Closed Speculative Sporophores PV

@Mellani Miller @Remedy Norden @Nancy McLoughlin Mentioning @Alec Mason

Four days were short. A short time to process the terrors of that one afternoon, but long enough to attend classes and go back to normality. Not long enough to feel like herself again. Several time she had woken in the past nights, sitting up in her bed, grabbing her calf, not finding a stone buried in it. No blinding pain in her head. No repulsive smell in her nose. Sometimes she had activated her binding mark and carefully tested, only sent a small whisper through their bond to see if Alec was awake. If there was no response, she had closed the connection.

Somehow she felt like she was thrown back to her first and second year. Night after night she had awoken with nightmares, hidden under her blanket until the panic released its grip on her. Scared of shadows, noises, herself. Opeila had moved past that, recovered and grown stronger, but sometimes she heard his voice still, like a phantom and gone so quickly, she couldn't tell if she had imagined it. Even the binding mark talks gave her a headache sometimes, forcing her to cut the conversation short and close the bond. She was sure that this was in her head, a fear that she couldn't shake yet. There was nothing wrong with the bond.

Four days were enough for Opeila to snap. The anger inside her had arisen without her even noticing, until she threw her wand across the room when she failed to perform a simple spell. Duelling had taught her self-confidence. Winning. Keep fighting. Where had this gone? How had she gone back to retreating, feeling like she vanished when someone looked at her the wrong way? How had this attack defeated her like this? No. No, she be damned if she lost it.

It was that determination to stay on the surface and not be dragged down that drove her down to the greenhouses one day, clasping one of the vials filled with red, blood-like liquid that Opeila managed to extract before Vladimir took control over her body. Her hair had been hastily tied into a bun and she had already changed out of her school uniform and into jeans and a dark green hoodie with her prefect badge pinned to the chest.

It was a mere guess- hope?- that made Opeila go to the greenhouses, there was a fair chance that she wouldn't even find the professor, but there she was.
She slowed down her steps when she approached the greenhouse. "Excuse me, Pro-" The smell. It filled the air, trapped between the walls of the greenhouse like poisonous gas. Opeila turned and retched, quickly pressing one sleeve against her mouth and nose. Her eyes watered when she faced the blonde woman again. "I-I'm so sorry.", she quickly said, a little embarrassed by her body's reaction.

She had only breathed in a little of the smell, but immediately the migraine that the Slytherin was pretty sure wasn't real set in, pulsing behind her eyes. For a second she pressed them shut and tried to focus. Don't lose it. All she wanted was to turn and run, hide. Her eyes found the mushrooms on the table. Oh, how she hated these things. "Um..." This made the vial she had brought useless, didn't it? Swiftly she slipped it into one of the pockets of her jeans. More for Professor Regan then. "I actually wanted to ask if anything new was found out about... these." She nodded in the table's direction. "I hope I am not disrupting. Or- can I help with anything maybe?"

The moment she asked, she regretted the question. No, she didn't want to stay surrounded by the stench of these vile weeds, that constantly brought back the images of that other day. Except... Maybe this wasn't the worst thing. Confrontation could be healing, right? Maybe... maybe she should just endure it.

November 1st 23-------

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Speculative Sporophores

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-------Herbology Class

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Remedy's Dialogue #796f4e

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November would come ineluctably, just as the metaphoric demise of a friend;

And; with it, tension had lingered in the air. Scorned expressions were exchanged in class and in-passing; the anguish was somewhat tolerable now; a sense of purpose renewed, but one could not shake the sour taste on her tongue from time to time.

As one door closed, another opened; everything appeared to be on the rise. That was the case, at least, until roughly 10 minutes ago. Rather than isolate herself in her dorm, Remedy embarked on outings around the school's boundaries, mostly to accompany her friend Ulysses's solo practice for Quidditch. The Slytherin was no such fan of broom racing or broom sports but admired his passion and perseverance for improvement. It was actually fun to be outside despite the rancid odor and sprouting of bulbous mushrooms littering the once verdant and pristine grounds. Remedy continued to suffer breathing the rotten odor as she treaded the path to Flying class today, searching for her friend. Unbeknownst to Remedy, a new bulb would emerge, hidden beneath the tall blades of grass.

All it took was one step. One unfortunate, miscalculated step; something burst underfoot. Remedy feared the worst as she glanced downwards, regrettably noting red, blood-like ooze now coated the tip, sides, and soles of her sandal. Though the Slytherin had only inhaled a small amount of the odor prior to lifting her foot to glimpse only brought her to tears; her eyes burned in agony, tears leaking from squinting eyelids as her face flushed to a ghostly white. She hunched downward as a symphony of cries and gags erupted from the girl, the imminent rise of bile nearly expelling from her mouth, but thankfully choking it down as she fleed the area.

The Slytherin ran to the nearest lavatory; washing her shoe, and her face, taking a moment to breathe. The air around her remained pungent but tolerable. She looked upon her pale reflection in the mirror before trudging in the direction of the greenhouses, desperate for answers regarding the devilish bulbs.

Reunited again with the scent, Remedy covered her nose and hesitated outside the doorway as Slytherin Prefect and Professor McLoughlin appeared to be conversing. Fearing that one of the two may have noticed the sheepish student awkwardly standing, she trudged forward as she waited for a moment to speak.

"P-professor." She attempted to respectfully greet though interrupted by a gag; her cheeks flushed, slightly embarrassed but pulled herself together to nod kindly towards her Prefect. "Opeila. May I be of any... use..." Remedy paused attempting to withhold another gag, her burning orbs glancing around the greenhouse, "..if this is a bad time, I can stop by later."

Tags: @Opeila Winters & @Nancy McLoughlin. WC: --

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𝑀𝑒𝓃𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃𝓈: @ 𝐼𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓇𝒶𝒸𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃𝓈: @Remedy Norden, @Nancy McLoughin, @Opeila Winters

⟵ ---------------------------------- Thoughts | Speech

𝒪𝒪𝒞 𝒩𝑜𝓉𝑒 Reducio

Since the day of the errand, Mellani had always been curious what the weird weeds actually were. She had disposed of them, but she always felt that they shouldn't have been disposed of. Especially since so far, they hadn't been harming anyone in any way possible, and there was nothing disturbing about them (to Mell, at least) except their pungent smell.

After giving a lot of thought to it, Mellani finally decided to approach the professor and ask her whether any details had been discovered about the plants. Slowly, she made her way to the greenhouse. A bit before she reached, she stopped for a while, giving it a second thought. The professor might be busy, and the last thing Mellani wanted to do was interupt her when she was working or busy.

Mellani stayed there for a while, lost in thought. In the end, she took a deep breath. The worst that could happen was the professor asking Mellani to leave. That was not too bad, was it? Mellani reached the greenhouse and looked inside, noticing that two others were already there with the professor. One of them was the prefect, Opeila, who Mellani vaguely remembered from her first year. The other was a first year who Mellani thought she had seen in the Slytherin Common Room.

Mellani was desperate to turn and walk away, but now it was too late, and it might seem disrespectful, which was not what Mellani wanted to indicate. "Oh, um, Professor? Uh-I'm sorry if I'm interrupting anything... I-uh can leave if you want me to. I can also help here if it is needed?", she stuttered. She knew she should have just kept her curiosity to herself but now it was too late to do anything.

WIS: 8 ACC: 7 STA: 5 EVA: 5 ARC: 6 STR: 5
Fearless

Nancy glanced up from her work at the sound of a voice. Opeila Winters, one of the fifth years. The woman did not know the girl well, but knew her well enough she was not going to cause any trouble. "You are fine, Miss Winters," Nancy felt bad that she was doing all of this in such an open area, but she did not have many places that she was able to work on this sort of thing.

"I have not found much sadly. I have never seen anything like it before, there are a few slightly similar plants but nothing that brings me any closer." Glancing around the room, she tried to find anything that the girl could help her with, deciding that maybe a bit of fresh air would help her think a bit more. She could trust the older girl to open a few of the windows while she attempted to clean the space up a little bit. "Actually, would you be able to open a few of those windows over there and the one in my office? It should still be warm enough that the plants will be okay, I just think a little fresh air could help." She spoke to the girl with a soft, pointing over to a few of the windows on the opposite side of the greenhouse. Luckily they were easy to open, just having to move the switch on each window to the side and pushing out, allowing them to open a few inches.

Hearing another voice the Herbology professor looked over at the door to see another of her students, noticing another one of them close behind. More students wanting to help, did she risk allowing them to help out with the fungus because she had no idea idea what it could do. But, more help meant maybe a bigger chance of finding something out because chances were she was going to miss something with how stressed she was making herself.

"Miss Norden and Miss Miller, could you both grab a pair of gloves from the box of spare ones, I may have a few things you can help me with? Miss Winters, please grab a pair of gloves as well when you are done if you would still like to assist?" Maybe, just maybe with the help of these students they would be able to get rid of this strange fungus. The worse thing that could happen would be she loses her job by accidentally harming a student when attempting to figure out what was going on.

@Opeila Winters, @Remedy Norden, and @Mellani Miller