A Test in Ethics PV Eris, Kaegen, Luna & Elena

“Don’t have the courage?” The small girl grinned at the dare, forgetting the simple fact that she really, really, couldn’t swim. Taking a deep breath, Eris flung herself into the water next to Bloom. Her feet kicked up tiny malestorms of water, as Eris spit water out of her mouth with a laugh, barely treading water next to Bloom. It was hard work for the small girl, but it was worth it to show Bloom that she had the courage. Feeling more and more tired by the moment, Eris managed to let herself float on her back. The stars didn’t have the same alure in her eyes that they did in Bloom’s, but Eris’s mind was far away--lost in thoughts of superheroes racing through the stars, dragons with brave riders, and other fantastical things she could trace in the patterns of the stars.

Her feet didn’t touch the bottom, as expected, so Eris simply floated in the peace of the shallows, mind entranced with the stars in front of her. The baggy bottoms of her clothing weighed the small girl down, but Eris still managed to float at the top of the water. The problems of the masked man seemed far from her mind, for once, as Eris’s mind raced at a thousand miles per hour, looking up at the stars.

“My mum once told me a story about how the greek gods used to put heroes up in the sky as stars. All the good ones like Perseus and stuff, they were made into stars. Do you think they’re up there, battling star monsters? I like to imagine that.”

It was true that Eris’s only fond memories of her mother were of the greek stories she used to tell to her two daughters, but before Eris could think about the memories of her mother, a sharp scream from Bloom snapped her out of her thoughts of past hurt and past lifetimes.

“Ar-” Bloom dived down into the water after saying something was down there, prompting Eris to stop floating and begin to peer down into the murky depths of the freezing cold water surrounding them. Eris’s feet, still struggling to tread water, bent awkwardly, as she bent her head over into the water and attempted to open her eyes to see what exactly was weighing Bloom down. Surely and softly, Bloom returned to the surface with a cough and a mirror in hand. Hastily, Eris swam over to her and stared at the object with wide eyes, running a finger down the edging of the green outline.

“What is a mirror doing in a lake?” She echoed.

When the girl climbed down out of the tree, Kaegen turned and looked at her, tired eyes focusing with unusual intent. He took a step closer to her, one hand visible, long, slender fingers hanging limp by his side. His other hand was nowhere to be seen, robe's sleeve swaying empty in the wind. His mouth opened slightly, enough for his quiet whispery voice to perforate the quiet that followed the tree-girl's statement.



His eyes slowly shifted over, halfway between the other prefect and the girl, and then he moved his head just enough to see the two girls still playing in the lake before turning his head the few inches back to where it was. His limp hand stiffened, and lifted up to point at the castle with a long, dully pointed fingernail.

This entire situation spelled out more work than the exhausted girl wanted by any means. Honestly, she’d let the entire situation slide if everyone just went back to their beds and let her do the same. Besides the straight-up threat Kaegen had given her. She really didn’t want to go through that again. She considered having a serious conversation with Professor Y about him later. She was considering her own resignation, but Kae might seriously need constant supervision. Kae seemed to have the girl from the tree under control, so she went to the girls at the lake.

It was a double whammy in all honesty. Both in the lake and out after curfew. She tiredly walked up to the lake, stopping at its edge. Both girls were in the water at this point, and Luna noticed one dive down deeper into the lake. It seemed neither girls had any trepidation about the numerous creatures rumored to be in the Great Lake. Then again, Luna doubted many of those rumors herself. She simply figured they were stories meant to scare children from getting into the water in the first place. She had missed most of anything they said but heard them both echo a discovery of a mirror. Wonderful. Hopefully, it wasn’t broken. All she needed was an injured student as well.

Time to make her presence known. Hopefully ending this before it went on any longer.

“Hey girls!” She yelled out, just loud enough to be heard, but not so much as to strain her voice. “I don’t think I need to let you know which rules you’re breaking. Honestly though, I’m not interested in causing trouble. Could you just please return to your dorms?” She was sure they’d remark on the mirror, but she simply didn’t care. She was focused on one thing and one thing only, and that was sleep.

Elena sagged, “Damn it. No chance I could get you to drop it? I mean I didn’t mean to fall asleep out here, so it’s kinda not my fault.”

“Probably not, I might as well head down there then, also that’s a lot of titles, they’re pretty cool though. I’m a particular fan of “Eeh”, really has that whole badass hunter thing going on.”

She thought for a second, “Title, do I have titles? Ah yes I do: Puck the wicked, Tricky, Jones, I guess I still sort of have the title of Pickpocket, although I’m trying to drop that one.”

She looked at Kaegen with a grin, “Still good at it though. Also what is “Chaos Born” and “First Avenger”, they sound pretty interesting, although people always like to call me chaotic, I guess chaos is in my nature too though. You don’t get called Puck for nothing.”

“We should probably go join those guys, or girls, whatever, I think I see someone I recognise, although I’m not sure why she would be here, two street kids in two years, what are the odds of that hey?”

Elena strode down towards the lake, “Come on, lets get this over with. I want to sleep somewhere actually comfortable. That tree was hell on my back.”

It was now officially a party. Eris made her way into the water and it was fun to not be the only one who enjoyed the lake's beauty. Instead of mentioning the Gryffindor's courage, Bloom looked back on the mirror that cut her foot.

The mirror was mesmerizing. Bloom could not stop staring at it. The shine from the water and the emerald color that encompassed the mirror itself. It was absolutely beautiful. She even saw Eris looking at it, too. There was something about this mirror, but what was it? What was it even doing in the shallow end of the lake?

So many thoughts were whirling through her mind that Bloom jumped when she heard a voice that was not hers or Eris'. Putting the mirror under the water, still grasping onto its edges, she looked over to find that it was a Prefect. From the looks of it, there were a couple people out there. She could not make out the two that were further behind.

Luckily, it was a Ravenclaw Prefect that found them. Ravenclaw's were not as harsh as Gryffindor -- who always thought they were all-mighty or Slytherins where they are just brutal. Bloom nodded at the girl and started to get out. Should I show them what we found? she asked herself. If she shared it, perhaps it could buy them time to learn about it. If Bloom left it here, would she be able to find it again? Who knows?

"We found something in here," she said, choosing the prior option. "It cut my foot in the water, but it's interesting," she said the last word especially slowly while looking at the mirror again. "I've never seen anything like it... Do you want to see it?" she asked, shrugging at the Ravenclaw.

Bloom slowly made her way out of the water with the mirror in her hands. She looked back at Eris, wanting her to join in on their discovery together. Showing the Ravenclaw, she looked up and shrugged. "One thing I've learned is that anything goes at Hogwarts," she said with a sheepish grin. Bloom knew she was in trouble, but that should never stop an adventure with whomever was around.

Eris pulled herself out of the water, dripping wet and shaking in the cold of the night. For a second she debated the merits of setting herself on fire with Incendio to be warm, but from the faint paling of her cheeks and the pallor that overtook her expression at the sharp reminder of flames, it was a no. She seemed a bit taken aback outside, but one could testify that her numbness was from the cold. Really, Eris was burrowed inside layers of her head, feeling the heat of fire and the smell of burning flesh.

It took the sound of Bloom's voice for Eris to regain her posture and snap out of the reminder. A nervous habit she hated but had picked up quite quickly was rubbing at the raised scars on her arm, which was what Eris did at the moment. Stubborn enough to never go back to the nurses and ask for the scars removed, the faint raised scars on her face and arms were the only reminder of the conflict with the masked figure Eris had suffered through.

Shivering violently, red hair plastered to her face, Eris wrapped her arms around herself. Being small and underweight at best, there wasn't much body fat for Eris to stay warm with. The small child followed after Bloom, looking sheepish but defense, which was a strange mix of emotions to show at the same moment.

Sheepish for being busted and defensive for the same reason. Pulling tendrils of wet hair out of her face and shaking again, Eris cocked her head to the side at the sight of a familiar looking face behind the prefect. Luna, right? Hadn't they just had a nice conversation? Wincing, Eris folded her arms and directed her gaze back towards the mirror Bloom held in her hands.

Barefeet rubbing against the grass, as pools of water fell from her body, Eris held her arms more tightly around herself, and let her shoulders arch upwards into an undignified shrug as well. Following Bloom's lead, Eris had shrugged. Now, not knowing what to do, she couldn't help but blurt out a few words."We're ex-prefects anyways. I doubt they'll care if they find us out here with you. Plus, it's- her sentence stopped as Eris shivered again, "It's not like anyone cares what we're doing out here. The professors are all asleep by now." The bitterness in her voice was sharp and sour, as Eris went silent again, staring at the mirror.

This girl worried him. She worried him a lot, to be honest. Not only did she seem to have some understanding of how his names worked, a understanding that most residents of this castle seemed to lack, but she had it all twisted somehow. She didn't have a real name, just a shadow of what once might have been a real name and he didn't know at all what to make of it. So many things seemed to chip away at the chains of logic the ravenclaw had built around himself, and this was one of them.

He was dumfounded through most of it, eyes widening until they fairly stared, blueish grey surrounding the black dots that almost seemed to twitch in disbelief. Her names, none of them bode well. He had a lot of clout behind his names, he had the authority of the conqueror of the 14th dark place but the best title he had ever earned was a "Eeh". She had gotten a name, a name that tied into who she was based off of how evil she was. A part of her that could never be altered was fundamentally wicked, was fundamentally tricky. He respected her for not lying outright, at least. But she was a villain, a villain painted in black and white, not the grays in which everyone else seemed to thrive. And she was challenging him.

"Stop."

This was it, his moment. This was the point in time where he got to do something good for the little flame that had accepted him. He didn't understand much, could never really grasp the bigger picture. But he understood this all too well. A fight, a challenge. His pupils shot outwards in an amorphous mass, launching themselves towards the edges of his eyes, but stopping about halfway. He wasn't there yet, he was still composed. He would have to warn Eris somehow. Warn her that the first real threat in over a week was coming for her.

A fight was about to break out, and as much as he didn't like to admit it, he was probably going to need her help.

Maybe on a normal day she’d be harsher. Maybe on a normal day she’d be concerned about the cut the girl Bloom had said she received. But all that mattered to her was sleep. Patrols were exhausting. She gave both the soaked girls a tired look. One which didn’t match the age of the eleven-year-old girl. She didn’t act as a child would. She didn’t have a childhood or adventures. Now was a golden opportunity, and her sleep-deprived mind seized on her lack of ability to think logically. It allowed impulse to control her actions. She would live an adventure today that wasn’t confined to the pages of a book.

Luna shrugged. “Sure, let’s have a look at it. But I’m not the only Prefect out here. Kaegen is here as well.” She glanced around. He was here. Somewhere. But she couldn’t see very far away. It didn’t matter. Eris was here and he was highly protective of her. Luna had picked up on that quickly enough.” She absently dusted herself off, despite having clean robes. A nervous tic. She followed it quickly as she grasped a strand of her hair and began twirling it in her finger. She cocked her head to the side. “Why is a mirror so interesting? Someone probably lost it in the lake.”

Part of her was worried about the girls. They were wet and it was not exactly warm at night. She wished she had a warming spell. Incendio would likely be too much. Plus the light would likely alert any Professors that may be awake. Or other Prefects. Well, she’ll burn that bridge when she gets to it.

The command was chillingly clear, and Elena spun back towards him on reflex. The prefect with the title list looked like a snake about to strike, all bunched muscles and wild eyes. He was either about to try and kill her or run away, she needed to defuse the situation.

“Are you okay? I already said I wasn’t going to hurt you, and I keep my promises, that’s another reason they called me Puck, I refused to lie and the kids I grew up with back in London thought it was fitting, Puck who cannot lie. Weird right? Well, it made sense at the time.” Elena shrugged and walked back up towards the tree, “Also, if I was going to even try and ambush someone, what kind of an idiot would I have to be to announce my presence, then walk in the opposite direction of you. You’d know who I was! That would be a terrible plan, at least have the decency to even fake belief in my intelligence, also, I’d appreciate if you didn’t try to hurt me? I really like this school. It has actual beds, indoors, I’d prefer not having to spend the night dead and six feet under.”

She sighed, “Here, maybe this will make you feel better.”

Elena put her left hand over her heart and right up in the air so it was clear she wasn’t crossing her fingers, “I solemnly swear I am not here to injure or kill anyone or anything. I do not even know who the hell anyone here is, so please don’t stab me. Amen.”

She was lying, she had to be lying. Puck was a trickster, not a good samaritan that spoke only the truth. That didn't make sense, it was wrong. She had just said that her literal name was that of a trickster, of someone wicked. She was evil enough to lie, but what was the truth and what was the lie? How on earth did you discern something like that? You knew something was a lie if you knew the truth, and the truth contradicted what the person said. But he didn't know anything about what the girl was talking about. All he knew was that she was wicked, and tricky, and could pick pockets.

She explained why it was obvious that she wasn't trying an ambush, which really did nothing to convince the boy. He had already more or less abandoned the idea that she was trying to sneak. She was above sneaking, she was going for the frontal attack. But then why the heck did she say that she didn't want to get hurt? That she didn't want to hurt anyone? She swore that she wasn't up to anything, and he almost wanted to believe her. But her name, her name itself was wicked, her name itself was tricky. Did that mean nothing? This girl was confusing, and he was getting more and more worried, more stressed. His pupils were chaotic at this point, but he wasn't getting much adrenaline.

It wasn't the tension before a fight, it was the kind of nervous anxiety that happens when you are utterly bewildered and faced with something that tried to challenge two of the pillars of your worldview at the same time.

"I am... placing you under detention.

His finger started to twitch harder, little irregular jerks, and his feet shifted, setting himself in a stance more ready for a fast retreat, or a faster charge.