#402 words

Fill for @merlinmicrofic, no pairings, general, prompt: underwater

After… this… was over… Gabrielle got brought to a small cave. A few rolled up blankets and a kind of nest were placed in the middle of it.

As soon as the wolf put her down, she felt the floor and returned back to her senses: “…h-… h-HEY! Hey! Where’s Matia! You said you’d take care of her and feed her a-“

Gabrielle had tried to stand up.

Her knees immediately buckled under her and her sight blurred. She was back on the floor, dizzy.

A dark chuckle came from outside the cave: “Rest. You can’t get anywhere right now. We take care of things”

“You promised!” She said, but her body did not want to obey. Her consciousness slipped away.

  …

“-my! Mo-y! BIG-!”

Gabrielle opened her eyes blearily… and saw… Matia.

Excitedly shaking her shoulder: “It’s SO -g! Th- -gest wo-!”

The little girl was pulled into her heap and blankets and cuddled.

It was her little girl. All whole and safe and happy and now giggling against her chest. And nothing could be better.

A muffled Matia again repeated what she wanted to point out, a ball of energy, as usual: “… -ommyyyyy! Biiiig woofus!!!!”

And that was the moment she looked up. And froze a bit. Matia was right. It was a… big… wolf.

It looked at them with attentive eyes. It was laying down, but… even like that…

“Mommy, let go, you’re hurting meeee~” Matia pushed up against her mother.

Gabrielle kissed her head, readjusted her grip, but certainly did not let go.

She gave up the struggle after a bit, while Gabrielle had locked eyes with the wolf: “He brought me here! It was SUCH a cool ride! So cool! And he brought us food!”

The massive head of the wolf turn to a bundle close to my makeshift bed. Roasted meats and some carrots, as she could see, a waterskin as well. Then it laid down its head.

And Matia wriggled free, snuggling it and pulling at the ears that were as big as her whole arm. With a flick, the ear escaped and Matia giggled, catching it again to repeat the process.

“… thank… you?”

The massive creature grumbled a little bit, but otherwise kept on being quiet and peaceful.

It smelled a bit of wet dog. But kept the wind out.

… it seemed… safe enough? For now?

Eleven year old Teddy Lupin waves goodbye to his grandmother, half hanging out of a window to do so. (Sorry, his godfather had told him in Diagon Alley, only days ago. I won’t be able to send you off— I’m being sent to Tasmania tomorrow, and I don’t know when I’ll be back.) Teddy knows some of the others on the train with him, but only vaguely, from when Andromeda would stop in the streets to chat with other families. He could find them, or try to, but the Express is as packed as it was in all the Weasleys’ stories.

“Need help with that?”

Teddy turns his head and spots an upper year witch who is definitely addressing him.

“Er, sure, th-thanks,” Teddy stammers, letting the witch charm his trunk so that it floats at a comfortable level for him to tug after him.

“First year?” the witch asks kindly.

Teddy nods.

“Got a compartment yet?”

He shakes his head.

She grins brightly. “My compartment has space— want to come?”

“Er, guess so?” He follows her meekly, her yellow-trimmed robes billowing comfortably behind her.

“I’m Nathalie,” the witch tells her as they move down the corridor. “Fourth— er, fifth year now.”

“Teddy Lupin,” Teddy replies, as Nathalie throws open a compartment door.

“Nath!” someone exclaims, flinging themselves at the hufflepuff. “How was your summer?”

“Sherlock, please,” Nath laughs, staggering a little. “Summer was lovely. This is Teddy.”

The witch peers up at Teddy from Nath’s lowered shoulder. “Hello, Teddy,” she says cheerfully. “Name’s Sherlock. Lovely meeting you. Come in if you like, we can make space.”

“Sherlock?” Teddy blurts incredulously.

“That’s me!” the witch grins. “Read Muggle literature, do you?”

“Grandma has some of grandpa’s favorites,” Teddy confesses.

“Everyone pile in before the trolley comes by, will you?” another person calls from the corridor. Sherlock spares a, “Morning, Ezra!” before turning on Teddy again.

Nat manages to squeeze past Sherlock and Teddy, sitting by the window. “Welcome back, Ezra. Have a good summer?”

“As well as could be expected. Oh, no, who’s set off Sherlock?”

“Naaaath,” yet another witch sings, brute-forcing her way into the compartment as Ezra ducks out of the way.

It’s a chaotic mess, Teddy thinks between enthusiastic questions from the Sherlock interrogating him.

I'm going to make an estimate here and think about the number of times a day I change my mind about what it is I want to do with my life. I've only just graduated high school and am taking a year to stay at home, but am simultaneously taking online college courses. The amount of options I have before me are limitless, and the number of ideas I have every day seemingly near that number.

I always think of something I find really original before realizing that THOUSANDS of people have already done that. Here are a few examples:

"I'll start a vlog! No, wait..."

"I'll start a blog about food/humor/writing/being a TCK! No..."

"I'll become a voiceover artist! Hmm... Lot of work goes into that one..."

It seems to happen quite a lot, but especially on my restless days, when I've been cooped up inside the house with too few people to interact with and too many things I should do that I just haven't.

Today was one of those days. And I've realized that the main thing I need to do on those days is to be creative. So I tried rewriting a poem I wrote a few years ago. But I couldn't find the words to make it better, and the more I dug around trying to find them, the worse the poem got.

I tried 5 crossword puzzles, looking for one I could finally solve, but by the time I found one that I was doing alright in I got tired of that too. 

I left the house and went grocery shopping with my family, and then I came home to watch the worst Mission Impossible movie ever (the 2nd one, by the way). And then I baked a pound cake, made whipped cream, and made a raspberry sauce to go with the two.

And even though that feeling hasn't totally left, creativity certainly helps me out sometimes. It's like what my sister was saying to me the other day. Creative people need to be creative. They need to be content with the reward of their final product and not expect anything more. They need to feel fulfillment just by being creative, not by getting praise from others, or money, or any sort of tangible thing. You need to be creative in order to make you feel better.

And here ends day 2 on my endeavor.

OK then.

I'm a math geek. I like the way math makes sense. I like the harmony of numbers. I especially like the square series: 1,4,,9,16,25,36,49,64,81,100...because the last digits are symmetrical.

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who never eat avocado and those who eat avocado with everything. I'm the latter.

I believe in the impossible. I think if we don't we are limiting ourselves, and facts these days are unreliable. They change every five minutes.

Shakespeare. Yes. "Wherefore" means "why", by the way, not where. I love acting. It's a totally different kind of high from writing or music, because it's so physical. And Shakespeare is the king of playwrites after all.

Beside the impossible, I also believe in all sorts of silly things. For instance: skin color doesn't matter, men and women are equal, sexuality is no one else's business....you get the idea.

Not many people know this about me, but besides acting and writing and playing cello, I also draw. Lately I've been into crayons (hence my background photo) but I also like colored pencils, regular pencils, and aquarelle (water pencils). I don't like drawing feet, which is why often I just leave them out. You might say people I draw are cut off from the earth at the ankles. I think they're okay with that. :)

I don't really like sweets, but chocolate is my poison. I'm a big fan of the theory about chocolate increasing the levels of dopamine (the happiness hormone). I like dark chocolate, though. And chocolate chip cookies. Not chocolate cake.

Guess how tall I am? 5.05". Yup. Often I have to crane my neck to look my friends in the eye. :P

I'm not actually lactose intolerant, I just don't like milk products. So I say I'm lactose intolerant but what I mean is that I can't tolerate lactose.