Wow. Meditation was actually kind of cool. Kitty felt at peace with the world by the time Professor Yoon said it was time to move on.

She added a tea spoon of sugar to her already brewed tea - tea which she had actually brewed before they started meditating. Hopefully the fact that she had already taken a few sips earlier in the lesson wouldn't affect her readings. Kitty was right handed, so she took the cup with her left hand. Then she gracefully brought it to her lips (perhaps not as gracefully if she were holding it with her right hand) and sipped.

Azura turned her cup back over and looked down at the cup, for a moment all she really saw was a mass of soggy leaves. But she looked up at the board, making a note about the three different sections of the cup and she took another deep breath as she tried to look down and find a symbol.

What was the first one she could make out? She squinted for a moment before she wrote down what she thought looked like a pair of earrings.. She raised an eyebrow.. uhh.. earrings? That.. seemed a bit weird.. But she wrote it down anyways..

Quote:

Originally Posted by parchment

First symbol I saw was.. earrings?

All right, That symbol was on the rim of the cup, she continued looking around the rim of the cup, but.. uhh really that was all she saw, Oh.. wait was that a..uhh.. Gallows? Err.. whatever it was called.

Quote:

Originally Posted by parchment

Rim of the cup, Gallows? I think.

She didn't see anything else so she moved down to the middle of the cup, looking at it and squinting her eyes a bit to see what else she could see. Hmmm.. Everything looked so. mushy.. She didn't see much, though as she turned her cup, things started to get slightly more clear.

What in the name of Holy Fwoopers.. Was that.. Corn? It looked like corn on the cob! She tilted her head a little and made another note.. She didn't see anything else in the middle of the cup.

Quote:

Originally Posted by parchement

Middle of the cup.. Corn? I think.. It looks yummy.

All right, now down to the bottom of the cup! Let's hope she didn't have the grim down there! She smiled a bit to herself as she carefully peered into the cup.. Huh..

She must have been hungry, cause that looked sort of like a leek.. and next to it.. Lettuce..

Right. Right.. She should have actually eaten lunch, cause all she was seeing was food in here! She didn't see anything other than those two symbols and so she wrote them down as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by parchement

Bottom of the cup: Leeks and Lettuce."

All right, now it was time to see what these all meant!

After taking a few more deep breaths, Esme figured that she was ready to start working on her tea reading. She felt a little bad for the people who disliked tea because there was no way around it - unless of course they were okay with not completing the lesson. She, on the other hand, was perfectly fine with the stuff and had already finished off the cup of it that she had poured herself right after coming in. She was more than ready to have some more and no, she didn't think that the Professor was trying to trick them.

That would have been rather underhanded and mean. Though... Professor Myers had done just that and he was neither things.

Walking over to the cauldron of boiling water with the provided teacup in hand, Esme carefully filled it until it was 3/4 full. Now she just needed to add the leaves and allow it to steep for two to three minutes. She wouldn't be adding anything to the tea because she was perfectly fine drinking it plain after all the practice she had given herself.

Three minutes passed and her tea was successfully brewed.

Now it was time for some weird stuff, Emma first added a couple teaspoons worth of sugar to her cup. Maybe it was more like a nice thin layer, what could she say she loved sugar. It made everything taste better. She swirled it around a couple of times so that the sugar mixed in well.

Picking the cup up with her non-dominant hand, her right hand - she was one of the special people who was left hand dominant. Slowly she began to sip on the tea, which tasted delicious with the extra sugar. Relaxing her mind she tried to clear it as well as figure out what the biggest issue on her mind was. It was very easy to silence her thoughts, there wasn't much to think about. Just her simple easily boring life.

Nothing really came to mind. General tea reading it would be then. She focused only on the taste and her slow relaxed breathing.

Finally she managed to finish her tea, only a little bit of tea was left.

Now Kitty was supposed to empty her mind of thought and focus on whatever remained. To do this she simply focused on staring at her cup, noticing its patterns without focusing on them too much. Nothing in particular popped to her mind at first. The only thing that still seemed to be floating around in her mind was that this Divination lesson was kind of fun. Did that count?

She swirled her teacup three times. The liquid splashed against the edges of her cup but thankfully didn't spill out. Next she turned her teacup over into the saucer and breathed silently. One silent breath. Two. Three.

Satisfied with she had followed the instructions by the book, Kitty gingerly lifted her cup...

He studied his cup as she did, sure that she would have the answer. She was a professor so that meant she knew everything, right? Everything about Divination, at least. So if she said the shape was meant to be on the bottom then it was meant to be at the bottom. "Okay, thank you," He said with a smile.

He looked back at the shape at the bottom of the cup. It looked a little bit like a rabbit. Well, a rabbit's head. There was the head and the ears. Rabbit it was. He flipped to the proper page of the book. Rabbit meant...ILLNESS FOR A CHILD?! That didn't sound good. He was a child. Was he going to get sick? And it was on the bottom so that meant ultimate answer. That didn't sound good at all.

He glanced at what he had written down so far and raised his hand again. "Professor, how can there be two ultimate answers? It seems like there should only be able to be one."

Finally Hadley's mind was clear, and she was relaxed enough to drink the tea. Which by this point was lukewarm at best. There was the slight hitch of trying to remember to do the steps right, while keeping her mind cleared though, which Hads just had to deal with. No way around it.

She picked up the teacup and then remembered it was supposed to be her non-dominant hand. See, this was the stuff that made it hard to keep her mind clear. She switched hands and took her first sip. To be honest, the tea wasn't nearly as bad as she usually made it out to be, especially now with the honey and the sugar in it. Yet, Hadley still had to fight the urge to gag. There was just something about tea that triggered her gag reflex, even when it wasn't particularly terrible.

Hads paused, getting herself to relax again, before she continued to sip the tea. The more relaxed she became, the more she cleared her mind, or tried to, the more thoughts of animagus training kept creeping in. She was still very upset at being refused the right to begin training. Again. Have to wait until she was fifteen. Puh! Hadley was determined to successfully become an animagus before she graduated. And three years just wasn't going to be long enough to achieve that. And...

Wait...mind clear. She had to keep her mind clear. Thoughts of her last mirror conversation with her twin, Natalie popped into her head. About how frequently Mom and Dad were fighting lately. And...

This is not keeping her mind clear!!

There was one upside to her wrestling to keep her head clear of thoughts: It successfully distracted her from the taste of the tea, and before she knew it, it almost was gone.

Thank Merlin!

All right, now it was time to see what all this meant. She flipped open her text book and after looking at her notes, started to figure out what they meant.

Quote:

Originally Posted by parchement

Rim
Earrings=To a man this symbol proclaims the displeasure of one of the opposite sex; to a woman, the humiliation of unrequited affection.

Azura giggled softly as she shook her head a little at that answer. You are a little late tea leaves, unrequited love happened last year." She said as she thought back to the potions class where they all got mildly poisoned.. Humiliation for sure!

Okay, next!

Quote:

Originally Posted by parchment

Rim
Gallows:An omen of great distress and tragedy.

She sighed softly. She could have figured that one out. Of course she had great distress and tragedy.. her mother had died. She bit her lip as she tried to keep it together and went to look for corn..

However, there was no corn! She flipped through the book a bit before figuring out that what she saw was.. Harvest!

Quote:

Originally Posted by parchement

Middle of cup.
Harvest:A shock of corn is a somewhat sad emblem showing that you have sown that of which the reaping will be tears; it is also a warning of illness, especially to the aged.

Azura wasn't too sure about this one, she would be reaping tears? She wished she could cry, her pain sat on her chest like a lump, but she couldn't seem to cry it out. She was puzzled.. maybe it meant she was going to get sick? She didn't know.

Anyways.. onto the bottom of the cup!

Quote:

Originally Posted by parchement

Bottom of the cup
Leek:This implies that you are anxious to come to the root of some matter of which at present you have only an inkling; with good signs around, you may expect to come to a satisfactory understanding.
Lettuce:This shows sleeplessness, possibly from the receiving of some perturbing news.

0_o

What what in the blazing Fwoopers did that mean? She WAS curious about why her mother died.. but was she going to understand it? Lettuce didn't seem like a good symbol! Did that mean she was going to just have insomnia for the rest of her life? ACK! And YES she had disturbing news.. This cup was ALLL sorts of confusing.. but she was done at least..

While he was waiting for others to possibly drop dead, he could at least brew the tea, just in case. Jaemin nudged the cup around on the tabletop, chewing on his lip lightly before reaching for the tea leaves; he scooped some carefully into the cup, squinting at them suspiciously. Nothing looked amiss... but he didn't spend a lot of time looking at tea leaves like this. So what would he really know? Still... he got up to fill the cup up with water, then slunk back to his chair and set it down to steep.

While it did that, the small boy closed his eyes and tried to do the meditation thing again. Focus himself. Stuff like that. Cause if nobody was dying by the time his tea looked like proper tea, then maybe it would be safe to drink...

Stop thinking about it, Jaemin. Just focus on clearing your mind.

Rooney was considering all 378 things he could be doing that were better usages of his time, including plucking the hairs that were growing on his big toe. Maybe even try that hair removal paste he had found in an older students trunk last year. None of them included filling a cup with hot water BEFORE adding tea. Who even…did that..? That sounded illegal, if anything. Instead, he added the leaves first… and then the hot water. No one would know. He wasn’t working with a partner and he was sure he could just make up the end result. Wasn’t that…all this was? Making stuff up that you wanted educational back up for? Say you were being self-depreciating because you had been put straight into the friend zone and…well you just NEEDED someone to say that it was OKAY. Because good things were coming to you! … That was Divination. Sometimes Arithmancy, but Roo actually liked that class. So he could put up with it for half an hour more than he could this current class.

His countdown of three minutes started then, actually…just a sing along in his head of something good. Of course, he added honey. Honey smelt nice. Whether it tasted nice in tea…was another subject. Something he wasn’t familiar with. Smells were nice though.

His mind didn’t neeeeeeeed to be clear and relaxed in terms of not thinking about things.

He had the music brain.

Which was better.

Meditation nap time sounded like a real nice treat. Cornelius wiggled his bum in his seat and closed his eyes, inhaling a DEEP exaggerated breath. What? The boy had healthy lungs and needed the proper amount of air. Besides, it made it seem like he was really into this. Which he wasn't sure yet. His mum bashed on this subject so much that Cornelius was just here to learn something and use that to bug his dad. Creep him out, you know.

As it was, his mind did not clear up. In fact the gears in his head turned and turned. What would he have for lunch today? Maybe a turkey sandwich. What were Hugo and Dante doing? Ooooh. And Katerina. He wanted to work on something for her. And Rosie, was she still mad at him for that wet-willy? He had a busy schedule.

Inhaling another deep breath the boy's mind continued to busy itself...

The rim of her cup (which symbolized the current moment) looked a lot like jewelry to her. "You may expect an increase of wealth, possibly good presents also," she read out loud. That was nice, but she didn't see how it reflected the current moment.

In the middle it looked like...an alligator. "Is that an alligator? Can't be certain." She consulted her book. Yes, it looked kind of like an alligator but it was hard to tell. Kitty read aloud quietly. "This is a bad sign of personal danger and distress possibly caused by those nearest to you; it also shows much mental disturbance and worry; if very near consultant a catastrophe is imminent. Oh no..." Since this was in the middle it was supposed to happen within the next two weeks. But who nearest to her could possible want to endanger her? "I'll just say it wasn't an alligator," she muttered to herself quietly.

"I see an angel, I think." Kitty consulted her book to see what an angel meant. Angels were always good, right? Yes, according to the book, Angels were a symbol of good fortune in love, radiance, happiness, and peace. If all of this Divination stuff was true, then that meant things would work out okay eventually.

But there was still the problem of the alligator. Kitty flipped through the book to try to find something that looked similar.

After that lovely meditation almost nap Cornelius knew the answers to his questions. And some solutions to his problems. Sitting up straight his tapped his fingers on his lap. Okay. What were they supposed to do?

Read tea...right.

Filling his cup with hot water, 3/4 to be exact, and added the leaves, he sat back to let it brew. Waiting was boring so for those 180 seconds he loosened his tie and rolled his sleeves up to his elbows. Where was Rosie so she could make him one of those man buns? His curly hair was getting to long and even though he loved it, it was getting on his nerves.

Time's up!

Raising his right hand, which is his non-dominant hand, he wiggled his finger then carefully lifted his teacup. He blew at the steam and gave it the tiiiiiiiiniest sip. Oh. Hot. Hot hot.

Sip, sip, sip...

When Janelle's tea had cooled enough, she picked up her cup with her left hand and took a sip. Ahhhh, it wasn't too too strong and just sweet enough. Trying to maintain her relaxed state, she didn't think of anything in particular........at first. And then, her thoughts turned to the topic that always seemed to pop into her head lately. OWL's. It was still relatively early in the term and yet Janelle always seemed to have the exams on her mind. She worried about studying enough, about doing well, pretty much about anything and everything related to OWL's. Even though she tried to push the thought from her mind, they found their way back. Soooo, Janelle guessed that this would be the topic of her reading.

Janelle continued to sip her tea and reluctantly think about OWL's. She wished she could have a more interesting or fun topic, but it was what it was. At least she was enjoying the tea and she was still her regular size, so that was something. Finally, there was only a little tea left. Janelle figured it was time to begin her reading, so she checked her notes once more. Holding her cup carefully, she gave it three circular swirls. Then she watched as the tea leaves moved around the inside of the cup. Moving the saucer closer to her, Janelle turned the cup over and set it gently on top of the saucer. She counted her breaths and hoped that her tea leaves would not fall out of the cup. One, two, three. Janelle turned the cup back over and set it back on the saucer. Time to read the tea leaves.

Now that he was drinking tea there was absolutely nothing in his head like...not even Quidditch. Like...it was...quiet? Was this how it felt to be a Gryffindor? Nothing inside that noggin? No wonder Johnathan was always so chill and happy-go-lucky.

Shrugging a shoulder to himself, he sipped his tea until there was a tiny amount of tea the bottom of the cup. He peered into it with those large, curious eyes of his. Cornelius caught a slight reflection of himself a grinned. Hey, that be him. DAZZLING GRIN FTW.

He held the cup in his hand and swirled it once, swirled it twice, and swirled it thrice. The tea leaves swirled round and round and round at the bottom, and Cornelius' head went round and round and round as his green eyes followed suit. He then quickly turned the cup upside down on the saucer and took in THREE DEEP breath.

One...two...three...

Emma's tea cup was nearly empty, therefore it was time to get to the crazy stuff. Now she would have her general tea reading, since there wasn't anything that was on her mind.

She took the nearly empty cup in her hand and swirled it three times quickly. Turning it over as gently as she could, Emma dumped the remaining tea into the saucer.

one breath. two breathes. three breathes.

Carefully Emma turned the cup back over and began to examine it starting at the handle and moving clockwise around her cup. Starting at the rim she began to look at the symbols. There were two that clearly stood out to her. She wrote the symbols down and read the meanings.
Hmmm. The two symbols were incredibly different in their meanings. Good luck and unpleasant news. "Professor, I was wondering. Aren't good luck and unpleasant news opposites? Why would they both be in the same area of my cup?" Emma was very confused but maybe that was just how the weird Divination stuff worked. She then looked at the middle and base and picked out the symbols there.
This was really strange. She didn't really know what was going on. Apparently she would have good luck and unpleasant news during her current moment in time aka right now she was going to be lucky and have some problems. However in the near future she would find that things were going to get easier, which was hopefully a good thing. She didn't have an actual question she was asking, but it was interesting to find out that she may have a so called happy love affair soon as the ultimate answer of her life. Considering she had been single for awhile, that was exciting to hear. If this was actually true, Emma still didn't really believe in the Divination stuff.

It was time to swirl! Once, twice, thrice...well, that was a bit anti-climatic. At least she didn't have to finish the tea. Grateful, Hadley turned the cup over onto her saucer and counted out three breaths. Then a fourth for good measure and turned the cup back over.

Okay, handle facing her first, then clockwise. The first symbol she saw sort of looked like a bird in a cage. The next one kinda looked like flowers. Geraniums maybe? She wrote both of those down under current, comparing the way the tea leaves looked to the examples in the book. That was all she saw for the first section. The rim.

Next came the middle. There was only one that looked like a crab. She added it to the list under near future. Lastly was the base. The base had three. The first looked liek some kind of tree, that when Hadley compared with the examples in her textbook matched the Labranum tree pretty closely. Next was one that she didn't need book to figure out. A Bobcat. And lastly there was an egg shaped bit. Hads added them to the section of her parchment under Ultimate conclusion of ultimate destiny.

Now it was time to document what they all meant. Hadley didn't find an entry for Bobcat, but eventually found it under Lynx. She should have known that.

SPOILER!!: The Reading

Current:

Bird in Cage - This implies that a variety of causes prevents you from obtaining your dearest wish - Itchy Mara!

Geraniums - This flower shows a strong will and determined character - ME!

Near Future:

Crab - Strife, family disagreements, an enemy - yeah. Should be under Current!

Ultimate Conclusion of Ultimate Destiny!:

Lebranum Tree - A sign of delight and the fulfilment of a cherished hope, probably occurring in the spring - NICE!

Lynx - Denotes treachery or episodes of a painful nature... Not nice!

Egg - New plans and ideas, or a birth - Okay...

Interpretation:

Currently Professor Ichihara is blocking my desire to start animagus training, because I'm "too young." But I'm also strong-willed and determined! And I'll eventually achieve my dream, in the spring no less, through new ideas and plans? Hopefully not a baby! But there will also be betrayal or pain. Not cool!

Also my family is falling apart and some people really don't like me and that doesn't seem to be changing anytime soon. Yay...

Moving on… Rooney was completely out of touch with the whole Divination process, because…why was there just six steps on the blackboard, but…….78233894209 of them really? How was he supposed to read ahead and do at the same time. Whilst using his non-dominant hand?? – Hold up, his NON DOMINANT HAND?! How was that safe?? He would just pretend some more at this whole thing. Roo checked how cool his tea was, by sticking his finger in the cup and stirring it a little. Ooooohoohoohooo! Still a little bit hot.. So he waited another minute or so, before checking again to find it was definitely how he needed it. Perfecto was this tea.

He picked the cup in his dominant hand, wiggling the fingers of his non-dominant one and strumming them on the table to ‘relax’ himself.

The ‘stubborn thought’ that was bugging him was how much he didn’t understand this subject. Maybe he really needed to sit down with the Professor and ask her what it was that people enjoyed and how he could understand it a little better without wanting to pour his tea out straight away and then see what the leaves said.

What difference did the whole swishing and sipping and swishing and everything do?

Glancing up at the board repeatedly, Cornelius peered down at his cup. What the...?????

He didn't like this already. He was supposed to read leaves that would foretell something about him. UUUUGH.

Okay, okay, okay. He saw...things. Figures. Odd ones and probably even inappropriate ones so he was just going to wing this the best he could. He did though, open his book at skimmed over possible results.

Uhuh...uhuh...okay...yeah....right...dang.

SPOILER!!: Parchment

Rim - arc: this symbol assures you of security and of finding refuge in times of distress and turmoil.

Middle - arrow: unpleasant news or a disagreeable letter from the direction in which it comes.

Base - axe: this shows mastery and power to overcome difficulties; sometimes separation.

After waiting the three minutes for the tea to be ready Melbourne Johanson took a deep breath. With her mind cleared and moved to pick up her teacup only to stop for a moment. This was hard. Really hard.

What were the ambidextrous people supposed to do again? Finally reaching toward the tea she immediately switched hands and wrapped her fingers around the cup. There. Predicament solved. Drinking the tea was the best part of the class as it was calming. The constant niggling thought that popped into her head was one that of course she didn’t want, but it was there. It returned again and again and again pressuring her into thinking more on it.

Holding her now nearly empty tea cup the Gryffindor girl gave the cup three good swirls before gently flipping the cup over and emptying out the remaining liquid. Now all she had to do was wait and do the actual reading.

Once the tea had been brewing for two minutes Esme continued working to keep her mind clear. That was never hard for her to do because she had practiced a lot. The key for her was to compartmentalize things in a way that they could be driven from her mind at will. Closing her eyes, she resumed taking deep breaths and let her mind clear of everything. There were no troubles in her life, just happiness.

The tea was now cool enough to drink without burning herself. Opening her eyes (because it would have been foolish not to), Esme picked up the cup with her left hand and started sipping the tea. It could be sweeter but she didn't want to bother with sugar. Besides, it wasn't THAT strong. She had stronger tea in the past and hadn't cared for it AT ALL. No matter. There were no other thoughts in her head, she was merely concentrating on the taste of the tea as well as her own breathing. She was so calm in this moment and everything was perfect.

Nearing the bottom of the cup, she made sure to leave a little bit of tea behind. The liquid was swirled around three times so that the leaves could disperse then the rest of the liquid was dumped as she turned the cup over the saucer. After six breaths she turned the cup back over.

Nobody was falling over or being cooked yet... maybe the tea was safe. Jaemin looked into the cup suspiciously, then picked it up; his eyes went to the board, and he frowned a bit.

"That's... what I said earlier..." the focusing on something specific thing. He had said that, right? That it could affect what you saw? He picked up the tea cup, gave it a swirl, and then... hmm.

Nobody else had died.

He sipped the tea and tried not to think about Professor EatyMcKids. Anything else, pls.

After dumping his cup over a saucer, Fiyero took s few deep breaths and turned the cup back rightside-up. What exactly was he supposed to be seeing? All saw as he peeked inside the cup was a bunch of tea leaves.

There was an elongated line along the rim of the cup. If you squint, it sort of looked like a broom. Cool! Did that mean he was going to be a world-famous Quidditch player or something? Fiyero consulted his book and his face fell a bit... no such luck. But there was something else there too. It sort of looked like a leaf. He grabbed his quill and jotted it down:

Text Cut: Notes- Rim

Rim:
Broom - a new era in life
Leaf- inevitable change

Fiyero assumed that was referring to his decision to come to Hogwarts instead of stay in muggle school like his dad wanted. Well, that was accurate! It certainly was a new era for him...

He shifted his concentration to the middle of the cup. The first symbol he saw looked a bit like a thimble. That was weird... he couldn't imagine what a thimble had to do with Divination! So what else was there? The next symbol was clearly a bike. Fiyero smiled; between the broom and now the bike, this was turning out to be a fun batch of symbols! And there was something else too. Wow! Three symbols?

The last symbol in the middle looked like a bouquet of flowers, but what was that supposed to mean? Out came the book again. Fiyero blinked. Romantic interest?! No, that couldn't be right! then he saw another possible meaning for the bouquet.

Text Cut: Notes- Middle

Middle:
Thimble: focus on home life
Bicycle: choosing your own path
Bouquet: validation for works/talents

Fiyero wasn't sure how he felt about this prediction. He liked the idea of validation, but how was he supposed to focus on his home life and choose his own path? It looked like those two would cancel each other out. Oh well... back to the cup.

Now all that was left was the base. Unlike the rim and middle, this time there was only one symbol in the bottom of the cup. And Fiyero wasn't even sure it was a symbol at all... it just looked like a broken X. He knew that a cross mean happiness and an X was a warning, but what in the world did a broken X mean?

Fiyero opened his book, but the writing on the page made his heart drop. Broken x - obstacles and losses. He gasped, dropping the cup as suddenly as if he'd just been burned by it. All he could do was stare straight ahead for several minutes. Did that mean he was going to lose his dad? Was he actually going to die, or would there just be a parting of ways between them? Or maybe it meant he was going to go back to the muggle world and lose his new friends at Hogwarts... Whatever the meaning, he was not happy with the prospect!

He was finally able to jerk himself back to reality long enough to write down the results:

Text Cut: Notes- Base

Base:
Broken X - obstacles and losses

Glancing down, Fiyero noticed broken shards of china at his feet. He hasn't even heard the crash! Professor Yoon wouldn't be pleased about this... "Sorry about your cup, Professor," he mumbled. He suddenly remembered the spell Professor Newton had used to fix his cauldron and pointed his wand at the shards. "Reparo." The cup reassembled itself, and Fiyero carefully set it on the table in front of him before he could do any more damage.

Starting at the handle of the cup, Esme moved her eyes in a clockwise direction around the base.

The first symbol she spotted looked like a few circles with what appeared to be flags at the top? Okay, that was weird... Confused, she squinted and tilted her head slightly. Sometimes it was easier to see things this way. At least that was the case for her though she might be weird. Honestly she didn't care one bit if other people thought she was. Whatever. It had definitely helped because after a moment she smiled and jotted down her first note; she had been seeing APPLES. Added bonus in the fact that the next object was clearly a pail. That one had been easy to figure out so go her.

Moving down to the middle, Esme could only see one thing and it looked a little unusual. Head tilting didn't work so much this time, but shifting the cup around slightly did. She was looking at an iron. Making a note of the observation, she shifted her gaze towards the base.

There were three objects here, and the first one was obviously a rake and the second one seemed to be a small feather, but the last one had her slightly stumped in the same way that the iron had. It took a few moments for the answer to dawn on her and it had only happened because the leaves on the apples had caught her attention. So it was to be more of those, huh? Interesting...

The last few symbols were recorded and Esme set about working out what each one meant for HER:

SPOILER!!: Esme's Notes

Rim
Apples —A pleasant sign of happiness, cheerful conditions, good health, and fortune. (Self-explanatory. Looks as if they good things will keep coming and I am not complaining about it.)
Pail—You will be called upon to undertake a variety of things which you dislike. (Seems a little contradictory after the first symbol, but bad comes with good. Maybe I will need to do assignments that I will not enjoy.)

Middle
Iron —Small vexations or troubles which will quickly pass, is the meaning of this symbol. (Not the best fortune, but everyone faces troubles and it is important to get over them. Pleased to see that I will not be plagued by them for long, but at the moment I have no idea what they could be related to.)

Base
Rake —This implement denotes a persevering nature which should bring you a liberal measure of success in whatever you undertake; it also indicates luck in speculation. (This is another self-explanatory symbol. Hard work pays off and this could relate to doing well on my exams so that I can have a good career in the future.)
Feathers —Large feathers signify achievement and prosperity; to authors, literary success; small feathers denote something of which you are afraid, but which you will meet with courage. (All I can get from this is that I will be facing my fears. Could this somehow relate to me overcoming my fear of birds?)
Leaves —Prosperous results of your diligence, new friends, and satisfaction. (Another self-explanatory symbol. A positive note to end off on.)

Janelle peeked into her cup, almost afraid of what she might find. Hopefully there were good signs. They had to be, right? At first glance, it appeared to be a big blobby mess, but then she looked closer. Janelle turned the cup so the handle was opposite her and began to make sense of the madness. In the rim area, she saw.........well she wasn't really sure. The best guess she could make was a kind of distorted cave. That was a stretch, but was the closest she could come. Amazingly, that was the only discernible thing in the rim area.

Working clockwise and downward, Janelle saw something in the middle area. There were several blobs kind of near each other. She lifted the cup close to her face to get a better look. Bees. It was a mini swarm of bees. Now that couldn't be good, could it? Maybe? Hopefully? The bees took up a good portion of the middle cup. There was really nothing else that Janelle could see in the middle section.

Finally, Janelle got to the base of the cup. Now this appeared to be the busiest section of all. The first thing she came to, well she wasn't quite sure what that was. After looking and thinking and thinking and looking, she came to the conclusion that it was a net. Kind of like the ones you used to catch butterflies. That was weird. With a shrug, Janelle turned the cup and moved on. She smiled when she saw the last pattern in her cup. It was a horseshoe. Now that had to be good. Horseshoes were always good luck. Putting down her cup, Janelle opened her book and began to look up her symbols. Quill in hand, she began to write down the meanings. Interesting. Now she just had to make sense of it all.