Gol (Kane)

[Angela Chambers]

Angie was sitting at the pond, staring at her reflection in the still water. She hadn’t seen Bell since the Valentine’s Day Dance. She wasn’t sure where he’d gone off too. Nobody seemed to. Not his roommates at least. And staff wasn’t exactly allowed to. The young girl tried calling and texting him, but got nothing in return. Her low self-esteem made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with her. And she would try to respect that as best she could.

But she wasn’t sure she’d actually be able to. Before Bell, she’d never known friends. She’d been perfectly content, acting as if she didn’t exist and spending her recess helping her teachers to clean the classroom. And they’d allowed it. ‘She’s mature beyond her years’, they’d said because she wasn’t loud or rowdy and didn’t take interest in the games her classmates seemed to enjoy. It led to her life being rather quiet and a lot of time free to herself.

Until coming to this place. And Bell changed all of that. He’d given her something she’d never felt before. A friend. Somebody to rely on. Somebody to comfort her. But most of all, Bell made her smile. Smile in a way that she never thought she would. And he’d taught her to laugh herself.

Now that he was gone though… She wasn’t sure where that left her. She was friendless again. And it left her with this empty feeling. A feeling that she was convinced nobody would ever be able to fill.

Hugging her legs closer to her chest, Angie rested her chin on her knees. Despite the fact that she was heartbroken, feeling utterly alone she was not crying. She doubted if she would actually able to cry. Considering Bell had left without even a goodbye, she’d been spending the better part of her nights (and even a few days) hiding her tears from those around her. But the signs were still there. Her eyes and nose were constantly red and her almost incessant sniffling.

More than once she’d been asked if she were ok and gave a curt nod in response, only to walk away. She hadn’t much been in the mood to talk. And she thought of Bell and how if he’d witnessed her like this, he’d continue to ask her what was wrong until she gave up and told him. Which brought a small smile to the girl’s face.

[Kane Woonren]

Kane was at the pond, dusting off the grill that was down there. Sure he used the grill up at school, but it was somewhat warm out and he figured he could go ahead and use it for a little while. He wasn't exactly the best gauge of the temperature seeing as he ran hot, but his shirt was neatly folded on a folding chair next to him. His wings were spread out behind him, and his tail twitching behind him as he looked out over the water as he waited for the grill to warm up a little bit. He'd gone for a fly earlier, and it'd been nice skimming over the water. Although he'd been a little too distracted for the... "landing" if you could call it that.

He looked next to him, at the large amount of displaced sand from where he'd skidded into the ground. His chest was nice and red, but you couldn't really notice the fresh cuts from the old one. He would make some hot dogs, some burgers and a bit of chicken... maybe some grilled veggies too, and drop off most of it at the dorm or something like that. Before he'd lived in Pilot Ridge he would go to the nearby homeless shelter and drop off all his extra food there. Now he had a lot more extra food, and teenagers were always hungry. Particularly when a few of them had the side effect of 'death by hunger' to their powers. Or something like that.

He pulled the food out of the bag, setting the bag of chicken and the bag of veggies in the sand next to him, putting the sausages on the grill first with the hamburg next to him to make next. His tail continued to twitch absently behind him. A common question he got was whether or not he could do things with his tail, like a monkey or something. Most people had apparently never seen a lizard or something like that before. His tail was more for balance, and while he could do things to a certain extent, wrap it around something or consciously move it, it wasn't as dextrous as a monkey's. His wings were the sail, and his tail was the rudder.

He hadn't brought any buns or anything with him, he'd just have to eat with his hands. Which he didn't have that much of a problem with, he had never, and still didn't, own much in the way of silverware that wasn't strictly for cooking. And most of that came from his mother and discount stores so none of it had been particularly fancy. He'd put the food back in the bag and then take them over to the dorms and set them out on a platter or something. He could find something easily enough. He pulled out his food thermometer, checking on the sausages. Still a little while to go yet.

"Food, if anyone wants any!" he shouted, not really able to see too many people from where he was. "Over at the grill!" If there was someone, he figured he could give them first shot at it. He had brought a few plastic forks and knives, and he had napkins. Lots and lots of napkins. He looked up, listening to the sounds of the lake, with the occasional interruption from the crackling of the sausages.

[Angela Chambers]

It surprised Angie when she felt tears begin to form in the corner of her eyes. Wasn’t she done? Wasn’t completely lacking in tears by now? How was she not completely dehydrated at this point? No matter though. Tucking her hands in the sleeves of the jacket she was wearing, Angie banished the dew of her eyes to the cloth.

She’d never cried this much before. Not even when they discovered what exactly she was. Or when her father’s reaction had turned violent. The last one was perhaps a bit of a stretch. But that’s another story for another time.

The point of the matter was that she couldn’t imagine how there was an ounce of any liquid left. But perhaps what had now disappeared onto her sleeves were the last of it. She hoped so. Because honestly she was becoming tired of being asked if she were ok. And the constant aching in her eyes was most definitely becoming a bother. There wasn’t much she could do in way of the hollowness in her chest. It was a ‘time heals all’ sort of thing she assumed. But she certainly wished time would hurry up already.

Angie looked past her reflection then in the pond. Looked past herself and saw the little school of fish in the water. She’d always found them to be fascinating. Fish that is. The movement of their bodies, the fluidity, she found it to be quite remarkable. Though, was rather difficult to depict in pictures. Ballerinas! That’s what they reminded her of. The smoothness of a fish was so much like how she imagined the professional dancers moved with ease. She doubted ballerinas moved about, wiggling their rears to propel themselves forward.

And then she giggled at the image of such a thing in her head. Ballerinas wiggling their rumps to keep moving. It was the first time in a while that Angie had laughed. Making her laugh had always been Bell’s job. And each day was better than the last. He would’ve laughed at the image in her head.

Before she could become too upset again though, a bellowing voice broke her away from the unpleasant thoughts. It came from the left of her, but a bit away. She wasn’t sure how exactly she’d missed another being here, but surely enough, she had. Lets chalk it up to her self-pity.

Slowly she stood, brushing herself clear of nature’s little hanger-on’s, and began to apprehensively approach the man. At first she believed her eyes to be playing a trick on her. But the closer and closer she became, the quicker she began to realize that wasn’t the case. Until she was standing no more than a foot and a half to two feet away from his side. Her jaw had fallen slaw as she stared up at him. Yes he was a giant. But on top of that… Wings. Large wings.

Having been too concentrated on his height, she hadn’t them at first as hard as that might be to believe. But standing beside him, she most definitely took notice now. It was impossible not to.

As wrong as it was, and she knew that it was, Angie was kind of terrified of the man. But he was large. So very large. And she was frozen in place. Eventually though, she could muster a little noise. “W-wh… what are ya’ c-cooking?” She asked, her voice quiet and shaking. But the entire time she was thinking ’Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me’.

[Kane Woonren]

Kane watched someone come around the corner and smiled light at them with a nod, gesturing for them to come over. He was focusing on his cooking for the moment. When it came to cooking and flying, even he didn't manage to get depressed. He yawned a bit, a bit of a tired yawn, as he was relaxing. The cool breeze from the lake and just the general rather relaxing atmosphere made it easy for him. Maybe he'd sleep out on the beach tonight, just for the experience. It was probably better for him than cramping back into his bed was anyway. Then again, he also might wake up with bugs or in jail or something which wasn't all that pleasant....

"Well, I've got sausages on the grill right now, burgers are up next, and then some chicken and veggies," he said with a nod. He liked cooking, almost as much as he liked flying. He liked taking his time with it, and if he could he would probably just keep cooking forever. He wondered for a moment if there would be a way for him to cook while flying.... Although after about 6 seconds of that he saw that it was a very bad idea. Hamburger falling on people's heads, grease or something dripping down on someone's car....

He shook himself out of the thought, putting the temperature gauge into the sausages, seeing that the last of them were ready. He pulled them off and put them over in the plastic container, before he turned back to the girl. "So do you want a sausage or do you want to wait for the other ones, or do you not want anything at all and just wanted to see why someone was shouting like an idiot on the beach?" he asked with a small smile as he looked over at her face. She looked like she had been crying, and scared. Had he done that? His smile turned into a frown, and he ignored the hamburgers for a second.

"Are you alright?" he asked gently, some of his calm ebb away in the back of his mind, but he forced it away. There was a time and a place for his depression. On his day off when he could lay in bed and drink beer and pretend the world didn't exist and think about things. Not particularly the best way to cope with it, but he wasn't about to admit to anyone that he was as depressed as he was. Why would he want to drag someone else down with his problems?

[Angela Chambers]

Angie had never seen anybody so tall. The tallest man she’d known had been her father. And this stranger would’ve made him look like a child. Ok, maybe that was a slight exaggeration. But this giant would’ve made her father look as if he were of average height. The point was though, it frightened her, as men usually did. But she thought about Dr. Neville and Mr. Kells. They’d both been so nice to her and did her no harm. Plus, her sessions with Dr. Neville had been… well, they’d been going. And she thought the doctor would be proud of her for doing this.

Despite all of this though, she could not stop the knots in her stomach from growing. The only thing that offered any kind of comfort was wrapping one arm tightly around her midsection while she chewed the nails of her other hand.

She was careful to concentrate on the meat on the grill, watching as it slowly changed colors and listening to the sizzles. “You’re… You’re cooking a-um feast…” She spoke around her fingers, never actually moving them away from her mouth. It was somewhat perplexing to her why somebody would cook so much food; especially for people they didn’t necessarily know. “Why?”

The smell of the food was rather appetizing. And she felt her stomach squeeze in a way that wasn’t entirely out of fear. Even though she’d had lunch in the cafeteria an hour or so ago. But leave it to Angie to be willing to eat more. She forced a little smile on her face when he referred, or maybe compared was a better word?, to himself as an idiot. But truth be told, she never knew what to actually do when somebody did that. Was she supposed to argue it and say they weren’t? “Um… I su-suppose I could eat… Maybe a little sausage. If that’s alright.” He had offered after all.

When he asked if she were alright, it was the first time she glanced up to him. Only to immediately look back at the grill. Again, she gave the answer she’d given everybody else, a curt nod. But… He was being kind, so far at least, and it felt rude. “Just…” She shrugged her shoulders. Why would he want to hear about a young girl’s problems? Answer? He wouldn’t. He was just being nice. “Problems with a f-friend.” It was the truth. And simple enough that he would probably realize an issue with a friend wasn’t anything to become overly concerned with. So this was his out. He didn’t have to ask anymore.