beautiful release, {TSHERCES}

With the sunset I must be
Hull down on the trail of rapture
In the wonder of the sea

The Slytherin, dressed in warm clothes in the breezy afternoon weather, sat by the grass on the field, waiting for particularly no one, expecting nothing but herself and her time to read. For once, her eyes looked through sensible things, poetry, writings. She somewhat missed them, a truth she wanted to keep out of her.

She held the small aged book with her pale hands, rummaging through the pages and scanning some lines she found lovely. Her mind didn't even care that what she was facing was something she found in the attic in what she called home. And this children's book of poems became a treasure her heart owned when she was little. When she was innocent and careless. When her ears can stand the voices of her parents reading to her.

But now, they were just faded echoes, flying away through the mountains, swimming away like the sea, and being buried like the abandoned, unloved gloomy graves.

Still, her weak soul actually thought about them even more desperately.

The brunette - or blonde, rather - slipped onto the sidewalk, her new locks glinting in the sunlight. It had been a while since she had gone blonde, and now that she had once more she loved it. She remembered the days in Durmstrang when she wore her shade, how the light seemed to tease her hair into knots whenever a physical lesson was concerned. She remembered Charles's deft hand coursing through it like it was a steady flow of water in the small confinements of a broom closet.

She coursed her hand through her hair. The movement ensured the safety of its smoothness, if only for a few hours. The breeze blew by her, a leaf carried along by its swift hands. The leaf landed mildly between strands of her hair, and the Ravenclaw brushed it studying the branched veins of the leaf, before placidly watching it fall to the ground. Slowly, slowly.

Her eyes fell on a ravenheaded Slytherin, and she coughed unpleasantly. "I suppose you're still mad at me about the hustle at breakfast," she uttered, her voice edging on anguished pain rather than anger. "I didn't really mean it, you know. What I said."

I am fevered with the sunset. I am fretful with the bay, Frances traced the words right inside her clouded mind, her hand digging through the pages, her eyes sweeping thoroughly, buried inside the book. She thought, perhaps the author wrote this for her. That Richard Hovey wrote The Sea Gypsy for her own situations. And to consider that there are still billions of people in the world who could relate the poem to their lives, that seemed likely. She was just one of those human beings to settle with the cause.

Closing the book, she sighed heavily, breathing in the fresh air possible into her system, and scanned her surroundings. She saw a very familiar face, just the features. The hair looked changed. And it was as if she was seeing the Ravenclaw way back when they're so little.

"Blonde again, Tshering?" The Slytherin called out her question, "You look like that once happy-go-lucky second year Ravenclaw." and shook her head with amusement.

Shrugging, she stopped staring at her friend, and answered back, "Not anymore. Mood swings then. Thought that the indoors of the castle were suffocating and making me crazier." she frowned, recalled her regretful actions then, and continued, "Sorry if I scared the firstie. And hurt the younger Slyth. Good thing though, it was just a not-so-worse hex. And that Ravenclaw of yours should have seen better. Not that welcoming greeting."

Tshering wrinkled her nose. "Ew," she muttered, "thinking about second year is like sleeping with a gun." She'd never thought that she would again have a dream of a time gone by, when things seemed so much happier. Had her life attained the happiness she had back then, there would have been room for serendipity, or sisterly bonding. Some part of her, however, didn't like the arranged life that would have happened. "It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday," muttered the Ravenclaw, though she had uttered that hastily. She'd always pondered upon the secret to moving on, "If yesterday was, say... two years ago."

The lonely silence haunted the Ravenclaw, and she parted her lips. Thank Merlin Frances chose to spoke first, or the silence would have covered her like a snowstorm. "No matter what you will do I will be there for you," Tshering replied, "even if it is scaring firsties away with a crack of a whip." If Tshering had to be frank with herself, Eye's return to the castle of Fyrien was her saviour and regret. They were strangers. They were sisters.

"Okay," she breathed, shuffling herself slightly away from the Slytherin, eyes scrunched up for the mental torture that was to come, "I know overprotection is not a trait of mine... but... what happened to you? Why did you leave? What have you got? Is there a cure?"

Frances chuckled, half amused and half agreeing at the truthful comment, "Sleeping with a pistol and accidentally pulling the trigger. Or, actually meaning it." she parted the strands of her black hair aside, smiling at the ground, and for one part of the day, she felt glad tidings, "Yeah... two years ago. What do you reckon? To the people we once called best friends? They left. But they didn't return. Or they never will. I miss Alex and Less."

Then out of the blue, her smile turned bitter, emotionless, monotonous, as she stared out into the view. Shaking her head, desperate for the escape from the unknown, she replied, "I suppose I can thank you that you didn't deduct points from my house. Till now, I regret losing points. Ever." and for the most honest of all, she still remembered those times. They were history. Marked right into a giant book, untouched by people, dusted beneath the earth, undiscovered, buried by her own hands.

"Overprotection, Tshering?" the Slytheirn repeated, her eyebrows raised, "That is something new." she sighed, moving her lips as she uttered her explanation of defeat, "I didn't leave. I was forced to. I was tricked. My mom was just so stupid. I was so stupid to believe. In her, in love and in family, in him."

She shivered just by the sound of the pronoun. He comes up every time she talks.

"Pretty much," Tshering agreed nonchalantly. She studied the Slytherin's movements, before gazing back at the ground, beaten hard by students over a millennium, beaten hard by frequenters of the area like her. "I miss Koehl. She was my Princess of the Sugar Plum Fairies." She brushed her hair, "I mean, Florence is hot and all, but... y'know, there's this empty place in my heart where Koehl lies."

Now, the silence was building up, and the Ravenclaw could feel it. There was a sandstorm in the making, the sand caught in the whirling winds of the East, and soon the dust would begin to spin. She couldn't control that, but she could try and control how widespread the damage will be. "There is nothing to be thanked for," she replied coolly, "I mean, at least, I don't think there is anything to be thankful for." She shrugged her shoulders, "You're one of my closest friends, Eye, if not my best friend. I have to cut you some slack."

The blonde parted her lips, "Oh Lord." Her eyes darted across the courtyard, just to check if any eavesdroppers dared to hide behind the bushes. In the nick of time, she spotted one, and cried out for them to go back to their dormitories. They did as she asked. "Okay. You, my lady, have to tell me every single detail. If there's anything painful... then, okay, you may omit that. But please, tell me. I'm here to listen."

"I think I remember her." the Slytherin remarked with curious eyes, begging for answers. All she could ever do now was to kneel down, desperate for them, "Oh... that Oberlin girl. Have the same class as her. I think she hates me." and smirked. Reading that Hufflepuff's intuition seemed easier through the outside already.

"Yeah. You still feel empty and those stuff." she sighed, wrapping her arms around her upper body to shield from the cold, and smiled kindly yet effortlessly, "When they left, I had you and Gray. I bet I wouldn't have been closer to you two if it hadn't for the other two going away."

Frances grunted, in hopelessness of repeating the same stories all over again, "This will be the last time for you. I've had enough with Gray and all those fucked up lives." she inhaled some air, preparing for her petty tale, and resumed with a frown, "Summary. Mom owls you to tell that you're going on vacation. But when you got home, you found out instead that your dad isn't your dad at all. He has a bitchy mistress and all that with an outsider child. Then, your mum went crazier. Including you. You took care of her while she didn't do the same to you."

The young girl paused, shivering, "So she did you a fucking stupid favour while you're attempting straight off to death. She brought you to rehab for that long. And you did promise each other to cure. Then one day, you found out she and your cat is already dead. Then when you went outside of the building, you reunited with your best friends."

"There." Iris ended, picking her book up and randomly flipping the pages with strained anger at the world.

Tshering laughed, "Florence? Hate you? She's barely capable of hurting a fly, let alone feel anything against you." Her laugh resounded into the sky where her companions may fly, into the ocean that would never rise into the scaling heights of the castle, into the plants that grew with every note she hummed until they were the height of skyscrapers which claimed their section of the atmosphere, fighting, battling it out with their immense height and infrastructure.

"You're lucky - we're lucky - we had friends at all, Eye," mused the Ravenclaw, "I mean... some people, they didn't even have friends. But the three of us had each other." She snorted, "Okay. I'm sounding overly sentimental, aren't I?"

Tsheirng parted her lips. There was not much else she could do but listen to the Slytherin's ramblings. It was the least she could do. "Sorry," she breathed, "I'm so sorry..." Her eyes flitted across, finding their way to Eye's eye level. "I know it's stupid that I'm apologizing for something I had no part of, but... it's all I can do, love."

Returning the bitter laugh, the Slytherin rolled her eyes at the Ravenclaw, "What do I know? I mean, we had the same class together today. And the way she looked at me, as if I'm some disgusting old plant, withering and full of weeds." she shrugged, "Well, I actually told her thanks because... you know... she kept an eye on you while I was gone. And good thing you're still alive."

Frances smirked, "A point right there." she raised an eyebrow at the context, making a reaction visible to just a split error on her best friend's sentence, "We didn't had each other. We have each other. Now." she smiled, "Oh come on. I'm the only one here. Annabeth Tshering can be overly sentimental whenever she wants."

A wave drifted onto her smile, washing it all away from the sea of gladness, of happy moments, of sheer dwellings of joy, "There's nothing to be sorry about." she sighed, "It happened. It already did. And I can do nothing about it too than avoid recalling it. It's done. There's no reason going back. Life threw it on me.""

"As if Luck was the force that kept me alive," Tshering uttered solemnly, and left it at that. She was in no mood to talk about Florence, or her feelings for her and the Hufflepuff's former infatuation with Oliver, the meeting that was going to come eventually. She sighed, "I'll make her like you, Eye. I'll make her your friend. Somehow."

Brushing her nose clean of the dust which had settled, the blonde let her thoughts rest for a moment, before she spoke in a tranquil manner, "Being sentimental does not do much good for my reputation, Eye. It's better this way."

There was nothing the Prefect could do but gaze at her friend, nodding. "I'm glad you're okay, though," she said jovially, "if anything were to happen to you, I'm not sure if I want to have friends anymore. You, Eye, Oberlin and West are all I have left." She shed the tears as Chuck came into mind, holding herself together as her arms wrapped her legs tight.

"Yeah. Me too." Frances answered back, a tone of her voice somewhat saying that she admitted it, that she remained true for that cause. She never expected to survive, or to even live for a moment's second after the incident. "Well... I wouldn't mind having enemies and haters these days." she replied sarcastically, shrugging, "Nah. Do what you can. Maybe she's just surprised that I came back and you spend your time with me more often."

With a low chuckle, the Slytherin spoke, "And it wouldn't be better at all if the others know the softer side of Anna Tshering."

"Stuff still happened," she said with another movement of her shoulders, adjusting her legs into a more comfortable position, "but they're not that worse to make me leave for eternity. I only have Gray and you." stashing the thought aside, she smiled, "Hey, introduce me to the circle. You know, with West and... Oberlin. I don't mind having more... companions."