Miss Quinn

169 ~ Apollo and Antidotes

Emma was falling. She didn't know from where, or what was below her, nor how far the distance was. She couldn't see anything amidst the tumbling, erratic movements of her fall. Just blue sky and clouds, and what might've been a city, and of course the flames that somehow surrounded her without burning. She couldn't even scream -- though she desperately wanted to. She couldn't apparate away, either. Her body was stuck completely in the ungraceful limbo of descension.

As the ground rose beneath her, she thought she recognized the buildings looming closer. She'd flown above them on Mocha the Pegasus before. She was falling into the sprawling network of streets and skyscrapers that made up New York City. And when she hit, it would not be pretty.

Her body tumbled between two buildings, and before she could blink, the ground was there -- Emma shut her eyes tightly, as if it would stop the impact from hurting. Stop it from killing her. And she sent a prayer that her Mum would be able to survive the loss of her only daughter, and that James and Venus could fill that void.

Emma shot up in bed, heaving. Her pajamas, forehead, and neck were slick with sweat, and the sheets were tugged in all different directions. Her pillow had somehow ended up at the foot of her bed, the duvet was on the floor, and the rest of the sheets looked like they'd been kicked aside forcefully.

The dormitory around her was still dark. No light streamed in through the windows, and none of the other girls had stirred. Emma wiped the sweat from her brow and tried to remember what she'd been dreaming about.

There had been the feeling of weightlessness — like she'd been falling. But she couldn't remember why, or where. Or what had happened. One thing was for sure, though — it hadn't really been her falling. She'd been seeing through someone else's eyes. Experiencing someone else's reality. But who?

Whoever it was, Emma wasn't sure they'd survived the fall.

Knowing she'd never get back to bed now, Emma swung her legs out of bed and padded to the bathroom to rinse her face. The sounds of her roommates breathing was a calm and welcome presence as she steadied her heart rate with a few deep breaths. Emma flipped on the light in the bathroom and stared at herself in the mirror. She was a mess. An absolute mess. She looked like she'd been dragged through a field and hadn't slept in days. Sighing, she turned on the faucet and watched the water pool in her cupped hands. The chill of it grounded her a little bit, but she still felt weightless. Still felt that butterfly feeling in her gut.

The water started to overflow from her hands, so she splashed it onto her face, and the shock of it shook away the last of her nerves. She dried her face with a towel and slid back into the dormitory, careful to tread lightly so as not to disturb the other girls. As quietly as she could, she stripped off her pajamas and put on a pair of leggings and an old t-shirt, then bundled into an oversized sweater and stuffed her feet in a pair of slippers. There was no reason to put on real shoes if she was just going to take them off when she got to her arena.

The castle was dead silent. Not even the ghosts were drifting about. The sun wouldn't rise for another hour or two, but Emma was wide awake.

She made her way to the room of requirement by muscle memory alone, deciding not to light her wand so she wouldn't draw attention to herself. It wasn't that her being out at this hour was prohibited, but it wasn't exactly encouraged. And besides, all the portraits were sleeping.

She paced in front of the wall, thinking of her room. What she really wanted was to talk to Will, but IMs hadn't been working recently, and he was probably asleep anyway. So she settled on working out her frustrations with violence, as usual.