SOLO A Ruminant Reunion Closed

[font=century gothic]WHEN: [/font]July 1, 2020 | Evening
[font=century gothic]WHERE: [/font]King's Cross Station | Muggle area
[font=century gothic]WHO: [/font]Evelynn and her mother
[font=century gothic]WHAT: [/font]After completing her first year at Hogwarts, Evelynn returns via Hogwarts' Express to reunite with her mother at the station

It had been… a journey. Admittedly, the train ride from Hogwarts to London had been remarkably more enjoyable than it might otherwise have been. Accompanied by Charlie and joined thereafter by Roberts and Sylvr, the four had passed the time away with pleasantries and conversation, punctuated with the occasional splurge of treats from the trolley as it passed along the narrow hall.

In the end, however, as the sun began its descent to the horizon and they entered into the final stretch towards London proper, Evelynn had pulled back from sociality, thoughts subverting to that which lay ahead — home. The chill of the window pane pressing against her temple where she leaned against it helped to sharpen her focus, if only a little. She still wasn't quite sure what to expect. Certainly, the correspondence she'd maintained with her mother since the New Year had been far improved. No longer were the words prim and stiff on either side, appearing as though penned to paper with a sense of propriety and obligation to uphold communication. No, to her great relief, they had returned to the easy flow of casual inquiry and conversation with which Evelynn had been accustomed during her stints away from home at her previous boarding schools.

Unlike her train ride home for the winter holidays, however, it wasn't a worry about the standing of the relationship with her mother that weighed heavily upon her shoulders. Instead, it was how to face her now.

In a way, the fact that they had left on poor terms at the start of the school year had actually been a convenience. In place of the usual inquisition, there had been deliberate deference to ignorance. Evelynn had even been under the impression that her mother was pretending that the school to which she had departed last September was none other than the same she had attended the year prior. Just…leaving from a different station. In a different direction. For no suspicious reason at all. At the time, she had felt more than a little alone. The refusal to outwardly acknowledge the exceptional reality, especially given her mother's fantastical proclivity, had come as a heavy blow. It had been the first time she felt as though she had no one, truly, to turn to. Without support and left to her own musings, she had wandered into the realm of Hogwarts as a lone adventurer.

The winter holidays had brought with them some measure of relief in the cold war. Although the tension had reigned nearly palpable initially, the barriers of communication, like tracked snow near the hearth, had quickly melted. Clear as though it were only yesterday, Evelynn could recall those first tentative inquiries, ones that filtered gently forward as though uncertain as to whether prying were allowed. It had been awkward at first, to answer them. And for some time, Evelynn hadn't been certain if she had preferred the state of deliberate disregard to her studies and the castle encasing them. With every answered question, however, her mother's curiosity and enthusiasm had grown, quickly whisking away any lingering hesitation Evelynn had felt at indulging the insatiable thirst for knowledge.

But then…It was what had come after that which had complicated matters. The news of Mister Potter; the missing case of the Headmaster; the break-in at his office, the oddities surrounding those students who'd born witness to something, the spiders in Slytherin dorm, the fire in the Hufflepuff common room, the mosps, the hags, the dolls in the forest, the attack by a dhampir, the Valentine's Tea attack, the assault in the dungeons, Quidditch bludgers and blatches, illicit below-stand duels… the list of dangers and violence to which Evelynn had been exposed was nearly endless. And through it all, through the spiraling descent to the void she had encountered, she had held up the pretense of normativity. Nothing was amiss. She was fine. Everything was as a place of learning should be… endless opportunities… knowledge ever-expanding… magical.

It had been easy up until now, it had been a simple matter to avoid discussion of school events. Well, not easy per se — there had been more than a few times where letters had been written only to be hastily discarded and rewritten so as to eliminate anything that could give cause for worry. Her mother was only too keen to read between the lines and pick out anything amiss. More than a few times, the young Lion had thought she may have given too much away, but there had never been probing questions requesting she elaborate. So, either she'd been lucky enough for her slips to fly under the radar, or — perhaps more likely — for one reason or another, her mother had simply refrained.

Either way, Evelynn had been able to keep the chaos localized. To keep the lingering pains and regrets hidden from written word. That wouldn't be so easily managed in person, however. As much as she was looking forward to returning home, to departing from the source of torment and being able to reunite with those small passions that would provide her a much needed sense of peace, she knew she wouldn't be able to keep up the façade. At some point, there would be questions.

What was she to do? What was she to say? Depending on what he mother asked, she might be able to dance around them. Deliver half-truths, or circumvent the questions entirely. Perhaps. That rarely ended well. The pattern was always the same: the ruse would be humored for a short while, the conversation trailing off and away from the topic of concern. But only to the point where hope would peak that perhaps success in aversion had been achieved. And that's when the pointed and specifically worded questions would emerge. The ones that rooted her to the spot without any ability to evade.

If only she could lie… But her mother would see through that even faster. Not to mention Evelynn was absolutely rubbish at it to begin with. Truths were easier, she'd found. One didn't need to remember what they'd said in a truth, but merely remember what was. Still, it wasn't as though the truth were any more of an option. To relay everything that had happened would surely mean being barred from returning to the school. Granted, that had been a notion Evelynn had taken to consideration anyway, but one that had been quietly brushed away after a series of conversations with peer and staff. To withhold further education simply wasn't an option. The dangers that could — and would — accompany a lack of control and competence would put not only herself at risk, but also her mother.

Her mind continued to reel, thoughts branching off and feeding back into each other in a maelstrom of confusion and circling rumination. By the time the whistle blew and the breaks squealed to herald the train's deceleration as they pulled into the station, Evelynn was no closer to determining how to address her mother than she had been at the start. As time had run out, however, there was little more that she could do.

With a resigned sigh, she tapped her forehead against the window, withdrew, and rose with the rest of her peers to retrieve her trunk and disembark. Her subsequent actions passed in a blur. Each step seemed to pull her through a field of resistance, as though she were being magnetically repelled from going forward. It took nearly all her willpower simply to cross the platform to the gate, faces of her fellows fading in and out of existence around her and never truly registering. Later, she wouldn't even be able to recall properly if she had actually given her farewells to those with whom she had shared a cubby on the train.

Of course, all paths do eventually lead to some sort of destination. In what felt simultaneously like the passing of an hour and the blink of an eye, Evelynn found herself on the muggle side of the barrier, hands clasped around the handles of her trunk cart, as grey eyes listlessly roamed the crowd for the what was both the first and last face she wished to see. A second later, all her worry and fear and fixation on magically academic troubles were discarded on the tail-end of a pitiful whimper.

"Oh my Lord, no…" Evelynn breathed, a flush of heat leaping at her collar bone to climb rapidly for purchase across her cheeks.

In the see of London citizens filtering back from work and errands, and with the addition of the now steady trickle of students bolstering the crowd, one might have thought it difficult to truly stand out. Which was ideal. They weren't meant to stand out. In any fashion. Clearly, however, none had shared this message with the figure standing off just a little ways. A figure that had stationed themselves obnoxiously in the crossroads of had been several paths through the station so that busy pedestrians were forced to diverge around them.

But that wasn't the worst of it. As Evelynn took in the attire, her eyes widened, lips parting slightly in stony horror. White tennis shoes, faded skinny jeans, white baseball cap with a red maple leaf stitched prominently on the front, and a black jersey with red and yellow bands at the elbows and hem and a sigil depicting a stylised skate completed the outfit. The corner of her mouth twitched. She didn't have to see the back of it to know there was a large "1" stitched there. And, to top it all off, a sign boldly announcing: Welcome home, Eevee.

For a split second, Evelynn actually held to the urge to retreat. Just a couple steps back and she could disappear right back through the barrier to Platform 9 and 3/4. Hide from the unexpected and horribly unwanted welcome that awaited her. Perhaps she'd even be able to take that moment to clear her mind and wake from what was obviously a nightmare as nobody in their right minds would possibly choose to wear such a ghastly and out-of-place combination of clothes in downtown London. No one except her mother, who had clearly gone mental and was channelling the typical uninhibited displays more common of her own mother, Evelynn's Grandmother.

"Eevee!" The siren call greeting of her mother sent the hairs on the back of her neck to stand on end as a shiver racked up her spine. "Evelynn, over here." Evidently, she thought that her daughter hadn't heard her the first time.

Another second later and Evelynn was stifling the groan that had come unbidden to reverberate in her throat at her mother's untimely recognition and began to wade forward through the sea of people. It was too late, now. Any thoughts of retreat were blown asunder the moment she'd been spotted. She ought to have been more decisive, reacted faster. Perhaps if it had been a cannonball perched upon her mother's brow instead of a baseball cap, reflexes might have been more obliging and swift to react. As it was, Evelynn was rooted to the spot, watching with growing dread as the image of her mother drew nearer, arms reaching wide until the whole of her vision was occupied by a black and orange and red and white skate as she was quickly enveloped in a near bone splitting hug.

"Mum…." she regurgitated, tone muffled and as stiff as her torso. The sound of thick cardstock snapped, whispered with a sway, then gave a dulled thunk before whisking against the grown. It had been dropped, hands freed for the only important purpose of hugging the ever-living-daylights out of Evelynn. "Muum…" she wheezed again, this time accompanied by a grunt as she tried, and failed, to resist against the forceful expelling of air. "Pleease.." Evelynn lamented, trying not to look around for fear of catching whatever looks might be cast their way. She didn't want to know. "You're embarrassin—"

"Can't a mother be happy for the safe arrival of her daughter and greet her with a hug?" came the retort, lips splaying into a content grin.

With a strength that defied her stature, Evelynn pushed back with a firm, "Not like this," and cast a furtive glance about their immediate vicinity. Perhaps it was luck, actually, that her mother had chosen to shake up one of the more populated intersections. With the number of bodies that flocked around them, it was difficult to catch sight of any familiar faces that might be looking on. Which meant the reverse was also true. "And why are you dressed how you are?"

"It's Canada Day!" Her mother replied matter-of-factly, pulling back to hold Evelynn's shoulders at arms' length to fix her with a smirk. Evelynn frowned, meeting the jovial gaze with her own stony one. "Oh what's the matter, Eevee-bean? Are we not allowed to celebrate?"

"Not here," Evelynn hissed through her teeth.

"Oh?" The cock of a brow accompanied the upward curl of one side of her mother's mouth. The fact that he mother was taking some sort of perverse amusement from this was grating. "And why is that?"

"Because," came the counter, a lame one at that for the silence that fell in lieu of any actual rationale. "Because this is Britain."

"And Canada is her daughter," countered her mother in that same light-hearted tone. Light-hearted, but fired up. "Should I stop celebrating your birthday?"

"..no," Evelynn begrudgingly replied after a few seconds of resistance. She could already tell this was going to be one of those silly arguments that her mother got hung up on winning, and the fact was that the train ride had been long and she was tired. The last thing she wanted was to engage in a verbal sparring match. Least of all in the middle of King's Cross Station. Plus… it could have been a lot worse. With a sigh, she peeled her gaze from that of her mother's and dropped it to the jersey. "Okay… but why that?"

At first, the only reply was a guilty smirk to match the shrug of her mother's shoulders. "I didn't have a red shirt, or anything else that was sufficiently Canadian."

"And…" There was more to it, Evelynn was sure.

"And…" Her mother obliged. "They've finally announced where the games are going to be hosted. I'm breaking it in for the games."

Of course she was. This time, Evelynn actually did roll her eyes. Although she and her mother sat eye to eye on many interests and she had to credit her for much of her own learning, hockey had never been something upon which she had grasped terribly firmly. Had she been required to pick a sport on ice, she'd have gone with figure skating. Even then, she had only elected to grasp the basics of skating, taking a preference to skiing as her winter sport of choice. On those nights that her mother was actually home to watch a game, Evelynn curled up by the hearthfire to read.

"Can we just g—"

"I'm sorry." The words had been uttered as barely more than a whisper, but they struck through Evelynn's intent to protest their lingering presence as keenly as any barbed argument. For what her mother was sorry, she didn't know. Cowed to uncertain silence, she soon found her head cupped to press forward against her mother's collar, the embrace renewed in full strength. The mood shifted uncomfortably. Where her mother had been jovial moments before, a veil of melancholy draped from her shoulders like a cape. Evelynn couldn't help but shift her weight as it threatened to envelop the pair of them in its confines.

"Y-you should be," Evelynn quipped. Not quite certain what had brought on the sudden expression, she wasn't sure how else to respond. As simple as the gesture was, there was a weight behind it far greater than she could hope to glean in this moment, and it absolutely was not something she wished to explore in public display. "This is an embarrassment…"

The quiet chuckle that followed gave her hope that perhaps this would merely be a momentary lapse and that the two could be on their way to reunite properly on their own terms. The sniff that came after dashed that hope against the tracks. Her own resolve began to slip, then, the familiar warmth of her mother providing a sense of relief that she hadn't felt the last few months. How many times had she wished that she could have just fled from everything and hidden in the protective folds of her mother's arms? She hadn't been able to when it had mattered. But that didn't mean she didn't still long for that sense of security.

"I missed you…" Heat pricked at the corners of her own eyes as she fell into the moment, sniffing as her weight shifted forward to lean into her mom. Fingers found their way to wrap around her mother's neck, pulling them closer, prompting a tight squeeze from her guardian.

"Welcome home, sweetie."

[font=century gothic]CONTINUES: Post yet to be written