Rising

Friends?

The next morning Wren woke to the sound of Lyra singing, just as she did every morning, and sticking with tradition, Wren threw a pillow with surprising intensity at the singing girl. Lyra continued with her rendition of Walking on Sunshine as though the missile like pillow had not just barely missed her face, resulting in Wren's growl. Wren jerked her covers over her head in an attempt to protect herself from Lyra's onslaught of music and dance, but it could not shield her once her friend used her bed as a stage. "Wreeeennnnnn! Wake up sleeping beauty! Food! Coffee!" Wren dragged herself out of bed at the mention of sustenance and stumbled into their bathroom and looked in the mirror to see a silver birds nest atop her head. She groaned at the thought of trying to untangle her hair knowing that a shower was the only solution to the catastrophe. Wren called out,"Lyra! I need to take a shower if I am going to stand any chance of facing other humans today!" The girl chirped a reply and told her to make it quick, or else she would miss out on pancakes and coffee.

Running the hot water and changing out of her pajamas, Wren tried to differentiate her dreams from reality. She remembered a tall winged boy. Ryuu. Real. A game that was not very fun. Real. Crying in front of stranger. Real. Dammit.

Wren was working the sweet, jasmine scented shampoo into her hair when an image of Ryuu wrapping his wings around her and gently pressing his lips to hers appeared in her minds eye. Not real. That didn't happen. Dream. Albeit a stupid dream. She groaned and pulled at the final knot and finished up her shower, rushing to get to the mess hall before the breakfast hour was over.

Pulling the dark green sweater on as she rushed out the door, Wren wished, not for the first time, that the first years did not live in the farthest tower away from the main hall. She hated being late, but maybe sleeping in and having a nice shower could become a new habit. She was contemplating whether or not she could convince Lyra to let her sleep an extra thirty minutes when a door directly to her right was thrown open and a massive shadow came hurtling toward her. She didn't even have time to raise her arms or cry out before she was crashing to the ground with the figure topping her.

This was not how he wanted to meet Wren again. His strategies were more along the lines of a cool "hello", or maybe a flirtatious grin with a casual "hey". Tackling her with half his shirt unbuttoned was not part of his grand plan. Ryuu quickly jumped off of Wren and looked down to see if she was ok. Her eyes were squeezed shut and she was rubbing the back of her head, but she was slowly sitting up, much to his relief. "I am so sorry, Wren!" Her shoulders stiffened and he stifled a groan knowing she was building up a wall to put between the two of them. Nevertheless he forged on, "See, I woke up late and remembered that today was Pancake Day, which is very important, practically a religious holiday, and so I was rushing out the door, and then I slightly bumped into you and now we're here." Those purple eyes were wide and assessing as they drifted from his face toward his chest. Ryuu realized that his chest was still exposed and moved to quickly button his shirt. Maybe she didn't see his tattoo. Hopefully. He didn't feel like any answering questions, so he jumped to his feet and brushed himself off. He looked down at Wren and grabbed her hand to pull her to her feet, "Come on, let's get you to the infirmary, you hit your head pretty hard." She hadn't said a word to him during the entire encounter, and from their conversation last night he knew that she wasn't a mute or necessarily shy. Ryuu put his arm around her waist, meaning to be there as support incase she fell, or was unsteady on her feet, he couldn't help but admire the way she fit against his side. That was until she stiffened and turned to face him and yelled, " What are you doing?" Not expecting this reaction, Ryuu was at a loss for words and couldn't help blushing, which made him more embarrassed. She continued, " So the logical reaction in your mind after running someone over is to provide an excuse, make up a story about taking them to get help, and then groping them?"