Pathways

[Lissy Longbottom]

Graphic credit: Felixir

A set of paths, some stone, most dirt, link the wooden bridge to almost every other area of the Hogwarts grounds. You will more than likely use these pathways at some point to reach your grounds-based classes, to visit other outdoor locations, or simply to take a walk and clear your head. This is a quiet area of the grounds with the soft sound of leaves rustling in the wind or lightly crunching below your feet. Doesn't the air just seem fresher around here somehow?

Walk with a friend, sit and relax on one of the many benches placed in intervals along the numerous pathway routes, climb a nearby tree, take a moment to appreciate the great outdoors in this breathtaking part of the country. Just be careful not to trip on loose stones or roots as you go. The groundskeeper does what he can to keep the pathways maintained, but he is, after all, only human.

[sweetpinkpixie]

For something that was meant as a comfort item, Ore-son Wells was becoming a cumbersome source of stress. It had been somewhere between his pacing near the perimeter of the locked off section of the school the headmaster had mentioned during his feast and his dive behind one of the suits of armor while Maya Nam walked by and the accompanying spiral about the dance ... that Atlas remembered he had once again forgotten to unearth the tin he had buried his pet rock in. He wasn't even so sure that he considered the rock with glued on white fluff and googly eyes a pet anymore...but his fondness for his mechanical creations had him feeling guilty.

The problem was now that he could not remember where he had buried the box. He had done so in a state of panic last term, panic for being discovered by his brother and someone else last term. The good news about that was that since he had done such a cursory job of burying it...it should be easy to find. Especially with all the weathering of the ground and all that. Even with a few specific odds in his favor...that did not help the fact that he did not remember which tree it was that he had shoved the little tin box into the dirt.

Picking up a random stick, he began poking around the roots of one of the many trees along the path.

[Cassirin]

Mercer was a boss at finding interesting rocks, shells, bugs, and cool sticks on the grounds at Hogwarts. Maybe less good now that he'd sacrificed his glasses, but still, he was a curious little creature, and he was always deep in the weeds where the good stuff was found. Because he was a conservationist, Mercer liked to leave a place better than he found it. He took the bugs on site seeing tours, returned the shells to the lake, propped good sticks back in trees... and the rocks got rehomed to the wild. Outside the bounds of Hogwarts grounds, where they could roll free and grow moss unimpaired.

So when he stopped an older student poking around in the dirt, Mercer headed right over. He crouched near the spot and studied the ground too. "What is it? A spider? Feather? D'you think you can give a feather back to a bird? Like a loose tooth? What would they do with it? Maybe they have a Feather Fairy who pays out galleons for them."

[sweetpinkpixie]

Unaware of the younger Ravenclaw's remarkable and quite precise skillset, Atlas was a little too concerned with the secrecy of the moment and not being caught with a pet rock...which apparently was something to be ashamed of, so his brain kept telling him. How he had come to this conclusion was uncertain, perhaps more linked to the admittance of the intense feelings of vulnerability.

...but...anyway...

...erm...

"....uh...." Spider? If there was a spider there was no way he would be poking it with a stick. He would be all squatted down and trying to cradle it in his hands! "...uh...I imagine birds don't want anything a human has touched...they don't like our smell." That had been birds...right? Creatures of the non metallic variety were not his forte. He was more a student of their movement so he could replicate it rather than a student of how to care for the majority of them. But then there was another moderately confusing string of questions coming from his younger peer. "...you keep your Deciduous teeth? Like...in a box?"

He had ceased his ground poking with his stick for now, for the record. This did not seem to be the right area anyway.

[Cassirin]

Oh no! Mercer's face fell at the thought that handing back feathers was stressful to birds. He swung his bag around and started digging through the books and scrap parchment and broken quills to where the interesting things he'd found on the grounds might be.

"I don't keep my teeth! I just heard that some Muggles put teeth out for fairies to pay for," he caught his finger on something jagged and jerked it back with a hiss. Ouch! "I do keep teeth from other animals, if I find them. Those are hard to find. I found a kelpie tooth once... or might have been a rock, but it looked like a tooth. And a fox tooth. Or it might have been a stick that was pointy, but it was cool." He reached back into his bag. "You're looking for something."

[sweetpinkpixie]

Atlas liked to pretend he was not judgmental and when he did he only did so because the situation and person had earned it. Technically speaking, this second year hadn't really earned it...but Atlas' brows were knitting in a certain brand of judgement. He was collecting animal teeth. TEETH. It all begging the Gryffindor to take a little pause and to self reflect. This term, fifth year, had touched a nerve right off the bat and both he and his twin were feeling particularly ostracized for one reason or another, so he didn't really want to project and pass those icky vibes onto the Ravenclaw.

But...teeth.

Was this the same sort of feeling Remy had whenever he went on about his insect and arachnid fascination? Maybe it was...and that was kind of humbling in an uncomfortable manner.

"...but...if Muggles know about fairies...isn't that a breach of the Statute?" He had heard this story before and dad might have debunked it into the ground once. Hard to recall. Dad talked a lot. "Uh...if I find any teeth...I'll be sure to give them to you then..." See? He was being friendly and encouraging. "I've got are tarantula fangs back in my dorm."

Tensing up a bit, Atlas supposed that he really could not fault the kid for noticing how not-subtle-at-ALL he was being about poking around. For Orion's sake, he still had the stick in his hand that he had been prodding the ground with. "Uh...yeah...I buried something ... a metal box... around this this area abouts ..."

[Cassirin]

"Oh!" Mercer didn't want teeth someone else had found. That was up to Atlas to take care of. Everyone had to take care of their own teeth. But the point was that Mercer had moved on from the teeth. "I found a metal box! But it wasn't really a box. It was a coffin. Are you looking for a coffin?"

He snagged his finger on something and paused to see if he was injured before poking back into the bag. He had it... in... here... somewhere. "Tarantulas are cool, by the way."

[sweetpinkpixie]

At first Atlas understood that 'OH' to be about the tarantula fangs, in which case the Gryffindor would be willing to trade for...until the little Ravenclaw continued on and spoke about a metal box. "A...coffin?" he asked, brow slightly arched and lips pursed into perfect duck bill formation. "...what do you mean...a coffin."

Actually, did he really want to know what that meant? Had this kid dug up someone's dead familiar? That hardly seemed like something to be so enthusiastic about.

Instinctively taking a couple of tiny steps backwards from the brunette, he froze when he simultaneously snapped a twig under his foot and felt his chest elate at the arachnid affirmation.

"I have a Cobalt blue tarantula...she is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen."

[Cassirin]

"She's blue? What's her name?" Mercer finally felt his fingers close around the coffin at the bottom of his bag. He shook it free of the parchment and quills and twigs and feathers piled on top of it, revealing the very same case that Atlas was talking about.

"See? It had a stone in it, but it was all closed up. A stone lives in dirt, and it can't breathe, so it must be dead." That was sad. Also so confusing, because how do rocks die? But it was in a coffin, so it MUST be dead. "I did plan to rebury him, but I forgot. Do you think we should put up a stone this time?"

[sweetpinkpixie]

When it came to his niches, Atlas could talk and talk and talk and talk and talk some more. "Iridescent blue legs, actually, and with light gray prosoma and opisthosoma...though the blue does creep up beyond the legs too," he explained fondly while his index finger seemed to draw the pattern in the air with his finger. "They're native to Myanmar and Thailand, tropical rainforests for their habitat. The females are grow bigger and maintain their blue coloring better than the males, almost intensifies really." He was about to go on when the little Claw asked about a name and it only slightly derailed him. Hopefully the train of thought would be put back on the tracks again with some follow up. "Her name is Araneus."

And then a bit of embarrassment crept in. The number of times that he had lost just where he had buried that stupid box despite his attempts to map out and chart the location (admittedly over complicated things a faaaaaaaaaaaair bit) and this kid had just happened upon it all by accident. His jaw set and impulse wanted him to tell this new acquittance of his that rocks were not alive like that and could not die (just like he would snap at dad when he was in a real mood), but he was not yet sure that he wanted to admit to this being his rock. "Again...why do you think that that is a coffin?" he asked. "Coffins aren't the only things that get buried."

[Cassirin]

"Because..." Mercer offered the coffin to the other boy with an insistent shake so he could go back to rummaging in his satchel. "Rocks don't breathe. If it was just hanging out in the dirt, it would just be buried. But it's buried in a container. A properly nice one. I just think... what do you think it means?"

Because Mercer didn't have all the answers, and most of the answers that he had were ones he had made up anyway. If Atlas said it wasn't a coffin, he was willing to consider that it might actually be something else entirely.

[sweetpinkpixie]

Unfortunately, Atlas suffered from a complex in which he both wanted desperately to fit in while wanting to do everything BUT fit in. No baa-ing over here for this innocent little lamb...and yet, he also disliked being the black sheep. It was stupid and confusing and he was beginning to properly loathe being a teenager.

Anyway.

This little Ravenclaw had now put him in a bit of a predicament and he was still trying to read the temperature of the conversation to gauge the safety of the space. From observation, however, it seemed as if this kid was less likely to be too judgmental and much more malleable...in a good way.

"Uh...well...can't be too sure but..." he began while accepting the NOT-a-coffin. "...could be a buried treasure. Meant to keep it safe or something. Since, as you said, rocks don't breathe and therefore from a practical standpoint it can't really die. So, I propose that it was buried to keep it safe."

Ahem.