Cold Water Open Closed

─────Elodie had no such qualms about the lake. Instead, she found herself drawn to it, to the tales of what lurked in its depths. After all, what aspiring zoologist would she be if she didn't find herself drawn to the prospect of a giant squid on campus?

Despite her curiosity, Elodie was no idiot. She was careful not to wade too deep into the water, which was quite easy given the fact that the water was cold as ice and soaked through her shoes. Instead, she studied the shallow parts of the lake, careful to avoid the Dugbog wallowing in an especially muddy part of the lake.

As she walked, Elodie occasionally paused to push her glasses up her nose or wrap her baby blue coat tighter around herself. Other than that, the girl only paused when she spotted a particularly interesting plant or that of the like, the discovery of which would lead to her crouching over it, studying it intently.

She sighed, her breath sending a puff of fog billowing out in front of her as the girl moved further down the banks in an attempt to see more of the lake, which was when she spotted Siobhan.

At this sight, Elodie hesitated. She was incredibly uncomfortable around new, unfamiliar people, preferring the company of her closest (read: only) friend, Jam, or her cat. She'd grown up a lonely girl, in a tiny nameless village with little to no friends, and only animals for company, which led to her being painfully shy for pretty much her entire life.

The girl paused, before sighing and trudging forwards. She had to get used to encountering new people eventually, and she refused to let her shyness interfere with her desire for answers.

Siobhan had resigned herself to attempting to step in the water. She'd been in colder waters before and it wasn't like she would be in the water for very long. Just a few minutes with the soft lake feeding into her legs, it would remind her of being at home.

Siobhan took a quick step into the lake water and let out an icy hiss at the temperature. She clenched her fists and rocked back and forth on her heels to try and warm herself up as she started to walk around. Every step was colder than the last and Siobhan felt herself hopping quickly out of the lake and running back to her socks and shoes. Her feet were freezing and trying to get in this lake was a very dumb idea.

Plus it was like a million times colder than the Lough in Killarney. As she tried to warm herself up by putting her socks and shoes back on she looked up to see a girl walking towards her with a very determined look on her face. Siobhan paled. Oh no! Someone was coming over to chastise her for getting in the lake. How would she explain it when she had so very visibly been standing in it only moments ago?

Siobhan stood up, brushing the dirt off of her skirt and pulled her leggings back down to cover the rest of her legs as she tried to make an excuse for why she had been in the lake in the first place but none were coming to mind.

Hopefully she could pull something out from the top of her head... She didn't want to be expelled for going into the lake. How would she explain that to her parent? They would be so disappointed in her and it took them a lot to be disappointed in any of their children.

But hey! Nobody said you couldn't go in the lake! They just said you couldn't go in the forest! And you didn't go in the forest you just stood in the lake for like 2 seconds and now you're not in the lake!"

Still Siobhan became extremely nervous when this new person finally reached her. She braced herself for a scolding about her bad decision making, and for house points to be taken away.

─────Elodie tucked a stand of hair behind her ear as she stood before the unfamiliar girl, taking note of her Gryffindor tie. Those were the brave ones, right? Oh dear...

She sighed, her gaze fixed firmly on her muddy boots before deciding to break through the awkward silence. "Uhm.... Hello. I-if you don't mind me asking, um.. What are you doing out here? Not that you can't be or anything, I'm just- ah, curious, I suppose."

Elodie huffed out a laugh at her own words, still staring at the ground.

Had she embarrassed herself? Was this girl annoyed? Oh dear, why couldn't she do anything right? It was just like back in her village, where she'd been shunned by the other children for her odd, awkward behavior.

Sometimes, it'd escalate to bullying. Oh dear oh dear oh dear....

As she awaited the other girl's answer, Elodie studied her surroundings. It was quite a dull morning, the ground muddy from the snowfall last night, which had been particularly slushy and left everything a marshy mess once it began to melt. She took note of some moss clinging to a nearby oak, resisting the urge to reach out and touch it, to climb up the tree and stay there, far away from her troubles.

Then, she studied the girl. She had rather beautiful gray eyes, and a faint smattering of freckles across the ivory-colored skin of her face, her hair a mousy brown that Elodie found herself grow curious about. Was that natural? She subconsciously tucked at a lock of her own hair, a dark chocolate color with a few faint blonde streaks.

Siobhan watched as the girl came right up to her and immediately asked what she was doing out by the lake. Her brashness took Siobhan aback as she tried to come up with an excuse for what she was doing outside that didn't involve stepping into the lake. Hopefully this girl had not seen her stepping in the lake.

'Lets say we fell in! And that our clothes just dried really super quickly and maybe she won't notice!' the unhelpful part of Siobhan's brain supplied. But Siobhan just shook her head quickly, not looking to get caught up in all that nonsense. Plus that was a very stupid excuse that even a parrot could come up with.

However as Siobhan looked over the girl who was standing in front of her, she noticed that this girl couldn't be more than a year older than her. Siobhan tried hard to think about how she could broach the topic of what she was doing out here without upsetting the other girl who seemed... adament? About something but she wasn't sure. As Siobhan began to drift her gaze back to her own feet, as she was so accustomed to doing, she noticed that the girl wore her own set of muddy boots. Mud that looked suspiciously like...

"Lake mud?" Siobhan asked with her eyes completely focused on the girls muddy shoes. Had this girl also been in the lake? Maybe she was just asking because she had seen Siobhan in the lake and wanted to ask her if she knew the rules about being in there? Or maybe she was a fellow plant nerd and was looking for water plants as well?

Siobhan shook her head again to clear her mind and subsequently cleared her throat. 'Um I was just... enjoying the nice day and then I decided I'd start looking for lake mud... It's filled with nutrients for my plants." Siobhan explained hesitantly.

She sighed to herself as she listened to the excuse she came up with. It wasn't entirely wrong. She did have some plants that she'd already set up on her side of her dorm and lake mud often had a wealth of nutrients to supply to the plants that lived within lakes. She used it for many of her plants at home so why wouldn't it work here?