[you are] my sunshine.

[antehya]

The cold breeze blew both the biting air and a tall young man into the corridor. Standing at least half a head over the majority of the school's population, Lys made his was towards his locker, dumping his Elemental Studies books and standing around aimlessly for a few moments while the students slowly dribbled out of the hallway, presumably to meet off with friends or finish off the considerable amount of homework many of them seemed to have.

This didn't actually apply to him and the people who knew him well also knew perfectly well why and didn't bother to question him on why Lys' work was always so perfect and on time, often early by a week. Running his hands through his a;ready-messy hair he yawned widely and glanced around the practically-empty corridor, his icy blue eyes reflecting the wintry onset of weather that had cloaked the castle of late in a blanket of white much to many students' delight.

You should really practice sometime, an internal voice from somewhere in his head mumbled to him with what Lys imagined could be a sly grin sliding across it's nonexistant face.
Grinning impishly in silent reply he began a song in his warm deep voice, softly at first, but growing louder until it was roughly at speaking level as he pulled off his jacket and rustled through the papers mixed haphazardly through his locker, trying to locate the words to the next verse before he came to it as he couldn't remember them.

"...you are my sunshine, my only sunshine,
you make me happy when skies are grey.
You'll never know, dear, how much I love you,
please don't take my sunshine away..."

[_KAT]

Cate Brooks

Cate's locker was in a rather inconvenient place; for her friends, that was. She didn't have any close friends in her own house, so it wasn't surprising that now she wandered down the corridor by herself, a pile of books clutched to her, blonde hair falling in casual waves over her shoulders. As usual, her eyes were in constant movement, taking in the students passing her. Most she didn't know, some she knew by name and others she only knew because everyone knew them. It would be cool to be that popular, Cate decided, though it was not one of her topmost ambitions. She did like to know people though, to be able to say hi to anyone and everyone. She had always been outgoing that way.

This was the sort of time it would be nice to be able to whistle. That was one of these weird things Cate had never been able to do. She stopped at her own locker, shoving her books inside. After closing it, she stood for a moment, gathering her thoughts. Despite having a quick mind, there were moments where Cate needed to catch up with herself. The door at the far end of the corridor opened then, and the cold air air enveloped Cate, raising goosebumps. Today she wore a simple denim skirt and a deep blue hoodie. She'd only worn the skirt because it had been sunny. Now she was realising her mistake.

She rounded the corner, back towards the traba lockers where she knew some of her friends would be. However, as she did she almost walked into a guy who standing by his own locker, rifling through papers and... singing. Cate grinned and leaned against the wall beside him, listening to his tune. She knew it, it was a well-known song, but his voice was somehow well suited to it, the low tones. She was silent for a moment, pushing her hair back from her face. "I like that song," she then said, matter-of-factly, her voice touched by its usual cheery tones, the smile not leaving her face but diminishing slightly.

[antehya]

He turned at the sound of a girl's voice behind him, a grin slipping across his face, stormy blue eyes somehow sparkling without any light.
"Ha, it's one of my favourites," he admitted, matching her smile. "Bing Crosby does it better but nobody even knows who he is nowadays."

He turned back to his locker and resumed shuffling through the paper, sorting things into vague relevance so that next time he would be able to find the words which were now in a crushed form of their original existence. Pulling out various other scraps he didn't need he crumpled them easily into a ball under his strong hand and shoved them into his jacket pocket to dispose of later.

Yeah...should practice, he thought to himself as he unearthed some sheet music for Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude and mentally noted that he should actually learn the thing seeing as he had the music. Still rifling through he found Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata: Adagio Sostenuto and various other pieces most of which he could already play as well as his guitar capo buried under the layers of mess.
”Oops. Should take better care of that,” he mumbled to himself, slipping it into his jeans pocket where he hoped he would remember to rescue it from at a later stage.

He suddenly turned, grin turned sheepish on his face, and held out his hand in a rather gentlemanly fashion for her to shake.
"Sorry, forgot m'manners. Lys Edwards from Aqua, pleased to meet you. It’s Brooks, isn’t it? Cate Brooks?"

[_KAT]

He turned, and in a moment Cate had taken him in. Tall; dark, tousled hair; bright blue easy-to-het-lost-in type eyes. All in all, very good looking. A lot of guys seemed to be recently. Maybe she had been single too long, Cate mused to herself with an inward giggle. His smile did nothing to put her at ease, illuminating more his chisled features. However, being her old casual self, Cate simply returned it. His words left her blank faced though, and she shrugged, a sheepish expression on her face, as he named an undoubtably before-her-time singer. Probably before his time too, her mind argued. She guessed him to be a fourth year, but ages were not her strong point.

He turned back to his locker, and Cate hesitated before staying where she was. Sure, she was loyal to her friends, but passing up the chance to talk to new people was not her style. She could catch up with them later anyway. Plus, she was intrigued; he seemed to have more sheets in his locker than had probably ever been in hers. She had heard you could tell a lot about a person by their locker, but all she could tell was that he was either really disorganised, or really busy. Or both.

After a few moments, he seemed to remember she was there. Or perhaps, he had just been pretending to ignore her for his own amusement. Or perhaps, he really had been ignoring her in the hopes she would go away. Cate hoped it was not the latter, although she didn't have time to dwell on the facts because he was introducing himself. Lys Edwards. It was not a very famous name, but she'd heard people talk. And Aqua, which explained the position of his locker. She was about to return his 'pleased to meet you' and announce her own name when he voiced it for her. She stood, eyebrows somewhere in her hair, for a moment, before regaining her composure.

"Yeah," she confirmed, her voice perhaps even more elated. "Am I that famous?" she then asked with a laugh. Cate had never considered that people might know her name.Those in her own house, she supposed, would because you couldn't shut her up in the common room or the dorms, but maybe she was actually getting noticed now. Still, better not to get ahead of herself; he could be a family friend's son or whatever. Cate's hand strayed to her hair again; she'd never been shallow but always been annoyed by the length of the locks.

[antehya]

"Famous?" he grinned. "I wouldn't really know but the only names I seem to pick up are the relatively-famous once so I guess you're with the in crowd now."

He watched as she lifted her hand to brush back the stray strands of hair over her face, a relatively quiet girl who longed to be known and loved. Lys could see it in the way he had seen her watch the popular group with a wistful expression in her eyes although she would never admit it aloud he knew. Without really registering it he began to hum the tune aloud again in his warm voice, noticing properly the bin a few metres away. Pulling the crumpled discarded paper from his pocket he lobbed it into the bin easily and turned to question her.

He subconsciously went to continue sorting the paper but, his vision being slightly blurry from lack of sleep, he knocked the bundle out of his locker onto the floor just in time for some other sudent to open the door at the end of the corridor, bringing a gust of wintery wind that expelled the pages to the air like an internal snowstorm of paper and music notes.

Well, damn! He grinned ruefully and squatted down to pick them up again knowing he'd have to start organising his belongings soon or the whole school would be covered in items tagged 'Lys Edwards'.
"Anyway, tell me," he continued as the paper gradually returned to a more orderly state, "you're name's Cate Brooks but what house are you in? That's something I haven't picked up yet."

[_KAT]

I guess you're with the in crowd now. Cate laughed, but a swell of triumph fizzed through her. Being known; being famous; it wasn't something that was very important to Cate but she would never pass up the oppurtunity. The way he said it, it made it sound like he was in the crowd too. So, at least she knew one popular person, if she was about to go shooting into fame herself. Not that that would probably happen, but anything was possible as far as Cate Brooks was concerned.

He turned back to his locker, but she could see he was more interested in talking now, and the papers he was handling seemed just something to do with his hands. However, as he knocked the pile onto the floor and the door swung open again, all Cate could do was shiver in the sudden cold, and giggle at his exclaimation. He didn't seem too angry, and as Cate picked up a stray paper and handed it to him, it didn't take long to get the sheets back in order and then he was speaking again.

"Aeris," she answered with a small smile, "But to be honest I'm not great at all that elemental stuff." She had to laugh at her own hopelessness in Elemental Studies, and it no longer really bothered her; she was only a first year so far anyway, there was plenty of time to learn how to master her element. It was probably a good thing, as Cate knew she'd be unable to resist flaunting it if, indeed, she was any good at all. "And Lys Edwards," she threw a question back at him for good measure, "What year might you be in?"

[antehya]

"And Lys Ewards, what house would you be in?"

Now that she seemed to have gained a little more confidence in talking to a perfect stranger Lys could see that under everything Cate was really quite outgoing and obviously nice enough to attract the attention of people.
"Me? Third year and even so I'm not exactly fantastic at most of my subjects anyway...although it's not too hard to scrape a good mark here what with all the spare time I have on my hands."

He registered somewhere in the back of his mind that Cate probably didn't know he almost never slept but he shrugged that off knowing he didn't want to explain insomnia yet again. He rubbed his eyes furiously for a moment, the dark rings around them clearly visible even in the greyish half-light from outside that streamed half-heartedly through the few windows of the corridor.

"And you're in first year, right?"

ooc - sorry it's a dodgy post...I'm out of muse at the moment.

[_KAT]

Third year. That made him seventeen or eighteen. That wasn't so bad. Although it had been pretty predictable what with his height. And all his papers. Perhaps by the time Cate was in her third year she'd have just as many. She nodded at his next words, although she found she didn't agree too much with them. He said he didn't find it difficult, but Cate realised he probably had other reasons. Spare time? Didn't he have the same amount of spare time as the rest of them? Still Cate wasn't about to launch into some argument with a cute stranger who was being nice enough to talk to her.

She watched him rub his eyes, and felt a pang of pity as she realised how tired he looked. Cate had had some late nights herself but she supposed the third years must get up to all sorts. At his question, she smiled. "That's right. I feel kinda small here," she admitted, although not in all seriousness. It was true, she was afraid of being judged by her young age at Ludus Elementum, something she'd never had to worry about back home. Fifteen hadn't seemed very young until she'd arrived here.

The corridor was all but empty by now; the other students had wasted no time in heading back to their house rooms. It was nice to have school finish so early. Today was cloudy, of course, so the sun couldn't be seen clearly, but it was still quite high in the sky. She glanced over to Lys again. He'd rearranged most of his locker. "Well, if you're so good at getting good marks," she said, laughter in her voice to show she wasn't being malicious, "Reckon you could give me a hand? I usually go outside to do it but..." she trailed off with a shrug, realising he might not want to venture out into the cold. But he was her last hope really; none of her friends were much help and a third year would have a lot more insight. "But forget it if you're busy," she added, eyeing his locker.

[no worries ]

[antehya]

Sorting out the final papers of his locker he listened to Cate still speaking. "...I feel kinda small here," she ended. Grinning he remembered his own first year at the school and how even though he was only fifteen he'd been still tall enough for people to think he started late at the school in second year at least. He laughed at her comment of his good marks and was half-surprised when she seemed to change personality slightly and request his help.Laughter had crept into her voice but underneath it all she was actually asking him seriously.

"Well it's not too cold outside but you look as if an extra layer wouldn't go wrong." He couldn't help but chuckle at the short skirt she had on. Sure it had been sunny earlier but it was not summer sun and it was cold. He slung his jacket over one arm, knowing if she got cold at least he could offer it to her - he wasn't that cold himself.

"Still if you don't mind I'm happy to give you a hand with stuff; I'm not too busy and I can make use of my spare time tonight to finish off my other work. True, I can't help too much with the Aeris stuff," he grinned, "but I'm sure anything else shouldn't be too much of a problem."

He pulled out a folder from his locker which was trailing bits of paper. "My first-year notes, he added by way of explanation. "I thought they might be useful if I ever needed to go over stuff. They'll help rejog my memory, at any rate."

ooc - sorry 'twas a bit slow. my muse died.

[_KAT]

His smile was sweet, she decided. He seemed more innocent than most of the guys at the top end of the school, more studious perhaps, although she didn't doubt he had his own personal crew of female followers nevertheless. He laughed at her comment, and a small smile lit her face, widening as she watched him consider. This of course led to a blush rising in her cheeks at his comment on her clothing. Cate hardly ever wore skirts and she'd been hoping that today of all days, it might be at least a little warmer. Of course, she'd had no such luck. "Hey, I'm made of tough stuff, I'll be peachy," she replied, almost curtly though she wasn't trying to be cold.

However, as he folded his jacket over one arm it dawned on her that she'd just convinced a third year to help her with homework. At least now she might be able to scrape a decent grade. But that might be getting ahead of herself. At his next words, she again heard the mention of his 'spare time'. If she got the chance later, she might ask about that. Cate could do with some spare time herself. Except she'd just fill it with more stuff. She already went to bed late and got up early, and her days were pretty much packed. So went the life of oh-so-active Cate Brooks. She realised his words were true when it came to the aeris stuff. "Yeah, I suppose I'll have to find some random Aeris person to help with that," she replied, an ironic smile painting her pale face.

He pulled out some papers, and Cate laughed inwardly as he explained himself. The reason his locker was so full? He still had first year notes in there. Cate was one to chuck everything from past years and start anew. Maybe that's why she was so wonderful at her studies. Still, she offered Lys no more than a smile and a raised brow. "Genius," she told him, and turned to grab her coat and scarf from her locker. She didn't like keeping them in the cloakrooms like everyone else; she was protective of them and was paranoid someone would steal them, lovely as they were. Then, turning back to her new friend, she asked brightly, "To the lake?" For once, she was actually excited at the prospect of homework.

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[antehya]

ooc - i've started a thread in the woods in the school grounds...called .||winter wonderland||. see you there!