Icarus PV Slytherin Quidditch Team Closed

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[font=Abadi MT Condensed Light]Ah, friends, important for growing up and all that. Elena flitted from friend to friend, or more accurately, Elena stayed in the same state as friends walked by.

Being mean to Thora, now that was a big No No in Elena’s book, it was like kicking a rather intelligent yet friendly cat. Or a parrot, Elena liked parrots.

“Ah, leave off Alexx. I know it’s hard for you to grasp the concept, but Thora was being a nice human being and a good teammate. Also for the record, next time someone asks you ‘Are You Okay?’ It means ‘Hey there, I’m sorry you got hurt is there anything that requires urgent attention.’ Then you answer nicely, because you pretend that you’re also a nice human being and a good teammate.” Elena sounded oddly cheery with a touch of pain from her annoyance and cracked ribs, “I’m starting to think the only reason you’re on blatching duty is because of how much you enjoy knocking people down.”

Attention back on her friend, “Oh yes Thora, so I was thinking since my broom exploded, what if we started a business where normal students pay 6 sickles a month, and quidditch players pay a minimum of 10 sickles a month, scaling to how expensive the broom is, to get a certain amount of money for a replacement broom if their broom breaks. Broom insurance! We’ll be rich! Rich I tell you!”

Elena smiled, “They offered, but I don’t like being woozy so. I’m suffering through with a lighter one.”[/font]

@Elena Jones, @Thora Larkston, @Bridget Collins

A ferocious smirk grew on Alexx's face. Elena Jones had hit the nail in the head. "You're quite right, Elena. There is nothing in this world that I love more than taking people out. You don't know the joy that it brings me as I watch them tumble downwards, so helpless. I could score... If I wanted to. But I've proven that I have a valuable skill that is of use to this team. I guess you could say... Je suis un atout." There was a wicked look about the girl, even through her pain she was able to maintain her appearance for what she really was. Alexx was cold inside. The world had shown her no compassion, and so the same was given to the world in return.

Tucking some of her recently short hair behind her ears, she shook her head. "I owe kindness to no one. I endure and survive without the help of people." There weren't many people in this world that Alexx considered as "needed" by her. In fact, Alexx didn't need anyone. She had people who were real enough to stick by her side. In her moment of considering this, her fingers ran gently across her locket that Reid gifted her for her birthday. If one were to pop it open, it would play a music box version of Country Roads. Smiling softly to herself, she let the locket drop back against her chest. "No one gets anything for free anyway. Everything is a contract. Something must be on the line in exchange for my kindness, and given that none of you are of use to me... Well..." Her eyebrows twitched upwards as she turned her gaze to face away from the others.

Her kindness was owed to a few people. What they gave her in return wasn't a material payment, after all. They gave her something so much better. A home. Right here at Hogwarts. It was safe to say that Alexx never felt like she belonged anywhere, and certainly never felt safe anywhere. Living looking over her shoulder, she wasn't used to the safety and security that Hogwarts provided. More importantly, the people within it. While her inner circle was quite small, she liked it that way.

If it weren't for the fact that Alexx was waiting to be treated, she would have jammed by now. She hadn't asked to be spoken to, nor did she ask for Thora's kindness. Alexx ran by one rule: love yourself so no one has to. Sure, people cared about Alexx. After all, she wasn't an entire loner. Alexx had plenty of friends. However, she wasn't in the market for any more, and certainly no allies or acquaintances. Only Alexx could dictate her life.

Translations:
Je suis un atout - I am an asset

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[font=Abadi MT Condensed Light]“In a way I pity you Alexx, it must be a lonely life to believe kindness is a commodity to be bought and sold. To be so alone that concern draws your ire, and a child receives your anger for simply trying to do the right thing.” Elena frowned, “How old are you again? Thirteen? Well, nothing in the castle is stranger than people as young as you peacocking around like they’re so much older than they are. Trying to create allies and enemies and build an empire, all while ignoring the fact they can’t even buy a pair of scissors in some countries.”

Elena hissed a little but sat up to get a better look at Alexx, “You don’t want my advice, I know that much, but maybe this’ll get through to you, just a little, because god I wish someone’d told me. You’re young, you have your whole life ahead of you, you can do magic for gods sakes. Magic! You can turn a watch into a whistle and make it sing you the time. So be a kid, eat too much candy, make friends, try optimism on for size. Just for the love of all that is holy, stop acting like you’re a courtier surrounded by enemies, or the horribly annoying main character head-of-a-rebellion in some YA novel.”

Elena gave her a lopsided smile, “People aren’t out to get you, kindness is not an item to be bought and sold, and even then you don’t actually owe anybody anything, even if they’ve given you everything. It’s not like there’s a brand that appears on your face when someone gives you their lunch that says ‘I Owe You One Potato’. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to talk to my friends.“

Elena leaned back carefully and found her pack, pulling out chocolate frogs for Thora and Bridget, “Like some?”[/font]

@Elena Jones | @Bridget Collins | @Alexx Séverin

"Broom insurance? Well, t-that would be quite the interesting business," Thora fought for the right words to say. What was she supposed to say about something like broom insurance anyways? Sure, it would be quite nice to have another means of earning money even if it was from something as obscure as insurance for a broom, as Thora had only one means of earning income, coming from a Muggle background and all that. Hoping that her little argument with Alexx was finally over, Thora took a deep breath and turned back towards all of the girls. Perhaps she wouldn't be so left out. Perhaps she would be included once more. The little girl's wish was nearly, nearly fulfilled. Everything was peaceful... And then Elena jumped in.

Thora's eyes darted back and forth as she watched Elena and Alexx practically spit fire at each other. And all of this over her? Merlin, what the heck had she started? She was incredibly grateful to Elena for even standing up for her, as they didn't know each other well. After all, with her failing snarkiness, Thora knew better than to take Alexx. She wouldn't be able to win however hard she tried.

Obviously, there was nothing else to say. Elena had already said it all in all her icy-fire-spitting glory. Thora had tried to offer her kindness, so she felt that she had done her part. If Alexx didn't want it, well, that was that. The brunette felt almost bad for the older girl as Elena had quite literally added insult to injury. But although Thora had learned the hard way not to offer a speck of kindness to Alexx, it was hard for her not to. After all, she had already been knocked in the rib cage with an iron ball. Was it really necessary to go to harsh words, however true Thora knew they were? But it was too late. The blue-haired girl had turned back to her and Bridget, obviously intending the conversation to be over. 

"Um, sure," Thora said, reaching for a chocolate frog. "Thanks for that, by the way," she whispered to Elena. Truly, she was an amazing person. They barely knew each other--well, Thora supposed they had actually talked before--and yet, she had been quick to stand up for her. 

@Elena Jones, @Thora Larkston, @Bridget Collins

The only thing that Alexx could do was shake her head. Elena knew nothing. She acted wise beyond her years and as if she had been through worse than anyone else in the room. A true gatekeeper of Alexx's problems and the two hardly knew one another. Sure, perhaps some took different strides as an approach to their problems, but this was the path that Alexx had chosen, and she had every right to it. Until Elena was the heiress of a loveless and close-minded home, until she had spent all of her life without love, Alexx did not want for her to tell her how she should feel. "I have a right to my emotions. You have no business telling me how to feel or how to act." And the young girl would not say anything else.

Offended wasn't the right word. There was something about the presence of the three younger girls that made Alexx filled with rage. Innocence and compassion where it was not needed... Immaturity so vainly written across their faces. Elena might have portrayed herself to be rather sagacious, but that was merely an act. The circumstances that a pureblood household puts you under causes age where it shouldn't be, a sort of mental development that happens a lot faster than it does to the average person. One could go through years of hell, torment, and self-destruction, but it could not compare to being in the room where it happens. Being in the know about all of the terrible things that your family has done, and all of the lives that they have ruined with a mere flick of the wrist, and there is absolutely nothing that you can do to stop it. If you can't beat them, join them. At the end of the day, Alexx knew that there was only one path for her. Even if Uncle Jean did adopt her, or if Mikey got custody, or even if she had to go back to living under the roof of that wicked woman Vivienne, she would end up the same. Just like her God-forsaken parents.

Often she wondered what it was that made Raoul and Vivienne so cruel. At what point in their lives did they decide that it wasn't worth being good, moral people who fought to do good, and instead were bitter and ill. Perhaps it was true that Alexx was better than others in society simply due to her advantage with her blood, though she could not firmly stand by those beliefs on account of many things, such as who her boyfriend was or her budding friendship with Ami Procoppio, but she wouldn't deny the privilege that it gave her in the social hierarchy. But Alexx knew one thing and one thing only that was absolutely certain: she was born a leader, and a crown or throne was not needed to prove it.

This rebellion that Elena spoke of, and whatever the fuck "YA" was, was far from what Alexx had planned. Sure, she and Maxwell Avery fully intended to wreak havoc here at Hogwarts and give Professor Vernatis something to remember, but she didn't fully intend to play fruit basket turnover with the whole world. People who lead a movement were naive and blind. From studying history, Alexx knew that they made a huge mistake in doing so publically. If your intention is to uproot someone, you need to do so discreetly. Giving away your master plan to just about anyone and you're practically digging your own grave. This proved one thing to Alexx, and that was that Elena didn't know the game of strategy very well. Anyone could play chess, it was about if you could win.

Winning was the key to everything. If you didn't win in the world, then you were nothing. The point of living was to make your life mean something. To be the best that you could be; better than everyone else. It was to have power, and with power came money. People did not come with that. No matter how much you trusted someone, you must keep everyone at arm's length, otherwise, they are too close and could potentially harm you. The optimal goal is to stay in power for as long as possible.

This was why Alexx was still Editor-in-Chief.

Truthfully, she had stepped down from the position of Prefect at her own accord. She could have kept going, but as Robert Frost once wisely stated, nothing gold can stay. As if Alexx was the very green in nature that the poem speaks of, she stayed for the time that she needed and then left. Though, to Alexx, no one could do the position justice in the way that she had. However, she did a better job of running the Hogwarts Headliner, which was going ever so smoothly. Her trick was keeping people like Elena out of her business.

Pride was one of Alexx's biggest sins, as she was very proud of everything, even trivial achievements. To be better than people, for more reasons than just her blood and family name, was truly a gift. Perhaps the other girls felt as if Elena had won this battle, but Alexx did not quite see it that way. In Alexx's mind, she had outsmarted her in more ways than one. This was not the first time that Alexx and Elena went toe-to-toe. The very first time, Alexx learned that Elena was naive and immature, just as was reiterated to her this go-round. Elena did not believe in people holding authority over others, and despite that, that factor about society would never change. It had been proven that Utopia was the wrong way to live, in which everyone lived freely and without rule. There would always be a bigger bully to demand things from others, and just in the same way, the majority could rise up against a singular person and do the same. No one stopping this from happening would lead to absolute chaos, and not even the good kind.

No, what they didn't understand is that Alexx's situation was called defection. Life was made up of basic contracts, as the world mostly runs on a Contractarianism system. It was common to see defection amongst strangers, in this case, they could be considered strangers, and not so much with the people who you know. Now that they knew one another, there was no contract that stated that Alexx needed to be nice to them in order to reap the same benefits because she had laid out the ground rules. This raised the question as to how Alexx made friends to begin with, though could quickly be answered simply on account of the fact that some people out there enjoyed her natural state, which was a stone-cold bitch. On the other hand, there were those who she respected and wasn't as hostile with, and that was because she didn't have such a small heart as the look someone who she respected, like Reid, in the eyes and be blatantly rude to them. She could to it to Thora in a heartbeat because... Well, she was an annoying kid.

In this world of contracts, Alexx did not particularly believe that morality was real, in true contractarianism form. The only way for morality to be real would be to agree that it is. So, perhaps her peers viewed her as immoral, but Alexx had not explicitly agreed with them first upon what the terms of morality are. Thus, it was perfectly fine for her to resent the other girls and act out in the manner in which she was.

@Elena Jones | @Thora Larkston | @Alexx Séverin

By the time this was all over, Bridget was going to be deep in Elena's debt. Even if she didn't count not catching the blue-haired Chaser, how was she ever supposed to pay her back for defending Thora while she stood by, useless? Listening to Elena's speech to Alexx, though, maybe for now being kind in return would be enough. She was still positive she would be haunted later on by all the things she should've said and didn't, but for now she pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind and decided to at least pretend to take interest in broom insurance.

"That doesn't sound like a bad idea," she commented. She had no idea how Elena would make something like broom insurance happen, but between her apparent extroversion and way with words, who knew? Maybe she'd pull it off.

"Um, yeah." Bridget took one of the offered chocolate frogs. "Thank you." The words carried both gratitude for the sweet and her unspoken thanks for Elena standing up for Thora. Perhaps the notion of them ever becoming friends was far-fetched, but she was warming up to the other Quidditch player. The least she could do was give her someone to talk to while she waited this injury out.