Astrid

Chapter 3: 13 Years Ago

-1st year-
    The library was never silent but I found that enjoyable. It made the place seem used, lived in, inviting. The shuffling of parchment and quiet conversations between friend or tutor-tutor pairs made the place more awake. The curtains on the windows were pulled back, allowing the sunlight to illuminate the dark wooden floors and slight lighter tables. The place smelled of lemons. I'm not sure why but it's what it smelled like. In the mornings and on Fridays it smelled like lemons. Then it smelled like parchment and ink at all other moments.
    "Have you considered magizoology?"
    I suddenly became aware again of the person next to me. "Not really." I didn't look up from the piece of parchment in front of me, carefully drawing each word with the black ink. I drew each letter as if they were a magical rune, the smallest line out of place creating possibly catastrophic results. The actual topic was less severe. Potions was a favorite subject of mine but I was not a fan of the essays.
    "You should." I looked up from the drying words, needing the break anyways, to see the careful drawings the girl across from me was drawing. Her sky blue fingernails ,which shimmered into a lavender as the light from the window hit it, had me mesmerized.
    Shaking myself out of the hypnotizing colors, I sighed and looked back at my parchment, "I can't- shouldn't."
    "Why?" Her voice seemed disinterested and if it was anybody else I'd create a change in topic but it's just how she was. She'd be easy to distract, no doubt, but she'd eventually breach the topic again.
    "Because," I place my black feather quill down and lean back, stretching my legs under the table, "it would be a waste of my time. I can't pursue it, I may as well study in something easier and graduate and be done." I flexed my toes as much as I could in my shoes, contemplating just removing them.
    "Do you not want to work?" she finally looked up from her doodles, her blue eyes meeting mine.
    "No, Luna. You know I want to work but," I sighed once again, returning to my parchment, "I cant."
    "Because you're parents won't let you," she spoke the unspoken end to my statement. I just shrugged. "Just give it a shot, the stars say you should."
    I raised an eyebrow, "We can't take astronomy yet."
    "My dad taught me to read the stars."
-x-
    "I talked to Luna."
    "Cass," I groaned, not bothering to remove my arm from over my eyes. The whether was nice and I enjoyed the fresh water smell that was drifting towards me from the black lake.
    "I didn't know you were into magizoology," she continued, ignoring me.
    "I'm not." I finally removed the arm from over my eyes, staring at the clear blue sky above me. I blinked as an upside down face entered my vision, platinum hair creating a curtain from the sunlight.
    "According to Luna you are."
    "Luna's wrong."
    "Luna's never wrong," she states before her face leaves my line of sight and I feel her presence settle on my right.     "Why are you denying it? There nothing wrong with it."
    "I'm not supposed to have these ambitions. I'm supposed to be ambitious for marriage, status, money, children..." I sigh. My left hand brushes over the blades of grass next to me before I wrap my fingers around a few and yank. "Of course I want that but I want more. I have the wrong ambitions."
    "Any ambition is the right ambition."
    I turn my head to look at her, "That doesn't sound like you."
    I watch her shoulders raising slightly in a subtle shrug, "My mom said it." I wasn't surprised, it sounded like Lady Malfoy. Of course I was purely drawing on Cass and Draco's version of her. I was snapped out of my thoughts as she continued talking, "Believe it or not I don't find any of that really appealing either."
    I raised an eyebrow at this, turning on my side to face her I ask a question, "What do you find appealing?"
    With her knees pulled up under her chin she doesn't look at me, "I'm not sure."
-x-
Again super short. I already have the next chapter written and it is longer. Sorry updated took so long, I've had a lot going on.

Check out my story Cassiopeia. It is part of this series. Both can be understood without the other, they simply focus on different parts of the same time.