Professor Marlowe
July 12, 2006 11:47 PM
Lesson One, Third and Fourth Years by Professor Marlowe
The mixed-year class was coming in after lunch. The post-lunch classes were, as even her own memories of being a schoolgirl showed, often as torturous as the post-breakfast classes when it came to focusing. Making things more potentially fun was the presence of her House's third years, the notorious Crotalus third year girls and their one male yearmate. Unless she was very much mistaken, they had almost singlehandedly given Crotalus House its current less-than-lovely reputation. She hadn't personally had any greater problems with them than dealing with a lack of motivation, but they were supposed to have cooled down a bit since they made a name for themselves as first years.Having more or less swallowed a turkey sandwich whole at her desk so she could finish grading the first years' essays and reconfirm - otherwise translated as find - her lesson plans, she was seated and smiling when they filed in.
"Welcome," she said, standing up and moving to stand behind the desk. "I'm guessing you know the drill by now. Notes as usual, get your wands out when you're done writing. Your incantation will be Excavaris Conterra." Momentarily doubting that she had put them up, Selina tried to be subtle about glancing towards the side of the board reserved for notes. Thankfully, they were exactly where they were supposed to be. She'd occasionally toyed with the idea of trying to stop worrying about making mistakes to see if it helped her make fewer of them, but had never actually applied it.
"Excavaris Conterra," she said when it seemed that everyone was done, "is a spell that will transform a given object into a container. The size generally depends upon the caster's skill and desires, and today's products are most likely going to turn out on the small side. Since you've given a mostly good account of yourselves, your original item will be a pincushion, and I believe you each already have one in front of you. Extra points will be given for how pretty the box is. I'll demonstrate."
The pincushions were of the old-fashioned variety, resembling nothing so much as a cloth tomato. Pulling out her wand, she moved it in a pattern resembling an upright and then horizontal numeral eight, saying the spell words as clearly as she could. The little box was ornamented only by double rows of carved lines around the edges, flaring a little at the corners, but it was lined with red cloth. "You may begin."\n\n
Subthreads: Old friends and old enemies by Earl Valentine with Asher Tallow, Earl
Trying to focus by Jordanna Howard
With Firefox's favour, perhaps attempt 2 will work by Zack Dill
I don't like tomatoes... by Anne Wright
Not half bad... by Mia Kerova with Jenna Howard, Stephen Baxter, Mia
<s>bugging</s> <i>Tagging</i> the Professor by Sorrel Craven
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder by Lily Collins with Dalia Bastet, Dalila
Always among the last to arrive... by Kaylie Brockert
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Professor Marlowe
Lesson One, Third and Fourth Years
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Professor Marlowe
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Earl Valentine
July 14, 2006 12:18 AM
Old friends and old enemies by Earl Valentine
Earl massaged his stomach. He'd have to go easy on those roast beef sandwiches next time. Five was just one too many. But his eyes still managed to land on Professor Marlowe standing at her desk explaining the day's lesson: boxes.It didn't sound like the most interesting thing ever, so Earl took to staring around at his fellow third and fourth years, who seemed larger in number than last year. Then he realized why. The Hens. They were back. Even though Nicolette had been there last year, she had remained quiet since her fellow Hens had left school. Earl had rejoiced in the news that they had left, but they were back now. Earl cursed under his breath.
He scanned the room once again; this time his eyes landed on a person he was actually happy to see. Asher was back too. She had left at the beginning of last year for some unknown reason and hadn't been back until now. He tried signaling to her from across the room without drawing unwanted attention from the teacher, but Asher didn't seem to see him.
Sighing he turned to face his latest project: the ugly tomato pin cushin. He checked the board for the incantation and realized there was a rather complicated wand motion attatched to the spell. Cursing again, Earl gazed around the room looking for someone to help him.
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Earl Valentine
Old friends and old enemies
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Earl Valentine
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Asher Tallow
July 14, 2006 6:56 AM
Standing with the former. . . by Asher Tallow
Asher had met her Transfiguration professor and head of house briefly on the first day of term. In all honesty, she hadn't thought much of the woman- which wasn't to mean that Asher thought badly of her. Asher simply didn't think of, or about, her much at all. Equally truthful would be the fact that a small part of that lack of mental consideration was due to Asher's unfortunate dislike of Transfiguration.She wasn't bad at it; in fact, it was one of her better subjects involving wandwork, landing just slightly below Defense Against the Dark Arts. Asher merely did not like to transfigure. Her mind recognized and knew that the thing she was changing could not feel, and she was never one for over-sentimentality when it came to the inanimate. But when she held her wand and spoke the incantations, something in her simply balked at the spell she was casting.
She didn't know why, but a very large part of her did not like to force a change on anything.
Her ignorance as to the feeling's source left her only more uncomfortable, and Asher hated to feel uncomfortable- especially when it was self-induced. Thoughts of the class had stolen her appetite during lunch, and she could only push and pick at her food, leaving the whole of virtually uneaten. The discomfort only increased once she entered the classroom, her empty stomach churning unpleasantly.
Asher had been one of the first to arrive for class, which was just as well, as she neither noticed the later arrivals or the ones who piled in with her. She took her seat, stomach only growing more agitated, and took to picking at her chin length hair. The black strands hung loose and clumped across her eyes. They did little to hide though, the sweaty palor that gripped her cheeks and the obvious panic the quavered in her dark eyes.
When Professor Marlowe began to speak, Asher's hands changed from a gentle tugging to a full out yanking. How she hated to feel so uncertain, so bothered by something so very trivial. The instructions made their way into her mind, and silently, Asher began to chant the spell needed to change her pincushion into a box, hoping that in making herself familiar with it, her anxiety would soften.
So focused was she on her mantra, that she failed to notice the waving of a hand from across the classroom. She did not look up until the hand finished its waving, and it was then that she recognized her friend and housemate, Earl Valentine. Her stomach stilled considerably at the sight of his spiked hair and familiar brown eyes.
Her mental repetition silenced, and she picked up her bag, wand, and pincushion, and hurriedly made her way over to him. She dropped her arm-full carelessly, and in a slightly breathless voice, said, "She won't mind if we work on this together, right?"
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Asher Tallow
Standing with the former. . .
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Asher Tallow
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Earl
July 14, 2006 2:14 PM
Well, you know you're not part of the latter by Earl
Earl looked up, a huge grine on his face. Why he was smiling like an idiot was beyond him. Maybe it was just seeing him friend again. Mqaybe it was the fact that she might be able to help him with the box. This wasn't the time to ponder over these things anyways. He coughed to hide the grin and awnswered her question."I don't care if she minds. We're working together...that's all there is to it." He stared blankly at her for a moment before shaking his head and staring back down at his pin cushion.
"So....d'you know that wand motion thing? Cos that looked crazy hard. I guess I should've paid more attention. I don't even remember the words now." He stopped and looked at Asher again. "I'm rambling, aren't I?"\n\n
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Earl
Well, you know you're not part of the latter
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Earl
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Asher Tallow
July 16, 2006 12:08 AM
True. . .but you never know what might change by Asher Tallow
More the tension eased once Earl Valentine spoke. It was easy to see what Asher liked in him: no guile, no blood-pride, nothing proper or fancy in address; he was completely normal and reasoned. It felt natural to hear him speak, and it was in that same feeling that she replied.Her smile crawled slowly as she spoke, poking from the left half of her mouth and nudging upward. "Yes; they're Excavaris Conterra; and no, you're not quite rambling."
The smile fell into a half bloom, and began to straighten her hastily gathered supplies into neater stacks. She settled her wand over the top of the stack, and pushed her pincushion so that it centered the surface. "It looks like a cross made of infinity signs," she explained, surprised that she had managed to ingest so much of the lesson despite her agitation. (That agitation was, ever so thankfully, taking a current reprieve from her stomach.)
She demonstrated with her index finger, matching the shape perfectly to that of Professor Marlowe's. "I don't like transfiguring, though," she admitted. "So can I watch while you try it?"
She reasoned internally that perhaps if she took baby steps toward the idea, it wouldn't leave her so bothered. She would watch Earl Valentine practise a few times, and then when her stomach felt untouched and upset, she would try it herself.\n\n
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Asher Tallow
True. . .but you never know what might change
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Asher Tallow
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Earl
July 16, 2006 1:14 AM
You could never change by Earl
Earl watched Asher's finger trace through the air. He absently mimicked the motions with his wand, trying to get it right. Sfter afew moments, he felt he got the jist of it and stopped."Um, yeah...sure," he replied to Asher's question about watching him. But with Asher intently watching, Earl felt a bit more awkward than normal. Earl coughed, trying to prepare himself for the spell, took a deep breath and said the incantation loudly and clearly, while trying the wand motions.
His pin cushion started to vibrate on the desk. It continued for a good ten seconds before stopping, at which time Earl leaned over for a closer look at the slightly less plush pin cushion.
"Does it look more...I dunno...rigid to you?"\n\n
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Earl
You could never change
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Earl
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Asher Tallow
July 17, 2006 12:32 AM
Change is lame. by Asher Tallow
Her stomach flipped once Earl Valentine spoke the spell. For the few seconds that the pin cushion spun, she felt dangerously close to vomitting. As soon as the cushion stilled, untransformed, her stomach rested, the bile returning to where it should. She breathed deeply through her nose and barely heard Earl's question.Pointedly not looking at it, she answered in a weak voice, "Definitely. You should try again."
She told herself that it was only in her head, that these physical symptoms were just mentally induced problems, and that if she concentrated and focused hard enough, the tension and nausea would go away. "You have to picture it, though. See it as a box as you do the spell, otherwise it won't go."
"You should try again," she repeated, the direction more to herself than to her partner. She willed her stomach into obedience and forced herself to picture the cushion as a box- envisioned the change as it should occur. She could think the transfigration, she could picture it, surely, surely, this time, she could stand it.
"Go ahead," she said, and then she waited, breath unconsciously held.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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Asher Tallow
Change is lame.
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Asher Tallow
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Earl
July 19, 2006 2:52 PM
Unless that change is winning the lottery by Earl
Earl looked up from his pincushion to Asher's face. She looked...green somehow. Did the spinning cushion give her motion sickness? But she continued talking and she seemed fine, so Earl just ignored it. Maybe it was lunch. Those sandwiches still weren't settling in his stomach, though it was better than before.Focus returned to the pincushion and heeding Asher's advice, he pictured a box in his head and said the words again.
This time, instead of spinning it just glowed for a moment. Earl stared at it, looking for any changes that might have happened. Then he saw it. A thin line cutting across the top of the cushion. Earl picked the cushion up by it's little, green stem and the top popped off, revealing a hollow inside.
"Holy crap...look Asher! It worked! Kind of, anyways." He grabbed Asher and hugged her tightly before pulling back and looking down apologetically.
"Sorry," he mumbled. "Just got carried away."\n\n
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Earl
Unless that change is winning the lottery
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Earl
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Asher Tallow
July 24, 2006 7:59 AM
I don't believe in the lottery. by Asher Tallow
Springtime when she was eight years old: Asher had stumbled upon a faerie's circle, the line of mushrooms lining out a buffalo hollow. The grass reached above her knees, and the grey spotted mushrooms peaked between the blades like flattened moons. The circle had been long abandoned, left to the hollow's own whims and fancies. She threw sunflower seeds into it that spring, and when they bloomed, the full orange and black heads heavy above her own, she barely noticed the circle's decay. It was only come the next spring that she saw how her flowers had killed the circle entirely and the grass had wilted from the loss.Some things shouldn't be changed; some things should be left as nature intended, as the creator's hand intended. That faerie circle should have been left alone and untouched and unchanged. There was an intense wrongness to do or act otherwise, and Asher felt all the fullness of that feeling the moment Earl spoke the spell again. Her vision fell dangerously dim, and whatever words her classmate spoke went unheard. There was only a low pitched wailing in her ears, a human sort of cry she had heard before; the sound shook at her thoughts and made her eyes feel numb. The numbness spread quickly from there: to her throat which could not speak, to her hands which could not move, to her chest which could not expand.
The feeling rocked her body in its entirety, and for a clear quarter-second of uninfluenced thought she knew that she was about to faint.
A bare heartbeat later and the black numbness that had engulfed her vanished; a pair of arms, quick and warm, and unfamiliar surrounded her for a brief touch that gripped tightly and then jarringly released. Her eyes regained their sight as did her ears their hearing: Earl Valentine, a hollowed pin cushion, and an oblivious classroom. "Sorry," she heard him say. "Just got carried away."
"That's o-" she swallowed, realization dawning. He had hugged her. "Good job," she amended instead, avoiding mentioning it at all. "I think we can consider the assignment complete, don't you?"
Asher steadfastly refused to consider a third attempt at the spell. At present, her thoughts were unclouded, her heart calm, and her emotions balmed. The only remaining blackness from the strange reaction to the spell was a small, smidgeon of unfortunate truth: Asher Tallow had something very wrong with her.
And it wasn't anything the medic could possibly ever fix.\n\n
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Asher Tallow
I don't believe in the lottery.
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Asher Tallow
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Earl
August 01, 2006 12:38 AM
Every time you say that, a lottery dies by Earl
Earl avoided looking at Asher and instead rested his eyes on his pin cushion box. He had hugged her. The concept was as foreign to him as he figured this lesson would be to a muggle. The only girls he had ever hugged were his sister and his mother when he was very little.He figured Asher would yell at him. He knew that if someone tried to hug him, he would have been mad. But instead, she completely ignored it! Earl finally looked up from his cushy box to stare at Asher with her short hair and pale skin...unusually pale. Was that because she was sick abou him hugging her? Probably.
Earl swallowed hard. "Uhh...yeah. That should be okay. You wanna try now?"\n\n
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Earl
Every time you say that, a lottery dies
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Earl
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