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 Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 9:08 pm
Calder was taking a nap in his tub, a soggy magazine on his face and half the tub full of warm water. Little bubbles popped on the surface as he breathed deep and wide under the water. It had been a while since he could sleep like this, usually being cozy with Barth, but a nice, wet, nap was refreshing.
When he heard a knock at his door, he jerked awake and rose, water dripping off his long hair and chin as he rubbed his eye and peeled off a leech from his cheek to set it on the bathrub rim.
Crawling out of the tub, Calder shook off and started to squeeze his hair dry before opening the door to see...
"Amrita?"
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Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 9:17 pm
"Hi, Calder." Amrita said meekly, her arms folded in front of herself as if she were holding herself. She looked like an avid candidate for the part of the 'sad ghoul in the rain', except she was completely dry...and it wasn't actually raining. But other than that!
"Oh. I'm sorry, is this a bad time?" He was all wet, and seemed...somewhat sleepy? Did she wake him up?! Oh dear...that's no good! "I was, um, hoping we could talk, if...that's okay? I...didn't know who else to go to." She murmured, lifting one hand just enough to tuck some hair behind her ear. She wanted to talk to someone she trusted, but she didn't want to burden or bother anyone either.
She was very much stuck between a rock and a hard place.
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Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 9:21 pm
"Oh, yeah, I was napping but that's no biggie. I nap enough with Barth around. Wasn't doing anything else. Come in. Come in. We can talk." He ushered her inside and shut the door before scooping up magazines and closing jars of random snacks and shoving them all into a chest before shutting it.
Patting the mossy ground, he leaned over and grabbed a bag of candy and offered them. Each were individually wrapped candies in brightly colored foil. "Here, take some." Candy always made people feel better, and Amrita looked like she needed to feel better.
Resuming squeezing the water from his hair, he smiled softly. "So...what has been on your mind? You look like someone who's invisible dog got hit by a carriage."
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Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 9:32 pm
"Oh. Okay, thanks~" Amrita sighed with relief, but she was far from the happy, smiling ghoul she used to be, and severely wanted to be. She followed him in, accepting the candy and the seat, holding the foiled candies by their twisted end pieces, one side pinched between her fingers. His observation teased a laugh out of her, but it was a small one at best.
"That bad, huh? I'm sorry...it's just...I really don't know how much more I can take. My heart's starting to really hurt, yanno?" Not that she had a beating heart to hurt, but the point was she understood the metaphor. "But it's...kind of a long story? I don't really know where to start I just...really, really need to talk about it and...and you're really the only person I trust with this stuff, so..." As she spoke she seemed to get more frazzled, putting the unopened candy on her lap and burying her fingers into her messy, unbraided hair.
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Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 9:36 pm
"OH, your heart?" He rose a hand in worry to his mouth as he watched her continue to fluster. If her words reflected her thoughts, it was a confusing mess.
Scooting over, he threw a hand over her shoulders and gave them a squeeze. "Come now. You can tell me anything. I'm good with secrets, and I think I'm getting pretty good at matters of.." He laid a hand on his own chest. "Just start at the place most comfortable to you and just move forward. We can always backtrack." It was best she started and let it all out.
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Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 9:48 pm
The Vetala nodded as he parroted her, and all too easily leaned against him once he was beside her, thankful for the contact and the body heat. Start at the place most comfortable for her, huh? Nothing really came to mind as a good and comfortable place, and the more she thought about it the longer she was silent, searching for a good starting place to springboard from. She never really did plan past getting to Calder's dorm, which was unfortunate.
"Christof's been...avoiding me lately." It seemed the best place for her to start, though it was probably the most painful for her, not the most comfortable. "F-for a while now, actually. Ever since, we...umm..." Her cheeks darkened, her fingertips walking together until they slid to link together, hoping that would be enough to explain what they had done.
"...And it's just...bringing back all these feelings and they're not very nice and...just..." She gestured uselessly, once more frustrated and at a loss for words.
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Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 9:56 pm
Calder watched with growing concern when Amrita did not start, and felt like a lot of horrible things must have happened in order to not find a even comfortable start point. It also made him wonder more and more what was on her mind, and even worse that he hadn't checked up on her. He had been hoping that Christof would have stepped up to tend to Amrita, considering how possessive he seemed.
When Amrita did start, Calder just wanted to roll his. Chrsitof of avoiding Amrita. The dumb Igor. Sometimes he just wanted to beat him into the dirt and throw his parts into a fast current to teach him a lesson. How many times did he have to tell the Igor that running away was not the solution?
When Amrita continued and decided to link her fingers to show what exactly they had been up to, he flushed. Part of him wanted to be excited for how far they had gone, but the previous statement of Chrsitof avoiding her only made the kelpie's eyes darken and his grip just a tad tighter on the ghoul.
He was going to kill Christof.
Holding back his flaring anger at the harsh treatment his friend had given to such a wonderful ghoul after such an emotional and fragile point of their relationship, he spoke up. "Christof runs when he has too many emotions. It's not the best thing, and it hurts others. I've told him this, but he grew up where he never had these emotions to deal with. I'm not making an excuse for him, but he probably paniced. I'm sorry he treated you this way after such a important experience."
He was going to kill Christof.
"What...old feelings are you having?"
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Posted: Sat Mar 16, 2013 2:54 pm
Calder's continued presence, more than his little shoulder squeeze, was a comfort to her. Her head had been bowed, shyly staring at her own lap instead of at the boil, which meant she had missed the way his eyes darkened, or the way his expression seem to get more and more angry.
Though he probably meant well with his words, Amrita scoffed out loud, her expression pinching with an anger of her own. Yeah, he panicked all right...but it wasn't the first, or the last. Any emotion would be considered 'too many' if she went by Calder's well-intentioned explanation. As for her feelings on the issue...well, she paused for another long moment, forming the words in her head before speaking them...ot at least trying to.
"Well...once, when Christmastown attacked us, I was hurt and all covered in disgusting rainbows, and Christof looked at me...and then walked right past me, to tend to Riley. Who was perfectly fine." Amrita sounded as miserable as she felt, not bothering to hide or mask the true intensity of her own, confusing relationship pains. She gave another limp-wristed, weak gesture in front of her as if acknowledging something in front of her.
"A little like that." It really was the best way to describe all of her old feelings in one small, little memory.
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Posted: Sat Mar 16, 2013 4:21 pm
He didn't even push the issue. He tried to defend Christof, but Calder wasn't here to clean up messes that Christof deserved to clean up on his own. He knew the Igor wasn't a bad person, he just didn't learn. It was getting a bit exhausting, and he had hoped Christof would have handled things better.
Amrita's expression of how she felt was something Calder could sympathize with. He'd long since felt bad when Christof ignored him to tend to Riley, not that it was Noodle Head's fault. Christof wanted approval from a owner, and ghouls tended to be higher up his list than boils. "I....know how you feel. I often felt like I got the cold shoulder with Christof. No matter how hard I tried to get him to warm up to me and be his close friend, he'd punch me or ignore me to hang out with Riley. It's his whole...weird brain. He grew up needing his master. I think it makes him feel safer and calm to just take an order, and he hopes Riley will give him that. He needed to feel needed. I mean...don't we all? I've tried ever since I first met him to help break him of that habit, but....." Calder gave a sigh before resting his chin atop Amrita's head. "...I don't know what to do. I've accepted him for who he is, but that doesn't mean bad habits shouldn't be broken that aren't good for him. You're his ghoulfriend. You should get his attention than some other ghoul who isn't dating him. You should be his priority. I thought he'd get that though his thick skull."
He hugged Amrita a little more. "I've tried a lot of things to get him to realize this. I'm sorry he's being a big dumb-face. Did.....he say anything to you about all this? About him going off to Riley or how he was feeling? Even just a little?"
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Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 7:32 am
"He drops everything and everyone for her." Amrita murmured as Calder expressed that he too was victim to this tunnelvision of Christof's. "I'm sorry he's a jerk to you, too..." Calder's head was on hers and she nuzzled into him slightly, sighing the heavy sigh of a troubled teenage ghoul. "I know that's the kind of thing he grew up with and needs but...I can't bring myself to be like her, you know? I can't be her...I don't have what it takes to be any sort of an authoritative creature. nevermind a Master ...The thought of ordering someone around just...augh it makes me sick!" She wriggled in unhappy frustration against the boil, leaning heavily against him since he was letting her. His question recieved a small shake of her head.
"No, he never tells me anything. Well I guess that's not true...he told me he loved me once, but...I haven't seen him since then. And the more I think about it, the more I think it wasn't...real, you know? Before we...you know...I asked him to try and right my limbs to see if I could and he did but he started acting all...weird." She made a face at the memory, not that he could see it. "...and then he got all affectionate and then...things happened." Her blush returned, still somewhat uncomfortable with actually saying what they had done together. Turns out she was still one shy little ghoul. "I guess...all I wanted was to feel wanted, too." Which was what Calder had said earlier; it was something she agreed with.
"If Chris is only gonna be nice and sweet to me when I'm hurt, almost dead or I let him chop my hands off..." She trailed off, sadly and slowly shaking her head before letting out a single laugh. "--And yet he punches the people who get close to me, and gets all aggressive with any boil I talk to!" It wasn't funny, but what else could she do? For another moment she stayed silent, and soon after let out a very frustrated groan.
"And I was mostly okay with all this bullshit...right up until that stupid other-world dream I had!" She detached herself from Calder if only to avoid hitting him as she messed up her own hair, just before falling backwards to sprawl on the ground and stare at the ceiling.
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Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 11:35 am
Matters of the heart and relationships usually came easy to him, but this one was messy in a bunch of bad ways. He wanted to defend his best friend Christof, and honestly hoped he and Amrita would do well, but Amrita was also his friend. He wanted to make her happy and feel loved. If Christof wasn't providing that, and if things weren't going well, then ...
He had to consider that, if Amrita was someone else, anyone else that he wanted to see happy and wasn't with Christof, what he would say. If a friend came to him saying that they were being neglected by their boilfriend for another ghoul, then the question of what Amrita should do just answered itself.
In saying this, thinking this, he felt he was being a bad friend to Christof - but how far could he defend his friend for his poor decisions? Sometimes even Christof had to sleep in the bed he made.
Sighing, he looked over at Amrita as she laid on the floor. "What happened in your dream?"
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Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 12:05 pm
"Remember a little while ago, when some students were in that coma? It was then. It was this...mass dream that a lot of us had. In mine...Aymet was the King of the Revenge Kingdom" She started, feeling her face already growing warm at the memories of a life she never really lived, but in a strange way sort of did. "A-and um..." Her hands came up to press against her face, hiding almost childishly.
"I was his Queen. Well, the me in his world, but she was more or less still me. Sort of." It was stressing to say, but under the circumstances it was also somewhat touching. Moon had won over the Shadowlord with hard work, dedication and loyalty...while Amrita possessed the same qualities more or less due to being pretty much the same person, her results hadn't quite been the same, which was a pity. "When the Shadowlord realized I wasn't the Amrita he knew, he...he promised to save me. Err, her." A hand lifted from her face just long enough to make a vaguely dismissive gesture.
"The Voice promised the True King their heart's desire...and he told me that when the Voice acknowledged him as the True King, he was going to use it on me...W-well not really me but the me in his world, you know?" It was confusing no doubt, but it made sense to her. "A King, who could've had anything, wanted the me he knew back..." She trailed off, wondering for the first time if perhaps Merope had been right. Why bother waking up, or fighting to get back to their real lives, when something so perfect was right in front of them?
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Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 12:10 pm
"I head some gossip about that, but didn't know what it was all about." He hadn't experienced any of that, and everyone came out of it alive and unharmed. That's all that had mattered to him.
"I can see how that would seem like a great thing, being a Queen to a King. Especially with how things have been for you..." Calder looked to the side, deeply troubled.
"Does...the person who was the King, Aymet, like you here in the real world? And..do you like him?" If she did, then he had only one bit of advice to give her. One that would be hard to give.
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Posted: Thu Apr 25, 2013 6:05 pm
"It was so...so nice. I want what she had. I want to be wanted." Though she had previously said it was her, Amrita still felt this disconnect, this odd need to have herself and Moon to be two separate entities. It may get confusing, but it all made sense in her head.
At his first question, Amrita only blushed, lifting her hands to once more childishly hide her face as memories of falling gifts and confessions flooded her mind. "Um. Y-yeahhedoeshetoldme." A low whimper of ghoulish confusion left her lips, muffled by the hands that still tried to hide her face. "B-but I...I don't know if it's really me he likes, you know? 'Cause...he was the Shadowlord, and I was Moon, and they could just be from that, right? Not real, just...a very vivid dream?" She did, however, tried to duck his second question.
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Posted: Thu Apr 25, 2013 6:09 pm
Calder loved Amrita as he would have a sister, if he had one. Or maybe if he had liked ghouls more, but she was precious to him. A dear friend, and he wanted what was happy for his friends, but it was difficult because he was also friends with Christof.
Serious now, he watched her fluster and look smitten. He asked again. "Do you like Aymet, here and now? That's what's important. If you liked the other him in that other place, that's one thing. Do you like the real him? Do you want to get to know the real him?"
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