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 Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2009 10:30 am
Giselle woke up to Elke's screams, which faded as she gasped for breath.
"Turn to page... Turn to page 185." she muttered, wiping at her mouth, which still felt moist with blood that wasn't there.
"Turn to page..."
It wasn't real. None of it had been real. She hadn't eaten Elke in the middle of a lesson, that was ridiculous. She had just been dreaming, she was just dreaming, she was...
She was so hungry. The screams had been satisfying. There had been something totally messy, completely improper about it, something that fed an animal she had kept caged up all her life, But more than that, there was the sense of power. Something more delicious than the flesh, the sense of total control, that no one could stop her. It was unnerving, the kind of thing one could get drunk on if they weren't careful, so she got out of bed like it was on fire, out of those dreams. She brushed her hair like she could brush them out of her head, pulling back into her usual tight bun.
This bun seemed to restore some sense of order into her mind. She was in control, not of Elke, not of the flesh of others, but of herself. Being in control of herself was more important than being in control of others, no matter how satisfying. If the head was corrupted, it didn't matter how far-reaching the body was, all one had to do to be reminded of that was to look at the Roman Empire.
But she was still hungry.
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Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2009 12:41 pm
When Elke visited her history tutor she generally just barged right in, and this worked because Giselle knew to expect her. Only it was probably not a good idea to expect the door to be open at four in the morning, so instead she knocked an unusually timid knock and called (quietly, so as not to wake up Frankie del Rockham, who everyone did not want awake ever especially not when you have had a strange nightmare about eating someone) "Giselle?"
She rubbed her hands on her pajama pants while she waited. Her hands felt so... sticky. Elke shuddered, then knocked again and said, a little louder, "Giselle?"
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Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2009 12:48 pm
For a moment Giselle startled, her normally calm composure shaken by hearing Elke's voice so soon after the dream. "She thought about not opening the door. She could just not open the door and she wouldn't have to deal with this.
But her hair was up. She was going to have to get over the nightmare no matter how real it was, she was Elke's tutor, and she couldn't be plagued by images of her devouring her. That was utterly unacceptable, and the best way to deal with it was face it head-on and prove it was nonsense. The sooner she made it clear to her mind that it was just a dream, the better. She swallowed, trying to ignore the rumbling of her stomach, and opened the door. "Elke," she stated simply, "What do you need at this hour of the morning?"
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Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2009 12:53 pm
"D-do you want to come down to the kitchens with me?" Probably she should have gone to Avery but not after that dream. She couldn't face him after that dream. Maybe she would go check on her boyfriend after she wasn't so strangely hungry. Elke had never been hungry a day in her life. Never. "P-please? I don't wanna go by myself." She had barely been able to make it up the stairs. They still hadn't fixed the lights.
Of course Giselle would go with her, though. Giselle was too badass for anything to scare her. Giselle probably would bean Elke upside the head with a history textbook. There was no danger for Giselle. "Please," asked Elke again, this time the pleading tone undeniably pathetic.
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Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2009 1:59 pm
Giselle really did not want to go into a kitchen with the person she had just dreamed about eating. However, her stomach kept on rumbling. Eating something might help, and she clenched her fists. it was just walking to the kitchen with Elke. Surely she had the willpower for that.
"If I must," she said somewhat irritably, more frustrated at herself than Elke. Stepping out into the hallway, she took a deep breath and looked around. "Come on, then. Let's go."
Striding down the hallway, she didn't turn to talk or look at Elke until they reached the kitchen. At that point, she still didn't turn to look around, but she was painfully aware that Elke was there. Instead, she rushed over to the cabinets and muttered "Breakfast." Pulling out a frying pan, she figured sausages would fix this. Something meaty, oh god.
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Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2009 6:10 pm
"Thank you," said Elke, relief palpable in her voice and in the way she followed Giselle down the hallway, rather like a puppy. "Thank you, thank you, thank you." She poked around the parts of the kitchen that the school stocked, settling on Cheerios - sitting on the counter, she watched her tutor wander the kitchen.
As she had thought, she'd been hungry. The Cheerios, while not exactly the meat she'd been craving, sated the hollow feeling in her stomach well enough. With an unnaturally calm tone, considering her panic of a moment or two before, she said, "I dreamed I was eating Avery. I've never really been hungry before."
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Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 12:02 am
Still Giselle was silent, until, at last, her food was done.
"Have some sausage." she suggested (or commanded?) putting a plate down on the table for Elke.
"That's an odd dream." she said simply, sitting down and eating some food, herself. She was chewing like she had a grudge against it. "Did you skip dinner?" Her own dream went unmentioned. Elke would not look upon it favourably, and it was just an odd coincidence. Nonsense. She was sure if she looked it up there was some scientific precedent that had caused them both to dream similar dreams. Maybe they had both done something during the day that had triggered the dream, wasn't sleep just the body's way of processing the events of a day?
The fact that Elke had dreamed about her boyfriend was less than cheerful for Giselle, though. If Elke had dreamed of the most important person to her, this suggested that Giselle's most important person was Elke. Elke was nice, but she was not Giselle's fantasy man.
She wasn't even Giselle's ideal best friend, for that matter. Giselle looked down and attacked her sausages more ferociously. Thank heavens she had bought some breakfast food earlier in the week.
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Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 9:24 am
Elke looked at Giselle incredulously, because really sausage was the last thing she wanted to eat. Well... She didn't want to make Giselle sad. Or angry. She sidled off the counter, making a light little noise when her feet hit the tile floor, and settled at the table with her tutor.
"No," said Elke, "I never skip dinner." She might not eat much there, depending on her mood and the available food, but she always ate something. Maman would not approve if she knew that she had skipped dinner, ever. Good Girls Eat Their Food, she would say, towering over Elke in two-inch heels and a Versace gown.
She looked at Giselle nervously. "Are you okay? I'm sorry for waking you up..."
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Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 9:44 am
"I'm fine." said Giselle, the sausages helping her focus. She was in control.
"Really? That is odd." Giselle herself had only started eating dinner when she came to Barren Pines. Her usual habit was to snack throughout the day, light meals tiding her over rather than three solid meals. She didn't like sitting down at a table for a meal unless she absolutely had to, it was a waste of time. She always spent the first week of term adjusting to the dietary change.
"Dreams aren't real." she said suddenly, "They aren't real, and they won't show you anything that will ever happen."
She felt the urge to change the subject. "And how are you doing in history class?" she asked, cutting her last sausage. "Is the tutoring helping?"
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Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 7:49 pm
"No, not really," said Elke, "it's how we do things in France!" She beamed at Giselle, clearly feeling reassured by the dreams aren't real mini-rant. Of course she would never eat Avery. That would be cannibalism and certainly put a damper on the relationship. Plus, what would Maman say? Not to mention Papa and Giselle!
At the mention of history, she sighed, "I got a B on the last test." Then, after a moment's thought, she brightened and said, "But that's better than the D on the one before you started helping me!" How she'd passed History the year before was a mystery to all parties. Even Elke didn't know if she managed to swing the 98 on her final she'd needed to pass. "Thanks, Giselle," said Elke, who sounded really and truly grateful.
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Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 10:25 pm
"No, not the skipping-"
Oh, never mind. At least they were on a different subject, and Giselle's still-discontent stomach was glad for it. "Ah. Not as well as I had hoped, but there's time for improvement." A B in History was practically a D to Giselle Petrova. She didn't know about other tutors, but improvement was not enough. "We shall simply have to schedule more study sessions." she said decidedly. "Please name all of Henry VIII's wives in chronological order."
If she was kinder, she would have at least let Elke finish her cereal. However, she was recovering from being unnerved in typical Giselle fashion, by charging straight ahead so no one would be able to tell and she wouldn't waste too much time thinking about something irrelevant. When dreams and fears surfaced and threatened to disrupt things, everything gained a sense of urgency for Giselle, and she acted upon the sense in order to move on.
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Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 10:29 am
Elke sighed. A B was a really good grade for her, at least in History, and she was happy with that! "Gisellleeee," she whined, and she ate a couple of bites of cereal. Man, she really couldn't name all six wives on a good day at four in the afternoon, how could her tutor expect her to name them in order at four in the morning? It was unreasonable!
Probably it was a good studying method, too. Giselle wouldn't make her do it if it wasn't going to be helpful, right? "Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Anne of Cleves, Jane Seymour, Katherine Howard, Catherine Parr?" She paused, looking thoughtful, and then...
"No, that's not right..."
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Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 10:34 am
"Again." Giselle said mercilessly, and then, because she wasn't completely heartless, added "Almost got it." It was working, the distraction. Maybe even working for both of them. She got up to wash her empty plate and dishes, listening for the right answers as she did so.
Because she was Giselle, she said "Try telling me what ended their marriages as well."
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Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 12:45 pm
Darn! She ground her teeth for a minute. Where had she screwed up?
"Katherine of Aragon was divorced," said Elke, "Anne Boleyn was divorced then beheaded. Um... Katherine Howard?- no, that's not right." Honestly, at least she'd gotten everyone's names right this time! It was like Giselle had some kind of angry to get out. Which was why Elke should totally try a little bit harder to remember this stuff! "Jane Seymour was totally one of Anne Boleyn's ladies in waiting," she said, sitting up straighter because this little bit of trivia brought her back around to the thoughts of Henry VIII and his wives, "And she died having one of the Edwards. And Anne of Cleves was divorced because she looked like a horse, and Katherine Howard was divorced then beheaded and Catherine Parr lived past him."
Pause.
"And then she died," added Elke.
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Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2009 6:18 pm
"Correct." Giselle said, a touch smugly. When Elke got an answer correct, it was practically like she had gotten one correct, only in Elke's case, it took more effort.
"So do we all, at some point." she added at Elke's amendment, shaking her head when it brought back thoughts of her dream. "At any rate, please name his children in chronological order."
Giselle did have some kind of angry to get out, but she wasn't quite sure who to direct it at or how to do so. She was scrubbing her plate a little too hard, and clenching her teeth a little too much, and history talk just helped her focus. It was the only productive thing she could think of to do, and thus she bombarded Elke with questions.
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