Dorian Montoir
February 10, 2019 8:37 AM
Birds of... slightly different feathers (tag Johana-Leonie) by Dorian Montoir
Dorian did not spend a huge proportion of his time in the Teppenpaw Common Room. He was more of a library person because he tended to study with his friends the majority of the time, and his two closest friends were in different houses, plus he just liked the library and also was one of the volunteer helpers there. However, he had set this evening aside for letter writing, and felt like doing that in the quiet, cosy environment of his own house. He had considered working in his room, but the pleasant companionship of the common room, the feeling of others being around without the expectation to necessarily interact a lot, felt more comfortable.He glanced around for a suitable space to work, when he noticed That First Year. The one he had noticed the first year during the concert meeting who was not a native English speaker. Part of him felt like it wasn’t exactly his business, and that she might not welcome some random older student sticking his nose in. He also didn’t exactly feel like getting to know new people was a productive use of his time. She was too much younger than him for them to actually become friends, and if by some strange quirk they did, it was just yet another person to potentially reject him. Really, he would be better off just shutting himself away from people until he had solved All Of His Problems.
That was, apparently, just one more thing he was doomed to fail in. He had never desired being the centre of attention, and he certainly valued a few close friendships over a wide range of acquaintances, but he was apparently equally bad at solitude. He liked people, he liked them being around, and - like a good Teppenpaw - he liked helping them. Which brought him to his next point, which was that this wasn’t about him; it was about her and whether she was alright. He found he had, somewhere along the line, added her to the mental list of people he was responsible for, and felt guilt at ignoring her.
Currently, she had her dictionary on the table and a bemused expression on her face, which seemed like an invitation to, at the very least, share her pain, even if he wasn’t able to be any more help than that. Her books only occupied half of the table, so he made his way over.
“Good evening,” he greeted. “I know this situation,” he smiled sympathetically, his own voice marked by a noticeably Francophone accent, wanting to make sure she knew he wasn’t about to embarrass her or be critical - that they were in Teppenpaw, of course, greatly reduced the chances of that. But still, he hoped she would find it nice to know how much he was able to relate to her situation. “I may sit here?” he asked.
OOC - godmodding (suggesting that J-L would be sitting with dictionaries spread out and a bemused expression) approved by her author.
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Dorian Montoir
Birds of... slightly different feathers (tag Johana-Leonie)
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Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
February 11, 2019 12:22 AM
Lovely feathers though! by Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
Johana Leonie was almost impressed by how terrifically difficult everything was at Sonora. On the bright side, she'd been picking up English fairly quickly since beginning and felt at least a little bit less overwhelmed. Classes were still a challenge, but they were easier to keep up on outside of the classroom, and she could bring questions to the meetings with Professor Skies and other students. Social English was harder to get prepared for or learn from a book, but she heard more of it. She was also getting used to everyone's accent, since there were so many accents at Sonora, and that helps too.Sitting in the Common Room, doing her best to figure out the words she needed to write her questions down for each of her professors in English and German both, Johana Leonie was immersed in a dictionary and multilingual textbooks when an older student approached. She knew his face and was pretty sure he had a name that started with . . . no all she knew for sure was that he had a name. Probably. It seemed like a safe bet. He'd been the boy with the accent that didn't sound like an American though, she did remember that.
When he spoke to her, she understood most of it and smiled happily at the offer for company. She was also glad he understood her knotted, confused face, and wondered if he knew any German. But his accent was . . .
"Bist du Französisch?" she asked quietly trying to get the sentence in her mouth before getting it out in English. "You are Franz?" She was pretty sure that wasn't the right word, but English seemed to just chop stuff off. Amerikanisch, Italienisch... just chop the end off and it was pretty close to the English word.
"Je parle un peu de français," she added quietly, ready to be embarrassed if she'd just insulted this poor kid from New York or something. "Mein English is . . . " What? At the start of the term, she would have said her English and French were about the same. Now? "My English is getting bigger."
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Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
Lovely feathers though!
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Dorian
February 12, 2019 8:10 AM
*flutters fabulously* by Dorian
The definition of ‘Franz’ as meaning ‘French’ sprung pretty easily to his mind, as in Russian all of the words for French began ‘Frants.’ They ended differently, depending on who was speaking the French, but it was close enough that he’d understood, even before the girl clarified by speaking a snatch his language to him. He smiled warmly on hearing it.“Très bien,” he complimented her, “I speak French,” he explained, sadly aware that it would have really been easier to just say ‘yes’ but it simply wasn’t close enough to true for him to do so. It did not feel like himself, or like an honest answer. “I am from Quebec. This is French-speaking Canada. My father is Quebecois - French-speaking. My mother is Chinese. Sorry - short question, long answer,” he smiled apologetically.
“You are German-speaking?” he added. He would not have been certain enough to guess from her accent (it sounded German but there were probably various other similar sounding accents, especially to his untrained ears, and he knew the perils of making assumptions, and how frustrating and hurtful they could be, even with the best intentions) - however, the dictionary in front of her had, printed across the top of the page ‘Deutsch-Englisches Wörterbuch - German-English Dictionary’ so it seemed like a safe guess.
“Yes. English gets better quickly,” he confirmed, “But sometimes makes your headache?”
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Dorian
*flutters fabulously*
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Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
February 12, 2019 10:55 PM
Teach me your ways! by Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
It was a bit like walking back inside after a long day out of doors. The trees and the air and the mud were all wonderful, but there was something peaceful about coming inside to a mug of herbal tea and a hot fireplace. It was the sort of warmth that reminded you what home felt like, and Dorian was almost as warm in this moment. Johana Leonie hadn't realized how exhausted everything had been, in part because she'd had Hilda by her side for so much of it. Now, having a conversation in broken English with someone that understood that pain and was doing just fine, she realized she could conceivably succeed here."Ja," Johana Leonie said simply, smiling. It was the sort of word that made her love German be,cause it sounded so much softer than the English yeah or yes. like she was simply exhaling affirmation.
When Dorian offered a medical condition, Johana Leonie smiled. If there was anything she knew in English, it was the aches and pains of English speakers. These were important words to know if you were going to help them. "Very much," she agreed. "That is good that English will better. Und fast!"
Her eyes returned momentarily to her schoolwork and it suddenly seemed like so much. "It is . . . Es ist möglich... I can?" she managed instead, not sure of the English word for possble. She gestured at her homework. "Comment as-tu réussi?" she asked in French, not sure how else to ask him how he'd gotten through it all.
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Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
Teach me your ways!
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Dorian
February 14, 2019 9:05 AM
They are our ways by Dorian
Dorian smiled, as Johana-Leonie asked him how he’d managed. His smile was kind, sympathetic to her suffering, but he also smiled because he knew the answer, and it was a very simple one.“Friends,” he replied. He considered whether to expand upon that with the combination of having a friend who was able to share his pain by not having English as her first language, and friends who did have it as a first language who helped him when he got stuck. But that sounded so cold and so clinical, like he was listing a formula for the friends to make. Those attributes were very useful but they were not the reasons why they were his friends. They just were. “Anything that is difficult is ok again when you have friends,” he summarised instead.
Hm. Anything? It was a little odd, hearing himself say that when his thoughts lately had been so burdened down by The Thing That He Couldn’t Talk About To Any Of Them. And he’d been feeling worse and worse about that… He tried to push that thought aside. Not because it was unimportant - it felt very, very important, and to some degree like he’d just had a revelation, a revelation of the kind that was so freaking obvious and really should have been all along - but because he was currently trying to talk to a first year and check she was managing okay, and trying to sort out all his issues and give himself a mental tidy up probably wasn’t particularly compatible with giving her attention.
He wondered how making friends was going for her, but that seemed a rather personal question to ask.
“There is something I can help with?” he offered instead, “Or just.. You take your time and get there by yourself?”
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Dorian
They are our ways
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Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
February 20, 2019 1:27 AM
Ja, das ist richtig. by Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
"Freundin," Johana Leonie agreed, smiling. "Hilda Hexenmeister. My friend," she stumbled. "We are coming from Germany. Hilda speaks German also. It is good," she smiled.She thought a bit about that. She hadn't really had the chance to make many friends since starting on at Sonora. Hilda was a wonderful friend, but she couldn't help wondering how many other wonderful people were here, locked away behind English speaking doors. Not for the first time, but also not for the umpteenth time, Johana Leonie felt fear and nerves. Her stomach knotted fretfully and she tried to remember that there was somebody trying to talk to her and that she was trying to talk to them and that worrying over friends while possibly making friends was a silly thing to do.
She felt a little better when she realized that Dorian also seemed to have thoughts behind his eyes. He seemed to be watching scenarios or memories play in his head, either the future or the past, and Johana Leonie was glad she was not the only one struggling to stay in the present.
When Dorian spoke first, she thought that his question sort of sounded like he was maybe thinking the same things as her. She wasn't sure whether he was trying to edge out of the conversation or whether that was just the turn his helpfulness had gone. Johana Leonie had never had to be independent and doing a thing by herself sounded like a terrible plan. At the same time, that's part of why her family picked Sonora.
"I will like friends," she said, not sure how to say that if Dorian either wanted to be her friend or introduce her to patient people who were also looking for friends, that would be welcome. "Would I have friends," she added, trying to make it clear that she did not currently. "Kannst du mir helfen... what ist this word?" she asked, pointing to her orientation packet where the acronyms for CATS and RATS were spelled out. "It is a test?" She didn't think she could handle anything like that just yet.
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Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
Ja, das ist richtig.
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Dorian
February 21, 2019 8:18 AM
Friendly recommendations by Dorian
“That is good. You are lucky to have a friend with the same language,” he offered, though he felt pretty lucky in terms of the friends he had too, and thus not wanting to sell them short, he added, “I have those now because I did taught my friends French and Chinese,” he grinned. “And I learn Russian, a little bit, for one friend. We all trade.”Her first reply to his offer of help seemed to be a request for friends and he felt his heart tighten. She had seemed so happy about having Hilda, he had not been worried that that was a problem. But she was still lonely. He would help, of course. He would find her all the friends!
“Yes. In second year room is a girl called Katerina,” he glanced around but she did not appear to be in the common room, “She speak some German, and I think she will be excited to have you for practise. I- also, she is a nice person. And also, you can make friends in English too,” he added, realising he had maybe made it sound like Johana-Leonie needed other German speakers, or that Katerina would see her as someone useful rather than a friend, “I just… I just think this will be nice for you both. Your roommates… They are…” he hesitated to say ‘not nice’ because this was Teppenpaw, and he hesitated to ask if they were leaving her out in case he made her feel self-conscious about her language skills (again). “... not friends yet?” he offered, adding the ‘yet’ for a sense of optimism.
“Yes,” he confirmed, when she asked about some of the information she was looking at, “CATS are fifth year. RATS are seventh year. A long time. No worrying now.”
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Friendly recommendations
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