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Post by ROWENA AUDREY BENNETT on Oct 4, 2011 0:06:22 GMT -5
Losing Syria had been hard, but (and not to sound like her sisters death was not important...) quitting drugs was miles beyond that. Especially now, when she felt the craving to get lost in the high that they gave her. It was difficult to watch the junkies on the corner of the cliff getting dangerously close to the poorly barricaded edge as they laughed and shot up, smoked up, did whatever they needed to do to get their individual high. Feeling incredibly bitter, Rowena turned away from them and took a long drink of the beer bottle in her hand. There was nothing dainty or feminine about the way she tossed it back. She'd learned to drink long and hard if you were trying to forget yourself, and this is something she'd learned from waking up in the beds of strangers too many times to count. Her life was wild and out of control, but even if--no, even though she wanted to fix it, everything would have to be taken in steps. Drug addiction had to go first, bulimia either along with it or shortly after, else she wouldn't be alive to deal with her drinking and smoking and all the rest of her bullshit. Blaming it on Syria's death wasn't an option, and even if it was it wouldn't be one she explored. Nah, this was her fault and she accepted that. Er, if you could call getting absolutely smashed at a party with a bunch of older people you didn't know 'acceptance', that is.
She was, at least, not planning anything too drastic tonight beyond a lot of drinking, but who could tell what she might get up to with the wrong sort of company? Rowena had never been the best person at picking and choosing the right guys or girls to hang around in the party scene. Indeed, she found herself being pulled toward one of the reckless and muscular Fire elementals just because he was emanating warmth and with her underweight frame coupled with the weather it could get quite cold up on the cliffs. He was definitely interested and it probably could have landed herself in a bad situation if it hadn't been for the life-saving fact that his girlfriend was there. She and Rowena argued for a moment, but then the auburn-haired beauty rounded on her almost-unfaithful sweetheart and the skinny blonde melted into another part of the crowd. She wasn't afraid of confrontation, she was simply dull to it. She didn't care much at the moment, but it was a cheerful sort of uncaring. She felt like she could do anything without consequence. Again, not the safest mindset, but at least she wasn't bawling her eyes out because someone had said the stupidest, slightest thing to remind her of her dead sister.
And she wasn't seeking sympathy, either. Oh, no. Rowena would quite like everyone to take their words of condolence and shove it, at this point. They didn't know Syr well enough to sympathise and judging by the way the Thunder triplet was not exactly bright, bubbly, and social, they knew her even less. So she revelled in moments like these, at parties where the most of them were too drunk to recognise or at least care who she was. She loved the uncaring, the lack of kind words and pitying glances. She also loved the booze, and she was swaying slightly in her step after halfway through her third beer. She was so light of weight that it really didn't take much to get her drunk, and downing them all in rapid succession probably wasn't helping much, either.
However, she was getting a little bored of this solitude. Just because she didn't want any sympathy didn't mean that she planned on drinking this entire night away alone. Nah, she'd find someone that could be her drinking partner for the night and who the fuck cared if she knew them or if they ever spoke again? Her expression clouded with momentary confusion as she resolved to talk to the next person she got even remotely on their own, and she appeared for a moment to be contemplating some fact of life. After a pause, she asked, "D'I know you?" Her accent coupled with the influence of drink slurred the 'Do I' into a much less refined word, but hopefully whomever she was choosing to bother would understand. Her British accent certainly stood out as a bit of a shock amongst all the natives, but as she wasn't the only foreigner at the school it was not something to be overly proud of. "Y'look a bit familiar. Wha's your name?" She took a deep drag of her cigarette and puffed out a couple of smoke rings--one of her only talents apart from modelling and design, sadly. She wasn't even that great with her powers yet.
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Post by ged on Oct 4, 2011 20:41:16 GMT -5
Ged leaned precariously over the edge of the cliff. His arm was hooked over the edge of the barricade, his hand still holding a nearly empty beer can in its grasp, while his body angled nearly 45 degrees over the sharp drop off. He didn’t aim his gaze downward at the deadly drop, but instead up at the stars overhead. “See? There’s another one,” he jerked his head at the sky, then looked back at the girl leaning against the barricade.
“Whoops! Missed it again,” she giggled. She tried to take a drink of her beer and nearly fell over. Laughter filled the night air as she approached hysterics. Ged added a chuckle or two of his own, and returned his eyes to the sky. He heard the girl’s voice behind him again. “Point it out next time. I wanna see a shooting star!” she giggled.
His back was turned towards her, so even if she was aware of her surroundings, the sudden seriousness of Ged’s expression was hidden from the girl’s view. When he turned towards her, however, the light smile had taken up its rightful place on his face. He pulled himself back up on the barricade and hung over the edge of the barrier. He gently tapped the girl on the head with his beer.
“You’re really drunk,” he commented. She just burst into peels of laughter again. Ged sighed. He had hoped she would last longer. Hysterical drunks were no fun. “C’mon, let’s get you back to your friends.” The redhead swung his leg over the barricade and stayed there for a moment, teetering on the edge of a hundred foot drop, then swung his other leg across to land lightly on solid ground once again. He swayed where he stood, and drained the last of his beer. It no longer burned going down. He was hitting the good buzz, and it was about time. Everyone else seemed to be two feet over that line already—they didn’t know how to stretch the buzz out so they could last the whole night. There was still several hours of quality partying left by Ged’s measure.
He dropped the empty can on the ground. He had no choice but to litter, as he bent down and wrapped his only arm around the girl’s waist. Ged managed to get her up and steer her back towards the crowd of people still going strong several yards back from the cliff edge. She was of almost no help. She laughed at everything, a high pitched, keening laughter that sliced straight to his eardrum. But Ged kept his composure until he located the girl’s friends. They were slightly more sober than the girl whose name Ged had already forgotten, so Ged left her with them, made his excuses, and went looking for something new with which to amuse himself.
He nodded and smiled at those who were sober enough to recognize his brightly colored hair in the flickering light, but he didn’t stop until he reached the makeshift bar. Digging through one of the coolers brought a hidden treasure to Ged’s hand. It was a beer, of course, but of a brand a few steps up from the normal cheap party piss, probably hidden at the bottom of the cooler by an upper classman who didn’t want to share his stash. Ged gladly appropriated his prize and walked away, using his teeth to pop the tab. He probably made the local dentist roll in his grave, but Ged didn’t care. When sober, he could manage opening a can, or even a bottle, with one hand, but he’d passed that mark about an hour and two beers ago.
The voice caught him mid swig. Ged turned his eyes towards the voice as he swallowed, and found himself looking at a chin. This wasn’t a new occurrence for the somewhat shorter-than-normal teenager, so he merely looked up at the source of the accented words. Persephone stared back at him, and Ged blinked sharply. A model quality face with white blond hair set on top of a slender body built out of incredibly long lines was his first impression. Then the light shifted, throwing unhealthily sharp angles and planes into stark shadows against the night. A perfect Persephone, deathly beauty.
Then Ged blinked, and realized the apparition in front of him was talking. He floated along with the accent for several words, then realized said words were aimed at him. He drew himself away from the foreign sound of her voice and caught the last bit. What was his name? Why was Persephone asking him that?
The light shifted again, and Ged suddenly recognized the face. He smirked. Persphone. Hah. “Gerard,” he said, drawing out the soft syllables, leaving off the much harsher ones of his last name. He wondered why he had used his full name. He disliked the name, thought it was pretentious. Persephone likely wouldn't remember it in the morning, so Ged let it slide. He waved his occupied hand, and took another swig of the beer. The red zippered jacket was big enough it hid the true scrawniness of his build, and better yet, it was baggy enough it looked like he just had his right hand in his pocket, not that it wasn’t there at all. Faded skinny jeans and scuffed sneakers completed the casual look. Ged knew that after the first hour, no one would be sober enough to care what he was wearing, and it was cold up here on the cliff. He bet Persephone wished she had sacrificed looks for comfort.
He watched her blow smoke rings with just a touch of jealousy, watching her handle a cigarette in one hand, her beer in the other. “Talented,” Ged commented, sending his mind out to call up the barest hint of a breeze that touched the smoke rings and wafted them closer so he could get a better look. “Got any other tricks? Cause I’m bored as shit and would love to see ‘em,” he asked. His own accent, much less refined than her British tones, made him wince. Sometimes he could lessen the backwoods drawl, but with a handful of beers running through his body, the West Virginia mountains rang loud and clear in every slurred word.
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Post by ROWENA AUDREY BENNETT on Oct 4, 2011 22:12:08 GMT -5
The name stirred something distant in her mind, swearing that it was familiar and that she should recognise this redhead in front of her. Unfortunately, Rowena was drunk, and drinking took most sense out of her train of thought. Ro wasn't too much different drunk than she was sober--she was just friendlier under the influence and she tended to miss out on the obvious. But she wasn't like some people that did complete flips of their personality. "Gerard," she repeated, tipping her head slightly and drawing out the 'R' sound, seeing as it was quite intriguing to her. What an odd name! Okay, for someone whose name was Rowena it could hardly be considered strange, but she might be drunk enough to consider Chris as strange at the moment. However, she was not an overly giggly and dramatic drunk, either, so after this she nodded. "Mmkay. M'too drunk t'figure out if you're familiar." She was blatantly honest with him here. She wasn't falling all over herself (or, in other respects, falling over anyone else) but she was still quite tipsy and didn't really care to wade through the mush that was her thoughts and recollections. This was why she liked getting drunk. She didn't remember much about people when she was drunk--she'd recognise someone close to her, but she wouldn't remember if they'd pissed her off or depressed her recently. It was good for forgetting about things such as Syria, and so she used it. Maybe not as good as her drugs, but as she couldn't have them, well, this was just as well.
Realising with mild interest that she still hadn't given him her name and wasn't aware if he knew it already, she said, "M'names--" she paused for a drag of her smoke and said slowly, "Rowena." She had to pronounce it nice and slow or it might have come out a garble of letters and he'd be addressing her by something she'd never dream of going by otherwise. "Or jus' Ro." The latter was a lot easier for even the girl herself to get out when she was in this sort of a state. She leaned against a nearby and rather rickety table--given the state of disrepair it was in, it wasn't too surprising when it crumpled even under her light weight and sent her onto her ass. With a slight huff suggesting the damned contraption had nerve in spilling her onto the rough rock, she said quite plainly, "Oh, fuck me," and gazed up at Ged for a moment as if wondering whether she could use his help or just get up on her own. She didn't notice the disfigurement at all, but seemed to decide that she could get up on her own and stumbled to her feet with the help of the rock face. "Bloody thing," she frowned, casting a disapproving glance toward the table.
Talent? Rowena had never really considered the art of blowing smoke rings as much of a talent, more like a habit she'd picked up upon ever since she'd found out how to do it. "M'not really good at much," she mused. It was not self-pitying or modest, even, it was a simple statement of fact. She wasn't good with her grades, not with her powers, she wasn't too good with taking care of herself. But she put a bit more thought into it and said, "Was a model once. If I tried now I'd be takin' the plunge right offa the edge right there." The Thunder girl gestured vaguely to the poorly placed barricade. It was too far of a drop for anyone to really get out without serious injury, which was why the barricade was there in the first place. You'd probably die if you fell, she mused, and in the glorious haze of intoxication forgot to associate 'dying' with her gloriously dead triplet. "I can draw, too, but it'd be a buncha scribbles at the mo'." At least she was honest. When drunk, she wasn't even good at the things she could do sober. Except the smoke rings. She blew another one and shot a look at Ged. "D'you like fags?" she questioned, talking of cigarettes of course. He wasn't holding one and so it was pure curiosity.
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Post by ged on Oct 6, 2011 21:59:00 GMT -5
Ged chuckled at the much drunker girl. “We’re in class together, Rowena,” he told the girl. Exactly which class in specific escaped him, oh well. Classes were stupid. This was a party, and Rowena looked like she was definitely in the party mood. He could remember a few details about her. She was his age and not one of the incredibly tall 15 year olds he saw around sometimes. The fact that she was about his age didn’t make Ged feel any better about being so much shorter than a girl. Sure, he guessed she was pretty enough, but the height made him feel like a little kid.
He laughed outright when the table collapsed under Rowena. She didn’t seem to notice Ged’s disdain or mocking tone. That was the good thing about drunks, he thought, they rarely noticed when he made fun of them. He could laugh out loud instead of keeping it mostly in his head. Ged didn’t move to give Rowena a hand up. His beer was much more important to him. She didn’t seem too disappointed in his lack of chivalry, and blamed the table in a way that made Ged laugh again. Foreigners, fucking hilarious.
Ged took another drink of his beer while he mulled over the fact that technically, he was also a foreigner in Canada. The redhead dismissed the thought with a shrug. He was an outsider anywhere he went, and he was used to being judged for his accent. At least Rowena could understand him. Then again, they said the gods of the dead could speak any language a living or dead person could speak. White trash would be easy enough for Persephone.
“Bet you’re still a better model than me. And I suck at drawing. Unless it’s finger paint. I’m a damn good finger painter-er,” Ged said proudly. Most of the self-pity usually associated with his disability was buried under the alcohol, keeping him in a genuine good mood instead of dipping down into self-consciousness. “You ain’t a windy girl, so it’d be best to stay up here with me,” Ged continued, motioning to the cliff in question with his drink, "I ain't gonna catch you." Wind elementals apparently couldn’t fly (to Ged’s eternal disappointment—his fear of flying only extended to flying metal death traps, aka planes), but the comment still made sense to Ged, and it probably worked for the drunker Rowena.
“You’re doing an awful good job at being drunk,” Ged offered to Rowena helpfully. She had it going on: the sway, the slur (though that might just be the Brit in her), the memory, even the random changes in conversational topics. And she wasn’t puking, making out with random people, and could even still stand up straight without falling over. He’d excuse her for the table—that obviously wasn’t her fault.
It took Ged a long moment to realize what Rowena was referring to. Was she asking him if he was gay? Then he remembered the British had a different kind of fag you put in your mouth. “Sure, you offering?” he asked. He was a social smoker, and usually just held it in his hand and let it burn up for the sake of having something to do with his hand so he didn’t stand out among a group of smokers. However, sometimes he indulged a bit more. The nicotine offered a nice rush when he needed it.
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Post by ROWENA AUDREY BENNETT on Oct 7, 2011 5:12:07 GMT -5
Rowena blinked as she took in this information, shrugged, then smirked a little as he chuckled at her. Rather than taking offence to the fact that he found her lack of knowledge amusing, Rowena was simply rolling with the punches. "S'not like I'm in class a hell of a lot anyway," she said dismissively. She waved a hand and nearly unbalanced herself with the motion, but even she had a little bit of grace when she was intoxicated. After all, as easy as it was to get a girl like Ro inebriated that didn't mean she was a falling down drunk within minutes of passing that line. No, as long as she didn't drink too much more she'd probably be alright for the rest of the night. Of course, as she took advantage of the momentary silence to take another long sip of beer it didn't seem like she was making herself any promises. Rowena loved the feeling of being drunk because it made her forget about a lot of things. Or did she forget about things and thus just think that she loved it? These weren't thoughts that one as intoxicated as her could currently ponder and so they were squirrelled away to the back of her mind to likely never be examined at a later date.
Surely enough, Ro didn't care about the fact that Ged was all but roaring with laughter at her misfortune. Even if she'd been sober she probably wouldn't have given it much thought. It wasn't as if she was brimming at the seams with warmth and compassion so it wasn't in her personality to expect the same from a guy she barely knew but from a couple of classes. Of course, she wasn't sober. Rowena was drunk and thus was acting as drunk people do--she cussed out the table as if it was completely the fault of the inanimate object that she'd taken her drunken tumble. Nor did she notice that Ged had absolutely no desire nor intentions of helping her up, for the drunk girl had decided to help herself and had thus not needed him anyway. Aye, the redhead would be getting away with a lot tonight it seemed.
It was Rowena's turn to laugh when he mentioned finger-painting. Her laugh was light and feminine in contrast to the fact that her thick accent bore the influence of a more rough, less refined British tone. Unlike Altair and Syria who still had the accents that their Mum and Dad had carried with them and that had possessed the city of her birth, Ro had gotten mixed up with a wrong sort of folk and her once-pretty tones had suffered the consequences. It had started to revert back once she'd gotten away from them all and only had her sisters with accents to talk to, but she still had hints of that less refined speech. "How many ers was that?" she asked in amusement, shaking her head. "Oh, yeah," she said with clearly false and joking enthusiasm, "m'sure I'm totally safe with you. Got a pair o' wings on that back of yours, do ya?" Even drunk, Ro didn't think that Wind students could fly. It was a damn good thing, too, lest she push Ged over the cliff to get a little show out of the results.
Rowena took an exaggerated bow that did not help her balance issues when he complimented her drunk attitude. "I try," she chuckled, stumbling slightly but catching herself against the rock face. Maybe it wasn't a wise idea to go throwing off her equilibrium. It would have been fine at a normal party but normal parties weren't held up on rocky and craggy cliffs. Glancing over their edge quite blandly, she said as if discussing the weather, "Reckon anyone's ever died out here?" As a new transfer to the Academy Rowena had never heard anything apart from rumours about deaths up on the cliffs, but it was surely possible, right? She doubted that even elementals could survive a drop that steep. "Wouldn't fancy bein' the janitor that had to clean up the mess." She laughed again, apparently delighting in the idea of splattered remains against the rockface. She had an odd sense of humour. She was also talking about death without getting upset, which was a good--or would it be considered bad in this situation?--sign.
Maybe if she'd been in a right state, Rowena would have noticed that it took Ged some time to answer. As it were, she acted as if there had never been a pause at all when he finally responded. "Not really," she said with a shrug, then held out the packet in hands that were shaking a bit from the cold. She didn't seem to notice this, either. She hadn't been offering the smokes to Gerard but if he was interested in smoking then she wasn't going to refuse. Hell, never let her get near a group of rebellious ten year olds. "Help yourself."
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Post by ged on Oct 9, 2011 17:16:04 GMT -5
Man, Rowena was d-r-u-n-k drunk. Ged was almost jealous. She was skating the line between drunk and not-too-drunk that Ged had a hard time finding sometimes. He wanted to forget, but he couldn’t get so drunk he couldn’t take care of himself. He’d stolen enough wallets off of drunks (sometimes when he was a few sheets to the wind himself) to want to avoid putting himself in that position. Right now? Ged still remembered far too much for his liking, although it was a fairly good day by his measure, so he could deal with remembering. His fingertips tingled slightly, all ten of them, but at least they didn’t hurt. Alcohol was his favorite form of pain relief because it brought a measure of fun along with it.
“Yeah, sure, perfectly safe,” Ged declared, “You’re too tall to drag off, an’ I hear your sister is a bitch. Or were you the bitchy one. Can’t remember.” He shrugged, completely unconcerned with the fact that he couldn’t remember that specific detail. Ged took a moment to enjoy the amusement over the fact that he and Rowena could obviously still understand each other. The language of drunk was universal.
Rowena once again almost pitched herself onto the ground. Once again, Ged made no move to catch her. Too much trouble. “Dunno. You’ve been here longer. You tell me if they get rid of bad students over the cliff. Convenient thing to have,” Ged commented as she regained her balance. He slurped up another measure of alcohol. He’d drained the can faster than he’d meant to, probably because it tasted better than the pig piss his first few had been (though it also might be those earlier beers dulling his taste buds).
“Thank ya’ ma’m,” Ged said happily. He carefully leaned forward and, while still holding the beer can in his hand, managed to extract a cigarette from the package. He held it between his pointer and middle finger and asked, “Mind if I borrow a light?” He didn’t wait for an answer before holding the end of the cig to the lit end of Rowena’s. It took several tries to line them up properly, and once he did Ged carefully leaned forward to puff the end to make sure it caught. “Perfect,” Ged said in triumph, taking a long drag off the smoke.
Carefully concentrating so he drunk from the can in his hand and inhaled the cigarette and not the other way around, Ged started on a story. “Y’know, they could just leave the bodies out here. Do a sky burial. Some commumm-people do that. Chop up their dead and leave ‘em for the birds to eat up. It’s because of the soil. Too many rocks or something,” Ged rambled. It wasn’t his best technique by far. Oh well, alcohol made his stories ten times better. He blew out a stream of smoke, the night wind blowing it into swirling shapes before it dissipated.
The redhead abruptly noticed Rowena’s shaking hands. He blinked, then looked up at the tall girl. “You cold? Let’s get you something stronger than that ass juice,” Ged chuckled, waving his very full hand at Rowena’s drink, “I bet they have sometin’ good hidden somewhere.”
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Post by ROWENA AUDREY BENNETT on Oct 9, 2011 20:38:51 GMT -5
Rowena seemed to find it rather comical that Ged thought she might be the bitchy one of the tri--er, the pair. She certainly inhaled a good amount of her beer as she snorted, coughing, spluttering and stumbling until she had caught her balance and her breath. "Tha's Altair," she chuckled, dragging out the 's' much longer than needed as if for effect. She was acting as if she hadn't just gotten beer up her nose and on her shirt at all. If she had been sober she might have been lamenting the loss of a perfectly nice look but she really didn't mind right now. When she woke up smelling of alcohol with her clothes in tatters and a stranger in her bed she might pay a little more attention but at the moment she was blissfully unaware. She loved being drunk for that sole reason. She hadn't yet reached the point where she would pass out and remember nothing in the morning, but given her weak constitution and low alcohol tolerance it probably wouldn't take much more than she'd already drank.
"Have I?" Ro sounded mildly surprised when learning that she'd attended the Academy for longer than Ged. "Blimey, guess I forgot tha' too." She wasn't too fussed about the fact that she could no longer recall minute details that had probably only been mentioned once or twice in conversation. However, his question was more than just that and she frowned as she pondered it, trying quite seriously to make sense of it. "Dunno," she concluded at last with an air of puzzlement, shrugging. It took only moments for her to stop caring about how confused this had made her and move on to the next subject in her mind. "Wonder how cold the water would be," she remarked thoughtfully, leaning precariously over the barricade to peer at the dark waters below. They were still and silent and the massive drop probably would have been frightening if she was sober enough to care.
Ro blinked at Ged when she didn't wait for his answer before stealing a light, but seemed to decide against making a comment. She didn't really care as long as it didn't put her cigarette out in the process, which it didn't. She'd probably have burned herself if she tried to light another one by this point, honestly. She wasn't like Altair, she didn't have control over fire. Hell, she probably didn't even have control over Thunder at the moment either. If she tried to do anything with her power she'd probably just fry her own cellphone by mistake. "You're quite mental, you know," Rowena told her companion almost conversationally, slurring the words a bit. It probably seemed random to anyone else but Ro had been following a train of thought--she was watching him hold the beer and the fag in the same hand and didn't realise that it was because his other arm was no longer there. Ah, the blissful unawareness of a drunk Thunder girl.
As Gerard told his story, Rowena watched him with intense and wide-eyed interest, buying every word. It may or may not have been true but in her current state the blonde didn't even think to doubt him. "Woah." She sounded fascinated and was practically clinging to every word. "That's real demented." As for what a commumm-person was, she didn't think to ask for clarifications either. Everything was so much easier when you were drunk and just took everything around you for face value. What wasn't so great was her inability to keep her balance, however. Though she hadn't yet ended up on her ass again she kept having to catch herself against the cliff (and once, the sleeve of a passer-by who glared at her and stalked off).
She nodded absently when he asked if she was cold, then looked thoughtful for a moment. "Okay," she agreed, and quite unceremoniously tossed the half-full can of beer sideways. It hit the barrier, bounced back, and started to spill a puddle of cheap alcohol where it had landed. Paying the can no mind, she invited him, "Lead the way, m'not... don't really know where to look."
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Post by ged on Oct 12, 2011 18:03:07 GMT -5
Ged would have snapped his fingers if he had any to spare, so instead he clucked his tongue and said, “I knew you were too nice to be the bitchy one.” True, he didn’t know a thing about Rowena, but he’d noticed most students gave her a fairly wide berth. She probably wasn’t the nicest person, and even though Ged thought she looked like a goddess, Persephone wasn’t the most personable of goddesses to be compared to. The mere fact that Rowena was alone at a party like this spoke volumes about her social situation. Idly, Ged wondered what his solo status at the party said of his situation, but then he decided that he didn’t give a fuck. He was having fun, and now he was with Rowena. She was exciting enough for the current moment.
“I ain’t gonna find out,” Ged said, leaning over the barrier as well. He tipped the can in his hand and let a small amount of the beer splash out down the cliff and presumably into the water below. “For the fishies,” the redhead informed Rowena, “Bet it’s boring down there. Wonder if the fish ever watch the water people get undressed in their dorm. Or when they fuck. Don’t think I could do it with a fish grinning down at me.” Of course Ged had already been into the water dorms. He wasn’t a huge fan of all the water bearing down on top of his head, but being underwater was kind of like being underground, and Ged wouldn’t be a miner’s son if he didn’t appreciate the magnitude of constructing underwater dorm rooms. He could appreciate the rooms, even if he didn’t think he would enjoy living there.
“I ain’t mental. ‘m special,” Ged grinned up at her, every bit a devilish little imp. He watched Rowena throw her half full beer at the barrier, and almost dropped his own when he tried to catch it. “That’s a waste,” he pointed out, watching the spilling liquid with a pout, “You coulda drunk that. Hell, I’d have drunk that.” With that declaration, he wandered over to the coolers, avoiding other drunk and/or stoned students with the grace that came with being quite drunk. Ged frowned at the can and cig in his hand, then down at the cooler. With a look of supreme concentration on his face, he managed to balance on one foot and flip open the lid to the cooler with his other. He flashed Ro a triumphant grin, then placed his can on the ground and the cigarette in his mouth as he bent over to root through the crappy beers with his now-free hand. Nothing. Ged went to move onto the next cooler, but then he noticed something. Underneath one of the rickety tables whose strength Rowena had recently tested, a very familiar glint caught Ged’s eye. He pulled a clear bottle that shone amber in the dull light from underneath a few discarded six pack boxes.
“In Soviet Russia, the drink drinks you!” Ged said triumphantly. He laughed a little at the extremely bad joke, and held the half-finished bottle out to Rowena. “Now this will warm you right up!” Why else would the Russians drink it? Another saying floated across Ged’s mind. Liquor before beer never fear, beer before liquor, never sicker. Oh well.
“C’mon Persephone, let’s get you warmed up,” Ged said, “Sit down so I can stop looking up your nose.” He used his foot to flip the lid back onto the cooler and waved the bottle at the makeshift chair. After handing the bottle to Rowena, Ged hesitated before taking a seat himself. He thought he remembered something that said alcohol actually made you colder, but the specifics escaped him for the moment. Still, it made him pause.
The redhead tapped the ash from his cigarette and stuck it back into his mouth before fumbling with the zipper of his many sizes too big black hoodie. It slipped from his right shoulder easy enough, but in his tipsy state getting his left arm out of the sleeve took a bit more fumbling and finagling. After a few seconds, he held the jacket out to Rowena. “Can’t have a pretty girl shiver into nothing on me, can I?” Ged said cheekily. He didn’t want Rowena to leave because she was cold, at least not before they got a chance to try a bit of that vodka. The long sleeved shirt he wore didn’t hide his missing arm nearly as well as the jacket, but Ged seemed uncharacteristically unaware of that fact.
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Post by ROWENA AUDREY BENNETT on Oct 13, 2011 3:28:26 GMT -5
Rowena seemed to greatly appreciate Ged's comment about the fish. Certainly she laughed a lot about it, red-faced and short of breath from the strength of it. "Jus' lucky we ain't Water students then, aren't we?" Great, now she was going to be plagued for the rest of the evening with the mental images of perverted fish. She made a point to tell Altair of this when she saw her sister again but unfortunately this was likely in vain. Ro had reached that point of intoxication where she likely wouldn't remember fuck all in the morning save for the fact that she'd gotten drunk somewhere. Sometimes she wasn't even aware if she'd slept with someone or not. She could guess, of course, if she woke up in a strange place or with another person beside her, but these things were not always certain. She usually took the words of others to be the truth because she could hardly fill in the foggy blanks herself.
"Y'keep tellin' yourself tha', then," Rowena replied, grinning back at him. She was a lot more willing to be sociable under the influence of alcohol. Not that she wasn't social when she was sober, for she could certainly be friendly at times, but beer definitely helped. She wasn't as quiet when she drank, either. A sudden thought occurred to her then and she grasped Ged's arm for a moment as if she were about to tell him she'd discovered the cure for cancer. "Hey," she said urgently, then let go. "Hey. Hey, Ged. I was jus' thinkin' about something." She paused for a long moment and it might have seemed that she wasn't going to tell him what was on her mind but then she continued, "D'you know how our elements are... are like based on how we act and stuff?" It could have been phrased better than that but hey, cut a girl a break. "Wha' if--d'you reckon they could, like, change?" Her tone was almost conspiratorial and she dropped it to a whisper.
She eyed the discarded drink with disdain. "Tasted like shit," she said conversationally. Unfortunately she was not like Ged in the sense that she would just put up with the shitty beer. She was crafty when she was sober but it was a hell of a lot smarter to come up with brilliant plans drunk. Of course, she still thought up plans, and they seemed brilliant to her at the time, but they generally involved dangerous things that she would most definitely not attempt in any right state of mind. She followed after him without bothering to question where he was going. His company was entertaining her and that was what she'd wanted from the party scene tonight. Besides, she had gotten beyond the point where solitary drinking would have been remotely safe. It wouldn't be beyond the girl to tip herself over the barrier by accident if she tripped over something and stumbled into it.
"Per-wha'?" she asked, evidently confused by this odd thing he had called her. "Wha's that mean?" Ro sat down without question, for it was much easier to keep herself out of harms way when she wasn't tottering around and bumping into people. Not all of the party-goers were as considerate to her level of intoxication as Ged that they'd refrain from punching her if she stepped on any toes. Rowena'd never been much of a fighter and she'd be completely destroyed in any sort of confrontation. If it had taken Gerard a long time to get the jacket off, Rowena certainly took a lot longer to get it on, but she didn't care much about the concept of time at the moment. "S'good vodka," she remarked.
It was a mark of how truly distracted she was that Ro didn't take notice of the missing arm. Even if she had, she was in the sort of mood where she would have just accepted such a thing without question and not really paused to think of how absolutely odd and out of the ordinary that was. Sober was another thing altogether, but if she was sober she would likely just shrug it off as well. Such things didn't bug her but they also didn't elicit any sort of pity. Ro was a selfish person. She was also rather drunk, and the vodka seemed to push her above and beyond her limit. That she had passed out was not immediately evident--only when she slumped sideways and fell right off the cooler did it become clear something was amiss.
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Post by ged on Oct 24, 2011 22:13:22 GMT -5
Ged half remembered the theory behind elemental inheritance. Your element was connected to your personality in the most basic sense. Ged wasn’t sure how that worked; all he knew was that he felt connected to the wind in an indescribable way. He could imagine being connected to the earth that way, and probably even fire or water, but his imagination was based on comparing those elements to his experience with wind. He couldn’t separate himself from his element.
“I dunno. Why would you want to? I mean, it’s you,” Ged pointed at Rowena, “Whatever you are, of course.” He didn’t know what Ro was, and he didn’t really care. She wasn’t wind.
Her words brought up another point that stuck in the back of Ged’s mind for perusal once he wasn’t quite so drunk. Elements were based on personality, not genetics, so why did some people believe they were better because of their ‘bloodline?’ Even the purest of thunder bloodlines could easily throw an earth or water. Ged knew his own mother was wind, but he could have been fire if things turned out differently. It went with his red hair better than the purple color the school assigned to wind. Personality was a combination of nature, nurture, and other random shit no one could figure out. Could a parent hate their child just because their personalities didn’t mesh? Ged wasn’t one to be nostalgic, but he knew that though he and his father were complete opposites, they were still family at the end of it all.
The thought of the past made Ged raise his neglected beer to his lips and drain the rest all at once. He crumpled the can, tossed it in the general direction of the discarded cardboard beer cases (maybe someone would be sober enough to recycle), and reached out for the vodka bottle, just in time to watch Rowena tumble right off the makeshift seat.
“Well,” was all Ged had to say for several seconds. He’d seen people pass out, and had done so himself often enough, but he wasn’t used to someone doing it so…clichéd. Rowena’s fall was right out of a romantic comedy. Ged eyed the fallen girl with the seriousness teenagers usually reserved for algebra, then finally bent and picked up the open vodka bottle. Much of it had spilled out, but some dormant drunken instinct of Ro’s had saved a large portion of it. Ged located the cap and held the bottle between his knees to twist the cap back on. Only then did he turn to the passed out girl.
“Ro,” he said, poking her shoulder with the bottle, “Rooooooo. Persephone? C’mon Rowena, wakey wakey eggs and bakey.” No response. Ged looked around. “Who do you belong to,” he muttered to himself. No one seemed willing to come forward to claim Rowena, probably because the pair of them were separated from the rest of the falling over drunk students. Well, now what to do…Ged might not possess much empathy (or empathy at all) but he was born and raised a country boy, and a country boy couldn’t leave a girl lying on the cold ground. She still had his jacket, after all, and who knew what the slobs at the party would do to her (and his jacket). So Ged stuffed the vodka bottle in the pocket of the jacket he’d loaned Rowena, and set about picking the girl up. With one arm and a good amount of alcohol in his system, it was far from Ged’s most graceful of moments, especially since he was trying to not grab anything that would get him slapped if Ro happened to wake up.
How could a girl as tall as Rowena weigh so little? Ged had noticed how thin her face and legs were, but she weighed even less than he’d expected, and her sharp bones cut into the shoulder he had thrown her own. He made a note to make sure she ate more. He didn’t want to carry her if her hips elbows were going to leave bruises where they knocked into his back.
Eventually Rowena roused slightly, and managed to walk a little with Ged’s arm around her waist. It was a welcome relief, as Ged’s arm tired quickly. They still had to stop quite a bit. Ged aimed for the Wind tower for lack of a better place to go, and Rowena followed willingly in her half-unconscious state. The stairs were a party in themselves, especially since Ged couldn’t help but giggle every time they bounced off a wall or nearly tripped back down the winding flights. Later, looking back on the hazy memory, Ged would be amazed they didn’t kill themselves on the way back, as well as how they somehow didn’t stop halfway back to the room and decide to sleep there. The lure of an actual bed drew Ged onward.
Ged kept up a wandering conversation for most of the way back, explaining the Persephone myth to Rowena, then branching out to various other stories of the Greek pantheon, including how Aeolus used to be one of his favorite gods because he controlled the wind and schooled Odysseus in the Odyssey. Used to be his favorite was past tense because after Sex Ed, Ged couldn't read the name without giggling in a very school-boy manner because of the similarity of Aeolus with a part of the female anatomy. Near the end, however, he grew silent, though his conversation partner likely didn't notice. His joints ached, cutting through the alcoholic fog.
The redhead propped Rowena against the wall next to his dorm door and fiddled for the key with a hand that shook slightly. Luckily Pyson wasn’t home for whatever reason, and Ged managed to heave Rowena onto his bed without too much trouble.
“Stay there,” he told her unnecessarily, and wobbled across the room to fetch his trash can. He wasn’t sure how Ro handled her drink, besides not very well, judging from her passed out condition. Ged did not want to spend his hangover cleaning up someone else’s mess. His charitable nature only extended so far.
Collapsing into his desk chair, Ged eyed the girl on his bed. Tonight hadn’t turned out like he’d expected. Sure, the party had been entertaining, especially once he found Persephone, and he had wanted to end the night with a teenage Greek goddess in his bed…but the night had skipped a few steps that Ged would have preferred it hadn’t. He pouted, then walked back over to Ro, retrieving the vodka bottle that had miraculously made it back to the room unscathed (despite falling out of the pocket and down two flights of stairs on the way). If he had to crash on the floor, he needed to be quite a bit drunker than he already was. Knocking back a long swallow, Ged made a face. Drinking alone was no fun, but the night was going to hurt.
When the sun rose and Rowena awoke, she would see Ged sleeping on the dorm floor a few feet away (out of range of projectile vomit), sweatshirt acting as a blanket, his backpack the pillow, just like he had for many, many nights over the last year and a half. The vodka bottle stood nearly empty on the desk across the room, keeping watch over the two sleeping teens.
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Post by ROWENA AUDREY BENNETT on Oct 25, 2011 21:36:14 GMT -5
Ro considered his words and nodded slightly as if she was busy contemplating the meaning of life on the side. In reality she was wondering why she and her triplets had all landed themselves in different elements. They had been more alike in the beginning. Maybe if she was not drunk she would have been able to come up with a rational explanation for how they'd all drifted apart but at the moment she was distracted by the stars in the sky and did not speak for a pause. Then she said, "Thunder." She held the 'R' for a bit and chuckled under her breath but did not allow any other form of conversation beyond that. Normally she might have tried to show off with a demonstration of her power but that was clearly not an option at the moment. Most people could control their powers with a light buzz but once they reached a certain point it was dangerous to even think about trying. Not that some people didn't do it anyway. A lot of the government investigations probably had to do with drunken revelry and botched use of elemental powers.
She was vaguely aware of voices but did not come to until, with much hauling and heaving from Ged, the girl was actually on her feet again. Even then she was only in half a state. She didn't think that she could make conversation without being sick but she did listen to what her conversation partner was saying to her. It was interesting in a hazy sense even though all she wanted to do right now was go back to sleep and so she only caught parts of it. Something about favourites and gods and Persephone. Ged was a strange boy. She barely even questioned the fact that he was taking her away from the party. If she'd been in a right state of mind she probably would have been suspicious enough to try and get away from him but fortunately--unfortunately?--for Ged she was not. His sudden silence seemed just as natural as the fact that he'd started talking in the first place so Rowena didn't question this any more than she questioned how much further they were getting away from the party she'd come to attend.
Noting that they were on the floor of the Thunder dormitories she just assumed that he was taking her there. "Sleep," she mumbled under her breath, for that was what she most wanted to do right now. Either that or be sick but she was only half-conscious so the 'sleep' side of things won out. Drinking was always a bad idea to someone with her low tolerance. She could hold the liquor alright if she moderated but she couldn't drink too much of it without passing out and waking with a killer hangover. It had gotten worse as the weight dropped and there was less and less meat between skin and bones. She stood slumped against the wall with her eyes practically closed as Ged opened the door. Sanity would require that she realise he had the key and could get into the dorms so they were obviously not her own but again, she wasn't questioning much of anything at the moment.
Ro passed out again almost immediately after she rested on the bed. She did not stir as Ged drank the rest of the vodka. In fact, she didn't stir at all until the next morning. Her first order of business was to puke violently, although mercifully there was not much in her stomach to be purged of. She felt like shit, her head was killing her, and she could only thank that there were no glaring lights in the room else her brain explode. It was not until she went to reach for the pill bottle on her nightstand that she realised this was not, in fact, her nightstand. Or Ara's. This was not her room. Alarm spread slowly through the hungover teenager like a rippling wave. Almost worried for what she might find, blue eyes searched the room. Settling on a sleeping Ged, she groaned. "Oh, fuck me," she muttered unpleasantly, then wondered if this strange male had. It didn't help the ill feeling.
Poking him with her toe, she said, "Oi! You up yet?" She probably could have been more gentle but at the moment she was assuming he'd taken advantage of her. Poor Ro didn't realised that Ged had actually helped her. She couldn't remember anything about last night. This should have concerned her but she was more concerned with getting answers out of this guy. Noticing the vodka, she asked, "Was it spiked? Did you fuckin' drug me or somethin'?"
[Poor Ged xD]
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Post by ged on Oct 27, 2011 22:35:07 GMT -5
The vodka was the only reason Ged got any sleep that night. There was a reason he preferred the hard liquor when he just wanted to forget. It knocked him right out once he’d drunk enough. Still, Ged was a fairly light sleeper most of the time, and the sun streaming in through the window began rousing him from his Russian coma long before Rowena awoke. The glorious sound of her puking brought Ged to full consciousness, a fact he immediately regretted.
Everything hurt. His head hurt. His shoulders hurt. His hips hurt, especially where the hard floor bore into the bone. Floors always seemed to radiate cold upwards, digging deep and finding every single bone Ged had broken, every joint he’d sprained or twisted in some way. His eyeballs ached. The only relief? His right arm didn’t hurt any more than usual. Everything else clambered to overcome the phantom pain that came and went. Still, it was little enough of a relief, and Ged dreaded working the knots that had formed in his abused muscles, the stress of carrying the girl all the way back from the cliff only compounded by sleeping on the floor. Truthfully? The aches and pains were nothing unusual or out of the ordinary. Ged had felt worse, much worse. A dorm floor was fairly comfortable compared to other surfaces he’d slept on.
Ged slowly rolled over onto his back, off of his left side. His left arm was asleep. Again, nothing unusual. No matter how many times it happened before, Ged had to concentrate to quell the tiny bit of panic in the back of his head that searched frantically for feeling in his one remaining arm. His fingers made slight noises as they moved under the jacket that still lay draped over Ged like a blanket, and he listened to those slight sounds as a distraction from the sounds of puke hitting the bottom of the trash can.
He squinted at the girl-Rowena? Was he remembering that correctly?-between light-lashed lids. Ged’s own stomach rebelled in sympathy, but he fought it back. Food was important, even if he didn’t exactly have much left in his stomach by the time the morning came. It helped that he was still prone on the ground. The floor didn’t buck and heave as much when he was laying on it.
‘Fuck you?’ the sarcastic voice at the back of Ged’s voice whispered in response to Rowena’s words. If only his night had ended that well. She poked him when he was distracted, catching him unaware and leaving his bad side open. Ged immediately shied away from the intrusion into his vulnerable right side as if she had poked him with a red hot poker instead of her toe. His body protested at the violent movement, and Ged couldn’t help but let a gasp slip between gritted teeth. He screwed his eyes together and let a litany of curses roll around his head until the knots in his muscles relaxed enough he judged he could move again.
“’s not spiked,” Ged muttered. He could feel his hand through the pins and needles radiating from shoulder to fingertips, the pain itself a mere annoyance compared to everything else he felt, and judged it time to attempt to sit up. Ged set his elbow against the ground and clenched his abdominal muscles to add the extra push needed to lever himself up with one arm. One swift movement, though moving slower would have saved pain, Ged doubted he would have made it up if he’d gone slow. The room spun as blood rushed away from his pounding head, and Ged kept his eyes focused on the jacket that had slipped off his body as he sat up and now lay in his lap. Things slowly realigned, the roaring subsiding from his ears, and his stomach returning to the general vicinity where it was supposed to be instead of caught in the back of his throat.
Swallowing roughly, Ged continued in the same low, rough voice as before. “Wish it was spiked. Then I’d still be asleep,” he grumbled. He brought his hand up to tug the collar of the t-shirt he still wore from the night before over so he could start massaging knots out of his shoulder. With his bad side facing Rowena, there was no way she could miss the lack of any sort of arm emerging from the end of the short sleeve, though she might miss the assortment of scars peppering his good arm, and the one stretching along his collarbone, now in view thanks to him moving the shirt out of the way.
“You sleep well?” Ged glanced at Rowena, completely unreactive to the accusation that he’d drugged her.
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Post by ROWENA AUDREY BENNETT on Oct 30, 2011 21:22:48 GMT -5
The kick produced a more colourful reaction than the girl had expected. She stared at him as he winced away and made a noise of pain. "What's your problem?" she said rather unsympathetically, narrowing her eyes. The gesture was made less of out anger and more out of suspicious confusion. It wasn't like his side was pouring blood or anything like that so she really didn't see why he should be in that much pain. Though Rowena knew Gerard from classes they were not so well acquainted that she knew what had happened to him or why he would have reacted in that sort of way to her touch. She also didn't take notice of his arm quite yet but that was merely because she was still trying to piece together the events of the previous night.
Speaking of pain, Rowena was also in a hell of a lot of pain--both from falling around and bruising herself at the party to her headache to the pains in his stomach from violently expelling the booze from the night before. However, one thing about Ro was the fact that she was not a whiny person. Having lived with Altair she had learned to internalise a lot of her complains. The Thunder girl loved her sister in Fire and knew that the girl loved her as well but there was only so much that a naturally angry person could take. Besides, Ro didn't really approve of whining and bitching about problems. That was pointless. If your life was fucked up you either did something about it or shut up complaining about it.
Of course, that was a bit hypocritical coming from someone like Rowena who had solved a lot of her problems in the past with sex, booze, and drug addiction. Not to mention the fact that she didn't diet to get thin but developed a serious eating disorder instead. However, in her own defence she usually endured her problems silently. She had days when she would crack under the pressure but apparently this was not one of them--blue eyes were slightly dulled from the pain but still managed to have a cutting effect as she glared at the man she'd spent the night with.
Then they caught sight of the empty air where his arm should have been and fixed on it for a moment. She blinked, shrugged, then turned her attention back to herself. It did not really concern Rowena at all that the guy she was hanging around was an amputee. She didn't feel sorry for him--of course not, she was selfish--and she didn't really wonder about how it had happened, either. All she was thinking about right now was how more booze or some good, hard drugs would probably take her mind off of the pain she was feeling and the pounding of this damned headache. Hangovers were a weak spot for her--she usually cured them with means that were possibly more detrimental to her than the drinking itself had been. You're not allowed to do that any more. The quiet voice of her conscience was not ignored, much as it was loathed for pointing out the truth. She had made a promise--to herself, to Altair, to her dead sister. She was going to make shit better. "Fat lot of good that did me, can't 'member a fuckin' thing..." This was muttered under her breath and not directed toward Ged but he was certainly close enough that he might have caught the words.
She snorted at the comment but did not reply, choosing to reluctantly take his word for it. The pain did not register as being from any sort of foul play--she usually woke up a little sore after drinking since she didn't have the best balance and was always crashing into things. "I'm not pleased to be awake either," she muttered, as if it were his fault even though it was the fault of neither. "No I haven't slept well," she replied, shaking her head. "Bloody passed right out, wasn't I? The fuck am I doing here if y'didn't spike it?" Even though she'd concluded that she probably hadn't slept with him she still didn't know why she was here. She had went to the party alone, she remembered heading there, and then... nothing. Very inconvenient, actually. Usually she'd welcome the lack of knowledge but this was a right pain in the backside.
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