Dathan Fischer
October 05, 2022 1:11 PM
Long-distance Valentine's (tag Sadie) by Dathan Fischer
Dathan had thought before about how secluded Sonora was, and how that sometimes sucked, during his years at the school, but it occurred to him in early February that it now introduced a whole new problem. Specifically, his girlfriend was still there and he kind of...wasn't. And as far as he knew, you had to be pretty much dying to get visitors at school, and even then, that would just be your parents. And yet, Valentine's Day was still happening.It wasn't that he didn't see the obvious solution (aka, using the mail, the same way they'd kept in touch since September). He just didn't want to screw it up - to either embarrass Sadie, who was always shy, in public, or, on the other hand, to hurt her feelings if he didn't do enough and she didn't feel like she was the awesome, special, beautiful girl she was. It would be a lot easier to gauge and adjust in person if it turned out things were going too far to one side or the other...but that wasn't an option. And so, he spent about a week constantly stressing, roaming stores every afternoon after work trying to find something that wasn't too much or not enough, and then, after finally picking stuff, had a brief moment of calm before it was actually Valentine's Day and he spent all day distracted with being worried all over again.
It was a relatively modest parcel, both because they were both relatively (well, maybe exceedingly) modest people and because he, well, wasn't exactly rich, but he hoped she knew him well enough to guess that a lot of thought had gone into it. It contained a card (on the inside, beneath the pre-printed poem it came with, he'd written Thinking about you even more than usual today), a little heart-shaped box of chocolates, and a tiny box containing a tiny necklace. The last one had particularly bothered him, since while he knew nothing about jewelry, he suspected that the plating on something he could afford wasn't going to be top-notch - but it was the thought that counted? Hopefully? He'd thought about it a lot, going back and forth between three options; this one was the least expensive, but he thought it was dainty and Sadie-like, and just hoped she'd like the little open sunburst charm, which was attached to a...cardboard box interior...thing which proclaimed 'You Are My Sunshine.'
Despite his dithering, he managed to get to the post office before they stopped letting deliveries for Valentine's be scheduled. At least that was one less thing to stress about - it would get there at the right time, so he wouldn't have to worry about when she'd get it on top of everything else. Cost a little extra, but she and peace of mind were both worth it.
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Dathan Fischer
Long-distance Valentine's (tag Sadie)
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Sadie-Lake Chalmers
October 12, 2022 4:05 AM
It's a logistical nightmare by Sadie-Lake Chalmers
Even after almost seven years, the wizarding world could be confusing at times. How was it possible that you could mend a broken bone in seconds, but planning a gift delivery needed weeks of advanced planning? Where was the logic in that, given that gift giving was hopefully the more frequent experience in people’s lives?Sadie had all but given up on using owl order, seeing as that only allowed her to buy magical products. Seeing as most of the people she was buying things for were non magical, that wasn’t helpful. And after her first year, where she had frantically exchanged letters and got her grandmother to post her gift guide catalogues and suggestions, she had given up on trying to co-ordinate things from school, without google and instant messaging. Instead, she had gotten into the habit of pre-ordering the upcoming term’s birthday gifts whilst she had access to the wonder that was online shopping, and either setting far off delivery dates, or just getting them stored by a member of the family.
The Christmas holidays had presented an interesting new challenge on that front, because Valetnine’s Day would happen whilst she was at school. Mailing something was the easy part. Dathan was part of both worlds, seeing as he’d moved back in with his parents. That meant Sadie could leave something with her grandma and have her mail it the non-magical way nearer the time. That would probably also be less alarming for Dathan’s family too.
The trouble was choosing. Even with the Internet on her side, it had been quite a challenge. Her go to of the Incredibles tended much more towards the parent characters, and ‘Incredible Mom/Dad’ merchandise. Whilst she hoped those would feature in their lives someday, they definitely weren’t there yet. Most Valentine’s specific stuff wasn’t out when she was searching, and what she could find was sparkly and heart covered, which she couldn’t see appealing to Dathan. Sure, you were allowed to be a little cheesy for Valentine’s Day, but it just didn’t feel like it fit. After much scouring of Disney memorabilia, she had found something that she thought was just the right amount of cute, cheesy-but-not-too-cheesy, and not at all pink. It was a mug with one of the Pizza Planet aliens from Toy Story, proclaiming ‘You have been chosen!’ Once she had her theme, it had been easy enough to find a matching card, with a swooshing Buzz Lightyear and the words ‘I love you to infinity and beyond.’
She had ordered them, arranged delivery at a suitable time, and now there was nothing to do but sit back and worry that it had been a terrible choice or would get forgotten about. Or that she would. Not that she really doubted Dathan’s dedication, but well… She knew herself how complicated it could be. Surely he did too, as he’d lived here for years, whilst having to sort things out for birthdays and special occasions back home. But Valentine’s Day was new on his celebration list, and even though he had the advantage of being in the outside world, it would be easy to not remember all the extra time that was needed. And, of course, she would forgive him if it was late, but it would just be nice if it wasn’t. And if he got hers on time too, and if she could talk to him and know that. But some of those were more realistic wishes than others.
She tried to take a calm, collected seat at the Crotalus table on February fourteenth, but she couldn’t help her eyes drifting upwards with every owl arrival, subtly tracking them until they veered too far away to be for her.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted one that didn’t swoop towards another table. It seemed to definitely be heading for Crotalus. She tried to keep slicing banana onto her cereal, like she wasn’t waiting for anything, but she stopped when the owl got even closer. Her side of the table. Towards her. At her plate! She checked twice that it really had her name on the parcel before pulling it off, and feeding the owl some treats (she regularly had owl treats in her pockets because she was the Care of Magical Creatures assistant and they were an essential supply – she absolutely hadn’t double checked her pockets just in case she needed them this morning).
Once the owl was happy and on its way for a rest, she deliberated between opening her card and her present first. She decided to go for the present, in case the card contained spoilers. A bright smile spread across her face as she popped open the box with the necklace and read the message. She pulled it out, putting it on immediately.
She fished some of her letter writing stationery out of her bag (heavy cream paper with pressed flowers in the margins—she’d learnt a neat little charm to leave paper thin impressions of them in there, and a ballpoint pen with dark green ink).
14th Feb
Dear Dathan,
Thank you for the lovely necklace, which just arrived! It’s so sweet and I’m wearing it already. She paused. Over the last few months, she’d found that what she usually would say out loud got covered in a line of so, which meant that she had to dig deeper into her thoughts to justify her use of paper. Usually, she could get away with explaining what she’d been doing, but she’d only recently written a long letter to him.
I’ll wear it every day* and think of you. I think you’re the sunshine in this relationship – if I’m smiling, it’s usually because of you. (*except when working with nifflers or anything else that likes to go for shiny objects).
I hope your present arrived too and that you like it. I know it’s your ‘turn’ to write, so I suspect we’ll have a few messages crossing midair, but I wanted to write to you straight away.
I’m going to finish my breakfast with a chocolate, and then get to class. I’ll be thinking of you extra today too.
See you soon, write to you sooner.
Yours,
Sadie,
xxx.
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Sadie-Lake Chalmers
It's a logistical nightmare
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