siri, call "chaos demon" pv astrea

private thread with @Ivy Bellamy
speaking in russian, unless specified

Chapter 10: The Idiots

Winter break, according to Johannes, was going relatively decently so far. Of course, it could only go up after last year, in which a good 90% of his two weeks off was spent holed up in his assigned room and pathetically pleading with house-elves to take food into said room instead of spending time with a bunch of invasively snobby stranger purebloods whose only claim to fame in his brain was shared blood content.

Nay, this year, Johannes and his grandfather were spending Christmas in Berlin alongside his great uncle Anselm’s family and family friends, with special cameos from Johann’s own Berlin-bound Hellhounds. How fun! It was safe to say that he was more than a little pleased to continue the yearly tradition of planning group activities and accidentally terrorising the general public outside of Durmstrang's bubble with the chaos that was his friend group, even if he was confined to a hotel room while in the city. If only twice as many people expected hadn't RSVP'd for the holiday celebrations...

It was in the process of leaving said hotel to run some errands when Johannes received a call, prompting his phone to blare some alarmingly loud bass-boosted clown music into the pretentiously inconvenient stairwell and shock him into distraction in the middle of going downstairs. "Oh my god- Cicero, hey!" In his haste to pick up the incoming call and stop poor Julius Fucik's corrupted military march from invading the immediate vicinity anymore than it already had, Johannes was barely able to finish his greeting when he missed a stair step and stumbled down onto the landing, one leg sliding dangerously out with an ungodly speed known by sock wearers and wheel bearers alike. Even his most comfortable Heelys weren't made for slippery surfaces and bad landings! "FuCK-" A panicked string of truly soap-worthy expletives escaped Johannes as he pinwheeled himself back into balance with the help of a wisely-placed handrail, momentarily filling the feedback with crunchy chaos that really set the new call mood.

Behind a corner and out of sight, a loud barking laugh echoed through the acoustic-friendly main lobby, followed by the overlapping ribbing from at least two other voices. It seemed his friends had gotten there a bit early and weren't the type to hide their presence. One palm muffling his phone’s speaker and the other adjusting his mask, Johann was this close to sliding down the bannister just to respond face-to-face with this friendly slander.

He settled for leaning onto the railing, knowing full well they could see him as well as he could see them. The answer was very little, due to the horrible architectural design. Who allowed this to happen?

If he had a nickel for every time he got laughed at for missing that exact step for a call in the past week, he'd have two nickles- which isn't a lot but it was a bit embarrassing that it happened twice.“Lid on it, everyone- You especially, Ryke! I saw you eat shit less than two days ago!" A loud bout of protesting answered his call out. Ryker had no place to talk considering Johann had, indeed, watched the other miserably fail a trick just the other day, falling head over heels down one of two great sand dunes left over from an abandoned construction project. If his friends hadn’t agreed to meet in that makeshift skatepark and instead had gone down by the river, Johann had no doubt they would have all just barely missed a quick pollution-filled soak in the Spree. Considering how hyped up on sleep deprivation and energy drinks they had all been recently (look, they were trying to make the most of their break), he didn't doubt it. Now that he thought of it, they probably shouldn't have been out so late anyway, but what could you do?

Internally mourning his lightly bruised ego, Johann directed part of his attention back to Cielle on the phone as he drew closer to the ground floor. “Sorry 'bout that, how've you been?" He had no doubt the travelling circus his fellow devil child called home would be very busy during such a family-driven and entertainment-based time. He just hadn’t heard much about the other’s part in the celebrations yet.

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rping as durmstrang inpc cielle johansen.

The sudden appearance of her best friend's face on her phone and the screech that followed after shocked Cielle out of her sadness and into a fit of giggles. She could always count on her fellow devil child to cheer her up - already she was in a better mood, the uncomfortable pressure that had surrounded Christmas lifting off her shoulders. It would take a few moments for her to translate what Johannes was saying in Russian. One of the annoying things about being multilingual was that sometimes it was easier to speak and think in one language over the others. Despite having been in Moscow for a few days, being surrounded by her family and friends had wired her brain into speaking and speaking in purely Norwegian.

"You're so fucking dumb," she teased with a smile, before playfully singing an excerpt from a famous showtune, in English: "The fact that you're alive is a miracle..." Cielle cackled like a witch again before stopping to listen to her friend's inquiry on how she was doing. "Not bad, not bad," she said dismissively, having switched back to speaking Russian. "Circus has been busy because there are the special Christmas performances. We're in Moscow until New Year's and then we'll be heading to Finland, I think? I'm not sure. Ringmaster's being a dick as usual." The last sentence would be accompanied by a defiant roll of the eyes.

Cielle set her phone down on one of the stairs of the caravan as she got up, making sure the camera was still facing her, and flipped upside down on her hands, ignoring the way the cold snow stung her hands slightly. She walked around on her hands so she was facing Johannes, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. To be fair, it was normal was for her, and by now Johannes was probably used to her shenanigans. "What about you? How's Christmas break?"

@astrea soleil neptune

private thread with @Ivy Bellamy
speaking in russian, unless specified

Chapter 10: The Idiots

Fumbling for his earbuds as his group walked past the hotel's lobby and out into the Berlin evening, Johannes grumbled half-heartedly under his breath at Cielle's light-hearted teasing. How was he supposed to know there was another step on that obnoxious stairwell? She didn't have the right to say anything, not with her flashy inattention and agitation-inducing aerial stunts.

As if speaking of the devilchild himself, either Johann could read minds (he couldn't) or he knew Cielle too well (he unfortunately did), even mentally criticising up her habits had accidentally jinxed them into what would likely be yet another frostbite-risked call. He could see it now: The moment Cielle learned how to maintain a handstand on a flying broom would be the moment he would have to mark an early grave. If he didn't say it aloud, he'd have at least another month and a half before the idea would occur to his showpony of a chaos demon. At this rate, he might as well start making arrangements now...

Johannes tsk’d disapprovingly at the unsurprisingly negative review of the ringmaster, shaking his head at the mere thought of whatever stress had wrought itself over the holiday spirit. ”I feel like assholery is basically a state of being with that man. I don't know how you do it." It was an unfortunate (or perhaps the opposite, depending on who to ask) matter that Johannes had never met the ringmaster in-person. Quick to defend his own - even if Cielle only counted as a technically-unofficial honorary Hound -, it wouldn't look pretty for anyone involved. Call out all of his issues if you'd like, but he didn't want to make Carmen and Filip think badly of him either.

“You know, Cie, my invitation's still open. I know your folks are still awful busy but it would be great to have you when things calm down.” Forcibly nonchalant as ever and deliberately pretending to look elsewhere if only to avoid her rejection to a visit too often mentioned, he strove to lighten the mood as much as he could in the little time offered. “Ring me sometime and I'll save us some gingerbread to decorate." (Okay, it was likely less 'saving leftovers' and more 'being forced to make a brand new batch to fix the ones Cielle inevitably messes up', but it was the thought that counted.) From how bummed Cie sounded, Johann could bet that even emergency cookie decoration would be preferable to whatever redheaded stepchild situation she had going at the circus.

"My Christmas? Actually, it’s been decent enough. I’m in Berlin right now for a family gathering." He paused momentarily to contemplate the logistics of an overcomplicated not-quite-family family structure, but... No, he bet Cielle (of all people) knew how unnecessary it was to explain things like that. "Er, sort of a 'family' gathering. You know how it is. Berlin’s streets are empty as fuck right now, so I asked a couple local Hounds to accompany me but they should be leaving soon."

Indeed, Johannes knew extremely well how seriously his fellow Germans took Christmas Eve, so he hadn’t been expecting much of the day. It felt strange to be speaking in Russian into an empty public, as if some sort of foreign tourist infiltrating Berlin's streets on one of the worst nights to visit. Relatively quiet as their call was, when they only had Russian and English as shared languages (both of which they were practically forced to learn instead of doing so naturally), one had to make some sacrifices. It just so happened that these sacrifices aimed to bang their language skills back into shape.

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