Natty — Roleplayer Guild

CASEY HARPER

Collaboration with @Blue Demon and @Wade Wilson

Still attempting to recollect himself after making a mockery of himself in front of both Mailsi and several laughing students, Casey made his way wearily through the mess hall. As he headed towards the queue at the counter, the mint-haired teen glanced back at the doorway nervously. Maybe she hadn’t noticed? Yes that was probably what had happened. She was most likely too busy talking to the kid in his pyjamas. That thought however made Casey’s stomach churn slightly with jealousy. He secretly began to hope that she had seen. He could simply pass it off as yet another hilarious joke of his. That would work right?

The sound of the barista asking him for his order snapped Casey out of his thoughts. After ordering his daily peppermint mocha, he tried to relax, leaning back against the counter as he waited. Everything was going to be fine. He just had to stop worrying all the time.

 In an effort to take his mind off Mailsi, he began to gaze around the room, taking in the sights. He was really starting to understand why they referred to it as a mess hall. The room was currently packed with a whole horde of costumed teenagers, resulting on a lot of pain for the eyes, as the majority of them looked ghastly; however, Casey would probably be thinking the same even if they weren’t dressed up. What more was that these costumed hooligans had left the whole room trashed, leaving their rubbish on both the floor and tables. Disgusting. So yes, mess hall was highly appropriate. To make things even worse, unlike the other morning there weren’t any fights currently taking place. Not even any petty squabbles or arguments between peers. He groaned. Why did life have to be so boring?

Taking his drink and paying the bearded barista, Casey slouched away, keeping his eyes out for a spare seat. He initially began heading towards where Mari and Andy were sitting. That was, until he spotted the Martian. Despite how much Casey loved chaos and drama, he tried his best to avoid that guy at all costs. The guy was essentially a monstrous green bastard. So instead, the faerie plonked himself down on his lonesome, before taking his first sip of his beverage.

As the minty freshness hit him, he let out a cool, relaxed smile, before a commotion to his left caught his attention. The pyjama man from outside, whom Mailsi had been talking to, was causing some kind of disruption over by the juice machine. Casey watched curiously as Mailsi seemed to calm him down, pulling him away by the back of his pyjamas, before seemingly showing him how the machine work. Curious. He continued watching until Mailsi seemed to point in his direction. His heart skipped a beat, as he shot his gaze down onto the table in front of him, hoping that they hadn’t caught him spying. Risking a glance, he was shocked to see that the two were coming over.

“Balls.” He murmured, taking another hit of his peppermint mocha. 

“<Mailsi, I still don’t see how showing me your friend can help me understand more.>” ‘Pyjama boy’ was still speaking in Latin, eagerly snatching at foods and drinks, with Mailsi trying her best to stop him.

With a resounding glare Mailsi turned around again and glared at Eligius as he tried to grab some food stuff off another poor student’s plate. But she didn’t do much more than that as they finally reached Casey.

“Casey.” Mailsi proclaimed happily. Help me. The teen mouthed so the alien couldn’t see. 

Casey’s eyes widened slightly as the two approached, a smile creeping across his lips as she spoke. All previously held feelings of jealousy towards this guy instantly vanished as he waved them both closer. 

“Hey, Mailsi. Who’s your friend?” He said, almost mockingly as he looked the guy over. Clearly this guy had never heard of fashion. 

Sam started speaking in English, as this friend of Mailsi’s apparently only spoke one language. “Oh, I’m Eligius Plautius. Oh, um, I mean Sam. Wait, no-”

“Eligius.” Mailsi countered with a huff before sitting down next to Casey. She looked up at Eligius and arched an eyebrow as if to say why aren’t you sitting yet? “He’s an alien.” She said to Casey, assuming that Eligius would follow her instructions, even non-verbal ones.

“Just go with it.” The teen said as she picked up her fork and began to eat her breakfast, keeping a steady eye on her new friend just in case. 

“An alien?” Casey made a face of fake disgust. 

Mailsi paused with a fork full of food halfway to her mouth before she realized her friend was being funny. That ascertained she went back to shoveling food, too busy to respond. 

Quickly noticing the absence of his friend’s laugh, Casey frowned slightly. Now he’d blown it. Honestly the faerie often forgot that his humour wasn’t always that tasteful. He glanced between her and Eligius before speaking up quickly, not allowing him to get a word in himself.

“O..only kidding, man. Come and... come and join us!” He stammered slightly gesturing to the seat in front of them, before glancing at Mailsi slightly for her approval like a lost puppy. 

Sam blinked. “I thought you said that you were aliens...” He got lost in thought, before shaking it off and sitting down. The boy grabbed a random student’s apple, taking a big bite out of it. He chewed the flavourful sphere, enjoying the juiciness and joy that it brought him. “Mmmmm...” He said, closing his eyes and smiling.

The white-haired girl shovelled the last bite of omelet into her mouth and looked at the two boys. Casey was freaking out, because he’s a moron making moronic jokes. And really? And space cadet was freaking out, because OMG he’s an alien but so is everyone else. Seriously. 

Mailsi sighed and placed her fork on her tray and eyeballed the duo. “First.” She said grabbing her orange juice and pointing, with the cup in hand, at Eligius.

“You are an alien to us, like we’re aliens to you. Not that hard if you use your brain to figure it out.” The girl took a sip before turning slightly to Casey. 

“Second. Did you know you’re really distracting to talk to dressed up as Luigi?” Mailsi placed the cup down and began to work on peeling her orange. “Third.” She looked Casey in the eye. “Racist jokes are not okay.” She popped a slice of orange in her mouth. “And lastly, I really need to have people stop freaking out on my today. Can you do that for me?” 

Casey’s eyes widened once more as she spoke. Her comment to Eligius made the corners of his mouth rise slightly, although as soon as Mailsi turned towards him, it was wiped clean off of his face. He held his breath, before giving out a short sigh of relief. That was before her third comment however. A racist? Him? He opened his mouth to protect. To deny the accusation. However he stopped himself. She was right. About everything. How could he be so stupid? 

“I’m…” He began before trying to look her in the eye as he spoke. He couldn’t. “I’m sorry Mailsi. It won’t happen again…” His voice was sincere. Filled with sadness, but sincere. 

Mailsi waved him off easily, knowing the route he was going to take. Namely, the shortest spiral down to self flagellation. “Right.” She agreed, still eating. Of course Casey didn’t take into consideration that she was a capital B.I.T.C.H. 

“And for me. I understand, too.” Eligius tried his utmost best to gulp down the plethora of confusion that was trying to escape from his mouth, and plaster itself all over his face in the process. The mint-haired boy deferred slightly from the rest of the humans Sam had seen, but he couldn’t place what exactly it was. Appearance, clothes, the tone of voice he used… the poor alien was confused beyond belief. That seemed to be the mode emotion he’d experienced since crashing on this planet. And, now he’d thought about it, he instantly snapped his head towards the remnants of his arrival, before turning back to Casey. “Actually, you might’ve, um, heard of me before.” He gestured to the spot where the fireball landed.

Eligius’ comment briefly halted the pity party that was currently going on inside his head. Before briefly glancing at Mailsi once more, he turned to face the newcomer, nodding as he spoke. He turned to where the kid was gesturing; outside the window, towards the source of all the chaos that had happened the other day. 

The faerie’s jaw dropped slightly at the comment. “That was you?” He asked, admiration filling his face. Maybe this guy really wasn’t so bad after all! “You are now honestly, 20% cooler!”

At that comment, he too reach for his drink, raising his peppermint mocha, and tipping it slightly towards Eligius in a weird form of congratulations. Taking a sip, he tried to change the topic the conversation.

“So, uh… You guys going to this dance tonight?” He tried his best not to glance at her as he spoke, fixing his gaze on the drink in front of him.

Eligius looked at him blankly. “What?”

Casey returned the look, before realising that the guy probably had no idea as to what he was talking about. “It’s, uh… Do you know what a party is? Dancing? Getting down? The Jonas Brothers?”

As Mailsi drained the last of her juice she rolled her eyes. Knowing what she did of Eligius, Casey just confused the alien by over nine-thousand percent. She exhaled gustily and waited for the inevitable tirade of confusion.

He shook his head. “But the ‘speakers’ in my room screamed at me today. They were really quiet before, then… boom. I think it was something called Panic Disco. Is that what you mean? I remember the person who gave me the pyjamas said something about ‘music’, then dancing, like you  said.”

Casey glanced towards Mailsi as the alien spoke, noting that she too looked as if she was completely done with everything that was going on. Turning back towards Eligius, he thought long and hard on how on earth he would explain such a thing to him. The slight anger he was feeling at the fact that he’d never heard of Joe, Nick, or Kevin didn’t help either. 

“So… um… Let me try and put this plainly…” He began, picking his words carefully. “That thing you heard from your speakers? Music. Albeit bad music, but music all the same. Now dancing? You kind of just move your bodies to the music, I guess. It’s hard to explain. Now tonight, since it’s this thing called Halloween…” 

“Like walking? I don’t see what’s fun about walking to music, really.”

Casey paused at the comment. “No… it’s, uh. It’s more fun than it sounds, okay?” Shaking his head slightly, he continued. “Anyway, tonight a lot of people are going to gather and dance around in costumes. There’ll be food and refreshments. It’s great.”

As Casey finished his attempt to explain the dance, there was a none too quiet snort from Mailsi.

Sam looked at Mailsi with confusion, before turning back to Casey. “Oh, well, okay then. Do I need a costume, too?” He looked around. “All I have is these pyjamas and the garments that I came down to Earth in.”

 “Er…” Casey began, before closing his mouth quickly and biting his lip. This really was much harder than he had expected. He remembered back to when the two had initially approached him minutes earlier and the desperate look for help on Mailsi’s face. He imagined that this must have been how she felt. 

“I guess that would be fine?” He said, a questioning tone in his voice. 

Looking away, the faerie glanced upwards towards one of the small monitors dotted around the walls of the room. These things tended to just act as notice boards, displaying all kind of information about what was currently going on around Corrigan. At the moment the one Casey’s eyes were fixated on was displaying a short animation of a pumpkin in what Casey could only assume was the school’s method of informing everyone what day it was if they were dumb enough not to realize with everyone dressed up. Ignoring it, he checked the corner of the screen for the time. Seeing it was nearly time for first period, he groaned loudly, before grabbing his cup and attempting to gulp down the remains.
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