spicykvnt

Commencement: A Foundation Institute RP

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_{Location: Portland}

Human #5.061: How Can I Make It OK?

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_{Interaction(s): --}

Previously: Interlude

Still-quiet dawn crept in on velvet feet across the streets of Portland. A fragile light painting long strokes of gold and rose. Cleo rolled forward letting her skates whisper over the cracked asphalt, the emptiness of the road unfolding ahead of her, ready to be discovered. Her arms lifted, elbows loose, wrists fluid. Drifting over the road, passing and swaying across the painted lines as the symphonies heard only in the wires of her headphones threaded through her.

She twisted her ankle just so; allowing her body to spin in a slow, deliberate pirouette, allowing the world around her to bleed and blur into indistinct hues. The sprawl of the city rendered into a watercolor dream.

Manny and Lucas still slept while the haze of the night continued to linger in her veins, warm but sour. Buzz from the wine she’d drank into the night with Violet and Daisy. The wine she’d drank a little too fast - hoping that the rich body of the pinot noir would ease up the awkwardness between them all. The empath had been the first to drift to bed, but the first to rise and slip out into the morning, snatching up her skates to escape.

She hummed as she pushed forward, moving her arms fluidly with the music. With no interference around her, there was a brief moment of feeling free and light - like a bird.

Wings

Haven’s ruined wings ripped into her mind again mercilessly. Feathers torn from sinew, blood running in glistening rivulets, rising like smoke into the air. Garnet pools of memory churned within her, wine turned bile, until the taste of last night's wine clawed at the back of her throat, the colour of it too strikingly familiar to the stains that had seeped into the silk of her cream dress, staining it to ruins.

She tore to a halt by a patch of grass and caught her breath. Her breath came hard and ragged, and she leaned forward, bracing against the bark of a tree. Her visions came again, sharp-edged and relentless. Grotesque snapshots; ribbons of blood, the sound of flesh ripping, bones breaking, terrified screaming.

Cleo gripped at the earth.

“Stop, stop, stop,” she spoke in a broken whisper. Raising her hand again to rub against her heart instinctively.

When would it stop?

---

There was a peace to be found sat on the grass bare foot. The world had gentled, at least on the surface. Cleo sat free of her skates with her hoody beneath her - the cold air taking away the frightened heat from her skin. She allowed her eyes to close as she remained cross legged. Exhaling away as much of the visions as she could while scouring her mind for softer things—fleeting glimpses of warmth, laughter, a flicker of sunlight across a kitchen table that she danced around—but they felt thin. Faded photographs held up to the light.

“Cleo?”

The voice startled her. Soft and familiar, but still edged with recent estrangement, as though she was getting used to the cadence all over again. She opened her eyes and tilted her head upward, squinting against filtered sunlight to see Chaney standing above her. His hair was an unruly tumble of blond, his expression caught between worry and exhaustion - cheeks flushed red.

Chaney was no stranger to her peculiarities and whimsy, nor to the meditations she often drifted into with Manny. Still, the sight of her, motionless in the morning stillness, had stopped him mid-run.

“You’re up early,” he added, stretching his arms above his head, catching back his breath. “The others up?”

“Not when I left,” Cleo said, forcing a smile. “I just needed… space. Air.”

“Yeah,” Chaney nodded, his face shadowed. “Me too.” He lowered himself onto the grass beside her, watching her carefully. “You okay?”

The question lingered between them and pressed uncomfortably against the silence. At last, she exhaled, shaking her head. “Nah,” she answered simply. The nonchalant honesty felt strangely like relief, like more than the meditation could have soothed. “Are you?”

Chaney’s frown deepened. “We should’ve fucking been there,” he said, his voice tight with regret.

“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Cleo replied quickly, her hand reaching out to touch his. “It wouldn’t have changed anything.”

But Chaney pulled his hand back, clenching it into a fist that sparked faintly with electricity. The arcs moved across his knuckles, small and furious. “Shit,” he muttered, shaking the energy away. “Y'know Nick? Nick was my lab partner. He… he didn’t make it. He was my friend.” His voice cracked, and then he erupted, balled fists shaking at his sides as he stepped into the light. “I didn’t even get to—” He stopped.

He turned back to Cleo, an imploring and darkened expression that erased the sunlight from his features for a moment. “Show me.”

Her breath caught. “Show you what?” she asked, though the answer was already there between them.

He’ll never unknow.

“Please.” His voice cracked again as he knelt back down, desperation softening the edges of his anger, his eyes pleading, his posture begging. “I need to know.”

Cleo’s instincts screamed against it, but the weight of his grief was insistent, pulling at her resolve. She closed her eyes, a tear slipping free as her fingers moved, weaving the air until a bubble of energy formed between her palms.

He’ll never unknow.

It quivered and warped. Dark and unstable, its surface flecked with veins of red—like cracks in glass. She pushed it forward, her heart already aching with the regret of what she was about to share - the shape of her regret followed, glittering and gleaming in shades of dark green, a celestial bruise moving toward the man.

He’ll never unknow.

The bubble touched Chaney’s chest and burst with a splash and he gasped—a sharp, guttural sound that tore itself from his throat. It all hit him hard and fast - like a shower of bullets, cold and unrelenting. Everything and everything and everything. Fear roiled in his stomach, rising until it gripped his chest like two clawed fists in his lungs, burying any chance of him breathing again. The interpreted sounds came next: screams, the groan of the roof collapsing in, the wet, awful thud of bodies. The crack and shatter of ice forming from nowhere. The silence inside the waves of it. The sound of words that would never be spoken by the bodies suspended inside. The snuffing out of heartbeats.

He’ll never unknow.

His eyes widened, staring into nothing as the scents followed—sulfur, iron, spilled champagne, sweat, the acrid dust of ruined foundations.

He’ll never unknow.

He punched the grass beneath him and clenched it, the soil bunching up under his short nails. Sparks of his electricity surged outward, scorching the earth in singular currents. But it didn’t stop the next wave. An entire eclipse of deep, suffocating, despair. In those seconds, he was drawn so unwillingly into the crushing gravity of a void so absolute that it felt like the blackness there would swallow him whole, forever.

The connection broke and his jaw slackened, his breath ragged as the memory receded, leaving only a corrosive residue in his chest. He couldn’t unsee it, couldn’t unfeel the endless nothingness that had stared back at him.

In a surge of raw emotion, he turned to Cleo, pulling her into a fierce embrace. His electricity hummed faintly across her skin, and his eyes, glowing yellow, shimmered with tears.

“I’m so sorry,” he sobbed as his voice broke against her shoulder. “I’m so, so sorry.”

---

The sun climbed higher, painting the clear blue sky in bright daylight now, leaving only faint grey smudges of rain clouds to cling to the farthest horizon’s edge. Chaney finally broke the silence, his voice steadier, even if still subdued. “So… the Foundation, huh? You’re really sure that’s what you all want?”

“Mmhmm,” Cleo murmured as her eyes closed once more. “There’s so much I still need to learn,” she added softly, but final. “But first, we’re doing a wee visit—seeing everyone.”

Chaney shifted–keeping a deliberate distance from the woman. Whether out of unease or some instinctual need to stay beyond the reach of her psionic energy. “Is… is that a good idea?” he asked while uncertainty threaded through his words.

Cleo’s eyes flickered open, her brows knitting together in faint confusion. “Why wouldn’t it be? We miss you. The three of us. A lot.”

Chaney studied her reaction and a realisation flickered behind his eyes that he was glad he was far enough from her to keep it to himself. It was like she was refusing to face the last weeks of Team Eclipse. Or maybe she just didn’t want to dwell on it. Either way, he let the thought pass.

“We miss you guys too,” he admitted quietly, eventually. He returned his focus to the grass beneath his hands and plucked a blade from the earth, twisting it idly between his thumb and forefinger. “Why don’t we head back?” Chaney offered after a time, rising to his feet and brushing the dirt from his hands. “I can grab us some coffee?”

Cleo smiled faintly, a dreamy edge to her expression as if the morning had finally softened something inside her.“Alright.” She smiled. “I’ll stay for a couple more minutes. See you back there?”

“Yeah,” Chaney nodded, his movements still restless as he stretched, trying to shake off what he’d felt. The memory clung to him; like sweat that seeped beneath the skin. It prickled in his veins, refusing to leave him be, tattooed forever.
He turned back before leaving, his expression thoughtful. “By the way…” he began, his voice quieter now, almost hesitant. “That voice… in the memory. Who is it?”

Cleo blinked, her brow furrowing. “What voice?” she asked, her head tilting.

“The one that calls your name,” Chaney said, the faintest hint of recognition of it in his own mind, just out of reach.

Cleo stared at him. “What are you talking about?” she said softly, though her voice betrayed her unease.

He didn’t wait for an answer, sensing her confusion - sensing something that pushed him back; and so he only glanced at her for a moment longer, his brow knitting with concern and apprehension, then turned and jogged off toward the distant tree line.

Cleo sat frozen. Clawing back through her memories for an echo of it.

She didn’t remember any voice.

Commencement: A Foundation Institute RP

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_{Location: the void, the air}

Human #5.052: Interlude

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_{Interaction(s): --}

Previously: Third Contact

An eraser-tipped pencil ticked-ticked-ticked against the woodgrain of a desk, an impatient harmony to the wall clock’s sluggish and torturously slow march. The second hand seemed only to drag forward, every motion a small eternity. Cleo’s crystalline blue eyes flicked upward, drawn to the ticking face as though willing it to rush through the minutes faster.

“Miss Boyd,” came the professor's voice, clipped and stern, cutting through the air like a blade.

“Aye?” the red-head blurted, then winced. “I mean—yes, sir?”

A ripple of chuckles followed and passed through the classroom, quickly stifled by the professor’s pointed glare. He folded his arms, his shadow stretching the length of the room under a flickering overhead light. “We’re waiting for you.”

Her eyes darted downward. On the desk before her lay the apparatus, a steampunk thing of brass and steel. At its heart, suspended in a claw-like clamp; a single red apple, its skin shiny, fresh, and crisp even under the dim light, even against the shadow of the professor. It held still, even if the room did seem to sway. Cleo frowned, her nose crinkling.

“Um…”

The professor exhaled audibly, the sound heavy with disappointment. “This is transmutation, Miss Boyd. Your assignment is to turn the apple into an olive.”

She felt the weight of their gazes then—every other student in the room, their eyes sharp and expectant, like predators waiting for the slightest misstep. Her pulse quickened, each beat a drum in her ears.

“Right, right…” she murmured.

She extended her hands over the apple, her fingertips trembling slightly. “Ilom avar, voli ari melov,” she intoned, the words strange and otherworldly, their cadence not entirely her own. “Lomira veal…”

Between her palms and the apple, a gloaming shadow began to form through twists and churns, dark and luminous at once, a storm contained within the fragile boundary of a gleaming bubble. The air thickened, charged with static. The bubble pushed toward her apple, its surface writhing with the growing nothing living within.

The first crack of thunder echoed through the room, and the scent of cinnamon bloomed, heady and sharp followed by a spray of caramel that erupted from the bubble, sizzling as it struck the desk.

“Contain it, Miss Boyd!” the professor barked, but his voice felt distant, muffled by the growing roar, her direction and proximity to the growing abyss turned and shifted until she couldn’t make sense of her own equilibrium. "Can you not even do a simple spell?"

“Amio vril, aviro mel! Velira omil, avar voli, melov!” she chanted, her voice rising and lilting; slipping and splitting into a polyphonic melody that she couldn’t place or recognise as her own - something else, something found. The words poured from her as if pulled from some deep, forgotten place. The now opened and cracked lid of Pandora’s box.

The storm swelled uncontrollably and its darkness devoured the light while the room trembled, buckling with the weightlessness and pressure of it. Desks skittered across the floor, their legs screeching against the tiles. The bubble expanded; its edges rising against the walls like a ravenous tide.

Inside the storm, Cleo was weightless too. Suspended in the gravity of strange, colourful clouds that drew her drifting through the void, soaking through her clothes with their heavy rain as she was pulled through the oppressive silence which was broken only by an eventual low, guttural growl that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. At the heart of it all was the apple; shiny, fresh, and crisp. Pristine but for a single bite now taken from its bleeding flesh.

And beyond it, in the deep black, two yellow-orange eyes opened. They glimmered like smouldering coals, unblinking, their gaze heavy and knowing. A low rumble built beneath her, a sound ancient and unearthly vibrated then through the marrow of her bones.
The eyes blinked with a chiming sound that rang out like distant bells.

Then everything fractured. The darkness collapsed inward-

Cleo jolted awake, her head smacking against the cold window of the airplane cabin. The bright and cold world returned in pieces—harsh overhead lights, the hum of the engines, the cramped economy seat with its fraying fabric. Her seatbelt pressed tight against her stomach, anchoring her back to reality.

“Christ,” she muttered, wiping at her face with trembling hands. The dream was already slipping from her grasp. “That was bloody strange,” she whispered. The turbulence rattled once more, a faint echo of the storm in her mind. Above her, the seatbelt light blinked off.

Cleo sighed and glanced to her left. Lucas and Manny were fast asleep, their faces serene, untouched by the chaos that lingered in her veins. She rubbed her temples, her voice low and bitter. “I hate flying,” she cursed with a sigh, wrapping her trembling arms around herself.

Commencement: A Foundation Institute RP

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_{Location: The Beach - Dundas Islands, Pacific Ocean}

Human #5.14: How Does It Feel

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_{Interaction(s): --}

Previously: White Rabbit

The ring.

Cleo looked at it as it briefly changed hands, glinting in the firelight, and then to Lucas at her side. Nudging him lightly at his elbow. We need it, she thought to herself, willing the thought, the image of it to Lucas. If he could touch it… Who knew what secrets bound within the band might come undone from it.

No. She thought, drawing her gaze back to the fire, closing her eyes quickly, clamping them shut, Her hands pressed into the sand, knuckles whitening as the tension built, rising like a storm, fast and violent. The grief, the anger - all of it, a circle that swirled and moved, heaved and tore at her. Her jaw clenched and she twitched at her neck. Defenses crumbling against it, each raised voice a knife in the dark that pierced at her walls.

_{“I’m going to find Alyssa. She sent that thing away, and condemned Amma to whatever Hell with it. She’s going to tell me what she did, and then she’s going to send me there too. Or I’ll find my own way. Or I’ll die trying. Or all damn three!”}

”But don’t storm the gates of Hell alone, because I...”

”“Now? I’m one of the team, now?”

Words ebbed in and out in her focus to keep it all away. “Stop,” she whispered through gritted teeth. Gil’s simmering rage met her where she sat, his grief stroked at her own and sparked a feeling that was going to act of its own. Her skin shimmered a dull red aura as a low hum of rage vibrated beneath her skin. Her mind reached, scraping for calm, for stillness, for beauty

But everything was stained, with the touch of the nothingness that she had gazed upon on the night of the dance. “Stop,” she repeated, only slightly louder, bringing a hand to the side of her face as an ache came over her - pounding against her skull.

"Not now..." she whispered again, a plea to herself. Her focus faltered, unwillingly drawn back into the conversation, the storm of voices swirling around her.

_{"The only justice, Kruger, is that you're alone. Hyperion and his children are dead and gone. There's no more Pacific Royal, no more Blackjack. You've burned everything to the ground. No one loves you."}

That did it.

Commencement: A Foundation Institute RP

Two days after the incident at P.R.C.U., Callum Boyd arrived at Dundas Island, intent on retrieving his sister. He had never even left Scotland before, and now he found himself in this strange place, a place that could have stolen Cleo from him.

Unlike his sister, and unlike their mother, there wasn’t a trace of hyperhuman in him. He was just a man. No powers, no gifts—just a brother.

The rain fell like a punishment, relentless, the sky split open and his umbrella was a futile shield against it. He moved with purpose, each step heavy, burdened, through the grey haze, toward the Lutra dorms where they said she’d be. Everything felt sharp and apprehension clung to him the way the rain held to the fabric of his coat.

At the glass entrance, Callum paused, catching sight of his own reflection. A man in unfamiliar land stared back at him, the man unfamiliar too. A long peacoat, polished shoes, a beard trimmed with neat precision. It struck him then how far he had come from the wild youth he once was. The reckless boy who had wanted nothing more than to escape the suffocating walls of school, now grown into a teacher that he would have once despised. Made miserable with bad behaviour. Punished. Life’s cruel humor. He sighed, shaking off the rain from his umbrella, leaving it behind as he stepped into the building.

When he reached Cleo’s door, he pushed it open, bracing himself. But what greeted him was not the sight he expected. He had imagined her already packed, ready to leave. Instead, she was moving frantically around the room, her movements jittery and filled with a kind of restless energy. “Cleo?” His voice was barely a whisper, careful, as if afraid that speaking too loudly might shatter whatever fragile thing held her, barely upright.

At the sound of her brother’s voice, Cleo crossed the room in a breath, wrapping her arms tightly around him. There was no hesitation, just a flood of relief. She held on as though she’d been drowning, her breath hitching as tears broke free. “I can’t believe you’re here,” she said, the words trembling; interlaced with laughter and sorrow. There was a strange and small joy in her eyes. Bubbles rose from her shoulders, delicate, glowing, shimmering pink. A manifestation of the joy that had evaded her for days now.

“What’s all this?” Callum asked, wrapping his arm around her, holding her close as if to shield her from whatever storm still raged inside her. “I thought you’d be packing by now.”

“I…” She hesitated, her voice guarded as she pulled back. “I’m just meditating. On something,” she added, the words a fragile shield, paper thin. There was something more beneath it, something unspoken, but Callum did not immediately press. For now, they were together. And for now, that was enough.

Callum moved quietly around the room, his eyes scanning for any sign of packed boxes, but there was nothing. “Cleo…” He didn’t want to push her, didn’t want to dredge up to talk about whatever could have claimed her that night, but the relief he felt in seeing her alive was only half the battle. “Y’are… leaving, right?” His voice was tentative, as if he feared the answer. “You’re coming with me?”

She glanced away, biting her lip. “I don’t… I don’t think I’m ready,” she admitted, the words fragile, as if saying them aloud might break something between them. “There’s more I need to learn, Callum. Something... important.”

He frowned, his confusion clear. “Like what?”

Cleo hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “Something happened at the dance. I saw something—something I never imagined. And… I think it’s going to lead me to helping Mam.”

“What do you mean?” His voice hardened, the disbelief rising as he tried to understand.

“I saw… a hell.” Her eyes widened as the memory gripped her.

Callum sighed. His brow knitted and furrowed in frustration, he didn't understand.

“No, I didn’t see it,” she shook her head. “Not with my eyes, anyway.” Her hand moved to her chest. “I felt it,” she continued, her voice unsteady. Even to speak of it brought back its gravity to pull at her.

He did not jump to doubting her, instead, he softened his posture and let himself sit at the edge of her bed as she moved about the room again. She could rarely ever be still. He allowed her the space, giving her the moment and his safety. He was just a man, no powers as ethereal as hers. He was just her brother too. “You felt that, and it’s made you want to stay?”

“You don’t find it strange, Callum? Mam’s stories about other realms, creatures, demons—” She paused. “What if they weren’t made up? What if she was right? What if the answers to getting her back are here?”

“Cleo, no. I don’t find it strange.” Callum cut her off at last, shaking his head. His voice was suddenly hard, sharp with concern. “She wasnae in her right mind, and you know that. That’s what Eilidh said. Her psionic… Stuff, it, got to her.”

“But what if she was? What if what she saw was real?” Cleo’s voice crackled with desperation “What if I can find her, Callum? We don’t know the extent of her gifts, what if she’s out there?”

“No!” His voice rose, more forceful now, fear mingling with his own desperation. “We know where she is. She’s…” He sighed, standing up. Exasperated. “She’s not the same. And Da’ left. I’m not about to lose you too, not in some place that almost killed you already. I want you to come home. Please.”

Cleo shook her head, her eyes burning with her conviction that she just wished he could understand. “You don’t get it. I felt something, Callum. Something real, more real than we can comprehend, and I’ve been touched by it.”

“Cleo… Please don’t chase-” He started again, softer this time, but she wouldn’t let him finish.

“I’m supposed to know this, Callum. I have to learn more. This is part of me, part of what I’m meant to do.”

Callum stood still, the fight draining from him as he sighed, his eyes softening with the weight of his own helplessness “I could have lost you,” he whispered. “When I heard what happened, I thought I already had.” He stood still. Wrestling with his own helplessness. Was this how her trauma had manifested? Her curiosity reaching back into the dark unknown, seeking out something he could never understand? Alice and her White Rabbit. He stared beyond and into the middle distance of the room, wondering himself of these horrors that lingered just beyond the veil, the dark places his sister seemed determined upon; he couldn’t follow her there.

He was just a man, just her brother, and powerless against what held her.

---

_{Location: The Beach - Dundas Islands, Pacific Ocean}

Human #5.07: White Rabbit

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_{Interaction(s): --}

Previously: I Know the End

Callum had taken whatever had brought her to smile back with him.

The Cleo that sat on the beach, in the bonfire circle, was a different Cleo. One who had been alone again. His visit had been brief. Too brief, and now she sat and stared at the flames. She had wrapped an oversized cardigan around herself; her hair sat in two messy space buns, stray strands dancing in the wind, her gaze fixed on the flames.

The bonfire crackled, but the warmth was distant as if it was meant for someone else. There was no joy here, no laughter. Whatever passed for happiness had long since left these shores. From every side of fire the heaviness was weighing her down, turning the very ground into something unsafe. Like it would open and suck her down into it. Nobody here was happy. Happiness didn’t live here.

Manny spoke first, his words and tone soft.

She had thought so much about her own. There was still so much she didn’t know. So much she had yet still to understand. The ocean of her own questions threatened to pull her under. She thought of Lucas, of Manny—familiar faces among the remains of what was left of Blackjack. They had been thrown together in the midst of the events, but they didn’t know each other. Those in Blackjack were bound to each other, just as she had been to Eclipse.

And yet, Cleo knew so much of Amma. The phantom that had lingered on the edges of each of her dreams since, waiting for her in the dark. As she let her eyes trail the wreckage of Blackjack, she felt the reflections of Amma in each of them. A stirring.

"I'm... going to join the Foundation," she said quietly, her voice barely more than a whisper against the crackling fire.

Commencement: A Foundation Institute RP

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_{Location: Formal Homecoming - A.R.C., Pacific Royal Campus}

Dance Monkey #4.093: I Know the End

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_{Interaction(s): Manny Blaylock @Festive & Lucas Bray @Nemaisare--}

Previously: Soliloquy

The force of emotions hit Cleo like a kick in the chest. A murder of crows that burst forth from the tempest, each one carrying a shard of torment—hopelessness, grief, anger, rage, despair. Despite the song that wove itself through the storm of emotion, threading hope; it could not mask the presence that was about to be felt.

A darkness. Cleo could feel it pulling her in, its gravity stronger than anything she'd ever known. A storm of emotional transference that carved through her psionic energy and gave an unwanted glimpse of a place where even chaos dared not dwell. It was still. It was quiet. And it was endless. Death's cold grip, opening the door. It pulled her further, stretching her connection to the breaking point. She reached out, trying to hold on, manipulating the energy as best she could against the current, but it was too much. She was severed from Amma—violently, cleanly, and too suddenly to stop it.

Her chest heaved with the shock of it and she was back in the ARC, the floor beneath her knees, but her mind still swam in the ink black darkness of what had been felt. Cleo froze, her entire being trembling with the weight of it. The connection had slipped, had broken, and now everything bled into her at once—Amma’s grief, her rage, the darkness, and then the screaming silence. It rushed through Cleo. She could still feel it, a yawning chasm with an indescribable hunger.

And then—nothing.

Suddenly, arms wrapped around her; strong, pulling her away from it all. Manny. His presence was an anchor. She clung to him and her bloodied and gloved hands gripped at his jacket. Her touch cloying, as if she feared he would disappear and in his absence the terror would come back.

Manny’s steady voice was a lifeline, his concern pulling her away from the brink, into the here and now. Cleo nodded, shook her head, then nodded again. Uncertain. Her thoughts still caught somewhere between the horror she had touched and her friend holding her. She pulled away, slowly, her hands moving to her chest; rubbing over her heart, trying to calm the frantic rhythm, trying to ground herself. Over and over, her hand moved in the shape of their signal. Over and over and over.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice small, lost. She looked up at him - and then to Lucas. Her pupils were wide, swallowing the colour of her eyes, reflecting back the same emptiness she had just herself seen. She didn’t even know who she was apologising to. To Manny? To Lucas? To Amma? To herself?

“I really did try…”

Commencement: A Foundation Institute RP

A small town outside of Edinburgh, a coffee shop. It was one of those rare summer afternoons in Scotland, the kind that seemed more a gift than a season. The sky above stretched wide, a pale and endless blue, the sun hanging low and casting its golden light over everything. It bathed the scene in an ember glow, soft as silk.

Two women sat outside at a small table, bathing in the glorious midsummer light. Cleo was the younger of the two, and she sat with her thoughts; wrestling with words that never quite seemed to fit. Across from her, Eilidh Vass, her mentor, radiated a calm that Cleo often envied. Waves of brown hair framed Eilidh's face and her eyes were soft but sharp, like someone who had long since learned to listen to what wasn’t being said, to see what couldn't be seen.

“I think I’m getting better at it, thinking about the feelings and stuff…” she said, with a shy expression.

Eilidh smiled at her. “I know you are, you’re doing exceptionally well,” she affirmed, her voice warm and sincere. Patient and knowing.

Cleo smiled back, knowing that Eilidh couldn’t see it, yet she would see her entirely anyway. The woman had a mastery of her psionic gifts. Cleo, however, was still finding the ropes and her feet all at the same time. God she felt stupid even in the way she spoke… “Feelings and stuff”, she thought to herself, and Eilidh smirked from the other side of the table.

“You’re being hard on yourself again,” she remarked. Her senses keen. Little went undetected by her. She effortlessly slipped into Cleo’s mind like a whisper on the wind, no thought too quiet, no emotion too subtle.

Cleo shrugged, retreating to her mug of tea, letting her eyes trace their surroundings as she took a sip of the warm, honeyed liquid. A beautiful scene. A castle stood on the horizon, its ancient stones weathered and steadfast, a reminder of the past lingering in the present. It was like sitting in a postcard painting, untouched by modernity and were it not for the sudden sound of a car, or phone ringing that drew her back to the present - Cleo could have happily hidden away in the past.

Eilidh took a slow sip from her own cup, her gaze soft but attentive, always attuned to the subtle shifts in Cleo’s mood. “You’ve made incredible progress,” she said. “I’m almost to a point I can’t help you anymore,” there was some regret in her words. She’d grown fond of her student, afterall.

Cleo nodded, trying to accept Eilidh’s words - she trusted her more than just about anyone in her life. “I just…” she sighed, placing down her cup so she couldn’t retreat behind it - wanting to confront her confession. “The other day, I couldn’t… I couldn’t visualise a feeling. It was, heavy… Strong, I thought I was going to lose control,” she explained.

Eilidh didn’t flinch. Her eyes held Cleo’s in a way that was always grounding, as if her gaze alone could steady the storm. “It’ll happen,” she said, her voice calm as calm. “You’re a psionic, Cleo. Everything reacts to you, and you react to it.” She paused, letting her words settle like stones dropped into water. “I taught you those visualisations to guide you, to help you recognise the shape of your power.” She exhaled, smiling in Cleo’s direction. “Just remember that you’re not bound by them. Emotions aren’t… Something to be controlled. Sometimes, you just need to let it flow, they need to be felt.”

The weight of Eilidh’s words lingered in the space between them, a truth Cleo wasn’t sure she was ready to fully grasp. But as the moment stretched, she felt something shift within her. “You’re right,” she said, her voice quiet but certain, as if she were tasting the truth for the first time.

Eilidh’s grin grew, playful but proud. “I know I am,” she said with a light chuckle. “Now,” she added, lifting her cup, “there’s not a problem in this world that a cup of tea can’t help with. Drink up, wee one.”

Cleo lifted her cup once more, the warmth of it seeping into her palms. The sun dipped lower know, painting the sky in a wonderful hue of lavender and orange and pink. A slow and dying light of the day, melting to shadow. For now, the tea was enough. The sun, the hills, Eilidh’s presence… These were enough. And in that quiet, fleeting moment, Cleo felt the edges of her doubt soften, just a little.

---

_{Location: Formal Homecoming - A.R.C., Pacific Royal Campus}

Dance Monkey #4.086: Soliloquy

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_{Interaction(s): --}

Previously: Happiness is a butterfly

This was not Edinburgh. This was not a quiet and calm cafe set aside a castle. This was not the time for tea and whimsy.

The ARC had fallen to chaos, and so quickly. The night had turned against them all.

Fear filled the air, thick and bitter like sulfur, clinging to Cleo's throat. Burning, turning every breath to ash. It tasted like scorched earth, like burnt toast, dry and acrid, with each gulp scraping sharp and jagged inside her chest. She had felt fear before, but nothing like this. It was to her as palpable as the ice now caging the building, cutting them off from any escape.

A creature had appeared from the roof, tall and statuesque - bringing calamity in its wake, its shadow flooding the hall before the form had even touched ground. The Chernobog, it called itself, in a voice so deep in its declaration that it rippled the very air and in turn snuffed it out. Echoing like a death knell across a once safe and joyous space. Ribbons of red streaked the walls and pooled at the feet of those who had been too brave or perhaps too foolish to stand in its way.

The perimeter of the ARC was now folded up into walls of ice, students trapped inside - Cleo couldn’t sense them there, the chill enveloped her as she stood at its center, frozen not just by the cold, but by the crushing weight of her inability to sense the others. Manny, Lucas. She couldn’t feel them through it all. Her heart drummed in her chest, their names on repeat the only rhythm she could find in the madness.

But there, beside her, someone still stood—Molly, the Pink Lady. Without thinking, Cleo’s hand reached for hers, pulling her close, shielding her as the next wave of violence seemed to crash down. “Stay behind me,” she managed, surprised at the strength in her own voice. She didn’t feel strong. Not now. Not with the Chernobog towering in the distance, tearing through the night with it’s evil intent and mythic scourge.

Even as it all seemed to grow into a crescendo, a new epicentre of danger formed. A woman, she saw her, drop to her knees. Around her, power gathered, thick and suffocating like storm clouds rolling in, like a swell about to burst. Cleo could feel it, the grief and the rage, a pit of loss so deep it had no bottom, pulling everything into its gravity.

The Chernobog was occupied. Cleo moved - knowing what she had to do. She just moved. She just moved. She just moved, unthinking, only feeling. She didn’t know this woman, she had heard the name “Amma” said, and “Amaranthe” too. Cleo just moved. She just felt. She just moved. Her palm shimmered with a wave of psionic energy that formed itself as a bubble - the size of a soccer ball. They floated, graceful and harmless, fragile against the immense darkness swirling around Amma. She sent them forward, watching as they flickered and disappeared, swallowed whole by the storm like ripples on an ocean too vast to calm.

She thought of Eilidh then. The lessons, the hours spent practicing control. These bubbles were only a tool to recognise, not to control. She had to try something else. She had to break through.

Dropping to the floor, Cleo placed her palms flat against the cold ground. She just moved. She just moved. She just felt. She felt the vibration, faint, but there. Pulsing through the floor, away from where she crouched. It took everything to reach that stillness inside her own mind, to quiet the storm within her long enough to feel. Let it flow. Eilidh's voice echoed in her mind again.

She reached out, deeper, through the floor, through the cold, through the chaos. The energy was there, coating her like an aura, and in the storm that surrounded Amma, she could feel the girl within. A child. Small, broken, drowning in shadows. But there was something else—something beneath the darkness, quiet as a whisper. A melody.

Cleo pressed toward it, her own calm swelling, and as she did, she heard it more clearly. The melody was soft and stirring, woven from love. Fragile but constant, flickering through the darkness. It had always been there, waiting to be found. She pressed harder, pushing back beyond rage, beyond grief. She just moved. She just felt. She pushed, letting the melody grow louder yet in Amma’s heart.

It had to be enough.

Commencement: A Foundation Institute RP

---

_{Location: Formal Homecoming - A.R.C., Pacific Royal Campus}

Dance Monkey #4.070: Happiness is a butterfly

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_{Interaction(s): --}

Previously: Hors D’oeuvre & Cummerbund About It

Cleo had been enjoying herself in her confidence. A whisky sour had broken through any of the tiny feelings of nerves she had, and the air inside the A.R.C was thick with warmth, the kind that lulled her into a sense of belonging. A feeling that maybe this night could be hers. A couple breezed by, and her eyes were drawn to the corsage that they girl wore around her wrist. A lovely yellow colour that matched her dress. Cleo glanced at her own hands, her wrist was bare save for her bracelet and gloves.

She fidgeted with the piece of seaglass at the centre of the bracelet, from it, that feeling again from earlier - the scent of books - fleeting, but real.

Soon enough, the music snapped her from the curiosity, from lingering on a thought too long. The infectious rhythm refused her denial of the centre of the room, it was her dancing that was enough to light a flame. Joy spread out like roots until there was no room for anything else. Music was magic. She knew that. She had always known that.

She danced alone tonight, the fancier-than-her dress cloaked her in the outfit of a creature alien to her. Gloves brushed the fabric and occasionally brushed against someone near her; the slight sensation of their happiness absorbed through the velvet and worked its way under her skin. Two songs had passed and she had spun herself dizzy, the world tilting in that way it does when you're on the edge of something big, something dangerous.

The room was hers, for a moment. The throb of the music, the lights, people and people and people moving around her. All of it blending into a blurry haze of sensation.

But there had been something else, hadn’t there? Something small, at first, but sharp. A glance here, a flicker of jealousy there, tiny cracks that zig zagged through the crowds. Unnoticed by most, but inevitable. Even Cleo hadn’t seen it coming. She had been too caught up in her own bubble, too drunk on the freedom of it all.

Love Shack—a song she herself had requested with an enthusiastic grin; the DJ met her with an eye roll and an apathetic shrug, but played it anyway. The new-wave beat lifted her spirits high, filling the room with energy. The lyrics were catchy and demanded to be sang out. Laughter bubbled up around her, a ripple of joy those who were dancing had created. She’d seen it in their eyes, felt it in the way the room shifted toward her, the energy electric and bright. But then, from a darkened corner, something else had crept in.

A girl sat alone, her pink dress a bright, garish thing against the shadows and yet still so unseen. Cleo hadn’t noticed her at first, hadn’t felt the cold weight of her loneliness. But now, as she spun, her head tilted back, she felt it. Like a wave, slow but inevitable, crashing against her. The girl's longing, her jealousy, pooled across the floor, winding its way between the dancers, invisible but present, a riptide drawing Cleo in.

She tried to push it away and to shake it off with another twirl, another laugh. But it clung to her, sticky and dark. The girl’s sadness wove through her, holding cold fingers around her throat. The feeling wasn’t hers, she knew that. It didn’t belong to her. But it felt real all the same. It was unexpected, this wasn’t… She didn’t think… This was unexpected…

It’s not mine?

As the tin roof rusted, an unseen weight tugged at the edges of her joy, unraveling it thread by thread... Picking at the stitches to reveal the overwhelming nothingness of it all. The nothingness that also just happened to feel like being punched in the stomach. Her feet faltered and movements slowed, the music turning distant and hollow in her ears, people laughed and smiled on, but the once bright room now felt too close, too crowded. The lights blurred, faces smearing together in a sickening whirl of color and sound.

The walls moved inwards.

Who would want to take a heart-reader to a dance? The thought stabbed through her, vicious and cruel, her own voice echoing inside her head. You’re just a weird accent. You’re too much. Always too much, and yet never enough.

”I don’t think you’re too much.”

Quiet, quiet words spoken from a quiet smile near a campfire, followed by yet more quiet.

The space began to move - press in on her like a weight. Crushing against her chest and it forced her breath to be caught in her throat and the sensation kept going and going and holding and holding firmly and oppressively until she was running, running, running out of air into a panic… BREATHE. Her chest tightened. Her heartbeat was loud. Fast, too fast.

She stumbled out of the A.R.C as carefully as she could. Her shoes suddenly felt heavier, each step forward like the experience of trying to escape a nightmare. It was the cold night air biting at her skin, sharp and clean that pushed the worst of it away and helped her break free faster until she found herself on the outskirts of the evening's events. She brought herself down to sitting on the steps, too quick to really be careful with the fabric of her delicate dress. She let it spread around her as she tilted her head to look up at the clear sky that stretched out forever, dark and vast.

Her breath misted in the cold dark, the music now a dull thrum behind her, distant and insignificant. The weight of everyone else’s emotions slid off her water, but the girl's sadness stayed. It had sunk too deep, and had rooted itself in her too well.

Cleo continued to stare, her mind blank, empty, waiting for something—anything—to pull her back. But nothing came. Just the quiet. Just the cold. Just the stillness of the night pressing in around her. Only the quiet, and only the truth accompanied her, side by side.

She'd been telling herself it didn't matter, for weeks now. That this was just a dance. But those moments—the tiny, delicate snippets from the other girls that mixed with the wave—their feeling of being wanted, of being special… Cleo had wanted it too. She wanted it, even though she'd never admit it aloud. It wasn’t just the Pink Lady, was it?

The scent of firewood again, just like before. The sound of a page turning in a book.

It couldn’t have just been the girl’s loneliness, could it? It was a reflection, a shadow of something she had been holding herself. The other girls shined under the lights in a way that Cleo didn’t. They belonged to someone and were desired by another. It was easier to pretend she didn't care, but the Pink Lady’s sadness had stripped away her mask, exposing a yearning Cleo had buried deep, the kind of need that felt dangerous to admit. That felt silly to admit.

This dance, this night—she’d wanted to be seen. Wanted to be held in that same light, if only for a moment. But no one had asked.

Minutes passed. She leaned forward, drawing her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them and resting her chin there. Someone had wanted to. Cleo thought finally, or perhaps that was just a wish she had for someone who was now gone. Someone who had seen her beyond the insecurities she hid. Or had he always been the one who saw them, and didn’t quite mind? His smile came to mind and she closed her eyes, ”you’re not too much,” he said, eyes locking to hers - the memory suddenly clear and vivid. He returned to his book on the beach as the others of Team Eclipse carried about their activities, and Cleo returned to the present - feeling seen.

She blinked, slowly, and turned to glance back at the A.R.C. Her heart-reading spirit stirred, and without thinking, she stood. She knew where she was going as she drew back inside, she wasn’t sure why, perhaps it was the pull of that loneliness, the weight of the girl’s sadness that she couldn’t shake.

She saw the Pink Lady still sitting alone, the bright pink of her dress betrayed how shy and quiet she was. The loudness of the music couldn’t erase her loneliness, and it couldn’t bury Cleo’s either. Her sadness remained palpable, but Cleo still waded through it, pushing past the weight of it, her own brightness flickering in her chest, weak but steady.

Her hand hovered for a moment, uncertain. But then, she extended it, her smile fragile yet steady, meeting the woman's eyes.

“May I have this dance?”

Commencement: A Foundation Institute RP

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_{Location: Formal Homecoming - A.R.C., Pacific Royal Campus}

Dance Monkey #4.062: Hors D’oeuvre & Cummerbund About It

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_{Interaction(s): Andrew “Banjo” Olyphant@Hound55}

Previously: With The Lights Down Low

Cleo's blue eyes surveyed the scene and as she seperated from her teammates, she felt the all too familiar tug in her chest... Desire to dive into the center of it all. To be amongst the crush of people and the tangle of emotions swirling in the air. There was an ache to get lost in it, to be in it - the epicentre of the electricity. But just as quickly... That flicker of fear--knowing she shouldn’t let herself do such a thing. She sighed, grounding herself back to the task at hand. Weaving through the crowd, she moved with careful ease, never lingering too long against someone's space.

Her mind buzzed—faster than her feet. What to drink? What to eat? Are they going to play that song? I hope they don't play that other song. How long will the night go on? When will I want to leave? When will Manny want to leave? Is Manny okay? Did I forget something—what did I forget? A wisp of something familiar surfaced, like the scent of firewood and old books. Curious. She paused, stopping briefly in her tracks as she felt it tug, but the sudden pinch at her temples chased it away. The music crashed back into focus, loud and insistent, forcing her back into the moment. Curiouser.

She sped up her pace, nearly crashing into the bar. Elbows down, she pushed up on her tip-toes, one leg lifting, swaying in place like some awkward flamingo with ants in its pants. She scanned the drinks menu wide eyed. Lucas would want something non-alcoholic but fizzy. Effervescent and sweet. Raspberry lemonade. Manny? Definitely strong, no messing about. Whisky, neat. Cleo? A Whisky Sour.

Following her order, there was a presence that tapped for her attention to her left like a knock at the door. She turned. A face she recognised, though no name floated up to greet her as reminder. He was weighed down, the sensation of shadows curling around him, brewing their own storm within. There was a drink on his suit too that had dripped only slightly to the floor. He didn't seem concerned by it, but his heaviness was felt like thick smoke curling in. She blinked slowly, sensing the tendrils of his mood reach out, brushing against her edges. Her foot lowered back to the floor. Where dae I know ye from? she wondered.

Still, she was eager to share a word... Break the silence. “Ye’ve got a wet leg,” she said, her lips quirking into a playful smirk, trying to cut through the gloom with a flicker of lightness.

“And yet vodka’s s’posed to be dry. Just cos it's today, I reckon I’ll let ‘em off without makin’ a civil case about it.” He said, raising a glass of orange juice to his lips, his tone more dry than the vodka had been. A warm smile tugged at the corners of his lips. The smile reached his eyes, but they looked weary, as if they hadn’t had been called upon for that kind of duty in quite some time.

He tried to place her, but it was difficult in most cases even with those he was more familiar with, as they were out of regular uniform and done up to the nines. He tried to squint through the fog in his head and pull a name, but that was less than no help.

Where have I seen–

He slapped his leg suddenly in recognition, then shook his hand off twice as if to lose the moisture he’d just covered his hand in.

“Rollerskate Girl, right?

“Ayy,” she replied in kind with a smile, “that's me! And I like the nickname and all, but ye can call me Cleo.” She briefly turned to look at the barman as he continued on to making the drinks for her. His accent, too, she noted, another talking point. His mood still held oppressively in the air.

“Ye sound as far from home as I am. Maybe more actually…” she narrowed her eyes, trying to picture the Earth. Trying to figure out the distance, work out who was closer - her eyebrows scrunched for a moment. “How's life been, not being so upside down?”

“Well… I’ll try to remember it, but I’m not gonna make any promises I prob’ly can’t keep.” Names never really stuck with him, it took an uncomfortably long time to remember those he did both on his team and in his dorm, and this was another random girl he’d seen “‘round the traps” who just happened to be in the same year.

He snorted out a quick exhalation and a dry chuckle at how she chose to phrase the Scot’s question, before settling in to answer it.

“I don’t move around as much here, I’ll give it that much. I mean the weather’s a bit more rough than back home, but fortunately I’ve never really been bothered by the col–”

He stopped suddenly and the smile drifted from his eyes. Another exhalation and chuckle at something unsaid.

“Just a different Pacific island, eh?” He concluded, changing tack completely.

“How ‘bout you? It’s ‘round the bend’ for you,” He held his hands out, as if gesturing to the globe and then pointing a finger around the top. “so have they driven ya there yet?” The grin once again widening.

“It's a different lifestyle, that's fer sure. Round the bend? Maybe not. Up the wall?” She paused, mischief laced her next words. “A little.”

She watched as all too quickly, a slight sparkle dimmed in his eyes. She waggled her fingers in front of her, “like this dance thingamajig right?…. Could never have had something like this back home.” She chuckled.

“It'd be a wee daft disco in our school hall.” Her hands moved and gestured as she talked, “boys and girls on different sides. Some near-retirement age teacher in DJ mode… But this?” Cleo exhaled, bringing her elbows back to the surface of the bar. “Before tonight if someone asked me if I wanted an hors d'oeuvre? I would’ve assumed I'm being insulted.

Feels like something out of a movie alright.” She cautiously sensed through his gloom again. “Gonnae try my best to enjoy it though, for all the effort it's took to do it all.” She gave a small smile, not holding eye contact for too long, but she cast a quick look to the orange juice, “I take it… Not your drink that's on ye?”

“Weeeell, it is and it isn't. There's a good yarn there, but I wouldn't even know where to start with tellin’ it.”

His grin widened further.

“I'll tell ya what, if you find the joker who called me a cummerbund, I'll get the one who called you an hors d'oeuvre in a headlock and you can work the ribs.”

“A side quest?” Cleo replied with a chuckle as the bartender placed a raspberry lemonade next to her before continuing with the rest of her drinks order. “And, maybe some other time for your yarn then,” she added, picking up Lucas’ drink absentmindedly for a sip until she remembered herself and placed it back down just in time. Not before picking out the cocktail umbrella to occupy her idle hands.

“Speakin’ of side quests, hobbits and… well, he's too big for a dwarf…” Banjo mumbled as his roommates struggled to make it through the crowd to get back to him.

“This might be my last night with my team,” she sighed, continuing without hearing his snarky mumbles over the night's din, and giving just a small smile. “Not that ye asked,” she clarified, “but I'll tell ye anyway. Lucky you.” The umbrella opened and closed. Opened and closed. “The last big night of Eclipse. Who knows what tomorrow will be, for any of us really.”

Zimmerman puffed up his chest, and lowered his voice an octave.

“Is this guy bothering you?”

Banjo blinked twice, perplexed at the display.

“...”

“...oh Bloody Hell, have we started already–?” Finally recognising what he was seeing.

“Rollersk– Chlo– Cleo, this is Zimm– This is Alec.”

“Alex.”

“Let a fella finish… AleXXX Zimmerman. A good sort who reads too many comics and hasn't thought through the fact that if he starts talking in that tone he's going to have to keep doing it or show that's not how he usually bloody speaks…”

“Aww come on, Banjo…”

“Zimmerman, this is Cleo. A regular hyperhuman female who actually speaks in a steady consistent register. Who's… nervous..? Experiencing consternation, maybe..? about this possibly being the last night of her team.”

Cleo's eyes darted between the two, figuring out what was going on quickly enough - the nerves seeped from Alex, in a somewhat endearing way. “Ye know, I actually think I'm bothering him…” she answered quietly, leaning toward Zimmerman to only play at keeping her words from Banjo's ears.

“Oh… I don't think so. It's kind of just the way he speaks that always gives that impression.”

“Again… Because he's an asshole…” Big Steve mumbled, also unheard over the surrounding sounds.

The bartender placed Manny’s whiskey beside the lemonade. No umbrella, she noticed. Again, she glanced between Banjo and Zimmerman. “Well…. AleXXX... It is very nice to meet you,” she offered an easy smile and her hand to shake.

Zimmerman excitedly grabbed her hand and shook it rigorously, offering a “Hi.” which if anything, squeaked out at a higher register than his usual speaking voice.

“Seamless.” Deadpanned Banjo.

He drained his glass of juice and then re-ordered another.

Blinking with the handshake, Cleo chuckled slightly as the nervous excitement from Zimmerman spilled across to her. “I… uhh. My… That is quite a handshake,” she said. “So, Alex,” she began, withdrawing her hand to her side. “Are you enjoying the dance? Have you tried the… hors d'oeuvre?”

“Ha!” Banjo ejaculated loudly, making no effort to cover his laugh at the in-joke, prompting the pair of young men to only turn and look at him with some confusion, before returning their focus to the girl who had addressed the smaller of the pair.

“Thanks. Dad always said how important a strong handshake was in making a first impression.” He grinned broadly, this was going well, he thought. “Yeah, this is great, isn't it!? I mean… how are you liking it?” He lowered his enthusiasm in a far-too-too-late effort to regain his cool and match her energy level, which he'd clearly overshot.

“Well, it's a lovely shindig,” Cleo said, as the bartender placed the third and final drink beside her. “Oh!” She exclaimed, with a light laugh. “In case ye wondered, these three aren't all for me,” she shook her head. “Not that ye asked, but I’ll tell ye anyway.” As she spoke, she awkwardly pushed the three drinks together and formed her hands around the triangle of glasses. “Last night with my team and all. Apart from these two, Alex, are you here with anyone?”

Zimmerman's face lit up at the question. “No– no. No, I uhmm… decided to come stag. Keep options open. Not… tie myself down to any expectations on the night. Nice night. Glamorous. Good whatdidyoucallit… shindig.”

“Would you, err– would you like some help, Cleo? You know, with anything? Finding the others on your team, or carrying your drinks or holding your purse, or…anything?”

In his enthusiasm, he had sped up a mile a minute.

Her immediate response was to blink again, nodding along as he hurried through his words. “I don't need a hand with my purse, but… I do only have two hands - you could help me get my drinks to the table.” She gave an encouraging smile, hoping to assuage his nerves. “My friends are at the booth waiting for me…”

She knew what this was leading to, aware of the game from the moment he had brought himself over. “That would be so kind of you– of course I'd be very grateful for your help…Hmmmm…” She drifted off, leaving deliberate breadcrumbs for him with her words, she would have asked herself but this seemed more important for him.

Alex scooped up the three drinks enthusiastically and headed off for the booths, without further question, advice or opportunity for Cleo to change her mind.

Banjo turned and ordered the same three drinks again from the barkeep.

“I may not be good with names, but it'll be a cold day in Hell before I forget a bloody drink…”

“You can't just let him have th–?” Big Steve shook his head disapprovingly.

“You and I both know the man… You chose to come here for your own entertainment. You tell me, in his haste and enthusiasm, is there anything surer than the fact he's going to wind up wearing those drinks, or get lost with them? He didn't even get her teammates’ names.”

Far below, he felt The atmosphere shifted. Silence growing from where background noise had just appeared.

As Banjo looked over the railing he watched as Aurora planted a knee so deep in Chad’s bulbs he was pretty sure nothing would be growing for a while. He spat something back, but between the shot he’d just taken and the ambient noise of the venue Banjo couldn’t make out what it was for the life of him.

Instead of following up on the presumed threats, Chad stormed away through a rapidly clearing crowd. A crowd which cleared too quickly for one familiar diminutive man struggling with carrying three drinks. With neither concern nor apology he knocked them all down the front of Zimmerman’s suit who could only stand there and watch as his task to impress the woman young woman he’d just met splashed all over him. Despite being unable to hear, he didn’t have to be an expert in lip-reading to see his forlorn roommate uttered Aww maaaaaan.

The three drinks were quickly assembled on the bar behind Banjo.

“You take these three, I'll have him get cleaned up and bring him ‘round in a bit.” He said to Cleo. “He might be a bit rattled. Thanks for this.”

“Ah…” Cleo sounded out, bringing a hand to her open mouth as she watched it play out. “Well,” she said after a moment. “Ye've got company in the wet leg club now, at least,” she shrugged her shoulders. She was overdue heading back anyway, she thought.

“No. Thank you for your company,” she said with a smile, turning Banjo's way. Cleo twirled the cocktail umbrella in her fingers still, letting something of their shared joke nestle in it, a slight psionic transference to the folds of paper. “Here,” she said, placing it beside him. “Maybe you'll stay dry next time.”

Having spent more than enough time at the bar, she picked up the glasses, offering nothing else but a wink to Steve on her way too.

Banjo threw up half a wave as Cleo left, her seat soon filled with a familiar blonde face. As she looked at him out of the corner of her eye whilst ordering, he could see that something was brewing from the girl he hadn't heard from in quite some time.

He turned to Big Steve and asked “Could you make a start on helpin’ him out down there, I’ll be with ya both in a bit.”

She waited in silence until the bartender made eye contact and wordlessly pointed to the martini glass she had just settled down on the bar.

Banjo picked up the umbrella and twirled it in his fingers, waiting for the words of his old friend to penetrate the evening.

Heh… Hors D’oeuvre… A grin creased up the corners of his mouth.

---

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Commencement: A Foundation Institute RP

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_{Location: Cleo's Dorm - Lutra Dorms, Pacific Royal Campus}

Dance Monkey #4.024: Don't Stare Into The Sun

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_{Interaction(s): Lucas Bray @Nemaisare, and Immanuel Blaylock @Festive}

Previously: The Twilight Hours of Team Eclipse

Her eyes fluttered open.

Blue, almond-shaped eyes - now adorned with a smokey shadow. Highlighted right in the centre of the lid with a shimmering touch of purple glitter. Her lashes curled upward, framing her eyes that held a thoughtful storm. Almost ready. Almost.

Behind her, a dress hung holding the memory of a promise. Draped over the door. It had been a reluctant choice made some time ago with her Eclipse teammates when laughter was still shared easily among them. They had each sifted through the fabrics and colours together, and the moment of shared joy had agreed, collectively. This dress was for Cleo.

Daisy had picked a butter-yellow gown. Light and breezy like a summer morning. Like her. Darla had picked a colourful pantsuit. Gladys had opted for a sage green dress with tulle. Violet, true to her name, selected a regal floor-length gown in the deepest purple. Whitney, the most daring of the girls, chose a vibrantly hot pink dress that clung to her curves with cutaways that teased a glimpse of her sun-kissed skin. But Cleo—Cleo had been the one who wavered, lost in the endless racks of choice: bright orange, blue, yellow, pink, green... The idea of a dance, a prom, was foreign to her; but it was Whitney who gently guided her toward simplicity. “Let the accessories do the talking,” she’d advised in her voice that had always been laced with certainty.

A cream, form-fitting silk gown that grazed the floor. Spaghetti strapped with an elegantly draping neckline. It was simple, and yet - even Cleo, when she tried it on, felt something inside herself that was much like excitement. In that fleeting moment, her psionic aura shimmered with joy, casting a thousand colors over the fabric—a living canvas.

Now, Cleo looked at it and just felt.... Strange. She took it from the hanger and let it fall over her form. The lighting was harsher here, stripping away the magic that had once clung to the fabric. Without the presence of her friends, their laughter and their own vibrant choices, the thrill seemed to dissipate. She slid the dress over her form, as the joy of picking the dress dissolved, it left behind only the emptiness and absence of the women who had empowered her to wear it in the first place.

She lifted an arm to the back and managed to pull the zipper to half way, frowning in the mirror as she cut several unladylike shapes trying to contort herself to get the rest. "Whatever," she muttered, giving up. Pulling from the dresser an amethyst necklace that sat at the centre of a line of other jewels.

Something that Whitney had neglected to help her with, and had left her alone with since her departure, was the choice of shoes. And she frowned again as she looked into her closet at several options there. "What would Whit choose?" she said with a sigh, eyes tracing back and forth over her options. She expected that Immanuel and Lucas would perhaps offer indifference. "Urgh, why do I care?" she huffed, rolling her eyes at herself. "I don't even want to go."

But... She did want to go. If only to be there for her friends who wouldn't be, and to be there with the friends who would.

And for Immanuel? The latter only held a semblance of truth in his mind. Parties were loud, too loud. The music alone was enough to be its own filter in Immanuel’s mind, its makeshift barrier wherein he pushed not even an ounce of focus into hold up. However behind that music ever so loud chattering and corner discussions of party goers stands stark in the all encompassing mess of music. Immanuel could but imagine how it would fill his mind in only a second the closer the group approached the A.R.C., and the encroaching nervousness that sat on his brain waiting to pounce down on him as the moment neared with each tick of his watch.

With that very same hand that ticked the ever present reminder, Immanuel softly knocked on the door to Cleo’s dorm with the optimistic thought she would hear his feeble attempt and he would not have to knock louder so close to himself. And for the dance Immanuel still stood on the fence with his reluctant acceptance, he donned the suit his father aided him in choosing months prior. For the most part, in the design suit simplicity was key. Draped in the green color of the olives of the mediterranean, he bore a double-breasted suit jacket unworn upon one of his shoulders, his undershirt a fresh white button-up adorned with the brown tie he wore tied around his neck. The slacks he wore as well in sync with the jacket he held, the outfit laid on his form exactly as he had ordered it be fitted by the tailor. On Immanuel’s wrist, slightly below the watch he wore daily was a handmade bracelet, one with the central item being seaglass; it was a memento. Two plastered green seaglass smooth to a finish surround another orange piece laid in the middle held together by a piece of twine that has survived the test of time with flying colors, a remembrance of the past. Everyone on Team 18 had one, and everyone left with theirs as well. It was Lucas’s idea for them to all wear their own, each uniquely crafted in its own perfect way, as a way to hold on to what is left, and to keep everyone near. As he stood outside the door waiting for Cleo to answer, his head looked down the hall to see if he could catch sight of Lucas arriving as well.

From the lightness of the knock, Cleo could discern who was on the other side. With one last glance at herself in the mirror, she raised her hand to her lips, and gave the motion of pulling a zipper closed, locking it with a firm twist at the end, and flicking away a key with a swift, decisive motion. On the other side of the door, as expected, was Immanuel, only - despite her best efforts and that promise in the mirror to be careful with her volume.

“Manny,” she began, her voice teetering on the edge of being too loud. Her eyes quickly widened before she reflexively and apologetically brought a hand to her mouth. “Sorry!” she whispered out. “Look at you though! You look great!” Not wanting to let the faux pas linger, she opened the door and gave a wave of her hand to invite him in.

His head snapped towards Cleo with the advent of her voice, ”Thank you, Cleo!” Immanuel was never one to shy away from compliments, although infrequently received it was a pleasant utterance to experience anytime. However thankful for her words Immanuel felt his body tense up for a split second, his face slightly contorting into a small grimace in which he quickly replaced with a smile, it was obvious to all that her voice toed the line, her sharp exclamation cut into his ears like a razor upon flesh, with her standing right before him her voice sounded like a shouting cry right into the inside of his ear. ”You don't need to apologize, for as long as we've been here I think I got used to it from all of y'all. And look at me? Look at you, absolutely stunning! For as much as me Whitney struck the wrong nerve most days she damn knew how to choose a dress.”

With the invitation to come inside given, Immanuel took a step past Cleo into the dorm room. Taking a solitary seat on her side of her bed, laying the suit jacket to his side. At the very least he didn't have to undergo this party alone, ”You almost set for the party too, hm? Definitely a bit nerve wracking to say the least…” Immanuel trailed off, his hand twirling and flipping the limiter he held in his hand, pushing the band into his pocket after a second.

She gave a smile at the returned compliment, “thanks,” she said - in an appropriate inside voice, ending with a slight girlish giggle. She let the door stay open, knowing Lucas wouldn’t be long. “Mhmmm,” she responded to him with a nod. “Gotta pick me shoes, but, I’d say I’m almost there.”

She felt the apprehension in him, it still sat within her, too. “Yeah… Packed out A.R.C with students, loud music, and all manner of romantic angst. Sounds thrilling.” She feigned a smile, her fingers fidgeting and twisting at a ring that was on her finger. “Certainly not going to need a few business days to get over it.” She glanced downwards, letting her hand drop to her side, where she then began tapping her fingers against herself. “Could be worth it for a chance to dance it out though? Could be..”

“Could be worth a fortune! Hi! Sorry, hello, I’m late.” Though Lucas announced both himself and this fact with blithe unconcern as he walked through the open door, only grimacing halfway through as he tried to talk quieter, and managed… somewhat, he did not actually know if he was late. He’d gotten distracted on the way from his dorm to Cleo’s. There were a lot of well-dressed, smiling people gathering in small groups and excitedly exclaiming over each other outside. “You look so good!” He wasn’t looking at either of them… Though he retroactively meant it when he finally focused on his friends. Absentminded finding his place in the walls twisting as his lips curled sideways and he nodded, firmly. “You do. Sorry, I can’t hold onto the quiet time to go tonight.”

There were too many excited gatherings of sharing opinions and trying on clothes and make-up and hair up or hair down with nervous pumping each other up and predrinking dates for all the years people had prepared for their dances in these dorms to not be feeling some of it himself. Secondhand enthusiasm had carried him through fiddling with buttons and pleats and layered fashion until he’d decided against the coat and could show up with all the formality he usually managed in his—by now—familiar dress uniform of white jacket over a white shirt and plaid kilt and knee-high socks. The red bowtie and gold trim added a splash of colour. It was formal, if not particularly exciting, but he hadn’t wanted anything new. And now, as he held out his arms and turned full circle for their appraisal, which he trusted more than his own in the mirror, Lucas laughed, his own enthusiasm growing on the foundation of everyone else’s.

“Nice zipper dance. Want help?”

What grew with Lucas, also grew as a beaming smile on Cleo's lips. She approved of his kilt. “Lucas,” she said, eyes sparkling, pleased to see him. “You look fantastic,” she brought her hands together only briefly in a single mindfully quiet clap. “You both do.” Her mind wandered, as it often did, to fill in the spaces of her dorm room with her imagined visions of the rest of Eclipse in suits and dresses, a wish that they could have all been together.

“Oh,” she murmured. Realisation pulling her away from the thought, spinning, glancing over her shoulder to try to see the zipper, turning almost in a full circle herself. “Yes… Please. Next option was to wrestle a hanger hook back there.”

“Wrestle a bear with it? Oh! It’s hooked on a… Here.” Thankfully muttering more to himself than trying to be heard over the voices in his head as he listened to far too many animal options for wrestling and tried to figure out what Cleo meant, having never had to wrangle a zipper he couldn’t reach without someone else to zip it for him, Lucas managed to keep his volume low as he stepped up to follow through. The slider brought everything together perfect, the cream silk closing up behind it and Cleo’s warmth filling everything out. She did look good in the dress, different compared to her usual style, but not bad at all. Though her feet were still bare. “No shirt, no shoes?”

“Shoes? Shoes? shooooooes!” Cleo muttered melodically, reminded by Lucas of her last getting-ready conundrum. She reached for her closet again, not before giving Lucas a smile of thanks. She plucked out a pair of towering block heels, patterned in scarlet tartan. A style that was not complimentary to her dress. “You know….” she mused, holding them out by the ankle strap to Manny and Lucas with a soft laugh. “Whitney hated these… So…. It seems only right. Right?”

Damn right. I can picture that smug fuckin’ look getting wiped off her face.” A small smile planted itself firmly upon his lips at the advent of Cleo’s suggestion. As much as Immanuel’s distaste for Whitney stood unwavering in the face of change, he still savoured the time they’d spent together, and much to his chagrin her incessantly loud voice still vexed his mind. “Certainly a nice contrast between what she would love and despise, but if you send her any pictures, make sure to crop out the shoes.”

Head tilting as the shoes swayed with Cleo’s laugh at Manny’s vehement agreement, Lucas didn’t lose his smile, but he did rescue them from their own weight, taking them from her with a bemused expression that turned into a snort. “Please tell me you got these for a laugh.” He managed to match the tone almost exactly, though he still looked more confused than Whitney ever did, and when he continued, it was all him. “How do you walk out th–uhh, how?”

She’d show him after putting them on, probably… Manny looked different, too. Like he actually knew what he was doing… Made him wonder, briefly, if he should have asked him for help before he remembered it had already been offered. He’d said no. He didn’t need more clothes. He had a kilt. And a bracelet of tight knots and twisting threads and steady fingers wrapped around the numbing daze of pounding waves; she’d been humming while she made it. Lucas grinned, holding up his wrist where dark green glass was sandwiched by round beads of brown and pointing to Manny’s. Gladys had been listening to Pratchett while she made his, Thief of Time. It was A Hat Full of Sky for Cleo.

“Only slightly for a laugh,” Cleo answered with a playful smirk. As the boys continued passing glances of reminiscing back and forth, Cleo began slipping herself into them. After she'd fastened the straps and stood back up, she'd grown several more inches. Not quite taller than Lucas, certainly not as tall as Manny. “And,” she began to say, nudging a playful elbow against Lucas. “The same way I walk anywhere, just one step at a time.”

Immanuel’s attention shifted from the heels to Lucas, watching as Lucas held his wrist up. ”Ayy, at least we will all be matching with one thing.” Pushing his wrist outward from his lap, Immanuel rolled up the cuff of his button up slightly and pushed his watch down in one motion to reveal the bracelet hidden within. “She was by far the most crafty of our bunch, I don’t think I would even be able to recreate this, and definitely not Lucas’s. And by the way, way to rock a kilt, brother!”

“Ha. You know it.” He was, at the very least, far less out of sorts in the outfit than he’d been the first time he’d worn it, but five years of formal affairs, even if only occasional, had done wonders. He’d nudged Cleo back when she poked him with her elbow, but as he glanced over now, he couldn’t help remarking on her new level. “Oh, hello, hi, you’re up here now. But not goin’ that high.” His gaze drifted towards the man sitting on her bed. Platform shoes or stilts might be needed for that.

As Lucas spoke, Cleo swiveled on her heel to her desk, picking up one last accessory - a pair of black velvet cocktail gloves. She shimmied them onto her hands, removing her rings, tugging the left hand glove under the seaglass bracelet before pulling them both back over her elbows. A classy touch, but practical, a further small barrier between her and any unwanted feelings.

“Okay. All right. All good to go? We can breathe outside and watch the birds.” If they took too long, they’d be the last to arrive with no one to watch while they hyped themselves up for an evening of social interaction. Besides which, Lucas offered Immanuel a quick, crooked smile as he registered how loudly he’d been talking… “And you don’t like my inside voice.”

”I don’t think you’ve ever had an inside voice. Maybe when you are signing, though then again that doesn’t really require a voice.” Immanuel cracked a fleeting laugh to his friends as he parted the side of the blinds on Cleo’s window to peer out onto the ground below. In his ears hushed whispers of excited students whose voices sounds like underwater static permeated through the gaps in his focus and ran amok across his mind. Dancing and twirling among his thoughts as he watched the people filter out of their respective dorms and boisterously travel down the path that led to the dance, he doubted they’d be able to match the energy of the more packed groups among them but none the less, it was time.

”But yeah, Lucas is right, I think it is about time we get going. Long night ahead y’all, so lets start it out nicely.” With the olive green suit jacket hold firmly in his hand, Immanuel stood, sliding his arms into their designated spots, and buttoning it to a close in a fluid motion. His eyes glancing between the final two remnants of his friend group as he stood in front of the door. ”Now lets get out of here.” His calloused hands opening the gate of their sanctuary to the winding path of one of their final, while not official, missions together.

---

As the three embark from the Lutra dorms and out onto the street the energy the group exuded was dull, a halfhearted walk down the path saddled with an almost solemn silence amongst their ranks. Immanuel kept his hands safely within the bounds of his pockets as they continued along, a sigh seeping out of his formerly held tight lips. There were limits to everything in this world, his focus while strong could still not withstand the ripping force upon the grip it held to his surrounding as they neared ever so closer to the A.R.C. The sound increased with each step, what was now a soft rhythmic drumming of indistinguishable noise would soon ascend. ”I still find it a bit funny of how the three easiest to overwhelm were the last ones left, I doubt the rest would’ve guessed that… But anyway, I was thinking we could have a word, or a signal, or something to show if one of us reached that point during the party.”

“A safeword for the boot scoot and oot?” Cleo asked, casting her eyes to Manny. “Not a bad idea…” She felt her own nervousness flutter in her chest. It was the cruelest irony. That she loved people, parties, and music so much - yet they were often painful reminders of her sensitivities. Their leader was right about that, for each of them in their own ways. ”Play that bat signal, either of you, and maybe we just high tail it to the kitchens. Steal a steak dinner... Bet it’s quiet there… Have our own party.” Cleo’s words trailed off, before she turned her gaze to Lucas. “A sign sounds good, right? Subtle. Inconspicuous… What’d you think?”

“Huh?” A team photoshoot had caught his attention, both for the idea of it, and for counting the numbers. Nine left… Or was it only the graduating year taking part? Oh, there, the guy taking the picture was being gestured into the fold as the rest petitioned another passerby to take another picture. So, when he glanced over to see both his own teammates looking at him with obvious expectation, he froze for a second, head tilting as his gaze slipped towards the sidewalk. Had to take a moment to catch up to the present.

“Oh, right, yeah, I’m not hiding if it’s bad, but I like signing sorry. Then I can feel it if the lights are bright. All right?” As one of the first signs he’d learned from Immanuel, and possibly the one he’d used the most since, it was his go-to when he got to choose any signal. Team coordination or safe word or otherwise, it came easy to him when he needed it, and it was easier for him to pick up on, too, since they were all wearing something over their chests. Bonus that it wasn’t that conspicuous, either. As long as you had a hand free.

”I could get around with that one.” A solitary hand balled firmly into a fist hovered in the center of Immanuel’s chest after it’s removal from his pocket. The sign itself was a simple one, his hand formed into a sign for the letter “A” moving in a counter clockwise circle on his chest. “Sorry,” a silent apology projected to another through the form of actions rather through the use of ones words. Back yonder, when their team’s sun shown down brighter than ever, it’s blessing light which shown the group’s former vigor, the two boys used this in place of English, sign language, as sole communication. ”Yeah, I love it, man. If this party goes to shit, hit the sign and we’ll leave. As a team, one unit.”

Following Manny's hand with a keen eye, Cleo performed the motion along with him, the feeling that it elicited formed a calming blue aura to envelope her fist. The sensation brought a small nod of agreement. “I like it, Manny, this works.”

She drew in a breath, turning her eyes to the A.R.C that was in full view of them now and at the scene that grew more lively with each minute. She bit her lip, a flicker of apprehension crossing her features. “Well alright then,” she sighed out, looking to Manny and Lucas, trying to find determination. Instead, she once again found the absence of nine others.

Darla. Gladys. Amir. Ezra. Whitney. Violet. Daisy. Chaney. Steve.

The weight felt heavy, the wish now distant and unreachable. Plans that wouldn't come to fruition. Things unsaid… Good memories began to win over though. Recollection of laughter again, the small moments, a wall in her mind's eye of a noticeboard peppered in polaroids. Coffee dates. Books and good reads, sidewalk dogs, funny faces, questionable fashion choices… And, she had Manny and Lucas. They had her, and each other too– this was their team now. “To our hardest mission yet,” she spoke, playing in her mind to chase a thread of a joke, to sew it through the night, her smile formed again.

“Surviving the senior dance.”

Kassarock's 1x1 Interest Check Thread (CLOSED, MxM/Any)

Kass is an awesome dude and you should write with him. That is all!