9 Dec 2022, 20:30
Comfort, Care, and Chocolate Frogs
Waiting for @AngelFyre McCubbin to wake in the Hospital Wing following her duel
Saturday, 22 October 2022
Her duel had begun at 10:30 that morning and she was paired with fellow prefect, Emma Wynn to combat against two Slytherins: Pea Elena Fowl and Hui Ming, or now known as Fang Hui-Ming. Simon only had a brief interaction with Ming in his days at Hogwarts and it hadn't been a positive one and knew that Slytherins could be exceptionally ruthless. Still, he knew as he watched from the stands that his girl would give them hell! She fought a good fight, only unfortunately her battle would render her unconscious by the end of it.
Duels were hard to watch, to be honest. Lots of attacks, sometimes bloodshed, sometimes fire. Why the moderator yelled "PAUSE! AngelFyre is down!" Simon was quickly to his feet. When the medical team cleared her from the dueling piste, he was already at her side and followed her on the way to the Hospital Wing.
Luckily, despite all this craziness that Hogwarts allowed its students to participate in, there was a magical fix to most and he knew she would be well in no time. Were all magical schools like this? Simon often wondered if he shouldn't try and get a penpal and some of the other schools and investigate if this was a wizarding world thing to toughen them up or neglegence upon the part of their British school.
Simon sat at her bedside. Care had been given and she would wake soon. He first began by holding her hand as his other held his Bible and he read from it so that she could hear him.
2 Corinthians 1:3 "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God."
Isaiah 41:10 "So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. God has promised us His strength. He will never give you a trial you are unable to handle."
From there, he gently placed his Bible upon the bed beside her and sighed, leaning to gently make sure her covers were just right. It wasn't cold, but a chilly wind blew outside and that always did make the castle a little colder. He wondered what the thick of Winter would bring. "You're becoming a brilliant duelist," he said to her. "I'm not sure you'd agree with the current location you've found yourself in, but I've seen so much improvement in you and you can cast a spell better than I could on your worst day compared to my best. I'm proud of you. You know, I admire all the work you've put into it. You're so determined and driven. I quite like that about you. You put your mind to something and you're all in. You're unstoppable. It's a trait you're going to have to pass on to our future children."
And he had a feeling that this experience too would be one that she would learn from and would be a step toward even more improvement.
Simon leaned in, kissing the top of her head before pulling his enchanted satchel even closer. He pulled out some parchment and made her a makeshift quick little card with a "Feel Better Soon, Love" on the front, and a heart with their names inside. When finished, he began to open up some of the chocolate frogs he had purchased on his last trip into Hogsmeade on prefect duties. Of course he didn't want them for the chocolate, but for the cards for his collection that was near completion. Maybe she would want the chocolate. The girl did love it, after all.
Be kind to one another. (*iNPC is Miles Thatcher)
10 Jan 2023, 16:17
Comfort, Care, and Chocolate Frogs
A Place Where This Angel Fears to Tread, @Simon Kincaid
AngelFyre had, ever since she was a toddler, hummed herself awake if no other outside forces interrupted her sleep. That would not be the case on this particular occasion. She was having fitful dreams... okay, nightmares... and she was doing something else she often did when sleeping if her dreams went south, and that was to mind talk herself awake. It had always amazed her how her psyche would take on the role of a referee or guardian of sorts and interrupt whatever disaster was about to befall her and guide her to a more secure state of being... wakefulness. What she was mind-running away from at this point in time, or trying to, was the horror of the licking flames that had engulfed her during her dueling match. Something was not working quite as planned, however, as she was aware she was trying to awaken herself, but she could not find the way out. She told herself it must be because of magic or potions to help heal her and keep the pain away, but if so, it was working to keep her trapped in her mind in the moment, with flames everywhere. She had tried so hard not to scream while on the piste but that was all she seemed to be doing in her own head.
wake up! Wake up! WAKE UP, AF!
No go. Still stuck in the mind flagration of her own making. But then she felt Simon's petal soft, plump, delicious lips kissing her forehead, and in that instance she found both relief and her passageway out and to him.
Her eyes flashed open in wide-eyed terror and then relaxed in relief as she left the flames and began to recognize the hospital wing. It was coming back to her now. She had been dueling with Emma, and things were starting to look positive for them when AngelFyre vaguely remembered her wand literally wobbling in her hand. She had zero recollection of what followed that but she had a suspicion. She was pretty certain her Flipendo flipped her own endo out cold and right out of the match.
You are welcome, Miss Pea Elena Fowl, for that bit of good fortune.
And apologies out to Emma Wynn. AngelFyre would normally have been laughing about the embarrassing, irony of being the mistress of her own doom, but she was honestly feeling a bit traumatized. She was also becoming aware that she was bandaged pretty artfully... almost everywhere.
She tried to turn her head, but that hurt pretty significantly. She swore she could hear her skin crack when she did. Surely that was just her imagination at work. They would have debrided the dead, crispy charcoal bits, right? Right?
All she could do was stare straight up at the ceiling but she could feel Simon nearby. She could hear his quiet breathing. Her periphery vision told her that his head was down and he was opening something. She could not tell what until one of the chocolate frogs leaped onto her bedsheets. Oh, please Oh please, Oh please, Oh please do not jump on me. That wayward frog, of course, had Simon up immediately in an attempt to wrangle it into submission. When she saw him, EVERYTHING was immediately better. But was that not always the case with them? She believed it was his superpower.
She rasped out her questions to him while he was still unaware she was awake.
"Did we win? More importantly, tell me how hilarious it was that I knocked myself out of the match with my own Knockback Jinx? and to her utter amazement, she was even able to laugh a bit. It hurt a good deal to do so, but she knew even that would end soon enough. But then, more seriously, she looked at him with her tell me no lies look as she asked if she had been able to contain her screams while on the piste? She truly hoped what she had been hearing in her head had not percolated up and out of her and into the real world. That would have been even more embarrassing to her.
"I am - ..." and she had to swallow hard as her mouth and throat were just this side of the Sahara desert kind of parched. She spoke in a near whisper and very slowly, forcing Simon to lean down over her to hear her. "I am glad you are here, love. You need to trust me when I say Hell is not the place we want to spend eternity."
The magic is real.