At the Sky's Edge PV Fin

Aly always got excited about birthdays. It was simply an integral part of her ever-cheerful personality - the fundamental need to celebrate everything, particularly when there was actually a reason. She even counted down to the exact minute of her birth every year on May 9, believing deep within her that there was some special magic that had - that she could control how her whole year would go with just the closing of eyes and a wish upon a star. To say that she was excited about her own birthdays was certainly an understatement - and yet, somehow, if you can even imagine it, she was always even more excited about her friends'. This year most of all. Seventeen was a big deal - in poems and books and songs, yes, but also in the wizarding world. She had been the first of her close trio to enter adulthood, a month ago to the day, and now Dee would be the next, with Peri as their baby in two weeks.

When the Quidditch captain's best mate had requested her presence up on the Astronomy Tower the night before her seventeenth birthday, Aly had been more than happy to oblige. Now that all three of the Ravenclaws lived together in the same dormitory - having moved into the gender-neutral area at the beginning of the school year, so that whispered giggles and late-night conversations between the duo could turn into those between the trio - they rarely had to find places to meet, all three of them, anymore; still, each of the eagles had their own affinity for the top of the tallest tower at school, each for their own different reasons. Aly had grown used to the trek up and down what seemed like millions of stairs by now, having served as an Astronomy intern for the past year - but when she was carrying a satchel full of precious cargo and racing to get up there before midnight, it seemed like even more steps stretched out before her.

She finally reached the platform - no Dee. No Peri, either, which was odd. Even though Aly had left the dormitory well before them, she had also needed to take a detour (dee-tour, if you will) to the Headliner offices, where nearly a month ago she had stashed Dee's birthday present. If her headstrong best mate couldn't get into the office, she couldn't find the present early, or at least that had been Aly's reasoning. Instead, the carefully wrapped hinged oakwood box, wrapped in paper that glittered blue and purple like the galaxy just outside the windows, had only narrowly escaped several close calls, including spillages of piping hot tea and cold inkwells, a few spell tests by younger students near her desk, and quite nearly being eaten by Aly's cat Dauncey, likely having been mistaken for an oddly coloured mouse that was still enough for him to catch. (She did really need to get his eyes checked.) It was safe now, though, securely stowed in the satchel that bounced on Aly's left thigh as she turned and forced herself up the last few stairs to the upper platform of the tower.

It was there that she found her best mate, the sister she'd never had, sprawled out star-legged on a blanket that she had clearly spread out over the chilly stone floor. Aly took the opportunity to wander up to Dee's head, then stick her own into her friend's field of vision so that, instead of a beautiful spray of stars sparkling up in the near-midnight sky, Dee would see Aly's upside-down visage and a whole bouquet of light brown curls spiraling down towards her. "Hey there, birthday girl," the Ravenclaw crowed cheerfully, as if she hadn't seen her bestie just a few hours prior. "Fancy seeing you here!"

Moving out of Dee's view of the sky, Aly plopped down on the blanket beside her and cautiously placed her satchel to the side. "Much warmer than it was last time we were up here together," she joked, fingers straying to the box inside her satchel before snatching them back boxlessly; though Aly was as eager as ever to pull out the treasures hidden inside, she also needed to remember that one member of their party had still not yet arrived. "Enjoying your last hour of being sixteen, eh? Well, last hour... and then more, of course. What is it, like, eighteen hours from now?"

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	Contrasting his typical punctuality, Pericles was the last of the trio to arrive, having just broken off from a late romp with Eve. The animagi parted ways in the courtyard, the cat entering the castle and the bird soaring skyward. He loosed a cheerful chirp on finding his friends waiting. Rather than turn back as he landed on the opposite side of Dee from Aly, the eagle tucked in its wings and examined the smorgasbord with a beady black eye. The firewhiskey was given a suspicious squint. Its beak snatched up a hunk of dried fish, tossed it back with the gusto of a seagull swallowing a hot dog, and gave a satisfied clack before a billow of black and gray replaced the bird with a boy. Pericles smiled and spoke as he added to the present pile and sank into the nest of bedding. "Thank you Dee. Hullo Aly." He lay with arms folded above and long legs stretched below, like an eagle displaying its wingspan, as if to be taller than them made him feel less like The Baby. Not that he minded too terribly. What was ten or so days difference? When Pear's thoughts turned towards the future, he imagined them all just as tightly knit ten or twenty years from now, scattered in profession but kept close by Floo and Apparation dates. He hummed an amused note as Aly teased tonight's birthday girl, adding: "Feel older? Any wisdom to impart?" It was his idea of an ideal night. An hour or so was spent gliding through the wilderness, racing and chasing after another animagi, dodging trees and teeth and claws in a primal twist on tag. Now a blissful calm enveloped them, draining away the final dregs of adrenaline as he listened to the girls' laughter. His mind wandered ahead again. This time, he wondered out loud. "Have you both decided where you're going after this...?" His silvery left eye remained starward, while its mechanical twin fell sideways in the socket to observe them. "I told da I'm applying for Auror Academy. He tried talking me out of it, but we came to an understanding."
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| @Aly Salinger | @Dealla Prince |

The missing member of their bronze trio soon arrived in a most dramatic fashion: in eagle form, swooping out of the sky like a missile on a mission. Aly chuckled, watching Pereagle swallow down some dried fish - now that odd food's appearance on Dee's little buffet made sense - before transforming into his human version, all pale and lanky and white-haired. "Why, hello there, our fine feathered friend," she teased, watching him stretch out, both winged and flightless all at once. "Enjoying a little nighttime fly? Watch - one of these days I'll find time to do that process too, and then maybe we can fly together if I end up getting wings."

As for Peri's question about wisdom to impart, Aly snorted, jerking a thumb in his direction as she looked back to their resident celebrant. "Don't mind him. He's just trying to figure out how to spend his last few days of being underage." Despite being the shortest of the three, Aly as the eldest made her feel self-important, somehow - like having a month or so on her two best mates made her suddenly the world's most experienced seventeen-year-old. Plus, it was fun to make fun of them for being young. Can't forget that, despite everything they had been through, they were still teenagers. Young and reckless and wild and stupid, despite the House.

Aly groaned, however, at Peri's mention of post-grad. "Oh, Per, we're still over a year out from that. Can't we just forget about it for now? Adulthood doesn't mean we have to have everything figured out, you know." She flopped back on her back for a moment, staring at the stars. "You can have fun at the Auror Academy. Say hullo to my mum. But I won't be going anywhere near that." A wry, sardonic laugh escaped her glossed lips. "I dunno what I want to do, but one thing is for sure: I'll be getting as far away from all that as possible. Maybe move overseas, play Quidditch or write for a paper or... something. Something interesting. Where it's different every day. If you two ever catch me doing paperwork in an office, feel free to hex me."

Once the conversation about adulthood had finished - whether petered out or interrupted by something else - Aly dug into her bag, impatient as ever to get to the good part of things, the reason they were all gathered here. "But enough about that! It's time to celebrate." From the depths of the satchel, she produced a small jewelry box, hinged on one side and wrapped in midnight blue paper that glittered with the same stars as were reflected in the night sky above them, but without the clouds peppering the atmosphere. The box was dutifully handed over to the birthday girl, a proud smile decorating Aly's freckled face. "Here, Dee. A very happy seventeenth birthday to you - as per tradition."

If you stared up at the sky for long enough without moving, Dee thought, you could almost start to feel the universe moving around you. You became aware that you were really only stuck to the surface of this giant space rock by gravity - and if it somehow lapsed, you would begin to fall into infinity, and never stop. (Was this the beginning of her quarter-life crisis?)

Dee blinked out of her trance when a face appeared above her, blocking out her view of the night sky, framed by an unmistakeable mass of curls. She squinted. "The stars are so bright and beautiful tonight," she proclaimed theatrically. "And have become even more so in the past five seconds. Turn down the glow a bit, dear star, before you blind me." Reaching up with one hand, she tugged on one of the curls dangling above her, and grinned at her best mate, one of her very favourite people in the whole wide world, wizarding or not. "Also, not yet. I still have..." She glanced past Aly as if the position of the stars would tell her anything about the time. "At least seventeen minutes until I must bear the burdens of adulthood."

She didn't move much otherwise, but she didn't have to - Aly being Aly and their friendship being what it was, her friend just sat down beside her, leaving Dee to once again admire the starry view above. "Being born in June has its perks," she agreed pleasantly, then finally sat up, her eyes bright. "Very much enjoying it, yes." She gestured towards the bottle with its suspicious bright red content. "This is going to lose so much of its appeal once it's not illegal anymore. And don't start with that." She pointed at her best friend, the gesture mock-threatening and contrasting the smile on her face. "My birthday starts at midnight. But feel free to congratulate me again at 7:20 if you insist."

They were interrupted from their bickering - an argument they had approximately twice every year, once for Aly's birthday and once for Dee's - when Pericles swooped in, snatching a little snack before he turned back into his gangly boy-shape, feathers melting into skin. She acknowledged his appreciation with a small grin and two-finger salute, before giving Aly a contemplative look. "I think you'd be able to fly," she mused. "It just makes sense, right, Peri?" Not a bird of prey, though, she couldn't see that. Scooting over a bit, Dee made space for Peri to join them on the blanket if he chose to. "If you also learn how to turn into an animal, I might have to as well, though... I'll feel left out, all of you going off without me." But then, they still might. Dee didn't think she'd grow wings, if it came to it.

"Still not seventeen quite yet," she pointed out, and snatched a chocoball from her tiny buffet. "So Aly is the only one with the wisdom and wrinkles of adulthood." It had to be fast approaching, though, and Dee sneaked a glance at the old and battered watch at her wrist. She'd had it for years, and it had done its job well - but her parents had been smart enough not to give their adventurous twelve-year-old daughter a watch that was too valuable. Maybe she should look for a replacement, soon. "For the next eleven minutes, at least."

Truthfully, she didn't feel ready to face the seriousness of adulthood, and she shivered, just a little, when Peri brought up the time after Hogwarts. When they'd graduated and gone their own ways - it would be so odd. And Dee didn't know yet - couldn't decide. Alexandra's potion business was waiting in Whitehaven. The Auror academy had its pull. Her grades would open most doors to her. But there was so much of the world she hadn't seen yet...

She looked up sharply at the mention of Peri's father, and their differing opinions about his future, shifting her body to more fully face her friend. "Agreement?" she questioned, eyebrows rising. "That sounds like compromise." Which wasn't what she wanted for Peri. He deserved his freedom. The same freedom that Aly craved, apparently, and Dee snorted at her best mate, but had to say she agreed: She didn't want to worry about the future, not at the moment. She'd figure it out. She would. "Just gonna leave us, then?" she teased Aly, as if she hadn't thought the same thing just a moment ago. "No one would ever dare lock you up in an office," she promised. "And if they try, we'll come and break you out."

Maybe it was the topic that induced thoughtfulness, or the night view or just the date; but Dee blinked, pulled from her thoughts when Aly handed her a box, wrapped in paper like the sky. "Time..." she repeated, accepting the box automatically, and glanced at her wrist again. She'd missed the moment it had ticked over but it was indeed the tenth of June now. A minute past, even, although whether her watch was that accurate was up for debate. "I guess it is?"

The smile she gave Aly conveyed so much that her words couldn't, but Dee trusted that she didn't have to. You didn't spend years together living through all they had, the good, the bad, and the boring, nightmares and dreamlike moments, without developing an understanding that went deeper than words.

She tore into the paper unceremoniously, revealing a jewellery box, and, with a confused glance - Dee was not much of a jewelry person, after all - flicked it open. "Oh," she breathed, delayed, surprised, with a sudden lump in her throat. Her eyes flickered from the bronze watch in the box to the silver one on Aly's wrist. Stars moved across the face of both pieces. "That's... your family's?" she asked, her voice quiet. Biting her lip, she undid the clasp of her old watch with quick fingers, and replaced it with the one Aly had gifted her. There was a shine to her eyes that looked suspiciously wet when she pulled her best friend into a tight hug. "Thank you."

@Aly Salinger | @Pericles Dralt

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	Aly hoped for wings, and when Dee roped him into reassuring her, Pear promptly agreed with a resolute "Right." He didn't see Aly as a creature bound to the ground, be it in animal form or otherwise. Offices weren't her natural habitat either. To talk of breaking her free, he only nodded, though the serious look on his freckled face was a testimony to the truth behind it. Pericles was happy to dream, yet as in most things, he balanced it with the weight of reality. A faux pout met Aly's groan, her protest to talk of the future bringing out a deflective shrug. The same look was aimed at Dee while he quietly insisted, "No one's going off without anyone." He spoke the words as though to shape reality around them. Pericles wanted to believe that moments like this, in which they were all together in a position of peace and harmony, were in their collective futures. So certain was he in his own machinations that Dee's remark earned a sly smile. "Can it be called compromise when I have the winning end of the deal? All he asked is that I lead a few flights for our company. More a show of familial allegiance than work, really." A few odd jobs and he would otherwise be free to his own devices- a career path earned as opposed to inherited, a home he could call his own, a legacy of his design rather than a continuation of Dralts who came before. Pear lounged out along the blanket with the contentedness of a well-fed cat. In instances such as this, with the company of friends emboldening him and an endless sky overhead, the possibilities seemed boundless. His gift wasn't as intimate as the heirloom Aly imparted, nor the feather earrings Madhup had hand-carved, and he presented them with some resignation. A black bag with silvery gift paper contained rat tonic for Ninkilim, and a cutting from his own venomous tentacula. The sprout wriggled and slapped its juvenile, thornless vines against the inside of its jar. At the bottom was a corked vial housing the chrysalis of a Death's-head Hawk Moth, "in case you do decide to join us." No pressure, no ma'am.
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| @Aly Salinger | @Dealla Prince |

Aly made a mental note to wake up early in the morning - not completely impossible for the chronic oversleeper, but certainly a challenge worth undertaking to wish her best friend a real happy birthday at her exact birth time. "Why'd you have to be born so early?" she teased with a grin and a playful groan, throwing her head back in a mock fit. "Pick a more normal time next time. One I won't have to wake up early for." She ignored the fact that her sentence didn't really make sense; it was late enough in the night for her to not need to exactly be sensible in all facets.

Her mates reassured her that, if she did become an Animagus, she would almost certainly have the ability to fly, and that made Aly feel a bit more relieved. "Thanks, you guys. You two always know how to make a gal feel better." Of course, the seventeen-year-old wasn't one hundred percent settled on undergoing the process, but the more she talked of it, the more excited she became about the possibility. Peri mentioning a few corporate flights for his father's company pulled an eyebrow quirk from the curly-haired sixth-year. "Again, I suggest we swap places: you with my mum as an Auror and I'll do some stuff with your da. Surely he can't be that bad." As the two would find out this summer, and then later in their seventh year, Aly was only half-joking.

But enough about that; it was gift-giving time, and the watery sheen to Dee's eyes when she threw herself into a hug told Aly all she needed to know about if her best mate enjoyed the present. "Hey, now - watch yourself," she joked as she wrapped her arms around Dee, holding her for a minute before letting go after a quick, tight squeeze. Scooting an inch closer, Aly held out her left wrist to showcase the silver timepiece on her wrist and its similarities to the bronze one in the box. "This one was my dad's, and the bronze was his best mate's, who just sent me these for my birthday last month. Those hands are for hour and minute, of course-" her right hand pointing to the details in question- "and that one there, the broom-shaped one, is for altitude. And these little circles here and here represent the current moon phase and astrological chart." She offered Dee an excited grin. "After all, every witch coming of age should have a proper watch. Or at least that's what they say."

Then Aly threw a smirk at Peri. "Maybe we can make you a gold one to match. There were only two in the set, but I'm sure there's a decent horologist somewhere in Hogsmeade that would be able to recreate it."

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♫ the kind of radiance you only have at seventeen ♫
@Dealla Prince, @Pericles Dralt
Happy to end the thread whenever!

"PM, Aly," Dee pointed out with a fond smile. It was a necessary correction - her best mate would absolutely wake both of them up for misguided congratulations in the early morning otherwise. "You're safe, and so is my sleep."

Thinking about parting ways with her best friends always tasted more bitter than sweet, and it had started to seem all too real lately. A year, that was all they had left; Dee didn't feel ready. But it made her feel better that Peri had figured things out with his dad, and Aly would surely find her way, too. Something that suited her. Something that left her free to spread her wings, whether metaphorical or literal. (Dee still felt lost.) But she pulled Peri into a spontaneous but tight hug at his reassurance, blinking a few tears away before she let him go a moment later.

The tears returned anyway when she opened Aly's priceless gift, but she was laughing at the same time at her curly-haired friend's antics. She knew for a fact that her grandparents had also sent her a watch, even if she hadn't unwrapped it yet, but this... this was so much better. Peri's presents, if more understated, weren't any less thoughtful than Aly's; the nod to her passions, and the subtle invitation of the moth. With a soft exhale, she shuffled until she could wrap an arm about both of them. A Ravenclaw huddle for her birthday. "Thank you," she whispered when she had them close enough. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

Thread end!