a quiet place to be alone...or something PV: Tesla Stone Closed

Tes couldn't believe how much homework she'd been assigned, and it was only Monday! Normally the homework wasn't too bad, and she was happy enough to read through her books in her hammock or scamper up the tree in her dorm room to write in the currently barren branches of the large willow, but today was another story. Her history of magic class had required that she go to the library, and find a book there for her essay.

Despite the way she always told herself she avoided the library, she sure spent quite a bit of time here. Although, she had managed to avoid ever actually spending a quiet and isolated time. Usually the two went together, her chicken dance antics from the beginning of the year a prime example. She still didn't intend to change that streak, although upon seeing none of her friends were there, she'd need to take drastic measures to make sure that didn't happen. She'd accept a quiet and productive visit, but certainly wouldn't be sitting alone, not when the library wasn't completely empty.

Strolling down the aisles, partially looking for a book for her essay, and partially looking for a victim of her friendship, she conveniently found both. A student she couldn't tell the gender of, sitting completely by themself, as well as a book on the history of the implementation of potions and herbalism into school curriculums across the wizarding world. It was a bit more specific than what she really wanted to read, and seemed wildly boring, but it seemed like something her childhood friend Charles would like. She'd have to tell him about what she found later, but first, introductions!

Completely disregarding the fact that there was only one chair at the table the other student was sitting at, a fellow first year if the stack of books were to be believed, she grabbed a chair from a nearby empty table, flipping it around and plopping down across from them. Dropping her single book on the table with a depressingly heavy thud and her bag to the ground, she stuck out a hand, already ink stained despite the fact she couldn't remember even touching her quill since she'd washed her hands after class, and introduced herself with a near blinding smile, "Hiya! My name's Tesla Stone, but you can call me Tes! I'm a first year Hufflepuff," she paused for a second, remembering her mum's lesson on asking someone's pronouns rather than assuming if you weren't sure, after Tes had incorrectly called one of their family friends a man and not a woman like she preferred. She'd explained it wasn't exactly impolite to assume, but emphasized that asking first rather than guessing later could make someone's day exceptionally better, rather than marginally worse. "I use she and her pronouns! I think. That's what mum told me I used at least. She said saying 'normal pronouns' was kinda weird," she furrowed her brow slightly, hoping she'd done that right, seeing as she normally didn't say her pronouns during her introductions. "What's your name?"

Tes wasn't exactly surprised when the student she'd sat across from didn't seem eager to entertain her antics. It wasn't the first time she'd introduced herself to someone who hadn't immediately welcomed her presence. Her new friend Isadora was a great example of that! She was quiet and reserved, but all that meant was that Tes took every show of emotion as a sign that she didn't mind her presence. She wouldn't let this deter her!

The student's awkward acknowledgement of her introduction was a little bit more off-putting however, and Tes momentarily felt guilty. She may have introduced herself too eagerly, so she'd just have to be a little quieter to hopefully not scare them off. When they introduced themself as Rhys, Tes pondered for a moment on how that would be spelled. She did notice that they didn't reply with their pronouns, and immediately assumed that simply meant they didn't know what Tes had been implying. Oh well! The feminine clothing meant she must just use she and her and didn't know how to tell Tes. She'd save her the trouble of explaining it! Maybe once they were closer friends she could explain how her mum was transgender and what pronouns were. This wouldn't be the first person she'd met that didn't know!

"Oh! That's okay! I'm in the middle of something too, actually. I have an essay for history of magic, and I'm gonna write it on the history of plants and potions," she gestured at the heavy tome dropped on the desk, "What class are you working on?" she glanced at the piles of books and grimaced, "Or classes, I guess. Ugh." She let her head drop onto the desk with a groan for just a second, before picking it up and standing up to flip her chair around the right way so she could work more efficiently. She smiled slightly as a little beam of sunlight warmed her up.

Tes felt a touch of awkward uncertainty, as her attempts to make small talk went unanswered by the student in front of her. She had a sneaking suspicion this wasn't simple shyness, since she could usually get past that well enough by asking simple questions with easy answers until she could find something the person was interested in and encourage them to talk about that. She didn't understand why she'd be deserving of a true cold shoulder though, after all, all she'd done was sit down and interrupt some homework! Okay, maybe that was a bit deserving of some silence. Still, it obviously just meant the two of them needed to work on their homework instead of chat, and that was fine by Tes.

After a few minutes she glanced up, seeing that the textbook Rhys was looking through was the potions textbook, and assumed that must be the homework being worked on. She glanced at her own book, seeing that the origins for the potion and its inventor she'd selected for her HoM homework happened to be the same potion Rhys was looking at. Silence be darned, it was looking like Tes would need an extra few inches for this essay, and what better way than to just rewrite the recipe for the potion she'd been writing about! Truthfully, she could think of many better ways than putting actual potion recipes and not just their historical application down, and could see an Acceptable to Poor grade on this essay in her future. Despite that, the sunbeam was really causing her eyelids to droop and she'd rather turn in something bad than something short all because she fell asleep and forgot about it.

"You mind if I write down that potion recipe really quick? It's actually the one I happened to be reading the history of right here! In case you were interested in some extra writing in your own homework about the potion, you could take a look at my book too. Or ask me to summarize it, but I don't think I've actually remembered a word I just read. Just to get that essay a bit longer if you'd like!" Tes took a better look at Rhys's essay, realizing that in an almost equal amount of time they seemed to almost be nearly done with their length of parchment, while Tes's own paper was still remarkably bare, and what was filled contained big letters of barely legible messy chicken scratch handwriting. "Er, I guess you don't need my help. I'm really struggling with this last bit of essay though. I could always go back to my dorm later and get my own book, but it'd be so much faster if I could just borrow yours real quick?" Tes smiled with a slightly lopsided, hopeful grin, tilting her head reminiscent of a dog waiting for a ball to be thrown.