Summer Camp '22 Once Upon A Time... Campfire Event

Erin just had to go and ask the fearless boy to regale them with a scary story, like asking a deaf man to play the piano. Yet, Valentin was one of those damned Durmstrang tryhards who took such requests as nothing less than dares, and the hell-chaser had never turned down a dare yet.

The Slytherin girl might not have remembered the terrible, broken English Valentin had subjected her to before, let alone the chocolate frogs he was in the habit of secretly throwing at her, but his spoken proficiency now would have seemed like night and day by comparison. Anyone who noticed the change might find it suspicious enough to question why he had suddenly gotten so motivated as to hire a private language tutor. As he spoke, however, the boy's tone grew darker and darker, until subtle vocal fry would rumble at the end of some passages.

“Very well. I will tell you the most frightening legend of my people. In another land, a silvery beast named ‘the colddrake’ stalks the wilderness. In this land lived a king, but his country was at war. His people begged for him to do something to end the war, so one day the king followed the words of an even more ancient legend. This led him onto a glacial peak where he made a deal with a colddrake in order to help his people.

The colddrake is a predator who hunts its prey, often humans, by luring them on with its hypnotizing amethyst eyes and consuming not only their bodies, but also their souls. Without eating, the colddrake will grow small and weak, but the more it eats, the more voracious its hunger, and the bigger and stronger the monster grows. This is why legends warn to never approach a colddrake, as its eyes can lock on from very, very far away. By the time the victim is enticed so close that its long claws can sink in, there is no escape. The legend says that looking into the colddrake’s eyes is the coldest experience one can ever have, but almost never does someone survive to tell such a tale.

Now, when the king met his colddrake on the glacier, the beast was intrigued by the man’s bravery and why he would purposefully seek her out. The drake’s amethyst eyes locked onto the king’s and pulled out his story from his mind. The king wanted to offer his wartime enemies to the beast in exchange for a peace alliance with her horde, and so the colddrake spared him. Together they returned to the kingdom, and at his command the beast began to entrance the enemies of the land, even going into the battlefield to gorge itself on the bodies and souls of warriors who could not escape the seduction of its eyes. As such, with every day the beast grew larger, stronger, hungrier. With time, the enemy forces dwindled and it seemed that a peace accord might be on the horizon, but the king’s advisors grew worried. Their plan was to keep the colddrake from consuming them, too, with the treaty promising their soldiers would not attack the colddrake homeland so long as they were allies. However, the advisors did not like the way the king had come to accept the colddrake as a natural extension of himself. They whispered to each other that he was the victim of the beast’s mind control, but they could not easily go against the king. After all, the king was loved all across the land, both for his own virtues and because he was winning the war and bringing peace to his people, as they had begged him to do.

Mysteriously, the proposal to end the war never came. After their foreign enemies were annihilated, the king then welcomed the colddrake to feast upon the land’s domestic threats. The now-gigantic beast gladly took on ridding the land of its murderers, rapists, and other hard criminals. As the advisors feared the colddrake had grown too powerful, many of them were eager to placate the beast’s seemingly insatiable hunger this way. However, one advisor was haunted by the possibility of the drake next turning upon the good citizens of the realm… so she decided that the beast must die. This brave soul went, loyally, to the beloved king to demand a battalion to finally slay the beast in order to safeguard the kingdom. No one knows if it was the king’s loyalty to the treaty, or that his mind was being read and controlled by the colddrake, but the king became furious and brought the colddrake down upon her. More and more rumors and discontent began to circulate until, one by one, the king had the colddrake consume anyone who questioned him.

As the king and the colddrake grew practically unstoppable from the power of all the consumed people, a hush fell over the land. No one dared to go against them anymore, and so the king successfully brought peace to realm. Some say the colddrake fell in love with the king– she always held true to the treaty, never bringing harm upon those loyal to them, even when she grew thinner and weaker. Legend has it that when the king passed away, his son took on the old pact with the colddrake and waged a new war with other defiant neighbors, eventually growing the land into a great empire that few dared to oppose.”

Valentin’s silvery violet eyes stared into the bonfire as he spoke, not turning to face anyone else at any point. At the end, the seeker sat in silence for a few moments, apparently lost in thought, before a rustle of fur caught the corner of his eye. It was Figaro, Piérre's cat– the one who had ripped off a huge chunk of Romeo’s ear. Val’s eyes grew wide as his heart tore with conflict at how to regard the creature, only for a flash flood of adoration to come spilling out without warning.

„Ох, маленький Котёнок! Как раскрасавица!! Иди сюда, в Валище. Приходи за всю любовь, которую ты можешь вынести!“ (“Ohhhhhh, little kitty! How gorgeous you are! Come here to Big Val. Come get all the love you can bear!”)

Valentin clicked the fingers of his right hand and wiggled those of his left, beckoning. Figaro ran right over and Valentin scooped the bengal up into his arms with a huge, swiveling hug. The seeker buried his face into the back of the cat’s neck as he held on for a long moment… before letting Figaro back down onto his lap where Val proceeded to pet the cat’s fur with long, intermittently scritchy strokes. Such an enthusiastic and elaborate display of cat affection was rarely, if ever, witnessed. In all the excitement, Val’s summer coat slipped from his shoulder onto the ground, and from the coat’s pocket sprang a chocolate frog box. He could have sworn he’d deposited his whole stash in the tent bucket for his Horntail people to take, but as he reached down he found that he actually still had a whole bag of them spilling out of that pocket. Scratching Figaro behind the ears with one hand, Val leaned down to pluck out the bag of chocolate frogs and toss it at Piérre. The Puckish boy’s story had been Val’s favorite. Besides, he was curious what Piérre might do with them. Certainly Val couldn't be secretive in throwing them at Erin right now, so pale and bright was he in the firelight.

Permission to godmod Figaro was given (7/25/22).
Interacting with: @Erin Ryan @Piérre Marchonné

Interacts with: @Aida Mòrsgor-Ama Ellwood - Valentin Schnell & @Flash Holmwood - Yefim R.
Mentions: @Jack Warren

Erin was of course fascinated by the eater of phallic meats. Handsome, foreign boy who did what few dared to, said her name. Perhaps he was stupid, reckless or enamored by the red flags because Merlin Erin was wrapped up in them. Yefim would humor her and then disappoint her, she was expecting a story about Baba Yaga, Koschei the Deathless or something closer to home such as the Vodyanoi. She rarely advertised the fact that she was part Veela rather than a pureblood as most often asserted. Being a half-Veela, her mother full, many seem to forget the Bulgarian roots of these magical creatures. Not that she identified as Bulgarians, like a European claiming that they were Japanese because their parents were born in Japan. She only partially understood what Yefim was talking about, not that it mattered he was pretty enough that what he had to say was not specifically relevant.

It had something to do with chaos. "Spooky," she lied.

If she was paying attention, real attention she would be scared for a different reason entirely. Yefim was a crazy-person wasn't he? Not skydiving without a parachute crazy or the world is flat... no, a different sort of crazy. A testament to ideals. Some people profess that they are anarchists, in fact that would be the expectation of Yefim - that there should not be order but rather the very chaos he attested was fearsome. The very order that might fail her nation or kill her family. Perhaps Yefim would come to fear himself.

She saw a brow wiggle and a flex, those red flags were invisible to someone as colorblind as Erin. Her incredibly low wisdom score at play here as she moved closer to Yefim. Erin was not the shy sort that would back down from an opportunity as she tried to sit next to Yefim, placing herself in potential mortal peril considering his albino guardian. She had no idea Valentin was hucking chocolate frogs at her in secret, but she did not expect to understand a thing as she tried the tired technique where she would try to rest a head on Yefim's shoulder. Mild in comparison to what she did to Jack Warren.

When 'The Niffler' started to talk, using full sentences that were (likely) still heavily accented, Erin would be startled. She understood that story, but one would have to wonder if either Valentin or Yefim would notice the one thing that even an idiot could notice. "Order is terrifying to him, chaos is to you," she observed out loud. The dragon ensured order and had terrible consequences, much like chaos and the unknown which threatened to consume all much like the dragon.

Action: trying to snuggle/get close at least to Yefim at her own peril. Observes how Yefim and Valentin are the opposite. tried to not die?

interacts Phyllis Stanwood (@Bridget Collins) mentions people around

As Maximilien "Maxi" de Fostoncy [x] English · #586d9d | French · #056b68

To be frank Maxi hadn’t really been to a campfire event before, though it did sound appealing. For Maxi a campfire was related to the night. To s’mores. To dancing. To spooky stories. To…um, socialising, although he wasn’t that interested in this one. He had imagined about it, in the woods with the moon and stars shining, a group of people gathering and relating stories to each other - dreamy, wasn’t it? Though sadly he just didn’t have the chance during his prior years. So you could imagine how those grey eyes sparkled with golden tints by the sun’s refraction when he read about the campfire event on the brochure.

What even made the thing better was that Phyllis and him had agreed to meet at the event during their brief meet prior, which Maxi was especially looking forward to. Granted, he had been exchanging letters with her during the summer, but it wasn’t the same. Writing might be poetic, but meeting was exciting. The carefree silhouette seemed to take root in a corner of his heart, her bright smile emerging from his brain every time when he was feeling low because of his stern grandfather’s criticism - oh, Maxi had to admit, Phyllis was really magical.

And so there he was, the Hogwarts summer camp opening its gate for him. He spent the first day “completing” his grandfather’s mission and settling down in his new friend’s tent, and the night fell before he was even aware of it. Barbecue was nice, delicious and quite up his alley. As usual he slept well with a ton of dreams flooding into his head, and jumped up for the sunrise when the second day arrived - a bit hyper, he had to admit, but that was the thing. The campfire that evening was especially tempting.

Hands in pocket, he wandered to the site. The campfire was already burning, flames swirling in a dreamy red colour. Sort of like Phyllis’ hair. Thought Maxi, and he hastened his steps. Dark coloured silhouettes were already surrounding the campfire, and he did make an effort to locate Phyllis among so many people - he should have took his wand to cast a Lumos. His uptight expression enlightened as soon as the Ilvermony girl’s figure fell into his eyes, and he beamed his anticipation and excitement. “Hey Phyllis,” he’d greet while walking towards her. “finally, huh? Talking face to face is all different, I guess.” He expressed gently, grinning with delight. “Anyway. It’s so good to meet you again. Any upcoming camp activity you are especially interested in?”

His eyes fell on the campfire in the middle, the latter burning merrily. Resting his chin on his knees, Maxi started to consider if he could provide a story also. Actually, he made up tales himself regularly for fun, just - ugh, sharing it with so many people sounded terrifying. But…“Are you going to tell a story?” He leaned closer to Phyllis and whispered. “It seems quite fun.”