Open RP: Mel, mind-reading and Potions For Dummies

[totallyluminous.livejournal.com]

OOC: Okay, so since Mel’s just turned 18, she’s got a few new abilities. One of these is being able—not being able to stop—hearing people’s thoughts. Therefore, if your pup tags this thread, Mel will be able to hear his or her thoughts and will probably respond to them. It goes without saying: please put your pup’s thoughts in the tag!
She’ll have learnt to control them by the next time she does anything. I just wanted to torture her.

Dumbledore’s comments—unintended, she’s sure—about having an ‘eternity for learning’ really stung. So Mel went to the library (shock, horror.) Carrying a teetering pile of books (with the still-unread Angel Handbook on top of the stack), Mel is trying to grope her way down the corridor, hoping the walls don’t suddenly decide to be made of quicksand or whatever.

The floor seems to have a vendetta against her. She catches her foot on some uneven stone (‘WHO PUT THAT THERE?!’), and her books go flying. She swears—‘Damn!’—and gets on her knees, gathering up the various spellbooks and wishing she hadn’t got out the ones that looked the easiest.

The books seem to have slid rather a long way down the corridor. Mel shuffles to get them all, but it’s going to be a task and a half with just one pair of hands.

Comments

[pollicle-zapper.livejournal.com]

One book slid across the uneven floor and stopped just in front of Quaxo's tattered trainers. The boy bent down to retrieve it and then trotted up to the girl, holding it out shyly.

"Here," he mumbled, balancing lightly on his heels. "You dropped this."

She's looking better, commented Mistoffelees approvingly. Last time I saw her she seemed a little distraught...

'When was that?' Quaxo thought back curiously.

Christmas party. Oh right, we were seperated for that... Well, you didn't miss much.

[totallyluminous.livejournal.com]

'Thanks,' Mel mutters, looking up. Then she freezes. She recognises him as Quaxo--though she can't say how--but how to approach the issue of Quaxo apparently having someone else in his head?

She takes the book, and then leans on the pile, frowning a little at the boy. 'I haven't seen you around, lately, Quaxo,' she comments. 'Were you at any of the parties? Like...the Christmas one, for example?'

It's more tactful than 'Hey, kid, you got someone in your brain.'

[pollicle-zapper.livejournal.com]

"I was supposed to come to your birthday party, but then Pattipaws played hide-and-seek and hid so well I didn't find her until it was too late and I had to go to bed," said Quaxo sadly, in one breath. Then he brighetened. "I was at the birthday party! I'd gotten a music box. And I ate a lot of really good food and talked to a whole bunch of people. And Mistoffelees had fun too," he added, very pleased about that. Everything was so much better when Mistoffelees didn't get into fights, he though.

Quaxo really had no idea about what had happened at the Christmas party... He'd been much too busy seeing how many candy canes he could put in his mouth at once.

[lemondrop-party.livejournal.com]

Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote the droghte of March hath perced to the rote, and bathed every veyne in swich licour ... Albus's thoughts turned to spring.

To the fabulous new spring yarns (http://www.plymouthyarn.com/index.php?nav=cYarn.yarnSearch&filter=2&searchyarn=spring&start=1), that is.

Visions of knitting needles dancing in his head, he puttered happily along. It was in this reverie that he came upon Miss Melanie Beeby.

"Why, look at you! You have leveled up!" He congratulated her. "Would you like some help with those books, Melanie?"

[totallyluminous.livejournal.com]

'Please!' she says gratefully, reaching out for a book and suddenly finds herself assaulted with visions of sharp pointy things old ladies on the bus poke you with if you're too noisy.

This is what the general headmaster thinks about? Well, it's better than what her head was rumoured to be fixated on. Perv.

'Levelled up?' she enquires instead, grabbing the pristine Angel Handbook and setting it haphazardly on the pile. She twitches her nose and waits for more thoughts of his to float her way.

[lemondrop-party.livejournal.com]

A Legilimens himself, and an Occlumens, Albus twitched slightly at the definite feeling something was intruding into his thoughts. It did not feel the way a deliberate intrusion might. Picture not a burglar breaking into your house, but a bird flying in through a window you'd thought was closed.

Albus peered into the angel's eyes. "Ahhhh," he said. "You will need to learn barriers against this new inclination toward mental eavesdropping, Melanie. Now, now, I know you cannot mean to do it," he reassured before she could apologise. "Also, I must venture a small correction. I am no longer headmaster here, only a professor emeritus. This is my retirement," he twinkled.

[busty-robin.livejournal.com]

Pills. I have pills. Which will lead to sleep. Which is a good thing. Just because Mom- Gah! Book attack!

Steph bent down, and started collected stray books. "See, this is a much better location for the library. Good thinking."

[totallyluminous.livejournal.com]

'Sorry,' Mel begins to apologise, after hearing Steph's thoughts. 'I, um, don't think I've seen you around? I'm Mel.'

She fidgets awkwardly, wondering how to tackle the issue. 'The books--sort of attacked you, I know. Hey, this is a completely random question, but, um, do you ever have trouble sleeping here? At Hogwarts?'

She's got to make sure they're not for anything else. After seeing Mariah Darcy turn into a murderess, and Sky turn to a boyfriend infected with toxic vibes, Mel can no longer trust girls her own age who aren't dead. A bit sad, really.

[busty-robin.livejournal.com]

Steph waved off the apology. "You're talking to the klutz-master here. I'm Steph!" She smiled and reached for another spellbook.

"Wow. Um, that is pretty random." This is the point where Steph's bat!senses would normally kick in. But honestly, Steph was too tired to be suspicious. It would've taken more energy to think up a decent lie. "Yeah. I have been. Just um-" the torture, my mom, my baby "-dreams and such. Standard ex-dead girl thing, I hear."

[degeneratewolfe.livejournal.com]

Valentine's mind is not quite one-track. True, he usually thinks about one of two things: hurting people to amuse or benefit himself and drugs, but because of said drugs, his mind is more along the lines of a very confusing, very busy highway that leads to pretty much the same place. At the moment, he's contemplating both of these things, as well as some pleasant-colored hallucinations on the edges of his vision, as he walks down the hall humming tunelessly to himself. He arches an eyebrow at a book in his path, debates stepping on it, and instead bends down to pick it up. His drug-addled mind takes a fraction of a second to contemplate the book, the texture of the cover (naturally, perceived through heightened nerve endings), and locates the person who it belongs to. "I gather that you would prefer your books as reading material and not floor decorations, miss."

[totallyluminous.livejournal.com]

Mel is very nearly violently ill as he approaches. This guy--if he was on her earth--would be so close to Hell it's not even funny.

And look! Perfectly civil, like Jonas. Like Laura. Like Nick.

She takes the last book with a slight tremor of the hand. 'How can you still be walking around?' she wants to know. 'With that on and in your mind?'

Gone is the pretence.

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

(( Note to other muns: Camilla-mun and Mel-mun are in contact via chat while RPing this. Anything Mel picks up that hasn't been specified by Camilla's narration will have been approved by Camilla-mun OOCly -- she's not making stuff up, no godmodding here. :) It also kinda helps that Mel's mun plays a Certain Other Character. ))

Camilla Macaulay had not slept well. Henry had put her to bed, solicitous and concerned, efficient as ever but Camilla knew him well enough to know beneath that seethed an immense anger. She had simply been too upset herself to spare a thought for the effect the episode would have had on him, beyond the obvious anxiety (i.e., how his anger might affect her). Pliant, needy, she had let him take care of her, and snuggled down into the quilts he tucked around her. Where he went after that, she didn't even speculate. He had given her enough comfort that she could sleep a little, fitful unrestful sleep though it was.

It didn't last long. By midnight she had crept out of her bed. She looked out the window of Gryffindor Tower for a long time, watching the moon. Pale skin against white nightgown, golden hair washed white by the moonlight, she would have looked a proper phantom to anyone passing the tower on foot or by broom.

Then she went to the chair where Henry had left her neatly folded robes, and slipped a hand into the pocket to retrieve what her brother had offered to her.

She sat on the rug for a long time, idly extruding and snapping back the measuring tape.

After that, she made a mimosa, and played solitaire until dawn.

Now she's on her way outdoors. She wants a walk. Maybe there's a rowboat somewhere about, and she can take it out on the lake the way she used to do at Francis's aunt's house. But on her way out, she runs across a girl who carrying quite a hefty pile of books.

She has to stop and have a look at the titles.

"What are these for?" she wants to know.

[totallyluminous.livejournal.com]

'Learning,' Mel would reply if she were feeling snappish.

'I'm at a magic school,' she replies instead. 'I think I need to learn a bit more about it.'

The white spine of the Angel Handbook is turned towards her.

Snap. A measuring-tape. Mel frowns a little. Two faces, and one seeming much brighter than the other...and the girl who seems just to want to row, not caring too much about the men for their own sake.

She nearly recoils.

'I'm Mel,' she manages, still struggling to fight through Camilla's thoughts. There's a very hard edge there; diamond-like.

[ostianespionage.livejournal.com]

*Matthew's picking up a few of the books that slid past him, to save their owner time. His mind isn't really on his unusually helpful act, though.

Damn, I wish you were here, Leila. It's just not the same. That smile of yours... He wanders over to someone else who's picking up books and, furthermore, looks like she just fell over. Namely Mel.* Hey. These yours?

[totallyluminous.livejournal.com]

Lost love. How cute. Mel grins to herself, then snaps back to her normal dreamy expression. 'Yeah--thanks,' she grins. 'You're an awesome help.' She flashes him a smile, trying to shake his thoughts from the gloom.

[gillians-fury.livejournal.com]

Gillian was heading for the library, again - it was a favorite haunt of hers these days. She'd actually learned some simple wards and was working on wingardium leviosa, but it was harder than she'd thought. She spied Mel in the corridor and gave a quick wave and a smile, then paused. Something was different about Mel, but she couldn't quite see what it was.

And then the Fury noticed the angel, turning its baleful inward glare on her. Pure rage, laced with hatred, spilled forth.

Gillian gritted her teeth and held the monster in check.

[totallyluminous.livejournal.com]

Mel smiles back, and then is hit with a wave of hatred and anger.

'Get away from me!' she warns Gillian. 'If it breaks free because of me...'

No time to explain how she knows.

[schizowarrior.livejournal.com]

((Of course, I have to be a bastard and send in my nutjob ^_^))

Molly had been digging around in the library a lot lately, but this time she was on a quest for something other than spells. She had to figure out what the hell kind of ceremony she was going to perform for Nny's wedding.

Finding ideas hadn't been a problem--what was more trouble was that she'd found too many. She was just taking some books back when she noticed Mel, and bent to help her.

"Hey, careful," she said. "Some of these things could be used as weapons."

"What is it with you and weapons? You've got a sword fixation, Molly--you need to just get laid already." The Narrator was, as usual, juvenile and obnoxious as hell, but Molly had learned to resist the urge to reply to him. Mostly, anyway.

[totallyluminous.livejournal.com]

'Don't listen to him,' Mel replies absently. 'The guy, I mean. Um. Yeah, I wasn't planning to throw them...'

She gets the last books within her reach and smiles. 'Hey, I'm Mel.'

[themountie.livejournal.com]

Outwardly, Fraser appeared to be doing nothing more than a routine check-up; clipboard in hand, he was touring the castle, checking out some of the modifications he'd suggested to Jack Harkness.

In reality, though, this was very boring and he could do it with his eyes closed, and so the inside of his mind was a very different place. He was entertaining himself with thoughts of what he was going to be doing in approximately one hour and thirteen minutes, when his shift ended. These thoughts mostly involved Ray: Ray's tattoos, Ray's tight t-shirts (coming off), possibly Ray's handcuffs...

Licking his lips in apparent thought, he studied the walls of the corridor as he walked along as if doing nothing more than checking them for cracks. If he'd known anyone else could see what he was really seeing, 'dying of embarrassment' would be an understatement.

[totallyluminous.livejournal.com]

For someone who's only just recently had sex with her boyfriend, this mind is oh so very interesting.

Maybe she'll tell him she can see it after. Hoo boy. Were those handcuffs? How is it you never have notepaper around when you need it?

Fraser may see what appears to be a walking pile of books wandering towards him. Mel's hidden her face so the red doesn't show.

[meatheadknight.livejournal.com]

Neal had been around a corner and down the hall when Mel tripped. He heard the thud-skid of the books, closely followed by cursing, distorted by a combination of echoing and being muffled by the walls in between. He shook his head. Wonder who that is. Sounded nasty.

Then, turning the corner, Mithros, it's Mel, slipped across his mind, and he stooped to pick up a book that had skidded to a stop right in the middle of the intersection of hallways. "Are you all right?"

[totallyluminous.livejournal.com]

'The floor just came out of nowhere and tripped me,' Mel replies, slightly pink and out-of-breath. 'Rude.'

She wonders who Mithros is while she brushes off her knees and bum, and then holds her hand out for the book, shaking out her dark hair. 'Cheers, though, Neal,' she thanks him.

[ra-tilt-chimera.livejournal.com]

*A vaguely familiar-looking black-haired man picks up a book, looks up, and runs towards Mel with a ridiculous grin plastered on his face. I can't believe that someone can actually do that! This is amazing!* Hey, Mel!

[totallyluminous.livejournal.com]

'Do I know you?' she frowns. Maybe an illusion-spell? Damn, she can't see his name inside his mind, he's so excited.

She takes the book, concentrating hard.