The Yule Ball Banquet

[dr. ludvig von bakken]

Ludvig watched the chain of events unfold in disbelief. The student was a person, after all, and needed proper care. Why had the Headmistress say that she be tied up and thrown onto the balcony or tossed under the table. It was more than barbaric. Clearly getting the paperwork he needed from the administrative office would not be as easy as it would seem.

Alaric had come by and, well followed her orders. He probably didn't see the issue with doing what had been asked. He also likely didn't want to question the Headmistress' authority. It wasn't until Miss Junko started shouting about orders, that he realized he had been gaping this entire time.

He stammered when Junko spoke to him directly, the disbelief of everything that had just happened was finally wearing off. "I vill have her brought to her room. I vould not vant her to have access to the pills if she vere to come to in the infirmary."

He looked over to Vivian, a mere glance from here melted away his concerns, worried, and thoughts of confusion that clouded his mind. He felt better at once. "Miss Vivian, vould you help me vith taking this student. I vill be needing to take her to her room and I vant you to assist vith the doors and her feet. Also a student vith me vould help going into the girls dorms not look so bad, yes?"

He reached under the table, pulled out the drenched Hecate, and carefully picked her up. He began the long walk back to the dorm rooms.

Ludvig has left the area.
Hecate has left the area.

[vivian jane thornfield]

Vivian nodded and followed doctor Ludvig without payin attention to others. Work first fun then.

Vivian has left the area

[andrew jung oh]

OJ flinched as Miss Junko called out his name. They were going to be working? Together? OJ didn't know if he could trust himself to work so closely with Miss Junko on anything. Last time they'd tried to work together to improve his dancing skills, OJ had ended up nearly forcing himself on her. He was glad that he had, of course, but OJ knew his lack of control around this woman was perhaps more hazardous than she knew, especially in light of their recent encounter in her bedroom, which had left OJ feeling on the verge of explosion every time he saw her.

Still, orders were orders. It wouldn't be right for a student to disobey a teacher. "I'll go look for a mop, Miss Junko," he said as Vivian walked out with the doctor. He turned on his heels and whisked back out of the room. He couldn't help but laugh to himself. He'd kissed Miss Junko, slept in the same bed as her, and he'd even gotten as far as almost going all the way. And yet here he was, still referring to her as 'Miss' and still thinking of her as his teacher and his superior. He couldn't imagine her on the same level as him. She would always be Miss Junko to him.

He cleared his head of his fantasies. OJ knew there was a janitor's closet somewhere nearby... locating it quickly, he opened the door and rummaged through the countless cleaning supplies until he'd found a mop. Perfect. But where was the water? OJ looked around madly for a bucket in the closet, but for some reason, it had disappeared. Frustrated and alarmed, he burst out of the janitor's closet and bumped straight into Mr. Vincent, who was carrying a bucket. "Mr. Vincent!"

[vincent james snape]

Tucked into the corner between the ballroom and the dining room, Vincent probably spent more time trying to avoid a panic attack than an actually solving the problem at hand. He...he had ordered people around. What. Since when he have the gall to do such a thing? He hated crowds, he hated being around strangers--even if they were people he was supposed to work with--this whole night was turning into a disaster. Staring up at the ceiling, Vincent let out a shuddering breath.

"Right. Mop."

Quickly, he went to fetch a bucket from the janitor's closet and filled it with water elsewhere; on the way back, he nearly ran into someone practically jumping out of the closet. A bit of water splashed onto the hems of Vincent's frock coat, but he didn't particularly notice. "Oh! Andrew. What are you doing?" he stammered, not quite returned in the right frame of mind. "Oh. Mop. Right. Well, I've got the water, so..."

Vincent returns to the room

The gardener carried the bucket of water and an extra mop back to the banquet tables, trying his best to ignore the crowd that had formed. Really, the only reason why he was able to get through was that students were afraid of getting the water on their fancy clothes. But he wasn't noticing or caring.

He ducked an awkward little bow towards the dance professor, mumbling a quiet "hello" before he set the bucket down and got to work cleaning up the mess. It didn't matter to him who did it, how it happened; it was part of his job to make sure everything looked nice.

[andrew jung oh]

OJ followed behind the gardener hastily. The hair of the mop was swinging wildly, and though it was neither wet nor damp, its filthy appearance, for the mop hadn't been used in quite some time, was enough to keep the people who hadn't fled from Mr. Vincent's bucket of water at bay. He tried to apologize to everyone he and Mr. Vincent had to get around, but there were simply too many people; OJ ended up looking like he was doing a silly, awkward dance, constantly ducking and bobbing, smiling and muttering rushed apologies.

When he got back to Miss Junko, OJ tried his best not to look at her. He wasn't in control of himself, he realized. His emotions were the ones that took over when Miss Junko was around. Instead of wasting time being a mess of emotions, he instead went to help Mr. Vincent mop up the red mess. "We'll have this cleaned up in no time, Miss Junko," he said, keeping his head fixed on the mess he was mopping.

[michelle junko princeton]

Junko didn't smile when Andrew and the gardener- what was his name again?- came back with the mop and bucket. She was still too frustrated about having appeared unkempt in front of Andrew for even the slightest of moments. She crossed her arms and stood in front of the puddle of red. "Be quick about it," she said shortly as the two men started working on cleaning the mess. "We've already made too much of a scene."

Somewhere in the back of Junko's brain was a bit of guilt. She had been the one to knock over the bunch bowl, after all. But the way Junko saw it, that little detail didn't matter anymore. She'd mentally transferred all blame to other people. If only the stupid girl hadn't tried to kill herself by jumping off the balcony. If only the doctor hadn't requested the bag so urgently. If only Andrew hadn't shown up when he did to see her looking like a complete and utter mess. There were so many people to blame! Who would dare blame Junko in the face of all of these culprits?

Junko pulled herself to her full height (which still was not much) and glared at all the students who were looking in at the scene. She dared them to keep staring.

[violet rose pearson]

Violet enters the room.

Violet had been looking around everywhere for Froid. So far, she had no luck. She had gone to the front doors to ask the staff working, she thought his name was Mr. Snape, but she wasn't completely sure. He hadn't been there. After speaking to another student, and pointed in the direction of the banquet area, she finally found him with a mop.

"Excuse me, Mr. Snape," Violet said carefully as she approached. "Have you seen a blue-haired girl come in tonight? Her name is Froid."

[vincent james snape]

"Right," Vincent mumbled in response to the dance professor's curt order. In the dim lighting, no one could see the beads of sweat that had formed on the young man's ghostly pale face. But his wide-eyed, tight-lipped expression did nothing to try and hide his barely contained anxiety about being around others. Just do your job, Vincent. Then you get the hell out of here and man the doors like you're supposed to be doing.

Concentrating solely on the task at hand, the gardener quickly mopped up the spilled punch, narrowly avoiding the woman's shoes as he cleaned up around her; if she wouldn't move, he'd just clean around her. He barely picked up that someone had addressed him if not for spotting a pair of shoes approaching him. Barely raising his eyes, the gardener let out a cry of surprise, nearly knocking the bucket over. Nearly, but not quite.

It was that "double" girl! Well, there was only one of her right now, but her copy was around somewhere. Right? "W-what? I'm sorry, what did you say?"

[violet rose pearson]

Violet raised an eyebrow but shrugged off Snape's reaction as part of his normal odd self. There had been talk about how the gardener was really strange and unusual. She thought the awkwardness to his behavior was adorable. It almost made her want to hug him.

"I am looking for a friend. She's about this high, has bright blue hair that you can't mistake, and her name is Froid. Have you seen her?"

[vincent james snape]

The gardener blinked, considering the faces that had passed him so far this night. Blue hair would have been fairly recognizable; it would have burned into his memory if not his retina. "No, I'm sorry," he said apologetically with a shake of his head. He paused; he had been away from his post for a bit. But...that didn't necessarily mean that this "Froid" girl had shown up. Vincent assumed that most students would want to come to a social function like this, but he didn't want to get her hopes up either.

"No, I'm sorry. I haven't seen your friend. Maybe someone else might have," he added quietly before he continued to mop the floor of, by now, invisible punch.