The Nature of the Beast

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Ria had had enough of cleaning up. She and Will had already spent the morning clearing the White Ribbon House common room of everything orange and black, or even remotely Halloween-related, as well as cleaning the entire room from top to bottom. Now, the room, sparkling clean, was hers to decorate. While there was quite a bit of time until Christmas, or whatever winter holiday people celebrated, Will had already dragged in a pine tree for her to decorate, as well as pulling out some vestiges of lights and baubles. Ria hadn't asked where they came from, and Will didn't tell her, but the fact that a few of the balls were broken made it very, very possible that she knew where they were from.

However, it wasn't until the tree was half-way finished that she ran across the ornament that nailed it down. It was a small dog, a husky or malamute, and she remembered the day that she had first seen it. Her father had brought it home, wrapped like a Christmas present, and despite her arguments that presents waited until Christmas Day, he had insisted that she had opened it. It had held the pride of the tree that winter, and every winter after that. Setting it onto the ground, out of the way, Ria felt tears welling up. She couldn't remember their faces anymore, and she didn't have any pictures of them either. It was strange, how she remembered some things, but the things that were really important, well, those simply faded away.

[Athena Achilles]

Athena stepped out of Ms Kallias' car and nodded silently as the woman spoke to her. She swallowed as she pushed the door closed, blinking back the tears that she refused to shed in front of the woman. Walking away from the car, as she knew that her social worker wouldn't drive away until the girl was inside, Athena walked up the front steps, let herself into the House and leaned against the door after she had closed it, allowing a couple of tears to trail down her cheeks before she wiped them away.

Sighing, she headed toward the common room. She wanted to go straight up to her room, but she had left her book-bag in the common room when Ms Kallias had collected her that morning, and it held her tablet. She hadn't meant to leave the bag in the room, but the woman had swept in here so suddenly that Athena was sure that if she hadn't been dressed it wouldn't have mattered.

The fragrance of the pine needles caught her nose before she stepped into the room. Closing her eyes, she was suddenly on a frozen pond in England and skating freely on the ice, the smell of pine filled the air as the pone was surrounded by trees, some of which had recently been felled for Christmas. Shaking her head, she was back in the here and now, the memories today once again fresh in her mind, and she stepped into the room.

She glanced around for her bag, unable to spot it, her eyes landed on the young charge of the man that governed the House. "Are... Are you alright?" She asked, concern filled her voice as her own troubles forgotten as she looked at the girl.

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Adrianna looked up as she heard the door to the house open, but then ignored it, turning back to the small figurine. How Will had managed to persuade the people to send these, when they hadn't bothered sending anything else, she didn't know, but then, she was glad that he had... Or was she? She couldn't quite decide how she felt about being reminded of her memory's failings.

A voice behind her made her turn, tearing her eyes away from the ornament, and she was surprised to see a girl standing there. She dashed away the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand and tried smiling, although it didn't quite turn out that well, "I'm okay, thank you." She glanced back at the ornament, "Found something that I wasn't expecting." She picked the ornament back up, weighing it in her hand as she held it out to the other girl to see, "My dad brought it home a few years ago, but I haven't seen this one for a few years. I didn't realize that Will had kept them." She bit the inside of her lip, trying to keep the tears back, then indicated the tree, trying to change the topic, "Do you want to help me decorate?"

[Athena Achilles]

Athena gave the girl a small smile before she reached over and grabbed the box of tissues off a table to her left and held the box out to the girl. She looked at the ornament that was being held out, but made no move to touch it as it obviously meant something to the girl. "It's pretty." She replied. Still being relatively new to the Academy, and keeping out of the limelight, Athena hadn't learned the workings of the Academy yet, and had always assumed that Mr Gibbson was the girl's father, as they shared the same surname, but it not seemed that this wasn't the case.

She glanced at the tree that the girl had been decorating, leading to her current state, and nodded. It had been her intention to just grab her book-bag and exit the room, but it seemed that Adrianna could do with a little company. "Sure, I'd love to help." She replied. "You'll need to give me a little guidance though. Cleaning is more my thing then decorating." Which was the truth, as Athena had never helped decorate a tree before. At school, the trees had always arrived fully decorated, and more often than not completely fake. And when she was in foster homes, the decorating of the Christmas tree had been a family thing, something that orphan-Annie, wasn't included in.

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Adrianna took a tissue from the box gratefully and then set the box next to her before she dabbed at her eyes, "Thank you." As she heard the girl's comment, she nodded, then set the ornament up by the tissue box. She would probably put it in her room instead of on the tree where anyone might come and take it.

As the other girl, who was only a few years older than herself, responded in the affirmative, Ria managed a smile, "Cool!" She was shocked to hear that the girl would need help decorating, "You've never decorated a Christmas tree? It's really easy, you just put stuff up and try to make it look nice without over-cluttering it." That was, at least, how she had been going about decorating the tree.

As she gestured to the boxes of ornaments, she smiled, "Those are all ours to mess with." As she picked out another bauble that looked like it'd match the overall scheme, she realized that she didn't even know her co-decorator's name, "I'm Ria, by the way. Adrianna, on paper, but no one calls me that." She found a place for the little ball and hung it, making sure that it was secure enough not to fall down.

[Athena Achilles]

Athena gave the girl a small but warm smile in return. She silently observed how the coveted ornament was tenderly put aside, rather than placed on the tree for all to see, but didn't comment on it.

She shrugged at the decorating comment. "The trimming of the tree has always been a family thing in the houses I've been in, and as I don't have a family I was never asked to assist." She knew that the younger girl didn't need to know that she didn't have a family, but Athena had never found a reason to either lie about it or cover the truth with candy coated stories. She stepped forward and looked into the boxes and then back that the tree that had been, so far, decorated in blues and silvers. "I like your colour scheme." She said honestly. "They are two colours that complement each other and aren't hidden in the tree."

She looked in the box she was closest to and gently moved the ornaments aside until she found a silver three-dimensional carousel horse and lifted it out of the box to have a closer look. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Ria." She said. "I'm Athena." She shrugged. "There's no shortening my name, though in the past a really nasty girl used to call me Athens, can't work out why, since it never bothered me." She took the ornament to the tree and placed it gently on one of the boughs, making sure that it sat nicely with enough room around it so that people could see what it actually was.

"We have eventing class together." She commented as she went back to the box. "You ride that beautiful piebald mare." She smiled toward the girl. "I love that you have left her mane so naturally long." She'd too many Cob's in England that had had their manes hacked off to make them look 'nice'. She pulled out a midnight blue bauble with silver snowflakes scattered over it and carried it to the tree. "Do you have an angel for the top of the tree?"

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Ria nodded as she heard the girl's explanation for why she had never decorated a tree, frowning as she considered it, "That's sad, though. They should have let you help." She knew a bit about the whole foster care system, even though she had only been a part of it for about a month while paperwork was finalized, but that had been enough, thank you very much. As she heard the girl's compliment, she grinned broadly, "Thank you!" She had spent a lot of time trying to decide on colours, and apparently, it had paid off.

When she heard the girl's name, Athena, Ria nodded, "That's a really pretty name, I like it!" As the girl spoke about shortening it to Athens, or even anything, Ria shook her head, "I think Athena is good just the way it is." She looked through the ornaments before she found a blue-and-silver striped ornament, and then stepped towards the tree to find the perfect place for it.

"That's right!" She hadn't really spoken to the girl in class before, having focused more on getting everything right, since she was new to eventing, but she could remember it now. As the girl commented on Moo, Ria's face shone, "She's the best, Cara helped me pick her a few years ago." She tried to remember which horse the girl had ridden, and then remembered, "You have that dun horse, right? I can't remember his name." She glanced around at the assembled boxes, "We had one, but I haven't seen it yet. I don't know if it maybe didn't get packed."

[Athena Achilles]

Athena shrugged as she hung the bauble she was holding onto the tree. "I was normally too busy with skating to pretend to be part of a family anyway." She replied as she went back to the boxes.

She smiled at the complement to her name. "Thanks. At times I think my name was meant as some kind of a joke. Athena is the Greek Goddess of wisdom and battle strategy." She shrugged. "The only place I'm good at battle strategy is on the ice." Talking about skating made her miss it all the more, and she was still trying to reason why her social worker had pulled her out at the top of her game, she had been on her way to qualifying for the winter Olympics.

She smiled as the conversation moved onto horses. "Yeah, his name is Bear. He belongs to the Academy, but I love him as though he were my own." The only problem she had found with the gelding, was that he quickly got bored of dressage, and being an eventer, this brought Athena into problems. There again though, the gelding was trained solely as a cross country horse and she was trying to turn him into an eventer - which he was more than capable of doing.

The freshman looked through the boxes until she found a very delicate looking angel. "Would this be your angel?" She asked as she held it up.

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Ria nodded as she heard the girl's answer to that, although she didn't quite see how any form of skating would have been as fun as decorating a tree. You could skate any time, but a tree could only be decorated once per year. She grinned as the girl talked about her name, but shook her head as the girl talked about her name being a joke, "They couldn't have known you would need battle strategy at all when you got your name."

She nodded as she heard the gelding's name, "That fits him, I guess he's about that colour, isn't he?" At least, of some bears. After all, brown bears were all kinds of colours, so it made sense. She looked up at Athena's words, her eyes shining as she saw the angel, which hadn't disappeared after all, "Yes, that's it!" She grinned at Athena, "Thank you for finding it!" She saw that the stand from the bottom was missing, and sat down crosslegged on the carpet, pulling the box towards her to dig through and find the stand, "It's missing the thing to put on the top of the tree." After carefully shuffling the box's contents around, she held up the spring-like device, "Here it is!"

She stood to bring the spring to Athena, and after handing it to the girl, she turned back to the box to find the next ornament, but stopped as she saw a patch of red on the carpet. Unsure of what it was, she approached, but the colour matched blood. "Did I cut myself?" She checked her hands, trying to find the source of the blood.

[Athena Achilles]

Athena continued decorating the tree, placing the odd blue or silver decoration here and there, making sure not to clutter any one part of the tree. She shrugged at the comment about her name. "I think the joke part is that the Goddess, whom I'm named after, is all about strength and wisdom. I have a little of the latter, but none of the former. There again, I seem to lack wisdom a lot of the time too."

She carried on with the tree as she left the younger girl to look through the box to find the stand. She turned at the mention of blood, and seeing the mark on the floor, she could feel her cheeks heat up. "You are bleeding, in a sense, but you haven't cut yourself." She hung up the ornament she was holding. "Stay there and I'll be right back." She gave the girl a comforting smile and left the room.

Breaking into a jog, she headed up the stairs, down to her room and returned to the common room moments later, holding a book and a packet, the second of which she held out to the younger girl. "You'll need to go an change your clothes, have a shower if you feel like you need one, then come back and we'll have a chat." She wasn't sure how she was going to explain this to the girl, after all, when she got her first cycle the school nurse had just said "you're growing up, deal with it", handed her a pack of sanitary pads - like the ones she had just given to Ria, and left Athena to work it all out for herself, which led to the book she was holding.

She left the tree for now and sat down on one of the sofas, tucking her legs up under her as she waited for the other girl to return.

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Ria looked up at the older girl as she spoke, seeing the flush to her cheeks and wondering what she had said. However, by that time, Athena had gone, and Ria was left watching her, biting her lip. She glanced back down at the dark spot on the carpet, then nudged the box of ornaments away from it with her foot, as though it was contaminated.

When Athena returned, Ria took the packet, turning it over in her hands as she examined it. She looked up at the girl and nodded, "Okay." Leaving Athena in the common room, still not quite thinking straight as she tried to work out what to do with the packet, she entered the head of house apartments, grabbing her clothes before she made her way to the bathroom.

Showered and clean, she left the apartment a few minutes later, walking back to the common room. She saw Athena on one of the couches and sat on one that was cornered to it, looking at the book in the girl's hands before working up the courage to look up at Athena's face, "What's wrong with me?" She had figured out what to do with the pad, eventually, although it felt odd, and she probably hadn't quite gotten it right. However, the illustrations on the packet hadn't helped much.