Better late than never? (tag Sadie) on Cascade Hall

Dathan Fischer

October 25, 2021 10:50 PM

Better late than never? (tag Sadie) by Dathan Fischer

Dathan had dithered a lot over what to do about Sadie's birthday. He was pretty sure he would have done this in any case, because he was a worrying kind of person when he let himself think about anything in any depth at all, but Sadie's summer birthday meant everything was just a little more worrisome yet. It seemed like it would be...really extra, maybe not in a good way, to find out her address (if he could; somehow, he doubted his own skills as a cyberstalker would prove up to that kind of thing) and then mail something to her. That seemed like the kind of thing that would get him slapped with a restraining order or something, even if it was normal for wizards somehow...which it probably wasn't, considering how hard it would be for them to cyberstalk people when they didn't know how to cyber...

In the end, it had kind of worked out. Since Sadie was a prefect now, too, he'd just added 'and congratulations!' hastily, in handwriting made slightly clumsier than the original 'happy birthday' because he'd written that with a pen and was still, now that they were back at Sonora, adjusting back to quills, to her birthday card. Conveniently, it was already pretty complimentary, being as it was a piece of Incredibles merch - a common theme with that seemed to be declaring the recipient incredible. That had just left the problem of something to go with that....

He didn't have much experience of having friends to exchange birthday presents with, but he was under the vague impression that two girls could give each other whatever and it was fine, and dudes could give each other gift cards and it was fine, and...that was pretty much as far as his vague impressions went. Neither of them, unfortunately, was of much use to him here. He'd been completely winging it - or at least trying to take some guidance from what Sadie had sent him, but without exactly copying, so basically still winging it, just with a vague direction in mind, he guessed. The end result was something called a 'bag chain' (he had no idea what this meant or what its purpose it was, so he really hoped it was something vaguely appropriate) which had a charm on it which was painted to look like a watch face with Alice from Wonderland behind it, since they had, pretty much, both fallen down a sort of rabbit hole into a world of enchantment that didn't work quite like their old one and which might also kinda try to kill them at any moment, though that wasn't exactly the part he hoped to emphasize....

He caught up with Sadie at a meal early in the school year and proffered a small, plain green gift bag without the usual stuffing of tissue paper that a girl or someone with more attention to detail in general might have thought of, with a slightly embarrassed grin. "I haven't figured out how to make the cupcake thing work yet," he said, "but - happy late birthday!"

OOC: I, like Dathan, am not entirely sure what the purpose of this article of...accessorization is, but picture something along these lines: https://www.shopdisney.com/alice-in-wonderland-by-mary-blair-bag-chain-with-charm-420144579826.html?isProductSearch=0&plpPosition=28

16 Dathan Fischer Better late than never? (tag Sadie) 1457 1 5

Sadie-Lake Chalmers

October 29, 2021 9:37 PM

Definitely! by Sadie-Lake Chalmers

Dathan hadn't sent her anything for her birthday. That was fine. It had been during the summer, so out of sight, out of mind. Not that he necessarily would have done anything if they had been at school. Maybe it just didn't matter that much to him. Or he didn't "do" birthdays. She could not say she was used to people forgetting or ignoring her birthday. Her mom had made sure that never happened. She had never been a fan of her mom’s way of celebrating, which usually made her feel like a prize poodle in a show, but it turned out your birthday really wasn’t something where you wanted people to forget about you. The people from her old life hadn’t even really been her friends, and Dathan had said he was…

But it was fine.

She was sitting eating when he appeared beside her. She smiled up at him. Smiling regardless of what she was feeling was a skill that had been drilled into her from an early age. The fact that her smile became a lot more genuine when he produced a birthday present did not show the previous one up as fake—after all, it was natural to feel more pleased than usual when being given a gift—it just meant that the feelings on the inside now matched.

“You remembered.” She took the card and the bag, which would never have matched her mother’s standards, and which she liked all the better for that fact. She opened the card first, before reaching inside to see what was in her present.

“Thank you,” she said, as she examined the chain, before pulling it off the packaging and attaching it to her bag. “So, now I’m Alice?” she asked, her fingers playing with the charms for a moment before she turned her attention back to Dathan. “The girl who chases rabbits? Sounds about right. It’s lovely. Thank you.”

13 Sadie-Lake Chalmers Definitely! 1480 0 5