everything I don't know [rowena]

Rowena inspected her nails with a thin-lipped scowl. A bloody Math test. Just what I needed. She appeared not to be listening to her dorm-mate, who had informed her of what was now the bane of her existence. Apparently the other girl noticed, for after a pause there was an uncertain call of, "Hey, Ro?" The Thunder blonde glanced up with disinterest, then dropped her hand and shrugged. "Yeh, I heard you." What was she going to do about it, exactly? What was she supposed to say? She wasn't good in classes because she never paid them any attention. Where her sister managed to pull ahead in her grades by being a good student whenever it pleased her, Rowena had been crafted of different stuff. Her talents were restricted to the arts. She could play the piano, she could draw, she could design, but ask her to solve a difficult Math equation and she'd likely give you a long, blank stare.

Still, later on as she heard yet another classmate make a comment about the test and how it was supposedly going to be difficult and make up a good part of the grade, Rowena felt a sense of dread. She knew that she wasn't doing very well that year. She'd had her position as Thunder leader called into question more than once—not by her fellow Thunders, who didn't seem to mind her leadership, but by her professors and the school administration. Each time she'd been called into the office she'd smiled and given them empty promises about how she would improve. She'd ask her friends and classmates for help (and use force or manipulation where necessary) to pick up her grade and as soon as they stopped breathing down her neck, she'd stop her efforts. She was paying for that now. What the fuck am I gonna do about this? She didn't have this particular class with Altair and so it wasn't like she could ask her sister for a bail-out. Skipping the day of the test would only make it so that she'd need to take the test the next time she went. And she couldn't skip from now until the end of the year.

I need to pass and get the fuck outta high school.

It was with that thought that she dragged herself into the library, heels clicking loudly against the stone floor of the hallways but becoming muffled against the carpeting of the library floor. She felt like she'd struck the jackpot when she recognised a classmate with her nose buried in a book. Heh. Probably a teacher's pet. She recalled the girl's name and she strode up to the table with a smile, sitting down across from her. "Hey, you're Lucy, yeah?" There was a lilt to her voice as she spoke the words with more cheer than usual. She was good at being friendly when she needed something. "Think we've got Maths together. Sucks about that test, huh? I lost all of my notes to a Water and their pranks." She sighed and shook her head, blonde hair falling about her face. "I doubt I've got a chance but I guess I have to do what I can. What about you? You look like you have it in the bag." She smiled and nodded at the books. Lucy looked smart. She would be perfect. She would be the key. Rowena just had to play her cards right.

Normally, Rowena thrived off of being feared. She loved to watch people jump up and make room for her in the mess hall if they couldn't match their elemental prowess to hers and she would often go out of her way to be frightening. It was a power trip for a girl that often had problems with her self-image. Making others fear her helped her to feel secure. Now? She realised quite quickly that losing her target wouldn't be the best thing. "Where are you off to in a hurry? I only wanted a chat." Where she might have sounded threatening and cruel on a normal day, Rowena bent her words to sound innocent and friendly instead. She wanted to calm the Wind elemental down, make her feel comfortable. She hadn't a clue about Lucy's fear of thunderstorms and so she didn't know all the right words to say in order to make her stay but she was planning on doing her best to get the answers to the damn test.

Still nervous. Bugger. What was she doing wrong, what could she change to be less threatening? Well, the girl hadn't run off yet and so Ro concluded that it might be a good idea to continue acting as friendly and genuine as possible so as not to alarm her potential victim. This was nothing she hadn't done before. "Oh, come off it!" she said, waving a hand. "M'sure you're brilliant, anyone who spends time in a library's got the test down to the letter I'd bet. S'what the teachers'd have us believe, anyway, and who're we to argue with them?" She hoped the compliments might butter up the Wind so that she was more susceptible to Rowena's ploy to use her for the answers. "Loads better than me, anyway! I couldn't make heads or tails of a textbook if you paid me." She feigned distress at this point—not that it was too hard to fake, considering she would have her high school graduation endangered if she didn't manage to pass. "Might've done half decent if I'd had my notes but the bloody Waters had to pull one of their little jokes." She'd actually had a Water ruin her notes before, though this time it was a lie. She'd zapped the girl until she'd been in tears but that hadn't done her notebook any good. Ro had solved that problem by half-assing the test and totally failing it as a result.

She sighed, then seemed to hesitate before asking, "Say... you wouldn't mind giving me a bit of a hand, would you?" She gave Lucy the choice, for demanding the answers to the test would completely destroy any effort that she'd made thus far to come across as friendly and amiable. Thunders had a bad reputation, albeit not quite as bad as the Fires, and she needed to 'prove' that reputation wrong. "There's no way I'll be able to figure all this out on my own by the day of the test and I might fail the grade if I don't pass. My parents would kill me if I didn't pass." Parents? The parents back in Britain that she hadn't spoken to for years? Rowena's parents were dead to her but Lucy didn't know that. "I mean, if you could even help me figure out the formulas I'd be really grateful..." And she'd reap the rewards of her manipulation. Nothing she hadn't done before.

What had the girl though? Rowena wasn't quite sure, although based on reputation alone she could make a few wild guesses. Ro wasn't exactly what could be called intelligent, at least not academically—she skipped class far too often for that—but she was perceptive in a social sense. She liked to know why people reacted to her the way that they did and she noticed that her status as Thunder and then as a leader affected a lot. The Waters had a wary hatred where the Earths were gentle but generally less afraid thanks to their upper hand. The Fires went from treating her like another student to treating her with a lot more respect than she was used to, a perk of being top dog in the opposing alliance. She figured her sister got the same treatment from the Thunder students. So maybe this girl was testing the waters a little bit, unsure of what to think. The Winds were neutral but that didn't mean they couldn't make enemies. She still had no idea of Lucy's thunderstorm fear, though—she could jump to conclusions but she couldn't read minds.

She liked being right, Rowena did, and so the Thunder grinned her victory when her fellow elemental agreed with her. She made a point of not looking too devious in case the alarm bells went off. People could read a lot more into facial expressions and attitudes than the aspiring designer liked to admit. It was why she tried to show as little as possible when she wasn't trying, like now, to manipulate another individual. Her blue gaze lit up when Lucy offered to let her borrow the notes. She liked it when people were more susceptible to false charm, it made it so much easier than spending hours conning the answers to a test out of them. When she had to expend so much time and energy she found it was a lot easier (if a little more messy) to turn to violence and threaten her victims instead. Nothing calmed rebellion like a nice shock to the face, right? The only downside was it increased their chances of tattling on her the day of the test. She didn't like that risk. This way was safer. "You would do that?" She did her best to sound surprised and in awe of Lucy's kindness. Maybe she should consider a career in acting instead. "Oh, god, thank you so much," she stressed. "You're a life-saver, really, you have no idea—" She broke off, shook her head, then smiled again. "Thank you, really. You're sure?" She always hesitated to ask for confirmation in case the other person changed their mind but she figured it would make it seem much more genuine.

Then Lucy went above and beyond by offering her homework, too, and Rowena had the feeling that she would now be able to sail through the test, shock her teachers, and pass the class once and for all. It was a flawless plan, right? Trick the intelligent kid who actually did everything the right way into helping her do everything the wrong way? Flawless. She had absolutely no idea that she was potentially making things worse for herself. "Really, you could? That would be amazing." And I'll barely have to study at all! She'd need to read over things a couple of times to remember some of the answers but it was better than having to try and actually do the problems and figure shit out on her own. No way would she be able to do that, nor was she willing to try. Rowena was lazy, at least academically. School held nothing that she wanted. She didn't want to go to college, either. This was only a stepping stone for her, a stone that was going to sink if she didn't step her game up soon. So this was her idea of stepping the game up.