Plants and Bones (saxen, closed)

[nomacaa]

Holly took his hand and started leading him toward the mansion. As soon as she wasn't looking at him, she started talking a mile a minute again. Oh man, he was never going to be able to keep up with her if she was always like this. He stopped for a moment and pulled her around to face him. "I'm gonna need you to slow down a bit, okay? On question at a time, please." He laughed lightly and answered the one question he had caught. "I came here because I used to live here a while back and wanted to visit." He looked down at his hand and felt kind of awkward just standing there holding hands with some girl he had just met. . .

[halen2020]

He grabbed her and turned her around, and once again, she was caught by his eyes. He spoke. "Oh, I'm sorry! I sometimes talk too fast, I know, it's a bad habit... So, you used to live around here?" Then he glanced down at their hands. Holly didn't understand what he was looking at. Then she realized, and released his hand, and backed away, blushing again. She had acted without thinking, when she grabbed his hand, and now she had embarrassed herself again. Par for the course.

[nomacaa]

What was it with her and his eyes? She kept staring into them whenever she was face-to-face with him. She apologized for talking too fast and asked if he had lived around here. She also released his hand and backed away, blushing. He shook his head and put his hand on her shoulder. "Yeah. I used to live around here. Then, I got bored and took off." He started walking toward the mansion again, guiding her forward until she took lead again.

[halen2020]

With his hand pushing her gently forward, they reached the mansion gate. It had a new lock, but Holly was the one who had put it on, so she had the key. She unlocked it, and swung the gate open. She smiled, glad to be back home. She walked quickly to the front door. "Come on, lemme show you around!" she called back to Saxen, before opening the door. Inside, the manor was dimmly lit, though oddly clean. "This place was such a mess when I came here," she commented.

[nomacaa]

Saxen was grateful to see that she had a key to the lock. He had been planning on climbing over the gate, but this was much easier. She swung open the gate and moved to the front door. He had to pick up his typically slow pace to keep up. She opened the door and he looked inside. The lighting was such that it even got to his stomach. He longed to light something on fire to lighten the room, but he didn't see any candles or torches. 'Of course not, it's a mansion, not a castle,' he told himself. Though the lighting was poor, it was clean. "Is there something we can light? The lighting in here is messing with me."

[halen2020]

The lights? Let's see... "Well, I don't know where the candles are, and I don't like lighting fires anyways, but there are these odd glass things on the walls, and I saw that they were lit up in other rooms, but I don't know the spell to make them light up, unless they're broken, which makes it a moot point anyways. Besides, it doesn't get much darker in here." This time, while her sentence was huge, at least she had talked at a speed normal people could understand. "Besides, it's kinda spooky and romantic in here when it's dark, and there aren't any of those dark things in here, just a few guys in white, and they don't bother me much, unless I get too close, but I try not to so they won't hit me."

[nomacaa]

Saxen looked around the room as she spoke. The glass things on the walls. . . he spotted them and tried to locate as many of them as possible. He kind of zoned out and didn't hear the rest of what she said until she got to the part about guys in white. Something about staying away so they don't hit her. Not good. He focused on the lighting again. He looked up and made his plan. He ran over to the stairs, went up them, then jumped onto the railing. From there, he jumped into the middle of the ceiling and stuck to it. He found all the lantern things he had spotted before and shot a quick burst of fire into each of them. Luckily, his aim had been improving, as of late. He dropped back to the ground once he was satisfied and landed roughly on his feet. The impact jarred his bones, but he'd be perfectly okay. "And now we have more light," he said with a slight bow. "That's much better.

[halen2020]

"Wow, cool! That was awesome, you just stuck to the ceiling like the worlds awesomest spider! Come on, lemme show you the rooms!" she grabbed his hand, and dragged him to a door on the left. "In here is the dining room, but the table is busted, and one of those guys I mentioned early, I call him player cause he love to play card and dice games, and when I win he gives me fun stuff, but when I lose, he turns me in a card or a die, and i gotta chase him and bop him to make him change me back."

[nomacaa]

. . . Like a spider? Gocha arachni. . . He hated spiders. The only good thing about them was when they were willing to trade their silk for a meal, and even that was difficult, or so he'd heard. He'd never gotten the nerve to go with a group. Suddenly, Holly had his hand and was dragging him to one of the rooms. The first part of what she was saying seemed normal enough, but what came after really caught his attention. It sounded an awful lot like she was describing a Gambler Nobody, but he wasn't really sure what to say about it. ". . . What about the rest of the place?" It was lame, but it was something.

[halen2020]

"Well, upstairs is my bedroom and this cool room that's completely white, and has all these fun pictures all about some brown haired kid with a giant key having adventures, and over ther, there's a library, and it's so cool 'cause there is a secret basement too, and this funny glowing box, and this wierd magic light thing, and then there is this other white room, only this one has a giant pod like a flower." She was babbling happily, at a barely comprehensable speed, and the only reason she wasn't having to stop to breath was her flower was suplimenting her blood with oxygen, and drawing out the carbon dioxide.

[nomacaa]

Saxen couldn't understand a word this girl was saying. His mind refused to process as fast as she was spitting out information. He tried for a bit, but his head told him to stop, so he did. She sounded happy as she babbled on, though, so he just smiled and relaxed, waiting for her to stop for a moment, but she talked without a breath longer than most people should be able to, especially someone her size. Finally there was a break. "Hey, Holly, how about you show me around instead of telling me about it. And maybe slow down a bit, too. I can't really keep up. . ." He walked over to the stairs and put his foot on the first step. "Where're we goin' first?"

[halen2020]

She giggled. "I did it again, huh? Alright, well, then I'll show you the white room first." She took his hand, and pulled him upstairs and to the door, and opened it. Inside was a room with dozens of picures neatly pinned to the wall. "They used to be all scattered, but I figured that if the person who drew them ever came back for them, they would appreciate it if the pictures were in good condition."

[nomacaa]

He smiled at her. "Yes, you did, but don't worry about it. And that white room sounded interesting. . ." She had said there were pictures of a boy with a giant key. . . could that be the Keyblade that Mikhail had told him about? It was entirely possible, but was it probable? He was deciding that it didn't matter just as she grabbed his hand and pulled him up the stairs and into the white room. He looked around at the pictures. They looked like they were drawn by a kid.

"They used to be all scattered, but I figured that if the person who drew them ever came back for them, they would appreciate it if the pictures were in good condition."

He looked at her and couldn't help but laugh. "Well, aren't you thoughtful?" Not very many people would just decide to pick up someone's drawings for them, just to be nice.