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༉‧₊˚. arya ellington-wyver.
cogbucks café; the afternoon before the ellington-wyver family dinner.
arya strolled into the cogbucks café, nymeria at her heels. she was arya of house ellington-wyver, and she was most definitely allowed in the café which was dominated by mostly voxthain students. but still, arya didn’t fail to notice the number of dignified voxthain students leaving the café as soon as they saw nymeria with her. just arya alone didn’t cause much uprising, but most voxthain students still weren’t used to seeing nymeria here too, and the majority were still scared of her. not that it was nymeria’s fault, naturally. arya thought they just needed to grow a backbone.
the asterath students were fine with nymeria - or at least, finer than the voxthain ones. they acknowledged nymeria’s presence, and didn’t all scatter away, but that was about the best it got. at least they didn’t judge arya herself - or maybe they did, who knew - unlike the voxthain ones, who thought that arya wasn’t ‘noble’ enough. hmph. they thought that she was too wild, too unserious, too undignified to be a part of them - as if arya cared. she still had tris, and marianne.
she liked to think that she was quite popular, because she was. she had the best pranks in all the school ever since elliot delacroix and alex calico graduated, and she had a wolf and was naturally very charismatic! arya knew that she’d always been different from what people expected of her, and she had learnt to embrace that difference instead of let it get to her. wear your weakness as an armour - that way it can never be used against you.
arya grabbed a plain croissant and sat down at a table as far away from the judging voxthain students as possible. today was the long-awaited ellington-wyver family dinner, and arya knew to not let herself get too full before the dinner, otherwise she wouldn’t be able to resist any of the scrumptious treats her mums would lay in front of her and then she’d get a little too plump for her own good. arya split her croissant in two and offered half to nymeria, who ate it up gleefully and greedily, licking arya’s fingers when she was done, and arya giggled.
❝ 𝓣𝓻𝓲𝓼 𝓐𝓻𝓭𝓮𝓷 𝓓𝓮𝓵𝓪𝓬𝓻𝓸𝓲𝔁 ❞
"Rowan! Rowan, stop--"
The door to the café burst open seconds later, scattering yelping Voxthain students into the wind like loose, dry leaves. A few shouts and squeals went up as a ruddy red fox darted expertly through the crowd, scampering around ankles and feet, sleek and cunning as foxes were known to be.
Behind the fox, however, Tris was not sleek, and they yelped as they shouldered through people, using pointy elbows and jams of their shoulder to push people aside; those that would rather gawk instead of squeal like babies and move.
"Get out of my way!" They commanded, and then huffed, jamming an elbow into someone's side and straining to rise on their tip-toes. "Rowan! Stop it! Stop--come back!" Okay, but who had decided to only prop open one of two doors? Propping both would have allowed for a wider exit, but instead just one was open, and everyone was squeezing through one.
Also, why were there so many people leaving at once? With a frustrated hiss, Tris finally managed to shove their way through, stumbling out of the crowd. Honestly, being a Delacroix had its advantages--apparently--but they still could feel their skin prickle along the back of their neck, a sure sign they were being watched if they had ever known one.
But Tris didn't bother giving them a second glance, instead running over to where Rowan had stopped...and was currently panting and whining, about to jump on none other an Arya. A few years younger than them, Tris nevertheless found a kindred spirit of some sort in Arya. While they did not play pranks nearly as much as Arya did--nor did they quite like them--both had animals they loved and a free spirit that had them becoming fast friends.
Now, Tris straightened her aqua braids, pushing them behind their shoulder, and hurried on after Rowan. "Arya!" They greeted, and knelt, scooping Rowan up before she could jump into Arya's lap. Nymeria was here, too, predictably, and only then did Tris make that connection--the students had left at once because of Nymeria.
"Sorry about that," they added, and slipped uninvited into the open seat at Arya's table. "Hi, Nymmie," they added, reaching a hand out to Nymeria to allow her to sniff their hand, before they retracted it and scratched Rowan behind the ears. "And you. Do not go running off on me like that!"
Honestly, what use was there even to say that? Maybe some, and Tris did have a stronger skill with magic pertaining to befriending animals and charming living creatures, but they did not like using charm on Rowan. And no matter what they told Rowan, how much they were close, the little russet fox liked to do whatever she liked--honestly, much like Tris themself. They truly did not mind Rowan's antics, understanding the hatred of being cooped up in one place, but sometimes, even Tris did not like running through Cogworks and knocking people over to chase after their fox.
With a tiny yelp, Rowan licked their face, and Tris giggled, kissing her on the head and sighing, leaning back in the chair, settling in and petting Rowan's silky red fur. "Whatcha doin'?" They asked Arya, eyeing the croissant. "Hmm. Good idea. I should get one of those. Eventually."
༉‧₊˚. arya ellington-wyver.
cogbucks café; the afternoon before the ellington-wyver family dinner.
not long after arya had sat down, in fact, right after, a dash of red blurred her vision and came bounding right towards her. it took arya a second to process what the red thing was, but when she did—
“rowan!” she squealed as the fox jumped onto her and she gave her a squeeze, offering rowan some of her croissant - speaking of which, there was barely none of it left. nymeria had eaten half, rowan a quarter which meant arya had eaten… an eighth? there was around an eighth left, and arya hoped that by now she would know her basic maths and adding fractions.
arya watched as rowan’s human approached - because she didn’t like the word owner, every animal was its own free being - and smiled at tris. tris and arya were the only two in cogworks who had unusual pets and brought them to school and they had bonded over that, which arya thought was quite nice. it was lovely to know that there was someone like her out there in the world who favoured unusual pets over your normal cat and dog (yes, uncle lucien, i’m talking about you and your cats), and tris was a genuinely nice person with a genuinely nice fox, so what wasn’t to like about them? nothing, right?
“tris!” she said, tearing off another morsel of her croissant and tossing it in the air for the two animals to catch. “hullo there!” tris was a delacroix, and arya an ellington-wyver, neither of them fit into the stereotypical ‘voxthain noble’ at cogworks, unlike their sisters. weirdly, they were both called marianne, and both pretty similar, at least from what arya knew about mari. tris and arya were the wild ones, the rule-breakers, the nobles-gone-‘rogue’. the mariannes were introverted and well-mannered, arya and tris chaotic and adventurous.
she laughed as nymeria sniffed and licked tris’s hand. “it’s okay, i love rowan,” she said, stroking the little fox. “and rowan, you keep doing you. don’t listen to tris.” not that it would help though. the animals had a mind of their own, and arya had certainly learnt that through nymeria who refused to listen to arya, simply just because. she would have done better scolding a wall. rowan too, she guessed, but a little telling off never hurt anyone!
“i’ve almost finished. the animals took too much,” she laughed, eyeing nymeria. “you should get one though, it’s really good.” arya popped the last… sixteenth?… into her mouth, relishing the taste. “i have to go home and catch cats soon before the dinner so i thought i’d give myself some energy to go off of. what are your plans?” she didn’t see tris around as often as she would have wanted, mostly due to them being in a different year from arya and a couple years older, but she loved their little chats when both of them had the time. her uncle’s cats could wait. arya had a priority.
