Barnaby Pye and.....Caelia Lucan??
August 16, 2016 12:25 AM
Kitchen-skulking by Barnaby Pye and.....Caelia Lucan??
Barnaby Pye was the opposite of his half-brother, Alfred Pye, who had always been tall for his age. Whereas Alfie was dark and charming, naturally charismatic, Barnaby was fair. He could not talk to people in the same open manner that Alfie could, and his startlingly blue eyes served to upset rather than to soothe those he talked to, in opposition to the calming black eyes of his brother which sparkled with a hint of mischief from time to time. It was Alfie’s entrance to the Auror training program straight out of Hogwarts (and against their father’s wishes) that caused Barnaby’s father to search for the best tutors his money and magic could buy to quench his youngest son’s insatiable thirst for knowledge. Barnaby was to be the son that Alfie never was.Whereas Alfie craved contact with others, craved to be loved, to be wanted, Barnaby was always content to stay alone with his books, to expand his mind, to gain control over his most basic emotions until they were pushed so far down inside him that he didn’t need human contact to be happy. But for some reason as he walked out of Alfie’s office that evening he felt…lighter. It was as though all those things that were weighing down on him before were just gone. He wasn’t exactly about to go and make a new friend—he had Nevaeh at Sonora and Tarquin back home after all, but he didn’t feel the need to have any other sort of interaction with anyone else either.
He supposed he could have gone to his dorm and shut himself in his bed, taking along with him a hefty stack of reading material—he had been so preoccupied by his soon to be ex-roommate for so long he couldn’t remember the last time he read just for the sake of knowing more, but even if he closed the curtains there would still be other people there and Barnaby didn’t really like people at all.
It was weird, coming to this realisation, he thought as he walked out of the Aladren common room and out of the library and along the hallways in no particular direction. It had been so long since he’d just been able to be alone. He had forgotten how much he craved, how much he needed to be alone. It was the sight of a scurrying prairie elf, however, that caused a pang in Barnaby’s heart. While he had grown up alone for the most part, a consequence of having a workaholic father and an absentee mother who preferred partying to parenting, Barnaby had always had Calla and it was always Calla to whom Barnaby turned to in a moment of crisis.
Calla was not here at Sonora, however, but Barnaby knew where he might be able to find countless Calla stand-ins and he made his way to the kitchen hoping to find some sort of solace in the strange looking prairie elves. He didn’t even want to talk to them, didn’t even know if he wanted to order them about, it was simply being in a room full of them that he thought might help to mitigate the strange emptiness he was currently feeling.
To Barnaby’s dismay, when he got to the kitchen it was empty of all prairie elves. Logically he supposed it made sense as enough time had passed after dinner that Cascade Hall and the kitchen would have been cleared of any mess and perhaps the elves were doing their nighttime elf thing—whatever it was (Barnaby had never bothered to concern himself with the going-ons of what elves did in their spare time). But what was illogical about the situation was that in lieu of scurrying prairie elves, there was a witch Barnaby’s age sitting at the counter, her blonde ringlets falling on her face as she lifted forkful after forkful of rich chocolate cake to her mouth.
He recognised the girl as Caelia Lucan and frowned because he had never seen her so disheveled before. Barnaby stepped closer, his foot pressing on a squeaky board but Caelia didn't look up. Barnaby hesitated before opening his mouth to speak. He had never so much as showed concern for another person in his entire life, but for some reason he felt he had to see if she was okay. “Lucan?” he asked, slightly unsure of himself. It was rare he showed any compassion and Barnaby felt out of his element.
Caelia looked up, her fork clattering to the plate before her. “Oh,” she said. “It's you. What do you want, Pye?”
“Some of that cake if you're willing,” he said with a smirk. “Although I doubt there will be any left for me.” He raised an eyebrow. “You certainly have had your way with that thing.”
Caelia rolled her eyes and turned back to the cake. She picked up her fork and dipped into the frosting on the top, scooping up a large chunk and placing it on her tongue. It figured he was just going to make fun of her. She gasped and frowned momentarily as the plate was tugged away from her and the fork taken out of her hand. She looked up, prepared to scold Barnaby Pye for daring to steal the dessert she had coerced the prairie elves into making for her before ordering them to leave her in the kitchen in peace, when much to her chagrin she saw that he was now eating her cake.
“Cram it,” he said rather sharply before she could get a word in edge wise, and took another large bite.
She reached over and snatched the fork back. “I don’t know why you need the cake, but it’s mine. Get your own!”
Barnaby shrugged and summoned a fork before digging in alongside her, ignoring her warning to stay away from her cake. Finally, Caelia broke and asked him what was wrong. (There had to be something seriously wrong, Caelia thought, for Barnaby Pye to willingly associate himself with someone she knew he thought to be an intellectual inferior.) “Family stuff,” Barnaby replied rather casually, not even realising that was the truth until it came out of his mouth. “Ball stuff.” That, too, he was stunned to realise was on his mind. And strangely enough, although he had originally thought he wanted to be alone, the blonde idiot in front of him was becoming the perfect outlet.
And then, before he could stop himself. “You?”
Caelia repeated Barnaby’s gesture and shrugged. “Ball stuff too, I guess,” she frowned again, her smooth forehead wrinkling. “I have this friend who doesn’t go here and he’s upset that I’m going to the Ball with Jack Spencer. I thought he would be pleased it wasn’t Alistair since he seems to hate it that Alistair helps me with my school work and Jack’s almost family and he’s nice and now I won’t have to go alone, but it’s almost like he doesn’t want me to have any other friends besides himself.”
As Caelia complained about troubles that had previously seemed so very trivial to him, Barnaby came to a couple realisations. First, that Caelia Lucan wasn’t much more than a pretty face but that even the empty minded could have feelings. Second, that he had a very important letter to write. He made a face and stood up. “Right, well, it was a pleasure, see you around.” And he left.
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Barnaby Pye and.....Caelia Lucan??
Kitchen-skulking
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Barnaby Pye and.....Caelia Lucan??
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