Familiar faces and name dropping on Sonora Lounges

A Memory

January 18, 2021 8:59 PM

Familiar faces and name dropping by A Memory

Selina was absent. Not all the time, but she was absent frequently, leaving several other people to try to be her between them. One of them had, against his usual habit, been sitting in the staff room. He was not Selina. He knew he could not be, and the kinds of connections and trust she had with people could not be fabricated simply by taking on some of her paperwork. Still, he thought he at least ought to try being more visible. More available. And so there he had remained, trying to draft her rough notes into a full policy statement on inclusion, until he realised he could not manufacture a smile even if anyone walked in, because Merlin, was her job headache-inducing and complicated even when you were only playing at doing it.

His priority was getting the work finished, as he thought that would be the thing that reduced her stress levels most significantly right now, and that was something he desperately wanted to do. He owed Selina a lot. Always had… And these thoughts lingered on, waiting to greet the next person who ventured in.

When they did, they would find there was quite the crowd in the staff room. When the mist stopped swirling, it resolved into three figures. One of them looked a lot like Krissalyn Skies, if any of them knew her, or even a little bit like Ema. Of course, many of the staff were far more familiar with the person it actually was, and would see Selina, as she had been when she was in her twenties. Wearing a rouched dress which probably had been fashionable at the time, and with hair to rival Mary Brooding’s old do, she stood with her arm looped through a young man’s, who shared some of her features. He was laughing and chatting amiably with the third.. The colour of the mist suggested the last figure had light hair, and he was every bit as on (now wildly out of date) trend as Selina. He was also not totally unknown to the residents of Sonora, had they paid attention to photographs in offices, or husbands who got brought to events. They were all smiling rosily, as if they were a few glasses of wine into the evening.

“He’s said he’ll come to your pick-up game, Leo,” Selina was laughing, “Now leave him alone. I need help with the dishes,” she pushed at him playfully. “And I think he wants to play his own pick-up game,” she added under her breath, much more to the last figure than to her brother, who appeared not to hear.

“Subtle,” the remaining figure rolled his eyes at her, but she shrugged and smiled, and continued propelling her brother - who at least seemed not to have heard that aside - out towards the kitchen.

“I paired you up with John so he could do your dishes!” Leo protested, as he was pushed and pulled from the room, “What was the point if I still have to do them?” There was just time for Selina to turn and mouth ‘Have fun’ at the remaining figure before her and Leo stepped out of the memory, their good natured arguing and laughing fading out softly.

The figure watched them go for a minute, but then turned sharply in another direction, appearing to answer whoever had been watching them all

“Or you could stay?” he suggested hurriedly, stepping forward. “For one more drink? It’s still early.”

There was an unheard reply.

“Because I asked her to invite you. So I could get to know you better.”

A pause.

“I got the impression when we were at uni that you’re rather smart,” the one sided conversation continued, the figure offering a challenging little raise of his eyebrows and a playful smile (one which a certain staff member had a shot at recognising, and which lent good evidence to the argument that facial expressions were learnt rather than genetic). “So, figure it out.”

Whatever reply he got to this clearly ruffled a feather or two, as annoyance and hurt flickered under his more playful expression as he replied.

“I don’t think you know me well enough to know what my ‘type’ is,” he stated. “And I think that level of assumption is pretty ironic coming from someone who was reading ‘Pride and Prejudice’ before dinner. You know, the early chapters aren’t meant to be read as a ‘how to’ guide on party etiquette,” he stated, clearly trying to swing the conversation back to more playful territory. It clearly worked, as whatever was said in response got a hearty laugh from the misty figure.

“Unless that’s a hint I should leave you alone?” he checked, again pausing to listen.

“Yes,” he confirmed, with a smile. “Some of us know how to throw balls and read books. Does that surprise you, Mr. Darcy?” he asked, his face fully back to a playful, challenging smirk, as he leant in and dissolved.

13 A Memory Familiar faces and name dropping 0 A Memory 1 5

Grayson Wright

January 30, 2021 8:11 PM

...This isn't awkward at all, no siree. by Grayson Wright

Officially, as soon as they saw one of the apparitions, they were supposed to try to capture it for study and analysis, and Gray fully intended to do this. However, the spectacle before him was so intriguing that he couldn’t help but stop and watch it play out for a moment, still as curious about how this worked as what was causing it.

The first thing that struck him about the young woman and one of the two young men was that they looked slightly familiar, especially the young woman. The second thing was that they were also – well – terribly old-fashioned looking. He was no sort of fashionista (fashionistus?), but their clothes reminded him of things he had not seen in years. Many years, even more years than it had been since he had left Sonora the first time – since, he thought, before he had come to Sonora, or very near that time….

Before he could feel too sure of that, though, she and one of the young men left, leaving one to speak to the air – or rather, to the spot which had been air a few moments before, but was now occupied by him.

Grayson Wright was not the most socially adept of people, especially when it came to flirting. More than once in his life, someone had pointed out to him long after a conversation that someone had been indicating Interest of a Particular Kind while he had remained utterly oblivious. However, this person was being…rather obvious about their flirting. Not least because of the remarks about drinks and this fellow’s ‘type,’ but he thought in this case that he might have been able to spot it even without those cues….

He flushed a bit while looking for a container. It wasn’t – entirely – that it was…at least a thing that looked like another man seemingly blatantly flirting with him in the middle of the staffroom. It was also, moreso, that literally any entity of any kind appeared to be doing so at all - he had no idea how to handle Such Things. Most of all, though, strangely enough, it was because the thing was not actually trying to seduce him by declaring itself tolerably literate. Despite all available accounts, including his own run-in with one previously, suggesting that the apparitions could not interact with them and did not seem aware of their surroundings, it still felt as if he was – well – intruding on something private, something that was none of his business at all, and he was not someone to do that to anyone if there was any possible way of avoiding it.

As the figure leaned forward, he got a juice glass and his wand in hand just in the nick of time and captured the memory, sealing the top off with a quickly conjured lid. Inside, the silvery stuff of which it was made swirled on, now indistinct, formless, like the contents of one of Professor Duell’s crystal balls.

There was a thought. He made a mental note to ask Giselle about that sometime (assuming she ventured into the common room again sometime) – what was inside those things, anyway? And how did visions supposedly appear in it? If the other thought he had was wrong, he might ask her about that in terms of trying to solve the mystery. For the moment, though, he needed to write down the details before he forgot them: Names were mentioned: Leo, John, Mr. Darci? Pride and Prejudice – someone read this before a dinner. Book I assume? Apparition in staff room. Three figures, two male one female, fashions similar to when I was young, female figure familiar-looking -

His quill came to a standstill, blotting the page slightly, as he thought again about the sense of familiarity he’d had while looking at the young woman. She had looked so familiar – the eyes, something about the nose, perhaps, and the shape of her face – and she was somehow associated with someone in the school, if he was right about the pattern he had hypothesized existed among these things…

Without that hypothesis, he might never have put it together, but that narrowed his field of reference. With his field of reference thus narrowed, he was able to have the thought that if he aged her up about thirty years, he thought she might rather resemble Selina Skies. And while he and the deputy headmistress were hardly bosom friends, the fact remained that they had been colleagues long enough that he was reasonably certain her husband’s name was, in fact, John.

That put a slightly different complexion on things. He glanced at the material in the glass again, then picked it up and left in a hurry, aiming for the library.

16 Grayson Wright ...This isn't awkward at all, no siree. 113 0 5