( continuation of this )

[ katherine's gaze softens. where she had expected him to rip her palm from his cheek, he merely holds it. it's strange, to see the boy he used to be, the one he no doubt is with elena; she's grown harder than before, constructed walls so impossibly tall, to ensure that boys like him don't ever cause the fall of girls like her. ]

[ she's so used to fighting him, tooth and nail, strength to strength, but it's here that she's not quite sure who folds first: is it her, or him? ]

[ she tilts her head to the side, her eyebrow arching slightly. ] Why, Stefan? Why ask a question you won't like the answer to?

[ morgana rides to escape the confining walls of camelot. where once it was her home, she's felt nothing but misplacement; she does not belong within these bigoted walls, with a prince who knows no better, under the thumb of a king who allows his ignorance to be fueled by an unjustified hatred. her attempts to ride alone, to feel like herself rather than lady morgana pendragon, are fruitless; soldiers on their own horses create a tight perimetre around her. in a kingdom that barely learns from its past mistakes, she finds that it is begrudgingly doing so at a moment where she wishes to simply be.

it's within the distance, just on the lip of the skirts of camelot, where the woods stop and the town begins, does morgana note something pecuilar. a horse's silhouette stands in the brush, it's head bowed, his hooves slightly pawing at the earthy ground. the bushes and thick trunks of trees block her view of seeing what it seems to be looming over, if there's anything on the ground besides grass blades that have taken its interest. the soldiers around her see nothing, as they always have, with their eyes focused on something straight ahead. rather than continuing along her straight path, morgana makes a sharp left, her horse letting out a sound of slight irritation at being thrown off of the usual course.

one soldier begins to shift seconds later, always a few belated breaths, following her like a shadow. as her horse moves at a slow pace, to not spook the other, she looks over her shoulder with a sharp look. ] Stay. I will be all right.

[ no other cursed words have ever been muttered more. they do as she says; though, she can hear the movement of hooves, of how the clinking of their chainmail comes to a halt as they watch her, prepared to strike like hawks.

as she comes closer to the horse, morgana dismounts hers. running her hand over its nose, up over its ears, she pats it softly on the neck in an effort to calm it, as if these gestures combined will keep her own horse from worrying. her eyes are on the unfamiliar horse rather than the ground; approaching it slowly, she gives it a smile.

it isn't until she's able to reach out and touch the horse with a straight, stiff arm that her eyes shift slightly to the ground. a lump of a man lies within the grass blades, soaked in blood on large patches of his armour. it's an unfamiliar colour, an unfamiliar suit, but morgana does not hesitate to come to kneel by his side. she looks up at the horse, as if for permission, as she tentatively places her palm on the shoulder of the man. ]

[ every week seems to bring a new magical foe into the arms of camelot. with plots to end arthur's life, or uther's, or even her own, morgana's beginning to itch at the skin for an answer to explain whether magical people are born evil or are just simply made. shame continues to always settle on her bones each and every time an attempt is made on the lives of the two men she cares about most.

she knows she has magic, but she knows she's afraid of it. each and every time a flame bursts to life, or something moves, or shatters, she wants to hide rather than embrace it. and while control is one thing she is slowly working towards on her own, she wants to part with her abilities as quickly as possible. she fears of what will become of her if uther happened to find out.

though, after arthur had helped the boy mordred, morgana's starting to wonder if perhaps hiding who she is - or suspects to be - is something she shouldn't be doing with arthur, of all people. uther's influence extends as far as the boundaries of camelot, but she wonders how far it has twisted arthur's own opinions. ]

Arthur … [ the following politeness makes her clasp her hands together. barging in on arthur in his chambers is one thing morgana does best - without apologies or asking for permission to tell him what to do. ] I hope I am not intruding.

As much as Summer enjoyed and loved G.E.O.R.G.E., she missed the niggling pain in her ass that was a scrawny, lanky, comic-loving nerd. Deciding to take a little breather from G.E.O.R.G.E., Summer found herself travelling to Berkeley. Ryan and Seth, after all, were joined at the hip; rather than wasting her time by travelling back to Newport, she figured she'd skip over a step and make her way to Chino's new grill. After all, she couldn't quite trust him to do the environmentally friendly thing. He was from Chino and had Seth as a best friend; it was a hopeless living arrangement that Summer wanted to fix with a surprise visit.

After fussing around and finding many people who actually knew who Atwood was, which was a culture shock unto itself, Summer found herself outside of his door. It even had one of those cute whiteboards on the front. She thought about writing some message on it, perhaps a quote from a teen horror movie that would, no doubt, scare Cohen shitless, but she decided that she'd been on her feet for way too long and needed a bed to crash on for a few moments. Besides, she kind of missed Atwood's stoic face that didn't really form any expressions other than intense anger, intense confusion, or intense brooding.

Curling her fingers into a tight fist, she bashed her knuckles hard against the door and continued to do so relentlessly until he opened it. Without that social life of his, she thought there was a guarantee he'd be curled up inside putting his brooding muscles to the test.

The one thing Elena liked the most about Texas was how it had more than one popular place to hang out. After exhausting her time at Applebees for the week, Elena found herself at the Alamo Freeze, standing before the counter while she gazed up at the menus of drinks and ice-creams.

Clutched to her chest were a few of her books; finishing off her last year of high school in Dillon, Texas, ensured that she would actually be graduating. After the commotion following her last few years at Mystic Falls High, Elena had found herself wanting to continue her studies in a place that didn't look at her as the doppelganger or the plaything between two immortal brothers. Her life had, unintentionally, been placed on hold the moment Stefan Salvatore had swept her off her feet and into a completely new world she could never fathom saying no to. She owed it to Jenna to complete her studies, after all, and considering Jeremy had found his way back to Denver for the time being for some soul searching before he picked up the rest of his school year, Elena found herself needing a brand new start - regardless of how permanent or temporary it may be.

It was lonely, but the few friends she had made while out in Dillon had allowed her to reconnect with a life she had never thought she'd miss. Despite not being too interested in being a cheerleader again, Elena found that anything that allowed her to take her mind off of Mystic Falls or worrying herself to death over Jeremy was a welcome distraction. Studying at the Alamo Freeze to escape the heat lurking outside and the chances of getting lost in her photographs back home just happened to be today's course of distraction.

"Decisions, decisions, decisions," she muttered to herself. The one thing that hadn't quite improved since her move was her inability to pick between vanilla or chocolate, a drink or ice-cream, or whether she wanted both. "They never get any easier."

The best thing about summer is the fact that all the crazy crap that happens seems to slow down to a nice, smooth halt. Caroline can go back to being delusional and thinking she's a normal girl hanging out with a boy she now kind of likes more than she did about a year and a half ago. Tyler's turning into someone she can't quite tear her gaze from, and she's finding that she honestly doesn't mind it.

In her room sits a calendar on a dresser by her bed. Today's date has been circled, and in pen she's scribbled Full moon across it. She's not quite sure if Tyler's keeping track of the one thing that doesn't make him normal, but she has been. It fills her with anxiety when she realises what today will actually entail. Him transforming, with his bones breaking underneath him, is the worst sound and sight she's ever bared witness to. It's one thing that haunts her when she's asleep. Abandoning Tyler during his time of need, even if he won't openly admit it, is something Caroline will gladly swallow her discomfort for. When she needed a friend, she had no one to turn to; she refuses to allow the same for Tyler, regardless of how annoyingly stubborn he is or how confused he makes her feel when he gives her a particular smile.

That's why she's at the Lockwood mansion, knocking on the door with her perky demeanour revving on overdrive. Pushing Tyler to prepare himself is what she does best; Caroline enjoys taking the wheel and pulling people along to face the things they need to in order for her to avoid hers. It's turning around on her, though, as the one thing Tyler never wants to face seems to be the very thing she fears, too. "Open up, Lockwood! I can hear you in there shuffling around!" She chirps cheerily and gives the door another hard, impatient knock.

The ground floor of the Hyperion is abandoned, except for the lonely figure of Cordelia sitting at the desk behind the counter. Doodling on a pad, she feels restless and very wide awake. Without being hit with a vision, let alone a painful one, she's felt incredibly on edge; she's used to them occurring after a certain amount of days and weeks, of when the weather looks a little green in the sky, but going without them for so long gives her a reason to worry.

It's a slow adjustment, going from months of migraines to merely seeing something play out before her eyes like a mere memory. Painless, it gives Cordelia a sense of an anxious layer sitting on her shoulders; where there are no consequences, there is always trouble. In her case, it's always very big trouble. Cordelia Chase can deal with trouble, but her sleeping clock cannot.

So sitting at the desk with her head leaning against her closed fist while she draws circles and images from past visions she still has saved inside her head, she doesn't hear nor sense anyone else in the room. Angel's locked up brooding in a corner while Fred draws on even more walls while Gunn and Wesley watch her adoringly from afar. It's all fun and games, and it's a breath of necessary fresh air, but Cordelia can't enjoy it as much as she normally would. Something horrible is coming. She doesn't need the Spidey Senses the Powers have given her to know that. What it happens to be, though, she can't quite put her finger on it, and that is what truly keeps her up on most nights; trying to foresee something before they are ready to let her see it. It's a migraine in the making.

[ when elena turns, she ends up ripping a boy in half. his face belongs to a memory of a girl she will never be again; remembering his taunts of a younger jeremy, back when the gilbert house was still a hole, this kid's words would have jeremy shaking to the core. it's purely incidental that she finds him. her hands itch to rip into his skin, and she does the unforgiveable in pulling the flesh from his muscle and completing her transition by draining him dry. a part of her feels no remorse while another part, the larger part, is drowned in it.

she finds him somewhere outside of virginia, in a place she's never been to nor would ever go to. he looks like how he left; hair in place and suit crisp and there's not a single drop of uncertainty when she openly begs him for help. she cannot face her family back home, to see the disappointment curl in stefan's posture, the sparkle of pride in damon's eye, and the pity and sympathy that undoubtedly would exude from caroline. she fears jeremy's most of all; she picks fights with those he can battle on his own.

out in the woods, where it's abandoned, elena feels her senses starting to relax. the city, with it's sights and smells and sounds, is overwhelming. she urges to rip it away, to tear the flesh from bones again to simply make the guilt stop. pulling her out into the woods has her hearing the crunch of leaves, the breathing of animals hiding near by, and silence. the urge to kill is gone; pretending she is a normal girl is much easier out here. ]

So … [ it's too quiet for her; she's still getting used to hearing sounds she never thought possible, even after weeks of being by his side. his tutelage has proven useful, and she has found herself calming, feeling more in control, but a part of her is afraid and it is this that overwhelms her and keeps her glued firmly to his side. ] Is this the part where you teach me to eat bunnies?

[ her face is scrunched up. she feels guilt for everything, and love, the biggest pain in the ass of all, is she feels compassion for these animals, like she belongs with them or they with her. a child she sees on the street she feels overwhelmed to care for. the urges are hard to control along with the desire to give into the creature she's become. ] It's just that … I'm not really sure I can do that.