Private Tales Head in the Clouds

A private roleplay only for those invited by the first writer
Dorian

Dorian

Wayward
Messages
105
Character Biography
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The Academy​
Some time shortly after the revolution​
​

"Ha-ha, what?"

"Yeah, they said Anir Square was painted red. Look," a groan—nervous fidgeting. "I have to leave. They'll give us both the lash."

The older student, one bound to graduate in just months, disappeared down the hall and around the corner. Dorian never saw them again.

Drastic changes were made in the weeks following the revolution. Old Proctors left, and new ones arrived. The apprentices that knew better kept their heads down, as they always have. There was a period where the entire institution was plagued with inactivity. The lecture halls were silent, the training ground vacant. Fear festered in the student body.

There were whispers that many of the old Proctors were removed and replaced. Other rumors about those that resisted being put to the sword. What did that mean for us, many of the children thought? Are we next? What is happening?

Dorian's class had been relocated from the old dorm halls into private rooms. Like, they were nobility or some shit. Dorian had a good view of the cove through the window in his. If he leaned out the window, to his right was the Academy's tower. Some students had moved there. The lucky ones, if you asked him.

After curfew one evening, when madness from idling in his room so long had begun to set in, Dorian snuck out through his window. He hung on the ledge and climbed up onto the roof using a summoned vine. He carefully trod across the roof, and steeling himself, climbed the tower up to its first window.

It was locked, so he wedged the edge of a small knife into the latch and forced it open, then quiet as a cat dropped into the room. A student's room. Chasmine Grey's room.
 
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  • Nervous
Reactions: Chasmine
Dorian entered a room that was vastly sparse of things except a few odd knick-knacks. On the desk to the one side sat a collection of bird feathers, several candle sticks, and a small wooden box of odd, small things.

To the opposite side the bed sat empty and made.

Behind the bed, near the door, came the sound of scratching.

A pale(-er than usual) looking Chasmine Grey sat on her knees on the floor, holding her extended arm over a copper mug. A deep slice freely bled and the red drip-drip-dripped into the mug. Chas was watching the blood-letting very closely and did not even notice she had a visitor.
 
  • Stressed
Reactions: Dorian
Dorian remained crouched for a moment after dropping in from the window and tucked the knife back into his boot.

He only stalked for a few moments, just glancing at the room's contents before the scratching caused him alarm.

Shoulders jolted, and nose scrunched up in distaste at the girl. Dorian cleared his throat.

"Whatthefuck are you doing," he hissed.
 
  • Sip
Reactions: Chasmine
Chasmine turned wide, pallid eyes up at the boy and blinked in mild alarm despite the calmness of her present stance on the floor, "Hello Dorian Reeve," and then seemed to register what he'd asked and what he was staring at. Right, the blood.

"I am creating a ward to keep out the Vespers. All the activity and change in the school has stirred them up and they won't let me sleep."
 
  • Cthulhoo rage
Reactions: Dorian
It took one... two... three seconds to process what she said. Another five to try and make sense of it. Nope. No dice.

"That's ridiculous."

The corners of his mouth pulled down into a long frown.

"The fuck's even a Vesper?"
 
Chas carefully flexed her hand to encourage the blood flow a bit longer, "The spirits of people whose headstones were destroyed or bodies were moved from their burial place. They're very upset and they want me to help them, but I can't do that. I have an Ancient Runes test to study for. They can't accept personal boundaries, so I'm putting my foot down as the saying goes."
 
Dorian's brows pinched together. He immediately regretted asking.

"Um. What?"

Before she could repeat herself, or heavens forbid explain further, Dorian put a hand up and cut her off.

"Wait, wait. That was an exclamation, not a question. You're mad." He shuffled his feet towards the door, giving the girl as wide a berth as he could in the small room.
 
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"Oh," Chasmine blinked at the word mad, "maybe. I am very tired." As if sleep deprivation could be the foundation of madness. Perhaps she was on to something here.

It never even crossed her mind to ask why he was here or, even, how he'd gotten in her room in the first place. The strangeness of his presence only seemed to permeate the strangeness of the girl with an equal sort of balance that made it all rather very normal to her.

"Nurse Agatha is on night hall duty," she said as she went back to her blood letting, taking up a small feather to dip into her copper cup and then shuffling a few inches to one side to begin - nay, continue putting blood-sigils along the baseboard of her walls. If Dorian cared to look any closer, he'd see half the room was already done.
 
Dorian paused, fingers curled over the door handle.

"How do you know that? Ghosts tell you that... too...?"

Voice trailed as he turned to face her, and he grimaced at whatever godawful thing she was doing.

"You know they'll beat you bloody for that."

Rather, they would likely make Dorian do it. Again.
 
"She has a limp," Chasmine replied quietly, tendering her ministrations to the wood paneling with the delicacy of an artiste, "You can tell when she's on duty by the sound of her footsteps."

At his second statement she paused and seemed to consider this momentarily before deciding it was a risk worth taking, "If I can complete the ritual before anyone sees then they will never know."

Footsteps out in the hallway. Off-beat. Knok-tump, knok-tump, knok-tump.
 
  • Stressed
Reactions: Dorian
Dorian frowned - no, he was still frowning from before.

"And if you don't, you'll have a trip to the infirmary, and the fucking ghosts will still be a problem," Dorian pressed his ear to the door, glanced once to Chasmine. Then, under his breath, hissed, "Fool," and remained quiet as heavy footfalls receded down the other end of the hall.

He let his tension out with a sigh, and the girl was still engrossed in her little ritual.

"I don't get you," he said, grip tightening on the door handle. He let go. "How long will that take you?"
 
Chas broke from her concentration to dip her feather back into the cup, "Well ... if I am in the infirmary, the ghosts will not bother me there. They don't like it there. I suspect they are afraid of Nurse Grace's ghost. She's quite terrifying, but also lonely. She doesn't bother me."

Another moment then to sit up and glance around at her progress, "The rest of the night I suspect. If I don't pass out from bloodloss before then."
 
Dorian pinched the bridge of his nose.

"O-h-h, Nurse Grace's ghost! Ri-i-ight."

The boy quietly scoffed and drifted away from the door, squinting in the dimly lit room at the baseboards. Like scrawlings of a madman. Woman. Sorry.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" he asked. Reluctantly, mind you.

He really didn't want to have to beat the snot out of Chasmine again.
 
Back to work she went, scooching along and inch at a time on her knees.

Could Dorian help? Chasmine glanced over at him, giving him a thoughtful look up and down, "How is your penmanship? You could help me place the sigils."
 
"'Bout good as Meredith's," he watched her scoot along, "I guess."

Simple enough, right? Dorian helped himself to one of the feathers on her desk. It was a vibrant blue and long and straight.

He squatted down next to Chasmine, dipped the feather into the cup.

"Do it slowly, once."

He copied her strokes on the back of his hand, then held it for her to see.

"That fine?"
 
A small smile touched Chasmine's pale face, watching Dorian copy the sigil onto his hand with her own blood. There was something to be said about that, something that settled into the hollow of her chest, but she couldn't rightly say what. The girl nodded, "Yes, perfect. Just write those in that order, over and over along the baseboard until you reach where I started."

What would have taken her several hours to finish on her own was done in less than half the time and with only one more round of bloodletting to do so. Chas looked around, weary from bloodloss but happy to see their efforts completed, and moved to stand only to sway from a rush of light-headedness. She managed to catch herself on her bed and carefully set herself down on the mattress, "Thank you for your help, Dorian. I just need to rest a moment before I do the ritual."
 
  • Cthuulove
Reactions: Dorian
"Sure," Dorian sat cross-legged under the window and stretched his left wrist, which had grown sore from etching the symbols at an awkward angle.

The boy leaned against the wall, resting the back of his head just under the windowsill, his eyes set on Chasmine. She was odd. He understood nothing about her, especially why she was so polite and spoke so softly to him now.

It begged the question, "Don't you hate me?"

For how many times his hands had been slicked with her blood or for all the cruel words he'd ever said to her. He knew he didn't hate Chasmine, but it made everything easier to pretend that he did.
 
Dorian swallowed, flashed a weak smile, and shook his head at Chasmine.

"Nevermind," he murmured and fixed his gaze forward, then down to the feather next to him. It was a bit mangled after being handled for so long. "You gonna be alright? I should, uh, probably go soon."
 
"I'll be fine," Chasmine smiled dolefully, knees bobbing lightly, "but thank you for your help. That was very kind of you. You should probably leave the way you came in. Just in case."
 
With his lips pressed into a thin line, Dorian nodded.

"It was whatever," he grumbled and pushed the cracked-open window out. He placed his palm flat on the windowsill, and when he raised it, a glowing green vine grew from nothing and rolled out and down the side of the tower.

"Latch on the window is broke, by the way."

Dorian disappeared out the window and made it back to his room just a couple of hours before morning roll call.
 
HERBS
Approximately 1 year ago, several months post revolution.

A free period. It seemed the strangest thing in the world to most of the students, but Chasmine Grey had no qualms accepting this change into her life. Previous years her gardening and foraging hobby had been done by moonlight, or in the wee hours of the morning before everyone else woke up. Now she had an entire class period of two hours to lunch and do as she pleased.

Study. Spar. Stroll along the grounds at freedom.

Today she was checking in on her various herb gardens scattered about in hidden places around the grounds.
 
Dorian liked the far ends of the Academy's grounds. While most of the others drilled themselves to near-death or buried themselves in books, he would instead roll up his jacket for a pillow and find a nice tree to nap under. Plenty of trees to pick from. Sometimes it was a challenge, finding the right spot to plop down at.

Just so happened that afternoon he'd unwittingly picked a tree next to one of Chasmine's gardens.

Napping was made difficult with one eye bruised and swollen shut —courtesy of Sable Pembroke during what was supposed to be a light spar. Just going through the motions to practice technique. The ox of a boy had apologized rather profusely, but that only angered Dorian more. He'd stormed off a bloody mess.

After spending some time calming down, he laid on his back near the herb garden, his head resting on his neatly folded uniform jacket, and absently stared at the clouds.
 
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  • Popcorn
Reactions: Sable Pembroke
"Hello Dorian Reeve," that unmistakable wispy voice arrived on the breeze and if Dorian bothered to crack open an eye and look in its general direction, he'd find Chasmine standing a few feet away. Over one arm the loop of a black drawstring pouch, over the other the handle of a woven basket.

"Do you regularly nap on my mushrooms?"
 
He didn't bother.

"What?"

Then he did. Sat up, too, and saw that he'd thrown his jacket down over a cluster of mushrooms, their caps poking up through the grass.

"They're yours?" Lifting up his coat revealed only about half the cluster had been smooshed down into the grass, but they were still fine, far as he could tell.

Not that he knew much about mushrooms.
 
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