Room 512, Thursday Afternoon

[doesnotkneel]

Edward had barely cobbled together what had happened last week. The vast array of strange messages he had received yesterday had distracted him from that pursuit, however, and now it had largely fled his mind. Strange men came to Fandom, and did strange things, and that was apparently the way of the island.

So far, that made it a decent trade, at least for him.

Come Thursday afternoon, all concerns forgotten, he was back to his usual: sitting on his bed, practicing his reading while he chewed idly on a piece of bread he'd absconded with from the common room. His grasp of the letters was nearly so that he thought he could get a job on the island, which would greatly improve his fortunes. At the moment, though, it was all reading about naval battles and ships.

Not boats. Ships.

[[ door open, post open! ]]

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[seveninchmotto]

Isabelle knew she should probably have done this sooner. But she also knew she'd had a lot to try and heal from, herself, lately. And that she was generally no good at making amends to begin with. She hadn't had a lot of practice.

But here she was, showing up in a doorway with something in a brown paper bag with her.

"Hello."

[doesnotkneel]

It had been long enough now that Edward's expression didn't immediately darken when she arrived. Instead, he looked up, a question in his eyes. "Hello," he echoed.

[seveninchmotto]

"I brought something." She gestured to the paper bag with her free hand. Gifts tended to go over well with him, right? Right. "Can I come in?"

[doesnotkneel]

Bribes weren't usually turned down, no.

Edward thought about it for all of half a second. "All right," he said. "However, you'll have to seize your own seat."

[seveninchmotto]

"We'll see if I stay long enough to sit," Isabelle replied as she took a few steps into the room, the high heels on her shoes clicking against the floor as she did.

"Here," she said, as she presented him with the bag. It had something much firmer and heavier inside than he might have expected. It was a bottle, though oddly shaped. Of very good rum, to be exact.

(She'd given one of lesser value to some squirrels in the hopes that they might not report alcohol at the dorms.)

[doesnotkneel]

Edward was clever enough not to pull the bottle out of the bag immediately. That would wait until he was absolutely certain there were no squirrels around. "Thank you," he said, as his fingers made out the shape of the bottle. "So I imagine you want to talk about somethin'."

[seveninchmotto]

Isabelle wrinkled her nose. "Want is too strong a word," she objected. "I'd prefer these things to just resolve themselves. That's what I want. But I know that's not how it works."

She was self-centered, not a complete idiot.

(Most of the time.)

"But yes. I screwed up and I want to make it right."

[doesnotkneel]

"You're a bit late if you want to mop up the sick," Edward volunteered.

Mostly because he wasn't sure how she could, in an I-don't-even-know-either sort of way, not an I'll-never-forgive-you one.

[seveninchmotto]

Isabelle wrinkled her nose at him some more. It was very expressive.

"I went to hell," she said. "Literally. Maybe that will make up for any missed sick-mopping duties?"

[doesnotkneel]

Edward frowned, cradling the bottle a bit closer.

"You'll want to explain that one in greater detail," he ventured.

[seveninchmotto]

This was her least favorite story, for the record. She found a new way of scrunching up her face before gingerly taking a seat on the edge of his bed.

"You remember Sebastian, right?" she asked, though she didn't actually wait for any kind of an answer. "Guy that killed my little brother? Guy who was killed. He came back." As these types sometimes did. "And he got himself an army of poisoned Shadowhunters, and he sought to strike us all down. There was a war. And me and some others ended up traveling to a hell dimension where he was hiding."

Because these things always somehow fell on a group of teenagers.

[doesnotkneel]

Edward blinked.

"...All right," he settled on.

[seveninchmotto]

"And now Sebastian's dead and so are his Endarkened," Isabelle added, simplifying things quite a bit because really, the details did nothing for anyone. "As well as many of our own. And we lost a friend of ours when one of the princes of hell demanded all his memories of us as payment for getting us back home."

She paused for a beat.

"Oh, and my parents are getting divorced." Something she had not even begun to process yet, fun fact. "None of this excuses my crappy behavior, of course."

[hexentotchen.livejournal.com]

After a certain bizarre phone call yesterday, Hanna felt like she should check in with a couple people today. One, whose voice she'd recognized.

She poked her head around the door frame. "Edward?"

[doesnotkneel]

Edward looked up from his book. "Aye?"

[hexentotchen.livejournal.com]

"Hello." Hanna smiled, and stood a little awkwardly in the doorway. "Um. I just wanted to say hello. And I am asking people-- did you get any strange phone calls yesterday?"

[doesnotkneel]

"I did," Edward said, looking a bit perplexed. "I never use this thing, suddenly it keeps ringing all the time."

[hexentotchen.livejournal.com]

Hanna's expression was similar, perplexed and a little amused, and relieved to know it wasn't just her. "I didn't recognize some of the voices on my voicemail. Or what they were talking about. One or two sounded very upset..." And then. "And some man who was talking about marrying triplets."

Which. What?

[doesnotkneel]

"Everyone's got to have goals in life," Edward said, chuckling a little. "But yeah. Wouldn't think much of it, if it's just a thing making the rounds."

[hexentotchen.livejournal.com]

"Oh good." Although she was still going to check on Kathy, and ... possibly Travis? He'd been the most upset. "You know Anders, yes? He isn't upset with me for anything?" That had been the other call that had been embarrassing and upsetting.

[doesnotkneel]

Edward thought about it. "... I haven't spoken to him since that whole matter with the shop happened," he admitted. "I've no idea. What did he send you?"

[hexentotchen.livejournal.com]

"Something about Andraste's tits-- which, I don't know that is. And that he didn't want to sleep with me." She frowned. "And that he wasn't flirting, which I knew, because he told me he and Nathan are together, while I was in the Clinic."

In retrospect, that conversation made even less sense than she'd thought.

[doesnotkneel]

Edward rubbed the back of his head. "That sounds like a touch of the madness to me, if it were actually what he intended," he said.

He was still a little weird about the Nathan thing, so he wasn't touching that.

"I'm sure it's nothing."

[hexentotchen.livejournal.com]

"Okay." Relieved, Hanna smiled. "I'll leave you to get back to your book."

[doesnotkneel]

"You don't have to," Edward said easily. "I've been at it for hours. I could do with some conversation."