. come save me from walkin off a windowsill . Rohan

It was cold evening, but nothing Casper couldn't handle, being from the DC area. The cafe seemed like a suitable place to spend a few hours--not empty, so he wouldn't look like a loner, but also not a place that was reserved solely for sociable people. Plus, they had a well-stocked bookshelf in the corner, so there was enough entertainment for at least a couple visits. Stepping up to the counter, he placed an order for a Turkish coffee, black. He hated any sort of sugar or cream in his coffee--the bitterness was almost revitalizing, in his opinion. The caffeine was always an added benefit. 

His coffee was delivered only a minute or two after he'd grabbed a book and sat down at a corner table. The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown. A classic, but he'd somehow never gotten around to reading it. He thanked the waiter politely and took a cautious sip, cracking open his book and beginning to read. Every few minutes, he glanced up to scan the room. He had the perfect vantage point for remaining aware of any impending danger. The fact that there was an abundance of shadow in the corner was always good; it meant that he always had an escape route. He knew his paranoia was rather unreasonable, considering that he was on an island populated with Gifteds, and that logically, he was in no danger from scientists who wanted to experiment on Gifteds, but he was on edge regardless. It would be just his luck for someone to come ruin a perfectly relaxing--well, as relaxing as it could get with such a paranoid outlook--evening. 

tag: Rohan

The chill was new to Kemp and he found himself shivering almost uncontrollably. Wearing only a t-shirt and gray fleece pull over, the farm boy was clearly underdressed for this kind of weather. Thankfully, the café offered him warmth as he stepped inside, feeling one final shiver race down his spine before the building's warmth began to seep into his skin.Before taking another step inside, he scanned the tables to see how many seats were occupied. Unfortunately the corner seats had all been taken, meaning he would have to sit more towards the center. Perhaps if he waited long enough, one of the wall seats would become available to him. Running a nervous hand through his unnaturally  colored hair, he urged himself forward towards the counter as casually as possible.

He could hear the soft whispers from the other patrons from across the floor. He wasn't deaf by any means. In fact, he was  quite the opposite. To one with 'normal' hearing, the whispers may have gone completely unnoticed, but with his...gift.. it was hard not to hear them. Besides the whispers, he could hear coffee brewing behind the counter. The young man seated in the shadowed corner was a quick reader, judging by the sound of pages turning so frequently. It must have been a good book.The lighting  of the place seemed dim enough, and for a moment he contemplated taking sunglasses off so he didn't look like such a fool. Then again, the tint from his sunglasses made everything seem dimmer than thy really were and he voted against taking removing them from his eyes.

 Anxiety gripped at his throat as he stepped up to the counter, making his throat run dry. After a moment of stammering, he forced out a request for a house coffee. Or had he asked for a latte? He had already forgotten which it was. In the meanwhile, he turned his back to the counter to scan the tables again incase the joint had filled up while placing his order. It looked unchanged, and he let out a small breath to calm the butterflies gnawing away at his stomach.

His drink was quickly prepared and he gave the cashier a grateful nod after paying. In that time, another guest had come up behind him to order something, going unnoticed thanks to Kemp's increasing stress. Turning away from the counter, he nearly collided with an older woman standing behind him and jerked sharply to keep from checking her with his shoulder. The surprise made his heart stop, and the motion sent his beverage plummeting-along with any composure he had left- to the floor. The sound of shattering glass followed soon after, piercing Kemp's sensitive ears as hot coffee splattered against his shoes and surrounding chair legs. Covering his ears Kemp made a pained sound as the bookshelf across the room began to come to life.

Why had he even tried coming to such a place? He should have known that something like this was bound to happen again, yet here he was..in the middle of yet another store on the edge of a sensory overload with a dancing bookshelf threatening to whip "To Kill A Mockingbird" through the wall. Perhaps he should have left a bigger tip to keep karma on his side tonight.

Tag: ebonynightmare

The boy had become so engrossed in the story that it'd been quite some time since he'd looked up. At least, by his standards. In reality, it was more like five minutes, as opposed to every two minutes. This hard-earned peace was soon shattered; the sound of the door opening made his head jerk up. A boy perhaps a few years older than him, with startling gray hair, had just walked in. Casper wondered why he had such unusually colored hair, but returned to his novel after only a glance. He hadn't looked suspicious, despite the hair color, and didn't seem to warrant further inspection.

Once again, his reading was disturbed by the shattering of glass. Casper's head snapped up and he fairly leapt to his feet, ready to get the hell out. It was quite easy to discern that the other boy was incredibly stressed, which made him the obvious culprit when things began to move without any physical aid. Everyone else had seemed rather calm and tranquil, and it was well-known that anxiety or stress often caused accidental power usage. He'd seen it both at home, with his family, and at school, which was to be expected. Anywhere there was magic, there was bound to be accidents. 

Books were beginning to fall to the floor, and patrons were scrambling to their feet. Some looked tempted to attack the boy, but Cas figured that he couldn't have that. There was no way he was doing this on purpose, and he wanted to help him, without injuring anyone if possible. Conveniently enough, his power might allow him to do just that. He sent a tiny fireball at one burly man who was lumbering toward the newcomer, just large enough to be noticeable, but small enough that it fizzled out before anything caught on fire. His chest twinged slightly, but he ignored the pain, already getting to work on the next part of his plan. It was a good thing it was night.

Not wanting to get himself injured, since using the shadow people was marginally less risky, he decided to go with that route. A shadowy body with sinuous, smoking arms solidified out of the shadows in the corner and floated over to the gray-haired boy. This was apparently one of the rare situations that required a full shadow form, as opposed to just a single body part. Casper ducked to avoid flying objects, and pushed his way out of the door as the shadow wrapped the boy in its arms and dragged him outside. He was already beginning to feel the exhaustion of trying to wrestle the boy outside with him, even though he was not engaging in the activity physically. As soon as the boy was outside, he sent the shadow inside to help clean up the mess and asked, "Are you okay?"

Disoriented, Kemp didn't realize he had been escorted outside until feeling the night's cool air against his trembling hands. The ringing that has once pierced his ears had subsided, but he flinched when another voice sounded just beside him.


 " Are you okay?" the voice had asked, although it was clear that Kemp had shaken himself up a bit. Looking inside, he spotted the shadow figure that was helping to clean up the mess he had made before turning his attention to the voice. He realized the face immediately as the young man how had ben reading in the corner and felt the tension in his chest ease just the slightest.

" I..think so." Kemp answered slowly, hiding his shaking hands in the pocets of his jacket. " I'm sorry about..that. I'm kind of..really sensitive. " he added, praying he hadn't struck the young man with an object during the commotion. He had struck somebody before, on accident of course, but he often worried about it happening again." Did I..hurt anyone?" he asked, feeling his throat tighten as he rubbed the back of his neck anxiously. By the looks of everything inside it didn't seem like anyone was injured, but he didn't trust any of his judgements at the moment.

Casper quickly took in the boy's condition with a passive but concerned expression. He appeared to be fine, aside from being fairly shaken. "You don't have to apologize," he commented. "As long as it was an accident," he amended, a hint of warning in his tone. He'd made an assumption, which wouldn't do. The boy looked harmless enough, but clearly that wasn't an accurate impression.  

"No, I don't think anyone was hit by anything. And even if they were, a book to the head doesn't hurt that much," he said wryly, recalling a childhood incident in which he'd accidentally tilted the bookshelf and gotten hit with a thick encyclopedia. He'd suffered much worse pain since then, of course, so perhaps his judgement was off. 

"Are your powers new?" He didn't want to outright state that it had been an impressive display of lack of control over his powers, but with a power so useful and interesting, he personally would have experimented with it to the point of exhaustion. 

It was hard to tell what the boy looked like through the dark lenses of Kemp's sunglasses. All he could really make out was the young man's silhouette and occasionally a glimpse of his face from the café's window lights. Carefully reaching up with both hands, Kemp used his index fingers and thumbs to gently grasp the arms of his glasses,pulling them slowly from his eyes so he could get a better look at who had rescued him. His eyes watered until he turned his back to the cafe's lights, having to wait a few moments before his vision adjusted itself.

The boy didn't seem overly upset about Kemp's outburst, judging by his passive expression. He was sure there were others who had 'slipped up' before in the past. After all, this was and island full of kids with untamed abilities. Even so, Kemp hoped he would catch a break instead of a scolding. All he wanted to do was buy a damn coffee.

"You don't have to apologize," He could have hugged the kid then and there but somehow restrained himself. Finally, a person who was on his side! He couldn't explain the amount of weight that had been lifted off his chest."As long as it was an accident." the boy added. What the hell did that mean? It wasn't like Kemp had woke up that morning and decided he wanted to scare the shit out an entire establishment. The weight he thought had been lifted from his chest has suddenly reappeared and was perhaps a little heavier now that he was being accused. He was both offended and taken aback as he shot the boy a frown, trying his best to act like the comment hadn't wounded him. Despite his best efforts to remain stone faced, his eyes betrayed him by projecting both shame and embarrassment. At this point the conversation couldn't end fast enough.

"I didn't..It's..not like I wanted to do that." Kemp fumbled  for something to say as he attempted to swallow the ever growing knot in his throat." I haven't had them for very long."Not that it was any excuse. He braced himself for any other accusations the boy wished to add, cursing himself for stepping foot outside the safety of his dorm.

Crap. Ugh. He had clearly upset the boy, which was not what he had intended. Was it so wrong of him to make sure that boy was not putting on an act? Casper stifled a sigh of exasperation. "Look, I'm sorry I had to ask that, but I had to be sure. And since it was an accident, there's no problem, right?" It was a rhetorical question; he really didn't want to continue this discussion. He was irked about having to apologize, but he supposed he could swallow his pride. He'd been lucky enough to have some guidance in discovering his powers; he couldn't assume that everyone had the same privilege. 

"I'm assuming you're new here, then. Have you signed up for the power classes?" he inquired, trying not to sound patronizing or impatient. Cas glanced back inside, and saw that the mess had been cleaned up and the shadow-being had dissipated back into its natural form. On second thought, perhaps someone as anxious as he was could use some practice with his powers away from everyone else.

"If you aren't in a hurry to get back to school, there's a cemetery near here that would be a fairly good place for you to practice using your powers," Cas suggested. "It might make you more comfortable with them." He hadn't been to the cemetery in a while, and was a little apprehensive, but he would have to get over it sooner or later. If he ever needed help, that was the place to get it.

((OOC:Eep! I'm so sorry Eb! I didn't mean to leave you and our threads hanging. School got crazy this week and I've just now had some time to catch up on everything.))

"I'm assuming you're new here, then. Have you signed up for the power classes?" Had his accidental outburst not been clear enough? Kemp shook his head, validating Casper's assumption." I haven't signed up for anything yet," he explained, rubbing the back of his neck. " I have to sign up for all my classes tomorrow morning." Why was he explaining himself to another student? He didn't have to explain anything if he did not wish to. Then again, the kid had basically saved Kemps ass.

"There's a cemetery near here that would be a fairly good place for you to practice using your powers," Casper had suggested, it may make you more comfortable." Kemp exchanged a quizzical expression, chuckling briefly to himself. " Aannd.. how is disturbing dead people going to help anything?" Kemp asked, tilting his head slightly to one side. Wasn't that destructing of property or something? He didn't feel like getting arrested, or worse expelled.

The idea of control had become a fierce craving. He really didn't have the luxury of being picky- especially after what had just happened in the café. If playing in a field of dead guys was what it took to gain control, he supposed it would be better than doing nothing.

(OOC: no problem, I understand completely!)

He nodded thoughtfully at the boy's admission of not having signed up for classes yet. It was what he'd expected. Hopefully they would do the poor kid some good; it didn't seem like he'd had anyone to help him control his powers. 

Casper's instinctive reaction was to consider the boy's response to be slightly stupid. Dead people were the only people who wouldn't mind the things around them going to hell and getting wrecked. Then again, considering who he was, he did have a propensity to underestimate others' aversion to cemeteries. "Would you rather be disturbing living people?" he asked, the corner of his mouth lifting into a wry smile. It was clear that the answer wouldn't be in the affirmative, considering the events that had just occurred. The boy took off in the direction of the cemetery, glancing back over his shoulder to see if his companion would follow or not. "You coming?" 

Messing around with magic in a realm full of corpses and dead spirits? It was almost like deja vu.