Hello, new audience! on Cascade Hall

Mortimer Brockert

December 06, 2019 1:29 PM

Opening Feast by Mortimer Brockert

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

Settling in. by Mara Morales with Heinrich Hexenmeister

Hello, new audience! by Morgan Garrett with Josephine Clyde

Here we go again by Gary Harper with Ness McLeod

A real ball? by Ellie Alperton with Gabriel Wilson

Teppenpaw

This is not how it was supposed to go. by Nathaniel Mordue with Alexander Pierce-Beales

Feeling regrettably small. by Katerina Vorontsov with Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

Absolutely SCREAMING congratulations!! by Vladimir Brockert with Freddie Zauberhexen

Finally. Let's get started... by Alexandra Borealis with Zara Jackson

Is term over yet? by Dorian Montoir with Joanna Rose-Turner

Crotalus

Alone Again [tag NOT Jessica, ugh] by Felipe De Matteo with Jasmine Delachene

Walking is an art. by Jessica Hayles with Jeremy Mordue, Sadie-Lake Chalmers

Well this doesn't bode well by Martin Crosby V

Getting Mad by Cleo James

Oh, what fun! (Tag Caitlin) by Sylvia Mordue with Caitlin Pierce

Being Sorted by Esme Brockert with Jezebel Reed-Fischer

Pecari

Nice to meet me. by Leonor De Matteo with Anya Delachene

Somebody jinxed me. by Evelyn Stones with Hilda Hexenmeister

This is too much, too good by Mab with Theo Spurn

My loneliness is killing me by Brett Newell with Tatiana Vorontsova

Staff

11 Mortimer Brockert Opening Feast 6 1 5

System

December 06, 2019 1:29 PM

Aladren by System

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December 06, 2019 1:29 PM

Teppenpaw by System

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December 06, 2019 1:29 PM

Crotalus by System

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December 06, 2019 1:29 PM

Pecari by System

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December 06, 2019 1:29 PM

Staff by System

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Felipe De Matteo

December 07, 2019 10:49 AM

Alone Again [tag NOT Jessica, ugh] by Felipe De Matteo

Felipe held his head high, because that's what you do, and he walked with confidence and grace, that's what you do, and then he sat down alone at the Crotalus table, because that's all he could do. His friend and Housemate was worthy of neither title anymore, and Felipe was determined not to let it show how much it bothered him. Because it didn't bother him. It absolutely could never bother him.

Leonor was sorted into Pecari, which managed to get through Felipe's facade for a moment. He knew they were very different, but it felt like a stab through the chest to have proof that they valued different things. It was one more of alienation between an heir and a spare. Felipe was quite sure that when he and Leonor were in a room together, he was the spare.

Once the sorting was done, the songs were done and-- wait what? Ball? Felipe looked around, trying to remember who the Headmaster said were the prefects and such that would be leading this, but he hadn't been paying attention. There was going to be a ball. He turned his head to find Leonor grinning back at him, positively delighted at the news. Felipe tried to smile back and he sort of managed it - Leonor's happiness made him happy, even if he couldn't relate - before turning back to his own table. Where he was alone.

Two years ago, he'd sat here and chatted with Jeremy Mordue. This year, he hadn't even taken the time to see who was around him. The new faces mixed with familiar faces, but even the familiar faces were changed a little with puberty and summer.

Felipe took a few bits of food - he didn't pay attention to what - and looked up at the first student who made eye contact with him. He nodded politely.

"Hello," he said. "Are you enjoying your meal?"

22 Felipe De Matteo Alone Again [tag NOT Jessica, ugh] 1434 0 5

Mara Morales

December 07, 2019 3:53 PM

Settling in. by Mara Morales

Having a sister two whole years ahead of her here should, Mara thought as the first years were led into the Cascade Hall to the varied reactions (mainly mild interest or indifference, she thought, except for those she assumed had family in this group, including her sister, who was watching her from a table full of people with red badges on their green robes, which made them look almost Christmassy) of the rest of the school, have meant coming in with more knowledge about the Houses than had been included in the school information packet. Jessica, however, had been remarkably unhelpful on this point, to the point Mara had wondered if she was being deliberately difficult. All the information she had been able to wring out of her sister was easily summarized in a short list:

Aladren: The old Head Girl was from there. They had a lot of trophies in the trophy room, but Jessica wasn't quite sure why, as they looked pretty uninteresting to her. Their Head of House was Professor Wright, the bespectacled, possibly-sarcastic Charms teacher.

Crotalus: Jessica's House. Their Head was Professor Skies, the Transfiguration teacher and Deputy Headmistress, and Jessica hated her. Apparently this antipathy had not originated in the fact Jessica seemed to blame her for Crotalus for having what Jessica considered horrendous taste in decor, but Mara couldn't imagine it had helped; Mrs. H. was the kind of person who judged people severely based on how they presented their homes, and she'd passed some of that along to Jezi.

Pecari: Sort of loud people, though Jessica's German friend Hilda - the one apparently responsible for Jessica taking up German last year - was there and Jessica seemed to like her. Jessica had never mentioned who their adult was.

and finally Teppenpaw: kind of schizoid, apparently, as it contained both Johana Leonie, whom Jessica seemed to like best of the other girls at the school, and Zara, who was a "spiteful, stuck up, ungrateful, lying little - certainly-rhymes-with-witch" (Mara had never understood Jessica's aversion to swearing when it was appropriate to do so, but it was a whole thing with her). Their head was the Herbology teacher, whom Jessica liked, at least as well as she liked anything around here.

This amount of information was, Mara supposed, better than nothing, but as she took her turn sticking a badge into a literal witch's brew, it really did not feel like nearly enough. When prompted, she withdrew the badge and looked at it, trying to ignore how weird it was that it wasn't dripping like a normal object recently immersed in fluid. Blue. Aladren it was, then.

She sat down, self-consciously half-smiling without even being sure if anyone was looking at her, and looked over toward Jessica again. Her sister half-smiled, too, and half-raised one shoulder, as to say well - guess they're all right after all!. Then the Headmaster began to speak, and Mara was just settling her expression into polite, bland attentiveness when the speech was over already, six people having been given extra badges for student leadership roles and then a Ball was announced. She sang along as best she could with the sheet music that appeared from nowhere, glancing up at Jessica again when they got to the bit where the word 'us' was rhymed with itself (her sister pulled a face, doubtless disapproving of the tactic and the corniness of 'transfigure jinx or charm us', and Mara had to look away quickly lest she crack up), and then there was food. Again out of nowhere. What was with these people and making things appear out of nowhere, and doing so right in front of everybody?

Looking over the food, she thought again about the line about 'charm us,' which suddenly seemed less funny as she considered the bits of witch legends and Greek myths and stuff she knew. She did not want to play Persephone. However, she had already eaten at the welcome party with Leonor (who was in Pecari, further confirming they were probably all right) and Jessica's attitude strongly suggested that there was nothing in the food to make them like it here, so she shrugged to herself and started serving herself food.

She caught another student's eye, though, before she could dig in, and so automatically half-smiled again. "Hey," she said. "I'm new here. Does everything always just appear out of nowhere like that, or is that a trick for special occasions?" she asked.

16 Mara Morales Settling in. 1472 0 5

Morgan Garrett

December 07, 2019 4:15 PM

Hello, new audience! by Morgan Garrett

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

Heinrich Hexenmeister

December 07, 2019 5:55 PM

I saw this coming and I am still uncomfortable with it by Heinrich Hexenmeister

Heinrich's summer might have qualified as boring. Johana Leonie and her brother had come to visit for a little while, but they had bonded more with his younger two siblings the previous summer when he had opted to stay home, and of course Johana Leonie and Hilda were best friends at school. Heinrich felt too old to spend time with the boys and he didn't want to impose on Hilda's time with her friend, even had Johana Leonie not made him a bit uncomfortable anyway just by being from Germany. Uncle Karl had asked if he wanted to invite a friend over, too, but he had declined, knowing Evelyn spent time with Ness over the summer and he didn't know when exactly that was happening and didn't want to risk conflicting. So he'd just said no and that was that. Except Uncle Karl was now under the impression that Heinrich Liked Somebody, which was all kinds of awkward, not least because Heinrich wasn't one hundred percent sure he was wrong.

He did not Not Like her, after all, and any thoughts beyond that he did not allow himself to entertain. It was just safer that way, and every book he had ever read just confirmed that viewpoint.

So nothing much of note had happened, which was fine because he didn't need his life to be more interesting than it already was. Besides which, he didn't have anyone at school to really relate the events of his summer to anyway, so having a good story would be wasted. He sat down near empty seats at the Aladren table, as he hadn't made any new friends in his House since Masha left. He was early anyway, so some of them filled in as others arrived, but the one next to him stayed empty until the first years came in and one of the newly sorted Aladrens claimed it.

He nodded politely at her, and said "Welcome," to her - which with his accent sounded more like he'd just forgotten the last consonant on the same word in his native tongue, but it was close enough to be understandable. He knew that first vowel was an e and not an i, he knew the W in German was usually a V in English and he should adjust his Ws to English Ws accordingly, he new the O made a different sound in this word than in the German one, but his mouth refused to accommodate such wrongness. He could fix or or another but not all three. This time, he got the O right. He was still working on it.

All too soon, the first years were all sorted. Heinrich turned his attention to the Headmaster with a feeling of dread pooling in his gut. He was going to be named prefect. He knew this because he was the only Aladren left in his year. Last year had graduated two Aladren prefects because there were no seventh years, so the House needed all the ones they could name. Heinrich's only question was whether or not he'd be the only Aladren called up.

He was.

His heart lurched and he flinched visibly at hearing his surname called out across the whole hall. He wanted to disappear far more than he wanted to go up in front of everybody, but he couldn't do that. (Or rather, he wasn't permitted to do that. He was capable of a camouflage charm that was near enough to invisibility to suffice for all practical purposes.) He got up and accepted his badge, hating every moment that he was the focus of attention.

He was relieved to drop back into his seat and hunch back in on himself, allowing attention to divert to the Midsummer event. Or he was glad by that until it was revealed he would need to lead that off. Nothing about that was good and his shoulders straightened up again and his look of betrayed dismay was directed at the Headmaster. "Nein, bitte, nein," he murmured, not intending it to be overheard.

He did not want to have to find a date. He did not want to dance at all, never mind first and in front of everybody. He didn't even want to go to a ball. There had been one during his first year, but his English had been so bad back then that he'd had no idea what was going on, and he'd only been eleven besides. Now fifteen, and fluent, a ball was much more fraught with expectations he had every wish to avoid as much as possible.

He could only hope that with the number of prefects and Head Students on the floor, he would blend in, and no names would be called out. Sonora was not a big school. He expected most of the people in it had heard his surname before today, but he still didn't like attention being brought to it.

The girl next to him was looking at him, and he jumped a little, realizing she was one of the ones who might not have heard it before, and a momentary panic struck him before she spoke and he realized his family's European publicity wasn't what she was thinking about at all. He relaxed a little bit, at least down to his baseline anyway, as he was only rarely ever completely relaxed around others. He looked at the spread of food spread out over the table, not having noticed it until she pointed it out, but he was used to it now. He been to enough meals here that the suddenness was entirely ordinary to him.

"Welcome to Sonora," he began with. He managed the same pronunciation of the first word as earlier, for which he'd give himself points for consistency but not accuracy. Sonora was easier to say right because he wasn't fighting German habits. "Und yes," And. He knew it was And. Why couldn't he just say And? "It is always sudden," he informed her. "That is how the elves move the food from the kitchen. It is easier than carrying so much so far."

1 Heinrich Hexenmeister I saw this coming and I am still uncomfortable with it 1414 0 5

Nathaniel Mordue

December 07, 2019 6:42 PM

This is not how it was supposed to go. by Nathaniel Mordue

I must, therefore I will. I must, therefore I will.

Nathaniel had silently repeated this motto to himself so many times over the past two months that it had almost lost all meaning, but he clung to it as the only real lifeline he had as he took his seat at the Teppenpaw table for the Opening Feast. He had to get through this event without collapsing, and therefore, he would. No excuses, no compromises, no options. Had to be done. Had to. Any satisfaction he might get from the humiliation that having another breakdown at the Feast would bring to his uncle would be more than cancelled out by the satisfaction it would not doubt give his therapist, and making Dr. Greene happy filled him with hardly any more excitement than the thought of making Uncle Alexander happy. He had to get through this event without collapsing, and therefore, he would.

I'm fine. I've done this four times over. I can do this again.

Logically, he knew this argument did not actually work. Before, after all, he had not been here as a prefect presumptive, knowing that he was going to either have to walk up there in front of them all and keep his composure or else that he was going to be publicly humiliated by being rejected when he was the only available option. He knew they had considered doing that, after all. Not that he could blame them, given his state the previous year. His grades had plummeted, he had been a mess in all aspects of his life, he'd shouted at a teacher, and had been the reason why said teacher had shortly afterward been also yelled at by Sylvia, who was a much worse entity to incur the wrath of. They had asked him if he thought he could handle it, though, and had not argued with him much when he had assured them he could - though privately, of course, he had doubted he could then and he doubted he could now, but at the time, it had been the only way he had thought he would be able to keep an eye on his brother, or communicate at all with Sylvia. Now, that wasn't a problem as such anymore, which was something of a weight off his mind, but....

At least, he told himself, it could have been worse. When he had had that interview, he had assumed he would also have to go through the horror and humiliation of being addressed as Nathaniel Elphwick. At least he still had his name, whatever that was worth. The more he thought about it, the more he concluded it wasn't actually worth a damn thing, but at least everyone knew him as Nathaniel Mordue. There was nothing about them saying his name which would draw more attention to him than the physical act of walking to the front of the room would, and since Sylvia would be there, too, he would just sort of stand in her shadow as always and it would be fine. Completely fine. Because he was not going to collapse. He had to get through this event without having a breakdown, and therefore he would.

He barely noticed the Sorting, as he was occupied with the painful contractions of his shoulder muscles as he sat and fretted over what came next. And then it happened, and he stood up without any problems, but then he froze. Not from panic, though, not at all. Instead, it was confusion which made him stop and stare at the headmaster for a moment, visibly taken aback, because they hadn't followed his name with Sylvia's. Instead, the man had just called Caitlin Pierce.

There was nothing wrong with Caitlin Pierce, of course. She was a proper lady. She was part of Sylvia's little girls' club. Her brother was as close as Simon had ever gotten to a friend and was engaged to the Headmaster's granddaughter. The Pierces had had their scandals, of course, but - well, Nathaniel, as a legal orphan, had no grounds to say anything about that. He could point out that his uncle would have disowned her cousin on the spot for marrying that woman, but it would be undiplomatic, among other things. There was no inherent reason why Caitlin Pierce shouldn't be a prefect except one, and it was one which couldn't be gotten past: she. Wasn't. Sylvia.

He didn't dare look toward her as he walked forward, afraid of what he would see. Sylvia had every quality necessary and proper to a prefect. Sylvia was far more qualified to be a prefect than he was. Sylvia was also quite possibly blaming this on him, on The Incident where she had sworn at Professor Xavier. He hoped she was blaming Winston Pierce, but blaming him seemed to him to make more sense.

He also didn't quite dare look anyone in the eye at the front of the room, especially Caitlin or the headmaster, as they might see his disapproval of the situation clearly reflected if he did. He made the effort to say a quiet "congratulations everyone" to his new - colleagues - before they dispersed back to their respective tables, but that was all.

The school song started up, but while he held the paper, Nathaniel actually was looking around to try to see Sylvia, to see if he could see any signs of stress in her face. He also looked around the Crotalus table for a glimpse of Jeremy, half-hoping he might see anything there. He had made huge sacrifices, and had done so mainly in the hopes of protecting his brother. He was still actively making huge sacrifices, again at least half in the hopes of protecting his brother. He wasn't doing it so he could receive gratitude from Jeremy, of course - it was simply what he had to do; he was the older brother, and they really had no-one else - but it would be nice to think his brother was at least somewhat pleased to be associated with him for once, regardless of whether the reason was any affection or pride for him or just pleasure at being associated with a prefect....

Food appeared, blocking part of his view of Crotalus. He looked at it grimly. He hated eating at tables now, but this was nearly the end. Only the second to last hurdle, probably. If he completed this, then he was almost to the point of being able to retreat honorably into blissful silence and solitude. He had to do this first though. Had to. And since nervous strain had stinted his appetite all day and the specific source had just been lifted, he was actually slightly hungry.

He made himself count to ten before reaching for anything, and to nod to someone taking some of the same dish. "Good evening," he said. He had to do this, too. He had taken this position to ensure he could maintain some authority over Jeremy and thus protect Jeremy from himself if necessary, but that wasn't actually the function of the Teppenpaw prefects. He had to show the Teppenpaws that he was at least capable of carrying on a conversation in full sentences this year, especially since they had probably noticed even more than everyone else that he had essentially lost his mind in the spring.

16 Nathaniel Mordue This is not how it was supposed to go. 1412 0 5

Jasmine Delachene

December 07, 2019 6:54 PM

The Ah-ha! Moment by Jasmine Delachene

Jasmine knew exactly what today's announcement was going to be about. Well, firstly, there was going to be Head Students (Ivy was absolutely a shoo in, but that wasn't the one that mattered), and there would be prefects (she hoped it wasn't Sylvia), but the important one, the one she'd been waiting four years for, that would come tonight after everyone sat down. She felt kind of pleased that the two students she'd voted for won, but again, not important, go on, go on, and yes! not Sylvia! But not the important part, go on, go on. Yes! There it was.

The Ball was this year. She smiled in eager anticipation. This year her classmates weren't pre-pubescent dunces who hadn't realized girls were a thing yet. This year, she was in sixth year, which was within one year of all the prefects looking for dates, and the boys outnumbered the girls. Someone would ask her out.

She didn't sing much during the school song, imagining who it might be. Jehan was kind of cute. And Mikey wasn't hard on the eyes either. Dorian had the French thing going for him, but she'd have to make sure Tatiania didn't have dibs on him before she started thinking about him too much. Likewise Cleo and Parker. The German boy was kind of stand-off-ish, but he was going to need a date, and she liked a fine-looking blond. Brett Newell was the only boy in the seventh year group - well of the prefects anyway, though Connor was Head Boy and would need one, too, and he certainly wasn't a bad choice- and had she heard a rumor about Brett and Eden? She couldn't remember. Well, she hardly knew him anyway. Not her first pick. Nathaniel Mordue was one of the new ones. Sylvia's cousin, though, so also not on Jasmine's short list. Who else was prefect? Oh, right it was Gary, not Jehan.

Gary.

Oh.

Oh.

She giggled to herself as she realized suddenly and with complete certainty what Gary had be doing at the Bonfire. He'd been flirting. With her. She smiled, the expression lighting up her face and she laughed again. He was terrible at it, and it was completely adorable.

Jasmine suddenly felt so much lighter. She was going to have a date. Gary would ask her if he could manage to put enough words together to do so, and if he couldn't she'd just have to coach him through it. There. Date acquired. (More or less.) That was settled then, and it was still only the Opening Feast. She looked toward the Aladren table, smiled happily at Gary, and gave him a little wave. Maybe that would help encourage him to ask at his earliest convenience.

Ready to share her good mood with her own Housemates now, she looked to see who was sitting around her and met the eyes of one of the younger students. Good looking, but too young for her, though that might have mattered less a few minutes ago, before she knew she had a sure thing.

Having met her gaze, he asked a question and she beamed back at him. Her plate was still empty but that didn't stop her from stating unequivocally, "I am having a wonderful feast. The best one so far in six years!" Because she'd had a date last term and she'd only just now realized it.

Then she did begin to fill her plate. Some corn - she loved corn - and a bit of chicken with that nice sweet smelling glaze, and a bit of peas because she felt she should have something green on her plate and she liked peas better than green beans or broccoli. She avoided most of the heavy starches but allowed herself a dinner roll because who could pass up a dinner roll?

"I'm Jasmine, by the way," she added, because they were far apart enough in age that they hadn't shared classes, even during intermediates last year, and now she was in Advanced. "Anya's sister," she added, deciding to make that claim on her own terms instead of having it forced on her. He had shared a class with Anya last year, and there was no chance he hadn't noticed her. Anya was many things. Subtle and well-behaved weren't any of them.

1 Jasmine Delachene The Ah-ha! Moment 1397 0 5

Alexander Pierce-Beales

December 07, 2019 11:18 PM

Thank goodness for that! by Alexander Pierce-Beales

Alexander was completely stunned by everything that was happening, but he was afraid to let it show. Things like that were just a weakness and he wasn't about to give anybody anything to exploit. More than that, he wasn't sure he was ready to be disappointed again. Things had been getting pretty bad at his foster home before he was greeted by a wizard who helped orient him to just how extensively his life was about to change. It had all seemed very far away at the time, but now it was real. Alexander opened his pocket casually as he made his way to the front with the other first year students, making sure Barnabus could see what was going on.

He was sorted into Teppenpaw, which meant very little to him, except that Alexandra was also in Teppenpaw now and that was nice. He took a seat near an older boy who seemed . . . ah. Stressed? Tired? Maybe just tired. Alexander got the impression that the boy was wrestling with something inside, but who wasn't? He tried to memorize his new housemate's face, interested in maybe drawing it later on. Plus it would be helpful to know who was in his house.

Before anything much could happen, the boy was getting a badge, people were singing, and then food. So. Much. Food. More food than Alexander had ever seen in his life. He worked hard to refrain from taking as much as he could and hoarding it away for later. How often was this going to happen? It was hard to believe they could eat all of this for dinner . . . would he be allowed to take some with him?

Alexander looked up when the boy spoke to him.

"Good evening," he responded, taking in his appearance a little more blatantly now. His hands kept moving though, and he loaded his plate with food. He was careful to pick food with strong nutritional value and that would keep him full for a long time, and nothing too heavy. He never wanted his food to be the reason he couldn't outrun somebody. He also wanted to make sure he was good to go as long as he needed to. "I'm Alexander." He nodded to the recently appointed badge. "Congratulations. What does a prefect do?"

22 Alexander Pierce-Beales Thank goodness for that! 1475 0 5

Felipe De Matteo

December 08, 2019 10:51 AM

Ugh. by Felipe De Matteo

People like this girl, who was apparently named Jasmine and apparently Anya's sister, which was interesting but not the point right now, were sort of bittersweet balms for Felipe. On one hand, he didn't have to try very hard to maintain a relatively chipper conversation, which usually left people feeling good about him even though he hadn't contributed much in that regard. Felipe rarely had the energy to deal with this sort of attitude, and even more so tonight, but it was even more exhausting when someone was this happy. So it was bittersweet; although it took less energy from him to participate, he also had less energy to participate.

"Just the corn?" he asked, trying for a joke. "I'm glad tonight is a good Feast for you." He didn't ask why because that's not what you do. That's not what you're supposed to do. You accept and you move on and if they want to tell you then they do and if not then they don't. It was easy. There were social norms. There were rules. It was easy.

"It's good to formally meet you," Felipe said with a smile. It wasn't his sheepish smile because he didn't really want to be smiling. The frustrating part was that he knew he'd be much better off if he could just be sitting at Teppenpaw table with Zara. However, that was another one of those rules that, while more flexible, was just not one to break on Opening Feast night. He made a point of not looking around too much at others at the Crotalus table though, too. "Anya seems very nice," he added, because complimenting family was also appropriate. "My sister just began this year and she will be in Pecari too."

22 Felipe De Matteo Ugh. 1434 0 5

Leonor De Matteo

December 08, 2019 11:15 AM

Nice to meet me. by Leonor De Matteo

Leonor grinned and practically bounded to her seat once sorted into Pecari. She didn't bound, though, because that was impolite. Plus, why miss an opportunity to strut instead?

There was only one house that Leonor had desperately hoped to avoid and it seemed she had been successful. Years of being different than Felipe were paying off and now she wouldn't even have to see him or Jessica that much. She could see Felipe when she wanted to - he was still her big brother, even if she also hated him a little bit - but she wouldn't have to see him when she was sitting in the Common Room not studying as hard as he thought she should be. Plus, Pecari seemed like the most exciting House by far. She supposed that's the sort of thinking that got her put there.

Mara was sorted into Aladren which sort of surprised Leonor. She hadn't yet seen the brainy, rule-following side of her new friend yet. At the same time, it wasn't hard to see that there was something strong behind those eyes, and Jessica's sister was certainly more prone to quiet thoughtfulness than Felipe's was so far. This seemed like it would probably be a helpful person to be friends with, plus now Leonor had a connection in each House, if Zara was counted. She wasn't sure whether Felipe's other friend would take to her as well as Jessica's had but who the heck wouldn't like Leonor? If they could put up with Felipe, then Leonor had to seem like an absolute breath of fresh air.

She was feeling a little bittersweet about the announcement of a ball. On one hand, she was thrilled and excited to go, already imagining pretty dresses and things. At the same time, she was eleven, so it was probably not going to be super exciting for her. At least she could watch Felipe be uncomfortable, and get an idea what to expect for herself should the ball be repeated in future.

As the food arrived, Leonor immediately noticed posole and took a bowl of it, excited for something familiar. She had little interest in assimilating to American ideas of what tasted good. She noted a plate of tamales as well, but decided to finish her soup before taking more food. Then she turned to the important thing - the people. Her House mates, her classmates, her schoolmates, her network. These were the people she was going to network with and that she had seven years to impress. Plus, adventures.

"I'm Leonor de Matteo," she greeted her neighbor, grinning. Although she generally preferred to use Spanish over English, her English was unaccented and as native as anyone else's in the United States. It was a 'standard US English' as her tutors had said, and Leonor hated anything standard. "Who are you?"

22 Leonor De Matteo Nice to meet me. 1471 0 5

Gary Harper

December 08, 2019 12:24 PM

Here we go again by Gary Harper

Year Six. Gary sat at the Aladren table and tried to think about what that even meant. He was an 'advanced' student now, which he assumed meant harder classes. Not that any of them (other than Care of Magical Creatures) had been all that difficult. It turns out that 'handle animal' was not one of his high ranking skills. This wasn't particularly new information to him, but something about it seemed... important? He couldn't quite put his finger on it. Oh well, he'd figure that out eventually.

His summer had been uneventful. He had spent most of it trying to figure out what had happened at the bonfire at the end of last year. The send-off game for Kir had gone great, they'd been up... late playing that. No more Kir this year. That had made him sad. Admittedly he hadn't been a big fan of Kir's at the start. Kir had made his initial gaming sessions difficult. He couldn't use goblins as low-level trash enemies for fear of offending any real goblins that may have been lurking about. He had to work around so many cliche's like that because some of that stuff actually existed in this world, and Kir in particular wanted to make sure nobody was hurt. It had made adventure design a nightmare.

To be fair, it had forced him to become a better game master. He had to think outside that box and do things a little differently. Once he had that worked out, then he saw how he could use some of points Kir had been making to make the stories even better. Well.. or scrap the whole fantasy thing and just do a modern setting game, that worked as well.

As for this year's game, he wasn't really sure yet. Kir leaving made him realize another problem, he was loosing players. Depending on how many people wanted to keep on playing, he may have to try and recruit some more again... maybe Ness knew of some people that wanted to play. Frankly, after this, he only had one more year himself. He may need to train a replacement GM if people wanted to keep playing after he was gone.

None of that had to do with the real question that had haunted him all summer, what had actually happened at the bonfire with...

The Headmaster started his speech and Gary's train of thought failed its save versus being derailed yet again. Standard announcements about the midsummer's event and then the new heads and prefects. Gary cheered for Conner. Heh, Conner would need a date for the ball now. Head-boy had to go. Prefects had to as well... he glanced down at his own prefect badge as the singing started and the bottom dropped out of his stomach and his face paled. Uh-oh.

That brought his old train of thought smashing right back on it's rails. He was going to go to the ball. He was going to need to dance. He was going to need a date. What had happened at the bonfire with Jasmine! They had spend a good amount of time together, walking around and talking... well, honestly she had done most of the talking. He had been woefully unprepared to spend an extended amount of time with a pretty girl on that front. He mentally kicked himself for the thousandth time since then for been a poor conversationalist. She probably was bored the whole time and now hated him if she thought of him at all. There hadn't been any overt signs of her having any 'interest' in him, she had been friendly enough and all but... He sighed and looked toward the Crotalus table to see if he could spot her.

He did. She was looking at him. She was looking at him and smiling. She waved. He sat a moment, dumbstruck, then smiled and waved back. What had happened? Would she want to go to the ball with him? Maybe?

2 Gary Harper Here we go again 1404 0 5

Nathaniel Mordue

December 08, 2019 12:35 PM

Speak for yourself. by Nathaniel Mordue

Nathaniel put on a smile when the first year offered him congratulations on his new badge. There was always a use, he thought, for the purely social smile. It was good to see that he could still pull one out at need.

Of course, he had also pulled one out as necessary at that party, talking with that girl. He had been rather calm, lately, for his new normal, even - as calm as he had been in a very long time. He had been more or less fine, until all of a sudden he had very much not been....

Not the same though. Not the same at all. The girl had been yet another wanting to gawk at him like a circus entertainer, another one wanting something from him. Of course, the boy also wanted something from him - information - but...it was different. Not the same at all. This boy's expression had no trace of true recognition in it. He didn't know who exactly Nathaniel was, was not looking forward to another Mordue catastrophe covering the pages of the Society Bee. The boy was just a child, a child who had probably just left his own mother, and consequently might feel something like as adrift as Nathaniel did.

That was projection, of course. He knew nothing about this boy but a first name. Even if Alexander did miss his mother, or felt lost, it still wasn't the same, but that didn't even matter, because all he actually knew here was a first name and a question.

"Thank you," he said politely. "Prefects...well, one thing we do is help the teachers keep the rules in place. And we help organize things like the midsummer events."

The word we came out of his mouth easily, without hesitation. Strange, that. He was technically a prefect now, true, and prefects did those things, but he had not yet done those things, as doing them was not the only requisite for being a prefect. He was a prefect, but only in name. He had not yet been accepted by his peers. He had not done any of the real things that went with carrying the title. His mind had been stuck on the notion of walking to the front of the room to accept his badge as the hard part, but now it was rapidly catching up to the fact that this was a gross oversimplification. What had he been thinking? There were so many more things he was going to have to do. So much more than was going to be expected.

He felt the back of his neck tightening up and starting to sweat, but tried to ignore it. "Mostly, though, we're to look out for everyone else," he said firmly. His mind flitted for a moment back to Kir McLeod. There was no denying that McLeod had looked after him last year, sort of. Nathaniel wanted to believe it had not been that way - that it had been a power trip or McLeod enjoying the breakdown of one of his social betters - but he couldn't really convince himself to believe it, somehow. "Especially the first years, while you're settling in. Welcome to Sonora. Do you have any questions?" he asked.

16 Nathaniel Mordue Speak for yourself. 1412 0 5

Alexander Pierce-Beales

December 08, 2019 12:47 PM

I wouldn't dare do otherwise. by Alexander Pierce-Beales

Being a prefect sounded like a lot of responsibility. Alexander wasn't sure if that meant this school was just so low-key that they could dump that responsibility on students, or whether it was just insane and they had much higher expectations than other institutes of learning that Alexander had been to. The latter was as likely as the former, and he wasn't sure which one he'd prefer. It would be nice to learn something, but it would also be nice to just sit here and eat and then go outside and draw and then not have to worry for a year.

"You're sort of important then," Alexander said, keeping his voice neutral. These things were important to know and he felt wildly behind his peers for not yet knowing who was who here. It was lucky, really, that his first connection was with a House mate in his own year and his second with a prefect.

The midsummer event this year was apparently a Ball, which Alexander was very excited about. That undoubtedly meant everyone would go and he could stay in his room and draw. Some part of him had hopes that he'd make a friend, a real friend, and they'd want to go together, but he couldn't get his hopes up. Just because he'd never danced and never dressed up . . . that didn't mean that this would be his opportunity.

Nathaniel - because that's the name that the Headmaster had called when the boy got up, and names were important to remember - turned the conversation to Alexander's needs, which seemed like an intentional maneuver. Whether it was to deflect, or to get more information out of Alexander instead of just giving information, or whether it was just because he was trying to be nice, the first year couldn't tell. He hoped it was the last one for a moment, before reminding himself not to have hope.

Besides, he did have a question. But he wasn't sure how to phrase it in a way that didn't give himself away. Connections were everything and this was a clean slate. He had to make a good impression if this was going to work.

"Does everyone have to leave during the holidays? Or summer?" he asked, deciding that something about everyone and logistics was a safer bet than where do I go for breaks if I don't have a home and don't want to go back to group care?

22 Alexander Pierce-Beales I wouldn't dare do otherwise. 1475 0 5

Nathaniel Mordue

December 08, 2019 3:09 PM

That is very wise of you. by Nathaniel Mordue

Nathaniel's shoulders instinctively rose toward his ears with discomfort at the description Alexander put upon him. He thought he mostly succeeded at turning the gesture into a shrug.

"I suppose so," he said. "Though not as important as the Head Boy and Girl, or the teachers, of course," he added quickly, uncomfortable with the idea of himself as Someone of Importance, and especially not someone of More Importance Than Sylvia.

It was not his place to be important. Simon was the important one. Officially speaking, Nathaniel was now Simon's brother, but that was largely irrelevant to their dynamic. Simon was the heir, and Nathaniel was just...there. Even when Nathaniel had been the presumed heir to a decent quantity of money, he had not been as important as Simon, because Nathaniel's inheritance carried no intrinsic power with it. Nathaniel could never decide who was alive and who was dead - officially speaking only, of course - and ruin people's lives on a whim. Unless Simon fell off a bridge or got into a tragic entanglement with a woman which resulted in him and Winston Pierce killing each other in a duel or got himself disowned somehow, Nathaniel was nobody much at all. It was only by a slim margin that it made any difference that he was a Nathaniel and not a Natalie.

He looked hard at the younger boy when he asked an odd question about holidays, wondering what had prompted that. When he had started here, he had wanted nothing more than to get to the winter holiday so he could go see his mother again. Now he dreaded the holidays even more than he had dreaded the possibility of collapsing during the badge-giving ceremony, but...he supposed there was no rule saying such things had to wait until your fourth year to happen.

Why, he wondered, did it strike him of a sudden how much this Alexander looked like Jeremy?

"People can stay here during the winter holiday," he said, carefully neutral, trying to hide how much he wished he could do that too. "I don't think it's possible during the summer - though I'm not sure," he added, not wanting to take all hope away if Alexander lived with someone he was allowed to hate openly. "And of course, even in the winter, it only works if your family doesn't order you to come home. But during the winter, people can stay here, and I think a handful do every year. But you can ask Professor Xavier if you want more details. He's our Head of House. He's very...helpful."

16 Nathaniel Mordue That is very wise of you. 1412 0 5

Mara Morales

December 08, 2019 3:31 PM

Yeah, that's totally fair, man. by Mara Morales

Mara stared at the older student, and not because he bore a surprisingly strong resemblance to what she imagined her father might have looked like as a teenager. Nor was she thrown too much by his accent - for perhaps three seconds after the first vill-kom, she had wondered if he was a vampire through sheer pop culture influence, but then had first reasoned that his undertones were way too normal for a walking corpse and had then further reasoned that she had read in one of her books that vampires were evil animals or something and therefore not qualified for wizard school. Instead, it was purely and only the content which took her aback for a moment.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Did you just say elves? You're saying that the cafeteria workers here are elves?"

Maybe, she thought, he had the word wrong - clearly, English wasn't his first language. Jessica had mentioned that, now that she thought of it - that while they had a surprising range of origins for such a small population, it was mostly diversity of culture, not of race. Which definitely fit with the sight of this room; it was, for the most part, whiter than the majority of the output of a Sunbeam factory, with just a sprinkling of other options (Mara supposed that it made a measure of sense, insofar as such a thing could make sense, to classify the De Matteos as whole wheat and herself as multigrain; while she didn't look especially like Dad herself, the fact remained that she was, in fact, half-Very White American)....

There was another kind of bread she thought this room was well-stocked in, though, and it was not one she thought that her new friend was particularly full of. A lot of the mildly culturally divergent white people in the room, though, clearly had money. It wasn't just that Jessica's ears weren't the only pair adorned with decent-sized and flawless-looking diamonds, or that one girl over at the Pecari table whose elaborate hairstyle and jewelry made her look like a Victorian era princess. It was in the tablewares in front of them - real plates and cups instead of cheap plastic trays and paper milk cartons. It was in the tables and chairs, which were also not just cheap plastic, or even just cheap metal. It was in the marble floors, the chandeliers. It was in the very way which a lot of the students sat at their tables - their postures, the ways they turned their heads, their resting expressions. Mara wasn't sure if they would even consciously recognize this in each other, but it was something one learned to notice when one's father was One Of Them and one's mother was just The Help.

This guy, however, didn't have that look, and yet here he was, an ocean away from where his accent suggested he came from. She wondered what the story there was. Major diplomats' kids would look like Jessica and the others, but an attache's kids might not.

"I guess...yay for efficiency," she said, still looking dubiously at the food, which was apparently sent up by elves.

"The headmaster guy - he said your name is...Hexy-mister?" she said, and grimaced, knowing she had just botched that a lot. "Sorry. Not my language, and I'm not that good with names I only hear once," she explained. "But it sounded like it might be how you say this name my sister showed me in the yearbook - are you related to anyone named Hilda?"

She felt like she was taking a step off a high dive, but she wasn't doing anything wrong. Dad had said it hardly mattered out here. Jessica had said it was okay. And yet, it still felt like a rush to the head, actually casually referring to a sister in conversation with a new person and not meaning Lola. Not a bad one, though. Mara liked high dives. And she was so far inclined to think she might like being a wizard, too.

16 Mara Morales Yeah, that's totally fair, man. 1472 0 5

Katerina Vorontsov

December 08, 2019 3:48 PM

Feeling regrettably small. by Katerina Vorontsov

Katya had always envied Tatiana's hair. Her sister's hair was - despite them having the exact same parents and nearly exactly the same routines - longer and thicker than her own; loose, Tatya's hair reached her waist, while Katya's still only reached halfway down her back. It was also less lustrous than her sister's. Katya's was a slowly darkening sort of matte gold, whereas Tatya's hair gleamed under lights even when it wasn't pulled back.

No, jealousy over Tatiana's hair was not a new thing, but Katya thought she had never been so jealous of it as she was tonight, when Tatya's hair was actually far less obvious than usual. At the Pecari table, Tatya had her hair all pinned up on her head, as was only proper now that her sister was, for purposes of home, a grown-up lady.

Realistically, Katya knew this was stupid of her. It would only be two years, after all, before she could put her hair up too. Tonight, though, she was just acutely - far more acutely than she had been even at Tatiana's debutante ball over the summer - aware that she was being left out of something all her sisters were now part of. It had been one thing when she and Tatiana together had been the Little Pair (an annoying thing, to be sure, but still a different thing), but now, Tatiana had joined Anya and Sonia in the ranks of grown ladies, leaving Katya over. Papa had always called her malen'kaya - 'little one' - and she had never liked it, but now that she was truly the only little one among the girls in her family, she actually sort of hated it.

She tried to put it out of her mind, though, as she took her place at the Teppenpaw table and watched first the Sortings and then the investiture of the new prefects, applauding politely for Nathaniel Mordue. There had apparently been some dreadful incident with his cousin Simon which had made Tatiana swear everlasting hatred between herself and said Simon, but her sister did not seem to feel it was necessary to extend this enmity to Nathaniel, and Katya couldn't help noticing that he was really quite handsome, when he wasn't looking mortally ill, which he currently didn't. She expected he'd ask Caitlin to the Ball, since she was Sylvia's best friend and roommate and he seemed almost unnaturally attached at the hips with Sylvia, but if he asked her, she didn't think she would say no, and not only because there weren't masses of options....

She sighed slightly at that thought and decided to just focus on her dinner, at least until someone spoke to her.

16 Katerina Vorontsov Feeling regrettably small. 1418 0 5

Josephine Clyde

December 08, 2019 5:52 PM

Not Pecari, not Pecari, NOT Pecari by Josephine Clyde

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

Nope, this is not Pecari. by Morgan Garrett

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

Jessica Hayles

December 08, 2019 7:13 PM

Walking is an art. by Jessica Hayles

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

Alexander Pierce-Beales

December 08, 2019 8:06 PM

Survival instincts I think. by Alexander Pierce-Beales

Nathaniel said "family" and Alexander wasn't sure whether he wanted to sigh with relief or scowl. On the bright side, Nathaniel hadn't guessed at his background, which made it seem a little safer. No one would take advantage of a boy we may have powerful family members. Besides, for all Alexander knew, he really did have powerful family members. That was one of his first priorities upon having time to visit a library or something. He wanted to know how magic was passed down, if it was passed down, and whether there was any way to know who his parents were as a result.

Maybe he could do that over winter break. It was definitely a relief to know he wouldn't be required to go home, as there was certainly no one to order him to do so.

"Professor Xavier," Alexander repeated. Another connection. Another way in. Plus Head of House sounded even more important. Really, Alexander was doing pretty well for himself so far. He had food in his pocket and on his plate, he maybe had a friend, now he knew an older boy, and he had a name of the Head of House. "Is he really a professor?" he asked, wondering why a college instructor would be at a K-12 school. Or a . . . 6-12? 6-11? At a school for minors.

He looked a little harder at Nathaniel. "We're in the same House. Does that mean we're roommates?" he looked around, realizing that there were actually quite a lot of students in his House. The group home never had enough beds for this many people. Was this just a move from the frying pan to the fire? "Does everyone get their own bed or do people share?"

22 Alexander Pierce-Beales Survival instincts I think. 1475 0 5

Josephine Clyde

December 09, 2019 4:19 AM

Did someone say PIE? by Josephine Clyde

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

Nathaniel Mordue

December 09, 2019 8:04 AM

I don't know, you seem pretty smart. by Nathaniel Mordue

Nathaniel frowned slightly in confusion at the question about Professor Xavier. "Of course," he said. "He teaches our Herbology classes. All the teaching members of the staff are professors."

What an odd question. Nathaniel thought for the first time to wonder what Alexander's background was. This was something he should, he knew, have thought of before - when he had received such a casual introduction. Not that it mattered much in Teppenpaw, he supposed - it was understood that within the House, the normal social rules were relaxed somewhat, because they were Teppenpaws. Plus, he was a prefect, which meant he was as responsible for...others as he was for his own people. This job was starting to sound more and more like a headache he shouldn't have signed on for, but how was he to have known he wouldn't need power just to convince his own brother and cousin to speak to him this year when he had agreed to this?

That was unfair, he knew. He had never minded that Teppenpaw was like that before. He had never believed that other people should be treated impolitely simply for existing - it wasn't as if they could help it, any more than he could help having a worthless wastrel for a father. Only those who broke the rules were to be treated poorly, or those who - put him in positions where he felt he had no other choice, for the greater good. Though, after last year, he had to admit that even that hadn't really worked, which made him question the value of the exercise. Things might have been easier now had he tried different tactics from the start....

I'm sorry Mama, he thought, yet again. He would not write that to her later, because he could not condone her behavior whatsoever, but he could think it to himself.

He was distracted from the thoughts of correspondence and the purposes of civility again, however, by another strange question. "Of course we all have our own beds," he said. "Nobody shares. That's against the rules." He remembered last year at the Bonfire, when the tents had had a three-person minimum. "In all the Houses - including ours - there's fourteen dorm rooms," he explained. "My room is the fifth year boys' room. You'll be in the first year boys' room. You might be by yourself - I have my room all on my own - but I've never heard of anyone having more than two or three roommates." He looked at the boy with mild concern, now. "Really, it's a comfortable school," he said. "There's nothing to worry about being here. If you have any problems with other people at all, or settling in, the teachers - and the other prefects and I - we're here to help with that," he reiterated, feeling awkward but also like he was supposed to do this. He knew what it was like to feel like your feet had been snatched off the ground and you had been left adrift with nothing to grab onto. Alexander's reasons were presumably very different, but it still wasn't a nice feeling.

16 Nathaniel Mordue I don't know, you seem pretty smart. 1412 0 5

Morgan Garrett

December 09, 2019 8:24 AM

Mmmm, pie. by Morgan Garrett

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

Alexander Pierce-Beales

December 09, 2019 3:16 PM

You really think so? by Alexander Pierce-Beales

Perhaps Alexander had said too much. Given too much away. In any case, he wasn't sure exactly what it was that he'd given away. Nathaniel looked surprised by Alexander's confusion over the title for teachers at the school, but Alexander wasn't sure he was willing to explain his thought process behind that one. He wasn't sure what people thought of boys like him yet, and he wanted to find that out before revealing who exactly boys like him were. Besides, Nathaniel was trying to be nice it seemed.

"Ah, thank you," was all he said about the professors.

Nathaniel said they'd all have their own beds. Alexander hadn't had his own bed in quite a long time. He had, of course, not always shared with others, but there was a distinct sense in which the bed he slept in was never really his. It was nice to know that here, even just for the duration of the school year, Alexander would have a bed that was his.

"That's good to know," Alexander said, trying not to show how excited he was at the prospect of his own bed. Nathaniel said he might even have his own room to himself! This really was a magical world. He had never ever had his own room to himself, except when he was staying with a foster family, but those hadn't lasted and he hadn't ever really felt like the room he slept in was his room.

"I appreciate all your help," Alexander said with a smile that was more genuine than he expected. He really did feel gratitude, and he felt himself relaxing a little bit, despite all the experiences that told him not to. He did his best to memorize the room around him and was already planning what bits he would draw when he got to his room. His room! "Can I ask another thing? How does the school know which kids are magic? How do they know who to bring here?"

22 Alexander Pierce-Beales You really think so? 1475 0 5

Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

December 09, 2019 3:23 PM

Feeling regrettably incompetent. by Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

Johana Leonie's English was better. It really was. Better than it had been when she had started at Sonora, yes, but also better than it had been even since the previous year's Opening Feast. She was improving. That's why it was so frustrating when she still didn't understand all of the Headmaster's speech. She'd hoped she would by now. It was aggravating, and even more so when she looked down the table a ways and saw Friederike Albert nodding along, smiling in the right spots, and following everything. She was glad that his English was better than hers but it was irritating that it was that much better. She'd worked hard all summer to improve.

Okay, she'd worked hard most of the summer. She'd gone to Hilda's, which was wonderful. She had thought that maybe she would get to know Hilda's older brother, but he didn't seem particularly interested in talking with her - or Friederike Albert, but it was more of a bummer to Johana Leonie that he didn't want to talk to her - and Johana Leonie had given it up as a lost cause. Still, it was great to be around her friend, get to know Hans, and otherwise just enjoy some social time in the summer. Summers were always busy at home; there was always something to do, something to read, something to gather, someone to help . . . Johana Leonie loved it, but it was a hard pace to step in and out of when school was on such a different rhythm.

Deciding that she may as well get on with the inevitable, Johana Leonie turned to another girl who would probably understand the struggle to understand better than most others at school besides Hilda. Katerina was a year older than Johana Leonie, so they hadn't had any classes together since Johana Leonie's first year, but they were House mates and close enough in age that Katerina didn't seem quite as intimidating as her perfectly manicured appearance made her seem otherwise.

"Do you understand?" she asked, leaning towards Katerina so that she could speak more quietly and not announce her incompetence to the whole table. "Some of people are happy und some have no happy. What did Headmaster say?"

22 Johana Leonie Zauberhexen Feeling regrettably incompetent. 1432 0 5

Nathaniel Mordue

December 09, 2019 3:49 PM

I despise liars. by Nathaniel Mordue

Alexander's next question was simple, more or less. Or at least the answer one would give to an eleven-year-old was simple. It clearly indicated he was Muggleborn, but he was behaving properly, so it would be improper to hold that against him. There was nothing strange about it, at least not under the circumstances.

Nathaniel swallowed against a sudden sour feeling just the same. Not at Alexander, though.

"Whenever a witch or wizard is born," he said, "a charm kicks in. A very complicated charm. It...my understanding is that it lets our government know that a witch or wizard exists, and where they are, and it puts the Trace on them."

That last thought was the one which brought all his customary emotions - panic, anger, pain - back to the surface. They never really went away anymore, but sometimes they sank a little, like crocodiles just below the surface of the water. He could feel them even then, but he could focus on other things for short bursts of time, at least as long as nothing reminded him. Something like how he could have prevented all this, if not for....

No. He was not going to think about that. Not now anyway.

"Most of the time, nobody's going to pay much attention to it until you're eleven and you start school - but if your accidental magic gets out of hand, and does something that might seriously damage the Statute of Secrecy, I think then they might get involved," he said. He was extrapolating a lot of this from limited facts, but he thought he was still mentally competent enough to construct a reasonable string of extrapolations. "Otherwise, it just exists so the government knows if - we - do magic at home, and you can get in trouble if you do," he explained, going back to facts at the end.

Technically, this was true of everyone. Technically. In Nathaniel's case, it was only true to a point. He had been too afraid, though, that the government might take an interest in knowing what kind of spells happened around him - that the Mordues might not be powerful enough to let him get away with it - too afraid to do what was necessary, or at least unsure how he could get away with it long enough without help....

No. He was not going to think about that. Not right now, anyway. He could not think about it, and therefore he would not.

"It's only until you're seventeen, though," he added. "It's all for our protection, so Muggles don't find out about us - that magic is real, that wizards still exist. It's easier for people our ages to get caught, and in the past - well. I assume you know about how that used to go?"

16 Nathaniel Mordue I despise liars. 1412 0 5

Katerina Vorontsov

December 09, 2019 4:03 PM

It's not fun, is it? by Katerina Vorontsov

Katerina looked at the red-haired German girl next to her as she asked, in not very good English, what the headmaster had just said. Katya went through it in her head, trying to remember anything of any importance. It was good, really, that the Headmaster was a very succinct sort of wizard; otherwise she might have had one degree or another of trouble with him, too. He hadn't said anything she was too unsure of, but it was still common enough for people to do so to irritate her.

"He said who the new prefects are, and that there will be a dance this year," she said in passable German. It was Russian-accented and the use of articles in particular was not perfect, but she still was confident that it was easier for Johana Leonie to understand her like this than it would be in English. Otherwise, she couldn't imagine the other girl would have asked.

"The prefects must dance in front of all students," she added. "Some do not like it." She supposed she could understand that - if they were not good dancers, they would not enjoy leading dancing before the whole school. This was one reason she was glad she was a good dancer, even though she knew she was very unlikely to be asked to the ball by one of the prefects. "Do you like to dance?" she asked curiously, mainly to make conversation.

16 Katerina Vorontsov It's not fun, is it? 1418 0 5

Evelyn Stones

December 09, 2019 11:51 PM

Somebody jinxed me. by Evelyn Stones

Evelyn's summer had been as unusual as it usually was. She had enjoyed the opportunity to spend time in the sun, to run, and to practice German. She had enjoying the opportunity to spend time with Ness and Kir, even if everything had sort of gone sideways. On one hand, it was nice to have let the cat out of the bag with Kir. At the same time, it made her feel terrible for not telling Ness the full story, and made her realize how little she had told Heinrich. She wasn't sure whether that was good wolf to protect her friends, or bad wolf since she was doing it to protect herself.

Friends.

That was a difficult word for Evelyn, and one that weighed heavily on her mind as she took her seat at the Pecari table. She would much rather have sat at the Aladren table as her favorite people in the world were at the Aladren table. She tried not to think about how much time they could spend together in the Common Room if they wanted and decided steadfastly that the House system was terrible. That made her feel bad because Malikhi was in her House this way, but still. Everyone would just be happier if all the dorms were connected and they didn't have to worry about Houses.

The idea appealed to Evelyn, but she also couldn't help appreciating a system that shoved her in with the people she was the most likely to fit in with. She wasn't organized, friendly, or smart, so it made sense that her adventurousness was the trait that she'd bond with others over. Adventurousness and flightiness seemed like very similar concepts to Evelyn, though, and she hoped she hadn't inherited the latter with the former.

When the new first years were sorted into Pecari, Evelyn wondered if she had looked as odd when she had first come here. Of course, tonight she had on her signature Opening Feast, brown and gold makeup. She probably still looked a bit odd to them. Truth be told though, she probably looked odder still as a first year. She was older than she should be and smaller than she should be, and neither of those points were in her favor. Her birthday had passed now. She was fifteen now. She was almost an adult now. Everything felt very real. But also very far away. The world seemed a little sharper now, as if everything was in focus, for better and for worse.

As it turned out, revealing your darkest secrets to someone and having them respond with all the things you didn't want them to but probably needed, was sort of cathartic. On one hand, everything seemed a little less frightening. On the other hand, she hadn't been sleeping so well since she'd talked to Kir, and resurfaced memories made her even jumpier than usual. Resigning herself to the fact that she couldn't fix any of that right now, Evelyn took a seat between two girls, where she would hopefully be a little less prone to losing her mind.

The Headmaster's speech went as usual until all of a sudden it did not at all. Evelyn was aware that Heinrich was in his fifth year, but had forgotten just what that meant until his name was called and reverberated around the room. She grinned, craning her neck as best she could to watch him. She tried to catch his eye but he looked like he was maybe trying to will himself into invisibility, and she didn't want him to feel like she was staring. But Heinrich was a prefect! That came with more responsibilities, which was probably not good for the poor Aladren's heart, but it also came with further proof that he was doing good, and that he was not his parents. She felt guilty even thinking about Heinrich's secret, and sort of hated how heavy secrets were because revealing them didn't seem to make them much lighter either. What was one supposed to do?

What she had done was to take her scrap of paper from the bonfire and burn it in a Muggle fire near Ness' home. It was satisfying to watch the words My magic couldn't save me disappearing into the sky, embers and sparks like stars in the heavens. She suspected that she was going to have to tell more people soon. She hadn't yet talked to Ms. Heidi, but there were others.

She forced the thought from her mind as the Headmaster continued his speech. Warmth and nerves bubbled in Evelyn's stomach and she cursed Kir for whatever jinx he put on her with his story. He had to go and date Zevalyn for a ball, and now there was going to be another ball, and Evelyn was probably going to be sick. What if no one asked her? What if someone she really didn't want to ask her asked her and she was stuck? What if someone who she maybe hoped would possibly ask her didn't ask her and picked someone else and then she got her answer in a way that just sucked a bunch? At least she'd probably be able to enjoy a quiet night in if that were the case.

However, it did present an opportunity. If Evelyn was asked, then maybe that would answer her question. Maybe she wouldn't have to do any of the asking herself, and she wouldn't have to make a fool of herself. Hopefully. Unless they didn't ask.

But he was a prefect now. He had to take somebody.

22 Evelyn Stones Somebody jinxed me. 1422 0 5

Jeremy Mordue

December 10, 2019 6:18 AM

So is choosing a target by Jeremy Mordue

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

Hilda Hexenmeister

December 10, 2019 8:27 AM

Es war mich by Hilda Hexenmeister

Hilda was not ready for another school year at Sonora. She had worked on her English all summer (though less when Johana Leonie and Freddie had visited) but had not made nearly as much progress as she had wanted to with all that effort. She still couldn’t understand most of what Uncle Karl said when he talked at a normal conversational pace in English, though she was getting better at parsing out the words when he took it slow with her.

This would all be so much easier if Americans just spoke German like normal people. Fortunately, she and her brother seemed to be responsible for a few more trying to learn it, so that would at least give them an idea of how hard this was if not help them communicate any better. And if nothing else, Jessica’s German made Hilda feel a whole lot better about her own English.

Among the Pecaris, though, her options for even rudimentary German were limited. The best speakers were, of course, Heinrich in Aladren, and the Zauberhexens in Teppenpaw. Sophia was next best, but she was also in Aladren with Heinrich. Pecari had only Evelyn, who had a slight head start over Jessica in Crotalus, but neither of them had German skills that were any better than Hilda’s English skills.

But it would be enough. Evelyn was friends with Heinrich so wouldn’t laugh at Hilda butchering the language, probably. Admittedly, Heinrich’s English was a lot better than Hilda’s so Evelyn didn’t normally need to stretch so far to understand him, but they’d managed at the last returning feast and Hilda still had questions that had not been answered to her satisfaction. Particularly since Heinrich had warned her over the summer that he had told Evelyn about Mom and Dad.

Wasn’t he the one who had been flipping out because Johana Leonie knew?

Frankly, Hilda didn’t care who he told. Johana Leonie had showed her that people were perfectly understanding and didn’t hold her parents’ poor life choices against her personally. Frankly, she’d been nine years old the last time she saw them. She was thirteen now. It felt like a lifetime ago. Four years was a long time. Four years was the difference between the new prefects and the tiny people dipping their badges into the sorting potion.

Hard to believe, four years ago, Heinrich had been that little. Hilda had never thought of Heinrich as little, but she realized now he had been two years younger than she was now when everything had gone so horribly wrong. Younger, really. He hadn’t turned eleven until they were already with Uncle Karl.

She felt a belated pang of sympathy for needing to deal with Sonora while still reeling from being separated from everything he knew, including his native language. In that context, she was less surprised it took him three years to make a friend. There weren’t any other Germans in his class.

She jumped a little as she heard her last name called out over the entire school, and for the first moment of panic she thought she was being called out for not paying attention, but then she realized Heinrich had earned Prefect. He didn’t like the attention, she could see that, and she didn’t think it was just because she knew he hated attention almost as much as he hated the way their name sounded to Americans. ‘Hex’ in English was specifically bad magic, just one step down from a full on curse, whereas in German ‘Hexen’ just meant witches.

She clapped, because that was what you did when your brother earned prefect, but mostly she just hoped it was over quickly, not because she thought he couldn’t handle the job or because she thought anything bad would come of standing in front of everybody, but because he didn’t handle publicity well and he was going to get anxious about a whole load of things he didn’t really need to get anxious about.

Because worrying was the one thing Heinrich did better than anything else.

And oh, there was another thing for him to worry about. Hilda groaned a little at the announcement of a ball. (She was initially a little confused, thinking that there was going to be a Quaffle, but then she remembered ball had another meaning and that was the one Heinrich had said was what he had in his first year.) Even ignoring Heinrich’s new responsibility to lead the first dance - Hilda was really really proud of herself that she’d followed that - putting on a fancy dress and makeup was hardly her idea of a good time.

She mumbled her way through the song, then grabbed some food when it appeared. After sating the watering in her mouth at the amazing smells wafting toward her now, she swallowed her first bite and set to addressing her neighbor.

“Why you visit Heinrich not?” she demanded. Johana Leonie visited her, and it was way harder to visit from Germany than wherever Evelyn lived. Heinrich had been especially sullen the week after she had a friend over and he hadn’t. “He tell you big secret and you visit not. You him not like now?”

1 Hilda Hexenmeister Es war mich 1433 0 5

Evelyn Stones

December 10, 2019 9:09 AM

Oder warum? by Evelyn Stones

OOC - Evelyn's italicized broken English is spoken in German, as I can't do good German anyway.

Of all the people to sit down with and not pay attention to, Evelyn picked Heinrich's sister. She almost jumped when the girl turned to her with immediate questions and her cheeks turned pink at the accusation. More than that, at the implication that Heinrich had told her that he had told Evelyn. It made sense in practical terms that Heinrich and Hilda would need to keep each other up to date, but it also meant that Heinrich had talked about her.

"He not ask me for come," Evelyn explained, kicking herself for not having asked herself. But she wasn't in any position to be inviting people over and it seemed rude to invite herself to Heinrich's. She didn't even know if he wanted her to see his new home or personal life. "I would like to come. I still like your brother." She said the last part with a nervous stomach but soft smile. At this point, there was no need to be anxious. Still, she made a mental note to ask Professor Wright for a reminder about those breathing exercises he'd had her practice.

She took a moment to put food on her plate, not really paying attention to what it was. 'Home cooked' had started to mean Ness' mom's cooking and she was surprised to find that she sort of missed it. It was good to be back though, particularly when she had people like Hilda accidentally answering questions she had wondered about all summer.

"I stay with friend - with Ness - for all summers. I not can ask Heinrich come. I not want me rude... Ask myself.". As usually happened when she spoke German, she had renewed empathy for Heinrich and Hilda, as well as the other English second language speakers at Sonora. "Did you want me to visit?" It felt creepy to ask about what Heinrich wanted, so she left the question in second person. Hilda could take that as singular or plural as she wanted. Or as it made sense to her... Evelyn kicked herself for relying on subtext to ask her question. Ness had spent years helping her communicate better and it all went out the window when she really needed it.

22 Evelyn Stones Oder warum? 1422 0 5

Jessica Hayles

December 10, 2019 9:57 AM

You don’t seem to have great aim. by Jessica Hayles

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

Vladimir Brockert

December 10, 2019 5:19 PM

Absolutely SCREAMING congratulations!! by Vladimir Brockert

Summer, as ever, was a whirlwind. There was so much to see, so much to do. Even as a recently-crowned sixteen year old, Vladimir made a distinct effort to spend time with his parents and his little sister when he was home. And Ivy too of course, but at least he got to see her at school. Well, that was one for one more year anyway. Vlad didn’t like to think about that part, so he didn’t.

And summer held travel and friends as well - his birthday was only a few weeks ago, and he had invited his friends over for that. The month before, they had traveled up to Tatya’s for an incredibly elaborate extravaganza, so fancy and glittery that he was kinda glad to be a boy. Maybe they were all growing up, but Vlad noticed his friends a little more there. Tatiana was absolutely stunning, a real grown-up lady with her hair up and visible collarbones. Dorian looked very handsome and put-together, too. Yup, the Teppenpaw sure had some delightfully beautiful friends. He liked to think that he was looking pretty grown up nowadays, as well.

They were all back now, back to the place which had seen most of that growing. Five whole school years were gone, released like laughter into the walls of their home away from home. Vlad was always glad to return, although he missed his family. But Sonora was family too - in many cases literally as the Brockert web sprawled, but also metaphorically, because he belonged here. They all did.

He sat on the edge of his seat, sending nervous and encouraging glances down the Teppenpaw table at his beloved big sister Ivy as the Headmaster (slowly, slowly, SO SLOWLY) announced the new student government members, and…! “YES!” he cried aloud, rocketing to his feet in thunderous applause. “That’s my sister!” he shrieked joyfully to his nearest housemate, who undoubtedly already knew that.

Vlad collected himself and returned to his seat as the new badge-bearing brood did the same. He sang excitedly (and offkey as ever) along to the school song, but when it was over, he found himself too happy to eat. “Hey!” he called down the table. “Ivy! Ivy! Good job!” Vlad wasn’t sure if she could hear him from her position, but someone else did seem to turn to look at him. “Oh, sorry,” he said. “I was trying to talk to Ivy. But that’s okay! How was your summer?”

12 Vladimir Brockert Absolutely SCREAMING congratulations!! 1400 0 5

Jeremy Mordue

December 10, 2019 5:20 PM

I totally got you by Jeremy Mordue

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

Only in your dreams, babe. by Jessica Hayles

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

Anya Delachene

December 10, 2019 6:07 PM

Nice to meet me, too! by Anya Delachene

Anya was eager to meet the new first years. She'd liked Freddie a lot in her own year, and Ellie was . . . very much like Jasmine, so comfortably familiar if not her favorite sort of person to spend time with. They had even met up with Ellie a few times over the summer, which had been a fun change in the routine if nothing else, and her brother Seth was cool and she'd had fun kicking a soccer ball around with him. But there weren't any Pecaris that she had clicked particularly well with, and she hoped maybe one of the new ones might change that.

So she made sure she saved a seat for a new person next to her and when one of them got sorted, Anya beamed warmly at her as she took the spot. "Welcome to Pecari, the House of Adventure!" she greeted cheerfully.

There was break in the conversation, then, as the Headmaster blabbered about prefects and stuff. Anya knew none of them very well so wasn't very interested and just fidgeted in place, trying really hard not to wind up sitting on the table by accident. That hadn't happened for a feast yet, and she wanted to keep it that way because she didn't want to know what would happen if she was sitting in the same spot where the gravy boat tried to appear.

The Headmaster got her attention again by the mention of the word 'ball' which seemed incongruous coming from him until she listened more and realized he meant the kind of ball Jasmine and Mom liked not the kind she did. She sighed. Mom was going to want her to dress up like a princess^TM and there was zero chance Jasmine wasn't going to enforce it. Well, that was on them to worry about until the day it happened. She'd just willfully ignore it until then.

Anya belted out the school song in a voice more enthusiastic than tuneful, then cheered when the food finally came. She loaded up her plate with her favorites as her first year neighbor resumed introductions and identified herself as Leonor de Matteo. "I'm Anya." She returned happily, seeing no need to provide her last name. Pecari was not that formal, and Anya herself was less so.

Leonor had provided a last name, though, which gave Anya a cue to her next question, "Any relation to Felipe?" she asked, figuring she probably was, but giving her the opportunity to deny if she liked. Anya hadn't encounted Felipe too directly yet, and now he'd be up in Intermediates, so it was unlikely she'd cross paths with him much this year, but the Beginner class last year had been small enough that even Anya had picked up most of her classmates' names by the end of the year.

1 Anya Delachene Nice to meet me, too! 1453 0 5

Leonor De Matteo

December 10, 2019 7:00 PM

That's yet to be seen. by Leonor De Matteo

Everything was going well and then it was not. She couldn't help grimacing when Felipe was brought up. Here she'd thought Pecari would be a safe spot away from the shadow of her big brother, and that just didn't seem likely anymore. She couldn't help wondering whether Pecari students knew him because it was a small school, or because he had some sort of reputation. That was interesting information to know about if that was the case.

"Pleasure to meet you, Anya," Leonor said, committing the name to memory. "Felipe is my brother. Are you two friends?" It was a rude question if the answer was yes because it showed that Felipe had never talked about her, but it was important nonetheless; she didn't think she could be friends with anyone that was Felipe's friend.

Something else Anya had said stood out though: the House of Adventure. Was that why Leonor was here? Was she adventurous? She didn't think of herself that way particularly, but she supposed she was in a way. It was sort of the default for her though; she didn't have any long-term role at Los Jardines de Plata and she didn't have anywhere else established for her to go. That meant she would have to go on an adventure.

Whether Pecari was a good fit or not then, at least it was going to be helpful. Maybe Anya would be helpful too. This was a good night to start making these connections and trying friends on for size, because no one would remember what had occurred at the Opening Feast, so it was safe to return friends that didn't fit. Or resize them; there were no return or exchange policies anywhere in Cuidad de Matteo, but the family's travels abroad had revealed this possibility in other places.

"Do you like to adventure?" Leonor asked, following her own train of thought. That was the important thing, wasn't it?

22 Leonor De Matteo That's yet to be seen. 1471 0 5

Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

December 10, 2019 7:18 PM

Not a bit. by Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

Johana Leonie knew that Katerina spoke German, much better than Johana Leonie spoke English in fact, but still felt a little bad about it. It was helpful, and that made her feel worse. At the same time, it was really helpful, especially after a summer away from an English speaking school. It was a bummer that her English was so bad that people figured their so-so German would be better, but she couldn't say they were wrong either.

"Ah, a dance!" she exclaimed, pleased at the thought. Pretty dresses and pretty hair things and pretty people and pretty dances. She could hardly wait. Making a mental note to ask Jessica for some help in this regard, Johana Leonie grinned and nodded. "I love dancing. I have not done much partner dancing though. That is big scary." She suddenly sympathised more with the prefects who had no choice in the matter. She could hope that someone would ask her, but doubted that would happen. In any case, she would enjoy dancing alone just as well as anything. She knew that she only wanted a partner because it made for a prettier evening, but she didn't have anyone in mind that she would particularly care to go with, so she wasn't worried.

Except . . . was she supposed to be worried? Was she a bad Teppenpaw for not having any guy friends that she may want to go with? Was she supposed to have already started thinking about dating? She was thirteen now and that seemed like way too young; she didn't even have a career picked out and it was a lot easier to change lines of work than husbands. That was sort of a one and done thing. She had a hard time imagining marrying an English-speaking boy anyway, and Heinrich didn't really seem like an option.

"Do you go with boy?" she asked, hoping to find either validation or guidance.

22 Johana Leonie Zauberhexen Not a bit. 1432 0 5

Anya Delachene

December 10, 2019 7:25 PM

It totally is. by Anya Delachene

Anya grinned a little at Leonor's face after she brought up her brother's name. "Sorry," she apologized. "Same last name, I was curious. That's why I just introduce myself as Anya," she added. "I have a big sister. Everyone asks. Small school, you know? I was in Felipe's class last year. This year, I'll be in yours, since we're both still Beginners. I'm a second year," she added proudly. She thought you had to do really bad to get held back in first, and if it hadn't happened to Jasmine, Anya hadn't thought it would happen to her either, but you never knew, and Jasmine at least did her homework.

"Yes!" she confirmed excitedly, "I love adventure! I mean, as much as you can get, when the teachers don't let you do hardly anything fun, but we have nice gardens here, and then there's the MARS rooms that can be almost anything you can imagine. Did you get those on your tour?" she couldn't quite remember what the tour had covered last year. She mostly just remembered getting told off a lot for climbing on things. "The MARS rooms are super cool," she added, in case Felipe hadn't explained that to his sister. Jasmine hadn't. Well, she did, she said the Music room was great for singing along with the Disney classics with fabulous special effects, but Anya hadn't understood what she meant until she saw it for herself.

"I'm guessing your family has magic?" It wasn't impossible for muggleborns to strike twice in the same family - it had for Mom and Uncle Daniel - but Felipe had come across as very Not A Muggleborn from what little she knew of him, though so did Mom and Uncle Daniel, so who was she to judge? "I'm half-and-half myself, well, kind of. My mother is muggleborn, not muggle," she added to clarify, because half-and-half usually implied one magical parent and one not, but she had two magical parents, but two magical grandparents and two biological muggle grandparents (plus more non-biological ones because Mom's family was dysfunctional, just like Mom was), so the two generations you might look at for that sort of thing gave different fractions. Inasmuch as any of her grandparents were biological when she herself was adopted.

1 Anya Delachene It totally is. 1453 0 5

Katerina Vorontsov

December 10, 2019 7:45 PM

Maybe someday our fortunes will improve. by Katerina Vorontsov

Katya smiled sympathetically when Johana Leonie said that dancing with a partner would be 'big scary.' She could see that. She had practice, of course - she had learned formal dancing at home, as was proper for a girl of her station - but there were worlds of difference between dancing with her brothers or cousins in a lesson and dancing with boys-boys in public, in front of everyone, at a ball. She had danced some at Tatiana's ball this summer, of course, but that wasn't the same either - not least because her partners had mostly been people who were most definitely not allowed to propose to a Vorontsov, and would not be when she was old enough for that kind of thing, either.

"You will do good," she said, also switching to English since Johana Leonie had at the end. She was grateful to whatever forces controlled such things that she tended to respond to people in the language they spoke to her, rather than muddling them up like Tatiana did. She inevitably muddled her sentences sometimes, of course - used the wrong grammar for the words, or mixed a word from something else in, or began a sentence a certain way because she'd forgotten a keyword didn't have a clear equivalent in whatever she was speaking - but she didn't do it as much as her sister, probably not least because she tried hard not to, where Tatiana never seemed to much care about such things.

"I do not know," she said when asked if she would go to the ball with a boy. "If boy asks me, maybe - if I like the boy." There were complicated metrics that went with that, but it would take entirely too long to try to explain them in some combination of German and English, if she could do so at all. She thought she most likely could - she had worked very hard on her languages over the years, and had, as her old tutor had said, a talent for them - but it would take a long time, especially in a crowd like this, where they were both filtering out a lot of background noise while trying to understand each other and compose comprehensible responses. "But if not, then I go myself, and I dance if a boy will dance once," she said with a slight shrug, not terribly concerned about it. "Do you think you will go with the boy?" she asked curiously.

16 Katerina Vorontsov Maybe someday our fortunes will improve. 1418 0 5

Freddie Zauberhexen

December 10, 2019 11:11 PM

I don't know what's happening but I'm SO EXCITED ABOUT IT. by Freddie Zauberhexen

Summer was over. It had been full of adventure this time around, which was pretty exciting, but the best part was that it had been filled with friends. Real friends! Hana was nice to hang around, but hardly counted as a friend, particularly since they had spent so much less time together in recent years. Plus, she was a girl. And Anya was a girl. And Ellie was a girl. Freddie just wanted one guy to hang out with because who else was going to get excited about roly poly bugs, or play a game with him, or just hang out and talk about life? Okay, so Anya, Ellie, and Hana would probably all be willing to do most of those things, but still. A guy would be nice.

As it turned out, even a small guy was pretty cool. Heinrich had not been particularly interested in hanging out, which seemed fair since he was like . . . grown. Sort of. He was older. Freddie would have been happy to hang out with the oldest Hexenmeister, but the guy was so aloof that it was hard to tell what he was thinking at any given time. Plus Hans was hanging around a lot anyway, and he seemed pretty cool. Small guys could be cool, too. Of course, it didn't escape his notice that the difference in age between himself and Hans was similar to that between himself and Heinrich. Eh.

Whatever the case, summer had ended and the school year had begun. This was a trade, and one Freddie was pretty happy about. He had missed his friends over the summer, and made a point of waving to Ellie and Anya before taking his seat at the Teppenpaw table. At the same time, he settled into resignation over what he'd given up for the start of the school year: adventure. It was something he enjoyed tremendously, and he loved to play and run around the forests near home, but it was not nearly as enjoyable alone or with only Hana for company. No, he'd rather be at school. There was no adventure without friends to enjoy it with. He might as well sit around and daydream if that's all he was going to get out of it.

The speech happened and Freddie probably could have understood most of it but he didn't really try. There was rarely anything interesting and the old man seemed more excited to be done with the whole thing than even the students were most of the time. Then there was a metric butt ton of yelling, particularly from the older student beside him. The older guy beside him. Hey, if small guys could be cool, maybe big guys could too. They weren't all going to be like Heinrich (who's name he recognized among in the tumble of the Headmaster's speech as well, and for whom he clapped a bit harder than for the others).

This guy's level of excitement was absolutely something Freddie could get behind and he looked up as his Housemate stood up.

"Ivy is your sister?" Freddie confirmed, putting the string of shouts together. It was lucky he had been as loud as he had been really because it was easier to tune out the din of English around him that way. He didn't bother to mention his own sister because they were literally in the same House and basically everyone knew that. If they didn't already know that, then it wasn't going to be very interesting anyway. "My summer is sehr gut," he grinned, not caring too much about the past or present tense. Context. It was gonna be fine probably. "How is your summer?"

22 Freddie Zauberhexen I don't know what's happening but I'm SO EXCITED ABOUT IT. 1452 0 5

Leonor De Matteo

December 10, 2019 11:21 PM

Well, it doesn't seem terrible at least. by Leonor De Matteo

Anya said so many words and most of them weren't very important to Leonor, but it was nice of the girl to try so hard to make a connection with a younger student. That was the sort of thing a De Matteo couldn't help but appreciate, even if it was handled in a wordy, toothy way. Plus, Anya had apologized about connecting Leonor to her brother, and that was good. Anyone who understood was someone worth keeping around. Really, the more Leonor thought about it, the more she was sure that Anya was going to be worth her time.

"I am happy to be in class with you," Leonor said politely. "And not with my brother," she added, impolitely.

When Anya confirmed her love of adventure, it only solidified Leonor's budding belief that the second year was worth her time. Maybe it should've been clear from the first "welcome," but it seemed more poignant now; Leonor had offered an out and Anya had not taken it. One of her "fun" suggestions was the Gardens, which Leonor had already decided to avoid if she wanted to avoid seeing her brother, or else intruding on his space. She doubted that would be much of an issue; why would she ever need to go tramping through the Gardens?

"The MARS rooms sound very interesting," Leonor agreed. She couldn't help a small smile at Anya's enthusiasm. Truth be told, Felipe had not mentioned the enchanted rooms to her, but their tutored study of the school had explained them, and Mara had mentioned them as a possible place to go swimming together. "I am interested to explore them more."

She hated the careful, practiced tone that came out of her mouth when she was meeting new people in contrived settings. She was here to mingle, and thus she was mingling. Except she was mingling the way a De Matteo did and that was hardly important here. It wasn't really that important at home either. Ugh.

Pushing herself to relax some only got her so far as the conversation then turned to family anyway. "Yes, my family has a long heritage of magical people," Leonor said, with reverence and bitterness in nearly equal measure. She was proud of her lineage, it just wasn't going to get her anywhere in life. Felipe had warned her that people at Sonora generally used the term "muggle" where the De Matteos would use "non-magical people," but that was hardly a reason to turn her nose up at someone who otherwise seemed like she might make a perfect partner in crime. "Are you close to your extended family?"

22 Leonor De Matteo Well, it doesn't seem terrible at least. 1471 0 5

Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

December 10, 2019 11:30 PM

By midsummer I hope. by Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

Something about the turn of the conversation made Johana Leonie feel like she was bonding with Katerina. This was the sort of thing girls were supposed to talk about, right? Plus Katerina looked perfect and pretty all the time, and maybe she could help Johana Leonie with the ball, too. Then she wouldn't have to put so much pressure on Jessica for everything. Maybe they could all go together or something.

Except boys.

"Danke," Johana Leonie smiled at Katerina's optimism. "I dance much Deutsche-- eh, German dance. Town dance. Ehh..." She waved her hand as if scrolling through her limited English lexicon for the word she was looking for. She knew she could switch to German, but she didn't want to do that. She wanted to make this stupid language work for her. Hilda was definitely right in her judgment of this dumb language. "We dance und have luck, oder Kinder, oder rain," she explained, finishing with a shrug. This was not the point of the conversation anyway.

Johana Leonie grinned at Katrina's hint that she may turn a boy down if she did not like him. How the heck she was supposed to know whether she liked a boy or not, Johana Leonie didn't know. She could tell you which students were boys, but that was about the extent of her knowledge. Perhaps she would turn down a boy if he was Friederike Albert's friend, but even then . . . why? "I like no boy. Maybe any boy. I know not. I think not boy would ask me. But me as well would dance with boy." She felt like she was supposed to be blushing, and maybe there was a hint of warmth in her cheeks, but it was more a matter of admitting to something she had never thought of in any depth than anything else. She felt like she would probably have to start paying more attention to her male classmates. "You know you like boy how? Good dance only?"

22 Johana Leonie Zauberhexen By midsummer I hope. 1432 0 5

Alexander Pierce-Beales

December 10, 2019 11:40 PM

Does that mean I can count on you to tell the truth? by Alexander Pierce-Beales

Alexander stifled a shiver at the idea of the government putting a trace on him. That wasn't so unlike the life he'd come from and to think that he'd been born into such a system twice over was more than a little disconcerting. He looked down at his hands, as if he might suddenly be able to detect the charm. His "accidental magic" had never been anything enough to draw attention, he supposed, as no one cared about him until he was eleven. Of that, he was absolutely certain.

He wanted to ask about tracing adults. It was probably not a dangerous thing to ask. No, it was probably normal. Even if it wasn't, Nathaniel had no reason to care about Alexander after tonight and the younger Teppenpaw had no reason to worry about Nathaniel knowing too much about him. Maybe it would even be good. Letting people into his circle had never been good in the past, though, and he doubted that was going to change tonight. It was all just another bureaucracy, except this one used fairytales and superpowers to take people's rights away. Or, in his case, to deprive them of any rights in the first place.

But then Nathaniel answered the question before he could ask it and Alexander felt himself deflate. Cursing himself for letting his hope get up in the first place, Alexander nodded to show his understanding instead. "There's no way to trace adults?" Alexander confirmed. Nathaniel asked about how things 'used to go' and Alexander had the distinct impression he was being tested. "Salem Witch Trials?" he guessed, hoping to at least show that he had learned something about history at some point. It was pretty minimal, and mostly what he'd learned from documentaries than books or anything, but the old cities did make for some pretty images to draw, even if they were painted with tragedy.

It's easier for people our ages to get caught. The words hung in Alexander's mind like pictures in a dark room, waiting to dry and develop. There was something there that made Alexander uneasy and he had the impression again that his body was betraying him. He wanted to wash his hands, as if he might be able to get rid of the magic. If this was the reason he'd never had a home, and had now been "caught" by a crazy boarding school, then maybe he would just have to learn how to survive all over again. He'd done it once, he could do it again.

22 Alexander Pierce-Beales Does that mean I can count on you to tell the truth? 1475 0 5

Mab

December 11, 2019 8:22 AM

This is too much, too good by Mab

Mab was overwhelmed. The wagon ride from Massachusetts had be strange but in an obviously magical way and she’d had hours to get used to it as it crossed basically the entire country. She’d never left Boston before and staring down at the country side below her had been sufficient distraction. She guessed it wasn’t too much different from a plane ride, though she’d never taken a plane before so that was entirely speculation.

Then the orientation hadn’t been awful. There was food. A guy talked at them. She met Morgan and Morgan seemed nice enough. But there were only the twelve of them in a garden clearing, and she’d been fine.

The tour was okay too. The school was huge, and so much fancier than her elementary school, and the paintings were kind of creepy because they moved, and occasionally even talked, but there were lots of places to hide, and it was definitely the nicest place she’d ever lived in her life, even nicer than Bel’s apartment, and she’d thought that had been posh the first time she walked into there, and she kind of wondered if there had been some kind of mistake, that this wasn’t the school they’d meant to send her to, because this was clearly a rich kid school and Mab had a juvenile record.

But the tour was still just the twelve of them walking through the halls. Sometimes they passed by older students, individually or in small groups, and that didn’t bother her either, but when the entered the Cascade Hall, there seemed to be the entire school population gathered all in one place and Mab wanted nothing more than to run away to one of the hidey holes she’d picked out along the way.

It was too big here, too exposed, and everyone seemed to be looking at her. Adrenaline slammed through her veins and she skittered more to the back of the group, putting the other first years between her and all the eyes.

Her cover got progressively smaller and smaller as the other kids dipped their badge into the sorting potion and then it was her turn and everyone was looking. Heart pounding in her throat and sweat collecting on her brow she quick dunked her blank badge into the brew and pulled it out brown.

Pecari. The ones who land on their feet. Appropriate.

She ducked off to that table and sat down, glad that people seemed to have lost interest in her now. The Headmaster Guy, who looked like some Fey version of Vincent Price gave different badges to some older kids and told them all that there were be an Honest-to-God ball at the end of the year. Pfft. And Bel said this wasn’t the Land of Fey. It totally was.

Then everyone sang while Mab just examined the lyric sheet that appeared in front of her, trying to figure out if it was conjured, illusory, or just transported from elsewhere. Her findings were inconclusive and then the evidence vanished as quickly as it had appeared. And on the tables, there was food. So much food.

Man sat back and stared at it wide eyed and suspicious. It was too good, too much, too perfect.

It had to be a trick. For the first time since the police station where she’d been brought after she was arrested, she worried that it was dangerous to eat the food. Or course, she had already eaten at the Orientation, so she was already trapped here, and she had already been planning to stay here at least until December if not through May, so not eating at Sonora wasn’t even an option, but her mental alarms were ringing and she hadn’t survived three months on the streets by ignoring them.

She couldn’t eat this. It was a trick.

1 Mab This is too much, too good 1473 0 5

Jasmine Delachene

December 11, 2019 11:31 AM

What do you mean, Ugh? by Jasmine Delachene

“The corn?” Jasmine repeated, her brilliant smile dropping off as she looked at her plate in moderate confusion. She had the glazed chicken there, too, and the peas, plus her dinner roll. It was a well balanced meal. She didn’t know what he was talking about. She had more than corn.

She dismissed it as unimportant. Maybe he had started the question before she finished filling her plate and she hadn’t noticed, or maybe he was guessing it was the corn that made the feast great this year since that was what she had reached for first. No matter, the conversation had moved on and he was complimenting Anya.

She gave him a dubious look and wondered if maybe he hadn’t ever noticed her sister after all. Well, to be fair to Anya, very nice wasn’t wrong. Anya had a big heart. Jasmine would not have recruited her help with Ellie if she didn’t.

It just usually wasn’t the trait most people noticed or mentioned with Anya. Even Anya would describe herself as ‘a thrill-seeking explorer’ over ‘very nice’ and would count the later as mildly patronizing and as something people who don’t really know her would pull out. There just were so many stronger more characteristic words for Anya than ‘very nice’.

She wasn’t a Teppenpaw after all.

Jasmine could only assume he was trying to say something nice and ‘insane thrill-seeker’ didn’t sound as complimentary to him as it would to Anya or the people who understood that was just who she was. Maybe his sister wasn’t that kind of Pecari. He was lucky in that case.

“I’m the only member of my immediate family not from Pecari,” she shared. “Anya loves it there.” She decided not to mention her mother had hated it, or that her father’s highest praise was that it was where he met Mom. She didn’t want to worry the younger boy.

“Well, I guess everyone but me and Phillipe,” she added as an afterthought. “Phillipe hasn’t been sorted yet. He’s due next year. He’s our youngest sibling.”

1 Jasmine Delachene What do you mean, Ugh? 1397 0 5

Nathaniel Mordue

December 11, 2019 12:17 PM

Yes - though the truth I speak may not be the truth you think you hear. by Nathaniel Mordue

"There's no way to trace adults?"

Nathaniel put his fork down. His green eyes were no longer focused on Alexander, but rather on some point off to the left.

"No," he managed, his voice only slightly shaking. "No, I don't think there is."

"It's a scary thought, to realize that you can't control everything, or make everything better. Many people feel overwhelmed by it sometimes. When that happens, try focusing on something you can control - your breathing."

In - one - two - three -

Out - one - two -three.

In - one - two - three -

Out - one - two - three.

According to Dr. Greene, it was thoughts of his father - conscious or unconscious - which seemed to provoke these - fits - in him the most. Panic, she called it. His brain associating something with past trauma - that was another of her words, trauma - and reacting as though what had happened was happening again. So he had to ground himself in the present. Ground himself in what was happening right now. He put his hand up to his throat, resting lightly on top of the collar of his robes. Remembered what mattered.

I cannot find Dad. I do not even want to do so. I wish he was really dead. I always have. Why should I have a spell like this over someone I don't care anything about?

In - one - two - three -

Out - one - two -three.

In - one - two - three -

Out - one - two - three.

He was back. He was okay. It didn't matter. He locked the door on it.

"Yes - very good," he managed about Salem. "Salem - well, those weren't really many of our people, but it was the last straw. It was the last big one before the Statute of Secrecy was passed. It wasn't safe for us to be ourselves - out there - in the big world anymore," he explained. "And it's not as if we needed them anyway," he added. "We do just fine on our own. Especially now that the only wizards the Muggles ever see are usually adults, who can take care of themselves - and for children, there's the Trace, and other things, to make sure the Muggles don't catch them, or that they don't give us away to anyone else," he added.

16 Nathaniel Mordue Yes - though the truth I speak may not be the truth you think you hear. 1412 0 5

Katerina Vorontsov

December 11, 2019 12:55 PM

Fingers crossed. by Katerina Vorontsov

Katya nodded at the descriptions of dances. "This sounds like Russian dances, too," she said. "I see girls in village, they dance in spring, in the circle." She drew a circle in the air with her finger to indicate what she meant, illustrating words she regarded as less common but easily illustrated out of sheer habit at this point. "Sometime I would like to see German dance," she added.

She smiled kindly as Johana Leonie started talking about not being sure if she liked any specific boy. "If he is nice boy, this is good," she said. "And he dance, and has a good family." That was always a factor - no matter how perfect someone was, they had to come from the right kind of family, otherwise it would be a disgrace. There was a little wiggle room when it came to dancing, people who it was acceptable to dance with but never to marry for instance, or families which one of the daughters might marry into but which weren't good enough for their daughters to marry Grisha or Lyosha, but that was not something one spoke about much, especially when one did not know Johana Leonie's exact position.

"Once I liked a boy," she added, lowering her voice slightly in confidence. "But he chose to marry one of my sisters." Technically this was untrue, but Katya imagined it was only a matter of time until Dorian proposed, and given everything - from how much time Tatiana had spent away from home to how good Dorian's Russian was - it seemed likely to her that Mama and Papa would allow it, and that would be that. "So I must - stop liking in that way, start in other way. But he is very smart, and writes beautiful letter, and talks to me like I am smart, too," she said. "What things do you think you - could like," she said, with a fractional hesitation as she selected the word 'could' and decided it more or less matched what she was aiming to ask. "How would a boy be, if you like him?"

16 Katerina Vorontsov Fingers crossed. 1418 0 5

Heinrich Hexenmeister

December 11, 2019 1:37 PM

Thank you for your understanding by Heinrich Hexenmeister

“Elves, yes,” Heinrich repeated, careful enunciating his pronunciation at her doubt, but he was pretty sure he’d had it close enough to be understandable the first time, too. She had repeated it correctly, after all. Her question grew more precise and he did not know that word. Cafe - something about coffee? It was becoming rare that he did not know a word, and it almost surprised him that this one caught him out. It had been a few weeks since he last hit completely unfamiliar vocabulary. Maybe it was a slang term for the kitchen. That was what seemed to fit best into that slot in the sentence and he still had a lot of trouble with slang.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “Sonora has Prairie elves for cooking. They are like House elves, but with longer ears.” Even before Things Went Wrong, his family had not been well to do enough to have their own House elf, but some of the people Mom and Dad visited - with him and Hilda in tow - did. House elves had long enough ears, in his opinion, but somehow the Prairie variety did not look as completely ridiculous as one might assume. It was likes rabbits and hares. One had ears long enough for it to be a notable feature and the other had even longer ears, but it still suited them.

It did not occur to him that the younger girl might not know what a House elf was. His experience in this school was that he was the one lacking vocabulary and while her English was accented - possibly a regional dialect, though his ear for that was poorly calibrated - it was definitely more fluent than his own. She had used a word he didn’t know. So it had to be him who was causing communication faults because his English still wasn’t good enough.

Then he winced as she butchered his name. He didn’t like his name, especially how it sounded to English speakers who only knew ‘hex’ as a bad kind of spell, but that didn’t mean he liked hearing it murdered like that.

“Yes,” he said, hurrying to confirm her guess before she could try to say his surname again. “Hilda is my sister.” He tilted his head in curiosity. “Who is your sister?” For that matter, he realized she had gotten his name from the prefect awards, but he didn’t know hers. “I am sorry. I did not catch your name either.” ‘Catch your name’ was an idiom. He had seen it in a book. He was eighty percent sure he was using it correctly.

1 Heinrich Hexenmeister Thank you for your understanding 1414 0 5

Mara Morales

December 11, 2019 2:33 PM

Here's hoping you return the favor. by Mara Morales

Prairie elves did the cooking. Prairie elves. Which were different from house-elves, because ears. Or ear length, rather. Right. Because that was a totally normal thing that everyone knew about and casually discussed in passing.

Freaking elves. She was going to kill Jessica. This was exactly the kind of thing she had wanted to know about and which Jess had not told her, and now she looked stupid in the group specifically designated as smart people.

"My name?" Mara thought she had said 'Mara' at some point, but, well, she could be wrong. Or he had just missed it in the general noise of a crowd and whatnot. This school was absolutely tiny compared to any school Mara had ever even seen the inside of in passing, but it was still enough people in one room to make a nuance easy to miss, especially since she wasn't speaking his native language. "It's Mara," she said. "Mara Morales."

She wondered if her first name sounded at all incongruous to him. She had looked it up online before, wondering what could have inspired her mother to give her such a name, and while it wasn't completely unheard of in Spanish-speaking cultures - it could be used as a pet name for Maria - she didn't think it normally went with Morales. It was either Hebrew for 'bitter' or Aramaic for 'lady,' which she thought was a telling example of a false friend between languages, though it did make the story of Naomi and Ruth rather interesting to think about from that angle after Naomi renamed herself Mara. In Arabic, it meant 'joy' and could be used for men or women, which seemed strange to her, and also odd because it was so totally opposite of the Hebrew and Aramaic definitions. Plus in Czech it was a dude's pet name. So there was that.

Most likely, though, a guy from Germany wasn't going to think about that, either because most people didn't have a passing interest in etymology or a habit of noticing incongruities in cultures around them or because, well, Mara was a native speaker. She didn't look particularly white, but she spoke English in a fairly standard manner with a bit of a Southern accent, as she mostly spoke it with Dad and Jessica and teachers and that was how Dad and Jessica and teachers at home all spoke. Having a name that was uncommon for her apparent ethnic group wasn't altogether unusual in America.

"My sister's name is Jessica," she added, going back to feeling like she was jumping off a cliff. "Jessica Hayles. Third year, red hair. We're half-sisters," she explained before the differences in surname or appearance - they really did not look alike at all. Mara was her mother made over in miniature, and Jessica had an equally strong resemblance to Mrs. H. "She's in the...red-and-silver House. She says it like 'crowt-less,', I don't know how to say these words yet," she added. "Plus I don't know if I believe anything she's said about this place anymore, because she never told me anything about elves being real."

16 Mara Morales Here's hoping you return the favor. 1472 0 5

Alexandra Borealis

December 11, 2019 7:27 PM

Finally. Let's get started... by Alexandra Borealis

Well, here she was, standing in front of the Sorting Potion, thinking if it was wise to wait this long to place her badge in. She quickly dunked it in, and it turned yellow almost immediately. She began breathing again, she couldn’t remember what that meant besides the fact that she now had to sit at the table where all the people wearing yellow and maroon were seated.
Her stomach was definitely feeling a bit empty and was really looking forward to this feast.
She was relieved to see that Alexander was also in Teppenpaw, at least she had one friendly face to look forward to. But she still had so many questions… Her mom was a witch but had never attended school formally (they didn’t really have that down in the Amazon) and her dad was a muggle. So even though she knew about her magic, she had never heard of schools like this one.
She quietly sat down at a spot not too far from Alexander. The headmaster made some remarks and brought a few students up to give them special badges, and after they sat down the food magically appeared. She noticed Alexander chatting with an older boy, named Nathaniel, who had stood up earlier to receive his prefect badge. The older boy looked friendly enough but seemed like he was thinking about so much. She looked around the table and noticed that people seemed to know each other pretty well or had already struck a conversation with someone next to them. She quietly grabbed some food and thought about what school life must be like.
Alexandra thought she was probably going to enjoy herbology and care of magical creatures the best. She had already some of this first hand when she had watched her mom brew her potions, or care for some of the creatures her family kept in their tribe. She was really enjoying her food when she heard someone nearby say– “so what’s your name?” Finally, she could start this crazy school life and maybe make some friends.

42 Alexandra Borealis Finally. Let's get started... 1474 0 5

Theo Spurn

December 11, 2019 8:50 PM

Some good, some yucky by Theo Spurn

Mum had written Theo a note saying the person who taught Potions and wasn't Sophie was going to be nice even though she wasn't Sophie. That was good. Theo felt like most people were either nice or were capable of being nice once mum had yelled them into it but that second one was stressful and sometimes involved unpleasant situations almost happening first. Only ever 'almost' because Theo was definitely allowed to say 'no' to things he didn't like, just sometimes he had to say it louder and by making his feet be rocks and tucking his arms in and getting trouble for being stubborn. Then mum came and told people not to be jerks and that he was allowed to keep saying 'no' if he needed to.

As they made their way into the hall, he looked up at the staff table, trying to decide which one might be the potions professor. He had literally nothing to base this off though, except that she was not mean. There was a lady in a very velvety dress and velvet was like... the opposite of mean, and even if that wasn't the potions teacher, he liked her. He gave her a cheerful wave in case it was, wishing that he could go up and talk to her and stroke her dress but he knew that wasn't allowed right now. He had to stand here and do stuff. He kept his eyes on her though and rubbed the velvet in his sleeves against the bridge of his nose because that was a very nice place to rub and it made up for not being able to touch her dress because he'd only be able to do that with his hands and because the velvet in his sleeves had been sewn with love. If this behvaiour hadn't clued her in yet, the bright pink streak in his hair probably would. As would what happened next.

Theo turned his attention to the potion as more people started moving that way. He watched them carefully. There was no need to touch the potion itself and it was not bubbling. He was not thrilled about the process but it was not impossibly gross. He rolled his sleeves up carefully, so they were well out of the way. He would really rather not... It was just that he thought about it getting on his hands if he wasn't careful enough and because he'd never come across this particular potion before, he had no idea what it felt like. It could be really slimy. It could be sticky. What if it was very sticky and it wouldn't come off his hands properly?

He stepped up, holding his badge tentatively by one end and dipping the minutest tip of it into the brew. He saw the colour racing up it and let go with a squeak because he wasn't sure whether it was just a colour or seepy potion badness. He watched it sink into the potion.

"It was definitely brown," he declared truthfully, setting off towards Pecari table shouting over any attempt to make him stay still and have his badge returned to him, "I don't want it - it's probably sticky." This remark was mainly intended for Professor Skies but was not physically directed at her as he was already walking away and was loud enough for everyone to hear.

He settled down at Pecari without a trace of self-consciousness, sitting with his legs underneath him for pleasant squashiness, unrolled his sleeves and rubbed his nose with the velevty bits a few more times while other things happened.

Then it was food time. Food was fine. It was something he did as a process because it was necessary. It was less bothersome when food was goopy than textures you touched with your hands because your mouth was already soggy. He wasn't very adventurous with food and the sheer variety in front of them didn't tempt him much. It did, however, mean he could do one of his favourite things. He did not get to do this much because it lacked nutrtitional value and was hard to achieve without quite a wide range of things. First, he rolled up one sleeve again, keeping then other pressed to his nose. Then he took a small amount of mashed potato, spreading it very evenly and flatly over his plate with the back of the serving spoon.

"What foods do you see that you can paint with?" he asked the person next to him. His eyes briefly included them in this comment whilst continuing to scan the table, "I think that pumpkin soup would make a nice sunshine."

13 Theo Spurn Some good, some yucky 1476 0 5

Brett Newell

December 12, 2019 7:27 AM

My loneliness is killing me by Brett Newell

Brett packed for his return to Sonora alone. There was no meddling but well-intentioned sister reminding him to bring all of his underwear and socks with him. There was no irritating brother snidely asking what all those parchment scrolls were for if he never did his homework anyway. There was no cousin pulling that brother away by the ear and telling him to be less annoying. And there was no little sister asking again if she could come along.

For the first time in his life, Brett was alone. Even most of the summer, it was just him and his parents. Makenzie was living her own life somewhere, and so was Dustin, with Ana in tow. And Flo - his favorite, his partner in crime - went off to college early in July to begin working on a concurrent internship. With two older siblings, one younger sister, and one somewhat adopted cousin floating through his household, Brett had never been alone before. But now they were all gone.

He boarded the wagon alone and had the quietest ride of his life. Usually, he and Florence would chatter together the whole time. He remembered a few years ago when Dustin would get so frustrated. They would all sit together in what was the oldest boy’s closest feat to a display of affection, and Brett would absolutely take advantage of it to annoy his big brother. He would pop above Dustin’s book or steal it from him completely and play keep away with it with Florence. But now he had no compatriots, no friends or enemies named Newell. Brett noticed for the first time how bumpy the ride was, and he hated it.

At least after his disembarked (alone), he was free to find his girlfriend. He waited in the front area for her wagon to arrive. It was always nice to see Eden again after a long summer - they didn’t get to see each other much in the off time, and he always thought she got even prettier every time they were apart. Maybe it was summer glow in her hair and skin, the blonde even lighter, the tan even darker.

There was a bit of time they could spend together while the first years went through Orientation, but when it was time for the Opening Feast, they had to separate once again. Brett and Eden had decided (read: Eden had decided) that they shouldn’t really table-hop at these things and sit together since they were both Prefects in their respective Houses.

He crossed his fingers as the Headmaster began announcing the new Head Students and gasped audibly at the result. Eden hadn’t won? Ivy was fine, but his girlfriend was obviously the best choice! And Ivy’s stupid little brother was definitely not helping with his overzealous squeeling. Brett was tempted to boo just to shut that kid up, but he didn’t really want to do that to Ivy. He just sent a sad look to Eden, mouthing sorry. She shrugged, but he knew she was probably at least a little disappointed. (Brett also hadn’t won even though he’d been on the ballot, but that was pretty universally acknowledged as a bad choice. He still didn’t even know why he had gotten Prefect, other than maybe the school feeling bad for not giving it to his sister.)

Nothing else particularly mattered in what the Headmaster had to say, and he definitely didn’t sing the song because that was dumb. The Pecari did note that there was going to be a ball again this year, which was not exactly his favorite but he knew Eden would probably be excited about it. They had gone together to the last one when they were third years, which was sort of how they (slowly) got together. He thought he remembered something about the Prefects and people having to dance, so he was at least grateful that he would definitely have a date.

A more immediately pressing matter was food. The plate of chicken immediately stole his gaze, but it was a bit down the table. So he addressed the student next to him to enlist their help. “Hey, can you pass me that?”

12 Brett Newell My loneliness is killing me 384 0 5

Hilda Hexenmeister

December 12, 2019 8:29 AM

Heinrich ist ein Dork by Hilda Hexenmeister

“He ask not?” Hilda repeated in confusion - not because of Evelyn’s bad German (which had poor pronunciation and broken grammar but was still easier to understand than if she’d used perfect English) but because that was not what Heinrich had said - but then she rolled her eyes and shook her head in annoyed exasperation because of course Heinrich hadn’t asked because Heinrich had the social aptitude of a walnut. When he’d told Hilda that Evelyn couldn’t come, she should have known to ask if he had actually invited her or if he was just pessimistically guessing she couldn’t come. Because the later was far more likely than the former and she didn’t know why she’d just assumed otherwise. And of course Evelyn couldn’t just ask herself over. That would be bad form. This mess was entirely on Heinrich.

“Heinrich is ein Dork,” she informed Evelyn with huffy affection, in case she didn’t know. Dork was a word Hans taught her. It was maybe her favorite English word because German didn’t have a word like that, which Hans had explained meant ‘A smart guy who is an idiot’, and nothing in German fit Heinrich quite so well. “Heinrich say ...” she fought for the vocabulary and syntax to express herself, “You is busy. You kannst no come. He was . . .” she lacked the words to say sulky and grumpy so she adopted a sulky and grumpy expression and posture, “when you not come. Auch wenn er nicht gefragt hat!” she added, louder, in sharp annoyance in the direction of the Aladren table, even though she knew Heinrich wouldn’t hear her. It was the thought that counted.

“Dork. How is brother smart und Idiot together?”

OOC: ‘Auch wenn er nicht gefragt hat!’ is Google-translate for ‘Even though he didn’t ask!’

1 Hilda Hexenmeister Heinrich ist ein Dork 1433 0 5

Tatiana Vorontsova

December 12, 2019 11:43 AM

I suppose we all have to die sometime. by Tatiana Vorontsova

Tatiana had almost - almost - gotten used to having her hair up now, at home. As she walked into the Cascade Hall for the Opening Feast, however, she was uncomfortably aware of the brown chignon on the back of her head all over again.

Nobody here, with the exception of Dorian and Vlad, had ever seen her with her hair up. Ever. She tied parts of it back with ribbons - sometimes even all of it - but it was always there. Her long curtain of hair was not, perhaps, as central to her identity as her jewelry was, but it was still definitely a thing. Which was, she supposed, why putting it up was considered such a rite of passage, at least in her family. Tatiana Andreyevna had worn her hair down and had been allowed to be childish. Mademoiselle Vorontosva was supposed to be a respectable member of society, like a Crotalus. Changing her appearance reminded her not to be a child anymore.

She didn't like the reminder. She was still in school for two years, for goodness' sake, and she couldn't really imagine she was apt to find a husband here. Well - she might, but if she did, it would almost surely be Dorya or Vladya, simply to make mamas happy, and she couldn't imagine they would really care about her hair that much. American and Canadian girls seemed to wear their hair however they wanted, regardless of their ages, and Dorya and Vladya were not Russians, despite the latter's name and mother's relations. Ivy Brockert did not wear her hair up all the time, after all....

Sitting down at the Pecari table, she reached for her hair to play with it, and then made an irritable sound when she touched nothing but thin air and had to play with one of the pearl drops at her ears instead.

They were new, the earrings, but she liked them. Papa had given her the greenish-black Tahitian drops, swaying beneath the deep blue aquamarine studs, as a gift to celebrate her CATS results, along with a smallish Tahitian tin cup necklace, the pearls alternating with small aquamarines, with a drop pearl-and-aquamarine pendant which could be removed, but why would she do that? She liked line of a drop necklace more than a simple strand, really, and this was close to the best of both worlds. Her wrists jingled with her usual bracelets. Even her hair was adorned, lightly - decorated with beautifully enameled combs from China which Dorian had given her once. Some of the enamel bracelets he'd given her were mixed in among the more precious pieces, too. She felt more like herself like this, with physical reminders of her friends as well as her family about her person. To her, the sentimental pieces were in their way more precious than her valuables; they had stories that went with them, aside from also usually being more visually interesting.

She twisted one of the enamel bracelets around her wrist until the Headmaster announced the Head People, when she clapped politely for Ivy, and smiled affectionately at Vladya's over-the-top enthusiasm. From anyone else, she might have thought he was actually making fun, but...Vladya was Vladya. He had always been so. He did not seem inclined to cease to be so. Tatiana appreciated that, and just hoped they could all keep being a little bit themselves even as things got...different as they got older.

She glanced at Brett Newell, who she recognized from around the common room after all these years, and nodded. "Yes, I pass," she said, and reached for the chicken dish so she could hand it to him. "Welcome back. I am sorry you do not win. Have you good summer?"

16 Tatiana Vorontsova I suppose we all have to die sometime. 1396 0 5

Mab

December 12, 2019 12:37 PM

Still and Silent by Mab

Mab had not been the last person sorted - first people and last people were noted more than the people in the middle - so as her cover of other first years dwindled, she had darted ahead to claim a position of Not Last. She had sat at the Pecari table near some empty seats, hoping that maybe she’d be the last one to have a badge turn brown (Morgan had already gone to Aladren and she didn’t know anyone else) and she’d be more or less on her own.

This was not the case.

She watched in some mild fascination as a boy dropped his badge into the cauldron (she thanked her otherwise unlucky stars that she had been spared that embarrassment at least) and then proceeded to loudly declare he didn’t want it back and it was probably sticky. Then the fascination turned to horror as she realized he was heading right toward the empty seats near her.

No, oh no, he was attention beacon - the public mistake, the loud talking back, the pink streak in his hair, the velvet clothes. Nothing about him was subtle and he was pulling eyes in her direction. Her first instinct was to flee, but that would draw attention, too. You couldn’t just get up again after you sat down. That was true in her elementary school and it was probably even more true among the fey. You do not want to offend the fey. Just look what happened to Aurora, and she didn’t even do anything but get born.

So she stayed where she was, holding still to avoid drawing notice, moving was always more dangerous than not moving, and attention eased away toward the badges being handed out at the front of the room. She hoped that would never be her.

Slowly, she began to breathe again. She let her shoulders relax slightly. She began to think maybe this was a good spot to be. Any eyes that did happen in this direction would go to Velvet Sleeves, not her in her plain school uniform. If she could just keep quietly to herself, this was probably the most invisible spot at the whole Pecari table.

She couldn’t keep quietly to herself. She cursed herself (not literally, one had to be clear about that in the Land of Fey; curses were A Thing here) for sitting back in her seat as she distanced herself from the dangerous looking food. It must have drawn Velvet’s attention. Moving was always more dangerous than not moving. She knew that.

His words were nonsensical. Obviously, he was one born to the Fey. Fey concerns were different than mortal concerns. She was just a changeling. Her concerns were still steeped in the mortal world.

She quickly passed him the pumpkin soup (who made soup out of pumpkins anyway?), hoping this would be sufficient to distract him with his food painting and he could go back to forgetting she was there.

Once he had the soup, she went still and silent. It was as close to invisible as she was allowed to be. She wasn’t supposed to wish upon the invisible fairies anymore. She was supposed to learn to use her wand like Flora, Fauna, and Merriweather. But she hadn’t had any classes yet, so still and silent would have to do.

1 Mab Still and Silent 1473 0 5

Martin Crosby V

December 12, 2019 12:54 PM

Well this doesn't bode well by Martin Crosby V

Martin was happy to report his new age. Not too long ago, he had turned thirteen, which meant he was officially a teenager. Not that teenagers were particularly better than most children, let alone newly christened teenagers, but at least it was a stepping stone. Martin could checkmark one more pillar as accomplished on his route to proper adulthood. And he could hardly wait - this youthful childhood was far too tedious for him. All this pressure to enjoy himself was simply more than he could bear. Martin Crosby V had a big name, and perhaps fittingly, he had always felt prepared to take on big responsibilities. He was the heir apparent to the family, after all. First (and only) son of the first son of the first son of the patriarch. This was his future, and this was his ambition. What’s more, it was his duty.

And speaking of duty: Martin was absolutely revolted to hear of this ball the Headmaster proposed at the end of the term. Though only a third year, as a coveted boy in a school dominated by the female persuasion, he knew he had to find a proper girl to ask to be his date. Which meant he had to find a girl approximately his age (probably second through fourth year would be acceptable, he thought) that he could tolerate for an entire evening. Plus probably more, what with discussion of preparation and the like. It was incredibly tedious.

Martin sighed, doing his best to make peace with the number of conversations with girls he would likely have to have this year to find one who would be acceptable. With this in mind, the Crotalus chose not to engage any of his Housemates now, conserving his energy, and instead focus on silent, polite consumption of his steak and salad.

12 Martin Crosby V Well this doesn't bode well 1439 0 5

Vladimir Brockert

December 12, 2019 1:11 PM

That's how I live my life! by Vladimir Brockert

Vlad nodded eagerly to confirm the kid’s reiteration. Yup, Ivy sure was his sister! She was a great one at that! But he didn’t think he needed to go on and on about that anymore. Obviously, this kid was going to see (if he didn’t already know) just how awesome Ivy was.

In truth, Vlad didn’t know this kid’s name - he was enough younger than him to have not interacted much previously, although he had definitely seen him around before. That was okay. He doubted the kid knew his either, since he didn’t know he was Ivy’s brother. Names didn’t really matter in times like this (an opinion that was probably a stark contrast to many of his social peers, within a society where your name was, like, literally everything sometimes). Vlad was just friendly; he liked to chat just as well with Joe Schmoe as with Jimportant Schmimportant.

German was not one of the languages under the sixth year’s belt. His relative mastery of English was apparent, and he had a decent grasp on Russian now between his maternal family and five years of friendship with Tatya. But on German, Vlad whiffed. He could just tell that was what this was. (Sidenote: how cool was this school’s population diversity? Vladimir adored all the different languages he overheard in the hallways.) With context and the fact that “gut” sounded so much like “good”, he thought he had a pretty good concept on what the kid meant, anyway.

“My summer was super fun!” he answered. “Oh, and I’m Vlad, by the way. Brockert,” he added, just in case it wasn’t obvious from the whole Ivy thing. Plus, it gave the kid an opportunity to introduce himself without outright asking for a name. It showed interest, and it made people happy. Vlad liked that.

12 Vladimir Brockert That's how I live my life! 1400 0 5

Heinrich Hexenmeister

December 12, 2019 1:54 PM

I am a bad wolf. I was culturally insensitive. by Heinrich Hexenmeister

“It is nice to meet you, Mara,” Heinrich said formally, falling back into English 101 conversational practice. It sounded more practiced and fluid than most of his sentences had so far, but it was equally clearly rote-learned. The sentiment was not completely lacking, though. Heinrich was never really a warm person, even at the best of times, but his politeness was born of genuine goodwill toward his younger Housemate. It was Good Wolf to be nice to people.

He nodded politely as she mentioned her sister was called Jessica; he recognized that name as one Hilda had talked about increasingly over the last year. Hilda’s friend group was definitely expanding, and Jessica was one of the girls it had enveloped. He even diplomatically kept his features neutral and open when she explained she had a half-sister and stumbled through naming Crotalus. He was in no position to judge either other people’s parents or their pronunciation of anything.

His image of high civility cracked though at her remark about elves being real.

His eyes widened in undisguised surprise and the word, “Oh!” escaped his lips. Realization hit hard, and his ordinarily pale cheeks flushed pink. “I am sorry!” he declared, another rote-learned phrase, but given more emotion than anything he’d said so far. “I did not realize you are muggleborn!”

It was his default to assume most people were purebloods. He had thought this of Evelyn as well until she introduced Pop-Tarts into his vocabulary and he’d figured out they did not have a common frame of reference for that item. Even then, he had assumed the problem was a cultural difference between Germans and Americans. Eventually, he had adjusted his mental classification of his best friend to half-blood, but that had taken much longer than it really probably should have.

Tonight, he had again attributed communication difficulties to their opposing countries of origin instead of their differing magical backgrounds. It was a culture shock had had avoided by dint of birth and so it wasn’t something he thought about very often, particularly since he had needed to deal with an entirely different kind of culture shock. Now that he was a prefect, he was going to have to fix that.

“I apologize,” he stated again. “I think too much that German and American are confusing. I forget magic and not magic are confusing, too. I am born magic but German. I have different problems coming to Sonora. Yes, elves work in the kitchen. They are small magical creatures.” He held a hand about three and a half feet over the ground to approximate their height for her. “They have more power than they look. Strong magic. Complex spells like bring all food to tables at same time, very easy for elves. But they do not like a lot of attention.” He sympathized with elves a lot, he realized. “They keep invisible if they can. Jessica might know not much of them if she also of muggleborn is.”

1 Heinrich Hexenmeister I am a bad wolf. I was culturally insensitive. 1414 0 5

Mara Morales

December 12, 2019 3:01 PM

At least it wasn't intentional. by Mara Morales

Mara was slightly surprised by the strength of Heinrich's reaction to realizing he seemed to have misunderstood something. "It's fine," she said, almost automatically, defaulting to the sort of response her parents would expect. "I didn't exactly say so," she acknowledged.

The real reason she couldn't say she was particularly offended, though, had little to do with that. Far more relevant was that he seemed genuinely apologetic and hadn't said anything in a way which seemed like he was being a jerk. Mara guessed people couldn't help making mistakes - heck, she would probably say some dumb stuff if she tried to talk about what wizards were like or what Germans were like, for that matter - but there was another way that could go, when people were deliberately...jerks. Usually about whether she spoke English (she did) or if she was in the country legally (she was) or whether her mom had only had kids to keep from being deported (she hadn't). Mara had had a few people ask something about whether Mamá was from Mexico that she hadn't thought were badly intended - not everyone who had ever asked if Mamá was from Mexico, but a few. She had never known anyone to say anything about the other stuff out of genuine harmless ignorance with no intention to offend. By comparison, not guessing that she was something unrelated to her racial and cultural background which was a word she had not heard before until a few weeks ago seemed harmless indeed.

She listened intently as he explained what elves were. Small magical creatures that were sneaky and had powerful powers. Legolas was not going to serve her lunch, then. She wasn't sure if that was good or bad. On one hand, that would be cool, but on the other hand, it would be quite a step down for the guy. She nodded once when Heinrich offered a defense of Jessica's non-communication.

"That's fair," she admitted. "All of our parents are...not this," she said, with a gesture which hopefully encompassed everything in the room. "So I guess we're both kind of outsiders," she concluded. "My mamá would kind of get it - she's from Colombia. That's in South America," she added, in case his western hemisphere geography was less than stellar. It occurred to her that she knew nothing about what Europeans learned about this side of the world. "We learned a little about Germany in my old school," she volunteered. "Do German kids learn about us in school?"

16 Mara Morales At least it wasn't intentional. 1472 0 5

Evelyn Stones

December 12, 2019 8:04 PM

grins Is that so? by Evelyn Stones

Evelyn just shook her head, confirming that Heinrich had not asked her to come visit. Hilda seemed to be thinking of several things all at once then, and she finally came out with "Heinrich is a dork." Evelyn burst out laughing. "You know, you're pretty cool. Du bist eine coole Frau." She supposed Hilda was a girl, not a woman, but 'Mädchen' was really hard to say.

For a moment, Evelyn had to remind herself to think logically. Her first instinct was that Heinrich must have said that because he didn't want her to come, and was grumpy about something unrelated. At the same time, evidence seemed to suggest that they really were friends, and that he really did want her around, at least to some extent. She wasn't sure what else he thought of her, but it did seem likely that he was at least somewhat fond of her being around. So maybe . . . maybe he really was grumpy because she didn't come? But then, why didn't he invite her?

She tried to imagine how her summer might have gone if she'd been able to see Heinrich. Staying with Ness was great, and she always enjoyed her time there, but it would have been nice to see others too. Mostly just Heinrich. At school, there were School Things to think about and that was great because they both enjoyed that, but it also meant that finding time to just hang out and be silly was a little harder, particularly being in different Houses. She thought it would be nice to go to an ice cream shop or something and just hang out on a park bench with Heinrich. He was easy to hang out with. He could hang out with Evelyn and Ness together, laugh about silly things, talk about books and art and music, get roped into painting his nails with Kir. Okay, maybe not painting his nails. But who knew? Evelyn had been surprised by more likely things than that.

Picturing Heinrich doing much of those things was hard, because he was generally a fairly serious person. But he did have a sense of humor, and Evelyn suspected he downplayed it when he was focused on academics. Still, it wasn't hard to imagine him there in her summer memories because it just made sense to be around him. It was like imagining some of the places she used to like to go in Oregon with Ness there; like trying to imagine taking a breath, it just seemed natural and easy.

Seeing the difference between Hilda and Heinrich was very interesting. The fact that they were in different Houses implied that there were some personality-level differences that went to the core, but it was more stark than Evelyn might have guessed. She couldn't imagine Heinrich resorting to charades when he couldn't find a word, or giving his sister as hard a time as his sister gave him, or shouting at her even knowing she couldn't hear, just for the satisfaction of getting the words out. It was more than a little entertaining and Evelyn was reminded just how much she enjoyed being around both of the Hexenmeisters.

"Do you think I said something confusing? Not clear? And he thought I was busy?" Evelyn asked, letting a little of her nerves come out. "Maybe I was... uhh . . . an idiot, too."

OOC - Du bist eine coole Frau = You are a cool lady/woman.

22 Evelyn Stones *grins* Is that so? 1422 0 5

Ness McLeod

December 13, 2019 5:16 AM

Woo, adventure! by Ness McLeod

Summer had been fine. Evelyn had been there. This was getting to be so regular an occurrence it barely counted as news. That was sort of nice, though Ness guessed it was crappy from Evelyn’s point of view because it meant the Stones’ house wasn’t feeling like a good place. Nothing much had happened, as far as Ness was concerned.

The bigger difference was upon returning, and boarding the wagon solo. Well, not like totally solo, because there were other kids from the area on it, but Kir had turned into someone who got a goodbye hug and stayed groundside, waving. That was sort of weird. Yeah, it sucked sometimes being the younger one, and having to be ‘the other McLeod’ and to not really get surprises or to share things their parents hadn’t heard before. But it was also weird to not have Kir here at all. And it meant he was off doing other things first again and that once again they wouldn’t be news when Ness did them and just because that was how linear time worked did not mean it was cool. Still, after Sonora was where life diverged a bit. Maybe Ness would go out and actually beat a different path. At least there were enough universities, enough good ones, that picking a different one just to be different was a valid option.

Ness sat down at Aladren (which Kir had not been, even if he’d been over here a lot, it still belonged to the younger McLeod more than it had to him), and next to Gary. Gary was someone Ness hadn’t minded so much inheriting from Kir because he was easily the coolest person here. He ran DnD and talked science. He would have been better if he’d been a girl because then he probably would have been bucking a few stereotypes, but it wasn’t like it’d be too grossly heteronormative for them to go out because the plus side about Ness being involved in any equation was that it automatically made it super queer. Him being Kir’s friend had given Ness an easy in – heck, it was possible the fourth year never would have joined DnD or even known about it otherwise. So, Kir had uses.

Speaking of DnD, Connor was head boy. That was cool. Ness gave him some enthusiastic applause. The prefects were eh. For people who were only one year older, Ness had surprisingly few opinions. Next year though… Next year, Ness was very definitely going to care who was standing on that stage… Ideally, it would be Ness, Evelyn, Lyssa and… well, whichever. If Topaz got it, the system was clearly broken. Admittedly, the headmaster’s grandchildren didn’t always win but if the ones who weren’t raging psychopaths had been passed over, there was no excuse for Topaz getting it.

The feast began, and Ness noticed Gary shooting a wave across the room towards Crotalus.

“Who you waving at?” Ness asked, “Connor?” the Aladren guessed, not aware that Gary would have any reason to wave at any other Crotali. “Oh, speaking of waving, Kir says hi.”

13 Ness McLeod Woo, adventure! 1419 0 5

Theo Spurn

December 13, 2019 6:02 AM

How do you do that?? by Theo Spurn

“Thank you,” Theo said, as he took the soup from the girl. She seemed to still be thinking about the question he’d asked because she was being quiet. That was fair. There were a lot of things on the table to consider.

He picked his knife up off the table as he could be sure its handle was clean, and used it to transfer golden orange soup drop by drop onto the potato until he had a cheerful sun complete with little beams on the top right of the plate. He hummed snatches of ’Here comes the sun,’ whilst he worked.

He surveyed the rest of the table, considering whether to make a collage. That would probably give him more options. He did not mind textures touching each other so long as they were all good textures and not too far apart from each other. Broccoli for trees was always kind of fun. He would almost definitely be able to find gravy which could paint a horse or some other animal.

“What else did you find?” he asked the girl, as she had now had quite some time to survey the table and look for more painting materials.

13 Theo Spurn How do you do that?? 1476 0 5

Zara Jackson

December 13, 2019 6:28 AM

Some way ahead of you by Zara Jackson

Summer had been… interesting. Zara’s happy little bubble of family life had been infiltrated by Jessica and all her stupid family drama. Felipe had come to visit, which should have been nice – it had been nice, once they’d got through all the drama – but Jessica had really got to him. He was still impeccable emotional repression wrapped in neat chinos, but it was obvious that what Jessica had done had bugged the heck out of him, just judging by what he said – no matter how calmly and dignifiedly he said it.

Apparently, Jessica had a secret half sister, and had been told not to let anyone in on that. Felipe had felt kinda betrayed at being included in ‘anyone’ after how much they had confided in each other, and also pissed that Jessica’s family was just such a steaming heap of melodrama and lies. He had come to same conclusion as Zara – that the only side anyone saw of Jessica was the fake one, and that she was just out for what she could get from all of them, mostly to impress a bunch of people who were, basically, the Sith. Arvale was an Empire, after all – that word rarely meant anything good. It sucked to have been proved right, in that it had had to hurt Felipe to happen, but she couldn’t help but be glad he’d seen the light. After Jessica had successfully started sucking up to Zara’s roommate last year, she’d wondered whether she was going crazy – everyone else seemed to think that Jessica was such a nice girl, and it was only Zara who’d ever clashed with her. She was pissed at Jessica for hurting Felipe, but better now than once she’d sunk her claws in any deeper.

Now they were back at Sonora. She watched the new first years getting sorted, wondering which one was Mara. None of them looked like Jessica, but Felipe had said ‘half’… It was only of minimal interest to her anyway, as were the prefects. Zara was in that weird middle zone – she was too old to be super invested in the first years but not yet old enough to be informed about the senior students. Next year would be interesting, maybe, if her brother got to attend school. There were still some question marks over whether that was likely to happen. Zara mostly hoped it would. Sure, Bertie was a butt sometimes, but she was starting to feel kind of left out at home, being the only one away.

One of the new first years sat next to her, and whilst she wasn’t super invested, she would never be anything except friendly – this was the friendly house after all – unless the person showed that they seriously did not deserve it. That was less likely in Teppenpaw – again, friendly house.

“Hi. Welcome to Teppenpaw,” she grinned at the new first year, the process showing the little gap between her front teeth. “I’m Zara. What’s your name?”

13 Zara Jackson Some way ahead of you 1444 0 5

Dorian Montoir

December 13, 2019 9:00 PM

Is term over yet? by Dorian Montoir

Dorian had not had his usual pre-feast catch up with Professor Brooding, in spite of having an awful lot to tell. The night before returning to school had not been a particularly restful one, and he had barely stayed awake on the wagon, only the creeping sensation of other people watching him, and it not being a safe and private place keeping him from nodding off. On arrival, he had headed straight up to Teppenpaw and crashed out on his bed, napping solidly until the alarm he’d set to make sure he got himself put together in time for the feast.

He had showered and dressed, wondering whether he’d slept too long, or whether it was a different feeling weighing him down as he dragged himself through the motions getting ready to go downstairs. The first thing to really register, other than the press of people around him – people he felt vaguely disconnected from – was the sight of Professor Brooding. That snapped him out of his funk slightly. He managed to mouth ‘your hair’ at her, looking vaguely stunned, before he had to pay attention to where he was going again, and by the time he looked around again, she was otherwise occupied. He settled into his seat, still looking whatever it was he was right now… tired, out of it, distracted… He felt bad at not being more cheerful at returning to school. Sometimes, he had come back a little dented and bruised, had needed the reassurance of his friends to shed off the knocks of the summer, but this was different. He almost wished he wasn’t here. How could he want to be when his heart was still in Canada?

He took a seat at the Teppenpaw table, mired in misery. It was going to be literal months until he saw his boyfriend again. How was he supposed to cope? Summer had been a happy, hazy bubble of make-out sessions and sweet words. It really hadn’t been that hard to get time together. As Jean-Loup had said, no one felt the need to chaperone two boys. Dorian’s parents were more than happy for him to have made a friend back home and to hang out with him. Jean-Loup had also passed his apparition test shortly after his birthday. As he was a friend, and on the approved list of people who could appear inside the Montoir house, that didn’t limit their visits to the times their parents knew about. A boyfriend who could appear at will in your bedroom, and cast a few privacy charms to mask any noise you might be making was all kinds of convenient. Hence the under-rested state he’d arrived at school in.

In short, summer had been all the things he wanted his life to be. And now he had to put that on pause, and come back here, and he felt the strange crushing weight of putting on a show that he usually associated with being back home. He planned to be more open with his friends, but there still felt like limits to how much he could say in general, and he was, frankly, getting sick of them. Still, he had someone else to protect now as well… Jean-Loup had agreed that Dorian could talk to his closest friends about them, but it wasn’t like ‘I have a boyfriend’ was about to be open, public information. And Dorian was fine with that, it was where he was at too, but he resented the world for pushing that onto them.

The announcement of the head students broke through his melancholy, as he was genuinely delighted for Ivy. Okay, admittedly, he might not have cared especially either way, but Vlad was so obviously happy and that made him happy too. He didn’t know Ivy particularly well, but they were housemates, and he’d been to her literal home house a few times as well. Of his friends’ older siblings, she was probably the one who scared him the least. It probably helped that she was both a girl and a Teppenpaw. She did not look like she could break his legs, like Grisha. He had not secretly fantasised about making out with her brother, like he had with Victor’s. So, as well as her being a generally less scary person, he had fewer actual reasons to be scared of her. He smiled and clapped, throwing a grin over at Vlad for his bubbling enthusiasm.
And then it all came back down with a bump as the headmaster mentioned the ball. His face visibly fell for a moment. How had he forgotten about that? Dorian suppressed a sigh, trying not to imagine dancing with Jean-Loup. It was impossible for several reasons. He focussed on the very practical ‘he does not attend school here and outside dates are not allowed’ element, as that was the same for everyone, and not the myriad unfair reasons why it was different and not allowed for specifically them. He supposed that Tatya would partner him for a dance if needed, but it wasn’t what he wanted… He was also alarmingly aware of how his behaviour to Tatya was being misread by others, following the summer. He had written to her about that. Her reply had assured him that ‘Grisha is an idiot’ which meant she definitely had no intentions to present them as a couple to her family, but he wasn’t sure whether it meant Grisha had just been teasing or whether he really thought that. Dorian was not sure he wanted to further any rumours, either way. He wasn’t sure he wanted to pretend to be something he wasn’t. He wasn’t sure Tatya would be an option, if he told her the truth and she hated him…

The food had appeared, and he was sixteen and therefore starving, but it was very limited enthusiasm that he began loading up his plate.

13 Dorian Montoir Is term over yet? 1401 0 5

Jeremy Mordue

December 14, 2019 3:46 AM

I have permission to dream about you? Nice by Jeremy Mordue

“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

Cleo James

December 14, 2019 4:15 AM

Getting Mad by Cleo James

CW – assault (implied/slight references), legal system failures

The last feast. Well, the last Opening Feast, which was the one with all the ceremony. Cleo guessed that mattered, somehow, to someone. It seemed sort of small and irrelevant. She wasn’t even in the running for head girl. It was by her own choice, sort of. It felt like she had ended up in a place where it would have been a bad idea because of what someone else had done, and that did not make her feel particularly powerful. Even if she wouldn’t have wanted it anyway. Even if she was unlikely to have won. She was the one who had said ‘no’ to being on the ballot but it still felt like something that someone else had taken away from her.

There had been a chance she would have missed this event, and it didn’t feel like there was much purpose to her being here. Growing up, she had always assumed that the law just worked. If someone was a bad guy, they got caught. They had a trial, then then went to jail. In reality, the process was much slower. You waited months for a trial date. Early September had been the estimate. But it was never going to happen. Lack of evidence. His word against hers. And she wasn’t a credible person who the courts would believe. Allegedly, that wasn’t the reason that no one was bothering. It was the fact that, with any two people (or… whatever, in this case) if it came down to one saying it happened and one saying it didn’t, there wasn’t a lot they could do.

Cleo had already had a trial anyway. Most of the papers had found her guilty. The threat of that had simmered just under the surface for the whole time, until they’d found out her species and it had erupted. And she wasn’t the one who had done anything wrong. She had thought too, that trials would be about the guilty party, but there had been mention of how they’d cross-examine her too. She wasn’t sure she could stand there and have someone tear into her, trying to prove she was a slut who’d lured him in, just because that’s what her species suggested must have happened. There was a very small part of her that was angry at herself for this. She should have wanted to fight. But whether or not she had that strength wasn’t something she needed to look into, because the matter had been taken out of her hands. So, she was trying not to be mad at herself. What was the point?

She mumbled something during the school song, wondering why she was compelled to try. This tiny little world didn’t feel like anything really real was happening in it. It was an odd start to the year, half relieved to be here instead of a courtroom, half utter burning furious resentment. It was also a little alarming. The anger was the strongest thing she had felt in months, or at least the most energising. She knew anger wasn’t healthy, but she had to say, she liked it better than feeling sorry for herself. She was not sure where to direct it, or how, whilst caught up in this little bubble of school. But there was a whole wide world out there than wanted ripping to shreds. And she wanted to do it.

13 Cleo James Getting Mad 389 0 5

Sylvia Mordue

December 14, 2019 7:49 AM

Oh, what fun! (Tag Caitlin) by Sylvia Mordue

CW ableist attitudes re mental health

Sylvia entered the hall with her head held high. She felt that beaming smiles were undignified at the best of times and ran the risk of making one look insipid and simple if there was nothing to actually smile about. Katerina was guilty of smiling far too much, but then she probably was a little naïve. She was not sure what the correct mourning period for the fictitious death of an aunt was, especially when one was aiming to never mention said person in public again, however cool, calm composure was a look suiting almost all occasions, so she wore it with aplomb.

She took a seat next to her roommate at the Crotalus table, watching without any real interest as the minute annoyances took their sweet time getting their badges dunked. There was a momentary diversion when one boy had demonstrably odd behaviour but he had pink in his hair and was in Pecari, so pointing out that he was clearly bad news was scarcely worth the breath. The gossiping behind his back would start itself, and it wasn’t like it would matter anyway. He clearly wasn’t one of them.

Finally, it was time for the badges. Sylvia was unsure how this was likely to fall. She put on a polite face to the teachers but they all had fluffy hearted liberal agendas and doubtless knew that she didn’t. Still, she was up against Caitlin, who thought almost identically to her anyway – the only reason Caitlin’s thoughts could be described as milder than her own was if you accounted for the fact that Caitlin seemed to lack the process required to have original thoughts and thus took whatever Sylvia fed her. Naturally, this became somewhat diluted in the process. Sylvia doubted that was a positive quality, but nor was it one the staff was likely to be overly aware of, unless they had noticed Sylvia’s stewardship of the Gardenia Girls. Well, she was sure they had noticed that, but whether they found it meaningful was another question.

As the badges were called, it became apparent they did not. Sylvia smiled broadly and graciously, because after all her cousin and her best friend had just done so well. Never mind that Nate hadn’t had any opposition. Never mind that Caitlin had been against her. When people you liked did well, you smiled and clapped and were gracious about it. Even if a small part of you did want to stab someone with a dessert fork for that decision.

At least they had given it to Nate though. He’d mentioned the rather serious conversation they’d had about whether he was up to it. There was a very serious possibility that the answer to that was ‘no.’ Nate was ill. That was the main thing Sylvia knew. It would not have been possible to hide the fact he was disappearing twice a week, and he and Uncle Alexander had not really tried to do this. He’d had some vision difficulties during a party and was seeing a specialist. It was stress related, and nothing to worry about. So, Sylvia was trying not to worry. Trying not to worry, and trying to be supportive. Still, whatever it was had not been resolved with a snap of the fingers, and that was how she was used to the world working. So, either it was serious or it was all in his head (she did not consider the possibility that these were not mutually exclusive – anything that was in his head was just an idea, as far as she was concerned, and was one he could snap out of). She had stuck close, trying to make sure he was happy, because that was what she wanted him to be.

She expected the other announcements to pass her by, but then the headmaster mentioned the ball. Goodness, there had been a lot on her mind. She’d quite forgotten that would be occurring this year. And prefects would need partners. Well now, given the gender ratio, that would most likely fall out in Nate’s favour. Convenient, as he was a prefect, and the one out of them who needed to prove their respectability more, although she would be very disappointed if she wasn’t asked. Still, she was likely in a good position to make the most of a bad situation.
“Congratulations,” she smiled at Caitlin. “This is fun. I’ve got the Gardenia Girls, and now you’re prefect. Between us, there won’t be anything we can’t do.” This was a rather convenient position, given the ball, and one where she thought she had more ability to exert authority. Prefects were required to lead it, but she was the one who’d been building up years of sisterliness, of following her lead and not stepping on each other’s toes. She could probably persuade Nate’s partner of choice to go with him, and get first pick at the best of a bad lot. She wished she had thought to ask Nate who his preferred partners would be to know whether she should start working on Caitlin now, but at least she was in the right position to call some of the shots about who went with whom.

13 Sylvia Mordue Oh, what fun! (Tag Caitlin) 1413 0 5

Jessica Hayles

December 14, 2019 1:08 PM

Oh, so you want to do so,? Good to know. by Jessica Hayles

“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

Esme Brockert

December 14, 2019 3:06 PM

Being Sorted by Esme Brockert

Esme stood with the other first years waiting for her turn to dip her badge in the potion and find out where she would be sorted. She had some definite ideas about which house she'd prefer. Crotalus would be the best of course. Crotali might have had a relatively wide range of personalities- for example, Allegra and Sapphire were shy whereas Angelique was a social butterfly, well at least now that she was out of school and around people more like herself-but they tended to be polite in general. Even the few that didn't come from a background like hers and didn't know the correct forks to use would at least have some manners or they wouldn't be in Crotalus.

Neither Teppenpaw nor Aladren would be bad really. The latter, however, contained Topaz and while the fourth year didn't torture Esme like she had Allegra and Sapphire, as the first year wasn't her sister, was three years younger and had a backbone, the older girl did tend really make her angry. Esme was fairly in control of her anger now, because to display it publically would be improper, but the way Topaz had rather destroyed her older sister's self-esteem made Esme really hate her.

As for Teppenpaw, well, she just plain didn't think she was nice enough. She wasn't a sweet squishy soft type like Owen and Ruby. And, she felt, she had played a part in traumatizing Allegra. Esme had gotten angry and lashed out at her sisters-she really didn't fight with her brothers because they were so much younger- because all siblings fought. However, she done it to her older sister on top of what Topaz did to her. She felt terribly guilty about this and now tried to be more careful with Allegra.

Pecari, however, would be the absolute worst. Pecaris were a bunch of uncouth ruffians for the most part. Esme wasn't worried about being sorted there really. She was proper and ladylike and well mannered and had no interest in sports or adventures. Actually, she was rather surprised that the weird boy who was wearing pajamas was sorted there. Esme didn't think Pecaris were weird. Loud and obnoxious, yes, but not weird. Either they conformed to traditional masculinity-according to Uncle Eustace, men were supposed to act like Pecaris did, not that Esme really valued his opinion-or to what seemed to be the Muggle world's values which seemed to think everyone should act in traditionally masculine ways. They weren't strange. If she had to pick a house that she would consider a place for weird people she would pick Aladren. Her own father, who had deliberately wanted five children so he could use a vowel theme, sprang to mind and one could even make a case for Topaz being eccentric in an evil psychopathic sort of way.

That boy was going to get chewed up and spit out by the Uncle Eustaces of the house.

Now it was Esme's turn to be sorted finally. She dipped in her badge to find that she was, indeed, sorted into Crotalus. She made her way to her house table and sat down, smiling at both Allegra and Sapphire. Next, Grandfather announced prefects and Head Students and Esme applauded for her cousin Emerald's future sister-in-law, Caitlin as well as the two Head Students whom were distant relatives of hers.

After they sang the school song, Esme turned to the person across from her and smiled pleasantly. "Hello, I'm Esme Brockert of the Western Brockerts." That was how she had been taught to introduce herself and she would never not introduce herself that way. Still, she said it in a way that didn't come across cold and snobby, unless the person she had just addressed was like Topaz's roommate-just because her cousin was a monster, didn't mean that the other girl wasn't also in the wrong- and was hell-bent on making purebloods into the bad guys no matter what they did or said.

11 Esme Brockert Being Sorted 1479 0 5

Ellie Alperton

December 14, 2019 5:52 PM

A real ball? by Ellie Alperton

Ellie entered the Cascade Hall, feeling cheerful and ready to take on second year. First year had been great. She had made really nice friends, especially Jasmine. Jasmine was sort of halfway between role-model and friend, seeing as she was so much older, but they had done visits over the summer, which had felt like a proper friend thing to do. Even if it wasn’t going to be natural for them to always hang out at school, Jasmine clearly wanted to hang with her, and that meant the world to Ellie. It was kind of what she imagined having a big sister would be like.

Hanging out with Jasmine over the summer had also meant being introduced to her flying horses, which was just… unreal. They were huge, and might have been a tiny bit scary, but Jasmine was there, and it was just so princessy, even if their hooves and their teeth and just… all of them was a lot bigger than Disney made them seem. On a not quite parallel note, she had introduced her brother Seth to both of them, though more to Anya. It was handy, as it meant Anya had someone to scrub about and play with, and meant she could be included in visits without feeling bored. Ellie liked Anya, who seemed kind, and she wanted to include her but she clearly didn’t want to do the same kinds of things as Jasmine and Ellie. The younger two (even if she was Anya’s age, she was the big sister at home, which made a nice parallel between her and Jasmine) could play soccer while the big sisters painted nails and did hair styles, and then everyone could hang out for things like ice cream, which transcended all boundaries. It was going to be so much fun next year, when Seth came to Sonora. In spite of their differences, he was one of her absolute favourite people.

Being home hadn’t been without its complications, but being able to see Jasmine had helped, and Ellie was just pushing those out of her head. It hadn’t been bad, anyway, just a bit nervy, and next year once Seth was here and they didn’t have to worry about schools for him and drugs and inner city violence, they could move out of the ‘burbs and into somewhere a bit more cosmopolitan and anonymous.

For now, it was time to start a whole new school year. Given the uniform, Ellie couldn’t really dress for the occasion, except from the neck up. She had had pierced ears for one whole year, and after the initial healing period had taken great delight in acquiring all manner of fun and pretty earrings. Today, in honour of their return to school, she was wearing little cactuses. There was a fabric headband across her light strawberry blonde hair, patterned with flowers. Vasita quoque floeat and all that.

She took a seat at the Aladren table, thinking that maybe her goal for the year should be a few more friends in her own house. Her roommate was nice enough, but it’d be good to have a few more options. She applauded politely for the prefects and head students, and ooh. A ball! She shot an excited smile across the room, but Jasmine seemed preoccupied. Still, they would have so, so much fun with that. She had been a little worried about whether there really would still be reasons for them to hang out without the team challenges this year (Jasmine had promised though, and she did trust her) but a ball would be the perfect excuse – there would be shopping to do, and hairstyles to practise, and make up to plan! It was like a whole new raft of challenges, only on exclusively girly things that they’d enjoy instead of scrambling through obstacle courses and survival scenarios. Still, she couldn’t work on that right now because she and Jasmine were at different tables, so she turned instead to share her feelings with her neighbour.

“The ball sounds exciting,” she commented with a smile.

13 Ellie Alperton A real ball? 1456 0 5

Jeremy Mordue

December 14, 2019 6:36 PM

If it bugs you, yes by Jeremy Mordue

“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

Gary Harper

December 14, 2019 7:33 PM

Yes. Adventure. That. Yeah. by Gary Harper

With everything else running through his head, Gary hadn't noticed Ness sit down next to him. He started a bit when his fellow Aladren made their sudden inquiry. "Huh? What? Conner? Umm.. yeah. Conner." Well he probably failed that deception check. It wasn't a skill he had a lot of ranks in though, so that's hardly surprising.

Recovering a bit, Gary continued, "Oh, well... you can tell him 'hi' back from me whenever you see him again I guess. Did he get everything sorted out to start off his new life away from the rigors of academia here?"

There was something else he was going to miss from Kir. Kir had figured out how to catch and keep a girl. Gary had spend some time talking with Kir, trying to figure out his technique. He had been a bit of a confidant, and knew of Gary's aims. Now who could he talk to on that front? Who else did he know that knew about girls? Conner maybe? Jehan? He wasn't all that close to his roommate though. He sighed and focused back on Ness.

"I'm not sure what kind of game we're going to run this year. Got any thoughts? Also with Kir gone, we may need to do some recruiting again. This'll be Conner's last year as well. Know anyone who might be interested?"

2 Gary Harper Yes. Adventure. That. Yeah. 1404 0 5

Jessica Hayles

December 15, 2019 9:37 AM

Please. I have infinitely better things to keep me occupied. by Jessica Hayles

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

Alexandra Borealis

December 15, 2019 9:34 PM

Some are right next to you by Alexandra Borealis

The girl that had said hi seemed friendly enough. She had smiled at Alexandra revealing a small gap between her teeth and her hair was naturally curly. Alexandra could not help but envy the girl a little, as she herself had inherited none of her mother’s Latin looks. “My name is Alexandra,” she said to the girl as she took a sip of juice to wash down the food she had just put in her mouth “and you?”.
As Alexandra looked at the girl, she noticed that she seemed older, she supposed maybe two years or so. She wondered if it the norm for older students to speak to first years, or if all the people in Teppenpaw were just that friendly. She hopped for the latter, as maybe she could feel more at home.
She had noticed the girl politely clap for the announcement of the prefects and Head boy/girl but she herself did not seem old enough to know any of them.
Alexandra had also noticed that she had been searching through the first years expecting to see someone there, so to the last question she added, “do you know any of the first years?” She expected most of the older students to have friends already, but perhaps one of them would choose to mentor her and show her the ropes a bit, as she was still very anxious about how the school year would go.

42 Alexandra Borealis Some are right next to you 1474 0 5

Felipe De Matteo

December 15, 2019 10:40 PM

Just thinking of recent ah-ha moments in my life. by Felipe De Matteo

Felipe was botching this conversation. He was saying all the wrong things because he wasn't really paying attention. He wasn't really present at all. He was talking to Jasmine because that's what he was supposed to do. That's what he did.

Was that the only reason he ever did anything? He had thought the same thing when Jessica told him . . . what she'd told him. He'd thought the same thing when he introduced himself to anyone, when he spoke English, when he did anything he did. Was that why he was in Crotalus and his sister was in Pecari? Because she had a personality and he was just a puppet, waiting for his opportunity to play figurehead for a while? He shook his head to clear it, doing his best to focus on Jasmine because . . . ugh. Because that's what he did.

"Ah, you're the special one, then?" he said with a smile. "My family never went to Sonora; I'm the first. So I suppose that means I'm the only one in my family not in Pecari too." He cautioned a glance that direction and found his sister eagerly chatting with, ironically, Anya. "It seems like our sisters get along," he told Jasmine, gesturing. "It'll be interesting to see where Philippe gets sorted." He smiled at the similar names.

He was a little sick of sisters at the moment but was still glad that Leonor was making friends. That's what she did after all.

Felipe gestured again, this time to the Crotalus table. "What do you think got us sorted into--" he stopped dead as he saw the look on Jessica's face. He'd been trying not to look her way, but gesturing at his Housemates as a whole made that difficult. He wasn't sure whether the look on Jessica's face or Jeremy's face was worse, but he was quite sure which one he wanted to punch in the face.

What. The heck. Was wrong with people?

22 Felipe De Matteo Just thinking of recent ah-ha moments in my life. 1434 0 5

Jezebel Reed-Fischer

December 15, 2019 10:58 PM

Being introduced. by Jezebel Reed-Fischer

Jezebel's summer was mostly not very exciting. There was the exciting change of pace where Augustine was significantly more interested in what Jezebel was doing at school now, but there was still not much to talk about on that front. It was hard to explain a magical education to someone who had never experienced any such thing, and Augustine was hardly easy to work with. He was witty and sharp and exciting, but he was also bullheaded and stubborn.

She also wasn't sure whether it was nice to be back yet or not. She enjoyed school, but she didn't exactly have a ton of close friends. Part of that was the desire to study and be ready for everything all the time. She was the oldest of her family to come to Sonora - well, of her immediate family - and she needed to be absolutely perfect if she was setting the stage for future Reed-Fischers to attend.

But . . . that didn't mean she couldn't have more friends, too, right? Especially if they were maybe important friends who would help her or her family do better in this crazy world they were being introduced too. She liked Nico well enough, but maybe it would be nice to just have another friend. Maybe.

And then a Brockert sat next to her. She was new, she was nice so far, and she was maybe, just maybe, up for being Jezebel's friend. Of course, Jezebel still hated the way families like hers introduced themselves, as it was sort of a slap in the face to those we couldn't introduce themselves that way. Or . . . well she could. Theoretically, no one could tell her she was wrong, but it did sort of seem like lying, and that wasn't any good.

"Hi! I'm Jezebel," she smiled. "Just Jezebel."

22 Jezebel Reed-Fischer Being introduced. 1454 0 5

Heinrich Hexenmeister

December 18, 2019 11:10 AM

Making up Magical German History by Heinrich Hexenmeister

Mara did not seem too offended by his gaffe. This was good. Jessica was also muggleborn, which he did not recall Hilda mentioning. He was not sure if that was because she did not know or she simply did not find it relevant. Generally speaking, Hilda was not inclined to share more than she was required to in order to communicate clearly, but at the same time, Hilda’s English was really quite terrible, and she missed a lot of things that should be very obvious to native speakers. So it was possible she just didn’t know. Yet, Jessica had been in her challenge group where she had Professor Schmitt to translate for her, so she very well might have known and not thought it was a fact worth sharing. That was possible as well. Hilda tended to disregard things she didn’t think were important, and ability and willingness to speak German were far more important to her than blood status.

That said, Heinrich panicked all over again as she asked if Germans learned about ‘us’ in school, and he had no idea which ‘us’ she was referring to. Americans? Columbians? Muggleborns?

Columbians were more her mother’s people than hers, he’d gathered, but the question had followed her explaining where Columbia was (which he knew, from his world geography lessons, but frankly the South American country wouldn’t have been the first Columbia he thought of if he was asked about it without context - he would have sooner come up with the District of Columbia, the capitol of the United States, which he’d studied about more recently in an effort to learn more about his adopted nationality). Americans were more generally her people, but they’d just been discussing how being ‘not this’ - as in magic - made her an outsider to Sonora as much as being German made him one.

So he was stuck and didn’t know if whatever option he chose to address first would be read into too deeply as being how he viewed her as a representative of a group instead of a member of several.

“I - we - World Geography taught us to name the many nations,” he began carefully. “We had maps. I gave competition to see who names most countries in Europe, Africa, Americas, Asia, Pacific. United States, Columbia, I can find on map. In History, we learned most about Europe. Our colonies were in Africa. Americas had English, Spanish, Portuguese. Not so much Germans. Some emigrated here, but we had none territory. There were Wars. American muggles fought German muggles. Global Wizard War happened same time as Muggle Second World War. Much wizards fighting Dark Wizard Grindelwald and his people. Governments for America, Germany, Britian, Russia, all on same side in Global Wizard War.“ Though, in all honestly, Heinrich was not sure which side of that fight his personal ancestors fell on. He had suspicions and no desire to confirm them. Bad enough his country had clearly been the wrong side in the muggle war. He did not need to know his family was on the wrong side of the magical one. He had enough Dark Wizards in his immediate family without looking further back.

“Much Muggles fighting Hitler. Much wizards fighting Grindelwald. Much fights in Germany. Very dangerous. Hitler and Grindelwald lose on same year. After War, Muggle America and her Muggle Allies make Muggle Germany split - Magic Germany does, too, but voluntarily, to keep Muggle relations simpler - and the American muggles stay in part of West Germany for years, but we hear little more about them after Reunification. But I learn more American History after I move here when I eleven. I am from Utah now,” he added, because most people just assumed he was an exchange student not a permanent resident of the country.

1 Heinrich Hexenmeister Making up Magical German History 1414 0 5

Ness McLeod

December 19, 2019 4:47 AM

Cool! by Ness McLeod

Gary confirmed that he had, indeed, been waving to Connor, only he seemed super shifty about it. It was very weird, like he was embarrassed or something. What was wrong with waving at Connor? He had demonstrably proven he wasn’t a gigantic PB butthead by hanging out with them all and playing games. Mostly. He probably had some latent fascist tendencies where he thought they weren’t marriage material but Kir had said no politics at the game table because it was not fair on Gary. Ness definitely did not want to disrupt Gary’s game, even if fighting injustice with solid logic was surely a really good way of impressing someone.

Maybe Gary thought Connor was marriage material? Or at least, like happy fun time material? Most guys were stupidly embarrassed at the thought of being caught having feelings for other guys, either romantic or even just friendshippy, and maybe that was hard-wired enough for Gary to feel awkward even though with Ness doing the catching, it obviously wasn’t going to be an issue. The queerer everyone was, the better. And liking Connor didn’t preclude Gary from liking Ness, especially if Connor decided to be a butt about it.

“Yeah, he started college,” Ness answered regarding Kir. “He hasn’t settled on his major but he’s doing loads of history and social and politics stuff, plus he has more opportunities to boink Zevalyn, so I reckon he’ll be happy.” Ness had no idea whether Kir and Zevalyn were actually doing it, but it remained factually correct that he had far more opportunities to do it now that he wasn’t locked away in school for months at a time.

“Ummm,” Ness mused when asked about games for the year. The Aladren had no knowledge of what would be suitable but that was not going to stop a concerted effort being made when given the floor. Coming up with a super cool game idea would be sure to impress Gary, right? Almost as much as their neat discussion about colour physics last term. Maybe it wasn’t, in general, how you got people to like you, but it was definitely how you got other weird nerds to like you. “How about space?” Ness suggested, “Non-magical people have been to space. That’s pretty neat. We could be those metal people and have no gender or be some kind of advanced alien super-race. Or pirates. Pirates are cool. Or metal alien space pirates who have overthrown the gender binary!”

Ness pondered the idea of recruitment. There was, of course, Evelyn. Ness had initially meant to pull Evelyn into the game too but it hadn’t happened. And now… Now Ness saw quite a lot of Evelyn. While there was no such thing as too much and they were best friends, the fact remained that Evelyn was kind of around all the time. In Ness’ home, with Ness’ family. Ness would never resent that because Evelyn needed them, and it was cool being closer to Evelyn than anyone else and getting her as a sort of foster sister. But it was an awful lot of sharing. And anyway, Evelyn wrote and received a bunch of letters all the time in the holidays. Ness guessed it was with Malikhi, though Evelyn had also sat with Heinrich a couple of times recently, and Ness didn’t really know why. If Evelyn could have other friends outside of Ness, then Ness could have the same too.

“Maybe Lyssa?” Ness suggested. Unless Parker felt about her the way Ness felt about Evelyn. But Ness had seen Lyssa in the library a lot and she seemed interesting (as pretty much a direct result of this fact). “Or I guess, just… put up some posters. Hopefully anyone who shows up would be decently nerdy and not a butt by dint of the fact they showed up.”

13 Ness McLeod Cool! 1419 0 5

Mab

December 19, 2019 8:09 AM

I don’t move and I don’t talk by Mab

Mab was relieved when he took the weirdly orange soup and set to . . . painting his potatoes with it. Definitely a Fey child here. He seemed harmless though, and not mean spirited, so probably Summer Court. Not that those on the Winter Court couldn’t mean well, because they could, or that those from Summer weren’t dangerous, because they were, but overall, Summer came across as warmer and friendlier, and that was the impression she was getting from the boy who painted with soup.

He started humming and she was surprised to recognize the song. Bel said she worked briefly as a muggle cop, and she’d had a few muggle friends (muggle was how the Fey referred to mortals, Mab had noticed) so she had some muggle appliances in her apartment, like a toaster and a radio, but she said a lot of Fey didn’t mix with mortals as much as the Boston Pierces did (the Boston Pierces were a subset of neutral Fey, Mab had gathered - Bel and Amelia could pass as Winter but the Derries and their families were clearly Summer leaning, and the whole lot of them flirted with the edge of the Veil that hid the Land of Fey from mortals, which she had also gathered was only just barely this side of legal and definitely frowned upon) and a good number of people at her new school wouldn’t know anything about the songs, television shows, or even some of the books Mab knew.

Still, Summer Court or not, warm and friendly or not, Beatles familiar or not, Velvet was just too notable for Mab to be entirely comfortable around him and she flinched a little when his attention returned to her and asked a question.

For a moment she struggled to hide her confusion, but then she remembered what he’d asked before he’d asked for the soup. Her eyes scanned the table quickly, and she picked up the platter of cranberry sauce and offered it to him, with her head tilted in question. Will this work?* she let her expression ask, hoping that if she didn’t actually vocalize at him, maybe people would think she was just passing food and not engaging Velvet in conversation and therefore making herself equally as notable as he was just for being his dinner companion.

Anyway, the cranberry stuff had a nice vibrant color and could probably be smushed about enough to serve as a decent paint, though it would definitely be chunkier than the soup.

1 Mab I don’t move and I don’t talk 1473 0 5

Gary Harper

December 19, 2019 5:44 PM

Yes, hopefully by Gary Harper

Gary had finally gotten some food on his plate and had started shoveling it into his mouth while Ness was talking. He nodded along at Kir's college plan, and then nearly choked at Ness' 'boinking' comment. He tried to recover, while coughing and chugging down some water, the accompanying images swirling around his head weren't helping matters any. He had accepted and relied on the fact that Kir had found his way into a relationship with a girl, but the blunt observation had caught him completely off guard. Only Ness could have delivered it in such a straightforward manner. His equilibrium finally returning, he coughed once more and apologized.

Now he just needed something to purge those images, another glance towards the Crotalus table certainly modified them, but not entirely in a helpful way. His face burned red and he shook his head to dislodge such thoughts. Focus, food, Ness, games. Yes, much better. Ness was saying something about a game, in space, with many Ness-type adjustments to it. Still, the basis could work, space pirates were always fun. Robots or androids could work in some systems. Traveller didn't really have any robots in it, but android were playable character in Starfinder. A Star Wars system could do droids as well.

"A space pirate game could work," Gary started in response, "I'd probably go with the Starfinder stystem for that one. It's essentially the D&D in space. Swords and sorcery ruled and then suddenly the planet was gone and everyone was living on a space station where the planet had been, and no one could remember the past 2000ish years. Spaceships powered by magic and science travel between the planets and stars." He paused just a moment, "Androids are a playable 'race', and while they look human, some of them certainly don't see the need for something as ridiculous as gender."

"Lyssa?" Gary repeated, "We could ask. I don't know her all that well... I don't know a lot of people all that well. We should have a meeting with everybody and see who's got ideas. Posters could work. I did that the first time around to recruit people." He grinned, "Think the staff would mind us putting some up asking for people to come join our pirate crew to cause mayhem and such?"

2 Gary Harper Yes, hopefully 1404 0 5

Zara Jackson

December 20, 2019 5:08 PM

You are both next to and behind me by Zara Jackson

“Zara,” she replied, when the first year - Alexandra - asked her name.

She was slightly surprised by the next question, wondering whether her scouting had been super obvious. It didn’t feel like it ought to have been, but Zara was like… demonstrably not blood related to any of the newbies, so it seemed like a loaded question. She wasn’t really sure ‘So my best friend fell out with his other friend (who I don’t get along with) because she has a secret half sister in your year’ was something to casually drop at the dinner table. Luckily, Alexandra had not asked ‘Who were you looking for?’ but had asked if she knew any of the first years. And that question had a much more straight forward answer.

“My friend’s sister is,” she answered - after all, Felipe’s sister was also in this cohort, and she had met Leonor when she’d stayed with them or when Felipe’s family had visited hers. The fact that she had been looking for someone else was by the by. “I guess there’s maybe a few siblings of people already in the school. Tends to go that way,” she added. “Did you meet anyone nice at orientation?” she asked.

13 Zara Jackson You are both next to and behind me 1444 0 5

Theo Spurn

December 20, 2019 8:38 PM

Fascinating! by Theo Spurn

The girl seemed surprised, so maybe she had been thinking about something else. That was okay. That happened a lot to Theo. Thoughts were not rigid little trains running down predetermined tracks, they were epic explorers, going where their will took them. Then she held up some cranberry sauce.

"Ooh," said Theo, surveying it with interested curiosity. He nudged a couple of dishes out of the way to make a little space, nodding that she could put it down. He wasn't sure he wanted to touch the edges in case the sauce had split and made them sticky. He did not mind slightly sticky in his mouth but he did not want it on his hands. He took a spoon, carefully poking through the sauce to assess it. It had bits. Bumps were no good because flowers were not bumpy, but there was enough sauce around the bits that he could use it, if he was careful. "This is good," he declared happily. "I can do flowers. There aren't often many bright enough liquid foods to make flowers. Thank you," he smiled. He dipped his fork, starting by outlining the places with little red pin pricks.

"Would you like to share the cranberry flowers when I'm all done?" he asked, seeing as she was helping make them.

13 Theo Spurn Fascinating! 1476 0 5

Mara Morales

December 20, 2019 9:04 PM

I'm not going to contradict you. by Mara Morales

A geography guy. Mara smiled, briefly. A kindred spirit, then, to a point. Mara wasn't sure she found geography itself all that interesting, but knowing lists and maps was the kind of thing that made her do well in class competitions, and which had seemed useful when she had planned to take up Model U.N. once she got to high school. Her dad was in business, sure, but she had thought before about maybe giving politics a spin herself. After all, her mother was officially a nanny. Nobody expected her to take up Mamá's line of work, so why should she feel any more strictly limited to her dad's?

She had tried to point this out to her sister once, when Jessica had been particularly down about the whole not-able-to-go-to-any-schools-the-board-members-would-respect thing, but it had not gone well. Jessica had not melted down to the point of saying it, but it had been clear just the same what she had been thinking: that it was easy for Mara to say, when she wasn't publicly a member of the Hayles family.

Sometimes Mara wondered if that was true - if it would all look different to her if she was Mara Hayles instead of Mara Morales. She couldn't figure it out, though. She felt like she was herself, and never mind that minor detail - however much she wished sometimes that it was different just in the interest of pure fairness. Plus, the rich kid who didn't want to be part of the family anymore was a full-blown cliche at this point, so it wasn't as if being publicly part of the family would have necessarily made her commit her whole life to Arvale Cosmetics.

That, however, was definitely not something she could ever discuss with Dad, or Mamá, or Jessica, and Lola was too little to discuss much of anything with now, so Mara just thought on it by herself.

She listened closely to Heinrich's description of World War II, surprised to hear that wizards had apparently had some involvement, too. Mara had been under the impression that after the Salem Witch Trials, these people had completely cut themselves off from the rest of the world. Certainly everything she had seen so far had supported that hypothesis. Apparently, though, there was a lot more information she was missing - which, on the whole, was not surprising.

"Utah, that's cool," she said when he said where he was from now. "I'm from Georgia," she added. "And always have been. So, wizards did the Cold War, too, huh? That's interesting. I had got the idea that nobody here had anything to do with anybody - " she tilted her head in the general direction of 'outside' - "out there, out where I came from," she explained, though she did not mean Georgia specifically.

16 Mara Morales I'm not going to contradict you. 1472 0 5

Joanna Rose-Turner

December 21, 2019 9:26 PM

Mumbler by Joanna Rose-Turner

Entering the banquet hall had given Jo a big rush of adrenaline. The noise of everyone eating and chatting drowned out her own thoughts of doubt and anxiety. The food looked delicious! And the room felt so warm! Clinking glasses, music, and merriment made this whole situation feel a bit more real. Magic was real, and it was apart of her life now.

Only when plunging her badge into the cauldron did everything seem to go quiet. This was a moment she would remember forever, Jo thought. When she lifted out the yellow square, she thought back. The houses had been one of the couple things Jo remembered from her conversations with her parents about Sonora. Each house seemed to have their benefits, but she hadn’t really imagined herself in Teppenpaw. Firstly, she didn’t really like the color yellow, and secondly, how was she ever diplomatic?

She thought back to the times she was given detention, or a grounding, without being able to talk her way out of it. Being able to make friends also seemed to be something a diplomat should be able to do. She did however, believe strongly that she was a caring person, maybe that’s what led to the mistake?

She took a deep breath to calm herself a little, she had just been standing amongst the crowded tables like a weirdo, lost in her thoughts. She quickly looked around for an empty seat. There was a seat open by one kind of sad looking teen who wasn’t talking to anyone. Maybe he felt a little like an outcast like her.

She sat down, immediately filling her plate with a bit of everything. She took her first spoonful. It was as tasty as it looked! After a few more bites, she looked over at the boy next to her. She was a little nervous to talk to a kid much older than her, but maybe he would know what things were like at this school, and in this house.

“Hey” she said very quietly.

That definitely wasn’t loud enough, her dad had always told her she mumbled too much.

“Hey!” she said a little too loudly. Whoops, too late now.

“Um, what’s it like being a Teppenpaw?”

43 Joanna Rose-Turner Mumbler 1478 0 5

Dorian Montoir

December 22, 2019 4:10 AM

That's alright by Dorian Montoir

The ‘hey’ that came from the seat next to Dorian sounded somewhat loud and he turned abruptly.

“Sorry,” he apologised, assuming the girl must have tried getting his attention multiple times for her to have raised her volume like that. “I was… not concentrating,” he admitted, sure there was a more natural turn of phrase or English idiom that would be appropriate there. Entering his sixth year with English as his day to day language, and having had considerable (if somewhat agrammatical) exposure to it at home prior to starting, he struggled very little. His grammar was almost always accurate these days, and he rarely lacked vocabulary. Sometimes though, the nuance of which words fitted best to a situation, or how to express things in a more casual way still escaped him. On that front, he was somewhat glad he hadn’t totally lost his accent. His sister teased him when he returned home, saying that to her he sounded American, but he knew that to Americans he still had a slightly Francophone lilt, and this was at its strongest after spending the summer back in Québec. At times, being ‘clearly a foreigner’ had its downsides, but he suspected that it also made certain people, especially the type to be sorted into Teppenpaw, more forgiving and understanding of the times when he did not quite sound native. There was, after all, a good reason for that.

“Teppenpaw is very lovely,” he assured her with a smile, “Sonora is all very lovely,” he enthused. He was aware that he maybe wouldn’t have come across as the best ambassador for that five minutes ago, and resolved to try not to sulk in front of the first year. He owed an enormous amount to the school that had shaped him, offered him friends and role-models, and helped turn him into the person he was right now. A person he was surprisingly happy with. He definitely did not want to give an impression at all that this was a place to be unhappy about being. “Teppenpaw is nicknamed ‘the friendly house,’ and this is very true. It is a very comfortable and reassuring place to be. Professor Xavier is very gentle and nice,” he pointed out the Professor at the staff table. “Do you have any questions about the school? I am Dorian, by the way,” he added.

13 Dorian Montoir That's alright 1401 0 5

Sadie-Lake Chalmers

December 23, 2019 1:32 AM

What, me? by Sadie-Lake Chalmers

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

Absolutely! by Jessica Hayles

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

Oh. Um. Gosh. Okay. by Sadie-Lake Chalmers

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

Josephine Clyde

December 24, 2019 9:04 AM

Parkas by Josephine Clyde

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

Jessica Hayles

December 24, 2019 12:34 PM

Don't worry, I don't bite...often. by Jessica Hayles

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

Morgan Garrett

December 24, 2019 2:19 PM

I'd rather have pie. by Morgan Garrett

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

Gabriel Wilson

December 25, 2019 12:54 AM

Depends on your definition I think. by Gabriel Wilson

Gabriel was really excited to be at Sonora. He was especially looking forward to his classes. He was going to get to learn all about how to do magic. Plus, he was going to be learning all sorts of new theory too. And not only that, he was going to gain access to Sonora's massive library! How great was that?

First though, Gabriel had to be Sorted. He really really hoped he was an Aladren like his mother and his cousin Amity and his uncle Tim. So far, Amity was the only one in their group of cousins who'd been Sorted there. Although, sometimes, it seemed as if both Ivy and Savannah were more Aladrenish than Amity was. They were more into learning. Though Amity being less into it was understandable because according to Mom, Amity was burned out by age eight due to Aunt Jillian pushing her and her sister way way too hard. Mom had other, less pureblood lady-ish words she'd said about her sister-in-law too. However, they were nothing compared to the words Amity's husband Phillip used. To Aunt Jillian's face. Gabriel could only imagine what he called her behind closed doors.

In fact, he was very curious about those words and would love to find a book that would teach them to him.

Still, Amity was the only one in their set who'd been Sorted into Aladren thus far. He only hoped he joined her ranks. Especially as his cousin Fabian promised to continue liking him if he did . Fabian didn't like Aladrens because apparently there were some that walked around like their excrement-only he didn't use the word excrement- didn't stink because they thought themselves superior to others based on their intelligence. Never mind that there were plenty of people in Fabian's own house that were like that for even less reason.

Gabriel wasn't entirely optimistic about being in Aladren either due to the fact that neither Savannah nor Ivy had been and they were very much into knowledge and learning. And he wasn't mean so he thought he might get Teppenpaw too. That wouldn't be bad and if he was there, he could avoid the sort of Aladren Fabian didn't like but still, Gabriel really wanted to be in Aladren.

He was even further discouraged when the strange boy went into Pecari. Aladrens were strange at times. Much stranger than Pecaris. Pecaris could be goofy like Scarlett and Uncle Seth but not especially weird . If that boy hadn't gone in Aladren, what hope did Gabriel have of getting in based on being himself a bit strange? And no offense to Uncle Seth and his cousins who'd been there, he really didn't want to be in Pecari, even if it might be fun to room with the strange boy. Pecaris were too....well, he just didn't have much in common with them. Gabriel didn't like playing Quidditch and he'd rather read about an adventure-or preferably, a quest, there was a difference, a quest was done for a noble purpose-than go on one.

Finally, it was his turn. Gabriel dipped his badge into the sorting potion and pulled it out to find that it had turned blue. He grinned as he walked over to join his new housemates and listened to the prefects and Head Students were announced, applauding enthusiastically-though not as enthusiastically as Vlad- when Ivy got announced as Head Girl. Gabriel knew that the seventh year had taken not getting prefect pretty hard so he was extremely happy for her, but probably not as much as Vlad was.

The Headmaster finished with an announcement about the school ball this year and they sang the school song.The first year was just about to pick out something to eat when a girl nearby spoke to him.

"I guess." Gabriel replied. He really had little enthusiasm for balls. He was, in that way, very much like most eleven year old boys. "I'm more excited about classes though."

11 Gabriel Wilson Depends on your definition I think. 1481 0 5

Joanna Rose-Turner

December 27, 2019 7:30 AM

A dork through and through by Joanna Rose-Turner

“Hi Dorian, I’m Jo.”

She stuck her hand out, as if to shake his hand, but thought about how lame that would be and put it down. It was so hard not to be awkward in front of big kids. Full adults were always the easiest to befriend. They were always asking how she was doing at school, and what she thought she wanted to be when she grew up, she never had to think too much about what to say.

Big kids were so much harder. Most never seemed to want to talk to Jo anyway. She couldn’t blame them. She was a dork, through and through. It didn’t make her happy to think about it, but it was the way of the world. Whoever she could find to like her dumb jokes and silly performances would just have to do.

Hearing Dorian’s slight accent made him seem all the more cool to Jo, which kept her a little nervous despite how kind and friendly he seemed. He actually did kind of remind her of her cousin Michael, her nicest cousin, who almost felt like a brother to her.

She hoped she wouldn’t screw this up in anyway.

“No yeah, um, I’ve never been diplomatic, like ever. Do you think I could have been put into the wrong house?”

43 Joanna Rose-Turner A dork through and through 1478 0 5

Dorian Montoir

December 29, 2019 3:04 AM

I can relate by Dorian Montoir

"Nice to meet you, Jo," he smiled when she introduced herself, noticing that she lifted and then dropped her hand as if she had been about to do something. He didn't read too much into it, nothing personal anyway, having had his own fair share of being awkward and unsure what to do with himself.

"I think not," Dorian assured her, when she asked if she might have been put in the wrong house. "I think you belong where you end up," he supposed that might not be too comforting, seeing as he was essentially saying it could not be a mistake because it was what had happened, although with the sorting potion, he did tend to take that view. As someone who worried a lot over right or wrong decisions, he could understand that there might need to be more to it than that though.

"'Diplomatic' is a big word, and maybe not a skill most of us feel we use often. But it can be something that shows itself in many ways - being the peacemaker of your group, being one who does not snap easily at others... We can all have many small acts of diplomacy without realising it deserves such a fancy name. Or if this still does not sound like you, maybe one of the other house traits - 'friendly, co-operative, interested to develop yourself or others' is why you are here. They can all sound a bit grand when put like that, but that is the nature of writing a house description - it must sound a certain way," he elaborated with a twirl of his hand which suggested 'a certain way' in this case could equate to slightly pretentious. "Each house has many traits, and each trait has many ways of looking at it. After all, there are more than four types of people. It is also okay if you do not yet know why you came here. You can have a fun time working it out," he assured her, "And it does not mean that, in the remaining time, you do not yet belong.

"Have you any other questions about Teppenpaw or the school?" he asked.

13 Dorian Montoir I can relate 1401 0 5

Sadie-Lake Chalmers

December 29, 2019 8:52 PM

I am hashtagless by Sadie-Lake Chalmers

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

You should probably get used to that around here. by Jessica Hayles

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

I could definitely get to like it by Sadie-Lake Chalmers

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

That's good! by Jessica Hayles

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

Ellie Alperton

January 01, 2020 5:04 AM

Sparkles. Dresses. Being a princess. by Ellie Alperton

“Classes are good too,” Ellie agreed amicably. This was Aladren after all, and so academic enthusiasm came with the territory. She was genuinely looking forward to hers as well. First year had been kind of a challenge getting used to a whole raft of new subjects. She felt a little more comfortable now, and the thought of retreading some of that ground, but doing it better, and being one of the ‘experienced ones’ in the group was sort of fun. Even if she did worry that there were a bunch of first years from magical families who would easily outstrip her abilities. She didn’t think she’d been too far behind last year, but she’d been juggling getting a grip on her wand with being Ellie and with the challenges, and it felt like she had spent so much time looking in on herself and what she was doing that she’d barely had time to look up and compare herself to other people. What she had done had been okay though. Sometimes better than okay. Good. And her team had come third in the challenges. She thought she might not be terrible at being a witch, which was reassuring, given that it seemed to be… well, who she was.

“Are you excited for any subject in particular?” she asked the boy. She was a little disappointed to have the subject of the ball dismissed out of hand, but she could recognise that it was maybe not the most thrilling thing to most boys. She didn’t like to gender stereotype, but… well, the notion of ‘typical boys’ existed for a reason, and even if some of that reason was due to a lot of societal brainwashing, it was still, by definition, a group that a lot of people fell into. People who weren’t bad people, and who possibly liked the ‘typical boy’ things just as genuinely as she liked typical girl things. She couldn’t imagine her brother would have wanted to sit chatting about sparkles and dresses, after all, and he was far from a brainwashed idiot. He was just… very boy-y. Hopefully, there would be plenty of opportunities for discussing the ball with like-minded people throughout the year, and for now they could switch to class talk if that was what the newbie was interested in.

“I’m Ellie, by the way,” she added.

13 Ellie Alperton Sparkles. Dresses. Being a princess. 1456 0 5

Josephine Clyde

January 01, 2020 8:43 AM

The...Derby??? by Josephine Clyde

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

It's much cooler than NASCAR. by Morgan Garrett

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

Sadie-Lake Chalmers

January 03, 2020 5:10 AM

Uh-huh by Sadie-Lake Chalmers

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

Joanna Rose-Turner

January 03, 2020 11:16 PM

What do you do for fun? by Joanna Rose-Turner

Jo thought Dorian gave a super adult answer, and it made a lot of sense. Of course you couldn’t fit the whole world perfectly into four boxes, so somethings in Teppenpaw would fit her, and others wouldn’t. How she’d have a fun time figuring out which would be which was a bit lost on her, but Dorian’s answer did make her feel a bit better.

What also helped her believe Dorian was that he didn’t seem to talk to her how a lot of other big kids seemed to usually, as if she was still a baby. She thought he could think of her like another big kid maybe, so they could talk better that way. Whatever it was just made her feel a lot more comfortable talking to him than other big kids, and she liked that a lot.

Since she had missed so much of the orientation speech, Jo certainly had a lot of questions, but it felt embarrassing to ask such a cool person like Dorian. He probably wouldn’t think too well of her if he knew she just hadn’t been paying attention when she should have been. Maybe now they could start to become friends.

“Well… I was wondering what people usually do their spare time here. I couldn’t bring my Pokemon game with me here, which is what I’d usually do, and reading gets boring after a little while. What do you usually do for fun?”

43 Joanna Rose-Turner What do you do for fun? 1478 0 5

Esme Brockert

January 04, 2020 3:01 PM

Pleased to meet you by Esme Brockert

Esme didn't know what to make of the other girl introducing herself as "just Jezebel". Obviously, the first year knew of her since she was her cousin's roommate and therefore, knew she wasn't a pureblood and didn't expect her to introduce herself the same way Esme had. Had Jezebel done so, she would have either been someone who had completely missed the point of pureblood traditions or someone who was a tremendous poser.

Still, someone saying they were "just" someone meant they were either humble or lacked self-confidence. Which were similar things really. The former was definitely a plus in a person-the two most egotistical people Esme knew were also the most unpleasant in many other ways so arrogance was a massive red flag- and the latter invoked sympathy in her due to Allegra being like that. Though Allegra never introduced herself as "just Allegra"....most likely because she was a pureblood and was trained to introduce herself in the traditional way.

Anyway, Esme had a good starting point regarding conversation. "Oh, you're Sapphire's roommate. She's my first cousin." Specifying the degree of cousin was rather necessary for Brockerts. Having the same last name was usually a huge giveaway that people were somehow related but the Brockert family was such a massive sprawl. For example, Esme was obviously related to the new Head Girl, Ivy, but very distantly whereas the Headmaster was her grandfather, Sapphire, Ruby and unfortunately Topaz were her first cousins and Allegra was her sister. "Pleased to meet you."

That was the polite thing to say and Esme always tried to be as polite as possible to absolutely everyone aside from, occasionally, Topaz, Uncle Eustace and her younger siblings. Whether or not it was true remained to be seen. So far though, the little she knew about Jezebel, which was that she was Sapphire's roommate-and Sapphire hadn't said anything bad about her- that she wasn't full of herself and that she didn't care for flying, made Esme inclined towards positivity at this point.

She just hoped those inclinations continued. The first year would hate to think her cousin was rooming with someone unpleasant

11 Esme Brockert Pleased to meet you 1479 0 5

Dorian Montoir

January 04, 2020 6:19 PM

Kiss boys and learn Russian by Dorian Montoir

Dorian wondered whether that was ‘you’ specifically him or ‘you’ as people in general. He had spent a lot of his free time over the last two years mired in the despair of having an unreciprocated crush on his best friend. He would not exactly call that ‘fun’ or recommend it to others. He tried to think back to when he’d been a first year and life had been less complicated. Well, less full of hormones. It had, at the time, still seemed full of other problems, such as whether anyone would like him at all or whether he’d end up being bullied by all the Quidditch players. The answers had turned out to be very much yes and very much no respectively and he wished he could somehow write to past him and let him know that he really was worrying over nothing. Same with himself from a couple of years ago, or even this time last year… He couldn’t, of course, but he hoped he could look after others and make sure they weren’t as worried as he’d been, even if Jo already seemed like a far more confident eleven year old than he’d been. He’d been nervous speaking to his peers. He wasn’t sure he’d had ever talked to a student so much older than himself.

“Personally, I spend time learning languages and reading, but I am… maybe not quite so typical?” he suggested, “There are many things to do. The MARS rooms are fun - maybe you saw them on your school tour? There is one each for music, arts, water and sports,” he summarised, in case she hadn’t managed to stick together the odd name with the rooms, “They are fun, and even if you don’t have a skill in those things, they are good places to just hang out - you can make the music room bring you things to listen to, or the art room look like a gallery.

“I am sorry, but I do not know what this game is,” he offered, unable to offer her the closest match activity-wise without understanding, “But I know there is a game that some people play. I think it is a Muggle game, and they roll dice and talk with each other,” he summarised. He was a frequent enough visitor to the library that he had observed occasional activities of Gary’s group from a distance, but he’d never heard much about it. Parker had mentioned the name once, but it escaped him now. He supposed he could get Jo to ask Gary or Parker, though it was hard to point them out. He glanced around the table, noticing someone closer at hand, “The girl over there, Lyssa, her brother plays, so she can probably explain to you some more about it. She will be on your corridor, and now is a… fourth year?” he added, sounding slightly surprised as he said it.

13 Dorian Montoir Kiss boys and learn Russian 1401 0 5

Josephine Clyde

January 05, 2020 5:23 AM

Dial Birds for Vertigo by Josephine Clyde

“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

Jessica Hayles

January 05, 2020 3:12 PM

Well, better than the alternative, I suppose. by Jessica Hayles

"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

Anya Delachene

January 07, 2020 12:33 PM

Of course it’s not terrible by Anya Delachene

“All of the MARS rooms are good,” she confirmed, “but my favorite is the Sports Room. I get to do gymnastics there, and sometimes I get a climbing wall.” She liked the gymnastic equipment the best though so that was usually what she found when she pushed the door open to an otherwise empty Sports room. Sometimes she even got both at once when she was feeling particularly indecisive.

Anya shrugged in response to Leonor’s next question, neither a confirmation nor a denial that she was close to her extended family. She wasn’t sure which part of it Leonor was asking about. “I see all of my grandparents pretty frequently. Aunt Molly’s kids are the cousins we see the most, but they’re younger than us, though Philippe isn’t much older. He’s my youngest sibling. You’re right in between us. We see Uncle Daniel most of anyone, but he can just apparate, and it’s just him, so it’s easy, and he used to be our tutor but now he has a job at a university. Uncle Luke’s kids are all way older and are having babies of their own. We don’t see many of our French relatives other than Grandmere and Grandpere but Dad was an only child, so that’s getting out to second cousins and stuff. We don’t see too many out that far with our American relatives either. First cousins are a crazy big enough group with Mom’s messed up family as it is. She’s got a sibling group of four, and no two of them have the same set of two parents so holidays are just wild. I’ve got,” she moved her fingers as she counted, “anywhere from six to eight people I can call some form of grandparent just on Mom’s side alone, depending on the current marital status of Grandma Kathleen and Uncle Luke’s father. Go Hollywood. Though actually, Grandma and Grandpa Greer have been married for ages, and Great Uncle Dan and Great Uncle Barry have been together way longer than same sex marriage was legal, so that’s two out of four being pretty stable, and Mom and Dad have been married since shortly after they graduated Sonora, and Dad’s parents hit forty-three years last anniversary so we’re not total divorce fiends who can’t grasp commitment.” That was mostly just just Grandma Kathleen. Though Grandma Greer was really the only one who could claim she’d never got a divorce, on mom’s side of the grandparent generation. And Barry never got married at all, technically, though nobody thought of him as anything but Dan’s husband, even if there had never been a ceremony.

“What about you? Do you have a crazy big family?”

1 Anya Delachene Of course it’s not terrible 1453 0 5

Caitlin Pierce

February 02, 2020 12:22 PM

Glad you think so by Caitlin Pierce

Caitlin was on top of the world as she entered the Cascade Hall. Her summer had been amazing . As of right now, her grandfather was the patriarch of the New Hampshire Pierces. Winston's engagement to Emerald had done exactly what she'd always thought it would and she was certain the Brockerts would do anything they could to keep them in that position for the sake of Emerald and her future children with Winston. Plus, perhaps Grandfather would kick Thaddeus, the Other Alicia and their brats off the mountain. She didn't care if they went to Boston, California or the bloody North Pole, so long as they were gone and never threatened the good name of the New Hampshire Pierces again. Caitlin supposed Thesius and Katrina could stay, it would be cruel to kick them out of their homes at their age but the rest needed to go.

That Thaddeus had not been disowned outright when he'd married that awful woman was beyond comprehension. His parents had absolutely not learned from their mistakes with their previous children. Add to that that her grandparents had never had a child disowned, that her father and now her brother had made respectable matches made them the obvious choice to lead the family.

The fact that Winston genuninely cared for Emerald-and vice versa-was just icing on the cake. She was sure they'd have many years of wedded bliss and raise fine respectable children who'd be a credit to the future of the New Hampshire Pierces.

Caitlin waited as the first years were sorted. The only person of any interest whatsoever was Allegra's sister Esme who was sorted into Crotalus. Good. That just added to the Brockerts' level of respectability and considering that Esme was Emerald's first cousin, it was good for her family's reputation by association. Caitlin had noted that the Brockerts tended to favor Crotalus as a whole and rarely went into Pecari. They rarely had any scandals, not nearly as many as the Pierces had had. They didn't have two disreputable branches that they had to deny and distance themselves from. Honestly, it was probably a good thing Emerald liked her brother. The former Aladren could have just as easily married Sylvia's brother or Victor Callahan, the latter of whom she'd gone to the ball with after all. Though the Mordues had had their troubles too recently, the Callahans were still fairly respectable.

Anyway, Caitlin was hoping that with the help of Emerald and the rest of her family, the New Hampshire Pierces could completely distance themselves from anything disreputable. Their image was good, but the respectability of the Brockerts could only make it even better. As, of course, could sending Thaddeus and his family to Boston. Never mind that stuff that had happened years and years before she was born, Thaddeus had committed the worst possible offense that one could commit.

And it was prefect year too. Caitlin was actually feeling magnanimous about it. Like things were going so good for her recently, that she might actually be okay with Sylvia getting it. After all, the other Crotalus had had family issues recently. Maybe she needed it more.

Except, Emerald's grandfather called her name along with Nathaniel, Heinrich and Michael. Caitlin stood up to collect her badge. As she rejoined her table, she briefly worried that Sylvia might be upset. Sylvia, after all, was used to being in charge and for the most part, Caitlin let her be. Gardenia Girls had been the other fifth year's idea so Caitlin felt it made sense that she lead them.

She need not have worried. Sylvia congratulated her and Caitlin relaxed. "Indeed, let's just hope the rest of them get prefect next year." After all, for all Topaz's faults, she was certainly better than Nessa McLeod and even with Katerina being foreign, she was still from a respectable family compared to her nobody roommate. Allegra, the fifth year was a bit more worried about, she was shy while Julius Astley was from a respectable family and had started the school paper.

11 Caitlin Pierce Glad you think so 1415 0 5