Sophie was not Sophie lately. Not at all.

Zel wasn’t sure what exactly was off about her—maybe she was being more quiet than usual, maybe she was acting generally withdrawn—but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Perhaps it was a little bit of everything.  In class, she just wasn’t herself. That’s all there was to it.

Either way, he wanted to help her. Make her feel better. See if she wanted to talk, or if she wanted to handle this thing, whatever it was, on her own. At first he thought that it was because of her breakup with Figaro, but if that was the case he would have noticed this sooner. He felt guilty if that was the case… After all, he had been too wrapped up in his own thing to notice when one of his closest friends was going through something hard. Maybe she felt alone because he didn’t help.  Zel so hoped that wasn’t the case.

With Maurice in his arms,[1] he went on a quest to find Sophie, it didn’t take long to find her. She was in the gardens, taking advantage of the temporarily nice weather. It was chilly, but at least the sun was out. “Hey Sophie.” He said, clearing his throat. “Maurice and I—we… Just. How’re you?”

1.	Raine's cat. He and Zel are close. With Nuri's permission!

Sometimes the Castle felt like it was so big it was smothering her - because that was a logical thing to think, right? Even though it was still bitterly cold some days, Sophie felt more at ease in the gardens or down by the lake. There was enough space between the ground and the sky for her to feel a little less like life was bearing down on her. It didn't change the fact it was of course, it was just a nice repireve. She was actually writing to Ollie because on lazy Sundays it seemed she missed the wild hair'd wolf-girl even more than usual. It made her think of summer and endless hours spent on her bedroom floor listening to records while Olls explained comic book origin stories to her or they talked about boys.

It was decidedly hard to be sixteen and have your best friend be so far away. It wasn't that she didn't have friends... well maybe it felt that way since she and Figaro broke up again. He'd been avoiding her for the last few weeks, which was perfectly understandable after their last row. They'd both said things...and maybe the part that was saddest of all was that it'd all been true. Sophie did have a lot of male friends and didn't particularly see why that was an issue and Figaro was an immature tit with trust issues. The hardest part was the fact she couldn't foist all the blame on him. She knew what part she played in everything... but it didn't mean she didn't miss her friend.

It was especially hard now, a painful reminder of last year, the fact he'd frozen her out even after her mother had died. It was just so lonely, but then Sophie had gotten a little better (she thought) at hiding the lonely since then. Apparently, of course, she was wrong, because Zel was looking for her (not that she knew that of course). She wasn't nearly as clever as she liked to sometimes think. When she glanced up at the ghostly white Hufflepuff her lips twisted into a small smile, "I didn't think Maurice liked anyone. I'm pretty sure he sheds on my clothes on purpose because he smells the mutts from back home," she didn't really have a lot of experience with the cat but she was notoriously a dog person. Setting her quill and parchment back into her bag she turned a little on the stone bench, "I'm alright. Just writing Ollie. How're you"? It was no real secret that Zel Trumble had his troubles, it didn't even occur to her that he might be asking after her own.

“Maurice? Really?” He scratched the cat behind his ears and Maurice leaned into his touch, purring loudly. Zel couldn’t imagine him being so petty… But then again, he had known cats to pee on clothes as revenge. Or to mark their territory. But shedding was different! Poor Maurice couldn’t control where he shed, or what he shed on! Zel sat down next to Sophie, and Maurice made himself comfortable on Zel’s lap. He was no longer worried about what Raine would think. Though that cat liked him, he was very loyal to Raine.

“I’m fine. As good as I ever am.” Zelig replied. He wasn’t doing as well as he let on, but Sophie had heard enough of his problems. And his current issues were just so minor that he couldn’t be bothered to worry her with them. They were mostly regarding his brothers trusting Gale more than him, and not being able to provide for them. After his mother got put in Azkaban and Emeline was declared innocent, it allowed Zel to focus on himself. The longer he was a werewolf, the more he noted his behavior and mood shifts closer to the full moon. That bothered him, but he didn’t think that anyone who wasn’t a werewolf would understand. Little Lexi was younger than him, it was hard to confide in her. Ollie no longer went to Hogwarts…

He wished there was an adult or something he could talk to about it. Someone who was experienced. His sister would be a good choice, but he didn’t want to bother her. That was Zel’s problem with most things—he did not want to bother people.

“I miss Ollie. She was nice.” He said simply, “Tell her hi for me, yeah?” Zel tilted his head to the side in a puppyish way and stared at Sophie. “What’s wrong? I mean…” He cleared his throat, “I’m not—I… I’m not saying something’s wrong but you’re not… You know. You’re off." His face flushed, Zel didn't exactly have a way with words and he knew it. "Sorry. Um... If you want to talk about it, I can listen. I'm better at listening than talking."