Wu Peizhi
July 05, 2016 3:15 AM
Borrowing your Head of House [Tag: Prof. Skies] by Wu Peizhi
Peizhi couldn’t sleep. She had only been back to her Teppenpaw bed for about a week, but those nights had been horrible. Her record for consecutive hours was a little over three, and even when she was asleep--as brief as it was--she was not at rest. Most of the nights were spent staring at the ceiling, her mind spinning in infinite, unproductive circles. Always quietly so as not to disturb her roommate, sometimes Wu cried. And sometimes she laughed, too; in her declined state of semi-hysterics, it was almost amusing how desperate she felt, and how ironic it was that during the school year she just wanted to go home but at home she always wanted to leave.That alone was destroying her. She was only thirteen, far too young for this level of turmoil where no place felt okay. Sonora was torturous now that she had alienated the people who had taken her into their group and made her feel so safe and--dare she even think it--happy. But being home had always been torture, the reward of seeing Bohai (which was often shortened or held over her head and postponed until she had achieved “good behavior” as her father called it) quickly becoming not worth the sacrifice of spending time there.
Wu was so, so tired, mentally and physically. Despite her normal silent nature, with all of this strain, she felt as if she might burst if she didn’t talk to someone. She needed advice and decided to seek out an adult. The obvious choice was Mr. Xavier, since he was her Head of House, but even though he seemed so terribly kind, the third year had trouble really trusting men. And though obviously not fault of his own, Mr. Xavier was such a large, towering man and she was such a small girl that appearances only furthered her hesitation.
After looking over the female staff members with as much dedication and focus as the sleep-diminished girl was capable of, Peizhi eventually settled on approaching Professor Skies. The Transfiguration professor, though her class was easily one of Wu’s weakest, was someone that she felt about as close to comfortable with as possible. She was the Deputy Headmistress and a Head of House, which credited her reliability. Plus, she was the one who taught the academic support classes Wu attended, and those were… well, admittedly, a bit tense since she’d basically stopped talking to the Donovans but in all terms related to Professor Skies’s control were okay.
Yawning as she went, Wu fought the urge to collapse and flittered to the Deputy Headmistress’s office. She bit her lip nervously as she knocked on the door: lightly at first, but then a bit harder as she feared she would not be heard and would have walked all this way for nothing. At the first sign of motion, sad, dark eyes flew up to where the professor’s face would soon be.
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Borrowing your Head of House [Tag: Prof. Skies]
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Professor Skies
July 12, 2016 11:47 PM
Being borrowed by Professor Skies
Selina was not quite all caught up with her paperwork, but she was on top of it enough to dedicate this evening to her own interests, and had outstanding letters from her oldest daughter and her niece to reply to. She was part way through the reply to Rosie, her niece, when there was a knock on the door. Selina swept the letters into her top drawer, carefully laying the one she’d been working on on top so that the ink could dry.“Hello,” she said, as she opened the door, scanning down until her eye’s met her student’s. It turned out to be Wu. Whilst she wasn’t the girl’s Head of House, she knew her quite well from the study support group, so wasn’t terribly surprised to find her showing up in her office. The study group could be quite busy, and Wu wasn’t exactly one to speak up, so perhaps she had some issue with her homework, and hadn’t found it possible to voice this during the study session.
“Come in and have a seat,” Selina smiled, noting with concern that the girl looked rather tired, and trying to think whether this had been the case in their last study session too… Whether this was a one off sleepless night or one of many… The trouble was that between children setting their own bedtimes, teenagers being dragged out of bed early, and students who were just plain bored, yawning was not an unusual occurrence in class, and she found it hard to pinpoint whether she had noticed this particular behaviour in Wu over the last week. She made a note to keep an eye on her though, if she didn’t bring it up herself now. “How can I help you?” she asked.
OOC - for future reference, it is generally not considered God-modding to include a phrase such as ‘Once she was invited in….’ so you can have the character enter the office and get on with explaining why they’re there.
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Professor Skies
Being borrowed
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Wu Peizhi
July 17, 2016 12:56 AM
I appreciate it. by Wu Peizhi
Wu liked Professor Skies. She was a nice woman who was quite bright but never made Wu feel dumb. She made her feel cared for in a way that was completely new. Not to say that her parents did not care for her or love her, but there was still the knowledge of her uses to them. Peizhi was an emissary. A spy. A bargaining chip. Almost, she thought… expendable. But Professor Skies just looked out for her partially because it was her job and partially, it felt, because she wanted to. That was nice.The young Teppenpaw did as she was told--or more accurately invited--to do, entering and taking a seat opposite the professor’s desk. Professor Skies was a Head of House, which meant the Crotalus Common Room was concealed somewhere near the vicinity of this office. That was where Laila lived. The thought made her very nervous.
“How can I help you?”
The third year swallowed. “I need… uh, advise?” she said meekly, not sure if she was using the word correctly. “I am having trouble with… many things. People.” Wu realized immediately how that sounded and backpedalled: “Not in a way that is someone being mean to me. The opposite. I-..” She trailed off temporarily, the Chinese words rushing through her mind without solid translation, and even the ones that were warping into English felt like they were sticking in her throat. She was not a very open person. This was going to be hard.
“My father sends me here to meet Purebloods like me,” she explained nervously. “I am supposed to… to meet people. Find things out about Americans. But the people I know, the ones I spend time…. They are not like me. So I try to…. Distance. This has made them sad. I think I am sad too. I like them. They make me feel happy and safe, but my father… they are useless to him.” It almost burned her throat to be so honest, particularly because this honesty brought a fairly negative light to her father. Wu and her father had never been affectionate or terribly close--at home she lived for Bohai, loved him and almost only him--but he was not a bad man. He was a pragmatist. “I do not want to disobey, but… I hurt people this way. What do I do?”
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I appreciate it.
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Professor Skies
July 23, 2016 3:11 AM
Have you tried just not giving a crap? by Professor Skies
One thing Selina had learnt over the years was to hold her tongue. She was a chatterer by nature and was keen to jump in with ideas as soon as Wu started speaking. But she needed to give the girl time to get her words out. And then some… She had learnt, over the years, to ride out the pauses with students, and that you often got more by staying silent than by prying with further questions. She let Wu find all her words, the student eventually summing up her problem, the real question she was here to ask… Should she disobey her father or hurt her friends?“Well, I’ve never been someone who cares about blood purity,” she explained, figuring she should make her personal stance clear partly so as not to endorse the views of anyone who did, but also because she felt Wu deserved to know the politics of the person who was advising her. In her younger days she might have counselled differently… Argued more strongly for the politics she herself believed in but she had come to see that the consequences of any Pureblood following that road weren’t to be taken lightly. She still hated their politics but had sympathy with people like Wu who, whilst they were still children, were just pawns. “But I’m not going to pretend this is an easy choice, or tell you to just follow what you - what I - believe, because the consequences to that would be very serious for you. At the same time, it’s important to have friends. And I think not hurting others is a good thing to try and do.
“Is there anyone saying you can’t have both?” If there was, she imagined it was the father. Although it was hard to tell what children were like behind closed doors, she couldn’t imagine Gia, Laila and Sammy (whom she thought were Wu’s usual friends) pushing her out, making her choose - Wu had even said, no one was being mean to her. Come to that, the Pureblood girls in her year didn’t seem the extreme of snooty disapproval either. She couldn’t imagine them forcing her to take a side.
“Kira Spaulding seems like a nice girl,” she added. She didn’t have anything against Ingrid Wolseithcrafte either, only she seemed rather exuberant and Wu was so quiet. “If you were friends with her that would please your father. But it wouldn’t have to stop you being friends with the other girls, would it? You have to live with them, work with them for the next five years… Is it forbidden for you to be friendly with them?”
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Have you tried just not giving a crap?
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