Fighting off sleep [open]

[Rhiatte]

The little girl's long eyelashes batted in confusion as she stared, perplexed, at the foreign characters that taunted her discreetly from their spots on the page. This language...she had never actually studied this language before, and at the moment she was starting to doubt whether beginning today was a particularly good idea. Her head tilted to the side and her purple eyes narrowed in frustration and irritation, but she persisted on for a little longer despite the fact that she hadn't gotten much sleep the night before.

She sighed, shook her head softly and rested her head in her crossed arms as she continued to hold the book in front of her lazily. "KinimatoghrAphos...G'iton'A..." she repeated with a faint yawn, before already half-lidded eyes went even narrower, only to be opened abruptly half a second later. She grunted and picked her head up again to attempt to put herself into a slightly more comfortable position, tucking her legs undeneath herself. Her body wanted sleep, and so did she, but she had too much work to do to go back to bed no matter what she wanted.

She quickly found herself unable to fight it off for long, and before long the little one found herself quietly dozing off.

[Kami]

Kami had really just been returning a book, or rather several books. Most of them were spy books like her current favorite: How to be the best spy you can be at the age of 10. Of course, she was eleven, but would it really matter if she was just a year off? She didn’t think so. She was also there because she knew she wasn’t going on another mission for a while, and she wanted something to do that could help pass the time. Playing, or exorcising, outside could only help pass so many hours. She also didn’t feel like reenacting her past mission when she had already done so fifteen times.

She supposed she could always take her camera and hide in a random hallway taking pictures whenever something, or someone, happened to pass by. Yet she really didn’t want to do that this week when she had done so the past week. Oh, what could a spy-in-training do when she had nothing to do but read? Well, reading had to be the only answer. Reading was the only thing she could, or rather would, do at this moment. She walked through a familiar passage and checked for a book she wanted. She smiled, delighted to find one so good, when she came upon the book Cross my heart and hope to spy. She grabbed it by it’s rim and walked over to the closest table. She had read three pages into it when she realized she wasn’t the only one at the table.

“Hey,” she said quietly. “It is probably not the smartest thing in the world to sleep in the library.”

[Rhiatte]

Only a minute or two passed as Rhiatte slept curled up in her chair, breathing evened out though considerably silent; she didn't snore, nor was she sleeping deep enough quite yet to mumble or talk if she even did so in the first place. Her long purple hair was down naturally now, draped across the wooden surface of the table to act as a sort of curtain around her face, though it was hardly useful for preventing her from being noticed.

"Hmmmmmm?" She dragged out groggily as she stirred, eyes clenched shut and then open, blinking owlishly. She pulled herself up by her thin arms and stretched them out in front of her, the left at a slightly crooked angle from an old, poorly healed break. Now that she was slightly more oriented she was able to pay attention to the person who had woken her up, a more or less friendly looking girl around her own age with another book in her hands.

"Oh," she remarked, a slight blush on her cheeks from a mixture of embarrassment and anger that she couldn't make herself stay awake. "I apologize if I disturbed you."

[Kami]

Kami looked down and began reading. She observed the girl though her peripheral vision. The other girl couldn’t have been any older than her. Although she wasn’t usually the type of girl to notice this or even care, Kami had to admit she liked the girl’s hair. It looked longer than hers, and it was even a cooler color. It was purple and not a regular boring brown like her own hair. She also wondered what time the girl went to sleep if she had fallen asleep while reading a book.

She had to resist the urge to giggle. The girl couldn’t have been asleep for more than a minute or two, and, by the looks of it, she looked like she really needed it. Kami speculated whether or not it was a good idea to wake her up. She remembered she didn’t like being woken up from a nap she thought she deserved. Secretly, she hoped the girl wouldn’t be too mad at her for waking her up. It wasn’t that she actually cared whether or not the girl liked her; it was just she didn’t want to have another person to bug her. She finished reading the page, turned it, and bookmarked her place. She had a feeling she wouldn’t have to read for a while.

Kami gave her a half-smile and shook her head. “You didn’t disturb me. I think it was I that disturbed you from your nap,” Kami said bowing her head slightly. “I pray, uh, hope you aren’t to mad at me.”

[Rhiatte]

Rhiatte saw the girl close the book she had been reading and quickly followed suit, happy to be rid of her basic Greek lesson for now for favor of the company of someone she might actually be able to get along with. She was still half-asleep and her body begging for rest, but at least for now it wasn't over the lessons she worked on day and night.

She resisted the overwhelming urge to at least lay her head back down and while she talked, knowing that that would probably only lead to the state she had been in a moment ago. Sighing, she opted instead for placing her right elbow on the table and resting her cheek in her palm, watching the girl with still sleepy but slightly more alert lavender eyes.

"No, I'm afraid I needed to be awake anyway; I should be studying." She bit her lower lip, mumbling the end of the sentence half to herself. "I never have time to sleep..."

[Kami]

Kami smiled when the girl followed her example. She thought she even saw a look of relief on the girls face. Kami thought this was funny because now she could see the cover of the book the girl had been reading. She wondered whether or not it was that the girl didn’t get much sleep, or if she was like the famous L, who chose not to go to sleep. She shook her head and frowned at herself. She didn’t usually care about other people, or was even remotely curious about other people.

Kami sighed and played with the cover of her book. “Now why don’t you have time for sleep?” She asked. Kami sucked in a breath when she realized she was being nosy. On the other hand, she didn’t care if she was being nosy or not. She honestly wanted to know about the girl, the girl she could possibly be friends with, and why she couldn’t sleep so well. Kami smiled lightly when she grasped that when she came to the library, she was looking for a good book, but instead she was carrying on a conversation with another person. Another girl. To her, this was much better then snapping a picture.

“What are you going to specialize in?” Kami asked.

[Rhiatte]

Pausing for a moment to consider the answer to the question she had been asked, her white-gloved fingers moved up to idly play with the red ribbon holding her collar together. She didn't mind questions; most of the time they were easy to answer and simply required repeating data or solving simple equations, but ones that concerned her personally she found a bit more difficult to find responses to. "I suppose..." she trailed off, looking down. "There is just too much work to do? It isn't that I don't enjoy sleep," she assured her quietly a moment later when she realized who she sounded like.

She allowed a smile, albeit a weak one, to find its way onto her face when the subject changed to a simpler matter, one that she could much more easily find an answer to. She knew perfectly well what it was that she specialized in, and without contest she was sure that it was what she planned on sticking with. "Technology, and languages," she said brightly, mostly over having been woken up prematurely though there was still a hint of grogginess in her voice. "I...was studying Greek, until I fell asleep..."

She bit her lip, still slightly embarrassed at the fact that it had happened. "My name is Rhiatte," she said simply as she looked back up at the black-haired girl. "Or, at least, that is what I am called."

[Kami]

Pushing the bangs light off her face with a brush from the back of her hand, Kami smiled at the girl in front of her. She wasn’t extremely loud; a quality she hated more than anything. The news gave her a moment’s pleasure. It meant that her quiet day at the library wouldn’t be disturbed. Even though she had to admit that was not the main reason she was at the library that day, she had to say it was one of the back-up plans she had had in mind when she came here with all her books. Speaking of books, she looked down at the one that was still in front of her. She hadn’t noticed she had been playing with the rim of it. She pushed it away quickly before she could do any more damage to it. Kami nodded her head sympathetically. “I wish I had more things to do. I don’t get as much missions, and our classes are kind of easy. I really envy you. I don’t have anything to do but sleep.”

Kami returned the girl’s smile. Her own smile wasn’t that much bigger than the one the girl had given her, but she was relieved to finally smile at someone. She thought about what career she wanted to specialize in. It wasn’t as well known as most of the other specializations here at the Whammy House, but she really didn’t care. It had always been a dream of hers to excel, and be the best, and what she wanted to do. “Technology? I wish I was good at technological stuff. All that stuff seems to break itself before I even go near it,” she laughed softly. “I, myself, am going to focus on spying.”

She gave the girl a slightly larger smile. It didn’t come out as big as she would have wished, but it was big enough for the girl to know she appreciated that she, the girl, gave her name first. “They call me Kami.”

[Rhiatte]

She shrugged slightly and ignored the abused book being put away, disregarding any sympathy she might have detected. "I study outside of classwork," she said simply, because she really didn't want to get into the reasons that she chose academics over sleep; that would require self-analyzation, at which she was not entirely adept. To be sure, her body could use more sleep and she knew it.

The statement did give Rhiatte a fair amount of amusement, as was made clear from the soft nod and hum of appreciation. "Well then I suppose I shall have to be cautious if you are ever around my computer," she joked lightheartedly. "And I will ask you if I ever have need of information I can't find with my own technology." She had never seen anyone in the house that specialized in spying, but it did seem a fascinating subject.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Kami," she said confidently as she watched the girl's smile brighten.