Trying on Cascade Hall

Autumn Collins

May 14, 2012 1:16 PM

Trying by Autumn Collins

Autumn stared down at her lunch. Even after this summer of so-called "treatment" she still really didn't want to eat it. The sixth year had put on the weight required to leave that horrid place and she wasn't very happy about it. She'd just wanted out of that place so desperately. Still, Autumn hated the way her body looked now.

The thing was, though she still felt fat, others thought she was still too skinny and that if she got skinnier, they'd send her back...well, not there , her father had promised her she'd never ever have to go back there , but somewhere else. Some place that had the same evil intent. To "fix her problem" when as far as Autumn was concerned, making her gain weight was the opposite from what she needed.

And she knew that people were watching her. The school medic for one, a counselor that one of the staff took her off grounds to see for another. Autumn thought the medic, for one, was wasting his time when there were students here who had legitimate medical problems and it was really rather embarrassing to have to see the counselor. She especially hated being asked about her weight and eating, that was not something that ladies should discuss, and it was practically all the counselor wanted to talk about. Even though it was pretty much all Autumn thought about too.

So, now more than ever, the sixth year's weight was in a delicate balance. If it got too low, she'd have to leave Sonora and go back into so-called treatment. The Crotalus didn't want that, not only was it an awful place where their goal was to make Autumn fat, but her education was important to her, even though all she was ever going to was marry some other pureblood and paint in her spare time. She had been painting again, though all her subjects seemed to be food-related.

And if her weight got too high, well, Autumn didn't even like thinking about it. She'd have to go back to dieting. Just to get back to where she was now, of course. She absolutely would never be as fat as she was before ever again. Right now was bad enough.

So she would be careful, only eat low fat, low calorie meals. Like this chicken breast and salad before her. A real salad, not just a single piece of lettuce. Autumn picked up a fork and attempted to eat when someone sat down across from her. She put it back down. Eating in front of others was still uncomfortable for her.

11 Autumn Collins Trying 164 Autumn Collins 1 5

Jane Carey

May 21, 2012 12:45 AM

Don't give up now by Jane Carey

Jane walked into lunch a little late, having just sent another letter to her brother recommending a book she and Arthur had been reading together, her mind still mostly on that as she came through the doors. It had been a very good book, at least until they reached the last section; she was almost sorry to have finished it and found the end of the argument unsatisfying enough to make her doubt the whole thesis, making the whole subject require more reading, and she was curious to see what Edmond would make of it. Her brother had a fine mind, and she was going to do what she could to help him keep from losing it while he was stuck at home without, after the pace they were accustomed to, much to do.

Some of her own conclusions, she had left out of her letter, along with even more of Arthur’s. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to share with Edmond – in fact, he was the one person she had ever felt completely comfortable sharing with, when she was convinced he was well – but Father might have seen the letter, and she wasn’t sure that would have been the best thing. Nothing really bad had been there, certainly, Edmond had most likely come up with more subversive ideas before, but she had a feeling, somehow, that most of this was something she should keep to herself, and definitely away from adults other than Edmond.

Whatever ‘this’ was. She knew she had no idea what they were doing, really, and she was convinced that Arthur didn’t really, either. He always put her mind of a young boy who wanted so very much to impress his older brother, even though she was a girl and they were only two years apart; it seemed that much of it was just mutual boredom taking an unusual form, but sometimes….

She shook those thoughts aside as she spotted Autumn at one of the tables and decided to go over there. It was still amazing to her that her friend had ever told her where she was over the summer – in the same position, Jane would have lied herself blue in the face, talking about how she’d just gotten nervous with the exams and was in a resort town with her family, but she had gotten used to that kind of thing since her mother died, when she had to admit that something wasn’t fine in the first place – but provided the story about the treatment facility was true, and it did fit with what Jane had seen last year but been too distracted with her own things to really put together at first, then she was still worried about Autumn, even though Autumn didn’t seem to think she’d really had a problem to begin with. Obviously something had been wrong last year.

“Hi, Autumn,” she said, sitting down and glancing at the other girl’s seeming untouched lunch. “That looks very good,” she added, serving herself a similar meal, though adding more to it. Jane was tall, she thought sometimes still growing taller, and watched her own diet according to the same standards that her mother had run the family table by, except for allowing herself maybe a few more treats here than she did at home, even now that Father was running things and would have let her more than Mother would have. She needed energy to think with, to get everything in her life done with, more than she needed a perfect figure, especially since she was settled in life now anyway. She didn’t think Jethro really cared very much about how thin she was, even if he did think she was pretty. “The prairie elves always make very good chicken, don’t you think?”

She had seen her friend put down her fork when she came over, and was worried that she had discouraged Autumn from eating her meal the way she should have. She thought it was best to just act as though she suspected nothing and act normal about it, instead of being pushy about the food, though she didn’t really know. Psychology had never been Jane’s favorite subject at all because of all the ambiguity and places where it wasn't easy to tell what the solution should be.

0 Jane Carey Don't give up now 160 Jane Carey 0 5

Autumn

May 22, 2012 2:53 PM

It's so difficult though. by Autumn

The Crotalus forced herself to smile at her friend. She was happy to spend time with Jane of course, but this wasn't really a good time. Autumn would have far preferred to hang out in the library or the art room then to have the other sixth year see her eat. She usually ate earlier or later than everyone to avoid this.

Autumn was also a bit embarrassed. Over the summer, she'd ended up telling both Jane and Samantha where she was. The latter knowing wasn't a big deal, because the Aladren was muggleborn and society would never know but Jane was another pureblood. She knew her friend would never tell but just admitting her own weakness. Oh, Autumn had lied at first, but eventually the stress of being at that dreadful place wore her down and she'd needed a friend to talk to, especially after Cynthia had left.

Of course, the Crotalus had made it quite clear to her friends that she found being in that place to be completely unnecessary torture and not because they were forcing her to gain weight. That had made Autumn feel rather better about being stuck there and less ashamed of telling her friends. She'd made it sound like her being there was ridiculous, that she didn't have an issue, though some of the girls definitely did, just not the ones they were in treatment for.

"Hi." She greeted Jane. Autumn looked back down at her lunch, not at all wanting to eat it now. She really didn't want to look like a pig by stuffing her face. It was unladylike and reflected badly on her family and herself as would being fat in the first place. Meals at that awful place had never stopped being torture, though Autumn had eventually stopped feeling sick to her stomach after only a few peas. Of course, every time she'd had to eat, she'd felt extremely anxious. Not to mention having to speak in groups and stuff like that. She'd tried to just sit quietly and listen but that hadn't been allowed.

The sixth year nodded. "They really do." The food tasted both good and bad to Autumn at the same time. Good, because Sonora really did have good food and it had taken quite a bit of will power to make her stop eating it last year. But it was more important to be slim. If she wasn't she'd never be betrothed or if she did, her betrothed would end up running off with her cousin. Jane was lucky, she was already betrothed, already had her future set. Autumn couldn't have been more worried about her own.

On the other hand, food tasted bad because all the Crotalus could think of when she ate it was the fat and calories. In turn, she felt like she could taste it, her body turning massive. "So, how are things going for you?" Autumn asked her friend. She needed to keep the conversation away from herself, not that she really had ever liked talking about herself to begin with. The focus needed to be away from food though, even if it was still all the sixth year ever thought about.

11 Autumn It's so difficult though. 164 Autumn 0 5

Jane

May 24, 2012 7:20 PM

The greater the obstacle, the greater joy in overcoming it. by Jane

Jane took a few bites of her own meal and found it was, indeed, delicious. If perhaps not as much as it would have been if Autumn’s hadn’t been pointedly untouched-looking still. She knew little more about the kind of problem her friend had been treated for over the summer than that such problems existed and were difficult to treat, but her making a lunch and then not eating it didn’t seem like a good sign.

Maybe she was being overly concerned, though, and was too used to having long, whispered debates with her brother about Father’s health when she was home now. Rather how she was still surprised Autumn hadn’t lied to the bitter end about what had happened to her, just on the off chance that anyone could somehow find out about it. The way things had been since her mother died had changed her, and while she wouldn’t say it was for the worse, considering what she’d had it all too clearly demonstrated to her that the world was, she couldn’t say that it had been a good thing, either. She remembered that things had been different, once, but she couldn’t really recall what that had been like from the inside anymore; she had done better than her brother at pretending that none of it had ever happened, carrying on as the same sweet Jane most people had always known, but whatever had originally been behind it all felt so distant from her that it might as well have been a different person to begin with.

That was one reason, other than genuinely thinking they could work well enough together for a marriage to not be a bad idea, that she was not, as some seemed to think she should be, displeased by who her future husband was. With Jethro, she had a chance for a reasonable life, one where she could bring up her own family quietly and far away from blood and ambition and delusions of grandeur and all the other things that cropped up every now and then in her family of origin. Maybe she could get back something simple, something honest, and not end up what she was sometimes worried about turning into.

“I’ve been well,” she said. “Busy, of course – it takes forever to answer some of Edmond’s letters, and I write to Father and Jethro, too, and then there’s everything here – but I enjoy that.” Advanced classes were, she thought, suiting her well, with the greater freedom they gave her over her schedule. She was already working on plans for a major research project next year; it would be a pleasant way to spend her final year of formal education. The one disadvantage of getting married was going to be having to leave school, and most likely have much less time to study even completely on her own. “Are you enjoying being in the Advanced classes, Autumn?” she asked, turning the conversation back away from herself and to the other participant.

0 Jane The greater the obstacle, the greater joy in overcoming it. 0 Jane 0 5

Autumn

May 26, 2012 5:33 PM

Some are insurmountable by Autumn

Autumn was becoming increasingly self conscious. She hadn't touched her meal since her friend had sat down. The Crotalus didn't quite know what to do. She had a feeling Jane was watching her eating closely. Everyone seemed so concerned about how much the sixth year ate. Not that Autumn wasn't worried herself. It was just that they wanted her to eat and she didn't want to.

She felt a tense and a little irritated. Of course, the Crotalus would never ever say anything. She wouldn't want to fight with a friend or worse, lose a friend. Besides, it was rude and Autumn was worried enough about society finding out about what people thought was wrong with her without creating a scene as well. Ladies were supposed to behave themselves in public.

Of course, they also didn't stuff their faces. Autumn had to eat. Otherwise she'd end up leaving Sonora and going back to a place for so-called treatment. Still, she could eat when nobody was watching her. Nothing said she had to eat in front of others.

However, Jane was here and she knew what Autumn had been in treatment for. Sometimes, the sixth year regretted having told the Teppenpaw. Now her friend might have assumed that there was something wrong with her, like everyone else. Even though Autumn had made it abundantly clear in her letters that she did not have the problem everyone thought that she did. Now she was worried Jane thought she did, though she was just glad her friend was talking to her at all.

Autumn forced herself to take a bite of her chicken. Just like she had last year in front of Hope. She didn't want Jane to think that she wasn't eating. The Crotalus took a sip of water and replied. "Oh, yes. They're so...interesting." Autumn was only taking Astronomy, Potions and Transfiguration. She'd dropped Charms because the Professor's teaching style was too stressful for her and her counselor recommended that she not take too many classes for that same reason but at the same time, she felt limited, like she was letting herself-and possibly others- down.

11 Autumn Some are insurmountable 164 Autumn 0 5

Jane

May 26, 2012 11:18 PM

Every little bit helps by Jane

Jane felt better when she saw Autumn eat a little of the chicken. It was none of her business, of course, but she didn’t like to think of her friend getting into the state she had last year. The state Jane had been too distracted by her own problems to really, fully notice the significance of until it was well past the point where she might have said something, to Autumn or to one of the staff, or done something, or…she didn’t know what, and knew it was not her fault logically, but she felt bad anyway, just as she did when she thought of her father and brother, almost.

Sometimes, though she knew this was stupid and irrational, it seemed as if everyone around her was broken somehow while she carried on, able to brush her skirts off each time and just go forward without a blink, or at least not one that drew any attention to itself. It made her worry for Jethro, honestly, and what might happen to him for marrying her – or would have, if that kind of thing had been anything other than her being self-pitying, possibly a little more egotistical than she thought she was, and trying to rationalize certain phenomena through the application of superstition, when really she had just gotten caught up on the fringes of something far bigger than herself just because of who she knew and who they, in turn, knew, not because she was some kind of walking wasteland. There were some quasi-demonic powers, things associated with deep immersion in the Dark Arts, which could have odd effects, but while she couldn’t claim to perfectly recall every day of her life or anything like that, Jane was fairly sure she hadn’t gotten into anything like that.

“They are,” she said, thinking of the classes she and Autumn had in common. Not everything she was learning in them was something Edmond had already told her about, especially in Astronomy, since it had been taught so irregularly since they were here. “I’m going to miss school after next year, but I hope I can at least keep up with the periodicals.” Life without any new knowledge was unthinkable to her.

She ate a few more bites of her lunch. “Do you think you really have a favorite?” she asked, thinking over them again, and her other classes, and discovering she didn’t. She found them all interesting sometimes, less interesting at others, but she couldn’t say that one really seemed more consistently new than the others. She got through by being generally amiably disposed to them all, rather than through any particularly focused passions, much as she thought she always had. The single thing, when she thought about it, she thought she was best at was mathematics, but that featured in half the classes she was taking right now at one level or another half the time, so the presence or absence of it couldn’t make a class here her favorite, really.

0 Jane Every little bit helps 0 Jane 0 5

Autumn

May 30, 2012 1:46 AM

That's all anyone can ask. by Autumn

Autumn considered the question that Jane asked. She was personally just glad to get the subject away from food. The Crotalus may have spent all her time thinking about food, just obsessing over it but talking about it, especially as it pertained to how much she ate made Autumn extremely uncomfortable. Everyone seemed way too concerned about how much she ate when she really needed to be thin. Otherwise she'd be a spinster and an embarrassment to her family. She wouldn't be perfect then.

That had always been the sixth year's goal. Perfection, perfect grades, looks, behavior. She tried to be as good and ideal as possible. To make her family proud. To never give anyone reason to be disappointed in her or complain. Autumn hated to let people down-and if she was overweight, she would.

She nodded. "I guess I will too." Autumn was feeling rather anxious about leaving Sonora honestly. She had no idea what she was going to do, she wasn't even betrothed. Her future was totally up in the air and would continue to be if she gained anymore weight. Besides, Autumn had never been good with change or uncertainty. Of course, on the other hand, she'd be scared to know the future, in case it would be bad. Then she would just worry.

"Keeping up with the periodicals would give you something to do." Autumn added. Pureblood women tended to need hobbies. They didn't really work much and aside from the transfiguration professor, the Crotalus didn't know any in good standing that did. She briefly wondered if it was the woman's hobby. Autumn would probably just paint. She really hadn't done much of it last year, in part because she'd had to spend most of her time studying. Of course, now she still had to worry about RATS. It was never too early to start studying for those. Those had to be perfect too, go better than CATS had. Autumn wasn't about to forgive herself for that E in DADA.

"I don't suppose I have a favorite." She admitted. "I think Astronomy is very interesting though." Plus, the Crotalus was very good at it. Autumn did well in all her classes, she would accept nothing less from herself.

Nothing less than perfection.

11 Autumn That's all anyone can ask. 164 Autumn 0 5

Jane

June 01, 2012 7:57 PM

Well, they can <i>ask</i>.... by Jane

Jane nodded seriously to the comment that keeping up with the periodicals would give her something to do, though she didn’t expect to have a shortage of things, really. Managing a household and supervising the education of the children, if and when she had them, was, she knew from her mother, quite a lot of work, and it would be even more work if the Smythes expected her to be a hostess. That was not something her mother had done very often, but most people did, and it was quite possible that Jane would be expected to land on her feet and just start running in that part of life. It was likely that someone would look over her shoulder for a time, just to be safe, but possible that they would not. She would have to work very hard at learning something very quickly as she did it if that happened, because failure in that way would not really be an option. Jane never really felt it was, but that was a stronger example than most, she thought.

However, she had the idea that Autumn was from a bit higher up in her family than Jane was in hers, which meant she would likely have more house-elves and employed persons to help her…if she did marry. Jane had the impression that the Collinses were not exactly telling the wide world what had happened, but someone who had the vaguest idea where to look might figure it out anyway, and then…well, she didn’t see many Careys, anyway, lining up to marry the poor girl if they did figure it out.

“I’ll still paint, too,” she said, feeling comfortable stating this as a fact when it seemed possible that she was only betrothed thanks to a habit of painting when she had nothing better to do. “And of course there will always be correspondence, and people to go visit…I expect it will be interesting, outside. I just think I’ll miss school because it’s familiar and all of that isn’t.” She smiled slightly. “I asked my brother once, and we agreed that the hardest thing to get used to at school for us was having free time. Mother kept us to a very strict academic schedule when we were at home.” It had been theorized that structure might do Edmond good, since a life of chaos had done nothing good for his sisters or his biological father except possibly make them difficult to kill; Jane wondered sometimes, now, if Mother might not have gone a little further than she needed to with it, but that was all in the past now.

“It is,” she agreed about Astronomy. “I enjoy it very much. But I enjoy all the others, too, at least sometimes. Edmond jokes that being students is the only thing we’re really any good at, so we’ll be hopeless when we finish for good.” She did not mention that Edmond was not in school now; that was his business, and the family’s business, and she did not want to explain, really, even to a friend. She understood why her brother was doing what he was doing – she might, in his position, without Sonora to finish and then someone to marry, have done the same; as it was, she felt she should, but that it was all right since he really had chosen of his own free will to take her place now that his formal obligations to Father were done – but the reasons for that were private, too, and she wasn’t sure people would understand even if they knew it all.

0 Jane Well, they can <i>ask</i>.... 0 Jane 0 5