Are you ready to see the stars? (Tag Caelia) on Elective Hall

Jax Donovan

January 19, 2017 4:43 PM

Are you ready to see the stars? (Tag Caelia) by Jax Donovan

Jax had not expected any further communication from Caelia after she hurriedly thanked him for the scarf that he had gifted to her. He had seen it on her bag, which he found a bit strange. Weren’t scarves only meant for the neck? He assumed it was a female thing and he at least knew that she liked it enough to keep it on her bag. There had been nothing else from her though, so he dismissed everything for the time being. The only time he allowed himself to think about it was when he was using the bookmark and he was reminded about how strange the whole process had been for him.

Her letter, therefore, came to him as a surprise. He did not think she would want to work on astronomy with him, especially since she seemed so certain she would not be allowed to later in her life. He still did not understand any of the way the traditions worked because his mother’s family had been different (or maybe that had been a Greek thing?).

The women in the family were the reason why they had any success at all due to their skills with needlework. The men were who made the business connections and were the face of the century old family name, but it was well known that the women passed down the talent to the female children of the family who showed interest and a level of talent. Gia would have been one of those girls had things not happened the way they had and Jax likely would have worked with his father and the Donovans with their business.

He didn’t understand why other families felt that the women shouldn’t be allowed to work. He was just unable to work his head around it. But his Greek family was a Matriarchal family and they were whom he lived with as a child. The women held the power. Perhaps he would view things differently if his father had made them live in Ireland with the Donovans.

After he had reviewed his schedule to make sure there wasn’t anything conflicting, Jax sent a letter to Caelia to meet him at six pm the following evening in the Astronomy classroom. He hoped that with most people still likely working on their supper, their absence wouldn’t be too noticed. Jax wanted to help Caelia reach her goal, even if she could not pursue it, but he also didn’t want her to get into trouble with her friends for being seen with him. They weren’t doing anything wrong, but people were fickle and the less trouble he caused for others, the better it would be for everyone.

He had a quick dinner before he headed back to the dorm room to change and grab any Astronomy books that he had in his possession. Had he known that she would actually agree to his help, he would have gone to the library and found a few references to check out. He’d just have to do it another time though. With his bag over his shoulder, he went to meet her in the classroom. He liked this room and wished that it was actually in use, having a charmed ceiling really helped. Jax smiled to Caelia when she met him, a rare but genuine one all the same. “I wasn’t sure where you wanted to start?” He didn’t want to assume she knew nothing of the subject, so her guidance and what she wanted would be helpful.

OOC: I hope it’s alright to say she did meet up with him

6 Jax Donovan Are you ready to see the stars? (Tag Caelia) 296 Jax Donovan 1 5

Caelia Lucan

January 24, 2017 11:23 PM

More ready than I’ve been for anything else. by Caelia Lucan

Caelia had waited for Jax’s response to her letter in a rather impatient, un-ladylike manner. She knew it was wrong to be arranging secret meetings with wizards with whom she was neither interested in romantically or betrothed to and even the former was on the rather sketchy side (she made an exception for Matthew because he had made her promises which she knew they would uphold), and it wasn’t even like either her or Jax had asked the other to keep it secret. Yet somehow…the simple exchange of an arranged meeting time during dinner without much sentiment to accompany it made the whole thing feel forbidden.

She honestly wasn’t sure what Kelsey or Alistair would say if they knew of her budding friendship with the sullen Aladren. Kira and Jack weren’t as judgemental as her other two friends and Jack had even roomed with Jax for a short period of time, yet she made no effort to inform any of the people she normally dined with that she would be eating early and skipping the chitchat in favor of studying with Jax Donovan in an empty classroom.

After class that day, she made an excuse to her friends about needing to get something from the library, and went straight to dinner. When she got there, she saw Jax eating but didn’t make a move to join him. She was still unsure about where they stood with their tentative friendship—in public, at least. She had been the one to make assumptions first, after all. What if he was only placating her and didn’t want his friends to know he was friends with someone who wasn’t quite as intelligent as they were? Sure Sammy Meeks could act a bit idiotic at times in Caelia’s personal opinion, but Jax’s sister and his other friend, Laila Kennedy, were intelligent enough so Caelia figured the Sammy also had some sort of brain to her.

After eating a quick, simple meal, she swung by the Crotalus dorms to drop off her school books, taking them out of her school bag and putting them in a pile on one of the coffee tables. She could come back for them later and didn’t think anyone in Crotalus would bother trying to steal them—it was a small school and everyone already had their own books. When she arrived in the Astronomy classroom, Jax was already waiting, greeting her with a smile. She didn’t notice the bulky shape of his schoolbag which would have insinuated a selection of books, and smiled at him in return though her eyes shifted quickly to the charmed ceiling above them.

This, this was why she wanted to study astronomy. Walking into Cascade Hall the previous year into the universe-themed school ball had brought up all these feelings inside of her. Ideas about how insignificant each of them were in the grand scheme of everything and how amazing the whole universe was had swirled through her mind, impressing upon it a thirst to know more about the dusty collection of stars above her. She spun around a couple times to take it all in, the dress she’d chosen to wear to school that day and her school robes, unzipped but still on, twirling around her as she made herself dizzy. Caelia really didn’t care how stupid she probably looked right then. She was just happy to be looking at the stars and the moon and the beautiful colors of the night sky which changed as the clouds moved around and the light from the moon and the stars glowed.

“I suppose we could start with some of the constellations,” Caelia said, still looking up at the ceiling. “Emrys—my brother, she clarified for Jax in case he didn’t know or remember his older housemate—always used to tell me stories about how they got put up in the sky. But I don’t always remember which ones are which or where they go. And I’ve forgotten most of their names or even how to find them.” Where did one start with an astronomy lesson? Caelia wasn’t really sure.

“Or I guess we could do moon phases—I never did understand why it got so big one night of the year or really orange sometimes either, or there’s those colors in the sky which never made sense because night time is supposed to be black but then there are those—” here, she blushed a little, but it wasn’t as though she had gone to seek out Muggle photos herself, they had been shown to her by Wesley who had stolen them from a Muggle classmate one year “—Muggle (the word was almost whispered as though she were afraid the pureblood police might pop out and chastise her for inappropriate behavior even though she really hadn’t even done anything) photos which don’t move and show you things like purple and green and orange in the sky.”

“How do they take those photos anyway?” she asked Jax, tilted her head, forehead puckered as though she were more concerned about how a Muggle took a photo of the sky than she were about anything else in the entire world.

OOC: Of course!

10 Caelia Lucan More ready than I’ve been for anything else. 307 Caelia Lucan 0 5

Jax

January 27, 2017 11:19 PM

That's good to hear, hopefully I'm a good partner. by Jax

Jax watched Caelia with interested as she entered the room and began to twirl around while looking up at the charmed night sky. She looked like a girl dancing in the rain. There was joy there, something he rarely saw in people (Sammy did not count as he was certain the only time he had ever seen her not happy was when Pecari lost and even then he wasn’t sure if she was really unhappy and he just found that really odd and one of her quirks) and it surprised him a bit. He didn’t know why her actions surprised him, she had made it clear that this was what she enjoyed, but even after having a couple of conversations with her, he was still taken aback by how open she was with herself.

He didn’t mean that in a way that said she was giving away her life secrets, but just that she wasn’t reserved in the way some of the other traditional, societal Pureblood females were, especially her friends. It was a bit refreshing. Caelia seemed so normal and that’s what surprised him about her. She was just a normal girl like any other.

Watching her now made him wish he had something to enjoy as much as she did with the stars…

Constellations were probably the first thing people wanted to learn and something he could actually talk about without too much difficulty. His knowledge in Astronomy was limited as he studied it on the side for his own self since the school did not have a professor to teach it. His heart skipped a beat when she mentioned the moon phases. He knew that well enough too. Too well, unfortunately, and he wasn’t really in a spot where he felt compelled to teach someone else about it either. Especially if she ended up putting two and two together after awhile. As for her other question, he felt like that would be more in depth than his knowledge was really capable of discussing for this particular meeting.

“Well, let’s start with the Constellations first. I’m not sure what stories your brother told you about, but we’ll see what we can find.” Jax commented, pulling out a book from his bag that was specifically about the constellations. He sometimes liked to try to find them on his own on the nights he couldn’t sleep and just sat looking out the window. “Generally, constellations are seen during specific periods of the Earth’s rotation, which plays into the whole Astrology thing, but for now, we’ll just go over some of the more well known ones.” He indicated the seat beside him and flipped open the book.

“Ursa Major, which is also called The Big Dipper, or the Great Bear, is the one I think most people try to find first because it has the North Star in it. And if we can find it in the ceiling we will be able to map out the rest of the constellation. Can you see it up there?” He asked her, looking up at the ceiling.

6 Jax That's good to hear, hopefully I'm a good partner. 296 Jax 0 5

Caelia

February 01, 2017 9:37 PM

I'm certain you will be perfect. by Caelia

“They have a sort of camera that they sent to space and it takes the pictures for them.” Jax said after a moment. It was pretty vague of an explanation, but it was really all he could think of to say. “I do not know much about Muggle technology to say for sure how, but I could ask Professor Ammon about it, if you’d like?”

“Oh,” Caelia said, thinking about it. Muggles could really send a camera all the way out to the moon? How did they do that without magic? It was a startling thought, but Jax’s offer to ask Professor Ammon came as a relief. She wanted to know more about this special moon-camera, but she was certain she wasn’t allowed to talk to Professor Ammon about it at all. Certainly she had been forbidden from taking the Muggle Studies class by Grandmother who had tsked her tongue when she’d heard it was being offered at Sonora. “That would be lovely, thank you,” she said, blushing a little because having someone talk to a professor for her made her feel kind of helpless and weak and not very smart at all. And also, maybe, just maybe, she was a little embarrassed to show pureblood rhetoric in front of someone like Jax who had been so kind to help her out and obviously didn’t care about things like that as two of his best friends were muggleborns.

Caelia nodded—the North Star was probably the one she knew how to find the best because that was the most well-known star and so it was something easy for even someone as silly as she was to know. “Don’t the Greeks have a whole star system too?” she asked, taking her eyes off the stars for a moment to look at Jax properly for the first time that afternoon. Emrys had mostly told her stories about constellations that came from Native American mythology but her interest in the stars had lead to her spending sometime in the library and eventually she had developed an interest in that part of astronomy too. It was interesting to think that different civilisations had different ways to look at the stars.

Some of the books Caelia had read mentioned stories that were told about why each constellation was formed, some of them had thrilled her and some of them had scared her and for the first time she had really understood why Emrys liked to read mythology so much. She wondered how much of this mythology Jax had learned from his family and if he would be willing to tell her stories that he knew that hadn’t been in the few books she had skimmed on the subject of constellations. “My brother told me there’s a story about a mountain goat who climbed and climbed and eventually was turned into the North Star by his father.”

Caelia couldn’t remember which tribe it came from and she couldn’t remember who this mountain goat’s father was since he apparently could turn goats into stars, but she did remember thinking it was a good story about a parent who loved their child so much they didn’t want to part with them and instead immortalised them. Caelia wondered if her mother would ever love her that much, she was sure her father did, but sometimes she wondered if her mother didn’t love her as much as she loved Emrys because Emrys was decidedly smart and she was not.

OOC: Bit in Jax's head at the beginning written by his author in chatzy in response to one of Caelia's questions from a previous post which had accidentally been left out before.

10 Caelia I'm certain you will be perfect. 307 Caelia 0 5