Even the small things hurt ((Ivy))

[Myn Katrenya R2]

Green eyes stared into the blue of the sky emptily. Who cared if the sky was blue or red? Who cared if the earth suddenly started trembling and a dragon burnt everyone to a crisp? Myn sighed, dropping her head in her hands and closing her eyes. She flopped backward and laid on the bed, staring up at the ceiling blankly. Tears leaked through her closed eyes and were wiped away roughly. Tears were weakness. Her mother hadn't cried when she had walked out, Myn was certain, and so she wouldn't waste any tears on her mother.

A small white kitten jumped onto Myn's lap and purred at her, pushing her head under Myn's chin. Myn sniffed and smiled weakly, at least her kitten was always there for her. "Hey, Sleet. W-we don't n-need her, do we?" Sleet simply purred in agreement, kneading her claws and settling down to sleep. Myn laughed and pushed her kitten away gently before standing up. "We can't just waste away in here now, can we? I need to face the world. Other people have been through worse than I have and I know it." Contrary to her words, her eyes were filling with tears again. The tears were wiped away again and the door shut behind her softly, it was time to face the world.

The fire in the Student Lounge was burning merrily and Myn sank to the floor next to it, glad of the reassuring warmth it offered. Myn focused on one single flame, following the dance it led. Flicker, leap higher and die down. Flicker, leap higher and die down. Her eyes closed slowly as they followed the flame, transfixed by the calming routine. A small yawn escaped and she put up a hand to smother it hastily. Myn hadn't slept well in a few days and the effects were starting to show. Everytime she closed her eyes, her mind conjured an image of her mother walking out of the door and her eyes snapped open again. Not this time though, Myn curled up slightly in the warmth of the fire and her eyes slipped closed. Within a few minutes she was asleep, for once not haunted by the face of her mother.

((Hope I gave you something to go on there. Learning that her mother abandoned her hit Myn pretty hard and all my inspiration for her at the moment is with her in a depressed mood.))

[Ivy Tunstall]

It was rather dull and dark outside. Ivy looked outside from her seat in the library and sighed. She'd love to go outside now, but she wasn't the kind of person that went out in totally inhospitable weather. Unless Quidditch practice was in the offing. A steady rain was falling and the trees swayed gently, showing up the substantial breeze there was out there. They weren't swaying wildly as they had been when the winds picked up more at the beginning of April though, so you could tell it wasn't blowing a gale out there. That was nice at least. Maybe the breeze would blow the rainclouds away without blowing more towards them. It was a hope to hold onto, Ivy reflected as she rolled up her Defence Against the Dark Arts essay and tied it together with one of the ribbons she usually used, a neat bow finishing off the appearance. She usually used yellow ribbon actually, but the one she'd just picked out was black. Ivy looked at the different colour momentarily and then shrugged as she stood up from where she'd been sitting.

Freedom. That was an odd thing. Ivy wasn't very used to it. She usually had something or other to be doing. But she'd managed to finish all her work, and that made her feel oddly happy. A clean sheet to start from tomorrow without having to transcribe any homework; all the essays on her 'to do' list crossed off. She didn't know that her friends would be in the same lucky position quite yet though so she wouldn't bother them right now. She could entertain herself. Ivy headed for the Student Lounge, pushing the door to it open quietly so as not to disturb anyone working inside. She worked in there herself sometimes, and although it was obviously not going to be the quietest place, she had had her chain of thought broken more than once by someone deciding they had to make a grand entrance. The Student Lounge was fairly quiet at this time of day anyway though - even a rainy day. There were just a few groups of people scattered around the place. Ivy smiled at some older Hufflepuffs she knew a little but not well enough to go up to, and herself took a seat in a comfortable armchair she knew it was easy to relax in.

She pulled her embroidery out of her bag and was arranging her threads on the armrest of the chair when she noticed a younger girl sleeping on the floor next to the fire. She must have been really exhausted if she'd managed to fall asleep in that position; the carpet of the Student Lounge was quite worn and Ivy doubted it could be the most comfortable mattress. She'd have aches and pains all over when she woke up. Well, Ivy could do something to attempt to prevent that. She used a tricky little charm to make the floor underneath the young girl - Ravenclaw, actually, Ivy noticed by her cloak - a lot softer - mattress soft. It was one she'd learnt a while ago since she was quite keen on charms. She smiled in satisfaction - that shouldn't be quite so bad for sleeping on now - before threading her needle with some light green thread and picking up her embroidery. She'd love to embroider some Quidditch scene, actually, but she'd have to get someone to draw the design for her since she possessed absolutely no artistic skills. And she was a bit shy to do that. So right now she was just forming some flowers with needle and thread.
"Darn," she muttered quietly as a gust of wind through a window that had been left open blew a group of violet threads a little way across the room. Standing up, she left her embroidery on the chair and went to retrieve it as quietly as possible. She didn't want to wake the small Ravenclaw up, if possible.

((Sorry, not the best but it was the best I could do in 20 minutes. I promised you I'd get it done before the weekend was out though so I did try. I'm ten minutes late. ))

[Myn Katrenya R2]

Myn curled up into a tighter ball and whimpered softly, battling against the dark nightmare that was attempting to take over her mind. The nightmare faded for a few seconds and Myn relaxed, uncurling slightly to return to her previous position. Instantaneously, the memory swept over her, seemingly sensing the relaxed guard and brushing aside the weak resistance that Myn tried to fight it back with. Various memories of her past had been haunting the young girl for weeks, taunting her with reminders of how happy the family had been before she had discovered exactly how true her fairy tales were.

"Sweetheart, it's alright. Hush," A tall light-haired woman rocked the small girl soothingly, rubbing small circles on her back and whispering calming nonsense in a weak attempt to soothe her child and halt the terrified babble. The brown-haired girl cowered back into her mothers embrace, leaving a soft whisper and a soft sob as her answer. "T-the bookshelf." The woman quirked an eyebrow, turning her gaze from the terrified eyes of her child to the darkened bookshelf. It just didn't make sense. Myn had always adored books and both of her parents encouraged her, pushing her to read and to gain knowledge. So why was she so afraid of the bookshelf all of a sudden? Still, the woman stood up, determined to find out what had scared Myn so much, and moved over to the bookshelf. Had a book fallen from the shelf and woken Myn with the noise? Doubtful. Even at five years old, Myn wasn't a jumpy child and it would take more than a fallen book to scare her. The woman smiled slightly, recognising the cause of the hysteria and moving back over to her child. "Sweetheart, it was only a little spider." Myn jumped back as her mother uncurled her hand to show the small spider in her palm. "Nothing to be afraid of," Myn's mother let the spider fall from her hand and land on Myn's arm, holding her daughter still so she wouldn't jump away again. The scurrying movement of the spider as it moved across her hand made Myn smile, amazed that such a small thing had managed to scare her so much. "Nothing to be afraid of." Myn repeated firmly, moving to let the spider crawl out of the window before climbing back into bed. "Love you, Mum." The words were whispered sleepily and elicted a happy smile from the woman. She had often feared that Myn suspected something about their life and those word reassured her greatly.

The familiarity of her bedroom - though much changed and decorated since she was five - spun around and twisted until it formed yet another familiar room. The kitchen. Her parents were standing at either end, yelling furiously. "I'm leaving and you can't stop me. That...that abomination that you call your daughter is a freak! Magic doesn't exist." That was her mother, her blonde hair as shiny as ever and the woman herself seemingly unbothered by the thought of abandoning her child. Her Dad stepped forward, radiating anger and shock. "That 'abomination' is your daughter! But fine, leave. We'll manage without you." The woman turned and stopped to pick up a suitcase, blowing a kiss to her husband and laughing as she left the house, left their lives.

Myn shuddered, feeling tears slip out her closed eyes and trickle down her face to splash onto her arm. The first part of the dream had been a memory, one that Myn had forgotten in her attempt to forget about her mother, but the second part was an image that Myn's mind had conjured to represent her mothers leaving. Myn yawned quietly, finally opening her eyes in a feeble attempt to ignore the after-affects of the dream coursing through her; fear, hurt, anger and a faint annoyance that she still hadn't managed to have a peaceful sleep without her mother disrupting it. A group of violet threads blew past just as Myn was contemplating the likelihood of the floor being that soft when she had fallen asleep or if someone had taken pity on her and made it softer. An older girl chased after the threads just as Myn sat up, quickly dashing a hand across her eyes to remove any tears, to pick them up. Myn tilted her head slightly, looking around the lounge thoughtfully, before coming to the conclusion that this girl had probably been the one to soften the floor for her. There weren't many other students in the lounge anyway and they were all too far away to have done anything. No, it must have been this girl. "Thank you," Myn smiled shyly before realising that the older girl - Hufflepuff, Myn noted silently - might not know what she was talking about and adding, "for the floor, I mean."

(( The dream sequence took up most of the post but that was for a reason, I promise. Both to start the end of the mother plot and to partially begin at a new plot. True, the new plot won't be for a while but it was a good place to start. ))

[Ivy Tunstall]

Ivy had to snatch hold of the threads as they were starting to take off again thanks to another gust of wind from that open window, and it was as she turned around to return to her seat that she noticed the young girl sitting up, looking still rather weary and maybe a little disorientated since she was looking around her. Ivy smiled at her as she sat down again and picked up her embroidery again. She bent her head over her work as she probed gently at the back of it for the small hole before pushing her needle through the correct place. She pulled it out the other side, extending the green thread to its full length before she returned it down the other side. She was still on the simple cross-stitch that made up the majority of the work; the backstitch and French knots would come later.

Ivy looked up again and gave the girl a friendly smile as she thanked her for making the floor a little more comfortable. "You're welcome," she said. "I know that it's not the best place to sleep. I should probably turn it back though, before anyone decides to come and use that patch of floor as a trampoline. Here, come and sit down," she said, moving a semi-reclining chair over with a simple charm they'd learnt in first year which by now she could use without any accidents. And it hadn't been too far away so she hadn't had to move it over anyone's heads. So all in all, fine. Ivy indicated the chair with a smile as she completed the cross stitch she'd been working on and went on to the next in the line. "You must've been really tired to manage to fall asleep on the floor," she commented. "It's not a result of work, is it? If the teachers are giving you too much work by your age I dread for you by the time you get to fourth year." Ivy doubted it could really be work - certainly work mattered to Ravenclaws but not that much, surely?. But she wanted to put the other girl at ease since it must be a bit odd to wake up and find someone else had evidently been watching you - and school was a common subject that it was always easy to talk about.

[Myn Katrenya R2]

Myn smiled slightly as she stood up, bouncing on the floor experimentally before moving over to the chair the older girl had brought over for her and sitting down. "Certainly not the best place to sleep," Myn agreed listlessly, her eyes darting around the room restlessly. It seemed strangely wrong to have smiled when she was missing her mother so much. Of course, she wasn't just missing her mother, she was also hating herself for missing the woman who had walked out without a backward glance or thought toward her young daughter. How could people do that? How could they just abandon their families without a thought? "It would be entertaining to watch though, students bouncing on the floor. Then again, there would probably be fights about whose turn it was and who had been on there longer than others or something." Myn offered a weak smile to the older girl and leaned back in the chair in yet another attempt to relax.

"Work?" Myn chuckled in quiet disbelief. "No, it's not work. It's just...life." Myn shrugged carelessly, a feat which was considerably difficult when leaning back in a chair. How could work bring about so much tiredness, depression and sadness? Myn frowned slightly as she pondered the point silently. Classes were rather fun, even though Myn hadn't really bothered to attend since she had received the owl about her mothers leaving. What did classes matter when compared to the loss of her mother? Still, this girl didn't know that so classes and work were quite a good guess, even if Myn reckoned that it was a wild stab in the dark. Classes would undoubtedly get harder as she moved up the school, the work intensifying in order to prepare students for OWL's and NEWT's. Myn sat up with some difficulty, finding it hard to propel herself out of the comfortable grip of the chair even if just to sit up, and faced the older girl. "I'm Myn, by the way. Myn Katrenya, first year Ravenclaw." Myn introduced herself politely and smiled warmly, even if it was only a small smile.