Dervish
Siena | Callan
๐๐๐ก๐ฅ. ๐ ๐ , ๐๐๐๐ / / ๐๐๐ธโ๐๐โ ๐ผ๐๐ค๐ฅ / / ๐น๐ฆ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ธ : ๐๐ฆ๐๐ฅ๐ ๐๐๐ / / ~๐๐๐๐
Collab with @PapiTan@Baklava
"Siena!"
Callan jogged the last few steps until she was shoulder to shoulder with the girl. Still visibly flustered from the conversation before, she sighed with relief.
"Do you need any help carrying some of that?" she asked, gesturing to the dog carrier particularly.
Hearing Cal call her name, Siena paused her motions to attempt a glance back--thankfully, Callan was quick to come even with Siena. The brunette gave a weak smile towards her suitemate as she parsed through the thoughts in her head. At the offer of help, the smile brightened a bit.
"O-Oh, I could use some help with him. I think we fed him too much there." Siena grinned while pretending Chief Tater Tot was far heavier than he was before awkwardly offering the carrier to Cal. "I'm...kind of glad to have some alone time with you though." Odd. Siena usually didn't like being so upfront about her honesty...maybe it was just something about Cal.
Callan chuckled as she took the carrier from her, grateful for the mood shift. Even though Siena had been the one to accidentally (or purposely?) turn the spotlight onto all that festering drama, she was hardly the cause of it. Sheepishly, Callan realized she might've been what set it all off to begin with-- though she hadn't intended to. Tucking Chief Tater Tot under her arm with ease, she cocked her head to the side.
"Oh yeah?" she prompted.
"H-ha...I guess after that incident, I shouldn't say this, but..." A pause. One of hesitation instead of thought, as was her norm. Was she really willing to discuss it? Taking a breath to steel herself, Siena forced herself to push forward. "W-well, I guess I was tired of playing nice? F-for...lack of a better phrase." Not playing nice. That was how Maya and Gerwulf had phrased it. Playing dumb was the term that Siena would have preferred.
Playing nice?
"Heh...," the more Callan spoke with Siena, the more of an enigma the girl seemed to be. Of course, this wasn't a bad thing. It was a pleasant surprise-- finding out how 'real' her roommate was. "Yeah, things were getting pretty... petty in there." she mused.
Much to Siena's relief, Callan seemed to accept the brunette's word choice without much question. Feeling a faint weight begin to lift itself, Siena took a breath to calm the anxieties that threatened to rise. "Well, I mean...given what I saw, Emma would have man--!" Oh shit. Clapping a hand over her mouth, Siena felt the blood drain slightly from her face. Giving herself a moment to think, the girl gave a sheepish smile towards her roommate. "I mean, I don't know much about the topic of dating, so I don't know what counts as petty."
Smoooooth save.
Callan sighed, relaxing her shoulders as she stared at some point further up the path. "Petty is..." She fished around for the right wording in her head. "Trying to flirt with two guys at once so they get jealous and fight over you.... And getting jealous over someone you just met." Her cheeks burned and she quickly turned to Siena with a sheepish grin of her own. She'd been talking about Marcus just now, but what if Siena assumed she was referring to herself? Through a stream of curses, she tried to wade out a coherent sentence to cover her tracks, "I mean-- Marcus and Ernie barely know Emma. She's cool, but why be stupid about it, y'know?"
Grateful that Callan hadn't questioned the initial slip up, Siena listened to the explanation. As she attempted to process the first half, Callan quickly added information for clarity's sake, making the brunette pause and piece it all together. After a pause, Siena considered it. She supposed Emma was...cool. It would be best to go with tha--"I can understand it. She's pretty, and she's really good at faking it to make it."--or not. Stopping in her tracks, Siena stumbled over her words for a moment, hardly believing that she'd been distracted enough to let that observation go. "I-I mean, uh. That's t-totally not wh--I mean..!"
One breath. Two.
"I mean...she acts like she was trained to be well liked. Maya used to teach me that sort of stuff, so um...maybe I'm just reading too far into it."
She was silent for a moment, surprised by Siena's candor (though, at this point, she really shouldn't be). Ultimately, Callan couldn't help but laugh softly, shaking her head.
"Well, I'm sure she has her reasons," she smiled weakly, "Try not to hold it against her too much. Lots of people do it."
"O-Oh, no, I wouldn't..." Taking a moment to regain her bearings, Siena gave a smile. Practiced and friendly, even if a little distant no matter how many times she'd put it on. "Most people do it to some extent. I try not to let what I catch cloud my judgement." Brushing a few unruly strands of hair from her line of sight, Siena continued as best she could. "The people I met before I came here were all like Emma, so I guess she reminds me of home? Sort of." Well. "Home" was a better way to put it. Home wasn't the practiced etiquette designed to butter up the Santana family into donating to campaigns or getting a "close relationship" with the company, it had been in a comfortable estate with Maya and Gerwulf.
A shudder passed down her spine at some hazy memories she couldn't quite place as her own.
"But that's just me! I didn't get to be around normal kids much, so it's nice to have roommates like you and Marcus."
All this talk about Emma was starting to wear her down. For a moment she thought Siena might steer the conversation more towards where she was from, but then Marcus's name came up. She idly wondered if he was just another name on a long list of love interests for someone like Emma before brushing the subject aside. Now was her chance to nudge the conversation somewhere less confusing.
"Where's home?" Callan asked as they reached the doors to Building A.
Where's home? The words hit Siena like a truck, but she hid the grimace well. A thousand thoughts came to mind. Home was with Maya and Gerwulf, the former braiding Siena's hair while the latter clumsily read through a book in a language he'd long forgotten. Home was with Maya humming a lullaby when the nights were howling with winds that sounded more like monsters.
Home was Gerwulf telling her that they'd go out some day in his low, gruff tones when the loneliness drove Siena to tears and back again.
"Oh um...the uh..." She stumbled over faded memories. "Some big estate. I uh...think the news mentions it sometimes when my parents hold benefits?" And here, a faint smile, painted on almost like thinning paint on porcelain. "But more like here now, right?"
Callan smiled warmly, "Guess so, huh?"
Siena didn't ask, but she figured she might as well say as long as she was thinking about it. "Home for me was Atlanta...." she shrugged before groaning through her next sentence, "Ugh, I still haven't called my mom. She's probably worried sick...." She'd purposely avoided thinking about home the past few days and USARILN East had offered plenty of convenient distractions to keep her from feeling homesick. So far, she'd treated every night like it was all part of one long out-of-state basketball tournament. Saying it out loud sort of shattered that entire illusion, though-- reminding her of what had really been going on since the day she left.
Something had been going on with her facebook and email. Everything had been wiped-- in addition to her iPad's data plan. Initially, Callan had been upset. Why would the government delete all that stuff? In favor of not getting too mad, she rationalized about how she never really used any of her social media sites anyway-- though it was a pain to lose all her contact information on top of being stuck in a cell with shitty wifi. Creating a new facebook account wouldn't be hard. If USARILN East wanted to delete it again, that was fine. She just needed it up long enough for her mom to respond to her message asking for a list of everyone's phone number now that she actually had a phone.
She made a mental note take care of that later. Realizing she'd been quietly frowning to herself for a moment too long, she once again set forth on her quest to find a subject she could chat about without it leading her back to the less pleasant recesses of her mind.
"Anyway, yeah. It's not too bad here. I'm kinda stoked to see what the heck that lady did to our room," she smiled.
Returning Callan's smile, Siena listened to her roommate's own thoughts of home. It certainly sounded like an experience closer to the everyman she would read in novels. Now that was something that Siena might enjoy some day. Though part of the girl wanted, with every ounce of her being, to try and lighten the thought of not calling home, the fact that the only thing she could offer was "I'll call my mom if you call yours" stopped the girl. Calling her parents was...well, not as easy as it should have been. Assuming they answered their phones at all, she had to hope it was the right number. Pushing the thought aside, Siena quickly followed suite with Callan's new topic.
"Hehe, she seemed nice enough. Maybe it'll be cool," the brunette chimed with hints of hope and anxiety in her voice. "If they did replace our bed with pillows, we should make pillow forts! I've always wanted to try that." Wanted to try it, but could never, ever get Gerwulf and Maya to humor her. Maybe it was because they were too old for her antics by the time that Siena had finally read something about the fabled pillow forts. Glancing at her roommate, Siena gave the best grin she could. Genuine this time instead of the usual attempts to mask what she couldn't control.
As they approached the door to their suite, Siena paused in front of it, as if steeling herself for whatever battlefield they might see on the other side of th e door. "Hehe, ready to see what surprises are in there?"
Callan nodded, "Aww, yeah!" Turning the knob, she entered to behold several brand new dog items on the floor of the kitchen and-- she spotted a few pillows on the bedroom floor up ahead, leading to her corner of the room, which was obscured by a wall. Curiously stepping into the next room, her jaw dropped at the sight of countless pillows from floor to ceiling-- a true mountain worth scaling. Apparently this is what happens when you're too lazy to be specific on your requisition sheet.
She carefully set down Chief Tater Tot and rushed forward, frantically digging through the pillows. "Please tell me they didn't--" she sighed in relief, "I still have a mattress. Thank God.." Whirling around, she lifted her hands up into the air and fell backwards onto the mount of pillows, completely disappearing from sight as the cushions swallowed her whole.
Silence.
"This isn't actually as comfortable as it looks," Callan's muffled voiced chimed out with disappointment.
At first glance...yep. Nothing seemed terribly out of place other than the mysterious new additions of the dog supplies--or at least, that's what Siena would have said if a few stray pillows hadn't been just in sight. Oh no. They didn't...did they?
Evidently, Cal had the same idea as she rushed toward the literal mountain of pillows that had swallowed her bed entirely, digging through the pillows with a sense of urgency that Siena was certain was not an exaggeration after their previous musings. Thankfully, Siena found her mind put at ease when Callan announced the presence of her mattress then fell back and completely vanished into the pillows. Flabbergasted couldn't even begin to describe Siena's mood at that instant. Never would the girl have thought that she'd lay witness to someone being completely engulfed by a fluffy, overwhelming tower of cushions. When Cal expressed her disappointment through the barrier of pillows about its comfort, Siena couldn't help but break out into a stifled laugh.
"I-I bet! I think I have to get Chief Tater Tot to rescue you from there!"
Oh, it would be fun living with Callan, wouldn't it?
