venuskincaid

[venuskincaid]

(Marissa) [MSG]: Go to bed and stop texting me. This isn’t the intended use of emojis.

[MSG:] [random assortment of emojis]

[MSG:] my fave emoji is the star one

[MSG:] im gonna put a star next to your name

[venuskincaid]

[TXT:] (Cash) Sammy’s gone and spread a rumour that my tattoos are all drawn on with pen [skull emoji] Can you freeze her water next time she’s showering?

[MSG:] pen!!

[MSG:] that is pretty funny

[MSG:] i don’t want to freeze her water but i’ll make it very cold for a few seconds [smile emoji x5]

[venuskincaid]

TXT:] (Dagny) DAGNY DID NOT MEAN TO SIT ON YOU EARLIER. DID NOT KNOW VENUS WAS THERE YOU ARE VERY QUIET

[MSG:] don’t worry about it!!! :) :) :) :)

[MSG:] maybe you should check your chairs before you sit from now on though [wink emoji] [laugh emoji]

[venuskincaid]

[TXT:] (Ollie) How come you never said about your daughter? She’s real cute by the way :)

[MSG:] i dont really talk about her that much

[MSG:] it’s hard sometimes i guess

[MSG:] but she is really cute, right!!! i wish i had recent pictures of her

[venuskincaid]

[TXT] (Ollie) Hey, if you need help putting up your tent when we get to the campsite, just ask :)

[MSG:] okay!! 

[MSG:] i think i will need help

[MSG:] i’ve never put up a tent before

[MSG:] i googled it before we left but it didn’t really help much

[MSG:] and that tent was much bigger than mine

[MSG:] it didn’t have any walls either???

[MSG:] i googled it again 

[MSG:] it was a tutorial on how to put up a gazebo 

[venuskincaid]

Venus had seen the tail end of what had happened to Ollie as she turned the corner towards the garage, but by the time she’d started to jog over, the bell had rang and the three boys disappeared. She only slowed to watch them leave, making a mental note of their faces and deciding she would think of some way to get back at them later, in however small a way that would have been. Venus wasn’t at good at big revenge, but she was good at little inconveniences -- freezing the handle of someone’s dorm door so they couldn’t open it, turning someone’s shower water ice cold just as they finished shampooing their hair, the little things that made someone’s day worse. One of her favourites was freezing people’s feet in place so that they had to wait for it all to melt until they could move again. None of those were things that happened often, mostly because Venus was too nice, but there were times when she was annoyed enough with people to do something about it and not feel guilty enough to bake a cake afterwards. Most of those tended to be people who hurt her friends. 

Venus’ feet gathered speed again until she reached Ollie, coming to a stop in front of him and dropping her bag, like she might need both hands to help somehow. “Hey, are you okay? I saw what happened. Well, some of it. The last bit really. Are you hurt? Should I get someone?”

Ollie’s skin hissed when he was shoved by some other guy, and white, greyish smoke rolled off of his bare shoulders. He cringed when a slur was spat in his face, followed by another few shoves backwards and accompanying laughs. “Come on, stop –” He was shoved again, and this time he had nowhere else to go because his back hit a wall. His face flushed a bright red, but not because he was embarrassed: he had heard worse things from his mother, or his brothers. It was his power. He was getting nervous, and when he got nervous his mutation flared up. “I think she’s got a crush on you, Rodney,” said one of the guys, followed by a gagging noise from, Ollie assumed, Rodney. He winced, but didn’t drop his gaze to his feet. No. Ollie was going to meet this guy’s stare dead on, even if his heart beat wildly in his chest as he did so. Leaning his head back against the brick wall, he did nothing, said nothing, only stared. “What the fuck do you think you’re staring at, freak?” Ollie’s skin continued to hiss; the heat emitting from his body growing so hot that Rodney actually had to take a fraction of a step back, large forehead beginning to swelter. It was then that a bell rang, taking the trios attention before they threatened Ollie a final time and left him there. Ollie watched them disappear around the corner, fists clenched and slightly shaking, unaware of the person rushing up to him as he gathered his nerves.

[venuskincaid]

At some point Venus found herself taking another step into the room, because the space between them felt a little too big for the conversation, but she only moved a few inches past the doorway. She bit her lip as she watched Dagny, unsure of what to say or do just because she didn’t know the woman all that well. Part of her also found the blonde scary -- that hadn’t been helped by watching her execute someone -- but that didn’t mean she thought Dagny was going to hurt her. “I saw her in the hall earlier.” Venus paused, attempting to think back. “I left pretty early so... I don’t know if she’s still there or not. I think she is. Because otherwise she’d be here with you, right?” Dagny and Zoe had barley been apart since arriving at Hollental; not that they spent that much time apart at Morgana either, but the difference was even more noticeable. She would have liked to think that Zoe was just giving her girlfriend some space to deal with things. 

At the apology Venus swallowed and shook her head. “It’s not -- I mean, it was kinda... gross and unexpected and everything... and it made me feel a little sick. And it was kind of brutal. But it wasn’t... well... yeah.” She trailed off, rubbing at the back of her neck and wishing for once that she’d just stayed quiet. Her last experience with death at Hollental was with Adalwolfa, and the poor baby. That had been wrong. It was easy for her to argue against that situation, to be at a firm viewpoint. But it was a grown man that had just been executed, and Dagny wasn’t the type of person to go around beheading people for fun, or just because she felt like it. Even Venus knew that. How was she supposed to feel anything about what had happened without knowing why? “Can I ask you... why you did that? You don’t have to tell me. I was just wondering. But if you don’t want to say anything that’s okay too.”

Dagny had hoped her visitor would be Zoe, so when she saw that it was Venus, her eyes dropped to the floor and she grunted, turning her back on the younger woman. She bundled up the wet cloth in her hands, marked red and blue, and dropped it back into a nearby wash basin. She couldn’t stop thinking about the execution; how it had rooted in her a deep satisfaction at the time, but now, as she sat alone, that satisfaction was replaced by a gaping hole grumbling with an insatiable hunger. She’d had a taste of retribution for what’d happened to her as a child, and now she wanted more. But the longer that taste remained in her mouth, the bitter it seemed to become. Dagny wasn’t a vengeful person. Her reasons for killing one of her uncles had been purely political, yet she could not deny, now, that small part of her that had liked it. 

“This is true, yes.” Dagny sighed, and lowered her head into her hands. Dagny wasn’t close to Venus, they’d been a part of different social circles back at Morgana, so they hardly spoke unless circumstance brought them together. It felt like years ago now, but she vaguely remembered seeing the younger woman in her classes. In Dagny’s silence, she almost forgot Venus was standing there, and she glanced back over her shoulder to see if the girl remained; she did. This time, Dagny attempted a tired half-smile. “Dagny will be fine. Uh, has Venus seen Zoe anywhere?” Worry creased her brows, as did small fear that perhaps her display of brutality had scared her girlfriend off. “Dagny is – sorry, for what Venus had to see tonight.”

[venuskincaid]

Venus didn’t know Dagny all that well. The two of them had talked a couple of times, and Venus might even have called them friends (because she called most people her friend regardless) but she hadn’t know how to react to what had happened in the Great Hall at all. Her first feeling had been nausea and then repulsion, followed swiftly by the dizzying need to lie down. She’d been one of the first to leave the celebrations because she felt sick, and had hoped to fall asleep once she got into bed. But luck wasn’t on her side and she’d tossed and turned for a few hours before finally deciding to go for a walk. 

Her feet let her wander aimlessly but she never strayed too far towards the hall, still humming loud with those not willing to let the party end. She did, however, end up passing Dagny’s quarters, and wondered if the woman was in there or if she too was still enjoying celebrations. Venus had been able to tell, despite being so repulsed at the sight of the beheading, that the whole thing hadn’t been easy for Dagny -- it was her uncle that she’d killed, after all, and Venus had assumed there was a very, very good reason for what had happened. For a moment Venus hesitated by the doorway but eventually decided to poke her head inside, offering up a small smile as the older woman turned to look at her. 

It was then that Venus almost regretted entering the room because she didn’t quite know what to say, and there was an awkward silence as her eyes darted once or twice around the room before returning to Dagny’s face. “I just thought I’d... check on you. And see if you’re okay. It’s been a... long day, hasn’t it?”

Sunrise had been an hour and a half ago, which meant that she had officially been QUEEN ( essentially - they didn’t call it that here ) for an hour and a half now. Many were still celebrating in the Great Hall, but there were some, mostly all of the people from Morgana, who had disappeared back to their rooms. Dagny had not been able to wash off her uncle’s blood until after her coronation, lest she risked washing off her ceremonial paint too. So upon her return to her quarters, the first thing she did was pour water into a basin to begin washing away any remnants of Beringar from her flesh. She ran wet hands down her face, smudging blue paint with red blood, and stared at nothing in particular; lost in deep thought. Yet she flinched when she heard someone enter behind her, and turned to look over her shoulder at whoever it was.

[venuskincaid]

[TXT]: something's wrong with the fridge and the ice cream is melting this is a 911 get over here asap

[MSG:] i’m on my way!! [star emoji x 4]

[MSG:] i’ll bring cash, maybe he knows how to fix fridges

[MSG:] i’m not sure

[MSG:] worth a try!!!! [smile emoji x 8]

[venuskincaid]

(Cash) "What happened? Did they MUG you? Oh jesus, Venus, your face."

“It’s -- it’s fine.” Venus shook her head, a shaky smile surfacing on her face even though she was still crying. She had no idea how she’d managed to drive back to the academy -- didn’t remember any of it either. The moment where someone had pressed a knife to her neck and demanded her bag kept replaying her mind, over and over, sending the same cold chills down her veins every few seconds. Small chips of ice began to drop from her fingertips, a nervous habit that she had no control over. Her face felt swollen and tender; she could see blood under her fingernails, though she remembered little about the actual attack. The knife hadn’t been used on her but their fists had, because she hadn’t let go of her bag quick enough; shock had stopped her from reacting in time to help herself. “It doesn’t hurt that much.” It did, but she didn’t feel much of it yet. The worst of the pain would likely come once she’d calmed herself down. “I just lost my phone. It had... pictures. And I don’t have those pictures anywhere else.” Venus had never managed to do anything with the pictures on her phone of her daughter. There were only a few of them from the brief ten minutes she’d held the tiny baby in the hospital, but they were all she had and she’d wanted to keep them. My own fault I guess. Should have done something sooner with them. “Can you find it somehow? Tracking or... something. I don’t know. I don’t care about the money or anything I just really need the phone.”

[venuskincaid]

(Adalwolfa) "What I did was a mistake. I was wrong, and -- I'm ready to listen now."

Of all the words Venus might have expected to come out of Adalwolfa’s mouth, those ones would have been at the bottom of the list. In fact for a second or so she was sure she might actually have imagined them -- wishful thinking on her own part, but the look on the woman’s face told her that wasn’t the case. The two of them hadn’t spoken since the incident with the baby, and Venus had made a point to avoid the other woman at all costs, because she still hadn’t gotten over it. Even so she knew the words were oddly uncharacteristic, and suspected she might have just been trying to pull some kind of trick again. But what was there to gain this time? Nothing. Adalwolfa had found Venus of her own accord and had said those words without any kind of prompting. There was no outcome that had an ulterior motive as far as she was aware. Venus slipped her bracelet back onto to her wrist, out of her hands where she’d been fiddling with it, and swallowed as she nodded at Adalwolfa. “I’m... glad you see that now. Thank you for admitting it. It probably wasn’t easy for you.” She sincerely meant those words, and hoped they didn’t sound sarcastic. “If you’re ready to listen I did have some ideas about... you know, the kids that aren’t wanted. If that’s what you meant. If it’s not then I’m not really sure what you’re ready to listen to, exactly.”

[venuskincaid]

adalwxlfa:

She hadn’t meant to give the girl hope, but if she came away from this having learnt anything, it would be to trust few, or better yet, no one. It bothered Adalwolfa slightly that Venus was a mother. In the brief moments before she’d killed the child, the girl had opened up a little, and what had she given in return? Adalwolfa was not so heartless that she could claim, with certainty, that she felt nothing for killing the baby in Venus’ arms. Adalwolfa was a mother like Venus was a mother; it hurt to take an infant’s life more than she could possibly say, but she knew how to ignore it. She had to. Had to. This was the way it had always been.They could not have taken care of that boy no matter Venus’ ideas. 

Once the baby’s warmth was drained, his life stirring at her fingertips like little, invisible wisps, Adalwolfa removed her hands from his corpse. She prepared for the girl’s response in austere silence, and didn’t flinch when a cloud came over her expression. “You were going to – what?” Adalwolfa grew pathetically irritated with her own curls, and raised her hands up into her locks to begin pulling them back into a tight ponytail; her braids, too. “Raise him as your own?” Once she was finished with her hair, she dropped her arms and stepped away, eyes only briefly going to the baby in Venus’ arms. It was enough of a glance to make her lips pinch tightly together. “You know why. I’ve explained why.” She said, and stared the girl down. “You should have just given me the child, Venus. I asked you twice.” Again, her lips twitched, as if she wanted to say I’M SORRY.

As the seconds ticked past Venus only began to shake more, the small body in her arms growing colder as she tried to blink away tears. Stupid, stupid! Why did you trust her? It was too fast. Shouldn't have let her near. The more Venus thought she more she realised she should have just left with the baby -- surely she would have been fast enough to make it out of the room and down the hall, anywhere where more people were. Maybe Adalwolfa wouldn't have wanted to do that in public. For the first time in as long as she could remember, Venus sincerely wanted to hit someone. People had been mean to her in the past, hurt her, taken her things, been cruel to her friends, and she'd been angry those times but she'd never wanted to physically harm anyone. The feeling was odd and it made her heart beat faster than normal, made her thoughts speed past before they could fully register.

Adalwolfa's apparent lack of empathy for what had just happened made her even angrier -- she was a mother too, wasn't she? How could she feel nothing for killing a baby? How could she stand there like someone's life hadn't just been ended for no good reason? How could she stand there like it wasn't her fault? “Yes! I could have done that! Nobody wanted him so I could have raised him.” Venus had, in fact, been fully prepared to do just that. She'd wanted to find him some kind of family but she knew that would have been hard, if not impossible, and was ready to be a parent to a second child if need be. “No you didn't explain why. You just said that this is how it is. That's not an explanation! That doesn't mean anything.” Ice began to form at the tips of her fingers as she became angrier, sharp spikes meant for hurting. “How can you just stand there like nothing even happened? You just killed a baby. Does that not even bother you? Are you really that heartless?”

[venuskincaid]

( adalwxlfa: )

Venus’ refusal to give up the child left Adalwolfa with limited choices, and her expression soured a smidgen as she waited for the girl to finish talking. It gave her time to consider her next actions. She did not want to kill the child herself, especially not here, but then Venus resisted by taking a step back, and the action sparked in Adalwolfa a harshness. She waited a moment in silence, stoic as she stared at the girl. All that could be heard after Venus’ outburst was the gurgles coming from the baby she held. Adalwolfa could have easily ripped it from Venus’ arms, though Venus would no doubt get hurt in the process, but she had a feeling that the girl, as passionate as she was about the well-being of infants, would not desist even if she stole the baby. Very briefly, Adalwolfa’s nose pinched, and she looked as if she might get angry, but something odd occurred. She broke off her glare to gaze down at the infant, and it was obvious to any who watched that the tension in her posture eased, as if she was changing her stance, as if the girl had gotten through to her. 

A warmth, similar to the look she gave her daughters ( yet not quite ) softened out her normally sharp features, and she nodded her head. “I… suppose…” Pretending to contemplate Venus’ words, Adalwolfa studied the child, whom stared back at her with large blue eyes and an unsuspecting smile. She would not regret what she was about to do, but something in her chest did tighten. “He is– sweet looking. Isn’t he?” Taking a subtle step closer, she raised her hands to the child’s face, wary of how fast her movements might make Venus pull away some more. Every thing about Adalwolfa’s sudden demeanour was meant to appease Venus. “Boys always have fatter cheeks than girls.” As she spoke softly, she stroked her fingers over his cheeks until her palms cupped his head entirely. He appeared to react well to the touch, and the smile he gave made her blood run cold. A ghost of a smile fluttered across her lips, thumb smoothing against his face a final time. “Gute Nacht.” She said, gripping the infant’s head with a sudden force. Her wrists flicked to a side, a small crack, a little pop, sounded, and the boy grew limp, silent; dead. 

All at once, a quiet anger came back into Adalwolfa’s face, Adalwolfa’s body, and blue eyes flitted to Venus’ face, hands still cradling the baby’s head. She could feel death fill up his tiny body; how it pooled into her palms like a surge of new power. She took no pleasure in this. DUTY.

Venus swallowed, watching Adalwolfa's expression for any kind of change, waiting for some words that would mean she'd gotten through to her. For a moment she held her breath and as the blonde seemed to relax, so did she. Still she stayed that extra step away though and her grip on the baby stayed firm. It could easily have been a trick, some way of fooling her, but when Adalwolfa nodded and spoke those doubts began to evaporate. She was a mother too, after all, and she was sure that instinct had won out against whatever she thought was the best thing to do for the situation. Venus began to wonder where she would put the baby to sleep, what she would feed him, if she should give him a name. She wondered how she might have felt if she'd kept her daughter four years ago and if it would have felt anything like this rather than sad.

“He is.” Venus nodded, a smile cropping up on her face as her eyes moved from the baby to Adalwolfa. “Do they? I didn't know that. I... had a baby myself. A few years ago. She was a girl. I don't really remember how fat her cheeks were though.” Venus rarely brought up her own child, because it wasn't something she needed to talk about and it wasn't like it was ever a topic of conversation. But right then it felt relevant and as she talked she didn't notice how close Adalwolfa had gotten. It didn't make her nervous just then either. She was fine with it, wasn't she? She wanted Venus to take care of him. She was supportive of this. Venus swallowed as Adalwolfa's fingers traced over his face, and then it happened -- faster than she could stop, faster than she knew how to react to. It was near instantaneous. A crack, a pop, and the infant in her arms went limp. He made no more sound.

For a few seconds everything seemed to hang still in the air, moving in slow motion. She couldn't breathe and tears began to pool in her eyes, hot and blinding. Why did she do that? Why did she do that? Why did she -- “Why... what did you...” Venus sucked in a shaky breath, bottom lip quivering as the tears began to drip down her face. Her hands began to shake and she didn't want to hold the baby anymore; it felt wrong and made her feel sick, but she didn't want to give him to Adalwolfa either. Her eyes rose to meet Adalwolfa's slowly, and though Venus did not often feel hate for another person, she was sure it burned clearly in her eyes right then. “Why did you do that? You didn't have to kill him! I was going to... why would you do that? There was nothing wrong with him! He didn't need to die!”

[venuskincaid]

( adalwxlfa: )

Adalwolfa’s lips thinned the slightest amount, and she stared at Venus in small displeasure. She hadn’t needed the girl to tell her what she could see for herself; it already irritated her enough. “Not all of the time, no.” Her jaw sharpened. “Sometimes they are abandoned because they are unwanted, or human. But this one’s too young for anyone to tell whether he has a power or not, so I’m going to assume that it’s the former reason.” Adalwolfa could understand leaving the deformed to die, they would not survive long here, it seemed a small mercy really; yet it made her sick to think that any mother could leave their healthy child by pure CHOICE. “If we knew who the mother was, or the father, they’d be exiled for this.” As if that was any form of consolation for what was going to happen to the child she held. 

Adalwolfa’s arms remained extended, even after Venus’ hesitation. That she didn’t immediately hand over the baby garnered the woman’s disapproval, which was obvious in the way her cheeks slightly thinned. It seemed obvious what she was going to do with the child. No one could look after it now, and no one would adopt it either. Briefly, Adalwolfa was reminded of Drusus. An Ermengard, but not through blood. Adoption was not unheard of here, it was just incredibly rare. Perhaps Drusus wouldn’t have even joined them, had Adalwolfa not so recently lost her only son when she found him hiding in the mountains as a small boy. Her good deed. “I will take him into the mountains.” As her eyes narrowed, she tilted her head. “I don’t know why you’re asking when you already know.” If it wasn’t over such grim proceedings, Venus’ offer to help somehow might have endeared her to Adalwolfa. She might have even smiled. As it happened, she only hummed once. “You can’t do anything for it, Venus. You won’t be able to take care of a baby, not here, least of all now with everything that’s going on.” Again she inched closer, this time a little more insistent that Venus hand it over. “The child.”

As Adalwolfa spoke Venus looked down at the baby, a frown appearing on her face again. She didn't understand how someone couldn't want their child; although she'd given up her own daughter, to her that was just different. She wanted to keep her, wanted to raise her, but at fifteen years old there was no way she was ready. Maybe the mother of this child was only fifteen too. Maybe they weren't ready. That thought made her sad, and she swallowed, trying to remind herself once again that things were different in Hollental. There was no birth control or condoms, or anything to stop someone getting pregnant. As far as she knew abortion wasn't an option either and she had a suspicion that it was something they'd frown upon anyway. There were no adoption agencies or foster homes or anyone to take in babies that weren't wanted, and so what other choice did a person have but abandonment? Was it kinder, perhaps, to take an unwanted infant into the mountains and let it die before it remembered how to feel?

No. It's not. It shouldn't be. Venus could wrap her head around not being ready, and not having options, but she couldn't figure out why effectively murdering a baby was ever the best solution. It made her angry for a fraction of a second, and then sad, and then sick. She looked up at Adalwolfa. “Because I hoped that I'd be wrong.” Her grip on the sleeping bundle in her arms tightened some, and although she knew the blonde was right in some of what she was saying, she still couldn't hand over the baby. It felt wrong, and when she knew what was going to happen as soon as it left her arms, it went against every fiber of her being. “Why can't I do anything? It's a baby. It's not... I can take care of it. There are people who can help me, it'll be fine.” She sounded almost desperate as she spoke, taking a step back from Adalwolfa. “Please! I can't just let you take it out there. It's not right!”

[venuskincaid]

( adalwxlfa: )

Children were often abandoned here. It was not often that the child was left within Hollental’s walls, but it happened sometimes; normally because the mother, or father, wanted to remain anonymous. Taking an infant through the gates was not frowned upon if it bore a disability, but it was shameful to some here, birthing a weak babe; some thought it meant others wouldn’t want to breed with them. Adalwolfa had been watching the baby on the floor for a while now, leaning against a wall with her arms crossed. Its cries left her body stiff. As a mother, she had the instinct to go over and pick up the child, soothe it, care for it, but these feelings she squashed. Some part of her held on to the hope that this was a misunderstanding, and that the parents would return at any moment. This wouldn’t be the first time. If not, she would take the child out to the mountains herself. Judging by its hair colour, it was not an Ermengard. Freedmen abandoned their children this way more frequently than an Ermengard. Sometimes, even, without a reason. 

No one had paid the baby any mind for an hour now, so Venus’ arrival made Adalwolfa straighten. Her arms slowly dropped back to her sides, and she almost stopped the girl from picking up the child, only something made her hesitate. Venus took the baby into her arms so naturally, and cooed down at it so similarly to the way in which Adalwolfa comforted her own daughters, that she decided to take a moment and watch her. Adalwolfa might even have said that Venus was a mother herself. It seemed cruel to let the display go on for too long, however, so she approached the girl eventually, careful eyes upon the baby’s face. It was no longer crying. “No, I do not.” She replied, unsurprised when she was addressed. “Its mother doesn’t want to be known either, so you should leave it at that.” She inched closer, holding out her arms to take the child. Looking at it, she could see no reason as to why it would be abandoned, and the notion that someone would simply let it die because it was not wanted made her lip twitch. So her eyes lifted away. “You don’t have to do anything for it. It’s not wanted, and it isn’t yours.” 

Venus was glad that it was Adalwolfa that had approached her; for one she was a little more familiar with the people around Hollental, and she could communicate properly with her. The language barrier had been a source of frustration for a few weeks and Venus had actually begun to learn German in order to combat it. Although she had hoped that the baby being left on the ground was just a simple misunderstanding, it appeared that wasn't the case, and her face fell at Adalwolfa's words. “Oh... okay.” She paused for a moment, frowning down at the baby and then looking back at Adalwolfa. “But there's nothing wrong with this baby. I mean, that I can see. I thought people only left babies if there was something wrong with them?” As far as Venus could tell the baby was perfectly healthy (certainly sounded that way too), so she couldn't understand why it had been left.

As Adalwolfa held her arms out to take the baby, Venus hesitated. “I know. I just... what are you going to do with it?” She doubted Adalwolfa was about to adopt a random child, and she was also fairly sure that Hollental had no such thing as an orphanage, or any way to place an abandoned child with a family that wanted it. More than likely Adalwolfa was going to take it out to the mountains to die. It made Venus feel sad, and a little bit nauseous, as she looked down at the baby. There were certain ways things were done in Hollental and she knew that, but it seemed wrong to let anything happen to the baby. She knew there were more -- countless more that had been and would be left to die, but even just one being spared that would be a difference, wouldn't it? “Maybe I could do something. I don't know how all of that works here but... I can't just leave it. I really can’t do that.”

[venuskincaid]

angxlalvarez:

It was safe to say Angel hated Hollental. He was a city kid at heart, used to the smell of air pollution and falling asleep to the mindless chatter of the city (and a gunshot or two every so often), in some ways, Hollental made him more homesick than Morgana ever had. Not to mention, he still had a running theory that when traveling to Hollental they had actually hopped aboard a time machine. The people here were different, to say the least and the fact that he couldn’t watch monotonous singing reality TV shows when he got bored was a bummer, sure, but the one thing he’d never learn to adapt to was the ghosts. He wasn’t very good at the whole “ghosts” thing – mediumship, whatever – it came and went, and it was like blurry and hazy. He would hear them, babies crying at the coldest edges of Hollental, where he once went when he needed to be alone. He could just barely make out any shapes but he could hear them, clear as day, it still echoed in the back of his mind wherever he went, something to remember Hollental by, he supposed.

He hadn’t even realized the room he’d stumbled into in an attempt to clear his of the commotion of Hollental: with it’s regular residents combined with the influx of Morgana students, it was safe to say Hollental would be in constant unrest for a while. “No, I don’t.” He told her, taking a few tentative steps to get a better look at the child, smiling down at it. “It’s a good thing you found hi-her? Them. It’s a good thing you found them.” He mentioned, “You probably saved their life.”

Venus didn’t think she’d ever met the other person who walked in -- and for a second she worried that she had, and had forgotten about them, which made her feel bad. She didn’t have much time to think about it though because the baby’s cries began again and she hurried to rock her arms back and forth, a calming motion that seemed to do the trick. She doubted it would continue working for long though -- babies needed feeding, often, and it was impossible to tell how long this one had been left alone on the floor. “I thought you probably wouldn’t. But it was worth a shot, I guess.” She shrugged and smiled, pulling the blanket back for a second to find out if she was holding a boy or a girl before wrapping it back around a little more secure. “Alright, he’s a boy. Maybe that’ll make it a little easier to find his parents.” If they even want him back. She’d heard about the babies left out to die, but those were always at the edge of Hollental, in the mountain pass or by further walls, where they would freeze to death and be left forever. As far as she knew it wasn’t so common to leave babies hanging around inside, and hoped the whole thing was going to turn out to be one big misunderstanding. “Yeah, maybe I did. Hopefully his parents  won’t think I’m trying to steal him or something.” Venus let out a small laugh, shaking her head as she looked back at her new companion. “I’m Venus, by the way. I don’t think we’ve ever really met. Or if we have and I forgot I’m really super sorry, I must have... not been paying attention or something.”

[venuskincaid]

There were many things Venus didn't understand about Hollental; a lot of things she questioned and a lot of things she didn't, but by far the oddest thing she'd experienced there was finding a baby on the floor. For a second she'd wondered if she was hallucinating -- who leaves a baby on the floor, after all? But it was there, wrapped up in a blanket and crying, and the few people walking past seemed to be completely ignoring the commotion (much to her own disbelief). Hesitation made her pause as she looked around the room, hoping to see a parent rushing forward to pick the baby up, but there was nobody. Only her. Slowly she knelt down and carefully picked up the infant, cradling it in the crook of her arm.

An uncomfortable swell of emotion appeared in her stomach as memories resurfaced in her mind, of holding her own child in the hospital. It had only been for a few minutes before she was taken away, but Venus remembered every second in startling clarity. A smile appeared on her face as she rocked the baby, though there was something sad about it too, and as the crying began to die down she heard footsteps approaching. “Oh, hey -- do you maybe know who's baby this is? I just found... them... on the floor. I don't know if they're a boy or a girl, I didn't look yet. I just, y'know, don't really know what to do right now.”