The Amaryllis Project [ Chapter Twelve ] Tuesday, June 9, 2009 Mirrors, dozens of them, hundreds of them, greeted him. All hung upon the walls, reflecting what little light there was from the small skylight in the ceiling, illuminating the wall just that little bit. It was a small room, but high, much like how a length of a chimney would be like, opening up to a glass-covered skylight above. 'Creeeeeak' Iriel turned. "Eh--" the statement was abruptly cut off as the person ran to shut the door, pulling and shoving at the solid mass of wood until the slab clunked into place. "Hey Iriel, so you found it in the end huh?" Flipping the signature locks of pale hair -- or what was left of it -- tied back tightly in a strict, severe braid behind her back, the individual settled down next to him, stretching out the impossibly long limbs she possessed as she sat down, looking very much like a pretty, broken doll. Iriel grunted. Val refused to let go. "Oh come on, why're you here? Couldn't find the elusive Zephyrus Cornelia?" she was teasing now, the joking tone, so light-hearted and cheerful that was really a far cry from her mature facial features that were usually so stony and forbidding, "Something on your mind? How do you people here in Tanine put it? Oh, is it 'Penny for your thoughts'? Mm, how about I up that to a dollar for your thoughts? Will you tell me then?" she was so relaxed, even now when she was dressed in her librarian's vest and in the severe black and white get up, like some school teacher with some serious attitude. "You know Val, I kinda wondered, what is it with all the mirrors. They aren't particularly gorgeous, they're pretty but not quite so... to be like, worth the effort in putting them up." He was avoiding the topic altogether, but Val didn't seem to mind. Instead she grinned as she lay back, propping herself on her arms to study the sky light above with a satisfied exhale, which echoed it's way up the chimney like structure. "I think you've heard the rumours related to this hidden room?" she asked, in a manner Iriel thought infuriatingly mellow, passive and so patient like a parent. Iriel snerked, "Steven went on about how it was a love story of some sort, he didn't know exactly what it was though." "Mm... Well, he got the love story right," Val sounded more intrested now, yet incredibly dreamy as well, as though getting into the mood of the story. Iriel steeled himself for another one of those romantic love stories that his own sisters had grew up loving and admiring and swooning over, always wishing to be princesses and find their true loves. "Say, Iriel, have you ever felt in such a way that... well... someone was so beautiful, so perfect that you wanted... something to capture every single inflection of time on his or her face? A million images to convey that one beautiful person?" Iriel sneezed, quite breaking the climax, but otherwise managed an answer that matched up. "No, never actually. But it sounds a lot like the mushy sappy things that my sisters read when they were young though." Val grinned at him, though she never turned her head, still craning her neck back to study the warm beginnings of the light filtering through the finely ground glass. "He made all these for her. All these mirrors, the smallest one to the largest one all for her." For a moment, Iriel was reminded of how his father used to make small little gifts for his own mother, little trinkets. A small wicker swan to put on her table, a soft chair for her office, a desk, bookshelves, vases even at one particular birthday of his mother's, but never actually did he give mirrors. It had always been something of at least a slight bit of practicality, although slight ornamental, it all came to be of some use in the end. "Why would she need so many? Was she vain?" "She didn't," Val said in her still dreamy voice, "He did." Iriel couldn't say he actually understood what she was trying to say, but tried to nevertheless. "He needed so many mirrors? Whatever for?" Iriel sounded incredulous now, but Val remained unfrazzled, pulling back her untied fringe of hair that curtained her pale face with their stellar green eyes. "Were you listening to me? Oh, sorry, of course you were. What am I saying..." she laughed mildly, though Iriel didn't join in, "Well, he loved her. He loved her so much he would so to the expense of making a hundred different mirrors, a thousand different mirrors even all for her. All to see the thousands or maybe hundreds of different faces of his lover, all for him to spend his life delighting in the beautiful reflections of his wife. They must have been really crazy for each other, or at least, he was. Imagine that, to have someone love you so much that he would make you a million mirrors, just to gaze at you all day long, just to see you as someone so eternally beautiful yet so different in each and every passing moment," Val smiled up at the endless tunnel of mirrors, watching them glint at each other, merry and bright like a star in the warmth of the morning sun. Iriel glanced at her, then looked up, at the endless reflections, all the beautiful sparkles and the countless views of his own face surrounding him. "I don't quite get it, but I think I understand what you're getting at," Iriel stated, though really deep down something clicked in place. The logical rationale within him however was always quick to add that that sounded really really suspiciously like something his sisters had always dreamed about. Iriel sighed. "Mhm, kinda thought you wouldn't. Not that that's an insult, but ha..." she smiled at him, Iriel could see that from the mirrors reflecting and re-reflecting that bright expression. It made him feel dull, dark and sullen in comparison to his bright, spirited companion. There was a moment of silence as they both studied the countless reflections and re-reflections around them when Val spoke again. "Ne Iriel, have you noticed ever anything... strange about... oh, us?" Iriel pondered the question and wondered if this was some sort of question that people would find in psychic games, on psychic hotlines... the like, but the question seemed innocent enough, quite passingly like a comment. "Apart from the fact that you have white hair, as in a full mane of white hair, not really. Unless by us you mean more than you then yeah maybe there's more. Steven for one is so weird that strange doesn't even begin to cover it. He's more of what the modern writers call sixteen shades of bizzare, and that's an understatement." Val actually laughed at that, though Iriel was so serious about it that he had not meant it to be even remotely funny. "Well, as in you took Higher Geography... Uh, Pure Geography if your school calls it that," she added quickly when Iriel gave her a funny look, "You know what I'm getting at right?" she asked unsteadily, slightly doubtful for his sake. Thankfully though he nodded, and she continued with more life and animation than ever. "Well then you must have learnt about what we here on Tanine are so proud of in our inter-galactic travel... Did you learn that?" she stopped abruptly when Iriel's face seemed to show her that he was disconnecting. Iriel shook his head, paused, then quickly bobbed his understanding. "I know about it, but I didn't know it was inter-galactic, I thought it was like from one end of the earth to another..." He frowned and scratched his head, then shrugged. "Isn't it?" Val scratched her head and giggled a little, as one would expect a sagely old professor to sniff condescendingly with some knowledge that others did not possess, Val laughed in exchange."What do you call it? Oh sorry, not you, what does your teacher call it? The Quantum Leap? Oh sorry, bad pun my bad, but, it is something like that right?" Iriel bobbed his head again, shrugging, "I remember that the teacher called it the QDM. Which was short for Quantum Displacement Module, which is sort of odd because we weren't studying rocket science. Said something about it being the main cause of why we have this world in the first place, as in the populations of humans were all from some other place but were brought here via the Quantum Displacement Module device thingamajig. Sounds like a whole lot of crap to me, but it must make sense since my great uncle loves to go on about how he's a full blooded Irish when there is no such thing as a race here. You belong to a country--" "Or you don't," Val nodded, "I know that. I mean, here you aren't categorized by how you look like, what your parents were, it's the country that counts right? Oh, sorry, duh right. Strange they bothered to teach the concept of a 'race' when all you are taught to care about is citizenship," she laughed again, as though mockingly this time with a slight sniff at the end, "Either way. We... You were taught from young of this other... world called Earth." Iriel nodded to support her when sh suddenly paused for an extended period of time, "I got that right? Wow, okay..." she coughed as though mildly embarrassed and continued, "What if I told you that we came from another planet? Like... you know, straight from Earth!" It was then Iriel's turn to laugh at her, "Impossible! They planned the system so that it was possible for the Earth... people to come and repopulate the planet... this planet we are on, without inbreeding. They would never need to return to Earth, but they also couldn't. What we know of the QD... Quantum Displacement Module, is from the plans that were left over, the bits of which are in the Local Tanine Museum along with the spaceship or what's left of it, since this was where they supposedly first landed. And--" "And," Val cut in forcefully with a smile nevertheless, "with fifty couples, a hundred people essentially, they came to make sure that mankind would never be completely wiped out. It was a new fresh start with a new fresh world. Beautiful concept, but they forgot the possible existance of other worlds lucky enough to develop in manners similar to them. And that's where we came from, Gaia." "So technically you're a friggin alien, is that what you want me to believe?" Iriel chortled, giving her an incredulous look as he wondered how the conversation came to this. "If by alien you mean the weird green skin, big black bug eyed monsters with zappy laser guns, no. But if by alien you mean 'belonging to, characteristic of, or constituting another and very different place, society, or person' then you're absolutely right. There's also 'an organism, especially a plant or animal, that occurs in or is naturalized in a region to which it is not native' and 'foreigner', simply put, that's also quite near home." Val's smile was always so politely patient, sometimes almost irritatingly so since nothing got on her nerves, or maybe she didn't have any. "Oh right, you're an alien person in our midst. But you're human enough, and if you can come here, you can go home. So what's the big fuss?" Iriel found the concept quite easy to handle actually, Val was a strange character, if very human and too humane, and if someone like her could be an 'alien' then well, so could an oddball like Steven. "We can't go home. We're not so much from another planet, as from another dimension. Which always makes me laugh at your... QDM was it? Quantum Device Madagascar, or whatever it is. It can go screw itself in the head, it's useless. The concept of dimension is crazy, I doubt someone like you would have actually been taught unless you grew up where I grew up, or you studied abtract mathematics or something weird like that," Val was ranting now, Iriel noticed, she barely paused even when Iriel's face was clearly confused, what exactly was a Madagascar anyway? "But you... uh, sorry you probably are confused now. How about you think it like... this!" With an almost dramatic flourish, she pointed at the mirrors, one of the many surrounding them. This particular one however was one of the more unique ones, with an elaborately carved frame of painted brass in the shape of a flaring sun, with ten sharp wavy ends pointing out, lethally sharp. Val got up and walked over the the mirror, gently she took it in her hands and lifted it easily away from the wall, off the hook. Iriel gaped at her cavalier treatment of the artifact that he had expected to be fragile. She never noticed his expression either, for she went on to stick in safely in the crook of her arm before she 'hmm'ed thoughtfully to herself and went to take down another mirror in the shape of a big shining black beetle, with huge cumbersome horns and a last one, in green tinged blue metal that vaguely resembled a rock that had been overgrown by algae or moss. With the three mirrors, she took a seat, but this time, directly opposite Iriel. "Are you sure you won't--" "Hold it for me... Hmm, hold our pseudo Earth for me," she passed him the green and blue framed mirror without hesitation, and Iriel flustered to catch hold of it carefully as Val released it from her grasp too early. "Well, here we are. Hold it like this, a triangle, see?" And a triangle she had formed, with a mirror on each side forming the three lengths of a triangle, te reflective glass facing inwards towards each other. "The rhinocerous beetle will be where we are now... Is that vague for you? Oh you don't know what a rhino beetle is? Oh its the beetle you see here with crazy horns, and this is where I come from, Gaia the sun mirror." "You're pretty discriminative aren't you?" Iriel laughed at her choices, a beetle for where they were, yet a sun for where she said she was from and a strange crumbling mirror for Earth, where he supposed everything stemmed. Val ignored him, though her lip twitched a little in response. "This mirror represents a planet. A world is fine if you don't get confused later on. All the mirrors are a planet. Now bend over... No really, bend down, crane your neck and look into one of the mirrors. Nah, which of them doesn't matter, hell look at all of them if you want. Just glance and see." Val was a good coaxing teacher, with her patience and all, though she was a little too insistent sometimes. With almost some spiteful reluctance, Iriel titled his hend and craned his neck as told and squinted through the gaps of the mirror triangle, and into the mirrors. As he expected, there was the reflections of the other mirrors, over and over and over again it was reflected, the endless outlines of each frame till it went on and was obscured by the frame. "What now?" he asked, not quite impressed. "Oh you're such an old prudish cow you are, and that's a compliment. But if this is just a world, why are there so many reflections in it-- No, you are not allowed to say because it's a mirror and mirrors are reflective." Val had a small smirk on her face, and Iriel wasn't sure he wanted to bother with this, he was skipping class here, to play mind games with a librarian? "But our world's aren't like that? A planet is a planet, not a flat mirror..." "You're not answering," Val snapped. Iriel glared half-heartedly at her, but she was still smiling patiently. "There's multiple reflections of a single mirror, like multiple views of a matter." Val's smirk intensified into a grin,"Exactly. There's multiple facets like a diamond, how something could have been, would have been or maybe should have been. Each of these is a dimension. For example, someone could have come from a dimension that would have occurred if upon arrival from Earth via the... Quatum whatever, they brought their religion with them and took shelter in a forest. Or maybe a different world where they were thought the concept of racial differences, or there was only the ideal of monarchy and nothing else. We... are on the same frame of mind right?" Once again, Iriel was forced to nod, for Val, he was certain, would not continue unless he supported her statements every once in a while. "Aah, you understand! Mon dieu you smart smart kid, I came from here!" she pointed at the sun shaped mirror proudly, "And my world was far more advanced and special than yours is and will be for the next fifty years. But we're special, because we can travel dimensions~" Somehow, when she was proud, she would trill the end of her sentences like Xenia did, and expecially did when she was tipsy, even if just a little bit drunk. "Oh, sorry!" Val hurried to add when she realized, "I forgot myself for a moment, but ah, in my world it's... slightly odd. Around a couple of decades back, we mined up something weird, but would later turn out to be really valuable, like your gold on Earth, here. It was crystal, unlike anything we ever found--" "Diamonds?" "Better, magic rock." .x. Iriel was still processing when Val suddenly let go of the two mirrors she was holding and fumbled around her collar, tracing it to a spot behind her neck whereby she started to fidget around as though trying to scratch a spot she couldn't reach. "I think I have it here with me, I always wear it around since it's the only reserve of magic I have..." "--Heh?" Iriel blathered as he tried to catch the mirrors before realising that Val had propped them against her knee carefully enough to ensure they wouldn't fall. "Ah! Gotcha!" she pulled the necklace free, unclasping it at last and dropping it gently on the ground. It was unlike anything Iriel had ever seen, and it sure as well did not resemble anything that Iriel had known to be crystalline or a real authentic crystal. It was for one, perfectly like a mirror, a strongly reflective material which was black with silver flecks in it like impure diamonds. It seemed to be very light and deceivingly brittle in its current, solid, form. The material also had a faint odor of spices, strangely enough, and Iriel scrunched his face up with surprise. "Covalacite, pretty isn't it?" Val cooed at it, like it was a precious gem and not a strange brittle piece of rock, "This substance's melting point is very high. It is also said to give off mild radiation and, maybe, as such it can be easily magnetized. It provides some insulation against temperature changes also, which is why it's always so cold. And I love it, it always smells like the herbs used for roasting lamb," she picked it up and took a deep breath of it, "Ah haaaa..." she sighed, "Rosemary and amaranth, perfect. It was also magical, but when I ended up here... well, it lost most of its capabilities, and even though I was supposedly born magical, I lost it too. Sad thing ain't it?" She checked it for cracks before she set it carefully on her lap, depressing a spot in her dark skirt. "Wait... You, were born magical? How can that be? You look human! Even your ears aren't pointy!" Iriel protested firmly, squinting at her ears through the increasing glare of the mirrors just to make sure. Val laughed at him again, touching the shell of her round ears with a grin, "Human fantasies are really the funniest ever. Ever read English Mythology kid? You didn't really think my name was a result of crazy hippie parents did you?" she laughed again, shortly, "Valkyrie Rinelth, who has a surname called Rinelth? Ridiculous!" Iriel felt the urge to go retreat into a corner and start sulking if that was all he could do to comfort his lack of knowledge. "Then what are you? A Valkyrie whatever that is?" "Spot on!" she cheered, visibly happier now that she was past the stiff logics, "A valkyrie alright. But you don't know what that is? How could you! My kind was said to win so many battles for your kind in the past when your ancestors were on Earth, they might as well give us some support and spread the story, you conceited humans." "You're spirits of war?" Iriel wanted to laugh and somehow make the irony pass, but the intensity of the serious situation just didn't enable him to. "Bi~ In~ Go~" she cheered, sounding like Xenia again, "Sorry. The morning getting to me, I don't know why my sugar levels rise so high, I think that wretched whiskey got me, che. But yes, I was born to a tribe of spirits of war. Well, we aren't technically spirits... more like minor deities, except we got worn so thinly that we're more like special humans now. Heard of Athena have you?" Iriel thought about it then shrugged, "biased you are, to study the Greeks and not us. We don't actually fight in wars any more, but since we're so old and we don't really... you know, reproduce very quickly like you humans and oh heavens above, those wretched insects in the fields, we tend to be a small conservative bunch. I was one of those younger ones who was silly enough to bother with human affairs and befriend humans." Val grinned at him genially, her green eyes bright, "I was actually a part advisor sometimes even if I was a little flighty and went everywhere." "You don't reproduce quickly I can understand, the magic part not so much, but by old you mean like hundreds of years?" "Oh yes. Tell me how old do I look?" "Twenty, Twenty three about there." Iriel just knew she was going to disagree. "Exactly, that's my current physical age. My body ages the same as you humans really, just much much slower thank god. That property lasted though when I was still back home and here, I'm still ageing reeeeeaaaally slowly. About like... I gain one year one my face while you all have gained ten. I'll be twenty for another six years, by the way. We start dying when we reach... physically, as in when we start looking eighty, which is--" "About eight hundred. Geez, you all are like demons! With hugely long lives! Elves!" Iriel was starting to humour her, though maybe it was for the better, he came here to listen to some fun stories in exchange of lightening his mind about... about... "You know what's the fun part about being two hundred and four?" Val grinned at him again, her white teeth flashing in the bright light, "We learn huge amounts of things. And not just the dorky bespectacled ones like me! Look, see what happens when I put my hand here?" Iriel watched, and like how the mirrors would be reflected, Val's hand was too, reflected over and over and over in the mirror till there seemed to be a million of her hands, all neatly in parallel lines. "If a mirror is a world, and a reflecis a dimension, what would this be?" "A copy of a person?" Iriel laughed at the idea, but Val wriggled her fingers nevertheless, walking them as though they were legs to and back the reflection. "Not a person, but afterall, since the world can have different endings, so can a human. Just as there are many reflections of a mirror, there are different people staged in each dimension and they are all different. They may even be repetitions, from one world to the other. While I, never being a human have existed in the world of Earth before, there is you. I met you back in my world too, same pretty face, but the temper my god, worse. But we were good friends that Iriel and I. And you were a stupid ass I tell you." "Oi oi, that's going a bit far ahead now aren't you? When did I get into the story? How, do I get into that story anyway?" Iriel paused abruptly as Val suddenly propped her chin up with her hand, and tilted her head to fix him with an impossibly intense gaze, one that silenced him immediately. "Earth's capsule, what if instead of landing here,they landed..." She skimmed her fingers against the horns of the rhinoceros beetle and then skipped over to trace the carvings on the sun shaped mirror with a small hum. "here? Or here?" her spun frenetically onto another mirror on the wall, and pointed with a forceful flourish. "Ano ne? What about here? Or maybe up there? Can you imagine if mankind, the pathetic mayflies you are, landed where I have lived? Because that was what happened you know, in another world and you, were a prince. Haa, memories maaaaa... Oh, and you and your three sisters, how are they?" "Eh heeeeeh! How do you know?!" "OH darn of course I know! But you sure got lucky, your mum wasn't actually going to have you, but she changed her mind about the abortion because she... well I don't the version here, but back in my time..." she stopped abruptly when she noticed his stunned expression, "Ah ne... you alright?" Iriel paused, processing the facts then reluctantly nodded. Val glanced at him, ticking one pale eyebrow upwards in a manner that was almost condescending. "Ah, maybe you weren't as smart as I expected, Iriel Sheltiel Azrael? I had so much hope in you too. Ah ha... Just another child, give over that." She took the mirror from him, hanging it back onto the walls exactly where it had been, to catch the light once more. "Ka, kodomo, kodomo, kodomo--" "Haruko," Iriel said suddenly, "You speak like that red head girl from the cafe downstairs, what is it?" "Japanese, you won't be taught it even if you ask. Everybody that was taught in this world was never taught the concept of a race, only citizenship but that was vague. And in this dimension, the original landing crew did not involve the Japanese, unlike my dimension, where the world you landed in was already inhabited, and where the travel into galaxy is possible. A world where strange customs and people like Katsurou and Kichirou's mum exist, the little minx." "WHAT?" "You mean you didn't know?" Val was losing interest in him, he could tell by the way she kept studying her nails and playing with her own hair while she spoke, even if she kept her green eyes on him, it was clear it was more of an obligation than a symbol of interest. "You really are a child, you were more intelligent back home." "Valkyrie... Val, if you don't mind--" "That Valkyrie is actually my surname you know, use Rinelth. Ri is good. And I won't mind so you can go straight into the questions before I have to go shelve books." "O-Oh, okay then, Ri. Just asking, can you go over what happened in your world. Like how do I fit into all that, how you and Kichirou and Katsurou and Haruko fit into all that. And how it came to this." "Oh, I thought you'd never ask!" And just as suddenly, Iriel knew he had asked the right question, she seemed to some back to life like a wind-up doll. Her eyes seemed to positively sparkle when she went right back onto the subject, getting livelier by the minute like a child who was delighted that someone finally praised, or some poor bugger who finally had someone understand exactly what she had been going on about without much avail. Iriel was not exactly sure whether or not he should have got her started on this strange other worldly discussion, but he really was not sure about spending his time alone here in the room full of mirrors with a thousand (a million would be more correct, but...) questions dancing through his head sticking their tongues out at him who would never know the answer either. Strange company with strange answers was better than no company and no answers wasn't it? And besides, who could say no to such a beautiful companion, even if she had been telling him over and over about how she was an alien and different and non human. She was still humanoid looking, she was pretty, and she was a very reasonable person. Not feminine enough for him, but pleasant enough to be around without complaint. This fact was doubly highlighted by the brightness she exuded as she rapidly came back to life. "I'm so glad you know, finally you are thinking you know?" she sighed and leaned back, "But since you're just a silly kid, how about you ask questions one at a time especially since you, have like a million questions in your head going 'whoosh', 'whoosh', 'whirrrr' in your head?" How she knew was a mystery, but hey, she was supposedly a two hundred year old spirit of war, from another world and dimension, of course she could know. Iriel laughed a little, appreciatively and obligingly. "I kinda wondered you know, if for an example that I exist in your world right?" "Not an example that, you do actually exist in my world and dimension. just slightly different, you father was a ruler then and now you're not, you had a great interest in horses, archery, fine brandy and fireplaces and now...?" "Oh right right, but say that... was he called Iriel?" Val nodded at him, "Say that the Prince Iriel came here, somehow, like landed here by accident like you did? You did right? Oh he landed here, then wouldn't we be two copies in one world? What will happen then? would the dimensions collapse or something drama like that?" Val thought about it, twirling her hair between her fingers. Finally, she pointed upwards, towards the skylight as though in a manner that suggest 'AHA!' much like Archimedes' 'Eureka!'. "A simple analogy here, have you ever noticed that Kichirou and Katsurou Yamasaki, have been respectively called Aiden and Adair? Of course you have, but do you know why? Of course not, stupid question my bad!" she laughed again as she continued twirling her hair between her fingers patiently, "Well, Katsurou and Kichirou when they were back where I lived, they had parents of two separate states, one of them came from a family that taught Japanese and valued their base culture, which was their dad, who was by the way based in the state Inverberg which was of of the most liberal but radical st--" she paused at the surprised look on Iriel's face, "You better get used to it, you might start hearing a lot of familiar names. Inverberg is probably the name of something in your family too?" "Our family company, the one started generations ago, passed down..." "Like the country. But you see, their mother was from a strange subculture, who learnt some strange language that could have been anywhere between Latin to Viking-- Uh, I think I meant to say Norse, sorry. And she belonged to a religion where the twins were baptised, and that was their equivalent of your Christian names. Except that theirs were really long, like four to five words long, incredibly annoying and useful at the same time. All the time back in our time, they were addressed by the name their father gave them, which is why you probably might have found the name "Kichirou Yamasaki" or "Katsurou Yamasaki" so funny, since its a language that no longer exists here. Dead language, completely supposedly slaughtered, but is not because of us few. When they dropped right out of the sky, they ended up in the house they now live in, with a family condition that was quite similar to their own at home -- i.e. parents not present, taken care by a guardian -- but different. They suddenly had multiple cousins living with them, and an aunt looking after them instead of a Governor. After a bit of digging around, they found out that what used to be a connection of ties related to friendship and business on his father's end had become this," Val waved her hand around the place, "A writing entourage which he attended. Franny was the only thing to exist here that never existed where he was back then." "And the names?" "It turned out that since Japanese was an unused language here, they had their initially just baptism names changed over into their first names. If you've been looking carefully, which I doubt very much you have, the elder generation, and only the elder generation, calls them Aiden or Adair. Their surnames however was exactly the same, since it is a name and you don't change a name for the reason that the language it belonged to was gone. Kichirou, Katsurou, that's their true names." Val waved her hand about, as though drying her nails in the air which was gradually growing slightly staler by the minute, "Have you ever wondered what colour is their real hair?" Iriel ticked his eyebrows upwards with surprise at the question, "They aren't blond?" "They're like me, pale haired," she grinned brightly, "When they first landed, they had green hair too, since that was the hair colour they had when they were wandering around in your court all the while." "My, court?" "Besides that, and yes your court, when people who had the chance to travel past the time barrier to another dimension, can either manifest as a completely new character with no known or existing past, like Francesca Noemi -- the sweet dear -- would be if she went back with us, or they overlap and erase the existence of the guy that had been them. Memories not included, so it gets tricky. I like to think that it's because the time space smooshes together like two tomatoes, but it isn't exactly the case. So does that answer one question?" "Yes, yes it does. Thanks." "You can still ask, I have a lot of answers. Two hundred and four years worth of them actually," she grinned, "would you like a relationship analysis for before and now? Between say you and Xenia? You seem to be... ah, really fond of her in a way?" Val's eyes were twinkling in a way that suggested some sort of mischievous malice, but Iriel refused to be fooled by it, she was absolutely serious, he was sure. "Ah, though of course you didn't actually have anything to do with Xenia since she wasn't part of your state. But Reisa, Yamasaki them both you know very well." "I do?" Iriel blinked at her while he lay back onto the cool stone floor, staring up at the bright sun of morning, though it seemed to be nearing noon. He scratched his head absently as he studied the ceiling, looking slightly thoughtful, "If I know them, I don't feel anything. They never looked familiar before. But what about them?" Val joined him on the floor, lying in a way that their scalps touched and they formed a neat line on the floor. "Oh yes you bet they know you. But Reisa is probably the only one who really managed to make any big change on the previous acquaintance. Mainly since you aren't the crown princeling, major spoilt brat with an ego the size of your state and larger, drama king and the real embarrassment to your fiancé--" "And where did that come in?" Iriel shot upright then, while Val choked visibly as though she had just realized that she had said something she didn't mean to. She flushed when Iriel gave her look as though he had cheated him of something. "You never said anything about a fiancee!" "It's not as if you are going to meet her anyway, and in the end marriage thingy had to be annulled since you lied to your parents--" "I lied to my parents over getting married?! Where did that come into the picture?" Val slapped her fore head and got up to attempt to pound her head against the entrance of the room, whthere were no mirrors to break by accident. Iriel caught her by the shoulders and gave her a good hard shake, "Oi, Ri, you better speak up you know, I really don't like secrets. And I'd like it if you just tell me everything." "Or you'll what? Sneeze at me?" The Valkyrie had an incredibly condescending smirk when she spoke, as though she was talking down to him and not as an equal, though it wasn't exactly sinking down with Iriel's ego, he grudgingly ignored the tone. She was a magical being, a spirit of war and the descendant of some great diety that used to determine the victory of loss of a battle, that was enough on its own to zip his mouth shut when it came to this. Also, she was an elder, a full one hundred and eighty six years his senior, and people just do not disregard their seniors in this way. But still... It was kind of hard to just let her trample all over his head as she pleased just because she was a) an alien b) a spirit of war (so maybe this was more of a threat than an excuse, still...) c) someone who was... centuries his senior And anyway, Iriel was starting to wonder if maybe he came here because he knew that Val would here also-- "Oh right, how did you manage to find this place anyway?" Iriel stated suddenly, and Val - half way through slamming her head against the wall -- stopped abruptly to give him a look. She was, it seemed, vaguely insulted and wasn't too happy with taking that down. "I am or at least once-- alright! I still am a magical being, just slightly frayed at the edges, not so powerful any more, but I still have my magic, and I have my Covalacite, which is by itself essentially magic rock. Are you trying to insult my intelligence? And I never quite understood why that moronic, idiotic, estranged, patrio-- oh, that was a wrong word... Agh! Anyway, I don't understand the big hullabaloo about this place, it's really special but a room that nobody can ever find? That's laughable. I always knew that you humans were like may flies, to gather at the light blindly and waste away your short lives, but seriously, I never knew that humans had the intelligence of a may fly. And that's saying a lot." The rant ended abruptly as Iriel twitched at her suddenly outburst, "And that moron out there--Shoot! I think he's nearby. Iriel, shut up." The addressed glared at her and gave her a look that was midway between irony and exasperation as the girl pressed her ear against the same patch of wall she had tried to smash her skull with, and listened intently. "Is he there? That other librarian guy, I saw him last time right, mouse brown hair, kind of over grown along the front and sides, and he would always seem as though he was asleep, or reading very intently--" "Sh, Iriel, shut up. The door is not exactly sound proofed or anything you know," Val had not bothered to turn and look at him, instead, she had her ear plastered against the door and was listening intently while her green eyes seemed to bore through the wall next to her with as much intensity as a laser drill. "And his name, it's... uh, shoot, I forgot his name as well. Well he's just a regular mouse so it doesn't matter... He's moving out I think, I don't hear anybody any more," she sighed as she slid down the wall into a vaguely sprawled out sit on the floor, "And Iriel, where was I again? We were talking about?" "Uh, oh! You mentioned some strange thing about my... Iriel... oh the prince's lying to his parents about a marriage that ended up being annulled," Iriel scratched his head as he tried to figure it out. "You, are confused." It was stated, and it was not a question, she did not bother to give him any space to argue or really, any reason to argue. Perhaps she already knew there was no need, "You are not him, you are not Crown Prince Heir of Inverberg, Iriel Sheltiel Azrael. You are who you are, Iriel Sheltiel Azrael, an average human boy with three sisters... And you never told me about Brianna and Irene and Victoria! You big weasel somehow managed to weasel your way out! Oh my god, I was so careless--" "Eh, if it'll make you continue talking on the subject," Iriel cut her off, interrupting suddenly so that she would take the point and continue to speak, "they're fine. Victoria is expecting her first child, Irene is engaged, and Brianna is just Brianna, getting married in a couple of weeks from now." "--Eh? Your world must move faster than I expected! Did Victoria marry a foreigner or was it a... local?" "Foreigner. He was called Schneizer something even. Said he came all the way from Utaia." "U... taia... Schneizer..." Val looked like she was deep in thought, as she considered it, her fingers tangling a loose lock of her pale hair as she twisted it over and over and over her finger, "Did he have... red hair or black? Eyes? Did he have... brown eyes?" "Why yes, he had brown eyes and darkish hair. Brunet if I ever saw one, said he used to come from an Italian parent, but that really wasn't the point." Iriel spread his hands out in a careless shrug, "We weren't actually taught that concept, and most of the time all it meant that he was proud of himself. Or he was anciently old fashioned. He's really just an Utaian." "Italian... Utaian... What does it matter?" Val smiled brightly, "I guess it's miscalculation on my part, I had thought that we weren't far from my dimension in terms of the way things moved. Like you, you were eighteen when we arrived as we were, Shiroi too was as we expected, eighteen. Even his parents were of the same age that they were when he had left, but it's not the case here I should think. I mean, look at this... Wait! Brianna as in Brianna Corinne Azrael, right? Irene as in Irene May Azrael am I right? And--" "Victoria's full name is Victoria Eliza Azrael," Iriel blinked, "You got all the names right though. Perfectly the same." "Then... I guess it's as I said, my mistake in calculations. That idiot girl Shiroi." "Ri," iriel began, pausing cautiously when the addressed girl fixed her displeased green eyes on him as though trying to bore a hole through him with her gaze alone, "You really don't mind--" "I don't mind. Since you have the face and name of a good friend, I can pretend that you're actually not another blithering idiot and really just the crown prince. Makes it easier for me to endure through it all." Now that was totally unnecessary information, but Iriel felt obliged not to complain as, she had really been extremely patient with him, if a little condescending. "So the fiancée matter, what on it?" "Well, because of the crown prince... can I say you? I feel really tempted to since you both are like... you mind? Oh fine! Whatever! Since the crown prince had an ego that size of a whole state, most of the girls around him were always nothing more than fearful acquaintances, who were more afraid of you than admiring. But you know, Crown Princes always have to get married in the end, and so they arranged for something that they hoped was satisfactory. This is sort of where Francesca Noemi Channing and her parents may have come in, but you--I mean, he never actually got to meet her because the crown prince employed on a crazy plan after an accident on Shiroi's part." "Shiroi Nakajima? The Utaian student transfer brunette you share your dormitory with?" "Her other self, back in Inverberg. The original Shiroi I knew. And anyway, she actually had an accident with a spell, it was sort of my fault actually since I knew she was going to mess up somewhere since she was such a big klutz and was sure to get something wrong. The accident was sort of part way hilarious and part way ironical because it swapped souls." "Now you're telling me that we have souls?" "Well, if it bothers you, try self-consciousness. It was switched anyway, and I don;'t know the details, though from what I heard later, Iriel woke up screaming one fine morning and acted really strangely. They didn't send for me like they would usually do if they suspected magic, maybe because they thought it was something he ate the night before or something. But it ended up in a way that it turned out that Iriel and Katsurou had their... do you really mind me using the word Soul? you mind? Narrow-minded freak--They had their self-consciousness swapped. The mind who was always so certain of himself as Katsurou, suddenly found that he was a brunet with green eyes and had a butler. Iriel on the other hand..." Val burst out into spontaneous laughter then, although Iriel was too busy checking the mirror to make sure that his features were still those of his own, the brown hair and green eyes. Somehow the concept of possessing the body of... Katsurou, was innately disturbing. And that would also mean being exactly identical to Kichirou... Oh heavens. "You look disturbed, but oh the crown prince had so much fun," she giggled again as she rolled over on the ground in fits of amusement, "he was so happy I tell you. But, ah, they managed to get Shiroi to kind of edit the spell so that it ended faster. But she managed to somehow glue both your--his and Katsurou's elbows together and in the morning--" "They had to sleep together?" Iriel was starting to feel disturbed, it was getting sort of close to reality now, all that. Labels: T.A.P. The Amaryllis Project [ Chapter Eleven ] "I know this is a bit weird, Iriel, but can I sleep in your dormitory for tonight?" .x. When Steven came back with Shiroi, Val, Xenia and even Reisa all dressed up in strange costumes after leaving to answer the knocking on their dormitory door, Iriel was certain that something fishy was up. His immediate response was to recount his time line of events where he was. Seven days ago, he had chanced upon the much coveted hidden room. Seventeen days ago, he had to write an extra essay for Katsurou because he made him eat a sundae. Twenty-two days ago, he had arrived newly from home at the Amaryllis Institute on the first of July. Today was the Twenty-second of July, and by right there was nothing spectacular of particularly eventful occasion to celebrate. Halloween was still far away, and there was no reason to dress up, even if they all looked wonderful in costumes. There was Xenia, all decked out in a strange collection of a black halter, shin-high boots, an assortment of silver chains and accessories and some serious amount of heavy make-up. Reisa, next to her was no better, dressed up like a maid, looking flirty and French despite her obvious heritage that did not trace to anywhere near the region. Shiroi was somehow in a cat costume, a bastardized and revealing version that looked more like a bar-top dancer than a cat, though the cat ears on her head and matching tail looped over her arm was an obvious indicator of her initial costume idea. Val stood at the back of the crowd with Steven, looking more bored than ever, her silver hair brushed up into a messy twist, with three ornate hair accessories sticking out of it like a pin cushion. She was also the most modestly dressed out of them all, with her high-collared, sleeveless corset and shorts, matched with a long flamboyant train that dragged on the ground behind her, suspended and held up with an interestingly patterned, broad and very stiff ribbon. Iriel was still eyeing their costumes when Xenia waved her hand in front of his face and startled him back to the situation. "Where're your costumes? Why didn't you turn up? Didn't Franny personally tell Harty that you're invited? Che, the little moron I'll have his brains for lunch and sauté his guts for din--" "Am I missing something?" Without much choice, Iriel cut her off lest he couldn't get a reply in edgewise. "Missing something? Well of course!" Xenia exclaimed, horrified, "Franny's birthday party! It's the twenty second of July, Amaryllis Institutes' dress-up day! Didn't Hart-- oh forget him, didn't Kichirou tell you?" Iriel shook his head. "Well, Katsurou then?" Iriel shook his head again, and Xenia pouted. "Well, Haruko obviously didn't tell you. But anyway, we're going off for our own party now and you are coming along." "Wha--" Before Iriel could fit in another sentence in the mainly one-sided conversation, Shiroi and Xenia had each grabbed one of his arms and half hauled, half dragged him out of his chair and towards the door. "You, Steven, coming?" The said individual cast the speaker, Shiroi, a scandalized look. "Of course not, young lady. I, Steven of the noble family of the Hartells have better things to do than engage in the frivolous lives of women. Now leave me be and go enjoy yourselves!" With that as a dramatic parting shot, Steven pressed the back of his hand against his forehead in a feint, and scrambled up into his bed space, pulling the curtains to completely isolate himself there before switching on his laptop powered lamp. There was a pause as Shiroi and Xenia resumed in their combined efforts to drag the rather apprehensive and reluctant Azrael out through the door, before another order came through the plaid curtains. "Oh, someone, open up Iriel's desk drawer and bring me that noble copy Oscar Wilde would you?" Shiroi and Xenia huffed at him in unison as Reisa stood by with her arms crossed, determined to leave without lifting a finger, allowing Val to go retrieve the book and then proceed to throw it perfectly into the curtain where it hit the one who gave the order with a perfectly satisfactory 'thunk'. And the last sound that they all heard as they shoved and manoeuvred the brunet out through the door was a bunch of muffled curses and swearing before they shut the door on him. .x. "Huh, don't you have your own dormitory?" Iriel protested, while Steven creaked his way down the stairs and came up behind him to peer at the person who knocked at the door. The visitor smiled at him sheepishly, rubbing a free hand against his neck while tightening the grip on his pillow with the other, "Kichirou has Reisa over." .x. What Xenia had meant by 'their own party' was basically a crash over at the Yamasaki's dormitory, the one that was so close to the Teacher's dormitory that most students refused to stay there and would request transfers. The lot of them had went right up to the door, covering up the spying glass with their hands while Shiroi knocked cautiously on the door. And upon answering the door, they had all shoved the door open regardless of whoever it was an burst into the dormitory with a loud yell of the pre-discussed catch phrase 'BANZAI!'. Needless to say, Kichirou was jolted out of his wits in an instant while Katsurou had the misfortune of being squished behind the door while the bunch of them elbowed their way through the suddenly small doorway, trying to ease their way in together. Then whatever that happened was more of a combination of shouting, lot of illegally garnered alcohol, strewn books, a couple of drunk antics - including the time where Xenia tried to strip, only to be stopped in time by Shiroi's flying tackle to the disappointment of the various males present - and a lot of loud music. They also had several rousing rounds of Truth Or Dare, multiple drinking games that Iriel absolutely had no idea what they were trying to play, and a strange game Kichirou called "The Drinker's Confessions" which involved a lot of cups and a lot of hard liquor rather than the beer that they'd been drinking. "I have a brother who think my girlfriend to psychotic!" Kichirou drawled as he downed his cup. Katsurou glared at him, but apart from his elder brother, nobody moved their cups, showing that he was alone in the matter. "I... have dyed my hair multiple times~!" Xenia squeaked, her fingers tugging insistently at her collar while she lifted up her shot glass and downed the clear strong liquid in it. Iriel could have sworn he heard Val giggle as he, Reisa, Katsurou and Kichirou lifted their cups and emptied them. Shiroi shrugged mildly as she helped Val refill the newly-emptied cups. When it became clear that the silence that ensued was because of Iriel, everyone was highly enthusiastic about making him continue on the game. "But I have nothing to say--" "Forfeit the bastard!" came the slightly slurred cry from Reisa's end as she held up her own glass, "To the royal family..." her words died to a mutter before she knocked back the shot with more force than necessary, and Katsurou coughed lightly in response. Shiroi looked apologetic, as much as a drunk could look apologetic, and held up a porcelain mug. "Forfeit, Iriel," she smiled at him mildly with the mug in hand, waving it about before Val caught her wrist and forced it still, filling the mug with whatever that was left of the vodka. When the bottle was empty, Val wrenched it carefully from Shiroi's grasp, prising her fingers from the handle and setting the cup down with a clonk in front of Iriel. "Finish it." Iriel stared at the mug, the one which could have easily held two hundred and fifty millilitres, with much apprehension. "You have to be kidding me!" he protested, flailing as he pointed at the cup, "This is easily a quarter of a litre! Can't I just think up for something--" "Oh yeah? Too late for that prince, finish it or you spend the rest of your time tied up in the closet," Val could be strangely firm when she wanted, and the murderous glint in her eyes was definitely not to be messed with. Obediently, Iriel picked up the mug with as much reluctance as possible, and slowly chugged it down. Xenia, Reisa and Kichirou all started supported him with a rousing round of applause in support, and when Iriel finished, his head was buzzing extremely pleasantly. "Let's play something else now!" cheered Xenia as she flopped over onto the ground, knocking over her emptied shot glass and flashing off her underwear to everyone sitting behind her. .x. Iriel twitched, quirking an eyebrow at him, "But we were all over a moment ago--" Steven flicked the back of Iriel's head disapprovingly, and the brunet flinched in response, "--Che!" "Hart, don't do that. We're speaking here. And they're both... drunk." .x. "Truth or Dare!" crowed Reisa, flipping back her blonde hair with a haughty toss of her head as she too flopped onto the floor and curled up, leaning her head on Kichirou's lap. Like Xenia, she didn't bother to smooth down her fluffed, black skirt, revealing the layers upon layers of white lace that allowed the skirt to maintain its almost gravity defying puff. It also revealed her underwear, but for the sake of Reisa's own modesty, Iriel pretended not to notice. It however went dancing in his head anyway. It was white. And lacy. No, he was not looking. Not looking. Not, not, not... "What is it with truth or dare you bunch of morons!" Shiroi exclaimed as she sipped cautiously at her cup, three-quarters full with a translucent, brown substance which she sniffed at with more than a little apprehension. "I mean, we've gone through seven whole rounds of it and any more and I'll be telling you what I had for breakfast, lunch and dinner when I was eight." "Then," Xenia sudenly said, in a voice so serious she didn't sound like the raving drunkard that took her place moments ago, "Let's simply play Double Dare. No truth, only dares. Get out the bottle... Ah, the vodka's bottle will do nicely, pretty pretty bottle..." she murmured as she cradled it then set it on the ground in the middle of the circle, stretching out like a cat almost. "Mouth to whomever will be the person who receives the dare," Xenia managed a grin, a lopsided one without the usual cunning, "So that Katsurou gets a chance too, he who wriggles his way out of everything!" And it was true, from the time he was squished behind the door till this time, forty five minutes later, he had yet to speak a word. All he did was sit there absently nursing his cup which Val enthusiastically refilled even if it was barely half-emptied. Reisa next to him was giving him several disdainful glances, which he ignored completely, and it seems that all the while, he had done nothing more than study the tiling on the ground. Iriel really did wonder if this guy was really obsessive compulsive like his brother had explained he was, or simply wound up so tightly he was innately against the idea of having fun. Either way, this poor chap was in for it: Xenia had her eye on him-- "Alright then, since darling Katsurou has been so passive all the while, he can start first. Iriel, pass the mug please!" And just as soon as he had begun to sympathise the guy, Xenia began on her dastardly plan. Iriel handed over the mug, and the quarter of a litre capacity with it to her, giving the blond male a sympathizing expression. Katsurou didn't look particularly startled or shocked: the expression was neutral as always, though he now looked a little more of the resigned bit as Xenia snatched the mug from Iriel and began to hunt around for the bottles that were at least half-full. "Val! Val! Pass the whiskey bottle! What do you mean save it? Pass the bloody bottle, we're finishing that!" And finish it she did, taking a sip straight from the bottle, she smacked her lips a little bit and tipped her head to the side for a moment before finally she nodded her head, bobbing it dizzily in agreement. "Pa~! Ah~! Su~!" she declared loudly, before she tbegan to fill the mug with the whiskey, watching intently as the liquid went glug, glug, glug into the solid opaque-white porcelain container. It made one almost nauseous to watch her tip in the alcohol so generously, and the feeling was worsened when she thunked it solidly on the floor and slid it all the way to sit in front of Katsurou, the amber liquid glistening right at the brim, held in place by mere surface tension. Katsurou cast it a resigned look, "All of it?" he asked, his voice flat, almost slightly disappointed. Xenia flicked at her curly black hair, "Oh you bet you are! Finish it all or we cocktail it... with... with... Val! What do we have left?" Val glanced at the carton next to her, the wooden box that was punched with breathing holes and stuck with a label. It looked more like a pet's carrying case, but it was in fact the alcohol smuggling compartment of theirs, one of their few, and right now, it was still carrying two unopened bottles. "You all are not touching the rest!" Val declared instead of answering Xenia, covering her hands protectively over the carton and it's nine slotted compartments, "This is all we have left for like eight days! We are so not finishing it in a day! And anyway, most of you are already wasted! Five beers, one bottle of vodka and now the last bottle of whiskey is resting in Katsurou's mug--" she glanced at the said person, who was now tentatively taking a sip, not even bothering to take up the cup lest it spill, "And all that's left is the wine and champag--Uh, sparkling water! You all are going to save that for the last day." Xenia bobbed her head agreeably, and picked up the vodka bottle, squinting at it before setting it down again, "Well, there's a couple of drops left at the bottom of this baby, and we can always get a little tonic water from the cafe downstairs. We could also get Katsurou to go around for a day dressed up as Kichirou which includes necking with Reisa--" "HEY! Shut up, Xenia!" Reisa shrieked. "--And there's various other things that are nasty enough for a dare... Oh Iriel, do you think you can spin the bottle for me? My head's spinning." Iriel nodded, choosing not to tell Xenia that his own head was buzzing merrily and his vision was starting to get a little tipsy, and spun the bottle with as much accuracy as he could without falling over. 'Whir' , 'whir', 'whir' went the bottle, round and round until it stopped... .x. "Oh... OH!" Iriel's last word was drastically increased in volume was Steven smacked the back of his head and pulled the door wide open, prising Iriel's fingers off the door jamb irritably. Katsurou raised an eyebrow, or at least, tried to as he watch Steven herd Iriel back indoors and return to beckon him in. "Sorry, that guy's drunk. Think you should know since you were there, so where did you plan to camp? I'll be reading, and I doubt you should sleep on the floor, it gets bleeding cold down there at midnight." "Um," Katsurou glanced around the suddenly insufficient room, blinking slowly while his survey was interrupted frequently by the sound of rushing water and a loud splashing in the bathroom, "well, somewhere... Anywhere?" .x. "What are you all doing awake young people?" Immediately, seven guilty faces spun to the hallway leading to the door, to be met with the disapproving face of Francesca Noemi dressed in her sleeping shirt and long pyjamas bottoms, hair tousled and arms on her hips. She yawned shortly after her exclamation, quite spoiling the effect, but she waved her hand at them dismissively anyway. "You all..." she paused to rub one eye, without their usual reading glasses, "I won't have seen anything if you all clear up and leave to your own dorms in fifteen minutes. Otherwise, you all do public service in the Vest. Get moving." Thus marked the sad end of what Xenia called 'our own party' with much affection, and of course everyone went off rousingly helping to clear up. The bottle and cans were slotted back into the smuggling case (or the innocent "Pet Carrier") and Val picked it up, setting off to store it somewhere nobody could find it. Shiroi managed to help escort Xenia out, while Kichirou shook his head at Iriel and Reisa, whom he then helped up and patted his shoulder. "Don't knock into walls," he warned Iriel as the elder made to set off after Shiroi who was waving at him to hurry up, and the drowsing individual nodded blankly. "You know it’s been a good night when everyone has to switch clothes to go home~" Xenia trilled after Iriel as he went past her dormitory, windmilling her arms at him in an overly enthusiastic wave of good bye. Whatever happened next wasn't much of a big deal. He got back to his dormitory without a fuss, and after taking a good cold shower started to sober up almost immediately. Steven didn't even bother to greet him, only opened the partitioning slightly to glare at him when he went crashing into the shoe cabinet before he drew the plaid curtains back together. And ten minutes later when Iriel was sure he could even begin to comprehend climbing the ladder up to bed, there was knocking on the door. Again. And when he went to asnwer the door, it was then that he was greeted by the very strange sight of Katsurou parked outside the doorway with a pillow and blanket tucked firmly in his arms. And if that wasn't enough, he even requested permission to sleep with them. Iriel's first instinct was to rub his eyes and blink very vigourously. Whatever happened next undeniably led to this. "Is he... drowning himself in there?" Steven snorted, scratching his head and ascending the ladder back to his bed space, rejoining his precious lamp, laptop and book with a satisfied sigh as he jumped onto the soft mattress. "You can go check. And it'll be better if he drowned, then you can have his bed all to yourself. Otherwise you're going to have to share with him." Katsurou twitched visibly, first casting an incredulous look first to the general direction of the bathroom were Iriel was making a big splashing ruckus, then back at Steven who was snuggling into his blankets with the laptop and lamp still switched on and resting on his lap. "And why are you so comfortable with the idea of cramming Iriel and I into one small tiny mattress when you get to rest in your own by yourself?" Steven looked thoughtful, waving the copy of Sense and Sensibility in front of his face like a fan, "Well... Look at it this way. I'll be reading till about two in the morning -- yes, two, 'a', 'm', honey, and I know you very very veeeeerrrry well. You can't sleep if any sort of light shining within a foot of your face. It's also impossible for me to read without a light on, okay heck that, it's impossible for anybody to read without a light on nearby and I'm not going to get glasses because of you. So--Ah shoot I got off topic, but you get my point." Steven arranged the laptop carefully in a corner and was about to lie back against the wall when he glanced down again at Katsurou with a slight frown, eyebrows contracting together mildly. "You... Do get it right? Well you can still come up and share with me if you like~" Katsurou shuddered at him, rolling his blue eyes at him with a small amused smirk. "Oh, no thank you darling. I'll think about it a little, but never," he waved him off, tossing his head a little and gazing upwards through his lashes even in a manner that had to be described as cottequish. Stven pulled a mildly disappointed face at him, and laughed. "What's the joke, did I miss anything?" Iriel had slouched his way out of the bathroom while Steven and Katsurou had been talking, and was now slumping over Katsurou like butter, melting onto him. Katsurou scowled at him, but otherwise allowed him to use him as a support. Steven abruptly stopped laughing, and swept his short hair back with his free hand, with a sniff. "None of your business," he even sniffed again, and tossed his head, "This be between he and I and not you. Oh no no no! Now be off with you two, I need my time with my beautiful baby Austen. Shoo!" He waved at the both of them dismissively, even managing to add in a really bitchy sigh -- 'hah~!' -- and drew the partitioning sharply with a jerk of his hand. Katsurou rolled his eyes, and Iriel gave him a big bear hug from the side, pillow and all. The blonde squeaked as the hug tightened around his ribs, and shoved at his face. "Sorry darling." "Gerroff, I'm sleepy. You sleep on the floor." .x. "Ir..." "I--Iri..." "Iri... Iriel--" "Iriel... Wake up." "Uhh... Ow... My heaaaad... Wha...?" Iriel sleepily blinked his eyes open, rubbing his eye roughly with his left hand absently, propping himself up with his right. "Oh, hey--Ow, my head..." "I'd appreciate it a lot if you can like, free my arm...?" Katsurou sounded strained almost, and with his throbbing head he couldn't try or even begin to try and comprehend. He was also unable to see, because it was bleeding dark, even the partitioning curtains that separated the two beds was dark: the guy who had said he would read till two in the morning was asleep, and the lights were off. It had to be late. "What your arm?" Iriel asked, sounding very much confused but still nevertheless somewhat awake now and not just a sleepy person having a hang over, aching head and all. And he was still not catching on, though he was starting to feel distinctively odd, there was something weird going on. For example, the blanket was knotted and missing, and he was cold. But that was the not the real point, Katsurou's voice sounded really close to his ear, and his pillow was really painfully solid, like a rock. "Wha--?" He could hear his exasperated sigh, and even a slight hint of... well, something else. "Would you like me to... open the partitioning and let you have a look... at the situation?" he sounded hesitant, like embarrassed for his sake, sort of weird and flustered. Instead of waiting for his response however, he reached out with his supposedly free hand, tug gently at the partitioning near the head of the bed, where the window was. There was a soft 'shiiink' as the curtain was tugged, and it slid open to let in the soft light of the moon and lamp post shining brightly outside the building. "--uhh... ugh... Agh! Sorry!" .xxx. Labels: T.A.P. The Amaryllis Project [ Chapter Ten ] “Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished--" "So Iriel, found anything then?" Steven was actually awake during this lesson, that alone had to be a miracle. This was, after all, the guy who would fall asleep in class before the teacher even entered. Somehow, he just had the ability to know when something interesting was going to go on, and he'd managed to fight against tradition and stay awake. And it was just his luck, Mister Went was down for a... an... appointment, with some... one. Or something. The relief teacher didn't mention anything, and had instead told them that because of his unpacked - or more accurately, badly packed - suitcase that contained only a laptop, its cable and a video tape, he was stuck with letting them do as they wish, or show them the contents of the video tape. He then added that the tape was shrink wrapped, rated and had to be watched only behind closed doors. And that he wasn't going to allow alcohol or an orgy in the lecture theatre, even if the tape was not showing. Thus, by popular demand, the movie was played. "--However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation--" And it just had to be the wonderful classic too, in the true nature of a literary class full of cracked professors and Shakespeare with funny text and speech. "V For Vendetta", oh yes, so classic and so easy on the film amateur. Iriel glared at him, then spoke over the monologue of the very memorable character that had to either be a waste of screen time or a main character. "Yeah, in a way," he said dismissively as he stared at the projected image on the screen at the lower regions that was the front of the theatre, where the bloke standing in for the chap Peyote Went was, guarding his laptop. "--of volition. The only verdict is vengeance, a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and voracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so allow me to simply add that it is my very good honour to meet you, and you may call me V..." .x. So at the time, he did storm out, big fat ugly deal. But the main point now is that he, armed with a flashlight - sorry, torch - may have be on the verge of discovering something really really incredible. He was sure of it, and it was going to be momumental. The secret hidden room, it probably wasn't a myth, maybe that airhead of Xenia's did contain some really substantial stuff! All these ran through his head as he poked at the lever cautiously with his hand. It didn't spring, it didn't even creak when Iriel jabbed his finger at it so hard that he could have sworn he heard something crack. Irate, he set the flashlight down on the floor next to him and reached in with both hands. With any luck, he'd be able to wrench the blasted hinge into work, and then get into the blasted room... Which was somewhere else. While Iriel wrenched and pulled and stabbed the stiff iron hinge, it would probably be a good idea to recap what he did to actually find it. After storming out of his dorm room, Iriel actually only realised that he'd forgotten a torch and was partway through backtracking before he realised that he could have just gone down the corridor and borrowed from the girls down the row of dorm rooms. And so, rather than disturb Steven and bruise his ego, that was what he did, march down the corridor and knock and ask for a torch. Thankfully, it was Shiroi who answered the door, the girl who was so understanding she didn't understand half the things she... understood. She never asked questions either, simply trotting over the get the torch and hand it over, before tying a scarf around his neck as well with a very polite salutation. He had then, armed with a flashlight and a warm scarily comforting scarf - though for what he had no idea, it was supposedly summer - he'd gone down the corridor. He could vaguely remember the swinging post hanging on the ceiling, the little contraption of beaten black iron that was swinging merrily on it's hinges without the creak of irregularly oiled metal now. It was rusting, but it could be, at least, marginally helpful. He had then trekked all the way to the blasted sign - heaven help him why he never thought of it - and then after spending at least fifteen minutes studying the piece of rusted metal, gone down the corridor again with some half-assed sense of direction. It had read diagonal left, the arrow beside the rusted wording - R-something - was pointing that way. He'd tried to keep as faithful to the diagonally left direction as he could. In the end, he ended up at the step of the library. A quick check at the huge plaque hanging directly above the glass door, and it was clear. The frosted glass was for a reason after all, it was the inofficial "Teacher's Library", officially known to the students fondly as the Reference Library, without a single book on its shelves that was available for loan to non-staff members of the Amaryllis Institute. Iriel stared at it and pushed open the door. It was, fortunately open, though Iriel had really expected it to be open, it still came as something of a surprise. He had slipped in past the frosted glass door and into the library. .x. It wasn't musty. It wasn't dusty. It also didn't look particularly like a library either. The first impression for Iriel was the whoosh of the air-conditioner. Yes, the cool air of the air-conditioner was the wonderful first impression Iriel had. Then, came the silence. And when it set in it was even colder than the presence of the air-conditioner. It was really a low-ceilinged room, in comparison to the relatively wider space - vertically so - that was found everywhere else, and was amazingly sunny despite the fluoroscent lights installed on the ceiling that should have bathed the room in sterile bright white light. Instead, it made the room feel warm, cosy in fact. The floor was wood, plain and scratched, as though unpolished and unfinished. Something that was so haphazardly done that just made Iriel (whose own home was generously made up in wood as well) cringe at the sight. It would have been a pretty flooring, but it was scratched, probably by years of women, women teachers and some really fashion-orientated women students wearing heels and stomping their feet. The walls were wallpapered in a creamy offwhite, broken up by many randomly framed images, black and white monochrome photographs, simply framed, shrunken reproductions of paintings of numerous authors (ugh, there the cheeky bugger was! Get him, get that chap William and make him rue the day he was named a Shakespeare!) and was kept so clean and pretty unlike the floor. Like the dormitories, the doorway led into a hallway, with the shrunken walk way being a result of the Librarian's Room, filled with books installed to the left. Iriel gave the door a glance and went down on his way to the big open space that was the reading area. The low-ceiling room went on to the reading area, who had a librarian's counter set up right by the wall that marked the boundary between Librarian's Room and Librarian's Counter, which was in turn marked out by a series of low hip-high counters painted a deep, matured shade of mahogany arranged in a semi-circle against the wall, tucked in snugly between two walls joined to form a corner. There was a librarian at the counter, and he was reading. So deeply that Iriel was reminded of Steven, where the he would glance up briefly to see who the commontion had personified into, before resuming without a care in the world. This librarian was with curly, mouse brown hair, and with his face over in shadow, he looked almost sinister. Or asleep. Iriel cast him a midly interested look, then swept right past towards the shelf sections, weaving past the formations of beanbag chairs, low obsidian-topped tables, armchairs and soft squishy-cushioned hard wood-back chairs. And it was in the library here that he had found it. He really hadn't meant to find it. Upon finding that the library was silent and pretty much empty in the shelf section - everyone was either reading at the reading section, or simply engaged in conversation. It was really strange that he had actually overlooked it, now that he thought back, he must have walked past it multiple times. In the beginning, he had gone walking around the shelves, walking past the sections on literature, biographies, auto-biographies, miscellaneous books of huge sizes filled with what seemed to be a collection of very ancient and valuable reproductions of old paintings, and those documentary types that had numerous astounding shots of places. He had gone past them, all the books regardless of shape, size, colour, cover or cover type, all the labels with the big red 'R' on their spines. He had been confused a little by the sheer size of the shelf section, though he supposed he should have expected it from a place befitting the "Teacher's Library", a place with references of all types. It was totally different from the reading section, or in fact the entirety of the section that he had been greeted with when he had entered. Here, the low-ceiling had stretched out, into a high ceiling that encompassed what seemed to be two floors, with a floor-to-ceiling wall of windows, all composed of little squares of glass in metal brackets, letting the light flood in. There were no curtains whatsoever for that window. The rest of the room was composed in a vaguely circular shape, with the flat wall marking the beginning of the circumference of this quarter of a room that was filled with many tall bookshelves, all made of wood that had been burnished to a fine medium shade. The ceiling had also two chandeliers, both a structure of black-painted steel and crystal diodes, suspended from a solid chain that looked to be steel. It was finely polished, and the crystalline light that it threw off was only a reminder of the amount of fresh sunlight the room was receiving. It was an imposing sight, but it was also a beautiful sight. Iriel never remembered anyone spending so much time and thought into the interior design of a library, though he guessed that this was probably just as well. Nobody wanted to go to a dull, dreary old library. This was a nice change. And while he had revelled in the sight, he had bumped straight into a librarian. "Oh, sorry--Hey, aren't you... Oh, hey Val." His apology was more of a greeting than a sincere admittance of one's mistake. But the other individual didn't really seem to mind. Instead, she tugged at the dark blue vest she wore over her stark white and black striped shirt, with it's ruffled front peeking out through the sharp 'v' shaped collar. "Hey, Iriel right? I never thought you were the type for reading at night. Glad you came though, it was getting boring in here. Anyway, may I be of any assistance?" She was Valkyrie Rinelth alright, the girl with the dyed silvery white hair and stellar green eyes that Iriel thought would glow in the dark. The feline, elongated features with the narrow, cunning eyes and the similarly sharp nose was a fine balance for her otherwise strong facial features, with the jutting cheekbones and squarish jaw bone that made her pretty face look as though it was positioned in too heavy a frame. So Val wasn't the prettiest creature on the planet, but she was a wonderful person, with a decent personality and outlook. She also was the type with so much sense that she made other people feel like complete idiots without her purposeful meaning to at times. It only seemed befitting, now that Iriel thought back, that she would have somehow led to his discovery of the secret room. "Uh..." he had said instead, trying to look as though he was sincerely trying to find a book than be an explorer, "do you have any books to recommend?" He settled instead, even though his pride gave him a sharp poke, causing a twinge to run through his chest. It wasn't his fault he had to settle for such a horrible excuse, blame the brain, blame the brain he complained. Val however, smiled at him, pushing back her pale hair with a wide smile that stretched out her thin lips and didn't quite actually reach her eyes despite how sincere it seemed. "Oh, I thought you'd never ask. Whose class are you in?" She paused for a moment, and before the question could sink in, and Iriel could even begin to formulate a reply, she answered herself. "Stupid question, Mister Peyote Went right? College level two hyphen..." "Seven," Iriel offered. "...Right, College Level, class two hyphen seven. You should be covering Midsummer's Night's Dream if it's two hyphen seven, they always rotate the texts ever year. I think you might be covering something closer to home soon, something less literature and dreary. I think your class will be going towards the mainstream type of stories... Hm..." She leaned back on her heels and considered, tapping her finger against her chin for a moment, as her eyes wandered to the ceiling in thought. Then, she turned on her heel and marched off, "Follow me. Mainstream stories and authors... I think you all might also cover some films and romance stories... Sadly, you all won't be going anywhere near Wilde this year, that was rotated off to the other classes. I think... Yes." She came to a halt, and Iriel skidded into place next to her on the wooden floor. "This shelf, it'll have everything you might need. I don't usually make a habit of recommending specific books, and I won't be starting any time soon. You'll just have to pick and choose yourself." Iriel had nodded his answer at her mutely, and Valkyrie had actually ruffled his hair. Actually ruffled, in the way that was meant to purposely mess up his hair and annoy him in a friendly way. Iriel glared at her, with some surprise but with mostly annoyance as she stalked off on her chunky heels and pencil skirt. He had to be a little too old for that, and Valkyrie most certainly was no older than he was, it was not her right to treat him as a kid. That he decided, but he wasn't about to cause a scene. He had a job to do here, and if it was going to take days, at least he'd know where to start. .x. At first, he had began by pulling books off shelves. In an effort to put up with an act that he had started, he had actually bothered to take a look at the books, check out their covers with some interest and check their summaries and in flaps for some information before selecting them and adding them to the slowly growing pile on he balanced on his arm. Then, he had moved off to another shelf. And moved back when another book caught his attention, and he lost sight of it. He went on to check the shelves for a hint of that book, the attractive cover page that was a nice shade of bronzed gold, with a series of bold ornate black titles. 'The D-something Club', he was sure of it, but why couldn't he find it? In his haste to locate the book, he had accidentally dislodged a smaller sized book between his pile of relatively larger ones. That small book had skidded happily from between the slippery polymer covers protecting the fragile hard-backs and landed with a 'fwoop' of arrayed pages and a hard cover. It fell face first, the pages wide open and in danger of creasing, under one of the elevated shelves. Frustrated, he had bent to pick it up, grumbling as he set down his small pile of five other books onto the space of the shelf and gone down onto his knees to reach for it. And then he had found it, hidden on the underside of the shelves, just barely visible from the reinforcing wooden brackets lining the gap. It looked like a handle, and when he reached towards where he thought it was through the tight gap, it was cold hard metal. He had poked at it experimentally, gingerly pulled at it and attempted to nudge it into springing. Nothing worked, until he reached both hands into the underside of the shelf and wrenched it hard towards himself. It creaked, groaning so low it was almost inaudible, and then Iriel could have sworn it gave. But even after he retracted his hands, studied it twice and picked up his books, he couldn't tell what had he sprung. Where the hinger was supposed to open, and what it was supposed to be trapped into. He dusted his hands and stood up, swiping his torch from the wooden ground and went to pile the stack of books from the empty shelf, he couldn't figure out what had he sprung, opened. The library was even quieter now, with lesser people occupying even the reading area. The population must have shrunk at least in half, and the space that was the library seemed to become positively eerie. In the cool wash of the air-conditioner and it's persistent humming, the emptiness of the entire structure, the library seemed to expand, stretching past horizons into the Arctic Tundra. There was no voices, no people and no comfort, only the constant hum of cold wind and the soft creaking of the chairs in the far off reading corners. Civilisation was a million miles away, and the lights... Iriel glanced up as he was arranging the books - largest at the bottom, smallest on top, no more slip ups - and noted that the chandeliers were now lit. The fresh light that had been spilling from the library's glace windows hadn't been as bright as he had thought it was, the bright sunniness of a summery noon time as he had perceived. In truth, it had probably been the time of stretched out evening, where the sunlight shone for longer, where day expanded to fill out whatever times it could occupy and night shrank to fit the reduced space of the clock. Iriel scratched his head as he lifted the pile off the shelf and moved off towards the reading corner. Setting down the stack of books he was certain he was never going to finish by witching hour, he flopped his form down onto the nearest armchair, a creation of flowery chintz, with squishy cushioning and low arms that accompanied a strangely high backing that allowed one to sit straight and still be able to rest the head against it's soft material. It was, also leaking stuffing in one corner of its cushions he realised. Picking absently at some of the loose strings running fro the fraying edges of the stitching, Iriel adjusted himself to sit in his preferred slouching posture, and picked the first book off the pile... "Can you do something for me?" The addressed looked up, and was met with the face of the addressee, the strong facial bones and the refined features, the narrow green eyes and straight sharp nose. "I need you to run over the the Librarian's Room and get me a copy of this book. Please Iriel?" Without really waiting for his reply, whether a protest or declination, she had handed him a book cover, the type that was the papery protection for the average hard cover book. It was tattered, and in a nasty state, something that could be understood when one remember that it wasn't wrapped in protective polymer of kept safely with its own respective book. Iriel considered it as he studied the cover, trying to scrutinize the title from the generous tear in the top corner. Val seemed to see his apprehension, and quickly added in her own explanation for why she couldn't get herself or someone else to do this job that was seemingly going to be extremely tricky. "I have those to shelve," she pointed at the steel and wood trolley that she had parked comfortably next to a shelf, all laden down with books in three of it's five shelves on the side facing them and perhaps more on the other side, "And him--" she pointed at the librarian at the counter, the one with hair that looked like mouse fur, "he's reading and you won't believe the crankiness he personifies into when you disturb him. It's late and I'm in no mood to get shouted, Xenia took off-duty today and Shiroi is out running... Please?" Although it didn't really make sense to Iriel why in the world she would be bringing up Xenia and Shiroi, since it was insanity to run several feet just to reach their dormitories and enlist their help for a simply duty, he nodded his agreement anyway. She looked relieved, though like many of her expressions, it never quite reached her eyes to be sincere. "The author is intact though, so you just need to try and match up the title... Well, it's up to you then Iriel, thank you so much! You're a charm," she kissed him on the cheek, much like how Reisa did the last time, and hurried off in a fluster of clacking heels and bottled white locks, all coming out from it's bun. With an impatient 'hrumph' with annoyance, he set down the book back onto the pile he had so carefully arranged onto the obsidian-topped table and got up with more force than necessary. As he went on his way to the Librarian's Room on his menial duty, he was sure he had knocked some stuffing from the chintz armchair back there. Never mind, he'd try to make up for it later. Striding past the counters, he glared passingly at the librarian still slumped over his book and for the second time observed how he looked dead - or asleep - before he wrenched at the door handle and let himself into restricted land... .x. "And what did you find there? Gold?" Steven poked him in the shoulder, forcing him to come out of his comforting daydream with a start, "So it's in the Librarian's Room huh? Well no wonder it's hidden, nobody's allowed in." "Bad news for you Iriel," Xenia added as she leaned in towards him from the other side, her face lit by the flashing lights thrown of the projector screen, proving her guilt at having listened in while he talked despite her act of nonchalance, "Every one of our shelves have a wrench like that underneath them. They're the quick disassembly catch, and you better start thanking your gods that you didn't disassemble the whole thing. It could have collapsed right down you know. Is that all you found?" Iriel thought about it and then very slowly shook his head, in a diagonal manner. Now that he thought about it, he didn't really want to tell them about it. It was a hidden room, and it was one that he found and not them, even though they were veterans of the area. Iriel was compelled to be selfish for once, and thus even as Xenia and Steven fixed him with expectant gazes, he didn't add anything more. "Watch the movie, both of you. Look, V is declaring his love for the... girl whoever she is." "She's called Evey--" "Shut up and watch, moron." .x. It wasn't an accident he found it, it had to be preassigned, something that compelled him to find it. He was sure. How could it have been so suddenly easy? Armed only with a badly torn book cover, a scarf that was totally not suitable for the season but strangely befitting of the setting, and... well, that was it, the pathetic end of his arsenal. But he didn't complain even as he stepped into the dark, exceedingly badly lit and cramped room, feeling more apprehensive than disturbed. From what he saw, it was a tiny room, even more so due to the immense number of low shelves and tables scattered everywhere and the piles of books stacked on top of them. Fumbling, he had left the door open as wide as he could and groped blindly against the walls surrounding the nearest walls for the switch. He found the solid wall-mounted piece of plastic, and with a sigh of relief flicked it downwards. Instantly, the furthest row of light flickered to life with a low buzzing noise. The lights that lit the room were anything but sufficient, but even in the dim light, Iriel could tell that the task was going to be very difficult indeed. Like his initial impression had warranted, it was a cramped room. It was a solidly confined room, very dingy in the dim lighting and abundence of dusty books. The walls were obscured almost entirely on two walls by floor to ceiling bookshelves, varnished and adding to the musty smell of unopened books with its own woody smell. The remainder of the four walls were that directly opposite that Iriel was standing near, and the other to his left. The first wall he directly face was lined with windows, all with sterile white vertical blinds, and all quite tightly shut. The glass was streaked, and presumably unwashed for quite some time though it was still see-through to some extent. It wasn't a pretty sight however, with the two huge eight-seater dining tables - without any fancy obsidian tops - positioned in the middle of the room, stacked with a generous amount of books, all arranged from largest to smallest. The remaining wall, with its unspectacularly tiny desk, that was about as solid and sturdy-looking as a veil of gauze which was surprisingly empty and a projector screen - drawn down to contrast against the haphazardly wallpapered, eggshell-coloured walls - only served to add to the claustrophobic feel to the room. Iriel took one look at the room in its inadequetely lit state, and considered backing out and simply stating that he couldn't find it. The room looked perfect for someone who was in their final stages of book-loving syndrome would spend, accompanied by the sheer number of musty compilations of paper and ink and glue. It was probably the kind of room bibliophiles like Steven would like. He himself detested the room on sight. But then it went agaisnt himself to simply give up on the hunt without trying, and so he let go of the door jamb, allowing the solid block of wood to thunk close and seal him into the artificially ventilated room with a sort of morbid finality. Steeling his nerves, he had set upon his task. After several piles of books and at least fifteen minutes later, it finally dawned on him that the books had to be arranged by alphabetical order, no matter how messed up. Slapping himself in the forehead, he checked the crumpling cover page and had to squint again int he dim light, reminding himself to sue the school for their exceedingly bad treatment of their librarians. 'Zephyrus', the name was 'Zephyrus Cornelia' he was sure of it and he was going to hunt down that author with the bloody awful pen name. Here was the four 'A' piles, and there was the seven 'T' piles... By the time Iriel polished off the piles on the table with a quick look through to make sure that there were no piles lettered 'Z', his eyes were starting to sting with fatigue. "Bloody Librarians," he muttered half-hearted as he dusted his shirt and started on the shelves. Shelving was one of the factors that worked alongside with him this time. Everything was neatly put in place, and was all straightened with military precision. Iriel, was so grateful about the fussiness of librarians that he could have cried. Instead however, he focused his own tired, complaining eyes onto the first shelf he came across and began to count. What luck, it was the series of 'R's, all standing in a row -- next. He jumped from shelf to shelf, before finally, his eyes darted to the shelf right at the end, the one lone brown shelf that stood there glowing like an ephemereal statue next to the vacant desk and chair. It had to be there -- something that a quick scurrying over and once-over confirmed. Allelujah, he was saved! Fate decided to kick him in the head at that moment, and he responded by seating himself on the table and going over each shelf by eye without a care in the world. The Lady Fate however wasn't so easily appeased, as Iriel could testify, she was so intent upon him discovering the door to the room that he had actually somehow tripped over his own feet while getting up to pull out the books beginning with 'Zep'. He went flying to the floor and smacked his head on the floor. The result, was a loud 'plonk' of solid linoleum-covered floor. While he crawled up sulking and nursing his bruised head, he had noticed the catch in the wall, the faintly shining outline right by the bookcase, marking the beginning og the squashed silt of wall next to the bookcase that was now mocking him. When he'd gone to investigate, he was made to shove the wall with his shoulder till it ached, though it opened reluctantly in the end. Iriel then eased himself through the tight space and was absolutely astounded. .xxx. Labels: T.A.P. The Amaryllis Project [ Chapter Nine ] Katsurou, as it turned out, was right; stare at a page long enough and you start seeing a lot more than what is there. One does get really tired eyes and blurred vision for a while afterwards, but really, it worked. And if you were someone like Iriel, who just had an inability to read books that were assigned and that he had no interest in, yet could stare so long you could analyse the text in-depth, something was very very wrong. As so it was in the class College Level Two Hyphen Seven, a motely collection of around thirty-two students ranging from seventeen and eighteen years old gathered in a small, cramped lecture theatre that looked terribly squashed when there was full attendence, without the teacher. When they had Mr. Peyote Went in class with them, the squashed atmosphere became absolutely stuffy and dull, so much so the air itself seemed to almost drip down in globs, enveloping the students in a cocoon of lethargy and a persistant inability to concentrate. His hypnotic voice, worked backwards, hypnotising in a way that no teacher would want, like a drone. And it would buzz rhythmatically in the ears of his poor students till one by one, they dropped out of the air and into a zombie-like, almost comatose state. Usually in class, Iriel was the first to go pay his respects to the kind Sir Sandman and drop by the doorstep of his home, the aptly named Dream Land. Today however, he was kept awake with help of his kind friend and fellow suffering lecture mate: Xenia Xu and her good friend Valkyrie Rinelth, who had already completed three-quarters of the journey towards the home of Sandman. Steven Hartell, to his right had already made it to and past the door, and was now snoring softly with his head on the table. "Iriel, have you ever explored the campus?" Xenia asked, quite out of the blue. "Nah, no time..." He was feeling sleepy, he really was. The fact that Steven was snoring to his right was just adding fuel to the fire, Val was also nodding off where she was, her head repeatedly slipping off the perch of her hand for the past five minutes in a way that shook herself to a level of drowsy awakeness. Just watching them made Iriel feel sleepy. Had the bright, alert presence of Xenia been absent, Iriel was certain he would have joined the two drowsing friends of his on their journey and caught a couple of winks. "You know... Just because they request for you to do an unseen test at the end of the programme--" God, why was it suddenly so clear the way she pronounced the additional two letters 'm' and 'e' behind the word 'programme' to him? "--study all the time. Take a break off and go--" Ah, the cooling air-conditioner was such a gift to mankind... and the fan was in his direction, the breeze... "--there's this very interest room called the Reflect--" So sleepy... "--listen to me Iriel, I'm--" Iriel felt his eyes closing, "--Wake up, Mr. Went is coming towards us." "...Mister Went... went... where?" "Here. Wake. Up!" She emphasized her last word with a sharp slap to his arm, making his jerk awake with a yelp. "Feeling more awake now? Want me to shake your teeth out of your head too?" Iriel never felt more awake after the clean sharp pain, and he hastily shook his head in response. "Good," she muttered, sounding disgruntled as she twiddled her pen, not seeming to pay any particular attention to the Power Point slides, nor the lecture. "What were you saying about the school?" Iriel tried, now that he was unable to return to his drowsiness, he was stuck being wide awake in the presence of two sleepers and one put-off character, whom he realised would be his only partner available for conversation for the rest of the hour and forty-five minutes of the lecture. She tossed her black curls and looked away, "Nothing. Write your notes." .x. It was mostly Xenia's fault, but Iriel decided after a long moment of dsgruntled, reluctant thinking that maybe it was his own fault as well. The weekend was now flying by him, with the eventful chatter-filled homework sessions with The Talking Wonder Steven, and dinner study session with Strange Ambiguity Katsurou occupying his Saturday, and now this lecture taking up his afternoon times. Iriel was beginning to rue his inability to wake earlier, and him not speaking with Xenia more often. The girl was popular, she knew things he didn't, and she was bound to know other more interesting places to go than just what they had on the floor directory. It was only five days since he moved in on that eventful Tuesday, and now it was Sunday, almost a full working week, and he was already starting to get bored. And it was the girl's fault that he was reminded of it. Here he was, standing in the shower having the water rain down on his head as he thought. Life was dull, he should have realized a long long time ago. Or he had not. Iriel, the one who grew up with three sisters, all of them as different as night and day and all of them were little bundles of energy and life on their own. They had always been around to tide him over his boring days, and when all else failed, he had his own friends and classmates to mess around with. Here he knew no one, and like wise was a nobody. All he had was a few acquaintances who were involved in their own world, a world that didn't include him. It was something he wasn't particularly used to, this he knew, and this he was reminded of as he tugged at the rough white wool towel off the hook and pulled it to his face. Rubbing his face with it till his face was starting to prickle from the static and friction, he sighed as he towelled at his hair, pulling on his underwear and later his pants automatically. But he was stuck here for a month, he may well get used to it, make some new friends, get a life... He exited the bathroom, towel still draped over his shoulder. "Aha, thy scoundrel, Bow down to me whilst I must chide thou a little, has thou forgotten the wise words of thine father? Why art thou as such, a fool with no ambition, no hope, no ideals? Art thou not a man--" Steven again, Iriel stared at him, all decked out in a huge hat, pinned with a large plume that looked suspiciously like ostrich feathers, and brandishing a foam sword, his recently-washed blanket tied around his neck and flying out in an undramatic, fluttering cape. It was pathetic, really, but yet it was hilarious. Like Val, like Xenia, he spoke Shakespearen like it was part of him, smoothly and fluently like an old pro. "What is wrong with thou? Draw thine sword and fight like a man or thou art cowardly like a mere swine?" Iriel got over the surprise quickly, having become someone accustomed to Steven's sudden changes, crazy antics and the like. "You aren't much of a threat, with a puny knife like that," Iriel mocked, sounding less scornful than amused as he strode to the cabinet, tossing his towel over onto the chair as he door and picked out a random t-shirt. Pulling the bright pink article of clothing over his head, he shut the door and leaned against it, giving Steven a calm look as he floundered for a moment. And then, Steven suddenly had a gleam in his eye. He straightened, shaking his head and an extended index finger at Iriel. "Tsk tsk tsk, Iriel Iriel Iriel..." he smiled knowingly, "You underestimate me. This sword may not be too big to your eyes, but--" he abruptly swung his body, arm brandishing the sword and straightening rapidly in a perfect stop-thrust, "--It is big enough to go through you!" While Iriel was still sputtering and reeling in shock, Steven swept his hat off and bowed grandly. He even had the gall to wink at him, and Iriel could have sworn he batted the hat in a manner that could only be flirtatious, "That is such a manly shade of roseate fuschia by the way." Iriel glared at him, his face flushed from his recent fit of chocking from surprise. Keep this up, and Iriel was going to die some day, from choking. Heaven forbid, he'd rather let himself choke to his own disastrous end than have some madman like Steven Hartell attempt the Heimlich Manoeuvre on him. Extracting himself from the cool comfort of the wooden wardrobe door, Iriel resumed his usual posture, slouching down with his arms folded and feet firmly rooted. "You know, I've been thinking... This school, how much do you know about it?" he began, as rude and demeaning as he could make it sound. Steven was unperturbed, like always. "Oh, enough. I won't get lost, but it has plenty of rooms I've never been in..." He was untying his blanket cloak from his neck now, tossing the sheet of bleached starch-white fabric onto the bed, and setting the plumed velvet hat carefully onto the table, "It's interesting enough, but I never found the time or interest in exploring. Why? Heard the rumours of a hidden room eh?" Iriel shrugged, trying to appear disinterested, "Yeah, thought it sounded funny. I mean, come on, hidden room? Whatever for?" "It's a good place to be for studying, silent and all. Providing it IS a hidden room, which leads to the problem of finding it in the first place. Either way, I've heard stories. Something about the couple who used to chair the school, the old Ammiel Institute. It was supposedly a show of love. I forgot why. You should go search for it if you want to. You look really interested, the face ain't fooling no one." Iriel gave him and indignant glare as Steven grinned, stashing the foam sword into one of the drawers at his desk, "You look bored, some good ole treasure hunting would do your depraved, bored inner child some good. Now go leave me in peace whilst I go in pursuit of the trickery thing that is the fickleness of women's hearts and affections. Oh Jane you trickster!" Iriel felt his eye twitch as Steven picked up a copy of Jane Austen from his - Iriel's - table drawer, presumably "Sense And Sensibility", and settling down into his chair to read. "If you continue to act like you do now, you'll never manage to catch anything from your 'pursuit'," Iriel laughed, as he turned towards the door, pausing to pull on some fresh socks which he then retrieved from the wardrobe. "I beg to differ. You are the one who looks like he needs to get laid. I'm happy as am I, an asexual in love with compilations of ink, paper and glue. A bibliophile of strange, epic proportions," Steven sounded deadly serious, and to which, Iriel had absolutely no reply. A pause later, Steven had glanced up with his book in hand, looking mildly annoyed like Iriel was distracting him from some private matter, "Aren't you going to storm out? Now's the good moment!" .xxx. Labels: T.A.P. about one xREDballoon about meIt was the username that was adopted either in late August or early September of 2009. It was the combined effect of too many games on Orisinal (especially High Delivery) and also her long-time love for how the large red carnival balloons when they fly away. about meFinalized as a digital signature only in November of the same year, it has since been used everywhere: her previous Gaia account, her account on bubbl.us, and of course every recent endeavor on web and graphic design. It was an aim of hers to use it as something of a brand. From her sketches to simple blog layouts, one xREDballoon presents is her favourite signature as of now. about meone xREDballoon is the internet handle of a girl, born on a wet day in the early morning of late February. Although astrologically she is a Pisces, she displays many of the Aquarian traits, possibly as a result of being born near the time. She likes the concept of beauty in its most primitive classical form, ruffles layered upon each other generously for flounce or decor, detailed black lace be it crochet or woven, a whole palette of colours from turquoise to grey. She is charmed by the way an old well-read book smells on a wet rainy day, and the way the pages feel, all crinkly and wise under her fingers as she turns the page. She loves the inviting appeal of a blank notebook, and a good gel-ink pen in the colour of the sky. about meLearn more about her in her personal blog. about And Then She Fell about meAndthenshe-fell@blogspot was named as such in October 09, on a whim and on a wish to match the layout that time. And Then She Fell was a lot of things back then: a roleplay layout (in bbcode), a roleplay idea (which was never developed) and also the words emblazoned in huge Ruritania upon an image which showed a falling girl. That was the beginnings of this writing blog as the all-new concept of And Then She Fell. about meFrom the start, And Then She Fell has always been a semi-personal blog. While visitors are not unwelcomed, no particular effort is put into censoring the content or to sound polite. Just as well that the blog touches on intangible unimportant things, for if it were to talk of life and its nuances, things would sour quickly and it would become a blog of cynical views and criticism. archives categories favourites |
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