fandomhighdorms | Second Floor Common Room; Friday Evening.

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Second Floor Common Room; Friday Evening.

In a strange and startling turn of events, it would seem that Adah Price crawled from primordial depths (well, her bedroom, anyway, which, while quite dry and warm and nice, seemed to be taking on a murky, swamplike visage in her head today) to emerge herself once again on the front of possible socialization. She wondered if she should be concerned, and then reasoned with herself, as she shifted through a drawer for a can opener that she could manage with one hand, that there were reasons. Today, the reason was simply that of the fact that a girl had to eat. She was driven from the confines of as close to a hermitage as she could get for a simple, primal need. Yesterday also had its reasons, as she had come across the fairly busy pool entirely by accident out of not wanting to deal with the trouble of bundling up a little to go outside. Warmer weather aside, it had nothing on the sweltering Congo nights. They had their reasons and she was restless, anyway, wrestling a little finally with a simpler can opener that made quite a chore out of getting into the can of fruit swimming in sickly sweet syrup that would probably make her stomach rebel later, but it was food, it was (relatively) simple, and eating it directly out of the can as she curled up a little on the couch had become more familiar to her than other, conventional, American ways of preparing full, three-course meals.

She considered the TV, but then banished the thought once the thought of managing a remote control and a can of peaches would be more difficult than Adah wanted to bother with right now.

[[ open as common rooms tend to be~ ]]

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Coming back from patrol, Mel really had no desire to go to her room let alone her floor in case he was around and settled for entering into the second floor CR.

"Hey," she said dropping some of her gear on the floor. "Mind if I watch TV?"

Her mouth working around a exceptionally large slice of peach that she didn't bother, couldn't bear, to break in half with her fork, Adah shook her head slowly. Her mandibles masticated in a particular slow half circle, the left side of her jaw clearly leading, before she also, in case the slow back-and-forth of her head weren't enough, gave a small nod toward the remote control sitting beside her on the couch, abandoned for the sake of much more important things, inviting the other girl to if it she'd like. And then her wide, deliberate eyes drifted to the gear deposited on the floor, looking it over as she chewed and idly pondered exactly how much of a bovine impression she was leaving.

"Keen," Mel said flopping on the couch, grabbing the remote and flipping through the channels. "You don't care if I leave my stuff on the floor do you?"

Adah considered the question once it had been asked, her eyes drifting away from the stuff, from the girl, toward the wall, as if expecting, like some damn Biblical story, to find the answer written there. To be completely honest, she would have imagined it would matter if she cared or not. She wondered what kind of person would care. It was a public space; she had an opinion in the matter? Of course, if this were Africa, leaving it there would also entitle Adah to take some of it. Somehow, she didn't think that notion would go over too well, here, but the idea was entertaining. So was the idea that her opinion on something like this should matter, and she played around with possibly pretending like it did, but realized she didn't have the energy.

Her eyes drifted back, away from the wall, and she shrugged, ducking her head slightly as she fished her fork around inside the can, swirling the remaining slices with the murky, sweet juice.

"Cool," she said as she tried to find something decent. "Good peaches?"

With another small lift of her shoulder, Adah offered yet another apathetic response. They were food; they were settling fairly well in her stomach and her right hand was cooperating enough so that she could eat them without worrying bout them spilling everywhere. She had no complaints. She stabbed another one with her fork, leaning in closer to the can as she went to take a bite.

Mel shrugged. "Nice. You don't mind if I invade your common room do you? I live on the third floor but... well I just don't feel like going up there at the moment."

There it was again, the other girl referring to the space as if Adah actually had some sort of control over it. Chewing on her most recent bite of fruit, Adah watched her as if trying to figure her out. She seemed to make a point out of swallowing, out of turning her face back toward the can and circling her fork around in it. Through the thick juice, the prongs of the utensil scraped slightly, without making much noise, and Adah looked up again. She wondered if the other girl expected her to question exactly why she wasn't interested in remaining on the third floor; she wondered if the other girl thought she would care. She didn't. She was perfectly content to chalk it up to wanderlust, tsulrednaw. She wondered if the girl would tell her anyway.

Probably.

People seemed to like to do that, taking her silence as an open door to babble. It was how she'd managed, after all these years, to become such a little deposit box for secrets.

"It's my roommate," Mel said completely babbling. "We had a thing. It wasn't a boyfriend-girlfriend thing but it was a thing. Then I said something stupid and it freaked him out. Then he tried to leave but he decided to stay and be nice for once. Then it turned out he didn't want to be nice and he threw a fireball at me and left. Now he's back and pretending to be nice again. And I can't get a new room. It totally blows."

Yup. Never failed. Adah listened with a dull, vacant expression that would either have the other girl realize that there wasn't really anyone home underneath Adah's silent shell or would give her the delusion that she was interested. Not that she was listening; it was clear that she was, of course she was. She always listened. But listening and being interested were not the same thing. Out of sheer boredom, she wondered what the stupid thing was. Probably I love you or something equally ridiculous.

And, admittedly, the fireball did seem to inspire a lift of Adah's eyebrows that would betray her attempts to be completely bereft of reaction, and the sudden spike of something alive inside of her then lead to a tilt of her head at the comment about not getting a new room. She was half-way into asking herself why not before she abruptly stopped herself and reminded herself of her nonchalance.

Maybe the other girl wouldn't notice.

Nope. No noticing at all.

"And it's not that I love the guy. Anymore. Or anything. It's just this constant reminder that he's THERE. And he's not going away. And then I can't go away because that would mean he would win. And I can't let him win because I need to win. It's just a cluster if you think about it."

Adah took a moment to focus on her right arm, to will it move just slightly enough for her to take a peek inside her can of peaches. It was more effort than one would imagine, especially since the ends to Adah's means meant discovering that, sure enough, she definitely did not have enough food to deal with this sort of thing. She gave a soft sigh, hoping the girl would notice at least that, but not entirely expecting her to. She wondered if she should say something. She was certainly building up a nice list of advice on how to handle this situation, none of them particularly helpful, some of them (hopefully) depremental, and she was starting to think that it's no wonder she liked having River around so much, because then she wouldn't have to say anything at all, and yet all her points would be there, laid out on the floor, including the one about how she thought this girl was a bit of an idiot, because the whole fact that she was sitting here bitching about it was pretty good evidence that she'd already let this boy win.

Cassandra had finished off her bag of marshmallows and had returned to the common room for more. Unfortunately her habit of eating all the marshmallows but never replacing them had finally resulted in there not being any when she looked.

But look! Another person! Maybe she had the marshmallows. Cassandra leaned over the back of the couch to look at Adah, searching for sugary deliciousness.

Adah, slowly emptying the contents of her can of peaches, had been watching Cassandra as she went through the cupboards in search of, clearly, something particular that was not to be found. It was interesting, she realized, that she recognized the Prophetess of Tragedy not as herself at first, but as, instead, River's constant dance partner, and her head tilted as she ruminated at the more powerful association. This was until she leaned over the couch toward her, leaning in, one step away from sniffing around Adah like a dog for whatever it was she was looking for. She settled her eyes on the other girl, mostly staring, because if was peaches she was looking for, she knew there were at least a few other cans in the cupboard, and Adah had worked that can opener very tediously. She wasn't sharing when the Prophetess was completely capable of working a can opener easily enough.

No marshmallows were in sight, but it could never hurt to ask. "Do you have any marshmallows?"

Adah looked at the Prophetess for a moment, and then she looked away, her eyes sliding as if to some invisible entity beside her, relaying the question down a chain of knowledge, before looking back. She moved her hand, the good one, the one holding the fork, out to display her complete lack of anything but crooked self and her meager lunch, and tilted her head in its own question back. Did she see any marshmallows?

"You could be hiding them," Cassandra explained helpfully. Not that she thought Adah was, but it was worth pointing out.

This was truth, of course. Adah would expect nothing less from someone named as the Prophetess was. In the realm of possibility were a great many things; that was, however, not one of them, although, all things considered, she would have to disbelieve Cassandra, just to keep up with the trend of the history as prescribed by the ancient Greek writers her roommate seemed to try to collect and possess in the fold of the books that she technically claimed ownership of. Adah sighed, slightly, drawing her eyes away for a moment before looking back, as if expecting something more if the other girl was going to remain there for much longer.

Edited 2008-01-26 04:20 (UTC)

Unfortunately for Adah, Cassandra wasn't really much of a conversationalist. Still, now that she was being social, she figured she'd try.

"I like marshmallows."

And, unfortunately for Cassandra, excepting certain situations, Adah's conversation skills were even worse. Her forehead creased between her eyebrows, eyes remaining steadily on the Prophetess, wondering exactly why she should care one way or the other on her feelings toward marshmallows. She was starting to think that some people, she'd swear, would talk to a wall, just to talk to something. Adah, it would seem, having eyes and the capability to breath, was just one step up from a wall, which was why she was getting the deep, intrepid, eye-opening conversation instead, clearly.

It was pretty obvious that Adah was not precisely thrilled to have Cassandra talking to her. Eying the peaches for a moment Cassandra asked, "Would you like more?"

While the worried, confused creases in her forehead remained, a small quirk of Adah's lips, the left side, which would have been an authentic smirk if it weren't for the expression already in place, Adah shook her head. Anything, talk to a wall, just to talk, klat ot tsuj. Like she was really going to bother accepting help even if she did want more.

The idea did, however briefly, strike her that the Prophetess of Tragedy was talking to her simply because she wanted to talk not just to talk, but to talk to her. But that was...well, ridiculous. The only reason she could think that would cause that to make sense was merely that Cassandra was a friend of River, which...

The smirk disappeared, just as a corner of Adah's mouth did as she bit her lip, looking at Cassandra and trying to fish out a hint of a motive behind her eyes.

Cassandra's head tilted curiously. Adah's body language was hard to read. Not just because of the unnatural stillness of part of her, the rest of her was so... chaotic. But in a calm way.

"I don't understand the question."

Adah blinked a little; for the difficulty of her last expression, this one was probably pretty clearly a bit confused. She didn't realized she necessarily asked a question, but it was...interesting that the Prophetess of Tragedy had picked up on the fact that there was one lurking. She took a moment, biting her lip again in thoughtful consideration before giving her head a slow shake. Never mind. Not important.

It was important, Cassandra knew that. But she also knew that what people usually meant when they claimed things were not important was that they did not want to talk about them. She could accept that.

She shrugged, "If you say so. I'm going to go find marshmallows." She turned to wander to another floor, hoping to find marshmallows there.

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Second Floor Common Room; Friday Evening.

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