Guitar Strings and Flower Petals

Opposition

"Another minute and I don't think we'd be having this conversation," Bellatrix countered.

"That's what you said about the Slitherbeast back in Latissa."

"And I was right!"

"As much of a worry wart as ever I see."

"And I take note that your head continues to only be used for bashing in monsters' skulls and NOT, in fact, for coherent thought."

Gortle stood, and stared Bellatrix down. They glared at each other for a good while, angry looks bearing into the others eyes.

And as always, Gortle was the first to break down into laughter as she took Bellatrix into her arms.

"It's great to see you old friend!"

Bellatrix chuckled as she hugged back. "And I you, buddy."

A smile couldn't help but form on Skara's face as she read the words. That particular passage was one of dozens that, no matter how much older she got, or how much her perspective changed, it always made her smile.

She read over the words again, finding her grin grow wider, a small sense of contentment filling her as she let herself enjoy her little bit of escapism. Especially after the... Interesting few days.

The following week at Hexside had been a, frankly, odd one.

Nothing really changed - In fact, nothing had changed in her social life. At home, her parents had all but smothered her with affection, telling her how glad they were that she was okay, and how sorry they were that they hadn't been able to find her sooner. She couldn't even go an hour without one of them asking if she was alright, or if she needed anything. Skara was about eighty percent sure she could have asked for an entire mansion of her own and they would have tried to find a way to buy her the entire Isles. It had taken her nearly the full week of asking every hour on the hour for them to at least act as if they believed she was okay.

In contrast, at Hexside, her friends who hadn't been involved in the rescue had rushed up to her, asked if she was okay, what had happened, and told her they were glad that she wasn't hurt. Short, sweet, simple. Things that she had expected, really.

After that though, things had turned to normal almost immediately. She returned to her classes, returned to Grudgby training, returned to talking about things that had nothing to do with her incident on the Knee. For most everyone else, Skara's snowed-in knee trip was a simple oddity, and they simply forgot it in favour of some other strange news like her fellow students always did.

Outside of Cat, Bo, and obviously, Willow.

Still, it was weird jumping between those two extremes on a regular basis. But maybe it was more down to a shift in her own perspective. She'd read dozens of stories about people who had gone through harrowing experiences, only to come out of it on the other side with different outlooks on lots of things. Perhaps the same thing had happened to her, and she was still in the midst of adjusting to that. It certainly felt like that, sometimes.

Of course, another explanation was that it had happened to Skara, so of course she was more affected by the dissidence between what happened on the Knee, and daily life at Hexside.

In addition to that, she had remained true to what she promised Willow - That she would think about everything that she had said in the cabin. About friendships, and what they were supposed to be. Honestly, she had thought about little else. Thinking about both the incident at the Knee and most of the events at Hexside constantly... Honestly, it made her feel overwhelmed sometimes.