Rosenblum Hall CMO

[shellhawked]

Hit me up for OU Rosenblum round shenanigans, AU Rosenblum stuff, post-game stuff!! Anything at all! I crave the girlies.

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AU Rosenblum, set let's say the wednesday before the dolls went off the rails

[witheringrose]

[There's a silence falling upon the hall this Wednesday. It's a day after those horrible photographs were given out to everyone. Oh, it was nice to know the Interim Headmistress was threatening loved ones directly now... of course it wasn't, though.

Mio, though, had been strangely silent during the motive. Instead of trying to comfort others as she had done the previous weeks she had excused herself with the grace of a true Burnbriar student, despite her only being in the school for her senior year. Funny how someone with such a poor background had more decorum than some of the richest girls, wasn't it?

She hadn't said a word of the contents or even her feelings of the motive the entire day. It wasn't unusual, maybe, but it was easy to guess who it was. Who else but the younger sister she never was quiet about? Who she had even excused herself in class to take text messages or phone calls from? Even if the teacher didn't hear her phone go off it was obvious. She did so often in the middle of conversations with friends or with the gardening club, too.

Hiori Hirahara was her world and even though she didn't say it often since they were trapped, she had fully intended to spend winter break back in Tsukinomiya City with her back in Japan.

But things... hadn't turned out like that.

So now she's just doing her usual night routine of fixing up meals for the group tomorrow. It was one of her talents, after all. But... for her seemingly calm her hands were trembling. Hard. Someone lingering around downstairs definitely would hear the crash of metal against tile as oops.

There... goes... an entire pan of sugar cookies on the floor.

Mio is standing there, an apron across her waist and... because she doesn't think anyone's looking... there's a definite choked sob.]

[shellhawked]

[This week has been a special kind of hell for Hawke, jumping from hot to cold to hot again at the drop of a hat- or, in yesterday's case, a photograph. The threat against Bethany had been the straw that broke the camel's back. She'd been so frustrated and furious she hadn't noticed when Mio slipped out of the lounge without a word. It hadn't hit her for almost an hour, after she'd gone to collect every book she could find in the libraries on seances and the occult in a flurry of manic energy, that there had been two things missing. The obvious was Vanity trying to snatch her away from kicking furniture. Less so was Mio's light hand on her shoulder and a calming smile.

Hawke should have gone looking for her then but the icy grip of fear the motive had on her pushed her to distraction well into the night and most of today instead. If she put all her focus into the seance in the empty pool she wouldn't have to think about the Sword of Damocles hanging over all their heads.

Aside from a few fitful hours of sleep on Tuesday night she barely sits down until Wednesday evening. She sinks heavily onto the lounge sofa and reaches into the pocket of her jacket to pull out her motive photo again to study it. Does Bethany look more pale than she did at Thanksgiving? Is she eating enough? Are the slight shadows under her eyes a trick of the light or is she not getting enough sleep? The worries she's worked so hard to tamp down over the past weeks bubble up and threaten to overwhelm her in the silence of the lounge, a lump starting to form in her throat the longer she stares at her little sister's face-

The crash of metal on tile from the kitchen snaps her out of her own head. Hawke hurriedly slips Bethany's photo back into her jacket and gets up to hurry toward the sound. She leans around the doorway of the kitchen, brow furrowed in concern, and her ears catch Mio's sob before she sees the sugar cookies scattered on the floor.

...Ah. She's not the only one driven to distraction and failing.]

Hey.

[Hawke approaches with soft footsteps despite her heavy boots, kneeling down to start picking up the hot cookies and carefully place them back on the fallen pan. She doesn't look up at Mio, giving her the time to collect herself if she needs to.]

Five second rule. No use crying over cookies, right?

[It's not about the cookies but for now she can pretend it is. Better broken cookies than breaking hearts.]

[witheringrose]

[She knew what she would see in that picture and it didn't prepare her for it. She knew it would be the Tsukinomiya hospital. The physical therapist trying his best to make sure Hiori didn't strain herself too much--Momo sitting on the chair where Mio should be. It had torn into her heart in a way that felt worse than even all the death--and that felt so, so incredibly wrong. So of course she had withdrawn.

And the cookies--of course they were sugar, she wouldn't dare make chocolate with Chu-Chu and Varric around--but they were scattered in every which way. The tiny little thing that had let loose the floodgates. Some of the batch could be saved and certainly she could just make more... but...

God, it was the final straw, wasn't it? Even then she couldn't let herself cry fully. Not in the kitchen, not the calm ever-gentle Mio. No. Hiori would hear.

... Ah. Hiori wasn't here, was she? She's staring at the cookies, trying to keep those tears in check. She heard footsteps and she wiped her eyes on her sleeve. She would be calm. She would be collected.]

O-oh... ah... Hawke-san... I'm sorry--please, be careful--they're still hot--

[She can pretend it's the cookies. She wasn't thinking of something she couldn't fix... no, not at all. She pulls off an oven mitt to try to help pick them up.]

It's the little things, isn't it?

[shellhawked]

[Hawke lightly swats away Mio's attempts to help and tilts her head up to flash her a reassuring half-grin. There's too much going wrong around them to fix in this moment. The least she can do is try and lighten the mood.]

I've got it handled, I was born part-dragon. [Callouses from years of archery and drumming are as good as an oven mitt but only for picking up hot cookies.]

...It could be worse. You could have been holding the milk too.

[witheringrose]

I see, I see. You must be what they call the Dragonborn, hm?

[She can handle the cookies herself—her hands are a little rougher than one may assume—but for hot metal… even these teenagers aren’t dumb enough to grab that.]

Thank goodness I haven’t even warmed up the milk yet!