Wind Like Breath, Waves Like Glass (Brindle/Tian)

"You said you haven't played much Quidditch, but do you get to fly often?" Brindle asked. She was excited and nervous and felt like a stupid girl, but being alone with such an attractive guy in the dim of twilight set a mood whether she wanted one or not. And really, why not go with it? He hadn't made a move on her, so she didn't need to put her guard up. This was just fun for the sake of it.

Tian grinned and nodded. "More than my mother and father would like," he said. "I could sneak out my window and fly over the grounds." He loved the freedom he had in the air. Flying was unlike anything else he'd ever experienced, not that he had a lot to compare it to in reality. The weight of his broom felt good on his shoulder.

"Oh, that sounds great," Brindle said, then sighed. "I live in a Muggle apartment building. If I went out the window, they'd have to send out Obliviators to clean up." She grinned. "One of about a billion reasons I'm glad to be moving out here. Isn't it beautiful?" Her boots hit sand and she gave a spin, one shoulder rising to keep her borrowed broom in place.

"I love the noise of the city, love having things to do around every corner, but look at this!" She stopped and gestured to the sky, indigo deepening to black above while a riot of colors played at the horizon. "You can't see stars in New York City!" Not like this.

"I never lived in the city," Tian said, stopping to face Brindle. "I grew up on a lot of land. I mean, it's got lots of buildings on it all over the place, but they're mostly abandoned now, and there's stars, and pastures, and forests." It was a beautiful place, and this was a beautiful place, and she was a beautiful girl, but he'd heard that New York City was beautiful, too. "What's New York like? I've heard it's this...this glittering gem on the edge of an ocean."

Brindle laughed lightly. "I'm sure my brother would love that," she said. She took a moment to think about the question, though she'd answered it before. "It's crowded," she started. "It's noisy and dirty, busy, rude, gritty, and anything but boring. It's the city that never sleeps. Lights and energy, every kind of food ever... I couldn't stay away forever, it's got too much to love, but it doesn't have this kind of privacy or freedom."

"I grew up with Society balls," Tian said. "They pretend everything's hidden and you've got privacy, but everyone knows everything, whether they admit it or not. It's clean and perfect and pretty jewels and whispers and so sweetly polite it'll rot your teeth out. I'd rather go to New York. Society people don't know how to live. They just go through these motions that don't mean anything when they could be flying!" He hadn't realized his voice rising, or his pulse increasing, until he'd finished speaking and he felt almost out of breath. Brindle would probably think he was stark raving mad.

Brindle didn't think anything of the sort. In fact, she'd finally made a connection. "I have friends in Society!" she exclaimed, then frowned. "Well, sort of. One of them was a Society guy, but he kind of left and is trying to go back. I don't know, it's really complicated. All I know is..." they look so hot in dress robes. Well, she wasn't going to say that. "All I know is that they're like, learning German and my brother keeps making all these tiny robes for their kids."

Tian almost didn't make the connection, but as he parted his lips to comment, things fell into place and his eyes widened. "You...you can't be talking about the Blackwood-Hardts, can you?" he asked. Maybe he had no actual contact with his cousin, but that didn't mean he was deaf to his father complaining about that side of the family. How many Society people had little kids with fancy robes and were learning German? French or Spanish, sure, but German?

Brindle nodded sharply, her eyes wide and assessing. Tian didn't look judgey, so she went ahead. "I went to school with Dare since I was in first year, he and my brother have been best friends forever." She gave a brief huff of a sigh, then stuck out her hand as though just introducing herself. "Brindle Sterling," she said, and teased, "If you want to be a rebel, I know all the right people!"

Tian was silent for a few moments, his eyes wide as he processed the information. "Michael's my cousin!" he said finally, taking Brindle's hand almost as an afterthought. "My father and his mother are brother and sister, and he disowned Justine because of Soren. I mean, because of the whole Death Eater thing." It wasn't talked about much, but Tian still knew enough to understand.

"Ohhh," Brindle said. She gave a somewhat absent pump of a handshake, thinking more than anything. "Well, there's no Death Eater thing now," she said. "And I guess it's good to know all of Society isn't into that stuff." She released Tian's hand, then laughed as she thought of something.

"Silver? That guy I introduced you to? That's Dare's twin." She adjusted the broom on her shoulder and grinned at Tian. He didn't look much like Michael, but he was still gorgeous.

Tian's eyes widened all over again and he glanced back toward the party, though he couldn't see more than the vague shapes of buildings now. "Is he gay, too?" For all he knew, gay ran in families. It didn't make much sense, but still, he couldn't help but think it. "I mean, me and Kit are twins, but neither of us ran off and married some random man."

Brindle resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Just because she knew a lot about things didn't mean everyone did, and if he was from Society, he was all kinds of sheltered, right? "Silver's totally straight," she said. "And I'm straight too, but my brother's gay, it isn't like, catching or anything." Maybe she'd get into the Kinsey scale another time. She loved talking to Tian, and intended to do it again.

Tian eyed Brindle uncertainly. "Well, my father always acted like it was contagious," he said, swinging his broom down from his shoulder and stepping over it. "Want to fly?" They hadn't come all this way not to fly, and he didn't know how to talk about gay people. It didn't necessarily mean he wasn't open to learning, it just meant that he was much more interested in being up in the air.

Brindle nodded. "I'd love to," she said. She'd caught that look, but let it go unpursued. He hadn't said anything homophobic, only uneducated, and that she could deal with. When she wasn't holding the most fabulous broom she'd ever seen outside a magazine.

She lowered the broom and mounted, letting herself hover a moment just to enjoy the feel of it. "This is so amazing," she said, and gave it a gentle stroke of the hand, unafraid of splinters. Her eyes sparked as she glanced aside at Tian. "Race you across the water," she said, and kicked off.