[hr][h1][center][color=f6989d][i]Penelope Thomas[/i][/color][/center][/h1][hr]

"[b]So, I heard you took quite the fall yesterday.[/b]"

Dressed for the morning, Penelope slipped one leg at a time into the purple skirt as Gwendolyn, her camp counselor and temporary aid, stretched the elastic band wide enough to be stepped in. Staying silent and avoiding the gaze of the older woman as the skirt was pulled up and adjusted along her hips, Penelope dropped her wings limply from her chest stretching her arms and letting her feathers splay out along the floor. "How'd you find out?" She finally responded, eyes still staring hard at her roommates bed. As much as she didn't want to talk about it, Penelope knew the topic was going to come up sooner or later. During a Power Training lesson yesterday, Penelope had taken a hard fall on the obstacle course. Stuck on a tree branch after slowly making her way up the tree, she had attempted to fly instead of glide down from her perch but all she ended up doing was falling hard on the ground. Taken to the nurse and earning some laughs and worried looks from the other campers, this hadn't been the first time Penelope had failed to fly. 

Kneeling on the ground, Gwendolyn brushed a stray lock of blonde hair out of her face as she fixed the white poncho over Penelope's shoulders and chest, "[b]Well, Ms. West told me what happened, and I thought you might wanna talk about it.[/b]" Catching Penelope's gaze before she turned away, Gwendolyn continued softly, "[b]Were you hurt?[/b]" 

Stretching out her feathered appendage to show it was in good condition, Penelope gave a light shrug as her counselor stood from ground and sat on her bed, "I'm okay." Opening up about the embarrassment she had felt wasn't really on her to do list, but her bottled up frustration towards herself was beginning to reach its peak and Gwendolyn's next set of words didn't help settle Penelope's worries. "[b]That's good. No need to push yourself either, you've got the whole summer ahead of you to get the hang of it.[/b]"

"But I [i]should[/i] be pushing myself! It's been three weeks already, and I still can't fly." Penelope's sharp response came as a surprise to the both of them, but instead of shutting down like she usually would Penelope kept on and allowed her anxiety to pour out, "Everyone here can do all these amazing things already, and I can't even stay off the ground for more than a few seconds! I mean," Swallowing hard and bringing her wings back up to her chest, Penelope stared hard at the ground as she forced herself to spill the beans, "What if I [i]can't[/i] fly?"

Penelope's troubles brought a concerned look over the older woman. Raising her hand and intending to place it on the younger girls shoulder, Gwendolyn hesitated and dropped her hand to her side. Leaning her head to the side to be at eye level with Penelope, Gwendolyn gave the other girl a soft smile, "[b]Penny, everyone who comes to this place starts off somewhere and for you that's flying. I know some of the other campers may seem more experienced, but they're all still learning about their powers too. And the summer's just started, kid. You've got time to figure all this out, so no need to be so hard on yourself.[/b]" Despite her counselors words and some stress lifted from her shoulders, Penelope was still stuck overthinking her situation, but as the older woman continued to smile at her Penny couldn't help but feel almost forced to reply, "Okay, thank you Gwen. I think I'm going to go ahead and get breakfast now."

"[b]Need me to come?[/b]"

Shaking her head, Penny shifted uncomfortably in her spot as she responded, "Ah, no. I think I'm just going to ask for a smoothie today." After her sudden outburst, Penelope had quickly closed her self off to her counselor and began to yearn for some space, wanting desperately to avoid opening up any further.

Gwendolyn's smile had slightly fallen upon the other girls response however, now fearing that she had only brought the younger girls self-esteem down even further with her words. "[b]Oh, okay. I'll head back to the office then, come on by if you need me for anything.[/b]" 

With a quick nod, Penelope left the room before her counselor and slipped down the hall of her dorm building. Since it was a quarter to noon a lot of her fellow campers were more than awake, and it made moving through the short hallways of the dorms bearable for the more than socially awkward bird girl. There were two specific campers she wanted to avoid, the two girls that had laughed at her when she had fallen. They had poked fun at her after coming out of the nurses office, and Penelope was sure they were going to do the same thing at todays power training lesson. Hurrying outside and entering the small quad before the dorms, Penelope made her way towards the mess hall for breakfast in hopes that maybe Wendy, Chloe, or Fiona were eating breakfast as well.