Bygones (Mels)

[Irohahime Toya]

Iroha liked the covered bridge more than she liked any other part of this school. It was, in part, because it sort of reminded her of home, and in part because it was usually quiet. If nothing else, Hogwarts was a constant sensory overload for her, and it got to be too much sometimes. She wasn't used to the constant hum of noise in the back of her head, having spent most of her life in the Sanada clan's quiet countryside home; the West was a noisy adjustment that she was still making, and that was probably the huge disadvantage to her heightened senses. Perhaps she didn't need to see to do anything, but it would have been nice because it would have dulled the noises. They may have been soft to others, but they were all like gunshots to her: loud and thunderous.

She hummed softly and adjusted the sash of her kimono, facing out towards the grounds to maximize on the watery English sunlight that filtered in through the windows. She'd been told by Yoshiko-sama that Hogwarts was a beautiful school; from what she'd sensed out, it was certainly large and airy. She liked the vast expanses of open space for whatever inconceivable reason, and had therefore decided that she was pleased with the whole situation. She could quietly observe without being bothered by nosy students asking her why she carried a cane instead of a wand.

The soft rustling of clothing alerted her to another presence on the bridge, which she turned towards with a little frown. The footsteps were light, which meant that it was a female, and probably a student since the female teachers clicked about the school like they were on a mission to catch every student that might be even thinking about misbehaving. She despised those high-heeled shoes that they all wore with an undying passion and had privately vowed to destroy them all at the first available opportunity.

"Hello?" she called. "Can I help you?'

[Mels Amelia Tyler]

Mels was annoyed with the world, as per usual. Her classmates were stupid, the boys were arrogant and assholes, and the girls thought she was a bitch. If only they knew. She had decided to get away from them and head out to the covered bridge, no one ever hung out there so she would likely be alone. While walking in that direction she was reading a book about learning to become an animagus. She had been caught on the one section of it. You had to discover yourself before you could truly become an animal. The animal you would change into reflected you. You would never fully change into your animagus form if you never truly learned who you were. She closed the book in annoyance. What bullshit. It was all transfiguration, nothing more, why was it so difficult for her?

She put the book back into her bag and continued walking, fuming slightly over her issues with the transfiguration. She never ever had issues with it. She was distracted from her fuming thoughts when a voice called out to her. The voice was very different from what she usually heard. Sounded foreign, Asian, perhaps, she wasn't sure. "Oh yes, because I was definitely coming to the covered bridge to ask some girl for help," her sarcasm was evident, but it wasn't cruel, just a normal defense mechanism she had developed over the years.

[Irohahime Toya]

Well, this girl sounded irritated. With what was anyone's guess; it was better to not speculate when she lacked visual cues to give herself a better idea. She smelled leather and ink, though, so presumably it was schoolwork that had her so irritated. That would make sense; Iroha remembered classwork being a tremendous pain in the ass when she was still in school. Thank the gods that was over. Her school'd had fits about getting books in braille for her. Muggles always seemed to have issues with things like that, she'd noticed. They didn't like making special allowances, but Magical Folk were no different, really.

"Are you shore?" she asked with something like a smile, internally snickering at the fish pun she'd managed to work in there. "And are you always so glowingly friendly?"

Two could play at the sarcasm game.

[Mels Amelia Tyler]

Mels glared at the girl, she was in no mood to deal with someone right now… the returned sarcasm was a nice break from the usual, though. Most times people just called her stupid and walked away, or started an argument that wasn’t worth it, or told a professor on her. As if sarcasm was something she could get in trouble for. Her stupid classmates actually managed it sometimes, mostly with the professors who didn’t like her attitude either. Which was almost all of them. McGonagall liked her because she loved transfiguration, but only for that reason.

Mels raised an eyebrow, “fish joke?” Her opinion on it was obvious, not a bad joke, but kinda pointless. “Only when in a foul mood or around my arrogant classmates,” she replied, dropping the sarcasm for a second, “are you always so quick at the comebacks?” Her voice still shone with her usually sarcastic tone, though the words proved that she wasn’t actually being sarcastic at the moment. “I’m Mels, no one’s ever had a reply to my sarcasm before,” it was very different.

[Irohahime Toya]

Mels seemed to give as good as she could take, which was nice. Most people here considered her a dangerous liability at best, and a poison to their society at worst. She thought that it was probably because the teachers had warned them to avoid her, but she couldn't be sure. It might have been a result of the sunglasses she wore constantly to hide her eyes, which she'd been told were odd-looking because of their glassiness. She couldn't help that she'd been born blind, but whatever.

"Puns are lovely, don't you think?" she replied cheekily. "I make a serious effort to give as good as I get in terms of quips. I'm Iroha."

[Mels Amelia Tyler]

Mels hardly noticed the girl’s appearance. She dully noted the sunglasses, but thought very little of it as it was a bright sunny day. She appreciated the response, it was uncommon to find someone who could give an interesting response to her quips. Especially from someone she might consider someday becoming more than a passing face. The only people who could ever respond well were guys, often arrogant, and she kept them far from her life.

“Only good ones, and they are so very rare to find,” Mels shot back. “It’s a pleasure, Iroha. I seldom find someone who can respond to me in more than a whine,” she said. It was true. Girls at this school were whiny and uninteresting. They never returned her sarcasm, which made this girl very different from all the others.

[Irohahime Toya]

She finally turned further to face Mels fully, being careful to not knock her cane against the wall for fear of breaking it or something. It was expensive, and that made her a little nervous about damaging it. She didn't want to cost Yoshiko-sama any more money than she already had. She reached up carefully to adjust her glasses to cover her eyes better.

"Perhaps I'll aft to get better at them," she suggested jokingly. "And the pleasure is all mine, I assure you. Most of the residents of this school seems to be on a mission to avoid me."

[Mels Amelia Tyler]

Mels shook her head, the bad puns continued, but she couldn't help but chuckle a bit. This girl was definitely very different from all the girls she knew. Mels did, however, notice the cane that the girl carried, a very expensive looking cane, in fact. She looked confused for a second before realizing the truth. "You're blind," she stated as a matter of fact. This was not the first blind person Mels had known in her life and probably wouldn't be the last.

The comment sparked Mels interest, "what's the point in avoiding someone who can't see but only hear those around her?" She wondered why they would avoid her anyway, even she, a complete loner, wasn't avoided, only ignored. "Did you kill someone or something?"

[Irohahime Toya]

"I'm blind," she agreed. "Like a bat."

Not as a bat, like one. She used vibrations and sounds and smells to keep her bearings, and it all seemed to work pretty well for her. Most blind witches and wizards just used their magic to get by, but that had never been an option she'd had, so she had to make do with what she was capable of. Since it was enough to make the Ministry nervous about her presence there, ending with a request to send her to Hogwarts to observe how a magical school ran, she could only assume that she'd managed to do something right.

"I'm shore I could, if I was so inclined," she shrugged. "But no. Squibs that choose to live instead of wallowing in bitterness make magical folk nervous, for some inexplicable reason."

[Mels Amelia Tyler]

“Blind like a bat,” she chuckled, “using sounds and vibrations to tell where you are and who’s around you.” It was interesting. “No magic?” that was strange, a muggle or squib at Hogwarts… well, maybe there was a reason for it, Mels honestly didn’t care. It was particular, though, that she was speaking so much to this girl. Even small sentences was a lot for her. She tended to push others out, keep them away from her. She could not stand to let someone inside again, not after what happened the last time. It was six year previously, but still, it killed her.

“Ah, a squib. One who interacts kindly with magical folk, that would make many of them nervous,” she spoke of magical folk as if she wasn’t one. It was her way, she didn’t feel like one of them. They were cruel people, muggles too. Honestly, the world was cruel. She didn’t feel inclined to consider herself part of any race of humans. They all disgusted her. “They like to put people in boxes. Muggles-no knowledge of magical folk, squibs-born without magic and bitter about it and hate magical folk and muggles alike, Death eaters-pure bloods who find all others to be traitors, Order-the good guys fighting for equality of all… except for muggles and squibs, others-people who don’t care about the magical war in any way. You don’t fit cleanly into any box, so they feel uncomfortable.” Her tone was matter of fact, she knew the ways of the magical folk.

[Irohahime Toya]

"No magic. I am Batgirl," she quipped with a trace of one of her usual almost-smiles. Pop culture reference and bad pun in the same three-word sentence, truly Iroha was a master of awful jokes. She was actually pretty proud of that one; she'd stepped outside of her usual nautical puns for once. Ameko would be so proud. This might actually warrant going to the trouble of writing a letter home, for once. That was a big might. It took her for-glubbing-ever to write letters.

"My magical sword might also aft somefin to do with that," she noted drily, internally cheering. She was on fire today! So many puns... "You don't sound especially fond of magical folk."

[Mels Amelia Tyler]

Mels almost choked at that one, “batgirl… nice reference.” She liked the half smile on Iroha’s face, it made her look very… nice. This girl was very interesting, she seemed to enjoy throwing puns every sentence or two. Most people couldn’t pull that off, but she did it very well, even if the jokes were really, really bad.

“Oh no, a giant magical sword would have nothing to do with every wizard within eyesight running for their life,” her sarcasm was back, “because giant swords are absolutely harmless against tiny wooden sticks.” Though magic was wonderful, magical swords were not something to be played with. “I’m not. Nor fond of muggles. Squibs tend to not be bad because they often share my dislike of both parties. Magical folk believe themselves to be almighty, even those who fight for the protection of muggles. Muggles don’t understand magical folk and have done much harm to my life. Why would I be fond of people who believe themselves to be above others when they have done more harm than the ignorant?”

[Irohahime Toya]

"Two-for-one bad joke; I think that counts as borderline clever," she remarked, still joking. She'd found that it was best to not take oneself too seriously; arrogance was extremely unattractive. Not to say that she was never arrogant. Sometimes she was, usually when faced with arrogance. She reciprocated what was thrown at her within reason. And, yes, she was very aware of how horrible her puns were. That was the point.

"It's naut a giant magical sword," she retorted with even more of something that might have resembled a smile. "I couldn't fit a giant magical sword in my cane. I'll have you know that my magical sword is a very elegant katana, and it is named Nasu."

[Mels Amelia Tyler]

“Clever may be too strong a word to use… perhaps corny is the right one,” Mels raised her eyebrow, knowing full well that Iroha couldn’t see it. This girl was definitely different, she took life with a joke, never too serious. Girls at Hogwarts were always worried about looking back or sounding bad or making a scene, she obviously cared about none of this. Not to mention that Iroha could verbally hold her own.

“Maybe not giant, but you think that wizards with tiny little brains, like those who attend Hogwarts, would consider even an elegant katana to be a small sword? No, they’d believe it was much bigger than it really is, and much more dangerous.” It was true, magical folk were small minded and narrow thinkers. If they heard she had a magical sword they would assume it was long and wide and that magic was used to fit it inside her cane. “You named your sword?”

[Irohahime Toya]

"You may be right," she admitted with a laugh. She guessed that Mels was raising an eyebrow, since Ameko said that was something many people did. Her sister could see such things, so Iroha went off of what she said. Perhaps as a result of her blindness, she had never cared too much about what others thought of her. She'd grown up in her isolated world, full of sound and smell to make up for the lack of visuals, and that might have had a lot to do with Iroha developing a tremendous sense of inner peace. She was at peace with herself, and therefore the world, which caused her to care little for silly things like social standing.

"Those that the gods gift with tremendous power, they tend to curse with an equal measure of foolishness," she noted. "I did naut personally name Nasu; it was gifted to me with that name. It is...common to name katana. The name of my sword translates to Nightshade."