It was a brisk and cool morning around the grounds of the facility. The hour was ungodly, just before 6 in the morning, and the frozen dew was still causing the blades of grass unto Frondie feet to crunch with ever ginger step forward. Making her way down the hallways had been a lonely experience. There were no classes today, it was Sunday, and Miss Engel was going to take advantage of her first free day since she had arrived at this dastardly dump. Walking across the lawn she looked around, her fogs of breath spouting lightly from her nostrils with every exhale into the chilly atmosphere. The ambiance in this place was much different that California, this was for sure. The cold was almost unbearable, though she had experienced weather like this before when the Cali winter decided to grow a wild hair. Her attire, unfortunately, was just a bleak and gray as the rest of this place. The suicide rate here must be higher than Washington State. At least it wasn't raining, though the sky honestly didn't look too promising. Pulling her gray cloak tighter over her narrow shoulders she walked on, looking around for any sort of trail, or at least more scenic area, in which she could enjoy her morning jog. Her body circled, her eyes whirling around. Nothing, nothing but ocean and trees. Venturing into the woods was out of the question, especially since she hadn't quite got the knack of her new wand yet.

Closing her eyes she took a deep breath, feeling the air freeze her insides. Counting to three in her head she pulled off her robe and placed it upon the ground. Who would want to take it anyway? Beneath she was in the standard issue shirt and pant, just as grey and boring as the robe she had just removed. The shirt she had tied around her torso just above her belly button, so as to keep it from flapping about as she jogged. She also had her pants rolled up into a pair of knee high shorts. Frondie began to stretch, leaning over she did a five-second toe touch. Then, lifting and bending her leg behind her, she grabbed her foot and pulled it up to almost her shoulders, stretching her thighs. Feeling this was good enough, as the air was beginning to send a gaggle of goose pimples across her tan flesh, she shook her arms out a little then began to jog at a good steady pace towards the edge of the forest. Upon reaching the edge she turned, and simply followed the outer trail of trees around until she reached the river. Stopping for a moment she peered into the water, her eyes following it up into the woods. Perhaps she could follow this river, it wasn't exactly beautiful but it was better than seeing that damned building.

Taking one last look over her shoulder, way back she could still see that lump of grey which was her cloak. Shrugging she pulled a hair-tie from her pocket and pulled her waist-length blonde hair into a high ponytail, that still trailed down to nearly the middle of her back. Then, she took off, jogging at the same stable pace as before, following the river's bank into the woods towards the lake. Her ponytail flipped and flopped and twirled behind her like a superheroes cape, and her eyes were barely open. The second wind was starting to catch her, that familiar adrenaline rush. Letting her eyes flutter a little further shut she thought of her happy place. A mind's image came rushing to her, and she could almost feel the heat of the sun; or perhaps she was simply warming up from the jog. Frondie was just barely paying attention to her surroundings now. Her parent's beautiful five acre yard, it was like her own personal grassy plain. Even in her teens she would stand out there, the wide open space, the warm air and gentle breeze making her long hair and sundress dance. Sometimes she too, would dance. Veela dances that were instructed to her as a young girl, back in the commune. But that wasn't her happy place... but the dances.. They made her feel more real than anything could.

Frondie's eyes were shut now, her thin toned legs still trucking along. The fact that she had left the river's edge didn't dawn on her until she suddenly came to realize she could no longer hear the river. Slowing to her a walk her eyes fluttered open and she shot a glance to her right. Her heart leapt; she could still see the river crawling along and she grinned. "Thank God." She muttered to herself in relief, turning herself in its direction and jogging back to it. When she returned she glanced north and saw the lake. For the first time since she arrived at Furaie she grinned slightly, approaching it in a much slower jog before halting at its edge and peering in at her reflection. The jog had been a good 15 minutes or so, she would continue later, now she would sit at the water's edge, and she would return to her happy place. Some would call this meditating, but Frondie merely called it keeping what was left of her delicate sanity.

Harper had been going off running by herself for years. She'd come, after all, from a house filled with screaming and lambasting and hatred. There were too many siblings and too many opinions and it all came together to create a sort of buzzing in her brain that she could only escape by actually, well, escaping. Back in East Bumblefuck, she could run down the winding roads forever without running into a soul. She could run through the trees or down a path or right in the middle of the road if she really wanted to. And she did. She was an athlete and certainly ran for fitness, but a big part of her was running for sanity. She loved Fallon – really she did, somewhere in her black and rotting core – but sometimes she didn't, and it was helpful to be able to run faster than her. Fal might chase you for a minute or so, but she generally gave up pretty quick. Or fell.

She'd found her running routine when she first came to Furiae. There was a great, crumbling stadium that you could get to if you took a shortcut through the woods (with your hand on your wand at all times) with plenty of space and a whole lot of stairs to run. It was nice. So naturally they had to move to a different facility without a private stadium for her jogging amusement. But, after some searching, she'd found the river, and nothing had made her happier than finding that river. She hadn't told Fallon about it, or anybody – it was right there for anyone to find, after all, and the longer it took everybody else to find it, the longer she could have it to herself. Maybe it was silly, but it reminded her of running down the beach back when she was younger, down near Kennebunkport.. Back then the water seemed to go on forever by her side, and she was filled with the smell of the sea. The sand resisted her and sprung up at her ankles with every stride, making it a challenge – but a challenge that she loved. This wasn't the same. This wasn't like a slow summer day at the beach – but she could pretend.

And so, this morning – like all mornings – she ran. She didn't always go running quite this early, but she'd been having this disturbing dream all night long about some guy at the facility who she hardly knew. In typical obnoxious dream fashion it was both extremely long and extremely short at the same time, and by the time she woke up, feeling prickly and a bit unsettled, she was so sick of it that she couldn't imagine going back to sleep, lest it begin again. So, in lieu of actually being well-rested, she'd decided on a morning run today. She'd thrown her hair into a sloppy braid and slogged out toward the river so she could zone out and find the ocean in her mind.

When Harper first arrived at the facility she looked like a school athlete. After she'd been there a while she began to look a bit more intense – more like a cadet. These days she looked like G.I. Jane – fit and covered in all manner of minor (but nasty looking) wounds, her robes tattered, her expression stony, her hand on her wand and poised to use it if necessary. If she was ever pretty she wasn't especially gorgeous any longer. That was the creature who, having nearly tripped on a bunched up pile of robes (she glanced around to look for blood or a body, but found nothing), approached the area by the lake where the delicate looking Barbie Doll was poised, looking much like a sitting duck. What the hell? Nobody was ever there – and when they were they usually didn't look so, um... relaxed? It was clear that the girl was there on purpose, though, which somehow pissed Harper off just a little bit. There weren't supposed to be people on her fictional beach?

“Hey!” she called, approaching at a jog, coming to stand before the girl. “Do you usually sit out here around now?” she asked, scratching her neck and breathing a bit hard. Her other hand was, of course, still fingering her wand, just in case. “It's okay if you do, but,” she shrugged, squinting in the early sunlight. “I usually...” she started, then stopped, “There just isn't usually anyone out here.”

Time passed, she let herself breath in a slow rhythmic pattern, her lengthy legs crossed in meditation style. Her lids were gently closed over her dark brown eyes and her face was slightly upturned so that the natural flow of scents could flush into her waiting nostrils. The pine, the lake, even the smell of wild animals. Ears, though sensative, were blocking out all un-needed ruckus, Frondie was going to her happy place. The warm sunny breeze touching her beautiful tan flesh, running and dancing in her sundress; she found herself in the beautiful feilds that was her adoptive parents several acre yard. The grass was the color of golden death, it tickled her bare legs flirtatiously as she wound her body about sensually; the veela dances she spent her childhood perfecting. She could do it better than the full veelas, and still she had been ridiculed; thoughts of those bad times were far from her head though. Tonight she though of home, her true home, where she wished she was at this very moment. Her mother's delicious caramel mochas, and all those wonderful muggle shopping malls, all the attention she would get from boys at school and in the muggle world. Most of all, the long dead grass, like hay.

Those days were long passed, she had made a mistake and now she was stuck here with students (well, inmates) that were much tougher than she. Sure, at her school she had been rather sharp and rough around the edges; but here, it was all the bad kids from around the world, and some of them were even murders. Some of them had never found a home. Frondie was inwardly worried, though she could never seem so vunerable. Merlin! She was only here because she lost her temper, but no, she would now never be forgiven. Now she couldn't even go home and have it be the same. Now her happy place was wearing away into negative thoughts and she opened her eyes, frowning into her reflection in the water. Suddenly, a females voice, strong but feminine in nature, came shouting in her direction; Frondie could hear footsteps approach her where she sat. Turning her head her ponytail flung around like a whip and she stood quickly, slipping her wand from her shorts and holding it pointing it towards the earth. Her eyes watched wearily as the girl seemed annoyed.. but she also just seem confused and a bit tired; Frondie could see this girl had been jogging as well. That was nice, somebody with a similar interest at least.

"Well no." she answered after a moment, sliding her wand away now. Frondie had always been a trusting type. "Recently i've just been joggin' around the school, but that got boreing.. I spotted the river and followed it down to this lake. It's peaceful." she said, motioning an arm towards the scenery. "If it's your spot or something i'll just start doing afternoon jogs." she offered

“Yeah, no, it's alright,” Harper said with a small shake of her head and the slightest of smiles at the corner of her mouth. She crossed her arms over her chest, her breathing having become normal, and trained her eyes on the girl's wand, watching as she slid it out of view. Though she, too, carried a wand, the witch was always skeptical of others who did the same. She'd been out of school for a year now and already half the spells she'd learned were long gone from her memory. If you don't use it, you lose it, right? Back at school she relied a lot on books rather than natural aptitude to put her where she needed to be. At one point in time she was on the track to becoming a real adept – a magic user, a career magician. Now? Now she was a joke. By now there were absolute idiots in this place who had more magic than she did just because they'd been sentenced more recently. She only felt legitimately smart when standing next to Fallon or Corrigan – a sad fate considering she was not a survivor of a traumatic brain injury. She had no excuse. She was just becoming stupid. She may have gained a lot of muscle, but that meant nothing if she was facing a reckless dumbass with a wand. She took a step back and kept her hand on her own wand. It was the pretty ones you had to watch out for. There's a reason there isn't a “Magical Adept Barbie” on the shelves.

“I usually run in the afternoon, actually, but I've been having shit dreams lately, so if I'm awake I'm gonna run,” she explained, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, not having anticipated stopping so quickly. She kind of wanted to spit, for phlegm purposes... but if it helped mark her territory, so be it. She didn't, though. She swallowed it back, making a face, her free hand clenching and unclenching at her side. “You know what's boring?” she asked, gazing sideways toward the water almost longingly, “back at the old place – you know, the other place – I used to run around the courtyard, like, in circles. It's fitness, but after fifteen minutes you just want to kill yourself,” she explained, shaking her head, remembering that pitiful monotony. She'd come a long way since then. “That was before they even gave us these crap wands. I wasn't going to touch the wastelands with a ten foot pole – not unarmed,” she explained, shifting her glance toward the trees. She hadn't quite gotten to discovering what lived in the woods out here yet, and she wasn't sure she wanted to. She preferred to think that the woods were full of cute little deer and chipmunks and just a few blood thirsty monsters who slept with something that carried her scent and had sweet dreams of eating her – like, maybe six or so. And then, like, a wolf or something. Maybe poison ivy. What she didn't know couldn't hurt her, right?

“So are you new?” she asked, wandering over to the nearest isolated tree and giving it a completely unwarranted kick with the side of her boot. “I mean, I've seen you before, but I usually try not to get too close to new people until I know that they're not going to kill themselves the first week.” Kick. “Or, you know, month or whatever,” Kick “Or die some other way.” Kick.

At first glance Frondie wouldn't have identified this girl as the type to ramble on, orr the type to abuse nature. But, she had never been the best judge of character and that she already knew. Oh, how many times has she trusted the unreliable and adored the unlikable. But, beyond the phlegm swallowing and boot-bark smashing, Frondie actually found herself curious towards this girl. Her carefree attitude and masculine looking attire; she was dirty, but she was happy with the way she was. And, this young woman was obviously street smart. Something about her was actually rather intimidating, almost as if she had encountered a warden. Actually, she felt herself growing rather self-conscious and nervous about how she was going to reply to the girl, so much so that she stopped really paying attention to what she was talking about once she started kicking the tree, instead she watched the toe of her boot scuff the rough skin of the inanimate creature until the words 'Die some other way' rang into her eyes and she glanced back to her face.

"Wait.. people die here?" Frondie burst out in a voice that was much more childish and wavering than she'd hoped for. Great, the army woman was going to see right through her act. In no time people are going to be wondering how this piece of work ended up strolling her supermodel-looking ass around these halls. Surely it was for their own personal entertainment no doubt; Now she was just in another place where she can be the source of something to laugh at. With a an apprehensive tuck of her hair behind her ear she coughed and looked over her shoulder, as if something was going to spring out of the wood-work and gobble her up and/or penetrate her vital organs with some sort of samurai blade. Neither seemed to be the case and she turned back to the girl who had the obvious dislike towards nature in general. "Well, i mean.. " Then she realized that had been exactly what she meant, and her creativity had never really been up to par when it came to telling lies. "It's not so bad here, it couldn't be.. I mean.. It has to be reasonably safe for there to be people." It was around this time she began to feel like just what Alyssa had called her, a yank. A dumb old yankee who that that the whole world was secure and happy, and full of magical gloriousness that rained down on sunbeams two inflate us all with joy and safety.

Finally, she sighed and let her shoulders slouch. She had already been caught red handed, and she doubted if this girl couldn't read people, because Frondie was an open book. Even if her expressions didn't give it away her veela glow always did. It shook, clenched, faded, and ignited according to her different moods, making it even harder for a horrible liar to fib. Now her glow was very faded and her tan was beginning to look a bit ill and pale. Frondie's dark, usually confident eyes, were looking anxious and down-trodden.

Harper kicked the tree, not because she disliked nature, or trees specifically. She did not kick it because it had personally offended her in any way. She just kicked it because she didn't want to stop moving. It was early and she was tired and she was supposed to be out here to run. Besides, the tree was on the grounds of Furiae. By that logic alone it probably deserved whatever it got. Kick.

”Wait.. people die here?”

Harper must've been here a long time, because instead of nodding sagely or looking pale herself, she smirked. It was just a little smirk – a baby smirk, even. That smirk could have grown up to become maniacal laughter or something equally as sinister, but for now it was just the slightest twitch at the corner of her mouth, a small and silent celebration of the fact that she wasn't yet dead. “Yeah,” she muttered with a one-shouldered shrug, taking a few long, measured steps around the outside of the tree, one hand gripping the trunk as she swung around the outside, her eyes trained on the ground. “They believe in corporeal punishment here, if you can believe it,” she said with a dry little chuckle, looking at the blonde as though she was making a joke she should have been in on. She swung herself around the outside of the tree's thick trunk again, waking heel to toe, seriously intent on the silly, pointless task. When she emerged around the other side again she looked the girl over quickly, trying to be subtle, and muttered a muted, “Yup, new as hell.”

”I mean.. It has to be reasonably safe for there to be people.”

“Define reasonably?” she asked, walking back around the tree in the other direction – clearly she had a bad case of happy feet. Naturally she would have preferred to be running, but being a loner got lonely at times, and it was always interesting to figure out who else was stalking around the place. She rubbed at her tired eyes and yawned as she emerged from the other side of the tree trunk yet again, this time stopping and leaning against the trunk. She glanced at the other girl again, and couldn't help but notice she looked a bit pale. Had she really scared the crap out of her? Harper didn't think it was possible that anyone didn't know that Furiae was a deathtrap. “Are you alright?” she asked, arching a brow, standing up straight and giving her a look. “Are you going to faint or something?” Frankly, Harper had seen people faint before, and if this girl was going to go down, she'd probably already be in a heap on the ground. Still – you could never be too sure.

“Listen, if you die, it's because you killed yourself,” she explained, making some lame attempt to comfort the girl. “If you do something stupid and you die, it's your fault, right? So don't do anything stupid,” she suggested with a shrug. “Or, if you do, don't get caught.” Or, you know, have an identical twin you could blame it on. That had been a great tactic so far.

The other female’s reaction to Frondie was no surprise to the veela. It was as if she had been asking for it, she faltered, she had revealed to vulnerability to a young woman who looked like she could survive in the ferocious wilderness with nothing but her bare hands. Frondie tightened her pony-tail by grabbing it and two clumps and pulling it to the sides. As she did this her eyes watched the girl as she was now beginning to spin around the tree with the confidence of a somebody who had earned their seniority in this place. She found herself quite envious, but at the same time was just wishing she had just kept her temper in check. Why hadn’t she just walked away when her fake credit card had been denied by the dumb muggle bitch? Frondie now listened as the girl seemed to crack an inappropriate joke; it went right over her head, as corporal punishment didn’t sound amusing in the least. After the girl looked her over with those judgmental eyes Frondie began to grow only mildly frustrated; First she wasn’t pretty enough, and now she’s going to come here and if she doesn’t look like a lesbian she’s going to look ‘too new’. Letting out a low sigh she found her own tree near the other inmate and leaned against it, looking not relaxed but tall and frigid, arms crossed over her bosom. Frondie wasn’t angry, but was a little concerned about having let herself look so silly in front of this other youth; especially now when she was asking if she was going to faint. Wow, she couldn’t have sound less concerned if she had tried.

Harper, who to Frondie was still nameless, began to explain how only the stupid die in this place. Hopefully that was true enough, Frondie had managed not to die in the Veela clan.. and had the horrible long and rigid scar on her back to prove her hardships while living with the flock. Maybe then she could survive here. “Well I honestly have never done anything stupid intentionally, so let’s just hope that I keep my head.” She said in a low disconcerted voice. At the moment her face was towards the ground, she nervously shifted her sneaker around in the soil watching it clump around the soul. Deciding to try and change the subject off of her green newbie ass, she lifted her chin and watched the girl straight in the face, looking her over and smiling slightly. Something about her seemed nice enough (though, as said before, her judge of character had never been up to par). “Well, do you do anything else besides jog? We could do some stretches and what not and set off together.. maybe into the woods? Unless.. I dunno, unless you’d rather go on alone.” She looked into the trees near the river. “I mean..” She laughed slightly. Huh, weird.. laughing doesn’t even feel natural anymore, as if she’s not allowed such an activity. “I understand if you don’t, I usually jog alone. Time to clear the head, let those adrenalines start a-flowin’.”

Harry Potter’s panties, Frondie, now who’s the chatter-box?

Harper loved acting like she had actual wisdom to impart. It was a lot of fun to pretend that she had half an inkling what the hell she was doing or why she was lucky (or some might say unlucky) enough to remain alive for this long. For all she knew they'd let her live because of the way she tied her shoelaces. This place was bat shit nuts. Logic didn't always work at Furiae. If all it took to stay alive was not being stupid, there would be half as many inmates, maybe less... and probably a few fewer Marshals, too. Whatever the case, if the only reward for sticking around a while was being able to pretend you knew what you were talking about, she'd take it.

”Well I honestly have never done anything stupid intentionally, so let’s just hope that I keep my head”

Harper couldn't help but grin at that. This girl was funny!

But then she realized that she wasn't kidding, and she grinned even wider. Really? Really? This girl was going to stand there on the grounds of the baby slammer and tell her that she'd never done anything stupid intentionally? If whatever she did was an accident they wouldn't have sent her to juvy, would they? There aren't many accidents that merit being locked up until the powers that be say you've been rehabilitated. She couldn't help herself – she chuckled. Everyone in this place had been stupid at least once – even if their crime wasn't stupid, they'd gotten caught. In a facility where inmates were separated by blood type and lineage, came from different countries and schools, and were dragged in for different circumstances, the only thing they all really had in common was stupidity. She had to figure out this girl's story.

She listened to the blonde ramble on about running, all the while kicking at the tree's exposed root with her foot. “I usually run alone, I guess,” she explained. “It's just sort of an alone thing. No offense or anything, but I'm all set.” She twisted her head to one side, cracking her neck a bit, before stepping away from the tree. “I wouldn't run through the woods, though. I mean, you can, but it would probably be the first stupid thing you've ever done.” She couldn't keep the smirk off of her face at that. She glanced toward the trees, as if she expected to see a large, dangerous creature ambling by at just that moment.

“Actually, you know what? Let's take a tour,” she decided, scratching at something invisible on the back of her neck, pushing her dinky braid over her shoulder. She was bored and had time to kill, and what better way to get to know somebody than to take a romp through the woods with nothing but wands that work only when they feel like it? Yes, there was the possibility of death out there, but there was no actual rule against being in the woods at the asscrack of dawn. Being mauled to death by a bear would probably be more pleasant than whatever the Warden could think up. “Nothing in there two trained witches can't take on, right?” she asked with half a smile. “I mean, assuming you're trained. You were holding your wand like you were. Did you go to school?” she asked, already probing, as she headed toward the trees.

When the girl insisted that she run alone Frondie felt a little put off, but she didn’t seem like she was getting ready to ditch her or anything. Honestly, it was the first person she got along with; her house mates were annoying little half-breeds who thought they were so special. Please. Just being around them reminded her of being among the veelas again; everybody so cocky about their lineage. Ridiculous. Frondie didn’t even care if the girl was chuckling at her, she didn’t seem to mean malice or cockiness by it. In fact, something about her screamed an inner dorkiness that Frondie was feeling rather fond of at this moment in time. Perhaps upon another chance meeting they wouldn’t get along.. Maybe during any other circumstance they wouldn’t have even had a conversation. But this early, chilly morning, they were just two girls out to get away from it all and get a little bit of exercise; this common link was their current bond, and it’d been awhile since she felt like she could relate to anybody about anything. Well, it had been awhile since she even tried. She had never thought of finding somebody to work out with. Apparently this girl wasn’t the person, but she took a mental note to find another inmate who liked jogging and yoga.

At first the thought of exploring the forestry seemed ill-advised to the brunette, but then she had a very sudden second thought about it. Frondie chuckled happily and followed her into the woods. An adventure, two trained witches, out to find whatever’s out there to find. Wow, she’d never really been the adventurous time before, unless it was an adventure to the mall to find the perfect pair of flats for her new sundress; or maybe a new bright orange towel that would make her feel like she’s trying of with sunshine. Today though, it was invigorating and new, and it brought her out of the depressive grey state this facility seemed to cake upon her emotions. Soon the girl was asking if Frondie was trained, and she slipped her want from her shorts and held it in front of her as they brushed passed the branches, getting into the thicker parts of the woods where the tips of some tree branches were mingling with those of the other’s.

“Yeah..” she answered in a slow curious fashion, raising her brows curiously, “I’m from Los Angelas.” She explained; perhaps the girl wondered why she hadn’t seen her at her academy? Frondie was curious what made her wonder if she had been in school or not, but it really didn’t matter either way. “I guess my accent gives away that I’m an American. Or, a yank, as some would prefer to call it.” She added with more than a little spite in her words, her glow shifting only for a moment, before becoming the warm an excited shine of adventure once again. “I was never all that great really.. but if we find ourselves in trouble I think we’ll find a way out of it. It’s too bad we can’t apparate here. But you look like you could handle yourself without a wand to be perfectly honest.” Frondie told her with the intent of being complimentary. “And while we’re telling the truth, I’m positive I could live without mine as well.” Maybe she was trying to brag, sound more confident, but she deserved it after looking like a fool just a few minutes. Now that she was thinking of her strengths, her mind wandered to her scar. Frondie mindlessly reached back her free hand and touched the base of it, scratching it for a moment before bringing her arm forward again. Suddenly she stopped and turned to the right, lifting her chin and staring at a tree down the bridge of her nose (as if it helped her see more clearly). There was nothing, she wasn’t even positive now that she had heard a noise in the first place. It was like.. the sound of something trying not to make a sound.

If there was one thing Harper had learned after meeting many of the rather unique inmates at Furiae Correctional Facility it was to never, ever assume anything about a person. You couldn't assume that everyone went to school or was trained. You couldn't assume anyone was entirely human. You couldn't assume that people here would be nice, but you also couldn't assume they'd be horrible, terrible and scary. They really ran the gamut from the wrongly accused to serial axe murderers. Many of the inmates had started off as someone like her – an honors student from an affluent background with both parents still together, several siblings, and just her fair share of traumatizing, life-shaping childhood abuse. Others hadn't. There were inmates who had lived in gold plated mansions and inmates who'd lived in cardboard boxes on the side of the interstate. Some hadn't gone through puberty yet while others had worked as prostitutes or had kids of their own. Some inmates had lived charmed lives, and this was hell. Others had come from hell and found Furiae a respite. You couldn't assume anything about anybody, not even that a waif-like wand-wielder at the side of the lake was a trained witch. Maybe she was someone's weird patronus holding a twig (she was kinda glowing). Or it was possible that Harper had finally, finally lost her effing mind.

She was glad to hear that the girl was, in fact, a trained witch – and American, no less. “LA? Nice,” she commented, interested in hearing more. She thought she detected something other than American Pride in the girl's tone, but she couldn't quite place why or where it stemmed from. They tried so hard to rob you of your identity here, taking away everything – if she didn't hold on to who she was and where she came from, she'd be stripped of everything. “Us too. I mean, we're American,” she explained, once again utilizing the 'royal we' without realizing it – it was a habit she'd never shake completely. “From Maine, though. Our house was like, in the middle of nowhere,” she explained. Compared to LA, she may as well have been talking about another planet. There were no neighbors near her old house, and certainly no malls. There were no muggles – heck, no people. She'd grown up in a vacuum – but it was a beautiful, solitary vacuum that she missed fiercely. She smiled a small smile thinking about home – a faraway place she'd never return to again.

”But you look like you could handle yourself without a wand to be perfectly honest.”

“Depends what we're up against, I guess,” she explained, “but thanks. She really did take the compliment to heart. For so long – long before she'd come to Furiae – Harper had dreamed of being the sort of scary-looking witch that people were kind of afraid of. She wanted a reputation that she didn't deserve so she could have quiet time to herself for a change. It seemed she'd finally become what she wanted to be long ago – but about a year or so too late. Of course, then the girl next to her – who could have been her polar opposite physically – was saying the same thing about herself. She couldn't help but glance over at her again. Huh. Maybe she could fight. After all, she didn't want to assume, but it was sometimes so easy to.

Differences aside, they seemed to both tune in to a noise or a movement or some sign of life at the exact same time. Both of their heads turned to face the same direction and there was a period of silence between them during which time neither spoke – only stared. “The fuck...” Harper muttered, taking a small, cautious step forward, as if daring whatever was there (or not there) to show itself again. Her hand tightened around her wand instinctively. She whistled, trying to provoke some kind of reaction. Why? It seemed like a good idea at the time.

And when she heard a rustling in response? She ran. She ran like hell, not even so much as glancing at the girl she was with, whose name she didn't even know. She just booked it for the trees, laughing like a hyena but also possibly in danger of dying of fright. Being stupid was kind of awesome. Now she knew why Fallon liked it so much.

For some strange reason she hadn’t noticed at all that the girl was from America as well, but they’re accents were slightly differing. Also, like Harper, Frondie had grown up in a rather secluded environment. They disguised themselves as a nudist colony; and a lot of times they were naked, though Frondie had never been allowed after the day she received the injury that resulted in her scar. Instead they were all just a pack of veelas, wild and free, living amongst only their selves and their unbeatable amount of vanity and completely demented perception of their worth. How useful could a clan full of veelas be to the magical community? Zilch. Soon Frondie realized they might has well been from two different dimensions; Maine? She had never even heard of the other states until she was banished from the tribe; she had never really knew she was an American before that. At eleven she found out about wizards, muggles, and the world beyond. Before that, the outer shells of their fenced in wonderland might as well have been deep space. It was after that she really grew up, and began to live with a nice family of two muggleborn, but very intelligent and well-trained magical folk. They took her as her daughter, and that’s when she was reborn as a witch; that’s when she found her home. Her happy place; their golden acres of grassy fields. Now she too was missing home, nostalgia sweeping and creating a familiar tenseness in her larynx. That was also when she got to enjoy both the fabulous life of the wizarding world, and was introduced the muggle way of life. Fashion turned out to be her favorite part, and also muggles thought she was radiant and amazing as they never considered there being such things as ‘sirens’ in real life. Ah, the poor muggles and their disbelief in myths, if only they knew how close they got to the truths.

But, while they were lost in these thoughts, that noise had come. And now Frondie was tense and still, her dark eyes looking over to the raggad female and she notice that she was just as tense, and was already clenching protectively to her wand. Frondie followed suit, pulling out her own wand that shared the same core as the other girl’s. As every other inmate in this damned place. When she whistled every muscle in Frondie’s body tightened and she closed her eyes as if to brace herself from a pending attack. The rustle sounded again and just as soon as it did the girl, who she realized was still nameless, had started sprinting. Well, looks like every witch for themselves out here in the forests. Frondie found herself frozen in place, she’d meant to call out to her fellow expiditioner, but her voice was caught in her throat and she just made a short pathetic gagging sound. Her eyes were glued to the bush in which the sound had emitted. Pulling herself together she pointed her wand at the bush, her skill in using wordless spells was still ripe; the green light of the stupefying spell shot from the tip of her wand straight for the bush and something began repelling backwards through the air and hit the nearest treetrunk with a deafening thud.

“A… gnome?!” she exclaimed in complete disbelief. “I thought these sons of biscuits only lived in gardens.” Frondie muttered to herself, squeezing through the heavy brush over to the ugly, solid, fat little thing that had frightened them. His eyes were spinning crazily (obviously he was quite dizzy from the sudden attack) and his mouth was slack and nasty mud-drool was seeping out of his toothless mouth-hole. Her nose wrinkled in disgust. Crouching beside him she poked him in the nose with her wand and it twitched, but that was it’s only response. It was still too.. stupid? To run away. Straightening her back and reaching her full heighth she stared through the woods, her eyes just slits. “HEY!! It’s was only a GNOOOOME!” she yelled out. Would she have gone all the way back to the facility? That laugh hadn’t been very reassuring… Then she’d be alone out here. Miss Engel’s heart suddenly thumped heart in her chest.

It was like the woods were filled with her laughter, bouncing off of the tree trunks and ricocheting this way and that until they consumed the entire echoy clearing. Once she'd left a considerable distance between herself and the creature in the brush she ducked out behind one of those tree trunks, suddenly seeming to realize that the other girl wasn't right behind her. She kept her back to the trunk, breathing hard and still laughing under her breath. She considered going back for the girl – either the blonde didn't see the immediate need to run (why not? It was the best part of being pursued by anything! Heck, Fallon's whole fitness plan was comprised of daily occurrences of running away from scary shit!) or she was dead. Well, she couldn't say she didn't warn her. After a few moments of meditating on this, Harper's laughter died down and she actually began to wonder if the other girl had been eaten or injured or had found a portal to Narnia. But then, blessedly, she heard her voice ring out through the morning... and she wasn't even screaming like she was being cruelly mauled to death! Harper didn't feel so bad for leaving her anymore.

”HEY!! It’s was only a GNOOOOME!”

“SHIT! YOU'RE KIDDING ME!” Harper hollered back just as loud. Screaming had always been one of her strengths. She was laughing like it was the funniest news she'd ever heard, making fun of herself and finally allowing herself to relax a bit. She was trying to figure out where the other girl's voice was coming from. She took a step away from the tree and glanced around in search of any indication of where she'd come from. When it came down to it, she wasn't entirely sure. She took a few brisk, crunchy steps in the direction she thought she'd come from and peeked around the outside of a tree. That little move didn't give her any clues. The giant, shit-eating grin on her face faltered, collapsing on itself. “REALLY?” she called out again, her voice free from mirth. She was hoping the other girl would shout back to her and give her a clue as to where she'd come from and where she should be headed. “Shit,” she muttered, glancing around her. There were nearly identical trees in all directions. She was really freaking lost.

“UH, CAN YOU...” she started, shouting toward the girl again, muttering a muted “shit, shit shit...” under her breath as she nearly tripped over the same root for the third time in a row. She was walking and walking and going nowhere. How many times had she gone running through the middle of nowhere back home? How many times had she found her way out of the woods at the old facility? And she was lost now? “WHERE ARE YOU? I HAVE NO CLUE WHERE THE HELL...” she was shouting, before she suddenly went silent. Then, after a particularly heavy two seconds, a deafening scream pierced through the air. Harper's. Somebody should have listened to her own advice!

From a good distance away Frondie could listen in on the hollering of her newly found acquatance. At least she hadn’t bailed on her completely and went running back to the facility to tell everybody about this dumb blonde she met in the woods who met a horrible fate; killed by gnomes. Only she wouldn’t have been killed by gnomes, she’d be lost. She needed the other girl to find her way out of these blasted trees; she had been here awhile, right? She should know whether the facility was north, south, or which-way in between. Frondie knew she should’ve payed more attention to that minor detail before gallivanting. The streaming waters of the ‘nearby’ river couldn’t even be heard anymore. How far had they gone. She didn’t holler back, because she assumed that Harper was doing perfectly well, she had been laughing madly when she found out what their pursuer at been. Sighing slowly she leaned back and forth, craning her thin frame so her head to peer around the tree trunks, but it was such thick brush that she couldn’t see more than four feet ahead. There was a long pause—A scream sounded so loudly, that Frondie had a stomach-wrenching intuition that this was no joke; something had happened to the other brunette, and it wasn’t another gnome. Her heart plummeted so low I should’ve fallen out of the leg of her shorts unto the forest litter below. Frondie’s veela glow dimmed to where it was almost gone, and she went sickly white from brow to big toe.

“Hello?” She choked out, her first attempt barely audible to her own ears which lived only mere inches from her mouth. “HELLO!” she yelled out more successfully this time. “DUDE! YOU BETTER NOT BE FUCKING WITH ME!” she shouted, sounded a bit angry at the thought of this; that simply wasn’t right, it was downright rude in fact. Especially now since the girl had made her swear. Frondie couldn’t explain it but she wasn’t one to use profanity, she found it vulgar, crude, and it showed a lack of proper vocabulary. Frondie wanted to look professional and intelligent; she wanted to end up being a power in higher places. Perhaps if she didn’t make it in the Ministry, then she would turn to her own means, but for now that was still her plan. Though, Furaie is a bit of setback in your academic transcripts. Frondie decided it was best to find the girl, and she had to find her face. Doing her best, she tried to pinpoint where the shriek had come from, and she began running in that direction. Her legs were lean and muscular, and took her at a quick pace; much faster than her usual comforting jog. Frondie was whipping through the woods, her blonde hair a cascading curly cape behind her, her arms pumping at her sides for increased speed. Her breathing was steady, like that of a professional long distance runner who was trying to conserve their energy. Frondie hadn’t found her yet, she haulted.

How fast had she been running, could she have gone farther than this. Or was it hopeless, had she been kidnapped? But by what? A werewolf, centaur, a giant witch-eating flobberworm!?! Gasping in panic she turned suddenly 29 degrees east and began to run—Headlong into a nice evergreen’s trunk. The bark was rough and scratchy, and her formerly blemish free face was now had a nice gash across the front of her nose, blood was making it’s way in a nice little creek down around her lips. Frondie touched her face and frowned. “Oh no.. my face.” She mourned over her currently destroyed perfection. She also now had to worry about what the head healer was like; she’d be paying a visit to him in due time. “Merlin help me,” Frondie moaned. “ARE YOU ALL RIGHT!?!” She called out again while standing up. Her head pounded with every beat of her heart.

NPC played by: Elijah!

It snorted and pawed at the ground, its feeding disturbed by the shouting. Its ears flattened, twitching. Its tail lashed.

Nearly twenty one hands tall at the shoulder, the beast stood heavy and high on the ground. It was a unicorn, but not one that anyone had ever seen before. Its coat was black as pitch, with a coal-dark silken mane and tail that brushed out behind it, tangled in places with briers. A two-foot, slightly curved horn burst from its forehead, long and spiraled. The bone of it too was black, chased with silver that seemed to glisten in the light. Its hooves gleamed silver too. Its eyes were frightful, demon-red.

It was an evil creation, a violent and demented creature that studied Harper Pollock through a hateful, shining eye.

The girl was off through the woods, the view of her imposed by leafy branches. The black unicorn pushed past these roughly, cracking through even the larger limbs like an stone through water. Its hooves fell heavily on the earth, thudding over rocks and snapping twigs and crackling leaves. It snorted again, loudly, to call her attention to its magnificent and terrifying presence.

To call her attention to the fact that she was in its territory, and it would remedy this now.

It waited no longer. With a sudden scream - a heart-stopping shriek few horse-owners have ever had the misfortune of hearing their beasts utter - it plunged its head down and charged.

When Harper was younger, her family owned a Hippogryff. In the beginning, the creature terrified both Harper and Fallon alike. It was huge, after all – larger if you're a little girl. It looked angry much of the time, and proud of itself, and something about it just said dangerous. The difference between Harper and Fallon, though, was that Fallon sat down on a bench and watched it from across the clearing with her thumb in her mouth and her bare toes brushing the pale layer of dusty dirt on the ground. Harper, though – Harper thought it was glorious, and she dared herself to get closer every day. Eventually there came a day when she was riding the magnificent creature regularly. She cared about it dearly, and wanted to do nothing more than to just be around it. Fallon, meanwhile, never got any closer. Harper's odd sort of affection for large, powerful creatures never abated, even after her father sold the hippogryff and left her with a broomstick instead. The last thing she thought before she was being charged by the black unicorn creature was just how beautiful it was. She was terrified and in love at the same time. It was kind of the same way that Fallon felt about the Warden- she's beautiful and intriguing with a lovely mane ripe for stroking, but you really can't get too close to that motherfucker unless you have a death wish.

That scream that rang its way through the forest had come from some mysterious place within her and had burst its way out without any regard for who heard it.... or, you know, what screaming meant while in the close vicinity of a dangerous looking dark creature. In dreams – nightmares, to be specific – she could never scream, never run. Everything was in slow motion. When danger was present, all processes stopped. In real life, though? In real life she could scream. Time seemed unaffected, however, though everything had a sort of strange ethereal cast to it. It was like the dark forest was suddenly being illuminated by fluorescent lights. She could hear the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears like a dramatic soundtrack to the scene. She seemed to realize way too late that screaming was the wrong choice and she panicked.

See, it was times like these when having a wand that worked on the first attempt would have been nice. Her Furiae wand was a piece of shit – she probably could have gotten more magical current out of an actual turd. Even if it was any good, she was having trouble thinking of any spell that could be used to hold off a giant black unicorn bent on goring her. She fumbled for her wand feebly, clutching it with a fist so white that the wand was in danger of snapping in two. There just wasn't time though – there was no time to think of a spell, or to cast one.

Instead, Harper just did what she did best – she ran like hell.
.

Frondie heard all sorts of noises, but her head was throbbing and she wasn't a detective; she still had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on. Gallivanting in the woods now seemed like the bad idea, she should've ran from the gnome and at least she wouldn't be alone. Honestly, screw whatever was happening to that other girl, how was she going to get out of here. Standing up, her posture wasn’t the usual ‘shoulders back, butt out, I’m a Barbie doll’ stance that she gave off in order to create this façade of beauty and grace. Her shoulders were slouched and her hands kept whipping the blood away from her mouth, making dark smears on the back of her hands. The wound on her nose began to clot enough that it wasn’t gushing blood anymore, and she started wobbling walking through the wooks. Ever y time her heart beat her head felt like it was going to explode. Suddenly, a shriek entered the air that she was positive was no human, and for some reason her first thought was dementor. With her wand still in her hand she lifted it above her head, her heart racing so fast with adrenaline she forgot her nose had been hurt. Suddenly, she could see the figure of her ‘new friend’ running through the woods with great speed. Next, a black silhouette. It was not a dementor, it looked like a horse. A centaur? She was sure she hadn’t seen a man attached to those hooves.

Hurdling her body in the direction of the two runners, she watched closely, staying a good distance away. Frondie wanted to help, but wasn’t interested In the tables turning unto her. Lifting her wand as she was sprinting she aimed at the dark figure and mustered all her inner strength. The blonde did her best to aim while in motion. “CONFRINGO!” she yelled. Normally her incantations were wordless but to give the curse more power she shouted it’s incantation with a vigor that shook her chest and caused her throat to crack. A purple blast of smoke and what looked like physical electricity shot from her wand in the direction of the black horse-looking figure, only just in time for the shadow-creature to pass behind a tree. Frondie’s spell hit it’s trunk with such power that it exploded, felling the tree and causing chunks of wood and sliver to fly in every which way. Frondie noticed she had stopped running when she had shouted the curse, and thus now continued again to run, hoping that she didn’t lose them. Could she be blamed for leaving the scene when a fellow inmate was in dire danger? She just couldn’t take that chance. And yes, perhaps she had felt a friendly connection and didn’t want the one person she was relatively getting along with to suffer a painful death and leave her with nobody to talk to yet again. Well, except for that dopey half-giant, but he wasn’t much of a conversational guy.

That curse was all Harper needed – a clue, a suggestion, something to kick start her brain. She was so terrified of what seemed to be certain death that she wasn't sure that she could have remembered how to use her wand by herself. Every charm, hex, or spell she'd ever known had flown from her head in her haste, and the other girl's blasting charm was just the reminder she needed. Granted, a moment after she'd heard it a tree had essentially exploded and sent a hunk of raw, splintery wood shooting toward her, only to land right in a soft, fleshy area on the side of her abdomen. She'd essentially been stabbed, and she could feel the blood gushing, but she kept running anyway, still gripping her wand. She'd been hurt worse before. Heck, she'd been hit with bludgers before and had kept on flying. If she could get hit with giant iron balls and not give up she could keep running with a splinter! Sure, it was a gigantic splinter as far as splinters went – like, a foot long and about four inches wide... and it may or may not have been embedded in her spleen -but what was she supposed to do? Really?

If the only curse that she had on her mind was Confringo (thanks to the blonde) and the only idea she had regarding how to kill the beast was by crushing it with a tree (thanks to the spleen-skewer) then she really only had one thing to do. She had to put some serious thought into which tree she was going to blow up and get really defensive about it. It was lucky for Harper that she was an athlete, even if she was out of practice, and had plenty of experience thinking this way while in potentially dangerous situations. She had to think like the athlete she was. If she could force herself to pretend, just for a moment, that this was a game that she wanted to win, maybe she'd have a chance... even if she was potentially bleeding to death.

So, having been revitalized by the other girl's influence, she gained some of her own wits back and began to run a bit frantically. She was much, much smaller than the mammoth dark creature pursuing her, so it was that much easier for her to zig zag through the trees. She was being tricky now, circling around narrow little trees a couple of times before shooting off in another direction, making quick turns and generally attempting to disorient the creature as much as she possibly could. The stick jammed into her side was really starting to throb, and she was sure that her stamina was going to begin to decrease at any moment, but she wanted to be sure she had even a slight advantage before she attempted to squash the beast. After sprinting like a maniac for only a few seconds more, she was certain she had that advantage. She could see her tree, just a few paces in front of the beast, and if she seized her opportunity, she was sure she could end this before she got a horn jammed into a vital organ, rather than just a piece of tree shrapnel.

“CONFRINGO!” she shouted, her wand and her sight aimed at the tree, her heart pounding quickly as blood continued to stain her robes. Her voice sounded both fierce and terrified at the same time – both strong and a bit hoarse. If this didn't work then she was dead, plain and simple. She wouldn't need her spleen if she was dead. She watched the spell as it traveled from the tip of her wand right to the tree, and watched as the gigantic branches detached themselves and created a dangerous distraction. Some of the heavier top branches were potentially heavy and sharp enough to kill something large – or at least slow it down. She wasn't convinced though. Luckily, the very act of casting magic successfully was enough to bring her back to her senses, and she was able to recall some of the other spells that she'd practiced and practiced over and over again while back in school – spells she thought she was incapable of forgetting as a result of all of the rote practice and memorization she'd gone through. She knew this stuff. If she knew anything, she knew that magic. So, from somewhere within her, while the tree parts were still flying through the air, she managed to point her wand at the dark shape behind the wreckage and shout an equally desperate “IMPEDIMENTA!”

Everything ahead of her slowed down. The dust that was flying through the air from the pulverized tree seemed to freeze, the wood chips stopped twirling toward the ground, and the airborne branches remained where they were, caught in the snare of the desperate young witch. Most importantly, though, the dark, bucking creature behind the strange scene was also frozen, it's front legs in the air.

It was as though Harper had stopped time within that little patch of woods. It was shocking and wonderful and she'd never say anything bad about her Furiae wand ever, ever again – until next week, at least! She stared in awe for just a moment. She didn't know, after all, how long her charm would hold. It wasn't as though she regularly went about stopping gigantic dark creatures in their tracks. So, swallowing all of the spit in her mouth, she began to run again. She was slow this time – she was in a lot of pain. The hand that wasn't still clutching her wand was grasping at her side, making sure all of her organs remained inside. What had been a sprint moments before was now a jog. She'd used up her adrenaline rush and was now reduced to the form of an injured girl child. She didn't need to run – she just needed to get the hell out of the woods – but it would have been helpful. She didn't know where the blonde was, but she hoped that she had enough sense to run, assuming she didn't have a giant stake jammed into her gut, too. She owed the other girl a lot.

But in order to owe anybody anything, she had to be alive to pay up – and at the moment she wasn't doing too well. Once she was a significant distance from the scene she'd left behind and could no longer see the frozen explosion or the beast who'd been pursuing her, she'd collapsed onto a tree, just to take a break. She lifted her hand away from her injured side and hazarded a look – her fingers were covered in fresh blood. Jogging with a stab wound clearly wasn't helping much. She wiped her hand off on her pants, leaving behind a bloody hand print mark. If she survived this splinter she was going to look really bad ass. Right now, though? She looked pathetic.

So, Harper did what she'd always been taught to do if she was out in the woods or somewhere while running and turned her ankle or got into trouble – she sent up some sparks. If the other girl was around then maybe she'd see them. If not, at least the last thing she'd see before she died would be pretty.

The black unicorn let out a triumphant, horrible whinny as the girl turned and ran from him - running from him! His hooves thudded into the dirt harder now, pushing faster, stronger, slamming into branches and crushing the ground down. He felt that thrill of victory, pushed on harder by what he knew would be his impending success. His eyes gleamed. His ears were flattened back, his teeth bared.

Suddenly the world around him exploded.

The tree was gone, replaced by a blast into shards that sliced his soft nose. He blinked, struggling, and he couldn't see through the dust and splinters, and something was blocking his way somehow... when he finally made it through, the girls were gone.

The unicorn snorted, snuffed. His ears twitched around, but in the end there was nothing left to do. With an angry twitch of his tail, the creature turned and went back to the spot he'd left, and began again to graze.

After her tree had been pulverized, and Frondie was still on the run, she heard another voice call out the spell she had just screamed. For some reason she couldn't help but laugh out loud. She didn't know if it was from flattery that the girl had used her idea, or if it was from gratefulness that the girl was still alive. Shit, she had to at least learn this crazy lady's name before she died! Her trot became faster, she heard another spell, but she couldn't make it out and saw no and heard no affect from it. All she knew is there was no more signs of that dastardly and disgruntled horse-beast. Just out of luck, Frondie stopped for a moment to wipe sweat from her brow and take a breath. As she wiped her forehead she looked towards the sky and saw sparks at precisely two o'clock. Not being a professional, she couldn't exactly tell how far the girl was, but she knew it wasn't more than 20 yards. Again she began to run, not knowing what shape she could be in at this point. Not a minute later she ran up unto the girl, she was covered in blood and looked weak, pale, and staggering. Frondie immediately noticed the large 'sliver' (which more resembled something she'd use to stab one of her roommates in their soulless chest) protruding from the side of her waist. Miss Engel gasped loudly and dropped to her knees at the girls side, her hands hovering around it in panic and uncertainty.

"What do i do, what do i do... WHAT DO I DO??" she repeated over and over, getting louder the more she panicked. Her glow was gone completely, and she was pale and sticky looking. In fact she looked nothing like a veela, but like a regular girl. Her dark eyes were sad, scared, and glittering with tears. Her skin was pasty and ill looking, and her hair was nearly brown from being dampened in sweat. Frondie bit her lower lip, tasting blood from her nose injury. She just remembered that her own face was lathered in the scarlet stuff; but she wasn't nearly as hurt as this girl. "Should i carry you back?" She asked, giving up on trying to figure out what to do with the spike and standing up next to the girl, holding her hand in an offering of support. "I'm pretty sure we shouldn't take it out ourselves, i can totally imagine the cork out of a champagne bottle effect happening." When she said this she looked even sicker, as if she'd vomit on the spot. Frondie felt dizzy and close to a faint; she hadn't been in this sort of pickle before. Sure, she'd fought. That battle against her cousin had been no picnic, but you can't see a wound that's on your back. Being this close, and in the moment, her heart was hammering so hard she felt like she was going to have a coronary.

Harper was glad when the other girl showed up, though she couldn't have told you why. The girl typically enjoyed her alone time, but there was just something about potentially bleeding to death that could make a person appreciate another person's presence so much more. Of course, when she looked up and saw just how much blood was covering the blonde herself, Harper was unsure that having two blood-covered piles of meat in a heap in the woods would be any better for their situation. She knew that sharks could smell blood from miles away, because she'd lived near the ocean and that had always been something people said. How many times had she teased Fallon about not going swimming with her period and then proceeded to push her in? This was a little different, of course. There were no sharks here and this wasn't exactly menstrual blood. These were the woods surrounding Furiae, though. There had to be some kind of creature living there that could smell blood and wanted to eat them! It didn't make any sense that there wouldn't be!

The fact that the bloody-faced girl was legitimately freaking out didn't help much, either. Assuming there was a creature in the woods that could smell blood and wanted to eat them, she figured it would only help that creature out if they proceeded to scream and run around. Although Harper could see the value in expediting the 'grizzly death' process, she wasn't so far gone that she was giving up on self-preservation.

”Should i carry you back?”

“Don't touch me,” Harper spat in response, her words coming so quickly you would have thought she'd been anticipating the question. She did feel bad for snapping, but not bad enough to apologize. Instead she just changed her tone. “I'll be alright. I just need to sit for a minute,” she insisted. She glanced down toward her wound, which wasn't spurting blood quite so enthusiastically anymore – probably because she'd been smart enough to stop moving. “Its gotta clot sometime, right?” she asked. She had no idea if it had to clot sometime... or anytime. All she knew was that she didn't want this girl carrying her. Even a wounded animal had dignity. She didn't take her hand. “I think yours looks worse than mine, actually. Maybe you should... uh, do you have a sleeve or something?” she asked, pantomiming wiping her face on her arm.

“Here,” she said, forcing her aching body aside and making some room next to her on the ground against the thick tree trunk. “Just sit. We can try walking again in a few minutes or something,” she suggested. Clearly this other girl was more upset about Harper's wound than Harper was. She'd have to try a trick she always used with Fal when she was freaking out and whining for no apparent reason – though she had a feeling this girl wasn't quite like her sister.

“Want to know something funny?” she asked, beginning the simple process of distraction. “My sister Fal's okay at all of this healing stuff – not great, but okay. She knows a lot about plants and stuff, anyway,” she explained, quite conversationally, “And my older brother is a fucking nurse. Like, a mediwizard at the hospital in Providence – so he knows everything. And my older sister is a douche. She's a complete asshole. I hate her. But, yeah, she's a career nanny so she's first aid trained and shit,” she explained with a sigh. “So naturally this would happen to me. Anyone else in my family could get poked with a stick in the woods and not only come out healed, but they'd probably whittle themselves a trophy for perseverance on top of it.” She produced a dry chuckle – but laughing kind of hurt, so it was short lived. She took a breath and looked down at her wound once more. “You have no idea how badly I just want to yank this piece of shit out of me,” she grumbled. Luckily she wasn't that stupid.

When her offer to carry the girl was so feistily denied Frondie quickly began to feel that this girl wasn’t feeling that friendly connection that miss Engel had been feeling. For a moment she was taken aback, but then she just let it go and sat beside the bleeding young woman and allowed her to take a breather. As they sat she lifted the bottom of her blouse and began to rub at the drying blood on her face; flakes of the blood began to fall, and the rest smeared and absorbed into the shirt. As she did this the girl began to tell her a story that she seemed to perceive as funny. Sometimes irony wasn’t that funny, and right now Frondie just didn’t see the humor in it. But, just for perks, she let out a small chuckle after the girl spoke and quite trying to clean off her face. Most of the blood had come off, and it was very clear that she put a good gash into the bridge of her nose, and both her eyes were already beginning to swell and turn purple; she had broken her nose. The adrenaline was beginning to wear away and it was pulsing madly, she felt like her face was on fire and was going to split in half, spilling her brains into her lap.

“Yeah, I’m sure it’s crappy but I don’t want to see you pull it out. I’m not prepared to watch somebody bleed to death.” She mentioned off-handedly as if this was a reasonably casual situation all of a sudden. “I don’t know how long you want to sit here but I’m super interested in leaving.” Frondie looked like she was getting a little antsy; her eyes were darting around the forest in a paranoid fashion and her fingernails kept digging around into the flesh of her calves leaving small intents and red-marks. “I just don’t want to risk something smelling us.. I mean, even a bear.” She adjusted her butt against the hard earth, she felt like a rock was about to enter it. “I mean, we could just slowly begin to walk back at least? Like, come on, nobody is going to come looking for us.” Frondie continued to jabber, sounding more and more like a panicked valley girl. With that she stood without awaiting the brunette’s opinion on the matter. “I’m going back.” She suddenly declared, “I’d prefer if you came with me but I am prepared to leave you here.” Her face didn’t look prepared to leave a human being to die, but she was selfish enough, and she did look reasonably determined. The guilt would probably haunt her if she never saw this young lady again, but it’s better than being eaten by a thestral or penetrated by a centaur’s arrow. Placing her hand on her hips she looked down at her with a serious stare, “So? Walk with me?”

Clearly Harper was right – this girl wasn't much like Fallon at all. The only thing they really had in common was that they were both slightly annoying. Fallon would have been distracted by the conversation and would have, like, responded.... probably for a long time. It might have been a nice break, and they both would have been calmer in the end. Apparently this girl was just super insistent on freaking the heck out, though. That was also okay, if that was what she really wanted to do. Under different circumstances Harper might have been freaking out herself, but right now she just felt so tired. She hated girls. A lot. And the damn stick jammed in her gut – she hated that, too. And bears in the woods... and blood thirsty rabbits, and half-starved racoons, and all of the other animals that were going to feast on her if she decided she just wanted to lay around with her entrails hanging out. Hey, it was a choice!

”Like, come on, nobody is going to come looking for us.”

“Speak for yourself,” she muttered with a shrug. Even if Fal caused her problems, at least she knew that there was always someone around this place who would notice if she disappeared. She couldn't promise that she'd notice right away, because Harper did have a tendency to go off on long runs, or hide out by herself, or just generally vanish when this place got to be too much – and Fal had the tendency to do the same thing, only with less running involved. Maybe she'd still die in the woods, but at least someone might find her mangled, gristly corpse eventually. Was that comforting? Was she being too optimistic when she assumed she'd even have a corpse? Hmm, yeah, she probably should get herself inside, huh?

”So? Walk with me?”

“Fine,” Harper grumbled, taking a deep breath and mentally preparing herself to stand. The second she so much as shifted her position, however, her face went alabaster white. It seemed she was finally beginning to register the pain of this wound. Both of her hands immediately went to the site of her injury on impulse. She released a weak sounding cry, which seemed bizarre given the fact that she had been all cool and collected up until now. “Don't touch me,” she instructed again, just in case the girl was getting any weird ideas. “I'm getting up,” she announced, punctuated by a slight gasp of pain, “Might take a minute.” Her crawl to her feet was, in fact, slow and agonizing. She looked like an elderly person – an elderly person who'd recently been stabbed. She tried a few steps, her pallor remaining. Somehow she looked much worse standing up than she did sitting against the tree – probably because she was swaying on her feet like she'd been spinning in circles.

“I'm wicked dizzy right now,” she informed the other girl, bringing a hand up to her temple, as though that would do anything to help settle her. Either way it made her feel a little better. She ambled her way towards another tree, leaning on it without sitting down (she did not want to sit again knowing how long it took her to get up). She shut her eyes, the side of her face resting against the bark. “You know what?” she asked, her eyes still closed, “This is stupid. Just go ahead,” she suggested, waving her forward. “If you get back and happen to see my sister, just tell her I'm bleeding to death,” Harper added, releasing a sigh through her nostrils. “She looks like me, but without the blood. Can't miss her.”

The girl was obviously losing a lot of blood, even with the splinter acting as a mild cork in her side. She was stubborn, and unwilling to let Frondie help. Frondie was also pale, though nothing compared to the girl who now looked like she had a really good face-painting job, as if she was getting ready to become a Geisha. Biting her bottom lip, Frondie watched her slowly wobble to her feet with incredible finesse and obvious pain. This was getting silly, and it was obvious by the girl’s statement of being dizzy, that this was affecting her blood-pressure. Watching the girl was making her stomach tense and sick, and she kept nervously running her fingers through her hair, it became increasingly greasy and a bit crusty with blood residue that had been left on Miss Engel’s fingers. Taking a deep breath she stared at the girl in disbelief when she told her to just go, and if she just so happened to run into her sister, to send her for help. Did she really expect Frondie to be capable of just abandoning a human being—who is on the verge of a faint—in the woods with beastly creatures unknown? For a moment she seriously considered the idea, but with a very painful expression, as if she was angry with her own conscious, she threw her hands in the air in defeat.

“No.. What? Really? Come on.” She blurted out for a moment, her words jumbled and agitated. “I understand you have this stupid manly pride thing going on, but I suggest you fucking get over it, or your sister is going to be the one to identify your body, not save you!” she yelled at her, becoming increasingly furious and upset. Tears were actually beginning to well up in her eyes; she had never seen somebody so unbelievably stubborn, even in the face of their own death. Swallowing hard she shook her head and let out a low, depressed moan. She wondered if throwing her sister in her face would even affect anything. How much she cared about her sister Frondie didn’t know, but it was family—Unless it was like Frondie’s family, it must mean something. But Engel had a feeling that this girl had a level of selfish pride that she simply couldn’t comprehend. If it was Frondie she would be demanding that this girl find some way to carry who tall ass back to the castle immediately, or face her wrath. Even if she didn’t have much left, Frondie would fight for her life. There was such will in this girl, but even more of something else that Frondie simply couldn’t put her finger on. How foolish, to deny somebody to help you, especially when the person wanting to help you isn’t doing if for you, but for herself. It was Frondie’s spell that had punctured Harper; she wasn’t going down for murder just yet.

Dante was walking in the woods, trying to sort out some incidents from the last few days when he stumbled upon a site he was all to familiar with from his past. Two inmates standing in the woods, one with a bad wound and what looked like a lot of blood loss. He quickly walked over to them, both of which were standing despite the pale tone of the injured girl's face, wand in hand, and whispered "ferula". Bandages appeared on the girl, preventing much more bleeding as they made their way to the infirmary. he than picked up the girl in his arms and grabbed the arm of the other and used his portkey to bring the three of them back to the entrance to the facility. He rushed in, robes swishing at his feet.

Dante rushed into the infirmary with the teen girls in tow. He placed the injured girl down on a bed and began bandaging her up tighter so that she could clot and hopefully not lose much more blood. She needed all that she had. Dante began whipping up a batch of blood-replenishing potion and wound-cleaning potion as quickly as he could. He watched them carefully and, once complete rubbed some of the wound-cleaning potion on the gash before rewrapping it tightly. He than had the girl, he finally recognized her as Miss. Harper Pollock, drink some blood-replenishing potion. Only than did he sit and begin to talk, his accent coming through as usual.

"What were you two young ladies doing in the woods to cause this? Nothing good I assume." Dante than addressed each girl separately. First he turned to Harper, lying in the bed. "You are lucky. If no help had come soon, it seems you might have died from blood loss alone. Now, relax and drink more of this potion. Youw ill need to drink some every hour and you are not to leave here until we are sure you will be fine." Than Dante turned his attention to Frondie. "As for you Frondie, I will ask you to please sit down. Are you hurt in any way? If not than I want you to tell me what happened. Injuries like that do not just happen."

Dante sat back, watching the girls and waiting for an explanation he expected to enjoy. They had been lucky he had arrived in time, but he could tell something had happened they were not quite sure they wanted to admit. He would get it out of them, all in good time.

This was all very bizarre. While Harper realized that losing a lot of blood could mean death, and that she was currently losing a lot of blood, she was still having trouble making the complete circuit in her brain. How was she supposed to think about her own death as something tangible? Sure, she'd gotten hurt before, but this was the first time she'd been impaled by a stick while lost in the middle of the woods. She knew there was urgency and that she could die out there, but couldn't wrap her head around the fact that she actually, you know, would. She was in no rush because she wasn't really dying... right? Right? She wasn't intentionally being stubborn – rather, she was being a once able-bodied and self-sufficient sixteen year old girl who really didn't feel very good. That was, perhaps, why Harper seemed to respond more to the other girl's suggestion that she was manly than to her suggestion that she was a corpse-to-be.

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” Harper asked from her damaged position against the tree, shooting the blonde a look. Her voice lacked the edge it could have had if she hadn't been supporting her body exclusively by leaning on a tree trunk. Though Harper had certainly been a jock back at school, she'd never been manly. When not sweaty and panting on the field she was all bouncy hair and cute outfits and face-sucking. There just wasn't as much room for that at Furiae – but did that make her manly? Did being in pain and not wanting to be touched make her manly? She just didn't understand. Her tits were right there, plain as day – plain as the sight of the freaking branch half jammed in a nest of her intestines. Harper was about to tell the girl that if she was so manly then she had something she could suck on, but before she could utter another word there was some guy standing there and shooting bandages at her. As you can imagine, she lot her train of thought.

She'd seen this man before. She knew he was affiliated with the facility, so probably a marshal, but she didn't know him. The fact that he was suddenly scooping her up without so much as a 'by your leave,' was a tad unnerving, and had she had any more energy she probably would have kicked him square in the teeth. She didn't plan to go quietly, but it all happened so fast that she didn't have much of a chance to kick, scream or complain. The sudden jolt of the portkey was disorienting and unexpected and it seemed like she had been transported to the infirmary before she'd so much as registered what was happening.

She just stared, a bit stunned, as the man she presumed to be a marshal proceeded to work on her without so much as asking what had happened. She kept waiting for that agonizing moment when he was going to yank the stick out of her tummy. She was sure it was going to absolutely kill and there would be blood spurting everywhere – it was going to be a painful, disgusting mess. He never addressed the plank in her gut, though. She was about ready to yank the thing out herself and get it over with, but before she could ask him about his intentions for the oversized toothpick that was responsible for all of the gore he was handing her a potion... a warm potion. Really, the only thing worse than having to take medicine was having to take medicine hot from the cauldron. It was rather pungent stuff, and before she so much as hazarded a sip she took a whiff of it. Ugh. It smelled kind of like pennies. Internal bleeding was seriously, seriously overrated.

”You are lucky. If no help had come soon, it seems you might have died from blood loss alone. Now, relax and drink more of this potion. You will need to drink some every hour and you are not to leave here until we are sure you will be fine.”

“Can I at least ask what it is?” she asked weakly, staring at it with a critical eye, as though she could determine its contents by sight alone. She didn't posses such an ability – she was always kind of crap at potions. “And not to be ungrateful or anything, but there's, like, a stick in my stomach?” she informed him, pointing down at her large, wooden protrusion. She shifted slightly on the cot, producing a grunt-like moan, shutting her eyes against the pain for the briefest of moments. “It might be easier to relax if there... wasn't. And I'm pretty sure that girl's bleeding from the face.”

That was all she had to say. If the blonde girl wanted to share her account of their highly improbable adventure she was welcome to do just that. In the meantime, Harper was going to wait for the mysterious potion to cool down and glare at the dowel in her spleen.

Just when it seemed Frondie had really pressed Harper’s sensitive little buttons, a marshal that she recognized from around the castle came marching through the woods as if he knew exactly where they were and came to their rescue. He immediately passed Frondie and magiced some bandages over the brunette’s wounds, then lifted her and began marching towards the castle. Frowning she looked after him, before tagging along behind in a slow jog. Part of her thought of just going back to the Tisiphone barracks, but she decided to follow—avoid getting into trouble, and maybe get something done to her face. When they arrived he began to work on the girl and Frondie looked concerned, looking around the infirmary for Mr. O’Dair, who was the actual healer around here. After he’d tended to the girl, he began asking questions, and Harper jumped on them just as snottily as ever; this girl seemed to have an undying venom in her attitude, but Frondie kind of admired it. Shifting her wait back and forth she looked at him in a way that said ‘are you serious’ in the most teenage-girl way possible. “Hello!” she yelled at him sarcastically, even going so far as to throw her hands up in the air in exclamation. “Look at my face!” She almost said ‘It’s ruined!’ but then she really would live up to her Barbie reputation, and that’s not exactly what she wanted to be known for, especially since Barbara was such a wretchedly ugly name.

“And I don’t know if you’ve noticed by she has a freakin’ sliver the size of Rhode Island sticking out of probably a vital organ like her lower intestine.” Her tone not much better than the Alecto girl’s at this point. It wasn’t really necessary to say, as the girl had just pointed it out in her own little smart-ass way, but Frondie just felt like yelling. Her adrenaline was finally slowing down; it was so quick that she suddenly felt like she would vomit. Screaming always seemed to relax her. “Also, how do you know we weren’t dragged into the woods by some crazed monster? Why assume we were up to no good, just because we’re inmates? That’s prejudice.” She declared, being ridiculously insubordinate now just for the hell of it. “And, you’re not even a healer, you shouldn’t be touching her.” Her hand was pointing at the bandaged girl, who thankfully wasn’t drinking the potion out of distrust. Frondie wouldn’t have either. Her dark brown eyes were watching him darkly. Why had she bothered following? Now she was going to have the worst day of her life plus a detention. For a moment she seriously considered turning and leaving the room, could he recognize her with her nose swelling and crooked and her eyes turning black—but alas, she didn’t want a crooked nose forever, it must be mended as soon as possible less she live the rest of her days as a veela that strongly resembles a troll.

Played by: Elijah

"Good afternoon, Warden!"

"Warden."

"Afternoon, Warden."

"'d afternoon, Warden."

"Good afternoon," Sicila O'Dair greeted each in turn, tonelessly and with an automated precision that comes with habit. It could be irritating, yes, to be so frequently returning the greeting of the day that she demanded be extended to her and her marshals by the inmates, but it was a price Sicila was willing to pay if it did any of the following: 1) Instilled some general situational awareness; 2) Instilled some polite social graces; 3) Generally inconvenienced everyone.

The Warden strode through the halls at a brisk pace, her black robes billowing around her, while inmates (and some staff) cleared her path. She so rarely visited Michael in his work environment... indeed, she rarely visited the second floor at all. Michael brought most of the potions and other perk-me-ups pertaining to her condition to her office, and she made no social calls that did not have ulterior motives. He was off in the forest today though, harvesting some less commonly found plants, and so it fell to her to collect the things she needed on her own. Her steps carried her up the stairs and through the corridors, coming at last to the door to the infirmary which she pushed through in time to witness the unraveling scene.

Miss Pollock - more specifically, the brighter of the two Pollocks, and a witch from a House that Sicila O'Dair held a vested interest in - lay in one of the beds, and (if Sicila had to guess by her pale face) had probably yet to be treated for shock. Miss Engel stood beside her, her bloody face untreated while she gave one of her marshals an earful.

"One point from Tisiphone, 54," Sicila stated, her voice cutting in to the fray. "If you disapprove of the instructional methods utilized in this facility, you should have made more of an effort to avoid apprehension. Sit down."

Joining the group now, the witch sent a cold look to Dante D'arco. She didn't know much about him save that he'd recently accepted the job here and had taken on Megaera House. Based on her cursory glance at the girls' current conditions, he was clearly no sort of Healer, and while Frondie had been chastised, Sicila privately agreed with the sermon. When else had she ever taken anything less than ten points away from the Beast House?

"You are dismissed, Mister D'arco," Sicila informed him, already losing interest in the other marshal as she turned to her new charges. "Thank you for your assistance."

Now...

The funny thing that many wizards and witches across the globe failed to realize about magic was that the two sides were not as much at war as one would think. So often did novices fall victim to that trap: the Aurors who couldn't master the basic Healings and the Dark wizards who never amounted to anything both stemmed from the same, inherent problem. To Heal was to Torture, and to Torture was to Heal. If one knew one, they knew the other - if you could twist a body just so, just right, you could mend it.

Or destroy it.

She turned to Harper first, whose wound was far more severe. "This will hurt, Miss Pollock," the Warden advised uncharacteristically, her eyes already sharpened and narrowed as she concentrated. The skill of Healing was unique to everyone. Some gestured, as if painting, others hummed, some sang, some prayed, some whispered. She Banished the bandages, and Harper's robes split open around the area as if cut by scissors, leaving a hole. The wood embedded in Harper's abdomen Vanished and with it came fresh blood; Sicila was already chanting in an endless stream of quiet, fluid Latin, almost like poetry. The bleeding stemmed, stopped. Slowly, very slowly, the wound closed.

The Warden drew a breath and twisted her wand. The incantation ended and she surveyed her work only briefly. There was no need to over-analyze; she knew it would be done well. She muttered a spell that sterilized the cut - still partially open - and fresh bandages appeared, wrapping themselves up of their own accord.

"You will put this on it twice a day for at least week, or it will scar," Sicila was saying, already rummaging through a nearby cabinet. She pulled out a clear jar filled with a white, opaque cream and handed it over. "If you run out, ask for more. This will also help to prevent an infection. You will return for fresh bandages after supper each day. Do you understand?"

The Healer turned now to Frondie, whose injury looked far less severe once she'd used a simple cleaning charm to remove the blood. In far less time, the same ritual of Latin closed Frondie's cuts entirely. Sicila handed the girl a similar jar. "Also twice a day, Miss Engel, until the cream is gone."

Harper Pollock was Warden-fearing in the same way some people were God-fearing. For an inmate at Furiae, there wasn't really too much of a difference. The Warden had the power to give and to take away, to grant you entrance to paradise or condemn you to her special hell hole forever. If you really screwed up in front of a marshal then the only thing to fear wasn't that marshal's earthly punishment, but what would happen in the long run, when the Warden found out. While her loveable if dopey sister acknowledged her feelings toward the Warden regularly by subtly mentioning how awesome the Warden was and drawing pictures of her kicking people in the face, Harper never spoke of her particular brand of fear. She just stood as quickly as a damn bullet exiting the barrel of a gun when the woman walked into a room and saved the shenanigans for where the Warden wasn't.

Except right now she couldn't stand. She was feeling weak and kind of stupid. At this lovely and quite surreal moment in time, Harper was certain that the Warden had come to usher death to her beside. Now, in the infirmary, death seemed like a real possibility, yet out in the woods while she was still lost and freely bleeding all over herself, she felt immortal. The Warden's presence could do that to a girl.

”This will hurt, Miss Pollock.”

She braced herself. If the Warden said something was going to hurt, she was apt to believe her. Believe it or not, it was Fallon who'd taught her the tricks to use in these situations – ways to distract yourself when something was being done to you that you'd prefer not to be happening. They'd both experienced enough of that back at home. By now Harper was an old pro. In this case she started counting in her head – counting was an infinite distraction, because the numbers just went on forever. It was a good front line distraction when you weren't perfectly sure how long something might last. Of course, it also served to bring attention to just how long a particular torture was lasting, which, depending on the situation, could be good or bad. Her toes curled against the pain and her fingernails dug into the softest part of her palms. She didn't even notice how tightly her jaw was clenched. The pain was bad, and she did produce a few quiet moans and little gasps during the process (all of which sounded vaguely like '37' or '82'), but she kept waiting for the big, bad unbearable pain that never came. When she felt the pressure of bandages wrapping themselves around her middle and heard the Warden's voice speaking identifiable words, every muscle in her body was still clenched in waiting. It was over and for some reason she wasn't dead or screaming in agony. Cool.

It took a moment for her to unclench everything and relax all of her hyper-tense muscles. She was actually shaking a little when she finally managed to relax – every part of her body was buzzing. She seemed to melt into the bed, finally having spent her last remaining trace of energy on holding her muscles so taut. It was still early in the morning, and she'd slept like crap. She'd just gone for a long run, then found herself pursued by a crazy-ass unicorn-like anomaly, then she'd been stabbed, then she'd been hassled, and finally she'd arrived here, mostly in one piece. If she shut her eyes at that moment, she would be asleep in a hot second. She'd only barely heard the Warden's instructions, but she had heard them, and indicated so with a raspy, exhausted “yes, ma'am,” under her breath – and then “thanks.”

She couldn't wait to tell Fal later. She was going to be so jealous!