Oz Spellman
January 01, 2021 5:57 PM
Tummy ache (tag Professor X-C) by Oz Spellman
Oz hadn’t thought much of the returning feast. More food than you could comprehend had sort of lost its novelty value. He liked meals cuddled up on a small couch instead, and those had now been taken away from him again. He’d picked at various dishes but nothing had really inspired him to eat, and he was pretty sure the pangs he’d felt in his stomach at the start of the meal hadn’t been hunger. He’d also remembered the opening feast, and overloading his stomach when it was already protesting didn’t seem like a good idea. So he just hadn’t really eaten.He had watched Henry for most of the meal. Some girl had been laughing at him. He was pretty sure she had been laughing at not with because for it to be with, the other person had to be laughing too. Henry didn’t laugh. So now there were problems here too, over in the place Henry lived and where Oz wasn't allowed to set foot.
He made his way back to Pecari, muttering some excuse to his roommates about his mom wanting him to check in with Professor Carter-Xavier about some stuff and, with a knock on the still half open door, followed her into her office.
As the door shut behind him, he was aware that he didn't really know what he wanted to say to her, only that he had wanted to run away for a few minutes, and not have to pretend that everything was fine when it wasn't.
"My tummy hurts," he admitted, curling up in the chair by her desk, refusing to look directly at her with tear-prickled eyes. "It's not from dinner," he added, in case she thought he was greedy and stupid and had done exactly what he had done the first time he had been presented with enough food to fill his stomach several times over. "It hurt before that."
He balled himself up in the chair, hugging his knees to his chest, pressing his face against them. If he had remembered the exact definition of a Pecari, he might have worried that he was failing to live up to it. However, he had long since categorised his house as the one where the loud, stupid, impulsive kids went, and concluded that he fit right in. Besides which, there were lots of ways to be 'adaptable.' Oz was good at making himself fit in, at keeping up fronts and pleasing others, at changing tack in order to survive. The description of Pecari didn't say anything about coping with loss, or being able to tolerate having half of yourself ripped away. "I miss my family," he admitted, his voice muffled but distinctly tearful.
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Oz Spellman
Tummy ache (tag Professor X-C)
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Isis Carter-Xavier
January 03, 2021 9:58 AM
A spoonful of sugar by Isis Carter-Xavier
Despite having her own, there were a lot of ways in which Isis didn’t seem to connect with children. Maybe it was the relative lack of youth she personally had experienced, having so much of it stolen by misfortune and circumstance. That baggage was a definite part of what she and her therapist were currently working through, and one of the issues she faced and they identified was the heavy walls she kept around herself, metaphorically speaking. It took a lot to get her to lower her guard, to stop assuming the worst and actually give people an opportunity to prove themselves. Perhaps even more so now, after losing touch with all of her original friends when she first came to Sonora a decade ago. She had let Nathan in, but Nathan was special. How could anyone not trust that sweet, wonderful man?The bond between some of the other professors and their students, however, were something Isis occasionally found herself envying. In her defense, it was slightly more difficult when she wasn’t a regular feature in any of their courses, but Isis was also a Head of House, so she had ample opportunity with at least the Pecari students. Mary, for example, always seemed to have students seeking her out, not for academic advice but for personal connection. And Raine Collindale still visited and wrote to Nathan. Isis often found the students exhausting, but there was still a part of her that longed for that connection, to feel like she was actually making a difference to someone in more than just their curriculum.
Somehow, Oz Spellman seemed to be that opportunity. Isis felt pulled to him, and for perhaps the first time, she was actually glad to see a student wandering into her office. He put himself in a chair and said his stomach hurt. But not from food, he clarified quickly. Isis wasn’t immediately sure what to make of it, because he seemed so much smaller than he ever did before, and was he crying? Then he retracted even further, his face pressed to his clutched knees. “I miss my family.”
Ah, there it was.
Isis felt a pang in her chest. She placed a sympathetic hand over it, and she could feel it beating, perhaps around an Oz-shaped hole. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice genuine and, dare she say it, motherly. “These are really, really big changes in your life, and I can understand how hard it must be. I promise you, it really will get better.”
“Are you able to spend time with Henry here?” Isis suggested, making a mental note to check in with Selina about the Crotalus brother’s activities and general state. “You’re only required to be separated during curfewed hours. If you aren’t doing things together outside of class anymore, he probably misses you too.”
“I know letters aren’t the same, but I’m sure your mother loves writing to you,” Isis continued. As she spoke, she got up from her desk chair and walked around to Oz’s side, placing a hand gently on his shoulder, ready to remove it if the contact was unwelcomed. “Right now, she must have to wait for you or Henry to send an owl so she can use it to return her response letters, but I can make some arrangements for the school to potentially loan her one, or to help her get to the local owlery in your area. Those are sort of like magical post offices,” she added for clarification. Isis wasn't actually sure offhand if the school had any policy of that nature to help Muggleborns and their parents communicate, but she would make it happen, even if she had to buy Ms. Spellman an owl herself. “Do you think any of that would help?”
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Isis Carter-Xavier
A spoonful of sugar
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Oz Spellman
January 03, 2021 9:07 PM
Does that work on shooting yourself in the foot? by Oz Spellman
Oz gave a slight huff as Professor Carter-Xavier said she understood but he swallowed it back down. He remembered that she was like him, her family didn't have magic, and she'd presumably been sent away to a school like this one. Unless she had a twin who she'd been split up from too, he really didn't think she understood, but he wasn't exactly going to broadcast how much he missed Henry, because then she would try to fix it.Apparently, he had unintentionally done so anyway though. What had he-? Oh. He had said 'family.' He had meant to say 'Mom.' And Professor Carter-Xavier hadn't assumed he meant a mom and a dad, and a collection of siblings or extended family that he had left behind. He wondered how much of that was in his paperwork. His lack of a dad probably was. Still, he had to hand it to her, she was good. He wasn't sure whether that meant he should let her in more or be more careful what he said around her.
She was already trying to fix him and Henry, like it was as simple as just hanging out. Like Oz hadn't done everything to tear at and weaken that bond until the only thing holding them together was the same small roof over both their heads. He only had to be separated from Henry for house stuff, like sleeping and eating, but those were the only places he'd been able to be with him.
"That part's whatever," he shrugged. "It's not like we hung out a lot at home. We're pretty different. We had different friends. We got put in different classes sometimes too." But they had had the same mom, and the same bedroom, and the same place to call home. They'd had to do the same homework, even if he'd stopped taking Henry's help.
"It's more about Mom," he lied. "I... I dunno," he shrugged as he evaluated Professor Carter-Xavier's options. Henry wrote lots, and Oz sometimes wrote with him, or occasionally on his own. And Mom wrote back. He wasn't really sure if she was short of owls, it was just weird trying to keep in touch on paper. There could never be enough to make up for seeing someone every day, but at the same time, he wasn't always sure what to say. "It's just not the same, even if we write all the time," he sighed. Professor Carter-Xavier had said as much herself.
He didn't shrug her hand off when she put it on his shoulder. It felt sort of nice. But it sucked, cos it was really nice of her to try and help but he wasn't really sure what would work and he didn't know what to tell her. The world was big and complicated and he didn't know how to fix it even when he was given choices. He glanced up from his knees, deciding not to add 'I'm not crying' to his list of lies because that one was going to be the easiest to catch him out on.
"Did you have to go away for magic school too when you were my age?" he asked. He wasn't really sure what that was gonna do, except maybe mean that she stayed here and talked to him and kept her hand on his shoulder a little longer.
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Oz Spellman
Does that work on shooting yourself in the foot?
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Isis Carter-Xavier
January 09, 2021 1:13 PM
I'd probably recommend a trip to the doctor for that one. by Isis Carter-Xavier
After a moment, Isis removed her hand from Oz’s shoulder. Not because he had shrugged it off (a promising sign!) but more out of practicality and necessity of motion: she grabbed her chair from behind the desk and pulled it over to Oz’s side so she could sit next to him instead of across from him. This was a different kind of talk.He asked about her schooling, and Isis hesitated briefly. Her upbringing was checkered, to say the least, so she wasn’t fully sure how much to tell him. She also didn’t want to explain her public school-esque education in a way that made it seem more appealing to him than Sonora. There were a lot of complicated factors. “No, my school was more like a regular high school, but with magic,” she explained carefully. “My family couldn’t afford to send me away to a place like Sonora. Back then, the magical world wasn’t as receptive to poor Muggleborns, so there was less access to financial aid. A lot of us sorta slipped through the cracks. Plus, my family needed me at home. When I was your age, it was just my mom and-...” Isis paused, tracking dates, “the four of us.” She omitted the series of bummy boyfriends who had phased in and out, as well as the point where four became three. “I was the only one with magic,” she added, again leaving out a detail. She supposed they would never know for sure.
“I think it’s harder on Muggleborn kids, honestly,” Isis stated sympathetically. “The kids who grow up with magic, there’s always the expectation. You have more time to prepare because your whole life, you know it’s coming. For us, we grow up normal, and then a few weird things happen, and then suddenly you’re eleven years old and there’s a letter saying they want you to go to boarding school, and the only way you can communicate home is by letters carried by birds? Of course it’s a lot.”
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Isis Carter-Xavier
I'd probably recommend a trip to the doctor for that one.
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Oz Spellman
January 10, 2021 9:04 PM
No thanks by Oz Spellman
"Oh," was all that Oz said for a minute when Professor Carter-Xavier explained what her experience of magical school had been like. He looked up as she talked, really looking, and listening to every word that she said. "That sucks," he added after a moment, "Not your family or anything," he hastily added, aware that word could be pretty provoking. "Just... Like, I'm not saying your life sucks, but sometimes life sucks, yeah? And it sucks that they - like the wizard school people - didn't wanna help you. They should've," he frowned, trying to figure out why they hadn't. It was one of those things that he just couldn't get though, no matter how much he thought about it. He knew it was true, he knew it far too thoroughly from first hand experience, but he didn't get why people seemed to think that people like him and Professor Carter-Xavier didn't deserve to be treated nicely just because they didn't have as much money.He paused a little longer, reflecting on the rest of what she had said. It wasn't like any of it was a new revelation, but it brought a different set of feelings bubbling up to the surface.
"I know I'm really lucky to be here," he confirmed. "There's a whole bunch of stuff it's good to get away from. Not at home," he added hastily. Some people had problems like that, he knew, and he didn't want Professor Carter-Xavier to think bad things about Mom. Admittedly, not always having food in the cupboards or getting their gas cut off could be described as 'problems at home' but he didn't want Mom to be blamed for anything. "Like, around our neighbourhood and stuff. Mom's always telling us to work hard and get ourselves out. If I really screwed up, would I be sent back to school in my old neighbourhood?" he asked. And, in spite of how badly he missed his mom, it was clear from his tone that this was not something he wanted.
"Yeah," he agreed again, when she said it was 'a lot' again. They were both saying that a lot. It was weird how much that helped, given that she couldn't really do anything to fix it. Except she had said it would get better with time, and the more she proved that she really understood what it was he was feeling, the easier it was to believe that. He took a deep breath, because the confusion and the difficulty processing wasn't just the owls and the weird stuff all around him.
"It's complicated," he tried to explain, "Cos when I start to miss my old life too much, I feel bad. Like, I'm not being grateful for being here when I should be. But then, if I try to think it's really awesome here, I feel like I'm betraying my mom. And it sounds silly, and when I say it out loud I know it doesn't work like that..." But when he had to hold all that in his head by himself, it just kept going round and round, seeming more and more certain and more and more hopeless. "It's like, I miss my mom with my whole heart, and I am excited to be here and I wanna be grateful for it with my whole heart," he explained, perhaps giving a slight hint as to why, in spite of his current lack of adaptability, he had landed in Pecari - there were exactly two levels of feeling, zero or a hundred percent. "But that's impossible cos I've only got one," he stated, realising he had inadvetently circled back to the first problem. He wasn't used to being just one.
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Oz Spellman
No thanks
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Isis Carter-Xavier
January 16, 2021 5:14 PM
Then we'll make do. by Isis Carter-Xavier
Isis was, for the briefest moment, a bit stunned by the sincerity with which Oz seemed to feel for her as well. It was a fleeting feeling, though, because she already knew what a sweet kid he was, when he let himself be. “You’re right,” she agreed. “They should have. But that’s why we do better now.” She could only imagine how different her life would be if she had been able to go away to an accredited institution like Sonora, but she had made her peace with it a long time ago. Now they did better, with kids like Oz. Isis was just proud to be part of a process that used to forget about kids like them.“Worst case scenario, you could get expelled,” Isis admitted honestly. “But just from Sonora. Not from, like, the magical world as a whole. There are resources to help you find a new school. They wouldn’t send you back to Muggle school - magical education is important, and you have to learn to control and harness your abilities. But honestly, I have never seen anyone get expelled, and I’ve been at this school for… longer than you’ve been alive.”
Her kind smile renewed as Oz explained how complicated and conflicted his feelings were. “You’ve got a very big heart to fit all of that inside it,” she said with sincerity. It was something tacky out of context, maybe, but she meant it, and it was evidenced in her tone. “It’s okay to be both grateful and homesick. It’s really good that you’ve got such a strong relationship with your mother. It’s only natural to miss her.” Isis’s own relationship with her mother had always been strained at best, and while there had been improvements over the last few years, she still decidedly preferred the company of her mother-in-law to her actual mother.
“Maybe you should join a club or something,” Isis suggested. “You’ve got to find a way to let yourself have fun. Maybe then you’ll see that it’s not betraying your mom. She’d want you to enjoy yourself, and Sonora has a bunch of clubs. Do you have any hobbies?”
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Isis Carter-Xavier
Then we'll make do.
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