ADVENTURES IN SOLITUDE `

[Leda Wickford-Rose]

( LEDA BEV. WICKFORD-ROSE )
VALKYRIE ACADEMY, NOVEMBER 1, 2007, MID MORNING

la la la leave it all behind, la la
la see the fight, la la la make the
best of it, la la la and goodnight
. . . . . . .

the bedroom door of leda beverly wickford-rose was slightly ajar and, were an observer passing through the hallway to peer inside, they would see a room that now definitely bore the marks of the person who owned it, as well as several random, airborne articles of clothing landing on the plush carpet near the doorway every now and then. the petite brunette herself was standing several feet within the boundaries of her closet, rifling through the selection of clothing at her disposal hanging from the many hangers in the small area of space, attempting to assemble an outfit. she was going for a certain criteria here, set by her father, ("wear something nice" had been his exact words), which meant something respectable and edging on semi-formal. and while she had plenty of possibilites before her, thus far every combination she had gathered together had been rejected by the impulse sector of her brain. which was why her bedroom floor was spangled with an assortment of skirts, blouses, t shirts and jeans.

she hummed to herself cheerily under her breath as she dismissively tossed a bright yellow tank top over her shoulder and tugged a high waisted black skirt from its hanger and surveyed it. hm. she was about to send it right towards the same fate the yellow tank had just met, but at the last moment, changed her mind and slung it over her arm. it suddenly appealed to her a lot, so she began her search for a top to go with it. she began flicking quickly through the hangers, perhaps not spending a proper amount of time analyzing the flashes of color that were her clothes before moving on. leda randomly paused at a nice little white blouse number, because it made her think of felix, her old tutor, and she wasn't entirely positive as to why that was... oh, right. she had bought it with the money he had given her for her last birthday. she gazed at it fondly for a moment, suddenly immersed in memories of some of the more enjoyable aspects of the education felix had been paid to supply her with. smiling, she slung it over the top of her arm, where it landed atop the skirt. right, now the matter of her apparell was now pretty much taken care of. she stepped outside of the closet, back into her bedroom, and was suddenly met with the sight of a plate of french toast left over from breakfast that she had brought up with her that she had completely forgotten about in her scouring of her closet. yum.

whisking the plate up from its perch atop her desk, as well as the fork lying haphazardly strewn several inches away from it, she cut herself a rather large glob and chewed on it happily. mm. deliciousness, thy name is french toast. the moment she noticed her laptop sitting open on her bed, however, leda quickly abandoned the european named breakfast food, crossing the distance between herself and her bed in several cheerful bounds, plopping both her plate and the articles of clothing she had just spent so much time "selecting" unceremoniously onto her comforter, settling herself on her mattress tapping the mouse pad on the keyboard to wake the screen up.

it had started out as her simply wanting to check her email, which was incidentally empty except for a couple of boring ads that her stupid junk mail thinger hadn't caught, but before she knew it, she was surfing around the online vortex known as youtube. she had entirely forgotten about the real world, for any vestiges of that subject had been sidled out of her mind and replaced with thoughts concerning the ridiculous but epic costumes being worn by the member of abba in the video of them performing live she was watching. "leda? you ready?" oh dang. the voice of her father carried up the stairs of their new home, and in response, leda immediately leaped off of her bed. "yes!" she lied, because she was still in the pair of shorts and the pair of denim shorts and the t shirt she had thrown on right after her shower earlier that morning. the fact that she was supposed to have been getting ready just now had completely escaped her. "just a minute!" it was with impressive speed that she stripped out of said articles of clothing and threw on the blouse and skirt she had previously abandoned and selected the first pair of nice earrings and shoes she set her brown eyed gaze on. after pushing her favorite red headband down onto her head, she surveyed herself quickly in her mirror (damn, she was good) and then scurried the hell out of her bedroom, down a set of stairs, and into the entryway, where hugo rose stood waiting. after confirming that she was indeed good to go when he asked with a smiling nod, she followed him outside to his expensive car.

they were expected at the oh so prestigious valkyrie academy in several minutes for an introductory tour. to be perfectly honest, leda didn't think it was entirely necessary, because she was not going to be a full fledged student of the academy; in fact while she was within its walls, she would only be attending one class, in one class room. however, her father had seemed to think it was a good idea, and she had to admit that even if she didn't feel the tour would be very necessary, it would be helpful, seeing as one of her many talents was getting lost. hell, it would probably wind up being interesting, too. after the fifteen or twenty minute car ride, leda found herself following after her father into the large, elegant building that was the academy, her jaw struck momentarily agape. she had heard many, many things about this school from her father, but, just, wow. it was impressive. inside, they were greeted by a woman who introduced herself as the assistant principal and led them through a marbled hallway to the left, spewing information about the academy and its history.

leda wasn't listening, for she was too busy taking in her surroundings, feeling as if she could feel prestige oozing out of the very walls around her. she continued following her father and the assistant principal through the halls, which were lined with some classrooms now as they seemed to have entered the academic wing of the campus. some of the students within them peered curiously at the group of three people passing by them, distracted from whatever task their teachers had put up to them. after a couple of minutes, the assistant principal and her father slowed to a stop and simply stood chatting about something or other; leda was not absorbing any of the specifics. feeling the very familiar urge in her legs to wander, so began to meander away from them and they took no notice, seeming quite absorbed in whatever it was they were talking about. after taking a few twists and turns throughout the layout of the place, she found herself in a deserted hallway type deal bordering a pretty courtyard... which meant she really had no idea as to where exactly she was. oops.

. . . . . . .

status , finished.
tagged , laph!
attire , here.
credits , lyrics: matt & kim. formatting: me.
notes , ah, yay.

[Daphne Hayes]

DAPHNE. ROSE. HAYES


( THE FACES ALL AROUND ME THEY )
( DON'T SMILE, THEY JUST CRACK )

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----HER LIFE WAS OFFICIALLY SUCKING. aside fromt he part that she had few friends here in the academy. it was surprising daphne hayes managed to stay queen. anne sort of skipped town with jason and coco. so, she lost a best friend, a drinking buddy, and an enemy. oh, well, she didn't really care about the latter, but the first two she did care about. daphne tried to make anne stay but anne didn't. they'd be back though, anne told her. pft, didn't really help her now, did it? so, anne was gone, it appeared to be a good time to friend bailey again, right? wrong. bailey had her own little trio now with nina suresh and shay anderson. yeah, it's not like anne and daphne didn't make her popular or anything. no one would have gone to her stupid party is she hadn't been friends with daphne and anne to begin with. thank god sophie came back to the states. at least she still had one person on her side. daphne was even putting up with all of sophie's gushy-milo talk. well, that sounded bad. she was happy sophie found that 'perfect' guy.

yeah... they're all perfect guys until they cheat on you or are really in love with someone else. but in case you were wondering, daphne was in a relationship again. with dean stillings. finally. the first honest and real relationship since josh stewart. basically, a year ago. and there were no amanda sumitts or coco lehouxs to get in the way. dean, as you know, was not in high school. daphne was still trapped in high school, but wanted to desperately graduate and be done with it. almost everyone daphne had been hanging out with lately had been older people. besides, a lot of her friends graduated from high school last year. she wouldn't be daphne hayes unless she acted like... daphne hayes. the days of cleaning herself up and actually liking the person she was slowly becoming was shot to hell and she was doing what hot messes of her status would normally do. drink, party, pass out. repeat.

so here she was. somehow she managed to get to school, but how? that part was a little hazy. maybe her dad drove her? no. since daphne had a splitting headache, derrik hayes would have been able to take one look at his daughter and send her back to bed. yes, this was a hangover, and all the coffee in the world wasn't able to get rid of her splitting headache. after completely being zoned out first hour, daphne decided to skip the next hour. kind of to recollect herself before attempting to go through the rest of the day. so what was daphne's little 'break?' of course smoking in the courtyard. even if she was hardly considered a rebel, daphne sure looked the part of a rebelling academy kid. with the loose navy tie hanging around her neck, the white blouse unbuttoned one button past what most people would consider 'pushing it,' and her blazer hanging open. one might think she just rolled out of bed, but most people knew, she probably was at some crazy party last night and really didn't care what she looked like now. daphne was only a tad surprised none of the teachers forced her to the nurses, or just told her to go home and they'd forget what they were seeing.

still, she was unshamefully lighting the stick as she sat on one of the benches that was still in the hallway, but facing the courtyard. she flung her back pack across from her and brought her legs up on the bench. leaning her head back on one of the pillars the bench was against, she inhaled the first drag and blew it up in the air as quickly as she could. for a nice day out, no one was in the courtyard. there were just a few people walking back inside before the bell rang, but no one was out here just to be out here. daphne tossed her long brown hair over one shoulder with her free hand and took another drag. she even closed her eyes for a moment. sometimes, loneliness didn't feel so bad. daphne occasionally flicked the ashes of the cigarette to the ground as she enjoyed some silence. something she wasn't use to lately. it was a good twenty minutes where daphne didn't think of anything. just sort of kept quiet and smoked her cigarette. it only occurred to her that she was still at the academy when she heard high heels on pavement.

it had to be a teacher. shit. she was suppose to be in class. how was she suppose to explain this one? daphne dropped the almost finished cigarette on the ground and crushed it with her shoe. she slightly kicked it under the bench and into the dirt. waving her hand around her, she hoped to make the remaining smoke from her last drag disappear quickly. the noise, however, did not match the person who was walking in them. daphne looked up at a girl standing in the entryway looking like she just walked out of france and into the halls of valkyrie academy. well, she wasn't a student. at least currently. judging from the outfit and the fact that she looked daphne's age, she was probably on a visit, got bored when her parents started talking to the headmaster and got lost. daphne was guessing this because that's probably what she would have done if her parents were rich enough to request some visit like this place was some ivy league college. daphne sat awkwardly looking at her, so she ended up saying, "uh, hi. i'm daphne. i got some grey goose in my bag if you want some."

______________

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STATUS, complete
CRED, format and graphics to me
LOCATION & TIME, the academy, november 1, 2007
LYRICS, 'believe' - the bravery
CLOTHES, school uniform in true daphne-style
TAGGED, LAPH.
I SAY, heehee, yayy!
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[Leda Wickford-Rose]

( LEDA BEV. WICKFORD-ROSE )
VALKYRIE ACADEMY, NOVEMBER 1, 2007, MID MORNING

la la la leave it all behind, la la
la see the fight, la la la make the
best of it, la la la and goodnight
. . . . . . .

leda had never been what you would call a model student. not necessarily because of her grades or anything like that; she had that aspect of it covered well enough. it was more in terms of her classroom behavior. when she was at home learning studying with her tutor, it was easier because he made quite sure that there were as few distractions around as possible. however, when she was in an actual classroom, full of people, even if over the years she had gotten better at managing herself, it seemed that she very often wound up talking and giggling loudly with someone sitting in her general vicinity, or singing a bit too zealously to herself, or something else along those lines. generally, since the only class she had attended in a classroom for many years had been art, it was as big a deal as it would have been in some other subject, but leda was still probably the person to receive the most 'shut up, sit down, and concentrate' type messages from the teacher.

of course, it could have been worse. a lot worse. in her opinion, everyone was quite lucky that she remembered to take her meds very diligently. because, if she happened to miss a round... well, things could get a little... alarming. and that wasn't even the worst it had ever been; before she had been put on medication or when she forgot to take it when she was a kid, it had been a good deal more intense. there were several home videos from the early to mid nineties in a cardboard box in a closet back in leda's old house in pennesylvania, and in a lot of them, she wasn't much more than a loud streak of color. it wasn't until you hit the videos from the late nineties that you were actually able to see her when she wasn't constantly bouncing off the walls, even if someone who viewed only those videos probably would have considered her a relatively hyper kid. however, when you made the comparison, there was no denying that the meds made a big difference. which was a good thing, because she was pretty sure that without them, getting her education and actually learning stuff would have been a whole hell of a lot harder than it had been thus far (apparently kindergarten had been a very taxing ordeal for all involved, but leda didn't remember it very clearly at all). even if it did annoy her from time to time, and even if it didn't necessarily seem like it, she did place a lot of importance on education, because she knew it was good for her.

so no, she hadn't never been a "model student", but she hadn't ever been a rebellious, hellion like student, either. it wasn't in her nature to operate naturally like that; the leading factor in this probably being that there wasn't much that could get her worked up. in fact, were someone to devise a scale of angstyness, leda probably could have been a perfect little model for the "what angst?" side of the spectrum. she had always been the one who had a big smile more often than not and wound up being considered annoying. that was what she was told, anyway. evidently it was a rather popular opinion. but whatever. it wasn't like she lost any sleep over that. far from it.

she slowed down a bit after she entered the courtyard bordered hallway, shifting her gaze up to the ceiling, various thoughts and musings rolling and scuttling around and inside of her head. she was pretty sure she was going to like it here, even if it did present ever so many things that seemed to vie for here attention; or at least parts of it. so many aspects of the place just seemed to say "look at me, look at me, think about me, i'm right here" and it was obviously quite distracting. her thoughts were flitting from one thing to the next rather rapidly. an outsider, who wasn't inside of leda's head all the time, probably would have found it confusing and somewhat overwhelming, but to leda it wasn't a very big deal. it often actually seemed rather natural and she didn't mind it. one second she was thinking about how the morter designs were very nice and the next she was pondering over how many tons of marble in total there were within the academy.

pausing slightly in the entryway to the courtyard, leda took a quick look around and was a bit surprised to see that it was not deserted, as she had presumed it had been, which was a little strange. judging by the fact that there were no high school students swarming around and that she had just seen quite a few people sitting in varying degrees of attentiveness in class rooms a few minutes ago, class was very much in session. so she didn't have any idea what the brown haired girl sitting on a bench in the courtyard was doing. she looked a bit disshevelled and exuded an air of tiredness. in all honesty she seemed as if she might be a bit hung over. and remember how we ascertained that leda wasn't one of those rebellious types? the girl looked like the same wasn't true fo her. she had noticed leda by this point and was looking at her and leda was about to say something when she beat her to the punch. "uh, hi. i'm daphne. i got some grey goose in my bag if you want some." oh yeah. she was definitely a little hung over. and leda had to admit that that seemed a little unorthodox. she certainly hadn't been expecting to get offered alcohol after only twenty minutes or so after setting foot inside the school. she moved forward several steps into the courtyard, smiling at the brown haired girl named daphne with the grey goose in her bag. "hi," she said in that kind of voice that reflects the smile you're wearing. "i'm leda. i'm new." she paused momentarily as she considered the bit about the grey goose, smoothing her skirt out a little before going with an impulse. "umm. maybe a little," she said with a shrug. welcome to valkyrie academy, leda.

. . . . . . .

status , finished.
tagged , laph!
attire , here.
credits , lyrics: matt & kim. formatting: me.
notes , :]