Closed meteor shower, quick take cover

[Freya Song]

The day was drawing to a close and it would soon be time for dinner, but Freya wasn't interested in heading to the Great Hall to join the packs of roving wizards hunting for sustenance. She still had copious amounts of muggle candy left from her mad stockpiling after coming to the realization she wouldn't be able to just walk down to the shops after school anymore, so half her suitcase had been designated as candy space and Freya considered that to be an absolutely masterful choice. Magic had been.... an adjustment, and Freya wasn't completely on board with being a witch, but she could hardly just walk off school grounds and disappear into the wilds. Well, she could, but last time she'd wandered off the property of her carers, she had "caused a panic" and been given some kind of lecture she'd completely tuned out.

Instead of subjecting herself to socialization, Freya made her way up to the towers because it sounded like the exact opposite of where most people would be going at the time. She'd unpicked the hem of her uniform skirt so it fell almost to her ankles, like those sukeban girls in old films, and she had to be careful not to trip as she climbed the stairs. Being stuck in boarding school wasn't as rough as she'd feared, but Freya's quiet rebellion made her feel better about the situation regardless. She found a sunny spot near a window and, wondering if she had been a cat in a previous life, settled down to watch the sun set.

 

[Kasim Safir]

Following the prefects back to their new dorm had been interesting for all of three minutes. Once Kas had heard that Hufflepuff was on the fourth, he decided to see if he could make his own way there without having to follow the gaggle of other first years on some weird sight seeing tour. Unfortunately, it quickly became pretty apparent now that Kas may have taken the long way round. It seemed like no matter which way he went, he was only continuing to only make progress going upstairs, something he was blaming entirely on the crazy moving staircases. Of course a place like this would have stairs that are out to get you. Kas made a note to keep an eye out incase the wall sconces tried to tell on him for not doing his homework later.

Cresting another flight of stairs, Kas was starting to weigh the pros and cons of giving up and just living up here when he spotted a girl ahead sitting in a patch of sunlight. He squinted at her briefly, checking the empty hallway before approaching. "You're not a ghost or a mirage or something, right?" She looked a lot like she might be a student his age, but after Kas's current track record with the school, he wasn't willing to place bets on anything yet.

 

[Freya Song]

Freya's blissful solitude had been cruelly invaded by a stranger, and she was currently experiencing the emotion known as "annoyed". Mixed in with a healthy dose of curiosity as to why someone had decided to come up to the tower and bother her, but she wasn't going to entertain that. He was probably just another firstie going walkabout like herself. Annoyed was the acceptable thing to feel for someone entering her personal bubble without knocking. It took her a second to parse what he had asked her.

"What." Freya rolled her eyes to the sky and sighed deeply in frustration at the intruder and his odd question. With her unusually pale hair and skin, Freya could potentially understand why someone would mistake her for one of the undead, but honestly, rude.

Obviously she wasn't a- but then an an idea lodged itself into the lump of clay between her ears and she had no choice but to run her mouth. "Do you know how infuriating that question is?" Freya leveled a glare at the boy. "Next you're going to ask me how I died and that's always incredibly fun."

 

[Kasim Safir]

Kas had the distinct impression this girl was messing with him. There would be an easy way to prove whether or not she was, but he didn't suppose walking over and poking a stranger in the forehead or something was entirely the best idea. And besides, he was a little curious to see how far she might be willing to take this if he didn't call her bluff. "Right, so sorry," He said slowly, taking a few steps closer. "I just thought you might be some harbinger of death for any poor kids like me lost in the halls. You're not here to usher me to the afterlife or anything, then?" Kas was doing his best to keep a straight face as he spoke, busying himself by trying to look interested in the sunset going on outside the window the girl was posted up in front of.

 

[Freya Song]

"Nah, I'm just up here trying to photosynthesize." Freya said lightly. The sunlight was fading too quickly for Freya's liking, her little sliver of light growing smaller by the minute. "Although, if you want to check out the afterlife, I'm sure I could help. Easiest way would be to throw yourself out that window, but hm," Freya looked at the boy appraisingly. "You'd probably just bounce."

Her gaze fell to the cloth pouch of sweets she had gracelessly dumped beside her. Freya didn't think ghosts were likely to eat very much, and the idea of not sharing made her uncomfortable. "I've got some chocolates and they're probably not poisoned, if you want to roll the dice," she offered, raising her eyebrow in challenge at the boy.

It was a practical decision to offer the boy some of her candy. Less for Freya meant the chances of a stomach ache dropped dramatically. Freya had never once in her life let a little thing like lactose intolerance stop her before, but it could be good to minimize casualties if this boy was going to continue gawking at her.

 

[Kasim Safir]

The mystery girl was funny and Kas couldn't tell if he was feeling admiration or envy at how easily she was blowing off his own jokes. He felt himself reluctantly snort at the girl's next more morbid joke, craning his neck to peer down at the ground below and hissing through his teeth. "I think I'm good for now, but ask me again when classes start," He said, already grimacing as the idea of being stuck at school with the same teachers and kids for the next seven years stretched out in front of him.
The girl offered him some chocolate next and Kas raised his own eyebrow in response. "Not how I imagined I'd go out, but death by chocolate's not too bad," Kas said with a shrug, propping himself against the wall near the girl and sliding down to sit so the chocolate was in arm's reach. After a moments consideration, Kas grabbed one of the lollies from the pile, holding it up to cheers the girl. "I'm Kas by the way," He said, unwrapping the lolly. "Hope you're good with me haunting you if this does kill me. It just feels poetically justified, nothing personal." Kas finished with a shrug, popping the chocolate in his mouth.

 

[Freya Song]

Freya was somewhat surprised when the boy took her up on her offer. Whether he stayed or left was of no consequence to her, but he wasn't terrible company so far. "Now there's a business plan," Freya mused. She raised her hands in front of her as though gesturing to an invisible audience. "For a limited time only, the tower is offering a deal on Eternal Education Evasion!" Freya grinned at her horrible idea.

She narrowly avoided her urge to make a crack about taking candy from strangers. Especially the highly dangerous eleven-year-olds who encourage strangers to lob themselves out a window, but she had warned him, so any accidental death wasn't her problem. She picked out her own chocolate and unwrapped it, winding the foil around her fingers. "I'm Freya. You're welcome to haunt me like lost puppy, but are you sure your sanity could handle it?" She smirked at Kas. "I'm warning you, my dude, my extensive repertoire of showtunes have broken lesser men."

 

[Kasim Safir]

Kas did laugh at the girl's next statement, caught off guard by her commitment to the morbid bit. "You might run into a little long term problem there if your customers keep uh.. evading. But who am I stand in the way of new business," Kas grinned and shrugged, making himself more comfortable against the wall.
At this stage he was pretty certain Freya was joking about everything, including the poisoned chocolate, but he still waited a bit for Freya to start on hers before unwrapping his own chocolate, pretending to pause and think about her warning. "Hmm, I think that's a risk I think I'm willing to take," He settled on, taking a defiant bite of chocolate.
It was starting to get even darker as the sunset and Kas cast a suspicious look around the hallway they were in. If this castle had been a pain when the sun was still up, he imagined they might as well give up now that it was getting dark. "Speaking of ghosts, do you think there's any other ones around to give me some directions? I don't know about you, but I don't particularly fancy sleeping out here. I hear there's people around who might push you out of windows or something."

 

[Freya Song]

Freya bit her chocolate in half to inspect what flavour she had gotten before she was willing to commit to an entire chocolate. Caramel was acceptable. Not as good as strawberry, but at least it wasn't peppermint. Freya would never understand why chocolate companies used toothpaste flavour in chocolate, but that was one of the mysteries of the universe. She wrinkled her nose as Kas pointed out the flaw in her great entrepreneurial plan, and conceded he was probably right.

Freya peered through the window as she chewed, trying to get a glimpse of the first few stars of the night. A flash of something sparked in her chest when Kas asked about directions. It felt vaguely like disappointment, but Freya couldn't figure out why she'd be disappointed at him potentially leaving to go elsewhere, so it was probably just indigestion from eating chocolate.

"But it's so cozy up here? All this feather-soft stone to nap on," Freya snorted, tapping her foot against the hard ground. She personally wouldn't mind sleeping closer to the stars, but she supposed some people were cowards who worried about things like plummeting from towers. "Now, that entirely depends on where you're going. You might run into trouble if you're trying to find the lost city of Atlantis before bedtime." She couldn't exactly pull out her ghost phone and call every ghost in school and see if they knew any hidden locations, but now she wished she could.

 

[Kasim Safir]

"Some people think sleeping on the ground is good for your back, but I think I'm a touch too delicate to want to test that just yet," Kas said, stretching his arms up to get resettled where he leant against the wall. Kas already knew he was going to be feeling the trek up here in his calves tomorrow, he didn't need to add more trouble if he could avoid it. "Mm, Atlantis is probably more a weekend type excursion," He said seriously, tapping his chin. "I'm trying to get back to Hufflepuff common room. I have discovered I've wildly overestimated my orienteering skills, unfortunately. Turns out the prefects might actually good for something in that regard," He said with a wry smile. Kas could admit when he'd messed up, and getting lost was his own damn fault. Though at least he'd seemed to run into someone up here who didn't turn out to be a total drag. "Are you planning on just living up here then? I could see about smuggling you some food up from the hall later. Since I've already put a dent in your chocolate supply and all." Kas was pretty sure from her uniform that Freya was in the same house as him and hoped she wasn't really considering staying up here the whole time, if only so he'd have someone sane to talk to in class.

 

[Freya Song]

Freya supposed that they weren't dressed for exploring an underwater civilization and nodded. There was something to be said for Freya's own approach of wandering around aimlessly and hoping a prefect would take pity on her, but she wasn't about to confess that. "Everyone will be coming back from dinner soon. Just follow the swam of bees and they will lead you to their hive," Freya liked the black and yellow of her house, but wondered if it were possible to charm something to play Flight of the Bumblebee whenever a pack of Hufflepuffs walked by.

"Oh yes, definitely. This is my part of the castle now and on my sword, I shall defend it," Freya stood and brandished her wand dramatically, although she looked more like a very small schoolgirl than the knight she was imagining. She was sure she'd seen a suit of armor in the castle somewhere. A heist would need to be planned if she was going to defend her territory. "I might just turn back into a pumpkin at midnight, and someone will haul me back to the kitchens," Freya laughed. She'd find her way back to the common room eventually, but right now she was on a mission to count all the stars in the night sky.

 

[Kasim Safir]

Kas was getting a little worried about loitering up here too long. He was paranoid his newfound roommates might touch his stuff or claim all the good beds if he didn't stake his claim in their dorm first, but Freya was one of the most interesting things he'd come across in the whole school so far so he figured he could afford to linger. "Is that the collective term for Hufflepuffs, then? A swarm?" He asked consideringly. "I could get behind that. Better than like, a gaggle of Hufflepuffs. Could you have a parliament of Ravenclaws then? That feels right," Kas mused. He still wasn't sure how he felt about his new house assignment. Honestly grouping everyone together because they were supposedly similar seemed like a terrible idea. The last thing Kas would to do was spend seven years with people exactly like him.
Tucking his knee under his chin, Kas laughed at Freya's dramatics. "I hereby dub thee defender of the-" Kas squinted looking around, "-What floor are we on? Like 8th?, whatever- Defender of the tower hallway. Long may you reign," He announced solemnly, going so far as to stand and bow to her. "At least if you're a pumpkin we could just roll you down the stairs. Short cut." He said casually, miming a gentle push with his hands.

 

[Freya Song]

Freya thought she could make out the moon and a few of the brighter stars, but she wasn't wearing her glasses and it was a little difficult to tell. She was perfectly fine without the help of glass over her eyes, even if Kas did look a little fuzzy to her. "What about a horde of Slytherins? And, Gryffindors are obviously a pride," she nodded thoughtfully. The animal mascots of the other houses were a lot more interesting than a badger to Freya, although she had heard that badgers could be vicious when provoked and wondered if Hufflepuffs were the same. She'd have to watch for sharp teeth behind a cute and fuzzy exterior when dealing with her housemates.

"I'm honoured," she grinned when Kas bowed to her. "Smart, but you'd have to be careful or I'd end up as pumpkin soup," Freya winced as the image of being splattered into a thousand pumpkin chunks popped into her mind. "I could be a pumpkin ghost? Roll around and remind everyone to eat their vegetables forever." Talking about food was making her hungry, and Freya considered the likelihood of successfully pulling a midnight heist in the kitchens later.

 

[Kasim Safir]

Kas checked out the window when it seemed that Freya's attention strayed out there a few times, but beyond the moon being kinda cool, there wasn't anything super exciting going on out there. They were definitely high up though, which was pretty neat. He wondered briefly how fast something would fall if threw it out the window up here. "Pride is good, but consider; A squadron of Gryffindors," He said, waving a hand as he explained his new vision. Kas was pretty pleased with it, honestly.

"Some sacrifices are necessary in the name of making a quick get away," Kas said sagely in response to Freya's theoretical soup-y demise, thinking again about what would happen if you tossed something off the tower. Or maybe just down the stairs. This school definitely had a lot of stairs. Kas laughed at Freya's haunting plans, nodding earnestly. "Mm yeah, far more scary than what the other ghosts around here could do, I bet. You should take over. Head Ghost in no time." Was that a thing? Did ghosts have jobs and stuff after they died? Could they get fired? Kas would love to see someone try to fire a ghost and see how well that went down.

 

[Freya Song]

"You're a genius," Freya enthused. A squadron of Gryffindors made her think of the lion dancers she saw around new year charging into battle, and the mental image amused her. Kas should be in charge of naming things forever. She thought he was clever and possibly the sort of person she would consider being friends with, if that was something Freya did.

Freya made a face at the idea of becoming Head Ghost. "That sounds like... too much responsibility. Ghost anarchy only!" she decided. There was very little point in being a ghost if there was a hierarchy and Freya was all for chaos in her little made-up spirit society. She leaned against the stone wall and regretted she didn't wear a watch to tell what time it was. "Y'know, it's probably going to suck once they release the man-eating hounds to catch students after curfew. You won't be as pretty with your face chewed off," Freya said with a shrug.

 

[Kasim Safir]

"Thank you, thank you," Kas nodded graciously when Freya rightly recognized his genius. He laughed when Freya rejected his head ghost idea though. "Sorry to tell you this, but the afterlife is very bureaucratic. Ghost responsibility is real. Lotta paperwork," Kas grinned at Freya's call for anarchy. "That's the spirit," He added dryly, before scrunching up his nose at his own pun.

Kas watched Freya out of the corner of his eye when she mentioned 'man-eating hounds'. "It is true, I am much too pretty to die so young," He said somberly. "Though do you know when they uh.. release face eating hounds?" He asked, suddenly aware that Kas had no idea what time it was or how long the pair of them had been hanging out up here, it was looking darker outside the big window by Freya at least. He figured Freya was probably still joking about the hound part, but he did wonder if some prefect was getting trouble somewhere for losing a first year, or if they even bothered to keep track of that stuff. "If you wanna get back to staring longingly out the window or something, I can leave you to it." He added, shrugging back at her as he put his hands in his pockets.

 

[Freya Song]

Freya laughed as Kas made a terrible pun. It had occurred to her that she had just called Kas pretty and that she would probably start turning red in embarrassment if she thought about it too hard, but luckily he took it as a joke. That was good. People often took words too seriously, in Freya's opinion, but Kas was good company and she didn't want to accidentally make him uncomfortable.

Freya was torn between wanting him to leave and the peculiar loneliness aching in her gut, but disguised her indecisiveness with a careless toss of her head. "If you like. The moon and I need to finish our conversation from earlier, and I've still got to kidnap an owl from the owlery to use as a teddy bear. I'm very busy, you understand," she said. Freya wasn't particularly worried about getting in trouble for staying out late - even if she did get caught, she could feign being a scared little first year lost in the big castle. "See you around if you change your mind about going ghost!" Freya laughed, rocking on her heels and grinning.

 

[Kasim Safir]

Kas was hoping he could convince Freya to come back to the common room with him. Admittedly, they'd need to find it first, but they could burn that bridge when they crossed it. "I see once again the moon is better company than me, dang," He said with a sigh. It seemed like Freya was content to stay up here though, and Kas wasn't one to come off clingy or anything. "I have it on good authority owls make terrible teddy bears. Ravens are much better if you don't mind the goth vibe," He said with a shrug. Freya seemed very good at making jokes and appearing unbothered by all this new school stuff and Kas didn't know if he was more impressed of envious about it. He did wonder if Freya really intended to stay up here all night though. "I'm just worried about getting to the dorms, I think it's school rules the last person back gets the crappiest bed," He said with a shrug. "I'll be sure to look you up next time a need a little more morbid energy in my life though, thanks." Kas gave Freya a thumbs up, moving to take a few steps away. He didn't really want to leave Freya up here and brave the walk back alone, but they'd come so far with the clever banter it seemed a shame to ruin it by saying anything lame or boring like that.