Selina Skies
May 27, 2022 8:20 PM
The Fair by Selina Skies
Familiar faces were flooding back onto campus, and Merlin, it was lovely to see them. Some of them were from so long ago that even Selina didn’t know them. Some of them seemed like they’d only be gone for the blink of an eye, and couldn’t possibly have grown and become adults with so many life experiences to share. Not that the fair was strict on meeting any kind of standard. They’d asked for alumni to share something that was important to them, be it a career or a hobby, and to try to make something fun out of it—to make sure it was more of a booth than a presentation.Selina had to admit she’d been skeptical about that, or at least had struggled to see how most careers could be turned into something fun and interactive. Luckily, the alumni were much more creative than she was when it came to that. There was a huge range of fun and interesting activities. Evelyn Stones was working on becoming a play therapist, and (accompanied by Heinrich Hexenmeister) had a tie dye booth which included both magical and non-magical options—and a fancy little explanation about using different methods to achieve the same results, and integrating different parts of your identity being therapeutic, which Selina was sure most students would ignore in favour of just making loud, obnoxious shirts. Andrew Duell had some kind of ride where all the pieces were mechanically joined together—nothing floated, or appeared and disappeared, and the whole thing made strange grinding noises. Selina was well aware that theirs was a culture that encouraged children to play a game where metal balls flew at their heads, so she wasn’t quite sure why she distrusted this machine quite so much. She was telling herself it was educational, and keeping a wary eye on it. Nic Sawyer had hoverboards. That was it. Just straight up hoverboards.
Some of the booths were more obviously career-related, or educational. Jhonice Trevear had kids scrambling around to bring her the best headline from the fair. Dorian Montoir, who had gone into translations and museum archiving, had a booth demonstrating the evolution of various Chinese characters, and the opportunity to try out some calligraphy.
There were also people whose jobs or hobbies naturally fitted in with a fun fair. The Anns’ business was fancy clothes, and they were showcasing that very well by letting people get dressed up and have their pictures taken. Holly Delachene was running pony rides. Alessa Jacobs was giving tarot readings. Jozua Sparks had a fun house that Selina trusted somewhat more than Andrew Duell’s ride, because by the end of his time at Sonora, she had the feeling that Jozua actually exploded things on purpose, and so many of them happened around him because he wanted them to. She was trusting that he had enough sense not to explode her students. At least, not very much.
For entertainment, Saul Pierce was doing magic tricks. Selina wasn’t entirely sure whether these were the novelty non-magical ‘magic’ tricks that some people enjoyed, or fancy stunt magic that the students would still be impressed by in spite of having spells up their own sleeves. He had just said ‘magic tricks’ and she’d said that sounded fine, and moved onto the next thing that needed arranging. There were even some refreshments, as Peyton Priory had baked goods.
The students had all been given tokens to spend, in order to ensure an equal fair experience for everyone. They would have a few hours to look around and enjoy. After they had finished up and been put on the wagons home, the alumni would be treated to a celebratory dinner, which would give them more of a chance to mingle with each other and their former teachers—though Selina was sure they would find plenty of chances for helloes and catch ups throughout the day as well.
OOC: Welcome to the Fair!
You may post your character interacting with any of the booths mentioned. You may assume normal interactions, e.g. having the alumni give you equipment/turns/let you onto the ride etc, but beyond this, please do not write for them.
You may talk to and interact with the alumni, or post with other students.
All alumni activities were submitted by their authors. If you have alumni and would like to post them with a description of their booth, you are free to do so.
Those with alumni here are welcome to post them running their booth, taking a break to catch up with friends, or enjoying the after party.
Subthreads: Reunion by Liesl Brockert
Temple of Doom by Jozua Sparks with Constance Melcher
Not again by Osvaldo Alamilla
Just trying to get through by Lazarus Jareau-Fletcher with Lenny Pierce
Aimless wandering by Iris Cobb with Ian Malone
Baked goods by Wally O'Malley with Valentine Duell
Some of this seems fun. by Esme Brockert with Valentine Duell
Quietly hopeful by Sapphire Brockert
Leggo my LEGOs? by Cole Pierce with Christopher Brockert, Yaniel Ayala Velez
The ride of your life! by Andrew Duell
Me brain hurt by Stanley O'Malley
Nostalgic (Gaming Club member) by Gabriel Wilson with Phil Carson
Almost gone by Anya Delachene with Theo Spurn
Ending on a high note [tag Jasmine] by Ellie Alperton with Jasmine Delachene
Roommate bonding (Tag Rosalynn and/or Lorena) by Isla Brockert with Rosalynn Tellerman
Aftermath by Lavender Brockert
Transitions by Amethyst Brockert
13
Selina Skies
The Fair
26
1
5
Liesl Brockert
May 28, 2022 3:28 PMLiesl Brockert
StudentHouse: Teppenpaw
Year: 7
Written by: Allegra Brockert
Age in Post: 12
Birthday: November 9
Reunion by Liesl Brockert
Liesl could not be more excited! Today was Sonora’s Midsummer fair and Uncle Cory was going to be here. He was going to play his guitar for people and have a simple introductory lesson to the instrument. He was also bringing information on wand making which was totally unrelated to anything having to do with the guitar.However, since Uncle Cory’s main job was to sell wands that Adam Brockert made, it made sense for him to bring something relating to his actual job as Adam was unlikely to come to Sonora and talk to people. Adam could be semi-reclusive. Hence why Uncle Cory did the selling, as he was obviously pretty personable.
The second year felt bad for Gwendolyn though. Even though the Aladren had seemed to accept that her dad was not coming and understand why, Liesl got the impression that she really wanted him to be here. Plus, wand making was like a super cool career as and much as she loved her uncle, Adam was honestly more the expert on it. Of course, Uncle Cory must have picked up something on the subject given he’d been selling them for awhile. Still, people who wanted to learn about wand making should talk to the wand maker. If someone wanted to sell wands, then Uncle Cory was the guy for it.
Still, Liesl was super happy and excited that her uncle was here. She was looking forward to seeing him and introducing him to all her friends. Honestly, it was just too bad though that Hans’ dad wasn’t an alumni. He could have had, like, a snake exhibit. Like a snake petting zoo! Of course, for some baffling reason, most people would not have necessarily been into that. A lot of people were scared of them and she supposed it was probably for the best that people not feel uncomfortable. Besides, the second year would get to meet Mr. Hexenmeister and his snakes soon enough anyway.
Anyway, Uncle Cory wasn’t the only relative of Liesl’s that was here today. Her father’s first cousin, Alessa was here reading tarot cards, Allegra had teamed up with some of their distant relatives to do a crafting booth which included quilting, knitting, crocheting, sewing and simple crafts. Owen and Jemima were doing some sort of writing and illustrating thing. All of these were things Liesl totally wanted to check out along with all the other things that the alumni were doing but seeing her uncle was most important to her so that was what she planned to do first. After that, she’d periodically switch between checking out other things and hanging out with him. Hopefully, Uncle Cory would be able to go on some rides and stuff with her.
She scanned the pitch until she found the man that she was looking for. Once she spotted him, she took off as fast as her shoes would allow her-the sort of shoes that went with her chosen style really did not allow people to run -and threw her arms around him in a big Teppenpaw style hug. “Hi Uncle Cory!” Liesl greeted him.
“Hey pumpkin!” Cory replied, returning his niece’s hug. He had honestly been looking forward to coming to the fair. He knew how much it meant to Liesl for him to be there and he really wanted to spend time with his niece and meet her friends, particularly Hans whom the second year talked about quite a bit. Cory was also hoping to see people from his own school days, although of his friends, only Neal was there. Raúl had pointed out the fact that it would be completely weird and possibly inappropriate for him to come since he was the examiner for the CATS and RATS tests and felt he probably should maintain some professional distance. Also,Raúl hated public speaking and was hypersensitive to pollen which was likely a threat. Obviously Cory didn’t want his friend to do things that made him anxious or put himself in a place where he was going to get sick.
As for Adam, well Cory was his proxy, so to speak. As he often was. Adam didn’t like public speaking any more than Raúl did. So, Cory had brought along brochures and other materials on wandmaking and wandlore in addition to his own guitar stuff. The sort of things that talked about what a person’s wand said about their personality, that kind of thing.
Neal, however, was setting up next to Cory. His booth was basically his collection of desk toys that he’d put enlargement charms on. On the other side of Cory was Alessa and her tarot readings. Liesl waved to Neal and said “Hey Neal,” before turning to her cousin and hugging her too. She turned back to her uncle. “Do you need help with anything?”
“Nope. I’m good.” Cory replied.
Liesl sat down on one of the huge pillows that her uncle had put out, as he began to strum on his guitar. “All right.” She decided to stay there and hang out with him until someone happened to come by for her to hang out with.
11
Liesl Brockert
Reunion
1537
0
5
Jozua Sparks
May 29, 2022 7:03 PM
Temple of Doom by Jozua Sparks
When Jozua Sparks had first stepped onto the Quidditch Pitch of Sonora Academy to set up his booth, it felt like a lifetime had passed since he last stood here. In some ways it had. He'd graduated six years ago. In that time he had attended and graduated University and gotten a Masters in Curse Breaking. He had asked Lily to marry him and she had said yes, and then she'd even said I do a couple years after that when he was about done with schooling. They'd already done a lot of traveling and seen a bunch of the world, and Sonora just seemed so . . . small now.Still, he was glad to be back (temporarily) and even more excited to get to run a . . . well, he'd called it a 'fun house' in his pitch, but it was basically a cursed temple. On the outside, it looked like two story structure with just enough Greek columns and mythology motifs to make it look vaguely temple-like. From the outside, people could see the inside had a maze on the bottom floor, a treasure hoard on the top, a ricketty staircase connecting the two, and a really fun looking slide into soft mat to get down from the treasure room.
Over the top of the entrance, the primary sign read, in large creepy lettering: The Temple of DOOOM! Then, below that, in the same creepy print face, but in a smaller size and in black ink rather than red, it added, Enter At Your Own Risk
Jozua was pretty sure he was making a muggle pop-culture reference to something vaguely appropriate to his career path of curse breaking and adventuring, but he didn't actually have any idea of what that muggle thing was. He just thought it sounded cool, and it also struck the right aesthetic he was looking for.
There were two secondary signs on either side of the entrance to the structure.
The first sign, on the right, read: Not Recommended for students with high anxiety or sensitivity to loud noises, bright flashes, hot bursts of air, beetle swarms, snakes, or fire. Then there was a space and a disclaimer in slightly smaller print: Most effects are illusions only, but they are quite realistic.
To the left of the entrance, the other sign read: Jozua Sparks. Curse Breaker. Graduate of SA32. Teppenpaw. Founder of the Dueling Club. Jozua himself sat in a chair next to the sign listing his qualifications as an alumni, and smiled and waved at anyone who made eye contact with him or seemed interested in his booth.
When someone did approach, he gave his spiel. "Beware the cursed temple of doom! The floors are trapped, the walls are enchanted, the stairs are treacherous, and by Merlin, do not touch the treasures!"
Should anyone actually give him the token to enter, they would find it started with an uneven wooden flooring. If the wrong panel was stepped on (it was marked with an X, but so were all of them, so that wasn't very helpful, and the panel changed when it triggered to one of the other ones, so even Jozua didn't always know what one to avoid without doing some actual curse detecting), a burst of hot air would rush up between the boards. It was harmless, but somewhat startling if you weren't expecting it.
After the trapped floor, there was a maze. If at any time, the explorer happened to touch the walls of the maze, the whole panel would flash a bright light like a mirror catching the sun before fading back to a normal wall. It was dazzling for a moment, but again, harmless. If the same person touched three walls in the maze before making it through, a loud boom of thunder would resound through the whole structure, shaking it ominously, but Jozua was quite sure the whole thing was entirely stable.
Once they passed through the maze, there was a spiral stair well that led up to the second floor. The stairs were treacherous, and would transform into a spiral slide every twenty seconds with no warning, dumping the climber back to the bottom floor if they hadn't made it up all the way to the next floor when it changed. When the did make it to the top, as they passed through the threshold into the treasure room, flames would burst out around them, but they were cold, illusory flames, and they'd go out quickly if they were just calmly patted at, or after ten seconds, whichever came first.
In the treasure room, touching anything that looked treasury - gems, gold statues, coins, jewelry - would result in the item temporarily vanishing and being replaced by an illusion of a coiled snake, or a swarm of beetles, or something equally nasty. After a few seconds, the illusion would poof away and the item would return where it had been. At the other end of the treasure room, there was a fun slide into a crash mat to finish the fun house on a high note of fun.
"Congratulations! Few survive the cursed temple!" Jozua would call out as they land on the mat that is on his other side from the entrance. "You are one of the lucky ones!" Then he'd point to his table of pamplets, and invite, "If you're interested in curse breaking, I've got some information from my university over there." And if they actually took a pamphlet, he'd ask, "Any questions about the coursework or the prerequisites to get into the program or what I do?"
1
Jozua Sparks
Temple of Doom
348
0
5
Osvaldo Alamilla
May 30, 2022 6:26 AM
Not again by Osvaldo Alamilla
This was worse than he had imagined it. If he were a weaker man, he would want to cry. Osvaldo walked slowly through what had until recently been a perfectly conditioned Quiddtich Ptich. He had worked hard throughout the year to make sure the prairie elves had done just the right things to keep it pristine, despite what the kids playing the game did to it every single time there was a game or practice. Now... there was an utter disaster all around him. Why couldn't they have had Tumbleweed host the fair? He was going to have to spend the entire summer again making sure the elves fixed this all up right. That meant no time over the summer for his own experiments.Each and every stand that he passed made it all that much worse. As if the children running amok, tearing up the ground were not bad enough, the 'adults' were making an even bigger mess with their 'contributions' to the fair. Most of them looked to be fairly simple affairs, but would still cause havoc with the grass and ground. Some of them were monstrosities however, monstrosities that he wished he could curse off of the face of the planet. Unfortunately he could not.
The only thing he could do at the moment was to wander about the pitch and grumble under his breath at all the damage that was being caused. It was a terrible curse and he wondered if it wouldn't be better for his overall mental health to just lock himself in his study until this was all over. Unfortunately the weather charms had been acting up again the past few days and it had been made clear to him that they wanted a nice day for the fair. While the thought of this debacle getting rained out was a nice one, it would only make things worse once the pitch turned to mud. Plus, he would look incompetent and that would not do.
2
Osvaldo Alamilla
Not again
1503
0
5
Lazarus Jareau-Fletcher
May 30, 2022 12:11 PM
Just trying to get through by Lazarus Jareau-Fletcher
Since the school had taken a field trip to a zoo, Mom had decided not to attend the fair as an alumni career representative. The students had already been able to get somewhat up close and personal with zoo animals, so that probably would have made Mom’s presence a bit redundant. That was fair, but Lazarus was a bit disappointed. Obviously he wasn’t going to say that, though, because what self-respecting almost-thirteen year old would tell their mommy that they missed her? But it was true. He missed his mom and his dad and his brother.For the most part, Laz had managed to keep to himself all year. He preferred it that way, truly, but it was also kind of sad. Watching everyone else around him forming friendships, having conversations, laughing… he couldn’t help but envy them, at least a little. Lazarus didn’t even know how to laugh anymore. Just like speech, he could not make the sound, and his magical communication book did not have a button for that. He knew he could have his speech therapist add one, but it just felt insincere.
At least there was a pony ride booth. Again, not a sentence a near teen would say out loud, but animals were something of a safe haven for him. They didn’t expect a conversation. So he headed over to that station to get in line.
On his way, though, he bumped into someone. There were just too many dang people at this event! Lazarus knew he was the one at fault, so he quickly flipped to one of the front pages of his book and tapped “SORRY!”, which the book made audible.
12
Lazarus Jareau-Fletcher
Just trying to get through
1548
0
5
Constance Melcher
May 30, 2022 12:29 PM
Not sure what you expect if you ask questions [Tag: Mr. Sparks] by Constance Melcher
Connie’s curious little face lit up under the red lettering of the “DOOOM!” experience. It can’t be that scary if they let children do it, she reasoned with herself. Nonetheless, since there was a disclaimer warning for those who may have sensory issues, she determined immediately that, despite her hope to spend much of the fair time with Theo today, this one was one adventure she would need to go alone.So she tied up her hair and took one step forward. As she approached, the man stationed there gave caution, possibly a generic be-scared message he had worked on. But like most things, this statement did little else but raise questions in Constance’s mind. “Why can’t I touch the treasures?” she asked. “Isn’t that the whole point of adventuring into a treacherous temple?”
She went in boldly regardless of any answer that may have been given and paused to analyze her surroundings. A floor pattern with this many x’s was both tacky and thoroughly unhelpful, she decided after some length of time. When she stepped on what was evidently the wrong one (no warning, quite unfairly), she became immediately glad that she had chosen to venture solo, as the air that rushed from below caught her skirt and ballooned it in an entirely inappropriate manner. She gathered herself, adjusted her ponytail, and carried on.
The maze was a bit less eventful - she felt no inclination to touch the walls around her, so the lightning and thunder effects were quite lost on her. The spiral stairs which decided not to be stairs were at first frustrating, then kind of fun, and then frustrating again, but eventually, she reached their peak.
Here was the treasure! The Aladren reached to touch a particularly shiny trinket, hoping the texture would be smooth and it might make for a nice souvenir for Theo, but alas, it turned to a snake before her, or at least the illusion of one. Connie was not scared of snakes - in fact, she was hardly scared of much anything - and so she flatly pulled her hand back. When the artifact returned, she tried again and was disappointed to receive the same result. So no souvenirs, then. Deciding she was quite finished with this tomfoolery, she exited via the (admittedly super fun) slide down to the crash mat.
The man seemed quite enthusiastic to see that she had escaped, but the effect was slightly lost on her as she reasoned that he must say it to everyone, unless he was comfortable leaving children lost inside his temple indefinitely. She did, however, eagerly reach for a pamphlet, as additional information was Connie’s absolute favorite thing. “Yes, so what exactly do you do then? I can’t imagine it’s all like this, right? What is your typical day like?”
12
Constance Melcher
Not sure what you expect if you ask questions [Tag: Mr. Sparks]
1523
0
5
Aimless wandering by Iris Cobb
So far, Iris was enjoying the fair. She hadn't actually done anything yet, just wandered around taking in all the sights. The one sight she liked best so far, not that she'd admit it to herself or anyone else, was that of Liesl hanging out at one of the booths without Hansel in sight. Iris had nothing against the girl, she was nice and friendly and such. It was just the amount of time she spent with Hansel, it bothered her.On a completely unrelated thought, she hadn't actually spotted Hansel in her wanderings either. She wondered mildly where he was and what he was doing. She tried to tell herself that it didn't really matter, but some part of her still really kinda wanted to know. However she firmly told herself that it didn't really matter, and that if she ran into him it would be nice, but if she didn't that was fine as well, and she really totally believed herself.
Upon completing her circuit of the grounds, Iris decided she'd really better do something to distract herself from... things. The question was what to do? She knew darn well she wasn't getting anywhere close to that 'DOOM' place. Billy would most likely be there and this was her last bit of time that she'd have free of him. She was going to make the most of it.
There was some weird contraption that she wasn't going to get close to. Billy would probably be around that floating board place as well at some point, best avoid it. There were pony rides which didn't look bad, but kinda reminded her of home to much at the moment. She'd be getting plenty of home soon enough. The thing that drew her attention the most was the fancy clothing booth. Now that could be fun, it'd be like the ball all over again. Plus, Billy wouldn't get within 100 feet of the place. Well, unless Ray wanted him to, but that seemed unlikely.
She was making her way that direction when she heard someone call out her name.
2
Iris Cobb
Aimless wandering
1526
0
5
Wally O'Malley
May 30, 2022 7:19 PM
Baked goods by Wally O'Malley
OOC: Approval for Wally to hang around and help Peyton given by her author. BIC:
Despite a fairly loud and strong predisposition from his mother’s side of the family - as most things were on that side - Wally was not much of a fan of Quidditch. It was violent and scary, and he didn’t like heights. So really, he found the Quidditch Pitch overwhelming on a good day. But this fair was like anxiety to the max. There were way, way too many people buzzing about.
His primary comfort was, at least, the sheer magnitude of how many of these alumni were probably related to him somehow. Dad’s family was huge and almost all came to Sonora, so he tried to reason with himself that most of the alumni faces, even the ones he didn’t know, were probably family and therefore probably okay. Of course, there were names of the family tree that were definitely not safe and not okay, but they didn’t really talk about it too much, and it was understood that it wasn’t a present concern in their lives now.
Anyway, Wally’s primary plan was to just pick a spot and station himself there, so he picked Aunt Peyton’s booth. He knew she was coming but forgot to reach out in advance to volunteer himself, so he hoped she wouldn’t mind him just kind of loitering there and asking if he could be of any use. That was the better use of his time, anyway: being helpful, rather than in the way. Then he at least had a mental script in his head for when someone approached.
Like now, for example. “Hi,” he greeted. “What can I get for you?”
12
Wally O'Malley
Baked goods
1492
0
5
Esme Brockert
June 01, 2022 3:01 PM
Some of this seems fun. by Esme Brockert
Esme was sort of looking forward to the fair. It was often one of the better events that Sonora put on. She admittedly enjoyed it better than the ball, to be honest. While of course the Crotalus loved dressing up and dancing, any ball that was put on by the school paled in comparison to the sort that she would be attending for the rest of her life.Especially since the ones that Esme would attend outside of school were with, well, people more like her. Last year, it seemed like everyone of a certain age was paired off and her and her relatives were left out. So it wasn’t just that they didn’t have dates-which was to be expected given the current lack of purebloods of their social status-it was that everyone else had been busy with theirs, and that left nobody to really talk to or dance with or anything. So, what fun was that?
Besides, the fair had a certain…novelty to it. Esme would attend many balls over her life but she may or may not get to go to any more fairs. Plus, they weren’t even the same as the previous ones. The last school fair had been a charity fair where the students raised money for various causes and had put together their own booths for it. This one seemed to be more of an alumni career and hobby fair so students hadn’t had to put anything together at all. Esme could see the benefits of both, depending on what someone liked to do.
Although both did seem a little…cobbled together in terms of the type of activities involved. This one seemed to have as many sorts of making or doing things as it did games and rides. Some of these activities appealed to her more than others. For example, the sixth year was naturally more interested in the booths where they could do crafts than, say,the fun house type thing with that had the word doom involved. Generally, she preferred more refined things and besides, nobody needed to do anything involved with doom when Topaz Brockert was their cousin. They got quite enough of it, thank you very much!
Esme headed off towards where her sister Allegra was with some of their distant relations, at a booth that involved quilting and sewing and embroidery and other similar crafts. These were generally the sorts of things she enjoyed and of course, she wanted to greet her sister, before going on to say hello to Cory and Alessa. However, before she could make it there, someone approached her. “Oh, hello.” She greeted them.
11
Esme Brockert
Some of this seems fun.
1479
0
5
Valentine Duell
June 01, 2022 5:39 PM
I'm enjoying it more than last time. by Valentine Duell
It would be a while before Val learned how she had done with her CATS, and longer still before she graduated and started doing life things. Still she knew that proper preparation was key to having a plan work out favorably. To that end, she planned to meet with the Alumni at the fair that sold wands and see what she could learn.The fair itself was a bit of an odd experience for her. It had been her first end of year event, and now it was here again. She could remember the terrible problem she'd had as a first year. All of the charity money Mama and Papa had given her had gone to buying a quilt for her newly rediscovered Aunt Giselle. She hadn't even had any money left over for snacks. It had been terrible! Now she could laugh at the memory of her own poor first year antics, even though it hadn't been much fun at the time. Aunt Giselle had liked the quilt, and still had it on her bed, so that was good.
At the moment, Val was seeing what this particular fair had to offer, and who was about enjoying it. She knew Papa was around somewhere with some sort of mechanical monstrosity of a ride. She'd need to find him and try it out at some point. He'd started designing it as soon as he'd heard about the fair. While she was anxious to see her parents again, she would have all summer with them. Now was the last chance she would have to see her school friends for a while, so she was looking for them.
Valentine spotted Esme strolling through the fair as well and it occurred to her that she hadn't interacted with the slightly older girl in quite a while. It was well past time to fix that. In a moment She was by Crotalus with a friendly smile in response to the greeting. "Hi Esme!" She cheered, "How are you doing? Anything here catch your eye yet?"
2
Valentine Duell
I'm enjoying it more than last time.
1490
0
5
Sapphire Brockert
June 01, 2022 5:43 PM
Quietly hopeful by Sapphire Brockert
Sapphire’s time at Sonora had come to an end and she could not be happier. She was finally free of this place once and for all. She never again would have to see any of these people who made her feel so lousy and unwanted. Nor would the Crotalus ever have to try to deal with dry,boring, complicated magical theory ever ever again. She wouldn’t have to sit there and try to listen to something that bored and confused her and made her feel like a complete idiot, at least she really hoped not.Not that that meant Sapphire was not still worried about how she had done on her RATS. True, she had made it through without having a seizure or vomiting on anyone-which was good, considering that her RATS examiner was not nearly as nice as Mr. Barba had been- but that did not mean that she had done well on them. The practical part had gone fine-minus the part where she’d had a less than pleasant examiner- but there were a lot of questions that had been…difficult on the written part.
Although, not as many as she had expected. There were more questions that Sapphire understood than she had thought that there would be. Of course, that would likely have been the case if there had only been one question that made sense to her. Her expectations on this matter had been pretty low.
Which arguably was the story of Sapphire’s life. She generally did not expect things to go well for herself, even though she always secretly hoped they would. Emphasis on secretly, because she was much too paranoid to allow anyone to know that she felt hopeful. Sapphire had been conditioned ever since she could remember that if she let on that she was, Topaz would do her very best to make sure that Sapphire stopped doing that.
Still, right now, she couldn’t help but feel things might improve just a little. In fact, she actually knew that was the case because regardless of whether or not she ever found a place where she belonged and people who might accept her, there was at least that possibility now and at least she wouldn’t have the daily struggle that she felt when it came to academics.
And for now, Sapphire was going to focus on that.
11
Sapphire Brockert
Quietly hopeful
1459
0
5
Lenny Pierce
June 01, 2022 6:34 PMLenny Pierce
StudentHouse: Teppenpaw
Year: 6
Written by: Nathan
Age in Post: 11
Birthday: September
Get through what? by Lenny Pierce
Lenny had lost Cole somewhere in the crowd, but they hadn't exactly been trying to stay together. His 'twin' had wanted to find his Dad (one of the Derries, Lenny knew by previous conversation, but he'd never met a Derry before, and it might give away the fiction that he and Cole were brothers if 'their' dad greeted Lenny like they had never met before in their lives and was only now being introduced to his own son), and Lenny wanted to find his (which would have had the same problem if Cole had still been around), so when something had caught his attention (The Temple of DOOOOM) and he'd wandered over to look at it, without telling Cole where he was going, he wasn't too surprised that when he turned back, Cole wasn't behind him anymore.The Temple had eaten one of his tokens, and the slides had been totally worth it, but now he was looking around trying to find his family. Dad was supposed to be doing magic tricks somewhere around here - they'd said booths not presentations, but he suspected Dad was doing short performances any time he had an audience of at least one (whether or not they handed over a token). It wasn't going to be anything Lenny hadn't seen before - and he could do most of the card tricks and some of the vanishing ribbon tricks himself already - but he did want to at least say hello and see if Mom or Jose or Ginger had come along with him. Ginger had been debating it, he knew, and if she was there, juggling was a thing that would happen and Lenny wanted to impress some of his friends with his ability to do that.
Before he found the California Pierce booth though, someone bumped into him, and he caught his wide brimmed sun hat before it could fall. It was basically summer and very sunny out here, so he'd thought it was a good idea to wear a light bit of shade to go with his pale lavender sundress.
"Oh, no problem! No harm done!" he promised when the mute kid in his class used his book to say sorry. "Have you seen the magician yet? He's my dad, and I'm trying to find his booth. Awesome muggle slight-of-hand tricks, and he's got some really cool spells, too, that look very fancy! Should be a good show!" he encouraged, used to drumming up interest in passersby for the family's Renaissance Faire shows. He doubted they were getting paid by the token, but you never knew.
1
Lenny Pierce
Get through what?
1547
0
5
Esme Brockert
June 02, 2022 3:59 PM
I'm glad to hear it. by Esme Brockert
OOC: CW-Briefly mentions abuse BIC:
Esme smiled at Val, whom she considered one of her closer friends at Sonora. Not that Val was as close to her as she was to other people but the sixth year was generally okay with that. In all honesty, it was amazing to her that the Teppenpaw was able to keep up with so many people. She sort of wondered how Val did it.
It was something that Esme would probably have to do when she left Sonora, because she was bound to become a socialite and while she didn’t have that many friends at school, and nobody besides her relatives, and somewhat Val and Sadie really, she really did believe she was going to be decent at being one-and, while it felt somewhat mean to say it, probably better at it than her sisters. Allegra was painfully shy and was pretty much an abuse victim, and Isla was…Isla. She was different. Esme loved them both dearly but neither of them was really the socialite type.
Actually come to think of it, this was true of a lot of her relatives.Sapphire was very similar to Allegra for the same reasons. Emerald wasn’t exactly a social butterfly.Topaz…well, Esme supposed that Topaz could pretend and act like one if she needed to. Actually, now that the Crotalus thought about it, Topaz could probably play the society games quite well, being what a rotten manipulative little monster that the Aladren alumna was. Aside from that though, the only ones Esme thought would make decent socialites were Amethyst-Amethyst seemed born for that more than her siblings-and possibly Alma and Liesl’s younger sister Krisalyn. Ruby also seemed to do well enough at it. Esme was still unsure about Libby and it was much too early to figure out how well Ella and Lorelei would do. Liesl was possibly worse than Isla.
And the Crotalus had her doubts about the boys. Christopher was damaged by how vile Uncle Eustace was, similar to Allegra and Sapphire with Topaz. Miles was extremely shy and Olaf was like a mini-Grandfather.
However, Angelique was the best at it of all of them. Angelique had pulled herself up after her “disastrous”-her words- time at Sonora, which was totally not her fault at all. She had just been in a “bad situation”-also her words. Angelique could be more than a tad dramatic about her “absolutely tragic” (yes, also her words) situation at Sonora. In a different world, maybe she would have been an actress.
Val, the sixth year thought, was a little like Ruby. They were both really nice and friendly, and quite social. Okay, her cousin was “quite” social, and Val was extremely social. Val, if she was a pureblood, might do well at being a socialite as she was possibly the most social person that Esme knew.
“My sister Allegra is over there doing quilting and my cousin Ruby is doing flower arrangement with some of our other more distant cousins at some sort of combination crafting booth. It has various forms of activities such as knitting, sewing, embroidery, crochet and some simple crafts.” Esme replied, smiling at the Teppenpaw. “It might not be as exciting as some of the other things, like that…doom thing, but it’s more my style. Plus, of course I want to say hello to my sister and cousin.”
“I also should go over to say hello to some of my other cousins too. My father’s cousin Alessa is doing tarot readings and his cousin Cory is over there playing guitar and giving small introductory lessons. I think he also has information about wand making since his actual job is selling wands for the Brockert family heir, Adam who makes them.” She looked at Val. “ Do you want to do any of that? If you want to hang out we can do both that and something else you want to do. I’ll even try the activities I’m not that interested in if it’s what you want to do” Even though Esme was generally okay with the fact that Val was hanging out with others often, that didn’t mean that she didn’t relish a chance to hang out with the Teppenpaw. “Oh and my cousin Owen and his wife Jemima have some sort of writing and illustrating thing that I want to try.” She really wanted to support all her relatives that were here.
11
Esme Brockert
I'm glad to hear it.
1479
0
5
Cole Pierce
June 02, 2022 7:09 PM
Leggo my LEGOs? by Cole Pierce
Cole had been following Lenny around the fair for the first little while but then between one moment and the next, his ersatz twin brother was gone. He spent a minute or two looking for him, but the longer haired Pierce was nowhere to be found. Cole shrugged and decided Lenny would turn up again when he wanted to be found. In the meantime, he went riding on a flying horse around the pitch, and that was definitely not something you got to do in Boston.Soon after that, he discovered the booth his parents had set up. Dad was a first grade teacher and Mom was a potion mistress, and together they had a booth decorated with posters of the alphabet letters paired with different potion ingredients. (A is for Aconite! B is for Bezoar!)
Dad wore a name tag that read, *Hi! My Name is Derry! Teppenpaw, Muggle School Teacher*. Mom's said, *Hi! My Name is Reggie! Teppenpaw, Potions Mistress*
"Hey, kiddo!" Dad called out as he spotted his son. As Cole got closer, he looked at the colorful items that covered the booth's surface and raised an eyebrow. Dad shrugged. "Since everyone here already knows how to read, and you're all taking potions as a class, we didn't think brewing or a reading lesson would go over as particularly fun. So. LEGOS. It uses building blocks and improves cognitive development and fine motor control for first graders, and you're adding ingredients in a particular order to get a final product like in potions."
"You want to make something? We've got a few different recipes," Mom tempted, holding out a few instruction booklets on how to make some LEGO creations of varying levels of difficulty.
"Sure," Cole agreed, accepting the one that would give him a biplane by the time he was done. "Are these my LEGOs?"
"Well, yes, most of them," Mom admitted. "We didn't think you would mind. And we didn't know how many people we'd have at a time, so we did get some more. You'll get to keep those, too."
"Cool."
He was partway through building his biplane when he saw someone he knew walk near the booth. He waved the plane over his head to get their attention and called out, "Hey, have you played with LEGOs before? This is my Mom and Dad."
1
Cole Pierce
Leggo my LEGOs?
1546
0
7
Christopher Brockert
June 03, 2022 7:28 PM
You don't want me to use them? by Christopher Brockert
OOC: CW- Brief mention of misogyny and toxic masculinity BIC:
Chris was never sure if he was happy to be going home or not. Of course he wanted to see his parents and little sister again but at school, regardless of whether or not he was completely comfortable with anyone but his cousins and decidedly Verdillia, he did not have to worry about being around Uncle Eustace. At school, even though he was wary of most people,nobody actually bothered him the way his uncle did. Even the very sporty Pecari types did not because Christopher did not seem to be on their radar.
Also, even though he was still incredibly wary of them, he did not want to assume they were completely like his uncle. That would not be fair. Uncle Eustace was a complete monster and to be honest, Chris wanted to believe that there weren’t a lot of people like him. Still, he was afraid that people with similar traits would still make fun of him. Although, it did not seem as if any of the Pecaris or the Quidditch players around his age were all that mean. Well, of the third years, Ray was someone who gave him extreme pause but Xavier seemed to be in his own little world where nobody seemed to matter to him except possibly Oz and Alexei was actually all right. He and Amethyst were friends and if he was a Pecari that Amethyst liked, he could not be too terrible. Chris wasn’t exactly sure what to make of Tissena either but Fortune and Xander didn’t really seem mean so maybe he didn’t have to worry about them too much, although they probably did not have much in common.
So maybe school was the better place for him. Most of the people that the Crotalus was most inclined to be afraid of were either not terrible bullying types or he wasn’t on their radar. Which was how Christopher liked things. Well, sort of. He truly did want to make friends but he was generally terrified to put himself out there. He still didn’t want to be the center of attention. He was never going to be the flashy type. That just was not him.
Still, he needed to suppress his anxiety over having to put up with his uncle at least for today. Chris very much wanted to just enjoy the fair, it sounded like it was going to be a lot of fun. Some of his relatives were here, including his cousins Allegra and Ruby at a crafting booth. Which he might try just to support them even though it was “girly” stuff like quilting. Christopher didn’t think they would tell Uncle Eustace as they both preferred not to talk to him. In fact, Allegra was completely afraid of him even though Topaz was the one to torment her. The Crotalus alumna was possibly even more skittish around horrible people than he was.There were just people out there that made you shrivel up inside yourself and both he and Allegra (and some other relatives of his) were especially sensitive to that.
And anyway, their uncle was the sort who didn’t think women or children should speak to him unless he spoke to them first-and of course, if he did, they must respond. Fortunately for the girls, he rarely felt the need to do so. It was likely horrible for Aunt Helena though and would someday be so for Honora too.
There were also a few other relatives there that he would go over to support and say hi to as well.
However, before Christopher got the chance to do that, Cole Pierce waved him over to a booth…where there seemed to be sets of blocks. The Crotalus couldn’t help but grin. This seemed to be right up his alley. He approached the first year. “Not exactly, I’ve worked with something similar though.” He assumed that these LEGOs were similar to some of the magical brands of blocks that he had played with.
Christopher remembered his manners then and turned to Cole's parents. "Hello, I'm Christopher Brockert, of the Western Brockerts. Pleased to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Pierce.
11
Christopher Brockert
You don't want me to use them?
1539
0
5
Valentine Duell
June 04, 2022 6:16 PM
How about you? by Valentine Duell
Valentine was glad to see Esme smile at her in response to her salutation. To be fair though, Val was usually glad when people smiled in general. Real smiles anyway, fake smiles were terrible things. She listened attentively as Esme went through her list of relations that were here contributing to the fair. This was only a small part of the Brockert family, the other year she had tried to map out the family tree and had gotten awful lost and confused along the way. The Teppenpaw readily admitted she was rather envious of such an extended family. Her own was only three aunts (only one of which she got to see regularly) and one tiny baby cousin. There was also potential for a semi-unconfirmed uncle... but not really? Aunt Jhonice was here as well, maybe she would have to ask her about it if she remembered. Papa hadn't been very clear when she'd asked him last, she suspected he wasn't sure what to make of the situation either."That sounds fine to me." Valentine responded. "At the last fair I bought a quilt from the booth that Allegra and Caitlin were running. It was really nice, I gave it to Aunt Giselle and she still has it on her bed." Val nodded in agreement about Esme saying hi to her family. "I'll need to see some family as well. Papa's got some sort of ride contraption that I'll need to go on, Mama is there helping him. Aunt Jhonice has some sort of journalism stand set up, and Mr. Sawyer has some of his hoverboards here." She still wanted to figure out how he exactly fit in, 'Mr. Sawyer' just seemed like an odd way to refer to her cousin's father. Waitaminute...
Val turned to Esme with an excited gleam in her eye. "Aunt Jhonice and Mr. Sawyer are both here, that means Ramona probably is as well! Do you want to meet my baby cousin? She's adorable!"
"You know the wandmaker? Or.. the wandseller?" Val asked as Esme mentioned Cory and Adam. "I had heard they were going to be here, and did want to talk to them a bit." She sighed a small sigh, "Assuming my CATS come back okay, I'd like to pursue wandmaking, and it sounds like I need to find someone to apprentice under. I thought talking to someone that had gone through the process already might be nice."
OOC: Mama's (Marissa's) actions approved by her author
2
Valentine Duell
How about you?
1490
0
5
Andrew Duell
June 04, 2022 7:04 PM
The ride of your life! by Andrew Duell
Andrew was quite excited about this whole Alumni fair idea. The moment he'd heard about it, he had gone to work on designs. It had been a bit since he'd had a 'fun' project to work on that wasn't work related. He was officially in spell development with an unofficial focus on 'finding better ways of doing things that Muggle devices did.'His initial plan for the fair had been a hybrid version of the tea cup ride. However that had proved rather difficult and was better suited for bunches of small groups of people. He suspected that instead he might get single riders or small groups. So he needed something smaller and simpler.
Andrew stood at the fair with the loveliest assistant in the world, Marissa, in front of a bit of a mechanical, magical monstrosity. The stand had the full schematics, diagrams and spell formulas that made up the ride. While it naturally wasn't approved by any government body, it was perfectly safe. It had to be, his daughter would probably ride in it. He was happy to go over any aspect of the machine’s design; how the charms were put in place, how the muggle motors worked, how he got them some charms to run them instead of gasoline, all of the safety charms in place, gearing ratios, or anything else about it.
It was, in the simplest terms, a bench for two to three people encased in a metal safety cage. The cage was attached to a short arm that connected to a pivoting central drive that would spin the riders around in a circle. There were a few charmed control levers the riders could move to adjust the speed of rotation, height from the ground, and length of the arm. That way the riders could control the type of ride they wanted, from nice and calm or wild and crazy.
"Come on over and give the latest sensation a whirl! If you'd like to ride, my lovely wife will help get you seated, strapped in and explain the controls. If you'd like to learn more about it, feel free to examine the diagrams I've got here and ask whatever questions you have."
OOC: Marissa's assistance approved by her author
2
Andrew Duell
The ride of your life!
145
0
5
Lazarus Jareau-Fletcher
June 04, 2022 7:37 PM
*gestures vaguely at everything* by Lazarus Jareau-Fletcher
Sonora was an odd place in that it seemed to be almost expected that everyone was odd. Lenny Pierce had, of course, had an entire school year to adjust to the way Lazarus communicated, but given the rarity with which Laz did so when he could help it, it did still surprise him when people here weren’t especially taken aback by it.Lazarus found it a bit odd that there would be a magician at a fair for magical kids, but the concept did make him curious. The guy - Lenny’s dad - had to be either especially good at them, or incredibly lame with his Muggle “magic” tricks. No in between. “No”, he answered in his fashion.
He glanced around but ultimately wasn’t sure which direction to try, but he did want to find that magic booth now. And since Lenny obviously did too, it made sense to work together and double their efforts. “Can I come with you?” he asked. That question wasn’t on the first page, because it wasn’t a preset phrase he anticipated needing too much. Still, this place was full of surprises, so he might have to reorganize his phrases before next term rolled around. More advanced work probably meant more necessary interaction, and he supposed he had to be prepared.
12
Lazarus Jareau-Fletcher
*gestures vaguely at everything*
1548
0
5
Valentine Duell
June 04, 2022 7:45 PM
Everything looks so yummy. by Valentine Duell
There was no way she couldn't. Val just had to. She'd seen Wally at the bake stand earlier and knew she would have to come back and see how he was doing, she knew this was not much of a 'Wally-type event'. So as she approached she gave him a warm but still mischievous smile. There was a glint in her eyes to go with it. She had a thought of sauntering up to Wally and leaning in over the counter close to him and telling him that she was wanted... well, something other than baked goods, just to have some fun with him.She couldn't though. He just looked so darned uncomfortable as it was, she couldn't make it worse for him, that would just be mean and she didn't want to be mean. Still, that didn't mean she couldn't flirt a bit right? That was what boyfriends were for, right?
"Hi!" she responded back cheerily enough. Her eyes ran over all of the items the table had for sale before returning to Wally. "I think I'm in the mood for something sweet, do you have any suggestions?" There was just the slightest hint in her voice that she may not be talking about any of the baked goods. "How is the stand doing?" She inquired just in case he didn't want to take the bait, which frankly she didn't think he would. That didn't seem like a very good question, after today she wasn't going to see him again for a few months, "I'm going to miss you... do you have anything planned for the summer?"
2
Valentine Duell
Everything looks so yummy.
1490
0
5
Stanley O'Malley
June 04, 2022 7:54 PM
Me brain hurt by Stanley O'Malley
So fifth year was stupid and they had to take these huge tests at the end of the year before they got to have any fun. During the tests, Stanley had been pretty sure his brain was going to explode. Fortunately, it had not, but he definitely still felt a headache panging behind his eyes every time he tried to read anything. That was super inconvenient when he was trying to see what the heck was going on at the fair, and it was, like, why didn’t he have somebody to just read stuff for him?Oh, right, because Wally was being a total lame-o and hiding at Aunt Peyton’s bake sale. Not that the bake sale was lame, but Stanley wanted Wally to come out and hang out with him. But the Pecari didn’t push, because he was trying really hard to be better about not steamrolling his brother and actually letting Wally do what he wanted to do and say what he needed to say. After the time they spent not really speaking, Stanley had learned a lot about what it really meant to be a good brother. He kinda sucked at it, honestly, but he was trying really hard now.
Respecting Wally’s boundaries meant going solo through the fair, though, which was lame. He meant to make plans with Tommy or Theo or somebody, but then he was too brain-sore from the big dumb tests and forgot. That one was on the school board, really.
He was strolling along, slouching as he walked with two hands stuffed in his jeans pockets. “Hey,” he called to a random passerby going in the opposite direction. “Anything cool down that way?”
12
Stanley O'Malley
Me brain hurt
1491
0
5
Gabriel Wilson
June 04, 2022 8:16 PM
Nostalgic (Gaming Club member) by Gabriel Wilson
Gabriel could not believe his penultimate year at Sonora was over and next year would be his last. He was still not entirely sure what he wanted to do with his life but hopefully he would figure it out while he was in college. There were so many different things that the Aladren was interested in, but no particular thing that he could do for a career.Fortunately, Gabriel had continued on with all of his classes after CATS aside from Defense-he had not been able to decide what else to drop and so, chose to keep them all because they were all so interesting- and was doing well in all of them. Between that and his family connections, Gabriel would probably be able to go to whatever school he wanted. He was pretty sure that he would do well on his RATS too. He wasn’t trying to be arrogant about it but like, learning stuff and remembering trivia was sort of his thing. It didn’t make him better than anyone else, it was just what the Aladren liked and was good at.
However, while Gabriel was excited about all the things that he would learn in college, admittedly the social aspect was a bit more challenging. Here at Sonora, he had not only his cousins and now his little sister, but the gaming group. Maybe he was not super close to all of the others in the gaming club, but there was just a sense of camaraderie, of belonging to a group that was together by choice, rather than by blood. Although of course, Gabriel enjoyed and appreciated his family too.
In college, though, he would have to start all over. He wouldn’t have the gaming group that he had now, and probably not even a place to play these games which he would also miss. Gabriel generally somewhat missed his characters when they moved on to a new game so he was definitely going to miss the games themselves and the people he was playing them with, some more than others. And Gabriel probably wouldn’t have his cousins either so he’d be pretty much alone, starting from scratch, not even having the sense of identity and belonging that would come with being in a certain major since unless he came up with something within the next year, he was going to end up Undeclared.
The sixth year Aladren gazed out around the pitch at all the fair booths and attempted to banish these thoughts from his head. He was looking forward to the fair, it was decidedly one of the events he liked best. Even though Gabriel had had fun at the ball with Morgan last year, they weren’t really his thing generally speaking. Which was unfortunate given his social status in the magical world.
And the concert was downright lie . Calling it a concert was such a misnomer when there was no music involved! Gabriel hoped this would be rectified next year. After all, he thought next year might be when the Challenges were if his calculations were correct and they decided to continue the tradition. So it would be so much easier to have a popular magical band come in than have the students doing performances. Or they should really just change the name of it to the “Midsummer Show” to make it more accurate.
Anyway, Gabriel couldn’t help but remember the last time they had the fair and he had helped Heinrich with his booth. The former Aladren was one of the people he had spotted and he would have to go say hi to him later (and to Evelyn too, the sixth year supposed, since she and Heinrich were here together. He had never been quite sure if she liked him very much,but Gabriel was not about to be rude, having politeness ingrained in him since a very early age.) He didn’t see Gary anywhere though and that was kind of disappointing as he was hoping to catch up with the Aladren alum.
He also knew that his cousins Serena and Kira were coming. The latter was having people do projects where they made moving toys using mechanical transfiguration and the former, who was married to a Livililian prince, was doing a photo-op/ autograph signing thing. Gabriel had every intention of doing Kira’s thing but while he was going to say hello to Serena of course, he didn’t really need to have his picture taken with her since she was his cousin. He already had plenty of pictures with her in them.
The sixth year looked around. Thinking of how he was going to graduate and not have Gaming Club anymore and of Gary and Heinrich and Evelyn made him want to seek out one of his fellow gamers. Spotting one such person, he approached. “Hey, want to hang out for a bit?” Gabriel asked.
11
Gabriel Wilson
Nostalgic (Gaming Club member)
1481
0
5
Wally O'Malley
June 04, 2022 8:44 PM
It's all quite sweet. by Wally O'Malley
Wally had his script so rehearsed in his mind that it wasn’t even until after his generic line had left his lips that he realized he was addressing his girlfriend, Valentine. Yep, that was a thing that had happened somehow. She wasn’t only his girlfriend, as she was still also dating Bonabelle, which he didn’t super love, but, hey, it meant he got to spend extra time with her, so he accepted it on whatever conditions he had to take.He wasn’t necessarily the best at picking up on implications in tones, especially from girls that were way out of his league but somehow still gave him the time of day, but he did get the vague feeling that Valentine was not exclusively asking about the desserts available. In his weird little mind, he still had to try to be professional here, so he didn’t verbally acknowledge it, but a slight rosy hue did develop in his cheeks.
“I think we’re doing pretty well. People seem to really like everything,” he conversed. “Peyton’s really good at baking. This one’s my favorite, though,” he said, gesturing to one of the nearby confections.
“I’m going to miss you…”
The words struck a chord in him, a shot of both heat and cold that pounded against his chest. “I’ll miss you too,” he echoed genuinely. “I don’t think we have any big plans or anything, so maybe you could come visit, or I could come visit, or… well, we can probably figure something out. And we’ll write.” He gave a weak but reassuring smile. “It’ll be okay.”
12
Wally O'Malley
It's all quite sweet.
1492
0
5
Esme Brockert
June 05, 2022 2:01 AM
I'm also enjoying myself. by Esme Brockert
OOC: CW-Some old fashioned attitudes about out of wedlock births BIC:
“Really?” Esme replied. “It was most likely Allegra who made that quilt. It’s her favorite hobby and she’s made them for pretty much a lot of people in our family for gifts. Like she’s made baby blankets for our youngest brother and all our little cousins that are more closely related to us, not just our first cousins but my dad’s cousin’s children, and she made quilts for wedding gifts for the ones who got married too.” Emerald, Ruby, Owen and Angelique and their spouses had all gotten quilts from Allegra.
Esme looked at Val. “She would probably appreciate hearing how your aunt liked the quilt.” It would be good for Allegra to receive a compliment. The Crotalus alumna did not have great self esteem. Everyone in their family seemed to like the quilts-even Miles was super attached to the baby blanket that Allegra had made him-but they were family . Somehow, people assumed that family had to be nice and compliment you whether they meant it or not. Never mind that that theory was easily disproved by the fact that the sixth year would never compliment Topaz or Uncle Eustace on anything.
“I take it that Mr. Sawyer is your aunt’s boyfriend?” Esme asked. Having a baby before you got married was…a tad unorthodox and not something that the Crotalus would ever want to do personally. It just sounded so…difficult. Like you would likely have to struggle without support and for someone like her there would certainly be some who would judge her harshly and shame her family for it. It might seem…wrong somehow to some, but Esme really did take pride in her family name and would not want to do anything to tarnish it. Besides, they might feel pressured to cast her out to maintain their standing whether or not they wanted to and she genuinely loved most of them and would not want to lose them. So, no, having a baby out of wedlock was not something that she would ever want to do.
Still, if it worked for them and they were happy, well, Esme was not going to look down on them for it, because it didn’t sound like they were really hurting anyone. “I suppose we can try some of those things too.” She replied.
The next thing Val said made her smile. “I’d love to meet her. My cousin Alessa just had a baby a few months ago too, but I don’t think she brought him or his older brother. Nor is my cousin who’ll be in your cousin’s class here either.” After all there was no reason at all for Honora to show up. Aunt Helena was not an alumna and Uncle Eustace was not here, thank Merlin. Even if he was here, he certainly would not have brought the daughter he didn’t want.
Esme nodded. “Yeah the guy who makes them is Adam, the great-grandson of the Brockert family patriarch. I sort of know him.” It was a big family and they weren’t that closely related nor were they close in age. “And because he’s on the shy side, my dad’s first cousin Cory does the selling. He’s fairly personable.” She looked around, spotting Cory strumming his guitar while Liesl sat on a giant pillow nearby “It looks like he's the one here, not Adam.” Which from what she knew of Adam was pretty much to be expected. “
She spotted someone else though, which made her add “Although I do see Adam’s brother Evan. He seems to have some sort of…experimental art thing.” Evan was an artist who tended to make things that were on the abstract side.
11
Esme Brockert
I'm also enjoying myself.
1479
0
5
Yaniel Ayala Velez
June 05, 2022 6:03 AM
I'll be in my corner, making no sound, pretending I don't exist by Yaniel Ayala Velez
The fair was a pretty cool idea. Even a cursory glance around showed that there were a lot of interesting things that Sonora’s alumni did with their lives. Yarielis was keen to try out the rides, and definitely the hoverboards, but was waiting for the crowds to die down a little first.It was also just habit to be cautious with money. Or, in this case, the small metal tokens they had been given representing money. They each had a pretty generous pile, and it was probably more a token effort to slow them down and stop them bombarding stall holders than anything else, but even with pretend money, the first year felt the need to be responsible, and to get a good look at everything before making decisions. There was a baking stall, which just made the first year homesick, even though the goods for sale likely had an exactly zero overlap with home (and, if they did, they would no way be as good as Papa and Mama’s), and a guy with a guitar which… ditto. There was a cool guy doing calligraphy, who looked part Chinese. It was encouraging to see a non-white face amongst the alumni, but not to the extent that Yarielis wanted to go make a mess of attempting his culture.
As Yarielis finished a lap, the rides were still the top priority, along with the Lego stall. Yarielis had played with Lego, they’d had it at school, and Yarielis had an assortment of hand-me-down bricks at home—the kind that all got stored in a big multicoloured mess of a single bucket, and let you flex your imagination. Actual proper sets, with glossy instructions, and specific aims in mind were expensive. And here there were row on row of them.
Apparently, they belonged to Cole. Yarielis overheard enough of the conversation with his parents to get that. The Crotalus pushed down the squirmy feeling of Cole being a spoilt rich kid. It wasn’t like that was a secret, with the surname Pierce, and well… sure, he was rich, but he didn’t act spoilt or mean. The Quidditch team were also the closest thing Yarielis had to friends, and the only way this whole fair thing wasn’t going to be spent alone (though it was still a toss up as to which of those was preferable—Yarielis thought it might have been better to be alone if it wasn’t for the fact that everyone else would see you were alone and laugh at you for it). On the plus side, Cole had ditched Lenny somewhere along the line, which had been a solid reason to avoid going up to him earlier.
Before Yarielis could join the Lego stall though, Christopher Brockert approached. He was in her house, so theoretically they had stuff in common, but Yarielis hadn’t worked out what. There was every possibility it was nothing. Maybe he’d got the ‘sees himself as respectable’ and Yarielis had got the ‘rule following’ and they weren’t actually at all alike. He wasn’t loud, but most Crotali weren’t…
Still, Cole had only been half the appeal. Yarielis would still happily play with Lego, even if it was alone. Once the Pierces were done with their introductions, the first year offered them one of the tokens, and looked around to see if there was a space that wasn’t in anyone’s way.
13
Yaniel Ayala Velez
I'll be in my corner, making no sound, pretending I don't exist
1554
0
5
Valentine Duell
June 05, 2022 6:22 PM
Excellent, that is always best by Valentine Duell
"I'll be sure to let her know then," Valentine replied back with a smile. She liked doing things that people appreciated and made them happy. It gave her a nice fuzzy, warm feeling as well to brighten someone else's day. She had never interacted a lot with Allegra when the older girl had been attending the school, but from the impressions that she had gotten, she thought that maybe Esme was right and could use a good compliment or two. From the sound of the booth's theme that they were heading towards, it should be easy enough to work into the conversation without it even seeming a little bit awkward.Valentine processed Esme's next question for a moment before responding. "I guess that would be the best way of putting it?" She responded very slowly as if still considering each word individually as she spoke it. She really wasn't sure how much she should say on the matter, especially since she didn't know anything officially or unofficially. From what she'd heard... they didn't really even consider themselves really in any sort of relationship other than co-parenting and thus conveniently co-habiting for Ramona. It was a very odd situation and she was pretty sure Mama didn't entirely approve of some things and Papa was just staying out of it. Though he had written that Mr. Sawyer had helped him some on the ride. "It's a bit odd and I don't know all the details." She sighed.
"You are certainly welcome to, but don't think that you have to." Val certainly wouldn't mind hanging out with Esme more, but certainly didn't want her to think she had to do things she didn't want to just to make her happy. She wasn't a big fan of people making themselves unhappy just to please her, that made her feel mean and terrible. "There are also school people I want to see as well before we all go our separate ways for the summer."
Valentine's smile shone brightly, "Oh? That'll be wonderful, hopefully they'll be great friends. We can swing by Aunt Jhonice's and Mr. Sawyer's booths on the way from Allegra's to the rest of your family's. You can let little Ramona know that she'll have a classmate to be friends with!"
"Oh!" Val exclaimed a bit as Esme pointed out the both and man with the guitar. She naturally recognized Liesl sitting with hm. Liesl was a good fellow Teppenpaw, but suddenly Val felt awful nervous, "Did... did you want to see them now, or still check in with Allegra first?"
OOC: Mr. Sawyer's actions approved by his author
2
Valentine Duell
Excellent, that is always best
1490
0
5
Valentine Duell
June 06, 2022 5:46 PM
Have any recommendations? by Valentine Duell
Valentine smiled when Wally's cheeks shifted in shade a bit. He was so cute when he was trying to play it cool. "So I have heard," as she made a very obviously absurd careful inspection of his selection. While her own experiences with Peyton's baking had been terribly scarce, she had just enough experience to know he certainly wasn't wrong. Perhaps the close inspection had been a mistake though, her mouth was salivating already. She had to swallow a time or two before she felt safe talking again. "It does look delightful, I'll take one," She said finally and then continued looking him square in the eye, "But I'm not sure it's the sweetest thing at this booth."Her heart seemed to flutter a bit when he assured her that he would miss her as well. If she had to be perfectly honest with herself, she wasn't entirely sure where they were with regards to each other. Wally always seemed happy enough when they were together, but she almost thought that she sensed something in him deeper that... well, she wasn't quite sure. She thought he tended toward the subdued end of the spectrum, and... well, she just really wasn't quite sure. Maybe it was all in her head. It must be, he would miss her. Maybe they could visit over the summer?
"A visit would be nice," she ventured, "I don't know that we have much planned either. Perhaps we can work something out. We will most certainly write." She wondered if Mama and Papa would let Wally come sometime. She wasn't really sure about going to visit him. First of all there was Papa. But, other than that, there was also Stanley. The occasional Stanley while at school was okay, it was school and thus other people around. Going to visit Wally would mean it would just be her and Wally and Stanley, and parents. It would be fine, she was sure, but maybe a little... weird? Awkward?
Anyway, now wasn't really the time to think about such things. Now was for thinking about other things. "Will you be helping Peyton all day?" Val asked with as much girlish innocence as she could muster. "Papa is running a ride contraption over that way," she gestured vaguely in her father's direction. "I thought maybe you'd like to take it for a spin with me sometime."
2
Valentine Duell
Have any recommendations?
1490
0
5
Esme Brockert
June 06, 2022 9:24 PM
Indeed by Esme Brockert
Esme smiled warmly at the Teppenpaw. “Great.” She was certain that the compliment would make Allegra’s day. Although the former Crotalus seemed to have things a bit better now that she had her fiance, Josh and was not around Topaz nearly as much, the damage had been done and Allegra suffered from extremely low self-esteem so any little bit of positive affirmation went a long way. Esme continued“ And maybe you can make a baby blanket for your cousin or make her a small stuffed toy or something. I think that’s the sort of simple sewing, and other things that they have at my family’s crafting booth.”Val seemed…a bit perplexed on how to reply to Esme’s question about the relation between the Teppenpaw’s aunt and this Mr. Sawyer who was the father of her cousin.Maybe things between them were a bit more complicated than that. “Oh. It’s all right.” The sixth year reassured her friend. Val did not have to explain it to her. She was not owed an explanation about someone else’s family and she was not going to pry. Besides, at least Mr. Sawyer was trying to be a father to his child even if he wasn’t marrying Val’s aunt. It was more than Uncle Eustace was doing and he was married to Aunt Helena.
“Admittedly, I’m not so sure about the hoverboards but depending on what the ride is, I’m willing to give it a try. What do you know about it?” Esme asked. She wasn’t exactly afraid to ride the hoverboards per se, it was more like..she was afraid of looking or seeming undignified. Nor did she want to ride something where she might end up upside down. Not only was it a fairly unpleasant feeling, the Crotalus was wearing a skirt. “The journalism thing sounds kind of cool though.”
She nodded. “That’s fine, I’m sure I can find someone else to hang out with.”” If nothing else Esme would make her way back to the booth where Allegra was. Of course, she’d get to see her sister over the summer so maybe she could hang out with Sadie or something. Although her roommate would probably want to hang out with Dathan the entire time since he was graduating.
Well, there had to be someone who’d want to spend time with her. At least, Esme hoped so. She didn’t want this to be like the ball. As much as she tended to restrain herself now, far from the nasty temper that she’d displayed in her childhood and outside she was completely dignified and never let her emotions show, inside she found it fairly depressing to be enjoying a school event by herself.
Despite this,Esme returned Val’s smile. “I hope so. Alessa’s son, Theo will actually be in the year behind Ramona’s but Honora, my first cousin, should be in the same one.” The Crotalus remembered that Val’s cousin had been born last year like Honora had been. “It would be amazing if they ended up being friends. We can definitely go there after we stop by Allegra’s booth.” Okay, it wasn’t only Allegra’s booth but it was easier to say it that way. “And then go to see my other relatives.”
Val suddenly seemed…unsure about going over to Cory’s booth. “Is something wrong?” The Crotalus asked. She didn’t know what the problem could be and she wanted to make sure that the fifth year was okay although of course, she hoped that she wasn’t prying. However, checking on a friend’s well-being was quite different from asking about an awkward family situation that was none of Esme’s business.“We can still go see Allegra first, followed by your aunt and cousin and Mr. Sawyer. However, you don’t have to worry about talking to Cory, he’s one of the nicest people that I know, and I’m not just saying that because he’s my cousin.” After all, Topaz was her cousin too and Esme certainly wouldn’t say that about her.
11
Esme Brockert
Indeed
1479
0
5
Phil Carson
June 08, 2022 5:48 PM
I don't think I'm old enough to be nostalgic by Phil Carson
Phil wandered about the fair grounds (or the Quidditch Pitch, he supposed, if you wanted to get technical about the location), just scoping out what was available and how much he wanted to do versus how many tokens he had. It looked like he had plenty of tokens to try anything he wanted to once, but going back for seconds or thirds too much might lead to budgeting concerns.He thought the fun house and the spinning ride both looked like things worth additional visits, and maybe trying out the hoverboards, too, if he didn't land flat on his face the first time and be too embarrassed to try again. He'd just counted out his tokens again, and was debating where to start when Gabriel found him and asked if he wanted to hang out. "Yeah!" he agreed delightedly, feeling pleased and flattered that a sixth year wanted to spend time with him.
He'd kind of wanted to ask to do that at the zoo, but he hadn't wanted to seem like an annoying little brother, always tagging after the older kid who seemed to like him, and hadn't quite worked up the courage to ask, so this was perfect!
"I was thinking of trying the Temple of Doom; that's kind of like an adventure, right? Maybe we could pretend to be our characters as we go through it?" He wasn't sure that would work exactly, not having dice or a GM to direct things, and maybe Gabriel would think it was a dumb idea to play Lets Pretend like a child, and he quickly amended, "Or we could just go as ourselves and have fun on the big slide."
1
Phil Carson
I don't think I'm old enough to be nostalgic
1536
0
5
Valentine Duell
June 08, 2022 5:50 PM
How do we keep it going? by Valentine Duell
Valentine nodded along with Esme's suggestions of booth crafts. "I used to sew stuffed doll and animals." She giggled lightly, "I had a different way of 'making friends' before I got to school. I haven't tried to make a blanket or anything, is it difficult?" It seemed to her that blanket making required either a muggle loom-type contraption, or some very complicated charms to make the fibers or whatnot to weave together properly."The hoverboards aren't bad, not quite as exciting as a broom, but fun." She thought about the small amount of time she got to experiment around on one. "It's really just a board that you stand on, and it floats a few inches above the ground. You can push the ground with one foot and then glide around just by shifting your weight a bit." As she walked, she swung her hips from side to side a bit, miming the motion to steer the hoverboard. "It's actually probably a bit more 'proper'," she accentuated the word and gave Esme a wink, "If you're wearing a dress or skirt than straddling a broom." She glanced down at her own long skirt, "If it was a bit longer..." she mused out loud, "Then it'd hide the board as well and it'd just look like I was floating around."
"He build some sort of bench that can hold a few people and swing them around in a circle. I think he's got some controls inside it so the riders can determine how fast and high they go." At the mention of Aunt Jhonice's journalism booth, Val looked around conspiratorially and moved her head closer to Esme's so that she could whisper. "I think Aunt Jhonice is getting the students around here to do some work for her. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the info she collects today winds up in an article soon." She gave another 'look around to see if anyone was eavesdropping' then pulled back with another light giggle. "Still, she'll make sure they do it properly though. She likes a good story, but won't stand for any of that 'nonsensical sensationalism' or twisting the story so that it sounds like what people want it to sound like."
Val smiled in agreement with Esme's hope of Ramona and Honora being friends. "I wonder what the school will be like for them in ten years? Do you think any of the same teachers will still be here?"
The Teppenpaw shrank a bit at Esme's question, "No..." she answered with more hesitation than she'd like. "No, just a sudden onset of anxiety or nerves about the future. I'm sure he's wonderful to talk with." She sighed, "It's just another step of getting ready for 'the real world' after graduation, which is still far enough away for me, but..." She looked back over at the Wandseller again. "I'm only finishing up my fifth year, is it to soon to start worrying about missing this place and moving on?"
2
Valentine Duell
How do we keep it going?
1490
0
5
Cole Pierce
June 08, 2022 6:18 PM
No, it's cool. I'm good at sharing. by Cole Pierce
Christopher had not played LEGOs before, but was willing to give it a try. Nice."Hello, Christopher, good to meet you, too. I am Derwent Pierce the Fourth," Dad responded to Christopher's introduction, "of the New- no, of the Boston Pierces. Sorry. Ingrained childhood habit. Haven't introduced myself like that in years. Please, go ahead and build something with the blocks. We've got instruction booklets or you can just build your own thing freestyle. LEGOs are a muggle toy, but blocks are blocks, right? They click together really well and don't fall apart as easy as some other kinds."
Cole showed Christopher the biplane he was working on, "I'm making a muggle plane! It flies like our school wagons do, and carries people around the country!" Well, not precisely like the school wagons. They used lift instead of magic to stay off the ground, but same principle, right? And people not might actually use biplanes anymore. He wasn't totally clear on that. They might be an antique version of an airplane.
He was clicking in the second layer of his wings when he noticed Dad giving his spiel to Yarielis. "Oh! Dad! That's Yarielis! Yarielis is the other new beater with me on the school team! Come on over!" he invited the Crotalus. "Build with us over here! This is Christopher. Christopher, this is Yarielis." They probably knew each other about as well as Cole knew Christopher, which is to say, they picked up each other's names in class, and maybe got paired for a lesson every now and then, but it was his parents' booth, so he felt it was his responsibility to make sure everyone knew each other and got along.
1
Cole Pierce
No, it's cool. I'm good at sharing.
1546
0
5
Ian Malone
June 10, 2022 2:41 AM
That sounds potentially dangerous. by Ian Malone
The thing that Ian was most excited about at the fair was that his mom and Aunt Melanie were going to be there. The latter was especially amazing given that she’d just had triplets. He couldn’t imagine how exhausted she had to be with three little babies and two older but still not very old children.Which might very well be why she decided to come, she must have needed a break-and probably also was excited about being able to do something fun-or something else in general-after being on bedrest during her pregnancy.Of course,Ian was sure that his aunt’s presence was crucial to his mom showing up. Mom was pretty shy and she tended to fare better with someone she was close to with her, such as Dad, Aunt Melanie or Uncle Ryan. However, his dad wasn’t an alumni and Uncle Ryan couldn’t make it, although his sister was here selling baked goods. Ian would be sure to check those out later, when he got hungry.
Still, even though Ian was happy that his mom and aunt were here, he did not plan to stay over there all day. After all, he would be able to see them all summer and this was the only school fair that the Teppenpaw would ever get so he wanted to see what the fair had to offer.
Although, Ian being Ian-as in being an anxious worrywart who saw danger at every turn-could readily eliminate some of the exhibits. For starters, there was absolutely no way that he was getting on a hoverboard. Period. He knew full well that those things were an accident waiting to happen and he was not about to let them happen to him. Worst case scenario, they would happen to Stanley who was likely to find the hoverboards exciting and fun. Ian tried not to imagine his cousin breaking his neck and being crippled for life. He really did care about his cousin and did not want to see this happen.
And then there was that Doom thing. The fourth year had to appreciate that the creator of the Doom ride put such an obvious warning on it but there was absolutely no way that he was going anywhere near that thing.
Then there were the pony rides and that other contraption that looked sort of iffy. After all, ponies could buck or run off or anything else that came with them being living creatures with a mind of their own. Unless they were under an Imperius curse to make them behave though that would still be wrong. It would be absolutely…Unforgivable, even if it was a pony and not a person. Ian would honestly find it sad to use mind control on an innocent creature, even if it was potentially dangerous.
However, everything else…okay, some of it might be kind of girly like the booth that his mom and aunt were at but those were his relatives and Ian would not mind sitting there for a while and just hanging out with Mom and Aunt Melanie. Still, he was happy to get a tarot reading and a brownie-Peyton Priory’s baked goods were some of the best-and try the journalism thing and the writing and illustrating workshop and some of the other things.
Now, Ian just had to find a person to hang out with. He ran through the list of people he knew. Wally was, for some reason, helping Peyton at her bake sale instead of checking out the various booths. Stanley was…well, the Teppenpaw really didn’t think he was a good choice for a fair buddy based on their extreme differences in taste in activities. Tommy was probably with Rosalynn.
He looked around, spotting Iris by herself. Ian didn’t know the Crotalus that well, but she seemed like someone who…didn’t want to do dangerous things that would cause someone to possibly be injured in a painful and permanent way. Crotali were cautious by nature so she might be a decent person to hang out with. “Iris.” Ian called her name. He approached her. “Do you want to hang out for a while?” He asked, hoping she would agree. The Teppenpaw would be mortified if she said no.
11
Ian Malone
That sounds potentially dangerous.
1522
0
5
What's life without a little adventure? by Iris Cobb
Iris was a little bit surprised when she saw who had called out to her. For the briefest of moments she had thought the boy's voice had belonged to Hansel, it didn't. The part of her brain that was in charge of recognizing voices was having a heated argument, consistently primarily of 'I told you so', with the part that had heard 'boy' and immediately slapped 'Hansel' in the mix.That debate muddled on in the background of her mind while the foreground worked on the question of why Ian wanted to hang out for awhile. She had nothing against the boy. He seemed like a nice, reserved Teppenpaw, nothing crazy like some folks she knew. The big question that was running through her head was 'what would Hansel think if he saw them together?' She did not want to admit why this question was in the forefront of her mind, but at the same time she wasn't quite sure why she didn't want to admit it. At this point it didn't really matter though, they'd be going home soon and then it wouldn't be an issue for months again.
Unless she wrote him over the summer. Liesl probably wrote him notes over the summer. Would it be weird if she just wrote him one? Granted it wasn't like they had an owl... well, a magical owl to deliver letters anyway. Was there a difference between the letter delivering owls and the normal, wild ones in the woods back home? Could they deliver letters as well?
She was getting way off track again. Ian had asked her a question, and he looked kinda worried about it. Iris shrugged, "Sure, I don't mind." She replied casually. "I was heading over towards the stand with all the fancy dress-up clothes." Maybe he wouldn't want to come along with her after all. A thought struck her, he was from a proper magical family, maybe he would know, "Do you know if wild owls can deliver letters, or do they need to be trained by magical folk to do that?"
2
Iris Cobb
What's life without a little adventure?
1526
0
5
Anya Delachene
June 10, 2022 8:50 PM
Almost gone by Anya Delachene
Anya was, on one hand, quite excited about the fair. Mom was bringing the horses, and that meant there would be flying! On the other hand . . . it meant she was basically done with Sonora. It was her seventh year, her last midsummer event. She'd finished her classes, finished her exams. Even her bags were packed and her room in Pecari looked barren and lonely. The only thing left to do was say good bye, have a fun fair, and fly away (quite literally; she figured she'd get to help herd the flying horses back home).She'd already spent four of her tokens at the hoverboard guy's booth. She could get some nice air on those, and she had already put in an order for one that was promised to be delivered within two weeks of when the invoice was paid. A copy of that was in her pocket to give to Mom, once she got around to the Delachene booth, but first she was making sure to catch all the people who it was important to catch before the end of the day, because once she got there, she probably wasn't going to leave it until the fair was over. (She already had a written agreement with Mom to help with the pony rides for the second half of the fair so Jasmine could get home to feed the ones that were still there.)
Seeing one of the people who definitely needed a personal goodbye from her walking a little bit ahead of where she was, Anya hurried to catch up to them. "Hey! I'm going to miss you next year! Keep in touch, right? Hug?"
1
Anya Delachene
Almost gone
1453
0
5
Oh no! by Theo Spurn
Dear Merlin, this whole thing was horrible. On the surface of it, it seemed shiny, but once you evaluated each individual stall, it was just icky! There were the Danger Pointy Bricks, unexpected snake illusions, and someone who was taking perfectly soft t-shirts and submerging them in buckets of colourful water when perfectly dry colour-change charms existed.Obviously, Theo hadn’t touched any of those things, but the fair was getting under his skin in the way where he couldn’t help but imagine-touch them even though he didn’t want to, and everything just felt crawly and gross or scratchy. It was also very loud. ‘Loud’ wasn’t normally a problem for him—he’d grown up with Stanley, and with himself—but this was multiple different kinds of loud from all directions when he was already feeling prickly and it was a bit much. He might not have minded some of the rides, because actually being whirled and upsidedowned could be calming or at least good, but right now he was just sort of lost in the middle of there being too many choices and more than half of them being gross.
He should have planned ahead and made sure he was with Wally or Stanley or Tommy, but when had he ever remembered to do that? And now it was busy and chaotic both around him and in his head, and he didn’t even know how to look for them. Before he could completely die of horrible though, Anya came bouncing up to him. His brain took a bit of time to sort out the Anya from the swirling chaos around him, but he caught one very important word.
“Very much hug!” he said, his tone along the lines of if she’d offered him a glass of water in the middle of the desert. He hugged her firmly, burying his head in her hair. “Why is it like this?” he asked.
13
Theo Spurn
Oh no!
1476
0
5
Esme Brockert
June 10, 2022 9:33 PM
By making the most of it by Esme Brockert
“Oh, that’s really cool.” Esme replied. “I think that’s the sort of crafts they have there.” Admittedly, she was slightly surprised to hear that it was something that Val had done. After all, she always thought that non-pureblood girls didn’t really value needlework and fiber crafts, thinking they were old-fashioned stereotypically feminine pastimes and therefore they were backwards and wrong, and those who enjoyed them did so because they were buying into something that men had forced on them and there was no way that they could possibly genuinely like the traditionally feminine hobbies and there was something inherently inferior with liking to sew and knit or play with dolls and they should want to play Quidditch and do other things like that.In other words, they were just as extreme in their views as Uncle Eustace was in the other direction but also promoting a form of misogyny in a totally hypocritical way, because they were arguing for so-called female empowerment. If they wanted to play sports and have careers, fine, but that wasn’t for everyone. Forcing someone to fit into a certain role was something these people complained about but then went ahead and tried to do themselves.
It was, however, sort of sad that Val felt the need to do that in order to have friends though and Esme was a bit surprised by that too. It wouldn’t be so bad if someone was content to spend time with dolls and stuffed animals for their companions, like Isla and her puppets, but the Teppenpaw was such a social butterfly that Esme couldn’t imagine that she was happy that way.
“You didn’t go to school with other kids?” She asked. Which she supposed made sense, since while Val wasn’t a pureblood, she wasn’t a Muggleborn either. So, it didn’t seem the best thing to put her in a school with Muggle children where she’d be different, especially since her parents were also both magical, something that could cause issues. Still, Val was so social that depriving her of contact with other people seemed as harmful as forcing a super shy introverted person to go to a school full of other kids. It wasn’t a situation where she would thrive so in this case, Esme wasn’t sure what was the right thing, because putting a person in a place where they were the odd one out was also not setting them up for success.
Fortunately, she would never have to figure it out. She hoped. Of course, in some cases, you never knew if someone was going to be different until they got to school and saw what their classmates were like. Such as was the case with Angelique. Or even Sapphire. It had been pretty likely that the seventh was going to be the only epileptic in her class but not that she was going to be the only pureblood. Or the only other one being a distant cousin, in Esme’s case. You couldn’t very well ask the school if there were going to be other purebloods in a certain year group or if anyone else was going to have a personality and interests that were compatible with your child. “A small quilt, baby blanket sized isn’t hard since you already knew how to sew.”
“Oh.” Esme replied. The bit about things not being as exciting as a broom didn’t bother her since she had never enjoyed riding a broom all that much. Plus, Val also made it sound like propriety wasn’t going to be too much of an issue. “That doesn’t sound so bad, just for a small ride if I don’t have to go really high. Your dad’s ride doesn’t sound too terrible either.”
She chuckled at the suggestion that they would be doing Val’s aunt’s work for her.”I hardly think anything that goes on here would make a good story to anyone beyond those who go to school here. However, I’m glad to see she has some journalistic integrity.” There needed to be more reporters like that. Like many people who were from well-known families, Esme had a healthy wariness about reporters who were just looking for someone like her to do something scandalous and newsworthy. However, Val had told the Crotalus long ago that her aunt was more interested in the glamor associated with people like the Brockerts than wanting to see them humiliated.
“I don’t know.” Esme replied. “I mean, most of the current professors are fairly young” As wizards and witches lived longer than Muggles, someone in their fifties like Professor Xavier was still fairly young relatively speaking “but that doesn’t mean they won’t decide they want to work somewhere else. I don’t think Grandfather will retire until at least when Honora graduates.” After all, while he wasn’t the nicest staff member, he was the only advocate she and her siblings and cousins really had on staff-and Honora, with Uncle Eustace as her father needed all the advocates she could get.
“Oh.” Esme said again. “I suppose that can be kind of scary. Change is often a bit unnerving and the idea of adulthood and adult responsibilities can be kind of daunting.” She considered what Val’’s question about it being too soon. “I mean, feelings and worries and such are not really something with a specific..timetable you know? You had a good experience at school. It’s natural to think of how much you’ll miss it. Just make the most of the next two years.”
“Personally, I’m looking forward to next year.” Esme went on. “I think we’ll be doing the Challenges again and I’ve been waiting to lead a team since they did them during Sapphire’s first year and I realized that the next time around fell during my seventh year and I’d get to lead one.” She looked at Val. “You might get to do so too, since I think if there are more teams than seventh years they ask sixth year prefects next.” At least she assumed that, because it was what made sense to her.
11
Esme Brockert
By making the most of it
1479
0
5
Ellie Alperton
June 10, 2022 9:44 PM
Ending on a high note [tag Jasmine] by Ellie Alperton
Second year Ellie would never have believed that it would be preferable to end on the fair compared to the ball. But then, second year Ellie had had a prince charming. As her seventh and final year came to a close, Ellie felt like this was a satisfying way to close out her time at Sonora.Her first fair had been a highlight. It hadn’t been the razzle-dazzle of the ball, but in a lot of ways it had been a lot more meaningful. She had worked with the openly gay head boy to put together an LGBTQIA+ charity booth, and had really felt like she had claimed a place at Sonora as herself. Not the way she had done in first year, when she had been able to show up and just be Ellie, and be called the right name and be assigned to the right dorm room—all of which, of course, had been wonderful and validating—but she had been able to stake a claim in something she believed in, and something that was as much a part of her as her name or her pronouns.
The fair wasn’t like that this time around. It was more about what next steps they might take, but that felt fitting. It also meant she got to see one of her absolute favourite people again, and to spend this transitional moment into adulthood with her.
Sure, it would have been nice to have a prince, but having a handful of besties who would always have her back was even more valuable. And whilst she still wanted to find love and romance once she got outside these walls, she was excited about focussing on herself for a bit first. Not only in terms of the treatments that she’d finally be old enough for, but in terms of who she was going to be and what she was going to do.
She was pretty sure it involved taking on the world, and absolutely owning it.
First though, it was time to celebrate the milestone of finishing Sonora. Just cos it wasn’t a ball, it didn’t mean her outfit was chosen with any less care. Fairs were also fun to dress for. She had opted for a dress, in pastel pinks and blues, with carousel horses gently riding around its a-line hem. Given that she’d bought it from a magical catalogue, the ‘riding around the hem part’ was very literal, and they slowly moved up and down and around the edge of her skirt. She’d gone for light make-up, and pigtails with a bow on top. It was a cute, girly look, and the world should underestimate her because of it at its peril. If there were any rides or things she wanted to do where her outfit wasn’t practical… Well, she could just say ‘stuff it’ because the construct of ‘(un)ladylike’ was a tool of oppression. Or she could transfigure her skirt into culottes because she was a fully fledged witch, and much as she did like sticking it to the patriarchy, she wasn’t sure she was ready to do that in the form of flashing her underwear at the whole school. She might also get in trouble for that, and it wasn’t how she wanted to end her time here.
She had her eye on the bake sale and the crafting booth, but her first stop was to see Jasmine.
“Hi!” she beamed, wrapping her in a huge hug. “How have you been?” They’d exchanged regular letters throughout the term, but there was still always news to catch up on. “I nearly stopped at the cake stall on my way here, but I wasn’t sure what you’d want,” she added, assuming it was clear that she was happy to be runner and bring them back some treats, or to go picnicking once Jasmine got a break. She also definitely had ‘ride a flying horse’ on her to do list. That seemed like a pretty epic way to close out a pretty epic chapter.
13
Ellie Alperton
Ending on a high note [tag Jasmine]
1456
0
5
Gabriel Wilson
June 12, 2022 3:17 AM
Depends on what you're nostalgic about by Gabriel Wilson
Gabriel grinned. He honestly thought that Phil was a great kid and was probably going to sincerely miss him when he graduated. The second year and Morgan were probably the Gaming Club members that he was the closest to. He liked everyone okay, but was not always sure things were reciprocated. Well, Val probably liked Gabriel because she seemingly liked everyone but at the same time, she liked everyone and so it was hard to be close to someone who was so busy with so many different people. As for the others, he was never sure if Bertie actually liked the rest of them at all and Phillipe, well, he wasn’t sure why he and Phillipe weren’t better friends, but as it stood, they weren’t all that close.The thing with Phil was that Gabriel sort of felt like…well, that the younger Aladren looked up to him the way he had always looked up to Gary. Sort of a bond that was passed down, although he was not sure that Gary had felt it, but hopefully some day, there would be a new Gaming Club member that Phil would take under his wing, and so on.
That is, if the Gaming Club continued after Val graduated. Sometimes that happened with student led clubs. Sometimes, there was nobody to take over or no members and things just..folded. The idea of this happening with the Gaming Club made Gabriel every bit as sad as the thought of not having a place to play any more himself and it was something that he could do nothing about. He would be gone. Gabriel could try to interest Piper and/or Charlotte in it but that didn’t mean they would be confident in being the GM-and someone would have to do that. He had never personally wanted to, unsure people would want to play the games he came up with. Besides, he enjoyed being a member of the party.
Something else occurred to Gabriel that had not previously. If next year was the Challenges, that would be sort of like a live action version of Gaming! Not only that but he would be a seventh year and that meant being a team leader. That would be fun if he put it in that context. Although Gabriel supposed that he might look weird to most of his teammates.
Then again, he was pretty sure the ship had sailed on him looking normal to his fellow students a long time ago. After all, the sixth was someone who went on long tangential trivia spiels. That was not the most normal thing to do-and Gabriel was pretty okay with that.
He looked at his friend. “Phil. That is an awesome idea.” At least someone was interested in pretending things that they were doing were some sort of adventure like the ones they did in Gaming. Of course, for the Challenges, Gabriel was still absolutely leading his team as if they were playing a live action version of the role playing games they did in Gaming Club.
The sixth year looked back at Heinrich and Evelyn. “Also, would you like to meet some of the old members of the Gaming Club that are here?”” He asked. Ideally Gabriel would want to introduce Phil to Gary, but at least the younger Aladren could see some of the club’s history in its graduated members.
11
Gabriel Wilson
Depends on what you're nostalgic about
1481
0
5
Ian Malone
June 12, 2022 6:02 AM
Long by Ian Malone
“Great!” Ian replied. “That sounds fine.” True, he would get lots of chances to dress up in fancy clothing throughout his life, but it sounded like a nice harmless activity that would not lead to either him nor Iris getting hurt. Besides, if that was what she wanted to do, he was fine with it. Ian just wanted to have someone to hang out with and preferably, someone who did not want to do dangerous things.The thing that was most important though was that Ian wanted a friend. He would be a fifth year student next year and he still didn’t really have anyone that he was close to, except sort of some of his relatives and Wally and Stanley seemed somewhat like they were sometimes more interested in hanging out with their mom’s relatives. Ian was not sure that he blamed them either. He probably was not very interesting to them.
Besides that, he had always been super focused on his studies. His goal of becoming a Healer and curing immune deficiencies-or at least treating them successfully- had been the most important thing to him. Because of this, the Teppenpaw had pretty much neglected his social life.
Or at least, that was what Ian told himself was why and it was part of it but in all honesty, he was actually very shy and had Just like his avoidance of all things dangerous was not just because he-because of his interest in being a Healer-saw all the myriad of ways that someone could get hurt but because he just was not very good at things like Quidditch and other physical pastimes.Which would make the likeliness of him getting hurt even greater.
Still,Ian was almost a fifth year and had basically no friends. Truth be told, he was kind of lonely and he felt…sort of pathetic. Like a total loser. Like people didn’t really like him. Or perhaps they just didn’t really know him-and he was worried that maybe it was just that he wasn’t worth getting to know. A fact that worried Ian more than anything other than his mother’s health-and that was saying something, because he worried about everything, a lot.
And maybe it was too late. After all, next year was CATS and even normally less anxious students than the Teppenpaw-which was most of them-worried about them. Of course, the scores he got were very important to him because they would determine his ability to get into the classes he needed for RATS-which was everything except for COMC-and then into a school with a good Healer program.
Though, that was not the only reason he was too late. By this point in one’s school career, everyone had their friends, their groups, and he didn’t have one. Not really.
So, Ian really appreciated that Iris was willing to hang out with him. Even if he was a tiny bit-oh, okay, more than a tiny bit, Ian was, well, Ian , he never worried about anything only a tiny bit-that it might be out of politeness or pity.
He considered her question. “Well, I don’t know for sure but I think they need to be trained. I mean, a wild owl would probably not know what to do with a letter. Not to mention you would have to catch one to give it to and I can’t imagine they’d be agreeable with that. Interested in Care of Magical Creatures?” Ian inquired. It was his worst subject-if one did not count Flying Lessons his first year- not because he was inherently bad at it or disliked it but because it was the one subject he didn’t need to continue with. He was planning on dropping it after next year, because he had enough on his plate with continuing everything else. However, Ian was still doing pretty well in it.
“Any other activity you’re especially interested in?” The Teppenpaw asked. “I mean, here at the fair, not in terms of school subjects”
11
Ian Malone
Long
1522
0
5
And a just a little bit dull? by Iris Cobb
Iris thought Ian sounded a bit overenthusiastic about dressing up in fancy clothes, but maybe it was just her. She wondered, just briefly, if he thought he might catch some glimpse of her in some state of partial undress. She'd been informed that boys thought like this. Boys, in general, were dumb. If that was a thought that he had, he would have to get used to disappointment, because it wouldn't happen. Besides whatever measures she would be sure to take, Iris had to assume that the two women running the booth would have taken that sort of thing into account as well. So she simply smiled politely at Ian and continued on her way with him.She nodded thoughtfully at Ian's analysis of the owl situation. His one point did bring a slight smile to her face. "Catching one wouldn't be an insurmountable problem, we have plenty of them in the forest around home, and when you have a brother like Billy..." she let the comment trail off with a 'you get the idea' type of wave of her hand. Billy would probably relish the idea of catching a wild owl to see if it could deliver a letter. She may just have to suggest that to him sometime over the summer, at the very least she could watch him fall out of a tree again.
Iris considered his question about Care of Magical Creatures for a moment before nodding. "A bit, but I prefer Herbology. How about you?" Honestly she was actually that interested, but it was the polite thing to ask, if only to keep the conversation going. Although to be fair, one of the things Ian did have going for him was that he was about the most un-Billy-like boy she thought she knew. "As for around the fair," Iris looked around her again, "I'm not sure about activities, maybe some of the crafts? What did you have in mind?"
2
Iris Cobb
And a just a little bit dull?
1526
0
5
Isla Brockert
June 12, 2022 8:35 PM
Roommate bonding (Tag Rosalynn and/or Lorena) by Isla Brockert
Isla was looking forward to the fair. It sounded like fun and it was the only fair she got. Which was a tad disappointing. Sometimes, people complained about only getting one ball which was hard for her to understand. Maybe it was different when you weren’t going to spend the rest of your life going to balls and fancy parties and oh yeah, had a boyfriend or at least were asked or otherwise had people to hang out with and not the person that was left out when your friends and pretty much most people around your age had dates or at least plans.The fair, on the other hand, well, Isla supposed people could be going on dates or hanging out with their boyfriends there too. However, there was also the option for her friends to hang out with her for a bit and then go find Tommy and Oz. Or they could take shifts, where one of them hung out with Isla while the other hung out with their boyfriend. To her, this seemed the most fair arrangement…except that the Aladren hated that it put her in the position of being an obligation, a burden, a loser that they didn’t really want to hang out with when they had their boyfriends.
Still, overall, the fair honestly did seem more fun than a ball. After all, what was there really to do at a ball other than dance and socialize and snack on appetizers? Especially when you didn’t have anyone to dance or socialize with. There was only so much shrimp a person could eat and so much punch they could drink. Even if Isla had not felt rejected, a ball wasn’t really all that interesting. Which was a shame considering how many she would have to go to.
The fair, on the other hand, had a huge variety of activities that likely would appeal to a variety of tastes and the fourth year was sorry that she would never get to experience another one. Unless, of course, the school recycled the idea of an alumni fair. After all, there were only so many ideas out there and alumni fairs meant anyone who was an alumni could come back. Isla even knew exactly what she would do. Which was put on a puppet show, of course. Perhaps, puppet making as well.
Okay, yes, in that situation, she would have to be running the booth but she knew that the alumni were allowed to take breaks to do other things at the fair, whether it be to catch up with old friends or hang out with relatives who were students here. Liesl was hoping to do that with Cory and Isla herself hoped to hang out with Allegra later. Maybe she, Allegra and Esme could spend some time together, if Rosalynn and Lorena wanted to go off with their boyfriends. Sure she would see her sisters all summer, but they wouldn’t be at a fair with a bunch of activities to do.
However, sister bonding could wait. Right now, Isla wanted to spend some time with at least one of her roommates. After all, they were all about to go their separate ways for the summer. Spotting one of them, she approached. “Hey, do you want to hang out for a while?” She asked.
11
Isla Brockert
Roommate bonding (Tag Rosalynn and/or Lorena)
1521
0
5
Ian Malone
June 13, 2022 2:26 AM
I suppose it depends on your definition of fun. And your definition of adventure by Ian Malone
It wasn’t that Ian was excited about going to the dress up booth. After all, he would obviously get to do plenty of dressing up in fancy clothes. Although if it was one of those booths where you got to dress up in historical costumes-or even just actual costumes in general-and get your picture taken, that would be kind of cool. However, what Ian was happy about was that Iris was willing to hang out with him in the first place and he would not have to either go looking for someone elseAnd of course, he was glad that the person that he was going to hang out with was someone who didn’t want to do something that was potentially dangerous. Having his picture taken in fancy clothes wasn’t really that interesting to him, especially given how often Ian would be doing that in the future but at least it was fairly harmless, in the most literal sense of the word, as in he could not get hurt doing so.
If he actually knew what Iris was thinking, the reason for why she thought he came across so enthusiastic-which was inaccurate- and why she thought he would be enthusiastic about that, he would be absolutely mortified . Not that Ian never thought about such things at all-it was, from what he understood, a perfectly normal thing for boys his age to be curious about and think of- but he would never ever ever try to actually see one or hope to see one of his classmates that way. Ian tried to be a gentleman and besides, he wasn’t even interested in Iris like that! He simply did not want to wander around the fair alone or with someone who was into things that had the potential to land one in the Hospital Wing. Ian was all for being around medical environments, but not as a patient.
“That…does sound like something that Billy would try and help you with,”Ian replied. “However, I’m not sure that it can actually be done.They’re wild animals but unless you have some sort of trap for them,” which admittedly sounded awful, but he understood that sometimes people needed to trap and kill animals for food, “they’re just going to fly away. And the minute they’re released from that trap, they’ll also fly away, assuming that they aren’t too weak to do so.”
Ian continued.”And, assuming that you could catch an owl that remained healthy and whole after being caught, because a damaged one wouldn’t physically be able to deliver the letters and was willing to stay,” which they wouldn’t be, because wild animals were meant to stay in the wild,”you would need someone who knew how to train one.” He thought that there must be professionals who did that, but neither Iris nor Billy would know how.
“I guess I also prefer Herbology if I had to choose between the two.” Ian replied. However, for him, it was not a matter of preference, it was a matter of what he needed to do well in, in order to achieve his goal of becoming a Healer and he did not need COMC. “I’m not really sure what subject I like best.” Though he liked Defense the least, aside from Flying which he no longer had to take. “I only asked because, well, you asked a question about training an owl.”
Perhaps realizing that he’d come across too enthusiastic before, Ian shrugged. “Crafts sound cool. My mom and aunt are here doing sewing as part of one of the crafting booths and then there’s Chinese calligraphy and tie-dying shirts. Maybe one of those. Or one of the writing things.” There wasn’t really much about Healing, unless the Teppenpaw was going to go and help with people who got injured on hover boards.
11
Ian Malone
I suppose it depends on your definition of fun. And your definition of adventure
1522
0
5
I suppose it does indeed by Iris Cobb
Iris nodded rather blandly at Ian's agreement about Billy. Although she wasn't sure how much it would be to 'help' her, rather just because it sounded like something fun to try and do. She arched an eyebrow in his direction when he wasn't sure it could be done. "I can assure you, Billy has caught nearly every type of wild animal around us by this point. If he sets his mind on catching an owl, he'll figure it out." Ian did have a point with the second half of his argument. "True," she conceded, "That was why I was wondering if they needed to be trained or if letter carrying was just some innate magical quality they had."She was well aware that Billy's life-goal has been to become a world explorer ever since he learned there was a world away from the mountain. However, she wondered if he had a knack for catching and working with critters, if training them would be a valid career path for him. She seriously doubted that it would ever occur to him normally, but being the smart and responsible one, it was up to her to see if she could guide his way of thinking in that direction... after she watched him fall out of a tree again. There was a reason she considered herself the smart and responsible one after all.
"Ahh.." Iris answered in understanding now why Ian had randomly brought up classes for discussion. It did make sense she supposed. Ian did at least seem like the sensible sort, "Have you thought about what you will do after graduation? I've begun to think about it a little bit, that is the point of all these classes, right?" She was pretty sure at this point she didn't want to just go back to living on the mountain in seclusion again, but that did mean she was going to have to strike out on her own. It was a big task to take on, and one she thought she needed to start preparing for as early as possible.
"Chinese calligraphy?" Iris looked at him with honest curiosity, "What is that? I haven't heard of it before."
2
Iris Cobb
I suppose it does indeed
1526
0
5
Phil Carson
June 13, 2022 6:27 PM
Maybe next year I can be nostalgic about beginners level classes by Phil Carson
Phil stood a little taller and beamed a little brighter when Gabriel liked his idea about pretending to be their characters as they went through the Temple of Doom. He had enjoyed playing a magus this term, it was a nice mix of physical prowess and magical ability, and while he didn't think it was the class Indiana Jones would have been (Dr. Jones came from a world where magic existed but humans as a rule couldn't harness it and were largely ignorant of it - actually not terribly unlike real life, he realized in some shock, if you replaced 'human' with 'non-magical humans' which was the kind of human Dr. Jones was) he though his character would have done pretty well in those adventures.Then Gabriel made another suggestion for what they could do, and Phil's eyes widened a little bit, feeling like he was being invited to share secret knowledge. Or at least, was getting to invited to meet people who were important to Gabriel which was an honor at least as great. "Yeah!" he agreed. "I'd love to meet some old gaming club alumni!" As a second year, it was hard to imagine the club existing before he arrived, with people who had played D&D at Sonora before he even knew Sonora was a thing. Nobody had graduated from the club last year, and nobody was going to graduate this year, so it felt like it had always been a static group to him, though he knew they'd all met together and used to have other people before he was there by the stories they told, but they all felt like irrelevant ancient history.
And now he was going to get to meet history!
1
Phil Carson
Maybe next year I can be nostalgic about beginners level classes
1536
0
5
Christopher Brockert
June 14, 2022 12:47 AM
That's a good quality by Christopher Brockert
OOC: CW-Toxic masculinity, bullying, the usual BIC:
“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Pierce.” Christopher replied to the older man politely. “I understand that. Introducing myself to people like that is an ingrained habit for me too.” As far as those went, this one was probably more harmless than most. Although, there were people who would judge or mock him for that too. Of course, what did it say about people who did that, what did it say about people in general when there were people who would as well as people who would judge him for not doing so? While the way Uncle Eustace-and, to an extent, Topaz- had treated Christopher, it was people like that who judge him over something so trivial that contributed to his overall wariness of them.
“Oh, that’s neat.” He replied, picking up two of the blocks and examining them.The Crotalus had grown up using something similar, only instead of latching together the way that these seemed to, his had stuck and unstuck together as if with some sort of adhesive, but in all actuality, it was with a spell. However, Mr. Pierce was right, blocks were blocks and Chris had always been excellent with them. It was not a thing that people thought of when they talked about a talent someone had, but while he was good at some other mediums, such as drawing, this was where he had always truly shined.
Although of course, Christopher had not fully been allowed to shine. Because, naturally, Uncle Eustace mocked him for being good at something that was not athletic in nature. He was told that he would never be a real man and he might as well go put on a dress and call himself Christina if he was going to spend his time playing with blocks instead of playing Quidditch. Honestly, if being a “real man” meant being like Uncle Eustace, he would rather not be one.
Really, Christopher really did sincerely wish that his uncle would do something dangerous and risky that those of his house were so known for and die from it so that they would be rid of him permanently. He knew it was probably wrong to wish for the death of another person, but in this case, everyone would truly be better off. Even Honora would be better off with no father than one like Uncle Eustace who would never want her or care about her or love her the way a father should.
Christopher looked at the biplane that Cole was making. “Really? I mean, I get that this is a model,but it doesn’t look like it could carry very many.” He looked at the assortment of LEGOs available to him. “I think I’ll try the freestyle ones.” He started out his project as Cole waved over another student, stopping when the Teppenpaw introduced him to Yarielis. Which really wasn’t all that necessary, given that Sonora was not a large school, they were in the same house and had classes together all year. Plus, knowing and remembering names was a sign of respect. Maybe if there were more to remember it would be understandable to forget them but there weren’t.
Not only that, but Christopher tended to… observe others closely because he wanted to know about people so he knew how safe they were and while Yarielis played Quidditch and wasn’t a Teppenpaw, he saw very little about her that he found to be a huge red flag. She actually generally seemed to be fairly shy, a trait he found at odds with her interest in playing sports at all, let alone a brutal one in the most brutal position.
Anyway, Chris smiled at the younger Crotalus. After all, he wanted people to be friendly and encouraging to him and despite the cognitive dissonance it caused in his mind considering what else he knew about her, he recognized that Yarielis might be nervous about acceptance from others the same way he was. “Do you guys want to build something together?” He asked both of the first years.
11
Christopher Brockert
That's a good quality
1539
0
5
Gabriel Wilson
June 14, 2022 4:12 AM
You might be nostalgic for them when you reach Advanced classes by Gabriel Wilson
“Great!” Gabriel replied. He was glad that Phil liked his idea about going over to meet Heinrich and Evelyn. Aside from his family, the gaming club was his main social group and he was thrilled to show the younger Aladren a part of its history and show the two alumni how it was continuing on. Although, of course, he wasn’t sure that it meant as much to Heinrich and Evelyn as it did to him as he was not a Legilimens but he hoped it did and they were glad to see him.In particular, Gabriel hoped that Evelyn was. Not because he liked her more than Heinrich, if anything he looked up to the former Aladren more. It was because the sixth year had never been sure whether or not if she liked him much. Evelyn was best friends with Ness, and Gabriel had always thought that Ness disliked him because of a faux pas he’d made. After that he’d been very very careful around the older Aladren and didn’t say much around them. In all honesty, Gabriel had been more comfortable in the club since they graduated.
However,today, he was feeling nostalgic and he liked Heinrich and felt it would be rude not to say hi to Evelyn too. Besides that, he didn’t dislike her either, he just worried she didn’t like him and also, the sixth year was excited to show Phil history. Maybe it would show him how important it was to keep the club going even though Gabriel wouldn’t be around to enjoy it. As he wouldn’t be, maybe he shouldn’t care so much, but he did.
“They seem to be tie-dying shirts. We can do that too if you want.”Which the older Aladren did as he wanted to support their booth. “Oh, a few of my cousins are here too. Kira is making simple toys using mechanical transfig which means getting to know a new spell.” Although it was one that Gabriel knew already. As for Serena, he really didn’t think Phil would care about having a photo op with a real life princess.
He looked around the Quidditch Pitch once more, realizing that he should probably be finding out more information about the careers being showcased at the fair today since the sixth year literally had no idea what he wanted to do with his life. Although, he also didn’t think everyone here was offering something that had to do with their career. He knew that Kira and Serena didn’t because they didn’t have careers unless being a princess was considered one in the case of the latter.
Which didn’t help Gabriel at all. Perhaps, he would just have to talk to the alumni that were here and he’d get some ideas. At the very least he would probably have a good time. “So, where do you want to go first? Temple of DOOOM or Game Club alumni?” He was good with either or basically anything else Phil was interested in.
He wanted to spend as much time with his fellow gamers before he wasn’t here anymore.
11
Gabriel Wilson
You might be nostalgic for them when you reach Advanced classes
1481
0
5
Anya Delachene
June 14, 2022 5:29 PM
I know, right? by Anya Delachene
Anya gave Theo a quick hug. He was clearly agitated, and she tried to be a calming presence, and led them into an out of the way alley space between two of the booths, and cast a quieting charm on the area, and gave him a bigger, longer, warmer hug. "Better?" she asked hopefully. "There is a lot of people out there, and a lot of things happening, which is cool, but I guess a bit overwhelming?" she checked. It wasn't a problem she had much. Her problems stemmed mostly from an inability to focus and sit still, so this was great for her. There were a lot of things to flit between."We can stay here for a minute or two, but was there anything going on out there you wanted to try?" she asked. She imagined there were at least some big fat Nopes for him, but there was a bunch of neat stuff and not all of it could be awful for Theo. "My mom and sister brought flying horses," she suggested. "They can fly up high above everything else, and they're probably set up off the side a bit so the horses don't get upset by everything going on, too."
"And did you see the hoverboard guy? That was super fun and it wasn't spiky or sticky. And there's baked goods!" she added excitedly (some of those might be sticky, upon reflection, but Theo could probably find something safe for him there). There'd been some other things too, that she thought looked interesting, but wasn't sure Theo would agree.
1
Anya Delachene
I know, right?
1453
0
5
Ian Malone
June 15, 2022 12:44 AM
I tend to think of adventures as dangerous things, but then I can apparently see dangers in everything by Ian Malone
Ian nodded. “He did mention hunting rabbits last year when I talked to him in class. I didn’t realize that extended to all available creatures but it doesn’t actually surprise me all that much.” After all, if they needed to hunt for food, it would make sense to want a variety of things to eat. Plus, Billy had given the Teppenpaw the impression that he was a very good hunter. Like, that was one of his natural talents. Ian was a good student, Billy was good at hunting.“Has he been successful at catching wild birds before?” The fourth year asked. Based on what Iris had just said, that they had plenty of owls around and that the Pecari had caught most creatures available, either that meant that he had not tried or he had not been successful. Which meant it might not be able to be done, given Billy’s apparent prowess at catching animals. Logically speaking, if there was an animal that lived in abundance near the Cobbs, and Billy had caught nearly every type of animal around them, probability suggested that he’d tried to catch a wild owl before.
“I’ve always wanted to be a Healer.” Ian replied. “Because of my mom’s health issues. She has an immune deficiency, although she’s on a potion that helps her now and I want to help others like her. Maybe find a potion that cures people with that type of ailment.” He probably would not have mentioned this to Iris if she hadn’t asked what he planned to do. Besides, it was possible that people already knew about his mom.’
He continued speaking. “I mean, we have magical powers and we come to school to learn how to use them and harness them. I suppose that we also learn how to use them so we can go out and use them in our careers after school. I think that that’s somewhat the purpose of the alumni coming back is, so they can tell us about their careers and show some fun ways of using things that are part of them. Although some are just showing people their hobbies. Like my mom and aunt.” They didn’t have jobs because wealthy pureblood women mostly didn’t. Also, Mom had health issues and Aunt Melanie had three newborns and two other children under seven.
“Chinese calligraphy is writing Chinese letters as an art form,”Ian replied. “I admit, I don’t know too much about them other than that, honestly. However, it’s something to do.” Something safe. Unless the ink was some sort of weird toxic thing that gave off dangerous fumes which Ian sincerely doubted. As much as he saw danger at every turn and the myriad of ways people could be harmed, he generally still had faith that most people were good and not trying to come up with ways to harm those around them and that even if they were, Ian felt like the school would not allow them to come back or would just otherwise not allow that to happen. Plus, Ian thought the guy running it had gone to school with Uncle Ryan’s sister Peyton and was a Teppenpaw .
And Ian supposed , if someone was stupid enough to drink the ink or people used the writing instruments as weapons, someone could get hurt at the Chinese calligraphy booth but that was highly unlikely. Also,the man running it or one of the Professors would likely put a stop to such behavior.
“I also highly recommend the bake sale.” Ian added. He felt he should send some business Peyton’s way.
11
Ian Malone
I tend to think of adventures as dangerous things, but then I can apparently see dangers in everything
1522
0
5
Let's see you off in style by Theo Spurn
Anya was approaching this with simple, logical steps, the first of which were ‘more hugs’ and ‘a bit quieter.’ They were good first steps. Theo breathed deeply, trying to bring his racing thoughts under control. They weren’t all bad thoughts or bad experiences, there were just too many of them to pick a starting point, especially when they were mingled in with things that kept throwing him off and making him feel prickly. He nodded vaguely to her assertion.“They didn’t lay it out sensibly,” he added, by which he meant that they hadn’t grouped all the various things he found icky together so that he could avoid them, nor had they given him a clear starting point. “Yes. Lots of things,” he said, when she asked if he’d seen anything he liked. “I like fun,” he added, both in self-defence and as a suggested starting point. He and Anya did have enough of a shared definition of fun meaning bouncing or being shaken around that she would probably be able to derive something fairly fitting from this.
Luckily she had more concrete suggestions to start them off. He was less of a fan of movementy things that could result in falling, unless it was into a pile of pillows, so he was wary of the hoverboards, at least whilst they were out on the pitch. He absolutely would have ridden one around a MARS room that had been transformed into a pillow castle. He did appreciate Anya’s assessment that they weren’t spiky or sticky though.
“Horses are good,” he said. The chance of falling was way less because he trusted the horses to behave. They would also be nice to pet, and Anya definitely liked them so he was also being considerate by choosing them. “And not falling off things,” he added.
13
Theo Spurn
Let's see you off in style
1476
0
5
Lavender Brockert
June 15, 2022 5:24 AM
Aftermath by Lavender Brockert
Lavender was so glad that CATS was over. Okay, she still had to wait for her scores but honestly? She was pretty sure that the lead up to them had been worse than the actual test. All the studying, all the worrying- both about her friends and herself-all the scare tactics of the professors about how important the tests were to their futures? The Crotalus had expected them to be so much worse than what they actually were,Perhaps it had been just that she did not have to worry about getting a certain grade so she could take the appropriate prerequisites for college and a career because while she might go to the former, she was not planning on having the latter. Nor did Lavender have parents who were super strict about grades and achievement, especially after seeing the effect having a parent like that had had on Amity and Chaslyn. They both had issues because of how their mother had pushed them so hard. Chaslyn had to be essentially deprogrammed so she did not feel like she was a failure if she was not constantly being productive and Amity basically tried to pretend Aunt Jillian wasn’t there, while Aunt Jillian made passive aggressive jabs about the Aladren alumna, and Amity’s husband Phillip would come to his wife’s defense, not letting her get away with that for a second. So, Lavender was extremely glad to have the parents that she did.
Also, her dad said that for him to expect her to get perfect grades would be hypocritical of him.
Another thing was that for her practical exam, she had gotten one of the nicest examiners that was available…who had also clearly been seriously off his game. She had gotten the impression that Mr. Barba did not have the energy to even attempt to put on a scary demeanor even if he’d been normally capable of it-and Lavender had heard he was nice anyway, and did his best to reassure nervous students.
He had not done so with her, probably at least partially because of how unwell he had seemed to be-honestly, Lavender was now glad that she was allergic to bees instead of having seasonal allergies, she now felt terrible for Ryan who had them and she sincerely hoped that Mr. Barba was feeling better but since pollen was an issue all summer long, he probably didn’t-but she had honestly not needed to be reassured because, with the exception of some things in DADA, which the fifth year didn’t even care about, because she was dropping that class anyway, she had never much trouble with the practical part of magic.
Anyway, Mr. Barba had seemed impressed with her abilities in Transfig and her knowledge of various plants, so Lavender was pretty sure she could expect at least an E in those. Plus, she had found the whole Herbology section on the written portions extremely easy.
So, all in all, the whole thing had not lived up to the hype for the Crotalus. The way the professors talked about the necessity of preparing, she had basically expected the written portion to have questions only the most academically gifted of the Aladrens could even remotely understand and the practical part to deal with spells that only people like Kira could do.
Which now that Lavender was finished, she realized that wouldn’t have made sense because then almost nobody would pass. Still, maybe it was just that she was a little smarter and better at magic than she thought, maybe her expectations of difficulty were a bit heightened by professors who wanted to work them into a frenzy.
Anyway, Lavender was still glad they were over and she didn’t have to worry about them anymore. Although, she would have to deal with RATS, which were allegedly even worse. Well, they probably were, because it was higher level magic, but they probably weren’t as bad as the professors were going to make them out to be.
However, today was the school fair and she was excited. There were lots of fun activities being offered including some by her cousins…and one by her dad. Seth Brockert, former Groundskeeper and Pecari alum, was here doing mini topiary which had a charm on them to make them do simple movements. That was where Lavender was going first. She headed off in that direction.
11
Lavender Brockert
Aftermath
1504
0
5
Yaniel Ayala Velez
June 15, 2022 5:39 AM
Yeah. I should work on that... by Yaniel Ayala Velez
’Build with us over here!’A small smile tugged at the corner of Yarielis’ mouth at that. Along with the introduction to his (and Lenny’s) parents, the Crotalus felt almost like someone who mattered, or belonged in this interaction. It was good that he introduced Christopher too, because it saved being caught up in the whole imbalance of Formal and Scary Pureblood Introductions vs like…. ‘Hey, this is just my name.’
“Hi,” Yarielis said very quietly to Christopher. Yarielis didn’t know much about him. He seemed to keep to himself, but the first year wasn’t confident of being a good judge on that. Almost no one seemed to go out of their way to be deliberately antagonistic at this school. A few people were loud or attention seeking (Lenny) but not really in Crotalus. Yarielis didn’t speak to many people. Therefore, someone else’s lack of interaction wasn’t indicative of a lot, because it could have been the first year’s own avoidance of people that led to that impression. Perhaps Christopher was an absolute laugh riot amongst his own set.
The little Lego book was comforting. Yarielis had chosen a blue moped, like the one Papa used for deliveries. It looked deceptively simple, but even this tiny structure had pages and pages of detailed instructions. They were very precise, requiring differentiation between highly similar pieces, and careful counting of dots to determine the exact position where two pieces were supposed to join. It gave Yarielis a lot to think about, squeezing out a lot of the thoughts that got too loud when the first year’s brain wasn’t occupied. It was a little like Quidditch in that sense. Yarielis liked beating for two reasons. The first was that it was like playing baseball, which was tied to positive memories of time in the park with Papa. The other was that people could literally die if you stopped paying attention. Okay, it wasn’t likely at school, but they could get injured, and it was a big responsibility. That meant you had to concentrate - you had to stay in the moment, focussed on what was going on around you. There wasn’t space to worry about whether everyone who looked at you saw all the things you hated most about your body, or how you could please both your parents just as much as each other when they both needed different things from you, or whether people were laughing whenever you left a room. There was only what was happening on the pitch.
Practise wasn’t quite as high stakes as a game, but a lot of the same focus applied. Even when it didn’t, it helped because it took time out of the day and gave it a structure. Sure, Yarielis and Cole chatted a bit whilst they worked on exercises, but there was always something else to do other than talk—something that was supposed to be taking priority. It was like class in that way. There was always something to fall back on, and to fill the silence with. And then homework had to be squeezed in around practise, and between those two things, there was a lot less time to try and fill. Time that would probably end up in random or spontaneous interactions, which didn’t sound like something that was likely to go right.
The Lego was like both those things. It needed focus. There was a clearly defined task to follow. The little booklet was an excuse to sit, head bent, not really looking at people unless it was totally necessary. Yarielis could be present, with other people, but could be quietly independent, and not have to worry about interact—
’Do you guys want to build something together?’
-ing.
A wheel popped and skittered into the space between the three of them as Yarielis pressed a piece against it far too firmly.
“If you want?” Yarielis said, mostly looking to Cole, trying to evaluate his take on it, or to offer him the role of speaking for the group.
13
Yaniel Ayala Velez
Yeah. I should work on that...
1554
0
5
Phil Carson
June 15, 2022 5:05 PM
That is likely by Phil Carson
Phil considered his options. The gamer alumni were doing t-shirt tie-dying, which was usually fun, and the Temple of Doom was right up an adventurer's alley. Plus Gabriel was also willing to introduce him to his cousins, so that was like a big deal, right? If he was a big smart sixth year, he wasn't sure he'd go inviting any second years to meet his family, and learning spells to make mechanical toys was always a good use of time. You never knew when something like that might prove to be the turning point in an adventure.In short, Phil wanted to do all of those things, and it sounded like Gabriel was cool with doing them all with him, so that was awesome, but what did they do first?
"I guess the gamer alumni with the shirts?" he ventured. Their booth sounded the least interesting in its activity (he'd done tie-dying before) but important to Gabriel, so it seemed a good spot to start so the more fun things would still be waiting and something to look forward to. He had plenty of tokens and time, so there wasn't any kind of crunch to get the best things done quickly. "I'd like to meet your old friends and step back into the Gaming Club Past."
1
Phil Carson
That is likely
1536
0
5
Rosalynn Tellerman
June 15, 2022 5:32 PM
Absolutely! by Rosalynn Tellerman
Rosalynn was excited about the fair, but also saddened a bit that her dad wasn't here. He was the ex-groundskeeper, but he hadn't attended as a student, so he didn't technically count as alumni. Her brother did, but he hadn't opted to come, claiming he was boring and there wasn't anything interesting he could do for a booth. Personally, Rosalynn thought he was afraid Jhonice Trevear might be here, and it turned out she was, so good call on that.She did still have some distant relatives present, in the form of some California Pierces, and she'd probably swing by their booth later just to check in and say hi, but it wasn't high on her priority list. That list included (in no particular order): (a) scope out Jhonice Trevear and find out what was so scary about her, (b) hang out with Isla and Lorena, (c) hang out with Tommy, and (d) put on the little show she and a few of the Performing Arts Club members had pulled together, probably at Uncle Saul's booth/stage since his career was Performing Arts, sometime when he was taking a break. She'd have to put up a sign there before too long so people knew to come back for it.
She was already spying on Jhonice Trevear when she recognized a voice calling out to her, and she turned around to smile widely at Isla. "Hey!" she returned cheerfully. "Absolutely! I was just about to go looking for you and Lorena." Or Tommy. Or Saul. You know. Whoever she ran across first. Which was evidently Isla. "It's a great crowd out here, yeah? I think our show is going to have a nice audience. I was thinking we could put it on at my cousin's booth since he's already doing a bunch of performances. Anyway, what were you thinking of doing first?" She pointed down at her original object of interest. "I was thinking of checking out the newspaper lady?"
1
Rosalynn Tellerman
Absolutely!
1520
0
5
That sounds dreadful by Iris Cobb
"That was one of his jobs back home," Iris responded. "He was good at catching small game, so he along with some of the other boys did that to make sure we all had enough food and furs and whatever else we needed from the animals." Ian's next question almost made her laugh, but she restrained herself. "He's caught pheasants, turkeys, ducks, doves, all sorts of wild birds. I don't think he's gone after any owls yet though." She sighed a bit and kept on talking despite herself, "That's some of the reason things are a little rough when we go back home. With Billy gone so much of the time now, the other boys have to take up the slack. I generally helped tend the various gardens, and that's one less person doing that now as well while I'm here." She grimaced, "They're all muggles as well, so we can't even tell them why we need to go away for schooling, why the school there isn't good enough." Winter break hadn't been to bad on that front, but that was mainly because everyone was snowed in. She wasn't really looking forward to that aspect of going home again.She listened as Ian talked about his plans for the future and why. Having a constantly sick mother seemed like a good reason to learn to be a healer. Iris gave Ian an approving smile. The idea of being a healer didn't quite Iris as something she'd like to do, however Ma made some medicinal drinks. It wasn't quite like making a potion, but at the same time she thought it wasn't terribly far off either. She was doing pretty well in potions class and herbology, some sort of potion making job might work for her future. She'd have to think about it.
"Oh?" Iris asked a bit surprised, "Writing as an art form?" That sounded a bit interesting. She'd always liked drawing and wondered if it was something like that. "That sounds like something to checked out along with the bake sale." She hoped the things at the bake sale didn't cost to much money, she didn't have a lot, and she definitely wasn't going to go into debt with Ian for a cookie. Still, as much as she loved Ma's cooking, one last thing to eat from off the mountain would be nice before heading home for the summer.
2
Iris Cobb
That sounds dreadful
1526
0
5
Valentine Duell
June 15, 2022 6:11 PM
That sounds like a good plan by Valentine Duell
Valentine shook her head a bit forlornly, "No, Mama taught me at home. There weren't a lot of other kids around our area and..." She paused before continuing. She knew that Mama wondered if she hadn't been a little subconsciously overprotective of Val after the disaster with Aunt Giselle when they'd returned from Greece. Surely Mama and Papa could have found her a normal school to go to if they had really wanted to, but had they at some level kept her close so that they didn't loose her as well, even if they didn't know what they were doing or why? Regardless, it wasn't really something she'd want to put out there for anyone to hear. "And Mama was a very good teacher, but I was very excited to get here!" Val ended enthusiastically."That sounds like fun then, It'd be neat to make Ramona something like that if I can." Although she was starting to wonder if there was some mystical connection she had between fairs and quilts. "As for the hoverboards, I can't promise you'll like them, but you'll never know if you don't try." She gave Esme an encouraging smile. "Papa wrote and said he was trying to design the thing to be as 'exciting' or 'tame' as the rider might like." She moved her head in closer to Esme's and lowered her voice. "I think he's got an unofficial competition going on with Mr. Sawyer and his hoverboards, seeing who can get the most tokens from us. So he wanted his to be open to the widest range of students possible." She gave the other girl a wink, "Which means to be a good daughter I'll have to ride his at least twice for every turn I take on the hoverboards." Then she pulled back away again to normal conversation distance.
Val chuckled along with Esme, "You never quite know with Aunt Jhonice. If she gets enough small things put together right, she might just find a bigger story somewhere between them all. Still I think everyone will be safe enough from her." She couldn't find fault with Esme's logic about the teachers, still she knew that the entire staff had changed since Mama and Papa had come here. But that had also been more than just ten years.
The Teppenpaw nodded, "Yeah, I'll go and talk to him. That was on my plan for today, but that will take a little bit different of a mindset than the enjoying the rest of the fair." She paused again and looked over in the direction of the wand seller again, "Maybe I should just go and do it now, then it won't be looming over my head and I can enjoy everything else properly."
2
Valentine Duell
That sounds like a good plan
1490
0
5
Isla Brockert
June 16, 2022 3:54 AM
Awesome! by Isla Brockert
Isla grinned, pleased that Rosalynn had agreed to hang out with her. Not that she really that the other Aladren wouldn’t want to although she might have pre-planned things with Tommy. The problem had never been that she’d been neglected by her friends at all, just things like the ball and the trip to the zoo-where she had a perfectly nice time anyway-and being different in a way that she was not really okay with. Even though she felt left out at times, it wasn’t really because of anything her friends or their boyfriends had done wrong. It wasn’t as if Isla felt like they didn’t like her anymore.“Great!” She replied. Of course, the crowd that Rosalynn mentioned was largely the staff and students who were here everyday, so she assumed that her friend meant the alumni that were going to watch them. “My sister and a lot of my cousins are here. I mean, as alumni.” She specified. Esme was still a student here and Isla was a Brockert. Of course, a lot of her cousins were here. That was like one of the most obvious facts that she could state. Anyway, the Aladren was really excited about the fact that they would be able to see the Performing Arts club’s show later. Although they had their booths too so she hoped that at the very least that Allegra and Ruby could get away on a break to see them perform.
“That sounds cool,”Isla replied. “My cousin Owen is doing a writing and illustrating exercise with his wife too. I mean, if you’re interested in writing activities.” It was a creative pursuit just like visual and performing arts although it did use a different skill set. Some people who could write a play weren’t necessarily capable of performing in one, either due to a lack of talent in that direction or horrible stage fright.
Isla was especially glad not to have the latter.If she’d lacked acting talent, which did not seem to be the case as it was part of puppeteering, she would hopefully have been gifted in some other way but stage fright was something that sounded tremendously awful, experiencing that sort of anxiety, the way that Allegra did. Like you could avoid doing things that made you anxious, until you couldn’t. For example, you never got up in front of a crowd until you had to give some sort of presentation in school. Although, Isla supposed being in a play where you were someone else performing something written by someone else was different than giving a speech that you had written that was full of your own opinions.
The latter sounded a bit scarier than the former, honestly. Acting was being someone else, a socially acceptable way to play pretend once you got to be a certain age, giving a speech and allowing people to hear how you felt about things, that was lying yourself bare for others to dissect, to judge. And some would find fault with what you did or said no matter what it was. While Isla only cared up to a certain point as surely, someone who was always going to try and find a problem with something was the one with the issue, not you, it was hard for someone like Allegra.
Which was why the fourth year was actually really proud of her sister for coming to the fair today. The Crotalus alumna was an amazing quilter and really knew what she was talking about when it came to techniques and patterns for her chosen art form. “Actually, I think most of my cousins who are here are doing some sort of creative thing,”Isla added. “Allegra is quilting, Ruby is doing flower arranging, Owen and Jemima are writing and illustrating and Cory is playing the guitar and doing lessons.”
She went on. “I’m up for anything though.” Even the hoverboards or the Temple of DOOOM funhouse seemed like something that she was willing to try. “It looks like a lot of the booths involve some sort of creative pursuit though.” Which made sense, considering an office job would be less likely to lend itself to something that would work at the fair.
11
Isla Brockert
Awesome!
1521
0
5
Ian Malone
June 16, 2022 8:48 AM
It really is by Ian Malone
“Oh.” Ian replied. “Maybe you guys just never needed to catch an owl then.” Because it seemed that Billy really was pretty skilled at hunting and trapping. The Teppenpaw didn’t think he personally would ever have the stomach to actually do it, but he was rather impressed. Not that he had a weak stomach with regards to things like blood, since that was part of Healing. He just didn’t think he could bring himself to kill something. However, Ian was not stupid, he knew that meat did not just end up on his plate without something dying. Someone had to actually slaughter the animals and sometimes people actually had to catch those animals rather than just raising them on a farm.Besides,catching wild animals was not a skill that Ian felt that he would be good at. It sounded like it would just be a very…physically demanding task. Something that the tough outdoorsy adventurous type of boy that Billy was and he wasn’t was good at. He was glad that he’d never have to be that way, he simply wasn’t wired like that.
Apparently, that wasn’t the only way that Ian was lucky either. “I’m sorry that it’s difficult for you at home. I can’t imagine what that would be like to have to lie to people about why you’re away and have them resenting you for it.” He really sincerely felt bad for Iris and Billy. He couldn’t imagine going home to such a situation, to a home where you were different and people were mad at you for it. It must have been so hard for Muggleborns in general but even worse in a place where it seemed like people depended on you and blamed you for letting them down. Ian knew how much he worried about letting others down but nobody really put that pressure on him other than himself. It was completely unfair for others to put that level of responsibility on people their age and his family wouldn’t dream of doing that to him.
He noted Iris’s look of approval when he mentioned that he wanted to be a Healer and why. The Teppenpaw couldn’t help but feel pleased. Not that he thought she disapproved of him before or expected that anyone would have of someone for wanting to become a Healer but it was just always nice to feel validated. Especially by one of his peers considering that Ian always felt nerdy and awkward and wimpy, the kind of person his classmates wouldn’t notice or find interesting.
“That’s the way I understand it.” He replied. It did sound fairly interesting. “There’s a lot of..arts and crafts type things, from what I noticed. And the baked goods are definitely something to check out. You know the O’Malley twins? In fifth year?It’s their aunt who makes them and she’s amazing at baking and cooking."
11
Ian Malone
It really is
1522
0
5
Gabriel Wilson
June 16, 2022 11:37 AM
Trust me, I am. by Gabriel Wilson
Gabriel nodded. “Sounds awesome.” He actually had never tie-dyed anything before so he was all for experiencing that. He’d end up with a nice little souvenir of his fair experience. Actually, with the amount of crafting based booths, he might very well end up with a couple of those. Although, he doubted he could interest Phil in making quilts or arranging flowers. Gabriel wasn’t really very interested in doing those things himself.Anyway, what he really should be doing is checking out the different career options. Even though the Aladren knew full well that all those pureblood ladies from his mom’s family were showing their hobbies and not their careers, because they didn’t have them. There was nothing wrong with that but it wasn’t going to help him much.
He looked at Phil, wishing that he was still the younger Aladren’s age. Back then, Gabriel had never really thought about careers, not seriously anyway. He knew that he’d have to figure it out sometime, but it had never really been anything he dwelled on and he missed that. He was also aware that he still had college after his final year at Sonora but generally speaking, that was just prolonging the inevitable.
True, Gabriel had a lot of options. He had done well on his CATS and kept most of his classes, getting good grades in all of them all the way through. The sixth year was generally very studious and excelled academically. Plus, he was from the sort of family that tended to be able to get accepted to any college they wanted. None of this was the issue. The issue was not knowing what he wanted to do. What he liked was trivia and gaming and unfortunately, he didn’t know how to make his hobbies into a career.
Maybe he should just forget it and have a good time with Phil. Which was what he truly wanted to do but career information was part of the point of the fair and Gabriel should take advantage of it. At the very least, maybe he should ask Heinrich and Evelyn for advice. Considering the other options here in terms of people he knew, they were likely the best choices. The only other reasonably good one was Uncle Seth.
Actually, he might be the better one, considering he actually knew Gabriel. “Also, my uncle is here, teaching people to make mini topiary that are animated with a charm. We should check that out too. First, though, to the Gaming Club past!” He grinned at Phil and started walking towards where Heinrich and Evelyn were tie-dying shirts.
11
Gabriel Wilson
Trust me, I am.
1481
0
5
Jasmine Delachene
June 16, 2022 6:07 PM
Well, with our horses, we can get that note quite high! by Jasmine Delachene
Jasmine stood beside one of the horses, adjusting the co-rider stirrups on the big double saddle of the Abraxan to be a quite a bit longer after the tiny human (who was a lot bigger than the last time Jasmine had seen Dora) got her turn flying around the pitch. Professors Xavier and Xavier-Carter's daughter wasn't quite big enough to be mistaken for one of the first years yet, but she wasn't as far off as Jasmine was expecting her to be.Once Jasmine got the stirrups to a more appropriate size for an eleven to thirteen year old, (Mom was making all first and second years ride double with either Mom, Jasmine, or an adult relative just to be sure nothing happened - older students got to ride alone on one of the Granians while Mom or Jasmine flew a different horse beside them) she turned around to see who was next in line and gave a wide beaming smile as she recognized Ellie, all grown up! (She had, of course, kept in touch via letter, and even visited back and forth during breaks, but now Ellie was basically all graduated, so it was different.)
"Ellie!" she exclaimed, returning the hug warmly. "Good! I'm good," she promised. "The horses are behaving and so are the kids so far, and we just had Dora, so that was one I was a little worried about, but she did great! Professor Xavier on the other hand . . ." she winked and giggled. The Herbology professor had done fine, too, but he had definitely looked out of his element away from the ground. "No, he was fine, too. He definitely has more of an Earth aspect to him than an Air one though."
"If you asking about life beyond today's fair, though, I might have a date with our veterinarian for the horses. He invited me for coffee next week, to talk about some preventative treatments he thinks are important, and I'm not sure if it's just business or if that's an excuse. He's my age, and just took over from our old vet who retired, and he is very cute. And he invited me, not Mom, so that's promising, right?" They were working as nearly equal business partners now, running the ranch, so there was nothing particularly strange about this, especially since Jasmine was a little quicker to be the one to reply to his owls, but the invitation had been specifically for 'Jasmine' not 'one of the owners' so she was hopeful.
She saw Mom talking with Philippe and added, "Philippe's here, so he can cover for me if you want to grab a couple brownies or cupcakes or whatever looks good and chat for a bit? Or do you want to ride on old Flossie here first?" She patted the Abraxan, the calmest and most evenly tempered of the Abraxans they had, and so the one they brought to carry around potentially unruly children and larger adults who were too heavy for the slighter gray Granians. The Granians were, as a species, less willful and prone to acting up, so most of the horses they had brought were those. Flossie had always been Jasmine's favorite though. "She's got a double saddle, so we can ride together if you like." Abaxans were huge, and very powerful creatures, and Jasmine wasn't remotely worried that two women of their size would be too much for Flossie.
OOC: Dora and Professor Xavier are mine. It's not god-modding for me to write for them.
1
Jasmine Delachene
Well, with our horses, we can get that note quite high!
1397
0
5
Rosalynn Tellerman
June 16, 2022 6:31 PM
Let's do this! by Rosalynn Tellerman
"Oh, that's great!" Rosalynn enthused when Isla said most of her relatives were here for creative pursuits. "The Arts are really important and they usually aren't given nearly enough attention at schools, so I'm glad they're getting solid representation here at the fair! We'll definitely need to patronize all of their booths." She frowned slightly, concerned that the word she had chosen might sound wrong. "As in, be patrons, not to look down on and treat like children," she clarified because English could be imprecise like that and have the same word mean two wildly different things."Anyway, yeah, newspaper lady is right here, so should we visit her first, then move on to your cousin with the writing and illustrating, then hit the crafters? Then we follow a logical artsy progression?" she wasn't sure whether quilting or flower arranging was more like drawing, but maybe they'd settle the tie by who was closer in physical proximity to the previous booth. "Then finish up with the guitar cousin and my Uncle Saul. While we're with Saul, I'll need to put up a sign, too, so people know to come for our show, so that should maybe be a little earlier in the procession . . ." she frowned in indecision, until an idea occurred to her. "I bet we could illustrate the sign! So maybe right after that!"
1
Rosalynn Tellerman
Let's do this!
1520
0
5
Isla Brockert
June 17, 2022 1:40 AM
Whoo! by Isla Brockert
Isla nodded in agreement. “This was a complaint that my cousin Angelique always had. The Quidditch team is a school supported program, they even restructured it when they weren’t able to get enough people for house teams and they have mini matches and exhibitions, but everything else,all the arts programs, have to be something led and organized by students. We don’t have a school supported choir or orchestra. We only have school plays if the performing arts club decides we want to or occasionally at the concert.”Okay, so Angelique had largely been complaining about this issue because she was in a year group full of sporty people when she pretty much was a girly girl who happened to enjoy singing and she often felt left out and rejected among them. Which she did not take well, to say the least. Isla was starting to understand how she felt a bit even though it was a completely different situation. The Aladren didn’t actually feel rejected but she did feel left out sometimes. However, Angelique talked about this time in her life as if it was a tragedy of Topaz-led proportions.
Also, Angelique seemed to be more bothered by the fact that she was a girly-girl and her female classmates were not-and the fact that they all bonded with each other and she and another distant cousin, Tasha were left out, which was honestly a pretty valid reason to feel upset-than the issue around Arts vs Sports. However, Angelique had a very good point about arts not getting as much attention.
“Sounds like a plan.” Isla told her friend. “Allegra and Ruby are actually at a booth full of arts and crafts run by several Brockert women, not just quilting and flower arranging, those are just their specialties. There is also knitting, sewing, crocheting and things like that. I think there’s things like making little pot holders on small weaving looms.” She actually had one of those. “And making small dolls and stuffed animals.”
She thought for a moment. “Actually I think some of my other distant cousins are here too. Like, there’s one making small toys using mechanical transfiguration and one making mini topiary animals. Oh, and my cousin Alessa isn’t doing a creative thing exactly, she’s reading tarot cards, but I want to do that too.” In all honesty, Isla really loved Divination and tarot reading in particular. “Maybe we can get her to give us a small lesson even. I mean, if you want.” She added. Rosalynn didn’t actually take Divination so she might not be that interested and Isla both did take it and had access to Alessa at other times so the Aladren alumna could supplant what Professor Duell already taught her.
“And illustrating the sign is a great idea.” Isla added. “After that, should we also try to find Lorena so the three of us can do everything else together?” She wouldn’t bother their other roommate if she was with Oz, but it would be great if the three of them could do some stuff together as a trio.
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Isla Brockert
Whoo!
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Amethyst Brockert
June 17, 2022 4:01 AM
Transitions by Amethyst Brockert
So Amethyst’s third year at Sonora was over and now she was going to be a fourth year. Which somehow did not seem as big a deal as other year transitions. Going from first to second meant you were not the youngest year group. Second to third meant that you were going from Beginner classes to Intermediates. Fifth and seventh years were up for badges and had huge tests at the end of the year and sixth years were going from Intermediate to Advanced classes and dropping the ones they didn’t want to take any more. Fourth year though? The only thing of note was that at midterm, you were half way through school.The biggest change next year was going to be a personal one for her. Which was that Sapphire wasn’t going to be here anymore. Amethyst knew how happy the older Crotalus was to be leaving, school hadn’t been the best for her, either socially or academically. Although arguably, the latter hadn’t gone that bad, in terms of grades. It was just that Sapphire was miserable when doing her school work. Amethyst couldn’t completely blame her, because it wasn’t her favorite thing to do either,but it seemed like the older girl expected to struggle so she felt miserable when slogging through assignments.
And socially…well Sapphire was friends with Esme’s roommate Sadie but she still felt as if people in her own year had looked down on her and never given her a chance, for no discernable reason. So, the seventh year had felt rejected and not good enough. Just like how Topaz made her feel-and Amethyst knew full well why Topaz had done so, because Topaz was a bad person who wanted to make them all miserable. It was a bad reason but it wasn’t a reason that was Sapphire’s fault. The specific root of that whole thing though, was actually the seizures that Sapphire had that made it seem as if she was spacing out, and Topaz seized on that-as she did on all the weaknesses of those around her-and relentlessly mocked the seventh year as stupid.
Still, as far as Amethyst was concerned, the fact that her sister’s classmates ignored her and hadn’t given her a chance made them, while not as bad as Topaz-almost nobody was as bad as Topaz-still stuck-up snobs. How ironic was it that Sapphire was almost certainly more likely to make a friend in pureblood society when purebloods, especially rich ones, were considered snotty. How absolutely hypocritical of people to assume that of people like them when they were the ones being rejected
So, in general, Amethyst was happy for her older sister and hoped she’d be much happier after she left Sonora. Still, she was going to miss her just the same. She’d always been closer to Sapphire and Jasper as the three little ones of their siblings. Now none of them were so little anymore. Next year it would be just her and Jasper here at school.
Amethyst gazed around the pitch, trying to decide what she would like to do first as she had some time before the Performing Arts Club’s show. It seemed like there were a lot of arts and crafts booths, a lot of which were courtesy of her own family. There was also a ride that she…might like to go on with Alexei. After all, she would like to spend some time with her friends before they all left for the summer so she went off to look for the Pecari.
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Amethyst Brockert
Transitions
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Ellie Alperton
June 17, 2022 6:01 PM
Sugar might help with that too by Ellie Alperton
Ellie grinned at Jasmine’s description of Dora and Professor Xavier coming for a ride. She almost let slip an ‘imagine growing up with things like this!’ and then remembered that, of course, Jasmine had. Funny, how it could still catch her out sometimes. Though she imagined very few magical children grew up in a magical school, and that was probably a whole other experience.“Definitely sounds date-like,” she confirmed with a squeal, “And cute veterinarian is totally your perfect type,” she grinned. She had been excited when he’d first been mentioned in Jasmine’s letters. Princes were all well and good as an ideal, but they could be a bit vapid and clueless, and probably didn’t even take care of their own horses. Jasmine deserved someone she could actually share her passions with. “We’ll have to meet up later in the week to debrief,” she added, excited by the fact that she could plan such a thing. They were going to be free to just casually pop over and see each other so often. Hopefully Ellie would have some dates of her own and Jasmine could help her prep and debrief.
Flying horses or cupcakes… It felt like an easy choice, because of course it was flying horses… But they’d still be there later, whereas Philippe, and the ability to sneak Jasmine away, might not be. She tried to ignore the little bit of her that was pleased to stick Philippe with chores whilst getting to have fun with Jasmine. That wasn’t nice. And Philippe was probably nice enough to want to help anyway… She tried to focus on the positive ‘time with her friend’ feelings, rather than feeling like she was winning some competition with him—one that he wasn’t aware of, and wasn’t even participating in.
“If Philippe doesn’t mind?” she checked. “Makes sense to get a break whilst you can, though I’m definitely up for flying later.”
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Ellie Alperton
Sugar might help with that too
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