Zephyr, Emi, and Brunhilde.
Collaborative post by Liferusher, Jedly, and Azereiah
Week One, Day Two, Afternoon - Emi & Zephyr's Dorm.
The boy kept getting closer to Emi when she was all curled up trying to get away from the boy. Every step he took she made a small yep knowing he was going to devour her if he came close enough. He was trying to talk to her but Emi stayed silent. The aura around him grew closer. She had nowhere to run at this point without him catching her first.
Her grip tightens around her own body as he was way to close to her. She gulped down as he spoke.
"Stay away from me! Darkness only swallows everything around it. I don't want to disappear because of something so stupid!"
Now this was a case Zephyr wasn't prepared for. Well he was in a sense. The countermeasure he fancied was taking his leave and relocating. Rinse and repeat was the way he lived and breathed. But for once, his feet couldn't move from their current spots. Rather, they didn't want to. The boy gathered his thoughts while he maintained his distance and opened his mouth once more.
"In the wise words of First Viscount Francis Bacon, 'In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present'. The darkness only witholds its ground in hopes of being graced with the light's presence. Besides, you're far more powerful than me. Nor do I really have any control over the light." He must've sounded a bit contradicting, given the fact that he was talking to a girl huddled next to a wall, but he spoke with the utmost honesty.
Emi looked up at him with a tad bit sad puppy eyes. He wasn't getting any closer any more but kept his distance isntead. It was clear he didn't mean any harm to her and to be honest he looked a little afraid of himself now. Still he remained strong and tried talking Emi out of this mess with some words from the past. He was stating he wasn't any stronger then Emi but she doubted it. To her it only appeared she could do small things with her powers and even those were mostly for the looks and beauties. Still it made some sense that light would be stronger then darkness since light would always overlap darkness. It was not like his aura was as strong as that off the headmaster so it should be fine perhaps. She gave a light nod at the boy and looked at the ground in front of her trying to collect her thoughts about it all. After a few minutes she stood up calmly still not giving him any looks. She was quiet and still trembeling lightly as she tried to breath calmly to make her completely zen again. Emi carefully looked back up at the boy acting a bit shy.
"Feel free to take that room... If you need anything please ask."
She walked back over to the table she had been sitting at for the past few hours and gave a light tired sigh hopefully unnoticable by Zephyr. Her shoulders that had been tense for the past few minutes dropped down again as she sat back at the table again and started working on Brunhilde's book again with occasionally peeking up at Zephyr to see what he was doing.
Just a couple short minutes later, three knocks came at the door. Brunhilde stood outside the door, just barely tall enough for the top of her head to be visible through the peephole, tapping her foot and nervously doodling in a corner of the notebook. The backup pages were folded outwards between the pages so she could remember who Emi was. She wasn't sure whether or not she was looking forward to their second meeting. It would probably be a bit awkward, she thought to herself. It didn't cross her mind that Emi would have a roommate.
Zephyr strode his way from his new bedroom in an identical outfit, the only difference being that this one wasn't soaking wet. He just finished tightening his tie when a door bell notified the two denizens that they had company.
"I got it." He curtly told his roommate, as imposing anything more on her less-than composed state would be a crime. Incessant pops of heated air reverberated as steam rose from a kettle he had scrounged from his luggage. The boy crossed over from one side of the room in a lethargic fashion and turned the knob in the same manner. At first Zephyr was perplexed, due to the fact that a ghost had decided to pull a prank on them. But after he adjusted his slant, only auburn comprised his vision.
The next characteristic he noted of who he acutely deduced to be a female student was her eyes. Tinted with an icy cerulean. Chilling, almost. If it hadn't been for the fact that he just barely one-upped the girl with his completely void physiognomy, perhaps she would have won in the
nondescrepit contest. The boy remained motionless for a moment before he expanded the gap from a sliver,
"Welcome." His voice failed to eminate the slightest sense of welcoming, but at least he motioned for the girl to come in.
"Your friend?" He asked Emi without even a side glance as he turned around and set a course for the finally boiled water.
Zephyr had no more input on what Emi said and just rolled with it. Maybe for the better that was, it would get extremely awkward otherwise. Emi did the same and said no word to him the silence engulfed the room together with the soft light hearted music in the background. The book must have been about 80 percent done. The pages were taped again so the the only thing that still had to be done was digitalise the pages and print them out again. Emi stretched her body out as the doorbell rang. She wanted to open it but was to late.theboy had done it already. Emi pekked lightly around him but could immediatly tell by the small frame that it was Brunhilde. Emi immediatly stiffened with a shocked expression on her face. She stared in front of her without word. Unable to think clearly. She didn't even notice Zephyr asking her anything.
The boy who answered the door was unexpected, and Brunhilde stiffened somewhat. He didn't seem particularly friendly, but he did seem to know Emi.
"Thank you," she answered, and she slid into the dormitory. A quick glance around the room told her that somebody had only recently started unpacking, that a kettle of water was almost ready to make tea, and that Emi had clearly not been expecting her to visit. Several seconds passed in unpleasant silence, juxtaposed against and clashing with the light music playing from Emi's desk. Judging by Emi's lack of any reaction whatsoever to Zephyr's query, she was having an acute stress reaction.
The kettle softly popped in the kitchenette to the side, as if keeping track of each moment and waiting amusedly for the worst possible moment to boil. Brunhilde, who had been fidgeting uneasily, decided to try to preempt the kettle.
"...are you okay?", she asked towards Emi, deciding to put off the search for the diary until the mood of the room improved. Concern was written across all of her face save for her eyes, which remained unfocused and dazed as always.
Zephyr felt a ping of guilt at the guest's words. His gaze still remained fixed on the kettle and french press it was destined to fill, but the conversation between the two girls withheld a majority of his attention. In all honesty, Emi was keeping her composure quite well for somebody who had just stumbled upon the existence of a darkness user, and to drive the knife deeper and twist, found out that the very universally abhorred inidividual would be her roommate for the next year, or potentially years even. At least she had kept herself preoccupied with mending the book, up to the point that the resounding bell of the door rang. With his ears still glued to the currently empty exchange of words, the boy popped open a container of hazelnut coffee and began depositing the grind with a scoop. Why do people believe coffee tastes like dirt?
Because it's ground.
Like a broken doll she sat there. Her hand still poked out at the work she was doing but it was stuck like plastic. Her whole body had frozen at the sound of the girl she had been fighting with yesterday. It was like she came back to haunt her. Instead of scolding at Emi or the likes she instead came up to the girl and gave her an unknowing caring response. It was to be expected from a girl with memory loss.
Emi's face twitched a little before tears formed in her eyes. Her expression broke as she put both hands on her face. She curled up still sitting at the table and bumped the chair back with her butt to make room to stand. She charged at the girl and gripped both hands around the girl her waists. She immediatly lifted the tad smaller girl into the air while her face was burried in her side. With a slight muffle she spoke.
"N-no... How can I be okay without you by me. I made you mad what was unforgiveable but don't hate me because of that!"
Surprise and bewilderment took Brunhilde. Most people were courteous enough to not tackle others, and she hadn't been expecting Emi to. At the last moment before impact, she tossed the temporary notebook into the air and kept it aloft on a cushion of wind. The collision jolted her such that she didn't realize she was being hugged until several seconds later. She forced herself back down to the ground and returned the hug when she regained her footing.
Emi's words confused her, and she quickly summoned the notebook back to her. It hung in midair over Emi's shoulder, and the pages flipped according to Brunhilde's will, back to the most recent entries, in which she had described the Hall Monitor's reports.
"...What was unforgivable?", she asked. Thoughts visibly ticked through her mind for a second and she added,
"...Actually, on second thought, don't tell me. If it's that bad, I don't need to know."Emi let Brunhilde slide down to the ground again since she wasn't all that light. After a good thight hug from Emi Brunhilde was back on the ground once more and was still hugging the slight taller girl. The girl was definitly confused but she could not blame her. Emi wiped the tears away from her face and gave a little chuckle at hearing the small girl again. It was just like back then when they met. Emi was smiling now with her eyes still engulfed in redness.
"You know it is sad if you only write down the good moments and not the bad. You deserve to keep the bad moments too so that happy moments make you even happier."
Emi let go of the girl and walked back to the table where the beaten up book was at. She carefully picked it up. It missed a few pages but those were all on the table sticking together for dear life. She hadn't read it yet so she didn't know which pages it missed at the moment. She handed the book back at Brunhilde and waited for a moment to catch up on reading.
Wait, wait, wait a moment, rewind. Pause. Now forward a tad bit. He didn't have Emi pegged as an emotional person based upon her reaction earlier. But the girl was undoubtedly expressive, the complete antipode of her roommate. He nearly spilled boiling water on his hand as the scene unfolded. After the visual notifier that was Emi's tears, Zephyr reached for a nearby napkin when his eyes caught something just as noteworthy.
"Air Elementalist." Or at least some subset of that all-encompassing element. His gaze rested on the notebook frozen midair, then shifted his line of sight back onto the more pressing development. After a tight embrace to fill in the space where words fell short, the one who had initiated the action then backpedaled, picked up the book she was meticulously mending while accounting for every subtle detail, and offered the article to what Zephyr resumed to be its original owner.
"Emi." The boy finally added his existence back to the equation as he extended a napkin out to the girl, perfectly folded over its crease.
Amnesia?" He blurted out as he fixated his eyes on the redhead. Only now did he realize how abrupt the query was and proceeded to elaborate to prevent any misconstrusion.
"Erm, um, I mean, people do keep diaries and document significant experiences. But I went off on a limb and guessed there was a dearer tie..." The dull voice stumbled, tripped, and slipped on itself in an inelegant display of verbal finesse. The performance was concluded with his words gradually trailing off into nihility.
"Sorry." He managed to recover from the ungraceful crash, yet he still faced the two girls unwavering.
In response to Emi's comment, Brunhilde spoke up with an impish half-smile.
"I do try to write everything down. But accidents happen, y'know?"The book appeared to be mostly intact now, if badly beaten. Emi had apparently been working very, very hard to patch the damage for the whole day, and Brunhilde found herself very, very impressed - and happy to have someone willing to put that much effort into something for her. She placed the damaged book back on the table and gave Emi another hug very quickly.
"Thanks. A lot."When Emi's roommate, Zephyr, spoke up, Brunhilde amusedly took note of the sudden awkward backpedaling. From what the notebook said of the past few minutes, he seemed to never break away from his monotonous voice, despite having tripped over his own words. The pen continually moved across the page, documenting every single word uttered, helping to maintain some level of coherent conversation.
Brunhilde turned to Zephyr.
"I'm not sure what you're apologizing for - and yes, I'm an air elementalist. My name is Brunhilde. May I ask what your own name and element are?"Zephyr glanced down at the hand moving independently of the rest of the girl's body. Her movements were precise, as if each letter was invaluable. Should she forget to jot something down it would be forever forgotten to the void. She dexterously displayed her fine penmanship for the whole world to see. He didn't pity Brunhilde. If anything, he felt immeasureable admiration. She had immaculately compensated for a shortcoming, accepted it as a facet of her very existence, and has strode through life reinforced with the achievement.
After the redhead's words were processed in Zephyr's mind, he met that cerulean gaze yet again. Rather than answering her immediately the boy turned around and nonchalantly walked back to the room's kitchen.
"I've got something for you to write down," He began as he picked up the press' lid by the plunge and eased it onto the main body,
""Five scoops of hazelnut grind- six if you really need that extra kick. Then add enough water so that it's just a centimeter below the brim. Don't beat yourself up if you don't get it right the first few tries. Let it sit for approximately eight to ten minutes, depending on how strong you want it to taste, and then plunge." -Zephyr Heidrich, darkness elementalist."The boy had indirectly, or perhaps purposefully introduced himself and tipped off his name with his defining element. So, that made one person who accepted the revelation with enough amiability to rival that of a labrador puppy, and one person who cowered in fear until they were coaxed out of the state by words hand-picked with a meticulous ethic. So how would the tie-breaker react?
"Just something I thought might come in handy, since you're Emi's friend and all, I imagine you'll be dropping by on more than just a few occassions." Every word of the introduction was written down - instructions on how to utilize the french press. It was an unusual method of giving one's name, but Brunhilde had gathered that he was a rather unusual person already. After copying the information over to a new dossier page as well as the current date, she noticed what he had said. 'Darkness elementalist.' She frowned at those words, and looked up to the ceiling in thought. She spoke to herself quietly, not really caring whether the others heard.
"I thought that darkness was simply the absence of light. I expected that to be related to light manipulation, like how air users can manipulate vacuum...""Though that may be the logical assumption, that isn't the case. The two elements are segragated, yet at the same time intertwined. They are in constant strife, but also in an armstice. But they are, undoubtedly, two separate entities." He wondered if his voice was able to permeate her muse,
"One of the most delineating proproties of the darkness is how little there is known about it. It's hard to put into words, even for me, but we ultimately preside over different fields." With that explanation out there, Zephyr quickly checked the clock for an update on time. He had no afternoon classes to attend, save for a quick mathematics course.
After all the tears and such Zephyr broke the silence by calling out to Emi. Emi jumped a little as she looked up at Zephyr giving an immediate nod at him. It took her a moment to realise she wasn't on good terms with the boy yet. Her expression immediately faltered into a more shyer one. He continued by guessing what that situation was right now. Ding ding ding Seikai desu (correct). Emi gave a shy nod at the boy with a somewhat agape expression and turned back towards the petite girl like he was nothing to her. In the meantime Brunhilde had placed the thick book on the table again and gave Emi a warm hug which made her blush and grin a little. It was nice knowing such a cute small girl even though she was in middle school already.
"No problem honey hehe."
She happily brushed the back of her head with her face reddening a little. She was polite too. Zephyr took the girl from Emi and lead her to the kitchen area of the main room where he was brewing tea. He gave her some instructions she could write down to make the tea herself and so she did. With both of them distracted Emi quietly stared at the boy more to see if he had any weird quirks or the likes. She had to know more about him, perhaps his weak spots or things he was afraid off.
Brunhilde wrote Zephyr's description of light and dark in her temporary notebook, along with a note to ask her substitute teacher more questions about all of the other elements. When she was finished, she turned back and approached the table with her diary upon it again. She quickly examined it, noting how most of the pages that had been damaged were now almost completely legible, save for a few minor details. The more recent ones were more damaged than the further back pages, and a heap of torn pages was lying to the side. Momentary shock crossed her face when she read of her own banishment from her hometown, but she quickly reconciled that information with her current location and situation.
Emi had done a remarkable job on the repair work, but judging by her element and the pile of tools, she had spent almost the entire day on it. Brunhilde looked up at the other girl.
"You've put a lot of work into this. You should take a break for a day or two - I'll swing by and help with the rest later this week, if that's okay with you. I'd do it now, but I've got some work to do."The notebook made mention of a homework assignment involving the separation of unfelt gases. It looked like it would take a long time, and she figured she should start on it soon.
"Oh yea, um sure. I'll take a break I guess. I have been on it for a while haven't I."
Emi gazed at the electric alarm clock in her room and noticed it was already quite late. How late did she even start with it. She might have been repairing the thing for several hours now. She had gotten so up into her work that she had completely forgotten about the time. She didn't mind though, she wanted to do everything to get this girl to be her friend again, doesn't matter what it would take.
"Did it all go well today without your big book? I made a small one for you but I guess it might have given you a lot of difficulties."
`
A shrug. The only possible immediate answer, considering Brunhilde's unique qualities.
"Don't really know. Seems to have gone smoothly enough, though."The notebook made no mention of having had any difficulties with anything - or, more accurately, it made no mention of anybody asking any questions about her life in the past seven years, which was really the only problematic area. At least, other than Saqui's questions and subsequently having to chase down the Hall Monitor - but that information apparently hadn't been recorded in the first place.
She looked to Emi again, being struck with the idea that the girl was trying to compensate for something, and scanned over the path their conversation had taken. It didn't cross her mind that Emi thought that she wasn't Brunhilde's friend anymore, because to her, the notion would have seemed utterly preposterous. Mistakes happened, after all.
"You don't have to worry so much. It'll work out - just a minor setback, that's all."
"You're really taking it easy, I'm surprised you can be this calm. Well whatever, it all worked out in the end."
Brunhilde answered with a shrug. The book was in good hands, and she knew what had happened, so there was no point panicking. All in all, the handling of the disaster had been rather impressive, save for her having to have had to track down one of the hall monitors. She flipped over through the repaired pages in the diary, examining the repair work for a few moments, then flipped back to the spot that still needed the most work and returned to the door.
"Thanks again for helping out. I've gotta get running, so... See you tomorrow or the day after, I guess?"With that, she slipped out of the dormitory with a short wave. Over the course of the next week, she returned a few more times, including after the diary's repair job had been totally completed. But the assignments started piling up, and she had to turn her focus toward the upcoming combat exams, and strongly recommended that the others do the same. Despite the crushing wave of homework and the disaster on day one, though, it had been in all a good week for her.
