To Listen is to Learn
꒰ᐢ. .ᐢ꒱ ☾☼☽ +:｡.｡ ༺❀༻ ｡.｡:+☾☼☽ ꒰ᐢ. .ᐢ꒱
Mentions: @Persephone Grimsbane WC: 335 xxx Hex code: #0050b4 OOC note: Following this: C'mon, It'll Be Fun!
Sorry this took so long, I was swamped with work this whole week.꒰ᐢ. .ᐢ꒱ ☾☼☽ +:｡.｡ ༺❀༻ ｡.｡:+☾☼☽ ꒰ᐢ. .ᐢ꒱
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧x
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Skylar walks next to Poppy as they make their way to the Great Hall. She is more exhausted than she had expected, her stomach growling from hunger. Today was one emotional rollercoaster that Skylar hopes to never ride again. It would probably benefit her as well if she stopped talking so much. She thinks Poppy may have had enough of her voice for one day.
Finding an open space at the Gryffindor Table, Skylar and Poppy settle themselves in and began grabbing dinner. A weird silence falls over them, one that Skylar is unfamiliar with. She is so accustomed to being surrounded by noise that the quiet does not feel right with her. She feels the need to say something, anything. However, her tired mind struggles to come up with a conversation topic. Hah! Skylar Blue, the awkwardly social extrovert, struggling to start a conversation? Skylar ignores the inner turmoil going through her head as she stuffs herself with food. Food first, thinking later.
The meal continues with Skylar and Poppy eating next to one another, a few comments here and there. Though unfamiliar, the silence was... nice. Skylar feels herself become less exhausted, re-energized by dinner and quiet company. She does not feel the need to exert herself and maintain a conversation anymore. Her desire to speak is now more natural, coming from a place of curiosity and not from a place of need. Perhaps it also helps that she is no longer trying to read into Poppy's soul like a seer. The metamorphmagus's hair has stopped turning white, so Skylar takes it as a sign of improvement.
Feeling that a chat may be acceptable, Skylar turns to Persephone and breaks the comfortable silence. "What do you usually do after dinner? I sometimes just go back to the common room and read or draw." It was a simple question, one that is not overly intrusive. Besides, Skylar has talked so much about herself that she thinks that it is time to hear another voice.
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sta • 5 | eva • 6 | str • 4 wis • 7 | arc • 7 | acc • 6 |
Shop | ENCYCLOPEDIA | Gallery I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. |
Prodigal Flying Learner| Y2 | Y3 Y4 | Y5 | Y6 | Y7 |
To Listen is to Learn
The day felt like it had been twice as long.
Do you ever feel like a misfit?
✪ Everything inside you is dark and twisted ✪
Logically, Poppy knew it couldn't have been possible – that there were only ever 24 hours in any day, no matter how much anyone willed it otherwise – but it did little to alleviate the fatigue that saturated her muscles or the fog that had moved in to cloud most of her brain. The girl's in the library had only been a small part, yet they'd been a catalyst for something even more demanding of her.
Skylar, while well-meaning, had been a whole force onto herself. Between her rapid fire questioning, her deep and concerning takes on her personal life and the impromptu training she'd tried to spring, Poppy had returned to her dorm in the late afternoon exhausted.
With all the work she'd still had left, the girl hadn't been able to steal a small nap, which only made the deal feel even longer than it already did. Suffice it to say that by the time dinner rolled around, Poppy was relieved to be seeing the tail end of it all. Curfew would come soon enough and she would crawl into her bed. Until then, she'd agreed to dinner with her housemate and the pair walked together to the Great Hall.
Truth be told, Persephone didn't mind the many silences that sat between them. The girl who typically tried to fill them, for the sake of alleviating some of her own anxiety relished the lower stimulation of the interaction, offering her thoughts on the few occasions a comment was passed.
It came natural. While she was used to having meals with others, she was often the one on the outside looking in. On many a night, Poppy simply sat and listened to others discussing the trifles of their life. Sometimes, she imagined herself in the situations described and pondered how differently she may have reacted.
"What do you usually do after dinner? I sometimes just go back to the common room and read or draw."
Her?
Poppy took a long sip of her pumpkin juice, both to wash down whatever remained in her mouth (it was bad manners talking with a mouthful) and to give herself some time to consider her answer. It wasn't that the girl didn't know the answer per se, but rather the inevitable mind erasure that always came the moment someone asked her something about herself. For a girl so unused to having attention placed on her, it was always enough to fry her insides a little.
"I...I guess I like sitting in the common room and...and listening to the others talk about their day." It was always so interesting hearing how everyone else spent the same time that she did. "S—Some of us are having grand adventures, I—I think."
Or were they only impressive to the farm girl who was easily dazzled? Sometimes it was hard to tell. "Some—sometimes, I get caught in whatever they've got planned. I—I don't know how, honestly. But—but anyway, you like to draw? What sorts of things do you draw?"
Encyclopaedia ✿ Metamorphmagus ✿ If the sun shines, that's reason enough.
To Listen is to Learn
꒰ᐢ. .ᐢ꒱ ☾☼☽ +:｡.｡ ༺❀༻ ｡.｡:+☾☼☽ ꒰ᐢ. .ᐢ꒱
Mentions: @Persephone Grimsbane WC: 240 xxx Hex code: #0050b4 OOC note: Finally done with track season! My replies should be faster now ꒰ᐢ. .ᐢ꒱ ☾☼☽ +:｡.｡ ༺❀༻ ｡.｡:+☾☼☽ ꒰ᐢ. .ᐢ꒱
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧x
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Skylar listens thoughtfully as Poppy answers her question. She notices the girl stutters quite a bit, but makes no comment on it. It can be due to a multitude of reasons, but Skylar has already learned to stop assuming things. So she just listens as Poppy continues, perking up when she was asked a question.
"... But—but anyway, you like to draw? What sorts of things do you draw?"
"Well, I tend to draw more landscape and architectural drawings. I like capturing the atmosphere and the feel of things, you know? I tired drawing portraits before, but my attempts at human anatomy is not quite... right." Skylar grimaces as she recalls her past renditions of anything humanoid. When she was seven, she had drew a family portrait and showed it to a friend of hers. The girl ended up crying and refusing to speak to Skylar again. Looking back on it, Skylar does not blame her either. It was pretty horrendous.
Snapping out of her memory, Skylar turned and smiled at Poppy again. "No matter though! I have been studying more about proportions and realism, so hopefully my portraits will no longer look like crawled on Earth."
"If you want, I can show you some of my art pieces when we go back to the dorms. Just the scenery and building ones though, I do not want to traumatize you yet with my portraits." She offers with a good-natured laugh.
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sta • 5 | eva • 6 | str • 4 wis • 7 | arc • 7 | acc • 6 |
Shop | ENCYCLOPEDIA | Gallery I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. |
Prodigal Flying Learner| Y2 | Y3 Y4 | Y5 | Y6 | Y7 |
To Listen is to Learn
It sounded like the two had more in common than Poppy had first given the pairing credit for. While the girl didn't draw and held no illusions about any sort of proficiency with pencils and charcoal, she also liked to appreciate the natural scenery and the structures around her. Many of the pictures in her camera were of fiery sunsets by the lake, dramatic contrasts found around the castle and angles she may not have noticed in her day-to-day.
Do you ever feel like a misfit?
✪ Everything inside you is dark and twisted ✪
Needing no particular skill to capture people, Poppy wasn't nearly as limited as her housemate in that regard. On the contrary, the little girl loved capturing a natural smile or a warm moment, etching it into eternity with her lens.
"Well, do...do you like drawing them? Even if you aren't very good at them yet? Dad – my dad – he always says that...that if you like something enough, the only thing that should matter is...is how hard you work at it."
Her cheeks pinkened as her gaze fell to the camera slung around her neck.
"My pictures, they weren't very good for a long time. Sometimes, I'd snap pieces of my own thumbs, or...or they'd be out of focus and – never mind." Skylar hadn't asked for an introduction to her amateur snapshots or a guideline to her progression. "I just mean...I guess...if it's something you like enough...maybe you just need to....to....I don't know, borrow some friends and practise – not – not that I think you need practice. I'm sure you're just being modest, and your work's really amazing. I just..."
Maybe she would just...drop that, too.
The point wasn't to suddenly become Skylar's motivational coach. She never asked for that. They were just having dinner and figuring out less extreme avenues to friendship.
The other girl had given the perfect one with her simple offer.
"We can have a look at them after dinner, yeah. I—I'd love to see them – even the portraits if you don't mind." She'd made it clear she thought they were bad but it hadn't put her off like Skylar may have hoped. She was...curious.
Encyclopaedia ✿ Metamorphmagus ✿ If the sun shines, that's reason enough.
To Listen is to Learn
꒰ᐢ. .ᐢ꒱ ☾☼☽ +:｡.｡ ༺❀༻ ｡.｡:+☾☼☽ ꒰ᐢ. .ᐢ꒱
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧x
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"We can have a look at them after dinner, yeah. I—I'd love to see them – even the portraits if you don't mind."
"Well, don't say I did not warn you." Skylar says playfully as she shrugs. Looks like she is going to have to dig out her portraits from the bottom of her trunk after all. She was hoping those pieces will never have to see the light of day again, but looks like fate has a different idea. If all else fails, Skylar can donate them to a haunted house or something.
However, another thing that interests Skylar is the curious little mechanism hanging around Poppy's neck. Poppy had mentioned "snapping" pictures, so perhaps it was a capturing device of some sort? Skylar knows little about muggle technology, courtesy of being a wizard-born. She has seen something similar to the device in an antique store before. What was it... a camera? However, the contraption Skylar had saw differs greatly from the device hanging around Poppy's neck. It had the same basic structure with the big lens on the front, but the style of the antique camera was very... old. Like it definitely belonged in the antique store.
"Say, just out of curiosity, what is that device around your neck? And what do you mean by 'snapping pictures'? Sorry, I just never seen anything quite like it before..."
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sta • 5 | eva • 6 | str • 4 wis • 7 | arc • 7 | acc • 6 |
Shop | ENCYCLOPEDIA | Gallery I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. |
Prodigal Flying Learner| Y2 | Y3 Y4 | Y5 | Y6 | Y7 |
To Listen is to Learn
"Well, don't say I did not warn you."
Do you ever feel like a misfit?
✪ Everything inside you is dark and twisted ✪
Poppy smiled, despite the seriousness she tried to ascribe to the situation. Passions could sometimes be a delicate thing and while...she wasn't sure...there was much that could be considered 'delicate' where her classmate was concerned, it was easy to mistake a smile for jest or mockery. Neither was the case, of course. Rather, it was the continued dramatics that amused her.
She'd never seen Skylar's portraits. There was every chance they could've been as bad as the girl had suggested – worse, probably – but even then, Poppy didn't think they could be as intolerable as Skylar proclaimed.
That was the beauty about art. Even the most unconventional and sometimes...confusing designs could be considered beautiful by someone else. Granted, Poppy might not be that someone else and there was every chance she'd have to work hard not to hurt Skylar's feelings once she was shown her drawings, but there was someone.
The first year hid her smile behind her goblet, taking a sip to settle the curvature of her lips. When it felt safe to do so, she lowered it back onto the table.
Poppy was about to have another forkful of her mashed potatoes when Skylar drew her attention to her camera. It hung around her neck as it typically did, becoming such a part of her daily routine that she often forgot it was there until it was time to use it. The only time it couldn't be found so prominently displayed was during lessons. That was both a function of the girl being certain they weren't allowed and...frankly...with all the amateur magic running around...it was probably much safer tucked into her book bag until the day's lessons were done.
"T–This?" she asked, lifting it between them for Skylar to have a better look.
"It's...it's my father's old camera – well, I suppose it's mine now. H–He gave it to me a few years ago, actually," she continued, her voice softening as she ran her thumbs lightly along the edges. It had quickly become her greatest treasure, an unexpected act of kindness when she'd least been expecting it.
"It d–didn't work when I first got here. Fried right through, I think. Mr Bernard – he's...he's a really nice man from the ministry who came to talk with my parents last summer about...I...I guess...all this." Poppy gestured around the Great Hall as if it might be enough to explain it all. "He–he did something to it during one of his visits, and now it works – and the pictures move if I develop them right. It's..." her cheeks flushed with colour, her embarrassment rising at her sudden enthusiasm. Poppy's shoulders caved inward as she tried to force herself to calm down.
"It's...kind of brilliant, honestly."
Encyclopaedia ✿ Metamorphmagus ✿ If the sun shines, that's reason enough.
To Listen is to Learn
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Mentions - @Persephone Grimsbane |
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OOC Note - Sorry for the wait! I had finals, but I got an internship! Also we might move this RP to the common room soon? sta • 5 | eva • 6 | str • 4 | wis • 7 | arc • 7 | acc • 6 Prodigal Flying Learner |
Inventory Reducio Wand Sketchbook Journal Snacks For emergencies: (Antidote to Common Poisons Antidote to Uncommon Poisons Bruise Removal Paste Burn Healing Paste Band-Aids) |
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sta • 5 | eva • 6 | str • 4 wis • 7 | arc • 7 | acc • 6 |
Shop | ENCYCLOPEDIA | Gallery I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. |
Prodigal Flying Learner| Y2 | Y3 Y4 | Y5 | Y6 | Y7 |