of triangle so that they could easily converse.
Her hands, bizarrely, were hidden underneath her sleeves to protect her skin from the compounded metal that held the tables up, she didn’t dare touch them - like she didn’t touch the door handles - because she couldn’t be sure whether or not there was an iron component in the metal. The last thing she wanted to be doing was explaining to the matron why she had a third degree burn on her hand that was going to poison her to death.
She glanced up from where she was pushing the tables around when she heard footsteps approaching behind her. “Hey,” she greeted with a small smile. “Figured I’d feng shui the place a bit. Long as we put it back after I don’t figure it’ll be a problem?”
---
"Sure," said Darius, not surprised that Trent wasn't here yet. That seemed to be his MO. It had turned out that that one of the papers Darius had been given was a list of catch-up work, so he knew what they had to study. They could make it work either way, but he did kind of hope Trent showed up. It'd be easier with someone who knew more about the subject. And he wanted to hear about the vampires.
He went over to help Annabelle finish up the desks, noting her sleeves but not commenting. Maybe she just didn't want to get her hands dirty. Or maybe it was a girl thing. After they were settled, he took a desk of his own.
"How'd the rest of your first day go?" he asked.
---
It wasn't that Trent couldn't be punctual because he could, but he chose not to be at times. Especially as it caused a ripe bit of chaos and who didn't love that? And besides he had two new kids to teach the ways of the school so he was taking his sweet ass time. Besides, TJ had already ruined his fun with the tall New Yorker by warning him about there being no pool on the roof.
Lame, TJ, very lame.
And so in he swanned as Annabelle and Darius set themselves up, eyeing up the desk layout and deciding to with a movement of his hand formed what seemed like invisible steps which allowed him to settle on the desk facing them both, the chair abandoned for his perch and a grin firmly in place.
“Hey guys, got hung up in my last class.”
----
“It went alright, thanks,” Anna said, settling on the chair and resting her elbows on the wood of the desk, chin in her palm and long fingers stretched out over her cheeks, tapping lightly against her skin. “Yours?”
She was about to ask him if he’d done anything fun over lunch or made any new friends when Trent arrived, announcing his presence with a display of his powers that caused her to feel the tiniest bit jealous. As he settled on the desk, she did look a little confused as if they were going to be studying… it hit her then that they wouldn’t be doing any kind of studying. Trent seemed the type to just slide through classes without really trying.
She and Darius were going to have to set up their own catch-up class. She’d have to get Trent’s help with Ancient Language and Runes though, she’d looked through the text book and had gotten really confused.
“No worries,” she offered with a shrug, “You’re not actually late.”
---
"Not bad. I really enjoyed—" and then Trent entered, stage left. He really did seem to have the timing down for dramatic entrances. Darius was going to tell Annabelle about choir, but decided against it once Trent showed up. Girls were more ok with a guy being in choir than other guys were.
"Hey, man," Darius said to Trent, briefly considering holding his hand out for a fist bump, then deciding he probably couldn't pull it off. Unlike Annabelle, Darius held out a faint hope that they'd actually be studying in this study session, so kept getting out his books and notebook. Then he looked at Trent, since yeah, Trent was going to tell them stuff, right?
---
Darius best abandon all hope for he had entered Trent Malcolm Kane's world of education which was less about the education and more about sensation. No words from class or textbook would be spoken here in this "studying" session for he had other plans.
"Hey," he said to Darius with a grin as he made himself comfortable exactly where he was, knowing Annabelle had clocked his intent because he could see it in those big eyes of hers.
He sat forward just a touch and laced his fingers together, eyes moving between Annabelle and Darius. "So, kiddies, here's the 411 on St. Margarets. Ya'll might have noticed that it ain't exactly normal 'cause let's face it none of us are exactly normal. We're all special one way or another."
Notably he had left the door open, but for what end you might wonder. All good things would come to those who waited.
"We got vampires, werewolves, sirens, dragons and all kinds of things you thought were just things of make belief, but oh no they're real. So real that you can touch 'em." He dipped his voice and held their gazes at one point or another. "Let's not get started on the supernaturally inclined such as myself. I mean we've got one boy here that can set himself on fire."
He soon leaned back and shrugged all casual like. "Oh, and there's a pool on the roof." But then he tilted his head just right to catch their attention again. "And word of warning you may not want to go wandering too much in the dark."
---
Anna’s eyebrows lifted as Trent rattled off a list of supernatural creatures she hadn’t ever thought would be real. “Uh- vampires? You mentioned those in class.” Werewolves? Dragons?! She wet her lower lip nervously, that didn’t seem very safe, especially if the stories and legends were to be believed. Did that mean that Dracula was a real vampire, not an historical figure?
She shifted on the chair, curling her fingers towards her palm and resting her chin on her closed fists, glancing at Darius; what kind of school had they ended up in? What had their parents done to them? Was the death toll at the school high or did they make special reservations and restrictions on the nights of the full moon? Did the vampires have different diets or did they snack on the student body?
“Why’s there a pool on the roof?”
---
On some level, Darius could tell Trent had a flair for the dramatic and was playing things up. And yet, there really were vampires and werewolves and things. He'd already met some. They'd behaved themselves, yeah, but there were bullies in regular school too. What happened when the bullies could tear your throat out? His power wasn't at all defensive.
He met Annabelle's glance, kind of concerned, but turned back to Trent. "I'm guessing like in regular school, there's rules about not eating other students or messing with them. But I'm also guessing like in regular school, there's the way things are supposed to work and the way things really work," he said. "What's the pecking order around here? If we just keep our heads down, is that going to work? Who do we need to be careful of?"
---
"Why wouldn't there be a pool on the roof?" Trent countered with an arch of his eyebrow. FYI, there was no pool on the roof, but it was something Trent did to every new kid and to make an exception would go against tradition.
His gaze slipped to Darius and he gave a sage nod. "Oh yeah of course there is. Everybody's gotta be on their best behaviour, but like you said some folk fall in line and others, well, they do what they want."
Darius was clearly concerned about people picking on him which made Trent wonder if that was something that had happened another place. "You'll wanna steer clear of the wolves close to the full moon," he warned. "They tend to get a lil testy if you catch my drift. The less you do to piss ‘em off the better. Take it from somebody who knows.”
He tapped his fingers against his chin, thoughtfully. “And then you’ve got the ghosts.”
Now Trent didn’t know if the school had ghosts, but it wasn’t above him to play up to it, freak them out a little.
---
“Ghosts bother me a little bit more, I have to admit,” Anna said, lifting her shoulders protectively around her neck as if that would stop anything scary from getting to her. She wrinkled her nose, “Because I’m guessing they’re not part of the student body and as such don’t follow the rules.” Though she couldn’t imagine the staff actually letting them get hurt by any of the other students or… otherworldly beings that roamed the school halls.
She was going to kill her father next time she spoke to him. He had told her this place would be perfectly safe. So far she’d done nothing but run into things she was allergic to and now she was being told about figurative monsters and ghosts.
Yeah, a great school this was. And the classes were hard.
“I’m gonna be honest and say that before I came here, my knowledge of the supernatural was pretty much what my parents had told me and what I’d read in books and, y’know, seen on TV. It’s weird to think that it’s all… real.”
---
They'd had Mental Powers Training together that day, so unless Trent was particularly oblivious, he'd guess that Darius was a Psychic. That being said, the nature of his psychic powers hadn't come up, he sure as hell wasn't volunteering. But ghosts? That was what he was here for.
"My parents have no idea," he mentioned when Annabelle brought up families. "They think I just got some charity grant to a rich boarding school. First time I'd heard about any of this was last week." But that wasn't what he wanted to talk about.
"The ghosts, how do they work?" he said, leaning forward. Unlike Annabelle, he wasn't the least bit freaked out. In fact, he'd picked up his pen to take notes.
---
Huh, well, way to spoil all his fun, Darius. Look at him being all interested with his pen and everything.
"They're real troublemakers," Trent continued, figuring he'd started this so he might as well finish it. "Like to move stuff around, tug people's hair, that kinda thing."
He chewed on the edge of his thumbnail as a few errant strands of hair fell over his eyes. "I mean some people say they can feel something watching them when they're in the halls."
---
No, ghosts definitely made Anna uneasy, more uneasy than vampires or werewolves; those at least she could see. She’d be able to shrink and get away from them easily enough but ghosts? No, those were invisible combatants that scared the ever loving crap out of her. She pushed one hand through her hair, tugged the lengths so they were over one shoulder and twisted her fingers in the ends as she listened, though Darius’ question about how they worked was unusual. What kind of question was that?
Her eyebrow lifted, having turned her head slightly to look at him before her attention returned to Trent. Trent who was clearly enjoying freaking them out. Or trying to anyway.
“At least the paintings don’t move,” she offered with a shrug of her shoulders, though she did look uneasy at the mention of ghosts. One of them, at least, was getting freaked out by the whole thing.
---
That's it? They moved things? That was nothing. The teachers told him he needed to worry about getting possessed, and that was a hundred times worse. Darius put his pen back down, not even bothering to write it down.
He had enough presence of mind to finally register Annabelle's discomfort and try to reassure her. "Don't worry, they won't come for you," Darius said. "If all they do is move things, that's not too bad. I think they only really go after psychics. That's why we got that Mental Powers Training class, to learn to keep them out. But that's not you, so you should be fine."
Unbeknownst to Darius, all this talk of ghosts was making his personal ghost start to stir.
---
Trent could see that out of the two of them he was definitely getting to Annabelle, but Darius, now he was a tough cookie to crack. Of course as Darius was taking to reassure the blonde Trent seized the moment and flicked his eyes upwards until with a persuasive touch of his mind the door was caught and slammed shut with a loud bang.
And Trent really should have been in the Drama Club because he gave quite the show, going so far as to jump and cuss real loud before he gave a sweeping movement of fingers through his hair.
“Uh yeah okay we should stop talking about this.”
---
True to form, and precisely what Trent was expecting, Anna jumped to her feet with a startled shriek as the door slammed shut. Wide eyed, she turned to look at Trent, and then Darius, pushing her fingers through her hair and then playing nervously with the lengths. “What was that?” she asked, not even thinking for a moment that it might have been Trent messing with them. She sat down nervously, looking behind her and lifting her shoulders.
“Why would the school let ghosts do that?” she asked, “I- shit-” she swallowed and shivered a little. “Seriously- what the fuck?”
---
Darius, on the other hand, also leapt to the wrong conclusion, but not one Trent was expecting. He immediately assumed it was his fault. Or rather, her fault. He startled and swore along with the rest of them. Maybe because he'd had a really overstimulating week, maybe because he thought it wasn't cool to scare a girl, or maybe because he was just sick of having so little control. Whatever it was, he wasn't afraid. He was mad.
His previous attempts to communicate with the ghost in his mind had been fairly vague, tentative. This time, though, he had a clear message. Balling up all that anger and frustration, he closed his eyes and shouted it at her. STOP IT!
The response was immediate. He felt startled again, then confused, then hurt. Darius was concentrating on communication, so wasn't guarding his expressions. The emotions briefly flickered across his face.
Darius felt like an ass. Maybe she hadn't known she was moving stuff and freaking people out. Ok, ok, it's fine, just don't do it again. Whatever you did.