GD 205 - Grace and Ellisia

[Unknown Squid]

(A shame I can't just post my old one...)

Second floor, third door on the right from the stairs. That was Grace and Ellisia's room.

Though the layout and furniture was symmetrical, the belongings were not. The left side of the room was Ellisia's, spartan and clean. A made bed, all things in their place. The right side belonged to Grace, as did the slew of clothes and odd possessions strewn across it. The desk was covered in papers and dried up pens, the sheets were tangled, and garments hung out of their draws. A laptop also sat on the one space of the desk kept clear. There was a noticeable line between the two territories, where Ellisia had poked any stray items back over to their side. Both sides also featured a pair of locked old fashioned looking trunks kept under the bed.

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: GD 205 - Grace and Ellisia

[SUNDAY NIGHT]

Grace sways into her room without turning the light on, nearly tripping on her belongings across the floor. She flops over and climbs into bed, then groaning and getting out again to change before she ends up sleeping in her dress. Having changed she goes straight to sleep. Her head suddenly seemed to be swimming with thoughts she couldn't quite put straight right now. Best to sleep on it she decided.


Nearly an hour later Ellisia returns to the room, quietly entering and getting ready for bed, though she thought it unlikely Grace would wake up anyway. She'd found her room mate to be quite a heavy sleeper.

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: GD 205 - Grace and Ellisia

[MONDAY AFTERNOON]

Grace returns to her room having collected her schedule and other items for the year, and dumps the bundle of cloth and material on her bed for now. She lifts the lid on her laptop and turns it on, grabbing one of the scavenged cakes to munch on while it booted up. "Hmm, I guess I'll start at the top." She says to herself now browsing through a few pictures, "The white and black version. Yeah."

She clears a space on the desk, organises the cloth on the bed, pulls out a sewing kit and begins work on her spontaneous new project. "And here I am sewing again. What's wrong with me..." Grace says with a smirk.

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: GD 205 - Grace and Ellisia

A while later, Ellisia walks into the room looking as if she'd just finished her normal evening run. "Sup roomie!" Grace greets warmly, though not looking up from her project. Ellisia sets down her sword and responds, "Evening Grace. Oh... What do you have there? A hat?"

"Yyyup. Best hat ever."

"I thought you hated sewing? Didn't you say about how you mother always forced you..."

"Yup, hate it! But this is different."

"Ok then. If you say so. Your normally playing those games, and this is rather something else."

"Nah... not really."

Ellisia wondered for a moment what Grace meant, but she'd learnt trying to understand everything her room mate did took more effort than it was worth. "Is that so. Anyway, I'm taking my shower now. You don't need the room first right?"

"No, no, yeah, go ahead." Grace lets out a small giggle and repeats, "Is that so..."

... some time later ...

Ellisia was already in bed, and Grace was now working by the light of her reading lamp. She felt her eyes starting to get heavy, having to blink a few times to keep her sight clear. "Woot..." Grace whispers tiredly. "All done. And totally freakin perfect." She says setting her creation down on top of the laptop. "Gehh, time for sleeps."

She scoops up the items strewn across her bed, and dumps them in a loosely separate pile beside the bed. She can't be arsed with the night dress today, so instead crawls under the sheets dressed, bit by bit pushing out items of clothing.

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: GD 205 - Grace and Ellisia


... Elsewhere, as Yume slept, she watched the floating thoughts of others turn to dreams...

That night Grace had a dream.

She was back at the dance, just like before. As the dream came into focus she realises she was dancing with Isabella again. It had been a fun night Grace thought. The smell of sly punch floats through the air. Grace watches as Isabella's face goes red once more as they glide across the dance floor. Everything was much smoother this time. More like floating than the drunken stumbles of the other night. Grace just smiles. Isabella smiles back timidly, though Grace notices her partners gaze seeming to slowly be sinking decidedly lower. Perhaps there was something she hadn't quite noticed about Isabella that night. No wait, this is a dream, that doesn't make sense. A little confused, she closes her eyes and keeps dancing. Then something else unexpected. Isabella had moved one hand and was now fondling her breasts. Grace simply looks down in surprise. She tried to open her mouth to say something but there was no sound. Regardless, she was speechless. Grace watches red faced as the dreamscape Isabella continues her exploration, proceeding to softly slip her hand beneath the fabric of Graces dress when...

The jarring noise of an alarm clock shakes the dance hall, and everything pops out of existence.

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: GD 205 - Grace and Ellisia

[TUESDAY MORNING]

"Ayah!!!" Grace suddenly blurts out waking. Her stunned face stares up at the ceiling for a moment trying to make sense of things.

*Bzzzt! Bzzzt! Bzzzt! Bzzzt! Bzzzt! Bzzzt!*

One arm shoots out and blindly smacks at the alarm clock until it submits. Grace sits up in bed and wraps her arms around herself. Looking across the room Ellisia was up and gone already as normal, which grace was glad of since she was certain her face must be bright red right now. She let's out a little confused whimper and sits there for a moment longer.
Eventually she ventured out of bed and found her uniform. 'What was that...' She thinks to herself whilst getting dress. 'Did I really...' Grace shakes her head as if it will shake the dream from her mind, but it seemed as if this was one of the ones that didn't just disappear right away upon waking. "Christ did it feel real though..." Grace muttered to her self while fixing her hair, right as a small rush of memory came back again. "Geh! My minds screwing with me. Gotta do something else, gotta somethin... uh... breakfast!"

A quick check and she's out the door.

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: GD 205 - Grace and Ellisia

After leaving G building Grace headed straight for her room. Steping through the door she unbuckles her shoes and kicks them towards her bed, one landing on top rather than under like she intended. Placing her bag a little more carefully beside the bed she leaps into the air to land flat on the bed. Removing the uncomfortable shoe from her back, she drops it aside and leans over to pull Isabella's forgotten sketch book from her bag, placing on the pillow. Turning over and propping her self up on her elbows she opens the book and begins looking through it once more.

"Hello to you too." Ellisia says from lounging in her own bed, apparently reading something.

"Oh hey El, I'm back..." Grace replies in a friendly but nonchalant tone.

Ellisia looks across the room, only vaguely able to see the sketch book past the desk. "What do you have there?" she asks slightly currious to Grace's current interest. She'd found that Grace always came back with interesting things, or would discover strange things to see on her computer.

"Neat stuff. Come see." Grace says turning the page.

Ellisia shrugs mentally at the normal vague answer, marks her page, and gets up to have a look. "Those are quite something." She says leaning over, "Who drew them?"

"I did." Grace replies bluntly. Ellisia doesn't bother to comment, and soon enough Grace comes out with the real answer. "They're Isabella's. Haven't you seen any of her stuff before? She does loads of drawings, like new ones everyday. Most of em are of people, but turns out she draws this sort of stuff too! Isn't it awesome? Check this one out..." She says turning the page to one of the larger and most interesting drawings. "Don't you want to meet something like that and have a chat with it?"

"Have a chat with it? I don't know. Looks a little dubious..." Ellisia says raising a brow at the idea of meeting the bizarre creature depicted on the page. The truth was she had met a few strange beings before, but nothing quite like that.

"Ah your just judging it by it's looks." Grace says turning the page again. "This one too, I wanna know what's the deal with this thing here. If only I could visit Isabella's brain. That'd be fun for sure..."

"When was the last time you visited reality?" Ellisia comments amused again at her room mates longing for the strange.

"There right now, just wishing there was more in it."

Ellisia sighs. 'Poor girl. Hasn't a clue of what's out there.'


The two flick through the book a little while longer, Ellisia going back to read her own book after a while. Grace puts on her headphones and continues eyeing the drawings for a surprising amount of time before finally putting the book away.

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: GD 205 - Grace and Ellisia

Ellisia was getting ready for bed when the boom of the explosion sounded outside. She stops what she's doing and stands strait, silently listening for another sound. Nothing else comes immediately. She looks over to grace, who is evidently oblivious to everything happening outside of her headphones. No point in bothering to ask if she heard something. She peers out of the window, but can't see anything from their rooms angle.

It was probably nothing, but Ellisia was familiar with distant booms always seeming to come just before trouble hit. And there had been recent disturbances after all. Unable to shake the feeling, she decides that it won't hurt to stay up an hour longer. She half undresses and gets into bed, sitting at the head of the bed to pick up an brown covered book.

She reads and listens.

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: GD 205 - Grace and Ellisia

Ellisia looks up from her book for a second, having just felt something strange in her spirit. She waits a while longer, concentrating now, and soon enough she senses another ripple. It was coming from the main school grounds. That was as much as she could tell right now. But none the less for her to have felt it, something significant must be taking place. She could come back to her book latter. She best check it out.

Getting out of bed and putting the book aside, she peers over at Grace who seemed to have fallen asleep with her headphones on. That made things a little easier. Ellisia gets dressed again, putting on her track bottoms and jacket, and then reaching under the bed to collect her sword. Slinging the weapon over her shoulder, she quietly walks to the door and slips out.

As soon as the door closes, Grace opens an eye. "Oh? And where are we sneaking off to?" Grace says with a sly grin, hopping up and putting on her shoes. Ellisia was definitely the kind to respect and follow the rules, but Grace had noticed her tendency to break curfew whenever she pleased, and for uncertain reasons. What could it be? Maybe she was seeing someone by moon light! Though Grace reckoned it was more likely she was doing something weird like night time sword dances. Still, that'd be fun to see too. Time for a covert operation then. Grace carefully hurries after her room mate, hoping to follow along secretly at a distance.

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: GD 205 - Grace and Ellisia

Grace arrives back at her room, slowly plodding in and sitting on the bed. She takes her shoes off and starts to pull her shirt over her head, but stops half way and ends up sitting there with her top stretched over her face. "Gah! I should have done more. If I was quicker to react I might have been able to help. Could have blocked that lightning. Could have easily saved Isa that blow..." She says, hugging her stomach toward the end as she thinks about that attack. "Yeesh that must'a hurt." She pulls the rest of her shirt over her head and tosses it to the floor. Proceeding to get undressed and crawl into bed.

And hour or so latter Ellisia comes into the room. She walks over to her beside, takes a silver disc from one of the draws, and sits on the bed. She holds the disc in her hands and closes her eyes as she focuses on it, allowing her conciousness to reach another land as she reports the days events to her superiors back in Etheiria. Grace was facing away but wasn't asleep yet. 'And now she's doing that meditation thing again. Definitely some other reason for that too.' She thinks, not moving so that Ellisia would think her asleep.

Ellisia seems to have no trouble getting to sleep after the evenings events, seemingly unphased, but Grace continues to toss and turn for a good few hours before she manages to get to sleep.


... One's fear of prejudice and another's grim nostalgia easily enter Grace's busy mind...

~~~
Grace can hear voices. Everything is black, but the sound of a heated argument sounds in her mind.

"No child, no your not! She has you under a spell, can't you see!" A woman's voice cries out hysterically, another voice, male, speaks up "To think that such an unholy monster has targeted our family, it's unthinkable." It spits out, angrily. "You girl, will not leave this house until the monster has been dealt with, and I will hear nothing more of it."
"No! Father! You can't she's not a... I...!" A frantic young voice pleads. A door slams and the voice becomes muffled. The first woman speaks again, "Hush dear, you will thank us when you come back to your senses."

The sound of banging on a wooden door and muffled sobbing last a while longer before it fades away, leaving black again.

Something starts to creep into Graces vision. She is running through a forest. Though there's no sound. Looking behind her she can just make out several men on horseback. They were chasing her. The men close round and encircle her, with muskets aimed. The one in front fires, silently, and a searing rush of pain shoots through her. She looks down to her chest and sees the wound as she falls backwards to the ground. She clutches the wound as the man dismounts and steps forward drawing a sword. He stands over her, blade pointed, face full of hate as he shouted noiselessly. One word was easily read from his lips, "monster". And then he was blasted back across the forest where he was crushed against a rock, as Graces outstretched hand glowed with energy before her. Another man burst into flames, and the other was swiftly punctured by magical darts. The horses fled, and Grace sat clutching the bleeding wound. The pain was so real. It was at this point that she noticed she was not herself, but in fact Isabella. Beside her on the forest floor sat a strange finely crafted doll, seemingly watching.

The doll blinks, as Charles swoops in and gut punches Grace awake.
~~~

"Allargghhh! Ahh... ah..." Grace blurts out in bed. Ellisia was up in a flash and looking across the room. One hand was on the broadsword stashed down the side of her bed. Seeing no threat she calms and asks, "Are you ok?"

"Um... um... jus-just a dream..." She replies putting her hand to the gunshot wound, which thankfully wasn't there. "Yeah, just a dream." She says again, though still somewhat questioning her words. "Sorry..."

"Oh, ok then. If you're sure your fine, don't worry about it." Ellisia says loosening her grip on the sword and laying down again. Grace does the same. It was still dark, but not long till morning.

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: GD 205 - Grace and Ellisia

[WEDNESDAY MORNING]

Ellisia is up on the dot at her normal time. She swiftly goes about showering and getting into her uniform, and makes to leave the room. She decided Grace could probably use a bit of extra rest today, and so leaves her be whilst she set out to meet someone.

Grace had managed to get back to sleep after her strange dream, and for now continues to snooze in one of her typical disarrayed sleeping positions.

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: GD 205 - Grace and Ellisia

*Unnf!*

"Wuhuuuh?" Grace moans in a disoriented state. She pulls the covers off her head and looks around. Realising she'd fallen out of bed, which wasn't uncommon for her, she untangles herself and clambers up to her feet. Seeing that Ellisia was already gone she takes a look at the clock, and then grumbles. "She let me oversleep? That's not fair... it's like... her job. I've always had a wake up call..." She complains half heartedly, going about getting ready in the small amount of time she had left. "The bed's are just too small here is what it is..."

And then she's out the door.

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: GD 205 - Grace and Ellisia

"All right, gotta be ready for anything." Grace says to herself stepping into the room and locking the door behind her. "I don't care if it's a goddamn meteor shower, it's not getting past me!" She continues determinedly, stepping to her bedside. She crouches down and pulls the heavy trunk from under her bed, forms some kind of hand sign and pushing her palm against the trunk. Suddenly a tiny flash runs round the lid, as the four catches holding it shut unlatch and pop up without being touched. Grace opens the lid and regards the assorted books, strange materials and scraps of paper inside. She picks out a selection of items, apparently knowing what she's grabbing, and tosses them onto the bed before flinging her self over the trunk as well. Sitting on the bed, she kicks the trunk shut which seems to reseal itself automatically, and lays her study materials out in organised piles around herself. "Hmm, earth sealing, and dimensional warding. How did they travel like that? Also, that dark fire the demon woman was using, I know there's something for that..." She rambles to herself as she begins flicking through pages and opening multiple books. Soon enough she's painting strange symbols onto sheets of paper, and surounded by the inaudible arcane hum of all manner of miniature experimental barriers.

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: GD 205 - Grace and Ellisia

[THURSDAY MORNING]

The night before, Ellisia and Grace had sat down in their room for a long talk about the recent events as well as Ellisia's identity. At the same time Grace decided to let her room mate know about her abilities regarding her family magic also.

Upon waking the pair were both getting ready for the day, and continuing parts of the discussion left over from last night. Grace sat at her bed combing her hair still in her nightie, while Ellisia stood dressed near her own, a little ahead of things as normal, about to do a small demonstration regarding something that Grace had asked about during their discussion.

Ellisia takes her sword from the bed and carefully unsheathes it, holding it horizontal in her hands with the flat of the blade resting on one palm. "Ready?" She enquires simply, Grace replying with a nod and a curious look. The air around Ellisia begins to stir ever so slightly, and Grace watches, swearing that she could see a subtle glow seeming to emit from Ellisia's eyes. Ellisia then closes her eyes and speaks a phrase of some kind in an unrecognisable language, her tone deliberate and precise. Grace's eyes widen as she feels the familiar signature of dimensions warping in a controlled field. She recognised it right away, and soon after a visible white circular symbol forms in the air at the tip of the sword. It hangs shimmering it's strange light in the air, and very much like her own barriers was intricately etched with magical glyphs, though these particular symbols were totally alien to her. Ellisia continues, and proceeds to smoothly push the sword into the symbol, the end of the large blade disappearing as it is touches it, as if it were being slipped into an invisible yet obscuring bag. Ellisia gently feeds the entire weapon into the magical portal, which snaps out of existence along with the sword. Not a trace of either remaining.

"Huh... You can't do that! How!? You just opened a dimensional gap, I can tell! Where did you send it? I didn't even detect any mana flow!" Grace exclaims suddenly amazed, as well as finding herself unexpectedly indignant about it in a strange way. This was her families big thing, and some how Ellisia just cracked out the equivalent of a high level spell, with completely unique workings. How dare she. Grace wasn't even close to that level yet. "That's not fair. How did you do that?" She whines.

"Hey, easy there." Ellisia chuckles, surprised at part of Grace's reaction. "It's not quite the same as your magic. The ability to do that comes from my bonded spirit like most things I can do. You couldn't read it's energy because it was made of spirit rather than anima, or your mana. I was less casting the spell myself than requesting it."

"Form complex spells with spirit energy?" Grace says looking sceptical, wanting to say how impossible that was, but refraining in light of the evidence against her. "But that's crazy, you can just ask your sword spirit to screw with reality whenever you feel then?"

"Oh no, not at all. I can't control it freely like you can your barriers. Think of your spells like writing something down. You can make it different and choose what to write each time you do it. My ability is more like loading a page on your computer. I get the same thing every time, and can't change it either. And besides, I can only put certain items in there anyway. And it's a little more complicated than "just asking" really, but I won't go into that now."

"Hmm, alright then. It's pretty cool. Seems handy too. I wish I was able to stow away belongings like that. Someday I will be."

"It is. Though I've refrained from using it so far, since I'm still inexperienced and can have difficulty retrieving from it while under pressure. With the way things have been lately though, my swords always been too far away, so I'm going to use it after all." She says picking up the empty sheathe and placing it under the bed, then looking back to Grace, "So how long are you going to sit there coming your hair anyway? Don't you need to finish getting ready?" She enquires with a friendly smirk as Grace wakes up to the fact that she still hadn't started getting dressed, nor sorted her bag.

"Oh shit, I got..."

"Distracted. I'll make you some breakfast. See you down there." The taller girl says stepping out the door.

"Heh, yeah. Ok..."

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: GD 205 - Grace and Ellisia

[Late Thursday night/Early Friday morning]

As the door bursts open, Ellisia's hand clutches the sword down the side of her bed, opening her eyes and lifting her head to watch the door in an instant before she consciously knew she was doing it. Seeing her distraught and tearful room mate coming at her, the sword stays firmly put, though she maintains her grip on it until she knew what was happening.

"Ellisia! Get up, please I need you!" Grace exclaims without even slowing so much as to close the door. "They took her!"

"Grace? What is it. Who took who? Try to calm..."

"They took Isabella! I don't know, a man, he just vanished! I tried to... but he was gone!" The younger girl says dropping to Ellisia's level, even as the other rises out of bed.

"Ok, stop, think and tell me clearly. I'll help, but I need to know what happened." The knight replies climbing out of bed and moving to close the door. "An unknown man took Isabella. Where where was this, and when?"

"Right now, seconds ago. I..." She begins to answer, pausing to take a deep breath, "Just in Isabella's room. I, think I fell asleep, earlier, and I woke up to see this huge man taking Isa. Kidnapping her. Then he disappeared, just into thin air. I thought he went invisible, but I couldn't stop him. He just went through the wall. Then I came here."

Ellisia listens carefully, getting some clothes whilst Grace speaks. Getting as far as pulling her white tank top on, she stops briefly and closes her eyes to focus, sending out a message. <'Harrel, wake up. Now. Begin scanning the school grounds for anything high speed or unusual leaving the grounds immediately. Meet at the courtyard.'>

Looking back to Grace again who was already getting agitated again by the momentary pause, she enquires further, "Did you get a proper view of this man, can you describe him? Do you know how he entered the room, or have any ideas of his identity or motives?"

Grace stops to think only briefly as she answers, "He was tall, like near the ceiling tall. Big. Orange eyes, short dark hair. And a face full of scars, with a tattoo as well. I've never seen anyone like him before though, and no, he was just there as if he never even came in. He vanished holding Isabella over his shoulder and was gone." She answers as well as she can recall, "... Oh god where are you Isabella."

"Good. Alright then, be ready to leave, we're meeting Harrel at the courtyard. Tell me any more on the way." Ellisia says in her business like fashion, finishing getting dressed and now lacing up her normal walking boots.

"What? When did you... uh sure, I'm ready to go right now..."

With that the both of them leave the room and make their way out of the dormitory.

 

[SirOni]

Re: GD 205 - Grace and Ellisia

Woken up by the sound of her neighbours, one slamming doors then shouting, Emily groggily pulls on her dressing gown before creeping out of her room to have a go at whoever it was that was shouting. Though as she opened her door Emily could hear the conversation more clearly. Hiding just inside her doorframe as the two girls, one she recognised as Ellisia, quickly left their room she dived back into hers and changed into proper clothes before tailing behind them.

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: GD 205 - Grace and Ellisia

After leaving the discussion at the waterfall and arriving back at her room Ellisia quickly goes about retrieving some items, first grabbing a small backpack and removing some books and miscellaneous school related objects, followed by pulling the trunk from under the bed. Inside was a neatly laid out set of clothes, seemingly armour of some kind. Taking a few parts and placing them into the rucksack, as well as quickly changing into some of it before putting on her school issue black and red tracksuit top over it. With her stuff gathered she shoulders the rucksack and quickly leaves the room once more.