ERRAND Embroidery 101 Finished

{ Interacting with: @Maria Dee }

It was kind of impressive how creative Maria was. At least, Serena thought so. She really liked her attempt at the owl. Despite the mishap, there was definitely effort being put into it and Serena could appreciate that, at the very least. "That's really cute, to be honest. I'm sure it will turn out great!" She replied encouragingly, once it was detached from the sweater. It would have made quite a nice patch though.

She chuckled as she saw the other girl's reaction to Pizza. The brown rat always had two reactions - it was either along the lines of a declaration of cuteness or it was one of disgust. Not everyone was a fan of rats, to be honest. She had seen that when she went to the pet store and saw him for the first time. Serena thought he was adorable, to be fair. "No no, it's fine, he is adorable," She agreed, fully understanding the excitement. Nodding as the fellow badger mentioned finishing off the embroidery, Serena agreed. She needed to do the same.

"Serena. Serena Towers," She introduced herself in response, "Yeah, I'll see you around!". In everything that happened, she kind of forgot to mention her name earlier so she was glad that Maria had thought to do that. Serena pet her rat and put him on her shoulder, "Let me finish this off and then we can go play, okay?" She mumbled towards Pizza, who seemed to be happy sitting on her shoulder.

Serena grabbed some red embroidery thread, a needle and the hoop. Following the instructions, she managed to get the linen into the hoop and then moved to sit down. It took her some time but she created a stitch around the outline of the heart. It was not perfect, by any means. Nor was it particularly difficult. In reality, she had just stuck to the most basic stitch that the professor had shown her and run with that. Simple yet effective. The badger frowned a little, the marker underneath was still visible as she had created a few outlines.

Once it was done, she went up to the professor, asking the older lady to help her turn it into a lavender sachet. Professor Jensen obliged, taking the hooped linen and returned it as a sachet not too long after. Since Serena used the smallest piece of linen, the end result was something that could fit into the palm of her small hands. It was kind of cute. Serena smiled, thanking the professor, pocketing the sachet and putting everything else away.

With Pizza Rat still on her shoulder, she ventured back out towards the grounds, so she could let him roam around in the grass for a bit.

Total Words so far: 941 + 451 = 1,392 - Completed
Minor godmodding of @Hjørdis Jensen

[THREAD LEFT]

It was the aspect of creating a full picture with a multitude of the tiniest stitches that caused Jack to be fascinated by the concept of embroidery. He had always been the sort of kid that entertained focusing on the most minute of details and nuances while simultaneously learning how they were incorporated into the big picture. In this case, the 'big picture' was quite literal, but that made it no less intriguing to the young Slytherin.

Further interested to know that the organizer of the event was none other than his own house head, Professor Jensen, Jack thought this would have been a good opportunity to learn more about her and her hobbies as well as, perhaps, why she liked them. It didn't hurt that he was always up for learning new skills and gaining knowledge of all kinds, either, because one never knew when a bit of seemingly miscellaneous information would come in handy.

When he sat himself down at the table to learn, however, he realized though the technique seemed simple enough, he hadn't the slightest idea about what picture he hoped to ultimately create as an end result, nor what he would want to use said picture for. There were a few people he would have liked to give gifts to, but what gift would be suitable that could be embroidered and with what image?

Somewhat at a loss, the redhead idly glanced around, hoping to get some inspiration or other from watching the students around him.

Reducio

1527/1000 Words
(As someone who likes to embroider in their free time, this was such a fun errand idea!)

[Font= Times new roman]When Airlia happened to stumble onto the courtyard on an especially sunny and beautiful day as she was looking for a friend.

The whole day she had been so excruciatingly bored, but finding a Gryffindor wandering about always meant something interesting was about to happen. While Airlia wouldn't join the shenanigans she would sometimes watch a duel or a harmless prank as long as it was all fun and games.

It wasn't but a few steps into the courtyard when she stumbled on a pebble and fell to her face with an embarrassing shriek.

She winced as she pushed herself up to her knees and brought her fingers to her stinging cheek. While she didn't seem to be bleeding her skin felt prickly. One of her knees was hurt but since she would stumble and fall so often she really didn't bother going to the healing wing for a scrape in her knee.

By now the media witch could basically recognize her approaching from her footsteps alone.

Dusting off some dirt off her white summer dress she untied a pouch from her belt and took out some gauze that she then wrapped around her knee, knowing that she could cleanse the scrape later. Smiling happily at her handy work she nodded and proceeded to trot froward when something caught her eye.

Tables were set up at a corner of the courtyard. Some students were gathered around the table and Airlia wondered what they were doing. Some were chatting quietly or laughing openly but a clear buzz of speech was clearly coming from their way.

It seemed like the people were doing something with high interest. Hands were wailing about and when Airlia rose to her toes she could barely see onto the table between the students sitting around it. Embroidery floss in so many colors were scattered among linen fabric pieces on the table and when Airlia saw the sun hit a needle pulling on thread she knew what they were doing.

Embroidery!

With happy tippy tappy steps Airlia skipped over to the table and smiled brightly. It took her about three seconds to reach forward for embroidery floss and sit down among the other crafters.

Truth be told Airlia was not too talented in crafting or even art in general. She always found a way to hurt herself or others, or just make a huge mess with paint. But embroidery was a whole other story.

She was raised in an old fashioned way. Her upbringing belonged to the fair ladies of the 18th century and as it happens embroidery was one of the many lady-like skills she was taught by her mother. Embroidery floss, hoops, and a needle were placed on her hands to learn under a mastery at a young age and soon weekends became embroidery days while weekdays were for studying magical history, etiquette, and pureblood family lineages.

The colors of the thread and the wooden hoops were truly a sight for sore eyes to her as she had missed having something to do with her hands. This was something she excelled at. Something she knew how to do in her sleep if she was given the chance.

Choosing a pale pink embroidery floss Airlia cut a piece out of it, struggling with the blunt scissors that could barely cut through the yarn and then nodded proudly when she had a piece that was just right. Pulling her hair back and smoothing it along her head to make a very clean and polished looking ponytail Airlia tied her hair with the piece of embroidery floss to keep it off from her face.

Nothing was more annoying than having to deal with hair strands in her vision while trying to work on a complicated pattern. Her hair was so fluffy and thick she felt like she would have to tighten the thread over and over again along the day but even that was better than having to constantly brush it off from her face.

When trying to figure out what sort of design she should make today she thought back to a walk she had the other day along the side of the forbidden forest. She'd seen some mushrooms growing and thought they were so cute. She could just imagine them as little houses for teeny tiny people and she really wanted to embroider them somewhere.

And what better than her pouch that she carried around because just like moments before she fell down often and suffered some minor scrapes every other day it seemed like. The pouch was boring and simple with a brown-ish linen color that had a slight purple hue to it. It tied closed with a pale brown leathery string. The pouch really could use some cute mushrooms for decoration.

She had to use a really small four-inch embroidery hoop so she could slide the inner hoop inside the pouch, then place the outer hoop on the outside and click them together before tightening and adjusting them to make sure the linen of the pouch is secure and tight. When Airlia thought of a pattern she decided just to freehand most of it. It would not be the first time and she had always preferred embroidery to be something she could change as she went and not to be restricted by a drawn on pattern.

By then Airlia had to choose which colors to use for her embroidery and few of them were quite obvious as she would need white, red, and brown for the mushrooms but deciding between a golden brown and a grey-ish brown was harder. When she finally decided on the golden-brown she started unwinding the embroidery floss from its spool until she has a piece that was around an arm's length.

Finding the right length was always hard. A too-short embroidery floss piece would have to be rethreaded way too many times and a too-long one was always getting tangled. She then split the thread so it wouldn't be too thick and look bulky as she threaded her needle and got to work.

She started her mushrooms with a chain stitch which had always been her favorite when making cute designs like this. The loops of the thread looked absolutely adorable and made for a nice textured pattern. She made all the mushroom stem's and caps with the chain stitch and then details and the greenery at the bottom of the mushrooms Airlia made with a backstitch to make them smooth and to ensure they cover the fabric well.

Most of the day went by with her sitting in silence embroidering and focusing harder than she ever had in class. If she loved studying as much as she did embroidery she might actually be a good student.

By the time her work was done the day was running out and she was left to admire her work. Taking the pouch out of the hoop Airlia smoothed her linen fabric and while it was a bit wrinkly it did look rather gorgeous.

Her favorite mushrooms were the purple and red ones with an orange hue. She then proceeded to name each mushroom and clean up after herself when she was entirely done with her work.

Words: 1213
Errand Finished!

Reducio

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Fascinated by the marvelous display of colors, Sylvain decided he would introduce himself to the opportunity to learn, an opportunity that had been so kindly provided by Professor Jensen. Awkwardly, the scholarly boy made his way towards the last empty seat within his field of vision. Slowly dragging himself up to the table, Sylvain set his bags down beside his seating and settled in for instructions.

Sylvain quickly found that his imagination was lacking in the embroidery department, and while his hands could handle the dexterous task under the supervision of the Professors, Sylvain also found that he lacked the vision to see how each thread could contribute to the greater picture. After a good fifteen minutes of fiddling, the impatient student dissassembled the broach he was making in favor of something simpler, and more realistic for him. A friendship bracelet. He chose blue and yellow for its colors, and he already had the perfect recipient in mind.

Simply enough, one end of the bracelet was held down by a bit of masking tape, while Sylvain worked the end of each individual strand, slowly weaving them together to create braids. He then took each of the braids and began to work those together, hoping to create a band. It was a simple enough activity for him to do, but he was concerned that perhaps he should attempt to push himself and learn something more.

Determined to outdo himself, the young lad gathered a few additional colors. green, pink and black were the first, which he made into a simple bookmark for Flash Holmwood, who had always seemed as interested in books as himself. The bookmark looked a little strange, as it was meant to look like a snake, tasting the air around it. Instead, it sort of just looked like a big green worm with a pink tongue. "Not so far off that he won't understand it," Sylvain muttered to himself just quiet enough for the others not to notice.

Next he grabbed a bit of brown and blue string, and began to fashion it into a keepsake for Charlie. He made sure to boldly embroider the words Birds of a Feather on the charm in hopes that it would remind Charlie that he had a friend. He hoped that this keepsake would help Charlie feel more like he fit in with the rest of the students, or at the least act as a good memory when his riddle buddy had less fond memories to turn to.

Finally, after having applied himself to the basics taught by Professor Hjordis, Sylvain had a sort of vision of what he wanted to make. It was something he had wanted to make for himself, a little panel a lot like the one's the other more creatively minded students had been constructing. Sylvain wanted a keepsake for himself, something to remind him of his first year at Hogwarts. He wanted something to show his mother when she asked him if he made any friends. Something to maybe hold in his hands when there was loneliness in his heart.

Blue string for Charlie and himself, brown for the dirt of the courtyard, black for each of their robes, yellow for Willow, and green for Flash. He used a fleshy tone for their faces, and remembered to avoid covering up details so he might add them later when he became more experienced. He sat there for what felt like hours, slowly and carefully adding string after string, stopping only occasionally to remove a string when it didn't fit his big picture. In all reality, the level of focus he brought to the task was likely the most extraordinary thing about his efforts.

His tongue peeked, just barely, from the corner of his pursed lips, as his permanently sad eyes squinted to observe every detail of the miniature tapestry he attempted to create. His brow was furrowed into an almost angry sort of concentration, and his chest seemed to hum Gaelic tunes almost on its own. The boy was a natural, and while he may have lacked experience, it was clear in this moment that his life was going to be full of the rich details. The type of details only an experienced storyteller would remember.

As he finished up the project, he looked at it with pride. Flash's face wasn't perfect, Willow was a bit too tall. He had to fill in space between himself and Charlie, and in doing so, made the pair of them look kind of fat. Looking at the picture, it was plain to anyone that Sylvain had embroidered what he thought were his friends, and unrealistically, but perhaps not knowable, was that they were all in the same portrait together. His eyes still beaming, a single tear strolled down his cheek and flowed into the little project he'd spent the afternoon on.

Wiping the salty streak from his nose and chin, Sylvain looked up across the table to see another student searching the room with his crafty eyes. It was clear this student didn't know what to embroider, as his project lay upon the table un-started. The boy didn't seem bored to him, in fact, the boy seemed curious with what to do with himself. Raising an eyebrow, Sylvain reached across the table with a hand extended to greet the stranger.

"Hey there, I'm Sylvain" he said confidently, hoping the other kid would take what he said next well, "You look a little left behind, do you need help figuring out what to do?" His words were genuine, and he wasn't sure whether or not he would need to raise his hand and call a professor over to help with instructions, or if maybe the boy lacked the creative will power to make something out of nothing. Either way, Sylvain found himself sympathizing with his own assumptions of his table neighbor's feelings.

The sentimental and accepting eagle found that the longer his hand was held aloft, the farther his heart sunk. He really hoped the two could get along.

Interacting with: @Jack Burnett

Mentioning: @Charles Cutting @Willow Anderson @Flash Holmwood

WC: 1008/1000 words

As he looked about, Jack's attention was first caught by the sound of familiar melodies before his eye was drawn to the source. It seemed a boy across from him had begun to hum a few Gaelic songs, many of which were familiar to the Slytherin. This caused him to smile absently a bit and his curiosity towards the other student grew as he inspected the embroidery he was working on. To his great surprise, the redhead realized that the other first year had actually completed quite a few things already aside from the rather ambitiously large panel he was working on right then.

There was what seemed small enough that it could have been a brooch. Then there was a piece with what he presumed must have been a snake on it judging by the pink tongue. That was kind of cute. And then there was...wait. Was that a friendship bracelet death sentence?! As if Willow's bracelet-making event hadn't been enough! Apparently they could be made with embroidery thread just as well as, if not better than, the yarn that the Hufflepuff girl had used.

Somewhat alarmed by this new revelation, Jack slowly returned his attention to the panel in front of the brunet right at that moment. He might not have known who they were supposed to be, exactly, but he could tell they were people. Worse, friends. A drop of something fell onto the cloth and, bewildered, the first year followed it up to see that the creator of the piece appeared to have shed a tear. Jack's brow furrowed in slightly puzzled repugnance. What the hell...? Was this kid getting that sentimental over his own work? Maybe one or more of the people he had pictured had died or something.

Just as his alarm slowly gave way to horror, the humming had stopped and a voice spoke up instead. When Jack raised his gaze from staring at the panel of four people together, appalled at his sudden understanding, he realized with a start that the voice was talking to him. More jarring yet was the fact that said voice belonged to the very boy he had just been regarding the work of. Had he caught Jack watching him? But no, he seemed sincerely concerned for his schoolmate. That, however, was what worried said schoolmate the most.

"Heh...well, I'm sure you'd think anyone looks left behind compared to how many things you've made already," the redhead teased with a crooked grin. "Must be quite the pro. Or maybe you've just been here a while. But yeah...to answer your question, I know how to do it, I'm just...not really sure what to make."

He extended his hand to take Sylvain's, responding with an amicable smile. "Jack. Jack Burnett. You got a last name? First names seem kind of...intimate to me to use too regularly. Especially since we've just met." Truth be told, he had been worried about responding to the other boy's offered hand and introduction at all, seeing as the fellow seemed nearly as friend-hungry as any Hufflepuff, but Jack didn't want to prematurely assume the worst. He shoved aside his fears for the moment, deciding he would deal with that obstacle if it ever even ended up becoming one in the first place. For all he knew, he was simply looking too much into things and overreacting as a result.

"So, Mr. Embroidery Expert Eagle," he said playfully, "You had an idea in mind as to what I should make?"

Interacting with: @Sylvain Indarys

Word count: 1011

Ileen shielded her eyes from the sun with her hand. The second she stepped through the portal onto the lawn, golden light and the already considerable warmth of the early summer sun flooded over the young girl.
She had actually only wanted to go for a walk, but already in the corridors she had heard some pupils talking about the handicraft action that her Head of the House, Professor Jensen, organized outside on the Grounds.
And indeed, Ileen spotted a collection of tables not far from the portal, which were covered with colourful materials. Professor Jensen had already gathered a few students around her, some were already working eagerly.
The colourful materials and the concentrated but pleasant atmosphere magically attracted Ileen. She always had admired people who were talented in craftsmanship or artistry. She herself was definitely not one of them. But just because you weren't good at something didn’t mean you couldn't get excited about it.
So Ileen slowly strolled over to the tables. She admired the noble and beautiful fabrics, the shining threads and let her fingers glide devoutly over the soft materials.
However, she still hesitated to participate actively. Some of her classmates' work was so breathtaking that Ileen was too intimidated to try it herself.

It wasn’t long before Professor Jensen came over to her and put an end to her hesitation. "Miss Knight, it won't embroider itself if you keep staring at it. Why not just give it a go?"
Ileens blushed immediately. She had a very high opinion of the Professor and was embarrassed to need an extra invitation. “Sorry Professor. I will try. But I still have no idea what I want to do.”
With a hot face she looked at the embroidery needles. "Besides, I've never done this before." She didn't want to convey the impression that she was trying to avoid it, so she grabbed a soft fabric to show her commitment.

A short time later she had sat down on the ground near the tables and had placed her embroidery hoop on her knees. Professor Jensen had shown her the basic stitches. Ileen had been allowed to practice a little before she turned to her final work. Even though it hadn't been that hard and she had managed it reasonably well, she was still reserved. It was not that it wasn’t fun. Actually, she really enjoyed the embroidery thing.
But… She truly had no idea which design she should do. It wasn’t only that she had no idea but also that the things, which looked beautiful in her head, were not realizable for her.
I really can't do anything for anyone else. Who would I give such a thing to? And who would be happy about something that looks like it was made by a five-year-old?
She chewed indecisively on her lower lip and let her gaze glide over the others, searching for some inspiration. Her eyes got stuck on Professor Jensen. Wasn't art also about expressing yourself and creating something just to feel good? Maybe it wasn't so much about the outcome as it was about the process.

Ileen took a thoughtful look at the materials she had selected. Because she had not yet thought of a specific design, she had chosen colours she liked. There was an emerald green floss, a light green one that reminded her of leaves that were brought to light by golden sunlight and one with the pale yellow color of the rising morning sun. The fabric she intended to embroider was natural beige linen.
What do these colours remind me of? Why do I like them so much? What do I associate with them? She asked herself these questions because, if she could not create something beautiful, she wanted to make something meaningful at least.
They remind me of outside. Of freedom. Trust and peace…

Concentrated she took the water-soluble pencil and began to paint. As she had feared, the lines were not straight and the picture was a bit shaky, but she was still proud. After all, it was the first time in years that she had painted or drawn something. Embroidery and handicrafts clearly suited her more. She was not talented here either, but it worked better than if she wanted to paint something.
But even if it was not beautiful to look at, it made her happy to see something created by her own work. She was so immersed in her work that she did not even notice the coming and going students.
It was not so easy to change the colours for her design. Every time she had to get the floss through the tiny needle nose and whenever she succeeded, she was happy about her small success. Twice she pricked her finger with the needle when she had to push it a little harder through the fabric, but she didn’t mind. The only important thing was not to get blood on her precious work.

The minutes went by and when Ileen finally decided that she was done, a few hours had passed. But to her it had seemed much shorter.
She looked critically at her work. Her simple and irregular, shaky stitches formed to a tree, a sun and a happy snake meandering through grass. Ileen had to grin. It actually looked like a scribbled something on a paper, but it was clear what it was supposed to represent. And she was very proud of that, even if she did not want to think about the great work of the others.
She collected her things to take them back to the tables and stood up. Carefully she put the floss and needles back, then she went to Professor Jensen. A thoughtful smile appeared on her lips. Ileen was really thankful that the Professor had asked her to try out embroidery. It had been fun and had given her a very positive feeling.
With a shy smile and a lump in her throat she stretched out her work towards Professor Jensen. "Thanks for encouraging me. I know it's not very pretty, but I'd like to give you this." She just hoped the woman knew what it meant. Ileen had never been good with words. And Professor Jensen was one of the people on whom she hoped things would be really different here at Hogwarts ...and that everyone else had been wrong about Slytherin.

Interacting with @Hjørdis Jensen
OOC: Permission to godmod and dialogue given by Professor Jensen

Word Count: 1064/1000

Mars was, forever and always, late.

Honestly, when they'd first seen the notice tacked on the bulletin board, they'd taken one look at it and carried on with their day. Embroidery didn't seem particularly captivating. Hell, they'd probably have more fun adding random, full-colored illustrations of concepts to their homework just to annoy their professors. And that was saying something. They hated drawing.

But as the day dragged on, they found it harder and harder to focus. They looked up from the History of Magic textbook swimming before their eyes and out the window. The sun was just overhead, peeking in through the crosshatching of the black wood, almost taunting them to come outside.

They sighed. They looked back down at the copious amounts of paper spread out around them, everything from Charms to Potions and back again. This was going to kill them young, they swore. The perfectionist tendencies didn't help.

Mars ran the tip of the feather-end of their quill over the backside of their left hand. It was a bored habit by now, replacing the chewing-one-the-end-of-pencils one they'd had while in muggle school. Those times seemed so far away by now.

Shaking themselves, they tried to force their headspace back into a study centric one. They stared blankly at the words on the page. They read the same sentence about seven times, not gleaning any information from it the entire way through. They gave up. Sitting back in their chair, they glanced back over to the window. The sky was clear and blue, like most days in Hogwarts. They assumed there would be a fair amount of wixes on the lawn today, probably a decent amount in the lake too. They wrinkled their nose. They hated swimming.

Absentmindedly, Mars check their wrist. There was nothing there, of course, but blank, tan skin. They sighed, throwing their head back on the chair. That earned them a fair share of stares from the other Ravenclaws in the Common Room, but it was as it was. They really needed to get a non-smartwatch. Or maybe a pocket watch. Or even a clock, hell, anything to tell the time.

The sun sent a beam glaring over their face. They swore, bouncing out of its ray as it fell over their eyes. What was it? Did someone manage to control the sun and curse them? They glared at it, as stupid as it is to glare at a celestial being that can burn holes in your retina. It seemed to bob up there, perched high in the sky. What, was it trying to say something?

Staring at it a second longer, they realized something. If the sun was that high still, it was around noon. That meant that the event that they'd saw earlier—embroidery, was it?—was probably still going on. They looked around at the papers fanning out around them. Well... it couldn't hurt, could it? Packing all of their stuff up, they raced down the stairs, hoping they hadn't missed too much.

----

Well, nearly. They'd missed the better part of the overall lecture and the step by step process, but they'd arrived in time to line up with everyone else grabbing their supplies.

They knew faintly how to do this. There had been one summer where Estella had simply just refused to let them go out to the lakehouse with their brothers, saying something about like, lady training or whatever. What the hell was lady training? Why did it have anything to do with embroidery? Mars wasn't even a lady. At any rate, they had proceeded to be locked in the house at hours at a time, learning about various things from Estella's little entourage. Embroidery had been on that list, one of the better parts of it too, but still, the whole experience had soured the practice for Mars.

When they got the chance, they grabbed a hoop and a needle, stringing out a couple of different colored threads for their design. They had a faint idea of what to do, but usually, they let things formate on their own, grow into beings beyond what they could plan. Roughly, they sketched the design onto the dark linen—a curling set of letters encircled by a set of spheres. Snapping it into the embroidery hoop, they stared at it for a moment. What were they meant to do now?

Drawing on knowledge they'd forgotten they had, they set the hoop down and picked up the needle and thread up. Luckily, embroidery needles were slightly bigger than the tiny pinpricks Estella's sewing friend used, so after wetting the end of the string, they slipped it through with no trouble. They tied up the end of the doubled-over thread by wrapping it around a finger and rolling it together. A neat trick, if they said so themselves.

Picking up the hoop again, they stuck it through the top and pulled through. The knot end caught and they looked at it for a moment. Something was off about this. Oh. Right. Threading the needle back from where it came, they undid their work. The first stitch was meant to come from the bottom, so the knot didn't show. There, that was better.

One stitch in and Mars was confused again. How did this work? They really should have shown up on time. Glancing up, they saw Professor Jensen standing to the side. They looked down at their project and back up to her. It couldn't hurt, right? They didn't want to be a bother, but they were absolutely lost.

Going up to her, they asked, "Sorry, can you show me how to do the running stitch?" Thankful, the professor was patient as she ran through the steps. Once she'd finished, Mars took it back with a look of understanding. Thanking her, they went out into the Courtyard, finding a set of rocks to sit on. Laying out their thread colors on a bent knee, they began in earnest to finish the pattern they'd laid out.

----

The sun had moved from the peak of the sky down to hover over the mountains. Mars had gone through all of their thread, going back once or twice to get newer strands. They'd also succeed in poking their fingers a fair amount of times, little drops of blood welling on the tips of their fingers. They wiped them away though and kept going.

They hadn't expected to get this caught up in embroidery. It was better than it had been before, less grueling and more creative. The open-air didn't hurt either, an occasional breeze sweeping through their hair, red locks glinting. Again, the perfectionism was ever-present, causing them to back-track on quite a few stitches as they went.

When they finally finished, most of the others had already gone. They looked up to a mostly empty Courtyard, hands stalling. Huh, they'd been here for a while. Glancing back at their final piece of thread, they poked through the linen once more. Final stitch.

Flipping the hoop over, they clasped the needle between two fingers, using their other hand to loop the thread over the silver metal a couple times. Then, they dragged the loops down, aiming as close to the linen as possible. It landed perfectly and they smiled. There, done.

They plucked at the extra string, debating if it was worth it to walk back over to the table and grab a pair of scissors. Deciding it was not, they pulled the thread taught and snapped it over a tooth. Maybe not hygienic, but effective.

Pulling the excess thread from the needle, they stuffed it in a pocket. Then, they held out their creation in front of them, one hand on either side. It wasn't bad, certainly. A space scene stared back at them, each planet carefully stitched in their respective colors along the border. They were a sucker for a little symbolism after all. The rest of the black linen was broken up by little stars, really single cross-stitches of white thread. In the middle of it sat that quote, "Only in the darkness can you see the stars." It seemed fitting for an embroidery piece really.

Standing up from the rock, Mars felt their back crack. God, they'd been sitting for too long. Stretching, they walked back over to the table to return their needle. They glanced over to another student who had just finished. The wizard was snapping their piece out of the hoop and returning that too.

Mars frowned down at their design. They'd kind of made it based on the idea of the circle. They also liked how taught it was, like a natural frame. Worrying their tongue between sharp teeth, they dropped the needle in its container and walked back to Professor Jensen once more.

They gave a lopsided grin to the pale-haired lady, holding the finished embroidery from one loose hand, "Mind if I keep the hoop?" they asked. Then, they gestured to the small stack of returned embroidery hoops. "I know that we're supposed to return them, but I kinda like the look of it like this. I could repay you if it's like, the material cost or something—somehow. As much as a student can, at least," they offered. Hopefully, the professor wouldn't mind.

As the 'Embroidery Expert Eagle' seemed to ponder Jack's dilemma, the redhead's thoughts turned to what he had been studying as of late. Namely, binding marks. Maybe a potential mark idea could have been something fun to embroider. Kind of like a personal emblem or something. Ah, but hadn't he once thought of something similar to that? Using a personal emblem as a binding mark would be kind of cruel, and as much as Jack liked to call other people his 'property'...it reminded him a little too much of the brand he had seen burned into Selim's skin not too long ago. Nope, he didn't want to do anything like that.

Taking out a quill and paper, Jack began to sketch some ideas out, careful to keep them concealed from prying eyes with his arm and hunched-over body. First, he drew up his idea of a personal emblem - something he had thought of with his dad at one point; an animal like-face that could have represented a fox, a raccoon, a cat, a coyote, or any other number of tricksters talked about in tales. It was the curved, mischievous eyes that gave them the trickster quality, but that had been all that was necessary.

Jack's father, Todd Burnett, had told him that icons, logos, and symbols were most memorable when they were simple and easy to identify. Thus, with just the outline of the vague, animal-like creature's head and those gleeful eyes, the emblem seemed detailed enough to portray the concept of 'trickster', but simple enough to remember and be vague about what animal it might have been attempting to provoke the thought of, exactly.

Well, regardless, it wouldn't have worked for a binding mark. Jack's idea of such a mark, at least, should have been something to identify all those marked with it as equal; not something like slaves to a master as Voldemort seemed to have done. The redhead supposed he would just have to keep searching for something suitable.