stargirl

(or trying to)

He was persistent. Effy had finally agreed to snuggling up next to Viro, after much pleading (begging) on his end. He had said he wouldn't be able to fully enjoy the movie if he was all alone on his side of the couch, and that she owed him somewhat since she'd technically agreed to have sex with him, even if she didn't know it at the time.

And to be fair, he wasn't a bad cuddle partner. Viro was warm and sturdy, and his arms were strong so they felt nice around her. Effy sat beside him now, happily resting her head on his chest and leaning against him slightly, with one arm resting on her thigh. Her other hand was tangled with Viro's, something she figured happened absently at some point during the movie.

Effy let out a giggle at a funny part, looking up at Viro to see if he was still watching. She noticed he was looking down at her instead, an odd smile on his face. She blinked cluelessly, moving her head slightly so she could turn and look at him.

"Do you need a hug too, Mister Erudition?" Effy asked innocently, after overhearing the mutterings of another new arrival at Strixhaven. She knew him by name and face only, although she had heard rumours from others about how... mean he could be. They used different words, of course, but Effy didn't want to assume anything about a person until she met them herselfs.

Even if they made some of her neighbours in the dorms cry.

Without waiting, Effy took a step forward and wrapped her arms around the tiefling's shoulders as he sat at the Bow's End Tavern bar. It wasn't a long hug by any means, as she felt him stiffen the second she embraced him. Effy backed away quickly after, drawing her arms to her sides again, though her glowing white eyes remained focused on Erudition.

Effy knew that voice.

A glance over her shoulder at where the words had come from only confirmed her suspicions. In retrospect, she thought Varris was speaking to his patron, the Raven lady, but she was just too happy to see him again. Breaking off from the conversation she was having with another student, the lightless began racing towards her elven friend with as much energy as she could muster, all things considered.

Her smile dimmed, like a flickering candle of joy that the orcish fellow was determined to snuff out. Her gaze drifted, slowly, from him to the supplies she carried in her arms.

"Oh... Okay, then."

The mass of cosmic material she kept for hair wavered behind her, somehow becoming less shiny and sparkling as a few of the stars snuffed out. A dark purple slowly crept in at the bottom of her hair, also growing at the tips of her fingers, toes, her nose, and her ears. Effy then pursed her lips, rocking back on her heels for a moment before turning to the left, intent on carrying on without Grey.

"That's okay! Sorry to bother you then, Mister Grey!" She chirped, though her heart wasn't in it. Effy had suggested making a welcome banner for the other new arrivals at Strixhaven, listing off the supplies she had grabbed. The Prismari place had everything from glitter, to paints, laces, and sparkles... She had thought it would be a good idea, and Grey had mentioned missing a few people still that he hoped would show up.

"Varris! No!" Effy yelped, diving across the table to stop him from eating the infamous 'mystery mash'. It was the special of the day from the cafeteria, and something told her it was evil. It was an instinctive feeling, like the one she got around certain monsters they made them fight in the arena.

While Effy managed to knock Varris's tray off the table before he could grab a spoonful, she also managed to knock every other tray off the table, and wear about a third of the lunchtime menu on her robes at the same time. Her chain, Gen, looked absolutely mortified, while the rest of Effy's group seemed amused in a way. She smiled weakly, before sitting upright on the table and turning in a pile of mashed potato to Varris.

"There's always consequences!"

Effy yelled, bracing herself against the door frame to the interdimensional portal. Apparently, this young monk girl had tried to throw random objects into one of the many Strixhaven portals, out of only Ilmater-knows what reason. Boredom, maybe? Puffing out her cheeks, Effy continued to fight against the portal that had begun to collapse on itself after a bag of holding had been thrown in.

Trying to steady herself the best she could, Effy became more than aware she wasn't going to be able to handle this on her own. And she really didn't want to take another unknown portal somewhere...

"Hey, can you grab onto me? I have to use my hands for this spell!" Effy said to Huo, who was braced against the wall right next to her. As the rascal did what she was told, Effy used the moment of freedom to cast Dispel Magic, thus closing the portal and stopping the threat instantly.

Suddenly, not being sucked into a wormhole or the like, Effy fell a bit limp in Huo's grasp, letting out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. Looking back towards her companion, Effy brought a hand up to move the starry hair out of her face, flipping it over to the other side of her head instead.

"There's more than one kind of onion?!" Effy exclaimed, jumping up from Varris's bed as she came to sit beside him on the floor. Leaning close, she peered at his phone screen, expecting said quiz to be on display immediately.

She looked up from the screen to her friend's face, smiling brightly, "I wanna know too! Then we can go buy our onionselves at the store and cook them for dinner!"

"Piper~! I'm not covering for you if you get caught." Effy said, stomping one soundless foot on the cobbled ground as she crossed her arms over her robed chest for effect. The lightless was often getting caught up in, or made accomplice to, one of Piper's plans. Her bardic friend often had schemes cooked up at random times within the academy walls, and Effy was a little tired of getting in trouble for them.

A voice in the back of her mind reminded her though, that this suffering was part of her path and to let Piper do as she pleases. Evidently, it was destined to happen this way.

// screeches incoherently //

It wasn't often that Effy found herself being hugged. Not without being the one to initiate it first.

Effy stared for a good minute after Rael spoke, empty eyes studying him as if he were some kind of painting. He seemed so happy, so carefree. Hearing about the suffering her went through, the torment... and the absence of an ending. He lived an unfulfilled life, constantly reminded that he would never get to rest. To catch his breath and return to the great lifeforce.

"I'm sorry."

They're the first words out of her mouth. They taste sugary and sweet, like over-indulgent candy nobles would buy solely because it was expensive. They felt fake, though not an ounce of fakeness had ever resided within Effy. It wasn't a situation she was familiar with comforting someone for. No, she hadn't dealt with a 'revenant' before, nor their deathless nature.

"It's... not right. What they are doing to you," Effy said quietly, small hands curling into fists as she held them in her lap. "Ilmater would never allow someone to suffer such fates..."

Effy felt the tightness in her throat before the tears came, but it was too late to stop them. After the first couple, she wiped at them quickly, a sniffle escaping her.

"He's, um..." Effy looked from the taller man, then over to their regular customer on the other side of the cafe. Normally, it wouldn't really be apart of their job to really do anything when something like this happened, but this was the infamous Caspian and this unfamiliar man was supposedly Caspian's older brother. It wasn't like they could just abandon or ignore someone they saw every day, which is why she had texted Aunn asking for Caspian's contact at home.

"I think he's just really stressed. He's been quiet the last few days, too." Effy said, glowing eyes more focused on the guy who had shrunken even further into the protected position he'd been in for the last hour. She could see the white of his knuckles even from here across the room at the bar, and it brought a sad expression to her face.

Effy inhaled sharply, forcing herself to look at the counter instead.

Standing with either foot on a wall of the dumpster beneath her, a frazzled Effy tilts her head and flashes a bright smile at the blond boy who had showed up not too long ago and had begun assisting in her rescue endeavour. Not for herself of course, but for the mama raccoon and her babies stuck inside the dumpster. Effy had herself precariously balanced as she scaled the large dumpster behind the university mess hall, careful not to slip on any suspicious substances on the sides of the walls.

Someone had knocked down the plank of wood Effy had stood up for the raccoons the first few times she discovered them. Without the plank, they were pretty much stranded. While a college mess hall certainly kept them fed, it wasn't right to leave them stuck inside when she could (not so) easily fix their exit for them.

"Well, thank you! You know, they really are just... sweet little guys!" Effy said, as she crouched down to begin stretching for the plank. She stopped when she felt herself begin to tip the wrong away, clicking her tongue as she reevaluated.

Looking back towards her new friend, she smiled again. "Hey, can you give me a hand, actually? Come here and hold my hand, if you keep me from falling in, I can probably reach this plank by stretching!"

"Huh?!" Effy woke from her thoughts with a startle, glowing white eyes widening as she turned towards the voice, hair shifting suddenly as if under a permanent levitate spell. Which, truthfully, she kind of was. Her lips were pulled down into a sad frown, her shoulders sunken.

Realizing what the violet-hued man had said, she immediately flashed a smile: a typical response from the twilight cleric.

"Oh, don't worry about me! Just thinking, trying to make sense of it all..." Effy said, shifting her gaze from Theris to the campus around them. She looked over at the various 'students', a thoughtful look invading her features.