Flight of the Birds Errand

Bird: (unrecognised) black with yellow spots
Activity: Flying against the wind
Meaning: I must keep my guard up. There are unforeseen problems. Some people may not be who I think they are. Perhaps I should expect the unexpected?

Bird: (same as above) red
Activity: flying straight upwards
Meaning: Good luck and speedy success.

word count: 758/200
total word count: 758/600
@Kim Sato ||

It was the first of December. That mean several things - Kim would have a new hair color, another errand was that day, she could start opening her advent calendar that her mum had sent her, among other things.
Getting ready to go drag her best friend, Kim, to the errand, Bailey changed from her pajamas and robe into a still casual but fitting outfit. She pulled on some black flare slacks, a white cream blouse, a blue sweater (I have to keep the Ravenclaw spirit Bailey thought) and accessories and shoes. Her shoes were blue converses, and her jewelry were all following the theme of blue and gold and silver. Her necklace was a flower made out of jems, and the chain was a slightly rose tented gold. Her earrings were her current favorite, blue jems with a gold cage and hook. Her watch was her regular watch, of silver.
Grabbing her bag, bailey tucked the necessities inside - her wand, her water bottle, a book to read, her journal, her notebook of pastry and cake designs, and some random miscellaneous snacks and candies.
heading out of her dorm, Bailey exited the Ravenclaw common room and Ravenclaw tower. Walking down the corridors, Bailey had a smile on her face. With every pair of eyes she met, Bailey's face would light up and her smile would widen.
arriving at the entrance to the Griffindor common room, Bailey knocked until someone came to the door. Bailey would ask to see Kim Aoki, or if he wasn't there, where she could find him. At this point everyone in Griffindor probably knew that when they heard knocking on the common room entrance that Bailey Glade was coming to see her so called 'best friend'. The fact that Bailey knocked on the common room door at least once a week definitely fueled the rumors about Kim and Bailey dating.
When Kim immerged, Bailey would grab his hand, and drag him away. She would probably spew some nonsense at him, trying to make him smile. Kim's true smiles were a wonder to behold these days, he always seemed to be in a funk - something Bailey had noticed and thus started dragging Kim out more often. One thing that Bailey did remark on was Kim's new hair color - this was Bailey's first time seeing his hair, and it looked good - it always did.
"I like the hair!" Bailey remarked as they rounded a corner. "it looks good - you did it yesterday? Last night sometime?"
Arriving at the courtyard, Bailey and Kim - at least Bailey would, and kim, being dragged behind her, would have to control himself - would stop and look at the sign hanging between Professor @Brinley Bardot and professor Talaki.
Bailey would drag Kim over to the table, to receive the journal and binoculars. Bailey now let go of Kim's hand, to hold on to everything. Going over to an empty spot, Bailey wondered Is Kim going to sit by me or find his own space? is he even going to participate in the errand?
Bailey watched the sky. She saw several brightly colored birds, a cardinal couple and a lonely bluejay. The bluejay flew straight towards her, making her smile. A flock of almost white, and partly brown doves flew overhead, horizontal.
In the journal she had been given, Bailey wrote this down.

Reducio

Two cardinals - a couple. Red, so a sign of good luck! yay! Maybe Kim will be happier now..
A bluejay, flying right towards me, which according to the poster means things are moving with haste, and happy days are ahead. That's good news! Hopefully everything will go well.
A flock of white doves with brown scattered brown feathers, flying horizontal in the sky. White means A very good omen, a sign that happiness and joy is ahead. Brown means good health (good news, I am SO clumsy some times) Flying horizontal means I will eventually reach my goal, but it will be hard. Or it MAY get hard, so it probably will. I'll survive it though, I will be fine.

After writing all this down, Bailey copied it quickly in her journal. Standing up, bailey returned the notebook to professor Bardot with a smile. "I really enjoyed this errand, thank you so much!!! I hope we study this more in Divination, I would love to learn more about it!"
going back to Kim, bailey sat down, and pulled her book out to start reading. She would sit here until Kim finished, and then they would probably leave together.

Attire: Usual school day attire: robes, shirt (buttons mismatched), tie (undone), kilt, neck ring, no shoes.

Reducio

Colin forgot all about the tarmachan, though, when he caught sight of his favourite birds. Corvids! He loved ravens and crows of all kinds and he often watched the ones that lived around the castle grounds. He was fascinated by the way they flocked and how they flew in coordinated movements. It was almost like all the birds were connected by some invisible string, and where one turned, they all turned and when one settled, they all settled.

He watched as a large flock separated over the castle: the large part of the flock flew straight across his line of sight, just over the wall, but a few broke away. He counted seven, and they turned back, then turned again, flying towards the courtyard. As they turned, it seemed difficult for them as they were going against the breeze, but they recovered as they neared the arcade of the courtyard.

Colin focused on one of the ravens. Perhaps it was the bird he'd gotten the two feathers from, the ones he wore in his braid! The bird alit on the cord the professors' poster was hanging from, the one tied between the two trees. It didn't remain long, though, taking flight momentarily only to hop down to the pavements, then up again to stop on the fountain.

This made Colin smile. He called out to the bird: "hraack! hraack!" The raven gave him a queer look before cawing once in indignation and taking off again, flying against the breeze. Colin laughed and called out to him again: "Nevermore!"

Colin fingered the feathers in his braid, thinking. He opened up his note book again and wrote down the interaction.

Watched a flock of ravens fly over --- most flew straight on, but a few broke off. I counted seven. It looked like they had a hard time of it at first: maybe flying against the wind? But then they turned towards the courtyard and had an easier time. I saw one alight on the poster, but it didn't bide long. He hopped down to the ground then flew back up to rest at last on one of the fountain's gryffins. I said hi to him --- well, I crew at him anyway! --- but he didn't seem to take kindly to my greeting. He flew up and into the wind again, then disappeared into one of the trees.


I reckon the bird I was watching flew horizontally at first, so I'll reach my goal even if it's hard. But then he changed and flew against the wind, along with six others. So I have to be cautious. I wonder who might not be as they appear to be?


He didn't seem like he knew quite where to land at first! I guess that counts as sporadic. Problems to be resolved and potential roadblocks? So, I'll reach my goal but have to start over again.

Colin sighed as he read over his notes. "Looks like I'll be suffering, but will be happy about it. In the end. Bloody Plutonian shores and all!" Colin got up to turn his binoculars and journal back in to the professors. He wasn't so sure about this ornithomancy thing. Maybe it would make more sense next year, because it didn't seem to make much sense right now! As he thanked the professors and turned away to head back inside, Colin caught sight of the rascally corvid once more.

Krrrk krrrk! it said. Colin narrowed his eyes as he looked up at the bird sitting on the stonework of the courtyard wall.

"Hrack yerself! I should have stuck with the napping tarmachan! Now I've got to sort out who isn't who they say they are!" He sighed. "You've given me no rest in Nepente!"

December arrived sooner than Ayuna expected. Another errand! the girl thought as she woke up, full of energy. Snow was falling lightly, the winter breeze blew in through the dorm windows. She quickly dressed, pulling up white knee high leggings and a white blouse with blue rims with matching blue sweater. Grabbing her leather bag filled with a wand, a hand warmer, a bottle of hot tea, and a notebook completed with ink and quill, she rushed out of her dorm, hurrying towards the Great Hall for breakfast. Hoping to get to the errand location quite soon.

And here she is in the courtyard, wearing the Ravenclaw scarf, a cozy white hat, and fuzzy blue gloves. She had always loved observing animals, well, all animals except insects. So when she saw the poster saying stuff about observing birds, she came right over. Actually, she didn't even care to read what 'Orinthomancy' is, but anything having to watching animals and nature is good enough for her. Plus, she could earn some points for her house by doing this activity.

She excitedly skipped towards the table on which some equipment sat: binoculars, notebooks, some quills. The girl picked up the stationary with a gloved hand and smiled warmly at the professors. She had just begun walking when she quickly realized that her memory isn't so good, she had forgotten the whole thing. The girl swiftly stepped in front of the poster and copied all the information down on the first page of the leather notebook carefully.

Ayuna skipped towards an open space. She looked up at the clear blue sky with a few clouds floating above. She held the binoculars to her eyes and looked up, searching for birds.

Almost instantly, a flaming red bird with some yellow and orange feathers soared by horizontally. "Wow!" the girl gasped, "Looks sort of like a phoenix!" Just like China, red means good luck. Smiling, she quickly bent down and jolted a few lines in her notes.

bird flaming red bird with some orange and yellow feathers, looks sort of like a phoenix flying swift and horizontally

meaning means good luck but still have to keep your guard up means you will reach your goal, but it might be tough to do so

Should she draw something? the girl didn't know. Still she sketched the phoenix-like bird as best as she can under the description. Bird watching was becoming more exciting by the second!

When she put the binoculars up to her eyes again, the girl had to wait a bit before- whoosh- a nimble white bird flew straight upwards. It was white as snow, almost blending in, there was not a feather of a different color. The bird was just, white, bright white. Ayuna picked up her notebook and scribbled something inside.

bird plain white, white as snow flying fast upwards

meaning means that happiness and joy is ahead means excellent and speedy success

Orinthomancy was fun indeed. Ayuna was really enjoying herself now! She rubbed her eyes, a bit sore from all the looking. Suddenly, a green bird shot towards her, the girl barely had time to duck. "Whoa!" she shouted, "That's close!" Studying the bird carefully, Ayuna picked up her notebook again and described the animal.

bird grass green, bit of dark green feathers flying towards me fast

meaning means that adventure is ahead means things are moving with haste, and happy days are ahead

Finally, Ayuna finished her notes and flipped through. "Looking nice!" she said and handed Professor Bardot, smiling. "Thanks professor!" she said,"This is a really great activity, I loved it!" With that, she left the courtyard, looking for more adventures.

@AngelFyre McCubbin @Sienna Lenoir

In her early years at Hogwarts Opeila had never ever missed an errand, but the more happened, the longer she spent time at the school, the more her motivation for these events seemed to disappear. Now, in her fourth year, it was a rare exception that she participated, but whenever she did, she remembered why she used to like them so much.

This one was of particular interest for the young Slytherin. Hosted by two professors she barely knew, revolving around divination of all topics. Being a seer, it made only sense for the young girl to participate. Who knew, maybe she would learn some more about seeing the future! By now Opeila knew that she would never learn what she had tried for so long, which was to trigger her visions intentionally, but maybe being a seer meant that she would also have a hand for this part of divination?

She had gotten a lot of visions lately, a lot more than usual. A whole two of them hinting at something dark, something destructive coming to Hogwarts. In combination with Marion's ritual that Opeila had voluntarily contributed to, this was anything but calming. Maybe this was something the errand could bring some clearance into as well.
Or... or maybe Opeila was just getting her hopes up way too high.

Either way, here she was, wearing a dark blue winter coat and her hair in two braids. It had been getting colder and colder the past weeks and months and now the initial excitement over the snow wore off as well. Slowly Opeila wished for it to become warmer again, but since December had only just begun, she was just too aware that it would get even colder. Well, once the ice on the lake got thicker, she might just use the opportunity again to try ice skating.

A chuckle escaped her as she walked through the entrance hall and outside, thinking back to the ice hockey game in 2020. Back then she had been sitting in the goal almost the whole time and luckily done alright. A little later the Hufflepuff Kazuo had made an attempt to show her- he was gone too, she realized. The younger Hufflepuff and her were never close, but she still felt a sting at the realization. So many had just disappeared. Ruka too.

Anyway- it was silly to get sad about it now, two years had passed.
Opeila entered the courtyard that was already filled with kids scribbling into journals and searching the sky with binoculars. The Slytherin would approach the Professors at well, greet them and help herself to binoculars and a journal. Fearing that they would only be offered quills and ink to write with, she had brought a plain muggle pencil from her own precious stash from home- who would have thought that pencils would become precious to her one day?

The young prefect would find herself a free corner and adjust the settings of her binoculars before she would begin to look at the sky as well. It took her a little while to find anything but clouds and blue, but then she detected some movement. A blackbird, effortlessly flying forward. Opeila grabbed her pencil, opened her journal and wrote the first note into it.

1) Blackbird, just flying

"Exciting...", she murmured before putting down her pencils and grabbing the binoculars again. For a second she glanced at the poster with all the different signs on them and sighed. "Guess I'll suffer while reaching my goals." If she ended up reaching said goals, whichever those may be, maybe it wasn't too bad? Maybe it was just a continuation of her current situation outside of Hogwarts?

612 Words

✦ birds tell the future...? ✦
december 1st 2022 [solo] [errand] [english] [korean]

it was a chilly december first in hogwarts, and guinevere had recently heard of a bird/divination/something activity. guinevere hadn't started divination as a class yet, but she thought the subject would be interesting and wanted to learn more about it beforehand.
at the setup outside, guinevere found a board hanging between two trees and had just arrived in time to hear one of the professors start talking. she took a pair of binoculars and a journal from a table like the professor said, and first wrote down the bird color meanings and the flight direction meanings. gwen copied everything directly from the board, not bothering to paraphrase so save time for bird-watching.
then, guinevere went out to a empty ledge/chair in the courtyard to begin waiting for birds to come. after a few minutes of sitting silently on the stone, binoculars to her eyes, without any sign of a bird, guinevere decided to move somewhere else.
this time, she quickly spotted a few of those flappers. the first one, was speckled brown and white, and flying gracefully just above guinevere's head, so she had to break her neck to see it properly. after observing for a few seconds, she lowered the binoculars and wrote in her journal about the few birds she had seen:

bird 1: brown and white bird. flying directly overhead, quite fast from my perspective. symbolizes success.
bird 2: blue and a little bit green. not sure what blue means. might be flying horizantal, not sure though. means that there is adventure and my goals may be a bit hard to reach.
bird 3: white bird. looked like a dove, but maybe a bit bigger. also flying horizantal. there should be happiness and joy ahead!

she closed the notebook again to continue watching the sky, and before long she noticed a bird hopping on the courtyard brick near her. it was mostly green, with deep black parts on the wings and tail. it was quite young, comparing to the others she had watched, and it seemed to have trouble flying, seeing as it was hopping arond and flapping its wings crazily. however, soon it started lifting from the ground and eventually flew off too. "interesting," guinevere thought, as she opened the journal to write about this bird.

bird 4: mostly green, with black on wings and tail. it looks quite pretty, but it's younger than the others. was hopping on ground, seemed to have trouble flying but succeded in the end. perhaps this symbolizes that there is danger and adventure, and that i may need to rethink, but it'll work out in the end.

guinevere closed her journal back up again and almost immediately, she saw a brilliant large fire-red bird with orange on it's head streak across abovehead. she snapped her head up and saw just as the bird gained speed and altitude and flew off into the fog. guinevere gasped- "woahhh," she breathed, speaking for the first time in her bird divnation session. that bird was the most magnificent bird she had ever seen.

bird 5: huge red-and-orange bird. it was flying really fast, ended up climbing altitude after a while. probably means good luck. i just gotta say- that bird was so cool like whaaaaaat

by now, a light snow was already falling, so guinevere thought that she should leave soon, to go back to the warmth of the castle. she had a lot of homework today, and she should probably have it finished so she wouldn't have to stay up until twelve again. she walked back the the main table and handed her binoculars and journal to the professor.
"thank you! this activity was really fun," she said as she left.
word count: 621

Her hair is ginger

Mentioning None

Interacting with none

Bird watching. Who doesn’t love that? Aurora Ranvier. By itself it already sounded like something boring to do, and now there was an errand to combine it with divination. How could a bird movement be an indicator of someone’s future just didn’t connect the dots in her head. What if that bird just wanted to fly that way for the sake of flying that way? The number five on the poster was also peculiar. ‘5. A bird who flies against the wind means to heed caution of those around you because someone may not be who they appear to be.’ Maybe that bird left something at home so they needed to go back and take it. If she were to replace the bird with a cat, call it a felinemancy, if a cat hisses at you that means you are doomed for eternity, that just did not make any sense. But there could be some truths to it, otherwise there wouldn’t be a divination curriculum at school. So she took the binocular and journal but not the quill because she preferred her awesome muggle invention called pen and began her bird watching activity. Another thing she couldn’t seem to fathom was the fact that wizards preferred the quill’s messiness and mechanically annoying than using a simple pen.

She once saw in avatar that there were these folks that believed that somehow the shape of the clouds could be a sign for the town’s prosperity or calamity. But it was more believable than a bird’s flying pattern. There must be some scientific reasons behind it, and why planes cannot pass through certain clouds. But birds? She still couldn’t believe that this was a thing. A binocular was held in front of her eyes, trying to find some type of birds who might be flying nearby just minding their business. Was this considered bird stalking? She wasn’t sure. The thing that she was sure about was this would be illegal if those birds were humans. Then she saw it. A black bird flying straight towards her. A crow, perhaps? Aurora put down her binocular and read the poster. “things are moving with haste, and happy days are ahead” she mumbled to herself, at least she got a good fortune telling from the birds. Then her eyes shifted to the bird colours section. “but there’s a.. Danger?” Was it good or was it bad? It was surely confusing. How could anyone be happy if there was a danger ahead of their steps? Apparently not her.

One more bird sighting wouldn’t hurt. This was her way to confirm whether or not the birds were actually telling the truth. Once again, she put the binoculars on her eyes. There was a bird who kept on landing, then flying, then repeated the pattern. That must be a very indecisive bird, just like her. And the colour was white. So this must be a good thing, right? “If a bird is flying like that, that means there is… an unforeseen trouble?” she quietly mumbled to herself, “But I have good omen and will be happy?” Again, with the contradicting meaning. It was clear as a crystal that bird watching fortune telling was not something she enjoyed nor believed. That sporadic bird was probably just being excited about something or perhaps it wanted to do their poopy business, stomach issue. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. It was almost the same with astrology. Leo was her sign, but nothing about it spoke to her. And now there she was, asking her future to the birds. She could definitely put hundreds of black birds on the yard and let people do their bird watching and what would that mean? Would everyone face dangers? But if she were to believe all these, at least at the end she would be a happy Aurora according to the birds.

Sta - 5 | Eva - 15 | Str - 5 Wis - 8 | Arc - 4 | Acc - 11 Terrible Presence Evasive Maneuvers ● Components

-

Outfit Reducio Uniform

Closed to Interactions
Wearing her Slytherin Uniform, with a sweater and Slytherin beanie.

It had been a long November. Starlee had been doing everything she could to get her mind off of her internal thoughts. This meant she spent most of her time in the dueling room, practicing, attempting to get better, or she spent it in the library, studying as much as seemed physically possible for her. It seemed no one could break her out of her out of this routine. She had begun to shun her friends, unable to quell the sadness inside her, not wanting to be happy just yet, or, really, feeling as if she wasn't deserving of happiness anymore. The bubbly sunshiny ray of light that Starlee once was had dimmed quite intensely since the events of the past few months.

It was this errand that finally led Starlee in an attempt to do something different with her day. Sure, it was still relative to her schoolwork as it involved divination, but it could serve as a way to get outside, a place that she typically loved, and she could still maintain focus on something that wasn't the thoughts of failure and sadness that continued to plague her.

Divination did intrigue Starlee. She was like any adolescent girl, obsessed with the future and attempting to predict it through any means possible, be it palm reading to tarot cards to astrology. Today they would learn a new way to do this, through the flight patterns of birds. Starlee read over the sign and proceeded to take a notebook and binoculars from the table. Finding a spot she felt was far enough away from her peers that she wouldn't be bothered, she threw the notebook down carelessly and quickly plopped down next to it. She then took hold of her binoculars and quickly laid down onto her back, her straight blonde hair strewn all around her. She pulled the binoculars to her face, and began to track what bird movements she saw in the sky.

After a moment of watching the birds swirl ahead above her, she pulled the binoculars away from her face, set them down on the grass, and closed her eyes. She was meant to be thinking of a goal. Something she wanted to achieve. Well, she wanted to show her grandfather that she was the best. That she could do everything he could do. But that was a little more of an open ended goal. What could she do to make progress towards those goals?

Well firstly, it made sense to her that she should focus on achieving good grades. With that in mind, she pulled the binoculars to her face again, this time focusing hard on that goal. She saw a flash of green fly past her view, and she zoomed out to try and follow it. Readjusting the binoculars, she caught sight of it again, a beautiful green and yellow colored bird, flying in who knew what kind of pattern. It was hard enough for Starlee to keep eyes on it in the first place with its irregular flight patterns.

Starlee took a second to jot this down in her notebook.

Looks like that's a Green and Yellow bird flying up above me. It's got some rather vibrant colors, almost tropical-like. It can't seem to make up its mind for a direction to fly in, it keeps changing directions endlessly.

She set her quill down as she turned to look at the sign that Professor Barlow had strung up. The colors were easy to deduce; yellow and green, a warning but also adventure. Starlee took this more seriously than perhaps she typically would have, as it seemed that she was being warned to stay on track, but that the road will be full of surprises. She jotted this down in her notebook as well.

It's interesting. The two colors have somewhat different leadings, yellow being a warning, and green for adventure. I can't help but wonder what kind of adventure for my future grades there could be? And perhaps I should be cautious and take care with my work.

Now to think about its sporadic movement. It was clear to Starlee that there was an unforeseen problem, but it was something that she didn't want to address. It was the reason for her trying to get her mind off things. Perhaps divination wasn't exactly the best way to hide from one's thoughts.

It's moving really crazily, almost like it can't decide where to fly. I can barely keep my binoculars on it. So... that means that I will have to start again, and address something. But... I'm not quite sure what that something is.

Starlee finished writing her notes, then proceeded to lie back down, her robes and hair splayed around her, and just watched the birds above her, enjoying the outdoors.

WC: 798