[1 v 1] Keep your enemies close (Bix / Needle)

[iloveyouDIE]

"Well.." Bix twisted his mouth in thought. "Can you not see very well?" Bix blurted out a bit. "I mean I didn't want to just ask and be rude.. Sorry but it's been itching in my mind to ask." Something about the way she looked at him was off and because he couldn't see her eyes, he couldn't tell. Plus she barely acknowledged their strange surroundings from room to room.

"How about.. I have a special ghoul in my life." Bix smiled. "She's a monster.. a Quetzlcoatl." He'd actually been able to pronounce it! Though he lacked the correct intonation. In his head, Mina hissed. "That's not a secret." And also not a lie.  

[Enoh Love]

"No, I can not. This mask prevents me from seeing more than general shapes." She explained as if it made all the sense in the world; she often forgot that Engraver ways were alien to others. After all, in her world it was common to wear a mask that ruined your eyesight as you grew. "You were not rude, please if you have questions of me do not hesitate to ask!" So far she had been firing questions off left and right about him, so it was only fair that he got to ask some of her.

Needle bit back all urges to go awwwwwww at the mention of a special ghoul, though she had no idea how off she was about the meaning of this particular phrase. She also missed the incorrect intonation, though it was equally likely she just didn't want to correct him. "Is she your mate?"  

[iloveyouDIE]

"So you can actually see but the mask makes you practically blind? Why do you wear it?" He was genuinely curious. He'd never seen anything like her or her sister before.

Bix pondered the question and genuinely answered. "Bonded forever." There was positive tone there, happy even. He was pretty happy with his weapon. At first she'd made him uncomfortable and she seemed to give him a hard time on purpose but they had grown into each other. "Do you have.. err a boilfriend? Or ghoulfriend I don't know what you are into..." He rambled defensively.

As they walked through the room the paper puppets danced around them. Bix had lost track of the door they'd come through but one appeared in front of them, looking like a gaping mouth with teeth.  

[Enoh Love]

"Correct." A nod of her head coupled with her answer confirmed his suspicions; at his question she almost, almost told him it was a secret, but on the whole she didn't pass up an opportunity to sneak out some Engraver knowledge; she somewhat hated her home for it's oppression, but was never brave enough to fight it openly. "It is required of me. The less I can see, the better I can hone my skills until it is time to remove my sight all together." Her free hand came up to touch her mask as if it were breakable, her fingers resting against the rope binds that crossed along her forehead.

But the conversation over his mate was a happier one, and she perked up considerably whenever she got to ask him questions about it. "Fantastic! A lifelong mate is something I can never have, I am jealous!" Despite her words she sounded happy, at least for him. "Tell me about her?" However, as the question was reflected back on her, she somehow managed to look unsure. "But ah---as for me? I do not...and I should not be considering such things. Once I graduate I will be back to the Manor and back to solitude." Annnnd there went the happy that had been in her voice, her heart wrenching at the knowledge of where she was going with her life. It was the reason she had been so confident in her not being figuratively lost earlier; her fate was clear cut...and she hated every moment of it.

"This door has a strange shape." She acknowledged in a deadpanned voice, almost as if it were an afterthought rather than a real observation.  

[iloveyouDIE]

"Well you can tell the outline." He leaned in and said softly, "It's shaped like a giant mouth, actually." For a few moments he'd forgotten he wasn't just walking with a girl.

He pondered what she mentioned of her species. He'd have to look them up when he got back to the island. The idea of having your sight removed was a horrible one. How could these Halloweeners so willingly do such horrible things, even to themselves? She didn't seem happy about it so how could that sort of thing be okay?

"I thought part of going to school was to decide what you wanted to do for yourself?" That's what human children were usually sent to school for, to find their path. Of course he'd never been pressured to follow a role. "Having a school sweetheart is part of the experience! There's got to be someone you like at least? Even though you can't.. or whatever."

When asked about Mina, the serpent in his mind hissingly giggled. She wanted to hear it as well.

"Well she's.. similar to me. I'm albino.. leucistic actually. I have little to no pigment in my skin and hair. So i'm pretty pale.. and so is she. She picked me out actually. Boils are pretty dense you know. We don't always notice special things in the crowd." He tried to think some more. "She's... she works with me too."

The next room wasn't a room at all. It was a cave. Bats fluttered in and out of crevices high above their heads and stalactites and stalagmites surrounded them. He had to wind them around them as there was no clear path. It was similar to where he'd met the bird-student he'd chucked rocks at.  

[Enoh Love]

"To other students, yes. I begged our elders to allow us to attend on the premise that school would hone our ink sense, but in reality I did it to get my sister out of the manor. She is precious to me, and she deserves better than our lives would allow...of course, she seems to think she is doing the same for me." What a pair they made! Both doing things under the assumption it would help the other, willing to sacrifice themselves for their cause. Who would win and who would lose in the end, though? Needle wasn't sure how far her own loyalty would go, now that she's had this taste of freedom.

"There...is someone who is special to me, but I am...hesitant." For obvious reasons of course.

As Bix described himself, she practically got stars in her eyes. Little to no pigment? Any tattoo on that particular canvas would be...stunning. Such contrast would be beautiful beyond words! In her head her little admiration (and perhaps a little tattoo planning) distracted her enough to miss some of what he was telling her, but the gist was there, and she came back to it easily enough. "A very special ghoul you have, Bix. Please do take care of her, she sounds like your perfect mate." She wanted to ask how they work together, but she was pretty sure that the answer would be It's a secret, so she kept quiet.

"Ah..." Needle breathed out in mild discomfort, her hand tightening on his as the room grew darker and harder to walk in. "Did you two attend Amity?" Another question, another way to beat the discomfort at being in complete blackness.  

[iloveyouDIE]

Bix actually understood her a bit, the defensiveness of a sibling. "You seem like a good sister." He remembered the other girl, caught in the net and stuck in the cage. How she slowly lost it. What was their home like to have to run from it? If she was as sweet as her sister then he understood why the other girls with her had seemed so defensive. It didn't change what happened and it wouldn't change in the future if his superiors ordered them captured again. He'd made his choice of side.

"Well I say go for it. I have sort of a new outlook on life that I am trying to stick to and its to never question your instincts and if you see something you want, do whatever you can to get it. I used to be unsure of everything.. it's hard at first to get rolling and break old habits." Bix steered her around a boulder and the rocky cave began to get hot, lava dripping down a wall to their right but disappearing into a crack in the ground. "But its nice to have control of what's happening to you a bit more."

The albino hunter was trying to find a way to 'sense' the portal to Amity, as if the rise in FEAR would help him. He wasn't currently getting anything. He wasn't sure if they were headed the right way anymore or if the house was playing with them.

"She went there but it was a while ago." He knew that with monsters and ghosts ages didn't often matter. He also had no idea how long ago it was that Mina had been a student, but he did know that Amity was the school she'd disappeared from. "I was home schooled." If home was 'the human world'.  

[Enoh Love]

"I try." Needle said, somewhat amused. She certainly did, but that was as far as she could honestly say. She listened to Bix's advice, her mouth setting in what was supposed to be a thoughtful frown; it was sound advice, it really was. However there was little chance she could escape her fate, and that meant a very real potential for heartbreak. She was already having a hard time coping with the fact she was going to lose all of these wonderful friends, but...what happened if she cultivated a couple with someone?

"I will try my best, that much I can promise." She submitted, still very much at war with herself internally. Needle wanted to grab life by the horns and experience everything, but there were certain things she knew would get no where, especially if she ended up back at the manor.

The Engraver would be no help when it came to finding the way out; each room felt the same as the last, though the scenery did change here and there.

"Ahh, I understand! I wonder...if school was as dangerous then as it is now?" She mused thoughtfully, her feet going intangible over the more heated, rocky terrain to avoid tripping or scorching her bare feet. "There is something wrong in our world if I have to promise my Sister that we will go back home - for good - if something happened at a sporting event."  

[iloveyouDIE]

"I don't really know.." Bix murmured. He honestly didn't. Apparently kids were turned but was it as full force as the activity was now? Hunters had seemed a new thing to the Amityville students. Perhaps everything was just kept hush-hush? "She doesn't talk much about those times."

Mina was silent as he discussed it. She didn't help nor hinder. Perhaps she didn't remember? He'd never been able to get out of her if she volunteered or was simply taken. He knew her attitude though and either one was just as likely.

He glanced down as she turned intagible. GHOST. GOT IT! A swell of accomplishment as he figured out that small piece of the puzzle. "Do you like school, even with the.. craziness?"

Bix could at least try to get some information, some sort of insight into the student's heads.  

[Enoh Love]

"Ah. Well, it might not have been too bad, I mean...I had never heard of such danger at home, and word does tend to come our way on occasion." Needle mused, humming thoughtfully at the idea. "Well either way, so long as I can keep my dear sister safe, all will be right in my world." Anyone else would just be an unfortunate loss; Lattice would be a devastating, unrecoverable blow to her entire life.

"I do! It is very enjoyable outside of that. The classes are interesting, though I would like more time to spar! Perhaps work with my needles a little more~" She gave it some thought, and then turned her head up to look at him, her lips pulling into a smile. "Perhaps, when we meet again, we could spar?" Fighting friends was always fun! Even though there was no such thing as holding back; hopefully he wouldn't take offense if she actually and actively tried to win.

"Say, that reminds me...I do not have a skelephone, would that be a problem?" After all, he did make hints of them meeting again!  

[iloveyouDIE]

"Spar? Yeah sure." Bix at least would be able to gauge her ability. If anything happened or went wrong, he'd be better prepared. He wasn't looking forward to getting stuck with those needles though.

Bix was pretty sure he couldn't phone her, so that particular fact didn't seem like a problem. "Oh that's fine. How about we can just meet here? I'm working and you students find your way in with no problem."

Wasn't he supposed to be looking for the exit? The cave had turned from lava to ice, with a slippery wet area in between. The talking was passing the time and another door seemed to loom ahead. Thankfully it was a normal door (which stood out a bit in the cave wall) but Bix hoped that promised for a bit of a normal room.

He had no idea how close they were to leaving. He turned back to Needle. "Maybe in a week or so? I'm not here every day."  

[Enoh Love]

"Here in a week. Okay. I will...sit in a room until you find me." Needle giggled softly, pressing her fingertips against her lips. She didn't notice the temperature change nor the ice floor as her feet were intangible, but she did notice the very obvious door; fortunately for Bix it lead to a mostly normal room. ...If you could call gigantic furniture normal; they looked only a few inches tall in this room! This Needle did notice, only because the world looked shockingly off to her.

"This room seems...off. What is wrong with it?" She stopped moving, makng Bix stop with her, looking this way and that at the larger-than-life furniture.  

[iloveyouDIE]

Bix grinned a bit when he saw the huge furniture. It was pretty cool.

"Everything is big!" He laughed. He led Needle over to one of the huuuuuge chair legs. He moved her hands against the wooden grain. "That's a chair and look.." He stood next to it and it was as wide as his body. "Compared to me."

"This place is pretty cool. I can't even imagine what sort of forces come together to make all this happen." He sounded like a huge geek for a moment. "The FEAR and time is manipulated and.. Halloweeners and humans.. It's pretty fascinating if you really think of it."  

[Enoh Love]

"Ooh...!" Needle breathed out, patting down the wood grain with her stained hands. As Bix went to stand beside it she tilted her head this way and that, looking between the boil's shape and that of the giant chair leg. The next step she took she put a cold palm on his chest, though she was looking up to try and see here the chair seat actually was. "My I...I would like to see the top!" Except she was afraid of heights; rather unable to feel the ground under her feet, even if intangible.

"Yes! This place seems amazing! I am glad I got lost in here with you~" Needle keened happily, looking around to try and see all the other furniture, trying to determine what was what; it was harder than it looked. At his next comment though her head snapped towards him, suddenly giving him all of her slightly off-centered attention. "How do Humans fit into this?" She asked, honestly curious. Halloween she understood, the FEAR could meld anything if it wanted to.  

[iloveyouDIE]

"I don't think I can climb it.." When Needle's hand rested on his chest he got another chill up his spine. He took her hand in his freed one and held her grounded that way.

The ghost's head snapped but her question wasn't as suspicious as he expected, still he felt on edge. "Well humans can't go to Halloween, because of the FEAR and most students are too weak to be seen in the human world..." Bix put it together. "Yet the hunters can come here and walk and talk just as easily as the rest. It's just.. fascinating. Is all..." He sounded unsure but more in a way where he thought she in fact did not find it fascinating.

"Don't humans always fit into it?" He shrugged again. Human hunters fought for their 'humanity' and Halloween fed from the FEAR of all humans. Without humans there wouldn't be this fighting but there also wouldn't be FEAR. Bix didn't say it though. He let it hang, like some sort of philosophical question for the ages.