From: jools	Date: January 4th, 2011 08:12 am (UTC)		(Link)

Jools needed a place to cool off. She'd gone to the party on New Year's Eve, but had almost been discovered coming back through the floo. If she hadn't been thinking on her feet, if she'd actually drunk some of the alcohol being passed around...

Well she wouldn't be back at school, that was for damn sure.

Coming back as early as she could on Sunday to unwind hadn't actually helped. Even being back in classes with something to concentrate on couldn't unravel her nerves either.

She found herself needing to be outside, which was unusual. Jools was the sort of person who stayed indoors and played chess or studied out of her books for hours on end. She wasn't much of a 'running through the wildflowers' kind of girl.

But she found her feet carrying her out behind Destrehan Hall. She was so deep in her thoughts she didn't even notice Lisette, whom she didn't know by name. Then she looked up and saw the girl smoking.

She offered Lisette a weak smile, as if to say hello, but she was awkward enough that she didn't know what else to do in the situation except to keep walking.

	From: voodoo_maman	Date: January 4th, 2011 02:24 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Lisette was pretty sure she'd seen Jools around campus, and that they'd taken some classes together when they were Freshmen. But now that Lisette had been held back a year, she'd lost track of some of her old classmates. It wasn't as if any of them seemed to care about her anyway.

She returned the hesitant smile and then dug around in her purse and came up with her pack of cigarettes. It looked as if Jools could use some nicotine as well. "Want a smoke?"

It would be no great loss if Jools declined and continued walking, but Lisette was keenly aware of how few friends she had. Jools didn't appear to be surrounded by a hubub of cackling girls, so maybe she was as much of an outcast and could use a friend, too.

	From: jools	Date: January 4th, 2011 03:13 pm (UTC)		(Link)

She turned at the offer of a cigarette. "Oh. No. Don't smoke." She shrugged and stayed where she was. "Want some company?" She'd been trying, really hard in fact, to reach out and make some new friends. She'd be gone at the end of the semester and she could keep in touch with letters and visits. If she got out of here in one piece no one ever needed to know that she wasn't in fact Jools. She could have all of her new found friends and her outside would finally match her inside.

It was worth the risk at this stage and the weak smile she offered Lisette turned a little brighter.

	From: voodoo_maman	Date: January 4th, 2011 03:28 pm (UTC)		(Link)

"Good. Don't ever start. It's a dirty habit." It was also a habit had happened to calm her when she was feeling a little stressed. As she put her cigarettes back into her bag, she felt around for the loose pieces of string she always kept in there. She twisted a bit around her finger before dropping it and then pulling the cigarette out of her mouth and letting the smoke out of her lungs.

"Sure, have a chunk of wall." She gestured to the space against the wall next to her and returned the cigarette to her mouth. "I'm Lisette, by the way. Lisette Cavalier." She glanced over at Jools from behind her sunglasses, waiting to see if her expression would register that she'd made the connection between her last name and the shady voodoo shop in Rue Ge Rouge.

	From: jools	Date: January 4th, 2011 03:43 pm (UTC)		(Link)

She didn't plan on starting smoking. Every smoker she'd ever come into contact with told her the same thing.

She lowered herself down the wall carefully and came to an elegant rest with her legs tucked under her body. "Lisette," she said thoughtfully. She had a long memory, but enough time had passed that she didn't recognize Lisette at first. The last name sailed straight over her head. Jools didn't spend any time on Rue De Gouge.

"We used to have classes together. Freshman year." She offered her a more genuine smile. "Didn't recognize you. I'm Jools." Though she had the suspicion that Lisette might have remembered that and recognized her.

	From: voodoo_maman	Date: January 4th, 2011 04:27 pm (UTC)		(Link)

She inhaled another lung full of smoke and exhaled when it appeared Jools had no idea that her family owned Cavalier Voodoo in Rue Ge Rouge. She hated being judged right off for what people viewed as scary. But since it didn't seem to bother Jools, she gave her another smile as she slid down the wall to sit next to her.

"Yeah, we did. It's been a while, I guess." She shrugged slightly and found that she'd almost come to the end of her cigarette. She tapped the ashes off with the tip of her finger and glanced back over at Jools. "Transfiguration, I think. Which I'm still terrible at, by the way." She shook her head and sighed. "Just came from there. I've got Defense Against the Dark Arts next. What about you?"

	From: jools	Date: January 4th, 2011 04:40 pm (UTC)		(Link)

"A long while," Jools said quietly. By the time she was a freshman she had figured out the intricate dance that kept people from asking why her room was on the boys side of the dorm and why her hair was so short (by then it had grown long enough that she could style it in feminine ways). She wondered momentarily if Lisette remembered her more formative years in the lower academy when she could be a right bitch keeping people at arm's length.

"I'm alright at Transfiguration. Wasn't ever a real interest." She shrugged. It wasn't on her schedule this year and in her opinion didn't matter anymore. "Just came from Latin. Going into Divination." Her smile became a little ironic. "If it makes you feel any better that seems to be my worst subject this year."

	From: voodoo_maman	Date: January 4th, 2011 04:52 pm (UTC)		(Link)

In all honesty, Lisette did remember Jools having a bit more of an attitude, but she seemed to have calmed with age and that was a relief to her. Last thing she needed was someone snapping at her for asking an innocent question. "You look different these days. I like your hair long."

She took the last puff of her cigarette before she stamped it out on the concrete beneath her flat-clad foot. She huffed out a laugh and nodded, "I'll be glad when I don't have to take it next year." She nodded again at Jools classes. "I'm not bad at Latin, but I can't say it's my favorite. Divination isn't too terribly difficult for me, either. Most of the time you can get away with making shit up." She grinned and crossed her arms over her knees.

	From: jools	Date: January 4th, 2011 05:07 pm (UTC)		(Link)

"Thanks," Jools said quietly. She liked it long too; the constant threat of having it chopped off at home bothered her more than she was willing to admit. She figured a hollow compliment would ring false and she just smiled as Lisette finished her cigarette. She didn't often comment on other girl's appearances for fear it would bring too much attention to her own.

"Soccoro seems to know when I'm making shit up. I think I haven't properly tapped into my divine inner self, or whatever shit she's trying to sell." Jools rolled her eyes. She wasn't willing to admit out loud that she actually kind of liked Miss Soccoro if only because the woman had a tendency to be so god damned esoteric. "I just have to slog through the rest of the year and then I'm done with all of it."

	From: voodoo_maman	Date: January 4th, 2011 05:16 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Lisette laughed quietly and shrugged, "I dunno, I've sort of been exposed to divination my whole life." She made shit up all the time to customers in the French Quarter. Maybe she'd just become pretty excellent at telling people what they wanted to hear.

"You're lucky to be graduating this year. What's your plan after that?" She still had a whole other year after Jools left. She wasn't looking forward to it, but she was looking forward to graduation. She'd be able to go back home, raise her daughter and just forget about school altogether. If people found out about Isadora after school she didn't care, but while she was in school she wanted to keep it under wraps. She didn't need to give the assholes more fodder to throw at her.

	From: jools	Date: January 4th, 2011 05:48 pm (UTC)		(Link)

"That would help." Jools mother had a touch of the gift, but her father was too practical a man to have divine vision. She too insisted that Jools had a spark of the gift; she just hadn't found it yet.

Jools hadn't really expressed her plans, mostly because she had to leave out big details. Go to Thailand. Become a real girl. Hide out in Japan for the rest of my life. "I was thinking of studying to become a geisha." She said the word with such reverence that it was readily apparent this had been her life goal for a long time. To her thinking geisha were the full expression of femininity and grace. She knew she had a tendency to be a bit vulgar, but she imagined intensive training could knock that out of her. "Once I'm in Japan I'm never coming back."

She shrugged it off as no big thing and smiled. "Do you have plans yet? Or is that a bit too far off?"

	From: voodoo_maman	Date: January 4th, 2011 06:20 pm (UTC)		(Link)

"A geisha?" Lisette's eyes widened behind her sunglasses and she pushed them up a little on her nose. "Wow. That would be sort of awesome." It certainly wasn't Lisette's life dream, but hey, to each their own. Having been on the extreme end of the cultural spectrum, Lisette could appreciate other cultures and their traditions and rituals. "They still have geishas in Japan?" She had thought it was an antiquated profession.

She thought her emphasis on never coming back from Japan was interesting and she questioned silently why she would want to do that. But as the same question was posed to her, she shrugged. "I dunno, I'll probably just turn my weekend work into full-time work and see where that gets me."

She stood up as she noticed the grounds were beginning to thin out while the students moved on to their next afternoon class. She'd wait until she heard the bell ring, there was absolutely no need to rush into her next class.

	From: jools	Date: January 4th, 2011 07:05 pm (UTC)		(Link)

"Some. A lot of it is tourist trap shit, like a shadow, an industry that sprang up in the place of artistry." She tilted her head to the side and smiled genuinely. "I'm going to find a real geisha house and study with the best."

Jools wasn't very adept at reading social cues. If Lisette wanted to talk about her weekend job she would have mentioned what it was instead of being vague. That wasn't something Jools picked up on. "What do you do on the weekends?"

	From: voodoo_maman	Date: January 4th, 2011 07:22 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Lisette actually had the decency to blush slightly when she mentioned the tourist trap shit. That's exactly what she did on the weekends. She played into the naivete of the tourists who came to the French Quarter looking for voodoo dolls and curses. "That sounds amazing, Jools. Maybe once you get there you could send me a picture of you in your... uniform?"

Lisette wasn't sure how to answer the question of her weekend work. "Well, I guess I sort of play into that tourist trap shit over in the French Quarter. Tourists pour in looking for voodoo and I perform it for them. Sometimes it's a true ritual, an actual voodoo doll or grisgris, but for the most part the magic is too strong for muggles and we can't do a whole lot. But they think it works, so..." She shrugged.

	From: jools	Date: January 4th, 2011 07:34 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Jools rose slowly from the wall to join Lisette, feeling awkward chatting from her position on the floor. "I could do that," she said happily. The chances of her father stumbling over any photographic evidence of her full transition being rare; this was a simple promise made to a possible new friend.

She had to admire the girl's honesty. "No wonder you're so good at faking it in divination." She beamed and nodded. "I think you're my new hero."

The walkways thinned out even more and Jools figured she'd be late for her class at this point. She wasn't ordinarily late for anything, but right now she didn't care so much. It was good catching up with Lisette. "I'd like to hang out sometime. Clearly, weekends are out. Maybe we can meet up and I can help you with what I remember from transfiguration?"

	From: voodoo_maman	Date: January 4th, 2011 07:46 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Lisette grinned when Jools agreed to send her a picture of her in her geisha outfit. She was fairly certain it would be epic. If she thought she could ever afford it, she'd make plans to go to Japan and see for herself, but that was pretty unlikely. "Great!"

She grinned and then broke into a chuckle. "Yeah, it probably helps." Being called anyone's hero, even in passing or jest, made her chest swell with emotion. She wasn't going to cry or anything, but she rarely had people giving her compliments, especially strangers.

"I'd like that, too. Everybody eats, right?" She adjusted her bag over her shoulder, moving it so that it slanted across her chest. She made sure she had everything she needed by glancing around the area she'd been occupying. "You'd be willing to help me with Transfiguration? That would be awesome. I could probably give you some pointers about divination, too." She smiled sincerely at Jools and moved back toward the doors that led inside.

"It was good to see you again, Jools. I'll message you later and we can talk about getting together." She waved and then stepped inside and disappeared.

	From: jools	Date: January 4th, 2011 08:04 pm (UTC)		(Link)

"Right," Jools agreed. She was pleased that Lisette enjoyed their conversation and wanted to have more. She hadn't blundered too much through it. "Absolutely," she said to helping with transfiguration. "I might be a bit rusty, but I bet I can help you over the rough patches. And I could certainly use the help with divination." Not that her grades were too shabby, but they were lower than what she expected of herself.

She nodded happily and waved as Lisette headed back into the building. "It was really good," she said with a cheerful smile she rarely showed anyone. "That'll be great!"

Then Jools did something so uncustomary that she wondered at herself. She turned away from the building and headed back to her dorm, enjoying the cool afternoon air on the way. Jools was skipping divination, in too good of a mood to ruin it by bungling through her worst class this semester.