Weaving a Tapestry of Stories PV Ruby Cazares

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Ruby had somehow found her way into a tree again, as if going on auto-pilot. It was wonderful to be out here on a spring evening, surrounded by the serenity of nature. The background sound of students playing and chatting reached her ears, but nothing about it was particularly bothersome. They were just having fun, spending some time together. That sound would never manage to overpower what she loved about nature, though. The amazing, clear smells reached her nose, and she inhaled deeply. The smells of the grass, the trees, the evening, and the flowers blended together to create a familiar feeling reminiscent of past springtimes spent outdoors. She wouldn't want to ever give that up. The breeze tugged at her hair, threatening to pull tendrils out of her braid, but somehow the hairstyle remained intact. Her hair wasn't the only thing affected – it swept through the branches of the trees, gently rustling their luscious green leaves.

She sighed contentedly, pleased that she could have a moment to herself, without being interrupted by anyone else. Her spot in this tree that she had climbed so many times this year provided her with a great vantage point, too. She could see down to the students on the ground, but also out at the distant lake and up to the sky. The colors streaked across the sky created something quite beautiful up above, and then bathed the world down below in a soft golden glow. The Slytherin pulled one of her many sketchbooks out of the bag she had brought with her, and flicked through the pages, past sketches of animals and humans, nature and inventions, imaginary worlds and the real one, and more. If someone had been able to see, they would have noticed the remarkable attention to detail, and how realistic the child's pieces of art were. It was one of the things that she was passionate about, and it had become a talent of hers. She had practiced every day for years, striving to create the perfect balances and achieve some form of advanced skill in her work. She didn't do it to show off – no, there were hardly any people who knew about this particular interest of hers – she only did it because she enjoyed it, and because she enjoyed it, she wanted to be good at it.

She finally settled on a blank page near the end of the book. To her, a blank page was a world – no, a universe – of possibilities. However, this page's fate had already been decided on. She was going to attempt to capture the sunset. It would have been far from the first that she had done, but that didn't matter. She tugged out art supply after art supply, getting what she would need for this one. Now, it was just her, her art, and the sunset. Her hand darted across the page – forming sharp, quick lines, gentle curves, carefully calculated strokes – as she made a quick outline, and then things started to get filled in. Lines of varying darkness and width appeared on the page, followed by color – bursts of color that brought the drawing to life. More complex shading was then included as she scrambled to achieve some form of completion before the light changed too much. She added more detail and put the finishing touches on it, and then her hand ceased its movements. She paused to look at it, her head bobbing slightly as she glanced between the world around her and then back to the drawing. Not bad, not bad. She tucked her materials and sketchbook back into her bag and let her gaze wander.

She shifted slightly on her wide branch, making sure that she stayed comfortable. Even when resting, her back was perfectly straight – something that came to her naturally, a habit from the way she had been raised. The rest of her position made her seem almost cat-like as she lazed in the tree, a couple of limbs draped carelessly over the side of the branch. Her fingers idly tapped a rhythm on the rough bark of the trunk. Perhaps it was her carefully composed appearance, with not a hair or fold out of place, even like this. Perhaps it was her impeccable posture. Perhaps it was any number of things, but Ruby had an air that was different to many other people's. The air – aura, presence, general feeling, whatever one preferred to call it – that she radiated was one of determination, ambition, power, passion, sophistication, confidence, and sharp intelligence. The fire in her eyes created by the mixture of these things was masked by her cold, calculating nature. Always analyzing, always thinking, always observing, that was Ruby. Her piercing blue eyes – which could seem as chilling and as sharp as ice shards – currently settled on those that lingered on the grass below, those that would likely be blissfully unaware of her presence. She was carefully hidden away behind the layers of leaves that the tree offered as protection from prying eyes. It was easier for her to see out from this point than it would for someone not really paying attention to see past the leaves and to the spot where she sat.

Who caught her eye? From the group currently out here, who was interesting? Who seemed different, intriguing? Her gaze swept across her fellow occupants of the grounds, stopping temporarily at every person. She would examine them (well, as best she could from up in a tree) and their general appearance – the state of their clothes, their body language, their posture, their style – observe for a little while to see their behavior and perhaps catch a few snippets of conversation, then process the information and analyze it to learn as much as she could about each individual. She would then move onto the next person and repeat the cycle. Why did she want to know about the random students sprinkled across the grounds? Quite simply, she just adored knowledge of any kind. Learning was always welcome to her, in any form and on any topic. When she observed people, she could figure out who could make a potential friend or enemy, who was worth the time to speak with, and she could learn about humans in general and how they worked. She could also possibly gain some information (even if it was just basic stuff about them) that she could use later, if need be. Ruby's love of knowledge most often led her to the library and books. She read a lot – many times a day – and practically flew through the books, as she had become a rather fast reader over the years.

Currently, she was just searching for someone interesting. A potential friend, perhaps – although she had rather high standards for that. She had almost finished her scan of the people near her and was about to pull out her book to read or her notebook to write in – maybe to record the observations that she had made today. However, at that moment, she spotted her. The female in question was a fellow Slytherin who seemed to be around Ruby's age. The thing that grabbed Ruby's attention was that the girl was observing other people too. She saw her watching some of the other students, saw the light of creativity and intelligence in the girl's eyes. Ruby could tell that the way that the other Slytherin observed people was in a different manner to her own way – that analytical, calculating aspect seemed to be missing, but there seemed to be more creativity. Nevertheless, it was definitely intriguing. She leaned forward, trying to get a better view of the other girl's eyes, but she almost fell out of the tree in the process, so she had to cease those efforts. She realized that she would have to leave the tree in order to learn more about the girl. The choice didn't require much thought. It seemed that she had now acquired a new conversation partner.

She grabbed her bag, slipped it into position on her shoulder, and then began climbing down. Her descent was smooth and speedy. After years of climbing and finding the right patterns for it, she now made it appear effortless – which it sort of was, for her. She made her way over to the girl. Her movements were the same as they always were – precise, graceful, flowing, smooth, and with a certain elegance and sophistication. It probably came from her upbringing, which had caused this to become natural and ingrained into her being. It was just the way that she was now. She racked her brain for the girl's name as she approached, and remembered just before she began speaking. Astrea. Astrea… Neptune? The girl had had a decently long name, but all that Ruby needed right now was the first and last name, maybe even just the last name. “Hello, Miss Neptune,” she greeted neutrally with a slight incline of her head as if to give a small nod, “I hope you don't mind if I join you…”

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[font=Italian Didot]A steady breeze blew through and rustled the abundance of greenery that covered Hogwarts' grounds, a few streaks of Astrea's midnight hair coming free from where they had been brushed aside nonchalantly and seeming to tease the wind as they danced. Pale fingers reached up to brush away the rebel strands just as the current of air petered to a stop, the vibrant emerald and shamrock green leaves that covered great bushels of lodgepole pines and western hemlock stilled with the passing disturbance. As the young heir brushed a thumb over the dim stone slab she sat upon, slender legs dangling off the edge, the calm that accompanied the solitary perch she had claimed over had further saturated deeply into her very soul.

If she were to be completely honest, others didn't find her to be the best of companions- too different, too same to all impeccable pureblood children they had ever met. Perhaps it was the starkness that her features brought upon her, akin to a porcelain doll held up be marionette strings with how unblemished it seemed from a distance. Or the tone of her voice, slightly dampened with an indistinguishable accent, and yet still crisp with the aristocratic flair that she knew all too well. The way she sat, the way she walked, that all seemed to drive away others with how supposedly strange and fluid she naturally was. Prim and proper, actions seeming to be more predestined than human. Her more- for a better word- loosened elder cousin Alon, who had practically appalled their family with his sorting into the house of lions and set the stage for the 'Wildcard Generation', had described her as 'eerie' at one time, though with far more casual wording attributed to a life outside of the family manor.

Perse grey eyes narrowed near indiscernibly down toward an innocent piece of gravel as Astrea willed herself to drive away from the encroaching thoughts. It never ceased in ideas- whether a scene of creativity or an excerpt of the latest novel she had read- and though she soaked up information like a sponge, her thoughts sometimes got away from her and drifted toward more questionable thoughts, to say the least. Which is why she was driven to write, write away her creativity and occupy her long enough that useless melancholic thoughts would be driven away- and she did enjoy writing, had improved tremendously since she had first started, but her desire for personal space often had others writing her off as merely scribbling away rather than exuding the disgustingly negative emotions that plagued her.

Rolling her shoulders and forcing her already-straight back up into a more appropriate way that was 'fit for an heir of her becoming' according to her mother, Astrea straightened her silver-striped tie, the material silken against her bare fingers. The boys down below were still idling together with no real purpose, though they had settled to the floor by that time and their stagnant figures quickly bored her. They were pleasing while they lasted, but Astrea's inexperience with real friendship-related conversations compared to many others of her year caused the unknown conversation between the Gryffindor boys to become incredibly mundane.

In an effort to stave off the intruding ennui that would no doubt pounce on her overly imaginative brain, she shifted her attention elsewhere- there didn't seem to be many others in the grounds by that time, as the telling of the coming sunset drove most back inside to clean up and idle away for a snippet of time before they were called in for whatever reason. Not usually something particularly important to her specifically, perhaps just for meal-time or curfew later that evening, but something at the very least.

The Great Lake gleamed in the slight distance, glassy water murky with reflections of maroon and Tuscan yellow as the colours dimmed with the water's innate shade of ink. The shores were still as the time dragged by, the slight waves that should have sprouted up with the coming of wind absent from their place- as if even the selkies and grindylows and the Giant Squid that resided underwater had stopped to witness the coming of muted twilight. It fascinated Astrea. For even when the spectacle that was the sun's dying fight for power before resigning to a night of starlight came day after day, the wonderfully tedious work of stopping to merely watch the setting sun was- something deemed so forbidden and downright foolish to indulge in according to her mother- magnificently repetitive to remember the steady pattern of dawn and dusk, day and night, time in and time out. Over and over again.

As the Slytherin relished passively the slow turning of time, the faint sound of approaching footsteps met her ears. Steady and yet light, drawn carefully up and down with the nonchalance of aristocracy she knew very well- did herself very well. Who bothered, really, to disturb the almost surreal calm that had fallen over Hogwarts grounds? As the other received her with a slight nod and acknowledgement, Astrea turned to face her fellow housemate- her mind coming to a blank as she sought for a name to put to a face. She had seen the remarkable intelligent girl around before, seen how many were intimidated of the brunette in a way that stemmed from a certain difference in behaviour that Astrea knew very well, and yet she had never caught someone else calling her name. Of course, that was the usual way the Asian learned of another's title, perhaps even first or last name, but without the sufficient interaction collected via careful observation, the Neptune-Chou heir could not fathom what her year mates name was.

"Good evening." A slight dip of her head came with the polite greeting, carefully expressionless as she tracked the unknown female.

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