Good news on Labyrinth Gardens

Hope Brockert

October 12, 2011 10:23 PM

Good news by Hope Brockert

Hope was super excited. She had just gotten a letter from Adam-she had a tendency to write her brothers more often than her sisters and Adam was better about writing back than Evan was-announcing that Chelsea had given birth to a girl that she and Julian had named Arianna Cecily and that Hope was an aunt .

Of course, because Chelsea and Julian were still hiding out from Fallon and her family, Hope probably would not get to spend much time with her niece which made her kind of sad. The second year loved babies and wanted to be a good aunt to Arianna.

She wasn't entirely sure that her mom wouldn't feel bad as well. Hope knew her mom would love to be a grandmother, just as she loved being a mother. The Teppenpaw wished that Fallon and Aunt Dorothea would just let it go. Oh, it was wrong to steal someone's fiance and Hope could certainly understand why Fallon would be upset by that but Julian didn't love Fallon, he loved Chelsea and they belonged together. And Hope just wanted her sister and niece to come home so that she and her mother could spend time with them.

Truthfully, the Teppenpaw sort of admired her older sister. Chelsea had done wrong, because Julian had been engaged to their cousin but it was in the name of true love so how wrong could it be? Hope dreamed of finding it herself, of just running off and eloping with the man she loved if it wasn't whom her great-grandfather chose for her. The second year wanted someone who made her happy, like what her parents and Chelsea and Kaylie all had. Hope didn't want to be like Aunt Rosemary. Uncle Liam was the only person in the world that the Teppenpaw considered bad, though Fallon and Aunt Dorothea were not very nice either. Nor was Fallon's brother Damian but Hope didn't think Damian,at least, was evil. He just hadn't been very nice to Adam when the two were younger.

She didn't want to believe anyone was bad, especially anyone related to her by blood. (Uncle Liam was just related to her by marriage.) However, if Chelsea needed to hide, it was getting increasingly harder to believe different about her aunt and cousin. There was ample reason for her to hide apparently so Hope was concerned.

Still, right now, she would just try to concentrate on the good. It was a beautiful day and the Teppenpaw was an aunt. Hope decided to just be excited about that instead of worrying about her sister.

She heard footsteps behind her and whirled around, a big smile on her face. "Hey!" Hope gave the person a friendly greeting.

11 Hope Brockert Good news 186 Hope Brockert 1 5

Russell Layne

October 20, 2011 6:50 PM

I'd rather hear that than bad news. by Russell Layne

The Gardens weren’t one of the places where Russell spent a lot of his time, but sometimes, he wanted a walk and one in MARS just wouldn’t cut it. Or one through the corridors; there were lots of times when he liked to walk through the halls and chat with the portraits, but today wasn’t one of them. He wanted some air, and light, and a little more room to think, somehow, and the best place for that was outside in the Labyrinth. Even if some passages were on the narrow side, he knew the whole thing was expanding outward, bigger than his head could quite take in, and that gave him a feeling of space.

It wasn’t, he decided as he took turns on a whim away from the entrance, really a thinking day, though. Just a day when he needed some air. He had thoughts as he walked, but none that stuck around long enough for him to complete them, but it wasn’t the way it was when that made him crazy. He felt content, in a non-thinking way, and found himself paying a lot of attention to physical sensations – the sun on the top of his head and the side of his face, his robes against his arms and legs, the way his jeans bent with his knee as he stepped, the gravel he could just feel through the soles of his shoes.

At some point, he became aware of the sound of other footsteps just ahead of him through all this, and that was a good thing. He still jumped a little when Hope Brockert suddenly turned and greeted him very cheerfully, but not as much as he thought he might have if he hadn’t had some warning that someone was up ahead of him. Once he recognized her, though, he smiled back despite his surprise. Hope was nice, he didn’t mind running into her.

“Hey, Hope,” he said. “What’s up? I mean, how's it going?” Maybe it really was just a good day for a walk, and he wasn’t the only one who had felt it. Maybe a lot of people were out here and they’d all end up having a party. Or maybe he’d just talk with Hope for a few minutes. Whatever. It wasn’t like he had anything in particular to do, at least that couldn’t be put off for a good while and come back to sometime later.

16 Russell Layne I'd rather hear that than bad news. 183 Russell Layne 0 5

Hope

October 24, 2011 5:25 PM

Re: I'd rather hear that than bad news. by Hope

When Hope saw who had approached, she grinned even wider. The Teppenpaw genuinely enjoyed being around Russell. She perhaps liked him better than anyone else at at Sonora, other than people she was related to. Though Hope even liked the other second year more than some of those people too, because she didn't know them very well.

But that she liked Russell better than most was saying something as Hope tended to like most people. Even her dislike of her uncle was more based on family legend then any real personal interactions. They didn't see Uncle Liam or Aunt Rosemary very often, just Marshall and sometimes Lucy, who was Nora's mother. Hope's mother was on the overprotective side and really didn't want her children to interact with such a person.

Come to think of it, the Teppenpaw wasn't sure if her mother was going to have them spending much time with her side of the family. Fallon's parents, Aunt Dorothea and Uncle Henri, weren't too pleased with Hope's parents over the whole Julian situation. Well, technically, they were displeased with Chelsea but of course, Hope's parents were going to stand by their daughter.

Besides, what if Aunt Dorothea or Fallon wanted to harm the rest of them, for retaliation? Hope was really glad to be a Brockert right now, no matter what Great-Grandfather thought of them individually, there was no way their patriarch would let anyone hurt them, just like he would never let any of them be poor.

Hope pushed these thoughts aside though. She didn't like thinking about unpleasant things. She liked to remain happy and positive and would rather pretend such negative things didn't exist. Well, the second year knew they did, but she hated to dwell on them. Right now, there was so much for Hope to be happy about that she didn't want to ruin it by worrying about things that were probably not going to happen anyway. "Guess what? I'm an aunt! My sister had her baby."

11 Hope Re: I'd rather hear that than bad news. 186 Hope 0 5

Russell

October 25, 2011 5:59 PM

It's better for everyone, really. by Russell

Russell was a little startled at Hope’s announcement that she was an aunt. He remembered, as he thought about it, that she had mentioned having a huge family, but he hadn’t put it together that she might have siblings old enough to be married and have babies.

Of course, who was he to have much of an opinion about aunts and uncles? His were all a lot older than him, but he didn’t know if that was the norm. He was an only child, as were most of the people he’d grown up around, and neither of his parents came from really big families. And such aunts and uncles as he had, by blood and by marriage, weren’t really close; Aunt Linda bought him lots of stuff, but by and large, his great-uncles were closer than his actual aunts and uncles, which didn’t really sound completely normal to him. So maybe there was nothing weird about Hope being an aunt when they were twelve or thirteen, depending on how birthdays fell out.

So he smiled and said, “Wow. That’s great. Congratulations.”

It occurred to him a little late that it might not be the best idea ever to just jump to the conclusion that it was great, but Hope seemed excited about it, so that was good.

Less good was him really having no idea how one continued a conversation about babies. He racked his memories, searching for something he’d heard his mom discussing with other women or something. It did happen; his mom had friends. “Niece or nephew?” he asked, since that was the first thing that occurred to him. He thought he’d heard Mom say something along those lines before, talking to customers about their impending grandchildren or things like that. He was just amazed, considering some of the kinds of people who’d come through their shop over the years and still did a lot, that she hadn’t gotten her nose bitten off yet by one of the ones who had to answer ‘girl.’

Well, Mom had been a reporter once, he’d heard, so maybe she was used to talking to people without making them want to hit her. Some reporters lacked that skill, and it did not, from what he’d deduced over the years, go well for them. And it definitely didn’t fit with his idea of her for her not to acquire a really useful skill once it became apparent to her.

16 Russell It's better for everyone, really. 183 Russell 0 5

Hope

October 28, 2011 10:38 PM

Absolutely by Hope

"Thanks!" Hope replied. She was truly happy despite all the bad parts of this. There was nothing at all bad about a happily married couple having their first baby, no matter what the circumstances of that couple getting together were. Hope just didn't want to think about how neither she nor her mom would get to spend much time with Arianna, at least not for now, or that Kaylie might be jealous. Hope's oldest sister wanted a baby so bad and the Teppenpaw hoped to have another little niece or nephew soon.

"Niece." The second year said proudly. Some people would prefer to have a boy, an heir to carry on the family name but Hope was just as happy with Chelsea having a girl. Either way, it was exciting and if they really wanted a boy, it wasn't as if they couldn't have another. Granted, the Teppenpaw thought it was awful when one child was preferred over another by their parents for any reason. Favoritism was just plain wrong.

"Her name is Arianna. Arianna Cecily Tate." Hope added. She had to admit, it was unusual for Chelsea to have her daughter's middle name be after a friend rather than a family member, but the Teppenpaw thought it actually sounded nicer than any of their names would have.

Hope couldn't really think of much more to say on the current topic though. She didn't think boys had much interest in babies. Unfortunately, Hope didn't really know what boys did like. Supposedly, they liked Quidditch and Russell was on the Aladren team, but she wasn't all that interested in the subject herself. Though she did tend to go watch school games, usually rooting for Teppenpaw or Aladren.

So, Hope decided to stick with a more generic subject. "What do you plan to do this summer?" She asked. "Anything interesting?" The Teppenpaw doubted she would be. Her family didn't really do that much out of the ordinary. There would probably a wedding or some other family event. Hope thought Pippa was getting married this summer. That would be nice...she hoped. The second year could remember a few others that weren't. Fallon's, of course, and at her cousin Oliver's, Nina had stood up and announced that he was gay. Hope didn't actually remember that but it had gone down in family legend.

11 Hope Absolutely 186 Hope 0 5