Mortimer Brockert

March 05, 2021 9:38 PM
Once the older students were assembled at their tables and the first years filed in, Mortimer cast Sonorous on himself and rose ."Welcome to Sonora for the new first years and welcome back for all older students. First years, you should have received a blank badge at the end of Orientation. 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." He noted that Amethyst was sorted into Crotalus, which was good. That was what she wanted and he predicted. So far his predictions had been one hundred percent right about where his grandchildren were sorted.

After the first years had been settled, Mortimer continued."Would Katerina Vorontsov and Evelyn Stones please come up and get your Head Student badges." He continued. "In addition I'd like to call up Ellie Alperton, Dathan Fischer, Jezebel Reed-Fischer and Anastasia Delachene to receive their prefect badges. Congratulations." Honestly, he was less than thrilled with these selections as Topaz and Allegra hadn't gotten Head Girl and Sapphire hadn't gotten prefect although he might not have had a huge problem with Miss Reed-Fischer otherwise. It was just that she was against his granddaughter who was obviously the better option. Mortimer would have objected to Miss Delachene-and objected strongly - but there hadn't been any alternative. As for Head Student, well, Evelyn Stones was the kind of Pecari who seemed to demonstrate the worst judgement.The only plus side was Miss McLeod not winning which was good both because that would have upset Topaz and because, well, that girl did not want anything good for the purebloods of Sonora.

Once the new prefects and Head Students had returned to their tables, Mortimer continued, "Our Midsummer event this year will be the bonfire. Information to follow."

He cleared his throat for the next announcement, which was one that pleased him even less than the Head Student and prefect choices. "As you can see, we have two female Head Students this year due to lack of available male students in our seventh year class. We are currently considering making this a regular occurrence and having future Head Student elections be ungendered as well. Anyone with concerns has until midterm to bring them to the staff." And he hoped to Merlin that someone did. Mortimer was less than thrilled about the idea of ungendered Head Student elections which could only lead to discrimination of one gender or the other. And thank Merlin that there were no fifth year Teppenpaw girls or it might only be female students in leadership, leading to nobody for male students to go to with problems that they would not want to talk to a female student about. That is, if male students outside of Teppenpaw would want to go to a different house's prefect. Not to mention having to listen to Eustace whine about it. Even though it didn't have anything to do with him.

"Now we will sing the school song." Well, they would anyway. Mortimer did not sing . Lyric sheets were passed around and the song began.

Every day we strive
Learning to survive
Life’s hardships and to solve its mystery.
Learning to defend
Our honour and our friends,
Flying high to meet our destiny
We will stand and face those who want to harm us.
We won’t let the world transfigure, jinx or charm us
I won’t fight alone, as long as you are with me.
Sonora be my home, my tutor and my spirit

Vasita quoque floeat; Even the desert blooms.

That done, he dug into his steak and bourbon.
Subthreads:

Aladren

Teppenpaw

Crotalus

Pecari

Staff
11 Mortimer Brockert Opening Feast 6 1 5

Xavier Lundstrom

March 06, 2021 5:53 AM
Orientation had been okay, but Xavier was super excited for the opening feast. First off, it was called a 'feast' which sounded like something out of a story. The only time Xavier had 'feasts' was midnight feasts when he is cousins stayed over, and really that was not so much a feast as them all sneaking chips and cookies back to his room. Secondly, the feast was where they got sorted. The house system seemed like a big deal, and it was also meant to put him in with the people most like him, which seemed like he'd have a better shot at having stuff in common and making friends.

The school tour had been sort of mind blowing, and he still wasn't really sure what to think. The library smelled weird and he wasn't looking forward to doing homework without Google. His parents told him about having to do that like it was a horror story, or a warning to be grateful for the ease of his own life. Back in my day, we didn't have that... But, on the other hand, there was a set of magic rooms that could be whatever he could imagine. That had definitely been the most magicky thing. He just sort of wanted to stand there opening and closing the door repeatedly whilst thinking different things.

The sorting ceremony was pretty magicky too, given that there was a great big cauldron. For a second, he wondered if they would have to drink from it, but luckily all they had to do was dip their badges in. His turned brown. Not the most exciting colour but it definitely sounded like the most exciting house, and Xavier went to join Pecari table. He glanced around at the people who would allegedly be like his family whilst he was away. He felt a little pang thinking about his real one back home, but for now he was having too much fun for it to really hit hard.

There was a bit of an intro from the headmaster, and some students from their table went up, so he clapped politely along with everyone else. He assumed he was exempt from singing a song he'd never heard in his life, and then it was time to eat. Wow. They hadn't been kidding with the word 'feast.'

"Whoa," he stated, looking at the spread before them. "This is wild." He was talking sort of himself but also sort of to everybody, or anyone who wanted to listen, and one of his neighbours seemed to turn his way. "Hi, I'm Xavier," he smiled. He figured they could probably figure out for themselves that he was new here, given that they'd just seen him dip his bag, be clueless about the song, and amazed by the feast.
13 Xavier Lundstrom New Pecari, coming through 1529 0 5

Billy Cobb

March 06, 2021 10:15 AM
Ugh. Iris was here now. Billy still wasn't sure what to make of that particular situation, but it wasn't like there was much he could do 'bout it anyway. He was, however, fairly certain that she would not end up in Pecari. He desperately hoped she wouldn't. He'd been having quite a bit of fun last year with Oz and Gus and if she was hanging around Ma and Pa would probably hear all about it. Not that they were doin' stuff that was 'bad', but it probably wouldn't fit into the list of stuff that Iris thought they 'should' be doin'. Which was one of the primary reasons he figured she probably wouldn't wind up in Pecari in the first place.

He wandered about until the last minute before finding a seat at his table. It has been nice being back home for the summer. He hadn't been chained up to these inside places and could run about as much as he wanted, or at least as much as Ma and Pa let him, or at least as much as he could get away with despite what they let him. He'd been a bit glad that the concert had taken place just before summer had started. During the Christmas break Ma and Pa had wanted to see what he'd been learning and he wasn't allowed to show them. Normally not being allowed to do something was only a minor deterrent from stopping him from actually doing it, but in this case it sounded like he really, really, really wasn't supposed to do it. Also it sounded like he could get into some real, actual, serious trouble for doing it. So, he'd been able to satisfy their curiosity a bit at the concert and apparently they'd seen plenty to keep 'em happy. That meant he hadn't needed to worry about not doing stuff over the summer.

Billy Cobb nearly cheered when Iris revealed a red badge. She was going to be over in Oz's brother's house. That was fine. The rest of the stuff he didn't really pay any attention to, but he did catch the word 'bonfire'. That sounded like a lot more fun that then concert had been. It had been fun voicing the giant and all, but... bonfire! A music sheet drifted in front of him and he grinned and purposefully sang as far off key and out of sync as he could.

When the food appeared, he quickly began loading up his plate with anything he could reach. While doing so, he grinned at the first year that had sat down next to him. "Yeah, it's great, ain't it?" Huh, the boy hadn't followed the proper introduction protocol. He was new though, he'd need to be taught the ropes of the place. "Pleased ta meet'cha Xavier. I'm Billy Cobb of the Kentucky Cobbs." He gestured at the food before them, "What's yer pleasure?" That apparently was a fancy way of asking someone what they wanted.
2 Billy Cobb Welcome to the house of excitement and fun! 1519 0 5

Xavier Lundstrom

March 06, 2021 4:35 PM
OOC: CW classism/snobbery BIC:

The kid next to him introduced himself in a weird and overly elaborate way. 'Weird' was an overall accurate descriptor for him, but 'overly elaborate' was not. He looked and sounded like a Kentucky farm boy. And not in the tropey sense where farm boys were muscled and hot, but in the literal sense, like he lived on actual Kentucky farm without access to proper dental or haircuts. Maybe the intro was some rural Kentucky thing, where everyone was meant to know who everyone was.

Xavier tried to reel in that train of thought because whilst it was accurate it wasn't particularly kind. One of mom's favourite Bible verses (especially to quote at him) was 'Judge not lest ye be judged.' On the one hand, he couldn't see it mattering much. If Billy wanted to judge Xavier's attractiveness, he doubted he would come off the worse here, and even if he did, he didn't really care if Billy found him unattractive cos that feeling was definitely mutual. He thought though that it wasn't necessarily just the other person that might judge you back, but also that Jesus didn't think much of people getting real shady.

"Nice to meet you," he smiled, because the boy was at least friendly, and for all his snippy thoughts about the superficial things, Xavier did know that other qualities were much more important. He surveyed the dishes in front of him, wondering what his pleasure was, as Billy had put it. He saw pasta, which instantly made his heart happy, but he kind of knew that for all it probably tasted good, it wouldn't taste like his mom's. He gestured to a plate of pork chops just out of his reach but well within Billy's. Meat was meat. It was sort of hard to go wrong there.

"Those look good," he stated, helping himself to some mash. "So, you been going here a while?" he asked. Billy didn't look much older than him but it was probably safer not to venture an actual guess.
13 Xavier Lundstrom Yes! Sign me up! 1529 0 5

Billy Cobb

March 06, 2021 5:56 PM
This boy had good taste. Billy grabbed himself one of the pork chops from the plate as he passed it on to Xavier. "Sure thing," he replied as he did so. "The food sure ain't Ma's home cookin', but it ain't to bad neither." Then he ran into a problem, there was no room on his plate for the recently acquired pork chop. Well, alright, it would have been a problem if he weren't Billy Cobb super wizard and master of problem solving. He used the pork chop as a scoop to take a bite of both it and his mashed potatoes. Yeah. Problem solved. This process would not only make room on his plate for the pork chop, but by the time he had the space he wouldn't need it! He could put something else there. Brilliant!

Billy nodded at his neighbor, still grinning, "Yup, I've been going here ages." Man, if he thought about how much time he'd spent here locked up in them classrooms, it seemed like an eternity. "I started here last year, so if'n ya got any questions I'm sure I can get you some answers." Billy tried to think way, way back to his first opening feast. It seemed so long ago. What questions did he have at the time? He'd sat next to that Leonor girl and they'd talked about where she was from. Huh, he still didn't know where Xavier was from, maybe somewhere far away and exotic as well!

"Where are you from?" He asked the other boy. If he had to guess, Billy'd have to say he was one of the city folk, but that was alright. Oz was a cityboy as well and he was.. what was that word Gus had taught him..? Right, dope.
2 Billy Cobb Excellent! 'cause you don't have a lot of choice anymore 1519 0 5

Xavier Lundstrom

March 06, 2021 8:43 PM
His mom, he was pretty sure, would not have approved of Billy's table manners. She would never have let Xavier eat like that. His mom wasn't here though. And that looked sort of fun. Also, whilst he was well aware what table manners were expected, he was still debating which ones he believed were actually real things that mattered versus things that adults just said. Like 'elbows off the table.' Why? Who were his elbows bothering? He took a bite out of his pork chop the same way, before feeling a little too self conscious and guilty and putting it down on his plate. Maybe he'd take a few more role models than just this guy before he decided which rules were safe to break.

Billy had been going here 'ages' but also just since last year. Xavier was young enough that years still did seem like a long time, so he didn't see this as a contradiction. What did he want to know? Well, sort of everything...

"Minneapolis," he answered the easier part first. Admittedly, Billy had only given his state, but that was probably because he wasn't from a city. Xavier didn't even know whether Kentucky had cities, not real ones anyway. It felt weird and rude not to ask the question in return but he had already been told. "Wherabouts in Kentucky are you from?" he asked, figuring he could at least raise his total geographical knowledge of Kentucky up from exactly zero places to one, even if it was one no one else would ever have heard of.

"What's it like here?" he asked of the school, not really sure how to distill his current, vast lack of knowledge down into any more specific question. Professor Wright and all the books had told him a lot of facts about the school, but they somehow hadn't managed to answer that.
13 Xavier Lundstrom Let's hope it works out 1529 0 5

Billy Cobb

March 07, 2021 7:57 AM
Minneapolis. Minneapolis... dangnabit Billy wished he had his maps with him. Pa certainly wasn't going to need them, so he'd brought them along this year so he'd have them. He knew that place, he was sure he'd seen it. It weren't a state, he was pretty sure it was a city.. somewhere north? That sounded right. His face screwed up a bit while he fought to dredge any sort of fact about Minneapolis from his brain. In the end, nothing more was forthcoming, he'd have to look it up later. So instead he just ventured to confirm what he thought he remembered, "That's up north, right?"

Billy grinned at Xavier's first question for him. "We live on our mountain," there was a slight stress to the word 'our' his family had lived there for generations and as far as anyone was concerned, it was their mountain. "It's not far from Woolum." He wasn't sure how Woolum compared to Minneapolis, but figured they couldn't be that different, cities were cities after all. They didn't really go into town much anyway, unless they had to.

Xavier's next question made him think again. The first words that sprung to his mind were 'caged' and 'penned-up' and 'kinda boring'. None of these things seemed to be a great answer to give to a new kid, still he weren't one for lying either. "Well... there's lotsa classrooms and learnin' goin' on." His voice clearly conveying that those were not his most favorite things in the world. "The best of them are Professor Marsh's critter class and the plant one taught by Professor Xavie..." He trailed off as he suddenly realized that he had a Professor Xavier and was currently talking to an Xavier. Huh. Oh well. "Quidditch is pretty fun as well iff'n you like flying around on brooms outside. For some reason people didn't think we should be flying around on his broom inside the school." He paused to think again, "Oh, the other cool thing is the MARS rooms. Some of them can be nearly anything ya want 'em to be. You can fly around in them if you make 'em big enough."

A thought struck him, "Do you like flying?"
2 Billy Cobb I'm sure it will, what could go wrong? 1519 0 5

Xavier Lundstrom

March 07, 2021 8:31 PM
"That's the one," Xavier gave Billy a thumbs up when he named the broad geographical location of his home city. "We're right on the border with Canada, so we go there quite a lot. You're middleish and right a bit, yeah?" he checked. Or right by quite a long way if you were talking about politics. Kentucky was probably one of those places that was just guaranteed to vote Republican, right? But Billy couldn't vote yet, and maybe coming somewhere as diverse as Sonora would rehabillitate him. There was no reason to hold it against him just yet, although maybe he was one of those people Xavier needed to be a little more cautious of. That sucked. Caution was boring and complicated and mostly involved just not saying true stuff or not doing fun stuff.

Xavier had never heard of Woolum. It did not sound awesome. But it didn't escape his notice that Billy had said 'our mountain.' He was pretty sure that he just meant the one where he and his community lived, or maybe just his family because it was such a spread out nowhere place that there was just one family per mountain. Geez, who would you talk to or play with? He was pretty sure Billy didn't literally mean that he owned a mountain. But then again, he had heard that real estate was cheaper in all those places cos no one wanted to live there. Maybe you could own a whole mountain. His eleven year old brain struggled, grappling with the idea of whether he would give up easy access to IHOP and a skate park to own a whole mountain. It maybe depended on whether there were any good rock formations to skate on instead, and whether anyone delivered, but he thought that kind of compromising might be cheating. Either way, it was the first thing that Billy had said that sounded vaguely cool or impressive.

"Sounds interesting," he acknowledged. "I like mountains. We go hiking a lot, and skiing in the winter. Guess yours doesn't get much snow though, right?" he added. Right? Kentucky was one of those places that never even got winter. He couldn't quite wrap his head around that. Snow was so much fun.

Billy's first remark about the school was a bit of a non-answer. There were classrooms and learning. Well, duh. It was a school. Even with it being a magic school, that seemed sort of expected. Hopefully what they were learning in the classes was a bit more fun though. It seemed Billy was just getting warmed up though because he went on to give some actual detail (people for real used the word 'critter?') and-

"There's a Professor Me?" he grinned. "Which one?" he asked, scanning the staff table, hoping it was one of the cool ones.

"I've only ever flown in airplane," he answered, "But yeah, I can't wait to fly on a broom! That sounds so cool. And we saw the MARS rooms. They look awesome. Can you do tricks and stuff on your broom?" he asked.
13 Xavier Lundstrom Nothing ever has for me, so I reckon it'll be fine 1529 0 5

Billy Cobb

March 08, 2021 5:24 PM
Canada Billy recognized. Neat, last year at the opening feast he sat with someone from Mexico, and this year he was talking to someone who practically lived in Canada. Dope! He wondered if next year he'd find someone from... hmm.. east and west were oceans... Hawaii maybe? That'd be neat. He nodded in agreement with Xavier's general area for Kentucky.

He grinned broadly when Xavier said he liked mountains. I mean sure, what wasn't there to like? There were trees and critters, streams and rocks, plants and sunshine. It was all great. Hiking. That was the term city folk use to describe what he did to go visit his cousins, or generally anything else. That pretty much confirmed what he thought, but he wouldn't hold it against Xavier. The boy could learn, he was still young. "We do get some snow, usually we get more 'n the folks down in town. Last winter break we actually had quite a pile of it." He shook his head a bit, "I ain't gone skiing though, but..." he nearly laughed as a memory popped into his head. "A few years back me 'n Cleason, that's one of my cousins,decided to give it a try. We found us some nice lookin' branches, stripped 'em clean and strapped 'em to our feet with more twine than we shoulda. Then we throwed ourselves off the top of Master's Ridge and tumbled the whole way to the bottom!" He finished the tale with laughter, "You shoulda seen us. The snow was packed into every stitch of clothes so tight we was to numb to realize how bad everything hurt till the next day!" Ahh.. fun times.

"Yup, that one, right there." Billy pointed out the Herbology professor for Xavier. "He's alright, probably one of the nicest professors, but not exactly the most excitin'. He knows his plants though." Since they were on the topic he looked over the staff table and pointed at the DADA professor, "She's probably the most excitin' teacher, Professor Brooding-Hawthorne, but ya gotta be careful in that class, she teaches Defense against the Dark Arts."

Billy had no idea what it was like to fly in an airplane, he figured it was pretty much like the wagons that brought them to school, 'cept a bit bigger. "Brooms are great! Yeah," He glanced around quickly, "Well, I wasn't allowed to do to many crazy tricks," he said, stressing the 'allowed' bit, "But yeah," Billy continued with a mischievous smile and a lowered voice, "I can do some fun tricks." He glanced around again, "Although one of the girls had a pretty bad broom accident last year and that's made it a little tougher to have that kinda fun afterwards."
2 Billy Cobb Great! Hopefully the streak continues! 1519 0 5

Xavier Lundstrom

March 11, 2021 2:53 AM
Huh. Kentucky did get snow, at least up on its mountains. Well, who knew? Cool. He'd not even officially started classes but he had already learnt something new today. It was not particularly magical, but it was interesting - way more so than any of the stuff that Professor Wright had told them, even though that was at least tangentially associated with magic. He suspected the degree of tangent may have been the problem with its ability to be interesting though.

"No way!" he exclaimed over Billy's story. "You actually did that?" he asked, a tad skeptically. Not so much because he didn't believe that people were that adventurous/stupid but because he'd never met anyone his age who claimed to be able to strip down a branch. He guessed it was similar to some stuff they had done at Scout camp...

His name-sake professor neither looked nor sounded terribly exciting, though at least he didn't have a reputation for being horrid or flatulant or anything else actively negative. Niceness was good, but Xavier had to agree that Professor Brooding-Hawthorne sounded cooler (though not to the extent that he wished either of those words was his first name. Those would be weird...). He sort of wondered how common dark arts were, to need an entire class defending against them. He wasn't sure whether its existence had been reassuring to his mom (in that they were defending against them, not practising them) or freaked her out (dark arts being mentioned, however protected-against, was bound to be a parental alarm bell). He didn't want to sound like a wuss though, so he refrained from asking, figuring he would find out soon enough.

The subject of brooms and broom crashes also allowed him to probe another subject he was curious about, but hadn't wanted to just bring up out of nowhere. 'What's the school nurse like?' was not a normal question.

"They can't just magic stuff better then?" he asked. "That sucks."
13 Xavier Lundstrom Why wouldn't it? 1529 0 5

Billy Cobb

March 12, 2021 7:02 PM
Billy laughed at Xavier's reaction to his story. "Absolutely," he promised. "What's the craziest thing you ever done?" He then asked. If they were swappin stories, fair was fair. "Though..." he paused a moment to review some of his past adventures, "I'm not sure that was actually the craziest. But anyway, it's yer turn if'n you got a good tale." He grinned encouragingly and wondered what sort of life Xavier may have lead up in Minneapolis.

"Yeah," he sighed at Xavier's sentiment on magical healing. "I mean they can fix a lot. Val,the girl who got hurt, from what I heard anyway was pretty bad. There was some weird stuff going on last year and the rumors were that the stuff caused her to plow into the ground from a decent speed." He wasn't really sure if they were supposed to talk about that weirdness from last year, but he couldn't remember anyone telling him not to, so... eh. "Anyway, she was up and going back to classes in a few days." He wasn't sure what he woulda done in Val's position, he could have avoided classes for a while for milking that injury for longer... but then he'd probably be stuck in bed in the hospital wing which would have been worse. "Back home..." if things had been as bad as he'd heard, she may not have made it. "... it woulda taken a lot longer 'for she coulda been up and walkin' around again. I got me my own fair share of cuts an' bruises and such, but nothin' that needed magical fixin'. That just comes with playin' Quidditch."
2 Billy Cobb Dunno, but expect the unexpected 1519 0 5

Xavier Lundstrom

March 13, 2021 4:30 PM
What was the wildest thing he had ever done? Uh... It was probably along the lines of conspiring with his sister to swipe extra cookies. He maybe had the reputation amongst his siblings of being the one who was most likely to get into trouble, but 'amongst his siblings' was a pretty tame group, and there were usually enough supervisory eyes on him to curb his stupider ideas. Usually... He guessed if they substituted 'wild' for 'stupid' he had a couple of answers, although they were things that other people had ended up feeling stressed or worried about, so they weren't exactly fun stories he wanted to brag about. Of course, Billy's parents probably had vastly different impressions of the tree skiing incident than Billy himself. "I broke my wrist falling out a tree once," he said, deciding that the thing that had ended in the most injury qualified as the biggest adventure. He still wasn't sure it was as good a story as Billy's even though the injury was bigger. Maybe because falling out of a tree was such a normal thing to do, maybe because he just wasn't much of a natural story teller.

The medical thing sounded like one great big question mark. Faster, sure, but not totally like 'zap, all better.' That was kind of the answer Mom had got from writing back and forth with school. They could try various potions on him when he got a migraine, and they usually worked, but they would have to wait and see... Given that no medication he'd ever taken had made the slightest dent in them, he wasn't optimistic but at least there was something new to try.

"Quidditch is that broom sport, right?" he asked. He had read about it in the materials about school. "It sounds fun." He tried not to sound too hesitant. It wasn't like he was completely risk-adverse, he skated after all, but the higher the risk of serious injury the less interested he was. He already felt like he kept missing out due to his health without landing himself in hospital on purpose. Still, if lots of people played, and it was just bruises, or anything serious could be fixed up easily...
13 Xavier Lundstrom What, like some malevolent force that relishes chaos is governing my life or something? 1529 0 5

Billy Cobb

March 14, 2021 9:41 AM
"Ouch," Billy responded with a grimace in automatic response to Xavier's rather short and straightforward story. He'd been fortunate enough not to have broken anything so far. Sprained, sure. Bruised, lots. That time with the axe... well, that didn't really qualify as 'broken'. "Trees can be tricky at times," he added in an attempt at a wise and sagely tone. "Branches are strongest right near the trunk, and it don't hurt none to make sure they can hold ya first." He'd been climbing trees as long as he could remember and had, in his opinion, mastered the skill. It'd been a long time since he fell out of one, and that had been more of 'pushed' then 'fell', 'cause Daryll'd been a jerk and had got what came to him afterward. He wondered how much practice Xavier had climbing trees, were there lots of them in Minneapolis? "Do ya climb lots of trees or to ya got more exciting thing to do in Minneapolis?"

"Yup, it is tons of fun." Billy grinned wide. "There's balls and folk flyin' all over the place. Last year I was a beater, I'll probably do that again this year. The beaters get to fly around with bats defendin' their team mates against the heavy attack balls, bludgers, and making sure them bludgers keep attackin' the other team." He lowered his voice just a bit, "It's an important spot on the team. I heard a tale from some of the other team about a player who got hit with one early in the game and woke up two weeks later in the hospital wing!" Then he looked just a tad bit smug, "That ain't happened at all while I was playing beater."
2 Billy Cobb Yep, just like that. 1519 0 5