Life's a Work of Art

Swinging his legs from his perch on the top step of the Amphitheatre, Afonka stared around him, flopping down. Staring up at the sky, he hummed to himself, beginning to make shapes in the clouds.

Merlin, today was a good day. He hadn't freaked out at anything, or gotten angry at someone. It was progress. Clapping his hands together, and wincing almost immediately at the loud sound, he frowned. OK, so maybe he'd just freaked out there, but that was different. All the birds around had flown away from his clap.

Pulling himself up, he stared at his hands for a moment. He'd never noticed how loud he clapped until now. Shrugging it off, he laid back down, momentarily wishing he had his broom but not in the mood to head back to his dorm for it. Humming, he continued staring up at the clouds.

The last thing on her mind was doing her homework but she planned to do it... later. Charlotte made her way to the amphitheater, with a bouncy step seeing as she was in a slightly better mood than the previous months. Seeing her friend face to face had done well to lighten up her spirits enough to have a smile on her face. Seeing a familiar face, Charlotte made her way over to the younger boy she had baked brownies for and remembered her promise.

"Hey," she greeted with a smile as she plopped down next to him. "I hope you're not doing anything important, cause I'm not, so I can start teaching you what I know."

Jumping at the sound of someone by him, he sat up, but broke into a smile as he recognized the girl. Waving, his smile broadened into a grin at her words.

Clapping his hands together happily, he bounced slightly, "This is going to be so awesome." Pausing long enough to compose himself, he asked, "Ok, so what am I going to learn first?"

The Slytherin smiled slightly at the boy's enthusiasm while she grabbed her bag. Looking at her contents, she raised an eyebrow at the green apple as an idea formulated in her head. Charlotte took it out and handed it over to Afonka with a small smirk.

"I'm going to test you out first, just to see what I'm working with, alright?" She asked. Once the boy had the apple, she stood up and walked slowly around him - inspecting him. "I want you to try and convince me that that green apple is an orange."

Nodding, he took the apple from her, holding it between his hands for a moment as he stared down at it. Convince her it was orange.....

Thinking for a few minutes, he nodded to himself before looking up at her, "This is a nice orange," he commented, throwing it into the air and catching it in his hand, "Do you like oranges?"

"No," Charlotte dead panned, standing right next to him as she crossed her arms. "Try again. You're doing a good job on trying to be casual about it, which is good," she mentioned.

"You don't need paper and pen to remember this but here's your first rule," Charlotte said as she sat next to him once more and looked at him square on. "If you want to convince me that that green apple is an orange, you have to believe it as well. I'm not just talking about apples and oranges here. I'm talking about anything you want to convince people of. Now, try once again."

Pouting slightly, he lowered his hands, staring down at the apple in his hand for a moment. Sure, it hadn't been that great, but it'd been his first try. He'd get better. It was a matter of time. Brightening up, Afonka looked up at Charlotte with a nod, hanging on to her every word.

"Ok," he said softly, clearing his throat before trying again. Act like you believe it. "Here," he said, a little louder this time, handing her the apple, "have an orange. I hope you like oranges. Especially these oranges. They're really sweet. Almost like candy."

Taking the apple from his hand as he watched the boy give out his speech, she nodded, "Alright, I'm done with the evaluation."

"You'll need a little bit with how to convince people but I think by the time school ends, you'll get better," Charlotte said. Tossing the apple back to the boy, the Slytherin took out an orange and showed it to Afonka. "Did you know that the banana is the fourth largest fruit crop?" She said as she began to peel it. Every piece went in the middle of her and Fonka, "Those peels you see from the banana, those are called Phloem Bundles. They help distribute nutrients to every part of the growing banyans. Really nifty if you ask me." The girl popped in piece of the so-called orange, "In Uganda, these banana's are such a big part of their diet the the word matooke represents both food and banana. I think it's pretty great that these things have come to the world. I'm glad that Alexander the Great first encountered them in 327 b.c.. It's hard to imagine a world without bananas. After all, they're very tasty and they're beneficial to our health."

Taking one of the pieces from the so-called banana, she handed it him. "What a piece of the banana?"

Eyes widening as he listened to her, Afonka shook his head slightly. He could never be this good. She was - she was amazing, and there was just no way that he'd be able to do that. If he'd been a Slushatel, then maybe, but he was just a Hrabrost he wasn't even all that brave.

"I'd love a piece of the ban - an orange. I meant an orange." he nodded sheepishly, glancing down at the orange peel between them, "That was amazing. Is all that stuff true?"

Grinning happily, she gave him a few pieces of the orange as she ate some as well. She hated the seeds though, so she usually asked for seedless ones. The blonde shrugged at the boy's compliment, "Thanks but yes, all that stuff is true. You can go look it up in a book if you don't believe me." She told him how it will take some time... not just an over night thing. Seeing him doubtful about it all made her frown slightly.

"Hey, don't worry, if I can do it and teach you, you'll be fine," she said as she tried to relax him. "And some faerie dust but I'm sure I can find some around here anyways," she joked. "On a more serious note, if you want to do something remotely like that, you'll have to push yourself to learn by yourself about a lot of things and their facts, okay?"

Thanking her as he took the oranges, he munched on them as he hummed softly, glancing down at the amphitheatre. "That's cool," he muttered, looking back at Charlotte with a smile, "and you're welcome." Stretching his arms, he smiled slightly, "I know. It'd be boring if we understood everything like that," he snapped his fingers for emphasis, and smiled broadly when he didn't flinch, "wouldn't it?"

Nodding seriously, he saluted, "Aye, aye, Captain. I'll do it. It'll be fun." he said, grinning.

"Well I hope you do it," she said. "Just don't say you will do it. What's that saying again? Don't tell me, show me. Yeah, that one."

"Alright so, moving on," Charlotte said as she stood up and looked down at the amphitheater as well. "Time to teach you how to fight... or well, evaluate you at were you're at. There must be some kind of equipment there for sparring or something. Do you know if there's any? Because I highly doubt you want to punch me with your real fist right now and I'm sure you don't want me to punch you with my fist." She chuckled as she made her way down.

Nodding again, Afonka was about to tell her that he would, but decided that that would defeat the purpose of her message and simply continued to nod.

Following her gaze down to the amphitheatre, "I think there is," he said, slightly unsure, "I know they host duels down there, so they probably do." Shrugging, he followed her down the stairs, humming to himself as he went, "Yeah," he echoed, "I really don't want to have to hurt anyone - or - or anything." he frowned, thinking back to one of the dark arts lessons last year.

Nodding, Charlotte made her way down to the pit of it and smiled at herself, proud that she had worn an outfit that was somewhat appropriate to the situation she was putting both of them. Surely sparring with a dress and heels was inappropriate... unless it was with another girl. Shrugging to herself and finally in the arena, she found a door that was stocked with equipment that would be needed and even more. Taking out the necessary items, head, hands and body gear, she handed it over the Afonka and Charlotte proceeded in pushing a dummy out of the room as well.

"Alright, considering I have a feeling that you might not want to punch me, we're going to practice on this dummy first," she instructed and then turned to the boy, "Unless you're okay with punching me and me doing vice versa?"

How had he never noticed that door before? Shaking his head, he glanced upwards. Probably because most of the time he was here, he was more focused on the sky than the ground. Nodding satisfactorily to himself, Afonka glanced back to Charlotte, blinking at the sudden equipment put in his arms. Knees buckling slightly, he smiled at her.

"Nah, I don't feel up to punching people." he joked. "A dummy'll do fine."

"Alright dummy it is," she said firmly. Charlotte was glad he choose that option because if he hadn't... that meant pushing the dummy back in and it wasn't the most light weight thing in the world. Placing it in a good spot, she hurried Fonka to put on the equipment before hurrying him over to the spot. "Let's see," she mused. She got into a fighting stance position and looked over to him. "Try this stance first. This is the most important once of them all, okay? So never, ever forget it."

"Now," she said and removed herself from the stance, telling him to not follow what she's saying. "If this was your bully, where is the first place you want to punch him? I want you to close your eyes for a second, imagine that this is him and the moment you open your eyes, punch the first spot you think of."

Nodding to her, he watched her carefully for a moment before nodding again, copying her stance. "Is this good?" he asked softly, looking up at her. He - well, he didn't want to be doing this all wrong.

Eyes widening at the idea of punching Feliks, Afonka shook his head quickly. "If I tried to punch him, he'd kill me. I'd be dead. Over. Gone."

Looking at his stance carefully and squatted down to fix his legs. Touching is front leg, she said that there had to be a little bit more pressure there than the back leg.

"Because if you don't have any energy on your front leg, that means the person in front of you is going to topple you over like a toothpick in a quick second," she explained. "That, and it gives your hind leg an easier way to kick."

Frowning, Charlotte closed her eyes and rubbed her temples as she tried to find another way to get the boy to punch the dummy. Nothing new was coming up and the only way she found to do it was it convince him... or taunt him. She decided on the latter.

"Please don't tell me you're going to let a dummy version of that guy scare you," she scoffed as she crossed her arms with a raised eyebrow. "Geez, if you're scared of the dummy, can't wait to see you when the real life guy comes out and looks at you."

Nodding at her, he adjusted his stance, following her advice. After all, she knew what she was doing. At least, he hoped so. Nodding along to her words, Afonka mentally stored them away in his mind.

Crossing his arms in response, Afonka frowned, "It - it's not like that. He's evil. Absolutely positively evil. And his eyes." Shaking his head, Afonka shuddered, imagining Feliks looking at him, "He's a monster." he said finally.

Charlotte sighed, realizing that wasn't going to work and decided to take a different route once again. Rubbing her temples once more as she walked back and froth for a couple of minutes, an new idea came to her mind. One that involved the boy's affection. Smirking, she went to go stand next to the dummy.

"So you're saying that if this monster did something to your beloved girlfriend, you would let him do it?" The Slytherin asked with a raised eyebrow, "I'm sure she wouldn't like that, huh? Let's say this bully of yours takes your girlfriend, what would you do to this guy right here? Your lady friend is yelling for you to help her and bully's making fun of you and your girl. What you going to do about it Fonka?" She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow, "Are you going to just let it go and walk away?"

Watching Charlotte pace back in forth in front of him, twiddling his thumbs. He wasn't being intentionally hard to work with. He was just being - realistic. Feliks would kill him if he so much as clenched a fist around him.

At Charlotte's suggestion, Afonka's mouth fell open, "But - but -" he spluttered, "That - that's different. I'd actually -" swallowing hard, he flinched, imagining the scene in his head, "I'd actually try to hurt him."

"So this is your bully," she said as she leaned down behind him to his ear level and they're carrying your lady friend to do things she doesn't want to do. It can be whatever you head imagines. Maybe he wants to play chess with her, or go fishing or maybe, just maybe he wants to snog her."

Charlotte had always been good at pushing people's buttons and although she did like this little kid like her own, she wasn't afraid to push him either.

"Where are you going to punch him, huh?" She questioned once more.

His breath catching in his throat, he looked at Charlotte for a moment, his head spinning as it was filled with - with the idea of this actually happening. Because Feliks wouldn't want to ever play chess or do nice things to people.

Feliks only ruining everything.

"I - I'd punch him in the face," Afonka said angrily as he glared at the dummy, startling himself. He - he wouldn't really do that, would he?

Crossing her arms, she started at him for a bit, figuring out what her next move would be and then his.

"Are you going to tell him that or are you going to just do it?" She asked out loud, "Because if you do the first, trust me, he'd laugh at your face and do what he does best as he goes off into the horizon with your beloved."

"I wouldn't tell him," Afonka tilted his head at Charlotte, his brow furrowing. "I'd just actually - you know - punch him." Turning back to the dummy, he frowned slightly, glancing back at the girl.

"Wait," he said slowly, "you want me to punch the dummy? But won't that hurt?" Gesturing towards his hand, he clasped it with the other one.