Giselle Duell
December 02, 2023 9:14 PM
Advanced Divinations by Giselle Duell
The first lesson back from any break was a tricky one to pick. At least Giselle had always thought so. It should be something that reviewed the material while not getting too in depth. Also something somewhat fun was also a bonus, unfortunately her sense of ‘fun’ didn't always align with other people's. This time though, she was pretty sure she had come up with a good lesson.When her students arrived, Professor Duell was standing in front of her desk as usual. Her dress, hat and shawl were as eclectic as always. In years past her wardrobe usually started more organized and degraded as the year progressed. However, without her niece around to organize it at the start of the year, it did not happen. The colors and patterns of her clothing were not of any great importance to her, and wasting time on trying to sort them out was simply not worth It.
“Good afternoon,” Giselle greeted her students once they had settled themselves at the small, round, two-person tables scattered about the room. She waved her wand and a colorless image of the classroom formed in her mind, bypassing her non-functional eyes. “Welcome back everyone, I hope you are all ready to resume our exploration into the unknown.” She smiled. “Today’ exercise will be a simple review, and we will be working with runestones.”
Drawing and runestones was something they had all covered last year. Each of the stones had a single rune carved upon it, and the runic symbols had meanings that covered a wide range of words and concepts. They were traditionally drawn blindly from a bag and used to answer the questions posed by the person drawing them.
“At your table, you will find a single common bag of runes for you each to use. Take turns pulling stones from the bag and use them to describe something that happened over the summer to your table partner.” Professor Duell paused a moment, “Do not worry about asking any specific questions. Allow yourself to get back in tune with the subtle energies of Divination magic, and let those energies guide you selections and tell the story that results.”
Subthreads: I See your problem (tag Liesl) by Xavier Lundstrom with Liesl Brockert
2
Giselle Duell
Advanced Divinations
1517
1
5
Xavier Lundstrom
February 09, 2024 12:41 AM
I See your problem (tag Liesl) by Xavier Lundstrom
OOC: This post references ball posts I never got around to. If any of the authors mentioned would have had a reaction that steered it in a different direction, let me know and I can edit, but this feels in line with what was established. BIC:
So, this was it. Seventh year. Aka the year without Oz… Not that last year had been massive on the Oz-interaction stakes… In some ways, it had felt like he was already gone, except for the ever present risk of coming face to face with him. Now he was actually gone and it didn’t feel any better. Xavier wasn’t sure whether it would have always felt like that (probably) or whether it was just the events of the ball, the sudden one-eighty swing in Oz’s behaviour—the messy, grabby forgiveness in the bathroom, Xavier going back to his date because he would probably have plenty of messy boys trying to kiss him in bathrooms in his life but he was only going to have one school dance and he wanted it to be something more like what it was supposed to be… He’d had a couple more dances with Lenny before Oz had decided he could give Xavier what he wanted… They hadn’t got much of a slow dance together, and Oz wasn’t exactly making out with him in public, but the way they’d been had been more than friends. Afterwards, they’d dragged the pillows and blankets off Xavier’s bed, and lined the sixth years’ bathtub with them, telling Alexei they’d put a muffling charm on the door but he was welcome to go sleep in Oz’s room if he felt awkward.
But that was it. The next day had come and it had been nicer to smooch goodbye than ruin the moment by talking about what it meant. And then Oz had disappeared back to his life, and Xavier back to his, and now Sonora wasn’t the force that dragged them back together but the wall that was keeping them apart. Along with Oz’s silence… It was hard to tell whether that was his usual disorganisation or whether he just didn’t really want to be in touch.
Either way, in every sense of the word, they weren’t together.
Which probably meant Xavier could theoretically concentrate on school or something. He wasn’t really optimistic about that possibility, but he didn’t have many other options.
He took his seat in Divination, listening to Professor Duell’s welcome. Rune stones. Simple enough. And they were reading the past, which was fixed. This was easy. His choice of partner could add to the challenge, although he knew or didn’t know most of his classmates equally well, save for Lenny. Liesl was the nearest and was… broadly unobjectionable. He wasn’t sure why she went out of her way to make herself stranger. As someone who’d had to deal with a lot of being strange, it didn’t feel like something to dress up as and invite extra commentary and hardship if you could just… avoid it. But they’d been challenge teammates, which meant she’d had multiple, active opportunities to be mean to him, none of which she’d taken. It was a little sad that that was where his bar was, but oh well.
“Shall we pair up?” he asked her. “I definitely don’t know how you spend your free time, so at least it’s a genuine challenge.” As much as anything in the mainstream Divination class was going to be a challenge for him. Once they’d agreed on that, he took the runeset that they’d been given, doing a simple three stone draw as he focussed on the question of Liesl’s summer.
“Raidho, Wunjo and Isa…” He named the runes as he drew them out. “A journey, joy and belonging, and being stuck.” Those were the basic meaning of the runes, but he tried to breathe deeper into the energy of the room—to drown out the chatter of his classmates and find a place in the energy and the vibrations of the stones that let them tell him what they meant by their message. It was a state he was excellent at achieving in solitude, but it was harder when he was surrounded by noise. “You didn’t get stuck on your journey…” He could see that, the stones were too far apart, not speaking to each other. “Your journey took you somewhere where you feel happy—like you belong. But that happiness isn’t new. The journey, these things, they’re familiar… You’d like something about them to change but it didn’t, which is why you got Isa. How am I doing?” he asked.
13
Xavier Lundstrom
I See your problem (tag Liesl)
1529
0
5
Liesl Brockert
March 03, 2024 7:00 PM
Which one? by Liesl Brockert
It had been hard for Liesl to pick which classes that she wanted to continue. Despite the fact that she wasn’t “the smart one”, she had still done overall very well on CATS and could have picked anything. Transfiguration was a given, since that was their subject and if a Brockert didn’t take it, people might wonder why and according to her family, she was enough of a disappointment as it was. So therefore, that was a no-brainer. Not that she didn’t want to take it anyway, since it was probably one of her best.The other classes Liesl had ultimately decided on were Charms, since it was pretty practical, DADA because it had the most dark and spooky things even though she was not at all athletic, and Divination, because she honestly enjoyed it. Liesl had also considered taking COMC because Hans was in it, but much as she liked some animals, like snakes and bats, she felt more passionate about Divination and the horror elements of DADA, and really only needed to know how to take care of her cat and the snakes on the Hexenmeisters’ ranch and Hans and his dad could teach her that.
And taking five classes was not for her. That was the message that Liesl had gotten since she was…pretty young. Academic excellence was for Desmond, not her or Krisalyn. Actually, for once, her sister had possibly gotten the worst of the deal, since she had never thought that she was supposed to stand out academically, and probably only ever thought about doing well enough so as not to shame their family.
Then again, Liesl had never really thought differently either. And she wasn’t sure what was worse, getting your ambitions crushed or never having them to begin with, not because you just naturally not ambitious-as it would also be terrible to be unambitious and have your parents pushing you to live up to their expectations, the latter part of which the Teppenpaw understood all too well-but because people told you never to try because you just weren’t cut out for a specific thing. Which was one thing if it was true, or you came to it on your own, but to be told you just weren’t as good at something as someone else because it was the opinion of the person telling you.
Although, Liesl supposed it was a good thing that her parents did not put academic pressure on her as well, it made it okay with her not to get an O. Except for the fact that getting Os was easier than meeting Mother’s expectations which went against the sixth year’s very soul.
Anyway, continuing Divination, a class that she enjoyed and that Hans had never been in to begin with, might be good for her since the older Teppenpaw was going to graduate and Liesl…needed to find other people to talk to. The idea that she was going to be very lonely next year weighed heavily on her. Of course, she could make friends with all her classmates and all the people in the year below hers and it still wouldn’t be the same given that nobody would ever take Hans’ place. Still, like so many situations, in her life, this was where she was.
And it wasn’t like her parents were thrilled that she’d continued Divinations since it wasn’t a “serious” subject (from what Father implied and Desmond outright stated) and because of the negative stereotypes people had about Seers (inevitably what Mother probably thought, Mother wasn’t even all that happy that Liesl had done well in either this class or DADA since the latter showed an “unnatural” interest in the dark arts, like she was Topaz or something) but the sixth year had gone and done what made her happy-and she hadn’t worried about Hans’ approval. She already had it, both in general and, actually, explicitly on this topic.
And that mattered more than anything. That she knew that no matter what, the older Teppenpaw would accept her and wanted her to be happy. Whereas Mother likely never would, unless, of course, Liesl agreed to just behave in a manner that…went against the very fiber of her own being.
Although she did want to believe that Father was pleased enough with her CATS scores and that she’d continued four of her classes regardless of what those classes were. Even if he didn’t think Liesl was a genius like Desmond, he really did care about the academic achievement of his daughters too.
Though the truth was that the Teppenpaw would take whatever scraps of approval Father could dredge up for her. While he had never been quite as awful to her as Mother was, she had also never truly felt like she had his unconditional approval like she did with Hans and Uncle Cory. However, given that it wasn’t completely impossible and she could do it without making herself want to curl up and die, she took what she could get.
Professor Duell started the lesson. Runes weren’t her favorite, which was tarot, but she didn’t dislike them and she knew what they all meant. Finding a partner, however, was going to be more of a challenge though Amethyst was in this class and she guessed she could always pair with her cousin.
However, before that could happen, Xavier asked to pair off. Which she was admittedly surprised about. They’d been on the same Challenge team but that didn’t mean they were close at all. Liesl had nothing against him but she’d never been entirely sure that he liked her much.
Of course, Xavier was also an actual Seer. Which meant that he would give her answers that might actually be accurate. Or he selected her because he had knowledge for her specifically. Or he found her the least objectionable choice. “All right.” Liesl agreed. Although telling him his future was inherently intimidating since ,like, he probably could figure that out more confidently and accurately than she would be able to regardless of her grades in this class or her CATS score.
Xavier pulled her runes. “That…makes a lot of sense.” Liesl replied.”Do you…see that obstacle resolving at any point?” Merlin, did she ever want to know that. Granted, she wasn’t sure which obstacle he was referring to,the one where Hans had yet to officially ask her to be his girlfriend or the one where Mother was chronically obstructive.
She was far more optimistic about the former.
11
Liesl Brockert
Which one?
1537
0
5