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 Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2014 7:05 pm
It started with a feather. One single, lonely feather. The only reason she stopped was because it looked familiar, and a quick search of the area had her suspicions confirmed. There was a second feather that matched the first, and after that it became a game. The small ghoul - back in her tattered layers, unkempt hair and massive skull helmet - crawled along the ground, following the trail of feathers to find their owner. Much like the first time, she was collecting them for him, imagining he would want them back.
By the time she found the owner of the feathers, she had quite the little bouquet in her tiny hands. The moment she spotted him the game changed from Find Xavier to Tackle Xavier. Like any good hunter she crawled as quietly as she could, stalking her prey and ducking behind objects when she thought he was looking. Step one was getting closer to her prey without getting caught, and that was the easy part. Step two was -
"HELLOOO!" Helmut cried happily, disregarding step two and launching straight into step three, which was, essentially, launching herself at Xavier's back, tackling him with a hug from behind with all of her slight body weight.
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Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2014 9:35 pm
Xavier hadn't even noticed he'd been, for all intents and purposes of the word, molting as he'd made his way across the grounds of the Amityville campus. He wasn't even really sure where he was going - just away from his dorm, really, because it had felt oddly stifling as of late.
Still, if he'd been in a better state of mind, he might have noticed that he was leaving something behind - a quintessential trail of breadcrumbs. As it was, when a pair of arms suddenly flung themselves at his back, Xavier was completely unprepared for the attack and, after a small bit of flailing, fell forward and landed face first on the ground.
He lay there for a moment, face squashed against the grass, and then said, in a muffled sounding voice,"Helmut. Is that you."
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Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 7:39 am
Helmut yelped in surprise as he went down, her grip on him causing her to do the same. Her landing was much softer than his, and she wiggled on his back to make herself cozy on him the moment she could. He was as warm as she remembered, and because of that she found herself chittering happily as she cuddled up against his back to share in his body heat. The fact that he seemed to know it was her didn't discourage her at all; her surprise attack had been a surprise, so she had already won.
"Hiiii Xavier!" She keened out, wiggling one hand free from under him to extend her hand, which now held very crumpled feathers. "You dropped these!" The ghoul sounded incredibly proud of herself for finding them and returning them to their rightful owner, and even moreso that he was warm and didn't actively frighten her like Hel or Matty.
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Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 12:50 pm
He only knew it was Helmut because out of everyone that Xavier had met so far at Amityville (read: all of three people), Helmut was the only one who seemed both friendly enough (if that was even the right term) and open enough to try and hug him.
Xavier twisted his head so that his face was no longer smushed into the grass and blinked blearily at whatever was in her hand, squinting slightly in the light. "Are those...my feathers?" he said, and shook his head a little as though trying to clear it.
"Erm. T...thank you," he said weakly. "Erm...h...how are you today, Hel...mut...?"
It was difficult to make conversation when one was currently squashed into the ground, but hey, at least he was trying.
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Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 6:24 pm
"Yes! At least...maybe?" Helmut stared at the feathers too, squinting at them as if scrutinizing them. "I mean...looks like yours, an' smells like you, so, gotta be...right?" It was a head scratcher, and for a moment she was a little confused. Perhaps she had gotten it wrong? Hrm. Well, either way, the evidence stacked up and it made sense to her, and Xavier was here, so it really didn't matter.
"You're welcome!" She chirped happily, amusing herself by beginning to place his lost feathers back into his hair by just tucking them in amongst the others. "I'm good! I just got back from class. Did you know that humans can have up to eight babies at once?" Apparently she had come from human studies, and was eager to share the knowledge. Once she was out of feathers to put back she rolled off of him, and then attempted to somersault - a move that failed thanks to her helmet - to sit down not too far from him, holding her feet together.
"How about you?"
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Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 7:39 pm
Xavier squinted at them again.
"Yes, they're mine," he said, in almost a whisper. He felt her hands in his hair as she attempted to push the feathers back in, and heaved a sigh of great distress because it was really very pathetic for him to be in the situation he was currently in. But he was almost resigned to it. And he had almost decided that it might be okay to relax a little.
Almost. At least until Helmut started talking about babies.
"WHAkslfdlslkfcough - "
Xavier had inhaled a mouthful of dirt and grass in his gaping shock, and he spent several moments hacking as he sat up, his cheeks flushed. When he finally managed to get air back into his lungs, he gave Helmut an expression that was a mixture of horror and scandal.
"You - I - humans - what - "
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Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 7:54 pm
Xavier's sigh of distress went totally, completely, and happily overlooked.
His horrified sputter and subsequent attempted ingestion of grass and dirt though, that caught her attention, and she gasped as she startled in surprise. Her droopy eyes were wide as she stared at him through the gaping eyesocket of her helm, her mind wheeling to try and figure out what had made him so very animated all of a sudden. Especially since she couldn't smell any predators in the area! Herself excluded, of course.
"Um - Humans can have eight babies at once?" She repeated, letting go of her feet to press the tips of her index fingers together. "I learned it in class today? Human studies." The ghoul explained, her head tilting so far that her cheek practically touched her shoulder.
"Are you scared of humans too?"
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Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 9:16 pm
Xavier pushed his long dark hair out of his eyes and stared at Helmut with a pained expression because clearly she did not understand that you did not just go around talking about babies and scarelings and all sorts of scary things just like that.
But hearing that she had learned it in class, however, at least gave him a small bit of understanding to the rather out-of-the-blue comment. Xavier let out a small, weary sigh that was soon replaced with him hunching over, his shoulder bones jutting out beneath his layers of clothing as he leaned.
"I-I wouldn't know," he said, sounding terrified at the very idea. "I've never met one."
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Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2014 8:49 pm
"Oh." Helmut uttered with about as much interest as a distracted child could muster. "Me neither! I'd like to meet a human though. I think it'd be pretty neat." She was staring at the sky now, her helm only staying on her head because the eyesocket was caught on one of her tiny bud of antler. When she looked down again, she realized he was slouching pretty horribly, and gasped.
"...Your spine's gonna stay like that, you know." Helmut announced, pointing at him - though she meant to point at the way he was slouching. "Mama said so!" Then, without missing a beat:
"So what'd you do today?"
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Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2014 9:28 pm
Xavier looked terrified at the very thought.
"Humans are scary, though," he whispered. "They're..."
He couldn't even finish the sentence, Xavier swallowing back everything. He plucked at a few stray threads on his pant legs and it wasn't until he heard Helmut's gasp of horror that he jerked his head back up, looking startled.
"I, erm," he said, embarrassed, and tried to straighten himself, though it wasn't particularly successful. Grateful for the change of subject, Xavier said morosely, "I sat in my room and worked on schoolwork."
A slight pause.
"And then I took a walk."
Another pause.
"And then I...did more schoolwork."
Clearly Xavier's life was riveting. He looked shamed at his own lack of excitement and adventure. "Erm," he said, casting a glance at Helmut. "What, erm, did...you do..? Besides learn about scarelings," he added hastily, looking scandalized.
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Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2014 9:27 am
Helmut actually nodded in agreement to Xavier's whisper. Humans were scary, and since he seemed to scared of them, she thought he wouldn't like to hear about the Human broker that lived under her bed on Wednesdays.
Her eyes glossed over as he went on about his day; it sounded terribly dull. Homework was boring. Maybe he had no choice? Hm. The question turned back on her, and a little more focus came back to her gaze.
"Ummm...Class, lunch, class...and I was gonna get a snack when I found your feathers! Then I found you, and here we are!" Helmut's tiny arms were tossed into the air, her gesture so animated she almost fell backwards. The ghoul stared at him for a long few moments after she righted herself, and hummed thoughtfully.
"Are you doing anything now?" The ghoul inquired, shifting to crawl a little closer to the much larger boil.
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Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2014 3:04 pm
Xavier smiled weakly. "Here we are," he said, sounding a little faint, but at the same time, now that they had moved on from discussing scandalous and frightening things, he actually seemed to be relaxing a little more. If by relaxing, it meant that some of the tension had eased from his shoulders and he seemed less likely to spontaneously burst into his flock of raven form due to stress.
He blinked owlishly at Helmut.
"Erm. Erm..."
A long pause.
"Nothing," said Xavier finally, in a morose sort of voice. He pinched a piece of grass and stared moodily as it fell back to the ground pathetically in a terrific representation of his own life. "Nothing at all."
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Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2014 4:28 pm
Xavier may have been morose about the whole thing, but Helmut was positively delighted by the news. So much so that she squeaked out loud and crawled closer, shamelessly invading his personal space to put them practically nose to nose.
"Let's do something!" She announced excitedly, further ignoring any personal bubble he may have in order to crawl over him to cuddle up against his side. If she was going to think about what to do, she was going to think in a warm space, and Xavier was more than slightly warm. She chittered away as she thought about what they could do, the happy little noises vibrating in her throat.
"Thoughts?"
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Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2014 9:07 pm
Xavier's face had gone back to resembling a tomato, but at least he didn't squeal in fright again. He gave Helmut a worried look, as though he was concerned for her well-being, and tried to figure out why she seemed to think of him as the walking and talking counterpart to a pillow.
"Do...something like what..." Xavier said weakly, one hand patting Helmut's leg awkwardly because that was all of her that he could reach at the present moment.
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Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2014 8:41 pm
The ghoul practically purred as she cuddled up against him, thinking hard on what they could do together. There were so many options after all, and she was sure she could talk Xavier into doing most of them with her. Well, except maybe eating competitions. Somehow she ddn't think that was something he would agree too, especially since it wouldn't be fair; she would win, hands down.
"Mmm..." The ghoul mused, until she finally looked up at him, her face squished against his chest. "How about bowling! LET'S GO BOWLING!"
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