Finding Peace [Ollie]

Waking up that day had been difficult. Arwen was sure she'd seen one of her roomies move, and she had completely frozen, as if one of them would catch her with her hand in a cookie jar. She seriously needed to talk with them at some point. But neither had woken up, which was grand, and Arwen had continued her awesome escapades. She was going to explore the grounds. Because this wasn't embarrassing at all. Walking alone, with no one to bother her. It was going to be cool!

So, she exited the school building and saw the lake. Arwen didn't really like water. She could barely swim, and she almost drowned when she was little. Or... almost and almost. Her father had been right beside her, trying to get her to swim. It hadn't worked out that well. And after that, she avoided water as much as she could. Even more than people! And with that, she quickly came to the conclusion that the lake was not a place for her to hang out on.

Her eyes landed on the forest. Now there's an adventure. Arwen loved forests. They were cool. But she couldn't really enter. It was not allowed. And Arwen couldn't possibly lose house points from Ravenclaw. That would be catastrophic. So she didn't want to enter, despite loving forests. But there was one thing she loved even more. Open spaces. Plains. Just like they had in Wales. She loved Wales so much. So Arwen decided to try to find something that would somewhat resemble it. She doubted it. Hogwarts might be huge, but it was way too bumpy, and rocky, and foresty, and lakey for plains.

Arwen decided to just walk. And she continued to walk for a few minutes, looking around, keeping a safe distance from her and the lake. And then she saw a clearing of some sort. A garden. A big garden, no less! Arwen beamed and ran over, so happy to see that she had more than enough space for herself. The sun shining on her made the day ever more perfect. Which was awesome! She fell down and lay on her back, looking at the sky. Peaceful.

It wasn't a surprise that Oliver loved trees. He was like the Lorax. Except less hairy and much better looking. Everyone knew Ollie liked trees as much as Matthew liked fire, so it was natural for others to except Ollie to be either in the garden or in the trying to woo the Whomping Willow. That darn tree was going to be the death of him, so stubborn and so harsh. Regardless, Ollie was taking a walk early in the morning because he missed the clear skies and warm winds of childhood. He was an actual teenage boy now, and that meant much more homework, harder lessons, skipped classes, more time sleeping, an equal amount of time spent eating and almost no time for play.

Ollie missed that. He missed how life was when he as younger, when Matthew getting the last cookie was his biggest problem. When the hardest decision was to choose between a mango-peach or pineapple smoothie. Now, his hardest decision was figuring out how to ask Victoria out without it being weird. And how to manage his time so he'd get enough hours of sleep and still get a good grade in Astronomy. So a walk to the gardens was needed, because regardless of what anybody said, nature had a way of soothing people's souls.

He was at the edge of the garden when he saw something so incredibly cute. It was a little girl, no more than twelve, enjoying that very same moment in childhood Ollie had been missing a few beats ago. It was so unbelievably cute to watch her soak up the life the sun was giving. Ollie couldn't help but smile. Ah, kids! Sure, he was only fifteen and he didn't understand life at all, but he knew that things happened and time was a never ending story. So, naturally, he walked up to her and found her face. She had the cutest baby face ever! Much cuter than when Matthew was a baby! Ollie had seen pictures of him and Matthew as infants, and Matty sure took the spotlight with that baby face of his.

"Hey!" Ollie greeted her with a friendly smile. "Mind I keep you company? I need a bit of happiness today. He said, his shoulders shrugging a little as he spoke. Not really waiting for an answer, Ollie sat down at a safe distance from the cute little child and said, "You're pretty young, you probably know my little brother. Matthew Bennett?" Yes, Matthew was a good conversation starter. Really, what was he supposed to say? It was like he was losing contact with his childish spirit and he had no idea what to do! Usually, he'd just come up with a game or he'd bring a ball and everyone would play football, but this was a young girl! Ollie had no clue what young girls talked about, or what they did. Actually, that was a lie. He knew exactly what Matthew's girlfriend did: Talk about herself all the time. But, surely, this little one could be so shallow! It seemed there was kindness in her, unlike the aura around his brother's girlfriend. If there was ever someone Ollie disliked...it was her.

Arwen's eyes could only take the rays of the sun for so long and closed her eyes. It was so nice, the warmth. It was like being coccooned into a bed of heated flowers, but not so heated it would break a sweat. It was just perfect. Her mind was drifting, and she daydreamed about being strong and amazing, and making people laugh. And that her stutter would be gone. It would be much nicer without it. She was pretty far into it as well. Soon, her mind wasn't the only thing drifting, but her entire body was, and sounds like the wind suddenly sounded pretty distant. Which was why she jumped so bad when someone suddenly talked to her.

She shot up from her position on the ground and looked as a guy, much older than her, took a seat nearby her. Arwen felt terrified for a moment, but soon realized he'd taken seat not very close to her, and he looked strangely familiar and he also seemed nice. He was cute. But old. Arwen felt her cheeks heat up. She looked down, and her hair fell across her face, but she looked up again as the guy mentioned Matthew. She frowned a bit. Was this his brother? That would explain why Arwen thought he looked familiar. "I-I d-d-do know h-him," she stammered, having a hard time pronouncing the words at all. The guy had scared her.

Arwen didn't know what to say, but he had said he needed a bit of happiness. She wondered why. And she also thought that if he wanted her to spread joy and happiness, she should at least get to know why he needed it. Right? "Why d-do you n-need h-ha-happiness today?" she asked silently, not looking at him as she did. She didn't want to lie back down either, because she didn't know this guy, and stretching out on the ground meant being an obvious target. Of course, as he was Matthew's brother, he couldn't be that bad right? But still, she'd feel exposed, and she didn't want to feel exposed. She crossed her legs and folded her hands together, looking at them as she tried to get some dirt out from underneath her fingernails. "M-my name is A-Arwen, by the w-way," she mumbled, knowing that she ought to introduce herself. It was manners, after all.