Room 218, Thursday Evening

[glacial_witch]

Karla, to put it lightly, was in a miserable mood when she stormed into her room, all swirling black Widow's Weeds and residual bad temper. She was tired, bitchy, hungry, and pissed off at every vampire ever who thought it was all right to kidnap and feed off her friends in some kind of obscure power-play

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[didntchewgrass]

Elphaba, blessedly free of the tik-tok tot, didn't know for sure if her friend had returned from whatever had detained Karla from attending reserves yesterday. Nonetheless, she stopped by Karla's room with a half-eaten apple in one hand (and another in her pocket, just for safe-keeping). With her free hand, she knocked on Karla's door with an assertive three raps.

"Hello?" she said, hoping for a response.

[glacial_witch]

Karla grumbled a little. Why had everyone decided tonight was the perfect night to come in and bother Karla.

"There is a food toll!" she yelled through the door. "You can only come in if you have something I can eat."

Ha! Take that!

[didntchewgrass]

"I have a spare apple," Elphaba said, before taking a bite of her own. "Is that toll enough?"

She couldn't help but smile a bit. Planning helped all sorts of issues. She had thought that if Karla had had to use her magic, she might have been a bit malnourished.

[glacial_witch]

The grumbling got louder, but the door opened in front of Elphaba, opening wide enough to invite her in.

"Is it a green apple?" she pouted asked from where she was sitting. "I like those the best."

On the plus side, she didn't look any thinner. Just kind of aggravated.

[didntchewgrass]

"It's red," Elphaba said. "Sorry to disappoint. I believe the type is called Red Delicious." She produced her unbitten apple from a pocket of her dress as she stepped in. "If you want more food you could always visit Ariel's party."

[glacial_witch]

Karla frowned and shook her head. "I'm not really feeling much like a party tonight," she said. "I'm exhausted and out of sorts; dealing with many groups of people would just scrape my last nerve."

[didntchewgrass]

"Then I won't ask of the trouble that you and Raven got into," Elphaba said, approaching carefully to hand Karla the apple. "If it's got you on your last nerve, I won't risk it with careless questions."

[glacial_witch]

Karla grabbed at the apple greedily, waving to Elphaba to take a seat on the edge of the bed as she relished her first bite. "Mother Night, thank you. This is good." She took another few bites, eating half the apple in just a few moments. "I'm just overtired and cranky. Hungry, too. Lot of Healing in the past few days. A friend of ours got kidnapped. We went to get her back and explain to them that harming one of friends was a poor plan."

[didntchewgrass]

"A friend as in a fellow student?" Elphaba said. She had to assume so, as she believed Raven and Karla from different worlds. "I would assume that it's quite a foolish idea, yes. I know I wouldn't wish to be on your or Raven's bad side. Especially both at the same time."

She sat down, as Karla heeded. "I take it if healing was required, it wasn't simply a matter of diplomacy."

[glacial_witch]

Karla snorted. "Vampires' version of diplomacy is seeing who can cause the most carnage first, I think," she said.

Uhh, sorry, Maladicta.

She glared at the remains of her apple as if it had personally offended her. "No, our friend is...special, in her own world. One of the vampires decided he wanted to know why. So he sent his werewolf henchmen--" there was an eyeroll there, yes, "--to snatch her up while she was off-island."

Apparently a polite invitation was no longer in vogue.

[didntchewgrass]

"Of course," Elphaba said. "When in need of asking a simple question, I always send my henchmen to kidnap the person first. It makes conversation so much easier."

There was a bit of heavy sarcasm in Elphaba's voice.

[glacial_witch]

"Precisely!" Karla said, throwing her arms in the air. "Because that always puts the victim in the perfect frame of mind to be cooperative, right? Mother Night! And then she got drained nearly to the point of death not once but twice and found out she'd been betrayed the entire time she's known yet a different vampire, and in the end I nearly set their entire bar on fire because I was hungry, overtired and pissed off."

[didntchewgrass]

"You never really have much fun when you leave the island, do you?" Elphaba said, taking a bite of what was left of her apple. "I hope this friend has learned her lesson about trust. I won't say that you cannot trust a vampire, as I've never met one. But it seems she has placed her trust too easily in those with the power to hurt her."

[glacial_witch]

"Sometimes I do!" Karla protested. "Sometimes I have a ton of fun!"

Beat.

"Just not recently. But I did on the skiing trip."

Which, you know, was run by the school. But whatever. Details.

[didntchewgrass]

"That was some time ago, now," Elphaba said. "But you're right, I'm generalizing, which isn't fair. But you know, you've not said much about how it's affected you... just what happened to your friend."

[glacial_witch]

Karla gave a slight, shame-faced laugh. "I guess you're right," she admitted. "It's just...easier to focus on Sookie. Because then I can just concentrate on her and being tired and angry and don't have to think about it."