A letter to go.

[Keaira O'Connell]

Keaira had so much to do still, but this was the first step. In order to get things going she needed to first let a friend know of her plans. She had woken up early this day, barely 7 am, and yet here she was, so far away from her dorm. She had a mission, and today that was to send this letter out to James. It had been a bit of effort, writing this letter so that no one else would understand it. An effort that she knew would not be wasted.

Keaira was already quite afraid of her letters being intercepted, knowing that there were more than a few untrustworthy people with in the school. She had a worried smile across her face as she approached the west wing of the seventh floor. There were a lot of things on her mind as she opened the door to the owlery. The letter in her hands was sealed, but she knew the contents well.

Hey James,

I miss you a whole bunch! I hope that things at home are great, you know I look forward to seeing you, which may be sooner than you would ever think possible. Time flies fast, and things change so quickly. I’ve been keeping your entire advice close to mind, but I find that some of my Latin is slipping. I was trying to read this book the other day and found that I couldn’t translate a bit of it. Can you help?

“Procul a vicis in preteritus illic eram filia of rex. Malum phasmatis assulted filia mens. Puella peius , quod in ut a profundus dormio. Rex a loving abbas brought plures vigoratus ut tutela pro suus filia. Suus incursus erant deesse , ut illic eram unus rememdium. Rex votum pro suus filia valetudo. A vernula of rex knew of a via iuvo filia. Per rex rgis suffragium , vernula quod filia super suus pro duos weeks. In a brevis vicis , filia of rex eram vigoratus quod could exsisto reverto domus.”

I know you would be quite upset to hear that I have fallen this much out of practice, but I’m sure you could help. Besides my lessons with you have been so scarce recently. I hope you’re fine, and can help me figure out this story.

Yours,
Keaira.
She called up to a white owl that was busy preening its feathers, and it swooped down to be of service, as she handed off the letter, which was elegantly address to James McGovern, the door behind her opened. She turned to face her new companion, worried of how it might be.

[xuilin]

Xiulin had opted not to wear her uniform as she went up to send a letter. First off all, she had assumed that she would get lost (which did, in fact, happen) and would have preferred to be more comfortable while she panicked. So, today, she wore a loose gray shirt that slipped over her shoulder (revealing her family crest) with an elaborate black butterfly that seemed to move with her every step, and skinny black jeans.

With no room in her tight pockets, she clutched the small scroll tightly in her fist.

Xiulin flung open the door to the owlery and breathed a sigh of relief at finally having arrived. Until she noticed...another girl, and one that she had never seen before. The sigh caught in her throat and she stared awkwardly, propping the door open with her arm.

[Keaira O'Connell]

As Keaira faced the girl that had just entered the owlery she let a breath of relief escape her lips. Thankfully it wasn’t some one she needed to be worried about. Although Keaira did not know the girl she felt that she did not poise a threat to her. It wasn’t like Gat had just walked in as she was unarmed, or that the headmistress had just came in to deprive her of her correspondence.

There weren’t many people Keaira could trust, especially with the nature of this letter, so as soon as she was aware that the girl was not any one of a threatening nature, she turned to the owl, “Take this to James, he should be easily found, and make sure he responds before returning.” With the instructions stated the owl chirped happily and then lept up and out of the window. Her task completed Keaira turned and smiled at the girl.

“It’s a great day for letters, they should arrive quickly with such clear skies.” Keaira wasn’t much for small talk, but she figured she didn’t have to be rude either.

[xuilin]

"I hope so," Xiulin answered conversationally, her usual smile crossing her lips as she called an owl over and began to tie her own letter to its outstretched leg. "This poor owl has a long way to go before it can get a nice rest."

All the way to China, poor thing. If she could, she would do something to help it, but what could she do? Wave her wand and 'poof' the creature to her house? Oh, yeah, that would have worked very well.

"It seems like a popular day to send letters, too," she added as she sent the owl off and watched it disappear, a speck in the distance. "I wasn't expecting to see anyone else. Not that I'm not happy for company but..." she stopped, deciding that just this once, it might be better to keep her mouth shut.

[Keaira O'Connell]

Keaira listened as the girl responded noting that her owl was going to be headed a long way she smiled. James was only a couple of hours away…. Or so. No more than 6 or 8 hours if the weather turned particularly nasty, which seeing as how this was England, it seemed possible. Keaira felt it was a bit off for some one else to be delivering a letter this early in the day, but seeing as how she did it, why should she expect to be the only on to have thought of it.

Keaira thought about that for a moment, why was this girl here this morning? Keaira had chosen to send it out early today, to make sure that it would return to her by the end of tomorrow. James was a key part in her plan, with out him, there might as well be no plan.

“To be honest I wasn’t expecting any one to be up this early either. I guess that sometimes people get the same idea. The names Keaira, and you are?” She didn’t smile, but she wasn’t cold about it either, Keaira just had a non-committal feeling to the question. As if the girl could be any one, and it wouldn’t matter. Small talk, for small talks sake, Keaira wasn’t looking for more people to interact with, but they always cropped up here and there. “So who are you writing to?”

[xuilin]

Xiulin continued to smile. Then again, that was one of the things that defined Xiulin, her smile.

"I'm Xiulin," she answered, she was finally getting used to not introducing herself by using her surname first. Here, she wasn't Zhao Xiaojie, Miss Zhao. Here, she was Xiulin. "It's nice to meet you, Ke--Ke--Keaira," she said, stumbling slightly over the name.

Give the girl a break, she wasn't as fluent in the language as she would have liked. "And...I'll tell you who I'm writing to if you tell me who you were writing to," she answered, still smiling. She wasn't trying to be rude, she rarely ever tried to be rude but unfortunately, she tended to come across that way quite often, whether she liked it or not.

Besides, if anyone was willing to get up at this hour of the morning, then said letter was likely to have been fairly private.

[Keaira O'Connell]

Xiulin… It was such a strange name. Definitely Asian, possibly Chinese or Japanese. Keaira listened to the way that she said it, trying to memorize the phonetics of the name, not sure if she would be able to replicate it if needed. She noticed the way the girl stumbled over her own name, and let a smirk cross her face. Her name wasn’t that hard was it? Key-air-a. However, even though the girl had stumbled Keaira didn’t intend on holding it against her.

As the girl proposed that they both revealed who their letters were going to Keaira shrugged, it really didn’t matter if this girl knew. It was very unlikely that it would look suspicious, and even less likely that the girl would gleam it important. Besides Keaira was only worried if some one who knew her, and Latin, had found the letter, translated it and then deduced her plan.

“Oh, its just a letter to a friend of my families, James, he was sick recently, and I wanted to see if he was better. Plus he’s an astounding teacher, and I always go to him for advice on classes and things. What about you?”

[xuilin]

Xiulin smiled; this girl seemed interesting. Don't take it the wrong way, but if she didn't think the girl was interesting, she would have walked right out. What was interesting? She answered.

"It's just a message to someone who probably hates me," she said rather casually. Of course, because that was an extremely normal thing to say. Of course, she did say probably, so hopefully she was wrong. "Although, it probably isn't a good idea to send the letter. Maybe I should try to get it back," she looked frantically around in search of the owl she had just sent off.

She had been tossing the idea back and forth in her head for what felt like years and finally had worked up the courage to write the letter and send it, but now that she thought about it, she had flipped sides again and decided that it was a bad idea. Excuse the run-on sentence.

[Dylan Cooper]

Dylan hopped up the stairs of the western tower two at a time, a small package clutched in his grasp. Opening the door, he immediately noticed the two other girls present in the extremely high, valuted and airy room. Recognising the both of them, he smiled as they spoke to one another and let them finish their current conversation. Lifting up his preferred right arm, a medium-sized barn owl fluttered down from one of the many wooden bars extending across the breadth of the room.

"Good day, ladies," he said with a charming smile as he tied his package to the owl. It was relatively small, covered in brown paper wrapping and with a letter attached to the front. "What might the two of you be doing up here on such a fine day?" he asked them, moving to the nearest window and releasing the rather friendly owl. He watched its progress for a moment, he smiled as it extended its wings and flapped itself over the lake, disappearing into the sun.

Turning back to face Keaira and Xiulin, he smiled once more.

[xuilin]

Xiulin looked around and spread her arms out wide. "We're doing the one thing most people do when they come to the Owlery," she commented, "sending letters." And then she smiled, her usual smile, the one that could make people's faces hurt if they watched her and waited for her to stop smiling. "I'd ask you the same thing, but since you just sent an owl off with a package, I think we already have a general answer."

And then, courteous as always, "Oh, hi, Dylan..." You know, because she didn't say it before her nice, sarcastic remark and wanted to be at least a little polite.

[Keaira O'Connell]

Keaira felt a little ripped off by Xiulin response. The girl didn’t even give her a name, or location, or anything. A little part of her felt that she had not received a fair trade. However, Keaira wasn’t going to push it. It wasn’t that big of a deal. Besides, the girl wouldn’t have been able to make heads or tails of her note any way. Keaira watched a little as Xiulin struggled internally about whether to call back the owl, not that she would be successful even if she did. It seemed silly to Keaira to send a letter if you weren’t sure you wanted to send it.

As the door swung open again, Keaira spun around, ready for an attack. She was actually quite jumpy at this point. Seeing as how, she had gotten up this early so as to avoid the menace of being interrupted as she sent her letter on its way. Who else on this planet would be up this early? As she looked at the opening door, she noticed a familiar boy, his smile shining through all his other features. Dylan.. They had quite the interlude the other day while in the kitchens now didn’t they? Realizing she was not in any type of danger, Keaira relaxed a little, and watched as Dylan sent off his package.

“You know I woke up early to beat the rush. I guess I miscalculated. How are you Dylan?” She smiled a little at her own humor, hoping that the others would as well.

[Dylan Cooper]

"Hey Xiulin," he said, nodding towards her and feeling secretly affronted at her sarcasm. Turning his main attention to Keaira, he grinned, memories of the other night flooding through his mind. Laughing lightly at Keaira's comment, he didn't even think before responding to her query. "I'm great, actually, how are you?" he said cheerily, thinking back over the previous few days spent with a certain Ravenclaw Prefect.

Choosing to explain his presence up here so early, he smiled happily and spoke in his normal, quiet voice, though his tone was still cheery. "It's my mother's birthday, so I had to get up early and get here," he said. While he was typically an early riser anyway, his view of the grounds from his four-poster provided him no reason to actually remove himself from bed until the rest of Ravenclaw began stirring.

[Keaira O'Connell]

Keaira smiled a little as Dylan asked her how she was doing. She wanted to say that she was great, and that everything was going alright, but she knew that would be lying. So she looked away, not wishing to lie to his face. She stared out the window for a few seconds trying to work out what to say to him. As she turned around she looked him in the eyes.

“You know I’ve been feeling a little drained, but I’m sure I’ll get better.” She fidgeted at her sleeve, wondering how soon would be too rude to escape and go somewhere else. She wasn’t sure what she would do, or where she would go but with all that was on her mind maybe she just needed somewhere to walk and think instead of standing and talking.

As Dylan said it was her mom’s birthday, she looked up. Her birthday was coming up next month, her sixteenth. Hopefully she would be back for it. After all, it would suck to miss out of her birthday because of training. “Well, I hope you got her something really special.”

[Dylan Cooper]

Noticing her less-than-enthusiastic reaction to his question, he chose not to push the matter. Smiling, he responded to her comment. "Only the best for my mother," he said earnestly, in a happy tone. He had been looking for the perfect present for months, finally finding a glorious silver pendant in Diagon Alley. He always made sure to find something really nice for his mother's birthday, as well as other holidays. It was just one of the ways that Dylan expressed how thankful he was to still have his mother, not to mention one as great as her. Despite the hardships they had both experienced, everything she'd done had been for the betterment of her son, and knowing that, he appreciated it greatly.

"Well... That's all I really came up here for," he said, having planned on getting in some more training in the Room of Requirement this morning. "I'll see you both in classes, I guess," he said with a small smile, heading towards the door, a soft breeze flowing around him.

[Keaira O'Connell]

Dylan sure was a great kid, perhaps his family knew it, perhaps not, but either way, his mom probably knew. Keaira knew the way he felt about choosing the right gifts, she was very similar in that way. As she had been known to spend months looking for the perfect gifts for certain people.

Keaira smiled at Dylan, he was leaving and this was her way out. She let her mind reach a bit and thought she heard the words training, and room of requirements. But how did he know about the room of requirements? That didn’t make much sense… unless he was one of them…As he turned to leave she reached out to stop him.

“Wait Dylan, where are you headed after here, I was hoping maybe we could talk a little bit more? Theres something I wish to ask you, alone.” She gave him a small little tempting smile, as if to say she had a bit planned, maybe he would fall for her alluring, maybe not. But it was worth the try, and at the least she could get a way out of here with out being rude to Xuilin.