Wondering and Worrying on Pecari Commons

Professor O'Rourke

January 12, 2013 11:18 AM

Welcoming Speech by Professor O'Rourke

The journey to the Labyrinth Gardens was, thankfully, a fairly short one. Alex had looked behind him frequently to make sure that he hadn’t lost anyone. Near the entrance to the gardens stood a suit of armor that acted as guardian of the entrance to the Pecari commons. He stopped in front of it and turned to address the group of students following behind him.

“This is the entrance to your common room. If you get lost, or can’t remember, feel free to ask an older member of your house. A password is required to gain access, and should not, for any reason, be shared with students from other houses. It changes frequently, and the new password will be posted on the bulletin board inside. This week’s password is pickled pigs feet.”

Once the password was uttered, the suit of armor jumped out of the way to reveal the entrance.

“Everyone in.” Alex said, gesturing toward the entrance. He waited for the last student to pile in before entering himself, the statue reclaiming his position and sealing the entrance behind them. The common room was done up in the house colors of gold and brown, and was littered with tables and different kinds of seating ranging from chairs to couches. Overall, it was a comfortable room—great for relaxing, studying, or socializing.

“Welcome to Pecari Common room, your home for the next seven years. Your dormitories are up those stairs; the boys are down the corridor to your left, girls on your right. If you try to go down the wrong hallways, you will end up right back here. A rather futile endeavor, if you ask me. Curfew is at ten, and punishment will be enforced if you are late.”

Alex continued toward the bulletin board he had mentioned earlier.

“This is the schools main source of House communications. Announcements as well as the passwords will be posted here. The new password posted on Saturday of each week, so do be sure to check it regularly. For anyone interested in Quidditch, Captain Sophie Jamison should be putting up the try-out sheet soon. If you have any questions regarding the sport, please feel free to ask her or her Assistant Captain, Amira Thornton. Other people of import are the Pecari Prefects. These students are your House authorities, and should be respected as such. They are Sara Raines, who is also Head Girl, Josephine Owen, and Melanie Goodwin. They are here to help you if you ever have any questions. You may also refer to our Head Boy, David Wilkes for assistance as well. Professor Levy’s office is over there and when she is available, her office also connects to that in her Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. For the time being, however, I would like to make myself available to you should you need me. My office is in the astronomy classroom.”

Alex paused for a moment, going over whether or not he had covered everything he’d meant to.

“I believe that is it. You are free to explore the castle until curfew, but do try and keep out of trouble. Any questions?”

((OOC: You now have access to the other boards on the site. Please remember that your character does not have access to other common rooms, and remember to follow the site’s posting rules. If your student has questions, feel free to tag Professor O’Rourke in your subject line. Good luck, have fun, and again, Welcome to Sonora!))

Subthreads:

Wondering and Worrying by Omara Hernandez with William Casey

Meeting Everyone Else by Adam Spencer with Mal Carey, Adam

I have a question... by Jude Butler

0 Professor O'Rourke Welcoming Speech 0 Professor O'Rourke 1 5

Omara Hernandez

January 13, 2013 8:02 AM

Wondering and Worrying by Omara Hernandez

Omara huddled in the middle of the small group of Pecari first years as they were herded through the common room entrance. She tried to keep behind several, to disguise herself, and as close as she could to the few she had talked to during the feast. '...password is pickled pigs feet...for Pecari', she thought, mouthing the words, feeling the repetitive 'P' run over her lips as she tried to engrave it on her mind ready for the week ahead.

The common room looked delightfully cosy with all kinds of different types of seating, some for relaxing, some for studying. Omara hoped she wouldn't be expected to spend all her spare time here, however; she really needed time on her own sometimes to think and to dream. She also began to wonder, and with wondering always came worrying, what happened to her possessions and her beloved owl, Eleggua. Would she be allowed to keep him with her, like at home, or would he be kept with all the other owls? She wasn't sure if he would like the latter; he could be a bit of a trickster at times and wouldn't like him to be sent back home to New York for being too troublesome.

Omara pinched herself to stop herself daydreaming again and made sure that she listened carefully to all that Professor O' Rourke said. She had so many questions but was too nervous to speak up. She hoped instead that some of the other new students would raise at least some of what she wanted to ask...

0 Omara Hernandez Wondering and Worrying 0 Omara Hernandez 0 5

Adam Spencer

January 13, 2013 8:50 AM

Meeting Everyone Else by Adam Spencer

The walk from the dining hall to the gardens wasn't as long as Adam had expected, but he lagged behind a bit trying to see everything. Rupert had given him a big grin as he'd gotten up from the Pecari table and Adam looked forward to getting to know his cousin better now that they were in the same house. He stopped in front of the entrance of the common room and made a face at the password. "Pickled pigs feet?" he repeated to himself.

Adam followed the others into the common room and found it looking very comfortable. He could see himself spending loads of time here. He kept one ear open for his professor as he looked around. His things would have been put up into the dorm already so he didn't worry about that. He'd brought his school owl with him and had left her in the cage. She was most likely dying to get out for a good fly. He'd let her out when he got into the room.

The professor finished speaking and Adam waited for the chatting to begin before sitting down on one of the couches. "This is so comfortable," he sighed. After all the travelling he'd done, he was glad to rest. He'd be sleeping well tonight. He was hoping to make the Quidditch team as well, but he would have to wait perhaps for the next year. This would be a good year to get comfortable with his bearings first.

Once he got into his dorm, he would have to write to his family and let them know he had gotten there all right. His father had dropped him off at the wagons and had gone back to London on his own, but he knew his mum would worry till she heard from him. Charlotte too, but he knew if he wrote one of his siblings, he'd have to write to all of them and that would take awhile. He could figure that out later. Right now he just wanted to rest in his new home.

Adam looked around a bit to look at the rest of the common room. It was very cosy and he was glad for it. He sighed contently. "I never thought I'd fancy a brown and gold room, but I have to say it's growing on me," he commented to someone next to him.

40 Adam Spencer Meeting Everyone Else 257 Adam Spencer 0 5

Mal Carey

January 14, 2013 10:32 AM

Meeting someone else by Mal Carey

When his apparent Head of House had announced he was not the real Head of House and then led them outside instead of to a place in the building, Mal had decided it was all right to be intrigued. That was better, after all, than being a little concerned, though he knew he was that, too. These did not seem like proofs to him of optimal organization.

Neither did hearing that the password to his common room was “pickled pig’s feet,” but his reaction to that was not concern but laughter, which he did his best to smother with one hand in the hopes that the stand-in Head of House wouldn’t realize the laugher was him, at least not until he knew if that was acceptable or would be taken as an insult. Pecaris had a reputation for not being the most formal people, but this was not the actual Pecari Head of House.

Lines and what would cross them were a familiar concept to Mal. He could wind up Mother a little and no one except Stepmother would ever call him down for it, but he was a model of respect on the rare occasion that Morgaine – all scowls and abrupt manners and long dark hair which she never put up, seemingly as some kind of political gesture – graced them with her presence for half an hour or so, because she had power and Mother did not. Mother was just a cast-off wife who’d have been no one if her ex-husband had not had the poor judgment and extremely poor taste to die while his heir was a small child. Morgaine had the ability, at any time, to have him sent to some flyspeck school in a country where he didn’t even speak the language if she decided it would do him good, it would advance some plan of hers, or she just had a whim. He had no desire to get an up-close and personal look at living conditions in rural Poland.

Descending into the common room, he looked around, taking in the decorating choices of Pecaris past. Brown was, he thought, usually a poor color choice in general, but it was not as bad as it might have been, and though he was a little uncomfortable with the idea of sitting on chairs used by other people for years and years, some of those years possibly before his birth, when those people were not family, the chairs themselves looked comfortable enough. Trusting in the school’s elves, he took a seat on the edge of a piece of furniture for the very brief opening address, memorizing names and taking a careful look, too, at the people he was most likely going to share this space with for the whole of his seven years here.

After it, he stood up, looking at a roommate who had not sat with him and William Casey at the Welcoming Feast but who did speak now. “Like mold?” he asked, raising his pale eyebrows slightly, then relaxed his expression into a smile. “It is much better than it could have been,” he agreed. “My name is Malcolm Carey – North Carolina Careys.” For one thing, this roommate sounded British, so he might not know the Careys at all even if he were another pureblood, and for another, even other Americans with less than unlimited time to memorize family traits might not be aware of whatever strange quirk it was which made North Carolina Careys almost always instantly distinguishable from other branches by their coloring, which went toward blond hair and light eyes where the rest of the family, aside from the occasional weirdo, tended to be dark.

0 Mal Carey Meeting someone else 0 Mal Carey 0 5

Adam

January 14, 2013 11:31 AM

Hey Room-mate! by Adam

Adam hadn't met his room-mates yet and, having never shared a bedroom before in his life, thought he would find it a little uncomfortable at first. He adjusted quickly, however, to different situations, and he didn't think sharing a bedroom with two others would be too terrible. Any more than that would be too much in Adam's opinion.

"Pleased to meet you," said Adam cordially. "My name is Adam Spencer, of the London Spencers; Kensington specifically." There were only a handful of Spencers in the entire city itself, and his mum had told him to say he was a part of the Princeton line, though that line came from his mother and was therefore not as relevant nor as important.

Mal looked very much like the Princeton line of patriarchs. Grandfather, in his youth, his uncle and his cousins all had light hair and, generally, light eyes. It was his older cousin Cepheus who had told him about the different pure-blood families he was to align himself with here. Because his cousin was in line to be the next patriarch, he was supposed to know these things. For Adam, thankfully, it did not matter nearly as much. But it was through Cepheus that he had heard of the Careys. He didn't have a good grasp of the states yet, but he would lay out his map in his dorm and have Mal point out where North Carolina was.

The Careys were apparently a large name here and Adam made sure to commit that to memory. "You must have loads of relatives here, then, as a Carey," he noted. "I've got two cousins here, but that's all. Most of my family go to European schools like Hogwarts." The Princetons dominated Hogwarts; they even had a relative on the Hogwarts Board of Governors because they donated so much money to the school. Adam had been a bit disappointed that Grandfather had decided all of his grandchildren were to attend a school in the United States, but it was a great way to finally travel out of the continent.

Though Adam had travelled with his family before around the U.K. to visit relatives and out to France and Sweden for the same reason, it was different coming to the States to live and attend an academic institution rather than visit for a few weeks. Adam wasn't sure if he would get tired of Arizona quickly, but he had just gotten here. With time, he knew he would grow to enjoy it. He was, however, going to miss his siblings in particular very much. As the eldest, he was the one who took care of them when his mother was busy and he had grown very close to them all, especially Charlotte. It was also going to be hard to be away while his youngest sister grew up without him, but he would make his mum send him photographs.

"Where is North Carolina, exactly?" he asked, deciding he wanted to know right now. "Is it far from Arizona?"

0 Adam Hey Room-mate! 0 Adam 0 5

Mal Carey

January 15, 2013 8:55 PM

Good evening to you as well, roommate by Mal Carey

“Likewise,” Mal said politely when Adam Spencer, of Kensington, wherever that was in London, said it was a pleasure to meet him. His roommates were, after all, among the people he needed to be at least a little wary of; they had more opportunities to hit him than most people did, and though he had avoided being sickly, he was not very strong. He’d had one teacher who had been paid to teach him basic self-defense, on the off chance he was ever stranded somewhere without his wand and with someone trying very hard to kill him and most likely, though this had not been spoken, with the Aurors on his trail, too, and the whole exercise had gone pretty poorly from start to finish. He had been able to copy the movements, and could move very quickly, but he had been able to put no force behind them and had tired easily, and finally the verdict had been that it would be a better use of everyone’s time and money for him to learn evasive techniques instead, so that if he were ever physically attacked, his options, hopefully after jabbing his opponent in the eye, could be – in the words of that teacher – “run like hell, run like cautious hell, and hide.”

Mal had particularly appreciated the rationing of profanities. A third would have made it vulgar; just two had made it, to him, anyway, funny. Plus, there was the notion of there being such a thing as cautious hell. What was that, one where they were careful to only moderately torture people who they weren’t completely sure were guilty? Seemed to defeat the point.

“I do,” he agreed when it was observed that he must have a lot of family here. So Adam Spencer, of the London Spencers, Kensington specifically, knew a bit about American families, anyway. He nodded when it was revealed that his new roommate’s family did mostly stick to the European schools. “My family has yet to see the full appeal of the international scene,” he remarked. “If distant cousins were water, I’d be in danger of drowning here, though my only close family here is a sister. Lucille. She’s in third year, Teppenpaw.” The North Carolina Careys had been the second distinct branch of Careys to take root in American soil, and they had always managed to carry on, but they had never grown as large as the other four. In South Carolina, their closest neighbor right now, five children was a normal family, and their heir, Anthony, was a little unusual for just having two brothers and no sisters as well as for being heir in spite of being the youngest child; in North Carolina, having a brother and a sister made Mal part of one of only two family units in the branch’s history to have more than two children in it, and most had had one. He was also the first North Carolina heir ever to have a brother.

Well, a half-brother, anyway. His brother Andrew had had a bad beginning, first being the child of a third marriage while both of their father’s first two wives were still alive, then not being born until their father was seven months dead, and then being named after him by Stepmother anyway, in spite of the scandal. It would not do, Mother had said to him more than once when they were alone, to claim Andrew as a full brother, just in case he kept going in the direction he’d started.

“It’s on the other side of the continent,” he said of North Carolina. "Between South Carolina and Virginia. It's the fourth one up from the bottom." He had spent half his childhood, he thought, over maps, applying little pins to them sometimes to mark where different families lived and why this was important, other times just looking at them and imagining the day when he would no longer be confined to the house and park all the time. "I would ask where Kensington is in London, but I'm afraid I don't know enough about other things in London to relate it to them. You're definitely further from home than I am, though. Are you sorry to be here instead of at Hogwarts?"

0 Mal Carey Good evening to you as well, roommate 0 Mal Carey 0 5

Adam

January 17, 2013 1:50 PM

I'm not missing home at all. by Adam

Speaking of sisters made Adam think of his and he found himself missing her more than he would care to admit. He couldn't imagine having an older sibling and wondered how Malcolm felt with someone constantly watching over him. Maybe he and Lucille were close siblings as he and Charlotte were. That would give them one topic to talk about, their siblings, but perhaps it was too early in the conversation to go down that route.

Malcolm's helpful explanation did nothing to help Adam's attempt to mark it on his mental map. "You'll probably have to mark it on the map I've got upstairs. I'm having trouble picturing it." It was a good thing he'd brought it. He really would have to study it later tonight or tomorrow. He didn't want to seem completely ignorant.

Adam was comforted, however, by Malcolm's admittance to his lack of knowledge about London's geography. Malcolm didn't seem very interested in knowing where Kensington was either, but Adam found it a bit of a relief not to go into a wordy explanation himself.

Mal's next question made Adam think for a moment. If he was being completely honest, he was a bit sad, but either way he would have had some family to follow. It wasn't like he visited Hogwarts often, anyway, and the Spencers weren't like the Princetons who had never really gone out of Europe before. "No, I don't think so," he finally said. It should have been obvious by his family name that he wasn't a legitamate Princeton through his father, but through his mother. He really should have been siding more with the Spencers, but he opted to take his mum's advice.

"I think I'll like it here. I'll get to make my own way around instead of following in the legacy of generations of my relatives before me. Besides, I enjoy travelling and this is the farthest I've gone without my family." He had travelled to different cities in England alone before which had really helped his independence. He was certain his dad had been keeping an eye on him somehow, but as a ten-year-old, travelling alone without a familiar face in sight was a bit terrifying as well as liberating. Granted, his parents didn't trust him to travel across the ocean all by himself, but at the very least he thought he could get his way around Arizona well enough. He was much more independent than other boys his age.

"Did you expect to come here, then?" he asked, wondering if Mal had looked forward to coming to school. Adam himself loved London and had been sad to leave it, but he had looked forward to school as well if only for the prospect of learning how to control and utilise his magic.

0 Adam I'm not missing home at all. 0 Adam 0 5

Mal

January 17, 2013 8:46 PM

I'm glad to hear it by Mal

“I can do that,” Mal said agreeably when Adam said he’d like for him to mark where North Carolina was on a map. “In general, I can tell you where most families are, as you meet more of them.”

It occurred to him, for one strange moment, that he might have just made a friendly gesture. He shook the idea aside. If he helped Adam, then Adam would dislike him less down the road, and might even help him in return someday, if he needed it. That was all. He felt more comfortable in his skin as he thought of it that way, more confident that things weren’t suddenly changing under his feet. Life was a give and take, in that every give also involved a take. Everyone did what they did because they got something out of it.

He listened a little wistfully as Adam described liking travel and getting to move out of his ancestors’ footsteps. Mal was expected to make a way different than his father’s, certainly, but he did not see that as a source of freedom. If anything, he thought he might be more restricted than he would have been under just about any other circumstances. He might get to travel someday, but it would be over his mother’s best attempts to keep him from it, he was sure. “That sounds nice,” he said.

The question got a nod. “Yes, I did. It’s the traditional school for both of my father’s parents’ branches, so I suppose it was inevitable.” Actually, he thought it had been anything but inevitable, considering that his grandparents had been a shade less than perfectly respectable, too, and his father had been…his father, but he was not going to tell a perfect stranger that. “I didn’t anticipate being in this House, though. I knew I wouldn't be in Teppenpaw, like my father and sister, but I expected to follow most of my cousins into Aladren.” All of the male ones, as a matter of fact, but he had no plans to tell another guy that the only Carey Pecaris in recent memory before himself had been girls. "Did you know anything about the Houses here before you came?"

0 Mal I'm glad to hear it 0 Mal 0 5

Adam

January 21, 2013 5:17 PM

Well, maybe a little. by Adam

It would be helpful in the long-run to have a room-mate who could mark the territories where different families were from. Adam would also need to study the map himself, but he'd already made a mental note to do that. With his room-mate's help, perhaps they could even become friends sometime. Their friendship did seem inevitable if they wanted to live together in peace.

It occurred to Adam that Mal may not have the same experiences as he with all the Careys known to have come and gone from Sonora. Mal confirmed his assumptions by saying it was the traditional school. Hogwarts was like that for his family and most of the pure-blood families in Britain, at least from what Adam knew. Many of his friends were going to attend, and though he would miss them, he was looking forward to meeting the American peers he'd only really heard about. If he'd ever come into contact with one, it had been brief and impersonal.

Aladren was the house Mal had expected to be in, and perhaps wanted, and Adam thought it funny that that was the house his cousins had wanted to avoid, Cepheus in particular. "I knew a bit," he told him, "but not much. One of my cousins, Rupert, is in this house: he's a second year. His older brother is in Crotalus and hates Aladren. I think it's because Aladren's known to dominate the Quidditch Cup, or something like that." He smiled. "Are you planning on joining the team at all? Perhaps next year when Quidditch starts up again?"

Adam himself wasn't a huge Quidditch fan like his relatives, but he did enjoy the sport and it was fun to play. That competitive spirit wasn't exactly strong in him and he didn't think he could muster up to what was expected of him. Recreational playing was good enough for him as long as he could find people to play with.

0 Adam Well, maybe a little. 0 Adam 0 5

William Casey

January 21, 2013 9:52 PM

Just Wondering.. okay maybe worrying a little too. by William Casey

Will followed his peers up into the common room as it was called. He was a little drowsy form eating so much food in such a short amount of time, and was glad to finally be heading to bed. All thoughts of sleep vanished from his mind, however, when he entered into the common room after reciting the odd password.

The room was decked out in the house colors, brown and gold, and looked like the most comfortable room in the world. There were multiple couches and chairs scattered around in little coves and plenty of tables to work at. There were a couple of branching doors that Will assumed went up to the dorms. Will remembered Malcolm and wondered if there were any other boys with whom he'd be bunking.

He snapped himself out of his thoughts and listened as the House Head gave he and his peers instructions. He listened as best he could although his eyes occasionally drifted around. On one of these driftings, his eyes turned to a nervous looking girl standing next to him. "Hey," Will whispered, smiling at her," I'm Will, it's nice to meet you. Are you a first year too?" He waited quietly for her answer.

0 William Casey Just Wondering.. okay maybe worrying a little too. 0 William Casey 0 5

Mal

January 24, 2013 9:36 PM

That's too bad by Mal

Mal made a note of Adam’s cousins, Rupert and Crotalus Boy. Crotalus Boy did not like Aladren, where most of Mal’s family was, because it always won at Quidditch, but if he was that much older, then Mal might never have to deal with him at all. Rupert was definitely more important to remember anyway, since he was in their House and could therefore be helpful in getting around it, if Mal decided he found school overwhelming for some reason. He didn’t expect to, but it was good to have a contingency.

“I don’t think I will,” he said politely when Adam asked if he would play Quidditch when it started up again next year. “I never have before.”

He said this without shame, or even much interest. Other people played Quidditch; he did not. Mother did not, since the one previous time he had tried, approve. He might become damaged if he engaged in something as violent and chaotic as Quidditch, and he was their one and only heir. This was not true, of course, since there was still his half-brother even if he did somehow get hurt, but Mother didn’t see it that way, and Mal would rather stay alive and in possession of all his faculties just for his own sake as well. He thought he might enjoy watching, though, when the games came back; it did look exciting.

“Will you?” he asked, since it was polite, and he did feel curious about what his roommates’ interests were. He had never known people, really, outside of his immediate family, so meeting new ones always interested him. Even if they weren’t conventionally interesting, they usually interested him just because they weren’t already so familiar to him that he could almost always predict what any one of them would do in any given circumstance. "Or join any other activity?"

0 Mal That's too bad 0 Mal 0 5

Jude Butler

January 24, 2013 9:44 PM

I have a question... by Jude Butler

Jude was completely out of her element and she knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt! Between turning brown in color and herself almost falling out of her chair TWICE over things that were magical, she didn't know what was going on around her anymore. This was the unknown that she was so scared about. Things were so different there and Jude wasn't sure what to think anymore.

She'd changed color, seen food show up right in front of her and watched the boy next to her clean up his mess with his wand. Can I really do this? she asked herself as she heard a man call for first year Pecari's. That's me... she thought as made to stand up, tripping over a table leg or something and tipped her chair over, landing on top of the chair, on the floor. “Ouch...” she said as she stood up with a long sigh.

Walking up to the other students who surrounded the man, she said, “Sorry...” her cheeks blushed like flames. He led them out of the room and into the corridor, out the doors. We have to go outside to go to our rooms? she thought as they got to the entrance of what looked like gardens. He stopped in front of a suit of armor that reminded Jude of something that belonged in a museum. The man turned around and told them that this was the entrance to something called the Common Room and that they can ask an older Pecari for help if they get lost. Passwords? And they change? Oh gosh... “Pickled pigs feet?” she said softly, wondering if there was a reason behind that password as the armor jumped out of the way. Jude fell backwards into a bush and stood up again with a sigh. I hope this stops when I realize that this is just what is supposed to happen here! she thought as she followed the others into the Common Room.

The room looked comfortable and she noticed where the girls dormitories and boys as well, were and she listened carefully as the new Pecari's were told about curfews and punishments as well as the bulletin boards, more about the passwords, Quidditch, the Prefects and Head Girl as well as where their Head of Houses' Office was and where his own office was.

When he asked if there were any questions, Jude's hand went up slowly. “Uhm, Sir?” she started, unsure how this magic thing all worked. And though she was nervous, she knew she needed to understand what was happening around her. “This is all new to me... and... uhm... Are there others who this was all new to, too?” she said to him, as she looked to a girl as well as a boy who were standing right next to her. She'd been following behind the rest of the group the whole time due to magic related klutzi-ness and almost pure terror at the unknown around her. Jude hoped that there were other kids who'd be just like her, or even older ones who'd been through it already who could help her. That was something she was used to...

0 Jude Butler I have a question... 0 Jude Butler 0 5