What the...flip? on Pecari Commons

Isis Carter-Xavier

October 19, 2020 1:25 PM

HoH Speech, SA36 by Isis Carter-Xavier

Right, good then. She had done it. Isis had made it through the Feast. She was rather anxious for this whole affair to wind down. After having her son last Spring, she had spent nearly no time away from him, and she quite liked it that way. These opening festivities could wind down anytime now so she could get back to baby Otto. Of course, with Tabitha gone this semester, it meant that the substitute professor would actually have to spend some regular time teaching, which meant not being at home with Otto and Dora, but she tried to push that from her mind for now.

“This way, Pecari first years!” she shouted over the crowd, a Sonorus charm once again rendered unnecessary. She projected well enough on her own.

“Welcome to Sonora,” she smiled once she was fairly confident she’d gathered the entirety of her brood. “My name is Isis Carter-Xavier, and I’m your Head of House. You’ll also see me in class sporadically, as I function as the substitute teacher around here. Just as a little background on me, I’ve been at this school for twelve years, I’m married to Professor Xavier, who teaches Herbology and is the Head of Teppenpaw House, and we have one daughter, Dora, who you will likely see around here and there, and son, Otto, who is only six months old and you’re unlikely to find out and about. .Now, if you’ll all follow me, we’ll be on our way to your dorm rooms.”

From the Cascade Hall, Isis led the first years into the Labyrinth Gardens. She wondered idly if they had passed by the entrance to their Common Room earlier, during their tour, before they even knew about it. Hopefully, if they had, the memory of the happenstance would help them remember the location. “Stick to me,” she said back to them. “And keep in mind that even if the Gardens seem a bit spooky at night, they are perfectly safe. Plus you don’t have to go too far.”

She stopped semi-abruptly beside a suit of armor. Gesturing toward it, she smiled. “This is the entrance to Pecari Common Room. Please keep in mind that its location is supposed to be kept secret from those who aren’t in your House, so don’t spread it around. If you happen to forget where it is or how to get into it, just find me or one of your Housemates, and we’ll help you get back in. This week, the password is Petite Pegasus.”

Immediately, the suit of armor sprang to life and leaped out of the way, revealing the path inside. As she had with the class before, she offered a half-merry, “After you,” to the student nearest her and let them enter in front of her. It was a good way to keep track of them, but it was unfortunate that she therefore couldn’t see their reactions to their new home. Pecari Common Room was tailored to its students. It was a warm place in both temperature and aesthetics, with plenty of comfortable seating, oak tables, and brown and gold decor strewn about. Physical heat was provided by the burning fire, set earlier by a prairie elf. “Welcome home!” Isis beamed.

“That way,” she continued a moment later, her voice returning to more of a tour guide style, “is the bulletin board. Be sure to check it often, because it will have the new password each week, as well as any announcements. Your House prefects are Michael DiCaprio, Evelyn Stones, and Hilda Hexenmeister. The Head Students, Nathaniel Mordue and Caitlin Pierce, are not in Pecari, but they are also excellent resources for help. If you need anything at all, you can go to any of those student leaders. Or me, of course; my office is right over there,” she added with a gesture in that direction, “if you need me. I’ll have a schedule of office hours posted on the door, but if you’re in trouble, I can always be found.”

Isis led the first years across the Common Room to the two identical stairways. “This way leads to the girls’ dormitories, and this way leads to the boys’. If you go down the wrong way, you’ll be re-deposited back out here in the Common Room. Curfew is ten o’clock PM; it’s up to you to go to sleep on time, but you have to be back to Pecari Commons before then. Otherwise, you will be locked out and will have to come to me to get back in.” She had never been very strict on timeliness, either in curfew or with class attendance, but she had gotten slightly more attentive to it since having Theodora. “Does anyone have any questions? If not, you’re free to go explore your new home.”

OOC: Welcome to Pecari! You are now free to post on any board except other houses and the staff/prefect lounge. You may continue your threads at the feast as well as posting here. This does not mean your character is in two places at once, as we operate under fuzzy time, whereby the time passing in the real world is not the same as Sonora - so long as threads are set at different times and do not have an effect on each other, you can be in multiple threads at once. You are not obliged to reply to this post but may do so if your character had questions to ask. Enjoy!

Subthreads:

What the...flip? by Oz Spellman with Augustine Reed-Fischer, Billy Cobb

12 Isis Carter-Xavier HoH Speech, SA36 31 1 5

Oz Spellman

October 22, 2020 1:31 AM

What the...flip? by Oz Spellman

OOC: Normally Q&A interactions would be threaded out. However, it was felt like that might be a lot of short back and forth, and be hard to manage, especially as Isis does not always have a lot of posting time. It was agreed via chatzy to summarise, and the references to other characters' actions are based on their contributions to the discussion.

CW for over eating/nausea but nothing worse BIC:

So, like, if magic was real (and it was) did that mean that wishes came true and stuff? People often said you should be careful what you wished for, and he had never been able to see why cos wishes would be bombass. Except, he was pretty sure that as much food as he could eat and some distance from Henry would have been quite high up his wish list, and now he had both of those things. And a stomach ache.

He hadn't even really been hungry at dinner, but he had eaten anyway because there was food and it had been good and that was such a rare opportunity. Now it was starting to feel like he had a brick in his stomach. He was actually wishing he hadn't gone for a second bowl of ice cream, even though he simultaneously definitely felt that and also couldn't quite process that that was a thing he could possibly feel. But it was leaving that sticky sweet feeling in the back of his throat, and he was just uncomfortably aware of all of his body, and just how much food was sloshing around in there.

That was probably the only reason he felt kinda sick as different teachers came over and to their different tables and, after filing out of the hall more or less together, the blonde teacher took Henry's group off in another direction and out of sight.

He made his way along with their teacher, and two dudes he didn't know. They were heading back outside and she was telling them not to be scared of 'spookiness' which was kinda silly. A vague sense of supernatural unease was definitely not the reason why Oz' mom wouldn't let him go to the park after dark. It had much more to do with the very real social issues which tended to use the rusting swings and scrubbed out grass as a place to congregate and do business. Being told he could go hang out after dark was weirder than any vibe he got from the garden itself.

"For real?" were, therefore, the first words out of his mouth to his new teacher. Followed closely by "It's what?" when she told them the password. "What language even is that? Petty what the f-lip," he muttered, catching the last word just in time.

He went into the room behind the others, trying not to let his jaw drop. His eyes snapped back to teacher lady though as she called it something it definitely wasn't. And for a second, he gave her a look of pure indignation mostly in the form of a sullen squaring of his jaw.

"Yeah, looks just like it," he muttered sarcastically because yeah, obviously a living room that could fit his whole apartment in it was no big deal. He knew there were more people here that at home but still. He felt the food in his belly being twisted around again as he looked at the room that he was meant to call 'home' even though the walls weren't cracking. Even though the couch didn't look like it pulled out into an extra bed. Even though mom and Henry weren't here. Obviously, it was nice and all that. He wasn't going to miss the first two things. But it was weird to think of calling it that.

He tried to pay attention to all the boring crud she said, and gave the notice board a cursory glance and stuff. His eyes shifted to the floor as she said she could be found if they were in trouble. He suspected that it was more likely that he would be in the kind of trouble where she would come and find him, in order to demand what was going on. He tried not to look too guilty as he wasn't in trouble yet and there was no point already catching flack for all the trouble he hadn't even got in yet.

She asked if there were any questions, and his first instinct was to stare at the wall just to the left pretending she absolutely was not talking to him and hoping that avoiding eye contact would mean he could avoid further pressure or being called on. He was sort of assuming they would all just ignore her until she went away cos that was what it was usually best to do with teachers, but then the other two boys piped up. It sort of seemed like one of them for real wanted to know stuff at first, but then they started bouncing off each other too, and one of them seemed to have the same idea as him about sneaking food (even if he really didn't want any of the sandwiches or cookies in his own pockets right now) and was even blatantly showing that to Ms. Carter and Oz didn't want to be the one quiet guy who wasn't joining in cos that was as pathetic as being the nerd who actually asked questions. By the end of it he had asked a mixture of random stuff as it occurred to him ('Do we legit call you that?' when he called the teacher 'yo Miss' and she reminded him it was 'professor'), ridiculous questions that bounced off the other guys (there had been something about hunting quill birds) and actual concerns, sneakily smuggled in as if they didn't matter ('What's the red house's deal?'). He also thought they'd had a pretty fun game of winding up teacher by the end of it, and he felt pretty well distracted by the time Ms. Carter left.

"That was fun," he grinned at the other two boys. "Let's check out the dorms. Race you upstairs!" he grinned, getting the slight head start of being the one to call it. Though as he jogged up the stairs, he was reminded that that wasn't something his stomach particularly wanted right now, and he greeted the person behind him with a big stinky belch and a grin.

13 Oz Spellman What the...flip? 1514 0 5

Augustine Reed-Fischer

October 22, 2020 7:28 PM

Yeah, what that dude said. by Augustine Reed-Fischer

Gus had a bunch of questions, because Jazz had told him that it was good to ask questions. That sounded like the sort of nerdy stuff she'd suggest so he hadn't thought he'd taken it too seriously, but it had apparently sat in the back of his brain and stewed long enough that he did have some questions after all, although he doubted his sister had ever asked any of them. Which was the best part, of course; he'd got a lot of information from Jezebel but she'd never told him whether it hurt to run up the stairs to the girls' dorms and whether it was fun to be redeposited back into the Common Room ('no' and 'no' apparently but he didn't think that the professor lady was a good judge of this). Plus, whatever else people thought of him, Augustine was a curious boy. He wanted to know things. How was he going to play a good fun prank or go on a good fun adventure if he wasn't armed with at least some degree of knowledge? Perhaps that was his siblings' influence again, but he was pretty sure that he was way more fun than they were - or at least had more fun than them, so that was good - and he got to go on way more fun adventures and stuff.

The professor lady went away, possibly a little worse for wear than when she'd started but Augustine wasn't gonna judge, and one of the other boys who was going to be Gus' roommate grinned. It was the sort of grin that Augustine could get behind because it meant something awesome was about to happen. That awesome thing meant a lot more moving than he was expecting though, and he came in solidly last in the race to their dorms. "Wait for me, I'm round!" he called with a hearty, excited giggle. He was pretty okay with being last though because Billy got burped at. "Gross," he grinned, high fiving the dark-haired kid. "You're fast," he told Billy appreciatively, not wanting him to feel ganged up on.

He turned to look around the room, more than a little in awe of it all. He crossed it in a few steps and flopped onto the bed that had his trunk at the end. "This is gonna be great," he said contentedly. "My bed at home isn't this soft, that's for sure."

OOC: Billy getting there before Gus approved by Billy's author.

22 Augustine Reed-Fischer Yeah, what that dude said. 1509 0 5

Billy Cobb

October 23, 2020 6:56 PM

I don't get it by Billy Cobb

Billy wasn't quite sure what to make of the girl he had talked to during dinner. She'd been polite and explained a few things, but he wasn't sure he'd go so far as to say she was 'nice.' Oh well, some people were just kinda like that. He'd mainly been focusing on the food anyhow. Most of it had been fantastic, it was almost like Thanksgiving but with way more variety. He'd tried some of anything he could reach or convince someone to pass him, and he was downright stuffed. Then one of the teachers had come to lead them off to somewhere. He shrugged and fell into step with the other two boys that'd been in the tree-... hedge maze and had their badge things turn brown.

The teacher, Isis Carter-Xavier, rattled off some facts that sort of rushed past him. She was married to one of the other teachers and had kids. Okay. She lead the back outside and Billy felt a bit relieved at that, inside was big and fancy and stuff. He was more used to the plants around him and the sky above. He watched the stars as he followed the others, they looked pretty much the same as always, so that reassured him as well. He was a little surprised when they went back into the tre- hedge maze, and he chuckled just a bit at the teacher's reassurance that they were safe. The night felt calm after an interesting day, it weren't spooky at all.

They stopped in front of a metal man. Some sort of statue maybe? He was the entrance? She said some words that he was gunna have to hear again an the whole statue jumped aside! Was there someone in it? No, wait.. he'd read about this in one of them books! It was a robot! Neat! He headed inside, ready to explore whatever was ahead of them. He wasn't sure what to make of what he found. There was a big fancy room that could have nearly held his entire house back home. "Wow." was about the best he could manage as he prowled about taking in all the neat stuff here. It even had a fire for roasting food, he assumed if you didn't feel like hiking over to the big building. That was convenient.

The teacher welcomed them home and started talking again. She something about a board with tin bulls? That didn't sound right. Then there were names of people he didn't know that he could ask for help. Okay. She had a room, that was good to know. Hopefully he wouldn't get into trouble, but it had been know to happen in the past. The boys and girls had separate rooms, that made sense, it also meant that even if his sister showed up here next year and was in the house here with him, he still wouldn't need to share a room with her anymore. That was great news. Curfew at 10? Billy knew how clocks worked in theory. They'd had one for a little while at home, but then it somehow got mysteriously broken. If he remembered correctly, 10 was pretty late but it wasn't like he was carrying a clock around with him all the time. That would be weird.

Then Mrs. Carter-Xavier wondered if they had any questions. Billy sure did. Apparently the big room where they'd eaten dinner wasn't a washroom and they weren't supposed to run around in their birthday suits there. Also they were going to write with feathers and the dresses were for hiding food. Also, she was 'Professor Carter-Xavier'. She left before he had all of his questions answered, but it seemed that was all she was going to answer at the moment. He'd find he later to ask her some more.

As soon as she was gone, the one boy ran off racing to the dorms! Alright! "Yer on!" Billy shouted after him as he took off in hot pursuit. It didn't take Billy long to catch up, and upon catching up at the top of the stairs his prize met him full in the face. Wooo-eeee did that belch carry a punch. Billy grimaced as he returned the boy's grin, trying to wave away the odor, "That almost smells worse'n a skunk." The other boy had caught up and they'd slapped their hands together.

"You gotta be to catch a rabbit that got outta his trap." He smiled back at the slower boy. That wasn't a nice way to think about them. Stinky and slowy? Nah, that just wouldn't do. "My name's Billy, by the way. Billy Cobb." he stuck out his hand to the hopefully soon-to-not-be-stinky as the hopefully soon-to-not-be-slowy had wandered off to flop onto a bed. "How much do you guys know 'bout all this? I ain't sure I know much at all."

2 Billy Cobb I don't get it 1519 0 5

Oz Spellman

October 25, 2020 5:45 PM

So, that makes three of us by Oz Spellman

OOC: CW Mild name calling BIC:

Oz grinned in appreciation as his belch got likened to a skunk. He didn't actually know what one of those smelt like, though he obviously knew it was bad. Which in this case was good. He got a high five from his other room mate, after all. This stuff was just inherently funny.

"Nah, that's what comes out the other end," he assured the other boy, still smiling. He'd noticed the fat kid calling himself fat, and he knew that trick - the quicker you were to laugh at something about yourself, the harder it was for someone else to laugh at it. Given that his roommates were a fatty and a carrot-top, he thought he was pretty safe, unless other people wanted to make fun of them and lumped him in with them as a target. For now though, they seemed fun.

The kid he'd burped at was saying something about rabbits, which Oz assumed was one of those speech thingies like 'raining cats and dogs' cos people didn't actually chase rabbits. The kid stuck out his hand, and Oz gave him a low, lateral five, before screwing up his hand for a fist bump.

"Oz," he returned. "Nah, this is all new to me too. I didn't know anything until the Net- weird dude showed up and floated potato chips around our apartment," he grinned, excited. He had been wor- told about the snooty wizard kids who were gonna know it all and maybe push him around. And even if he wasn't worried about that, it was better not to be sharing a room with one. Well, he supposed they might be still sharing a room with one but it was two against one if so. Although did kids from magic households already know how to turn people into toads and whatever? One eleven year old against two toads was still not good odds. Had he listened more carefully to the Netflix Cop, or read the school Code of Conduct in his induction folder, he of course would have known the answer to that. "You?" he asked the fat kid instead, meaning both his name and his skill level.

13 Oz Spellman So, that makes three of us 1514 0 5

Augustine Reed-Fischer

October 26, 2020 7:06 PM

The BEST three it seems. by Augustine Reed-Fischer

Augustine laughed because farts were funny and because the red-haired kid didn't seem to mind either. He wasn't one to fart in front of other people because he had too many sisters and too conservative a mother to get away with it most of the time, but this may just be his opportunity to find some . . . spiritual release. He'd save finding that out for another day.

He waved, being too far away to get in on the fiving and bumping action, and introduced himself as well: "I'm Augustine, or Gus. Either way," he said with a shrug that they probably couldn't see since he was laying down. He pushed himself to a seated position. It surprised him some that he seemed to be the most experienced with the magic world, especially after everything Jazz said. It seemed like his sister went through her school experience mostly trying to pretend she knew more than she did, but he supposed that was on par for her personality regardless.

"Mostly new to this," he agreed with a grin of camaraderie. "My sister and my cousin are starting their fourth years here, but no one else in my family is magic and I don't really know that much about it from them. A little though," he acknowledged, not wanting to play himself off too modestly. "She's in Crotalus and he's in Teppenpaw," he added, not wanting either of his new friends to think they were going to be running into older Reed-Fischers/Fischers.

22 Augustine Reed-Fischer The BEST three it seems. 1509 0 5

Billy Cobb

October 28, 2020 4:17 PM

I'm not gunna argue with that. by Billy Cobb

The stinky boy, Oz, hit his hand like he had the slow boy's instead of shaking it. Then it looked like he wanted to punch it? That was weird, but if it was the proper way of things around here… he balled up his own Ifist and did his best to comply.

Billy nodded along and grinned at Oz's story. "Oh yeah? We didn't have no floatin' stuff. He jus showed up and said I hadda go to school." Billy thought for a moment, "Well, at least that wuz the part I heard anyway, maybe he'd been floatin' stuff around for Pa before I snuck under the porch ta listen in."

He wandered over to the bed with his trunk while Gus introduced himself. On the way he decided to use the new greeting the folks around here used, so he stuck out his hand to smack Gus' and then did the strange punching thing as well. "Good to meet'cha Gus," he was going with the shorter version that long one sounded like a mouthful. He then let out a low whistle as he examined his bed. "This here bed's all mine?" There were others around the room, so it looked like everyone got their own.

"Me 'n my sister hadda share one at home." He grinned, "I guess we both lucked out on that." He flopped across the bed, "I'll get to use the blanket now that she can't hog it all!" He looked over in Oz's direction. "How 'bout you? Got any kin here?"

2 Billy Cobb I'm not gunna argue with that. 1519 0 5

Oz Spellman

October 29, 2020 10:40 PM

We'll see by Oz Spellman

"Cool," Oz nodded in response to the introduction, mostly cos that was just a word you said in response to being given information. There wasn't really much cool about being called Augustine, which was weird and a mouthful. He could understand why he went by 'Gus' even though that also sounded pretty odd. Gus. Who was called 'Gus?' It sounded like a little old man name, or like some plucky unrealistic boy from an adventure story from back when people made their own fun with sticks and didn't have TV and respected their elders. Billy and Gus. They both did.

"That's the red one, yeah?" he asked, when Gus mentioned his sister's house. "And the yellow one?" he added, so that it didn't seem like he was too interested in one over the other. "They tell you what they're like, or is that all a secret?" he said, his tone clearly poking fun a bit at the absent professor and all her rules. He wondered how much of A Thing it really was that they had been split up into rival groups. It seemed like a pretty stupid idea to him, in that it seemed a guaranteed way to make them gang up and turn on each other. "They give you the low down on who's got beef with who?" he asked, really hoping as he said it that Crotwhatsit and Pecari weren't sworn enemies. It seemed possible, he thought, the sick feeling returning slightly. After all, it was fairly safe to say he and Henry were opposites in almost everything except outward appearance.

"Well I'm not sharing with you," Oz laughed, slightly more at Billy than with him as he expressed amazement at having his own bed. He felt slightly bad doing it but it was definitely a weird thing to say. Sure, that kind of thing happened. There had been a time when they had moved into a new apartment (new to them, obviously not new in any other sense of the word) and there had been furniture left by a previous tenant. It had included a double bed and he and Henry had shared for quite a while, cos whilst you could find a fair few things on cheap and free listing sites, it was a pain when you always needed to find them two at a time. It had sort of been awesome. It had been like having their own blanket fort every night, and he had been captain of making the pillows into walls and stuff and keeping it all standing whilst Henry curled up in the little cave it made reading extra pages by torchlight. Books were one thing Henry seemed willing to bend the rules for, not that bedtime was the strictest concept in their house anyway. It wasn't like it had ever been hard to whisper across the darkness to each other, but it had been even easier when they were sharing because there just hadn't been a darkness to cross. And Oz had never, ever mentioned it to anyone because it was obviously weird. He almost felt a stab of kinship because Billy was basically admitting to being dirt poor and he knew what that was like. But Billy was admitting it, and talking about all the weird embarassing crap that came with it, which wasn't normal.

"Got what?" he asked Billy. He also talked dead weird. "You mean family?" he asked, not really sure, even from context, whether that was the right question, cos honestly he himself was unobservant but he was pretty sure that even he would have spotted if two of the dozen people he'd spent the afternoon with looked almost identical. He considered whether to straight up lie, just for a laugh for when Billy inevitably ran into Henry. Except he didn't want them to get mixed up. "Didn't know about magic until the guy showed up," he stated, catching Gus' eye with a smirk to see if he had caught on, "No older siblings or cousins either."

13 Oz Spellman We'll see 1514 0 5