Bria had absolutely every intention of helping tend the pumpkins. Honest. It haaaaaaad, in fact, been the original plan right up until she noticed the suspicious rustling near the far edge of the patch and caught sight of something small vanishing between two particularly enormous pumpkins.

Which, naturally, changed eeeeeeeeeeeeeverythiiiiiiiiiiing.

Now crouched low among curling vines and broad leaves dusted with autumn soil, the Gryffindor peered intently into the maze of orange giants. Her high ponytail had a couple of twigs tangled up in it from her earlier birding and bits of grass clung stubbornly to her knees where she had knelt on the ground along the pathways.

"I know you're in there," she whispered. "And I would just like to state for the record that I come bearing very respectable offerings."

The pouch attached to her hip contained small collection of treasures assembled with deep sincerity and questionable practicality: pumpkin seeds, shiny pebbles, a partially crumbled oat biscuit from breakfast, and three glossy red berries she had found nearby and that were probably safe.

Another faint rustle to her left caused her eyes to widen.

"Ooooooh, definitely something," she breathed excitedly, lowering herself even further until she was nearly lying against the earth between the vines. Very carefully, she nudged the oat biscuit a little closer to the gap between the pumpkins and made a series of soft clicking noises under her breath, somewhere between birdcall and the sort of coaxing noise one might use on a nervous cruppy.

Haydée had been watching. For a while. And what she saw had left her with a lot of questions. Leaning against the wooden gate, her eyes on the older girl surrounded by vines and pumpkins so large that they should have had their own gravitational pull, she wondered quizzically what could possibly be down there that would cause another student to lay on the floor? Had she been confunded maybe? Or perhaps a babbling curse? In truth, Haydée had seen neither so either could be possible at this point.

Making as little sound as possible, Haydée opened the gate and took a small step forward, doing her best to avoid the large patches of dried leaves scattered around the patch. The need to observe without being seen was strong, for how else could she truly understand the situation without being seen? With every step, Haydée couldn’t help but get more curious. What was it that the older student had pulled out of her pouch? Why had she poked it between the vines? People were weird and somehow, this school seemed to multiply everything by a million.

As she got closer however, the answer to her questions just would not come. All sorts of confused, the first year Slytherin plonked herself on a large, sunlike pumpkin a few feet away from the girl and waited patiently for something to happen patiently for roughly 3 seconds.

“Umm…excuse me. Are you okay? Or do you need me to take you to a healer? Because you’re kind of laying in a load of dirt, making noises that I’d expect to hear coming from my baby brother, not that she exactly had one, but that wasn’t the point.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aRogueOne

Haydée had been watching. For a while. And what she saw had left her with a lot of questions. Leaning against the wooden gate, her eyes on the older girl surrounded by vines and pumpkins so large that they should have had their own gravitational pull, she wondered quizzically what could possibly be down there that would cause another student to lay on the floor? Had she been confunded maybe? Or perhaps a babbling curse? In truth, Haydée had seen neither so either could be possible at this point.

Making as little sound as possible, Haydée opened the gate and took a small step forward, doing her best to avoid the large patches of dried leaves scattered around the patch. The need to observe without being seen was strong, for how else could she truly understand the situation without being seen? With every step, Haydée couldn’t help but get more curious. What was it that the older student had pulled out of her pouch? Why had she poked it between the vines? People were weird and somehow, this school seemed to multiply everything by a million.

As she got closer however, the answer to her questions just would not come. All sorts of confused, the first year Slytherin plonked herself on a large, sunlike pumpkin a few feet away from the girl and waited patiently for something to happen patiently for roughly 3 seconds.

“Umm…excuse me. Are you okay? Or do you need me to take you to a healer? Because you’re kind of laying in a load of dirt, making noises that I’d expect to hear coming from my baby brother, not that she exactly had one, but that wasn’t the point.

Bria's head popped up immediately at the voice, blonde curls full of leaf bits and one cheek faintly smudged with dirt. But instead of looking offended — or even remotely embarrassed — her face brightened with genuine interest.

"Oh! Do they take your baby brother to a healer when he makes those noises?" she asked earnestly, blinking up at the younger girl from where she remained half sprawled between the pumpkin vines. "Because maybe they shouldn't unless he's actually choking on something or maybe are out of the ordinary noises...which it doesn't sound like. Anyway! Those were hedgehog coaxing clicks."

She nodded very seriously and performed it a couple of more time for emphasis.

"Well. Probably hedgehog coaxing clicks. Or possibly garden puffskein...I heard rumors about a couple escaping and going rogue out here. I'm still narrowing down the rustling pattern... so it may be another creature entirely."

As if to emphasize this, another faint shuffle, rustle, and chitter chatters came from somewhere beneath the enormous ovate shadow of a nearby pumpkin. Bria gasped softly and pointed at it ― this was now, obviously, a shared expedition.

"See? That! That was definitely something."

Her eyes flicked briefly to the pumpkin itself and she squinted at it in assessment. "We may be able to speculate about size thanks to that. See, the quaffle diameter is 12 inches and this pumpkin has at least two quaffles on it. Possibly two and a half... and only branches within its roundness rustled SO... our mystery creature has to be small enough to fit within that diameter."

Perfectly reasonable and sound logic, right?

The Gryffindor scooted backward a little to make room and patted the dirt beside her invitingly.

"But also, ALSO, if your brother naturally makes creature communication noises, that's actually very exciting," she continued brightly, lowering her voice again as her eyes fixated ahead on the leaves. "Some people are just instinctively better at mimicry and tone patterns. Dad says half of communicating with creatures is sounding non-threatening and the other half is not accidentally saying something rude in their language. Mum told me Dad was teaching me bird calls and how to speak Bowtruckle ever since I was in the womb and he spoke them right against mum's bump. Of course, I actually got to witness this for my own little brother and helped a little."

She had once insulted a Diricawl’s posture completely by accident — too many cheerful chirps and not nearly enough dignified guttural twarps in the greeting sequence. She sighed at the memory before immediately perking up again.

"Anyway, I'm Bria. And I am perfectly okay! Thank you for asking. How are you?"

Haydée snorted a little and shook her head as an image of her brother babbling whilst sucking his thumb appeared in her head. He was such a little bundle of joy that she couldn’t help but smile. “No, not at all, although he’s two-years old and you’re…a little older”. Some might consider it a little worrying, but she was more politely amused.

As the girl mentioned the hedgehog however, Haydée took a small step closer, curiosity getting the better of her. She wasn’t totally sure she knew what that meant but she thought she had a good enough idea. “They’ve escaped? How? Shouldn’t someone be looking after them or keeping more of an eye on them? They could get into trouble or hurt!”, her thick, chestnut brown eyebrows knitting together to form a slight V-shape. Surely there was like, magical spells to let people know magical creatures had escaped or something!

As another faint shuffle and rustle emanated from in between the pumpkins, another small step was taken forward by the first-year Slytherin, curious to see exactly what was in there. As for the size of the creature, Haydée was completely lost. She’d have to take the word of the older girl on that. “Uh-hu…sure. That sounds totally accurate.” In truth, she didn’t really care about the size unless it was like, a massive spider.

“It’s not like, a massive spider or something, right? Because I overheard some of the older kids in my common room talking about man-eating spiders and I am too young to be the main character in a horror story.” Despite this, she did cover the rest of the distance between the gate and the pumpkins. Arriving at the scene. Haydée crouched down next to the girl instead of going belly down on the floor and eyed the gap between the pumpkins curiously. “I think my brother is just really special. He can make some totally incredibly loud noises. Like real loud, especially when he’s hungry. Maybe they’re not quite like the noises you were making but they weren’t far off.”

“I’m Haydée” she replied, offering a somewhat friendly smile. “I’m okay. Slightly less bored now I suppose. I only came down here because I was bored up in the castle. I didn’t expect to find anyone out here really.”

"Oh, absolutely," Bria agreed immediately,head nodding up and down like a bobblehead doll. "Two is a very different age from thirteen. Although if he's already that loud, that's very promising. Good projection is veeeeeeery important."

Whether important for creature communication, sibling communication, or simply announcing one's existence to an entire household didn't particularly matter. Projection and the ability to get your voice heard was an essential life skill!

"Well, they're not escaped escaped. More like... exercising independent decision making!" Bria tilted her hand back and forth. "Besides, puffskeins are quite good at surviving. They get themselves into trouble, certainly, but they're surprisingly resourceful. I once found one halfway up an apple tree, trilling and nibbling on a caterpillar. Nobody knows how it got there. Including the puffskein. We, as humans, tend to assume they are helpless because we see something round, fully, and insanely adorable and categorize them as such."

Another rustle from beneath the pumpkin made her eyes widen hopefully before Haydée's concern about spiders redirected her attention.

"Oh! You mean acromantulas?" she chirped, her tone suggesting she was talking about butterflies insead. "Dad's told me loads about them and had loads of stories from his time here at Hogwarts. Very intelligent creatures which, again, humans like to slap unfair labels. They won't usually eat people unless they've been given a reason to. There is ― was? I'm pretty sure it is still an is ― a whole treaty situation ages ago involving Hogwarts and the colony in the forest." Bria tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Honestly, most dangerous creatures are a lot like people. If you're respectful, understand boundaries, and don't poke them with sticks, things generally go much better. Just acromantulas have much bigger teeth."

Bria shifted immediately when Haydée crouched beside her, scooting a few inches through the dirt so they could both peer beneath the pumpkin canopy without bumping shoulders. The movement sent a shower of dried leaves cascading from the pumpkin she nudged with her elbow and she absentmindedly plucked a twig from her curls before tossing it aside.

"Mum and Dad encouraged all of my noise-making when I was little. Well... most of it. Dad would sit with me and teach me bird calls and bowtruckle sounds and all sorts of things. My little brother is going through the same thing. Sometimes he just makes a noise and everyone in the house stops what they're doing to figure out if he's discovered a new form of communication or just wants another biscuit. Mum can always tell the difference though...I'm not sure how though."

Lowering herself even further until her chin nearly brushed the ground, Bria squinted beneath the broad pumpkin leaves and wiggled a little gleefully at the younger girl had joined her. That meant she was curious, and curiosity had never once killed a kneazle ― another horrific assumption made by humans in the name of alliteration.

"Pleasure to meet you, Haydée!" she chirped, tilting her head towards the Slytherin with a couple of rapid blinks. "Well, if you ever want to find something really interesting, go walk near the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Not in the Forbidden Forest, of course ― don't give them reasons to attack, remember? ― just near it. The edge bits." She paused a moment to grin at her, looking far too delighted. "I dare you. Five minutes. I guarantee you'll see something interesting. Most boring scenario, you'll spot me trying to befriend something just like I am doing now."

It was such a nice day. There was a light comfortable breeze, white fluffy clouds covered the sun from time to time. Ruhna would have been aware of this had she not stuffed her small form between three large pumpkins and fallen asleep.

That had not been her plan, let's get that straight. She'd been reading a book on toadstools, trying to feed her brain some knowledge, when the words started to cross and her eyes grew heavy. Resting her head on the pages of the book, she promised a five minute eye break. Within in minutes--bam! She was out.

It wasn't until she felt things brushing up against her face that she woke up. Spluttering, the dark curly haired witch swatted at the things on her face and sat up. "Wha-what the--!" Ooooooh. It was leaves! Thank Merlin it wasn't an animal!

Now, what time was it? Had she missed lunch time?

It really was such a nice day and Laini, for one, planned to take full advantage. And could you blame her? Living in Scotland is NOT for the faint of heart. No matter how many names people called her behind her back (and to her face, let's be real), that was never in question for Laini Sage. Faint of heart? Couldn't be her.

She did, however, have very little intention to explore the pumpkin patch. She had other plans for the day - namely, practicing her long kicks. It wasn't fair. All the other recruits got to live and breathe rugby every day. But all Hogwarts cared about was Quidditch and Dueling (BOOORRRINGGGGG), which is why the Slytherin always took matter into her own hands.

But when one of her long kicks went, uh, a little too long (headed in the direction of the sleepy girl) Laini made certain to shout after it.

"BAAAAALLLLL - WATCH OUT!"
Hopefully that was enough of a warning for anyone who found themselves in the path of the rugby ball she had kicked over the wooden gate.

Whoops!

The amount of leaves on her voluminous jet black curls was insane! How long had she been passed out for? It had honestly been ONLY five minutes. Times ten, maybe. Eh. It didn't matter. She could go for a solid bowl of beef and potato stew, though. Ooooh! And a cold butterbeer.

She was near salivating at the idea of a delicious lunch as she stood up when--

BAAAAAAM!

Something struck her. Right. On. Her. HEAD.

Ruhna's body collapsed back into her napping spot before she could even register what had happened. Blinking, her hand going up to her head, to the spot she got hit, the witch let out a wail that could rival a banshee's. "Whaaaaaaaa! I'm being attacked!!!"

Let the record show that she did immediately sprint after the ball - ponytail swinging from left to right and everything. Swear to Circe. It was just a really fantastic kick. Maybe even the best kick in all of Hogwarts history. And what? Was she supposed to apologize for that?

Please.

Hopping the fence into the pumpkin patch, Laini quickly spotted her ball and went to grab it. The screaming, though dramatic, did help her find it. So. THANKS!

And look. LOOK. Laini had every intention of assuring the screaming kid that she was not, in fact, being attacked. But sometimes, it's better to let people figure things out on their own. She didn't know the girl, but any sane person would realize that 'under attack' is a crazy jump to make. You can't just give people all the answers.

So instead of saying anything at all, Laini crossed her arms, lifted a brow, and judged watched, waiting for the drama to subside and for the realization (pun not intended) to ~hit.

Bullseye.

This is exactly what happened in one of her video games! Something fell from the sky, and everyone thought it was a cute, injured flying bunny, and it turned out to be a terrible alien from planet Narr, AND THEN her character had to fight it to save the universe.

She didn’t want to be the main character!

Ruhna looked up at the form of an older student and squinted. Huh. It was just a girl. Oopsies!

“You passed the test!” she exclaimed, jumping up and clasping her hands behind her back. “You didn’t fall for it.” She was so embarrassed she had nothing else to say but make that up.