Day Two

[burningpainting]

((OOC: I'd just like to let you all know that anybody can start a new thread whenever they feel like it, so please don't think that it's just a mod thing to kickstart new scenes aside from character introductions!))

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[staff_of_one]

Nico showed up in the doorway to Karolina's room, looking absolutely exhausted. Under normal circumstances, she was a morning person by absolutely no stretch of the imagination. Lately her sleep had become increasingly troubled by various betrayals of loved ones, separation anxiety from her friends, and leadership worries, so in the mornings she often looked like something the cat dragged in.

This time she made even that look glamorous. "Morning, Karolina," she muttered, wearing her usual oversized black t-shirt with a faded skull design -- it was what passed for her sleep attire these days. Her makeup hadn't been applied, and the bags and wrry lines around her eyes were evident. "You look like you're in a good mood."

That was about as much small talk as she could manage, so after Karolina's reply, she announced in a quiet voice. "I didn't get any sleep last night. I had a nightmare."

[burningpainting]

"Morning, Karolina, you look like you're in a good mood."

"Mornin' Nico," Karolina pulled her hair over her shoulder to braid it up. "Did you sleep we-...whoa." She turned away from the dresser and winced at the witch's appearance.

"I didn't get any sleep last night. I had a nightmare."

"You look it," she said quietly as Nico dragged herself into the room. "Do you...want to talk about it?"

Karolina had thought for a while that Nico hadn't been sleeping that well, but then, all of them (with the possible exception of Molly, who slept like a rock anyway) had strange dreams. After what happened, it'd be weirder if they didn't. But it was something they'd never talked about between themselves. And Nico had been so withdrawn lately anyway, Karolina was honestly surprised to hear her confess.

"Was it because of yesterday? The flashback spell, I mean?"

[staff_of_one]

"You look it," she said quietly as Nico dragged herself into the room. "Do you...want to talk about it?"

Nico nodded, then flopped onto Karolina's bed. Standing seemed to require too much effort, as exhausted as the goth girl was.

"Was it because of yesterday? The flashback spell, I mean?"

Nico stared at the ceiling, nodding slowly. "I've ... I've never seen anything like it. It's ... imagine a movie. A disaster movie. With the ... the biggest budget ever. No detail is left out, and not only can you ... can you see it and hear it ... you can smell it, touch it, taste it. All those dead bodies. All that destruction

[burningpainting]

Karolina tied off the bottom tail of her braid and sat down beside Nico. Her good mood dissolved as she listened to the nightmare, or the flashback, if there was any difference between the two at all.

She tried not to flinch away from Nico's eyes. They were downright haunted, and only the slightly giddy thought that that was a really cliche way to put it kept her from looking away. She wracked her brain for something to say that could possibly make that look go away.

"If we do this right," Karolina said at last, reaching over to pluck a bit of pillow-down from Nico's hair, "then none of that will ever happen. We can undo it. Uh...retroactively, that is." She puffed the fluff away and offered her friend a reassuring smile. "Maybe then you can use a flashforward spell to make sure everything turned out better."

[aunt_abby]

Gert stretched in bed and kicked off the covers. She freed herself from the sleeping Chase's arms and looked down at the sleeping blond. For a boy, he was awfully clingy while he was asleep.. But she understood. Being that everything in his life had been wrenched away from him, she figured she ought to allow him to cling to something, even if it was just in his sleep

[burningpainting]

The coffee machine made an ominous, gutteral sound. Karolina smacked it with the flat of her palm, and it obliged her by trickling java. She kept a wary eye on it as Gert and Old Lace made their way through the door (all at once and together; Karolina was never sure how they managed to fit, but somehow they did).

"Morning," she said, much more brief and less cheery with Gert than the others. She'd learned the hard way that the shorter girl didn't respond well to morning folks, and she had a telepathic raptor to enforce her dislike. "Coffee?"

Nico and Victor already had mugs on the table, and were busy sweetening it to taste. Karolina usually held off on her own until everybody else had been placated. The machine might die at any time, and nobody else could function without it.

[aunt_abby]

She took a cup of coffee, sipping it despite the heat before she sat down. "Morning." she muttered shortly.

[the_jock]

When Chase first woke up, he wasn't sure what time it was. When he checked the clock, it flashed 10:30 am. He usually didn't wake up this early, but when Gert got up, she inadvertantly woke him up too.

However, when she did, he failed to get back to sleep, no matter how hard he tried. Finally, he decided to give up, and wake up.

He went through the usual morning ritual; scratch crotch, answer call of nature, put on pants. As he struggled to put on his pants, still only half awake, he couldn't help but hope that everything that had happened the previous day had only been a bad dream.

But, to his dissapointment, as he dragged himself into the dining hall, he saw through half closed eyes the most recent thorn in his ass.

Victor sat with Nico and Gert sipping coffee. Instead of causing a huge scene with the kid, as it had become expected, Chase sat down and made a sound only understandable to Karolina.

"Muh-hly." he groaned.

"One cup o' Joe coming right up." she replied, perky as always.

[slick_the_rper]

Victor didn't say much as he added plenty of sugar to his coffee and hoped this stuff was strong. Hell, he was so desperate for caffiene that he was ready to just grab and crunch on some of the beans.

He was still quite tense being so close to Nico, and kept his eyes cast downwards. The tension didn't ease with the arrival of Gert and Old Lace, and if anything, the presence of Chase only made things worse for him. At the very least, karolina's presence was comforting... though he still couldn't shake the dream of Victorious holding her severed head, and felt a little pang of guilt every time he glanced up at her.

Apparently, Molly was still asleep, but Victor knew it was only a matter of time before they had to talk about what would happen when he would leave, and that conversation would likely cause everything to be blown straight to hell... again. But after a sip of his coffee, he knew he'd at least be wide awake for the entire drama...

[staff_of_one]

Nico drank her coffee in silence as well. Except for Molly, everyone was here, and things were still strained among them. Not surprising.

Glancing at Gert, Nico remembered an important piece of business they'd left undone yesterday (one of many). Moving over to her -- and away from Victor, probably to the boy's relief -- she whispered, "have you given thought to what we're going to do with the older you? Since she's you, you have total say on how we go about the burial or whatever. I'm not sure what the Jewish custom is, so..."

She trailed off, realizing how morbid the topic was for the first thing in the morning. But then, when was the last time they'd even had a normal morning?

[aunt_abby]

"Well, I'm obviously not a practicing Jew." Gert said, quirking an eyebrow, "I mean, it's a bit tough to go to synagogue here, not like we went much before all this. And there's no way of knowing what the future me's religion's like, I'd obviously changed quite a lot." She took a sip of coffee and flicked her gaze across all present, as if challenging them to contradict her.

"Jewish practices are basically like so: Stick the body in the ground as fast as possible." she said, pointing down, "No embalming allowed. That's what I remember, anyway."