Giselle Duell
September 15, 2023 10:40 PM
Advanced Divinations by Giselle Duell
Giselle waited for her advanced students to arrive. As usual she knew when they would arrived and in what order. Their latest tests had been laid at the places where they would sit as usual. It was at times like this when she wondered if she had made all of the right choices in her life. Well, no, she knew she hadn't, but most of those were made under duress or deception. That wasn't what was really bothering her right now, she looked over her momentarily empty classroom and wondered if this was what she was supposed to be doing. She had been trained at a world-class academy for a talent few knew how to harness properly, she had a connection to some grand unknown that even fewer could even conceive of... And she was using it to see if Isla, Gus, or Rosalynn would be the first through her door, and where they would sit.It wasn't that she didn't acknowledge the importance of educating young witches and wizards. But, was this really the best place for her? Was there something more or different she should be doing with her talents? What else was there though? Was it just because Valentine wasn't at school anymore to keep her company? Her niece had moved on, as students do, while she stayed behind at the school. Was she just feeling abandoned again? She knew she wasn't. Valentine, Marissa, and Andrew were all there if she needed them... but still...
Making a snap decision, Giselle waved her wand about, reorganizing the room's equipment. Some of the tools which had been tucked away moved out where they could be accessed easily. A fire leapt to life in the hearth at the back of the room. Things just settled down again as her first student arrived at the door to the classroom.
She greeted them as they entered and took their seats. As usual Giselle was wearing another somewhat mismatched output, this time it was an aqua blouse with a full length leopard print skirt. Her hair was held back from her face with a dark purple band, and as always her mirrored glasses covered her eyes.
Once everyone was settled she began. "Today I have decided to take a break from our current topic for an experimental exercise. We will be trying something that is quite difficult, and quite frustrating, but you are the advanced class and we will see what happens." She gave them all her best sweet and innocent smile. It was something she had learned from Valentine. "Today I want each of you to do your best, through whatever means you like, to attempt to divine some information about where you will be five years from now." She had told them often enough that looking into your own future was difficult and vague at best. Usually the best one could hope to achieve was some odd symbolism that only made sense once the time had passed. "Keep in mind all that we have discussed on this concept previously, and don't worry about it to much. I'm really just quite curious to see what sorts of results you all may get. As always if you have questions, I am here to help. You may begin."
Subthreads: Why do you hate me? by Xavier Lundstrom with Constance Melcher
Arriving at my designated time to my designated place (tag Isla) by Rosalynn Tellerman with Isla Brockert
Waiting for the future to arrive by Amethyst Brockert with Tommy Jamison
2
Giselle Duell
Advanced Divinations
1517
1
5
Amethyst Brockert
October 14, 2023 1:08 PM
Waiting for the future to arrive by Amethyst Brockert
Amethyst still felt miserable and did not feel like doing anything, which included going to class. However, it wasn’t as if she could skip them as she would then be in real trouble and possibly not get on the Head Student ballot. She could not take that chance. More than almost anything, the Crotalus wanted to attain that honor. Maybe not everyone was her close friend, but at least that would mean that they believed she could do the job and more importantly, liked her.Because it had to be both. You could be incredibly capable of performing a job, but if it was something that people were voting on,those people also had to like you. People, especially people around Amethyst's age, didn’t vote for people they didn’t like, and they were also inclined to vote for their friends. At the moment, she obviously felt short of those so she was a bit worried. Hopefully Alexei would vote for her though.
There was also the fact that most people were inclined to vote for themselves, so right there, Amethyst had to worry that if all the girls in her class did so, and also felt-as she did, so she couldn’t blame them for this-it should be one male and one female student regardless of what the new rules were. Even though she would technically be competing against Alexei, Hans and Xavier, she didn’t actually think too many people were going to just pick two boys.
So, the boys and the fifth years were the ones that Amethyst most had to convince. Although it was entirely possible that Lydia and Connie would either not want the position and/or not believe there needed to be both male and female representation in student leadership, especially when there were already male prefects and there would be at least one more next year, since Fortune Ardovini was the lone fourth year Pecari.
Lydia and Connie also didn’t seem to be friendly with the other candidates, as the former mostly seemed to only be friends with Christopher’s friend Verdillia and the people Amethyst had seen the latter around the most were a first year that the Crotalus thought was her brother and Professor Wright, neither of whom were voting in this election.
At the very least, her cousins would hopefully vote for. She had always had this way of getting Christopher to do what she wanted and Liesl…well, that mean nasty manipulative part of Amethyst that she’d cultivated to survive around Mother and Topaz and tried to suppress now, the same part that wanted to make Lydia think that being Head Student would be too stressful and that she should vote for Amethyst instead, that wanted to have Chris convince Verdillia of the same, thought that Liesl should take into consideration what the Crotalus had apparently sacrificed for her.
But, she didn’t want to do that. She didn’t want to be that person, the one that her ex-friend seemed to think that she was. Nor did she want to hurt Lydia’s feelings in order to get what she wanted. She didn’t want to be like Topaz, although her older sister was inclined to hurt much more than someone’s feelings.
Furthermore, sacrificing her friendship with Iris for Liesl’s sake was not even something that Amethyst had intended to do or wanted to do. Obviously. She had simply been honest with the other Crotalus. And actually not even that since she hadn’t spelled out that Hans liked Liesl. Although she hadn’t known that for sure at the time and still actually didn’t, signs pointed to yes Obviously, he hadn’t asked the fifth year because Iris was going with Henry since both those things had happened at about the same time.
Besides, she couldn’t exactly guilt her cousin into voting for her without actually betraying Iris, so even though she perhaps shouldn’t feel loyalty to her roommate now, she still didn’t want to do that.
Anyway, despite the fact Amethyst did not especially want to be here, one good thing about this class was that her former friend wasn’t in it so she felt that she could at least relax a little. Which was probably better for allowing whatever mystical forces that governed Divination to do their thing.
And she didn’t mind the assignment the bit. Unlike Isla, she couldn’t wait to graduate, for obvious reasons that were the complete opposite of why her cousin was less eager. Besides,if she didn’t like what she saw today, she would do all she could to prevent it. All that was left to figure out was what method to use. “What do you think I should use?” Amethyst asked the person next to her. “Tea leaves or tarot cards? Or something else entirely?”
11
Amethyst Brockert
Waiting for the future to arrive
1532
0
5
Tommy Jamison
October 29, 2023 10:04 PM
I'm with you there. by Tommy Jamison
Truthfully, Tommy didn’t really know why he had decided to take Divinations this year other than maybe a whim. He knew he wasn’t going to need it. Soon enough, he would be graduating and moving onto his adult career as a potioneer. For that, all he really needed was, obviously, his Potions grade to remain high, as well as a pretty good mastery of his Charms and general spellwork to give his brews that little extra zest. Still, Divinations was pretty fun, so even though it meant a little more work than he strictly needed, he did like learning, so he had kept on with it.That next step in his life was getting ever nearer, though, and he couldn’t help feeling a bit nervous about the future, even though he thought he had it pretty well planned. So a fairly free-range session of future-seeing did seem like an ideal way to spend an afternoon in class. He was just starting to weigh his options when a neighbor asked him what she should use.
Amethyst Brockert. He didn’t know her particularly well, but he knew she was a Crotalus in the year below him. And her name was Brockert, which meant in some roundabout way or another, she was probably distantly related to his nephews. Tommy felt weird sometimes, being an almost-relative with so much of the school, but his sister Sophie had sure married into a large family. Sometimes he was glad to be from his dad’s second marriage and not the first - he had a lot less pressure from Pureblood society on his shoulders.
“Let’s do tea leaves,” he recommended. “Those are pretty classic.”
12
Tommy Jamison
I'm with you there.
1518
0
5
Amethyst Brockert
October 30, 2023 5:32 PM
I'm sure it'll be brighter than the present, by Amethyst Brockert
Amethyst did not know Tommy Jamison all that well. He was a Teppenpaw who was dating Isla’s friend, Rosalynn and she thought his sister might be married to some distant relation of hers.. Of course, she could never keep all of those straight, if she really cared enough she’d have to ask Father’s first cousin Alessa who seemed to find that all fascinating but the Crotalus didn’t think she cared that much.She really had too much else going on right now to think about it, with her own…social issues. Honestly, Amethyst had never thought that she would have those . She wasn’t exactly a shrinking violet-she had nothing against shy people, obviously she was very protective of Sapphire despite her sister being four years older than her but it wasn’t part of her own personality-and nor was she odd like Isla or Liesl. Amethyst did very well in the society world.
Of course, success in one social setting didn’t necessarily mean success in another. Angelique was obviously proof of that. And obviously, right now her odd cousins were doing better than she was since Isla had her friends and Liesl had Hans. Amethyst had Alexei but she was also having conflict with someone who had previously been her friend and neither of her cousins was fighting with anyone. Well, actually, Liesl “had conflict’ with someone, the Teppenpaw just didn’t know about it.
And Amethyst couldn’t even tell her. Because she didn’t want to make matters between herself and Iris even worse than they already were. Why she had any loyalty left towards the other Crotalus at this point and why she wanted to salvage things was anyone’s guess, but she did still have to spend over a year as her roommate still.
Which she was completely certain would be utterly miserable as it was. If she told anyone, especially Liesl, the problem-and Amethyst had never been especially close to the fifth year, she’d been closer to Iris, she just…saw things for how they actually were-would just be worse. Iris would most likely see it as a betrayal. After all, Amethyst had done all that she could last year to spare her former friend’s feelings and it hadn’t been right. She didn’t need to actually do something wrong on top of it. Maybe if Iris was more like Topaz, she’d warn her cousin to watch her back but then Amethyst never would have been friends with Iris to start with if she was like Amethyst’s sister.
Fortunately, Tommy was a much easier person to deal with, as he wasn’t her ex-best friend who wouldn’t listen to reason and wanted to take her frustrations out on Amethyst because she wouldn’t just do what Iris wanted and tell her what she wanted to hear, her evil older sister or someone she needed to impress so that he’d vote for her for Head Student. Of course the Crotalus usually tried to be as impressive a person as possible, though maybe not in terms of Divination skill where she was no better or worse than most.
Still, her pride did not allow her to show how unhappy she was. How much things really were getting to her. Amethyst smiled at Tommy. “Sounds good to me.”
11
Amethyst Brockert
I'm sure it'll be brighter than the present,
1532
0
5
Tommy Jamison
October 31, 2023 5:50 PM
It'll definitely be tastier. by Tommy Jamison
With Amethyst’s approval, Tommy nodded and went to gather the materials for them both: two tea cups, a teapot of water, a couple loose leaf teas in diffusing pouches, and a paper towel. For a moment, he wondered if the flavor of tea would affect the reading at all, and if selecting one’s own tea was necessary in order to accurately make a prediction. He didn’t want his kind gesture to affect Amethyst’s future.Although technically, if he thought about it too hard, he might have realized that getting someone a drink and affecting their future was sort of his signature move, since it was way back at first year orientation where he had brought Rosalynn a drink, which he had, as an eleven-year-old kid, thought meant that they were dating now. It was silly now, looking back at it, that that was how he and Ros got their start, but, hey, it had worked out. Maybe that was what Divinations was really about. Maybe that was fate.
In any case, he decided not to think about it too much and instead just got two different ones so she could have her choice. “The nice thing about doing tea leaves,” he commented as he returned and began setting the items on the desk beside them, “is that you get a nice beverage out of it.” Tommy held up the two tea pouches. “Do you prefer jasmine or oolong?”
OOC: Operating under the instructions found here, which says, "Loose leaf tea is poured into teacups and drunk until only the dregs remain. Next, the cup is swirled three times with the left hand and turned over to drain. Then the shapes of the leaves left in the cup are interpreted by the diviner"
12
Tommy Jamison
It'll definitely be tastier.
1518
0
5
Tasty is good by Amethyst Brockert
“Thank you.” Amethyst replied. She was not a huge tea drinker, she was more of a fancy coffee type of girl, lattes and espresso and cappuccino. She mostly drank tea in Divination as prelude to reading tea leaves, or occasionally at a fancy tea party though she did like the beverage when she had it. “I think I’ll go with oolong today.” Oolongs often were on the fruitier, more floral side. She preferred sweet drinks to bitter ones. Even when Amethyst had coffee, she never had it black.She considered.what Tommy said. “You’re absolutely right. I’ve never actually thought about it that way. You don’t get that with tarot cards, which is what some of my relatives favor.” Alessa, her father’s first cousin, had taken it up as a hobby at some point, seemingly as a party trick as socializing was…difficult for her. She was that kind of person, like Liesl or Isla, who were kind of strange. Although to be fair to Isla and Liesl, they did okay in settings that were more suited to them, just not so much at society balls
Like both of them had friends at Sonora. Isla had her two roommates and Liesl had Hans. Although the two Tepps clearly had a real connection built on similar interests and just a special bond that was indescribable and magical, Amethyst didn’t know exactly what the three Aladrens had in common since she knew full well that just being roommates wasn’t enough. Granted maybe that was all that she and Iris had before and it obviously hadn’t been sustainable. Maybe they wouldn’t have stayed friends after graduation anyway. Amethyst wanted to believe that she was the sort of person who would be loyal to her friends even if they were from a different background than her, that she would do everything that she could to keep the person in her life after they left the environment that threw them together. True, she wasn’t a soft fluffy type like Cory or even Isla but she had believed she was the type who’d make the effort.
However, Iris didn’t see Amethyst as loyal. But telling someone that the person they liked probably liked someone else wasn’t disloyal. Which, to be fair, she hadn’t even exactly said, in fact, she had avoided saying that to spare Iris’ feelings. She had said that Hans genuinely liked spending time with Liesl and that someone else would be interested in the other Crotalus, both things that turned out to be true so at least Amethyst had the satisfaction of being right if nothing else.
Even though it still didn’t really seem to be enough. Usually she took delight in that but this time not so much.Not really.
She sipped her tea until it was gone and then scanned her cup, spotting a falcon, the sign of a persistent enemy. Amethyst sighed to herself. According to her tea leaves, it didn’t look like things were going to get better for a while. Although she supposed it could mean Topaz, not Iris. Or it could be about the Head Student election. Maybe someone would resort to a smear campaign against her. Which truthfully also would point to her ex-friend since she didn’t think anyone else hated her.
The Crotalus turned to Tommy. “So, do you see anything good?” She honestly hoped that he had a lot to look forward to. Amethyst was sure that she would someday, but not for a while yet. Still, good things could not come soon enough for her, she hated how they were right now.
11
Amethyst Brockert
Tasty is good
1532
0
5