Strokes of Genius, Wednesday (October 28)

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

No, sleep had not happened last night. Katchoo hadn't expected it to.

You'd think she'd be in a worse mood today because of that, rather than just a subdued one, but she seemed to be tapped out on anger for the time being and yes, that was weird.

So, quiet today, the slumped-behind-the-counter variety, and staring at the blank page of the sketchbook in front of her, waiting for her hand to want to guide the pencil across the paper. And waiting.

. . . damn.

[OOC: Don't need money, don't need fame, don't need no OCD to ride this train. Open and all that, though I flee for work right now.]

Comments

[bitchprince]

In his busy schedule of haunting the common room and torturing the magic users with his presence, there was always at least a small gap for the specific personal service of making Katchoo's life hell, regardless of circumstances.

Arthur ducked his head into the store. "Afternoon."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Katchoo looked up from the still-blank sketchbook page and got caught in a brief if spectacular moment of mental whiplash -- men in general were not her favorite people in the world right now, but on the other hand this was, specifically, the biggest royal prat of an Exception To The Rule she knew.

Ow.

And it was so nice of him to go out of his way to pester her regularly.

"Arthur. Where've you been?"

[bitchprince]

"Merlin and I went to Alb-- England for a few days," he said, neatly sidestepping actually mentioning the clear undercurrent of before the both of us went insane and possibly because I was worried about him.

He shut the door behind him.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Katchoo was worried too, as it turned out, but what she asked instead as soon as the door clicked shut was "How'd it hold up over the centuries, d'you think?"

[bitchprince]

"It hasn't changed as much as I thought it would," Arthur admitted. If anything, the line of his shoulders seemed slightly more carefree for it.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Always kinda wanted to visit myself," Katchoo mused, taking in his posture. "Musta done you good. Careful there, Pendragon, you might actually unclench and people'll think you got gremlin-bit."

[bitchprince]

Arthur rolled his eyes. "I'm always perfectly unclenched," he said. No matter what Morgana - or Katchoo, now, it seemed - had to say about it. "We might go back there again if we get the chance."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

She said things like this to get the eyeroll! The eyeroll was amusing. Okay, and being a pain right back at him was therapeutic.

"Uh huh. What'd you do? Play tourist? Because if there's a cheesy picture of you two posing with a Beefeater I'm demanding a copy."

[bitchprince]

Arthur's eyeroll was rather epic and practiced, at that.

"We took a trip down through Northern Wales," he said, "Or southern in the vernacular now, I suppose. Stopped by Abergavenny," which was totally planned, "Made our way down to Pembroke, saw a few of the old lands."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

And since sleep likely wouldn't be happening again tonight, Katchoo appreciated the several hours' worth of distraction she'd get out of wondering if that epic and practiced eyeroll could possibly be captured in two-dimensional still form. Maybe in acrylics? Hmm.

"Yeah, somehow I so totally could couldn't see you two hitting up musicals in the West End." God, but she'd pay good money to see Arthur's face if he had to deal with ticket-takers at the Old Vic. "How's Merlin doing?"

[bitchprince]

"Better," Arthur said, after giving it a moment's thought, and came up on the counter at last. "Ridiculously overexcited to see Eire at last like the bloody child he is."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Eire . . . ?" Katchoo frowned. Someone had blown off geography classes. And history classes. A lot of classes.

[glacial_queen]

Karla--wasn't entirely sure why she was here. Outside of a few classes, Katina was practically a complete stranger. But she had helped Karla out and suffered through Briarwood and then stuck up for her on the radio. So, maybe, as Karla's half-formed, overtired thoughts went, they shouldn't be strangers any more. Or something like that.

All she really knew was she was armed with leftover cupcakes and cider, and was going to stop by and say hello (and maybe thank you) to Katina. Anything after that, well, was all up in the air.

"Ummm, hello?"

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Karla." Yeah, Katchoo recognized her now. Kind of hard not to. She shoved the sketchbook aside and looked up, propping her head on one hand. Caught halfway between wanting to express concern and erring on the side of wariness now that half a dozen people had gotten a good glimpse at way more of her than she cared to share, she cleared her throat and gave Karla a (subtle, she hoped) assessing look. "The store is not actually a front for a drug operation. You can come in."

[glacial_queen]

"It isn't?" Karla asked with a hint of her old wry humor. "Then I'm actually in the wrong spot. Sorry."

Still, she went inside, ignoring (or possibly not even noticing) Katchoo's look. "I, uh, brought some cupcakes," she said, getting all nice and awkward. "And some mulled cider. It was going to be my bribe to get into the operation, but since I'm in the wrong place, wanna share?"

See? She was totally all right! That was a joke! People couldn't make lame-ass jokes if they weren't okay, right?

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, sure." If anyone had asked Katchoo how she was doing the day after -- well, pick one of those times, really, back when she was fifteen, she'd have shut down, or hit them, or something. And if radio notes were even a fraction of an indication, enough people had asked Karla yesterday. So this was Katchoo not asking, even though she wanted to know, how Karla was doing today.

Just "No need to thank me," quiet and gruff, but not hostile in the least.

[glacial_queen]

"Who said anything about thanking you," Karla said, appreciating the not-asking. And she'd answer...soon-ish. "I brought the cupcakes."

Not that she actually wanted to eat anything yet.

"Still, though, I want to," she added quietly, pouring herself some more cider. "You went through the closest approximation of Hell that I can think of to help me out--" though Karla was not naive enough to think that Katchoo had any reason for going in there besides Francine "--and that means a lot to me. No one should ever have to see that, especially not someone who barely knows me. If I'd known I was going to have visitors, I'd've tried to clean up a bit."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Never said you were. Just wanted to clear that up for the squirrels," Katchoo retorted, a halfhearted attempt at a joke of her own.

"No one," she added vehemently, "should ever have to go through that. Not your friend, not . . ."

[glacial_queen]

"She doesn't remember," Karla said, begining to crumble bits of her cupcake onto a napkin. It was the closest she'd come to actually eating one. "The Darkness is merciful, I suppose. Something triggered her and so she began dreaming about Briarwood and what happened, but she doesn't consciously remember. And seeing what she did to herself just trying to run away from the dreams she couldn't remember, I'm afraid of what will happen if she ever does start getting the memories back."

She glanced down, really concentrating on the crumbled cupcake now. "I know what happened to Briarwood," she added very, very quietly.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

The look on Katchoo's face, as she pried the top off a cupcake, was a mixture of relief, envy, and caution. "She got lucky, your friend," she said in an equally quiet voice. "You talking about the real place, or the one in your head?"

[glacial_queen]

"The real one," Karla answered. "Jaenelle wove a tangled web--err, cast a special kind of spell--" she amended, realizing Katina would have no idea what she was talking about if she used Blood terminology, "--that would be triggered if her blood was ever spilled in Briarwood's walls. Which is was," she said, going a little green and resolutely not thinking of anything with spines. "I don't actually know what happened after the spell was triggered, but I know what she intended it to do. And even at twelve she was the most powerful Witch to ever walk the Realms."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Katchoo decided right then and there that Karla's best friend was a screaming Sue, no offense omg someone she never, ever wanted to piss off.

"Good," she said, grim satisfaction making her voice taut. She'd been the companion to a woman who used sex to control and surrounded herself with people who were experts at causing pain and killing in several dozen horrible ways. It wasn't a stretch at all to realize people could combine the two. "That place is where every sick and twisted thing ever goes to fester."

[glacial_queen]

She serves the important purpose of making Karla seem less of one incomparison!

"'To each of them what he gave'," Karla quoted softly. "Every blow, every wound, every rape, every moment of fear they inflicted on another comes back to them. When they've taken it all back, the debt will be paid and the web will release them. Perhaps they'll survive it all, but, I have to wonder: how many children of Briarwood survived them. I don't think many."

[intraspective]

Ino wasn't in the mood for dealing with her mood much less dealing with someone as likely to be in a mood as Katina after hearing radio last night.

That being said, she slipped out of work during her break and snuck in like a super sneaky ninja girl to leave a nightlight on the counter, a note pinned under it.

It's not a temple--they wouldn't let me buy those, and they'd be a bit large for a nightlight besides unless your room has weird dimensional issues going on... anyways--but it's something a little spiritual, if you know what I mean.

Ino didn't bother to sign her name, of course.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Katchoo emerged from a brief quest into the storeroom for a fresh stock of rubber erasers (was someone using those things as projectiles or something? Hadn't they ever heard of Nerf darts?) to find the nightlight and the note, and she didn't need a signature to know who it was from.

People were just out to get her to smile today, weren't they? She didn't suppose she could complain.