Bruised Ego pv M. Haynes Closed

Seriously? That was what all this was about? Because Illowy had called her out? Because Illowy wasn't afraid to call out how stupid and inaccurate Mari's assumptions were of her when she hadn't done anything to warrant the issue to be draw out over weeks and weeks. As the Slytherin looked at the other girl, there was no hiding the complete disbelief.

"That is the most petty thing I've ever heard." her tone dropped low as she narrowed her eyes, finishing gathering her things, tossing her bag's strap over her shoulder and carefully climbing down from her perch atop the rock before facing the girl in the water.

Illowy brushed a lock of hair out of her face to tuck behind her ear, "I avoid you, Mari. I don't talk about you, or think about you, I don't like being around you. Every interaction between us happened because you came up to me." she kept her voice even and stone, "I'm not stupid, I can see how you stick your nose up at my house. You're just so butthurt because I didn't want to cower from you and I called you out and you need to just build a bridge and get over it because I'm sure you say and think way worse about me then anything I've ever said to you."

Strong shoulders fell a bit, but she refuse to let her chin slip, she wouldn't show how weak and tired she felt, "If you're going to sit there and hate me, then hate me for being Illowy Magnard. Not because I'm in Slytherin House. That's a stupid, petty, pathetic reason to hate someone."

The girl readjusted the bag on her shoulder, "Slytherins aren't bad people. I know I'm not a bad person." after everything that had happened in the Forest, she couldn't question that she was good. She risked her safety to help put out a fire at the ball, ran through the Forbidden Forest alone to find her friend and endured a dementor attack because she refused to her Isaac behind, she worked hard in her school work to make her mother proud, and she did her best to help people when they needed it. Sure, perhaps she was a bit too blunt, spoke her mind too loudly, she could be crass and her way of showing she cared tended to fall a bit far into the realm of 'tough love', but that was simply how she was brought up to be; to hold her head high and to not hold back.

"You can think whatever you want about me, but if you talk to anyone who knows me, they'll tell you different." pale eyes flickered up and down the other girl, "Now, stop being absolutely ridiculous and get out of the lake before you lose a toe to either frostbite or because something in the water swims up and bites it off."

Mari's eyes glinted mischievously as Illowy called her statement petty. For a moment, the sparkle left and a frown emerged as she watched the Slytherin gather her things. Was she not going to fulfill Mari's prediction and leave without a fight? It would be such a shame...

But, true to form, the snake unleashed her attack. She let the frown remain on her face in a calculated move, as if it had been intentional. She didn't need to fight back with her words. Mari could fight back in the way she knew best: by playing the victim. A small tear escaped her ducts as it appeared by pure will.

The girl was spending a lot of precious energy to come up with these biting words, and though the tears would flow more steadily now, Mari would internally be fine with the attacks. What would only be visible was sadness, however; Mari did have quite a bit of practice with crying before she really embraced victimhood. The Blossom Ball had just merely changed her tear's intents. While before they had been a sign of weakness, now they were a method of means to an end. That end was still ambiguous - was it the power or the friendship she had never had? - but it got its energy from others' pity and fear of her power. Things that she had not gotten when Kaegan had stabbed her, when those men had tried to take her, and even when that Cheeto had given her food poisoning. People needed to know that Mari Haynes was not to be messed with, whether that be friend or foe.

She ignored most of Illowy's attacks, though they bit at her and incited anger, and said with a straight face, though tears still flowed, "Slytherin House has a reputation of pure evil, and I have met very few people who have surprised me away from this assumption. People who have proven themselves as good have become my friend. But you're wrong, you know. I don't hate you because you're in Slytherin House, I hate you because you have fulfilled everything I know about Slytherin. You have given me no reason to think you are anything less than evil."

It was dramatic, but contempt had a way of doing that to someone. Mari had never quite forgiven the girl from verbally attacking those girls in the library. In Mari's mind, these attacks had been undeserved, and every time she had passed the girl in the corridors, she projected more injustices that Illowy was certain to have done that day, never mind if they were fact or fiction. Illowy, to Mari, was the type who would just attack people for no reason, people who were weak and innocent. Just like Mari had once been.

But no longer. Her silent cry would increase, but an unnoticeable, internal rage would continue to rise within her. She just needed to be careful, not play her cards immediately, strategically plan to get revenge on the Slytherin. It may have seemed surprising, but Mari did listen to Illowy when she got out of the water. She smiled a half smirk and said, "Here I was, thinking you were just going to let me cry without doing anything! You are kind, Illowy, looking out for me like that. You've solved all my problems." She was still crying, of course. The irony was supposed to be that Illowy solved an issue that Mari had caused herself, instead of solving the false tears that Mari had created in reaction to her biting words.

Mari knew she needed strategy, but her strategy was still weak, as fighting back was new ground for her. She internally scolded herself for the foolish statements, as she knew their intent would be difficult to understand. They were neither remarkably cruel nor bringing Illowy to the false trust of kindness. Instead, they were pointless, useless comments that did not further her goal of revenge for all of the girl's actions, real or imagined. The only thing that Mari could appreciate, though, was that she still had the secret weapon of rage properly concealed. Perhaps under further analysis of Illowy, she would be able to determine how best to express that anger, for it was soon to burst.

Mari's words bit at her. She wasn't in the mental state to have doubts about herself, about her intentions thrown at her. She refused to show it, however; keeping her expression stone and calm, the way her mother had always taught her. Controlling her anger had been something her mother instilled in her at a young age. That if she were to be angry, there were other ways to express it beyond screaming and fighting. She wasn't suppose to fight while she was here if she could help it.

Even more so then herself, though Mari couldn't have known, was her attacked on Slytherin were jabs at her family, both as being her housemates and her blood relatives at home who had been Slytherin once upon a time. They were not evil. They were driven and cunning, but not evil, "If that's what you think, then you don't know anything about Slytherins or me. We're not murderous, we're not cowards, we're not criminals. There have been those kinds of people in Slytherin, but they've been in other houses too if you pay attention to your history book instead of throwing out assumptions you don't know anything about."

"I feel bad for your friends who are, because clearly you're hate goes so deep that there's no way you could truly care about them. I feel even worse for you. To hate someone is to give it control over you and over your emotions. It must be exhausting too, putting all this effort and tears into hating hundreds of people you don't know, simply because of something they have no control over." the girl offered a small shrug, "I don't mean to be political, but that certainly sounds similar to other discriminations that most people see as wrong, doesn't it?" Alright, perhaps that last statement was a bit of her poking a stick at the hypothetical bear, but she didn't know how else to make Mari see how terrible she was behaving.

The girl crept out of the frigid water, still crying. Whether they were actual tears, or crocodile, Illowy wasn't sure. All the same, tears were something that rarely got to her. The first time in years that the girl had cried herself had been in the forest, face to face with that thing. It had stuck something in her core, dug it up and yanked it to the surface by roots, leaving her in tears, "I'm not here to solve your problems, Mari. I couldn't solve your problems even if I wanted to." the girl crossed her arm over her stomach, watching the girl carefully, maintaining healthy distance and unable to shake the feeling that this girl wasn't above inciting something more.

There was a look in the girl's eye that was different then the last time they'd interacted. A look she couldn't quite place, but certainly didn't like, "No one is ever going to solve your problems for you. But there's nothing wrong with asking for help if that's what you need." she added, "We all need help sometimes."

Well, the entertainment had arrived. Illowy lost it, exactly like Mari had hoped she had. It was just a damn shame that she did not have any popcorn to enjoy the clown show that was before her.

The snake just kept going on, saying, "blah blah blah, not murderous" and "yadda yadda history books." Mari shivered a little bit as she looked at her feet; they had pruned quite quickly from the icy water. She registered the words but figured that the best way to keep the fun going was to pretend she wasn't listening at all. Just a little bit more and she knew that she'd get those pitiful emotions that she subsisted on.

When the word "political" came up, Mari cackled and spat, "Politics, eh? Do you know what dad told me the other day in an owl? The Muggle prime minister stepped down. Wild, right?" The goal was simple: knock Illowy off her toes, make her angry so that she could spew a few more paragraphs of complaints against the princess herself. The theme was easy enough, for she knew the topic had been relevant, even if she didn't know anything other than the fact that the Prime Minister had stepped down. If Illowy wanted to talk further about that news, she'd have to find someone who actually respected her - probably no one, at that rate - to do so. Mari had no interest in actually discussing politics; it was just a means to an end.

The pale girl continued, and Mari instantly lashed back, saying in an average volume, yet with a cold inflection, "You can't solve my problems, eh? Since we're talking about politics, maybe you should be the next Prime Minister? You say you can't solve them, but you act like you know all the answers. How...odd."

Then, a surprise. Was that possibly a change in tone from the girl? Had Mari's plan to antagonize her been thwarted? Why in the world was she saying that no one could solve her problems? Mari was fine, Mari was always fine, she had just had a rough year and needed a little pity to get her life back on track. There was nothing to worry about. The fact that Illowy said otherwise made her irate. She scoffed, "I don't understand what you're saying. I don't need help? Do you not understand sarcasm? No wonder you're a Ravenclaw, wow."

With that last statement, Mari crossed her arms over her chest and squinted with such intensity at the Slytherin that it was as though she was trying to shoot laser beams from her eyes in attack.

Illowy rolled her eyes as the girl continued on about nothing that related to nothing she said. Clearly the other was operating on selective hearing. What more or less was she going to do to get around someone who had no interest in anything she had to say? Someone who felt that she'd have to prove herself in some way to be treated like a real person who shouldn't just be walked all over. At this point, Illowy figured Mari's claim to have any amount of Slytherin friends had to be a massive bluff. There was no way she'd given any Slytherin the time of day or the consideration to show they were good people.

You can't reason with the unreasonable.

What she did know was that the last thing she needed was for this little prat to keep trying to infect every metaphorical mental wound she had. She couldn't keep trying to reason with Mari, trying to give her the opportunity to act like a normal person... Mari seemed perfectly happy planted where she was, bullying and poisoning everyone she deemed unworthy.

Zoning back into the conversation when she commented about being Ravenclaw. Still a raw wound indeed, and perhaps if the Slytherin had a little less self control, she would have taken the chance to slap the sense back into the Hufflepuff. Illowy looked the other girl up and down with icy eyes. Mari's own gaze could've killed if it only had the chance, "Clearly, you do need help. You've taken one hop, skip and a tumble too many times 'round the bend." she decided aloud. In that moment, it felt as though part of her mental dam cracked, "I don't know what your damage is, or if you're trying to play some game with me or what, but I just... I can't bloody deal with you right now, trying to sit there and tear at me until I feel as low as you're clearly feeling."

Arms still crossed over herself, Illowy tangled burnt fingers into the spare fabric of her sweater, gripping it tight, then took a couple steps back, turning away from the other slightly; almost as if worried she might actually lose all sense of self control. Illowy had been balancing her mental state precariously since the Ball. Spending countless nights awake fighting away the demons in her own mind, avoiding people like Mari, like the others who found joy in her misery by bullying her, by keeping herself safe and secluded while she tried to work through it all. Trying to keep herself in check, pulled together, and on the right track towards normality... and here comes Mari, ready and willing to keep throwing blows while Illowy was already on the ground. In the back of her mind, Illowy considered that maybe if she were honest about what she was going through, it would make Mari back off, perhaps see her in a more accurate light. Realistically, the Slytherin shook the thought away for near she'd either be called a liar, or worse, she'd be told she deserved what had happened and then some. Right now, she decided, it was best to keep her personal matters personal.

"I don't need you telling me things like I'm evil, that I'm hated, that I'm alone and have no friends, I can't bloody deal with it! And you're absolutely mental saying these thing to me when I've never even said anything beyond you being annoying, nosy and rude. You bully my entire house! You say disgusting things about us, but we're evil?" the girl swallowed the emotion that was trying to dig itself out of her, keen to keep a stiff upper lip. As she spoke, her Irish accent thickened a bit, the way it did whenever she had to speak Gaelic to her grandmother. She wondered for a moment if the other would even understand her, then her thoughts quickly shifted to wonder if Mari would then use that against her as well.

Wow. Illowy had some issues, didn't she?

Mari eyed the girl as she had a little temper tantrum. Sheesh, someone seemed to have woken up on the wrong side of the bed. This wasn't really fun anymore, now that she was screaming and stuff...

The insults bounced off the Hufflepuff without a flicker of annoyance. She truly, truly believed that Illowy was insane, the way she cracked under the slightest bit of pressure. Mari was lucky that she wasn't a raw egg like Illowy but rather a hardboiled one, having been through so much heat that nothing broke her anymore. Illowy probably needed to be stabbed or almost-kidnapped or something...but she was so useless she'd probably just die or something. Shame.

Mari didn't want to grace Illowy with a response, it seemed she could argue herself in a hole at this point. As Illowy got angrier, however, her voice began to change, develop into an accent. Little did Illowy know but accents were one of Mari's weakest skills. She just couldn't understand them. With Palmer, it had been fun, albeit embarrassing, to try to interpret what he was saying. With Illowy? It was just... sad, really.

The only thing that Mari could catch was that Illowy couldn't "bloody deal with it." Since everything else was undecipherable, she latched onto those words, trying to figure out their meanings. She probably was talking about Mari, she was too idiotic to understand that they were just playing a game, a little fun. Again, no wonder she was a Ravenclaw. Poor girl was as dumb as a pile of rocks.

She smirked, "Well, if you can't deal with it, how's about you just go then, yeah? I don't want to bother you, seems like you're a bit overwhelmed."

The game had clearly been won, the fun achieved. Mari just needed to see if there was anything else she could play with before she moved on her merry way.