* HOLD YOUR COLOUR, [open]

Nell wondered if she could freeze to death by just sitting here. She didn't feel too cold, but that may have been the numbness and the onset of pneumonia. Wouldn't that be pleasant? The kitty kept her chest warm, and it would have been an inopportune time to learn that she had an allergy to cats. It would have been rather strange, too, since she already had a houseful of them. It was rather disappointing to learn she had an allergy to food, her favorite thing in the world. She tried not to mourn over the loss of a certain type of food that made her almost die. Speaking of almost dying, she wriggled her toes to make sure that was not about to happen to her right now, reassured by the fact that she could still mostly feel them. They must have been pink by now, but she didn't want to take off her shoes to find out. Half-tempted to go inside, she remembered that she had a cat with her and they were probably not allowed inside, even though she didn't know the rules. Better safe than sorry, a mantra she should live by more often.

She'd gotten up to work the feeling back into her body, holding the cat still zipped up in her jacket, when she was pushed back and stumbled slightly. Her main concern was the cat which she gripped tighter in her jacket, before looking to see who it was who had bumped into her. "Sorry," she apologized out of reflex even though it hadn't been her fault. He then stuttered out his own apology, looking at anything but her eyes, and she studied him. He was taller than her, but that went without saying, and by his posture he didn't seem to be the extroverted, social type. "It's all right," she said softly, shifting on her feet. That had definitely gotten the feeling back into her legs. Her entire body, as a matter of fact. She was lucky she hadn't fallen into a snowdrift. That would have just been marvelous. She couldn't say that hadn't happened before, and that had ended up with a small child jumping on her back like she was a trampoline.

At his words, she furrowed her eyebrows before looking down at the cat snuggled up in her jacket. "You mean him?" she asked, looking down and obviously indicating the furry little creature. She looked back up with inquiring brown eyes. "Is he yours?" It was a relief to finally find the owner of the cat. She knew that she would have taken him in if she couldn't find the owner, and she was sure Josh would have no problem with it, considering all the cats they already had in the house. And if it meant saving the furry little thing from the cold outdoors, she'd be glad to do it. Looked like that wouldn't have to happen though. She wore a crooked little smile when he greeted her, a pleasantry so out of place it was comical. "Hey," she chirped, standing up on her toes for a moment. "I'm Nell. I just found this little guy roaming around, didn't want to leave him in the snow." She hoped he knew that she wasn't going to steal the poor cat or anything like that. She wasn't a catnapper.

Nell watched curiously as the guy fussed with his scarf, still rather numb from sitting around in the snow. She didn't voice this aloud, simply kept moving her toes in the boots she was wearing. When he opening his mouth, a smile fluttered to her lips but she immediately worked on veiling it. Doing such a thing was impolite, but it reminded her of Poppy, the stutter with which he spoke. It was adorably endearing. She knew it may frustrate other people, but she was completely content with any speech impediments those around her might have. She herself was a social butterfly, she liked talking to people. No, didn't just like, she practically lived for it. She enjoyed people's company so much she feared for a day when she might be completely alone. That's why when she was left alone she had to call somebody up. No one knew how dependent she was because she never actually said she needed people.

She moved to unzip the cat, holding him in the crook of her arm. Breath left her mouth in a cloud. "Oh, wow, lucky I found him, huh," she said. Nell believed it was one of the greatest coincidences to ever happen, him happening upon her with the cat he'd apparently been watching for a friend. She held the critter out to him, his legs dangling and him looking rather grouchy. Though that how all Persians looked, so it wasn't saying much. "How'd he get out?" she questioned. Guess your name's not Snickers. She wondered what his real name was, then, but didn't know whether or not it was the polite thing to ask. Besides, he seemed incredibly shy as is and she didn't know how well he even responded to questions.

His name was an interesting one, it was the first thing to come to mind when he spoke with that stutter again, making her stomach flutter pleasantly. Cute people turned her into a goopy, messy puddle, she just couldn't help it. The smile was permanently transfixed to her face at this point. "I should think so, Knox," she told him when he said that his friend would have been mad at him had he lost the poor thing forever in Maple Hollow. He wouldn't have to worry about the cat, however, because he'd be living it up in the Dale mansion. "But now she won't ever have to know, huh?" She was an honest person, but one thing she was big on was lying to protect other people. That's why a lot of her friends still didn't know she had been a fugitive or that she'd killed her mother. It was not something she should tell people.

The pause barely gave her enough room to go on a ramble about how it was no problem, and she'd just picked him up when she probably shouldn't have. Cute people also made her ramble, a known fact. Usually the cute ones were people younger than her, but she did not know how old Knox was. She'd never seen him before, so did not assume he was an elemental or anything that may know who she was. The Hollow was full of regular old citizens just living their lives, unaware that the Academy in the mountains was for people who were gifted with talents other than in the arts. No, it was much bigger and much more mysterious than that. The Earth graduate felt pride in being part of that kind of community.

If she was any other girl, she may have taken this as flirting, even though there was a ring on her finger that labeled her as taken. But this was Nell, oblivious to even the most casual sexual advances. She usually believed that flirting was just people being friendly. It was amazing that she hadn't been taken advantage of in that way before. "Yeah, freezing, been out here a while," she said, her voice breathy. But she didn't sound annoyed or frustrated, was still smiling as a matter of fact. "I'd love some coffee! Should get that little guy home first, though." She turned her smile on the feline. He was lucky with all that fur he had, insulation against the terrible Canadian weather. She figured that New York must have been experiencing the same thing, as cold as it got there. Sometimes she missed that place for some odd reason. She couldn't place her finger on why.

Knox took the cat from her as if he didn't know what kind of animal it was or what he should be doing with it. Maybe she should have offered to hold onto him, but it wouldn't feel right since it actually didn't belong to either of them, but had been entrusted to the boy. She would feel like a catnapper and keeping the little cutie in her jacket, no matter how warm it had been keeping her. Now she'd have to deal with the winter air filtering in through the gap created by the cat's absence. He just petted him, and she continued to smile, not out of politeness, but because she usually smiled. It was just what she did and it was her favorite.

She canted her head, stray hairs from her up-do ghosting along her shoulders as she did so. Animated as she was, even her hair had a personality of its own. "Oh, mystery," she noted. How does someone lose a cat without knowing how it happened? It never happened with hers, though she would be very worried should that ever happen. There was no real reason to let her cats outside (even though admittedly, she did take them out back with her from time to time) because they had a huge mansion to roam around in. She was certain they were content with that. "Honesty is the best policy?" she asked, lifting an eyebrow and wondering if that's what his belief in this situation was. She liked honesty, even though she did not have the beset track record in that department.

In situations like this, she wondered what people were thinking. If she were more paranoid, she would be thinking that the reason he behaved so nervously was because he knew he was speaking to a murderer and not because of a social anxiety. Nell decided to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume they did not know her history. Still, it frightened her always. There was nothing she could do to take back all that had gotten out, no matter how much she wished there was some way to do that. She tried not focus on it, but her mind went there when meeting new people. What would they think if she came right out and told them, "Hey, I'm a murderer, still wanna talk to me?" Like that would ever happen.

She giggled when he wrapped the scarf around the cat, finding it the cutest thing she'd ever seen. It made her giddy with happiness, almost distractedly so. She loved cute things, cats included, and she found a lot of things cute. Things that shouldn't be considered cute, as well, like spiders. She had quite a soft spot for them. Nell followed the direction of his finger and nodded before beginning to walk. "Are you still in school?" she asked him. For one, to talk to him, and for another, she wanted to put a finger on his age. She couldn't figure it out just by looking at him or talking to him, so it was a mystery to her as of right now. She didn't even know if he would answer, but most people complied with small talk. Except Josh when she'd first met him. That boy just had not talked.

Quite the opposite of Knox, Nell was comfortable and eager in every social situation. She just loved people, interacting with them, hearing about things in their lives. It didn't matter whether or not they were strangers or friends or whoever, she wanted to know more. And maybe that kind of eagerness might have been frightening to certain people like Knox, but she couldn't help it. After so long living as a hermit with her mother, she had the world at her fingertips. Even with everything going bad around her, she appreciated every day that she had. Her life was amazing to her sometimes, because she had a fiance and a mansion and a job and how had she come so far in two years? For everything that was wrong, so many things had gone right. She truly had a family, not the relatives who hated her but people who would stick around with her, who loved her. Because of that, she felt as if she could handle anything. Her aunt and her brother and her father—those people did not matter in the face of such a thing.

She turned her ever-present smile to Knox when he answered her question, and found out that he was college aged, as well. So he was pretty close to her in age, she supposed, which she found pretty interesting. ”I'm in college and work,” she said, still finding it adorable that he had what she believed was a social phobia. Or a tic. Or something, really, she had never really questioned it with Poppy. The girl was pretty much shy. She wanted to introduce these two, they could have awkwardly adorable conversations. ”I go to the Academy in the mountains.” It was just a 'gifted' school to people who heard of it, but elementals knew what it really was. ”And I work at the concert hall in town. A supervisor of sorts.” That she wasn't as enthusiastic about, simply because of Jane. The girl wouldn't mind it half as much if it weren't for the woman's presence, her making life hell. Especially since she and Josh found that man in her trunk, that had been quite the distressing experience. Now she would always be paranoid about Jane's next move, what she would be planning to do, just how far she would go.

As time passed and they drew closer, she asked casually, ”Which house is it?” She had once lived in the area, after moving on up from her crappy apartment when working at Blackjack. Now she had moved to the tippy top, with a mansion that she had finally come to consider as home. It was where Josh lived, and she had decided long ago that Josh would be home. That's all she needed, it just took time for the discomfort of such a new place to settle. She remembered how she had freaked her fiance out when she told him that she hadn't had good memories of living in someone else's home, and regretted her reluctance to move in with him at first. It didn't matter now that she was living with him.

Nell blinked at the question, but then grinned. So he was one of them. That sounded kind of creepy, though, like the Academy was a front for a cult. Maybe people thought that way for how secretive they were about what made a student "gifted". She wondered if they ever got letters from parents, bribes from them, wishing that they could send their children to the exclusive school whose acceptance process was as obscure as the name. The girl could imagine herself talking to a parent about her "gifted" child, and having them say that they'd been trying to get them into the gifted school for years. It was an odd thought to have since Nell wasn't planning on having children, but it was one of those hypothetical conjectures that she entertained in her head for a little while.

She brushed a hair away from her face as it dipped into her mouth. "Earth," she told him, her tone a little quieter even though they were relatively alone. There was no one close enough to take interest in their conversation. "I'm a sophomore." She wondered what grade he was in, wondered a lot of things about Mr. Knox. What was his favorite color? Did he like badminton? Had he ever tried to ice skate, because she was still working on that and it would be nice to have some help on that front. It would be really nice, as a matter of fact, considering she already knew how to roller skate. It took long enough, but now she had the possibility to learn it she took it. And she also wondered about Knox's past, but she knew she shouldn't with how she was about hers.


The area was very familiar to her, so she was a little shocked when he pointed to a nicely cut lawn and a white house and all the fancy-pancy trimmings that came with a mansion. Even though she'd been living her for close to a year now, she still couldn't get over how amazing these houses were. The area was a constant cause of wonder for her, as well. She was used to downtown, more than that she was used to the projects and the graffiti and the fences and row houses where she had grown up. This had never been an option for her as a child. She was born into poverty, and like many she thought she'd stay in poverty. It was a realization that only occurred to her as she grew up and became aware of her poor conditions (that could not be blamed on her mother).

She giggled as if his house was funny, but it was the location that had the reaction. Nell pointed her finger down a little further and said, "Really, because mine is down there. Howdy, neighbor." Small world, she guessed. Usually the way she experienced it made her dislike how small the world was, but this was a welcome coincidence. "It's funny I haven't met you before, I like to get to know the neighbors. Though it's kind of hard here, with the houses all being so far apart." Her aunt and her father lived in the area, and she was glad that they were far away from her. But she kind of missed having neighbors on all sides of her, above and below. She did not miss the sounds of raucous love-making or intense fighting.

Nell began walking up to the door, taking in everything, completely confident and sure even though on the inside she would never believe that she was worthy of such a place. She was just a humble girl in an old coat and old jeans and she'd never had much to her name at all. "Are your parents home?" she questioned, figuring he lived with his parents. If not, she wanted to know how he came into possession of this place because then he would have to be Richy Rich, and she'd be in even more admiration. It didn't take much to have her slack-jawed, but it was still a compliment for him.

Nell's eyes glittered when he shared that he attended the Academy, too. It was like a secret between them, how superheroes must feel when they see each other without the masks, little kids on the playground whispering in each other's ears. Or maybe wizards when they're around muggles. A whole new world was open between them, and she felt that flutter of belonging in this world. It wasn't something she often acknowledged, even to herself, but she yearned to belong. She was basically an animal who grew up in a zoo, only seeing the world from behind bars. But now she had been released into the wild, and she tried to fit in with others of her species. The human race. And she wasn't very good at it, and she didn't do everything right, but she felt good when she could talk to other elementals.

Her smile was small, however, as if it was a secret expression too. "Small world," she murmured, though Maple Hollow had originally been an exclusively elemental settlement. "It's always weird to see someone who goes to the Academy. Like we're secret agents or something." Maybe it was just her weird way of thinking. She often deemed to okay to speak of the Academy to others, because everyone simply assumed that she went there because she was exceptional in some area. If asked what she excelled at, she had to stop and think because she really did not excel at anything. But she would tell them it was English, because that's the best she could give. The written word, literature, any form of communication.

Nell stepped into the great home and looked around, appreciating the vastness of space. Preferring the outdoors because of the open space (and when she could find it, nature) she liked not feeling suffocated by the walls. She untied the sash around her jacket when she asked, "What do your parents do?" She no longer felt fear of prying questions, because she now understood through interaction that it was a common question to ask. And if he returned the question, she could respond easily enough with her father's job, maybe even add with a note of pride that he was quite famous thanks to something with bone cancer. She had the news article, but couldn't remember exactly what about it he'd done.

She turned to him and smiled brightly. "Oh thanks." Shrugging off her jacket she held it out to him, something she had grown accustomed to, now that she could walk among the wealthy. But she wasn't used to privilege. When her aunt had compared her to Nell, she noted that the major difference was class. Nell didn't have it. Her knowledge was limited to crossing her legs when wearing a dress and which forks she should eat salad with. She knew nothing about how women like Jane behaved, and sometimes it made her wonder if that made her a liability to Josh. Maybe he should be marrying someone who grew up in country clubs instead of someone who arrived with too much baggage. She titled her head and said, "Let me take him..." Nell lifted up the cat and set him down on the floor.

She took off her shoes as well, a habit she got from living in her own house, and held them in her hands. "It's even prettier on the inside." Every house was different, and she didn't choose favorites, but she really liked her father's mansion. It was full of gold and he had his lion statues, which she liked to tease him about. Jane's was nice, too, but Nell knew that the woman missed her estate in the Upper East Side, a four story mansion with Greek architecture. "Have you lived her long?" Most of the wealthy people in the area have lived in the Hollow for a long while. They also tended to be the strongest elemental clans. It was astounding that she had her own family come from Spain and Italy, digging their roots into American soil.