The World Is Out To Get Me

Flutter. Flutter, flutter, flutter.

Rika blinked once. Twice. Stared at the ceiling of her four-poster bed.

Flutter. Flutter.

Rika resisted the temptation to rub her eyes, hard. Her left eyelid had been fluttering like a butterfly since morning, and it was getting bloody annoying. Her voice came out, flat and loud. "Is this a side-effect of drinking too?"

Hmm. Brenda mused. If it is, then it isn't one I've heard of before. Maybe it was the drugs mixed into the drink. Maybe its just because its you.

"Very helpful." Rika closed her eyes against the morning light. Why, oh why had she ever stepped into that heaven-forsaken throwdown? In hopes of reading her book in peace in the Room, but noooo, she just had to be labelled as a bully by Finch of all people, she just had to be publicly humiliated, she just had to ingest a deadly concoction of drink and drug. There was simply no denying it. The Fates had a very, very personal vendetta against her. They probably spent all their time knitting and cackling over cups of ambrosia, plotting her demise.

"I'm going mad."

If Brenda had a head, she probably would have nodded very helpfully. Realisation is the first step to acceptance.

It had been a long day, Addie decided, leaving the library and heading for bed. Everyone seemed stressed, and her own day had been a right mess. Adrienne walked into the Ravenclaw Common room from the hallway, and started to make her way upstairs when she heard someone say they thought they were going mad. Raising an eyebrow, Addie leaned a bit to look at whomever had spoken. The poor girl seemed pretty out of it, so Adrienne frowned and slowly made her way towards her.

"Excuse me," She began softly, knowing how she herself often jumped when she didn't expect someone to talk to her, "Are you feeling alright?" Adrienne lifted a hand towards the girl, but supposed that if she wasn't quite alright, she perhaps wouldn't appreciate it, so she brought it back down to her side.

Adrienne knew most people would have left the girl to herself, but Addie was one of those... motherly kind of people. After her brother situation back home, she felt it only made sense to be protective of people, even if she hardly knew them - or in this case didn't at all.

"Are you feeling alright?"

Rika flopped to her side, right elbow coming up to prop her head. There was another dark-haired girl in the dorm, a fellow Raven she had never spoken to before. Her voice came out matter-of-fact. "Alright is a very relative term. Physically, I have dust mite allergies, a scrape on my knee, but no diseases, sexually transmitted or otherwise. So I suppose you could say I was alright. But mentally......I very much doubt my state of alright-ness."

Oh....kay. That was remarkably mad, even by your standards.

She turned back on her back, leaning her head back. Acceptance of such facts was rather crucial, after all. She continued to speak to the ceiling. "Nothing too sophisticated like schizophrenia, or dyslexia of course. Sometimes simple, plain insanity is the worst of them all." She shook her head sadly. "Rather disappointing. I spent the whole of my life contradicting people who repeatedly told me that I'm mad, and now that I'm away from those Muggles, I've succumbed to it worse than ever."

She quirked her head to the left. "Just in case you haven't run away yet, I'm Erika. Erika Dixon."

Adrienne didn't quite know what to say to the girl's assessment of herself. Addie couldn't help but think Well, this girl was certainly put in Ravenclaw for a reason. She certainly could talk! Adrienne hadn't always been the most talkative one, but she was suddenly feeling like this girl needed some looking out for. Deciding to not ask questions about the Muggles - her mum was one, after all, and she wasn't interested in answering questions about that - Adrienne looked up when the girl gave her name.

"I'm still here," She replied. "Just listening." Addie explained, tilting her head to the side in what she hoped looked like a concerned yet friendly way. "My name's Adrienne Reynolds. But everyone just calls me Addie, usually." She shrugged.

Adrienne leaned lightly against the frame of what Erika was laying on, looking away. She knew, personally, how awkward it was for someone to just stare at you if you weren't in a good mood or something was wrong. It was extremely disconcerting and she didn't want to put that feeling on anyone else if she could help it.

"So, aside from you general... not alright-ness," Adrienne attempted, using Erika's wording, "Is anything specifically wrong? I understand if you don't really want to talk to someone you just met. I just.. I like helping out if I can, so if you need anything I'd be happy to help you."

Addie wasn't sure if Erika was the type to accept help, or the type to share what was wrong aside from her general outlook on things, but she had to try. She hated seeing people looking as down and upset.

The girl was being nice. Very nice. Hit the right note of concern, with a bit of cautiousness to avoid scaring Rika off. She appreciated the effort. So very few people cared, after all.

"Nice to meet you, Addie. Call me Rika." Rika nodded, then added for good measure. "And unlike most people who say it just for the sake of it, its actually nice to meet someone....nice."

Wow. Eloquent.

"Shut it, Bren." She retorted, then smiled amiably at Addie. "Sorry about that. Ignore whatever I don't address to you, okay?"

Since someone's actually being friendly towards you after such a long time, don't you think you should tone down the .....uh, weirdness?

Rika pondered on that. Brenda was actually right for once. And she was simply dying to get that rant on Henri Finch slash evil little hellions from hell out of her. She turned around, propping herself on her elbows. "Well.....I guess there is a particular reason for my....not alright-ness. See, there's a particular girl who's bent on making my life hell. God knows why, 'coz I didn't even do anything to her. So she's humiliating me in public, and calling me a bully, and crying fake tears, and making me even more of a social pariah than usual. Its rather upsetting."

"It's nice to meet you as well." Adrienne said truthfully. Regardless of how different someone was, Addie believed that everyone had their place and purpose, so she avoided seriously disliking someone. Unless that someone truly was a horrible person and just knew how to push her buttons. But Erika - Rika - didn't seem that type at all. Adrienne had been wrong about people before, so she never passed the chance to give someone the benefit of the doubt if she could help it.

Rika said something, almost as if to someone else, and suggested Addie ignore it, which admittedly surprised her a bit. But the girl was smiling as if it were normal. Adrienne had heard of people talking to themselves - she did that sometimes - but perhaps Rika had lost someone important to her, and talked to them. Like her Aunt sometimes talked to her wedding dress - the one she'd bought before she got married. The wedding was a failure, and she named the dress and started chatting with it on occasion. Figuring that some people just had different ways of coping with whatever their situations, she left that bit alone.

"What prats." Adrienne frowned darkly after Erika told her what had been happening. "Has no one done anything?" She was a bit taken aback at the thought. Surely someone would have said or done something if this had been going on for a while. "Someone like that deserves to be taken down at least a few notches in my opinion."

Wow. Addie was being really, really nice. Which was nice. Rika thought such people only existed in television soaps. You know the usual, poor girl is bullied and hated by everyone, then she gets that ultimately awesome friend whose kind towards her for absolutely no reason, and the two achieve success, glory, revenge etc etc and all those jazzy things together.

Addie was perfectly following the script till now, even willingly commenting negatively about Finch. Surely this was as far as it would go.

"Done anything? Oh they've done a lot of things." Rika resisted the temptation to tilt her head back and cackle madly. Surely it wouldn't help. And she was taking Brenda's advice to not weird Addie out quite seriously. "They've patted dear 'lil Henrietta's shoulders, wiped her tears and declaimed that they always knew 'that weird Dixon girl' was a right B****." 

Then as an explanation. "She's rather good-looking, you see. Highly popular. And adept at ruining people's lives and reputations. The ones that aren't lusting after her, are afraid of her. Of a four foot girl. Its downright ridiculous."

Addie frowned darkly and sank onto the bed beside Rika. Pursing her lips, she listened as Erika described the girl who had been treating her so badly.

Shaking her head and reaching up to tug on the pink strand in her hair, Addie suddenly remembered something she had read once. "I love reading muggle history stories," she began, knowing her story probably didn't make since so far, "and there are many in which there is some kins of powerful figure and the people rise up. Everyone is afraid of power as much as they want it. But if enough people rise against the power they have two options when it comes to their fate. They'll have a force strong enough to win, and be heroes. But if there aren't enough.. They are called traitors." Addie sighed and looked at her feet as they hung off the side of the bed - she was sadly rather short. "In this case, there aren't enough people backing your side to be called the heroes.. Maybe you just need a larger, erm, force."

Adrienne looked to her fellow Ravenclaw to see if her analogy had made any sense. Surely, this girl being in the same house and therefore obviously having the ability to understand, would get it. Otherwise, Addie knew she would likely sound mental. Twisting the pink hair around and through her fingers, she waited for Erika's response.