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
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DH Skies
Snow time!
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DH Skies
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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.
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Amelia Layne
My first snowball.
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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.
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Kir McLeod
I'll be gentle then
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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.
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Amelia
Do you expect me to return the favor?
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Amelia
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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.
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Kir
I'll give as good as I get...
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Kir
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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.
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Amelia
Excellent.
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