Professor Connell
April 12, 2006 1:03 PM
Lesson I- First and Second Years by Professor Connell
Being a staff member at Sonora seems to be a rather hazardous position, Marian thought to herself as she sat at her desk grading papers in the last few minutes before her first new class of the new term. Phil had resigned his position for one reason or another, and his new replacement had not seemed like a very amiable person. On another note, Lucinda had returned, bringing Tony with her, and so the final remnants of the problematic term last year were finally gone, with the exception of the staff members who couldn't brave the elements.As she had been thinking, her first and second year students had begun to enter the classroom, some looking much happier than others to be back in class. After a few minutes went by without anyone new coming in, Marian stood up, handed the stack of graded papers to one of the students sitting in the front row with instructions to hand them out, and returned to her desk.
She waited a few more moments, hands clasped behind her back, until the general hubbub of chatter died down. "Welcome back from what was hopefully a good winter break," she began as soon as she deemed the room quiet enough. "Today, as usual, you will be working in pairs. While I would prefer you to have one person from both years in each pair, so that the older students can more easily help the younger ones if need be, it is by no means required."
She had learned her lesson about trying to tell the children who they could and could not pair with back in her first year teaching. She was still slightly worried whenever the Cravens entered the room, just because of that.
"The potion you will be making today is called the wit sharpening potion. You should find it on page 45 in your textbook. The ingredients are ground scarab beetles, cut up daisy roots, armadillo bile, and essence of belladonna. All of those should be in your potion supplies, but there are more of each on the first shelf in the black cabinet over there.
"I have one last note to make about this potion," she concluded seriously. "While there are some potions you will make that it is...acceptable to take outside of the class and keep for personal use, like the color-changing potion you made first semester, this is not one of them. It is against school policy to use this potion for any sort of academic gain, and it is also extremely dangerous when consumed in large amounts or too rapidly."
Her announcements about the potion having been said, she waved her hand in the general direction of the ingredients cabinet to indicate that the students could began, and sat down once more. Hopefully, these student at least would listen when she gave them warnings, rather than attempt to create the very thing she had warned against. One could only hope.
OOC: Standard posting rules apply. At least 2 decent sized paragraphs, which should be around 8-10 lines altogether at the bare minimum. Also, this is a potions classroom. Minor explosions, spills, and the like are welcome. Just don't blow up my entire classroom.
\r\n\r\n\r\n
Subthreads: Back to work... by Dalila Bastet with Geoffrey Layne, Dalila
Seeking a partner by Saul Pierce with Anne Wright
Sorry, I've been gone for a while! by Melanie Rose with Guenther Heindrich
<i>Migraine</i> ought to be a synonym for <i>misery.</i> by The Careys
This thread is now over (nm) by Professor Connell
0
Professor Connell
Lesson I- First and Second Years
0
Professor Connell
1
5
Dalila Bastet
April 12, 2006 9:44 PM
Back to work... by Dalila Bastet
Potions, while not Dalila's favorite class, had it's merits. You have to like a class where there's a possibility of something exploding (which is actually the case for most classes here).Dalila was pushed along with the crowd of first and second years and finally found a seat in the front. She pulled a piece of parchment from her bookbag and set it on her desk along with the new quill she had gotten for Christmas and her signature bottle of dark orange ink.
Professor Connell handed Dalila a stack of papers. Dalila stared at it for a moment before realizing that she was to hand them back. She just hoped she could remember who was who in this class. Names were one thing she had a horrible memory for. Always the trooper, Dalila gave her potions teacher an over-eggagerated salute and began her job.
The first paper was for...someone she didn't know. Oh well, next paper! The same...ummm...this was going to be hard. Dalila stood a bit off the the side rustling through the papers tryinjg to find a name that she could match with a face.
"Oh, Merlin, I need some help!" Dalila muttered aloud.\n\n
0
Dalila Bastet
Back to work...
60
Dalila Bastet
0
5
Geoffrey Layne
April 14, 2006 10:53 PM
Gallantly offering my assistance by Geoffrey Layne
Geoffrey sat near the front of the classroom, idly twirling his quill and resisting the urge to go over his notes one last time. This was his best class, and it would look flat-out freakish besides. If he looked over his shoulder and two tables back, he would be able to see Anne muttering about a million miles a minute, her notebook propped open in front of her. She could get away with that sort of thing by virtue of being a social class into and of herself. His status, however, was much better defined, and frantically going over notes from before Christmas didn't feel right in association with it.He straightened, putting the quill down, as Professor Connell handed a stack of papers to a second-year girl he vaguely recognized as a Teppenpaw. She stopped near his desk, rifling through the papers. Geoffrey caught sight of his own handwriting on the top paper and Anne's directly beneath it. The girl muttered something about needing help.
"That's mine," he said, then deadpanned. "And my...sister's. I'll just take them both off your hands." Before she could offer assent or protest to this plan, Geoffrey had leaned over and swiped both from the pile. A grin crossed his face briefly when he observed that Anne's grade was a point lower than his. It didn't make up for how humiliatingly much better she'd done on the last Transfiguration practical, but it helped. The success put him in a generous mood. He glanced at the next paper. "Here, I think this one goes to that brunette over there...and you're working with me, because I'm avoiding Wright until she gets over her aunt issues. See that blonde in the corner? That next one's hers."
The only bit he thought he'd told a lie about was having a sister here. Anne had come back from holiday in a temper as pleasant as that of a kicked-nest hornet, and she had no problem whatsoever with taking it out on him. He wasn't sure if he should be flattered or not. She tried to keep up her front and immerse herself in work with everyone else, but he got the..privilege...of playing shrink until she was through her midyear crisis. In a class where everything had to be just so, he'd prefer to avoid being too close when Anne threw something into the cauldron at random in a fit of temper and blew the mansion up. \n\n
16
Geoffrey Layne
Gallantly offering my assistance
72
Geoffrey Layne
0
5
Dalila Bastet
April 16, 2006 12:10 AM
Gallantly accepting your offer by Dalila Bastet
A voice startled Dalila from her paper trance as a hand grabbed the two top papers of the pile. Dalila looked up at the boy. She knew his face from around school, but couldn't remember if they had ever spoken to each other."Uh, yeah. Okay," she said, a little confused at meeting someone more forward than she. Dalila quickly got over it and stared back down at her pile of papers and then at the brunette the boy had mentioned. Dalila quickly pulled her wand from her pocket and sent the paper flying to its owner. The next paper followed suit to the blonde in the corner.
"Thanks a million. I have the worst time with names. Id forget my own if my grams hadn't sewn it into my robes." Dalila grinned and pushed her red glasses up her nose before putting out her hand.
"Dalila Bastet at your service."
\n\n
0
Dalila Bastet
Gallantly accepting your offer
60
Dalila Bastet
0
5
Saul Pierce
April 20, 2006 8:42 AM
Seeking a partner by Saul Pierce
When the professor stopped talking, Saul decided his first order of business was to locate and secure a partner. A second year, preferably, as Connell seemed to want them to cross years. So step one: locate a second year. He stood up on his chair to get a better vantage around at the other milling students, trying to find one that (a) wasn't already teamed up with someone else, and (b) he didn't recognize from Flying Lessons.Discovering one such individual, he pointed at them and intoned, "You!" He kind of wished the school robe had baggier sleeves and deep shadowed hoods so the posture would look more dramatic, but he'd deal.
Anyway, he'd sufficiently grabbed the target's attention, so he hopped down off the chair and snaked between the people who were standing in between them. "Hey," he greeted a few seconds later when he reached their side, "I'm Saul Pierce, a first year in need of a partner. Interested in the position?"\n\n
1
Saul Pierce
Seeking a partner
82
Saul Pierce
0
5
Geoffrey Layne
April 23, 2006 6:33 PM
Good, now we can begin. by Geoffrey Layne
Geoffrey nodded politely when the girl introduced herself. He didn't know her, and he'd never heard Anne mention her. She'd do. "Geoffrey Layne, at yours," he returned, shaking hands loosely. Old man Kirke, the music teacher he'd taken violin lessons from in South Carolina, had marked him out as impossible early on, but he had managed to hammer the importance of taking care not to let anyone get too much of a grip on one's hand into his pupil. Straightfaced, he added, "I'll remind you of both our names if the need arises." She was stirring. Moving a wooden object around in circles required very little memory, after all, especially when the potion wasn't an overly fiddly one.The papers didn't take too long to sort out. Geoffrey thought his memory of names and faces rather good, and in the event that he didn't know a person, he'd simply pass their paper over his shoulder and assume the other students would be charitable enough to get it to its owner instead of stealing it for blackmail purposes. Once the last one was with its owner, he gave Dalila a distant smile. "Why don't you set up the cauldron while I sort out the ingredients?" Surely she couldn't make a mess of that.
It wasn't Dalila herself who caused the thought; anyone he was working with would have inspired the same ideas in him, though Dalila's assertion that she had a poor memory didn't help. Delegation wasn't one of his skills. He'd spend every second anyone else was doing anything worrying that a calamity was going to occur to ruin his grade for no reason other than he hadn't done the job himself. If he was the party in power, at least he knew he couldn't improve upon the job. That, and a simple liking of control that he'd never bothered to question or worry about the morality of. He tried - no more than half-successfully - to ignore it and go on about transferring the correct items from the main part of his supply kit and to the empty tray above it. His father had had a little too much fun making the thing out of a Muggle fishing tools box, but it worked.
Flipping to page 45 in his book, Geoffrey's eyes narrowed slightly as he read over the directions. It was downright cruel of Connell to teach them this and then say they couldn't use it. It was just asking someone to try brewing it illegally before finals, though the anti-cheating spells supposedly on everything might pick up on it if someone did...that wasn't the point..."This isn't too difficult, I don't think," he said, glancing up at Dalila. "I'll work with these - " he gestured towards the ingredients - "and you can stir. Just be careful to keep the pace steady, eh?" If he was bossing her around, he didn't know it and wouldn't have cared if he did. Pulling out his knife, he began to chop the daisy roots.\n\n
16
Geoffrey Layne
Good, now we can begin.
72
Geoffrey Layne
0
5
Dalila
April 24, 2006 8:23 PM
I could use some wit sharpening potion... by Dalila
Dalila happily set up the black cauldron between herself and Geoffrey and began poking her wand beneath the pot until the words came to her and a small flame appeared where her wand had been.Rather than taking out her own book which was covered in little orange ink drawings done during boring lectures, Dalila glanced over the pot at her partner's figuring he wouldn't mind.
When geoffrey told her she's stir, Dalila just shrugged. She really didn't care. As long as they didn't make anything explode and he wasn't mean about it, he could boss her around in potions. She was good at stirring anyways.
"My grams used to make me help her with her potions. I'd always have to stir. I'm an expert in this now," Dalila grinned.
"Is that a tackle box?" Dalila asked after eyeing the clunky metal thing Geoffrey was removing his ingredients from.\n\n
0
Dalila
I could use some wit sharpening potion...
0
Dalila
0
5
Layne
April 25, 2006 9:45 PM
Who couldn't? by Layne
Geoffrey nodded, not really giving her his full attention, when Dalila claimed to be an expert at stirring. "Good," he said vaguely, sliding the edge of his knife over a few millimeters in the hopes of keeping the root pieces as close to equal as possible. There wasn't enough time to take as much care as he wanted to, but some attention to detail was necessary. He'd never agreed with the idea that the structure was what made something what it was. Details mattered. What if, say, a surgeon didn't pay attention to detail? What if Mozart hadn't?Taking the roots in carefully aligned groups at a time rather than individually made the job easier, and so was adopted as Geoffrey's method of cutting. Though he was too preoccupied to know it, he was as close to content as he was ever likely to be. He'd almost forgotten that he had Transfiguration later in the day. Everything seemed to simplify itself when he was making something, with working out the problem of the moment coming first while everything else remained shrouded in a fog of vagueness he didn't particularly care what hid. It was what he did well, and so was by default what he enjoyed.
It took him a moment, longer than would have been comfortable if he'd been aware of it, to register Dalila's question enough to answer it. He blinked, coming out of the trance equalizing the root portions had put him into, and examined the water in the cauldron to see how close it was to a boil before finally speaking. "That's what it's called?" He looked at his supply kit. "My father's idea. He gets a kick out of taking one thing and turning it into something else." Geoffrey shrugged and, deciding the water was in fact boiling, added the chopped roots to it. "He likes fishing. Me, I'm either working on some project or playing Quidditch." He had an idea that he was supposed to carry on the conversation as he worked. Some people, it seemed, liked talking as they worked. "Play any yourself?"\n\n
16
Layne
Who couldn't?
72
Layne
0
5
Melanie Rose
April 27, 2006 6:16 PM
Sorry, I've been gone for a while! by Melanie Rose
Melanie had been sitting in the middle of the class just reading over page fourty-five. It seemed okay but she was knew at this. She didn't have a partner yet either. Quietly, she decided to look through her box and see if she even had all the ingredients.Having all the ingredients, Melanie took out a dead scarab. She didn't have the preground ones. Taking her knife she placed it on a small plate from her kit and set the side of the blade on it. She pushed her hand on it, hard, to crush it. She then grabbed her 'grinding' bowl and transferred the remains to it, using the wooden microphone-like grinder to turn it to a grainy feel.\n\n
0
Melanie Rose
Sorry, I've been gone for a while!
0
Melanie Rose
0
5
Guenther Heindrich
April 28, 2006 5:24 PM
As well as me....lol...rp's by Guenther Heindrich
Guenther searched for a partner, having an easy time because of his height. Since he was taller than everyone else, even most of the second years, he was able to see that most people already had partners and that the girl from earlier didn't. He groaned. His life was horrible.He approached her, careful not to knock any ingredients off the tables around him. "YO SPIKE!" he said loudly, leaning on the table. "I think we are partners. Are you good at this whole cooking thing?"
\n\n
0
Guenther Heindrich
As well as me....lol...rp's
0
Guenther Heindrich
0
5
Dalila
April 28, 2006 8:32 PM
Good point... by Dalila
"Play any yourself?"It almost made Dalila laugh if she hadn't realized that this was only a first year. Anyone who Dalila knew that se loved Quidditch though her grandmother was adamently against girls playing, which was strange because her mother was fine with it.
"I loved Quidditch! I'm a chaser for Teppenpaw." Dalila stopped to stare at the pot of water, which was bubbling merrily in front of her. Geoffrey added some of the ingredients. Dalila looked over again at everything her parner was slicing. Everything was perfect. Her grandmother cut like that. It was one thing Dalila had a hard time doing...making all the cuts even. She sighed, somehow missing the ministrations of her very traditional grandmother.
"I think your tackle box potions holder is cool. Very original.\n\n
0
Dalila
Good point...
0
Dalila
0
5
Layne
April 29, 2006 9:07 PM
I do enjoy making them. by Layne
The enthusiasm of Dalila's reply was enough to pull Geoffrey out of his scarab-grinding reverie. "This won't be the last time we meet, then," he said, his voice neutral and his eyes sharp. "I'm a Beater for Aladren." Anne had talked before, usually when she thought he wasn't paying attention, about how she was at least a little nervous about playing Teppenpaw. It turned out that virtually half the Aladren team was blood kin to one or another member of the opposition. He gave the girl beside him a sideways look, considering. The glasses were a weak point. Would they count as part of the anatomy?For a moment, he could almost see Anne glaring at him, hear her snapping something about not taking fool chances that something wouldn't be a foul. She was different than she had been, it was true, but some semblance of her fear of academically-endorsed authority still lingered. He would have thought living around-the-clock with her teachers would have done something for it, but...Anne was Anne, and Anne would make him or anyone else on the team think twice about moving without permission if they pulled a stunt that endangered the game. Since she did have a legitimate reason to want to prove herself, he let it go. Glasses were enough of a weak point in Quidditch even if they did stay on.
He blinked when she went back to his box. "Er - thank you. The original idea was probably Mum's. She's the creative one - Dad's just economical." It was always a good thing to find a nicer way of saying cheap, though Geoffrey could understand - even admire - why his father was so. Mark Layne wasn't a man like his brothers, to be content with what he already had. Every spare Knut stored in a pickle jar for hard times or opportunity was at least an attempt to rise above their place in the world. Besides, it was better to be tight-fisted than to be like Uncle Henry, who hadn't been out of debt since he left Sonora and whose wife, the long-suffering Aunt Elizabeth, compulsively confiscated and hid every bit of money she laid eyes on just so they could get by without begging the family for help. Most of the time.
Geoffrey's take on it all was that it was a good thing for him that thinking one's family stupid wasn't grounds for disownment, because the only adult members of the clan he'd ever seen show much sense were his father and Aunt Melissa.
"Start stirring," he told Dalila, shifting his sore hand on the pestle to get a new grip. "Medium pace. It'll help the roots dissolve properly." The beetles wouldn't take much more pounding, he didn't think, but he wanted to grind them as fine as possible before adding them. There was only so much time in the class period, and the speed at which the particles would dissolve was related directly to their size. Knowing what was in the potion made it somewhat unpleasant to think of stomaching, but if it worked...well, one of the most popular and effective Muggle medicines of all time was derived from bread mold and didn't taste to swell, either, but it did what it was meant to do.
"Belladonna's poisonous, you know," he said, more voicing his thoughts than trying to start a conversation. "I think that might be why this is dangerous in quantity, though overconfidence could have something to do with it." He hesitated for a moment. "I can't remember if the essence is poison or not..." He'd have to look that up before he went into the common room this evening. There were almost too many advantages to be counted of having a commons connected directly to the library. \n\n
16
Layne
I do enjoy making them.
72
Layne
0
5
Dalila
May 04, 2006 7:12 PM
You should always enjoy what you do. by Dalila
So, Geoffrey was a beater for Aladren? This would end up being rather intersting come Quidditch season. At least he wasn't keeper or another chaser, or they'd really be testing the limits of friendship.Dalila raised an eyebrow at Geoffrey's use of the word 'economical'. But he was in Aladren and they tended to be very smart - always a plus in Dalila's book. If someone wasn't at least as smart as Dalila (which was only about average) then you weren't worth getting to know. She began to wonder just how smart Geoffrey was compared to the other Aladrens when sais boy's voice interupted her.
Start stiring.
Dalila looked down. The potion was smoking slightly. Dalila stirred at the med=ium pace and the smoke slowly disappeared revaing a bubbling liquid.
She nodded abesently to Geoffrey's small talk, still staring at the bubbles; the heat was fogging her glasses so when she finally picked up her head to look at her partner, Geoffrey was just a fuzzy blur in a cloud, but instead of taking off her glasses and wiping them clean, she left them on and imagined she was on a cloud.
"I think they are poisonous," she said in a breathy voice, still sirring the potion. I'm sure it says in the book somewhere. Check the glossary."
The fog faded from Dalila's glasses, and brought her mind to the task at hand, stirring with added fervor.
"You gunna ad dthose beetles or are you planning to sprinkle that dust on your dinner?" she asked with a playful grin.\n\n
0
Dalila
You should always enjoy what you do.
0
Dalila
0
5
Layne
May 06, 2006 2:14 AM
It's way too early in the morning to think of a title. by Layne
'A Merry Maid' most likely wasn't a normal timekeeping song, and Geoffrey only knew the choruses and a handful of the words, but he liked the beat. It was paced so that by the time he reached the third refrain, whatever he was grinding on would be sufficiently ground up. Dalila's question kept him from reaching that point, and the look he gave her now was bordering on holding annoyance. No one could dissemble forever under all conditions, and his reality point involved doing things right and getting good marks for them."No," he said dryly. "I was planning to dump it on yours." He gave the beetles a last, energetic grind and carefully tipped the powder into the cauldron. "Start stirring the other way, but don't speed up." He began measuring out the armadillo bile, squinting at the measuring cup and raising it to the light. He wanted it as precise as possible. "Goes in last," he muttered, more to himself than to her once more. He'd been tinkering in his bedroom for almost a year, whenever he thought he could get away with it, and had gotten into the habit of talking to himself as he worked. It helped him remember what he had and hadn't done and so forth.
He'd known perfectly well that the armadillo bile went in last, but he'd measured it out before the essense of belladonna. Good memory aside, he had wanted to make sure he had it on-hand before he began fiddling with poisons. He'd never acutally worked with them before - not even Uncle Henry was stupid enough to leave arsenic or belladonna or what-have-you lying around for anyone to pick up and toss in a cauldron - but he'd read about them. There was something oddly intriguing about it, and he knew himself well enough to know that his mind sometimes drifted when he was interested in something. If he saw the measuring cup square in front of him, though, there was a significantly lower chance of that happening.
"I think it is poisonous," he said absently. "It's logical for it to be, don't you think? The essense of a poisonous plant and all...but that could be strictly in grammar and literary applications. I'll look while this is brewing." Geoffrey dimly registered that this was the point Helena would have started teasing him about sounding just like a book. Lena was pretty smart, but she could be as annoying as all get-out...she was going to have his hide off when she found out all the rubbish he'd told her about Sonora over the break had been a hoax...he added the essense to the cauldron more carefully than he had anything previously, banging elbows with Dalila on the way back.
"Sorry," he said. "Not much more to go, now." When he estimated that enough time had passed, he added the armadillo bile to the concoction in the cauldron, barely sparing it a glance as he went back to the directions in the book. "I'm thinking we have to let it cook at this point, more or less," he said. "Yeah, that's it. Er - good job, I suppose. In case it slips my mind at the end of class. Been known to do that." \n\n
16
Layne
It's way too early in the morning to think of a title.
72
Layne
0
5
Dalila
May 07, 2006 12:51 AM
Mornings suck... by Dalila
Dalila gave a hesitated chuckled to Geoffrey's retort. It might have been really funny, but his tone somehow made him seem aggitated and annoyed at her trying to continue to start up conversations.And there was the orders! Dalila knew how to brew potions, and Dalila knew how to take orders, but her grandmother had always done it in a way that said "Thank you" while her partner's stated more of a "Do it my way or I'll curse you", which Dalia really didn't take to.
But she did everything anyways - not because she hated confrontation (which was part of the fun in life) but that Geoffrey was doing everything right, and their graded counted on everything being right.
So she stirred in the opposite direction in silence and watch Geoffrey measure out the armadillo bile, and then mutter about looking up whether essence of belladona was poisonous or not.
Dalila gasped in surprise and pain when he hit her elbow (hard). 'At least he apologized' Dalila thought to herself.
"S'ok," she replied and then stopped stirring when Geoffrey told her to.
"Umm...thanks," Dalila added when noted her work. It didn't sound too sincere, but you have to take what you can get, so Dalila gave a small smile to her partner.
"So I guess this means I can do whatever," she said more to herself thatn to him. Then she pulled out a book her mother had sent her from Cairo: Magic of the Nile. It was badly translated from an unknown language to English by her mother and her assistant.
Then she stuck her face in the book and pretended to be in Egypt with her mother rather than in her potions class at Sonora with annoyingly smart boys and an odd acrid smell in the air.\n\n
0
Dalila
Mornings suck...
0
Dalila
0
5
Anne Wright
May 15, 2006 10:51 PM
Seeking same by Anne Wright
Anne could distinctly remember lying on her bed at Magnolia Grove over the break while she went over her potions notes, but walking into the room had brought up the sudden, almost terrifying idea that she might forget it all now that she actually needed it. In her mind, there was only one viable option: study, and study fast. The chances that they'd have a quiz over the old material was slim, but real, and there was a much better chance that they might have to apply some old concept to some new action. She was so absorbed in her notes that she didn't hear enough of Connell's speech to know she was supposed to be teaming up with a first year to make a potion.She began pulling the ends of her hair nervously as she squinted at an equation dealing, she thought, with proportionality of some ingredients that were highly toxic if improper proportions were mixed. This was hardly her best class; it required too steady of a hand and too much nit-picking. Nit-picking was Geoff's domain, not hers. She let go of her hair when the sudden, sharp pain near her temple alerted her to the fact she'd been pulling on it and instead clutched at the edges of her notebook. Her notes really were substandard, much too disorganized and far too informal, what kind of sentence was 'mixing those is really bad idea'...
You!
Anne felt herself jump, then felt her shoulder collide with the edge of the lab table as she unsuccessfully scrambled to recover the heavy folder that had slid out of her hands. A harried look in the direction that the voice had come from showed her a boy she vaguely thought she had seen somewhere before jumping off a chair. It could have been her imagination, but she had the oddest feeling that the 'you' had been directed towards her...As she began stuffing fallen papers back into her folder and thrust a handful into her book, she finally noticed everyone else moving around the room. As she slapped the folder shut again, she found herself face-to-face with the first year.
"Uh - sure," she said, deciding that the only logical reason everyone could be roving so was to find partners for some kind of classwork and that the older students would be with the younger. "Anne Wright, second year." She considered her position and decided there was really no way out of doing it. "Listen, I've got all my stuff and everything, but I was kinda distracted while Connell was talking...do you have any idea what we're doing?" \n\n
16
Anne Wright
Seeking same
59
Anne Wright
0
5
The Careys
May 20, 2006 9:33 PM
<i>Migraine</i> ought to be a synonym for <i>misery.</i> by The Careys
Morgaine had returned to Sonora fuming. Father hadn't let her stay at home, even when she managed to work up the courage to capture his attention long enough to show him that letter from those W.A.I.L. people. His reaction had been...strange, strange enough that some instinct had warned her that she didn't want to push it. He hadn't seemed to care at all, telling her in a strangely vacant manner that it was none of her concern and he wouldn't let it be said that his daughter had been run out of school by a renegade and a group of harpies. He had then told her to go play with her dolls and get out from under his feet. She hadn't played with dolls in over two years.Gwenhwyfar had played with dolls in secret until she turned eleven, but not even Gwen was crazy enough to think he'd get them mixed up. There was no resemblance whatsoever, really. Maybe there was a very vague, very faint similarity in the shapes of their faces, and they both had the Carey long hands and Robinond light eyes, but that was it. She had her father's dark coloring, while Gwen took after their grandmothers in almost everything. Only Edmond looked anything like Mother, and he was a boy. No one with any vestige of eyesight could get any one of them confused with the other two. Father simply didn't pay attention to anything she did, and so assumed she had yet to give up some of the more juvenile passtimes.
There had been a steadily building sensation of pressure around her temples and a low throbbing pain near the base of her skull all morning, herald of a coming headache. Her head had always started hurting in times of stress, but it had been after she found out what the 'problem' Gwen kept hinting at in her letters was the previous year that she had been hit with the first of what had turned out to be many really bad ones, ones that left her in bed for hours at a time unable to do anything but sleep and, when it was so bad she couldn't sleep, curse her luck, and, during the very worst ones, just try to keep her eyes closed and lie very still because it hurt too much to think or move anything. Once she had come to Sonora, the headaches had become almost routine. Weekends were especially bad, but sometimes, in the late evening, they would even come during the week. They had stayed mercifully gone during the break, but she'd known from the moment she woke up that the reprieve was over. She didn't want to be at this stupid school, she didn't want to attend these stupid classes, and she didn't want to deal with a load of stupid people, so she had a headache. The first thing she saw upon entering the classroom caused a sharp upswing in the pain already present and the addition of more, beginning the headache proper.
Her sister had beaten her to the classroom they were being forced to share. There was no mistaking the light-haired figure in Gwen's habitual corner, or any mistaking that today was one of Gwen's bad days. She wasn't so much sitting in her corner as crumpled into it. Her hair, once so well-kept, was loose and didn't look as though it had been given more than a lick and a promise from a brush. Her cream-colored blouse and brown skirt, a set that had fit her perfectly before the break, seemed to have taken on the proportions of a pillowcase and a burlap sack. She didn't even had her book out, never mind her cauldron. There was no impression that Gwen had the faintest interest in anything going on around her. Definitely one of the quiet bad days.
Apparently, Morgaine wasn't the only one who didn't like Christmas anymore.
I'm not going to think about it. She's not my problem anymore. Morgaine chanted that litany in her head as she deliberately looked away from her sister and made her way towards a table as front and center as she could find. She's not my problem anymore. I'm under no kind of obligation to her. By the time Professor Connell started talking, her headache had built itself up to the point that she felt like she was floating in thick, syrupy water, looking through the sides of a thick, low-quality glass bowl. It never took long. She'd be dysfunctional by the end of the class period, if she held out that long.
She stood up very slowly when they were told to find partners, preferably among the second years. The thought triggered another sharp stab. She had ostracized everyone in both years by this point, most likely, and finding partners was, for her, a waking nightmare even when her head wasn’t about to split in two. Looking around, her expression between even more of a scowl than usual because of her efforts to keep out the light and between that of one drugged because of the thought-slowing affects of the pain, she found herself looking at her sister again.
Gwenhwyfar was leaning against the end of her table, arms wrapped around herself half-defensively, her eyes only half-open and staring at the wall directly across the room from her. Gwen was good at Potions and still seemed as passionately attached to Morgaine as ever. That was Gwen’s problem. She cared too much about people. Just as well Morgaine wasn’t too troubled with morality in the best of situations, which this wasn’t. Hoping she wouldn’t trigger some kind of hysterical reaction and resigning herself to a firestorm if anyone worth mentioning (i.e. Lila St.Martin) noticed, she moved even more slowly than her headache would have made her do towards the last person she would voluntarily work with, up to and including Lila.
She didn’t beat around the bush, not even to get Gwen’s attention. “You’re working with me,” she said, striving to sound normal. “Don’t talk to me about anything unrelated to the assignment. The only reason I’m doing this is because everyone else in this room hates me and I don’t want to be blamed for it if you do something stupid and embarrassing to the family.” She’d reached her talking limit. The nausea that accompanied two quick waves of pain made that very clear.
Gwen stared at her. “Mora?” She talked too loud. Morgaine had never fully appreciated just how loudly her sister spoke. “Morgaine?” Morgaine was tempted to say something along the lines of no, stupid, but it wasn’t worth the effort. She tried jerk back when Gwenhwyfar reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, but not quick enough. “Guess I’m not hallucinating,” she heard her mutter. That one she had to answer.
“No such luck,” she said distinctly. “I wish you were. Get your stuff out, will you? This isn’t some kind of kiss-and-make-up session.” She made her way around the table and waited for Gwen to do as she’d said. Her sister’s chin tilted up, and for one moment Morgaine thought she’d come out of her quiet spell and was going to refuse to do it, but then she muttered something to herself, looked down at her shoes for a moment, and, for the first time in her life, Morgaine found an order given to someone who was both human and not in the employ of her family met with obedience. She couldn’t help wishing her head wasn’t hurting, because there was no way she was appreciating it fully like this.
“Now,” she said, deciding to try her luck again, “make the potion and put both our names on the sample.” This time, however, the results weren’t so much to her liking. Gwen looked at her blankly and then sat down on her stool, looking at her hands.
“Do it yourself, if you want it done. I don’t care anymore.”
Morgaine gritted her teeth. She did not want to deal with this. “This is your best class. You care.”
“All I care about is going to sleep. I’m tired.”
“And I couldn’t care less.” When this got no response, she ground her knuckles hard into the sides of her head, getting a fleeting second of partial relief, and tried a new tactic. “You go get the water, and I’ll help you mix it. We can do it together.” She didn’t think it had worked, at first, but then Gwen, without speaking, stood up and, lugging the cauldron along with her, retrieved the water from the faucet. Morgaine didn’t thank her. Gwen didn’t ask for her thanks. All the taller girl did was start chopping daisy roots. Morgaine found herself staring at her sister’s hands absent-mindedly. No matter how much about her had changed, Gwen was still neat and particular about things. Watching Gwen cut the roots was similar to watching Lila dance, every movement specifically chosen for efficiency and effect and all completely incomprehensible to Morgaine. Gwen looked at her, this time with some vague expression.
“You could try doing something.”
Morgaine wanted to slap her. She did. Her emotions were dulled, to some extent, by her headache, but she recognized anger. She began trying to crush the scarabs but had to stop after only a few seconds, unable to stand the sound of the pestle grinding against the stone bowl. Gwen was frowning at her. “You all right, sugar?” There was some of the old concern there. Enough of the old concern there that she told the truth.
“My head hurts,” she said. “Bad.” She put down the pestle. “I think I’m gonna be sick.” She stiffened in surprise when Gwen put an arm around her, but didn’t try to pull away. It felt nice, though she knew it shouldn’t have.
“I’m sorry, babydoll,” Gwen said, very quietly. She really was a good sister, in her way. She tried real hard, anyway. Morgaine realized she was softening up because of the pain, but she didn’t care. She could start acting right again later. “C’mon, dahlin’.” Morgaine didn’t bother keeping her eyes open. Gwen liked her. She wouldn’t lead her off anywhere too awful, not that anywhere could be much worse than a crowded classroom full of people who wouldn't shut up. She could trust Gwen, for now.
“Professor Connell,” she heard her sister’s voice saying after a moment. “I’m afraid my partner’s isn’t feeling very well. May I take her to the hospital wing? She doesn’t know where it is.” \n\n
0
The Careys
<i>Migraine</i> ought to be a synonym for <i>misery.</i>
0
The Careys
0
5
Saul Pierce
June 02, 2006 12:32 PM
Oh, right, this class is still happening, huh. by Saul Pierce
Ah, good, he'd guessed right. She was a second year. Even better, he noted belatedly, she was wearing a robe with an Aladren patch on it. They were supposed to be the smart ones. He straightened his own robe, the action serving to draw attention to his own Pecari badge so she wouldn't expect the same brilliance from him. Not that he was dumb or anything, he was just . . . not very familiar with Potions.He did however have the ability to pay attention to the day's lesson, so he was able to answer her question without any problem. "We're doing a wit-sharpening potion. Instructions are on page 45 of the text, and we're not supposed to take any home for personal use," he summarized what the class activity was, then continued with the more immediate answer to what everyone was doing, "Now, we're finding partners, staking out a table, collecting ingredients, and getting started. Do you want to find what we'll need and I'll set up the cauldron?"
With luck, she'd say yes, so then he wouldn't need to explain that last term he'd flubbed a potion because he couldn't tell the difference between rat spleen and rat something-else. They were all rat guts, after all, and he didn't see why the one wouldn't work as well as the other.\n\n
1
Saul Pierce
Oh, right, this class is still happening, huh.
82
Saul Pierce
0
5
Professor Connell
June 05, 2006 2:55 PM
This thread is now over (nm) by Professor Connell
0
Professor Connell
This thread is now over (nm)
0
Professor Connell
0
5