Returning Feast on Cascade Hall

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July 18, 2020 3:52 PM

Pecari by System

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Mortimer Brockert

July 18, 2020 3:52 PM

Returning Feast by Mortimer Brockert

For once, Mortimer's midterm had been slightly different. Emerald's wedding to Winston Pierce had taken place. Of course, over the years, as a consequence of being a pureblood with a large extended family, he had ~~suffered through~~ attended ~~way too~~ many weddings but this was the first time it had been that of a grandchild rather than a distant relation or some random member of society.

He supposed it had been lovely affair. Mortimer really wasn't one to notice the details of this sort of thing. There was only two things that mattered to him at the wedding, Emerald's happiness and an open bar stocked with his favorite bourbon. Which was one more thing than usually mattered.

Fortunately, those requirements had been filled. Although if the former happened to cease, Winston Pierce was probably going to be very sorry. Mortimer wasn't really all that worried. Although, he did hope that Winston's line could hold on to heirship. He was married to a Brockert now, after all.

Now school was back in session-and not a moment too soon. Much as teenagers who weren't his grandchildren were irritating and stupid, he rarely had to make small talk with them. Or any sort of talk really, unless they did something tremendously bad or would not follow the rules or did something that they were dumb enough to do where he could see them. At the moment, however, being around teenagers seemed like the lesser evil. Mortimer had had enough of parties and socializing for the time being, thank you very much. He was seriously partied out. Honestly, it bothered him immensely that he'd had to go to any this time around aside from the wedding. That was enough.

Of course, if Mortimer had his way, he'd never socialize with anyone at all except his family some. However, he obviously couldn't miss his granddaughter's wedding. And he'd probably be attending the weddings of grandchildren for the next twenty years or so, given his youngest grandchild was two.

As the students filed in, Mortimer rose. He placed the sonorus charm on himself. "Welcome back, I hope you all had a nice break." It was getting easier to lie about that as saying these words was habitual by now. Besides, bland platitudes were the norm during the break and it wasn't that he wanted anyone to have a bad holiday, he just simply did not care. Mortimer sat back down, removed the charm and began to eat.

Subthreads:

Pecari

Das ist . . . Come back food. by Hilda Hexenmeister with Leonor De Matteo

My life is basically over. by Tatiana Vorontsova with Beau Tate

Aladren

Back in glitters. by Morgan Garrett with Jezebel Reed-Fischer

Feelings and food don't go well together by Josephine Clyde with Quincy Wright

Returning (Bertie) by Gabriel Wilson with Bertie Jackson

And so our journey draws to a close by Gary Harper

Teppenpaw

Ready for Round Two (aka Spring Term) by Philippe Delachene with Freddie Zauberhexen

The last time by Dorian Montoir with Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

I suspect things are afoot. by Valentine Duell with Dathan Fischer

Crotalus

My last feast. I don't know if I'm sad or relieved. by Jasmine Delachene with Jessica Hayles

Thinking about parties. by Graham Osbrook with Sadie-Lake Chalmers

Staff

11 Mortimer Brockert Returning Feast 6 1 5

System

July 18, 2020 3:52 PM

Aladren by System

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System

July 18, 2020 3:52 PM

Teppenpaw by System

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System

July 18, 2020 3:52 PM

Crotalus by System

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July 18, 2020 3:52 PM

Staff by System

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Jasmine Delachene

July 21, 2020 5:49 PM

My last feast. I don't know if I'm sad or relieved. by Jasmine Delachene

Jasmine returned for her final Returning Feast and felt just a little bit melancholy about it. She was eager to be done with Sonora so she could move on with her life, but this was a milestone that made her look back on her time here and remember all the good times she'd had with her friends here. All the Midsummer Events with Peyton, sledding and talking jewelry with Tatiana, dates with Gary, seven years of whispering secrets into the small hours of the night with Peyton, hanging out with Cleo, trying their best to complete the Challenges with Ruby, meeting Ellie and adopting her as her other little sister . . .

She was eager to leave, but she was going to miss this place, too.

As the Headmaster gave his short speech, she couldn't help being grateful to him. She couldn't imagine the torture it must be to go to a school with a Headmaster who actually enjoyed hearing the sound of his own voice and therefore subjected his pupils to listening to it for an eternity before finally letting them eat.

The food did appear in short order, and Jasmine turned to the person sitting next to her, smiling a bit sadly, and said, "I guess this is the last time I get to ask the traditional Returning Feast question, so . . . How was your break?"

1 Jasmine Delachene My last feast. I don't know if I'm sad or relieved. 1397 0 5

Philippe Delachene

July 22, 2020 8:36 AM

Ready for Round Two (aka Spring Term) by Philippe Delachene

Philippe had a good first term at Sonora. He'd made some good friends, bonded to a Jackalope named Heliotrope (it wasn't an easy name to say, but the big guy did have it down by the end of the term and Philippe counted that as his crowning achievement for the first half of his first year). He hadn't really joined any clubs, as getting used to sharing a room (Jasper was a cool guy), getting used to classes, learning to budget his time so he could both enjoy his new developing friendships and get his homework done without his parents around to remind him to do it, and all the other novelties of living at a boarding school instead of on a flying horse ranch had taken precedence.

He wasn't sure if new members were welcome to join halfway through the year, but he felt he was in a good place to start reaching out to one or two of the clubs. He'd establish a comfortable routine for self-care and homework by now that had sufficient amounts of leisure time that an activity or two could be added in there. He'd also had good grades on his latest progress report, so he felt he was handling his responsibilities well. Or if not a club, maybe one of the charity booths needed another helper. He'd ask Valentine later maybe. She seemed involved in a lot of things, and would probably know who might benefit most from the addition of more people.

For right now though, it was Returning Feast time, and he barely registered that the Headmaster had stood up before he was sitting down again and the food was appearing. He began filling his plate and grinned over at his neighbor. "Hi! Glad to be back? Have a candycane Rudolph!" he reached into his pocket and then pulled out and offered his neighbor a candy cane with googly eyes, pipecleaner antlers, and a red pompom on the short end of it. Jasmine had made dozens of them to decorate the house with and when they'd been taken down, she gave a third of them to him with the instruction to 'hand these out to your friends.'

1 Philippe Delachene Ready for Round Two (aka Spring Term) 1489 0 5

Freddie Zauberhexen

July 22, 2020 9:04 AM

Ich auch! by Freddie Zauberhexen

Freddie was feeling pret-ty good about this whole thing. He had returned to school with a pep in his step and color in his hair and he was eager to try living up to his own image of self. Not that he recognized that that's exactly what he was trying to do, but he knew he was excited to live authentically and be himself. And maybe find out who himself was.

He sat down at the Teppenpaw table for the returning feast feeling like a new man. He and Hana hadn't really talked much after break but she was notably more shy and less hostile, so that seemed like an improvement. That impact on him was apparent in his demeanor and lopsided grin. His fingernails were aqua blue. He hadn't yet been brave enough to try any of his other makeup, and hoped Ellie would help him.

The headmaster said some stuff and then the boy next to him offered him a candy cane. "Rudolph mit der roten Nasen," Freddie grinned, accepting the treat. "Thank you!"

Food appeared and Freddie realised he was starving because he promptly shoveled it onto his plate, not even paying attention to what he was grabbing. "You have good break?" he asked the younger student, smiling as he poured himself a glass of juice.

22 Freddie Zauberhexen Ich auch! 1452 0 5

Philippe Delachene

July 22, 2020 1:00 PM

Great! by Philippe Delachene

His neighbor was one of the older kids, and the colorful streaks in his hair threw Philippe for a moment, but when he talked, Philippe had no trouble recognizing him as Freddie, one of Anya's friends. "I'm gonna guess that means 'Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer?" he tried out in response to the splash of German, mostly because 'Rudolph' and 'nose' sounded more or less like their English counterparts. "But don't thank me too much. Anya will probably give you one, too. Jasmine got crafty this break and we all have a bunch to hand out." Or maybe she'd just put them all out in the Pecari Common Room and count that as close enough to following Jasmine's instructions.

He finished filling up his plate with food, and poured some pumpkin juice. Some people didn't like it much, but Philippe loved pumpkin juice. Not as good as frozen pumpkin smoothies in the summer, or warm pumpkin cider over the holidays, but definitely good.

He nodded in answer to Freddie's question. "Break was good," he confirmed. "Lots of family, lots of food. I got the big Lego set I asked for, so that was the high point. Yours was good, too?" he asked, "I like the hair." He waved a hand over his own dark blond curls.

1 Philippe Delachene Great! 1489 0 5

Graham Osbrook

July 23, 2020 8:47 AM

Thinking about parties. by Graham Osbrook

Christmas was easily one of Graham’s favorite times of the year, and not even just because of the presents. The presents were certainly a point the holiday had in its favor (his parents did well for themselves, which meant he and Claire always had nice presents, even if they weren’t as over-the-top lavish as he imagined some of his mom’s clients received), there was no denying that, but he got presents on his birthday as well and still preferred Christmas on the whole, especially the part of it they spent in Louisiana with his mother’s family. Josephine Greene was almost the exact opposite of her older daughter – always laughing and wanting to start up some kind of excitement – and Aunt Mariah, like Mom, had a job where she worked with a lot of interesting people, but unlike Mom, could gossip about said people to her heart’s content. Add in massive amounts of really good food, and what was there about Christmas not to love?

Of course, he had also enjoyed his holiday with his other grandparents, even if it wasn’t as energetic as Christmas with Mom’s family. And then they had come back to their own house for a few days, where things had been almost like he had never gone to school at all – until abruptly, he almost managed to stay awake until midnight on New Year’s, and then before he knew it, it was back to the transport station, back on the wagon, and back to Sonora,

At least the return came with a feast. He supposed that was meant to soften the blow somewhat, and it did, really. He just thought it would have been more fun had Aunt Mariah been here, or even Claire, even though Claire was basically Mom in miniature and thus often sort of serious. Since they weren’t, though, he made the effort to think like Dad, acknowledge that things could be much worse, and enjoy the feast.

As he ate, though, he found himself wondering about the school over midterm. There was always a list put out for people who wanted or needed to stay at school over the holidays, after all – he had not used it, of course, since that would have made no sense when he had a perfectly nice family he liked very much who he hadn’t seen in months at that point, but he had observed its existence before the holidays.

“I wonder what they do here over the holidays,” he remarked to a neighbor he happened to make eye contact with while they reached for separate desserts. “I don’t think I know anyone who stayed, but it would probably look impressive in here on New Year’s Eve, don’t you think?” He imagined the waterfalls reflecting fireworks…or possibly the waterfalls running with champagne, depending on whether it was just the staff having the party instead of staff and students together.

16 Graham Osbrook Thinking about parties. 1498 0 5

Jessica Hayles

July 23, 2020 10:12 AM

Why not be both? by Jessica Hayles

Jessica was never the biggest fan of returning to Sonora. Being allowed to replace essentially all the school-provided things with her own, much better (or at least prettier – the original trappings of her bedroom here were undeniably good quality, just…all that red. It could give someone a migraine) ones had significantly improved the school experience for her, but she still couldn’t help but prefer being at home. At Sonora, she still woke up in sheets of artisanal linen woven from French flax or cotton percale from Italy or Portugal, still went swimming almost whenever she liked, but…well, it was boarding school, there were certain discomforts to be expected. The lack of temperature regulation, for one, and the food was better than she would have really expected of school food. Those things probably would have been inevitable for her at some point in life. As, really, would be the lack of surrounding people who loved her and understood her – even if she hadn’t gone to boarding school by now, which she probably would have done, she would have had to go to university in a couple of years, and while Emory was a good school and right there in town, she still expected her parents would have been unimpressed by that; the closest she could have expected to stay to home might have been Duke. Acknowledging that her lack of family warmth here, though, wasn’t really Sonora’s fault, but that didn’t make it any pleasanter.

This time, though, she was a little more optimistic than she thought she had felt on any other return previously. It was cautious optimism, intersected by bouts of doubt and cynicism and anxiety, but optimism just the same, that for the first time in a long time, things might actually get better.

It was a silly thing, really – thinking that possibly clearing the air with one person might really make things better. However, she couldn’t deny it would be nice to not feel as if the only people in the building who didn’t hate her were all second years. It was a thought that tempted her with the idea of things becoming more stable. Of things making sense again to her, somehow. It was impossible to think of the world ever really seeming right again, of feeling as secure as she had before she found out she was a witch, but it could be better. Maybe. Depending.

She still managed to walk more fluidly than usual over to the Crotalus table at the start of the Feast, though, without an excess of tension in her muscles, or in her face while she smiled and waved to people she knew, mainly her second years, and took a seat.

The older girl beside her, a beautiful dark-haired seventh year - Jasmine, she was pretty sure; the other one, with the badge, was Peyton - looked a bit sad as she smiled after they were released to eat. Jessica smiled back, picking up why there was the slight wistfulness. It was almost always a little melancholy to reach the end of something, especially schools.

“It was great,” she said. “They managed to import the snow for Stone Mountain without any trouble this year, so my family had a lot of fun when we went up there, and it was wonderful being back with, um, my family,” she said. “It even got cold enough a few days for us to have a fire at the house, so that felt really Christmassy. I’m from Atlanta,” she explained, realizing that all this possibly sounded strange to many people, from places where it allegedly looked like a Christmas card all the time in real life during the winter. “How was yours?”

16 Jessica Hayles Why not be both? 1442 0 5

Morgan Garrett

July 23, 2020 10:47 AM

Back in glitters. by Morgan Garrett

Morgan had spent the holidays annoyed with her parents. She had actually been invited to hang out with actual human people over the holidays, playing roles and working on costumery – essentially, in other words, doing things that were directly related to things Morgan wanted to do with her life – and all three of her parents had vetoed the idea.

She had more or less expected that, of course. Dad was the most laid-back of the three, but even he was someone who came close enough to vaguely resembling a responsible adult to be skeptical of the idea of sending a twelve-year-old to a part of the country where none of them knew anyone to hang out with a bunch of older teenagers, and a few legal adults. Nana, too, would probably have flipped her biscuits had she ever heard the word ‘drag show’ – Nana had always been opposed to Morgan even doing community theater in their tiny, deeply conservative town with a bunch of senior citizens, so something like what the DnD crowd had gotten up to would have set her right off. The thing was, though, that Nana needn’t have known anything – only Mom had any regular contact with the family, or at least the opportunity for it, and Mom was no stranger to keeping secrets from Nana and the others. So it was just them being silly, when they could have dropped her off and gotten her back within hours, with the same people she spent a heck of a lot more time around than she did them, at this point.

Mom and Nana, however, had both imprinted it firmly into her consciousness that whining was not something anyone was going to tolerate, and even Anna had often, before she’d died, reminded her that it wouldn’t have been very becoming of Princess Grace or La Audrey to complain about being asked to do too many takes, or wear too uncomfortable a dress. Therefore, Morgan had kept her mouth shut and tried not to let anyone see her looking sulky, as while Dad and Sage seemed to understand that she could not help having feelings they did not like sometimes, Mom and Nana did not tolerate facial expressions they didn’t like, either. At least, she’d thought resentfully at the family Christmas meal in Industry, she’d gotten some acting practice this holiday.

Now, though, it was over, and it was weird: she had been kind of annoyed with everyone all term, but she was already a little homesick now that she was away from them again. She noted this down for any time when DnD needed her to play someone with mixed feelings. This would be good fuel for that, at least.

She turned her head toward the top table to listen to Headmaster Brockert speak. Her long, glittery blue feather earrings had not stopped swinging before he was done with his speech and already back on his way back into his seat. Morgan turned her head back toward the table, shaking it slightly in the progress, sending her earrings to swinging even more.

“I think he must be trying to figure out how to say less every year,” she remarked to one of her neighbors as she reached for a dish. Gold glitter sparkled in her navy blue nail polish. “I guess at least we get to eat quicker, though, right?”

16 Morgan Garrett Back in glitters. 1470 0 5

Hilda Hexenmeister

July 23, 2020 1:39 PM

Das ist . . . Come back food. by Hilda Hexenmeister

Hilda was not sure that she was quite ready to admit that she missed school while she'd been away for midterm break, but she was glad to be back, and not even because there was anything wrong in Utah. There wasn't. Heinrich had gone away for a few days with his friends (it was still a little weird realizing Heinrich had friends now) at the start of it, but then he'd come back and it was all fine. Her oldest brother had been upset about something for most of the holiday, but he hadn't shared the details of it with her, though she though maybe he'd told Uncle Karl, and that . . . was actually a good thing, she thought. It meant Heinrich was finally taking some of his problems to the person who was supposed to help him deal with them instead of just trying to do it all himself.

They were maybe starting to - finally - gel as a real family.

Even if Hilda and Hansel weren't privy to whatever the problem was. But that didn't really bother her either, because it was Christmas time and she, quite frankly, wanted to be happy and carefree over the break and not burdened with whatever thing it was that had Heinrich looking so worried.

Knowing Heinrich, it was probably something dumb like the RATS, which were still a year and a half away for him, or making major life decisions about his future career and schooling that he really didn't need to worry about quite yet. It was probably that. He'd been getting a lot of owls from different colleges.

But now it was the Returning Feast, and she didn't need to worry about Heinrich's brooding and she could just be happy that she was back where she could play Quidditch, hang out with her own friends, and keep working on the communication skills she was slowly starting to get a hold of.

"Hi," she said to her Pecari neighbor after the easy speech by the headmaster had concluded. She'd followed every word, which might have made her feel very accomplished, if there had been more than ten of them.

"This is good Come Back Food, yes?" she asked as she filled her plate with heaping piles of delicious looking food. (Uncle Karl was a lot of things; a fabulous cook was not one of them. He could handle a decent wurst, but anything more complicated than that was pushing his skills.)

1 Hilda Hexenmeister Das ist . . . Come back food. 1433 0 5

Dorian Montoir

July 23, 2020 7:54 PM

The last time by Dorian Montoir

The return to school was like a warm, familiar blanket being slipped around his shoulders. Greece had been… a lot of things. Its positive memories from the Brooding-Hawthorne wedding had tugged on his heart and on the corners of his mouth, trying to pull him into smiles when he caught the scent of Evangeline’s cooking, or saw his professors walking on the beach hand in hand. Its new experiences too, had made him happy at times. It was hard to be unhappy when the twins were being cute.

And there was Jean-Loup. Dorian found himself dwelling on the nagging concern of how far his list of reasons to be happy in Greece he was putting his boyfriend. He knew in some ways, that wasn’t Jean-Loup’s fault… Sometimes, when he was with the others, he could pretend he was just visiting. He could lose himself in liking Greece. It was hard to let go of the reasons why Greece had been necessary when the two of them were together. The only way to achieve it was sinking into kisses that made his mind melt, and made him lose his focus on everything except how the two of them felt against each other. But then when it stopped, the force with which the rest of the world came crashing back in was so much greater.

And so he had heeded his mother’s pleas. He had gone back to Canada for the final weekend of the holidays, so they could at least see him. Talk to him. It was improving. She didn’t want him to be a stranger, and how far he’d gone over midterm was rapidly altering the price she was willing to pay to have him in her life. She wasn’t quite yet at the point of saying ‘I accept that you have a boyfriend’ but… But she wanted him to be happy, and she wanted to be able to see him. That had always been the central tenant of her philosophy but she had been convinced he was making a mistake that would wind up hurting him. She worried. She wanted him to be safe, and he couldn’t promise her that he would be, that there weren’t more Matthieus in the world… She wanted good things for him. But the more he didn’t budge on the idea that this was what he wanted, the more she had to.

It hadn’t felt like home though. He was working to put back together a relationship with his mother, to get back what they had been to each other, and he thought that might be achievable. But he did not step into the house in Québec and feel like he was returning home. His mother had warded his room very firmly against Matthieu’s entrance, and any time Dorian was in another part of the house, he was with her. He had barely seen his brother, no more than a passing shadow through the corridor. He had felt safe, but the cost was feeling guarded. He had had been given sleeping draughts to combat the time zone change and to help with his anxiety at being back but he had found himself unable to take them. The thought of slipping into powerless unconsciousness, of not being alert to the slightest movement of sound was too terrifying. He had chosen sleepless nights of jumping at creaks in the floorboards instead.

He had tucked himself into a corner of the wagon and passed out almost as soon as it had taken off, as soon as it left all that behind him. He had slept solidly until they reached school, though it wasn’t enough to totally eradicate the dark circles underneath his eyes.

Still, he looked less pale and tired as he entered the hall, because his face and eyes lit with a soft smile. It felt good to be back. The warmth lasted until he took his place at Teppenpaw table. This was the last time… The last feast. He had stepped off the wagon, and felt safer and calmer than he had for the whole of the midterm holiday because he was back where he belonged. But the steady trickle of sand marking his time at Sonora was running out now, and he didn’t know what happened or where he went next.

Not back to Canada, certainly. Somewhere with Jean-Loup, he supposed… Would they find somewhere that felt like this?

“Last feast,” he observed to his neighbour his eyes heavy and sad at the prospect.

13 Dorian Montoir The last time 1401 0 5

Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

July 23, 2020 8:57 PM

I don't know what to say. by Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

CW - mentions of homophobia

Winter break was done and Johana Leonie had all sorts of feelings about that. She was still working on Friederike Albert's hat and she was really just hoping she could get through the year without losing her head at this point. She was excited to spend time with Hilda and to let go of some of her worries, but at some point, she knew she'd have to confront them. The thought had crossed her mind recently that she wanted to be like Jean-Loup. The intern was working in the field she wanted to go into herself, and he hadn't been trying to cure himself. It was not the first thing but it was one of the first things that was making her head spin, because she had a lot of ideas that apparently needed to be turned around and reexamined.

When she took a seat at the Teppenpaw table, she still sat far enough away from Friederike Albert as not to be able to hear his conversations or catch his eye easily. They hadn't been speaking much and they had tended to sit further apart anyway, just to avoid the habit of barging in on each other's conversations like they did - or once did - at home. Without really meaning to, however, Johana Leonie had sat with the healing intern's boyfriend. Boyfriend. He was doing the gay people charity that Friederike Albert was apparently going to be helping with, too. Maybe he could help her . . .

Except that he seemed sad. Johana Leonie frowned empathetically when he commented on this being his last feast. "That give you no more bad singing, no?" she asked lightly, trying for humor. She knew she wouldn't miss listening to the school sing their song, although that didn't happen at the Returning Feast anyway. "I am sorry you have sad," she said, changing her expression to show that she really was sad for him too. "What eats you for big . . . uh . . . like woooo! Cele--cebelration?"

22 Johana Leonie Zauberhexen I don't know what to say. 1432 0 5

Jezebel Reed-Fischer

July 23, 2020 10:02 PM

I could never. by Jezebel Reed-Fischer

Winter break had been every bit as boring as usual, and it was a painful reminder, once again, that Jezebel was no longer a muggle. It was not her world. Christmas Mass . . . WOW she'd forgotten how much she hated going to those. But it made her mother happy and it made Augustine leave her alone for a minute, so that was nice. She'd gotten a few things for Christmas, mostly practical items, and then it was done and over and she was back to school. Sitting among people who were like her in many more ways than anyone at home, except Dathan, although he was neither Crotalus nor a girl, and not at all missing anything else in the world. Except maybe the feeling of home. It wasn't a terribly familiar feeling even when she had lived at home full time, but she'd at least managed to be happy there. Now she couldn't even seem to figure that out. Sonora was definitely closer to what 'home' was to her, but there was still the nagging sensation of guilt in her stomach that told her was too many things she wasn't meant to be. She hadn't been struck down by lightning when she entered the church for Mass though, so that was good.

The headmaster - he really was a crotchety old thing, wasn't he? - did his thing and then it was food time, and Jezebel set in to the meal we a bit more gusto than she might normally have. After the sort of food that her mother usually made, and the amount of vegetables that were served there, she was excited for the mac 'n' cheese. Really, she shouldn't be so harsh. She knew that her mother was kind and loving and cared a great deal about her. She knew that Augustine was just excited, even if Patience seemed increasingly less so. She knew those things. But it still somehow felt so much better to be at Sonora, even though it didn't feel great, that she couldn't help thinking that maybe there was something wrong at home. That was the only explanation she could think of unless she admitted that it was actually herself who was the problem.

She was drawn back to thoughts of the headmaster by her neighbor's comment on him, and she nodded with a smile. "I think he probably hates talking to all of us as much as we hate waiting for dinner," she agreed. "Morgan, right? I'm Jezebel."

22 Jezebel Reed-Fischer I could never. 1454 0 5

Josephine Clyde

July 24, 2020 1:03 AM

Feelings and food don't go well together by Josephine Clyde

Another return to Sonora that honestly couldn’t have come fast enough. Summer holiday had been surprisingly nice. She’d gotten closer to Minnie, Daniel was busy preparing for college and, as a result, she and Samuel had had to spend more time together. What was that word? Proximity? Samuel was actually a little bit nicer to now though only when Daniel wasn’t around. But all that progress, however little it was, meant nothing every time her father walked into the room. There was something about his weird nervous behavior, the way his eyes crawled all over her face as he asked weird questions. Well…maybe they weren’t weird. Simple questions about her school experience, her classes, how she was progressing, but never anything about friends or teachers. Never any questions that would have been, well, normal. She’d found herself happy that the holiday had ended when it did, all but flying back to Sonora.

It was sad to think about how their relationship had fallen apart. They used to be so close, a dynamic that was sure to be of Clyde blood origin, or so her father used to boast. Now, they were almost strangers. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been alone with her father. Minnie had asked a few questions towards the end of the holiday, but she’d been able to avoid them or change the topic. The summer holiday would be there again before she knew it and she was not looking forward to an extended repeat of the last one. Especially the brief preview the midterm had given her. Summer loomed in the distance, but for now she would focus on enjoying spring.

A bowl of mashed potatoes appeared next to some gravy and she spooned some onto her plate. The creamed corn almost glowed under the lights and they practically invited her to take some. Chicken wings waved at her from the distance. By the time she’d finished her plate looked like the chicken version of a Thanksgiving dinner. Her spoon found its’ way into the mound of potatoes and stayed there. All that thinking about the summer had made her a little more upset than she’d imagined. The food called her name, but her arm wouldn’t move. She didn’t really want to go home for the summer if her father was going to continue being a weirdo.

Josie sighed and it made her feel something, but it wasn’t relief. Putting her spoon down, she played with her cup. Just water. Maybe she needed something sugary. Dessert before dinner was a no-no, but a sweet drink might help her feel a little more energetic at least. A pitcher of something dark with bubbles appeared. Now we’re talking. But in her rush to grab the new drink she knocked over her old one. She gasped and tried in vain to mop up the mess, turning to the person beside her with apologetic eyes.

“Oh gosh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to. Are you alright? You didn’t get wet, did you?”

44 Josephine Clyde Feelings and food don't go well together 1477 0 5

Valentine Duell

July 24, 2020 8:12 PM

I suspect things are afoot. by Valentine Duell

Valentine rode back to the school in a bit of a mood. Mama and Papa were keeping things from her again, she was sure of it. They had kept Aunt Giselle a secret from her nearly all last term, she still hadn't gotten a good answer as to why, and now... now there was something else. She was sure of it. They had all been so busy getting school things together and checklists marked off and double-checking supplies that they hadn't had a good chance to talk. Val had a sneaking suspicion that it had been on purpose.

The wagon ride wasn't quite as much fun as it had been at the start of the year. She watched the ground roll away under her, she was aware of the other students, but she just couldn't stop thinking about her long lost aunt. Where was she now? What was she doing? What were Mama and Papa plotting? Why couldn't she help? Well... other than the fact that she was eleven, couldn't legally cast magic outside of school and had no idea what was really going on. She had already done the one thing she could do to 'help', and she was pretty sure it had only made things worse.

Before she realized it, the wagons bumped to a stop, and they were at the school. She sighed and remembered what Mama had told her. 'Focus on school, and clubs, and Quidditch and things.' As she jumped off the wagon and her feet hit the ground, she decided that if that was what she could do, then that was what she was going to do. If Mama and Papa had schemes... they would work better if they knew she was doing okay at school.

With that, she strode towards the hall and found her Teppenpaw table. As much as she would rather be doing other things, it did feel nice to be back again. She was going to need to find Bonabelle... she was going to see Bonabelle again! The thought send a surge of excitement though her. She grinned as she checked the present in her hair that Bonabelle had sent her for Christmas. She hoped her friend had a good break in Ireland, and couldn't wait tell her all about her break.

She was also going to need to find Lavender and see how her break had gone. Valentine's eyes roved the hall looking about for her friends. Then the headmaster started talking, very briefly. Then there was food and her stomach reminded her that it had been a while since she had eaten last. So, she settled down and for no particular reason looked over the table to see if there was any food she could identify as Greek food. She pointed at something that might qualify and asked her neighbor, "Are those stuffed grape leaves? Could you pass them please?"

2 Valentine Duell I suspect things are afoot. 1490 0 5

Dorian Montoir

July 24, 2020 9:33 PM

It's been a pleasure? by Dorian Montoir

Dorian supposed he really shouldn’t have been surprised to find that Johana-Leonie looked a lot less like a little child than he typically thought. He had, after all, just been thinking about the passage of time and how it was pushing them all on… Well, to be fair, he had more been thinking about himself and his friends, but he supposed it made sense that everyone else aged proportionally too, and that she wasn’t the little first year girl that he’d helped with homework and seen safely thrown off an invisible platform to an invisible Kir… It was nice to check in with people like that - the ones who made up the background movement of his day to day life, who he knew and could talk to but who he knew he wouldn’t really see any more once he left.

“I think I shall miss even that,” he said with a smile, when she mentioned escaping the school song. The words were nice, and he appreciated the gradual deeper understanding he’d gained - progressing from struggling to even keep up with sight reading the unfamiliar lyrics as a first year to knowing and understanding the layers of meaning. You understood a language once you understood its poetry, he had always felt… “Maybe my friends and I, we can get together for a big dinner and sing it every September the first.” He felt a little bit buoyed by that idea, it felt less like he was on the verge of losing something if he could picture them all woven throughout each other’s lives nice and thoroughly.

“Big whoo,” he grinned, “I like that. I suppose I should have American traditional things,” he stated skeptically, “I have never understood, what is that? Why is it here now?” he stated, gesturing to a dish of sweet potato with marshmallow. “It seems sweet.” He suspected Johana-Leonie would be unable to answer him, unless she had discussed this… ‘culture’ in depth with any of her friends. “I will take a little bit of many nice things, but perhaps also that and some French Fries. Which are American too.” There were some things that even, after seven years, really were still baffling.

13 Dorian Montoir It's been a pleasure? 1401 0 5

Morgan Garrett

July 24, 2020 9:40 PM

But you'd look awesome in glitters! by Morgan Garrett

Morgan was mildly surprised to be recognized, even by someone who had been in her classes last year, but then remembered that she was, after all, someone who had on one occasion gotten so involved in pretending to be a gender-switched Tybalt in a gay wizard Romeo and Juliet that she had tipped her chair over in her death scene, fallen onto the floor, and hopped right back up to continue her death scene until Heinrich Hexenmeister had restored half her health. And then she remembered that she had publicly disarmed Sadie Chalmers in the middle of Charms before Christmas for what had amounted to no reason whatsoever. And then she remembered various smaller incidents….

Was she notorious? She’d never really considered the possibility that she might already be notorious. She had expected to carefully plan some big stunt for her seventh year in order to leave the school notorious, the way Dad had planned to do, and would have gotten away with if not for those meddling staffers cancelling Quidditch that year. Could one really achieve fame by total accident, then? And if so, was that good or bad?

“Yep, that’s me,” she said cheerfully, dismissing the problem for now. “We were in classes together last year, right?”

She wondered why Jezebel was at the Aladren table, but decided not to ask. None of her business, after all, and it wasn’t like the prefects were some elite organization of division enforcers who were going to haul anyone back to their House tables by the hair. At least not at this Feast; she might not try her luck at the one in September, but for now, they were probably okay.

“I don’t mind not having to wait for supper,” she said, “but it is weird that he’s…like, in a school if he hates talking that much, don’t you think? I mean, my dad’s not great with people – if he likes you, he goes on like an alien in a comedy, and if he doesn’t, he…usually tries to stand in the corner and pretend he doesn’t exist, actually – “ unless he was at home in Industry, in which case anything could happen (for a supposedly straight guy, Dad really could be a total drama queen sometimes), but that didn’t happen that often – “but, you know, he doesn’t work with the public. You’d think he’d want to play to his strengths – uh, the headmaster, I mean, not my dad. Sorry. I get lost in sentences sometimes. Pronouns make that really easy to do, don’t they? Anyway. Happy New Year! Did you have a good break?” she asked, prepared to listen with real interest to anyone prepared to talk at her at all even after one of her rambling discursions from the point into airy nothing and, most of the time at least, back again.

16 Morgan Garrett But you'd look awesome in glitters! 1470 0 5

Sadie-Lake Chalmers

July 25, 2020 6:52 AM

Have you got a catchy hashtag? by Sadie-Lake Chalmers

It was time for the post-Christmas detox. Perhaps for other people that meant laying off carbs and fat, and for adults laying off the booze, but for Sadie it was time for technological cold-turkey. She tried to not get sucked back in when she went home, but even without even using her own devices any more it was just such a constant part of life back home. It was impossible not to know what was going viral (#CatPhoneChallenge, #lol), or to be conscious of the effect of cell phones on daily life, watching the way people’s eyes diverted to them throughout conversations, or having to wait to eat whilst everyone photographed their food.

Whenever she came back to Sonora, she found herself constructing life around something that wasn’t there, at least for a little while. The first challenge was always the feast, remembering that she didn’t have to create a pretty plate, or wait to serve herself until everyone had taken as many pictures of the spread as they wanted. It was taking less and less time to adjust each time though. Going back to technology was the hard bit.

She took a big scoop of sweet potato mash and hesitated for just a second before dumping it gracelessly onto her plate from slightly too high. Not enough to be a menace to the person next to her, but just enough that it hit the plate with a wet, satisfying thump and splatted into a non-presentation-level heap. She carelessly strew some peas next to it, letting them roll across the plate in a disorderly fashion. She was just considering what to actually make these the sides to, to be determined by what would go with really awfully applied ketchup, when the boy next to her spoke up.

What did they do here during the holidays? Nothing was Sadie’s first impulse. It was a school. It was closed wasn’t it? But as he continued on, she dimly recalled a notice about speaking to a staff member if you were staying for the holidays. It hadn’t really registered with her as real because all she had thought about it was ’Why would you?’ But then she remembered Mab’s charity. The one she was signed up as a volunteer for, and thought about the fact that maybe staying at school was the best option some people had. She felt her stomach clench with guilt at her own internal complaints about the things she didn’t like at home. At the fact she hadn’t even thought about Mab at all… Although how were you supposed to ask exactly? It seemed like it would be super awkward to bring up. Maybe it was better that she hadn’t…

“Probably,” she agreed regarding the hall, herding her peas back into place with her fork. That was easy at least. The Cascade Hall was weird. It made her think about how running water was supposed to make you need to pee, although she wasn’t sure if that was the sound more than the sight, which wasn’t a problem here, and whether that was actually true and thus made this a really bad décor choice, or whether it wasn’t and it was just a weird one. She’d long since concluded it would be a nightmare to photograph because whole rooms were so hard to capture, but a close up of something interesting on the table with the wall flowing behind it might work – it was hard to tell whether the wall would end up so blurry that it was impossible to tell it was water, or whether there was anything you could foreground that would be interesting enough to justify that you hadn’t focussed on the frigging moving water wall. Maybe a glass of water would be like… #ironic or something? She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t really good at any of that stuff. She knew more than she wished to about compositions and filters, and she probably could make a lot of things look a lot better than most people, but she wasn’t sure she had a real solid knack for it when the contents of the photo weren’t super obvious. However, the hall was undeniably beautiful, even if it had never trended. “Maybe they freeze it,” she suggested, thinking about how it might be decorated.

“Graham, right?” she added, even though she was pretty sure everyone knew everyone’s names by the second week of term when they shared classes together.

13 Sadie-Lake Chalmers Have you got a catchy hashtag? 1480 0 5

Graham Osbrook

July 25, 2020 4:28 PM

Uh...#decordiva? by Graham Osbrook

Graham nodded thoughtfully as the older girl – older, but not much older; he recognized her from his classes – speculated that the waterfalls might freeze for decoration over the holidays.

“That could be cool,” he agreed. “I wonder – you know how you can feel spray if you stand close to them, but they don’t get the floor wet? I wonder if the…spray-drops would freeze, too, and just…hang in the air, or if they would just go back to the rest of the waterfall when it froze, or just disappear – I guess it might depend on what the spells are, that make the waterfalls work,” he speculated.

Further thought was deterred, though, when a casual glance landed on his neighbor’s plate. At that point, his face brightened noticeably as all thoughts about spell mechanics went out the window in favor of thoughts about foods. “Sweet potatoes! I love those things. Is that – “ he gestured toward a bowl he couldn’t quite see inside from his seat – “the bowl you got them from? Thanks.”

Graham nodded when asked to confirm his name. “That’s me,” he agreed. “Sadie, right?”

Sadie was a nice name – a real, practical, sensible name, of the sort Graham couldn’t help but slightly envy. Perhaps it was because his parents’ names were so very traditional – James and Lillian; someone would have to try to do better than that – and his sister not much better as a Claire, but he had always felt his own name sounded a bit silly by comparison. When he was talking to someone named Jezebel, his name seemed pretty solid by comparison, but when it came to Sadie, he couldn’t help but think of it, and hope that she didn’t also think his name was a bit of an odd name.

“You’re in second year,” he added, half as a question. “Is there anything special to know about the second half of your first year? Do the teachers suddenly turn into monsters or anything?”

16 Graham Osbrook Uh...#decordiva? 1498 0 5

Sadie-Lake Chalmers

July 25, 2020 5:49 PM

Good job! #DecorDiva is more readable though by Sadie-Lake Chalmers

Sadie did not know that the waterfalls had spray but did not make the floor wet. She guessed she had brushed kind of close to one at a couple of points and noticed her face was damp but she hadn't really thought any more about it. Graham seemed to be thinking about it a lot. She briefly wondered whether he'd ended up in the wrong house but Jessica seemed to have these kind of complex chains of reasoning sometimes. With Jessica, she could attribute it to her being older, but she often directed it to Sadie like she was supposed to understand, so between that and Graham thinking that way too in spite of being younger, maybe the problem was not that he was in the wrong house but just that she was stupid. It wasn't the first time that thought had occurred to her.

"I'm not sure," she shrugged softly as he speculated, hoping he wasn't really expecting a more detailed answer than that.

She also noticed his eyes roving over her plate and felt a sense of shame creeping up her spine. Perhaps she should try harder to be neat and pretty if it was all she had going for her... Luckily, he seemed more interested in the contents of her plate than the presentation.

"Oh yeah, they're good," she smiled, passing the dish over and wondering whether it was pathetic to be excited by this common ground. Probably most everyone liked sweet potatoes.

"Yeah," she agreed regarding her name. It didn't even feel like a half truth any more. That was who she was at school, and on the whole she was so much happier as that. Perhaps Sadie didn't have much of a personality or many 'likes' compared to Sadie-Lake but at least if she presented herself as fairly nothingy then she wasn't failing to live up a reputation she couldn't handle.

"Um. No?" she said about the teachers. It was hard to tell whether this was an exaggeration and a joke or a valid concern, and therefore whether to joke in return or offer serious reassurance. She thought she might be better at the latter but maybe not by much. Also, she had heard rumours that really odd things happened sometimes. "Not last year anyway," she offered.

13 Sadie-Lake Chalmers Good job! #DecorDiva is more readable though 1480 0 5

Jezebel Reed-Fischer

July 25, 2020 7:28 PM

Oh, I'm not so sure... by Jezebel Reed-Fischer

Jezebel blinked, hand hovering over the serving dish for a bowl of gravy to go with her bread. Yes, they were in classes the previous year but why . . . oh no. Oh no. She ducked her head, blushing fiercely, although it wouldn't be as easy to spot on her as it would on some of her classmates. "Yes," Jezebel replied. "But I was thinking we were in the same House, too." She looked around and realised Josephine was sitting nearby. "You're in Josephine's house, and I just followed her this direction. Oh my gosh, I'm at the wrong table."

She glanced over her shoulder, considering moving back to Crotalus, but . . . well, she didn't really have any friends in Crotalus, and she was here now. If she just stayed put, maybe it would look like an intentional decision. It was not a decision she would ever make internationally at one of the year's big feasts, but it was one others sometimes made, and she knew it wasn't technically against the rules. She could just play it off. "I'm just going to stay here if that's okay?" she confirmed.

Talk of the headmaster put her at ease in that it was an amusing topic and one they could find common ground on, but she couldn't help feeling a bit like he wasn't the only one in the wrong place. She wrinkled her nose some at the idea of playing to a person's strengths. She was pretty sure that whatever strengths an old, grumpy, white guy had were very much wrapped up in a position of power over people he didn't care about. That sounded right on par for course. "Maybe his strength is reading paperwork or something, so it's just this one part of the job that he's . . . not awesome at," she suggested. "I'm trying really hard and can't come up with anything," she finally laughed lightly. "Don't worry about your sentences, I do the same thing. My break was fine. How was yours?" she asked, passing the baton as quickly back to her non-housemate as possible.

22 Jezebel Reed-Fischer Oh, I'm not so sure... 1454 0 5

Morgan Garrett

July 27, 2020 2:30 PM

Aw, give it a try. by Morgan Garrett

“Of course,” said Morgan, with a sympathetic smile, when Jezebel asked if it was okay if she stayed at the Aladren table. “I’m sure nobody minds. We’re – well, my dad says we used to be kind of scary actually, or a lot of people in the House were, I can’t really imagine Dad being scary though – but nowadays we’re pretty cool people. I think, anyway. Are you friends with Josie too? She’s my roommate, she’s good people, I like her.”

She considered the view presented of headmastership as a counter to her own. “Fair,” she agreed. “I never really thought about it – what the heck a headmaster even does. My old school had a principal, so ‘headmaster’ just always sounds like some kind of fancy exercise equipment, like a StairMaster but for your face. I guess the idea would be to tighten your chin up? It’s kinda hard to exercise most of your head, isn’t it? I can kinda wiggle the end of my nose if I try really hard, but that’s about it.”

Morgan did not really notice that Jezebel deliberately and rapidly passed the baton back to her in the conversation; it wasn’t, in a family more characterized by everyone talking as rapidly as possible over each other, a thing she thought of people doing very often. “Pretty good,” she said. “Mostly I hung – hanged?” She paused to think about this. “I stayed around my grandparents and my stepmom a lot. Then my aunt Lee decided to come down home after all, so she brought Stella – that’s my little cousin – so then we all played with Stella a lot. Everyone has more fun with little kids around, I guess. We do anyway. Does your family have any?”

16 Morgan Garrett Aw, give it a try. 1470 0 5

Graham Osbrook

July 28, 2020 8:26 AM

Good point, thanks - I'm new to this. by Graham Osbrook

“They are,” agreed Graham happily. “They make ‘em pretty good here, don’t they? Though not as good as my mom’s, of course,” he added loyally. “Or Gramma’s.”

He was spared the recitation of an extended list of female relatives’ names by the fact that his other grandmother had never made sweet potato anything to the best of his knowledge, and neither had Aunt Maria, and (of course), neither had Claire, since she wasn’t really old enough to cook yet.

“I don’t know if my sister will learn how one of them makes them and if she’ll stick to that, or if she’ll do some other thing, when she learns to cook,” he said. “Should be good though. Claire’s…big on doing things right. Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

He nodded, not terribly surprised, when she confirmed that the teachers last year had failed to become total monsters after midterm. Privately, he wondered if her mom was also a therapist, or else some kind of Auror. Having a conversation with Mom could be akin to slow torture, because she was so used to holding her silence as far as possible in order to prompt her clients to talk.

Graham knew all about the power of silence. He did not, however, like it one bit. He could force himself into silence in return – it was a necessary skill for survival in his family; otherwise, Mom would say three words, and then go silent, and then stay silent until he started inventing misdeeds to confess – but it was a feeling he disliked. Plus, it was just….

He knew his mother found it exhausting to be a blank slate, to allow people to project their feelings about whoever or whatever onto her, but it was exhausting for him too to deal with it when he could tell she was mirroring his body language, or deliberately waiting him out on something. At this point, he knew she probably didn’t even do that on purpose – it was just habit. Still not a favorite thing of his, though, so he was inclined to drop the conversation if Sadie continued being so unresponsive.

In the meantime, the impulse to explain that he had more or less meant his comment as a joke, and why, but he pushed it aside. “Good to know,” he said. “What are final exams like?”

It did not occur to him that this strategy was not much different – tactics which deflected, gave the job of speaking while he took on the role of listener. So it went.

16 Graham Osbrook Good point, thanks - I'm new to this. 1498 0 5

Sadie-Lake Chalmers

July 29, 2020 7:19 AM

I mistook it for a spell initially by Sadie-Lake Chalmers

“Mmhmm,” Sadie agreed cheerfully with the assessment that the sweet potatoes were good as she took a bite.

“Uh, yeah, I have a brother,” she nodded, when he asked about siblings. He’d told her a bit about his, so she struggled for something reasonable to say. “He’s kind of a handful,” she wrinkled her nose. She thought most boys his age were, although the very neat and buttoned up example next to her suggested that might not always be the case.

There was a beat of silence after she mentioned the teachers. It was just long enough and awkward enough to let her know that that had definitely been a joke and she had just failed to be funny. She guessed most boys did like to just mess around after all. She wasn’t quite sure what to interject into the offensive silence, although it made her feel vaguely like snapping at Graham just because she felt uncomfortable and embarrassed. She sort of wished they could go back to talking about sweet potatoes. Admittedly, she thought a list of how every female relative of Graham’s cooked sweet potatoes was not the most fascinating thing but right now, she would gladly take it. But then he picked up, tried at least to rescue the dying embers of the conversation and get it going again.

“Fine,” she replied meekly to his question about exams, wishing she could think of something else to say. He had tried, even though she was pathetic, and if this now died a death it was her fault. “I mean, do you find classes okay generally?” she checked. She thought the exams were kind of hard and stressful but they were mostly just repeating what they’d learnt in class. She just found that difficult and worried about it. But from what she’d observed of most of her classmates, she was pretty much the only one.

13 Sadie-Lake Chalmers I mistook it for a spell initially 1480 0 5

Freddie Zauberhexen

July 29, 2020 9:47 AM

Here we gooooooo! by Freddie Zauberhexen

Freddie grinned. "I not know, do I?" he laughed, always finding it funny when people asked if what he said in German meant this other thing in English, when he clearly didn't know the English words and that's why he said it in German. In this case though, he knew his colors and body parts pretty well in both English and German. "But yes, I think that is so. 'Reindeer'... that is his animal?" he confirmed, that information not being included in the German version. Then the boy mentioned Anya and Freddie felt a lightbulb go off decidedly late. This was Anya's brother! That's why he knew vaguely who the boy was. "I will take all," he promised of the upcoming treats.

"Good," Freddie replied, happy to hear Philippe had had a good go of it. "What is Lego set?" he asked curiously, digging into his meal. He was pretty sure this was the kind of thing that made him learn English faster than Hana did; she wouldn't ask for help if she needed it unless she really needed it. Freddie was perfectly happy to ask clarifying questions until whoever he was talking to was irritated and then he would stop. But what was the other option? Hana must have just guessed her way through conversations and that didn't seem like a good option. Of course, she also had Hilda. "Danke," he grinned, glad that his first interaction with his new hair was a positive one. "I like also. My break was . . . " He paused to make sure he told the truth. Then, another grin. "My break has much good," he decided. He wasn't ready to start sharing all about the gifts he'd gotten that had meant so much to him, but he could say it was good and that was true. After all, he'd gotten the gift of acceptance for Christmas and that was a pretty great gift. "It is . . . like that," he said, pointing to a candle and then rubbing his fingers together to show the sort of texture of the wax color he'd used. "It not stay all times, but I can add or change and it stay well. Also I can make pointy," he added, demonstrating by lifting one of the coated strands and pushing it into a spiky, upright position. He smoothed it back into place before continuing. "I share if you want."

22 Freddie Zauberhexen Here we gooooooo! 1452 0 5

Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

July 29, 2020 4:51 PM

Mostly. by Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

Johana Leonie had a hard time believing Dorian would really miss the song, but who was she to say? Perhaps when she'd been here a few more years, she would feel more attached to it as well. There were things that she would miss about Sonora some day but she still felt like she was getting used to being at the school at all. At the same time, it really did feel like home in a lot of ways . . . it was becoming stranger and stranger to think of returning to her hometown to take up healing arts after all this. So she nodded along with a smile at the idea of getting together with friends after graduation to sing. She doubted Hilda would want to come to Germany much, so there was another reason to find someplace else to go. But where else would she want to go?

She nodded again at the idea of the strange orange treat. "All American food has too much sweet," she pointed out, wrinkling her nose. Even the bread here tasted funny. She watched Dorian for a moment before deciding to follow suit. With a shrug, she told him, "Perhaps if I try now, I not miss later."

She was right, at least in that the potato thing was awful. Resisting the urge to stick out her tongue and grimace as she swallowed the first mouthful, Johana Leonie looked back up at Dorian. "You have charity booth?" she confirmed hesitantly. "What is word for person if not boy or girl?" she asked. If anyone was going to know about colors to make into a hat, Dorian would be the best bet. Or at least the safest one. And they had a good enough relationship, with a history of her asking questions, that she had to imagine he wouldn't mind her doing so now. Hopefully.

22 Johana Leonie Zauberhexen Mostly. 1432 0 5

Jezebel Reed-Fischer

July 29, 2020 5:00 PM

I... I think I'd like to. by Jezebel Reed-Fischer

Morgan could talk. Truth be told, this was one of Jezebel's favorite kind of people because she could learn a whole lot about other people without having to give away much of herself. It also kept the silence at bay without forcing her to interact that much, and Morgan did seem pretty nice on the whole. And she was Josie's roommate! That made sense. She nodded to reply to the question, not sure what to think of the meta-commentary on Aladren as a House. "Yeah, we are," she said, blushing a little. It felt weird to say out loud that she had a real friend. It was nice, though, too.

"Same!" she said a little too loudly when Morgan talked about a principal. "Are you muggleborn too? This whole school is super weird, right?" Man it felt good to acknowledge that. She laughed aloud at the idea of a HeadMaster, like the newest Bowflex or something. "I have to laugh a little at an Aladren saying that. A HeadMaster would be some sort of physical exercise. Aren't you like . . . the House of headmasters?" she asked, raising an eyebrow playfully.

Then Morgan was talking some more and it was really rather sweet now that Jezebel had acclimated some to the pace of it. "Sort of," she explained, frowning. "I have a younger brother who will be here in the Fall, and then I have a younger sister who's eight, almost nine," she said. Sort of little, but my sister and I are the only girls so we play together a lot." Or at least, they used to. "So she doesn't seem so little. And it's not as fun when you live with them I think. My cousin doesn't have any siblings," she added, pointing to Dathan at the Teppenpaw table. "So Patience is the youngest in the family."

22 Jezebel Reed-Fischer I... I think I'd like to. 1454 0 5

Graham Osbrook

July 29, 2020 8:04 PM

I can see it. What do you think it would do? by Graham Osbrook

Graham raised his eyebrows slightly at the idea that Sadie’s brother was ‘a handful.’ The nose-wrinkle made it seem fairly clear that it was not Sadie’s idea of a good trait, but there were a lot of different, more specific things that ‘a handful’ could mean. It could mean an overactive toddler, sure, or…what else?

“Oh?” he asked, adding a portion of another dish to his plate along with the sweet potatoes.

At first, he thought the response of ‘fine’ was a clear sign that the conversation was over. ‘Fine’ was, after all, the death knell to communication, at least unless one was one of the unfortunate people who were compelled to speak to his mother on regular occasions. Mom said that people who said they were ‘fine’ were very rarely so, and while Graham thought it was possible that it was more of a general statement outside in the real world than it was among his mother’s patients, it still wasn’t a good sign.

Accordingly, he was planning to say something vaguely grateful and then just let the conversation drop when, to his surprise, there was an actual question posed to him. He nodded. “Most of the time,” he said. “I’m not that great with identifying the herbs and things blind in Potions and Herbology – “ much to the disappointment of his father – “but you know, the parents didn’t ground me over Christmas. I guess what I meant was, how do the final exams compare to our regular tests and things?”

16 Graham Osbrook I can see it. What do you think it would do? 1498 0 5

Morgan Garrett

July 29, 2020 8:23 PM

Fab! What colors are you thinking of? by Morgan Garrett

Morgan beamed in delight when Jezebel said she was also friends with Josie. Jezebel and Josie…hm. If they invited Mara, and Mara accepted, then they would be two Js and two Ms! That would be a super fun squad to have, and Mara might lighten up a little. Morgan’s head was filling with amusing plans.

“Cool!” she enthused. “We should all hang out sometime.”

She grinned, too, at the sound of someone else agreeing that this school was super weird. “Almost,” she said about her own background. “Mom’s a Muggle, and Dad’s Muggleborn. I went to regular school back in Kentucky, though, before I got accepted here.” Not least because both her parents and her stepmother had jobs. It was obvious how big fancy purebloods and stuff managed to learn to read and write and stuff without real schools, but Morgan always wondered about how ordinary magical families somehow took care of a kid and…ate and stuff, without a day school to ship the kids off to for most of the day. “It was definitely a lot different. I miss it sometimes.”

She laughed at the argument that the proper function of the word ‘headmaster’ should have belonged to Aladrens, rather than old men or weird facial exercise equipment. “You got me there,” she said. “You sure you shouldn’t be over here all the time?” she added with a wink.

Morgan listened to the description of Jezebel’s family. Was the cousin that redheaded guy Jezebel was pointing at? Bit of a difference in appearance there, but then, biracial families existed. Everyone knew this, even people back home who were jerks for no reason about it. “I’m an only child, too, unless Dad and Sage ever have kids. There’s a lot of people in my whole family, though, because, like, everyone before me and Stella had a few brothers’n’ sisters. Or a lot of them, if you’re most of my grandparents,” she added. “I always wondered what it would be like if I had any close to my age, like. Do you think your brother will be in Crotalus, too? Me and Dad are the first wizards in our family, and he was an Aladren too, but your cousin’s in Teppenpaw. I wonder if houses run in families or just immediate families or…” She waved her hand vaguely, fingernails glittering again as she did. “Anything, or if it’s just random.”

16 Morgan Garrett Fab! What colors are you thinking of? 1470 0 5

Jezebel Reed-Fischer

July 29, 2020 10:11 PM

Maybe red for Crotalus? by Jezebel Reed-Fischer

Morgan looked so happy! Jezebel wasn't really sure what she'd said that was so exciting, but she was glad Morgan looked happy. This was sort of fun. "I'd like that," she agreed. She missed having classes with Josie and liked to think they could spend more time together outside of class. It was nice to have classes with Bridget, though, so there were good things and bad things that came out of the new shift to Intermediate classes.

She'd been so close to finding someone like her, but she sort of preferred this in a way. There were lots of muggleborns at school. There weren't a lot of people who weren't muggleborn but still had some amount of understanding of what being a muggleborn meant. "I miss it too," Jezebel said softly, remembering the days when everything was simple. Of course, she'd just been a kid then; she didn't feel like a kid anymore.

She grinned, appreciating the idea that she should be in Aladren. She sort of thought she should be, honestly, but that was neither here nor there. "Well, apparently the rule-follower bit of my House didn't stick too well," she said, gesturing at where she was sitting. "So maybe you're right."

Morgan's family sounded complicated, which Jezebel could also understand. She wasn't about to explain why, which made it nice when Morgan asked about Gus. The idea of her little brother being in Crotalus was sort of hilarious and Jezebel laughed at the thought. "Definitely not," she said. "Although Dathan thinks it's possible. I'm betting Pecari," she replied. "He's a jokester and he's seriously so full of energy. He'll be eleven this summer though, so I think that maybe everyone is full of energy at that age?" She shrugged. "It'll be interesting to see. There's . . . what, two Mordues in Crotalus, a bunch of Brockerts all over, I think the Zaub- Zob- two of the German kids are in Teppenpaw, but the other two aren't in the same House. The De Matteos are in different Houses. . . Dathan and I were wondering if this stuff runs in families, too, or if it's all over." She eyed her new friend. "Do you think you'd like to have more siblings?" she asked, then, deciding that might be too personal, continued: "Because mine are absolutely for sale."

22 Jezebel Reed-Fischer Maybe red for Crotalus? 1454 0 5

Quincy Wright

July 29, 2020 10:19 PM

I'll take just the food then. by Quincy Wright

Quincy's break was not very exciting. It was weird seeing Deidre again, only to find out that they still didn't get along super great. She wasn't quite as annoying though, except now she wanted to know everything about Sonora and when he told her about it, she would get all grumpy that she wouldn't get to go for a few more years. Quincy tried not to think about it and had spent most of the break doing his own thing. After all, his mother spent most of the break working with other kids than her own and his father always had more books to sell. Even Deidre had her own ways of occupying time now that Quincy was gone most of the year. It was the first time he hadn't preferred to be alone and it made him sad, and a little angry; it wasn't fair of them to go and ruin his solitude just by forcing him into it. Didn't any of them miss him?

So it was with some resentment lingering in his step that Quincy joined the Aladren table and returned, solidly and completely, back to his new life. He'd gotten a gift for Bertie, a book on codes and ciphers from the bookstore dad worked in, and he was excited to give it to him after dinner, so the meal was just one happy stop along the way to bedtime. The headmaster said some stuff and then FOOD. His business of collecting a variety of items and digging in voraciously was interrupted by a sudden splatter of water everywhere. Quincy had been chewing happily on a bite of meatloaf and entirely missed what happened, except that he was confused when there was water everywhere and his own cup was both standing upright still, and full of apple juice. When his housemate turned to him, though, he understood.

"That's--" He swallowed his meatloaf. "That's fine," he told her with a soft shrug. "It's just water and like . . . not really hurting anything." She went about mopping it up and Quincy put down his fork to help, really not caring that much that there was water on the table. "It's really okay," he told her.

22 Quincy Wright I'll take just the food then. 1495 0 5

Leonor De Matteo

July 29, 2020 10:32 PM

Yuuup. by Leonor De Matteo

Leonor was feeling pret-ty good about herself upon their return to Sonora. She and Javier had managed to meet up twice ore after their initial encounter and Leonor was sure that he'd miss her more than she missed him. That being said, he'd definitely unlocked something new inside her, and she sort of wondered what all the boys at school tasted like. She was a young woman now, and she'd kiss who she wanted. Mostly Jeremy, if she had her way. Which she probably would. Of course, the end of last term had happened very shortly after the Quidditch game wherein Felipe had solidified his stupidity for the school to see, so she wasn't sure exactly where things stood now. Was she supposed to tell Jeremy about Javier? That seemed like cracking eggs she didn't want to fry, and she had no intention of doing it.

The headmaster - seriously, who was this guy? - finished his 'speech' and sat down and Leonor tucked her napkin into her lap, eager to dive back into school food. She enjoyed the food at home, sure, and Sonora food wasn't the same, but any food that she didn't have to help with was better than any that she did. Hilda Hexenmeister spoke to her before she could decide which pasta dish she wanted, but Leonor found that she could agree regardless.

"Very good," Leonor agreed, smiling. She'd always sort of appreciated Hilda's existence, and Johana Leonie's for that matter, because it was nice to know that her own English as a second language was better than any of the other girls' at school. Plus, Hilda was nice enough, and she played as beater too, which meant she might have some useful insight into what people thought of Felipe. "Good to be back then?" Leonor asked, speaking a little bit too carefully.

22 Leonor De Matteo Yuuup. 1471 0 5

Dathan Fischer

July 30, 2020 7:57 AM

Isn't something always? by Dathan Fischer

Christmas had been great, of course. Dathan couldn’t honestly say that he had slipped right back into his place in his family as though he had never left – that was kind of hard when he had been gone for months, and had spent those months in a world which his parents couldn’t even begin to understand, and which he only understood so far even after almost three years of spending most of his time in it – but he had gotten back into that place, and had enjoyed all the usual holiday stuff with them: food, presents, church, carols….

He had worried a little about Jazz with church though, now. They had not really talked about what she had told him last summer in a while, but he couldn’t just forget something like that and pretend it hadn’t happened. It was easiest to remember, too, in a context which…was famously not the most sympathetic in the world to people like his cousin, even if their parents were decidedly chiller than his aunt and uncle ever seemed likely to be. He made a mental note to check in with her soon, now that they were back here…and that she was sitting at the wrong table.

How did he feel about it, if Jazz had a girlfriend in Aladren? Or…just a girlfriend in general, really? He had promised he had her back and would keep her secrets regardless, and he was going to do that, but he hadn’t really thought about it as a thing that might turn practical.

The problem was that he…just couldn’t see what was supposed to be so wrong with it, when he thought about it. His knee-jerk reaction to the idea of a girl having a girlfriend was a sort of ‘wait what,’ but when he thought about it…if they weren’t hurting anyone, then what did it matter? Two of their women teachers seemed to be married to each other, and he hadn’t noticed horns or fangs on either of the Brooding-Hawthornes. They were just a pair of pretty women who taught school and minded their own business, as far as he could tell. Certainly they didn’t do anything weird in public any more than any other married people did – again, as far as he could tell – so…why would he be upset if Jazz did the same thing? Assuming the other girl was nice, anyway.

That issue, however, was not one he could really address right now, so he addressed himself to food instead. Food, and whether or not the kitchens were serving some highly unusual-sounding food.

“I have no idea,” he admitted freely to the girl who asked if a dish was stuffed grape leaves. “It doesn’t smell like bad sushi, anyway,” he confirmed as he moved the dish closer to the girl, figuring that was the next logical explanation for what looked like a burrito made of some kind of leaves. “So I guess we’ve got nothing to lose by trying them,” he added, putting one on his plate as well. “Have you had them before?”

16 Dathan Fischer Isn't something always? 1457 0 5

Jasmine Delachene

July 30, 2020 11:34 AM

I suppose I am by Jasmine Delachene

Jasmine nodded in agreement and understanding to Jessica's explanation about her break. Being from southern California, she completely understood the problem of not normally having Christmases that looked and felt like the Christmases in most of the books and pictures and television shows she had seen. "I'm from the desert in Southern California, so I get that," she clarified after the younger girl added that she was from Atlanta like she needed to explain her wonder at coldness.

"My break was pretty . . ." normal was the word she would have used there not too long ago, but she was becoming aware that her normal was not everyone's normal, "good," she finished instead. "We saw my various sides of the family, enjoyed the Christmas festivities in DisneyLand, and my mother even let me try Champagne this year for New Years when we stayed up until midnight. It's kind of terrible," she confided like it was a giant secret. But she'd probably have it again next year, because it was a token of her being an adult witch and not a child anymore. Anya and Philippe had both needed to drink sparkling apple cider. Only Jasmine and her parents got the real Champagne.

"I got a new saddle, and it's so beautiful. Fortunately, California wasn't cold and Christmassy where I live, so I got to go out riding most days for a little while, and that was really nice. I miss the horses so much when I'm here. My family owns a Flying Horse Ranch," she added by way of explanation for that part.

1 Jasmine Delachene I suppose I am 1397 0 5

Jessica Hayles

July 30, 2020 1:07 PM

Is it easier not to choose, or more complicated to be two things at once? by Jessica Hayles

“Ahh,” said Jessica when Jasmine explained that she also knew what non-Christmassy-looking Christmas weather was. “I can never decide if we’re missing out or if we’re lucky, or if we just win some and lose some, with the summers,” she added. Summer at home could be miserable; there were times Dad would take her and Mara and Lola on lengthy vacations simply to get them somewhere with healthier air, on days when Atlanta was so smoggy and humid that you couldn’t even see the skyscrapers properly.

She leaned in instinctively when Jasmine lowered her voice, then grinned at the disclosure. “Somehow, I’m not that surprised,” she admitted. She knew her mother liked champagne, but her father said that it was overrated, and that this was true of most things her mother liked. Jessica couldn’t say for sure about champagne, but she had worn Louboutins before and definitely thought…they were excellent shoes, but so were all Jessica’s shoes. She didn’t see why her mother collected that specific brand the way she did. “I’ve met things like that before – sounds better than it is,” she added.

For a moment, Jessica felt rather as though she were talking to someone of her own kind, but then it was added that there was a flying horse involved. Still, there was something a bit encouraging in that, too – that there really were people like her, more or less, even here. “Wow,” she said, dutifully impressed. “You must be really good at riding, then. My family’s in cosmetics, and I’ve had a skincare routine for…basically ever I think.”

16 Jessica Hayles Is it easier not to choose, or more complicated to be two things at once? 1442 0 5

Tatiana Vorontsova

July 30, 2020 1:32 PM

My life is basically over. by Tatiana Vorontsova

Tatiana was not, on the whole, in the best mood as she returned to Sonora. The holidays had started off well enough – as well as they were apt to, anyway, now that everyone thought she ought to get married, and regarded everything except exams that she felt was important as childish trivialities she was soon to be done with – but then it had just…gone wrong, with the Polyakovs. It had been nothing but more quarrelling and awkward silences from there, and it had worn down even her mulish determination and energy by the time she and Katya had gotten onto the wagon.

Sweeping into the Cascade Hall, though, she found out it was possible for her mood to sink a bit further yet, into outright melancholy as she thought, it’s the last time.

There was no denying it: there was a reason why her parents regarded most of the things Tatiana cared about as unimportant. In a few months, those things would all be gone. She would never get to come back again, never get to live the way she wanted to again…unless she did something absurd, anyway. Or at best, unless she resigned herself to years of quarreling and stubbornness of the unpleasant type, until she was too old for anyone to expect her to marry anymore – and that would be quite some time yet. Her best chance was if Vladya proposed to her, and somehow, she thought he would have gone ahead and done that by now if he was going to.

She went to the Pecari table, her face a somber mask as she waited for the headmaster to speak. He spoke very little, which was normal for him, though she thought this one might have been even more minimal than usual, but which did not suit her purposes tonight at all, as she could not count on continued silence, on not being expected to look any particular way. Perhaps, at least, she could find some distraction, if someone was willing to provide it, as the food was struggling to get her attention.

16 Tatiana Vorontsova My life is basically over. 1396 0 5

Valentine Duell

July 30, 2020 5:43 PM

That is probably true by Valentine Duell

The boy... Dathan? She was pretty sure of that. She had gotten all of the first and second year names figure out. That was something she absolutely needed to do, but she also saw them all the time in class and it was pretty easy with the professors calling on them at times. She hadn't mastered all of the Teppenpaw names yet though, that would need be accomplished this term. She just didn't interact with the older students as much unless they played Quidditch or were in the gaming club, or were in any of the other clubs.

She was relatively certain that this boy who was probably named Dathan, or something similar, was a third year student. So, in theory he would be in her classes for one year once she was a third year student herself. He seemed nice though and admitted easily enough when he didn't know something. That was a good quality in a person.

Valentine smiled at her housemate when he passed the dish and made a joke about it not smelling like sushi. At least she took it as a joke, maybe it could have been sushi, and then they should be careful about eating it? Would the staff let anything on the table that wouldn't be good for them? Well, at some level, yes. There were some desserts and those weren't really 'good for you' in the technical sense.

He took one though to try and she did as well. It sort of looked right. "Mama would make them on rare occasion." She told probably Dathan. "Although more so when I was younger. They're a Greek food, when I was little we used live in Greece." She took bite and chewed a little slowly. It wasn't bad... but it certainly wasn't Mama's cooking. She scanned the rest of the table and turned back to Dathan, "Okay, your turn now. What should we try next?"

2 Valentine Duell That is probably true 1490 0 5

Philippe Delachene

July 30, 2020 6:15 PM

Zoom zoom! by Philippe Delachene

"Yeah, reindeer is Rudolph's animal," Philippe confirmed, feeling kind of silly that he didn't realize Freddie couldn't tell if his guessed translation was right because Freddie hadn't known how to say it in English in the first place. Then he grinned as Freddie promised to accept Anya's gifted candy cane reindeer as well. Or that was what he was talking those words to mean, given the clue that the other boy didn't seem to be trying to raid Philippe's pockets for the rest of the candy canes in them.

"Legos?" he repeated, kind of surprised that somebody didn't know what Legos were, and he wondered if it was a language problem or a muggle-magic divide problem. "Legos are a muggle toy that you can use to build things. They're like little bricks that fit together. My set makes the Millennium Falcon!" He realized he probably just started speaking gibberish to the German, if 'Lego' was foreign, so he quickly dialed back his excitement and tried to explain, "That's um, a big ship thing that flies through space in a muggle show I watched."

As Freddie explained about his hair being . . . temporary colors? Philippe tentatively guessed, and made of wax, maybe? Philippe nodded slowly, hoping he was following correctly, and after his mistake with the Reindeer thing, he wasn't sure how much he could ask for clarification, as Freddie was obviously already explaining it as well as his English allowed.

"That's neat," he said, because the spikes were definitely cool regardless of anything else. His hair defied most styling attempts, as it insisted it must be curly and would tolerate no other condition for more than a few minutes, but admittedly, he had never tried wax. "I'd give it a go at least once, to try it," he said, intrigued by the offer to share. Pink and purple weren't really his colors, but it was just a temporary thing (probably) so it would be fun to give it a whirl for a few days.

1 Philippe Delachene Zoom zoom! 1489 0 5

Freddie Zauberhexen

July 31, 2020 11:09 AM

Brumm brumm! by Freddie Zauberhexen

Freddie nodded, committing the information about reindeers to memory because it was the kind of thing he liked to know. Random stuff was the most fun kind of stuff and it was great for whipping out in small talk like 'hey, did you know that Rudolph is one of them reindeer things?' Okay, so maybe not that information specifically, but it was helpful still. He supposed there were probably magic reindeer - maybe even flying ones like the story - so it wasn't impossible that they'd come up in class sometime either.

Most of what Philippe said next didn't make sense to Freddie, but he knew what ships were so he smiled. "We have ships in near home," he told him. "There have small boats for the... Fluss. Water goes wshhhhh?" He put his hands up to demonstrate the windy nature of rivers. "It gives to a big water, where bigger ships stay." He frowned a little though. "Those ships not flies though," he added. "My family visit sometimes." The ships were one of his favorite things to see but they smelled awful. Or at least, the green, algae-infested bay water did.

Freddie grinned again in finding out that Philippe would be up for trying some hair colors. This was great! He hadn't expected another guy to be up for it so fast. "I share," he said again, making it a promise this time. "I have all the colors."

22 Freddie Zauberhexen Brumm brumm! 1452 0 5

Dathan Fischer

August 01, 2020 10:36 AM

Doesn't have to be bad things, though. by Dathan Fischer

Dathan’s eyebrows raised slightly when the younger girl said that she had lived in Greece when she was younger. “That’s cool,” he said. “I’d hardly ever left Kansas City before I came here. Is your mama Greek?” he asked, curious about why someone here would have lived in Greece. A Greek parent seemed reasonable, but then, wouldn’t she have kept cooking Greek food even after they moved to America? He thought most people would stick to what they knew, at least when it came to cooking – but then, if something drove him out of his land, he thought it might be easier not to remind himself of it, either.

Still, it was definitely something one didn’t hear every day, that one of one’s classmates had lived in a whole different country for a while. He really did need to talk to people more, find out more about what sort of people he was living amongst. That was what Jezebel was doing, he knew, and she seemed to be making friends pretty well now. Plus, even if one didn’t get too close to anyone, it was interesting, finding out stuff like this.

He tried the stuffed grape leaves and was surprised, upon biting in, to find…rice? Was that rice? With…lemon and mint and…something else, that vaguely reminded him of licorice jellybeans?

“Wow, that is not what I expected,” he said after he swallowed it. “Minty rice. That’s a new one. Not bad, though.”

Asked to pick something else to try, he looked around at the feast dishes speculatively, finally picking up a dish of what looked almost like spicy chicken nuggets, though he could tell it was not – squares of something beige-ish, slathered in a sort of translucent red sauce. “What do you think of this?” he asked, showing it to Valentine. “Think that sauce is spicy, or just made or tomatoes? Or both?”

OOC: My description of stuffed grape leaves is entirely based on the first recipe that popped up when I googled it, which consisted of rice flavored with lemon, mint, and dill. I then googled ‘what does dill taste like’ and apparently, once dried, it tastes a bit of anise, which is usually, if I remember correctly, used to flavor what Americans would call the licorice jellybeans. The dish Dathan picks up is supposed to be tubu choerim, a spicy Korean tofu dish, assuming the Internet isn’t lying to me on this page.

16 Dathan Fischer Doesn't have to be bad things, though. 1457 0 5

Valentine Duell

August 01, 2020 1:15 PM

True, surprise party planning would qualify. by Valentine Duell

Valentine smiled and shook her head, "No, Mama was born in Georgia. We moved to Greece when I was two." She wasn't quite sure how much more she should say on the matter. Things were a little weird, and she'd have to figure out how much she was going to tell Bonabelle as well. "We moved back when Nana passed away, I was four." Her smile turned a touch sad. "I lived there, but I don't remember much about it. It feels like I haven't really left home either until I came here." She paused and then asked, "So, what is Kansas City like?"

He ate the leaves and she smiled at his commentary. She liked that he was open to trying new things, and evaluate them properly. That was a good quality to have. She liked to think she did likewise, so when he picked a strange looking dish, she didn't hesitate to put some on her plate. "I'm not sure," she commented as she looked at it and inhaled it's aroma. It certainly smelled a bit spicy.

"There's only one way to find out." Valentine stated boldly as she picked up her fork. She stabbed a smaller chunk and thrust it into her mouth. The spiciness hit her almost immediately as the main body of the item seemed to melt away in her mouth. Her eyes watered while her mouth burned and she frantically searched for her water.

Finding it, she began to gulp it down, washing the food down with it. Her mouth still tingled when she sat her cup back on the table. "It is a little spicy" She semi-gasped to the boy whose name she was going to assume was Dathan until new information was presented to her. "I didn't notice much in the way of tomatoes though." She gave him a friendly, challenging look, "Maybe you'll have better luck."

2 Valentine Duell True, surprise party planning would qualify. 1490 0 5

Morgan Garrett

August 01, 2020 5:34 PM

Good thinking, and I think it'll look super-flattering on you. by Morgan Garrett

Morgan desperately wished she had a PDA, or at least a day planner, that she could have whipped out to make notes in about the proposed hang-out, but sadly, she had lost the agenda her mom had bought her for this school year sometime the previous semester. Organization was something Morgan deeply admired and found utterly impossible to actually achieve. It sucked, having a preferred aesthetic that ran so contrary to her natural inclinations.

“Awesome,” she said brightly instead. “Should be cool. What kind of thing do you think? Lunch? Crafts night? Book club?”

Asked if everyone was full of energy at eleven, she thought back to the distant days of…last year. “I guess?” she said, thinking of herself. “I don’t…trying to remember last year, you know, I don’t remember feeling really really energetic, more than most people, but…well, I don’t guess I would know if I was more energetic than normal, because that’s my normal, right?” she asked. She listened closely as the statistics of other students were run down quickly by house distribution. “Doesn’t sound like there’s any hard pattern,” she said. “Oh, well, I guess it would get boring if you just automatically went wherever your relatives had went. Plus, you got two parents, so if they’re in different Houses, you can’t automatically all be in one,” she reasoned.

She tilted her head thoughtfully at the question about whether she’d like to have siblings, then laughed at the ‘offer’ Jezebel had to make her. “Sure thing,” she said. “Just lemme run and get my piggy bank. Really, though,” she added, thoughtful again. “It’s hard to say, isn’t it? I don’t know what it’s like to have any brothers and sisters, and you don’t know what it’s like not to have any brothers and sisters, so – we might be super happy if we switched, but we might be miserable. Or we might be…different, but not better or worse, just different, you know? We don’t really know, do we? Does that make any sense?”

16 Morgan Garrett Good thinking, and I think it'll look super-flattering on you. 1470 0 5

Dathan Fischer

August 01, 2020 6:30 PM

Yes, or plans to buy people presents. by Dathan Fischer

Georgia? That made sense, too, he guessed. Dathan was pretty sure he had picked up, somewhere, that Southerners often called their moms ‘mama’ instead, even after the age when most kids from his background would have switched to something else.

He had also picked up other ideas about Southerners here and there, but decided to assume Valentine’s mother was one of the decent ones until he had reason to do otherwise. For one thing, Val seemed perfectly pleasant. For another, it was just bad manners, in this day and age, to assume someone was a racist wackadoodle simply because of where they were from.

“It’s all right,” he said with a light shrug when asked about Kansas City. “I’m one of those – what do you call ‘ems – Muggleborns, so I used to live with my mom and dad, go to school every day, home every night, homework and stuff. My aunt and uncle live there too, with all their kids, but we didn’t see each other that much until I got sent here – my cousin Jezebel’s in the same year as me. We guess there must have been a wizard somewhere in the family tree, for two of us to be wizards now – I mean, what are the odds, right?” He meant this mainly as a rhetorical comment, since while his knowledge of genetics was pretty limited, he was still pretty sure the exact same random thing randomly happening to first cousins in exactly the same way was…unlikely, in normal genetic stuff, if there wasn’t something somewhere in the family to explain it, even if they didn’t know where it was. "Where are you from?"

Dathan winced and tried not to chuckle at the same time as Valentine reacted to the thing he had picked up, ending up with a grimace on his face as though he was in pain too. He forced it into something resembling a resigned grin when challenged to see for himself if it had any detectable traces of tomato in it.

“Maybe I will,” he said bravely, and then cut a bit off the square on his plate with his fork and put it in his mouth. For a moment, he had no reaction, and then color abruptly flooded into his normally pale face, turning it an even brighter red than his hair. His eyes began to water, and he felt sweat pop out on his forehead as he coughed and looked around for a jug of milk he was sure he had seen before….

“I think this is better for when you eat something too hot,” he croaked to Valentine after pouring himself a glass and taking a gulp. “Wow. Hot. I also couldn’t find any tomatoes. I think we can conclude that if there are any tomatoes, we’re not supposed to taste them.”

16 Dathan Fischer Yes, or plans to buy people presents. 1457 0 5

Hilda Hexenmeister

August 05, 2020 12:04 PM

Jaaaa by Hilda Hexenmeister

Hilda smiled back at the younger student who agreed the returning feast was very good. She'd understood that, too! She was nailing English tonight. The younger student asked another question, but the words were clear and distinct Hilda followed that, too! It really was a bright new year.

"Yes," she agreed that it was good to be back. "I am happy to Quidditch again." There were other things she was glad about that Sonora offered and Uncle Karl's place in Utah did not - things like friends, and more independence (not that Uncle Karl was authoritative or anything, there just wasn't a lot of opportunity to do your own thing when there was nothing to do and nowhere to go), and not being around a million snakes, but Quidditch was easier to explain so that was what she went with.

"You are happy, too?" she hoped. Realizing the potential incompletely of that question, she added, "To come back? You like Sonora?" She did not expect she would be made prefect next year, with her language difficulties, but Heinrich had gotten it, and maybe her improvement over the last couple of years had been noted favorably, so she wasn't discounting herself out yet, and knowing about the younger students and their attitudes toward the school would probably be a good thing if she did get it. On that note . . . "I am sorry. I know not your name?"

1 Hilda Hexenmeister Jaaaa 1433 0 5

Josephine Clyde

August 05, 2020 7:46 PM

Yes! FOOD! Let us feast!! by Josephine Clyde

“No, really, I’m sorry. I was kind of distracted.”
Josie continued pushing the water around the table with her wet napkin. Poor boy. She was honestly not this sort of person, truly, sincerely, definitely. Maybe her collapsing relationship with her father was a bigger problem than she wanted to admit. It led her to dump water on other people’s dinner experience after all. The victim of her water bomb must have been a first year. She didn’t remember seeing him last year and he just felt young to her. Way to make a great impression.

“Are you a first year? My name’s Josie I’m a second year.” She gestured to the wetness, “I promise I don’t represent all the older Aladrens.”

Hopefully she’d be as interesting and cool and chic as the older Aladrens were. Hopefully soon. She wasn’t sure if she could be as wonderful as Sophia, but she would definitely try! Though she wasn’t even remotely the best person to ask about Sonora or magic she definitely wanted to make sure that everyone felt as welcome here as she did. Small talk was something she could do for sure. Besides, the potential first year seemed sweet. If she’d done this at the dinner table back home there’d be no end to the insults and jeers from her step-brothers. But it was best not to think sad thoughts when she was trying to eat. Her chicken dinner would wait for no one!
She spooned the mashed potatoes into her mouth and sighed happily. Butter, salt, potatoes, what’s not to love? Food at Sonora was always good and it always perked her up, no sense in ruining a good thing with negative feelings.

Josie smiled warmly at the boy next to her, “Did you enjoy your holiday or are you happier to be back at Sonora?”

44 Josephine Clyde Yes! FOOD! Let us feast!! 1477 0 5

Quincy Wright

August 06, 2020 10:37 AM

Om nom nom. by Quincy Wright

Quincy was not going to remember the girl's name, he suspected. Wasn't there also a Jo- something in one of the other Houses? Or two of them? There were too many Js. But the girl seemed very stressed, so he did at least try to commit her name to memory. Josie Josie Josie Josie Josie.

"I'm Quincy," he told her plainly, not too worried about the degree to which she represented other Aladrens. He was an Aladren after all, so he already knew that they were different. He wasn't really sure what the other Aladrens should be like anyway. Nerdy? That was the reputation at least.

She had potatoes and chicken which looked bomb, frankly, and Quincy definitely wanted some next. First, he needed to clear his plate. Darn, guess he'd have to finish off that meatloaf. He set in eagerly and happily, and Josie kept talking. She really did seem niece, which was not Quincy's usual feelings about people who kept talking to him, but he supposed Jessie-- no . . . Josie? He supposed the older girl was talking to be kind and that wasn't why everyone talked. Lots of people talked just because they liked the sound of their own voice.

It was interesting the way she phrased her question. Like there were two options. He wondered if that were true. In his case, he supposed it was, but what did that say about this girl? Did that mean her home life was so good that she couldn't imagine being happy to be back? Or so bad that of course she was happy to be back? He thought that his wasn't really bad, but he certainly was happier to be back. He could only hope summer was different. He wanted to answer 'both' to the girl beside him, but that . . . wasn't really true. So he answered with some trepidation, choosing the honest route.

"Happier to be back," he said quietly. It was weird to think that he'd missed people. "More to do here than at home at least," he added a little more lightly.

22 Quincy Wright Om nom nom. 1495 0 5

Gabriel Wilson

August 06, 2020 11:03 AM

Returning (Bertie) by Gabriel Wilson

Gabriel was glad to be back at school and back to learning. Well, learning how to use magic anyway. When he was at home, he still spent all his free time reading and learning. He did read fiction as well though, both for the good stories and because you never knew where you'd learn something.

This time, reading had helped distract him as well, especially considering the he had gotten mostly books for Yule. Gabriel knew that the DnD group was having some get together at Ness' house but obviously his parents were not going to let him go to that. Not a coed sleepover with older teenagers who weren't related to him-that being a point his mother had made clear was part of it when the Aladren pointed out that he was allowed to attend sleepovers with Lavender- at the house of people they didn't know. Besides, the second year really wasn't sure he was really wanted there anyway. He didn't think Ness liked him all that much and it was her house.

Still, Gabriel felt like he had missed out. Like they had some big bonding experience that he wasn't a part of and now he was going to be an outsider. He was already totally confused when the adventures had a Muggle component and at least one person had failed to make him feel welcome. Gabriel wasn't entirely sure that Ness hadn't been trying to punish him by not giving him an actual character besides just himself during the adventure that she'd run. Not that he disliked being himself normally, he liked his life and did not suffer from extreme self loathing the way a few of his cousins did, but he just expected to get to be someone else the way he had during the Shadowrun game.Wasn't that part of the fun?

It had been fun anyway though and at least Gabriel had still gotten to be a wizard so there was that. Plus, being the same thing as Gary had been fun because the seventh year was awesome. He had been super nice about answering all of Gabriel's questions without making him feel like he was stupid or a bad person for not knowing about computers and guns. Gary had even been nice about disagreeing with him about Muggles and guns and wands being more dangerous than guns were.

The thing was though, while there were certainly awful hexes and curses and dark magic out there, wands were so much more than just a weapon. There were many spells that they learned that didn't harm people and even ones that healed them. Guns could only kill or wound. However, the fact that most Muggles never used them at all was reassuring though Gabriel still didn't think they should have been invented. It wasn't as if he was all that fond of the Killing Curse either. That also never should have been invented.

However, he was sorry he had offended Ness. He never wanted to make anyone feel bad. That was the way Gabriel had been raised, to treat others with respect and kindness because his mother had an older sister who was horrid to everyone and that had made Mom want to be nicer to people in order not to be like Aunt Pearl-someone Gabriel had been lucky enough to never meet- and impart those values to him and his sister,Piper. It had been just a knee jerk reaction to the thought of something used solely for killing. Obviously there were other ways to kill people. Take knives, for example. You could use them to stab someone but they were also used to cut meat. Knives, therefore, were not inherently bad, they had another purpose. Wands belonged in the same category. Guns did not.

Not that Gabriel had said any of that during DnD. He had simply said something like "that's good" in reply to Gary saying that most Muggles never used a gun and muttered an apology. He did not want to make the situation worse by defending himself. Instinctually, he didn't think that would get him far in this situation.

He wondered if Morgan's and Val's parents had allowed them to go. Part of him hoped not, because he didn't want to be the only one who hadn't been part of things, but at the same time, he wouldn't have wished for them to miss out either.

Anyway, instead of going to the DnD meet-up, Gabriel had had to go to his distant cousin Emerald's wedding. Which was nowhere near was fun as playing DnD. He didn't find balls and parties all that interesting and of course, he'd brought a book. He always brought a book. Everywhere. He even had one with him right now.

The coolest thing was that there was a little boy there, Olaf, one of Emerald's first cousins, who was doing the same thing. Instead of playing with the other small children there, he'd been sitting off reading. They'd actually run into each other when they been sneaking off to do so and sat in companionable silence reading their own books. Even though they hadn't said that much to each other, Gabriel felt as if they'd bonded. He hoped Olaf did too, the younger boy had smiled when the second year sat down, as if recognizing a kindred spirit.

Speaking of which, he wished he could find one here at school. Gary was totally cool but he was so much older than Gabriel. He obviously had friends closer to his age and the younger Aladren doubted that he was the seventh year's first choice for company. People tended not to want to hang out much with unrelated people that were much younger than them. Also, more logically, Gary being a seventh year meant he would be graduating at the end of the year so Gabriel needed to make friends closer to his age.

He looked around for Josie, whom he'd worked with in class last year, and Morgan, who also played DnD, at the Aladren table, but both seemed to already be talking to someone. Instead, Gabriel sat down across from a boy who'd taken some lasagna for his dinner. "Did you know that lasagna originated in Italy in the Middle Ages? The first ever recorded recipe was written down in the fourteenth century."

OOC-Bertie's author told me what he was having.

11 Gabriel Wilson Returning (Bertie) 1481 0 5

Bertie Jackson

August 07, 2020 5:45 AM

Sleuthing by Bertie Jackson

Bertie was glad to be back at Sonora. It wasn’t an annoyance-free zone because Zara was here, but she actually pretty much left him alone. Some of the other students were kind of stupid or immature but on the whole it was a good place, full of interesting people and fun things to learn. Christmas, of course, had been fun too because there were presents and there was good food. He’d got some cool science kits and was keen to see whether his potato batteries would work at Sonora. Whilst regular electronic devices might not work due to all the delicate parts and mainstream power sources being incompatible with magic a potato was… well, a potato. It underwent a chemical reaction when you inserted zinc and copper strips. There was no reason why that energy would not be produced and could not be harnessed. At home, the kit had been designed around powering a small electronic clock which, even though it was very simple, he recognised had more tiny parts and complex electronics in than he wanted present for this project. But he had mini lightbulbs and crocodile clips and those things were just basic, - they were just collections of wires, waiting for electricity to flow down them, and it was hard to see why, if present, it wouldn’t. If it didn’t though, he thought the next most likely outcome would be that everything would explode and that was also cool. The fact that the experiment might involve flying glass meant he’d also brought goggles, and any day where you got to wear goggles was a good day.

He was looking forward to getting to try that out with Quincy, and some other experiments too, as Bertie had bought him a home physics kit. He’d thought that a potato clock that ended up not working might be kind of a rubbish present, after all. Admittedly, his room-mate was more into biology, judging by his slide collection, but… well, he already had what he needed for that. And most of the home biology kits were about plants, and they had a whole class about that whereas magic really only got into physics in order to break it, so Bertie thought it might be fun to do their own experiements with forces and gears and things before they started turning the universe inside out.

Quincy however was busy having water thrown at him by some girl. He really didn’t have great luck, and Bertie thought he should be more careful with who he sat next to. Most girls, Bertie thought, were probably trouble. Josie, he had long since decided, was quite mad, seeing as she associated with Theo, apparently willingly. Bonabelle was very flouncy, but possibly related to a staff member. Mr. Row wasn’t actually a real teacher and just gave them personality quizzes (which were stupid) and made sure they were doing their homework (obviously he was) but he was a staff member and that meant that Bertie probably had to regard Bonabelle’s overly large hairbows with neutrality instead of outright horror. Morgan and Mara he had yet to make his mind up about… Mara said smart stuff in class and so far had no other obvious flaws, such as ridiculous hair accessories.

Morgan was… Morgan was strange. He’d heard her talking from across a room and it didn’t seem like she required the normal levels of human breath support to keep that going. He’d also seen her once fall off a chair in the library, but thought she might have done that on purpose. The library group was her saving grace. They were interesting. Her besparkled presence and tendancy to throw herself off chairs over whatever they were doing had cost them a few points, but he had carefully and covertly worked at a table near by on a few occasions and had overheard what they were doing. It had involved hacking. Both computer and literal. They were playing pretend, but it involved punching things with swords and doing math. Bertie was intrigued, even if there had subsequently been a yucky Romeo and Juliet (but gay) theme (it wasn’t the ‘but gay’ that made it yucky, just the general romance and leading with that as a theme when stabbing was a valid option) and then a Greek thing with some really obvious puzzles. But they had at least got to smash up a dragon in that one. He wasn’t totally sure what the game was. He was guessing it was something non-magical, both because it had involved some pretty detailed knowledge of non-magical technology, and because its version of that was way more accurate than its version of magic. He had not deigned to ask his mother what it might be because he could figure it out for himself, and she probably didn’t know anyway. This seemed like cool non-magical culture, and his mom was so not cool. She thought that things like ‘Dance Dance Revolution’ were more fun than things where you slashed up zombies.

A lot of the library group had shown up at the McLeod Foundation show during break. Zara had told him so. He was torn between annoyance that he hadn’t gone (because apparently he had missed out) and relief (because he wasn’t sure that was the kind of place he wanted to run into them, or that he would have known what to say). Instead, he’d chosen a seat next to one of the younger and less annoying members of the group. Admittedly, that accolade wasn’t a stretch given that Gabriel was competing with Morgan (aforementioned) and Valentine (excessively chipper and Not An Aladren). Gabriel was, so far… neutral. Bertie had not overheard everything the group talked about, just had gathered impressions from some snatches that he had heard. Therefore he did not have much data on Gabriel. Yet.

Happily (it was weird to apply such an adverb to the situation that was arising, and yet it was accurate) Gabriel began talking to him.

“That- that figures,” Bertie nodded, taking a deep breath. Everyone repeated words sometimes. That had not been all that noticeable. He admittedly couldn’t have given an exact date about the invention of lasagne, and was kind of impressed that Gabriel could, though the fact that it came from Italy was obvious. Still, it was a better opener than ‘How was your midterm?’ and he gave Gabriel a small smile. He sort of toyed with the idea of saying ‘Hopefully this one’s not that old’ because that was pretty funny, even if he did say so himself. Except… he didn’t say so himself, or say that out loud either. He took a forkful of food so that he had an excuse for not saying more for a moment, waiting to see whether Gabriel would add something to his plate and an interesting fact about that too.

13 Bertie Jackson Sleuthing 1497 0 5

Josephine Clyde

August 08, 2020 1:04 AM

Scrumdiddlyumptious! by Josephine Clyde

Quincy. What a nice name. There was John Quincy Adams the eighth president of America, in between Monroe and Andrew Jackson. Quincy’s name had history attached to it. She wondered who had named him and why. Her name was a bit boring by comparison. Her parents had always liked the name Joseph and when she was born without the “necessary” Joseph parts they simply changed her name to Josephine. Only her grandmother had called her Josephine, her parents had called her Josie from day one.

“I like your name.” She remarked as she reached for the pitcher, more mindful of her surroundings this time. It wouldn’t do if she spilled something else and it would be so much worse if some of it actually got on Quincy. Way to represent with back to back accidents.
As Josie poured herself a drink her mind did wander a little bit. Not so much that she poured too much, but her cup was definitely a bit on the full side. She brought it to her mouth carefully and sipped it until it sat at a lower point. Bubbles, tartness, and the fizzing sound, it definitely rejuvenated her appetite a little. Her knife bit into the chicken and she cut it up into neat, bite-sized pieces. Spearing one chicken with her fork she dragged it through a bit of gravy and caught some mashed potatoes on the side before lifting it to her mouth. Yum as always.

Josie dug into her food as she nodded along with his answer. She was much happier to be back as well and though the summer loomed in the distance at least she had the spring term to enjoy.

“I kind of know what you mean. Things are weird back home. My father and step-mother are magical, but I didn’t grow up magical. It’s been a bit of a learning process for all of us and my step-brothers are slow learners. Is there anything at Sonora that you particularly like?”

44 Josephine Clyde Scrumdiddlyumptious! 1477 0 5

Gary Harper

August 09, 2020 8:42 AM

And so our journey draws to a close by Gary Harper

As Gary entered the Cascade Hall, he had a jumble of emotions churning through him and didn't have the faintest idea how to sort them out. This was it, he thought to himself. Then he wondered if that was what every seventh year thought when they were in this position. Well, who was he to buck tradition? He strolled around the room, taking it all in and wondered if a certain someone was doing likewise way far away over in Ilvermorny. He smiled like a fool as he also wondered if she was still wearing that fez while doing it. He wouldn't put it past her.

He for one was glad to be out of Aleena's outfit. With as much struggle as he and Parker had getting him into it, getting out had been worse. A mental image of Doctor Korraline assisting him with that operation flashed into his mind which made him grin, blush and shake his head to clear it away before... anyway.... he'd managed the feat by himself, eventually.

Back to business, he was supposed to be prefecting. Yes, making sure all was well and the younger ones were not killing each other. No sorting this time, everyone knew where they were supposed to be... except the girl sitting with Morgan at his table. He was fairly certain she was a Crotalus, and not one of his. Eh, no one else seemed to be bothering her. He could pretend he hadn't noticed and let Heinrich or Ness deal with it if they wanted to, or one of the Crotalus prefects.

It looked like things were ready to get moving along, so he found an empty seat at the Aladren table and sat. Good old Professor Brockert, he thought to himself. That was the last speech he'd hear from the man. Good talk. As the feasting started, he picked out food an looked about the people in the hall. How many of these people would he see again after this year was over? Parker maybe, if he did decide to go to MENTAL. Ness? Heinrich? Evelyn? Hopefully. Evenly had mentioned wondering if MENTAL had a program for her, he wondered if she'd ever looked into that.

Jasmine was chatting away, they'd go their separate ways, and now he thought that maybe that would be for the best after all. He probably wouldn't see Dorian anymore, or Tatiana. Tatiana looked... sad over at the Pecari table. Hopefully nothing was terribly wrong, not that there was anything he could really do about it.

He then began poking at his food, and thought about the upcoming term. He had to finish this term well. He now had another reason to excel at those RATS. He had to do well and get into MENTAL. He was going to have to focus this last term and get this learning done. He couldn't afford distractions, his entire future may well depend on it.

2 Gary Harper And so our journey draws to a close 1404 0 5

Beau Tate

August 15, 2020 9:48 AM

I weirdly can empathize by Beau Tate

CW-Casual and probably insensitive references to suicide

Beau was never terribly happy to go back to school. All that....school work. Vacations were so much better as he tended to genuinely enjoy parties. Well, okay, they could be a little stuffy at times but the Pecari seriously preferred socializing to Transfig theory. He liked drinking champagne and chatting up the ladies. Plus, it was nice to have more options for social interaction. Nothing against anyone in particular at Sonora, but the group of students here was small and that got stagnant. Especially when Beau wasn't particularly close to any of them.

Still, he supposed what came after school was worse. Work . Ugh. There was literally nothing that he found appealing enough to do as a job. Because anything that the sixth year did like would have the fun sucked out of it if he had to do it all day every day. Beau tended to get bored quite easily. And, if he had to work all day, every day, except weekends-he would never ever be one of those boring people who worked weekends, and if he ever was, then that would be the day he walked straight into the Caribbean Sea-when would he have fun? As dull as schoolwork could get, at least he got vacations now. Beau tried his best to pack as much fun into them as possible.

And if a whole summer and a week or two during the holidays-and all that time he spent not studying-wasn't enough time for him to cram fun in, certainly a weekend wasn't either. It wasn't during the school year and it wouldn't be later on either.

It wasn't even as if there was anything Beau felt passionate about enough-well, other than having fun of course-that he would want as a career. And obviously, having fun wasn't a paid job because fun and work were inherently contradictory. Besides, the minute you had to do something, it sucked all the fun out of it and the Pecari got bored easily anyway.

That probably meant being involved in the family business, which was wine. Now Beau was all for drinking it but beyond that, he had no interest in the corporate end or the grape growing end. Beau had never been into Herbology, but Father thought he'd be good at the schmoozing that went on in business. The sixth year wasn't even convinced of this because while he was decent at socializing, he wasn't sure how good he was at getting people to do what he wanted them to do. After all, Beau had thus far failed to convince his father that having a career would be unnecessary for him!

Maybe it was just that Father was as stubborn as Beau was if not more so? Neither was going to give in or convince the other anytime soon. The sixth year was pretty sure that this was going to go on until the day he graduated because he was never going to want to work anywhere .

And that was going to get monotonous too. However, Beau was going to choose these repetitive conversations now over a life time of misery and boredom. It was the lesser of the two evils.

He sat down at the Pecari table across from Tatiana Vorontsov. Headmaster Brockert said a few words, as few of them as possible, it seemed. "Could you pass me the mashed potatoes please?" He asked.

11 Beau Tate I weirdly can empathize 1416 0 5

Gabriel Wilson

August 22, 2020 12:29 PM

All about tomatoes by Gabriel Wilson

Bertie seemed interested in what Gabriel had to say. Which was probably something unusual in itself as most people probably thought he was strange. However, this was never something the second year had noticed as he couldn't imagine that people weren't interested in what he was saying. Not because Gabriel thought he was super important but because what he was saying happened to be super interesting and he couldn't imagine that others wouldn't think so too.

And it wasn't as if Gabriel spouted off facts that could be construed as judgemental of what one was eating like how many calories something had-which was essentially calling someone fat-or that it was otherwise unhealthy somehow or that something about a particular dish was somehow unethical. He'd also learned not to spout off facts that people would consider gross, such as that the average human swallows a quart of snot a day when people were eating. Merlin, had that been a lesson his etiquette teacher was not expecting to have to teach! What was appropriate conversation at various times was something one normally learned but not mentioning disgusting things while eating seemed to be something that the tutor had expected to be common sense. Never mind that these were fascinating topics to discuss. As Bertie was both an Aladren and a preteen boy, he might think so too.

Feeling encouraged though, the second year decided to continue safely down the lasagna path. Gross things could come up at a later time. "Originally, in Italy, the word “lasagna” did not refer to a food. The word “lasagna” referred to the pot in which the food was cooked. It is thought that the word “lasagna” for the pot is derived from the Greek word for “chamber pot."" He went on "And the earliest recipes didn't include tomatoes because tomatoes were unknown to Europe at the time."

This of course, sent Gabriel further down a rabbit hole. He didn't just go down rabbit holes when it came to trivia, he jumped in, both feet, without looking. Like Stanley might with a real rabbit hole. "Tomatoes actually came from Peru initially and were first used as a food by the Aztecs though the largest producer of them today is China. There are 7500 different varieties of tomato grown around the world. They're botanically a fruit of course" Bertie probably knew that. " but legally a vegetable because they were served with dinner and not dessert. New Jersey has tomatoes as their state vegetable while Ohio and Tennessee have them has their state fruit. Arkansas has the South Arkansas Vine Ripe Pink Tomato as both their state fruit and state vegetable."

Gabriel took a sip of his milk. "Anyway, I'm from Nebraska and we don't have a state fruit but our state vegetable is corn, unsurprisingly. And that's only recently become official. We don't really have any official state things, we're boring that way. I mean, Massachusettes even has an official state doughnut, which is the Boston cream doughnut. And Texas has a whole bunch of state foods!"

"Me, I'm having tacos." He continued."Did you know that Americans consume over four billion tacos a year? However,tacos predate Europeans in Mexico and were consumed by indigenous Mexicans. Tacos first appeared in America in the early 1900s. This one is just ground beef but Mexicans sometimes have like, things Americans don't eat, in theirs like pork stomachs." Okay that could possibly be considered gross....but Mexicans apparently didn't think so.

11 Gabriel Wilson All about tomatoes 1481 0 5

Bertie Jackson

September 06, 2020 3:40 AM

I love that show! by Bertie Jackson

Bertie settled back into his food, happy at so easily having got the other guy to go off on several tangents. It was relaxing to listen to, kind of like having a radio on instead of having a conversation - and a radio that had quite an interesting show on at that. Hello and welcome to the random information hour. This also gave him a brief mental image of that show finishing, and the boy either bursting into song or being replaced by an Aladren who was more likely to do so. Not that stations tended to mix talking shows and musical ones - they tended to be either/or. The music ones would occasionally interview musicians, or share information about the records they were playing, and the talking ones would occasionally talk about musicians (usually serious dead ones) and play clips to illustrate what they were talking about, but mostly they just stayed in their respective lanes.

Unlike listening to an actual radio, he had to remember to look, and to nod occasionally to show he was still listening. He even managed a 'neat' when the radio paused to sip its milk. He had known tomatoes were a fruit but the legal bit was cool. That had all sorts of interesting implications. Could you be scientifically one thing but legally another in any other area? He supposed you could scientifically have one set of chromosomes but legally change your gender, but there were a lot more elements to that than just those two things, and a lot of science to back up that trans people were who they said they were, so it didn't necessarily count.

Boston got name checked, but the moment passed quickly, one of my facts rattled off, and Bertie didn't particularly mourn the lack of a chance to declare that to be where he was from. He just filed it away for future reference that he had a state donut, and that Radio found this cool.

Eventually the show ended though, and Bertie considered what to do next - whether to prod a button and get the next episode or to try and...actually talk.

"And mmmilk," he prompted, pointing at Radio's glass.

13 Bertie Jackson I love that show! 1497 0 5

Gabriel Wilson

September 13, 2020 5:15 PM

What about other vegetables? And milk? by Gabriel Wilson

"Oh yes. Milk is the state beverage of a lot of states, though dairy products often tend to be associated with Wisconsin in particular. However, all fifty states have dairy farms, ninety-five percent of which are family owned and operated." Gabriel continued. If Bertie hadn't wanted him to give facts about milk, he probably would not have pointed out what the second year was drinking given that this was fairly mundane thing to mention. Clearly, that meant the other Aladren was interested.

So Gabriel kept talking. "About seventy-three percent of calcium available from food is from milk and other dairy products. To get the amount provided in an eight ounce glass of milk you'd have to eat four and a half servings of broccoli, sixteen servings of spinach or 5.8 servings of whole wheat bread. And who wants to broccoli or spinach at all, let alone that many servings of them?" Gabriel wrinkled his nose. It must really suck to be lactose intolerant or have a dairy allergy. He guessed those people had to actually eat that many servings of spinach or broccoli (or whole wheat bread which was less disgusting than vegetables) or take supplements because calcium deficiency could cause osteoperosis, numbness and tingling in the fingers, lethargy, muscle cramps, poor appetite, abnormal heart rhythms and, if left untreated, death.

Still, the mention of broccoli and spinach naturally prompted Gabriel to begin talking about them. "Broccoli, a source of many nutrients but not a very appetizing source, actually was brought to America by Italian immigrants in the 1800s, though I rather wish they'd left it behind. Weirdly enough however, China is the number one producer of broccoli. The word broccoli comes from the Italian word broccolo which means 'the flowering top of the cabbage.'"

He went on. "China also produces more spinach than anyone else. However, spinach is native to Persia, which is modern day Iran, and was introduced to the Chinese in the seventh century. It came to Europe in the 12th century and in the US in the early nineteenth. The most interesting thing about spinach though is that if you don't eat it fresh, it loses it's nutrients."

"Fifty-six percent of Americans consider spinach their favorite vegetable. Personally, I don't especially love eating any of them but as far as being interesting....it's hard to pick. Like there are so many interesting facts about all of them." There were interesting facts about most things really.

Which Gabriel was more than happy to keep rattling off to Bertie. "And tomatoes aren't the only sort of produce that people think is one thing but is actually another. Bell peppers, avocados and cucumbers are actually fruit too. And some berries, such as raspberries are part of the rose family."

He went on. "And some fruits and vegetables actually contain toxins too. Apples, apricots and peaches all contain cyanide and potatoes have low levels of solanine. Symptoms of solanine poisoning include nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, stomach cramps, burning of the throat, cardiac dysrhythmia, nightmares, headache, dizziness, itching, eczema, thyroid problems, and inflammation and pain in the joints. In more severe cases, hallucinations, loss of sensation, paralysis, fever, jaundice, dilated pupils, hypothermia, and death have been reported. But potatoes don't have enough solanine to cause all that. I'd stil rather eat them than most vegetables. Interestingly, one of least popular vegetables out there is brussels sprouts but they're one of the most healthy. It is packed with vitamins and minerals, has virtually no calories, no fat, no cholesterol, and it even fills you up. That doesn't make them any less compltely revolting though. I'd rather have a low dose of solanine. Potatoes taste so much better."

11 Gabriel Wilson What about other vegetables? And milk? 1481 0 5