Feeling determined on Labyrinth Gardens

Jenna Howard

December 26, 2007 4:27 PM

Feeling determined by Jenna Howard

It was drizzling that morning in the Labyrinth, but Jenna had forced herself to come out here. The sound of the light rain and the voices of the people still outside kept her mind from dwelling on darker, more ominous thoughts, such as colleges, summer jobs, how in Merlin’s name to convince her parents to get jobs before what was left of their fortune ran out, and of course, the dreaded Future.

Not five minutes after her entrance into the Labyrinth, the drizzling began to die down. She decided to play the role of the optimist, and take this as a sign that the world wanted her to stay outside and think happy thoughts. Not that she really believed in Divination, the brunette was a bit of a cynic, but no matter. Today was for happy thoughts. Light, happy thoughts.

Of course, after a time the fresh air and sunshine had become rather dull for her. Jenna supposed this was to be expected, given that she was the type of girl who would be more interested in dissecting a dragon’s eye than to shop for dragon hide boots. Her ideas of fun had always made her seem a Chaser short of a Quidditch team to those who didn’t know her well.

Perhaps Hester was right. Maybe the apprenticeship was a bad idea, and she should get out of the apothecary a bit more often, before she turned into an old cat lady fixated over a cauldron. It couldn’t hurt to be more social, could it? Certainly a conversation could be distracting, and distraction was what she wanted. And if she severely messed it up, surely she could brew some sort of a memory potion to prevent any witnesses from recalling the event.

“G’morning,” she greeted the first person she saw, trying her best to appear amiable. The sixth year was determined to strike up a conversation with said person, no matter what.

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Kaylie Brockert

December 26, 2007 5:31 PM

Feeling anxious by Kaylie Brockert

Kaylie let out a deep sigh. She had a lot on her mind. First, there was the Divination paper, which was certainly not her strong point. Then she'd found the prefects had to lead the dance. Kaylie dreaded it. For one thing, she wasn't even sure she wanted to go, let alone start it off. She was a terrible dancer. It had taken her forever to learn the Teppenpaw jig. The last thing Kaylie wanted to do was have to dance in front of the entire school.

Furthermore, there wasn't anyone who she could really dance with. The only boys she knew were Chris and Adam. Kaylie very much doubted Chris would want to go with her, even if he and Lexi had broken up and she certainly wasn't going to go with her own brother. Most of the other guys were probably taken. Plus, Kaylie really didn't think she could take asking someone and being rejected.

Truthfully, she really didn't want to go at all. She'd have to stand there all alone since she honestly didn't have any close friends. Kaylie leaned back against the wall of the maze, closing her eyes. The ground was wet and her cloak was getting that way but she didn't care. All she wanted to do was think.

"G’morning,”

Kaylie opened her eyes. "Oh, hi, Jenna," She'd never really talked to the other girl but that was no reason not to be friendly. "How are you?" She smiled at the other girl.

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Jenna

December 26, 2007 6:17 PM

Trying hard not to be anxious by Jenna

“Good,” Jenna lied immediately, but she didn’t think that Kaylie knew her well enough to detect the falsehood. It was only a small lie, and besides, Kaylie didn’t need to hear about all of Jenna’s worries. They’d gone to the same school for almost six years now, but they didn’t know each other well enough for that. It was strange really, how two people could live in the same place for so long, and know so little about each other. Or at least, Jenna assumed that the other girl didn’t know very much about her. Stranger things had happened, for instance, her nomination for Head Girl. That had been a pure shock. Everyone else on the list was a prefect, or was a current or former Quidditch player. What she had done to earn that kind of recognition was beyond her.

But back to the conversation. After all, that was the point of this small excursion, to talk to people. She hadn’t intended to get lost in thought, as she usually was.

“How are your classes and everything going?” she asked in return. Okay, so it was somewhat of a standard topic, but what else was there to be said? There was the dance coming up, perhaps she could use that as a last resort. Big social events always made her kind of nervous, and she didn’t know who she would ask, or who might ask her. Really, she expected to spend the night hanging out with her roomies – Lily and Chrissy – unless of course, they decided to follow in their fourth roommate, Jen’s stead, and get dates. If that was the case, well… she never really liked parties very much anyway.

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Kaylie

January 02, 2008 10:15 PM

Am I intimidating? by Kaylie

It didn't really bother Kaylie when there was a pause in conversation. She couldn't blame Jenna, whom she didn't know well and had never struck her as a very talkative person anyway. Not that there was anything wrong with that. She looked up as Jenna spoke again.

“How are your classes and everything going?”

"Oh, all right, I guess." Kaylie replied. "I mean I'm only taking three. Divination is much harder than I thought it would be because we have a very big term paper. Research has never been my strength." She made a face. "But I guess it balances out then. Other than that..well, I guess that is pretty much everything." Kaylie really didn't want to talk to Jenna about all her problems, such as the ones with the dance. Or the fact that when she'd been home for midterm, she'd went to a healer in Portland who had been touted as having a new treatment for back injuries such as hers that would fix her good...except that it had backfired and made things worse. While lots of Healers were good competent people who cared about their patients, this one had been what her grandfather called a quack.

Nor did Kaylie want to talk about her own worries about the future. She thought she could probably get into Sapienti, but she really didn't know what she wanted to do anymore. Kaylie had once wanted to be a Healer because of what (most) of them did, but she really didn't think she'd be any more competent than hers had been. That had sealed the deal for her not wanting to it anymore. The last thing Kaylie wanted to do was end up making things worse for someone or have their life in her hands.

She truly didn't think Jenna needed to hear all this or would even want to. Kaylie had honestly never made the kind of friends she could confide in. She couldn't even really confide in Adam. He had his own friends now and didn't need to hear her problems. Besides, she had always gone out of her way to hide anything from him that might stress him out.

Kaylie turned back to Jenna. "Yours?" She asked in turn. "Classes going all right, I mean."

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Jenna

January 18, 2008 4:33 PM

It's more the principle of the thing by Jenna

Divination. For a while she had considered taking that class back in second year, as it didn’t require the use of a wand, but ended up choosing Ancient Runes instead. But perhaps if she’d known research was involved in Divination, she would have taken it. Jenna couldn’t really sympathize with Kaylie, she loved research, loved searching for that one book with the desired answers among the masses of books in the library. In fact, it had always been Jenna’s personal belief that she might have made a decent Aladren if she hadn’t been sorted into Crotalus. Of course, Jenna was only really interested in studying for the classes she liked, so perhaps it wouldn’t have been so great a match.

“Nothing wrong with three,” she reassured Kaylie, “I’m taking four, and I’ve heard rumors that they might drop Astronomy next year, so that would leave me with three. I don’t know how anyone could take more than five – you’d have to study all the time. At least, I would.” The possible loss of Astronomy was a true pity, in her opinion. Potions had so many aspects dependent on knowledge of astronomy; it would be a crime to teach one without the other.

Besides, it would leave her with more free time, which meant more time to worry, exactly what she didn’t need. She bit at her lip, an old nervous habit she’d never quite been able to put to rest. She really ought to get a new hobby, because there was really no sense in worrying about her family, people who she was certain were barely anxious about her future.

And yet she worried, it was simply who she was. She liked being able to fix things, take them apart to see how they work, and then put them back together and make them work even better than before. She liked the control over outcomes, and loathed surprises. The teen even read the endings of the books she read before starting the book at all, to see if the ending was worth getting to or not. Maybe that was why she liked potions so much, she always knew what outcome she ought to expect.

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Kaylie

January 27, 2008 2:17 PM

You mean talking to someone you don't know? by Kaylie

Kaylie relaxed a little when Jenna said it was okay not to be taking more than three classes. "I'm sorry about Astronomy. My brother seemed to like that class too. I think that History of Magic is sort of replacing it, except none of us took it. Although I think it was opened up for sixth years. It's a good one for that, actually, because history isn't something like Potions or Charms where you have to start back at the easy stuff. It's sort of levelling, you know, not like people have a specific knack for history or anything, which I guess can be said for Divination too. I mean, how likely is it that someone is going to have the Sight? That's pretty rare, although Lily once told me about a distant cousin on her grandfather's side who is convinced she has it. Lily, being Lily, thinks she's a total fraud, of course."

She paused to take a breath and went on. "I'd personally have to study all the time too. Prior to this year, I was taking everything. The last few years, I never got a break." Kaylie paused, reflecting. Perhaps this was why she didn't have much for friends. While she was hardly Aladren material, she didn't like to fail and look stupid. Kaylie really didn't have much confidence in her scholastic abilities and was rather convinced that everyone saw her to be a bit dim. So, instead of socializing, she really had put more effort into her studies.

"What is it you're taking?" she inquired, looking up at Jenna. Kaylie noticed the other girl was biting her lip. "Um, are you okay?" Surely Jenna wasn't that upset about the loss of Astronomy, was she? Perhaps she was. It would be fairly awful to lose something you had a real passion for. Kaylie could only imagine how it would affect her cousin if he couldn't take Transfiguration. To lose something or someone you really cared about was pretty lousy. "You'll still have potions, you know." Kaylie told her, hoping that would make her feel better. She was pretty sure Jenna was bigger on Potions than Astronomy.

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