|| EVERYTHING you're not supposed to be ♥

[``bella m. ROSE ♥]

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CLOSED - Charlton

After dinner, Bella found her way out of the great marble entrance, and looked curiously at the scene before her. The whole valley of grounds which enclosed the academy from the glittering chateau to the Boutiques, still gave off a breath of golden haze which hovered idly above the fine sweep of lawns and lakes and gardens. Here and there clusters of elms made delicate groves of shade, contrasting strangely with the tough masses of pine forest that held the far away hills in a grip of dark-blue green. Even as Bella looked she saw the enchanted wood's mysterious array of creatures patter around clumps about a half-mile away and disappear with awkward saunters into the black-ribbed half-light of others.

She wandered down a grassed slope, her now bare feet surrounded by a cloud of dandelions disturbed from their sleep by her stride, and set off on a walk towards the greenest of green leaves that seemed to lead in no particular direction. Since she had returned and settled back into her dorm she had been enjoying herself as much as she was able. It was her youth's delight as well as its insufficiency that she could never live in the present, but she must always be measuring up the day against her own radiantly imagined future. Bella rounded a corner and let her fingers trace the textured bark of a tall oak, where massed rose-bushes filled the evening air with heavy scent, and struck off across a patch of moss under a canopy of trees. She passed a small hut, presumably the Groundkeeper's establishment, and continued into the clear blue of the August night. The thousand yellow windows of the castle were beginning to dim in the twilight, only shadowy tombs of the late days splendour. Peering down towards her assaulted feet as she continued she could still feel the blur of fogged lights from the hut commingling with the verdant darkness. Pulling her leather jacket close about her Bella moved through the glimmering parallels; she was dazzling - alight in the dusk; it was agony for the evening around her to comprehend her in a beat. Her dark hair fell in waves of rich chocolate down her back, and over her shoulder, in heavenly dismayed glamour, warming the cool darkness with her characteristic ember.

She glanced around casually with eyes nurturing irises of the most delicate honey, hardened by flecks of burnt chestnut, as her profile intersected the dim light emanating from the hut. The exquisite regularity of her nose and upper lip, the chin; faintly decided, balanced beautifully on a long neck. In photographs she might have looked cold and unfeeling - but for the glow of her hair and cheeks, at once flushed with mischievousness, which made her the most living person to enter any room.

Her break had been cathartic, the distance sweeping old wounds away like dust and she was almost glad to be back. As the plants' tendrils crept toward her feet, the ferocity of the sunset held her, its reds and oranges burning the trees above and around her, bringing the horizon down in flames. She had crashed with the same violence just months before as the dying notes of her relationship with Charlton played out in the throws of an agonizing soprano. It was for the best, and in the transitory days she had convinced herself that it didn't phase her, that she didn't care. Even in those last moments she had rejected his excuses, along with the ache she felt in her chest as she stepped into that carriage and out of the academy.

During those months she had joined her father's campaign to become the next French Minister of Magic, immersed in the swell of faceless politicians who were always overcompensating, overconfident, overwhelming, over-everything in their natures that she found she couldn't breathe in their narcissistic smog. She had a mind of her own, a mind that constantly turned to sedition and outright revolution, guillotine and all. Eventually she accepted that their actions did not even hold an iota of real feeling, almost identical with that of her own parents, and as soon as the election was called she made her escape.

At that she turned her head away from the darkness, lowered her eyelashes and let her weight rest against an oak momentarily only to turn eventually to an unsettling sight before her.

status:

[/b] <3
notes:[/b] MUSE!
muse: Plotting-ness!

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[charlton 'raffi' glashtyn]

Summer had left him with a glowing tan and hazy slashes of red in his curly hair, and in slightly macabre contrast, they matched the copper red streaks that now smeared his skin. He stood in the clearing alone, a disconcertingly metallic scent in the air. It was silent as the grave...but then it always was after a kill. Charlton had hunted earlier than usual, avoiding his favoured midnight hours in a deliberate move to steer clear of his surly, vampiric hunting companion. Embracing his inner Wolf had meant Charlton was left with a version of himself that was perhaps a little more feral than it used to be, and Avery had been the perfect outlet for this. Emphasis on 'Had Been'. Never particularly adept at anything remotely emotional, Charlton wasn't entirely sure the Vampire would survive their next encounter after Leah’s revelation the other day. Much as he adored seeing his beloved blonde friend embracing life again, he would have preferred the catalyst to have been someone other than a soulless vampire who had no regard for anyone save himself. Scowling bad temperedly, Charlton turned to the rose bushes in which he'd hidden fresh clothing, hissing abruptly as his heavy handed grabbing caused the concealed thorns to bite deep into his flesh. Blood welled quickly to the surface as he snatched his hand back. He'd heal, but it didn't detract from the momentary pain, or the fact that his clean denim shirt now sported pinpricks of crimson. Casting around for his wand, he swore fluently, realising with a surge of annoyance that he'd left it behind in his haste to leave the hut. That meant he’d have to clear up later. He glanced grimly across at the remains of the small deer carcass, feeling his gut tighten at the sight of it. It was part and parcel of being a wolf, but it was one of the elements of himself he still found hard to adjust to. It was even harder to stomach once he'd shifted.

Well there was no point procrastinating over it, staring at the damn thing wasn’t going to move it. Charlton sighed heavily, abandoning the notion of changing into clean clothes. Lifting the remains of the deer up by its forelegs, he scanned around for a suitable place to move it to, until he could return to dispose of it. A soft noise broke his concentration, Charlton’s attention shifting abruptly…and he couldn’t have been more stunned by the figure his gaze fell on. Bella. Isobel Rose. His nemesis, and the personification of revenge itself. The second great love of his life. She looked different out here, surrounded by reality rather than the hazy golden bubble of his memories. She seemed less effervescent, more at peace. Her eyes no longer flashed with the furious pride of a caged animal desperate to get its claws into onlookers, her mouth lacked the hard lines of her trademark savage smile. Charlton wasn’t entirely sure if she was merely in shock at the sight of him, hadn’t recognised him or just didn’t care. Personally…he didn’t know whether to run, stay or grab a weapon.

A swift roll of emotions surged through him, paralysing him and leaving him standing there, deer in hand, gaze transfixed on her face. Horror that she’d caught him in such a compromising situation…revulsion at the image he was projecting - so feral and bloodstained, and finally relief. Pure relief speared through the other emotions like a sword through silk until all else fell away. After all this time, the fighting, the frustrations, the pent up fury…finally Bella could know the truth of it all. She’d denied him the chance to explain himself, to apologise properly. Her rage had been unchecked then, but this was now. He couldn’t undo what had been done, he knew that, but a picture spoke a thousand words…and this particular imagery was pretty striking right now. Even Bella wouldn’t be able to deny that, surely?



//Sorry this is not my best at all...but obvs plotting wit chuuu is gonna make me have uber muse and therefore UBER better threadness

[``bella m. ROSE ♥]

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CLOSED - Charlton

Bella strained her eyes to see, as she stood before him, the woods bare of all other human life. There was only sky and a mocking flute of wind along the tree-tops. Could she be hallucinating? For a moment Bella wondered. Then the illusion passed - there was something in the young man before her, the relief on his face, that was too real to be a delusion. And suddenly she was like a child, wide eyes blinking fiercely to wish away this apparition, to such an extent that the palpable shock forced her body to step back. She couldn't understand, fathom really, why he was back, and here and stained with blood, bearing the weight of a mauled animal. Then, like slow, reluctant clockwork the moon's white radiance kindled a glow upon the air like a fragment of the morning star. Lonely in the moment, she realised she was watching her whole world fall apart, and all she could do was stare blankly.

Uncharacteristically so, she continued to stare at him, the hazeled gold of her eyes glazing with the sheer film of burgeoning teardrops, raging a war against every fibre of her being. Her lips parted as if to spill the mess that ensnared her mind, and found no escape, as though the chords in her throat had suddenly been cased in clay. She spun around quickly, in some part disbelief, in another heartbreak, and most exorbitantly - rage. It filled every chasm of her being with a vibrating anger which bubbled furiously under her skin, imploring her to run away, escape, and spare him from her indignant tempest. But she was susceptible to her imperfections, the ultimate flaw in her character - pride - so she wheeled back to face him.

The savage and solitary word cracked like a whip against the hushed darkness of the woods. "Liar!"

[/color] she roared, then the other words followed suit like solders in a war, regimented and violent.

"Disgusting, unforgivable liar"[/color] she continued, "You deserve this. You deserve to be dictated by the monster you are inside!"[/color] She didn't mean it, she didn't mean it, only she did, and the words spilled out of her mouth like molten lava. He had somehow broken her in a way she had thought inconceivable - but he was there, bloodstained, alone, and in the tortured darkness before her. Perhaps it was all because she resented that he had chosen her and Asahria as the only two people who would spend their brightest, freshest, rarest moments nursing his complicated heart. Yet, she stood as if before a mirror, both their hearts in a constant, turbulent riot. The most grotesque and fantastic chaos of their love haunting them.

A volcano of emotions swelled inside her, each lava fuelled cascade a wave of different responses - betrayal, love, lust, fury. But they were all unrecognisable against the pain. It raked against her chest and throat like a scalding knife, and the worst part was that he knew what this would do to her, to see him bound by this curse, and so he had left. When her voice invaded the darkness again it was soft, an achingly brief swan-song..

"I know that I was everything you're not supposed to be, to someone that you l-.."[/color] she sighed. Between Asahria walking around as a constant reminder his other life, his other love, and now his sudden appearance at the grounds, she wasn't sure how to handle this - she had so convinced herself she did not care only to find herself visibly crumbling before him. Then she gathered up everything inside her and through tear-stained eyes directed it toward him, making him a profound promise of herself for so little, for a beat in the darkness of the night.

Chalrton was like a drug to her, and for the first time she was weak in his presence, gliding slowly towards him until she was mere milimeters from him. She couldn't even smell the slaughtered animal anymore, all she could see was his face, and with her golden gaze she drank in every detail of him, as if for the last time. His eyes, the halo of his hair, his skin. For a moment she remembered what it was like to be aglow when she saw him, to want to give him every moment, every etching of brightness to fill the hole where mixed memories had fogged his mind. But she wasn't Asahria, she wasn't sweet or tender, she was hard and walled...and crumbling. He would see it in her, she knew he would, so when when she closed the gap between his lips and hers, it almost drowned her. For one unutterable moment she had let him be everything, but she knew they were bound for dust - not gods - but mortal.

Then, her hand crashed brutally against his cheek..

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status:

[/b] Half asleep and half insane..
notes:[/b] Your post was awesome, this...lol is nuts - I don't really know where it came from o.o Sawry, this is so bad - it will get better!
muse: Pink Floyd!

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[charlton 'raffi' glashtyn]

This job was seriously unleashing the skeletons from the closest. He’d been back at Beauxbatons for months now, with sight nor sound of anyone. Everyone he’d ever known had moved on, leaving him seeking out strangers. Charlton had never had a problem making friends, had always enjoyed meeting strangers…but this time he couldn’t quite manage to find the same kick from it he used to. His re-entry had been a far cry from the easy, happy go lucky life he’d enjoyed so much in the beginning as a first year - so he’d quickly resorted to seeking the answer out at the bottom of the emerald bottle. It had dulled the pain a little, but had left him disorientated between reality and the remains of the tortuous dreams his unconsciousness left behind. His dual past hadn’t helped, the memories of Asharia & Bella leaving him confused. Now, within weeks of him taking the staff position - fate would have it that within days of each other, he’d run into both Asahria & Bella in almost identical situations. Trepidation clogged his throat, making it hard to swallow. He wasn’t ready for this. He hadn’t worked it all out in his own head yet, let alone grasped the ability to relay a vocal explanation of the roiling emotions within him to anyone else. Particularly Bella…with her explosive temper, he felt certain he’d have to speak fast, and duck faster.

She was like a deer caught in the headlights, hazel eyes huge and captivating as she took in the gory scene without a word. White noise clogged his hearing, and Charlton dimly noted that he was part of an exceptional moment in which Bella was both motionless and silent…and that in her stillness, she was like an exquisite portrait. She blinked, once, twice, ebony lashes dark crescents on her cheeks. It was the lull before the storm, and Charlton really should have known better.

"Liar!"

He dropped the deer instantaneously, flinching as though she’d hit him. Taking a compulsive step back he bowed his head, allowing her to continue her onslaught of words - after all she was right, he deserved it. In a long list of wrongs he’d done to Bella, perhaps the very bottom line was that he’d run when he should have stayed to explain. He’d been gutless when he should have stood up for her, fought for her like she deserved. Meeting her had been like meeting the other half to his personality, and whilst Asahria held a special irreplaceable piece of his heart, Bella to him was the other half. The pair of them had never stood a chance to find out whether that would have worked. He’d realised he could have at least given her an option, rather than giving her no choice at all. Why did he always run? Charlton had sworn to avoid love at all costs, and even with his extensive planning - his fate was to have it find him, not once, but twice. A taster of what he could have had forever, only to have it snatched away. He’d chosen to evade all responsibility, been frivolous in the hopes of avoiding the consequences…but hadn’t realised that karma had a way of coming back around - and as it would have it, Charlton was the last thing a Minister of Magic wanted for his daughter and reputation.

"I know that I was everything you're not supposed to be, to someone that you l-.."

Her voice broke the silence, the softer tone and stumbling sentence hitting him harder than her rage ever could have. It tore him apart. Confusion boiled and seethed within him - leaving him feeling desperate. He hadn’t expected to be faced with Bella like this, thought he’d never ever get anything other than the gale force of her rage. Asharia had been his constant, his rock, and his support through everything. Without her, it had felt like a part of him was missing. Charlton hadn’t anticipated on Bella though. She’d been a beacon of hope and sunshine in his darkness, and she’d lit up his very soul. Lifting his eyes to her face he was stunned to see unshed tears gleaming on her lower lashes, her expression exactly matching the whirl of emotions that tore through him.

He wouldn’t have been able to move even if he’d wanted to, the closer she came the more leaden his limbs became. In a split second, her lips met his, and in a breathless moment laced with that electricity, it was as though they were meeting for the first time all over again. The memory of the way the sun had backlit her hair into a flaming halo flashing behind his lids and he kissed her back with the desperation of a drowning man, starved of her.

Like the thunder to their lightning, the crack of her hand across his cheek snapped him back to reality. The taint of copper blood bloomed in his mouth, the force behind her blow cutting his mouth against his teeth. The light-headedness that had accompanied the sensation of drowning vanished, leaving him feeling nauseous and empty. He couldn’t bring himself to step away even after her ferocious slap, didn’t know what she wanted. Didn’t know what he wanted. Since when had life gotten so hard?

”I deserved that.” He stated softly, struggling to find any other words. What did you say in a situation like this? Somehow sorry seemed to only make a mockery of it. ”I thought you’d left forever.” Charlton added, unable to contain the barest flicker of pain underlying in his voice.


//MIND BLOWN by your thread and ideas my dear.