One last thing before we go [Oz] on Pecari Commons

Billy Cobb

November 26, 2022 5:29 AM

One last thing before we go [Oz] by Billy Cobb

Gus had finished up his packing and gone out, Billy had started packing but had gotten distracted. There was no one around, and the room had a nice mirror in it. So he was posing in front of it. His teeth, claws and naturally reddish fur of the red wolf in the mirror were great! This would be a fun summer of running through the woods. He wouldn't even need to set out the traps to catch rabbits this year!

While examining his crouching about to pounce position, his ear twitched toward the door. Footsteps were coming this way. He scampered over and put his nose to the crack under the door. He knew that scent, nearly as well as his own. It was all over this room as well. Oz was coming. His canine teeth bared in a wide grin, he knew he wasn't supposed to tell anyone about this. There were some sort of stupid government rules or something, but this wasn't 'anyone' this was Oz. They'd pretty much started this journey together, even if he had gotten a bit distracted along the way. That wasn't uncommon for Oz, staying focused on things was tricky.

Billy positioned himself by the door so that he'd be out of sight until Oz was in the room and had the door closed again. There he waited, this was gunna be great! The door opened and then closed, and Billy let out a light growl to get his roommate's attention. He crouched and pounced, shifting back into himself midair with a grin in order to tackle his roommate. This was still a bit new, so he went off target, hit the ground nearby and slid into one for the beds laughing. "I did it Oz!" he got out between chuckles, "It worked!" He suddenly sobered up, "Oh, you can't tell anyone though." Then he grinned, "Ain't it dope!"

2 Billy Cobb One last thing before we go [Oz] 1519 1 5

Oz Spellman

November 26, 2022 5:57 AM

Right, yeah, one tiny little thing by Oz Spellman

Once his and Xavier’s families had finished talking, Oz had started the round of saying ‘hi’ and ‘bye’ to teachers with his mom for about five minutes before ‘suddenly remembering’ that he ‘wasn’t really packed yet.’ In about ten minutes, Xavier (whose parents had been dragged to talk to some flying horse lady by his sister) would remember the same thing, and thus they could meet up in the dorms without being seen to sneak off together. It was all totally covert, and his mom wouldn’t guess that he was just making out with his boyfriend instead of packing because a) she didn’t even know he had a boyfriend and b) it was entirely believable that he hadn’t done his packing yet.

So believable, in fact, that it was true, but with the help of magic, it wouldn’t really take him more than a few minutes to shove everything into his suitcase. It wasn’t like he owned a lot of stuff, and some of it he didn’t bother transporting between home and school anyway. He couldn’t brew potions in the holidays, so he never bothered cramming his cauldron or his potions kit in. His clothes could just be scooped up. He had more books than were reasonable, and he would bring those back, and carefully-ish, because the better nick they were in, the more money they got for trading them in second (or by that point third?) hand. He still wasn’t convinced he needed his own set of books rather than sharing with Henry, but seeing as they got supply money from the school, mom insisted on doing things as properly as possible.

He pulled his wand from his pocket as he made his way to his room, ready to zap his packing done. He’d closed the door and was turning to the wardrobe when he became aware of a low growl. What the…? He spun around, just in time to see an honest to goodness wolf leaping at him.

Oz was a fifth year. He had his wand in his hand. He had been trained in combat class for the last five years, and had a range of offensive and defensive moves available at the swish of his fingers.

What he actually did was swear.

Which was lucky, because split seconds later the wolf was… Billy? Oz’s roommate crashed into the bed, and slid down it laughing, whilst Oz stood counting himself lucky that he hadn’t just hexed him or made the seat of his own trousers a brand new colour, as both had been pretty close things.

“What?” he asked, staring at Billy. “What just happened?”

13 Oz Spellman Right, yeah, one tiny little thing 1514 0 5

Billy Cobb

November 26, 2022 7:52 AM

Exactly! by Billy Cobb

The bang and smoke from Oz's wand may or may not have had some factor in Billy missing his target. He didn't recognize the spell or the effects, but it had been somewhat effective. He pulled himself to his feet still chuckling. "Well, I surprised you and then you threw some new spell at me. That was pretty neat, what was it?"

"Oh!" Billy continued with mock realization, "You mean the wolf thing! You 'member when we found that bit in the book about turning into animals? I figured it out!" With that he shifted once more into a wolf. He sat and grinned and wagged his tail for a moment before changing back. "It's pretty cool, right? I had a little help I guess." Billy flopped back onto the bed with an exaggerated expression of tiredness. "It was a terribly long process and annoying as anything. You gotta keep a nasty leaf in your mouth for way to long. That's why I was talkin' a bit funny after winter break. Anyway it's all over now, and it's pretty awesome, right?"

Billy knew he wasn't supposed to say to much about the help he got. But that didn't mean he couldn't offer his own help if Oz was interested. He sat up again and gave Oz a questioning look, "You got any interest in trying it as well? From what I know, the worst that can happen is that you become some weird, horrific misshapen creature." Billy grinned at his friend. "What do you think?"

2 Billy Cobb Exactly! 1519 0 5

Oz Spellman

November 26, 2022 4:30 PM

No biggie by Oz Spellman

Billy was ribbing him about his awesome ‘new spell’ and Oz supposed that was fair enough. They did have a whole class dedicated to fighting off monsters, and it was one Oz typically excelled in. In Defence, when he was expecting something to come at him, he was quick on his feet, and could usually counter it, even if there was an element of the unknown. Apparently, those skills did not transfer to the real world, and the fact that he hadn’t expected to be attacked in his own bedroom had been enough to throw his game wildly off.

“That was me pulling my punches once I realised it was you. You know what they say about messing with spells though,” he said, shaking the last of the trailing whisps of smoke from his wand. “If you wanna be a wolf that lives for a good long time, maybe don’t leap out at people?” he advised, his tone playful even if he was still smarting slightly over how badly Billy had scared him. He was also sure that, had it been him or had he been in on it, he totally would have gone with leaping out cos it was cool. As with most things, it was in retrospect—once something had actually gone wrong or come close to it—that he could see the flaws with the plan. “I nearly unleashed some real nasty stuff on you.”

Oh. The wolf thing. Being glib didn’t suit Billy. His face was way too punchable without him encouraging people. Not that Oz wanted to, they were friends, but he recognized that a weird looking face didn’t want to have a smart mouth attached if it knew what was good for it. Billy couldn’t go with being unnoticeable, so his best move was to go with being funny, but not in a way that undercut the people who could make his life miserable. Oz supposed he didn’t fall into that category, but he still didn’t like feeling like the butt of the joke.

He couldn’t help but stare when Billy transformed. He didn’t want to be impressed. His brain was still trying to chalk it up to being some kind of trick… If there was ever someone who had ‘sidekick’ written all over them, it was Billy. He couldn’t be better than Oz. Because Xavier had literal special powers already, and Henry had always just been better at being alive than him… Oz couldn’t be the only one was just… mediocre, and normal.

“Isn’t that like super difficult?” he asked, when Billy talked about cracking the process. Billy had mentioned ‘long’ and ‘annoying’ but the actual magic involved had to be seriously challenging too. Or they just said it was to stop people trying it. Because if Billy had done it, how hard could it really be? If he had done it. Oz still didn’t fully believe it, in spite of the evidence. But then, after all the stuff that made Oz prickle with jealousy, came an offer that had him sitting bolt upright.

“You’d teach me?” he asked, eyes shining with excitement. Billy might have bragging rights forever for doing it first, but that also meant he’d been the guinea pig, and now Oz could use all his tips and tricks. Maybe that would mean he could get there faster. He held his breath, although Billy wasn’t the type to make offers he didn’t really mean. It was one of his good points.

13 Oz Spellman No biggie 1514 0 5

Billy Cobb

November 26, 2022 7:20 PM

Nope, not really. by Billy Cobb

Billy nodded along with Oz's lecture on safety and such, the smile still on his face because he knew that Oz woulda done the exact same thing to him. That was just how they worked. They were friends and friends did stupid stuff together. After all of that process of doing exactly the right things at the exact right times, he really needed to catch up on having some fun. Now that he thought about it, maybe that's why he decided to show Oz to start with. Well, it would probably make his life easier if his roommate knew about it and was on board as well.

"Oh yeah," Billy responded to the super difficult question. Then hopped up from the bed to head over to his stuff that he should have been packing. "Sure, its..." he paused as he rummaged around for a moment. Then he pulled out a scroll and tossed it to Oz. "It's a bit of a long and convoluted process that has to be done exactly right... or else." Upon examining the scroll, Oz would find the process broken down into steps, written out in a thin spidery handwriting that was clearly not Billy's nor Iris'. "There's some stuff involved that's normally hard to get a hold of, but I may have another one or two lying around." He gave Oz a wink.

"You can take that and look over it this summer. Just don't let anyone else see it." He dropped his voice low, "Apparently the government likes to know about folks that can do this and that don't sound like much fun to me." He resumed his normal speech, "Anyway, if you think you want to do it, just let me know before we come back and I can bring some of the stuff along you'll need that we can't get 'round here easily." He thought for another moment. "I had Iris help keep me on track and rememberin' to do stuff. Got annoying, but I suppose it was good. She's good at that sort of thing. She didn't seem interested in doing it herself though. Think you'd want her help?"

2 Billy Cobb Nope, not really. 1519 0 5

Oz Spellman

November 27, 2022 2:54 PM

Cool by Oz Spellman

Oz caught the scroll, casting his eyes down it. The writing was very wizardy, and it was a challenge to read it. Though part of that may have been that he wasn't familiar with all the ingredients involved. One thing he readily understood were the margin illustrations of twisting, warped bodies, looking like they were in pain as they sprouted animal parts. He wasn't sure whether that was an illustration of it going right or wrong. He didn't ask whether or not the process hurt.

'The goverment are nosy, interfering nogoodniks' and 'this requires a licence and is illegal without one' were two entirely different sentiments. What Oz heard was the first one. That resonated with his memories, pre-Sonora, of not talking to Welfare people who stuck their noses in. It was a different government, sure, but Xavier's experiences had taught him that, in some key ways, they were all the same.

"Yeah, I wouldn't trust the goverment to watch a pet rock," he said, as affirmation that he wouldn't go letting on. This was somewhat undermined by his next statement, in response to whether or not he wanted Iris' help.

"Nah. Got my own Crotalus sibling if I need a human calendar, remember? And he's way less annoying than Iris."

OOC: I'm assuming it's an established thing thst they both agree Iris is annoying and Oz knows he's allowed tosay that without causing offence. If not, let me know, and I can change it to e internal.

13 Oz Spellman Cool 1514 0 5

Billy Cobb

November 29, 2022 6:17 PM

Absolutely by Billy Cobb

Billy really should have packed some of his things up while Oz looked over the scroll. He didn't though, he watched his friend's expression as he took in its information. It was way more fun than packing. Not that Billy made the comparison in his head, packing was not a part of his current mental processes anymore. He was almost certain of the point when Oz spotted some of the more 'interesting' doodles on the scroll.

He chuckled at Oz's assessment of the government's capabilities. From the way Pa and his uncles talked back home, they'd agree with him. He was mildly less sure about Oz's Crotalus sibling, it wasn't that he didn't like Henry it was... well. Oz wasn't wrong about Iris being annoying, but she was annoying because she was bossy and stuff. Billy never got that sort of vibe from Henry, but he supposed Oz knew him better so wasn't going to say nothing. If Oz thought Henry would work if he needed help, then so be it.

"What sort of animal do you think you'll get?" Billy asked 'cause he was curious what Oz thought. "You don't really get to pick, but it's supposed to reflect something about yerself." He was running under the assumption that Oz was naturally going to go through with it, 'cause why not? Then another thought struck him as he glanced around their room. "What do you think about Gus? Think he'd want in? Would it be weird if he didn't know? Iris says that the less folk that know, the better, but..." his voice trailed off a bit and he shrugged. Would they even be able to keep it from him?

2 Billy Cobb Absolutely 1519 0 5

Oz Spellman

December 01, 2022 8:42 PM

And fierce by Oz Spellman

"Something big and tough," Oz said, when asked what animal he thought he'd be. Admittedly, he was only half of each of those things in real life. He wasn't particularly tall, and whilst his muscles we're starting to build from all his weight training and Quidditch practice, he wasn't exactly stacked. As for tough... He hoped other people thought he was.

His mom tended to call him a puppy, but that was only his vibe when he was around her, not in general, and was absolutely not something he was about to share with Billy. Whatever he was, it had to be at least as cool as a fox (which he had to admit was pretty cool).

"Or like... Maybe a puma or something?" he said, trying to think of other big, bitey animals. Wolves sprung to mind too, and would definitely be cool, but it was a little too similar to Billy's.

"Gus is a prefect..." Oz reminded Billy, pulling a face. It was Gus' job to enforce the rules and be sensible. It was a regrettable loss but it was how things were now. "Maybe After I'm done?" he suggested. "They can't take away our powers if they find out later, right? And by then, he'd have less reason to report us. Like, he's meant to stop stupid or dangerous stuff, but by the time it's done, it won't be those things any more." Which meant it was one now, and he was meant to not want to do stupid, dangerous things, or at least try to resist them...

13 Oz Spellman And fierce 1514 0 5