Unlikely Friends Finished

Kaegen shot ahead to the lakeside, moving incredibly fast, like the shadow of a bird gliding across the water. He spread out his arms and took in the little bit of mist the lake offered. It swirled around his arms and streamed out behind him. He turned and ran back to eris, a huge grin plastered across his face.
"this place is amazing, almost as nice as the fens. Listen to the water singing, breathe the air."
As he started talking his grin relaxed to match his voice, but a smile was still obvious.
Kaegen sat down softly in the grass, and watched the other students run around.
"Do you know any of them?" He finally asked. Further down, he noticed a few students sitting by themselves or with one other person. Kaegen wondered if they were like him, maybe he should go and invite them over? But then again, that would ruin the moment. Every card that had been played had turned up Kaegen. He got in to the best house, made a new friend and just discovered that there was a little pocket of the fens even here in hogwarts. This was not the time to be ruining anything.
He looked at eris, and tried to read what she was thinking. But he wasn't very good at it, and ended up just staring at her.

Eris was too busy looking up at the sky to notice Keagen staring at her. Finally she rolled over onto her side and stared at all the other sudents. "Nah, I don't know them. I really don't know anybody. I'm much more content to read my books than to talk to people." It was the truth. Eris was a total book freak, and found that most ailments could be cured by a mug of hot chocolate and good book. "But since we don't know them, want to play a game?" She pointed to a group of students throwing rocks into the lake. "You have to guess what they're doing. Like that girl," She pointed to a girl throwing a rock very weakly. "She's only throwing weakly because she wants the giant squid to notice her and give her throwing pointers." Eris always played that game in her head. To make up crazy stories about people around her, the more funny the better. She had never played it with a real person again, but she hadn't really had a lot of time to sit around and chat with people before Hogwarts.

Hopefully Keagan had a sense of humour. If he didn't things could get weird.

Kaegen looked at the group of people and tried to imagine what they could be doing. They seemed to be having fun, playing around in little groups. Kaegen wasn't sure how to play this game, just make up something that they could be doing? And what was this giant squid thing?
Well, maybe he could try something, see what happens. "The lake is taking the rocks, and covering the sharp stones at it's bottom, so they can play in the water and not get cut. The lake is lonely, and remembers a time when kids didn't think a giant squid was lurking in it."
That sounded pretty stupid, but it was the best he could come up with. Maybe she would just ignore it and keep talking. He liked it when she talked, it was like listening to a story. Stories were really interesting, and nothing beat listening to his grandfather's stories as they sat by a pool watching the fish dart like silver bullets. He remembers back then, the inky water was rippling strangely...
Kaegen shook his head and looked at eris again. How could anyone live in the city and not be all black with soot? She didn't smell like muggle towns, even though she said she lived in one.
He had visited a muggle town once, very briefly. The horrid smelling smoke made him dizzy. He did not know how any one could survive that.

Eris looked at Keagen, pondering his words. This boy really seemed to love nature. That was a nice trait to have. Maybe she could change the story a bit to make it less funny and more about nature and the way Keagen viewed it. She thought of the stories Keagan had told her and responded.

"Or perhaps the lake is searching for her lost love, and when each new stone comes in she hopes that its her lost love finally returning to her. But when it's not, she lets the stones sink to the bottom in disappointment." It wasn't as good as Keagan's stories but Eris truly was a hopeless romantic, even at the age of 11 she already dreamed of finding true love. She couldn't help it, after all she had spent her life reading books about happily ever after.

Eris returned her gaze to the water, watching it ripple strangely, until a giant tentacle sprang out of the water. Some other first years recoiled in shock, while older students continued on with their day, but Eris jumped to her feet. "YES IT'S REAL!" she cheered, running towards the water, then thinking better of it returned to her seat under the tree.

Hogwarts never failed to amaze Eris. Honestly why was it even a shock there was a giant squid? There were probably way weirder things than a giant squid at Hogwarts, and Eris was determined to find them all. Eris turned towards Keagen beaming.

"A lost love? I think..." Kaegen is interrupted by the squid, and freezes. His eyes widen, and flash around like erratic lightning. They momentarily lock on to a patch of tall grass, and then Kaegen is gone. Flitting like a whisper from cover to cover, so smoothly you would think he was simply a part of nature, a leaf being blown along by a favorable wind. A fast wind.
He steps into the water, making almost no splash, only a few ripples mark the place where Kaegen's feet once stood. When he gets reasonably close to the squid, he freezes. He appears like a stone, unwavering in the water. And then he begins to hum. The tune can be heard a little better now, a little louder. It's definitely different than the one he was humming earlier. It seems peaceful, serene. A lot like the fog. Kaegen keeps standing there in the water, a slight smile frozen on his face, his eyes locked on the tentacle. He stops paying attention to anything else, happy and content standing in the lake, humming to a giant tentacle that belongs to a even more giant squid, that probably got mad at the kids throwing rocks at it.

Eris barely moved, frozen in shock. Was that apperation? That's impossible you couldn't do that in Hogwarts, but how had Keagen got to the squid so fast? What if the squid hurt him, Eris thought with terrible clarity. Worried that Keagen was going to get hurt, Eris took a hurried step towards the leg, than another. It took her longer than it took Keagen but soon enough she was standing a ways behind him. Far enough away from the squid, but close enough to protect Keagen if anything happened. She hadn't meant too, but while Eris was staring at the Squid and Kegen to make sure he was safe, she found herself staring at Kegen, not the squid. He looked so peaceful, humming his song to the squid.
It was quite a sight. The 11 year old boy standing in the water straight in front of a giant squid with no fear in his eyes. Eris wished she had a camera to capture the moment, but even though she didn't have a camera, Eris somehow knew she would remember this moment forever.
Her heart pounding in her chest, Eris took another step closer to the squid. "Or maybe the squid is the lake's lover." She mused, almost to herself.

The squid sunk back down in the lake, and Kaegen reached down his hand into the water for a brief instance, before walking back out onto the bank of the lake. He looked at eris, still smiling.
"That was amazing, I wonder what it was thinking." He was about to start contemplating what a giant squid would be thinking about but then looked over at eris, and decided that he'd much rather know what she was thinking about. After all, there were plenty of creatures in the fens, but no girls his age. She was much more difficult to understand than the squid.
But she looked happy, so at least he didn't do anything wrong. He did run off ahead of her, leaving her behind to go and look at a squid. That was probably not the best move. After realizing his mistake, his excited voice, once sounding like a rush of wind now resembled the hushed whisper of leaves once more. "sorry about that..." his movements freeze, and he stares at the girl's shoes. He should have taken his shoes off, should have felt the grass between his toes, felt the water on his bare feet. Oh, well. If he did that now he would look weird, and this was already showing potential for a bad spin of the wheel.

Eris was enjoying watching Keagen and the squid, so when the squid retreated back into the water, she felt a rush of disappointment. How odd it was for a boy her age to be so fascinated by nature. It was quite intriguing, and Eris wanted to learn more about why Keagen liked nature so much, so when he said sorry, Eris was taken aback.

Eris blinked rapidly a few times, trying to understand what Keagen was sorry for, but she just couldn't really figure it out. "You don't have anything to be sorry for." Eris said fiercely, still not sure what he was sorry for. Either way, she wasn't going to let him feel bad about anything. Isn't that what friends do? Make sure their friends weren't sad about anything? It seemed like Keagen was sad, or at least withdrawn once again. His voice of excitement was nice though, for once Eris didn't have to strain her ears to hear whatever keagen was saying. Maybe someday he would always talk louder, but for now this was good even if he talked very quietly. It was better than not talking at all .But why was Keagen looking at his feet? Eris still really didn't understand why he was sad.

The list of things Kaegen hated was pretty short, all things considered. He hated hard floors, he hated burnt eggs and he hated confusion. He was in a lot of confusion right now, and had no idea how to get out. nothing to be sorry about? Hadn't he run off ahead? Did she not mind?
Maybe she liked the squid as much as he did, maybe she didn't recognize any danger and was expecting him to run ahead. People were harder to deal with than the creatures he saw in the fens. Those would overlook a stone. People would look at the stone and notice that it was kaegen, standing still. He could find a way out of this mess, though. A conversation changer had worked before, in potions. It just might work again! "oh okay.... what did london sound like?"
If she liked london half as much as he liked the fens, this would be alright. And for all he knew london had spells in place to get rid of the smell. Maybe he shouldn't have been so quick to judge. It had a park, she said. Parks had grass, and sometimes little duck ponds! Grandfather told him that muggles loved parks.