Nervous beginnings Open Closed

Callie nodded at the boy. "Pretty much. I mean, I was raised in a muggle community, went to a muggle school. But, my parents made sure we were aware of the magic world," she explained. She was about to answer the other question when the door creaked open. Another girl came in, who appeared 11 as well. She introduced herself as Elspeth after Birdie asked, and sat down.

"I'm Callie," she smiled. She was getting better at this talking thing."You mean Ollivanders?" she turned to Zyk. "Yeah, he's been selling wands for generations. You said you have a phoenix feather? That's your core. It technically powers the wand. Without it, it would just be a stick. Mine has a unicorn hair in it, like my dad's," she explained. She was proud of that. Her dad was her best friend. They talked for hours about famous wizards with unicorn hair cores.

"Yeah, we can't exactly do stuff with them yet," she frowned. "It's technically illegal. Then we could get like, kicked out of Hogwarts before we even got there. That happened to my second cousin," she giggled. "He goes to Durmstrang now. But my family jokes about it all the time. Pretty sure he was holding his wand when reading his book and accidently said it out loud. That's why I haven't taken my wand out of the box since we bought it," she said, pulling out the wand from her pocket. "My mum insisted I take it out now though."

Interacting with: @Zykeal Lane, @Birdie Spindlewheel, @Elspeth Gollens
Mentions: @Zykeal Lane, @Birdie Spindlewheel, @Elspeth Gollens

Elspeth's eyes widened. Although she didn't have her hands on her wand, suddenly she felt like even having it on her lap was a bit of a risk. What if she sneezed and purple sparks came out of her wand without her even meaning to like had happened in her backyard? She knew that wasn't how wands work, of course, but as a kid who had only ever seen her mom use a wand before she couldn't help but wonder at how much she didn't know about the powerful tool she had.

"Jeez. What a way to start your wizarding life huh. Does he like Durmstrang?" Having come from a small town, most of the wizards she knew had gone to Hogwarts. She'd heard about Durmstrang in passing, often in these sort of odd, hushed tones. Her parents didn't talk much about the wizarding wars, worried that it would be too much for her to handle at such a young age - but she did know that Durmstrang was connected in some way to them. Was it a school for Death Eaters? WAS SHE NOW SITTING IN A COMPARTMENT WITH A DEATH EATER'S RELATIVE?

She looked back up from her wand toward Callie, who looked perfectly sweet and not at all like a Death Eater. Elspeth had always imagined Death Eaters as being more gnarled, with sharp teeth and snake like eyes. No. No there was no way that anyone here was anything but a first year waiting on the train. Surely. The Death Eaters were disbanded years ago, before anyone around her was even born. Her mind was running circles around her, trying to help her find any reason to have a panic attack on her way to school.

Her fingers gently ran along her wand, feeling the intricately carved details on the handle. "I think Ollivander told me this wand would be good for.... Divination I think? Which sounds cool and all, I guess I'd just never thought about how our wands kind of choose what magic we're best at, yeah?" She said, a bit absentmindedly as she stared at it and wondering if maybe putting even one finger on her wand was going to be enough to accidentally do some sort of spell she had never heard of and get her kicked off the train and sent to a Death Eater school.

Interacting with: @Calypso Aretez | @Zykeal Lane | @Birdie Spindlewheel

Birdie carefully listened to the words, coming out of Callie's mouth. This was the only subject she found remotely interesting to talk about. Magic. And when the other kids started talking about wands, she just couldn't help herself. She had to add to the conversation.

"Oh, your wand has a unicorn hair core too, Callie? How nice. You know, when I was in the shop Ollivanders told me my wand was very selective. How about you guys?" Birdie said eagerly. She was genuinely trying to be nice, but Birdie had always had problems with coming off kind of arrogant. She was raised to believe that talking highly about yourself, would only get you further in life.

"Durmstrang, huh? Can they really do that? Kick you out over an accident? That must stink. I'd hate going to Durmstrang." Birdie added. She shuddered at the thought of doing something like that, and getting kicked out before you even arrived. Not that that could ever happen to Birdie, though. She was too smart about things like that, or at least that's what she thought herself.
Elspeth appeared to be slightly freaked out over what Callie had said, and changed the subject back to wands.

"Oh, no. Our wands don't choose what magic we're good at. It chooses you based on what magic you're good at... Does that make sense?" Birdie responded smiling excitedly at the girl. She loved talking about magic, almost as much as she loved correcting people. Or educating, as she called it. Maybe she could become a professor in the future, she thought to herself.

@Elspeth Gollens @Calypso Aretez @Zykeal Lane

[font=times new roman]Zykeals attention was shifted towards Callie as she spoke to him, giving him information on the wands was something that he was actually interested in. In truth, he had researched wands over the summer and had decidedly mentioned his wand in a nonchalant way to try and see if other students held their wands in high importance as well. It seemed a good topic of discussion, then Callie had mentioned something about students being expelled before even starting school, and that sort of bothered him. Hell, they were only 11 years old and they were expected to uphold some sort of standard so harshly enforced? Bollocks.

When Elspeth mentioned the wand and their possible properties, then got corrected by Callie, he just listened intently to them talk and shifted his gaze over towards Birdie for a moment when she spoke up. Looking down towards his wand then, he stopped twirling it within his fingers and marveled at the ivory color of the aspen wood. "I think," he finally spoke up, "That the core might be very important, yes, but the wood it's made in is also pretty important," he mentioned as his golden hues shifted to each of the girls in turn. A relaxed shrug was offered then as he didn't want to get into a debate of the subject and just let himself look back out the window of the train for the time being.

Suddenly, his stomach growled. A smirk played across his features and he shifted to the side and leaned to pull out a pack of skittles that he had stowed within his pocket. Letting his wand rest on his lap then, he'd tear open a corner of the pack of skittles and look around towards the girls, "Skittles?" he questioned as he poured a few out into his own hand and continued to toss a few into his mouth. The sweet treat would help the ease of his hunger and allow him to at least make the journey to the school before he passed out in starvation. Hopefully, when they eventually arrived, they'd feed the kids at least, "Bloody starving aint' I?" he mused, smile still holding strong.

Interacting with @Birdie Spindlewheel | @Calypso Aretez | @Elspeth Gollens

Elspeth had, admittedly, been freaked out by the talk about being kicked out and getting sent to possible funnels for Dark Arts practitioners. But looking at her wand soothed her in a way she couldn't quite explain. Like meeting an old friend again after many years, it felt as if she knew it but couldn't quite remember the details of how to use it. The dark haired girl's comment about how the wand knew what its user's talent was puzzled Elspeth at first. Her first use of accidental magic had been a sneeze full of sparks, not a vision of the future. She wondered if it was possible for wands to make mistakes. Part of her wanted to ask, but another part was worried it would make her look dim next to what appeared to be a first year student who really knew her stuff. Elspeth suddenly felt regret for all the time she'd spent studying butterflies instead of magic.

"Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, it's a bit mad that a piece of wood and some dandruff can know so much about me but, then, I guess there's a lot mad about wizarding traditions," she placed the wand back in her lap, but never let it stray too far from her peripheral vision.

The boy next to her offered up his thoughts about wands as well. She wondered what was special about hornbeam. Unicorns were easy enough to figure out, they had all sorts of magical properties. Elspeth wasn't entirely sure she knew what a hornbeam tree even looked like. In her imagination, it was a squat tree that had long spindly branches, like arms that could reach into people's dreams.

She happily accepted a handful of Skittles from Zykeal and asked the group, in between mouthfuls,"D'you know what your wand is supposed to be good at?"

Interacting with: @Calypso Aretez | @Zykeal Lane | @Birdie Spindlewheel

"Yeah, it's real sad actually. He's okay at Durmstrang though. But, he'd really much like Hogwarts better, that's what he said," she frowned. It would be real sad if she got kicked out before even getting there. She had always been careful of her magic getting out of hand. Ever since her first magic, at age 6, her parents gave her daily lessons on how to control tantrums and her magic.

"Yeah, unicorn hair. Cherry wood too, I think. Something like, springy, good for unspoken spells and defense spells. That's gonna be interesting, since I'm more of the attacker type," she snickered, taking a few skittle from Zyk. "Haven't realized how hungry I am. We were late you see, courtesy of my brother," she groaned. "Skittles huh?" she twirled the colorful candy in her hand. "My mum loves those. Always rambles on how she loved them as a kid and how different they are from wizard candies," she popped one into her mouth. "I mean, at least they don't hop away like chocolate frogs."

She decided to think of another topic to discuss. She did like finding things out about people. It was useful, you could get good information, and weaknesses in battle. But, Callie didn't think she'd have to fight these kids anytime soon. They seemed more like allies, actually. "Speaking of accidental magic, so when was the first time you guys did it? What was it that you didn't get kicked out of Hogwarts?" she grinned.

Interacts with: @Zykeal Lane, @Birdie Spindlewheel, @Elspeth Gollens
Mentions: @Zykeal Lane, @Birdie Spindlewheel, @Elspeth Gollens

Elspeth broke into a small smile hearing Callie talk about the benefits of candy not being able to run out of your mouth. Baked treats were more her forte - cakes, cupcakes, croissants with a little chocolate piece hidden in the middle. Something about a nice, warm cookie made Elspeth feel safe and snug in the world. Skittles were nice too, they just tended to make her a bit jittery and silly because she never knew how to only eat a little bit. The rainbow pieces sat in her hand, the colors starting to bleed a little bit onto her palm where she saw orange and purple smudges appear underneath. Absentmindedly she started organizing them by color. When she had been really little she loved eating all different flavors of candy all at once, but as she was getting a little bit older she preferred to have a mouth full of just the one fruit at a time. At least, ever since she'd dumped a handful into a glass of fizzy water and discovered that the whole rainbow isn't always the best taste.

She popped the two green ones she had into her mouth as she thought about the first time she performed accidental magic. The thing is, this is a huge event in most magical folks' lives. It's not always a neat or tidy experience, but it's one people think about fondly as a sort of rite of passage. Elspeth was a little embarrassed about hers, though. Only because it had come within the last year. It was so recent, in fact, that her mother had wondered if perhaps Elspeth had taken after her dad and wasn't magical at all. She'd even been enrolled in a muggle school that fall, just in case she didn't get her Hogwarts letter in time. That wasn't a detail that she needed to share, she figured.

"I uh, I sneezed on a butterfly. I was laying down in my backyard and I started to fall asleep when this butterfly landed right on my nose. And it's little feet were so tickly! Like, it was like the butterfly was trying to climb INTO my nose," she mimicked the butterfly with her free hand, wiggling her fingers around on and around her nose in dramatic fashion, "So, y'know, my nose is all tickly and I sneezed. But my sneeze was purple sparks, or, that's what I saw when I opened my eyes up. And the sparks pushed the butterfly off but it must have been -" she held her hands about a foot or two apart, "like this big after wards. My snot sparks gigantified it or something. It was..." she remembered the sight of the giant butterfly, flapping its huge wings off into the distance. Accidental magic like that is rarely very powerful, and she knew that the gigantifying would have worn off at some point. But she liked to pretend that there was still a two foot long butterfly flapping about in Wales somewhere even now. "It was actually really pretty."

She realized that she'd gotten a bit excited at the chance to tell the story, and settled herself back down in her seat. It wasn't often that Elspeth felt comfortable enough to be this talkative, and she couldn't tell yet whether she'd just come off as a manic kind of weirdo or not. Best to leave the part about how butterflies taste with their feet out of it for now. At least until she knew these other kids would find that interesting instead of creepy.

"How about you?" she offered in return to the rest of the compartment.

Interacting with: @Calypso Aretez | @Birdie Spindlewheel | @Zykeal Lane

Elspeth continued to listen as the rest of the students on the train talked about their first uses of magic. Everyone has a unique experience, no two wizards are exactly alike in wand or that first step into the magical realm. It's believed that all living things have a certain amount of magic inherently within them. This is what makes potion ingredients important, and wands work, and love so powerful. And Elspeth felt that in this small compartment. Not the magic in any of her peers, but the electricity of a moment, the feeling she got when she first held her wand, that something new was about to start and her life would never be the same again.

As the ride continued on the sun began to set and she watched as farmlands turned to highlands the deeper into Scotland the train got. Soon, thick forests blocked out what little sunlight might have reached the train window. The conversation began to die down, or, at least, her paying attention to it did. She could tell they were getting close and her mind couldn't concentrate on getting to know others or remembering interesting stories about herself. They were almost there, at Hogwarts, at that famed school her mother had always talked so highly about her whole youth. Where all of the greatest wizards and witches of Britain had learned. Where so many important moments and battles have taken place. Where so many amazing stories began. And she was about to start her small chapter.

A little before the train came to a stop, Elspeth excused herself from the compartment, preferring to stand by the door so she could hop out as soon as they reached the platform. Plus she was feeling antsy enough that she didn't feel like she could sit much longer without getting queasy from the excitement (nerves?). After brushing her robes off she stood and smiled at her compartment guests. "It was nice meeting you all. I guess I'll see you at the sorting ceremony." Or maybe be in the same house. Maybe one of these students was going to be with her for years to come. As she stepped out of the compartment and looked up and down the hall she saw a handful of other students beginning to crowd out, as well as compartments who hadn't closed their doors. Some of these students were destined to be her friends. But then, some were also destined to probably hate her. She squinted her eyes at that notion. Not now. Cutting off thoughts like that early was important.

The train began to slow down, and she felt herself moving forward with the momentum of it. Welp... Away we go.

I know this thread's gone a bit dead so I'm going to write Elspeth out of the scene. Thanks for such a lovely intro to the site @Birdie Spindlewheel, @Zykeal Lane, @Calypso Aretez!