Patrice
She's running down the stairs. The elevator would've taken too long. Inside the campus, the fireworks sound like knocking against a door. A countdown comes from the rooftop.
10.
She's just running down the stairwell to the first floor.
9.
She never really put something nice on.
8.
It didn't matter.
7.
First floor.
6.
She's hurriedly dashing past the offices.
5.
What is she going to think of the burn?
4.
Did she remember to clean her makeup?
3.
It *Didn't matter.*
2.
She shoves the courtyard door open.
1. 

"Amelie?"
The clock strikes midnight as she calls out. A spectrum of colors flash across the courtyard. She tries to compose herself, walking up to the lone figure in the courtyard.
"Your visit-" 
C'mon Leta, it's just her.
"It is nice to see you again. How was Germany?"

Did she grab the journal? Would it be a good time to give it to her?

It didn't matter.
Junior
Amelie was watching the fireworks. Effervescent against the dark sea of the sky, it felt so calm compared to everything. It was cold, much like everything. She felt like something warded off from the rest of the cradle, hearing everyone woop and Hollar at another year passing. A year without Tejal... She forgot how empty it is. 

She was standing alone in the courtyard waiting for somebody she'd promised to see. She hears the frantic call of a stifled breath from whom she wanted to see. Amelie turned to look at Anja and a blast of colour echos around her like horns born from the sky, it paints her face with colours not belonging to who the girl is now. She narrowed her eye in question. 

She taps her forearm crutch against the ground, leaning into it. She lifts a hand and reaches into her jacket and she pulls out an almanac. Through all the nights of feeling too much or too little it almost felt like relief when she pulled the almanac from it's home in the pocket of her jacket. 

Amelie shows it to Anja, her fingers holding the bare edge of it's laminated paper. A breeze could tear it from her hand. 

"I believe this is yours."

She wants Anja to take it. Something to give after being away for so long.
Patrice
Anja looks down towards Amelie's hands, and what they held.
She actually got one.

She holds her hand out gingerly, taking the opposite edge in her hands.
Anja flinches slightly at the sight of her own hand. It looked awful in the multicolor lights. If only she realized what she meant earlier. She would've at least covered it up. 
She looks back up to her.
"Thank you, Miss Amelie."
She settles it against her side. Would it be too soon to give her the journal?
Would she want it now?
Why is she stressing over this?

"I have to ask... Why just me?" A question that has crossed her mind since she realized the surprise. It spills out of her in her own interrogation of herself. A foolish question.
Junior
Amelie saw the mangled flesh of Anja's hand and a whirlwind of concern flashed across her mind, it didn't really come to mind how bad it would be. A slight uncomfortable pulse flashed from her hand all the way to her spine and she sucked in a breath. She nodded at Anja. She didn't know why it hurt Amelie to see the scarred mess of Anja's hand. She wouldn't question it. 

"Why not. I think it's nice to just have some time with another without the mess of letting people know you're back."
Amelie hums while putting her hand back onto her crutch. 
"Maybe I just, wanted to surprise you."

She stares into the girls eyes, her bandaged hands clench against the crutches as she looks on. To be honest, it all felt a little suffocating. She felt like she was performing in front of an audience again, it was honestly a little nauseating.
Patrice
"Oh- Call me surprised then."

She makes a small glance to the sky.
Her family was never one to celebrate the holidays. She carried their tradition with her, not planning on leaving the dorm today, just finding something to listen to, something to block out the uproarious cheering and distant explosions that marked a year advancing, probably even make a small prayer that the boy who slung fireballs didn't burn something down.

She was out of her element. Her gaze crosses Amelie again.

"Miss. Would you like to sit down somewhere?" She looked around for somewhere to sit, perhaps a bench?

"You had also asked to-" Did she really want to remind her? Maybe she could still get out of a questionnaire.
Why did Anja care about being questioned? Did she really hold her privacy this high?
Why?
Amelie was someone she could actually trust, no? Why did she not just give her something to feel trusted with?
She's been frozen for too long. Snap out of it Leta.

"Sorry, forgot where I was. You had questions when you returned, did you want to still ask them?"
Junior
Amelie never moved her gaze from Anja, wanting so remember the form of this company so much that it stained her memory. Why would she want to do that? Amelie turned away from the girl and bore a glare into the treeline. She shuffled slightly, the gravel moving to make space for the impromptu feeling that stained itself against her heel. 

"You can if you wish, I will walk with you." 
She tilted her head in question, motioning with a finger to a stone bench that mixed with the ecobrutalism of the building they all reside in. 

She looked at Anja instantly, she looked confused and weary. A million waves of something crashing against her skill in an instant. What was she to ask? About that damned sentence spoken in a haze? Something that slipped past her fingers again? 

"Maybe. How about you start first, since you already have something in mind." 
She makes her way to stand next to a bench, waiting for the other to make conversation where she stood.
Patrice
She's already found a bench. Anja was frozen in her own thoughts and the person she offered to find a seat for already found one.
She feels like she's tripping over herself.

"Oh, well, in that case..." She steps over to the stone bench, sitting on the opposite side that Amelie stood waiting for her.
Why is she getting so flustered? She looks down to her lap, trying to recollect herself.

Finding herself, she looks back up to Amelie.
"How was trip to Germany? Were you able to find Nadia?"
Questions that she had asked at the start, but were overshadowed by the almanac. Her thumb lightly swipes across the lamination of papers. Something about it being from her made it more... More- Special? The word escaped her.

Words always appeared to escape her when Amelie was around. Funny, that.
Junior
Amelie was looking at her bandaged hands, thinking about something. She can't sit down or else she'll feel the sting of a newly handsewn wound opening against her wishes, though she wishes she could join Anja. But, the girl looks uncomfortable with Amelie here so she'll be alright with standing. 

"My trip to Germany was..." Silence as her body aches with painful whispers dampening the mood she so haphazardly set, she was still proud of it. Getting something Anja wanted without fail. 
"Adequate." 
She finishes.

"I met Nadia, we've been writing eachother letters for nine years now. It's nice to know I finally saw her, we wandered around Berlin but I had to come back. I had a promise to keep." 
She hums. 
"I'd like to see her again, but I'd never condemn a friend to this hellhole." 

Ignorant to Anja's trumoil she asks Anja her own questions that have been begging at the edge of her skull. 
"How are you? Are you okay?" 

Out of everything, those are the questions that escape her. Tejal would laugh at how oddly coddling she is.
Patrice
...Did she not want to sit?
Anja mentally shrugs, just watching her now. It was her decision.

She nods along with Amelie's answer. 
"A good point. Would not want others to visit here. But, your trip wasn't just meeting her? Was there anything else?"
She looks off into the cold distance. The snow hasn't melted away yet. She wondered if the flowers were alright.

A slight bite of her cheek meets Amelie's question. It's the same one she has asked her many times over the course of her trip. She always seemed to answer it wrong.

She opens her mouth.
"I am doing well, I'd think. Spent time with Ashton while you were gone. Tended to the flowers. After you left there was nothing too eventful."
She pauses.
"Glad you are back." A soft smile crosses her lips as she finishes her answer.
Junior
Amelie pauses, feeling the air chill with Anja's question. 
"It wasn't, it was originally done with a more personal thought in mind. I fulfilled it, that's all you need to know." 

She finally decided to sit with a heavy sigh, she truly didn't want to speak of what happened other than the one silver lining. She took her hands from her crutches and set them on the bench, she looked anywhere but Anja as her hands came to hold her torso. It looked like she was protecting it if only subtilty was her savior. She didn't need to be subtle, everyone will brush it off with the fact her disgusting excuse for a power acts against her. 

"Ah, that's nice to know. At least I know you cared for the flowers."
She was relieved that nothing had happened whilst she was gone, if there was then she would be distraught once more. 

"I'm glad I still get to see you." 
She counters, she didn't move her head but instead looked at Anja in her peripheral. Amelie thinks, wracking through her mind for a question to ask. She pursed her lips and looked away from Anja again.

The colours of fireworks flash across her gaze, her hand twitches at the noise.
Patrice
Anja scoots further towards her own side of the bench, giving Amelie more space than she would need. She didn't want to think she was smothering her.

"Okay, I will not push further. I'm glad it was fulfilled, though."
She looks towards the fireworks. The flashing lights and distant pops make her instinctively blink. What part of this is worth the jubilation?
The world has turned another year. Like last time.
She turns back to Amelie.

"Of course. I did tell that I would work with you to take care for them. And you were... Busy."
She doesn't know how much Amelie wants to talk about... That.
She knows *She* Doesn't. She would rather just wait for the other students just miraculously figure out everything.
Just everything go back to a relative normal. Whatever a normal could mean, in a campus full of magical children.

She glances away, hit by Amelie's counter, Anja tries to hold her fluster at bay.
"I would never break a promise like that for you. It would be awful of me."

Recomposing herself, she looks back. Waiting for the next question from Amelie.

Eventually, right? She did always mention she knew nothing about her...
Junior
Amelie frowned at the other retreating further away from her, though it didn't show other than a twitch of her lips downward. She didn't want Anja to fade from her vision. She didn't want to be alone at the moment. 

She nods at the aknowledgment, but then flinches slightly at the loud deafening boom of a fireworks screaming to the sky. They're loud, snapping at her eyes and ears like enraged dogs. She felt sickly at thought. She looked straight at the ground, watching the lights reflect it's spectacular arrays of colour on the pebbled walkways. 

"I still thank you despite your word, you have helped me more than you think." 
Amelie ignores the haunting connotation of the last word, wanting to forget about those two months in a hell fit for a sinful king than somebody like her. She was terrified that it left a lasting mark of her, though she knew it did both physically and mentally. 

Amelie clenches her long skirt in her hands. 
"I'm glad you didn't. Though I wouldn't be mad if you did."
Amelie says with that broken rasp of hers. She wants to say something more but elects not to and let's the sound of fire and excitement drown her thoughts with a light film of fear. 

"Do you... Have anybody you vish to see again?"
She asks cautiously, hoping she hadn't treaded too far into an area unwanted too quickly. She stares out her peripheral again to Anja, wanting to see whatever emotion will cast itself upon her face.
Patrice
The flinching was hard to catch at first, but this time Anja was watching. Instinctively her hand reaches out for Amelie's shoulder, stopping herself at what would be considered a personal bubble.
She couldn't. That isn't something that would be reassuring to her.
She settles her hand back into her lap.

"Would you like to go inside? It is cold out here." She couldn't feel it, much. It was a nice excuse to use, though. The flashing lights and the loud pops were approaching as distracting. 

Amelie was not the only one who was left with a lasting mark these past two months. While the cold doesn't affect her normally, it does make her hand tense up, a feeling like the hand was just being kissed with the unbearable heat that once clawed across her skin. She's been able to hide it well, with time, at least. 
Waking with the same heat crossing the top of her hand in the middle of the night was what she remembers, though, not fondly.
Her hand relaxes as the sensation fades.

She lightly chews on her cheek as she thinks of an answer.
"Well. I suppose family." 
...Let's not get into that. 
"There was a cat I met at local shopping market that I tried to befriend back home. It was little thing. Would make you think it hated humans. But would never leave the buildings location, even on the busiest of days. Loved chicken. Family would think I was sneaking bites of food when I brought groceries home." She chuckles at her own statement. 
"Was not. Did not eat meat at that time."
She pauses. An answer has been clawing in the back of her mind. It wants to tell Amelie of Tanya. It was a loud thought. It wanted to be the truth. She shuts it back down. Shoves it back into the bindings of the books it stayed in.

"Would fields back home count as answer? Views was nice."
Junior
"Only if you want to, Frau leta."
She would not leave unless Anja would first, it's a simple code she set up for herself. She wouldn't simply leave another here when a conversation is being written so nicely. 

There was a slight movement that caught her failing sight, a movement of Anja's hand. She frowned watching it tense, the feeling is awful but not that she understood. She was foolish to think she knew how it felt, but she can know that it hurt. 
Amelie takes one crutch and places a hand onto it before placing the other on her shoulder and standing, then she gets the other to help walk. 

Amelie instantly felt awful at the notion of family, instantly turning and making haste away. She stands in the middle of the courtyard for Anja for a second if only. Amelie heard her speak of a cat, not family though. She listening, hearing a small note of a soft guilt or spot of love for the animal. That's nice. 

"It does."
Amelie said tersely.
"I had a view to myself ven I whas younger, vhat I'd go to often. It was a river th-at was surrounded by trees, I'd sit there and just watch the water run."
She didn't speak of the times she took her sister's and Tejal to that same river. How they danced among the rushing water without a care. Amelie was usually the one who fell and got her, but never spoke of it. She misses it greatly.
Patrice
Anja stands with Amelie's vague approval. It worked, she assumes. 
Amelie is quite quick with her crutches, she is able to catch pace with her, but wasn't expecting to make such a brisk walk to match her. It's amusing, though. Something about finding something as mundane as the speed at which one could move is... An odd thing to keep track of, isn't it?

With the allowance of other places to miss, she nods and adds to her answer.
"There was trail behind home. Whenever I could find myself away from home I would go there. It would take some time, but at top you could see the fields that spanned the neighbors. I would just sit and watch the fields glow in the summer time, watch them sway with wind."

She sighs, it's been years since the last time she had a chance to go up there, either busy with jobs and then being sent here after making what was a slight recovery from her powers.
Recovery has been on her mind too often lately. She brushes it to the side, continuing.

"The small town as well, little shopping district with different storefronts. City we are in is close and walking distance compared to back home. Has more things around for entertainment, I suppose. But it is too loud sometimes. Too many cars. *Too* Large. For me, at least."
Junior
Amelie silently washes through Anja's imagery, golden fields vibrant enough to fool a even the brightest of minds. It makes her wish that she could see such a thing, she has always attained such a lofty love for beauty like that. She walked quickly, almost missing how Anja seemed to stare at her. 
 
"I'm terribly used to the lights, though they do get annoying."
She didn't know the life Anja had, but she can try. Though she did know the feeling of all the lights thrusted upon you and the feeling of your eyes burning after too long. It was nothing she hadn't experienced before, but it didn't make her any less terrified for herself. 
"I lived in a rather well off place, though often I'd escape to that place in the woods. Something closed off and just for me to witness during that time."

She wants to feel the river rush under her again, any feeling other than the constant cry of something painful behind her eye. 
"Where do you suppose we should go?"

Despite everything, she dosent really wish to fully return to her dorm room. But, she wants to spend the rest of these loud hours with Anja. 

She waited at the door of the cradle once more, holding the door open for Leta. Wanting the girl to make a decision before they stand in the concrete walls of the building again.

NOT LETTING THIS ARCHIVE I SWEAAAAR
Patrice
Anja finally reaches the waiting woman. 
"The library could be quiet, if its open. If not, there is still the common area. I do not think many people are out and about."

She internally pouts. The one thing she did not want to have is other people around. She wanted to just spend time with Amelie. Only Amelie.

Library. She turns on her heels and follows the pathway she knows. Waiting for Amelie, of course.
She gives her a quick thank you as Amelie opens the door for her. 

"I believe I lived relatively well. I was not one to ask. They were not one to answer. I did not remember worrying about financial problems."
She didn't like talking about her family. It was like pulling teeth. She stopped this train of thought.

"This river sounds wonderful. Were you able to see it during your travel?"
Junior
Amelie nods, a flash of light leaves her squinting with displeasure. She presses her palm to her eye while Anja is in front of her. It takes a moment before Amelie is in front of her and opening the door for her. 

"Surprisingly? I had to worry about things financially often. But, not in the way you might think." 
She remembers those moments of staring at a paper and asking her band friend to help with it. She was inexperienced, what was another thing they would gloat with? 

She gets to a table at the library, she stands at it for a moment. 
"I was. It still as overgrown as I remember it. There's a stone bench at it now." 

After that day she took a moment to sit next to it, she couldn't walk into it any longer. But, she witches she could. 

"Did you ever bring anybody to your spot?"
Because Amelie remembers bringing her loved ones to hers. Elizabeth holding her by her ear saying that she could've been swept up by the water, but she went in anyway. It was surprisingly one of the only things she wasn't abysmally terrified of.
Patrice
Anja sits in one of the chairs across from Amelie. At least the library was quiet for now. The fireworks in the distance becoming distant pops inside.

The question about the spot. It was one she wasn't excited to answer. She makes a sharp inhale as she decides her answer.
"I did not have many people around me that were willing to hike for a day. They would rather have played in the fields than to stare at them. So..." She halts.
She knows she did.
She knows she wants to just leave *Her* Out of this conversation.
She doesn't want to lie to her.
"I... Did. Another girl I had met in high school. A friend. She was only one really willing to go up there." She was the only one that would ever spend time with Anja. "We had spent time up there every now and then. It was... Nice."

Her thumb lightly runs across the scarring of her hand. It's become a habit, something done without thought anymore.
She realizes the attention she brings to it, and rests her hands away from eachother.
Junior
The scarring that was moved by an anxious hand had piqued the interest of Amelie for a moment, the way it looked like fingerprints staining against her skin. What would do such a thing, what had palms with the same feeling of flame on skin? Saying nothing she trailed her gaze back to Anja's eyes just before the nervous tick of being seen struck the girl. 

She has heard of a fickle girl or boy or thing in memories that always start fond but shatter in the hands when it's their time. She just didn't expect it to be so common, betrayal and loss is an easy thing to chance upon when parahuman it seems. The air becomes questionable thick as Anja fiddles around for something to distill the air Amelie had made. Amelie herself looked confused and downtrodden with thought.

*Say something, but not about her.*
Her shoulder snaps in pain but the only movement she makes is a shift in her eye and a tap to the table with her boney fingers. 

"I brought people to my spot. It's more of an omen to everyone but me. They all speak of how the rushing river will crash in your mind till it carries you into the next dream you cannot wake from." 
*Why hasn't the river taken you yet?* Enough. No. This isn't about her, it's what she can do for Anja. 

"I have yet to see it be disproven but, the river is so beautiful. I sat at it for as long as I could." 
Amelie looks dull and neutral when she speaks, like a robot cording the code of typing into a logical speech. It felt so awful biting into something that had no taste or meaning. 

"It's nice, to sit somewhere and look at the calm or violent brilliance of life." 
The feeling of her hardened stare of a million lives that seemed to ache and soften was indescribable, until a sharp feeling in her thigh prodded her mind to defend itself again. Over and over like an unending war like it was her rite to bear it only for herself, selfishly as if to keep away harm like a ward would for a witch.
Patrice
It's... Entrancing. The way she spins her words. Anja focuses on them, the way she holds inflection, the way she hides it away when she decides. Others would call her dull and cold. Anja finds her *Fascinating.*

"I have found that many try to disprove and dissuade that comfort. Has happened to me before." She makes a glare at her own memories. "...Too often to count." Her expression returns to where it feels most natural. A slight frown. Something that just felt... Right for her face.

She continues.
"I have yet to understand one's need to deconstruct another's comfort. Of course, there are reasons to. Extremes and such. But to do so with pulling one away by arm and telling them their comfort is not as so? To decide what comfort is? It puts pit in stomach. It just-"
A slight clench of her fist cements her feelings. She's speaking from experience. If only known by herself, it still makes her exhausted. They would be there for days if she decided to count each time she was pulled away from her comforts. A conversation she was not willing to have in the first place.

A quick inhale.
"-I agree. It is... Serene, as they say? Something to take a mental reset towards..."
She matches the burning stare from the woman across her.
"Everything." 

"I suppose."
Junior
Amelie listens with something feverish crossing her mind for but a second, it's whisked away into the back of her mind to either and rot. She's something familiar even if only hardened stares Pierce eachother like arrows. Something studders in disgust within her mind. 

Amelie's neutrality dosent waver as she thinks, she did that to another. But, only because they were pushing it onto another. If they were to just keep- no, it dosent stop that she still did that. Who is she to comfort one and then turn around and bare her teeth at the other? A fraud and a fool tempted by the bright colours of ignorance. She dosent deserve to be here with Anja. She dosent deserve to weave soft words of hope into her mind, again something snaps against her mind like a whip to air. 

"It's nice every so often. I needed it." 
*After what you've done*, something speaks while walking around her. She feels it scream with a besotted voice against her mind, it aches brilliantly like a star seconds away from dying. 

Amelie just stares at Anja. 
"I will not speak like I am perfect, I have lashed out upon another."
*Ich werde es nicht bereuen.* 
She pauses. 
Anja knows what she lashed out on, but she dosent mutter a word about it. Loathe to even speak of them. 
"I am not going to decide your comfort, for that is what puts you at ease. I wouldn't do that because I only see you tense, never once have I seen you not looking like a scared animal."
Amelie narrows her eye. 
*"I'm being hypocritical."*

Her hands intertwine like she's in a business meeting, her shoulders broad and casting a silhouette unlike all others in Anja's gaze. 

"Lights used to make me feel like I was wanted but, now I know almost everything is only spoken in the night."
*Cryptic, Amelie.*
Patrice
Anja nods, a quiet knowing meets the others words.
Now isn't the time to question it. Especially tonight.
She opens her mouth to say something else but...

Like a knife crossing her chest.
It's hypocritical, sure, but it hurts more coming from her.
"I-" She takes a shaky breath, damn her lungs. 
"I apologize for that. I suppose I am not seen as welcoming, huh."
Guilt. The concept seemed to become a villain in her life. Constantly finding her at her lows and making them ever lower. It always had the advantage in their... Daily now? Scraps.

She's floating in her own stupor. Amelie is here and she's *Still* In her guilt. She needs to ground herself again.
Her thumb grazes the scarring.
There's comfort in the confusion in it. Something to keep Anja's mind busy when the world gets stagnant. When everything else became confusing, there is at least one thing that has *Stayed* Confusing. 

"...Perhaps it was not the lights themselves, but the person behind, running them? The stage always seems like it will ruin the person on it, though. I cannot blame someone for seeking the shadows."
It's a shot in the dark, but then again, most things have been in the dark lately.
When the bullets you have are the only thing to light the path you're in, might as well use them, no?
Junior
Amelie stops looking so condescending for a second. 
"You're one of the most welcoming people I've met."
Anja seemed to slot in carefully into where she was, surprisingly enough. She was also the one out of place. 
"Though, I suppose that's not surprising."

Amelie looked fervently vile. She didn't feel nor look how she once did in the greenhouse. Distant and sadly indistinguishable from memory. She had shut herself in again, though it was with practice and purpose. 

*Die Bühne hat mich ruiniert.* 
Something growls, snapping it's teeth in the dark like fire to gasoline, Yet nothing burned. Nothing was worth burning anymore.
"I don't mind the shadows if you're in them, it's nice." 
Spoken as easy as breathing. She was healing better after that fiasco in Germany. 
"I hope I didn't say something to offend."
Patrice
"Coming from you, it is. You seem to know many people here."
It comes out blunt.

Anja herself wasn't the same woman that was first met in that greenhouse. She felt and looked exhausted. Nights of tossing and turning did that to you, turns out. She's become unsure of what her place *Was* In the first place. A part of her wants to blame her for this night being... Less than ideal. It wishes Amelie *Did* Speak of what her plans were. So she would've had more time to at least... Rest? Put something on that wasn't what she wore the night before? Cover up the scarring, just a bit. *It would've just been easier-*
Easier to lie.
She wanted to surprise her. She didn't know what is wrong with Anja. That wasn't on her. The only person's fault here was Anja's.

Amelie is too kind to her, she makes a soft smile towards her comment. 
"You haven't. Things you have said have been things I needed to hear."
Junior
"Only by vauge introduction." 
She had gotten harmed in many of those. She dosent miss the bright lights of the hospital, she never will. 

Amelie didn't want to speak of herself, even less talk about everything that happened. Amelie dug around her jacket for something for a second, she frowned and then huffed and put her hands back onto the table. 
The bandages of her left hand unwrapped for a second, a scar pulsed and writhed there. Many of them some slashes and some angrily healing. She tightened them with a hiss once more. 

Amelie wanted to speak she truly did, but Anja was fighting her own battles. Another enemy to fight wasn't something that was needed. 

"You haven't been told such things?"
Amelie scoffed. 
"For shame to those whom haven't."

She thought to herself for a moment. The thought danced to tell Anja, to tell her everything in an instant. No, that'd make her pliant and she vowed to herself she never would. 

"I must say, I was on Mr. Edris' shoulders and we were doing something stupid. When we were still friends."
Amelie made a face. 
"I was moving backwards and he was moving forwards while entering a doorway and I accidentally flipped him."
Amelie pulled a wrestling move on the boy, which caused the both of them to lay on the floor in front of the building. It had only been a moment before Owen had started laughing, Amelie was silent but she was just trying to not laugh. 
It was peculiar.

"I didn't think I could do such a thing anymore."
Patrice
"...Ah. More than what I have. But that is because public chat gets... Too loud."

Amelie did not wish to speak about it, and Anja wished to forget it ever happened.
...What was she looking for? She wasn't sure to ask or not.

It was a dilemma. A girl who wished to know what another had to say, and another who worried about adding on to the weight of her battles.

"Perhaps they have, but it took until now for them to make sense... I suppose."


"Oh! Edris... That is the..." She wracks her brain. Maybe she should talk in the public intranet more.
"That is the ginger boy, right? Quiet, despite the loud music bands on his shirt?"
She drums her fingertips.
"I do not doubt your capabilities, though. You seem to have... What is the phrase- Untapped potential?"

A thought gnaws at her side.
"...But I would like to ask. Were still friends? What had happened? "
Junior
"I can understand that. I've gotten into many arguments."
Amelie did, it has led to thoughts that are less than pleasant. 

Amelie wished she knew that they were circling eachother like starving wolves or lone dancers. They cannot touch, feverish yet foolish they are, dancing among fallen leaves and woe. 

Amelie nods. 
"You're correct, he's quite the stout boy." 
He's shorted than her almost making them look comical. 
"It might remain untapped, Frau Leta. I'm just a little surprised that it happened."
She wonders if Anja could do what she did, Amelie would give a lot to see it happen. 

Amelie's pointer finger twitches into the fist she made with her left hand. 
"I had made a mistake. I had gotten into an argument with somebody he loved, which led to our downfall. As well as some devilish thoughts on my side." 
Amelie leans forward, her eye hardening as she grew closer to Anja by inches but quickly seemed to adjust herself. She now looks out the library's window. 
"I hope I don't make those mistakes with you, but I cannot tell the future."
Patrice
Anja nods. Something she has experienced even before coming to this facility.

Even after knowing, what then? What would come of the two vultures that circled around the same body, looking out for the eventual beast that would scare away the two from their scavenging?
Was it stalking behind their bounty just out of sight?
Would they ever touch down?

"You never know. Either way you still find ways to impress me."
Now, wrestling moves was not her forte, she never had the chance to watch anything of the like. Her father finding the 'act unamusing and brainrotting' and her mother not one to watch something with such violence.
But. She was not one to buckle from weight. And Edris didn't look... Heavy. Like he could be scooped up like a cat on an average day.
The boy looked fragile though. Like trying anything rough to him would-

*Jebati. She's getting closer.*
Anja's eyes focused on Amelie's. She had her attention again.
Her words were directly reaching her.
But, as she turned away... Anja just manages to stifle a chuckle. A very out of place one.
"I-" She clears her throat. "Of course miss Amelie. It is something I do not find ourselves running into."

At least the argument part, that one wouldn't happen.
Junior
Amelie made a note of distaste in the back of her throat, glancing at Anja. 
"Still? It seems I'm a master of something then. Surprise?"
Amelie said with a tilt to her head to Anja's direction.

Owen was odd, strange. A bright light in the dark where Amelie was a bump in the night. Amelie frowns and turns back away from Anja. 
Her brow then furrows at what Anja said. 

Amelie turns back to Anja Leta. 
"How can you be so sure?"
Curiosity is a wild thing, a game that most are bound to loose by sheer luck. Amelie hopes that luck was finally on her. 

She wants to know what Anja is so sure of that Amelie is not. It's slightly terrifying. 
*Get a hold of yourself, Amelie.*

A firework burns brightly outside the window, it illuminated Amelie in it's bright burst. Yellows and reds swimming over Amelie's side like hands coming to tear her away. In a second it's bone and Amelie is back to a cold yet calculated blank sheet.
Patrice
Shit! She saw through that one, didn't she?
Anja clears her throat, she looks... This was a different light of Amelie that Anja hadn't seen in person.
Does she say it?
"Well- I..."
*Pull it together Leta!*
"I do not think I am close to anyone you find... Unsavory. Nor do I plan to."

Being close to you is all I want- 
Stop.

"I do not know what devilish thoughts you find yourself with. But I can only hope they do not cross me when you have them."
Smooth.
Junior
Amelie narrowed her eye, almost meddlesome is what her gaze became. 
"Oh? Frau Leta, it's bound to happen."
Amelie taps her fingers together. 
"Don't worry about it though." 

Amelie looks at Anja as if she was somebody completely different for a second. Amelie has had quite a few of them pertaining multiple people, how she wishes to only keep them at a distance only known by the sky and earth itself. 
She put too many in danger by being close, it's only natural. 
"I hope as well." 

What an odd girl Anja is. She's like a twist of something at odd angles, warping in disgusting ways to not say something. 
"You make me so curious."
Patrice
Anja squints at her response. Pessimistic.
"Hm. I suppose it may." 
"But I find that I would not throw everything out the window for you not liking someone. Perhaps it is just me."

Anja slightly adjusts the way she sits.
This conversation began to felt like an interrogation.

"...How do you mean, miss?"
Junior
"Yes... Perhaps. I don't mind." 
Amelie makes a 'tsk!' noise that clashes in the small space they're in. 

"Sorry sorry, I'm being uncomfortable." 

Amelie raises her hands and then folds them against her, she lifts a leg over the other. Amelie looks at her lap with a look of a caught criminal. Amelie stumbles a little in her speak. 

"You are... Confusing in a way I am not used to, I'm sorry."
She leans further back, looking away from Anja in a way that might break her spine like one would snap a pencil. 

"Forgive me, I tend to be overbearing."
She speaks into the air. The soft noise of folk in the library drowning out something amelie had mumbled. Amelie was dumbfounded in the face of something she thought she understood. 

She was slightly glad for people intruding.
Patrice
Anja shakes her head.
"No, you are fine. Do not worry."
Despite the feeling of interrogation, this... Helps. She doesn't want this conversation to be over. It's been far to long.


Confusing? She is... Confusing? 
"...I apologize for making things confusing, miss. Is there a way I can... Help that?"
She lightly bites her cheek. Somethings work, and somethings don't.

"Do not think that-" Her thoughts rearrange midsentence. "You are not overbearing. Not to me."

"...I enjoy your questions, miss. Please, ask more if you'd like."
Junior
Amelie waves her hand in a motion to push off something. Her own thoughts are obscure. 
"It's only natural." 
Amelie says. 

Anja was terribly wrong. Amelie would fiddle with something till it was perfect, looking over something as if it could kill her in a instant if wrong. Spending hours making sure that wounds of hers could not breathe. They all hurt to see so it was only fair. 
Amelie's mind and thoughts are an endless forest that an axe had never been seen glinting near it's wood. 

"I don't have much else. What's a scar you have that... Isn't the one on your left hand."
It was a precarious question. It could lead to something raw and unfiltered, or something more gentle like the fields that Anja had explained that sounded like a dream.
Patrice
Anja pouts.
It shouldn't be natural. She doesn't want to confuse her. She doesn't want to be confusing.
"...I suppose."

Wrong or not, she still stood at the edge of the forest. She would not hack away. She would not drop her axe either.
She will walk through the forest. If it ever came time for it.

"Well-" She turns her left arm, and presses lightly on her skin, a little white spot makes its presence known, it sits just on her forearm, near her elbow, hiding behind her flushed skin.
"I have... Another burn." 
Another. *Jebote*, what a joke.
 "From when I was very young. I was making dinner with my mother. I was standing on a stepladder. She had stepped away to prepare other part of dinner, I had slipped and caught myself on burner of stove." She chuckles slightly.
"Mother told me I was crying for hours."
She pauses, looking towards the bookshelf nearby with another scowl crossing her face.

Looking back, her face is neutral.
"But other than that, no. I mostly have callouses from working. Hands are not as soft as one would think."
Junior
Everything with Amelie was simply habitual, though it seems the prude mood was genetic. Like a thick miasma if veiled confusion and anger, it was tiring. 

Amelie looked at the faded mark. She thought of a smaller Anja wailing about how she had burned herself. She wanted to laugh but was captured into a irritated stupor. 

Amelie looked confused. 
"I'll be the judge of that. Just because they're not soft dosent mean they're not... Nice to hold?" 
Amelie felt like a clown. Maybe that girl Anja knew, she'd know better. 
"That was foolish of me, But." 

Amelie stopped for a moment, filtering through fickle memories that have only tainted her for the rest of her life. 
"I had a consequence of tripping in the river everytime I brought somebody there with me."
Amelie said with a faint mirth. 
"You think an accomplished dancer would know her way with walking but I didn't. My friend watched me as I fell and gouged my knee on a pointed stone." 

Tejal started to weep at the fact Amelie was hurt while Amelie herself was laughing as if it was a joke. Tejal picked her up like she weighed nothing in that river and brought her to the hospital. She rarely felt that speechless or light, but the rest of the time in the day was spent reassuring Tejal that she was fine.

"She'd always get so emotional when I was hurt, which was often. It was strange. I did have to comfort her a lot though, that's something I miss." 
The end was whispered, wistful and a dripping with barely held sorrow. She's just come back from Germany yet she wanted to go back just to stand at that grave for hours more. For something... She wasn't sure.
Patrice
Emotions. That was the best description Anja had for what went through her head. Emotions. Flustered being one of them.
"I- I guess? I have not had someone hold them." 
Well, she has, but not since-
"It is not foolish, quite endearing. Thank you." 
Maybe being constantly warm does have its perks.

The pause helped Anja collect herself.
"Accomplished dancer? Really?" Her voice brought genuine interest. "What did you preform?"
It was fascinating to think of Amelie dancing. What was a blunt woman performing something so graceful. She wishes she could've seen it. Her friend was in a lucky time to see it.

"I suppose it is the nostalgia of the experience, no? Like seeing the river again."
Thumb grazes thumb as she speaks, like she needed to move around.
She had not felt so... Awake? For some time.
It felt like she was just stuck in a loop of being too tired to do anything, but just awake enough to stay up. At least until now.
Junior
Amelie's eye bulged comically. She didn't know what to think. 
"I think you're lying but, I'll take your word for it."
Anja had to be lying, people were just foolish. That girl yes, but that was possibly a subject that was harmful. Say something to make it better. 
"Your hands are too nice not to be held, even now." 
*Yes.* Amelie wasn't one for compliments, was she.

Amelie hummed. 
"Ballet, Waltz, paso doble and many more. I remember always having to dance with a boy though. My friend was always there to take me out afterwards." 
After those performances Tejal would run up onto the stage and sweep her into a hug. She was amazing comfort, the best friend she ever had. 

"The nostalgia makes me trip and fall? No. I understand, it's nice seeing it again. I just wish I could dance in it like I used to." 
Amelie looked tired, her eye glazing over for a moment. She sighed before going back to looking at Anja with an attentive gaze. 

"Have you danced before?"
Patrice
Anja lets out a soft chuckle.
"No- No I promise, I have not had them held." She pleads out her defense testimony.
It's easier to decide it doesn't count.
"I... Thank you?"
...Would be better of a compliment if she did hold them.

Anja tucked one of her hands under her jaw as Amelie recalled the different dances. Amelie waltzing, that sounds beautiful.

"Oh- No I was meaning that you were missing the- Nevermind. Not important." She makes a dismissive wave. She looks too tired and it wasn't as important for the conversation.

"...I have not. No. Not like you have."
Junior
She frowns, looking indignant. 
"Fine. I'll believe you."
She dosent believe Anja at all. Her face forms a pout for a second, just before Anja moved. 

Amelie raises her brow, suddenly alert. 
"Well you must tell me later at least." 
It's a little rude to not tell her, Amelie did speak the truth for the most part. The other part was not something that anybody wished to know. 

"I wish I could've taught you. You seem like you'd dance well if somebody just taught you."
Patrice
She doesn't want to lie. It just... Didn't count. It's not lying if it didn't count, right?

Anja concedes, not wanting to leave her in the dark for something so small in her opinion.
"I was not meaning the nostalgia had made you fall. But perhaps you missed the nostalgia of being with your friend?"

"Perhaps I would. Seems that I would've had a good teacher."
She tucks a few loose strands of hair behind her ear.
"I have never heard of paso doble. Mostly just waltzing and of course ballet. Had other girls in school that did ballet. Pretty dance. Was not my thing."
Junior
Amelie seems to shut herself instantly on that topic of her friend. 
"I-" 
Amelie looks conflicted, thousands of thoughts cutting through carefully put wires to hold everything together. It was thick, like a wave of rot pounding into the back of her skull even if in a dazed dream or awake. 
"I do. I would go back to Germany in a heartbeat for her. Not that'd she'd speak to me, even if I begged or wept for it." 

Amelie just nodded at the next comment, offering for reprieve to the cold words she spoke seconds prior. 
"You'd be a wonderful partner in paso doble, it's a aggressive dance but it looks captivating I've been told." 
She taught it to Tejal, she got her feet stepped on but it was fine. Those moments were spent with laughter. 
"I've taught it before. But being taught was a one on one deal for me."
Patrice
...Amelie's reaction. It was something Anja felt... Familiarized with.
"...I see, sorry about that."
Perhaps... Perhaps there is something in common between these two, something that isn't completely temperature shocked by the heat and the frost. Perhaps they are not stuck as parallel observers to one another.

It wasn't something to press on though, as the other subject sprung into the fray once again.
"Aggressive? In what way?"
She tilts her head lightly as she asks, still resting underneath the top of her hand.
"Once again, you are impressive in many ways I cannot parse to list, miss."
Junior
Amelie said nothing and seemed to wave Anja off completely. Not even looking her way. It's been a year. Amelie hasn't even begun to heal from anything. What a failure she is. 

Please don't look at me, don't touch me. Weeping in front of Tejal as that damned bone broke the surface of her skin. 
A bone breaching the surface of tender skin on her left cheek, or what was left of it. 

Amelie thought about the dance. 
"Close, swings and tight, sharp movements. Like that."
Spinning with the other in short turns, how it was exhilarating, addictive. She loved it. 
"You're too humble. Many can do it better than me." 
You, perhaps.
Patrice
It was best to drop it. It left for better or for worse, it brought Amelie into... Emotions. Something that was uncommon, throughout their talk. 

"I see. Would have been fascinating to see you perform, miss."
What would have made Anja be such an adept at a dance like that? Was she seen as aggressive?
No matter.
"You say that, but you are the first one to even tell me of such a dance. From my experience you are the best at it."
Humble. It is not just her who is that way, Amelie.
Junior
Amelie looked sad, it was a wobbly frown. It took a moment of patchwork and seconds for Amelie to wind herself up back to the puppet-like image she casts herself as. 

Amelie nods her fingers pushing together with force that makes her knuckles become lighter with strain. Amelie didn't think Anja was aggressive, she just thought she'd be good at dancing such a thing. 
"I was the best at it then, it seems." 

She thought for a moment, a small blunder. 
"A part of me wishes to see you in that crowd I danced in front of. It would've made everything a lot less nerve wracking."
Patrice
It was... Mixed how Anja wanted to feel about it.
She had gotten a glimpse into Amelie, behind the porcelain mask that she so finely constructed.
But it was not what she was expecting to see. Part of her wished to keep her unmasked. But that part was selfish. As much as she wanted to have *Something* To call progress. She shoved it away.

"I am glad we can agree on this." A small jab.

A flattered smile meets Amelie's blunder.
"I would have loved to be there. I would've been such a distraction, though."
She meets her eye with her eyes.
"I would've been making too much noise cheering you on, of course."
Junior
Something shattered during those nights, sitting alone in a room and then wandering around in all hours of the night. Always trying to find something, even if it led her to get hurt. It was a peculiar hobby at best. She dosent know what to say about the worst. 

Amelie glared, not respecting the jab at all, it could be seen as playful though. It wasn't. 

A huff came from Amelie. 
"You would've been dragged out of there, kicking and yelling. Nobody speaks while the folk dance." 
Anja would've been kicked out so quickly it would be a comedy more than a show for a violinist such as Amelie, would've been funny though. 

"Not a distraction, more of a nuisance to others." 
She didn't want to look at Anja's eyes anymore but she'd seem like a fool.
Patrice
Wow! That had backfired.
She flinches from the glare, losing her social footing as the jab dropped with the respect she was hoping for.

Anja gives her reprieve, looking away from her now uncomfortable partner's eyes.
Her eyes now read out the spines of books.
"I have been called that before. Nothing that weighs on my mind."

A soft scoff comes from Anja.
"They *Would* Have to drag me out. I would make it embarrassing for everyone involved."
Besides, if it was such a stuffy crowd, she would rather be locked outside than deal with such a folk.

"Would be a shame to miss out on the performance, though. So I *Suppose* I would behave in this hypothetical."
Junior
"You wouldn't be a distraction to me or a nuisance, just somebody who helps." 
Finding keen interest in her hands she fiddles with her thumbs, bandages pressing against eachother in a tense moment. Every moment is like walking into a steel beam. 

Amelie twitches at the scoff. 
"I wouldn't mind. It'd actually be nice to see something other than absurdly disgusting folk." 
The way they'd leer was heinous and was laid upon her memory like a tattoo on skin, Amelie would think they're watching with their particular ideas that leave Amelie wanting to leave as fast as she could. It was stuffy and degrading and something she never wants to go to again. 

"I'd not start until everyone but you and a few others left. I don't want to see them." 
She wants to see people who don't have ulterior motives that delve into the sicky and miasmic with hunger. She cannot do much but a friend is always needed.
Patrice
"I am glad to hear that. I worry about finding myself a nuisance to you."
They're sitting near the mystery section. She's not the biggest fan of mysteries. She remembers flipping to the end of one that Tanya recommended to her, tired of the second guessing and the *Just one step close, two steps back* Situations the protagonist was always stuck in.
Maybe they have the book here.

"If they were as despicable as you describe them, I would've been sick to even be near them."
The concept reminded her of business dinners she had always been forced to sit in. The constant lectures on *Proper* Manners. She rolls her eyes.

She makes a quick glance towards her, before going back to reading the spines.
"I would count myself lucky to be able to see such a sight. As well as the others who were allowed to observe."
Junior
Anja wasn't particularly a nuisance but not currently something she'd find herself wanting. Amelie had already read these but, the most mystery she ever got about them was the sudden love interest that seemed to appear from nowhere like a cartoonish gimmick. She hoped they all exploded. 

"You would've, I'm not surprised. I'd try to leave fast every single time." 
Those moments of standing near them left her cautious of all. It was uncomfortable and unfortunate for her, but Tejal was almost always there with her. 

Anja wouldn't be lucky to see, it was just purely a gig. Amelie would much rather run around the town she was in, just doing whatever, it was fun. 
"Not really. I would've been much happier running across pavement into the woods or spending the night at my friend's house." 
She usually spent the nights as often as she could, which superisingly wasn't all that frequent. Tejal would always have bandaids in her room because of Amelie. It was an ordeal.
Patrice
Did she really want to read it again, though? She'd rather read something that would actually be. Well. Enjoyable.
What did she even like to read? She only really read books that Tanya recommended her. Oh well.

"I do not blame you. I am sure you treated them better than I would've."
It was like a knife fight some nights, no one was leaving that table without being wounded. Stubborn girl.

"Agreed. I would trade a million scrapes and bruises for a second of judgmental stares."
She pauses. Remembering something.
"One night I had just left the house. Middle of the night. I climbed up to that spot. I knew I was going to be scolded for hours for it. So I stayed up there, I just watched everything under that silver moonlight for hours. I would've slept up there if it wasn't as cold as it was. Having to wear a dress and all. I think younger me would've enjoyed powers more than now." 
Another pause.
"Maybe."
Junior
Amelie snorts. 
"I doubt that." 
She'd get hurt for doing it but she didn't care, she hurt them and could care less. They deserved it, they a did for what they were. 

Amelie would give a lot more for a second without a particular thing or a second with it. It was confusing and the apparition of choice was fickle. 
"Maybe, I wouldn't know." 
She didn't know Anja till arguably recently. 
"I would've still hated them. But, when I was younger. If I had met you? I would've ran and stayed with you."
When she was younger, she was more adventurous than she was now. Being bound for a wheelchair for a while makes you become existential. She was terrified, looking at your own moving flesh does that to you. 
"Anything. I wouldn't have minded having another friend."

She wanted them then, maybe even moreso now but things were choking others now. Thoughts and battles not won, perilous things.
Patrice
Anja shrugs.
"I'll hope to never know your scorn, then."

Her attention gets held as she talks, like Amelie's words turn her head on their own.
It was a shared experience, the uncovering of each others' lives. Things to be left undisturbed, and things to poke and prod at until everything could be examined from the poor test subject.
"Of course, I wasn't the most uncaring of them. I'm... Not the biggest fan of blood. But only vampires really are."
Ehhh. No jokes.

"Well. I wouldn't mind catching up from where I missed out."
If you would have her, of course.
"Friends, then?" A slight shrug, a slight eyebrow tilt.
For now, hopefully.
Junior
She raises a brow. Amelie's scorn is currently spent thurougly; it wouldn't take long for it to come back though.

There was some similarities between them, escapees of unwanted anger. Running along unpaved paths to their own little areas they loved. They were both digging things up better left covered, with bloody knuckles and busted lips they found the things they wanted. For the most part.
"And doctors wanting blood donations. I'm a fan because I lose so much of it." 
Amelie was going to joke. Excuse Anja.

"You didn't miss a lot, truly." 
Amelie's face pinched together, musing something in her head like a marble in the palm of a hand. 
"I'll decide that."
Patrice
And yet, how many differences were secretly similarities unknown to either, unless uncovered? How many were never meant to be uncovered, left to rot in the dirt where they are perceived to belong?

Anja's brows raise at her joke. She has jokes in her yet.
"I believe it is meant to stay in your body, miss. Common misconception."

"I wouldn't know unless I was told, of course."
She relaxes herself, giving the artist her time to muse.
"Of course, I will still be here when the decision comes."
Junior
"Tell zat to the bones." 
She mumbles with a tired rasp. As if on cue a muffled snap of warning makes itself known in Amelie's right forearm. It was led by her frowning deeper. 

"Perhaps sooner or later. Not quite now, Frau Leta."
Amelie gets up, and grabs her crutches. The fireworks have long since stopped, they've been talking for a while. 
"Please do. I cannot lose you just yet." 
It was a whisper but the Library was quiet enough for Anja to hear it. 

"Now."
Amelie speaks, only slightly louder, that rasp prominent. 
"I must go. You may accompany me if you wish."
Patrice
She chuckles lightly. At least it is not a sore spot for her? Either way, something for her to joke of. Not Anja's.

The whisper is met with a knowing nod.
She didn't want to leave. Not ever. Amelie was never going to lose a stray cat that always seemed to show up when she called.

Anja stands, looking out to see that she as well, did not notice the dark telling of the jubilations end.
She wondered how folk were up on the roof right now. As well as what time it was.

"Of course."
She picked up the almanac from the table, lightly gliding her thumb across the plastic wrap.
She would preserve this as long as she could.

She finally looks up, walking quickly to catch up with Amelie before she decided to fully leave. Anja would accompany her wherever she wanted to go.

If she would have her.
Junior
Amelie paced herself so Anja could walk beside her without it turning into a brisk jog. 

Amelie would love to have Anja, it just depends on if Amelie was willing to risk that kind of thing again. Only time will tell, and with them comes new wounds. If only, to what may be. 

For now, Amelie thinks about having a friend at least.