[Indigo]

Raven couldn't answer—he had always kept secrets by not speaking, because he didn't have the trick of telling a believable lie, and so he said nothing to anyone while grief ate him alive. But this time it was physical, an unbearable pressure in his chest, so that when he opened his mouth all that came out was a hoarse, choked sound. Maybe that was good. It was better than screaming.

He didn't answer, and he didn't have lunch with Alta again.

Now it was a new semester, a new year, and he wasn't so raw, but he hadn't been ready for the broken familiarity of the place.

[Indigo]

It was only the second day back, classes hadn't even started, and in the time it had taken him to unpack and settle in he'd walked through a hundred places he'd shared with his friends, that had held secrets but also laughter and warmth and love, and that would never do so again. Just passing by the door to the boiler room made him feel sick. And he couldn't talk to anyone about it, because everyone he'd been that close to was dead—and the last, cruelest joke, that he couldn't tell anyone new either, or the Shadows would come for him too.

[Indigo]

It was around ten in the morning and he was leaning against the wall outside his building, because his room felt so hideously empty and there was nowhere else, anymore, for him to go for company. Harinesh, one of his neighbors, had come outside shortly after him and struck up a conversation about their schedules, for which he was absurdly grateful.

He was also almost sure she was trying to hit on him, and much less sure what to do about it. Setting aside that he was terrible at flirting under the best of circumstances—and it was hard to imagine those circumstances ever returning, the way things were now—she was a year below him, which he felt sort of weird about, and if whatever they tried went badly they'd still have to live in the same building for the rest of the year.

[Indigo]

And he didn't know if he actually liked her, and maybe he was imagining the flirtation anyway…
Teasing out all these obstacles wasn't exactly fun, but it gave him something else to think about, so he kept digging into the tangle as the conversation ebbed and flowed. Vervain would tease him for that, say that was why he couldn't flirt to save his life, a thought he pushed away before it could hurt too much.

But then, as if summoned by his thoughts, someone appeared at the door of the building opposite his—someone he recognized. Someone impossible.

"Vish?" Harinesh reached up to touch his shoulder. "Are you okay? You look like—"

[Indigo]

"Like I've seen a ghost?" he mumbled, and shook his head, and watched the apparition fumble with the doorknob. It was, without a doubt, Vervain. His hair was short and his stance uncharacteristically stiff, and he leaned awkwardly on a cane he seemed to be still learning how to use, but it was him, here, right in front of Raven. Alive.

Alive.
"Sorry," Raven said, as Vervain disappeared into the other building. "I was…thinking about something else. What were you saying?"

She didn't look convinced, but neither did she push, instead returning to her previous subject: organic chemistry, and why she didn't want to be taking it this semester, and why she had to anyway.

[Wild Pet Found]