[center][abbr=#B8041A | Alt+0248 for ø][img]https://i.ibb.co/wY7GYz8/Kaspar-Header-2.png[/img][/abbr]
[hr][color=#B8041A][b]LOCATION[/b][/color][b]:[/b] Sleeping Quarters
[hr][/center]
Kaspar shut the door behind him, listening to the sounds of his companions fading into the distance, hopefully off to their own rooms for the night. Feelings had been tugging at him since Jocasta had first talked about the nature of the refuge, but they’d been shoved down and away—as emotions always were, for one who was dangerous without that control. 

The lightest sting in his palms returned, and the boy glanced down at them for the first time since they’d entered the refuge. The skin was scraped, though not severely so—it was still more than he’d hurt himself in years, and he cursed his lack of control. Something about this place made him feel vulnerable and weak—emotional, in a way he couldn’t allow himself to be. 

He started toward the bath and then stopped, heaving out a breath. His muscles itched and he felt like he couldn’t stand still, like he was shaking. He grabbed at his dark brown hair, red eyes squeezing shut, and tried to breath deeply into his chest. He had a [i]mission[/i] to do, for fuck’s sake—he couldn’t be this weak. Besides, this reaction would spark curiosity and questions. Maybe not all of his companions would notice, but some were far too sharp—and might be all too willing to use something they learned. No one else could know that he wasn’t Kaspar Elstrøm von Wentoft. 

At that, something in his mind grabbed back violently and he jerked away like he’d been hit. 

[color=#B8041A][i]You [/i]are[i] Kaspar. You’ve [/i]always[i] been Kaspar. There is [/i][b]no one else[/b].[/color]

He sucked in another stuttered breath, eyes snapping open, and realized he’d fallen back against the tub, crouching on the floor with his face between his knees like a [i]toddler[/i]. He couldn’t find it in him to care much for decorum, letting himself slide down until he sat against the floor. 

He needed to sketch. Sketching was what calmed him, what could tame these emotions and put them back into the locked box where they belonged. He’d not brought supplies, but the boy reached for anything nearby that could be remade into charcoal—drawing away at the nearby materials and, perhaps, at flesh. As the utensil materialized in his hands, Kaspar had the epiphany that trying to make anything else in such a state could leave him very injured and very lacking in deniability. 

He glanced up, looking for a desk or some manner of paper. 

His eyes found the wall first. It was flat enough, and plain enough. Charcoal was not so picky as ink. 

The boy stood, stalking swiftly to the wall with a stick of charcoal clutched in his fingers. He put it to stone, hand sketching a rough line. He wasn’t even sure what he was creating until the first large, arcing line of a shell became apparent. 

The halassa took shape one line at a time on the rough wall, the boy pacing back and forth fervently. At some point he grew too hot, bunching the ends of his sleeves up the elbow, but before long the fabric around the joints became too much for him to bear, and he hastily pulled off the vest and tunic alike, ignoring the prints of charcoal against the fabrics. The pale skin of his bared back glistened with sweat as he worked at the sketch, mind honing into the fine point he craved. 

The face came last. He stared at the empty space in the center of this rapidly sketched piece, and his mind kept blinking to the designs—was it meant to have eyes dribbling down its cheeks, or to be choking on its own blood? Perhaps the neck was to be turned at an awkward angle, or no face at all but a gory hole where one had been, once. 

He never thought of the peaceful face of the one Yalen had killed with internal chemistry.

Finally, it was a dark and smudged handprint that formed the face as he dragged his palm and spread fingers against the stone, ignoring the pain against the scraped flesh. There was enough charcoal left on the skin to coat it as he dropped the darkened nub that had served him. The boy stepped back, breathing more easily than he had since the door had closed. 

For minutes he stood stock-still, taking in the messy sketch with little thought to the manner of cleaning it. Finally, wiping sweat from his brow, he noticed the black stains on his hands. He let out one humorless bark of laughter before stumbling back towards the bath, fumbling to kick the sand-filled boots off his feet. 

The water was cold now, and he shivered as he lowered himself into it. The soap was not hard to locate—he noted that the bar seemed to be fresh, but was missing an uneven chunk. He tried to push down the shame of that moment and rubbed it against the skin of his hands, watching the charcoal slowly turn the water dark. Despite the chill of the bath, he found his energy draining and tiredness overtaking him down to the very bone.

He saw his parents in the dream that found him. Not the Marquis and his wife, but Ehren and Lark Weber. They looked just as they had when he was eight, young and lively and filled with joy in parenthood. He and his father were playing some simple game, sitting cross-legged on the floor and trying to tap each other on the hands, laughing the whole while. 

It was Lark’s screams that pitched above his own childlike giggles, snapping the boy’s attention behind him towards the sound. She stared at him, horror in her eyes. Scared, and confused, he turned back to his father for help and—

Red. 

His hands and wrists, and the floor all around him, painted in the dark crimson of fresh-spilled blood. It was icy cold and crawled up his arms as Alaric screamed, trying to scramble back from it to no avail. It climbed up and up, over his elbow and up the flesh of his arm, across the shoulder, prickling and cold against his skin all the way. Across his throat and up under his chin, passing his lips and flooding into his wide-opened mouth and reaching for the nostrils—

Kaspar woke, coughing icy water back into the tub and nearly dry-heaving. He shivered, breathing clean air and shaking his wet hair from his eyes. The boy couldn’t tell the hour, but knew he should’ve been asleep long ago—in a bed, perhaps. 

He pushed himself out of the tub, arms weak but mostly clean, and shuffled toward the bed. Practically falling into it, no care for the water droplets still clinging to him, the boy wrapped himself in every available blanket, willing away the cold of the water and his mind. 

He fell back into sleep, and did not dream again.

[hr][center][color=#B8041A][b]LOCATION[/b][/color][b]:[/b] Breakfast Table
[color=#B8041A][b]INTERACTIONS[/b][/color][b]:[/b] AA [@], BB [@]
[/center][hr]
Kaspar would seem stoic to any who looked at him over breakfast, but it was not unusual for the boy. If there was something darker to the silence, shadowing over him, it would be difficult to notice. He was tired, but that much had to be expected after the night he and his companions had experienced. 

He had more than his fill of coffee, hoping the liquid would breathe something like life back into him, and picked at most of what was brought out for the meal. He glanced at his classmates, keeping an eye on their conversations, but lacked the motivation to chip in anything—even though one of them was Ayla, the cheerful girl who seemed to be the only one he stayed around. 

His plate was nearly empty when the warden began talking, but Kaspar watched the man passively and continued to chew at his Pan Con Tomate, offering up neither questions nor suggestions. Something in him disliked this man, but the student couldn’t tell if it was for specific actions and the way he spoke to Marceline, or for the knowledge Jocasta had given them about the refuge—there was certainly no love in him for a man who allowed such things to happen. 

But the Warden’s visit was blessedly short-lived, and Kaspar found himself pulled along behind his classmates on a tour of the facilities. While he did not have much personal interest in the tour, it would provide distraction enough for his mind and allow him to assess the state of the refuge and those living within it. 

He noted, as Zarina drew attention to the priest, that Yalen seemed even more lacking in sleep than Kaspar. With a stab of pity, he wondered what nightmares could’ve visited him in the night—and decided, a moment later, that he’d rather not know. Kaspar’s own demons were enough to deal with. But he kept an eye on the fellow student, when he could—he might be impartial to emotions, but the red-eyed boy was not heartless. 

Yet as the tour went on, the group dwindled with surprising urgency—Jocasta wheeling off to some task of her own and Yalen disappearing to aid a child. Ysilla seemed to be missing entirely, and Kaspar hadn’t quite noticed her departure following breakfast. He hung behind his classmates and Marceline, listening quietly to the conversation as it turned toward the tree they were nearing. 

(Also found in YummyYummy’s “Morning before the Mission”)
[hider=The Orange Tree]
Kaspar’s eyes drifted to the tree, scanning the branches and admiring its shape. He was unfamiliar with its kind, as he didn’t study the plants of Torragon, but it pulled him in like so many other plants had in his time. 

Keeping the voices of the group half in mind, he stepped away, head tilted as he noted the particular shapes of the leaves, the contrast between the bark and the bright orange fruits that dangled temptingly from the branches. He reached up, fingers skimming the flesh of one, and wondered passively if it would keep until he had a notebook in hand. 

Willing to chance it, he grasped the orange fully and tugged, detaching it from the branch and watching the leaves bounce in response. He palmed the fruit, turning it over and admiring the bold coloring. He traced the shape of it, the minute dimpling of the skin and the way the light reflected from the waxy peel. Then, realizing the foolishness of this moment, he found himself wondering what, precisely, his plan for storing the fruit was. 

Feeling a bit sheepish at the way he’d been distracted by the tree, Kaspar glanced around to see if anyone—most of all his fellow students—had noticed his captivation. His red eyes trailed down, sweeping around, and froze near the trunk. His brow furrowed, unbidden, as he stared at the couple carving into the bark, and a coldness crept up the skin of his back. The girl was unfamiliar, but there was something unsettlingly recognizable about the boy, like Kaspar should know him—like he always had. 

It took him another moment of openly staring to realize just how strongly the stranger’s face resembled his own—the most noticeable difference being in the colors of their eyes, but the other details seemed to fit like a blurry memory. They were close enough, though perhaps not exact. 

For a moment, he felt as though he were looking at some distant timeline in which he’d simply been disposed of, placed far away where no one would ask any questions. It burned hot in his gut, flooding his mind with everything he’d spent the past night pushing away, too surprised for the logic to understand he was not tethered, and could not be this boy. It almost seemed like he could smell the blood again, coating his stinging palms… 

And the pain forced his awareness back, red eyes sliding down to the fruit still gripped in his hand. The skin was mottled and leaking, pooling on his scraped flesh and dripping to the ground as his Gift peeled at it. The juice was sticky against his skin, not warm or red but still enough in the shock of the moment. Startled, he dropped the fruit to the ground and watched it thud gently, rolling away from his feet and leaving the stone wet beneath it. 

Breathing raggedly, he backed away, trying to find his classmates and their guide. The boy didn’t matter, nor did any possible path but this one. Kaspar could simply push him away, every boy he’d ever been, and forget this moment in the garden. If it truly wouldn’t leave his mind, as part of him perhaps so dearly hoped, the carving would still be fresh—and it’s not as if the boy could leave.[/hider]
As his feet shuffled back across the courtyard toward Ayla, Zarina, and Marceline, Kaspar finally caught onto the body language. He realized, moments before he stumbled back into it, that he was approaching what seemed to be a heated argument. He stopped, uncertain, and stared wide-eyed as Marceline turned and began to storm away. As he processed the last of her words, trying to make sense of where things may have gone wrong, it was Ayla’s angry voice that resounded next. 

Kaspar felt like a child witnessing his parents argue, standing mere steps away as they shouted and thoroughly unsure as to whether he should still be here, listening. It was Zarina’s response when he truly began to make sense of the words, bodily flinching as she mentioned the tree—though it was unlikely either of them would notice, caught up in their disagreement. 

As she turned and left, Kaspar was at a loss to see the tour ended so quickly—and in such poor spirits. For the moment, it seemed Ayla was the only other student left. The red-eyed boy stood unmoving, half-raised hand still coated in juice and stinging. He blinked slowly at her, unsure whether he should announce his presence, or perhaps offer some support or comfort… Or simply turn and leave, and pretend he’d not witnessed the heated exchange.