[W.Willow] Acrobatics

[Echo Keir]

The silence of the chill May morning breaks, sounds of roosters crowing and doves cooing replace the night of owls and bats. The evening's reign is over, the sun creeps slowly over the horizon, and what does that call for? The ever lone figure, racing across the Hogwarts lawns. Her hair still drips after her morning shower, her robes are askew from racing the morning clock to get out of Gryffindor tower before the Prefect guard change, and all this flies madly around her as she charges towards her destination. Pumping arms and legs willfully, Echo tries to get her blood flowing, tries to get warm before her morning training session. She leaps over a bramble patch, curving her body into a dive roll at the last second. Almost immediately she's back on her feet, lunging to her right with both arms straight to her left, head down.

She straightens and looks about herself, 'Four years and still no one cares...' she thinks stoically. 'Perfect'. A mild and uncharacteristic smirk plays across her fair features as she begins shedding the unneeded tawdriness of her uniform; the outer robe, her tie, her vest... even her wand she bundles up and places in the hollow knothole of a nearby oak tree. She takes a good fifteen minutes to stretch, going from yoga to tai chi, to more common athletic and acrobatic stretches. Echo has been doing this for long enough that she knows how to take care of herself before a work out.

And then it's time.

She stands just beneath the lowest branch of the whomping willow tree, stands on one foot at a time to remove her shoes and toss them aside. She looks up at the tree, a bright glint in her dark shifty eyes, and she whispers, "Do your damnedest." And with her challenge still hanging in the air, she leaps up, and the dance begins...

[Eliot Moss]

Eliot, though not many were aware, had quite unusual habits. Though most of them consisted of unorthodox ways to broaden his knowledge, such as charming his food to teach him Transfiguration at lunch, many of them also included strange quirks like digging perfectly shaped holes in the middle of the Hogwarts grounds just after sunrise.

After clearing one of respectable size, Eliot leaned back on his arms and examined his work. A slanted smile overcame his expression and after a minute, he wiped his hands on his robes while simultaneously pulling out a dark brown seed similar to shape and size as a golf ball.

"All right, seedling," it vibrated in his hand as if to acknowledge Eliot's words. "This time you're actually going to grow, got it?"

Of course, Eliot had no clue whatsoever of the plant that was meant to grow from the stubborn seed - or if it even was a seed in the first place. He had unexpectedly found it near the apothecary in Hogsmeade lounging in the gutter and his curiousity inevitably got the better of him.

That was also the reason why he stopped suddenly to have a look at the Whomping Willow which was acting peculiar, even more than usual.

So, grabbing his things and gripping his wand, Eliot wandered to the rogue tree with an arched brow and careful exterior - much like he approached everything else. If he were expecting anything, a strange girl willingly throwing herself at the abusive trunk, and seemingly enjoying herself, wasn't it.

After a moment he realised it was Echo. She was in his year so he knew of her, but nothing much more than her name. Blinking back his surprise, Eliot finally forced words from his throat sure they sounded as bewildered as he looked.

And, of course, they were the least expected words of all.

"I'm trying to grow one. A Whomping Willow, I mean."

[Echo Keir]

After nearly ten minutes of jumping and diving, ducking and leaping, twisting and grappling her way through the swinging branches, Echo has only made it a fourth of the way up the trunk of the huge, violent willow tree. Right then, a male voice drifted up into her ears:

"I'm trying to grow one."

Echo looks down and sees a young man standing near the trunk of the tree. She squints and adjusts her position on her tree-limb-perch to try and make out who it is, but all she manages to catch is Ravenclaw blue trim on his robes, and the distinct lack of an authoritarian badge, 'Thank Merlin. Wait... grow? What in Godric's name...'

"A Whomping Willow, I mean."

'Well, that explains it.' It's then that a shadow in her peripheral vision snaps her back to the shaking, thrashing tree limb upon which she's crouched. Just in the knick of time she ducks under the branch, but loses her balance in the process. She feels herself falling forward, and immediately her mind starts racing;
'How the hell in the next ten seconds can I keep myself from ending up too battered, bruised, and bloody to be presentable at class?'
She sees a tree branch a few feet below her swinging back around for another bite before she hits the dust, and breathes a sigh of relief. She curls her body around further, and for a moment fears her plan might not work, and then...
-Whump-
She lands in a sitting position atop the very branch that was trying to knock her over the fences. From there she jumps lightly and gracefully to the ground beside the boy.

"Lovely idea as that is," she says, a cynical glimmer in her dark eyes, "maybe next time you could wait until I'm not in a life or death situation to share your gardening plans, though?" she turns her head and spits in a most un-ladylike manner, then continues her speech in a clear, calm tone of voice. "Now, if we were in Herbology or Potions, maybe even if we bumped into each other in the halls, I'd be more than happy to take time out of my day to listen to your green-thumbing hobbyist pursuits, but when I'm, oh, fifteen feet up in the air, trying to keep from becoming a splattered mass of Gryffindor guts thanks to a maniac tree," her voice cracks, "that is not the time to share your latest foliage fascinations, eh?"

She takes a deep breath, then sits cross-legged on the ground. "Pull up some grass, kid," she says, back to her calm, collected, blank tone of voice. "Now that I'm not struggling for my life, tell me more about this whomping willow plan."

[Eliot Moss]

The grass at Echo's feet jolted when she landed, as if thrust out of the ground by a gentle wind. Eliot watched the display with the same puzzled expression that his face seemed permanently set in when watching her.

Realising his mistake, Eliot had to wince. "You caught me off guard!" He protested, dropping to the grass next to her and raising a brow. "And it looked like you enjoy near death experiences; I was really just lending you a hand."

Echo really was an alluring character, the way she seemed to do and say exactly what she wanted. Watching her settle down, eyes penetrating and expectant, Eliot finally broke out into a small, secretive smile.

"Look at this," He pulled out the seed from where he'd buried it back in his robes, noticing it had somehow grown heavier with a small flicker of surprise. Then, Eliot grabbed Echo's hand to deposit the object into her palm. "Definitely something that will grow into a respectable obstacle course for one of your insane expeditions."

[Echo Keir]

"I caught you off guard?" she smirks. "Eh, I guess I can't blame you." She tilts her head as the boy sits down across from her, "As for life and death experiences, it's more like I need them than I want them... it's complicated," she shrugs to signal the finality of that conversation.

"Look at this."

Echo is thankful for the change of subject as Eliot pulls out the seed. "Strange little thing..." she muses as she takes the strange object in her hands. She turns it over and over curiously; it's dark brown with spiralling ridges around its spherical surface, it sits heavily in her hand, "A bit weighty for a seed, don't you think?" the thing rocks back and forth in her hand. "A bit responsive, too..." it jiggles a bit and rolls around some more. "Is this normal?" she asks, befuddled at the behavior of the seed.

Handing the item back she queries, "Where did you find that anyways? Whomping willow seeds--if that even is one--are on the Ministry's list of illegal trade items." She had seen the posters at least a hundred time by now walking through the halls; she could list every non-tradeable items in three of the seven main Ministry of Magic offices. Whomping Willow seeds were on at least four of them, though. "A naive little Ravenclaw like yourself didn't do anything bad to get it... did you?" her curiosity level was definately peaked.

[Eliot Moss]

Eliot straightened, wishing he had done something even remotely illegal to acquire the object for just a moment. Echo seemed the type to skive off rules regularly, no matter how dangerous it might have been to do so, so the Ravenclaw kept quiet for a moment as he studied the girl.

Finally, he grinned crookedly and shook his head. "Whatever it is, I found it in Hogsmeade. I've spent quite a while studying its properties, and the closest conclusion I can come to is a seed - however, there isn't any particularly similarities between it and the Whomping Willow." He paused, taking the sphere back into his hand. "Though, there aren't any particular similarities to any plant."

The thought made him frown and he placed it on the ground, vaguely hoping it would decide to grow miraculously. "Definitely strong magic though," Eliot added, hovering a hand over their project. "You know that feeling of completing a spell for the first time? How your wand is sort of heavy with suppressed magic and nearly feels alive?" Eliot grinned at his analogy, raising a brow at Echo as a challenge for her to disagree. "The seed somewhat holds that same aurora."

[Echo Keir]

Seeing the boys' face grow long in self disappointment, Echo sighs, "Can't expect everyone to be lawbreakers. Besides, innocence suits you. Don't lose that." As she releases the item back to Eliot, her hand feels weak in its absence; like when you've carried a heavy backpack for a long period of time and then take it off, how it feels like more weight is taken away than was actually there to begin with.

"You know that feeling of completing a spell for the first time? How your wand is sort of heavy with suppressed magic and nearly feels alive?"

Echo tilts her head--it's obviously a rhetorical question so she just waits for him to finish his thought.

"The seed somewhat holds that same aurora."

She takes her left hand--the one which had been holding the seed--in her right one and turns it back and forth a bit, "Poetic, I must say... but I understand where you're coming from." Her generally placid expression grows even more unreadable than usual as she stares at her hand. Before Eliot has a chance to be chivalrous and ask what she's thinking, she holds her palm out to him, "This ever happened to you since having that...thing?" three iridescent, diamond-shaped marks glitter on her skin.

[Eliot Moss]

Eliot smiled genuinely at Echo, before allowing the seed to be placed back in his hands. The deceiving, heavy weight strung anxious chords within his chest, and he tightened his grip.

"Has what happened?" He refocused his attention onto the Gryffindor, his worry dissolving into inquiry. At first he saw nothing but the spindly ridges of her palm, but he soon noticed a small diamond perched on the edge of her life line.

Two more glimmered with excessive beauty near her thumb and closely to her wrist, and Eliot breathed sharply in fascination. His own palm was not so much as numb with the seed's presence, much less decorated like stained glass.

After tracing one of the shapes with a finger, Eliot marveled at the glimmer that was left on his finger tips. It darkened almost immediately after his first glance, losing it's dust-like quality and crumbling into beads of dirt.

"It doesn't like me," he gathered with a raised brow. He then, rather vigorously, handed the seed to Echo with a secretive smile. "No wonder I can't seem to grow it." He watched carefully as she took the object, hoping to catch whatever it was that was marking her.

[Echo Keir]

"Has what happened?"

Echo raises an eyebrow in curious distaste at this answer. "That's not exactly the vote of confidence I was hoping for, you know," she says, a slightly grumpy tone in her voice. She lets her palm be inspected, hoping that maybe Eliot will be able to come up with some kind of hypothesis as to why the strange little orb reacted so strangely to her touch.

"It doesn't like me."

Echo's curiousity increases a bit. "Doesn't like you? And it does like me?" her expression becomes cautiously interested as the item is thrust back into her hand. She holds it gently, turning it about in her hands, watching as her palms become more and more completely covered in the tiny diamond-shaped marks. After only a few minutes, both hand are sparkling like an aurora borealis... and something catches her attention.
"Merlin..." she murmurs the exclamation as she holds the seed up for further inspection. Just like how the glittery dust turned to dirt when removed from Echo's skin, little spots of the dark brown sphere are beginning to glow the longer Echo holds it. "This is some crazy kind of seed..."

Echo soon begins to feel weary as she toys with the, now, glittery glowing orb. "You know, Moss..." she says, a slight drawl creeping into her voice. "I'm feeling kind of... dizzy. Where did you find this thing, anyways?" she queries, eyes fluttering drowsily.