·•Teen Idle•●· ↳Pv

@Eris Fawley

xxxxThe North Tower was a location Phaedra hadn't ventured to in previous years, but becoming a third year gave her reason to visit. It was frigid but she was in no particular rush to leave it though, and was taking her precious time back from Study of Ancient Runes, her hands tracing along the stone wall as she strolled. It was clear that she was in a pleasant mood, and as she headed around a corner to take a long stairwell out, her attention was brought to a loud thump. Not knowing what to fully expect, she lifted her head and was surprised to find Eris Fawley on the floor further down the corridors.

xxxxIt was funny how despite boarding in a castle as big as Hogwarts, she and Eris always managed to find one another, usually alone, and somewhere abandoned. Could that be the world's way of telling them that they really ought to be friends by now? Or could it perhaps mean something more sinister? Phaedra had always believed certain omens to be mostly superfluous, but patterns like these were worth investigating.

xxxxStoring away that theory for later, Phaedra took a few steps forward with narrowed eyes. "...Eris?" There was what sounded like an alarmed half-laugh emit from her throat, the teenager caught off guard from the scene. Her eyes shot around in an attempt to understand what lead up to that point, which proved not completely futile. From what she could piece together, it appeared as if the Gryffindor had simply collapsed there; not only was the hall barren save for a couple of armour statues, but the redhead was also clearly conscious and looked rather unbothered on the stone floor. She walked closer, and after bending down to reach for the inkwell that had rolled about, Phaedra's head would whip back up to question the Fawley. "Why are you lying down in the middle of the floor like this?" It came out rather more maternal than she intended. Maybe this was a joke— Eris had always been rather funny.

xxxxWait - no. Something was off. There was more to this than a little nap in the hallway. Phaedra didn't notice until she spot the remnants of crying on the other girl's face. Phaedra shut her mouth and froze, her fingers still hovering inches away from grasping the inkwell. Slowly, she drew her hand back to herself without it, more concerned with what was wrong with Eris. It was bewildering that someone as strong-willed as her could be publicly reduced to tears. The last time they had met like this, Phaedra had been the terrified one. What had changed? "Hey. What happened?"

“Because my life sucks” Eris announced dramatically in response to the pair of disembodied feet asking why she was on the floor. Age having done nothing to lesson Eris’s dramatic tendencies, it was with gusto that she proclaimed her life to be miserable. In the most straightforward way possible, age had made Eris even more dramatic in her proclamations, simply because those in her pureblood social circles also echoed the same dramatic habits to a much more extreme degree. It was far too easy to learn from others around her. Once the statement was said and done, Eris laid her head back on the floor with a heavy sigh, halfway expecting the feet to walk away and someone less morose to chat with.

Eris hadn’t heard her name being spoken, nor had she bothered to look up at the sound of encroaching footsteps, which was why the appearance of feet was so sudden and jarring to the resting Gryffindor. She decided within moments that she was talking to a ghost. A ghost that sounded remarkably like Phaedra, but a ghost nonetheless. Her loneliness must have made the ghost sound like Phae. That explained it. That was a far safer outcome to the situation than Phaedra having been in the hall to see Eris cry. Eris wasn’t sure what she’d do if Phae was there to judge her.

Presumably, cry some more based upon the way things were going. Thus, because of the alarming matter that was Eris being unequipped to process all her emotions at once and process people being around her while she did so, Eris made the executive decision to decide she was speaking to a ghost. Who else could be wandering the North corridor? Just ghosts. Only ghosts.

For one so averse to the idea of others seeing her cry, Eris plainly wasn’t doing much to conceal that she was lying upon the stone floor with dried water directly under watery brown eyes. The direct remnants of tears and the evidence of her sadness were betrayed upon her skin like the flashing of a red sign cautioning that Eris was a sad teenager and should be kept away from. But, surprisingly the ghostly pair of feet did not vanish to go haunt another hallway.

The body attached to said feet must have been quite wealthy, as their shoes seemed pretty fancy. Not as nice as Eris’s own rainbow boots, of course. Even now, her boots were safely upon her feet. Although, Eris’s feet were spread out on the floor. In fact, Eris looked like a starfish, with her limbs spread all over the floor, stretched out like a mum who was getting a particularly good workout in yoga class. Her body was poised to take up the most room in the corridor that a 4’5 midget could take up. Mostly to avoid being stepped on if anyone did walk through the hall, but also because the stone floor was uncomfortable and being all spread out alleviated the stiffness.

But, it was the nicer pair of shoes that led Eris to trust the abandoned corridors visitor. Maybe whoever the person was could understand the struggles of being a pureblood. Most purebloods were rich enough to afford shoes that weren’t repulsively worn through, not unlike Kaegen’s own shoes. Inhaling sharply, Eris did as she so often did. She spoke without thinking of the repercussions, nor even so much as thinking about a singular word coming out of her mouth. Each word faster and less pronounced, Eris’s thoughts spilt out, just as ink had split on the floor before Phaedra had prevented the inkwell’s incessant circles.

“It’s just so hard! My grandfather is terrible and my friends are all grown up and look so pretty, while I look five years old! And Kaegen tried to kill me! And and, I think I have a crush and my grandad would kill me if he found out! Then there’s the fact nobody cared about Ben hurting me and didn’t even bother to visit me last year and oh-” Eris cut off, having worked herself into quite a dizzy. She spoke rapidly, each word bursting quickly from her lips, seemingly fighting for dominance to get out. Clearly, everything she was saying was a secret that had been shoved down and was dying to be spoken aloud. Although, it was a mess to tangle through. There was so much that had just been revealed within the course of a minute, and Eris seemed to realize that.

She fell silent. In the fallout of so many secrets being revealed, Eris slowly began to process what she had spoken. With that, she found herself able to rationalize just a bit more. She was sad, which made her stupid. Being sad often made people stupid, a fact well evidenced by her father. Or more recently Kaegen after he had tried to bite her neck off. Ghosts didn’t have robes that were black. Ghosts were transparent. Therefore, it seemed as if Eris had made a fatal mistake in thinking that whomever she was speaking feverishly to was a ghost.

In her disarray, Eris had fooled herself into thinking she was talking to a ghost. It had been the most logical conclusion to come to, when in blind denial of her own friendships and the people in her life. Logic and Eris were not friends, and her idea of logic was half-assed on a good day and downright sectarian on other days. While getting steadily better at coming to conclusions and making inferences, Eris’s emotions almost always blinded her. It would be ludicrous for now, when she was most vulnerable, to be an exception to that inalienable fact about her personality.

In her emotional turmoil, it had been easy to chalk up hearing Phae’s voice to loneliness. But the truth of who she was ranting to hit Eris like a freight car. Tilting her head to the side, catching sight of Phaedra’s enviable long hair, Eris sighed and flopped her head back onto the stones, upper lip trembling in a valient attempt not to start crying again. “I mean-” She opened her mouth to pretend she was joking, or to make fun of herself.

Nothing came out, which solidified a tired sadness in Eris. “Hey, Phae. I didn’t recognize you from down here. Sorry.” Eris amended with whilst sniffing loudly, deciding it sounded a bit less loony to admit she hadn’t known who Phae was. It was a lot less insane sounding than explaining that she had assumed Phaedra was a ghost.