Lovely Introductions PV closed

@Taylor Haywood

The nights were long but the days were longer, and pleasantly so. Afternoon air was clear, refreshing, and not only did it cradle peace in ever-loving hands, but it buzzed with talk, laughter, delight. In every corner of the courtyard this hum was strong, small circles of friends or duos bouncing off of each other like light and mirrors. Levi fiddled with his hands as people were absorbed into their daily happenings, his left knuckles rubbing against his right palm, searching for the outlier. The loner among packs, what the boy would look like himself from the outsider’s perspective, leaning against a wall coolly but with his nervous hands telling a different story, a truer one.

As unrestrained as the lion was, he was eccentric, desperate, and if he felt more, he could talk about it less. Some gazes peered right through the fronts, could see the thin white strings tied to his wrists and ankles, limbs turning blue as the blood all rushed home. Their ends were in the sky, but the puppeteer was clear as day, elders and well-knowns, people whose hands bore callouses but no tales where they formed without a lamp called desire. And some gazes could see the beams from that lamp, heightened by loneliness’ fiercest torment for connection, or rather, for control. One could not exist without the other, as love could not exist without, not hatred, but indifference.

And hope came into his sight in the form of his outlier, a girl no older than him curled by the fountain, as if underneath a protective layer of her own skin. As a shield, a book with a cover that couldn’t be read from where he stood now, but it was creased at its edges as though barely withstanding the test of time. For a moment, Levi could only watch, waiting for the right moment to make itself known. Her hands moved to conceal something in her pocket yet the girl’s eyes barely broke from the book. Why would she read a book by a fountain, and multitask? The chance of it slipping from her control and falling in the dancing water, rendering itself irreparable, was rather high.

He moved before considering it, eyebrows furrowed, and left hand still clasped in his right. “You’re going to drop that book.” His mimicked voice attempted to break into her quiet, where the girl had perhaps found peace, within its pages and the stillness they bred. Problem was, those pages would not be legible with water rinsing the ink away, and another imagination dying with it.

OOC Note: Fine by me!

The sound of a boys voice broke Taylor out of her trance and startled her immensely. Almost as if in slow motion, the small girl fell backwards into the fountain. Her entire body became submerged. Feeling as though she might drown, whether by embarrassment or water, made her panic. She flopped around, only to realize she could simply stand up. As she did, she felt the boys eyes staring at her as her cloak lay clung to her body, soaking. The fountain had crumbs of cookie floating around in it and she reached into her pocket only to pull out mushy baked goods. Oh, and her book...her favorite book in the whole world, ruined. All of the hours she had spent reading the book, washed away with a simple startle. Taylor now remembered why she rarely went outside.

She stepped out of the fountain, still in shock, and looked at the boy. She had seen him in the halls, even in some of her classes, but he had always seemed quite lively and talkative. Now however, he was not. She could see the guilt in his eyes, on his face. "It's ok, really. It's not like you did it on purpose...well at least I hope you didn't. That'd be rather cruel." The Ravenclaw gave him a small smile and walked back over to the fountain, picked up her book, and pretended to read it again. "See? Good as new." She hated people feeling as though they've done something terrible, even if they have. She had experienced that too much with her father so she always tried to make amends.

@Taylor Haywood

Eleven-year-old boys could only be so charming, so charismatic, so fictitiously alluring before the characteristic awkwardness of their peers became contagious and they all sunk to the very same preteen level. Seeing the ups and downs of fact and beautifully hand-crafted fiction was entertaining, like a big dog hopping in the lap of their owner like they still have a pup’s weight. You’re crushed and unable to move, and before you can wheeze some command realization has already set in and they sulk in the corner in the unforgiving reality of their own skin. For only so long can you hide behind glimmering eyes and an imitated smile, as eventually, those things you can’t change will wander in and be all that others can see.

Levi could see his youth bleeding through his shirt, red-tainted, dampened, and heavy. Urges took to the sky, crawl away and leave her to clean the blood from her own clothes. But upon glancing up, the boy was quick to note his blood-stained shirt was instead a simple House-colored cloth that was drenched in water from the fountain. It took him a moment to process what had happened, the girl flailing strangely in the shallow, reflecting water while the words from her pages leaked into it, now empty, unknown, ready to be written again. And while he didn’t crawl to salvation, miles and miles away and underneath his bed, one could see his hands swap places, right now cradled in the left, dominant, hand.

The poor girl at last noticed only a small portion of her body was still immersed in her captor, standing up slowly as their eyes met, both kids visibly uncomfortable with the events that took place. While heat may have risen from her cheeks like a million calls for comfort, all the lion could do was stand and watch the sting of sadness upon realizing her book was slowly tearing itself apart, paper melting in the water and the story gone with them. Such emptiness was something he could never wish on someone, though bizarrely enough, it was the dark-haired, soaked girl who began to reassure Levi.

So far this interaction had been a stumble, a sorry attempt at radiating confidence and enchanting those who spent their lives looking for that one moment of mystique. Though, it was salvageable, or so he believed. Regrettably, they’d both be spending the course of their interaction dripping in what was meant to be lovely and soothing. A friend of anxiety could become an enemy with the slightest startle, he decided. Perhaps that was something to note. Find better ways to start your conversations. “Of course I didn’t.” His voice, still recovering from the sudden inner break of character that resulted in turmoil, did not feel as warm as it sounded.

She then picked up the book—which, unlike their relationship, was absolutely not salvable—and pretended to become enthralled in its pages once more. This did, if nothing else, get a gentle chuckle from Levi and relax his tensed shoulders and hands, but it was a pitying look that came over his visage. It was…an odd reaction, to say the least. In his head, born in dishonesty but raised in unwavering chivalry, it was Levi meant to be comforting the damsel who’d just tumbled into a fountain upon the mere break of her pristine silence. Her fragility was an answered question by this incident.

Taking a few steps forward, the Gryffindor reached out his hand to take the book from hers, discernibly unraveling in all its appeal, reduced to nothing but wounded paper and a splintered existence. “You really don’t need to do that. I can tell it’s ruined. Why don’t you tell me what it was? Maybe I can replace it for you, take it as my apology.”

Not that he was incapable of uttering a verbal apology, letting it mend the wrongs they started on, but the boy held no faith in his eloquence. His previous offering in itself felt like a riddle, evading constant hitches in his speech, and carefully plotting the sentences as though they were a series of novels. It was far simpler to offer what he knew without imitation: material value. If money could buy silence, then money could buy a friend.

"Gone With the Wind. That is the book I was reading...or rather, the book I was reading. It really is okay tho...it was only my favorite book that my father had bought me." She didn't mean for the last part to come out in such a snarl so when she realized she was much more leaning into her colder exterior, she morphed her face into a smile and walked closer to the boy. "I'm Taylor by the way, thought you might want to know the name of the girl you shall be forever indebted to.The girl said with a dramatic sigh and toss of hair over her shoulder.

Now that she had a moment to think, she wondered why this boy had talked to her at all in the first place. Why would one choose to interrupt someone that was so at piece in their own world. She tried to feel annoyed, to find a reason to be mad, when really she was almost grateful. To be able to make a new friend, and to realize that maybe, just maybe, being so enamored with a book that you fall into a fountain at the slightest sound isn't a good thing. Perhaps this would be an awakening to not be so bookish. Who is she kidding? She's a Ravenclaw. All they were associated with was reading and studying. As much as she loved doing so, she despised that it was all people saw her for, at least when they first met her. She was more than just her books. She was more than just a typical Ravenclaw. She was Taylor freaking Haywood. "Oh and you don't need to buy a new book. I can always just borrow one from the library if I really needed."

@Taylor Haywood

Books, he knew, were something special, not only to the authors that wrote the words in their blood, strung together by their overlapping veins, but to the reader. To hold a piece of someone’s fractured soul, perhaps still feel their heart dying to beat, shattered further by every sold copy. It was sickening, romantic, violent, it was what peace looked like in the movies that fooled you with happily ever after. A new copy would only carry the scars of the war it was born into, it would not know the girl’s own love and loss, the personality died, and her salty tears were now mixed with the serene crystal water of the fountain, to wash away the sins shed upon miscellaneous coins.

Levi stared at the wet girl, feeling his appetite gradually wash away with the pages of her book. Perhaps a spell existed to correct his error, as though he deserved its kindness now, but even if it did, it was not one he knew. Shame fell over the guilt that plagued the boy in a crossed design, wirings entangled in one another and thoroughly undistinguishable until one burnt out, something he could only dream of. The lion was left to die in his mistake, only taking solace in the fact that the fault was not all his own; he did tell her she was going to drop it.

The old gashes of a punishing family were not erased by adoption. Pain did not go away with the cruel reminder of replacement, but knowing this had not stopped him from offering that drug. Gone with the Wind, she’d said, tongue biting every syllable as though it was the callous language that’d done her wrong. There was a certain animalistic growl, a note of condescension he wouldn’t expect from the ocean blue, those waves that moved with the will of the wind, those that were home to tranquility, crushed by her hostility. Focusing on the words that mattered, the ones he could use and twist into a graceful helix, Levi’s face contorted into thoughtful confusion. Gone with the Wind, as much as the Gryffindor adored books, sounded like a girl’s novel.

“My gosh,” He breathed, the most bizarre visage of empathy coming over him, “I am terribly sorry for having caused that if it was so sentimental. Please, though, allow me to replace it. It is the very least.” He uttered his first verbal apology, still unfaithful in his eloquence. Only when the taste of metal ran along his teeth did Levi realize he’d gnawed his mouth, never his habit, but she pushed him with the announcement of her name, adorned in the royal violet of importance. Behind it, only a mixture of paint. His debt was a figment of her imagination. Please, please let me solve this the easy way.

A laugh fell from his scarlet lips, fake but necessary. He’d have to indulge her. “Well, madame Taylor Haywood, it is an absolute pleasure to meet you. Not so much that the circumstances must be this.” Delicate and soft, as though talking to an easily startled critter, a tone he’d practiced in the mirror, a tone he aimed to master as life went on, to pull people with blind rope. “Levi Drakos. I will, regardless, replace the book, but please, tell me what I can do.”

Unconsciously, his teeth met his mouth once again, driven by brewing frustration and emotions that could not be named, carving their reminders into the side of his mouth to kill them later, in privacy. Who reads a book by a fountain? A crossroad of peace, sure, between the calming flow of the water and the crafted universes, endless knowledge, and utter angst you must get from a book titled Gone with the Wind, but look at the worst case scenario: you ruin a poor boy’s afternoon.