Weeping with a Willow PV Willow Fin

Interacting with @Anastasia Beckett

Solitary walks were a time for Willow to de-stress. While she cherished her morning walks with Flash, sometimes a girl just needed to be out in nature to think about everything and nothing. Her birthday was coming up, and she was a little stressed about that. She had decided to do a dual birthday with her friend Alan. This was about to be the first birthday she had had in her life with friends, people she loved and invited to actively celebrate her. It felt a bit selfish honestly, a whole gathering just about two people living for another year. She justified it with the idea that she had been through some things that might not have allowed her to live, so she had a right to celebrate.

At some point of waking up from her daze of thoughts she realized that her feet had taken her down to the Great Lake. It wasn't surprising that she ended up here, it was one of her favorite places to cry and scream. She felt like she could contribute to the lake with her tears, and therefore her sadness held more importance than before. It seemed like someone else had the same idea as she saw someone in the distance sitting near the water. Usually she would leave people be especially in a time of contemplation and peace until she heard... sobs? Come from the girl.

Willow slowly approached, trying not to startle her or anything, settling a decent distance away from the girl she softly spoke. "Sometimes crying here is the best because it feels like the water is crying with you, reaching out to you to comfort you." She pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her head on them, moving her head to face the other girl, smiling softly. "My name is Willow. If you want to be alone I'll leave, but if you want someone to talk to I can also be an open ear for you. Sometimes it helps to talk things out." Willow had a tendency to try and comfort those in need, especially if visibly crying. She would rather them yell at her to leave them alone, than for them to never have the option of having someone there for them at all.[/quote

Edit: Changed shared birthday party name from Ruka to Alan, names got mixed up.

Ana heard someone speaking behind her and was a little startled. She sniffled, but couldn't slow the tears, so she didn't turn to face the other girl. She listened to what she was saying though. The girl had a point. The water was nice, and certainly a better place to cry in the abandoned bathrooms, which had been her go-to place last year. She still hated crying and it was still sad, but there was some sense of peace that came with being close to the water. Eyes still wet, she met the other girl's eyes. "No, it's alright, you can stay," Ana said, her normally confident voice sounding small and tired. "I'm Ana."

As she tried to think of what to say, she was reminded of several similar instances. Different places, different people, same Ana crying over her parents. She laughed bitterly at the irony of it. Her parents practically forbid her to express any emotion, yet they were constantly the reason she was crying. As she laughed, tears continued to flow. As the laughter turned into sobs, she registered the girl's name. Willow. She'd heard of a tree called a Weeping Willow. But Willow wasn't the one weeping. Ana was. But there wasn't a tree called a Weeping Anastasia. For some reason, that made the tears come faster. 

Trying to breathe normally to stop the tears, she went back to formulating something to say. What was there to say though? 'Even though I was a prefect as a first-year, have all O's and am pretty much the perfect child, nothing I do is ever good enough,' seemed like a lot to dump on a stranger. "I-" she said, running a hand through her hair. Now that the sobs seemed to be letting up, she was reminded of another reason she hated crying. She always had difficulty breathing afterward. It was congestion or connection or some other muggle medical reason. Whatever it was, it absolutely sucked. 

"It's just my parents," she said. "God, it's always my parents. I can't do anything that's enough for them." She shook her head a little and ran her hand through her hair again. Why could nothing ever be enough for them? Sure, other Purebloods had similar issues, but she was sure they could please their parents every now and then. 

Interacting with @Anastasia Beckett

After the girl introduced herself she seemed to laugh and then start crying harder. Through this Willow stayed silent, letting her get out whatever she needed to get out before talking. It was awful to try and talk while sobbing, she had enough experience in it. It was gross and felt like you were suffocating, and so incredibly vulnerable if you didn't have enough time to really think through your thoughts. She went through it when confront Flash so long ago, unable to breathe or think. Yelling anything that came to her mind voice dripping with venom.

She let her gaze fall back to the lake, not wanting to stare while Ana was at her most vulnerable. The lake was always intensely still, small ripples only appearing when something broke the surface. Even when she spoke, Willow stayed looking at the lake. She was attempting to summon a calm and relief that she got from the lake and exude the same feeling for Ana. Even if they were a little bit aways from each other, she wanted to try her best to stay calm and collected for her. Even if she was a sympathy crier.

Parents, that was always a rough topic. Willow never really had the experience of never being enough for them. She was an only child, and really they were proud to see her just be herself and thrive under those circumstances. She knew she was lucky in that family department, having people who were supportive and loving with anything. Even if she had kept a lot of secrets from them. "Is what you're doing enough for you? Are you satisfied with where you're at?" It was hard to separate someone's personal achievements from what their parents expected. Especially at this age when all of them were just leaving home for long periods of time for the first time, having hard expectations throughout their whole life continuing here.

She only offered a few words, but she hoped they would get through to Ana.

Anastasia didn't meet the other girl's eyes, but it was somehow calming to know that she was there. As she thought, she absently drew figure eights in the dirt with her finger. God, if crying were always like this, she might not have hated it this much. She had been having a lot of ifs lately. It made her wonder about her parents. She knew that they wanted what they believed was best for her. She had always known that. It was just, she was beginning to wonder if that was what was really best for her. She knew she was stubborn and headstrong and fairly impulsive, but that didn't mean that there weren't things that she wanted.

She opened her mouth to speak at the girl's words. Then, closing it, she began to think. She had honestly never thought about that before. Everything in her life was either to please her parents or to further her goals of becoming a Quidditch player and then an Auror. She tried to think of something that she did only for her. She honestly couldn't think of anything, and she really hadn't the faintest idea of how to figure out if what she was doing was enough for her. What did that even really mean? "I beg your pardon?" she asked, still unable to figure out an answer to Willow's question.

What did being enough really mean? If something was enough for her parents, she supposed that would mean that they would be proud of her for once. Applying that same logic to herself, she tried to think of something that she was seriously proud of herself for. Chewing her lip, she realized that, while she did take pride in her accomplishments, it was never enough for her. She always had to push herself further and harder. She didn't know if that was for her parents or herself. How messed up was that? She couldn't even figure out where her parents ended and she began.

Interacting with @Anastasia Beckett

Ever since Willow had come to Hogwarts she had been struggling. Even when she had gotten the letter and even a visit from Professor Browne himself she was thrown in for a loop of her entire life flipping upside down at age eleven. Everything she knew and believed in was about to be challenged in a way she had never dealt with it before. While her parents had never pushed her in the way that Ana's parents had she suddenly felt an incredibly amount of pressure to do well to represent muggles, as well as the Anderson family in general. She was only a second generation muggle witch and wanted to carry on that legacy, but now was forced into an entire new way of life. Like Ana, she had been struggling to separate what she believed her family would want versus what Willow wanted for herself.

"I think I experience something similar, but for different reasons. I want to be enough for my family, as a muggle and now as whatever kind of witch I am. I feel like... I'm losing everything I thought I was because I don't exactly know what I want here. Whether or not I'm doing things for my family to show them that they can be proud of me, even if they aren't able to tell anyone about it. Or whether I'm doing it to explore who I am. Everything feels mixed up and swirly and confusing. Where do our parents end, and where do we begin?" She rotated to face Ana, tears of her own having started to prick up as she joined her on the shores of sadness. "What do you like to do? What are some of your favorite things in the world to do? Like no matter what mood, if you do that thing it instantly cheers you up? Where does Ana begin?" Willow knew she began with plants. While it was her family's influence that made her like plants, even being away from them she craved the greenery. It was at the very core of who she was and if she ever got lost, that's the part of her she would reach out to.

Ana looked at the other girl for the first time as she spoke. Despite the fact that, based on what Willow was saying, they were from wildly different worlds, it was comforting to know that her own problems weren't something so crazy and rare as she'd thought. Sure, Willow's situation was slightly different, but it boiled down to just about the same as Ana's. Always looking for the irony, she noted that it sounded like Willow's parents were far more affectionate than her own, and yet here the two girls were in the same depressing boat.

When Ana saw the other girl's tears, she rather wanted to laugh hysterically. Of course, Ana was messy enough and broken enough to drag down anyone who tried to comfort her. That just made sense and she could certainly see why her parents were this disappointed in her. They didn't even know about the more problematic things she had done, they just knew that Ana was some sort of whirlpool that sucked everyone around her in and dragged them down with her. She'd never thought of herself as a whirlpool before, she'd always been partial to thinking of herself as something more flattering like fire. At this moment though, whirlpool seemed pretty accurate. Despite her thoughts about whirlpools, she had to admit that having someone crying with her was nice and made Ana feel less exposed.

Willow then asked a question very close to what Ana had just been thinking. Ana had no idea, really. "I love flying and playing Quidditch," she began, biting her lip. Her mother loved Quidditch though, and even if her parents weren't overly fond of Ana's plans to play professionally, Quidditch was something that had come from her parents no matter how much Ana had made it her own. "I-I dance too, but that's always been more of my parents' thing."

As she racked her mind for something, anything that was solely hers and had nothing to do with her parents, she felt a sense of disappointment in herself. She had always thought that she was strong and made her own fate, but it was beginning to seem as though she was little more than the sum of what her parents wanted her to be, and not even a good sum at that. At that moment, she thought of something and began to laugh. It started soft and grew into a rather unladylike belly laugh. After a bit, she was able to breathe again and turned to the other girl. "I suppose Ana begins with fire."

Interacting with @Anastasia Beckett

Willow's tears had already slowed to a stop, but she let them linger on her face. Whether it was out of laziness or a kind of somber need to fester in her own sadness with Ana she didn't know. Despite the growing tear-stained cheeks, her eyes lit up with the other girl mentioned Quidditch. The spot, once absolutely terrifying and still mildly so, was now a release. An ability to leave her feelings on the ground and quite literally fly away from them. Flying was an experience all of its own, and completely Willow's own.

She watched carefully, it seemed like Ana was still thinking so her gaze returned to the water as she gave the girl time to work through her own swirly thoughts. Willow hadn't tossed her an easy question, and didn't want to rush her either. Eventually, she spoke up again, or not really spoke. But laughed. Whatever was going on in her head sure must be fun. Ana begins with fire? That wasn't at all what she was expecting. But decided to add her own quip to the humor."It's kind of funny how you begin with fire, yet here we are by the water to cry." Willow eventually joined in the laughter, small giggles erupting from her lips. She gave a few moments to let silence fall back over them. "What makes you begin with fire?" Willow was generally curious, especially to figure out if she should be worried about being around Ana in case she had a tendency to be an arsonist.

Ana chuckled at the other girl's reply. Her laughter started up again. She was definitely having a mental breakdown. A small part of her felt weird about this younger Hufflepuff witnessing it, but it was nice. She would have to cry with Willow more often. She was laughing hysterically now, her tears continuing to stream down her face. She wasn't sure if it was from her sadness or laughter. She tried to stop laughing to breath a bit, only to burst into another round of cackles. Finally, she inhaled and brushed her tears from her cheeks. Her eyes were still watery, but she wasn't sobbing anymore. "It's-" she began, before sighing and thinking a moment.

It wasn't something her parents would approve, or even allow for that matter. It was some type of rebellion. There were certainly worse kinds of rebellions. Like, arson or assaulting or murdering people. Well, she supposed that her love of fire could be construed as arson. And assault for that matter. Maybe she would keep that bit to herself, seeing as she didn't want Willow to think that she was insane. Well, she probably already did, but she didn't want Willow to think that she was completely insane.

"It's something that's beautiful and it's kind of only mine. It's not something that came from my parents or that they even really know about," Ana told the Hufflepuff. Aware how her words sounded, she decided to amend them slightly. "Good Lord, I sound like a complete and utter pyromaniac. I promise I'm not."

Interacting with @Anastasia Beckett

Even laughter misplaced and maybe with weird timing or reasons, was still laughter. Still something that helped make the weight of whatever was weighing on someone a bit easier to handle. Maybe it was from the confusion of a realization like this, that someone began with fire. Perhaps it was from the absurdity of talking about this with a stranger by the lake. Both of them crying for their own reasons.

Willow listened intently, fire was always a beautiful element to her but the Earth seemed to be an element that was preferred by her. Her dad, loved and embodied what it meant to be fire. She giggled at the mention of being a pyromaniac. "I didn't think that you were." She looked back towards the water. "In my religion back home, fire represents a lot of things. Funnily enough, its both creation and destruction. Protection, passion, inspiration, intuition. Creates mesmerizing light in the darkest of situations. It seems like a pretty good place to begin as a person, would be with fire. Don't you think? Everyone needs a little fire in their life whether they believe it or not. We all need someone that is passionate, to push us towards our goals. Or to watch them push themselves. Even if it's a goal that is set for them by their parents, they'll stop at nothing to achieve it."

Finally she stood up and walked over to her to sit beside her, feeling like the distance wasn't needed anymore. "I'm not saying you have to take all of that as fact or anything. But, sometimes it can be helpful to tie yourself to an element. Ultimately, they can help us figure out who we are." She looked at Ana, "Something about you makes me see you as one of the brightest fires out there."