- actors on a stage *

[Vaughn Lawrence Gallagher]

TELL ME THAT YOU'VE GOT EVERYTHING YOU WANT
&& Y O U R B I R D C A N S I N G
BUT YOU DON'T GET ME, YOU DON'T GET ME

THIS NEW SCHOOL BUSINESS WASN’T ALL IT WAS CRACKED UP TO BE.
This country wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Right now, Vaughn would probably gladly leave to be back home in England. He hadn’t been at Riverdale that long and already he missed his home country. He got too much homework here, there was too much to worry about, and – gasp – he even missed his family. Maybe not that much, but he did. The only good thing about America so far, Vaughn had to say, was the women. They were, er, quite in abundance here in North Carolina. He hadn’t had a problem finding either them or the parties. But otherwise, Vaughn wasn’t afraid to say that he wasn’t enjoying his time here more than he would be enjoying the year in England. It probably had something to do with the fact that, being an old British king, he still had lingering feelings of distaste for the land that had fought and defeated his country. Granted, the American Revolution had been much after his time, but once a king, always a king. It still irritated him.

It amazed Vaughn, really, how America and Great Britain were always great allies today and there was no standing enmity between the two world powers. You’d think that after a great rebellion and a split off of the home country would lead to a little hostility between the two. Well, maybe that was just Vaughn. If you asked him, he’d say that all British should be downright pissed that America did that to them. And here he was, spending a year at one of their schools. Well, if he hadn’t been too lazy to learn another language and take a real trip... Sure, he knew French, but after spending pretty much his entire reign there in his past life and vacationing there during this one, France didn’t really appeal to him as much as a trip to another country did, even if that country was the United States. Not to mention that it truly did fascinate him, how they were so powerful and managed to do so well when they started so subtly. Granted, the American economy may not have been doing so well at the moment, but look at the Great Depression. If the country had gotten through that, they were going to get through this one too, right?

Well, if they never got through it, that wasn’t Vaughn’s problem. He was going to go back to England at the end of this school year, enter the military, and that would be the end of that. But for now, the main thing he was focused on... would be finding his dorm room. Dammit. The joys of starting at a new school, eh? Getting lost and being too stubborn to ask for help? Currently, Vaughn was standing in... well, he thought it was the entrance hall. There were definitely big doors there, so that was a clue. But... how did he get to the dorms from here? And how the hell had he forgotten how to get there already?! New school or not, this was pathetic. He’d been shown everything the first day, and it irritated Vaughn to no end that he couldn’t remember how to get there. Well, it probably had something to do with the fact that there were so many hallways leading off from here and he didn’t have the slightest clue where most of them led yet. But rather than asking for help, like most people would do, no, Vaughn stood there and just looked generally confused. If someone came along, he’d make it look like he knew where he was going. That was a simple solution. Not exactly one that would get him where he needed to be in the end, but at least he wouldn’t look stupid....

tagging dante w/ iskander!
outfit this outfit is intense
words 642
lyrics your bird can sing by the beatles
notes for a whole lot less, cost cutters.
credits this was made by brooke !

[Iskander Rafel Azizi]

Iskander had been in Riverdale for a long time now. He liked it here, even if it wasn't that big or exciting. That was fine by him, for the most part. He could always go somewhere for a holiday, after all. Besides, Riverdale was the only place anyone knew of that seemed to be a soul-magnet, which meant a person got some real characters around here. Iskander ought to know; he was one of them.

The school, in particular, seemed the center of this magnetism. New students were 'screened' by a select group of students - usually boarding ones, not townie kids like him - and they found the occasional one. It was all a part of the background, really, and nothing new to the stern senior on the purple bike, as he raced along the streets up to school. When it was cold, he'd take the bus. But for now only a mild wind bothered him. He locked his bike up at the racks, readjusted his backpack on his back, and walked into the school via main entrance. Normally, he'd branch off to right right and go to his locker - as non-boarding kids had those, when the boarding kids didn't. But there was a notice on the notice board, a with the watermark "rsor". He walked over, and looked at it, but it did nothing but announce who the panel was again, and dorm numbers, if applicable. Useless, if you paid attention and that was what the stern-faced senior did pretty well. He was skilled at noting nuances, and so when he turned around, the boy who had been standing there still was, making to look like he was going somewhere, just as he had when Iskander first passed him.

When a person looked like they meant to go somewhere repeatedly, but had yet to go somewhere and didn't look like they were waiting for anyone, it was a tell-tale sign for "I'm hopelessly lost but not going to ask for directions". That would get the boy - who Iskander figured was about his age, nowhere.

The Iraqi-blooded American walked up to this boy, studying him for a moment, stern-faced and solemn as ever. "Pretending to know where you're going is not going to help you at all, I hope you realize." This probably did nothing for newbie's ego, so Saladin went on. "But you're putting up a good effort, so why not pretend you know me and are mentioning where you happen to be making as thought to go." It wasn't like anyone was going to question Iskander. He was not questioned around here. If a guy looked dangerous, he probably was, and Iskander had an affinity for knives that almost any senior - normal or not - (and the rsor of other grades) could tell you he had.

"Unless you want to go on practicing acting, which is fine with me." He finished with a shrug.


----------------
words| 528
tagged| Vaughn / Beth
notes| This post is crap. >>'

[Vaughn Lawrence Gallagher]

TELL ME THAT YOU'VE GOT EVERYTHING YOU WANT
&& Y O U R B I R D C A N S I N G
BUT YOU DON'T GET ME, YOU DON'T GET ME

VAUGHN WASN’T EXACTLY SURE WHY HE’D AGREED TO THIS WHOLE
foreign exchange student thing. Really, the boy spent a lot of his time just complaining about the country he was in. It didn’t quite make sense, even to him, why he’d said sure, why he’d signed up for the program, why he’d gone through with it all. He could have been at home right now, and generally just not complaining about everything that happened to him and everything that was going on around him. Maybe it had to do with those around him. He’d been encouraged to come overseas, to try out this new country and see what life was like over here. Maybe he’d want to move here someday. Maybe he’d really like it. Maybe he’d meet a nice American girl... Hah, Vaughn knew better. There was no one girl for him, and there never would be. Not after what had happened last time. No, there was no way that Vaughn was going to find a girl and fall in love. No matter what he found over here, even if he actually did like or enjoy it, there was no way he was going to stay in this country.

Easy to say, of course, when it didn’t happen. What would Vaughn do if he fell in love? Sure, he may have been hell bent on saying that wouldn’t ever happen, and would totally deny it if it ever did. But if it did actually take place... what would happen? Would he stay? Vaughn may have been stubborn, but the boy could make excuses with the best of them, and could probably even manage to trick himself into believing that it would be the best for him to stay here in the United States of America. He’d meet a nice local girl. They’d talk for a while, get along, maybe even exchange phone numbers. ...And that would be where it would normally end for Vaughn. He was a complete and utter player, and was much happier finding girls at parties and having a good time with them that night, then never seeing them again. Maybe if he got drunk enough, he’d give that girl a call. They could meet up, have a fun night. But love? Never going to happen.

When you’re heartbroken, it’s hard to get back into the swing of things, even years later. No one knew that better than Vaughn. The heartbreak this boy had felt hadn’t come like it usually did for others his age, either; instead of a harsh break up, Vaughn had experienced the pain of having a significant other meet an untimely end. If it hadn’t been for that, well, he wouldn’t be the person he was today. In fact, Vaughn probably wouldn’t have been a bitter, strange person at all. He’d probably be spending a lot more time making friends and legit memories here in America than he was going to do now. But sadly, there was no chance of that now. Especially if he couldn’t even figure out which damn way he had to take to get back to his dorm room! You’d think that if there was one place Vaughn would remember how to get to, it would be his dorm room, but obviously not. Things only got worse when a boy started talking to him and naturally, Vaughn took it negatively. The boy wasn’t particularly mean or even saying harsh things to him, it was just the way Vaughn took it. But he figured he might as well play along. No better way to deal with this situation, anyway. “Well, er...” What a great time to realize he didn’t know this boy’s name. “I was just headed back to my dorm room,” he finished lamely, his thick English accent a giveaway that he was new here, if it wasn’t obvious enough already by the fact that he didn’t know where the hell he was going.

tagging dante w/ iskander!
outfit this outfit is intense
words 656
lyrics your bird can sing by the beatles
notes this is horrible.
credits this was made by brooke !

[Iskander Rafel Azizi]

Iskander didn't really have anything against America. It helped her grew up here this time around, and ignorance was a pain, but it just meant that, well...stupid things happened, like getting unnecessarily watched in any public place. But it beat the alternative, or returning to his homeland. He hoped to do that someday, but currently he ran great risk of exploding if he did, "one of them" or not. He had intention of returning sometime soon, and putting things right, but he wasn't going to do it from a military view - that wouldn't give him enough power, as any old private, and it took forever to advance nowadays. Politics were lovely, they interested him, but with his plans and ideas there was just no way a military life was going to happen to Saladin again. Besides, it wasn't as fun when all you did a push buttons. No honor, no nothing. Call him old fashioned if you wanted, but true battles had stopped occurring long before the first world war. Now it was point and shoot. Point shoot and kill. The landscape of war had changed as much as anything had in some nine hundred years, he could attest to it. There was nothing to make up for the skill, the discipline, they fact you had to look into someone's eyes to kill them. It made it different...there was no words for the warriors spirit, and how it once was.

It was much harder then, in some regards. You had to know your enemy, and the nuances that could affect things. Speaking of nuances, Iskander knew a lost person when he saw one, and promptly approched said boy. It was a blunt approach, and so he wasn't expecting a very friendly answer. He didn't get one, either. He expected worse, then a "well, erm", but it wasn't warm. What was notable was the accent the boy had. English. What part of England? Hm. That was something Saladin wasn't sure about. He'd heard plenty of accents from plenty of languages but he couldn't narrow it down. It did tell him this kid was very, very new.

"Your dorm? I might just be headed that way, if you want to pretend you're not exactly following me, but perhaps you are." Iskander started to walk at that, heading for the boys dorms. He rarely had a reason to be there, but the other fellow didn't need to know that right away. Besides, what help would be be if he just said "oh, I have no reason to go there?" anyways? Not much. Iskander looked to his right, and noted this boy walking along. Good. "What's your name, anyways?" He asked, "I'm Iskander. Azizi." Not a common name was his, nor was Vaughn's, though currently, Iskander didn't know if the guy was named Bob or not. What he didn't know was that this boy was someone he'd spoken with before, long, long ago, by letter, and strangely enough was talking to again, this time grown up and in person.

Fate worked in far more interesting ways in Riverdale than anywhere, else, that was to be sure.

----------------
words| 561
tagged| Vaughn / Beth
notes| My fish is still dead.

[Vaughn Lawrence Gallagher]

TELL ME THAT YOU'VE GOT EVERYTHING YOU WANT
&& Y O U R B I R D C A N S I N G
BUT YOU DON'T GET ME, YOU DON'T GET ME

ALL KIDS WHO’D GROWN UP NOT KNOWING EXACTLY WHO THEY WERE
had a much tougher time with things than the other kids did. Actually, tough wasn’t a very good word. Frustration was. Irritation. Denial, even, in some cases. Vaughn had certainly experienced that in his past. He was a normal kid in some senses, how he would play in the mud and throw sand at girls and get into fights over who got the best swing, but even from that age, there was a part of him, at least, that knew there was something more. He couldn’t just be another kid, there was something weird going on. When he finally discovered his true nature, the person he really was, Richard the Lionhearted, things really fell into place. Life itself made a lot more sense. He understood how he’d found such natural hobbies and talents, how he instantly knew what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. His air of confidence, his intense desire to get back into the military, it wasn’t questioned anymore, at least in his mind. He knew why he was the person he was.

That didn’t mean that life had all in all gotten better, though. Sure, it really fell into place, and he wasn’t nearly so frustrated or confused, but he still had pain, and intense pain, at that. Death. And that wasn’t something that learning your true identity could take away. That just got rid of the confusion; this was pain, full out pain, and it seemed that there was nothing Vaughn could do to get rid of this. In a way, he almost didn’t want to get rid of it. If he got rid of the pain, it would be like forgetting her. She’d just become another part of his past, and Vaughn never ever wanted that to happen. He believed that it was in danger of happening if his pain disappeared. So pain wasn’t all bad, right? It made you stronger. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Well, Vaughn sure didn’t feel like that sometimes. It was a lot to deal with, actually, and especially at this age. During high school, kids should be worrying about college, maybe part-time jobs. Friends, homework, stuff like that. Not dealing with pain like this.

But Vaughn had that pain, and there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing he would, possibly. Instead, he’d just keep living life the way he was. Keep being the same person he’d always been after his girlfriend’s death. Confident, cocky, certain that he had the world beneath his fingertips. He could do whatever he wanted, for he was Vaughn Gallagher. That only made it all the more painful for him, however, to follow this guy back to his dorm room. He was being really nice about it, that was true. That didn’t mean that Vaughn was totally comfortable with it, though. He enjoyed being number one, the one in control. The one that knew what was going on. That wasn’t working out so well for him, though, he thought bitterly as he began to walk with the boy in the direction of what he now knew was to the dorms. Maybe he should work on memorizing this path, so he didn’t end up in a situation like this again. He stopped in his tracks, however, when the boy mentioned his name. Cocking his head to the side, Vaughn blinked and stared at him. “That sounds.. familiar...” he said slowly, probably adding to the impression that he was slow, considering how he was standing right now. But he knew he’d heard that name before! Maybe.. maybe this kid would help. “I’m Vaughn, Vaughn Gallagher,” he said, watching the boy’s face. “Does that sound familiar to you? Because I know I’ve heard your name before...” Great, now he probably just sounded creepy.

tagging dante w/ iskander!
outfit this outfit is intense
words 644
lyrics your bird can sing by the beatles
notes bad day.
credits this was made by brooke !

[Iskander Rafel Azizi]

Life was meant for living, meant for making a mark, and a mark he would make. Somehow. Even if, this time, it was a simple mark. But the more pressing issue was the more immediate one. That was, classes and school and a test in chemistry next week he was so unprepared for in his opinion that it was almost funny. Or, most immediately, getting this boy where he wanted to go without completely humiliating. Iskander thought he was going a decent job. The newbie didn't know it (and neither did the freshmen) but Iskander did have a reputation for not being toyed with. Nice, but aloof. That being said, not a lot of people would just follow him around and people wouldn't assume Vaughn was doing so. They wouldn't assume Vaughn was lost, even though Isaknder had little to no reason to go into either or the dormitories.

For all the trying to save of dignity, Iskander spoke anyways, offering his name. This didn't seem to put the other boy at ease. He stopped in his track, and seeing this out of the corner of his eye, so did Iskander. What was the big deal about his name. It certainly wasn't Western, but then against he obviously wasn't. He raised a dark eyebrow, stepping out of the immediate traffic of the hall to the side where the other boy was, when said boy gave a reason.

It sounded familiar? Iskander couldn't think this boy would have run into him...and if he'd run into another Iskander, he wouldn't have said it sounded familiar. After all, one did not say "your name sounds familiar" every time they ran into a Lisa or Joe. It was rather creepy, but Iskander didn't know what to make of it just now. The other boy introduced himself, and a slight frown crossed his face, then cleared again as though it was never there. He heard Vaughn ask if he'd heard his own name, and Iskander had to think on it. Because he did recognise the name, but it drifted in his head as though from eons ago. It might have been eons ago. He hadn't known man Crusaders...but maybe there was a Vaughn. Stories of kings and sultans race through his mind, of dust, war, defeat and victory. Tales from the third crusade...but no. No Vaughn there.

Iskander remained silent as he thought on, probably making this awkward. He could have sworn tales from the past tied into this. Somehow, somehow, it all blended together. He thought back to Brooklyn, where he'd been a kid. There hadn't been a lot of things his mother could enrol him into. But he did remember sitting as the kitchen table, writing stories. Stories of a brave man from the desert, beating up knights. At the time, he'd thought they were just stories, but now he knew he'd been writing down his memories as best a child could. But he hadn't done that since he came to Riverdale, when he was ten. But for some years, he'd wrote letters with stories, and gotten stories in return. In fact, there were in a box in his house somewhere....could that be where he'd heard the name Vaughn? He was pretty sure his penpal was a boy from somewhere in the UK...was it possible...?

"I...huh...." He gave Vaughn a searching glance. "Creepy as it sounds, yes, your name sounds familiar...and creepier yet still this is going to sound...did you write letters?"

-------------
words| 623
tagged| Vaughn / Beth
notes| At least, it is posted!

[Vaughn Lawrence Gallagher]

TELL ME THAT YOU'VE GOT EVERYTHING YOU WANT
&& Y O U R B I R D C A N S I N G
BUT YOU DON'T GET ME, YOU DON'T GET ME

AT LEAST THIS BOY, ISKANDER, WAS OPENLY ADMITTING THAT HE
sounded creepy too. As silly as it seemed, that made Vaughn feel a hell of a lot better. After all, it was a lot easier to handle seeming creepy when the other participant in the conversation seemed creepy, too. Maybe if they were both creepy, their creepiness would just cancel out and this whole thing wouldn’t feel so awkward anymore. Or not. Maybe they’d both just get so awkward that it was beyond the point of awkwardness and it wouldn’t be weird any longer. Or maybe Vaughn should shut his head up and focus on what Iskander was saying. He got rambly when he got awkward. His thoughts just rambled a lot in general. You could say he had focus issues, easily. If it wasn’t a woman or a heated debate, it was pretty likely that he was going to get off track. Yeah, Vaughn kind of had a thing with women. After he’d heartbrokenly lost his girlfriend not all that long ago, things had changed for him. The word commitment wasn’t even in his vocabulary any longer.

Instead new words had been introduced to his vocabulary, such as messing around and partying. Or well, those words just got a new meaning for Vaughn. Partying could change from something like sitting around a kitchen table eating cake and singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to your best friend to a drunken one in the morning escapade through the night, laughing ridiculously and not remembering any of it the next day. And that was exactly what had happened to Vaughn. To put it bluntly, he didn’t really give a fuck anymore. Not much mattered to him at this point. Which was quite stupid, really, seeing as he had grand plans for his life. He knew exactly what he wanted and how he was going to get there, but he was really screwing up along the way. He should be focusing on his schoolwork, focusing on making good memories and good friends in America, rather than screwing around and breaking hearts. Sure, that was a lot more fun, but it wasn’t going to get him too far in life. The military sure didn’t want screw-offs.

And so, Vaughn was banking more on getting in on pure luck, it seemed. He’d graduate high school, wouldn’t that be enough? Not much more could be expected of the old king. He wasn’t a huge fan of this age, this period of a person’s life. Seeing as he’d been much older than eighteen when he died, Vaughn knew what could be awaiting someone in his or her future. No matter what it was, it was bound to be a lot more exciting than a life during high school. So he’d just skate through this part uneventfully. Things didn’t seem so uneventful right now, though. Vaughn was, in short, just really really confused. He knew someone named Iskander, he’d been his old pen pal years ago. Iskander wasn’t exactly a common name, either; what were the chances of meeting two individuals in his life time with that name? On the other hand, though, what were the chances of running into him again? Well, apparently they were pretty good, because at Iskander’s next words, it pretty much fell into place. “Yeah!” he replied, eager to find that at least he wasn’t crazy. He didn’t feel nearly as creepy now for recognizing the boy’s name and asking him about it like that. “You must be my old pen pal... Woah, small world...” Honestly, what were the odds of this happening?

tagging dante w/ iskander!
outfit this outfit is intense
words 598
lyrics your bird can sing by the beatles
notes i was amazed that heartbrokenly was actually a word
credits this was made by brooke !

[Iskander Rafel Azizi]

Things had most certainly taken a bizarre turn. He'd gone from guiding a lost man to having a very strange conversation about writing letters and recognising names. After all, neither Iskander nor Vaughn were common names. It wasn't like a Bob and a Jim had written each other, where the likelihood of running into another person with the same name was high. But Iskander should have known by this point that in Riverdale, coincidence was not in the same working order than it was in the rest of the world. What were the chances of a secret society of reincarnations - in this school and no other? How did so many end up here? How did Bonnie and Clyde get reborn so close together in age, or the Wright Brothers ending up speaking a dormitory, or any number of issues - there were just so many coincidences that a person would find that statistically, this ought to be impossible. Most things that happened in Riverdale ought to be impossible. But they weren't, so Iskander was just going to roll with that, and the fact a childhood pen pal he'd never seen before (and little did he know it, the man was also his rival from the past) had just shown up in his school, and possibly even in his grade. It caused a slow grin to slide across his features, changing the look from mildly dangerous to mildly goofy.

"That's just insane. I still have the letters, I think. But after my mom and I moved, she didn't want me writing anymore. She was worried about some unrelated stuff." Mainly his bastard of a father hunting them down somehow. Iskander wasn't sure how that could be done by mail going to England at the time, and still didn't. "That's just..." He trailed off, shaking his head. "All the stories we used to write, and everything...this is just insane." Of course, he knew the stories now to be his own memories, but Vaughn need never know that particular detail form their childhood. "All that being said and done, I should warn you right here and now. Riverdale lives on coincidences, strange happenings and homework. And I should also tell you that it's mainly the first two. I don't know if you should be relived by that or not, but it is what it is. There are people I know who wouldn't be too surprised by this, strange as that may seem." The whole conversation was just so undeniably odd, that Iskander began to chuckle. If that hadn't befuddled Vaughn, he wasn't sure what would. Unless, of course...

Those stories. What if Vaughn's stories had also been memories? Memories of a brave knight, not just make believe. Memories of a knight who fought very hard but wasn't in his kingdom a lot. Iskander was half tempted to pry into that, too, but he was no recruiter; not did he want to scare Vaughn, a lost-long, never-met-before friend, away.

---------
words| 556
tagged| Vaughn / Beth
notes| This post is poop.

[Vaughn Lawrence Gallagher]

TELL ME THAT YOU'VE GOT EVERYTHING YOU WANT
&& Y O U R B I R D C A N S I N G
BUT YOU DON'T GET ME, YOU DON'T GET ME

VAUGHN COULDN’T REALLY DESCRIBE HOW HE’D FELT WHEN HE LEARNED
the truth of RSOR here in Riverdale. It had been nothing he expected, and more. But he had been ecstatic. It was such a great feeling, learning that you weren’t the only one like you out there. And Vaughn supposed he technically knew he wasn’t. If he’d been the reincarnate of an ancient English king, then there just had to be others like him out there. But he hadn’t found any of them. It wasn’t exactly a great conversation starter, going up to someone and asking him or her if he or she happened to be a reincarnated soul. And even if everything about reincarnation was true, that everyone in the world had been someone in their past, most people wouldn’t realize it. Most probably wouldn’t be as lucky as Vaughn, being a reincarnated soul of a famous figure of the past. If you were just a regular ol’ person, the chances that you would know you were reincarnated were pretty low.

So when Vaughn had been admitted to the RSOR? He loved it. Like he’d said, it was beyond refreshing to know that he wasn’t the only one. However, Vaughn had no clue about the other coincidences at Riverdale, such as running into his old pen pal. That one had definitely been unexpected. But here he was, talking with Iskander, the boy he’d spent so many years sending letters to, exchanging stories of ancient warriors. The thing is, there was more than that one coincidence that Vaughn hadn’t been expecting. It never really occurred to him to consider that maybe Iskander was a reincarnation as well. But really, what were the chances that two such young boys would be able to tell such lifelike stories that included details even video games and movies never included? Vaughn should have been able to tell that something was up. But the thought of that occurring, it just didn’t seem very likely to him. The chances were so very slim. If he hadn’t been able to meet Saladin in his earlier life, the chances must be less now, if anything above miniscule.

However, as the boy explained, coincidences ran high at Riverdale. It wouldn’t be long until Vaughn discovered who Iskander truly was, and when he did? No one was sure what would happen. Vaughn wouldn’t know what to think, he wouldn’t know what to say. How did one speak to an old rival? With respect, obviously, yes, because even in his earlier life Richard had had so much respect for the Sultan. But now? They were peers. They were both seniors at Riverdale. Did that make them equal, or what? “Yeah,” Vaughn answered with a small grin on his face. “I still remember them clearly…” How wouldn’t he, after all, if they’d been true stories, his memories? “Why?” Vaughn inquired a moment later. “What else goes on?” Was Iskander referring to the RSOR, which Vaughn already knew about and was a member of? He’d been told there wasn’t a good percentage of the school that knew what RSOR was about, though, so he didn’t consider that one too likely. What else went on here that he didn’t know about, then?

tagging dante w/ iskander!
outfit this outfit is intense
words 538
lyrics your bird can sing by the beatles
notes i have nothing to say.
credits this was made by brooke !