Painting on Labyrinth Gardens

Autumn Collins

August 27, 2010 6:25 PM

Painting by Autumn Collins

Autumn walked out to the gardens carrying her canvas and paint set. She wanted to pain a picture of the gardens, had been wanting to since last term but she'd been too scared of getting lost out there and not being able to find her way back. Truthfully, Autumn still kind of was. Fortunately that Defense lesson had helped her get to know the Gardens a little bit better, so long as she stuck solely to that path, she should be fine.

She hoped.

But Autumn wanted to paint and do it before the winter weather charms kicked in as the last thing she wanted was to get lost in the snow. The Crotalus was from Wisconsin and she knew how blizzards could be. Her grandfather and uncle Galen had gotten lost in one once and being out in a snowstorm like that was Autumn's greatest fear, after heights, being disliked and disappointing people.

The second year couldn't help feel a little anxious as she walked. The gardens were full of treachery, and risk, which Autumn disliked immensely but also full of beauty, which as an artist she felt compelled to capture on canvas. There was nothing in the world Autumn loved more than painting or drawing and she usually carried a sketch book with her everywhere she went.

When Autumn was sure she had found a place that was beautiful but easy enough to find her way back from, she set up her supplies and began to paint. She was so engrossed that she didn't even notice when someone was standing behind her...

11 Autumn Collins Painting 164 Autumn Collins 1 5

Raines Bradley

August 29, 2010 9:47 PM

Walking by Raines Bradley

Raines had known the theory of deception for a long time - in his house, it was hard not to learn; even Anna and Emma could get by - but he had never tried to put it into more practice than was needed to wheedle something out of one of his parents that the other didn't want to give. Now that he had made up his mind to take the act public, he was both surprised and disturbed by how nervous he was. Or something like nervous, anyway. It was half terror of something going wrong, and half wanting something, though he wasn't sure of what that was.

Not her. Any thought of that which hadn't been dispelled by the comments that had started this had been unceremoniously dispatched by what he'd found out. Not that there had been many thoughts of that to begin with, but...

In any case, in times of stress, his always-limited ability to focus on books and quiet entertainments flew out of the window on Snidget wings, and Raines soon found himself on his feet. He had loved to fly, before Sonora, but it hadn't exactly been an option since. Uncle Charles and Aunt Lila, ever-reluctant to take a stand, had been forced to take one on female Quidditch players before people could somehow link his cousin's associations with a disowned girl to it all, and that had been the end of it for Raines and Emma as well. Just zooming around the Pitch a bit might have been acceptable, but it would let people know there was something a bit off parameter that he liked, and that could somehow be turned into a lever against him. He didn't know how, but it could. He was sure of it. So, when he needed to get away, he now went to the Gardens. There was nothing wrong with a young gentleman taking a stroll through a garden maze, even on those occasions when he lacked a young lady to walk with.

He supposed another year of solitude would be acceptable as well, but he did have to think to the future. Luckily, that did not require much effort, though it did make him feel even more nervous than the other thing did. There was only one girl here he'd consider asking to walk with him for her own sake instead of for purely political reasons, but there were - complications. Such as him having trouble working out how on earth he'd arrange for the deliberate interruption of one of his few chances for solitude. Among other things.

Rounding a corner, he looked up from his dark, shiny shoes for a moment and did a slight double take at the sight of a girl painting in the clearing ahead. It wasn't that unusual to cross other people out here, and sometimes doing strange things, but it always caught him slightly off guard after long stretches in which he saw no one. Since there seemed to be no polite way to move on, he started to approach, and then both saw the painting and recognized the artist.

Autumn Collins. Well-connected. In his House. Had a half-blood half sister, but that was almost common enough to not mention anymore. Her father had a history, though, or so his notes said, so he doubted he'd be made to marry her. There had been some recent thought of her friend Jane, but that had fallen through, to Raines' profound relief. Not only would the Bradleys getting too cozy with the Virginia Careys likely irritate the much closer to home Louisiana Careys, but he had always found how blandly polite and pleasant Jane and her importance-making foster brother were to people they weren't friendly with a little - there was no other word for it - creepy. It was like there was nothing there until they decided they liked you.

"Miss Collins," he stated more than said, surprised and having not noticed the depth of her preoccupation with her work. He found it hard to ever tune out his environment, partially because he was distractible by nature and only mostly trained out of it and partially from paranoia, and couldn't see how others could do so. "Ah - my apologies for interrupting you. I was just passing through. How are you today?"

0 Raines Bradley Walking 155 Raines Bradley 0 5

Autumn

September 01, 2010 1:41 PM

I was lucky to think of a post, let alone a title. by Autumn

The person who'd been behind her turned out to be Raines Bradley. Autumn had never spoken to him-she hadn't spoken to that many people outside of classes-but she'd seen him around the commons and in class. He seemed to be a very proper sort of pureblood, the kind that made her father detest the pureblood society that he'd been born to. The kind Lily would want to take a beater's club to.

Still, her father had told Autumn that she never had anything to worry about from proper purebloods like Raines. Her background was as good as anyone's, considered better than most. The Collinses were an old pureblood family going back to the beginning of this country at least and her mother's family, the Snyders, while not as wealthy, were even older. The Collins family was the most influential in Pennsylvania and the Snyders were friends with all the wealthy influential purebloods in Wisconsin. Nobody could even say much about her sister, because a lot of people had half-blood relatives.

Not that Autumn really cared about these things, she'd been raised to judge people on who they were on the inside and not by the size of their bank account or the purity of their blood. Still, people like Raines Bradley did care about such things and Autumn hated to be judged negatively by anyone. She disliked criticism and conflict immensely.

It was why she tended not to show her artwork to anyone, aside from her family. The only people at Sonora that Autumn might have been comfortable with seeing it at this point were Nina, Jane and Brad. She didn't even want to show it to the other relatives she had here at Sonora especially Chelsea, who had always intimidated her or Tawny, who kind of scared Autumn.

However, it looked like there was no choice but for Raines to see it right now. At least he was being perfectly pleasant and polite to Autum at the moment. That made the second year feel a little better. "Fine, Mr. Bradley, and yourself?"

11 Autumn I was lucky to think of a post, let alone a title. 164 Autumn 0 5

Raines

September 03, 2010 7:41 PM

Better luck next time, I suppose by Raines

"Very well, thank you," Raines lied automatically. Autumn Collins, he was fairly sure, could not care less about his actual state of being, and he was in the habit of lying about that sort of thing even to close family. One of the subjects he had been forced to study most was pureblood history, otherwise known as a long list of occasions on which some idiot found one person he thought he could trust completely and ended up dead or ruined because of it.

Not, of course, that he really thought a second year was all that likely to kill him, but she could mess things up. Their House - in truth, the entire school and half of the alumni community, though Crotalus in particular - was a tangled web of connections, and there was no way to know exactly how everyone knew everyone else, or who owed what where and why. Genealogy helped with working out some things, but even there, there were complications that could not be foreseen. Cousins who did or didn't get along better than usual, relatives who hadn't been formally disowned but were on strained terms with one's parents, childhood friends counted as family even though there was no blood relationship....It was a mess. Always, then, better to keep things to himself.

"You've painted a picture," he observed, feeling like a bit of a moron. Art wasn't a subject he had read about at more length than was necessary to not make a total fool of himself when major time periods came up, and so he was out of his element discussing it on an immediate level. He had occasionally arranged wooden blocks into cities when he was very small, or so photographic evidence suggested, but there ended his artistic talents. Or - he thought at times, though he disliked it - his talents in general, really. "It's very nice. Do you take lessons over the summer?"

The structure of that sentence was wrong. He could tell. He wasn't quite sure why - parts of speech was another thing, one of the many things, he had never learned as well as he should have - but he could tell it was all wrong. He'd made a mistake. He bit his tongue from sheer frustration. Always more mistakes. It was no wonder that progess had never been made.

0 Raines Better luck next time, I suppose 0 Raines 0 5

Jane Carey

September 05, 2010 12:40 AM

Wandering in by Jane Carey

With a dorm group as large as hers making it inadvisable to do anything she wouldn't do in a wider public in Teppenpaw, the Labyrinth Gardens provided Jane with her only chance to get any exercise. Physical activity wasn't one of her great interests in life - the one respect in which she came close to being what her mother wanted - but she'd learned from an early age that a certain level of it was necessary for good health, and that poor health would be detrimental to all of her other attributes. Since she did not wish to lose any of her reasoning or learning capacities, she had memorized one pathway through the Labyrinth Gardens and made taking long, brisk walks along it part of her routine.

It had been difficult at first, because she had been afraid of getting lost, but once she had learned the way so it was possible for her feet to move along it while she thought of something else, she had started to enjoy it more. It was an ideal opportunity to review class material in her head, and possibly the reason why she was beat Edmond at chess a good deal more than she had before their falling out; while he'd been retreating from the entire world into his books, she'd been playing games against herself and keeping her memories reliable without much more paper aid than before.

Jane knew he'd be his best again soon enough, though, and while she liked winning the games, she'd be happy when he was. She hadn't liked it at all when they weren't talking to each other; it had been like being an only child. That was irrational, since she'd always been an only child who just happened to have an almost unrelated other person in her house, but feelings were usually that way, and it had been so long since she'd been the only child in her house that she didn't remember ever practically being one, much less feeling like one.

The odd thing, though, was that her mother seemed just as pleased that she and Edmond were friends again as she was about it. That felt natural, since Julia had brought them both up for so long, but she'd been the one who told Jane that things couldn't be the same in the first place, just after Edmond's real father went away. She also never made up her mind and then changed it, at least not in anything concerning Jane. Even if she didn't actively discourage a less strained relationship between them, she should have, at the very least, reminded Jane about propriety in major public places or something like that. But she hadn't. Not once. Nothing.

She hadn't mentioned it to Edmond. He had always gotten on better with her mother than she had, and he didn't think a great deal of elaborate theories built on tiny little bits of evidence, so he might think she was merely overreacting to nothing. Besides, she didn't want him to think that one of the very few people Morgaine hadn't told him was out to get him was, in fact, out to get him.

She heard the voices just before she turned the corner, but she wasn't sure enough of another way out to feel she would be safe if she deviated from her path to avoid interrupting the speakers. Hoping she wasn't about to cross paths with a romantic couple or close friends or family, Jane slowed her pace to a more ladylike one and made sure she had on one of her more serene smiles before she entered the courtyard. It became a more genuine one once she fully recognized Autumn, but not much; she only knew enough about Raines Bradley for a positive identification, not to be friendly.

"Hello, Autumn," she said. "Mr. Bradley. How are you both today? I'm sorry to disturb you; I've been walking in the Gardens, and I wasn't certain of a way back that didn't come through here."

0 Jane Carey Wandering in 160 Jane Carey 0 5

Autumn

September 07, 2010 5:50 PM

Past recollections by Autumn

Autumn blushed a little as Raines complimented her picture. "Thank you very much, Mr. Bradley. I had lessons when I was younger but don't really take them so much anymore." Her parents decided that art lessons were a good thing for Autumn, both in hopes of refining her natural abilities and bringing her out of her shell.

The former had been way more successful than the latter. Her painting had flourished, though Autumn never really thought they were that great, she often felt others in lessons were better. Which made her not want to go as much. She had always been super uncomfortable there, because Autumn was worried about other students in her class criticizing her artwork, which was something that she was more sensitive about than others.

And mostly they didn't. Except for this one girl,Clarette Du Pont who thought she was All That and was critical of everyone to the point of cruelty. Lily's solution to that one was that since Autumn was too young to hex her, that she should punch her in the nose instead. Autumn had never worked up quite the nerve to do that and knew that she'd just have more problems if she did. Instead she had quit going and her parents had hired a private tutor for her since dealing with Clarette just drove Autumn further into her shell instead.

Of course, her father had had some less than complimentary things to say about the Du Pont family and shortly after Autumn began taking private lessons, the Du Ponts had moved out of the Milwaukee area where she and her family lived. Down to Texas, from what the Crotalus had heard, a place where the Collins and Snyder families had less influence than they did in the Midwest. Apparently, they had offended quite a few families in the area and Clarette's bullying had only been the tip of the iceburg.

But Raines Bradley said her picture was good, and that made Autumn relax oh so slightly since he had always intimidated her. It wasn't personal, really, as most people intimidated the second year.

That's when another, familiar voice broke into the conversation.

"Hello, Autumn," she said. "Mr. Bradley. How are you both today? I'm sorry to disturb you; I've been walking in the Gardens, and I wasn't certain of a way back that didn't come through here."

Autumn's face broke into an even more genuine smile. "Hi Jane. I am doing fine today." She was genuinely glad her friend had shown up. The Crotalus always felt more relaxed and comfortable when someone she considered a friend was around.

11 Autumn Past recollections 164 Autumn 0 5

Raines

September 19, 2010 6:33 PM

I prefer to live in the present. by Raines

Raines nodded as she thanked him for the compliment and reported that she did not take her lessons now. Or at least did not take them often. Why were people so imprecise? It was irritating. "I see," he said. "Ah - my younger sister has also taken lessons. I can hardly sketch a stick man, though."

Which was, of course, only proper. Painting was a feminine accomplishment. It was also not one Emma really had. His sisters were both sadly deficient in useful areas. Anna could at least dress well, but that couldn't be enough to balance out her unseemly refusal to marry. Half the family had offered to introduce her to someone nice - Catherine had even promised to personally examine each candidate for personality as well as his fortune - but she was a funny one, Anna. Emma was, he hoped, merely high-spirited; she could grow out of that, or learn to focus it in a more appropriate way.

He turned a hair too fast at the sound of a voice, but it was only Jane Carey. Raines couldn't say he liked her, but her presence was just as well; it wasn't really proper to speak to a young lady without a chaperone, and while he didn't think two young ladies would pass muster in proper society, it would do for Sonora.

"Yes, good day, Miss Carey," he said. "I'm well, thank you." He did not point out that it was obvious she had been walking in the Gardens, since she didn't have a broom and could not have otherwise physically arrived at their location. "How are you? And your...brother?"

Easily the more important of the two, and, in fact, the only reason why he had to acknowledge Jane at all. Her parents were nobodies even inside their own family; outside it, they would have needed to defer a bit to his father. Raising the favored sibling of the current power in the Georgia branch of the kudzu plot family, though, made them something more, and thus elevated Jane to something not unlike his and Autumn's social equal.

0 Raines I prefer to live in the present. 0 Raines 0 5

Jane

September 19, 2010 10:26 PM

Carpe diem by Jane

She thought she wasn't overly obvious about it, but Jane managed to come to a halt closer to Autumn than to Raines. Perhaps it was having grown up with a very mild father and often milder foster-brother as the only male figures in her life, but Raines made her faintly uncomfortable. He was always proper.

It stood to reason, of course, that he was slightly less proper when he was around people he knew, people he liked. They were both more causal than Raines in the general run of things, but she doubted anyone here would believe her if she told them how she and Edmond sometimes were privately. It wasn't polite to evaluate a person based on impressions only gotten from a distance, but she could never quite shake the habit of doing so. It was a failing she had to work against to be better.

"I'm glad," she said when they assured her they were both well. "I'm also doing well today, thank you. So is Edmond. I will tell him you said hello." She decided not to get into the technicalities of her relationship with Edmond. It was always best to keep it simple when it came to that, and anyway, she veered between specifying and just calling him her brother as well. She imagined there were a good number of people here who were confused on that point.

It was really kind of funny. In all of her books, the - she had to be honest - socially awkward and not overly attractive person didn't succeed until the final act, but she already had to consider that people would be nice to her just because of Edmond. It didn't seem to matter as much here, but considering how holidays were already going, she was already dreading making her social debut even more than she had when it had just been about not being a very graceful dancer or socially competent enough.

"Did you both have pleasant summers?" she asked, though the question was directed mostly at Autumn. She hadn't yet had an opportunity to ask how her friend had enjoyed the vacation. She would have to write more often next summer.

0 Jane Carpe diem 0 Jane 0 5