Lucid no longer.

Before. Elsewhere. The quad, and the solitary student, so bright of hair and eye, sitting in the shadow of a tree, on the edge of a wall. Her legs are folded at the ankles, black knee socks, short skirt; so pretty. Distraction from the knees comes by a handful of seeds, shower of gold, thrown to the ground; follow the seeds to the ground.

Then see the crooked, predatory beak which slashes at them: a crow or a raven, as black as blue, as blue as black, and as dark as ink is dark. The crow looks up suddenly, then flutters away; flurry of feathers.

And V stands up, scattering the last bread crumbs (but now you'll never get out of the forest) and seed. This is for no apparent reason. For no apparent reason (Amber) she runs, and runs hard, as fleet as she can be, which is fleet, indeed, so used to running away, to the nurse's office. Down the hall, to the desk. Her fingertips touch the desk, the clipboard, and she says, "Aoi Hanabishi; I'm here to see Amber. What room is she in?"

Perhaps before the student aid can answer (such impatience, and such arrogance; sometimes it almost comes out) she knows. Perhaps not. Either way, she runs ("No running!") to the appropriate room, runs in, and at this point Amber is still asleep, but then there's --

that flower
( a rose would smell as sweet
as sweet
as sweet
sweet
by any other name
other name
name
rose
here
no
go)

-- and she just catches herself on the doorframe. Inhales so sharply, it sounds as if her throat was cut; she pulls herself out as quickly as she ran in, and presses herself against the wall, and her heart is going too quickly. It's going to hurt her. Go inside, she tells herself, just go inside, but she can't, and she won't, and she closes her eyes, and pinches the bridge of her nose, and hides her face.

"I'm sorry, Amber. I can't."

And then, as quiet as a mouse, she murmurs, "Tell me what thing's shadow can tell me what happened best." Nobody hears. Louder, and again: "Sorry, Amber.."

And then -- V runs off, again, to the astonishment of the nurse's aid. Before. Twenty minutes before.

Before whatever happens, happens.

Edited by: quicksilver at: 9/14/06 3:03 pm

Amber only nodded, curling up beneath the blanket to relieve pressure from her wings. She did feel exhausted, moreso than usual. It had to be from the result of the entire ordeal and the expeling of much more energy than usual. Sleep feltmore than welcomed and she knew she would be back up in no time.

"Sorry you got hurt too..."

Kobita mentioned V and that's when she remembered it. The pink rose, as cute as it was she had to have it moved. The card she had replaced on the desk, though she couldn't remember conciously doing so.

"Oh Kobita? Can you take the rose away somewhere? V wanted to visit but she's very allergic to it and couldn't come in the room."