Questions & Answers

[Quinn Ashwinder]

After she'd left Lyric's room of requirement, Quinn had headed to the dorms to take a shower, just some time to take a breath before she headed out to see Markise. She thought, maybe while she was here, she'd buy herself a new outfit, one that maybe she blushed as she halted that thought, there was no reason to right? Maybe she'd get some answers once she had a chance to chat with Markise.

[Markise Sterling]

Markise was in the back of the store when he heard the door chime. He sighed at the papers in his hands, then gave them up for a lost cause and dropped them back on the table. He could see if the patterns he'd been making were salvageable later. He looked down at them anyway as he pushed to stand, then lightly ruffled the lavender curls he had now in place of his straight blond hair.

When he and Ariel had decided to come out, or rather to stop pretending they were someone else and let people figure it out, he'd decided to go all the way. The makeup was more subtle, a light shimmer around his eyes and glossy lips, but his golden eyelashes were black now, a more dramatic frame for his pale blue eyes.

Ariel was in the shop somewhere, probably doing inventory, for which Markise was infinitely grateful. Ariel's rigid sense of order was more helpful than he'd ever have imagined the first time he'd hired him. But there was something he didn't need to think about as he headed into the shop itself, a glittering smile of welcome on his lips. He blinked as he saw who it was.

"Quinn," he called lightly, his heartbeat picking up again. It had been such an ordeal when Anna had found out about him and Ariel, and that they were out. And she'd already known he was gay. He tried to gather whatever courage he might pretend to have and forced his momentarily faltering smile to glitter again. His party smile was the one expression he could control and have look entirely genuine.

[Quinn Ashwinder]

Quinn had grinned when Markise came out of the backroom, and was expecting something else. Her eyes widened for a moment on his curly purple hair, but when she looked at his face, it was the same Markise. It seemed like it had been to long since they'd had a chance to talk to each other, and it didn't matter what he looked like in her opinion, after all she'd just been doing something she was fairly certain was worse. Well, that was if she could find out what it was she had been doing. Besides, Markise was in the fashion industry right? They always seemed to be on the cutting edge of fashion. So, Quinn tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear, "you're not going to suggest I go purple too, right?"

[Markise Sterling]

Markise blinked at Quinn's non-reaction, but he had no complaints about it. She was a strange and surprising girl sometimes. His smile faded into something more friendly and less purposefully impressive as he neared. "You look good in red," he told her. He spent a moment mentally wrestling with himself before he let his hand raise to sweep back a blue-tipped curl that had fallen too far into his face. "So you found me," he went on, referring to the shop's relocation from Diagon Alley to Hogsmeade. "Or were you just walking by?"

[Quinn Ashwinder]

Quinn looked down at her feet for a moment, and then looked back up at him with a small, shyer smile than before. "No, I was looking for you. I missed having someone to talk to while you were gone. I guess...I didn't expect so many people to leave over break." She hadn't left, and she would have guessed more people wouldn't have, but the empty hallways belied her wishes for more friends. Quinn was nervous now though, she was going to ask something, but she didn't know how to phrase it or when, after all, she didn't want him to think she only came for the answers to her questions.

[Markise Sterling]

Markise's fingers lingered in his hair, a habit he'd been allowing himself to indulge in while in public for only a short time. His father hated it because it was too feminine, but it was soothing having his hair played with, even if it was only by him. "It was quiet last year, too," he said, though he'd rather not think about it at all. His mind was still stuck on this Christmas most of the time.

Markise was good enough with people to notice that something was still going on in Quinn's head. "What is it?" he asked. "Do you need to buy unmentionables?" She'd been so shy last time that it was the first answer he came up with, and it seemed plausible enough.

[Quinn Ashwinder]

"Unmentionables?" She hadn't the foggiest clue what he meant by unmentionables, but he'd asked her what was wrong kind of. She didn't understand what was wrong with asking questions, or what was wrong with asking this particular question, just that she hadn't wanted him to feel like she hadn't come to talk to him too, but she REALLY REALLY wanted to know the answer to this question. "No, I was just wondering if you could tell me what sex is?"

[Markise Sterling]

Markise's smile slammed to a halt, and for a moment all he could do was look at Quinn. Then he glanced back over his shoulder to where he thought Ariel would be, but couldn't see him to verify that she'd really asked that. When he looked at her again, she looked completely serious, and the bafflement continued. "Don't like, girls hear that stuff from their moms?" he asked.

[Quinn Ashwinder]

Quinn shook her head in negation, she was very serious as she told him, "my mother could have cared less if we were alive after we could walk on our own." Let alone tell them anything, the classes she'd taught them had generally involved giving them a book and saying figure it out, and then she and Kiley would run off into the forest to play alone.

[Markise Sterling]

Strangely, Markise believed her. It was impossible to fathom not knowing, and Markise couldn't begin to think of how much she expected him to tell her, but he felt like he had to try. He glanced at the windows to the shop, thinking. He'd have to be hellishly careful that a customer didn't walk in to hear this. His eyes returned to Quinn, but he kept a watchful ear on the bell chimes.

"Sex is..." There were so many things he could say! "Why are you asking me?" he asked.

[Quinn Ashwinder]

It seemed simple enough to Quinn, but not knowing what it was, it seemed more and more like something, perhaps not good, everyone she'd asked seemed dodgy on the subject, well Markise and Lyric. "Its..well you talked to me before, and not very many people do." She twisted her fingers into her hair, "and there's this boy...he said that he would show me, but he didn't."

[Markise Sterling]

Markise blinked, baffled all over again. "Don't let anyone show you," he said, almost reflexively. It was what he'd have told his sister. She needed to remain a virgin until after she had kids and there was unarguable proof otherwise. Quinn could do the same.

As comfortable as Markise was having sex, and as much as he liked it, it wasn't something he'd ever really talked about outside the bedroom and he didn't know how. And most of what he knew about straight sex was things his friends had talked about. Half the stuff they'd claimed to want to do weren't even physically possible. He felt like he had to try to tell her, though.

"Um, anyhow, you take your clothes off... not you, but whoever's doing it..." He didn't want her getting any ideas. The explanation that followed was short and lacked any detail, but it was the basic mechanics. Now maybe they could talk about something else.

[Quinn Ashwinder]

After some time of talking through her questions, Quinn decided she probably wasn't going to be getting much more out of Markise, even though she had a lot more questions. She smiled, "thank you Markise," she said, and she really was thankful, at least she knew more than Lyric had left her with. "Now, I really wanted to get something new to wear too. I want....to look....good for Lyric."

[Markise Sterling]

Markise shook his head. "You don't want to be with a guy that tried to trick you into having sex," he said. "A guy like that's nothing but trouble." His first thought was, of course, Kwami, but then, Larten hadn't exactly waited for his consent, either.

It took a moment for his mind to catch up with the name she'd given. He knew that name, had discussed the name and whether to call him by it or his middle name with Jory. Markise knew why Lyric was at Hogwarts instead of his last school. And it appeared that he was at least bi. What had happened between him and Jory?

[Quinn Ashwinder]

Quinn shook her head, "he didn't try to trick me," she blushed and tangled her fingers into her hair again. At least not that she knew of, after all, the kissing had been nice, and he was the one who had stopped after all. "I just...we were kissing, and then he did something I didn't understand and I asked what he was doing. He was the one who stopped anyways."