Praeteritus ad Praeteritum [Finished] - Hogwarts Express

25 Jun 2018, 21:24

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It was solitude she wanted, but company that she received.

Minutes earlier, under the cover of gleeful children saying their goodbyes and the relative silence that befell the train, Dorian had entered and found himself a comfortable place in one of the furthest compartments to the back of the train. The moment he took his seat and haphazardly threw his case under one of the two rows of red seats, he heaved a sigh of relief tinged with a hint of woe. He was leaving Hogwarts after a very long year of highs and lows, successes and failures, excitement and boredom, and he would miss all of it this summer as he returned home for the break. It was already known that his father would be so happy and ready to hear all that he had experienced seeing as he hadn't written to them much over the period, but his mother would no doubt regard him as a nuisance that had come home far too soon.

Life was rough sometimes.

It wasn't that he was trying to hide from someone, nor that he was being antisocial. He simply wanted to get the train ride underway and over with so he could get home and be that much closer to coming back. He rather liked it at Hogwarts; was looking forward to his second year even. But a part of his mind told him that he shouldn't reveal too much of his interest, least of all when in the presence of his mother. He didn't know whether or not she would try to dissolve his enrollment out of spite, but he didn't want to test the waters. He already believed beyond belief that she hated him for...something. Whatever that something was he had no clue, but it was something that ate away at him slowly, though he had become somewhat of an expert at hiding it from the world.

He could play the game of deception as well as anyone else.

He was starting to relax when he heard light footsteps and the clear banging of a sizable case against a few doors as someone made their way ever closer. There was no rhyme or reason behind why he did it, but he flew from the seat and turned, diving under it and squeezing far into the backmost sections. It was at that moment that the door flew open and he saw the robes flowing as the person stepped closer. The heavy bang of the trunk so close to him caused him to jump a little, enough to bang his head against the wooden section of the underside of the seat. "Ouch!" he yelled, a sound that the person might find so sudden and startling, as they had believed themself to be alone in the compartment. Dorian slid from under the seat while rubbing the spot at the side of his head that had met collision.

"Bloody hell! Scare a guy half to death would ya?"

He was pushing to his feet to look down at the person, a girl he had never seen before, with a slight frown. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but closed it again as he took a step back to the opposite seat across from her and plopped himself in it. "I'm not even in the mood right now." He sounded almost sad. Dorian slouched back and started removing his robes while in the enclosed space with the girl, an act that might seem inappropriate to others, but to him was normal. Once he had the thing off he rolled it up in the opposite of neatly and tossed it on the seat next to him. He was now clad in a pair of khaki shorts and a simple white t-shirt. He folded his arms and broadened himself in seat, making him appear more imposing than usual. "I haven't seen you around school before. Who are you?" Very curt, but it was a start...

...and Dorian was trying to pass the time.

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✧Improvidus, Apto quod Victum✧

Stam: 3, Agi: 3, Str: 4, Con: 7, Arc: 7, Acc: 6

26 Jun 2018, 01:20

”A diablo, qui est simia dei.”

Cel uttered the words in exasperation after she jumped mentally at the boy who had just dove out from under the seats. Was there no place where she could find peace and solitude? The words roughly translated to where God has a church the Devil will have his chapel or something like that, though it wasn’t exact. Translations, after all, seldom were— but the phrase was fit enough to express the surprise that had been swallowed up by the trained guard of her mind, the mask of nonchalance her face kept up. Who sat under the seat in a train? She was fairly sure people didn’t do that; or, at least, people other than this boy. Why was he under the seat?

”Why are you under the seat? she asked, voicing her thoughts in such a way that did not quite query but simply voiced her simple interest in the reason of his unusual displacement. The girl turned her attention on him now, her head tilted slightly, inquisitively, her eyes staring in, as Eric put it, her seeing-through-your-soul glare. “Culpa est mea, mea maxima culpa,” Cel apologized. “But I should not like to be under a seat as the train moves.”

Ah! So he cursed. A slightest blink of surprise showed through her mask, a taken aback response to the scandalizing words. Most words she adored; however, these words were not most words. “Nor should I like to curse,” she added quietly, eyes darting about the compartment, limbs rigid and still in anxiousness, her left hand twitching slightly. Perhaps somehow she could escape the compartment, find a different one, an empty one. How, though? She could not say she was going to the restroom, for one would not take their trunk with them. She could not say she was going to buy herself snacks, for the same reason. She could simply excuse herself, but that was much too obvious— and rude, too.

There was, quite frankly, no way out.

With a sigh, she accepted this fact. Her eyes ceased their wandering, her hand ceased its shaking, and she propped the ankle of her left leg up on the knee of her right. She could practically hear Parker chastising her for it in her head— for an unladylike position of sitting— and, of course, promptly ignored it. That was what rules were for, of course— the stupid ones, at least, of civility. Still she missed her beloved University campus, her amicable professors, her shelves upon shelves strange smelling books... her earbuds, for goodness’s sake. She had died not being able to listen to music.

As she heard his question, a spark of irony shot up her mind like a breeze of laughter. He hadn’t seen her around school before— goal achieved, for the weird, likely-Gryffindor and slightly menacing-looking boy was not one she would have preferred to attract attention from... well. Perhaps being unnoticed completely, by everyone, was her goal, one that she would no doubt be told to drop. That was not quite important, not as important as answering the question given to her soon enough to not seem the absent-minded, slightly rude child that most tended to dismiss her as.

“Celynne— Cel— Flores,” she answered, just loud enough to be heard clearly. “And you?” Giving a name without something in return was never a good idea, that she knew. Obviously she could lie, but lying was rather unnecessary here. He was a student, likely first or second year at that, and students were not such evil creatures... at least some of them weren’t. Still, unnecessary attention was never a good thing, and she hoped never to have more of it.

The train was still unmoving, but students were beginning to flood into the compartments, their chatter raising the noise level significantly. Cel stood to draw the curtains shut, the whisper of fabric against steel unheard against the rumble of footsteps and excitement outside, then returned to her seat again.

Perhaps she could, after general introductions had been made, simply read for the remainder of the train ride. Perhaps if he left the compartment, she could slip out— well, if she could find a new, empty compartment, anyway. Either way, she would make little small talk unless he did. Stay polite. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Reducio

The fault is mine, my great fault.
My fault, my fault, my great fault.

26 Jun 2018, 08:15

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"Et Latine loqui?"

It was a turn of events that he, quite frankly, had not seen coming. That he would find another able to string together a Latin phrase was remarkable in and of itself. He had believed the school to be filled with individuals who thought the language a waste of time and mental acuity and as such, had refrained from pouring his erudition in typical conversation. People simply would not understand. But this girl, "ignosce me," seemed to understand. How he had longed to practice his Latin with another but had been given zero opportunity to do so. Even her response gave him joy, and his smile could not be hidden as she accepted the blame that, rightfully, was not hers to take. The boy did not comment, however.

There was no need to.

Her discomfort at being in his presence, or rather, his irritant apparition had caused her to adopt a well-guarded countenance, one that was hard and almost impossible to read. Unlike the girl, however, who averted her own gaze to scan the area within, Dorian maintained unbreaking eye contact with her and saw every expression that crossed her face. "Hello 'Celynne— Cel— Flores'. Dorian Gray. You've heard of me, I'm sure?" His name had spread throughout the school like wildfire during his year of being there, and like Max and Eris, he had built a reputation for himself among the school as one of those temperamental Gryffindors.

Of course she would know who he is. Or at least, his name.

"Et veniet in pace." He unfolded his arms and raised his hands in the air in that universal show of surrender, wanting her to know that it was actually possible to coexist in this singular compartment until such a time when they would no longer have to. He heard the unmuffled entry of the other students and could not miss the way she rose to draw the curtains. With that one action, he knew. "Besides," he teased, "it seems you'd rather not go out there any more than I would." He was right, of course, for the look on her face, though veiled behind practiced stoicism, said it all.

Dorian wanted to know just how knowledgable she was.

He leaned forward in his seat just as she took her own, testing the waters as he was loath to do back home. "Celynne, ius? Tu linguam optime callet loqueris??" As the archaic words rolled from his tongue he found himself in a state of perpetual excitement, having never been given reason to make use of the language he wanted to perfect. Just how good was she? "Ego tamen doctrina: sed puto sum bonorum." He went through the sentence again in his mind after he said it, just to gather whether he had maintained all the key grammar points or if would be understood. All seemed in order.

The ball was now in her court.

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Reducio

✸ "You speak Latin?"
✸ "Please forgive me."
✸ "I come in peace."
✸ "Celynne, right? Do you speak the language fluently?"
✸ "I am still learning, but I think I'm good."

✧Improvidus, Apto quod Victum✧

Stam: 3, Agi: 3, Str: 4, Con: 7, Arc: 7, Acc: 6

27 Jun 2018, 14:44

Abyssus abyssum invocat.

Beautiful as the words were, they held more meaning than beauty: deep calls to deep. In other words, comprehenssion makes way for more comprehension, carving the path for more... and so on. The more she spoke, the more she would speak well later. And this boy, this Dorian Gray, of whom rumors did not depict kindly in the mind, spoke Latin, a language not for the faint of brain. “Locutionem tuam malum,” she informed him, not unkindly, “Sed: sane quidem, ego disertus latine.”

Such was the Dead Language, in such a confusing beauty that its words could be thrown out in so many different orders! What riddles it contained, what beautifully depressing proverbs had been uttered, memorized and written in it. It was only a shame that it was deceased through Letum’s gates; such beauty did not last.

Dorian Gray, was it? It was so; she recognized the name, if only through chatter of students in the hallways and hearsay— then again, hearsay was a useful tool at times. He knew Eris, she was sure, and was part of her friend group— slightly rambunctious, loud, and reckless enough to go through quite the adventures. What a shame she wasn’t part of it... or not. She’d heard enough about their activities to resolve never to accompany the flamboyant Gryffindors on such a quest. Nothing she might have done in the school year might have paralleled their little— actually, hardly little, quite Brobdingnagian— escapades... well, unless one counted the window-breaking and defenestration out of the West Tower...

Ahem.

Nevertheless, a hands-raised posture did slightly relax Cel from her surprise and wariness. It was strange, she thought, that he would not like to spend the duration of the ride home with his friends instead of alone— or, now, with a peculiar stranger quoting and speaking Latin. Did he not have a penchant for trouble, after all? It was how most students described him: daredevil troublemaker, not so much for the brains. Again, in repetition, Latin was not meant for those short of wisdom.

The girl reached for her book, an action she was so accustomed to that she could catch the book’s spine in a finger, toss it up, hook the bookmark from its pages, and guide it to a neat landing in her hands ready to read in about a second flat. Heavier books required more strength, but this one was not a large textbook but a printed copy of The Aeneid, and she did just so. “Nescio multi qui Latinam discere,” Cel remarked conversationally. “Et— cur tu?” The question was not uttered in accusation, but with a curiousness not often heard in tone, more often portrayed in words.

Her hand relaxed on the hilt of her dagger, hidden in the folds of her robe, where it had darted to and gripped the rubber-wrapped handle tightly as she started. Slowly Cel allowed her hand to fall away to grip the left side of her book and allow her other hand to move from the spine and to support it on the right. A glare was shot at a loud stumble and curse that came from the other side of the compartment door—Billingsgate is not welcome here, you know— and then she turned her attention back to the mostly-stranger.

He seemed just a soupçon familiar, in a strange way imprinted in her mind. Perhaps she had seen him in the hallways? But no,she realized, this is a different kind of familiar. Indeed, whilst those she observed in passing were familiar in a recent sense, this was the sense of memory, of a familiarity from ages past, the type of familiar that she was rather accustomed to. Quickly she drew her mind away from the thinking, already feeling herself slip away— and sighed in relief as the flashback did not come. Deus meus, if I had another episode just now... she shuddered just to think it.

Instead: “Te respice nota,” she murmured, just loud enough to be barely heard at all. A dangerous line she was walking, to speak upon the matter— sometimes it worked to repel the oncoming headache she could feel encroaching on the edges of her consciousness now. Other times, it would push her forcefully into the memory and leave her with a headache even worse than the usual ones. How sad it was that she could call headaches usual ones. How ironic it was that she would even observe that. “Habes autem frater et soror? In attendance at Hogwarts, I mean.”

Reducio

Your pronunciation is bad, but: no doubt, I am fluent in Latin.
I don’t know many who learn Latin. And— why you?
You look familiar.
Have you any brothers or sisters?

11 Jul 2018, 02:51

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His pronunciation is bad? Bovis stercus!

Was she truly qualified to be telling him that his pronunciation was bad? Who did she think she was? These are thoughts that the boy would harbour as he watched her with a downturned glare, but he knew deep, deep down that she was right. His Latin was not the best, and he was still deep in the process of learning the language, but he hadn't ever been challenged by another who could understand it let alone speak it so fluently, and if he admitted it to himself, he was feeling slighted. To add salt to the already peppered wound, the girl had called him out on it, the only saving grace is that they were alone in this compartment and would have no need to suffer the humiliation of being taken down a notch. Then as if to drive the point home in a final show of brazen condescension, she relaxed and opened a book while tossing a question his way that meant everything and nothing.

Was she looking down on him?

Dorian didn't answer, watching her as a cat would a mouse. He wanted so badly to snatch the book from her, open the window, and defenestrate the thing, but it had done him no wrong and he could not take his anger out on it. Once she was through fiddling with her robes and her book and uttered her next words, he snapped back with "Et idem potest non dici de vobis," feeling very salty at the moment. He was contemplating moving to a different location away from her, but his ego would not let him. By right, she should be the one to go seeing as he was technically the first resident. He opened his mouth to say as much when she shot another question at him in Latin, and this one he understood very well. But why did she ask that question so suddenly? This girl was becoming curiouser and curiouser by the minute. There was no harm in answering such a mundane question though, right?

"Non habeo siblings. Et tu?"

But before she could answer the question he would interject forcefully with a little more Latin. "Nunquam animo! Quia non vere curare" That sounded about right, and he was doing a little victory dance in his head that he had managed to keep up with the girl. 'Take that you snobby little toad!' he thought to himself. Despite himself, he found that he was rather enjoying their little exchange, so much so that even though he had intended to end their interaction with his last words, he started again with something else, wanting to keep at the Latin. She might not know it, but she was helping him to learn, and he was so much of a polyglot that he would use any and every opportunity to gather more knowledge on any language, dead as they may be.

"Umm... Sed quid si... non habeo siblings?"

He was sure that was right. It sounded right to him at least. Why did it matter if he had siblings or not that attended Hogwarts? He wanted to know why, out of everything that she could have asked, she had chosen to ask that question. Dorian was an only child after all, though he had always wished for another with whom he could share his belongings with, then fight and get into trouble with because they could not agree. Not that it was bad being the sole child. There were obvious perks to that.

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✸ Bullsh*t!
✸ "The same can not be said of you."
✸ "I have no siblings. And you?"
✸ "I do not really care."
✸ "But what if... I do not have siblings?"

✧Improvidus, Apto quod Victum✧

Stam: 3, Agi: 3, Str: 4, Con: 7, Arc: 7, Acc: 6

11 Jul 2018, 05:11

Adversus solem ne loquitor.

Celynne watched with a slightly raised eyebrow as the boy began to grow irritated and snappish. She was not sorry-- do not speak against the sun, was the meaning of the quote-- for it was true, was it not? The r's of his words didn't seem to be rolled correctly, and his accent was just a little... off. It was not meant to be delivered in a belittling fashion-- to her own knowledge, it hadn't been-- but it seemed that this Dorian was taking it the wrong way. It was not a jab toward his ability, it was simply a remark that she observed a flaw in his speech and that perhaps he could work toward correcting it-- that was her intention, though perhaps the few words she was willing to allow exit from her mind and expression were not enough to convey her true meaning. Now he seemed in a considerably worse mood.

Yeah... that really wasn't her problem.

"Non habeo fratres," the girl replied tonelessly, forcing her face to go blank at the vexed words uttered before. "Si velint scire," she added as a sort of afterthought. Setting the book down in the possibility of needing to partake in an actual conversation, the verdant cover shadowed the seat as she allowed it to rest on the velvet cushion, its green color reflected in the glass of the window peeking out from behind curtains. Hopefully, it wouldn't slide off the seat with the movement of the train and smash someone's foot-- most did not improve their mood when another's thick, heavy textbook maimed them.

Interesting choice of words, her own blunt mind noted-- she was thankful that she did not voice that. Quite honestly, Cel was a little confused by his query. "Tu dicis: quare interrogo?" If that wasn't what he meant, she couldn't think of what he did-- to her own credit, it was quite the confusing sentence. "Te respice nota, aliqua, nescio quomod--"

She gasped and doubled over.

-A young Cel knelt on the floor of her mother's vacated bedroom, sprawled out on the ground, her child's silken black hair spread on the ground as if someone had poured pitch on the floor. Her knees were pulled up to a ninety-degree angle from her body and her eyes, one green and one brown, were fixed on something just beneath the low bed-- something in the space that her little arm was trying to grab from beneath it.

With one last push, her fingers closed around the small rectangle, and she pulled her arm back out with a relieved sigh, laying back on the half-sunlit ground. After a moment she lifted her fruition from the ground and squinted at it-- an object she had never seen before. No, actually, she had seen photos before, just not this particular man-- a man with dark curly hair and pale grey-blue eyes. Rimmed with white plastic, the photo was alien, unfamiliar, to her, and she examined its detail with increasing fascination-- who was this man; why was his picture under the bed?

"Celynne?" Her mother's voice rang out in surprise from the doorway. Immediately the girl launched herself to her feet, baby-eyes wide. "What are you doing here, Celynne?"

"Who's this?" she asked in a small voice, not quite answering her mother's query, but her mother could guess. She raised the picture to her mother's far taller vantage point, and she took it from her with furrowed brows. "And why is he under your bed?"

"Celynne," another voice stated, hard and cold-- cold as ice, the way it had been since the day her father set eyes on her. "Get out."

"Asher, please," her mother protested before turning back to Cel. "Celynne, do you remember what we told you about monsters under the bed?" The girl nodded vigorously, trying to ignore the animosity in her father's condemning stare as he added to her mother's words. "Then you should know now. Run along now, Celynne."

So she did.

Compartment furniture swam before her as the girl's vision came back into her own control, and she exhaled hard again before sucking another breath in. I did it again. Hot anger channeled through her mind, a thousand words scolding her lack of control, but they dissipated as a spiking pain overtook them, pounding her mind hard. Cel squeezed her eyes shut, rocking back and forth on her seat.

But this wasn't as bad as the other headaches-- and she knew her other headaches very, very well. This might be about half the intensity, and thank goodness for that; less anguishing memories typically produced less serious headaches, and though this memory tormented her in her confusion and curiosity, it wasn't so terrible physically. Still, it hurt. And it was twice as bad when there were spectators.

...Ah, right.

Her pained gaze began to turn back toward the student from their current fixed position on the ground, but another wave of pained rolled over her mind, and all she could do was clench her jaw and wait for it to be over. Forcefully she made her spine unbend, rising into a half-sitting position before giving up to wait until the already fading phantom pain subsided-- and, thankfully, it did ebb away quickly until she was able to open her squeezed shut eyelids and take in a full breath without too much shaking. "Ego veniam," she whispered, not knowing quite what else to say.

Reducio

I don't have siblings. If you wanted to know.
You mean, why do I ask?
You look familiar, somehow.
I'm all right.

16 Jul 2018, 23:19

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Incommodus.

No other word could describe the little girl that sat across from him putting on airs as she verbalized her perfect Latin to him. She couldn't possibly have any friends. She was an insufferable know-it-all, a fact that Dorian concluded in the short time that he had had the displeasure of being in her company. She didn't have any friends, of that he was sure. Or he guessed, at least. She was smart, naturally, a fact that he could not deny. Brilliantly so. But she didn't at all seem very humble about it. Besides that, however, Dorian had never seen her name written in the Entrance Hall as Student of the Month, so that at least gave him something to feel better about.

Even though he told himself this, he still felt like he was losing some kind of unspoken competition.

He understood every word she said, but he had to admit, she spoke it far better than he did, and it did nothing more than dampen whatever strands of good mood he had left. "Quae semper..." Dorian uttered just as she said her final piece. He had stopped looking at her at this point, having reclined into a more relaxed position on the seat to support his back. Then he heard the sharp intake of breath and the panicked whimpering of a girl in pain. He was many things, but a monster he was not. He sprung into action with an ungraceful stumble, nearly faceplanting with the floor, but managed to right himself as he crossed the excessively short distance toward her, grabbing her quickly before she ended up becoming intimately acquainted with the floor. "Cel? Cel!" He shook her roughly, trying to wake her from her stupor. It was in vain, and he might as well have been talking to the furniture.

Was no one at Hogwarts normal?

A question to ponder another time, for now, he had to contend with drama tête-à-tête. Seeing that shaking did absolutely nothing, he instead eased her into a more comfortable position, leaning her back into the seat, holding his breath in much the same manner that she was. He only watched her in silence, willing the panic to remain submerged, and thought of what he could do for her. Spell-wise, he couldn't remember learning anything that could revive her, or return her to her senses. And then as soon as it had started, it was over. Her eyes opened and she looked right through him. The concern on Dorian's face was lost in the blur, and when he saw that she was alright he quickly readjusted his expression to a more neutral, though slightly annoyed countenance. "Are you okay?" he asked, momentarily forgetting the little game they were playing.

Is fainting something she always does around strangers?

Dorian slowly eased himself back, though not quite making it to his seat. Instead, he remained in a genuflected position on the ground a few inches away from her, looking up into her face. "Is everything okay? You don't seem so...you anymore." By that he meant she seemed less composed, which was something he had not expected to ever see in the short time he knew her. "What was that? Is it the train? Do you have motion sickness? Is it me? Did I have something to do with this? 'Cause I'm sorry if I did." He said this with a sideways glance. There was something about admitting one's guilt that elicited penitence. Dorian rose from his kneeled position then with an idea, moving quickly toward his trunk, opening and delving into the thing and surfacing with a handful of wizochocs! Everyone loved those, and he had more than enough to share. He thrust them unceremoniously at the girl, offering them as an apology, and as a way to help her feel better. Chocolate was the universal cure-all. "A truce."

Now if only she would accept.

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✧Improvidus, Apto quod Victum✧

Stam: 3, Agi: 3, Str: 4, Con: 7, Arc: 7, Acc: 6

18 Jul 2018, 16:44

...Incommodesticus.

Unknowingly Cel mirrored the other boy’s thought as she blinked through the ache in her head at his rambling soliloquy. The word was difficult to translate into English exactly, merely a little flip to incommodus, but it floated by her mind in her pain and she'd grabbed it, held on to it. She’d just… had… another flashback. Another one. A stream of Latin expletives steadily began making its way around her mind, more than a few making it out of her mouth as well-- so fast that those not well acquainted with the language would not understand them. Now, though, she needed to remember what, exactly, she had remembered.

Quite the irony, that was.

That was how she’d found that photo, wasn’t it? The photo that resided, forgiven and forgotten, deep in the depths of her trunk’s flat front pocket still. She hadn’t looked at it since she had found it in her jacket that she wore one day in America, so long ago, when she was so much younger and so… oblivious. Of everything. She had stuck it in that trunk Parker had given her on her flight back to England, or perhaps not so much back to as just to, despite the obvious dearth of belongings the girl had owned.

Aha. She could see that little flash of concern on his face before it changed, so quickly as if flipping a switch, so fleeting that she could imagine she'd imagined it-- but then, she imagined a lot of things, and this was not the kind of thing her mind would like to make up.

Registering the chocolates-- mmm, chocolates-- that had been proffered to her, Cel inched backward a smattering, slightly taken aback, despite the fact that her still-shaking body was still recovering from the flashback. "It's not your fault, not at all, or the train," she rushed to reassure, then paused. "Well. ...It's kind of your face."

...Well, that came out wrong.

"Not-- no, not your face, exactly, but..." And then the girl gave up with a frustrated growl, laying back on the plush seat backs. For a moment she was silent. "...All right, I'll explain. What that was is a flashback. Prompted by things I recognize but don't remember. I happen to be an amnesiac; don't ask, I don't know." In truth, she didn't know what question might be prompted by her words, but whatever question it was, she would not be able to answer it anyway. "Your face. That's what prompted this one."

Carefully, Cel reached over to her trunk, unlatching the intricately sculpted clasp with a flick of her wrist. The snap seemed too loud in her ears, penetrating the puissant, expectant silence, but there the photo was, in the little fabric pocket-- she could not see it yet, but the thin edges cut into her skin as she grasped it.

It was small, bordered with white plastic, the bottom thicker than the top. It was a polaroid picture, from the looks of it, and it did not move as other magical photos did. And still the same face. Yes, she remembered now, that Cel had gone back to her parents' room and stolen it from under their bed, her overpowering curiosity tugging her toward the unanswered question. Something about that face she'd recognized, far before that flashback.

She saw it in Dorian's face, too.

With one hand, she tilted the photo toward him so he could see it, using her foot to knock down the lid of her trunk and latch it closed again. "Qui est hic?" she asked in a voice barely more than a whisper-- but it could be heard just fine. "Do you know?" Now the curiosity was eating her alive... but then, it always was.

Oh, look, chocolates. It would be unseemly of her to refuse sugar, would it not? Besides, they'd melt and likely stain his hand with sticky, sweetened cocoa if she didn't take one-- and it wasn't like she wished to refuse. And so she did take one, plucking one out of his grasp and taking a bite-- knowing her to take a single, tiny bite of such a small chocolate. Sugar did help her think, and she knew it for sure as she rush of unique, cocoa-y taste filled her taste buds. Not wanting to speak any more until she got an answer, the girl tipped her head down in thanks and in acknowledgment of his previous statement-- though, was that even necessary? She'd practically ignored his words before, and it was unlikely that Dorian would even register it as she meant it.

"Is..." The thought trailed off into nothingness as the mess of gears and wires and shortcircuits and chemicals in her brain turned. Yes, she could see him in Dorian-- similar, though maybe that was a coincidence-- or maybe not, depending on his reaction. The photo was of that man, smiling in a posed face for a camera, but truly happy nonetheless-- a sliver of her mother's black, black hair, to the right of the photo-- like hers, but... blacker. Her mother must have been there when the photo was taken.

Somehow she never noticed that, but it wasn't like she spent her time analyzing photos. No, she spent her free time reading, writing, or doing other productive things, not mulling over a photo that she thought might be relevant and knew that she'd likely get nowhere with. But perhaps with just a bit of help...?

A word uttered as a whisper in her mind, a plea: Placet.

Reducio

Uncomfortable, untoward; ill-timed-- difficult to translate
Who is this?