Rose was in an exceptionally bad mood. The kind of mood that wouldn’t fully go away until she had someone to whip. For now though, she would settle for anything that could get the anger under control until she got a chance to really let it out.

She had taken the time to change clothes after classes and other responsibilities had ended for the day. Now she was striding purposefully towards the sunset, clad in red denim pants, pointy black boots, and a dark grey tank. She would likely be cold if she was still out when it got fully dark. If she hadn’t calmed any by then she would have bigger problems.

As she walked, or stomped the grass into submission, as that was a more appropriate description, her wand was down at her side. This was not the act of passivity it looked like, though. Every couple of steps a tiny, controlled flame shot from the tip of the wand, scorching a wild flower or patch of grass. By the time she reached the lake, there was a clear path of destruction all the way back to the castle doors. If an authority figure came out right now she was probably dead.

Oddly, as she reached the edge of the water all that destruction had done nothing to change her anger in either direction. She began scanning the area, looking for a better method of release. To Rose’s great delight, there was a young lion cub bouncing like an idiot and singing to himself, or something equally stupid. He seemed to have been at it for a while, because everyone else present was already ignoring him. This was just what Rose needed in order to deal with her anger and make herself feel better.

Using great restraint to not summon her whip after all, she stomped over to the idiot, a superior glare on her face. “Boy!” she snapped at him. “I do not know who you think you are, but you will not make such stupid noises in my presence!”

There, that felt good. Plus, he was a lion, and lions were always good for a fight if you challenged them. They were predictable, especially the young, loud ones. Well, if he was going to rise to the challenge, she should show him a real fight. She waved her wand, conjuring a flaming baton and throwing it in the air, catching it perfectly, her glare shifting into a superior smirk. “Did you want to play with fire, little lion cub?” she asked, the smirk growing almost playful as she twirled the flaming stick. This was going to be just what she needed it, whether the lion cub realized it or not.

The day had been so boring and people had been so reluctant to hang out with him that Olli had resorted to some pretty pathetic things. Of course, there was more to the story than his current position of singing a ballad about an invisible platypus while bouncing around shirtless at the Black Lake, but wasn’t there always more to a story tan the present?

Morning had seen the fifth year falling out of bed as he woke up late, then scrambled to put on his clothes and get to class, only to find he’d put his pants on backwards (he hadn’t bothered unbuttoning them before pulling them on) and his tie was nowhere to be found. He’d been docked points and kicked out of Snape’s class, only to find the tie in his school bag after going all the way back to his dorm and searching through everything. By that time, his clothes were righted but the room he shared with his fellow Gryffindor males was a complete disaster area, and he was running late. Again.

When he made it to Herbology, Sprout was less than pleased with him, and even less so when he failed to produce his homework. Apparently he hadn’t actually grabbed the right supplies, or else he’d forgotten to do the essay, but he specifically remembered actually working hard on that one so he wouldn’t be failing the class. Now it seemed he was and he had two professors mad as hell at him, and it was only lunch time.

At lunch, he’d managed to insult some girl and he didn’t even know how, had pumpkin juice thrown in his face, and had to go to Pomfrey cause he had a reaction in his eye. Apparently his eyes did not like pumpkins. Good to know, he supposed, but bad for him as this had caused him to be late for his final class of the day. Double transfiguration did not go well when one showed up late to start it off. Even if he had a legitimate reason this time, McGee was so not happy with her lion cub, and she’d heard about the incident with Snape too. Now he had three days of detention with Slughorn.

So, really, it hadn’t been a boring day. It had been a horrible day, and Olli was very much lacking in the fun department. The boy had gone to his dorm only to get glared at by his dorm mates until he threw all his crap back into his own trunk and drawers and such, and as soon as that was finished, he’d changed into his cargo shorts and a red tee that had some peeling white bits that once made words but now just consisted of random squiggles and a lonely ‘s’. He shrugged at the shirt and took off for the lake, only to find that hardly anyone was there and the people who were definitely did not want him talking to them or coming up with crazy ideas or splashing around in the shallows.

This led to the present condition wherein Olli was standing on the shore singing a love song of some sort to an invisible platypus named ‘Jose’. Soon enough, a redheaded girl who he was pretty sure he’d seen sitting at the Slytherin table stalked up to him and demanded that he stop with the singing, going so far as to call him cub. Cub. Like he was some third year or something! Olli growled up at her, placing his hands on his hips and huffing.

”I have a name you know, Fire Dancer,” he bristled as she threw the baton she’d just conjured into the air. His eyes lit up with desire, wondering what it might feel like to have those flames lick his skin. ”It’s Olli. Olli Adams, and I’m always up for a challenge.” The look in his eyes promised he was up for much more of a challenge than the fire dancing she proposed.

Though Rose glared and looked even angrier on the outside, on the inside she was just as excited as she was angry. This idiot was going to actually push her buttons and fight back, even as she clearly threatened him with fire. She might not even have to get her whip to release all of her anger on him. What an excellent find!

“You have two things incredibly wrong, little Cub,” she said, her sneer practically powerful enough to hurt him on its own. “The first is that I would ever care about something as trivial as your name.” She let out a small laugh that held no sign of mirth. “If you are lucky, I will continue to simply call you Cub. If you are less lucky, I will end up with something far less appealing to you that I can call you soon.”

She tapped the toe of her boot on the ground, giving him an impatient second to see just how this relationship was going to go, if something like this could even be called a relationship. “The second is that you get to choose what you call me. You do not. You will call me either Mistress or Rose, or I will find interesting ways to make you suffer, after silencing you so that no one hears to scream of course.” Once again she stopped and tapped her toe, giving his likely tiny brain a chance to catch up with her. “Are we clear, Cub?”

She took a step back, assessing the situation as she waited for his assent. Of course, he could always not give it, and she could find somewhere interesting to shove the baton. Then again, based on the way he was currently eyeing her second favorite torture instrument, that might be exactly what he was going for. She had known people who greatly enjoyed being whipped before, obviously. The redhead had never met someone that looked eagerly at flames like this, though. It certainly warranted further investigation to see if she was right. She might just have one sick cub on her hands, in the most fun way possible.

Rather than taking the time to ponder this further, she pushed it against his throat, so that the length of it was across his throat, pushing down enough to make him uncomfortable but not hard enough to actually interrupt his breathing. The flames weren’t actually touching his skin, but they would probably be licking at each of his ears. The combination of the two was certainly an excellent test of just how kinky the little Cub was. Maybe if he scored well on the test and proved to also be older than he looked, he would make a decent sub. Then she wouldn’t have to look so hard for someone to unleash her anger on in the future, she could simply summon and abuse him.

It was time to see just how into it he was. She didn’t say a word, though. She simply raised one eyebrow in a silent question. That should be enough for him to tell her everything she needed to know, one way or the other.

”I can assure you, Fire Dancer, despite my stature I am not little. If you get my drift, that is,” he said, with a waggle of his eyebrows. Jose was completely forgotten at this point, as the boy was much too concerned with the girl who still seemed to insist upon calling him something to imply he was younger than he was. While Olli was sure she was older than him, he was also more than sure that he could handle anything she could give, and he didn’t want her thinking he couldn’t. Sure, he might look like he wasn’t even a teen yet, but the boy was much older than his height would portray. The girl would have to figure that out sooner or later, or they’d both end up without a happy ending to a horrible day.

He cocked his head at her, a giant grin stretching across his face. He’d just broken this new rule, and he wasn’t all too concerned about it. ”And what if I like the idea of you making me scream, hmm? Rosey Posey?” some would surely say the boy was pushing his luck, but the way Olli saw it he was just ensuring an exciting time. If he wasn’t doing something from his list, he at least wanted to do something that should have been on it.

Before he said more, the baton was pressed to his throat and his ears were growing warm, a sort of prickling sensation every now and then when a flame would lick at the tender flesh. He shivered a bit, looking at her with widened eyes and licking his lips. ”If by ‘clear’ you mean ‘do I get it,’ then yes. If you mean ‘will I do so,’ then that remains to be seen, Posey. You see, I like to test the water. Get to see what I’m dealing with. I’m the type of guy who goes around poking things just to see what’ll happen, then running as fast as I can if it’s too close to death for my liking.”

He shot the girl a winning smile, lopsided as always, and stepped back, freeing himself from the fire and rubbing his right ear, which seemed to have been a bit singed. It didn’t really bother him much, though, and he figured it might leave a small mark to add to his collection. ”So, you gonna show me something entertaining, or should I go back to singing to Jose? I think he misses me. Look at his big flat tail hittin’ the shore like that… Or maybe he’s waging war. I don’t really speak platypus body language…”

On the one hand, there seemed to be at least as much enjoyment as there was fear in his reactions. That was certainly promising. On the other hand, he had called her Posey twice now, that other stupid nickname he came up with two more times, and he seemed to have no real interest in doing as he was told. Plus he was still rambling some sort of nonsense, even with a flaming baton pressed to his throat. Sure, he was probably breakable. The question was whether it was worth it to put in the work on this crazy cub.

On the one hand, it really was a lot of work. On the other, he was still young enough to be truly malleable, it looked like he had an excellent body, and he seemed already well on his way in that he would at least enjoy all the right things. She would at least give him a trial run to see what would happen and how much work he really needed. She just needed to find a way to shut him up long enough for all that before he made her mood even worse.

She whipped the baton through the air so that the flames would lick one of his cheeks before tossing the wand in the air, catching it, and returning it to its place on his neck, this time a little tighter so that he would have difficulty drawing breaths. “You seem to have two things very wrong still, Cub,” she said with the kind of sneer that showed she was actually starting to enjoy herself. “What is it with you and being dumb in twos?”

“The first,” she said, moving herself so that she was pressed against him, though with her upper half far enough away to not feel the flames, but still close enough that she was breathing the words at him, “is that you have a say in whether you get to scream aloud or silently. Or at all for that matter. If you don’t learn to behave yourself in the presence of your new mistress, I will leave you to your…” she looked around, noting that there was no whatever the hell he was talking about. The boy was clearly insane. “Jose.”

She shook her head a little bit sadly at the very idea of it. Whatever the idea of it was. “The second thing this time, is that you can talk whenever and as much as you want. If you insist on giving me a headache which your rambling, I will light you on fire, silence you so no one knows to help, and leave you somewhere isolated enough that you have to wonder if you will actually be saved or not.”

This time she didn’t give any verbal indication that she was done at all, her eyebrow just went back up. Either the boy would learn, or he would hurt until he got to a point that she could take him for a trial run. The only thing changing was how much of her patience he was blowing through before she ever got her whip in her possession.

Apparently the girl wasn't all that easily impressed. Either that or she really didn't like Olli. Or she didn't like platypuses. He wasn't sure, nor was he all that concerned. She'd pretty much repeated what she'd just said to him, and that only meant one thing to the boy: Boring. The idea of returning to the platypus that only really existed in his head and doing some kind of new dance involving upside down spinning in some way was looking much better the longer he stayed there with the redhead, and he rolled his eyes.

"Ya know, you're really dull Posey. I thought you'd be entertaining, what with the baton and the flames and all that, but nope. All peat and repeat. No wonder you're out here all alone with Jose making rude gestures in your direction." His hands were shoved in his pockets and he rocked back and forth on his heels, looking between her and the empty shoreline and whistling slightly. "I don't know what that means, but I'm pretty sure it is not good. Do you understand clawed-flipper gestures, Posey? No, I don't guess you do, or you'd probably be doing something right about now."

Sure, the girl was threatening him with bodily harm, but that didn't worry Olli in the least. He was rather fond of such things, truth be told. Pain kept him invigorated, and that kept him in action, which meant he could meet more of his goals on that fantabulous list of his. Speaking of... "Ooo, I should add juggling fire to my list. Then maybe you could help me out with more of those batons of yours. Yeah, that would be awesome. I could juggle flaming batons and singe my eyebrows off!"

The boy lunged then, grabbing her baton and pulling it out of her hand before the girl could even possibly react to his spontaneous actions. With a crazy grin on his face, Olli started twirling the thing, tossing it into the air only to flail his arms when he tried to catch it, managing instead to catch his shirt on fire and drop the baton, effectively ridding it of the flames. His shirt, on the other hand, was still blazing.

"Oi! Is it hot in here or is it just me?!"

Dull? How did the little lion cub get off calling her dull when she was threatening to burn him to pieces in all the best ways? Maybe he didn’t have enough brains in his tiny head to be the person she wanted him to be. That was the trouble with lions. While everyone was technically breakable, some lions weren’t smart enough to know when they should break, and thus went on until they were past broken and instead unconscious or useless or any number of other things that would do her no good.

This one seemed like that kind of lion, especially when his rambling finally ended with him actually leaping forward and seizing her flaming baton as if he might know what to do with it. She let it go, if only because holding on to it and trying to keep it from him would probably end with fire in one of their eyes, and there was no way to keep that from attracting the attention of the nurse and other rule enforcers. Instead she raised an eyebrow, curious to see what he would do next.

The raised eyebrow was joined by a pleased smirk as he managed to catch himself on fire, which was easily worth her needing to sterilize her baton later. All that and he was still making jokes. Perhaps the little cub would prove to be worth her effort after all.

She certainly couldn’t break him the usual way, though. He would need a method all his own, and he would probably need to actually sign up to be broken if it was going to work. The redheaded dominatrix of a witch knew just what to do if it was to be done. She yawned at the fire on the boy and waved her wand, summoning her whip in its discrete case that would keep it from attracting attention.

When it arrived, she calmly removed it from the case and cracked it through the air off to the side away from the boy, testing the range. Then, before he could really protest or anything else, she brought it down in two swift cracks, one to each side of his face. The blows would sting like well, especially because his flesh should be a little tender from all the heat that it had recently suffered, but were not hard or fast enough to do any real damage. Still, based on how the cub acted it would be a lovely taster.

Without giving him so much as another glance, Rose gathered up her whip, its case, and the baton and strode confidently back towards the castle. Either he would stop her now, he would track her down when he realized just what had happened and what she was offering, or he wasn’t worth the time and effort. Either way the ball was in the court of the reasonably exciting and attractive young lion, and it wasn’t up to Rose anymore whether he played or not. She really hoped he did, though.