Open Complimentary Pursuits

[Zennon Baros]

It felt like an eternity since the last time Zennon had spoken to Leda and it was starting to grate on him. He didn't quite understand how things could change so quickly between them. He loved Leda, and for her to just not take his side like that had hurt him. It was the beginning of the end or something and he could no longer go to Leda for advice, of course he wouldn't be able to go to Leda for advice anyway, since she was leaving him. He'd known it was something he would have to come to terms with for some time, but that didn't mean he had to like it and as it turned out, he hadn't come to terms with it yet. Leda was his confidante, he spent so much time with her over the last two years that realising he would no longer have access to her wisdom and advice was like a slap in the face and he didn't quite know how he felt about it, or how he should go about changing the way he felt. He wanted to apologise to Leda, but he was too proud to admit that he'd done anything to hurt her and honestly he didn't think he should be the one to apologise when she was just as guilty. Zennon sighed and sat in the Courtyard, fixing up his notes from Potions. He wasn't sure what the exams were going to consist of, but he wanted to make sure he was covered for everything, just in case.​

 

[Sydney Townsend]

Sydney had been riding high for the rest of the semester after her win in the dueling tournaments. Even the pointless fuss about exams coming up wasn't managing to bother her this week, nor the cold chill of the courtyard as she looked for some spot in the castle free of anxious studiers to read or write since the library was definitely out right now. Her good mood however wasn't helping with her writer's block though and Sydney let out an annoyed huff, managing to blow some of the hair off of her forehead but doing nothing to stimulate any ideas. She'd managed some rather entertaining passages earlier about how pathetic Eric Holland was for losing, but she could only ruminate on that delicious fact for so long before she needed something new.

Another sigh in the courtyard caught her attention and Sydney spotted one of their Slytherin prefects nearby also looking pretty morose. "Hey, aren't you the parselmouth prefect?" She asked him, shuffling a touch closer. Sydney had no problem with parselmouths in theory, it was an interesting branch of magical ability that was sadly under-studied in her opinion just because of some dumb prejudice. "Do you ever think in serpent? Like you might with a second language?" She asked, eager to pick up on the distraction instead of staring at the blank page of her notebook.

 

[Zennon Baros]

Zennon hadn't really expected to be interrupted from his studies, so hearing someone speaking to him confused him. He looked up to see a younger Slytherin, he wasn't familiar with her, though he vaguely recalled her from watching the younger duels. "Parselmouth Prefect, yeah that's me," if someone had asked him as a first-year where he saw his school career heading, it certainly wasn't here. He remembered a conversation with Analei about six years ago when they'd first met and he'd detailed how utterly disgusted he would have been to become a Prefect. Things had certainly changed. He blinked at her question, surprised she'd asked, because it wasn't actually something he'd thought about much. "That's... not something I thought too much about to be honest. I mean... I think so. It's an ability I was born with, so I guess you could technically say English is my second language." He said, frowning as he thought about it. "When I talk to snakes I think I do, I don't always notice though because I'm caught up in the conversation, but, yeah, I guess so. Mostly it's English though... I think." Despite being angry and sad over things with Leda, he couldn't bring himself to be rude to someone who was genuinely curious unless this girl decided to start judging him inaccurately. "Any other hard-hitting questions you want the answers to?" He actually felt a bit better, since he didn't have to think about his exams or Leda whilst he was analysing an ability he'd grossly never thought to do more research on. Mostly because everything he came across did nothing more than upset him with its prejudices.​

 

[Sydney Townsend]

Sydney hadn't really been expecting the answer the prefect, Zennon she was pretty sure this one was called. Honestly, she'd been half-expecting him to get defensive about the parseltongue thing, which wouldn't be very surprising. But learning some new information was just as good as needling some unsuspecting upper year student, so she'd take it. "That's an interesting take on it, do you think if you never learnt to speak somehow, you'd just speak snake all the time?" She said, already spinning the idea in her head of a novel plot about a parseltongue raised by snakes learning to be human. It'd be a lot of work so it didn't turn out out like ridiculous Blythe novel though. She scoffed at the phrase "hard-hitting questions", doubting this school would ever be really ready for it if Sydney really tried to get out her investigative chops. Maybe she should try it some day, especially with the Monthly changing hands at the end of the year. "Perhaps, maybe I could interview you for the school paper sometime," She said, though the idea of listening to someone talk about themselves was frankly what turned Sydney away from journalism in the first place.

 

[Zennon Baros]

Zennon wasn't used to people being genuinely interested in his abilities from a research point of view, which is what this seemed like, not ridicule. He didn't know much about this girl, just that she was below him and a Slytherin. Professor Styx sometimes gave them names of people to watch out for, but, well, he didn't know her name, so he couldn't say if she was on it or not, but he didn't recognise her face from it. He frowned at her next question, though not because of anything negative, he didn't really know the answer. "You... ask interesting questions," he said, trying to really give it some thought. Being a parselmouth was just something that was a part of him, something he just inherently had always known even before he'd realised it was something not everyone could do. He was sure that was why his parents had known something was up and been so chill about it in the end. After all, parents did tend to know things like that about their kids... even if you didn't think they did. "I... maybe if I'd never been exposed to it... to human language... Merlin now I'm making myself sound like I'm not human," being able to talk to snakes was not well researched, and he knew it was the kind of ability in really old families, but, still, he sometimes wondered if he was no more a pureblood than a part veela. Not that it would matter, because blood status didn't mean a lot to him, but he was still curious. It wasn't a language easily learned, he'd just always known how to speak it. "I have to assume it would be no different to a child never learning to walk or talk, or being raised differently, maybe if I was deaf or something and didn't know what English sounded like, or other languages, it's hard to say." Zennon laughed a little as she mentioned interviewing him for the school paper. "Sure, sounds like fun. I've never really been in the paper before other then when people talk about me in the negative due to my abilities... or when Professor Styx decided it was a good idea to give me a badge." Honestly worst person to give one to. "Have you ever heard anyone speak parseltongue before?"​

 

[Sydney Townsend]

Sydney couldn't help but smirk when it seemed like she'd stumped the prefect. This was much better than trying to fend off her writer's block. "Of course I do," She said simply, swinging her leg over the other so she could easily prop her chin into her hand while she rested her elbow on them. In her mind it was a smooth motion that made he look very sophisticated. Especially while she watched Zennon flounder for words for a moment. "People are idiots about things they don't understand," Sydney said derisively, rolling her eyes at the implications apparently people had been too stupid about Zennon in the past. "The prefect badge is probably the worst thing about you," She said, rolling her eyes for good measure. At least he seemed aware to some degree about what a ridiculous institution the whole prefect thing was. As if trying to convince two students to police their peers was ever going to end in anything but an abuse of power. "No.." Sydney said slowly when he asked if she'd heard parseltongue before, though she was loath to admit it. "But I've heard it be described at least," She added, sure if she heard it, she'd be able to recognize it easily.

 

[Zennon Baros]

Despite feeling down for the past couple of days, Zennon could genuinely admit he was enjoying this conversation. He wasn't entirely sure why she'd chosen to approach him now, though maybe she was trying to get her mind off of other things, but it was nice to have a decent conversation with someone who wasn't trying to tell him what they thought about his incredibly thin blood relation to certain other people, or, in Arvel's case, accusing him of getting off easy with the notion that he never suffered a day in his life. As if Zennon just walked around without a care in the world. Sure, he didn't struggle half as much as some people, but his life wasn't exactly a cake walk and he wasn't about to sit there and compare lives and see who's was worse. That served no purpose to anyone. Just let everyone admit that life in general was a pain in the @ss and move the f*ck on. "Well, it's good. You should always ask questions. Learned that on in my first year... never forgot it." First year life lessons were probably some of the most painful, because they were usually someone's first instance of having something challenged. Friendships had been his first struggle and Jake and Analei still hated each other, despite his best efforts. He knew it was a lost cause these days, but he still lived in hope. "You definitely don't have to tell me that," he said, since he knew more than most how stupid people could be. Even his own friends held their prejudices. What Jake had said in the cupboard that day still haunted him, he knew his best friend hadn't meant it that way, or meant to hurt him, but the fact it had been the first thing to come to mind had stung. He laughed as she told him being a prefect was probably his worst quality. "Ha, thanks but I'm sure there's many who would disagree," there were some perks to being a prefect, just not generally enough to get Zennon to actually take houseplants off of people. He looked at her as she said she'd never heard parseltongue. Though, it wasn't a surprise, since she was asking him questions it was probably safe to say she didn't know anyone who was a parselmouth, so she clearly wasn't friends with Kasim. "It... yeah, I mean I'm used to the sound, so... it can sometimes be hard to tell how it comes across to people, but it's very distinct, I don't even really have to think about it sometimes, especially when I'm talking to a snake, it's all quite instinctual. When I'm talking to someone else, I have to think about it for a second, like flicking a switch in my brain, but it's... well, it's quite comforting for me to hear. I don't know if that's because I'm in very rare company and it's highly unlikely I'd meet too many other parselmouth's in my lifetime." He liked the way the parseltongue felt when he spoke it, and he liked the way it sounded too. It was just comforting to him, the way having snakes around was comforting. "Do you want to hear it? Maybe you can tell me how it sounds to you."​