First night catch up (Tag Vlad) on Teppenpaw Commons

Dorian Montoir

February 10, 2018 9:32 AM

First night catch up (Tag Vlad) by Dorian Montoir

Dorian made his way up to Teppenpaw Common Room, glad Professor Xavier was with them to demonstrate the jig to the new first years and gain them all access. He was exhausted. The two hour time difference didn’t seem much, but when it got late, it hit him like a tonne of bricks, added to which was the fact that being from further away meant he’d had to get up earlier.

“Hey,” he smiled at Vlad, as they separated out from the other Teppenpaws and started making their way up to their dorm room. He made a fairly unsuccessful attempt to supress a yawn. “How is your summer?” Verbs with tenses at this point were not a realistic expectation for anyone to have of him.

As they entered their room, there was a cheerful mew of greeting. He glanced around for Melody, and found the juvenile tabby cat looking very pleased with herself from her chosen sleeping spot in the middle of Vlad’s bed.

“Melody, ce n’est pas notre lit,” he chastised. He made a noise which clearly translated in any language, trying to indicate that she should remove herself. Melody merely rolled onto her back and wriggled, before mewing again, a little more pathetically as it had been several seconds since the boys entered the room and no one seemed to be petting her.

“I apologise for my terrible cat,” he sighed, sitting down on Vlad’s bed beside her. He had helped himself to a spot on Vlad’s bed before and he’d never really seemed to mind. Vlad didn’t seem to mind much, really. He was very relaxed, which was probably a good quality in a roommate both in general and with Dorian’s tendency to put far too much pressure on himself. He continued to murmur to Melody in French to her about what a terror she was, in a tone so loving that it was obviously going to have no effect on her wayward behaviour, along with the fact that said behaviour looked like it would get her exactly what she wanted, which was both humans within petting range. She would be sure to greet Vlad with a lot of head rubs and enthusiasm if he joined them.

13 Dorian Montoir First night catch up (Tag Vlad) 1401 Dorian Montoir 1 5

Vladimir Brockert

February 18, 2018 11:31 AM

Yaaaay! by Vladimir Brockert

Despite the departure from home leaving an immediate pang of longing for his mother, baby sister, and father deep, deep within his chest, Vlad was pretty excited to be back at Sonora. It was nice to be around the friends he didn’t see as much over the summer, like Dorian and Tatiana. And having gotten used to sharing with Dorian, it made his room at home seem so empty and lonely, so much so that he had spent more than a few nights in his older sister’s doorway asking if he could sleep over.

Being reunited with his roommate was awesome. “It was good,” he answered Dorian regarding his summer, used to the occasional way Dorian said things wrong. Vlad didn’t mind that stuff. Tatya did it occasionally too. That was cute. “It was nice to see the rest of my family,” he joked, since he had so much of his family around here. Ivy was in their House, and Peyton was in their year. Not to mention that he was cousins with everybody else named Brockert in some way or another, like Ruby, who was in both their year and House. Vlad got pretty confused with his relatives, honestly, and Mom just told him, “That’s your cousin.” He was pretty sure she couldn’t keep it straight, either, so that was probably way.

He was just about to return the question when they got to their dorm room and Dorian started talking in French at Melody. Vladimir didn’t understand what he was saying, but he could pick up the tone well enough. “I apologize for my terrible cat,” he said when he returned to English.

Vlad seated himself on the bed on the kitty’s other side and smiled at his friend. “She’s not terrible,” he countered cheerily, although he didn’t think Dorian really thought that because now he was murmuring lovingly to the cat in French again. “I like cats. I wish I could have one too, but my mom said no because we have dogs and it’d be hard on them in the summer. But then I just play with Hot Sauce when I go over to Peyton’s house, so that’s okay too.” He had probably talked about Hot Sauce before, how that was Peyton’s cat but had been Jake’s cat before. Vlad thought that was cool. He and Ivy were probably too close for something like that to happen - it worked out for the Manger/O’Malleys because Jake graduated the year before Peyton was starting at school - but maybe if he did ever get a cool pet, he could let Lavender have them when he was graduating. Unless Ivy beat him to it.

“Oh, sorry, I got distracted by the cat,” Vlad apologized, turning his main focus back to Dorian, although his hand gave affection scritches to the fluffy little ball of happy between them. “How was your summer?”

12 Vladimir Brockert Yaaaay! 1400 Vladimir Brockert 0 5

Dorian

February 18, 2018 9:01 PM

And some sad news by Dorian

Melody nuzzled Vlad’s hand appreciatively as he complimented and petted her, before settling herself down in the middle of the two boys, stretching out her front paws to rest on Vlad’s lap and her back paws to rest on Dorian’s so that neither boy could get up without disturbing her (and she sincerely hoped both were better mannered than to think that was acceptable!). She purred softly. Dorian was glad that Vlad seemed to appreciate Melody’s company.

“My summer is good also,” he nodded. “Jehan made a visit, and he get along with everyone and not decide that we all crazy, even though he probably wrong on that one,” he laughed, “My mother try to feed him to death, and no one can stick with speaking English all day.” He had written to Vlad a few times over the summer, and so this wasn’t exactly news but he hadn’t told him about the visit in any detail, and besides that it was easily the highlight of his vacation. The week itself had seemed to fly by in flash, whilst all the weeks spent with Matthieu in the house had dragged on and on, but now when he looked back at summer, Jehan’s visit seemed to expand and take over the whole thing. It was the first thing he thought of when he thought back.

“And to spend time with my parents and my sister is also very good,” he added. Dorian’s friends might have been forgiven for occasionally forgetting that his older brother existed (a situation that he would have found entirely preferable). Matthieu only really came up when factual questions occurred - do you have any siblings, what are you getting your family for Christmas, who did you go with? When Dorian talked about home on his own terms, or gave his opinions about what he enjoyed or what had stood out about a holiday, Matthieu was never mentioned. For those who remembered that he existed, this absence was probably conspicuous, although the majority of his friends knew that his brother was ‘a jerk.’ They knew that he and Dorian didn’t get on. That made sense of his absence from Dorian’s tales of home, and he figured they needn’t know much more.

“I still get to have the birthday of my sister together with her, so that is nice. We usually go to see a show,” that was the other highlight of his holidays. “She have her eleven birthday this year. So, now she start school,” he added. Throughout last year, when referencing Émilie’s schooling, Dorian had used phrases like ‘she will probably go to L’Institut’ or ‘It is the plan to send her to L’Institut.’ If Vlad had been paying attention at the sorting, he would have noticed that of the five girls in the year, only two had hair anywhere near a dark enough shade to be related to Dorian, and that neither of them bore a particularly striking resemblance to him in the rest of their features. Even if Vlad hadn’t taken that much notice, Dorian’s manner, the way his tone had flattened as he delivered the news, probably told him more than enough. Melody, realising that Dorian needed all of her more than she needed both him and Vlad, relinquished her claim on both boys in favour of stepping onto Dorian’s lap and rubbing herself against his chest and chin. He wrapped his arms around her gratefully, and gave a sad sigh. He’d been so excited to come back, and he loved being at Sonora, but right now he couldn’t help but feel somewhat homesick. Or Émilie-sick at any rate.

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