Breaking the Ice on Sandbox

Clark Dill

March 06, 2014 9:43 AM

Breaking the Ice by Clark Dill

OOC (Out of Character): I'm typing this on a mobile device so apologies in advance for any poor spelling. BIC (Back in Character):

Clark Dill wandered through the Cascade Hall. It was between meal times, so it seemed pretty empty by comparison to what he was used to seeing in here. He guessed most people had other things to do on a Saturday afternoon than hang out in the glorified (really very amazingly glorified) cafeteria.

Clark, however, did not.

He had brought along some of his textbooks and homework assignments. He dropped them with a heavy thump on an unoccupied table, paying little attention to its normal House designation. With so few people around, he didn't think it much mattered and part of the reason he came here to do his homework was because he hoped someone might join him and he didn't want to limit his options to other Aladrens as he would have in his common room and the library discouraged conversation. Well, at least, he always felt he was committing a horrible sin every time he made the tiniest noise in one. The Aladren commonroom had almost the same feel to it, as it was lined with books, too.

As he preferred a bit of background noise when working anyway, he thought the Cascade Hall with its multitude of waterfalls splashing down along the walls would be pretty much ideal.

The first thing he did upon sitting down was pull out a sheet of lined loose leaf paper, fold it in half, and write in large letters, "Charms Essay In Progress, Company Welcome." That done, he propped the sign up next to him and opened his Charms book.

He would be able to complete it on his own without a problem, but he liked to talk about the subject with someone while he wrote, to make sure he was making sense and not missing anything.

1 Clark Dill Breaking the Ice 277 Clark Dill 1 5

Katherine Procter

March 06, 2014 8:51 PM

Oh, hello. by Katherine Procter

Kitty Procter "hmmphed" again as she walked through the halls away from the Library, her Charms textbook clutched against her chest and the strap of her school bag balancing precariously on the edge of her shoulder. It was a library, for all that is good and pure! Should those not be silent?! She tried to focus on her Charms essay assignment for several minutes before the whispering and tittering started to grate on her nerves, and she just had to leave. Her first thought was to go back to the Crotalus common room, but, frankly, Gunter scared her something fierce, so she decided to find sanctuary in the Labrynth gardens.

The fact that she managed to get lost in there three separate times was temporarily forgotten. Kitty just needed to find someplace that wasn't the library where she could work on her homework in relative peace.

She was passing the entrance to the Cascade Hall when her shoulder lost the battle with her bag, which slid down to her elbow. With another "hmmph", she pulled the offending accessory back to her shoulder. As she did, she noticed another first year sitting at the Teppenpaw table. She recognized him as Clark Dill, and he was an Aladren. What was he doing at the Teppenpaw table?

Curious, Kitty entered the beautiful cafeteria, allowing the sounds of the water to calm her frayed nerves. As she approached Clark, she noticed a crude sign made from a piece of lined paper.

"Charms Essay In Progress, Company Welcome."

Well, how serendipitous. Kitty was struggling in Charms (actually, she was struggling in all her classes to some extent, she feared she would never get the hang of any of her classes!), so company could probably help her out. Taking a deep breath to bolster her courage (she did not know Clark beyond his name and House), she stepped up to the opposite side of the table from her classmate and dropped her textbook on the tabletop. Wincing at the sound, which was louder than she intended, she offered him a shy smile and took a seat. Opening her textbook to the relevant chapter, she pulled out her heavily edited essay draft and, wordlessly, got back to her homework, allowing her chocolate brown bangs to shield her face from view.

0 Katherine Procter Oh, hello. 0 Katherine Procter 0 5

Clark Dill

March 07, 2014 9:48 AM

Hi, yourself! by Clark Dill

Clark's blond head was bowed over his work, so he did not see Kitty's approach. Worse, he was fully engrossed in scrawling ink across his parchment as he attempted to describe the finer points of his thought process. As such, the loud thump as his table shuddered under the sudden weight of Kitty's book took him entirely off guard.

"Aah!" Clark yelped, thankfully not too loudly, but still loudly enough (along with the startled jump several inches into the air, which made him bang his knee against the bottom of the table) to make him flush in mild embarrassment. "Sorry," he apologized, grinning sheepishly. "You're really not *that* scary," he told her, hoping for a laugh to dispel any awkwardness his reaction might have generated. "Sit, sit," he welcomed her to the table, gesturing toward an empty seat.

She accepted the invitation, sitting across from him, and brought out an essay of her own that looked farther along than his was. She didn't say anything else, and seemed intent on her work, but Clark was not deterred. She had sat down here rather than at some other empty table so, clearly, she was not entirely against chatting while they worked.

"Do you think the teacher wants us to get into the physics of how wingardium leviosa works, or just the magic behind it?" he asked, pretty sure citing Newton's Laws was overkill, but not entirely sure about it. "My dad's an astrophysicist," he shared, by way of explanation, "So he felt it was neccessary to explain how physics was involved in almost everything, so now an essay doesn't feel complete without referencing them a little bit, but I'm not quite sure that's what Professor Olivers is looking for. My English teacher last year didn't want to read about muskets function either during our Johnny Tremain unit, but it sounded smart and my dad could help me with that easier than he could with literary themes, and she actually still gave me an A minus." Clark realized he did not know her educational background and specified, "Muggle A, that is, which is a good grade, unlike the wizards A."

1 Clark Dill Hi, yourself! 277 Clark Dill 0 5

Katherine Procter

March 07, 2014 8:59 PM

A new perspective. by Katherine Procter

Kitty truly felt bad about startling Clark so badly. Luckily, there did not seem to be any hard feelings, and he was even making jokes about it, so her smile widened a little as she worked.

A few moments after taking a seat at the table, he broke the silence, speaking about physics and magic, and whether or not they should include the former in their essays. Looking up from her own currently physics-free essay (honestly, it was free of many things aside from rejected ideas she had crossed out), she stared at him with wide eyes. When he finished his speech, her head was spinning, and she blinked to clear her thoughts as her mind caught up to the information he offered. Absently, she wondered how much of the monologue was done on one breath.

"Muggle A, which is a good grade," he was explaining, "unlike the wizards A."

She smiled slightly. That was considerate of him. As they knew nothing of each other, there was no way for him to know if she was Muggleborn or not. "Erm...ah...," she stammered, unsure as to where to begin, and she wouldn't meet his eyes. Come on, Kitty! she thought. Get a hold of yourself! "I-It's a good idea." Her voice was quiet, so she cleared her throat. "Physics, that is. Science is not too different from magic, really, and it gives a different objective."

Kitty studied her essay draft again and crossed off another line. Physics? It certainly held merit, and she definitely understood science better than Charms, at any rate. Were they levitating the object or simply eliminating the force of gravity? It was an interesting concept, and the charm began to make a little more sense.

Realizing she was silent for longer than what would be considered necessary, she took a steadying breath and said, "I usually made As and Bs in my courses. I don't know if I will ever get the gist of the wizarding system," she paused, nervously pushing some hair that escaped her bun behind her ear, "My father is a businessman, and my mother works in a publicity firm." She shrugged, hoping the movement would help her statement sound less pretentious.

She pulled out a clean sheet of paper to start a second draft (she anticipated it to be the second of several), and set to work, changing it to something more relevant to a Muggleborn's perspective. She wondered if any other first years would end up passing by the Cascade Hall and joining them, and she voiced this.

Although, secretly, she hoped no one else would show. She wasn't sure if she could handle more than one new face at a time!

0 Katherine Procter A new perspective. 0 Katherine Procter 0 5

Clark

March 07, 2014 10:26 PM

I can bring plenty of those. by Clark

Kitty seemed kinda shy. She wasn't quite looking at him, and she stammered a bit before she talked. But she thought physics was a good idea to include in the essay, so he didn't cross anything out that he'd been writing when she arrived. If nothing else, it would add to the length of the essay.

She reciprocated his sharing of his dad's job with the professions of her own parents and Clark couldn't help but feel a little bit sorry for her. Neither of those occupations sounded the least bit science-y. She probably never sat out in a field at midnight to learn about the constellations and star systems of the galaxy. Or the aliens that occupied them.

Her next remark identified her as muggle educated if not muggleborn (as there were wizard businessmen, he couldn't definitively rule out half-and-half or even pureblood based on parental occupations). The wizarding grade system didn't have Bs, though, so that much was conclusive. And her remark about the wizarding system was highly suggestive that she was muggleborn herself. "Are your parents both muggles then?" he asked curiously, and then offered, "My dad's a wizard, but he's a muggleborn one, so we live in a muggle neighborhood and I went to a muggle school, and he works for NASA." This was, in Clark's somewhat biased opinion, the coolest thing ever, even if Dad was just a lab scientist and not a real astronaut.

If nothing else, it got Clark reduced rates for Space Camp every summer.

Adding a few more lines to his essay as he finished up his physics reasoning - he was going with the theory that the magic in this charm manifested as a physical force acting on the object that counteracted gravity - Clark continued, a bit more slowly as his attention was divided, "So I'm kinda half-and-half since I know my way around both systems."

His avoidance of the subject of his mother was neither intentional nor evasive. There was just nothing to mention. He knew nothing about her occupation or whether or not she had been a witch. For that matter, he didn't even know her name.

1 Clark I can bring plenty of those. 277 Clark 0 5