Open RP: Back to Normal - or, What Passes for Normal Around Here

[bantersucks]

After sending out a quick owl, Jaime headed down to the Great Hall for breakfast. It was still early, so he got some breakfast and scarfed it down in peace

Comments

[unbittenapple]

Bella has sat at all of the tables at one point, trying to talk to people. It's weird, being pulled out of her Edward funk. It's certainly not as bad as it was; she can actually breathe now! But Edward's been busy, and they're not really in the same house, and Alice has been strangely away recently, so Bella is feeling a little uneasy; and this shows in her countenance.

She nods quickly at Jaime, glancing at the fruitbowl. 'Could you pass me a pear, please?'

[bantersucks]

It took Jaime a second to register that someone was talking to him, and another second to realize what she was asking. He looked up, blinking, suddenly noticing that there were more than a handful of people around. When did that happen? "Huh? Oh. Oh, yeah."

Fruitbowl. Right in front of him. Duh. He grabbed a pear and offered it to the girl, feeling a little sheepish. "Sorry. Kinda out of it today. Still getting used to this place again."

[unbittenapple]

Bella smiles shyly as she takes it, nearly dropping it on the polished wood of the table. 'It always has something new to worry you with, this place,' she admits. Much like a man she knows. 'How long have you been here? I mean, are you new?'

Bella...hasn't been to any Sortings except her own.

[bantersucks]

"Noticed that, all right," Jaime said with a smirk. "I'm kinda new all over again? Was here for a month, then got dumped back home for a while then dumped back here. So I've gotta learn my way around the weird all over again. How about you?"

[unbittenapple]

'I've been here...a month. Maybe a few days more,' Bella says. She grimaces. 'I've sort of been stuck in my own little world...but now the people I knew from home--well, one of them--has just about disappeared. I'm not worried, I mean, she probably has a good reason and she can definitely take care of herself, but it's woken me up to the fact that I really have no good friends here I didn't already know. I haven't gone to any Sortings, and the brand of weird here is just...making itself known to me. Plus, there are people here who have amazing abilities, which makes me feel even more--' she grins-- 'Boring.'

Long speech. Bella's not usually that verbose. She bites into the pear.

[bantersucks]

"Huh. Maybe we got Sorted around the same time," Jaime guessed. "Good you've got people from home. Maybe she'll come back soon? Hogwarts is weird like that." He marked his place in the book and closed it, the Strategy front cover side up, offering a hand to shake. "Hi, I'm Jaime. Now you've got one."
He grinned. "Hey, nothing wrong with being normal. Doesn't always mean boring."

[unbittenapple]

Bella raises her eyebrows. 'Come on, I work in a hiking gear shop on the weekends. Not particularly interesting. Now, if I were Hiker Girl, the booted heroine who saves people from bears...'

She takes his hand, shaking it a little weakly. Bella so often felt like a ghost among her much more solid classmates, it's odd discovering you're real again. 'Bella,' she supplies. 'Alice operates in her own mind,' Bella adds, this being a lot more true than Jaime will probably guess.

'I'm in Hufflepuff,' Bella says, indicating the table filled with pretty girls and talking cats. 'General opinion in the common room is of being completely useless.' She makes a face. 'It rubbed off, yuck.'

[bantersucks]

"I work in my Dad's garage on the weekends. That's a thrill ride right there." Jaime shrugged. "Yeah, but then you'd have bears trying to maul you on a regular basis. There's boring and there's the life that no insurance company will cover. And you've got to have had some weird customers come in sometimes."

"Nice to meet you. That's your friend?" He... didn't really understand the comment, but didn't ask for clarification. Bella didn't seem too worried about her anyway, and maybe she was just thinking out loud.

He frowned at her comment. "I thought it was supposed to be the other way around." Okay, the other three Hufflepuffs he'd met were kind of wacky, but not useless. "What makes you think you're useless?"

[unbittenapple]

Bella flushes, not meaning to have accidentally insulted him. 'Mostly we get people like...' Wait, who have they had in? Bella was smiley and happy to them, sure, but ask her to describe one of them a second after they leave and she's stuck. 'Like my Dad,' she guesses, and then smiles. 'They mostly go there to mope about the need for new sturdy boots every three times they go fishing, and then buy the cheapest.'

'Alice is the friend,' she confirms. 'I don't know if you'll have met her...pale, inky black hair, really short--the hair and her stature--' polite grin--'And irrepresible.' The colour-changing eyes might be a giveaway, too.

'Of the people I have met,' she says, putting down the remnants of the pear, 'I don't think even one of them was totally human. If they were, they acted so used to magic it was almost scary.' Yeah, you know what, Bella? Some people might think the fact your boyfriend's a vampire sort of freaky, too. 'I don't think I'd show an aptitude. The stuff I've tried hasn't gone well.' Understatement. It requires a

[bantersucks]

Fortunately, she hadn't. "And they never figure it out, huh?" Jaime said, grinning. "Yeah, Dad gets customers like that too." Who would go for years without an oil change and wonder why their engine was so messed up

[unbittenapple]

'They seem to underestimate the distance every time,' Bella says solemnly, brown eyes serious. But then a small smile appears on her face. 'Privately I think they get so bored not catching anything they use the boots as bait.'

Home for three months...where is home? Maybe it's wherever Edward is, but Bella's a little aware of how unhealthy that is. 'I've sent Owls--to my Mom, and Dad, and another friend back home...if I go home now, I think I'll just be grounded. But if time really does pass differently here...' Well, a month of Hogwarts-time doesn't bear thinking about. Bella reminds herself that Edward had been gone for exactly the same sort of time as he said he had been at Hogwarts, and then her head warns that following this thought will lead to a headache.

'I might just head to the library,' Bella suggests. 'You can obviously handle the theory.' Here she indicates his book, not sneakily checking out its title at all.

[bantersucks]

"Yeah, time here is weird. When I got dumped back home, I was only gone for five minutes," Jaime explained. He grinned, completely understanding about parental grounding. "Yeah, I was thinking Mom was gonna put me under house arrest til I was thirty. Think it's easier to not try to figure it out."

Jaime looked down at the book. "Huh? Oh, um, not really," he admitted. "I think I've read the same chapter in here five times now trying to figure some of it out. Got it from somebody who thought I could use some insight." His smile was sheepish. "Used to belong to someone a lot smarter 'n me, that's for sure."

[unbittenapple]

Bella leans in a little, not in the flirting way, but in an interested way. 'I have a friend who doesn't like the other guy I know here,' she hazards, wondering how on earth to detail the jealous werewolf vs. possessive vampire fight that's currently giving her problems. 'It's possible I could be sent home three seconds later? Oh...' On the plus side, Jacob and Charlie not mad. On the minus side, you were plunging off a cliff when you got here. 'Good, I guess.'

Her hand hovers over the book. She frowns at its title. 'Strategy? How come?#

[bantersucks]

If she had been flirting, Jaime might not have noticed anyway. "That sucks. They're not - you're not getting stuck in the middle of it, are you?" His two best friends were always fighting and he was always babysitting them, but they didn't hate each other. He had no idea what he would do if that was the case

[unbittenapple]

Bella smiles wearily. 'It can seem that way.' So, in other words, great big yes. Bella doesn't like to think they're fighting over her, but if they are it's more 'don't turn my best friend/girlfriend into a vampire/expose her to your werewolfy ways' than 'omg I want her u cant hav her lol.'

'Maybe the magic decides,' Bella says rather less guiltily than she feels. 'I hope it's maybe an hour later. Maybe I'll be at home then.' She grins.

She absent-mindedly plucks an empty cup and pours herself some pumpkin juice. 'Good friend you've got there.' Is it really her place to say any more than that? Back when she didn't know vampires and werewolves existed, she would have been all over his problem. Now, she's a lot more careful.

[bantersucks]

"Oh." Jaime flinched, for once getting the unspoken meaning. "Sorry. Talking to 'em doesn't help?"

He returned the grin. "Home is good. It actually saved me a trip - I was gonna be late for dinner, but I wound up being early instead. You never know."

"I guess so. Hard to tell 'cause he defaults to being a jerk, but he believed me when nobody else did." And didn't treat him like an idiot, and apologized and actually went to check out the base and insulted the Reach negotiator to his face... given the circumstances, it did make up for almost killing him.

He nodded, grateful she wasn't going to press for details. Context aside, that entire day was beyond bizarre.