Post-Jinglebell Rock (Tag: Chaslyn) on Labyrinth Gardens

Liac Reinhardt

October 22, 2014 11:30 PM

Post-Jinglebell Rock (Tag: Chaslyn) by Liac Reinhardt

Liac sat in the gardens on one of the stone benches, strumming lightly at his guitar as he enjoyed the sunny winter day. He hadn't been able to play his guitar as much as he would have liked over break due to all the time he had spent playing with his siblings. Ice hockey was a family favorite when it was too cold to play Quidditch. His siblings had been practicing in his absence and to Liac’s surprise had gotten really good, although Liac still thought he was the king of the rink. He was happy they had opted to have a small family Christmas and not go to Europe like they had in previous years. Although he loved Germany, it couldn't hold a candle to Boston in the winter.

For Liac the best part of his vacation was getting back into the workshop with his dad. Before he left for Sonora, his Father had promised him that once he returned from his first term that he could begin metal-charming his own projects, hence the journal he carried around most of the first term. After his father reviewed his work, making sure to point out items that needed more planning, he decided that Liac's most recent sketch was probably the most promising. Although he would have liked to do something more complicated, Liac was restricted to the spells he knew as a midterm first year, which wasn't very much. He could have had his dad do most of the spell casting while he worked the metal, however Liac wanted to test his own abilities, rather than use his naivety as a crutch.

He had worked on the charm for the majority of the break, wanting his first creation to be perfect. Liac had decided even before he had started working that he wanted to give his first metal charm to his mother. Although he wasn’t as bad as Ulrich, Liac could be quite a mama's boy. He had missed her during his months away at school and thought it might be nice to give her an extra-extra special present for Christmas this year- and not something that was made with craft glue.

After spending countless hours in the workshop, he finally completed his very first solo-charm, a small fairy figurine with glowing wings. By mixing Lumos with the silver he was able to get it to glow lightly, not to the point were it was annoying, but just enough to look magical. He made a note in his book to learn a spell to make the wings and body move, as he thought it looked a little boring as is, but he was satisfied with his work all the same. His father was a lot more critical of the finished product, but he didn’t hesitate to show the pride he felt in his son’s labor. His mother, loved the old German design he worked into the fairy, and the fact that she was happy made Liac happy. He hoped that one day he could make every customer that bought one his charms smile like his mother had.

But alas, he was once again back at Sonora, and much to his displeasure, far away from a metal-charm workshop. One good thing about having calloused hands from working, is that it made playing the guitar a lot easier. After cracking his knuckles in preparation for a solo, he began to strum his acoustic guitar like a madman. He imagined he was on a stage at a concert, his adoring fans waving and screaming his name all the while he dished out some awesome sounds- even though ‘awesome’ was far from the noise coming from his guitar. This continued on for a little while, until he noticed someone not too far away.

“Yo, Chaslyn” he said putting on a smile, having finally figured out her name. “Like my rock solo?” he asked, wondering if she had heard his ‘genius’ outburst. As she talked he began to lightly finger pick the strings to make a light melody- this time sounding less like a dying cat.

0 Liac Reinhardt Post-Jinglebell Rock (Tag: Chaslyn) 288 Liac Reinhardt 1 5

Chaslyn Brockert

November 06, 2014 5:42 PM

Post-Holiday Stress by Chaslyn Brockert

She had spent her entire midterm completely on the go and hadn't stopped since. Not so much in the traveling sense, though Chaslyn had attended any party that had included anyone around her age. Mother had seen the yearbooks and was quite disappointed in the selections available for her to socialize with. Mother was quite disappointed in the lack of acquaintances the Crotalus had made, and had actually for the first time ever compared Chaslyn unfavorably to Amity, though of course Mother didn't use Amity's name. She never did now.

That had made parties super awkward too, with them pointedly ignoring each other all through family gettogethers. Chaslyn had hated everything about the situation and it had been so uncomfortable meeting new people at parties. The entire time she could feel her mother's eyes on her, worried that Mother would hear her mess up. She'd spent the majority of the break feeling sick to her stomach from anxiety.

Chaslyn was behind in her other lessons too, her music and painting and worst of all, dance. Her teacher was still refusing to put her on pointe. Mother was furious and said the second year needed to work harder, practice more, even though it was all she did. Especially in dance, she'd even joined the Dance Club despite being super intimidated . Now though it seemed a lot of the meetings were being cancelled. Chaslyn hoped Ginny, who ran the club wasn't ill, but maybe it was just because she was prefect and her CATS year. Of course, if it had been Chaslyn, she would be expected to continue with it regardless, in fact her mother had been strongly encouraging her to start a club herself.

At least her grades had been perfect. All O's. Despite this, her mother had suggested that she try to get in as much extra credit as she possibly could and learn about some of the disciplines Sonora was not currently teaching. Currently, Chaslyn was combing the gardens for some plants to study, to help her learn more about Herbology. It was important to Mother that the second year learn about every possible subject there was with the exception of Muggle Studies, even if they weren't taught at Sonora and she had to learn them on her own.

That wasn't easy for Chaslyn, she needed structure. Her whole life had been nothing but and without it, she didn't quite know what to do. She could be doing the wrong thing completely when she should be doing something else! Fortunately, Mother had drawn up a schedule for precisely what the second year was to do when, as well as guidelines for what additional curriculum she had to learn specifically.

It all left her with only a minimal time to eat, which she had to do as quickly as she could without looking like a pig. A lot of the time, Chaslyn's stomach was all in knots worrying about other things to eat much anyway-and of course, she never simply sat down and ate a meal, she worked on her homework, writing and re-writing essays all through dinner. There was very little time for Chaslyn to sleep as well, she was never in bed before midnight, always having to go over her homework to make sure it was perfect.

As it was, she was pale, exhausted, with dark circles under her eyes and had lost a noticeable amount of weight. Right now, the Crotalus wanted nothing more than to just find a cozy bench-they were softer than they looked-in the gardens and take a nap. Of course, she couldn't do that . Merlin forbid, she deviated from the schedule or didn't do something exactly perfect! She didn't want to find out the consequences of such a thing.

Fortunately, she heard this....dreadful noise. Chaslyn wrinkled her nose in distaste briefly before looking for the source. She couldn't allow any expression on her face that might offend the person making the sound, which she recognized to be some instrument, a guitar possibly, being played quite badly. Chaslyn shuddered, not because of the unpleasant sound, but because she could only imagine what Mother would say if she ever played anything half that badly.

The person called her name and she flushed. It was Liac, who had been probably nicer to her than anyone else at Sonora and here she was thinking critical thoughts about his playing! "Well, I,uh..." Chaslyn stammered, red faced. The last thing she wanted to do was insult him-or anyone really-and meanwhile she was making an absolute fool of herself. She just couldn't do anything right!

11 Chaslyn Brockert Post-Holiday Stress 281 Chaslyn Brockert 0 5

Liac Reinhardt

November 14, 2014 10:33 PM

My Apologies by Liac Reinhardt

Had Liac been looking up, he probably would have noticed the pink in Chaslyn’s face as she tried to reply. However, his attention was elsewhere as he was trying to show off his skills. He always preformed better when he had an audience.

"Well, I,uh..." Chaslyn stammered, as he continued strumming away. From what he had seen of her so far, Chaslyn could take things a little seriously, or at least, she took his jokes seriously. “Kidding..,”he said, looking up from his with a smug smile. However the Comedy Gods had bestowed upon him a great opportunity, he would be a mockery to his craft if he didn’t continue. "I know it’s ahead of its time, what can I say, I’m just a genius, a prodigy, a count! So it’s okay if you are lost for words,” he added giving her a wink. He hoped his tone conveyed that he was joking, but he couldn’t know for sure. After all, she had yet to laugh at one of his jokes, which only pushed him to try harder.

However now that he got a better look at her face he noticed she looked a little…well different than before. Liac was never good at hiding his emotions, which no doubt held a look of surprise when he noticed the state she was in. He furrowed his brows slightly, trying to think of the appropriate way to inquire about how she was doing.

His father probably would have told him to leave the matter alone, as the bodily state of a female classmate was none of his business. However, he knew he would end up regretting it if he didn’t ask her. “Um, hey.. Miss Brockert...Are you feeling okay? You don’t look so good,” he stated bluntly. He still had trouble figuring out when to use formal speech when to talking to non-familiar Purebloods. After being around them day in and day out for the past term, Liac felt quite comfortable around most of his classmates by now, and as a result, Liac ended up speaking in a mix of formal and informal speech, going back and forth between the two as he liked. Although his etiquette tutor no doubt would have given him a good smack in the head for breaching formality, it was a hard habit for the elven year old to break since he had gone to a muggle school for so many years. Besides, he thought it would be better to get his question across, rather than dancing around it in an effort to be ‘proper’.

0 Liac Reinhardt My Apologies 288 Liac Reinhardt 0 5

Chaslyn

November 20, 2014 11:08 PM

And mine. by Chaslyn

She breathed a sigh of relief when Liac said he was kidding. Chaslyn was both way too wound up and way too tired to interpret the tone of his voice but the word implied that he wasn't seriously asking. Which was good as she didn't really know how what to say. She was rarely ever let down gently herself when she messed up, so

Then he kept going and her stomach dropped. As she was looking down, she totally missed his wink. Maybe it was good and Chaslyn just didn't know it. Maybe it just wasn't her style of music. She was used to classical, the music she practiced and the music that played when she danced. She didn't know any of the popular bands or anything. Mother said that stuff was garbage, for the lower classes. Chaslyn didn't want to think of Liac that way though, even though his family was not society.

His next words puzzled her more. Was he saying there was something wrong with her looks? No, the asking if she was okay implied that she seemed ill. Chaslyn looked up at him, her face on fire from embarassment and discomfort. Was she ill? No, no, she couldn't possibly get sick, she had too much to do. Of course, Chaslyn supposed that if she did get sick, she'd just have to keep going, it would just...be more difficult.

"I-I'm fine." She replied. "Um, just a little tired, I guess." The Crotalus forced a weak smile. In truth, she was very tired but she didn't want to admit it, even to herself. As for her weight loss, she hadn't even noticed herself. It wasn't that Chaslyn didn't look in the mirror, but she was more focused on making sure she looked not just presentable, but perfect than she was on how much she weighed. She wasn't even that hungry really, her stomach was in constant knots from anxiety.

"So, um, how was your holiday?" She asked. It was what one said, but she was genuinely interested.

11 Chaslyn And mine. 281 Chaslyn 0 5