The dude just said other realities. As in, a different reality. As in, a reality like the one in which Ridge was a 25 year-old blonde heartthrob (or snob, it depended on perspective).
He was. He was. He was...
Well.
He raised his hand. "Ridge Claremont. I used to be 25. And American."
Spoiler! :
sorry for the wait, there were chocolates involved
I was eleven years old and I'd lost my mother, and my soul. And the crucible gave me you.
Dante, Griffith and Luke all exchanged a look - though Dante and Luke exchanged the look with Griffith alone, given how Dante was still refusing to leave Luke's side.
"If we're telling the truth now, we should probably do a new round of introductions," Dante said. He finally took a step back from Luke and reassessed the group in front of them. Ridge was already older than Luke was supposed to be now - it put Luke at a disadvantage Dante knew he didn't need. But he also knew their names had already been given, so it wasn't like he could switch up the identities now.
Besides, he had already mentioned Supernatural. Someone here would probably pick up onto his other favorite name, and that just left one that seemed stupid for a guy who was currently stuck at fifteen.
"I'm Dante," he offered. "Dante Blythe. Also American, and in my twenties, though I do have a little bit of experience with British culture."
It was actually a lot, but it was easier sticking with the American part now.
"I'm Luke Blythe," Luke quietly offered. "Dante is my older brother. I'm American, too, and sixteen years old."
"I'm Griffith Wilde," Griffith said. "I'm not related to either one of them, but I'm friends with both. Like them, I'm an American. I'm twenty-two."
"Is it only me who came here as the only one who didn't have their age changed?" Audrey tilted her head to the side and looked over at Kate and Tallulah expectantly. "Because I hope not. I'll feel left out. Oh, and I'm British, by the way, if we're adding that stuff too. But I guess that must have been obvious with my accent and all that."
Fifteen? Seventeen?? Fifteen or Seventeen? Ridge knew better than to ask. If Scary Girl - Kate - wanted to elaborate, she would.
Meanwhile, Beagle had climbed onto his shoulder and was licking his cheek, and Ridge let him. He was the least confusing thing in the room.
The thing was. What were the chances that all the people who'd been snagged from their realities had ended up in the same compartment, at almost the same time? Because if Ridge knew one thing, it was that fairy tales weren't real. There was something else. Ridge was missing something.
Somewhere in the distance, a whistle blew, and the train began to slow.
They were nearly at Hogwarts.
I was eleven years old and I'd lost my mother, and my soul. And the crucible gave me you.
Luke glanced between Dante and Griffith. First years went to the school by boat; everyone else took carriages. He would be the only one of them left. And while he didn't expect anything especially bad to happen, it was still a little worrying that they'd get split up.
Luke gave them a tiny smile, trying - and failing - to hide how worried he is.
"I think we're supposed to leave now," Griffith said. "The other prefects must be meeting up somewhere."
Dante bit his lip. Luke tried giving him the smile again, but he knew it didn't calm Dante's nerves. He had checked Dante and Griffith's souls earlier - they were just as the same as usual. Even if their bodies were different, everything that made them what they were was intact.
He knew his soul had to be the same, too.
"We'll find you again," Dante said. "I promise."
Luke's smile grew a little bit. "Okay."
"We'll be careful," Griffith added. Dante nodded as he reached where Griffith was waiting at the compartment's exit. One wave later, and the two had disappeared into the rest of the train.
...It was time for him to take the lead.
Luke took a shaky, deep breath.
"We have to go to Hogwarts soon," he said. He was starting to settle into things again. He was still scared and nervous, but he helped Dante out with his jobs all the time. If he just treated this as a job, he'd be alright.
(He hoped so, anyways.)
"But before we do, this...um...isn't as strange as it probably seems," he added. He glanced around at their faces, and then quickly decided he liked looking at the floor a lot more. "Dante, Griffith and I have ended up in similar situations like this before. Because, uh..."
He took another deep breath.
"...If you've ever seen Supernatural, Dante's like the Winchesters," he explained. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "He hunts the supernatural. I go with him, sometimes. Griffith doesn't, but he, um, is an expert on supernatural things? And ending up in strange things like this is normal for us. So, um..."
He peeked his head up for the briefest of moments.
"We'll get through this," he whispered. "Dante knows what he's doing. Griffith does, too..."
Kate and Tallulah exchanged a look, though it wasn't the same look that they exchanged. Tallulah was trying to tell Kate not to rip anyone's throat out, and Kate was trying to justify ripping someone's throat out.
Tallulah mistook Kate's look for confirmation that this was just too stupid, in her opinion, to fight over, and Kate mistook Tallulah's look for agreement.
Luke glanced over at Tallulah and gave a tiny nod - only to stare back down at the ground when he saw how Kate was glaring at him.
"The supernatural," he confirmed. "Like, um..."
He tried to think of a good example off the top of his head. The first things that came to mind were things he couldn't really say - gods and grim reapers - so he tried to think of what Dante had dealt with on previous jobs.
"...partials," he finally settled on. "They're, um, like the ghosts you see in movies and stories. They only have part of their soul, so they're called partials..."
He kept trying to come up with more examples. Everyone expected ghosts, and he really wanted to show that Dante was experienced.
"Demons-" Thoughts of a leather jacket-clad demon came to mind. "-and angels are supernatural, too. There's, um, werewolves? He hasn't really run into those yet..."
He bit his lip.
"...There's vampires, and, um, anything from fairy tales. So dragons and mermaids are things he's dealt with, too..."
He glanced back over at Tallulah and gave her a shaky, hesitant smile - still nervous about the look Kate was giving him.
"So anything nonhuman," he summarized, proud of himself for coming up with a shortened version of a description. Then he faltered. "...Actually, witches are humans..."
Kate was on her feet in an instant, her eyes flashing with rage. Her fangs were plain as day as she gave a sarcastic smile, "Well that's just facinating. Please, tell me more about how nonhuman the infected are. You glitter-loving piece of-"
"Kate," Tallulah interrupted her. When Kate whirled to look at her, and Tallulah gave her a pointed look.
Kate grit her teeth and glared at Luke over her shoulder, "Go to hell," she growled.
Spoiler! :
@Hedwiggle, how do you feel about swearing? Kate swears quite a lot in other rp's but I want to know if I should censor her and just have her not swear as much in this one or if you're okay with it.
Audrey stared at Kate. "Could you... uh, relax for a bit?" she asked, giving her a soft smile which hopefully looked kind enough to chill her out. "Let's focus on getting to Hogwarts first." she offered.
She then turned to look at the younger boy. "I have a question. When we get to Hogwarts, we'll all go our seperate ways to our houses. How are we going to keep contact if we're to stick together and figure out what we're doing here, assuming everyone else wants to figure out as well, because I am curious beyond imagination." she babbled. "Also I don't think I caught your name. Or maybe I forgot. I... forget things easily."
Even when Audrey seemed unfazed by Kate's outburst, Luke still scooted to the very back of the compartment. Maybe Audrey just wasn't scared because she was eleven - the younger you go, the less afraid you were of things that really should have been terrifying.
That was what Luke had noticed, anyways.
He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do - answer Audrey's questions, or reply to what Kate had said. He stared at Kate for a long, petrified moment before hurriedly glancing over at Audrey.
"I'm Luke," he quietly reminded her. "And...maybe we could try meeting up at the library when we have free time? Some of us might also have classes together-"
His eyes widened as understanding dawned on him.
He frantically glanced back at Kate. She was a vampire. He knew that, and he had just mentioned vampires when talking about what Dante did. And when he glanced at Tallulah's soul, he didn't find a human soul.
He found a mermaid soul.
There was more of a difference between humans and mermaids than between humans and vampires - vampires usually were human first. And Kate must have been a human before a vampire, since she had called it an infection and gotten mad about him saying nonhuman...
His hands shot up to cover his mouth.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm-I'm really really sorry...I-I thought you might be, but I...I..."
He stared down at the ground.
"There's nothing wrong with being, um..." Did he want her to share that? It wasn't like it was his thing to say, and he didn't want to upset her even more. "And Dante doesn't really hunt the supernatural. He helps out with supernatural problems. Sometimes that's supernatural people doing things to humans, and other times it's the other way around..."
The ground suddenly seemed very wobbly. No - no wait, that was just Ridge's knees.
Very tentatively, he raised his hand again. Luke paused midway between what he was saying, something along the lines of ".....sometimes it's the other way around."
Ridge cleared his throat. Put on his neutral face. "I'm sorry. Backtrack please. Some of us here are normal coffee-shop workers. You," he pointed to Luke, "mean to tell me that Supernatural, that TV show Kayla loves to watch, is real?
"And," he turned to Kate, "you're..." infected? a non-human creature? Ridge said nothing, at a loss, because he was really quite attached to all his body parts, and Kate looked like she wouldn't mind carrying around an extra tooth.
He settled for, "I presume you're not like us?"
I was eleven years old and I'd lost my mother, and my soul. And the crucible gave me you.
Kate glared. These glitter-dusted fae-loving pieces of compost were about three seconds from having their esophagus's removed by the furthest thing from a doctor they'd be capable of finding on this gods-damned train.
Tallulah's expression had gone cold, "Kate, we should find somewhere else to sit."
Kate grit her teeth and nodded, shoving her way to the door and holding it open for Tallulah to wheel herself out. Kate then followed her into the hall, slamming the door shut.
They found an empty compartment near the back of the train and sat down. Kate muttered obscenities under her breath as they searched for it, and these rose to full volume when they got to the compartment. Tallulah didn't do so much swearing as she agreed.
Audrey stared at the door. "She has a temper. Tallulah was fine though." she said flatly. "Sorry if we got you angry!" she yelled as loud as she could, hoping that Kate had heard her.
A few seconds passed with silence and only silence as she turned to look out the window. "We're really close to the castle." she told Luke and Ridge.
...When they ran into Kate again, he'd explain everything. He knew he wasn't supposed to share the entire truth, but maybe he could do what Dante did. Take a little bit of the truth and make it into something more believable.
And something that would hurt less than the actual truth.
The train suddenly came to a stop.
Luke, not expecting the train to stop so soon, went tumbling into the seat right next to him. He winced at the pain, but the pain didn't last long. What might have become a bruise healed in a matter of seconds - all underneath his robes, of course.
He steadied himself and gave a tiny smile.
"...I guess we're here," he hesitantly said, looking at the others in the compartment.
Spoiler! :
We've officially arrived at Hogwarts! I have two important questions: do you want to have the first years arrival as actual posts, or skip to the sorting ceremony? Also, which DADA professor do you want? I'm a big fan of Lupin, but I'll go with whatever the majority wants.
Gender:
Points: 4055
Reviews: 98