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

Jessica Hayles

December 08, 2019 7:13 PM
It was, Jessica thought grimly, so much easier to show people exactly how little you cared that they hated you when you didn't have to wear a seriously unflattering uniform. As far as she could tell, it took near-superhuman dedication to make their robes look better or worse than it was in their nature to look, and the fact she had never really liked the color green that much was just the cherry on top of a sundae of stupid which nobody had ordered.

In the absence of the ability to look completely fabulous, she had focused on what she could control. Fortunately, for an evening occasion, that was a reasonable amount.

Her parents remained convinced that she had no need for a full face of make-up, but the number of cosmetics she was allowed to wear both on a daily basis and specifically to evening occasions had been increased over the summer. Officially, this was because she had turned thirteen; unofficially, Jessica kind of suspected that Daddy had just been hoping to cheer her up after the disaster with Mara, or else to distract himself from the fact he was fighting with Mommy since said debacle, but either way, the increased permissiveness was proving helpful. She could now wear real mascara every day, showing off her eyelashes to full effect, and since it was evening, she was also allowed to use the darkest shade in her tiny palette of permissible eyeshadows as an eyeliner. A pale silvery shade had been lightly swept over her lids, too, and a light-colored blush helped sculpt her face a little and tie the top of her face together with the bottom, as she was wearing the slightly raspberryish Summer Rose tinted balm instead of her usual lighter pink Jessica Rose. She had also painted her nails Summer Rose, and swapped out her usual pink handbag for a silvery clutch. Her Tiffany diamonds flashed in her ears and a gold and diamond bangle encircled her left wrist.

All that was helpful, but she thought it was the shoes that really pulled it together. She had swapped out her sandals for dark grey, lightly heathered slingbacks. There was just something about walking in heels - as opposed to wedges, like the sandals - which automatically, she thought, made a walk more assertive, at least with her. She walked the same way her mother did, she thought. Like a woman who knew where she was going and what she was doing and who would walk through anyone who got in her way. Like a woman who didn't need anyone to help her in any way. With her, at least, it was false bravado, but what the public didn't know wouldn't hurt it.

She swept into the Cascade Hall with that thought in mind, her head up, emulating as best she could the expressions of frozen dignity she was used to seeing on the faces of models at fashion shows. She did not look left or right as she took a seat at the Crotalus table. If someone didn't want to sit with her, that person could move.

Her expression softened slightly, however, as the first years entered the room and her eyes immediately found her sister. Mara had that look she had when something really did make her nervous, but she was determined not to show it. The annoying thing was that Mara almost always did indeed then succeed in doing whatever she wanted to do, regardless of her reservations. Jessica had never had that kind of luck; if she got scared, she ended up crying in a corner. She envied her sister's strength even as she was glad Mara had it - Mara, after all, was in for a significantly more uncomfortable life than Jessica, most likely, even though the fault was entirely in their stars and not in themselves.

Mara was Sorted into Aladren, and Jessica raised her eyebrows slightly before she shrugged and smiled at her sister. She did not bother applauding for Caitlin Pierce or the others, dismissing them as probably unimportant to her, but she did take a slight interest in the announcement of a midsummer ball. That, she thought, was worth taking an interest in - even if the best she could do was best-dressed, probably.

Though, she didn't think Hilda or Johana Leonie had any male friends either, plus they had met Sophia last year at the bonfire, so maybe she could hang out with girlfriends during it. Plus, Jessica was definitely going to be a contender for best-dressed. Sometimes she thought the thing Mommy hated most about Jessica's condition and subsequent confinement to Sonora was that Jessica no longer got to win competitions, so all Jessica would really have to do was imply it was a formal contest and she could probably convince Mommy to fly to her Milan at Christmas to get something custom made. It could be fun. Would be fun.

She sang along with the school song, making a face at the point where 'us' was rhymed with itself and then glancing at Mara and then quickly away again to keep from collapsing into giggles. That was not the kind of thing one did at the Crotalus table, after all, especially when one had literally no friends here anymore. Instead, she turned to the food, making eye contact with someone when they picked up a dish she wanted.

"Pass that to me when you're done with it, please," she said.
16 Jessica Hayles Walking is an art. 1442 0 5

Jeremy Mordue

December 10, 2019 6:18 AM
Jeremy had no idea what to think. Most of his family would have said this wasn’t a new phenomenon. But it was a new sensation – less that he was being unthinking and more that he was adrift in a world that made no sense. The world had been turned upside down and inside out several times. Mother had let them all down, which had hardly been a surprise – he was still busy burying the actual hurt he felt over that under denial and resentment, and telling himself it was just like her and he didn’t need her anyway. He had been unable to process it as anything except anger. Nathaniel threatening to go with her had been part of that. It had been easy to just shove it all down into the same box that he kept a tight lid on and turn anything that wouldn’t go in into just being mad at everyone. And then he carried on, like normal.

Then Nathaniel had sent the letter. The letter had done more to rip his world apart than any of the rest of it, or perhaps it was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Nathaniel had decided to leave. Well, fine, screw him - had he stayed it never would have been for Jeremy anyway. But on his way out, he wanted to shred Jeremy’s worldview to pieces by dragging up all this stuff about father. Saying awful things. He had no idea why Nathaniel would do that. He had not decided whether or not it was true. That didn’t matter. He didn’t want to know about it. So, into the box it went. It wouldn’t all fit, but he could let some of it out in hating Nathaniel. He was even allowed to call Nathaniel spiteful and selfish and be angry at him, just a little bit, with Simon, because they were all allowed to be mad at Nathaniel. He wouldn’t have dared say it to Sylvia, who seemed determined that Nathaniel would be redeemed still, but he got enough of it out. And then the rest fitted in the box, and the lid went back on. There had been some other guff in the letter about how they would always be brothers. That was bull. Nathaniel wasn’t staying.

And then, he had.

They had all smiled and been so happy that Nathaniel had come to his senses, and even Simon had, and Jeremy wasn’t sure that wanting to punch him in the face any more was allowed. He had really come back with them. For Sylvia. Jeremy was sort of shocked. It wasn’t like he cared what happened to mother but… well, he’d been allowed to not care because Nathaniel did. Now mother was on her own, and Nathaniel clearly didn’t mean a word he said about anything, and- he hadn’t even tried putting that in the box. None of it made sense. All he knew was that nothing made sense.

He wasn’t allowed to yell at anyone though.

He had to be on best behaviour because now he lived with Uncle Alexander. Jeremy wasn’t frightened of anything, because that was weak, but he had… just never really had to think about how he wasn’t frightened of anything when he lived with mother. There was also clearly something wrong with Nathaniel. He had been acting super weird, and Jeremy had no idea what this strange version of Nathaniel that wrote spiteful letters and abandoned their mother was going to do next.

He applauded enthusiastically when Nathaniel got prefect, because that was a rule. They were family. Allegedly. Still.

He had taken a seat at Crotalus near the start of the evening, and been very surprised when the Mudblood that his roommate associated with had swanned in like she owned the place, and taken the seat next to him like they were equals. It had, if he was honest, made his blood boil, because how dare she?

He wasn’t allowed to be mad at Nathaniel. Nathaniel was his brother. And there was something else going on.

He wasn’t able to be mad at mother to her face any more because she wasn’t there.

He wasn’t allowed to be mad, or to let it come out anywhere at home.

No one gave a damn how he treated a jumped up Mudblood though.

“I don’t think I want it actually,” he replied, when Jessica showed an interest in the dish he’d picked up, the sneer in his voice making it evident that this had everything to do with her saying she wanted it. “And I’m not your house elf,” he stated, placing it back where it had been, out of her reach. “You are a witch though. Allegedly,” he added. “Get it yourself.”
13 Jeremy Mordue So is choosing a target 1443 0 5

Jessica Hayles

December 10, 2019 9:57 AM
Jessica has always been under the impression that Jeremy Mordue was some kind of social incompetent, given that as far as she could tell, he did even worse in the friend department than she did, which was saying something. Odd, considering it was right in the school handbook that Crotalus cared about being respectable members of society, but she supposed there were people who couldn’t achieve their goals in every type. As he replied to her, though, she began to form a new opinion of why he seemed to not do well.

What was it, she thought, with this school and rude people? Was wizard culture really that barbaric? Did she need to introduce them to the concept of the chivalric romance and get the turn toward civilization started?

She was briefly seized by a fantasy of using the spell she knew that could move things - the flying spell - to make the bowl float up, then ‘accidentally’ depositing its contents on his head. That, she thought, would serve him right for that ‘allegedly’ bit. There was, however, one problem with following through with that - her wand was in her trunk back at Crotalus.

“Fine,” said Jessica. “I will.” She stood up and leaned over to pick the bowl up manually. “Did someone forget to hug you today or something?” she asked, sitting back down and beginning to serve herself. “Your roommate can probably help you with that, he’s a hugger and enjoys the company of pointlessly rude people sometimes.”

Perhaps that had not been proper of her, either, but she was - at least in her present flash of anger - so done with these people. These people who thought they were better than her all for completely stupid reasons. All her life she had tried and tried to toe the line, to be perfect, and where had it gotten her? Next to nowhere. She was sick of it. She was Jessica Rose Hayles. Her great-grandmother had been among this country’s earliest independent female millionaires. Her mother was Rosalie Groves, whose family had wielded power in Georgia for almost a hundred years and whose family’s South Georgia estate could probably fit two of this school inside. She did not have to permit anyone to be rude to her, and especially not someone as overtly so as Jerkemy Mordue here.
16 Jessica Hayles You don’t seem to have great aim. 1442 0 5

Jeremy Mordue

December 10, 2019 5:20 PM
CW - homophobic slurs

"Nice magic," Jeremy smirked, when Jessica reached across to pick up the dish by hand. He made sure to lean well back when she did this. Did she think she was proving some kind of point by refusing to do a spell in front of him? He had no idea what it would be because, as far as he was concerned, she was merely providing amunition. "Are you moving up to intermediates this year?" he checked.

"I don't hug other boys," he said, with an air of revulsion. It was a weak taunt, he thought, asking a boy if he needed a hug because of course he didn't. "I'm not gay," he said, with all the derisive scorn a very immature thirteen year old could pour into that. Jessica's insult game was pretty weak, if that was the best she could manage because it wasn't like anyone would ever think that about him. He was a Quidditch player.

The fact that no one had hugged him for a while, and maybe no one ever would again, was in the box, so that didn't touch him. And it didn't matter anyway, because thirteen was too big for hugs anyway and he'd never liked them.

"I thought you liked Felipe?" he added, her last comment, or rather its implications, filtering through.

13 Jeremy Mordue I totally got you 1443 0 5

Jessica Hayles

December 10, 2019 5:56 PM
Okay, seriously, what was this dude's problem? Did he think she was going to give him cooties, or was he that easily intimidated that someone leaning over a table made him want to retreat? Or...

She did not glance down until she had the excuse of putting down the dish, at which point she was reassured that no, he almost certainly could not have got a look down her front even if leaning back had been an attempt at doing so. Well. To think this stupid uniform had advantages! Not that there was a lot to see there anyway, but she had to wear a training bra anyway, which was apparently enough to attract the attention of eighth graders back home if she was reliably informed about them. Since she trusted her sources, she was therefore grateful to her potato sack of a uniform from preventing Jeremy Mordue from having nasty thoughts about things he was definitely not good enough to ever have anyway. The idea of him even thinking it made her skin crawl at the moment. She was still far too young to date, but she planned to have standards when she was older. Anyone she took seriously enough for that person to look down her shirt at some point in the future was going to be both polite and someone who could provide a generous shoe allowance if she ended up unemployable because of this whole missing-years-of-her-education thing.

"Yes, I am," said Jessica when asked if she was moving to intermediates. "We're in the same grade." She omitted the sarcastic genius from the end of the sentence, but trusted her tone still said it clearly enough. "But where I come from, we don't bring weapons to the dinner table."

This, of course, was a flat-out lie. Her mom often had one somewhere near her, including at supper. That, however, was none of this guy's business.

"You're making a really strong case for that, putting as much distance between you and the nearest girl as you physically can," she said, just as scornfully as he had asserted his heterosexuality in response to her taunts. "Really, really strong case."

She knew, of course, that it was the wrong thing to say and do. There was nothing about being gay which warranted mockery. It was just...a thing. Some people were gay, some people were not. If Jessica was gay, or ever had gay experiences, then she would have to hide that, of course - too many of her family members were politicians in the Deep South, she'd hurt their chances with the electorate - but there was nothing actually immoral or wrong about it. She couldn't deny, though, that there was some satisfaction in kicking at this guy, since none of the things that really bothered her were available and he was being an annoyance right now.

Jessica was momentarily startled by the question about Felipe, but then remembered the form of words she had used. "I was referring to his other - " possibly now only, but she wasn't going to think about that - "friend Zara," she said. "You should ask her to the ball, I think you two would get along wonderfully."
16 Jessica Hayles Only in your dreams, babe. 1442 0 5

Jeremy Mordue

December 14, 2019 3:46 AM
“Age-wise,” Jeremy commented when she mentioned their grades. He wasn’t sure whether that was her idea of not rising to the bait but it just made her seem more stupid as she didn’t even seem to realise she was being insulted.

“You see your wand as a weapon?” Jeremy questioned, “How primitive of you,” he stated, making sure to make this as black and white as possible for her dumb little brain to follow. There was no way she was getting to insult their culture and get away with it. He had no idea whether her assertion about Muggles was true but it was scarcely the point. Nor was the primary use of magic or what it said about your personality. On another given day, he might assert that being able to fire off curses at will made them the superior race. Whatever it took to knock her down a peg or two.

“You think that’s to do with me?” he stated, sneering, giving her a long cold look up and down as she stated that putting as much distance between himself and a girl as possible was ‘gay.’ He let out a snort, looking thoroughly offended as he suggested he could ask Zara to the ball.

“I wouldn’t be seen dead with her for all the same reasons I wouldn’t touch you. You really haven't bothered to learn anything about our culture, have you?” he asked with a roll of his eyes.
13 Jeremy Mordue I have permission to dream about you? Nice 1443 0 5

Jessica Hayles

December 14, 2019 1:08 PM
“What can I say,” said Jessica, deadpan, almost amused by the incongruity of a wizard calling her a primitive when they didn’t even have email and Jessica’s until-recently closest friend didn’t even appear to quite fully grasp why universal literacy was better than the alternative. “You just bring it out in me, Jeremy.”

It never occurred to her to use his surname. In general, that just wasn’t the done thing between equals in her world, and while she felt Jeremy’s conduct properly placed him well beneath her, they technically were equals in her view. They were the same age, enrolled in the same institution; it was hard to tell for sure when he was both such a boor and also had the same featureless everyday attire as herself, but she thought they were even of roughly equivalent social classes. He felt like one of her Groves cousins, somehow - perhaps not as wealthy as Jessica and the other Hayleses, but aristocratic more than businesslike. But she considered herself as much of a Groves as she did a Hayles and thus felt comfortable asserting equality with aristocrats too. This was why the next few things he had to say did not so much offend her as baffle her.

“You may not have noticed,” said Jessica flatly, “but this place has about as many opportunities for cultural enrichment as a cornfield.” She had mostly stopped saying things like that last year, but...she was angry. She could still hear Mommy, in her head, blaming Daddy for Mommy’s only child having no future, and Daddy agreeing that neither she nor Mara had any futures now. And here she was, in a conversation and at a table which just emphasized how very empty her life was likely to be now that she was at a school with no name recognition and no proper curriculum. She really couldn’t see any point to sensoring herself anymore, and wondered why she ever, briefly, had. “So please. Educate me. ”
16 Jessica Hayles Oh, so you want to do so,? Good to know. 1442 0 5

Jeremy Mordue

December 14, 2019 6:36 PM
“I’m not the one who suggested it. And clearly you made that decision before even starting to speak to me, so you’re going to have to do better than that,” he retorted. The use of his first name was irritating, but he didn’t really expect better from the likes of her, though it did cause him to narrow his eyes.

“Oh right. Your old school was staging operas, was it?” he asked, when she stated school was devoid of cultural opportunity.

“And I meant the social order and rules of society,” he pointed out. It was hard to tell whether she was genuinely an idiot or being deliberately provoking but he would take whichever let him get a shot in at any given moment. “Some families’ magic stretches back for generations. We come into this school with a proper understanding of this world, its history and its culture. There is a need for people like you,” he said, imbuing the phrase with a tone that conveyed parallels with something unpleasant stuck to his shoe, “To be educated to stop you blowing yourselves up or compromising the rest of us. But you don’t help the case for people like you truly belonging here when you refuse to learn anything about this world, or act as if it is utterly beneath you. It’s people like you who are beneath the rest of us. And that Muggle loving halfbreed is no better,” he added, with a dismissive jerk of the head towards Teppenpaw. “The things her family promotes are downright distasteful.”
13 Jeremy Mordue If it bugs you, yes 1443 0 5

Jessica Hayles

December 15, 2019 9:37 AM
Jessica considered the argument and had to admit that he’d come out fractionally ahead in that one. She flipped her hair in annoyance.

“Fine, I’ll give you that one,” she said. “But you still haven’t offered any reason - other than you being too socially incompetent to pass a dish like practically everyone else in this room - “ she added, gesturing to multiple cases of exactly that happening all around them - “why I would have any use for the thing at the table.”

She couldn’t see any way around that one. Nobody else was using magic just to move dishes around the table. Nobody else was deliberately being difficult just for the fun of it. That was all on him.

“Or...for that matter, why you picked it up like a normal person yourself before you decided to be inexplicably rude to me,” she added, with a slight, perverse thrill at the feeling she had just pinned him in a far better corner than he had briefly worked her into.

“Actually, yes,” she said coolly, now with an even greater feeling of having scored a point. “The high school section of the music department had a summer program. We went on field trips. And even the lower school had music and art classes and appreciation classes. Even our PE lessons had dance units in them.” She smirked a little, feeling very much that something was finally going her way.

The feeling didn’t last long, though. It was quickly replaced - in her head and in her facial expression - first by shock, then by revulsion.

“I take it back,” she said finally, looking him over with an expression of equal parts disgust and contempt. “She’s way out of your league. She’s just mean. You’re just plain vile.”

Her accent thickened noticeably by the end of the sentence, which in context made her uncomfortable - she was not a scumbag in that way, and neither were her parents, but a lot of people whose vowels and rs sounded the same way hers did, and who spoke at the same pace, were, well, scumbags on par with Jeremy. Even more had been historically, or at least had been as open about it. Jessica knew there were still people who wished they could say things as vile as what Jeremy had just said - and that some of them would privately say it as quickly about her sisters as about Zara Jackson, which made her want to throw her whole plate in his face; if he ever called Mara a ‘half-breed’ like that, she swore she would do something like that, and hang the consequences - but most of them at least had the sense not to say it in public.

“And you got a lot of nerve saying you’re better than anybody or that anyone’s ideas are distasteful when your racist - “ she veered dangerously close to saying the word she was actually thinking, but recovered - “posterior sits here talking like that,” she added with a sneer. “I really hope you improve yourself someday,” she concluded, remembering belatedly that this was what you were supposed to say, before picking up her plate and standing again to move to a different seat.
16 Jessica Hayles Please. I have infinitely better things to keep me occupied. 1442 0 5

Sadie-Lake Chalmers

December 23, 2019 1:32 AM
Sadie followed the other first years into the hall, trying to blend into the middle of the group. She hoped it wasn’t super noticeable that her jaw literally dropped when she walked into the room. It was #SoExtra. How would you even photograph this to show off the #InteriorDesign ? Whole rooms were hard enough to get decent shots of even when they weren’t this big. It was better to showcase little details. But like… this whole room was just #aweinspiring. How would you convey that through a few close ups?

And then it hit her, all over again. That didn’t matter. She didn’t even have a cellphone in her pocket. None of this was to be photographed or shared for likes and clicks. She was going to just… live in it. In a literal fairy castle with water streaming down the walls.

She made her way forward, honestly a little creeped out by the cauldron. It was way to early in the year for #SpookyTimes and #Halloween. Like, it wasn’t an “evil” cauldron or bad potion or whatever but it was hard not to think of that when she saw it, especially when her badge turned the colour of blood.

That was… the table over there. They all had super weird names (yeah, she knew that was rich coming from someone called Sadie-Lake but like… those were both words, at least. One of them was even a name. These all sounded strange to her). She took a seat, and… And there were badges. And there was a song and flying music sheets. Then a feast that appeared out of literal nowhere. Sadie tried not to stare. Everything felt super off and super weird, but she didn’t want to crack and say that she was freaked out or that there was #NoPlaceLikeHome. She was not yet ready to click her ruby heels together three times and go back to that nightmare. That meant getting used to cauldrons and randomly appearing food.

She stared at the selection before her, her brain automatically applying the filters she’d need to compensate for the overly blue-white light before realising again, that had no part in this meal. It didn’t even matter what she chose, or what it looked like. She could eat ugly food. Or unfashionable food. Plenty of this looked like it was not even #SoRetro. It was just… weird or old-fashioned or unphotogenic. She had never had so many choices in her life, both in terms of the sheer number of dishes available and the degree of autonomy she had in choosing. Her mom was always telling her what she liked, or what would look good. Now, it was up to Sadie.

She was sure she sat for a full minute just staring, before her freaking out that not making a choice was making her look weird override her inability to make a decision. She took some salad out of habit because it was important to be healthy and because salad could bulk out blank space easily. She guessed she liked grilled chicken because… well… like… who didn’t? So she took a small piece of that too. She looked down at her dinner wondering whether it really looked small and sad or whether she was just imagining that for some reason. She began picking at her meal slowly, trying to keep half an eye on other people’s choices.

They were a few minutes into the meal, when she noticed an older girl standing up. She looked pretty much livid. Sadie tried not to stare. Staring was rude, and she didn’t want to embarrass the other girl, even though she was the one calling attention to herself right now. The girl made her way around the table, and then dropped right into the seat next to Sadie, still looking furious. Sadie knew that it wasn’t about her. Clearly the girl had had a fight with whoever she’d been sitting next to. However, Sadie had no desire for it to become about her, so she kept her eyes on her plate, hoping she didn’t look as worried as she felt by the sudden appearance of a riled up older classmate right next to her.
13 Sadie-Lake Chalmers What, me? 1480 0 5

Jessica Hayles

December 23, 2019 10:34 AM
Jessica paid almost no attention to where she was going as she walked away from Mordue, but it did not take her long to notice that she was next to someone else now.

She was not pleased about this. She was flustered - upset - hurt - angry - just flustered all around, and did not want to cause herself even more problems just by trying to talk to someone when she was already not at her best. She seemed, after all, to have some knack for making enemies just by breathing and being who she happened to be, so interacting with others when she wasn't at her best could not end well.

However, moving again would surely make that worse, as it would make it look like she was purposefully rejecting the new person. Who seemed to be a first year. At the very least, Jessica was sure she didn't know who the girl was, though there was something vaguely familiar about her face. She assumed it was just a chance resemblance, though, as there were really only so many face types. Maybe this could work out. It had to be easier, interacting with someone on worse footing here than she was, simply by virtue of not knowing the lay of the land in this madhouse.

She took a calming breath, and then slid her fingers into her little handbag and withdrew her tiny, pink-and-gold lacquer, rose-shaped compact and slim rose gold tube (as Summer Rose's packaging was obviously different from her usual silver tube) of tinted balm. Popped open the compact. Reapplied. Was soothed by the better-than-nature, carefully crafted image looking back at her. Put the items away. Exhaled. Smiled. Her cheeks were still slightly flushed, but she was in control again.

Thou, nature, are not my goddess and will not be,
I learned to lie at honest madam’s knee
To prune, graft, and shape the family tree -
Your art fades, ours is preserved for eternity
Carved in stone and printed on silver for all to see
With long-developed ability.


"Hi," she said, as brightly as she could manage.

She wondered if she should pretend that what had just happened had not just happened. She preferred to do that, if she was to be honest. It was always easier to pretend that things that she didn't like simply hadn't happened. That her life was a carefully edited highlight reel, like the highly edited, false-natural online videos she had appeared in for Arvale PR over the summer. They had taken four takes to do one thing at one point, but that hadn't mattered, because when something went wrong - click, tada, the mistake was gone, there was another chance to back up and do it over and over and over until everything came together perfectly.

In lieu of a video camera, however, the best she could do was to keep moving forward. Have no past, just a continual present. Move on. Pretend nothing had happened before at all, rather than trying to fix the mistakes. That was probably for the best. She had tried, for a while, to write about what had happened at the house that day - about that and all the years leading up to it - in the hopes that perhaps she could explain things, fix it, but the lines just didn't seem to work. Maybe there was a lesson in that.

"I'm Jessica," she continued instead. "You're new here, right? Welcome to Crotalus."
16 Jessica Hayles Absolutely! 1442 0 5

Sadie-Lake Chalmers

December 24, 2019 6:04 AM
Sadie was trying super hard to mind her own business, but she couldn't help but notice the girl rummaging for something and wondered whether she was about to pull out her wand and turn Sadie into a frog or something just to vent her bad mood. And then what? Would the staff just change her back, or would she be #WaitingForAHandsomePrince to come and save her?

Luckily, what the girl pulled out was a lot more mundane. It was gloss. #Arvale, #ShadesofSummer, #MustHave to be precise. Arvale sort of intrigued her. They were one of those brands that had an old school glamour about them. The big, untouchable make up houses that had existed longer than she had, or even her mother, and felt like they'd last forever. They made things that Hollywood stars in the golden age had worn. They seemed classy. They seemed, ironic as it might be for a brand based on selling an image, real. Admittedly, even Arvale was now getting in on the social media bubble. It seemed like you had to to survive. But it had existed before that. It would ride it while it was convenient, and then it would sashay off to the next thing. It didn't only exist to be Instagrammed, or thanks to Instagram.

Hi.

Sadie looked round properly, clearly slightly startled by the address. But the girl (who seemed weirdly familiar somehow) was smiling. Sadie hitched a camera worthy smile onto her face in return. Or, she tried. Her large brown eyes still surveyed Jessica very uncertainly.

The one bit of good fortune she had right now was that this girl was sitting on her left. Sadie's #Manicure from her #PamperParty - a shade of forest green called #FairyGirl with subtle differences across each nail, such as a #GlitterTip on one, plus one #SparklingGold #AccentNail - was holding up better on her left hand. Her right always ended up chipped. But posing right was a huge part of the perfect snap, and the rest was filters. Her mom liked to say there was no such thing as natural beauty, only the right angles, lighting and editing. At least, that was what she trotted out if Sadie complained how long everything was taking. When she didn't want to participate, she got told she had such a pretty face, it'd be a shame to waste it. She wasn't sure which one was true, if either, but the lesson they had both ingrained in her was that people were going to judge her based on what they saw. Whilst a rather depressing view to have had instilled, there was no denying that that was somewhat true. The other thing she supposed she might have going for her right now was that it might be natural for her to be lost, anxious and clueless. Although a glance around at her peers suggested broadly otherwise.

"Hi," she replied. "I'm Sadie-" her tongue was in position to say the 'L' but she cut herself off. That would be a great move, if she got her stupid name altered on the roll-call and then went and blurted it out herself. She had been practising introducing herself in her own head all through orientation, but this girl had bustled in all angry and it had knocked her concentration and got her all flustered. Speaking of which, what was her face doing right now? Was her confusion and embarrassment showing? She was only used to holding a smile for a second - you could let your face fall between photos so long as you were wearing the right one when the camera clicked.

"Yeah," she confirmed, although she doubted it was really necessary, when asked if she was new here. She was sure practically everything about herself screamed that right now even the older girl hadn't noticed her dipping her badge, and she could here the uncertainty in her own voice thst suggested her face had followed suit. "Thanks." She almost asked what it was like, but that was such a dumb question, especially when she'd just seen Jessica arguing with someone.

"Your lipgloss is Arvale, right? That's a nice brand," she tried instead, mentally kicking herself for using such a lame adjective. And for maybe bothering this person, who had probably just said 'hi' to be nice and might not want to actually talk to her.
13 Sadie-Lake Chalmers Oh. Um. Gosh. Okay. 1480 0 5

Jessica Hayles

December 24, 2019 12:34 PM
Jessica's dark eyes - an even sharper contrast than usual to the rest of her coloring, with her hair still closer to blonde than red after all the chlorine and sun from all the hours she had spent in the pool over the past two months topped off with the lightening shampoo her artificially dark auburn mother somewhat hypocritically, in her opinion, preferred for her to use in summer - focused in on the girl beside her with sharper interest as she correctly identified the brand. It was always a little strange when people here knew about Arvale - she had gotten used, she supposed, to people not knowing. And now here was one who did.

With the increased scrutiny came a greater awareness of the other girl's expression. She looked lost and confused. And she knew Arvale. Jessica felt her heart twist in sympathy. Here, she strongly suspected, was someone like her. Maybe that was why she had the nagging sense that she should know the girl's face from somewhere. Maybe it looked too much like her own, when she let her guard down in front of the mirror sometimes.

"That's right," she said with another smile. "Are you a fan? I can hook you up with some free samples of our tinted balm line." Daddy had, as always, provided her with neat little packed-up kits, on the off chance she had an occasion where she needed to give someone a present, or the even less likely chance that she just...wanted to, because she'd made a girlfriend. "My dad's Arthur Hayles - the head of the company," she explained matter-of-factly.
16 Jessica Hayles Don't worry, I don't bite...often. 1442 0 5

Sadie-Lake Chalmers

December 29, 2019 8:52 PM
Oh gosh. Was it just her or was the older girl was looking at her like... like Sadie had either said something super dumb or like the older girl had laser eyes that now wanted to zap her or... like... something? Sadie was sure the girl was paying her way more attention than before and being paid increased attention was rarely a good thing in Sadie's book. Especially not from someone who had recently been seethingly angry. Maybe she should have just let the girl be.

But then Jessica was smiling amd offering her free samples. Sadie was used to hearing that there was no such thing as a free lunch/dinner/#DesignerCupcake with #RainbowGlitter. Her immediate thought was that she would have to post to promote the #Arvale #Tintedbalm (probably with something like #PerfectForTweens #FeelingCute), then that she, of course, couldn't. And Jessica had said samples. Free samples often really were free.

All thoughts of whether there were strings attached to this offer, or indeed of anything else, went out of her head when Jessica pointed out that she was Jessica Hayles.. Sadie's fork dropped to the floor with a clatter, and she barely even noticed as a clean, shiny replacement instantly appeared in its place because what was a magically appearing fork compared with being sat next to Jessica Freaking Hayles?!

"Oh yeah. You are," she observed. Except had Jessica even said she was Jessica Hayles or just... something like that? And either way, it was a dumb as heck thing to say because, wrll, Jessica knew that. But... like.... like... Sadie did not think she had a hashtag in her repetoire for this. It was beyond #OMG. Even spelled out like #OhEmGee, it didn't do this justice. Because Jessica didn't just own an Arvale lipstick, she owned Arvale. Or, technically her dad did, but like... wow.

"I mean," she tried to correct herself, already feeling a steady heat in her cheeks. Again, it was beyond hashtag territory because when other people used #SoEmbarrassing they were usually just blushing cutely and it was over something that didn't even matter that much. Sadie was capable of full on tomato face though. And this was not something you would Insta about. This was her actually just completely messing up and making an idiot of herself in front of someone who really mattered. Her mom would probably expect her to #PlayItCool and do #SelfieTime except she could do neither of those things - the latter because she had no cell phone and the former because she was just socially incompetent. She had met semi-famous people before but only people like her. #ImFamousOnline types. And her mom had briefed her and steered her through and stage managed those interactions. Jessica Freaking Hayles was like... #NextLevel. Sadie honestly felt like she should bow or curtsey or something though obviously that was dumb as heck.

"I should have recognised you. I'm sorry," she apologised. Jessica did not get shoved in front of a camera nearly as much as #SadieLake did but that was because she didn't need to be. Because what her family did was real. She was still recogniable though. "I just didn't expect... So, you're a witch too?" she asked, amazed, and continuing her now steady streak of really idiotic things to have said. On top of which, calling someone a witch still sounded plain not nice to her. "Uh... I mean, you do magic. A-are we supposed to call ourselves witches? I think I heard people say that. I-I didn't mean anything bad," she hastily added.
13 Sadie-Lake Chalmers I am hashtagless 1480 0 5

Jessica Hayles

December 30, 2019 9:00 AM
Jessica was startled when Sadie dropped her fork, but didn't think anything of it - people did, after all, drop silverware all the time; she just wished it didn't make her flinch so much when they did - until the first year started flushing and tripping over her words. Her expression became one of mild concern until she figured out some of what was going on.

"Don't worry about it," she said kindly when Sadie ran into the issue of whether it was polite to call someone a witch. "It's super weird - even after two years - but yes, apparently that is what we're supposed to call ourselves now," she confirmed. "I...try to think of it as being like those women executives who try to reclaim the b-word for themselves," she added, though she flushed a little at even alluding to the fact she knew what the b-word was. She had never planned to be the kind of executive who used that kind of language, either about herself or other women. "Not my favorite movement, but I guess we have to work with what we've got here," she added.

Now came the complicated part - figuring out why Sadie thought she ought to recognize Jessica. Jessica had had some face recognition back in Atlanta - very mild recognition, she had been able to go on her day trip with the De Matteos without anyone calling her out on why she was alive or anything, but recognition just the same, at least in some circles - but even after the YouTube stunt this summer, she didn't really expect people to recognize her in general, especially not people her age, who generally, she thought, did not really know much about who or what ran brands, even very youth-focused ones. Half of them probably thought that pop stars knew jack-all about perfumery and eyeshadow formulas, when this was not at all the case. The two or three Jessica had met had seemed smart enough to master the arts, if they had wanted to, but it just wasn't their area of expertise and Jessica couldn't understand why anyone would assume otherwise without some kind of proof that they had trained in chemistry or under a master perfumer....

She realized her thoughts were drifting from the subject and brought them back to Sadie. "And seriously - don't worry about not, um, recognizing me," she said. "I've only been in public like twice in the past two years," she added. "I'm guessing you saw that video this summer, with the makeup twin people? Or - " A thought occurred to her, and her eyes widened, her whole life flashing before them as she considered another possibility. "Are you - is your family in the industry, too?" she asked anxiously. "I'm so out of the loop, I'm sorry...."
16 Jessica Hayles You should probably get used to that around here. 1442 0 5

Sadie-Lake Chalmers

December 31, 2019 7:55 PM
Points were things that were usually spelled out for Sadie. She was told what to think, and it was usually condensed down to something pretty snappy. As such, she was apt to miss some of them when they came at her in higher level discussion format. Was Jessica saying they should call each other the b word? Sadie didn’t think that sounded very nice and was not sure she wanted to do that. But if Jessica Hayles thought it was a good idea, Sadie should probably think it was a good idea too, so she would try her best. To think it, anyway. She wasn’t sure she would actually say that. Maybe only if she heard Jessica do it first.

“Right,” she agreed timidly.

“No. No, no, no - they’re not. At all,” Sadie assured Jessica hastily when she asked if her family was in the make-up industry too and, of all the ridiculous things, apologised to her. She really hoped they did not get onto the subject of what her family did for a living. It was a short trail from there back to being stuck as Sadie-Lake for the entirety of her time here.

“I maybe saw that?” she nodded, when Jessica referenced the video because Jessica seemed to think it was where Sadie should know her from, and it was really rude to imply that you hadn’t seen someone’s post - though, of course, equally tricky to imply you had but had scrolled by without a like or comment. Luckily, that particular issue didn’t apply to her and Jessica right now. “Your photo’s in the catalogue too, right? With your mom and dad and people?” she added hesitantly. Sadie, of course, spent a lot of time on social media. Or at least, having social media shown to her. But she knew she knew Jessica’s face less from seeing it on a screen and more from seeing it on a glossy page, in some big room with huge, draping curtains, heavy old-fashioned furniture, and pictures on the wall showing how very far back all of that legacy stretched. Her mom thought product catalogues were pointless. You could look everything up online, after all, and it was always up to date and had search features. Who wanted to flick through a catalogue, looking for possibly outdated information? But Sadie liked the feel of the pages. The gloss and shine, the smell of the ink. She liked giving her eyes a break from a screen, and from the constant intrusion of notifications and… the endlessness of the Internet. There was always another link to click, another thing to look at. You could get to the end of a product catalogue. It was just weirdly comforting to her, as a symbol of an old-fashioned, totally non-digital world. She decided not to venture this opinion out loud though. It was one of very few that she had come to by herself and stuck by, and it was probably totally weird.
13 Sadie-Lake Chalmers I could definitely get to like it 1480 0 5

Jessica Hayles

December 31, 2019 8:56 PM
Not an industry family member. That was good. Jessica's anxiety level never really hit zero, she thought, but it returned to what constituted her normal upon processing this information. Or at least returned to something close to it.

It doesn't matter here. That was what she had told Mara out in the Gardens, when they had first gotten off the wagon upon landing here. It had never, in a million years, occurred to her that someone who might be from their world - not just of non-magical parentage, but from their world: their social class, their industry, their circle - could possibly be at Sonora, or could ever come there. She and Mara, after all, were freaks of nature, genetic anomalies, coding errors. But what if they weren't?

Her stomach fluttered, and she squelched the desire to ask more questions - double-check that the girl's parents weren't Arvale employees or something - as firmly as she could. Working at Arvale would constitute being part of the cosmetics industry, would't it? Surely it would. And if she asked too many questions, that might look suspicious, make Sadie start to ask more questions...Why had she said that to Mara? Things had been kept the way they were all these years for a reason. Because things were okay the way they had been. Why had they not just kept their mouths shut and let it be a coincidence that there was another girl from Atlanta - or even that she was the daughter of Jessica's nanny....

She shoved it down. She could not deal with it right now. Maybe tomorrow.

"Oh, yeah," she said, when asked about the catalogue. Privately, she was impressed. Girl was presumably quite the fan of the brand, to read the catalogue - Jessica's parents had always fairly strictly limited her use of computers and hadn't allowed her to shop online yet before she'd left home, but she had gathered that this was not the case for most of her peers. "I still get to participate in that." It was actually not one of her favorite things, especially now that all the year's photos were generally taken at once. Mommy still, despite her being basically too old for them now, insisted on shoving her in velvet dresses for the Christmas picture, which make taking it, under studio lighting, in Atlanta and in July, a highly unpleasant task. Nevertheless, she sounded wistful as she mentioned it, even now. "So, where are you from? I'm guessing at this point that you already know I'm from Atlanta," she said with a smile.
16 Jessica Hayles That's good! 1442 0 5

Sadie-Lake Chalmers

January 03, 2020 5:10 AM
Participate. I still get to participate in that. Sadie thought that sounded… a bit different. She guessed Jessica’s opportunities to get her picture snapped and end up on youtube were limited here. That was one thing she had learned already about this world. She was sort of glad about that, although she felt really guilty admitting it even inside her own head. But obviously, if you liked that sort of thing, it would suck. She thought that might be what Jessica was saying, but also it seemed unlikely that Jessica would share a feeling like that with her, or that like… Sadie would be right about something.

“I’m from LA,” Sadie admitted softly. She was pretty sure that nothing about her screamed #LA, #SoCalVibes. Except maybe the glaring, glitzy #AccentNail. If you were from LA, you just had to #StandOutFromTheCrowd. After all, what could be worse than blending into the background? She guessed she didn’t look much like her usual self, given that she was wearing a green sack. She was normally some kind of weird confection of aggressive levels of pastel. People did not think pastel could be aggressive. That was supposed to be the point of it. But when it looked like a candyfloss cart had vomited its stock all over you, that was aggressive levels of pastel. And she knew that people thought that because she’d seen them comment it. Or if it wasn’t pastel, it was co-ordinated #FamilyTime outfits. She guessed she matched with everyone in this room but it was vastly different to #TeamPJs or #HolidayWardrobe looks. She looked much more LA when she was being forced to turn it on and turn it up for a camera. Now those were all gone…

She also was pretty sure that ‘fake’ was the first word that sprung to most people’s mind when hearing her home town, and she wasn’t convinced they were wrong. Even before Instalife, LA had had that kind of reputation. Very keen not to dwell on her home life any longer than necessary, she grasped the first subject change that occurred to her.

“So, um, what’s school like?” she asked, “I mean, the teacher told us about… rules and classes and stuff but like…for real?” she asked. After all, what the teacher said in the intro speech was nothing like what day to day life was going to be.
13 Sadie-Lake Chalmers Uh-huh 1480 0 5

Jessica Hayles

January 05, 2020 3:12 PM
"That's cool," said Jessica non-committally when Sadie said she was from L.A. "I've been there a couple of times."

Despite those visits, Jessica had no real idea of L.A. She thought of it the same way she thought of Florida: it was more a mood than a place. Too much light and too little fresh air. People who behaved in odd, extreme ways that would have been social suicide in Georgia - even in Atlanta, which her Groves cousins maintained barely counted as part of the South at all. However, Sadie seemed decent enough. Jessica thought her nails were a little over-done, but nothing else about her read as vulgar, so Jessica imagined it was a case of either her impression being flawed or else enclaves of people of all kinds in every community.

Plus, well, it was much harder than usual to gauge people's tastes here. They were all wearing identical sacks. Jessica made a mental note to check out Sadie's shoes when they got up later. That could often still give her hints at least, anyway.

What was school like? Jessica thought about what to say.

"It's almost certainly not like anything you know," she said. "The pictures talk. We don't have lightbulbs - I know for me, the thing that completely made me flip out when I was placed here? It was that I couldn't have a hair dryer." She half-smiled. "It's the strangest things that just...hit you sometimes. The hardest thing for me, though, is that we don't get to continue any of our old classes." The wistfulness thickened in her voice, along with her slight drawling accent. "God, I miss feeling smart. It was really nice, at my old school." She took a sip of water. "Plus, the people at home sucked a lot less than some of these people from wizard families," she said. "I just discovered that both of the other people in my year are complete and total jerks. I hope that's just the third years, though," she added. "I mean, you don't seem like you're a total jerk, and I like to think I'm not one, so it's not the whole House, anyway," she concluded. "Maybe you'll have luck with the others in your year."
16 Jessica Hayles Well, better than the alternative, I suppose. 1442 0 5