Ship Off Course
Date: September 14th
@Jack Burnett
Hex code: #800000
Paisley had spent 2 long weeks at Hogwarts, and she still had no idea where half of the classrooms were. It seemed as if they too moved around like the staircases. Paisley shuddered. Not the staircases. She didn't want to think about her first night here, when she had to speak to a suit of armor, get stuck in a stair, and slide down a railing. She and Dipper had probably woken half of the school!
Paisley continued on ahead, her embarrassment obvious on her face. Rumors had spread through the school, and some children pointed and glared, and others just pointed, as she went past. She ducked her head down, wanting to get far away from where ever 'here' was. She barely remembered anything she was learning, and she couldn't find her way to any rooms. There was also Dipper, but that was a whole other story that Paisley didn't like. Dipper was just a pain in the butt.
Paisley was searching for the Great Hall, and she found herself in an empty classroom. She'd been wanting to go eat lunch, but she decided that she was better off here, where at least she could sit down and wonder how she had gotten so lost. It seemed ridiculous how off-course she could get. She shook her head as she sat down, easing her mind. Perhaps things weren't that bad, and just seemed that way. The rumors would die down. Paisley had other friends. And she would learn the spells in time. No one was perfect, they all just were.
Yeah right, dummy. You don't belong here and that's a fact. Everyone knows it, even you! Just accept it. Paisley tried to shut down the mean chatter inside of her head. It wasn't helpful to her, and she knew that. But she knew her mind was the chatter, and she was telling herself these things. Perhaps they were true.
Almost without thinking, her hands went to the bag at her side and pulled out a tiny black sewing kit. Her fingers felt blindly for what she was working on, a blanket. It was small now, but soon it would be big enough to cover her whole bed in the dorm. It was orange in the center and had a maroon outer layer, but that wasn't why she liked it so much. In the center she was stitching a large embroidered rose, which she had yet to begin. She was excited to start this, but she was taking her time on the blanket itself. A good project is never rushed. she told herself.
Her fingers felt the soft fabric and she pulled it out, laying it out. It covered from her lap to just below her knees, and she placed it on a nearby desk and started to sew.
She looked almost robotic as she kept sewing on the outer layer. Her hand traveled seamlessly through the fabric, and she needn't look down for half the time to know she was doing it correctly. She got lost in thought for a few moments.
I wonder where I am. she thought. I wonder if anyone else knows where I am. I'm not sure-ow! Needle in the finger! Look at what you're doing, Brown!-I'm not sure I want to know where I am, actually. I can't think of a reason I would ever want to come back to this classroom. There's plenty of others I already have to go to. Is there a specific reason I'm sitting here, sewing? I suppose there is. I don't want to get any more lost, so I'll sit here until it's time for dinner, and I can work on my homework in the mean time. It's a nice cozy classroom, I suppose it's not that bad here. I should try to figure out where I am so I can come back. Yes, that's what I'll do. Forget homework! I'll figure out where this is. Paisley thought about this for a moment, and then shook her head. Never mind. It's hopeless. I'll just keep on sewing.
And that's just what she did.
"Making a lark of the misery" - TS
Ship Off Course
A young man in Slytherin robes was wandering along some cooridors when he thought he heard a sound coming from what he would have otherwise thought was an empty classroom. He had a couple of spell books in his arms and had been searching for a place to read quietly on his own without witnesses, so he had already been searching in one of the most remote and out-of-the-way corners of the castle he could find. Who, then, had found their way into one of the empty classrooms and what were they doing there? It couldn't have been one of those hags everyone was on the lookout for, could it have...?
As quietly as he could, the redhead leaned into the slightly-ajar door and peered into the open room. There, sitting at a worktable by herself, was what appeared to be another Hogwarts student sewing something by hand. Jack's mind immediately flew to the story of Sleeping Beauty who had come across a harmless-seeming lady spinning on a spinning wheel before she had been enchanted to prick her finger upon it out of curiosity and fall into a deep sleep for a hundred years. His concerns regarding the hags only heightened.
Sure, this girl looked nothing like the one hag he had met up close in person before, but that didn't meant she wasn't one, right? After all, he'd since learned that hags could change their shape to look like students if they so wished. And what Hogwarts student, especially a girl as young-looking as this one, took up sewing in a creepy, abandoned old classroom by herself for a hobby?
Suspicious but unable to restrain his curiosity as usual, Jack eventually took a deep breath and mustered up the courage to approach the strange girl. First he knocked lightly on the door, hoping not to startle her, and cleared his throat. Maybe he was just being paranoid and she was just a regular Hogwarts student like himself looking for solitude and quiet to do her work.
"Um...excuse me," he spoke up, hazel eyes anxiously darting across what he could make out of her as if some little detail might give him some clue as to her true nature. "May I ask what you're doing in here all by yourself...?"
@Paisley Brown
PC: Jack Burnett | iNPC: Ginyami Midorimori
Ship Off Course
@Jack Burnett
Paisley had been so intent on the task at her fingertips she didn't notice the slight creak of the door, nor did she hear the knock when knuckles connected with wood. Only when the approaching Slytherin spoke did she look up, jumping out of fright, and causing the desk next to her to rattle about.
"Oh -eh- I was just-" she felt her face turn a bright shade of pink as she tried to explain what she had been doing. Gosh, why are they looking at me like that? I didn't do anything wrong, did I? "I was just sewing. You know, everyone has a hobby, right?" she finished quickly, looking down to the ground. A nervous laugh came after, but she didn't make eye contact.
She couldn't quite come to terms with what had just happened. She had been caught sewing. A lame excuse of a hobby. Sewing. Needles. Thread. Other people were out there doing something good for the world, and she was making a blanket. She might as well throw it away in the trash, and do something more productive and less time consuming. Like homework. Or, she could go out and make some friends. Or, even better, she could figure out just what the heck was going on at Hogwarts; because honestly, she didn't have a clue.
The truth was, Paisley had no idea of the happenings of the school when it came to rumors, or people, or the lessons, or anything... her eyes rose to the Slytherin, studying him briefly, and then being lost in thought once again, oblivious to almost anything else.
She wasn't aware of any tales of hags, and if she had been, surely she would've immediately explained to this young man that she wasn't one. Of course, this only would've raised his suspicion to a frightening level, so perhaps it was for the best that she was kept in the dark, at least for now.
"So...what're you doing out here? Not very many people find themselves this deep into the castle. You could get hurt. Bad move, Brown. Critical failure. You rolled a 1. No, you didn't even get a chance to roll. That's just instant loss. Even for someone who didn't know about the rumors she could tell it wasn't a good thing to say. It sounded almost like a threat. It sounded as if she were telling the boy he should get away, because it wasn't safe here. It crossed her mind briefly to fix what she had said, but she decided against it. What good would it do?
At this time Paisley looked down to the ground in shame again. Averting her eyes was the only thing she could do. She was an awful excuse of a Hogwarts student, wasn't she? She didn't have a clue of where she was, and she didn't do her homework. What could be worse than that?
"Making a lark of the misery" - TS