[PRP] Through the Looking Glass

[Skye Starrfyre]

Aldara woke with a start, dumping herself out of her hammock nest with a few vile curses. She felt like a mess and from the complete disarray of her hair and feathers she caught in the mirror she probably looked like a mess too. Her heart was pounding because someone was shooting off fireworks... But it was something more than that. Something had scared her.

Grief.

No, not that. Grief was sadness. Grief was longing. Grief was...

Wonderland.

Her dreams. Her dreams.

She snatched a cloak, throwing it on to cover her midnight blue nightgown before dashing out of her room and down the hall. She paused long enough to get her orientation straight, trying to find her head again before making a turn that brought her to a skidding halt in front of another dormitory door.

Aldara pondered knocking politely for all of a second before bringing both hands up to furiously pound on the door. "Pachua! Pachua... You'd better be in there!" She snapped, clearly animated and maybe a little bit agitated. If she kept up the noise she was likely to wake others up as well... If they could even hear her over the racket of the fireworks outside. "Pachua."

Endejester

 

[endejester]

Skye Starrfyre

“AH! Oh god…I’m up! I’m awake!” He garbled, the words coming out sleepy edged and slurred but sharp at the corners with an edge of panic.

“Come in!” He added after a moment, there was a pause before he said it when he touched a hand to his chest as though to make sure there was no blood, no injury that would have ended him for the sake of some greater good.

“…Aldara?” He adds, after a moment realizing he’s not clear where his nightmare ended and wakeful ness began.

“I… um…sorry… I… I had this dream.” He murmured, touching the side of his head and finding it…oddly strange that he lacked mouse ears.  

[Skye Starrfyre]

endejester

Without asking for permission to invade his personal space she threw her arms around him, giving him a tight, frantic hug before pushing him back, checking him over with the quick gaze of someone who was used to either appraising things of value... Or sizing up prey.

And then she realized what she had done and took an extra step back, giving him a bit of extra space in the event he decided to strike. "I just... Wanted to make sure that you were okay. The fireworks," she gestured, although it was clear as he mentioned the word 'dream' that it was not the fireworks alone that had unsettled her.

"I didn't mean to wake you." A lie. "I don't know why I..." Another lie. "Oh, Jack, I must look like a nightmare..." Poor choice of words, but finally the truth!  

[endejester]

Skye Starrfyre

“N…No I’m glad you woke me.” He said and rubbed at his chest again as she stepped back. “I had the strangest…” He shook his head. “… I can’t imagine I look much better; I had this, this nightmare. I dreamed I met HUNTERS and, and I was a mouse and talking trees but not like trees where I am they were really quite chatty.” He exhaled softly and tried to give her a cheery look.

“…You…had the same dream didn’t you.” He added after a moment.

“….except it … wasn’t a proper dream if you dreamed it too.”  

[Skye Starrfyre]

endejester

She swallowed, obviously still unsettled from the whole ordeal as well as being on edge from the explosions going on outside. Whatever was going on she wanted nothing to do with it until she'd gotten herself settled...

"It's all jumbled, but the last thing I remember clearly was that you..." She bit her lip, not wanting to say it out loud least he didn't remember that part. "It was like last time, only nothing like last time because I don't recall signing up for it...

"Hunters? Was that...? Were those... The people you were with? They looked so normal. They didn't hurt you, did they? Do you think that they were... Real?"  

[endejester]

Skye Starrfyre

“I… I’m not sure, I think so… but I thought hunters were supposed to be really, well, terrifying. Umm...” He hesitated. “What was last time?” He asked sincerely confused with what she meant; of course, he would be… since he hadn’t been there for any thing that would have included a sign up.

“N…No, they didn’t hurt me though, well, I mean not on purpose. Just once when there was one of those mirrors between us.”

He glanced towards the wall, the windows where the explosions were taking place.

“Are those, actually fireworks or is someone blowing up?” He shook his head concerned.

“Oh dear… you don’t think I brought hunters back to the school did you?”  

[Skye Starrfyre]

endejester

"Someone might be blowing up... But they're definitely doing it with fireworks." She nodded, finally settling in enough to be properly perturbed with the whole situation. She was only certain because between explosions she could hear the whining whiz as they shot up into the sky and she had seen fountains of exploding color reflecting in the window panes out in the hall... At least she was pretty certain that she had, in all of her frantic dashing.

"Maybe it's a prank. Or we're missing out on something." She didn't want to think about hunters invading the school, not while her head was so scattered and she wasn't properly armed.

Or properly dressed.

"The last time something strange happened, like this, but not like this... They'd asked us to give up our memories. And... I did. Some of them, at least, but not all of them. It was like the lake in the Tulgey Wood..." Jumbled, everything was so jumbled.

"You were really a mouse?" She changed the subject with a grin.  

[endejester]

Skye Starrfyre

“Door mouse.” He said and turned a bright red in the face. He hated being a student sometimes, it made blushing far too possible and being in his PROPER form would never have revealed such a thing.

“And you’re changing the subject!” He said spreading is wings as though somehow making himself seem bigger would absolutely make her answer him. He settled them back into place and folded his arms as well.

“Who asked you to give memories?” He asked with a small frown. “Why did they want MEMORIES, you don’t think it was the same people do you? I mean… Alice said someone.” He stopped and shook his head quiet unsure what to make of where his mind was starting to try and take that scrap if information.

“We… we just left behind a whole slew of…copies of our memories.” He frowned.

"Anyhow… what were YOU?"  

[Skye Starrfyre]

endejester

"It might, but there were no Goddesses this time... Just Queens." Could the Queens have been the Goddesses? That was something she would have to think on... When she was alone, maybe, and could properly piece through things again to see what she did and didn't remember.

At least... She didn't think she lost any part of herself, or her memories, this time.

"I was a Cheshire Cat, naturally. With all of that blue do you really think I'd be anything else?" She flashed him a grin, the expression fading momentarily as she drifted back to something else he said. "... I don't think those copies exist anymore. We... We were fading before they showed up. The Queen, whatever she was, she was consuming us, our memories. I... I don't know if I want to think about it."  

[endejester]

Skye Starrfyre

“Goddesses?” He said making a face and fluttered his wings with a small indignation.

“Goddesses… He repeated. “Not as fascinating as my ancestor I warrant.” He huffed a touch sulkily, though he brushed it aside. “Can you tell me more about the… the goddesses? Please? I want to know more… I never thought that I’d miss so much, but… I think I missed everything only to fall into the middle of it.”

He swept a hand through his hair and then made a face at it.

“…. I had a frabjous day with one of those hunter people, they seemed surprised I hadn’t done… field trips.” He said carefully and thoughtfully. Did students do a lot of damage on those? Or maybe one of us just… scared him rather more than was really NEEDED.”

He looked strait at her for a long moment though and then gave her a grin that looked rather a though HE could have been a Cheshire cat.

“So… I was a mouse, something –I- eat, and you were a cat… something that eats BIRDS.” He grinned widely and flicked his tongue at her, spreading his tail feathers wider like a peacock.

“…Kind of funny if you think about it.”  

[Skye Starrfyre]

endejester

"Kind of funny, kind of twisted... A little bit more entertaining overall when you think of the cat and mouse games we could have played if we had crossed paths sooner." She managed a bit of a smirk despite the afterthought that followed her words. They hadn't crossed paths sooner, though. All things considered, he might not even know that they had crossed paths at all as by the time she had found him he had already fallen.

"The last 'field trip' that I remember was... A long time ago. A really long time ago. There was a boat and I... I got lost..." She scuffed her foot. It wasn't something that she liked to admit, especially not as it had been her reason for being absent from Amityville for so long. "I don't remember it being very fun, though."

Aldara brought a hand up slowly, fingers brushing through her hair only to fall back down when she realized that she was making no progress and there were too many tangles to get out with anything short of an actual brush. "I can tell you what I remember... As long as I get a chance to clean up first? Let's get dressed and go find something to eat and then we can talk more, ok?"  

[endejester]

“Alright” Ne nodded with a small smile, the forced pride about ancestors drifting away again with a small nod and that curve of his mouth.
“I’m sorry you got lost… back then I mean.” He added after a moment, his wing lifting to gently brush feather tips over her shoulders, a motion like any bird might give to a chick, or in this case to a friend who seemed, just a little smaller in the moment of a memory.

“Come on, I’ll help you brush that out, I’m used to helping my siblings with it. My sister… she’s not very fond of me but she always did appreciate the help with her hair. It was very long, very pretty too…she had the most beautiful wings.” He said his voice trailing off to a tone that suggested, that even in a close family with siblings by your side, that one could be, lost.

“Well… yes. Let’s get cleaned up, and we can share what we’ve each missed about the world?”

Skye Starrfyre

 

[Skye Starrfyre]

Aldara nodded in return, letting her guard down then just enough to not be a big, tough warrior for once... Because sometimes, every now and then, it was nice to just be yourself and to know that, even being yourself, you could still have a friend.

endejester