5 Months Later

Phoenix, Arizona was a warm place. The sun would not just glare down on you, but stare daggers at you, bringing you to your knees with its unforgiving wrath as you stewed in your heatstroke and loathing for the fiery hell you brought yourself to. Yes, to say Phoenix was warm was like saying Greenland was cool. But the girl liked it that way. She liked trudging through beige neighborhoods, daring friends to sit on cacti through giggles and dollar bills. There was always one boy who would do it, needle marks deep in his arms from the last time he accepted a dare.

Boys. Over the last five months, the girl had had her flings, the occasional kiss, but no loves. Her heart lied in Beata Academy, where she transitioned from beige to gray for over a year. She was aching to come back. She was aching to see them again. Phoenix was a warm place, but there was a certain warmth in that secluded school. A different kind of warmth. It spread through her smile as she walked through that gate, through her fingers as she raised a camera and took a shot of the campus, her breath illustrating transparent grays across the air.

Charlotte Redwaltz lowered the camera with a grin.

With Beata still locked in winter's icy grip, Evelyn couldn't have imagined the heat of Arizona. Every breath billowed out in frosty clouds, and the cold nipped at her skin and turned her fingers numb. She had bags of "groceries" in both hands as she made her way up the road and back to Beata's iron gates, from her visit to the General Store... and the dark alley beside it. It was innocuous at first glance. Pocky, a bag of spinach leaves, ranch, some bottles of water and a couple styrofoam cups of instant ramen. It was just the thing you'd expect out of a high school student on a tight budget and a rigid diet. Stuffed deep inside though, bagged and double-bagged, was the stuff Evelyn didn't want anybody to see. Six bottles of whiskey, three in each bag, hidden safely away. Nobody would notice, but every clink of glass still made her heart thump.

It wasn't long until the school loomed out in front of her. The trees lining the brick walkway had been stripped of their last remaining leaves, but that wasn't what made her stop in her tracks.

That hair, that stance, that camera. It couldn't be anyone else.

"Ch... C-Charlotte?"

How long had it been? It had felt like the Autumn had just dropped straight off the face of the earth since the last time she'd seen her. Evelyn had heard rumors of a mission gone wrong, but not much else. For some reason, seeing her again brought a smile to her face. So she was back. What a relief.

OOC: my posts will probably be smaller from here on out sorry bby xoxoxo

The girl spun around rigidly on her heel, the familiar voice behind her kindling an excitement to warm her cold form. "Eve!" she exclaimed, and without warning, embraced the girl. Her short black hair bounced up as she leapt forth to Evelyn
"How are you doing? How's the school been? Is Jace here?" she asked upon parting, keeping a hand on the shoulder of the Winter girl. Before Eve answered, however, she quickly added, "It's Lotte by the way, I hope you haven't forgotten."

Evelyn's smile turned into a surprised gape as the Autumn bounced forward, throwing her arms around her. Well... she guessed she should've expected that from Lotte, after all. She let out nervous laughter at her stream of questions, her shoulders stiff as Lotte parted. "Um... y-yeah..." Right, just Lotte. In all honesty though, Evelyn should have been the one saying that. People had a tendency to forget her name... "I've been a-alright... um... J-Jace is still h-here too..."

And he's my boyfriend now, Evelyn could have added, but she decided not to voice the thought, remembering how their last conversation about Jace went. That was over a year ago now, but a girl's bitterness died hard. "Um... if y-you don't m-mind me asking... w-where've you b-been?"

Lotte paused, as if having trouble remembering where she had been the last few months. In a way, she did. "The school shipped me to a psych ward for 2 months and home for 3. They said I was 'unstable' and needed 'treatment.'"
She smiled awkwardly, switching her posture to depend on her left leg. "It was because Eeeee..."
She paused, jolting a little.
"Eeeeeth..."
Frustration showed in the bubbly girl's amber eyes.
"Reasons." she said simply, and finally, smile lost. "Walk with me to the Autumn dorms, Evie, I need to unload, this bag is killing me."
She began without stopping.

Um... okay. To say she was a little unsettled would be an understatement, and as glad as she was to see an old friend (acquaintance?) again, Evelyn definitely wasn't looking forward to walking alone with her after that little... nugget of information. Lotte had always struck her as a bit eccentric, but a psych ward? Must have been something pretty major. In either case, Evelyn had a dozen bottles of whiskey and some groceries to deliver, and helping unpack hadn't been on her to-do list for today.

Evelyn glanced up at the sky. But of course, she couldn't say no. Damn being nice. Damn being shy. Damn being a pushover. She just gave Lotte an uneasy smile and followed her as she started back into campus. Evie, huh? That was a new one. The Winter was getting far too many nicknames these days.

Lotte was oblivious to Eve's discomfort. She was a little tired, expressing so with a quiet yawn, and a lot cold. Wind whipped across her cheeks, turning them vermilion and causing her to wince painfully. She hated the cold.

The Autumn dorms were just as she remembered them. Beata seldom changed, having kept its old outer look forever, so this did not surprise her in the slightest. It excited her, and it felt as if she never left. Jingling her key into her assigned dorm with a shaky and impatient hand, she opened it, taking it in. Lotte had been waiting for this moment for 5 months. She dropped her bags, raised her camera, and took a picture.

Evelyn followed close behind, the wind cool on her face. Unlike Lotte, the chill was a bit of a comfort. Beata always seemed so much more lifeless when it dropped into the 40s and 30s, and the cold made the air taste crisp and fresh. Gray skies had a certain beauty if you learned to appreciate them. There wasn't anything better than having a whole courtyard to yourself, or to walk through the forest after a heavy rain. In some ways it was like other people went to hide while the rest of the world came to life. Just her kind of place. Back in Montana it'd probably be snowing on her hometown, covering the windows and rooftops in frost... the summer had its own appeal, but summer could wait for now.

When they finally arrived, Evelyn breathed a quiet sigh and slipped inside after her, making a curious look toward her camera. What was she taking pictures for, exactly...? It was just a dorm room, and a dorm she'd lived in before at that. Nothing about it looked out of the ordinary that she could see... or maybe that was part of the point? She didn't understand artists.

He hadn't expected to be doing much else that evening other than maybe a meal and a long nap, walking down the Autumn hallways with his bag slung around his shoulder, his hair still a bit damp from the shower. It'd been a long day, quiet, but long - and he was still pretty tired. The young man had barely given any thought to when he saw a could people head into a room up ahead, mostly staring at the ground instead, but something rang familiar - and he'd ended up glancing into the room as he walked by on a whim.

They were standing with his back to him, but one of them - that enthusiastic stance and short, black hair seemed all too familiar, along with the flash of the camera. He had to pause in the doorway. Damn, it was going to be awkward if he was wrong, but...

Jace paused outside the doorway. "Lotte?"

Sure enough, when she turned, Lotte's face peered back at him. She let her camera fall, the strap catching it on her neck. There he was, exactly who she wanted to see. Lotte reached forward and  hugged him in a more genuine embrace than the one with Evelyn. She'd known him better before she left, after all. Inhaling ever so softly, she said in a quietly and uncharacteristic voice, "Yeah. It's me."

You'd never seen a girl perk up and deflate so quickly.

Paranoia was a bit of a disease in her family, at least on her mother's side. Insecurity was another. So when she saw Lotte throw her arms around him like that, well, maybe she was just a little bit irrationally... well, what was the word? Whatever it was, it made her face twitch and her uneasy smile that much uneasier. Evelyn set her bags down and began to play with her hands, wondering if it'd be better to let her presence be known or to let two old friends carry out their reunion uninterrupted. Well, Lotte sure looked... happy. Ahaha.

Jace's smile grew quickly the moment she turned around. Jesus, how long had it been? Months? A year, maybe? The last time that he'd really seen her, they'd gotten into a paint fight in the studios. After that, he heard something had happened - a bad mission or run in or something, and then nothing. Her dorm was empty and nobody really knew where she went. He'd tried to ask his dad what happened to her but he never gave him a straight answer.

He let his bag slide off his shoulder and unto the floor, wrapping his arms around her as she came in for a hug. "Where the hell have you been?" Jason asked, still not fully noticing the Winter standing nearby.

Lotte took in the hug for a moment, breathing in the scent of the room, the fresh northern air, Jace. When she pulled away, she frowned at his question. "No where important. Home and such." It didn't seem so apparent when talking to Evelyn, but to Jace, she didn't want to look bad. And saying you were crazy looks bad, even if you weren't that crazy. So she dodged it, but the luster in her eyes lessened, and her gaze averted itself.

He wasn't in much of a hurry himself to end the lingering hug, letting Lotte slip away.
"Just home?" Nowhere important? So she just randomly fell off the face of the earth and didn't bother to tell anybody? There were people who did that in the school, yeah, but they were still friends - it would've been nice for her to at least leave him a text or something, he thought. Slight confusion and hurt appeared on his face for a moment before he quickly shrugged it away. Whatever. At least she was back now.
"Well damn, I missed you, girl." he said, smiling again, noticing there was something slightly off as she looked away. He didn't think much of it, casting his gaze along too - and finally spotting the Winter standing nearby.
"Oh, Eve?" He blinked, confusion growing. "What are you doing here?" He'd forgotten they ever knew each other.

Oh. Ahaha. Don't mind the girl in the corner. Evelyn averted her gaze to the floor, a forced half-smile on her face. Wasn't his fault. It was all on her gift. Her hand was still twitching. "Um... just... s-standing here, I g-g-guess..." Yeah, that was about right. She supposed she'd been dragged along to help her unpack, or just to catch up with an old friend, but those were the first words that came tumbling out. "I c-can leave if y-you need s-some time to c-c-catch up, though, ehehe..."