Absolute Certainties

[Kalvyn Evans]

Kalvyn wasn't exactly happy about having to be in New Zealand, but since their family had decided to spend the holidays there, he didn't have much of a choice. He really wasn't getting much of a summer and this was just even worse. His family had decided that they would have a dinner party, and both of his sister's had invited friends, well, one each, Kalvyn without any friends hadn't had anyone to invite and he'd just claimed that none of his friends would be willing to do the journey and that he wouldn't ask them. All he was happy about, was the fact that his older cousin, was probably going to be coming if he could get the time from work and his studies, at least if he arrived they could talk about healer stuff which would be more interesting than whatever Ailsa and her friend would talk about, and what Eilidh and her friend would talk about. Since it was a relatively nice day, Kalvyn had been doing some basic quidditch drills in the garden, nothing too complicated, but enough to just pass the time as the sun began setting and the guests started arriving. He wasn't sure what to expect from this, he knew he would invite them all to get a little game of quidditch going, likely before dinner, which would keep the kids out of his parent's hair. Which as the oldest brother was his duty, a duty he truly hated.

As the teen was just finishing up, and already opened the door for his youngest sister's friend, a girl who seemed to be the exact carbon copy of his sister he had been a little freaked out by it. He'd worked up quite a sweat and had taken off his sports t-shirt, which had been sticking to him as he'd been about to head upstairs to take a shower before dinner when the doorbell rang again, as he stood at the bottom of the stairs and therefore the closest to the door he sighed deeply, "Ailsa!" he shouted up to her, before wandering over to the door. His t-shirt was in one hand and he used the other to open the door, running a hand through his sweat dampened hair, "AILSA," he called again, before looking at the kid in front of him, he was a little surprised when it was a boy and not a girl, he had assumed that Archie was the name of some girl, some nickname but now that he thought about it, it made more sense on this boy, "You must be Archie?" he said, it was only around his family that Kalvyn didn't feel paralysingly nervous in front of people he didn't know, "I'm Kalvyn," he told him, before standing away from the door motioning for him to step inside, "Ailsa, there you are," he said with a sigh of relief when his sister appeared at the bottom of the stairs, "I'm going to take a shower, then we'll play a bit of friendly quidditch before dinner, Archie can be on my team," he said giving them both a small smile before heading upstairs to do what he'd said.
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it's not horrible

 

[Archie Renner]

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Archie had always been a simple boy. A simple boy that had always found fascination in the world that encircled him, and the things he could do to discover more about it. Albeit he was not academically inclined, and was more so academically challenged due to his attention span being akin to that of a goldfish (again, a very simple boy), he believed the world was his oyster and loved every second he spent exploring the world with his own eyes. Whether it be by forging castles from grains of sand or throwing rocks from the cliff on the edge of his backyard, eagerly counting the seconds until he heard a faint splash as the water churned at the impact, he still, in any sense, was eager to discover more about the world and its unpredictability in any way possible.

What Archie had yet to discover in his fourteen years, was what on earth a dinner party was. Could it be a birthday party with a three course meal in the place of sugary snacks and a birthday cake? Did it involve a party celebrating the concept of 'dinner' and the humbleness of eating together with family and friends at the end of the day? Or was a dinner party something so entirely different and profound that he couldn't even begin to wrap his mind around it? Though the nerves in Archie's gut protested his invitation to this 'dinner party', his curiosity to discover everything first hand overtook any other feeling in his body. Which is what ultimately dragged Archie from his home in Australia and to the New Zealand address Ailsa had sent him. He exhaled as he placed both feet on the doorstep before he knocked on the door a little too rapidly than he probably should have. But before Archie could think twice about it, the sound of a voice muffled by the wooden door filled his ears. He exhaled again, allowing a moment to pass after the voice died down, before it turned into the sound of footsteps drawing close, to a clicking lock, and to the door swinging open. Without the door as an obstacle, the previously muffled voice suddenly returned in full force with a face to go behind it.

And that face, as well as everything below it, shocked Archie, to say the least. It dropped his jaw to the ground, widened his eyes, and enticed a growl in his stomach he didn't think would be there (Considering he had snuck a cookie from the kitchen before leaving home, it was the last thing he expected). "Archie..." He snapped his mouth shut as he mimicked the other boys words, his mind attempting to form a response to no avail while he was completely overcome with the shock at the boy in front of him. Shirtless, sweaty, and oh so mesmerizing. As his stomach growled a second time he instinctively placed a hand over it. Say something, anything. "Nice to meet you, Kalvyn." When he finally spoke, the lump in his throat made his words barely audible. He was out of his limit, shocked to the core and one million times more clueless than usual of what he was supposed to do. Archie felt like he would have collapsed on the doorstep if Kalvyn hadn't announced Ailsa's presence and mentioned quidditch, which somewhat returned Archie to a fragment of his normal self however even after a moment of recovery, he was too shocked to move from his spot on the doorstep and instead internally wished Ailsa would walk over and drag him inside the house, hereby saving him from this madness caused by the sight of her brother. ​

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i'm laughing at myself

 

[Ailsa Vacarius]

Ailsa had been settling into her new room pretty well, she wasn't sure if she liked it here much, but she was looking forward to being able to spend time with Archie when he finally arrived. Of course Ailsa had been spending her day slowly moving things around her room, ignoring the calls of her family to help out. She was feeling pretty happy to be home at long last, and was feeling the tiredness that she thought most people felt when they barely did anything with their day. She could through the wall make out the faint mumbling's of her sister and her sister's friend. She couldn't believe the rubbish they were giggling about, but even worse so was her brother outside. Ailsa felt like an outsider in her family, or just so unable to put up with their rubbish that she would rather not be associated with them. All she knew was that, her friend Archie was coming round, and she couldn't wait for him to get there. She knew that he would be a good voice of reason, and to think they had once hated each other. Competing with him was fun, and they'd done well on the team this year, as much as Ailsa had begun the year feeling thinly jealous of her friend's new best friend, other circumstances had made her feel less so. Quietly ushering in Ailsa being perfectly okay with Archie and his strange haired friend. Ailsa was lying on her bed, she had been ready for a while and was just waiting around. She had headphones in and her music was playing softly, just enough to drown out the giggling, but so she could still hear the doorbell if it rang, she didn't want to inflict her family upon her friend, even if she was forcing him to have dinner with them.

There was a ringing, and Ailsa for a moment believed that the ringing was coming from the music she was listening to, so she put it on pause, pulling out the ear pieces from her ears and sitting up in the bed, to see if she had heard correctly. Her brother's voice, shouting up at her was enough to make Ailsa realise Archie had at long last arrived. She tidied up slightly, and then rushed out of the room, when her brother called her name again. She was able to hear her brother introducing himself to Archie and Archie doing the same. She got to the top of the stairs and was graced with the sight of her shirtless brother, "Kalvyn godsake, put some clothes on, no one wants to see your sweaty anything," she told him in an annoyed tone as she passed walking down the stairs to greet Archie, whom she greeted by wrapping her arms around him happy and hugging him tightly. "Sorry about my sweaty disgusting brother, he's terrible with people," she told him, yelling the disgusting bit so that Kalvyn while also glancing back up at where his brother had headed no one wanted to see that ever, or well Ailsa really didn't want to see her brother like that, "Let's go out back, we can sit there until we play a bit of quidditch, and you can say hi to my parents too," She told him, motioning for him to follow her, briefly introducing Archie to her parents as she passed before leading him out to the gardens, "It's not a bad place, secluded enough that we can play, my cousin Tybalt is probably coming today, you remember him from the team and stuff," she explained further, "Let's warm up!"
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[Kalvyn Evans]

Kalvyn had gladly retreated upstairs and taken the shower, ignoring her sister's comments about him, and just sighing to himself at just the fact that he was even having to remotely having to deal with it. With the fact that he was the oldest until Tybalt got there it meant he had been given the taste of looking after all of them, despite the small age gap between himself and his younger sister, Ailsa. That wasn't something he could linger on though, since he couldn't do anything about it until that point. Kalvyn's shower was quick, just enough to get him refreshed, he then got dressed quickly and headed back downto where he was sure he could hear Ailsa and Archie. First stopping to knock on Eilidh's bedroom door so that she and her friend would then also come outside. He knew his parents would rather them outside than inside and considering the fact that it was a fairly nice day for a winter's afternoon he would do just that. He grabbed the quidditch brooms that he could and then wandered outside. Cursing silently at the fact he had to do this, he knew that not doing it would end in him getting in trouble from his parents but for a boy who could barely make one friend at school this was almost torture.

He walked out into the garden and threw the brooms on the ground before motioning for them to take the brooms, watching as his littlest sister emerged. Her friend, who was thankfully magic was not however going to play as Kalvyn had already been told, "Right girl's versus boy's," He looked at Archie, "We'll be skins, they'll be shirts, just two on two, simple?" Kalvyn said explaining it simply. He smiled at them all before handing each of them a broom and then taking off his shirt. It was a clean shirt and he was likely going to get it dirty when he put it back on after the game, but this was a good way of spending the time, and the teen couldn't imagine anything else, at least this way they could all just play along and no one really had to talk to one another. It was his way of getting out of anything difficult, sports in his family was pretty huge so this was just simple. Kalvyn grinned at them all, "Right, here," he handed the ball to Eilidh's friend, "You toss it upwards," he told her before motioning for them all to get up on to the brooms so they could start playing.
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[Archie Renner]

Archie, in all his mind's simplicity, could not muster the ability to move until Ailsa hugged him and lead him away. It was only after leaving the awe-striking sight of Kalvyn, when he finally began to recover, and intentionally attempted to forget the imprint the sight had left on his mind. Boy, a sight it was. He shook his head as a rush of thoughts continued to intrude on his ability to think about the present while he trailed Ailsa's steps to the backyard. When they reached the fresh air and began to warm up for the impending back yard game of quidditch, Archie felt as if he was returning to his normal, energetic and vaguely stupid self. Being entirely entranced by the sight of Ailsa's brother had caught Archie off-guard and now that the sight that dumbfounded him was nowhere to be found he began joking with his friend, declaring how his holidays were more fun than hers would ever be. Something he would usually do given the now friendly, yet competitive dynamic of their friendship, however something he had forgotten to do in the aftermath of what on earth caused that sight to overcome him when he was greeted at the door.

But, with Archie's luck, that sight soon returned.

His heart fluttered when Kalvyn greeted them in the backyard and announced the game of Quidditch which Archie had conveniently forgotten about in his internal confusion. Girls versus boys. Shirts and skins. Archie would be teamed with the same sight that had frozen him on his spot at the door and it was needless to say he dreaded the idea yet was intrigued by it. Though he managed to deflect the possibility of removing his own shirt simply out of fear of feeling exposed in addition to the fear of not knowing if he could even remember how to play quidditch while teamed up with such a sight. "I'll just take my sweater off and wear my tank." He mumbled as he put the broom Kalvyn handed to him on the ground and pulled his sweater over his head so he could throw it away from the range of the game. As he picked his broom from the ground, mounted it, and kicked into the air he intentionally kept Ailsa's brother out of his sight. Though only a few minutes passed by before his attention wavered from the game and towards Kalvyn where it stayed. For a second time Archie became frozen in place (or this time, frozen in the air) at the sight unfolding in front of him and could not pay attention to playing this backyard game of quidditch no matter how much he wanted to.
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[Ailsa Vacarius]

Ailsa noticed something off about her friend, but brushed it away when he didn't seem to give any further outward sign of being annoyed or anything. Instead he seemed far more settled, and she was better with that than she was if he was actually having problems of any kind, problems she didn't always know to deal with, and her mind just cast to Logan, whom had helped her with her problems on a certain question, she didn't ever expect him to lean on her, and nor her on him, but she knew Archie far better than she knew him, so she could at least pick up what was wrong. It didn't take long before her brother had stepped outside and announced the game of quidditch. She was to be paired with her sister and Archie with her brother, she would've rather been with Archie, since they played well together, but for now, she was good playing with her sister, and took a broom, smirking at Archie, "Let the best team win," she added to him with a smirk. After all she was definitely thinking that she could beat him and her brother in this game. She watched as her sister's friend threw the quaffle up into the air and the game got underway.

The game ended a little while after when her mother told them that dinner was ready, and so, they ended the game, no one had won strictly speaking, they didn't have a snitch which they could use in such a small game so instead it was just whomever got top points who won, she glanced at Archie and grinned happily, the teams had drawn in the end which was likely for the best she wouldn't have wanted it to end if her and Eilidh had been losing. She landed on the ground and smiling at Archie, "Good game," she nodded at him, "After dinner with my folks we can just sit in my room and forget about this lot," she whispered to him, grinning happily about this, she knew that once dinner was over, her sister and her sister's friend would retreat to their room, her brother would hide out in his, so they took could be apart form the family. She handed Archie a towel to dry off before leading him back to the kitchen so that they could wash their hands before the settled down to eat, which Ailsa had already guess would be a gruelling affair.
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[Kalvyn Evans]

Kalvyn hadn't picked up on Archie's weirdness at all, not any more than just thinking him Ailsa's strange friend, and he was glad when they were all up in the air and able to play quidditch, he had never been too talkative and this was just simple, he had to just play with these people and soon it would time to eat and then he would be able to leave and retreat to his room, which was actually all that he wanted to do. Kalvyn had just shrugged when Archie had said he would only take his sweater off, it wasn't like it mattered to him, he had taken his t-shirt off and was already in the air. It would be good fun. That's what he was expecting, and considering how competitive his family was he didn't think this would be easy or that any of them would go down without a fight, and it seemed that Archie was as competitive as the rest of them since he was playing with Kalvyn and it seemed like he really wanted to win. Though the game was evenly matched, as much as Kalvyn loved quidditch he played it as much as Eilidh did, so they were pretty evenly matched during this game. When told to finish up for dinner, Kalvyn brought the game to an end and then smiled at Archie, "Great game! You're good," he told the younger teen as he slipped his t-shirt back on.

Dinner itself for him felt like torture, creating table wide conversation was not a strong suit of the Hogwarts boy, and he was just hoping that it would be over soon. The moment they were allowed to leave, Kalvyn got up and began carrying away the plates, he had held polite conversation with Ailsa and her friend, he had been saved from having to spend too much time talking to them, because of the odd glances he'd been getting from Ailsa's friend throughout the dinner, it had made him feel a little awkward and a little paranoid, he didn't think there was anything in it, but, Kalvyn was shy at the best of times, it wasn't fun for him. It was why when it finally ended he had to stop himself from almost thanking the gods out loud. He helped out quickly and then glanced at all the guests, "Ailsa, Archie, if you guys need anything, I'll be in my room," he had already said this to Eilidh and her friend, and like with that he sent a pleading glance at Ailsa to not annoy him with whatever it was that she might end up annoying him with, and with that, he waved goodbye awkwardly to them and then headed up stairs and away from the rest of them. Glad for some peace.
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