There had really only been two options for the timing of this particular venture. Either it had to be done when the light was dim and grey from early dawn, before the day's work had begun, or after it was over in the darker hours of the night. Either held a certain element of undesirability, but the latter afforded Aurelie with the opportunity to assemble foodstuffs throughout the day as she worked on other things. So she'd decided that evening was best, and could only hope the other two agreed.

So after evening fell and the shadows around Brunnhold deepened to that blue-purple shade of night, Aurelie discreetly packed her basket and shuffled on slippered feet to the lesser-used areas of the university. She'd found what seemed like a good location the other night while being sent to fetch some rarely-used something. The lock had broken on the large linen closet and it seemed that no one had noticed to replace it. This was a good sign to her mind; less use meant less chance this clandestine though innocent gathering would be discovered.

More and more she found herself having trouble convincing herself she had invited Jess along entirely because she thought it would be good for Triston to be around someone other than herself in a social context. Entertaining any other ideas scared her. So she didn't. It was getting harder all the time.

Aurelie found herself the first one to arrive. Waiting made her nervous, her mind jumping to a thousand worse case scenarios. Keeping her hands busy with dusting off a place for them to sit and setting up food managed to keep the worst at bay, but there was still a tension written in the lines of her shoulders and back. Oh, she did dearly hope this worked. She missed Triston, the real one all bubbling babble about butterflies and not this pale, colorless substitute Campion had left behind.

The walk to the picnic area Aura had told her about was longer then she expected it would be. The school took on a new, more sinister appearance in the dark. Shadows as thick as sackcloth hid much of what was familiar, and revealed only that which served to frighten Triston. Outside, a great dragon in the sky shook off scales of rain and thrashed his tail. Flashes of lightning scared the shadows, made them shiver and jump. Triston took solace in this, thinking to herself that the dark still feared light and all was as it should be. The dragon outside would have to tire out eventually though, so she hurried before the shadows might overtake her.

There, a linen closet.

Light spilled from the half open door, and its warmth drew Triston to it. Inside she saw Aura setting things up.

It was tempting to just stand there in silence, enjoying the glow of the candles and the company of her friend unnoticed. It would have been rude though. No no no, Triston did not want to be rude.

A sneeze announced her arrival before she could say anything. Triston wiped her nose with a sleeve of the ink stained jacket she wore. "H'lo Aura."

Triston still had that jacket draped around her little shoulders. "Triston!" Aura smiled, though it was a little tight. Did she still like that horrible weedy golly? Even after...? Aura resisted a disapproving frown. "Come help me set things up, will you?" She motioned to the remainder of the foods. She'd already set out little jars of pickled olives set in oil and vinegar with a heavy brown bread, and a spicier version of the meat pasty she often made as a sort of simple lunch. There were little sandwiches on the same bread, and sweets she'd paid very dearly for indeed. She'd had to agree to take oven cleaning shifts for a month when another kitchen drudge had caught her with the little sugared things, but she knew Triston loved them. Every minute would be worth it if her friend felt better.

She nervously chewed on the inside of her lip. Would Jess come? She hoped so. That little toy had been so clever, she couldn't imagine Triston not liking it.

The walk to the linen closet was not a great deal easier for Jessyd than it had been for Triston. The darkness was not a problem for him, but there were too many things about this situation that he would have never even have imagined himself doing just a short week ago and, unlike Aurelie, he had never been able to dismiss troublesome thoughts just because he didn't like the shape of them. His overactive mind had turned his actions and their implications over and over again already, but the long, undistracted walk was a perfect opportunity for them to resurface.

For starters, there was the simple fact that he was doing something he shouldn't be doing. For most of his life at Brunnhold he had been a proper, obedient passive, accepting his lot without rebellion and following the many rules of his existence out of profound fear of the consequences should he disobey. The scars on his back were perhaps fewer in number than many Brunnhold passives had to show, but they ran deep into his subconscious and left him skittish at the mere thought of misbehaviour. He sped up a little, trying to more quietly at the same time.

Then there was the fact that he had no idea what he was really heading towards. Trying to cheer up a person he had never met after some event he knew nothing about seemed like a challenge he was not prepared for. He had only one tool for the job in hand: a little tin. It had been improved a bit from when Aurelie had seen it before, with the nose end of it carefully hammered to a bulbous point and a pair of round ears lovingly attached with tiny rivets, but it still seemed inadequate as his only aid in this situation. He was clutching it so hard as he walked that it was questionable if he would be able to hand it over at all.

And then, of course, there was Aurelie. Aurelie who had fed him. Aurelie who had been kind to him. Aurelie who had been interested when he babbled on about springs and rivets. Aurelie who he had grown altogether too fond of. He had grown preoccupied with the thoughts of her, his mind returning to her whenever he had an idle moment, and that -- well, that was dangerous. His fear almost made him turn back, but another fear that he didn't want to give a name to wouldn't allow it, and before he had the chance to set them against one another and consider which thought was the more terrible, he had accidentally walked through the door of the linen closet.

"Uhm," he said, by way of greeting.

There was a pause that was altogether too long, and then he followed it with, "Hi."

She heard Jessyd coming before he spoke, but his voice still startled her. With a bit of a stumble she came to a standing position from her place on her knees. The dust was carefully brushed off of her skirt, giving her ample time to think about just how ill-planned her invitation really had been. What if Triston hated Jess? What if she resented another person's presence? Aurelie thought she'd remembered to mention it, but even if she had she wouldn't have remembered to say anything about him.

"Hi. Your uhm-- your face looks better." Though she tried not to, she fidgeted a little. Triston... she probably hadn't been thinking about Triston so much as herself. The only one who benefited from this arrangement was her. What kind of a friend was she? Internally she winced, though she'd never let it show on her face. Bad idea or not, she was determined to make some sort of nice something out of the evening. "This is my bunkmate, Triston," she said, hastily gesturing at the little blonde girl. "And Triston this is my, er, uhm," what did she even say here? "...friend. Er. Jessyd. Uhm." She wasn't entirely certain when she'd decided he could claim that title, really-- they hadn't known each other very long. It seemed to fit, nonetheless.

One she finished unpacking the other foods, Triston had silently begun rearranging things already set up as if it bothered her the way they were. The pattern didn't make any sense at that point, and because she kept changing things around it was doubtful she could possibly mean it to. Jessyd's entrance was ignored until Aura introduced her, which she replied to with a barely audible whisper of greeting. It seemed that all her attention was being focused on getting the set up just right.

After what seemed like a good while, Triston snapped out of her miniature trance. Apparently the foodstuffs had finally achieved an order she approved of. Instead of explaining her behavior or even talking, she began to dig into the inside pocket of Campion's her jacket for something. It revealed itself to be a pen, and quite a nice looking one at that. Still silent, she struggled to make it write. Testing it first on her palm, and then on the floor, and then shaking it profusely. By some cruel god's hand, the pen decided that then would be a good time to function, and did so by squirting ink all over.

Triston's strange behaviour drew a helpless little sigh from Aurelie. The more time that passed after Campion's leaving, the more unhinged Triston seemed to be. She was sure it was all really very traumatic, but Aura didn't know how to go about actually comforting her in any real way. Triston still hadn't told her just what it was that happened, though it didn't take a genius to figure out what probably transpired between the two of them. So all she could was smile apologetically at Jess, who was being rather good about this whole thing. At least he hadn't left her and her unbalanced friend yet.

"She's not normally--" like this, Aura started to say, when Triston splattered ink all over everything. Including the food and-- oh Lady no --the linens. Aura bit her tongue on a dismayed "Triston!". It wouldn't do any good to scold her, it wasn't Triston's fault she was acting so... strange. It was all because of that horrible Luccullis; Aurelie would never forgive him.

So instead of scolding her, Aura bent down and gently asked Triston just what it was she was making out of the food. It seemed terribly important to her.