open RP, corridors: Camilla as a child.

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

(( Camilla has eaten some magical chocolate and is now seven years old. ))

It's a make-believe place, isn't it? She's in a castle. She must be dreaming. It's a beautiful dream, Camilla thinks.

She seems to know where things are, here, in the way of dreams, even though she doesn't remember any of it really. That way's the Great Hall, not knowing what the Great Hall actually is, only somehow knowing its name and if she follows that particular turn in the corridors that's where she'll end up. That's the way out to the courtyard, though she's not sure what's in the courtyard.

Inquisitive, she wanders, that first exuberant skipping long since slowed to a sedate walk.

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[chas-macaulay.livejournal.com]

She doesn't know him. For a moment he's cut to the quick - he'd have sworn they'd know each other anywhere, in any state, not because they were twins (they always scoffed at the idea of a Psychic Twin Thing) but because they were them.

Then he thinks, why should she? She's the girl she once was, but he's a very far cry from the boy he was then, in more ways than one.

Is she even here, really? Even at his drunkest he'd never hallucinated her, but in this place, who knows? Either way, she's waiting for some kind of answer.

"Camilla, what are you doing here?" he settles on finally.

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

Some things aren't lost, though. Camilla catches that quick shadow of hurt crossing the man's face. Rounded childish features mirror it, as it echoes back through her. "Don't be sad," she says, worried, padding up to him. "We're only dreaming."

[chas-macaulay.livejournal.com]

Dreaming. That idea makes him smile, though he's not sure if it's true or not.

"Okay, then. Is this your dream, or mine?"

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

"Both," Camilla says promptly. "I didn't make you up, so you're not a dream-person, you're a real one who's dreaming too ..." The words trail off into another uncertain look. She tilts her head, assessing him.

"Unless you're part of me. I think you might be. Are you?"

[chas-macaulay.livejournal.com]

"In a way," he says, mirroring the head-tilt. "What would you say if I told you I'm Charles?"

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

Camilla blinks, once, wide-eyed.

Then an incredibly bright smile dawns.

"Of course you are," she says. Why shouldn't Charles be able to dream himself grown-up? And it is Charles. "You'll have to teach me how to do that before we wake up. It isn't fair for you to be older than me."

[chas-macaulay.livejournal.com]

That smile's irresistible. "Of course, m'dear. Now. What're we doing, in this dream? Making mischief? We've always been good at that."

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

"No, it's not that kind of day," says Camilla. "It's gloomy out." Rainy days are for reading, and hot drinks, and playing cards. "Until I found you, I was exploring. Someone was reading stories for a while, and then I started exploring again. Maybe I was looking for you and I didn't even know it," she surmises, proud of the deduction. "Did we plan it that way before we went to sleep?" They do sleep in the same bed often. She can imagine it, forehead to forehead, intent on projecting a shared dreamscape so they can be together even when sleep would have separated their awarenesses.

[chas-macaulay.livejournal.com]

"Mmmm. No, I think this time it just kind of happened," he says. "Gloomy's no good. I know where we can get cards, though. And hot chocolate."

His room, he means. Neither Camilla nor Henry is Sorted into Ravenclaw, which makes him think the Hat's got more sense than meets the eye. And he doesn't know any other House passwords in any case.

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

"Oh, good." Camilla is instantly cheered. "I'm so glad I found you. Silas said he doesn't know any games. He probably would have gone for a game of 52 Pickup (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/52_Pickup)," she adds, with a glint of that mischief she's just disavowed.

[chas-macaulay.livejournal.com]

"Oh, we can do better than that," he says, and impulsively holds out a hand.

He remembers Silas from the Sorting Room, and the thought passes through his mind that he might be looking for Camilla. Oh well. Cross that bridge when he comes to it, he supposes.

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

Taking Charles's hand is as natural and automatic as breathing. Even when it's so much bigger than hers, which doesn't unsettle her at all, only makes her curious. Her small fingers give an experimental squeeze. "I think I must have been trying to dream grown-up too," she confides as they walk. "All my clothes are the wrong size. If I did I don't remember it." That's disappointing to her. She's always wanted to grow up. She has a notion that when you're grown up, no one can take anything away from you ever again.

"What's it like? What were you doing before I found you? Do you have a monk too?" She's endlessly curious.

[chas-macaulay.livejournal.com]

"It's...not that much different really. Except I'm bigger and everything else is smaller. I just came from having lunch, and no, I don't have a monk too. You'll have to share yours, I guess."

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

Camilla laughs. Her laugh as a child isn't much different than her laugh as an adult; only purer, a little higher, not so hoarse. "There won't be anything left of him to go around. I left him reading to some other little girls. One of them is a ghost." Camilla has always believed in ghosts. "Have you seen any ghosts??

[chas-macaulay.livejournal.com]

He tilts his head to look at her. "One, but it wasn't a very friendly ghost. I chased it away. How long have y-we been dreaming, can you tell?"

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

This is a question that wouldn't have occurred to Camilla. "I can't really say. Not a terribly long time, I don't think," she ventures. "It hasn't been a bad dream. I'm sorry you met an unfriendly ghost in yours. It'll all be better now though." She's supremely confident of that. "This ghost I met was a nice one, and she was wearing a shirt that had awfully naughty words on it. What was your ghost like? How did you know it was an unfriendly one?"

[chas-macaulay.livejournal.com]

"Well, he was big, and he was mean, and he wanted to take things from me." He smiles down at little Camilla. "I'm sure it'll be fine now that we're together."

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

"Definitely," and Camilla smiles back. "I would also lend you Silas except that he doesn't seem to have power over ghosts. It doesn't matter anyway now. I'm not afraid of big mean ghosts," she says bravely.

[chas-macaulay.livejournal.com]

"He's gone off now, and I don't think he'll bother us," he says.

They arrive at Ravenclaw and he opens the door to the common room. "Do we feel like being sociable, or holing up with cards and hot chocolate, Milly?"

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

Camilla doesn't remember ever having been in this room before. By dream logic it isn't remarkable, this amalgam of mad-scientist laboratory and bar (neither of which are anything little Camilla's seen in person before, of course; she's working off memories of television). All the same, it doesn't look like a place she wants to be. "Cards," she tells him, but she's not looking at him, still glancing around the room, and she holds tight to his hand. "Charles, where are we?"

[chas-macaulay.livejournal.com]

"Just another part of the castle," he says, leading her out of the common room and into the dorms. "My deck of cards is in here."

He opens the door to his dormroom, still stark and anonymous, snags the deck of cards from atop the desk and sits cross-legged on the foot of the bed, shuffling the cards.

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

Camilla sizes up her surroundings. "This room needs flowers, like mine." It's so bare. "Didn't you know you could just ask and you can have anything you want in this castle?" Quick as a fawn she darts into the hallway and can be heard calling for a house elf; then she's back, with a bunch of paperwhites in a vase. She's tall enough to place them triumphantly on the desk.

Satisfied, the child climbs up onto the bed to sit facing Charles, her legs tucked under her. She watches her brother's hands as they shuffle the cards.

[chas-macaulay.livejournal.com]

Charles hadn't thought of that; it was the sort of thing Camilla always noticed more than he did. He's grown used to anonymous, short-term lodgings over the last six years.

"What shall we play today, m'dear? Ladies' choice."

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

"Go Fish," Milly pronounces.

Well, you can't expect anything too sophisticated from a seven-year-old. Besides, there are only two players.

[chas-macaulay.livejournal.com]

"You got it," he says, and deals them each seven cards.