A Bitter Retreat Closed

Ugh, girls were a lot faster when fleeing from public humiliation than he would have given them credit for. Sure, he knew Eve liked to walk fast — he had half a thought that she did it to make a point — but still. They disappeared so quickly in the split second for him to realize something had gone terribly wrong; he had to run to catch up, and even then he was only able to follow them on account of how bloody loud they were. Maybe he should tell Eve to implement running in shame and pain to her Quidditch drills; it certainly was a work-out.

"Hey, Eve— Eve!" he called after her when he realized that she and the other girl (Opal? Pelli?) were disappearing into the loo. They were too far ahead and perhaps too distracted, however, because he caught up to a closed door and stopped in front of it with a scowl. Well, that wouldn't do. For a moment he considered just following them in anyway, propriety be damned, but then he thought of his mum and shuddered. Yes, Maman, I made a girl cry and then chased her into the toilets. No, he thought not. 

Blowing out a huffy sigh, Bast shifted and leaned up against the wall across from the door, crossing his arms as he settled in to wait. After all, it's not like he had any desire to head back to that disaster of a tea party; he wore the pink shirt, he showed up, he did his mum-demanded duty. He may as well wait for Eve to clean up and make sure she was okay, even if she likely wouldn't be too pleased to see him. 

Mentions @Evelynn Decipio & @Opeila Seilun.

Interacting with @Opeila Seilun
Mentioning @Bastille Aurelius

"Hrm?" Evelynn hadn't quite heard what the other girl had said, the running water effectively serving to muffle and distort exterior noise. A quick glance to the side showing a sideways image (she was still bent at the waist, head held over the sink, after all) of an outstretched towel. "Ah," she then breathed, no further explanation needed.

"Yes, I suppose that's easier," she admitted, reaching for the dampened linen.

Her focus had been so singular on cooling the burn that she had really just gone with the first method upon which her gaze had fallen: running water. With practiced ease, she quickly wrapped it about her head and back of neck in a sort of turban, tucking the loose corner in at the nape. Then, with a sigh, she turned and leaned her rear back against the counter. Hands dropped to rest their palms on the edge to either side of her hips, and her gaze sank to the bottom edge of an unoccupied stall whose door hung slightly askew.

"Thanks..." She said, briefly flickering her gaze to the other.

She didn't really know what else to say. What else was there to say? She was going to be in here for a little while. At least ten minutes, probably (completely unaware of the certain individual waiting to intercept her). She wasn't dying. She wasn't really in need of any extra help. Nor did she really want to talk about what happened. She was still quite content to pretend that nothing had happened and that her burns had been some freak accident with no explanation whatsoever, how hilarious, can we all chuckle and move on now.

A pregnant silence filled the air.

As it was, Evelynn almost winced when the girl broke the silence. It was like she had been read like an open book, the words cutting acutely close to how she was feeling. Embarrassed? Check. Humiliated? Check. The flowery description of Persephone, though, did serve to lighten Evelynn's mood. If just a little. She breathed a singular nasal chuckle. But then she went and returned to the heart of Evelynn's fears. With a sigh, the redhead rocked back her neck, eyes lifting to the ceiling.

"I hope not..." She replied, but her tone suggested that she didn't believe Opeila one bit. "And yea..." She continued, reflecting on the fact that she had never actually answered a previous question. "It's Decipio. Evelynn Decipio." Her head arced down and swiveled in the Slytherin's direction until she had her chin resting on her own shoulder. "First-year Gryffindor." She felt the need to actually clarify her House with this particular introduction since she wasn't exactly wearing any school robes or anything that would otherwise have identified her House.

Interacting with @Opeila Seilun
Mentioning @Jack Burnett and @Bastille Aurelius

Evelynn had tried to conjure a smile as Opeila returned the introduction in kind, inject some measure of warmth into what felt like an unfortunate and awkward series of events.

"Yea…" Evelynn replied with a half a breathy laugh, turning her attention back to the slightly damp floor of the stall across from her. "Definitely not exactly the best situation, but…" She offered a faint shrug of her shoulders. "It is what it is, I guess. Better to make a friend in a time of trouble than an enemy."

Evelynn glanced back over to Opeila, then, lips parting to ask a question. The Slytherin beat her to it, however.

"A…what?" Evelynn blinked. Unlike Opeila, she had been a little too preoccupied with the pain and feeling sorry for herself in her retreat from the Small Hall to have noticed the calls on their way to the loo. "A friend of mine followed us?"

Friend. Evelynn didn't have friends. Lots of acquaintances. More than a handful of positive connections and interactions. But try as she might, no faces came to mind in correlation with the word "friend", and the effort of trying to think of who Opeila might have been talking about left her looking mildly befuddled. Eventually, Evelynn's thoughts flickered to Burnett, wondering if it was him that Opeila was talking about. An easy mistake to make. The two had been seated together talking immediately prior to the fiasco with Opeila's "maniac housemate". And he had jumped up in her defense to chew the girl out after her actions. Maybe he had followed?

"I…er…" She looked from Opeila to the closed door to the bathroom (with a hint of consternation) and then back to the former. "You don't have to go…" She replied.

Evelynn didn't want to give the impression that she did not appreciate the girl's company, nor that she wanted her gone. Especially not after how Opeila had gone out of her way to help Evelynn out. Even still, she would have been happy enough to offer thanks, say her farewell and be left alone. But that was prior to knowing the two had been followed by some boy she had mistaken as a friend of hers. Back at the Tea, the reason she'd gotten up from the table in the first place was so that people didn't get the wrong impression about her and Jack. Being alone together in a bathroom seemed a million percent worse.

Evelynn wasn't usually one for indecision, but she really hadn't the faintest idea what to answer here. Turning back to the sink, she pulled the towel from her hair and dampened it again under the tap to freshly cool it (and bide her a little time to think). Then again, Evelynn couldn't deny that the girl probably didn't really want to be here. She'd helped. She'd checked in. She'd done her good deed. The right thing to do was for the little lion to let her off the hook, right?

"But I mean," she added, "I'd get it if you wanted to get back to the Tea… If it's not too much trouble," she continued, minding her manners, "Could you tell him I'll be out in a bit?" She asked that with the impression that despite being abandoned, this was still technically a girl's lavatory. "I don't know if he wants to wait, though…"

Interacting with @Opeila Seilun and @Bastille Aurelius

"She did what?!"

Brow raised in surprised as Opeila revealed the information that one of her friends had had their head smashed into a table. Evelynn hadn't been aware of that bit. The Slytherin girl really must have been crazy. Or…maybe there was something more. A faint creased etched itself between the little lion's brows as her thoughts veered down the route of an alternative explanation. Maybe she hadn't been in control of her actions. Maybe there was something else. Perhaps this was just a…mask.

"Yes," Evelynn nodded her agreement to Seilun's verbalized intent to return and check up on them. "That's probably for the best." A pause. "Gosh…I hope they're okay.." Another pause, and then Evelynn glanced back up in her direction. "Thanks again."

After the girl had taken her leave, Evelynn breathed a sigh of relief. She closed her eyes, bringing her focus inward. She listened to the inhale of her breath, felt the filling of her lungs, the expansion of her ribs. One. Two. Three. She held her breath and counted silently. Then slowly, exhaled through faintly parted lips. This process was repeated several times. Each time, she allowed her mind to wander to another point of focus: the persistent throbbing of the burn, the cooling effect of the damp cloth, the distant murmuring of noise beyond the bathroom door, the weight of her back against the counter and her feet against the floor. Mindfulness, her mother would call it. A simple exercise in grounding to clear the mind and realign the senses.

Something to pass the time at least while the cool towel did its job.

Eventually, when she was satisfied that enough time had been spent tending to the injury, she could ignore the boy outside no longer. Perhaps that was why she had practiced the pseudo-meditation, to try to forget about him. Unfortunately, she could try all she wanted, but that wouldn't stop him from being there upon her exit. Unless he had gotten bored and taken his leave, she thought hopefully, not exactly keen to have to face anyone else. With another sigh and wrinkle of her nose, she shook out her hair and stepped away from the sink.

"You!" She said, brows raised, after pulling back the bathroom door revealed Aurelius lounging casually across the hall. "What are you doing here? Back to gloat?"

She was not particularly pleased to see the boy, and her expression showed as much. Admittedly, he had been kind enough initially back at the Party, going so far as to tell the others to shove off and leave her be. Had it stopped there, she might have been singing a different tune. Instead, all she could think of was the chiding that had come after. The mockery of her obviously knowing scourgify and that she should have the mess cleaned up no problem (which wasn't unreasonable, really, but she hadn't yet mastered the spell and was maybe, just maybe, feeling a bit defensive about it).

"I told you, I don't know why it happened," she huffed, subconsciously lifting a hand to comb through her hair so that it would fall to veil the burned side of her face. "She just…came out of nowhere. I don't even know who she is."

Bastille was perfectly comfortable with waiting about in solitude, given that he spent a majority of his time alone anyway — when Hazel wasn't there to join him, that was. However, usually he had something to do, and he was rapidly realizing as he stood outside and contemplated whether or not he needed to apologize that he didn't actually have anything to do but stand there. Which... was a tad boring. A mite stressful, given he may or may not have made his Housemate cry by being a git. Maman could probably sense his misbehavior and was already drafting her Howler letting him know that she did not raise her son to be such a rude boy, wasn't he meant to be a gentleman?

Luckily, he didn't seem to be trapped in self-imposed exile for too long. He glanced up as the Slytherin girl — Opal? Ollie? — emerged and offered a sheepish half-smile in greeting, as if they were both acknowledging that he was a bit of a fool in this situation. He nodded at her words, providing a, "Right, sure. That's, ah, good. Ciao."

His gaze flickered after her as she headed back towards the absolute shiteshow that was the Tea Party, tilting his head slightly at the slight wobble in her gate. Bast got the impression that maybe she shouldn't be heading back to the chaos, but whatever; to each their own. If she wanted to walk back into that bloody nightmare, so be it: he would just stay right here and wait for Eve, thanks. Which, thankfully, wasn't all that long of a wait, though she did startle him a bit with her proclamation. 

"Me," he agreed dryly, arching a brow at her shout, and then he was frowning at her in response to her follow-up question. Gloat? What did he have to bloody gloat about? He opened his mouth, shut it, and peered back at her quizzically as she continued on with her huffy tirade. Understanding — maybe — cleared up his confusion a beat later as he realized that she was, in fact, mad at him; he just was a bit confused as to why she was angry, though it was starting to be a little more clear. 

"What? No, you dolt — I mean, obviously, you didn't do anything and she was just acting crazy, attacking you for no reason. That's what I meant," he huffed, leaning back a little more heavily on the wall as he shoved his hands deeper in his pockets and scowled. Drat. So maybe his attempt to alleviate her humiliation had been a bit off the mark, there. "Not that I thought you might have actually, you know, done something to cause trouble. That was the sarcasm."

Perhaps this was why Maman had often chided him to be more direct and less of a sarcastic tosser. It's not polite, baby, and you might confuse people who don't read your tone! Yes, clearly. If only he had actually learned that lesson, he might not be on the receive end of a recently-crying-girl's ire. 

"Look, I just wanted to see that you were... fine. Alright. Do you still need to go to the nurse?" He shifted his weight slightly as he spoke and then straightened. He cleared his throat, as if to dismiss the vague guilt clinging to him, and then gave her a crooked half-smile. "Or maybe you'd rather like help figuring out who that git was so that we can curse her notebooks later? Oh, we could tie her shoelaces together, yeah?"

@Evelynn Decipio.

Interacting with @Bastille Aurelius

Pursed lips and a slightly tilted chin met Aurelius' reply. Somehow, she wasn't expecting the complete turnaround explanation. It hardly even registered that he had called her a 'dolt', or that he could have seemed patronizing in his explanation. In fact, to her, he seemed more exasperated than anything. She eyed him as he huffed, leaning more heavily into the wall with hands deep within his pockets. For the briefest moment, she almost felt badly for him, recognizing that perhaps she might have overreacted a little bit. Just a little bit.

"I see…" She said quietly, dropped her gaze from him to some vague area around his knees.

Now that he had spelled it out for her and she took the time to replay the scene in her head, she could see he wasn't being serious. In fact, she was quite certain she had known that at the time as well, but hadn't cared. She chewed her lip, trying to think of something to say. An apology could have been a good start. Maybe even a thank you. All she managed to do in the meantime, however, was raise a hand to rub subconsciously at the angry red skin veiled below her curtained tresses. She was just about to say something — anything to break the silence — when he spoke up again.

"No," she murmured, shaking her head. "I'll get some burn salve from Professor Price."

Gray eyes flicked up just in time to see him flash a crooked smile. And then she gave a half-chuckle herself. She couldn't help it; the suggestion to outright go out of their way to seek revenge was not something she was expecting. It was always she who dragged him along to errands. She who pushed him to care more about his House. Or had been. Recently, he had been spending his time with that Hufflepuff girl. Regardless, without outside interference, Evelynn doubted he would have done much more than the bare minimum of…anything, really. Apathetic. That's how she would have described Aurelius. And despite his seeming abhorrence for regulation, she wouldn't have considered him outright rebellious. This suggestion, however, had fallen into that realm and spoke to a side of the boy that she hadn't seen.

"That's…tempting…" she admitted, eyeing her Housemate again, only this time with intrigue. "I mean…I wouldn't turn down help to find out who she is and what the heck that was all about…" she snipped, gaze slipping momentarily in the direction of the chaos. "Apparently she also slammed someone else's face into a table. That's what the girl had said. So it wasn't just me…Still...I can't believe she'd do that in front of a teacher..." She paused, pursing her lips, then glanced back to the boy. "What do you think…Just a git, or outright off her rocker?"