There were rocks in his shoes. He'd banged his knee off a bench. He'd almost fallen off the moving staircases. But, at long last, he'd located Sabel Dakest. Or, to be more precise, he'd caught up with Sabel Dakest. As both of their common rooms were on the seventh floor, Kellen had assumed that he'd find his bestie sooner or later. And true, he'd spotted Sabel on the seventh floor. He'd just been continually thwarted in all attempts to reach him, all the way down here. All. The way. Down.

"Gotcha!" Kellen thumped both hands down on Sabel's shoulders, the triumphant declaration leaving him along with the rest of his breath. Honestly, he'd even shouted, with no result. "The heck are you doing all the way down here?"

"AAAIII-YYAAA!" He wasn't sure where such a vocalization came from, but then again, he wasn't sure where the person came from. Nearly jumping out of his shoes at the unexpected contact and declaration, Sabel spun as much as he could to face his attacker, without falling on his backside. Or rather, it was the hands, whom he now recognized belonged to the one and only Kellen Stern, that kept his tangled legs from dropping him.

"Kellen? What in the--- I could ask you the same thing." Man was trying to give him a heart attack.

Kellen was going to give Sabel a heart attack? Oho no no, it was very much the other way around. At Sabel's rather inelegant shriek, Kellen jumped backwards, startled. He hadn't realized just how out of it Sabel was.

"I was following you," he replied, absently wondering if Sabel had rabies. "I've been trying to talk to you all week, but you've been as good as invisible. What's up?"

Evan rolled his eyes impatiently. "I figured that much," he said with a wave of his hand. What he meant was that his team would be the winning one, even if Iris brought Cristiano Ronaldo, unless Evan got injured. Though, even then, even his presence would be enough to win... tehee. So much for being arrogant.

"Yeah, right. Keep fooling yourself. I'll reply on the pitch." HA! How about that? Laying down like her next to her, he eyed her. Did she look... sad? Maybe she remembered her boyfriend? Ah, gotcha. They must have lied like this. Silly romance moments.

Okay, so maybe the spin had been a bad idea, for sure enough, as soon as those hands were gone by Stern's startled demeanor, the twist in his legs had it in for him. With another small yelp of surprise, he found himself deposited on a rather lumpy section of grass, a tingling running up his spine from the impact.

Wincing, he cracked open one eye to peer at Kellen with. "I haven't been invisible...." Just... "Absent...is a better term." More correct in the physical sense. A slight frown touched the corners of his eyes. "What...do you mean, 'what's up'?"

And there went Dakest. Kellen peered down at him, inspecting the corners of his mouth for foam. He looked clear...

"Arya sent me looking for you." This time, he wasn't going to do the whole 'pleasantries' thing. He'd tried that before, a few times, and they were always interrupted before he could get to the heart of what was bothering his friends, "I've been trying to talk to you about what's going on right now, but every time I get close to asking we get cut off and then leave. So," he squatted down beside Sabel and fixed him with a look, "what's going on?"

Something did a somersault in his stomach, and he was certain it wasn't a result of the fall. More of the stare that Kellen was almost pinning him to the spot with. It was true, they hadn't had time to talk. At all. And...Kellen was one of the people he actually wanted...needed to tell.

Despite that, he found strong hesitation in his muscles as he drew his backpack in front of him, resting it between his legs before fishing inside. Whether it was words that finally clicked or an excuse to procrastinate, everything paused and his eyes returned to Kellen. "Arya sent you?"

While Sabel was fidgeting and rummaging in his backpack, Kellen took a seat on the ground. Really, the ground was cold at this time of year, but it didn't look like Sabel would be standing up any time soon and to be the only one standing would be awkward. He nodded at Sabel's question, "Yeah. I asked her what was wrong with you, and she said it was something that you had to tell me yourself. Look, I'm sorry if I just smacked you up-side the head with my bluntness, but I've been meaning to ask you since the school year started and... well we always get sidetracked. So..."

Oh...so it hadn't been about that whole.... "She didn't tell you I told her I liked her? Like liked?" Even if she had, Kellen would have mentioned that was the reason for him coming down. Kellen was blunt, and was honest. And he didn't mind a fraction it was that way.

Once again his hand started moving in his pack. It was harder, this time, to find what he was looking for, and finally his fingers closed around the thin bundle at the bottom. Drawing his hand out, he handed the item wrapped in plain paper to Stern, waiting. He would explain afterwards.

Katie walked up to the front gate, this is where she had met Edmond, she sat down on the grass and started to finish off her drawing of the front gate.

Hehe. "Just making sure." She muttered, rolling her eyes at him. Really. The fool REALLY thought that HE'D win that footy match, just because he played better. Pfft. It was like Athena Vs. Ares. Athena would win the war because she's got the battle strategy. Evan would probably disagree with that, though.

She glanced at Evan as he lay down next to her, and scoffed at his words. "Mate, I'm fooling no-one. 'Specially not myself." Ooooh. He'll reply on the pitch, will he. Iris just didn't say anything to that, but smirk. It was a good comeback... And she had nothing to throw back at it that didn't sound childish.

Maybe if she just kept that smirk-like smile on her face, then he'll not notice that she had no come back to his smart words.

Iris shuffled a little, and stared up at the clouds.

"Oh. Yeah, she did. We talked about it, and I told her if I were you I'd rather she flat-out say she wasn't interested so we could go on being friends. Nobody wants a big old cloud of awkward hanging betw-- what's this now?" Kellen took the paper-wrapped... whatever it was... because it was never nice to make someone hold what they were offering for an extended period of time, but he didn't make a motion to unwrap it. Not yet.

A small smile touched Sabel's lips. "She did....but we've worked it out. We are good now." Something, that made this a little bit easier. If they hadn't sorted it out earlier that day, he probably wouldn't be able to do this.

Once the package was out of his hand, he returned it to resting on his bandaged arm, noticing how the sting from his injuries were becoming more prominent with his rising fatigue. But he wasn't given time to think about it, his mind drawn to what was inside the package, his voice dropping to a near whisper. "Open it."

Well, he was glad the two of them worked it out. They seemed to be around each other all the time, and suddenly staying away because of something like that would probably have been quite hard on them. Still, he wished people would stop using "like like".

Kellen shrugged and opened the present, not exactly sure what the occasion was. And then he blinked at what was inside and slipped his fingers under the necklace, holding it up to get a better look at it, "What's... what's this for?" He wasn't a huge necklace person, but... well, it looked like something he'd actually take an interest in wearing.

He didn't know when he had started fiddling, but figured it had started when Kellen began to open the package. Pulling at the bandage around his hand, he watched from under his brow as the item was revealed to the fading light. Suddenly, his voice was gone and his mouth was dry as his stomach twisted and turned in on itself. "It's....from my mother.....its supposed to help protect you...from illness, misfortune, evil spirits, enemies...there are other meanings depending on culture, but that's the general gist."

"Oh yeah?" Kellen regarded the necklace with a small smile. He should have had this on him when Hufflejock Fletcher punched him. Maybe it would have jabbed the aggressive Puff in the knuckles or something. On the point of making a joking remark to Sabel about it, he saw the boy's face and instead said, "Can you tell her I said thanks? Or... no wait, I'll write her a letter. Both even."

But still, Sabel didn't just up and give gifts with a pained voice. Kellen took a moment to put the arrowhead necklace on, and then scooted a little closer and delivered a soft poke to the boy's upper arm, "What's wrong?"

He wavered a little with the poke to his arm, but didn't look up. It always became difficult when it came to admitting what was going on, and even more so given the events of the day that had nearly broken him down completely. Tears already stung the corners of his eyes, which only made it impossible to look at Kelllen. "She's ... dying..."

Kellen blinked at him. And then another blink. And hey, why not throw in a third one? "She's... your mother's... I'm sorry." What else could he say? At least he knew something he could do, and that was shuffle over some more on the ground (grass stains were not something on his mind at the moment) and put an arm around Sabel to comfort him. Now wasn't the time for manly throat-clearing and mutters of being tough.

A small nod took hold of his head, and unfortunately didn't let go. The world had become rather blurry, and Kellen's arm around his shoulders only made him realize how truly emotionally tormenting the past few days had been. Drawing his legs up to his chest, he wrapped his arms around them and bit his bottom lip hard, trying not to cry.

There wasn't really a lot Kellen could say, at this point. That he could think to say. So he just sat there, and eventually it occurred to him to use the same comfort-tactic he'd used for Neptune. Keeping his arm around his friend, he withdrew his wand with his free hand and conjured a handkerchief, placing a minor cooling charm on it before handing it over, "Here. You can um... you can cry if you want. I don't mind." He'd be uncomfortable, but he wouldn't mind.

A couple of teary eyed blinks were given to the object Kellen offered him, and then they were turned up to Kellen's face. Quite a few more blinks of silence followed before a brief, slightly choked laugh left him. "Are you..." He didn't even know what to say to his friend, and laughed a little again at how strange, but at the same time kind, the gesture was.

Taking it lightly, he rested his arm on his knee and held the cloth between his forefinger and thumb, able to manage a joking tone. "Can I blow my nose in it, too?"

"I am serious, yes." Kellen thought about it, "Or sure, or however you were going to finish that sentence." Once the hanky was no longer in his hand, he removed his arm from Sabel's shoulders and crossed his legs, dropping his arms onto them. A slight eye-roll appeared on his face at Sabel's second question, "Snot all over it. I can make you another one if you drench this one."

A weak chuckle left him again as he shook his head at his friend with some kind of wonder. "Thank you...it's...thank you." The most unique way anyone had thought of to comfort him.

Folding the cloth and then unfolding it again, he turned his eyes to the grass, not sure what else there was to say. While the tears were there, he was almost too tired to cry and focusing his attention on playing with the handkerchief reverted his mind from some of the pain. "I...didn't even ask. How have you been?"

If he had feathers, he may have ruffled them a little. What was so unusual about giving a hanky to someone who was going to cry and get a runny nose? Nothing, that's what.

...so why wasn't Sabel using it? Well, he was using it as some kind of object to worry with his fingers, but that was about it. "Fine. Reading, studying, that kind of thing." He wasn't going to let the conversation shift onto himself, "It's good that you and Arya worked things out. Even if um... she got... misquoted..." Yeah, he'd seen the Aparecium.

An eyebrow arched at the change back in conversation; as Raiden had implied, it was something they were both good at doing. "She wasn't misquoted, someone else...was." No need to get into who or why that was the case. "It's...being sorted though."

His frown wavered as he considered the cloth again. "Kellen, we haven't had much time to talk, and I don't know what you want me to tell you or not tell you." He held up the cloth a little, wondering if he might have to use it soon with the direction of his words. "You've met my mom, so...I'll do my best to answer any questions you might want to know." Slowly, his eyes flicked up to his friend. "But, what about you? I...heard you...some trouble ran into you."