Eliza Bennett
February 28, 2011 3:30 PM
Being obsessive and trying to plot by Eliza Bennett
Last year, Eliza had spent most of her free time in the dorm, but this year, That Girl had made her afraid of being in there alone, so she had started spending more time in the common room. If there was anywhere at Sonora where she would have an edge over That Girl and her antics, it would be in the Crotalus commons, and since she’d started coming down more often, she had realized what the real purpose of the common room was and seen the benefits of using it for that thing, that one thing that was so important.Practice.
She had only been to a few parties, minor ones, but that was going to change soon. Most likely this summer, though even if she did something very disappointing it wouldn’t be later than next Christmas. The Bennetts, after all, were still finding their place in society to some extent, and they needed as many representatives to solidify it as a good one as possible. So she not only had to enter society as soon as possible, she had to be perfect once she did. That was where the common room came in.
Eliza had, she guessed, as much etiquette tutoring as anyone, but there was really no way to learn how to make the kind of conversation that was expected of her, in small groups that changed members every so often and were moving around and drinking and eating and sometimes dancing, too, in the midst of many other similar groups, except to do it. There was no music or dancing here, and not often food, and there were a handful of people who had been Sorted here but didn’t belong here, but the common room still had some similarities to the few parties she’d attended and the bigger ones she and Paul had slipped out of their rooms to spy on. There wasn’t much mixing between the years, but people recognized each other, and it was risking being written home to someone’s mother about to not at least wish someone you knew was of the same or a similar social class a good day.
She smiled politely at anyone who met her eye, and said her thank yous and good days, but her mind wasn’t really on it. It was on That Girl.
When she’d heard some story about a niffler being released in the library, she had thought the entire thing was going to take care of itself. The staff would already be on guard, and it would be easy enough to goad That Girl into attacking her in public and going down for it. That, though, seemed to be working about as well as all the other plans that had been come up with; the rumor mill didn’t mention That Girl being punished for her latest pointless act of chaos and evilness, which meant she'd either gotten clean away with it in the staff's eyes or hadn't had much happen to her and confirmed her and Jordan’s theory that the adults were either completely useless or completely in sympathy with That Girl because of her social status, and nothing else affected her because (Eliza was increasingly convinced) she was some kind of darker than usual poltergeist masquerading in the form of a twelve-year-old girl instead of an actual person at all. She didn’t seem to care if she were shunned, or if she didn’t have time to dress decently, or about anything that normal people cared about at all.
That was frustrating. So frustrating that every time Eliza saw that stupid, malicious grin of hers, she was more and more tempted to slap it off her stupid face and then rip all her stupid curly hair out and shove it down her stupidly giggling throat. But she would not be drawn into a catfight that would shame her family by Her.
Eliza didn’t know what to do. There was always torturing her slowly – replacing her shampoo with a potion to make her hair all fall out, itching powder in her bed, stealing her homeworks, that kind of thing – but that didn’t really get at the point of what Eliza wanted to do, and it might be possible to trace it back to her. Harder, if she didn’t use her wand, but still maybe possible. Mother would have a coronary if that happened, and Father would also be disappointed in her – not for doing it, she thought, but for getting caught.
So she sat there, looking pretty and trying to plot and wondering miserably, as that didn’t go so well, if she was really fit to be a Bennett or a Crotalus at all.
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Eliza Bennett
Being obsessive and trying to plot
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Eliza Bennett
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Nic Sawyer
February 28, 2011 4:41 PM
You're doing it wrong by Nic Sawyer
Nic was not stalking Rachel Bauer. He was writing a potions essay. If Rachel happened to walk past on her way back from classes at this time most days, that was neither here nor there to Nic Sawyer. It was complete coincidence.Unfortunately, for the vast majority of this vigil - er, homework writing time - Rachel was not available for watching. Not that, obviously, Nic cared. But it was just that Eliza Bennett was there, and so he could hardly be faulted if his eye drifted across her from time to time.
Sometimes, Nic wondered if she was also stalki- waiti- if there was somebody she was hoping might talk to her. She did converse with others from time to time, but none seemed more important to her than any of the others, so far as he could tell. Just Renee, really, and that was a very different sort of interest.
He was glad he and Sam got along much better than that. Granted, he and Sam didn't much interact with one another, but when they did, it was on much friendlier terms than seemed to exist between Eliza and Renee. He could spot a feud like that at twenty paces.
Honestly, he was impressed. True, he didn't know Eliza very well, but what he could see of her, she didn't seem like the feuding type. Maybe it was family related. Blood pures got weird about family. He was glad Dad put an entire country between Nic and the rest of the Sawyers. Being the first half-blood Sawyer was not a fun picnic.
He wasn't sure if maybe he was supposed to take Renee's side because they were on the Quidditch team together, but he felt a certain element of fellowship with Eliza for joining him on his vigil- in his homework space as often as she did. Plus, they'd had dinner together (briefly) this past feast, and they sort of knew each other from the play. Not to mention, she'd clearly staked her territory, which bordered his territory, and therefore that made them neighbors and allies until one of them tried to invade the other's space.
Today, she was looking particularly displeased, and he felt compelled to break their long standing silence of neutrality. "Something wrong, Miss Bennett?" he asked formally, since she seemed to like formality and he'd watched her long enough to know that. This was a friendly overture, after all; not the first step in breaking their peace.
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Nic Sawyer
You're doing it wrong
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Renée Errant
March 01, 2011 10:05 AM
Passing Through by Renée Errant
Unable to resist another day at MARS, Renée made her way to the common room, just recently dried long curly hair pulled up by a pin, a few of the usual wild strands gracing her face. Though she had gone again to the water room, it had been a river this time instead of a stormy beach which made her feel less excited but more playful. And now that she was out she was feeling bored. 'Could do my homework.' She dismissively thought. 'Nah.' The only class she really bothered to try for was Care of Magical Creatures. Everything else came moderately easy for her so she had gotten into the habit of procrastinating. She avoided the work, letting the essays build up, and then chose a night to do them all. Her rather stressful technique seemed to be working for now, she held excellent grades. She supposed her latest were why her mother had deemed it necessary to send her another gift. Renée rolled her eyes as she carried the bulky package underneath her arm, knowing her mother well enough to tell what the gift most likely was.Marianna never gave up. It was a trait shared by both her children but neither Gabriel nor Renée could ever hope to be as stubborn as their mother. As a bit of a fashion icon in New York and most definitely Spain, Marianna thrived in pureblood society, despite the fact that she had married a muggleborn. She demanded to be treated as the exception and she was. Women were proud to wear her dresses and men were happy to allow their wives to make them wear her dress robes. The only person, it seemed, who was not awed by her designs was Marianna's daughter. 'But does she listen? No.' Renée had grown up to take her natural wild beauty in stride; dismissing it and what it was worth because she did not value what she believed she would always have. Marianna cherished her own beauty because she truly feared what would happen when she grew old and less attractive. Renée didn't even believe she would grow old; she had truly begun to believe that she would live forever. It was just how her mind worked; she lived now, so she would live forever.
Speaking the password, Renée stepped inside, shifting the package to the other arm and scanned the common room briefly. "Hola. Hola." She smiled at Nic and just barely held back a smirk at Eliza. While she had sensed the other girl's hostility towards her (Renée herself had forgotten the reason for it), she had no idea of the apparent obsession the other girl had. It already amused her to see Eliza always glaring at her, or avoiding the dorm room because she was around. She rather liked the power rush, though she truly felt no hostility in her end. It took a lot for her to be angry, and when she was it was usually fleeting. Her attention span was just too short to focus on anyone besides herself. Well, she liked her team well enough, and interesting people like Neal, and she adored her father and brother. But the few fragments of frustration she felt belonged with her mother. The package was feeling heavier and heavier.
"Véale más adelante." She swept past them, dried robes brushing past her legs as she hurried up the stairs and dumped the package on her bed. Her mother had instructed her to use more Spanish as she was soon to enter Spanish pureblood society next year. While she was capable of understanding most of what was said to her, it was the actual speaking of it herself that she had to practice with. Gabriel sometimes helped by writing to her in Spanish; sometimes she felt alienated by the two of them being the one not actually born in Spain. There was a link between them that she would have liked to share. So she tried harder to master the language. "Time to open you up. What could this possibly be?" She opened the box, shifted through the thin paper, and sighed in amused resignation. "Mama, do you never give up?"
A beautiful original Marianna Errantez dress was being held up in her daughter's darkly tanned hands. It was long and a rich blue. Tiny diamonds pinned the straps going over the shoulders on either side. Despite her external exasperation, Renée was eager to try it on. "No." She frowned, trying to resist. "This is what she wants." Of all the dresses to tempt her daughter, this would certainly be the one. It held a very medieval look to it, the mid-drift was creased and had a silver hardened fabric plunging the neckline. She sucked in a breath as she continued to look it over, laid it on her bed, and ran her fingers over it. She began to fold it up, but then paused, groaning in defeat. “I'll kill her for this.” One try-on wouldn't hurt. Terribly.
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Renée Errant
Passing Through
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Renée Errant
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Eliza
March 04, 2011 12:38 PM
I'm starting to think so by Eliza
OOC: I read the end of Renee’s post as starting a sub-thread in the dorm room, so I’m replying up here. I hope that’s all right with everyone. BIC:”Something wrong, Miss Bennett?”
Eliza looked over at Nic, a little surprised to hear him speak. Well, more than a little. She had registered his regular presence in a place near the one she also regularly took before, but had not been sure he registered hers. Still, she didn’t mind him, and was scrambling for an answer that would suffice when….
“Hola, hola.”
Her jaw clenched of its own accord, and it really didn’t help her relax it when That Girl promptly said something in Spanish that she only understood one word of. Something was very something. Possibly related to veal, but since Eliza was fairly sure it had been an insult she wasn’t meant to understand, she wasn’t as sure about that one. It hadn’t sounded long enough to compare her to a meat dish she didn’t even like.
She succeeded, though, in refusing to acknowledge That Girl’s existence in any other way, and since, Eliza assumed, she had nothing to entertain her, she left before she could provoke Eliza into saying something regrettable about her character, prospects in life, personal hygiene, and every other thought she’d ever wasted on her. “That is bothering me,” she said, tilting her head toward the stairs, since she expected she still looked at least a little angry and, somehow, Nic Sawyer didn’t seem like someone to play the liar game with. “Do you have any idea what she said?”
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Eliza
I'm starting to think so
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Eliza
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Nic
March 04, 2011 1:53 PM
Do you know her habits yet? by Nic
Before Eliza could answer, Renee herself waltzed through the commonroom and said something in Spanish, mostly to Eliza, he thought, but she had acknowledged Nic's presence as well. He was far from fluent in the language, but he was from Southern Florida. There were a lot of Spanish speakers in his neighborhood. It felt perfectly normal to hear the foreign words roll over him even if he wasn't entirely sure of their meaning.Eliza was not nearly as unruffled by the encounter. He hadn't picked up on more than a trace snideness from Renee, but it was clearly enough to get to Eliza. She confirmed as much when she placed the full blame for her unhappiness on their recent visitor.
Asked to translate, Nic shrugged. "Not sure of the literal translation, exactly, but it means 'bye,' I think. Couple of the guys in my neighborhood say that when they leave sometimes. They use it interchangeably with 'adios' and 'chau' and 'hasta luego' and some other longer phrases in Spanish," at least a few of which involved curse words, Nic thought, judging by the reactions of the the other Spanish-speakers around, but that wasn't one of them, "so I don't think it's anything bad."
Just because it wasn't actually offensive didn't mean it wasn't meant to be, though, especially since Eliza clearly didn't understand the language and Renee probably knew that. He frowned a little at the girls' staircase where Renee had gone. "Does she do that a lot? Say things to you that you can't understand?"
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Nic
Do you know her habits yet?
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Eliza
March 07, 2011 10:48 PM
Not less 'being chaotic' is a habit by Eliza
Eliza blinked, surprised, when Nic said he didn’t think That Girl had actually said something bad to them – or, more properly, to her. If she hadn’t meant to be offensive in a way it would be hard to prove and have her punished for, then why hadn’t she just spoken a language which everyone there understood?Oh – wait. Because she was Renee Errant, and she existed to make everyone around her unhappy and mildly homicidal, and she had to have picked up by now that Eliza Bennett didn’t speak above ten words of Spanish and could only hazard guesses about things she said in that language, guesses based on false cognates and paranoia. That was why. Eliza had always thought of herself as a nice enough person, and not someone to like a confrontation or trouble, but she was truly starting to hate That Girl so much it worried her a little. She’d accept looking like an idiot in a week of Potions discussions and Transfiguration class if that was offered to her in exchange for seeing That Girl humiliated and humbled in public, and the thing that had started this in the first place was That Girl’s implication that Eliza was just a stupid nobody who should do as she was told and not expect to be treated with basic respect.
“She likes to do that, yes,” Eliza said when asked about That Girl’s habit of speaking Spanish in monolingual company. “She likes to feel superior to people, like she’s the smartest person here – well, to hear her talk, she really thinks she is already – and that helps her. Does she not do it all of you on the Quidditch team?”
As she said that, she was thinking. On one hand, talking too much to Nic could cause a problem with Jordan, since she’d told Jordan she could have him if she wanted him after the Feast, but on the other…anyone who was on her side was, by default, not on That Girl’s, and the way he’d said that made her think he might not really approve of That Girl being like she’d just been. The frown was also a hint. And he was on the Quidditch team, so if he didn’t like That Girl, but continued to have at least the same sort of agreeable relationship they’d had thus far… Well, that could be good.
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Eliza
Not less 'being chaotic' is a habit
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Eliza
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Nic
March 10, 2011 10:47 AM
I think that's a trait, not a habit. by Nic
Nic shrugged when Eliza asked if Renee acted superior at Quidditch Practice. "I'm the Keeper," he explained. "I sit at one end of the pitch at they throw balls at me that I'm supposed to stop from going through the hoops. I don't really socialize." That was as much a universal statement of fact as it was a comment on his interactions with the rest of the Quidditch team.Neither was he sure how the rest of the team got along with each other, though he imagined Charlie and Marissa got on seeing as how they were captains and prefects together and one would be dead by now if they didn't (or, at the very least, it would be very obvious they didn't like each other). But how anyone got along with Renee specifically was outside the scope of things he generally noticed.
"I guess she cheers when she gets one past me, but I figured that was just the game. Chasers trying to score and Keepers trying to stop them have an adversarial relationship even under the best conditions."
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Nic
I think that's a trait, not a habit.
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Nic
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Rachel Bauer
March 10, 2011 12:53 PM
Walking past on my way back from classes at this time. by Rachel Bauer
Rachel came through the common room a lot, but was usually in a hurry when she did, so she usually only exchanged quick greetings with other society or society-ish people and didn’t notice anyone else, or even really the people she was exchanging greetings with. She usually had only minutes to change clothes and touch up her make-up and hair before she was supposed to be somewhere else, and that didn’t leave a lot of time for soul-baring chats with her Housemates even had she been inclined to have such things. Which she very much wasn’t.Today, though, she was able to move a little slower than usual, because she was thinking she was going to wear what she had on to dinner. Light gray was as close to a House color as she was going to wear in a full dress for a casual evening – an actual shiny, silver dress would have been gauche, and a red one just a little too much for the occasion – and she thought that it not only looked okay with the green robes, but it also went – in her opinion; Momma didn’t always agree with her opinions about clothes – great with her straight-for-today blond hair and light blue eyes. If she still looked pretty good, she wasn’t going to change everything up again just to eat a meal with the Aladren girls. She was sure they’d understand this inclination.
Just having a few minutes to sort out her homework things before she needed them instead of having to perform beauty rituals at a marathon pace was enough to put her in a better mood as she entered the common room, and she actually smiled at people first as she made her way across it. Eliza Bennett usually said “good afternoon” or something to her first, so today, she decided to shake up the pattern. “Afternoon, Eliza,” she said, then noticed Eliza was speaking to someone already. “Hi,” she added, also extending the smile to Super Tall Keeper Guy. She couldn’t remember his name off the top of her head, but she thought he was Sam’s roommate, too.
And, now that she thought of it, she thought he sat there a lot. Enough that he’d become part of the furniture, anyway, and she thought it would be weird if she hurried through one day and he wasn’t somewhere in that vicinity. She guessed he was one of those Crotali who got really attached to specific chairs and desks and stuff.
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Rachel Bauer
Walking past on my way back from classes at this time.
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Eliza
March 10, 2011 4:54 PM
*Waves* by Eliza
Eliza wasn’t overly familiar with Quidditch, but nodded as Nic described what it was he did on the team. If someone had asked her which player was the Keeper during a game, the position he had just described would have been the position she pointed to just based on logic, though she didn’t see why she’d ever have occasion to do that. Quidditch was definitely not something she was supposed to take an interest in, and she didn’t really think it would have become much of an interest even if it hadn’t been forbidden. It was too violent, too chaotic, too…outside.That was one problem Mother had never had with her. Paul had trouble staying indoors when he was supposed to sometimes, and Leo even more than Paul, but Eliza didn’t even enjoy long picnics. It usually just got too hot, or she saw an ant trail, or there were flies – something to bother her, anyway.
“I imagine so,” she said. She could see how it would make someone feel happy to succeed in something, and in the case of the Quidditch match, succeeding meant making the Keeper fail, so the Keeper would then be unhappy. “It could just be me she has a problem with. I don’t know. I’ve never done anything to her.”
That was the thing that made it so confusing. Eliza could understand deciding to be cruel to someone because they did something to her – that was the problem. She could even see, more distantly, irrationally disliking someone because they had something she didn’t, but that didn’t seem like what could have happened. Yes, That Girl’s mother was no lady from what Eliza had learned about her, she designed clothes and had apparently given her children her maiden name, but she was rich, and while Eliza was a good enough student because she was very good at following directions, she didn’t think she was brilliant enough for that to be a point of resentment.
She looked up, surprised and feeling as though she’d been caught, when she heard someone else speak to her from the outside, but smiled automatically. “Good afternoon,” she said once she registered it was just Rachel Bauer. She usually came through around this time. “How are you today?”
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Eliza
*Waves*
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Eliza
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Nicodemus Sawyer
March 10, 2011 8:09 PM
*struck dumb* by Nicodemus Sawyer
Nic wasn't entirely sure what to tell Eliza. He was pre-inclined to believe she was not making something out of nothing, so clearly Renee was at fault somehow, but he could not offer any evidence that Renee was cruel to other people, and he certainly didn't know if not knowing why (or if) Eliza was being singled out was something he was supposed to deny ("I'm sure it's just not you") or reassure her about or commiserate about (however one reassured or commiserated about something like that).Before he could formulate a reply, Rachel Bauer came into the room and killed all chance that he might ever come up with a response for Eliza.
His eyes were drawn to the common room entrance as it opened and all thought of Renee, Eliza, and Quidditch (to say nothing of the potions essay he'd already abandoned) fled his brain in favor watching her walk across the room . . . greet Eliza . . . walk past up to her room - wait.
She didn't walk past. She stopped. She turned to him. She smiled at him. She said hi.
Rachel Bauer said hi to him. And smiled. Rachel Bauer smiled at him.
Nic felt his face heating up as his mouth opened and closed a few times emitting little more than an 'h' sound. Eventually, he got over that hurdle and managed the proper reply. The only reply that mattered in the world right now. "H-h-h-hi, Rachel."
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Nicodemus Sawyer
*struck dumb*
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Rachel
March 11, 2011 9:23 AM
*Smiles more* by Rachel
Eliza looked kind of surprised to see Rachel, and her friend like he was about to stroke out, and somehow, Rachel had the feeling she’d just walked in on something that she shouldn’t have.That could be a bit of a damper on a good mood, but they were in Crotalus. She had never really been involved in any plotting that didn’t involve being blackmailed by Raines or planning to do everything in her limited to power to assume he didn’t get school-sanctioned power over her with a prefect’s badge next year – she thought those intrigues, straightforward as they were, were still enough for her plate for the next decade or so – but she assumed something was usually going on between someone, most of the time against someone else, and the ‘polite’ part of being a respectable member of society meant none of them could mention it, so it was mostly irrelevant.
Unless they were plotting something about her, but Rachel didn’t think so. Even if they Knew, why would they also want to hold it over her head? Raines’ problem with her, she thought, was personal in nature; if he really had as deep a seated objection to half-bloods as he acted like he did, he would have thought it was a moral duty or something to expose her, and they had just rubbed each other the wrong way from the day they met, and something, she had no idea what, had happened to make things suddenly kind of blow up in her face. She barely had anything to do with these two, outside of passing them in the common room and usually exchanging ‘good days’ with the little one; she and Eliza had never even shared classes. They only knew her name because they shared a common room, and maybe because she was Sam's cousin.
Not exactly what she would have chosen to be known for, being related to Sam when he was quite content with his blood status and place in the world, but everyone had a few relatives the family didn't really talk about. Some people had entire sub-branches full of them. She thought she was okay.
“Pretty good, pretty good,” she replied brightly when Eliza asked how she was, smile intact. She glanced over again at – Rick? No, that wasn’t quite it. He was still looking a little off. “How about you guys? Doing good today?”
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Rachel
*Smiles more*
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Eliza
March 12, 2011 10:53 PM
*Sits back to watch the show* by Eliza
Eliza glanced curiously at Nic when he seemed momentarily transfixed and dumbstruck by Rachel’s entrance and greeting, but didn’t comment on it. If it turned out he had a problem with Rachel and she had a problem with That Girl, then maybe they could work out some kind of agreement, but if he didn’t choose to share the nature of his staring and stammering, then it was his business.Until, of course, she could find out about it by asking someone else, but there was a difference between useful information and fun gossip. In the scenario where she and Nic didn’t both get something they wanted out of sharing their Crotalus girl problems, finding out what was up with him and Rachel would most likely fall into the second category. Eliza couldn’t see herself as one of those people who was constantly gathering information with the full intention of actually using it, not when it didn’t apply directly to That Girl. Her, she was constantly on the lookout for a way to take down, but Nic Sawyer and Rachel Bauer? No.
“I’m well, thanks,” she said when Rachel returned the question. “I mean, thank you,” she added, blushing slightly. She had an eye for those who were trying just a little too hard after living with her mother all her life, but while Rachel was definitely one of those people, she wasn’t nearly bad enough to not speak properly to. Not when she could still, on most days, speak properly to Mother when Mother was a million times worse. “Mr. Sawyer and I were just discussing Quidditch. You’re related to someone on the team, aren’t you?”
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Eliza
*Sits back to watch the show*
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Eliza
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Nic Sawyer
March 14, 2011 10:08 AM
*struggles to think* by Nic Sawyer
If Eliza was still there, Nic had completely lost track of her. Rachel Bauer stood less than two feet away, she was smiling at him, her hair was perfect, the grey dress she was one of the nicest he ever seen on her, and she was asking after his day.Oh no! She was asking after his day! That meant he needed to come up with an answer! He needed to say something. Something about his day. Anything. A word should be enough. He could handle a word. "Beautiful," he said, and realized his mistake immediately. The adjective applied far more to Rachel herself than his day, and he doubted he could correct it without making things much much worse. He felt himself flushing again.
Fortunately, Eliza reappeared in his world just then and rescued him. He loved her. She was the sister he never knew he'd wanted until just now. But he owed her everything. She spoke and drew attention away from him and his idiocy and thank Merlin she was there or God only knew what he might have said next. If Rachel somehow came away from this without thinking he was a complete moron it was entirely thanks to Eliza.
He nodded in agreement to her words, not trusting his tongue to supply any verbal additions, though he was already aware that Rachel did, in fact, have a relation on the team. That hadn't even been one of the difficult things to find out about her.
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Nic Sawyer
*struggles to think*
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Nic Sawyer
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Rachel
March 14, 2011 1:33 PM
*Makes small talk* by Rachel
Rachel decided to tactfully ignore Eliza’s apparent embarrassment over having said ‘thanks’ instead of ‘thank you,’ both because she wouldn’t have actually noticed if the younger girl hadn’t immediately corrected herself and because she identified her friend. There was, she thought, only one Sawyer on Fawcett’s roll call of doom, which she remembered because his first name was really weird.Nicodemus. That was his name. Yeah, that sounded right. Well, not right, because that name sounded vaguely demonic, but she didn’t think he actually went by it anyway. She’d been sure it ended in a ‘k’ sound, that was why she’d thought it was Rick, so – Nick? Sure, that sounded good.
But she was seriously going to have to start paying more attention to who people outside her immediate circle were. She couldn’t imagine that Nick of the beautiful day would have appreciated it if she called him Rick.
“Yeah,” she said, nodding confirmation that she was related to someone on the team. “Sam the Chaser. We’re cousins.” She decided to very definitely not mention that her father’s sister was his mother. For one thing, that would look pretty bad even with ‘everyone’s got a few relatives like that’ when she and Sam had the same surname, and for another, she liked Aunt Hannah – and, for that matter, Sam, though she didn’t act on that much anymore – and it would be hard to go along with it if Eliza or Nick said something bad about her. Better not even to include the degree to which Sam was her cousin at all. “Different states, though.”
She decided the conversation did not need to be on that, either. “There’s a game coming up soon, isn’t there? Hope this one goes better for the Bauers than the last one did.” And maybe she shouldn’t have said that, either, but it wasn’t exactly a secret that her sister was the Teppenpaw Seeker now, and that game was still being discussed around school. “Or at least that I don’t get rained on this time.”
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Rachel
*Makes small talk*
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Rachel
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Eliza
March 14, 2011 3:26 PM
*Speculates* by Eliza
Eliza might have assumed Nic being non-verbal was just Nic being non-verbal, but he was also, unless it had suddenly gotten a lot hotter in here and Mother had charmed her robes to be resistant to that kind of thing without telling her, blushing. Oh, yes, she was going to have to find out what all this was about. Did he, like, like Rachel or something?And if he did, well, where did that go? Did Jordan still think he was cute, and, if so, could Eliza divert either Jordan’s attention to another boy or Nic’s to Jordan? The second option would be dependent on whether or not Nic liked Rachel or just blondes in general. She would like to keep them both on her side, and that couldn’t work if some hideously complicated love triangle got involved.
This was why Eliza was glad she had yet to be attracted to a boy, even though she was approaching thirteen and betrothal age. Liking boys like that, or being liked by one like that, seemed as if it just made things so much more complicated when getting through school without giving an inch to an enemy or drawing the wrath of the staff or making more enemies, socializing with all the right people and none of the wrong ones except when it had the right kind of benefits, and keeping up her grades was already hard enough. Since married women replaced keeping up their grades with keeping their loads of children (she was the eldest of five, but Paul was barely two years younger than her, so she couldn’t quite imagine life without a baby crying and someone yelling because someone else got into their good stuff and stains somehow always ending up on the dress robes), which sounded worse even when she contemplated Professor Crosby, she didn’t know how they managed at all.
She nodded her agreement with Rachel’s hope that the game went better for the older girl’s family than the last one had, since a win for the Bauers meant a win for Crotalus, and Eliza liked seeing the House point numbers go up however it happened. “I wasn’t there, but I heard it was awful after the rain started,” she said. “And that your sister was injured. I hope she’s doing better now?”
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Eliza
*Speculates*
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Eliza
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Nic Sawyer
March 15, 2011 1:47 PM
*manages not to stutter again* by Nic Sawyer
Not having ever actually dared to ask Sam about Rachel, Nic listened closely as she explained that they were cousins, but from different states. That, combined with how little he'd seen the two talk with each other, indicated to him that Sam would probably not care too much if he found out NicHalf-fearing his roommate might be Rachel's brother, Nic had so far been careful to keep his thoughts on Rachel Bauer on the down-low from him. Even being distant cousins, he didn't think he was just going to announce, *Hey, I think your cousin's hot. Do you mind if I continue to stalk her?*
Somehow, he didn't think that would go over well.
He realized the two girls were talking about Quidditch around the same time they seemed to expect him to say something. "Yeah," he agreed, confirming there was a game coming up. "Saturday." Anything more than that was entirely beyond him.
Fortunately, the conversation moved on and he was able to nod along and agree rain was bad (even if he hadn't actually watched the game and therefore hadn't suffered the downpour he'd heard about). Eliza again saved him from being a fool by picking up the conversational thread and asking if Rachel's sister (so Kate was definitely her sister then; Nic made a mental note of that) was doing better.
Nic certainly wouldn't have been able to add anything original to the topic despite that he was the only one of the three of them who actually did play Quidditch.
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Nic Sawyer
*manages not to stutter again*
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Nic Sawyer
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Rachel
March 21, 2011 12:18 AM
*Exits, probably* by Rachel
“Saturday,” Rachel repeated when Nick confirmed that the game was happening then. “I’ll put that on my schedule.” She smiled at Nick. “Good luck against the Pecari Chasers.”She nodded when Eliza asked after Kate. “She says she is,” she said, not mentioning how alarmed she’d been when she saw her sister joining the crowd flocking to the medic’s tent after the game. She’d played Quidditch, too, before the divorce, and was sure she’d seen Kate take some spills back then, but that had practically been another life, and none of them had been capable of hitting a Bludger as hard as she was gonna guess a guy with Edmond Carey’s mass could back then, and she hadn’t, in the rain, been able to tell exactly what was wrong with Kate, or when she’d been injured.
She hadn’t mentioned this, either, and wasn’t planning to mention it to anyone, but she’d been proud of and impressed by Kate, even if Teppenpaw had lost. That battle between her and the Aladren Seeker – he was a first year, but she thought he was also yet another Carey and an Aladren, which both did a lot to make him more credible than the average firstie – had been epic.
“It wasn’t bad,” she added. “She cracked her shoulder or something. The medic fixed it up like that.” She snapped her fingers to demonstrate the speed and skill Medic Rocamboli had demonstrated in her craft.
She shifted her weight between her feet and adjusted how her bag sat on her shoulder. “Okay, I’ve got to go sort some stuff out before supper, but it was good seeing you guys. See you later!”
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Rachel
*Exits, probably*
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Rachel
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Eliza
March 21, 2011 11:48 AM
*Waves again* by Eliza
Eliza nodded as Rachel explained her sister’s injury had not been serious. A cracked shoulder sounded very painful, and like it could be bad if it affected the wand arm, but she’d never had any broken bones to compare it to and did have no reason to think Rachel was wrong. She’d never noticed that any of the Bauers seemed very close, but she wasn’t too close to her sister, either, and would still be more upset than this if anything bad in a more than momentary way happened to Gemma.At least she didn’t think she’d have to worry about Gem ever wanting to play Quidditch. The only other girl in the family was a perfect dainty little girl. Eliza acted more boyish than Gemma did, and was very sure that, of all the things anyone at Sonora might have thought about calling her, ‘tomboy’ had never even made it onto the list. That would be one of a very small number of insults That Girl could throw at her that would just make her laugh and pity the stupid thing instead of being further outraged by her existence and audacity.
“That’s very good,” she said when Rachel indicated how quickly the medic had fixed Kate up. Though it wasn’t really proper of her, since Kate did play Quidditch and stuff, Eliza kind of liked the other second year. They had been in the play together last year.
She glanced at Nic again. He had been there, too. Coalition? She’d never thought of expanding the group of people she was trying to turn against That Girl outside of Crotalus, but there could be benefits to doing so. That Girl spent a lot of time with Pecaris; Eliza had seen poor Neal Padrig getting pulled in, and he’d been in the play, too. Maybe making the whole school refuse to offer Her the courtesy of a name or even acknowledgment, when not forced to by the staff, of Her existence would have more of an impact than just having proper people do so. The play people could be a start.
But that would involve interacting with sixth years, and Quidditch players, and boys, and all sorts of people she normally wouldn’t work with. Could she actually find the nerve to talk to those people, or set up things so That Girl was humiliated or behaved disgracefully in front of them even if they didn't know Eliza had anything to do with it at all?
She thought about That Girl’s insults, her superior smirk, her complete disregard for everyone around her. She thought she could do anything that wouldn’t get her disowned to break That Girl.
Rachel was talking again. Eliza smiled automatically. “Yes, it was nice seeing you. Have a good day,” she said brightly.
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Eliza
*Waves again*
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Eliza
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Nic
March 21, 2011 2:45 PM
Good-bye, Rachel Bauer by Nic
Nodding with Eliza, as much because he didn't have anything to say as because he was afraid he wouldn't be able to say it, he listened to Rachel's report about Kate's health and worried that Rachel Bauer would be watching him in the next game. What if he did something stupid? What if - despite the practice and the length of his arms - the entirely too possible happened and he let in a goal or more? Would Rachel hate him then?Would Sam?
And which would be worse? Rachel was, well, Rachel Bauer, but Sam was the guy he had to live with for another four and a half more years.
Merlin, why had he joined the team again? This was one of the reasons why he had abhorred team sports at home, why he hadn't joined the team here until his hand was forced. What did he think he had to gain by doing this, anyway?
... Rachel would be watching if he did save a goal ...
And Rachel was leaving now. He was sure he had failed to impress her with his sterling conversational skills, so saving a goal was probably one of the few ways left to do so now.
First though, he had to say something again, a very simple word that had much fewer syllables than 'Saturday' did and so he should be able to handle it without any problems since he'd managed to say that that.
"Bye," he said with minimal outward difficulty. Thank God.
He was an idiot. A complete and total idiot.
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Nic
Good-bye, Rachel Bauer
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Nic
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