Creeptastic PV Kaegan Closed

Kaegen was a ravenclaw, a prefect of ravenclaw. That meant he exemplified and amplified the virtues of his house, that meant he carried the torch of the house of learning, of reading and wisdom with him in whatever he chose to do. Or at least, that was how it was supposed to work. He had just about given up on reading the book he had opened in front of him, struggling with the 7th hard word in the ridiculously long paragraph. The opening paragraph, no less. He wasn’t even done with the stupid thing and the deficient paragraph had taken him over 15 minutes so far. He could understand long words when used in speech, but on paper it all seemed to blur together.

Still, he had promised himself that he was going to work on reading today, so that was what he was going to do. As he glanced over at the bookshelves, the daunting task of choosing a new title now looming before him, a monolith of befuddlement to come, he noticed a girl sitting down, an interesting book in her lap. Far from him to refuse such good fortune, the boy walked over to where the blonde girl was sitting.

He walked quietly, smoothly. A gait that seemed a bit too predatory to be human. But just by a little, just enough to make you uncomfortable if you saw it. His skin went beyond pale. It was sallow and greyish, something that belonged on a corpse, not a young boy roughly 12 years of age. His eyes were a dark blueish grey, a kind of peaceful storm that stared directly ahead, moving only slightly to one side or the other, like a kind of twitch. His hair was black and messy, burned in some places, intertwined with leaves in others.

His chin was partially hidden by a grey scarf, bizarre attire consisting of a too-large robe that someone had cut the bottom off of, rather than bother with hemming, which caused little unraveling threads to hang down like a fringe. A large umbrella the size of a staff, or a broom, was strapped to him back, with a silk cape outside of that, attached around his neck by pins, kept stiff around the shoulders with a lot of starch, or perhaps some strange spell.

The boy saw no reason whatsoever to go and talk to the girl. He would just read over her shoulder, he would be quiet, she wouldn’t even realize he was there. And so that’s what he did. At first just looking over her shoulder, but he gradually became more and more absorbed in the book, it’s fascinating tale drawing him ever closer to it’s pages like some kind of spell. He forgot all about the girl, but still kept the door in his peripheral. Just because the book was good didn’t mean he was going to let someone barge in slinging spells and death and catch him unawares.

Alice felt his breath before she saw him. It had tickled the back of her neck, raising hairs and goose flesh all over her body. She could not deny the discomfort the individual who invaded her space so brazenly brought. She turned her head ever slightly and was met with the profile of a boy around her age. His features screamed "other" at her and she could only acknowledge that he indeed looked bizarre, so different from her. While he was a gray sort of pale, she was alabaster; While his hair was a midnight onyx, hers was a blonde so light it was nearly silver; and while his clothes were fraying and mismatched, her ensemble was put together with intensive care. There was not a stitch out of place. She oozed a need to be perfect and it would not be misleading. That was her very core- aiming for perfection. It was fed to Alice the way normal families fed their children moral values. Do not mix with Other, do not embarrass yourself with sub par, be pure- always pure. There would be no question she did these things religiously. They made up her entire personality.

And yet she had not inherited the family ability to speak up, command a room, and demand nothing less than what she deserved. She was a rather shy child, crippling in her inability to speak her mind. So much so that she was often told she must lack one, which certainly wasn't the case. Alice wanted nothing more than to request that this boy take a few steps back and wait patiently while she finished exploring the gem of a title she had found.

Alas, that would not be the case. He seemed to pay her no mind, so enveloped in the world he had so rudely banished her from. In fact, so engrossed he was, he had began to lean over her, his wait near resting on the pad of her thin shoulder. She could stand no more of it and opened her mouth.

"Excuse me," the breath of the words was frail, near mute and she cleared her throat to allow a more stern tone. "Excuse me!" Stern was not what had happened. She simply sounded slightly put off and rather confused. She cursed herself silently. "Mr.... er... Mister? Can you... can you move a little please?"

He was brought out of his reading by the girl excusing him. Her voice sounded a lot like his, but more breakable. It was quiet and all, but while his had that wind over dry leaves quality, hers was more of a crystal reverberation. She cleared her throat and tried again to excuse herself from the room. He was about to say something, when it turned out she was talking to someone else entirely. Someone name Mr. Mister. There were a few other students in the library, so the prefect came to the perfectly natural conclusion that she was talking to one of them, and that the student in question must just have exceptionally good hearing.

She went on to ask Mr. Mister if he could please move, which was surprising to say the least. Why would she care where some random mystery person was? Was he sitting in her light? But no, the gentle light had an unobstructed path to her pages. Was the man in question sitting on some of her things and he just didn’t know what things were hers? Was that boy sitting on the cushion actually sitting on her cushion and didn’t want to get off? But that couldn’t be right, he had been sitting there since before Kae had entered the room, and the girl had just now spoken up.

Turning his face to stare at the girl, a few inches from her own, he decided to speak up and just ask her, clear up the confusion that way.

“Who are you talking to? And what are you made out of?”

She almost seemed to white to be human. Silver hair and porcelain skin, delicate features and slender shoulders that looked like they would snap with the slightest nudge. It was almost like she was some magical construct made of crystal, a fragile statue that was mostly just there for looks. But still, he had never met a golem before, assuming that was what she actually was.

Unable to contain his curiosity the boy slowly extended a long, thin finger tipped with a long dully pointed fingernail, reaching for her nose with the intent of booping it. Just enough to figure out if that she was flesh and bones or literal glass. He moved slowly, slow enough that blocking the encroaching finger wouldn’t pose much of a problem. It wasn’t a fast stab, but a slow, deliberate boop.

Had Alice not been so shocked, she could have laughed at the silliness of it all. What was she made out of? Who was she talking to? She glanced around them to be sure that there was indeed no one else close enough to cause confusion and then brought her ice blue gaze back to the boy. She followed his approaching finger with confusion and curiosity. What in Merlin's name was he doing? Alice startled slightly as his finger pressed firmly into her nose as if he were testing if she were even real and Alice thought perhaps he had some sort of mental illness. It was completely unacceptable socially for one to invade another individual's and even more strange for poking to become involved.

Alice brought her hand to her nose, touching it as though he had possible seen a smudge and she was removing it.

"What- what am I made of?" she asked, uncertainty shadowing her face. "I apologize, but I'm unsure what you mean..?" Often her mother praised Alice for her unusual way of speaking. Rather than talk like a normal child, she was often told she was more like a tiny adult and it would seem the observations were accurate. No dolls or toys littered her bedroom at home and she had never been allowed to play outside. Her hours were spent at dinner parties and in ballrooms. She practiced the art of conversation with her mother, often circling around the appropriate fabric for various formal wear. In fact, the only time she spoke to children her age were at formal dance parties where children were expected to accompany their parents in order to solidify Pure-blood ties. Alice, however, was not a sad child. The truth was that she had never really thought about being envious of other children and their childhoods. She simply had nothing to compare her own experiences to.

"I'm made of... human, I suppose," Alice mused, closing the book over her finger to keep her space. It would have been rude of her not to give him her full attention. "What are you made of?"

Her nose felt like his, at any rate. Which meant that she very well could be just a extraordinarily perfect looking girl. But who was that clean, anyway? It looked as though she had never set foot outside in her life. She had no muscles to speak of, and he was sure if a gust of wind blew through here she would fall over and die. Shattered into a million tiny pieces, or at the very least cracked. But her nose hadn't been brittle, like he'd been expecting. Maybe she was just a firm doll? Magically enchanted to look like she did, and talk like a person?

She reached up to touch her nose, as if he had left some mark there. He had, as a matter of fact. But it was only a very small speck of dirt. She had wiped it off when she touched her nose, but it astounded him how pronounced it had looked for the brief instance it had existed on her perfectly white skin.

She asked him what he meant by asking her what she was made of, which was a bit odd. It seemed like a straightforward enough question to him, at any rate. Was she made out of glass, a puppet crafted to be perfect, but clearly not made for offensive purposes, or was she a human being like he was. She felt like a human being, but you were never sure until you asked.

"I mean, what are you? You feel like me, anyway."

She went on to answer his question by saying she was made of human. That was probably what he was made out of as well, so if she was a golem she was a very well put together golem made out of human parts. Which was odd, and a bit interesting. Could you do that, just make a new person out of old person parts? If he cut of the finger of his right hand, and his left hand, could he switch them? But he put aside that interesting thought to answer her latest question.

"I suppose I'm made out of human as well, although I've never really checked."

Alice paused, her platinum eyebrow raised still in utter confusion. How would one check to see if they were made of human? Did they... test the skin somehow? At any rate, Alice could- maybe- understand why the boy could be confused of her origins. She was, after all, near deathly pale and often wondered if maybe, way down the line, there could have been intermingling. She never dared ask aloud, of course, for fear of her father's never ending wrath. One could conclude that every day he took an agitation potion with his morning tea in order to indulge in his favorite pass time- storming around with nothing nice to say ever.

Alice shook herself from her thoughts and stuck her hand out gently, remembering her manners.

"My name is Alice Monrue," She said, her voice barely higher than the whispers of the library around her. "And you are?" With any hope, the boy was not raised inside the damp confines of a cave (which would explain his ignorance in social propriety) and knew how to return the gesture. If that wasn't the case, however, Alice felt she would be at a loss. How would she properly introduce herself without performing the everyday politeness in a way that the odd new individual would understand?

When the girl introduced herself, Kaegen felt slightly dissapointed. He had hoped that she had a proper name, had hoped that someone this strange might be someone. But alas, she was simple lattice rueful, or something along those lines. Nothing worth remembering. When she stuck out her hand, Kaegen just stared at it for a few minutes, not even answering her, confusion temporarily robbing him of speech. He moved his head to the left a bit, then to the right, inspecting the proffered hand from all angles before grabbing it awkwardly, the way he had seen other children do it.

"I am Kaegen Deathmote, Fens-Born Scarf-Wielder. He who was called fat tadpole as a babe, suicidal idjit as a toddler and he who earned the name Eeh before arriving at Hogwarts. Friend of Eris, Chaos-Born First-Avenger, companion to November, Deathmote-kin. Assistant to Professor Lear under the authority of himself. He who was made prefect of ravenclaw under the authority of the black burn and sir happiness. He whose names are given authority by Grandfather, whose authority is given him by the conqueror of the 14th dark place."

The girl's thin fingers felt warm when compared to his own. They felt soft. His were streaked in dried blood and a few scabs, and were much colder. He waited for a few seconds before releasing, and taking a step back to stare at her from a different perspective

Thankfully, after a few awkward moments of her hand hanging in the air and careful consideration of the appendage, he reached for her hand and clasped it, rattling of a name that seemed completely impossible to say in one breath. Alice paid extra attention to names, for it was rude to forget them, but recalling his rather large title at a later date would be highly improbable. The boy stepped back, but his eyes remained trained on her as if he were still trying to figure out what she was. Alice began to grow embarrassed, her pale cheeks flushing a soft pink. Reaching for conversation- anything really- to break his unwavering stare. She lifted the book to show him the cover.

"Do you like mermaids?" She asked. Flipping to a page that showed a detailed drawing of the war she had been reading about. Each mermaid in the picture, on both sides of the war, were drawn with near perfection, the ink curving and sharpening in all the right places until the moving picture before them had came to be. It portrayed a battle, mermaids with their mouths open in silent war cries, each holding a sharp spear carved from some sort of bone and Alice would have applauded the artist, if she had known them, for how well they captured that moment before the two sides collided into chaos.

He didn’t know what to say, really. He didn’t think talking was all that necessary when it was much more interesting to just stare and ponder, however when she asked about mermaids he felt obliged to respond in some way, although he really didn’t know what a mermaid was. He would have asked her, but when she lifted the book it became quite obvious what she was talking about. A war of water people was depicted. Even though the painting showed the brief moments before the conflict, Kaegen could clearly visualize what it would look like during, and after.

It broke his stare and then some, making him take a few smooth steps backwards. He didn’t really like the picture. Too much blood. There was no way he could survive something like that. He might have a chance against one person, but never against another army. The concept was more than a little bit scary. What was something like that called? Would it fall under the category of mass murder?

“I don’t know. What is that?”

He pointed to the page with a slender finger, voice even softer than it was a second ago. Eyes just a little bit wider. His attention was now firmly away from the girl, at least. Death always did have a way of catching his interest, whether for good, or bad.