ic Purl Two (IC)

[Avenger Assembled]

September 2019 

Kord Dormitory 

Fourth Floor Common Room 

3 AM 

 

Anyone coming along on the fourth floor common room would have found it a quiet place this evening. The fierce Watchdog, guardian and protector of her sister Daystar, was sound asleep in a dark room, her head pillowed on the arm of the couch, while Judy sat on the other side of her feet. The room was dark, the TV and lights off, but Judy could see fine. She didn't like talking about that - about how she could see in the dark almost as easily during the day, about how her eyes glowed with a silvery-white phosphorescent fire when she did so. Normal people didn't do that. What she did like doing was knitting, a hobby she'd taken to with some enthusiasm on these evenings when Ashley was asleep and she was alone. Well, not entirely alone. The world buzzed with radio chatter here, as everywhere, but she'd learned to tune it out - almost. As her needle worked, she sang a soft acapella in the darkness, "Gonna take my horse to the Old Town Road, gonna ride till I can't no more..." 

[April]

Reality unraveled in the common room.

 

A spark of arcane light flickered into being in the center of the dark room, mere feet from where Judy was knitting, spiraled outward into a disk that seemed to twist, fold into itself and refract what little light there was in a nauseating display.  The distortion was utterly soundless but it felt like it had sound.

 

A cloaked and hooded figure appeared from the portal--tall, slender and feminine--and stepped lightly onto the carpeted floor of the common room, the distortion behind them winking out.  A quiet, relieved sounding sigh issued forth from the figured as they pushed their hood back from their head.

[Avenger Assembled]

Judy would have shrieked in terror even a year earlier - as it was, she had to bite her lip to keep from doing so. There was no use waking Ashley if she didn't have to, especially since she knew how Watchdog would wake up to the sound of her yelling. As it was, two glowing eyes faced Arcana from the darkness of the common room over the click-click-click of needles. She blinked a few times, and slowly Daystar recognized the girl - the one she was supposed to stay away from. Well I'm not giving up on this hat, and I'm not waking Ashley up when she finally got to sleep. She took a moment and whispered, "_Hey! Aren't you going to get in trouble?_" 

[April]

Abigail started, reaching up to pull her hood back over her face, when she noticed the glowing eyes and realized it was already too late.

 

"Jams," she whispered, dropping her fingers from her hood.  One small gesture and uttered word caused her Arcana regalia to twist, tear and reshape itself into her pajamas, and another gesture brought a faint green glow to her own eyes.  The sorceress cast a quick glance over at the sleeping Ashley, and then raised an eyebrow at the knitting.

 

"Get in trouble for what?" Abigail asked the knitter in a whisper, buying some time to remember the name for the face she was looking at.

[Avenger Assembled]

"_Sneaking around late,_" whispered Judy. "_Summers is pretty serious about the curfew._" She blinked a few times, almost banishing the glow from her eyes, then realized that meant she wouldn't be able to finish her work. "_We're not even supposed to be in the common room this late, but usually nobody minds._" She took a moment to tie off, then offered her hand. Judy wasn't quite hot to the touch but she was warmer than any human being had any right to be, probably over 100 degrees from her brief contact with Abby. "_Ah'm Judy Smith, that's mah sister Ashley. This is the first time she's slept in a couple of days so Ah just wanted to let her rest._" She smiled thinly. "_You're Abby, right? The...witch?_" 

[April]

"Mage," Abigail corrected, looking a little offended but still keeping her voice low.  "I'm a mage, not a witch.  Don't you know how magic works?"

 

She looked curiously at her hand, then tilted her head slightly to regard Judy and gave a small shrug.  "Claremont can't teach me everything," she said instead. "Summers knows this."

 

Which was true, the Headmistress did know this, but would probably prefer if Abigail didn't leave the school grounds so late in the evening or teleport directly into the school property.  Which Abigail didn't, usually, she would often taken multiple jumps and leave false trails because she always presumed she was being tracked.

 

"It won't be an issue if the Headmistress doesn't find out," she said, giving Judy a pointed look, softening it with an impish grin.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Ah promise Ah won't tattle," whispered Judy with a smile. "Ah'm not such a goody-two-shoes as everybody thinks, anyway. Ashley, um, sneaks out at night too sometimes, and Ah don't tattle on her either." She folded her hands before her and admitted, "Ah don't know anything about magic, so Ah'm sorry if witch is a bad word. Normally it's what you use to avoid bad words." She turned her head as Ashley stirred in her sleep, the older teen swiping at the air for a moment. "Don't, um, don't worry about that. She gets these dreams, sometimes, it's okay." Judy fiddled for a moment with the gold cross around her neck, then said, "Ah never really meant anybody who does magic. Ah met that one boy who had demon powers, but he doesn't like to talk to me, Ah think."