Stay Out All Night, Forget Tomorrow. [Dustan]

[Lianna Maylorn]

[ 10:32 pm ]

A semi tempting thought, if only she could.

The corridors were dim, silent and slightly frightening, but mostly they were silent. Silent as in empty, boring and lonely and she was tired of it. The rounds were a part of her job, yes, but she had no intention of actually punishing anyone she found. She never did, but then she never had a chance to really prove that since she never seemed to be able to find anyone on a nightly basis. Every now and then she would cross paths with one of the other prefects, or a staff member, or someone else who surpassed her level of authority by some extreme degree of sorts but she had yet to find anyone violating curfew who wasn't supposed allowed to be. Not that she was likely to do anything if she did.

When it came right down to it she could deal with the lonely halls and their silence, what she was really tired of was being alone herself. She was alone by her own doing of course, alienating most of her few remaining friends, gaining a couple of acquaintances, and shutting herself away and practically turning herself into an isolationist. But last term it had been under the guise of 'it was for her own good' - maybe even for their own good. This year...she didn't have a reason. She didn't really have friends anymore and pretty much shirked that 'be social' part of her Prefect duties. She knew she needed to change, she just didn't know how to go about it, or quite frankly if anyone else would still care enough by this point to notice, yet alone have it matter to them.

The Hufflepuff paused at a barely illuminated window, her green eyes scanning without purpose over the shadowy darkness of the grounds. She knew she wouldn't find her answer there and it was hardly much of a view to look at but it was a diversion from her thoughts. More of a diversion however was the sudden and unbelievably loud yell from up the corridor that shattered the silence and nearly made her self-induce whiplash upon her neck from the fright.. Was she still breathing? Yes. Did she have her wand out? Again, yes. Was she about to challenge the noise?

No...not at all.

[mcnutt]

This was probably one of the best parts of being a Prefect, the time one had to oneself to think. While he was mostly a loner, the few friends he kept were always few, Dustan enjoyed this peaceful part of the night. Far from being a night owl, Dustan just cared about the time and space, the limitless abyss for his thoughts ranging from breakfast to child rearing to topography maps. Whatever his tortured mind could bring into thought needed much more effort put forth, and he often set aside this specific time to review what thoughts he hadn't had time for during the daylight hours.

Lately, his thoughts had landed on his Mother, and how she'd managed to raise him alone the last few years, since his father's passing, and how hard that must have been for her. he did his best to make it easy on her, pretending he didn't hear her crying when she didn't want him to know, pretending he was happy to relive those last memories of his dad through the photographs she'd taken. Whatever it took to make her happy he was willing to do, but lately he wondered whether she'd be happier if there were a man in her life, a real man, not those romance novel men she spoke to him of.

But how could he convince her it was time to move on, to date again? Was there a right time for the heart to heal, and just when was it the correct time to push someone to live again? Dustan thought it was just about time for his mother to...

"Damn!" he shouted, unaware of the corner right there. Isn't that what he got for not lighting his wand and trying to follow his route by the light of the moon? And what was more? Dustan just had to grab a hold of the picture and nearly tear it off the wall, thankfully the hanging seemed to be almost glued on, but it still allowed for a wide swing as Dustan danced around on one foot, trying not to howl in pain at his toe and now his fingers which had caught in the frame.

[Lianna Maylorn]

Damn!

Frozen in place by the sudden outburst of a voice too quick to place, she found that she couldn’t recognize the hopping form of the person up the hall. A vaguely discernable outline didn’t help and the awkwardness of it all plus the unknown factors plus the darkness did little to calm her rudely unsettled nerves. Using a vice like grip the teenage girl withdrew her wand from her robes and took a pair of carefully cautious steps toward the figure before the rather stupid question of:

“Is anyone there?”

left her lips.

It really was obvious someone was there; the screaming and the hopping more than proved that. Unless Peeves had actually succumbed to evolution and come up with some corporeal gimmick, and THAT was incredibly unlikely. Attracting attention to herself probably wasn’t the brightest idea either but they were six floors off the ground… ’Maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll ignore me…or they’ll hop out the window or something…’ the voice in the back of her head was shouting that maybe she should just RUN instead of thinking stupid things like that but again, legs locked in place, not happening.

The curse was running over through her head among all her other thoughts and she was positive she she recognized the voice now, but she couldn’t put a face or a name to it. She’d heard it before, that she was certain of, but she still wanted to know who it was. With the initial fright over and past, this would serve to nullify her boredom pretty nicely.

[mcnutt]

Grunting, groaning, moaning, hopping, swearing, and twirling like a ballerina Dustan hardly heard anything but his own motions and words. What luck was it that he would be alone in the corridor and run blindly into something as solid as a wall? Well, good luck he supposed, at least no one was seeing the spectacular show he was giving way to, that was all too good. And almost too good. The boy's luck usually mirrored in a way he couldn't fathom without knowing who he was and the karma he'd stumbled upon in the last month. Then again, things had gone well for a while, maybe he was becoming as lucky as a rabbit's foot.

Is anyone there?

Then again...

Clamping his lips shut, though the whimpering of his pain still noticeable, Dustan tried to calm his movements. Maybe, if he could just find another spot to move to he wouldn't have to face the music of humility from another human being. Of course, it would take away any amount of teasing from how he spoke, which would be nice.

"Absolutely," Dustan called back in answer, unable to find it in himself to actually leave. What if it was another Prefect who decided to chase him because they thought he was a student out of bed past curfew? he'd never heard of anyone really getting into trouble before over something so trivial, but there was always a first time for everything.

"And is there a face to go with the voice which called out?" The answer had to be yes, whether a ghost, poltergeist, professor, prefect or any other body of the school.

[Lianna Maylorn]

And just as abruptly as the moaning, groaning and pain had started, it stopped. Well, the pain probably didn't stop but the audible cues to its existence certainly did. Her grip on her wand relaxed and she took another couple of steps closer as the blood flow returned to the extremes of her fingertips. Had she just frightened them as much as they had her? Part of her really hoped so, the turning of the tables would be a more than suitable revenge in her opinion.

"Absolutely. And is there a face to go with the voice which called out?"

That was a voice she knew now that it was more than a single word followed by unintelligible sounds. How he couldn’t remember (or at least recognize) hers she didn’t quite understand but it was nice to hear Dustan talk without stammering through his fifteen word conversation piece. Actually, it was a bit more than nice. She would never tell him, but it kind of bugged her to have to wait 3 minutes for a sentence that should take 15 seconds…

“Of course there’s a face. Can anything have a voice but not have one,” she retorted without moving. It wasn’t on her face, but inside she was smiling. It wasn’t often Lianna had some harmless fun at someone else’s expense; in fact she pretty much never had. But since the only people with whom she was likely to be conversing with tonight had the same power as she – plus that they didn’t sound like any of the school staff – the Hufflepuff figured it couldn’t hurt.

“You shouldn’t have to see it though.”

[mcnutt]

Doing his best to hush the pain, to make it wait until this little intrusion was over, Dustan waited for the reply. Either he'd receive one or he'd be lucky enough that the person attached to the disembodied voice would leave. With is luck, it'd approach him, make fun of him, and leave him for another to find while at it. And as the voice continued to speak, actually bothering to reply to his stupid question, Dustan groaned, almost sure of who the voice belonged to. And why did it have to be the particular someone he guessed it to be?

While he usually got along with his fellow Prefects, even rather liked a number of them, this one worried him. At least, if it was who he thought her to be. The light voice was the very one he usually tried to avoid unless a meeting was necessitated by another; such as a class project, Prefect meeting, or another requested him to ask her something or other because that someone was too lazy to do it themselves.

Hearing her comment though, made the boy chuckle. If he had a choice Dustan would be more than glad not to have to confront the face of this voice, but he was too well brought up to ignore.

"Di--Did I re--request to?" he bantered in return. While he had asked, he never actually asked if he could see the structured face that belonged to the hushed voice that first called out. After identifying the intruder to his alone time, he really wished she wouldn't show her face. It would merely make his time less pleasant.