engraved in b l a c k

jay scarborough | sixteen | gryffindor how can nothing last cause like a cancer in your body it all just goes too fast we think too big. we think our self is one whole thing and we claim that this collection has a name and is a being. it sets upon the rule that states self-interest is divine

[aseaofquotes]

L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

[kc-lawrence]

"And that’s the weirdest thing! I can’t even begin to understand why everybody is in such a hurry to… to grow up and have careers and responsibilities… It’s way too much work and so exhausting; not at all desirable. I mean, I know it’s irritating that older people sort of look down on kids, and they don’t take us seriously a lot of the time, so we feel pretty unimportant, I get that. But I would never sacrifice my youth for the respect of those kinds of people. Never think that you need anybody’s approval other than your own, you know? ‘Cause… We’re probably all going to be adults at some point in our lives, so until then why not take advantage of the privilege of childhood?”

Destry shakes her head because what a shame it is. The laid-back, care-free lifestyle she was accustomed to in Boca didn’t travel with her overseas. Come to think of it, that may be the thing she’s missed most dearly over the years. The most dire concern anyone on the coast ever had was how bad the rip currents were that day. Here it’s like childhood extends to ten years old and from there it’s just How to be an Adult for Dummies. 

With the heels of her hands she pushes away from the banister, and Destry spins around to lean her spine against it instead. She tips her head far back enough that she can see the edge of the roof now. Lightning shoots across the sky in a marvelous spectacle of ignited oxygen, and her tongue flops out of her mouth to catch the leftover drops of rain that dive from the shingles overhead.

Of course, Destry continues explaining her point, telling Aladdin about how just this past Saturday she had paid a well-earned visit to Honeydukes. (And here it will be noted that not only did she walk into an absolute pool of the aforementioned third and fourth years, with the exception of the shopkeeper she was the oldest one there.) She had to apologize to one of the kids over and over for stepping on the tails of his robes, which were trailing about four inches of fabric across the ground. “He couldn’t even avoid stepping on them himself,” Destry recounts with just the faint edges of a smile outlining her lips. “The kid was just tripping and stumbling about the entire store. It was a freaking miracle that he didn’t demolish any of the displays before he got out of there. I mean, I’m not trying to judge him or his thought process, but I have to admit I’m curious. Like… Did he just compromise his ability to walk properly because he thought they looked good on him? Or did he think that wearing them would help him grow into— Because they didn’t make him look older,” she insists, making a point to look into the boy’s eyes, which were just a shade darker than his skin. Her own golden-green eyes are visibly sincere in tandem with her sympathetic tone. “They did the opposite of that, for sure.”

[jay-scarborough]

Jay pictures it perfectly: a boy, just breaching the path into puberty, though still retaining baby fat and sparrow's shoulders, with a mop of hair and features of his face growing faster than his jawline, or the peak of his frame. However, Jay had never experienced the life of running with cloaks and shirts billowing behind him; rather, quite the opposite. His clothes fit, and then they didn't. He grew inches overnight and found that his jeans hemmed at mid-calf and his school uniform was far from fitting. 

And immediately, he'd been taken from school for a weekend, brought to London where he could be fitted for new robes, a new uniform. He remembered seeing other students waiting until mail orders came in, and the gleam across their countenances as they raced from the Great Hall to try on their new clothes, but their shirts no longer billowed alongside their cloaks until they returned with the newer, larger clothes, a size too large. 

Growing pains had never been met with such a plight for Jay, and he'd never been permitted to play dress-up in his father's fancy dressing robes; though he has vivid memories as a child, watching his father pull on the rich colors, and admiring how they contrasted with his mother's intricately patterned saris. In the Wizarding Sector of Delhi, where his parents had moved after he was born, he had admired and adorned the beautiful combinations that the Wizarding World's eccentric flourish and the appeal that Delhi's roots had to offer. He misses his childhood, and laughs at himself for it; Jay attempts to muffle it with his hand. How ironic, that during a conversation about how young people race to grow up faster than their legs and minds can keep up, he grows nostalgic for the days when his age had not even breached the double digits. 

Before she can ask, he clarifies. "I was just thinking about my childhood," he says with the ghost of his laugh, warm and caught in his throat, lingering among the words. "And then I thought about what you've been saying -- and how we all truly are still children." 

"I suppose, then, that it's also easy to get caught up in the passage of time. That a decade ago, you were more of a child than you are now -- that growth did occur, and yet..." he trails off, the chuckle having faded from his voice and expression, and watches the sky for a moment. "And yet, it still feels as though not much at all has happened." 

[kc-lawrence]

Destry bubbles over with laughter now. Whether she’s oblivious to the complete contrast in the other boy’s current demeanor, or whether she’s simply trying to lighten the mood is unclear. Her smile gives no leniency to either possibility.

"That’s it! That’s the thing about kids, man. They don’t take no for an answer, ya know?" she tells him, nodding in agreement as she props one foot up on the ledge of the banister. "Like when a mom and her daughter are at the shops and the little girl asks if she can have a new doll, but her mom won’t let her. She’ll just sit down on the floor and pitch a fit and cry for as long as it takes for her mom to finally give in and say yes."

Destry still considers herself to be a child, but it’s really beyond consideration because she actually is a child. Most other girls her age strive to look older, seem older, be older, but Destry would rather just be sixteen and act sixteen and feel the pain and the pressure of being sixteen. She craves the chaos of adolescence which scares just about everyone else. 

"But maybe that was a terrible example because that particular little girl is just a spoiled brat with a bad attitude." Destry grins secretively at the luminous veins in the sky, having completely lost the point of their conversation. 

[jay-scarborough]

Her metaphor, no matter how elongated, pulls him out of his own little rut; not only is the image amusing -- and accurate -- but it reminds him of his brother, whose doe eyes and pouty lips can be manipulated into the epitome of a sad, begging expression. As she continues on, Jay laughs a gentle chuckle rather than a full-bellied laugh. 

"That's true. Children are still children -- mesmerized by sweet or shiny things, and with attention spans wide enough only to the nearest weekend, playdate, or gift-giving holiday." He remarks good-naturedly once the laugh had died down. Jay is glad he isn't a father; should his child beg for anything, or Merlin forbid throw a tantrum over it, he'd be too quick to fall to their whim and leave their other parent to deal with the aftermath. There's a place where he could twist this back into something philosophical -- how no one really grows out of that selfish immaturity, but rather it takes shape in other outlets. Romance, lust, greed, rage; the adult matters are hardly as lighthearted as those of a child's bright eyed desires. 

But Jay refrains, because light conversation is well needed, well deserved. It's easy to sink into depressing conversation with any of the hormone riddled, mood swinging teenagers around the castle, but to have a conversation that will take his mind off of things is less common, and he figures he ought to cherish it while he can. 

"Although, the third and fourth years that frequent Honeydukes during trips to Hogsmeade may resent being called children."

[kc-lawrence]

"Oh, my god, that’s exactly what I’ve been saying, dude!"

Destry blurts out a relieved response to the dismembered voice. She doesn’t even consider questioning his solitary soliloquy. Her warm breath mixes with the essence of summer—or at least Scotland’s version of it, which happens to compare wonderfully to Florida’s. Earlier this morning every inch of the sky was opaque with a ceiling of grey clouds that had at some point coalesced into one whole. Only a couple of hours later there wasn’t a single cloud within sight. And now as the sun has finally made its descent into the thin horizon, a display of lightning compensates for the lack of light. It streaks along the length of the sky insistently as Destry realizes her excellence. Due to the absence of excitement in her night, she’d decided to pay a visit to this grand ol’ Astronomy Tower to finish drawing up that map she was meant to have completed on Friday night. (Instead, she had played Connect the Dots with the freckles on Dominique’s arm. Though it should be noted that only an incredibly skilled artist could Connect a “mischievous fox” quite as well as Destry Cloud.)

Anyway, she crosses through the center of the circle, dodging one of the more precarious-looking telescopes on her way to a better view. Destry leans her forearms on the railing when she gets there, right up next to a boy who she doesn’t mind being right up next to. Observation’s told her that he’s older than her (though not how much older) and that he could very well be the real-life adaptation of Aladdin, but that’s about the extent of Destry’s knowledge where he is concerned. 

She continues after her short pause. “Everybody’s so gloomy all of the time. Like this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to them,” she skepticizes in reference to the current economy. “If that’s the case, then they’ve had a pretty easy life to date…” Destry laughs at a volume that she considers quiet but actually echoes off the walls of the hollow tower. Two beats later she irrelevantly adds, “Did you know that lightning is actually invisible? Yeah, this kid I used to know told me that what you’re seeing in the sky is really just the line of oxygen that the lightning’s burned up. Pretty neat, don’tcha think?”

[jay-scarborough]

Jay startles when, moments after his words mix with the nighttime air, another voice joins it: he pivots, turning so that his lower back lines up with the protective banister encircling the edge of the Astronomy Tower. It's not until a solitary flash of lightning illuminates her face that he realizes there is no threat, and he curses himself for thinking that there was one in the first place. Much to his distaste, Jay has taken on a more skittish disposition; like many of Hogwarts's students, he is not immune to the tensions rising in their world. The anxious rush of fear dissipates when she draws closer, though he hasn't a clue who she is. 

Despite that, her company is welcomed and he relaxes again, offering a nod as she continues, elaborating her point and his own. He looks out into the expanse of darkness; his eyes had grown used to it, being able to spot the outline of the forest's canopy, and the towers of the castle around the bits of light from inside windows. Now, he squints again, like he'd lost his page in a book with incredibly fine print, and he must start the paragraph over again. 

He's about to comment on her notion, mention that people frighten easily: that like spooked horses, they fear that the Wizarding Wars will rear their ugly faces again, or that a new evil will breach the land. Her sudden proclamation of weather trivia draws his brows into a furrow. 

"That's odd," he offers, and watches the streak fade into the dark, overcast sky. The lightning, a driving force, may only be a sign, an unlikely force, unseen, can still wreak havoc and make itself known. Jay leans forward a bit more, not far enough to pitch forward but enough so that his head is past the edge of the tower's roof, and the occasional rain droplet falls into his hair. 

"It's strange, that so many people are falling into this shroud of gloom and brood. It might not be the worst thing, but children aren't nearly as cynical and worrisome as teenagers and adults." Again, he sighs, the image of his sister coming to his mind. Though she's only thirteen, he can't help but worry what this negativity will do to her. "Or perhaps, they're far more resilient." 

[camouswan-deactivated20160618]

[jay-scarborough]

"It used to be so easy, wasn’t it?" he muses aloud, leaning his weight onto the railing of the balcony. The air is crisp, cool as the nighttime settles around the castle. He breathes out, watches for the subtle signs of life: bugs chittering, the quiet flapping of wings above him, the noises of laughter coming from a nearby hallway or common room. His gaze fixates on the moon, shinning brightly among the clouds and reflecting down onto the lake, where its image is large, contorted into something much bigger than the small orb in the sky. "When everyone was young, and words never felt so heavy," he continues, his words fading into a murmur, then a sigh. Jay rights himself, standing straight, crossing his arms across his middle as he stares into the darkness. "The night would never be quite so quiet."

[jay-scarborough]

"It used to be so easy, wasn't it?" he muses aloud, leaning his weight onto the railing of the balcony. The air is crisp, cool as the nighttime settles around the castle. He breathes out, watches for the subtle signs of life: bugs chittering, the quiet flapping of wings above him, the noises of laughter coming from a nearby hallway or common room. His gaze fixates on the moon, shinning brightly among the clouds and reflecting down onto the lake, where its image is large, contorted into something much bigger than the small orb in the sky. 

"When everyone was young, and words never felt so heavy," he continues, his words fading into a murmur, then a sigh. Jay rights himself, standing straight, crossing his arms across his middle as he stares into the darkness. "The night would never be quite so quiet."

[lanaprewett]

Shacklebolt?

[jay-scarborough]

Who else could capture my attention?

[lanaprewett]

You really like her.

[jay-scarborough]

Her name's Kim.

[lanaprewett]

Oh. I think I misheard you. The music is a little loud at the moment. What does she look like?

[jay-scarborough]

Tall... gorgeous...

[fyeahkb-blog]

1.12 - “I needed to see you!”

[halespark-deactivated20141226]

"Of course you could. Though, I warn you, I’m not the best dancer that roamed this earth."

[jay-scarborough]

"I'm sure you're not that bad. I've danced with some left-footed people." Still smiling, he offers her his hand. The cuff of his sleeve tugs up, revealing the skin of his wrist and the thin beads of a bracelet around it. 

[lanaprewett]

You should tell her there’ll be repercussions for that.

[jay-scarborough]

No--No, she's definitely here. It's just where to find her is my problem. 

[lanaprewett]

Is she somewhere here?

[jay-scarborough]

You kidding me? She'd be the last person to skip out on a sanctioned event.

[jennatakeda]

The jazz music, surge of popularity in Art Deco, the fashion… it was just such a beautiful era.

[jay-scarborough]

I'm afraid I don't know much past what I've mentioned. Then again, I'm sure you'd be the expert. It seems like you'd be the one to go do if I had any questions.

[lanaprewett]

So who is this lucky lady?

[jay-scarborough]

She's... a friend. This is resting on the assumption that she'll have me.

[jay-scarborough]

"I don't mean to intrude, but--if I might--could I have this dance?"