What Do You Know? Solo Fin

august 3rd, 2024		saturday, night
wc: 700		zyair ona'je - uagadou
interacting with: Scout Fu-Hai		mentioning:

"Lumos."

The light from his wand illuminates a few things. Firstly, it illuminates Scout, red-faced and dark eyes wincing at the sudden brightness. Secondly, it lights up her sunburnt skin and wet clothes from melted snow. Thirdly, it shows Zyair the concentrated look on her face. He's spoken to her exactly one time, but his thoughts have ran mildly rampant about her. Zyair's not sure he had ever met someone so lively or eccentric.

The two of them stand in complete silence, although he can tell she's practically bursting with words to say. He wants to ask her what's on her mind but he is a stranger. She looks so different from how she did when they first met. Soft brown eyes burning into a plush dog, does she still have it? He wonders- someone with a personality like hers- did she name the stuffed animal? Her eyes are awfully dark in the night, but pupils expand in darkness so that makes sense.

"How did you know?"

"Pardon?"

"You recognized my face, that's how you knew I was from Hogwarts, but that can't be it, so how did you know?"

Is this... really the pressing question she had? His response was nonchalant, and he shrugged, "I'm very good at recognizing faces. I don't forget them." It was a satisfactory answer to him, but the way her face frowned was an indicator that it wasn't satisfactory for her. She's not even looking at him and it feels like she's used some ultimate puppy-dog eyes on him. He was being honest, was that not good enough?

"I take it that answer isn't to your liking."

Scout's face contorts into discomfort more than anything, and she looks away from him and the light, eyes burning into the snow. Okay, Zy, you grew up with three sisters and a mother, you should know how to make a girl feel better, right? But his mind was doing the one thing it never did, and he was blanking on anything he could say to change how this whole situation was playing out. Someone as thoughtful as him... being unable to think? It made him feel uncomfortable.

She finally turns to look at him properly in the eyes, and she lets out a long sigh. "No, it's fine." It doesn't appear to be, but Zy keeps that to himself. "Maybe I'm just not thinking right..."

"Is there something you want to tell me-?"

"No!"

"Are you su- okay then." He cuts himself off, he knows better than to pry. "Thanks. Can we talk about something else?" She asks. "Like... anything else. Please, I just want to pretend this conversation never happened."

Zyair asks her about the stuffed dog, and finds himself surprised by how easily the conversation flows, given the nature of the previous topic. What is it about Scout that makes him want to keep talking to her? He doesn't want to think too much about the current situation or how it makes him feel. There's something more comforting about looking at everything analytically, rather than actually feeling it out.

She named it Sandy, and told him the reasoning was that the dog looked a little bit like a sandy desert. In his opinion, it looked much more like a lemon merengue pastry or something similar, but he figured it looked a little sandy too. Apparently when she adopted her owl, 'Pebble', she didn't change his name from his original one because she thought he looked like a small pile of skipping rocks. When he asks her what she would've called him instead, and she puts quite a bit of thought into it before settling on 'Rocky'. When Zyair tells her that he's never had a pet before (and though he has no interest in getting one, he kept that tidbit to himself), Scout's eyes widened like balloons. He's really never even had a pet rock? Prior to tonight, Zy didn't even know 'pet rocks' were real things.

But it's getting late, and there's probably something going on tomorrow that will require their full attention, so he dusts the snow off of his trousers and helps Scout onto her feet once more.

"I'll walk you back to your tent."

august 3rd, 2024		saturday, night
wc: 650		dhampir | sensitive to sunlight
interacting with: Zyair Ona'je		mentioning: emily

Does she tell him? No, she can't.

She feels awful at how she went about asking him for more information. His tone managed to sound sincere and polite even as she basically accused him of knowing more than he let on. And maybe he did, but Scout might've been a little too naive to notice it, if that were the case. Even when he changed the conversation (at her request, no less), his tone was perfectly polite the entire time. It both annoyed Scout and made her feel thankful.

Someone like him could throw Scout off with no hesitation- she wasn't a critical thinker, and if he (in his sincere tone) told her something, she knew she'd believe it without thinking twice. But where she lacked in analytical reasoning, he seemed to be the kind of guy to be the complete opposite. She lead through her world with her heart, and it didn't take a genius to see that he lead through with his mind. They were complete differences.

"If you could, what would you have named the dog?" She asks as the two of them trudge through the snow back to the campsite. Scout hoped everyone was asleep (especially Emily), it'd kill her if one of her tentmates worried about her sudden disappearance. But it was already so late at night that she was pretty certain everyone would be asleep.

"Lemon. Or Lemon Merengue."

"Yum."

"Yep."

Most of their responses to one another were short, but Scout liked how quickly the back-and-forth was. She'd ask a question and Zyair would answer it immediately, even if his reply was only a word or two. He'd ask her something later, and she'd reply back at the same speed. There wasn't much of a thought process behind what she said, and she figured he didn't think much about his words either. That was a little nice, she liked not having to think.

"Did you want to tell me what was the matter earlier?"

"No."

"Okay."

She... Scout didn't think she could bring herself to tell the secret to anyone besides Emily and a few others. Definitely not Zyair, he wasn't a complete stranger but he wasn't 'you're my close confidant' either. And even if he ever did get that close, she wasn't confident enough to proudly tell someone her affliction. Emily was an exception, not the rule. At the end of first year she thought she might be able to keep it less of a secret, but every time she'd practice saying affirmations in the mirror, she'd find herself plagued with memories of elementary school.

"Scout." His voice draws her out of her thoughts. "I know we're only acquaintances but if you ever find yourself wanting to tell me... my sisters say I'm a very good listener."

His words fill her with infinite pangs of guilt, ricocheting against her chest. Her heart beats heavily, and there's a rush of blood in her ears. 'There might never be a day where I'll tell you,' she thinks, but that's awfully harsh. Never say never, right? "I'm sorry. I- I need time."

"Then I will wait."

He waves her goodbye and Scout finds herself empty-minded when she slips into the tent and changes out of her snow-stained clothing. It's not until she's been in her bed for a while and she can hear one of the other girls in the tent snoring that she contemplates what he had said. If he waits, he might be waiting forever. Does he know that? Could she ever admit that to him? The only thing he knows about her is that her name is Scout and she is from Hogwarts. She has an owl named Pebble and a stuffed yellow dog named Sandy.

Zyair, what do you know?

august 3rd, 2024		saturday, night
total wc: 2500		zyair ona'je - uagadou
interacting with: Scout Fu-Hai		mentioning: Acacia Murillo | @Cass Ito

Zyair, like a gentleman, waits until Scout is safely inside of her tent before he leaves. His mother churned it into his brain that he should always wait until friends make it inside their houses, cars, whatever, before he leaves them alone. She would mention stories about how as soon as their friends left, young children would be kidnapped or trees would fall on them or dogs would bite them. It was just second nature at this point.

A secret kept hidden is a secret that will build up and eat you over time, at least that was how Zyair saw it. His sisters would bundle up their secrets of how they accidentally broke toys or how they would steal candy, and eventually they would come crying to him about how bad they felt. Afterwards, they'd act like nothing happened. A burden shared is a burden halved, isn't that how the saying goes? Maybe it's selfish of him to want to ease the people around them of their burdens- but it extends especially to Scout.

He wouldn't be lying if he said he had never met anyone like her. Zyair was not an unpopular guy by any means, especially before attending Uagadou. While he found himself lacking in the friends department, he had quite a few acquaintances. He knew many people, and he knew that none of them were like Scout. She was vivacious in every sense of the word, her personality was a breath of fresh air for Zy.

To meet someone so different than others, it wouldn't be selfish of him to want to keep that person around, would it?

He nearly stumbles into Acacia and her bed when he clambers into their shared tent. His body tenses when she stirs, but she doesn't wake, thankfully. It'd be awfully rude to have to explain what he was doing at half past two in the morning to her, and any other tentmate they might wake up. But it's all fine.

His eyes linger on the ceiling of the Artic Expedition tent, unable to convince himself to sleep. All he can think about is his conversation with Scout. Why did she think he knew something more than he did? Was it really so absurd that the might remember faces better than the average person? But from her response- from the secret she was keeping, it must be something more than that, right? If Zy were a more impolite person, he'd ask around to see if he could get some more answers but...

He'd never do that, what kind of person would do that? Why did Scout think he knew more than he did? Did she also perceive him to be the kind of person to poke and prod around in situations that most definitely did not concern him? Why was he even concerned with how she thought of him- he wanted to find some way to shut his mind off for now, he'd never be able to sleep like this.

But even through everything he had learned this night- even if the rest of his nights were consumed in this way, he'd live. If waiting an eternity meant one day she'd trust him, he was fine waiting that long.