swinging life away (open)

[Anna Almeida]

Anna skipped over to the playground excitedly. She'd been thrilled when she'd first come to Hogwarts and seen that there was a playground there- especially the fact that they had swings. When she was little, she'd loved going on the swings by the park near her house, but then they'd remodeled it, and they hadn't put in swings because "there wasn't enough room," which seemed like a ridiculous concept to Anna. How could there not be enough room for swings? It was a playground, seriously. A playground without swings was like...pizza without cheese, which was another concept Anna found weird, even though she knew there were some people out there who probably didn't have cheese on their pizza. Weirdos. Unless they were lactose-intolerant, of course.

After reaching the playground, Anna dashed over to the swings, glad that it wasn't overly crowded and that there were still a few swings that weren't taken by other students. Sitting down, Anna used her feet to push herself off the ground- she went back and forth in the swing, using as much force as she could to get herself to go higher and higher, until she was practically at the point where she was even with the bar at the top.

As she continued swinging, Anna prepared to do another thing that she'd always loved to do- jump off the swing over the fence that separated the swings from the rest of the playground. She waited for a few moments, wanting to make sure her timing would be right so that she wouldn't fall off the swing and land badly. Okay, I'm ready, she said to herself, and got ready to jump. "One...two...three...GO!" she yelled, and went flying off the swing over the fence. Unfortunately, her timing hadn't been quite as perfect as she'd thought, and she toppled forward onto the ground. So much for not wanting to land badly, she said to herself.

[Sophia Davis]

Sophia's cat Shawn, kneazle-cat Lily, chow puppy Bayer, and niffler Viktor, followed her on her way out to the grounds. It wasn't nearly as cold this time around, and there wasn't any snow on the ground, but she still had on a thin black jacket and her cats still twitched their tails unhappily at the weather they faced as they came outside. Bayer was used to it, as he'd been outside with Sophia many times over the winter, but the cats chose to stay inside more than not. Especially Lily, the little punk. What a mean little kneazle. Sophia couldn't help but laugh as Lily pounced on Viktor from behind, causing Sophia to want to pick up the Niffler before he was harmed. He wasn't her Niffler after all, he was technically Taryn's Niffler, and she didn't want to lose points from him being harmed. She also wasn't sure that Taryn would give her another Niffler to work with, after the first one was harmed.

Sophia let a small sigh run through her lips as she finally realized her destination, making her way over to the playground. She hadn't been there in quite some time, and it held quite a bit of memory for her. Every time she got onto the playground, she remembered her first meeting and lots of her dates with Skandar. They always seemed to include days at the playground, which was really expected. They were eleven through thirteen at the time they'd dated. She was glad that Skandar had left. Although she had loved him about as much as a thirteen year old could muster to love someone, all of the people she'd been with and dated since then were teaching her lessons. She couldn't have gone on in life only being with one person. Plus, she had Athradien now and they were engaged, and that thought kept her happy.

Sophia opened the gate to the playground and stepped inside, allowing all four of her animals who had accompanied her through, before shutting it and latching it. Her owl Kayd was the only animal, besides her Hippogriffs at the ranch, that hadn't accompanied her.

Sophie made her way over to the swings, wanting to find one to sit on while she watched her animals play harmlessly, until she heard a small thud on the sand behind her. She looked over and down, seeing a girl much smaller and younger looking than her, laying on the ground. "Are you alright?" She questioned carefully, going over to help the young girl up. She certainly hoped she hadn't taken too hard of a fall.