A Test of Empathy [Damara Liakos & Professor Grimm]

[Minkasha]

Damara's eyes wettened with tears while her mind made a series of images: her parents waving around her gender dysphoria. And the dirty mudblood touched her. The girl felt insult in his intimate presence to her body and jerked back, arms across her chest protectively.

"You wouldn't have said strange if you hadn't thought about it!" Damara's ophiotaurus started digging his hooves the ground, kicking up dirt and stone to keep a firm stance with his taunt, young body. Both were starting to see only red instead of reason.

Damara's own mind repenended herself. If she didn't enter Hogwarts, if she didn't prove herself to her parents she'd never be able to finish her transition and her family would stop loving her. She had no choice but to be humiliated for the greater long term success.

"I..." Damara broke down and fell into a crouch, crying in her hands. Damara's biggest dream as a young lady was nothing more than avoid the embarrassment of her peers. She entered a school once being praised, she couldn't enter anothe being ridiculed.

[G]

Grimm stayed silent as the girl withdrew, sobbing frustrated, angry tears into her hands. Though his instinct was to comfort the child, he help back; she had reacted violently the first time he'd reached out, jerking away from him, and he had no wish to make her feel uncomfortable. Though he seemed to have achieved that already.

"It's alright, Damara," he said gently, "take a moment; we can go in when you're ready. This will stay between us, alright?" But she will certainly need to be spoken to about that temper, he thought; now didn't seem the time, when she was obviously emotionally volatile. "Would you like to walk your pet to the enclosures, before your sorting?" Dinner was seeming further and further away... but the walk would give the first year a moment to compose herself, as well as give her another moment with her... "What is he called, anyway?" the Professor asked; both out of curiosity, and as a change of subject.

[Minkasha]

Damara decided she was done speaking to the low-blood professor. His pleasantries insulted her and how she felt. The Grecian girl got back to the flat heels of her shoes and she concealed her wand in an inner coat of her black jacket. One of her hands reached to her side and landed upon Kons’ thick, black haired skull. Her ambition and her needs of this world required her to get into Hogwarts, and so she would; this was her final decision. She harshly wiped at her eyes, flaring the skin up red with her unloving touch to her face. A swift shake of her head and rubbing later the tears were instead glossed and smeared around her eyes and on her clothes.

“Kons, follow Professor Grimm to where he takes you. I have to go.” Damara said briskly, kissing a growing, tiny horn not yet ready to bare its fierceness to the world. The ophiotaurus wiggled his nostrils and huffed, caress her legs with his scaled tail. The first born Liakos pulled away and began to march to Hogwarts with a cool and royal air of presence while she head straight to her destination – past the low-blood and denying him further. He brought her luggage, there was no other need to exchange words with him. He did nothing but provoke and correct: she despised him as it was.

[G]

Grimm stared at the girls' retreating back as she sauntered away, his mouth open in surprise. She certainly wasn't the first student not to like him; but not many reacted so obtusely when he offered support. The gangly Professor shook his head, turning to the half-bull, half-snake creature left alongside him.

"She's going to be a tricky one," he said, more to himself than the animal; then he remembered how the girls' familiar had reacted, it's emotions seemingly tuned with the girls' own, and thought better of saying anything else. "Let's get you settled in then, eh?" Assuming the beast would follow ( Damara, from her tone, had certainly expected it to obey ) he turned from the entrance to the castle, making his way across the grounds to the animal enclosures used for the Care of Magical Creatures' classes. The Groundskeeper would know more than he about the animal, was quite knowledgeable enough to give it proper care... as for the child; he wasn't sure who would be the right one, to help her find her place here.

That would really depend, in the end, on her.

-fin-