charlotte

For a scene with ducklings. Or A duckling, anyway.

Who: Charlotte, Dean, Herbert, Joshua, Isaac, Peyton, Sammy, Stacey, and Thom.
When: Lunchtime.
Where: Side lawn at school.

Charlotte would have felt much better about this if Kaysen was there. She hadn't been nervous about this until she woke up this morning and realized she had no freaking idea what she was doing. Or maybe everyone would think she was crazy, or that it was a waste of time. They won't. she kept telling herself. If they agreed to show up in the first place, they must think it's a good idea. She just kept telling herself that.

Who: Herbert and Charlotte.
When: Third period gym class.
Where: Schooool.

Charlotte was relieved to be back at school, vampire apocalypse seemingly... well, maybe not over, but moved on to somewhere else. She felt kind of badly for being glad it had moved on, but... what could she do? She'd put her attention towards organizing the meetings they'd all talked about before things had gone crazier. She still had to text people, which she figured would be easiest to do at lunch. During gym, she headed over to Herbert to pair up so she could talk to him.

Spotting her on her way over, Herbert broke into a huge grin and waved happily. Yes, he was focusing on the "it's over! things can get back to normal!" aspect of things instead of the "normal for a while" aspect of things that Olivia had been so adamant about. He didn't even want to think about it, he just wanted to give Charlie a hug and be glad she was okay, and move on to something happier.

The hug he did, albeit briefly, when she reached him. No sense getting the teacher mad at them, but he just had to.

Who: Text messages from Charlotte to Kaysen, Dean, and Joshua.
When: Lunch time.
Where: School.

Charlotte felt better now that school had started, and fell back into the routine of it all with relief and ease. She was glad it looked like things could be getting back to normal, and with that... time to get back to the plans. First, she sent a message to Kaysen.

Who: Kaysen and Charlotte.
When: Late morning.
Where: Kaysen's house.

Once the sun came out and Charlotte and her mom came out of the basement, they found that their street looked a little... scorched. Which would have been a lot more terrifying and shocking if Charlotte didn't happen to know a fire elemental across the street.

Who: Dean and various (Caleb, Charlotte, Joshua, Thia if any want to reply!)
Where: By Text / phone
When: Just before dark

Who: Herbert and Charlotte with animal and mother cameos :)
Where: Charlotte's house!
When: Late morning

Though he'd only actually been to Charlie's house once, Herbert didn't have any trouble finding it again. The whole evil-cat incident had rather firmly engraved its location in his brain, even if he wasn't already good at that sort of thing. He wished he could be coming over in some situation that didn't involve worrying about whether she was safe, though. They needed to just hang out, sometime, without migraines or evilness or stress. Yes, there definitely needed to be less stress.

After parking his bicycle beside the porch, Herbert climbed the steps to knock on the door. He didn't really look any better than he had the day before, as the bruises were just changing different colors and he had just replaced the band-aids on his neck with fresh ones rather than foregoing them altogether, but at least the Charlie-smell about the place made him smile.

I ADVANCED!! In both telepathy and earth. I'm still utterly useless as an earth elemental but I GOT BETTER!

      Charlotte.

Who: Charlotte and various text messages.
When: 9 AMish.

To Kaysen:
Still alive? Y/Y?

To Joshua:
Doing okay? I'm good.

To Dean:
Doing okay today? I'm good, checking in with others. -Charlotte.

Who: Charlotte.
When: Early morning.
Where: Her basement.

Late in the night Charlotte had started developing a migraine. Eventually she'd given herself a shot, and later, though she had tried with all her might to fight it, she fell into an exhausted sleep. Her mother had stayed awake by herself in their basement hideaway, Valen being at work. When the sun rose and Valen came home, Isadora went upstairs to speak with him.

As Charlotte awoke, she felt... different. The constant buzzing in her head was different, somehow. Changed. Almost... more coherent. She was immediately full of caution; at this point any change could be a bad one. She slowly sat up and looked around the room. She was alone in the basement, but for Anna. Her eyes locked with the dog.

Worry. Something wrong?

Charlotte's eyes went wide. That had been a voice. An actual voice, a coherent thought, a question. She'd never had that before. Anna? Is that your voice?

She felt a wave of surprise coming from Anna as the dog sat up and started wagging her tail. Oh! Anna got up and padded over to Charlotte, stopping in front of her to pant happily. You hear words now, like Mistress did!

Who: Herbert and Charlie
Where: The phone
When: Mid-morning, 'round 9:30

When Herbert finally pulled himself out of his not-quite-doze and got around to trying to figure out the voice mail system on his cell phone, he found not one message, but two. He didn't even get to Olivia's message, because the first message was from Charlie. And seeing as he'd already spoken to Olivia, the message from Charlie definitely got dealt with first. Immediately, even.

Snatching up the home phone-- even though he still felt a bit fuzzy in the head and unsteady in his thoughts, he wasn't going to forget and charge Olivia more money by calling her on his emergencies-only cell phone-- he quickly looked up her number in his notebook of such things and dialed. He had to tell her he was okay-- beat up a bit, sure, trying very hard not to think about what vampire blood tasted like, sure, but okay-- and he had to make sure she was okay.

who: texts from lullaby using dean's phone
when: various times during the day
where: text land

~For Isaac~
Hey-not sure if u remember me-was at the mine-was checking in to see who was ok.-Dean

~For Charlotte~
Charlotte-checking in to see if u r ok. R u--who else is?-Dean

~Reply to Caleb~
Ok. U?-D

Who: A message left for Herbert from Charlotte.
When: Late.

"Herbert? It's Charlie... are you there? Are you okay? Please be okay. Stuff is going on and... please be okay. Call me when you get this. I don't care what time it is."

Who: Kaysen and Charlotte.
When: Late.
Where: Phone conversation.

Charlotte had been doing her best not to freak out. She flipped channels on the TV, but didn't get any information. There were fires, a gas station had blown up, general chaos... but no one could say what specifically had happened, just to stay at home and await further information. Valen never called back, and she was afraid if she called her mother she'd just worry. Charlotte tried to meditate with her hands in a plant to feel better, and kept sending Anna upstairs to look out the window and make sure things in their street hadn't blown up. So far, so good.

She had to check in with her friends. Wiping her hands off on her pants, she quickly dialed Kaysen's number. It was late, but... well, there was an emergency of some sort going on, and they'd just been talking about keeping up to date on this kind of thing. She just had to know her friends were okay.

When her phone rang, Kaysen jumped a little, but then answered it. "Hello?" she asked. Then it occurred to her she should have checked to see who was calling. Most people she knew who did were like...in the house directly or hopefully sleeping by now. But nope. Apparently not.

Who: Charlotte.
When: About 9:30.
Where: Her house.

Charlotte had spent the evening curled up in her room, more specifically in her own little world with a notebook. She'd made the calls she needed to, and sent a few e-mails, and now she was writing up ideas. She had completely lost track of time, pausing only to flick her bedside light on when the sun set. When the phone rang - the house phone, not her cell phone, it startled her enough to leave a scratch across her notebook with her pen.

She waited a moment to see if her mom would answer it, and then remembered that she'd never heard her mom get back. Late nights in Harvey were not unheard of, one of the mares had been sick the past few days. Charlotte put her things aside and went to answer the phone.

Who: A message left on Joshua's voicemail.
When: 3:30ish.

"Hi Joshua, it's Charlotte? Um... I hope it's okay that I called you. There's some stuff I'd like to talk about... if you're up for it. Call me if you want, but I understand if you can't, or, um... don't want to. Bye."

Who: Herbert and Charlotte.
When: Between classes in the afternoon.
Where: School.

The only class Charlotte had with Herbert was gym, so after talking with Kaysen, there was no guarantee she'd actually be talking to Herbert today. The advantage, of course, was that Herbert was a big guy, and easily visible in hallways. So when classes changed, she was on the lookout for him. They wouldn't have much time to talk, but it'd be enough. When she saw him, she stood on her toes to try and flag him down. "Herbert!"

Though Herbert's eyesight wasn't the best, and his poor nose got so confused in the crowded halls, he could hear someone calling his name even over the hall-noise. Guessing who it was, though, was harder. He turned around, looking in the direction of the sound and frowning in concentration, trying to pick out something familiar in the sea of faces-and-scents.

Charlotte made her way between people until she finally squeezed through next to Herbert. She looked up at him and offered a sheepish smile. "Hi," she said. "Have a second?"

Who: Charlotte, leaving a note for Dean.
When: Just after lunch.
Where: Dean's locker.

Talking to Herbert would be the easy part. Talking to Joshua would be the uncomfortable and possibly flaily part. Talking to Dean? The jury was out. Charlotte had only really met him the one time, any other encounters and everyone had been busy with the mine stuff. She knew him even less than she knew Joshua. In fact, she'd had to ask around just to find his locker.

She wasn't sure if leaving a note was a bad thing or not, but it was probably a lot less crazy than waiting at his locker for him. So that's what she did.

who: kaysen and charlotte
where: outside school
when: lunchtime

Who: Charlotte, works either as a solo or an open scene!
When: Four-thirty-ish.
Where: Lullaby's bedroom.

It still didn't feel over to Charlotte. She'd been to the wake, been to the funeral, managed to get through school the day after... and now what? Was everyone just supposed to find a way to move on? That didn't feel right. Or very likely.

Who: Herbert and Charlotte.
When: Lunchtime.
Where: School.

The nightmares had come back.

They weren't quite as overwhelming as they had been before the dreams that beckoned Charlotte to the mines, but they were back. Before the mines it had been constant, disorienting flashes of the things the cat-that-wasn't-a-cat had shown her. Things like an entire war-ravaged war and oceans of blood, animals ripping an infant apart limb from limb, and a million or so images of humankind at its most gruesome. Last night it had been the rotting corpses of everyone she'd known that had died, and what was happening to them underground. Around the time the corpses started to blink and stir and stare in wide-eyed horror at someone or something or just themselves and their situations Charlotte had woken up screaming.

She returned to school that day, but she felt drained, in every possible definition. Emotionally, mentally, physically... even spiritually. At lunch time she entered the cafeteria, but with all the people and noise surrounding her she realized she wasn't at all hungry. Sighing and shaking her head at herself, Charlotte turned and headed outside.

The day was really quite dreary, which seemed to suit a little bit. Two friends, after all, were very gone-- one dead and the other just farther away than Herbert would get to go anytime soon. It wasn't raining, though it smelled a bit like it. That wasn't enough to keep Herbert inside with the noise and crowd, though, so he was eating his lunch out on the lawn-- alone, which was kind of sad. He wanted people, today, preferably lots of them. Maybe once he'd made some headway on his food-- which was disappearing pretty rapidly into his belly-- he'd go seek someone out.

Except he caught sight of a familiar face-- or, more accurately, a familiar dark head of hair and a familiar, if subdued, walk-- and lifted a hand to wave hopefully in her direction. It would figure that the day after a funeral, the now quite well p.e. teacher would've seen fit to go right back into team sports, so they hadn't seen much of each other during class.

Who: Charlotte.
When: Morningtime.
Where: Her house.

Charlotte was happy to finally have a weekend where she felt... sort of normal. The dreams weren't plaguing her anymore, and before that, it had been nightmares of the cats-that-weren't-cats. Everyone was back from the mines, and Charlotte had felt very much like a normal teenage girl over the past few days. It put her in a good mood, and after descending the stairs, she'd plunked down on the floor in the living room to play with the dogs. Anna curled up behind her and Charlotte leaned back against her as she engaged Edom in a game of tug-of-war. She had a harder time attempting to communicate with him, but his thoughts seemed to get a lot louder when he was playful. Charlotte was giggling to herself at the mantra of mineminemineminemineminemine when she heard the front door slam shut.

All the cats went running in various directions and preferred hiding spots, away from the one that they most distinctly did not like. At least the animals had always felt the same way that Charlotte did about Valen. They would never trust him. He wasn't an animal person. Then again, he wasn't really a people person, either.

Charlotte winced a bit at the familiar sounds of Valen stomping through the house and taking off his belt and slamming it on the table. He'd worked the night shift, and apparently had a bad night. That wasn't really uncommon, though it hadn't happened as much since they'd moved to Marquette. Part of the reason of moving to Marquette had been for him to have a less stressful job. He hadn't been pleased to have to deal with dying and missing teenagers since they'd arrived.

Game forgotten by Edom, both dogs lifted their heads to look towards the hall as they heard raised voices. Valen and Isadora were already fighting. Great. That was a bad sign. Edom huffed and got to his feet to follow the voices. He was very protective of Charlotte's mother. Charlotte was both glad for it and scared of it at the same time. There had been no few instances where she'd feared that Edom would decide that enough was enough and it was time to simply attack this man who was improperly treating his mistress. If that happened, Charlotte wouldn't have put it past Valen to shoot him. Charlotte took a deep breath and exhaled slowly as she attempted to clear her mind and project to him, calm him somehow. That much she was usually good at. But just in case, she got to her feet to follow Edom.

Who: Herbert and Charlie
Where: PE, MSHS
When: 3rd period, morning

The news that the PE teacher was out sick was the best Herbert had gotten all day. It meant that, unlike yesterday when they'd been on teams playing soccer on the field, he could actually talk to Charlie! All they were supposed to do was walk around the track, after all.

He changed quickly and waited outside the girls' locker room for Charlie to come out, grinning. If anyone would be happy with him that things were-- hopefully-- coming back to normal, Charlie would be.

Who: Kaysen and Charlotte.
When: After school.
Where: Phone call.

Charlotte had spent her entire school day trying to find Kaysen between classes or at lunch, all to no avail. Lulu had sent her a text message that everyone was back, but Charlotte hadn't heard a definite story on what had happened. She was antsy and couldn't concentrate, and then she heard at the end of the day that Kaysen had gotten into a fight. When the bell rang, Charlotte ran home as fast as her feet would carry her. She really wanted to just show up on Kaysen's door, but she had a feeling her family would not at all appreciate that. And there was the chance that Kaysen wouldn't want anything to do with Charlotte. So she hurried to lock herself in her room, and quickly dialed Kaysen's number on her cell phone.

Kaysen flinched when she heard her phone ring. It was automatic, and she cursed herself for it. She'd been kind of staring out her window, all curled up on her bed. The mirror above her dresser had been covered over with a sheet, though she kept imagining she could hear things moving behind it. Which was ridiculous. Even when they'd been there, it had been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that no one could hear them. Why would she hear anything? She wouldn't. She was just an idiot. She let the phone ring twice before she picked it up, and looked at the callerID first. If it was Chance, she didn't want to talk to him. Not yet. But it wasn't. It was Charlie. So she answered. "...hello." she said, holding the phone to her ear as she went back to laying down again.

"Kaysen?!" Who else would answer? Idiot. Now that she had her on the phone, Charlotte found that she didn't have any idea what she was supposed to say. "Are you okay?" she blurted out. "I mean... are you?"

Who: Herbert, Charlie and Chance
Where: Phone/The Mine
When: Around 1PM

As soon as Herbert got home he made a bee-line for the phone. Olivia, thank the spirits and may they bless her wherever she was, wasn't home. So he didn't have to explain why in the world he wasn't at school right now. He took he phone to the couch, where he pulled out his folder-- which was swift becoming full of people's phone numbers-- to hunt down Charlie's number. He punched it in, messed up and had to apologize to the poor old man who'd answered instead of little Charlie, and had to dial again, this time hoping he'd got it right. If he got a cell phone, he decided it'd have to be a big one, or he'd always be calling the wrong people.

After leaving Chance, Charlotte had basically run the entire way home, and had been beyond relieved to find that her mom wasn't home. This would have been awful if she had to find a way to sneak in and out of the house again. She'd never had to do that before, and she couldn't imagine that her first attempt would go well - particularly in broad daylight.

Who: Charlotte and open!
When: Towards the end of lunch.
Where: Leaving school.

Half-way through lunch, someone at a nearby table had made a joke about Kaysen being dead, and right around the time 'good riddance' was said, Charlotte had burst into hysterical tears. She wasn't really surprised, it had only been a matter of time before that happened. She'd hurried out to see the nurse, and had rambled off some sort of story about needing to go home. Most of it had been incoherent, she couldn't really remember now what exactly had been said, but she'd been given a pass. Charlotte had to calm down enough to talk the nurse out of calling her mother for a ride, but she'd managed. She'd gotten herself under control, thanked her, and headed out.

Walking away from the school now, she felt very odd. Awful, yes, probably the worst she'd felt since her dad had died, horribly guilty due to what had happened, but on top of all that, she felt very... odd. She'd never cut school before. Ever. And now that she was out, she didn't exactly know what to do with her day.

She couldn't go home. Her mom would probably be at the stables in Harvey, but if she came home for any reason? She couldn't take the chance of any of the animals giving her away. Her mom had the car, so wherever she was going, she was walking. She could spend the day at the library, but that didn't feel right. She felt like she needed to do something. And there was nothing to do. Nothing she could possibly do would actually help.

Charlotte sighed and picked a direction at random. She'd figure out where she was going when she got there.

Who: Herbert and Charlie
Where: School, gym
When: 3rd period

The p.e. teacher seemed very out of sorts that morning, when their start of the "soccer segment" was put off by someone playing a practical joke and spray-painting the football field. So they were back inside the gym, Herbert waiting for Charlie before the stretches started again. He'd been hearing rumors all day about Kaysen and Isaac and the others-- and had been wanting to bite people for saying they were dead, too. They were not dead. They weren't. Herbert would not accept that and he would go tear those tunnels apart before he accepted that. Worse, though, was that he was sure she'd been hearing them, too.

Who: Dorian, Mathias, Harper, Herbert, Charlotte, and Fallon
Where: The Mine
When: Afternoon

Until he'd been trudging through a small, cramped tunnel with them, Herbert had liked Mathias and Dorian well enough. Dorian was friendly, if kind of quiet, and looked out for shy little Harper, and Mathias was charming and one of the other more concerned people on this endeavor rather than one of the excited or jittery ones. Someone else who was going to be careful and concerned was, to Herbert, a very good thing.

who: everyone and their brother isaac
where: negaunee--mine site
when: noonish