Open RP: Kate Goes for a Walk

[runkaterun.livejournal.com]

((Following the events of her conversation with Sawyer (which, admittedly, isn't finished yet)))

Kate gets quiet when she's mad.
The normally life-filled sounds of the corridors and stairs and rooms of the subterranian wing of the castle usually filled Kate with a mood of pleasant irony... a silent small joke on the decades and centuries of dark Wizards who had called Slytherin thier home. Evil, she surmised, seemed to prefer silence and brooding contemplation and hidden grottoes where small groups can conspire inconspicuously... but whoever had designed the long corridors and hollow spaces in the bedrock beneath the school had instead turned the entire place into an echo factory.
And normally, she'd love it.

But today, the stairs rising from the dungeons seemed restless to her, too filled with echoes of dripping water and the faraway sounds of footsteps on smooth stones. It drove her a little mad to be surrounded by so much random sound when all she wanted to do was think... to be alone with her thoughts and away from him.

So she climbs quickly, almost jogging as she reaches the hallways of the first floor, breaching quickly into the entrance hall and through the doors onto the grounds. Sitting heavily on the steps, she sets to retying the laces on one of her shoes... but stops almost immediately to just breathe, head propped up on an arm splayed awkwardly across her knees.

Comments

[vividtonks.livejournal.com]

It was a pleasant day to be out on the grounds. At the very least it wasn't raining. It seemed to Tonks that it had been raining a lot lately, but maybe she had just noticed it more because the grey rain matched the mood in the castle. Today the sun had decided to peak out from behind the clouds for a while and she was determined to enjoy it.

She finds a lone woman sitting on the front steps. She looks rather upset. Tonks plops down gracelessly next to her.

"You all right?" she asks tentatively.

[runkaterun.livejournal.com]

Kate looks up sullenly, not bothering to smile. "Hi... no. Heh. I seem to have one of those lives you can never get away from, no matter how far you run." She kicks absently at a pebble, sending it skittering down the steps. "This place seems to be nothing more than a way to dredge up old memories... another step in the ten-step program of pergatory." She casts a sidelong glance at the girl next to her, "Haven't seen you around here before, I don't think. New here?"

[vividtonks.livejournal.com]

"I know a few people who seem to have lives like that. Old memories won't stay memories and the dead don't stay dead." She frowns, feeling a bit guilty about what she just said, not that this woman would know what she's talking about.

"No, I've been here for a while. I think I've seen you at a couple sortings - it's nice to finally talk to you." Because I really need to expand my social circle, she thinks. "I'm Tonks, by the way. And you are?"

[runkaterun.livejournal.com]

"'m Kate. Kate Austen, formerly of craphole island." She smiles thinly. "Nice to see someone else knows what I'm talking about, in any case. I'm used to people proclaiming the virtues of getting a frsh start and all that." She laughs dryly, "And trust me. I've tried..."

"So what's your story, Miss. Tonks? Demon? Insane Japanese lady? FBI agent?"

[vividtonks.livejournal.com]

"Gods, I swear a fresh start sounds like an impossible dream." She smiles wistfully.

"Actually, I'm an auror. I suppose that's sort of the magical equivalent of an FBI agent. They wanted someone keeping an eye on the 'new' Hogwarts and I was only too happy to volunteer." She shrugs. It's not much of an introduction, but it's more than she's told a lot of people. "And you? What's your story?"

[lizzyswan.livejournal.com]

Elizabeth had just woken up from her long sleep. Only now was she beginning to settle into the new time zone. 'What better way to refresh than to take a walk outside,' she thought. On her way out, however, she notices two girls; both are about her age. 'I need to start talking to people, what better than two young woman of my age,' she told herself. As she got closer she noticed the one with dark hair seemed to have melancholy wrapped around her. The other girl, with the bright hair, was surprisingly similar to Elizabeth. She sat on the other side of the sad girl; straightening out her robes at the back before she sat.

'Hello, I'm Elizabeth,' she said offering a hand. 'Are you okay?'

[runkaterun.livejournal.com]

Kate looks up from her conversation with her other reluctant companion to face the new voice. "Hey. Kate..." She reaches across her chest with her right hand, and shakes Elizabeth's proffered hand. "And no... 'm not okay. Guys are dicks." She laughs bitterly, and rests her chin on her knees.

[lizzyswan.livejournal.com]

Elizabeth noticed hurt in Kate's eyes when she accepted her hand. 'Oh, I couldn't possibly agree with you more. Have you had a run in with a drunken pirate or something? In fact, ignore that, all men are *ahem* male genitals.' She smiled, then laughed at how silly she sounded. 'I'm finding it awfully hard to keep up with modern slang, I do apologise.'

[peter-hegemon.livejournal.com]

Peter had taken to walking the grounds to clear his head. As long as it wasn’t at night he wasn’t reminded of his childhood home, and the fresh air was a welcome relief from the hours he spent in the library, pouring over books in preparation for his first class. He hadn’t realized how used to open air he had become in Ribeirao Preto until he tried to cut himself off from it entirely.

As he was making his way back inside from one of his walks, he noticed a brunette sitting unhappily on the steps. Curious, and ever aware of his need to learn more about the student body, he stopped. Choosing a place on the step far enough away to seem inconspicuous, but close enough to see and here clearly, he sat on the steps and pulled a book out of the bad he was carrying with him. Pretending to read, he peered over the top of his book and watched, waiting to see what would happen.

[peter-hegemon.livejournal.com]

((BTW, Peter is definitely not as good at being subtle as he would like, so feel free to have Kate or any of the other characters playing notice him watching, if you so desire))

[runkaterun.livejournal.com]

Through middle school, Kate had always been the one the mean boys gravitated toward... the kind that pulled her hair when she wasn't paying attenion to them, who threw pencis at the back of her head in class, who whispered nasty things to her and told crude jokes about her mom as she walked home... the sort that didn't know how to deal with hormones and prepubescent love through any means but insitinctual, knuckle-dragging behavior.
It seemed sometimes that she still attracted that kind of guy. Only now, they'd sit down the bar from her and stare at her rack until they were drunk enough to come up and offer to turn her frown upside down. The sort that would get angry and violent if she said no, they couldn't fuck her. The kind that she always ended up spending the night with, only to leave the next morning with thier wallet and thier pride, and no real damage done.

So when the guy started staring at her from behind his book, small warnings immediately went off in her head. Carefully, she didn't let on that she knew, relaxed a little, listened to something one of the two girls who had sat down on either side of her said, waiting for him to approach.

[peter-hegemon.livejournal.com]

((Sorry for the delayed response. Big storm=dead internets))

Peter listened to the conversations the brunette had started. She was another one who didn’t seem to have a problem with unloading her inner troubles on perfect strangers. He wondered if it was something in the water at Hogwarts. Or maybe that was just another part of being ‘normal’ that he didn’t understand.

He didn’t think she had noticed him watching, and so he contented himself with continuing to watch and listen, for the moment. He knew he should approach: collecting information about people was all well and good, but networking was more important. And he would, he told himself. But after he had learned a little more.

[lizzyswan.livejournal.com]

'Kate, dear... do you know him' Elizabeth asked, caustiously. She didn't even no Kate, but the boy seemed intimidating; Elizabeth wasn't usually intimidated by anyone. 'He keeps looking over,' she said, with a slight worry in her voice.

[peter-hegemon.livejournal.com]

Peter cursed inwardly. His observation was apparently not as subtle as he had hoped. He missed being back home, where he had the influence to find out almost anything about anyone of note. He knew how to play that game. He didn’t, apparently, know how to spy. And he certainly didn’t know how to make small conversation with people who weren’t head of states. But he’d have to try, now that he’d been seen. He stood, trying to assume an air of casualness, and walked over to the three girls.

"Hello," he said confidently. "I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation."