Closed what on earth

[Lilith Ilves]

The latest duel between Eoghan and Eli had been quite tense and Lilith had no idea why one of them was staring daggers at her, as though she had something to do with the whole situation. Wasn't a duel between those two? Why did she get the feeling there was something deeper going on between the two. Lilith had left before it fully ended and now waited patiently for her boyfriend to be done with so she could speak to him. As soon as she saw him approaching she pulled him behind a corner and crossed her arms. "Explain, what on earth happened and why was it a full blown cat fight up there? And why was Meissa looking at me like I had something to do with it, why were you so up in his face? Did something happen?" She was not happy about missing out on important details, she'd told Eoghan about Demi, if something happened between him and his dormmates surely he'd tell her too.

 

[Eoghan Blyth]

The moment Eoghan saw Lilith he knew he had a lot of explaining to do. Initially, he'd planned to keep the whole thing a secret, but it was obvious that something was brewing when he'd been on the stage with Eli and he wasn't surprised when Lili cornered him at the first opportunity. He listened as she began her interrogation, waiting until she was finished with her questions. "Yes," was all he said. He'd paused, his pale blue eyes fixed on her. "Meissa?" he suddenly asked, not realising Eli had been given one her star names, too.

He'd started walking again, knowing that at some point he'd have to return to the platform because he wasn't finished yet, but feeling like he deserved a break or at least a drink. "It was Eli that sent you the pink rose during Valentines Lils," he announced, still walking down the hall. "He likes you." He wasn't sure how Lilith was going to take it in truth. Would she feel inclined to investigate the information for herself? Was he practically offering her away? Perhaps she wouldn't care, but it could still affect their friendship. "I asked him a few days ago, I thought it could have been Jonah actually but, he admitted it." Eoghan continued. "That up there?" Eoghan nodded his head to the side, indicating where they'd walked from. "I was trying to get him to back down." The second year suddenly stopped walking, turning back to face his girlfriend.

"I'm not threatened by him," he told her truthfully. "I believe that you are smart enough to be with who you want to be with, and if you wanted someone that wasn't me, well, then you would be," he didn't really want to think about that in reality, but he wasn't going to step in her way either. "But I'll admit I pretended to be, up there, because I wanted to win the duel." Did that make him a bad person? He didn't think so, although a lot of that answer would ride on Lilith's next words.​

 

[Lilith Ilves]

Lilith stared and shrugged, she had a habit of naming people after stars he knew it she thought she'd have mentioned Eli's nickname but maybe not. It wasn't relevant right now. "Yes gave him a nickname at the end of first year." She explained anyways starting after Eoghan. When the next words fell out of his mouth it took a second to register. A second for her to remember the mysterious pink rose. It had been Eli? Surely not. That was just a silly idea, but the more Eoghan spoke the clearer it was it was the truth. "Huh?" Was suddenly all Lilith could manage as her brain worked on the information.

Her mouth went dry and she felt unwell, had she been giving wrong signals and most of all what was the intention behind that rose. Was it to throw her off? Surely Eli wouldn't do that, but why had he not told her then again why would he have? Were they ever truly friends or was there a ruse to get something more out of it? There wouldn't be, right? It was nauseating going over the loops in her head so the Ravenclaw leaned against the wall next to her trying to focus back on the situation at hand. She'd focus on this issue later, for now there were more important things at play. "Good, because you shouldn't be threatened by him. He doesn't know everything between us, nobody does but we do. He doesn't know you the way I do, so you shouldn't be threatened by him or anyone." She spoke as much to ground herself as to assure Eoghan that he was right not to feel threatened by someone liking her. Feeling the cold stone wall against her back did little to ground so Lilith brought her hands to touch it too, the bare skin contact with the cold making it easier to think.

Lilith brought her eyes to look at her boyfriend contemplating his words about having pretended to be threatened, it went hand in hand with the backstory she had been told of his childhood. She could see why that was his reaction after all duels were well a game and to some maybe it was as much a mental one as a magical one so to say. "You did win the duel, I won't pretend and say that people are going to understand your approach, but I also don't think that using a mental tactic is necessarily wrong either. I perhaps myself wouldn't use mental games but I can understand someone else doing it, I'm sure there's plenty of it in the upper years and in the real world too." Well him and her both knew there was, perhaps thinking it wasn't out of the question made her a bad person or not but at this point people were going to think a certain way of her anyways. Clearly already did, proven by being stared at during a duel she had no part in willingly. Least she could do for her peace was stop caring so deeply of others opinion on her and actually focus on her life and what made her happy. "All in all, it happened within the duel doesn't mean it makes much difference on who you are or how you are outside of it. Sometimes you gotta separate the game and the player I guess. And I personally know who you are and how you are and that's enough for me."

 

[Eoghan Blyth]

Eoghan knew Lilith well enough that he could quite literally see the cogs turning in her mind as she came to terms with all the information all at once. He didn't make a move as she crossed to the wall, allowing her to figure out what she needed to feel better for herself. When he'd first found out about Eli, he was more concerned about how Lili would take it, and it had been the reason he'd planned to keep it a secret at all. Not knowing what part of his words Lili would focus on as a priority, he waited for her to make the first move, whether that was about Eli or about how he'd handled it.

Hearing Lilith tell him that using mental games wasn't necessarily wrong, had the Ravenclaw's head spinning too. On the one hand of course, he knew why he did it, but he didn't want Lilith to get the wrong impression either. "Mental games aren't right, either," he said, feeling as though she was looking straight through him, "I only did it because it was just that, a game." The second year wanted to win of course, but the idea of people manipulating each other on a day-to-day basis would have been different. The blond took a few steps closer, "Making people doubt themselves or, making them feel like they have no other options? Yeah that could be considered bullying, and it can be a slippery slope to believing that it's justified in situations if it means you can protect yourself," he knew it all too well. "I'd never do that again to someone because I don't think that's me," he'd grown from that person, in many different ways.

"I feel bad for Eli, I tried to be his friend. After I found out about the rose I still wanted him to be there for you, but if he's going to hold on to the grudge that what happened on that platform is who I truly am, and not the person he's been sharing a room with for two years, I'm not going to beg him to change his mind." Whatever Eli wanted to think about Eoghan, he'd let him. It wasn't as though he would particularly feel the absence of the Ravenclaw anyway. Eoghan stepped closer still so that now he was beside Lilith, "All that being said, I am nervous it will change the dynamic of your friendship" Even if Lilith hadn't found out or asked him what was going on, Eli was likely to distance himself from Lilith now wasn't he? And that would be his fault despite his previous attempt to heal it. "I didn't mean for it to go this way, I thought Eli would understand once it was over, remember what we'd said before. But, if you want me to try to talk to him again I can, because I don't want you to lose someone because of me." Of that, Eoghan was more scared than he dared to admit. Of everything in his life, Lilith was the best thing to have happened, so to consider himself the reason behind something that impacted her negatively wasn't a prospect he wanted to be careless with.​