This is some real centaur crap. [Tag Professor Wright] on Charms

Evelyn Stones

December 24, 2020 10:06 PM

This is some real centaur crap. [Tag Professor Wright] by Evelyn Stones

OOC: CW: Mention of past anxiety attack, mention of past trauma BIC:

Break had been good and lovely and it wasn't fair that even when her stupid dad was stupid dead, he had to go and be stupid. How was that fair? It wasn't. And it wasn't fair that Heinrich had to be the one to tell her that her stupid dad who was stupid dead was being stupid, and it wasn't fair that she'd gotten through her trip with Heinrich (who was lovely and perfect and kissable and made for a very nice person to visit) and made it back to Ness' hou-- made it back home, and made it all the way to bed before she'd lost it. She got to share a room with Ness now, which was great, but it also meant she shared a room with someone, and laying there in the dark, thinking of her stupid dead dad doing stupid things and thinking of all the stupid things that Heinrich got to see that he shouldn't have ever had to see and all the stupid things she'd had to get through to get to this lovely life . . . well, she'd lost it. She'd been a crying heap and had a full stupid panic attack the night she'd gotten back and it wasn't fair at all.

Ness was a good friend and had given her Logic and hugs and made everything better, and reminded her of therapy things because therapy was good and gave her tools; Ness reminded her to open her toolbox and pick a helpful tool and that was good. And Heinrich had been a good boyfriend and he'd been kind and considerate and taken steps to make sure that everything was going to be as okay as it could be. But neither of them should have had to and Evelyn was pissed off about it all.

She tried to make a habit of seeing Professor Wright under happy circumstances as often or more often than she saw him under crappy ones, because as happy as their relationship was now, it had certainly not started for happy reasons. Today though, her first opportunity to visit him upon return to Sonora, she couldn't quite find it in her to try to be not pissed off, except for the fact that she wasn't at all pissed off at him. Also, she had his Christmas present. She wasn't sure if it was weird to get him a Christmas present but she'd always done so and she wasn't sure how else to thank him for being one of the best adults she knew.

He'd said he'd worked on writing projects over the previous summer but Evelyn had still not had any luck actually tracking down anything penned by the fabulous Professor Grayson Wright, so she had also made up her mind to ask for something of his to read. However, since demanding things of someone was hardly a Christmas present - and since she had come with more than a few questions for him and none that would be terribly easy - she had brought a package. Christmas gifts were easier to attain now that she had access to some money (yet another benefit to her stupid dad being stupid dead that she felt horrible acknowledging) and that she could do magic (both in the literal sense and in the I'm an adult now sense), and so she'd brought a sort of lumpy package wrapped in paper that she'd managed to charm to be blue with moving white snowflakes dancing along the surface. When she knocked and was let in, she set it on his desk for him to open when he pleased.

"Happy holidays," she said with a small smile. Inside the paper, in the worst chartreuse she had been able to manage, was a card that said "thank you for every single thing," and a blue and black paperweight in the shape of the Aladren hawk. It would make upset clicking sounds at you if you said mean things to yourself about your writing, and it would flutter affectionately when you managed something that got a more pleasant reaction. Since she wasn't about to force him to open it right then and there if he didn't want to, she let him guide their initial small talk and catching up before diving into her other reasons for coming.

"I wanted to talk to you about two things," she said, when it was appropriate to do so. "First, you said that you worked on writing projects, but I can't find them and I wondered how I could read what you write and if you wouldn't mind. Second, Heinrich told me about seeing my dad on the Pitch in the fall . . . and I wanted to ask you what you thought. He said he told you." Heinrich had summarised the conversation with the professor, but Evelyn also knew that Heinrich was prone to conciseness and that he hadn't been asking the professor personal questions about the meaning of life or anything like that. "He said it was a manifestation that looked like my dad, and that it all seemed sort of familiar. I told him about how I messed up my arm," she explained, rolling her sleeve up instinctively to look at the old scar. "And he said it was like that except obviously I wasn't there because I'm not dead, and because that happened a long time ago. I don't know. I didn't poke for a lot of details. But he said he was acting weird if he was a ghost . . . and I don't know why his ghost would be here or how he'd have become one. Do you think this is my fault somehow? Did I do some sort of accidental magic again?" She frowned and bit her lip anxiously as she finally came to the real problem that brought her to her believed professor's office: that the easiest explanation seemed like this horrible thing was her fault.

OOC: Mentions of Ness and Heinrich interactions approved by their authors. If anything on their bits doesn't look fine, let me know and I can edit!

22 Evelyn Stones This is some real centaur crap. [Tag Professor Wright] 1422 1 5

Grayson Wright

January 05, 2021 9:49 PM

At least centaurs don't like coming indoors? by Grayson Wright

The meeting had begun, of all things, with a laugh, a spontaneous reaction to the sight of (of all things) a color. Specifically, the color chartreuse. What, he wondered, in the world had made that word, of all the words in the vast sea of the English language, be the one which had popped into his head under stress last year….

The inscription on the chartreuse and the accompanying object, however, sobered him again quickly enough, speaking as they did to what the color represented in context. Considering the coloration, he also thought it was plausible enough that Evelyn had done some charming on the paperweight herself, and so when he said, “thank you, Evelyn, that’s very kind of you,” it was a simple statement, but he strongly suspected it was obvious he was rather moved by the gesture.

And then he got hit by two shocks one right after the other, both of which, he thought, really shouldn’t have been as surprising as they were.

“No,” he said firmly when she asked if she had somehow caused the apparition, or whatever it was, of her father before midterm. “No, you didn’t cause that – not directly, at least. There seems to be some magical effect affecting the school, causing several of these apparitions – including at least one of someone who is still very much alive.”

Once again, as had often happened since his meeting with Osvaldo to check the building’s charms, he had the feeling that he was overlooking something that was right under his nose. There was something about what Evelyn said that prodded the piece of information, so that it felt as though it were a millimeter away from being on the tip of his tongue. Any chance of his pulling it to conscious recollection, however, was lost as emotion kicked in, specifically that of guilt.

“I owe you an apology,” he said frankly, grimacing and adjusting his glasses. “I considered speaking to you about it after Heinrich reported it to me, but – “ his imagination failed him. “Well, no good reason, anyway. Cowardice I suppose. I didn’t want to put you in a position where you had to think about your father if it wasn’t necessary.”

“As for the other thing – well – most of my, er, I suppose you could call it published? Work was in wireless dramas – so, some of the better ones, from the last few years of my career, can be found on record – you can borrow them if you want. As for prose – “ he hesitated, but still felt slightly guilty about before and thus decided to be honest. “Well. That’s difficult to find because it’s under a pseudonym – the central character teaches, you see, so. Wouldn’t want any…misunderstandings.” Plus there was the small issue that his cousin was still married to a politician, and the issue of how he’d come to leave his first career…

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Evelyn Stones

January 09, 2021 10:46 PM

Then what is the lingering smell of bull in the air? by Evelyn Stones

Evelyn loved when she made people laugh. She was pretty sure she wasn't an outright funny person and she didn't necessarily surround herself with people who laughed a lot (except maybe Ness but Ness was by far the most laid back of the people she was especially close to who were still at Sonora) so it was extra special when she got a good chuckle out of 'em, let alone a full laugh. She grinned, happy that Professor Wright seemed to appreciate the joke in the color of the card, although it faded as his mirth did the same. Despite a good joke, it was also a bit sobering, and she was sad about that. Still, the compliment helped her perk back up and she smiled again, if a bit more demurely this time. She tucked the kind words into the back of her brain so they could pop up later and give her hugs when she was feeling down. Memories of compliments were the sort of mental equivalent of the pecking bird she'd given her favorite teacher.

When Professor Wright assured her that she was not to blame for her father's apparition appearing the previous term, she had a rush of several feelings that left a knotted expression on her face as she considered. On the one hand, he was right; there was no way that Evelyn was a powerful enough witch to cause any sort of schoolwide phenomenon. On the other, she couldn't help wondering if her accidental magic had come up again and it was her fault all the same. It was weird to feel both down on herself enough to know she couldn't have done it and almost prideful enough enough to think maybe she could? It also weirdly stung that Professor Wright was so convinced that she couldn't do anything that powerful, although she more quickly dismissed that feeling since he was right, both about her and about whatever form of magic this was that seemed much more powerful than anything any one person could do, especially a student. She hadn't heard of any sort of apparitions like this before, although she hadn't studied every branch of magic by any means.

The comment about some of the apparitions appearing to include people who were still alive made another part of Evelyn's heart hurt a bit as she realized she couldn't say without absolute confidence that her mother was still alive. She probably would have heard if that wasn't the case, but not necessarily. She certainly didn't have anything but absence of a death notice to go on that it was the case and that hardly seemed like proof. Instead, Evelyn sort of hmphd a little and leaned back in her chair.

Then, Professor Wright apologized. His feelings of guilt and cowardice shook Evelyn from her self-centeredness and she frowned. "I wouldn't want to talk to me about it either," she said with half a small smile, apologetic since that's exactly what she was making him do right then. "Don't feel bad. Heinrich told me over break and . . . " She shrugged. "I'm okay." The details of that were a conversation for Ms. Greene more than Professor Wright, she suspected. For all their snake's.

"I'm glad it's not me," she decided finally. "But I don't like it anyway." She felt like a child, pouting about the fact that broccoli was being served for dinner, or that eggs were arbitrarily deemed a breakfast food (that was still something she pouted about sometimes though, to be fair). Edgar peeped in her pocket and she pulled the little puffball out, placing her on the professor's desk with a quick glance to be sure he didn't mind. "She's been calmer since I've been calmer and she knows when I'm agitated," Evelyn said with a frown, petting Edgar with the tip of one finger. "I can't shake the feeling that my dad's still here, messing stuff up even now. I don't want him to hurt Heinrich," she said, her voice edging back into pouting territory as some of her fear slipped out and she looked up at the professor again.

As they transitioned to the other topic Evelyn had brought up, her eyes grew wide with excitement and the aha! moment she hadn't previously been able to have. "I definitely want to borrow them!" she grinned. "Ooh, you're so cool!!" Professor Wright was not, as professors at Sonora went, in the category of generally cool. The guidance counselor, the defense professor, even the deputy headmistress had a certain air of badassery about them that made them cool in a different way. Well . . . the guidance counselor wasn't necessarily badass so much as young and good looking so that was cool. But Professor Wright was, in her opinion, the coolest of them. She was pretty sure that if anyone had seen him threaten someone at a funeral, horrible circumstances aside, they would agree. He was the secret sort of cool, the Alfred Pennyworth of Sonora.

She was surprised at his admission of a furtive writing career but supposed he probably wouldn't have told her if he was moonlighting as Fifty Shades of Grayson, so she wasn't worried that she was about to learn some stuff she'd rather not know. "A pseudonym! That makes sense. I still wanna read it, but only if you don't mind," she grinned.

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Grayson Wright

January 20, 2021 9:08 PM

Potions gone a bit wrong? by Grayson Wright

Evelyn was glad not to be the cause of the current problems, but also not entirely pleased to find out that she wasn’t. Gray was not entirely sure what to make of this position, even as he suspected that he felt sympathy with it, just on general principles.

“If it helps,” he said, “I’m sure you could, someday, if you wanted. Create the base phenomenon, anyway, even though it might draw some of its power as it goes on from others in some ways – though I wouldn’t recommend trying it, of course,” he added, for the sake of propriety. They were speaking between themselves, and he doubted somehow that Selina had the walls of the classroom enchanted to listen to everyone…but it was entirely possible that the walls could be so enchanted, and so it was better to cover all his bases.

He looked with interest at the little animal on his desk as Evelyn petted it and explained its purpose. “Perceptive little thing, then, isn’t she?” he said, peering at Edgar. “That’s good, that you have her.” He made a mental note to acquire some puffskein treats for future use.

“You know that answers where the words ‘always’ or ‘never’ appear are – rarely the right answers,” he said quietly when Evelyn worried about the possibility of her father harming Heinrich. “But I am as certain as I can be of anything when I say that isn’t going to happen. He’s gone, Evelyn,” he added, softly but firmly. “If he was going to come back in any real sense, he would have already done – and from what I know of his personality in life, he’d have been much less subtle than that apparition was in any efforts to harass you or Heinrich. I don’t know exactly what happened on the Pitch that day – but he’s gone. He can’t hurt anyone ever again.”

Not directly, anyway. Indirectly…it was a great taboo to curse the dead, but he did, in his head. Indirectly, that excuse for a man would go on hurting Evelyn, at least, in some ways for a very long time, and Gray for the moment rather wished he had been the one to see the apparition of Stones, so he could have tried his own hand at directing some offensive magic against it….

He was grateful for the shift of topic, even though the new one was still a bit uncomfortable for him.

“Well – ah – you might be the first person to ever say that,” he said, a tad embarrassed but pleased, when called ‘cool’. “Thank you, though,” he added politely, remembering that this was the polite thing to do when given a compliment, however undeserved he might think it was.

Asked about his pseudononymous works, he thought through them, trying to remember anything objectively…objectionable in the contents. He couldn’t think of anything like that offhand, and couldn’t recall seeing any reviews that called out anything like that…

“Strictly between us,” he said, not sure, even with that conclusion about the objectionability of his work, that he really wanted for the entire school to become aware of his other occupations. That said, he flicked his wand toward a shadowy corner of the bookcase, from which two slim volumes extracted themselves before floating over.

“You’re welcome to keep them, if you like – they sent me a few copies of each when they came out. Don’t expect any high literary quality,” he warned. “Just – scribbles between work, you know, edited into something resembling plots – historical mysteries, actually, entirely fictional, but you might pick up a bit of history from it,” he added hopefully. He had done quite a bit of reading – that he’d found the reading interesting was beside the point. Work was work, or something like that.

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