The Blood Witch

[Yugikun]

((Jasmine King, continued from Caravan))

Jasmine plonked herself onto the middle of one of the park benches, gently lowering her bag onto the ground as she allowed her muscles to relax a bit. She had walked a long way from her English class, and as much as she didn't like to admit it she was actually slightly exhausted from it. Of course, she could have taken the walk more slowly, but she had a streak to maintain, and if she walked slowly she risked it getting broken. She lifted up her hands and stroked them through her hair as she looked around, seeing if any of her friends were coming. She was the first one to get here, of course. She had consistently been the first to get here for around a week now and again, she wasn't going to break that streak any time soon. She took her hands out of her hair as she reached down into her bag, intent on taking out her lunch box. She wondered what her mom made for her today; she didn't check when she put it in her bag and her mom told her that it was something special and extra tasty.

She grabbed it and pushed herself back up, having to put a hand in front of her face as the Kingman sun tried blaring its light into her eyes. It was fairly hot today. Jasmine didn't really tend to notice the temperature but she had to admit that she was getting a little bit beaten under the sun. She wasn't really quite sure what to do about it, to be honest. She knew that she could move somewhere else where there was actual shade but she didn't really want to do that when there was nobody else here. She'd wait, probably, until a couple other people got here before she and they moved to a shady spot. Then she ensured that she wouldn't be the only person in the shady spot that she chose, unless the others also decided to go to a shady spot and somehow managed to go to the same spot Jasmine was at. Good plan? Good plan.

She looked around, across the Grounds, to see if anyone was coming. No luck. The main crowds were starting to come to the grounds now and it was difficult to make out anyone within it. Oh well, if any of her friends were in that crowd they knew where to go. They had sat here for most of the school year now so they probably had a good idea on where they were supposed to sit. It was her idea, of course. Having a place to sit near the... back? The back of the grounds? It was close to the fence and she could see the rest of the grounds from here but was back the right word? Whatever. She was mostly thinking to herself so she didn't have anyone who could correct her here. Basically, she elected that her group sat here because from where they sat they could see the rest of the grounds from here. She said to everyone that it carried a good view, but to be honest she was more into seeing the rest of the grounds from here because she could see everything that was happening on the ground. She hadn't caught anything yet, but she imagined that she'd be able to witness something going on soon, if she waited for a bit.

For now, though, she started opening her lunchbox, slightly interested in what her mom's surprise was going to be.

[General Goose]

((Kizi continued from Not Quite the Zeitgeist.))

Kizi was always one of the first out of the building, unless she had to stay behind to discuss some schoolwork, or one of her friends she was mid-conversation with was taking slightly longer, or she belatedly realised she had messed up her organisational priorities and had left one of her textbooks out for too long, or was in a classroom a fair walk away from the exit to the grounds...

In hindsight, that was quite an unverifiable generalisation. Extenuating factors aside, she was usually out of the building before a majority of her peers.

There. That was a far more valid statement.

She broke away from the crowd first opportunity she got, walking off in a slightly different direction from the bulk of the student body, taking a slightly eccentric angle across the grounds. She was never bothered with the heat of the sun. She was far more adept with the heat than the cold, but at least when it was too cold you could put more layers on. No similarly easy solution with the heat. Luckily it was nowhere near that level.

She spotted Jasmine, and waved, and began making her way over. Was that Jasmine? She couldn't tell at this distance, and her wave stopped mid-swing as she hesitated. She took another step forward. Yep. Definitely Jasmine.

[Yugikun]

Well, Jasmine supposed that leftovers counted as special, even if it were totally different to what she was expecting.

She stared at the mixed assortment of meats in her lunchbox and frowned, slightly. She was kinda hoping for an actual surprise today. Not that she didn't appreciate the mixed meats, but the way her mom worded it she was expecting something like, totally new. Not the stuff they had last night but couldn't finish. Or really, the stuff they tried eating but couldn't finish because Julian (of course it was him who messed up) decided to cook an inordinate amount of food that nobody in the family could eat. Really, Jasmine figured that she could at least do a better job at making food than Julian could. Even though she never learned how to cook she figured that sticking to a recipe and not fucking putting all of the meats they had into the pot. Really, it was probably as simple as that.

She opened up the plastic that wrapped around the meats and looked up and around for a second to see if anyone had come yet. Nobody had come to the table yet but- wait, hang on a moment, was somebody on the grounds waving at her? She squinted her eyes, trying to focus to see who it was. Black ponytail, surprised looking eyes... hey it was Kizi!

Kizi was a friend of Jasmine's, and one of the people she allowed to sit with her at lunchtimes. She was nice - was a member of Amnesty, which while it was something Jasmine didn't do herself she could totally respect those who did - and incredibly smart, getting nearly perfect grades in maths and in languages, a subject that in comparison Jasmine struggled at. Normally Jasmine tried to avoid interacting with people who had better grades than her but in Kizi's case she had enough notable pratfalls that lowered her. Notably, her gullibility, which at times reached ridiculous levels and which Jasmine had to admit she had a little fun with sometimes. Nothing too major, and it seemed that Kizi took it in good humour, so it made her a little manageable. Allowed Jasmine to interact with someone she genuinely liked and respected without feeling threatened at all, which was great. She stood up from her seat on the park bench.

"Hey Kizi!" She shouted, sending a big wave her way.

[General Goose]

Yep.

Definitely definitely Jasmine. That split second before Jasmine had processed her own presence was enough for the doubts to set back in again. That was a relief. She broke into a wide smile, as she usually did, when she broke into a purposeful walk towards one of her friends. It was always good to see someone happy to see her. Not that that was a rare occurrence (although, she hastened to add to her mental train of thought, for the sake of modesty, it wasn't ubiquitous), but it was still nice. One of those everyday pleasures.

She had accidentally waved at the wrong person before. Enough times that she had rehearsed a list of excuses, ready-made ones that she had trialed on her siblings, so she could use them if the situation inevitably arose. Almost regrettably, she had seemingly become better at avoiding such awkward cases of mistaken friendships since she had placed these preparations in place. She'd probably forget them by the time such a scenario came about.

Ah well. She had tried. That was the main thing.

"Hey Jasmine!" Her walk became slightly faster, and soon she was close enough to begin more detailed conversation. "How're you?"

[Yugikun]

Okay, so the person Jasmine waved to thinking it was Kizi was actually Kizi. That was good. It would have been a problem if she had just waved to a stranger and called them a name that they weren't. It hadn't happened to her (at least not yet, it wasn't a mistake she really wanted to make but she knew that she was likely to make it at some point; she remembered something about how every student was likely to call a teacher mom at one point, mostly due to the similarities that the two roles shared) but she had seen Kizi do it enough times for her to consider options for if she did it herself. Again, she didn't want to make that mistake and she wasn't going to, but if was probably a good idea if she had a plan in case of that.

Regardless, Kizi said hi to her and the autopilot within Jasmine started to reply to her.

"Hey!" She said again. Yeah, that was something she did. Something she noticed but didn't think anyone else did, not really bad enough to warrant fixing. "I'm doing good. Just came back from a movie viewing in English so I haven't done a lot of work today." Not that she was complaining, of course. She liked doing schoolwork and it helped to fill the empty gaping hole that was her life but it wasn't something she wanted to do all the time; she had a life and friends and other hobbies too, she certainly didn't want to throw them all away for her studies.

"You?"

[General Goose]

"Oooh, nice, was it a good movie?" Kizi liked the variety introduced by movie viewings, despite their relative unorthodoxy. Culture was good. Learning from a wide range of sources was good. Kizi was somewhat unique in that she did try looking at the films in relation to the contents of the lessons, a habit she had opted to not voluntarily disclose. Her note-taking during films probably invoked enough suspicion, anyway.

Kizi shrugged.

"Same old, same old. Just had maths, which was pretty fun. Thinking of killing some time with some studying for Spanish." She shrugged, knowing Jasmine would likely not wish to join her. "But yeah, tell me more about the movie!"

[Yugikun]

"It was okay," she replied. "I'll need to watch it at home at some point, though. There were people talking on the table next to me all the way through it and I couldn't really hear or focus on it."

Which sucked, by the way. Seriously, why did people do that when there was a movie right in front of them? She could understand people talking if it was during a presentation or something that was otherwise a normal lesson but it was a movie, which rarely ever happened and was generally a reward from the teacher to the class. She could have dealt with it if it was another lesson instead of a movie (she really didn't mind listening to the teacher or writing notes that much) but she had been so excited to watch the movie considering everyone in her family had asked if she had seen it and it just made it worse that she could barely hear it. And seriously, considering what she was hearing instead she really didn't know why they could have just saved it for the lunch period. So annoying. Hopefully she had enough in her piggy bank to rent it from somewhere.

"I also don't think studying for Spanish would really be that fun," she said, smiling. She wanted it to be more of a scowl than anything but she didn't really think that Kizi would appreciate that. It was a topic they both knew. Jasmine as much as she wanted to like it hated Spanish because of how annoying the practical sessions were. She was sure that if she spoke about it any further she'd end up showing Kizi that scowl, so she decided that going back to a previous topic was the best idea.

"But yeah, the movie was good from what I could get of it, at the very least."

[Yugikun]

And then they both ate their lunch before going to the library. Kizi to study for Spanish, Jasmine to study for Maths.

It was pretty fun.

((Jasmine King, continued elsewhere))