Don't try to push your luck, just get out of my way

outfit @dominickjr TW: references to multiple kinds of abuse

Returning to her roots was not something that she thought that would be easy, but it was about like riding a bicycle. She wasn't a pureblood so she was not stupid enough to think that she was entitled to anything like they were, but she was certainly enjoying this. She wasn't looking over her shoulder that much any more, she wasn't worried that someone would be coming to her. She was just finding her footing and where she belonged with out the connections of Katarzyna. She didn't need the woman to make things happen for her, and she didn't need the abuse that she had suffered.She was better, she was whole and she knew that she wasn't a victim any more. Therapy was helping and her therapist was a squib, but she was someone that Arianna trusted. She had William on her side, and he helped her find her footing too, Kurt was guiding her and she was slowly rising from the ashes. It had been two years, and she had come so far. It was time for her to start living her life without regrets again.

Her wardrobe was needing a lift, because she no longer wanted to hide and blend into the crowd. She wore constant gifts from Kurt's wife and William, spoiled thing that she was becoming and she couldn't help the smile that she wore. She was happy and it was a weakness, but for once in her life she didn't fear what the day would bring. She didn't fear those around her and she had people to trust. Death Eaters who cared about her and took an interest in her life. It was something that she never thought would happen but there she was. She was finding that she was stronger than she thought she was (even though people had told her this before) Alistair had been one of those people but she had not seen him in over a year, the same thing went for Val. She missed them on her bad days, just them being there for her had made an impact,but she knew that she was better now, and stronger. She had grown in leaps and bounds. It was all thanks to them and to Seamus. If Seamus had not hurt her, she had no idea if she would have met William, or slept with Kurt. She wouldn't have made friends with Xiomara (though the witch had no idea about the short office tryst).

She wanted to look as good as she felt, and that meant new clothes. She wanted to go to Gladrags and a few other places, but she always started her shopping in Diagon and worked her way outwards. Since most of the shops that she liked were there. There was nothing better than trying on new clothing. She was in the shop looking through racks looking for anything that might strike her fancy. One dress stood out among them all, and she decided to try it on. Going to a small changing area she put it on and was looking at herself in the mirror when someone nearby shifted and she turned her gaze to them. "Nick? Is that you?"

BACK IN BLACK

OUTFIT

He was bored. There was no other way to put it. The European Cup was over-for them, at least. The Falcons had been knocked out in the first round, courtesy of Amsterdam United, and so the off season had begun for him a little sooner than he would have liked. He'd get used to it. But for now, he was just bored. He didn't have all that much to do, and having a lot of free time meant his thoughts usually went in directions that he'd rather avoid. What had been on his mind for most of the morning, or rather… who, had been Besiana. He hadn't seen his sister since she had left. Their mother had died, and his sister had decided that the solution to how she was feeling and what she thought of everything going on was just running away. She had left to live with Zamir's family in Armenia. Armenia, of all bloody places. And they hadn't heard from her since. Or at least, he hadn't. Nick thought that LJ would have told him if he'd been in contact with their sister, and he hadn't said anything. He was pretty sure that his brother would have mentioned that, and he thought that most everyone was on the same page, and trying to give her space.

But he thought that time had just about come to an end. He knew that she was with family, granted hers and LJ's, and not Nick's, but this was where she belonged. This was where she was supposed to be. She should be home with them. He knew that she didn't necessarily agree with or understand everything that had happened lately. Hell, he'd been in that boat with her. He had felt like they'd all had the rug pulled out from under them when their mother went from being one person, to someone else entirely. She had gone from raising them one way, to admitting that she wasn't really that person… at least not as much as she had pretended to be. That had been jarring, and surprising, and he'd had so many opinions about that. It had certainly been a hard thing to wrap his mind around. What had been most frustrating about all of it was how quickly his mum seemed to want them to just accept it. She had pushed, and pushed, and she hadn't seemed to understand that it wasn't something that they were all going to understand and accept overnight.

He had gotten there. He thought that Ana might have too, if their mum hadn't died. If she'd had more time, if they'd all had more time. But they hadn't. They had all lost their mum, and then he and LJ had lost their sister too. And he thought that it was about time that they dealt with that. They were family. They needed each other. Yes, she wasn't alone in Armenia, and Zamir's family wasn't that bad, but she had two brothers here, and Nick thought that they would all be better off if they were together. It would just be a matter of convincing her of that, if he ended up going to Armenia. Nick wasn't sure if he would, but… he thought that it might be a good idea. She needed to be home. LJ needed her. He needed her. This family was not as bad as she thought it was. They were complicated, but they were still a family. He thought that convincing her to come home might be easier now that Ares was out of power. Things could be a little more normal-though, at the same time, she'd now have to deal with Ares' new wife being pregnant. He didn't know if she'd take that better or worse than LJ.

Nick just still thought that they could get through it, and that it would be better if they were all together. He just didn't know how to convince Ana of that. And he didn't know why he was here, of all places. He'd toyed with the idea of coming to Armenia with a peace offering… he had gotten her a Christmas present that he'd sent to Armenia, but he didn't quite know what to get her if he just went and showed up there. He didn't think clothes would do-she liked clothes, but he didn't really think that would send the right message. Maybe that was why he was here. He was at such a loss that he'd just shown up to the first place that he thought of, even though he clearly wasn't going to come to Armenia and give her a robe or anything from here. Shaking his head at the absurdity of the thought, he decided that coming here really was a lost cause. He had just been ready to head to the door when he heard a… slightly familiar voice, and turned to see Arianna. She had been the year above him in Hogwarts. They hadn't been close friends, but he would consider them to be on friendly enough terms, even if they hadn't seen each other in a while. "Ari, hey." He said, with a grin, the thought of leaving the shop exiting his mind for the time being. "How are you?" Nick couldn't even remember the last time he saw her-it had been quite some time.

Nick Wentzell had been two years younger than her, and the son of a death eater. He was handsome, strong, and a Quidditch player. He was everything that any woman would want, but somehow he had never appealed to her. She had been an acquaintance at best, but it was nice to be that way. She wasn’t too close that the mess with his parents had affected her, and they had not seen or spoken for years, so he had no idea the shit that her life had been there for a long while. She wouldn’t wish that on anyone, and he had ties that she didn’t. She had wanted to go back into that world, and William had been that way in. He had been a way into the society, but a part of her wondered if she really wanted to go back into a world that treated her so badly. But, she knew that that was assuming that every tattoo artist was a biker, or that everyone who was a Death Eater was a bad guy. She knew it was crazy to even think that given everything that she had been through, but there were those like William who made her doubt that they were all bad.

Tucking hair behind her ear she couldn’t help but give him a small smile and ducking her head, old habits dying hard. She didn’t look at his face, instead past him as she had been taught. ”It’s good to see you too!” She wasn’t sure what to say now. Telling him she was sorry to hear about his mother seemed a little insensitive and considering the fact that she had been dead a year almost was a little… difficult. His father had been ousted as Minister so she didn’t want to comment on that either.

”i’ve been alright. Trying to stay busy, but doing better than I used to.” It was an easy way of saying that she wasn’t being beaten on the daily like she used to be. She was happier, healthier, and there was some meat on her bones which gave her curves for days. She was prettier now because of that too, at least in her own estimation (which was only on good days).

No one had really known what to expect of the new year. Nick hadn't thought that it would be all that different. He had hoped that maybe it would be an easier year, as his family had been through a lot. It felt like there was no end in sight, and that nothing was ever going to be normal again. But he liked to think that they were working toward it. He thought that there was a chance that they'd get there eventually. It was going to take time, but it wasn't going to be like this forever. That was just what he kept reminding himself of, at least. Last year had been a hard one, and the year before that hadn't been all that easy either. It had been around his birthday two years ago where everything had gotten complicated. That was when he had found out that his father was still alive. That Dominick was alive, and that he had chosen to leave all of those years ago--he had faked his death, and he had left them. Nick had been ready to never speak to him again, because forgiving him was something that hadn't been on his agenda. He wasn't going to forget everything that had happened, and he wasn't going to forgive that he left them.

The fact that he hadn't kept the doors open to forgiveness had caused problems with his mum starting back then. He'd had to separate himself from all of them, because he just couldn't understand it. He couldn't understand how she could have lied to them for this long--about who she really was, what she really thought about Muggleborns, and all of that. It just… it didn't make sense to him. It still didn't, if he was being honest. Her father was a Muggleborn. How could she just hate them? He knew that it had a lot to do with her complicated relationship with her family, but that was beside the point. Life had gotten complicated back then, and it hadn't eased up since. His uncle had died, and while he had never been close to Andrew, it had been hard on Ella and the rest of his cousins. They had lost their father, and then he had lost his. He had finally opened those doors, had finally thought that he could forgive his father and move forward, and then he had lost him too. It was… bad, but the worst part of it all was the fact that it had gotten worse.

Constance had gotten kidnapped, Nick had to kill someone to protect Ella… last December had been a particularly bad month, and having all of that on his mind this past December hadn't been easy either. But after that had happened, Nick had thought things would normalize. They had for a little while. Then things had started getting bad with his mum and Ares. Pregnancy made her… Merlin, he didn't even know how to explain it, but she had lost it for a little while. Nick had known that they likely would have gotten a divorce eventually, if she hadn't died. He wished that was what would have happened. That she was alive, and they were just better apart. But they hadn't gotten that lucky and they had lost her too. That had been the biggest blow, there was no doubt about that. Besiana had left, and LJ had barely been coping. Nick thought that they were going to get through it all, eventually, it would just take some time. That wasn't something that was going to happen overnight. Now, of course, Ares had been ousted as Minister which was… honestly, he thought that it was a good thing. He wanted it to be, anyhow.

Life had gotten complicated before his father was the Minister, true enough, but there was no denying that it had made everything messier. Maybe they would all get the chance to be normal now. He thought it was possible anyway, that this would turn out to be good. It just might take a while for Ares to actually see it that way. Until then, Nick was just trying to be there for his family, and for Ireland because he knew that her parents' divorce was still hard on her. He thought he'd have to go after Ana at some point too, because his sister staying in Armenia indefinitely just wasn't an option in his book. But that was just something he'd deal with… eventually. Not quite yet. "I'm glad to hear it. You look good." That was true, but he supposed that was… sort of a loaded compliment, especially if people took it as them not having looked good before. "I mean, you always look good. But you look happy." He definitely considered that to e a good thing. He was always glad to see when people were doing well.

It had been a long time since Arianna was the young and carefree girl of her childhood. It had been a long time since she had been an innocent, even if she tried to act like it wasn’t. So much of her life had been taken from her, so much she had to conceal. Her life had been a hard one filled with strife and the last two years had been the best of it. Even if there were times when she still hated herself or hated her life. She was and foremost, a survivor before anything else and lastly she was a woman. She wasn’t going to shift herself for anyone else any more. She had found herself, and she had found the woman that she wanted to be, she just had to get herself straight. She just had to walk the path before her now.

That meant that she had to be happy with herself, that she had to be okay with every part of herself. She knew that Nick was well connected, he had family scattered throughout the Ministry and the upper classes. He was a well off bloke, it was funny how similar their lives had been in some aspects and how different things were now. Her face split into a real smile and she nodded slowly. ”I’ve been rude and remiss, please excuse me. How have you mean, I mean we all hear things that happen or rumors, but how are you, Nick?” she asked stepped off the dias, her long hair bouncing softly as she did so and she tossed it over her shoulder.

She wasn’t really all that happy, but she was trying. She was happier than she had been in years prior though, so she supposed that it mattered and counted for something.

---

words: 305

Nick didn’t know if this was a good idea, but really he was just here to look around. He didn’t think that he would actually find something to buy his sister and then just head right off for Armenia. He was still talking himself into the idea and he thought that he would be for a while. Nick knew that he was stalling. It had been nearly a year since their mum had died, nearly a year since Ana had left to live with her father’s family, and he wanted to think that she would come back on her own terms. Nick hadn’t wanted to have to go after her himself. If she just needed time, then he had thought that he could give her that. He could give her time, and she could decide when she wanted to come back to her family that loved her.

But he wasn’t sure how much longer he could wait for that to happen. It had been too long already and he was worried about her. He thought that they would all be better if they were together and not separated like this. Nick just couldn’t make her see that if she didn’t want to. It was another reason that he was sort of putting off going at all. He didn’t know if he wanted to see her and have her say that she didn’t want to come back, to his face. At least right now he could think that she would come home eventually. Going to Armenia meant getting a real answer and he wasn’t sure what he would do if that answer was no. If that answer was her telling him that she never wanted to come home, that would be even harder.

He knew that he’d have to get there eventually. He missed his sister and eventually he would make his way to Armenia and see if he could talk some sense into her. He didn’t think that this trip to the robes shop would help all that much, but there was no harm in giving it a shot. Maybe coming with a present would make her… more likely to actually talk to him. It sounded ridiculous, probably because it was, but here he was anyway. “Right--always going to be rumors.” He said, with a chuckle. Since the Ministry had been overthrown, peacefully at least, he knew that there were going to be rumors for a while about his family and what was going on with them. Eventually he thought that people would stop talking about it since they didn’t really matter anymore. “Doing all right. Little bored now that Quidditch is over, but nothing I can do about that.” It was the downfall of playing the sport professionally--the off season was incredibly dull apart from practices and that sort of thing.

As a student Arianna had been studious and quiet. She was a well behaved Gryffindor who never really broke rules (unless you counted those times that she smoked up the owlery). She had been a good girl who behaved like a Slytherin at the worst of times. She had feared the wrath of her guardian more than the opinion of any student in the whole of Hogwarts. Not many people had wanted to be her friend and honestly, she liked her life better that way back then. Yes, she had been lonely, and es. She always probably would be, but that was a demon she would always have to fight. Nick was one of the few people that Katarzyna had been approving of, mainly for his familial connections. Funny that the woman knew back then that her friend was bound for greatness.

Since the escape and everything that had changed, Arianna had been chasing the memories that had eluded her for so very long. She was sure that there were things that she didn’t want to remember times that she didn’t want to come to her, things that would hurt when she did remember them, but she would get through it all just the same, like always. She always got through them just by being herself. She wanted to find a pensive or a way to get her memories back and not have to live with them. She knew that it was just a lock, a mental block of some kind, but she didn’t know how to get past it. Maybe it would come with time.

She couldn’t help but smile, a bashful thing before tucking hair behind her ear. ”You should find a charity or organization that you could work with in the meantime. Something that you can volunteer with. Maybe the Orphanage or something.” She wasn’t too sure what to say about herself. The Ministry kept her busy enough but like his own job, there would be times that it wouldn’t be able to keep her busy.

Yes, I'm let loose
From the noose

❧

It had been disappointing to be out of the European Cup as quickly as they had, but he knew that they couldn’t win them all. They’d had a hell of a league season and he would definitely take that as a win. Beating the Tornados meant that his aunt was never going to let him hear the end of it. Liv had been trying to poach him from the Falcons for ages and he had always refrained. He didn’t necessarily know why--it was just a sense of loyalty, he supposed. Susanna had come to him personally to scout him, and he respected the team’s owner a hell of a lot. And he liked his teammates. But now that the di Rossi’s had sold the team and Zabini was in charge of it he… was certainly a bit more willing to let them go. But there was time to think about that. There was months until the league season started up, and he was quite certain Liv would bring it up to him again before then. She always did--without fail.

Another part of him kept with the team because it had been his father’s favorite team. Not Ares’, but Dom’s, and for a long time he had thought that Dominick had been his father, after all. As much as he hadn’t wanted to admit that he was anything like him, or that he cared about him at all, he supposed it had shone through a little when he’d chosen to play for his father’s favorite team. After he had died, it was just something that he’d wanted to keep up with. It was all complicated, he knew that, but he had thought that it was a nice thing to stick with. Nick just thought that it might be time to move forward onto a different team and working for his aunt and his uncle would definitely be nice. It wasn’t like he thought that they’d given him any special treatment or anything like that--he wouldn’t want them to, but he still thought that it would be a nice change.

Nick was just glad that he had time to figure that out. He didn’t have to decide overnight, because there was just plenty of time until the season started up again. Liv didn’t even realize that he was seriously considering it. He didn’t know if she even ever really thought that she’d successfully convince him, but he thought that it might just be time to finally take her up on it. He couldn’t stay with the Falcons forever and with Susanna no longer owning the team, he didn’t have as much loyalty to staying with them. “Hmm.” He said, as he pondered the idea. It was actually not a bad one at all. It would definitely be something that kept him occupied during times when he was just… not as busy at all. “That’s actually a really good idea. I didn’t think about doing something like that.” It wasn’t like he needed a second job or anything, but volunteering was something he could do that would help other people and fill up his free time.

@ arianna

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + ADOX 2.0

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Ari wished upon every star in the sky most nights that her life could be different, that anything could come and take her away from the insanity of her life, of the things that could be different, but then there were times when she remembered the things that were good, the people that were good and she tried to be happy with that. Arianna was nothing if not pragmatic when it came to the good things and she tired (quite often) to see the silver lining in the things, to see that t could be worse than what it was. After all she was not being beaten any more, she wasn’t in that hell So she knew that things could be much much worse.

She didn’t have family but he did. She had no doubt that he had his fair share of troubles, but the problem was, they weren’t the kind of friends that talked about that kind of thing. They did this thing where they gave advice and talked a little but they didn’t give a whole lot of information. It was nice, to not have to talk about the harder things, and it made for lighter moods.

”Not only that but good publicity if they right people see or hear about it.” She said with a wink.