An adventure! [Tag Zara.] on Labyrinth Gardens

Felipe De Matteo

February 28, 2019 2:40 AM

An adventure! [Tag Zara.] by Felipe De Matteo

Felipe had spent his morning doing what he did most mornings: reading. He might've spent more time on his hair or his clothes, but those were just the frills and a De Matteo was not vain. Instead, he'd been reading the lais of Marie de France, and nearly forgotten he was supposed to be doing anything else. Luckily, Marie de France's lais were sort of like an adventure in their own right, and Felipe felt well prepared to attend his own with Zara when he snapped shut his book.

Making his way to the front of the Gardens, very near where they'd had their orientation just a few short weeks ago, Felipe occupied himself with the arrangement of topiary plants as he waited for his . . . friend? to arrive. He was particularly interested in how perfectly straight they seemed to be, without seeming gaudy. Indeed, these topiaries seemed perfectly natural. Felipe wondered how much of that was the influence of magic, and reminded himself how lucky he was to be at a school with these sorts of pioneers of magic and agriculture. Herbology was already a favorite, but this was a good reminder.

He wasn't particularly religious, but did his best to remain at least sufficiently observant, and made the sign of the cross as he knelt down to view some of the lowest growing plants more carefully. The sound of footsteps behind him nearly made him jump, and he might've if he hadn't already found such peace in the quiet morning.

Felipe turned to greet whomever was approaching with a polite smile, brushing off his knees beneath the hem of his shorts as he turned.

"Good morning," he said. "It's good to see you." The last part came just as he laid eyes upon his friend, and he decided that it was true. Zara was a good person to be seeing.

22 Felipe De Matteo An adventure! [Tag Zara.] 1434 Felipe De Matteo 1 5

Zara

February 28, 2019 9:30 AM

Hey there, sunshine by Zara

Zara made her way towards the gardens, feeling excited all over again for this whole ‘school’ thing. Before meeting Felipe, the homesickness had definitely been creeping in but now she found she was looking at the things with fresh eyes again. All the little things there were to discover, like pots that did different flavour jams, and elves that would give you a game of cards, and nice boys who you could crush up mint leaves and talk about those kinds of things with. And hopefully some cool places, ones that could be secret and just for them. Realistically, Sonora had seen hundreds of explorers in its time. Maybe nowhere would be really their own. But if they spent their time in it uninterrupted, then they could pretend. And she still held onto the idea that they might stumble across something totally unexpected, something hidden, or something lost. An abandoned treehouse was top of her list, though this would be challenging, as trees seemed to be a lesser feature than hedges.

She was feeling very much like herself again, which she’d always considered a very good person to be, as she made her way down the steps. She was chipper and excited, out for some fun. She looked the part for a day as herself too. When she’d worked with Felipe in potions her hair had, per restrictions, been tied up. Or perhaps tied down was a better term… It had been in the two stubby French braids that she could work it into in about ten minutes but which she only really sported when she had to. She preferred letting it do its own thing, and it was currently showing gravity who was boss, framing her head with an explosion of slightly wild and frizzy curliness. She wore a yellow t-shirt on which was a small, childlike smiley sun and the words ‘hey there, sunshine,’ short denim shorts, and her own customary grin.

She found Felipe kneeling down, inspecting the hedge. Or rather, extricating himself from having been doing so as she had stomped unsubtly towards him.

“You too,” she smiled, when he said it was good to see her, “Interesting hedge?” she enquired nodding to where he’d been looking.

13 Zara Hey there, sunshine 1444 Zara 0 5

Felipe De Matteo

February 28, 2019 9:56 PM

I'm not the sunshine one, look at you! by Felipe De Matteo

Felipe smiled at Zara's appearance, appreciating her casual side. She seemed to bring a little more light into the room - or the outdoors, as the case may be - and he hadn't realized how badly he needed it. He was not a bit embarrassed to be caught in the bushes; plants and the land were as deeply in his blood as the color blue was, and he felt more at home among the branches than his own family.

"It is," he said, hesitating for a moment before deciding that she might have been genuinely asking. "It's bay laurel," he explained. "Softer than holly, another common choice, and much safer. Holly berries are poisonous and the leaves are sharp. This is soft and aromatic, which makes it a good choice for a hedge that will be occupied so often, and makes the whole area a bit more . . . cozy. That's why it seems so apart from the rest of the grounds or the castle: the aromatics make it more imposing in a good way."

There were, of course, other interesting facts. That the hedges were made of such a common topiary plant at all was interesting, as magic could carve a pine tree into a hedge if the caster wanted it to. He thought that this probably said something about the founders and maintainers of the school, and hoped that it wasn't a comment on their use of prairie elves for manual labor. The fact that Sonora's founders were Irish made the choice more sensible, though, as bay laurel was a Mediterranean plant.

"Too much?" he asked, remembering to be humble and offering a sheepish grin.

When they'd chatted for another minute or so, Felipe changed the subject to the primary purpose of their meeting.

"How shall we begin?" he asked, gesturing to the open paths through the Gardens. "Where does adventure seem to be calling from?"

OOC - I do not expect Felipe's assessment of Sonoran hedges to be canon, but figured there probably wasn't a lot of opinion about what they are. Feel free to disregard his opinion on the matter in other/future threads.

22 Felipe De Matteo I'm not the sunshine one, look at you! 1434 Felipe De Matteo 0 5

Zara

March 01, 2019 8:49 AM

But you're the one that makes plants grow by Zara

Zara listened, glad Felipe was actually answering her question. For all that her phrasing might have sounded kind of flippant, she was genuinely interested to hear what he had to say. The subject also seemed to bring him out of himself somewhat. She guessed it wasn’t surprising, based on what he’d said in Potions about his family being in agriculture, but he seemed really into his plants. She loved watching people talk about what they were passionate about. It made them light up, and when they were good at sharing that joy it spread to everyone around them. Zara was no great shakes at Herbology, and she doubted she really would ever get super into it. But in that moment, it felt like she wanted to know everything there was to know about plants. And she supposed she did, in some senses…. The interest was not going to last beyond Felipe’s presence. She was not going to go into the library and start studying to be a botanist. Or, if she started, she would quickly get derailed and distracted by something else. But if someone had said she could learn all about plants just by listening to Felipe talk and show her things for hours and hours, she would have happily signed up.

“No. Not too much. Never too much,” Zara assured him, feeling the desire to squeeze him when he went all shy over liking something so much. “It’s fun hearing people talk about something they love. Even if it’s not something I know about. Maybe even especially then… You get to learn things you’d never find out for yourself, and see the other person being all happy. Win-win. If anyone ever expects you to apologise or be embarrassed for what you like, punch them in the nose,” she advised.

She didn’t have much that was intelligent to say back to what he’d said, but she filed the information away, happy to know it. She took a deep inhale of the air as a way of showing her appreciation for what he’d said. It was good. She wasn’t sure she’d have used a word as fancy as ‘aromatic’ or made any associations of comfort.

“It does smell nice,” she confirmed. The hedge smelt hedge-y. As it was a hedge, this seemed a good way for it to be, and she supposed that was why it was comfortable. A smell that could drift into the background and that didn’t seem unexpected was probably a good smell.

She had pondered the suggestion of where they would go. She had a couple of coins in her pocket, and a few other decision-making tools up her sleeve. She counted off the paths in front of them.

“Eenie meanie, minie mo, catch a tiger by the toe…” until she got back to ‘mo’ again. “This way. Fate wills it,” she grinned.

OOC - works for me. Things are flexible enough that I'm pretty sure it can fit in. If anyone has a strong and contrasting opinion in the future, they can always be talking about a different segment.

13 Zara But you're the one that makes plants grow 1444 Zara 0 5

Felipe De Matteo

March 07, 2019 8:16 PM

Nah, I just watch them blossom. by Felipe De Matteo

Felipe was surprised to hear Zara suggest he punch someone in the nose, but supposed he shouldn't have been. That seemed very much like a Zara thing to say, and he didn't know her very well yet. He thought that it would be highly inappropriate for him to punch someone in the nose, and hated to imagine what his father would think, but suspected Zara was joking and found the humor in that. He laughed sincerely as she spoke.

"Very diplomatic," he teased lightly, appreciating that Zara's upbringing likely required much less diplomacy training than his had so far.

He wasn't sure what to make of her appreciating what he had to say. It really wasn't polite of him to talk so much, but she just made it so easy. He pushed that thought aside to consider more later. The fact that she took a moment to inhale the scents around them meant almost as much and he suddenly felt as though it was indeed a sunny day, and his clouds were dissolving.

He wasn't familiar with the words she used to choose a direction for them to go, but knew the tactic and smiled as he waited for her to finish. He supposed that this was not a particularly crucial thing for him to know the English for, and supposed that it was likely not proper words anyway. These things rarely were.

Fate wills it, she said. That seemed almost too true and Felipe had the distinct feeling that he was not falling from a cliff, or stepping off of one, as he followed Zara down her path, but that he'd already been airborne for quite some time, and just hadn't realized.

As they rounded the first corner, Felipe found that he was only half as interested in the flora as he'd been before. His companion seemed more interesting than he'd expected and he thought he should probably say something. At the same time, there didn't seem to be the same sort of pressure to speak as he'd experienced with other people before. He was relaxing, almost against his will, and wondered whether she felt the same.

"Do you have anything like this where you are from?" he asked, wondering what her life was like outside of Sonora. "Both the adventures, and the Gardens," he added, smiling. "Would you like to tell me what 'home' is for you?"

22 Felipe De Matteo Nah, I just watch them blossom. 1434 Felipe De Matteo 0 5

Zara

March 08, 2019 8:37 AM

What if they only blossom when you're around? by Zara

“Hey, diplomacy does not mean letting others walk all over you,” Zara argued back, her tone light and jocular. “Knowing when you’re out of other options and need to resort to a quick right hook can be totally diplomatic. Maybe. I suspect my parents wouldn’t actually approve, and I don’t think I’m really the punching kind,” she admitted, “I just don’t think there’s a lot of good reasons to put up with bad attitudes.”

The conversation took a slightly deeper turn as they made their way into the labyrinth. What is ‘home’ for you?’ There were all kinds of philosophical and mental state answers to that - home is where the heart is, and all that. There was also the invitation to explain her family life. Both of those were pretty big topics, and the latter one for potential with a lot of fallout. But, as per her views on diplomacy, they were not things Zara shied away from. She was who she was, and she wasn’t going to put down by anyone who found that not to be good enough. And she trusted Felipe.

And she was scared. Just a little. Because he came from the kind of family that had acreage. But she was pretty sure that anyone could tell just by looking at her that she didn’t come from That Kind Of Family. And he was still out here, walking side by side with her… And the risk that he wasn’t going to like who she was was not going to make her into a different person. Better to know than not.

He had asked about adventures though, and she decided to answer that bit first.

“Gardens, not so much. We’re city people. Well, suburbanites, I guess. We have a yard. There are nice parks. This is… I don’t know. Like a fancy manor house in an old fashioned story. To me, anyway,” she added, the thought of Felipe’s references to his family farm echoing in her head. “We have plenty of adventures though. My brother’s really into playing spies. He’s always making up secret codes and stuff, and wanting us to leave each other clues or go on missions.

“As for home… I’m dual heritage,” she answered, deciding not to lead with any of the ‘well, we live in Boston…’ details. Best cut straight to it, “In multiple senses,” she added with a smile. “My parents, mostly on my dad’s side, run this cultural center in Boston designed to introduce magical people to non-magical arts and culture. He’s magical and my mom is non-magical. I don’t like the term ‘halfblood.’ It makes it sound like part of me is missing, or part of me doesn’t count,” she cautioned him, “I grew up in both worlds.”

Her answer had brought them to another junction. She paused.

“Your turn. Left, right, or straight on, and tell me about you.” She supposed ‘or backwards and don’t’ was also a possibility, but it wasn’t one she wanted on the table.

13 Zara What if they only blossom when you're around? 1444 Zara 0 5

Felipe De Matteo

March 14, 2019 1:02 AM

Then they're very choosy. by Felipe De Matteo

Zara was kind and helpful, and that was a nice change of pace. There wasn't precisely anything wrong with Felipe's housemates - he was biased in thinking that there must indeed be something pretty okay about Crotalus students - but there was a lack of sincerity that was stifling at times. There were only so many times he could pretend to care what people thought of themselves and with Zara, he didn't have to. What she thought of herself was written in her memories and her moods, and that meant a whole lot more than any boasting.

As she spoke about her life in the city, Felipe had the distinct sense that she was proud despite. Perhaps she was proud despite being poor, or proud despite being a minority, or just proud despite a world telling her she shouldn't be. In any case, Felipe held back when she told him of her life. He wasn't sure whether she'd take him at his word if he told her he thought that sounded wonderful and the last thing he wanted was for her to think he was mocking her. Most people he bothered to mock never caught on (Jeremy Mordue came to mind), and Zara was smarter than that.

"Old fashioned story," Felipe repeated with a soft chuckle. "That sounds right. This all feels so . . . far away for me. I'm glad to have found someone that can relate." Again, fear that he sounded condescending led him to shut his mouth again. How could he even pretend they could relate when his isolated, lonely life had been a matter of riches and privilege that he'd never wanted? It sounded disgusting just to think it.

"It sounds like something my dad would want to come see," he said of her family's cultural center. He's very invested in the non-magical community and most of the people he works with are non-magical." The thought of bringing his dad to come visit Zara's family's cultural center made Felipe's stomach feel prickly and squishy. Would his dad be proud? Or disappointed?

"There's nothing missing," he agreed darkly. "Don't ever let anyone tell you that you are any less because you have more. You have twice as many cultures, twice as many worlds, and twice as many opportunities." Felipe paused, not liking the statistical facts behind those assertions. "The math doesn't work out there," he admitted. "But you know what I mean. Your value is born in your heritage and matures in your personhood. That's very special. A ogni uccello il suo nido è bello," he added the last more quietly, not sure if his choice of Italian would put Zara off. The last thing he wanted was to seem like a show-off. "There's nothing in the world as beautiful as your own home," he clarified.

Then she asked about his home and the day seemed a little bit more familiar. The world felt a little heavier and he felt a little smaller.

"Left," Felipe said, choosing his non-dominant side. He always started there. He'd never remember anything if he started in a different place every time. "My home is full of lots of people. The whole town is my home. Los Jardines de Plata, my family's home, is always full of people who need food or prayer. Sometimes they get magic, but they don't usually know that. The De Matteos are in service of the local community." There was no pride in his voice, just the tone of someone explaining cold facts. He was proud of his family's work, but there was also very little to be proud of when it was a matter of inherited altruism rather than any genuine care. He wondered whether his father would agree with the latter part of that assessment.

"We had tutors and traveled a lot, so we learned many languages and instruments and things, but our focus was on how best to serve our own people." He shied away from the word 'subjects,' a term he'd heard only rarely and only when it slipped accidentally from his father's mouth. His mother wouldn't even say things like 'our people,' so he knew he'd still chosen a loaded explanation.

22 Felipe De Matteo Then they're very choosy. 1434 Felipe De Matteo 0 5

Zara

March 15, 2019 11:34 PM

Or you're more special than you realise by Zara

Zara felt her heart do a happy little jump as Felipe said his father would probably like to come and see the Cultural Center. Of course, it didn’t matter what type of family he came from - it mattered what he, himself, thought. It was possible that some of her classmates could have prejudiced parents but be open enough to change their own minds, but she preferred it this way. Obviously, changing your mind was good thing but Zara wasn’t sure she was down to be anyone’s guiding light to not being a freaking racist. It depended how much accidentally offensive crap she had to put up from them on the way, and how big a pat on the back they expected to get for learning to be a basically decent human being. It was nice to feel that she had found someone whose friendship would be simple and uncomplicated, for whom she wouldn’t be a battle ground with his family - and by that extension, a representative, the one who had to try to convince them that ‘her people’ were decent and worth liking.

“Well, you’d both be welcome any time,” she offered, excited at the thought of having him to visit. “We have a big fete during the summer. And loads of other events.

“I could hug you,” Zara beamed, as Felipe talked about her, “That’s exactly how I feel, and trust me, I wouldn’t let anyone say anything else without standing up to them - maybe deploying one of those diplomatic punches to the nose if they won’t get the message.”

The way he talked about his home intrigued her. When he said the whole village was their home… It was hard to know what he meant. Normally, Zara would have taken that to just mean they were a tight-knit community. The kind where everyone knew everyone, and was just… at home with each other. But there was something about the way Felipe talked… There was some sense of… centrality. Like they were the heart of this. The same with ‘our own people.’ It was a phrase she wouldn’t have taken to mean anything except a sense of community, except… the idea of him travelling with tutors, learning how to be… something in service of that community. It didn’t quite gel with a mental image of a cosy little village with everyone on an equal level. It sounded more like- it sounded like more than that. And she was torn between two images that that put into her head… One of the kind, pillars of the community that were at the heart of village life, and one of… lording it over others. Building their fortunes on the backs of people with less. But he’d talked about helping, serving.

“Your family sounds nice,” she smiled, leaning towards the first option, in absence of any evidence to point towards the second, “My roommate, Johanna-Leonie, her family are healers and they help magical people and non-magical ones too. It’s nice to meet so many people who have that value of community. And who don’t mind blurring the lines between the worlds,” she added, focussing on what they had in common.

13 Zara Or you're more special than you realise 1444 Zara 0 5