Playing with Abla.

[Jory Addison]

Jory shook his head and sniffed. "I don't know," he admitted. "Telling you helps, though." He hadn't even told her the whole story, and what he had told her was missing so many details that could have turned it into an afternoon-long story. "He left after we talked and I went to go talk to this guy I know, but this girl was there and apparently Lyric had told her everything it had taken me months to get out of him, and he had kissed her when they had only had pumpkin juice!" It wasn't fair!

[Zilnafa]

She didn't know if she was allowed to insult this Lyric out loud yet but inside her mind she was calling him lots of words only spoken by drunken men and not always English either.

She didn't like him messing with Jory this way. Not one bit. It was her fatal flaw. Over protectiveness about everybody who was nice to her. It was bordering on jealousy and what's worse is that she knew it.

"So who's the girl? And the guy you know?"

[Jory Addison]

"I've talked to the guy before, Markise. He's out now," or so Jory had heard. "The girl was Quinn, she, like, started talking about how I had to understand and stop thinking about myself. She acted like I was stupid. She told me I needed to understand but said that I couldn't learn." It had all been so confusing and hurtful. He sniffed again and his fingers wiped at tears that weren't quite to his eyes yet. "I told her that I wanted to help Lyric, but he'd just get frustrated with me, and she got mad."

He had never felt inadequate or worthless before, but the couple of weeks since term had started were making him feel like that. His eyes were burning again as he thought about everything. It was all a jumble and it was so hard to pull out the pieces to tell Zilly. They probably didn't make any more sense and it was making Lyric out to be a horrible, bad person, but right now that was how Jory felt.

[Zilnafa]

Zilnafa frowned. So was he mad at Lyric, Markise, or Quinn? Markise and Lyric? Markise and Quinn? Quinn and Lyric? All three? Jory wasn't really making all that much sense. But sense wasn't what he needed to expell right now. He needed to get rid of that well of sadness she could see in his eyes. And she would be his vent if he wanted.

Abla stuck her nose in Jory's ear and snorted. Zilnafa couldn't see but usually that move blew snot into her own ears when Abla tried it. It was mildly disgusting and immediatly brought the focus from anything else to the goo inside her ear.

[Jory Addison]

The little sneeze made Jory rub his ear against his shoulder. "Sorry, I'm bad at explaining things," he said softly. "Like, I was frustrated with Lyric, but I got really mad at Quinn. Markise told me I should stop going after Lyric if he's going to be like that. I think he's right." He unconsciously shifted closer to Zilly, a part of him wanting the closeness he used to get from Layne.

[Zilnafa]

Oh. Okay. She understood; a blessing and a curse. Because now knowing what had happened she had to come up with something comforting to say. And in her previous expericence, her comforting ability had been zero. But she would give it a try.

"Jory. Markise is right." She decided to be honest with her thoughts and hoped to Merlin that it wouldn't upset Jory. "Lyric is being a..." Some very mean African insults flooded her mind but she swallowed them and chose and English one that wasn't that bad. "A jerk. And that tells me that he is seriously not a good person and that everybody should avoid him. The way he's treating you is terrible and if you'd let me I'd go stab him. You deserve better from him, from everybody."

She paused trying to find something else to say. "However, he was your first. And I know that means something. I know it means you'll have an extremely hard time getting over him. But you shouldn't stay with him. No matter what. I'm willing to help you through it, no matter what it takes."

She had some clauses for that last line though. Even she wasn't stupid enough to pledge herself over completely. For instance, there would be no sex from her. For anyone, from anyone. She wouldn't hlep Jory commit suicide, or murder. And she wouldn't allow him to put himself in bodily harm no matter what he asked. She didn't expect him to ask but still better safe then sorry.

[Jory Addison]

Jory had nodded throughout Zilly's little speech. Still, he felt tears coming again. They felt different, not as desperate as they had been in the past days. "Thank you," he whispered. He hated the idea of just dropping Lyric, but Zilly and Markise were right. "Can we talk about something else now?" he asked, though he really wouldn't mind begging her to hold him so he could wallow in his misery a little longer.

[Zilnafa]

Zilnafa slung her arm around his shoulder. She knew he wasn't done releasing his misery. But he was following all the right steps. Ulan had gone through all of them constantly.

First, the intial crying stage. It was the easiest, because hey all you had to do was cry. Then the talking about it part. That was the hardest. Mostly because no one liked to face thier problems head on. it was usually terrifying and could really upset people. The last stage was a mystery to Zilnafa. Ulan had gotten angry, or he cried, or he sat and stared. It was the ending release but most of the time it was only the ending for that beer. She knew that it ould take much longer then just one day to help Jory. And that he would probably have to go through this process again and again.

She debated the sympathetic approach and the firm one. "Just because you say you're done talking about this subject doesn't mean you are." Zilnafa met Jory's bright blue eyes foggy with tears. "Do you feel better? Do you feel like you could maybe rise a few inches off the ground with weight removed?"

Normally she asked Ulan if he thought he could fly away but she knew Jory wasn't even that close to levatating right now.

[Jory Addison]

Jory had turned into Zilly when her arm had found its way to his shoulders. "No," Jory whispered, shaking his head and dropping his eyes to wipe them. "But I feel better." He didn't feel like he was floating, the only time he felt like that was after being with Lyric or Eros. Not that he wasn't normally happy, but the only times it was every more than just happy were those times. He looked back up at her and pressed a friendly kiss to her cheek for thanks.

"Thank you," he said again, then looked out over the water. He wanted to talk about something else, though, he didn't want to keep thinking about Lyric and Quinn, and he didn't want to give Eros a chance to worm his way into it all, either. He needed to find something to do to keep his mind off of it all.

[Zilnafa]

Zilnafa flushed crimson when Jory kissed. It was a friendly peck on the cheek nothing more but it was the first time anybody else's lips had come into contact with her face.

Thank Merlin, he was looking at the sunset. He thanked her again and this time she got the feeling that he was closing this subject. That was fine. Some times the process took slower and sometimes it didn't even follow her pattern at all.

"If you throw the acorn, Abla will fetch it." She offered gazing at the sunset.

[Jory Addison]

"Really?" Jory asked, looking around for the little nut. He looked at it curiously, then tossed it to the side. "Want some?" he asked then, gesturing with his bag of chocolate chips. He wasn't quite over everything, he knew that it wasn't going to be over any time soon, but he could move on along with Zilly and chocolate.

[Zilnafa]

Abla lept off his shoulder with huge enthusiam. She mrrowed which sounded more like a belch from her rough voice and landed in the snow with a cru-thud. Only her dark green tail poked up and Zilnafa wathced as it scouted out a path to the acorn.

"Chocolate?" There had been few times in her life when she'd been offered chocolate and somehow all she tasted was bitterness. It wasn't sweet like it was supposed to be and she certainly didn't want to try it. "No thanks. I don't like it very much."

[Jory Addison]

Jory shrugged and brought the bag back to his lap as he watched Alba going through the snow. "More for me. I'm a little addicted, it always helps when I'm down." He was silent for a few moments, then pulled the conversation away from him. "What did you think about Diagon Alley?" he asked. He had liked the place, though he didn't see himself going there again any time soon, at least not by himself.

[Zilnafa]

She grinned. "It was wonderful. So many smells. I walked past a bakery and oh my Merlin. I could smell blueberries and warm bread and fresh wheat and three other scents I didn't recognize but even they made my mouth water. I went past a parchment and ink place, I don't remember what its called but wow. It smelled like the library. I didn't stay long there.

"And I saw a hag. Can you believe it? A hag. They're really special where I come from because they can endure things others can't. They survived great periods of starvation by eating things humans wouldn't. And when the clan cheifs went to them and asked thier secrets, the hags helped us. Now no matter how poor the harvest is, we rarely go hungry. They taught us how to make posionous bugs lose their venom and become eidbale.

"And I met this incredibly sweet shop keeper, Micheal, he sold Abla to me. I really wanted a pet, someone to talk to when no one else would listen, but I can't have a dog mostly cause they love to bite my ankles. Don't know why. But his dog, puppy actually, Elouai, let me pet her. And she didn't even once look at my ankles.

"Micheal is incredibly nice too. He and Dare...you know Dare? Well..." She stopped her self just as she was about to word vomit. She didn't know if Micheal wanted his relationship advertised. It would be wrong to spread that.

She flushed, realizing that in her excitment she'd almost pulled what had put her in Slytherin. Her inability to filter what was going on in her brain to what was going out her mouth.

[Jory Addison]

Jory remembered passing those shops on his way to Eros', and he perked up when he realized that she had met Michael. It hadn't really clicked before. "Michael's really nice, I met him once. I met Dare once in the library, too, he told me about when they were outed." He had loved meeting them, even if they had had very short meetings. Especially Michael, who had become obviously uncomfortable with some of Eros' words. He refused to think much past Michael leaving, though.