Selina Skies

January 01, 2022 7:39 PM
In many ways, the ball looked set to be the same as ever. The house tables had been replaced with small tables, draped with white tablecloths and laid with sparkling centrepieces. Chairs with bows on their backs were clustered at each table. At the back of the room was a table of refreshments, and a floral archway with a photographer. The main space of the room was given over to a dance floor. Underneath these superficial similarities, things were a little different this year. For one thing, the prefect dance was going to be a group number. There were a few non-prefects involved, those who had already been asked as the dates of existing prefects before the matter had been settled, but it had worked out to a neatly even number, so that was all well and good. For another thing, John was not the only member of Selina’s family in attendance. Not that staff routinely brought their children (unless they lived there), but they did routinely bring their partners… It was a little strange, seeing Ema at a Sonora ball, and Selina wasn’t ever quite sure how comfortable she felt with people knowing that Killian was dating her daughter. But… well, it seemed unavoidable. And they looked very happy, which helped soften any nerves she had about it. And perhaps those differences were small and inconsequential to everyone else. She was sure there had been floundering over dresses and dates, and that there were a mixture of elated hearts and slightly bruised ones, and people who felt fabulous and some who felt self-conscious, and that every other thing was just like every other teenage ball that had gone before it – for all that it probably felt like life and death matters of a totally unique nature to the students living it.

The main student body made their way in. Selina gathered the prefects and their dates in the entrance hall, checking they were ready. Once she had everyone, she made her way in.

“Good evening. Welcome to the ball. The majority of the evening will be yours to do with as you wish – to dance, to take pictures, to enjoy refreshments. Later in the evening, we will announce the winners of the house cup, and provide a special treat for them. But first, I would ask for just a few minutes of your attention, as the prefects present their chosen opening dance.”

She initiated a small round of applause, stepping to the side and gesturing for the prefects to come in. The music started, and the group moved through their choreographed routine. When they were finished, she gave a brief round of applause, and then the music resumed, leaving the dance floor open to any who wished to take to it, and everyone else free to do as they pleased.


OOC: Writing for the prefects based on what was agreed in their meetings. Making the assumption that nothing goes horribly wrong with the dance, but happy to correct if need be.
Subthreads:
13 Selina Skies The Ball 26 1 5

Hilda Hexenmeister

January 02, 2022 1:31 PM
Hilda was not, by any stretch of the imagination or definition, a graceful person. She was coordinated, though, and she had very good endurance, so she got through the dance without embarrassing herself. She would win no awards for most beautiful on the floor - not least because she again wasn't wearing a fancy ball gown but merely a nice set of wizard's formal robes in a deep emerald - but she stepped on nobody's feet (which was good, because she probably weighed more than any of the other people on the dance floor) and her movements all went in the directions they were supposed to go at the time they were supposed to go there, so it would do, and she'd had fun with it, too. Dancing was nothing like Quidditch, but it was enjoyable enough, and she'd gotten to do it with some of her best friends.

When the dance ended, Hilda gravitated toward the friends she'd had since they'd shared a tent together what seemed like a lifetime ago, and now there was a lifetime stretching ahead of them, as their seventh year came to a close and graduation loomed close. It occurred to her for the first time, that this might be the last time she saw some of them. She hoped that would not be the case.

"We stay friends, yes?" she asked abruptly of the friends she found first. "After Sonora?"
1 Hilda Hexenmeister Is this good-bye, German Tent Girls? 1433 0 5

Jessica Hayles

January 02, 2022 7:22 PM
It was over.

Jessica found the thought strangely hard to get through her head, and she wasn't sure why. The best she could come up with had something to do with the old, old habit of expecting herself to be productive, and knowing that once she left this place...Writing her poetry might keep her occupied, but her parents would have taken all her credit cards and probably her notebooks away if she had ever just done that and not had something more traditionally...work-y to do, back in the day, before she'd turned eleven. And now, tomorrow, she was pretty much going back to living like an eleven-year-old again, except that she could dematerialize if she felt like it now and her parents had already asked her to do some product modeling.

On the bright side, surreality prevented her from being angry, which was probably the other option. She had, after all, accomplished things here. She was prefect and head girl, had good grades, was sure her RATS had gone pretty well...and since her parents didn't understand what any of her accomplishments meant and couldn't have made use of them even if they had, it all felt sort of...hollow. Of course, she'd do it all again in a heartbeat, if only because the alternative was letting that toe fungus Jeremy Mordue win, but still. After today, she thoroughly planned to never lay eyes on Jeremy again, and unless and until Felipe woke up and got a clue and wanted to be rescued, she had no reason to see or cross paths with Zara again. Which meant she wasn't even going to have anyone on hand to hate properly going forward, probably. Which was seriously weird. It was not normal for someone with her background to lack enemies.

It was, however, more common for someone with her background to lack friends, so she was lucky in that regard. Jessica grinned when she saw Hilda after the dance, though the smile became a little more sentimental after Hilda's abrupt opener.

"Of course," she said. Diamond pendant earrings glittered with the slightest movement of her head, and her hair was elaborately arranged to make sure it didn't obstruct the view of them. Her eyeshadow, eyeliner, and lip stain were all more obvious than usual, and she was dressed in a designer antique pink and silver ballgown. She was pretty sure she and...basically all her friends except Sadie were unlikely matches, for one reason or another, but that just made things more interesting. "Or at least, that's my plan," she added. "Seriously, you're welcome in Atlanta any time, and the more letters the better." It was going to be so weird, just...being with so few people again, at least once they got into the autumn. She was pretty sure she and her family were all going to be super-awkward for far too long.
16 Jessica Hayles Perish the thought. 1442 0 5

Sophia Priory

January 03, 2022 10:16 PM
Ever since the vote about the prefect dance had panned out in a way that didn’t humiliate Sophia and make her look like a complete and total loser, she was feeling a lot better about the ball. They would be doing the group dance rather than the traditional partner dance and she could not be more grateful, both to Hilda who came up with the idea and to whomever had voted for said idea-which she knew had to be more than just herself, her two friends and Gabriel Wilson. She had…strongly encouraged the younger Aladren to vote her way. Still, the four of them were not a majority so Sophia was experiencing a general feeling of good cheer towards her fellow prefects. Of course, some of them probably had voted the other way but she didn’t know who had so she was just going to feel positivity towards nearly everyone. Maybe even Anya, whom she’d always found obnoxious and entitled. Maybe even Jeremy …..whom she’d always found obnoxious and entitled.

Even after the opening dance, she would have her friends to hang out with. That, unlike her potential humiliation regarding it, had never been in doubt. Even before the vote, Sophia had known that she’d at least have that, that she was lucky because some people didn’t have anyone to hang out with, either because their friends had dates and they didn’t or because they just didn’t really have friends to begin with.

Of course, before the vote, even knowing she’d had friends to hang out with the rest of the night…Sophia had totally been focused on the potential humiliation of being the one person without a partner for the opening dance and the fact that she’d be a potential object of ridicule. Of course, it wasn’t like she was ever going to see most of these people ever again, a fact which she had taken a little comfort in, but she still had too much pride to be okay with such things.

And now she didn’t have to worry any more. It was all over, the opening dance, where Sophia had performed just fine, and more importantly, not been the odd one out, as well as just about everything else. Her entire time at Sonora.
She would argue that it had been successful. The seventh year had done well academically, been prefect and most importantly, made friends. Even if her initial interest in two of them was based on something admittedly and regrettably sort of selfish and she’d stumbled onto the third by chance. Which was arguably how friendships generally happened. Sophia didn’t think anyone went into Sonora knowing who they’d end up friends with or even knew early on how things would pan out.

The Aladren joined her friends and Hilda, never one to beat around the bush, in a way that came across as part of her charm rather than as being rude, asked if they would stay friends. Jessica agreed and then Sophia put in, beaming “Absolutely! You guys can come to Madison too, we even have German restaurants. I mean, they’re probably at least partially American-ized but it’s…something.” Well, some of them might be authentic, there were restaurants for other foreign food that seemed to be. “I mean, Atlanta probably does too.” Of course, the best way for them to get authentic German food was probably to actually visit Johana Leonie in Germany.
11 Sophia Priory Indeed 1447 0 5

Hilda Hexenmeister

January 07, 2022 8:09 AM
Hilda was relieved when both Jessica and Sophia were quick to reassure her that they would stay in touch and they were welcome to visit them at their homes. "You can also to Utah come," she invited them to be politely reciprocal, but added the caveat, "But we have many snakes." Hilda did not particularly like the snakes and she doubted her friends were any more keen to have hundreds of them around them either. "And no Restaurants. Utah is hot and boring. Atlanta and Madison are better." She didn't even have a nearby town or city to give them, and could only generally name her home by its entire state. It was just their ranch in the middle of the badlands.

As she thought toward the future, and visiting her friends, she couldn't help but think of the other things that would be happening now that Sonora was basically over. "I told you, yes, I have Quiddich money to go College?" There was a word that started with S for what that Quidditch money was called, but she couldn't remember it. She just knew a school was going to pay her tuition so she'd play Quidditch for them, which kind of seemed like an awesome arrangement to her. "I study DADA." If her plans to become a professional beater didn't pan out, she thought she might try to be an Auror, but she was hopeful that her first choice would work out.
1 Hilda Hexenmeister This is good. 1433 0 5

Jessica Hayles

January 10, 2022 1:02 PM
Jessica beamed at Sophia as she, too, confirmed that they were all still going to be friends after tomorrow. Of their little group, she thought Sophia was probably the least likely to have ended up here - Sophia, after all, belonged to the same social class as Jeremy Mordue, who was...Jessica didn't even know how to describe Jeremy Mordue. She could get her head around someone who thought socially unacceptable things - she was from Georgia, for heaven's sake, and she lived among politicians. Some of her grandpa's colleagues, present and past, were absolutely vile. She could not, however, get her head around someone who just that blatantly said the quiet parts out loud.

Still - she'd never have to see that jerk again, or anyone who'd presume to talk to her like that again if she didn't want to. Mr. Rowe had suggested magical politics for her, but Jessica found it hard to imagine getting bored enough to deal with the nightmare of endlessly frustrated efforts that were apparently the life of someone like her who got into politics here. Admittedly, money could talk, but...She was happy enough to have gotten a few good friends who didn't customarily wear their rectums for hats out of this. Because way too many witches and wizards were apparently congentially incapable of removing their heads from those orifices, and it was to Sophia's credit that she apparently wasn't one of them.

"Absolutely," she agreed. "And we probably do in Atlanta, yeah," she added, "but Helen - that's another city - probably does it better. It's the weirdest little place, I think like four hundred people live there, but people visit there almost as much as they do Atlanta. Plus, it's close to start parks and some really good scenery."

Plus, well, if we're rating pseudo-Bavarian bakeries, I'm not as likely to have to explain Mara....

She did not allow herself a glance in her sister's direction. She'd disapproved of Mara coming to the ball with the Jackson kid, and Mara knew this; there had been sharp words exchanged, as Mara had...Jessica didn't even know. Her best guess was that Mara had been insulted by the idea that she couldn't handle Zara by herself if the psycho tried to make trouble, and even though that was kind of a thing - there were so many reasons why it would be worse for Mara to do it - it also so, so wasn't even the point....

She didn't want to think about that, though, and had plenty of things to distract her. "Yeah, that's so awesome," she said to Hilda's news. "Not just everyone gets an athletic scholarship, so, you're probably the class rock star with that one. You'll have to let us know when your games are, that'll be another chance to get together sometimes, after we all cheer you on."
16 Jessica Hayles I agree. 1442 0 5