A Touch of Gold, in the Trophy Room of Course.

[May Hui-Ying]

May slowly paced herself down the stairs feeling each one with her feet. She had a bag on her shoulder. Her right hand against the wall for support. Once she had cleared the stair successfully, she was in the Trophy Room. Her eyes darted around seeing if she could take in any of the light, but it was hopeless. She knew it to.

It wasn't late at night, but it was evening. Students were just about getting ready to head to there common rooms. May had only stayed for half of the feast. For she wasn't hungry.

She then found the middle of the room, and set her bag on the ground, and pulled the blanket out of it. It was blue and embroidered with dragons, of many cultures.

Slowly she pulled out her kettle and cups, and settled there to have a wonderful late night tea with herself.

[hohum]

Lucinda didn’t feel much like eating. She didn’t even bother to attend dinner. Her secret plan raced through her head, as she contemplated on tweaking anything that might be necessary to tweak. She hung out in the Gryffindor Common room, alone. Students began to file in through the portrait hole, and Lucinda didn’t feel much like having company. She discreetly left the room and wandered out into the corridor.

She paced slowly down the seventh floor corridor and down the stairs. She had no idea where she was going, but was just following where ever her feet took her. She passed by some people coming up from the feast, but didn’t acknowledge them. She supposed that her face must look like she as in a trance, because some of them looked at her curiously.

How she ended up in the third floor corridor was beyond her, but she didn’t stop as she came across the Trophy Room. It seemed like the perfect spot where nobody would bother her. People rarely ventured into this particular room unless they were in detention. This was a popular detention spot, cleaning all the trophies and such.

Turning the knob slowly, Lucinda stepped in through a small gap and closed the door quietly behind her. It was dim inside, and Lucinda pulled out her wand and put it alight. The light glinted off the golden trophies. She examined some in one particular case. There was a Quidditch Cup with a plaque next to it, a familiar name inscribed into it. Kade Chaplin - Chaser. Lucinda felt her heart sink and she turned abruptly on her heel.

She froze as she heard the clank of china behind her. She froze and whirled around, pointing her wand directly at the source of the noise. There was someone else there.[/size]

[May Hui-Ying]

May's perked her head up, like a dog as such would, as soon as she heard footsteps coming down to the room. May's white cane was at her side. Her wand in her pocket. She couldn't help it but she let a smile leak onto her face. A student no doubt. May calmly sat there cooling off her tea and holding it with both of her hands. She posed no threat. Anyways May could easily beat a student in battle.

May had the impression that this student was either a Slytherin or more likely a Gryffindor. Mainly because of her pause in her steps when she had entered her room. It showed something like longing, or regret. Something typical of either of the houses.

[hohum]

Clearly it was a professor, for the figure did not seem frightened in the least. Probably because Lucinda was a student, no doubt. This slightly irritated her. Those Death Eaters are in for a rude awakening if they reacted the way this person did. She would curse them in a heartbeat. Knowing that she would probably get expelled if she did so, she merely rose her wand in the air to reveal Professor May Hui-Ying, the Mythology and Legends professor.

Lucinda relaxed immediately as she watched this professor drink her tea without care. Lucinda didn’t know this professor personally, and had never spoken to her. She didn’t take her class because she was planning to take it the next year - if she lived that long.

“Sorry, ma’am,” she muttered, taking a deep breath. “I didn’t mean to…” she trailed off, lowering her wand a bit. Her mood did not change at the sight of her.

The light from the tip of her wand was bright and lowering it helped to keep it out of her eyes. She scanned her surroundings, as the professor was having tea with herself. Odd, but then again, Lucinda knew nothing of this particular teacher.[/size]

[May Hui-Ying]

May's expression didn't change but she kept her face Noh, like. [Like a mask.] May took a slight sip of her tea. And directed her eyes to the closest point, that she could have located the voice from. Who knows she might be looking slightly to the left. Her ears were not always that perfect.

She finally, she let her face go, and gave this person a confused expression. "You didn't mean to what?" May questioned. "Interrupt? By heavens no you didn't!" May smiled. She set her tea on the blanket. May wondered if she had heard the wisp of a wand, but she chose to ignore this thought.

The tea set as made of polished green jade. She had brought extra of everything; you never know who might show up.

[hohum]

Lucinda was obviously invisible to the professor, and she stepped into the light in order to reveal herself. It was only fair. Although Lucinda’s face might not be the most cheerful one to see. She was haunted in her sleep, barely getting any. She was slightly sore from all the nonstop dueling Kat and her had been doing previously. She wished she could see Kat again. It seemed to brighten her day to know that someone was truly on her side.

Professor May continued at a happy façade, cheerful as she asked to what Lucinda meant. She claimed that Lucinda did not interrupt in the slightest. She was boisterous in her little tea-for-one party. The tea set itself was beautifully polished, and Lucinda wondered briefly where she had gotten it. She pushed the thought away though.

“I can leave…” she said, beginning to take a step back. She wasn’t sure if she was in the mood for company at the moment. That might not deter this teacher, however.[/size]

[May Hui-Ying]

May pulled herself back into a face of Noh, and sipped her tea once more. May had nothing to regret, at this present time. Nothing to dwell on, nothing feast upon. Nor was she really good with children. She couldn't stand the way that some of them were so... ignorant.

May flipped her hair over she shoulders, and calmly said: "It's your choice, I cannot convince you to, but it's your own free will if you choose to stay." Her voice gave no hint of her intention or expectations.

She calmly shifted her sitting position, and the cane made a minor tap on the floor.

Funny, May thought, this student does not seem to know me, a first year?

[hohum]

Professor May calmly told Lucinda that she could if she wished to leave, but she could also stay if she wanted to. Lucinda hadn’t expected the sudden decision. She thought about it a moment before nodding. She smiled weakly before she stepped back again. She made to turn but froze in her tracks.

It was another trophy case. This time, it wasn’t her father’s name that she saw - it was her mother’s. She walked up to it and put one hand on the glass, her other holding the wand up so she could read it. It was an award for special services to the school. It stood next to the Quidditch Cup, and Lucinda wondered what her mother had done to receive something like this. Not even her father got something like this, and he never mentioned this award to her.

The hand on the glass balled itself into a fist against the smooth surface, and the hand that gripped the wand wrought it tightly. She seemed frozen to the spot, a swarm of emotions overcoming her.[/size]

[May Hui-Ying]

May noticed the impulsive stop. The footsteps didn’t carry on. She questioned it in her mind. Anger? Regret? Fury? Rage? Life? Emotion. May kept her emotions in, it was custom in her family to do so. She would not break easily. She still had her Noh face expression. She poured more tea for herself, quietly. She was still blankly staring into space.

“Are you alright?” May asked gently. “You seem troubled, to put it simply. What are you looking at?” May enquired.

[hohum]

Lucinda barely heard the words that escaped from the unknown professor. She remained silent for a moment before it occurred to her that Professor May Hui-Ying even spoke. She did not need the teacher to repeat herself, however. She recalled the general idea of what was asked her way.

Lucinda looked at the professor, sitting cheerfully on a blanket sipping tea. Lucinda did not remove her hand from the glass, nor did she loosen the grip on her wand. She wondered how someone could even be so calm, especially when taken into consideration how bad situations were getting. Since the disappearance of Kade Chaplin, the disappearances doubled within the week. People panicked when news spread of his vanishing, and the disappearance of Arthur Caldwell just made things worse.

How could someone - a teacher at Hogwarts - sit so serenly in the middle of a room, all alone, with no feeling whatsoever. Lucinda suspected a false expression. She knew she wasn't the only one that was good at hiding her emotions. She took a great intake of air and let it out slowly.

She looked from the trophies to the professor and back again.

"My parents," she mumbled in reply to the inquiry. "Well, their awards, really." She fixed her face blank as she stared at the awards. "Troubled may be a bit of an understatement." The last statement was muttered so low, that Lucinda wasn't sure if Professor May had caught it. that didn't matter much to Lucinda because it was made toward herself anyhow.[/size]

[May Hui-Ying]

May took another sip of her tea before speaking. She was very relaxed.
This was the last room that May had ever seen in full light, just after she re-entered the Great Hall her vision started to blur, and blur, and blur, and then all together disappear.

She had always false hoped that once again her vision would return to her, back in this room.
Who knows maybe it was hiding!

"What award it it?" May asked. It's not like she could see it! She kept her head and body contempt on her tea, for a little time. Then she finally said:

"Did you know, at one point there was a creature, a nymph, who desired something, something so powerful, it couldn't have ended the world as we know it? But when she requested it from the gods as a gift, they denied her every time, they brought her a stone every time, she tried? What did she do with the stones? Well, she took them one by one into the water, and created an island just for herself."

[hohum]

May asked in a calm and relaxed nature as to what the awards were. Lucinda looked at May again and then back to the trophies.

“My dad’s Quidditch Cup and my mum’s Special Award for Services to the School,” she answered in response to May’s inquiry. “I haven’t the faintest idea how my mum got that award…”

Suddenly, May broke out into a story about a nymph. What the hell? Lucinda was not liking this teacher more and more. What the bloody hell was that all about? Clearly May didn’t understand the situation. Lucinda had to remind herself that May didn’t know about this because Lucinda never told anybody.

“Really?” she asked, in polite interest. “What did the nymph do with this island?”[/size]

[May Hui-Ying]

"I mean what color is it? It's dark." May hoped that she would get the hint. But it looked like this girl didn't grasp the concept of blindness very well.

May gave a little laugh, "We've never met have we?" She set her tea down to cool off her lips. We've got ourselves a Gryffindor! "The nymph simply, started with whatever she got, and invited the other nymphs over to be under the control of herself, and not of the gods. Then she got what she wanted, power." Until the gods got fed up, and destroyed her island, thus making her the same as everybody else, scrambling for life in the middle of the ocean.

[hohum]

Lucinda was taken by surprise as May asked to what color they were. It was awfully dark in there, Lucinda had to agree. She lifted her wand to see the awards.

"Oh! Both gold," she replied simply. May suddenly realized that they hadn't met, something Lucinda already knew. May's eyes darted at Lucinda's robes, identifying her as a Gryffindor. Lucinda wanted to smile, but settled for a grin.

"My name is Lucinda Chaplin." She turned to introduce herself formally. She flixed her wand, muttering, "Lumos Maximus,' and a brighter light illuminated from the wand tip. This light proved sufficient enough.

Lucinda walked over, uninvited and sat herself down as May began to tell the rest of her story. Apparently the nympth ended up getting what she wanted in the first place. Selfish, no doubt. There seemed to be more to the story.

"If I were one of those gods, I would not be happy," she chimed in. "I mean, the gods didn't want the nymph in power in the first place. Although I suppose that they asked for it, considering they gave her the rocks and all."[/size]

[May Hui-Ying]

“Gold?” May laughed, “Sorry my eyes are bad.” She apologized, “They must have done something worth noting, and noting good.” May wondered if Lucinda had caught her little eye stunt; mostly likely. She brushed her hair out of her face. Her eyes did not flinch at the light.

“They call me May Hui-Ying Professor of Myths and Legends. Tea?” May asked.

“What is the gods gave her the stones on purpose? What if they wanted to give the Nymph what she wanted, but in there own way, that would not affect anyone else?” She asked back.