Open Proscrastination Is Key

[Mackenzie Dawson]

Now that they were in their third week of lessons and Mackenzie had familiarized herself more with the castle she had made her way to the student lounge with the intent to get some homework done. She could've as easily headed to the library or the common room but both of those places had proven to be boring and she strongly disliked everything boring. The youngster sat down at one of the tables, putting her book down on the table and opening it to she right page. After reading about a sentence and a half she shook her head and closed the book again. Yeah, definitely boring so she wasn't going to do that. Or well, she would do it, just not right now. Who'd need to do their homework right away anyways? She didn't worry too much about that, being highly confident in her ability to get the homework done right before class started and still do well. She was smart enough. Letting out a little sigh Mackenzie tried to drop the book back into her bag, not being too impressed when it fell next to it. Whatever, she'd just pick it up later. For now she looked around, observing the other students in the lounge and seeing if any of them were doing anything remotely interesting.

 

[Ryan Fisk]

Nicole had explained things about class schedules and how Ryan just had to be patient for classes he was excited about, but Ryan still thought it was annoying he had to wait a whole semester before he could work on Transfiguration spells again. He'd been fascinated with the idea of animation spells and had been determined to learn more about them now he was back at school, class or not class. He was sure he could wait for more information in Transfiguration, or even find a book in the library about it, but Ryan much preferred to work out at least a starting point on his own.

There were plenty of statues and suits of armor about the castle, but Ryan wanted to start small. He'd managed a rather messy paper crane, having seen some other students fold paper before and doing his best to imitate it. Now, he just needed to try and animate it. "Animare," He said, giving the crane three quick taps and immediately dropping his want to watch it closely. The crane twitched for a moment, fluttering its paper wings awkwardly since the folds were uneven.

 

[Mackenzie Dawson]

Not much interesting seemed to be going on in the lounge and Mackenzie was about to pack up and leave when she noticed a boy with some sort of paper bird. Badly folded, as well. She frowned as she watched him tap the thing with his wand, wondering what he was even trying to accomplish with it. It seemed like he wanted to make it come alive, perhaps trying some sort of transfiguration, but he didn't seem to be especially good in making it work. "That just looks sad." She stated, looking between him and the crane from where she was sitting. Maybe if he had folded it better it could actually work, but with badly folded wings like that she doubted the bird would be able to do more than awkwardly flap the parts of the paper that were supposed to be its wings. It wasn't like she would be able to do a better job folding, or at least she didn't know because she never tried, but that didn't keep her from stating her opinion on how the boy had done. If he was to try and turn something animate he could at least make sure it was something that would actually look good when being transfigured.

 

[Ryan Fisk]

Ryan was still observing the crane when someone spoke up. He glanced over at the other student before looking back at the crane curiously. "I don't think it has any real emotions, it's just animated," He explained, picking up his wand again and giving the crane an experimental poke to see if he could make it fly. The crane gave a little flutter but didn't really clear the table surface, one of its wings clearly too small with the fold to achieve much. Ryan frowned, annoyed that his paper folding had let him down more than his spellwork. Maybe he needed to try something simpler, though he wasn't sure it would be as easy to animate if it didn't at least look like some sort of creature. "Can you fold things?" He asked the girl, someone he vague recognized from around his house though he didn't think he knew her name.

 

[Mackenzie Dawson]

Mackenzie scoffed at the boy's response. Did he actually think she cared whether the bird had any emotions or not? That wasn't what she meant at all. "I don't mean that it looks like it's sad," She explained in a matter-of-fact tone. "I mean the whole thing itself just looks.. pathetic." She continued with the slight raise of an eyebrow as she observed the faulty folded bird for another second. Yes, pathetic seemed to be a fitting phrase for the thing. "Don't know, I've never tried." She answered his question. She would've wished to use as few words as possible and could've just said no, but that would indicate that she couldn't fold things which wasn't true. She just didn't know whether she could and as long as she didn't know if she could do something she wasn't going to let others think that she couldn't. Not knowing was better than knowing and failing anyways. "And I don't intend to find out today either." Mackenzie added, making it clear that she had zero interest in trying to shape a piece of paper into a bird or any other thing the boy might have had in mind.

 

[Ryan Fisk]

Ryan tilted his head when the girl explained what she meant, glancing back at his paper crane and shrugging. It was hard to feel sorry for something that wasn't really alive, Ryan mostly just felt annoyed that it didn't turn out like he'd hoped. "It'd be better if it could fly. That's what I wanted," He said, picking up his wand to give the crane a hopeful poke, though he mostly just succeeded in sliding it a few centimetres along the table.

It was a shame the girl wasn't interested in paperfolding, Ryan didn't have high hopes he could manage much better than he already had yet and he'd much rather practice his animation spells than learning to fold things. "Oh. Are you sure?" He tried, looking at the spare parchment he still had on the table. "I was trying to remember something my sister showed me but it didn't come out right. I just want to practice animating spells."