Slow Motion Sparks [Blake]

[Corentin Quimper]

Slow Motion Sparks
Clothing:Click
Mood: Cold

Thread Status: Open
Tag: Blake!

It had been too cold inside her dorm room to stand it. For some reason, her roommate had lowered the temperature to something completely unbearable, leaving a Corentin cranky after pulling an all-nighter. Her new Dell mini-laptop in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other, she had flashed Carissa a smile and waved at her with the hand holding the cup, almost sloshing coffee everywhere. But Corentin recovered and didn’t spill. Corentin always recovered. Always.

Corey, on the outside, was all smiles and blonde hair, pretty hazel eyes and a particularly colorful way of dressing. The girl on the inside however was very much different. She cared about little but treasured her electronics, material things often making her much happier than people could. The tenth year’s mind simply worked differently than other people’s did, but, to get along in society she simply imitated what she had seen other girls her age do. Everything a young southern girl should have done, Corentin did. She had a circle of giggling friends at lunch back home that she had replaced with another giggling circle here at Somnium just as easily. Focused on being “in touch” but not the center of attention, Corentin often used people as test subjects just to see how they would react. Life was so much more interesting when approached on a biological level. Animals, plants, even computers were easy to predict, easy to diagnose. Humans? No, humans were easily fallible by the simplest thing, but, they were interesting due to their weaknesses. Corentin thanked her lucky stars that she didn’t have any emotional weaknesses, dealing with physical weaknesses was more than enough.

Bobbing out of the dormitories gracefully, with her former dancer’s lithe frame, it was obvious that Corentin was not necessarily the most curvy fourteen year old one could have found. Flat in, well, most places that a woman should be soft and rounded, she could only be considered mildly cute as compared to having va-va-voom curves. It didn’t matter to her greatly though, she enjoyed being slim and trim - there were more clothes in her sizes than in larger sizes. Corentin did certainly enjoy buying clothing and dressing herself in it, even though she was just a weak mammal. Today, because she had been cold in her dorm room she had randomly layered several pieces of clothing together and couldn’t be sure if they all matched. As she settled down in the garden, setting her laptop and coffee on top of the concrete bench in order to use it as a desk, she straightened her clothing.

With her hands finally free, she adjusted the woven hat she wore over her shoulder length hair - it had grown out considerably while she had been attending Somnium - she squeezed the pompom on the top of it. Much like the jacket she was wearing, the hat was pink and kelly-green striped. Her miniskirt showed off, well, nothing. Just thin legs with slightly knobby knees and the t-shirt under her half zipped jacket showed off just as much of what she didn’t necessarily have. Corentin was comfortable with her thin frame though because honestly, she had no concept of what it felt like to be embarrassed or have low self-esteem. Those conditions were just things she had never been submitted to. Sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of her makeshift desk, the little blonde tapped her toes inside her teal knit-looking boots and booted up her computer, getting ready to tweak a bit of code for her blog. Wide-eyed as the color of the ten inch screen reflected on her face, Corentin simply looked out of place and inorganic in the lovely garden, not that she would have noticed. Currently occupied with her computer, the girl might have not noticed anything at all that was going on around her.

[Blake Andrews]

The flick of the lighter, sparking in the cool, dark air, brought an instant sort of relief all of its own. The flames erupting from the plastic casing met the withering paper of the cigarette, and began to turn brown, then quickly to black. Blake inhaled the smoke in to his lungs expectantly, held it there, then slowly blew it out in to the evening sky. He could feel the poison ease the tension in his muscles, the anxiety playing across his nervous system. Withdrawal sucks... he thought to himself.

Blake walked alone along the stone path, wandering aimlessly. The incredible new feeling that accompanied this campus had finally hit him. Without Yuna around, without someone throwing soup on someone else, without incredibly attractive staff members, Blake was finally allowed to be by himself and... well, and honestly feel. The cigarette distracted him from crying, but just barely.

He reflected on his life back home, hugging his jacket close to him. His cigarette drew close to the light brown filter, and he let it slowly fall to the ground, flipping end over end, and hitting the pavement, rolling slightly. Blake interrupted its roll with a press of his boots, immediately popping the tab on his Relentless. When Blake had asked for his brand of choice, a Monster, the man had looked confused. When he asked for an energy drink, however, the helpful man lit up with enthusiasm, saying that Relentless would be the best choice for him.

Years of smoking underage left him with the habit of following up the nicotine with an energy drink to mask the smell of the smoke. It seemed to work for his father well enough.

Off in the distance, a light caught his eye... He knew the flickering instantly. Approaching the girl sitting at the computer, he made sure to make an effort so that his footsteps made noise. The last thing anyone wanted was to be frightened at night. "Hello?" Blake asked, quietly.

[Corentin Quimper]

“If you’re not a CIA agent, I don’t want to talk.” Corentin was set on digging up dirt that proved the Dream World was a government conspiracy in which the academy was attempting to control and change their dreams and sleeping habits. She didn’t have much to go on, of course, other than the random blogs and webpages she had found from other people like herself and the wisdom of her nightly radio show she listened to called Coast-to-Coast. With her small, pink nailed fingers trickling across the laptop keys she didn’t turn around for a long moment even after she had heard the voice of someone else. For a while, she rendered it as a figment of her imagination until she realized it couldn’t have appeared out of nowhere. Sighing gently, not enough to actually be caught on it, she turned from the computer screen and faced what she determined to be a boy who, from his height, was a little older than her.


What would a normal girl do? It was a question she found herself asking herself quiet often. Once she reached her solution she stood from where she sat gracefully, pushing herself off the ground with one hand as the rest of her body fell into place. Once she had risen to her full, short height she eyed him a bit suspiciously then smiled. “Hello,” she returned to him and drifted back to the bench where her computer was housed, then sat next to it primly. “Well, you don’t look like a CIA agent, but I suppose we can talk anyway? I’m just joking…” Her words trailed off and she kept her small smile in tact. Of course, her previous statement was something far too strange to be mentioned by a normal girl and Corentin didn’t want to let anyone in on exactly what she was doing. She needed to appear perfectly normal, but only until she had found out exactly what was going on at Somnium Academy.

[Blake Andrews]

The first thing that this girl made Blake feel was that she was just a little strange. For someone like Blake to be making a note like that was no small feat, either. This girl was stunningly beautiful, like most of the people he had met here on campus. He didn't know if it was the continent of Europe in general, or if it was specific to Somnium Academy, or maybe it was that Blake had spent the majority of his life on military bases, but he had become attracted to alot of the girls at Somnium.

His hackles around this new setting were beginning to lower, and he was beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, he could begin to trust some of the people here. Everyone he met seemed to be easy going, to some degree or another. From the terminally distant librarian to the free spirited tree climber, this girl seemed to be the first tense person he had met since he arrived.

The cold can sweating water on to his hands enticed him in to taking another sip, giving him an excuse to pause for an answer. "Well." He said, jokingly matter-of-fact, "Maybe I AM a CIA agent!" He was grinning broadly. "Nah. The name's Blake. What are you up this late for?"

[Corentin Quimper]

Corentin studied the boy who had joined her in the dark for a long moment, her dark hazel eyes suspicious. She highly doubted that a CIA agent would be honest enough to confess that he was, in fact, a CIA agent. The fact that the boy wasn’t necessarily muscular and didn’t look as if he could easily join a SWAT team also began to convince her that he wasn’t. What if, just what if, the CIA HAD hired him only because his actions and appearance wouldn’t tip off the normal civilian? Clever play, U.S. of A, clever.

“It’s nice to meet you Blake,” Corentin murmured softly, her accent just a bit exposed as she spoke. “My name is Corentin Quimper.” Late? She was up late? It must have been the coffee and her distinct distain for the dream world that had her convinced that sleep was for the weak lately. She reached for the mug with the slightly cold hazelnut coffee in it and sipped it, reminded of it by his statement. She glanced toward the laptop and assessed the time on it, realizing it was way past any time she could make up an excuse for. She couldn’t say “I got carried away,” or “Oh, I didn’t realize the time.” It was dark, dark and cold, and Corentin was obviously in no place that would make her oblivious to space and time. So, rather than saying anything at all, she smiled slowly and pushed back a few loose curls from her face. Perhaps it would make her appear mysterious and smooth?

“It is pretty late, I suppose. I guess you could just say I’m a night owl.” Corentin stood from the cold cement bench, realizing that it was chilling her more than she cared to speak of. At this time of year back home it still would have been warm enough to wear what she was wearing without being cold. Here, the temperature seemed to cool off substantially at night. “What about you? Shouldn’t you be getting your beauty sleep?” Her tone was more playful than accusatory when she spoke. Lightly, noticing that her blog code was up on her laptop screen, she flipped it closed and the blue light faded, leaving them both standing beneath the street lamps positioned around the garden benches. Corentin would have hated to be revealed as Saraphim when she hadn’t even built up her reputation very far at Somnium Academy. She had already had several hits from Somnium’s IP range so she suspected everyone as the one who could have been there. Corey was a girl of many secrets, some more haunting than others. Not that she knew. Not that she would have cared had she known.

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[Blake Andrews]

In Corentin's eyes, Blake couldn't help but notice a suspicion that was all too familiar. He supposed that in a girl like her, suspicion would be all too natural. Or... is she doing something wrong? She closed that computer awfully fast... He decided to play it safe for now, and try to figure out just what her intentions were. Taking a swig of his Relentless, he said "Yeah... I'm sure you know about what's going on around the school... I had my first... dream this afternoon. Gave me a case of forced insomnia."

Talking about his rather traumatic experience left Blake feeling a little vulnerable, but the cold, dark evening opened Blake up more than he could ever during the day. Her almost flirtatious tone didn't have the same hackle raising effect it would have during the day, and Blake found himself much more relaxed. "Have you slept yet? I mean, you know... dreamt? It's... It's something else." He looked down, at the grass, and wondered if it was real, if the rough feel of his shoes beneath his feet was really indicative of leather and rubber sole. Another world out there had Blake wondering if anything anywhere was real.

[Corentin Quimper]

Corentin wasn’t proud of her dream form. For some reason, the creepy little doll she became made her feel ashamed and fearful at the same time. The moment the boy mentioned sleeping, she gazed at him a little more sharply but then quickly forced herself to relax. This was a topic that came up often at Somnium Academy, of course. The school seemed to be obsessed with the Dream World but that was fine with Corentin because she had her own bizarre attachment to it.

“Have I dreamt? Absolutely! I love the Dream World. What caused your… insomnia?” Corey lied through her teeth and was proud because she was convinced that she was very convincing. The small girl stood from where she had settled herself and swayed a little closer to where Blake stood, incredibly nonchalantly. In all reality, she was eager to hear his story for her recording purposes and got closer so that she would hear each word clearly. Placing her hands on her hips, the girl rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet slowly, the cotton skirt she wore brushing back and forth against her legs.

[Blake Andrews]

Corentin's more than attractive movements were lost on Blake as he suddenly recalled everything about that dream. The monsters, Reia... Her horrifically twisted form reaching out to strangle him, he tried to scream, to cry, to do something... But he couldn't do anything. He just watched as she came at him, his parchment spellcards hanging uselessly at his side... He grasped feebly at the katars hanging from his arms to no avail...

Blake snapped back in to the present all at once, looking at the girl before him, quickly masking the terror that showed only in his eyes. "It, uh, it was just aspects of my past made a little too real, you know? It wasn't very... nice." He took another long pull off of his energy drink, his clenching hand making a small, even dent near the top.His skin was an odd pale, but it didn't show under his jacket. "How do they make this happen? WHO makes it happen?"

He seemed scared. He didn't like being afraid.

[Corentin Quimper]

Corentin felt something weird ping inside her soul as she watched him talk, perhaps compassion. Compassion? Pity? The girl wasn’t sure if she had ever felt that before and the sensation disturbed her and intrigued her at the same time. She did something out of character as she looked into his eyes, analyzing him, realizing that what he had seen in the Dream World had honestly terrified him. Usually, Corey was the type of girl who pulled what she could out of an interaction and used it merely as scientific data – a distinctly inhumane way of viewing the world. Now, Blake had caused a twinge in what the girl assumed was the center of the human’s emotional heart. Curious. Very curious.

Her legs moved without her control, the feminine instinct to comfort and nurture popping out of her though she had been convinced she had none of that estrogen powered nonsense. With one small hand, she did something she wasn’t sure she had done toward a male before. Often, she kept her distance but now, calmly, slowly, she patted his shoulder. As soon as she had done so, she dropped her hand to her side as if she hadn’t done anything at all. Corentin’s attempt at comforting the boy must have seemed awkward to him, but to her it seemed as if it was the only thing she could do to make that scared rabbit look disappear from his eyes.

The girl pulled up the hood of her jacket over the knit hat on her head, revealing that the cotton jacket had little cat ears on it. His questions were her questions that she had been mulling over in her own head, so naturally when he asked them, she shrugged before balancing on a low retaining wall that held some flowers, holding her arms out to steady herself. “I’ve been trying to figure out who sends the dreams and why – and why no one has come to investigate us yet.” Corentin spoke quickly and then smiled a bit ditzily. People tended not to see you as a threat if they thought you were a ditzy blonde little girl. They tended not to even suspect Corentin was trying to get to the center of things, then again, that was probably because she had found out nothing about what made Somnium tick. The only one who suspected anything was that damn network administrator, Logan Fairfax. She seemed to be the only formidable opponent.

“But… What happens in dreams can’t honestly hurt us, can it?” The impish girl’s voice wavered even as she spoke the confident words, not quite knowing the answer herself.

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[Blake Andrews]

Blake almost flinched at her touch, but suppressed his natural reaction. Looking in to her eyes, Blake saw something in them that mirrored his anxiety. As she voiced the question in soft, lilting tones, that he had wondered so often in his short time since that dream, Blake felt the reality of this whole situation penetrate the overwhelming fatigue that had been haunting him. He took a long pull on the energy drink, feeling the can empty. Before he could respond, he took the brown can in both hands, crushing it deftly between his hands, and toyed with it between his fingers.

"You know," he said, speaking slowly, letting a decent pause hang softly in the air, "I really don't know. I've never experienced anything like this before." He pulled his jacket tighter around him, looking up at the inky black, punctuated with white stacatto stars. "Hell, I never even thought this kind of thing was possible a week ago." He looked at her appraisingly. "So what's so appealing about the dream world to you?"