Monster High - The Doomitories

[Meme Pennywise]

"Ah!" Meme had finally reached the end of the hanky chain and began to untie the last square so should could blow her nose.
"You what?" She looked up, dabbing the hanky at her multicoloured nostrils. Meme stared at the container as it took her brain a few seconds to connect the pieces.
"Ooohh! Yes, soup because I'm sick! That's so sweet of yo-" She was interrupted by a rasping cough. She smiled, lifting the pot, taking care not to touch his hands. It was a very nice thought, and she was sure the soup would be delicious but it was typical Ronan to offer such support.

"How come you're not with the others?" She asked. Her phone buzzed again from the cushions and pillows. "Another update from Screamy.. Sports is a total snore-fest for me, apart from blading. Pretty glad I've got this bug." She sneezed violently, confetti flying out of the gaps in the hanky.  

[Ronan Aalto]

He backed away a little, keeping his distance from the confetti.

"I uh.. don't really understand uhhmerican football. The murk trial didn't appeal either." He shrugged. "Roller blading? You skate?" He tried to look at anything but her as she blew her nose loudly.  

[Marceline LaGhede]

The night of the Tombcoming Dance...

Marceline struggled to reach the zipper on the back of her dress... but after a few moments of awkward grasping behind her, she managed to pull it up. She smoothed out the wrinkles in the fabric, feeling it hug against her skin and bones as if it was second skin. Looking herself over in the mirror, she wrinkled her nose at the imprint of her ribcage standing out through the fabric; she poked at them with her finger, half-hoping they'd go away if she did so. It was all part of being a Loa to have some bones showing, something Marceline all but came to terms with; she'd bandage up her torso if there was any more room in the dress.

Fumbling through her makeup kit, Marceline found the lipstick she had in mind for tonight -- Slime Crime's Golden Ick-et lipgloss, still in the box from Sefeara. She swept it across her lips, enjoying the change in lipcolor for the evening; her usual shade, MURK Cosmetics Fearoine, would clash with the gold in the dress. The last piece to her outfit -- a small hat given to her by Jewels -- was placed meticulously on her hair and pinned securely into place. She smiled, feeling uncharacteristically ghoulish, and waited at the mirror for Rory to pick her up.  

[Rorrim Rory Bludworth]

"Wow, you look great!" Rory popped up in front of Marceline's reflection in her doomitory mirror. Rory tugged at his lapels and brushed some hair out of his face. He hoped that he looked worthy of going to the dance with such a gore-geous ghoul. He'd spent days going through the online catalog for Tomby Boohama and Aberzombie & Stitch, before finally giving up and going to Fashion Bites at the Maul and sorting through their vintage section. There was just no substitute today for a good pair of spats.

"I have a little bit of bad news," Rory confessed as he reached out of the mirror. "Mother is running a little late so we have some time before dinner. I thought, uh, maybe we could do a little...tour? Or something?"  

[Perry Hartley]

So this was the student dorms huh? Perry had never actually ventured over this side of campus.
He double checked the address Vinnie gave him, he felt like he was breaking some sort of rule just being in the girl's corridor.

He found the door, straightened his glasses and knocked.  

[Vinnie Lovecraft]

Perry Hartley

"There you are!" Vinnie opened the door of the doomitories... dressed to the nines. Her tombcoming dress consisted of a black minidress with bright yellow geometric shapes cascading down the side, wrapping around the back and creating a sort of train to the backside of the dress. A seasoned fear-shonista would recognize it from Fierre Clawdin's Fall line, titled "The Colour Out of Space"... not like Vinnie cared about that. She saw it, she wanted it, she bought it with Daddy's credit card.

"I thought you might've ditched me, or something." She slinked out of the doorway and hooked her arm in Perry's, the shapes on her dress shifting and moving in ways that defied logic... or maybe that was just the moonlight hitting it. "Anyway, you look awesome, man!"  

[Perry Hartley]

He grinned. "Hey, you don't scrub up half bad yourself."
He tipped his hat and escorted her toward the grim.

"Sorry i'm late by the way, my parents decided to have a small freak out over the prospect of me taking a ghoul to a dance" He rolled his eyes.
Mostly it had been both his parents expressing disbelief at the idea, then questioning him the same way Nathair had.
What was up with monsters these days that a guy and a ghoul couldn't attend tombcomming as FRIENDS? Sheesh.  

[Vinnie Lovecraft]

"Don't worry about it. I'm just glad you showed up at all!" Vinnie shifted a bit. "To be honest, most of the mansters in my unlife have never followed through on me. I'm used to getting blown off..."

She trailed off, wondering how any conversation about tonight would go over with her father. If anything, he might have been pleased with the fact that Vinnie was actively participating in normal activities for a monster of her age... anything to keep the scrutiny off his scales for one day. But he was in hibernation, so he had no idea. Vinnie somewhat preferred it that way.  

[Marceline LaGhede]

"You don't look so bad y'self, Rory!" Marceline blushed as she took Rory's hand and slipped into the Mirrorverse. She felt a bit of weight lift off her shoulders as he told her that his mother would be late, but tried not to show it. "That's a shame about y'mother... but a tour would be fangtastic! I've never seen more'a your house than this room!"  

[Rorrim Rory Bludworth]

Rory grinned.

"Well, this room isn't a room so much as a hallway. A hall of mirrors, if you will." He pointed down the black hallway with a little bit of a flourish. The walls of the hallway were covered in mirrors of every shape, size and decoration imaginable. Marceline had been here twice before. Once, when he'd done her a favor and given her a quick transport between New Goreleans and Monster High, and that first time...the time he had accidentally summoned nearly a dozen monsters into the Mirrorverse while trying to watch them instead. It had been the first time those monsters had realized there was someone else on the other side of the mirror.

"Mirrorverse is a lot bigger than this hallway, and a lot bigger than my house. Here! You can see!" Rory took Marceline by the hand and led her to the one pane on the wall that wasn't a mirror. It was a window, showing the realm outside of the house Rory and his mother lived.

"That's Mirrorverse." Rory informed her, eagerly. He was so excited to share it with someone. Outside of the window was a giant expanse of darkness, like outer space. Little lights twinkled everywhere, but on closer examination, they weren't lights...each twinkle was a mirror, suspended in the nothingness, slowly turning on its axis, showing the images of the world its other side faced.

"Mother only keeps the most important mirrors in the house, or the ones she uses the most." He explained. "Plus a few others. But out there, all over...is the other side of every mirror in the universe."

Rory hoped it was stunning. He thought it was neat. His mother could hop in and out of any mirror she so wished with the merest thought, but Rory was still very much so a novice. The expanse of mirrors out there represented an unlifetime of possibilities.

"Pretty neat, huh?" The sounds of clinking and clanking interrupted their reverie, and Rory looked down towards the end of the hallway.

"I wonder, is that mother?"  

[Marceline LaGhede]

Marceline pressed her hands against the glass of the window, staring slack-jawed into the Mirrorverse. Billions and billions of mirrors twinkled in a velvety black nothingness, expanding out into infinity... she pressed herself closer to the glass until her breath spread into foggy marks, as if she wanted to fall through the window and into that galaxy on the other side. She had never seen anything so beautiful in her unlife.

"It's... unbelievable." She breathed, just as a clatter arose down the hall.

Rorrim Rory Bludworth

"I wonder, is that mother?"

Marceline's body tensed at the mention of Rory's mother, and she peeled herself from the window and straightened her spine... and adjusted her hair... and folded her hands behind her back.  

[Rorrim Rory Bludworth]

"Good evening, mot-" Rory started as the door at the end of the hallway swung open wide, but he was cut off by a huge, voluminous shadow crossing both he and Marceline.

"Ugh. You nasty ickle brats! Stop blocking the hallway!" Hagetha Mistie barked, hauling a large, steaming pot with her. She looked exactly as Marceline remembered her, rotund, warty and orange, but now as bald as a cue-ball. She gave Rory and Marceline the hairy eyeball as she waddled past them.

"Your lousy no-good mother has me cooking now! Me! Just because she's so busy doing magic mirror predictions and guest starring at sleepovers."

"Er....didn't you teach Home Ick? The cooking class?" Rory ventured a question. Hagetha paused.

"Well...yes. And I can make the GREATEST meals in all of witch history. But it's the principle of the thing! My punishment for my MINOR infraction of trying to enslave Monster High and take over the world with my army of monster minions was to be stuck here as Mary's assistant - NOT her personal butler!"

Hagetha swung a hip and knocked open a door at the end of the hallway - only to discover that standing behind it was the stately shape of Rory's mother - Bloody Mary herself.

Hagetha gasped and nearly dropped the cauldron of soup.

"M-Miss Mary! I didn't realize-"

"No, you clearly didn't, Hagetha." Mary moved to one side so Hagetha could squeeze past into the dining room. "We can discuss your 'concerns' about the terms of your imprisonment later."

"Right! Of course, Miss Mary! I'll finish setting the table, right away!" Hagetha stammered as Mary stepped into the hallway and the door slammed into Hagetha's face behind her. The stately lady of the mirrorverse tilted her chin up and looked down at Rory and Marceline.

"You both look very nice." She commented, sparing an extra long look up and down Marceline. "Very proper for a school dance."

"Thank you, mother." Rory smiled. Wow! His mother was really warming up to Marceline! Mary raised her head up as if she could hear someone calling her, and sighed.

"Dinner should be ready soon. If you will excuse me, I must-" But she never finished her sentence, as she vanished mid-syllable. Rory shrugged.

"That's how it goes on weekends. She was hoping if we ate earlier there'd be less sleepovers going on in the normie world, but..." He shrugged again. "C'mon, I want to show you some of the rooms!"  

[Marceline LaGhede]

Marceline let out her breath and relaxed as Mary blipped in and out of the Mirrorverse; she seemed... less stern than she initially was... Maybe tonight wouldn't be so bad after all!

"I'd.. I'd like that, Rory." She smiled at Rory's invitation to the rest of the house.  

[Rorrim Rory Bludworth]

"...And this is my room, as if you couldn't tell." Rory spoke as he opened a door on their whistle-stop tour of his house. They'd already been in the sitting room, the receiving room, the living room, the parlour, AND the reception room.

There were a lot of rooms in the house to sit down on nice furniture.

Rory's room was different, though...much less formal and much less smattered in mirrors on every vertical surface. Instead, his walls had posters of his favorite bands (They Definitely Are Giants and Bruno Martian), favorite movies (Avascar and Gore of the Rings Trilogy) and pictures of himself and his friends at Monster High. A Monster High pennant was pinned above his bed.

"Uh...." Rory grasped for something to say. Immediately he felt incredibly awkward having a ghoul in his room. He wasn't sure WHY it was awkward, but as Marceline looked around at his action figures, movie collection and Hex Box, he felt extremely anxious. "Those, uh, those are the limited edition Star Gores hacktion figures. I have the ultra-rare Blobba Fett with the rocket-firing jetpack. I got it on evilBay last year..."

Why did suddenly he feel so pathetic?! Too late he realized he'd overhexposed himself by inviting Marceline into his inner sanctum. This sort of laid everything he was into bare for her to see - no way to spin it to make it seem like it was cool. Even his Monster Wrestling Federation pillowcases were on display!

"Uh, maybe we should move on to...oh." Rory noticed Marceline was checking out a black feather that was on display in front of his hacktion figure collection. She picked it up, and admired it's shimmering in the light. "That's uh, that's sort of a memento. From a long time ago. My first friend gave that to me."  

[Marceline LaGhede]

"Oh, my ghoul! TDAG!" Marceline noticed Rory's They Definitely Are Giants poster and suppressed a squeal. "I love them! In fact, John Grimmell is the reason I took up playing aggoredion! I didn't know you liked them!"

Marceline gazed at John Grimmell in the poster, his curly mop of hair flopped over his cyclopic eye and a bone aggoredion strapped over his turtleneck. Then snapping back into reality she noted the rest of Rory's effects. Hacktion figures, wrestling memorabilia, video games... having three older brothers, none of this seemed surprising in a boo's room.

Then her eyes fell upon a black feather... seemed out of place with the rest of his things. It sparkled in purple and green in the light, and Marceline was entranced.

"That's uh, that's sort of a memento. From a long time ago. My first friend gave that to me." Rory said, sheepishly. Marceline hadn't realized she'd picked the feather up in the first place... she hastily put it down, careful not to knock over any of the hacktion figures that stood nearby; she had a crack in her arm from when she accidentally knocked over all of her brother Croix's Mansters of the Universe figures, so she knew how precious boos regarded them.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..." She sighed. "They must have been very special to you."