the tear-stained mournings
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────────────── xxx THE TEAR-STAINED MOURNINGS xxx ──────────────── |
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| x | mentions ; @Cirrus Mooney | 𝓪𝓵𝓵 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓵𝓲𝓽𝓽𝓵𝓮 𝓯𝓻𝓪𝓰𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓽𝓼 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓼𝓹𝓵𝓲𝓷𝓽𝓮𝓻𝓼 𝓸𝓯 𝓱𝓸𝓹𝓮 𝓫𝓾𝓻𝓼𝓽 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓭𝓲𝓼𝓪𝓹𝓹𝓮𝓪𝓻𝓮𝓭. |
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XXXXX𝕿ears.
Brookline doesn’t quite favor the word yet you can see it running down her face more often than not. So perhaps that was a fib. You can never know with poor Brookline Isabella Quinn. Hides her face, words, actions under a wall of isolation. Heart barricaded and locked away tenfold. And just maybe, you can find those unrelenting dark circles tucked away under the thick concealment of pale powder that hints at the lack of sleep.
You couldn’t blame it on her. Blame fatigue, stress, depression, anger, and anxiety. And you could also blame that fox-hearted father of hers. He’s the one who started all this. He’s the one who also started up all those horrific nightmares of her again. Brookline took so much time to get more than a shrivel better and here Chase Quinn goes. Messes it all up again by forcing the little girl to stay with him during the Easter holidays. Just him and that random lady every once in a while. She could remember that first night clear as a bell. It wasn’t pretty either. All Brookline hoped was that Chase wouldn’t collect her for the summer either. She stubbornly crossed her arms just at the terrible thought of that; she wasn’t a damn baby doll.
She wasn’t Brookline either. At least, not anymore. Just an imposter with Brookline’s face and name. She wasn’t that lovable, crazy girl anymore. She was a broken girl who was forced to find peace with a weapon in her dangerous hands. She was a victim of crude nightmares and anxiety and anger. Fire had burned her hands and mind, she couldn’t think or speak straight. She couldn’t find her way back to the light, and no matter how hard she tried, Brookline kept falling down. Face first in the dusty soil, and she could still feel the sting of the muddy hand print on her back. One word came to her mind. Betrayal.
The slight breeze ruffled with her tangled locks, and she shivered. Not because it was cold (which it definitely wasn’t - it was spring, for crying out!), but because Brookline never felt quite safe. She kept looking behind her shoulder, looking for the dreaded shape that would be her downfall. Even before Easter, the Welsh girl was so scared that her father would come to Hogwarts’ door and demand for his daughter back. At Christmas, the poor girl had ran into Chase when she was at Hogsmeade. Now, every so often when she saw a tall man, she tensed up, trembles shooting perilously down her spine. Nightmares plagued her vision, and they weren’t also in the dead of the night. To say the least, Brookline was more than terrified.
As she sat by the sandy shore of the Great Lake, Brookline pondered on how such a kind Hufflepuff could turn into such a horrible man. Was it the alcohol? She was sure her mother most likely asked this every single day she woke up. Perhaps it was actually her, like she had thought. Even though the man had sworn up and down that it wasn’t her, it had to be. It had to be. It had to be. It had to be.
Echo, echo, echo. The repeat, the resounding, the ringing was too much for her. Hands reached to her ears, hoping to block the toxic words from her brain. Was she on the path destined to destruction? Would she turn to drugs to stay sane? Would Brookline follow in her father’s footsteps? Like they say, like father, like daughter. Monkey see, monkey do. Was she the monkey in the metaphor, repeating all the actions her father once did?
Is this what started for him? For his whole horrible path? Is it too late to change? Is this going to plague me for the rest of my life?
Although if this had started for Chase Quinn, who was the adult or older friend that was so kind at first, then turned to mean and nasty? Was it his own father? Yet, Brookline knew her paternal grandparents were nice and happy in their success and wealth and children (or most of them). Did they knew about their son’s change? What happened? Did Brookline’s grandparents ever step in to help him or left him to make up a shelter for himself?
What happened? And what will happen to me?
Questions by the millions Brookline could of asked out loud. Maybe she ought to stay at her grandparents the next holidays. Get some answers. Perhaps finally piece together the confusing puzzle. She just didn’t understand. Her family is falling apart by the seams and none of her grandparents were stepping in to sew them back together. Amy Quinn’s parents were always so supportive, why weren’t they supportive now in the darkest challenge?
The lake was calming. Gentle laps against the shore while Brookline thought and thought. What she knew now is before her father would have a chance to snatch her for the summer, she would pen a letter to her grandparents and see if she could stay with them for a duration of the summer. She hasn’t seen them in a while so they would probably love to have the young girl.
Brookline just profoundly wanted her family to be the way it was before. Hopefully she would get some answers. What she didn’t know is that she would get a few answers today. Answers to the most complexed and terrible questions were almost always a blessing, and Brookline was looking forward to the light. Even though it was warm and bright with a watery, early spring sun, it had felt like Brookline had been sitting in a dark rainstorm and the clouds had been allowed to separate a bit, letting a stream of sunshine in. Bringing hope to her dreadful life. Bringing kindness. Bringing even a little silver of light. This time she was upright and there wasn’t the faint sting of a handprint on her back.
Brookline carefully pushed her boots off and ripped her socks off. She set aside, ready to wade in the lake. You weren’t really supposed to go in the water, but she figured wading in the shallow bits was all right. As long as no student nor teacher came to snoop around, Brookline should be fine. And, anyways, it wasn’t like she would go swimming. She learned that lesson way back in darn first year. The water would be cold and she wasn’t ready to try that again.
Even though the third year was wading, chilly water lightly kissing her ankles, Brookline still felt like a moody cloud, ready to rain on anyone’s parade. She wished she could turn that off, like a simple press of a button or switch, but as she thought that, instantly, the clouds covered up the sun again, and she felt cold. Wow, great job. Hope shattered as a single tear slowly tracked down her face.
Great. All that powder’s coming off now.
Brookline stepped out of the water, and felt itchy grains of sand creep between her exposed toes. Shit. She shouldn’t even gotten in the water, anyways. She could have slipped on a rock or tripped on something in the dark water, and she didn’t want a sore ankle or wrist before a race. Brookline sighed, and grabbed the compact mirror out of her pocket. After classes ended mid-afternoon, the young Quinn didn’t feel like bringing her whole Enchanted Satchel so she grabbed the bare necessities she might have needed for a little trip to the lake. Hopefully it didn’t look like she had been crying. If someone was out on a stroll, and they knew the Welsh Ravenclaw, Brookline might just die right there. She had to stay strong. Nobody must know about her struggles.
Because, right there and now, Brookline knew she was alone, and she had to get up herself. Today was that day. She had to be there for herself.
Sometimes the young Quinn wished she really loved the ones who stayed. Yet, of course, when her own father betraying her trust and causing her to mourn, Brookline has to walk on egg shells around everyone. That’s when it hit her. She can’t trust anyone. Everybody was going to turn their backs on her, she thought. Couldn’t trust people with her struggles or her wounds. Couldn’t trust people to keep a secret. Not even with her heart.
[ coded by elena clark ]
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occ notes:
gorgeous banner is created by alyessa/vera!
the tear-stained mournings
WC: 1413 | Mentioning: @Brookline Quinn | OOC Notes: XXX | Outfit: XXX
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A melody had been stuck in Cirrus' head since breakfast. Not a real one, at least, not yet. Just a handful of notes she couldn't put into a bar before it escaped her, only just out of reach, passing through her fingers when she thought she finally caught it. She often couldn't retain the tunes that came to her in her dreams without writing them down somewhere, at least then they could be abandoned instead of forgotten. It somehow felt more dignified that way.
But this tune followed her through her classes, a sort of itch in the deepest caverns of her ears that she couldn't scratch no matter how much she scribbled the chords over the pages of her Charms homework. Every time she thought she solved the puzzle, it decided to scramble itself once more. It was incredibly frustrating. And when she got frustrated, she sought nature's comfort, the quiet presence of the Lake outside the castle. Cirrus appreciated the sacred silence when everywhere else felt too loud to a similar degree of which someone who was lost in the desert would appreciate water. Especially when she ceased to resonate with the one thing she often found purpose in.
Music was supposed to make sense to her. People are what she didn't understand. When music started behaving like people - saying one thing but meaning another as though she was the only one not privy to important plans - the sustenance of her imagination ceased, refusing to even stir her curiosity, and she was seized by her rampant thoughts.
Cirrus' mind took her to places she'd been before, trying to find where that tune could have originated from. It reminded her vaguely of home. Not her house, specifically, but the harbour that was within walking distance from where she lived. She remembers sitting by the dark rocks with her notebook, soothed by the faint crash of waves as she tried to write down thoughts that seemed important at the time. Most of them weren't and the rest were lost to faulty memory by the sound of her brother's giggles as he mindlessly chased the birds around. Cirrus gravely missed it. She missed her brothers, her mother, not so much her father. Not painfully, but quietly, just enough to know that something is missing. Like the lingering ache after removing a ring that's been worn for years.
Cirrus wondered if Eli had learned any new words since she last saw him, or if he remembered who she was to begin with... she wondered if Ezran had finally gotten the hang of the chord progression she tried to teach him before she left for Hogwarts. A smile tugged at the corner of her lips as she walked her regular path to the Lake - he likely hadn't - although her smile died quickly. She wasn't particularly lonely, or perhaps she was, she could never really decide. She always wanted space from her family, sometimes finding such enjoyment in solitude that she never wanted to be around people again, so much so that she didn't understand why people feared it. Other times, however, she felt as though she was standing behind a glass pane rather than coexisting with the other people in the room. Not unhappy. Just separate. But maybe she preferred to wander about the grounds detached from life and tethered to the wind instead.
The familiar shoreline of the Lake came into view with an unfamiliar figure in the space she normally occupies. Cirrus slows slightly and the details begin to emerge. Partly disheveled hair, bare feet, an unfamiliar face. She stopped walking, halting where the green met the sand. The cadence of human expression was often lost on her, but even she could see that something was wrong with the other girl. The stranger was too still in this moment, the kind of stillness that wasn't calm at all, but held together by tape and effort, yet still unable to contain the tears. And most people don't cry because they're overjoyed, or... maybe some people did, Cirrus wasn't entirely sure and didn't bother with attempting to navigate such social nonsense.
Although, her first instinct wasn't to leave before she was discovered, and that thought surprised her less than it should have. But she didn't interrupt immediately as she had learned - not from people, but watching other fragile things shatter under pressure - that sudden movements were often what made cracks spread. And fear spreads faster than death.
So, Cirrus waited, watching how the girl stepped in and out of the water as if testing whether it would suddenly disappear beneath her, seemingly distrusting of what her own eyes told her. Cirrus knows that feeling. The roots of paranoia within the gaping hollow of crippling cynicism. She watched how the lake lapped at the girl's ankles, indifferent, distorting her reflection with every ripple. She stepped out again and Cirrus saw the mirror unveil itself, a quick and practiced gesture of trying to fix something that couldn't be fixed with any amount of effort nor powder. She didn't look away but she wasn't staring, it was a careful kind of observation - similar to when she'd see damaged pages of books and tried to understand what happened to them without touching it.
A gust of wind glided across the shore, tousling the girl's hair even more. Cirrus noticed the tension in her posture, even from here, as though expecting impact from something as gentle as the breeze. Cirrus frowned.
"You're going to get sand in your socks." She stated. Her voice was quiet, as always, but more casual. Not because she didn't understand the weight of what she bore witness to, but because she didn't know how to directly hold something so heavy that wasn't hers. It felt safter to start small, genuine, and not like she was scrutinising someone's pain.
Cirrus stepped forward, slowly, hoping the girl didn't mind but also offering the opportunity for her to tell her to be gone. She was close enough to make her presence feel undeniable but not close enough to feel intrusive. Her eyes raked over the other, but they didn't linger, knowing people felt often trapped when looked at for too long. The sounds of the water and wind filled the silence between them.
"You don't have to stop, if you don't want to." She added after a moment. "If you want to stand there, or sit, or... think. That's fine. I'm not here to tell you what to do."
After another moment, Cirrus shifted her weight and lowered herself on the ground, not too close, leaving a deliberate space between them. She pulled her knees up to her chest, arms resting loosely around them, gaze focusing on the water rather than the other girl, whom she thought might take some comfort in not being the subject of attention. The Lake continued to do what it always did, moving without urgency, reflections of the sky fragmenting beautifully across its surface. It wasn't like people, it never pretended to be anything other than a Lake, it didn't require interpretation beyond what could already be seen. She hoped it calmed the other girl as much as it did her. And that melody from earlier resurfaced in her mind over the gentle currents of water. She snuffed it out and, eventually, spoke once more.
"I do, however, come here when everything gets too loud." Cirrus murmured. "It doesn't really fix anything, just... makes it seem less intense once in a while. You looked like it was too loud for you as well."
Her gaze flicked to the other girl for a moment, not in the way that one would treat a scared baby deer, like she was delicate. That was insulting. It was just in quiet observation, trying to offer some sort of calm in whatever whirlwind was going on for her. Cirrus' gaze returned to the water.
"You don't have to tell me anything. I just... don't think you should be alone right now."
Cirrus didn't elaborate, didn't overflow the space with assumptions nor questions, didn't offer hollow reassurances that most people threw around because it was conventionally the appropriate thing to do. In her own way, she was the silence that could either be pressure or shelter depending on how it was received. So, she would stay there for as long as the other girl would let her, not looking away from the Lake.
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iNPC: Kullervo Ikonen