Can't one thing be simple? [Zara] on Herbology

Nathan Xavier

May 31, 2021 7:54 PM

Advanced: Hura crepitans by Nathan Xavier

Nathan welcomed the students into their Advanced Herbology lesson from well inside Greenhouse Two. It was cold outside and warm in here and he much preferred the later to the former. Greenhouse two was the smaller of the two Sonora greenhouses, and the Advanced class had never been particularly large, so he handed back their assignments as they reached the relatively small central work table that sat under several tropical trees today. The trees hadn't been there the last time these students had been in here last week, but they were growing out of the ground and reached for the upper panels of the greenhouse like they'd been growing there for years and years.

If some of the students eyed them with distrust, Nathan could not really blame them. RATS level herbology could do a lot of harm to a person's trust of unfamiliar vegetation and these were planted disturbingly close to the work table for anything they might be studying in Advanced Herbology.

"I will remind you all that we have finished the flesh eating trees unit for this year," he began by way of reassurance, "as well as the unit on Deadly Defensive Vegetation." The current unit was entitled Plants That Start Fires, Explode, or Otherwise Endanger Innocent Bystanders to Reproduce. It was the first day of this new unit, following the two weeks of review they'd done right after midterm to catch them back up to speed after being away, and also so not all of the tediously boring but necessary RATS review would come at the end of the year. He liked to space it out between each unit so as not to cause brain aneurisms in his seventh years.

Anyway, it was the first day of the new unit, and he wasn't sure how many of them remembered what they'd be studying now and be alarmed despite his reassurances. They were definitely in range of any fire, explosion, or attack these trees might care to make.

"These trees are called Hura Crepitans, and have several common names that non-Herbologists use to talk about them. Among them are: the sandbox tree, possumwood, and jabillo. More colloquially, they have also earned the names: the Monkey No-Climb Tree, and the Dynamite Tree. They're native to North and South America, and particularly in the Amazon rainforest, though they grow elsewhere as well. They have spines as a defensive mechanism," he pointed those out, dark pointed spines poking out of the bark of the trunk, "but that's strictly a non-magical defense, and you don't need to worry about them being shot out at you. They're only a problem if you want to climb the tree, which is how it got its Monkey No Climb moniker."

"The more exciting feature of this tree is its fruit." He pulled what looked like a small yellow pumpkin out of his pocket and placed it gently - very gently, too gently, alarmingly gently - on the table between his advanced students. Anyone who chose to look away from the botanical grenade and instead look at the trees would be relieved to see they had red unpetalled flowers blooming off some of the spikes but no pumpkin-like fruits.

"These fruits can grow to be about one to two inches high and two to three inches in diameter." The example one sat on the large end of that range. "When it is ripe, it explodes, and they can shoot their seeds out at about 156 miles per hour or 70 meters per second. Depending on how thick the forest is around them, they can make it up to about 150 feet away. These trees are known to muggles, and though they have observed this behavior, they do not suspect the tree of being magical."

He wasn't entirely clear on how they thought this was happening if it wasn't magic, but the species was prolific enough that it would be a nightmare to try to restrict muggle access to the trees, so he half believed wizard regulators just said muggles did not suspect magic so they didn't need to deal with the headache of that. And that in turn made it much easier and cheaper for Nathan to get a hold of some examples because they weren't on any restricted lists anywhere, so he wasn't about to shake that boat. Muggles did not suspect a thing.

"Pods do need to be dry to explode." Observant students would see that the one on their table was dripping slightly and already had small puddle under it. "It's very loud, and quite dangerous to be around, given the high speeds and sharp edges they break into, and the seed sap is very toxic. We are not going to watch it explode in class today. What I do have to show you is what one looks like after it explodes." He used his wand to summon over a tray with flat seeds and shattered fruit bits. "These are toxic," he repeated again. "Do not touch them without gloves. One of the uses of this plant is as a poison."

"What you will be doing for your practical today is just looking at the trees, the fruit, and the seeds. You may try your hand at drawing, or just write in words about how they look. You may talk amongst yourselves, sharing your observations and thinking of any questions you would like to ask during discussion. Do wear your gloves if you intend to touch anything, not just the exploded fruit, but nothing here is imminently dangerous at this time if you follow that simple precaution." For good measure he cast a watering charm on the non-exploded fruit, drenching it again, just to be sure. "Also, no drying charms, please." These were advanced students. He did not insult them by telling them not to eat the very toxic plant.

"Also, your homework will be about what kind of potions parts of this tree may be used in, so you can start thinking about that, too, if you'd like. We will begin the discussion part of the lesson in twenty minutes. You may begin."

OOC: These are a real thing.
Source: Wikipedia

Subthreads:

Can't one thing be simple? [Zara] by Felipe De Matteo with Zara Jackson

This does not heal. by Johana Leonie Zauberhexen with Sophia Priory

/This/ tree is awesome by Topaz Brockert

1 Nathan Xavier Advanced: Hura crepitans 28 1 5

Felipe De Matteo

June 08, 2021 5:12 AM

Can't one thing be simple? [Zara] by Felipe De Matteo

Herbology had always been Felipe's favorite class and it was definitely the subject he was most passionate about. It had been highly disappointing, then, to make it to advanced herbology and discover that most of the units seemed to focus on deadly plants. He knew this was good information and useful to have but he preferred not to think about how deadly things were that he loved. That hit too close to home and made his insides feel squirmy, not to mention the fact that his enjoyment sitting in the Gardens definitely took a hit now that he was more aware of how easy it would be for there to be something murderous in the vegetation. Los Jardines de Plata never had anything like this that he knew of but then what did he know?

He entered the greenhouse with his classmates and was grateful for the warmth that felt a bit like home even if that was the only thing that did here and stayed by Zara's side. They didn't always work together - they were not in all the same classes now that they were advanced students and they both were aware of the academic importance of working with other students - but for this class, Felipe wanted to. Herbology often included more time doing work together than discussing things together the way some of the more wand-heavy classes did so it was a good chance to talk about things that needed talked about. Even if Felipe didn't want to talk about them.

When the horrifying murder plant (which was pretty amazing and beautiful, even if deadly) was shown to them and they were set on task, Felipe turned to his beautiful girlfriend with a shy smile. "Shall we?" he asked, hoping he already knew the answer.

Zara, he thought, was a bit like the exploding plant. Or perhaps Jessica was. Perhaps all women were. Leonor definitely was. It seemed like any of them might explode at any given moment and it was probably going to kill you when they did. Of course, the particular nature of keeping this plant from exploding was not really something he wanted to think about as a parallel for women because he doubted most of them wanted a personal rain cloud when they were getting upset but the idea still stood. They were beautiful, potentially deadly, and you had no way of knowing if their explosions were meant to be for purposes of reproduction and you were an innocent bystander or if there was something else to it. In all his education on courtship rituals, he'd never actually learned that much about interacting with real human women; he was just glad (and very lucky) that Zara had been willing to show him the ropes over the years. He didn't need to know how to interact with women in that way, just with Zara, which brought him to the topic he actually wanted to discuss.

Once they were settled into the task at hand, Felipe shifted a little and did his best to keep his eyes on his work, only glancing up at Zara's face to check her expression a few times. Eye contact was still practically bred into him but he was learning that there were absolutely good reasons to avoid it sometimes. Like because it was scary.

"It's hard to believe we're almost done with the year," he began. "We'll be in our last year here soon . . And then graduated. And then I think I will need to find someplace to go." Yup, totally all the words he meant to get out in the way he meant to get them out.

22 Felipe De Matteo Can't one thing be simple? [Zara] 1434 0 5

Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

June 08, 2021 10:21 AM

This does not heal. by Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

Johana Leonie had taken herbology largely because of the use of magical plants in healing, and because turning to nature for important things in life was in her blood after the way she'd grown up. She did not like the study of horrible dangerous plants at all. It was scary. She supposed it was helpful to know what sort of wounds people might encounter out in the wild. Wounds from this particular sort of plant, she suspected, would be dreadful.

Satisfied to check her plant out from a safe distance, Johana Leonie retrieved some paper and a graphite from her bag and began making notes and drawings based on what she was seeing. As usual, her notes were primarily in German, with little English notations next to them. These were usually limited to single words that, as best she could, captured the topic of the note. She'd found that this made it possible for non-German speaking students to share her work and ask about specific things based on what they saw in English rather than just having a page of gibberish to them. She still thought they should all just learn German but she was doing a better job at learning English than they were of the opposite so she had mostly stopped complaining and resigned herself to being the bilingual one.

One student seemed to have either noticed her drawings, her notes, or something else on her paper and was peeping at her work. Knowing that this was fine and they were meant to work together most of the time, Johana Leonie offered them a smile. "What have you?" she asked, nodding towards where they might have their own work started (or not - she couldn't see from there). "We compare?"

22 Johana Leonie Zauberhexen This does not heal. 1432 0 5

Zara Jackson

June 08, 2021 4:29 PM

Up to you by Zara Jackson

OOC: CW - use of slur terms for mental health, references to colonialism BIC:

Zara kept her shoulders straight and her face entirely neutral, as Professor Xavier commented that the tree was known to non-magical people but not suspected of being magical? Well, obviously. Non-magical people had had every bit of magical thinking beaten out of them by superstition, religion, and ridicule. Sometimes, at the hands of magical people and their attempts to promote secrecy. It was very convenient to magical society if anyone who believed in them was written off as being a nut. Or primitive. The degree to which magical thinking had been stamped out in favour of white, Western culture was pervasive and unforgiving. So, no, non-magical people probably didn't think it was magical. Duh.

Anyway, nature was so full of fantastic and wild things that actually could be explained by science if you were Bertie. Things that would probably look impossible or 'magical' to magical folk.

Zara wasn't sure why it put such a chip on her shoulder, because Professor Xavier hadn't really said it with any particular tone, and it probably was the kind of fact it was important to know. Still, there was something to be said for only being neutral where actively taking a side would have been approrpiate. Or just...whatever day of the week it was being bleugh.

Then it was time to get down to work. He had said drawings/observations/questions, but what Zara immediately began drafting were answers - pre-emtpive defences in case the question was raised of how non-magical people couldn't realise...

"Yeah, it kinda flew by," she agreed with Felipe, pausing in her notes just long enough to give him a smile. She returned to her page, assuming they would just exchange small talk and smiles until they'd been working long enough to justify really distracting each other. With her definition of 'long enough' probably being shorter than his. She was not, in spite of the unit title, expecting him to drop a sudden bombshell. "What?!" she asked, looking up sharply, the ink pooling on the page where she had abruptly stopped writing.

13 Zara Jackson Up to you 1444 0 5

Felipe De Matteo

June 10, 2021 9:04 AM

Is it though? by Felipe De Matteo

Felipe wasn't sure what he said wrong but he was pretty sure he said something wrong. He tried to back track and review his most recent words but they all seemed pretty neutral. He hadn't even gotten to what he was trying to say yet, so he wasn't sure where he'd gone wrong with them. If he'd been a cat, his ears would have flattened back and his tail would have drooped as anxiety made him feel small again for a moment.

"I . . . yes? I don't want to go back to Los Jardines de Plata," he said, since he didn't know what else to say. He wasn't sure if Zara's response was a call to clarify or a call to stop talking but at least clarifying meant honesty and that seemed like a good choice. It suddenly seemed like the wrong moment to lay everything out on the table but he did want to get on track figuring things out for the future so it wasn't like he had a lot of options; this was a conversation they'd have to have at some point anyway. "I won't have anything to my name now, so I thought I'd get a job someplace. I . . . wondered if you knew where you wanted to be after this . . . and if you wouldn't mind if I was nearby? If you want to see me still after graduation?"

His mind was still spinning, trying to think of all the things he'd possibly done to screw stuff up but that was a long list so he tried to just stop thinking and stop talking and do some listening instead. Listening was usually a good thing but listening and understanding were rarely the same things so then there was thinking to be done and talking to ask questions and it was a whole thing. It would be nice if he could just read Zara's mind but he was pretty sure that would wreck his self-esteem because there was no way she only thought nice things even if she only really said nice things. Whatever she thought deep down inside about him was best left to his imagination and his imagination could take him rather far when it came to Zara . . . He forced himself to concentrate on the moment, which wasn't too hard since he was still mostly confused and scared of everything.

22 Felipe De Matteo Is it though? 1434 0 5

Zara Jackson

June 12, 2021 2:04 AM

Partly, at least by Zara Jackson

Not Los Jardines. That was a pretty good start, and one that Zara had to say she agreed with. It hurt her heart a little, thinking about her trip there after first year. It had felt like paradise, a land that yielded mangoes and spun sugar flowers, where everyone was kind. She couldn’t ever quite reconcile her happy memories with what seemed to lurk under the surface. Sometimes, she almost felt like Felipe must be lying or wrong or… Or there were words that she didn’t want to use, because they felt mean, but where maybe his impression of reality wasn’t actually happening. It wasn’t how she thought most of the time. Leonor herself was enough of a rotten little peach that she wanted him far away from her. Just sometimes though, it was hard to believe in the way Felipe saw the world, and she wasn’t sure whether that was him, or because she just didn’t want it to be true.

Still, if all he meant by his remark was not Los Jardines, that was fine. As he talked, it seemed less and less like he was trying to run away, or at least not from anything other than his home. Not from her.

“Yes, of course I want you around,” she confirmed. “I thought you were saying you wanted to go away from like… everything. Go somewhere on your own.” It was silly, because Felipe had continued to show every sign of worshipping the ground she walked on and adoring her. But then again, maybe it wasn’t totally stupid. Because she couldn’t exactly say he’d never shown any signs of wanting to go off and leave her behind. Even if she hadn’t thought he meant That again, it wasn’t impossible for him to want to be somewhere where she wasn’t. She couldn’t ever trust that he didn’t mean the worst when he said something that sounded stupid or selfish or self-isolationist.

“I’m not really sure what I want to do. I don’t know if I really want to pitch myself into studying without knowing what I really care about. I at least want a really epic summer in between, even if I go to university. Like, taking a road trip or something, How about you?” Admittedly, he’d kind of laid out his plans, but they had been sketchy at best. ‘Like maybe get a job or something’ wasn’t exactly detailed. Unlike with her, a shrug of the shoulders and a ‘not really sure’ didn’t necessarily mean it with Felipe. There was sometimes more to it than the face value remarks that he made, and he needed a little digging into and drawing out.

13 Zara Jackson Partly, at least 1444 0 5

Felipe De Matteo

June 12, 2021 5:21 AM

I'll take partly simple at least. by Felipe De Matteo

Felipe smiled sheepishly, glad that Zara wanted him around. He resisted the urge to lean down and kiss her right there in the middle of class. The smile faded a bit as she explained what she'd thought he'd meant though and he tried not to look horrorstruck as guilt clawed its way up into his throat. He'd never be able to make up for what he'd done and that was never more obvious than when Zara seemed to think he was considering doing it again. "No," he promised quietly. "Not on my own."

His smile returned as Zara continued. "Road trip," he repeated. "With me? I've never . . . what's the verb? Done a roadtrip? Been in a roadtrip? I have never experienced a roadtrip before." He only knew the word at all from hearing it from people like Zara's family and some of the people he'd met when he'd traveled magically before, not from any firsthand experience. The idea of traveling from one place to another and seeing everything between the two places was hard to wrap his head around; he knew Los Jardines de Plata and he knew Zara's family's cultural center, but what was between the two locations? Several borders of varying sizes and some people, sure, but that was about all he could say about it. He knew more about the geography and the topography than the actual lived experience of seeing most places.

He pondered her question though when she turned it back to him. Zara was considering university, but wasn't sure. Felipe wouldn't have minded continued studies except . . . well, maybe he would have. His only real motivation in pursuing academia at school was the fact that he was supposed to; if that was no longer a pressure, would he really like studying? He wanted to learn more about plants and work with plants, but that didn't require a university degree in most cases. Perhaps there were degrees in agriculture or land management he could look into, but he could just as well just go get hands-on experience and work his way up that way. Lived experience was, after all, what he lacked the most. Of course, the lived experience he did have had also taught him that if he wanted a fancy garden of his own someday, he'd probably need a job that paid enough to properly buy a house. Whether that meant he needed to go to university was a bit less clear.

"I'm not sure," he finally admitted. "I think I'd be happy to have a small house with a big garden and just work on it all day, but that does not earn money." He smiled wryly. "Is there much work in gardening or landscaping? Do I need to go to university for that?"

22 Felipe De Matteo I'll take partly simple at least. 1434 0 5

Zara Jackson

June 27, 2021 10:27 AM

Sounds good by Zara Jackson

Zara tried not to smile too much as Felipe verbed his way through the possibilities, settling on ‘experienced a road trip.’ She didn’t want him to think she was laughing at him. She just found it cute.

“I haven’t been on too many, and only ever as a passenger. I guess I have to learn to drive before that’s a real plan,” she acknowledged. It was probably gonna be fine, right? She hadn’t really kept up with flying, and that was more akin to riding a bike, but brooms went faster. A car was kind of like… broom speed, but bulkier. It would work out.

She smiled properly at his plans to just be in the garden. It was a very Felipe thing to dream of doing, and that reassured her that she did know and understand him, and that he was still in there. A nice little house with a great big garden… It sounded good.

“Oh? You seem to have me confused with Mr. Row. What is it? The accent? The eyebrows?” she teased. “I know we’re pretty similar looking, but do try to concentrate, honey.” She stuck the tip of her tongue out at him. “I dunno. I mean… there’s every day gardening all the way up to like… designing major landscaping projects. Gardening’s one of those things that can be as basic and working class or as complicated and white collar as you like. With corresponding salaries, educational, and networking requirements.”

13 Zara Jackson Sounds good 1444 0 5

Sophia Priory

June 30, 2021 9:35 PM

No, no it does not. by Sophia Priory

Sophia had never been all that into doing dangerous things. For example, she thought Quidditch was kind of stupid personally, even though she supported Hilda, and she was not inclined to perform stupid stunts or get too close to something that wanted to harm her. However, from a purely academic standpoint, learning about dangerous plants was kind of cool.

And while she'd never been particularly crazy about doing dangerous things, she had to admit reading about them was a different story. Or perhaps, reading about that were sort of...on the dark side was more accurate. Sophia liked to read about cults and dark wizards and true crime. Not only were they interesting, knowing about those things and how they worked meant having the knowledge, in some cases, to avoid them or fight them if you came across them.

This was just another one of the many many differences between Sophia and her sister. Lydia was terrified of everything it seemed. The first year seemed like she wanted to hide away in a tower and never grow up, some weird mixture of Rapunzel and Peter Pan-and the Aladren sometimes thought their parents would let her. After all, it was their parents' fault that Lydia was so....childish. Sophia didn't mean that her sister was, like, bratty-she was probably nicer and more cooperative than the sixth year was- just that she was...immature, child-like, less grown-up that she had been herself at that age.

And her parents seemed to encourage it or at least not be too bothered by it. Dad had anxiety issues of his own, and it might have been at least somewhat accidental on his part. Lydia might have seen his fears and adopted them for herself, even though neither Sophia nor Connor had done so. On the other hand, Mom had babied and fussed over Lydia, who was the youngest and a preemie and it just seemed like her mom didn't want to let her baby grow-up. Never mind the fact that she had an older daughter who might very well be embarrassed if her twelve year old sister acting like she was five.

Sometimes, Sophia really didn't think her feelings mattered in her family, that what she wanted came last to them. It kind of hurt. Even though she knew her parents loved her and were proud of her, she still felt like she was less important to them than her sister was. Even with Connor, he had that whole first child thing going for him.

Professor Xavier started his lecture on Hura Crepitans , the Dynamite tree, which was a very interesting species although she couldn't imagine why anyone would try to get close to one for any reason. It sounded like a good way to lose an eye. Sophia had to wonder how people were able to get near it for study. She guessed it was because there were people dumb enough to risk that.

Once he finished, they were released, seemingly, to do what they wanted. Sophia had to wonder if any of her classmates would be stupid enough to try and make the pods explode, regardless of Professor Xavier telling them not to use drying charms or if everyone here was above that sort of behavior now. The Aladren hoped it was the latter.Part of her thought that people who tried stupid dangerous things,especially after specifically being told not to, kind of got what they deserved, but at the same time there were innocent bystanders here, herself included.
.
Sophia began taking notes on what she saw and tried to sketch the tree, her eyes occasionally wandering to Johana Leonie's paper next to her. "Oh sure." She replied to her friend."I'm just wondering what sorts of things can be done to combat this tree's...invasivness. It doesn't seem to have much use other than poisons and explosives and it's sort of prevalent and incredibly dangerous. Also, how much information we can really write down when all we're doing is looking at it. It might be better to look it up in a book."

11 Sophia Priory No, no it does not. 1447 0 5

Felipe De Matteo

July 05, 2021 12:58 PM

I like sounding good to you. by Felipe De Matteo

The idea of Zara learning how to drive a car and then driving them around was both exciting and vaguely nauseating to Felipe, so he gave a weak smile and made a mental note to research safety spells he could use on the car later on. No harm in adding some cushioning and stuff, right? Hopefully she wouldn't be offended or take it as a comment on her driving . . . perhaps he'd do it when she wasn't looking. He thought that providing extra safety for Zara when she wasn't looking could be a thing he would enjoy doing his whole life if she'd let him.

He blushed though, trying to pull back his words when she asked about the comparison to Mr. Row. She did seem to be joking though so he sighed a little and smiled sheepishly at her. "You are beautiful and Mr. Row is a shoe," he promised, risking the gaze of his classmates by quickly running the back of his fingers across her cheek. He stuck his tongue out at her too when he dropped his hand, feeling odd with the gesture but it was easy to copy her and so he did. She went on to give him some information though so he nodded. "Perhaps I should talk to the shoe," he decided, more to himself than anything. "What would you like me to be?"

22 Felipe De Matteo I like sounding good to you. 1434 0 5

Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

July 07, 2021 11:45 PM

We agree! by Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

Johana Leonie stifled a sigh. Sophia was kind and sweet and very smart but her vocabulary left a lot of headaches in Johana Leonie's brain and Advanced classes were exactly the sort of place she hoped to avoid headaches. Of course, they were also precisely where she got most of the ones that came from working with English, so perhaps that wasn't fair. She distinctly remembered Heinrich being better at English by this point in his Sonora career and it bothered her a lot to think that she was behind in her language acquisition, but she didn't try as hard as he did to fit in, and didn't have the advantage of a caregiver who worked on it over the summer either. At least, that's what she'd keep telling herself. Instead of sighing, she smiled a bit apologetically - it was her go-to smile when someone used too many words she wasn't very familiar with - and began the process of unwrapping English sentences.

"It is good for house defense, no?" she suggested, adding to Sophia's shortlist of uses for the plant. "Only if you do not forget it is there," she decided after a moment though, smiling with a bit more amusement despite the fact that it was a bit of a horrific notion if she thought too much about it. Sophia's suggestion that a book might be better than observation made Johana Leonie consider a bit harder though and she turned mentally, as she usually did, to her medical learning. Looking at the plant was a bit like looking at a wound; you made observations, took notes, formed hypotheses, and worked with what you already knew to get yourself started. It was only when you were satisfied you'd seen everything there was to see that you began consulting outside sources, because then you knew for sure that you were going to be consulting the right ones and getting the right detail. Of course, perhaps the difference here was that the plant likely had a single entry, whereas a wound might have an entry for the abrasion, for the bone break, for the poison or injury that caused it, for the pain management, and for any number of other facets of what happened. Plants and wounds were fundamentally different in more ways than they were similar and Johana Leonie's headache only worsened as she realized she was probably wasting brainwork in even trying to draw connections. She pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers.

"I want to see like professor. To know what expert sees when they see plant. All I see is plant." And she frowned a little as she looked at her notes which emphasized just how little she really saw.

22 Johana Leonie Zauberhexen We agree! 1432 0 5

Sophia Priory

July 10, 2021 11:52 PM

Great by Sophia Priory

Mentally, Sophia kicked herself. Sort of. She knew she should have at least used some German when talking to Johana Leonie. Even though she knew the Teppenpaw's first language some, her instinctual habit was still to use English because it was her first language. And she didn't know some of the words she had said German. Like she wasn't sure of the German word for invasiveness . Maybe Sophia should have used a simpler word, but truth be told, sometimes there wasn't a way to express certain concepts with easier words. Or there was, but it was harder to figure those out.

Plus, she really didn't want to insult her friend's intelligence by dumbing down her language. Still, was it being more sensitive to others to do it that way? Honestly, where was the line between sensitivity and being condescending? Sometimes, things like that were complicated and Sophia really wished she was the sort of person who didn't care at all. Trying to do the right thing was exhausting when you didn't know what the right thing was.

Actually, it was probably figuring out what the right thing was that really was difficult. There were some people who thought they had it all figured it out-but their version of the right thing was to make people like the Aladren out to be the problem or have them be the ones treated worse than to have everyone genuinely treated equally. Which was inherently hypocritical, because that's what people claimed that they wanted and claimed that they did.

Sophia nodded. " I suppose so ". She replied. Of course, when you lived in the city, even a small one like she did, using such a plant for protection might not be the best idea either because of the sheer amount of people that were around. Also, she was pretty sure that if they had such a tree, neither her sister nor father would ever leave their house for fear of being injured or killed. Not that they needed that sort of defense anyway, but Sophia could see how it would be useful if you lived in a place with lots of dangerous animals.

Thinking of how Dad and Lydia would react to such a tree gave the sixth year another idea for it's use though" It could also be used to keep people inside, like in a prison." Sophia added. " And if it makes you feel better, all I see is plant too."An obnoxious plant that caused more harm than good really. " It takes more training than we've had to see anything more. She reassured her friend.

OOC: Italics are speaking in German

11 Sophia Priory Great 1447 0 5

Topaz Brockert

July 15, 2021 7:28 AM

/This/ tree is awesome by Topaz Brockert

Topaz was literally counting the days until she graduated from Sonora. Actually, she had been doing so for quite some time. Like, since last year around this time. She could not wait to get out of here and never ever have to see Nessa McLeod ever ever again. That moment could not come too soon for the Aladren. Her roommate was the most annoying person on the entire planet, more so than all five of her siblings put together, more than her little cousins-small children,yech- and even more annoying than Uncle Eustace! And she hadn't thought that that was humanly possible.

And even if Topaz was all those things her siblings and cousins said that she was-a monster, a psychopath, evil-that didn't mean that Snotti-Ness wasn't a self-righteous, judgemental hypocrite. Both things could be true, not that she thought of herself as such of course. Terrible people never thought they were terrible and the seventh year hadn't ever had a shred of guilt about anything that she'd ever done. It wasn't as if she'd ever killed another human being or anything like that,so why should she feel bad?Still, regardless of anything that Topaz personally was, that didn't make her wrong about this particular subject.

In all honesty, Snotti-Ness was an insignificant little insect whom she would like to crush and forget about. Her roommate was nothing more than a cockroach-which,come to think of it, was actually insulting to cockroaches, but she couldn't think of a better comparison. She had to constantly herself of this fact, that the other Aladren was not worth the consequences of doing the sorts of things that Topaz really and truly wanted to do to her. She wanted to do things to her roommate that were way worse than she'd ever done to anyone else, including Allegra. Snotti-Ness deserved those kinds of things. However, Topaz didn't want to get expelled or arrested or anything. So, she'd had to settle for doing petty crap, which admittedly was kind of fun but so much less torture than the wretched creature deserved.

The good news was now that it was her seventh year and after midterm she could see the end in sight. She only had about half of a school year to go, which made doing anything more than little petty stuff not worth it at this point. Of course, Topaz couldn't just not do anything at all. That would not be right considering what she'd had to put up with for the past six and a half years, everything she had had to suffer through. She needed to make Snotti-Ness suffer to the best of her abilities. Yes, she had the capabilities to destroy the other Aladren completely-just look at Allegra-but there were limits on what she could get away with.

Anyway, now it was time for Herbology, a far more interesting subject than her crappy roommate. The units that they'd had this year were fascinating and had done much to intrigue Topaz and give her another outlet for her frustrations that wouldn't get her in serious trouble, not to mention her creativity, although taxidermy would always be her first love.

This new unit sounded promising and when Professor Xavier began to speak, she was not disappointed. A tree with fruit that exploded when it was ripe and sprayed seeds everywhere, causing potential harm to anyone in it's way? How positively delightful! In fact, there a small part of her that seriously related to the tree and she was even a tiny bit jealous of it, ridiculous as that sounded. Still, the tree could get away with things that she couldn't.

Once Professor Xavier finished speaking and left them to their own devices, Topaz walked over to get a closer look at the fruit and seeds. After drawing them in her notebook, she went to sit and sketch the tree-and when that was out the way, she started in on the drawing she really wanted to do, making sure to be careful that nobody saw it.

11 Topaz Brockert /This/ tree is awesome 1427 0 5