Professor Olivers
September 09, 2012 1:24 AM
Walk of Faith [VI & VII years] by Professor Olivers
To be honest with herself, Florence much preferred the Advanced class above the others. The older students were more mature, obviously more advanced in their spellwork, and had been going to school long enough to know how to act properly during classroom activity. Of course, that didn’t go for every single student, but she liked to think so. So far she hadn’t had too much of a problem in any of her classes.Florence was a very meticulous witch who enjoyed setting stages for her acting, and today was no exception. She was kind of proud of the transformation the room had gone through in 24 hours. The posters on the walls were gone, replaced with South Asian tapestries. There was traditional Indian music playing softly in the background, and the desks had been vanished, leaving the entire room open and no fire hazards in sight. Her exotic carpet was gone as well, and in its place were long and narrow wooden platforms that were slightly raised. Coals were too dangerous to play with in class since they were too slow to cool, but there was a small fire going on instead. Sustained by magic, obviously, but no less real. It had been going on for at least an hour now, burning bright and warm. A challenge she hoped her older students would enjoy.
There were three of these platforms spread out in the room. She didn’t want them too close together. There were oriental pillows on the stone floor that surrounded the platforms at a distance for them to sit on while she did her mini lecture today. After that, they were going to do some walking through fire. Of course, it was a bit anticlimactic since they were going to use a charm to make the fire safe to walk through, but nevertheless, the sight of fire was enough to make any student hesitant to walk through it.
Once everyone was inside and seated, she stood up from her desk that had been pushed to the very back of the classroom and walked a few feet from the platform closest to her. Today she was wearing a sari to keep with the theme of today. Different cultures fascinated Florence, hence the name she went by, and she especially liked the Indian culture. It was a perfect way to integrate it into her lesson today and gave her a great reason to wear her sari.
“Good morning, class,” she said with a smile. By now, she had memorized everyone’s name and face so she no longer needed to take roll call. “Welcome to a little bit of a cultural lesson. Today we are going to walk through fire.” Oh, she was going to have fun with this. “Firewalking is an old South Asian custom as a rite of passage, a test of one’s strength and courage, or a test of one’s faith. In a sense, we’re going to be using all three. Traditionally, one would walk on hot coals, but in accordance with our lesson, we are going to be walking through fire.” The fire burning on the platforms seemed to grow a little taller.
Florence looked to see how her students were taking in this news with a mischievous smirk. “We’re going to be working on the Flame-Freezing Charm today. It’s on page fifty-four of your textbook.” She paused for a moment to let them turn to the page as she retrieved her wand from her desk. “As you can see in your book, the incantation is ‘Frigus Ignis’. The charm was quite popular back in the medieval times where witches and wizards used it as they pretended to burn at the stake during witch hunts. It was a fun way to pass the time back then, I suppose. However, we’re going to use it to change the properties of the fire you are all going to be walking through.
“Let’s all say the incantation together. ‘Frigus Ignis.’ Good. The platform you are sitting at is going to be the platform you are going to walk on. Your fellow classmates are going to be your spectators. Oh, and please take off your shoes and socks. It wouldn’t be fun with those on.” She smiled again, a little twinkle in her eye. “Though the fire feels hot, if you performed the charm correctly, it should feel like a warm breeze, a gentle tickling sensation, when you walk through. If you haven’t, well, ask your parents to buy you new pants.” She winked. “I won’t let it get that far, don’t worry.
“And just to make this interesting, whoever successfully crosses the platform and back first without getting singed doesn’t have to do the essay for this week.” Offering a get-out-of-homework-free pass was always a great motivator. “Remember, this is a more difficult charm and takes a lot of concentration. Even the slightest hesitance will weaken the spell. You have to walk through it confidently.” Florence closed her eyes and spread her arms. “Let the magic flow through you. Imagine the warm breeze and concentrate on changing the fire’s effects. Trust your magic.”
The former actress opened her eyes. “The fire will not change in appearance after you cast the charm. You have to trust your magic to perform correctly so you don’t scorch your feet.” She took a deep breath and let it out with a smile. “Go on, now. If any of you do burn your feet a little, come to me and I’ll take care of it for you.” That’s what salves and magic were for.
OOC: Firstly, NO MAJOR BURNS ALLOWED. You can get scorched here and there, but no burning up. You can singe your pant legs and whatnot, and of course Florence will be there for minor burns (tag her in the tagline if you need her), but nothing major! Two-hundred words minimum as usual, but make them extra creative and long for extra points!
Subthreads: Platform I (nm) by Professor Olivers with Kirstenna Melcher, Teppenpaw, Jane Carey, Teppenpaw
Platform II (nm) by Professor Olivers with Eliza Bennett, Crotalus, Nic Sawyer, Crotalus
Platform III (nm) by Professor Olivers with Marcus Williams, Pecari, David Wilkes, Aladren
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Professor Olivers
Walk of Faith [VI & VII years]
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Professor Olivers
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Professor Olivers
September 09, 2012 1:25 AM
Eliza Bennett, Crotalus
September 09, 2012 8:48 PM
Ready to jump...well, cautiously step in by Eliza Bennett, Crotalus
When Eliza had spent time over the summer lying on her bed and studying her CATS results, making pro and con lists for taking or not taking certain classes and worrying over her ability to keep up with course work in preparation for the day when she had made an appointment with her parents to present her proposed schedule to them, it had never occurred to her not to mark Charms at once as one of the subjects she was definitely taking as a sixth year. The skills she had already learned in Charms were, as far as she could see, the ones from her pre-CATS curriculum that she was most likely to actually use on a day-to-day basis for the rest of her life, so it only made sense to continue to learn that kind of thing. Her parents had agreed; they had not even questioned the decision, and had approved of her logic when she explained it to them in her presentation anyway.She had, then, been picturing the class as a very practical affair, not something that would often entertain her, much less be a pleasurable aesthetic experience. When she walked into the Charms classroom and saw the hangings and pillows, heard the music, and noticed the fire-topped platforms, it came as a surprise, even knowing that the professor had once been an actress. She smiled in delight, feeling herself relax a little in the atmosphere, and went to pick out a pillow to sit cross-legged on, her hands resting on her knees as she waited for the class to begin.
One day, she thought as she looked around, she wanted to travel, but until then, getting slices of exotic-seeming opulence at home would have to do. She had, after all, a long time left in life, and she didn’t see herself running out of money any time soon. Until she married, her parents would give her almost anything she wanted, and then once she did get married – something she only thought about in terms of money and hostessing; she had never pictured a specific husband, just a generic figure who’d appear on her arm at events at most – she would have other people who would do the same thing. She didn’t picture that ever changing.
She did, though, have a few mental pictures of the way the bottoms of her feet looked when the professor mentioned that they were walking through fire. Hearing about how the flame-freezing charm, when done properly, would feel like being tickled didn’t make her smile fade further than it had, but it didn’t bring it back, either. So, they had to concentrate not to get burned, okay. Eliza had four siblings. She’d learned from that experience that being tickled was distracting all by itself.
Still, she found she wasn’t really afraid as the lecture ended. Her skirt, though not indecent, was short enough that she didn’t think she had to worry about it burning, and at school, with her wardrobe so limited and replacements slow to come, Eliza felt like she needed to worry far more about her clothes than about her person. She did, though, take a second to tie up her hair before she smiled around at the other people at her stand.
“So,” she said brightly. “Unless anyone objects, I’m willing to try it first.”
She could put her foot over it and tell if it was hot before she stepped onto it at first, which would definitely alleviate some blisters as she got the spell completely down. The only problem would be if it heated up suddenly while she was in the middle, but then she could just concentrate again, she thought, and it would be all right.
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Eliza Bennett, Crotalus
Ready to jump...well, cautiously step in
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Eliza Bennett, Crotalus
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Nic Sawyer, Crotalus
September 11, 2012 10:36 AM
Year 1 AR (After Rachel) by Nic Sawyer, Crotalus
Sonora was wrong this year. It had begun with the Feast. It had continued in the Commonroom and in classes. The library was also wrong. Only the room he shared with Sam seemed unaffected by the blight that had consumed the rest of the school. But then, Rachel had never touched that place aside from the drawings Nic had provided and they were still there. Elsewhere, her absence was as clear to him as the sun's disappearance at night. It was darker, duller, everywhere he went.Too often, he found himself sitting in his usual haunts, waiting for an arrival that never came. He had staked out the library monitor sign-up sheet for three days before he realized what he was doing and reminded himself that Rachel's name would not be joining it this year.
Classes were worse. Despite being acutely aware that his RATS exams would come for him at the end of the year whether he was ready for them or not, Nic repeatedly found himself not paying attention in favor of studying each member of the advanced class, as if he had somehow simply overlooked Rachel's presence and if he just looked hard enough among his classmates he'd find her.
Coming into class today, he found himself confounded enough by the new layout that his first and greatest concern switched from missing Rachel to figuring out how exactly he was supposed to fold his long limbs in order to sit down on the provided pillows.
He was sure his awkward attempt to land his rear end on the pillow next to Eliza's without jabbing her with a knee or elbow disqualified him for life from any awards for graceful conduct, but he managed it without injury to himself or Eliza.
"Tall people are not built for sitting on the floor," he grumbled, a complaint he would not have made if anyone else was sitting beside him, but he considered Eliza an ally so she was therefore privy to this opinion. He had grown another inch and change over the summer, bringing him up to a total of six feet and three inches in height. His doctor thought he might have another inch or two in him, but he was definitely in the home stretch. He was still half an inch shorter than his father, so he kind of hoped he would get one of those inches, just so he could look Dad in the eye without looking up for a change.
Maybe it was new arrangent of the classroom, or maybe it was the burning platforms of fire and the risk of personal injury if he lost focus, but he got through the lecture with only a few light scans over his classmates, more to make bets with himself over who would end up in the hospital wing than to look for a blond head that wasn't there.
When Eliza offered to go first at their platform, Nic nodded and made a go-ahead gesture, having no objection to her going first. He preferred going after somebody else anyway. Nobody had ever accused him of having leadership potential.
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Nic Sawyer, Crotalus
Year 1 AR (After Rachel)
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Nic Sawyer, Crotalus
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Eliza
September 22, 2012 9:14 PM
It's a whole new world by Eliza
Eliza had smiled when she heard Nic grumbling about the difficulties of sitting on the floor. “Try it in a skirt sometime,” she advised him. She could see how his build made the cushions more difficult than they were for her, but still, sitting on the floor in a dress was no task for the faint of heart. She would have loved to wear pants sometimes, but that was not the conduct of a proper young lady, so she and Nic both got to suffer today.It was going to be strange next year when he was gone, beyond even that being a reduction to the number of people she was sure would be on her side. She thought she was going to miss having Nic around. Hopefully, she would be busy next year, very busy, but she was sure she would notice his absence every now and then. With Jordan grown more distant over the years, more interested in boys than anything, and the other one someone Eliza didn’t think she could befriend no matter what happened, she thought Nic might be, despite the actual size of her network of acquaintances, the closest thing to a friend she had, even if the relationship was, from her perception, more one of mutual sympathy than of intimacy. That was enough to suit her; it would have been nice to have someone to gossip with, but most boys just weren’t wired that way, and she knew she most likely would have felt the same paranoia she did with most people if she’d tried anyway.
She chose to look on the bright side of that. One day, she was going to be a great success because of her paranoia. It was an asset in politics.
Nic’s failure to make a chivalrous objection to her going first into the fire was not a surprise, and she smiled before bowing slightly in answer to his go-ahead gesture and then stepping up to the platform.
On level ground, Eliza hadn’t been worried about this at all, but now, actually face-to-face with it all, she did feel her stomach flutter with anxiety. None of that she told it firmly, and raised her wand, the dark wood of which shone with polishing, to perform the incantation even as she started to put her foot out, knowing that the key was to just not think before she acted. If she did, she’d stand there dithering until the fire burned out, which was not really what she wanted to see happen now that she’d stepped up and announced her desire to be the leader for their group. She’d be a laughingstock if she didn’t do this, and she would rather walk through fire than be a laughingstock any day.
She jumped a little as her foot landed on the platform, at first just out of reflex, sure it was going to be hot, and then because having the bottoms of her feet tickled wasn’t a feeling that she liked. Noticing, though, that the flames around her ankles and feet did still feel warm, if not enough to burn, she decided to hurry up –
She got halfway across before she felt a burn form on her left foot and executed a twirl, lifting that foot off the ground and taking herself toward the other side faster than she would have otherwise, even as she bit her lip to muffle a cry of pain. She finished the course with more of a leap than anything, glad to see that ballet lessons when she was little were finally proving useful for something, and hopped from one foot to the other as she touched stone again.
The condition of her feet, she was relieved to see as she examined them afterward, wasn’t bad – she got worse burns on her fingers in Potions all the time. She wouldn't even need the ointment she carried to Potions for that reason for these. She made herself look up and smile. “Not too bad,” she said brightly, entirely for the benefit of her public. “Even if you do slip up a little." She'd have to try it again later, but she thought someone else could have a turn now, while she thought about how to improve on her performance.
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Eliza
It's a whole new world
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