#baronyofthesilverwolf

at the underfoot part "You'd be surprised how insightful Art can be at times. " A grateful look

"Whose side are you on?" Flynn banters back.

"But I don't..." Art trails off, then nods. "I... will help with the Theatrical crew. I do not want to be a hindrance." But he sounds a little hurt.

"I need your help with the theatre kids. You get stories, you'll get the storytellers. Art kids tend to be too surly and isolationist."

"Case in point." She jabs a thumb at her sternum.

"Relax, Art. We're both on the charm offensive this time" A nod

Art nods in agreement, but he does look a bit deflated.

"When are we doing this?" Flynn asks.

"Why not now?" Karen is waving her hand, not for attention, but to finish drying the nail polish. "Maybe he won't even be around." After all, class is over for the day, though study halls and club activities go later... but the after school art clubs had long since been cancelled.

"If you see him, you'll want to abort." A warning "Blaine's toxic"

"Yeah, we can't get caught by him."

"Flynn and I can handle distracting him. You can count on us." Karen gives a thumbs up.

"Thanks. Yeah - fuck it, let's do this before we lose our nerve."

"Roger that. "

She clenches her hands into fists, trying to direct her nerves and contain them with the gesture.

And so they split the party. Art trails off after Randy to speak with the theatre crew, Flynn and Karen break off to make awkward small talk at the end of the hallway, and Trina and Gwen follow Ted to the art classroom.

The door into the art room is unlocked. Not surprising, these classrooms are not normally secured, lest it cause more work for the janitorial staff. However, the second door, the one that leads into Mr. Blaine's office, is shut tight. The lights are off within, showing that no one is 'home'. Ted gets to work on it - fiddling with a paperclip and a thin-bladed craft knife he snagged from a desk.

Thistle watches, with nockerish interest in the craft.

Trina is distracted - it IS really cool. She can practically see the tumblers spinning and the pins shifting in her head with each little click.

Gwen? Gwen gets a bit of a cold feeling in her stomach. Not Mr. Blaine cold - there is a hint of that in the layout of his desk, in the austere and precise way he has his brushes sorted by size and material in a line rather than just in a cup - but a sinking, unpleasant feeling, like waking up in the middle of the night in cold sweat from a bad dream you can't quite remember.

She eyes the desk and looks it over. Cold iron? Couldn't be. Could it?

Her hands move as she watches, tracing out the imagined mechanics of the lock in the air.

No, it's not an iron feeling. At least, not that she remembers, vaguely, from past lives. It tickles the part of her brain that kens, but not a pleasant tickle, like Ivan's fur brushing her leg, but more like cobwebs that brush your face in the dark.

Could there be glamour, coming from behind that door?

/roll 3

/roll coin

Ted curses softly in Spanish, but then- click! The door swings open!

"Sweet."

A curious look at the door and she whispers to Thistle "bit of a glow behind the door I think?"

"Mm?"

"I mean, lots of projects in there."

Gwen nods, but is unsure

Once a storage closet for extra supplies, now it's a graveyard for 'rejected' art. The shelves hold crumpled and disheveled papers, even the glint of a few CDs that may have digital art. Comic panels, beaded jewelry, a pair of dark sneakers with blacklight paint that looks dull to the naked eye, but might glow under the right lighting. Further back is a bin that has larger pieces - rolled canvas, sculptures, something made out of beaten tin...

And something else that stirs in the shadows, drawing up, growing in height. Ted has moved forward and is looking at the shoes. He doesn't notice anything.

"Hey, isn't this Randy's work? We should tell him, but we already have one of these pieces. What about this bracelet, and maybe something from that heap?"

"Randy might want them back either way."

Trina grabs a stack of paper.

Gwen steps forward as something stirs

Ted takes the stack from Trina, and has the sneaks as well, and a roll of canvas under one arm. "What's that metal thing in the bin?" Already shuffling to keep from dropping anything.

"Dunno. Let me see." She goes to grab it.

As Trina reaches into the bin, the shadowy figure solidifies - it is tall, and looming, though not as tall as Gladiola. A masculine shaped shadow, in greyscale, it shivers, slowly coming into focus, features not quite defined yet.

Ted is saying something about what he's carrying, and he steps out the door for a moment... and it swings shut behind him with a loud CLICK as it latches, closing Thistle and Gladiola within.

It's... HIS hand whips out to cover the piece that Thistle is reaching for, and she KNOWS the cold, clipped tone of voice it speaks in, even though it is more like a tinny recording, or an echo. "Trash... waste of effort... worthless..." For a moment her stomach goes cold as she faces Mr. Blaine - but then sudden flash of memory hits Thistle - she KNOWS what this thing is. It's not him, but a doppelgänger - a creature called a mirror nervosa, born of feelings of self-hatred and inadequacy... embodying the worst of weakness and anxiety.

Gladiola recognizes that it is a chimera, and a dangerous one.

She can know it... she can, in her brain.

"You're not him." She tries denial.

Tendrils stretch over and throughout the room, tracing over each of different pieces of abandoned art, drawing glamour from them. Every piece, a demonstration of a student who tried a little harder, stepped out side the box, explored something new - taken from them, locked away, their dreams fading, festering, feeding this creature.

"Sloppy. Formless. Trash." It hisses, even as it clings to the pieces.

Thistle fades back a step. "You're a chimera."

"If it's trash, why are you so desperate to hold onto it? It's got magic, that's why you want it, and that means it's not trash. It's got worth to you, you greedy thing"

"You're imaginary."

It steps forward, matching Thistle's step back. "Trash... waste of effort... worthless..."

Really wish I brought my spear Gwen thinks

"You aren't real." She shuts her eyes, fists clenched as she denies the chimera.

"Sloppy. Formless. Trash." It follows another step closer, but then wavers - a hand reaching for, and then flinching away from Trina, conflicted.

Gwen feels a core of chill cold start to emanate from Thistle, and her spirals on her cheeks start to fade.

Tears leak out from the tightly-screwed eyelids. "You're not real. You're not real. He's not here."

Gwen touches Thistle "Thistle..i t's a chimera, that doesn't mean it's not real. But you can hurt it back"

Thistle feels something, something that calls to her, beyond, past the looming figure over her. Glamour, but not this twisted, foul thing. A hint of something... else. Something fresh, and new, buried, under the fetid stench of failure and hatred, under the pile of discarded art and broken dreams. This hint of glamour, it reminds her of Frankie's laughter, of Art's shy smile, of the feeling of clay squishing under her fingers. It brings to mind Art's last vision that they shared - a gatekeeper, Charon, blocking her way to... to what?

Gwen feels the pressure of the glamour of the Nervosa as it spreads, trying to encircle them with it's aura.

It pulses, and the hint of something else weakens.