Dance, much? (Ivy)

[JordanCortes]

Jordan wasn't happy at the moment, she was blowing off steam in the common room and her drawings weren't helping much. They weren't turning out the way she wanted them to and that was never good for Jordan. She pushed aside her sketchbook and coloring pencils and stood up before looking around the empty common room. She moved the chairs out of her way a bit to make room for her to practice her dance moves in a small circle.

She opened her locket and out flowed a slow but upbeat tango song. She waved her wand and her sneakers were replaced with her dance shoes and she stepped up. As the music started to speed up, Jordan started to dance to it. Her feet each moving graciously over the wooden floor. One beat she would step back, on the second beat she would step forward, third beat she would cross her right leg over her left in a triangle and then on the fourth she would do the same with her left. Then she would repeat it.

She wasn't aware of someone who entered the common room as she was twirling and moving her feet to the latin beat. Jordan stopped when the music stopped and took a drink from her water bottle, and that was when she noticed someone else was in teh common room. A blush rose ot her cheeks and she sat down out of breath.

[Ivy Tunstall]

Ivy entered the Common Room, having been working in the library. She was very busy with schoolwork at the moment but knew that she had to allow herself a break. She was feeling absolutely exhausted and her feet ached as she stepped through the portrait-hole. She was instantly greeted by music and looked up to see Jordan dancing with unbelievable energy. She recognised the type of dance - she could dance it herself - but it made Ivy feel even more tired, since she didn't have that energy.

Ivy blushed as Jordan stopped, realising that she had been staring. She thought that she had better say something rather than being tongue-tied. She had never seen Jordan tongue-tied and didn't want her to think that she was stupid.
"Wow." was all that she managed to come up with initially. "That was quite something." She grinned at Jordan as she sank into the sofa next to her, stretching out her legs. She took out her wand and conjured two large chocolate cookies, complete with good quality dark chocolate chips. Ivy felt like cooking at the moment, but the frustration for her was that at the moment she didn't have the resources to do anything except for make the finished product. Sometimes it payed to get your hands dirty. You enjoyed the result more.
Ivy took a bite of one of the chocolate cookies, holding the other out to Jordan. "Where did you learn to dance?" Ivy asked her as she struggled to swallow a mouthful of cookie.

[JordanCortes]

Jordan smiled as Ivy conjured cookies, and she took one, bit into it with hunger. She chewed thoughtfully a moment, remembering the days she had spent with her mother and brothers, dancing in the ballroom upstairs. How she had performed in the latin competitions they held upstairs every other weekend. She remembered the sweet latina music that flowed through the halls, and coming home from muggle school to find her mother dancing in the kitchen while she made after-school lunch. How, Mrs. Cortes would sweep the little girl up in her arms and dance with her around the kitchen until Jordan had to eat or couldn't stop laughing.

"Um, I come from a large Latina family. And my mom loved Tango, Salsa, Cha Cha, Merengue. She would teach me and my brothers after school everyday, and then every other weekend there would be Latin ball room competitions. I don't know, I guess it's from my heritage. Do you know the dance?" She looked at Ivy with gleaming eyes and tilted her head patiently waiting for her friends answer. Dancing was a passion to Jordan that she had forgotten long ago, and it was something she intended to take up after awhile and a bit of encouraging words from Kris, someone she had met by arguing with and then later on started to talk to instead of yelling at.

[Ivy Tunstall]

Ivy smiled at her friend, interested to listen to what she had to say. The only types of dances that she knew were the Latin ones, but those she knew well. She had taken classes in them, when she was younger, and she still remembered how to do them, if it was a little rusty. Ivy's dancing days were over before they had begun.

"No, I don't know that particular one," Ivy said in reply to Jordan's question, "but the style's familiar. I used to be able to dance, but not really any more. I haven't danced for so long." She smiled at Jordan wistfully, thinking of days when her father was younger and sprightlier. Her mother and father had gone to classes, wanting to learn how to dance, and when Ivy was about five they had started to take her as well. Ivy used to dance around the small living-room after the lessons, always one step ahead of her father or mother when they tried to catch her to go to bed. Ivy heard the sound of the tinkly laugh in her head, and sighed. She had given up a lot coming here, and maybe it was her fault that her father wasn't there for her any more. But she couldn't go back now, much as she might have liked to have done sometimes.

Ivy gave another sigh and smiled at Jordan. "I probably don't have the energy for it now, I spend all my time doing schoolwork." She unzipped her bag and threw out book after book. "Have to read that for Herbology, that's my Potions essay, though no doubt it won't be good enough, um... yes, Charms, Ancient Runes... History of Magic essay I still have to do." Ivy started to pack the things she still had to do back into her bag, and got up to put her Potions and Charms essays into her locker. Ivy banged it shut and returned to sit next to Jordan, locking it from the other side of the room.
"I need a break," she told her friend.

[JordanCortes]

Jordan watched Ivy, with that same smile she had on when she was about to repeat something someone had said to her. She waited until Ivy was sitting again and tilted her head, "If you like to dance, then find time for it. Yeah, that's a lot of work you have to do, but honestly- I think if you take it a little at a time, you can get through it all and still have time to do the things you like." She told her with a reasurring smile. Jordan then closed the locket that had started with more music, and made herself comfortable.

"And if you feel interested in learning this particular dance, I know a couple of people who know it; including myself." Jordan added after a moment as she ran through the small list of people she knew who could dance salsa. Dana, Kris, Rayne, and herself. Rayne was newer at it, so she wasn't as experience but she still knew the steps and that meant something. Jordan smiled at Ivy again and looked around the room, just looking blankly.

[Ivy Tunstall]

Ivy looked seriously at Jordan, her heart feeling like ice. She knew that she was overworking herself. She also knew why it was probably the best thing to do. At least for the moment. Ivy looked down, fiddling with her fingers and digging them into her hands.
"To be honest," she started, and then stopped abruptly, wondering whether it was a good idea to say it. "To be honest, I think that..." she trailed off again, not sure if Jordan was listening to what she was saying. But she was, and she was expecting Ivy to say more. "To be honest, I think that... that I want to spend all my time doing work. Because if I have time to do what I want, I'll have time to think and mope. At least I think that's what'll happen. That's what happened before."

Ivy tugged at her hair as a subconcious action. She always did it when she was anxious or unsure of herself. She gulped as she continued, "And I'm afraid of giving myself time to myself and for myself, and I don't know how to not be frightened." She looked away from Jordan, embarassed, the tips of her ears red and her cheeks hot, fiddling with her fingernails and her watch and tugging at her hair, anything to distract herself from thinking about it.

[JordanCortes]

Jordan tilted her head, clearly not understanding what Ivy was saying. So she stood up, clasped her hands behind her back and started to pace, trying to understand. Her brown eyes were looking at a spot on the wall, and she was trying really hard to figure out what Ivy had said.

"Wait, let me get this straight, you want to keep yourself busy...so...you don't have to think, about..what?" Jordan asked after she thought she had figured it out. She looked at Ivy, her brown eyes questioning. Jordan fiddled with her hair behind her back, still partly confused. She crossed her legs and started to dance. Her moves graceful, and yet so rigid.

"Are you hiding from something, Ivy?" She asked after a step that was her last.

[Ivy Tunstall]

Ivy gazed at Jordan passively as she paced about the room. She wasn't sure if she had gone too far. Was she talking about what the Slytherins had said and done, or about her father, or the uncertainty, or what? Or was she talking about them all. She certainly couldn't tell Jordan about the Slytherins. Ivy had no way of knowing how she might react. And they had warned her. Ivy musn't say too much. She had to make sure she was guarded, at all times. She glanced down at her hand. Still the bruises were there. They were fading, but they were there.

Ivy watched as Jordan danced, a turmoil of thoughts going on inside her. What was she trying to hide from herself? What? What? Jordan stopped dancing and asked her the exact same question. "No," Ivy said, her voice sounding slightly stressed. "No... Yes... I don't know. I don't know what I'm hiding from." Ivy put her head in her hands, trying to think, trying to straighten things out in her mind. She sighed heavily, looking up at Jordan again with a sad glow in her eye that was almost like that of a trapped animal. And that was what Ivy was. She was trapped in herself. Jailed away from happiness. And she was her own jailer. And she was trying to get out. Maybe. Maybe. Ivy wasn't certain about anything anymore.
"I think I'm hiding from myself, Jordan," Ivy said, a pained expression on her face, her mind full of confusion and despair.

[JordanCortes]

Jordan sat down next to Ivy and put a comforting arm around her. Now she understood. Ivy was hiding from herself, afraid of what might happen. Jordan had been there, actually, in fact she was still there. But, she had somehow learned to skillfully dodge the breakdowns that were necessary when hiding from one's self. She put her hands in her lap and looked down at them, thinking of how to help Ivy.

"In a way, it's as if you're wearing a mask? Right? You seem to be different arround your friends but, when you're alone you're...just, not the same?" Jordan suggested in a soft tone. Maybe she had found someone who had the same problem as she. But, Ivy dealt with it differently than Jordan did. Very differently in fact. Maybe that was a good thing, Jordan could learn how to control her anger from Ivy.

"It's one big masquerade. Paper faces on parade. Hide your face so the world can never find you. People are constantly changing, so it's like, you are never yourself. You're always someone else." Jordan added after a moment. Relating it to one of her favorite movies. She smiled wearily and looked down at her hands again.

[Ivy Tunstall]

Ivy smiled uncertainly at Jordan. That was partly it. She didn't understand the reference that Jordan had made, and looked down, twiddling her thumbs. When she was alone, she could not keep up appearances. She thought a lot, and in doing that, tortured herself. She wanted to stop doing it to herself. It was going to work. Ivy was going to stop turning her anger inwards, and channel the energy into something else. Maybe Quidditch. If she could get any better at it than the low standard she was at.

"I always used to have my father," Ivy said slowly, "and even if I couldn't always talk to him, he was always there for me, and he didn't turn me away or anything..." She looked up at her friend again, who was watching her carefully, but not obtrusively. "But then he went, and left me here. And now I can't put my trust in anyone, because they might abandon me too, whether they mean to or not." Ivy sighed heavily. "I can't really trust myself any more either. Sometimes, when I'm walking down the corridor, that's not me that's walking down there. I'm a long way away, I've been locked out. But most of the time I don't even have that freedom."

She smiled slightly at Jordan, but the smile carried with it no happiness. Only pain. She had had this problem before, but it had always been her in control. Or had it? Which Ivy was she? It all seemed very complicated. Maybe, just maybe, when the situation had resolved itself... if the situation resolved itself... Ivy would be able to undo the shackles that were binding her happiness at the moment, and confusing her so much.
"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," Ivy muttered, with a grim, faint laugh at the irony. But who was she, really, to judge the character of the other her? The other Ivy was almost as much of a stranger to her as someone she saw on the street, except that she was harder to get even a slight impression of. She sighed again, hoping that Jordan would not consider her as demented as she probably really was.

[JordanCortes]

Jordan listened intently to what Ivy was telling her, and the concept of understanding what Ivy was going through, slipped out of her grasp. Jordan didn't really know what Ivy was going through, Jordan had people who were always there for her, people who were there too much, and some people who didn't care. Jordan never had to go through anything alone, though at times she would have liked to. When she didn't let anyone else know what was going on, someone always figured out; like Kris. He had found out by mere arguement. Was she that willing to let her secrets slip? Jordan shook her head, not wanting to think about this at the moment. Ivy needed her and Jordan wanted to be there for her.

"If it's worth anything, Ivy. I will never ever abandon you. I might not understand what you are going throuhg, but I will always be here for you. And I suspect that Kiyla would be the same way. We are here for you, if you just want to talk, or just go away and spend money on the weekend, or something. We'll always be here." Jordan reassured her with a smile that indicated she was sincere. Jordan searched through the shoulderbag that was settled nicely next to the couch, and pulled out a package of candy, after all the changes Jordan had been through, she still had her sweet tooth. She smiled lightly at this thought, and offered some of the candy to Ivy.

When Ivy made the comment about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Jordan smiled once more and ate a gumdrop, "Just as long as you don't go killing people or anything like that." She replied with a small amused expression on her face. Not, that she could see Ivy killing someone, no that would be unethical, but if Ivy was so concerned about the other half of her, taking precautions wasn't such a bad thing, now was it?

[Ivy Tunstall]

Ivy smiled slightly at Jordan's reassurance. Yes, it was true. She had friends, and she had people who loved her. There were a lot of people who loved her. But Ivy wanted someone who she could rely on completely, where she wasn't the one who held the responsibility. In short, she wanted a mother. But the friends she had were the best thing she could hope for. And they were great friends, as well. Ivy smiled at Jordan gratefully. "Thanks," she said quietly and sincerely.

Ivy shook her head slowly at the offer of candy, as she felt slightly nauseous. She was very tired, maybe that was it. She looked at Jordan in slight alarm as she mentioned killing someone. Why would Ivy do that? Surely it was beyond a 13 year old? Ivy couldn't imagine that she knew any 13 year old murderers. No, that idea was absurd. Ivy was more worried about her identity. Why she seemed to be split in half, and why the two halves didn't seem to get along. They didn't even talk to each other any more.

Ivy pushed the worries to the back of her mind. She didn't want to think about it, not now.
"Ah well," she sighed, "no point in worrying about it, I suppose." She flicked her wand, moving chairs and tables aside. She flicked it again, and her favourite Latin American music filled the room. Ivy smiled, standing up.
"OK then," she said, smiling at Jordan, doing her very best to forget her worries, "will you teach me?"