Poking the dragon. [Tag: Emmy-Lou] on Care of Magical Creatures

Substitute Prof. Isis Carter

July 16, 2016 6:07 PM

Pony party! [Years III, IV, and V] by Substitute Prof. Isis Carter

Isis was really going to miss Tallec. She didn’t know him nearly as well as her other staff friends, but he’d been nice to have around, plus Alfie seemed quite fond of him. While she wasn’t sure what had called him away from the school, she assumed it had to be something pretty important to make him give up his post. He would be missed around here, indeed.

That left her to teach Care of Magical Creatures. This school sure had a problem keeping a full staff, she noted idly. First she’d been teaching Defense full time until Alfie arrived, then Potions, and now this. A substitute could just never catch a break around here, but that was fine by Isis. She liked teaching.It felt good to leave a positive impact on a generation; even in a small school, it felt like having a hand in shaping the future.

For now, though, they were only students. It was just a normal Wednesday afternoon, and the Intermediates were arriving. “Good afternoon,” she smiled brightly at the first arrivers. If they paid attention, the students would have probably noticed the horse-looking creatures grazing the area, sizes varying as their coats did.

Once it seemed everyone had arrived--her five minute grace period whittled down to about three today--Isis addressed the group as a whole. “Welcome, everybody. You’ll recall that last time we met, I asked you for homework to read the section on unicorns. Today, we’re going to have a pretty easy day while we test your comprehension.”

Isis passed a stack of worksheets to the student nearest her, indicating for them to take one and pass them around. She would collect any extras after the last student had gotten one. “So the basic premise of the sheet is to order the unicorns from youngest to oldest based on their physical appearance. If you did your reading, that shouldn’t be too hard, so let me introduce them to you by name.”

“This is Merigold,” she said, gesturing to the unicorn nearest to her. Merigold was on the small side and silver in color, with just the beginnings of the formation of a horn. Isis next approached a small gold unicorn. “This is Zippity. And this one,” she added, pointing to the next nearest one, with a silver coat and a fully-formed horn, “is Melody.” Isis gingerly approached the biggest one, with a coat of pure white. “This is Baby,” she smiled. “And last but not least, that one is Cloppy.” The final unicorn had a coat of silver and no horn.

“Once you’re finished ordering them, I’d like an explanation on the back of the paper on how you came to your conclusions. Use full sentences, of course, but you only need a few of them. A paragraph or less is fine, just be thorough. After that, turn in your sheet to me and feel free to interact with the unicorns until the end of class, maybe take some notes on their behavior if you feel like it. Just be kind and show them respect. And,” she noted firmly, “please, boys, keep in mind that the older the unicorn, the less they trust men. Some of you at this age might still be young enough to be okay, but especially fifth years, don’t pressure the older ones too much to be near you.” Isis paused, glancing around between students and equine. “Well, I think that’s it. Go ahead and get started.”

OOC: According to the HP Wiki, “Unicorn foals are born pure gold in colour. They remain so until they are about two years old, at which time they turn silver in colour. At around four-years-old their horn grows in. They are fully grown at about seven years old, at which at this age they turn a shade of pure white that is so bright that it makes freshly fallen snow look grey in comparison.” By that token, the order should be Zippity, Cloppy, Merigold, Melody, and Baby. Have fun!

Subthreads:

What kind of party begins with a test? by Diana Carey, Pecari with Gia Donovan, Pecari, Diana

Poking the dragon. [Tag: Emmy-Lou] by Laila Kennedy, Crotalus with Emilia-Louise Scott

UNICORNS!!!!! SQUEEEEEE!!!!!!!!" by Ginger Pierce, Teppenpaw

Merlin help me. by Fabian Brockert, Pecari with John Umland, Aladren

12 Substitute Prof. Isis Carter Pony party! [Years III, IV, and V] 31 Substitute Prof. Isis Carter 1 5

Diana Carey, Pecari

July 17, 2016 6:59 PM

What kind of party begins with a test? by Diana Carey, Pecari

Diana did notice the horse-like creatures grazing around Professor Carter and was only half-surprised to see them there. The homework had made it clear enough that they were going to study unicorns soon, but since her primary association with unicorns involved her father thinking of new and creative ways to curse about how difficult their horns were getting to source, she didn’t think she had expected to see over one in class, tops. She did think that a purely theoretical lesson wouldn’t have surprised her any. Evidently, though, it was easier to get one’s hands on them for educational purposes than for economic ones, because it looked like Professor Carter had one of every developmental stage they had read about in the homework.

She trusted her own ability to attach human names to faces very quickly – part of it might have been inherited, her father and her maternal grandfather both said they never forgot a face, but she was allowed to go to enough parties to get in plenty of practice, too – but since horsey faces were a little different and she needed to get these right for a test, she quickly tried to jot down the names along with the descriptions that matched them, abbreviating words and letting her handwriting get sloppy in her haste to get what she needed down on the paper. She made a small face at that, but since she thought she could still decipher it her scribbles and it was time to start anyway, she left them alone and started trying to remember which stage came first….

Two were obviously adults, from the horns, but was the name ‘Baby’ for the really big one just someone’s sense of humor, a distraction, or a clue? She decided it was too obvious for the biggest one to be the oldest, that it was most likely a male-female thing, and put down Melody as the oldest and wrote ‘Baby’ above that. The others she sorted by the presence or absence of horn and Zippity’s hugely out of place color, ending with Zippity at the top of the page. She sketched out her reasoning, omitting the part about why she’d let the coin land the way it had on the first two because she was pretty sure she wasn’t supposed to admit she knew the teachers tried to trick them, and handed it in. Then she turned to look, a little apprehensively, at the unicorns. She wasn’t sure they were going to like her, and she definitely preferred sharp things when she was the one holding them even if the thing holding them did like her. She decided to approach the smallest, golden one.

Another student had the same idea and Diana smiled. “He – he? – is very beautiful, isn’t he?” she said, putting out a hand for a gingerly pat. Her eyes widened in surprise at just how soft the unicorn was.

0 Diana Carey, Pecari What kind of party begins with a test? 0 Diana Carey, Pecari 0 5

Gia Donovan, Pecari

July 18, 2016 5:11 PM

THE GREATEST PARTY EVER! by Gia Donovan, Pecari

Gia was so excited for Care of Magical Creatures! Based on their reading, they were going to be discussing unicorns and Gia absolutely loved unicorns! She felt terrible that Professor Tallec wasn’t around anymore because she really liked him as a Professor and she was really going to miss him as a result. However, even her disappointment in his leaving did not keep the excitement she had at the possibility of seeing a real life unicorn at bay. Gia had always wanted a pet unicorn. Her mother said that it was always a popular request amongst the girls back home, so much so that when she had Gia, she had been anticipating the day that Gia would begin asking herself. Gia had been a little over two years old when the request begin to make its appearance.

She knew that it was well beyond their physical beauty that had her fascinated by them (not that anything could compare to their physical beauty). They were the purest of pure. They were the most innocent of creatures on the planet and Gia just wanted to round them all up and put them in a big protective bubble in order to keep them from getting hurt by poachers. She knew their magical properties would mean that terrible people would be willing to spill their blood and risk imprisonment, but she didn’t want to think about such a horrific loss. Not today.

Gia had already begun filling out the worksheet as Professor Carter introduced the unicorns to them. It was easy to see who the youngest was (Zippity) and who the oldest was (Baby), so they were easily identified and written down once they were named. She only has hesitation on some of the adolescents due to their horns. She had to get closer to them to really determine which ones were older based on the horn growth but she didn’t want to move until they were given the okay., She didn’t quite understand some of their names though. Clappy? What did that mean? Zippity? What was that? Were these normal names that English speakers gave creatures?

Gia wrote her reasoning on the back of the paper, trying her best to be clear and concise with her wording (sometimes the written portion of her lessons were troublesome due to her second language issues) before getting up to examine the horns on the unicorns. She did quick work with it though and wrote down their strange names in the correct order before handing in her worksheet. Immediately after handing it in, Gia turned back to the unicorns and began making her way to the Foal, only to stop abruptly when she realized who was working with it.

Diana had already spotted her though and smiled, beginning a conversation with her. Gia smiled politely and made her way to stand beside Diana, trying to ignore any nervousness she felt by standing so close to the older Pecari. She really hoped that any red in her cheeks could be pushed off as her excitement for seeing the unicorns. “Oh yes, quite beautiful.” Gia replied, cooing at the golden creature as if it were a baby. “I have always wanted one, but I know it is wrong to want such things.” Gia admitted. “But they are, what is the word…” Gia furrowed her brows in thought for a moment. “Majesty?” She tried, feeling her brain blank on her because she was with Unicorns but also because of Diana. It was her body that was betraying her whenever she saw the older Pecari because she knew that it wasn’t proper to think of girls that way but it was also confusing because she could look at Barnaby and have that same reaction to him and Gia just didn’t know how to handle either situation.

Gia smiled at the creature, softly petting it and loving the experience. “Have you seen them before?” She asked. “This is my first time.”

6 Gia Donovan, Pecari THE GREATEST PARTY EVER! 308 Gia Donovan, Pecari 0 5

Laila Kennedy, Crotalus

July 19, 2016 8:07 PM

Poking the dragon. [Tag: Emmy-Lou] by Laila Kennedy, Crotalus

Unicorns. This was the part of Sonora that Laila could totally get down with. Not that she didn’t enjoy all the other parts of the magical school, but unicorns were definitely one of those things from the fairy tales that were similar both in the books and in reality. And Laila was ecstatic to have a whole class devoted to them. So when Professor Carter said that they could have the remaining free time of the class to get more acquainted with the beautiful creatures, Laila happily set to work on her list. She figured quite easily that Zippity was the youngest because the foal was so gold in color and did not have a horn. The oldest, by default was Baby, since it was the whitest of the unicorns and had a horn, but the others were a little harder to sort.

Laila took her paper and wrote out Baby at the top and Zippity four lines below that, leaving speace in between for the other three unicorn’s names. She bit her lip in thought as she carefully considered the situation. Although they had the same color coat, Cloppy had no horn and Merigold was starting to get one, so Laila deduced that Merigold was older than Cloppy. She wrote their names down in the space between Baby and Zippity, placing Cloppy’s name closer to the only gold unicorn’s name. That just left Melody who was also silver but had a full horn. That meant she was on the older side. Laila frowned. She had not left enough space between Baby and Merigold’s name to write in Melody’s and so she scrunched up the paper and stuffed it in her bag to start over again. Professor Carter probably wouldn’t have minded a paper with crossed out things on it, but Laila only liked turning in clean sheets. She felt it looked more professional.

She looked over her list and smiled, feeling quite confident. It had been a pretty easy task though perhaps a little daunting at first. But for anyone who had done their reading, like Professor Carter had said, it was quite easy. Happy with her work—and even more pleased with the neat state of her handwriting, Laila continued on to write her paragraph. She explained that by sorting the unicorns by coloring and size or lack of a horn, it had been pretty easy to come to the conclusion of which unicorn was which. She added that Zippity, being the only gold unicorn, was the first one she had placed and that having the different sized horns made sorting three silver coated unicorns easy. She turned in the paper to Professor Carter with a smile and then turned to go look at the unicorns.

She wasn’t really in the mood to deal with Arne Reinhardt who had gone over the top that morning at breakfast in making an ass of himself so that even-tempered Tobi had quietly told him off, and so in the spirit of avoiding all the Reinhardts, Laila made her way to the oldest unicorn, hoping to avoid the family drama that she didn’t want to be a part of but somehow was always dragged into. Laila was only with Baby for a few moments before she remembered that she had forgotten to put away her pencil case and so she gave the white unicorn a sweet pat and made her way back to her desk.

“Forgot to put this back,” she said conversationally with a smile as she zipped up her backpack. “I was just so excited about the whole unicorns being actually in the classroom thing. Sometimes it’s hard to believe all of this when I grew up without…” Laila waved her hands around so that the other girl could understand what Laila could not really put into words. “But it’s just so neat and then there’s people like you or the Reinhardts who actually got to grow up knowing this was real and…” Laila shrugged. “My mom says jealousy is a bad thing, but I can’t help it! You guys are just so lucky to have magic here and also when you go home!”

OOC: Forgive me.

10 Laila Kennedy, Crotalus Poking the dragon. [Tag: Emmy-Lou] 318 Laila Kennedy, Crotalus 0 5

Diana

July 22, 2016 10:27 AM

...Are you sure you're not an Aladren? by Diana

Diana smiled as the younger Pecari girl who joined her tried to remember a word and then hoped Gia didn’t take the expression as mocking. Merlin knew she wouldn’t have had the right to mock Gia even if she'd wanted to, as her brother Brandon spoke and read English as his first language and was still in the same support classes as Gia and her brother Jax.

Knowing Gia most likely knew that Brandon was a Carey and that she might even know he was Diana’s brother was a little…awkward, but Diana tried to ignore it. For one thing, it was possible Gia didn't think anything of it - some people really didn't seem to see any shame in it; she, who had done a lot of Brandon's reading for him before he came to Sonora, hadn't even cared until she'd heard her parents fighting about it when she was younger and had realized that her father was the only adult in the family who didn't feel that taking Professor Skies' advice was as good as holding her brother up to public shame - and for another, if she did, Diana was sure she could handle it. She was not the most beautiful of the South Carolina Carey girls – that was her sister Theresa now, though Diana expected they would both be eclipsed by Cecilia someday – or the best placed – that was her infant cousin Penelope, at least for now – but she was confident that she was the smartest and that she could put anyone who looked down on her because of Bran’s…shortcomings…in their place quickly enough. Luckily, though, if Gia felt like doing that, she seemed to have decided not to do it right now.

“Maybe you mean ‘majestic,’ honey,” she said.

She shook her head, brown curls bouncing, when Gia asked if she had ever seen a unicorn before. “No, I can’t say that I have,” she said. “Unless you count one on a tapestry at my grandfather’s house. It runs around and around all the hangings in the nursery.” Diana only just remembered that – she had not been very old at all when her father had stopped speaking to his for most of two years, refusing even to take orders that weren’t routed through Uncle Anthony, and even after they’d come to a truce, Father hadn’t allowed Bran or Diana or Cecilia or Peter to stay at that house anymore. “My father didn’t think it was a very good likeness, though, and he knows his creatures,” she added. The Careys had not had tapestries when they had arrived in America – Diana wasn’t sure how many of the first ones, the ones who’d had to leave Scotland in a hurry, had owned enough shirts to wear clean ones three days in a row – but they had set to work making themselves look like an ancient and fabled clan from the Old World as quickly as possible. Part of that had involved copying art styles that were a little out of date, commitment to ideas over details and all.

0 Diana ...Are you sure you're not an Aladren? 0 Diana 0 5

Ginger Pierce, Teppenpaw

July 22, 2016 1:47 PM

UNICORNS!!!!! SQUEEEEEE!!!!!!!!" by Ginger Pierce, Teppenpaw

Ginger loved unicorns. They were easily her favorite animal of all time. Every year, her year's girls' dorm in Teppenpaw was decorated with at least one of them and one year the singly horned equines had been the main theme. She read books about unicorns, she watched shows about unicorns, she drew many many pictures of unicorns, her sheets had unicorns on them, and so did a fair number of her school supplies.

So last night's reading went . . . well, there was a lot of squealing and hoping that today's lesson would be a practical one. And as she walked into the CoMC area, she had to clap her hands over her mouth to keep from screaming in overjoy (doing so might scare the unicorns, which was the only only only reason she was able to hold it in). Jumping up and down with eyes so bright and excited that one might think it was Christmas morning was entirely unavoidable and she grabbed the closest of her roommates as she did it because if her friend hadn't been there, she might have had to grab Alistair or someone who might not have been as willing to share in her ebullience.

It wasn't just a piddly little practical with one lonely unicorn, it was the practical of all practicals with five of them, one was just an itty bitty baby! Eeeeeeee!

When Professor Carter asked them to be put in age order, Ginger just needed to wait to hear all their names (aw! Zippity was such a cute name!) to complete the task quickly and correctly. Afterwards, she wrote her explanation simply. "Zippity is the baby because she's adorable and tony and gold. Choppy hasn't grown a horn yet and is also pretty little so she's the next youngest, probably around two. Marigold only just started growing her horn, so she's about five or so, but Melody has a full horn so she's the oldest of the grey ones. Baby is perfectly white so she's all grown up and gorgeous! I love you, Professor!"

Then it happened. She was given permission to approach a real live unicorn. This was the best day of Ginger's life.

Opting for Melody because most people seemed drawn to the biggest and smallest ones and she wanted some quality time with the magnificent creature, she approached the adolescent unicorn with reverent awe. "Hey, Melody," she whispered, "I love you."

1 Ginger Pierce, Teppenpaw UNICORNS!!!!! SQUEEEEEE!!!!!!!!" 302 Ginger Pierce, Teppenpaw 0 5

Fabian Brockert, Pecari

July 22, 2016 6:10 PM

Merlin help me. by Fabian Brockert, Pecari

Fabian was not looking forward to Care of Magical Creatures today. He didn't mind the class usually, as far as classes went. They got to be outside, he enjoyed animals and even felt learning about them was necessary if one was going to be out in the wild. Today, though, the lesson was going to be on unicorns . Not that he had nothing against them specifically.

No, the problem was going to be his female classmates. Maybe not his cousins as Kelsey seemed to be incapable of emotion and Kira seemed pretty down but the rest of them were bound to be a shrill screaming squealing bunch of noise. Now, as a Pecari, he was used to noise and could contribute his fair share, but this was just an overwhelming bunch of female hysteria over nothing more than a horse that happened to have a horn growing out of it's head.

Fabian didn't get the appeal. Well, okay, he liked horses but did having a horn growing out of your forehead make you somehow more attractive ? The third year was pretty sure if he had a horn growing out of his head it might make girls scream but more likely in fear or disgust than excitement.

So he was basically one of the last people to arrive in class due to the dread he felt over attending and he could tell right away that by the time this was all over he was going to have a major headache. The girls all seemed enraptured, about to crawl out of their skin with excitement. Ginger Pierce was actually jumping up and down.

Fabian sighed to himself as he listened to Professor Carter and then quickly filled out the age order of the unicorns and explained his reasoning. Then he turned it in and found a nice tree to sit under. He wouldn't have minded seeing them, but he didn't feel the need to subject to that level of girly exuberance. He'd sit here, a safe distance away.

11 Fabian Brockert, Pecari Merlin help me. 321 Fabian Brockert, Pecari 0 5

Gia

July 22, 2016 7:13 PM

Sometimes I wonder that myself. by Gia

Gia’s already rosy face reddened even more when Diana corrected her word choice. “Oh yes, majestic.” She agreed. “I apologize. Sometimes I have trouble translating a word or phrase in my head and mix words up.” When the English words were so similar, Gia had a difficult time deciding which one was the correct one. Jax was much better with words than she was, which was rather ironic considering he prefers to not talk at all. Perhaps that was her problem? Gia enjoyed chatter. She liked talking with people. She liked being involved and a part of things. Plus, when she was really excited about things, she just said whatever was on her mind and didn’t think too much about what she was saying, which led to her saying the wrong things. Most people understood it was a language thing and didn’t laugh at her, but she still felt a little embarrassed for the mistake.

Gia and Jax were taking classes to help with the language barrier and with their spelling and grammar, but it didn’t always help. There were quite a few students in the class, so she didn’t feel completely like an outcast for taking it. One of those people happened to be Peizhi, which made for those lessons to be quite awkward. Gia always smiled and greeted her, hoping for something positive in return. She wished that they could get their friend back and be the same fun group of Misfits they used to be, but Gia wasn’t so sure if that would ever happen.

Beyond the fact that Gia had embarrassed herself in front of Diana, Diana had referred to her as ‘honey’. Gia was aware that certain cultures had different ways of speech. Being in a school of many different cultures, she had learned that those from the south, such as Diana, used strange terms of endearment in their everyday talk. Gia tried to remind herself of that when she looked at the other Pecari, but a part of her was unbearably pleased to hear Diana call her ‘honey’. She knew that she shouldn’t because it was wrong to be thinking that and hopeful of such a relationship, but she could not help it.

“Oh, that sounds like a wonderful tapestry.” Gia commented. She didn’t have anything like that. Maybe in her old previous home in Greece with the rest of her family they might have something similar to that or to their own culture (being known for their embroidery would make her believe such a thing) but she was five when they had left and she only had very little memory of it and what memories she did have were not very good ones. “What does your father do?” Gia asked, curiously. If he worked with creatures, she wondered if he was a Magizoologist or some other similar job.

6 Gia Sometimes I wonder that myself. 308 Gia 0 5

Diana

July 22, 2016 9:34 PM

I wonder, as I wander by Diana

Diana smiled indulgently as Gia, blushing, explained herself. The blushing kind of made Diana want to pet her – it made her seem sweet, easily-flustered, and innocent. Appearances could be deceiving, but blushing was as hard to do on cue as it was to hide when it just happened for real. It was easy to believe things about.

“It’s all right,” she said, making what she hoped was a gesture that was soothingly dismissive of the error. Now she felt a little bad for saying anything about that at all. The way Gia had said ‘majesty’ had sounded questioning, as though she wasn’t sure of it….“That’s an easy mistake to make.”

She refrained from calling Gia ‘honey’ again even though the word wanted to append itself to the end of her sentence – sometimes, sentences just felt wrong without some acknowledgment of the other person on the end of them. She knew that most people at home would think she was really uncomfortable for some reason if she over-used that kind of word, though, and that most people at Sonora might think she was really fake if she did, so it was better not to even if Gia didn’t have yet another understanding of it because of the language barrier. Instead, she stroked the unicorn’s mane again.

“Father? He runs an import-export business with my uncle Felix – “really with Uncle Felix’s wife, her aunt Catherine, but Uncle Felix was the ‘official’ partner in things just because there were people who wouldn’t like to deal with a business run by a witch even if she was a Carey girl – “and my brother Jay…mes.” It was weird to use Jay’s full name since he never used it at home. There were a lot of Jameses; just in her family, there was Uncle James, her mother’s dead oldest brother who Jay had been named after, and another James Carey in Louisiana and at least one more in Virginia. James Carey was Jay’s real name, too, though, and probably the one she should use when talking about his business life. Hopefully her second of hesitation was covered up by the slowness of her accent; it seemed everyone in America talked faster than people from South Carolina, sometimes. “They travel all over the world, see all kinds of things.” She tried not to sound too envious, but didn't think it worked too well.

Diana had always known that business was not really to be talked about, but since Gia had asked her…”what does your family do?” she asked in return, mirroring the other girl.

0 Diana I wonder, as I wander 0 Diana 0 5

Emilia-Louise Scott

July 27, 2016 5:35 PM

Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus. by Emilia-Louise Scott

Emmy-Lou had many pursuits and interests and a great thirst for knowledge. She generally enjoyed her classes at Sonora, although some were definitely more difficult than others (as begrudging as she was to admit this). Care of Magical Creatures was one class that Emmy had got on well with straight from the start and the whole basis of it was right up her alley. It was easily her favourite subject - she just adored animals. Back home she had a very large collection of domestic pets that was forever expanding and had also been very heavily invested in contributing to the work of certain charities in helping unfortunate creatures ever since she was little.

Today’s lesson had her more excited than usual, however, as she anticipated from homework that they would be focusing on unicorns. Emmy-Lou hadn’t thought she needed to do the assigned reading about unicorns as this was something she had often enjoyed doing of her own accord but it never hurt to brush up on things. When the third year arrived for the class, she was pretty impressed by the selection of unicorns that the school had managed to get their hands on, all of which appeared rather tame.

Taking a worksheet and passing the rest along, Emmy listened carefully to their instructions. She knew she would find the task easy and scribbled down the names as they were given, leaving gaps where appropriate to ensure the went in age order as instructed. Her resulting order was Zippity, Cloppy, Merigold, Melody, Baby and she was perfectly confident that she was correct. This wasn’t Emmy being cocky, merely her being secure in her knowledge of this particular subject. Even if she hadn’t done the reading for homework (which she had), she thought she would have been able to do such a simple task. She didn’t take very long to give her reasoning on the back either, feeling that she was stating the obvious by talking about their colouring, size and horn development.

Emmy noted with sadness that Joella would’ve loved this lesson but she was staying with her family for a few days after the funeral rather than coming straight back when Emmy had. Like most young witches, unicorns had been a great fascination for Emmy and she had never forgotten the first time she’d got to see them up close on the Curtises’ farm. Joella’s father owned a vast forest surrounding the family farm in Tennessee where they had numerous creatures including unicorns roaming free under his protection.

The third year did cheer up a little from her thoughts of Joella when she glanced about the classroom and saw Laila Kennedy screw up her paper at her nearby desk. So much for the girl having the “Most Affinity for Creatures”, she couldn’t help thinking with silent mirth. Clearly it was Emmy-Lou who should’ve won that award - it belonged to her.

Having handed in her worksheet, the blonde sauntered back up to her desk slowly and took her time. As much as she was excited to be having a lesson entirely devoted to playing with unicorns, she was the know-it-all and she needed to stay cool.

Emmy was surprised when Laila approached her. Okay, she had never outwardly shown dislike for the girl but the fact that they shared classes and hardly spoke might have suggested some such indifference. She raised an eyebrow as the girl explained her reason for returning to her desk, instantly suspicious because… well why did Laila feel the need to explain herself?

It did appear, however, that Emmy needn’t be so suspicious as the muggleborn girl was evidently genuinely very excited by the beautiful four-legged creatures they were studying. She rather liked the way Laila was appreciating her knowledge and expertise in the whole world of magic in general and couldn’t help smirking slightly, although not in an unkind or belittling manner. It wasn’t that Emmy wanted muggleborns as a whole to feel out of place in the magical world to which they belonged as she was very much against any such discrimination. It was more that the way Laila was talking it suggested to her that the girl wasn’t quite so cocky as she’d been quick to believe and did know that Emmy had far more superiority in this area than she did… hopefully. Although this didn’t change the fact that merely by existing Laila challenged her, whether it was the brunette’s intention or not.

One thing that didn’t escape Emmy’s notice (little ever did) was that Laila referenced the Reinhardt boys. The reference didn’t bother her a great deal as she didn’t know said boys all that well but it was rather confusing to her nonetheless. Emmy considered herself rather in touch with the rumour mill at Sonora and she had learnt that Laila was going to the ball with Jax Donovan (something she knew she should inform Joella of sooner rather than later) which had caused her to discredit Abby’s theory that Laila and Arne Reinhardt were “a thing” of sorts. Only now Laila sounded very familiar with him and his family and she couldn’t help but wonder if she were overlooking things. She resolved to observe that situation further because she simply needed to know this sort of thing, whether it was technically her business or not.

Emmy wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to Laila’s blurt of admiration for the very foundations of her lifestyle. It was unlike her to be stuck for words but this had just been so unexpected.

“It’s all I know,” Emmy shrugged nonchalantly. That was most certainly not the kind of response she had wanted to come out of her mouth. To suggest she did not know what the muggle world was like contradicted everything she took pride (and delight, depending on the audience) in telling people. Before Sonora, she had been the source of all muggle-knowledge for many of her friends and now she was ~~admitting~~ claiming not to be as in touch with that area as she’d always encouraged others to believe.

“So I take it you like unicorns, huh?” Emmy raised her eyebrows, keeping her tone fairly pleasant whilst internally thinking rather scornfully that Laila didn’t know enough about the creatures to call herself a fan. Then again, most obsessive young girls didn’t and since Laila hadn’t known about them when she was that age, she was probably now going through the emotions of a five year old because she’d never before had the chance.

“One of my best friends, Joella Curtis-” Emmy supplied the name because who wouldn’t want to be linked to Joella? Being friends with a fifth year prefect and awesome Quidditch-player (who also happened to be a Curtis, not that Emmy cared for that kind of importance, of course) definitely wouldn’t hurt one's reputation and should really increase her value amongst her peers (not that Emmy doubted her capabilities of making a name for herself entirely by herself). “-has unicorns on her farm so I’ve seen them a lot.”

She flicked her long blonde hair over her shoulder, a fairly habitual action of hers that could be taken in many different ways or none at all, acting casually despite the fact that she actually still got super excited every time she visited Sugar Ridge Farm and sighted the aforementioned unicorns. Mostly they were left wild because “that’s how they’re supposed to be” (according to Ivan Curtis) but there were some that Joella’s cousin Charis had rescued from elsewhere that she worked with so they were more familiar with being handled by humans.

8 Emilia-Louise Scott Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus. 313 Emilia-Louise Scott 0 5

John Umland, Aladren

July 28, 2016 2:09 PM

I highly doubt anyone can help either of us. by John Umland, Aladren

John had not been paying much attention to the world around him for a while now, too busy to go through more than the bare motions necessary to keep other people from asking too many questions, but he did notice the horse-shaped things in the clearing and immediately picked a spot near the back of the Intermediate class upon recognizing them for what they were. Unicorns, he’d read, weren’t partial to human males and a few of the specimens Professor Carter had brought to class were in possession of the lovely sharp horns that meant they did not necessarily have to suffer many things they weren’t partial to. Even a minor stab wound was, he suspected, the kind of thing that could ruin his whole day, and he had stuff he wanted to do to today.

A worksheet was not one of them. He did it quickly, impatiently, mixing up the order of two unicorns on the list without noticing but getting the order right in his very sparse rationales. He hesitated only a moment over handing in those rationales – he did have to continue this class next year, after all – but then grimaced and did it anyway, wanting to get back to work while the rest of the class finished up. He took the brown notebook out of his pocket on his way back from giving the paper to Professor Carter and opened it with a feeling of relief.

There was, John had finally decided, one – and only one – good thing about the Ball: since everyone around him was acting stupid, he now thought he was going to meet or beat his own timetable for finishing the project he was working on. With even Clark seemingly succumbing to the folly of the masses, he had even fewer opportunities and less desire to interact with other people than usual and had turned himself almost totally over to his work. He’d be done by Easter, sure thing, at least if he didn’t injure himself too badly – he flexed the hand he had damaged earlier in the week automatically, making a face as the half-healed burns pulled beneath the light bandage holding a soothing potion onto them. That (he had told anyone who’d noticed the bandage or him favoring the hand that he’d accidentally splashed a hot potion at the end of class one day) was going to scar a bit, but at least he was getting some extra practice at Beating with his other hand. He had always used his left hand some, but he was nothing like as good with a bat with his left arm as he was with his right and wanted to improve that. It could be the difference between defeat and victory if his wand arm was ever injured during a game.

Eventually, as he was reviewing his notes on the connections to the amber centerpieces he was using and how he might adjust them so he didn’t injure himself further, he realized he was vaguely aware that a largish number of his classmates were moving around and that the writing part of the lesson was probably at or near an end. The agreement he thought he had with the professors – that as long as he didn’t actually complain or do anything eye-catchingly off-task in class and handed in stack of accurate work, they wouldn’t bother him even if it was fairly obvious he was a bit preoccupied – was unspoken, but he regarded it as binding on both parties, and continuing to obviously work on something else without a care would be a breach of his end of the bargain. Obligingly, if grudgingly, he stood up, switched notebooks, and moved to stand a safe distance away from a unicorn so he could observe its behavior…or try to, anyway, around all the girls. The enthusiasm a fair few of them seemed to have for their task wasn't making it terribly easy, and the fact blood and guts did not promptly appear all over the place let him know these unicorns were clearly very accustomed to humans, too, limiting the usefulness of any observations he could have made. He glanced at another guy, sitting under a tree, in mild irritation.

“Is it just me,” he said, “Or could we have just…left at this point?”

16 John Umland, Aladren I highly doubt anyone can help either of us. 285 John Umland, Aladren 0 5

Laila

August 01, 2016 6:32 PM

What about one who's wide awake? by Laila

Emmy-Lou was not someone who Laila had had many conversations with. In truth, she knew very little about the girl. But even though Emmy-Lou had asked Dustin to the ball, Laila had a hard time believing that such a friendly, happy looking girl could be capable of hurting one of her best friend’s feelings. Especially when Sammy had been there and didn’t seem to be overly concerned with the situation. Besides, that had happened the previous term and so although the only two notions of Emilia-Louise Scott Laila had was of someone who had made a friend feel bad, it was a notion that was vague at best considering the attention span of most twelve-year-olds.

Laila shrugged. She didn’t really know to what extent she liked unicorns but she did know that she liked how so many fantasies she’d had as a young child were coming to frication and she more of less said so to the Aladren. “It’s more that I grew up thinking all of this wasn’t real and a lot of it turned out to be real—just in different ways. I mean, have you seen those pictures of mermaids in the library books? They look nothing like the mermaids I grew up with. And unicorns are the one thing that, so far, are the same in both the wizarding and Muggle worlds, it’s just cool, that’s all.”

Emmy’s cool attitude towards the creatures made Laila feel a little immature in comparison and so she was trying to play it off as a more grown-up infatuation than it really was. After all, she didn’t need to give the other students at the school more of a reason to distance themselves from her since it seemed her existence as a muggleborn repelled enough of the student body away as it was. But the mention of Joella caused Laila to smile.

“Oh that’s right, you’re friends with Joella too!” she exclaimed, having temporariliy forgotten that there was another group of students who had known each other pre-Sonora besides her and the Reinhardts. It was true that she and the Reinhardts had not really been friends before she had found out she was a witch, and she had done her best to avoid them around town, even being disappointed that she would be stuck at a boarding school with them for seven years, but after a few weeks she had learned that despite living on a weird plot of land on the outskirts of town and always consorting with the local Chinooks, the Reinhardts were Good People. “Joella’s so nice, isn’t she?”

Laila had never really hung out all that much with the older girl, but had enjoyed her company at Gia’s karaoke event and decided that evening had cemented a friendship between everyone who was present—other than Barnaby Pye, of course, and Nevaeh who she was still really confused about. The blind girl seemed so nice and so it didn’t really make sense to Laila why she would willingly hang out with someone as horrible as Barnaby Pye.

“How is she?” Laila continued. She had noticed that the Pecari had not been around recently and not being one to pry—having grown up in a small town, Laila fully understood the desire for privacy, she had never asked where Joella was. She figured it was Joella’s business and Joella’s business alone and didn’t think of herself as being one that Joella might confide in—she had closer friends for that, friends like Emmy and the others or Liliana Bannister who Laila had seen hanging out with the current subject of her and Emmy’s conversation on multiple occasions. Probably she might even talk to Jax about it—he was pretty good at listening after all. But Emmy-Lou had also been gone for a few days, having disappeared from classes the same day as Joella. “She’s not really sick, is she?”

Sickness was the only thing Laila could think of that would pull a student from school for such a long period of time, but she supposed there were familial reasons too. That, however, was too terrible to think about so she prayed it was the first because sickness could always be cured.

10 Laila What about one who's wide awake? 318 Laila 0 5

Emmy-Lou

August 11, 2016 5:14 PM

Well, this one's more docile than I thought. by Emmy-Lou

It was true that Emmy-Lou and Joella hadn’t been as close in recent years as they had when they were younger but back then they’d basically grown up together and seen so much more of each other. That didn’t mean Emmy’s loyalty to her old friend had wavered, despite feeling mildly hurt last summer, and she was now happy that they seemed to be on track to becoming as close as they once were (or at least as happy as she could be given current circumstances).

Therefore she didn’t take very kindly to Laila, of all people, casually confirming that she and Joella were friends too. Emmy made a conscious decision not to outwardly show her slight dislike at Laila saying this because it would only seem childish and a recent talk with Joella still voiced itself in the back of her mind. As it turned out, Joella (who had used to be far more judgemental of people than most who thought they knew her would believe) didn’t agree with the basis of Emmy’s contempt for Laila Kennedy and she had very openly criticised it. Apparently her older friend had been in a similar situation with Uzume Shinohara but had decided to rise above it because it wasn’t something worth caring about. She had a good point but the main thing that Emmy gathered from Joella’s advice to her on the matter was that her friend just didn’t understand the situation with her and Laila - there was more to it than simply some awards in a yearbook.

One thing that Emmy could not do was be displeased that people cared for the wellbeing of her friend and therefore any resentment towards the idea of Joella and Laila’s friendship disappeared with that one question. How was Joella? But then Laila continued and Emmy realised she didn’t know the reason for Joella’s absence which put Emmy in a situation she didn’t really want to be in. She was no longer thinking about the fact that she was talking to Laila Kennedy but about Joella and her family and when her friend was going to get back to school.

“No, she’s not sick,” Emmy bit her lip because she could feel hot moisture springing to her eyes and she didn’t want to cry in class. Laila seemed in such a happy mood as a result of the unicorns and Emmy was surprised to find she didn’t want to upset that. “Her sister’s fiancé...passed away,” the phrasing sounded far too gentle for the sudden, cruel death that Will had faced but it was what people seemed to find easier to say and right now Emmy was looking for the easiest way to explain why Joella wasn’t here. “She’s been at home with her family for a few more days since the funeral but I’m not sure when she’s coming back.”

Emmy had started out hesitant because she didn’t know how to speak without bursting into tears but then she’d ended talking as fast as she could to try and pretend that she was in control of her emotions and was able to talk about the facts.

“She would’ve loved this lesson,” she added, her mind returning to the unicorns they were studying today because she knew they would help cheer her up.

Emmy made a move towards said unicorns, but didn’t leave Laila altogether. “I think it’s pretty cool that the school actually managed to get such a range of ages of unicorns,” she commented, forcing a smile. “Most unicorns can’t really be caught by humans that easily, did you know.” It was more of a statement than a question but she wasn’t being patronizing, more making conversation with a girl she didn’t even like for reasons she wasn’t sure of.

The blonde stepped towards the biggest unicorn, Baby, and gently held out her hand. As the creature inspected her palm, warmth emitting from its nostrils, a real smile appeared on her face.

8 Emmy-Lou Well, this one's more docile than I thought. 313 Emmy-Lou 0 5

Laila

August 17, 2016 2:17 AM

Yeah, me too. by Laila

Laila frowned. She hadn’t been expecting Emmy to say what she’d said and it took her aback for a moment. Of course Laila knew that death was a part of life and that tragedies happened. Although both sets of her grandparents were still alive, she’d had friends with grandparents who had died. But never before had she a friend who had lost someone close to them who was that young. “Oh,” she said softy, biting her lip now too. “I didn’t know… I didn’t mean to pry, I’m, well I’m sorry for her loss. And um, your loss too. And I’ll keep you all in my prayers.”

Emmy seemed to be trying to switch the subject, and Laila didn’t know if she should let her. The blonde certainly didn’t look like she was doing alright in fact, she rather looked like she was trying to hold back tears. “No, I didn’t know,” Laila replied gently, not because she actually didn’t know but because she thought by answering in the negative it might give Emmy something to ramble on about and avoid thinking about the death that had so obviously upset her.

The smile that came to Emmy’s face when Baby sniffed at her hand made Laila feel better. She didn’t think she was all that good at cheering people up—that was Mamma’s job not hers, but here at least she’d have some help in the form of a pure white unicorn. “What was it like?” Laila asked, feeling more confident that to talk about unicorns might be the best way to help keep Emmy from crying in class—something that Laila was sure no one wanted to do. “Growing up around magical horses?”

10 Laila Yeah, me too. 318 Laila 0 5