Chapter Text
For someone that didn’t do so well in different schools growing up, Enid thrived in the environment that was Nevermore Academy.
She found herself fostering many positions as she attended the facility, those ranging from a werewolf to a confidant and a protector, to a lover, a blogger, and ultimately: a friend. To state the list of things she wasn’t would be far quicker and easier, but as for what the current situation called for was something she decidedly had never considered herself much of as much as she was a visionary.
Or in simpler terms, Enid wasn’t much better as a ‘planner’ as much as she was a ‘this sounds cool, let’s do it’ kind of girl.
Aside from Wednesday’s birthday party the year before, which hadn’t gone too well to say the least, the blonde had to admit to herself that it wasn’t the fact that she didn’t have the capacity to to follow through with the wild ideas her imagination came up with, which she was sure she did. It was the fact that her brain never truly settled on one thing for more than a few moments; she could best describe it as being sat in front of a television that was constantly switching channels because you weren’t the one holding the remote.
She watched with curious eyes as the fully recovered Larissa Weems stood at the front of the classroom with a bright smile on her face, her hands folded in front of her on top of the counter as she waited patiently for the small gathering of students to settle down in their seats. The talking began to quiet down to a hushed murmur before dying out completely, all eyes settled on the tall figure ahead of them. She gracefully cleared her throat and looked over the students with an excited spark in her light eyes, “So, I’m sure you’re wondering why I asked you all here today?”
Enid had indeed been wondering what the older woman had to say; it was unusual that the principal would excuse them all from last period to gather in one of the spare classrooms like this, as the professors would normally wait until after classes were over to hold any meetings. The only thing her science teacher had mentioned on her way out was that it was pertaining to this year's Outreach Day.
But considering last year’s, quite literal, hot mess, Enid was naturally curious as to what the woman was going to announce, history of unsuccessful planning or not.
“Actually, Headmaster Weems, some of the teachers already told u-” A young dark-haired boy started with a nervous look pulling down at the corners of his lips as he pushed his glasses up, trying to supply the words as helpfully as he could before he was interrupted by the older woman with a swipe of her hand through the air in front of him.
“And because I'm sure you’re all so curious, I’ll let you in on what’s going on!” The tall woman talked over the loud mumble of the students without a second thought, not letting the words dim her excitement as she grabbed a dry-erase marker from the bottom of the board, “We’re here to talk about Outreach Day!”
Larissa turned around and uncapped the black marker, writing ‘OUTREACH DAY’ in bold, capitalized letters on a small portion of the board before turning around with a smile, “Any thoughts?”
The silence that followed was uncomfortable for the young blonde, making her fidget in her seat as her brain scattered to every edge of mind to pull out an idea for the day that didn’t make her want to chew it, swallow it, and violently vomit it back up. And, yes, maybe she was being dramatic, but in her very honest opinion, Enid could go the rest of her supernaturally prolonged life without seeing another ‘artistically posed’ roadkill sculpture.
Just like she could absolutely go the rest of it without thinking too hard about the phrase ‘roadkill sculpture’.
“I don’t know, we usually do the same thing every year, right?” Xavier interrupted her train of thought with a shrug from his place on the other side of Yoko as his blue eyes landed on the older woman, a semi-bored look on his face while he casually leaned his chin on the palm of his hand, “Doesn’t make it any less boring though.”
“Yes!” Larissa pointed at the young man with a grin before writing the word ‘Boring’ on the board with a bullet point, “Exactly, it’s boring and outdated and ultimately, it's pretty lame, right? Not to mention the absolute disaster that was last year. Which I can’t legally blame on anyone, even if we are positive we know who it was. So we won't beat a dead horse, will we?”
She pulled her hand up before drawing a large ‘X’ through the words ‘Outreach Day’, looking over at the students again as she placed her hand on her hips, “So that being said, we’re not doing Outreach Day this year.”
Soft murmurs broke out among the students as the words left her mouth. Enid leaned over towards Yoko with a relieved, yet curious, expression on her face as she tapped her nails against the desk in an unsteady rhythm, “Thank the gods, I’ll literally do anything but brush out the tails of those tacky-ass ‘art pieces’ again, but I wonder what we’re doing instead…”
“I don’t know, but honestly anything is better than the past few decades we’ve been doing this shit,” The vampire complained with a frown as she leaned back in her chair, “I’m so tired of making fucking fudge and cleaning the dirty ass windows of ‘ye olde’ fucking general store that it’s not even funny. I might actually murder someone next time.”
Enid’s blue gaze drifted over to Yoko with a small smile pulling at her lips as she nudged the other girl’s arm with her elbow, “You and Willa have been spending too much time together.”
“Oh please, you two can’t seem get enough of m-”
“So instead of the previously stated event,” Principal Weems continued on loudly, speaking over the students’ gossip as it grew more noisy due to excitement radiating throughout the room, “This year we’re hosting our first annual Nevermore Fall Festival! It will be an all day event on a Saturday in about a month, so I have gathered this group of capable young students to help plan!”
Weems turned around towards the board with a smile as the students let out an applause for her idea, writing a few lines of words on the board before turning back around towards the room full of students, “So, as it is our job to figure this out, today we are gathering ideas and assigning roles! Everyone get out a notebook or take notes on your phone!”
“Yo, pup,” Enid couldn’t help but raise her head at the call, watching with amusement as Yoko’s head lolled over towards her, a lazy smile fixed on the vampires lips as she nodded towards the blonde’s bag on the table, “You’re taking the notes for us, right?”
The werewolf rolled her eyes before letting out a playful groan and leaning over to reach inside of her back and pull out a journalist notepad, a small one she kept with her at all times, before she flipped it open and clicked her gel pen in readiness, “Sure, my notes are better anyways.”
Yoko only smiled wider before shrugging; there was really no arguing, “You got me there.”
As much as it seemed like she was bragging, aside from Wednesday, Enid had the wildly out of pocket ability to make the most comprehensive and cohesive notes out of anyone in their friend group. The blonde had mostly attributed it to the fact that she had to take her own small notes during her day to day life in order to keep a steady schedule; she had learned the hard way on more than one occasion that her brain didn’t have the regular function of remembering certain details like many others did.
“So, let’s start over on this side of the room! Any ideas?”
“Strippers!”
“Oh my god, no.”
“So, we’re actually fucked.”
“Yup, like ‘little Jimmy’s been stuck in the well for a week and we’re just now understanding the dog’ kind of wrecked.”
“Totally and utterly annihilated.”
“Without a single doubt; we’re boned… and not in a fun way.”
Enid let out a small growl, a whine erupting from her throat as she reached over to swat lightly at her best friend, “There is no fun way to be boned!”
“You’re right, we’re fucked.”
“We’re fucked.”
“We’re fucked.”
It was a mantra the currently moping pair had been repeating back and forth for the past ten minutes as they both laid on the floor of the barren music room, limbs sprawled out as they faced the ceiling while waiting for anything that would save them from their mutual demise. After a shared moment of silence, Yoko groaned loudly before a sigh escaped her with a frown, bringing her left hand up to reach towards the ceiling dramatically, “If there is an actual god, please smite me and save me from this wretched existence!”
Enid couldn’t help but laugh for a moment before she reached over to lightly smack the other girl’s arm, “Don’t say that while I’m this close to you; I’ll die on my own terms, thank you very much; the divine gods don’t take lightly to threats, you know.”
“Duly noted,” Yoko sighed once more before sitting up and crossing her legs, her head turning to look at her best friend with a small scowl as the other girl sat up with her, “But really, this is stupid! This is all your fault anyways!”
“My fault?!” The blonde girl couldn’t help but gasp in offense, her eyes beginning to flash with a golden warning as she looked over at the other girl carefully, “I took the notes, just like you asked! I raised my hand and made the requests, just like you asked! So fuck you! How is this my fault!”
The dark-haired vampire’s eyes narrowed playfully as she reached a hand to slide her sunglasses down the bridge of her nose slowly, flashing red eyes at the werewolf with a sharp toothed grin, “You looking to fight about it?”
Enid knew what she was doing; the older girl had a habit of picking little physical spats with her when they were both stressed out and overthinking things. While Enid was over-emotional with her sentiments as she stood still and motionless, she found out that herself as well as Yoko, with a bit of advice from Wednesday, felt that they could better filter her emotions and thoughts through the haze of a good-natured fight.
Enid almost never refused the other girl and so, with a devious grin, she removed her blazer and used both of her hands to push Yoko’s shoulder’s roughly to the ground. The vampire’s back met the ground with a soft thud before she rolled out of the way, springing to her feet with raised fists. She waited as Enid rolled into a standing position, her claws ripping their way through her cuticles as her fangs elongated. Yoko snarled with a grin, “Bring it on, pup!”
They circled around each other for a moment before Enid slashed at the other girl, barely missing as she caught the fabric of the vampire’s blazer with the tips of her claws and left a few tears, “You said you wanted a real band to play this year!”
Yoko took a moment to remove the mutilated jacket from her body before she feigned a left jab before slugging the blonde in the ribcage with a right hook, “Yeah, well you said you wanted to have another dance in the first place!”
“Only because you said that you wouldn’t mind seeing Divina dressed up again!” Enid inhaled sharply at the blow, her claws digging into the skin of the other girl’s stomach as the last words left her mouth. A smile tugged at the edges of her lips as she used her other hand to slice through the tough skin of Yoko’s upper torso, dark sluggish blood dripping slowly from cuts.
Yoko couldn’t help but laugh at the words as she used her own claws to slice into Enid’s exposed throat, just superficially and enough to make it bleed as little as she could, waiting patiently for the returning blow, “Because you mentioned how you missed your chance to take your kitten in the first place, you fucking queer ass loser!”
“Yeah, well… Whatever!” Enid growled out roughly as she brought up her hand to slice the other girl’s upper arm before wrapping her arm around her neck and pulling the vampire into a tight headlock, “Say uncle or be strangled by pure fury, Yoko Tanaka! Any last words?”
It was besides the point that the vampire didn’t actually have to make use of the surrounding oxygen in order to keep herself alive. She did, however, need to breathe to keep talking.
“Oh no!” The older girl dramatically exclaimed as she tried to separate the blonde’s arm from her person to no avail; Enid’s grip on her was like the steel lock on the heavy latch of a prison gate. The werewolf couldn’t help but roll her eyes as Yoko made a show of tapping her arm aggressively, gasping for air like she actually needed it before she purposefully stuttered with her response, “I-I’m dying! You’re strength! It’s too much for m-me-”
She made sure Yoko actually choked on her last few words as she tightened her grip during the other girl’s pseudo-speech before letting her go and sinking back into one of the chairs beside them with a tired huff. She grinned at the vampire as the dark-haired girl plopped in the seat directly in front of her, placing her sunglasses on top of her head.
“So,” Enid began to snark with a bit of a breathy edge to her voice, her vision drifting to the window beside her as her fingertips drummed along her kneecap while she spoke, “Now that we made sure it’s no one’s fault in particular-”
“Oh, we know who’s fault it is; fucking Richie!”
The blonde slowly lifted an eyebrow as she paused for a few moments, “...do you know anyone named ‘Richie’ at all?”
“No, but it makes me feel better if we blame it on whoever the hell that is,” Yoko confessed with a light chuckle, “Anyways, go on.”
“Well! Like I was saying, before Richie decided to be a bitch, what do we do?”
“What do you mean, ‘what do we do?’” Yoko’s eyebrows drew together as she looked at the blonde curiously, “Obviously we need to find a band to cover the dance, right?”
“Right.” The werewolf gazed outside of the fingerprint stained window for a moment, her crystal vision locking in on a tiny portion of the glass where a small gnat that was trapped on the inside on the glass, tapping roughly on the surface as to try to escape. Enid breathed in slowly before lifting her hands to grip the edge of the window and lifting it up over-so slightly, letting the insect fly out before shutting it again.
“-ast year’s gay disaster!”
“Yeah, maybe,” Enid sighed lightly, her posture bending slightly as she leaned over the desk and tapped her pen against the page, her notes forgotten for a moment as she responded to the other girl with a wistful, yet slightly sad smile, “I wish I would have asked Willa last year; she was so pretty when she danced… she was like a jagged knife in a sea of silk.”
“That’s pretty gay,” Yoko snickered lightly at the confession, keeping her voice at a whisper as she leaned towards her best friend with a light smack to the thigh, “Although, I really wouldn’t mind watching Div get dressed up aga-”
“Yoko Tanaka and Enid Sinclair.” The headmaster had read the list with a smile, her gaze flickering towards the pair with a brief smile, “You two are in charge of finding a live band for the evening’s dance!”
“What?!” Yoko’s body ripped itself from it’s comfortable position to tense with a shocked and horrified look on her face, “Principal Weems, I swear to god, I’ll do anything but tha-”
“So it’s decided!” Larissa beamed at the young pair of friends, “You and Enid will provide the entertainment for the hour!”
“Fucking hell-”
Enid shook herself from the memory with a frown; even after a few hours of providing the older woman with endless ideas, Yoko and Enid still got stuck with the short end of the stick. She sighed lightly, “Well, we have a month, so let's meet back here on, what, Friday and let’s see what we come up with? I’ll start by asking around about the furs and the stoners!”
“That sounds good,” Yoko hissed lightly as she pressed the heel of her palm into her stomach experimentally, laughing lightly as the blood seeped out sluggishly, “I’ll ask around the fangs and the sirens; maybe Divina will know something. In the meantime, let’s get lunch! I could really go for a nice juicy steak and a blood bag to heal this shit up!”
Enid snorted at the vampire’s flippant attitude, feeling the blood slowly drip out of her own wounds as she smiled at the other girl, standing and interlocking her arm in her own, “Omg same! Personally I say it's always best when its rare.”
“Oh, I’m sure, it's not just you're killer instincts going wild.”
"Oh, shut the fuck up!"