The Katissa Chronicles Interlude 1: R&R at the SDJL dorm (Openish)

Melissa entered the dorm area quietly, still supporting Katy next to her. At this time, most people would probably either be asleep, or off partying. She had no idea what her team members were doing though, so she wanted to avoid going into her own dorm for now. For all she knew they might still be awake, punching walls or something.

"Do you have any clothes to change into? I can't imagine your clothes would be very clean after running through the forest! If you don't, I have some spare clothes you can borrow!" She asked.

IC:

Tap. Tap tap.

Tap tap tap.

I pressed away at my gaming scroll, its lighting at the lowest rating. My headphones kept the sounds to met, at the same time separating me from the sounds of the outside world. If someone came in, I wouldn't know it. And unless they decided to take a detailed glance around the room, they wouldn't know I was there either.

"Shower..shower..shower," Katy thought to herself as they entered the dorm area. "Huh? Oh. Yeah, I have clothes in my pack, which should be lying around the common area somewhere."

Katy let out a small hmm in thought. "Yeah, I better go get that. I need my comb anyway. And I should probably pocket some more ammo before I forget." Katy looked around, stifling a small yawn. "Here, lemme go find it real quick," she offered, hobbling off with her rifle to retrieve her pack.

A few minutes later she came back, leaning on her rifle-stick with a small pack slung over her shoulder. "There we go," she said. "Had to be quiet, it seems like a lot of people are asleep."

"Pfft, lightweights, sleeping so early!" Melissa said, snorting despite the fact that it was easily late enough to warrant sleeping, no matter how hardcore someone is (Well, assuming they plan on attending class... *cough* Melissa *cough*).

"Shower is right in here!" She said, pointing to a nearby room with a blank sign on it. Melissa flipped the sign around, revealing the words on the other side, 'No boys allowed! Enter and be castrated!', and gestured for Katy to enter.

"The lock's broken, unfortunately, which is why I need the sign! I'll stand watch though, just in case!"

Katy offered a smile and wandered into the room, looking around before setting her rifle against the door and her pack on the floor. Opening it up, she produced various showering necessities, her comb, a towel, and her change of clothes, then turned the water on to let it from for a minute while she busied herself setting everything up in a very neat and orderly manner.

After giving the water time to run, she pulled off her dirt-and-blood stained clothes, tossing them towards her pack before stepping into the shower with a contented sigh, gingerly leaning against the shower wall to keep the weight off her ankle.

After a few moments of relaxation, Katy went about the business of cleaning herself up, before thoroughly scrubbing her hair. After rinsing out the suds, she turned off the shower and snatched her towel, drying herself off before stepping out the shower to stare in the mirror.

With a sigh, she snatched up her comb and began combing out her hair, being very careful to avoid raking the tool over her ears. Every time she accidentally did that she'd always regretted it -- it hurt.

After she was finished combing out her hair, she tossed her towel on the floor and sat down gingerly, producing a bandage wrap from her pack to wrap around her ankle, before throwing on her change of clothes -- a simple pair of shorts and another t-shirt. Tucking everything back into her pack, including her dirty clothes, she tested walking around on her wrapped ankle before slinging her rifle across her back and then hoisting her pack to a shoulder, and pulled her hoodie through the cross-cross of straps to hang limply.

Stepping back out of the shower, she stifled another yawn. "I feel way better," she said to Melissa, grinning. "A nice shower is just what I needed."

Melissa, upon turning around as Katy stepped out of the shower, was captivated by a certain pair of pointy objects on top of the girls head. She merely stared at them for a few moments, her mouth open in a small 'o' shape. After a few seconds, she slowly stretched her hand out and poked them lightly, "Ooooh... Ears..." She said, almost as if in a trance.

Katy blinked, suddenly quite awake once more. "Oh crap," she squeaked, quickly tugging at her hoodie to free it from where it was hanging before throwing the hood over her head and looking around frantically. "Um, um. I guess I'm going to find a place to sleep! Thanks for letting me use your shower! I-I'll see you tomorrow," she said quickly, turning to hobble back toward where she had retrieved her pack from.

"Huh? Oh! Wait!" Melissa said, snapping out of her ear-induced trance and stretched out to grab Katy's hand to prevent her from running away, "You can stay in my dorm if you want! I wouldn't want you to walk too much on that ankle, and I can sleep on the floor!" She said, though she was unsure as to why the girl had run away so suddenly.

Katy stopped trying to flee, but decided to stare at the floor. "I wasn't lying," she blurted out. "I never said I was human, and.. and you didn't ask, so I wasn't really lying!" She fidgeted slightly, trying to decide what to do. "Look, you don't have to pretend now that you know. I'll just go find somewhere to sleep and we can pretend we never met. I know the drill."

Mentally, Katy was kicking herself over and over. This was what always happened. She'd need to comb her hair out before it started matting up, or her hoodie would get torn and need to be stitched, or it would be unusually hot, and her ears would get spotted and then suddenly her friends couldn't be her friends anymore.

Melissa watched Katy's outburst with her head tilted in confusion, unsure as to why the girl was freaking out so much. Suddenly she realised, remembering that Faunus tended to be discriminated against in their society - Melissa had no idea why, their ears were cute and fun to poke.

"What do you mean? I have nothing against Faunus! Actually, I like them! They're usually fun, friendly people despite the discrimination and they have cute, adorable ears! I wouldn't stop being someone's friend simply because they aren't human! What matters is what kind of a person they are, not their appearance!" Melissa said with a reassuring smile, not letting go of the girls sleeve.

Katy peeked up from the floor, confusion evident on her face. There had to be some sort of trick here. There was always a trick, but Katy couldn't see anything obvious. "If.. if you're sure you don't mind," she said, still sounding very uncertain.

"Of course I don't mind! Why would I mind? I really have no problem with Faunus! I'm not lying, I don't see why people treat them differently!" Melissa said, sincerity in her voice. She smiled sympathetically, "If you're used to people leaving you because you're a Faunus, I can sympathy somewhat.. People leave me all the time because of who I am."

Katy let out a noisy breath, seemingly to finally give in. "A-alright then," she said, sounding exhausted now that the surge of adrenaline had passed. "But I'm gonna keep the hood on, at least until we're not in public anymore," she warned, attempting a small grin. "But, um.. maybe don't tell everyone if you can help it?"

"Sure! Don't worry about it, I won't tell anyone!" Melissa said, a sinister grin coming onto her face as she did, "Buuuuut... In exchange you have to let me touch your ears from time to time! I did say they're really fun to play with and I wasn't lying!"

Katy blinked, shrugging at the request. "I guess that'd be fine. Just don't pull on them?" Katy suddenly looked around, realizing they were sort of out in public. "Shhh, we can't be talking about this out here," she whispered, pulling her hood down a little more. "Someone'll hear us! We should go somewhere else," she said in a half pleading tone.

"Okay! We can go into my dorm, I think all my teammates should be sleeping by now... Would be awkward for them to see me bringing a girl in this late at night..." Melissa said with a nervous giggle, hoping that everyone was indeed sleeping and entering didn't wake them up.

She opened the door as quietly as possible and motioned for Katy to follow, gesturing for her to go on her own bed, and that she would sleep on the floor.

Not wanting to disturb any of Melissa's roommates, Katy didn't really have a chance to protest the sleeping arrangements. It was Melissa's bed, after all. She should be the one using it. Katy was perfectly happy to sleep on the floor -- an indoor floor was still leagues better than sleeping outside, which Katy was quite content doing. An indoor bed was downright luxurious.

Katy hesitated, then very quietly put her rifle, pack, and (reluctantly) her hoodie down by the door, before climbing onto Melissa's bed. "Are you sure you don't want the bed? I really don't mind floors," she whispered softly. "Or we could share it? It's plenty big."

"No! You can't sleep on the floor, your ankle is hurt! You should sleep on the bed!" Melissa blushed, "But if you don't mind sharing... I guess that would be nice..." She said, climbing into the bed, next to Katy but at least keeping some distance in between.

I've never slept in the same bed as someone else before... It's kind of nice though, I can almost feel her warmth...'

Katy chewed on her bottom lip, glancing over by the door to her rifle. She always slept with her rifle, but it might seem a little weird around other people, so she was determined not to do so tonight. The problem, as she saw it, was that without her rifle she wasn't entirely sure what to do with her arms. She tried sleeping on her side, but quickly found it impossible to ignore the arm she was lying on, so she tried to carefully shuffle around to lay on her back, first folding her arms across her chest, then trying to let them rest at her sides.

After a minute she reached up and tugged on her ears in slightly frustration. "Melissa," she whispered. "How do you sleep without your weapon?" she asked quietly, sounding embarrassed.

Melissa was rather puzzled by Katy's shuffling around and subsequent question. Sleep without your weapon? People slept WITH their weapons? Wouldn't that be a little dangerous? What if you ended up using it? Well, whatever. She was tired, a so gave an appropriately tired response.

"Well... If you need something to hold onto you could always hold onto me..." She said jokingly, no even realizing what she had said until she had said it.

'Oops... Hopefully that wasn't too creepy...' Melissa thought, as she realized what she had said.

IC:

I pulled off my earphones. I needed to plug in the charger for this thing, otherwise I'd lose everything. Again.

"Well... If you need something to hold onto you could always hold onto me.."

I froze. That was Melissa's voice. I looked around; there was a Rifle resting against the door, not a weapon I knew anybody had in SDJL. Did Melissa bring a guy in here?

I shifted my weight, not sure what I should do. Say hi? Or just ignore and pretend I didn't see? Naturally, I chose the second one; however, the sounds of the bending bed, or me rummaging through a bag, and whacking the plug into the socket, all of that announced to everyone in the room that I existed.

I plugged the scroll into the charger, and attempted not to make any eye contact.

IC:

"Shard! Don't say that! That's not nice." I said, looking up from my scroll.

'Was still a bad idea to let you have the night to walk around.' Discussing mentally with herself, she would look over herself. Cat ears on and ponytail hidden into the main part of her now black hair, she would be simply wearing a string bikini top with an undone windbreaker, tight fitting shorts and boots. All in black and the scar on her stomach showing from where the spear pierced her.  Walking to SDJL's dorm, she would knock and go to speak before stopping herself, just waiting patiently for the one she was expecting.