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 Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 8:00 pm
Calder had been spending most of his time back face down on Barth's couch staring at a potted plant and idly petting Cheezbooger. He had no motivation, and being in a sloth demon's place was the perfect place to be when you were in that mindset. It wasn't until he felt restless and was wearing away a imprint on Barth's couch that he decided to get up and go somewhere.
Fixing his bandages, he went out to feed his pets and leeches in his dorm, and then decided he wanted to check up on Amrita. Calder only hoped Christof was taking good care of her, and arrived at the undead's door slightly winded. That usually never happened, but he felt tired from just a short walk.
Sighing, he knocked on the door.
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Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 8:10 pm
Calder didn't need luck to find Amrita in her room. It was a routine for the ghoul now, to be home almost all the time; before it was a little harder to pin her down, but now...not so much. When Calder knocked on the door she was pretty much doing exactly what he had been doing prior to his visit; spending her time lying face down on furniture. Except, instead of a couch, it was her bed.
"'s open~" She called as loudly as she could into her pillow. Another thing she had learned was that people generally didn't like it when she kept her door locked; it worked them up, which made them fawn over her more, which worked her up...it was a vicious cycle, and one she didn't have to deal with now that her door was, as it used to be, always unlocked.
What's the worst that could happen to her? Hunters get in and take her away? Please.
She did, however, at least tilt her head so she could actually see who it was coming into the room.
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Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 8:30 pm
Calder didn't like the idea of her not locking her door, and walked in to then shut it and lock it for her. "Lock it." He told her, but it was barely a order or a command, lacking any real power to back it up.
Looking over, he spotted Amrita on her bed, and not waiting for a invitation, he went over, nudged her, and then crawled on the bed beside her. It was nice to be in Amrita's bed. Despite being cold, she was company, and he nuzzled up beside her before relaxing.
Smiling weakly, he brushed some of her hair from her face. "Hi."
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Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 8:51 pm
Amrita scrambled to sit up the moment she recognized who it was; his tired order-command-comment was naturally ignored in favour of staring wide-eyed at her friend. CALDER? Calder was back? When did he get home? How come he looked eo exhausted? What was wrong with him? WHEN DID HE GET BACK?! She seemed frozen, unable to really process what she was seeing; it felt like he had been gone for years!
She needed no further prompting and moved over at his nudging, giving him room on the bed to join her. When he made himself comfortable she did too, fitting against him easily as they had months before. Her eye was wide and staring as he brushed her hair aside, feeling the need to cry in relief though no tears would fall.
"H-hi." She murmured right back, stretching an arm across him for a weak - and gentle - hug.
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Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 8:59 pm
He tensed slightly, worried she might hug him too tightly. His body was still sore, limbs still healing, and the bruising around his eye was only starting to go away. Still, the soft hug was comforting, and it took everything in him not to just cry.
"How have you been? Has Chirstof been around?" He continued to lightly brush her hair until his arm grew tired and he rested it beside him.
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Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 9:08 pm
Now that Calder was closer she could see the bruising, the spots in his skin and composure that were way off; more of than normal. Jack, he really was injured! And really injured on top of that! It made her reign in her hug, not that she had to do it too much.
"Surviving~" She said briefly, her eye narrowing with concern. The mention of Christof was brushed aside for now in favour of something more important; Calder himself. "What about you? What happened?" Amrita's voice was positively overwhelmed with concern as she studied him from where she was. Part of her wanted to lightly touch the bruises, but she knew she couldn't - rather, shouldn't - as bruises on the breathing were generally sore spots.
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Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 9:26 pm
Calder turned his head into her pillow, not looking at her. "I'm OK." He muttered, closing his eyes tightly. He wasn't going ta cry. He wasn't going ta cry. He wasn't going to cry.
"Just ran off. Not in.." He bite her pillow a moment before continuing. "..my clan." It had been his intent, but the reality of it hurt still. His world seemed upside down, and he didn't know what to do with himself. It still hurt. He still felt stupid for choosing this, and while he was sure it was right, he wished things could have gone differently.
Breathing out, he turned to look at her again. "..but I'm okay." He lied.
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Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 9:48 pm
He turned his face away and something deep inside her sank sadly. His insisting murmur wasn't making her feel any better about this, in fact it only made her believe, quite sincerely, that he was certainly not okay. The more he insisted and the more he told her what happened the more her heart cried out for him, pitying her friend more than anything, even herself. It was rough to lose something so important, especially something so defining and secure as a family.
"No you aren't." Amrita said softly, her voice sure and clear. Her hand slid carefully up his arm, taking a page from his book and brushing some hair from his face, brushing it over his shoulder. She gave him a smile, a small one all things considered, and leaned both up and in to press a very careful, very brief kiss to his forehead.
Poor, sweet Calder.
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Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 9:56 pm
It was a gesture he responded to. Small touches was how his kind communicated, and a brush of his hair was something his parents did. It stung thinking about them, and the small kiss caused him to look up at her, large, dark-green eyes glossy with swelling tears as he looked at her. His shoulders were the first to start, and then his eyes pressed, fighting to stay open and clear, before his face contorted and he pressed his face to her chest, reaching out to hold her.
A long whine started before it broke into muffled sobbing, and soon Amrita had a mess of sobbing kelpie quickly drenching her shirt with his tears.
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Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 10:13 pm
Luckily for Calder, Amrita had a nice chest to cry into; even luckier still that she didn't mind in the slightest. The way he broke down was just as painful as his denial, but he was letting it out now, and to Amrita that was the most important thing he could ever do. She let him hold her as tightly as he wanted, and as he sobbed on her she gently stroked his back, occasionally pausing to run her fingers through his hair.
Amrita let him cry for a while before she decided to say something. "It'll be okay..." She breathed out, her voice soft with every word she said to him. "I promise." This time she believed what she was saying to him, that it would be okay; Calder may have had to leave one clan, but now he was free to make his own. She would do her best to be by his side for as long as she could, because while they had no family ties he was still someone she looked to as a dear friend; a brother, even.
She insisted that everything was going to be okay, but not once did she try to shush him, or try to calm him down. As far as she was concerned he needed to let it all out; she didn't want him to stop on her account. He would stop when he was good and ready, not a moment before...and that was perfectly okay with her.
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Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 10:21 pm
Calder was usually very emotional as it was, but he never really broke down in front of his friends. Then again, he usually kept his home life away from them, but so much had crossed paths with his time at school that it all meshed together terribly. Being a kelpie meant Calder had plenty of large tears, and his equine nature came out in a peculiar set of noises going in and out of his crying, before he started to shake less.
The sobs turned to a sort of mumbling before Calder moved just a fraction away from her chest. "Said I was brainwashed. He sa-said that you'd all forget me...after graduation." He reached up from holding her to rub at his eyes, not having the heart to look at her. He was a mess, and Amrita had enough to deal with than his problems. "...then he trampled me."
Despite trying to dry his eyes, they kept watering, and he wiped them again but by now his fingers were damp. "Mah-My parents said it was ok, but I feel bad. I wanted to make em proud." He wanted to be a upstanding Devon clan member. Now he was just a selfish traitor who ran off with demons.
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Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 10:41 pm
The strange noises didn't seem to bother her; they did confuse her slightly at first, but she did often forget that he was an equine creature first and foremost. Really, it was like how she always forgot that Christof couldn't actually speak; she saw her friends exactly as they presented themselves to her, and never focused on anything else.
"Well, he's dumb." Amrita said flatly, a very brief look of displeasure crossing her features; luckily for her, Calder was rubbing his eyes at the time. "How could we possibly forget you?" It hurt her to not have him look at her, especially since unlike her he almost always maintained eye contact. "I know I'll never forget you." It was a promise, and one she quite intended to keep. The trampling made sense and brought reasoning for his many wounds and bruises, and it did nothing more than make a very specifically targeted, rather vindictive feeling rise in the pit of her stomach.
"Mmm...Well, if they said it was okay, then I think you should believe them. I mean...I'm sure they're just as sad as you are right now, I hope. A-and it might last a while for all of you...but I'm sure it'll change. I'm sure they're still proud of you." She mused, awkwardly trying to find the words she wanted to say. As she spoke she busied herself first with twisting a small piece of his hair around her finger, and then by stretching her sleeve over the tips of her fingers. "It's really hard to do something like that, and...and you're an adult, or really close to being one, and...and it's your life now. You've got to do what makes you happy and comfortable in the long run, and I'm sure they're proud of you for having the courage to do it." She was proud of Calder. Incredibly so, and had nothing but blind optimism in his parents. As she spoke she carefully took over his job of wiping his watering eyes, using the sleeve of her shirt.
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Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 10:58 pm
He lifted his chin for her to clean his face, and he watched her a moment, trying not to make her job more difficult by crying against. It was nice to know she wouldn't forget him, and he knew that, but there was something in him that always doubted if he was important enough to remember. That, somewhere deep down, no one really liked him or would change their mind and not want to be his friend anymore. He'd do anything to preserve that desire to be his friend, and he knew through all this time, after all they had done together, that they were friends. However, doubt was a hard thing to crush. It is what made these moments where Amrita confirmed it make his smile, even if it was strained and small. "I know...just...don't want him saying that." He didn't want to think that after graduation, everyone would go with their own plans when he now had none.
He breathed deep. "Don't feel like a stallion. Couldn't even fight him." How was he supposed to protect his friends, be his own herd, when he couldn't even last a few minutes against Murchadh? Now he was without the clan's protection, and it was all on him now. There was no place he could go to if things went bad. He felt stranded without a lake, a territory he could call his. A kelpie with no claimed land. No river.
He went to Murchadh saying he was an adult, that he could make his own decisions, but now that he had, he just felt like a child. "I don't have a river no more." This thought alone made him want to cry again.
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Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 10:05 am
"He's just a bully." Amrita frowned, clearly unhappy with this. She had said something very similar once to Christof about his Master, but she knew Calder would never hit her for her apparent insolence. It didn't make it less true. "And you're still a young stallion. We're all young, a-and th-that's why we l-lose a lot b-but..." Now she was getting upset, certain insecurities digging themselves painfully deeper into her very core. With a deep breath and a brief pinch of her eyes she smoothed herself over; this wasnt the time for her to be upset. This was his. "W-we've just gotta get better, a-and keep trying. Y-you only really failed if you didn't even try." She read that somewhere, and quite liked the quote. So much so that she wished she could make herself listen to it.
"I don't...really know what that means." She admitted awkwardly to the river thing, nuzzling her head into her pillow rather shyly. "B-but I know you have a lot more than nothing, a-and you could find one! There are lots, you know. I saw a book on waterfalls in the library." She was floundering, but at least she was trying. Any attempts to wipe his face was given up on and her sleeve was as wet as her chest now, but it was worth it, or so she imagined. Instead she carefully rubbed the length of his arm and tried to be reassuring at the very least.
"You'll find one, and it'll be the best ever because it's yours."
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Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 6:47 pm
He was quiet, and while he wanted to accept that he could find another place to live, thinking optimistically ahead seemed too much for him. He knew it was exactly what he did for everyone else, but taking your own medicine was even harder at times, and he didn't want to just smile when he felt this way. Instead, he used his scarf to wipe his face, and then thought about where he might live.
"I hope you live near Barth. Then I can sleep with you." Staying here seemed the best plan he had, and right now he just felt able to make future thoughts to the point of a day or so and then he felt lost again. Right now, this was nice. "I don't want to be young anymore. I want to be strong." He wanted to feel what he was doing was right. That the decision he made was something he could back up. "Maybe Barth will build me a lake near your house." It was a fantasy more than a plan, but it made him smile. Living next door to Amrita with Barth near by. Sandwiched between two people he liked.
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