Preparing for the Future Closed

Adam was curious to see all these different students gathering in one place. Walking closer to the growing crowd, the tall boy caught a glimpse of a professor he didn't know standing in the middle of it all. The man looked familiar -- Adam had definitely seen him around the castle, but didn't have any of his classes or know his name. Well, as long as he was already here.... Adam hadn't been doing much of anything earlier, and this gathering had drawn his attention. Maybe something interesting was about to happen? He tried to discern what was going on from the expressions on the others' faces.

They all looked happy enough. Adam recognized a few friendly (or at least, familiar) figures on the hill; Kaegen, Mariah, and the new Gryffindor prefect Rhea Bishop were there, as well as Marcus De Wynter, the Slytherin that was heading up the Dueling Club. Out of everyone there, Adam figured Rhea would be the most well informed. She looked considerably less confused than the others, and she had at least some authority at the school. He smiled at her, walking over to join the crowd, and introduced himself quietly so as not to disturb anyone else. "Hi! I'm Adam. Do you know what's going on?"

Isabella hurried along to the grounds, hoping they hadn't started without her. She had been in Defence Against the Dark Arts when she heard the announcement, and she had seriously contemplated even coming. She had played the game before and she loved it, but she knew she wouldn't know anyone there. She didn't really know anyone around the school. In the end she decided to come because it seemed better than going back to her dorm and staring at the ceiling for a few hours like she normally did.

She began to grow nervous as she got closer to the group. 'Everyone seems to know each other.' She thought, the feeling of dread growing more and more tremendous as she forced herself forward. She could hear snippets of conversations as she arrived and moved towards the edge of the group. Isabella suddenly realized she had no idea what she ought to do. She couldn't bring herself to ask anyone around her, so she stayed standing at the edge.

When she looked around again she realized that she had seen some of the other students around the school, even though she didn't actually know their names. She knew a lot of them were pretty nice and she even remembered the Gryffindor prefect. The feeling of dread that had settled in her stomach started to go away a bit, as if it was comforted by the fact that she knew of some of them. She breathed out a sigh of relief before smiling slightly to herself and making up her mind that she would have fun, regardless of whether or not she knew everyone here or not.

Aurey ran over wearing a sports outfit. "Yay, I love capture the flag! Let's go!" she yelled. Instead of her hair tied into pigtails, she had it tied into a ponytail. Her sports outfit showed pastel bandaids she had put all over her arms, as she trips, slips, and bumps into things all the time. Her white singlet had a rose pink heart the same colour as her eyes on it, and she still proudly wore her scarf, it slightly covering her mouth. She wore pastel pink leggings that wrapped tightly around her legs, and still carried her bag with her in case she fell over again, as it was full of band-aids and bandages, which she needed much too often. She grabbed a handful of candies and stuffed them into her mouth, then started getting ready. "So, how do we sort teams...?" she said, her mouth full of various candies, some of which were caramel, jaffas, and gummi watermelons. She washed them down with grape soda, and started prepping by tightening her shoelaces and straightening her scarf, starting to get more and more impatient to start despite it only being a few minutes. She had one more swig of grape soda, and waited.

Erin arrived alone. She was often alone. She ate alone, she walked alone, she dreamed alone. Was it possible for her to make friends? Surely, but they would let her down eventually, they always did. It was a lonesome experience truly but one she had become accustomed to but it was human instinct to desire contact with others. To have peers. To be less alone. So she was attracted by the small growing crowd outside, she did not leave Hogwarts with anyone and if she knew what was best she would make her way to the lake and ignore the bustle of activity on this parcel of ground but she didn't this time. In the end she was in fact just a kid. 

She would listen from the penumbra of the growing crowd, just far enough away that she could hear without the proximity others were experiencing. It sounded as if they were about to play a game of some sort. This capture the flag. A novel sounding concept because she had never played but she wanted to. It was instinct, a desire to conform that was basic and almost predatory. People were not meant to be alone but due to necessity and the fact that she was impossible to get along with she was. Eventually reason would overtake this fleeting impulse and she would realize her error, that she was hanging out with them. That she was playing with them. That she could not. She should not. 

Maybe she would just cheer them on. No, she was not so timid, rather she was quite bold. Magic for her was an act of passion, it was what made her dangerous even as a child. She was reckless and labile and slowly she had begun to understand why her parents had kept arcane academia away from her during her earlier years unlike the others. She was always angry, jealous, full of fear and pride and she did not know how to control it, not yet. Because of that, her magic also suffered. In the end there would always be her and them.

Just not for today--

"I'm here to play."

Ava walked out of the castle. The grounds were a bit sadder for her than usual as she started remembering how she made the Marissa girl fall, then the James boy passed out, then she passed out as well... A lot, a lot of memories that are not necessarily happy. 

She wanted to get her mind off off everything, so after hearing that there will be a capture the flag thing going on, the young girl knew she had to play. Not only to get invested in something again but also because the game felt competitive, just like Quidditch - what she loved the most about it. After doing some research and basically stalking a bunch of student and professors, she finally found out when and where it will be going on. Right in time, if she did not figure it out before she would probably be late.

As Ava walked towards the ancient runes teacher that was supposed to host the game, she could see she was not the first person to be here. One Slytherin girl was not wearing some weird clothes not even a robe over them. "Aren't we supposed to wear robes?" she asked with a fake smile to signal the girl that she was doing something wrong in Ava's eyes. She alone was wearing sports clothes but she also wore a robe over them.

"Hello, I came here to play Capture the Flag." she turned to the professor, waiting for him to say something.

Anna had ran all the way from the astronomy room down the the grounds. She had heard the announcement the Acient Runes professor had shared and knew she must be apart of the activity. It was too much of a nice day for Anna to be stuck in the castle, only accompanied by her homework that she probably wasn’t going to do in the first place. 
It seemed that she was the last one to arrive, making a sore impression. She saw the other students gathering around the professor  with exciment in their eyes, waiting for him to give instructions. Anna had only played capture the flag once with her muggle friends at the neighborhood playground, but that was long ago. 

She saw some fimiliar faces in the crowd and didn’t feel so out of place once she realized that these people were her friends. She jumped right into the crowd of people surrounding the professor and waited for him to speak. It seemed that no one had noticed her joining, the other students were blinded with exciment. Anna looked around and saw the other students chatting away about how cool the professors ancient runes class was, or how much homework their history teacher gave them. She heard rumors about fellow students and gossip about the professors. Anna was soon annoyed with all the noise and rasied her hand way above her head. “Excuse me sir, can you teach us how to play now?” 

Magnus chuckles softly hearing the students speak to each other, upon seeing one more arrive he clears his throat to get their attention "Once again greetings everyone, I am Professor Rosier and today we will be playing Capture the Flag, which consists of two or more teams amd the purpose of the game is to defend your flag while also retrieving the opposing team's flag and bringing it back to your base" he introduced himself then repeated the rules "When someone has the flag but is taken down in the process the flag stays there for five minutes then it will magically be returned to the base" he added on then smiled and nods "Now i will select team captains and teams" he says eyeing the students "Miss Bishop and Miss Ryan, you are the captains, now the teams" he said then started pointing students out first Ava then followed by Phedra, Isabella, Kaegen, Marcus and Mariah "those who i just pointed to will join Team Bishop, the rest will join Team Ryan" he informed the students then looked around and waited for them to get into their teams "Before we begin does anyone have any questions, if not take your flags and put them on opposite sides of the field, form your defense and offense then wait until i give the signal to begin"

"I have a question. Two, to be specific... Or three, depends." Ava raised her hand. One of her questions was not something she was supposed to ask according to her father, especially before someone like professor Rosier. The second one was just something she was not really sure of that would probably obvious to someone like Marcus. "We are able to use our wands, right? If yes then what spells? And..." she then stopped not sure if she really wants to ask the question. The young Silver would not want to embarrass herself. Especially before some people here. Like Marcus. Her family respected his family so asking that could ruin her reputation.

"We can use whatever we want and or have to distract the other team, right?" she asked. There. Good, maybe that will save some of her dignity. She moved back, trying to avoid any weird looks her question might get. Kind of selfish, but that was what she learned. If you can talk about learning anything about being social and talking to people in eleven years when you waste maybe two of them to learn how to talk and walk and... she started overthinking everything again. 

The bag on her shoulder was heavy filled with multiple ways to... distract the other team. The Silver inspected everyone in her group. Ok... good. she thought and waited for the professor to answer.


OOC: I have no idea what I'm doing. And if anyone's wondering I actually have stuff to 'distract' the other team.

Mariah flashed Rhea her tongue, teasing.

"Had we gotten more than two seconds notice, I would have changed," Mariah replied. "I happen to like this outfit very much." As she spoke, she caught sight of Celynne and waved back at her enthusiastically. She turned back to the professor and waited. She figured that the name was self explanataory, you captured a flag before the other team captured it. It seemed pretty simple. She wondered what defensive spells and such they were allowed to use. Mostly because she didn't know any. She knew a few charms, like the levitation spell, but that was really it.

She supposed she could levitate a person, but that was a lot of work and a lot of concentration. One could hardly concentrate on attacking people with spells if she was constantly concerned about the other team. That, however was if they were even allowed to use spells. Were they to play this the muggle way, completely magic-less? Mariah could be quite surprised. One didn't go to a magical school to play games with no magic.

Magnus then announced the teams and noticed, a little crest fallen, that Celynne was on the other side. She rather hoped they could be on a team together as well.

Cel saw Mariah waving back at her and grinned at her friend. Who would be on each team, she wondered? Hopefully she wouldn’t be separated into a team of people she didn’t know and have to play against those that she did.
As the Professor of Ancient Runes read out the teams, Cel grimaced. ...Oh well. Both her friends were on the other team, and she knew practically nobody in her own. At least she could recognize and pair a few faces and their names. That was the boy she’d seen in the Trophy Room, wasn’t it? And she had seen Erin Ryan, uh… somewhere.
But she still kind of wished she had been put on the other team. Going against them would be hard, especially with Kaegen on the other side-- she'd seen his athletic abilities. And even though she hadn't exactly gauged anyone else's, she was pretty sure that she wasn't the most fit.
A blonde-haired girl began asking her two questions, and she began to think as she shuffled over to her own side. Defensive spells… would they need those? Well, they were certainly good to know, even if she hadn’t mastered any, really. Maybe Cel could engorge something in an opponent’s way or something, but the minimal potency of her spell wouldn’t do much more than trip the opponent if they weren’t looking.