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

[greenmoonrising]

Bruce smiled wanly at that and answered simply, "Yes."

"So, what creatures did you cover this year?"

[helmetdoesnothing]

"What, you want a litht?"

He gave the other teenager a bit of a deadpan look, but as it happened, he had a list. After a fashion. Mituna turned to the index of the book, where the creatures they'd covered this year were messily underlined in yellow. There was no point in wasting time on things they hadn't covered, right?

Manticores, unicorns, knarls, kneazles, hippogriffs, all the usual suspects appeared to have been given some attention. The section for manticores had a crooked asterisk beside it, as did the kneazle section. The section on acromantula has a question mark beside it, with several dots beneath as if he'd tapped his quill against the paper while marking it. His attention lingered on it for a moment.

"... I don't know why that'th there."

[greenmoonrising]

Bruce glanced over the list and raised his brow at acromantula. "Do you remember anything about acromantulas? Maybe you were sick and missed the classes?"

[helmetdoesnothing]

He looked down at the word as if it might help him remember, and tapped his fingers slowly against the top of the table. There was no end of frustration in his condition, in knowing something was wrong with him and that he was never going to reach the state he'd been before, but that didn't mean he wouldn't try his damned hardest with everything he had, when it mattered.

"... No." Mituna rubbed his free hand up against the bridge of his nose as he said that word, slowly. "They're thpiderth. Right?"

[greenmoonrising]

"Really big spiders, yeah."

Bruce flipped over to the chapter on acromantulas and glanced at Mituna. "Do you take separate notes or just write in the book?"

[helmetdoesnothing]

"A bit of both." His notes were never really organised and he didn't take most of them himself. The ones in the book were usually taken in class, while the ones on paper were copied from others after the fact. That, unfortunately, usually ended in something of a disconnection between the notes and his understanding of them.

"My other noteth are in the dormth.. I can go and get them."

[greenmoonrising]

"How about we take these back to the dorms and we can work there instead? It's early enough in the day that everyone should be out and about rather than keeping indoors, even with exams."

[helmetdoesnothing]

".. Yeah, thure." He pulled a couple of books towards himself - his own copies - but left the library books behind.

"Thankth."

[greenmoonrising]

"It's no problem," he answered, glancing at the library books. "Not taking those?"

[helmetdoesnothing]

"Don't need them." He'd only really been using them for referencing anyway. Still, he paused, lingering by the table with his attention on the books.

"... You think I thhould take them too?"

[greenmoonrising]

Bruce glanced over the books and shook his head. "Nah, I've got some of these and the others are just further readings on the creatures. You usually don't need them in the exam anyway."

[helmetdoesnothing]

He nodded and sighed a bit. "Ok," he muttered, then began moving towards the door. He'd just take that as a green light to borrow Bruce's books until after the exams were over.

"Tho, where'th a good plathe." Mituna was relying on Bruce for this one. Every quiet corner seemed to be already occupied by a fretting student, but at least the weather outside was good.

[greenmoonrising]

"You can come up to the sixth years' floor - pretty sure everyone's either in the lab or outside today," he answered with a wry smile.