20 Sep 2024, 01:09
The Sanctuary Tree
September 22nd 2024
Speech: #cfa120
Thoughts: Italics
Mentioning: @Scout Fu-Hai
Club Members: @Haime Yoon - @Simon Kincaid - @Brookline Quinn - @Ruby Night - @Eugenia Karageorgiadi - @Giselle Lam - @Daniel Spector - @Emiline Hunter - @Katrina Maeve - @Ophelia Northwell - @Elvenia Moonshadow
Ever since Inara's departure, Emily was really feeling the pressure of the club. She didn't expect the principle of delivering kindness to be so hard when it came to Little Acts of Kindness. Any time outside of it, it was as natural as breathing air, so what made this so different? Perhaps it was the authority she now held as leader that warped and heightened her anxiety, or her constant walking on eggshells to create activities where club members and the student body alike could benefit from without excluding anyone. Inara made this so easy... Emily envied her impenetrable club organisation. Even though the club members got along, their recent discussions together have been civil and welcoming and nothing had caught fire yet, Emily felt like sooner or later, she would be the one to fail the club first. In fact, if anything happened to this club, she'd bury herself under a rock and never come out again - not when so many lovely people put their trust in her in the first place.
After several late nights and feedback across the board, Emily finally settled on a simple idea. She was thirty moons away from being on the Hogwarts Headliner - as much as it disappointed her ever so slightly - but after a spark of inspiration, she decided on a smaller scale version of "ye olde anonymous worry messages." After constant teetering and tottering on the idea, push came to shove after observing Scout's emotional behaviour. She had a long way to go before she could pry the truth from her but Scout had unwittingly given Emily the final nail in the coffin to go forward with her plan. The greatest words ever spoken by anyone... Always came from their quill.
She spent late at night writing "advertisements" for her little operation in fake handwriting. Tavra, ever helpful as she was daft, flew around silently to deposit the little slips of paper, pertaining to a special tree that would carry a person's written burden into its branches. Very much like the "worry monster" Emily had back home. The orange, furry toy still sat in the kitchen windowsill to this day, munching on its diet of worries scrunched up on paper slips and tossed into its plastic jaws - by a young and now blossoming Emily - where she would blissfully forget about them.
Ten hops and twenty leaps away from the Great Lake would be the tree. A large, magnificent oak tree, perfect to deposit all those worries about test scores and relationship issues. It was a tree Emily often found herself hugging when she needed a good venting. Emily stood at the base and looked up admiringly at it. It had always been an impeccable listener when she needed one - it would surely be fantastic in lifting the burdens and worries of the school in its bulky, aromatic limbs.
Emily felt the peeling bark and tapped it hopefully.
"You're going to help a lot of people."
She exhaled gently.
Assuming people actually turn up...
She had a headcanon for that though; if no worries were left then it could easily be assumed people were right as rain and happy as Larry. Anyone could be in the rough but everyone could still dream. Emily secretly and smugly called it "resourcefulness."
To commemorate the appeal, Emily wrote out her own worry, one that had been lying dormant in her head for a while on a loose sheet of parchment;
"Despite my efforts, I feel useless in trying to help reach out and assist my fellow half-humans. I hate that I'm hardly doing anything to help, all because I don't know exactly what to do."
Sure, she was talking it out with Scout and her vampirism but what else was she doing? Waiting for someone to come up to her with a name tag that announced their hidden heritage like that? Wondering around the forest like a lost soul to find one herself and then most likely be found dead nearby in a flesh heap the next morning by some patrolling member of staff? At thirteen she was limited in options but she had to do something.
Without signing her name, she folded the slip into a small, tight square where Tavra took it in her beak and flew up to plant it high in the tree's body. No one would reach it, but could still be seen if anyone squinted hard enough.
"Come on, Tavra. We'll check back later and see if anyone has decided to check out our little "rumour." She winked as Tavra settled on top of Emily's head, the two of them walking off out of sight.
Funnily enough, Emily already started to feel a bit better after leaving her thoughts with her beloved tree friend.
Word Count: 905
Emily has (temporarily) left the thread.
Everyone inside and outside the club is free to stop by and leave a worry or to simply enjoy the tree's company
This is unofficial by the way. Nothing but harmless fun
Stats: Stamina: 7|Evasion: 6|Strength: 6|Wisdom: 8|Arcane Power: 7|Accuracy: 6
Abilities: Non-Human Enthusiast |Cat's Grace
Last edited by Emily Shephard on 20 Sep 2024, 12:14, edited 1 time in total.
Trust Yourself - Love Yourself - Be Yourself
iNPC = Casey Stone
20 Sep 2024, 02:47
The Sanctuary Tree
☽ •----------------------------------------• ☾
speech • #427c9a
thoughts • italics
others • #ffffff
grounds • location
the sanctuary tree • threadOphelia had heard about the Sanctuary Tree project idea from the Little Acts of Kindness leader, and the slips of paper that had been found all around the school. The activity seemed like something for people with leadership skills and problem solving skills and everything that Ophelia herself didn't possess to be a part of. Still, somewhat intrigued, the Ravenclaw journeyed to the grounds to find this "rumoured" tree.
Perhaps she'd go to this so-called sanctuary tree and find herself in need to spill some heavy weight on her heart, or perhaps she'd find that problem solving was a skill she did possess after all. Whatever the pull was, Ophelia found that she was glad to have made the trip after just witnessing the tree.
The bit of nature itself didn't have very much of an impact, though Ophelia did like trees. It was more about just how serene an area had been picked. The oak tree was large, its sprawling branches covering enough ground for more than just a single person to lay down in comfort. Making her way closer, Ophelia found herself studying the tree and its branches.
As far as the Ravenclaw could tell, the tree hadn't been used for its sanctuary purposes just yet. She took a seat, sliding her back against the tree before her bottom hit the ground. Her eyes closed for a moment, her soul satisfied with just sitting here, in nature, away from the deadlines and social problems that the castle-like school held.
That was when the tree let go of something. The piece of paper fell onto Ophelia's face, and she opened her eyes to find it casually draped across her nose, as if the Fates themselves had placed it there, in anticipation of what she'd make of it. Curiosity getting the better of the Ravenclaw girl, she opened the slip of parchment, every movement filled with guilt for her actions. Still, she couldn't help taking in the words of the anonymous note.
Ophelia's first thought, was that whoever had written the note was much more of a leader than the Ravenclaw herself. Wanting to help half-humans? Whatever the mystery person wanted to help them with, it must be a great cause. Meanwhile, here Ophelia was, studying by day and daydreaming by night. Would she ever amount to anything more than a starry-eyed little girl with nothing better to do except write stories and zone off all day? Her mother always said that there was so much in this world to discover, if only one opened their eyes. In hindsight, she might've been alluding to the existence of magic, but Ophelia took it to mean so much more.
Stop, stop. You're only just thirteen, as of a few days ago. There's still a while to figure everything out. But it didn't feel that way. It felt as if time was speeding up. Ophelia was already in her second year of magical education. Where had first year gone?
But Ophelia couldn't help but hesitate when placing the piece of parchment carefully back in the magnificent tree. Perhaps she should write an answer. Anonymously, of course. But maybe it would help her calm down with her own thoughts, though she was sure that her original writer of the note would never see it.
Opening up her customary satchel, the Ravenclaw ripped off a bit off parchment, wincing at how uneven it was around the edges. Then, she pulled out a purple ink well and a special quill. Taking a breath, she wrote her own answering worry, letting the anxiety go with the exhale of air.
"Despite my efforts, I feel useless. To the world. To society. But most of all? To myself. I want to amount to more, but I don't know what I want to be when I grow up, I don't know how to make my contribution. I have so many interests but I don't know how to pursue them."
Tucking the piece next to the original, Ophelia put her writing supplies away and made the journey back to the castle.
interactions • @
tags • @Emily Shephard
stats • sta 7 | eva 7 | str 6 | wis 9 | arc 6 | acc 6
xxx • outfit
perfectionist, paragon of health • abilitiesOphelia enters and leaves the thread.☽ •----------------------------------------• ☾
☽ Ophelia Lynn Northwell | i have a whole universe in my mind | Aurélie Nathalie Duval ☾
22 Sep 2024, 04:25
The Sanctuary Tree
The young witch had seen one of the flyers advertising this tree, but she didn’t want to draw too much attention to herself. People have already noticed her from a foreign bloodline. Now she had to live up the legacy created for her over in America and Canada, while staking the Lytle legacy into Hogwarts history.
A good legacy doesn’t start with weakness and visiting a tree to get rid of worry. Talking to the second year about her mom was already a bad start. She could only hope that conversation would be lost to time and not taint the work she had to get done for her ancestors, and future generations.
She plucked some flowers on her way to the tree to cover up her tracks. Surely it wouldn’t look suspicious if she sat by the lake and made the flower crown after walking close by the tree. She picked up a (no-so-lucky since it only had 3 leafs) clover along with her flowers and placed that at the roots of the tree when she approached.
“Help me to not worry about my mom. I know she’s strong and can handle fighting any dark wizard that comes her way. She would want me to focus on my studies, so that’s what I’m going to do. I can do that better if I can just trust that she will be safe.”
Once she had quickly said her peace to the plucked clover on the trees roots she plucked some flowers close by the tree to cover up her tracks, then she found a shady spot by a tree closer to the lake to make her flower crown. Maybe she would also practice some magic while out on the cool fall day.
Poppy has left the thread
WC: 291
A good legacy doesn’t start with weakness and visiting a tree to get rid of worry. Talking to the second year about her mom was already a bad start. She could only hope that conversation would be lost to time and not taint the work she had to get done for her ancestors, and future generations.
She plucked some flowers on her way to the tree to cover up her tracks. Surely it wouldn’t look suspicious if she sat by the lake and made the flower crown after walking close by the tree. She picked up a (no-so-lucky since it only had 3 leafs) clover along with her flowers and placed that at the roots of the tree when she approached.
“Help me to not worry about my mom. I know she’s strong and can handle fighting any dark wizard that comes her way. She would want me to focus on my studies, so that’s what I’m going to do. I can do that better if I can just trust that she will be safe.”
Once she had quickly said her peace to the plucked clover on the trees roots she plucked some flowers close by the tree to cover up her tracks, then she found a shady spot by a tree closer to the lake to make her flower crown. Maybe she would also practice some magic while out on the cool fall day.
Poppy has left the thread
WC: 291