Occamy Welcome to the Occamy Cabin Closed

──────────────── Summer Camp 2021 Reducio #ac1f53 interacting. @Haley Rose mentioning. @Gabriella Haworth abilities. evasive maneuvers statistics. sta 8, eva 6, str 3, wis 7, arc 5, acc 6 ────────────────

Gia was very, very happy to be back at Hogwarts. Although she'd only been gone for a month or so, she'd missed all of her friends and even the school itself more than she'd thought she would. It was weird, adjusting back to a somewhat normal life, when she knew of so many new things that were out there. Spells, potions, magic in general... yes, going back to living like a muggle definitely felt odd, if not wrong. Of course, seeing her family—her real, original one, not Leona and Margot—and all of her old friends was fun like usual. But that was just about all that kept Gia going through the month of July.

The young girl was still reeling from the fact that her father was actually dating someone again. Plus, she didn't like his new... whatever... at all. (Girlfriend sounded too young for her, since Vance had a girlfriend. Her father did not have a girlfriend—she needed to find another word for it.) Just thinking about the two new people she'd met a few weeks ago was enough to bring a scowl to her face. Margot was such a know it all, and one of those people who knew about and flaunted that fact. It was positively sickening. Leona, on the other hand, was one of those super pretty people, and while for now, that and the fact that she was Courtney's mother was enough for Gia to hold against her.

Clenching her fists, the twelve year old looked up to find that she was outside of the Occamy Cabin, to which she'd been assigned. Or at least Gia thought it was the right one. She'd never been all that good with animals—regular or magical—so she couldn't be completely sure. Still, she was pretty certain the weird snake-bird thing on the flag outside the cabin was an occamy, so she pushed open the door and walked inside.

When she entered, the first thing Gia noticed were all the books on the walls. Raising her eyebrows at the vast amount, she shrugged to herself after scanning them all quickly and then looked around to see who else was there. She remembered a few people from the list that she knew: Haley Rose, one of her good friends, and a few others from various Quidditch games and scrimmages she had played. It didn't seem like this cabin was limited to one school, either—she didn't recognize a few of the people that looked about her age, and she knew most of the first-almost-second years at Hogwarts. Well, she was able to recognize them, at least.

Before she could get any further into the room, a purr and a brush of fur against her leg interrupted her. Gia smiled to herself. Quill had been following her quietly, barely making any noise, but now that she was surrounded by others—and at least one cat too—she wanted to leave Gia's side. With a small laugh, the girl picked up her kitten and walked over to Haley, holding the squirming bundle to her chest. "Be patient," she told her cat in a slightly stern but also teasing voice. "Let me just introduce you to one person, okay?" Aquilla, unhappy with this, started to meow as well. With a roll of her eyes, Gia made it to where her friend was standing, her grip a little bit tighter than before.

"Haley! Hi!" Gia grinned happily at her friend. Although Gabby wasn't in her cabin—she would remember seeing her best friend's name on the list, at least one of her close friends was. Although the Gryffindor was pretty good at making new friends easily with her very extroverted personality, she was glad that she wouldn't be in a cabin with all completely new people. It really was too bad that others weren't allowed to visit their cabin if they weren't in it, she thought. Lifting her arms a little so her friend could see the kitten nestled in her arms, Gia introduced the two of them. "This is Aquilla—or just Quill. I got her at the beginning of the summer."

Right at that moment, the little cat decided to make her grand escape. Clawing her way out of Gia's arms, the kitten ended up stalking around the room and staring curiously at everything, before nimbly jumping onto a bed. An empty, untaken one, it seemed. With a sigh and a sheepish grin in Haley's direction, Gia hurried over. "I guess I'm sleeping here, then..."

The cabin continued to fill up. Some faces were familiar, though she didn't really know anyone. She used the time to commit all the new names to memory, adding Tilly to the mix after the girl woke back up. It seemed they had a lot of Quidditch players in here, maybe not so many duellists? That would definitely be something she'd be on the lookout for, hoping to size-up Slytherin's competition beforehand.

Speaking of which, in came someone from another school she actually knew. Sort of. She'd never actually gotten the girl's name, though she was in luck, the Ilvermorny third year providing it soon after she arrived. Karilyna had been their Queen last year in Chess Combat and had been quite good at it, playing a large factor in their victory. Assuming she would be playing again this year, she would be someone to watch out for; they wouldn't be on the same side of the board this time.

The recognition was mutual it seemed, the short girl making her way towards where Bridget stood, leaning against the front post of her bunk, arms crossed. While she didn't really feel like socializing, it was probably necessary if she wanted anyone to talk to in here, and Karilyna seemed the best option present. Her memories of chess combat only held the girl in a positive light, after all, and they had a shared interest. Duelling would be easy to talk about if all else failed.

Karilyna clearly had an energetic air to her Bridget did not share, smiling and expressing anticipation of fun and interest in meeting everyone. Well, at least she could do most of the talking, right? "It's Bridget," she supplied. More questions followed; yes, she had the feeling she could say very little and the younger girl would still keep up the conversation. "I do. We had a good team. And I am still duelling. You as well? Will you be playing in chess combat again?"

The last comment was in regards to Sherlock, who had his face pressed up against the bars, excited at the new person. "Thank you. This is Sherlock. You can pet him if you'd like." This wasn't so bad. Sure, Karilyna seemed to talk a lot, but everything so far was well within topics she was happy to discuss. She was better than the newest arrival, anyhow. Ethen Emrys, Hufflepuff Seeker. She'd never really seen him off the Quidditch Pitch and currently she was not impressed. Loud, dragging dirt into the cabin. He tried to grab one of the books, only for ribbon bookmarks to lash out and trap his hand. That was... interesting. She wondered what other magical features the cabin held. He then decided to sing to the ribbons, as if that would do anything. Lovely. This might have been the 'library cabin', as Ethen and Charles named it, but it didn't seem to have any of a library's rules about volume level.

She was blocking out most of the others' conversations--trying to pay attention to them all while having one of her own would be too much--but she did catch the bit about the Barbecue. That was something she planned on going to, of course, housing no desire to go hungry until morning. The prospect of going with her new cabinmates was not as appealing; mostly she planned on catching her friends once she got there, figure out which cabins they were in and all. Though perhaps walking down with them would be fine, another chance to get to know them a bit better. "I'm going." Short and to-the-point, she vocalized her interest before turning back to Karilyna. "Are you?"

[font=book antique]@Haley Rose Occamy Cabin #008000[/font]

[font=book antique]Lily Beatrix Cooper 1st August 2021 #289087[/font]

===

[font=book antique]You have just arrived in the cabin. The journey seems quite short but you are not tired of it. You were so anxious to get there... Anyway. You enter the cabin and let out a "wow" of surprise. It's wonderful. The sofas look super comfortable. Suitcase and cat basket in hand, you leave to see the night space. Beautiful too. You choose one of the bunk beds and sit on the bottom one. It will be more practical with Blueberry. Speaking of Blueberry, your cat is getting restless. You open her basket and she sticks her head out. It's an unfamiliar place so she jumps up and explores the dormitory, before returning to the living room. - Blueberry! Wait! But apparently she decided she had to explore. You don't want her to hurt herself or anyone else so you follow her. But when you reach the entrance to the living room, you freeze. What if you don't know anyone? What if people don't like you? You see Blueberry jump on the couch and get close to a redheaded girl. Just like you. You think you've seen it before so you approach again. And then you breathe a sigh of relief. It's Haley. A friend of mine. You see she's talking but you're afraid Blueberry will jump her so you decide to cut off her conversation. - Hi Haley. Do you mind if Blueberry (my cat) comes and rubs up against you a little? She seems to like you. [/font]

===

@Kit Paine

As fate would have it, today Piérre was feeling more confident in himself, and a little more likely to actually interface with the rest of the cabin. He had been quiet for the most part [most part being most of the time the cabins were in use], and only Figaro, the little silver bengal, was prowling about and being a mouser.

The cat had learned quickly not to sleep on the bookshelves, as the critter had nearly been snared by their ribbons on one occasion, and after that, the critter had made a point of guiding his human brother away from those enchanted books at all costs; by rubbing against the boy's legs, running off in a different direction, or merely by averting Piérre's attention with a small "Mew!"

's Grace Roll, < 75 indicates success: 2 (Failure)
Ps, I didn't expect that cat face to show up, but... Zach, you are one funny man.

So, when the Bengal lightly trotted into the main area to take a sun nap on the couch, Figaro was rightly intrigued to find a human snared by the same ribbons which he himself had neatly avoided. The kitten's bright green eyes almost glowed in the room. Mr Paine would notice the feline quickly, but even as soon as the cat came in, Figaro would run out to retrieve Piérre himself.

House Color: 3
Gryffindor

Piérre had been humming to himself in his room with a sketchbook, sketch eraser, and mechanical pencil in hand.
He was, unfortunately, far from a good artist, but he had a few cute pictures that he had tried to draw of Figaro sleeping or looking out a window. A red and gold tie was lazily wrapped around his shoulders, and a plain white uniform shirt had its top button undone. Per usual, his hair was in its messy bedhead state, but now it looked a little different. Instead of uniform chestnut with natural dark undertones, it now possessed small streaks of light green which complimented his eyes. Piérre was experimenting with crinus muto, and his rapidly changing hairstyles from hour to hour were reflecting that fact.

Humming a bit as he erased an errant line, Piérre watched Figaro nimbly climb and then leap up on the upper bunk bed. “Hey buddy~” He said quietly.

Though he smiled, there were dark circles under his eyes. Figaro purred lightly, and then jumped down from the bed again, glancing back at the boy.

Again, Piérre smiled, tucking the pencil and eraser into his pants pocket and the small sketchbook under his arm as he climbed down. He had no bunkmate [at least not a confirmed one], so the boy noisily leapt to the cabin floor and then ran across the room after his cat.

It was not until he was halfway across the middle of the living room that he noticed the plight of Mister Window, and when he did, it was when he had scooped up his little cat in both arms and was coaxing Figaro onto his shoulders. The movement of the ribbons drew green eye, and Piérre froze like a statue.

For a moment, he was torn between laughing, grinning stupidly, running, or trying to charge in and help. His heart was beating faster than it had been for most of the cabin stay, and of course he recognized one of the referees of the Trial by Fear, and event that the boy had taken place in and had also been quite unstable at.

In the end, torn in all directions by many little voices, the boy decided to ignore them all and sit cross-legged in the middle of the room and just out of reach of the ribbons and Mister Window.

Large green eyes bored into the heterochromic ones; not angered or malicious, just curious. Hands idly stroked the silver Figaro. Finally, Piérre spoke, his voice hardly a whisper. “How did you end up like that, Mister Window? Is it a game?” The boy scooted a bit closer, daring to touch one with the tip of his toe before pulling back again.

Just as he was about to resign himself to another nap, a brief flash of motion caught the caretaker's eye. He tracked it to a silver Bengal kitten with vivid green eyes.

Almost as soon as he spotted the kitten, however, it hurried out of the room again...only to return in the company of someone who he could only assume was its owner. Piérre's gaze, just as green as his pet's, seemed to match in curiosity as well. Unlike the animal, however, Piérre chose to speak.

Mister Window? Kit pondered the name he had seemingly been addressed by before realizing where it came from. Window...pane? Mr. Window Paine? A laugh escaped him at the concept. Cute.

"Some might think of it as a game," Kit chuckled in response to Piérre's question, "But I'm afraid, Mr. Marchonné, that it wasn't intentional on my part to try to play. I accidentally fell asleep here and forgot the bookmarks like to ensnare unwary passers-by." He tried to twist his head in order to better see the student he was talking to.

"Would you and your little feline friend there mind helping me out of this mess?" he asked, his helpless smile pleading. "I can't really move around enough to try to get out of it on my own."

@Kit Paine

Despite himself, a small smile escaped Piérre as the adult laughed. Not even laughter could prevent him from smiling, at least not a little. It let him know that there was at least some joy to be had in the world still. The world of Hogwarts, where everything that could go wrong, did.

He scooped up the sketchbook (more of a lined school notebook really) and put it in his lap now that he at least knew what he was dealing with. Up to this point, Piérre had never known that the ribbons could snare anyone, he had been protected by Figaro for a long while, otherwise it may have been the boy himself in the situation instead of Mister Window. He tipped his head in curiosity. “Please, Mister Window, just Piérre. It... Looks like a bit of an uncomfortable place to nap.” A cheeky, signature smile was forming. “Why not take the couch, or maybe a bunk?” A bubble of amusement was rapidly rising in his throat, the familiar Harlequin poison

But, help had been requested, and Pierre was willing to help, despite Figaro's sudden, loud meowing to stay away. But humans do not usually understand animals, much to the animal race's chagrin, and instead the Bengal pleased itself with taking up the couch himself and watching the curious events which were likely to unfold.

Accuracy check: d20(13)+12 = 25
Evasion check: d20(15)+13 = 28

With surprising ease, Piérre tucked his sketchbook under his arm again and then set his lithe fingers to the task of undoing the binds of Mister Paine, a small smile still evident on his features. With a small hum, after working his fingers into obvious gaps that the ribbons had inadvertently made while trying to bind the caretaker, he gently twisted a certain way, and just like a slipknot, the ribbons loosed ever so slightly.

But the ribbons themselves would not let the boy do so so quickly, and a few of their number sought to make the boy one of their mummified treasures. With a jump, the boy instinctively cringed away and dove back for cover, having to reach down and try to work at a ribbon tethering his ankle. His sketchbook had fallen by Mister Paine in Piérre's mad dash to safety. But, after a second, Piérre stopped panicking and let the ribbons tighten around his ankle gently.

He smiled again, this time with broadness and genuine joy. “It's... Kind of like a nice, tight hug, isn't it?” He rolled his ankle around a bit and continued to stare at the orange ribbon wrapping itself rather like a snake. “Like the cabin just wants to snuggle with you.”

"If it's 'just Piérre', then please, Piérre - it's just Kit," the caretaker told him with a wink. "You're probably right as far as where I should have gone to nap, but I fell asleep while sketching, so I didn't really think about a place to sleep."

He tried to wriggle a bit in order to help the student while Piérre was trying to loosen the ribbons, but then he thought that might have actually been making the boy's job more difficult, so he stopped. Instead, he spent the time admiring the way Piérre's dexterous fingers deftly worked their way through the bookmarks. Well, at least until those bookmarks began to attempt binding up Piérre as well.

"Whoops," he murmured with some amusement when the student jumped at the ribbons' initial grasp for him. "Seems like this might be a little trickier than I thought." Kit's limited gaze alighted upon the Gryffindor's own sketchbook when it was dropped by him. "Oh, hey - do you draw, too?"

When Piérre stopped panicking enough to let the ribbons curl around his ankle, Kit glanced over, curious at his words about the cabin wanting to snuggle with them. Then he smiled back.

"I suppose it is," he conceeded, studying his bonds. "Just a little too clingy for my taste. That, and I prefer human hugs to bookmark ones."

@Kit Paine

“Okay, um, Kit.” Piérre said hesitantly. He wasn't used to speaking to adults by their first names. To him, at least, it didn't seem entirely polite. But, he supposed, that if Kit wished to be referred to by his first name, then it would be impolite to refer to him by any other name. Piérre himself was used to flexible names; Jester, Raven, Grail, Mischief Maker, Luigi... all except being called Mister Marchonné.

Marchonné wasn't even his real name. Marchonné had been a fancy of his when he was a child after having realized that his parents were not really his parents. When he realized that whoever gave him his real name either hadn't had time to reveal it to him and his twin or simply hadn't cared enough to do so. It was something he pondered a bit in his youth, and now again as an incoming third year to a school where everything you did was based on the name of the faction you aligned with best.

It was a curious concept, really. One that nobody seemed to question.

Piérre nodded absentmindedly as Kit spoke of falling asleep while sketching. His mind was on the previous thoughts above, and not so much focused on the present. It wasn't until Kit mentioned the crude school note/sketchbook that Piérre returned to the present, still unconsciously stroking the little orange ribbon on his ankle. “Hm? Oh. I, um. I mean, I don't really... I'm not really good. I started my second year and they're kind of silly looking and not really all that cool, you know...” He rambled quietly to himself and Kit alike. Indeed, nothing in it except little cat sketches which looked more like shapeless blobs, little facial feature studies which looked misty and incomplete, and random spirals and trailing abstract designs which made no sense at all.

Piérre bit his lip with amusement again at Kit's claim of clinginess. “A hug is a hug.” He finally announced. “Even if they are bookmarks who want to make you part of their treasure.”

Still, Piérre dared to try once again and undo the ribbons without alarming the sentinel bookmarks too much.

Accuracy: d20(14)+12 = 26
Evasion: d20(7)+13 = 20

Finding the very same slits, Piérre tried to work his fingers in again and twist.
A little looser than before they became again when augmented with the first effort, but this time the boy had not been as quick to leap away, and now around his forearm a large group of ribbons bound around his forearm. He tried to pull away from it;

Strength: d20(20)+4 = 24
Critical Success

Using a motion he had seen in some martial arts movies, Piérre twisted his wrist into the direction the ribbons were wrapping from, twisting the ribbons themselves awkwardly around each other and then yanking his arm out. He had to get Kit out of the binds... Not end up in one himself.

“Okay... Try carefully slipping out. No sudden moves unless it strikes out first.” Piérre now had his tongue sticking out in concentration, whereas Figaro had just let out a yawn if disinterest from the couch. “Maybe they'll not realize?” Heck if he knew anything about these ribbons. “This is the most fun I've had in a while, not going to lie.” He finally permitted a gentle jibe. “I didn't even know these ribbons could do this... Or that an adult would be the first one to get stuck in 'em!”

A little Italian trill was at the ends of his sentences, a merry signal of his comfort around the adult.

Kit watched Piérre stroking the orange ribbon, ever amused. "Every artist is their own worst critic, I think," he said, beaming. "I think the important thing is that you enjoy it. I'd love to see sometime if you'd be willing to show me, though."

"A part of their treasure?!" the young man repeated with mock fear. "Oh no! I'll be stuck here forever! Just another piece of the architecture!" Even as he spoke, however, he could feel the Gryffindor still working on his bonds and watched, waiting patiently. He admired Piérre's dedication to the task.

Once he was advised to try slipping out, the caretaker carefully attempted to ooze out of the ribbons as if he were made of jelly. Indeed, if one were paying particular attention, they might have noticed the fact that no matter how flexible or limber Kit was, his body was behaving more fluidly than should have been possible for a normal person.

"I feel like I'm playing 'limbo', but without the bar to pass under," he murmured, still trying to slink away from the ribbons without being noticed by them. "Hahaha...glad you're enjoying it as much as I am! It'd be a shame if I were the only one having fun here. Okay...I think I'm almost out..."

Just as he slid to lie flat on his back on the floor, Kit rolled off to one side and only pushed himself back into a sitting position once he thought he was sufficiently out of range of the ribbons.

"YES! Nice going, Piérre! That was some clever manuvering you did there with those," he added, referring to the motion that had been mimicked from the martial arts movies. "I owe you one." Kit rubbed his arms and legs where the bookmarks had gripped him, relieved to finally have his limbs all in working order once more.