Mortimer Brockert

December 06, 2019 1:29 PM
Another year was beginning and it was time for another Opening Feast. Once everyone seemed to be in attendance, Mortimer placed a Sonorus charm on himself and began to speak. "Welcome to Sonora for the new first years and welcome back for all older students. First years, you should have receieved a blank badge at the end of Orientation." At least they hadn't gotten it when they first got there, some were liable to lose it. "You will dunk the badge in the Sorting Potion and it will turn the color representing your house which are blue for Aladren, yellow for Teppenpaw, red for Crotalus, and brown for Pecari. Afterwards, you may join your house table."

After the first years had been settled, Mortimer continued."Would Connor Priory and Ivy Brockert please come up and get your Head Student badges." He continued. "In addition I'd like to call up Heinrich Hexenmeister, Nathaniel Mordue, Caitlin Pierce and Michael DiCaprio to receive their prefect badges. Congratulations." Mortimer really really hoped that Mr. Tate's mother and Uncle Clifford did not give him a hard time about the Pecari not getting prefect. And that Mr. Mordue was over his mental breakdown.

Once the new prefects and Head Students had returned to their tables, Mortimer continued, "Our Midsummer even this year will be a ball. Prefects and Head Students will be required to lead it." This might take away from the joy and accomplishment some felt at receiving their badges, but he thought that he'd give them fair warning.

"Now we will sing the school song." Or they would, rather. Lyric sheets were passed around and the song began.


Every day we strive
Learning to survive
Life’s hardships and to solve its mystery.
Learning to defend
Our honour and our friends,
Flying high to meet our destiny
We will stand and face those who want to harm us.
We won’t let the world transfigure, jinx or charm us
I won’t fight alone, as long as you are with me.
Sonora be my home, my tutor and my spirit
Vasita quoque floeat; Even the desert blooms.


That done, he dug into his steak and bourbon.
Subthreads:

Aladren

Teppenpaw

Crotalus

Pecari
11 Mortimer Brockert Opening Feast 6 1 5

Morgan Garrett

December 07, 2019 4:15 PM
By the end of the orientation social, Morgan was feeling optimistic about her year group. She had only had one proper conversation, but it had been with someone with a cool name and matching interest, and she had seen hints that the rest of the class would also be distinctly Not Boring: a boy who had taken his robe off and walked around with his hands in his sleeves, a pair of girls speaking some form of Foreign (Morgan was pretty sure, from the sound of it and the girls' looks, that said Foreign was Spanish, so potentially not the most exotic or uncommon form of Foreign, but she was absolutely sure it was Foreign) and so on. She didn't know how well any of them were going to get along, but hopefully at the very least they would be interesting, which was really the best anyone could ask of a group of people.

There were not many interesting people in Industry, Kentucky, she thought. The most interesting person there had always been Anna, and Anna was dead now. She assumed there were a lot more interesting people in Washington state where Dad and Sage lived, but Morgan didn't get to meet many of them. She was more than due for some interesting company again.

As she followed the other first years into the Cascade Hall, Morgan tried to pretend she was on a red carpet, figuring there were only so many times she would ever have an entrance like this even at wizard school, but it was hard to feel like a movie star in a room with all these candles and while wearing a baggy, shapeless garment that was as unflattering as anything she had ever seen on her over her clothes, and still wearing her hated sneakers. She did, however, finally feel like a proper witch, so she guessed that was something. She did feel as though she were acting, though, when she stepped up to the cauldron and dipped her badge in it, waiting breathlessly for the results. She could practically hear the score rising to its almost-breaking point in her head, though she didn't have time to regret its absence in real life before her badge had turned Blue and she broke into a most un-movie-star-like excited grin.

She had tried hard not to have a bias toward any of the Houses, reasoning that she knew basically nothing about any of them, but she had secretly hoped for Aladren anyway. Aladren was where Dad had been, and what was more dramatic and thematic than moving through the same spaces one's (at one time, anyway) long-lost parent had done once? She could imagine a whole plot just about a girl like her (or rather, her if she had only just now met Dad, instead of doing so a few years ago) moving into Aladren and looking for evidence of what it had been like a gazillion years ago when Dad was here....

Admittedly, the Good Movies she knew with such plot elements typically involved someone being dead, but details, details. The important thing was that this was going to be cool. She gave Professor Skies her best movie star wave and tried not to bounce too much on her way to the Aladren table, getting there with only one wince of annoyance as her stupid ugly practical shoes squeaked on the ivory marble floors.

She waved to Mab when she saw the other girl get Sorted into Pecari and clapped politely for the Head Students and all the prefects, who she didn't know but good for them anyway. Then the midsummer event was announced and Morgan's eyes widened as she gasped quietly with excitement. A ball? A real, honest-to-goodness ball?

She did not make a very good contribution to the school song, as her head was too full of images of Jackie Kennedy (regal in a pink dress and with her diamond star brooch pinned in her hair) and Princess Grace (ruby tiara, full regalia, of course, and also the blue dress, and the Rear Window dress, even though she didn't think that one was technically a ballgown) and Vivien Leigh to pay much attention to the paper in front of her. She knew, of course, that she couldn't have anything like any of the dresses in her head even if she had been old enough to really participate in a ball - for one thing, she had no money, and for another thing, her parents wouldn't buy her something that grand even if they could have afforded it - but from the distance of several months off, she could afford to indulge in dreams. As Cinderella always said, they couldn't stop her from dreaming.

They could, however, distract her with feasting. It hadn't been that long since she'd had snacks at the orientation, but she found she was eager to eat anyway. She still made a point of grinning at a neighbor, though, before digging in. "Hi, I'm Morgan," she said. "I hope this is all as good as it looks!"
16 Morgan Garrett Hello, new audience! 1470 0 5

Josephine Clyde

December 08, 2019 5:52 PM
The Cascade Hall was huge, no really, gigantic. Josie couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in a room full of this many people. What had Professor Wright said earlier? Seven years of school? So many people! And she couldn’t wait to see what they all knew. All the first years were gathered in the middle of the room, or at least in front of the cauldron. She watched as her fellow first years dipped their badges into the bubbles and pulled out colors. Josie started praying again. Anything other than Pecari would make her happy. Her hand tightened around the still blank badge as her name was called. ‘Clyde’ wasn’t a last name that gave her a lot of time to mentally prepare. Here goes nothing. Josie closed her eyes and didn’t open them until she heard someone say, “Aladren!” There seemed to be clapping, but all Josie could hear as she made her way to an empty spot at the Aladren table was the relieved beating of her heart.

She stumbled into a seat at the table and listened to the rest of the Headmaster’s opening speech with half a brain. A ball sounded like fun, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d dressed up, but her mind fixated on her new House. Aladren. Thank God. Josie wished she could see the look on her father’s face when he found out she wasn’t in Pecari. After not saying anything about Sonora ever, her father suddenly changed the day her acceptance letter came. He pulled out old photos, talked about the school and the nearby floating town, which what? Floating town?! But with each new memory her father remembered the bitterness would double. It hadn’t had a specific target, but the more he talked about Pecari, the more it grew. How dare he be so secretive for her entire life? How dare he be so open and wanting to share now? Josie wished she could see his face when he discovered she was in Aladren, but her imagination would have to be good enough for now.

Food appeared on the table and Josie regretted not eating anything earlier at the orientation. She reached for a shiny dinner roll when she caught her neighbor’s grin. Such an infectious grin it made her smile back automatically.

“I’m Josephine but you can call me Josie. I’m starving! I didn’t eat anything earlier. Too nervous, I guess. So everything will probably be really good to me.” She paused, “Are you…fully magical? I’m only half, so everything is super crazy to me right now. In a good way!”
Wow, so much word vomit that Josie wanted to punch herself. Hopefully the other girl wasn’t too put off by it.
44 Josephine Clyde Not Pecari, not Pecari, NOT Pecari 1477 Josephine Clyde 0 5

Morgan Garrett

December 08, 2019 6:46 PM
Josephine, called Josie. Josie didn't have any particular associations for her, but Josephine did - specifically, Josephine Baker. Josephine Baker was awesome, from what Morgan knew about her, and she felt a flash of kinship and slight envy at the same time. Morgan's second name was Grace, which was like Princess Grace - never mind that Mom had had no such thought in mind when she had picked it - but having a better first name than plain Morgan had to make the world work a little better.

"Only half? Where did the rest go?" asked Morgan with another grin, and then she realized that this might not go over well. "Sorry - I think I somehow got Dad's sense of humor in the blood, and Dad...he thinks he's a lot funnier than he is," she apologized. "I'm half-and-half too...sort of? Kind of? I don't know. Mom's a Muggle, and all my grandparents are Muggles," she said. "Dad's a wizard, though. Technically."

All this was simple enough. A Muggleborn wizard having a kid with a Muggle wasn't that uncommon. It just started getting weird at every point after that. Morgan had not yet made up her mind what she wanted to tell these roommate creatures she now had about all that. Not that she cared or anything - it was just how things were; Morgan hadn't even realized her situation was that weird until Sage had clued her in with some facial expressions when they had met - but it was impossible to explain it without a whole spiel, she thought, and going into one of those about her family was the kind of thing she preferred to do only if asked to do so.

"So, where are you from?" she asked instead. "I'm from Kentucky, mostly - sometimes I stay with Dad and my step-mom in Washington, but most of the time I'm from Kentucky."
16 Morgan Garrett Nope, this is not Pecari. 1470 0 5

Josephine Clyde

December 09, 2019 4:19 AM
Josie let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding as the other girl talked as if nothing was wrong. Spewing words at someone wasn’t exactly the best way to introduce oneself, but it was way better than how she’d met Daniel and Samuel. Morgan had moved the conversation on to her parents’ ancestry. Technically. Now that was interesting. She filed it away for later when…if they became better friends. Even though their similar families made Josie yearn for a deeper connection, the past few months had taught her that it didn’t matter how much she wanted a relationship if the other person had no interest in it.

“I was born in Georgia, but my family moved to Nevada when I was young. We used to live near Las Vegas, but my father decided to move us closer to Lake Mead. So, not near Vegas anymore.”

She didn’t think she would ever miss climbing to the roof with her father. They’d done it every night they could, just to see the lights of the Vegas strip, the City of Sin, as her father liked to call it. It seemed to glitter like her mother’s favorite bracelet, a thin line of shiny, sparkling light. They lived far away from the city now, but the stars were bright and the sky was so clear. Heat flared behind Josie’s eyes as she remembered the last time she’d asked her father to go up to the roof with her. It was too dangerous, go to bed. She sat on the roof alone for three months before he realized what she was doing. A lock showed up on her window the next day.

No. This was magic school. This was Sonora. There were no locks on bedroom windows here. No father to keep her away from little pieces of happiness. The heat disappeared and she gave Morgan what was hopefully an apologetic smile.
“Sorry, allergies. What’s Kentucky like? I don’t remember anything about Georgia and I’ve always wanted to visit the South. I hear good stuff about the pies. This,” she gestured with a wide sweep of her hand, “Is the farthest south I’ve ever gone.”
44 Josephine Clyde Did someone say PIE? 1477 Josephine Clyde 0 5

Morgan Garrett

December 09, 2019 8:24 AM
Another Southerner! That was a bit of a surprise. Dad said there hadn't been many when he was in school, and not a lot of people of their sort even among those who were present - the others had often been rich folks, he'd said. The fact Josie had moved to Nevada when she was small was a detail really. As Anna had always said - if you were born in Industry, you'd probably die there sooner or later. The South was sort of inescapable, sooner or later.

"The pies are definitely good," she confirmed with a nod. "Gosh, I'm gonna miss Miz Janie's chocolate pie at church lunches. It's. The. Best." Morgan closed her eyes dreamily, thinking about that pie. "She makes her pie crusts herself. It's the only pie crust I've ever seen that you can eat and it tastes as good as the pie. Plus there's cobblers - my gran-gran makes the best cobblers. Best thing about Kentucky."

She sighed slightly at the thought of months of separation from her favorite foods, feeling slightly melancholy for the first time, but she put it aside. "Industry is...small. Tiny. Mapdot. Industry is the town I'm from," she added, remembering that the word could mean something else. "Not much happens there. Go to church, go to the fair once a year, that kind of thing. When I was little, though, I used to have so much fun every year making my own hat and everything to watch the Derby on TV. We have the best hats to go with the best pies. Everybody gets to look like a movie star." A classic movie star, that was - there were also some with hats that looked more like modern movie stars, but Morgan chose not to look at them much. "Um - do you know what TV is?" she asked, remembering. "I know some people with more than one wizard in the family don't really," she explained, realizing this could seem like a really insulting question if Josie did. She had said she was half-blood but she had also said that magic was overwhelming, so it could go either way with her. "And what's Nevada like? I've always wondered what it would be like, living near a desert."
16 Morgan Garrett Mmmm, pie. 1470 0 5

Josephine Clyde

December 24, 2019 9:04 AM
What on earth was chocolate pie? Such a thing existed? To think that there were other kinds! At the height of her baking memories sat conversations about blueberry, apple, strawberry, cherry, but never had she heard of a chocolate pie. And cobblers! Josie wriggled with excitement; she needed to take every last little detail from Morgan. The pies were one thing, but cobblers? That was another thing entirely. The most exciting thing was that it seemed like Southern pie really was as a good as her mother had said. Even her father had said something once about a slice of pie he had eaten years before she’d been born. Another memory of her mother’s wide smile and big hand gestures made Josie grin widely. It had been during one of their weekend baking days, a rare rainy day that had kept her from going to the park. At first, Josie had insisted on going, but her mother had taken one look and smelled the air. She said it smelled like rain, but no matter how much Josie sniffed and sniffed, she had never smelled anything other than the freshly cut grass next door. They’d been in the middle of mixing together the brownie batter when the rain started. At that moment, the magical one was her mother. Not that it mattered anymore.

“I have two step-brothers, they’re always watching TV and it’s always something that’s blowing up or has guns or really big trucks. It’s not really fun. They don’t let me watch with them.” Josie pushed past that sad thought. No point in letting every happy memory she had be ruined by her new family. “Nevada is really dry, but it’s not really as hot as everyone thinks it is. Sometimes, in the winter, I wear those really puffy jackets. You know the ones people wear when they go to places with lots of snow? My mother used to say that weather in the South was humid?” What had that meant again? Josie racked her brain; her mother had told her this! Every time she complained about the weather her mother had had something to way worse to say about the South. “I’m not really sure what it means. I think my mother described it as…wet and heavy? Like it’ll rain, but it never does? I can’t imagine such a thing!” And she really couldn’t, but why was she asking about the weather? Pies!

Josie leaned in closer to Morgan and looked at the other girl with a big grin, “Tell me more about these chocolate pies. My mother and I loved to bake, but she never told me about chocolate pie!”

(OOC sorry! I lost this post and thought I replied ages ago!)
44 Josephine Clyde Parkas 1477 0 5

Morgan Garrett

December 24, 2019 2:19 PM
Morgan nodded in sympathy at the description of Josie's knowledge of TV. "Guys just do not watch much good on TV," she agreed, though she didn't really think this was the fairest statement she had ever made. Her papa liked to watch a lot of old TV - Gunsmoke, Bonanza, that kind of thing. Morgan had never really gotten into Gunsmoke that much, but she liked Bonanza and In the Heat of the Night. When he switched to his action movies, though, that was kinda boring.

"Yeah, that's humidity," she agreed with more authority when Josie tried to describe it. "The summer's like that down South. Winter's usually not that bad, but summer...uggh," she complained, waving her hand as though to fan herself. It always looked so fabulously decadent when people fanned themselves in the movies, but she knew from experience than in reality it was just...a thing that was necessary sometimes. It was just too hot in the summer. "Air feels like it's suffocating you or something. I think it's worse in Georgia though because it's, like, closer to the ocean," she said.

Pie really was a better subject. "Oh, you have got to get you some," she said upon finding out that Josie didn't know what chocolate pie was. "It's...well, you got pie crust, that's just like any pie crust, but then it's full of...you know, I think it's basically chocolate pudding," she admitted. "But it's homemade, not like the stuff in the little cups in the store. And then you put meringue on top of it, and it's juuuust browned on top, and these little...sugar-drops come out of it when you bake it on top, like caramel, and...mmm. You've got to get you some," she concluded dreamily, wondering if in this place of wonders, it was possible to wish a pie onto the dessert menu. It probably wouldn't be as good as the ones at home but it would still be really good. She didn't know how a chocolate pie could be anything other than delicious.

(OOC: No problem! If you want to jump over to the Aladren Common Room, there's also a thread there for the Aladren first year girls now)
16 Morgan Garrett I'd rather have pie. 1470 0 5

Josephine Clyde

January 01, 2020 8:43 AM
Josie could almost taste the pie as Morgan described it. It. Sounded. Heavenly. She’d been making mental notes of the ingredients. Pie crust? She’d been making pie crust since she was four; she knew that recipe almost as well as she knew her name. Chocolate pudding wasn’t really something that she’d made before, but it couldn’t be too terribly difficult. When they had first started making meringue they beat the eggs until their arms fell off. Her father had bought them a mixer after they’d forced him to help one time.

Maybe that baking club she’d talked about earlier in the gardens with Theo and Jo could make a comeback. Did the school have outlets to plug in mixers? Would they even need mixers? Maybe there was a magical baking spell that made everything finish in seconds! But as exciting as that was it wouldn’t be the same. Time, effort and love that’s what made a pie, and any baked good, delicious. Even if there was a magic shortcut she wouldn’t want to take it.

“If we have time I’ll bake something for you! Some of the other students told me that there used to be a baking club here. I’d love to join it, maybe we both could!” Josie remembered that Morgan had mentioned something about the Derby. Was that that thing about the racecars? Daniel and Samuel liked watching sports with her father and they made a point of doing it every night. It was very much a “boys only” thing and she had never been interested in sports outside of hiking. Josie cocked her head; Morgan hadn’t seemed like the sports loving type.

“So is the Derby that sport with the racecars that go around a track? My father and step-brothers watch it on TV. I guess it must be really important in the South?”
44 Josephine Clyde The...Derby??? 1477 0 5

Morgan Garrett

January 02, 2020 8:39 AM
Morgan was surprised to get an offer of baked goods from a classmate, but only because Josie was also eleven. Baking for friends...acquaintances...new acquaintances...anyone with trouble in the family...anyone with an occasion, really, was just what women did, in her experience. That, or taking them barbecue, but Morgan liked baked goods a lot more than barbecue - as, her mom would no doubt remark, her figured showed, but whatever.

"That would be so cool," she said. "I've helped mix things up before, or gotten things out of the fridge or the cabinet, but I've never been allowed to use the stove or the oven before at home," she said.

She made a slight face, though, when asked if the Derby was the 'thing with the race cars.' "Noooo," she said, drawing the word out for emphasis. "That's NASCAR." Her tone was not entirely approving. "Which - I mean, that is a huge thing in the South, but I'm not into it," she said. She guessed she could see the appeal of watching a short race, but watching cars go round and round for hours? She wasn't quite sure what the appeal of that was, or how it all even worked, considering that cars were kind of...car-y. Every one she had ever seen had had the same speed range, she thought, so it seemed logical to assume that race cars did likewise, and it just came down to who was craziest. Craziness and driving were a bad match.

That thought, naturally, brought back memories. Memories she did not want to have. Anna had not been crazy (Dad had, in fact, endeared himself to Morgan in no small part by cussing out a cousin of theirs who had referred to his 'pillhead sister' one time; Anna's medicine had been no different in practice than the stuff Gran-Gran took for her blood pressure, and nobody said Gran-Gran was crazy or on drugs for that), but something had clearly mixed poorly with driving, and now she was dead. So NASCAR was probably never going to be Morgan's thing, and the only reason she would ever learn to drive would be at least ten failures to pass the Apparition test when she was older.

"The Derby is...the Kentucky Derby. The run for the roses. It's...well, it is a race," she admitted. "But horses, not cars, and I don't really care that much about that part either." There was some interest in it - more than NASCAR - since horses were less predictable than cars, but it really was only a secondary draw beside..."The thing about the Derby is really watching people at the Derby, and pretending we're there," she explained. "Everyone wears these fabulous hats, and nice clothes, and there are tents and flowers, and it's just like in a story," she explained. "You could just imagine turning around and seeing Princess Grace there - though not with that hat she wore to the White House, ugh," she said, with another grimace at the thought of That Hat. She could only assume that Princess Grace had worn That Hat to prevent any diplomatic incidents, so that Jackie could look all the better by comparison and President Kennedy would not be interested in Princess Grace right there in front of both Jackie and Prince Rainier. "Um - do you know about Princess Grace?" she asked, remembering that most people at her old school had not known these things. "She was Grace Kelly when she lived here, the actress?" she elaborated.
16 Morgan Garrett It's much cooler than NASCAR. 1470 0 5

Josephine Clyde

January 05, 2020 5:23 AM
“My mother and I used to bake all the time together; she wouldn’t let me near the oven at first.” Josie paused, fiddling with a fork, “I do all the baking by myself now.”

Her mother had insisted on baking for every bake sale at her school and used to come to school on the day of the sale to help. Those had always been the best days at school. There had been a bake sale at the new school in the new area that her father had moved them to, but she let it pass her by quietly. The biggest mistake she’d ever made was asking Daniel and Samuel to bake with her; the second biggest was asking her step-mother. They hadn’t been interested of they’d been busy. They were always busy; sometimes she thought they said that just to avoid her.

So the racing cars sport thing was NASCAR. Maybe, during the break, she could ask them about it and they would finally bond. Or it would just end horribly like the one time she watched it with them and a car had crashed into another car and burst into flames. It had reminded her too much of the car accident her mother had been in and when she started crying her step-brothers were annoyed and didn’t know what to do with her. Honestly, she was happy that Sonora didn’t have cars.

Princess Grace? Grace Kelly? Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window Grace Kelly? Of course she knew one of the most beautiful actresses in the world. Well, her mother had known, but the movie had been so amazing that Josie became a fan of Alfred Hitchcock on the spot.

“I love Hitchcock movies! Even if some of them are a little scary, but I love, love, love them! My favorite actor is James Stewart. He’s so tall and good looking. But tell me more about these hats? To think that the Derby is a horse race that people wear fancy clothes and hats for!” Josie giggled as an image of James Stewart in a hat with Grace Kelly's face on it danced around in her head, “The South sounds magical.”

Magic school, new magic friends, magical Georgia and Kentucky and pie. Sonora was a beautiful paradise compared to the rolling desert of Nevada.
44 Josephine Clyde Dial Birds for Vertigo 1477 0 5