25th February 1996 (63:10:06)
— Contact plus 00.05.22:23.00

The bunker was surprisingly spacious — they were all like that, and built on shockingly short notice. Beth wasn't sure how they'd managed that. She knew magic was heavily involved, a lot of the digging done by charms that were presumably similar to the ones she'd learned back in the initial attack, to help move rubble? Pretty much all the mages who hadn't been more useful on other projects — like healing, or handling translation and checking for infiltrators — had been conscripted to help with digging out the bunkers, since, you know, the air turning to poison was kind of a problem.

Of course, once they'd actually dug the tunnels and shite out of the ground, then they had to insulate them somehow. Those damn beetles were in the ground, after all — originally the tunnels had still had a lot of exposed dirt and stone or whatever, but they'd had to come through and cover it all with...stuff, to stop the bugs getting in. Beth wasn't sure what it was, exactly. It kind of looked like ceramic? You know, the reddish, brownish hardened clay that a lot of basic pots and shite were made out of. The amount of the stuff was kind of absurd — even if it was only a centimetre thick, enough to cover the entire inside surface of the shelters still worked out to an insane volume — and how it was moulded smoothly over every corner and curve... She really had no idea how they'd done that, where all this shite was coming from.

Maybe they'd conjured all of it in place? Conjuration was temporary, but you could extend a conjuration by setting an enchantment to draw in the power to keep the spell going from the environment. It didn't necessarily make the conjuration permanent, since magic in the environment could disrupt the spell, and of course if the runes got cracked the spell could break, but they only needed it to last for however long until the labcoats figured out how to fix this. So, it was probably fine? Beth didn't know, that wasn't her job.

Not that she really had a job, anymore. After running her ragged checking over people coming into shelters, like, twelve to twenty hours a day — there had been days when they were especially short on time that she didn't even sleep — going on constantly for...um, a couple weeks, at least, she'd honestly last track of time passing what felt like ages ago now. But anyway, whoever was running this operation had apparently decided that she could take a break now. After finishing sorting through all the people coming in to this shelter — had to be like her eighth or ninth by now, she'd lost count — she'd been told that that was it, she'd be staying here for the rest of the crisis. She'd be on rotation for security duties, standing ready in case aliens found them or if there was any kind of unrest inside the shelter (packing thousands of strangers in close quarters could get bad pretty easily), but the people in charge knew how she'd been running around for the last, like, month or whatever, so they were giving her a few days off before she was expected to report for duty.

Which, that was kind of nice of them, honestly, she hadn't expected that. But then, she guessed a mage who was half-dead on her feet probably wasn't very useful. She didn't care why they were giving her a break, really, she was just looking forward to sleeping for, like, eighty per cent of the next three days. But getting some food before passing out was probably a good idea...

Like the other shelters, this one was split up by dominant language, the exception being the military people, who were all put together — partially just so everybody would be easy to find on short notice, but also they had equipment and shite they probably didn't want people messing with. Though, the different sections weren't completely closed off from each other, they weren't firmly segregated or anything like that. This shelter was kind of a mess in general, the population in the area of the mountains this shelter pulled from was super diverse, so. They had some Vietnamese and Laotian people, but most of them were from a bunch of hill tribes, Ba Na and Xơ Đăng and Gia Rai and Êđê and Cơ Tu, and other little groups who might only exist in a couple little villages, they were hard to keep track of. They'd at least tried to keep the Chăm-speakers together, and sorted the other hill tribes as close to geographically as they could — with the thought that people who were already neighbours before would be comfortable being good neighbours down here — but it was a mess, it'd only sort of worked.

The military section was kind of in the middle, also where the storage and the kitchens and things were, the other sections in a ring around them. But they weren't blocked off, or anything like that, stitched together with hallways, in places the common areas didn't even have solid walls between them a lot of the time. Just, you know, sorting where people would be sleeping, and probably spending most of their time, around people who spoke the same language, just for convenience.

Beth did notice that the military section was more closed off, with doors that could be sealed closed pretty easily if they decided to — putting the exits and the food stores on their side of the doors. She was trying not to be creeped out about that, it was probably just meant as a security thing, just in case...

She plodded down the main stairs, the brighter lights of the upper level gradually transitioning into the dimmer orange-toned environment of the lower levels. It didn't look bad with the earthy reddish-brown colour of the walls, kind of got a vague warm glow — and was also easy on the eyes, nice for her low-throbbing headache. (Exposing herself to so many different languages to test people was draining, and also she was probably a little dehydrated?) Hedwig was hanging close at her shoulder, yellowish avian eyes watching unblinkingly. Concerned, maybe? Beth probably looked like shite — she felt like shite, so, that'd only be appropriate.

They came down into the central corridor, wrapping around one side of the military section, where all the exits were, and the storerooms and shite. All the doors were open, so it was noisy here, distant half-heard voices murmuring in several different languages — Beth grimaced as her headache flared a little worse, ugh, this was going to be miserable. Taking a tight little turn at the bottom of the stairs brought her into the military section. It was made out of the same plain ceramic stuff as everywhere else, the room she came into the common area, somewhat smaller than the Gryffindor common room, with little in the way of actual furniture, instead a lot of cushions and mats and lap-table things and the like. (Still the common way of doing things in a lot of rural areas, and it just took fewer materials, they were running this operation as lean as they could.) There were several people around, obviously off-duty, a lot of uniform jackets hanging open and hats missing — all Vietnamese uniforms...except a couple over there who were apparently Laotian military, not sure why they're here. People had gotten mixed around a bit in the fighting, and the border was, er, probably pretty close (she wasn't actually certain where she was right now), guess it wasn't that weird.

Beth and Hedwig were the only white people in the room, but that wasn't unusual at this point. She hadn't seen anyone else in her troop in a while, left behind at one of the shelters deep in the poisoned area now — the UK had kind of temporarily handed her off to Vietnamese command to help with setting up the shelters, it was a whole thing. (Luke had given her papers with a copy of her (and apparently Hedwigs'?) formal orders about it, but she wasn't actually sure where those are, might have misplaced them in a move.) She hadn't seen anyone else in a British uniform in...shite, weeks, didn't know exactly.

She walked across the room, occasionally waving back at someone, through the curtained-off door into the women's sleeping area — no solid door, but the barrier was a few curtains thick, you couldn't actually see through it at all. The floor was completely covered with...probably bamboo mats of some kind, more curtains hanging from tracks set into the ceiling to divide off sections of the room for privacy. Because there was only one room, beds set into recesses in the walls stacked three high — the ceilings in here were probably a bit under two metres tall (which wasn't so bad, honestly, under the circumstances), that was about as many as you could fit comfortably — between the stacks closets and drawers and stuff. It would be rather cramped in here, but by the look of it they were only using maybe a third of the beds — there might be more as some of the stuff upstairs was shut down and they settled in to wait, but. They must have made both the men's and women's sides the same size, the other one was probably more full.

The stacks were numbered, to help keep track of how many people they had in here, Beth and Hedwig had been assigned to the same one...here, okay. Beth dropped her bag on one of the beds — she'd deal with that later, or realistically just throw it into the closet so she could sleep — and then her cap, started unbuttoning her jacket. Keeping her voice low, she'd noticed some of the beds were occupied, she muttered, "I'm guessing you want the top bunk."

Hedwig nodded, reached to toss her bag up — not that there was a whole lot in there, just a single change of clothes. (Naturally, Hedwig was accustomed to travelling light.) "I am hungry, and you should eat."

Beth noticed Hedwig hadn't asked if she was hungry. But then, Hedwig was well aware that Beth could be really bad about remembering to eat, if she wasn't on a schedule — she assumed (by which she meant Hermione assumed) that her shitty childhood had fucked up her ability to feel hunger properly, so her body didn't tell her when to eat like everyone else. If she was on a schedule it was normally fine, or if she'd gotten a workout. Right now, the headache and generally feeling fucking exhausted meant she wasn't really feeling hungry at all, but she was aware that she really should eat anyway. "That's the plan. Come on."

Back out in the common room, the kitchens were...that way. (She hadn't actually been down here yet.) It took longer than really necessary to figure out, she got distracted by one of the women in here — she seemed very familiar, Beth was certain they'd meant before, but her worn-out brain wasn't coming up with where. The kitchens were through a door and around a curve of a narrow hallway — more brightly lit than the common room, there were signs hung up on the wall with maps of the shelter and the rules in multiple languages, and also chalkboards people could use, mostly asking if anyone had seen a particular missing family member or if they had an extra of one thing or another the writer could borrow — coming up on a somewhat more open area, lines of people extending from counters worked into the wall on the inside of the curve. The wall outside of the curve had big chunks taken out of it, opening up into the...um, some of the local groups, Beth forgot exactly where this was on the map. The Vietnamese and Laotian sections actually had to go around the loop or through the military section to get to the kitchens, just worked out that way for whatever reason...

Anyway, they joined one of the lines at the end to wait — no idea what they were serving, but she was pretty sure all the counters were the same, so it didn't really matter. A couple people ahead of her said something — one of the local languages, she thought they might be offering to let her ahead, noticing the uniform — but Beth just waved them off. She could wait.

The line was moving pretty quickly anyway, they were up to the front in only a few minutes. Unsurprisingly, they were serving noodle soup of some kind — Beth had probably had more noodles and rice in the few months she'd been in Vietnam than the rest of her life put together. Surprisingly, it actually had a significant amount of meat in it this time. Fresh meat had gotten rarer and rarer as the war went on, the people in charge of that sort of thing being more careful about portioning out their resources, but Beth had heard through the grapevine that they'd quickly decided that moving livestock out of the way of the expanding toxic cloud simply wouldn't be feasible. So they'd slaughtered everything and packed it away as quickly as possible instead — they'd pulled a bunch of people to help with the job, Beth had heard it'd been very bloody work, a slapdash sloppy operation they'd put together as they went. They definitely hadn't gotten everything out in time — there'd been a simultaneous attempt to harvest as much of the crops as they could, and she'd heard a lot of that had been lost, which was going to get bad later — but at least they'd managed to save some of it before it was wasted.

So their noodle soup actually had strips of beef in it this time, alongside the local vegetables and...fresh herbs somehow? There must be a greenhouse back here somewhere. They were apparently using some of their remaining chilli paste too, shite, this stuff smelled strong...

Beth took a bowl of soup, was unexpectedly handed a bread roll of some kind by one of the people behind the counter — military privilege, apparently, extra calories to keep them up through all the work they were expected to be doing — and a generously-sized cup of tea, and turned back around toward the military section, closely followed by Hedwig, with the same soup and bread but without the tea. (She never had developed a taste for it.) They picked a random spot in the common room, Beth handed her tea over to Hedwig before charming over a couple of the lap desks, and they settled in to eat. Right away, Beth transfigured a cup for Hedwig out of her spoon (which she wouldn't be needing), filled it with a quick water-drawing charm, while Hedwig knocked the contents of her bread roll — looked like strips of some kind of vegetable (maybe carrot?) and slices of some kind of offal minced and pan-fried together, and also more herbs — into her bowl, and handed the bread halves over to Beth. Hedwig had made plenty of progress when it came to actually tolerating human food, but the texture of bread still bothered her for whatever reason. She wasn't a big fan of the fresh herbs or vegetables either, but she would eat them, at least.

They'd also discovered that Hedwig was allergic to nuts — a snack they were given one day had a paste made with cashews in it, she'd had one of the full on allergy attack things, hadn't been able to breathe for like a whole thirty seconds before a medic got to them and realised what was happening. Oops.

While they ate a few people came by to say hello. Most of the people here were in groups that'd been together for a while — since at least the final battle around the Four Thousand Islands, by the sound of it — and Beth and Hedwig were in a different uniform, and the only white people in the room, so they kind of stuck out as obviously new. Thankfully, nobody hung around to chat too long — Beth would really like to get her food down so she could go sleep...

That one familiar woman Beth noticed before didn't come over, but Beth did notice her occasionally glancing this way. She wondered what that was about, it was—

Oh!

Oh, that was Ianin. Beth hadn't recognised her at first — they hadn't exactly known each other that long, and it'd been a while now.

...

And now Beth was remembering that time that she actually had sex (which was still slightly surreal when she thought about it), little flashes of memory flicking behind her eyes, which wasn't going to make getting some fucking sleep any easier.

Despite the distractions, they finished eating before too long. The food was making Beth very sleepy — the extra bread especially, feeling all warm and heavy, and, it was a little hard to keep her eyes open, honestly. Hedwig gathered up the dishes and things, volunteering to bring these back, Beth should get ready for bed. All right, thanks. She cast quick cleaning charms on their chopsticks and her spoon (untransfigured from Hedwig's water cup), tucked them away, and went back to their bunks to grab a couple things before continuing on to the bathroom.

Beth wasn't entirely surprised that there weren't separate, closed-off shower stalls, but she was a little surprised that there weren't actually showers at all — there was a tiled area, with drains in the floor, a few spigots on the walls and some benches, and a stack of buckets. Apparently they were expected to keep clean with...well, sponge baths, essentially, just filling up a bucket with water and wiping yourself down, not actually submerging at all. There were even a couple women in here right now, casually chatting while wiping themselves down (she immediately looked away, trying not to stare like a creep). Beth was aware this wasn't unusual in some rural areas, when they didn't just bathe in rivers or whatever was around, but it was still extremely uncomfortable for her, for various reasons. She was less neurotic about this sort of thing than she'd been before joining the Army, and needing to quickly get used to having pretty limited privacy, but she could still be an awkward bitch sometimes.

Thankfully, there were closed-off toilet stalls. Beth fully stripped, did her business, and then went over herself with cleaning charms before dressing in fresh clothes. Problem solved.

(Using cleaning charms wasn't quite as good as bathing properly, but she could put it off for a while, at least. It was possible they'd be trapped down here long enough that she'd cave and have to force herself to go through with it, depending on how quickly the labcoats fixed the beetle problem, but she didn't have to do it now. Sleep was more important.)

While she'd been in the toilet, Hedwig had shown up — she actually was washing herself properly. A couple women (not the same women from before, new people) were talking at her, but of course Hedwig's Vietnamese was still extremely basic, so the interaction was pretty stilted and awkward. Well, not really, she guessed, since Hedwig seemed immune to awkwardness. It seemed like it's be super awkward to Beth (especially since everyone was naked), but it didn't seem to be bothering anyone actually involved.

Beth didn't stick around, but from what she heard the women thought Hedwig's hair and eyes were neat. Which was fair enough, they were pretty cool. She wasn't sure whether the women had any idea what wilderfolk were — it'd been years after learning about magic before anyone had mentioned their existence to Beth — it was possible they thought it was some cosmetic thing Hedwig had done, and not just the way she was naturally. There was a lot of cool body modification you could do with blood alchemy, it was illegal in Britain but sometimes you saw people in other countries with funny hair or eye colours or whatever — since she'd learned about it, Beth sometimes idly considered doing something with her hair, it was such a bloody pain...

Anyway, Beth turned her back on the 'bath' area — she could translate, but Hedwig was doing just fine on her own, and hanging around would be awkward — and headed back toward the bedroom. She hung up her uniform in the closet, after a second of hesitation just tucked her old pants and shorts and vest in the corner of a drawer — she couldn't remember off the top of her head how laundry worked down here, she'd figure it out after getting some sleep. The funny bed-shelf thing was soft, but Beth couldn't really tell what material it was made out of it. Honestly, she suspected it wasn't made out of anything, the mages who'd built it just transfiguring something with the right properties and not bothering with the details, using enchanting to anchor the sloppy conjuration work in place. (Transfigurations that didn't make physical sense burned through the energy powering them more quickly, but you could cheat and keep them going with an external power source, which was a neat trick.) The sheets were, weirdly, actual silk, which immediately tipped Beth off that these must be magically produced — some magical economies in the far east (including in this region) mass-produced silk at a scale and low cost that was frankly slightly absurd, the stuff was ubiquitous. This was actually relatively cheap stuff, without any enchantments and just a plain bland yellowish colour with no decoration and not quite so super nice and smooth as silk could get, but it was still a little silly that they actually bothered.

Good thing Beth was bloody well dead on her feet, because she imagined trying to sleep on actual silk sheets would be distracting otherwise. She was pretty sure she could pass out right on the hard ceramic floor if she had to. She still thought it was silly.

(Of course, acromantula silk back home was expensive in part because they got it from hyper-intelligent man-eating spiders, so maybe that was skewing her perspective somewhat.)

She was still poking at the sheets, sleepily bemused, when she heard someone walking toward her — her first thought was it was Hedwig showing up, and then twitched in surprise when she glanced up to see it was Ianin. Oh, um.

The subtle reddish tone to her skin in the dim orangish light almost made her seem to glow, just slightly. It was really pretty.

Ianin came to a halt a few steps away from where Beth was sitting on the edge of her bed...and then just stood there for a few seconds, watching. Hesitating, Beth thought. Which she guessed was understandable, Beth didn't know what the hell to say either — she was pretty sure they hadn't spoken since that painfully awkward morning after like a month ago now. Finally, she muttered (keeping her voice low for the people sleeping), "Hello again, Beth." It came out more like Bẹt, how a lot of locals pronounced her name, which was close enough.

After a couple seconds staring back up at her, Beth said just, "Ianin." She remembered something, after a thought added, "Look at that, I remembered your name this time." There'd been a lot of drinking that night, she hadn't actually remembered Ianin's name in the morning, had had to super awkwardly ask while they were trying to sort out their clothes...

Luckily, Ianin seemed to find the reminder vaguely amusing, her lips twitching with a reluctant smile — sometimes Beth being an embarrassing mess was actually good for something. "I wanted to... Do you mind if I sit?" she asked, her head tilting to indicated the bed to Beth's right.

...Um. "No? Sure, go ahead."

She suspected Ianin was conscious of the fact that people were trying to sleep, and also maybe wanted privacy for whatever this conversation was going to be about, could more easily keep her voice down sitting closer. Not that she sat that close, keeping a good handspan between the two of them, seeming somewhat self-conscious about it. Which wasn't a big surprise, she remembered how uncomfortable Ianin had been when she learned how young Beth was...

Once Ianin was sitting down next to her, Beth suddenly felt incredibly exposed — she hadn't thought twice about walking here through the common room from the bathroom in a vest and a pair of shorts, but it abruptly seemed like too little to be wearing. Also, she hadn't bothered putting any knickers on under the shorts, she was uncomfortably aware of that fact now, and fuck, that was seriously awkward...

Ianin sat there for a moment, probably trying to figure out how to start whatever she wanted to say, while Beth tried very hard not to give away how suddenly self-conscious she was feeling. (Could they have had this talk at any time other than just before Beth was going to bed? Ugh...) Finally, Ianin whispered, "I heard your people were sent south, to the Delta."

Beth nodded. "Mhmm. Were you down there too?"

"No, we stayed here. Hunting down stragglers, helping with the cleanup, trying to help people get situated and get farms going again. Of course that was wasted effort now."

"...Right."

"I heard the fighting down there was pretty awful."

"Yeah, it was a mess. I was actually hospitalised twice before it was over."

Ianin twitched, turning to look more directly at her. "Really?"

"Mhmm. Got one of those bug grenades dug into my side here," she said, pointing at the spot over her hip on the right. "Second time, some aliens jumped out of some rubble to ambush us, and I popped over at an angle to box them in, and got nailed with friendly fire like an idiot. Set on fire, shot a few times. Terribly stupid of me, I jumped without thinking, almost got myself killed..."

"...You seem well now."

"Magical healing. I was hurt pretty bad that second time, even by magical standards, was out long enough I missed the end of the battle — I was still being kept in a healing coma at the time."

"The things magic can do, I'm still not used to that. Someone in my squad lost an arm once, and the healer with our company reattached it right there in the field. He was sent back for some additional treatment, the recovery wasn't instant, but he still has the arm."

"Yeah, I'm told as long as you have enough of the pieces that's easy to do. Once all the bones in my arm were vanished in a magical accident, and my school nurse had them all regrown overnight."

There was dead silence for a moment, Beth glanced that was to see Ianin staring at her wide-eyed. Then she shook her head, let out a little sigh. "Magic."

"Yep."

Another brief, awkward pause. "So, how have you been?"

"Tired. They've had me bouncing around checking everyone coming into shelters for, um... Not sure. What day is it?"

"The Twenty-Fifth. Tết was just last week."

"Oh, right, I think I noticed something about that..." She remembered they'd made a deal that the Westerners coming in to help would get Christmas off in exchange for the locals getting Tết off, but apparently the aliens had ruined that for them — needing to evacuate people and build the shelters and get out as many supplies as they could meant that few people would have had the freedom to celebrate the holiday properly. Oops. "So, um, like three weeks straight, I guess. There aren't really enough omniglots and mind mages to go around, I haven't been getting much sleep."

"Ah," Ianin gasped, twitching a little, "I should let you rest, I'm sorry."

"It's fine, I'm just saying. What did you want to talk about?"

"I don't want to—" Ianin cut herself off, hesitated for a moment. "There is no telling how long we are going to be down here together. I wanted to clear the air, and to make sure it...that there would not be difficulty."

"...I'm fine." She meant, she'd been rather taken aback when she'd spotted Ianin down here, and it was kind of hard to avoid getting distracted remembering that night, but she— It wasn't a big deal, it was fine. "Really, I... It's not like I was freaking out over it or anything. I'm probably going to be painfully awkward about it sometimes, because I can be an awkward bitch like that, but, just, ignore me when I'm like that, and I'll get over it. It's fine, don't worry about it."

Sounding a little awkward, for some unfathomable reason, Ianin muttered, "Right. Good. I... I should let you sleep."

Beth got the very clear feeling that wasn't what she'd been about to say, editing herself at the last second. She was vaguely curious, but she probably wouldn't get anywhere if she aked. "Yeah, sleep would be nice."

"Good night, Beth."

"Good night."

After another brief pause, Ianin stood up and started off — but then she stopped only a couple steps away. Turning to half-face Beth over her shoulder, she muttered, "It is good to know that you survived the war in the south. I did worry."

...Um.

Thankfully, Ianin rescued her from figuring out how the fuck Beth was supposed to respond to that by just turning and walking away without another word. That was probably for the best, Beth could be pretty good at putting her foot in her mouth at the best of times. Just, shite, that had been awkward...

She was still watching Ianin walk away when Hedwig, just, appeared out of nowhere, standing looming over Beth. Not literally, she was sure — there were no apparation wards over the shelters, but they still weren't supposed to for safety reasons (and also Hedwig didn't know how) — Beth had just been too focussed on Ianin. She didn't even mean for pervy reasons, just, she was slightly dazed, and confused, that was all. Being very sleepy probably didn't help.

"You are good?" Hedwig asked, voice at a hissing whisper Beth could barely make out.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Grimacing a little, "How much of that were you here for?

"Some." Right, of course, awesome. After a second, Hedwig sat down next to her, rather closer than Ianin had a minute ago, their hips and thighs and arms touching — Hedwig had about a little respect for Beth's personal space when human-shaped as she did while an owl. Which, this wasn't really Beth complaining, it was super awkward at first but she got used to it. She was just Hedwig, after all. "It is not bad, with her here."

Beth shrugged, nudging Hedwig's shoulder a little. "I mean, it's a little awkward, but I'll be fine. It's really not a big deal. Just going to, you know, be reminded of it every time I see her, it's distracting, that's all. Still wish I could remember it better..."

"You can ask to go again?"

She let out an awkward little cough-snort of laughter — the very flat, deadpan way Hedwig said that was just weirdly funny. "Um, no, we had a whole talk about that just after. She was kind of freaking out a little, thinks I'm too young." Beth did get that, sure, but honestly it was slightly irritating to think about. As far as she was concerned, she was already an adult in practically every way that mattered — never had much of a childhood in the first place, not like other people — so the rest was just legal technicalities. She'd spent almost half a year now in various warzones fighting omnicidal aliens, for fuck's sake, as surreal as it was to think about on some level having sex seemed like...not as big of a deal by comparison? It was a little annoying, but, she did get how a normal, responsible adult might not be comfortable with it, so she wasn't going to argue the point.

"I see." Hedwig went quiet a moment, Beth didn't know what was going on in there. She was slowly getting better at human-ing, but Hedwig could be so flat, it could be hard to read her at the best of times.

Without really thinking about it, Beth ended up kind of leaning into Hedwig — she was tired, and Hedwig was warm. She should probably get to sleep...

Her arm curling around Beth's back, Hedwig turned her face into her hair. Which, again, slightly weird on the surface, but it was just Hedwig — it was kind of nice, honestly, she was warm, smelled of the vaguely herby-smelling soap she'd picked up from somewhere. "I tried to be human, once, for a time, when I was your age."

"...What?"

"I was... Normal owls are...not smart, I can't... They are boring, not enough." So, she'd been lonely, she meant. "I went to... I don't remember the name. It was east from home, across the sea."

Which could mean anywhere from Holland up through Norway, it was impossible to guess just from that. "Were they mages or muggles?"

"Mages. It was a village, near the hills. I lived with them, for a time, learned to...do human things. They didn't know, I said I was from far away, they helped me catch up. There was a man, I... We were planning to marry."

Beth twitched, straightened up a little and leaned away so she could make out Hedwig's face. As usual, there wasn't that much of an expression to make out — a faint frown, maybe, intensely but blankly staring at the floor a short distance away. "Really? I...kind of got the feeling that would be, I don't know, too much for you." Too much what, Beth wasn't sure. Just too human, she guessed.

"It was. I did enjoy..." Hedwig trailed off, her frown deepening. "I can't remember his name. It was so long ago, and I was mostly always an owl in that time, and human things, they..." Her free hand came up, gesturing along her head and down her side, Beth thought, like water or something running down and off of her.

...Yeah, Beth got how that might happen. She wasn't certain how old Hedwig was, precisely — she looked like a full proper adult, maybe thirties or so if she were a muggle. But she wasn't a muggle, and mages aged rather more slowly. When she was Beth's age could easily have been thirty years ago. Spending all of that time as an owl, and probably not speaking aloud at all, yeah, it made perfect sense that she'd forget words — even important things, like people's names.

While Beth was turning that thought over — it was somewhat horrifying, honestly, bloke who was so important she was marrying him and she couldn't remember his name — Hedwig went on with the story. "The plans were on, with his family, and all the talk of what the future was to be. We went to see a house, and he was saying... I left. That night. It was all too much — like a cage, closing in, but one I was not to leave. So I left."

"Um. Did you tell him before you, just, disappeared one night?" Like, yeah, that sounded awful for that poor bastard, his fiancée just vanishing out of the blue, but honestly she was more concerned with the thought of Hedwig just leaving her one day...

"...No," Hedwig muttered, low and thick, an obvious edge of guilt on her voice. "It was wrong, to leave like that. Looking back, I wish I...did something, I don't know what. But I was young, and scared."

Well, at least she realised it was a shite thing to do now, Beth guessed. "So, I'm guessing I shouldn't take this is a warning that you're just going to fly off on me one day?"

"What? No, I—" She bit out a huff of a sigh. "I am saying that I know. That it is hard, to be young, and...these feelings. If you want to talk about it."

"Oh." That was... Honestly, it was kind of nice of her. It's not like there were a lot of older women in her life she could talk to about...this kind of thing. Basically the only family she had was Sirius, and, that just seemed like it would be super awkward. There was also Mrs Weasley, she guessed, but no, just no. (Also, Mrs Weasley struck her as vaguely homophobic, and had assumed multiple times that Beth and Ron were dating and been all weird about being corrected, she had no idea how bringing it up would go over.) Beth had no idea whether she'd ever take her up on it, but it was still nice to offer. "Well, thanks, I guess. But I really am okay, I don't need to talk about it."

"Okay. And you need to sleep anyway."

"Yeah, sleep sounds like a good idea." A last squeeze, again pressing her face into her hair, and Hedwig pulled away, her arm unwinding from around Beth as she stood. Before Hedwig could take hardly more than a step away, a warm lurch rocked through Beth, she reached up and snagged Hedwig's wrist. "Um." Hedwig turned to stare down at her, with her inhumanly steady yellowish eyes, which wasn't making it easier for Beth to figure out what she meant to say — she didn't really know what this tangled up warm fuzzy feeling was, just, she was too sleepy to figure this out right now. Her eyes on Hedwig's knees, Beth said, "Thanks. Just, you know."

(She loved this bloody bird, that was all.)

Hedwig's lips curled, trying to smile, but it didn't really look right — still working on that faking being human thing. "Yes." She reached forward with her free hand, fingers slipping through Beth's hair (still short from when she chopped it off this morning), that funny fuzzy feeling squirming through Beth's chest. "Good night, Beth." She stepped away, Beth let go of her wrist.

Of course, since Hedwig really was quite terrible at pretending to be human, she stripped her clothes off — seeming completely unselfconscious about the fact that she was standing out in the open, but Hedwig was never bothered by that sort of thing — hung her things up in the closet, and then transformed back into the familiar big white owl and flew up to the top bunk over Beth's head. She preferred to sleep in owl-shape, high up where she could see the whole room, that part still hadn't changed. Of course, there was a bit of muttering from a few people in the room who weren't asleep yet, a few hissed questions of whether their neighbours had seen that, what kind of magic was that?

Beth, naturally, ignored those questions. She was sure the two of them would be interrogated about it tomorrow — by which she meant Beth would be interrogated about it tomorrow, because Hedwig couldn't speak Vietnamese — but that was a tomorrow problem. That'd been enough emotionally difficult talks for the night, thanks. She ducked her head and rolled over into the funny bed-cubby thing, coming to rest on her back. Heavy eyelids immediately dropping closed, she didn't even bother reaching for a blanket or whatever, it was warm enough in here.

In minutes she was already drifting off, vaguely aware of Hedwig sitting watchful above, familiar magic pulsing cool and calm and smooth.