Brawl 2.0 PV Marshal, Scarlett, Evelynn Closed

Graphic by Leonard Oaksworth

Interacting With: @Anastasia Beckett

Mentioning: @Scarlett Aden & @Evelynn Decipio

Lunchtime, the aspiration of every student during morning classes, and the sweet, savored memory that served to push them through the remaining schedule of parent-condoned torment.
Marshal had many loves, it was true, his mind ever dominated by pretty faces and soft voices - but the one time those visages faded slightly was when the alluring image of a sandwich waggled - yes, waggled - itself in the periphery of his mental musings near lunchtime. For those treasured moments, when the vividly imagined scent of food seemed to beckon him to the Great Hall, promising refuge from the cruel reality of his schoolwork, all else waned in significance.
From an hour before lunchtime, until the point when he licked his fingers clean of all lingering flavors, the young boy was effectively rendered useless - an oblivious dolt, whose answers in class tended to revolve heavily around the delicious edibles swirling about his consciousness.
It was a wonder why he struggled so mightily in the classes immediately preceding lunch hour.

Of course, there were other things that could steal his fixation; for example, if a particularly attractive girl were to stand up in class, forcing him to devise a fool-proof plan to achieve her attention before the day was through. Or else, if anyone were to broach the subject of Quidditch, demanding his undivided attention in order to unload every ounce of information he had retained concerning the sport.
None of these things ever failed to bring him immeasurable joy, nor provide him with an undeniable appreciation to be alive. However, there was one other that lived in only his wildest fantasies - hallowed ground that he dared not believe could be breached. And yet, he had stepped upon such a surface today, his feet driving him numbly into the most captivating of dreams.
He was experiencing all three at the same time.

Following the boy's swift retreat from class, he had made for the quickest route to the Great Hall, one of the few paths he had memorized in the whole school. After all, it simply wouldn't do to get lost and miss lunch. The mere thought sent cold shivers down his spine.
Along the way, he had nearly stumbled into the living embodiment of poise, beauty and sarcasm that was Anastasia Beckett. Suddenly, lunch had taken a backseat in his mind.
The first-year was always overjoyed to find himself in her presence, but had recently noted a few changes to her appearance.
When the two had first met, dark makeup had colored her flawless face, while clothing of similar shades adorned her lithe body. Nowadays, the style seemed to have been tossed to the wind of her creative whims, leaving her appearance noticeably less... dejected. Personally, Marshal approved of the change, though he figured she would look stunning in any conceivable outfit.

As the two of them had engaged in conversation, still moving toward the Great Hall, the topic had quickly turned to Quidditch, completing the perfect trifecta of the young Gryffindor's most cherished fantasies.
He'd known Ana was a member of his house's team, a facet of her persona that drew him to her, only adding to her charm and satirical wit.
Presently, he rambled ceaselessly about the disturbing fact that he lacked a broom of his own, but was willing to join the team riding a magical tree branch if he had to.
The unblemished set of happenstance that made his dream a reality had left him in a state of joyful bliss, until it was interrupted by a flash of red hair at the edge of his vision.
Glancing in that direction, he found himself imagining these perfect circumstances with the added bonus of an appearance by Evelynn. But those hopeful emotions were swiftly dashed, replaced by shock and dismay. Both made themselves known in his expression as Scarlett Aden passed by.

Focus entirely stolen by the other girl, he failed to see the glare thrown by Ana, his vision tunneling onto Scarlett's face as dark memories associated with it surfaced in his mind.
An explosion, his body thrown carelessly through a train car window seconds before consciousness was lost; waking up minutes later, racked with unthinkable pain, yet unable to react as his limbs were bound, motionless; catching that red hair in his limited range of sight, a feeling of peace washing over him until it was cruelly torn away by panic, as her wand pointed straight at him.
It all flashed through his head in one instant, before he managed to rip his gaze away.
Lowering his hazel eyes to the stone floor, he mumbled to Ana, "Sorry. I just got distracted for a second." The enthusiasm had drained from his voice, pensive energy serving as its hollow replacement. Upon Ana's prompt to repeat what he'd said, he added, "Nothing." Intending to lighten the mood once more, he forced a crooked grin back onto his face. "I just wish I knew which pickup line made Scarlett angry enough to try and kill me."
It would not be until moments later that the boy would understand his grave mistake.

With only two weeks until the end of term, lunchtime had lost just about all meaning of its actual intended purpose. How could one possibly eat food when exams were nearly upon them and the pressure to perform in order to graduate and select electives was so very much overwhelming? It was all Evelynn could do to sleep, let along eat. While she rarely struggled with appetite, when the former suffered, so too did the latter.

Still, the brain could not function strictly on air. Sustenance was necessary in order to feed it the energy it required to continue with rational thought. As much effort as it took to conjure even the most basic desire to shovel even the sweetest novelties past those lips, Evelynn made it her dutiful routine to do so. And, with the conclusion of the Quidditch season, she had no reason to depart off to the grounds to squeeze in exercise or broom practice during their lunch hour. And so, she would actually stay within the confines of the Great Hall nibbling slowly away at a lunch plate of assorted fruits, vegetables and sandwich squares with her nose inches deep into her notes.

It was in the midst of one of these fervent lunch-hour study sessions that she would find herself on this day. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary had occurred, thus nothing to draw away her attention. Those around her were paid little mind for the most part. Although, here and there a familiar voice would briefly catch her attention and she would lift her head to acknowledge their presence with the nod of her chin before diverting her gaze down again. She was simply there. A lion in the den; a captain among her peers; a prefect laying in wait.

outfit
speech #bf0040

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@Anastasia Beckett @Marshal Mozor @Evelynn Decipio

[font=times new roman]W[/font]hen you've made so many enemies, it's hard to go anywhere without some form of conflict.

Honestly, Scarlett couldn't exit the Great Hall without some sort of commotion springing up. It had started when she was sitting at the Gryffindor table, peacefully tucking into her lunch - a rather delectable pie. No matter how incredible people boasted the other schools were, Scarlett doubted they could rival Hogwarts in the food department. However sometimes, she felt kind of guilty when she did eat her food, knowing that the house elves didn't get paid nearly enough for their services. Apparently, they didn't mind, but Scarlett couldn't quite comprehend the way people 'didn't mind' their unfair treatment, even going so far as to justify it.

But she was getting off-track. Where was she? Oh yes: it had started when she was sitting at the Gryffindor table, eating a pie. No - it had started a long time before that. It had started when she tried to knock Marshal out, believing that painless unconsciousness - with the risk of death - would be preferable to painful revival. She was wrong of course, naturally. No matter how much Scarlett pretended to always be right, she knew she often made the most mistakes. But wait. It had started even before the train crash, and the disasters that followed. It had started way back in September, when Scarlett was in the wrong place, at the wrong time and told a friend some gossip she had caught on about Anastasia Beckett.

Afterwards, she had gotten punched in the nose and tackled. Her back hurt just thinking about the incident, and she wasn't even old yet! It had infuriated her, of course, so she fought back - equally roughly, despite Beckett towering over her the entire time - and swore to hate Anastasia from then on. She still did, of course. A year of brewing tension and the occasional food fight had not helped their equal contempt of each other.

Some people told her that she was asking for it. She shouldn't have gossiped, and when she did gossip, she shouldn't have fought back. Scarlett had scoffed, slung some biting remarks - and maybe a few fists - and ignored them. After all, gossip was gossip. Gossip was not necessarily true - that was why it was called gossip, and not facts. And Scarlett doubted she would have reacted similarly to Beckett. If she caught someone spreading rumours that she had murdered her parents, Scarlett would've shoved them, yelled at them, slapped some common sense into them maybe - but full-on fist-fighting them? In the hallways? Merlin, no. Scarlett wasn't one to get too physical in any way, be it affection or aggression.

And what was she meant to do if someone punched her? Tackled her? Throw her hands up, simper up to them, apologise? "I surrender," mocked Scarlett to herself as she forked up another mouthful of pie. "I am ever so sorry about the fact that you broke my nose and tackled me. How will I make it up to you? O, supreme Anastasia, I beg for your forgiveness." It earned her a few odd looks from other students, but Scarlett was beyond caring about spectators at this point. She finished her pie - and her internal rant about how she detested Anastasia Beckett - before standing up and hooking her legs over the bench. She then made her way out of the Great Hall, bag swinging beside her, ready to enjoy the last remnants of her free time before lessons started again-

Two blondes, chatting away. Scarlett glared as Anastasia entered the hall, though she noticeably tensed as Marshal did beside her. They were friends now? Perfect. Just perfect. Anastasia was probably jabbering away about how Scarlett had spread nasty falsehoods about her, and how Scarlett attacked her innocent self, and how Scarlett had given her a black eye. And they were having lunch at this time? How could they wait so long to eat? Though to be fair, Scarlett had sprinted out of lessons and devoured her food in about five minutes. Huffing indignantly, she turned to leave the hall, though the mere sight of Anastasia had sent her blood boiling, just as Marshal said something that he definitely should not have said.

Scarlett froze.

"I just wish I knew which pickup line made Scarlett angry enough to try and kill me."

She turned away from the exit. She had plenty of time before lessons started anyway.

"Excuse me?" said Scarlett, eyes alight with something uncomfortably close to anger. "We have been over this. I tried to do what I did because I thought you were in pain and I thought you might feel better unconscious! You were going to be dragged through the snow! Everything was broken! I was terrified and I had no idea what to do. And I apologised." She searched around hurriedly for someone who could back up her point, and spotted Decipio. Perfect. "Right Decipio?"

Scarlett assumed the prefect had been listening the entire time, because that was what prefects did. Scarlett could always catch her up to speed if not - though she wasn't sure Decipio would be on her side in this...interaction.

Scarlett kept her eyes fixated on Marshal, waiting for an answer. She firmly ignored Anastasia, which was hard. Why did she have to be so tall?

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The change in her companion's tone did not go unnoticed by the third year and she shot him a concerned glance. That was definitely not how Marshal ought to sound. Even if she hadn't spent the better part of the last year sounding as if she had the wind knocked out of her, the sharp contrast with how the boy normally sounded was enough to give her whiplash. His clearly artificial switch back made her want to say something. She had faked enough smiles to know that having someone point it out was both the best and worst outcome. Still, as he faked cheerfulness, Ana was willing to let the matter be for the time being. That was until she heard what he said.

"I beg your pardon?" she choked, stopping in her tracks. Scarlett was evil and vile to be sure, but attempting to kill someone? Much less Marshal, the literal golden retriever? She wished that she could say that a schoolgirl attempting to murder a classmate was outside the realm of possibility but this was Hogwarts. "I'm not certain I heard you correctly, as I'm somewhat predisposed to dislike her on account of some particularly vicious rumors she spread about my family, but if I heard you correctly..." Ana became cognizant of the fact she was rambling a bit and trailed off.

If Marshal made any response, Ana didn't register it, as she was focused on the approach of a most unwelcome addition. Speak of the devil and she doth appear, it seemed. Scarlett had an uncanny ability to do that. She had the audacity to seem angry, and Ana somewhat tuned her out. The majority of the putrid verbal diarrhea that exited Scarlett's lips anytime she thought it necessary to speak was entirely untrue, and more often than not, gave the blonde a headache from its complete lack of logic or anything else. As Ana's thoughts wandered, she attempted to fixate on something relevant to the conversation, as to not make the fact she wasn't listening obvious.

Ana's height was not always something she relished but at that moment it was. The ability to physically look down upon her foe while metaphorically doing so was unparalleled. Height was a strange thing. Beyond shoes, it wasn't something that was easy to fake and yet it affected much. Ana's father, for instance, had always towered over her, making his disapproval all the more crushing. Of course, even if the two girls were closer in height, Ana was obviously superior, but the height made things ever so clear.

Still, as the superior person in this situation, Ana ought not to initiate a confrontation. Except, as the blonde focused every fiber of her being on not attacking her, the gears in her brain began to spin. Marshal said that she had tried to kill him, and while he was perhaps slightly ridiculous at times, he was someone who she believed, to be honest. Scarlett was most definitely not. If Marshal said that the Beater had attempted to harm him, then Ana was inclined to believe him, regardless of what the other girl had to say.

There was something else to consider before Ana came to any conclusions. Scarlett was something of an idiot. A vile, cruel idiot, but an idiot nonetheless. It was entirely possible that she had used some charm or another in an attempt to help and it had backfired - wait. Second years didn't know any charms that would cause someone to fall asleep or become unconscious, did they? Ana racked her brain in an attempt to figure out what spell the moron could have possibly used.

Disgustingly, Ana knew that the two thought alike in some matters, so perhaps this was one. By Ana's logic, there were two possible candidates. The first, though somewhat unlikely, was the Killing Curse. Who knew? Perhaps Scarlett thought that she wasn't powerful enough to kill Marshal so her failure would knock him out. Ana would admit that a schoolgirl using an Unforgivable was not exactly common, but it remained within the realm of possibility. The other, more boring but still harmful, option was a Knockback Jinx. Flipendoing someone after they were squashed by a train could almost kill them. That was, admittedly, more likely than the first option, but Ana's stomach still turned at the thought. What kind of person would Flipendo Marshal in general, but particularly when he was half crushed by a train?

Ana's wand was drawn before she even consciously made a decision. True, she had resolved not to get into any more fights, but this wasn't for herself or her family or even her honor. This was for Marshal. That was definitely reasonable. In any event, she would be doing so in a manner far more fitting of a dueling co-captain than punching her in the nose or spilling a drink at her. A Flipendo felt like an appropriate response. Poetic justice, if you would.

Even on the same off chance that Ana had just jumped to about a billion different conclusions in the space of a minute and was incorrect, that was Scarlett was innocent in this particular situation, hexing her would bring Ana a great deal of joy.

"Aden, I can relate. Truly I can," Ana said, her voice shockingly genuine given the circumstances. "I have no idea what to do right now. Oh, no, I do, actually. Flipendo!" The spell seemed to be in slow motion as it flashed from her wand and collided with her target's chest. As it made contact, it occurred to Ana that Scarlett had said something to indicate Decipio's presence and perhaps it wasn't prudent to be hexing an underclassman in front of a prefect.

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