Welcome to Gaia! ::

It had been a long, hard month. Or was it week? Pride had no perspective on the amount of time it had taken her and the others to complete (or survive) their field trip to that horrible island. She was still quite shaken from it, disturbed by her memories, lack of memories, of seeing people sliced in two, of seeing others crushed by ceiling... it was all so much, and yet they still had no answers from the faculty about it. Carry herself had no more answers to the burning questions about that gaping hole in her psyche - what was she doing on the island? What did she mean to those people? The demoness was just as in the dark as before, if not more so, and the thought disturbed her. She'd taken to writing in a diary to keep the guilt at bay, but speaking to someone else always made her feel better.

Thus, she sought out someone she remembered from the trip - a particular zombie who was rumored to reside in the demon dorms rather than the space meant for the undead. Questioning others proved far too easy - many demons pointed in the right direction with a look of disgust on their face. How could that filth be allowed by the teachers to live in here? With US? Pride shook her head. As far as she was concerned, a Halloween citizen was a Halloween citizen. Racism and elitism was more detrimental than anything else, even if her attitude was frowned upon. Carry wanted to bring Sammy a present, especially since distrust cropped up between her and so many other students. Carry took to great lengths to find a pair of silver dog tags that might interest the zombie. After freshening up, Carry found herself at the zombie's door, raising her knuckles to rap upon it.

Knock, knock, knock.

"Ah, Sammy? It's me, Carthusia. May I come in?"

"Are you sure I should stay? I... don't want to be a bother."

Pride should have expected that everyone banded together to comfort each other. It made sense, really. But what Carry pined for was the trust she may have had with the others before - the trust that the island had taken away from her without a care in the world. She didn't even return with any satisfactory answers, which lead to more distrust and glaring gazes in the hallways all around campus. It seemed like nobody trusted anything she said. They all thought she was a traitor, and she had no information to dispel it. No memories, nothing. But Pride was doing her best to put that behind her for now. Opening up a small velvet satchel, Carry pulled out the metal dog-tags she'd managed to acquire. The ghost dorms were a complex network of bartering and trading, so it took quite a bit of finesse to find someone willing to trade for the object. She held it out to Sammy like a peace offering.

The demoness spied the mace in the corner of her eye and didn't blame Sammy one bit for keeping it. Hell, Carry had her winged first aid kit still in her own dorm, but most kept away from her, especially now. Pride was weary, and it likely showed on her face. Sleep was a blessing that fled from her most nights and lately she'd hadn't the strength to preen herself to her usual splendor. "I just wanted to say... thank you.""

Carry was too tired to be apprehensive about whether or not the zombie girl would like the dogs tags, but she did relax visibly when the present went over well. Pride had had a great deal of things to think about since they returned from the trip. Was it yesterday? The day before? She had no perspective on time at that moment, and at that moment, it didn't matter. The demoness took inventory of Sammy's room here in the demon dorms - she'd made good work of it. The whispering in the hall didn't escape Carry, but she made it a point to back up Sammy whenever possible. While it made her look bad among the more elitist demons, she didn't care. They were too stuffy anyway. Pride sighed and sat down gingerly on the sofa where the mace was. She certainly didn't blame the ghoul in the slightest.

Once Sammy had begun carving something into the tags, Carry felt she could lean back a little, hands in her lap. "They're wrong about you." she said quietly, watching the closed door as if she could see the other demons outside milling around. Every once in a while, she could see the shadows of footsteps from beneath the door. "Not that I had any doubt, really. Halloween is Halloween." Whether or not that made Carry a bad demon was up for debate, but she decided a long time ago that racism was ridiculous. Westus was her best friend in childhood, indeed, probably one of her few friends, but the choice to come to Amityville... that was one of her better decisions, horrible field trips aside.

Turning back to the zombie girl, Carry slowly tilted her head. "I didn't need that musty old hairpin anyway..." A tired smile probably wasn't seen by Sammy, but it could probably be heard in her voice. "Besides, how else can I show that you being a zombie doesn't matter, especially when we're all about to be sawed in half?" She emitted a low chuckle, trying to make a joke of what had happened to them to lighten the mood. She was proud, actually, that Sammy and the others survived, and prouder still that everyone made it back in one piece, for better or worse.

Pride stood when instructed and began to wander about the room, looking at every detail. The decor was fabulous and she loved and appreciated the color. To keep her mind off of things (like memories and sleeping, for sleeping just made things worse), Carry had taken to redecorating her room slightly. She wanted to gain some more ideas from the inside of Sammy's room. How had they allowed a zombie to live in with the demons? It must have been set up before Carry even got to the school. Touching a drape with a gentle hand, she turned her head slightly when Sammy spoke to her. "I'm glad there are some of us that understand that Halloween is Halloween, no matter what the covering on top is." Pride inspected the drape, feeling the fabric's weight and texture in her hands before she spoke again.

"It could have been worse." Could it? Could it really, or was she just saying that for her own benefit? "We could have bonded over actually dying." Turning around, Pride was smiling too, even chuckling a little bit. "Or in your case, re-dieing?" Now that thought puzzled her, but she let it go with a dismissive wave of her hand. Fixing up some loose strands of her hair, Carry walked back towards her zombie companion. "It means a great deal to me too that you didn't give me that look of hatred when we were in the labs. Or, if you did, I didn't see it."

She sat back down on the couch once the mace had been moved. Looking down at her hands, she turned them over and over. "I still don't know what I was doing there. I guess part of me was hoping I'd remember something, but I got nothing but trauma out of that Jacking field trip." Was she bitter? Oh yes. Bitter, party of one.

Sammy had an excellent point - why did the administration send several boat loads of first-year students to an island full of reapers hellbent on killing them, then disappear? They left the students to their own devices without so much as a warning of where not to go and what not to do. What did they expect? Carry shook her head and sighed at the entire thought process. Wrath wasn't her thing - she'd leave that up to West. "What do you suppose the whole idea was behind going there? I mean, it's not like we actually found anything, save for Famine and Conquest, but even then, what was the point? They didn't look like students." Then again, what constituted looking like a student? Carry couldn't bring herself to follow that path to its logical conclusion and let the idea drop from her mind. Maybe they were trying to rescue students? Who knew?

"Makes me wonder where War and Death might be though. I think most people are familiar with the story." Even if they weren't, the trauma of the island was enough to make most people not care in the slightest. "Still, I'm relieved you guys made it out okay. Siddie's a nice ghoul - I rather like her. We didn't have much time to bond out in the cornfield, I think. Most of our time was spent trying not to go ballistic, thinking we were out of the corn. When, of course, we find out we were hallucinating. Did Siddie tell you about that one? Good times."

What she really wanted to do was find Arel, the secretary, and string him up by the scarf until he gave up whatever information the faculty was hiding. It was like dangling a carrot in front of a hungry horse and expecting it to remain still. It was ridiculous. "I wish they would tell us what the point of all that was."

Pride knew when she'd gone too far, and bowed her head in apology. She was just consumed by trying to figure it all out, despite it being weeks since the incident. Still, enough was enough. "Sorry, Sammy. I think you're right. Best to let it drop." Looking back down at her hands, Carry quietly contemplated how to get passed what had happened to all of them on the island. Thank Jack they were revived after the incident, but it still left deep, wounding scars on some people, and meant distrust among some others, avarice especially. Pinning some loose hair behind her ear, Carry tried to smile through it when Sammy mentioned how much she liked Siddie. "She's a great person, that much was very clear to me from the moment I met her."

She was silent for a moment, as if thinking or mulling over the words in her head. "I hope you don't mind if I consider you a friend, Sammy. I could use more people to talk to that aren't stuck up demons, you know?" She let herself smile again, tired, but more relaxed. Perhaps she could sleep tonight after her conversation with the zombie girl. Sleep would be blissful.

Fancy demon clubs? Boy did Sammy have another thing coming! Of course Carthusia wanted to be in on the fancy demon clubs, but she was lacking the sort of natural self confidence all the rest of them seemed to have. It frightened her sometimes. "I don't mind your reputation, bad or otherwise. But isn't a bad reputation a good thing around here? You've stayed this long in the demon dorms and you haven't been driven out. I'd say you deserve a medal."

A vigorous nod sealed the deal for the demoness. Sammy was a good friend to have and she knew it. Siddie would be very happy with her. "You're always welcome in my dorm if you'd like. The door's usually open if you need anything." That would include food if zombies ate. Actually, Carry wasn't sure zombies did eat, but if Sammy was in the mood for something, Carry's fridge always had something bizarre in it. Hopefully Sammy could stomach it.