And in the dark.... [Belameane + Open]

The sun was actually kind instead of bolstering angry as summer days went. Slightly breezy with the heat one would find in intimacy or sheer embarrassment, the day was more calm, inviting the people outside to mingle and make, renew, or destroy social bonds under the kingly star without any annoying cloud cousins to impede his work. The sky and waters obviously snogged each other because it seemed there was another ocean of lighter color up above the District 2 denizens, reflecting the stereotypical mood of a sunny day.

For an unusual duo, the day was lovely. A male friend hung out with his friend, a girl of exposing clothing style. They had laughed together in their walking enjoying the view and not so much the salty sweat in the air. The girl was taking in the pleasure; she always liked to hear fairytales from her calm friend.

The hours passed off in a scoff. Before they knew it, the sun had started to shut its single eye to give way to his distant wife and ever emotional lady, the moon. She always contorted her faces no matter how much work he did; he grew to be careless and uncaring and do what was needed to be done. She still continued to change her face every night following. Either way, the young man and girl had begun walking towards her place; though, all of a sudden, she decided it was best for her to try to walk by herself. No matter what reason the man gave, she replied honestly - brutally at times - and kept insisting to meander on home without his assistance.

He finally gave in. The young man hugged her and left before Lady Moon could arrive to mask the world into pitch darkness.

Watching him take off, the black-haired girl circuited her way slowly through the streets, coughing, wheezing at times like an elder. The hours of suppressing the urges finally kicked her in the right places. She had started to be less hasty in step and more wishing for rest, and to that proposition she hacked.

The moon was half-awake this night. She resembled a child's drawing of a bowl. The youthful teenager squinted at blurry images, the people blobs and the buildings misshapen blocks and cubes. Stopping before an alley, she looked at the darkened area with a grim smile, eyes drowsy, sluggishly dragging feet to a corner. She sat - or more plopped - down on dirty ground, curling into a ball of black and shut her eyes.

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She hadn't expected to be actually in dreamland; she had only wanted a simple rest of minutes. A good hour or two must of passed before finally being aroused slightly, but she still felt drained. The moon glowed eerily as it did anytime the night grew murky. Her little baby light bulbs twinkled in usual cheer.

The girl's grasp of consciousness increased as she noted her body moving up and down in a rocking sort of manner - or so it felt to her - and words breaking into her head. Signaling her status as a 'little girl' to who this person was, the warm spread in contact from a body, the rocking motion, she could only guess a few situations on the reason for being moving such.

Whatever object or objects brushed on her neck, it tickled slightly, jolting the girl. The eyes twitched before revealing a set of big blue irises rich in hue and color with hesitation. She was fully conscious by now, frowning.

The first words to come out: "What are you doing?" She was currently siphoned of energy to really delve into an inquiry or struggle from this man's grasp. Perhaps she would have more if she was in a dire situation.

Taking in a couple blinks in consuming some information of surroundings, captor, and the like, the girl let out a little squeak of a yawn, depressing her frown more in doing so. She coughed slightly when she actually tried to smile ladylike for the stranger. Her position while in this person's arms seemed to be more of a snuggle or cuddle than a 'damsel-in-distress' pose; she was just trying to get comfy, and the 'snuggle' position suited her back and legs best.

Dispelling the small coughs, she said, "Okay, sure. I'm a bit tired; I might fall on the ground if I tried to stand, to be honest." She yawned once more, shifting her shoulders to a more comfortable place. "I'm just sick, not hurt."

Blue eyes rolled up to the darkened, glittery sky. The frown was painted on again. "It's pretty late, huh? Mom's going to be very mad, and I'm here in the arms of someone who's very warm for comfort. Or maybe I'm just very cold to begin with."

The dark-haired girl only shrugged to her own comments. They were her honest thoughts on the situation. She could have said the same sort of notions to anyone who was warm and holding her up. She had made her own deduction to think she also could have been freezing and thus this stranger just felt hot for comfort.

Her gaze fell back on the stranger. "So what's next, my knight?"

The girl blinked tiredly, confused, puzzled definitely. "Uh huh... But this position reminds me of how a knight would hold a damsel-in-distress. Well then, if you don't want a knight, I'll say a cavalier without a horse. I'll just keep switching around wor..." Another yawn. "...words until I got it right."

A sneaky smile crept on her face. "So would that mean that if I didn't tell you, you couldn't go to your places?" She merely shifted her position again. "I suppose me going home faster would be good for the both of us though." Her blue orbs started to bat under the extreme pressure of wanting to sleep. "Down this road all the way... left... right..."

Her head shook away some tiredness. "Left at the end, take the third right, make another right at the second corner, then... follow through?" Her mind was getting fuzzy. "Being tired and sick stinks, you know? Sickness makes you even more tired, and being tired makes you more sick. How convenient."

"And can't say I can promise not to pass out... My mind's getting all messy. Or if you'll get arrested. It's happened a few times... in the past." The girl stammered almost by another break-in yawn, yet she successfully suppressed the urge. "Why does a guy have places to go at this time of night? Why...?"

The eyelids were beginning to droop, and she expended some of her low mental energy to keep awake, despite the fantastic compulsion to drift away again. Her breathing even softened to go along with her condition. Their close bodies touching for long allowed hers to become used to the heat, and the warmth was starting to lull her to a further drowsier state of peace.

Information processing was getting harder to feed into the brain. The girl decided to selectively pick what details were significant and try to store and file away properly. Talking was draining. The occasional shaking the 'cavalier without a horse' did aroused her but only a little. Desires to drift away was compounded greatly by the passing minute. The bowl-shaped moon smiled at that prospect; it was her job.

Even when the world started to blur into indescribable and indiscernible blobs, she could not care much. The stars would just turn into fireflies, the moon an oddly shaped fuzz ball, and darkness to darkness. The scenery was not needed in the least.

The eyes shut like earlier, this time more of a mental effort to be consciously awake without any visual. "Belameane... Our names are strange, Now-key..." She kept the question she wanted to ask on her tongue and mind for later inquiry - if a later inquiry was allowed or they met up again. She had no right to say that she never met the stranger before or did not reside in this District. Information on residency and inhabitants was lacking.

Belameane got comfortable in the arms, and her body went limp, firm like she was running for a long while. Not enough energy levels to twitch a toe. Coughing came out suddenly and stopped just as so. A grim thought entered her head, forcing a frown on her face.

Her eyelids being heavy, Belameane mostly ignored the shaking 'Now-key' did again to gain conscious attention, only nodding to any word he said out loud. He had done it many times it grew to be slightly annoying, but he could not help that, she knew. Passing out would be detrimental to the journey; but, even thinking about staying awake was tiring.

Her own escapism to immerse in the self-made darkness, sweet. If she stayed in long enough, the processes of hearing, taste, touch, sight and smell would be deemed negligible. Pain in any dream was self-invoked and unreal. Surrealism would be everywhere in each night mental picture show; but, it was a lot better sometimes to deal with than reality itself.

Like right now.

'Now-key' beckoned her to awake or garner attention. Knowing that it was of importance, she cracked her eyelids half-way. "Hm?" The girl twisted her head, looking around, lazily and tiredly. "You turned at the third right, yes?"

The darkness of nature was certainly brighter - in its own respect - than the darkness made by shutting eyes, but the girl could not discern the person ahead of them. She squinted, widened slightly, then shook her head. "I was thinking it was my friend, but I can't tell at all." The shapes were still blurred though not as malignant as earlier, but the vision posed a problem. "If this is the third right, just act like in a hurry or in confusion. Someone might know me." Her tone was normal even without the factor of being sleepy mixed in.

I did say it happened before.

"Don't know? Horrible, 'Now-key'." Belameane tried to smile with the littlest energy expenditure possible. The grin came off like a porcelain doll's: shy, small and attempting plumpness. Coughing ensued, but she persisted smiling and prevailed after the fit settled.

She almost put on a face contorted in confusion as 'Now-key' detoured away from the person. Instead given was a huff of exasperation. Belameane left 'Now-key' to interpret the belying message. The lights above swayed with her motion in the stranger's arms, trying to keep awake for any future inconveniences to the journey, though blurred the vision was.

"You just go straight, I suppose. The house with the five-step porch, handrail, and a swallow door handle is what we're looking for." She had paused, having to digest another question, thinking hard. "I wouldn't know much on Peacekeepers, 'Now-key'..."

Belameane had opened her mouth to ask before being laid to the ground. She blinked lazily, confused and wanting to tilt her head in puzzlement. "What are you doing now?" Curling up for warmth, the girl looked up at 'Now-key' in weakness. The situation was turned much harder than it should have with the 'cavalier without a horse'.

'Now-key' had assured Belameane safety to the both of them. She only curled more to sustain proper internal heat after he left her in the alleyway. A tiny smile of irony crept on, and then reverted back to tired normalcy.

The ears perked to the commotion nearby, the shouting of 'Now-key's cursing, cracking, clacking, and a snappy cackle that she could imagine belonged to a very poisonous, awful snake, preferably a rattlesnake in her stories. The metal clang got her brows to curve upwards, proceeding to crawl towards the noise in slackening strength. She knew better to move out of the way than in the way, but anxious emotion possessed her. At the wrong time.

Two reinforcements for the fight had correctly placed themselves behind Belameane's field of vision; and, when she had turned to the unexpected clacking of feet, the girl received the eye of the gun right to her face. Tiredness left her immediately in replacement of sheer realization of surroundings. Bright blue orbs of before now dull marbles. She could feel both the coldness of the gun and of the person holding said pistol.

They snatched her off the ground, two hawks clawing at the same fish, and dragged to 'Now-key's location, aiming now two guns at her head. Belameane definitely frowned to the prospect. Though tired unconsciously, she was alert to the setting. 'Now-key' seemed disappointed for the conclusion, and Belameane was carried away to the vehicle which happened to sneak up on the two just as easily as the people did on her.

The girl saw the van shake before getting thrust in herself. Hitting her head against a metal obstruction released a "Owwwww" from her lips. The doors were shut, and the truck drove off.

Belameane sat up, rubbing the spot made sore and rupturing in irritating flame. The heart settled past anxiety to enforce a new general tranquility and calmness.

Mom's going to be mad.

"This is only part of the climax," she grumbled, prompting a Peacekeeper passenger to throw her a command to keep quiet else be quieted.

She got to thinking about her precious friend, what she could tell him in case he ended up in the same situation. He wouldn't.