Spring Showers Bring Death PV

time. morning
place. courtyard
with. @aislin darragh

Dahlia did not, as a habit, engage with the world under damp conditions. Her housemates, those who favored physical adventurous, often scampered around in mud, grime, and other offensive substances. Spring had brought a seemingly-eternal trail of muddy-boot footprints to the Gryffindor's dormitory. Dahlia leaped over them swiftly with the agility of a twelve-year-old girl determined not to get gunk on the soles of her new, pristinely white sneakers.

It was a futile endeavor as she discovered. Dahlia could dodge the gunk left by others to the best of her ability, however, she could not entirely avoid the gunk-source herself. The young witch proved herself an indoor-dwelling creature during the colder months. The castle provided plenty to explore while keeping shelter from the horrors of weather variation. She could easily eat, sleep, study, and spend time with friends within indoor spaces.

This structure, although efficient, left one main structural issue: monotony. Dahlia could not, simply, be trusted to entertain herself effectively repeating the same routine each day. She was not an enchanted automaton but a living, breathing human individual. Hence, as was sensible, she required change.

Dahlia did not remain idle in this desire. She had taken to exploring the library in the recent weeks. Just yesterday an attempt was made, in moot, to study the greatest wizarding events of the medieval period. She had the misfortune of reading the words 'treacle tart' printed on a page which had, in turn, imbued her with a hunger so great she simply could not continue studying.

Books could only get one so far. Dahlia enjoyed the conceptual and the practical equally. In this case, one was clearly lacking— she required a physical adventure.

The Gryffindor, currently splayed on a bed, glanced towards the window. Scotland had, in no surprising feat, produced yet another gray and rainy spring day. Disgusting. Dahlia did not support this in the slightest. Months past April necessitated sunshine, not layers. Dahlia righted herself with a huff. She had to brave the elements, or so she decided.

Hence, with this commitment in mind, she found herself standing directly in the middle of the courtyard. Her use of a jacket was merely decorative. The wool garment lacked both a hood and a protective lining against water. As to further offend logic, Dahlia had paired this with a ribboned skirt, tights, and a pair of wire-frame sunglasses nested neatly in her damp hair. (If one asked, the sunglasses did have a practical use— keeping rain off of the one inch of hair they protected.)

She had not thought so far as to determine why, exactly, she was outside. She was communing with the general populace— a noble pastime.

The general populace was staring at the ground or, well, one girl was. How odd. The tantalizing possibility of an investigation called to the Gryffindor.

Dahlia took a few steps towards the girl. Was that a worm she spoke to? Her left eyebrow raised several degrees. Dahlia chewed on her lower lip. She would not be participating but she could offer commentary. "You know those guys live for like, two days max, right?" She spoke finally after a pause— heroic restraint displayed by the witch. Dahlia had no idea of a worm's lifespan nor did she look particularly like someone who ought to. Still, she spoke with the confidence of an entomologist.

@Dahlia Lee

Aislin was only just standing up and wiping the worm slime off her fingers when there was a voice quite close behind her. She hadn't noticed anyone come into the courtyard--she'd been occupied, though. You know those guys live for like, two days max, right? Aislin huffed, perhaps disproportionately exasperated. Did no one know anything about worms? Mercy had thought they were cooties, and admittedly Aislin hadn't really known what cooties were. She'd found nothing about them in the library, and then eventually thought to ask her cousins, which brought her to the conclusion that they had nothing to do with worms, and that she would have rather not asked. And now this? She spun on her boot heel to see who was spouting such utter nonsense.

The girl was her age, she was pretty sure. Maybe they had a class together? Aislin was bad at paying attention to the people sitting around her enough to say. At least she wasn't a NEWT-level student, then the severe underestimate would have been really ridiculous. She was pretty, neatly dressed but not really for the weather. The presence of a coat did put her slightly above Aislin in terms of preparedness, but it didn't look at all waterproof so it couldn't be much better than her school robe, and she found the stark white shoes particularly distressing. Aislin's boots were already muddy, whatever had compelled her to wear those shoes? She also had sunglasses perched on her head, possibly the biggest mystery of all. Maybe she thought the sun would come out later today? There was always a chance, but not a very good one.

The puzzle of her outfit could not distract Aislin from the real problem here, which was of course the misrepresentation of worm basics. "No, they don't." She looked down at the worm she'd just rescued, half-visible between blades of grass, then scrunched her nose. "It takes weeks just to grow to full size." This was obvious with any working knowledge of biology. "And they can't reproduce for at least that long. They can live up to seven-ish years, I think, if the conditions are good. The conditions won't be good if someone steps on them, or if they get stranded out here."

With her correction complete, she sidestepped the girl for another worm close to them. "D'you want to help?" Aislin demonstrated the same pinch-and-scoop method to pick them up, then looked back up at the girl and realized she reminded her quite a lot of Mercy, between the shoes and the worm misinformation. She'd probably freak out if Aislin put a worm anywhere near her. Frowning, she considered this, then amended, "Eh... or at least watch your step."

time. morning
place. courtyard
with. @aislin darragh, @paul turner

Dahlia hummed. Her bluff had been called, unfortunately. The girl knew nothing about the worms nor their growth stages. Hence, the only way to regain control of the conversation was to dig herself in deeper. "A human lifespan is, like, a thousand times longer though. Or a tortoise," she remarked, glancing towards the earth-dwelling creatures.

She had to wonder what preoccupied them to live for several weeks. Did they eat? They did not appear to her to possess mouths but perhaps they absorbed soil nutrients through their skin. There could not be much going on in their minds given their small size and bug-like nature. At least ants and bees had purposes although they fell into the pattern of monarchical groupthink. Dahlia was glad she was not a bug. (If she were, as a thought experiment, she would not need to complete any Transfiguration assignments— a strong motivator although not sufficient to supersede her desire for free thought and commentary.)

On the topic of commentary, Dahlia shifted her attention to the boy. He had clearly made a (correct) assumption about her based on her appearance and apparent role in the worm-removal scheme. She offered him a comparatively gentle side-eye: not necessarily malicious but vaguely judgemental. "I'm offering commentary," she added, "Don't have my wand on me."

The girl was not fully confident with the use of the levitating charm yet but she declined to offer such information. Wingardium Leviosa was a ridiculous incantation for a spell. It was Latin! She had not asked for Latin. There were far too many syllables and the stress came unnaturally to the English tongue. Dahlia could not help but pronounce it "win-gar-di-OOM lee-VIE-oh-sah" as Merlin intended.

That was about as much of her attention as the boy deserved. She turned back to the girl, a barrage of questions locked into place. "Have you ever met a 7-year-old worm? Are there such things as worm years? I think there should be. Someone should cast a growth spell on the worms so they're our size but, like, scent the slime first. I think worms should smell like peonies, personally. Do you think so? You seem like the type of person to prefer fruit-flavored scents. I'm totally right." She had the potential to continue on but, thankfully for all others involved, restrained herself. Commentary. Dahlia was an expert at it.

@Dahlia Lee & @Paul Turner

Maths had not been Aislin's best subject -- it was interesting sometimes, useful in the sciences, but hard. Still, she was fairly confident in her mental math that seven years, or even the one-to-two year lifespan of an averagely unlucky wild worm, did not go into eighty-ish years one thousand times. Nor did the calculation work for tortoises, though they did live longer and she didn't remember by how much. A couple hundred years, maybe? The point was, Sunglasses Girl was kind of just throwing around numbers.

Aislin had another worm in hand when a boy arrived, sensibly dressed in a whole yellow rainwear kit and holding up his wand to maintain a shimmering magical umbrella. Aislin watched him, wondering if he also had odd things to say about worms, but he seemed much more like-minded, concerned by the state of the courtyard and determined to save a few of the lumbricina. He wasted no time crouching down beside her and carefully reaching for a stranded creature, and she offered a grateful smile.

The idea to have Sunglasses levitate them was actually pretty smart -- that way she wouldn't have to touch any -- though Aislin was no more sure if it would work on worms. It was a charm, and admittedly she didn't pay very good attention during Charms class. She was even less sure if she could count on Sunglasses to drop them slowly and carefully. Aislin squinted at her as if that might reveal more of her character. Maybe it was best she stuck to commentary.

Though she would have been quite content to quietly engage in worm saving side-by-side with Boots, a deluge of questions joined the rain patter. Sunglasses had been serious about the commentary, then. Aislin blinked, slowly, then brushed away some of the water pooling in her eyebrows. She wasn't sure she'd caught all of that. Hopefully, she exchanged a look with the worm in her hands; maybe Hogwarts worms were a little bit magical, and it would use this moment to unveil some latent telepathy and repeat back the words? Hmm, her head was still only full of her own thoughts.

Sunglasses had asked if she'd met any 7-year-old worms, she remembered that. "Maybe I have," she said, with a touch of indignance. How was she supposed to know? Worms didn't talk, had yet to prove themselves telepathic, and didn't exactly have rings disclosing their age like trees did. "And I don't think people use the term worm years. It would be a made-up thing, anyway, like dog years. Years are defined by the sun. Though I guess they might perceive time differently." Aislin wasn't sure how much worms noticed the passage of time, of days. They didn't have eyes, but they must be able to tell when the sun is out by heat and feel hunger.

She was kind of lost after those questions, both in terms of not knowing what to say and not knowing what Sunglasses was saying. Giant worms? Scented slime? "I guess?" Aislin did find massive bugs really cool, but natural ones more so than ones temporarily enchanted to be that way. She brought her latest earthworm close to her nose to sniff. They did have a smell, she'd noticed it before, but it was just kind of... earthy? Like mud, a little bit like decay. Like worms. Not like peonies or fruit. "I like the smell of rain," she mumbled, because Sunglasses wasn't totally right, and wondered what would happen if she threw a worm at her. That would be mean to the worm, though.

——————————————————————— date : late april 2026 location : courtyard with : @paul turner, @aislin darragh action : n/a word count : 759 speech : #818199 collage credit : marigold wesley !! code credit : myself ———————————————————————

Sunglasses Girl was absolutely throwing around numbers. However, in her opinion, they deserved the violence she dealt. Numbers had betrayed her one too many times. It was specifically six and nine that she had a vendetta against. Who, when inventing the Roman numeric system, thought it was a good idea for one symbol to look like another turned upside down? They were practically asking for confusion. Not to mention, the five sort of looked like the two if the two had more confidence. An eight was merely a zero that had been punched in from the sides. It was a tall order to ask Dahlia, only age twelve, to distinguish between these miscreants. Hence, she too lacked the math skills to properly calculate how many times a worm lifespan fit into that of a human counterpart.

An eyebrow was raised at the lack of imagination from Worm Enthusiast B. It took her a moment to compute his point. In his attempt to reason logically he overlooked a very obvious truth. "Anything can be compared if you try. In claiming that two things are incomparable, you are mentally comparing the two and finding dissimilarities," Dahlia could not resist the urge to correct him although she refrained from insult, "Take a grain of rice and someone's birthday. I would guess, given what I know of you, that you would support the claim that these two concepts cannot be compared. Why do you think so?" She paused before answering her own question, one leg crossing over the other. "Because one is physical and the other is conceptual, right?" Once again, Dahlia neglected to wait for an answer. "Therefore, the rice is more tangible than the birthday. Comparison made."

Perhaps that entire argument was tangential as the boy continued talking about worm science. None of the information she deemed particularly important except for the final question. Questions, as per usual, cleared her head from her daydreams. "I never said they should not be saved." Her initial rebuttal came quickly before considering her words. "If there were a human here that was also dying, though, I would save the human since they likely have more of their life left to live. Depends on the human, though." She added a joke on the end as to save herself from deadly sincerity. Earnestness is a plague.

Dahlia would not have thought to save the worms without having seen Aislin in action. Even then, her primary instinct was to resolve her curiosity rather than to provide practical assistance. That made her pro-talking, not anti-worm. The Gryffindor was not afraid of any kind of bug— or so she convinced herself. She could hold a worm if she so desired. It was an odd angle for her to be talking to both of the worm enthusiasts while towering above them. Hence, she crouched down, as much as her outfit allowed, and extended her finger towards a worm, proof that she held no negative feelings towards the slimier species. She lifted the creature carefully and placed it with the other rescued worms.

A mindset of practicality was fleeting as her attention was rapidly drawn back towards the conversation. "I agree with you on this." She glanced towards Paul. "Counting years as laps around the sun seems arbitrary. As long as the units are, you know, units, we can have as many different ways to measure time as we desire." Dahlia's positive demeanor, as brought on by the discourse, left the witch far more likely to accept multitudes in this way.

Of course the witch was not totally right. She had taken her statement from truths about herself. Dahlia preferred floral scents. From her current position, one would likely smell the overly-fragrant notes of rose and chamomile that composed her daily-use perfume. However, Worm Enthusiast A was entirely wrong about worms smelling of rain, or at least that was what Dahlia got from the girl's mutterings. It would do her some good to speak up. "Worms smell like dirt. You associate them with the smell of rain probably because they often come out during storms," she hummed, "Rain is a decent smell though. It complements florals." In reality, the Gryffindor had no idea whether peonies and rain worked together in an olfactory sense. She held a firm dislike for the tangible effects of getting soaked and muddy. However, conceptually, the thought conjured the beautiful image of a walled garden in springtime. Dahlia approved.

STA 5 | EVA 5 | STR 3 | WIS 5 | ARC 6 | ACC 6
& half-veela

@Dahlia Lee & @Paul Turner

Sunglasses and Boots proceeded to get awfully philosophical about the ability to compare things, and they sort of lost her. The worm biology she could follow, but the rest of it? She hadn't even had breakfast yet, it was too early for this. She rubbed at her forehead and shuffled a crouched step to the side to reach the next worm, pretending to exchange a look with it. Of course, worms didn't have eyes. How did they get to rice and birthdays, again?

As smart as she thought she was, Aislin was still a 12-year-old. Not everything she thought she knew about worms was right, so where did that leave her in the realm of astronomy and defining time? Pretty much clueless. A virtue of hers was open-mindedness, though, so she didn't try to dig her heels in and deny Boots' point about moon years. She thought about it for a second, decided it sounded reasonable, and said, "Oh, I guess you're right." Interpretation. Maybe even the sun and moon were organic on some giant scale they still couldn't detect, and they had their own, even more massive scale of time. So really, all of it was made-up.

Of course, Aislin was still teetering on annoyed, not to mention her stomach had started to grumble along with her. Sunglasses tried to correct her about what worms smelled like. She wasn't the one who had just held a worm up to her nose. Aislin didn't look over at her, but she did roll her eyes. "I know that. That's not what I said." At least Sunglasses didn't have some confusing vendetta against the smell of rain, too. And she had finally joined them on the ground, and hadn't carelessly squished her worm when she touched it, so Aislin supposed she was okay. Knowing things about smells was kind of cool, and didn't seem like just talk, because Sunglasses smelled noticeably of something sweet and floral.

Between her and Boots (and the small effort of Sunglasses), they were making steady progress clearing the courtyard of at-risk earthworms. The rain had slowed from a steady pour to a tap-tap-tap drizzle, though it was too late for Aislin's hair, which was plastered to her face in dripping strands she hadn't bothered to push back. Then there was the hem of her robes, also thoroughly soaked. It would drip all through her morning class and stay wet well into the afternoon naturally, but luckily she knew the Hot-Air Charm. Unluckily, she didn't have a watch and had long since forgotten to worry about the time, and that morning class was ticking steadily closer.

AN: Lol, I'd say we slow down a little with their knowledge, before they start dealing with rocket science in year 3. :'D