The Road Might Be Long Sometimes (Gale)

[rhea]

It occured to Rhea while she was sitting alone in her Common Room, that even her habits were boring. Gazing about, she took in her surroundings; the large room was completely devoid of any living (or for that matter, deceased) soul - be it man, cat, or... rodent. In fact, the only thing that moved about where the shadows cast by the flickering fire-light. She took a moment to straighten out her yellow-striped pajamas as she sighed, momentarily breaking the silence of the quiet room.

All of the normal people were cozily tucked into their beds, slumbering peacefully. Not her though, she was too busy thinking, though so she didn't look quite so odd, Rhea had a spool of golden-colored yarn and a wooden crocheting needle, finding the repetitive motions easy enough to move through so it wouldn't appear like she was a space-case. She'd make a few loops before glancing down, checking her work before continuing further. Between the checks, Rhea's eyes rested on the flames, the crackling of the wood pleasantly slicing through the silence.

Her thoughts were both odd and varied, though almost all of little to no consequence. It was more or less just a menagerie of small things; like needing a new pair of brown shoes, or what she might wear to the Yule Ball should someone ask her to go (because unlike the Halloween Ball, she would not be going alone), or her mother's lack of letters for the past two weeks. Rhea assumed the woman must have finally started dating again, and that's why the owls would have been a major inconvience to explain, so long as the man was a Muggle.

The corners of her mouth soon pulled up in a smile as she wondered if any kid in the History of Magic had sent their parents a Howler before, or if that'd be against some sort of odd by-law the Ministry had in one of it's Ancient Tomes. A chuckle escaped her throat as she continued to muse on it, though she continued to add links to the growing rectangle. Rhea grumbled as she missed a stitch, having to pull out the yarn to correct the mistake, though a brief minute later she had recitfied it so that anyone who hadn't seen her mess up would never be able to tell.

[cally]

Gale wasn’t usually a night prowler. He had no business being out after curfew for the most part, but since he started seeing Jasper..he’d been quite the night adventurer. He stepped through the portal into the common room, grimacing slightly when he heard the squeaking hinges on the side of the painting that closed behind him. ”Eesh..” he mumbled, straightening his shirt out, trying to smooth out some of the wrinkles that were made from the item being in a heap on the floor for the last several hours.

Blushing a little at the thought, he took a few steps into the common room, blue eyes glancing around to see if anyone was up. He almost missed her the first time he looked around and he headed to the stairs that led to his dorm room but stopped short when he heard the soft clicking noise.

Stopping at the bottom of the stairs he looked around again and saw Rhea in her yellow striped pjs. Stripes weren’t Gale’s favorite style in anything usually, let alone pajamas. His feet took him over to the couch before he knew it and he smiled at Rhea, not knowing his hair looked a bit messy, like someone had been running their fingers through it a lot recently. ”Hey Rhea..are you.. knitting?” he asked with a teasing tone to his voice. He never admitted it to anyone here yet.. but he knew how to knit and crochet. His Grandma Deb took to it after her husband died and would rope in the grand-kids to accompany her.

[rhea]

The creaking of the portrait opening sliced through the dull silence that had been draped across the barren Common Room, which immeadiately pulled Rhea's eyes to see the blonde climbing through. She knew who it was immeadiately - Gale. Rhea liked Gale, he was pretty nice, though she couldn't think of why he'd just be getting in this late... was he a Prefect? The girl couldn't recall correctly in either direction whether he was or not, though, he didn't come across as nefarious to her, so she couldn't think of anything else to explain it.

As he made a move towards the stairs, she returned momentarily to her scarf-in-progress, until she heard him stop, which had caused her to look back up to him as he walked back over to her smiling, to which she gave one of her own. She had noticed he looked a little...windblown, but she quickly dismissed it as a possible gust of wind from an open window. When he spoke to her in that particular tone, she responded by sticking out her tongue before retorting, "No, actually. It's crochet."

As she sat there, it nagged at her, making her wonder where he had been. It wouldn't be hard for her to believe him if he had said something as simple as a walk or even Prefect duty, but still, the urge to ask was clawing at her. So with another smile, she simply put, "So you're up mighty late." Nothing particularly overbearing, but it allowed him to explain if he felt like it.

[cally]

He grinned when she stuck her tongue out at him and he returned it before looking at the project she was working on. It looked like it could be a scarf, or a place mat, or even the start of a sweater. He'd find out in a minute for sure what it was anyway so he didn't fret too much right now. He sat down on an empty cushion on the couch next to her sighing a little.

"Ah.. good old crochet" he murmured, smiling and he ran his fingers through his hair rubbing his scalp a little. Pushing his bangs out of his eyes he looked at the rectangle "Scarf? Or is that a start of someone's christmas sweater?" he asked not meaning to insult her project, it took someone with a lot of patience to crochet stuff. They also had to have a lot of free time.

He smiled a little embarrassedly when she mentioned he was out late. Glancing over at the clock he laughed softly when he realized just how late it was, he was damn lucky not to have been spotted by a prefect or professor on his way back from Ravenclaw Tower. "Yeah.. suppose I am" he said, not giving any information out on his whereabouts, but his right forearm did have some crusted paint on it. It wasn't visible much at the moment since his sleeves were pulled down mostly over his forearms but if Rhea had keep eyes in the firelight she'd be able to see it.

[rhea]

Rhea grinned as the boy plopped down on the couch, he was at least going to be sociable at this hour, which was good - at least the person who came through the portrait wasn't in a foul mood or, well - naked. Or worse than that, both. She shuddered at the thought of someone angry or rude and nude, it was an unpleasant combination she hoped to never see.

Her thoughts were quickly ripped from the unpleasant images when Gale spoke, to which she nodded an affirmation to him. "It's a scarf - er, I guess it could end up being someone's, but I don't, y'know, exactly do Christmas." It was a fair statement, given how she was raised. "I really just do this to give me something to do when it's too dark to read."

As much as Rhea liked to hear gossip, she didn't wriggle out information well, so she couldn't bring herself to press him for his whereabouts. She merely filled the lull in conversation with the first thing that came to mind. "Yeah, I couldn't sleep, so I figured I might as well come down here," she stated flatly, no inflection or expectation of his reciprocating reply, "This place, just doesn't quite feel like home yet, y'know?"

[cally]

Rhea doesn’t do Christmas? Gale was a little flabbergasted at that thought, he adored Christmas. For the family reasons at least, none of the real religious stuff. His brain trailed off from those thoughts when he noticed Rhea had shuddered in disgust about something and he almost asked but decided that maybe he didn’t want to know. ”Yeah.. could just be a scarf you give to someone and they ‘better like it since you spent a month on it’ ” he quoted laughing a little. ”My Grandma Deb would say that to us when she used to knit me and my sister these really..weird, for lack of a nicer term, sweaters” he smiled, still wondering why Rhea didn’t do Christmas but figured it was a private matter and Gale wasn’t one to pry too much.

”Yeah..I know what you mean. It doesn’t beat home by a long shot.” he said, looking around the common room and he sighed a little. By home he meant Pittsburgh in the US, he missed it more and more each day and could barely wait until he was of age to go back there and live with his parents in the big house they’d bought before getting married. He liked London well enough but he had no real intention on staying there.

He knew Rhea was from the states as well but wasn’t really sure where from exactly. He’d never asked so he figured he’d settle that curiosity right now ”You’re from the states too, right?” he asked, smiling warmly at her even though his eyes were looking a little tired. ”Where are you from?”

[rhea]

It wasn't like she was Scrooge or something and just boycotted the Holidays - the whole Yule-season, she just didn't do Christmas. She couldn't help but let out a hearty chuckle when he made mention of the allusion to a threat. Mainly because she had used to before - though it had been a poncho she had made - she could never make sleeves the right size for someone else, so she would just make the nice-sized neck hole and not have to worry about the rest. The chuckle became full-on laughter when he spoke about the weird sweaters, to which she could relate. "My Aunt has made some weird ones, too. When she figured out how to crochet flowers, she went a little overboard. Ever worn a field of woven yarn daisies? I have." It was a humorous thought, and she was pretty sure she had been unable to lose it after the few years she'd had it, so it was more than likely stuffed in the bottom of her trunk just in case the woman ever visted, or in case she ever needed to ship a large glass ornament or a vase.

She smiled warmly at his admission, at least someone got it, most people were so close by that they could fly home by broom if they had half a mind to. That was practically impossible for her to do - you couldn't just fly over the Atlantic Ocean. Rhea had forgotten that he and his sister had come from America, too, another fact that eased her mind - they were a lot more alike than she'd thought, even though she had somehow missed the accent, even if it was a good deal more subtle than her own. "Mhmm, I live, er, live- about two or three hours or so from Knoxville. In Tennesee, if you didn't know. How about you?"

((If it's not that great, I apolgize, I'm falling asleep at the keyboard.

Edit: Fixed a few things that were bugging me.))