care for an owl? [eliza]

[RAINA VALERIYA SOLOKYOV]

Soon after finishing Durmstrang, Raina had gone on a rather extended backpacking trip across various parts of Europe. This rather large excursion allowed her to tend to her love for all things foreign. It was simply fascinating how there were so many different cultures spanning across a continent, yet they were all interconnected in some way. Naturally, during this time, it had been only logical that bringing an owl everywhere with you was rather cumbersome. After all, Raina rarely knew where she went. She hardly expected an owl to know where she was going. It was much simpler to use the owls available at the post office. But now that she had a permanent place of residence, perhaps it might not be a bad idea to invest in an owl?

As she ducked underneath overhanging cages, Raina glanced about for an owl. How was it that one chose an owl? They were all astoundingly similar. Was one species more reliable or faster than another? Meandering through the space full of loose feathers and cooing owls, it was more than clear that Raina was quite overwhelmed. How did one choose an owl? Or was it like a wand where they chose you?

Stopping at a particular owl, Raina tilted her head as she surveyed the owl. The owl in question was very much asleep, looking pleasantly plump with its eyes closed. Now, this guy seemed alright. Of course, a sleeping owl told you little of anything. There was another owl that seemed to enjoy the idea of tilting its head, almost in a strange mimicry of Raina's own tilted head. There was another owl that seemed quite put out with its current spot, although whether it was annoyed about its current captive state or if it simply despised its peaceful neighbours was uncertain. Conveying its less than happy mood, a loud screech rang through the air. Not unexpectedly, Raina backed away slowly from the less than friendly animal.

It brought her to a startling realization: what happens if she wasn't ready for an owl? It wasn't so much her home situation that bothered her. No, having lived in England for the past three years of her life had ensured a stability that was rather strange for someone like her, especially considering she had spent two years, living on the road. But rather the fact that she would be responsible for an owl, that was what bothered her. She was very much aware that she had a certain lack of ability to maintain her attention on certain aspects of her life, and she had a very strong suspicion that maintenance of an owl just might fall under that category. What happens if she managed to kill an owl through neglect? Oh, that would be a horrible thing. She wouldn't be able to ever allay the guilt that came with killing an innocent and obedient messenger.

With that last thought in mind, she shuddered and turned suddenly to trip over a cage that had been temporarily placed on the ground, causing her to land on the ground with a thud. Looking up, Raina realized that it wasn't just the owl cage that she managed to run into but she also managed to bump into another patron of the store. “I'm so sorry... Feathers everywhere,” she said, gesturing generally to to the feather-filled air from the rather angry bird.

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[kola]

Why was Eliza currently walking into an owl shop? Well the answer was a rather lame one actually. She just loved to be around animals in general and had decided that she wanted to get an owl. During her time at school she had had an owl named Henry but he had sadly passed a couple years ago. So now she had decided that she wanted to get another and thought today was the perfect day to do so. She wasn't even sure what type of owl she was going to get as she wanted one that was more pet oriented as opposed to delivery oriented. Looking around at what the store had to offer would probably help her decide for sure though. As she entered the shop she smiled and nodded at the clerk and then started browsing the owls in their cages.

There were practically every type of owl imaginable in this shop. Of course some were more popular than others, but still there was many different types. She eyed some snowy owls and some typical barn owls. She also spotted a great horned owl, a long eared owl, a barred owl, a screech owl, a great grey owl and a spotted owl. It was hard to decide which ones she really too a liking to. The screech owls were cute because they were little but the snowy owl was really gorgeous due to its color. Ultimately she did like the typical barn owl quite a bit. There was a couple of really young ones that were extremely adorable. After looking at each individual owl and seeing which one would jump out at her she finally decided on a little female barn owl. She was ivory colored with golden and dark brown wings. "Hi there pretty girl, I think I am gonna have to take you home. You are just so gorgeous. I think I am going to name you Floarea cause you are just as gorgeous as a little flower" she cooed to the little barn owl who hopped towards her voice and watched her intently.

After she knew for sure that this was the one she wanted to purchase she turned back towards the front of the store to find the clerk and ask his assistance. She hadn't even gone five steps before someone that she hadn't really noticed before tripped backwards over a bird cage and bumped into Eliza on the way down. Instinctively Eliza tried to catch the girl but of course missed. Instantly Eliza rushed over to her and offered the girl her hand "Oh my gosh, are you ok? Really gotta be careful in this place huh?" she replied with a soft smile. Eliza glanced up at the birds that had probably caused the commotion and shook her head slightly scoldingly at the birds overhead in their cages.

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[RAINA VALERIYA SOLOKYOV]

Thinking that the air was full of feathers as a result of her fall, Raina shook her head in an attempt to clear her head. “I'm fine. Just a bit of a fall. Nothing that I can't handle,” she replied with a smile as she looked towards the person she had bumped into. “Oh, hi there!” she greeted brightly, vaguely recognizing the woman as someone on Georgina's team. Unfortunately, due to the amount of work that has been piled on her for the past few months, especially towards the end of her training, Raina has not been able to keep up with Quidditch as much, to her distress. Otherwise, she would have known straight off who this woman was, and quite possibly accompanied by a little bit of gushing. That was the level of her obsession with Quidditch.

However, Raina felt too embarrassed and simply awful about not remembering exactly who she was to voice it. What happens if she remembers who she is but Raina didn't? That just seemed like she was setting herself for a very awkward situation, not that it wasn't already very awkward. For Merlin's sake, she had almost knocked this woman down with her, if that wasn't at least a bit awkward, she wasn't sure what was. “How have you been?”she continued as she desperately wracked her brain in search of this woman's name. Once upon a time, she had known her name, Raina could have sworn it. But now it was just lost in the abyss of her mind. The fault had to be placed on her training. There was just so much to know. So many protocols and regulations...

She frowned when she realized that the feathers had not yet settled. Looking upwards, she noticed that the true cause of the falling feathers was the angry owl. She was more than a bit unsettled by the sight of the owl flapping its wings so angrily at her, or Raina was guessing that the owl was directing its anger at her. “That one doesn't seem to like me so much, does it?” she commented with a nervous smile as she unsteadily lifted herself off the floor. “At least I know that I'm not going to get that one,” she said with a smile. “Can you imagine how annoyed it would be all the time?”

Peering into the cage that the woman was holding, Raina couldn't help but coo at the gorgeous owl. She knew very little about animals in general, much less owls specifically but she did know that this creature was just darling. “Oh, she's beautiful. You have a great eye for this. Not that I know really much of anything about owls,” she amended quickly. “But to my untrained eye, you're fantastic at this.”

Raina was quickly coming to the realization that she was babbling a bit in hopes of covering up the fact that she still could not remember this woman's name. More than anything else, she felt shame and embarrassment well up inside of her as her brain continued to search for a name to match the face.

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[kola]

After the girl brightened up in recognition Eliza realized that she recognized the girl as well. "I have been good, how about yourself?" she asked in return because it was the courteous thing to do. She knew that she girl looked familiar and thought that it was through Georgina but she wasn't completely certain of that. Even worse she couldn't remember what the other girls name was. It wasn't even on the tip of her tongue or anything, she just couldn't remember it at all. Though she was pretty sure she had only ever heard the girls name once and most likely in passing so it wasn't surprising that she couldn't remember. On that note Eliza figured that this girl probably couldn't remember her name either. If Eliza couldn't remember the other girls name than there was no reason that the other girl should remember Eliza's name either. So to make the situation a little less awkward Eliza decided to say her own name at some point in the conversation.

Looking down at the owl in the cage that was in her hand she smiled softly. "Oh this is Floarea" she added and watched the little female owl fluff up her feathers. "What kind of owl were you looking for anyway? Like one for more of a pet or one for delivery purposes? I could probably help you out. I don't know a whole lot but I know enough generally" she replied wanting the help the girl out if she could. Eliza wasn't any type of expert on owls but she had done some research before deciding which owl she wanted so she had some ideas about the different breeds and what they were good for.

"I'm Elizabeth by the way. I think I met you once before or maybe even twice through Georgina? I am the chaser for the Holyhead Harpies" she replied with a smile. This was a good way to reintroduce themselves since neither one of them really knew the other that well. Eliza was bad with names as it was and only meeting someone once or twice didn't help the memory at all. From what Eliza did remember the girl was really nice, possibly foreign and loved quidditch. Eliza was sure that they would get along just fine and was happy to have someone to at least talk to for the time being, things were dreadfully boring currently since she didn't really have any close friends that were still in town.

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[RAINA VALERIYA SOLOKYOV]

While the girl didn't seem to be as flustered as herself, or the panicked checking and rechecking of names through her mind seemed to indicate. “I've been pretty good as well,” she replied in kind. How was it possible for her to not remember this girl's name? Especially if she was a Quidditch player. For a very large period of her life, she lived, breathed, ate Quidditch.

“Oh thank you, I'm just absolutely hopeless at this,” she replied with some amount of shame. But thankfully, Raina was never a girl to embarrass easily. If that were the case, Raina would never stop for breath as she was embarrassed over every aspect of her life. “To be entirely honest, I have never really done this before,” she admitted with a sheepish smile. “I'm hoping for a reliable delivery owl, I suppose.” Raina took another survey of the owls hanging all around them, making a pointed effort to not look at the one extremely offended owl. “I have family back home in Moscow and they like to hear back from me every once in a while,” she explained with a smile.

“What about you? Any particular reason you bought Floarea? By the way, that's a gorgeous name. Is it Romanian?” she asked. The problem with knowing so many languages is that without some sort of context, it was difficult to pick out which language it belonged to. The word just had a distinctly familiar feeling to her.

Raina almost breathed a deep sigh of relief when Elizabeth introduced herself. Elizabeth. She should have known that. Now that her name was revealed, Raina could distinctly remember her as being one of the most talented Quidditch stars in the making when she last followed the sport. She could only be thankful that Elizabeth had introduced herself since that easily gave her a chance to introduce herself as well.

“Oh yes, I remember that.” Raina wasn't entirely certain that that was the case. There were a few times that she had the opportunity to really meet Elizabeth while she was visiting Georgina; however, that just never happened. It was a shame really. While she truly enjoyed Georgina's company, there was the small part of her, the Quidditch-crazy fan part of her, that screeched at her for not taking full advantage of this opportunity to meet as many Quidditch players as possible and simply gush at them. “I'm Raina, by the way,” she replied with a bright smile. “I'm an Auror at the Ministry,” she replied with some amount of pride. After all, it was fairly recent that she had become a full-fledged Auror. The very fact that one was able to make it through all the horrors of training and to be accepted as a brand new Auror was quite an accomplishment.

[/justify]

[kola]

When the girl, Raina, relayed that she was looking more for a delivery owl as opposed to a pet owl Eliza tried to recall which breed of owl was best for that. "Barn owls can be good for that as well but I think that this owl here" Eliza said as she signaled towards an owl off to the left "Is called the Eurasian Eagle Owl. They are great at flying long distances and are a quiet type of owl so even delivering mail late at night would still not awaken those in the household" replied looking over the specimen in the cage. It happened to be a male that was colored a slate grey with different speckles of dark and light grey within its feathers. She wasn't an expert but she had done some research on the owls best for pets and best for deliveries so she had some ideas.

"If I remember right, that particular type of owl is fairly friendly as well and has a calm demeanor most of the time" she added knowing Raina had already had a run in with one owl today. "As for Floarea, I bought her mainly as a pet. I may send out some letters here and there with her but my family is all mostly here, I just wanted the company at home" she replied with a smile. Home got kind of lonely when you lived alone, sure she could still live at home but she liked the independence of being on her own, plus she was twenty four. "It is Romanian, I am surprised you were able to pick up on that with just the one word. Many mistake it for French or another similar language" she replied with a smile. Her Romanian accent was pretty soft now, her father still had a thick Romanian accent which was funny when partnered with her mother's thick Spanish accent. "My family, well half of it, is from Romania. I like the language a lot more than I like Spanish" she replied casually.

When Raina introduced herself as an Auror Eliza smiled. Eliza had always been interested in Auror's but had never wanted to be one herself. She had been much too caught up with quidditch to ever think of anything else while in school and it just so happened that playing quidditch payed the bills and was fun at the same time. It was an old saying that if you did what you loved as a job then you would never work a day in your life. So far that saying was proving true, Eliza never felt like she was really going to work, more like going to have fun. "It is a pleasure to meet you" she added after Raina finished her introduction. Now that both girls knew each other things seemed a little less awkward already.

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[RAINA VALERIYA SOLOKYOV]

As the woman began to introduce her to various owls that would be best suited to her purpose, Raina couldn't help but be impressed with her knowledge of owls if the look of utter fascination on her face was anything to go by. “How do you know all this?” she asked in wonderment. Raina took a step towards the left to peer at the owl she was gesturing to. He looked to be tame and calm, especially when compared to that shrieking owl. There was something to be said about the owl's neutral colouring that greatly appealed to Raina, in a way that she could not wholly explain. “My family back home might not need it to be quiet when he's delivering at night, but I'm certain that my roommates would certainly appreciate it if my owl didn't make a huge racket every time he delivered something to me.” Raina couldn't possibly imagine her roommate, Teddy, being at all pleased with being abruptly awoken in the middle of the night.

"If I remember right, that particular type of owl is fairly friendly as well and has a calm demeanor most of the time" “Well, that's certainly a good fit,” she commented lightly with a bright smile. It was obvious that she was thinking about the vicious, shrieking owl. Hearing a sad and lonely undertone to her words, Raina smiled kindly. She knew what it was like to feel lonely between her father's outrageous work hours to her travels to her solitary decision to look for her mother here in the United Kingdom. “Well, I'm sure Floarea would be the perfect company; although I'm not sure you should be trusting my opinion on owls and such,” she said with a joking tone.

Hearing that the other woman's family was strewn nearby, Raina smiled, slightly jealous of the woman's arrangement. While Raina loved her family, however limited it may be now, she was also realistic enough to realize that her own goals did not coincide to allow such a thing to happen. Her father was a workaholic in Russia, her mother had seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth, and her brother was off playing Quidditch, and Raina, well, she liked to travel. Travelling generally meant that she was not close to home. If only there were some way for her to travel as she pleased and still be close to all her family members assuming they all decided to be in a single place at once... Ah, that would be fantastic. “It must be lovely to have all your family close by.”

Raina shook her head, not understand how such a mistake could be made, but then again, not everybody had the same affinity as her for languages. “French has a completely different feel and sound,” she explained. She had certainly spent enough time in France to know the difference. Now that she was listening for it, Raina could clearly hear that there was a very slight Romanian accent. “They're both lovely languages in my opinion,” she said diplomatically. Between the two languages, Raina had naturally become far more familiarized with Romanian in her time at Durmstrang, where they had taken in a large number of students from Romania.

It was quite a relief that Raina no longer had to hide that she couldn't remember a person's name. For some, they could easily breeze through an entire conversation without knowing the name of the person they were speaking to. Unfortunately for her, Raina was not one of them. However now that the original subject of owls was essentially over, she wasn't sure what else to say... “The new Quidditch season is coming up, isn't it?” While Raina had been a very devoted Quidditch fan prior to her Auror training, it was easy to see that she had fallen off the wagon a bit since then.

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[kola]

Eliza smiled a little as Raina asked her, slight amazement in her tone, how she knew all of this about the owls. Truthfully Eliza just had a lot of free time and spent that free time learning about one thing or another. She had a great memory but not photographic sadly. It would be rather cool to just be able to look at something once and remember it forever. "I have a lot of spare time on my hands. I like owls so I took some interest in learning about them when I was bored" she replied with a small laugh. When she wasn't fixing cars or practicing for quidditch she could usually be found reading a book somewhere. Even in school she had always been a bookworm, always reading something. Eliza just enjoyed books in a way that most people did not, she appreciated the knowledge they had to offer. If people were going to spend all that time writing stuff down then other people should at least give them the courtesy of reading it.

"Floarea should work out well" she agreed with a small smile. Eliza had wanted an owl for a while but had never taken the time to go and pick one out. She was pretty excited to finally have one at the house. Luckily her family didn't mind when she brought random things home. She did still live at home only because she liked being close to her family. She could easily afford to move out, but what was the fun in living alone? Eliza thought that may be if she had a guy in her life she would want to move out, but until then she was content at home. Now she would have Floarea for company anyway, so things would be a little less boring when her family was out and about.

"It is nice to have them here. My immediate family is here at least, I have a lot of extended family in Romania and Spain. We talk to them during like the holidays and such but other than that it is just me, my mom, my dad and my brothers" she smiled. She couldn't imagine not having her immediate family close by her. She was a very family oriented person and would never be able to move away from them to somewhere completely different. Some people were close to their families and some weren't, she had no reason to feud with her family and so they were as close as ever. "Where is your family?" she asked curiously. It was hard for her to tell exactly where Raina was from, she sounded foreign but Eliza could very well be wrong about that.

Eliza nodded her head in agreement about the languages. Both were gorgeous languages but Eliza was partial to her native language. She liked Romania over Spanish in most situations but was fluent in both all the same. She also had been teaching herself some other languages such as Latin and German and planned to broaden her horizons in the language department whenever she could. She enjoyed learning the different languages just as much as she enjoyed learning anything else. She was sort of an odd ball in her family, but she was who she was and no one disputed it. Well almost no one, there were of course those that hated her because she was a muggle born, but she didn't really care a whole lot.

"Yep, starts in a few weeks. Been training like crazy. Georgie really want to win it all this year. I don't blame her, but some of the team just doesn't take things as seriously as we do. Sammy, Georgie and I are all very serious about what we do as you probably know from being friends with Georgie" she replied with a laugh. Once Quidditch season started Eliza was going to be significantly more busy. Practices and games would soon take over her schedule like they had the last year and years before that. Of course Eliza didn't mind because she had chosen to devote her life to Quidditch many years before, during school actually. Like the old saying goes, if you find a job doing what you love you will never work a day in your life. That was exactly what she was doing.

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