Power & Control, closed, alexandria k. Options

[Priscilla Piper]

Ordinarily, Priscilla was not one that enjoyed being by herself. She was a very social creature, and as such, she needed to constantly be surrounded by people that liked her and her company. That was just how it worked. Priscilla could talk a mile a minute and had a devastating thirst for gossip – that was just merely how she functioned. She was a social butterfly, if you will, and being on her own was the best form of punishment when it came to the young Hufflepuff. Sometimes being alone was inevitable, but it was still the worst thing to have ever happened to her. The other worst thing to have ever happened to her was exams. Priscilla needed to study, badly and desperately. The drawback of goofing around all term and never paying attention to one’s schoolwork is that when exams come around, a student must live, eat, sleep, and breathe their studies. None of this sounded exciting or acceptable to Priscilla.

She had tried to do homework in the library, and that had backfired horribly. During exam season, it seemed as though everyone was on the same page of going to the library and attempting to absorb all of their knowledge in that way. This led to lots of people being in the library at all times, which led to Priscilla seeing people that she knew. Of course, this led to Priscilla deciding that it was more worth her time to socialize with these people regardless of how well she knew them than studying, which in turn led to Priscilla getting absolutely no work done. It was a horrible and dreadful cycle that just would not seem to end. No matter how hard she tried, Priscilla had no discipline or self-control for keeping herself from talking to others.

Because of this, Priscilla had to seclude herself.

She tried her dormitory, but of course then her roommates would come back and be a distraction. She tried going outside, but then all she wished to do was run around and do something more exciting. From here on out, she knew that she had to find some dreadful and boring place in the castle that no one ever had the desire to visit just so she could get some work done. Somewhere scary and dim and utterly unappealing. It was a few days later that she found the armor gallery. It was everything that she hated, which meant that it was everything that she needed to study.

For several days after, her routine had been to go straight to the armor gallery with all of her books when her classes were finished. In this way, she was able to sit herself down and focus, with no one to talk to or nothing exciting to look at. (Priscilla, being such a gentle creature, found no interest in items that had seen or were capable of seeing battle in their lifetime. That, and she felt like wearing a suit of armor would make her look quite wide in the hips.)

This ritual was set to continue until she had finished all of her exams, and it had started off without a hitch. Unfortunately, with most things in life, it had hit a snag. It was early in the afternoon on a weekend, and Priscilla had decided that she was going to seize the day and whatnot in order to get a little more studying done. When she opened the door to the armor gallery, books in hand, she encountered something that caused her to jump.

Another person.

Completely thrown off by the presence of someone else, Priscilla stood there, one hand full off books pressed to her hip and the other still on the door knob, having a silent stare down with the other girl in the room. Who was she, and why on earth would anyone else want to come to Priscilla’s Secret Study Location? Internally, Priscilla was extremely peeved. Outwardly… Priscilla was extremely peeved.

“Can I help you?” she asked, one eyebrow raised as she finally crossed the threshold of the room. Maybe it sounded a little snooty, but whatever. The other girl was the intruder. “Or, at least ask what you’re doing? I’ve been coming here for days to study sooo…”

So, finished Priscilla in her head, get out.

[Alexandria King]

“Take that! And that! You won’t take her alive, you rascal!” Bits of armor lay splayed across the floor of the room, remnants of the dragon that had more or less been defeated. Behind the now immobile (and if we’re being honest, it had never been truly mobile) pile of metal sat a broom, left behind by a previous occupant of the room. Clad in a tarnished helmet, breastplate, and gauntlet, Alex parried and swayed her way around the room, vowing quite loudly that she would save the beautiful princess from Valoo the Vicious, a dragon of momentous proportions (the broom and pile of scrap metal, respectively).

It had been a boring morning, so void of excitement that Alex felt the need to pick up her exploring habits once more. After a failed attempt at getting one of the girls in her dormitory to come along (apparently they had better things to do), she set off in search of a happening. Any sort of happening would do, as long as it happened soon. Stumbling across the Armor Gallery had been a treasure trove of a find, as far as finds went. It was just the sort of place Alex loved, so full of promise. It hadn’t taken long for her to don pieces of the armor (more than three times too big for her small frame), and begin constructing a fairy tale scene.

The room had been relatively quiet (save for the clanging caused by Alex’s meanderings, of course, and the outbursts of illustrative storytelling – so really, not quiet at all) until she heard … footsteps? (She had good hearing, okay?) Who would bother coming to the Armor Gallery? Besides her, of course. Alex mused, although, her musing did not last long. She couldn’t very well hide away while this person entered her kingdom, now could she? Most certainly not. Disengaging herself proved to be more difficult than she had imagined, but with determination and a little elbow grease – let’s be real, here: a lot of elbow grease, take away all of that imagination and she really was just a small thing – Alex was free of the oversized armor. And just in the nick of time. The door swung open just as she set the breastplate down and looked up in anticipation. A witch from a distant land come to set a curse on the castle? A friend of the dragon? A courageous commoner with something to prove?! A…

Girl?

Alex dropped her arm, defeated, but still maintaining enough sense to keep hold of her helmet … erm, the knight’s helmet, that is… “Well, yes, in fact…” she began to laugh at the hilarity of it all. Explaining the situation was not going to be easy, but with any luck Alex may have the chance to recruit a fellow imagination. Together, they could rule the land of Hogwartsavia! The greatest kingdom in all of the land, now that Valoo had been vanquished!

… Ah-hem. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

“Well you see…” Alex began to explain herself once more before realizing that the person in front of her had no intention of listening to her charade. At the mentioning of studying, her face fell. Well then. This girl had to be one of those Ravenclaw girls always flitting about with a textbook (or two!) in hand. And yes, Alex was aware of the generalization she was inflicting upon this girl she did not know in the slightest… well, slightly aware… but that did not change her opinion. Studying had been the furthest thing from her mind this morning when she had set out… it was the weekend, for Merlin’s sake and Alex had been trying to have an adventure. In the Armor Gallery! Who studied in the Armor Gallery, anyway?

“Wouldn’t the Library be a better place to go?” Attempting to forego any ruffled feathers, she continued, “I mean, that’s where I would go… if I needed to study… seems like the place to be…” Not one to acquiesce to many situations, Alex felt that this time, it was best to back down gracefully. Perhaps it was the tone of the girl’s voice, or the embarrassment she felt rising in her neck after being ‘caught’ in her make believe world. In any case, the feeling was new to the young girl, and she did not much enjoy it. She had never felt self-conscious about her play habits, but somehow, with this girl standing in front of her, she wanted to be anywhere else.

“I’ll… uh… I’ve just got to clear away the mess I’ve made and I’ll be out of your hair,” she muttered as she set about righting the armor she had chosen for her knight and turned to pick up a piece of the pile that had made up Valoo the Vicious. Defeated, her movements were sluggish and harried. The feeling of loneliness crept back on her, a heavy weight for a child to bear. It was true; she had always danced to the beat of her own drum. It was the reason she had become so close to Da; all of the other kids simply could not keep up with her high energy – higher, that is, than most children her age.

Unless. This girl had spunk, right? She may have a certain something… With renewed resolve Alex spun on her heel, fast enough to bring her face to face with another suit of armor not far. As the blush rose to her cheeks, Alex struggled to remain firm in her decision not to back down. With a couple of sharp movements, hidden behind the armor, she regained her composure. A quick side step brought her away from the metal carnage she had caused.

“See… the thing is…” Still, her resolve threatened to break. Maybe if she just said it real fast, like taking off a band-aid. She spoke quickly, without stopping for a breath, “The thing is I have this big problem with studying I never really want to do it and I go all around the castle trying to find something better to do and I am really always alone so I…” she paused to take a gulp of air and contemplate whether or not she wanted to reveal her secret.

Oh dear. This girl was going to think she was a complete nutter.

[Priscilla Piper]

In the times of her childhood, Priscilla had had many games fueled purely by her imagination. She had been to far off lands of which the names were made up, and she had been in her own home, which had now been overrun by gnomes or dragons or some such silliness. Priscilla had been the richest girl on the planet, and she had also been a poor beggar, unable to do anything but look sad in the street and starve, all while still looking good of course. The difference in then and now was, however, that then Priscilla had been alone. All of her games of imaginary situations had been Priscilla and her various stuffed animals had played the roles of her supporting cast, and Priscilla was always the star.

In fact, despite Priscilla’s dedication to becoming popular and getting her name out there and her deep love for her Quidditch team, she didn’t really play well with others. She was just born that way.

It seemed to take several moments for the girl in question to construct her story of just what she was doing in Priscilla’s studying locale, and the Hufflepuff found herself growing more and more bored by the second. She had known as soon as she had woken up that going off to study today had been a mistake. Studying always sounded like a terrible option of what to do for the day, but in situations like this, she wished to do it even less. Her eyes drifted to the textbooks in her arms, and she wondered for a moment if it was even worth it. Were these subjects interesting? No. Did she care? No. Did Priscilla, at the moment, want to get as far away from this girl as possible?

Yes.

It took extreme dedication to not roll her eyes in a horribly rude fashion as the girl suggested that she go to the library. Did she not think that that had been tried yet? Well, to be fair, Priscilla hadn’t tried to go to the library today. She had walked past it, yes, but going inside seemed to defeat the purpose of having a secret place in the castle to study. Well, she reminded herself, not so secret anymore. Regardless, going to the library would have been a terrible, awful, no good idea; if Priscilla had stepped foot in the area where the books lived, she probably would have turn around and run back to her bed, throwing the covers over her head instantly. Just the name of the place made her skin crawl, really. And the smell of all of the musty old books? Unbearable. The Armor Gallery was much better and much more secluded, until today.

Priscilla noticed that the other girl had one of the suits of armor’s helmet in her hands, and her eyebrow arched instantly. She had run into one of those strange people, hadn’t she? The types of people that her mother told her to stay away from, and that all mothers told their children not to accept candy from. Even though those types of people were usually much, much older, Priscilla had no doubt that she had encountered one of them. Her mouth stayed pressed shut until she was addressed to speak.

Don’t talk to strangers. Stranger danger. Don’t approach a stranger. Well, unfortunately, Priscilla had, and now she was the only other person in a room with her.

“Okay, cool, thanks,” Priscilla spoke lazily as the other girl suggest that she clean everything up. To ‘get out of her hair.’ As little as Priscilla wished to study, she figured that would probably be a good thing. Get some of the work out of the way before any situation got any worse. She waited, forcing back a yawn, and glanced at all of the various suits of armor and shields. Despite coming in here day after day to study, she had never noticed them before. Priscilla had been aware of their presence, sure, but she had never really seen them. They were pretty amazing, to be sure, and they looked like they had been regularly cleaned and kept up with. They shone brilliantly in the light, and Priscilla was swept up into her own thoughts. She wondered what kinds of battles they had seen, and what spells they were resistant to. For just a brief moment, she was taken back to the memory of spending all day in her room at home, reading fairy tale after fairy tale, pretending to insert herself into the stories. Priscilla was, after all, always the star.

It was a nostalgic topic, and one that almost made her a little sad. Even though that had to have been not longer than a year ago, Priscilla’s life was so different now. She almost wished that she could go back to that time and not have to deal with all of the classes and subjects and drama that she was already encountering in her young life and in her short time away from school. Maybe it would be better if she could go back to the days of fairy tale and not have to worry about anything else.

When the other girl spoke up again, Priscilla noticeably jumped, frightened by the noise of someone else’s voice and shaken out of her daydream. For a moment, she was once again instantly annoyed, her face crumpling like a wilted flower. It was the words that she heard after that made her face uncrumple and even light up, if one could call it that. In a matter of mere seconds, Priscilla went from disdain for the other girl to complete and utter understanding.

“Oh, I know!” she exclaimed, gesturing to the textbooks in her arms. “I mean, studying is just awful! I don’t care about these at all, I, actually—” Priscilla threw the books to the ground in an ungraceful matter, spilling to the floor with the covers opening, revealing the words of pure drivel that waited inside of them.

“I should be studying, but I just can’t do it. That’s why I’m not in the library, I tried to make myself go there, but like, it was really crowded and I knew that I would just talk to people and not study, so I started coming here so that I could get work done because it isn’t interesting at all.” Priscilla stopped and eyed the armor again. “But now, I guess, I see that it really was interesting the entire time!”

Priscilla as well had to take a deep breath in, having lost all of her air from the quick succession of words.

“Sorry if I was rude, before. I didn’t… It wasn’t very nice. But, um, what were you doing when I came in? And can I join you?”

[Alexandria King]

Alex looked up in unabashed wonder. Was this girl… was she actually… did she just throw her books down?! The young Gryffindor felt the corners of her mouth turn up ever so slightly. Was this girl conversing with her? It should not be assumed that Alex was entirely inept at human contact. Au contraire. The difficulty she had in understanding this situation stemmed from the complete and utter fool she must have made of herself. And still, the person in front of her was speaking to her as if she had not just witnessed a crazy eleven year old on an imaginative trip.

But wait. She hadn’t. Alex hadn’t told her what she had been doing before being interrupted. Her face fell, anxiety written in her features.

“Can I join you?”

YES. YES. A THOUSANDS TIMES –

Ah-hem.

If you can imagine the harried thoughts of an entire day compressed into 30 seconds, you would have the perfect picture of the scene playing through Alex’s head at this moment in time. She wanted so badly to tell the person in front of her the fun she had been having, to include someone in her fantasy world and play out an epic adventure. She wanted it more than anything! And yet, she hesitated. Unable to help a fear of rejection and ridicule, Alex held herself back. She remembered all too well the derisive snickering of older children around the park as they watched her play her fantasies out.

Too late she realized she had still not spoken. Stalling, she attempted to bridge the uncomfortable silence. “That’s alright,” she grinned. “Must have been quite the surprise, seeing someone in your ‘study area.’” She laughed, a little too boisterously, hoping that it would continue long enough to cover her lack of conversation-moving speech.

And then, and all at once, Alex realized she had to tell this girl everything on the off chance that she may actually be interested. If she didn’t ask, she would never know, and Alex knew that the mystery would drive her mental. “Okay. Now this might seem a little crazy to you,” she paused for a moment, allowing ample preparation time for her revelation. “I was actually playing Saving the Kingdom – I mean, I don’t know if that’s what it’s actually called but I mean… I did make it up, so I suppose that will do…”

Thoughts of doubt began to creep back before being squashed, quite forcibly, away. “It’s all a big game of pretend! I pretend that I am the person who saves the castle and the princess,” quickly running over to the broom, she held it up and motioned to its frame, indicating its royalty. “I have to save the princess from this big, scary menace of a dragon,” again, she moved her arm in a sweeping motion, directing attention to the pile of scrap metal at her feet. “This is Valoo the Vicious… probably not the most original name,” she muttered quietly under her breath. “And this stuff here,” picking up the helmet, breastplate and gauntlet, she attempted to juggle all three below her neck, in order to continue talking without obstruction. “Well, this makes up the hero’s armor, who was… er… me,” she finished with a slight shrug of her shoulder and small smile.

And now we wait. To ridicule, or not to ridicule…

You know the rest. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)