The Paintings
Made by the amazing Lily Young
Location - The Great LakeJay got down to the branch safely and without problems, but not before Isla could start to worry about Jay dying. "Oh god, don't die," Isla said, whether she was teasing or not Jay couldn't tell so she just shrugged. "Like seriously, I don't want trauma," this time, Isla was definitely amused by Jay so she decided to laugh "I don't think I could die from falling down here..." she looked down and made a face "yeah no not dying but a few snapped bones is fair game" Jay looked back up and away from the ground.
She had never been afraid of heights, they had never bothered her like they bothered Sunny. Jay's mum hated heights and almost never went out onto the balcony for the sake of, quote 'her own sanity' and she hated when Jay was out there or climbed too far up a tree and couldn't get down, which happened often.
When Isla asked if Jay knew icebreakers, she laughed "yep, I went to a muggle school so icebreakers were just something everyone knew" she grinned, thinking of a good one that she had played at school with her friends or teachers had used as a bonding exercise. Spoiler alert the 'bonding exercises' never actually worked.
One came to her mind quickly and she snapped her fingers and turned to Isla "two truths and a lie?" she asked "or would you rather?" she trailed off, trying to think of more but coming up with nothing, she couldn't remember a lot of primary school even though it had only been a few years ago. "There are plenty of them" she shrugged "I just can't think of a lot of them right now" she sighed, tapping the branch repetitively while she was thinking.
Eventually giving up, Jay sighed "I really can't think of any more" she swung her feet under the branch and turned to Isla "do you know how to play two truths and a lie?" she asked, quite sure Isla knew what it was but she was still going to ask anyways. "If not, it's fine" she waved her hand "I can explain it, it's pretty easy anyways" she shrugged and began to explain the game.
"so, the main idea of the game is to figure out what statement is the truth, for example, I could say..." Jay trailed off, thinking of three easy ones to say "I have a ferret" she started "I'm a metamorphmagus" she continued without hesitation "and my hair is naturally blonde." The last one was the lie. Her hair was brown but she had bleached it at the end of last year. Even though she could just change it at will she liked the feeling of getting to bleach and dye her hair, mainly because it was nostalgic and comforting for her since she did it a lot in primary school with her mum. "and then you have to figure out which one is the lie and which two are the truth" she shrugged.
"So-" she smiled "-what's the lie?"
"If I am an angel, paint me with black wings."
The Paintings
Thoughts
Speech
French
Mention: @Jay Valkyrie
Isla listened to the girl explain the icebreaker. Two truths and a lie—it shouldn't be so hard, not when someone as observant as Isla was playing.
So, Isla listened; Jay mentioned having a ferret, being a metamorphmagus, and not being naturally blonde. She thought for a minute, and then ten looked at her. "Well, you do have a ferret; you were talking to it" she paused, "You don't look naturally blonde, 'cause of the dry ends and the roots, so that's the lie, but if you are a metamorphmagus, why dye it?" She asked.
It seemed absurd, doing something so permanent, not because she enjoyed the shifting, but because she didn't like changing; she liked being herself, with brown eyes and wavy hair. Her, not the perfect daughter, not the Gryffindor, just Isla.
"Don't get me wrong, but as a metamorphmagus I don't like the shifting; why would you do something so permanent?" she asked, then shook her head. Enough with the questions.
"So, Muggle school? How does it work?" Isla wondered. She didn't have that many friends, and most of them weren't that close, so the whole Muggle concept she knew was a thing she overheard from her parents when they talked about her aunt's husband.
She looked down at her hands, noticing how they were dirty with the tree bark and moss from the humidity, and chuckled.
wisdom ◦ 8 | arcane power ◦ 7 | accuracy ◦ 6
Metamorphmagus | Perfectionist
~The sea does not ask permission to rise~ The banner emporium
The Paintings
Made by the amazing Lily Young
Location - The Great LakeIsla seemed to think for a minute before answering, contemplating what might be the truth and what might be the lie. "Well, you do have a ferret; you were talking to it" she pointed out, and Jay nodded to her, encouraging the gryffindor beside her to continue. "You don't look naturally blonde, 'cause of the dry ends and the roots, so that's the lie, but if you are a metamorphmagus, why dye it?"
Jay didn’t really have a good answer, she had gotten bored? Bleaching or dying hair was sort of therapeutic for Jay, it reminded her of what her childhood had been like and it calmed her down and the day she had bleached it, Jay had really needed a way to calm down, it had also pissed off Elliot to see it’s shaggy and messed up state when she had arrived at his home last summer, so that was a plus. But Isla didn’t need to know that, not yet anyways, Jay didn’t need more people to be informed about her family life.
She just shrugged, staring off into space towards the murky lake, staring into the depths of the water as if she was trying to find the soft, green glow of her common room that was far below the surface while she swung her legs, not answering and keeping in mind that Isla still hadn’t figured out what were the truths and what the lies were. "Don't get me wrong, but as a metamorphmagus I don't like the shifting; why would you do something so permanent?" The slytherin couldn’t answer that either and instead, opted to stay silent and ignore the questions, if Isla prodded her for answers, Jay would just say she didn’t know, like she did most times when people asked her questions that were difficult to convey through words.
It was similar to why some people found drawing, listening to music or reading as calming, Jay found dying her hair calming, it was just something that she often did as a kid with Sunny or Winter, not that she was talking to either of them anymore but if she ignored that part, it reminded her of really happy times for her, before her family all went to shit and magic became a huge thing in her life, before she had lived in a castle that felt more like home then her small apartment in London did right now.
To her relief, Isla must have caught on that Jay didn’t want to answer her questions and didn’t press, changing the subject, "so, Muggle school? How does it work?" She asked, and Jay raised an eyebrow at her curiosity, she wasn’t used to other students being interested in muggle life…
Is she really interested in that? Not many witches and wizards ask me about this stuff, or seem interested at all… it’s weird to have someone ask me that question, I’ve never really had to explain it before now that I think about it.
Jay had never really had to explain school before to anyone, unless Sunny asking how her day at school was over several times an hour even though she knew Jay would just complain about it counted…
Getting herself into fights, and arguments with students or even teachers was a common occurrence for Jay, her strong sense of social justice often lead her to fight battles that weren’t hers to bother with and that landed her in trouble, she had been expelled before and hadn’t gone to school for a month after that, if it was just nine-year-old Jay putting it off, or a small act of rebellion, she didn’t know, that was actually right before her first instance of magic happened, it had been after she moved to the next school.
“It’s completely shit, if you want a quick explanation” she muttered with a dry laugh, “we just learn the same thing over and over, it may get harder every year but it’s the same concepts,” that was just the academic side of things, socially, for her, the school was much worse. “It’s also filled to the brim with conceited assholes” she shook her head and scoffed “my first instance of magic happened because of said assholes” she snarled, touching her forehead lightly and feeling a sharp stab of pain through her skull, not unlike the one she experienced that first day of school and she pulled her hand away, letting it rest at her side “When I was ten, some, stupid kid and his friends came up to me started to cuss at me, call me some pretty nasty shit” Jay started, unsure how to continue “then they slammed my head into the water fountain, the fountain actually exploded as soon as my head hit the metal”
"If I am an angel, paint me with black wings."
The Paintings
Thoughts
Speech
French
Mention: @Jay Valkyrie
Isla was shocked; she had heard muggles weren't that polite, but children doing that to other children didn't feel right. She listened and noticed the small mannerism Jay did, hand toward her forehead, as if the old injury was bothering her again.
Isla's body flinched as a very vivid image of some random kids pushing Jay into the metal water fountain formed in her head. It wasn't a pleasant one; nothing that included violence ever was. Hearing Jay explain her first instance of magic made her realize how easy she had it as a pureblood, because her only problem was her parents' expectations.
Even then, she couldn't help feeling a pang of sympathy, not because she felt sorry for Jay, but because looking at her now made Isla relate to how being away from home healed you in some way you didn't notice. Isla could relate, not because of the physical violence, but because being away from Scotland every school year made her feel less like a perfect daughter but her own person, with her flaws, her strengths, and everything in between.
For a moment, Isla wasn't in Hogwarts anymore; she was in her family manor, back in the last dinner together before everything went wrong. She saw her mother constantly ignoring her, pretending she wasn't there because of the red streak in her hair that had everything to do with her abilities and not dye; she saw her aunt getting up and announcing her brother was moving to the states because he had graduated. She saw her mother nodding, her brother looking away from her shocked face.
Isla remembered that, not because it was sad, but to her, it was betrayal, not the joking betrayal they usually went through, but like a deep abyss had created between them.
Isla was dragged out of her inner turmoil when a leaf fell on her lap, making her flinch. She wasn't sure of how much time had passed between the memory of the last time she saw her brother and Isla snapping out of it, but in a soft attempt to continue the easy chat Jay and Isla had, she looked at the girl again. "You just made my first instance of magic look lame," she tried to joke, an awkward smile on her face, and her hair a darker shade of brown, almost symbolic to her grief.
She wouldn't get into detail, because if she did, she'd have to bring up her brother, and she was not in the mood to talk about him. So she centered the conversation on the Muggle school experience. "So basically, you just learn the same thing over and over again in Muggle schools? No wonder they haven't suspected about the wizard side of the world," she said, sighing softly as she shifted again, slightly more nervous than before.
wisdom ◦ 8 | arcane power ◦ 7 | accuracy ◦ 6
Methamorpmagus | Perfectionist
WC: 473
~The sea does not ask permission to rise~ The banner emporium
The Paintings
Made by the amazing Lily Young
Location - The Great LakeJay fiddled with her fingers in her lap, focusing in on them as she started picking at the dark red nail polish that she had painted on the other day, her hands had faint scars on them from a few occasions, mainly from boxing without gloves. Her nails were also quite short, she hadn’t bitten them in a while but after being in a habit of it for as long as she could remember, maybe they would just stay like that for a while. “You just made my first instance of magic look lame,” Isla said, and Jay looked up at the girl to notice her hair and gone a darker shade of brown to what it had been, maybe it was a trick of the light, but Jay was at Hogwarts and she herself was a metamorphmagus. She decided not to comment on it and just let Isla speak.
“So basically, you just learn the same thing over and over again in Muggle schools? No wonder they haven't suspected about the wizard side of the world,” Jay laughed a bit at that. Isla wasn't wrong. Muggle school didn't really seem to teach you much after a certain time, then it all just became horridly repetitive. “ It’s more that school gets harder as you grow up, but you are just learning the same concepts” she shrugged “and as for your first instance of magic being ‘lame’” she continued “I don’t think anyone’s even could be. It’s magical and special, it’s hard to put into words what I'm trying to say but…” Jay saw any first instance of magic as something special, it became a part of you and your identity, it was just something she couldn’t put into words, “mine was also magical and special to me on some, fucked up level” she rolled her eyes and laughed a bit “I'm not sure if I should be thanking the idiots or not”
Jay had never really dwelled on it, she wasn't someone to hold a grudge over petty kids being assholes, she could be quite petty at times too so she couldn't really criticize their actions when she knew that, given the chance back then, she would have very much liked to hit them back.
Too bad my ass was in hospital with a concussion...
Of course, now she might not even recognize them, and that happened years ago. People can change. For better or for worse and Jay often didn't bother to find out, she just steered away from her past now that she was at Hogwarts and learning magic.
Jay swung her legs as she noticed her little fluff noodle walk towards the base of the tree and she watched as Nacho scrabbled up the tree at a much slower pace then either of the girls, but he made his way slowly and surely up the branches until he found somewhere comfortable enough to sit near enough to Jay. Nacho seemed to have a hard time being away from people, not even just Jay. He disappeared quite often during the day, Jay almost never saw him during class unless he decided to take a nap in her bag instead of running around.
Jay speculated he might know more secret passages here then most students, especially since he went quite unnoticed except for the occasional student who wanted to pat him or try feed him. As far as she had seen, Jay hadn't noticed many ferrets around the place until today, then again she wasn't always the best at paying attention since her head was often up in the clouds during class or meal times, she kept to herself around those times.
Holding onto a thicker branch above her, she lowered her arm, she wrapped a hand around Nacho and lifted him up to her shoulder where he sat contentedly, very proud of the fact he was also, now up in the tree with the two girls.
"But, apart from school my childhood was quiet odd, but in a good way" she knew some people here might not agree with the way she had been raised at all, but Jay didn't want to bother with hiding away from the truth and what she thought to be a very good example of a childhood. "How were you raised if you don't mind me asking" she said, turning to face Isla so she could see the other girl's face "I assume that you're a pureblood since you asked me about muggle school" she had never really asked someone here about their childhood before, but then again it had never really come up as a conversation, apart from when she and Mikaela talked. "I'm really interested in wizarding culture, I mean I was raised away from the magical world even though Sunny, sorry my mum, is a witch" she continued "I only recently became more... around magic if you get what I mean"
"If I am an angel, paint me with black wings."