Open Pumpkin Juice and Friends

[Christa Langley]

*Open after Remy posts with Brynn

The Great Hall was filled with people and an energy that Christa wasn't used to. The long tables were laden with plates of food and goblets of pumpkin juice and the hum of laughter and chatter filled the air. It was almost mid October and Halloween would be soon. She'd been told anyway. Christa, an Aussie, didn't really celebrate it usually, and she'd never really gone to a party to dress up so she had no idea what she was going to do for this one. She watched an owl deliver a letter, surprised that they would just fly in and drop letters on the table, and she raised her eyebrows even higher when one dropped a letter in front of her. She hadn't been expecting anyone to write her and she eagerly opened it. Her mother wrote her a congratulations for being sorted, and talked about how they missed her a lot. She smiled at the thought of her mum writing a letter, not entirely confident it would get to her. It was in her fine calligraphy, using a pencil, she could see, that would be in case she wrote something wrong so she could easily rub it out. She grinned at the letter and then folded it up, before noticing she was sitting at the wrong table. "Oh, sorry, do you mind if I sit here?" She turned to ask the girl next to her.​

 

[Brynn Brightsong]

Brynn didn't really care for the pure... chaos that mealtimes felt like. She lingered a little longer in dorms, finding her way to meals a bit later than most of her fellow classmates. She liked to think that at least some of the others had already eaten and left. She'd just made it there and sat down when the girl beside her turned to her. Brynn blinked. "Oh, er, me? I... I don't see why not," She offered with a shy smile. "I don't think anyone minds."

 

[Christa Langley]

With a relieved sigh, Christa settled properly into the seat, "thanks, I guess I didn't pay enough attention when I sat down," she admitted with a small laugh, folding her letters nearly and tucking it into her pocket. "I’m Christa, by the way," she added, offering her hand in a friendly gesture. "It’s nice to meet you." She glanced at the food on the table and then back at the girl. "This is all still so new to me," she admitted. "I’m still figuring out where everything is, who everyone is, and honestly, how not to trip over my robes in the halls." She laughed softly, hoping to ease any tension. "How about you? Settling in okay?"​

 

[Brynn Brightsong]

Brynn smiled, shaking her hand. "Nice to meet you, Christa," She offered, thinking it was a really pretty name. She nodded along to the girls words. "I'm still not good at the robes," She confided, before trying to peek at her own tie. "Is my tie knot crooked again?" She asked. "Who decided ties were a good idea? I can never get it right," She laughed,

 

[Christa Langley]

"Oh I'm not the one to ask," she said shaking her head, noting her own lack of a tie. “We don’t really wear them at our schools, and if we do it’s a big private school or for like a really special event, you know? So I’ve never worn a tie, only ever seen my dad in one, but that was when he was doing a special conference in Brisbane,” she said, trying to get a god look at the girls tie. She reached out lightly to correct it slightly, though she was pretty sure she just made it look worst. “Robes are weird too, we don’t have those, I’m not used to the really long things that drag, but I come from a pretty hot country, it’s not cool like here,” she said, gesturing to New Zealand. She wondered if there were spells for that, like an airconditioning charm, she wondered if that would be something they would learn here? If not, could it be created? She made a note to add this as a question for later research for her scrap book.​

 

[Brynn Brightsong]

Brynn giggled a little shyly as her tie was adjusted, using both hands to brush her own hair back, tucking it behind her ears. She wasn't used to people getting in her space, but she had basically asked for it. She gave the girl a slightly nervous smile. "I don't mind the robes so much, but I like the cooler weather so the robes definitely make it feel nicer," She offered. "Where are you from?" She asked, thinking it was the friendly, logical thing to ask her.

 

[Christa Langley]

"I'm Aussie, so not that far away to be honest, but we spent a lot of time in the middle of South Australia or the East side of Perth, so it was warmer there, top of Queensland is really warm too, but it's a humid heat as well, which makes it worse," she said, looking back to the food on the table. She had never seen so much food in her life. Back when her parents were around, they mostly only had good they could carry with them, since they were moving around a lot, so a lot of what they had was canned, and they couldn't have anything frozen either. On occasion they would stop off in a restaurant, but her parents didn't believe in staying in hotels if they could avoid it. They had always been more outdoorsy people, and Christa definitely agreed.​

 

[Brynn Brightsong]

Brynn listened to her new friend talking, munching on her breakfast as quietly as she could. "I've never been there," She admitted. "Do you like it? What's it like?" She questioned, curious to know more about the girl. She wasn't quite sure what to picture about the places Christa talked about, but what she had in mind was probably a lot more whimsical than they actually were.

 

[Christa Langley]

"I don't know really, I mean I moved around a lot to be honest," she said, frowning slightly. She loved her home, well the homes she had, but since she moved around a lot it was hard to say what she liked about it, since there was a lot sort of all happening at once and this was something that she was trying to get used to. Honestly coming to Hogwarts was kind of the first time she'd ever felt stable for any particular length of time. It wasn't something she was yet comfortable with, she was used to moving around and learning from her parents, not this. "I liked living with my family, or being with them, and I liked when they would take me and my sister to work. Australia is different wherever you go."​