Quiet Musings (Open)

[Vincent]

Though the music pounded loudly in his ears, he was deaf to it. He was long wrapped up in his thoughts, so much that the words his eyes skimmed over in the book in his hands didn't register.
It was a bad habit, really, that he dwelled so much on the past. All it caused him was pain, both emotional and almost physical. When he remembered four years back, when his accident happened... phantom pain shot through his limbs, his chest... he could just imagine the bones snapping beneath the young, fiery stallion's hooves, so much that they could have been sticks standing up to the blows of a sledge hammer...
A loud thud brought his senses back to reality, jolting him awake. The book he was reading had fallen to the floor of the loft, and his music player had shut off some time ago. Silence rang in his ears, surprisingly calm considering what he'd been dreaming just then. With a dejected sigh, he picked up the hardcover novel and flipped it closed, the page he'd started on already marked; he couldn't remember what he'd read beyond that point anyways, so he may as well start there again, right?
Setting it aside, he leaned forward, elbow on his knee, supporting his head as he gazed around without interest. Nothing seemed to snag his interest now a days, and being "that odd Canadian kid", or so he was told, very few people spoke to him other than to ask mocking questions about the common Canadian stereo-types. If one more person asked if he had lived in an igloo... Ugh, it was so irritating! Some people were just completely tactless.
It was times like this he longed for a friend... or one of his siblings. But the two of them, Aldrik Jr and Shayar, were both older than him and had long graduated. They were living their own lives, though they still kept in touch. He couldn't run to them every time he felt alone. As he often told himself; c'est la vie. Despite his catch phrase, he often felt vie should screw off once and a while and let him be happy. Didn't seem like that'd happen anytime soon though.
He kicked his feet up on a handy bale of hay, folding his arms. The silence was a pleasent change, and if he focussed, his mind blanked out slowly, erasing the pain...

[b.ounce]

Layla Daye

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The search for her missing cell phone hadn't gone as well as she'd hoped, but whatever. Maybe she'd find it somewhere in her truck. Maybe it was just hiding somewhere. And she could always call it later. But right now she needed to make sure her horses were comfortable. That's right, horses. She was now the proud owner of a palomino colt named Pal, and she was in love, and rather excited about being able to completely train him the way that she wanted and watch him suceed.. well.. hopefully suceed.

After she'd dumped the shavings from both of her horse's stalls, filled their water buckets and gotten them their nightly grain, she made her way towards the hayloft, her ipod headphones deep in her ears playing the song "Man, I Feel Like A Woman." by Shania Twain. Of course, no one else was in the barn, or so she thought, so she took the opportunity of her aloneness to sing along with the song. She had a rather good voice, but that didn't stop the fact that she was shy. She walked up the stairs, completely olaf to the rest of the world as she sang along. Oh, oh, oh, oh, go totrally crazy, forget I'm a lady, men's shirts, short skirts, oh, oh, oh, oh.. She walked right past the boy, not even really noticing him as she cut off the ties on the bale of hay, taking 3 flakes out of it. Really go wild and, doin' it in style.. She turned around to make her way back down the stairs and spotted the boy, screaming in surprise and tossing the hay into the air, the bales falling at her feet and rolling their way down the stairs. Oh my gosh, I'm sorry. I didn't see you there. She yanked the head phones from her ears, looking at the boy who had seemed to come out of no where.

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[Vincent]

If nothing else, Vince wasn't easily startled. That had to account for something, as he didn't even flinch from his lounging position when the girl screamed, actually finding it amusing.
His dark eyes opened, peering over his reading glasses, one eyebrow raised, and a small smirk hovering on his lips. He wanted to laugh, but he imagined that the girl was embarassed enough already, without his help. He could be amused privately.
He sat up straight, twining his fingers together, hunched over his knees lazily, attempting to ease the suddenly tense atmosphere.
"Don't worry about it," he said quietly, his smirk widenning in an attempt at being friendly. He was way out of practice. "I was being rather quiet. Probably should've left hours ago."
He stood, stretching a moment before taking off his glasses, folding them and sticking them in the top pocket of his blazer. A hint of mischief came to his expression as he stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets.
"You sing pretty well, anyone ever tell you that?"
It wasn't an attempt at flirting, just playing on the embarassment he could feel radiating from his company.

[b.ounce]

She took her Ipod out of her back pocket and paused the song it was on, shutting the Ipod off and wrapping her head phones around it, stuffing the whole thing into her back pocket once again. She smiled a small bit, shrugging her shoulders. Yeahh, well.. I should probably more observant. When you can take the time to climb a whole flight of stairs, cut two bailing twines and grab 3 flakes of hay and you don't notice anybody who's 10 feet away.. you have a problem. She chuckled, running a hand through her hair and pushing it back and out of her face. A small scarlet color came across her cheeks when he complimented her singing voice and she couldn't fight a smile coming to her face. Well, I don't sing in front of a lot of people.. So it's really not something I hear an awful lot. She giggled quietly, putting her thumbs in the two front belt loops of her jeans. I'm Layla, by the way. I haven't seen you around here.. so You must be new. Correct?

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[Vincent]

"A problem, perhaps," Vince countered, his smirk spreading into a grin. "But when your mind is otherwise occupied, it's easy to miss things that don't move."
He did that too, probably more often than any person had a right to, but he'd never admit it. Recently, quite often he wound up in his destination without remembering the journey. While at times he found this acutely amusing, other times it was not helpful in the slightest. Like when he was supposed to be doing a landscape survey to get some inspiration for his art classes. His paintings, he'd discovered, were becoming bland as of late, less colour, the brilliance from his earlier pieces faded.
He was sure it was a result of leaving the familiar settings of his hometown; he was always comparing Ravenhook to the Canadian landscape repeatedly, and because he was so attatched to the latter, he found this place... lacking. Unstimulating. Putting it mildly anyways.
"Aye, I'm sort of new around here... moved down from Canada two years ago. 'Kept a low profile since then. I'm Vince."

[b.ounce]

Layla looked down at the mess of hay on the barn floor below the stairs, sighing to herself about how she could be so clumsy. She managed to balance herself enough to stay on a horse while it turned almost sideways at a gallop around barrels, but she couldn't manage to keep a grip on 3 flakes of hay just because she got a little startled? Go figure.

She shifted her gaze from the hay on the concrete floor and back to him when he mentioned that he'd moved from Canada. She chuckled. Oh, well then I guess I'm newer then you. I've been here for maybe.. 3 months? Oh, I don't know. Around that... Maybe. She chuckled. Again.. I'm just not observant enough to notice you. Because I'm sure if I'd seen you I definitely would have noticed you. Flirting? No.. Not really. Maybe? She didn't know. She was usually confident no matter who she was talking to, not in a cocky way, just confident, but with him she could feel herself babbling on about nothing and she couldn't even figure out what was going on in her head.

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[Vincent]

A somewhat bitter chuckle rumbled out of him, but he managed to keep it out of his words, at least.
"If you say so."
Vince left it at that, putting a curb on his sarcasm before it ran away from him again. Unfortunately, that happened quite often, and had got him in trouble more than once since coming here. Actually... it got him grief on a daily basis now a days.
Well, at least he could be polite about this, now that she'd effectively embarassed herself. Apparently anyways. So he slipped off his blazer, not wanting to get more hay on it than there already was, and hanged it on a nail he knew to be close by, rubbing his hands together in a business like manner.
"Here, let me help you with this," he said, bending over to start lifting the flakes of hay from the ground.
Of course, it had to be triggered. Somehow up until this point, he'd managed to keep these ruddy hallucinations under wraps, away from others' eyes. But seeing his own hand suspended over the hay brought it on, stealing the breath from his lungs, causing him to collapse against the bales, his eyes totally blank, seeing with his mind's eye rather than his physical ones.
It was brief, but brief was all it took. His breath stuttered, and his hands tremored, but at least he'd managed to stay upright, at least.
"S-sorry," he grumbled to whomever was close by. At the moment, he couldn't remember their name, or even a face, but he could feel their presence here. How. Freaking. Embarassing.