[attr="class","cbgtop"]

[attr="class","cbody"]Apolline liked to spend as little time as possible down in the bar for the most part. She didn’t enjoy bartending and having to deal with people all of the time. But ever since the epidemic, she had found herself spending more time at work down there. The alternative was being holed up in her room, doing research that she couldn’t act on. Being without her magic for this long… it was an impossible thing for her to even fathom. She knew that her mood had been suffering from it since September, and she knew that there was no one on the receiving end of that more than her brothers. They were the ones that had to deal with her more than anybody else.
[break][break]
Whether that meant they were mending holes that she punched into walls without even calling her out on it or healing her knuckles after said punching. Whether it was Axton doing her hair for her, or whatever else, they certainly had to deal with the horrible mood swings that had come along with her losing her magic.
[break][break]
Most of that did come from her researching and eventually growing frustrated that she couldn’t do more than just read and take endlessly notes. Yes, she had plenty of times that she would be able to put into practice if she ever got her magic back, but she was not able to look at that as much of a silver lining. She wanted to be able to do it now. She wanted to be able to work on an idea when it was fresh, not months or years down the road when a cure was finally found. There was just no way to even know when that was going to happen. By the time that it did, there was a good chance that Alistair would have his own Elder Wand, Axton would probably have all three hallows, and she would have nothing.
[break][break]
Competitiveness between the Dumbledore siblings had only grown as time had gone on. They were all fighting to be first, to be the best, and she had never doubted that she would get there first. She was sure that she would. But now… she was losing hope that it would happen at all. And what was she without magic? What was she without the quest to recreate a Resurrection Stone?
[break][break]
A bartender.
[break][break]
That was what she was. And unfortunately, she had to spend a lot of time down at the bar these days. It was just about the only thing that she could do. If she spent too much time researching, she grew frustrated enough to lash out and that just ended up with more holes in walls and more bruised knuckles that needed healed.
[break][break]
Today, she had decided to risk it. She had no shift downstairs. As far as she was aware, it was Emma during the day and Alistair tonight, but she had no idea if that had changed since she’d last looked at the schedule. Obviously, it didn’t matter enough for her to go verify it. All that mattered was that she did not need to be down there. In the few hours that she had been researching, she had moved from her desk, to the ground, and finally back over to her bed. Half a dozen books were spread out over her quilt, two different notebooks were open, and her pen was between her lips as she flipped through pages of the tome closest to her. There were hundreds of different stones in the world and there was no evidentiary support that the type of stone used mattered.
[break][break]
But there was always a chance that it could matter. Or that she could be able to make a more powerful stone than the original one if she found the right stone. Obsidian and onyx were both good for summoning spirits. Both of those seemed more promising than just a random stone picked up in the forest.
[break][break]
She was sure there were other stones that could prove to be more powerful than just some pebble picked up somewhere. She’d gotten her hands on various of different stones, and she wanted to see if any of them proved more powerful than the rest. But there was no way of doing that. All she could do was continue to research.
[break][break]
Sighing, she laid back on the bed, kicking various tomes and a notebook off of her bed as she let her legs stretch out. Moving her pillow over her face, she groaned in irritation, the fabric muffling the noise. It had only been a couple of hours, but she was already certain she needed a break before she started throwing things.
[break][break]