what bumps in the night - Nathaniel

Frozen toes trembled in tattered kicks. The walk from Foresta to the small coffee house had taken longer than anticipated and to her surprise the sun was already setting. It was lovely to observe, she had even paused mid-step to admire the beauty of the falling star. For a brief moment a sliver of fear had taken root, it was the worry that her beloved shop would be closed at such a late hour. Thankfully, a good handful of the creatures on the island were nocturnal and enjoyed the occasional midnight coffee, so there was no need to be concerned about finding a "closed" sign in the doorway.

Although Spring was poking its head out of lingering snow, the bitter bite of Winter still had ahold of her. Olwen had always been colder than those around her and she could only come to the conclusion that it was due to her mutation and the possibility that her skin was thinner than the average person's. Luckily she had quickly learned that big coats were her best friends.

Old Christmas lights still twinkled on the roof, the employees either too lazy to remove them or very eager for next Christmas. Bells jingled as she pushed the door open. All the bulbs brightnesses were dimmed (for the visitors who had "sensitive eyes") and the scent of coffee beans lulled her in, though she never actually bought coffee, she simply respected it and the people who were strong enough to drink it. Soon after ordering, a large cup of hot chocolate filled her shaking hands and she slid into a chair with a window view. Out of habit, her right leg bounced energetically up and down to the beat of her own heart. Blue eyes watched as the stars came out and Olwen awaited the arrival of her, still questionable, Romeo. 

Mally

The curse had a way of messing with his plans, and tonight was no different. Nathaniel was up and ready to go before sunset, but he was room-bound until the last light of day. The vampire's leg tapped impatiently as he watched the minutes pass one after the other on his phone until finally, the alarm went off. Sunset had arrived at Foresta.

Nathaniel rushed out the door in his waist-length trench coat that had been recovered a prior night from the lake. There were holes in the left arm where a werewolf had chewed through, and Nathaniel really wished he had a nicer coat to take with him on this... Was it a date? It seemed like a business meeting in his head, but clearly there was a hint of something more going on when they set it up. One drink should be plenty of time to touch base and take care of business, but he wondered how their meeting might develop.

The journey to town took longer than expected. He knew where it was but he had not been there before and had no idea how long it would take to get there from the academy, although he made the best time that he could. To make matters worse, when he finally arrived it took him a couple minutes more to find the correct shop and once that happened, he checked the time on his phone again. Nathaniel had arrived 15 minutes late to a meeting that probably only needed to take that long.

The vampire sighed, but there was nothing he could do about that now. He should have scheduled the meeting an hour later in anticipation of each passing night growing ever shorter now that winter was at their heels. For all of the bad impressions he had made in front of Olwen, Nathaniel wondered why she showed interest in him at all.

The door parted from the frame as Nathaniel made his entrance, and his worries were immediately washed away by the overwhelming aroma of the place. The coffee stench was so strong to his sensitive senses that he was suddenly perfectly alert and Nathaniel quickly grew dizzy from what he could have sworn was a caffeine high, but despite the raging chaos in his head he was able to recognize Olwen sitting beside a window.

Nathaniel offered her a simple wave and a smile while he ordered his lavender-chamomile tea. He wasn't even sure if he would drink it given their environment, his motivation right now was simply to have something soothing in front of his nose to counteract the intensity of different aromas that permeated through the room. Service was thankfully quick, so it wasn't long before the pale man sat himself down opposite to Olwen.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, love. This is my first time in town and I guess I'm not as good of an explorer as I thought - I should have asked you for better directions." Nathaniel gave a half shrug, apologetic.

"It's good to see you, though, you're looking well. What's your poison tonight?" Nathaniel gestured minimally towards her cup of hot chocolate. He didn't even need to see it to smell what it was, but the courtesy felt appropriate at the moment.

The warmth slipped between her fingertips and the occasional sip would bring small amounts of satisfaction. She had been foolish enough to bring only enough money for one cup of hot chocolate and now that the cup was half empty, she was contemplating a dead sprint back to her dorm to get more cash but the soft jingle of Christmas bells stunted those plans. 

Blue eyes turned toward the door to see Nathaniel come in and pretty much inhale the place. His hand rose and waved in her direction, a sweet smile across his lips. He was late but it didn't really bother her. There had been one time where she had been invited to go see a movie in a theaters a couple towns over but when she got there the doors were locked and there was a pink sticky note that said "wait here, I'll be back". Olwen had waited for an hour or so before crawling away from the abandoned building in defeat. 

Nathaniel seated himself across from her and apologized for taking so long, though she just smiled and shrugged. Admittedly, she had been listening to him while he was ordering and knew what he had so she decided to leave that question be.  "Hot chocolate, I can't stand the taste of coffee, and it's good to see you too."  She took a small sip of the beverage before recalling one of the announcements she had read earlier that day. "I owe you a congratulations, don't I? You're the new house leader for the guys side of Lyra now right? By the way, I have to thank you for helping me with all this and coming out here with me, it really means a lot." 

She was sweet, he thought. Diplomatic, even. Nathaniel felt then that his assessment of the aspiring candidate had been correct - Olwen would make for a great house leader. She congratulated and thanked him, to which he waved his hand dismissively.

"Ah, thank you, but it was nothing. No one dared run against me," Nathaniel grinned, "They must have known better. And it's no trouble helping you at all, we have a mutual interest in getting you elected. If Stella wins..." The vampire rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"If Stella wins, I'll have a lot of headaches coming my way. She's definitely the coffee drinking type, whereas you and I? I think we like to take things a bit easier." Nathaniel tested his drink, but it was still too hot and had not yet absorbed the tea. It smelled good though, and the aroma soothed the discomfort he experienced from the room.

The vampire could sense that Olwen was cold, so he clasped his hands around his own cup to warm his fingers. The cold had never bothered Nathaniel. He lived most of his life by the ocean in New York, so he was used to the humid cold that was inevitable around the coast. Foresta's climate proved very similar as it was water-locked by the same Atlantic Ocean he had learned to swim in, and the island's similar climate offered him comfort. It wasn't for everyone, though, and Nathaniel pretended he was colder than he was so that his associate didn't feel out of place.

"But, there's still business to attend to. I caught wind of your reply to Estelle - Beautiful work. I'm sure you've swayed a few hearts in your favor. Have you thought about what kind of improvements you might make to the dorm? The faculty haven't been very transparent about how much we'll be getting in the way of funds to commit to house activities, but... I may have worked out a deal to get us a little more to play with." Nathaniel played with his tea bag, gently swirling it around the cup between making intermittent eye contact with Olwen.

Olwen smiled at his comment. It was true, no one else had even bothered to run against him. She wondered if he had pulled some strings to make things easy or if there was some other reason behind his luck. Nathaniel seemed like the type who could get his hands dirty. 

A small amount of pride filled her up when he mentioned her little note, happy that it was a good move. Though, a strange letter had been stuck to her door with bright green goo. That had made such a mess. When he asked about plans for the improvements that she had in mind only a few things came to mind. Olwen had her own complaints about the dorms but really needed to her input from the other students in Lyra before making any promises. It was true that there was no known budget for the house leaders ,though Olwen planned to use as much as necessary to make the dorms more comfortable. 

When he mentioned a way to get more money she felt her whole body lean forward. A grin brought the corners of her mouth up, "What kind of deal are we talking about here?" She paused for a second before playfully adding, "It better not require human sacrifice, those days are over for me." 

"Same," he replied honestly with a delayed smiled once he caught on it was probably a joke, "although that's a story I'd love to hear." The vampire's human killing days were over, although quitting cold turkey proved to be a daily struggle for him. Nathaniel's fingers tapped uncomfortably at the table next to his drink while his eyes scanned around the room for potential victims.

"I went straight to the source. There's some little brat named Cecilia del Vega Toro... Actually, I forgot how her name goes exactly, it's pretty long but you know who I'm talking about. Anyway, her family pays for everything here and long story short, I convinced her to requisition a little more to sweeten the pot in return for getting her elected."

Nathaniel sipped at his tea again. Still too hot, but it tasted better. "I don't think the faculty knows about the money yet, though. If she can handle the situation the way I asked her to, that money will be something we'll just line our own pockets with, privately. The less anyone else knows, the better." If not, he thought, there were always opportunities to launder. It would be child's play for Nathaniel because he honestly doubted the money would be watched that closely, and it wasn't exactly his first rodeo.

A curiosity peaked in her at his reply. As soon as he had said it his entire body language shifted. Olwen's eyes watched his though he was looking elsewhere in the little coffee shop. Her gaze moved around the shop, wondering what had stolen his attention. She listened attentively as he described the plan to get Lyra more money. Nathaniel was so full of surprises to her. When she had fist met him, she would've never thought that he would put so much effort into something. 

Olwen turned away from her companion, took a sip of her beverage, and stared into the misty glass. A lone finger rose and doodled a small grim reaper on the window. "You're good at this, you know? I envy you." She smiled before brushing back a piece of hair, her leg still bouncing up and down under the table. The constant need to move wasn't from anxiety around a new person, at least not anymore, no, it was from a sense of comfort. She liked this one. 

Olwen's words shook him free of his distraction, and when he turned back to face her again, she was already doodling on the window. She was definitely a Lyra girl, and her actions reminded him that he would need to find a new medium because his favored form of blood art was now off limits. Nathaniel smiled at her appropriate depiction of the reaper, curious to learn whether the subject matter was merely a coincidence or a hint that she suspected something was off about him.  Either way, for all her recent talk about death, he figured they would get along just fine in the long run.

 "You will be too once you're elected, you're definitely cut out for the job. It'll just take a little experience," he said to reassure her.  For all of the little mistakes he felt he had made so far, there was definitely an energy brooding between them. They almost certainly shared some common ground and Nathaniel decided it was as good a time as any to break the ice.

"But, let's not talk all night about business. Want to play a game? If you've got the time," he added on hastily as he sipped at his tea, the cup still mostly full.

"I was thinking something like twenty questions? But that always drags on way too long, so let's just call it five. Five questions that can be about anything, no matter how personal, and the only rules are that you have to tell the truth and you can't ask something the other person asked."

The vampire watched for her reaction, no stranger to the game himself. It was a quick way to get to know someone and it was usually a good bonding experience, but the caveat was that you were likely to learn more about them than you expected to.

"We'll alternate turns, so if you're afraid that I'll ask something you don't want to answer, you might want to ask me first. But then I'll know you're hiding something," he said with a grin. "If you're up for it, I'll let you decide who goes first."

Olwen pulled her hand from the cold glass and tucked it under the bouncing leg, having felt the beginning of her tremors. She heard his words of encouragement and had to agree; it usually didn't take long for her to get into the swing of things and being a house leader would probably go the same way. With the guiding hand of her dear Nathaniel, learning the ways of a leader would likely be very easy. 

Eyebrows raised, wondering if he had intentionally quoted Saw. She had played this game once before but it had been a long while ago and the people who had been there with her were asses. Have you lost your virginity? What color panties do you have on? Did your mother leave you because she knew you were a freak? Olwen shivered at the memory. If anything, they were the real monsters of that town. 

With a quick sip of the cooling hot chocolate and a wave of her hand she replied with a small grin, "I will give you the honor of asking the first question. Who knows, maybe you'll get lucky and learn something about me that no one else in the whole wide world knows."

"Oh, I might get lucky, will I?" he threw her words back to taunt her but he relaxed his body language to assure her it was an idle flirt. The commentary had bothered him, though, because Nathaniel felt like he had been anything but lucky before he arrived at Foresta. Anything he had ever accomplished in life was due to his own hard work or manipulation, because very little good ever happened to him on its own. That is, he supposed, up until he met her. Perhaps she would be the catalyst to turn his luck around.

"So, you've graced me with the privilege of going first," his voice trailed with a knowing grin that suggested he already knew what his five questions were going to be. Nathaniel cracked his fingers dramatically as he pretended to think about what he was going to ask her.

"Alright, no short answers accepted so you'll have to give me a little context, and I'm going to start you off with a hard one. The first answer I'm going to pry out of that spry little brain of yours is..." he took a long sip of his tea to playfully add to the tension.

"Where are you from?"

Nathaniel dramatized the affair with such grace that almost took her breath away. When he finally spoke the question, she released a sigh that had been stuck in her lungs. What he began with wasn't too terribly intrusive though she appreciated it greatly. Talking about herself in detail was still a struggle but getting to listen to others always captivated her and made her want to listen to their stories all day. Of course, the people at Foresta seem to always have good stories. 

Her legs folded into criss cross position and she pictured the small town that was her legal "home". "I was born in Durness Scotland; it's a small town on the water in the northern most part of the country. The farm I grew up on was far from the town but you could still hear the sea on quiet nights," Her voice grew soft, the nostalgia slowly eating away at her. It had been almost three years since she had been back there. Olwen's eyes lifted up to the sky beyond the window, her little reaper crying. "I used to run away from home on the nights of the full moon to listen for werewolves and to fall sleep under the stars. You wouldn't believe how bright they are out there."

She looked back toward Nathaniel and slipped out of the past. Mirroring his earlier taunting style of questioning, she spoke slowly and constantly tapped her fingers on the table as if debating whether or not she should ask the question she had in mind. "What is your most precious memory?"

Olwen gave a descriptive account of her home, and the vampire listened to her intently. Her verbal imagery painted a beautiful portrait in his head, but Nathaniel thumbed at his mouth uncomfortably to the mention of werewolves. He flexed the fingers of his left hand, grateful to have feeling left in them. Thankful that he wasn't human. If he were, he would have lost half of his arm to that werewolf. Olwen teased him with her delivery of her first question, and he definitely deserved that.

"Precious, now that's an interesting qualifier... I have had many interesting memories, very few of them I'd consider precious." Nathaniel sighed and briefly wondered if she asked the question out of genuine interest or to guard something she wanted to keep secret from him, but he figured it was too polite of a question for the latter motive.

"My most precious memory is when I got my first job. I left home when I was 14, and I had a very complicated life before that. But once I ran away, I was homeless. I dove through dumpsters for scraps, begged my friends for places to sleep, you know. It was hard not having a home to go back to," he shrugged, remembering the many alleys and sidewalks he slept on. Not having a place to shower. Not having anything.

"But one day I was out peddling on the street just selling whatever I could scavenge up, and things hadn't really been working out. It had been a day or two since I last ate but I guess I was working the right corner at the right moment because I managed to hustle a hard sale, and it turns out that guy was part of a local family who decided to put me to work for them. By family, I mean..." he thought for a moment, unsure how to explain it politically although he was pretty sure she knew what he meant, "The organized crime kind, and of course I was the low guy on their totem pole. I didn't make much and the work was dangerous sometimes, but I earned enough money to split an apartment with some friends." Nathaniel smiled softly at her, not the least bit shy to recount the memory.

"It's my favorite memory because even if it wasn't the most glamorous experience, that was the first time in my life I ever felt independent. That was the moment when I knew I'd never have to rely on those bastards who pretended to be my parents again."

Nathaniel toyed with his cup of tea, but declined to drink it in favor of enjoying its scent. The questions never got easier as the game progressed, and things were already heating up. There was no need to add play tension now that the warm-up round was over, so he posed his second question without any undue dramatics.

"Have you ever been addicted to anything?" he tapped the inner part of his elbow to suggest substances, but he left the question open to interpretation.

The young woman came to realize that she had greatly underestimated the man across from her. There was more to him than just a handsome face and she hoped to learn what that was eventually. Even a simple question gave her the most detailed glimpse into Nathaniel's history. When he spoke, not a single ounce of shame or regret crossed his face. 

She felt the second question in her hand, the shaking had started and the rhythm of her leg was thrown off by it. Her eyes fell to her lap; she had never been addicted to any sort of substance, no, she had been drawn to something destructive. To any other person she would've found something else to talk about but with him she felt like he wouldn't judge her to harshly. "I always knew that my body was different from everyone else's. Everything was breaking inside of me; I could list a dozen bones that have broken and describe to you exactly how they were damaged and how long it took me to heal them," Olwen pulled her right hand out from under the table and let it sit just above the flat surface. Faded scars were barely visible on the tips of her fingers and the bumps of her knuckles. At first it didn't look like much would happen but eventually the shaking grew and grew until her entire forearm was fighting to hold it still. She pulled the limb back into hiding. "I wasn't always numb to the pain that comes with manipulating bones, it came with daily use over the span of about two years. Eventually it became a ritual to me, if I didn't do it I would think about it and crave it until I gave in."

Her shoulders fell and a somber look crossed her visage before she gave him the next question, "Do you have any regrets?"

Nathaniel frowned at her recollection, going so far as to grimace when she mentioned everything breaking inside of her. When they met during Valentine's Day she had showed off a cool aspect of her power, but he hadn't considered all of the negative aspects that could have plagued her because of her ability to manipulate bone. Even for the verbose vampire, there weren't any right words to follow up on an admission like that. The only two things that Nathaniel could offer were an empathetic smile and a hand that gently rest its cold fingers on the table near Olwen, inviting her unstable touch.

Regrets.

"Not meeting you sooner," he opened up lightly. Now this was a question asked in self-defense, and that was fair enough given the intensity of what she just admitted to him.

Nathaniel needed a moment to think for this one because by and large, he had always done his best to make his life better. Not necessarily by moral means, but he wasn't the type to sit around and wait for things to get better on their own and that kind of life generally doesn't lead to regret. Still, there was the obvious one that he had otherwise been doing very well to block out of his mind, so Nathaniel touched at the red scarf around his neck.

"I regret that I couldn't control myself. I don't have much self control in general and a very good friend of mine died because of that, just recently. I almost died because of it too, and I will die if I leave Foresta any time soon. We made some very bad mistakes together and we had a lot of fun making them, but other people didn't see it way we did. They hunted her down, and they're still looking for me," he said and clutched the old friend's scarf tighter. "If I mess up this second chance I've been given at Foresta, if I get expelled for any reason and I can think of a dozen ways that I might, they'll send me back home."

Nathaniel looked down at the table, staring into his tea. "So, I'm hoping not to do anything else that I'll regret for a while. What was your most serious relationship?"

Opening up to Nathaniel brought small waves of relief. He was turning out to be someone she hoped to be acquainted with for a long time. His hand slid across the table, as if he was implying that they could share her burden. Olwen's fingers fell beside his, though no warmth came from his touch, she felt comforted. The trembling continued but now there was another to help her end the shaking. 

Nathaniel's response fell to attentive ears. She listened to him speak, watched how his fingers held tightly to the red scarf. Olwen wondered who had been his partner in crime, but continued to listen in silence. It was clear to her that he wouldn't purposely choose to leave this place, unlike those who had a home to return to. Nathaniel was smart and likely had no reason to fear the possibility of being sent away from Foresta. 

He didn't pause this time. She wondered if he asked her this so that the question couldn't be asked about him. It seemed that way. "In the summer before ninth grade, I met a boy who had ill intentions toward me. I thought he could love me. The charade went on and I thought we were happy together. He got what he wanted by the end of October and I got sent away to Foresta by the beginning of September." The words that fell from her tongue were cold and bitter. And they called me a monster.

"Where's your favorite place?"