The plight of the Sun

[Katia Medina]

This year had started off quite wonderfully, Katia thought to herself as she watched an owl wing it's way across in the sky towards it's given destination. She had waited until a time when students were unlikely to see her to come to the Owlery with her missive. The sun hung just in suspension of the atmosphere as though it wanted to set, but understood that duty required it to stay a bit longer.

Since arriving here, Katia had not allowed herself to think, rather throwing herself into the nursing and potions position whole-heartedly. She had also thrown herself into pursuits that perhaps were not the ladylike decisions she should have been making. As she watched the sun struggle with itself, she thought it reminiscent of her own struggles.

Freedom meant something to her that it had not when she had been sixteen, the belle of the ball, sweet and porcelain, like most society men liked. She had never been the blonde china doll, her porcelain casing had been tougher, she knew things, owned knowledge only allowed to heirs, but had not desired any position other than being the adored wife of a man, as her father adored her mother.

Katia knew no one was here to see the tears she wanted to shed, but kept in check. The duties of an heir held her in a position that her soul no longer wanted to occupy. Love of family kept her will desiring the continuation of that family name in ways she could not understand. The brilliant fire of her being was shrouded by the dark swirling colors of past, duty, and regret.

When she had come to Hogwarts, she had been hoping she could flee the problems that had arisen after her seventeenth birthday. Had Reina stayed away, she might have accomplished just that. Before her childhood friend had appeared, everything seemed if not perfect, at least her very own. Mistakes made here didn't reflect at home, but now, now they did.

As she watched that tiny owl wing it's way off to Daddy with her most recent letter, she simultaneously wished that it would make it, while also wishing that it never did. In a few days she would begin to dread a return missive, something that could hold the key to her happiness, or to something far more dark.

Katia felt in this moment, like she was floating out of her skin, watching from a panoramic distance, as her small form stood silhouetted in the window of the owlery, a light glow emanating from behind her, the door to some other world where people existed without thought to the trials a school nurse was facing.

Her choice of dress now less exuberant. than it had been even weeks ago. Everything was still tailored, still fit to perfection, still graced and accentuated her curves, just not in a way that said she was a free agent. In a way that said I speak with a quite grace, one born of knowledge and wisdom, not the dress she had tried on for a time. One that said I am confident in who I am, and my voice speaks for itself.

She wondered what the owl or the sun would have to say, if they could speak for themselves. Would the owl bemoan his fate of day in and day out carrying missives that mean nothing to him. Would the sun tell tales of generation passing under his careful watch, yet never truly being able to take part in their lives. Or would they both just accept the positions given to them without question, never hoping for more in life.

[Merrick D. Cynster III]

His self-appointed task would never be at an end, Merrick thought to himself. He mounted the steps to the owlery, the black cape at his shoulders whipping behind him and ignoring its mission to provide warmth. Merrick didn't feel it, though. His mind was miles away, ages away, putting things together piece by piece to make a whole of the fragmented system which numberless instructors had left behind for him. Most classes were the same, but Defense was something vital to survival, something far more necessary than any other field. He taught survival.

The books those numberless instructors had assigned, the very ones which lined the shelves of the local bookstore, did not teach survival. They taught protection in its weakest form, and they spoke to the lowest common denominator. The students of Hogwarts deserved far better. The hallowed halls of this school had seen greatness and tragedy, and the latter could only be prevented if the former was allowed to flourish. He simply could not lead a class where students expected to learn about stunning pixies, or the stolen adventures of Gilderoy Lockhart.

If it were not so far into term, he would have simply required his students to purchase last-minute copies, to order them individually, but that was not an ideal option. Students would straggle, would procrastinate and find themselves lost on test day. So he was ordering the books himself. A shipment of books that he himself had read and approved of, which he found to be thorough and interesting, to provoke the thought and independent thinking which saved lives in the heat of battle. In times of hardship, one could ill afford to sit meekly by and wait for a leader. Perhaps this would be a lesson for his next class.

He was aware of another presence before he reached the open arch of the doorway, and his steps slowed. With the steep stone wall of the tower, the wind had less hold now, and his cape settled for the occasional rebellion against his calves. His hair settled around his collar. He paused and turned inward, seeking some near-imperceptible clue, but all that reached him was the profound silence of one deep in thought. The state was familiar to him.

Merrick entered at last, and his gaze swept the lower walls, settling quickly on the lone human occupant of a room filled with the unselfconscious sound of hoots and flapping wings, snapping beaks, and shuffling from one ledge to another. The woman's presence screamed of vulnerability, something he had never sensed from her in passing. The click of his shoes against the floor stopped, and he gave her a moment to compose herself, fully expecting that the snapping of her walls into place would be palpable when it occurred.

[Katia Medina]

Return to her thoughts was slow in coming, and she had been lingering for a while idling wondering at the state of the world, and if in fact, everything and everyone in this world was destined to a role predefined for them before birth. Was their truly anyone who was allowed to step outside of the pretty Christmas wrapping that offered a palatable experience for other people, to show the true nature of their inner selves?

What finally pulled her mind out of the avenues of thought, despair, or whatever melancholy self pity she was allowing herself was a sharp sound at odds to the noises of the owlery. The harsh clack on the floor was made by a well maintained shoe, not the scuffling and endless ignorable vocalizations of the inhabitants of this room. Her first thought, as her back straightened from the relaxed position it had occupied against a wall was that it was a student.

She allowed herself to brush at her clothing, ridding herself of any excess straw that the birds had deposited while her mind meandered. At the same time everything she had been thinking of was being put in a small box in the deepest darkest corners of her mind, where only she would be allowed to look at it, and only if she remembered. Which rather tragically was a forced occurrence in communications with her father, and in a few days she might be thinking of it again.

The decision that it was not a student lay in the lack of chatter or disregard for the knowledge that another person had chosen this place to inhabit for a short time. Katia allowed her hand to stray to her hair, making sure everything was in place, before turning gently on her heels, the perfect picture of a lady. Not the lady she wished to be, but the one everyone else saw.

It took a moment for Katia to recognize the man in front of her, not the least of which was due to a lack of appropriate lighting, or the gentleman's dark attire, but also due to the fact, that unlike other faculty she saw frequently, he did not surface much, and when he did, the enigma surrounding him was as great as she determined the enigma within him was. She let a slow, practiced, but still a bit sincere smile grace her face, happy at the very least that one of her students hadn't caught her in this position. To them she would and should always remain a powerhouse of immovability. "Professor Cynster, I did not expect the company tonight."

[Merrick D. Cynster III]

Merrick inclined his head slightly in greeting, his eyes remaining steadily on hers as he did so. "Professor Medina," he returned. He was silent a moment, weighing his words as he debated her purpose, her motives, and her importance. "One might worry more if you did expect the company," he said at last, his face unreadable. The owlery was hardly a place for such things.

She was flustered at being caught, he would assume. Her walls were indeed fixed, but there were still cracks as obvious as the coming night. He had paid little attention to her, more interested in those who posed some risk to the school's security or well-being, but he thought now that the bravado she'd worn like a cloak was far thinner than he'd first believed.

[Katia Medina]

Witty, Katia thought to herself with a small grin, that was genuine despite it's demure size. "Touche." No, she would not have entertained company here of all places. The few times she had attempted it, and been outside of the walls had been very much the society setting, placing herself in familiar surrounding, even if her behavior in those surroundings had been different.

Recently however she had taken to attending her classes, and nursing duties, but not strayed to far from the innocent occupations of a society lass biding her time waiting for her father to assign her the next duty. She was waiting, waiting for the opportunity to break free and become the butterfly that she would never be allowed to mature to. Instead, she spent the time listening to the students, to the faculty, to the gossip, and she had heard some things about this man.

"I do not suppose if I told you I was up here intercepting a batch of love potions, you would believe me?" Probably not, the man knew everything about everyone that was happening on the school grounds she had heard. Although she had been more cognizant as the potions instructor and nurse of the level of love potion mishaps that had occurred since she assigned the love potions as the assignment with her students.

Katia took a brief moment to look over the man that everyone said was the perfect person for the DaDa position. He definitely fit the brooding profile, the almost dark nature of him, perhaps a disguise, perhaps a persona, perhaps the true him. After years in society circles she realized anyone could convince you that they were who they said they were, just by outward appearances fitting with interior mood.

His dark tailored clothes, and cloak that clung, yet covered so that he could slip into the darkness seemed to fit into the expressions of his face. Tall, dark, handsome, brooding, what was his story, then again, what was hers. Did she have the right to ask of him, or desire to know of him, what she hoped no one would ever find of her? Her eyes were strong, but they spoke the most, of the tension she felt within herself, against the world, of how she wanted more than she was given, but didn't feel she had the right to take it.

[Merrick D. Cynster III]

"It would depend upon the circumstances," Merrick said in answer to her question. He found nothing amusing in his earlier observation, though apparently she had. It affected nothing, however, so he set the moment aside and turned his mind to the more pertinent part of the meaningless conversation she had seen fit to initiate. "Does my belief or lack thereof have any bearing on the state of the school or its inhabitants?"

The set of his body remained rigid despite this brief conversation, but his head inclined slightly again as he took her measure. He didn't for a moment believe that she was awaiting a delivery of potions, but he got no sense of deviousness from her. It was likely something personal, the reason for the melancholy he had sensed upon entrance to the owlery. He hadn't any interest in her personal life, aside from the information he had already procured.

[Katia Medina]

Katia almost sighed to herself as she watched the man in front of her, trying to puzzle him out. Moments before it had appeared as though he was joking, teasing about a meeting, but in the span of just moments, Katia decided that this man was entirely serious, nothing about him hinted at anything other than the strictest control. It intrigued her in the way that Eros's control intrigued her, neither man seemed as though they were unhappy with their lot in life, although Professor Cynster was much more serious than Katia thought Eros could possibly be.

"It depends I suppose. If you believe or do not believe that I am attempting to enable the student body in their acquirement of various questionable potions, for questionable intentions." She wondered what this man saw in her choices. He appeared to be the end all when it came to security questions, favoring constant vigilance, which she supposed was the best path. Then again, so were her methods, in her opinion.

Enabling students to experiment with the substances when she was watching and guarding them, before they tried it on their own, was her hope to see less students in the hospital. If they took the experimentation to far, she was their recourse when they became ill or injured, so she knew what most of the students were doing. The majority of parent's did not seem to approve of her methods, but if students weren't exposed then they would not understand how to deal with the situation should they be confronted by it at a later date.

[Merrick D. Cynster III]

"I do not," Merrick said, though he found no merit to speculating on purposeless untruths. He stood a moment longer, then nodded his head lightly. "If you will excuse me," he said. His observations of Professor Medina remained constant as he turned to scan the lines of owls. He was always aware of his surroundings, and of those in them. No detail was unimportant.

After a brief moment, Merrick gestured to a small, quick-looking barn owl, a common-looking thing which spread its wings and soared circles to land on his outstretched arm. The long leather gloves he habitually wore in cool weather were protection enough from its modest talons.

[Katia Medina]

Katia allowed her own thoughts to settle for the moment as she stared after this man, this enigma who was willing to leave something other men might have picked up as a topic to converse over. Instead he had deftly side-stepped the issue and moved on to whatever he had been doing, as though he had not walked in on her in a moment of weakness. While she would like to take the opportunity to slip away as though he had never seen that moment, she was unused to men who reacted in such a manner.

Her brow furrowed a bit as she looked after the man, comparing this moment to watching a small child who had bored easily of a toy that was used to often. "You know, for a man that is rumored to know everything about everyone, very few people know anything of you. Almost as though, you lived on a stoic island isolated from the rest of the world." I cannot imagine how lonely that must be, Katia thought to herself.

[Merrick D. Cynster III]

Merick affixed his order along the owl's leg, then turned toward the nearest opening in the window-spotted wall. A brief, murmured direction and his arm lowered slightly, then lifted, sending the owl flying. He watched it wing its way into the sky, already anticipating his course of action should it be detained.

After some moments, he turned his visual attention back to Professor Medina. "One can never know everything about anyone," he stated. He recognized her attempt at fishing for information and hadn't a moment's temptation to rise to her bait. His past was his own, and their pasts were a necessity to his vocation, if not his profession.

[Katia Medina]

Katia inclined her head, noting that perhaps that was true, and hoping that the man didn't know everything about her. After all, there were some things that went best with a cold glass of wine, and a solitary chair. Remembrances that left nothing to the imagination, but afforded one the sanctuary of one's own mind, without the judgments or ramifications of someone else obtaining that knowledge.

"Perhaps. It would make life tedious to know everything someone might do in a situation." Katia allowed her eyes to drop for a moment, before looking up at Professor Cynster through her lashes, "but knowing a little bit about someone could make life exciting." It might just be something to liven the life she was being made to live at the moment, to know or scratch the surface of someone so isolated from everyone else.