Speaking up (Team Nine) on Labyrinth Gardens

Nathan Xavier

February 19, 2016 10:45 AM

Challenge 3: Earth's Majesty and Nature's Beauty by Nathan Xavier

The third challenge, like its predessors, had been preceded with a notice in each common room to inform the students they were to meet in front of the main entrance into the Gardens on Saturday morning and they were advised to wear 'clothing that would not be ruined by a bit of dirt.' No other clues were given as to what the third challenge would entail.

As the groups began to gather at the designated place and time, they found fifteen platforms lined up against the outside hedge of the labyrinth and Nathan Xavier standing on the one in the center, which was marked as belonging to group eight. The platforms were about five foot square, and gave the groundskeeper an extra foot of height so he could be seen easier by those at the back of the growing crowd.

Nathan did not wait much past the advertised 9:30 start time before beginning. "Hello, and welcome to the third and final challenge. As you may have guessed based on the previous themes and the mention of dirt, today will focus on Earth. We will finish off the elements when we announce the winning group at the bonfire at the end of the year. So far, our leaders are Groups Two, Five, and Three, so congratulations to them, and those are the teams to outdo today, if you can."

He took a brief pause, mostly to catch his breath and rub his sweaty palms on his robes (the weather was very nearly perfect today, but Nathan was unused to addressing so many people at once and he felt quite hot under so many gazes). "What we'll be doing is creating an art project using natural materials you find in the Gardens. Construct your sculpture on the platform labeled with your group number. Everyone should help contribute to your team masterpiece. You may use magic to help during material gather or construction if you'd like, but it is not required. I'd appreciate it if you don't cut down whole trees, but pretty much anything you find in the labyrinth is fair game to use in your project as long as it fits on your platform. Points will be awarded by a judging panel of staff members based on creativity and aesthetic quality. No need to rush. You have all day. Find me if you have any questions or concerns. Picnic lunches will be made available at noon. Now, go forth and create!"

Terminating the sonorus charm that had been making his voice easily heard by all, he stepped down off the platform and wiped his brow with his sleeve. He was looking forward to seeing what the students came up with, but he was glad his speaking part was over.

And he hoped the kids didn't tear up his Gardens too horribly.

OOC: As before, this will be Quidditch style posting in no particular order. Each team has a 5x5 platform to build their artistic creation upon. You can use anything in the labyrinth in your project: plants, rocks, dirt, park benches, gnomes if you can get then to stay put... whatever you can get onto your platform. Enjoy!

Subthreads:

Let's get DIIIRTY (team 13) by Chloe Jareau with Jemima Wolseithcrafte, Owen Brockert

Team 10: Let's... do our best. by Jack Spencer with Laila Kennedy

Team Three, let's finish this. by Emery Jareau-Kijewski with Arthur Leithan, John Umland, Jamie Park, Pecari, Emilia-Louise Scott

Team 11 by Angelique Brockert with Ginger Pierce, Jake Manger, Diana Carey

Finishing strong (Team 2) by Arnold Manger with Andrew Carey, Jax Donovan, Raine Collindale, Savannah Brockert

Team Four Forges On by Ben Pierce with Joella Curtis, Arne Reinhardt, Portia Dobson

One last chance for glory, Team Twelve. by Isaac Douglas with Clark Dill, Makenzie Newell, Tasha DuBois

Great job, guys! by Barnaby Pye with Gia Donovan, Ji-Eun Park, Scarlett Brockert, Louis Valois

Heading back for the top (Group Fifteen!) by Brandon Carey with Tobias Reinhardt, Joseph Umland, Duncan Brockert, Araceli Arbon

Speaking up (Team Nine) by Kira Spaulding with Caelia Lucan, Chuck Fintoc

"The time has come," the Walrus said. (Team 8) by Emrys Lucan with Lionel Layne

Give me a happy middle and a very happy start (Team 1) by Ava Fletcher with Kyte Collindale

Now is the time to pick up sticks (Team Six) by Leonidas Bennett with Ingrid Wolseithcrafte, Liliana Bannister, Fabian Brockert

At least it will be over soon...ish (Team 14) by Theodore Wolseithcrafte with Chaslyn Brockert

*sighs*(Team Seven) by Tristan Spaulding

1 Nathan Xavier Challenge 3: Earth's Majesty and Nature's Beauty 28 Nathan Xavier 1 5

Chloe Jareau

February 22, 2016 2:05 PM

Let's get DIIIRTY (team 13) by Chloe Jareau

Chloe couldn’t believe how well her team had did on the second challenge. They had actually bumped up six spots on the team rankings. She was overjoyed by their success. This joy wasn’t because she had some desire to win or come in one of the top spots or anything like that. She was just happy to see that they had worked well together and it showed in their progress. She never came into these challenges believing that they would be number one. The majority of the team was just too young for them to really stand any chance, but they did their best and she hoped they had enjoyed their time together. Maybe she even made a reasonably decent impression on them too. She knew that sometimes people probably saw her as a bimbo and that she could be a chatterbox, but she was trying to be a better her.

This final challenged seemed to be more fun than actual work and it excited Chloe. She was having a hard time lately, harder than she really thought that she would, so doing something fun was just what she needed. She had been feeling so low about everything - her biological mother, her brother, her schoolwork, her future, her physical appearance, her lack of romance… Doing something fun was just what she needed. She wasn’t very creative and knew that some of her friends’ groups would do so much better at the challenge than her. Especially Ava and Arnold’s groups, so she felt let down in that sense. Arnold’s group was already in first place. He was definitely going to win this. Which, was good for him in a lot of ways. But she didn’t want her team to think that they didn’t have a chance either.

“Before we really get started, I wanted to say something to you all.” Chloe started. “This has been such a difficult year for me personally as well as with school and future life things.” With all the death surrounding her and the looming RATS examinations, plus graduation and figuring out her future, this year had not been very easy for her, let alone her friends. The challenges had only added to the stress of it all. “I just wanted to let you guys know how proud I am of everyone and how well we have been working together. These haven’t been easy and a lot of us had to work outside of our comfort zone, but you have done a great job.” Positive feedback was always essential, but she truly believed this was the truth with her team.

“We currently stand in 6th place. That is amazing! And with everything going on in my life and the heavy loss in my family with the death of my brother, I really didn’t want to be apart of anything. You guys brought some enjoyment back into my life and reminded me how important it is to live in the now and just enjoy life.” She smiled to her team. “So, with that in mind, I think we should just have fun with this last challenge. If anyone has any ideas on what they think we can create, I’ll give you creative director role because I am not very artistic. My only input is that we get dirty, have a mud party, and we love every minute of it.”

She wasn’t quite sure if some of the society Purebloods (she was sure Jemima and Owen were those) would even be into getting dirty, but she saw no harm in offering it up. It wasn’t like showers and clean clothes weren’t accessible to them by any means. And if none of them were really very concerned about having to be the top of the team ranking list, she didn’t see the harm of them running around and having fun while also completing the Earth challenge.

“Anyone have anything they think we should do”

6 Chloe Jareau Let's get DIIIRTY (team 13) 267 Chloe Jareau 0 5

Jack Spencer

February 22, 2016 6:26 PM

Team 10: Let's... do our best. by Jack Spencer

Jack wasn't looking forward to this last challenge. After the last one which required them to live through a maze and find the exit at the same time, he didn't like the competition anymore. It was different from Quidditch. In Quidditch he knew what to expect and prepared for it accordingly. With these challenges, not only were certain team-mates a bit frustrating but he didn't know how to prepare himself. Jack liked to think he was brave, but that wasn't always the case whether he liked to admit it or not.

It didn't help that his team wasn't even close to first place. He'd seen the rankings up in Cascade Hall and it didn't look pretty. Unless some sort of freak accident occurred they weren't going to make even the top five. At least they weren't as low as Charlotte’s team. That was just unfortunate.

This challenge didn't seem all that promising. The only instructions were to wear clothing that would not be ruined and to meet at the entrance to the gardens. In other words, they were going to be wrestling a magical creature or, even worse, each other. Would the faculty and staff really subject their students to wrestling matches or who could roll in the dirt the longest? Jack liked dirt as much as any other wizard, but rolling around in it like a pig seemed extensive and highly unsanitary.

He joined his peers at the entrance and followed them to the designated place. There were platforms, one for each team, and Jack almost groaned. Were they going to put on some kind of performance? This was the worst. He liked acting at some level, and part of the adrenaline of Quidditch was performing for a crowd, but coming up with a skit and putting it on with his team didn't sound like any fun.

However, Nathan Xavier assured them all they were doing was creating an art project. Jack's ears perked up and he listened carefully. All they had to do was build something. But was there a theme? Some sort of instructions to go with it? No, apparently not. Jack sighed. These game-makers seemed to enjoy squeezing creativity out of their students. On occasion Jack didn't mind, but it was a bit much for every challenge.

Once Nathan stepped off the platform he'd been speaking on, Jack went to find his team. When he found them, he transfigured a leaf into a piece of parchment and brought out the self-inking quill he carried around in his pocket at all times. "We're not going to win this competition, but we can at least make the best blooming sculpture we can. I think it would be best if we sketched out some sort of idea first before plunging into this project. Since the focus is Earth, we can create some sort of sculpture that relates to the planet. Maybe we could create a sculpture of the Earth itself. What do you think?"

40 Jack Spencer Team 10: Let's... do our best. 299 Jack Spencer 0 5

Emery Jareau-Kijewski

February 23, 2016 4:23 PM

Team Three, let's finish this. by Emery Jareau-Kijewski

Emery couldn’t believe that his team had managed to be in the Top Three of team rankings. He was certain that it was because of Jamie and John during the second challenge. Their skills on a broom would have definitely been an advantage for their team. They must have worked very well with their partners because it had worked out well enough for them to have the advantage going into the last challenge.

He wasn’t typically a competitive person and Emery honestly didn’t care if they won in the end, but with having some of his team members being on Quidditch and competitive, it was nice to show that it was working out in their favor. Besides, more so than anything else, the challenges were a decent distraction for him this year. With everything going on at home and with everything stalled with Ava and Emery admitting anything to her and how distracting she was from his work… Plus he was finally getting responses back from the schools he applied too. It wasn’t surprising that some of the more competitive schools declined him because they felt he didn’t have enough to offer, but the other schools seemed to want him and as disappointed as he was about the former, he appreciated the latter. He needed something to keep him from thinking about RATS and Ava and Angel and everything else.

Emery stood outside with the rest of the school to listen to the Groundskeeper discuss the final challenge. He had grown a bit more, making him just over six feet now and his hair had grown out a bit, showing off the curls that he had inherited by his mother. Chloe had become more extreme in her workout routine, which annoyed Emery, but the results were gradually showing, his upper body having become leaner and tighter with muscle growth. This gave him less of the lanky nerd look he had sported for most of his life. It was definitely giving him some much needed confidence, but he really wish that Chloe would stop being so obsessive about it. He knew it was her outlet for everything and it was far healthier than her other means, so he never said anything about it, but it sometimes did worry him.

It was going to be an Earth and Art challenge. Well, Ava and Arnold have this challenge in the bag. Charlotte too since Emery knew she was an artist according to Emrys. Emery had no idea if anyone on his team was creative. He wasn’t. He didn’t think John was nor Jamie. But possibly one of the girls? Or maybe Arthur?

“Alright everyone, it’s our final challenge and it’s one for those who are creative. So far, we have been doing really well on the team rankings, so I’m up for any ideas that you may have regarding this and keep the momentum going.” Emery stated to his team. “I am more logical than I am artistic, but anything that needs spells, I can handle.” He had no problem admitting that the actual creative process would have to go to someone else if they wanted to do well on this challenge. “We can work the whole ‘element’ theme that the staff has been pulling on us this whole time, but I’m open to any idea that anyone has.” He concluded. He really hoped someone had some sort of idea on what to do. If he had to decide on a creative project where the outcome looked nice and gave them a bunch of points, he was going to lose it for the team.

6 Emery Jareau-Kijewski Team Three, let's finish this. 0 Emery Jareau-Kijewski 0 5

Arthur Leithan

February 23, 2016 10:30 PM

A Suggestion by Arthur Leithan

Arthur had been practicing his flying at the Quidditch Pitch before hurrying to the assigned location of the third challenge. He had been a slow starter at flying, which embarassed him because his family expected so much from him. He had one of the best brooms in his class, which he was expected to keep permanently, and he had some difficulty controlling it, as it was extremely sensitive to his slightest movement. It was a little overwhelming for a first year, but he had disappointed his parents by not mastering it immediately. It would be a fine broom for an adult wizard, but Arthur was only eleven and not skilled enough to make the best use of it. His sister's broom, in comparison, was a hand-me down from his mother. Proper pureblood women only flew during school lessons, and Artemis, who was so much more graceful than Arthur, was a natural. It was the first real difference in how his family had treated him and his twin, and Arthur did not like it. It was a portent of what was to come. Arthur's family had already begun to pressure him to become a diplomat, while Artemis was allowed no leeway in their plans for her to become a pureblood socialite witch. Arthur resented that on her behalf.

Arthur hoped to make a contribution to this challenge. The fact that magic was not necessarily required was helpful, as the first year student knew less about magic than his older classmates. The groundskeeper's explanation left Arthur excited about creating something interesting. There were so many possibilities! He was excited that his team was doing so well so far, and wanted to improve their standing to first.

Arthur looked over the platform where he and his team would design their display. He wondered what would make a good representation of the Earth. His team captain's statements inspired him to speak up. Emery seemed open to suggestions.

Arthur leaned forward and said, “Why don't we do a representation of the seasons? We could have one section continually snowing, and one section melting into Spring, and then summer and autumn! The way the Earth forever renews itself would be a really interesting statement. We could use desert flowers like sego lillies to portray summer. Or we could make the entire display change from season to season! That would really show off our magical prowess! It would be perfect for the gardens, since the magical charms that create the possibilities for the garden itself would serve as part of the cycle!”

Arthur looked hopefully at his teammates. What would they think of his idea? He had not been so forward with more senior students so far in his time at Sonora, but Emery had definitely left room for the younger students to participate, and he wanted to contribute. They could always come up with something better. He felt proud of himself for putting himself out there, offering an opinion. He certainly didn't know the spells required yet, but if they went for it, he might learn some new spells.

0 Arthur Leithan A Suggestion 328 Arthur Leithan 0 5

John Umland

February 24, 2016 12:42 AM

Problem-solving. by John Umland

When the third challenge rolled around, John had not yet succeeded in figuring out the reasons behind the bizarre behaviors two of his teammates had indulged in during the second one, but he had been pleased by when the results of that challenge had been posted. Team Three had commanded a much more desirable position on Brockert’s list after the labyrinth than they had before it. John knew it was not sportsmanlike, but he couldn’t help a bit of a smile when Xavier pointed them out as one of the groups to beat. Jamie Park’s constant attempts to convince John to hex him meant they were highly likely to lose their lofty position if Xavier hadn’t designed the challenge in a way that would allow them to be on separate sub-teams that had no reason to interact again, but he’d enjoy the prestige as long as he had it.

His doubts about how long he would have it increased when Xavier explained the purpose of the platforms. The earth project was sculpture. They were doomed.

The certainty of defeat was not, however, a reason not to try. John had been raised on stories about how the certainty of defeat was actually just a reason to try harder. True, a school competition was not exactly a heroic exploit, there were no souls or crowns or even bags of gold on the line, but since the wizarding world’s reasonable substitute for tournaments was off for the year, it would have to do. John rubbed his chin as first Emery and then Arthur spoke up, thinking extra-quickly as the first year talked. His first thought had been to incorporate an exaggerated bird house – something he happened to know how to build the small version of already; he’d known putting up with the other Scouts as a kid would come in handy sometime, and this year had proved it – and fountain (he…guessed he would have figured that one out as he went along; it would have only had to look right and look like it worked for a short time, so magic could have filled in for the gaps in what he remembered offhand about pipe systems) to incorporate the themes of the first two challenges, but he had to admit, Arthur’s idea might well have more impressive results. If they could pull it off.

“Charmswork,” he said. “Er – that’d be heavy on charmswork. We could add branches to – branches we picked up to simu, make them look like trees – color-change for the leaves, different shades of green for spring and summer – I think – if there is any, any localized weather – “ something Emery would have to do if it got done; John had read about it in Julian’s old books, but he had never tried it – “we’d have to put a…barrier up, at least a partial ceiling, like a theater – maybe a rail around it, too. I can build basic structures, anyway – I used to be in…a club where we had to learn how to make a lot of things out of sticks and branches.” His experiences in Lego Club might prove helpful, too, not to mention all the jigsaw puzzles he’d helped Joe with. “Though if we do that, we should probably put something obviously…sculpture-ish in it, too, maybe about the bonfire or House mascots or something, in case anyone’s in a really nitpicky mood and looking for construction more than just magic - though all this, we'd have to resize so much just to stretch the amount of material I think we'll be able to get that far that I think that - would - count for some dexterity points, too.”

Not that he would blame them if they were nitpicky. It was a shame, really, that a more elaborate display might get overlooked in favor of ‘does it look like a form of sculpture made of stuff from the Gardens,’ but John understood nitpicky moods. Perfectionism, dedication to insistence on a lot of exact details, was necessary in the lab. That was why the granny’s-cookbook nature of so many potions instructions had driven him crazy until he and Clark had started experimenting and documenting their findings about optimal results. He’d gotten hours of entertainment (and a few second degree burns, some of which had been magical enough to resist the standard burn cream, but he considered that an acceptable price to pay for entertainment) out of fiddling with measurements to see what would happen since then, though he had made himself concentrate on his charmswork this year. Charms hadn’t caught his interest right away the way some of the other classes had, but after he’d seen how vast its utility was last year, he’d decided to focus more on it. He’d discovered that some of the more advanced theory was as interesting as anything in Transfiguration, enough that what he’d read and what he’d experienced while masquerading as Liac Reinhardt in Defense had inspired him to contemplate doing a Potions-Charms project someday in response to Julian’s Advanced Potions project about the common ground between Potions and Transfiguration, and it was incredibly practical even now that he wasn’t trying to figure out how one of his classmates might have gone about becoming a wand-toting Bill Haydon wannabe.

Whatever they did, though, he was just glad he was done talking for the moment. He'd meant to lay out points about why Arthur's idea might or might not be feasible, but had gotten completely lost in tenses by the end. He was pretty sure his mother would have stared at him in open consternation if she had heard that last vague imitation of a sentence he had produced. He had had to pause and try to figure out what word remotely fit at one point and still wasn't sure he had gotten it right.

16 John Umland Problem-solving. 285 John Umland 0 5

Angelique Brockert

February 24, 2016 3:35 AM

Team 11 by Angelique Brockert

It was beginning to seem to Angelique that the staff really had it in for her clothing. The past two challenges had involved the potential for them to be ruined and today was apparently to be no different. The Crotalus had just decided to wear her school robes and was resigned to the fact that she wouldn't get to look cute or impressive to the purebloods on her team. At least it's unlikely to be sports again, she thought, trying to take solace in this fact.

Odds were against it being something pleasant though. Being that they were warned about getting dirty and that it was in the gardens, she could only imagine that it was not going to be her kind of thing. Angelique was not at all an outdoorsy sort of person. Being the little lady that she was, she'd always preferred tea parties to climbing trees. Outside was full of dirt, bugs and potentially unpleasant weather conditions. It was not for her. Not one little bit.

Honestly,Angelique was so ready for this to all be done with. The only positive thing about this all was that she'd gotten the opportunity to socialize with some more prominent members of society, something the make up of her own year group did not allow for all that much. So far Sonora was nothing like she'd always been hoping for. Angelique had always hoped that she'd make fabulous friends and connections when she went to school. The whole social whirl she'd dreamed of her entire life. Unfortunately for her, proper classmates were limited to her roommate, her roommate's twin, her own distant cousin Tasha,Daniel Fintoc and a few second years.

Maybe it would have been different had she had anything in common with the rest of her classmates. When it came down to it, Angelique would take a Muggleborn girly-girl-someone she had more in common with-than a pureblood tomboy any day. Unfortunately for her, this didn't seem to be a possibility either. From what Angelique could tell, Muggles did not value what was feminine at all, raising their daughters to be into sports every bit as much as their sons. That it wasn't okay to be girly. To her this seemed just as sexist as anyone said the pureblood world was.

She was terrified she'd become an outcast. And to Angelique, that was a fate worse than death. Or ruined clothing.

The first year sighed to herself as she waited with her team. She listened to Mr. Xavier's instructions. Okay, art wasn't her hobby but it was a perfectly respectable thing to do. Even if the medium was dirt. "We should add lots of flowers to make it pretty." Angelique suggested. "Maybe like flowers in the shape of something else, I mean, that would be so much prettier than mud."

11 Angelique Brockert Team 11 332 Angelique Brockert 0 5

Arnold Manger

February 24, 2016 3:54 PM

Finishing strong (Team 2) by Arnold Manger

A strange, crooked smile came across him as Mr. Xavier explained the third challenge. Arnold had been expecting something rough-and-tumble based on the instructions, but it was nothing of the sort. It was an artistic endeavour. As president of the art club, this pleased him. And with his team going into this in first place, the validity of their chances came to him all at once. They could actually win this thing.

He wasn’t a hugely competitive person, really, but no one wanted to lose. Having victory so close made him want it even more. Honestly, it was just nice to feel things going right, given the turmoil of last semester. There was still a lot in the air with the future really beginning to intrude upon his quickly fleeting time at Sonora, but Arnold was doing his best to concentrate on the good. He would be very sad to go, though.

Arnold looked up at their platform, envisioning what creation would soon occupy it. He wasn’t really much of a sculptor, but his mother, an artist herself, had told him that he had the eye. It was important for any kind of art, really, so he was glad to have it; having “the eye” was a way to picture art before one went about and actually did anything, a tactic for imagining the end result so that one did not just go in wands blazing without a plan and screw the whole thing up.

But when he tore himself away from the spot and looked to his teammates, Arnold had a strange realization that altered his smile, making it smaller but stronger, more humble. He wasn’t doing this thing alone, and that was good; it was their combined efforts that had got them this far, and for him, even with his artistic experience, to commandeer the last challenge would be a travesty. “We’ve done a great job so far, guys,” he smiled. “So let’s finish strong. How do you want to do this?”

12 Arnold Manger Finishing strong (Team 2) 261 Arnold Manger 0 5

Ben Pierce

February 25, 2016 8:11 AM

Team Four Forges On by Ben Pierce

Team Four was not doing well. Not well at all. Going into the final challenge, Ben's team was ranked second to last. This deeply bothered the Pecari, as he feared it might be at least partly his fault for not being able to keep up with the older students magically. Logically, he knew the other teams also all had first years on them as well, so that couldn't be the whole of it, but he still felt like he was holding the others back. It wasn't a feeling he liked at all and he'd been trying extra hard in his classes so if anything they learned proved challenge-useful, he could be all over it.

As Mr. Xavier explained the goal of the third challrnge though, Ben couldn't decide if he was upset that his hard work wasn't going to pay off, or glad that, for once, his beginner level status wasn't going to be an issue.

Since he had no real artistic talents to speak of, he was leaning toward the being upset side of things, except that wasn't going to improve matters at all, so he made a conscious effort to just be glad they weren't battling vampires or something else to which he really couldn't provide any assistance.

"So," he began uncertainly, since he was both the youngest member of the team and in no way artsy, "Do we want to do one big thing or a couple little things that join together for a bigger whole?" He didn't think he explained what he meant very well, so he tried again, "I mean, like, do we want to do a single team sculpture or do we want to, like, represent our team be each doing something individual, but making sure it all works together like a team does?"

1 Ben Pierce Team Four Forges On 339 Ben Pierce 0 5

Ginger Pierce

February 25, 2016 10:39 AM

Flowers are good, I like flowers! by Ginger Pierce

Ginger was pretty pleased with her team. They weren't super competitive, which was a nice change from Quidditch, but they weren't losing either, which nobody liked doing. No, team eleven was seated comfortably smack dab in the middle of the pack. If they didn't too far down from there after today, she planned to consider her challenge career an unqualified success.

Her head of house was running this one, and as he explained what they were doing, she began grinning. Art! They'd be making art! She had felt useful during the maze challenge thanks to her broom skills, but this one actually sounded fun. Plus the younger years weren't at any more of a disadvantage than anyone else, which was really great, too.

In fact, their team's first year made the first suggestion on what they might do with their display. "Flowers are good," Ginger approved, "And Mr. Xavier said being pretty was definitely a factor for winning. And he's a gardener, so he must like flowers, too, right? Oh!"

Ginger bounced a little on her feet as a brilliant idea hit her. "Have any of you seen those horticulture and herbology displays at fairs?" She'd seen them at both magical and muggle fairs, so she hoped everyone knew what she was taking about. "You know, like we set up a mini garden and label each type of plant in it? I bet we'd get bonus points for that from Mr. Xavier, and maybe Professor O'Malley, too, if they're potion ingredients!"

The possible drawback to that plan occurred to her belatedly. "Um, do we know the names of many flowers growing in the Gardens?" Her eyes widened suddenly as another thought came to her, "Or does Mr. Xavier already have some labelled anywhere in the Gardens? Has anyone seen anything like that out here?"

1 Ginger Pierce Flowers are good, I like flowers! 302 Ginger Pierce 0 5

Isaac Douglas

February 25, 2016 12:33 PM

One last chance for glory, Team Twelve. by Isaac Douglas

Isaac had not been best pleased to hear that the third challenge required clothes they didn’t mind ruining, as not ruining his clothes or any of his other things was generally pretty high on his priority list. He didn’t know if it was just how he was or if it was something to do with his mother being born poor, but he despised dirt and tried to avoid it where he could, especially at school. At home, at least, he had some things which people had given to him which he didn’t like and didn’t really care much about, but he had to be selective when packing for school, and since he had dropped Care of Magical Creatures, he didn’t have a reason to select things meant only to be worn in the dirt.

Luckily, the elves had failed to completely remove some potion stains from one of his older sets of robes earlier in the year and he had kept that set for those lessons. He donned those robes for the challenge and thanked them for their impending sacrifice as he joined the rest of Team Twelve in the Gardens.

He looked over Two, Three, and Five when Xavier pointed them out as the People To Beat. Team Three could be dismissed as freak chance – Isaac wasn’t even going to replace ‘hit me with a Bludger’ with ‘did better in a flight challenge than I did’ on his List of Reasons To Rather Dislike John Umland over it – but Two and Five had done very well last time, too, and as far as Isaac was concerned, Team Five was the real team to beat. Somehow. His own team had, after all, dropped a place in the rankings last time instead of rising anywhere at all, and while Five had, too, they were still enough above Twelve that Isaac thought his team would need a freak twist of fate of its own to beat them. Five looked pretty unimpressive on paper, but in practice, they were…formidable.

They were, unfortunately, also a team he thought the challenge Xavier described was going to favor, mostly for the reasons why Isaac had thought they looked unimpressive on paper to begin with. Clark Dill was Team Twelve’s last, best hope for redemption, as he was a) taller than most full-grown men, b) presumably reasonably strong, as Seekers were athletic fellows and the guy was in Archery Club besides, and c) was a combination of cheerful and crazy, which Isaac thought should translate well into ideas for and willingness to create art.

“Okay,” he said to the team, hoping he could bluff a little and make it less obvious that he didn’t really know what to do. “I’d say the key to doing well is to do as much as we – reasonably – can and take care that it’s not too close to anyone else’s design.” He thought back over everything he’d heard Xavier say. “He never said we had to gather all the materials in one go, so going back and forth should give us chances to see what everyone else is doing and try to make sure we've got at least something in ours that they don't.” He wished he had mastered the Supersensory Charm enough to hear the other teams planning, as that would have saved them a lot of time, but he thought he would have just been overwhelmed by the din of everyone plotting and gotten a migraine even if he had been confident with the charm. “Does anyone have ideas to begin working on that they’d like the group to hear before we start anything else, though?”

16 Isaac Douglas One last chance for glory, Team Twelve. 273 Isaac Douglas 0 5

Laila Kennedy

February 25, 2016 1:56 PM

I'm right there with you! by Laila Kennedy

The only thing on Laila’s mind that day as she dressed in her usual gardening clothes (jeans, her black rainboots, and an old camp t-shirt under a flannel of her brother’s that she’d nicked after expressing that no ten year old needed that many over-sized plaid shirt no matter how ‘Northwest’ they wanted to be) was ‘Thank the Lord that this is our last challenge!’ She liked some of the members of their team (Jack Spencer and Dustin Newell were the two that came to mind first) but she wasn’t sorry to have to never see Oliver Ferguson again. Additionally, the challenge was in the Gardens which she knew quite well by now due to all the time she spent there, so she was feeling Very Bright and Very Shiny as she found her group.

Mr. Xavier presenting the challenge was only a bonus, and she nearly forgot that their team wasn’t even close to winning the challenges until Jack brought it up. “That’s a good idea,” she said, feeling one hundred percent in her element since they were surrounded by mud and flowers and bushes and all manner of things that she knew about probably better than any other student in their group and it was all thanks to Mr. Xavier. “I really like the idea of making our sculpture be Earth. What’ll be hard about that is keeping it round, but we could make some mud as a base, just wet enough to be pliable but also firm enough to stay put, that would be kind of cool, yeah?”

She looked around the gardens with fondness. “We really shouldn’t overturn the place too much for our sculpture though. It’ll take a lot of work to put it back to rights, and Mr. Xavier works really hard…” she left out the bit where she helped him from time to time since her friends didn’t seem to understand it so she doubted that her team would when Jax seemed skeptical. “But we can make a really nice, simple statue, and with magic we can get it to move, obviously I can’t do that sort of magic yet, but if we had an Earth and a Moon then rotated the Earth and orbited the Moon around the Earth… Then we just need, oh, I know! A rocket ship! To orbit about the Moon!”

Laila was aware that this was probably the most alive any of her teammates had seen her—she was in one of her favorite places at the school, it was the last time she’d have to work with some of them, and she really liked the aesthetic quality of cartoon rocket ships which was, of course, what she was imagining, and she highly doubted that anyone else would think to add a little Muggle device like that to their sculpture, seeing as the overwhelming pureblood population at the school would probably squash out that sort of suggestion. Unless, perhaps, the head of the science club, Clark Dill managed to slide one of those into his team’s sculpture, but who was to say that his team was even making an outer space scene?

“I don’t think anyone else will have that,” she insisted, taking up a stick to outline the squid-like metal technology into the dirt, hoping to make the pureblood wizards see her point. They were being judged on aesthetic and creativity, and originality was part of creativity. If Oliver tried to oppose her, well then she knew exactly what she would say to him, if she didn’t loose her nerve: ‘we haven’t exactly been winning doing it your way, so I’d like to try mine now.’ Laila felt kind of mean simply thinking about that, but then remembering how utterly tiny he’d made her feel before, how much she’d just wanted to cry and bawl her fists and punch something, she felt it was justified, even deserved, and she set her face, determinedly, just waiting for the opportunity to speak her mind firmly.

10 Laila Kennedy I'm right there with you! 318 Laila Kennedy 0 5

Barnaby Pye

February 25, 2016 2:28 PM

Great job, guys! by Barnaby Pye

Barnaby was most pleased. Their team was winning. Tarquin would be pleased to hear this as well. It was true that they had moved down from first to second placed after the first challenge, but that was eons better than moving from first to ninth like Team Fifteen had one and he would be sure to inform his childhood friend of this when he saw him next. The only thing now would be to make it through the third and final challenge. They had to wear clothes they didn’t mind getting dirty, again, and by now Barnaby had learnt to come prepared. He’d (begrudgingly) asked his brother to borrow a pair of his jeans and a shirt and had used a size altering charm in order to make them fit properly. He only owned shoes of good quality, and so he (very reluctantly) put on his most worn out pair and made his way to the gardens where he joined his team.

The fifteen raised platforms had Barnaby wondering what it was that they were going to be doing, but he wasn’t quite sure he cared. No matter what it was, he was confident that the team would be able to take it on. Despite some mild clashes, they worked well together, and the moment that thought crossed his mind, Barnaby recoiled into himself. He couldn’t believe that he’d actually had the gall to think that. Pyes didn’t form teams, they protected their own (he wasn’t sure if Alfie counted as a real Pye since he’d gone off and joined that corrupt government organisation straight out of Hogwarts), yet here he was actually feeling something for his teammates. He shook his head. That had to stop. Immediately. Tarquin would be so disappointed—the only real non-familial loyalty they were supposed to have was to each other.

And just like that, his good mood was ruined, the almost normal, human look on his face replaced with that of a scowling grandfather, made worse by the thing wire spectacles that balanced pretentiously on his nose. At the words art project, he stuffed his hands into his pocket to keep from pinching his nose. What kind of hippie bordel was this place running? He didn’t think he could stoop low enough to call it a school anymore—he highly doubted Hogwarts would be letting their faculty heavily drink and screw their nights away, and he doubted even more that Hogwarts would send their idiotic student body out onto the grounds instructing them to make sculptures from whatever they could find. Instructions from the grounds-keeper, nonetheless. What did he expect was going to happen? Setting loose brainless adolescents out on the harmless gardens where a mind invading creature had been shacked up in for who knew how many years without the staff or faculty knowing was just a great idea. Yes, he really wanted to give whoever it was that came up with this challenge a pat on the back.

“So,” he said gruffly, as he turned to his group, not having any ideas he felt like sharing, but wanting them to get their motivational crap and ‘original’ ideas out of the way so that they could finish the sculpture and he could skip out on lunch and go back to his dorm to relax before Jax and Spencer came back to disturb his alone time. He felt a headache coming on—he’d felt so good that morning he hadn’t taken his medicinal preventative tea that Tarquin had suggested for his migraines, and now he was regretting it. The incumbent headache coupled with the nice weather and the noise from the other groups was causing Barnaby to have a vertigo experience and he was quite sure that if he didn’t sit down right at that moment then he was going to fall over.

Was it just him or was the world spinning really, really fast? He raised a shaky hand up to feel his forehead, surprised to find that without his realising it tiny beads of perspiration had appeared. He didn’t even have to have a mirror to know how he probably appeared to the rest of the group—he’d seen his reflection before, the last time he’d felt like this. Pale and pallid skin, reddening, warm cheeks, he felt as though something was trying to pull his eyes back into their sockets and he moved his hand back from his forehead, through his perfectly combed hair, raking his nails against his scalp in an effort to redirect the pain elsewhere. “I, uh, I think I’m going to sit,” he mumbled, his crisp voice being the only reason his words were at all understandable.

“Just let me know what you want me to do, yeah?” He closed his eyes, cradling his head in his hands, propping his arms on his knees as he sat, not really caring how this appeared to anyone at the school, not even remembering that there was a Dempsey in the vicinity, who could very well tell his father what was up and if the news that Barnaby hadn’t played through it got back to the Elder Pye then…Barnaby was certain that he wouldn’t be seeing Tarquin for a very long time into the summer break.

OOC: bordel is a French ‘swear’ that literally means “whorehouse” but is used to say “mess,” Barnaby is playing with the words here.

10 Barnaby Pye Great job, guys! 298 Barnaby Pye 0 5

Gia Donovan

February 25, 2016 3:06 PM

Who are you? (TEAM FIVE) by Gia Donovan

As much fun as Gia thought the challenges were going to be, she was at the point where she was going to be happy when they were finally done with. She hadn’t minded her team at all, even Barnaby had been relatively okay to work with (sometimes when he smiled at her, Gia had the feeling he was merely humoring her or mocking her without her really understanding it and so she was never really sure if he meant anything or not). They had even done well in the last challenge together. She thought for sure that Barnaby would have left her for dead if he could. But, aside from his usual negative sarcastic remarks that Gia just rolled her eyes too, he had kept with her during the flight and helped keep off any of the obstacles that tried to take them out. Someone might even consider that being helpful, but Gia wouldn’t admit to it just yet. She didn’t want Jax thinking she thought nice things about his roommate and have it used against her.

Her black wavy hair was pulled back into a braid to keep it out of her face for the challenge. She didn’t really own pants or anything like that since she preferred dresses, so her challenge outfit was hand me down clothing that were Jax’s but ones that he had long since grown out of. They were baggy on her, but she had adjusted the waist and hem to fit her body and not fall down. Typically, she wore these when she cleaned the apartment back home, but they certainly were coming in handy at Sonora. Wearing old sneakers to final out the look, Gia felt reasonably comfortable with things.

Gia listened intently to Mr. Xavier as he explained the final challenge. Gia wasn’t sure how to feel about the Groundskeeper. She certainly thought he was a nice man, but for some reason, her friend Laila, thought something more of him. Jax said it was weird and that little girls shouldn’t be around older men by themselves. But Gia didn’t think the Groundskeeper was doing anything suspicious to Laila and her brother just didn’t like not knowing what was happening to the people he cared about (even if he refused to admit so). If Laila trusted him, Gia thought it would be okay. Besides, his challenge was the most fun out of all of them. They basically got to play with nature! She wasn’t at all very artistic. She can sew just fine and cook a decent meal, but that was the extent of her abilities. Sometimes she enjoyed singing and dancing, but she certainly wasn’t talented with those. Art? Art was far above her abilities.

Still, that didn’t mean her other teammates weren’t into Art.

She looked around to see how everyone else felt about the challenge when she noticed Barnaby. At first, she thought he was going to start complaining about what they had to do, but when he took his hand away from his head, she realized that he didn’t look right. His color was off and he was sweating. It was a nice day out, but nothing to have made a person sweat. As he decided to sit down, the corners of her mouth turned downward. This was not at all like him. If he were ill, he was better off going to see the Medic than trying to deal with the challenge. She wasn’t sure if they would lose points if Barnaby wasn’t there to help, but she didn’t want to worry about him the whole time either.

Gia crouched down in front of him, her brows furrowed in concern as she looked at him. His head was in his hands. “Are you alright, Barnaby?” She asked. Her voice reflecting the concern that she felt. She reached out a hand and carefully placed it on his head. “Do you have a fever? Should I take you to the Medic?” Gia asked. She probably should have received permission first for touching him, Gia knew that Jax would be upset if someone just touched him out of the blue, but her first concern was Barnaby’s health and not of his feeling.

6 Gia Donovan Who are you? (TEAM FIVE) 308 Gia Donovan 0 5

Clark Dill

February 25, 2016 3:16 PM

Our Glory Days by Clark Dill

Fifth place was still top five, but Clark felt team twelve could do better. First place might be out of reach at this point, but rising two ranks into third place would at least get them a medal had this been a competition that gave out medals. (Clark realized suddenly that he had no idea if the winners would receive anything at all aside from the prestige of winning, but that wasn't really the point.) Anyway, the bronze was in reach, even if it was entirely metaphorical. And Clark wanted it.

He eyed up the competition when Mr. Xavier pointed them out. If he had his way at least of of them was going to fall from glory. He assumed it probably wouldn't be team two as the Teppenpaw Head of House explained the objectives. Team two was lead by the president of the art club and this was an art contest.

Maybe team three then. That had Jamie Park on it. Clark felt bad for John needing to deal with that guy. And as brilliant as John was, Clark didn't think art was one of his fortes.

Of course, it wasn't really one of Clark's either. He'd been in the art club last year, as part of his attempt to be a well rounded candidate for Prefect, but he'd dropped it this year to concentrate on his other responsibilities. Most of his creations had come out . . . very geometric anyway.

Which wasn't to say he didn't have creative ideas.

"We could made a scaled model of the Sonora grounds," he suggested. Science club had done some surveys of the land so he felt he could manage an accurate degree of detail in such a project. "Or recreate the maze from the last challenge and put a sleigh of presents next to river in the center. Or maybe the Sonora crest made out of colored stones, but that is kind of boring... any other ideas?"

1 Clark Dill Our Glory Days 277 Clark Dill 0 5

Makenzie Newell

February 25, 2016 3:56 PM

I don't think I'd go that far. by Makenzie Newell

Her team was in the top five. In normal circumstances, she might have been happy with that. After all, it was, in essence, exactly what she strived to achieve in life: enough success to be note-worthy without over-exerting herself and appearing too good at anything. Fifth place, just squeaking into the top third, was a perfect execution of that. Of course, most of it was thanks to the boys on her team, eager things that they were, as Makenzie had done little to help thus far aside from going with the flow. She was not an exceptional teammate, but she was a moderate asset.

But this time, being in fifth displeased her. “Araceli’s” team was only in ninth. Makenzie did not feel inclined to beat Team Fifteen in any regard. In her cushy life of little disarray (or at least in comparison to Delphine and Araceli’s lives, which had been turned upside down, with Delphine now living to prove herself--except not herself, because it was Araceli’s self--to the world), Makenzie was able to glance around her and realize definitively that as things were, she had enough. She was well respected and liked by her peers, or at least as far as she could tell, and had no one to prove anything to except maybe Dustin, who still occasionally tooled about behind her to check up on her. Her life was pretty simple, really, for as much burden as she felt. Delphine’s was not.

The redhead had no intentions of sabotaging her team if not only because it would be too obvious if she tried, but she certainly hoped Delphine’s team did better. And the odds were good for that, She felt. Nobody on her team, to her knowledge, was particularly artsy, and while she could not be certain about Delphine’s, she was with Duncan Brockert, who was a bit strange, and strangeness and artisticness often ran together. Makenzie was hopeful.

She listened to the ideas put forth by Isaac and Clark. The two had really taken charge of this whole thing, which she hoped didn’t bother Eleanor, although as a pureblood lady of society, she was probably used to men taking the brunt of the leadership roles. It always went that way. “I’m not sure I remember enough details of the maze to really recreate it,” she commented on Clark’s idea, “but I do like the idea of representing both of the other challenges. Anything maze-like would probably work well enough. So if we do that and try to use original parts, we should be in great shape.”

12 Makenzie Newell I don't think I'd go that far. 291 Makenzie Newell 0 5

Joella Curtis

February 25, 2016 4:53 PM

Go Hippo! by Joella Curtis

Team Four was pretty awesome, in Joella’s totally unbiased opinion, but for some reason they weren’t doing very well in the challenges at all. This was rather surprising, especially after the previous challenge as Team Four were definitely at an advantage when it came to flying. If that hadn’t worked out for them, Joella wasn’t sure how they could expect anything else to. She wasn’t the sort to give up easily and that competitive streak compelled her to turn up bright-eyed and eager for the final challenge of the year.

The fourth year wasn’t the most creative person she knew but she had an imagination and was fairly good at Charms these days so could probably make a decent contribution to the team effort. Although she was supposed to be a proper young pureblood lady, Joella lacked artistic qualities and she hoped that someone else in the group would be able to ensure that whatever they produced looked the best it could.

Joella was pleased when the team’s first year, Ben Pierce, put himself forward first and made a suggestion. She liked the younger boy - he was clearly very keen on Quidditch so that had instantly made Joella look upon him favourably even before getting to know him better at team practices and also during the challenges.

“I think one big thing,” said Joella in response to Ben’s ideas. She wasn’t really fussed either way but a decision did have to be made and since this was the last challenge, and therefore probably the last time some of the odd mix of students in their group would work together, the idea of actually working together seemed more appealing than doing individual things for most of the day, especially considering how the previous challenge had involved splitting into three groups. “I suppose we could do one main sculpture and then each pick something smaller that won’t take very long to represent each of us individually to like encircle the bigger thing, if you want? Or we could do a house unifying sort of thing that resembles how all sorts of people have been brought together by these challenge teams. And maybe our project could incorporate that with the element theme of the challenges… I don’t know. What do you guys think? I think we don’t want to over complicate it by covering too many ideas.” She was pretty much just throwing random suggestions out there as they came to mind, as usual a speak without thinking kind of girl, but if her teammates didn’t like her ideas she wouldn’t be offended by their saying so.

Prior to the Groundskeeper essentially spelling out the element theme of the challenges, Joella had been totally unaware of it and she suddenly felt rather foolish for not picking up on it. Had everyone else realised? Either way, she thought it a pretty cool idea and one they should definitely try and incorporate into this challenge, unless this challenge was literally just about the Earth element and not the others…

She looked at her team to see what they thought and if there were any different approaches to be shared, looking particularly toward Portia Dobson who was the oldest in Team Four and therefore the leader of the group.

8 Joella Curtis Go Hippo! 295 Joella Curtis 0 5

Andrew Carey

February 25, 2016 9:05 PM

Let's do that! by Andrew Carey

Andrew was not hugely artistic – he had been taught to copy other people’s paintings when he was younger because a young gentleman was supposed to be familiar with great works of art and because it helped with the hand-eye connections that a skilled wizard needed, but he had seldom worked on anything original, partially because his tutors had seldom asked it of him but not least because he had always a hard time coming up with ideas for anything original to work on – but if Arnold Manger shared that problem, he hid it well. Andrew grinned as he realized that they were in an artistic challenge and that his team leader was the leader of the artist club. He almost thought it had been mean of Mr. Xavier to tell the other groups that theirs was one of the teams to beat. Their group had worked well together in both challenges and now had one of their leader’s strengths as the focus of the challenge. They were going to win the whole thing.

He tried to rearrange his features into a milder expression, though, because it wasn’t really polite to lord it over the others that his group was going to win. Not only was it rude, it might jinx it, too. He focused on Arnold instead.

Unfortunately, the art club leader didn’t lay out a dazzling plan, hand them all their orders, and tell them to start sculpting. Instead, he asked what they wanted to do. That was nice of him, especially since none of them was really the leader of anything – even Andrew was only his family’s heir, and he’d be supplanted as soon as his older brother got married and had kids – but Andrew wasn’t sure it was the most effective use of their time….

Of course, time wasn’t as much of an issue today as it had been for the first two challenges. On the other hand, though, if they got too comfortable, time might slip up on them before they knew it. Andrew learned that all over again every time he put off his Transfiguration essays. They were always due a lot earlier than it felt like they were when he put them aside to do later. It would be a lot better to have lots of time left at the end to play around and make final tweaks in than to have a lot of time to leisurely collect things and plan and chat and then have to smack on the last parts of the sculpture in a huge hurry just to get it done.

“What do you guys think would look better?” he asked the group. “Should we try for one big sculpture or a…display of smaller things? That might kind of tie into the school unity idea, you know, different things being part of the same picture.”

0 Andrew Carey Let's do that! 0 Andrew Carey 0 5

Brandon Carey

February 25, 2016 10:27 PM

Heading back for the top (Group Fifteen!) by Brandon Carey

Brandon hadn’t known what Xavier had in mind for the third challenge when he’d seen the notice, but it had sounded promising enough that he hadn’t even gotten too mad at Diana when his sister had criticized the job he’d done of shrinking a pair of his pants down to her size – Di had worn his clothes all the time when they were younger, but she had sort of stopped growing, or at least slowed down a lot, about the time Brandon really got started, and now he was nearly a foot taller than her – and then changed the color of the stitching around the pockets and hems to make it match the blouse she had decided to wear. He didn’t know what had happened to her when he came to school first to make her start caring about things like that and never planned to wear those pants again as long as he lived, but it wasn't enough to completely ruin his mood. The notice had said the challenge was in the Gardens, which he knew inside and out, and that they should expect to be covered in dirt by the end, which to him sounded….

…Well, honestly, he couldn’t say why he thought it sounded like something that wouldn’t scatter his attention as far and wide as the second challenge had, but somehow, it just sounded like something that was going to go better for him than the air challenge had. He had a good feeling about it.

When he heard what it was, he wasn’t sure whether he still did or not. Brandon drew well enough that he was proud of it and didn’t feel he was giving himself too much credit to think he did it well – the fact he could draw really well was what had gotten him in trouble in his first year when Professor Skies had realized that he was a lot better at conveying his thoughts that way than with confounded written words – but he hadn’t done much sculpture, much less sculpture with natural elements. He had built things out of sticks and mud when he was a little kid, but that had just been for fun. It had not had aesthetic quality.

Still, though, it was better than flying around a maze, struggling to remember which turns he’d already taken while waiting for obstacles to suddenly fly up in front of him, plus the challenge lasting all day meant he had time to help Miss Araceli keep her hands clean if she was reluctant to dirty them and therefore to possibly win himself a few points in Anthony’s good books when he got home for the summer. Points with Anthony were points with the whole family at this point, at least their part of it, and that was the only part that really mattered to Brandon. This challenge was still okay in his book.

“So,” he said to the group, when they were dismissed to work. “Does anyone have any experience with sculpture here? I can draw, but I’ve never done wood sculpting.”

0 Brandon Carey Heading back for the top (Group Fifteen!) 275 Brandon Carey 0 5

Kira Spaulding

February 26, 2016 4:31 AM

Speaking up (Team Nine) by Kira Spaulding

They were no longer in last place and Kira couldn't help but feel a little bit better going into the final challenge. Being at the bottom had done nothing for her low self esteem and had just made her all the more painfully aware of every single one of her flaws. Especially given it had involved athletics which the Crotalus was even worse at than she was at being a perfect lady. Of course, she hadn't been encouraged to be athletic so it was worse to be less than perfect at the stuff pureblood society cared about-such as dancing or social skills-than to be dreadful at something they didn't as much for young ladies.

Unfortunately, one of the teams behind hers was her brother's and Kira figured that-based on her knowledge of Tristan's personality and how current mood seemed when she saw him around-that he was not happy . She felt a little guilty, given how much she knew he liked to win and that he'd been so confident about his team doing well in a flying based competition while her own was less...strong in that area. Kira had never set out to beat him, just Kelsey. While she very much felt her parents favored Tristan over her-what with him being the heir to the Spaulding family and being an heir something that was considered highly important in the pureblood world-it wasn't him that often made Kira feel inferior. Not him that she felt compared to unfavorably on a fairly regular basis.

She stood next to Caelia as she waited with the rest of the team. If nothing else, Kira was glad to be on the same team as her friend. Even though she was naturally convinced the third year probably liked Kelsey more than her, she was still more comfortable with the older girl than anyone else she wasn't closely related to-and more so than she was with Kelsey. When her cousin was right next to her for comparison, she felt her inadequacies became even more pronounced.

However, Kira didn't know how to feel about today's challenge. Of course, she wasn't that good at art, but at least it wasn't nearly as bad as last time. On the plus side, nobody said she actually had to sculpt. She could fetch things....or magically enhance the scuplture. As far as she was concerned, magic just made everything better. If it wasn't for magic, Kira would be totally lost. It was the one thing in life she had going for her and the one way she could be useful and not a burden to her team.

Unfortunately though, it wasn't as if the Crotalus had any ideas. While she had a rich and active fantasy life-purely as escapism-and sometimes did craft projects, she had never been really one to think of ideas that could be translated in an artistic way. The one idea Kira did have was to make a model building, sort of like a dollhouse, with furniture and people and different rooms. She'd always loved playing with her own, and to this day, it was one of her favorites, even if she didn't necessarily play with it given the pressure she felt not to. That she was too old for it. And for that reason, Kira wasn't especially comfortable sharing her idea, as she was afraid that her teammates would find it babyish and judge her. Even though it would certainly be complex. It might be too hard though anyway.

She would, however, speak up in one other way. "We should incorporate magic. Make our sculpture move or use color charms or something." Her face grew hot. Maybe she shouldn't have said anything after all. Still, they were magical folk-all purebloods in fact-so how could they find the idea of using magic in some way all that objectionable?

11 Kira Spaulding Speaking up (Team Nine) 320 Kira Spaulding 0 5

Tobias Reinhardt

February 26, 2016 7:53 AM

So long as it's not <i>too</i> top... by Tobias Reinhardt

From first, to ninth. It was a change that would bother even those least competitive of people, Tobi thought as he arrived on time for the third challenge, but Liac’s team was fourth overall (although Arne’s was fourteenth) so he was happy for his cousin and happy his team was not in the bottom like Arne’s was. Arne had been so hot and cold lately with him that Tobi didn’t really know what to do. He was getting kind of tired of it, if he was going to be completely honest. At the beginning he had tried to be understanding and give Arne lots of space to figure out whatever it was he needed to figure out. However, at this point it was just irritating. His little brother didn’t know how lucky their family was, Tobi thought with an uncharacteristic scowl. Instead, he preferred to hang around with a group of entirely inappropriate kids, the sort that Tobi never would have dreamed of being around (should he ever have a wish to be around anyone) and snark at the family.

However, the art project challenge was exactly the sort of thing to bring Tobi out of his foul mood. It was as though the challenge had been created for them Reinhardts specifically. He had some decent good ideas for his team’s sculpture, but he was hesitant. The old Tobi wouldn’t have minded sacrificing a bit of ranking to help out his brother, but this was different. Not only did his contributions affect how his team as a whole performed (making it so that his actions reflected not only him but also Duncan Brockert, Brandon Carey, Araceli, Izrael Tizze, Sylvetta Vuong, and Joe Umland) but he also didn’t feel like catering to Arne’s whims anymore. His brother was only thirteen, but it was about time he grew up.

He looked towards Brandon Carey when he spoke. Brandon was one of those purebloods, one with a name and a place in society. The Reinhardts (aside from Liac’s branch) were purebloods too, but they had never really adhered to the stringent rules of society, making their living from craft and trade, prioritising skill over blood so that they openly welcoming Liac’s Muggle mother since she was a talented clock-maker. He and Liac had been raised to respect and use societal manners while in public, but their way of thinking was different, so much so that sometimes Tobi felt uncomfortable being labelled a pureblood. Sometimes he thought it would be easier to be Liac, be a halflblood, be someone that didn’t have to live up to expectations that society put forth because there were no expectations.

That was something that Arne never understood and Tobi didn’t think his brother were would understand either. It was all well and good to be the oldest and have an idea about the future, have a secure job waiting when graduation from school finally passed, but there was no room for dreaming, for another idea to pass the future, and that’s what Tobi wanted most of all, more than anything. If he did well on this challenge it would make his dad proud, it would hurt Arne, it would hurt Tobi, because doing well—giving his team some of his best work, it would show Father that Tobi was serious about the business, it would eliminate any chance for Arne to overtake him in later years, it would resign him to a life of charming when what he really wanted to do was work in a wildlife refuge.

But if he performed poorly, then he would have to face both Arne and Liac who would just know that the almost fifteen year old had thrown the competition. He would have to deal with the disappointed looks of his relatives, of his teammates who weren’t involved at all in the familial situation. He would make room for his father to question his ability, to perhaps change the future for himself, but it would hurt more people in the long run. What he wanted didn’t really factor in here, and so he answered Brandon Carey in the affirmative.

“Does a Reinhardt have any experience in sculpting?” Tobi asked with an easy smile to show that he wasn’t accosting Brandon for his remark but was rather playful saying that yes, he did have a considerable background. The Reinhardts were well-known throughout Europe, especially Germany, for their magnificent metal charming sculptures that were both aesthetically pleasing but also served practical uses at times (like a wonderful never-ending shelf with a constantly changing ocean he’d once seen in his grandfather’s workshop) but ever since Uncle Heinrich and his wife Aunt Raina, came to the United States all those years ago so that Aunt Raina could study American clock-making in Boston and his father had followed to study Pacific Northwest wood designs, the name was becoming known in the former colony too. Tobi himself had been carving ever since his parents had deemed him old enough to hold a knife, which meant seven years old in private with his dad when his mom wasn’t around, and eight years old in public when Kaili Reinhardt had relented on her husband’s birthday.

“I can’t promise it will be perfect,” he added. “But I know enough.” He had helped his father finish a piece for a customer the previous summer, for the first time being let out of the back-workshop where he and Arne had always messed around as children, back before Arne had grown sullen, carving stupid trinkets to give Matti and Lukas. He knew that in the coming summer his father was going to expect him to complete his first full piece, despite wizarding laws on underage magic. “And I can show anyone who wants the basics.” But he wasn’t going to draft something up for them to make. No, he would save his ideas for the summer. If he was going to break the law under his father’s orders by working his magic into his carving, then he was going to do it fabulously.

10 Tobias Reinhardt So long as it's not <i>too</i> top... 289 Tobias Reinhardt 0 5

Emrys Lucan

February 26, 2016 8:43 AM

"The time has come," the Walrus said. (Team 8) by Emrys Lucan

Team Eight’s placement in the challenge was the last thing on his mind. Emrys was not a leader. He had never been a leader. Growing up it had been Wesley who was always in charge, and when his cousin wasn’t present, it was Caelia’s desires who Emrys catered to when he wasn’t eating up every tale about Camelot that his mother’s parents told him over gingerbread and hot milk in Grandma Quinn’s cosy kitchen, one eye on Caelia and Matthew who were usually playing some sort of board game on the floor, or amusing himself with one of the many books that Grandfather had given him in a strange bid for affection. But he still felt like he had let his team down when they came in ninth during the first challenge and then moved down one place during the second. He could already tell that his team wasn’t going to win and he was fairly confident that certain members were not going to be pleased with him because of this.

But that didn’t mean they couldn’t try to at least move up a couple places. The year was almost over—the bonfire would be coming up soon and then graduation and then he and the rest of his year would be out in the real world, attending some degree of higher education or else diving straight into the workforce as he knew some of his classmates were bound to do. Yet others were set to be married straight out of school, an arrangement he was glad that Charlotte didn’t seem too bent on having though one could never be too sure. He knew that in his earlier years Grandmother Viviane and Grandfather had wanted to have some sort of betrothal plan for him, some degree of security that he wouldn’t end up with someone inappropriate for the family like the odd Muggleborn he hung out with all the time, but after Grandfather’s passing and the subsequent deepening friendship between himself and Charlotte, he had felt the pressure ease off him a little.

Emrys didn’t know what it was that he wanted to do with himself. He had applied to a couple universities since that’s what all his friends seemed to be doing, but he didn’t know what it was he wanted to do with his life, really. The idea of traveling was something that had sparked an interest in him after Ava came back from her summer in Asia with her absent mother, and he could still remember the feelings of jealousy that had coursed through him while he listened to her stories with about as much rapt attention as he had once afforded Grandma and Grandpa Quinn and their Camelot tales. He knew his family had money—in fact, he was certain that he would be able to join his parents in managing the estate and various properties, it was a full time job that paid well considering about forty percent of Exley had once belonged to Grandfather Myrddin, but he didn’t want that.

There was a little dusty bookstore that he had once seen while walking through Diagon Alley with Wesley ages before the cousins had grown apart. When he’d shown interest in it, Wesley had laughed at him and Emrys had pretended that he was just kidding around, but the shop had maintained his curiosity and later that day he had ducked away from Wesley and his group of uncouth friends to duck inside. There, he found himself utterly at peace. The noise from the road was gone, there was only an over-sized gramophone in the corner softly playing classical tunes, and the scratch of a quill that was transcribing records from one dusty piece of parchment to another. An old wizard had been hunched over a table, tiny glasses balancing precariously on the tip of his nose as he rebound an old book. The bell above the door dinged a few seconds too late, rousing a sort of curiosity in Emrys since bells normally dinged upon the opening or closing of a shop’s front door, and the wizard had looked up, just once, before returning to his work. A young witch who looked to be around twenty to twenty-four years of age had greeted Emrys, but he’d been too overwhelmed to say anything and so had just hastily grabbed a business card, mumbled a goodbye, and left.

It was to this store that Emrys had written a letter over winter break, asking if he might intern there over the summer before he started university, expecting to here nothing back in return, almost sure that such a wonderful, quaint place did not want to take on a young wizard just out of school. But it was also this store that had written back saying that they would love to have him, that he could start mid-June, that they looked forward to meeting him on the morning of the eighteenth at 10:23 sharp, no earlier, no later, and until then! This was, of course, wonderful news for Emrys, but he had yet to tell his family, he had yet to tell his friends, and he had yet to tell Charlotte. He tried to convince himself that this was only because he hadn’t found the right time to inform them of his decision to spend the summer living and working in Diagon Alley, but in those rare moments in which he wasn’t deluding himself, he knew this wasn’t the case.

Telling Charlotte that he would be in England for the whole summer was something that he’d really been looking forward to saying. She could help him find a place to live, she could visit him every day and they could spend his lunch breaks eating together or exploring the forgotten streets of wizarding London. But somehow telling her was the hardest part. There had been a few times that he had nearly told his mother, and he’d caught himself once or twice while speaking with his friends, in such an awkward manner that he was certain they knew something was up but with Charlotte…well it was the weirdest thing. When he was with her it seemed as though all thoughts of moving to England disappeared. He wanted to tell her, most desperately he wanted to tell her! He could only imagine the delight in her eyes and the hug he might receive (two things that caused his stomach to do little flips), but he always seemed to forget what it was he wanted to say to her when he saw her, remembering only later that night as he got into bed with a “Merlin’s pants, I’ll do it tomorrow!” Aaand rinse and repeat.

At this point it was so embarrassing that he didn’t even think he could tell anyone. It had been so long since he’d written, so long since he’d gotten his reply, so long since he’d put in a bid on several apartments, so long since he’d found a nice place above an apothecary just down the road from the Whale and Penn and forwarded them the first month’s rent from the pocket money he had saved up and never spent since Wesley had stopped asking for loans and (finally!) paid him back for all those years of borrowing money because “we’re cousins, Emrys, you wouldn’t let your cousin down, would you?”

So to say that Team Eight’s challenge ranking was the last thing on his mind really was a bit of an understatement. Nevertheless, as Mr. Xavier set them loose to come up with their sculpture, Emrys felt the need to at least give the team his appreciation. It wouldn’t be a long speech and he had never really been comfortable giving out speeches and besides he didn’t like one third of them anyway (not that he didn’t feel at all idiotic bearing a grudge against two third years of all people), but he felt it was just the right thing to do. “I know we’re not in the top five, and I’m sure some of that is my fault,” he said, not really caring how they saw him. He would be gone soon and they could blame him for their loss for as long as they wanted—in the long run, the challenges wouldn’t matter, what mattered was getting up the nerve to tell his loved ones that he was moving out of the country. “But it’s still been really interesting to work with all of you, see how you think, and I hope we can end this day having fun?”

It was a crappy motivational speech to say the least, but Emrys had never claimed to be a motivational speaker, and he said both of these things to his team before clapping his hands together. “So, shall we start sharing some ideas around?”

10 Emrys Lucan "The time has come," the Walrus said. (Team 8) 260 Emrys Lucan 0 5

Ava Fletcher

February 26, 2016 9:25 AM

Give me a happy middle and a very happy start (Team 1) by Ava Fletcher

Somehow, somehow, for some reason, someone had decided that Ava’s team was good enough to move up the rankings from sixth place to fourth. It kind of excited Ava and she had written a letter to the latest address her mother had written Papa from, ecstatic to tell her the good news and also to casually mention that she was graduating soon and would she like to come to the ceremony? She was a little disappointed because she hadn’t been accepting into the Healer’s program that she had applied to despite working so incredibly hard to get in, but she had been accepted to one of Muggle colleges she’d applied to for her grandfather’s sake and so she had reluctantly committed herself to university in California on a scholarship, and resolved to study hard over the summer and join the next round of applicants for the Healing trainee program.

Nevertheless she was proud, so proud of her little team of misfits—not a single one of them was like the other in anyway, and she loved that about their team! She greeted them all with large smiles as they showed up in the gardens and her smile grew even wider as Mr. Xavier let them know what it was they would be doing for their task. It didn’t matter how she was feeling personally about the ambiguous days following graduation, she was there for her team who was marked fourth over all and she was determined that they either keep their place or rise higher.

Throwing herself into art had always been something that Ava had done to forget about other things—the past two years she had thrown herself into her schoolwork more than anything, determined that she should reach her goal of becoming a Healer so that her mother would be proud of her ~~for once~~, but she was ready to return to her roots! She had neglected her art in favor of her studies for too long!

“I think this will be really fun!” she said with a large smile to her teammates. “The really cool thing about art is that there really is not right or wrong way to do this. I’ve not ever done any sculptures before, but I say we just kind of start putting stuff together, anything we can find. Or…” her eyes twinkled mischievously. She had a really good idea. In the summer time, Port Townsend sometimes had street performers to entertain the tourists and pick up an extra couple dollars. Sometimes there were people dressed in outrageous costumes of all gold or covered in mirrors who stood perfectly still all day long, a kind of human statue of sorts.

“What do you guys so to us being the statues?” she asked suddenly. “We can cover ourselves in mud and then pose when the time is up as though we were all clay. Or, if some of us don’t want to get muddy, they can pose as the artist who ‘sculpt’ the rest of us, but then they can also be in a frozen sort of position so that they’re part of the sculpture too, what do you think?”

It was a simple idea, but she didn’t think anyone else would be thinking like that. Most other people would hear “sculpture” and think about the random objects that modern sculptors threw together or else the classic ivory works of ancient times. Plus, there was nothing more beautiful than the human body (well, perhaps the ocean, but Ava didn’t really think that a group of students could accurately capture the immense beauty of the ocean during a school challenge in the middle of a labyrinth and she didn’t think she wanted to try that anyhow), so they were sure to gain both aesthetic and originality points. Additionally, it was something that Nevaeh could do without much trouble. She worried that the more excitable Kyte might have some trouble staying still, but she hoped that the unique idea would give him enough motivation to want to. After all, it was the intention that counted.

OOC: Title from Shel Silverstein's poem, "Happy Ending?"

10 Ava Fletcher Give me a happy middle and a very happy start (Team 1) 258 Ava Fletcher 0 5

Jax Donovan

February 26, 2016 9:29 AM

fakes school spirit by Jax Donovan

Finally. Finally. The challenges would be over after this one. Jax did not do well with groups. He didn’t like being around people or having to play nice. He just wanted to be left alone. It didn’t help that having Savannah and Andrew on the same team as him. He was more worried about Andrew than Savannah because they were in the same year. Jax was always nervous about people finding out what he was and since those two were in the same classes as him and most likely to notice something suspicious with him. If he could maintain some form of anonymity around his peers, he thought that he would be okay in the end.

Of course, it didn’t help that the full moon was coming and Jax felt awful. It was during this time when Jax hated what was done to him. He wished that werewolf had just taken his life as it had his father’s. He would never say that out-loud. Hearing such a thing would have greatly upset his mother and sister. They would never trust him alone after that. But neither of them could understand the pain that he suffered every month. The worst of it was that they caught who it had been. Although, having gone through the change since he was five, he didn’t really blame the man or woman. If they weren’t under the Wolfsbane Potion then they had no control over what they did. Even so, it would have given his mother closure to know who it had been that had taken his father’s life. Maybe then she could have been a little bit happier over the last nine years. Or maybe, they could have stayed in Greece.

After being at Sonora for three years, Jax couldn’t quite understand why his mother moved them around so much. The staff knew what he was and none of them treated him any differently. Even Barnaby hadn’t rat him out just yet. So what was it exactly that they continued to run from? When he was growing up, Jax was always careful to keep an eye on his mother. They would stay at a place for a while and everything would be okay and then quite suddenly, his mother would become agitated and panicked and they would have to move. It was always after she came home from work too. Jax believed that each boss at the time somehow tried to take advantage of his mother and she refused which then caused all sorts of problems. But her last boss was female and very nice. So, it had to have been something else that scared his mother and made them leave England. Every time he tried to ask her, she would deflect the question or tell him not to worry about it and that they were safe now. Safe from what? From whom? Jax had yet to figure it out. Gia told him that she was keeping them all safe and Jax shouldn’t question it, but he wondered if it was because of him. Did others find out and it frightened them? Maybe that was it and his mother was afraid of something taking him away? He would just have to keep watching his mother for more obvious signs.

Jax tried to listen to Mr. Xavier as he explained the final challenge. Apparently it was an Art challenge and the material was anything that Mother Earth gave to them. Okay. So they could do anything that they wanted so long as they used dirt and trees? Seemed straight forward and a bonus for them considering their leader was also the Host for the Art Club. Wouldn’t they be a shoe in for the win? Or close enough to it. Arnold might not even be that good at Art for all Jax knew. Winning didn’t really matter to Jax though, he just wanted to get this over with.

He turned his attention to the rest of the team and waited on Arnold to explain what his ‘vision’ was for the challenge so that they could do it and just leave. But Arnold didn’t offer anything and instead asked for their opinions. He supposed that wasn’t a big surprise as this had been the case for the first two challenges. At least Andrew seemed to have ideas. Jax was just hoping no one chose one that would take a lot of effort on his part. He was just so tired and he ached. Not that he showed it. Jax refused to let anyone see him vulnerable and weak.

“Well, it would depend on the idea first, I would think.” Jax offered. One big sculpture could be grand and point worthy depending on the subject but mini sceneries could also go far if they pulled it off. “Like if the general idea would work better as one big thing or smaller individual things.” Jax added, in case his statement didn’t make sense. “Will we do something directly related to the element we are using? Or something that reflects all of the elements?” He asked. Might as well try to win points by using what the challenges were all about.

6 Jax Donovan **fakes school spirit** 296 Jax Donovan 0 5

Joseph Umland

February 26, 2016 2:25 PM

All or nothing, my friend. by Joseph Umland

When the results for the second challenge went up, Joe was deeply, truly happy – about the fact that he had not taunted his brother too much after the first challenge, that was. Team Fifteen’s new place did not exactly do as much for him as the knowledge that he had made a smart decision did. He had liked being at the top of the food chain. He had hoped John’s team would at least improve because it wasn’t at all fitting for one of the Umland boys to be in any way associated with such a low rank, but he hadn’t wanted Team Three to improve that much. If he had mocked John when Fifteen was on top, his brother would have gotten his revenge after their fortunes were reversed. Brotherly prerogatives went both ways.

Another day, though, meant another challenge, one where John probably wouldn’t be able to fly or (possibly far more importantly) be able to avoid Jamie Park during again. That alone wasn’t enough to allow Joe to get his hopes of thoroughly re-trouncing his brother up too high before the earth challenge – John had never mastered the mindset of the youth movement at all, but he had been pretty good at the technical aspects of scouting when they were younger and spent a lot of time in the Labyrinth Gardens these days, taking extensive notes on the bird populations and behaviors for something Joe suspected his brother might mean to turn into an actual scientific paper someday – but he allowed said hopes to rise markedly when he heard what the challenge actually was. An artistic whole-group challenge was something he thought his team could do. They had proved they were pretty creative in the first challenge and if anyone wished the spit upon the very ground on which another team member stood, that person was able to put it aside when they were in challenges. American pureblood dudes also didn’t seem very macho in general, especially not in front of girls like Araceli, and most seemed to have been educated in a way even more old-fashioned than Joe had been anyway, so they probably didn’t have to worry about anyone refusing to do art in public or anything like that, either. The only issue would be if the purebloods were fussy about getting their hands dirty and he didn’t think them using magic to move things around would slow them down that much. They might just have this one in the bag.

Of course, he’d thought they had a better chance than they really had the last time, too, but this one was similar enough to the first challenge that he didn’t allow himself to return to anything worse than his initial balance of optimism and pessimism, instead continuing to favor optimism. They could do this.

Tobias Reinhardt, and to a lesser extent Brandon Carey, seemed to agree with him. Joe was relieved that he’d been right about them, though Brandon drawing and Tobias having a background in sculpture were things he found mildly surprising. He had just assumed they wouldn’t think of the whole thing as girly, not that they were actually accomplished in the arts. It was good, but kind of unexpected. He wondered if he should feel bad for being surprised.

No time, he decided. “I’ve only ever made a few bowls and a fish out of clay,” he admitted freely, “but that made me think – we don’t have to just rely on wood, either.” He didn’t blame Brandon for thinking along those lines since Mr. Xavier’s comment about not cutting down the trees did seem to point toward wood sculpture, but they had other resources and Joe thought that was an important thing to keep in mind. “This is the earth challenge, right? We’ve got a lot of dirt and gravel, way more than we do loose branches.”

16 Joseph Umland All or nothing, my friend. 329 Joseph Umland 0 5

Jake Manger

February 26, 2016 3:34 PM

I like what you like by Jake Manger

Jake woke up with a heavy heart. The finality of the last challenge had struck him, and subsequent “lasts” had also found their way to him. Yes, he would be sad to see the challenges go as they were a great chance to do things with Ginger and Diana,plus he had gotten to meet some new people as well, and he liked the overarching theme of inter-House unity they promoted. But mostly, he was sad to see them conclude because he realized abruptly that this was basically the last thing he and his brother would get to do together at Sonora. Arnold was leaving.

He supposed he should have known it was coming. It was inevitable. His brother was two years his senior (how they’d gotten to be this old already simply baffled Jake), and with his fifth year at its end, he should have known that Arnold would fast be departing. And then who knew where he would be going? College was his path, as far as the Teppenpaw knew, but he didn’t know where. Heck, Arnold didn’t even know where yet, and it was getting late; soon he would be out of time, and then what would become of him?

As much as he loved his sister, Sally’s graduation and even disappearance had not left as much of an impact as he knew this would. She had been quite a bit older than him, graduating the year before he even arrived at Sonora, so the last time they had ever really been home together much, he had been about three years old. They were close, but not like this. Arnold was his everything. Through all the ups and downs, even the ones Jake hadn’t known about at the time, Arnold was there for him. He protected him, kept his best interests in mind. They were both so very young when their parents divorced, but Arnold was his rock even then. He didn’t know what he would do without him.

At the challenge, Jake did his best to be positive (as he always did, although overall it had been considerably harder this year, his summer revelation still very present in his mind, resurfacing every so often with a faint memory he had excused at the time, accepting the rhetoric spat by their father). He didn’t want to alert his friends to his sadness, if nothing else than because there was really nothing to be done about it. Nobody could fix this. Nobody could make Arnold stay here. So concerning them would have been a waste of everybody’s time.

He listened closely to the instructions, although even those deflating him slightly. Arnold loved art, and he was good at it, too, although the Aladren would insist he wasn’t good enough for art school. Maybe he was right, since the few art school applications he put in had come back negative, but to Jake, his big brother’s work was flawless.

Angelique said something about flowers to make their sculpture pretty, and Ginger ran with it, contributing her own ideas as well. Jake didn’t really catch what exactly her ideas were, too caught up in the sound of her voice. It was...nice. And he found himself feeling a bit lighter, as often he did when Ginger Pierce graced him with her presence. She, too, was flawless--her own work of art.

“Yeah,” he said dumbly. “I mean, uh, I think that sounds good.” Having missed most of her speech, Jake was unaware he completely missed questions that required specific responses. He felt a slight blush tinge his cheeks, embarrassed by his semi-secret lack of attentiveness (and by the cause for it), and gave a sheepish grin.

12 Jake Manger I like what you like 280 Jake Manger 0 5

Diana Carey

February 26, 2016 9:43 PM

I'd exploit that if I were you, Ginger by Diana Carey

Her improvised outfit for the second challenge had not failed her, not even when she fell off her borrowed broom one time while trying to dodge an extra-tricky obstacle, but for the third, Diana had resolved to obtain real pants. In the interests of not completely destroying her reputation, though, she had adjusted them until she thought they would have no longer looked like a guy’s even if she hadn’t turned all the stitching lavender, lightened the color of the main fabric a few shades, and turned the belt buckle into a flower matching those around the neckline of her blouse. The groundskeeper had said they would get dirty, but even if she for some reason – what reason that might be, Diana couldn’t imagine; she assumed the groundskeeper just assumed the Muggleborns would forget they could do magic and that maybe the first years wouldn’t be good enough at it yet – had to stay that for the whole challenge with no opportunity to clean herself up, Diana thought she should still try to look her best for as long as she could.

To further that aim in the long term, she had also worn sunscreen and a hat. She had had to shrink the brim of her sunhat down to make it remotely practical, but it still shaded her face from the glare of the sun, that ever-present threat to the skin of any woman who didn’t want to look like a hag before she was even eighty. Smiling to excess was also frowned on in those pursuing good complexions, but Diana thought she could be allowed one bad habit, at least at the third challenge. Team spirit was, after all, an important component of success, plus she kind of liked most of her teammates for real, which made it easier.

The description of the challenge didn’t exactly give her anything to feel unhappy about, either. True, she was no kind of artist – Brandon was far better at drawing than she was, though they had sometimes passed his drawings off as hers when they were younger because their mother thought that was more of a young lady’s skill than a boy’s – but she was sure Jake or Ginger would have ideas and that the rest of them could figure out how to make them realities.

…If Jake could keep his mind on the task, that was. Diana might have teased him about it had Ginger not been right there, but since she was, he earned a reprieve. She decided to try to distract attention from his blatant lack of attention to what Ginger had actually said so he didn't look quite so...distracted.

“Yes, it does," she said, then addressed Ginger's question. "Now. I haven’t seen many labels on plants out here,” she said, “but I’ve never gone looking, either. I might be able to identify some of them, though. My aunts all love to garden - flowers and herbs - and I’ve been with Aunt Lorraine a lot.” She had had to have something to do between awful etiquette classes after Brandon went away to start school and digging with Aunt Lorraine had been more entertaining than taking care of then-baby Cecilia. Uncle Anthony and Aunt Lorraine’s house was so much nicer than hers that it hadn’t been a burden, either. She was not in line to become one of America’s greatest horticulturists, but she thought she knew a few things. “And the potion ingredients I’d know really well, the herbs,” she added. “Even fresh – still alive, I mean. That’s no problem.”

0 Diana Carey I'd exploit that if I were you, Ginger 294 Diana Carey 0 5

Jemima Wolseithcrafte

February 26, 2016 10:25 PM

Let's get creative! by Jemima Wolseithcrafte

All they knew about the last challenge was that they needed to bring clothes that could get dirty. That didn’t tell them much, although Jemima was worried that an obstacle course might await them. Francesca’s group had had an obstacle course that they had to get through using magic. It struck her as very similar to the Defence maze they’d had for the last challenge, but if it was ground based and using more charms and Transfigurations…. Well, then it would be a bit more like the first challenge, only with more running and mud. It didn’t strike her as very original, but she was still worried it might be what was awaiting them. Or maybe some kind of fight - last team standing wins. She tried not to picture that too vividly as she set off for the gardens. She was quite good at climbing trees, after all the time she spent with Ingrid…. Perhaps she could hide out….

She actually bounced as the real nature of the challenge was revealed. Art! An art challenge! Why hadn’t they said so on the posters? It wasn’t like it would give anyone an advantage, as it wasn’t like you could get good at art in under a week. It would have saved her a lot of worry and she could have worn her art smock instead of the leggings and dress t-shirt she sported now - her art smock was an old robe of her mother’s with a bold orange and brown flower pattern that had probably been out of fashion for so long that it was now retro cool again, but Jemima had always loved it. Perhaps she would go get it at lunch time.

Her stomach felt a bit squirmy as Chloe mentioned the death of her brother, and she made sure to drop the enthusiastic grin she’d been wearing, hoping she managed this in time. It was mostly a good squirmy feeling though, as what Chloe said was really nice.

“You’ve been a really good team leader,” she smiled back at her. “I mean, it can’t have been easy for you, with...uh, everything that happened,” she felt a bit uncomfortable saying the specific thing even though Chloe just had, partly because it wasn’t a nice subject but also it somehow wasn’t hers. She didn’t want to talk about Chloe’s brother or her family things like she knew them because she didn’t and it felt weird to, “But you’ve been really supportive and nice to us. I’m glad it helped you.”

As Chloe asked for volunteers to take the reins or give ideas, she spoke up again, a little more shyly this time. Art was definitely her forte but she was still so young and it felt weird to think about being in charge of anything - she’d never directed anyone else to make art, and it wasn’t like she was amazing at it. She was, in fact, very good for her age, but that still presented a number of limitations.

“I’m quite good at art,” she offered. “I really wish he hadn’t specified sculpture though because that’s going to be really difficult to do. I don’t have a lot of experience in it but to make anything with a well-defined shape you need a framework to work with - like wire or something. Or to be able to sculpt, which is obviously far too time-consuming for us to do, and learning to do it by magic is really tricky,” whilst they might be able to blast rocks, gently crafting and tapering their shapes was a whole other set of charms, ones which people spent years at art school perfecting. “I mean, we could transfigure things to give us better base materials but it might not look very nature-y then, and I think they want the finished piece to reflect the environment and the resources we’re using. So going for a big, bold structure is probably easiest. Or maybe transfiguring something to make a frame and then covering it using natural materials... I’m better at painting than sculpting, so maybe if we found different types of mud or different flowers we could make some natural paints and get fine detail that way. Or I guess everyone’s done some design work in Transfiguration, so we can use that as well.

“Perhaps we should make a list of natural resources and of spells we can use, and then we can pick elements from each to make sure the piece is sympathetic to the materials and the environment, but also shows off and makes the best use of all the other skills we have in our group?” Whilst, now that she’d got going, she was actually pretty excited about the possibility of sort of being the leader, she didn’t want to totally take over, or make it all about art skills, which some people might not feel very comfortable with. When they had done the fashion show for the concert, it had worked well because they’d made sure there was a job for everyone, whatever their skills, and she wanted to make sure that was the case now too.

13 Jemima Wolseithcrafte Let's get creative! 304 Jemima Wolseithcrafte 0 5

Raine Collindale

February 26, 2016 11:40 PM

A stupid idea by Raine Collindale

Getting dirty didn’t bother Raine. Life involved getting dirty. Pitching tents - dirty. Cooking over fires - dirty. Playing in the words - dirty. Dirty was not a dirty word, in her book. It meant the outdoors, a fact confirmed by the fact they were meeting in the gardens, which were one of her favourite places at school. She was still a little apprehensive about what the last challenge might contain. She couldn’t really say she’d found them fun so far, more stressful, like really long practical exams, only you couldn’t complain because it was all meant to be a jolly game. She wasn’t really competitive and she had such limited magical skill that she’d mostly felt a bit useless, although her team were really nice and helped make sure everyone was involved. Still, she didn’t feel like she belonged in a place that thought this was fun.

A little smile crossed her face as they were told it would be an art challenge, and a nature-based one at that. She really doubted that her ideas of beauty coincided with any of the staff at Sonora, and she didn’t like the idea of competing at something creative - art was meant to be something you enjoyed, something that freed your spirit, not something you tried to be the best at - an idea that usually consumed people in a very toxic and unhealthy way. But at least this was something she could - if only subjectively, if only to herself - be good at and have fun with. And with them having to gather leaves and so on, surely they weren’t expecting anyone to produce fine water colours or those fancy paintings of chubby naked ladies that were meant to be some kind of pinnacle of man’s talent but which she just found stuffy and oppressive because they were always kept in rooms where people scowled at and shushed you. Raine liked big bright murals that you came across as you rounded street corners and the temporary statues you got at festivals made from recycled cans or reclaimed driftwood. It sounded like they wanted that, although maybe she was wrong. She wouldn’t be surprised if she was.

She waited for Arnold’s input. He was, after all, leader of the art club. She’d been a bit shy to join it in her first term but after getting to know him a bit through the challenges, she had joined in the second term. He led the club like he led their team - valuing everyone’s ideas, not forcing them down his own narrow idea of what ‘art’ meant. Raine had been a sporadic attendee, and had doodled make-up designs or made collages, occasionally with things she’d found in the gardens.

She thought through what she might be able to do for this project. So far, no one really seemed very sure, and she wasn’t much of an exception. She didn’t want to be the one who decided big things.

“I’m not sure what the theme should be… I know how to make circlets with leaves and flowers and things,” she offered. She’d also helped build shelters in the wood but that seemed less relevant, although it meant she might be able to work out how to keep their sculpture standing.. “I… I don’t know if it’s really allowed, but I wonder if we could be the sculptures. Or be part of it.” They could use mud for make-up and camouflage themselves as woodland spirits. They could move, using their bodies as art, when the judges dropped a knut in a hat… “Or some of us. Most people probably don’t want to.”

13 Raine Collindale A stupid idea 327 Raine Collindale 0 5

Ji-Eun Park

February 27, 2016 1:56 AM

And are you about to vomit? by Ji-Eun Park

They were still doing really well after the second challenge, which was a relief as it hadn’t particularly played to their strengths. Perhaps her remarks about how it had been as much about problem solving as flying - which had really just been an attempt to keep up morale - had actually proven to be true. Jamie’s team had, unsurprisingly, soared up the rankings, and was now nipping at her heels. She didn’t care about beating him per se, but she much preferred the option where he sulked silently rather than smuggly boasted, and so she hoped for them to maintain their current positions. She didn’t really mind about winning (or thought she didn’t - now that it was tantalisingly close to being a possibility, she did find herself picturing it) but she enjoyed how well her team was doing. She wasn’t sure she was a good leader, especially after following what her mother told her to do all her life, and maybe this didn’t even prove that - maybe she was just lucky and had talented team-mates - but it certainly didn’t harm her confidence in herself.

She more or less let go of the dreams of herself holding a trophy as the challenge was announced. The only team currently beating them was headed by Arnold. The closest Ji-Eun came to artistic ability was being his model. She liked to think she was somewhat creative - or rather, she really wished she was, and cultivated it as part of her self-image by counting things other people might not. She was great with hairstyles. She was really getting good with make-up. She could do the dances to all her favourite songs. But none of that was going to help her now. The only things in her favour were that she’d always excelled at the Charms designed to make things prettier and sparklier, and that her designs in Transfiguration always got her high marks. Making art out of nature though… That sounded like something for proper creative people.

Her first problem though, came in the form of Barnaby, who didn’t seem right at all. When he began a sentence with ‘I, uh, think I’m going to..’ she instinctively took a step backwards, fairly sure the next words were going to be ‘throw up.’ Ji-Eun liked to think she was a caring, kind person, but vomit lay well beyond the limits of that. Even if she could clean it away in seconds, she didn't want to be vomited on, or even near, or to witness someone doing it. It was so gross. At least he only said ‘sit down’ and then proceeded to do so, although she didn’t venture any closer, as she wasn’t ready to rule out the possibility of puke based on how he looked. Gia seemed a little more willing to enter the danger zone (perhaps she’d been wrong last challenge, and they were friends after all?).

“Good idea,” she nodded to Gia, still looking at Barnaby like he was a bomb that might go off any moment, and frankly glad to have him moved far away from her. “We have all day. Perhaps you can join us later, if you feel better,” she added to Barnaby.

She tried to think pleasant, naturey and artistic thoughts, but it was hard to after looking at Barnaby’s face.

“Is anyone here artistic, or does anyone have an idea for our project?” she asked, hoping this sounded like nice, open-minded leadership and not her having no idea what to do.

13 Ji-Eun Park And are you about to vomit? 268 Ji-Eun Park 0 5

Leonidas Bennett

February 27, 2016 11:49 PM

Now is the time to pick up sticks (Team Six) by Leonidas Bennett

Fourth and seventh places out of fifteen weren’t as bad as they could have been, but downward in the rankings was not the direction Leonidas thought anyone on his team had really planned to go. For the life of him, he could not understand how they had fallen three places or how Two and Five, of all the possible groups, could have stayed on top. They were teams full of youngsters with one Quidditch players apiece. Two had multiple Teppenpaw girls on it. How they had beaten his team was a riddle and he did not have a solution for it. His team had the Aladren and Pecari captains on it.

One of his childhood tutors had said that the aim of all teachers was to work themselves out of a job, but Leonidas had not found that thought very comforting when he’d had to deal with his subordinates at Quidditch practice. It would be John and Clark, the two he worked most directly with and the two who were markedly socially inferior to him, whose teams had succeeded in out-performing his own. And to think he’d felt a little bad for them last time.

Well, he was done with that line of thinking. After – whatever it was Xavier had planned – everything would go back to normal, but for today, all his own people were the enemy. He couldn’t quite bring himself to think of Liliana, at least, as a friend, could only stretch Ingrid’s last name far enough to make her an acquaintance who had wandered onto the wrong path in early childhood, but for the moment, they were his teammates and they all had to work together just a little better than they had last time, because his team was not allowed to lose to a team with Jamie Park on it. It just was not allowed.

He decided not to mention that to Park’s normal teammates, though. He couldn’t imagine that anyone liked Jamie Park, but it would do nothing for their teamwork if he rubbed it into Liliana’s face that she had to deal with that guy while the worst he had to deal with was the fear of a flare-up of class politics on his team. Normally, politics were something Leonidas feared very much, but they lost some of their horror when he considered that guy; beside the prospect of him as a Seeker, even the prospect of Jack and Louis rebelling against Clark’s authority next year or someone questioning his opinions about the proper order of society over how he hadn’t insisted that Jack Spencer become the next captain just didn’t seem so bad.

The prospect of an art project wasn’t nearly as bad, either, but it was still a little daunting. Leonidas had no problem with art, but neither did he have much of a clue how to make it, at least not from natural materials. He could charm or Transfigure them, but build something with them? The note that magic wasn’t even required made him think that what Mr. Xavier had in mind might require a lot more physical skill than Leo was sure he had. Imagination, a decent magical vocabulary and willpower alone might not be enough to get the job done.

He looked skeptically at the ground beneath his feet. The instructions to wear bad clothes and not cut down trees and made a sculpture led him to think they were supposed to use that, but unless they were just going to heap it up, that meant making mud. For that mud to be at all useful as a modeling material, though, he thought it would have to reach a very specific water-to-soil ratio. He knew the charms he thought could, in combination, produce that effect, but not the ratio, as he’d never worked with clay in his life, never mind made it.

“So,” he said to the group. “What do we know about sculpture and sculpting materials here besides what the end results can look like?”

0 Leonidas Bennett Now is the time to pick up sticks (Team Six) 269 Leonidas Bennett 0 5

Owen Brockert

February 28, 2016 1:37 AM

Sounds good to me. by Owen Brockert

Lately, Owen hadn't been feeling too good. His asthma had been acting up a lot and he'd even missed a few days of class this past week. Right now, he was okay-ish, having rested a lot both so he would be able to participate in the challenges today and not let down his team and because he hadn't really felt like doing much else. Hopefully so long as he kept his inhaler nearby and this challenge wasn't physically taxing, he'd be fine.

When he heard what it was going to be, he felt more than relieved-he was actually very happy. His own artistic abilities were only all right, but they had Jemima, the best artist in the entire school on their team, even if she hadn't done much for sculpture. Owen firmly believed that the other Teppenpaw was a natural at all types of art, that she was amazing.

Of course, Owen didn't just think Jemima was amazing as an artist, he thought she was amazing in general.

"I'm glad to have had you as a team leader too." He replied to Chloe's remarks. She really had been a good one, not too pushy or bossy or obsessed with winning to the point where it took away any of the fun of the challenges. Plus, she'd been understanding about Owen's...physical issues. "And, um, I'm sorry about how your year has been." He couldn't imagine what it was like to have a sibling-aside from that Emerald had said it was noisy- let alone for that sibling to die. He imagined it would be sad though.

"The color change charm would be a useful one." Owen suggested. "And some of the materials are mud, grass, flowers....and park benches, I guess. I mean, I don't know how we'd get one of those back here, other than to maybe shrink it. Oh, shrinking and growing spells."

He was less certain as to how he could incorporate his skills or those of others. Owen's main talent was writing and this was a piece of visual art. Nor was even sure what the rest of the team's greatest talents were. "I suppose I can help with any Transfigurations though, within reason." He added. So long as he didn't have to move around too much.

11 Owen Brockert Sounds good to me. 300 Owen Brockert 0 5

Caelia Lucan

February 28, 2016 7:32 AM

thinks you're a genius by Caelia Lucan

Caelia Lucan was not smart, in fact, she was far from it. But she knew this and she acknowledged it. In fact, around Alistair and her brother at least, she fully-heartedly embraced it. However, she was creative. And so even though she didn’t like getting dirty and was a little worried when they had been asked to wear things they didn’t mind getting dirty in, she was excited when Mr. Xavier announced they would be creating an art project in the gardens. This, she could do. She had never really made a sculpture yet, but she was excited to try, and if Art Club continued next year after the Head Boy left, then she thought perhaps she might ask if they could do some sculpting there.

But for now, they would have to make do with the limited knowledge that they had—hopefully one of the others on the team would know more about sculpture. Perhaps Charlotte—Emrys had always said that his girlfriend was a very talented artist. So, she was surprised when the usually shy Kira was the first to share an idea and she smiled encouragingly at her friend. “That’s a really good idea, Kira,” she said, squeezing the younger witch’s arm in a friendly way. “Mr. Xavier never said how big the sculpture needed to be, so what if we went around and collected a bunch of little things and made little fairy sculptures that we could enchant to fly around?”

Caelia herself didn’t think she could do that sort of magic on her own, certainly it would be a few more years before she could manage to magically enchant multiple fairy sculptures to fly around a confined platform area, but she figured with the magical talents of the older witches one of them would be able to make up some sort of barrier to keep the sculptures from leaving the area above the platform while the rest of them could enchant each of their fairies that they made.

“Although, maybe that wouldn’t be enough,” she said as an after thought, realizing that miniature fairies flying around a platform wasn’t really all that sculpture like. “Well, we could also make like a mountain out of mud, and have the fairies fly around that. What do you guys think?” In her head, she was imagining a really cool looking mountain of jagged points with little fairies made out of acorns and flowers flutter around prettily.

Even if they didn’t end up using her idea, Caelia thought she might like to try and paint it one day. She had found that recently she was getting interested in landscapes pieces. Ever since Alistair had asked her to help him make the Crotalus recruitment poster, Caelia had found that she really enjoyed painting. She had always liked art—it was the something special that she and her dad shared. While Emrys and their mom shared a fondness for books ad reading, Julian Lucan had always enjoyed taking his daughter with him to see art exhibits and from a young age she’d always had an appreciate for that. Now that she was older, she was finding this appreciation extending to her personal life when she went to art club or else drew little pictures in her notes during class.

10 Caelia Lucan *thinks you're a genius* 307 Caelia Lucan 0 5

Savannah Brockert

February 29, 2016 4:37 AM

I don't think it is. by Savannah Brockert

Her team was now in first place and she couldn't believe it. Especially considering that the last challenge had been flying based and they had one Quidditch player among them. Though Savannah again had to attribute this to excellent teamwork, she had to admit that she must have been a better flyer than she'd thought considering that until the second challenge, she hadn't picked up a broom since Flying Lessons. Not that she had any desire to play Quidditch but it was nice to know when she could do something if she absolutely had to.

Today's challenge, however, was one that sounded much more fun than the last one had. Savannah hardly considered herself a great artist and she really had never tried sculpture before but she had always been a big fan of arts and crafts. Creating something of her own, plus it was something she had done with her family even if they were each making their own thing. The fourth year smiled at a memory of herself sitting at a table with her sister and cousins, working on craft projects, chatting and bonding. Plus, Savannah had always done pretty well at needlework which Scarlett was too impatient for.

Not that this was the same thing but it was similar enough to those old crafting sessions with her relatives to make her happy to be doing it. She just hoped that her teammates were good with it too. Arnold probably would be, both Ryan and Uncle Seth spoke of him as a talented artist, and he was the president of the Art Club. The fact that he was skilled would surely keep them on top but if they were all doing this together, teamwork was sure to play a factor as well.

As usual, Arnold asked for their input. Savannah rather liked this about the seventh year, he cared about the opinions of others rather than just being a dictator. Andrew and Jax gave their thoughts and questions, which she gave some consideration to and than Raine spoke up. The shy first year always seemed so ill at ease, reminding Savannah quite a bit of Kira. Maybe the two would get along even if the first year wasn't part of a society family. The older Teppenpaw felt that might actually be good for her cousin, take some of the pressure off, while learning she was not alone in regards to being quiet and shy and uncomfortable expressing her ideas in a group. And Raine was still a pureblood which would keep Kelsey from giving Kira a hard time.

Right now though, Savannah wanted to make the younger girl feel more comfortable and less embarrassed, just like she'd want to do for her cousin and hoped that someone was. "It seems like a fine idea, Raine and I'd be willing to participate in it. I do think we should do something as a group though," she added, going back to Andrew's original question. "I mean, we work so well together that it would be sure to be success."

11 Savannah Brockert I don't think it is. 286 Savannah Brockert 0 5

Ingrid Wolseithcrafte

February 29, 2016 8:03 AM

And bang our heads against brick walls by Ingrid Wolseithcrafte

Ingrid was feeling pretty deflated going into the last challenge. They’d been fourth, which she had been pretty pleased with, and miles above Theodore which had been even better. Coming out of the flying challenge, she’d expected their position could only get better but instead they’d slipped down the rankings to seventh. They were still above Theodore, at least, but it felt like a bittersweet victory when they had both lost a few places. Jemima had even climbed above her, which was kind of rude given that flying was Ingrid’s thing, and any skill Jemima had in it was thanks to her (though actually that was a moot point, as her sister had stayed on the ground). She didn’t feel good about the part of her that resented Jemima’s success because she loved her and normally would have been super pleased for her achievements but it was hard not to feel bitter about the way the last challenge had panned out. When Mr. Xavier announced this challenge, she felt her heart sinking further. It totally played to Jemima’s strengths. If Ingrid had come out of the flying challenge better off, she might have been a big enough person to be happy that her sister got to play to her strengths too (although had she had a precious position at the top to protect, it could easily have skewed her sense of justice, and her wish for everyone to be happy - she, after all, was no Teppenpaw).

She tried not to look put out because being a team player meant having a good attitude, but the slouch of her shoulders betrayed how she really felt, and the fact she tried to keep her face neutral was also a dead give-away - Ingrid was normally bouncy, animated and enthusiastic, and the absence of these features spoke volumes to anyone who knew her usual demeanour.

She wracked her brain as Leo asked what seemed like a fairly straight forward question. Surely, surely she must know something about this… Jemima was always doing this stuff, and she was always with Jemima…. She usually tried to listen too....

“Mud isn’t the same as clay,” she offered. She remembered one afternoon when Jemima had really wanted to do some modelling but had run out of clay. She had shrugged and just asked why she didn’t mix some of the dirt from the garden with water. Jemima had told her that they weren’t the same. She couldn’t remember how though. She didn’t know whether Jemima knew. Clay was special dirt or something. “So, we probably can’t model it much, unless we change it using magic. My sister - Jemima,” she clarified, given that the older ones probably knew Francesca better, and the thought of her doing any of these things was weird, bordering on faintly hilarious, “does stuff like this. When she goes out, she mostly picks up leaves,” she couldn’t identify a unifying feature of the leaves, or what made them pretty, other than Jemima’s opinion, which they didn’t currently have available, “And I’ve seen her braiding stuff. Like… grassy stuff, maybe?”

It felt pretty hopeless, given that all she could offer was a bad copy of what Jemima liked to do and they would be competing again the real thing. Who knew though? Given that the Gods had clearly had a laugh with things last time around, maybe they’d be the ones picking up all the points this time. Or, if Those in Charge had a really sick sense of humour, Theodore would. Ingrid had surely at least hung out with Jemima enough to have had something rub off on her, whereas she was quite sure their brother didn’t have an artistic bone in his body.

13 Ingrid Wolseithcrafte And bang our heads against brick walls 322 Ingrid Wolseithcrafte 0 5

Liliana Bannister

February 29, 2016 4:41 PM

Come on, guys, put on your rally caps! by Liliana Bannister

Their team was loosing. They had dropped in the rankings from fourth two seventh despite the advantage they’d had in the last challenge and Liliana felt awful. The only thing she found comfort in was Theodore’s team having also dropped, from ninth to twelfth. At least he couldn’t lord it over her that he had done better and, even though her team wasn’t in the top five (nor did she think it have any hope of reaching the top five), she was still winning…at least in the competition between the two of them. Atlas’ team, also, was not doing well, which caused Liliana some glee. At least he wasn’t oblivious to her affection for him and beating her in the challenges. That, she didn’t think she’d be able to handle.

The two of them had made up enough that he had told her all about the trip his parents had taken him and Katie on over winter break to Japan. She had been waiting with baited breath to see if he had found himself a nice, cute Japanese girl while there and was pleased to hear that no, there hadn’t been one. This was welcome news to the soon to be seventeen year old and she had thrown herself a private party in her dorm room that night, opting to extend an invitation to Joella who was, at this point, her closest girl friend, to hang out instead of meeting up with Theodore in a darkened hallway as was preplanned. After all, if Atlas hadn’t been with a cute Japanese girl, she could go without Theodore for one night. Besides, the last time they’d hooked up she had gotten a rather nasty love-bite and she needed a little bit of a break to get rid of it.

But that was neither here nor there. At present, her main priority was moving their team up in the ranks. It was ridiculous that Quidditch player-less teams had bested their team to the point of them actually sinking three places in the team rankings. Perhaps they had gotten too cocky, perhaps the professors had acknowledged the unfairness of a team full of flyers and altered their challenge to be harder in an attempt to even the playing field. It certainly would explain a lot of things—she’d heard rumour of team one actually putting two people on one broomstick.

This only served as a reminder to her that the end of the challenge meant the end of the temporary truce between her and Leonidas. After that day, they would go back to being rivals—at least in Quidditch. Yet, it was funny to think that she had never really seen Leonidas as a rival. He was the captain of the Aladren Quidditch team which should have meant that she would find him as annoying as she found Theodore, but the difference between then was (she had found out while working on the team with Leonidas) that the Aladren Quidditch Captain was not nearly as pompous or frustratingly proper as the Aladren Keeper (or, at least, outwardly).

So she didn’t mind at all as Leonidas took the lead for the last challenge, had Theodore done something like that she would have seen it as a challenge, some sort of vie for a position of authority. But with Leonidas it simply felt cooperative, and she appreciated it. Perhaps if they had been in the same house, perhaps if she had buckled down earlier on in her school years they might have been friends—he reminded her of Atlas in some ways, but she knew she was generally considered too bouncy and unpredictable to be of much concern to the Aladrens, at least in the friend department.

His question was entirely Aladren in nature, and Liliana shrugged in response. She didn’t really know anything about art, that was all Atlas. The most artistic she got was crafting plays for the Quidditch team which, although she considered such things as art, she was almost certain the rest of the school wouldn’t. This was going to be a difficult challenge. Luckily Ingrid spoke up with some things that she had learned over the years, presumably from watching her older sister, Jemima. “Changing it using magic is a good idea,” Liliana said thoughtfully. “I mean, we are witches and wizards. But…I don’t know the first thing about this sort of art…”

“If braiding grass-stuff is anything like braiding hair, well then…” Liliana shrugged her shoulders, the braid that she wore six out of seven days of the week falling forward with the movement. “Perhaps we could use some sort of spell to strengthen and elongate the various grasses and then use magic to reform them into some shape or another?” She frowned. She wasn’t quite sure how this would work, nor even how long this would take, but it appeared that they had all day, and if she could braid her near waist-length hair in under ten minutes and they had all day and six people then she was sure they’d be able to manufacture enough braided grasses to be able to magically shape into some sort of sculpture.

“It doesn’t even have to be like…a specific representation, right? I mean, modern, abstract art is totally a thing now, I think…” she trailed off, her forehead crinkling slightly, hoping someone on the team would assure the rest of them that yes, they totally had this under control and not to worry a bit.

OOC: Mentions of Joella & Theodore as approved by their authors, mention of Atlas as discussed in previous conversations re: Atlas' sixth year in general with the author.

10 Liliana Bannister Come on, guys, put on your rally caps! 274 Liliana Bannister 0 5

Duncan Brockert

March 03, 2016 3:59 AM

All might be asking a bit much. How about something? by Duncan Brockert

After the second challenge, their team ranking had plummeted and Duncan felt awful about it. He blamed himself, felt he'd let everyone down. He knew that they weren't a team of flyers, of athletes, but he couldn't help but think it was his fault anyway rather than just the nature of the challenge not playing to their strengths. He was supposed to be their leader. What had he done wrong?

He just hoped they didn't think less of him now, especially Araceli.

Duncan tried to keep a positive attitude-and happy face- though as Mr. Xavier announced what they were to do for the next Challenge. It sounded more fun than the last one admittedly. There were people who weren't good at art but most people never seemed to object to doing it the way some did to flying. Plus art was a much more subjective thing and even those who couldn't draw or sculpt something specific could at the very least make something abstract and random. In fact, from what he understood, he had a relative who specialized in random works of art.

His expression became a lot more genuinely pleased when Brandon mentioned he could paint and downright thrilled when Tobi mentioned that yes, as a Reinhardt, he did know how to sculpt. "Fantastic!" Duncan exclaimed. Of course, the sixth year had heard of the Reinhardts' metal charming business. His parents owned some of their pieces as did his grandparents and a lot of his other relatives.

He had to feel a little bit bad for those whose families had a business that way though. What if someone had something else they wanted to do? Or weren't at all skilled in the family trade. He was glad his family, with their large size, wasn't that way and they could choose for themselves what they wanted to do. Duncan personally had decided to become someone who helped ghosts adjust to becoming ghosts. Something he didn't think anyone in his family had ever done.

However, right now, he had to admit that he was pretty pleased that the Reinhardts were like that. Or at the very least that they gave their children training in this particular area even if he did rather hope Tobi got to do what he wanted too, if he did want something else. Not that Duncan knew either way. Right now, he just wanted to go up a few places, even if they couldn't regain their first place spot.

"I haven't done any sculpture at all either, just drawing lessons." Some were typical of those in his position. "And gravel is a fantastic idea. Like maybe we could mainly use that." Duncan suggested. "Or like, make something out of mud and coat it with gravel. We should also incorporate magic somehow. Maybe make some kind of animal and use an animation charm to have it move. Since Joe has done a fish, maybe even an aquarium scene? With actual plants?"

11 Duncan Brockert All might be asking a bit much. How about something? 271 Duncan Brockert 0 5

Arne Reinhardt

March 03, 2016 4:58 AM

Yeah...what she said. by Arne Reinhardt

From thirteenth to fourteenth monkeys place, indeed! Arne scowled at Mr. Xavier’s mention of the top three teams, noting how he failed to mention just whose team was placed fourth. Perfect Tobi’s perfect best friend and the rest of his whacked out team. Even Laila’s team was doing better than his was, a fact that she had not let him forget when he followed her to the library after the team rankings had been posted for the second time. He was really starting to get tired of her innocent act. It had been kind of cute at first, but now it was just irritating. Now that Laila had branched out and made friends at Sonora and had herself surrounded by a nice group of people much like she had back home (granted, the kind of friends she had made were different, but they were a group nonetheless), she always acted as though talking to him was a difficult task. What was that word again? Oh yes, deign.

He rolled his eyes, having showed up early to the task in rumpled jeans and a worn white t-shirt, Northwest style flannel thrown over it haphazardly in case whatever it was that they would have to do would negate the rather warm weather that they were experiencing. But the mention of the challenge had his ears perked up even if his contrary thirteen-year-old demeanor refused to allow him to, Merlin forbid, appear interested in something! Even though Tobi was older than he was and Arne was by no means a better wood carver than his nearly fifteen year old brother, Father had always said that Arne showed more aptitude for the craft than Tobi did at comparable ages. Which meant that, for once, Arne had a chance to beat Tobi at something. At least…kind of.

The fact still remained that Tobi was the better brother, the calmer son, the more experienced Beater, but Arne had something that Tobi didn’t have when it came to metal charming. He had passion. Not that he would admit it to anyone who asked, but this was something that Arne genuinely cared about whereas his older brother simply did it because it was what was expected of him and he wasn’t exactly the rebelling sort as it were. No, that was more up Arne’s alley. Funny how things worked out that way, he thought as he turned to his group, prepared to drawl his skills to them and let the decide how to put him to use. The obedient brother was the one who wanted to leave while the rebellious one wished to take over the business which would, inevitably, go to the older, obedient one.

But now was his chance to prove to Father that his abilities extended beyond Tobi’s unwilling shadow. He would never be able to understand why their father would let something like birth order stand in the way of true passion or skill, unless it had to do with some lingering resentment over being the third of his set of brothers and having to move to a new country to start his own business, something that had been Tobias Reinhardt, I’s dream since he was young teenager. But even this didn’t make sense—wouldn’t he then be more willing to let his sons sort themselves out on their own? Arne did sometimes feel bad that the rest of the family had to deal with his obnoxious behavior, but he felt his father deserved every moment of it.

However Ben Pierce and Joella Curtis, two Pecari Quidditch team members, suggested a crazy amount of things. Arne had learned early on from watching his father take customer orders that commissioned pieces never turned out as well as when the artist was allowed free reign, and that additionally, less was more. Unless Father and Mother were collaborating in which case Arne always revelled in tracing his fingers over the intricate notches and curves that made up the beautiful Native designs. He wasn’t quite feeling sharing his own idea, but he also didn’t think that either Ben or Joella’s ideas would gain him any sort of respect from Father. If anything it would cause Father to raise his eyebrows at him and demand to know why he hadn’t taken charge before turning to praise whatever piece of crap it was Tobi had made.

And a house unifying sculpture, to show how they now all felt deep comradeship for each other because of these challenges, really? What was Joella, a Teppenpaw? He quirked his eyebrow in what would have been an inquisitively, sceptical manner had it rested on his face for longer than a brief second before he let it go and opened his mouth, the bored drawl that he had so perfected while hanging out with the Mills brothers that past summer slowly articulating his contribution. “I’m not good or anything but I know how to use a knife so if we’re joining elements together I can do earth.”

*OOC: I read a book once where the main character censored herself by replacing all swears with “monkeys,” so I’m going to do the same with Arne when necessary. Also, please note, Arne’s bad attitude is entirely his own and he fought me long and hard to be able to keep it.

10 Arne Reinhardt Yeah...what she said. 319 Arne Reinhardt 0 5

Kyte Collindale

March 03, 2016 11:05 PM

Seems like the best was saved for last by Kyte Collindale

Kyte had been pretty suspicious about the first two challenges. They just weren’t really his thing - they all felt really contrived and like they were all jumping through hoops, and he only liked doing that when it was in a purely literal sense. Still, the flying element in the last one had been kind of fun. He enjoyed any excuse to exercise his broom skills. And their team had a nice vibe. No one was being pushy with anyone, or obsessed about winning. Those things would have made him really uncomfortable.

The last challenge sounded the best out of the three too. He liked art. He hadn’t made a lot of it, but scavenging in the woods and making nature sculptures seemed a lot more like familiar territory than puzzle solving a fake sleigh full of fake presents. Art and performing were at least related. They even called them ‘circus arts’ so maybe it wouldn’t be stretching it too much to include what he loved best… He grinned as Ava spoke, glad she had a free and easy attitude towards this. Even if they were going to be judged as having done it “right” or “wrong” (or at least “better” or “worse”) at least their team captain was going about the whole thing the right way.

“I was just thinking the same!” he grinned, when she talked about them being in the piece, “Which could mean Raine is thinking the same thing, so we might not be the only ones who do it. But she might not be thinking it, and she isn’t always one for sharing her ideas in a big group,” he explained. Kyte believed in being to the point, which other people sometimes mistook for bluntness or being rude. However, he didn’t think it was a bad thing that they might not be the only ones thinking it, nor did he see it as a criticism that Raine didn’t voice her thoughts much (although he didn’t really understand why not). Those were both just facts - facts which it was good for everyone to know, and on which he wasn’t offering any judgement.

13 Kyte Collindale Seems like the best was saved for last 335 Kyte Collindale 0 5

Theodore Wolseithcrafte

March 04, 2016 5:19 AM

At least it will be over soon...ish (Team 14) by Theodore Wolseithcrafte

They had started low and fallen even lower. And, although Liliana didn’t have a lot to brag about, having also slid down the rankings after the flying challenge (of all things!), she was still easily beating him. Really, the whole thing was humiliating, and he couldn’t wait for it to be over. The last challenge seemed determined to finish him off with a bang though. Art. All day. Internally, he groaned. The subject matter was something he was truly awful at, and they were going to prolong the agony by making it a lengthy project.

“Well, clearly we’re going to have to use a lot of magic to make anything remotely acceptable looking. I mean, nature itself is very beautiful but attempting to make any kind of coherent and recognisable sculpture out of it is not going to be easy.

“What artistic experience does everyone have?” he asked. Where only magic had been concerned, he had felt confident in assessing his team’s abilities and dividing up roles accordingly but this sort of information he had no way of knowing. This, in itself, irked him - as a good Aladren, he of course enjoyed the experience of acquiring new knowledge. However, he couldn’t see how his team-mate’s artistic abilities were going to be that interesting to him and, outside of exploring exciting and unknown subject areas, he did not like venturing into territory where he wasn’t the most informed person on a subject. He subconsciously frowned at the thought, which perhaps was not the most friendly and inspiring face to put forward for the last challenge.

13 Theodore Wolseithcrafte At least it will be over soon...ish (Team 14) 270 Theodore Wolseithcrafte 0 5

Jamie Park, Pecari

March 04, 2016 5:31 AM

Excuse me while I throw up by Jamie Park, Pecari

Third place would have been pretty darn good if it wasn’t for two things. One, there were also first and second available. Two, his sister was occupying one of those. It was good to be moving up the rankings (thanks, no doubt to his awesome flying - a fact he had hadn’t been shy about sharing) but he wanted number one. Fate seemed to be against them going into the last challenge, at least in Jamie’s mind. Who wanted to prance around the gardens doing arty-farty rubbish? This was lame.

Luckily for the remainder of Jamie’s team, the fact that he thought the whole thing so far beneath him, and suited only to losers and gays (a term he felt perfectly comfortable throwing around as an inherent insult, with all the thought teenage boys are prone to giving such matters), that he would likely not be venturing many opinions, for fear of being labelled such. Jamie was, for the first time perhaps in anyone’s memory, quite happy to just shut up and take a back seat. On the downside, this probably meant he would be fairly lazy, and willing to only make the most minimal of contributions, but this lack of effort was probably still an overall win for his team compared to the usual consequences of him opening his mouth, especially as they had all day. He wouldn’t mind smashing up some nature, or dragging some big tree branches to their platform, or other suitably matcho jobs but he wasn’t going to faff about with leaves and making it all look pretty.

“Whatever,” he rolled his eyes, in response to the first year’s suggestion. He pulled a token face or two when John started rambling about Charms but he couldn’t even be bothered to really lay into him, lest someone ask him if he had a better idea. He wanted zero responsibility in this stupid challenge. “This is lame.”

13 Jamie Park, Pecari Excuse me while I throw up 284 Jamie Park, Pecari 0 5

Araceli Arbon

March 04, 2016 6:12 AM

Better than nothing by Araceli Arbon

The final challenge. Delphine breathed a sigh of relief. Although things had gone relatively smoothly, she still wasn’t a fan of surprises, or disruptions to her routine. She didn’t really care that their position had dropped so far after the second challenge. The less attention there was on her now, and Araceli if and when she returned, the better. Even though she didn’t like the challenges themselves, she greeted her team brightly - she liked most of them as people, and had no wish to make Duncan in particular think that she wasn’t happy about this situation, lest he either feel her feelings towards him were luke warm or that she was unhappy with him about their place in the rankings.

The last challenge sounded relatively pleasant. Art was not an area where she and Araceli differed greatly, having received the same basic lessons. Effie had always been more talented than both of them, although perhaps that was merely a product of her always having been a year ahead. Delphine had given up artistic pursuits well before their age difference would have ceased to be a factor.

“I learnt basic drawing and painting skills - water colours, that sort of thing,” she contributed. “It’s good to know we have at least one experienced sculptor though,” she smiled at Tobias. Given that she wasn’t the leader, she didn’t feel it was her place to suggest the role be handed to him, but she would be more than willing to follow his directions. “I’d be happy to learn,” she offered instead. “I think sticking charms will be handy,” she added, in response to Duncan, “That way we can more easily work things like gravel into pleasing and artistic shapes.” Without magic, she wasn’t sure that gravel would be very artistic at all.

13 Araceli Arbon Better than nothing 290 Araceli Arbon 0 5

Chuck Fintoc

March 04, 2016 1:32 PM

I'm no genius but tell me what you think... by Chuck Fintoc

Chuck didn’t have many hang-ups about certain types of people, meeting everyone with an open mind and letting their individual personality define them. Hence he wasn’t fussed about blood type, wealth, gender… That being said, he was the only boy in a team of girls and he was very much aware of it. At first he’d thought it would be fine so long as the people were nice, and as far as he could tell they were nice. But they were all so different from him in their ideas and sometimes it was interesting but a lot of the time he felt like the odd one out, which he kind of was. This didn’t stop him from enjoying the challenges by any means but he couldn’t help wondering how differently things would be done if he wasn’t the only male present in the whole six person group.

Challenge three was music to his ears when the groundskeeper explained it. Most of the clothes Chuck wore daily were those that could get dirty. Growing up on a cattle ranch meant he was used to getting covered in all kinds of muck so he had come fully prepared. It was certainly going to be a fun day, irrelevant of his teammates. Surely for the final challenge these sweet proper little princess pureblood girls could relax and allow themselves to get stuck in, mud and all?

Surprisingly, it was Kira Spaulding who piped up first when they were released to get on with the challenge. He hadn’t known much about the younger girl before the challenges began, only things that Emmy had told him when rambling on about her new classmates last term but that was a year ago and even then he’d probably only been half-listening to her endless chit-chat. What he’d come to find was that Kira wasn’t an overly confident witch, but a bright one, and he warmed to her much more than he did to her cousin Kelsey Atwater who was in his own year. Her suggestion was quite promising and he was glad when Caelia complimented the second year on it.

It was only when Caelia continued to talk and present her own ideas that Chuck’s heart sunk and he suddenly remembered exactly what team he was in. He didn’t like to put others down for anything and especially not for speaking up and putting their ideas out there so he wasn’t going to criticise the suggestion - although he had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. The large redhead felt a little more relieved when his yearmate realised this might not be enough and decided to go with her mound of mud idea and work from that.

“How about instead of a mountain of mud, we have something a little more artistic in the centre?” Chuck put his own idea forward, not wanting to sound like he disapproved of the mountain of mud by potentially suggesting that it was not artistic but being part of a team meant taking other people’s suggestions and building on them, didn’t it? “If we could make the central piece more of a focal point, such as a wood carving or sculpture or something so it’s more aesthetically pleasing and then we could use the fairies to show off our magical abilities and add colour and movement to the finished piece.”

He didn’t think he was particularly creative, not like Emmy was anyway, but he’d come up with something that he felt he could enjoy participating in. He liked carving things with the pocketknife he always carried around and thought it could be fun to make something magical out of that, even if he didn’t know the first thing about what looked pretty (unless the subject was horses, which it wasn’t).

8 Chuck Fintoc I'm no genius but tell me what you think... 309 Chuck Fintoc 0 5

Lionel Layne

March 04, 2016 2:35 PM

To talk of making things. by Lionel Layne

Lionel strongly suspected he was in the minority – most people, even those who more or less liked their teammates for the year, didn’t like being forced to compete against their regular friends; here at school, with only a handful of people having siblings they were close to both in age and relationship, friends were really all most people had – but he thought he was going to be a little sorry to see the challenges end after today. He had not become outstandingly close to anyone on Team Eight, didn’t think he had personally done much to further a climate of school unity or anything like that (not least because, well, he was on Team Eight and all the others were its direct competition; being too chummy with those who were beating them felt a little disloyal and was against his own interests anyway), but he had had fun with the bizarre tasks the staff had thought up for them this year. They had been pleasant distractions from the looming reality of his CATS. Art Club meant he would still have at least some distraction from those for the rest of the year, but there was always a little anxiety that went with that, as he was afraid his grandfather would disapprove if he ever found out Lionel had joined.

Challenges, though, were things Granddad would approve of, and since Lionel thought they were kind of fun, too, he thought everyone won today. Unless, of course, something went horribly wrong and his team came in fifteenth. That was always possible, but it wouldn’t be much fun for Lionel, Lionel’s grandfather, or the rest of Team Eight. Lionel hoped that wouldn’t happen, though. He didn’t really approve of carrying others’ weight here since a lot of the whole point was for them all to expand their personal boundaries, but the thought of living with his roommate for the rest of the year if Jamie’s team won the whole thing and his completely failed was enough to make him glad that Alistair was so fond of Kelsey if she turned out to be squeamish about doing…whatever it was they were going to have to do that might involve getting dirty. Assuming, of course, that Alistair wasn’t the squeamish one and that Lionel wouldn’t have to help him out….

It had to be either a class or a purely individual thing, he thought, not really a Crotalus one. Isaac was pretty prissy, but their granddad and Isaac’s sister Rachel were not too bad, and from what he’d gathered, Aunt Emily and Aunt Helena weren’t above getting their hands dirty, either, or hadn’t been when they’d been in Crotalus. Unless, of course, Isaac was just the only good Crotalus in the bunch. Granddad’s first wife, second child, third grandchild, and first grandchild-in-law had all been Aladrens, the only other House in recent memory to boast multiple members of the family. Maybe Granddad and Rachel and Lionel’s aunts had been close calls or something.

He wasn’t too crazy about Emrys taking the blame for their placement, as it made him feel like they ought to try to talk him out of thinking that way and Lionel didn’t really know what to say or how to say it without getting way too sentimental for the extent of their acquaintance. Luckily, Emrys himself redirected the focus to the task pretty quickly.

“I…think from the description that we probably shouldn’t do a lot of really obvious magic,” volunteered Lionel when the floor was opened to ideas. “It should still look like it’s made from natural materials, not like we just used the stuff out here as bases for Transfiguration.” He thought that was the kind of trap the Aladrens might fall into. Transfiguration was a difficult, dangerous discipline that required a lot of dull technical work to do really impressive stunts with, so it drew that mindset, he thought. It wasn’t a favorite of all of them – Uncle Geoff was a Potions man who seemed to genuinely enjoy arguing about whose favorite subject was more intellectually demanding with Aunt Anne and Alicia – but he thought they probably liked it more often than other people. “Maybe we could each make a – scarecrow-thing and have them around a bonfire? Maybe with leaves to look like fire instead of real fire?”

16 Lionel Layne To talk of making things. 283 Lionel Layne 0 5

Fabian Brockert

March 05, 2016 8:06 PM

Okay. puts it on by Fabian Brockert

Their team had fallen slightly in the rankings but Fabian wasn't too fussed about it. He'd never really been all that competitive and it wasn't like he was either the leader nor someone who had a tendency to feel bad about himself if he wasn't on top or someone who blamed himself if their team wasn't.

He just had never been that intense about things. Sure, he liked knowing what to do if he had to survive in a dire situation, but that was because he found that sort of thing interesting, not because he was worried about it happening and anyway, Fabian didn't consider a school competition a life or death matter. It wasn't as if they were being chased by a bear or dragon or something that had rabies. Getting bit by an animal with rabies was the Pecari's greatest fear in life and whenever he went out in the woods, he took a vial of antidote with him.

Besides, it wasn't was if they were last, in fact, they were still in the top half. Tristan was last, and he wasn't happy about it. Fabian just tried to stay out of his way. Granted, he felt a little bad for the seventh year. Even as non-competitive as the Pecari was, he wouldn't want to be last. Plus the older boy was still Fabian's cousin, and while someone had to be last, he'd kind of prefer it not be someone he was somewhat close to. He'd rather it be one of those teams with more distant cousins, the one with none of his relatives, or even Kelsey's team. Kelsey, Fabian felt, needed to be knocked down a few pegs.

Though he felt worse for Chaslyn-and even Kira-than he did Tristan. Aunt Alice and Uncle Robert wouldn't be angry with Tristan if his team wasn't first. Aunt Jillian, on the other hand, would be furious with Chaslyn if she wasn't. His aunt expected way too much of her daughters and unlike Amity, Chaslyn tried hard to live up to her mom's expectations which didn't seem humanly possible.

As for Kira, well, even though she was Tristan's sister and her parents wouldn't be mad at her either, Fabian just didn't want her to feel bad. The other second year didn't think very highly of herself-even though she was sweet and intelligent and the most brilliantly powerful witch Fabian had ever seen-and she'd just internalize it as another way she was inferior to everyone, especially if Kelsey's team beat hers.

He, on the other hand, was looking forward to today's challenge because it was in his favorite place-the Gardens. Plus, he actually liked most of his teammates. Fabian had always liked Ingrid pretty well, Liliana was cool, and there was something about Peizhi that made him feel kind of protective of her. She reminded him a lot of Kira and he really thought it be nice if the two of them became friends. Kira needed someone she could identify with. Plus, there was the whole thing where Peizhi's half-sister was engaged to Adam Brockert, his family's heir, so in a way Fabian felt it was his duty to look out for her.

The Pecari didn't even mind Leonidas, probably mostly because he had made a concentrated effort to give him the benefit of the doubt for Arabella's sake. Still, Fabian really didn't think the older boy was as stuck-up and full of himself as some of the younger Aladrens were.

He listened as Mr. Xavier gave the instructions. Art wasn't something Fabian was all that great at but he supposed he didn't have a huge problem with doing it. "I don't know too much about sculpting and never have done much of it. I know that you use clay normally and to make pottery you put it on a wheel. Later on I guess it gets painted or like, someone puts a color charm on it. Also, some of it doesn't look like much of anything in particular."

Fabian went on. "I've never really done it but I have like made stuff out of mud actually. " When you went out in the woods camping and what not, you might need some of that stuff for survival reasons. Like making a container to catch water in or a shelter. "And I know the gardens well enough so I can find stuff if needed. Plus, I'm sure I can contribute magically."

11 Fabian Brockert Okay. *puts it on* 321 Fabian Brockert 0 5

Chaslyn Brockert

March 05, 2016 10:20 PM

I can't wait. by Chaslyn Brockert

When Chaslyn had seen the results of the previous challenge, she'd felt like throwing up but had instead went directly up to her bedroom and cried on and off for hours. She knew her mother would not approve of that, feeling that it was a waste of time to sit and cry when she could be improving herself but she hadn't been able to help it. Chaslyn would try doing other things but found herself unable to concentrate on them. She'd remember the list of rankings and start crying all over again.

They'd fallen even farther down. Mother was going to be so angry with her. Second place would have been unacceptable-she could hear Miss Annie's voice in her head saying that second place was the first to lose-and so twelveth out of fifteen was out of the question. While she felt rising a few places was possible, Chaslyn really didn't think they could win now and those few places would not matter, only first would please Mother.

She was terrified of going home for the summer. Even if she aced her CATS, even though she'd gotten prefect-was so far the only of her group of cousins to do so-things that made Father and her grandparents and everyone else proud of her, it wouldn't be enough to please Mother if her team didn't win the challenges. Though she knew Mother wouldn't express pride in her, as perfection in all areas was simply what was expected, at least she wouldn't be yelled at, wouldn't be in trouble.

Still, they weren't going to make it to first so by the time Chaslyn made it to the final event, she was feeling shaky and nervous and rather sick to her stomach. It wasn't even about how well they did this time for it wouldn't matter how well they did if they didn't win the whole thing which would take a miracle no matter what the instructions were, she just simply could not stop imagining how bad it was going to be when she got home. Mother would be furious and yell and tell Chaslyn what a disappointment and a failure she was and even if Father stepped into defend her, it would cause them to fight on top of everything. Besides, the Crotalus didn't need to be told that, she already knew. Already felt that way.

To make matters worse, Theodore seemed to be in a foul mood, seemingly over the subject of the day's event. It made Chaslyn want to get out of his way, before he started yelling at her. Blaming her for their previous failures. However, she couldn't do that, she was trapped as usual. Instead she replied to his question. "I have quite a bit. I've had lesson in pretty much every kind of art including sculpture." It was true, she'd had lessons in just about everything.

11 Chaslyn Brockert I can't wait. 281 Chaslyn Brockert 0 5

Tristan Spaulding

March 07, 2016 7:21 PM

sighs(Team Seven) by Tristan Spaulding

Tristan was in a foul mood, as he had ever since the results of the previous challenge had been posted. They were in last place. How could this be? How with the team he had could they be in last place after a flying challenge and even been beaten by Kira's team full of mostly pureblood girls? What had gone wrong? Perhaps he'd had too much confidence in the first years. Odds were Camden had never flown before this year as Tristan didn't know of a Miller family.

He tried to keep himself from scowling. A Spaulding,especially an heir, should never show that they weren't happy about something in front of others. However it was taking a lot of effort. Tristan was not accustomed to losing or not getting his way. In fact, there had only been one time in his life-other than this competition-that he'd been disappointed, and that was not getting to play Quidditch. Especially because the reason was that he as bad at it. Being terrible at the one thing you enjoyed most was truly awful.

Not that Tristan had wanted to embarrass himself that way, failing in front of the entire school. That would have reflected poorly on him and his family both. He just had too much pride. Of course, he had too much pride to admit he wasn't good at it as well and decided long ago to tell anyone who was nosy enough to ask that his parents thought that as the family heir, he wasn't to waste his time on matters that could be considered trivial-even if Tristan disagreed about Quidditch being trivial.

However, not wanting to look bad in front of others, was another reason the Crotalus did not want to get last place in the Challenges. Actually, he'd prefer to have won the whole thing, but that was not going to happen. All he could hope for was not to be last. That would be humiliating.

Finding out that the challenge would be art based did not exactly improve matters either. Tristan had never been a creative person at all, preferring to deal in logic and facts than nonspecific concepts. When it came to art, people would create works that were totally random looking and claimed they represented something equally random. To him, it sounded like they were just making stuff up to sound good. Nor had he ever sculpted anything, never even picked up a lump of clay.

Unfortunately, there was no choice, this was the task for the day. Tristan resigned himself to this fact and turned to his teammates. "Does anyone have any ideas?" He figured he could retrieve materials for them to build with. "Preferably a specific object instead of something intangible." Art-and artists-could be really silly.

11 Tristan Spaulding *sighs*(Team Seven) 264 Tristan Spaulding 0 5

Scarlett Brockert

March 09, 2016 3:14 AM

An idea! by Scarlett Brockert

Scarlett was having an a totally awesome time with the Challenges, even though they were no longer tied for first. They were still in second, while the team they'd been tied with had plummeted and the team that was now beating them was Savannah's. If Scarlett's team wasn't winning anymore-and they still could in the end-she was glad it was her twin who was.

Besides, the most important thing of all was to have fun-and she was. The Pecari tended to be up for just about anything. She hadn't even minded flying last time.It had actually been kind of fun, navigating obstacles in the maze. Not that Scarlett wanted to join the Quidditch team or anything. Never truly had an interest. Plus, she didn't have the dedication-to anything-that it seemed to require to be good and considering how seriously was taken by the people who played it, you were expected to be good.

The Pecari listened while Mr. Xavier talked,finding it much easier to do then she had in the first challenge with Professor Pye, given he didn't have the same distracting good looks. When the groundskeeper mentioned they'd be doing sculpture, Scarlett grinned. What fun! While there was almost nothing she was so passionate about that she could do it on a daily basis, it sounded like a great way to spend the day. Plus, she knew the gardens pretty well and was pretty good at Transfiguration.

Unfortunately, Barnaby didn't look quite as enthused. In fact, he looked downright ill. The smile on Scarlett's face was quickly replaced by a look of concern. Being sick sucked and she felt awful for her teammate. Especially if he had to go to the medic-who seemed rather scary and not at all like someone that she would want taking care of her-and miss all the fun. Of course, when you were sick, most things weren't fun at all. "I hope you feel better." Scarlett told him sympathetically. "Even if you can't participate."

She turned back to Ji-Eun. "We should do something really different. Like find some sort of inanimate object to make out of natural bits. How about a garden shears or a wheelbarrow? Because it's the groundskeeper doing this challenge." She paused. "Or how about a prairie elf? They probably do a lot of the work both out here and elsewhere in Sonora and don't always get much credit." Uncle Seth had always considered prairie elves a necessary gardening tool. "And animate it using magic!"

11 Scarlett Brockert An idea! 293 Scarlett Brockert 0 5

Portia Dobson

March 09, 2016 6:40 AM

Re: Yeah...what she said. by Portia Dobson

Merlin, did Portia want out of this place. It wasn't even the Challenges, it was Sonora itself. She wasn't friends with any of her classmates except Arnold kind of and he had his other friends that he spent more time with. She was lonely all the time and tired of it. The Teppenpaw just wanted to leave and be with Joseph, someone who enjoyed spending time with her. Make friends with society women who'd be in her social circle as an adult instead of feeling left out as she did in school. Not that Portia felt there was anything wrong with her as a person but it still stank.

They weren't even doing that well in the competition. In fact, they were doing terrible. Second to last. It figured. Nothing else had gone especially well for Portia here, why should this? Okay, yes, she was prefect, but despite the fact that she felt confident that she'd have beaten the Porter twins anyway had they stayed, it still came down to the fact that she'd been the only option.

To make matters worse, the team behind hers was not Oliver's, which meant that despite the fact that his team wasn't doing all that great either, he was very smug about the fact that they were beating hers.

Portia sighed inwardly as the instructions for today were given. While she considered herself fairly artistic, she was more gifted in fashion design and making things look nice than in sculpting. This sounded more like Evan's kind of art. Plus, even though this challenge worked better for her personally than the last one-or even the first one-she'd never really thought of the rest of them as artistic types. Of course, given that she associated art with Evan for the most part, it might have just been that they didn't seem strange enough.

On the plus side, Oliver possessed no artistic skills whatsoever as he thought art was a frivolous waste of time.

Her teammates began to speak and it seemed Joella had an awful lot of ideas. It was hard to take them all in, really. "I agree it should be one big thing." Portia replied. "In the spirit of team work. Maybe you could carve something out of wood, Arne and I could arrange some flowers. Does anyone else have something specific that they could contribute?"

11 Portia Dobson Re: Yeah...what she said. 262 Portia Dobson 0 5

Tasha DuBois

March 10, 2016 6:52 AM

I'm too young to peak already. by Tasha DuBois

Although Tasha was seriously looking forward to summer vacation when she'd see her parents again and get to go on vacation in some exotic country where the food was a bit less mainstream American-granted, she didn't always get mainstream American food so it had actually been a bit different for her but she missed eating things that were different and looked forward to her parents sending her some ostrich jerky and foreign snacks-she was going to be sad when the Challenges were over. They'd been a lot of fun and she really liked her teammates, most of whom were older than her but she felt closer to them than her own classmates.

Tasha walked down to the Gardens the morning of the final Challenge. Unlike a lot of pureblood girls, she actually had appropriate clothing because a lot of times, her parents would take advantage of educational opportunities in foreign countries, like going on a safari or to an archaeological site. One couldn't wear fancy lacy dresses for that.

The instructions required them to make a sculpture from natural materials found in the garden. That sounded like a lot of fun. Tasha was no master sculptor, having chosen to focus more on playing an instrument than visual arts but certainly she'd had art tutors as well.

She nodded along at Isaac's idea. "That makes perfect sense." The first year agreed. Certainly, they wanted theirs to be different. Then Clark gave his suggestions, which Tasha had to admit always seemed to be a bit....grand. More than what could possibly be done. He always seemed to want to do something overly complex. She considered herself to be relatively creative but was a bit more realistic about things. "Can we maybe simplify it just a little? I mean, we should do something unique but we're more likely to finish it and create a quality project if we don't take on too much."

Tasha strongly felt taking on too much was not the best idea in life. At best, it lead to results that weren't as good, as would be the case here. At worst, it could drive a person insane. That was why she tried to only focus on a few things and was not a magnificent artist. There was no reason to put herself out so much when it just wasn't healthy. Not that she thought this activity would be unhealthy so much. Today it was more about achieving a reasonable goal and hopefully moving up a few spots.

11 Tasha DuBois I'm too young to peak already. 323 Tasha DuBois 0 5

Isaac Douglas

March 10, 2016 1:52 PM

It happens, though. by Isaac Douglas

Clark had ideas, Makenzie’s objections were mild and reasonable and aimed toward compromise, and no-one pointed out that Isaac had just stated the obvious and never actually contributed any useful ideas or information to the group at all. Miss DuBois even praised his little speech, something which almost threw him off his stride altogether. So far, this challenge was going far, far better than Isaac had thought it would. He might just escape this day with his dignity intact. If they could pull off Clark’s crazy schemes, he might even escape this day at the head of a team with a respectable ranking….

The happy fantasy of everyone at home ignoring the golden girls completely in order to talk about how proud they were of his fearless leadership dissolved, though, as Natasha spoke up again. Reasonable, but he wondered for a moment about her Sorting. Who ever heard of an Aladren who didn’t think that quality-or-quantity was a false paradigm and that he or she was the person who could provide outrageous amounts of both at the drop of a hat? He’d thought a touch of megalomania was a prerequisite for getting into the House. Even his uncle Geoffrey, the least objectionable one he knew personally, worked tirelessly toward discovering something completely new in potions, some theory or new potion he could ‘make his name’ on. Maybe she was like Uncle Geoff, one of those people whose ambition confined itself to a neat part of her life and left her free to behave reasonably in the rest of her time. Either way, she had to be answered.

“You have good points,” said Isaac, looking between Makenzie and Tasha both. “We could build the models smaller – easier to hide what we’re doing from the other teams anyway – and then use engorgement charms at the end. We’d just have to make sure to start that part early enough to leave ourselves time to make adjustments to keep everything more or less to scale, and to clear up any detail problems that became obvious at a larger size. I don’t think they’re looking for absolute perfection, though – if they were, wouldn’t this just be a magic challenge? If it looks too spot-on, we might lose points for not adhering to the ‘use natural materials’ part of the challenge appropriately.”

That part was almost painful for Isaac to say. He liked things sharp, clean, orderly, and perfect, and especially when it took only a very little more, or even less, effort than sloppiness did. He had loathed estimation problems in his mathematics lessons before school - he'd known how to add and subtract, so why would he not just do that instead of getting it wrong on purpose? One of his other lessons before school, though, had been that there were times when it was appropriate to not reach that standard. Isaac disliked nature because it was rough around the edges and grew into places it wasn’t supposed to be, but Xavier wasn’t Isaac and Xavier was the guy whose opinions, in this one place and on this one day, mattered. It had to be taken into account.

16 Isaac Douglas It happens, though. 273 Isaac Douglas 0 5

Joe Umland

March 10, 2016 3:25 PM

Well, there is that. by Joe Umland

Joe was glad to have his input acknowledged by the team leader, even gladder to have Duncan acknowledge it without any particular degree of condescension that he could hear, but he hadn’t meant to steer the team in an aquatic direction and hoped the others were not under the impression he was some High Master of Fish Sculpting. His mom had thought the fish was nice and it had a place in the curio cabinet with her collection of Alice tea things (he had painted white loop-the-loops on its head in imitation of a wig and painted the tail fins black for shoes in the hopes of making it somehow vaguely resemble a footman for that very reason; the art director hadn’t seemed amused, but then, that particular art director had been very difficult to amuse in general), but though he was still a little proud of how he’d done with the tail, Joe was old enough now to see that the whole project looked more like a hollowed-out burrito with fins and frog eyes than like any common species of fish. Summer camp projects were not exactly the gateway to a life in the arts. He had never even laid eyes on the kiln, much less acquired a clue about how to use one.

Since his first suggestions had been received pretty well, though, he decided to hazard a few more thoughts. Sculpture might not have really been his thing, but highly energetic make-believe had been a very popular pastime in his house until John started school, enough that he was kind of surprised that he and John had escaped early childhood with four functioning eyeballs and most of a brain between them. Improvisation he could do.

“Dry earth and plants are stuff shapes can be made from, too,” he offered. “Cut into shapes, anyway. Mr. Xavier might not like it too much if we cut out huge chunks of the ground, but some smaller pieces…stretch them out with magic? Or – I don’t know – is there a way to fuse things together to get bigger pieces of rock? I don’t know how to do it, but, you know, first year.” He shrugged ruefully. At this point, most of what he knew about magic was just how much he didn’t know about magic. “I’m sure branches could be cut and bent into shapes and animated, but that might not have enough contrast if there are plants that are just supposed to be…plants in the picture, too.”

16 Joe Umland Well, there is that. 329 Joe Umland 0 5

Louis Valois

March 10, 2016 5:56 PM

That actually sounds fun! by Louis Valois

Louis hadn't known what to expect when he’d seen the notice. Still, he’d put on his oldest clothing (he didn't really have anything that wouldn’t be ruined by dirt, but clothes could easily be replaced if you were a Valois). The platforms by the labyrinth were a little disconcerting, but Louis walked over to his team platform and waited to hear what the groundskeeper had to say. He smiled at the reminder that their team was doing rather well, but the smile died when the day’s challenge was announced. An arts project using natural materials? Well, he supposed it was an interesting idea, but Louis had no clue as to what could be used to make a sculpture – that was what they had gardeners for back at home!

However, he was distracted from his vague sense of panic (at finding himself clueless – he hated being in situations without ideas!) by Barnaby, who really didn't seem to be looking too healthy. Luckily Gia Donovan appeared to be handling the situation, so Louis just tried to look sympathetic whilst maintaining his distance. He might have dressed in the clothes he cared least about, but that didn't mean he wanted to be covered in vomit.

The panic returned slightly when Ji-Eun asked for ideas. How come he had no ideas? He always had at least a vague sense of an idea! He was relieved when Scarlett spoke up. That sounded like a good idea – well, an idea at least, even if he wasn't quite sure what she meant!

“Do you mean making a sculpture out of a bush or something?” he asked. He didn't think that sounded too difficult – they had sculptured bushes in the gardens at home, and hopefully one of the older students would know a spell to make it easier. He definitely liked the idea of animating the sculpture. “Which spell would we use to animate it?” he asked, curious. Animating inanimate objects was a subject he’d been meaning to look up for a while (along with a long list of other varied topics that had caught his interest).

9 Louis Valois That actually sounds fun! 314 Louis Valois 0 5

Emilia-Louise Scott

March 11, 2016 5:18 PM

In my element. by Emilia-Louise Scott

Emmy-Lou was pleased with her team’s ranking, albeit surprised due to the disappointing lack of group cohesion they seemed to have. There was an odd bunch of students in Team Three and as much as she hated to admit it, there were a couple she didn’t fancy all that much (it was probably quite obvious who those certain individuals were).

The last challenge had just about been bearable and she’d pulled off her position to an apparently reasonable level of success but Emmy hadn’t really enjoyed herself all that much. She hadn’t outwardly shown her fear, partially because she didn’t want to give that awful Jamie Park any ammunition to torment her the way he did to John and also because she didn’t want John Umland to know her weaknesses.

This challenge, however, seemed much more up her street and she felt confident that she could really play her strengths today and contribute even more to her team’s success. Her team members rattled off their ideas and she listened politely, rolling her eyes at Jamie’s unhelpful comment but glad that he may stay well out of everyone’s way for once. For a moment she thought that Arthur and John’s was taking ideas were getting a bit too magically complex for what was meant to be an art-based challenge but fortunately the fourth year Aladren showed he was aware of this.

Emmy really liked the idea of making House mascot sculptures and was already developing ideas on using different resources such as mud and leaves but she soon scrapped the idea, knowing it could end up too artistically advanced for the group. She decided to take on Arthur’s suggestion and go from there.

“I like the idea of the four seasons,” she spoke up cheerfully, totally committing to the suggestion and running off with it. “I think it would best to have all four seasons on the platform at one time though. If we try making it change that might get too complicated as we need to focus most of our efforts on the artistic side of things. What we could do is basically make four mini scenes representing the seasons. So like we can use Arthur’s idea of the flowers and sort of make a scene with then with lumps of hard sand or whatever we can get as desert mountains for summer. Then for winter we could make a snowman out of mud and then Emery if you could add the snow to it and whatever else we think of. If we could actually make snowflakes fall that would look pretty awesome, so I guess we’d need John to make the ceiling-theatre up for that. For the fall scene we can then maybe make some mini tree replicas with bare branches so we dry some leaves and scatter them around. I think it would also be good to include the harvest in that scene as well somehow. Umm for spring just make it really bright and colourful and shape some rocks or something into eggs? Only if we are having flowers in summer we don’t want to make it too similar to spring. So yeah, then we’d kind of have four 3D paintings of sorts.”
She was happy with her contribution, largely just a string of thoughts that had come to her as she went along but this challenge encouraged creativity and she was going to jump right on that concept. Hopefully her teammates would appreciate her suggestions because she could picture it all so vividly in her mind that she was very keen for it to come together now. Emmy was vaguely conscious that she’d rambled off her ideas rather quickly but she was probably more coherent and understandable than John anyway.

“What do you guys think?” Emmy would be most offended and peeved if anyone criticised her input, not because she wasn’t able to take criticism as such but more that she wanted everyone to agree so the team could get straight on and do exactly as she’d said. “Anyone have more ideas for things to include in each of the seasons?”

8 Emilia-Louise Scott In my element. 313 Emilia-Louise Scott 0 5

Nathan Xavier

Challenge 3: Earth's Majesty and Nature's Beauty by Nathan Xavier

Chloe Jareau

Let's get DIIIRTY (team 13) by Chloe Jareau

Jack Spencer

Team 10: Let's... do our best. by Jack Spencer

Emery Jareau-Kijewski

Team Three, let's finish this. by Emery Jareau-Kijewski

Arthur Leithan

A Suggestion by Arthur Leithan

John Umland

Problem-solving. by John Umland

Angelique Brockert

Team 11 by Angelique Brockert

Arnold Manger

Finishing strong (Team 2) by Arnold Manger

Ben Pierce

Team Four Forges On by Ben Pierce

Ginger Pierce

Flowers are good, I like flowers! by Ginger Pierce

Isaac Douglas

One last chance for glory, Team Twelve. by Isaac Douglas

Laila Kennedy

I'm right there with you! by Laila Kennedy

Barnaby Pye

Great job, guys! by Barnaby Pye

Gia Donovan

Who are you? (TEAM FIVE) by Gia Donovan

Clark Dill

Our Glory Days by Clark Dill

Makenzie Newell

I don't think I'd go that far. by Makenzie Newell

Joella Curtis

Go Hippo! by Joella Curtis

Andrew Carey

Let's do that! by Andrew Carey

Brandon Carey

Heading back for the top (Group Fifteen!) by Brandon Carey

Kira Spaulding

Speaking up (Team Nine) by Kira Spaulding

Tobias Reinhardt

So long as it's not <i>too</i> top... by Tobias Reinhardt

Emrys Lucan

"The time has come," the Walrus said. (Team 8) by Emrys Lucan

Ava Fletcher

Give me a happy middle and a very happy start (Team 1) by Ava Fletcher

Jax Donovan

**fakes school spirit** by Jax Donovan

Joseph Umland

All or nothing, my friend. by Joseph Umland

Jake Manger

I like what you like by Jake Manger

Diana Carey

I'd exploit that if I were you, Ginger by Diana Carey

Jemima Wolseithcrafte

Let's get creative! by Jemima Wolseithcrafte

Raine Collindale

A stupid idea by Raine Collindale

Ji-Eun Park

And are you about to vomit? by Ji-Eun Park

Leonidas Bennett

Now is the time to pick up sticks (Team Six) by Leonidas Bennett

Owen Brockert

Sounds good to me. by Owen Brockert

Caelia Lucan

*thinks you're a genius* by Caelia Lucan

Savannah Brockert

I don't think it is. by Savannah Brockert

Ingrid Wolseithcrafte

And bang our heads against brick walls by Ingrid Wolseithcrafte

Liliana Bannister

Come on, guys, put on your rally caps! by Liliana Bannister

Duncan Brockert

All might be asking a bit much. How about something? by Duncan Brockert

Arne Reinhardt

Yeah...what she said. by Arne Reinhardt

Kyte Collindale

Seems like the best was saved for last by Kyte Collindale

Theodore Wolseithcrafte

At least it will be over soon...ish (Team 14) by Theodore Wolseithcrafte

fakes school spirit by Jax Donovan

thinks you're a genius by Caelia Lucan

Okay. puts it on by Fabian Brockert

sighs(Team Seven) by Tristan Spaulding