fandomhighdorms | Abominable Snowman Campfire

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Abominable Snowman Campfire - Late Saturday Night

This was becoming a habit, Naminé realized, sitting outside on sleepless nights and contemplating her sketches by the light of the fire.

If so, it was all right with her. It was a rather nice habit, and if she couldn't be asleep, then at least she could be somewhere peaceful, enjoying the night air, thinking of memories, and maybe talking to other restless students.

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Valentine wasn't restless. Valentine just just tipsy. And rather in the mood for wandering. As you do.
Valentine, when drunk, was very good at wandering. And it was quite possible that he spent more time at the Abominable Snowman campfire than he spent even at Kraken.
It was a good campfire, apparently.
And so, there Valentine was, wandering.
With a ~~spiked~~ non-whip low-fat soy latte in each hand.
And then, there Valentine was, taking a seat at the campfire, setting down his drinks, pulling out his juggling balls, and idly starting to juggle-- slow and steady, slow and steady.
He might have paused at some point to nod at the girl who he had met before. Possibly just before a ball escaped him and exploded harmlessly in the firepit.
He stopped juggling at that point.

Naminé jumped, hiding behind her sketchbook at the explosion. Which, she realized later, probably said something horrible about her as an artist.

"Are you all right?" she asked him. Odd, she still didn't know his name.

"Perfectly fine," he said, about as smoothly as a brilliant individual who had just finished three fuzzy navels could manage. Which wasn't too bad, really.
He was Irish.
"Drawing again, I take it?" He decided that pocketing the balls would be a good idea for the evening. "What sort of masterpiece are you sketching out tonight?"

"I'm sorry about your ball," Naminé said. "Will you be one short now?"

She glanced down. "And no, I was simply looking at older works. Remembering, or considering memories, I suppose. It's a touch too dark to sketch, unfortunately."

"One short?" Valentine seemed almost amused at that thought. "They're just sort of there, anyhow. I don't think I'll ever be one short, really. Too dark to sketch, really?" He paused for a moment to look about as thoughtful as a drunken director could get. "I don't much notice the darkness, really."

"Are they summoned somehow?" Naminé asked. It was oddly intriguing. "It's a touch too dark, yes. Why can you not notice the darkness? Can you see especially well in it? Or poorly in good light?"

Valentine was perhaps a little pummeled by questions, but he took it all in stride - being somewhat tipsy helped with that - and answered them all one by one.
"They're just kind of there when I reach for them. I can notice the darkness, I tend not to. I don't see especially well in it, really, and I can see just fine in the light. I'm just rather used to the shadows, is all. They've kind of taken over where I'm from. Dangerous things, really. At least here, the shadow is just shade."

Naminé shuddered a little. "Shadows shouldn't be ominous. The name implies that they're just ... an absence. Passive. Reactive, not active."

She looked away, thinking. "Maybe we aren't shadows. N-nobodies, I mean. We aren't reactive, either. Or at least the ones I've known weren't."

Larxene could certainly act, and usually violently.

Valentine looked up at her, then shrugged his shoulders a little.
"Shadows, so far as I can tell, don't have the option of making up their minds to be shadows or otherwise. But where I come from, they're certainly very active, there's no doubt about that."

"I just meant perhaps we've been misnamed," she said softly. "Or I suppose not named, since 'nobody' isn't quite the same. I am sorry to hear that, about your world being overrun with shadows. Especially if they're of the sinister variety, which it seems all too many are."

Naminé flushed slightly. "I thought that perhaps ... your light distinction was impaired, because of your eyes."

Conversation about shadows? Gone now.
"My eyes?" Valentine kind of just stared at her like perhaps he wasn't certain if he was supposed to be insulted, or not. "What exactly is it about my eyes that would make you think that?"
Besides the obvious.

Naminé flinched slightly, staring down at her notepad. "I ... my apologies, I meant nothing rude. That was terrible of me, to suggest."

Well, if that wasn't maddeningly unhelpful, Valentine wasn't entirely certain he could think of something that was.
"I'm still not entirely certain what you were suggesting," he stated. "If you mean to say that, perhaps because my eyes are different then everyone else's I don't see the same way, at least come on forward and say it."
He didn't sound angry or upset, really. He was still suck in ~~drunken~~ tipsy bemused mode.

Naminé nodded, still not looking up. "I just meant that, since your eyes are smaller, it might be harder for the light to pass through them. Pupils dilate to take in more light when it's dark, so as to compensate. If you haven't any, it might always be very bright or very dark. I didn't mean ... to be commenting on them, inappropriately. Your eyes."

Valentine was fairly certain that he had eyes like every other unfinished face hiding somewhere behind his real one. But he wasn't about to carve his head apart in order to find out, really.
"It's an interesting theory," he decided amiably. "But things work rather differently where I'm from than they do here, I've learned. I can see just fine."
So long as he was looking directly at whatever he needed to see, anyhow.

"I'm glad," Naminé said softly. "And you have my apologies, again. I didn't mean to make you feel unusual; I know that that bothers you."

"Bothers? Bothers who? I wasn't bothered. Not in the least." He was so very obviously lying, pointedly looking upward and to the side to avoid any eye-contact. "What's the point of being usual, anyhow? It's too boring. Drab. Not for me. I'll keep my proper face, thank you very much."

"Of course," Naminé agreed smoothly. "Though ... that must be difficult for you. Being the only one here with a - a proper face, as you said. Looking round at all of us with our faces wrong."

"It's like looking around and seeing people with pieces missing," Valentine agreed. "Sort of like looking at muscle where skin should go, if you need a comparison. You know what it's supposed to be, but it doesn't make any sense, ultimately. And it's actually somewhat disturbing."

Naminé stared for a moment. "I had no idea. That it was so unnerving, for you. You do well at covering it."

"Is there something that would help? If we were to wear masks, perhaps. Or would they be so clearly artificial as not to improve the situation?"

"We?" Valentine looked back at her and tilted his head slightly. "I don't imagine that the entire student body would cover what they consider to be their proper faces simply for my sake."
Though it would have been nice.
"I've seen people here wearing masks before," there was perhaps a sour note somewhere in that statement. "They look perfectly normal to me when they do."

"That's reassuring, then. That it does help." Naminé heard the unpleasant note and felt it best to diplomatically move on.

"Possibly not for your sake, you're right. There might be other reasons." She shrugged lightly. "A masquerade ball, for one."

She frowned. "A shame I have no mask. I hate to think that we're conversing and all the while, it seems to you that my face is missing."

Valentine considered this for a moment.
"May I borrow a page from your sketchbook?" He held out his hand. "I've never heard of a masquerade. What is that, exactly?"
Day-to-day life was a masquerade where he came from. There wasn't really a name for it, there.

She handed him the book readily, and offered the crayons she was holding as well.

"A masquerade is a sort of ball - a dress ball, I mean, the formal event kind. For the occasion, people dress either in full costume, or in their usual gowns and suits, but with face masks. The idea is that it is mysterious and you won't know who you're speaking with, dancing with, flirting with." Naminé tilted her head. "I wonder if they ever have one here?"

Valentine took the book, but not the crayons, and considered a blank page carefully for a moment.
"I find it amusing that you can't tell people apart when they are wearing masks, and yet, without them, you all look the same to me," he said, looking from the blank sheet of paper to her and then back again. "Mind if I tear a sheet out?"

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