following the trail (amara)

So far everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves whilst toeing the line: even the punch appeared to be free of alcohol, and not a single fight had broken out on the dance floor. As he was supposed to be on prefect duty for the evening, as none of the others seemed to want to volunteer for it, he felt as though he was in for a relatively easy night. Perhaps he could even relax and enjoy himself a little bit?

Wanting to get some fresh air, he walked out of the front doors of the castle and onto the grounds. There were lamps and candles lighting the pathway to a seating area, but it was mainly occupied by couples. Not wanting to try and snake his way through all that, he wandered around the castle walls before he started to smell something that was a lot like smoke. Hoping that somebody wasn't setting fire to something, or smoking a cigarette, he moved around the wall to investigate: the smell becoming more pungent with each step.

@Amara Jordan

Amara had slipped away from the formal, unable to endure the whole thing's stuffiness any longer. Add to it the fact that there were a lot more adults there than would typically be with the Board of Governors family members being invited to attend and Amara just needed a little break from it all. If she was being honest, she needed a smoke if she was going to continue to endure the night.

Luckily, she slipped out of the castle and around the corner without anyone following her or noticing. She would usually go a bit farther from the castle but she was sure everyone who might get her into trouble would be preoccupied so she took the chance as she took a joint from the small purse that she carried and held it to her lips as she lit it. The feeling of relaxation hit her as she inhaled and she leaned back against the wall of the castle. She wished she had taken the time to find Ashton before slipping out...

She perked up a bit when she heard footsteps coming towards her. Who would be coming out here aside from someone looking to slip away like her? She hoped for some company but then that hope was dashed when she saw Jerome instead. She hid the joint behind her back, using the stone of the castle wall to snuff it out as she tried to look casual despite coughing a time or two.

@Jerome Estrada

That was definitely tobacco smoke plus something else. Sighing to himself, he knew this was all too good to be true: the entire school behaving themselves and following the rules for four or five hours was obviously out of the question. Seeing the smoke curling around the corner, he quickly rounded it to catch the culprit in the act.

"What a surprise..." he breathed exasperatedly.

Smoking wacky baccy whilst dressed in your best formalwear was definitely something Amara would do, so he wasn't surprised at all.

"All right, hand everything over." He was always straight to the point when it came to her now.

@Amara Jordan

Of course, it had to be Estrada who would come walking around the corner at exactly the wrong time! She was just beginning to feel the calming effects of the joint she had been puffing on and he had to go and ruin all of her fun. She resisted the urge to mock him when he told her to hand everything over, she was a little bit more mature than that. Maybe not that much more mature since the urge was strong but she resisted. When she was sure that she had snuffed out the joint, she dropped it behind her, hoping that he would be more focused on her than what might drop to the ground. She knew her luck wasn't that good normally but she tried to cover it with her high heeled shoe anyway as she pulled her hands out from behind her back to show them to him, showing that they were now empty. "Don't know what you're talking about. I was just getting a little fresh air." She said, knowing full well that he had caught her but holding onto her innocence with both hands anyway.

@Jerome Estrada

God, she was frustrating. The bane of his existance - could he go as far as saying that? His teeth clenched inside his mouth as it tightened, and a loud exhale came fuming from his nostrils.

"Then let's hear your explanation as to why that disgusting stench is all around you. Tell me why, before I'd even turned that corner back there--" he indicated it by throwing out his palm in a wild gesture, "-- that I saw smoke, I smelt smoke, and there's bloody smoke in your breath!"

Furrowing his brow, he kept his eyes on her. It had escaped his mind to go looking for anything dashed away at this point; instead he was trying to see signs of her blatant fibs.

"Was it a ghost smoker? Or did your friend happen to evaporate at that very moment? Or are you going to try and say I imagined everything?"

@Amara Jordan

Amara wanted to giggle as Estrada did what she could only describe as his best impression of a bull, his nostrils flaring as a snort left them. She managed to remain straight-faced, though. It wasn't easy but she did it. She attempted to blink innocently at him, knowing exactly how to pull off the innocent look even though she knew just as well as he did, she was far from it. That was all part of their little game. It was a game she immensely enjoyed. She loved getting under his skin when he could never prove the things he knew to be entirely accurate and she denied them fervently.

She daintily sniffed the air as he mentioned the smell, crinkling it a bit as she frowned. "I don't smell any smoke?" She said, tilting her head to the side slightly as if regarding him with confusion. "Are you sure you weren't mistaken?" Then he gave her just the in she was looking for as she looked at him pityingly. "See, even you think it's a possibility that you had been mistaken. Surely there is something else you'd rather be doing than chasing imaginary smoke rings? Don't you have a date to get back to or something?" She asked him, maybe trying to steer him away from the obvious fact that she was lying as she crossed her now empty hands over her chest.

@Jerome Estrada