|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2011 7:56 am
 The sun was shining brilliantly through the window. Orpheus was seated next to it, as per usual, and found himself paying absolutely no attention to what the instructor was saying about potions. Something about colour-changing? Or was it flavours? Or maybe something that could uncover lost or hidden memories. He really didn't know what it was, and since it wasn't orange, he wasn't paying attention. It was far too nice outside to be cooped up, listening to stuffy old people talk about archaic recipes. In Orpheus' mind, there was disconnect between the recipes which he used to make tasty baked goods, and the recipes which were used to create potions. Even though perhaps that would change.
He revelled in the sun rays which were beaming through the window, and grinned to himself, looking like a happy cat. Idly, he spun his ring around his finger, and he almost fell out of his chair when someone behind him threw something at him. Was that a frog? Orpheus glared behind him, picked it up and threw it. Good thing the instructor was nearly blind. Without a second thought, he went back to looking out the window with longing. So much grass, so much sun, so much music waiting to be played...! His fingers strummed out chords on his desk.
Until he was interrupted yet again. This time, by the booming voice of the professor. He knew it had to be some kind of magic that made it so loud, because there was no way such a small and skinny man was so loud on his own. "Everyone will partner up with the individual to their left to complete this assignment!"
Certainly much to his partner's dismay, he turned to the girl to his right and asked: "What assignment?" Hey, at least she was kind of pretty. Her dark hair framed her blue eyes very well, and they seemed to glow with an inner light. Something about her expression made her look a little... severe, though.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2011 8:51 am
 Scribbling furiously, Falys's notebook slowly filled with notes. Mind Clean, or the Latin Mens Tersus, was a memory erasing potion she'd only briefly learned about in her studies at home. A fascinating little number, it had the power to temporarily erase anything in a person's short term memory - the amount of memory dependent on strength and dosage of the potion of course. She knew from her own studies that it was closely related to the Mens Oblivio, Mind's Oblivion, the only difference being that the effects would become permanent -
Something squelched to her immediate left and she jolted away, nearly bumping into the person to her right. A freshly dead frog, one of their future potions ingredients, plopped excruciatingly close to her left elbow. Furiously, she looked to the row behind her, only to see a line of perfectly innocent and attentive faces. Keeping one ear on the professor, she glared at the row until one of them twitched a smirk, and met her eyes briefly. Lousy miscreant. She jolted again as the frog was once again in flight, catching the center miscreant in the chest and leaving a juicy print. Falys snorted once and smirked evilly as she turned back to her notes.
The return thrower was the student to her left, an apparent laze-about who hadn't appeared to have taken a single note all class period. He just...stared out the window, drumming his fingers. Falys's eyes narrowed but she held her tongue. His grade certainly didn't affect hers, and for all she knew, the young man may even already have mastered the potion. He could be a supremely quick study, or have an eidetic memory, something she herself would kill for.
The professor's sudden announcement brought her back to the task at hand and she immediately looked left, then rolled her eyes as she saw every single person in the class also look left. It would have been comical had it not been completely avoidable by the use of clearer instructions. The person to her left seemed to have gotten the idea, since he was closest to the wall and was thusly staring right back at her. She pulled in a breath to introduce herself, but the breath choked herself in her throat at his words.
"What do you mean, 'what assignment'? We're to prepare the potion, weren't you paying attention?" She ground out the last in frustration, hopes of a hidden genius under his blase exterior quickly dissolving. It was still possible he already knew the potion, right? She'd have no trouble seeing to it he failed for the period if she had to do all the work.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2011 9:06 am
As Orpheus turned to his right, he realized how terrible the instructor's order had been: Everyone, including his assignment partner, seemed to be looking to the left. Actually, he probably would have as well, except he was next to a wall and he didn't think you could be a potions partner with a window. Maybe he could have kept the dead frog. The way that his partner was looking at him made it seem preferable. He just beamed back at her, the sunlight making him cheerful. "Not even a little," he retorted, when she asked if he'd been paying attention, "Alright, well, a little; I did notice the instructor's hair is falling out around his temples." Which was completely useless in terms of the potion, he suspected.
"It can't be that hard, it's just a potion," he added, and shuffled in too close to her. He was leaning into her personal space to read her notes, flipping through the pages. "Your handwriting is..." he trailed off, distracted by something on one of the pages. "Oh, a memory cleanser. We should make this successfully, so we can use it on you when you're done; I'm sure you'll want to forget meeting me altogether," Orpheus suggested with a mischievous smile. Having determined what she was preparing to make, he leaned back in his chair against the window, his arms behind his head.
"Not too difficult at all, for a pretty thing like you, right?" he said, the front legs of his chair leaning off the floor. It was true: sometimes he tried extra hard to be infuriating. And lazy. He liked being lazy. It made him seem stupid, and if he seemed stupid, people asked him to do a lot less and a lot fewer tasks. The ultimate expression of laziness. He wasn't sure it'd work with her, though; she seemed to want to spite him.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2011 11:34 am
Falys immediately stiffened and leaned away as her apparent partner leaned far too close for comfort. Once she realized he was looking at her notes, she immediately snapped her notebook shut. She'd beat him with it before she let him cheat off of her notes. "Memory potions are restricted-use only." She replied tersely, even though she was beginning to agree with the sentiment. An angry twitch developed under her eye, and she willed it away. Perhaps she wasn't getting enough potassium to handle dealing with laze-abouts.
"Petty compliments won't coerce me into doing the work for you." She felt almost petulant enough to nudge his chair back and send him falling. Instead, she opened their ingredients box and set a sprig of mugroot and the dicing knife on a cutting board in front of him. "Dice this up into one-inch lengths. If you refuse to pay attention, you'll have to be happy with following instructions." Absently watching the cauldron for signs of boiling, she lined up the rest of the ingredients they were going to need. "I've no intention of letting you spoil my grade; you'll either pull your fair share or I'll see to it the professor fails just you instead of the both of us."
She wasn't entirely certain she could make the potion on her own, but she would if she had to. Falys knew his type, the lazy ones who tried to compliment and flatter their way out of doing any work. Well, it wouldn't be working on her. All businesses needed workers. Grunts. Nine to fivers. If they had no ambition, the least they could do was follow orders.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 10:56 am
The notebook snapped shut as he tried to look at her notes. All he had gotten was the name of the potion, and naturally he could figure out what it was they were making. "So who's going to tell, if we use one on you?" he asked, with a wicked smile. "I'm not about to get myself in trouble, and you just wouldn't remember to worry over it," he finished. The twitch under her eye didn't go unnoticed. Orpheus was pleased with himself. He stretched in his chair, loosened the star-fastener around his tie and waited for the girl's inevitable moment of lashing out.
"So you'd prefer more elaborate compliments?" he asked. He was surprised she didn't push his chair, but he leaned the legs back down on the floor and looked at the mugroot. He picked it up, sniffed it and said, "Alright, I'll cut this, but I don't think it's all we need...!" he replied. He sliced it efficiently, with his elbows in and straight, an expression of concentration flickering across his face.
It took him seconds. "I'm surprised you gave me a knife," he said. He started picking up other ingredients and sniffing them. "This one," he said, "and these ones too." He had pulled over some strange sort of liquified toadstool which was glowing, and a jar of dragonfly wings. From inside his jacket, he pulled out a little vial filled with something orange and powdered. "Better put some of this in, too," he finished, then leaned forward with his arms on the table, nearly hitting the ingredients.
"Don't threaten me," he finished, with an arch of his brow and a sweet smile, "it makes me uncomfortable." Orpheus played with the knife idly in one hand, etching a very light design into the cutting board. "I'm Dovleac, by the way," he said, using his last name.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2011 3:23 pm
Falys lips pursed as he continued to joke about using the memory potion. At least she assumed he was joking, she had to admit there was no real way to tell. As much as she'd want this cretin erased from her mind, doing so would only put her in this same position next time they were paired up. She'd definitely want to remember how much she couldn't stand him, if only so she'd be properly motivated to find another partner.
She was silently surprised at his efficiency in cutting up the mugroot, and paused in lining up the order of ingredients they were to add. Her hands darted back as he snatched up two of the bottles in the line, proclaiming their use. Shocked into silence, Falys wondered if he actually did know what he was doing and was being infuriating on purpose. When he snatched up the bottle of Stabilized Lava Mushroom, she frowned and opened her mouth to question him. "Are you sure..." She was fairly certain the standard ingredients list didn't call for that. Now that she thought about it, the acidity of the mushroom would react violently with the powdered rushall that came later, unless he had some plan for replacing that as well-
She saw the bottle of dragonfly wings get snatched up as well, and immediately knew he had no idea what he was doing. Combining dragonfly wings with mugroot would require an extensive base that they obviously didn't have time to prepare. She wasn't working with a hidden genius, she was working with an idiot trying to blow the pair of them up. Making a darting grab for the dragonfly wings as soon as he set them down, she looked with distaste at the strange vial he was now displaying. She humphed emphatically and clutched the dragonfly wings to her chest. "I don't know what that is, but I'm quite certain it's not a part of the required potions kit, and also certain we don't need it."
Setting the dragonfly wings as far from him as she could while remaining in their own space, she uncapped their first ingredient and gently poured it into the cauldron. "If you'd like to do something useful, scrape that diced mugroot into the cauldron and start crushing those black beetle wings." The bottle was recapped with a flourish and she primly put the jar of beetle wings in front of him. "I am Credita." She continued quietly and fixed him with a sideways glare. "Your comfort is not my problem. I was merely informing you of the action I will not hesitate to take should you drive me to."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2011 2:25 pm
Was there some kind of curse on this girl? She seemed to be constantly cranky. Orpheus didn't really understand her general irritated demeanor; what had the world done to her, that she felt it was necessary to be unfriendly just because she could be? He was kind of a slacker, true, he'd give her that much. Still, she hadn't really gotten to know him at all. He was probably like that too, though, making judgements. After all, he had thought she was kind of cute. Her personality was extremely prickly, though, and the more he associated her pretty features with that look she kept giving him, the less he thought of her the same way.
Of course, he was good with the knife. Just because he wasn't good a cooking didn't mean he hadn't learned the skills when he was learning how to bake. It's just that while he was learning all the kitchen skills from his surrogate families, he took to the baking: something about it made sense. Baked goods made others happy so easily. Food was different. It was necessary, but in Orpheus' opinion when he was young they hadn't been half as happy when he made a good dinner as when he baked the perfect cake. He started dreaming of glazed strawberries and pumpkin pie with fresh cream and--
"Am I sure? Of course I'm sure!" Orpheus did look quite sure, but it was true that he didn't really know what he was doing. "No, but it would help," he defended his little vial, "It would just make it smell, taste and look better. Presentation is half the fight, you know," he said, reciting a baking rule. No matter how good your food looked, if you couldn't make it look good, who would risk eating it? It was funny how that worked, he thought. Smell was more reliable than sight, but hey, who was he to teach people how to eat?
Orpheus grumbled about the dragonfly wings and crossed his arms over his chest, leaning against the chair again. "Well, what have you done? So far you just played boss. I'd like to see you cut something, sweetheart," he said, his displeased look immediately replaced with a cheshire grin. "Credita. Where's that name from?" he asked. "You're some kinda tense," Orpheus finished, implying something reasonably rude. He leaned forward again and prepared the wings to crush them.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 5:51 pm
Falys sniffed and snatched up the bottle of lavender stems. They weren't due for another two steps, but she certainly wasn't going to allow him to imply that she wasn't pulling her fair share. She'd started the cauldron, hadn't she? And she'd stopped him from blowing the pair of them up, that had to count for something. Lips pursed, she gave him a tight look out of the corner of her eye as she began to dice the stems into precise half-inch lengths. Maybe she wasn't as fast as he was, but she'd certainly be just as accurate. Dovleac was confident to be sure, and if it hadn't been for the dragonfly wings, she might have actually believed he knew what he was doing. He didn't seem particularly incompetent, just infuriating.
His ridiculous little terms of endearment certainly didn't help his case either.
"Potions are graded on efficacy. Not...presentation. Someone injured doesn't care if the potion that will heal them looks pretty, they care if it works. Someone suffering from..." She struggled to think of another example while maintaining focus on the stems. "Suffering from insomnia doesn't care if a bottle of Deep Sleep tastes nice; so long as it works."
The orderly task of cutting the stems calmed her somewhat, and she moved them into a double row at the top of the cutting board. Tongue visibly in cheek, she chose to ignore his implication about her state of mind. Even if she was, it was all his fault anyway. "I'm from Lumena. Just outside of town. Yourself?" The return inquiry was tacked on stiffly, as an obligation to return polite conversation being made.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2011 7:45 am
Orpheus snorted. Credita was dicing the lavender now, exactly as he would have imagined it. Slowly and precisely. There had to be more to her personality than precision and such haughtiness, but if there was, Orpheus could not guess it at that time. He stole her notebook and flipped through to the potion page again, looking at its ingredients and preparing the next steps for the cauldron. He'd play keep-away if he had to; would she really be, first of all, so petty? And secondly, would she really demean herself to wrestling Orpheus for the book? He wondered how strong she was. He wasn't exceptional, as he spent most of his time playing instruments, but he could hold his own. He was silent as he worked, for once, but he was just forming his thoughts into words. Finally, he set the notebook aside, and stared at her for a good while.
"You, of all witchlings and witches, should know that appearance is something which we are all graded on, in all subjects." Orpheus sounded ... smart, for a second. Like he could actually talk beyond four-word sentences and small talk. It would not last, not at all, and concentrating gave Orpheus a headache. He was used to wasting all his intelligence and concentration on making it seem like he was a slacker. Imagine if he spoke like that all the time? People would just get used to it. But like this, the few times he managed to motivate himself, the difference was vast. He was, basically, an experienced slacker. "When you partnered up with me, you knew what 'type' I was from the moment you looked at me," he continued, "in that way, you graded me on appearance." He shrugged. It wasn't just her; he had done the same thing when he saw her. Except he had been wrong, and deluded by her obvious prettiness. Her blue eyes were so vibrant, it was hard not to want her to be soft. But she was unyielding.
"In the same way, others can't help but grade on appearance in all subjects," he said, "even if they think they aren't. You can't see the grading scheme, because it's an internal measure. Everyone is a skeptic at heart. Think about who they are receiving the potion from: is it a cleancut Ars Lilium with a charming smile, is the bottle clean and sparkling? Or are they receiving it from me, in a paper bag? Just try to tell me you wouldn't pick the former." And then he went right back to leaning in the chair. His eyes almost seemed to glaze over. It was as if, briefly, he'd been possessed by something with the will to express itself, and he'd gone back to his devil-may-care self all too quickly.
He dismissed her swift and tactless attempt at returning smalltalk. What the hell was he supposed to do with this girl? And now he had a headache from making himself focus. He sighed in irritation and put his shoes up on the table.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 12:46 pm
Falys wasn't entirely certain what an aneurism felt like, but it was quite possible she was about to have one. Here he was, having neglected to take a single note all class, cheating off of hers. She made one discreet, unsuccessful grab for it, darting a look to the oblivious professor at the head of the class. When Dovleac finally set her notebook down, she snatched it up angrily. For a moment, she actually considered being immature enough to sit on it, but he'd likely already taken the information he needed, and sitting on it would be an overdramatic measure. Settling, she put the book under the jar of dragonfly wings on the other end of the desk, casting him a withering glare.
The glare rapidly turned apoplectic at his next words. "I, of all witchlings....? Just what exactly is that supposed to mean? And of course I judged you! It's impossible not to form an introductory opinion about someone! But don't you think for one second that I judged you on appearances; I judged you on actions. You sat there and looked out the window the entire class, to the end that you had to look in my notes just to know what we were supposed to be doing! You're darn lucky I had the good sense to take notes, or we'd both be...stuffed!" She blushed fiercely at the outburst, but grit her teeth as she turned back to the cauldron.
"Those situations are completely removed from this one." She sniffed angrily and capped the mint oil, dumping it into the cauldron. "The appearance only serves to garner trust, if it hasn't already been gained. If that Ars Lilium were somehow unskilled in potions-making, sparkling bottles aren't going to repair the loss of trust created by an unsound potion. Just like I was almost willing to believe you knew what you were doing," She snatched up the jar of dragonfly wings and shook it under his nose. "Until you tried to blow us up!"
Setting the jar down, she looked at his displayed shoes with a wrinkle in her nose. "For someone so concerned with appearances, you seem intent on portraying the worst. For pete's sake, put your feet down before you contaminate something."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
