canaryrose

The Sisters of the Dying Branch

Lucien pursed his lips as Summer came back to consciousness. He was as impassive and stoic as always of course, but he was clearly trying very hard not to roll his eyes at the teenager. “I’m glad.” A stick snapped as he stood up, and he brushed the leaves and grass off of his robe. He was almost glaring at Summer as he spoke. “You can’t perform magic on an empty stomach. Remember that and don’t let this happen again- someone won’t always be around to fix you,” he scolded, staring down at Summer with derision. “And don’t thank me. You should be thanking your friend over there- Hana Song, I believe her name is. That heal job really was flawless. Look at your wrist. No scar, hm?” He pointed to Hana, who was starting to make her way across the trail back to the house. “That girl is going places. You should be taking some cues from her, young lady. Now come along. Get going. You’ll certainly want to get your fill before the food is put away for the night, won’t you?”

With that, he walked off. He gave the wellspring a glance over once more to see if anyone else needed any assistance. Of course, he didn’t find anyone, so he lit his lantern and followed the initiates down the path and to the house. The bright, magically produced light of the lantern lit up the path, providing visibility for anyone standing near him.

Just a few yards away, Lark was still standing by Maggie and trying to coax the girl out of her panic attack. As soon as Maggie spoke, she smiled, relieved, and squeezed the girl’s shoulder. “Don’t be sorry, dear,” she soothed. “I completely understand. The initiation can be… overwhelming for all of us. Everyone has a different reaction. I’m just happy that you’re okay.” The woman stood with Maggie and took her hand off of her shoulder. “If you’re ready, we can go back to the house. Your family is going to be so proud of you, just you wait. And if you like nature, you have a fun night ahead of you!” Lark muttered some words and lit her own lantern before gently ushering Maggie along to the path with everybody else.

Soon, the elders had gotten everyone onto the path and walking back to the house. Calypso brought up the rear of the group. She slunk ashamedly behind everyone else, trying to avoid everybody’s gazes as best as she could. Her vomit-stained robe was slung over her shoulder with care not to let the stained part touch her clothes. Out of everyone’s reactions, she thought, hers had been the most humiliating. Sure, Maggie had had a panic attack and Summer had fainted (the thought of which put a smile on her face) but vomiting? All over herself? Nobody would ever allow her to live it down. The thought of it stressed her out. She would be teased about this for the rest of her life.

The walk back was as uneventful as the walk there, although it was significantly more mopey than the first one. They emerged back onto the coven property after walking uphill for quite the time. Night had fully descended upon the mountain by now. A wide, vibrant blanket of stars spread over them, and the moon was shining bright and big above them. Calypso in particular stopped for a moment and gazed at the sight, amazed. The bright lights of the city had always drowned out the night sky, and to stand among the bright, plentiful stars of the wilderness gave her a deep-seated, almost magical feeling.

As soon as they came back to the party, the new witches were greeted by almost deafening, excited applause from their new fellows. Parents rushed forward to hug and congratulate their children. Random witches went up to the initiates and congratulated them on their success, seemingly happy just to have new witches in the coven. Everyone seemed glad, in fact.

@Melissa@Danvers

---

The celebration went on into the night. As soon as Calypso found an opportunity to, she fled the other initiates. Instead, she hung out with her mom and her friends for the rest of the party. It was stupid, but she still felt the embarrassment heating her cheeks and making her want to curl up under a table. Maybe they’d all forget about it if she just disappeared for a couple of hours. Her mom’s friends were happy to fawn over her, though! They wouldn’t even let her go get her own food- when she said she was hungry, one of the women just stood up and got a plate of food and a glass of ice water for her. It went on much like that for the rest of the night. She stayed by her mom, who was ecstatic to see her and to have the full attention of her daughter.

But eventually, the night had to end. It was around ten or so when the other witches started to trickle out of the property. By midnight, only the elders and some of the parents were left. Once most of her friends were gone, Calypso’s mom stood from her seat and grabbed her purse. She smiled at her daughter, tears forming in her eyes.

“Mom…” Calypso started. But before she could finish, her mother wrapped her in a tight embrace.

“I’m just so proud of you.” She let go, but she put a hand on Calypso’s cheek to cradle it. “You have no idea.”

Calypso’s chest tightened. If only her mom knew what a fool her daughter had made of herself. How horribly she had actually done. “You’re leaving already?”

A nod made her smile sink. “Yeah. I’m leaving the Jeep with you, and there’s only one car, so I’m going home with Jessica and her family. You know Jessica.” Her mom gestured to a dark-haired woman standing with her husband and a couple kids near the car path up to the coven house. “Now, listen. You’re gonna have so much fun this summer with all the other initiates. I promise. I’ll see you soon.” With that, her mom gave her another big hug and went off to rejoin her friends. Reluctantly, Calypso cast her eyes around, looking for the other initiates. What were they going to do next?

She spotted Lark, trying to gather up the rest of the initiates. Calypso headed over there, trying to cool her own nerves. It was fine. They had probably all forgotten about it by now! Plus, it was too late- everyone was probably too tired to make fun of her. God knows she was. She couldn’t wait to get in a warm, toasty bed, wrapped in blankets… or to get inside at all. Mosquitoes had been eating her alive all night.

Lark clapped her hands together, getting everyone’s attention. “Now for the fun part! Tonight, as is tradition, you’ll be sleeping outside in a secluded spot on the property. As witches, we have a deep and sacred connection to nature. So what better to foster that than by sleeping outside?”

Calypso’s heart sunk. Camping? This day couldn’t get any worse, really. She didn’t want to camp- she wanted to be inside, in bed. At least she’d be in a tent, away from the mosquitoes, she reasoned. And with a group of people that were (mostly) her friends. When Lark motioned to, Calypso grabbed her pajamas out of her suitcase. Lark started to move away from the picnic tables and the house. With a drag in her step, Calypso followed, face twisted into a sour frown.

A bit later, they arrived at a copse of trees. The house was in sight, though far off. Calypso’s frown twisted even further as she saw the set-up. A fire was in the middle of the clearing, steadily crackling. Sleeping bags were set in a pile by a twisting maple tree- but there were no tents. She groaned internally. Awesome. Just awesome.

“Well, I don’t have to tell you how to use sleeping bags,” Lark quipped. “I’ll leave you guys here to get some rest. Just shout if you need something. Good night!” She put a lantern on the ground, and then turned around and went back to the house. Presumably to do some sleeping of her own.

Once she was gone, Calypso groaned very loudly. She looked down at her pajamas and then at the trees. Did she have to change in the woods? “I’m gonna go change,” she said sullenly, and then disappeared into the trees.

A few minutes later, she came out of the trees, blushing. She had forgotten that she had packed these pajamas. A zip-up pig onesie hugged her body, revealing only her feet, which were bare. She had the hood up and refused to meet anyone’s eyes, instead grabbing a sleeping bag and plopping herself in a corner.

If only this day would end already.

Wellington Academy ₊*

Ramona Hernandez

Ramona Hernandez

Ramona Hernandez ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ 15 | Female | 5'1" | Bisexual | Sophomore ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Dislikes ♦ Cilantro. It tastes like soap! ♦ The cold. Ramona is from Miami, Florida, so her version of the cold is anything under 50 degrees. Even something as commonplace as snow is unfamiliar to her. Once winter comes at Wellington, she'll be in for quite the wake-up call. ♦ Camping. Although she's only been once, she can say with confidence that she'd much rather travel to a foreign country than to the woods. Plus, mosquitoes are gross. ♦ Math. She's not bad at it, persay- it's just boring and complicated and she'd much rather be doing literally anything else. Likes ♦ Coffee- what's not to like! It helps you pull all-nighters and wakes you up in the morning. What? Headaches?! Psh... those are nothing- as long as you drink some more coffee in the morning. Ramona is a certified coffee addict. In her words, it's a little piece of happiness you can drink. ...She might have a problem. ♦ Travel. Although Ramona's never even been outside of the United States (or Florida until she went to Wellington Academy) she loves the idea of travelling to foreign countries. Her dream is to study abroad someday, preferably in a country with a language other than English or Spanish. Since she hasn't ever traveled, her main resource for this interest is living vicariously through travel vloggers and bloggers. And maybe browsing through too many brochures. ♦ Linguistics ♦ Nail polish. She has an entire collection of all different kinds of colors, and her nails can often be seen painted. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ skills ♦ While not photographic, Ramona has a knack for rote memorization. This lets her memorize new vocabulary and alphabets lightning-fast, and to retain that information well. In that vein, she's also quite good at studying- the aesthetic kind, that is. Her handwriting is neat and pleasing to the eye, and at any given time, there are flashcards and sticky notes and fancy pens and cute spiral notebooks (all organized by color and subject!) laying on her desk. God forbid that any of it get disorganized, though. She's a good runner- she played cross country before Wellington, although she never placed at the top of her bracket. It keeps her fit, though. gift ♦ Ramona has a gift for language. While most would say that even being bilingual is impressive, she wouldn't even settle for that. Rather, she's multilingual. She's fluent in five languages (English, Spanish, French, Russian, and Japanese) and is in the process of learning two more (ASL and Mandarin). English and Spanish are her native languages, and she learned all the rest through self-study. She's been obsessed with learning languages since she was only 7 years old, and now has a lot to show for it.

•p e r s o n a l i t y To say that Ramona is an overachiever would be an understatement. Driven and unrelenting, Ramona has never settled for anything less than excellence from herself. She juggles her responsibilities, academics, and extracurriculars with an enviable natural ease. Sometimes it seems as though she's an unstoppable machine of productivity. Of course, this isn't always true. Ramona is not, in fact, unstoppable- rather, she's painfully prone to burnout, and sometimes can only barely keep herself going. During these periods, anxiety and depression are her best friends. But even then, she still has all her other, real friends! She'd consider herself fairly amicable- to people that are kind to her, that is. She's not a pushover, and has no patience for people who get on her nerves or get in her way. In addition to all this, she a natural, insatiable curiosity for new cultures and new places. It's why she's so obsessed with learning languages and speaking to all kinds of people. •h i s t o r y For her seventh birthday, Ramona's only wish was to travel from her hometown of Miami, Florida to Paris, France. While watching the National Geographic channel, she fell in love with the city- its glamorous people, its grand monuments, and, most importantly, macarons. She begged her mother and father to take her to Paris for her birthday for months and, finally relenting, her mother said that they would go if- and only if- Ramona could learn French by her birthday. Much to her surprise, 8 months later she had a seven year old fluent in three languages and begging to go to France. Her fervent requests were denied, but Ramona had discovered the utter joy that linguistics brought her. Ramona never did get to go to France (or anywhere, really- the only time they ever left Florida in her lifetime was to visit family in Puerto Rico), but she satisfied her travel itch by learning languages. When she was ten, she had wanted to visit St. Petersburg so badly that she taught herself Russian and made pen-pals with Russian children. Same story with Japan- she obsessed over anime as a middle-schooler (a medium that she no longer enjoys quite as much) and taught herself Japanese. Her parents were kind and supportive of her passions, but secretly blown away by her accomplishments. Their eldest child was a genius, they thought- so they pushed and pushed and pushed her to succeed. She liked languages, sure, but couldn't she apply herself to other things too? The pressure began in seventh grade. Rather than being left alone to pursue her dreams, she was pushed to succeed. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Ramon earned all As easily. For that period, she was the perfect daughter. She was the talk of the family, their pride and joy. The cream of the crop, the paragon of accomplishment that her two younger brothers and her numerous cousins could look up to with admiration. She was multilingual at the age of thirteen, a cross country player, and an all As student. She even started to teach herself Mandarin, even though her new busy life made studying a bit hard. Everyone was impressed. But Ramona was starting to feel the whispers of burnout. She finally crashed and burned in the middle of her freshman year. She had gotten into the best magnet school in Miami-Dade County, had all As, had the bestest friends ever- so what had happened? What was wrong with her? She quit the cross country team, failed her first two classes, and withdrew to her room. She stayed like that for the majority of second semester. During this time, she managed to start teaching herself ASL- a language similar enough to English that reinvigorated her love for language. At the end of freshman year, she started thinking that she needed a change. A new school, a new place, a new environment. But her parents didn't have money to send her to a private or boarding school, and transferring out of her magnet school would be admitting failure. So, she found about Wellington, and contacted them. She didn't think she'd be accepted- she was smart, but had never written a book or won any awards or competitions. But apparently, being 15 and knowing 5 different languages fluently (7 if you count semi-fluent ones) was sufficient to blow the admissions committee away. It took a lot of convincing for her parents, who were reluctant to let their only daughter leave the nest at 15, but she eventually convinced them. Her first year at Wellington will be her sophomore year, and, although nervous to be so far away from home, she's excited, too. Adventure will be good for her- she hopes. •cottage Zinnia Cottage; roommates with Evelyn Albright •what did you pack? An abundance of gear for the cold, fancy notebooks full of vocabulary, stacks of colorful flash cards, bright pens for note-taking, foreign literature, a Puerto Rican cookbook (her mother was insistent), a display case full of nail polish, coffee grounds, her laptop, so many pictures of her family, six hand-woven blankets, several giant foreign language dictionaries, tank-tops and shorts, running shoes, and anything else she might need. extras It's her first year, so she hasn't earned any Weller Stars or Weller Moons yet. theme song

Wellington Academy ₊*

Ramona Hernandez

Ramona Hernandez

Ramona Hernandez ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ 15 | Female | 5'1" | Bisexual | Sophomore ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Dislikes ♦ Cilantro. It tastes like soap! ♦ The cold. Ramona is from Miami, Florida, so her version of the cold is anything under 50 degrees. Even something as commonplace as snow is unfamiliar to her. Once winter comes at Wellington, she'll be in for quite the wake-up call. ♦ Camping. Although she's only been once, she can say with confidence that she'd much rather travel to a foreign country than to the woods. Plus, mosquitoes are gross. ♦ Math. She's not bad at it, persay- it's just boring and complicated and she'd much rather be doing literally anything else. Likes ♦ Coffee- what's not to like! It helps you pull all-nighters and wakes you up in the morning. What? Headaches?! Psh... those are nothing- as long as you drink some more coffee in the morning. Ramona is a certified coffee addict. In her words, it's a little piece of happiness you can drink. ...She might have a problem. ♦ Travel. Although Ramona's never even been outside of the United States (or Florida until she went to Wellington Academy) she loves the idea of travelling to foreign countries. Her dream is to study abroad someday, preferably in a country with a language other than English or Spanish. Since she hasn't ever traveled, her main resource for this interest is living vicariously through travel vloggers and bloggers. And maybe browsing through too many brochures. ♦ Linguistics ♦ Nail polish. She has an entire collection of all different kinds of colors, and her nails can often be seen painted. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ skills ♦ While not photographic, Ramona has a knack for rote memorization. This lets her memorize new vocabulary and alphabets lightning-fast, and to retain that information well. In that vein, she's also quite good at studying- the aesthetic kind, that is. Her handwriting is neat and pleasing to the eye, and at any given time, there are flashcards and sticky notes and fancy pens and cute spiral notebooks (all organized by color and subject!) laying on her desk. God forbid that any of it get disorganized, though. She's a good runner- she played cross country before Wellington, although she never placed at the top of her bracket. It keeps her fit, though. gift ♦ Ramona has a gift for language. While most would say that even being bilingual is impressive, she wouldn't even settle for that. Rather, she's multilingual. She's fluent in five languages (English, Spanish, French, Russian, and Japanese) and is in the process of learning two more (ASL and Mandarin). English and Spanish are her native languages, and she learned all the rest through self-study. She's been obsessed with learning languages since she was only 7 years old, and now has a lot to show for it.

•p e r s o n a l i t y To say that Ramona is an overachiever would be an understatement. Driven and unrelenting, Ramona has never settled for anything less than excellence from herself. She juggles her responsibilities, academics, and extracurriculars with an enviable natural ease. Sometimes it seems as though she's an unstoppable machine of productivity. Of course, this isn't always true. Ramona is not, in fact, unstoppable- rather, she's painfully prone to burnout, and sometimes can only barely keep herself going. During these periods, anxiety and depression are her best friends. But even then, she still has all her other, real friends! She'd consider herself fairly amicable, even if she's a bit sassy and won't take anyone's shit. In addition to all this, she a natural, insatiable curiosity for new cultures and new places. It's why she's so obsessed with learning languages and speaking to all kinds of people. •h i s t o r y For her seventh birthday, Ramona's only wish was to travel from her hometown of Miami, Florida to Paris, France. While watching the National Geographic channel, she fell in love with the city- its glamorous people, its grand monuments, and, most importantly, macarons. She begged her mother and father to take her to Paris for her birthday for months and, finally relenting, her mother said that they would go if- and only if- Ramona could learn French by her birthday. Much to her surprise, 8 months later she had a seven year old fluent in three languages and begging to go to France. Her fervent requests were denied, but Ramona had discovered the utter joy that linguistics brought her. Ramona never did get to go to France (or anywhere, really- the only time they ever left Florida in her lifetime was to visit family in Puerto Rico), but she satisfied her travel itch by learning languages. When she was ten, she had wanted to visit St. Petersburg so badly that she taught herself Russian and made pen-pals with Russian children. Same story with Japan- she obsessed over anime as a middle-schooler (a medium that she no longer enjoys quite as much) and taught herself Japanese. Her parents were kind and supportive of her passions, but secretly blown away by her accomplishments. Their eldest child was a genius, they thought- so they pushed and pushed and pushed her to succeed. She liked languages, sure, but couldn't she apply herself to other things too? The pressure began in seventh grade. Rather than being left alone to pursue her dreams, she was pushed to succeed. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Ramon earned all As easily. For that period, she was the perfect daughter. She was the talk of the family, their pride and joy. The cream of the crop, the paragon of accomplishment that her two younger brothers and her numerous cousins could look up to with admiration. She was multilingual at the age of thirteen, a cross country player, and an all As student. She even started to teach herself Mandarin, even though her new busy life made studying a bit hard. Everyone was impressed. But Ramona was starting to feel the whispers of burnout. She finally crashed and burned in the middle of her freshman year. She had gotten into the best magnet school in Miami-Dade County, had all As, had the bestest friends ever- so what had happened? What was wrong with her? She quit the cross country team, failed her first two classes, and withdrew to her room. She stayed like that for the majority of second semester. During this time, she managed to start teaching herself ASL- a language similar enough to English that reinvigorated her love for language. At the end of freshman year, she started thinking that she needed a change. A new school, a new place, a new environment. But her parents didn't have money to send her to a private or boarding school, and transferring out of her magnet school would be admitting failure. So, she found about Wellington, and contacted them. She didn't think she'd be accepted- she was smart, but had never written a book or won any awards or competitions. But apparently, being 15 and knowing 5 different languages fluently (7 if you count semi-fluent ones) was sufficient to blow the admissions committee away. It took a lot of convincing for her parents, who were reluctant to let their only daughter leave the nest at 15, but she eventually convinced them. Her first year at Wellington will be her sophomore year, and, although nervous to be so far away from home, she's excited, too. Adventure will be good for her- she hopes. •cottage will be assigned by GM •what did you pack? An abundance of gear for the cold, fancy notebooks full of vocabulary, stacks of colorful flash cards, bright pens for note-taking, foreign literature, a Puerto Rican cookbook (her mother was insistent), a display case full of nail polish, coffee grounds, her laptop, so many pictures of her family, six hand-woven blankets, several giant foreign language dictionaries, tank-tops and shorts, running shoes, and anything else she might need. extras It's her first year, so she hasn't earned any Weller Stars or Weller Moons yet. theme song

《 H. E. R. O. 》

The ogres’ rotten smell wafted up from where their bodies lay under the rubble. A sudden whiff of it turned Jamie’s stomach, and she had to squeeze her nostrils shut with both her fingers to keep it from making her vomit up what she didn’t even have in her stomach. Why did they have to be kidnapped today, of all days? This villain needs to learn some manners, she thought sourly. Jamie never went on missions while hungover unless she absolutely had to. All the noise and the smell and the sunlight were only exacerbating her pounding headache. With reluctance, she moved aside the rocks covering the ogres’ bodies with one hand, noting with satisfaction that they were dead as a doornail. She fist-pumped, grinning.

A voice sounded from near her. She nearly sent out a shockwave, but then realized it was Joseph. The smile stayed on her face as she turned to her friend, bouncing on her feet. “Jojo, don’t sneak up on me like that! I could’ve crushed you, jeez…” she said, sounding a little more sour than usual. At his question, she examined her arms. There was that subtle, familiar ache to them- not quite her muscles, but her bones, warning her that they would fracture if she over-exerted herself. But Jamie had enough experience with her power to know that this wasn’t her limit. Far from it, actually. “No, I think I’m alright for now. Might not wanna take down too many more buildings and stuff, but they just hurt a little. Are you okay, though? You look kinda messed up…” She reached her hand out to him in concern before she heard another, louder noise and whirled around.

The ogres were standing around them, hooting and beating at their chests. “UGH!” Jamie held up her hands, ready to blast them. She knew it wouldn’t hurt them, but if she tried hard enough… well, maybe it would? Either way, she was annoyed. Couldn’t they just go away already? She was about to let loose a blast when the temperature in the forum suddenly increased. Left confused for a moment, she eventually turned to Blake, the only person she knew there who could control heat. As the heat grew, she put down her hands and stepped away from him. Then, she started to speedwalk backwards. The heat was borderline oppressive, and she was sure it would cook her if she stood by it for long enough.

True to form, Blake killed all the ogres simultaneously with a bang. The sudden light made her headache flare, but Jamie watched the phoenix with awe written on her face. Awesome. It plowed down the ogres with a dramatic flourish even she might not have been able to pull off. After all the ogres were gone, she moved toward Blake, clapping and ready to congratulate him.

“Dude, that was so awesome! I didn’t know you could create animals-” she started, but was unable to finish as he fell to the ground, unconscious. Jamie looked at him, open-mouthed. “Oh my God, is he DEAD?! Noooooo!” Of course, being Jamie, she didn’t think to check his pulse or anything. Oh well.

@Rabidporcupine

---

Patricia followed Sam’s cues and stayed close, her heart pumping with fear at the sight of just how close the ogres were. She had thought they would be out of the forum by now, away from the ogres- she was utterly useless while fighting them. Even if she wouldn’t admit it willingly. The fact of the matter was, her power was weak unless she was fighting humans. It worked with emotions and commands. A lullaby or maybe even a death song might affect them, but she couldn’t do that with everybody else here.

An ogre approached, and her heart must’ve started going at a mile a minute. She glanced to Sam nervously, only barely managing to conceal her fear. But he killed it like she had thought he would, and she let out a sigh of relief. But that was before five more came charging at them. Oh God, Sam couldn’t fight these things. Maybe Jamie or Blake or Tom could, but… Patricia had noticed the building collapsing out of the side of her eye. That was probably where they all were. Shit, shit shit…

She glanced at Sam out of the side of her eye at his question. How is that relevant? But she quickly caught on. IF they were sensitive to light, would they be sensitive to sound, too? Interesting. Sam was smart, she decided then and there. Smarter than most everyone else, at least. “Pretty high. I’m a soprano, and my power… it doesn’t matter. Pretty high. Should I…?”

Patricia didn’t get a chance to actually start singing. She felt the heat before she noticed anything was happening. Her gaze, along with that of the ogres, flicked to the fiery-haired figure that was Blake across the forum. What was he doing? The air got hotter and hotter, making Patricia sweat. And then… the phoenix appeared. She stared in awe for a moment, hazel eyes reflecting the light. “Woh,” she whispered. It chased all the ogres away, obliterating the ones nearest her. She had to cover her eyes because of how bright it was. And then, after it had done that, it disappeared. That… was probably the coolest thing she had ever seen Blake do. Sparing a glance for Sam and angling her head towards Blake, she walked over to him, ready to congratulate him.

She didn’t make it there before he passed out, but she did manage to overhear the part about the elevator. That enthusiasm about finding a place to get in overridden the concern she had for Blake, although she did spare him a concerned glance. “He’ll be fine,” she told Jamie dismissively, before walking into the basilica and finding the elevator. She ran her hands along it, narrowing her eyes. “It’s locked!” she shouted. “UGH! But where’s the key?! God, I hate this... We need to find it!”

@DClassified

The Sisters of the Dying Branch

Sister Deborah was about to give another one of her rousing, encouraging speeches when everything suddenly devolved into chaos. She had planned to make everybody feel better about themselves by talking about how they had just taken the largest step of their lives, yada yada, but that did… not go planned. The older woman’s mouth opened and closed like a fish for a second, confused at the scene unfolding beneath her. Calypso’s vomiting didn’t phase her at first. That was expected, and she’d just wait until she stopped expunging her dinner to start. But when Summer fainted and Maggie had a panic attack, she… definitely had to do something about that. At least everyone was okay, but the situation definitely needed to be brought under control. Rather than doing it herself, though, she motioned for the other elders to go ahead and take care of it.

Lucien- an older, stern, gray-haired man- headed for Summer. He motioned Arken away, and then knelt next to her unconscious body and made a tutting sound. “Stupid girl. We told you to eat,” he muttered under his breath. He propped her head onto his knees and pulled out a packet of something from the pockets of his own robe. They were smelling salts, and he cracked open the packet under her nose. The harsh smell would hopefully jar her back to consciousness. It didn’t seem like a serious faint, anyways.

Lark, meanwhile, rushed towards Maggie. She hovered over Rebecca for a split second, making sure she hadn’t drowned (she hadn’t) before squatting next to the hyperventilating Maggie. “You’re okay, sweetheart. You’ve just done something incredible. Nothing’s going to hurt you. Deep breaths.” She modelled the breathing for Maggie, giving her a calm and reassuring smile. “Count with me to 10. 1, 2, 3…” Lark continued on like this in a low voice, with only the slightest bit of worry showing on her own face.

@Danvers@Melissa

---

Tears pricked at Calypso’s eyes as she retched. Today was supposed to be the best day of her life- but her stupid fear of blood was ruining it. She could feel the eyes of her peers looking on, deriding her weakness. In Jean-Luc and Summer’s cases, she could hear their laughter and their insults, each one twisting in like another knife in her gut. But Summer fainting improved her mood the slightest bit, even if she was loathe to admit it. She nearly twisted around behind herself to just vomit onto the other girl, but decided at the last moment that that would be too mean. Even if Summer absolutely deserved it.

She stopped vomiting after a long 30 seconds, leaning on her knees and panting heavily. There was a touch on her arm and, startled, she looked up to see… Dakota. Calypso had half-thought that she would be laughing at her with all the others but… no. She should’ve thought more of her friend. She smiled weakly up at her friend, and at the healing magic. Her wrist itched for a few seconds, and, once she deemed it safe to, she glanced down at her wrist. There was still dried blood smeared on her hand, but it wasn’t bleeding anymore. And the cut on her wrist… well, she could still see where it had been. An ugly, straight scar now ran along her wrist where she had dragged the knife along her skin. It wasn’t pretty, but at least she wasn’t bleeding out anymore.

Dragging herself up to stand straight, Calypso smiled a thin smile at Dakota. It was hard to look dignified when there were chunks of vomit on your clothes, that was for sure. “A little,” she rasped. “I’m sorry. I… overreacted. Totally embarrassed myself.” She let out a small, self-deprecating laugh.

God, she was going to be made fun of for this for ages.

@Hitman

---

In the middle of the chaos, Sister Deborah stepped up again and cleared her throat. "Well... for everyone feeling up to it, you can start to head back to the party. I understand that initiation can take something out of you, and there's still plenty of food and drink up there. Your fellow witches are up there, waiting to welcome you as their equals. I can't wait to see what you all will do with your newfound power. I'll tell you about our plans for the rest of these months with us at... some point later. For now, please rest and recuperate." Awkwardly, she lit her lantern and stood by the path, waiting for the initiates to start walking back. She seemed to want to get away from the chaos as soon as possible, even though her underlings were currently caring for Summer and Maggie. She beckoned to the conscious initiates to star their way down the path, fingers clenched tight on the lantern.

Men vs. Women Race to 1000: Version 2.0

-363

Men vs. Women Race to 1000: Version 2.0

-361

Men vs. Women Race to 1000: Version 2.0

-359

Men vs. Women Race to 1000: Version 2.0

-357

Men vs. Women Race to 1000: Version 2.0

-355