And when at last the work is done

Don't sit down it's time to dig another one.

Outfti@lincoln

Whether one is looking at their own lives or those of the past, one thing is always certain. Nothing stays the same, and everything changes. It doesn’t matter if you are royalty or the smallest of the small. Everything changes. People that you are close to today will fall away, whether it is death that takes you, fate that changes, or something along your path. Everything changes, from the moment you take your first breath until you struggle to breath your last. It is a truth that is universally acknowledged, publicly accepted, and socially expected; because who you are today is not who you will be tomorrow. You will still have the same ideals, memories, and (for the most part) personality every single day. People in history are the same way. They went to bed, they woke up, and then at the end of the day they were just that people. It was something that she learned the hard way. It was something that she never thought about when she was young, things that she never wanted to have to think about.



However thinking of this great people and their great minds sometimes reminded her that they are just people, and seeing their bones, their remains and what the ravages of time have done to them… it makes things a little… difficult to say the least. It gave Izzy a rather acute view of the world around and made her adjust the way that she looked at the world around her. The recent changes in her life had made her do the same. She had been forced to take a step back and to look at the world once more. No longer was her father the man that she though that he was, Andromeda Lestrange was now the Minister of Magic and the worst part of it all was that her beloved Museum was gone.



It hurt her to know that so much time and effort had gone in to make that place what it was, but she knew that working for the Minister took up enough of her time. She was going to be able to finish her books and go on the dig that she needed to finish a part of her research. She needed coffee for herself, she wasn’t needed at the Ministry for a while and she had woken early to clean her apartment and get in a workout before working on the book some more. She was so close to being finished. She was looking over some notes in her journal while walking towards the door of her favorite place to get a drink (and wolf down a quick muffin) with her cup in her hand and slammed into someone. Her hot drink going all over both of them and her journal. ”Shit!”

There is no dark side of the moon, really
matter of fact, it’s all dark

TAG: @izzy | OUTFIT

He was working the Bats hard.

Lincoln Orville didn’t let his team slack off. Win or lose, it was important that they kept up their practice schedule.

They had spent the latter half of practice going over strategy for their next game, planning a few plays that would work well against Puddlemere, and then putting all of it into practice. By the end of the three hour ordeal, his players were begging him to let them take an hour or two before he made them run drills.

And he had allowed it.

Link pushed them, but he didn’t want to push them too hard. So he had allowed a two hour break for all of them. They were approaching the tail end of it when he had got it in his head that he was going to do something nice for his teammates.

Piece of Cake was an indulgence — one that Link didn’t often let himself have. He remembered a time when he had brought Zoe here…they had shared a piece of cake, a couple of coffees, they had laughed like it was nothing and they had forever. And then, she was gone. The only girl who had ever had the opportunity to break his heart had shattered it into a million pieces and sent him spiraling down into his depths. Link wasn’t the same man that he was back then. He couldn’t be. No, what Zoe had done…what she had made him feel…that changed a man.

Walking into the small cake shop was like reliving all those cruel memories. He tried to focus on the cashier, not bothering to look around. It was almost as if he had tunnel vision, but he knew it was for good reason. The moment he let down his guard was the moment he started feeling things. And he sure as hell didn’t want to feel the memories that were in this place. Hell, he just wanted to get his team some coffees and a cake to celebrate their wins of the season and then he wanted to pop right back to the practice field. Plain and simple.

Pulling his sleeves, up, Link went for the counter, fully prepared to order coffees for the whole team as a way of showing that he was sorry for how hard he worked them, but he quickly collided with someone. Instantly, he felt burning liquid searing his chest and looked down. The coffee stain had already soaked through the sweatshirt’s material and reached his skin, causing him to wince. He held up his hands as if to ask the person what they were doing when he caught the eye of a pretty girl who was apologizing at him.

She seemed to be fumbling on her own, a journal in her hands as she tried to clean up the mess. It looked ruined. “S’okay, s’okay,” Link said, reaching down and picking up the coffee cup that she had dropped. The liquid on his shirt had instantly reached room temperature and was no longer burning him. Pulling out his wand, he whispered a quick incantation and the coffee seemed to draw itself out of her journal that had landed on the floor. “Hope that’s not ruined.” He said, as he picked it up and held it out to her. "You're alright, then? Not going to have another episode...?" He was still holding what was left of the coffee cup before he grinned at her. "I'm going to hand this back to you now, provided you'll try and avoid spilling it on me again."

Izzy knew that there was a welt forming on her chest from the hot liquid that had hit her skin. She knew that it would be hurting and that she was going to need have someone look at it. She didn’t want to ask her mother, but it depended on if she was busy or not, because the last thing that she wanted was the Minister getting worried over her for being clumsy. She didn’t want anyone worrying over her, she was a big girl, even if she had a hard time admitting it at times. She had a lot on her mind and she had a lot to do that day before she would be able to lay her head down to rest, but that was okay with her, she didn’t need the coffee she could easily make it through with tea.

She blushed and bit her lip as she looked at the man. Get yourself together, Izzy. Yelled the voice in her head and she shook her head before for a moment, blinking as she finally grasped what was going on. Taking the journal she looked at it carefully. She had charmed it to keep something like this from happening, after all this was what was most important to her in the whole world other than her mother. She laughed a little and nodded her head. ”My mother always told me that I should know better than to walk with hot liquids when in public and not paying attention. It’s my own fault for letting my head get away with me.” She shrugged a little and winced as it hurt but knew that it wouldn’t be too much longer before she was all healed up.

”I think that I took more damage than you did, but you have my word mister…?” She asked looking to know his name. She felt like she knew him from somewhere though, but she could not put a name to the handsome face.

Her blush was cute. Link couldn’t stop himself from thinking that everything about the petite little brunette in front of him was cute. Her features were bunched up ever so slightly, her skin smooth. She looked so innocent. Merlin’s beard it was always the innocent ones that did him in, he thought, reaching up and brushing his hand against the side of his head where a bit of the liquid had hit him.

The girl seemed to be apologizing profusely and Link shook his head, trying not to laugh at her. He would be fine — he had sustained a lot worse than a bit of hot coffee to the chest. If anything, this was an excuse to pick up some more sweatshirts from his favorite shop in London. “Happens to all of us,” Link said, shrugging slightly. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t say happens to all of us…because I personally have never launched a cup of coffee at a stranger. But it’s one hell of a way to get to know someone.” He said, winking at her as he picked up a few napkins from the counter and held them out to her along with the coffee cup that he had been holding for safe keeping.

Link just grinned at her before he turned to the barista. He was purposefully ignoring her question about his name. It wasn’t like he was well-known anymore. People didn’t hear Link Orville and immediately think about the Seeker who had blown his chances at success early on in his career. No, he had all but faded into the background, taking a back seat as the coach for Ballycastle. There were days when he missed the fame, though. He missed showing up and instantly being recognized. There was something about notoriety that had always been a draw. The barista looked up at him, carefully observing the wet stain that was on his shirt and raising her eyebrows. Link just laughed, and shrugged. “A black coffee and whatever she was drinking.”

”Can I get a name for your order?”

He turned to look at the girl behind him before he answered. “Link.”

With new coffees on the way, he turned back to her and raised his eyebrows, leaning against the counter as he waited. They could sit in silence, but he would much rather get to know the girl who had accosted him. “So, you’re Izzy?” He asked, nodding towards the cup that was in her hand. Her name was scrawled across the side of the paper cup.

Being an innocent was a little hard at times, but that rarely came into play anymore unless she was around attractive men. There were those that she had had feelings for and those that she had been interested in, even a few that she had been willing to date, but it seemed that the more that times passed and the close that she got to thirty the more that she felt that she was missing out on a part of her life. Of course being a pureblood and being pure were two different things to her. She knew that she had made a promise to her mother, but it seemed that there were some things that her mother could say and didn't’t make them true.

SHe was still mad that her mother had lied to her. She was still mad that her mother had told her for so long that the man she thought was her father. That this idea that she had been sold was a lie, that the person she had molded herself into was a work of fiction, and the man that had actually had something to do with forming her life was nothing other than the one thing she stood against. Of course, he probably hadn’t been that when her mother was young. From what she had read he was charming and smart but he was a Death Eater, he killed people. She couldn’t respect that, no matter how much that she tried.

His eyes looked like they could see through her and touch her soul, and Izzy almost melted. Taking the napkins and cup from him she smiled and began to dab at her cooling chest and winced softly as she looked him once again. He didn’t respond to her question and she frowned for a moment, but was fine with anonymity, after all there had been times in her career that had demanded it. She figured that the man had a good reason for it but when he gave his name for the coffee she laughed and grinned. She liked it. Link. It was cute, much like it’s handsome counterpart.

”I am. It’s Izzy Cavanaugh to be proper though.” she said before handing one of the people behind the counter the now half empty cup that had been her coffee. ”And that makes you LInk?” She asked him curiously. It wasn’t a common name, but one that she could probably look into if she wanted to.

He didn’t pick up girls a lot anymore. Sure, there were one or two here and there, but not very many people were interested in an old, washed up bastard Quidditch player. Sure, he was still the Coach, but he wasn’t the hot shot anymore. He wasn’t the one on the ballot for Most Valuable Quidditch Player of the Year. No, that wasn’t Lincoln Orville anymore. He wasn’t even sure that this could be considered “picking up a girl.” After all, it was Izzy Cavanaugh who had thrown her drink onto him, not the other way around.

Coffee Girl: Izzy Cavanaugh.

“Nice to officially meet you,” It could have been the end of their conversation after that. They both had what they needed, there was neither harm nor foul. No hard feelings…but Link didn’t want to turn around and leave it at this. Link knew that he was going to remember her name. Call it intuition, or whatever the hell the divination wiz-kids called it, but he had a strange feeling about her. “Link Orville, the man, the myth, the legend. Coach of the Ballycastle Bats. That’s Quidditch,” he answered as the barista slid a new black coffee into his outstretch hand and Izzy’s drink into the other. As he pushed himself off of the counter, he walked forward, holding out her new drink to her.

He stood there, grinning like a fool for a moment before Link moved towards a table that was just to their left. The couple that had been sitting there before was on their way out of the building, so it was up for grabs. “Want to sit and have a drink? Seems like you have a bit of a hard time walking and drinking coffee, after all, coffee girl.” He suggested. Instead of sitting down, he pulled out one of the chairs and offered it to Izzy before he took one across from her.

Honestly, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to come out of this little coffee date, as it were. He wasn’t looking for a distraction — he didn’t need any more of those — but he didn’t want to just walk away from the sweet girl with the journal. There was more to her story that he wanted to unlock. He wanted to know what she was doing here and why she had been so distracted — he was curious about the leather-bound journal. She seemed so different than everyone he had met. She was so out of touch with the world around her that he wanted to see if he could crack in to the hard shell that she had built up around her. But the only way he could do that was to talk. So he tucked away the Bats’ strategy and tried to drum up some of his humanity…Merlin’s beard, he hadn’t needed to be friendly since he had been dating Zoë. “What’s got you so caught up in that book that you can’t walk straight?” He wondered aloud, taking a sip of the black coffee.

For years of her life Izzy hadn’t had time for dating, hell she barely had time for  her mother at the end of the day but she made the time, because she loved her. She knew what was the most important and she would give it all up for her family, for her mother if she ever had the need to. It wasn’t like she was trying to save the world or anything, she wasn’t a healer or things like that, but she wanted to solve the mysteries of the past. It was something that she had shared with the man she had been told was her father. She had wanted a deep and lasting connection and wanted to learn more about him. The more that she did, the more that she was learning that she hadn’t been finding him, she had been finding herself. Everything that she learned only helped her develop who she was, and that was all thanks to her mother.

No matter how angry that she wanted to be at the woman, she couldn’t. Time passed and it could have changed who either of them was, but Izzy, like her mother, stayed true to who she was. Her mother was like a wall, unyielding and ungiving. She saw the cracks, many would but she stood strong and firm, representing a firm foundation upon which Izzy had been raised.

As the man introduced himself she smiled at him, realization painting on her face and she nodded once she knew the name. She didn’t follow the sport, she never had. She had more important things to follow in school and even now, but she had heard him mentioned in conversations over the years. ”That I know, but it’s never been something that I was into, never had the time to follow it. “ Perhaps it was that she just didn’t value it. She didn’t see the point of hurting herself for the entertainment of other people. Taking the drink from him she smiled softly and nodded her head before taking a small smile.

She wasn’t due into the office for a while, the Minister had meetings all day and most of the mail that would arrive was accepted by Pansy anyway. She blushed softly as he stood there smiling at him and bit her lip softly, her large eyes looking up at him. She hesitated for a moment and thought about how she took no chances, and that her life was pretty boring. One coffee wasn’t a trip down the aisle or jumping into bed with the man. She could do this, and keep her promise to her mother. ”I would love to.” She said before sitting down in the offered chair.

She crossed her legs and adjusted the skirt as it rode up her leg and leaned back into the chair. She tucked the mostly repaired journal into her bag and sighed softly. She laughed when he asked about the journal and she gave him a beaming smile. ”Those are a part of my research and work notes from my latest dig. I’m an archeologist and anthropologist and I am working on a book about the tribe that I was studying, about what happened to them and how they disappeared. “ It would always be impressive to other people, but for her it was just another thing.

”I’m comparing them to the findings of the others from the dig and their opinions and will use that with my findings. It’s all boring really when I think about it.” She groaned in his head and sighed. He was going to think that she was boring.

---

Words:619