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Post by madfruitbat on Nov 17, 2009 0:26:30 GMT
Kali curled her feet more tightly under herself against the early Autumn chill, and opened her Chemistry book at the page she'd been working from when the yells and shouts from down the corridor had finally driven her from her room. It was the same at the beginning of every new school year - someone away from home for the first time decided to enjoy a little of their new found freedom by having a 'gathering' in their room. Sure, it would end up getting broken up by a member of staff eventually, but not quickly enough for Kali's liking. The noise had disrupted her usually unflappable train of thought one time too many, so she'd retreated to one of the student lounges which was, mercifully, empty.
Kali had always liked this room. The comfortable old furniture and the gentle ticking from the ornate grandfather clock in the corner relaxed her and helped her think. From somewhere above her, another shout and more raucous laughter sounded, but it was far away enough now for her to merely shake her head and mutter under her breath, "If only their parents knew what the fees were really paying for..."
Her hand moved swiftly over the paper, noting down complicated formulae in her neat, tiny handwriting. She became lost in the work, losing all track of time and sense of place, barely noticing as the clock struck the hour.
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Post by angeloftheodd on Nov 17, 2009 20:41:29 GMT
Dante laughed loudly as he emerged from the stale, smoke room and gave a nonchalant wave back over his shoulder.
Thud!
The door slammed shut, the smile dropped from his face and the laughter died as if flicked off at the switch. These first year gatherings used to be a reasonable source of drink and merriment, now he just made token appearances to be polite.
Damn kids, the more antisocial I am, the more they want me around. Also cold beer, I'll never get used to that.
Hands in his pockets, Dante stalked the deserted corridors and shadowy rooms of the old building. He was no stranger to this pastime, he had trodden every step of this place a thousand times, but tonight felt different.
The sound of revelry faded. He felt a great ineffable presence in the night and for the life of him couldn't figure out if he was searching or running away from it.
Dante shook his head in a gesture of dismissal meant only for himself.
He stopped in one of the lounges. To a degree the other rooms of the college kept the decor of its bygone days, only this one kept the spirit. Dante felt at peace among the antiques trappings, so much so it took a moment to register another person among them.
It was no surprise, she was silent and barely animated, entirely absorbed by what she was doing.
Dante turned to leave her to, but immediately span back on his heel. He couldn't resist, she was a curiosity, which was for Dante a rare thing indeed.
Sitting down nearby he crossed leg over knee and reclined, hands behind head in the very model of composure.
"Y'know its peculiar time and place to be so deep in your studies right? "
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Post by madfruitbat on Nov 17, 2009 22:41:45 GMT
Dante's voice startled Kali, breaking through her concentration and bringing her back to her surroundings with a jump. She whipped her head up from the page, and her eyes took a second to make out the slightly hazy figure lounging across from her. Before long she registered the unmistakable aromas of stale beer and cigarettes.
Does nobody else do any work in this place?
It was a few seconds before she realised he'd spoken, and by the time the meaning of the words themselves had filtered through, it occurred to her that she probably ought to reply.
"We're in school - surely no time is so unusual to be studying?" Kali reached up and pushed her glasses up to the bridge of her nose, and the man came fully into focus.
"As for the place... Well, my room is on the same landing as that of the delightful individual who has decided to pollute the corridor with noise, and as drunken revelry isn't my idea of relaxing background music, I sought refuge down here."
She moved as if to tug her glasses back down her nose again, intending to turn back to the page and continue her work, but something stopped her, and she returned her gaze to the man, who seemed in no hurry to go anywhere.
"Surely it's no less of a peculiar time and place to be asking relative strangers about their working habits?"
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Post by angeloftheodd on Nov 17, 2009 23:36:07 GMT
When he finally got a response, a smile spread across Dante's face. It was slightly crooked, but warm and genuine.
That's some determination
"Since your time and place are peculiar to me, it is undeniably the most sane and sensible time to ask..."
He sighed, he could feel the makings of a ramble.
"Don't be too hard on those... Delightful individuals. They are making the most of feeling free while it lasts. Deep down they know that soon they'll roam far enough to find another four walls."
Leaning forward he ran his fingers through his knotted, unkempt hair. He could have sworn he combed it recently, but it had made little impact.
"As for what I'm doing here. I was just wandering, I don't sleep so much these days and I do all my best thinking on my feet. These lounges are quiet at night, there is usually no-one to bother."
He took off his dark glasses, suddenly concious of how out of place they looked in the evening, he rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. While not wanting to pry, he felt sure there was more to understand.
"What I meant before... Is it not a little early in the year to be studying late?"
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Post by madfruitbat on Nov 18, 2009 0:02:21 GMT
The warmth in Dante's smile was infectious, and Kali could feel the corners of her own mouth begin to twitch, ever so slightly. Those who could elicit such a response from her were generally few and far between.
"My workload is what some might call... excessive," she responded, glancing at the heavy Chemistry textbook by her side. "I prefer to think of it as a challenge. I grant you we're early in the year, but I appear to have picked subjects that come with large amounts of additional work and study right from the off."
She shifted her position on the sofa, trying to avoid the pins and needles she could feel beginning in her foot from making their way up her calf. As she did so, his previous choice of phrase returned to her, and she hurried to reassure him.
"But, please don't think me bothered by the interruption. Everyone needs a break from the textbooks every now and then."
Who are you and what have you done with Kali? You'd rather take up sports again than break up your studies for a conversation with a man you barely know, especially one who talks in riddles...
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Post by angeloftheodd on Nov 19, 2009 22:54:27 GMT
It may have only have been slight, but Dante swore he saw the makings of a smile and given the somewhat reluctant reception he had received to start he figured she needed one.
God knows everybody does these days
"It certainly looks like you're up to the job, but if it's only every now and then you get a break I'm honoured to be your interruption."
Rising to his feet once more, he extended a hand in greeting.
"Besides I wasn't going anywhere so you made the right choice. I'm Dante, you may have seen me around, but now at least I'm not a stranger."
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Post by madfruitbat on Nov 19, 2009 23:46:17 GMT
Well now, so he does compliments as well as talking himself in circles...
Kali blushed slightly as she reached out to take Dante's hand, unaware of ever having caused anyone to feel 'honoured' before. She had indeed seen him around, but keeping herself to herself so much, the idea of talking to him had never even begun to cross her mind.
"Kali," she replied simply, her fingertips lightly grazing his hand, rather than gripping her fingers too tightly around his. "Most people in this place are strangers as far as I'm concerned. Usually that's not a problem, but the odd friendly face doesn't go a miss I suppose."
Make yourself sound a little more reluctant to make a friend, why don't you?
"I mean..." she hastily corrected herself. "Not that I mean meeting you is a bad thing, just..." She tailed off, lapsing into embarrassed silence, and looked away.
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Post by angeloftheodd on Nov 21, 2009 0:25:54 GMT
As a slight colour rose to Kali's cheeks, it sent a warmth coursing through his veins that had been a long time absent. The flush becoming of her.
He held back the urge to touch her cheek and turn her gaze back toward his.
"I know what you mean Kali and the pleasure is all..."
Just as he tried to take his hand away from her delicate grip he was cut short by a loud cacophony piercing the night. He had heard these clocks sound a hundred times, but never before had they taken on a tone so urgent and foreboding.
Furthermore he had never heard them strike at only twenty minutes past the hour.
Like a wild beast taking up a ominous cry he heard another of the great clocks sound a way down the halls, slightly asynchronous, so as to almost echo.
Then a third.
Without thinking Dante tensed and made a protective move closer to Kali.
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Post by madfruitbat on Nov 21, 2009 0:47:05 GMT
Kali felt relieved by Dante's words, accepting she perhaps hadn't made quite the idiot of herself she thought she had. The smile that had fled from her lips with her last words would have spread back across her face, had a deafening noise not shattered the peace of the common room at that same moment. Kali physically jolted forward and stared wildly around the room, her eyes settling on the tall grandfather clock. She'd heard it chime so many times in the past that it shouldn't have caused even the slightest stir in her, but this sound was different. She less heard it and more felt it, as if the sound came not from deep within the case of the clock, but rather from deep within her own being.
The noise grew louder as more clocks joined in the discordant song. Kali shrank back into the chair, raising her hands to the side of her head as if to try to block out the sound. She felt Dante move closer and instinctively leant into him. Her eyes travelled over the ceiling, the floor, the walls, the empty space between, trying to find something, anything, to help her make sense of the situation.
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Post by angeloftheodd on Nov 23, 2009 19:33:26 GMT
Dante's heart seemed to beat a thousand times a minute, the blood surging through his veins almost drowned out the clocks incessant cry entirely.
The clocks... A sign.
He felt as if all corporeality had slipped away, overtaken by a euphoria greater than any drug could dream to touch. A hundred emotions tried at once to invade his conscious but were washed away.
He gentle gripped Kali's wrists trying to move her hands away from her head and her gaze toward his.
The clocks... The sign... It's her. That means I didn't... I didn't...
"Kali... Trust me."
As he spoke he mouthed in exaggerated motions in case she couldn't hear. From where she had leaned in, he kept her close
"I know I'm not anyone, I know come from nowhere. But trust me. Please"
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Post by madfruitbat on Nov 23, 2009 22:33:22 GMT
Kali reluctantly allowed her hands to be removed from the sides of her head, and tilted her gaze up to meet Dante's. She watched his lips form the words 'Trust me', heard them reverberate inside her head, his voice sounding different, distant, as if not being heard in the real world, but remembered from long, long ago.
Then another voice penetrated her consciousness. Calmer, and more steady.
They're clocks, Kali. Just clocks, making a lot of noise. Be reasonable. Be realistic. You don't know this man from Adam - he was at the party, he's probably drunk, he's probably rigged them to frighten you. What are a load of clocks going to do to you?"
Kali tore her gaze from Dante's, threw herself off the sofa and spun back to face him. "MAKE THEM SHUT UP!" she yelled, suddenly furious at allowing him to make such a fool of her, to see her scared.
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Post by angeloftheodd on Nov 23, 2009 23:00:30 GMT
He winced at the raise of her voice.
The chiming grew louder, more distorted. Behind that the hands of the clocks spun erratically, squeaking and crunching in protest at the unnatural motion.
"Kali. C'mon I need you to be cool."
He took a step back. She looked terrified, Dante couldn't keep the concern from his own face, let alone think of a way to comfort her.
Keep control damn you.
"I can't stop this. You can. Don't be scared, you are stronger than you can understand. Let me help you."
He reached out a hand.
Please gods let her listen, please let her keep control
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Post by madfruitbat on Nov 23, 2009 23:49:18 GMT
Kali's anger abated at the terrified look on Dante's face. She stared at the grandfather clock as the hands started to spin, then turned back to him, bewildered.
"You're wrong," she said, struggling to keep her voice from shaking. "I can't stop this, I wouldn't know where to start. I don't know where half of it's coming from." She stared over to the door. "And why is no-one else here? Surely the whole house must be able to hear this."
Another chime struck, sounding as if it were directly next to her right ear. Kali flinched violently away, then peered back in the direction of the sound over her clenched hands, as if expecting a clock to have appeared by her side out of nowhere.
She looked back to Dante in desperation, irrationally but entirely panicked. He held his hand out to her and, slowly, reluctantly, she reached forward and wrapped her fingers around his.
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Post by angeloftheodd on Nov 24, 2009 0:35:36 GMT
As she took his hand Dante's heart skipped a beat, part from the energy, part from her touch and part just plain relief.
His greatest fear was that she would slip further from control, that her power would run amok at the fabric of time, that he would reach out his other hand and...
In the darkest of times, the Prophet does not just awaken. But this time I am spared.
He took Kali's hand, it seemed small within his own. He gave it a reassuring squeeze before he began, turning her hand palm flat and closing his eyes.
"You can stop this. The clocks only recite the time"
He traced gentlely with a practiced hand the semblance of a clock.
"But you dictate it, control the clocks, command the time"
Up to her wrist, the symbol of an hourglass.
"For you were first Lycia, once Lillian, now Kali, but always chosen"
Further up her arm Dante traced the names in runes older than even he. As he finished each form they took on an ethereal glow.
"You are of the Seven. The spirit of times tides, of it's ebb and flow."
Up to the shoulder.
"Once you passed, but now are reborn. Once you slumbered, but now are awakened."
The planted the final sigil, the Ouroboros, the cycle eternal, upon her cheek.
He opened his eyes and let go his breath and waited.
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Post by madfruitbat on Nov 26, 2009 23:25:22 GMT
Kali stared at Dante as he began to speak. Initially her mind could only question how, in the middle of all the chaos around them, he had taken on such a state of calmness. But as he spoke, as the words took root in her mind, she felt the panic ebb away, and slowly closed her eyes. As if from somewhere a long way away, she could still hear the gentle tones of his voice and feel warmth spreading up her arm, as if he were breathing gently onto her skin.
She began to dream. Faces, as familiar to her as looking into a mirror, formed in front of her eyes. She heard voices, snatches of conversation, laughter, filtering in and out of her mind as if from a radio stuck between two stations. She felt the warmth spread to her shoulder, up to her cheek, then slowly fade away.
Kali opened her eyes and gazed, unseeing, around the room until her glance fell upon the grandfather clock. "Cease," she said simply, and the hands ground to a hault.
As if awoken from a trance, Kali gave a small jolt and began to look around the room again, more wildly this time, confusion flooding her previously calm mind. She came to stare at Dante, and snatched her hand violently away from him.
"What did you do to me?"
She clenched her hand into a fist as she pulled it away, and winced in pain. She glanced down, and visibly paled as she caught sight of the skin on her palm, now branded with the symbol of a clock.
"What did you do to me?" she repeated, now backing away, stopping only when she hit a small side table, nearly knocking the lamp on it flying. "I mean it, what did you do? Did you slip me something? Is that why... the clocks, and the... the voices and... and..." She began to shake and her eyes flew to the door as she tried to work out if she could get to it before he could get to her.
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