Sleepless Minds pv Deathmote Closed

A bank of fog was rolling along the bank of the lake. It didn't start as much, but it slowly grew larger, a little cloud of dark mist that swirled and shifted much more rapidly than the soft haze that covered the lake itself. It wasn't hard to figure out why. He didn't make much noise, honestly hardly any at all. But you could feel the ravenclaw from wherever you were, you could feel that something wasn't right, you could feel the tangible waves of hatred and pain and terror that washed off of him, spreading out into the surrounding area.

It felt like something big, monstrous. It felt like the presence of a dragon, not a real dragon, no, but a dragon from the muggle myths of europe. A winding, twisting wyrm that spat fire and ate whatever it could find. And yet, at the very center of all the fog, very thinly veiled, was the ravenclaw known as Kaegen Deathmote. He was dripping wet from head to toe, and had clearly been lurking in the shallows of the lake itself for quite some time. His usually sickly grey skin was now tinged with a distinct blue, and his movements were far stiffer than they should have been.

But his face was as tired as ever. He didn't shiver, and his eyes were heavy lidded, ringed with dark shadows. The only life that could be discerned on his face consisted of the twin glowing red rings that burned with a fiery passion. His arms hugged his chest, spidery fingers clutching at his bony shoulders. It was right before he was about to turn off the path to head up to hogwarts that he noticed the other figure. It was that girl, sand, or something.

Some of the darkness faded, the cold. Some of the feeling of terror, some of the glow. He wasn't alone with his thoughts anymore, there was someone else. His burning hate was still there, it hadn't gone anywhere. But now it had to share space in his brain with his curiosity. It had to share space with those parts of him that wanted to learn more, that wanted to go and say something, to talk and learn.

He moved within about six feet of her before he actually decided to say something, to accost the slytherin with a single word.

"sand?"

She felt him, now, before she even saw the ripples of the water reach her part of the shore. The icy hand of fear slowly but methodically wrapping its hand around her heart and squeezing. When fight or flight instincts came in, she was learning that hers was typically to fight in defense until she could properly assess the situation. Yet, tonight as the ripples in the lake found their way to the shore and the fog rolled in, she sat there numb staring out through the fog as well as she could seemingly ignoring what could have been her impending doom.

The hand around her heart curiously receded as the figure out of the corner of her eyes neared. Even as close as six feet Santario hadn’t moved save for her breathing to sustain her own life. She decided if the figure had been there to hurt her it would have done it already by taking advantage of her curled-up state which no doubt would have made it too hard for her to grab her wand in time.



His voice broke through the din in her mind and Sapphires lit up by the light of the moon moved from it to him. Although he looked more like the walking dead than usual she recognized him by his voice and those eyes. There was nothing in this world that would ever make her forget the way that his eyes looked. For only a spared moment her mind wandered to the word that he had called her, but the inflection seemed as if he was addressing her, so she didn’t second guess it.

“Kaegen.” She confirmed his suspicions of who she was, but concern was now shown on her face as she broke free from the mental tendrils that had her cocooned. She realized that he was drenched, skin blue, and the fact that he wasn’t shivering technically wasn’t good… If he were human. “Aren’t you going to get sick? Do you want my cloak?” She let go of her legs and uncurled herself reaching up to the claps of her winter cloak getting ready to undo them. The concern and offer of providing him the warm cloak was completely genuine. 

Kaegen shook his head no, which launched drops of water from the dripping tendrils of hair that partially obscured his eyes. He had been lurking in the water for over an hour, had been trying to catch a grindylow to use as a trap, or a pet. He wasn't sure which one. It hadn't worked out, regardless, a end result that anyone could have easily predicted. Besides, things didn't come close to Kaegen. Nothing did, alive or dead. They fled from him, they froze in front of him, they avoided him entirely.

Why would they not avoid the boy whose eyes looked so much like wrath filled storm clouds, why would they not fear the boy whose eyes featured distinct glowing rings of red, solar eclipses of tangible hate. He would not catch anything by sitting in the shallows, because everything could feel him, and knew to stay away. And yet, this girl didn't seem to run. He wasn't sure he trusted that, in a way, it was nice to have everyone leave him alone. He could think in peace, he could be safe.

He was already feeling rather unwell, the ravenclaw boy had never been the hardiest, and the cold bit deep into his bones. It hurt, his head stung and if he didn't know any better he would have sworn a horde of rodents were nibbling at him all over. But it was just pain. Pain could be shoved away, pain could be ignored, it could be ignored along with sadness, loneliness and despair. So he wrote it off as nothing of consequence, and instead addressed the questions.

"I don't get sick. Or cold. At least not very much."

Kaegen did not get as cold as most, which was true, simply because his body temperature sat so much lower, he seldom felt the biting cold. But it was late fall in scottland, and even for him, the great lake was frigid.

"I don't need help."

He took a awkward step away from the slytherin, wobbling just a little as his left foot came down on a loose rock, but quickly regaining his composure.

"What are you doing here"

Santario watched Kaegen carefully, as she found out one should, in their first encounter. This boy was not human, that much was very clear, but something in her still doubted that he didn’t actually need help. He did, however, confirm that he could get cold and sick, but not as much as other people. The urge in her to help him was strong, but she needed to make it worth his while, or at least she hoped he might function that way. Kaegen was going to be a lot of trial and error.

She watched him take a step back and stumble slightly, but he at least caught his balance rather quickly. Why was he backing up from her what made her so terrifying to a boy that looked like him? She was going to try and make it more beneficial to him to take the cloak than to deny it. “I’ll answer your question but only because you answered mine. If you want me to answer any more of your questions, you’ll wrap yourself in the cloak. I’ll answer an unlimited number of questions if you do.” She stood herself up slowly not wanting to make any hasty moves around him. With the fastening undone she would hold it out at arm’s length to him. Sacrifices must be made to gain knowledge and knowledge was something that she loved to get, especially about people.

If he accepted the cloak, she would lower her arm to her side and sit back down by the tree.
If he denied the cloak, she would remain standing there holding it out to him.

This left her in a black pullover hoodie, the t-shirt underneath, and her black ripped jeans. It would leave her more exposed to the cold and she would no doubt eventually tinge slightly blue herself before the night was over. Yet, she still was not the one that was sopping wet.

“To answer your question I have been coming out here for a couple of nights now to try and clear my mind. I’ve had a lot to think about and sometimes my thoughts just kind of swirl around in my head too fast for me to catch. Most nights that I have come out here I have been interrupted in thinking and tonight I finally managed to sort out what I need to do.” Did she think that he would believe her despite the fact that she was telling him the truth? No, but that seemed to be the way the boy worked.

He was an anomaly asking questions, genuinely wanting an answer, and yet never believing you no matter what you said.

The Ravenclaw's eyes narrowed in suspicion. What did she hope to gain by giving him her cloak? Make herself colder? Was there a curse on the cloak, was this a trap? What did she have to gain? He wanted answers, yes, he desperately wanted to ask questions, because he had a lot of them on his mind, and that was the only way to get them answered, after all.

Still, the cloak was warm. This was ideal, in a way. Answers and warmth. He was good at ignoring himself, to be sure, but cold was persistent, it was biting and prevalent and hard to simply shrug away, which was entirely what he was hoping to accomplish. Shrug away the biting cold, shrug away the loneliness, the odd threat of that little gryffindor boy. The threat that he would die cold and alone, that he would die powerful, but afraid.

He could ignore it, but only for so long. But cold though he was, if he accepted, then he was the only one gaining anything, no one just gave what they had without some other reason lurking behind it, it simply wasn't done. Selflessness didn't exist among those who weren't friends, which meant there had to be something else at work. The slytherin was trying to play him for a fool, and he wasn't going to stand for it. Another numb leg moved back and away, as the twin eclipses flared anew.

"Why would you do that. What do you have to gain."

She explained how she had been coming for awhile, trying to figure out something. Well, what was she trying to figure out? More likely than not, how to get rid of him, how to kill him, or how to get him to grab the cursed cloak, assuming it really was cursed. This girl had given him the scarf that was now tied around his waist, hidden out of sight under his robe. She had done nothing but give since he had known her. That was unnatural, it was wrong.

"Net of words, honeyed snare. Gifts of silver and golden ring. Catch only birds, and errant hare, for no man gives, and takes nothing."

He took another step back, now roughly eight or nine feet away. He could feel fear creep into his bones, fear of that which he did not understand. Fear of someone who was selfless, fear of nice.

Santario watched him as carefully as ever. Trial and error and it would seem like this was an error. If she was lucky maybe she could turn it around? How could she talk to Kaegen without him just assuming that she was trying to hurt him? What could she say to make him understand? Likely nothing at all it was probably going to take continued interaction with him to start even trying to trust her. He was like a wounded animal starving, cold, and alone. You couldn’t rush right up to the animal because no matter how much it wanted to take from your hand it would still run. No, you have to be patient and kind, wait for it to come to you on their terms.

“I wish there was a way to help you understand that I like to help other people. I know you do not believe me, and I wish I had the words that you would accept. How can I prove to you that I mean you no harm?”

That was the one thing she had yet to do, simply ask him what he wanted from her. Would it truly be so simple? She highly doubted it, in fact, she expected Kaegen to bolt any second now. He was getting defensive and the fact that his eyes had renewed their intensity had not been lost on her. Something in her triggered his flight or fight response and she couldn’t pin down what it was unless it was truly just the fact that she was trying to be kind to him.

So here she would stand holding the cloak out to him unmoving. Her arm was starting to get tired and although she wished she could maintain this pose forever she knew she would eventually have to give it up. She did hope however that it would be with Kaegen accepting the cloak so that she could just sit back down. 

"Turtles eat turtles, the armies of the ants contend. Like kills like, and all kills everything else. This is how it's always been. Who are you to be different from every other human. How do you dare to claim to be divergent from the nature of everything and everyone that's ever been."

It was a sensitive subject. The possibility that people could just be nice, could be nice and want to help and not vanish, or then try and stab you in the back. He had seen it so many times, seen it happen, felt it happen. What did being nice even mean, did it even exist? He had decided that the answer to both was probably a no. Not definitely, because he wasn't really sure about anything. But to have someone say the same thing he had heard so many times?

People vanished, they left you behind in a mad scramble for survival. They didn't like to do things, they did them so they could get more people to flock around them, they did games to increase their herd in the vain hopes someone would remember their meaningless little spark of a life when they were gone, when they failed.

She wanted to know how to prove it to him? Prove what, that she wasn't human, that she wasn't a person, or that she didn't have nature? That she was some divine being that genuinely cared about others? The spark of live was everything, and your spark only mattered to you, no one else would ever give a flying shit about it. You defended yourself because no one else would.

"Just give me a good, logical reason. Give me a reason that makes sense. A reason that explains why you want to put someone else before you."

Santario’s expression faltered and for the first time in a while, her façade crumbled because she only had one real reason why she wanted to help people. It was one she didn’t like to talk about and something she had never fully even told Kyle. Sadness dulled her eyes which started to look glassy as she was overcome with the only thing that she could tell him. Her arm lowered letting the cloak start to pile up on the ground even though she still held it in her grasp. Whether he chooses to believe her or not was again, as always, up to him. She couldn’t control him, and she didn’t want to either, she just wanted to know more about him. Was that so wrong?

“Because I know what it is like… I know what it is like to be alone and desperately not want to be. I know what it is like to be in a room full of people and know not one of them actually cares about you other than what they can use you for or get from you. ” This stemmed from her treatment at the hands of her French family. She had been in positions where she felt loved and cared for with the Irish side of her family but seeing them was few and far between. She also knew that her French family was powerful enough that if they wanted to they could make sure she never saw the people that loved her ever again. Her parents did love her but they were often busy and she was left to fend for herself most of the time. Or given to her French grandmother to look after when they had very busy schedules.

“I don’t like to see others hurting when there is something I can do about it… I don’t want to be useless or invisible. I don’t want to be alone…” The tears in her eyes threatened to spill over onto her cheeks as she stared at the boy giving him the only truth she had. Opening up a wound just to try and prove to this boy that she wasn’t some kind of crazy person out to get him. She wished she could explain why his opinion mattered to her. She didn’t understand why she was drawn to him but something in her told her that she should keep trying. Something told her that perhaps she could learn something from this boy and him, her.

So again she held up the cloak to him.     

Kaegen was freezing, he was forcing himself to not shiver as a reflexive instinct, something he had always struggled with when he was younger. Things that lurked in the dark found you when you were shaking, the glowing eyes that would scan the foggy shores of his home paused at the slightest movement that didn't seem natural. They were aware, they were watching, and waiting. Aware that there was a little boy hiding somewhere, aware that all they had to do is figure out in which clump of grass he was hiding in, and he was dead. Small. Worthless.

"Of course no one cares for you, or for me. Why would they? That's the world, that's everywhere. You know what it's like to be alive? Why be sad over the air, or the sun. They will always be here. You can't do anything, because at the end of the day, as soon as it looks like you might actually die, you'd forsake everyone you tried so hard to care about. You can only swim against the current so long."

Kaegen coughed into his arm, a great, hacking cough that sounded like it was shredding his throat. It hurt, but he was grateful that it had happened when it did. The little spots of blood welling up by his eyes could be easily attributed to the cold, to the cough, to his discomfort. The girl had struck a home that Kaegen was only dimly aware of.

"You're always going to be alone. Nothing can stop that."

He snatched the cloak, draping it over himself as he dropped into a low squat, wrapping himself up. He didn't feel like going anywhere anymore. Maybe he'd just stay there until morning.