Falling On You ((Jared))

[Azura Monocreave R4]

Azura stretched lazily, feeling unusually languid. The fabric lying on her lap, vaguely resembling a shirt that had yet to be completely sewn, slithered to the floor with a soft rustle and she reached out a hand to stop its descent before it brushed against the floor. It was silk; she didn’t want to see it crumpled on her wooden floor. Everything that Azura made was handled with care from the second she bought it until she sold it or gave it away. She sold her clothing only in the muggle world, using one of her brother’s friend’s to do so. Adrian was fond of both her and Thai therefore he indulged her. It was sweet of him, especially since he didn’t have to and Azura had never requested it of him. Azura giggled quietly, amusement shining in her blue eyes as she resumed her sewing. Adrian would probably swat her if he knew that she had called him sweet but it was true and she knew that his sister would agree. The length of thread on her needle came to an end and Azura glanced over to her small table, reaching out to grasp the reel of thread to cut some more off so that she could finish the shirt. It wasn’t there and Azura frowned quizzically, forced to stand up and fold the unfinished shirt carefully before seeking out her parents.

She had searched the entire house before recalling that there had been a business lunch or some such nonsense. “Thai,” Azura called hopefully, racing upstairs only to discover that he wasn’t around either. The only shop that matched that shade of grey thread perfectly was in Leeds somewhere so she needed someone to apparate her there. How irritating that everyone was out. What was she meant to do now? Azura sighed and shrugged, thinking of her shirt wistfully for a few seconds before getting over it with her usual tenacity. She could do with some fresh air anyway, Azura pointed out to herself cheerfully. She could just take her sketchbook and pencils with her and, if inspiration struck, she could plan out some new designs. It was a perfect idea and then, when Thai or her parents returned, she could go to Leeds for more than just one reel of thread. It was more practical and her family would no doubt be relieved to find that they weren’t making the trip for just one item.

Merrily, Azura bounced into her room and dived for her sketchbook eagerly, hugging it to her chest and glancing around warily. After a second, she pounced on her favourite pencil and tucked it behind her ear, sending another suspicious glance around her room before moving stealthily down the stairs and out the door. With the possible danger that could be lurking anywhere successfully avoided, Azura grinned joyfully. “Mission accomplished,” she informed her neighbour cheerfully, eyeing him thoughtfully when he stared at her at then hurried back inside, shaking his head and muttering to himself. Maybe he was just unhappy because he didn’t have missions to accomplish? Poor man. Azura stared at his door sympathetically before scampering to the park. She would help him to find a mission to accomplish when she returned. As a member of the Hyper Heroines, it was her duty!

The park was unusually empty. Azura glanced around before shrugging carelessly, tucking her sketchbook under her arm and securing her pencil behind her ear again before scrambling up one of the taller trees haphazardly. She preferred to be in high places when letting her mind wander through various designs, though she wasn’t sure why. Thai had always scolded her for being so dangerous but Azura wasn’t quite sure what he meant. Was he scared in case she fell? How absurd! She had never fallen before. An hour or two passed peacefully, with Azura filling pages and pages with ideas and more carefully thought of designs, annotating them with suggestions for colours and the best fabric to use. There was one in particular that Azura thought Riley would perhaps like to use for Halloween if it was finished in time so she marked it with an asterisk to remind herself that it was more urgent than the others. It was getting late, Azura noticed regretfully, and if she wanted to pester her mother into apparating her to Leeds then she had best return home.

Suddenly unsure, Azura glanced between the branches and her sketchbook. Getting up had been easy enough but climbing down seemed impossible, for some reason. “But nothing that a Hyper Heroine can’t manage to do,” Azura reminded herself easily, as she shifted herself into a better position to climb down. She had nearly managed it and was halfway down when she lost her grip on her sketchbook. Impulsively, Azura leant over to grab it before it fell and managed to grasp the edge of it but lost her footing and tumbled to the ground, landing on something that definitely wasn’t the ground. Maybe this was what Thai had meant by ‘dangerous’. Curiously, Azura placed her elbows on the boy’s chest and propped her chin up in her palms as she peered at him innocently. “Are you my guardian angel?”

[Jared Graas R4]

Jared hoisted his white cat on his arm and wandered towards the kitchen to see if he had anything to eat. He wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought that he might have skipped breakfast. He had been working on a new song and it hadn’t sounded right, try as he might. And in frustration over that he might have forgotten. “And we have two eggs, some milk, and a banana, which will go off soon,” Jared told the cat with a questioning look, “Maybe I should borrow some of your food, what do you think?” The cat mewled quietly making Jared smile as he patted the head reaching his way. Deciding that he would have to visit some store later, Jared poured milk out for his cat. It would probably be going off soon as well, so he might as well cheer someone with it. Letting his cat down so that he could go and look closer at the milk matter, Jared peeled the banana for himself and ate it standing in the middle of the kitchen. It wasn’t enough to stop him from feeling hungry, but it took away the first burnt of it.

Slipping into a pair of jeans a short-sleeved shirt, Jared hid his wand in a special wand-pocket and stuffed some money in his pocket. His harmonica in his other pocket and a pencil chewed short along with a blue-covered notepad in back pocket and he figured he was ready. “Be back in a couple of hours. Don’t throw any wild parties, while I’m gone,” Jared told the cat on his way out of the apartment. He took the elevator down, nodded absently to the doorman and headed towards the nearest supermarket. He threw the stuff that caught his eyes quite carelessly into the cart. Milk, sour cream, dill pickles, cookies, crackers, three types of cheese, cabbage, Parisian potatoes, sausages, chicken-wings, fish sticks, chocolate, marshmallows, frozen pizza, cake. Anything that caught his eye and looked ok ended up in the cart. Paying swiftly, Jared wheeled the food-stuff to the information counter and paid for it to be delivered to the doorman at his building, from where it would be sent up to the apartment. He didn’t feel like returning home himself just yet. So he let his feet carry him to a nearby park.

Pausing to buy a hot dog from a passing cart, Jared steered away from the bigger crowd. Maybe he would lounge about under the trees, eat his hot dog and play his harmonica and let the song from before brew in his head. He had just taken a bite and swallowed when his lunch was quite suddenly interrupted. He had no idea which way his hot dog had flown as something dropped on him, knocking him straight on his back and forcing the air out of his lungs. It took a moment for Jared to reorientate himself, a sharp rock digging in the side of his spine along with the corner of his note-book. ‘How on earth do Rister and Gabriel manage?’ was the only coherent thought flashing through his mind, as he knocked the elbows of the girl off from his ribcage – not caring that it landed her flush on his chest again – and gulped down a large breath of air. The girls words registrating in his head a moment later, Jared managed to respond a bit belatedly: “I sincerely hope not, if that is how you greet people.”

[Azura Monocreave R4]

Azura blinked at suddenly finding herself so much closer to Jared’s face after he pushed her elbows away from his chest. It was a bit sudden and she wouldn’t have minded some warning because, really, it was a bit disorientating to suddenly find herself sprawled on his chest but Jared really did make quite a nice resting place. “Nooo,” Azura drew the syllable out unsurely, her eyes alternately amused and confused but always light-hearted. “I usually greet people with a ‘hello’ or a ‘hi’. I sometimes greet Riley and Thai by calling their name, I suppose, and I hug them too.” Oh. A look of understanding crossed her face and Azura nodded gradually. “You wanted a hug? I’m so sorry; it was thoughtless of me not to offer you one straight away, I guess. I mean, I’ve never heard of anyone greeting their guardian angel with a hug but everyone’s different so I should have considered the idea that maybe my guardian angel wanted a hug. I should ask Riley!” Azura exclaimed suddenly. Riley had so much more knowledge of manga and anime than Azura did and that was where she was drawing her knowledge from so Riley was definitely the person to defer to. Azura looked stricken as she met his eyes again, her own eyes pleading him to forgive her for not greeting him in the way he would have preferred.

This wasn’t what she had expected to happen during her trip to the park – or, indeed, at any point during her life – but unexpected things were always good. They added a bit of variety to life. If everything that was expected to happen always happened then life would be terribly dull and Azura did hate to be bored. Ooh. A spark of recognition lit up in her eyes as Azura tilted her head, properly looking, for the first time, at the person she had landed on. “Hi Jared,” Azura beamed at him enthusiastically, offering him the greeting that she had forgone in favour of dropping on him from above. He was in her house and year, naturally Azura knew him. “I didn’t know that you lived around here. Do you come to this park often? Isn’t it a beautiful day?” Her last question was more of a statement as Azura turned her head, unwittingly making her hair trail across Jared’s face and neck, to gaze up at the sky. For once, it was a brilliant blue with no grey clouds warning of rain that would soon be coming. Not even Azura was optimistic enough to think that it would remain that way for long but that was okay. Storms were fun too. And she liked sitting in the rain because that was one of the rare times when she was content to just sit and let things wash over her without feeling restless.

Ungracefully, Azura rearranged herself so that she was sitting next to Jared rather than on top of him and peered at him curiously as he adjusted to the feeling of not having her weight spread over him. It seemed that he wasn’t her guardian angel after all – after four years of being in the same house, she reckoned that he should have told her by now – and Azura felt slightly disappointed. Then again, a rational-sounding voice in her head, sounding eerily like Riley, spoke up, would your guardian angel tell you that he was your guardian angel? I don’t think so! Such things are meant to be secret, silly. Riley-voice had a point. And she had never really been injured during those four years so it was entirely possible. Azura changed her mind instantly. Jared was definitely her guardian angel, no doubt about it. Even if she had to find proof, she would make sure that he couldn’t deny it. Four years of few injuries and now him being there for her to land on so that she wasn’t injured? That couldn’t be coincidence. It simply wasn’t possible.

[Jared Graas R4]

Jared pondered quietly if there would be much point in reminding the girl that his question had been relatively rhetoric. But perhaps there wouldn’t be much point in it anyway, as the girl had was ranting away merrily about greetings. Riley and Thai? Why would she even expect him to know who she did? Though, Jared realised, as he finally gathered his breath enough to peer at the girl, he did know the girl lying on top of him as well as the name Riley now that he had recognized Azura. Two Ravenclaw fourth years like him, but both of the girls were crazy. Quite literally crazy. They were smart, no doubt about that. They wouldn’t have been in Ravenclaw if they weren’t. But that didn’t entirely mean that they were sane quite yet. “No, I wasn’t expecting a hug. I wasn’t expecting any greeting to be honest, but a hello would have sufficed,” Jared remarked dryly, “A hello at least wouldn’t have ended up with a squashed me, I’d still dare to hope.” Jared nearly flinched in a bout of paranoia at the bright look passing over Azura’s face. “No, I didn’t want a hug. I wasn’t expecting any company whatsoever.”

How come he had ended up in this situation? He had come to the park because he was hungry and it was looking nice enough outside. Only to end up being squashed under a girl his age and his lunch… Wait, where was his hot dog anyway? Jared tilted his head to the side and grimaced at the sight of a random dog currently in the process of finishing devouring his hot dog. Azura started speaking again so Jared tore his eyes away from the dog to listen, even as he had to suppress a sigh. Not that sighing was that easy with a girl on top of your chest. “Sorry to tell you this, but I’m most certainly not your guardian angel. We can skip the hug part,” Jared suggested swiftly, before Azura would get too carried away, “And while I’m sure Riley would have opinions of her own, the discussion is hardly necessary, as we already established that I’m not your guardian angel. Besides, wasn’t summer supposed to be a calm time to rest from the more eccentric crowd in school?” Jared suppressed a sigh. “Hi, Azura. Do you always talk this much with people you haven’t recognised before? Or to strangers, whatever the case might be?” Though, the girl could probably talk any possible kidnapper or pervert into fleeing with screams. Before or after cutting the girl’s tongue out was still to be decided.

Jared spluttered, his eyes instinctively squeezing shut as Azura slapped him over the face with her hair. Grimacing, Jared was grateful to discover that at least he wasn’t now chewing on a mouthful of hair. And he was even more grateful when Azura got off of himself. Pulling himself to sit up, Jared groaned quietly in relief. Shoving his pencil and notebook back into his back pocket, Jared fished out his harmonica and scrutinized it. Luckily the metal harmonica hadn’t taken any damage so Jared slipped it back into his pocket and stood up, absently attempting to brush any debris off his back and pants. Well, the hot dog seller was coming this way, so at least he could replace his lost meal. “A hot dog,” Jared told the man pushing the card and watched how he set to work in preparing it, even as Jared fished out some money from his pocket. Turning slightly, Jared looked at Azura with a wry smile: “Do you want one as well?”

[Azura Monocreave R4]

Their faces were extraordinarily close together, with just a few inches separating them, but Azura simply blinked at Jared slowly and tilted her head. Physical boundaries meant little to her, and it rarely occurred to her that perhaps people weren’t as unbothered by physical contact as she was. But she had always been an affectionate girl, even more so after her mother had gone missing, and she had never really grown out of that. Her dad, grandmother and Thai were always willing to indulge her and Riley had never seemed to show any opposition to being hugged. Those four people were her most important, so it made sense that she took their opinions and reactions to mean that everyone else would probably react in a similar way. Besides, Azura thrived on affection. She needed it equally as much as she needed oxygen and she had never been deprived of it, not with Thai pliable to her will and the sibling love that existed between them. Certainly there were times when Azura suspected that she exasperated her brother but that didn’t mean that they didn’t love each other. “I didn’t mean to land on you,” Azura informed Jared sulkily, her eyes petulant as she met his gaze. It simply wasn’t becoming for a heroine to misjudge her landing and it was completely unacceptable for someone to point it out. Surely not even Riley would accept that happening.

“Of course you’re my guardian angel,” Azura giggled sweetly, shaking her head at Jared disapprovingly. Most likely, the guardian angel rules had forbidden Jared to tell her that he was her guardian angel but he didn’t have to pretend now that she had guessed it, surely? The poor boy was simply being stubborn. Not that it was her place to criticise her angel. Celestial beings knew more than humans and Azura knew because Riley’s manga said so. Pragmatically, Azura ignored the fact that most of those manga also had the main character falling in love with her guardian angel. Some things were just ridiculous. “Stop being so stubborn.” For the first time in years, Azura honestly scowled at someone with true irritation that wouldn’t allow itself to be glossed over and ignored. But that irritation was instantly abandoned mere seconds later when she spotted her sketchbook and, with a worried squeak, dove for it and scooped it up from the ground before brushing dirt from the cover. Riley’s Halloween costume idea was in there, along with the line of clothing that she would spend the next school year making so that she could provide her customers with the clothing items they wanted. Hurriedly, Azura flicked through the book of sketches and, with a practiced eye, checked that none of the designs had been ruined by the fall. There were a few ripped pages – a fact that made Azura wince regretfully as she followed the rip with her finger – but most of it was still intact.

“Sometimes I talk to strangers,” Azura confirmed nonchalantly. “People always look so unhappy and stressed. The least I can do is try to brighten up their day.” Hmm....didn’t guardian angels have wings? Inquisitively, Azura peered at Jared’s back and shrugged when no white wings appeared to confirm his status as her guardian angel. She hadn’t expected it to be that easy; life rarely was. Maybe Riley would help her in her search for truth. Because it really was terribly frustrating to hear Jared deny something that Azura knew had to be true. “No, thank you,” Azura murmured meekly, her blue eyes stubbornly staring down at a stone on the ground. She was hungry, but she wasn’t going to become like one of those princesses from the fairytales, always needing the male’s help. Her grandmother had been used to surviving by herself before moving in with the family and Azura had always taken that as confirmation that she could go through life without needing to be rescued by any boy. Zeta was her inspiration, as well as her determination to not be a pathetic, helpless damsel in distress.

[Jared Graas R4]

Jared gazed calmly back into Azura’s eyes as she stared at him. She seemed relatively pensive. Not that Jared knew her well enough to draw any conclusions from that, but she and that Ravenclaw friend of hers she always with – her name eluded Jared at the moment – always seemed to be chattering and giggling. Well, he could hope the girl wasn’t plotting more ways to wreck havoc on his life with the aim of proving that he was a guardian angel. You’d think a person would actually know if he was an angel or not. They did know it for themselves in Jared’s world. Apparently that wasn’t always the case in Azura’s reality though. “I suppose I should be glad to hear that you didn’t plan on squashing my lungs,” Jared informed Azura curtly, even if amusement flickered through his eyes for the briefest of moments. Because he couldn’t truly say that he was relieved to hear it after all? Feeling relief would mean not being under a burden and while Azura wasn’t that large of a girl, she had fallen with enough speed to knock the wind out of Jared.

“I tend to be stubborn. A family trait,” Jared offered a charming, if a bit oblivious smile to Azura. “But at this case I’m not your guardian angel so I have a point here.” Jared considered Azura for a few moments. She wouldn’t accept simple denial as a good enough reason to believe it. Jared would be appalled if a fellow Ravenclaw would. So Jared took the time to consider for a moment and word his counter arguments properly. “Well, I can’t say I’m that at home at the tasks of guardian angels, but logic says that an angel can only keep proper watch over one person. Maximum two, if the guardian angel’s task-people are closely connected? Well, at that case I’m afraid I couldn’t be your guardian angel.” Not that he wanted to, Jared mentally added. “Because I have two sisters whom I adore so by this thread of logic I’m their guardian angel. I wouldn’t have time to keep watch over someone else. You’ll have to look elsewhere for your guardian angel.” Besides the protectiveness of Jared and his brothers when it came to their little sisters was remarkable and fully noticed in Hogwarts as well. Jared had even heard a joke or two made about it. “Unless your guardian angel has a sadistic streak in it and shoved me under you to escape the impact itself,” he added with a wry curve of his lips.

A horrified squeak sounded from Azura that nearly had Jared jumping. It had sounded like a duck having a mortal battle with a mouse. A glance over his shoulder assured him that it wasn’t’ anything as… Well, he couldn’t even define it truly. At least Azura seemed dedicated to whatever she was writing or drawing, Jared decided seeing her worriedly gaze at a notebook. A far more proper looking notebook than his own ragged little thing. “Haven’t you heard that strangers are up to no good? Or haven’t you paid attention to your mother’s teachings?” Jared mused, just to acknowledge the fact Azura had said something, “People should sometimes look and feel unhappy. It helps to cope and no one can be chipper all their lives. It’s easier to learn how to handle some big sorrow, if you’ve practiced being sad and crying over small problems, don’t you think?” Even though the girl was late with her claim as Jared had already paid for two hot dogs. Jared simply shrugged at the seller who handed him the two treats before moving on with his cart. He could easily eat both of them himself as well, if the girl decided he wasn’t hungry. They were quite good, he decided as he took a bite out of one. “Were you going somewhere before in your hurry to get down the tree?” Jared questioned, toying with the idea of the girl leaving rather than he moving on in search of a quiet peaceful corner to worry about his music.