I'll Go Anywhere

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PrisonerZero

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Celia sat on the steps of the Amphitheatre, doodling absently in her sketchbook. Before she knew it, the American skyline of Chicago flowed from her pen, below a street empty save for a single lone figure, it's hands in its pockets and its head bowed towards the ground. Destruction rained behind the figure, the street cracking where its feet landed. Her mouth twisted to the side and she swiftly shut the cover, quivering.

She hadn't seen her brother in over a year, and his absence was felt like a phantom limb. Celia sighed and tilted her head towards the sky, her emerald eyes tracking the progress of the few clouds that floated lazily by her in the mid-afternoon sky. Most would call her beautiful, with her slim, athletic figure and pouting lips. Her hair, a vibrant red, tumbled down her back and over her shoulders, highlighting her cheekbones and framing her serious face. She rarely spoke, and hadn't said a word in english in years.

A boy wandered up the stairs, taking his time with each step, his eyes on a rather large book. His dark hair curled around sharp features, and his lean frame attracted the gaze of other girls, she noted. He was anywhere from twenty to twenty-three in age, she thought, although he looked unusually boyish. He wire a collared shirt with its sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a pair of fitted blue jeans. He looked up suddenly, meeting her eyes, and she flushed, looking away. His eyes were startlingly blue, matching the sky above them. By the way her heart fluttered, she considered him to be attractive.

(( @Serath , didn't see your pic, hope this is okay! ))
 
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( I added a bookmark on my profile if you still want to check it out, but i am fine with the character you gave me ^^ I'll abuse my startling blue eyes as much as possible ^^ )

Serath saw the girl blush, he felt a flattering and rewarding feeling crawl up his spine and decided to sit on the step one lower to hers. He sat down, flipping a page of his book, pretending to read while the image of the girl spun around his mind. She looked very pretty, but knowing what he was he didn't dare approach her. With just one gaze from before he remembered a lot of details about her, the thing that stuck the hardest with him was the way her hair moved when she looked away. After a while of replaying her image he shook his head and started flipping the pages of his book back to where he left off. Once he found the page he instinctively looked over his shoulder to look at her again.
 
Celia was startled to find that he chose to sit close to her, only a couple feet away. She opened her sketchbook in her lap and took to sketching him, if only for her own amusement. She took to sketching the hard edge of his jaw, the way his hair almost fell into his eyes, his muscled shoulders.

Suddenly he looked back at her, and she flushed again. "Che cosa?" She demanded, feeling flustered. "Cosa stei guardano a?" His eyes threw her off-kilter. Their intensity reminded her of her brother, and she blew air out of her nose quietly in frustration. Couldn't she go a day without missing him? He'd chosen to stay behind in America. To leave her. Her eyes narrowed at the boy, waiting.
 
(this site is starting to lag super hard for me, are you getting the same thing? Just refreshing the site takes like 15-20 seconds)
He tilted his head at her "What? I am sorry I hardly understand Italian." He talked normally, he didn't try talking slowly as if that might help the other person understand him better "Uhmm.. Cosa... stei... Oh! I am so sorry, I didn't mean to bother you!" He looked back forward with slight redness in his cheeks. He wasn't sure why she reacted so aggressively, but she did, so clearly he must have done something wrong. He looked down at his closed book, and realised the shock from her demanding voice made him close it accidentally. He didn't even check the page number. Lowering his book between his legs he let out a barely audible sad sigh, he made it sound like he was a puppy who just got yelled at.
 
(( No, I'm fine internet-wise. Did you check the bandwidth space? You'll definitely lag if that's taken up.))

Celia couldn't help but soften towards him slightly. He looked like a kicked puppy, and she cursed herself for her rudeness. He may not understand her very well, but she found she understood him perfectly despite the fact that she hadn't heard the language in months, preferring the non-tourist areas of Naples and apartment. Today, however, she'd been feeling a little miffed at herself, how she'd been sulking, feeling sorry for herself.

She moved to sit next to him, biting her lip. "No, mi dispiace," she said softly, her sketchbook closed in her hands. Its smooth cover was cool to the touch, despite the heat. "Mi chiamo Celia," she told him, gesturing at herself. She guessed he knew enough to understand her at least a little. "Lei come si chiama?"
 
His frontal lobe shut down as soon as she sat down next to him. Despite his appearance he wasn't really used to having a girl do such an advance on him since they all just rather stand a distance away and watch. It took him some time to process what she was saying, his Italian was extremely bad. He looked her in her eyes and started half rambling "Damn, you are really going to keep speaking in Italian, huh?" He got a really big smile on his face and did his best not to burst out laughing, she was adorably beautiful and acting silly was his best style of defence. "I..." He put a hand on his chest, gesturing that he is talking about himself. "...am Serath." He waved his hand in the air as if presenting a newspaper title "I do not speak Italian." He moved his wrist in front of himself and started shaking his finger "I am not an American, so that isn't the reason why I don't know the language of the country I am in." He let out a tiny giggle "I speak about four languages, and I barely understand a few more, Italian is one of the latter." He wasn't sure if she even understood anything he was saying, so he slipped out a test sentence to check for a reaction "You are very beautiful, has anyone ever told you that?"
 
Celia smiled at his antics. His name was unusual, but it seemed to fit him better than any other name she could give him. She laughed with him, her gentle voice joining with his. She noticed his accent-just a hint of one, but an accent nonetheless. But when she tried to place it, she found she could not.

Serath's features were mainly Greek- a straight nose, a severe jawline, an olive complexion- but there was something else concealed in his face. Something older, more foreign to her than anything she could recall. Her hand itches for her drawing pencil, to let her subconscious sketch what she could put into words, but she just splayed her hands on her thigh and listened.

"...Are very beautiful, has anyone ever told you that?" He was saying. She flushed violently. "Zitto!" She gasped, startled, but her words were not in an unkind tone. Celia didn't usually talk to people herself, let alone have someone compliment her.
 
When he saw her react he blushed too, her laugh may have made him a bit too confident and he just got lost in the moment, leading him into a compliment for her. He was struggling to find anything else to say, her cute demeanour left him stunned "Carino." It was the only word that came to his mind. He realised he said it out loud, a mistake he never made before in his life, he tried to hide it by quickly moving the conversation forward. "I come from Slovenia, it is the neighbouring country of Italy, you know, the one that looks like a chicken?" He was too embarrassed and started looking straight ahead again, his eyes wondering over the amphitheatre.
 
She tilted her head for a moment, watching him. Serath looked surprised at his own outburst, going rigid and changing the subject immediately. Celia decided to go along with it, although his accent was still implacable- not quite Slavic, but she heard its presence in his voice now that he'd mentioned it. She smiled softly at his description.

"Si," she agreed. "Un pollo." Celia glanced at the book in his lap, and proceeded to lean over and tap its cover. It looked older to her, like it had been abandoned on a shelf years before. Its cover was in a language she couldn't read, and found herself curious. "Cosa stai leggendo?" She inquired of him.

She discovered that she wanted him to meet her eyes, to relax and smile and talk to her. She found the depths of her loneliness, buried beneath self-loathing and pity, and it made her ache in a way that surprised her a little,- if only because she'd considered herself a solitary being after her brother had stayed behind, a young hermit, to now discover she needed people to remind her of the better aspects of life.
 
(oooohhh you are good! I'll have to put my game face on for this RP >:), going to slightly break the description of the book, since walking around with a grimoire and then flirting with a girl would be kinda weird ^^ )

He struggled a bit again, the words in Italian sounded similar to some words in English and that was throwing his brain off a bit, but as soon as she tapped to cover of the book he instantly knew what she was saying. He held up the cover for her to see, the title read 'Terry Pratchett - Mort' he just came from a book store where he bought it and he hasn't been able to take his eyes off it until he looked up and met her eyes. "It's a book from the discworld series. The author writes in a way that is compelling to read and makes me laugh all the time, I really adore him." The book itself was probably sitting on the shelf of the bookstore for a while. The name of the title seemed fitting to the appearance of the book and when he saw it he just wanted to buy it. He had another book of his at home, but he mostly just kept exchanging them in the library near his apartment. There were a few pieces of paper sticking out of the closed pages of the book, they looked old a lot older then the book, almost parchment like, she could only see the corners of the sheets sticking out. Serath was clutching the book hard enough to not let the papers he hid inside move, today he brought with him some old pieces of an old grimoire explaining the origins of werewolves, his origins, from back in the days when his kind had bigger problems concealing their appearance. "Do you know the books?"
 
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((Aww, grazie! And yeah, it would be. XD Btw, good book choice! :D))

Celia recalled her brother holding a book up to her, once, like Serath did now. The Colour of Magic, it had read. "It's a good series," her brother had insisted when she'd wrinkled her nose at the fantasy novel. Of course, she'd read the first four books and loved the storyline, and how the author could weave together words in the ways she could not. "Quando l'ultima vita striscia sotto congelamento stelle, ci sarò," she said softly. When the last life crawls under freezing stars, there will I be. She smiled at him. "Si," she answered. "Ottimamente."

Celia noticed older scraps of paper sticking out of the book, thicker than the pages themselves. She was curious on what they were and why he didn't mention them to her, but it wasn't her business. Instead she glanced upwards at the sky, gauging the time by the sun- it was about five-thirty. She didn't quite relax, but she felt a little more comfortable talking to this boy than she usually would. Maybe it was because he was just so sweet, possessing an almost childlike eagerness towards her she couldn't help but smile. She did so now, wrinkles fanning out gently from her eyes.

She almost switched languages then, almost broke her code to never speak in English, ever. Celia hadn't spoken it in years, and she knew speaking it would bring forth memories she would rather keep buried. She knew it was cowardice to hide from intangible things like that, but she found when she tried to speak it, alone in the safety of her apartment, the words would not pass her lips, clawing to stay inside her throat.

So that piece of her stayed quiet.
 
He smiled when she recognised the book, it was rare for him to meet someone who actually knew it, so he just ended up talking about how great the series is, hard to do without giving out any spoilers. "Ottimamente!" he repeated after her, his pronunciation was wrong and it barely sounded like an Italian word, but he smiled even brighter. He put the book back on his lap and leaned back, propping himself on his arms while he looked back at her. "I always try to make people smile. I might not do it in an elaborate way like Pratchett does, but I do my best." he didn't even notice that he stared deeply into her eyes, he could barely keep eye contact with a girl normally, but she felt different, his eyes were just drawn to hers. His voice became increasingly gentle as he talked with her "I have read a lot of these books. They really helped me pass a ton of time when I was in the hospital." Despite being a werewolf, when he was in his normal form he was just another human, and the transformation process started messing with his skin. With his fur coming on and off at such pace it left his skin itchy, so much at one point that he had to heal in a hospital for three weeks at one point. He found a little library and saw that they had the discworld books so he just kept reading them until he got better.
 
"Ospedale?" Celia repeated, curious. Serath was thin, but in a lean, muscled way- he was nowhere near emaciated, which is what he would've been if he was sick and had to be hospitalized for it. Maybe it was something else? Surgery? But he'd mentioned reading multiple books, which in itself would mean that he was there for quite a long time, and the added phrase of passing a 'ton of time'. His voice was gentle, relaxed, even, and he looked completely normal... Almost. His eyes were definitely an abnormal shade of blue, too bright, too...Vibrant. He held her in his gaze. "Per che cosa?" She was curious.

At that moment, her phone chose to chirp at her, indicating that someone was trying to reach her. She held up a finger to Serath in a one moment gesture and answered. "Pronto? Chi parla?" She stood, glancing down as Serath with a little confused smile. There was only one person who knew her number, and the number on the screen was unknown to her. "Celia Gessati?" A voice asked formally. Her lips tilted down in a confused frown. "Si, Signore. In cosa posso aiutarla?" she asked.

There was a pause. "Are you familiar with the name of Noah Gessati?" Her blood froze in her veins. "Si, Signore. Egli è mio fratello. Noah-è lui va bene?" The man was reassuring. "Noah is alive and well, Miss Gessati. You don't need to worry about that." She was even more confused, now. Whay wasn't Noah himself speaking to her, then? Why was this American man -who was apparently fluent in Italian- talking to her? She looked back at Serath, her eyebrows pulling together. "Posso chiedere perché si sta chiamando?"

"I was asked, Miss Gessati, to relay a message of sorts. Mr. Gessati is currently unable to speak with you." Celia sighed, and whistled her disapproval sharply through her teeth. A couple of people passing by glanced up at her, but her eyes were trained on the ground. "He said to say in bocca al lupo." She closed her eyes. In bocca al lupo meant, literally, into the mouth of the wolf, and was a way of saying "good luck". Her brother was saying goodbye to her, and he couldn't even do it himself. "Coniglio," she said. Rabbit. Coward. She snapped the phone shut and whistled sharply again, frustrated and at a loss for words. She took her seat next to Serath and attempted to continue the conversation by repeating her last question. "Cosi," she said to him, "per che cosa?"
 
He didn't really pay attention to the phone call, it wasn't his business and she wasn't talking slowly enough for him to understand a word of it anyway. He started playing with the book, wanting to sneak a peak inside to look at the parchment, but didn't open it to reveal the pages. When she got off the phone he perked up once the questions were aimed at him again. "Oh, I uhm..." He was a werewolf, he was a hunter, even humans could be his prey if he didn't hold back. So why was he so scared about telling her about the weakness of his human form? His throat produced a lump that he quickly tried to swallow, he never really had this conversation with anyone. "The doctors diagnosed it as Atopic Dermatitis, it's basically like getting an itch from an allergic reaction, only that there is no allergy behind it, an incurable itching disease on your entire body without any real reason." He was lying of course, the doctors did diagnose him with it, but he knew exactly what the cause of his itches were, still, the antihistamine pills he got helped. He still had some wounds over his body from the occasional scratching but he got unselfconscious enough to start hiding himself from others. "It's not that bad, but I still have a pretty rough time sometimes." He looked up towards the sky, he suddenly remembered something. "Hey, there is one discworld novel called Feet of Clay, do you know who the character Angua from the book is?" He looked back at her, staring into her eyes.
 
(( Selfconsious, not unselfconsious. That would insinuate that your character wouldn't care. ^_^ I apologize for not being on!))

She smiled, unhindered by the intensity of his gaze. Celia matched it. "Si," she answered. "Versipellis." Those who change shape. She tilted her head at him, wondering where he was going with it. "L'orgoglio è tutto molto bene, ma una salsiccia è un insaccato," She murmured, and her smile grew to a playful grin. Pride is all very well, but a sausage is a sausage. She interpreted it to mean that a person could be proud of themselves when they achieve their goals, but they shouldn't let their pride convince them that they're more than they are. Ceila looked at the sky again for a moment, and realized she was hungry. She met Serath's eyes "Andiamo a prendere qualcosa da mangiare, si?" There was a pizzera that she loved to go to- the Ristorante Pizzeria Boccuccia Di Rosa, which wasn't very far from them. She suggested the place and tilted her head in that direction inquiringly.
 
( haha, yea, you are right! I usualy write late at night and my mind probably trailed off half way trough writing something else ^^ I was starting to miss you! I am so glad you came back! ^^ I'll reply once I get home :) )
 
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She not only spoke in Italian, but also spoke in riddles, her line went straight over his head and he shook his head "Yea, s-sure." He stood up and started walking with her towards the mentioned pizzeria. Pizza sounded like a good idea and his stomach was growling for food already "What I meant with Angua, in that book she met a dwarf and they became friends. Angua was a werewolf and she soon discovered that her new dwarf friend passionately hated werewolves, but not knowing that Angua was one, they still became best friends. She liked the dwarf too much to tell her what she really was, so she kept it a secret from her for as long as she could, and also kept being a good friend, so that when she would be discovered the dwarf might see that she was wrong by being prejudiced of an entire race." He wanted to tell her that he was a werewolf, he just trusted her in a way. But it was near impossible to do that without either freaking her out or scaring her away. Dropping a few hints like this along the way might warm her up to the idea that werewolves aren't THAT unnatural, since obviously they exist in society. "What I am saying is, that is a really good example of how humans work too. We tend to either fear or hate things instead of lean towards learning more about them and maybe even find a friend where others don't even look at, because of stereotypes."

He stopped talking and look into her eyes, he liked her and quite frankly he was getting lonely. He wanted to spend time with this girl in front of him, she looked cute and she seemed to be smart. His mind was racing, she even invited me out to eat together. Maybe she likes me too. He felt his heart thump in his chest and moved his eyes away.
 
Celia smiled. How could she like someone she just met so much? Wasn't there some kind of...Waiting period for that kind of thing, or was the saying really true? Could you really fall in love at first sight? She didn't know, and supposed that was the point- that there was no rulebook, just the thoughts of other people. She understood what Serath meant, and agreed with him. But there was something else there, just behind his eyes. A secret, maybe, or she was just imagining the way his eyes tightened, ever so slightly, with the weight of knowledge. Celia could tell he was lonely from his eagerness, his easy smile when he talked to her. He stared into her eyes like he was searching for something, she thought, and that she might posess that something in her. But what?

"Capisco cosa vuoi dire," she told him. "Ecco perché la gente ha segreti." She beat him to the door, and held it open for him with a hand. The resturant was simple, with windows everywhere that doubled as sliding doors in some places, and gentle decor. She took a breath of the smell of various cooking foods- veal, pastas, fish, and, of course, pizza. She turned to him, letting the door swing shut as soon as he was clear of the door. The hostess hurried over to greet them, and she smiled winningly at the both of them. "Solo due?" she inquired. Celia smiled and nodded. "Si." They were led to a table close to where a large family was eating. Celia smiled and inclined her head towards them politely, who all nodded and smiled in return, and took her seat across from Serath.
 
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As they sat down he started feeling a familiar tingle, he realised that he wasn't paying attention to the lunar cycle these past few days. His carelessness led him to this moment, he started to sweat a little bit. "Hey, uhm... Do you happen to know when the next full moon will be? I am one of those people who usually get affected by it, so I am warning you in advance if I start acting slightly weird on nights like that." He let out a light laughter, but couldn't hide the tinge of nervousness in it. Somehow full moons made the beast inside him give him a hard time remaining human, sometimes even bypassing his will and make him turn without him wanting to, albeit rarely. He is always affected by any moon phase when in his werewolf form. When the moon is dark he has an easy time hiding in the darkness and his pray has no chance, his vision is still great so the dark doesn't affect him at all, it just takes all the fun away. The brighter the moon is at night, the harder it is to hide for him since there is less and less shadow in the world, the closer it is to being a full moon the easier he can see his pray and the easier it is for the pray to see him. It becomes challenging, the beast loves it, and on bright nights he wants to go out, but a full moon is different. A full moon by that scale wouldn't be more then just a compelling wish to fulfil, a challenging nights hunt that he would want to go on, but somehow it's different. When a full moons light shines on him he looses control over his rage and passion, the beast starts clawing it's way out like some ancient magic calls it out, like something way back when the first werewolf walked the earth marked every one of them to come out on a full moon.

He was clutching the book that had the old origin stories in them, he hoped he could find some answers there. He mostly didn't like being a werewolf, not only because of the accompanying skin disorder, but also because he didn't appreciate the bloodlust. He was scared of killing animals, it could bring him a lot of problems in the civilized world, but his main concern was humans. He loved people, he gave everyone second chances and helped anyone that he could, he enjoyed talking to them and listening to everything they had to say, so the thought of looking trough the beasts eyes and feeling the insane urge to hunt them down terrified him. His trail of thoughts was interrupted by the hostess who came to ask what they would like to drink. Serath ordered a coke and was already decided to eat pizza, he asked for Margarita since he didn't want to agitate his feral side with any meat in case tonight will actually be a full moon. He was hoping the interruption wouldn't make her forget the question, he really didn't like the idea of getting suspicious by asking about the moon twice.
 
Celia's forehead creased when he asked and explained his reason for asking. "Domani," she answered him. She recalled an article she read about how the moon's light affected predators- because of the extra light to see by, they tended to be more active in their hunt for prey. Prey, in turn, would be less active because there was more light. The theory stated that the same went for humas; an old instinct that tells them to either hide or...hunt, in a way. So some people were more reluctant to leave their homes on those days, and others were out roaming the town, partying or exercising or simply wandering, unwilling to return indoors. She wondered at which side Serath took, then. Her first thought was prey, but on looking at him, she realized he would be just the opposite. Serath had boundless energy, it seemed, and could even possibly be intimidating to other guys due to his obvious lean strength, with muscles corded like a lion's. No, she decided. Lions don't have eyes like his. A wolf's.

When the hostess returned, she ordered a Campari with mineral water. "Vegetariano?" Celia asked, turning to Serath. She'd been a vegetarian since she was twelve. As she met his eyes, she decided she wanted to call Serath something else, something simple yet connected to his name. Something that she could call him. "Posso chiamarti Seth?" she blurted. Her face colored delicately at her outburst.
 
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