Tea Creatures in the Rain errand open Closed

Mars stuck a palm out face up from under the awning of the Courtyard. Droplets of water met their dry skin. They sighed. Hogwarts, for the most part, had been all sun and cool breezes, maybe the occasional cloud, but it hardly ever rained. Great, just great. Mars was about as fond of rain as they were of swimming. Not at all.

At least it was gentle. Better than some torrential downpour or angled with the fury of the wind. It pattered softly against the roof above the wix, tapping out a soft melody. Mars gritted their teeth, tightening their grip of the neck of their guitar. Well, that plan was a bust. There was no way they were taking their gift out into the Courtyard now.

Mars stepped back, blowing a breath out of their nose. They raised their chin, looking left and right down the pathways that surrounded the Courtyard. Hardly anyone was out today. Maybe that was to be expected, seeing that rain so often brought cold. Brittle chills did well to remind the body of its weakness. But then, they caught sight of a single girl. She had pulled up a table and a chair, and seemed to be sketching something out.

With a slight tip of the head, Mars started over to her. Drawing, artistic abilities of any kind really, but especially drawing, had always captivated them. As they neared, they saw the blue robes, the familiar brown face framed in brown locks. Hmm, Elspeth. What was she doing though?

The faint scent of—something had them stopping for a moment. Sweet smells either meant Charms or that feeling, neither of which they felt like dealing with at the moment. But it was slightly different, not so much sweet as rich, pungent, floral maybe? They couldn't quite put a finger on it. But something about it reminded Mars of Lunar New Year, of celebrations at the Castillions that let them laughing and smiling amongst the friendly faces of their brothers.

Humming, or more like buzzing, they shifted the guitar from one hand to the other. This was Deja Vu, wasn' it, sneaking up on this girl while she was doing an art project. But at least this time, they had a name to put to the face.

"Hey, Elspeth," they raised an eyebrow, "Whatcha doing?"

WC: 399/1000

Elspeth looked up from her notebook at the sound of a familiar voice. Mars was standing there with a guitar in their hands, looking curiously at her whole setup. Something about Mars felt right in the rain, to Elspeth. The soft and constant clattering against the awning above, the grey overcast sky, the way that the grass seemed a little greener - it all seemed to create a mysterious atmosphere, not unlike the one that they seemed to bring with them. Or, perhaps, Elspeth was projecting. But as an eleven year old, she wasn't one to delve deeply into the way that she perceived her peers. Mostly she was in awe of how cool Mars was and how they'd managed to develop that sensibility so early on.

So, naturally, Elspeth stammered a small bit at first out of nerves from being addressed by someone she was certain she didn't have the ability to entertain in conversation. "Huh? Oh! Yeah. I'm, uh, working on this tea bag project." She held up her notebook page to show what she'd been working on.

"It's, um, well I was planning on making a little manta ray. I thought it'd be cute to watch it swimming around. But I also wanted to be able to reuse the tea bag, cause I don't have any other way to steep this loose leaf tea I bought the other weekend in Hogs-" she stopped herself before revealing that she'd snuck out to Hogsmeade, almost forgetting that those trips were illicit, "Hogssswarts tea club. The new tea club." She coughed awkwardly, a perpetually terrible liar.

A light breeze blew under the covered walkway, ruffling the materials that had been laid out. Elspeth started rearranging things so heavier objects like the tea container and basket were propped on the paper and fabric, preventing them from flying away. As she re-organized things, she worked to continue the conversation, "Were you planning on playing some music? nodding toward the guitar in Mars' hands.

With everything weighted down she was able to finally grab a fabric square to trace the design on to. She laid the sheer silk over her notebook page and used a squat permanent marker to go over the outline she'd made. The deep black ink bled on the fabric a bit, seeping dark veins spreading around each line that she drew. Normally she'd work to be a little neater, but seeing as this was a tea bag that would be mostly out of sight, the idea of getting another piece of fabric out and starting over seemed like too much of a hassle. This one would just have that wabi sabi quality that let folks know she'd made it by hand. Unless, it should be redone. Elspeth held the piece up in front of her, using the diffuse light from the dreary sky to try and figure out if it was farther gone than she'd liked. The line was certainly thicker than she'd hoped, but the bleeding seemed to mostly be happening out toward the edges of the fabric. If she cut on the inside of the line, instead, she'd be able to trim off most of the cartoonish outline and have as lightly neater bag. Oh thank gosh. I don't need Mars seeing that I can't even do a simple outline without messing it up...

As she began cutting the pattern out, it occurred to her that she'd not yet properly invited Mars to join in. Her eye twitched a small bit, possibly imperceptibly to Mars but enough that Elspeth could tell she felt embarrassed again. "You can sit down with me, if you'd like. I brought probably more supplies than I'd need."

Interacting with @Mars T'ien
Word Count: 615 + 402 = 1017/1000

@Elspeth Gollens
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Oh. A tea bag project? So that was that smell. Mars smiled at the girl's stammering voice. Again, Ravenclaw seemed to attract all the shy ones. Or maybe it was just the fact that they were 11-and-12-year-olds who had no business being good at conversation. Who knew? It wasn't as if Mars was a stellar conversationalist, but they had a feeling that they had no problem meeting new people because they simply didn't care enough to be nervous. Whatever impression they gave off was the one they gave off and if it was a bad one—oh well. Honestly, maybe they'd just grown tired of humanity with five little brothers running around their feet.

Mars raised an eyebrow at the awkward cough and elongated S of the girl's "Hogswarts." It sounded like a very poorly put together lie if they had to say anything about it. What the heck even was "Hogswarts?" They smirked. They'd have to poke her about that in the future.

At the other Ravenclaw's invitation, Mars dragged over a seat of their own, setting their guitar down gently to rest against its side. They slid down into it, immediately planting their feet side-by-side and bracing their elbows on their jeans to lean over and look at Elspeth's work.

It was cute, definitely gave off the impression of a mantra ray if a little wonky. The fabric would probably be enough to hide any imperfections anyway and if it was going to be swimming submerged in a cup of tea, it would be hard to tell—wait, "Did you say swimming?" Mars stared incredulously at the girl for a moment before breaking off with a peel of laughter. Of course it was going to be swimming. This was Hogwarts after all, not even tea bags could be normal.

Mars eyed the supplies for themselves. Maybe it would be nice to make one too. They'd always loved tea—something amount it calmed their hearts, almost bringing a song to mind—and to have a little creature to boot, well, that didn't sound like an awful idea. Glancing up at Elspeth to make sure it was okay, they grabbed a scrap of fabric and a pair of scissors. The other girl had drawn an outline first, but Mars would be damned before they put a pen to paper, so they resigned to just cutting freehand, tracing the scissors along the edge of the white material to shape it down to size.

In their head, they rifled through the list of sea creatures they could possibly do. Maybe a fish of some soft, but that was also kind of boring. They debated doing a starfish—watching it crawl around the side of the teacup would be pretty neat—but in the end, they decided on an octopus. Leaning back in their seat, they caught their tongue between sharp teeth, focusing intently on making the legs ridged and wavy. For a few moments, the two Eagles sat in silence. Then, Elspeth asked something about music.

Mars startled from their concentration, turning to glance at the discarded guitar by their feet. They looked out into the rainy Courtyard, a sigh escaping their lips.

"Yeah, I was going too, but the rain kind of put a damper on my plans," they glanced back at Elspeth, taking in the brown hair that framed a soft face, "But now I'm here doing this with you, so not an awful turn of events. What kind of tea is that anyway? I didn't even know Hogswarts had a tea club."

There was a smirk in their voice at that, a biting little emphasis on the misspoken word. So, they couldn't avoid teasing a little for long. Sue them. It was just too easy. As they'd been chatting, their hands still snipped away at the fabric, almost finishing the clean outline of an octopus. Luckily, they'd folded it over so they'd only have to go around once. It would be a pain to have to trace and recut all over again.

Mars stared longing back at the guitar for a moment. There was something about this atmosphere that made it perfect playing weather. It was something out of a movie probably, drinking tea under the rain with the lull of the guitar playing the background. Maybe they'd strung a few chords after they finished the octopus and the tea was steeping. Hopefully, Elspeth wouldn't mind.

Reducio

WC: 399+737= 1136/1000