Calmness with Calamity PV: Mars T'ien Closed

There was something stirring in the air of the final month of school. Mars could hardly believe they'd come this far. They could hardly believe they'd survived this long, seeing as Hogwarts seemed to be a breeding ground for perilous situations and student death. But, really, they'd stayed away from most of those events, choosing to remain holed up in the Common Room or perched on top of the Owlery. It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that they were still alive.

The surface of the lake gleamed under the light of the sun. So many times they had admired it before, but now, with the incoming heat, its cool beauty seemed even more tempting than before. The mountains still loomed behind the Great Lake, white-capped tips refusing to submit to the force of the sun's rays. A strong breeze blew over the mirror-like surface, sending ripples streaming out from the shore. Ripples. Such funny things.

Their eyelids flickered as they watched the lake undulate in the force of the wind and whatever it was that lurked down there. It was funny that such a simple thing, a breeze, a single touch, could set off such a chain reaction. A single turning point in a road full of possibilities. Hogwarts had been that for them, in a large way. It was probably the same for everyone, but being muggle-born, well, that only amplified it more.

In an instant, your entire life turns upside down. A single wax-sealed letter dictates the path you walk on. Mars was so good at avoiding, at pushing things away until they didn't exist anymore, but that, that's not something you ignore. How do you ignore the reality of an entirely different world? How do you explain away terror or fear or the will to protect those you love? How much do you risk for the sake of your own sanity? They were big questions, unthinkable questions, questions they didn't want to face now or ever. They were 11, for god's sake. They sighed, feeling their breath brush past their lips and escape into the breeze. Funny how a single event can stir up things you never thought you were capable of feeling.

Mars let out a small snort. Hogwarts had certainly taken a toll on them, alright. They were trying to be philosophical. What ever happened to biting the bullet, staring down a loaded gun, watching disaster barrel towards you? They'd always just rolled with the punches. There was no sense in action that was not a reaction. Nothing they could do to preemptively save anyone they loved. There was only facing life as it came and praying they had the skills to not die along the way.

Finally, they moved, uncrossing their arms to stride down the hill to the lake's shore. They needed to pull themselves out of these thoughts. Nothing good ever came from overthinking, lest it was extra-credit in homework. Life—magical life, far better suited the actors. Thinkers dragged behind when it came time to rely only on reflex. And God knows Hogwarts had had its fair share of those times.

Behind them, the tree stood on the crest of its slope, its arms dancing in the breeze. Its shade had been nice but still, hardly anything to combat the curse of the sun. Down by the lake, the water still begged to be acknowledged, waded into, the promise of its cold kiss alluring in the near-summer heat. But it wasn't as if Mars was going in. Swimming was a no. They'd always been a creature of solid ground. Maybe though, they could dip their feet in.

They hadn't noticed they'd gotten close to a witch crouching by the lake-shore. She seemed to be etching something into the bank or piling up strands of grass pulled out by a wayward hand. It wasn't hard though, to spot the few wixes who had jumped into the water, rioting and splashing about. Mars sucked in a thick breath.

"I don't understand how anyone could enjoy swimming," they muttered under their breath.

@Mars T'ien

Off the top of her head, staring dead at the whispering water as it hummed its sonata of tranquility, Persephone could think of many reasons to swim. Sinking into the darkening abyss of water brought about its weightlessness, a feather gone with the wind and never touching the ground again, flying. To swim was to fly in water that forgave someone for every motion but swallowed them in its trenches provided it was given reason. Manipulatable, yes, but a truthfully vengeful force that waited for trust to consume you before dying within its waves of compassion. Just looking at it, pale fingers tracing through its form and watching as it complied with trusting ease, it brought about relief. The water could trust her and she it, even if only on the better days of the year. It brought about a calmness that couldn’t be replicated by any formula mankind could ponder, by any other gift given by ethereal divinities. Truly the universe’s finest creation, existing in a realm of callousness.

The blonde turned to meet eyes with they who questioned its ability, hardly a tinge of annoyance in her gaze, buried beneath the grains of sand. Above her, the severed limbs of trees waved hello and goodbye, and the irritability brought redness to an otherwise white neck. Still, it didn’t reflect in the way she looked at them, the person who dared sneak upon her as though hired to do so. That thought briefly existed amongst the others, blending in like a hidden object, nose close then farther away to locate the image the scene concealed. Paranoia would never be beneficial to Persy, who deemed any sensation relative to fear unworthy and, most of all, unreal. It worked as a stimulant of danger to the body and little more, and this right would be stripped away like splintered wood. No danger lay in the intentions of some idiot that couldn’t appreciate beauty.

Perhaps the person, house not entirely clear as the sun glared upon the vision of Persy, hadn’t intended their utterance to meet the ears of the obvious devotee to the lake. That lake, along with the others, they shared the same water and love, never would one discriminate. Black, blue, white, gleaming under the blinding light of the sun all the same, highlights that gave it depth. Regardless, they’d said it and believed it with any and all cells that were cursed with that soul, mindset. It was almost pitiful, pitifully almost pitiful. She shook her head in partial response, not breaking her eyes away from that of the prey that appeared only slightly uncomfortable.

Even under the majestic obstacle of the streams of light from above, bodies of water all their own, various defining features were notable. Almost covered by wisps of hair, the sun melted their eyes, shaped them into liquidized copper, or honey straight from the unsuspecting bee. Brown was a basic color under the influence of LED, sure, but natural light did wonders for its presence, created the common into the rare. It would never compare to the rarity of eyes that reflecting the observant tree-line, but a contender, nonetheless. Hair dyed in a way that loosely resembled the light once it set and left the world to revel in its fire, though little more could be said. The disturbance was too significant to make much more out of the lean silhouette.

“Maybe you’ll drown in it, that would be rather fitting, I think.” She sighed almost inaudibly, turning back to swim with her stare and nothing more. Today wasn’t the day to fall into its invitation, especially not with an ignorant audience running rampant and buzzing like flies. “I doubt it likes you much either.”

To claim harshness was reasonable only in the eyes of a lawyer, the remark was hardly extravagant no matter the deadly implication. It wasn’t a wish of demise, of lethal grief to strike their loved ones while the water snapped at them, not at all. A plain reminder that you receive what you give and vice versa, unless the system coils itself around your finger as though a serpent. This was a talent Persephone had, using the world in her never-dying benefit, a tool designed to be utilized by the young blonde. Facade you may claim, and right you’d be, though this would barely graze Persephone into submission. Not karma but revisiting the idea of lying in the grave you dig. Otherwise, who did you dig it for?

Maybe a reaction was not what they'd been expecting. The question was purely rhetorical, as meaningless as a single flap of a butterfly's wing. But then, the ripples. The single change in direction, a string caught on a pole in the center of our futures, sending us spiraling away with our own momentum. A single flap of tissue-paper wings. A butterfly effect.

Wasn't it always like this? Wasn't every meeting an alteration in path, a convergence, each new person with a post sign grin? And if time didn't slow, it certainly didn't feel like it to Mars. Each turn of their vertebrae seemed to vibrate through their skull, as creaky and broken as a wooden puppet. Hair seemed to swish at the same speed a willow bends, slow and elaborate, red strands in a snarky waltz. Slowly, liquid brown eyes, amber the way rum stings the throat and sea glass washes up still sharp, shifted from the moving waves, each tick pounding like the beat of a clock. And there, they met green ones, swirls as deep as the canopy of the forest. How much depth can you find in the space of a single iris? Have you ever looked at the edge of the leaves after living your entire life blurry? They look sharp enough to cut, each fine line the stroke of a painter's brush. Those were the leaves in those eyes. Green tipped in a blood red.

Time stopped for a moment, looking into those eyes. And then, with the rewind noise fast in their mind, it all clicked back into place. Mars blinked. What had she said? Maybe the green robes shouldn't have been a surprise. A snake. It'd been a long time since a serpent had stepped into their path. And even those they'd met hadn't been—venomous. But this one, it seemed like she had poisonous fangs and a silver tongue. A true snake indeed. It was—captivating. Riveting. Mars stared at her with an eagle's glare. She stared back with yellow eye-slits. Green, red, yellow. How interesting.

But they were on the top of the food chain here. They were the one with an eagle's beak and beady eyes, watching her scales glint in the light of the sun. Mars smiled a devil's smile.

"Well, never thought I’d see the day where I wanted water to like me back," words came easy to them. Always had. After all, nothing cut deeper than a well-placed syllable. Than a good tone of voice. If her eyes were the edges of leaves, sharper than a blade, then Mars' voice was a weapon honed down, sharpened on a grindstone. Physical strength only did so much, but a blade to the psyche? What was more powerful than that. And with that, the ability to act. They'd never been a performer, to introverted for the pressing eyes, the suffocating attention. But they pulled at the dredges of their false confidence. They learned to read body language, to see it as more than actions, reflexes, but another weapon, another blade to be sharpened. If they could play more than a china doll, they would survive. It was as simple as that.

With that in mind, how easy was it to raise an eyebrow, slit an iris, curl their lips up into a smirk, crossing their arms down at the girl perched on the riverbank? How easy was it to open their lips again?

"And that’s my entire point, no? Swimming equals drowning. Definitely one of the most painful ways to go. And boring too," Mars pulled their gaze from those forest eyes. Sometimes eye contact was a double-edged sword. Instead, they gazed out into the dark abyss of the rippling waves. The ripples. Always.

What waited underwater nothing but a nightmare. What waited underwater was that aching chill, that never-ending pressure, always. Always. Always that pounding in their skull, a pungent reminder that somehow, they were missing something. What was it about this girl? This snake? What was it that forced them to shift their body weight on the string of life, send them spinning the other direction? What was it that made them think this way?

Mars looked back down at her with darker eyes. A fascination. But still—a child, just like them. Mars raised a hand to their lips. A nervous habit, maybe, or maybe a reaction when they felt some kind of connection, when the person they were viewing was worth more than petty words and a biting speech. Something inside them wanted to see how far she would go. How deep this snake could sink her fangs.

"What's it to you anyway?" they asked, "You say that like I insulted your mother."

Let's see how much of a fool they could be today.

@Mars T'ien

Deductions had let themselves breach the glare, time to dance the choreography taught from birth and onward. Before the tint of sapphire could meet its matched stone, its presence had already been established. The way they spoke, taunting an armory while only juggling its dullest blade, it screeched Ravenclaw. Possessing so much wit, then to let it wither away with the sickness of passing age, without so much as a single uprising. Maintaining order, pretending to mesh with the majority to an extent that a lie melted into an agonizing truth, wasting themselves. The castle deserved a better class of criminals than the meticulous moral, and Persephone was fully prepared to give that to them. That is, whenever her energy to tackle those fights replenished. Now, it was much less exhausting to choose one battle.

There was a certain air about this fly, an altering in how the world worked around them, bending and manipulating itself to fit their perception. Hair bled like fine wine, eyes a pool of burnt sienna elements and remnants of the forgotten earth, drowned from their eyes, darkening what was light and leaving the rest to dwell in black. Their attitude toward powers and divinities that exceeded their own capabilities, it wouldn’t save them from redemption, or whatever the opposite was. Blending in was an appreciable skill, yet even the most advanced camouflage could be seen through by capable senses. The world, the water, it breathed and drained symbolism. Karma wouldn’t come for this raven, such force was merely a nightmare of the immoral, but Persephone could easily assume it was a fair bet that they were the type to sink.

Perhaps, aside from the viewing of the earth through shimmering gems, they had just caught the blonde on a bad day. Or rather, simply a day. The thinnest line lay between good and fine, sensitive and commonly overlooked. There were no bad days, just good ones, and the rest of them. You dreadfully wait for the hours to pass you by, forgetting for a moment, that those hours are life.

Finally voicing something, breaking a silence that had settled between the two as though home at last, a deep breath fell from Persephone, highlighted by a quiet hum of amusement. Instead of smiling, a weak smirk tugged at her lips, unwilling. “Maybe that day isn’t today, but if you ever find yourself sinking, don’t ask why.” The Ravenclaw’s mouth had curled into a sinister smile, so knowingly and inflated with a false sense of security. Believing in the safety of themselves would allow their guard to fall without second thought, not that it would matter today. Persy was hardly in the state of mind to bicker back and forth, especially with someone not deserving of a single sharp syllable. Humming had already granted more than deserved, but it was unfortunate when the song was so sweet.

Immediately following this, their lips split apart again, oh how easy to argue and dance to the sound of your own voice when held so dear. Clearly, the line between too much and too little was blurred. Those that restated their argument with the twist of a clever synonym or a poison of condescension, perhaps it was fortunate they were placed in Ravenclaw. No potential could be wasted if it was never there to wilt, instead just seen by someone with an eye for goodness, an eye for ignorance. Naivety. Mind brushing from one topic to the next, scanning for more to criticize and dive into breathlessly, the content stood out.

“Forgive me for implying your death would be too boring, I forgot that you have to feel just as important in death as in life.” Took an incredibly aggravating bug to reduce Persephone’s thought process to roping around one of the few witless infixes of the English language. Their stare fell back onto the lake, prepared to swallow them whole in its trenches of ego. Something so ill-informed would never be shared with Persy, who knew to admire the way it rippled and waved, spoke and died in its own hush, the same way it had lived. Drowning was reserved as a vengeance, not delivered by karma, the golden rule, whatever your religion made of it. The water was not fictional as karma, it gave divine sight and took it.

Worst of all, it was those who feared the unknown piece of the water that developed great infatuation to the mystery of the night sky.

In a moment’s time, the blonde’s gaze became dimmer, the subtle dying glow of an old bulb. Around the castle, a theme recurring as a child’s strongest nightmare, a haunting ghost lingering well into adulthood. Was it not a rule of their cowardly etiquette to refrain from dragging a mother into basic squabbling? They forge these rules, putting faith in their ability to save you, then defy them, claiming superiority over what they created! Senseless, tactless, and far from efficient. What was it that lead people to seek rises from others? One could claim pure malevolence, but it stemmed from a desire to upsurge above them. A constant game of tearing others down, just to get the building blocks to bring yourself back up.

“Oh, you know what they say.” She added, a blank visage glaring completely still at the tree-line. “Don’t speak ill of the dead. Practically, anyway.”

@Persephone Barret
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There was something, sorrowful about this one. Mars wasn't dense enough to not notice it, the way her eyes seemed to see nothing and everything all at once, as if she were trying to find something that wasn't there. It was a familiar lull, an action that ticked away the seconds as if they were nothing but falling grains of sand. Faintly, they found themselves wondering if she was lonely.

Her words register and Mars hummed, opening their mouth to utter, "I won't, I promise."

Internally, their thoughts still raged. A projection, maybe. Most likely, if they were truly honest with themselves. Summer approached and amongst muggy heat and swarming flies crawled an ever-growing longing, hot winds inflating the thought that that grounded them all this time. To see their brothers again. To get rid of the holes in their head, in their heart, to show themselves at this—that sacrifice—was worth something in the end. Was it? Mars wasn't sure. Perhaps that's why they longed for assurance all the more.

Perhaps that's why they wondered if she had anyone to look forward too. Yes, no? But then, perhaps no. The Ravenclaw couldn't understand the sudden swell of pity they felt—she seemed strong, maybe too strong, proud and arrogant in her own right. Someone who might resent pity, perhaps someone who saw it as a weakness. They found themselves snorting at this assessment. What was it that made them assume they knew someone from nothing but a few sentences? Projection, again. Mars was a special breed, a war planet, strong, maybe too strong, proud and arrogant in their own right. They resented pity.

And this might have explained why they had no words to retort to her claims of the importance of death. There was an instant of relief, cool and tempering in a raging mind, that she had responded like this. It was—rare to find someone so quick, so willing to be cold in this land of young minds and pure wonder at tiny fingertips. Mars had learned to mask themselves well, but they still found themselves wallowing in the guilt some days of slashing too hard with double-edged words. Faintly, a sense of admiration flickered.

Perhaps they had nothing to say because it was true as well. Surprisingly, maybe, that it wasn't as painful as they'd imagined. Nothing but truth, and to face the truth was to be truly strong. And to be truly strong was to learn how to forget how to hurt. They thought of themselves as important now—it was the only thing keeping them alive—and they wanted to go in a shower of sparks and bad decisions. Something that their ancestors would be proud of. Something that their children would be proud of, and their children's children, and even further down the line. But perhaps they craved an exciting death as a final mark on the world—something that swore to their brothers that even an Eagle can rise from the ashes. Who knew for sure.

Dimly, Mars tuned back in, eyes downcast over the waves. Words... "don't speak ill of the dead." That jolted them out of this weird half state of admiration and resentment. The motions it took to look down at the girl were smooth, fast in their jolting reaction but still graceful.

Dead. Mars would have laughed had they not felt it so wrong. So, perhaps she really was lonely. Perhaps they'd bathe in the waters of guilt longer tonight, try to drown themselves in it before ultimately failing because—as they'd said–drowning was a boring, painful way to go.

Dead. There was a solemness in the word, maybe even an acceptance that Mars couldn't quite swallow. They pictured their loved one under the dark haze of its implied strings and nearly gagged. It was everything they feared, everything they wished to avoid, everything they'd forced themselves down this staircase of ripples so they didn't have to face it.

The waters would run high tonight. Unless...

Mars found themselves looking at the girl again. They admitted to themselves that they knew nothing of her brain, nothing of the way she thought or the dreams she had. They had no idea what she wanted, making a comment like that. But there was no time to linger on it. The window of acceptable response time was closing.

So the Ravenclaw forced their pride into a box and locked it up. It was maybe a difficult thing to do—one would assume that the Lions would carry their heads the highest, but an Eagle soars higher. In the depths of themself, Mars had to recognize that was one attribute they claimed from their house. Silently, they put their words down.

"Oh," it was soft, maybe a bit surprised, an edge of sorrow in there, "I'm sorry." Those words hung heavy in the air for quite a while. After all, what was there to apologize for? It wasn't as if Mars had taken the knife to her throat themselves. But it felt right, even if it felt wrong. Still, something inside them told them this one was not a girl who'd accept pity. They didn't have pity in themselves to offer. Instead, they extended an olive branch of their own.

"Maybe—" a beat of hesitation, a collection of words. How to express admiration without expressing admiration outright, "we started off on the wrong foot." This was the closest they'd come to admitting that they saw maybe, in the faintest of ripples, a future for friendship to blossom. They had no ability to perceive this, but Mars functioned off their feelings, off what they thought to be wrong and right, and regretted later.

I'm Mars," there was importance to a name, a vulnerability in strange form, "You're—interesting." They couldn't quite think of a better word to encompass the little they knew of this one; this was a default answer, an offer.

"Maybe I can buy you a drink, and we can discuss the deadliness of water elsewhere," there, they found their lips curling upwards, eyes turned to the Snake as their tongue dipped back into the sweetness of insincerity. Perhaps a defense. Perhaps an offense. Perhaps something that healed, that took poison daggers away. Mars could only truly know when she'd respond.