Story Thread - 8/17

[Aquinas]

First topic message reminder :

A memory (cw: hydrophobia):

You awake with a start to the sound of your alarm. It was only a dream.

You roll over with a groan and force your bleary eyes to make out the numbers on your clock. 8:30. The last Tuesday for a while that you'll get to sleep that late.

You go about your morning routine - shower, breakfast, switch on the TV. You're disturbed by the news - still no sign of Mikayla Li. Her mothers are begging anyone who knows anything to come forward. The details of the dream are already starting to fade in your mind, but you think Mikayla was in it. You decide you've been watching the news too close to bedtime.

You check your email. Vice Principal wants to see you today when you get in. You've seen her a few times at various meetings in the last few weeks, but you haven't had the chance to talk to her one-on-one yet. Good, now you'll get the opportunity.

You hop in your car, or on a bike, or on a bus. The town rolls past you - the bars of Dear Bellam are tossing out the garbage and putting up their breakfast menus for last night's patrons with this morning's hangovers. Someone's working on fixing the skylight on the roof of the art museum - it must have taken a beating in that hailstorm last month. The joggers in Meadows U shirts are out in force in Syme Park, a few of them stopping for a water break around the theater troupe's stage. There's a long drive-thru line at Big Bang Burger, but what else is new.

Finally, you roll up to Barton High School.

The facade hasn't changed much since the 50's - and that gives it a certain charm, you think. Today the charm is accentuated by the flowers out front, pink and white and yellow, which Mr. LeFleur has spent all summer cultivating to bloom in a pattern that spells out

WELCOME BACK CRUSADERS
WE'VE MISSED YA

Robbie's out front now, trimming his masterpiece - he gives you a wave as you pull up. As you wave back, you're still running over your day in your head - you need to finish setting up your room for tomorrow, but first you need to swing by and see Vice Principal Hunt. And that's when you notice the others, heading down the lawn beside you towards the front doors.

It seems the four of you arrived at exactly the same time.

[Aquinas]

Hunt played idly with an earring as John finished, smiling. It was the softest expression they'd seen on her face thus far - she looked truly happy. "I hope it is enriching, Naomi. A lot of teachers I know have found that to be the case. Sometimes they take the job without any particular passion for it, but often they find it in what they can bring to their students."

"And I think a lot of educators have someone like that in our past, Elizabeth," she said, turning to look directly into her eyes. "We all have debts to repay, in one way or another, and I find teaching is a wonderful way to make those debts a little lighter. Thank you for sharing that with me."

"It is a beautiful town, isn't it?" Hunt half-turned to catch a look out the windows. "That was the first thing I remarked on when I got here, the scenery. And that's a beautiful way to put it John, these kids are the future. We're here to pass on our knowledge, our experience, and, I think most importantly, our ambition. This is a sensitive time for these kids, and I'm glad we have teachers like the four of you here who can do that."

Her eyes made contact briefly with Castillo. Her smile deepened. "You're in the right place," she intoned.

Before anyone could reply, the door flew open, and a tall man wearing a bird's nest on his head popped in.

"Aaaah, I'm so sorry!" The young man shook his head hard enough that the nest was in real danger of falling off - actually, false alarm, that was just his hair - and awkwardly reached one lanky, angular limb behind him to shut the door. He was skinny, very skinny - skinny enough that his elbow joints almost looked like they were going to pop right through the patches on his tweed sport coat. He looked too young to be wearing something like that - like an ancient Harvard lecturer had been hit with a de-aging beam and was trying to make the best of things. "Genuinely sorry," he said, "Still getting used to uh, driving, these people they just, just zip along, bit terrifying, made it though." As he scooched past the four teachers in the room to take a seat on the end, his glasses slipped off his nose and landed in front of John - he didn't seem to notice until he tripped over a chair leg he couldn't see. "Um, excuse me, could you please-" he stuttered as he waved one hand at John helplessly.

His eyes were actually quite striking. They were a particularly light shade of gray that, when they reflected the light in the window, reminded one in some vague way of a glassy sea, brimming with life underneath. When he got his glasses back and put them on, the effect was hidden - he went back to looking dorky, angular, and too professorial for his age. He settled into the seat next to Castillo on the end, turned to introduce himself, and very nearly recoiled at the overwhelming aura of "there is no need to talk to me" emanating from his seat.

Hunt was unperturbed. "Thank you for joining us, Alexander. I understand how that can be. I hope you'll be sure to make this the last day you show up late."

Alexander nodded, his thin face flushed pink. Hunt gave him a reassuring nod and pulled out five sheets of paper which she distributed to the teachers. "Now that we're all here, let's get into the business. If you could all do me a favor and look over this contract for me - I understand you're all at the end of your current teaching contract, and need to re-up. I'm a little old-fashioned - I don't like all this electronic signature business. I feel much better when I can sit in the same room with a teacher and sign. So before we get into the other business, I'd appreciate it if you could look over these, make sure everything is in good condition, and hand them back when you're ready."

The contract is, in fact, in good condition. Standard legalese, nothing unfamiliar, the same thing you signed last year, signing you to a year with Barton - or several, if that's what you negotiated. You have a pen by your seat, which is helpful.... Actually, there is one odd piece of wording near the end. "I, the undersigned, agree that I will take responsibility for my actions and for those of the students in my trust, in so far as my duties as an educator entail." What an odd way to phrase that. You suppose you must not have noticed it on the last contract you signed.

[Sharks]

John's story felt... very standard, and somehow Betty felt as if she'd messed up somehow, baring her heart even as little as she had. And Hunt's response to her felt... wickedly ominous, too. "We all have debts to repay, one way or another"... I'm not sure it's even possible to word that in a more foreboding way. Still, she just smiled through it, as was her usual go-to when she felt a little uncomfortable. And then - her response to Castillo, was... jeez, what an unsettling woman. And also a deeply incorrect one; Betty was pretty sure the only place Castillo belonged was in a public stockade, or at the bottom of a dry, shallow-ish well - either way, somewhere the children could point and laugh and throw eggs and rotting produce.

Then Alex showed up - hell yeah, gray eyes gang for life - and the tension, which she may or may not have been imagining, abated. His dorky-ass presence tended to have that effect, in her estimation; maybe it was just that, if anyone was going to be judging anyone, they'd probably be judging him...? That felt a little rude to think, honestly, but it didn't strike her as incorrect either. At the very least, he drew attention. She didn't judge, of course, considering she was probably more of a mess, just better at hiding it. She gave him a little wave, and would've slipped in a verbal greeting, but it didn't feel like the time for it. (Okay, maybe she was still a little tense.)

She nodded in gratitude when she was handed the paper, drew the back of her pen across the lines of the contract as she read it, and furrowed her brow at the end. After some fiascos with a couple of her loans, she'd learned to be damn careful with anything she signed, and she didn't recognize this from last year, she was pretty sure. But... it didn't look bad, just, strange, maybe? She couldn't think of a way it could be used to exploit her - it was so... vague, her "duties as an educator" so ill-defined, she was pretty sure if they tried anything fucked up with it the Teachers' Union could sue. If there was one thing Betty appreciated about teaching, it was that her union was actually pretty well-organized. And raising a fuss here would send... bad signals, she thought.

So, not giving herself any more time to fret, she signed; her signature was a looping, cursive thing, surprisingly elegant to anyone who actually knew her, a product of filling her notebooks with names like Betty Kingston-Bright or Betty Bright-Lewis or Betty Olvera-Bright or whatever surname combination she felt most appropriate for her crush-of-the-week when she was younger, younger-younger, before the divorce, when love seemed to her to be something pure, something fated, something that couldn't be taken away, not ever, no matter what, and later on, when she had clung to these beliefs like lifelines and hope had sprung eternal from deep inside her chest, and she thought that her mom and dad could, would, get back together, and that it would be a good thing if they did.

And when, with one final, swooping stroke, she crossed her every T and dotted Bright's "i", she looked up to see -

The waterfalls in the window glowed with shifting, kaleidoscopic color, in a way that felt quite nearly alive; hadn't she seen this in a dream? They were impossibly gentle, as if time was slowing to a stop, but that didn't feel quite right. It was like the water wasn't being pulled down by the inexorable grip of gravity but by the tender, loving touch of the tide. The effect was hypnotic, hypnopompic, hallucinogenic, it was... it was...

It was bright in here, too bright, the windows were framed with shining spots of light - she could see herself as if in a reflection, and thought, detachedly, that she looked pale, afraid, and it was a reflection, a mirror, except for the twin falls, still pulsing like arteries, and she was alone with the scent and the sight of greasepaint and hairspray, slathered over the table - (the long, long table, serpentine, almost, but that would imply curves where there were none, only the slightest sense of something wrong) - in the way only true-blooded theater kids could manage, and something like wine, pouring out of an overturned chalice, faux-gold (how did she know that?), as if from a wound and onto her lap, eerily sticky and cool, and she tried to wipe it away but it only stained her hands, and she absently thought of Lady Macbeth, and then remembered she wasn't supposed to say that name, not here, where she was surrounded on all sides by gaudy costumes and wigs and some of them she thought she faintly recognized, but all of them were empty and none of them were her, not quite, and she could hear the murmured expectations of an audience, her audience, just behind the curtain that used to be a door, stage lights shining through the gap at the bottom like the all-seeing eye of a jealous and hungry God -

And when she looked away, she saw a king and a queen, adorned in sapphire regalia of impossible, oscillating, spiraling geometries, and they were their regalia, and their regalia was them; and they were staring at her, expressions indecipherable, and she tried, she tried she tried she tried she tried, she promises she tried, but it was only a moment, and -

Betty blinked, and the world fell back into place, everything as it should be, nothing as it shouldn't.

...What? What? What? What...? I don't - am I losing my mind? Have I been drugged? Am I dreaming?

Her expression, although calibrated not to give anything away, was perhaps a touch unnaturally still as she glanced around at her colleagues. Not at Hunt. She... something about it felt like a bad idea. Like if she looked that woman in the eyes, here and now, she would see something she wasn't meant to, and, in turn, be seen.

Now, more, perhaps, than ever before... Betty was not in a mood to be seen.

[[VIOLET]]

Castillo kept only half an eye on the scene unfolding before him, though both his ears remained sharply honed in. There was something eerie, or perhaps haunting, about Hunt's voice--like a combination of dry ice and honey, warm words delivered with a difficult-to-place detachment. More clearly, this place reminded him of how he imagined purgatory to be.

The white light of late morning coming in through the windows, tinting the room's palette in subtle blue. A desk, and an impeccable angel seated behind it. The eternally pure of heart could never have warmth like a human's, so theirs was preserved in crystal. Stony and distant, but not unkind. Maybe even too kind. It unnerved him deeply--especially the way Hunt seemed to personally catch everyone's gaze one by one, before ending on him.

"You're in the right place."

More than that, what bothered him most was the sureness with which she made her comments--in spite of having just met him in the hallway mere minutes ago. Maybe Smith was gossipping to her about something earlier, and Hunt was trying to reassure them, or maybe the total disinterest plastered over Smith's face as she bade them silent farewell in truth belied a fervent, possibly desperate hope for their success passed on just recently to her new colleague. ”Yes, Jean-Paul, you DO belong here.”

He'd sooner be canonized as a saint.

Nicus’ arrival, while striking, only earned a slight angle of Castillo’s face to the left. He’d seen the guy once or twice in passing... but what did he say? Still getting used to driving? Yeah, some of the people here were fucking maniacs--but the way he put it made it seem like he was coming from an era further in the past than his tweed jacket. Castillo was pretty sure he saw a wedding photo of his grandfather in a jacket just like that... which was off-putting, at absolute best.

Unfortunate that Castillo’s new junior found himself caught in the crossfire of his positively radiant, not-directed-towards-anyone-in-particular apathy, but the faster the new guys learned, the better, he figured. That said, it was possible in the second where Nicus noticed Castillo’s glowering and Castillo noticed the surprising amount of spring with which his junior could jump in his seat, Nicus may have also found Castillo observing his eyes a hair longer than what may be considered coincidental--reminded briefly of a chilly and overcast early morning he might have had at sea this time of year.

On a day like this, the crew would bring out a rare and highly sought-after package of cocoa with the coffee; and briefly unguarded, the memory brought to mind a fraction of sweet, comforting warmth.

Which was probably why Castillo's scowl deepened further immediately afterwards, probably scaring the living daylights out of Nicus more than they already were. In any better a mood, the old sailor might have cackled. Relished in it, even.

When the contracts came out, Castillo gave it a quick but complete scan as he usually would. Something something, Code of Conduct... have read and agree to the... create a welcoming school environment at Barton... responsibility for my actions.

Of course, he barely remembered half the crap he agreed to beyond the fast and loose legal summaries he jotted down to keep in the back of his head (never hurt to know your rights), and by extension, he had absolutely no memory of this last part. He’d never seen anything like it on any other contract, which struck him as a little odd given he didn’t remember jack shit about it, but he figured pretty confidently it was some kind of oddly-worded employee accountability bullshit. Sounded fine enough, he didn’t necessarily disagree with it... as far as he understood.

Anyway, if he didn’t sign it again, all his agitated scrambling for the past four weeks would have been for nothing. He signed. A decisive angular scrawl was etched across the required fields in a manner only distinguished from a flatline by the near-perpendicular intersecting lines of J and P, and the hook after them that might have once been a C. At some point in the distant past, his signature probably said Jean-Paul Castillo. By now, however, if the people receiving his paperwork couldn’t identify him by his preferred EKG pattern, he was clearly doing something wrong.

And then his heart actually almost stopped.

locker:

The expression on Castillo’s face was unlike any he’d ever been seen with on Barton’s grounds. Neither a scowl, nor a sneer... dark eyes, as stormy a gray as the night that ended his life, pulled wide with terror. It took nearly all his awareness to keep his rapid breathing near to silent.

He squeezed the pen in his left hand. The right hand squeezed his knee. His heels pulled down firmly against the floor. With every facility available to him, he forced himself to acknowledge the real world. Cool tile floors. Somewhat-starchy cotton pants. A cheap Bic. He was in a near-silent room, completely on land, in the year 2021, and he was a math teacher. God only knows why, he was a math teacher.

What the fuck did he just sign.

Instinctively, his face attempted to pull into a scowl (agitation tended to be its second reaction to triggers like this, if it wasn’t the first)--but with an uncontrollable quiver still beating at the corner of his lips, he could only manage a tight, bewildered frown as he glanced anxiously around the room. Though he prayed that nobody had seen any of that, he wagered that at least Hunt was watching each and every one of them cooly--and for fuck’s fucking fuck Betty was looking at him.

Well, she didn’t seem amused, at least, and honestly seeing her with such a serious face might have freaked him out if he wasn’t already turning straight down towards his feet, eyes squeezed tightly shut. The slight rise of his shoulders indicated a touch of embarrassment that he’d never in a million years let rise to his face while Bright still had him in her line of sight.

[GM_3826]

Naomi perked up a little bit after hearing Betty open her heart just a little. She was happy that someone here had the confidence to say how they felt, without deceiving anybody by attempting to conceal their true emotions. John's story, meanwhile, was unremarkable, and Naomi didn't dwell on it. She did feel a bit self-conscious when Hunt said she "didn't have any particular passion for it". No, she was very passionate about it, that just wasn't the reason she was here. Right? As the conversation went on Naomi started feeling he same sense of unease the others did. The way Hunt was acting was really creepy. Someone who has something to hide shouldn't be that obvious about it.

Oh, hey, Mr. Nicus is here too! Right, he's the other advisor to the anime club. I should talk to him about that when our meeting is over. Alexander Nicus's strange clothing and lack of driving ability wasn't something she thought about, since Naomi struggled with driving at first and was an artist who understood that there were a lot of people who really enjoyed the fashions of previous eras. That might be something interesting to talk about with him, actually!

Naomi did read the contracts-she had watched too much TV as a kid to not understand that you should read them carefully. Sometimes the people she was working with would get impatient, but they generally allowed her to take her time.

As a consequence, she was possibly the only one who paid a significant amount of attention to that last clause.

Huh. She flinched. Does this has something to do with Mikayla Li? Naomi took a look at her watch, more to just confirm that time was passing more than anything else. She then looked at the others. They were signing. Should I say something?

She thought about it just a bit longer. I might feel comfortable discussing the terms of the contract alone, with only VP Hunt to sort things out with, but I'm in a room with 4 other people. As for the the circumstances in which the clause might come up... A suicide, a school shooting, things too awful to even think about...

It is my responsibility, isn't it? I mean, I'm not comfortable with it, but I have to come to terms with and accept it. She sighed. It's going to be a nightmare when and if this clause is pulled up, but given my occupation I just have to handle the situation the best I can.

There's just one problem. My handwriting is terrible. Naomi glanced over the paper one more time. Centipede's dilemma. Normally I can just turn my brain off and write some gibberish that will be similar enough to the things I normally scribble in this situation to compare, but not when I'm being pressured to and dwelling on it much longer than anyone else.

Should I ask?

"Vice Principal Hunt, can I write this in kanji?"

[Aquinas]

Mrs. Hunt was caught off-guard by that for just a moment, but recovered quickly.

"I don't see any reason why not," she said in her warm, comforting tone. "Please, by all means."

[GM_3826]

...Wait, seriously? Naomi was expecting to have to negotiate a bit more. I was about to bring up that I have passports in Japanese with my signature on it, but it's feeling pretty pointless now.

Naomi took the pen, and slowly wrote out the characters that made up her family and given name.

Spoiler:

Naomi clutched her head. She just had the worst headache.

She looked around. Everyone was still here. She was still in the office, and she doesn't know what she just hallucinated.

Maybe I should go home? Did I take my meds this morning? No, something about that felt different...

She wanted to excuse herself, but presumably there were still things to talk about, so she just kind of grinned and beared it. That said, she was almost certainly looking very nervous right now, feeling like there was some sort of threat even though as far as she could tell there wasn't.

I'm probably wrong about that, but what if I'm right?

[Sock]

John halfway read the first page of the contract, skimmed through the middle (he considered actually reading reading it, vaguely recalling that lawyers put the traps deep inside of contracts), and resumed reading properly at the tail end of the thing. The strange phrase hung up in his mind, and he turned it over in his head again and again. So in English, that means what... The stuff I do and "duties as an educator" makes sense, but then... "Can I take responsibility for their actions?" Yeah, that's gotta be it. And nobody else is saying anything. He nodded more to himself than to anyone in particular, picked up the pen and moved it to the paper. The tip traced out a nigh-illegible "John Redding" in scratchy cursive, capped off by bringing the tail of the "g" back to the beginning and slashing it through the rest of his name. A signature just isn't a signature without some kind of flourish, after all.

As he lifted the pen and looked back up toward the VP, there was a sudden stabbing pain directly behind his right eyeball, and John's vision filled with stars. Damn, migraine? But the pain vanished as the world faded back into focus, replaced with terror. The world hadn't come back right. Everything had gone red and black and pitch dark and blindingly bright. The air was filled with the low deep hum of power, a great deal of energy, distant and unplacable. What was once a megatable of wood had become metal, somehow projecting a holographic image of

there was so much
couldn't break it down
too complex
the machine

He had to look away, and saw out the window. The window? The window was still there. But the falls were wrong. Floating. Glowing. Like the swimming pool.
And the town
wasn't.
There was the jungle of a tropical island. The twin falls drifted down the side of a volcano. That wasn't right either.

He turned his gaze back to the massive schematics floating above the table and
They were there. Two of them, glowing bright red, masses of slowly rotating shapes. A king and queen?
The king reached out, brought its hand close to his face, nearly touching...

John launched himself, chair scooting across the floor before tipping over, and both slammed into the floor. Dazed and confused, he looked up at the completely normal ceiling. There was a pencil embedded in it.

[Aquinas]

It might have been satisfying, for the four teachers sitting frozen in their chairs with apprehension and confusion, to see Hunt's professional demeanor disappear when John rocketed out of his chair. Her eyebrows, which had been set placidly in place since she first introduced herself, flew up to make way for her suddenly wide eyes. She stood up, on instinct, but seemed unable to move any further, staring incredulously at the pencil in the ceiling.

Nicus experienced no such paralysis. In a few fluid motions he slid his chair back to the wall, slipped behind the others, and knelt at John's side. With one hand he gently touched John's shoulder, the other hand catching the glasses sliding down his nose so he could look the fallen science teacher in the eyes. "Are you okay?" he asked, softly.

This seemed to knock Hunt out of her trance. Her velvety voice cut through the room, now colored with alarm and urgency. "I'll go get Mr. Novak-"

"Oh, I think Redding's alright," Nicus interrupted. He looked John in the eyes, intently. "Just leaned back a little too far in your chair, right Redding?" There was something indiscernible floating in the gray water behind his glasses.

A message? A question?

No... a request.

[Sharks]

For some reason, who the fuck knew why, the first person Betty looked to was Castillo. Maybe it was that he was, perversely, the person in this room she was most familiar with - there was a certain quality to the loathing she felt for that man that made her pay a regrettable amount of attention to him. She was fairly sure she was better at reading him than most of his coworkers; her eternal efforts toward fucking with him, she thought, had allowed her to bear witness to every last expression his old, sour face was capable of. (Variations on a scowl, mainly, as it turned out, with the occasional thousand yard stare on the rare occasions she managed to get him to question his - or, more frequently, her - sanity.)

So perhaps, in some strange, misbegotten way, she thought seeing Castillo's perpetual sneer would ground her, return her to the moment, take her out of that... that.

She was wrong. Or perhaps she was right; ultimately, it didn't really matter, because that wasn't the expression he was wearing.

He's terrified.

The thought felt alien, almost, because it was such a difficult thing to believe - but it was true. This, somehow, felt less real than the... whatever that had been. Some small part of her thought she should be jubilant, or something; didn't she hate this guy? Wasn't she supposed to take joy in his suffering? But this wasn't the terror, she thought, as his face screwed up into a baffled frown, of somebody who's just watched a horror movie, or been pranked with plastic spiders in a place one wasn't expecting to see plastic spiders, this was something bone-deep. She managed, uncomfortably, to crush any great swell of pity, but all that left her was the fear. She'd gone to great efforts to shake Castillo, to provoke some kind of real response from behind that grumpy-ass shell, and she had never seen anything like this. Something isn't right. As if to punctuate that thought, he didn't hold her gaze, but startled away from it, in a gesture that struck her as almost childlike, like he was afraid of her - afraid of her seeing something, probably.

Wait, did he see something? I look normal, right? Right?

Shaking away that mortifying line of thought, she checked Naomi - clutching her head, vaguely nervous? - and John--

Woah there, cowboy.

In a truly admirable feat of athletics, John smashed into the floor and somehow managed to embed a pencil in the ceiling. Wait, no, that was already there - you did that, remember? It was too high for you to reach, so you just left it there, and nobody looks up so it's been almost a fucking year at this point. With this, finally, she broke out of her daze. Alex was smooth as hell, apparently, for all that his hair was a mess, kneeling down to check on John before she could try to lift him up. She hadn't caught his reaction, if he'd had one, had she? But all of these people... her, Castillo, Naomi, John, had definitely had something happen to them. If it had just been Naomi, she could dismiss it, but Castillo and John had been... pretty extreme.

So what is it? A hallucinogenic on the surface of the pens? A weird gas leak?

But Alex's words, and more importantly his tone, were telling. He knew something. Maybe he had just experienced something too, and wanted to talk about it privately, without involving Hunt... but Betty didn't think so. What was he an expert on, again? Greek Mythology? Was this some Percy Jackson shit? Some generic urban fantasy, at least? Was her life finally turning into the YA novel she'd always dreamed of? Aren't you a little old for that? Was... magic real? If magic was real, Alex legally had to tell her, she was pretty sure. If not legally, then illegally, because she was fully willing to commit as much arson as was necessary to get him to admit it.

And... the way the water flowed earlier...

Could this have something to do with Mikayla?

The look she sent Mr. Mysterious Emissary From Beyond The Veil was intense, vaguely threatening, borderline hysteric, even, not questioning so much as piercing, eyes wide open, focused, an I see you, bitch and a You'd better find the time to explain this shit or-fucking-else all wrapped up into one level gaze. It took a lot to crack Betty's composure, but to her, the possibility of finding out what happened to that girl, combined with holy fuck magic maybe??? was quite a lot indeed.

[[VIOLET]]

Castillo, stiff gaze fixed on his watch, counted one minute and seven seconds--though each tick felt like a half hour, if he were to keep himself from exaggerating. That happened when his thoughts were moving too quickly, he recalled, and a great many thoughts were indeed moving through his mind like swift rapids, crashing through watertight doors and sweeping men away and--

--someone fell.

Immediately, Castillo's body twisted around--instinct--but Nicus was a second faster, a second more limber, and was crouched by Redding to assess his condition by the end of two seconds. Just surprised. All right.

...something in the back of his mind told him he ought to have more of a reaction to a heavyset man falling backwards in his chair. The same could be said for a lot of things, he was sure. Regarding the appropriateness of his reaction strength, he couldn't say he cared enough to linger on it for long. A stack of instincts were already piling in the middle of the sea of his thoughts like slabs of firm rock: were Redding's eyes focused? Could his pupils dilate? If offered a hand, could he pull himself up? These brought him back to the ground more than anything else.

He found himself leaning over and squinting his own eyes to inspect Redding's face--he looked all right, maybe a little confused... no, shocked.

A precursory glance around the room told Castillo that over fifty percent of its occupants all shared a similar feeling. Naomi, like she had seen a ghost; Betty, like she was trying to pretend like she didn't just see a ghost. Then there were the two negative cases... Nicus, a cool urgency behind his bottlecap lenses; Hunt, looking more concerned than anything else. Castillo's brow furrowed.

Something was going on.

"Well," Castillo suddenly began, an affectedly bored expression restored to his face as the corner of his eye turned back to Hunt. "Paperwork's done, it... looks like. That all you needed us for?"

( "Or are you going to explain what the shit is going on?" he wanted to add... no. He had a bad feeling--a separate one from the bad feeling he couldn't possibly have kept from rising to his face earlier. A new sharpness settled subtly on his features. The millisecond he noticed either of the two outliers in the room doing something funny, he was grabbing two of the people closest to him and sprinting out of there.

And if it turned out he was just sick in the head and imagining all this... what more did he have to lose? )

[Aquinas]

Hut was still observing Nicus carefully as he helped a still-silent John to his seat. She looked a tad miffed - as if he'd offended her, perhaps? Maybe that was it. She soon smoothed that wrinkle out and returned to a look of concern. "If you're sure you're all right, John," she said, "I'll ask Mrs. Smith to bring you a glass of water."

She was out of the room for maybe four, five seconds - enough time for Nicus to turn back to the rest and mutter, very quietly, "Midnight tonight. Football field, under the north bleachers. Don't be late." And then Hunt was back, smiling gracefully, handing John a glass full of water - the normal sort, clear and without color - and ready to hear Castillo's query.

"Oh, not quite. I appreciate you all signing so we can get that squared away - if you wouldn't mind handing those to Naomi - could you please hand those back to me Ms. Shimizu? Thank you. Yes, I wanted to have a word with you all about an incident I'm sure has weighed heavily on your minds. I'll keep it brief so Mr. Redding can go home and get some rest, but I just..." She paused to collect her thoughts, leaned forward a bit in her chair, and tucked away a stray strand of hair that had fallen in front of her eyes. As it returned to its appointed position in the precise arrangement of her ponytail, it had the hypnotic effect of putting the commotion of a moment ago fully in the past.

"I haven't had the opportunity to meet Mikayla Li, as you all have," she began, slowly. "But I've been able to gather quite a bit from what I've heard of her from teachers - they paint the portrait of a remarkable young woman. Driven, committed. A pleasure to teach. I've spoken with Connie quite a bit and xe raves about her, of course. My heart breaks when I think of what that poor child is going through. I hope you'll all be sure to be there for xer in the weeks ahead. Especially you, Mr. Redding - I gather xe enjoys your class particularly."

Without warning, Hunt stood, but motioned for them to remain seated. She walked back towards the window and gazed out at the falls for a few seconds before looking back at the teachers. "The authorities are doing everything within their power to locate Mikayla. I understand that the FBI has gotten involved. You may see some unusual things around the school, you will almost certainly be asked to give some kind of statement. We're asking everyone to please comply with the investigation to the fullest extent you can." She glanced back out the window at the falls. The mid-day light smoothed the hard edges of her face. In that light, she did not look severe. "I truly believe they'll find Mikayla. In the meantime, I implore you. Tend to your students. They will be looking to you for stability and guidance - it is your responsibility to provide it." She turned back to them, and the severity returned - fixed on them with laser precision. The message she was giving them proceeded from the depths of her being. "Please, care for them."

She relaxed.

"That's the main thing I wanted to say, really. If you have any further questions about the situation, please don't hesitate to ask me - now, or in private later, if you'd prefer. I'm afraid Principal Wilson has been swamped dealing with police regarding this matter, but my door is always open to you. I hope you'll feel you can confide in me at any time."

Her smile was beatific.

[[VIOLET]]

"'Be there for xer in the weeks ahead...' of course they will, but..."

Though still shaking off the encroaching storm in the back of his mind, returning his thoughts to the school's handling of current events sufficiently soured his mood enough to steady his trembling hands again. What was he going to complete that thought with? "What about Mikayla?" There was no Mikayla to be here for. Not now, anyway. Something about all this felt irreverent to him, though, irritatingly so: how could any of them be smiling right now when one of their own wasn't accounted for, how could anyone rest easy when every second and every chance mattered and they were all sitting on their asses with an IV hooked up to--

--again, he drew a long and very quiet sigh. Deep breaths. Presenting calmly from the highest level of authority down was the responsible thing to do--and anyway, it was out of his hands. Still, the presence of even more cops on campus would leave him a little on edge. Not just that... maybe FBI agents, too. Ugh.

"So much for a warm welcome to the new semester," he muttered, gaze just barely too narrowed to be truly careless. "What a pain... and you're telling us we're supposed to keep having class as normal like this? The little demons barely pay attention under regular circumstances--God forbid we see what happens when we throw a handful of cops in the mix."

Castillo slouched forward, reclining the side of his head against one scar-riddled hand that slowly ran up his scalp. "That damn manual's gonna be the death of me... whatever, forget it. Just one thing, though..."

"...the disappearance allegedly happened on campus outside of operating hours," he continued cooly, ashen eyes finally connecting with Hunt's serene gaze--a sharp punctuation to the subtle motion, "so we don't know the nature of what happened to Li. Even so, have there been changes to security... at all? Plans for lookouts, at least, on the lesser populated routes home?"

His thoughts drifted to Libulan: since his nephew turned thirteen, the young man been entrusted with a key to both his mother's house (and very recently, Castillo's apartment). Most days he walked home by himself, but the middle school wasn't too far away from home--Barton was a few blocks out, on the other hand, and after extracurriculars wrapped up, he'd be left walking home in the early evening... not far from sundown at this time of year.

He was a huge kid with a big voice, granted... nobody would mess with him, Castillo was fairly certain--and on top of that, Castillo's sister had gently asked him to give her son a lift to school and back when it wasn't a bother. At the same time, still, he imagined Libulan wasn't the only kid in a ten mile radius walking themselves home every other day, if not more frequently... and down what roads, and into what neighborhoods, he could only guess.

"If there's even a possibility an abduction happened and the higher ups are asking for attendance anyway," he pointedly added, "I hope we're not trying to sweep under the rug the possibility that it's not safe to open the school. That's all. The kids aren't stupid; if they feel unsafe, it's not because we aren't smiling enough."

He couldn't get a read on this Hunt at all. Her smile felt genuine, but genuinely... what? Concerned? Faithful? What did he not know or believe that she did? That Mikayla would be found, he supposed was one of those things--but whether Hunt believed in God, or a god, or just in good luck, what the hell did any of that ever change about reality? What did she know?

More than that--what did she know that apparently Nicus could share a piece of at zero fucking hundred in the A.M?

His fingers rolled restlessly around the Bic in his left hand, sending it into a slow yet elaborate twisting dance.

[Aquinas]

"Mr. Castillo, does this mean you're volunteering to be a lookout for these 'little demons'?" Mrs. Hunt asked with an air of great patience. "How thoughtful. However, I don't believe it will be necessary, as for the time being we won't be allowing students to walk home alone. They'll need to drive home if they're able, take the bus, or have a parent pick them up - I believe this has already been communicated to their parents.

"And I can assure you that the decision to open the school has not been made lightly; Principal Wilson, Mr. Huffington and I have talked about little else for three weeks. But they believe - as do I - that providing a sense of normalcy is best for our students. Suspending their education would not be helpful right now - or fair. And in the meantime, the proper authorities will be doing all they can to find Mikayla. And they will find her." Hunt looked at each teacher in turn. "I have the utmost faith in them."

"Excuse me," said Mrs. Smith, peeking her head in, "but Mrs. Phan, Ms. Hepburn, and Mr. Olivier are here."

"Of course, we're just wrapping up," the Vice Principal replied, rising to her feet. "Thank you all for this meeting. Have a great school year, believe in yourselves, and give it your all, my friends." She smiled one last time as they exited the room.

The next group was already heading in as they left. Clifton Olivier, drama teacher, was striding out in front, moving briskly despite his advancing years, dressed as he always was on the razor's edge between comfort and fashion, deep purple scarf tossed over one shoulder of his gray knit sweater. Ms. Hepburn, science teacher, was just behind him, bundled up warmer than seemed strictly necessary for such a temperate day, and the small woman would have almost disappeared into her coats were it not for her large and curious eyes, which greeted John as they passed. Bringing up the rear, looking nervous and out of place, was Barton's other new arrival, the new social studies teacher, Ms. Phan. In classic new hire fashion, she was overdressed and fastidiously groomed, and walked as if she was having to focus on the mechanics of putting one leg in front of the next.

They arrived back in the hall outside the administrative offices, now clear of Bibbs and Good, not a soul in sight. Nicus smiled and waved goodbye as if nothing had happened, and made a move to exit towards his classroom.

[GM_3826]

"Wait!"

Mr. Nicus had caught Naomi's attention. "If I'm going to be co-supervising the Anime Club with you, it's best that we get to know each other first!" Naomi extended her hand to Mr. Nicus for him to shake. "I'm sure you know this already, but I teach the art class here. I couldn't help but notice your artistic sense. Why don't we chat about it while we work on getting things ready for our students?"

[[VIOLET]]

"Please," Castillo barely suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. "The day I park my car in front of the Big Bang Burger to watch kids walk home is the day I get the cops called on me for looking like a creep. Sorry I fucking asked."

Normalcy--while Hunt had a point, Castillo still couldn't shake the unease sitting like a  rock in his chest. Maybe it was that he took his meds an hour and a half late, but something about his entire morning reeked of... un-normalcy. That hazy dream, the news (again), then finding the three other stooges in front of school, and... Hunt. Everything about Hunt--the way she looked at and spoke to him--felt like a dagger drawing the very edge of its blade in elegant curls around his guts.

He hoped sincerely it'd wear off while he was working today. Hoped to God, if the Lord was still lending him an ear these days. He'd... put up the new chapter previews with all the handy Tinyurls to supplemental content on the corkboard, write down the lesson plans for the week on the whiteboard, set aside Li's homework and notes, maybe get a last crack at the 1.4 geometry PowerPoint...

Tucking his chin in and gliding into the teacher's lounge with a smoothness that barely concealed the briskness of his pace, he laid his bag discretely on a table nearby and careened straight for the restroom.

just to wake himself up again, is all:

[Aquinas]

"O-Oh!" Nicus shook Naomi's hand with a mixture of delight and embarrasment - whatever he had been expecting from the group, it clearly hadn't been a compliment. "My artistic sense? W-well, thank you! I guess I do try to make an effort, er... I'm not much of an artist myself, per se, but I like to think I can appreciate it." He scratched the back of his neck bashfully as he walked with Naomi towards their classrooms. "And I'm glad to hear you'll be helping out with the club as well! Truth be told, I thought I might have been the only member of the faculty who enjoyed them, haha..."

They arrived at Naomi's door, where her poster had once again fallen to the floor. Nicus frowned upon seeing it. "I believe your uh, tape might have lost its stick there. Here, be back in a jiff." He half jogged to his classroom, nearly skidding to a stop - bit of trouble with momentum, that guy - and returned a moment later with a roll of tape, which he began to apply to the back of the poster. "So, what anime have you been watching recently? I'm looking for a good recommendation."

[Continue this conversation in Free Writing.]

--------------------------------

August 17
11:52 PM
49* F
Weather: Dark Clouds
https://youtu.be/-6iRuav9DtE

The football field was quiet as a church... assuming it was an unoccupied church. Quiet as any unoccupied building, really. The grass, carefully manicured by the exacting Mr. LeFleur, looked soft in what little moonlight could escape the dense clouds. The floodlights were off, the bleachers empty, a liminal calm hanging in this space that would be soon be packed to the brim with excited students and their families.

A few small animals scurried along under the bleachers, steering clear of the one big creature in the area, a lanky history teacher standing under the bleachers on the north side of the stadium, back pressed against a support. Alexander Nicus was shivering in the cold despite being bundled up in layer upon layer, the tips of his ears frosty and berating him for not wearing earmuffs. He nestled deeper into his coat.

The new teacher was still adjusting to these temperatures, temperatures he knew were mild for this part of the country-  it was only going to get colder from here. Oh dear. He crossed his arms under his elbows, wondering as he did if that actually helped at all, and glanced around the field for a sign of life. It wasn't quite midnight yet, he knew that, but he still couldn't push down a fearful voice that told him that none of them were coming. He was sure that they were the ones, Redding's pronounced reaction had clinched it - but it would all be academic if they didn't show. If they didn't come together now -

He was working himself into a tizzy again. He'd done that a lot since his arrival - he couldn't help it, it seemed like that was his personality type. What an irritating person he must be...

He checked his watch. Eight minutes to midnight, and the sky was looking threatening. Alexander really hoped they were on their way...

[[VIOLET]]

Castillo's harsh voice would be the first to break the silence.

"I'm here. This'd better be good, Nicus--day before school starts, and I'm up at godforsaken ten til zero hundred... I'll kick your ass if you try anything funny."

Hiking up his black felt trenchcoat by its pockets so the collar covered the back of his neck again, Castillo's approaching footsteps crunched against the coarse dirt until he stood an even ten paces from Nicus. This autumn nighttime chill seemed to be his element: in a ribbed gray turtleneck, dark brown khakis, light gloves, and his usual dress shoes, he almost looked the part of an old gentleman in combination with his cane. Had anyone not known any better, one might even think him the subdued yet fashionable type.

Still, something about that outfit seemed too natural on him--or maybe it was his face, and the serenely cool half-frown that stole the place of his typical scowl. For those who'd only seen him sporting a combination of button-up-shirts, khakis, and weatherproof jackets for the past four years, meeting Castillo like this might have seemed like running into him at an occasion far more solemn than the one they expected to arrive at.

He sighed, the cool air leaving a tingle in his chest. Not like he was getting any sleep tonight, anyway. Genuinely, he tried.

but he just couldn't get it out of his head:

[Sharks]

"Don't strain yourself, gramps."

The voice came from the direction of the bleachers; one might get the sense that Betty'd been waiting under there for a while, undetected, searching for signs of deception or general fuckery. She'd had long experience beneath bleachers like those, and she could navigate its underbelly like a pro. Now, though, she was walking across the field, feeling that shit was finally about to go down.

She wasn't wearing her typical fare, or rather, her typical ha-ha-I-promise-I'm-a-normal-employee-please-don't-fire-me fare. She'd begrudgingly traded her height advantage over Castillo for running shoes, in case things got hairy, and she was wearing her most comfortable pair of jeans for similar reasons. Her hands rested lightly in the easily-accessible front pockets of her denim jacket, a wild thing, studded with spikes at the shoulders, festooned with patches and pins and embroidery of a hundred different kinds, a riot of color and meaning, pride flags and cryptids and band logos and anarchist iconography and snippets of lyrics and poetry and stranger things besides. Her t-shirt, comparatively, was simple, although perhaps just as incomprehensible; a goody, grinning, cartoonish turtle wearing a snapback, with a speech bubble telling the viewer to "CHOOSE YOUR ATTITUDE!" in some truly nightmarish mockery of comic sans. She'd found it at a thrift store, and she still had no idea where it might have come from originally.

She loved that shirt, perhaps more than life itself, but it made a stark contrast with the expression presently on her face. Her lips were quirked in a small smile, but it didn't reach her eyes, which were dark, desperate, longing. Hollow, but for some pinprick spark of hunger. Hope. Her fingers, restless, curled slightly against the fun little weapons she'd brought along to act as a bulwark against the fear. Brass knuckles, shining silvery hues, with grips that were also tubes of pepper spray, positioned so they could be easily activated by the thumb. She'd gotten them during her college days, when some feminist student club had gone around promoting women's self-defense. She wasn't sure they were legal, strictly speaking, but she sure as shit wasn't a snitch.

When Betty arrived at the standoff, her smile grew wider, baring teeth. "You couldn't kick an ass if you were strolling down fuckin' Ass Avenue, paved entirely with the tender, tender asses of perverts and masochists. They want their asses kicked, and you just can't give it to them, because you're too tired and old and pathetically terrible at kicking things. It's sad, Cas. So sad. You owe those asses an apology." The words were structured like a light-hearted roast, but stress had given her tone an angrier, meaner edge. Her hands trembled with the urge to snatch up a cigarette, and it only took a few moments for her to give in; her hands came out of their pockets, went into different pockets, and came back out again with a cig and a lighter.

Ordinarily, she would care more about her image. Ordinarily, she wouldn't have been teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown for the better part of a day. This is the most I've smoked in weeks. She lit up with well-practiced ease, and the burning end of her cancer-stick, flaring as she sucked down nicotine, framed her face in a menacing orange-red light. She released a long cloud of smoke with a sigh, willed herself to calm down, and looked Nicus in the eye.

"So. What the hell was that? Hallucinogenic oil on the pens? A bizarrely localized gas leak? A message from beyond the stars? Did Hunt hit us with some kinda hypnotic induction? Wouldn't be surprised, that woman's got a voice like silk and honey." A pause, like she was giving this next bit more thought - or maybe just emphasis. "Is magic real? If magic is real and nobody told me, I swear to fuck I'm gonna lose it." And there it was - the longing, the hunger, the hope. Like if she could just have this, her life might finally have that - that spark of meaning that'd been eluding her for so long. Like maybe it could all have been worth it.

sorrows, drowning (cw drugs, death):

[GM_3826]

Naomi didn't say anything. She still didn't understand what was going on. Did we share that vision?

She was very quiet. Always had been. When she was little she would frequently catch her nanny off guard by popping up at the most unexpected of times in the most unexpected of places. When she felt the need to escape she would frequently do so by sneaking off.

Do they know I'm here? Eyes scanning the perimeter of the field and narrowing. Why did the others believe him to be dangerous? What did he want to say? These thoughts raced through her mind.

If things got a little too heated... If anyone got a little too hasty...

Naomi couldn't take a punch, nor could she really throw one, but she might be able to distract the others if she screamed loud enough. Maybe she could stop them in their tracks. The scream would be totally genuine, which helps.

The one thing Naomi wanted most was for there to not be another Mikayla Li on this field tonight. But she lacked the ability to keep such a thing from happening. She was powerless. What could she do?

[[VIOLET]]

Somehow, in spite of how much Betty was baring her fangs right now, Castillo's squared shoulders--vigilant as a guardsman--relaxed as she strolled in from her perch. Looked like he was a hair late... though it was good she was watching her own back.

...not like him coming early would have done anything she couldn't already, of course. What the crap was that in her first--a pocket pistol? He couldn't see them clearly, but honestly, he didn't care.

"Huy, I didn't need that mental image," he lazily protested. Without stepping out of his spot, he slowly wound his neck around in a circular stretch... though the deep crease at the corner of his nose gave it an edge of a turning clock. "And calm down, you're already losing it. 'Magic...' ay nako. You're such a-AH!"

Once more, what ought to have been a stronger reaction instead came out somewhat subdued--Castillo's shoulders suddenly twitching around so he could fully turn his face towards Naomi in her hiding spot. Or, well, she wasn't all that well-hidden; it was just that she was sitting in complete stillness and silence. Honestly, if neither Nicus nor Bright knew she was there the entire time, that was impressive. Impressively alarming, maybe, if it wasn't Shimizu.

"...what the hell is this, an ambush?" he muttered, turning his disturbed expression in towards his shoulder while he waited for it to settle. While he had the chance, he directed Naomi a stern but cautious look--a silent 'stay where you are and don't get any closer.' "N-never mind."

He snapped back towards Nicus--a fiery sharpness in his stormy eyes like the oppressive desert sun piercing through a narrow slit in a mile-long wall.

"So it looks like we all really did get hit by--whatever that was. Why the hell else would two busy young ladies come all the way out here in the dead of night after Mikayla Li's face has been all over the news for the past month? And judging by your reaction, it looked like you were waiting for it to happen: first responders don't get much faster than that, kid."

He slowly drummed his fingers along the handle of his cane. "It's almost like you'd be better off in a different profession, Alexander Nicus. What the fuck is going on?"

His left hand didn't come out of its pocket.

"I'm all ears."

[GM_3826]

Well, that wasn't the loudest Naomi had heard someone scream in response to her presence. She plays it off, although there is some distress in her tone and expression. "I didn't want to make the situation any worse than it already was." Naomi says. "So, I stayed hidden as best I could."

Now that her presence has been revealed, Naomi can only watch. So, she doesn't say anything, but her mind races. She thinks Please, everyone, don't do anything hasty. Her eyes are directed at Mr. Nicus in particular, who is the focus of the others' aggression and the suspect in question. If anyone was in danger here, it was him.

[Aquinas]

Oh, he's scary. Nicus's flustered insistence that he wasn't up to anything funny was interrupted by the arrival of Betty and her baffling ass-monologue. He was too busy trying to recover from its twists and turns to respond quickly to her question about magic. "W-well, it depends on what you--!"

The archeologist nearly jumped out of his skin at Castillo's little shout - he hadn't clocked Naomi either - and any hope of an eloquent reply was dashed. This was going poorly. They were all nervy, suspicious - difficult to blame them on that score - and they had him cornered. What was going to happen next was going to be a major shock, and he hoped they'd react reasonably, but the first step to getting anything done was to open his mouth and-

Well, Castillo was asking him a question again. And it was the big one. He needed to nail this next part.

He took a moment to collect himself. Closed his eyes. Pictured the sentence in his mind, swapped out a couple of words for better effect, and spoke.

"I've brought you here to tell you that not only were those things you saw today real, they're rangedous - dangerous, sorry, dangerous. I, err, swallowed that word, and..." He trailed off, flushing a deep pink, noting out of the corner of one eye that John had joined them, he hoped he hadn't heard that... okay, okay, get back on the horse, Alexander, you can do this. "Please, let me try and guess what you all saw. Strange royal figures in a surreal location, right? Odd-looking water? It wasn't a hallucinogen, or aliens, or hypnotism... though, I admit, Ms. Hunt does have a singular voice. For a brief moment - and why in that moment particularly, I can't quite explain - you saw the Courts."

He paused for dramatic effect. He felt good about that reveal, he thought it had some razzle-dazzle to it. But there was no time for self-congratulation - things were going to get a lot more difficult to explain in a few minutes.

"You might reasonably be wondering - what is that? Well... have you ever looked at your reflection in still water, really looked at it, and imagined your reflection moving on its own, walking away, having a life without you? It's, err, somewhat like that. The Courts, they're... a mirror world to yours, populated by mirror versions of yourselves. Reflections of your desires, your ambitions, your fears.... a space where your psyche takes physical shape. But the thing about the Courts, is that they tend to react to their environment, reshape themselves to reflect it, and..." He searched for some semblance of understanding in their faces. "I, err, I imagine this is a lot to take in. Simply put, it's Wonderland. And Mikayla Li... well, Mikayla has fallen down the rabbit hole. And the four of you are the only hope of bringing her back."

Tap.

The last word of Nicus's explanation was punctuated by a metallic tap coming from the bleacher above their heads. Nicus's eyes widened, but he set his jaw in determination. "Okay, okay, this is happening sooner than I'd hoped. You're all going to need to trust me, alright? This is about to get much, much stranger - just, don't panic, and don't... do, anything, except stick close to me. I'll explain everything, just trust me, please. This is all for your students' sake."

The tapping continued, increasing in frequency. Raindrops began to fall between the bleachers. Odd raindrops. Colorful, luminous, moving slower than they should. Where they landed on the grass, the grass seemed to vanish, replaced by luminescent patches of shifting color. Nicus reached out a hand, and a raindrop passed right through it, exiting out the other side as if nothing had been in its way, leaving a hole of nothing where it had made contact with his skin. The strange history teacher gave the group one last look, nodded encouragingly, and motioned them to follow as he stepped out from under the bleachers. As his body passed through the curtain of rain now pouring from the open sky, each drop of water seemed to move through him, leaving nothing but air behind as it did. It was like watching someone step through a door into pitch black darkness, every part of them being swallowed up as it passed the threshold, except that they could still see the field beyond through the rain - Nicus had simply vanished.

And he'd beckoned them to follow.

[GM_3826]

"..."

There is absolutely nothing left to lose. And with that thought, Naomi enters safe mode. If her brain was a computer, it would be a malfunctioning one that repeatedly sends popups about how there is an attack. Just now it was given a good, hard kick, as if it continued to waste data on such a program it would cease operation.

"You heard the man, let's go." Naomi taps her foot. "He's clearly just as bothered by the situation as us, but he knows more than we do. He's our John Connor." Naomi follows Mr. Nicus, not bothering to wait for the others. The faster we get into the mess, the faster we get out.

[[VIOLET]]

Castillo's vigilant expression slowly phased, frame by frame, from one end of a gradient of suspicion and utter bewilderment to the other throughout Nicus' bumbling speech. This extended metaphor was painting a picture in his head, but what the hell was that supposed to... you know, mean? Courts? Wonderland? Genuinely, he was trying to follow--it was too bizarre to be a tall tale made up just to briefly throw them off; and if he had to be honest with himself, there was a certain something about Nicus that Castillo just naturally... couldn't help but want to believe. Not because he seemed especially trustworthy off the bat, but, maybe like his oddball little sister, he just needed a few extra seconds to get to the conclusion of his thoughts, and as soon as he did, everything would make artfully vibrant sense.

But when the few extra seconds passed, Nicus began to vanish in the opalescent rain: like brushes loaded with watercolor were pressed against the photograph of his figure, bleeding blossoms filling him in the exact greens and grays and browns of his surroundings. Miss Shimizu, without any more than a moment’s hesitation, trailed right behind him.

"--wait!"

It was more of a verbalization of the jolt that snapped Castillo's brain fully back awake than it was of any desire to make anyone stop what they were doing. He didn't really know at this point that he could change anything about what was going on around him--like a dream was unfolding in non sequitur turns before his eyes, first Bright describing a boulevard of unbroken asses, Shimizu and Redding apparating from the shadows, Nicus explaining something about mirror worlds and rabbit holes, and he could only follow in complete helplessness until he woke up half-covered in his bed, safe, normal, only the stale kind of cold instead of this biting, sunless, humid cold.

"...shit..." he hissed. Eyes wide with disbelief, his left hand finally came out of his pocket to run through his hair. It was time to move: what did he want to do? Wait here in case things quickly turned south? Go home and try to sleep again?

If Nicus was telling the truth... Mikayla was somewhere in there. Down the rabbit hole, or, whatever direction they were heading in. The... “Courts,” which he apparently saw a glimpse of after he signed his teaching contract again. It was possible they were something like the hell he saw that morning. She... fell in there, supposedly. And she needed help. That made more than enough sense for the time being.

His features relaxed. Drawing a deep, quiet breath, Castillo cast a wary glance over his shoulder at the others--then hobbled forward into the rain.

[Sharks]

Betty, truthfully, was too on edge to properly appreciate Cas being spooked; rather, his exclamation of surprise at Naomi's appearance had spooked her, and, well, she could put on a teasing smirk on her face about it afterwards, but it wasn't super convincing. If I'd seen Naomi first, I probably would've sprayed her. I have got to chill out.

And then Alex started talking. Bitch, what the fuck. Mirror worlds? Wonderland? The Courts? Was everyone about to be taken by the Fair Folk or something? Shit, that would explain a lot, wouldn't it? The Fae loved kidnapping children, traditionally. Wait - more importantly, he hadn't dismissed magic the way he'd dismissed everything else. Magic might be real. Magic might be real. It was everything Betty could do not to make some kind of teakettle shriek as the realization hit her. Isn't it a little late for all my bullshit YA fantasy dreams to come true?? Whatever, I'm gonna be a fuckin' wizard princess, bayBEE.

So it was that Betty found herself more than a little distracted as the rain came down, a mirror of the falls she'd seen in her - hallucinatory dream state? Glimpse into another world? Yeah, it was that last one, she was pretty sure by this point. Gentle, glittering, kaleidoscopic, she didn't truly notice as Nicus disappeared. It was Naomi's firm tones that dragged her back into the present, if only to drag a moderately befuddled, barely-there "Who the fuck is John Conner?" out from under her breath. It was almost a giggle. She felt giddy. At some point she would remember that they needed to rescue Mikayla, and that she should be taking this a whole lot more seriously, and she would sober up... but right then, in that moment, Betty was really, truly, lost in the sauce.

When Castillo disappeared, she snapped back to reality. Just a touch, but if anything was going to get her moving, it was the realization that that bastard was going to experience the magic of another world before she did. Heedless of John - wait, when the fuck did he get here? - she sprinted forward, a mad, cackling "Oh no you fucking don't!" bubbling up past her lips, and passed through to the other side.

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