HereComesTheSnow

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Luke Schwarz -- VGNB Dorm

Oh, so she actually was blue-blooded.

I was just making a pun...

As her next question reached his ears, he frowned, letting loose yet another small sigh. How many times was this going to come up? Ahoges weren't that strange, Jack had one too, for Pete's sake! They weren't fascinating at all, so why did so many people focus their attention upon it? If he wanted an easy icebreaker, he didn't want it to be his own hair! Let it be something else! A casual question about if they need any help or something!

"This is just how it's always grown. Same case for my mom and siblings, too. No gel or anything like that." he repeated for probably the third time. "As for questions, she's really just picking my brain as to what makes me tick. Nothing that outlandish."

No, what was outlandish was the context within which the questions were being asked.

But that was Gratia's weirdness, not his own. She could explain that. More interestingly, something about this "Nuit" character that Beryl was supposedly replacing piqued his curiosity...

"Say, what happened to the person Miss Harken's replacing?"

A simple question was aired.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Luke Schwarz -- VGNB Dorms

"So am I free to go, or--" he cautiously began, before cutting off as the door opened behind him. This place was certainly getting crowded...

Tilting his head back to look at the stranger, both eyes now uncovered by hair, he examined the arrival. It was yet another girl walking into the room, with brown hair, piercing green eyes, glasses (altogether gave off a pretty cute bookish vibe), and...

Er, well...

He squinted, hoping it to just be the odd angle his head was at messing with his perception, or something similar. No additional effect. Half-turning in the seat and righting his head once more, he found that the transition from position-to-position was ultimately unhelpful in making sense of what exactly he saw.

Green.

She's wearing... something green.

All that aside, though, he still raised a hand in polite greeting, and favoring the woman with a small, friendly smile.
_{Interrogate me}
"Uh, Hi there. I'm Luke, from JCML. Miss Mindaro's got me over to ask me a few questions. I take it you're the only member of Vignobility I haven't met yet?"

Or was she also the subject of study, this time in regards to fashion statements as opposed to hairstyle? Instead of saying this or even allowing it to show upon his features, though, he kept quiet and respectful for the time being. No matter how weird things may have been upon first glance, he didn't even have a fraction of the story behind it.

She could have lost a bet, or something, after all.

That experiment theory couldn't be right, anyways, based solely upon the new arrival's demeanor. She wouldn't be acting quite so casual if that were the case. Right? He wasn't the only one who would be perturbed by the thought of the arctic young woman of VGNB conducting experiments in regards to things such as clothes or hair.

He couldn't be.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

all dem qts

oh its just like one of my chinese cartoons

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Luke Schwarz -- VGNB Dorm

His breath hitched in surprise and he found his eyes sharp once more, instincts screaming at him with the sudden change in pressure as her voice almost seemed to... warp. Taking on an edge he'd never actually heard before, an edge that felt predatory, dangerous.

Crazy.

His brows knit together.

Wait.

His body tensed under the pressure. This wasn't the first time he'd heard it. Just the first it had ever been directed at him, it had ever been this clear.

That's right--

Her fight with Cian. The same change happened.

There was a common thread here, a trend obvious enough that even he, who hardly knew how to read between the lines when it counted, could pick it out with ease. In contrast with her typical personality, Gratia Mindaro had only begun to bare her fangs in one specific context.

Fighting. Combat. Be it sparring or otherwise, Gratia Mindaro was the antithesis of the nigh-pacifistic, "talk-first-and-throw-punches-later" boy under her study. The signs were pointing towards that conclusion. Underneath that veneer of icy, solemn bluntness lied something ferocious, something vicious. Something he had only seen hints of, in moments so brief you'd almost believe them merely imagination.

Berserker.

And as quickly as it had came, that intimidating, oppressive aura vanished, and the room became normal once again. As if she had never changed, Mindaro was right back to work, pen scrawling across paper as her impassive onyx eyes remained glued to her notes thus far.

"Positive emotions..."

He frowned contemplatively, folding his arms and legs as he once again looked upwards to the ceiling, this time in thought.

"Well, helping people is definitely one of them. I try to help out with things if I can." he stated, head coming back down in a nod. "It's redundant to say, but I also do enjoy having fun: messing around with friends, playing games, going for a ride on my bike every once in a while, meeting pretty girls, enjoying a good meal, giving my little sisters a hard time, even just lighthearted conversation."

He looked to her again, searching for whatever reaction would come.

"I think I'm like most people: I like doing things that I want to do."

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

She ain't all bad but she can be pretty scary and deffo hard to read

>Bianca

R I P

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Luke Schwarz -- VGNB Dorm

It flooped down, as he did, slumping back into the chair and allowing his head to loll back behind the top, eyes now pointed towards the ceiling. Releasing a breath he hadn't know he'd been holding, he remained there for a moment before righting himself, affixing his eyes after a moment back into the enigmatic onyxes of the Mistralese woman's.

"You know, there were plenty of other ways you could have gone about that, as opposed to giving off the air that you were liable to test that theory on me without warning..." he replied in a surly, almost defeated fashion.

He was going to have heart failure if this kept up. What an intimidating woman.

"I would prefer us leaving out unnecessary violence, all the same."

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Luke Schwarz -- VGNB Dorm

"D-Does it really?" he played along, still in the same tone while shooting a glance over to Beryl, practically begging for a way out. This conversation was going south, fast, and his diplomacy skills weren't proving up to snuff. A combination that held frightening implications, especially with the track Gratia's mind was going down.

Did she know about his semblance? If so, she may get a funny idea or two...

"But you have to remember, Miss Mindaro," he countered, arms unfolding and hands waving in that palms-out gesture that was universal for "no" or some other negative response. "Pain isn't an emotion, it's the body's way of telling the brain it's damaged! I can be happy as a clam on the best day of my life and still stub my toe, after all!"

It remained upright, stock still and standing tall.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Luke Schwarz -- VGNB Dorm

A beat.

"P-Pain tolerance?" he repeated airily, feeling a shiver run through the entirety of his body even as the corners of his mouth curled upward in a fearful smile, and eyes went wide. Perhaps he could avoid the issue by playing dumb. At the very least, if he knew where she was planning to go with that train of thought, he could defend himself...

"What are you talking about?" he asked, a half-shade paler than his usual light tan, and terribly hiding it behind a nervous chuckle. "You shouldn't nonsensically drift off-topic like that in your own study. That's just being silly."

Unbeknownst to him, the ahoge reacted once more, standing straight at attention as if to appear larger in defense. Perhaps it was a signal of his heightened alertness, in this sudden state of fear.

One exposed, one hidden behind his bangs, both eyes remained wide and fearful. With just a simple change in the conversation, that pen in her hand suddenly seemed like an even more dangerous weapon than Mordred's sword of flame back at the casino...

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Luke Schwarz -- VGNB Dorm

As if succumbing to an inevitability upon Harken's reaction, the ahoge seemed to jump in surprise as he felt his cheeks flush a tad.

Whether he denied it to himself or not, he was still just a young man, barely out of boyhood. Okay, at 18, he was in all technicality an adult, but regardless.

I have far from mastered myself.

Emotions, as they were, were entirely ingrained into the human mind, and impossible to fully remove without losing something intrinsically human about an intelligence. That was all well and good, and a part of life that most everyone accepted. However, fickle things as they were, they could do with having a better form of control, or at the very least, understanding, in his case. He wasn't going so far as to always be thinking of how to react-- that would leave him frozen by choice trying to consider every possible variable. Instead, though, he couldn't help but question why he couldn't at least predict when he would and wouldn't act in a certain way, or feel a certain way about something.

Knowing oneself was a vital part of human communication. Perhaps Gratia's experiment belied more important matters than he thought, at least, on a symbolic scale. "Why something reacts the way it does." That was the question she was trying to answer.

Should he seek similar solutions in regard to himself?

...It doesn't feel quite right, thinking of things like that.

He glanced to Beryl out of the corner of his eye, trying to gauge her reaction.

He got... something. He definitely got something. Something that was neither approval nor rejection, but instead a different gear entirely, as her eyes were fixated not on Luke himself, but that apparently oh-so-interesting ahoge that stood rogue and erect away from the rest of his hair.

..So, that's how it is.

The flush faded, as quickly as it had came. Miss Harken was, if nothing else, easily distracted.

Knowledge for the future.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Luke Schwarz -- VGNB Dorm

A sigh escaped, not from his mouth, but from his nostrils, in a slow, heavy exhalation. He knew that was coming. Gratia Mindaro was nothing but ruthless in her pursuit of the answer. Even Math had shown that side of her. From nobody else could he expect the required pages needed to study the entire section of the course he had a problem with if he asked them about it.

In a way, it resembled her brutal tenacity and aggression in combat.

One thing remained clear.

There would be no talking his way out of it.

"It just grows this way." he replied, succinct and clear in his delivery. "The only thing I put in my hair is shampoo when I wash it."