A Slice of Reality PV Kaegen Deathmote Closed

Nothing heralded the young ravenclaw's approach. No sound or sudden movements to let anyone know he was approaching. There wasn't very much wind, maybe a slight breeze at the most but it was enough to lift the grey scarf and whip it about behind him. His robe was a few sizes too big, but hemmed up at the bottom with a slit in either side to give the wearer more freedom of movement. He didn't really have much of an expression, his face a silent mask. But the fluidity did not reach his eyes. They darted around, looking at anything and everything they possibly could. The blade of grass, the lake, the girl in front of him.
She was talking to the squid, looking at the beast as it breached the water and then retreated back into the depths. He could hear her asking it if it was her only friend in hogwarts. It probably was, in all honesty very few of the students here had any real friends. On the other hand for all he knew everyone had friends, and he just couldn't tell. He was not an authority on the subject by any stretch of the word, but shouldn't it be obvious?
He hadn't meant to go towards the girl, his plans had involved leaving her alone and moving on but there she was, a few feet away from him. He must have forgotten to change course as he thought about her and friends and squid. He didn't make a move to leave, if he was here he might as well see if she had anything interesting to say. He took a few more steps, stopping directly behind her he leaned forward and down, placing his upside down face a few inches from her right side up face.
"What are you doing?"
It was about the best question he could come up with at the time. Besides, anyone with a story to tell would probably leap at the chance. The question was open ended enough to leave plenty to interpretation.

As a face suddenly loomed in front of her she jumped rather violently, her sudden high-pitched scream drowning out the boy's words. Quinn had neither expected nor heard his approach and it felt as if her heart would jump out of her chest at any moment.  As a result, she found herself tumbling to the side a bit, propping herself up on her elbow and she looked up at the boy who had caused her fright.

"You terrified me!" She murmured breathily, placing her left hand on her chest and breathing deeply.  Where had he come from? What was he doing here? She wasn't really sure how to process this situation.

"Where did you come from?" Her green eyes were wide and stared up at him with shock and surprise. The redhead covered her blush with her sleeve to try and hide her embarrassment, ignoring the wet feeling that seeped into the cloth on her arm from the wet ground.

The girl's scream startled the boy, he wasn't entirely sure what to make of it. Why on earth had she just screamed, was there something behind him that startled her? As she startled back and to the side, she told someone that he had terrified her. So there was someone else? Someone else that he hadn't noticed and was scary enough to terrify this girl. That was impressive, impressive enough that it made Kaegen balk at the prospect of facing that threat. How had the girl seen it first anyway? As she asked whatever it was where it came from, Kaegen didn't say a word, but swiftly moved behind her. He stared off in the direction she had been looking in, which was right behind him. He couldn't see anything, and was getting more and more worried by the second, his eyes speeding up. Not very many things could fool his eyes but everything that could held a special place for him in his mind, right next to the prospect of imminent death. The grass wasn't indented, whatever it was wasn't invisible unless it could fly. He couldn't smell anything obvious, he hadn't felt especially cold, it probably wasn't a ghost. Reaching into his robe, he touched the handle of one of his knives.
It made him feel a little bit safer, but not by much.

She watched as he looked past himself to some unknown and unseen beyond. Incredulously, he was looking as if she hadn't screamed at his sudden appearance but something else entirely and she did not even try to stop her mouth from gaping wide open. 

After her a few moments she managed to close her gaping maw and pull herself up from the ground. Brushing dirt and gravel off of her black robes, the girl carefully inspected her soaking wet sleeve. She would have to change into a spare robe and wash that one tonight. In the pause, as he continued to stare at something beyond her, she glanced at him and took the sight of him in carefully. He was a bit taller than her with long black hair and piercing yellow eyes. Strange. Beyond that, he looked like a typical student except for the welll-worn peculiar looking grey scarf around his neck.

"What are you looking at?" The Ravenclaw asked nervously, chewing on her fingers and glancing between him and the shore farther up. Was there something there that she couldn't see? Why had he appeared so suddenly and now seemed to pretend that she did not exist? He was strange for certain and Quinn didn't quite know how to process that fact. 

There was nothing, nothing there. Or at least nothing that he could see. Nothing that he could perceive. Nothing that he could think of would be that invisible. The girl slowly got up and brushed off her clothes. She glanced down at her sleeve for some reason and then it hit him. Maybe it was tiny, if it was tiny he could have gone past him and onto her sleeve. He ran through a few tiny magical creatures that could possibly fit the bill, but all the ones that came to mind were just camouflaged or had some way to hide. It was inconceivable that this girl could see something that he couldn't. What creatures had any traits similar to that? Perhaps the thestral, but he had seen plenty of death. Was it like the thestral, but the opposite? Maybe only those that didn't see death could see whatever creature it was. It was a possibility anyway. She asked him what he was looking at. His eyes darted to her in confusion. It had been her that had been startled in the first place. Her that had seen the terrifying thing. Maybe she was asking as a test, to see if he saw it. To see if he was worthy of whatever secrets this girl held.
"Have you seen death?"

Taken aback by the boy's question, she took a long time to answer. Death? Was he talking about Death as in some sort of entity? Or was he referring to the act of death? Considering it, she highly doubted there truly was an entity of Death, she favoured the latter as the answer to her own unspoken question.

"Death? Why do you ask?" She felt slightly uncomfortable answering that questions.

Yes, she had seen death. She remembered as a child as her mother slowly began to lose her mobility, spending more and more time visiting muggle hospitals at first and then St. Mungo's in the hope they could help her ailment more than the muggles could.

She remembered hiding at the top of the stairs and listening to her parents' hushed conversations late in the night when she was supposed to be tucked carefully into bed. Remembered the tears they had shared and the hushed concerns of Andromeda's looming death. She remembered the days leading up and how she would ask for Quinn to sing softly to her, to read to her, to tell her stories and share pictures with her. It was a sad period but one filled with memories and quality shared time. 

Seeing death was the easy part, it was accepting and coming to terms with the fact that her mother, once a beautiful and lively person, was in this world no longer.

What did he mean? This was either another test to see if he just guessed right or she had no idea what was going on. He replayed the events in his head, trying to find a clue that would help him come up with the right answer when something clicked. There hadn't been anything behind him, she had been looking at him. She had been scared of him. She had acted clueless to his question because there wasn't any reason for him to ask that question. Either that or someone had just cast a spell on him to make him think those things, but that didn't seem all that likely. His eyes kept darting around, just in case it had been a monster and he just hadn't realized it. Honestly he wasn't sure exactly what to think at the moment, so went with the most straight forward route possible.
"Did you see a horrible creature or was it just me. I meant death as in someone irrevocably ceasing to exist."
On closer inspection, he could see that her sleeve had been wet. Probably form the grass that was wet. Wet clothes sucked. A lot. He was beginning to wonder why she had allowed her sleeve to get wet and suffer the cold when he remembered that he might die at any moment. Slain by a invisible monster that may or may not exist. The thought cleared his mind almost instantly.

"You simply startled me. You didn't exactly make any noise or... announce your presence in any way." Her tone was almost stern which seemed a bit unlike her but after a moment she softened immediately, allowing both arms to rest at her sides after checking that most of the dirt and gravel was off of her robes. She only had a few sets and very little money after all.

"Anyways, what's your name? I'm Quinn." She said quietly. The redhead managed to muster up some form of courage, perhaps the startle had jolted something within her and prompted her to ask first. Whatever it was, it was unusual and she would take it as it was for now.

"I'm a Ravenclaw, like yourself," Quinn pointed towards the blue and silver accents adorning they boy's robes, similar to hers. She quite liked the way the colours complimented her robes in their own way. "I'm also a first year." She admitted although the young girl had realized very quickly everyone knew what year she was based on her childish features. Even the other first years seemed to look older than her a lot of the time and quite frankly it wasn't fair. 

He didn't announce his presence in any way? What was that supposed to mean, was he supposed to announce himself? Back in the fens he had always been quiet, but never quiet enough for grandfather, who always chastened him to be more silent, more stealthy, less obvious, more natural and smooth. But many things his grandfather taught him didn't apply here, he had learned that the hard way and was still learning the same lesson again and again. People here didn't take kindly to him in general. In all his time at hogwarts he had made a total of no true friends. He had made one that he thought was close, but in the end the red headed gryffindor had tricked him out of pity. He had sworn to protect her anyway, because it seemed the right thing to do but it was still a bit pathetic. That was as far as his list of friends went. One girl who kept him around out of nothing but pity, now protected by him. Should anything happen to her, he would be bound by word to avenge her. Not that any of that mattered now, he just thought it would be interesting to see if there was a correlation between him not making noise and his lack of friends. He wasn't really sad about it, it was just a thing that was. It existed just like the roots that try to trip you. Why bother fighting it?
"Was I supposed to announce my presence?"
The next thing the girl asked for was something he knew how to provide. Names were important, as were the titles that came with it. But for the strangest reason he had yet to find anyone else with similar titles besides a girl named tower. Looking at the girl for a brief instant before his eyes roamed off to find something else, he introduced himself in the same whispery faraway voice, the one that seemed to catch on the wind and carry out far, even though you could hardly hear it up close.
"Kaegen Deathmote, fens-born scarf-wielder."
She pointed out their shared house, but he didn't really care. The only thing he liked about his house was the fact that it had nice beds. Houses didn't matter to the boy, not even a little bit. He didn't care about house cups or what attributes he had or who the other people in his house were. But everyone else seemed to care, so why bother saying he didn't?
"Interesting."
His voice sounded the same as it did before, not betraying very much. He didn't answer her last statement, not knowing any way to properly respond to it and seeing no need to anyway. He would just ask a question instead and maybe even learn something interesting.
"Why are you out here?"