California dreaming on such a winter’s day! on Labyrinth Gardens

DH Skies

October 31, 2017 6:01 PM

Snow time! by DH Skies

Not many students or staff stayed at Sonora over Midterm, which meant that the full spectacle of the weather charms was somewhat lost. In spite of the school’s location in the Painted Desert, it had the climate of its founders’ native Ireland, and a penchant for showcasing the most dramatic elements of this. There was always snow for Christmas. The Labyrinth Gardens were iced to perfection, each leaf glittering and deep drifts settled across the paths.

Just so as they didn’t miss all the fun, the weather charms had held the spell until the first day of term, and thus the students stepping off the wagons from their Christmas breaks were met with a winter wonderland. It was no longer pristine, as the tracks of the prairie elves wound up and down across the paths from their business keeping the school running and in good order, along with any marks made by those who had stayed for the break or already made their way into the gardens.

Still, there were a couple of hours until the returning feast, and there was plenty of good quality snow for sculpting, making snow angels in, or perhaps turning into ammunition for a snowball fight….

OOC - Although Midterm is set to run until Friday, we wanted to offer a platform for posting until the returning feast, to get our Nanoing off to a good start, so here’s a little pre-feast, start of term bonus. Go nuts!

Subthreads:

California dreaming on such a winter’s day! by Jasmine with Tatiana Vorontsova

Incoming! [Tag Ben (and any of their friends)] by Tess Whittaker with Ben Pierce

In the gardens we can build a snowman (Tag Jemima) by Owen Brockert with Jemima Wolseithcrafte

My first snowball. by Amelia Layne with Kir McLeod

13 DH Skies Snow time! 26 DH Skies 1 5

Jasmine

November 01, 2017 12:54 PM

California dreaming on such a winter’s day! by Jasmine

Jasmine had lived in the southern half of California for as far back as she could remember. Her parents’ ranch had seen snow before, but she could count on one hand the number of times she had seen it get deep enough to cover the grass. Stepping off the wagon at Sonora in early January was almost more magical than it had been in September.

Leaving her luggage for the elves to deliver up to her room in Crotalus, she walked out into the Winter Wonderland formerly known as the Labyrinth Gardens. Despite the unfortunate fact that it wasn’t currently snowing, she held her hands up toward the sky and twirled, laughing. (Television told her this was the proper way to appreciate snow and as this was magic school snow, she didn’t want it to feel slighted just in case it was marginally sentient.)

She was poorly dressed for the weather - she was wearing a coat and gloves and a hat and even boots, but they were fashionable rather than warm as her home area had been above freezing when she left it and she hadn’t anticipated the Arizona dessert to be any colder when she arrived - but right now she didn’t particularly care. There was so much snow!

Smiling at the nearest student not beelining for the school after getting off their wagon she asked excitedly, “Do you think there are sleds out here somewhere?”

1 Jasmine California dreaming on such a winter’s day! 1397 Jasmine 0 5

Tatiana Vorontsova

November 01, 2017 2:52 PM

With daylight, too! by Tatiana Vorontsova

Tatiana had experienced mixed emotions on leaving home for reasons other than hating to leave her family before her name’s day was even past, and these had mostly to do with the weather. On the one hand, in Arizona, the sun would shine for more than four hours a day even now, in the depths of winter. On the other hand, in Arizona, would it really be winter at all? Having more light in winter was pleasant, but having temperatures high enough that frostbite was no concern had seemed bizarre even before she’d gone home and become accustomed to normal weather again.

As the wagon drew closer to the school, though, she couldn’t swear to it, but she thought the Gardens looked distinctly…white! She held her breath as they landed, then darted out as quickly as she could without tripping over anyone (trampling anyone was an impossibility; it was Katya that Papa teased by saying she was small and light enough to float away like the Snow Maiden when that illustrious parsonage traveled with her Grandfather Frost, but Tatiana was not much bigger) and smiled in delight to find snow on the ground. Natural weather – but not so bad she need worry about freezing so long as she stayed reasonably active and wore gloves – and sunlight. This was great!

It seemed she was not the only one who thought so, either. She would have had no clue what Jasmine said to her – well, beyond do you think and around - before the holidays, but Anton Petrovich had taken advantage of his pupils’ impatience to go play when it was light enough to do so to give them a lesson on English winter-words over the holiday. Therefore, she knew that Jasmine was – probably – talking about sani.

“Must, if they have winter,” said Tatiana, only a little less excitedly than Jasmine had. “Where’s Xavier? He will know.” Tatiana kicked a lump of snow experimentally. “Maybe he will help make – big!” She held a hand above her own head to hopefully indicate what she meant for the moment before the word she wanted came to her. “Snow mountain!”

16 Tatiana Vorontsova With daylight, too! 1396 Tatiana Vorontsova 0 5

Tess Whittaker

November 01, 2017 2:53 PM

Incoming! [Tag Ben (and any of their friends)] by Tess Whittaker

Christmas was always a lovely time of year, and this year had been especially lovely. Emma was getting bigger, and able to join in more with present unwrapping, which was so cute! Three operations under her belt, things were so much more positive than they had been a few years ago, and she was able to enjoy family life, with just a check-up every month. And, even better, Tess’s grandparents had come over from England for the holiday! It had been a great family Christmas, and Tess was, as ever, a little sad that it was over.

Still, it was always good to be back at Sonora, and especially when they were greeted by snow as they stepped off the wagon! Snow was definitely the absolute best weather condition, and something they didn’t usually see much of at Sonora. Luckily, Tess was wearing a warm coat, and she tucked her scarf more securely around her neck, beaming as she did so. Did she mention there was snow?!

There was no way Tess was going inside straight away – snow wasn’t something to waste. Grinning to herself, she quietly stepped away from her friends and gathering up a handful of snow, quickly and expertly formed it into a firm round ball.

“Incoming!” she yelled, laughing as she threw it hard in the direction of her boyfriend’s head. A snowball fight was the perfect use for all the snow around them!

9 Tess Whittaker Incoming! [Tag Ben (and any of their friends)] 338 Tess Whittaker 0 5

Ben Pierce

November 01, 2017 4:16 PM

Snowball fight! by Ben Pierce

Ben loved Christmas break. The festive spirit. Family. Presents. Ski trip with Uncle Four and Reggie. Cole was still only a year and a half old so not quite into it yet (the skiing or Christmas) but he was a happy and giggly kid, so Ben had no complaints at all about spending the two weeks in close proximity to his tiny cousin.

No amount of cajoling by Four, though, was going to get Ben to change the toddler’s diaper, and he was kind of glad to be heading back to school where his roommates didn’t wake up crying at 5am. In Boston, that hadn’t been a problem, since the Derry brothers had separate apartments, but the slopes where Four rented a cabin for the last week of midterm was an entirely different arrangement.

School had another benefit as well, one he hadn’t gotten to see much over break and her lovely name was Tess. He spent the wagon ride catching up with her, happily reconnecting with his girlfriend.

Landing on Sonora grounds, he was calling out a greeting so some of their other friends when Tess’s voice yelled out a laughing warning.

Ben turned around just in time to get a face full of snow. He reeled back a step or two, surprised by the unexpected and freezing cold attack, but he was a native of New England and an annual denizen of snow covered mountain slopes. Once he’d sorted out what had just happened, he was laughing too and scooping up another snowball to retaliate, throwing the first one back at Tess but not waiting a even moment before packing together another so as not to exclude anyone else he knew in the immediate area from the snowball fight.

1 Ben Pierce Snowball fight! 339 Ben Pierce 0 5

Jasmine

November 01, 2017 4:43 PM

Tracks in the snow by Jasmine

Jasmine had been a bit taken aback the first few times she had heard Tatiana’s accented and somewhat uncertain English, but as the days of their acquaintance had turns to weeks and then months, she stopped noticing it as much. It was just one of the things that made Tatiana stand out a little but more than some of their peers, rather like her pearls and other fine jewelry. It almost made Jasmine wish she had a French accent like Dad’s, if only to make her sound a bit more exotic.

Ideally, she’d still have perfect English, too, though. She felt a stab of sympathy for Tatiana as the Russian girl struggled for the word she wanted.

When she found it, Jasmine nodded eagerly, “Yes! That would be great!” Logically it made sense to need a big snow mountain to go sledding, and she was glad Tatiana had thought of it before Jasmine looked like an idiot trying to do cross country sledding.

She looked about trying to find Professor Xavier, but he didn’t seem to be immediately available here at the wagon deportation point like had been before Orientation. What she did see were large bootprints that had to have been made by an adult man (or possibly one of the larger seventh years, but this did not mesh with her current goal so it did not occur to her) and she pointed the prints out to her companion, “Do you think those of his and we can follow the tracks to Professor Xavier?”

1 Jasmine Tracks in the snow 1397 Jasmine 0 5

Tatiana

November 02, 2017 2:06 PM

These boots are made for walking. by Tatiana

Trak. That meant, evidently, what a shoe made in snow. Tatiana noted this; absorbing vocabulary from any source she felt reasonably sure of was such a habit now that she didn’t even think about it consciously as she did it. She nodded.

“Yes, maybe,” she said. “Poidem - we go!” she amended.

Delachene sounded to her like a French surname, but Tatiana had learned to tell English-speakers enough apart to tell that Jasmine’s accent was nothing like Dorian’s, and flipping through her Russian-English dictionary at random one day had revealed that it was not a coincidence that ‘Jasmine’ sounded like zhasmin, a sweet-smelling little white flower. Tatiana’s best guess was that Jasmine’s family had been French long ago, but now thought of themselves as English. She felt surer of her second assumption about Jasmine, which was that the other girl was well-to-do. The things she wore to flying class were bizarre, and her jewelry was quieter than Tatiana’s own, but said jewelry looked real enough and all her clothes were clearly well-made. Even at the moment, when they were clearly too light for the weather, they were flattering to her.

“Your boots is pretty,” said Tatiana as they followed the tracks. Her own were, she knew, not so much; they were not ugly, but they were definitely plain, somewhat thick brown ones, thick-soled and more functional than anything. However, she had on her nice new gloves that Babushka had sent her and a fetching hat, so she did not feel she was at a serious disadvantage in the sartorial games.

16 Tatiana These boots are made for walking. 1396 Tatiana 0 5

Jasmine

November 03, 2017 11:05 AM

These boots . . . are not by Jasmine

"Poidem!" Jasmine declared cheerfully, repeating the word she could only assume meant "let's go" in Russian. She had no expectation she'd remember it even five minutes from now, but for now, she enjoyed knowing one Russian word.

As they followed the tracks that may or may not belong to Professor Xavier, Jasmine rubbed her hands together to keep her finger from getting too cold. She beamed with pleased pride as Tatiana noticed her boots and complimented them. Her budding mental complaints that they were pinching her toes and not nearly insulated enough for walking around in the snow with them evaporated under the praise.

"Oh, thank you. I got them for Christmas," she told Tatiana. "Uncle Daniel - er, Professor Nash, er, Uncle Daniel," she stumbled, not entirely sure which name to use for her uncle, since he'd given her the boots in the role of her uncle, but Tatiana knew him only as the DADA professor, so Jasmine wasn't sure whether to refer to him by his familial name or professional one. She decided to split the difference and just use his full name. "Daniel Nash the Second gave them to me." Then she figured it would probably be helpful to explain why Daniel Nash the Second was giving her Christmas gifts, just in case her verbal waffling hadn't made it obvious. "He's my uncle."

A thought occurred to her and she asked curiously, "Do you celebrate Christmas, too?"

1 Jasmine These boots . . . are not 1397 Jasmine 0 5

Tatiana

November 03, 2017 1:48 PM

That is unfortunate. by Tatiana

Tatiana was dreadfully confused at first by Jasmine’s attempt to explain where she had obtained her pretty (if not very weather-appropriate-looking) boots. Had she gotten them from Professor Nash or ‘Uncle Daniel’? Before she could come up with any really interesting theories for why Jasmine could not settle on a story, though, the situation was made marginally clearer to her – Daniel Nash the Second was Uncle Daniel and, presumably, also Professor Nash.

“I see,” said Tatiana, hoping she followed it all correctly. She supposed the professors must have first names and families, but it rarely occurred to her – they used their titles and surnames to speak to her and that was how she thought of them. Now that she thought of it, she wasn’t sure she remembered what Anton Petrovich’s family name was at home, either – he was simply Anton Petrovich to her.

“Yes,” said Tatiana when asked about her family’s holidays, reminding herself of the word celebrate - she wasn’t sure she could have pulled it out of her memory at need, or recognized it completely out of context, which meant she needed a refresher there. “We do.” She pointed to her ear. “Mama and Papa give me this,” she said, indicating a hoop earring of gold filigree. “Babushka – the mama of my mama - give me glov-es.” She caught herself before she scrambled her English and Russian pluralization and felt inordinately proud of herself.

16 Tatiana That is unfortunate. 1396 Tatiana 0 5

Owen Brockert

November 04, 2017 7:34 PM

In the gardens we can build a snowman (Tag Jemima) by Owen Brockert

Owen was looking forward to going back to school and seeing Jemima every day again. He didn't know what he would do once they graduated. Them getting married someday would be inevitable-assuming her family didn't push her in another direction-but in the meantime, they would be separated , at least until they got into a school together-that was happening, even though he didn't know where yet-and the thought was intolerable.

When the wagon landed on the ground, Owen took in the snow. He had, of course, seen snow before, the way it capped the Rocky Mountains. Actually, the Rocky Mountains had provided him with some inspiration here and there, in particular as a place where Lord Cockroach reeked vengeance and general evil though Owen's latest story didn't involve mountains. It involved a new villain, Lord Cockroach's female counterpart, Lady Bedbug, though Owen was considering changing that because it sounded awfully close to ladybug but with the word bed in there. On the other hand, and this what he'd been thinking in the first place, using lady created symmetry with lord.

Anyway, currently, he had the two villains using their minions-cockroaches and bedbugs of course-fighting over the town where Cookies and Cream lived so it had been basically infested with cockroaches and bedbugs. Cookies was....decidedly not happy. Actually nobody was, but Cookies was the most passionate about it. Also, it was doubling as a holiday "episode" including Cookie's Uncle Waddles and Cream's Aunt Freezy and British cousin, Chillton. (Who was not Aunt Freezy's son. Aunt Freezy was not British. Of course, Britain didn't have polar bears but Chilton...decidedly had a British accent and liked tea a lot.)Aunt Freezy was even more vocal about her displeasure than Cookies was because she was just like that. Cookies, in turn, was more irritable because he had to listen to her. And it was Chilton's first visit to the village and it was being ruined. After all, in addition to battling to take over the world and be the supreme ruler of bugs, Lord Cockroach and Lady Bedbug were getting the extra bonus of ruining everyone's holidays. Which,as they were villains, was a gift they gave themselves. Come to think of it, he was going to end on them realizing that after they were inevitably-temporarily-defeated.

Right now,however, his focus was on the snow. As a child, Owen's mother had never really allowed him to play in the snow, not so much because of the snow itself, but because snow meant it was cold outside. Cold triggered his asthma and while the Teppenpaw very much preferred to be able to breathe, he still just wanted to be normal and do normal kid things.

Spotting Jemima, he approached. The snow gave him a wonderful idea. He gave his girlfriend a big hug and kiss. Not the full on makeout kissing but more than just a peck on the cheek. "Hey, want to make snowmen and stuff for a little while?" Owen really couldn't stay out for too long, but he wanted to have a little bit of fun.

11 Owen Brockert In the gardens we can build a snowman (Tag Jemima) 300 Owen Brockert 0 5

Jasmine

November 05, 2017 4:07 PM

I know; why can't they be fashionable and functional? by Jasmine

Jasmine nodded and smiled, pleased to know that Tatiana celebrated Christmas, too. She loved Christmas and she always felt a little sad when she found out somebody didn't get the joy of getting a lot of presents in the middle of winter. It seemed like a waste of a relatively miserable part of the year to not have anything special happen then.

"Oh, I do like those earrings," she complimented the gift from Tatiana's parents with enthusiasm. As a rule, Jasmine loved all jewelry, and Tatiana's in particular always seemed especially tasteful and lovely.

She rubbed her hands together again, then tucked her fingers under her armpits. "I'm wishing I got some nice warm gloves right about now," she admitted. "These ones, I think, were made with Southern California in mind. Though, honestly, I don't understand why Arizona is so much colder than home." She jumped a bit in place to get her blood moving before moving along the path of footprints they were following. "This is supposed to be a desert," she complained.

Of course, if it wasn't cold, the snow would just melt away and then the Gardens would have the same problem the ranch did. So she just started rubbing her arms and wished she was old enough to know how to cast a warming charm. That would solve the problem, too. Maybe when they found Professor Xavier, he could cast one on her. "Is it very cold where you live?" she asked, guessing from how much more functional Tatiana's boots looked than her own that she must be from a more frigid climate.

1 Jasmine I know; why can't they be fashionable and functional? 1397 Jasmine 0 5

Tatiana

November 06, 2017 2:34 PM

It's a crying shame. by Tatiana

Tatiana smiled in pleasure when Jasmine said she did like Tatiana’s earrings. “Thank you,” she said politely. Earrings - that was the English plural, which was logical, as earrings came in pairs, or at least hers did. Tatiana had never lost an earring that she could remember, and she was proud of that.

One of the problems with speaking with English-speakers who spoke in long sentences was that English sentences were often – backward, sort of, organizing the sentences differently. Luckily, there were some words she knew well in Jasmine’s speech and she got the general gist just from the other girl’s gestures and context. She was clearly not speaking, for instance, about them being in a dessert, a sweet dish served after food; that would be silly. Context was a beautiful thing.

“Cold at home, yes,” said Tatiana. “Home is Alaska – Volshebnaya Derevnya. Do you know it?” Tatiana had been surprised when her village was occasionally something other people had heard of, so it couldn’t hurt to ask. “At home, it’s already dark now,” she added. “I like this – we see snow, but it is light more often.” She thought about geography. “California – that is beside the ocean, too, yes? But south. It dark in the winter days there too?”

16 Tatiana It's a crying shame. 1396 Tatiana 0 5

Amelia Layne

November 06, 2017 3:10 PM

My first snowball. by Amelia Layne

The school founders had been from a place even further east than Amelia was, so Amelia expected the school grounds to seem a bit cooler than she was really comfortable with when she returned to Sonora. Snow, however, was another matter altogether. She went home every year for midterm and by the time she got back to school, there usually wasn’t much in the way of true winter left on the grounds.

This year, it seemed, was not going to be a usual year.

Amelia stared at the deep white drifts stretching out in every direction, the ice outlining the leaves like a picture on the front of a Christmas card. Such cards were the only places she had ever seen anything like this before; it snowed maybe once in a decade at home. It had last done so when Amelia was tiny; there were photographs, including one of the top of the porch ceiling when Amelia had insisted on taking the camera and trying to take a few pictures, too. That snow had really been glorified frost, spotting the ground, green-brown patches of grass showing through it in more than one place. Amelia couldn’t even tell where the ground was out here.

She stepped tentatively out into it and it soaked immediately through the bottoms of her jeans. More fell into her low-topped sneakers and soaked through her socks. She stared at it with what she was sure was a slightly daft expression – in pictures, people playing in snow didn’t appear soaking wet, but clearly, that was what she would get if she spent any amount of time in this….

Still, she had to throw one snowball. That was just a fact. She might not get a chance for another ten years. Screwing her courage to the sticking place, she put her hand in the mush (it looked so soft, but was in actuality full of sharp little bits of ice) and began pressing it together into a hard ball, glad that making snowballs was not one of those things one needed a lot of expertise in. Then she threw it at a shrub and laughed when it splashed against it, and was pleased enough to keep smiling when she noticed someone looking at her.

“That was my first-ever snowball,” she explained herself.

16 Amelia Layne My first snowball. 360 Amelia Layne 0 5

Kir McLeod

November 06, 2017 5:27 PM

I'll be gentle then by Kir McLeod

Kir’s holidays had been very enjoyable, as they always were. Whilst Christmas Day was a small, family affair, there was always a big party for New Year at the Foundation. His father and aunt’s Scottish heritage along with the LGBTQ+ community they supported through their foundation made for an interesting mix. The McLeod New Year party was half Scottish ceilidh, half drag cabaret show, with all the adults present consuming far too much alcohol. It was always a great laugh, and he had had ‘I am what I am’ stuck in his head on and off ever since.

On returning to school, he found the ground covered in snow. He did not necessarily need more snow, coming as he did from Vermont. After New Year, they’d been skiing for the rest of the holidays. He was considering just retiring inside, perhaps having a nap, when he noticed an interesting sight… Amelia Layne assaulting a bush. It was interesting both in choice of target and because Amelia was quite a pretty girl.

“Really?” he asked, amazed when she explained that it was her first snowball. “I just got back from skiing. Which, when you factor in a little sister, has plenty of them.” He knew theoretically that people who hadn’t seen snow existed, but they were a bit like unicorns to him… You knew they were real, but you were still very surprised when you had the chance to meet one. “You know, it’s traditional to throw them at people, not defenceless shrubbery,” he paused a moment, not wanting to throw a bunch of snow into the face of an unwilling target, both because of the Teppenpaw in him and because, little as he knew about girls, he didn’t think that was the way to get them to like him. “I’m game if you are,” he offered.

13 Kir McLeod I'll be gentle then 366 Kir McLeod 0 5

Jasmine

November 07, 2017 11:11 AM

I have tears by Jasmine

Oh, Alaska. Jasmine pictured a land that consisted of nothing but snow and ice, and maybe a few igloos. Definitely colder than here. She shook her head apologetically when she didn’t recognize the name of Tatiana’s town. “Sorry, geography isn’t my strongest subject. I know where Alaska is.” It was, in fact, North. Waaaaaaay North.

“Yeah, California is along the coast, but my parents have a flying horse ranch pretty close to the Arizona border, so we’re basically in mountainous desert country, too. We’re actually not terribly far from Sonora, honestly, which is why I thought the weather would be about the same; I’m only on the wagon for an hour or so. We get the same amount of sunlight here as there, too. My grandparents live in LA, though, so they’re closer to the ocean. Grandmère Kathleen even has a beach house; it’s gorgeous. Same sunlight there, but a little more rain.”

Following the bootprints around another turn in the labyrinth, Jasmine stopped short and stared. “I think Professor X might be a mind reader after all,” she breathed in awe as she saw the slopes of snow and the sleds laying in wait at the bottom. While she wasn’t really into marvel comics much, she had enough cultural exposure to Hollywood that she was at least aware of the Herbology professor’s cinematic alter ego of the same name. She grinned at Tatiana in excitement, “Shall we?” she invited with a bow and a grand gesture toward the available sleds.

1 Jasmine I have tears 1397 Jasmine 0 5

Amelia

November 07, 2017 8:24 PM

Do you expect me to return the favor? by Amelia

“Really,” confirmed Amelia, amused by Kir McLeod’s expression and tone when she explained why she was laughing at a snowball. “It doesn’t get cold enough for snowballs where I’m from, or at least I can’t remember the last time it did if it ever did….”

She realized she was rambling and stopped. Bad habit, rambling; it made her sound a bit dim, which was not good in general but was particularly a problem when one was an Aladren. She tried to curb it around the others in the House especially, but she didn’t want anyone else to think she was a bit dim or unable to organize a coherent thought, either.

Amelia did not have a younger sibling, just an older one, but she still smiled and nodded understanding at the concept that siblings and snow would mix in the form of snowballs. “So they tell me,” she said when Kir pointed out that the shrubbery was not a normal target, “but my brother’s already left, so….”

She was not entirely surprised when Kir offered himself as a substitute for Lionel. “You’re on,” she agreed cheerfully, then immediately ducked, both to grab a handful of snow and to avoid the first missile. She came up quickly again, crushing the snow up as she rose, and threw it at him a bit more gently than she had thrown the first one at the shrubbery.

16 Amelia Do you expect me to return the favor? 360 Amelia 0 5

Tatiana

November 07, 2017 10:09 PM

I have...very little shame, anyway. by Tatiana

“Not mine also,” said Tatiana when Jasmine, with what sounded like regret, admitted that geography was not her best subject. “Me – I…mostly know where is California.”

She also knew where Arizona was, more or less; at least, she knew she was currently inside it. This gave her a better frame of reference for where California was as Jasmine described her home. Once again, she didn’t understand every word - ellay, gore-joss; the first part of the second one sounded like the Russian word for mountain, but since Tatiana knew the English word for mountain and it sounded nothing like the Russian word for mountain, she assumed that gore-joss meant nothing to do with mountains, particularly since it was associated with beach, which was the coast.

Tatiana also stopped short and stared when they found exactly what they had been planning to ask for sitting there waiting for them. She didn’t really properly understand what Jasmine said about it, but nodded anyway, catching the general tone, before smiling at the invitation, which she did understand.

“Yes,” she said firmly, sweeping an awkward (gloves and boots not being best suited to delicate gestures) little curtsy in response to the bow.

The sleds looked pretty much like the ones they had at home: basic wooden platforms, maybe big enough for two people if they didn’t mind squeezing, with a rope running across the edge of the curved front. This would allow rough steering and help with dragging it from place to place, too. Tatiana, as the possessor of sturdier gloves that were less likely to allow rope burns, grabbed a rope. “Both one, or we race?” she asked Jasmine.

16 Tatiana I have...very little shame, anyway. 1396 Tatiana 0 5

Jasmine

November 08, 2017 10:28 AM

No need for tears now. It’s time to sled! by Jasmine

Jasmine smiled back, feeling an odd kinship with the Russian-speaking girl (being from Alaska, Jasmine guessed Tatiana wasn’t technically Russian) as she admitted she was also lousy at geography. It was strangely reassuring to know they came from totally different cultures and climates, but they could still find commonalities. Even if that commonality was an absence of knowledge about pretty much anything regarding the other’s home state, other than its existence and rough location on a map.

Well, that and sledding. Though, to be entirely honest, Jasmine was more into the idea of sledding than in possession of any kind of practical experience doing so. “Um, let’s go together,” she decided, thinking maybe a joint run might work better for her maiden voyage down a snow slope than trying to figure it out while racing. “We don’t get much snow at home so I haven’t done this before.”

She let Tatiana take the lead and followed her up to the top on the snowy mound. Her toes were definitely started to freeze by the time they reached the top. “Hang on a minute,” she requested, then studied Tatiana’s boots and compared them to her own. She drew her wand and hoped the same rain boot transfiguration spell they learned in class would work to make snow boots. She tried it and, if nothing else, her boots now looked like Tatiana’s. Her toes were still cold, but she wasn’t expecting instant heat. It was a transfiguration not a charm. “Mine looked nice, but they weren’t very warm,” she explained. “Yours look warm.”

Then she looked at the sled, and started to grin again in eager excitement. “Where should I sit?”

1 Jasmine No need for tears now. It’s time to sled! 1397 Jasmine 0 5

Jemima Wolseithcrafte

November 08, 2017 5:46 PM

And pretend that he is Parson Brown. He'll say... by Jemima Wolseithcrafte

Jemima returned Owen’s hug and kiss warmly. She sort of wished the holidays could go on forever because she found Christmas completely magical and romantic, something that she suspected she would never grow out of, but she also was keen to get back to school, because it really was the place she felt she belonged - she spent so much more time there than home, the routines were familiar, and it had Owen and her friends. When she’d mentioned this to Theodore, he had made a remark about her being Schroedinger’s student, and wanting to be held in a superposition of both Christmas vacation and not Christmas vacation at the same time, before laughing at his own joke and wandering off. That had definitely lessened her desire to spend further time with her family, and made her slightly concerned. She wondered whether having a girlfriend would improve Theodore, because either it would loosen him up and he’d stop being quite so obsessed with weird books, or he’d manage to find someone as into all that as he was, and then at least he could make his clever jokes to her instead and spare Jemima. She wondered whether she would have to take responsibility for all her siblings in that respect. Her and Diana Carey’s match-making plot had worked out so well, and definitely given Francesca and Jay the pointed shove in the right direction that they’d needed. She had been sorely tempted to levitate some mistletoe in Barnabus’ direction at a few parties this year, where a certain person had been present….

“I’d love to,” she grinned, when he asked about building a snowman. She drew her wand, directing it at the ground and making some of the snow scrunch into a small ball. She continued to twirl her wand rolling the ball around in the snow to make it gather further snow.

“So… did you manage to make a ranking order?” Jemima asked. Over the holidays, parties had actually take something of a backseat, as they visited the prospective towns and cities where she might apply to college, and of course they had taken Owen along too, because the decision affected him too, and they needed to find a college that suited both of them. However, they hadn’t had much of a chance to talk, and had left the impressions of the cities to sink in over the break. And now she picked up the conversation where they had left off. Luckily, one thing artistic cities seemed to care about was good food, and so she didn’t think they would be going hungry wherever they went. They had munched their way through Baltimore in Maryland, Providence in Rhode Island, along with the big hittters… Boston. New York. San Franciscso. “Or have any strong feelings?” she asked. “I’m still really struggling to work out what I think,” she added, hoping Owen wouldn’t just turn it back to her with a promise that he’d do whatever she wanted. She appreciated that, of course, he was so loyal, but being responsible all by herself for where life took them next was way too scary. It needed actual input and opinion from both of them.

It was also hard to talk about it for other reasons… It was a ‘them’ decision - they had agreed that the best plan was to attend the same college - but they couldn’t really go together. Not in every sense… They obviously weren’t going to live together until they were married. She wondered when he planned to propose. She didn’t doubt that he did, but she had sort of hoped that Christmas might have been it. Christmas was such a romantic time, and it would have helped them move forward with where their lives were going. They talked in the abstract about being married - ‘in the future’ or ‘when we’re married’ - but now that future was rapidly creeping up… She did not want a repeat of the invitation to the Midsummer Ball…. And that made it hard to talk about the future, because she didn’t want the point at which they were going to be married to be thrashed out as a practical detail in their five year plan, and it felt like that was in danger of happening if she strayed into certain topics, or talked about them in certain ways, like what their college life going to actually look like... Even though they both knew where this was heading, she still wanted a proper proposal - romance, surprise, the works. A betrothal, quietly worked out between the parents was all well and good when it was a practical match between two families, and of course their parents would have to be involved, and to approve... But this was different. It was love. At least, she knew, they were on the same page about most things. She knew Owen wouldn’t expect her to move in with him improperly. So long as he didn’t just… suggest that they got married, then they would take it as it came.

13 Jemima Wolseithcrafte And pretend that he is Parson Brown. He'll say... 304 Jemima Wolseithcrafte 0 5

Kir

November 11, 2017 12:48 PM

I'll give as good as I get... by Kir

“Where’s that then?” Kir asked, as she explained she was from one of the not so snowy states. He wondered why such people didn’t plan their vacations around getting some snow. He knew he had a slight bias from his upbringing, but every Christmas card manufacturer seemed to agree with him that Christmas wasn’t Christmas without it. If it didn’t come to them, why not go to it? Perhaps if you weren’t used to having it, it didn’t seem like you were missing out…

It appeared that Amelia was targeting the shrubbery because her brother had already graduated. He hoped that volunteering himself as a substitute didn’t mean he got put down in the ‘think of him like a brother’ category. Amelia was quite pretty…

He ducked, scooping snow hurriedly whilst trying to watch her out of the corner of his eye. Their missiles were ready around the same time and he squared up to her, waiting for the ideal moment. As she launched her snowball, he sidestepped, taking advantage of her potential distraction to throw his, not putting a sibling-level of viciousness into the attack. Hers just caught the edge of his body. He hurriedly scooped more snow, head up and watching as he stocked up for his next attack.

13 Kir I'll give as good as I get... 366 Kir 0 5

Amelia

November 22, 2017 9:59 PM

Excellent. by Amelia

“South Carolina,” said Amelia when Kir asked where she was from. “The hotter part of it. I think they get a lot of ice in a few places, higher up, but…we don’t.”

She didn’t see if her snowball made contact with Kir or not, already reaching for more snow, the competition mixing with the preexisting excitement from the novelty of seeing substantial amounts of snow to make everything seem urgent and fast-moving. Standing up with more snow in her hands, she threw her arm up just in time for his to hit it instead of moving on the extra few inches to hit her torso. She shrieked, more from surprise than actual cold or alarm, then quickly compacted the rest of the snow in her hands and threw it back.

It was a little early to make any definitive rulings, but right now, she thought this snow thing might be one of those rare things in life that was not overrated. Granddad was the kind who worried that getting cold or wet might lead to getting sick, but Amelia was familiar enough with Muggle science to know that this was not what led to illnesses, and while if it went on too long, this throwing around solid water could get tiring and cold and wet, right now it was as fun as it had always looked on the front panels of Christmas cards and in figurines in Christmas villages and seasonal snowglobes.

16 Amelia Excellent. 360 Amelia 0 5

Tatiana

November 22, 2017 10:51 PM

Poidem (Let's go)! by Tatiana

Tatiana’s eyebrows lifted slightly in surprise when she heard that Jasmine had never gone sledding before. This seemed very sad to her, though she wasn’t sure she should say so to Jasmine – perhaps she liked where she lived very much, just as Tatiana did, and so wouldn’t appreciate an outsider criticizing it even mildly.

“Ok, together then,” she said instead, as this suited her too. It was fun sledding with another as well as alone, maybe more fun, and besides – if Jasmine had really never sledded before, she would probably be poorly suited to putting up a real challenge in a race.

Hang she didn’t know, but she gathered the point from context and was just a bit flattered when she realized that Jasmine was clearly basing her Transfiguration of her shoes into something more sensible on Tatiana’s own. Of course, it was entirely possible that they were simply the first at least reasonably practical shoes Jasmine had seen, coming as she did from a warm climate, but Tatiana preferred to be flattered.

“Warm-er, anyhow,” she agreed when Jasmine explained this.

Keeping the rope in her grip, Tatiana took the front half of the sled. “You behind me,” she instructed in answer to Jasmine’s question. “Feet go toward front – I will make it go.” It would normally be the person in the back (which, often as not, would be Tatiana) who kicked off, she thought, but she had taken the front with Katya before and was the one who knew more about what she was doing. She only slightly awkwardly maneuvered her feet so her heels were in contact with the surface of the snow, hearing in her head Papa’s injunctions against digging in her toes or digging even her heels too far into the snow, how this could hurt her. “Now I kick – hold on – “ she warned Jasmine, and then did so, launching them down the sledding hill.

16 Tatiana Poidem (Let's go)! 1396 Tatiana 0 5

Owen

December 02, 2017 9:16 PM

....I walked into that one. by Owen

Owen considered Jemima's question. "Not an order per se." Truth be told, he didn't always think in terms of orders, ranks, quantifiable data. Just another thing that made him worried about relating to Jemima's family. It was just that he liked to let the creative process flow through him and see what happened. Though he guessed that didn't apply here. It was just that it wasn't as if he made a table or anything ranking or rating different factors each city possessed.

"I mean, there are good things about everywhere. Like, in Madison, there was that authentic Mexican place and beer cheese soup." Beer cheese soup was amazing though it would surely have been even better with garlic. Most things were.

Of course, Owen knew it was frivolous to make a decision that could possibly be life altering solely on the basis of a particular food that was served there. He could practically hear Theodore scoffing at the idea even as he thought it.

He continued. "My mother would probably like if we went to Fort Collins since it's in Colorado so I'd be closer to her and the climate in Albuquerque is....probably better for me, healthwise." Dry desert air was supposed to be better for one's lungs. "But we can live in either once we get married. This is probably the only time I'll get to live on the east side of the country."

Okay, so none of his reasons one way or the other would be probably considered good ones one way or the other. Well, Owen supposed New Mexico would be based on health and that was important but none of them were really career based. It was just that his career was writing and Jemima's was art and that came from inside a person. There were always external influences of course, such as one's personality and experiences, but creativity was...well, it wasn't based on facts and rules and stuff. In fact, it was a rejection of them in a way.

11 Owen ....I walked into that one. 300 Owen 0 5

Jemima

December 11, 2017 10:30 PM

I don't remember the words going like that by Jemima

“Mmm, or the crabcakes in Baltimore. Or just the smell of the curries in Providence…” They had been visiting with her slightly more culinarily conservative parents, and had had to opt to try some of the less spicy, but still delicious, food on that particular trip. The food that had accompanied each of their trips had been amazing. Jemima wasn’t sure she could choose a city based on food - not because that wasn’t a good enough reason, but because it had all been so amazing.

“Is that a vote for the East then?” she asked, with a slight smile, as he said that this might be his only chance to live there. Jemima had no objections to living near to Owen’s family once they were married but… Well, that was fairly set in stone, and Sonora had been decided for them. Whilst she was perfectly happy with both of those things, the thought of really choosing somewhere for themselves certainly appealed. This was their move, and she wanted to make the most of it. They’d also talked about travelling the world at some stage. Whilst Owen’s mother was perfectly nice, she could be a bit clingy. Owen wasn’t a baby or an invalid but she sometimes seemed to want to treat him that way. Jemima thought that if Mrs. Brockert got too used to her son being on her doorstep, she might be disinclined to let him go… She didn’t exactly want to have to spell that out, but it seemed like Owen was leaning towards having an adventure whilst they had the chance as well. “Just for college,” she confirmed.

13 Jemima I don't remember the words going like that 304 Jemima 0 5

Owen

December 14, 2017 5:44 AM

How about a different song then? by Owen

His mouth couldn't help watering a bit as Jemima described the different foods but he tried not to think about it as there was still time before the Returning Feast and Owen didn't want to start getting hungry now. After all, hunger sometimes started that way. With a craving. With your tastebuds screaming, needing something. Needing to feel something. "Curry sounds really good right now." Owen replied. It really really did. Fortunately, Sonora tended to serve international fare, both because of the foreign students who were used to it-even though there were no Indian or Indian American students currently attending the school-and to....expose them to other cultures, he guessed. Or at least their foods.

"I suppose it is." He confirmed. Owen noted that made Jemima smile which in turn, made him happy. Making her smile was one of his greatest pleasures in life, possibly even more so than writing and garlic. He also took this to mean that that was what she wanted.

"Now where on the east side of the country should we live for college?" To Owen, east meant east of the Mississippi river, which included places like Madison and Chicago. So Jemima already lived in the east. However, that was just the way the Brockerts viewed this and presumably, she meant the East in the way people normally did, as in the East coast. Possibly, as Jemima was from Chicago, that that was what she wished to do. She had, after all, specifically mentioned Baltimore and Providence by name.

11 Owen How about a different song then? 300 Owen 0 5