Getting Back in the Game Finished

Mariah gave the blonde Ravenclaw a smile when he laughed at her joke, a little of the tension bleeding from her body. When he asked to be excused, she gave them a nod and watched them retreat to the back of the room and exchange heated whispers. Attempting to be polite, Mariah preoccupied herself by milling around the cases closest to the door. They were filled top to bottom with trophies, each glittering back out at her as if to say "Hello! Look at me! I'm the best!" Great students doing great things, so much farther than the herd of witches and wizards that surrounded them. Mariah wondered who they were and what they were like.

Special Services to the School, Mariah read, her imagination running wild at the possibilities. Someone clearing their throat brought Mariah's attention back to the group. They had made their way back to her and the Ravenclaw started talking, asking questions.

Goals. What were her goals. Simple, really. To be the bravest. To outshine every Gryffindor and prove to anyone who ever doubted her that her courage was infinity. Everlasting. Legendary. And worthy. To prove she was worthy.

That seemed a little too intense to lay out there to a group of shady boys she just met conspiring in a dark little room.

They could be perfectly nice, she scolded herself.

"Sure I do," Mariah replied with a shrug, but didn't offer much more. She was sure it would sound ridiculous if she said it out loud anyway. "What's with the shady meeting place? This seems a little out of the way to solve a disagreement between friends."

Kaegen was getting nowhere. These people didn't trust him, which was kind of strange. If you attacked him, he retaliated. He hadn't ever been needlessly violent, hadn't ever lied. Regardless, it didn't matter. If the guy who literally attacked a wounded kid from behind didn't trust the guy who was only trying to save the school, then that was none of Kaegen's business. None at all.
So instead he turned to the girl, and gave her a second look. Sure, she wasn't exactly his first pick, but if she was to be believed, then she had ambitions, ambitions that could be gained alongside Kaegen's own. Besides, slaughtering people and stealing their fine women did seem to contradict Appy's ambition of being a faceless mook during some important history thing that matters. If they both had their way, Appy would be stopping Corridor kid from taking over hogwarts, and claiming all the fine women. Oh well, he supposed they were fine ambitions to have, even if Kaegen himself didn't understand them.
Deep in Kaegen's mind he knew he had to change. He couldn't work by himself any more. It worked in the fens, but here it gave him no edge, no advantage. The advantage here was in more knowledge, and more wands. He could form a pack. He wouldn't be the leader, but he would subtly change it's direction to suit him. He wouldn't have to do much, as long as the direction was up, he would be very pleased indeed. The only flaw was that he would have to be nice to the girl. Kaegen saw nothing wrong with being nice, he liked the idea of friends, but he had no experience. The only friend he had made so far had turned out to be a tornado of confusion.
Smiling slightly, Kaegen tried to answer the girl's question nicely. Now, how would a kind person answer that? Grandfather was kind, how would he answer that? In a voice, that sounded like a down feather had tried to be raspy and coarse but only made it sound ruffled, came from Kaegen's mouth, in a vain attempt to imitate the snarl of his kindly grandfather.
"It's none of you stinkin' business you no-good no-account piece of swamp sound! Why I aughta..."
Kaegen's slight smile seemed completely out of place, the ruffled down sounding voice seeming to be out of place. Well, at least he had done a decent job of the impression.

Braveheart. Now that’s a nickname that rolled off the tongue, if he ever heard one. It stood over everything, it described his whole brave role he was playing in two syllables, nothing less, nothing more. It did the persona justice. And he said don’t let it go to his head? It was like him asking Anatole to not push a red button--of course he’d push it!

How nice of my adversary, Anatole thought, a small chuckle and a nod as the three returned back to the lonely, lost girl. Of course Adam had to ask her what her dreams were, even though Anatole was sure she wouldn’t say anything quite as memorable or true to herself, like the boys did. They knew each other better, despite them all being “sworn” enemies. ”My dream’s to one day be the pest control,” Anatole joked, muttering this to Adam and Kaegen.

This girl was smooth indeed. She dodged the question like a bullet: hard to do and rare to hear, like her reply. And to make matters wiser, she did have a point about the Trophy Room being a place for disagreements.

"It's none of you stinkin' business you no-good no-account piece of swamp sound! Why I aughta..." Boy, where did that come out of? Now, Mister Psycho could act? Anatole found this hilarious, so he laughed quietly to himself before stepping up and explaining, since these two puny Ravenclaws couldn’t do it themselves.

”Let me explain, Miss.” Here we went again with the formality. ”The reason we’re here is that…” Anatole glanced back at the boys, accidentally letting a bit of himself sneak out through the facade (hint: the formality). ”We’re here because...yes, our families were here and made their mark...so we thought why couldn’t we? We were busy admiring the trophies when you entered…”

Patricia had always told him not to lie. Well, part of it was true. It was true that they were admiring trophies, but Anatole’s parents had no idea what the heck this was. Maybe she’d believe it? If not, all the Gryffindor boy could do is hope that it would go over alright. Maybe even Kae and Adam would play along, a three-man theatre troupe instead of a vicious army.

"Good lord, you two are impossible," sighed Adam. They must have sounded so ridiculous to the girl, all three of them trying to explain the same simple thing. "Sorry about all of this. Kaegen doesn't usually sound like a middle-aged Floridian, and Anatole usually doesn't talk like we're in the 17^th century." He raised an eyebrow in question at the boys, wondering what they had been thinking. At least Adam had been trying to sound normal.

"He's right, though, for the most part. Anatole, that is, not Kaegen." Shaking his head, Adam realized how far away the conversation had strayed from what really needed to be said and sighed.

"Know what, why don't I just start over? Hi. I'm Adam. This is Anatole, and this is Kaegen." He motioned to each of his companions in turn. "This isn't really a meeting place, just somewhere that we all happened to stumble upon. Got us thinking about what we want to do here at the castle, as you could probably tell." Adam hoped he wasn't overwhelming the girl at all. He really was trying to simplify it, but he had a habit of rambling on if he was unchecked, and he suspected that it was coming through. "So, yeah. That's the gist of it. Just some guys talkin' about the future. You're welcome to join us, of course. Maybe we can start with your name?"

As the black haired Ravenclaw spoke, Mariah's mouth fell open in shock and her eyes widened...then narrowed. Was he joking? He was smiling like maybe he was being nice and his voice took on a ridiculous timbre. Maybe he was poking fun at her?

Or maybe he was just had a mental thing going on. After all, who calls another person 'Swamp Sound' without having a screw a little loose. Mariah's mother said she was supposed to treat a sick person the same as everyone else so, with concerned and apprehensive eyes, she smiled at him in a tight, closed lip kind of way.

She wanted to say something , like maybe ask him if he was kidding around or what, but the brown haired boy stepped forward before she could.

The Gryffindor explained himself in a hesitant, oddly ceremonial voice. He looked back at the other two children as if testing to see what he was saying was meeting their standards. Mariah felt this was odd. Very, very odd. Surely telling someone you were looking at old family members' accomplishments didn't require group permission. Maybe they were all mental.

Mariah's gaze hopped from one face to another, a million scenarios running through her head. It was probably nothing. Maybe they were playing a game and such. Maybe they were riding the school of mice. Maybe... maybe they were after something bigger than mice.

Then the final one was talking, introducing each of them after explaining that this was not their normal behavior. Mariah noted that he seemed the more socially oriented one- Adam he called himself.

"Mariah," she said slowly in response. "Mariah Menstil."

She offered her hand for them to shake.

Oh, great she needed to be bribed.
Kaegen's mind had gone too far deep into the confusion, making connections where there weren't any and not making the obvious ones. Not enough practice paired with a mind that despised the confusing made for a pretty bizarre mindset. This girl wanted payment for her name? Why would she expect payment for information so trivial. I mean, Kaegen had already forgotten what the name was. Mar- Mari- Mario- Marionette. Well, okay so maybe he remembered. But it wasn't the point. No one else had asked for payment for their name, just this girl. And then it hit him. This wasn't payment, she knew about them, too! The ancient customs grandfather taught him about.
Reaching into his robe, in a swift and smooth motion, Kaegen pulled out a leaf made of solid gold. It wasn't really, but it was yellow, and shiny and the veins that ran through the leaf seemed almost to be hammered there by the hands of a tiny blacksmith, intent on creating a masterpiece. Kaegen had found this leaf on the ground one day, and like everything else interesting, he did his equivalent of stashing something in his pocket, and attached to leaf to one of his straps. It was worth practically nothing. A sickle tops for someone that collected leaves. But it looked amazing, and that was all Kaegen cared about. Taking the leaf, he placed it in the girl's hand, closing both of his around the present and her hand.
He kept up his hopefully friendly smile. Honestly he wasn't exactly sure how to tell the difference between maniacal and friendly, but he was probably doing a passable job. It was a relief that this girl knew the old customs though. Marionette was a lot nicer than his dismissive glance had given her credit for.

Mariah stared at their hands clasped together in front of her, thoughts whirling to and fro. It was decided, he was a little crazy, but who was she to judge? It was obviously a gesture of kindness. The tickle of the leaf against her palm was made her want to wiggle, but she refrained. She was not raised a savage and knew a gift when she saw one.

Mariah glanced up at Kaegan and noted his smile. It seemed more genuine than the first and she smiled back, slightly charmed by his cooky behavior. Whatever possessed him to gift her with the pretty leaf, she was grateful for it. It made him seem less... uninviting.

"Thank you," she said, not wanting to remove her hand from his in fear of hurting his feelings, but secretly finding it slightly uncomfortable to hold hands with a complete stranger. "I love it. It's beautiful."

It wasn't a lie, it was a beautiful leaf.

What was she to do now? Wouldn't it be appropriate to also gift him something? Like an exchange of gifts? She wasn't sure. She didn't carry such items around with her in her pocket. In fact all she had in her bag was a few pieces of literature, her sketchpad and her school books. With her free hand, she grabbed her sketch pad out and gently pulled her other hand from his. Carefully, she laid the leaf between two empty pages and turned through her book carefully, scanning the pages. She stopped at her second favorite drawing (her first was hers) and gently tore it from the book, leaving the fringes intact for fear of ripping the paper.

The sketch was of her home, a three story, cottage-esque residence nestled in a haven of trees. The large yard was circled with a gate of sorts and you could see the edge of a pond leading off the corner of the page. She had spent a summer afternoon on it and finished it with a flowing signature at the bottom. That's what her father said artists did. He was going to charm it for her to make it move, but he hadn't gotten around to it, so it lay as still as any other muggle drawing.

She held it out to him, nervously.

Cel stood directly to the left of the door to the Trophy Room, pressed against the wall. Originally she had been headed towards the room for its usual emptiness to calm down from another memory, prompted by the sound of water droplets dripping from the windowsill of a hallway. The girl had just exited the Charms classroom before fixating on the window's steady drip. Drip. Drip. Something about it had mesmerized her, at least until her mind tried to run away from the present again, causing her to rush to the nearest usually empty room to calm down in private. Something about the room, with dim light reflecting off the various memoirs of triumph, seemed to mitigate the mental ache pounding in her mind.
Unfortunately, as she neared the trophy room, she could clearly hear voices emanating from the partially ajar doorway. So instead, she knelt silently in the disconsolate hallway, squeezing her eyes shut until her head cleared enough for her to notice what, exactly, the voices were saying. The distraction was enough to pull her attention away from the pain slowly ebbing away from her mind-- her vision was no longer stained by red-tinted edges, thank goodness-- and Cel delightedly found that by the time she turned back to her mind, the effects seemed to have faded enough for her to suppress a giggle at the two voices' tones. Was that... Kaegen? And three others she hadn't met before.
Now she pivoted on her right foot, letting herself into the trophy room through the heavy wooden doors. The familiar glint of faint light reflected off polished metal greeted her along with her black-haired acquaintance, two other boys, and a girl she didn't recognize.
"I apologize for eavesdropping," Cel chuckled jocosely, "but I couldn't help but investigate who might be here. An interesting place to stumble upon, if you take my meaning." She'd heard enough of the conversation to roughly discern what was going on, even if she'd been a little distracted for the first part of it.

When Anatole first looked back for reassurance, not much came up. Once he peered back again, after his speech, they were mixed. It nagged at him slightly how Adam had to do the duty himself. Did he not like the way Anatole put it? It was a relatively good bent truth on his end. Good news is they didn’t ask for proof.

His nerves twitched, almost anxious to leap into the conversation with ferocity and possible arrogance, but his inside still shouted against it. That would be selfish.

Anatole nodded, outstretching his hand and flashing Adam a look. Yes, that type of look. ”Anatole Evans, Gryffindor. Pleasure is mine, Mariah.” This smile was as genuine as Anatole had ever been, since this was a fine woman. One day, they might have to dance. He would later take some of these moments for granted.

And after that, Kaegen continued to be peculiar, pulling out a strangely golden leaf. Anatole raised an eyebrow, watching the Ravenclaw carry on. He placed his hands on hers and the leaf. Alright, so now Kaegen was going for the fine women? Anatole chuckled to himself, glancing over at Adam.

And, the worst, oh, boy, was this good, he got a drawing in return? It was one honestly Anatole would have loved to pin beside his bed in the dormitory, it was beautiful, like her, definitely, but Kaegen never seemed like the one to get such gifts. If it was to be any of the three, Anatole preferred it be him. He could not fathom why this preference existed, well, he hadn’t felt it this strong since he entered this school, presenting himself different ways. Maybe this one happened to stick a little too much, Braveheart.

With another creak, the door opened and Anatole mentally sighed. Yet another girl, hopefully this one didn’t show favorites.

Since Kaegen was distracted, Anatole made his move. ”Yeah, I get you!” His voice echoed through the room as he beckoned for her to come toward them. ”This whole school is pretty interesting in itself, isn’t it?” Anatole winked at Adam. That was exactly what they had set out to do.

Kaegen looked at the picture, his fast eyes scanning the page, but occasionally still flitting over to appy and corridor kid. Marionette was an amazing artist. Looking from the picture to the girl, he silently cursed his eyes for overlooking her earlier. Why had he dismissed her then? He really didn't know anything about people, did he. Well, it didn't matter. Flashing his eyes back at her from whatever they had been checking right then, he was rather glad they were friends. He had extended a gift, as per the custom and she had returned one that was better. Far better. And so, in Kaegen's odd mind, a friendship, a alliance of sorts was formed. Or at the very least, a peaceful coexistence.
"This is amazing, thank you."
Carefully, smoothly, Kaegen folded the paper, and then slipped the hand holding it into his robe, leaving a empty sleeve behind. In a moment, the sleeve was occupied by his arm once more, but the paper was gone. Tucked away in a convenient case Kaegen had strapped to his body. If he found a lair, or a den somewhere, this would go on the wall. Where he had failed with the two boys, he had succeeded with this girl, and it felt really nice. He would have to give her things more often. Like snacks. Everyone, and everything, liked snacks. If you gave something a snack it liked, you pretty much automatically got in it's good graces. Slipping his other arm into his robe, Kaegen found a dried sausage grandfather made, and handed it to the girl. It tasted really good, even though he wasn't entirely sure what kind of meat was in it. He hoped it was something decent, like frog, but it didn't really matter. It looked like a pepperoni stick and tasted ridiculously good. Grandfather was good at making sausage.
Looking over to the door, he saw a girl. She sorta looked familiar, but he couldn't place his finger on it, he was so invested in figuring out where he saw her, he missed what she said. But he did remember he had seen her hanging out somewhere in the ravenclaw common room, so that was something. Kaegen smoothly raised his hand, not all the way, just about to shoulder level, in a kind of greeting. Maybe she would join the little alliance.