Open Quiet Views

[The Blue Lady]

Open after Kadi posts with Poppy.

Sometimes it was hard to keep track of the passage of time. Blue often counted the seasons in periods of activity and silence, only knowing the year had ended once the students were all gone, watching the shadows stretch silently over empty corridors in the summer and sitting idly during the long darker stretch of winter. But the shadows were lengthening again and Blue could see students begin to mill about again. She didn't often have many who stopped to chat, but she still relished the activity around her. She hadn't never felt quite bold enough to leave her own portrait, and that left her little to do with her days beyond stare out of her own painted window, or the real ones across the hallway. Blue only wished her view was slightly better, having little to see but patches of sky from the high windows. Still, now that the students were back, Blue looked forward to watching and listening to their chatter, it had been too quiet.

 

[Poppy Perkins]

Poppy had intended to go right to the girl's dorm after the Sorting Ceremony but had somehow found herself in an unfamiliar hallway. One moment she was walking along with her classmates her thoughts preoccupied about what her roommates would be like, what lessons would be her favorite, as well as dozens of other things. She hardly noticed the sounds of footsteps fading until she was alone with the familiar thud of her well worn boots on the stone floor.

Poppy usually had a very reliable sense of direction but the maze of hallways did her no favors. She looked back the way she came chewed on her bottom lip, realizing she was most defiantly lost. She glanced around the hallway and one of the paintings stuck out to her, a lady dressed in blue.

She didn't really believe it at first, when other students mention that the paintings could talk! Yet she had heard some of them great her when she arrived. She walked slowly toward the painting, watching it carefully.

Poppy didn't know if a portrait would give useful directions, but she figured it couldn't hurt to ask. "Um...excuse me." she said quietly to the painting. "I think I might be lost."

 

[The Blue Lady]

Blue was brought from her reverie by the sound of a voice, glancing out at the corridor a few times to be sure the young student was actually addressing her. "Oh hello, dear," Blue said, tucking her hair behind her ears and leaning closer to the frame to get a good look at her. "That's quite alright, it's a big school. Are you a first year? Where are you trying to get to?"
Blue didn't leave her own painting very often, but she had a vague idea of where most things were and how the castle worked. But mostly, she was glad for the distraction, she didn't see a lot of students usually until classes started, and by then they were all busy with places to get to. "I'm afraid I can't show you the way, but I can probably point you in the right direction." She smiled again at the girl. She had to be a new student, they always looked just so small in their new school robes.

 

[Poppy Perkins]

Poppy's eyes lit up as the portrait spoke back to her. She wondered if magical things would ever stop being so exciting. She took a cautious step closer to the painting.

"Yes." she said a little breathlessly. "I am a first year! I just got sorted into Ravenclaw. I was supposed to be walking back to the girls dormitories when I starting thinking and then all of a sudden...I was here." Poppy said quickly then trailed off, glancing around the cavernous corridor.

She looked back at the painting still fascinated as she stared at the details in its flat surface, watching the woman blink and stare back at her. She reached out and (gently) touched the frame of the portrait as her brain began to flood with a million questions.

"Are you stuck in there? How can you talk or move? Have you always been a painting? If you've always been a painting, who painted you? My mother is a painter! She mostly paints landscapes and abstract things but she's also not a witch. Which I would assume is important." Poppy finished with a thoughtful look on her face and realized she was rambling, which wasn't polite when having a conversation according to her mother. But it just seemed so fantastical to be speaking to a painting.

 

[The Blue Lady]

"Oh well congratulations on your new house," Blue said warmly, it was clear the young girl was excited. "I'm sure there's a lot of new things for you to think about right, I understand," She said kindly. Blue certainly could relate to losing track of time with one's thoughts, though thankfully she never had to worry about getting lost.
Blue watch carefully as the girl touched her frame, trying not to fidget too nervously. It wouldn't do to yell at some poor lost first year for just being curious, but Blue was awfully wary of children and the chaos she'd seen them cause over the year.
She was distracted from her concerns by the girl's slew of questions, taking a moment to blink as the young girl just kept talking. "Oh no, I'm not trapped here. I don't often go anywhere, but I'm just. Content in my frame. I could go out for a wander if I wanted I suppose. But I don't really do that," It sounded a bit sad, to be said, even to Blue, but it was true. She was perfectly happy being here, day after day, watching her windows and doing her sewing. Really. "I have always been a painting, yes, though I'm afraid I didn't get to know my painter very well. I believe he was a rather reclusive Dutch gentleman, though we never spoke much,"
Blue smiled sweetly when the girl went on to talk about her mother. She often wondered if her human counterpart had had a family, and if they knew her portrait existed. "Are you a painter then too? Like your mother?"

 

[Poppy Perkins]

Poppy listened intently as the lady spoke to her, still amazed. "I'm not much of a painter myself. But I do love to draw! Mostly plants and animals. But I've just started to draw portraits myself! Though I'm not very good yet." She said shyly but continued with more enthusiasm. "Your Dutch artist must have been very talented. You are very beautiful!"

Poppy thought about what the lady had said before, about staying in her frame. She tried to imagine what it would be like to be a portrait, staying in one spot all day. Poppy turned her back to the blue lady and stood on her tip toes in an attempt to see the castle from her perspective.

The corridor was dark and quiet this time of night. She tried to imagine what it was like with students running about. Did anyone ever notice her. Poppy tried to think of times when she really noticed the art on the walls back home. She knew they were there but she never really paid them much attention, and she suddenly felt sad.

She turned back to the portrait, "Is it always so quiet here....do you ever get lonely?"

 

[Lars van Houten]

Lars never really knew how he found himself in different parts of the castle. Sometimes he was so lost in a daydream that he just kind of... ended up somewhere, like his feet had a mind of their own. He'd been here before, that was for sure, but he wasn't really certain if this was the fifth or sixth floor. He knew it wasn't the fourth, because that was where the library and the student lounge was, and the Hufflepuff common room. Lars had spent a bit more time on the fourth floor lately in the hopes of running into Elliot, though that hadn't happened yet.

Lars stopped walking when he realized he could hear two people talking but only saw one. He blinked, noticing the girl was young and had red hair. For a moment he thought it was Iris, his younger sister, but then realized it wasn't. But he was then immediately distracted when he saw who, or rather what?, no who was probably more polite, she was talking to. The painting was lovely and Lars immediately felt his eye drawn to the texture of the paint on the canvas, his fingers itching to try something similar himself. He could hear part of the conversation, and reacted without thinking. "Dutch? I... I'm Dutch." He then blushed immediately, realizing that wasn't really relevant to their conversation, or a normal thing to blurt out. He cleared his throat. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to eavesdrop. But that's- I mean, you're a really nice painting. I like to paint and noticed, uh, the style...." He said uneasily. "Sorry to interrupt... I'll uh, go..." He mumbled. The girl had just asked a personal question of the painting, and here he was stumbling into their conversation with a dumb comment. Maybe he should avoid this corridor from now on, he had just embarrassed himself in front of a painting and a first year.

 

[The Blue Lady]

"That sounds wonderful, I'm sure you'll get better in time," Blue said gently. She often tried to while away her own time with her sewing and folding, but she never really seemed to get anywhere. At the girls next complement, Blue flushed, resting a hand on her chest. "Oh why thank you, that's very sweet of you to say,"

The flattery was short lived with the girl's next comment, and Blue felt a bit stumped for how to answer. "Ah, well-" Blue started, but was saved by the arrival of another student. He was a little older perhaps, it was so hard to tell, but certainly taller. "Oh, hello," Blue said with a smile, it was nice to get to speak with so many more people after the quiet of the school break. "A Dutch painter, why how lovely. No, it's alright, my new friend here just got a little turned around so we were chatting." Blue noticed the matching robes the Dutch painter was wearing, wondering if he might be able to point our the ladies' dorms for them. Though she feared it also meant the end of their conversation if he did.

 

[Poppy Perkins]

Poppy was so focused on the portrait that she jumped at the sound of another voice in silent deserted corridor. She looked over and saw an older boy with red hair and Ravenclaw robes. She stood there quietly as the he spoke to the portrait. He mentioned being Dutch and a painter which Poppy thought was quite a coincidence, she wondered what kind of thinks he liked to paint.

She also found herself smiling when the blue lady called her a friend. When she left for school she never could have imagined that the first friend she would make would be a talking painting but it felt nice all the same to have someone here who liked her.

"I got lost on my way to the dorms. I was just thinking about...everything when I realized I got turned around. Your in Ravenclaw, does that ever happen to you? What kind of things do you like to paint? I was just talking about my mother who's a painter. Are you any good? I know I'm not." When she finished, she was nearly out of breath and was slightly embarrassed because she had started to ramble again. Her father always told her that conversations should but be equal, back and forth. But it wasn't her fault she had so many questions.

"My name is Poppy by the way." She said and held out her hand to greet the boy, when she suddenly realized she made an incredibly rude mistake. "Oh! I asked you what your name was?!" She asked turning quickly to face the lady in the portrait.

 

[Lars van Houten]

Somehow, Lars was sure both the painting and the girl would gladly take the opening he gave them to have him leave again. He'd just barged into their conversation and blurted out things about himself. He blushed faintly when the lady in the painting called him a Dutch painter. That made him sound a lot more established than he actually was. "Oh... if you're sure." He said hesitantly. The girl told him she got lost on the ways to the dorm. The way she described getting turned around as she was thinking about everything actually sounded very familiar to him, and he nodded. "All the time. Sometimes my mind just wanders and my feet do too and I find myself in some odd place without going there on purpose." The girl asked him a few more questions very quickly, and he blushed a bit more and shrugged, rubbing at his nose. "I... I like to paint flowers mostly, and other things from nature. My mother is a painter too..." He wasn't sure how to answer her question about whether or not he was good, so he just shrugged. The girl introduced herself as Poppy and then asked the lady in the painting what her name was. Lars chimed in too. "I'm Lars." He said after a moment. He was curious about the name of the lady in the panting. He wondered if she chose a name herself, or if the artist had named her. Or maybe she was a portrait of a real living person?

 

[The Blue Lady]

Blue smiled warmly at the young man's hesitance, waving him over insistently. It was nice to have so much going on in her corridor lately. "Sounds like you two might be kindred spirits," She said knowingly. Blue sometimes wished she had someone like that, but it could be hard at times to relate to the students at the school, for all that she was a human likeness, their experiences would always be quite different. Blue smiled as the two spoke back and forth about painting, it was very sweet to watch. "Oh flowers, how lovely. It sounds like painting runs in both of your blood," Blue was glad to see both students getting along so well. She knew she couldn't take credit for a random encounter, but she liked to think she helped facilitate their potential blooming friendship. "Lars, Poppy, you can call me the Blue Lady. Or Blue, if you like." Blue said, nodding her head at the two of them. She'd grown quite fond of the nickname lately, it felt a bit more her own than the random title she'd been given so many years ago.

 

[Poppy Perkins]

Poppy gave the painting a small curtsy. “It’s very nice to make your acquaintance, Blue.” She wasn’t sure how you were supposed to greet a talking portrait but she figured this was good enough. Now that she knew her name, Poppy felt the need to make a proper introduction. She never got an answer, if she was lonely or not, but it was getting late.

Poppy turned her attention back to the boy who had also introduced himself. Poppy had felt a small sense of comfort as he had explained how he also gets lost in thought and finds himself in odd places. As he continued talking, Poppy realized they were more alike than she originally thought, and she felt bad for cutting him off earlier. “I like to draw flowers! And animals! Especially one's I've made up. But I’ve never been particularly good with paints, they never seem to do what I want them to." Blue was right, they did seem to be kindred spirits. "It’s nice to meet you Lars.” she said and stood up straight as she held out her hand to shake. She had been so nervous about making friends at this new school, but maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

 

[Lars van Houten]

Lars blushed a bit when the portrait lady said the might be kindred spirits. He wasn't sure what to think of that, as he didn't really know the girl very well. But she did remind him a lot of his sisters, and he instinctively felt a bit protective of her because of it. But as the girl, Poppy, explained she liked to draw flowers and animals, he did feel a bit like maybe the phrase wasn't wrong. They seemed very similar. "Maybe I could show you some painting techniques sometime." He said softly, the words coming almost automatically. He blushed faintly, wondering if she would find it a weird suggestion. "It's nice to meet you too Poppy, and Blue Lady." He added, nodding at the painting. "Have you been hanging in this school for long?" He asked her nervously. He wasn't sure if she would be annoyed by too many questions, but he thought she was fascinating. If she'd been here for years, she had probably seen a ton of students and knew a lot of interesting stories.