[if april showers bring may flowers, then july showers bring. . .?]

[sevenhorrorsmods]

Who: everyone!
When: July 31st throughout the day
Where: outside, but also wherever you want to be!
What: a general all-purpose mingle with flavor
Warnings: nada

[Today, for the first time since your arrival, dark and angry clouds gather in the sky above to block out the sun. It is sweltering outside, so when those clouds eventually open up in the early afternoon, showering everyone with cool rain, rolling thunder, and a few flashes of lightning. . . it probably feels good!]

[It seems to be normal rain, for the most part. Look at it from the wrong angle and some if it may seem to be tinted red, like blood. And sometimes, when a drop spatters against the ground, a spider lily suddenly blossoms in its place. The flower dies almost immediately upon springing to life, its petals dissolving into dust that is quickly washed away by the rest of the water]

[dwbi]

[. . . things have been awfully quiet since your arrival. It feels almost a bit like the calm before the storm, doesn't it? Are you still waiting for that other shoe to drop. . .?]

[What else are you up to today!]

Comments

[poetaste]

[Cadence appears next to him, wet. Even with her hair a little wild and damp, she doesn't think she looks quite as disheveled and drowned-rat as he does.]

What'd I tell you about the atmosphere? You can pen a retraction at any time.

[Ominous and foreboding it may be, but isn't there something inspirational about the atmosphere? As for what it inspires...that's another question entirely.]

[ratiocinations]

[WOW THIS IMMEDIATE SHADE RE: HIS APPEARANCE not wrong tho

He is leaning against the entranceway, watching the rain and wishing he brought down a lit cigarette from his dorm, when she approaches. He flashes her a smile as quick as the lightning that sometimes streaks across the sky.]

Dreary as the rain may be, I may concede the point. I've never seen flowers bloom and die in such a grotesque manner.

[poetaste]

[The large black bird on her shoulder, also somewhat damp, ruffles itself up and shakes off some of the rain; specks of black linger and then dissipate.]

The grotesque elicits revulsion and sympathy in equal measure. That's why it's such a spectacle. [The beauty of the horror is something most people often forget.]

This is definitely some sort of portent. The juicier question is: Who's sending it, and why do they want us to know?

[ratiocinations]

[Black bird? Now, where did that come from — what strange little flecks of black, too.]

...Hm?

[Oh, she was speaking. Drags his attention back.]

Ah, well. I wonder. I am told that these flowers in particular are symbolic, so our thoughts align where portents are concerned. It is either a warning or a threat.

[poetaste]

[Like his drowned rat status, his attention span could probably match hers.

Cadence lifts an arm, followed by a dramatic flourish as if introducing the core moral question in a play.]

Or to put it another way: Blackboard or intercom ghost?

[ratiocinations]

[He huffs a little. Her dramatic nature continues to be underlined, just as it was the first day he met her.]

Were I to guess? Disemboided voice. [Intercom.] For something beautiful to spring from blood cannot be anything but pernicious.

[BUT ALSO-] Where'd you find that friend of yours? [BIRD]

[poetaste]

Hmmm... [His theory's got merit. The bloody rain might have a hideous beauty to it, but there's nothing comforting about the mortal chill it sends down the spine. Raven taps her chin. She does wonder, though--] Seems they've got a handle on subtlety after starting off with a bang.

[The shambling horror that broke into the classroom from the shadows and slammed them all into dark oblivion favored terror over aristry.]

Oh, the bird? It's mine. Consider it my more handsome sidekick.

[ratiocinations]

Or we are dealing with more than one entity.

[It's hard to say, given there haven't been enough incidents for there to be a modus operandi just yet, much less more than one, but. It's as good a guess as any.

Still! The bird!]

It's yours? As in, a companion from home?

[poetaste]

Something like that. [Each time the ink reforms the words, is what is written changed, or does it stay the same? That's the true question.]

When words take flight, they can spread to the entire world. The bird goes where I can't.

... [After a dramatic pause, her shoulders even out. Not quite a drop, but a signal that there's some level of serious and critical thinking in her somewhat grandiose and delusional mind.] It's not looking great so far.

[ratiocinations]

[Well, that tells him very little.

Though if he approaches these statements from a different, much more liberal and bardic angle, maybe he can glean something from that statement.

OR MAYBE HIS WRITER SENSES ARE JUST TINGLING--]

Are you a writer, madam?

[poetaste]

[Is she ever! The bird preens, pleased to be recognized. Just the bird, of course.]

And a journalist, a truth seeker, a social media expert, the voice of the West District Drifter Camp...and most importantly, a teacher, though it's hard to rebuild a classroom that's been hollowed out.

[There are enough kids here, too, that she has to worry about their education in this dilapidated school...though proper classes are the furthest thing from anyone's mind until they're more stable.]

[ratiocinations]

[Still unclear what the deal is with the bird, beyond some kind of extension of her… craft? A notion he would have found two hundred percent more ridiculous just a few weeks ago.]

You’ve a flair for verbal filigree that most writers seem to possess. [He’s calling her dramatic. Pot, kettle.] It is good to see that the trait is a universal one. Though when it comes to teaching, I imagine you’ve never come across a school quite like here.

[poetaste]

Haha! So you noticed! [It's a description that seems flattering for Cadence rather than insulting. She cocks her knee up, leaning against the wall.] Some say my work is grandiose, but if it fails to leave any lasting impression behind, have you ever spoken at all?

[If a writer's words don't survive them...then it was no different at all from writing on the surface of the water.]

The place has walls, facilities, and supplies... Not too shabby, if you discount the ghouls.

[What...kind of school wouldn't have those things?]

[ratiocinations]

[INDEED? He could comment a bit more on a writer's need to leave impressions behind—rather than doing much else, really—but! He will spare this secondhand shade for his loyal chronicler! And instead focus on the oddity of what she's just told him!]

...Do not most schools have walls, facilities, and supplies?

[poetaste]

Not if you're building them from the ground up.

[Burned out buildings, outdated and inadequate textbooks... Sometimes things have to be built from nothing.]

Good luck getting them all to sit still... Someone could say they're cursed to move around all the time, and someone would probably buy it.

[She looks thoughtful, like maybe she's actually considering the veracity of this as a working excuse. Hm.]

[ratiocinations]

[girl what]

...

Getting what to sit still, precisely? [THE BUILDING?]

[poetaste]

... The kids?

[She's the one looking at him sideways now, like he's the nutjob. Wasn't what she said clear? Some students have pressing matters making them fidget and miss class, like rebellion and vengeance. In this case, they're more likely to be wandering in the woods or exploring a spooky school, probably.]

[ratiocinations]

[The kids. This woman... following her line of thinking is a bit like a game of hopscotch, in which one must skip a logical step or two to reach her point, he thinks.

He smiles, thinly.]

Yes, of course. How silly of me.

[poetaste]

[Maybe she gets the wrong idea about his irritation, or perhaps the spirit of pique leaves her as quickly as it flies from any artist.

Either way, she becomes graver, with a bit of firmness or finality to her body language and behavior.]

For some kids, they can only dream about four walls and a chalkboard. They've got bigger things to worry about than showing up to class. It's the hardest thing about getting them to stay put.

[Though the problems facing the Homeless and other wayward kids in places like Syndicate aren't anything like the ones haunting this school, she'd wager that both have their share of ghosts.]

[ratiocinations]

[The more context he receives, the less he is vaguely put-off by the conversational leaps, as this sounds rather-

Well, interesting is not a kind word for it.]

Do you mean the poor and infirm? The ones without homes, or the ones put to work at an early age?

[A Victorian man, maybe, can understand this quite a bit!]

[poetaste]

[Indeed, it isn't "interesting," but it does apparently hold her interest or at least her attention.

He speaks like an Eastsider, so she'd dismissed it at first, but those who can get out and get to Eastside sometimes come back. Sometimes they're like her.]

All of the above! And more. That makes up the kids in Syndicate--ones who lost their parents or never had 'em or have ones who are just doing their best. Books don't even have the truth about their own history, but they get told they should be ashamed of it.

[ratiocinations]

[Indeed. Intriguing, then.]

I know nothing of this "Syndicate" to which you refer, but you describe, in grand swaths, the lives of many young children in the poorer parts of London. So, then, you are saying that when you do teach, you direct your attention to these children in particular?

[A heart of sentiment, then, if true.]

[poetaste]

I'm building up the only school of its kind in the West District. If you build it, you know, they'll come.

[But you left, dumb bird, and a bunch of those kids scattered, and now they want to be heroes. She can almost hear the sullen, wounded voice of her most wayward student reminding her.]

I wonder how they'd feel about sitting still in a haunted school. They'd probably laugh at us hiding from this harmless old rain.

[ratiocinations]

[FIELD OF DREAMS REFERENCE THAT FLIES OVER MY CHARACTER'S HEAD]

It is not a habit of mine, you know. Sitting still. Or rather, I should say... it is not a preference.

[And yet here he is, reflecting on the rain with a woman who keeps an inky bird as a companion.]

That said, I believe you have made a strange leap of logic in your explanations, madam.

[poetaste]

Never said I blamed them.

[She also gives off the energy of someone who's not particularly good at standing still. It's easy to imagine her covering the full length of the clasroom with her lectures.

A writing desk is just about the only thing that can keep Raven down.]

Are you calling out my methods? Well, what's the leap?