Mortimer Brockert
November 12, 2023 4:10 PM
Opening Feast by Mortimer Brockert
Summer was over and now school was back in session again. The break had passed as it usually did, with the annoyances that were Eustace and socializing. Other than that it had been fairly mundane. Actually, the socializing had been pretty mundane too. Mortimer was decidedly glad to be back at Sonora where he didn’t have to deal with that as often. Or Eustace at all.Once the older students were assembled at their tables and the first years entered the room. Mortimer cast Sonorous on himself and rose." Welcome to Sonora for the new first years and welcome back for all older students. First years, you should have received a blank badge at the end of Orientation. You will dunk the badge in the Sorting Potion and it will turn the color representing your house which are blue for Aladren, yellow for Teppenpaw, red for Crotalus, and brown for Pecari. Afterwards, you may join your house table." He watched with interest as Libby was Sorted.
After the first years had been settled, Mortimer continued. “Would Amethyst Brockert and Hansel Hexenmeister please come up and get your Head Student badges." He continued. "In addition, I'd like to call up Gwendolyn Brockert,Cole Pierce, Yarielis Ayala Velez and Fortune Ardovini to receive their prefect badges. Congratulations.” Finally, a group that he couldn’t really complain about! Apparently,the current group of Advanced students had at least some semblance of intelligence and reason. And he was very proud of Amethyst. Emerald and Allegra had both been prefects, but the Crotalus was the first of his grandchildren to get Head Student.
Admittedly, he was also glad that Gwendolyn had gotten prefect for Aladren since otherwise he would have had to put up with Uncle Clifford. Her dad probably wouldn’t have made a fuss if she hadn’t as he tended to be as conflict adverse as Christopher was and easily intimidated, and Mortimer tended to be intimidating. The Brockert family patriarch was another story. It wasn’t as if the headmaster was intimidated by him so much as he just didn’t want to deal with it.
Once the prefects and Head Students were back in their seats, Mortimer continued. “Our midsummer event will be the Fair. Details to be announced at a later date.Now for the singing of the school song..” Lyric sheets were passed around and the song began.
Every day we strive
Learning to survive
Life’s hardships and to solve its mystery.
Learning to defend
Our honour and our friends,
Flying high to meet our destiny
We will stand and face those who want to harm us.
We won’t let the world transfigure, jinx or charm us
I won’t fight alone, as long as you are with me.
Sonora be my home, my tutor and my spirit
Vasita quoque floeat; Even the desert blooms.
That done, he dug into his steak and bourbon.
OOC: Mortimer is unaware of Yaniel being Yaniel
Subthreads:Aladren
This isn't right by Summer Collindale with Lazarus Jareau-Fletcher
It was not supposed to be this way. by Constance Melcher with Eben Sosna
First day jitters? Not me. by Kerri Stonehurst with Jason Brockert
Teppenpaw
A very very very fine House by Dora Xavier with Robyn Lundstrom, Libby Brockert
Welcome to Advanced, Liesl by Hansel Hexenmeister with Liesl Brockert
No hard feelings, I hope? (tag a Teppenpaw fifth year or two or three) by Cole Pierce with Leviosa Scurlock, Lenny Pierce
Crotalus
I feel weird breaking the silence by Wesley Wu with Cecily Welles
Of course. by Iris Cobb with Claire Osbrook
How do we feel about this year? by Ida Stanford
I did it! by Amethyst Brockert
Pecari
New beginnings? by Rowan Westfall with Donovan Peters
What happens next? by Fortune Ardovini with Misty Brockert
To the future. by Alexei Vorontsov
Staff
Proud Papa by Nathan Xavier with Isis Carter-Xavier
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Mortimer Brockert
Opening Feast
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Wesley Wu
November 14, 2023 3:54 AM
I feel weird breaking the silence by Wesley Wu
A couple of months ago, a weird guy had shown up at Wes’s home, announced they were both wizards, and turned a large lacquer bowl into a large toad to prove it. That had been Wes’s least favourite thing about magic, in spite of his limited exposure to it, until he got on the bumpy flying wagon to his new school today, whereupon that had taken the title. After that though, he’d been allowed to eat some relatively normal cookies, and been given a long talk about his classes and a tour of the school, all of which was almost normal if you overlooked the details, like the classes being potions, and the complete lack of electricity.He was slightly more disturbed by the loss of his personal routine than he was by the loss of all physics, having always been more an arts than a sciences kid. He hoped it meant there were less confusing formulae to memorise in his near future but he rather suspected that whatever it was that could break physics was more complicated than physics itself.
Wes stuck to the middle of the pack as they made their way through the school, trying not to do anything that made him too conspicuous, though that was definitely a lost cause when they all got shoved up in front of the whole school and made to go dip a badge one by one into a cauldron for it to change colour based on their personalities. He might have marvelled at it had he not been too busy dying of embarrassment and secretly worrying that he might not have enough of a personality to turn it anything.
Apparently though, his personality was red, and he made his way to his own house without complaint - unlike the girl a few turns before him, who had kicked up a mighty fuss about being in Aladren. Wes had doubled his efforts to melt into the background on her behalf whilst that was going on. He wasn’t the best with people, but he didn’t think that was a great way to start a relationship with the group you had to board with for the next seven years. As he settled in at his own table, he did his best to look at neutral and not-minding-at-all as if, on some cosmic level, he could counteract her, or at least not make his new housemates tarnish all the incoming crowd with the same brush.
He applauded for the people who he didn’t know, and then jumped slightly as the food appeared.
“Well, this is all very interesting,” he said to his neighbour, not specifying whether he meant the food, the school in general, or the dramatic scene during the sorting, but deciding that ‘interesting’ was a word that very much applied to all his experiences so far.
OOC: Normally writing another character's reaction without it being posted first would be god-modding/not allowed, but I also author Summer and know how she will react.
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Wesley Wu
I feel weird breaking the silence
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Cecily Welles
December 01, 2023 7:34 PM
It’s a hard job, but someone has to do it. by Cecily Welles
Cecily hadn’t really thought about what settling back into school life would be like, but somehow, she still managed to find it a little surprising. It had taken a few minutes to do so, because she’d had to unpack her toiletries and family photographs and musical jewelry box and books before it had begun to feel really familiar, but it had felt sort of good, being back in the little room she shared with Alma. At home, she had barely stopped feeling like everyone constantly noticed her appearance (well, did so in an unusual and slightly uncomfortable way - last year was the first time in Cecily’s life when she had ever gone unnoticed, much less wanted to do so) as an anomaly before it had been time to pack up again. For the moment, at least, it seemed she and her family had all accepted that school was where she was supposed to be by default.On one hand, that was good, because maybe she’d be less homesick than she had been this time last year. On the other hand, though, she wasn’t sure what it foretold for her chances of successfully acting on her resolution not to remain as quiet as she had been last year. If it felt natural to slip back into being here, in the dorms or the dining hall, then did that mean she would also just naturally reassume the unnatural withdrawal into herself she had undergone as a first year, once the reality of the situation - of the absence of Kenneth and George to boss around, and of no longer being surrounded exclusively by her brothers and a flock of adults who more or less unanimously adored her and had done so since the day she was born - had settled in? And even if that didn’t happen - what would everyone think, anyway?
In light of those concerns, she was not displeased to find herself sitting next to one of the new Crotalus first years. Nobody in first year, after all, knew anything about her, unless one counted what she had put into pen pal letters with Rowan Westfall over the summer. None of them had any reason to expect her to be the way she had been last year, including Rowan Westfall. They were all also younger than her, which was the proper thing for other children in her orbit to be. These things all made them the perfect specimens to practice on.
“If you’re talking about the Sorting, then it was definitely more interesting than mine,” she told the boy when he commented that ‘this’ was interesting. Her eyes flicked over to the Aladren table, looking for the girl who had made a fuss and wondering how on Earth school was going to go for her. “I don’t know how normal that is, though, since this is only the second one I’ve seen. Mine was last year. I’m Cecily Welles.” One thing she had gotten pretty well established last year was that her name wasn’t Cecelia, despite what legal documents and class rosters might say to the contrary. She had no objection to the name Cecelia or anything, but nobody had ever called her that, and it just didn’t occur to her naturally to answer to it. “We’ll be in the same classes. Welcome to Crotalus!”
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Cecily Welles
It’s a hard job, but someone has to do it.
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Wesley Wu
December 02, 2023 4:03 AM
Do they? by Wesley Wu
Wes nodded when the girl next to him referenced the sorting, though he probably would have agreed whatever she had pinpointed as the subject of his comment."Is Aladren... bad?" he asked. He didn't think it would make sense to have a 'bad kids' house and nothing he had read in the litetature about the school had suggested it to him. But perhaps there was something, eithet subtextual or unofficial, that he was missing.
"I'm Wesley Wu. Though most people call me Wes," he added. He had defaulted to using his full name because she had, and when he gave his family name it sounded silly if he abbreviated his given name - 'Wes Wu' was over so quickly most people had just wrapped their ears around the fact he was speaking when he stopped.
"Oh. Yes," he said, when she reminded him that they would be in classes together in spite of her being older than him. That was another thing that would take some getting used to. He scrambled to find something more than 'oh yes' though it was hard to know what to say to someone older than him. At his previous school, mixing between grade levels hadn't really happened. "How are they? The classes, I mean. Any particular teachers I need to look out for?"
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Wesley Wu
Do they?
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Cecily Welles
December 02, 2023 12:39 PM
I’m afraid so, otherwise everyone just sits here and it’s awkward. by Cecily Welles
Cecily responded to the inquiry about Aladren with a firm, immediate head shake ‘no’ before driving the point home verbally. “No, there’s nothing wrong with Aladren,” she said. “My favorite uncle was in Aladren.” This, as far as Cecily was concerned, was all the endorsement that was required, but she had just enough of an ability to see past the end of her nose to appreciate that this might not be enough for anyone else, and so she tried to elaborate. “Aladrens are usually really smart. So are people in other Houses, but I think we have to work harder for it or something? They’re just…good at school.” That was kind of why Cecily hadn’t been altogether surprised not to be Sorted into Aladren, and why she had worried about whether she would be able to live up to expectations if she had been. She was quite certain she wasn’t stupid - it wasn’t allowed in her family - but she didn’t always feel the need to seek out new things to know the way John and her grandmother did. “And sometimes they can be a little…um…” she tried to think of how to explain the concept in her head. “Weird, I guess, but not in a bad way? And some of them aren’t even that,” she added, thinking about the ones who had been second years when she was a first year - three American Society boys, plus usually Alexander Pierce; it was sort of surprising, sometimes, to see Alexander in the Crotalus common room, since she was used to seeing him with his brother and their friends. “So there’s nothing wrong with being in Aladren, and I don’t know what her problem was.” This with the tiniest tilt of her head toward the first year girl again.“Wes,” Cecily repeated, hoping this would lodge firmly in her memory. “Nice to meet another nickname person - my real name’s Cecelia Marie, but nobody’s ever called me that.” Her baby brother Kenneth called her Lily sometimes because he couldn’t pronounce ‘Cecily’ quite right, and George had picked up the habit from him because, she was sure, he thought it annoyed her, but not Cecelia or Marie, not that she thought anyone had ever planned to call her Marie. Her second name had been an afterthought that sounded all right with ‘Cecelia’ after her father had decided to call her that and her mom had agreed it was pretty. “Which is sort of funny, since almost everyone else in my family uses their whole names - though with one of my brothers, that might be because there’s…just not anything else to call someone named George,” she conceded. A bit of an oversight on her parents’ part, she thought; ‘William,’ ‘Julian,’ ‘Cecelia’, and ‘Kenneth’ all lent themselves to nicknames even if Cecily couldn’t imagine anyone really calling the other three Will, Julie, or Ken, but George was just…George, whether he liked it or not. “Do you have brothers or sisters?”
Wes asked about classes and teachers to look out for, and Cecily thought about the question for a moment before she answered it. “Professor Wright’s kind of boring, so you have to pinch yourself sometimes to make sure you keep paying attention long enough to figure out what the important part of whatever he’s saying is,” she said finally. “He’s the Charms teacher - see that man with the glasses and the stupid hat at the staff table? That’s him. He’s Head of Aladren. The Black lady is Professor Carter-Xavier, and she’s sitting beside Professor Xavier - they’re married to each other. Carter-Xavier’s the Head of Pecari and fills in for other teachers when they’re sick or something, and Xavier’s the Head of Teppenpaw and the Herbology teacher. Professor Xavier’s really nice, and so is Professor Brooding-Hawthorne, the Potions teacher. Sometimes plants in Herbology are dangerous and ingredients in Potions are always gross, but their teachers are really nice about it. And the blonde lady who was supervising during the Sorting, that’s Professor Skies - she’s the Transfiguration teacher, and the Deputy Headmistress, and she’s the Head of Crotalus. Transfiguration is a really tough class - as long as you follow all the rules and you’re trying hard to do it right, you should be okay with Professor Skies, but she’s pretty strict if she thinks you’re goofing off. Professor Wright and Professor Skies both warn us about stuff being dangerous all the time, but don’t let them worry you too much - it’s fine as long as you don’t do something stupid on purpose, I think.” She decided to take a pause for air and for eating some of her food and turned the conversation back to Wes. “Are there any classes you’re looking forward to?”
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Cecily Welles
I’m afraid so, otherwise everyone just sits here and it’s awkward.
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Wesley Wu
December 06, 2023 7:09 AM
But it's also awkward talking by Wesley Wu
Aladrens were smart and good at school, and there was nothing wrong with them. Wes thought the first two might not be true in the eyes of other students but unless they got pushed around on a daily basis, it didn't seem worth crying over.Oh. So she wasn't quite using her full name either, though hers still sounded like one.
"There was a Geo at my last school who was really a George. He was a bit odd though." Wes had never thought that really worked as a nickname, as it sounded more like an abbreviation for geography than George, but as it was rude to comment on other people's names or try to call them something they didn't want to be called, he had called Geo by his preferred nickname and kept those thoughts to himself. "Yeah, I have a younger sister, Pandora. Not Pan, not Dora." Whilst both were technically within her name neither really sounded like a logical nickname.
Cecily's run-down of the professors was useful. Wes was typically a good enough student to stay on the right side of all his teachers, but it still helped to know which ones he might need to try a little harder with to achieve that. One of them, he noticed, was their own head of house. He had neither expected Crotalus to be riotous nor had any plans to make it so. So that was all...fine.
"I'm not sure..." he answered regarding classes. "At my old school, I liked art. But I don't know that that really applies to anything here... What's your favourite?"
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Wesley Wu
But it's also awkward talking
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Cecily Welles
December 09, 2023 5:31 PM
That’s…also true. At least sometimes. by Cecily Welles
Cecily considered the possibility of calling her brother ‘Geo,’ and shook her head at it. It just didn’t sound natural, somehow. “I don’t think I’m going to call my brother that,” she said. “Geo sounds like…something about rocks, I think? It doesn’t quite sound like the first half of ‘George.’” A thought struck her and she laughed as she added, “it might sound a little more natural to call him Joe or something, but one of our uncles is already named Joseph.”It went beyond that, too - Uncle Joe was George’s godfather, and ‘George’ was Uncle Joe’s middle name. Since the two names didn’t sound nearly as similar put together, though, she decided this was far too complicated to try to explain. Instead, then, she just concluded with, “but even if it didn’t sound a little like that, I think I’d just keep calling him George.” Her mom said that she’d named George that because he just sort of looked like a George as a baby, so Cecily didn’t know if she would have drawn such a conclusion on her own, but ‘just sort of looked like a George’ was the best description she could possibly think of for her little brother, even though he - to Cecily’s unending envy - simultaneously looked so much like their mom. It was monstrously unfair, she thought, that George was practically a replica of their pretty mother when he had no real use for those features, even if they somehow didn’t hang together the same way on him.
Cecily supposed that, if it came down to it, she looked somewhat like her father, who was also commonly considered very good-looking. Kenneth was his clone, but Cecily did at least have the same coloring. With a massive effort, such as she had made today, she even thought she could look pretty, but just on an average day - or even a good day, if she looked someone too directly in the face; she had figured out that, assuming she had combed her hair over in the right direction, she could make her features look more delicate than they were at a slight angle and thus usually made that small adjustment around people - she had always found her own appearance a little bit of a disappointment. Her chin was too sharp, especially compared to how broad her face was at the cheekbones; her nose was too big, too, and her eyes were just a little too far apart. She hoped she’d grow into it all someday, but somehow, she expected these issues just to get worse and worse….
These, however, were not reflections to confide in a random first year. Maybe if she married him someday or something, but while he seemed nice and she assumed they would speak again, she currently had no reason to think she was going to marry him. This also made her think that maybe she shouldn’t mention aloud how odd she thought it sounded for someone to name one child Wesley and the other Pandora. Plus, well…her mother was a woman called Julian who had been born and raised in an English-speaking culture at some point in the past, like, eight hundred years. Instead, she just nodded and said, “I’m the oldest in my family, too - no sisters, just two little brothers. George and Kenneth. George is still seven, and Kenneth’s [look this up]. I missed them a lot last year.”
She thought for a long moment before attempting to answer the question about her favorite class, but it didn’t help her come up with an answer. “I don’t think I have one right now,” she finally concluded, mildly perturbed by this. “Maybe next year - third years can choose some other classes, so maybe there will be something available that I’d like. But right now….” She shrugged. “They’re all just sort of there. You might like Charms, though, if you liked art, and if you can follow Professor Wright more than I usually do. It’s less…science-y than Transfiguration or Potions. And sometimes the effects are fun, or at least, you can think of something fun to do with them.”
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Cecily Welles
That’s…also true. At least sometimes.
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