Closed finding new paths

[Eoghan Blyth]

Feeling sweat drip down the back of his neck wasn't a sensation Eoghan had much experience with before he'd come to Hogwarts. Now, however, six sessions in with his weekly run with the Gryffindor who was trying to demonstrate firsthand the importance of keeping physically fit when it came to balancing magic and spellcasting, it was a sensation that Eoghan was getting increasingly accustomed to. He was doing his best to focus on his breathing as they started their track around the great lawn. When he'd signed up with the Student Defence Association, he hadn't realised this was going to be the result of it.

Eoghan wasn't sure yet whether or not he called Tori a friend, but she was certainly more than some of the acquaintances he had come to learn the names of. She was interesting and Eoghan could tell that she wasn't just here to waste her time like some of the other students, and instead she had the ambition and determination that Eoghan found to be very rewarding in a friendship. It wasn't that Eoghan felt as though he needed to gain anything from those he called a friend, quite on the contrary the only thing he would ask for was mutual trust, however, he did like to witness other students doing things to better themselves, and running as it happened, was doing just that. "How far are we going today?" he'd asked Tori, taking her lead since she was the one more accustomed to this kind of activity.​

 

[Victoria de Lacey]

"I think we can swing by the lake this time," Tori answered, shaking out her arms to help with the stretching. When she'd offered for Eoghan to go running with her like she did most mornings, she'd not specifically expected him to join her, but was glad that he had done so. Back home, she used to run the length of her street in Obsidian Harbour and it would usually take her fifteen minutes. She'd started adding to her numbers when she'd gotten to school, working her way around to all the open areas just on the off chance to found somewhere really good to run. She'd immediately sworn off the forbidden forest since she knew that was dangerous and unlike Lumos she actually did respect his dad, mostly. Well, not so much since the incident with Jasper, but she would get over it eventually probably.

She pulled her hair up into a ponytail as she ran, the warmer summer air making her hair stick to the back of her neck uncomfortably. They might have to move their activity closer to the school for some shade later in the month, but for the moment they'd be fine. "Eventually I'm aiming to lap the whole school," she told him, just some basic small talk. She wished she could listen to music like those times her mum had taken her on a trip into the muggle world. They had these cool things called AirPods and she didn't even have to be anywhere near the device that had the music in it. How coool. Maybe they could invent like a mini magic orchestra for her ears.​

 

[Eoghan Blyth]

Eoghan wasn't exactly a fan of the lake although he hadn't told Tori of the day he'd fallen in it. At least they would only be going past it and not through it, that was something. Unlike Eoghan, Tori seemed to have an easy time getting into the routine of running and perhaps that was because she was more used to it than he was, but he was trying not to let it defeat him. Instead, having someone who was already this motivated was what he kept telling himself, that it was good for him to spend time with someone who was trying to help herself and him at the same time. "The whole school?!" he repeated, trying to work out how far and how long it would take them to do the entire lap.

"Hold on, hold on," Eoghan hadn't been running long when he had to pause, and as much as he didn't want to weigh Tori down he needed a moment. The pain on the side of his stomach was made so much worse when he was running, and he just needed to pause for a second for it to clear again. "How do you not get a stitch?" he asked, resting his hands on his knees as he felt as though he would fully keel over if he kept running without a pause. ​

 

[Victoria de Lacey]

Tori laughed at Eoghan when he seemed a little concerned about the lap of the whole school. She was aware they wouldn't be able to do it at the moment, since it would be ridiculous to think that lapping the school was possible this early on, especially with a bit of the drier heat that would come in over the summer, but she didn't think it was that ridiculous. She'd been for longer runs than this. The only reason she hadn't joined the run club was because she didn't like running in groups, she preferred to set one pace and one pace only, at the moment that pace was to accomodate Eoghan, but once he was up to her level, which she doubted would take long, then they could go a lot faster, and run a lot further. That was what she was looking forward to the most. She stopped when he called for them to hold up and she jogged on the spot, not wanting to lose her momentum. "Oh," she frowned slightly, not even realising she hadn't gone over that with him. "Sorry, that's my fault, I do stretches before I run, those little kicks and the movements I was doing when you first met up with me this morning was stretches, I'd just assumed you'd already done some," she said, stopping her jogging. "Do you want to do some with me now? It should help."​

 

[Eoghan Blyth]

Eoghan would have glared at Tori for laughing at him if he didn't feel like he was about to throw up his breakfast on the grass. "I know they were stretches," he replied, a little more harshly than he'd intended. He'd realised she was warming up although he hadn't understood how necessary they were, nor how they'd affect the different parts of his body. Tori paused her jogging on the spot to ask if he wanted to do some too, "Show me.." he began, pausing to rephrase his sentence, Lilith's words ringing in his head, "Can you show me the ones that will stop my stomach hurting?" he asked nicely. He was young, why should he have had to warm up his body before running when he practically moved all the time? It wasn't like he was stuck behind a desk every day and besides being in Ravenclaw meant Eoghan was getting perfectly adept at keeping fit by going up the stairs. ​

 

[Victoria de Lacey]

"Sorry," she said, backing off a little because he clearly wanted some space. She didn't think he had intended to sound harsh, but he might have been in a bit of pain because she knew from experience that sometimes pain could be a real upset for some people. She was usually okay specifically, but she was used to it since she had a tendency to break bones all the time from doing silly things, but her mum would just drop her off at the healers and she'd be back in time for lunch. She stretches a little herself as he asked her to show him and then nods, getting into her open legged position, placing both legs in a grounding stance, almost like a sumo wrestler, knees bent. "This is your starting pose, and if you want to deal with your stomach, assuming its a stitch, you wanna try this," she says rolling her body forward slightly to show him what she meant. Getting the simple stuff downbeat would mean he could learn some of the more advanced stuff.​

 

[Eoghan Blyth]

"It's fine," Eoghan replied just as quickly to Tori's apology. He hadn't meant to sound harsh and seeing her take a step away from him made him realise what he was saying. The Ravenclaw watched as Tori moved into a new position that would help with his running, and he was quick to mirror her. He felt like a fool but at least he wasn't the only one doing this, and if nothing else it should also have helped his stomach. "Who taught you all this?" he asked. He knew Tori had been running for a while but she must have run with someone before she'd taken to doing it by herself. As he was working on the movement that he was being shown, it occurred to him that Tori had already told him sorry twice in the last few minutes. Eoghan seemed to be great at pushing people away from him or making them feel like they had something to apologise for, but how was he supposed to be anything but himself? He knew he was unapproachable, but that was intentional since he didn't want people getting too close to him, perhaps he'd put up his walls so high that by the time he considered someone a friend, he didn't know how to properly treat them either. ​

 

[Victoria de Lacey]

"Some of it is my dad," she said, shrugging, "some of it is my brother Rory, he's a seventh year, he's on the Quidditch team and he's a Ravenclaw," she added after that, a sense of pride in her tone about how well she perceived her brother to be doing. She was sad that he would be leaving at the end of this year, but she wondered if she would be able to see him graduate, she knew the guest list was only small, but maybe he could squeeze her in, though she knew he might want their mum and his dad to see him instead, maybe she could sneak into the great hall to watch, she would love to see him walk across the stage, she was very proud of him. She bent herself in a couple of different directions that she hoped would allow Eoghan to follow along easily, getting a stitch wasn't fun at all, and it was one of the things she typically tried to avoid if she could. Taking a quick break, she stood up properly and dropped the small pack she was carrying onto the ground to reach into it for a water bottle but screamed and jumped back as a massive, hard spider came crawling out from inside of it. Tori felt every muscle in her body freeze up as she stared at it in absolute panicked silence.​