One more patrol? [Prefect Lounge, Tag Peyton] on Sonora Lounges

Gary Harper

September 14, 2020 6:17 PM

One more patrol? [Prefect Lounge, Tag Peyton] by Gary Harper

Gary wasn't sure about tonight. He was scheduled for prefect duty with Peyton. It always made him nervous. He had nothing really against Peyton, she was nice and as far as he knew she was still dating Conner. He hadn't really talked to Conner much... at all since he'd graduated. That fact made him a little sad of his own impending graduation. Conner had been a part of the Gaming Club since it's inception. Last year it had just been down to himself, Conner and Parker. Now it was just him and Parker, and next year... none of the original group would be there. Would the new group forget about him? Probably, it was the way of things. Even if Ness, Evelyn and Heinrich didn't, they would be gone and then it would just be Morgan, Val and Gabriel. Once they were gone in a few years... heh, that's assuming the club lasted that long.

The prefect lounge loomed before him and his brain was pulled back onto it's original train of thought. Peyton. The thing that worried him about Peyton was the fact that she was Jasmine's best friend. While things had ended amicably enough between them, he wasn't quite sure what Peyton thought of the whole situation. He still hung out with Jasmine a little, they'd had some study sessions. RATS were nearly upon them and as much as he hated to think it of her, Jasmine wouldn't be hurt from a few extra study sessions. But, what did Peyton think of the whole situation? What had Jasmine told her? One way to find out.

Gary opened the door and found Peyton already there, "Hi," he tried to smile in a friendly manner, but wasn't convinced he pulled it off. Maybe everything would be fine. "Ready for patrol?"

2 Gary Harper One more patrol? [Prefect Lounge, Tag Peyton] 1404 1 5

Peyton O'Malley

September 19, 2020 6:57 PM

Yup by Peyton O'Malley

Pretty soon, Peyton's time at Sonora would be up. She would be leaving here in just a few short weeks. It was kind of sad, because she wouldn't be seeing Jasmine quite so much. Obviously, she'd keep in touch with the other Crotalus, but they wouldn't be sharing a room anymore. Or doing Midsummer events together. Or any of the other things that had characterized their time together here at school.

On the other hand, she was going to get to see a lot more of Connor which she was obviously thrilled about. She'd even managed to get into a culinary school near Pumine. Although she probably wasn't going to have a career, Peyton would enjoy studying something she loved while she waited her boyfriend to get through college, Healer school and residency. Hopefully, he wouldn't make her wait until he was done for them to get married like her cousin Marcus had with his wife Melanie. Even though Melanie definitely thought Marcus-and their daughter, Nadia-had been worth the wait.

However, on the plus side, with Connor, the Crotalus knew she was going to be getting it right the first time, unlike her parents. Of course, had their first spouses not been terrible people...she wouldn't exist. She had to keep reminding herself of that, even though it made her feel really guilty. The fact that she existed because of the suffering of others was an awful feeling. All the more reason to pick the charity that she had chosen for the fair.

Anyway, tonight, Peyton was going to be patrolling with Gary. She never really minded doing so, finding the Aladren to be fairly agreeable and pleasant although she'd been a bit disappointed that things hadn't worked out between him and Jasmine. After all, then Peyton and Connor could have like, met up with them as couples. She knew that Jasmine and Gary were very different, but they had to have at least as much in common as Ryan and Sophie did!

Still, at least thing were amicable between her best friend and the Aladren. Otherwise Peyton would have had to hate him and that would have made patrolling with him rather suck. The Crotalus generally preferred for things to be as conflict and controversy free as possible. She even had picked a charity that, while completely and totally depressing, nobody could really be against. Peyton knew that there were people, whom she didn't really agree with, that had strong objections to organizations that helped werewolves and gay people and promoted Muggle culture but who was pro-child abuse? What kind of person was like "yeah, let's hurt kids"?

Oh right, Pearl Brockert O'Malley and probably Ross Manger, that's who. Honestly, Peyton was still glad the latter was dead and hoped that somewhere, the former was suffering. A lot.

Anyway, the seventh year hated being in situations that were awkward, or rather more awkward than just the base level of awkwardness that her being an incredibly awkward person to start with made things. Or, in this case, an awkwardness that would be worse than the base level combination of her natural awkwardness with Gary's natural awkwardness. Even with that level of awkwardness plus the stuff with Jasmine...the other seventh year wasn't the worst person Peyton had ever had to patrol with. Not by a long shot.

She sat in the lounge waiting for her classmate. "Hey." She greeted him when he arrived. "Sure am." She really really hoped they wouldn't run into trouble tonight. The Crotalus wanted to finish up her time at school with as little drama as possible. "So, are you looking forward to graduation?" Peyton asked.

11 Peyton O'Malley Yup 1403 0 5

Gary Harper

September 20, 2020 5:40 PM

Well then, we'd better get moving. by Gary Harper

Peyton didn't look mad at him and she didn't sound mad either. So that was good. Gary relaxed a little bit, with any luck this would be to bad. They'd patrol, do their prefect thing and all would be well. What could possibly go... nope. He wasn't going to finish that thought, he knew better than that. Instead he gave the girl a grin, held the door open for her and gestured an invitation for her to pass through into the hall.

Outside the lounge again Gary considered Peyton's question to him. "Yes." he responded immediately, then paused to think things through a little more. "I mean... yeah." He shrugged and looked a little sheepish. Would she think he was just dying to get away from Jasmine now? That probably wouldn't be good. "I'm going to miss this place, don't get me wrong, and the people in it." Well, most of them anyway... alright some of them. He really didn't know that many of the students here and he couldn't very well miss the people he'd never got to know, could he?

He looked straight ahead down the hall as they walked. "It's just, that I've got some plans all laid out and I'm anxious to get to them." He turned to smile at her, "You know? After here I'm hopefully heading off to Colorado to study at MENTAL for a few years." He turned back to watch the hallway as his mouth kept rambling on, "With any luck, I'll become an architect and design cool buildings for wizards filled with all sorts of magical tricks build into them."

Gary dropped his voice just a bit as if he was telling her a deep, dark secret. "Actually," he looked back and forth conspiratorially at the empty hallway. Which he was supposed to be making sure was empty anyway. "I thought it would be neat to come back here after I got 'established' and redesign this place into a 'proper wizarding school'." He began gesturing a bit as he described his vision, something of a mischievous smile played across his lips. "Perhaps some grand, yet creepy-looking wizard tower off to the south end. A proper network of dungeons in the basement, get these long straight corridors properly wrapping around on themselves..." he paused and gave her a playful wink, "You know, make the place look and behave like an M.C. Escher picture."

He stayed carefully focused on the 'professional development' aspect of his plans. Honestly at this point, as much as he was looking forward to all of that, he was looking forward to seeing Korraline again more so. However, he was talking to Jasmine's best friend so he thought perhaps that was a topic that maybe shouldn't be brought up, just in case. However, that didn't mean he couldn't turn the tables on her.

"How about you?" He asked playfully suggestively, "Do you and Conner have big plans?"

2 Gary Harper Well then, we'd better get moving. 1404 0 5

Peyton O'Malley

September 23, 2020 10:18 PM

Indeed by Peyton O'Malley

Peyton nodded. There was nothing wrong with being excited about one's future. Of course, she'd assumed that as an Aladren, Gary might be disappointed to leave school, but obviously if he was going for higher education, he was going to be excited about that too. Peyton felt there were probably a lot of different ways one might feel about graduation. She figured how someone would react to it would depend on their experiences at Sonora.

And all in all, hers had probably been pretty good. Peyton had had an awesome roommate, who was one of her best friends in the world and the only one who she wasn't also related to. She'd also met Connor which was nothing short of amazing.Then the Crotalus had gotten prefect and Head Girl which meant that she had the approval of her teachers and peers, although Peyton was careful not to gloat about the former in front of Ivy. The fact that her cousin hadn't gotten prefect still confounded and irked her. However, she could leave feeling she personally had been liked at school, even if she didn't have that weird thing that people like Eden, Dorian and Evelyn had where people automatically thought they were special. Besides, she could and likely always would, take satisfaction out the fact that she had gotten Head Girl and Eden hadn't, even though she hadn't been up against her directly. In the end, Peyton could still call her time at Sonora a success. She could go out into the world without any additional major complexes besides the ones she came in with.

At the same time,she wasn't all that sad about leaving. Culinary school would be fun and she'd get to see Connor more often. She was really excited about those things, in particular the latter.

"That's awesome. Congrats." Peyton told the other seventh year, genuinely happy for him. She'd always rather liked Gary. In fact, she had to admit to fairly positive impressions of everyone in her year, though she'd only ever been close to Jasmine and Vlad. With Gary though, Peyton felt she'd knew him just a bit better than say Ruby or Tatiana, for example. Connor had played his game with him and he'd had a thing with Jasmine. "It's cool that you'll be in Colorado, that's where I'm from. Though I won't be there obviously." Peyton added.

She laughed at Gary's ideas for redesigning Sonora. "A grand, creepy tower would be great." Peyton replied, chuckling at the Aladren's joke. Although a grand creepy tower wouldn't be terrible, she was sure there were schools with them as well as houses. "I don't know how much use we get out of dungeons though." Students here tended to be fairly nice with only a few bad apples here and there. Really, Peyton had could only think of one person she might want to stick in a dungeon. Well, one person that was at Sonora the same time as her. There were three others who definitely should be in dungeons somewhere although one was dead.

Although, maybe that's were Peyton's half-sister Carrie-all her siblings were half-siblings but Carrie was the only one she made that distinction with, the rest were just her brothers or sister-and Carrie's mother Pearl were. She could only hope, but then again Clifford Brockert would never do that to his relations, would he? Would Brockert family pride permit that? After all, they really deserved to suffer.

Oh well, Peyton wasn't going to bother asking. They weren't important enough and Connor's great-great-grandpa intimidated her quite a bit. He wasn't warm and loving the way the O'Malley family patriarch, her great-grandpa Ronen was. He was...scary.

The Crotalus blushed when Gary mentioned Connor. " We do. I'm going to MUNCH. It's a culinary school near Pumine and we'll be seeing each other quite a bit. Probably quite a lot this summer too." Maybe, just maybe, Connor would propose, She could only hope but weirdly enough she was fairly confident as they'd already talked about the future. Connor would be a Healer. Peyton would go to MUNCH and learn to make delicious food for her future family. She planned to do most of the cooking and baking even with house elves around because she genuinely loved it. They could still do the cleaning though.

However, for the time being, she was going to stay in the dorms at her school and he in his. As liberal as Peyton's family could be about some things, it would still be improper for them to live together. When they got married though, they'd get a little house-by which she meant large regular house or possibly small mansion- together near their schools until Connor finished his residency, then they'd probably move to Madison near his family, since her boyfriend wanted to be close to them.

It seemed like it would be a good future and Peyton was looking forward to it, even though she'd miss Jasmine.

11 Peyton O'Malley Indeed 1403 0 5

Gary Harper

September 26, 2020 5:51 AM

See any miscreants or ne'er-do-wells yet? by Gary Harper

Gary nodded acceptance of her congratulations. He was fairly certain that he hadn't known she was from Colorado, which didn't really surprise him. Not that she was from Colorado, but the fact that he hadn't know that fact. He sighed a little internally, just another bit of evidence that he hadn't really gotten to know any of his classmates outside of his gaming group. He was going to have to do better once he started over in MENTAL.

Her laughter at his redesign suggestions made him grin. He made a mock shocked expression at her dismissal of the dungeon usage. "What? Not much use of them? I figured that's where I'd put the daycare room." He chuckled and gave her a playful wink, "What with Zeus and Dora rampaging around the school, who knows how many there might be in a few years, it'll be a necessity. Just imagine a dark, dank corridor with miserable little cells. Then suddenly one of the doors opens to a bright and cheerful room covered in soft surfaces and filled with toys and small children shouting and running about."

Gary made a mental note to add that to his gaming idea notebook. That would be fantastic, how would Ness, Evelyne and Heinrich react to stumbling upon such a room filled with juvenile orcs overseen by an old grandmotherly orc while their parents worked to keep the dungeon secure? That could be incredibly cruel.. depending on what they've done to get to that point of the dungeon so far. It might be more fun to spin that one around and have the players playing the orcs defending the dungeon from the terrible heroes that kept invading it, in order to keep the kids in the daycare room safe.

Peyton's blush at his question made him chuckle. He was happy for her and Conner, hopefully everything worked out well with them. It sounded like they had 'plans' all laid out. "MUNCH?" That was the thing that caught Gary's attention though, "I'm going to MENTAL... do these schools get a prize for having..." he searched for the word he wanted, "interesting acronyms?" He shrugged dismissively, "Got any exciting plans with Jasmine?"

2 Gary Harper See any miscreants or ne'er-do-wells yet? 1404 0 5