In need of comfort. (Sophie) on Potions

Kira Spaulding

July 22, 2016 4:35 PM

In need of comfort. (Sophie) by Kira Spaulding

Kira was pretty sure that this was the lowest she'd ever felt in her entire life. For the one thing, this stupid ball was breathing down her neck and she'd heard that Chuck-the only guy she even knew besides her relatives-had asked Gia Donovan. Of course he'd prefer Gia to Kira, everyone preferred everyone to Kira. Well maybe not Aunt Jillian. Or Aunt Pearl. Or Carrie. Or Oliver Ferguson. Or Jamie Park. But excluding people who were decidedly dreadful human beings, everyone preferred everyone over Kira. Even the people who liked her liked other people better than her. Caelia liked Kelsey more. Chuck liked Gia more. Her parents liked Tristan more.

At the moment she wanted to just cry, really let loose. However, she certainly didn't see Crotalus as a safe place for that. Like she wanted Kelsey or her roommate or Alistair Johnson or the snotty seeming first years to see her that way. Like any of them would ever understand how truly alone and rejected she felt. Nor did she want to take a chance of being mocked for her tears.

There was only one place that was truly safe and that was Sophie's office. Her cousin's wife had really taken to her for some unfathomable reason. Of course, she presumably liked Ryan and her sons and her family better than Kira too, but that was different. It was perfectly understandable and the way it should really be. Parents should love their kids best-all of them and since Sophie and Ryan had actually chosen each other instead of a betrothal like Arabella and Paul, it made sense that she'd like him more than Kira and Kira was fine with it.

Otherwise though, it hurt. It reinforced her feelings of not being good enough. True, she was as magically gifted as could be, in fact she'd overheard her father mention to business associate that she was a magical prodigy but in all other areas, she was lacking. Kira was sure that was why she didn't have a date. Why Chuck had chosen Gia. Not that she held it against the Pecari, she was just disappointed. It wasn't as if she was in love with him but she considered him a friend and she doubted anyone else would want to go with her.

And then-just as predicted-Caelia had also gotten a date. She was going with Jack Spencer and thus Kira was stuck in Amity's position from the last ball. It had worked out for the Aladren alumna, who had made two new friends-as any friend of one Pierce twin was a friend of the other from what the third year gathered even though Amity had only spoken to Annabelle that night- but Kira doubted she was going to be so lucky. After all, when had she ever been lucky?

The Crotalus fought back tears as she made her way to Sophie's office, as she didn't want anyone to see. She knocked on the door and once invited in, she collapsed in a chair and let them burst forth.

11 Kira Spaulding In need of comfort. (Sophie) 320 Kira Spaulding 1 5

Sophie O'Malley

July 24, 2016 3:43 AM

I can do that by Sophie O'Malley

“Ugh!” Sophie groaned aloud, writing a sloppy percent in the top right corner of the paper before her and sitting it aside, weary blue eyes straining to look at the next. Why had she assigned that dumb essay to the Beginners anyway? She hated grading things like this. Obviously, there had to be some substantial written work, but jeez was it a nuisance. Grading made her lament for the wasting years she’d spent as a student whining over assignments. Writing one paper was not nearly as boring as grading twenty of them.

Still, she noted with moderate pride as she gave up for now, she’d gotten through about half of them in this sitting. That was pretty good, she felt. The small blonde could look over the rest later (though certainly not at home, where her eyes were needed for other functions, like watching over her boys). She pushed the ungraded stack to one side of the desk and the graded stack to the other, making certain the last one she’d done was on top since the ink would not be quite dry yet. They looked about the same size, so she reasoned her approximation of half had to be just about right. That was good for now.

She needed an excuse to stretch her legs, and fortunately, one came in the form of a knock on the door. “One second,” she called as she got up. She lumbered clumsily across her relatively small office, one foot numb from being crossed beneath the desk. When she opened the door, she found her little buddy Kira looking worse for the wear. “Hey kiddo,” she said with a small smile. “Come on in.”

Sophie didn’t feel inclined to point out the chair Kira was meant to take; her husband’s cousin was a regular to her office, so much at this point that the comfy armchair in the corner basically had her name on it. Much to Sophie’s surprise and displeasure, Kira burst into tears the moment she sat down. “Hey,” said the Pecari alumna comfortingly, donning her best Mom™ voice. She’d never considered herself very maternal prior to the actual birth of her children, a bit too selfish and exuberant on top of fairly strong mommy issues, but little Kira had always brought something out of her. Kira was very different from her, shy and nervous whereas Sophie was too extroverted to ever survive being that way, but there were deep-rooted feelings of rejection and inferiority that both ladies shared. Sophie just did a better job pushing those feelings back down.

She snapped her fingers to summon a prairie elf, whom she then instructed, “Bring me and Miss Spaulding here a nice tray of cookies, please. And two large glasses of milk.” The elf nodded and was gone, returning soon with the necessities Sophie had requested. “Thanks.”

Sophie sat the cookies and milk on the small end table beside Kira’s chair and pulled over the wooden chair opposite her desk for herself. With one hand, she dipped a cookie in milk and guided it to her mouth. With the other, she offered Kira some physical comfort, gently finding the young Crotalus’s knee. “Want to talk about it?” she asked. “Or would you like to help me eat these cookies first?”

12 Sophie O'Malley I can do that 34 Sophie O'Malley 0 5

Kira

August 02, 2016 8:58 PM

Good by Kira

Tears streaked down Kira's cheeks. She was in a state that she preferred others not see her in obviously, but she couldn't take it any longer and Sophie was a safe person. A comforting person. Someone she didn't really have to be ashamed in front of.

One of the few people she knew liked her better than Kelsey. Kira had never been able to figure out why Sophie liked her so much. With Amity-and Phillip-she understood why. Amity had lived with her and her parents and brother after running away. Kira and Amity-and by extension Phillip-had spent more time with her than they did Kelsey.

Of course, Sophie didn't have much in common with Kelsey. She was not especially proper acting. She'd played Quidditch and had a job , but she was always good to Ryan. Kira didn't quite understand though why Sophie picked her to hang out with over some of the others. They didn't have tons in common either but that didn't make her appreciate her cousin's wife and her kindness any less. The Crotalus had been thrilled when she'd become the Potions professor, it made her actually enjoy the class more, even though she preferred wand based classes in general because they made her feel better about herself for awhile. Pretty much any good feelings she ever had were the result of getting spells right.

And even had Sophie not been in, Kira was sure she could have stayed in the safety of her office until she calmed down. She knew crying and other public shows of emotion were not especially ladylike. Kelsey's demeanor was nothing less than practically icy. More importantly, she didn't want anyone to make fun of her. The third year already felt that she wasn't especially well liked, she didn't need to make a fool of herself so they thought even less of her. Even the ones less fussed about being proper would find her to be a crybaby.

She sat in the comfy chair-her chair more or less, she didn't even know if other students ever used it-while Sophie ordered an elf to bring them cookies and milk. Kira felt the professor's hand on her knee. "I um, want to talk about it, but I don't know where to start, so I'll have a cookie first." Which she did.

11 Kira Good 320 Kira 0 5

Sophie

August 08, 2016 6:49 AM

Congratulations, you have activated my Motherhood Mode(tm) by Sophie

“Good choice,” Sophie smiled. She had a fairly well-tested theory that life always looked a little less dreary if you had a cookie in your mouth, and then when you were all stuffed with chocolate and milk, it was pretty hard to feel sad even if you wanted to. She’d had a lot of sadness cookies in her lifetime (and also a lot of just because cookies, too, a solid proportion of which found their way to her when she was pregnant), so she was pretty secure in this ideal.

Kira could probably use the sugar, anyway. Sophie didn’t exactly monitor what Kira ate, but a lot of young pureblood girls were supposedly on some strict diets nowadays, watching their blooming figures and whatever nonsense was sent their way. The blonde kinda thought most of their society’s ideals--partially the ones pertaining to women--were bull crap, anyway. Everybody deserved cookies in their life.

Sophie took a big sip of her milk, but as she soon discovered, it lowered the milk level so far down the glass that she could no longer fit the cookie far enough to dunk. “I have made a grave mistake,” she stated, although her smile and tone hardly matched the words they accompanied. Her blue eyes darted between her milk and cookie and Kira, dramatic and silly.

“While I struggle with this conundrum, feel free to start talking, if you feel cookie’d up enough,” she said softly. Sophie discovered to her own joy that she could break the cookie in half and then it would fit in the glass to be dipped. Victory. “What’s on your mind?”

12 Sophie Congratulations, you have activated my Motherhood Mode(tm) 34 Sophie 0 5