Defeat is not the worst of failures.

[helmetdoesnothing]

WHO: Mituna Captor and anyone
TONE: Stressy
RATING: PG-13 for Mituna's likely swearing
WHEN: May 2nd
WHERE: Library
WHAT: The OWLs are coming up, and Mituna is slowly realising he might never be prepared for them
STATUS: Ongoing

---

If he made too much noise again they'd ban him for the rest of the week, but it was difficult to keep himself quiet when trying to study felt like he was reading ancient Greek.

What made it all the more frustrating was being able to remember a time when this was easy. Two years ago this would have been nothing, he could have coasted through his OWLs with next to no studying and be sure that he'd done well. Now? Now he was struggling to keep his place in a textbook and having to read most sentences twice to make sure he grasped the meaning.

Mituna groaned softly, dropping his head to his book on top of a page about manticores and pushing one hand into his hair. He was going to fail everything, he just knew it.

Comments

[helmetdoesnothing]

He recognised her voice before he turned around, as well as hearing that laugh in her voice. It was only by virtue of the fact she wasn't outright mocking him that the 'fuck you' was only dully muttered against the pages his head was resting on.

Mituna sat up, glancing over at the younger Ravenclaw.

"... Are you licking the fucking bookth again."

[drubbings]

Terezi was far too use to hearing Mituna's unique tick from across a quiet common room to take any real offense to him. But on principal she still shot a "Rude!" back at him. She leaned forward on to her cane with her fingers threaded together over the handle. She tilted her head down in the direction of his book, nose twitching.

"Contrary to popular opinion, one little lick won't hurt them!"

Although that may not be the point. For some reason people seem to dislike the idea of someone's saliva all over public property. Terezi still didn't understand the fuss.

"What subject is this?"

[helmetdoesnothing]

The last thing on Mituna's mind right now was the issue of someone's bodily fluids being on the book he was reading (and really, there were far worse ones than saliva, let's be real here) but as she said that he looked down at the book in front of him, one side of his nose wrinkling slightly.

"Manticoreth," he huffed out, sliding the book over so she could sniff it.. or.. lick it.. or whatever she felt like doing. "Trying to thtudy ith a fucking nightmare."

[drubbings]

She was already dipping down by the time he slid the book over, nose hovering a few centimeters from the worn pages. While giving the page a good sniff-over, she reached into her bag and fished out a handful of writing supplies and parchment. Immediately, she popped the end of her quill into her mouth with a satisfied sound.

"At least manticores are interesting! So, Mr. Prickly-Pineapple, what exactly is the nightmare?"

[helmetdoesnothing]

That they were interesting was the only reason he hadn't already closed the book and thrown it across the room, really. Mituna sighed pointedly and looked over at her, despite the fact she couldn't see the expression on his face.

One day she was going to run out of nicknames for him.

"The amount of information outweighth my ability to retain it," he muttered, sounding as if he was repeating something he'd been told, rather than coming up with that particular explanation himself.