Headmistress Marnett

June 09, 2006 11:00 PM
Headmistress Marnett knew she should be calm and collected on the first day of the term. The staff and especially the students would expect it, after all, and she never was one to fret or appear particularly worried. But it had been two years since she last stood in this place, as the head of Sonora about to welcome a new set of first years. And, much against her logical mind and generally down-to-earth disposition, the headmistress was feeling quite paranoid as to how her school would fare over the course of this term.

This past year, or at least the half in which Lucinda was present to witness, had been pleasantly peaceful. Everything went on without a hitch and Sonora once again seemed to gain well-deserved respect from the community. It was nice, as well as a much needed rest. The year before, however. That was an entirely different story. Utter disaster didn't even begin to describe it. The school, staff, and possibly a few traumatized students were left in to suffer the consequences as the weather system, keeping Sonora in livable conditions throughout the year, seemed intent on destroying everything. The entire, horrible debacle finally ended anti-climatically when a prairie elf vigorously cleaning the school was discovered as the source of all the problems. And then there was the year before...pleasantly peaceful once again. The headmistress couldn't remember if the year before that was at all unbearable, but the chance of this term being “pleasantly peaceful” was beginning to seem rather unlikely.

As it was, nothing yet had gone awry. The students had arrived by way of the usual stuffy, uncomfortable covered wagons. They were escorted into the Cascade Hall as Tavarius Mims the painting of Sonora’s points keeper looked on, commanding them, like any old, stodgy professor would, to stand straight and quiet down. Most important to this evening, the first years were once again each given a chalice of clear, bubbly potion at their table and then, as one large group, told to drink. Upon drinking the potion, each student would turn the prominent color of their house: a bright blue for Aladren, deep red for Crotalus, a sunshine shade of yellow for Teppenpaw, and of course a mud variety of brown for Pecari. It was as the traditional sorting ceremony decreed, and as the founders, amused as they were with rattling the new additions, would have wanted.

And now, with this important part of the night out of the way and the first years fading back to their original skin tone, it was time to enjoy the best part of any feast…the food. Of course, a speech was required of her first. She never did like to prolong a student’s hunger more than necessary, so of course, it would be short.

Headmistress Marnett stood, appearing even more fragile and worn than the previous year, and cleared her throat in an attempt to gather everyone’s attention. When it quieted down, she began her speech.

“Welcome to Sonora Academy. First years: seeing all these new, pleasant, colorful faces has always been one of my favorite parts of our opening feast. I am very glad to see that you have arrived in one piece and I am sure you will find that the rest of the year is much more enjoyable than a ride on one of our covered wagons.” She paused for a moment and drew her eyes over the student population. “I suppose all our returning students would like to hear is that it is time to eat, correct? Well, I will not delay any longer.” Lucinda smiled and the large feast appeared across the hall in an instant. The school year had officially begun.
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Subthreads:
0 Headmistress Marnett The Opening Feast – Year 4 1 Headmistress Marnett 1 5


Anne Wright and Geoffrey Layne

June 13, 2006 11:32 PM
Anne pushed a hand through her thick hair, then dragged her fingers out of it when bending her arm grew painful and began twining the ends around them. When Alicia had taken her out for a makeover near the end of the summer, she had picked out a new wardrobe and had gotten her hair cut back to its original length, making her old habit of playing with it easy once more. She focused on her hair instead of on the other people, because she knew thinking about them was a surefire way to summon up the feeling that everyone was staring at her. The clothes she'd put on that morning - white blouse, black pants, heeled but undeniably solid boots - felt like beacons, pointing out to the populace that Anne was no longer the same version of herself who had left Sonora two months previously.

A voice came from directly across the table. "Well, well, well, Annabelle," the owner said, and a look upward showed her the grinning but slightly anxious face of Geoffrey Layne. He stopped smiling at once, looking at her quizzically. "You okay, Wright? You look like one of the wagons ran you over."

"Thanks, Geoff," she said dryly, pushing herself upright on her elbow and dropping her hands to her lap. "I can really see why you're so popular with the ladies." Geoffrey was her best friend. If she couldn't tell him, she couldn't tell anyone. The conclusion she came to was that she couldn't tell anyone. "I'm fine. My aunt just made me get a makeover."

"Yeah, I noticed," Geoffrey said, not looking entirely convinced but willing to let it go. "You're the only person I know who looks more like a girl in britches than you do in a skirt." She decided not to comment on that one. Seeing Geoff and being back at Sonora, back where things felt real instead of like parts of a dream, was enough to make her willing to put up with that sort of thing. For the moment, anyway.

"Helena here?"

"Yeah," Geoffrey said, the anxiety in his face increasing. "I told her to trust whatever she was given..." He glared at her when she started to laugh for what felt like the first time in a very long time. "What?"

"I don't believe you, sometimes." The firsties were turning colors and beginning to disperse. Look among the blue ones as she would, she couldn't catch sight of Helena. She did, however, see Zack Dill, and returned his smile and wave with her own. She was under contract to act normal, and right now, at least, she felt sort of normal. Half-normal, anyway. Geoffrey was looking at her oddly. "What?"

"Since when are you and Dill such good pals?”

Anne smirked at him, though she wasn’t entirely sure what his motivation for this question was. “Since he caught a little gold ball way up in the air for me last year.”

Geoff looked amused, now. “I’m pretty sure he caught it so we could win, Anne.”

“Exactly,” she said, unperturbed. “I’m the team spokeswoman, though, so anything done for the team is also done for me.” Her friend shook his head.

“You’re impossible.”

“I know it.”

Normally, that would have demanded a retort, but Geoffrey didn't answer, instead choosing to stare off towards where a few firsties still were. After a moment, in the moment she saw what he was staring at, he swore, breaking the tension, and looked around at her as she gasped.

"What do they think they're playing at?" she heard her own voice demand. "Putting Lenny in Crotalus with that pile of jerks, they'll eat her alive. I mean, she's not like that. She's like us, like you and me." She caught herself actually pointing at the three of them. Helena was watching, looking somewhat scared, the poor baby. Abruptly, she scuttled off to the Crotalus table and sat down. Anne crossed her arms over her chest and considered reconsidering her position on how far out of her shell she should stay. The year was already off to a bad start.\n\n
16 Anne Wright and Geoffrey Layne We're ba - ack... 59 Anne Wright and Geoffrey Layne 0 5


Gwenhwyfar Carey

June 14, 2006 12:16 AM
She had walked Amber in, giving a wordy spiel about nothing in a bright, perky tone of voice that, depending on her expression and who she was talking to, could come across as that of one in a good mood or as that of one with a screw or three loose. She thought it was most likely the good-mood variant, now. Being back at Sonora and having someone with the surname Carey on her side, even if that person was only Amber, was doing wonders for her temper, at the moment. She normally wouldn't have sounded that happy, but the kid was obviously terrified, and the happier she sounded to be here, the less likely to collapse her cousin was.

She might have stayed in line with the firsties, just for the peculiarity of the gesture, but she had automatically scanned the room for anyone she wanted to see or wanted to avoid. Allie and Connor, she wanted to see. Lila and Morgaine, she wanted to avoid. She did want to see the person she saw while looking for those four, but she hadn't expected to. The girl in question was, after all, supposed to have been kidnapped by rampage-crazy liberals out for ransom money to fund their leader's bid for Cabinet president...or something like that. She wasn't supposed to be sitting here in the Cascade Hall with her best friend with a new haircut and outfit.

Anne was here. Anne seemed to have all her limbs attached, and otherwise be in good health. Gwen stopped dead where she was, staring.

Her brain did, after a moment, begin to work again. "Honey-dahlin'," she said to Amber, her tone absent for real this time, "you go on and get Sorted. There's somebody I gotta go talk to." She had to see for herself, up-close, that her cousin was in fact alive and in one piece. She'd been around her parents too much to ever assume that one could trust purely visual evidence. Patting Amber on the shoulder reassuringly, she hurried off in the direction of the Aladren table.

Halfway through, though, she rethought it. Confronting Anne about her continued survival here, in front of everyone, might not be the best idea she'd ever had. Anne was known at home for her temper rather than for her tolerance, and Gwen frankly didn't want to end up on the wrong end of the former. The other girl's conversation with her buddy - Layne was the name Gwen had heard him called by, but she was pretty sure it was his surname rather than his given name - seemed like it was going well, and didn't invite interruptions. She dithered, no doubt looking the part of the scatterbrained ex-socialite she played, and found her feet making up her mind for her just as Anne went on her Helena-shouldn't-be-a-Crotalus rant.

"Anne, honey, are you all right?" No, she had not just asked that. She was more diplomatic than Anne, but she would have been strongly tempted to answer that one with sarcasm even without the 'honey'. "Allie wrote to tell me you'd been kidnapped, and it's the first letter anyone's sent me since...well, you know what, and she made it sound like anything could have happened to you...she wasn't agreeing with Lila, so I was half-inclined to go with her theory." \n\n
0 Gwenhwyfar Carey You're alive! 63 Gwenhwyfar Carey 0 5


Anne and Layne

June 14, 2006 1:58 PM
Crotalus House had a reputation, a deserved one from what Anne had seen, for turning out snobs, jerks, and crackpots. The little cliques they had formed during her first year, for example, had been exclusive and one, from what she had heard, had been the exact sort of snooty purebloods Aunt Sarah would have approved of. Uncle Al and Aunt Annie had been Crotali, and they were jerks. Gwen and Uncle Julian could both list Crotalus on their resumes, and they were touched in the head. Helena met none of those requirements, which meant there had obviously been some kind of mistake. She just wasn't like that.

They'd have to make an inquest or something, get Connell to test the Sorting potion. Everyone would have to be reSorted, but that would be all right -

Anne, honey, are you all right?"

Anne stared blankly at Gwen as she continued her rambling about Allie and letters and kidnapping. She realized her mouth was half-open by the time her cousin shut up, and quickly jerked her jaw back up. Gwen really was out of her mind. Anne was sure Allie had better sense than to write something like that, and she was also pretty sure that Aunt Sarah had taken every available opportunity to gloat about how clever she had been in ridding the St.Martins of their black sheep. "Well," she said, still trying to work out where-in-the-heck Gwen had gotten the idea from, "I'm fine, see?" Really, what was she supposed to say? They got along all right, for cousins, but the reaction to her survival seemed a little excessive...

Geoffrey was frowning. Crap. "What's she talking about, Anne?" So much for keeping it to herself and acting normal.

"I'm not living with the St.Martins anymore," she said shortly. "John's family reclaimed me this summer." He opened his mouth, clearly planning to ask for details, but she shot him the "don't ask, don't tell" look. She didn't want to talk about it, and she wasn't going to talk about it. The melodramas of her families were none of his business. She could keep it to herself, if she wanted to. No one could make her tell anything.

Gwen hadn't gone away. Damn. "I wasn't kidnapped," she said, trying to sound a little gentler. She'd heard rumors and seen some evidence that Gwen was unusually sensitive to things when she got emotional. "Really, Gwen. The twins were probably just pulling your leg. I was in California and doin' pretty well, except for the heat. It ain't like here." She was trying to sound casual, she realized. She wanted to smash things, but she was making herself sound casual and all right for her cousin's sake. Wouldn't Doc Thorpe be proud.\n\n
16 Anne and Layne Yeah, that too. 59 Anne and Layne 0 5


Gwen

June 15, 2006 8:15 PM
Gwen felt her smile, initially fixed on for Amber's benefit and then morphed into a genuine one upon realizing that the only close cousin she was still on speaking terms with was still alive and well, begin to fade a little at Anne's weirded-out reaction. She had, in a Vaughnish moment, overreacted. Since when did anyone with a lick of sense pay any attention to what Allie said? Idiot, idiot, idiot. You just had to haul off and - She cut the line of thought off as quickly as she could.

Then Anne and Layne started going back and forth, and Gwen thought she understood, a little at least. John, she had learned from a gossipy servant when she and the two younger children had been left at Bellevue during her Aunt Mary's funeral, was her uncle and Anne's father. Even through the feelings of awkwardness at standing beside people in a conversation like a fool, she found it in her to wince sympathetically. She'd heard later, from Lila, that he'd split almost as soon as Aunt Mary was cold. Anne's summer, it seemed, had gone worse than her own.

Anne's attention switched abruptly back to Gwen, but she sounded...nicer, this time, possibly the nicest Gwen had ever heard her sound. The impression Gwen had always gotten of this cousin was that she was right, dead convinced she was right, and willing to plow over anyone who disagreed with that assessment. It wasn't a formula for being a princess of a girl, but Anne was, apparently, trying now, at least a little. She smiled again, hesitated, and then gave her cousin a quick hug. She usually disapproved of being demonstrative, but the situation warranted it, she thought. Even if the theory that Anne had been kidnapped by crazy axe murderers had been proven to be baseless, she had still worried enough about it to allow herself to be relieved.

Noticing that Lila Gringe, the only person in Crotalus she even remotely wanted to see or speak to, was already talking to someone else, she sat down in the seat beside Anne before she could let herself think about it too much. She wasn't an Aladren, but there weren't, technically, rules stating that they had to stay at their House tables. Better being ignored over here except for the occasional odd look than what she might well get from her own Housemates. "Imagine so," she said in response to the bit about California being different. "West coast and all." The west coast had a bad reputation among firm Atlanteans like her family, but she wasn't going to mention that. \n\n
0 Gwen But that's wonderful! 63 Gwen 0 5


Anne and Layne

June 17, 2006 1:01 AM
Anne was caught completely off-guard when Gwen hugged her. The last person she could clearly recall hugging her was her mother. Alicia had tried, once, but Anne had backed up so fast she almost fell. She shared her fathe - John's - dislike for being touched, of getting too close to people. By the time she took in that her cousin was, in fact, hugging her, though, it was too late to do anything about it but pat Gwen awkwardly on the shoulder and hope she backed off quickly. She had a flash of the odd feeling she'd sometimes had when Allie did something vaguely indicative of niceness when the thought that Gwen was apparently happy that she wasn't dead crossed her mind.

She was going to seriously hurt Geoffrey if he didn't quit looking at her like that - like she was a cross between a time bomb and an invalid he felt sorry for. Nothing she had actually said to him gave him the room to do so, and he had no business inferring anything. Besides, there was nothing to infer. She was fine. She'd been a little upset when she and John had been initially forced into each other's company, but that had been an instinctual, highly temporary thing. It was over, now, and life was back to normal, or as close to normal as it ever would be. There was no reason at all for him to keep looking at her like that.

She was going to be normal. That meant replying normally to things that were said to her, and not jumping at shadows or wandering off into lala-land. If she could do it, no one outside this trio - well, quartet, she was sure Geoff would tell Lena even if she chickened out on it - would ever have to know that anything had changed. She nodded at Gwen's generalized reply to her earlier comment.

"Oh, yeah," she said. Normally. Geoff was still looking at her. It was really starting to get on her last nerve, which had been getting steadily closer to her first nerve over the past month or so. "It's hot as blue blazes out there in summer, and it ain't supposed to be much better in the wintertime." There was something so theraputic about saying ain't, even if it had wrangled its way into a few dictionaries by virtue of common usage. "Only got one cousin, now - Gray - but I'm living with three women who've got the same first name as me. Anne Thirteen isn't too bad, but Twelve's a little out of it these days, and Fourteen - " She stopped for fear of blowing something up and considered what would be the best way to describe her aunt. Several expressions involving expletives and I honestly wish more good things on Aunt Sarah were quickly dismissed as too undiplomatic. "We don't get along," she finished shortly, then forced a grin. "I'm supposed to be Anne Fifteen when my uncle croaks, but now they call me Anna." John's old name for her. He had to have been the one who told it to them. She had considered boycotting it on those grounds, but it was better than being called Anne-Eileen all the time. \n\n
16 Anne and Layne Nothing better, is there? 59 Anne and Layne 0 5


Connor Pierce

June 21, 2006 9:49 AM
Normally, Connor wouldn’t have been much happier than any other thirteen-year-old boy to return to school. His school did have some perks that made it better than attending public school or even normal private schools – it was a mansion, the food was great, and the magic made it like living in a highly realistic dream – but, at the end of the day, it was a school. There were classes, homework, and teachers who were a lot stricter than his mother. When he added Beverly and her remaining two years until they could be dead sure she wasn’t going to get sick again, Connor figured he had plenty of reasons to be ambivalent at best about coming back to school at the end of any normal summer. This summer didn’t qualify, because he’d been convinced it was bolt or go nuts by mid July.

He didn’t think he’d ever like it, but he’d decided that, so long as they kept on like they were, he could live with Brad Amberley and Brad’s son, Matt. As long as neither of them figured on marrying into the family, there could be a silent, understood agreement involving them avoiding each other wherever possible and keeping interactions brief when it wasn’t possible. It was the girl – Leslie Amberley – who was the problem with the live-and-let-live setup. Kid didn’t know how to shut up. He’d resorted to watching soap operas with his mother more than once to dodge Leslie and her questions about boarding school and what sort of things he learned at boarding school and was it true that boarding school was the same as the state penitentiary and so forth. He’d really gotten keen on avoiding her when she’d started asking questions about why he had a great big old fashioned trunk in his room. He’d kept the place locked up around-the-clock since catching wind that there would be a load of Muggles not in on the secret tromping around the house at all hours, and had yet to figure out how Leslie had caught a glimpse of it.

After two solid months of that, Sonora and its teachers sounded like a reprieve. He’d take Marlowe and an especially tough Transfiguration lesson over Leslie any day of the week, and over Brad and Matt on half of them. Miles upon acres of theory and incantations were a lot easier, he had discovered, to keep up with than an endless series of lies about where he went to school and what he did there.

The Cascade Hall was its usual hectic start-of-term self, but he was still able to see Gwen at, of all places, the Aladren table. A closer look at the girl she was sitting beside showed the most likely reason, though he couldn’t remember Gwen and her cousin being wildly close at any point in the past two years. They just...put up with each other. That younger guy Anne was always with was with them, too. Two-against-one wasn’t really fair, and he didn’t want to chance another run-in with that brat Morgaine. He headed over.

“Hey, Gwen,” he said, grinning at her. “Anne.” He’d never met the other guy, and so didn’t feel obliged to greet him. “Good summer?” He sat down and looked at Gwen, hoping to indicate that the question was more for her than anyone else.\n\n
0 Connor Pierce You really want me to answer that? 68 Connor Pierce 0 5


Anne and Layne

June 21, 2006 10:16 AM
Trying to be as discreet as possible, Anne kicked Geoffrey under the table and shot him a death glare when he had the gall to look surprised. He knew perfectly well what she was mad at him about, and he also knew perfectly well that she hated it when he was thickheaded on purpose to wheedle information out of people who weren't mutual enemies. Last she'd checked, she wasn't a mutual enemy. He frowned back, more inquisitive than angry, and she shook her head once, sharply. Quit looking at me like that, she tried to get across telepathically. She somehow doubted it had worked.

Wait. Normal. Normal Anne wouldn't be trying to communicate wordlessly to Geoff that she was two centimeters away from being fed up. Normal Anne wouldn't even be fed up. She pasted a smile on and sat back, crossing her arms defensively in front of her. A single quirked eyebrow was the response she got. Oh, yeah, they were going to end up having a very long talk later on. Geoff would tie her to something if she tried to dodge it. Pity she'd never gotten the hang of making up lies for the future while carrying on a conversation in the present.

Her head snapped around toward the sound of another voice saying her name. She knew him...sort of...they'd talked in Defense Against the Dark Arts, once, and he and Gwen were buddies or more. What was his name? She couldn't recall it for the life of her. Something that started with a 'C'...unless she was thinking about Catherine Raines and getting Gwen's friends and enemies all mixed up. She thought, though, that his name did actually begin with the letter 'C'. It was worth a shot.

"Carl," she returned, nodding shortly in acknowledgement of the greeting. "This is Geoffrey Layne." She pointed, probably unnecessarily, to the boy across from her, who raised a hand for about two seconds and mirrored her nod. They really were far too much alike for any good to come of it. Geoff was giving her another inquisitive look, this one clearly not about her, and she mouthed the word boyfriend with a tilt of her head in Gwen's direction and hoped her cousin didn't notice. From what Anne had seen, Gwen honestly thought that she'd kept everything under wraps and out of sight. Gwen was also her favorite cousin, so ostracizing her really wasn't high on Anne's to-do list. Geoffrey nodded. The message, complete with the fact that he wasn't supposed to say anything, had gotten across.

Or so she thought until Geoff opened his mouth, anyway.

"Ah - I don't mean to offend," he said, looking at Gwen, "but are you Gwenhwyfar Carey?"

Oh, great. Just lovely. "Geoffrey," she hissed. "Shut up!" The damage, however, was probably already done. "Gwen, I'm sorry, really, he retracts that question. It's none of his business." This was followed by another glare.\n\n
16 Anne and Layne Your opinion don't count, Pierce. 59 Anne and Layne 0 5


Gwen

June 21, 2006 10:46 AM
"A family naming tradition, I suppose?" Gwen said when Anne commented on the three other women in her new household who shared her name. "I've never heard of that being done with women before. The Charleston Careys are up to eight Anthonys, but only four of them are still alive. We Savannah Careys have four Richards, too, but Richard One's been dead since before we even started calling ourselves Savannah Careys, and Richard Four won't answer to his proper name outside of formal situations." Technically, Gwenhwyfar and Morgaine were both inherited names - the mother and sister of the Founding Brothers of the Savannah Careys - but there was no tradition of using them, and Gwen strongly suspected her father had simply drawn up a family tree of Carey women and pointed to select nominatives for his daughters.

She looked up, surprised, when a male voice greeted her, then smiled upon realizing that it was only Connor. She hadn't put as much effort into keeping the fact that they were friends secret as she had when she still had a reputation to ruin, so there was no real reason not to. Besides, it was always nice to see someone who both thought she had at least some of her marbles in the jar and didn't actively dislike her. "Hey," she said, tucking her hair behind her ears. Rosamund, bored to the point of distraction, had cut off about three inches of it, leaving it short enough and manageable enough to wear down more often than she normally did.

She had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing when Anne called Connor 'Carl', but managed it. Either Anne was going for some form of subtle, probably Muggle-based, humor, or she had a poor memory for names. There was really only one option when it came to answering the question about her summer. "It was lovely," she lied, not feeling a moment's regret. They were In Public. "I was invited to the family reunion, but that's basically a five-day party. There's too many of us for there to be any real organization."

This felt nice. She'd taken to avoiding social interaction over the past two years, but...this was nice. Anne and Connor fell into the category of people she considered all right, and the other boy - Geoffrey - wasn't a threat by virtue of being with Anne. This was something she could get used to. She was starting to smile a bit when Geoffrey asked the million-galleon question. In the moment it took her to freeze and pull out of it, Anne had started berating Geoffrey and apologizing to her.

"No," she said, deciding she might as well get it over with. Anne's attempts to shelter her were probably making things worse. "It's all right." She tried to gauge what Geoffrey was thinking before she spoke again. "I am, but folks call me Gwen. It's just easier to say." \n\n
0 Gwen Be nice, now. 63 Gwen 0 5