The Dueling Arena
 

http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/o...t/dueling1.jpg

The dueling practice arena is a large, long room with high ceilings in the castle. It is lit with magical fire sconces and a few fireplaces with charmed screens to protect students from magical accidents. The arena houses several dueling pistes, each on a raised platform and surrounded by spectator benches. The pistes are covered by purple carpeting printed with phases of the moon marking dueling positions; this carpeting is scuffed, scorched, stained and worn from many years of use in spirited duels. The air carries a perpetually scorched, bitter scent from years of spells and incantations being thrown about in the room.

Please feel free to use the practice arena at your leisure to sharpen your wandwork and dueling skills, but keep to The Dueling Arena Rules!

Celandine stepped tentatively into the dueling arena and looked around, her eyes widening in awe. She had never been in here and this term she was supposed to learn things from her brother but he wasn't at Hogwarts at all anymore. She walked around the room, her feet not making any sound at all despite the fact that the room looked like it would echo. Nico had shown her a few things over the summer, but it wasn't enough. Cela wanted to learn more.

She liked the smell in here, and the carpet was simply neat. Cela took out her wand and sat on a bench with her feet curled up under her. Her wand was ebony, and the black wood caught the light oddly. Cela simply stared at it thoughtfully; hoping she would learn some neat stuff from Professor Kazimeriz.

Camira couldn't believe she hadn't thought about going here earlier. It seemed as though she was slipping in her old age. lovely. Ah well, she was here now. She looked around, a small smile playing on her lips. It looked just like it always did. It was comforting to know that some things never changed. At least to her.

As she looked around, she noticed a girl in the room. But she wasn't dueling. She was simply sitting there, staring at her wand. Odd. The longer she looked at her, the more Camira realized the girl looked familiar, at least vaguely so.

"Hullo. Are you alright?" It wasn't really that the girl looked sickly or distressed, but rather the fact that most normal people didn't go to the duelling arena to sit down and relax. But maybe this girl wasn't normal...

Celandine looked up in surprise as someone asked if she was alright, "Oh yes I'm fine. I just haven't been in here before and it smells really good and I like how the air feels all... electric and vibrant." Cela stood up and smiled brightly.

"I've seen you with Nicholai Toussaint before." Cela noted, cocking her head slightly. (in precisely the same manner Nico had a tendency of doing.)

Okaaay. She'd definitely found a weird one. How could this place smell good? But to each his own, right? "Yeah, it's pretty neat." Well, really, what else was there to say? She put her bag down and took out her wand, wondering if she should continue with her plans to practice or wait til the girl left. If she even planned to.

Camira's eyes widened in surprise as the girl mentioned Nico. For some reason, it caught her off guard. "Um...yeah. We were friends." And then she cocked her head. Exactly like Nico. Camira blinked a bit. Great, now she was hallucinating Nico in a young female form. How pathetic was that? "You know him?"

"It is!" Cela enthused, accompanying her words with a half-bounce, "There is so much history in here! If these walls could speak, I wonder if they'd reveal spells that have fallen out of use? Or hexes that were not passed on? I think I can practically smell it in the air! It's inspiring!" Cela took a deep breath and lifted her arms, holding them out for a few moments before slowly lowering them and tapping her thigh with her wand (precisely like Nicholai often did).

Cela snorted inelegantly, "He has alot of friends." she flounced over to the slytherin girl and looked up at her, "Does anyone really know him?" Celandine screwed up her face, "But I suppose... if anyone does then I do."

Wow. This girl was so...um....Ravenclaw. She just never got people who enthused over history and other boring topics. "Uh...Yeeeaaah." Best to humor her. The weird ones were always dangerous. And ohmigod, another Nico movement. This was getting creepy. Camira briefly wondered if this was a dream, like that last one....No, it couldn't be. Even her subconscious wouldn't make up something this weird.

Camira frowned at the girl, realizing she didn't even know her name. She felt a little offended. She thought she knew and understood Nico pretty well. "Oh, and why's that? What makes you so special?" Okay, so it was a bit rude, but Nico was a sore spot for her and...yeah. Total justification.

Celandine smiled happily when the older girl agreed with her. How awesome would it be to learn a forgotten hex just by breathing in the air of this room? Cela took a few slow, deep breaths while she imagined the awesomeness.

The frown and the tone the girl used went completely over Cela's head and she pursed her lips thoughtfully, "Well, he always thinks he's better at things than I am because he's Slytherin. He thinks he's sneakier." Cela giggled slightly, thinking about the opening feast, "He thinks he's smarter and that I don't know his secrets. Well I do know them; I just don't understand all of them. I mean... he's so angsty isn't he?" Cela shook her head, "But thats a Slytherin thing, I've noticed." Celandine conveniently forgot about the various students of other houses that had had some sort of angsty involvement with her brother last term.

"He is better at dueling than I am. And potion-brewing." Cela admitted, "He was supposed to show me some things this term." She pouted, "Though he did give me a few private lessons during the summer." She paused and added, "And potions too; he was going to help me with that though I'd much much rather have had Will show me things since he's just sooooo much nicer." Cela chattered away, offering a bright smile to the Slytherin girl.

"Hey... aren't you that girl that kissed Dominic?" Cela tipped her head, "That was really strange. Dominic didn't like that very much. He's my friend you know; I told him he was and even though I spilled water on him he doesn't seem to mind me all that much."

Camira stared at the girl strangely as she rambled on about Nico. And then she called Slytherins angsty. How rude. She was only angsty when she had reason to be. And what? He'd given her private lessons over the summer?!?! Who was this girl? And goodness, she knew Will too? "Well, I think I know him pretty well too." She didn't feel the need to elaborate because...well, she just didn't. "And I think Nico and Will are equally nice", she said, her annoyance creeping through into her tone. Really, this girl was so presumptuous and she seemed snobby, and she just rambled, and ugh.

Gah! And now the girl was talking about the incident. Nobody had dared mention the incident unless she brought it up. "Yes, that would be me", she said tersely. "It was a misunderstanding and it's all cleared up." Not exactly the truth, but close enough. She raised a brow when the girl said her and Dom were friends. Somehow, Camira seriously doubted that. She didn't really picture Dominic having any friends of the female sort, especially not someone as enthusiastic and all over the place as this one.

"Right, well, if you don't mind, I'm just going to practice some spells." That's what she'd come to do anyways. Not stand around and be offended and talk about nothing.

"Well they are some of the nicest Slytherins around." Cela agreed, "I like Slytherins; my first friends here were all Slytherins." Usually she'd list them all but these days the list was growing to the point that it would take far to long to get through. "Will was the first person to show me around and be nice to me in my first year. I wish he was my brother instead of Nicholai." Cela paused before adding in a slightly dejected voice, "I'll miss them both so much."

Celandine chewed her lip for a moment as she recalled that weird incident. Finally she spoke, "You should have kissed Nico cos at least he would have kissed back. My brother likes girls quite a bit." Cela stated, matter-of-factly.

She brightened when the girl said she was going to practice. "What are you gonna practice? Could you show me stuff? Can we practice together? Nico says that you should practice all the time and keep up with theory as much as possible." She smiled again and offered her free hand, "I'm Celandine but call me Cela, okay?"

Wow, this girl was full of surprises. Nico was her brother. She was his sister. Oh word, she was his sister. Camira had been getting jealous over his sister. She needed to seek immediate mental help. "Er...I miss them too. But you get to see Nico whenever you go home, right? And...well, Will's going to come visit me when we have a Hogsmeade weekend and you can come if you want. I mean, I'm sure he'll be happy to see you." Great. Now she was the one rambling. She didn't know why, but she felt the need to attempt to make the girl feel better. Maybe because she had been unnecessarily jealous?

She almost choked when Cela said she should've kissed Nico. Oh, if she only knew. But Camira was definitely not going to tell her. Oh, the awkwardness. She didn't even want to think about it. Not to mention the fact that she was youngish. A mumbled "yeah, I guess", was all she could manage.

And there she went again, transforming into a ball of eager excitement. Er...yeah. "Heh. Well, he's right, of course, though i spend a bit more time on theory than practice. I find that complete understanding of the mechanisms of the spell or charm make it easier to learn." Okay, she needed to shut up now. She hated even remotely sounding like she was lecturing someone. "Anyways, I was just going to perfect using "Avis" offensively and start trying to learn Confringo and Duro. Um, yeah, but sure I can show you stuff. And we can practice", she gave the girl a smile as she spoke.

And then the girl stuck out her hand and finally she had a name. Cela. "Alright, Cela. Nice to meet you. I'm Camira", she said, shaking Cela's hand. This was a strange day.

"I guess I do." Cela agreed, "But he much prefers spending time with Kayla than with me. Except that he had to take me shopping over the summer." Cela pulled on the strap under her shirt in illustration of what her brother had taken her shopping for. "I made him embarassed." Cela grinned.

"Oh really? I'd love to see Will! I really, really would! I found out he wasn't coming back through Seymour." Cela sighed, "I really miss him."

Celandine listened and nodded enthusiastically, "Avis... like with Oppungo? Nico has been showing me how to conjure a lizard instead of birds but its really hard. I might see if Mads will help me with that. The incantation is Lacerta." Cela screwed up her face in thought, "Ohhh I know Duro!" Cela bounced, "Confringo is a bit hard for me though. But we can duel! Since... we are like, in an arena!"

Cela gasped, "Ohhh! Camira! I have a letter for you in my trunk from Nicholai! I'll get it later." Cela turned and made her way to the spot marked on the carpet, "Come on!" She giggled and tapped her wand against her thigh again.

Camira just nodded, smile fading slightly. She still didn't like hearing about Kayla and Nico together. She was trying to get used to it, but, well. Yeah.

Oh Merlin's sweet bow ties. Nico had to take Cela shopping for...Oh, that must have been hilarious. If only she'd been there to see it. She would've paid. She just couldn't picture it. "Somehow I get the feeling you're pleased that you embarrassed him." Of course, she would have been too.

Camira smiled at Cela's reaction. "Well, I'll definitely tell you when he's coming."

Camira nodded to show Cela that's what she was talking about. "Wow, lizards. I was thinking of experimenting with mammals myself after I got birds down. I was thinking ferrets maybe..." She was impressed to know that Cela already knew Duro. She hadn't even tried to learn it. Or Confringo. She'd just intensively studied them theoretically speaking. Then again, she was a Ravenclaw. And Nico's sister. And wha? Duel? Hmm...yes, that could be good. Quite good indeed. Cela definitely seemed like she would make a good partner.

She was about to express her interest in dueling when Cela said she had a letter for her. From Nico. Her heart stopped for at least 6 seconds. Oh. Wow. What did it say? Oh, she would not be able to concentrate now. She slowly walked over to Cela, still kind of stunned that there was a letter for her. "Right", she said, trying to focus. "Shall we start?" She assumed Cela would say yes, and so she bowed, and turned around.

"Do you know anyone who can claim they embarassed the great Nicholai Toussaint?" Cela managed to keep a straight face, holding back the giggles.

"Oh good! Yes! Will is the best!" Cela gushed, bouncing happily.

"Yeah, Nico can make really big lizards! Like... a metre long. You should ask Maddox too." Cela smiled brightly at Camira and watched her curiously as various emotions seemed to flicker over her face. Weird.

"Yup lets start." Cela saluted and bowed too, precisely as Nicholai had shown her. He was such a stickler for formalities. She turned around and began to take her steps away from Camira.

"I can't say that I've met anyone before you. In fact, I may need an autograph from you. It's a legendary feat, after all", she said jokingly. This Cela was a nice girl. And witty. She could see the resemblance.

Camira nodded, and turned quickly taking her steps. She was in the zone now. She turned around, pointed her wand straight at the bottom of Cela's robes and let out a firm "Incendio". Distraction was her friend during duels.

Celandine turned and before she had a chance to get her shields up, there were flames coming at her. EEeeep! Cela sidestepped and the corner of her robes caught fire.

She pointed her wand at Camira first, using one of her favourite spells in order to stall for time so she could deal to the little problem of flaming robes, "Glisseo!" Cela pointed her wand at the ground to make it slippery and slick.

"Aguamenti!" Cela put out the flames and smiled to herself, happy she had learned that one a fair while ago- considering it was sixth year standart it was something to be proud of. She sent off a little stinging hex and put her shields up, "Protego!"

Camira smiled inwardly as a part of Cela's robe caught fire. Score. She quickly had to focus though as the floor turned slippery smooth. Oh dear. Camira had no idea what to do and found herself on the floor in a matter of seconds. Rather than waste energy trying to get up, she stayed on the floor.

Camira quickly muttered a "Protego" to fend off the stinging hex and retaliated by tossing over "Finite Incantatum", "Silencio", and "Tarantallegra", in rapid succession. She only hoped it worked the way she expected it to.

"Eeeep!" Celandine couldn't help but utter a noise of surprise as she lost her shield, and as she attempted to cast it again, it was as if the words were removed from her mouth as she spoke them and suddenly she was dancing.

Being Cela she took a moment to enjoy it, noting that she totally had rhythm! Ha! "Finite Incantatem!" Cela cast and stopped dancing. She dropped to the floor so she had a better line of sight at Camira and cast, "Stupefy!" Cela bounded to her feet and threw a quick trip jinx at Camira.

"Wow, you are really fast!" Cela spoke with a smile on her face. Of course, not as fast as Nico but not many people were.

Camira chuckled a bit as she watched Cela's legs dance. Oddly enough, they looked like they were dancing with purpose. Figured. She was surprised when Cela dropped to the floor and cast a stupefy and so she hopped up to avoid it, but Cela's trip jinx caught her and she flew back to the floor. It appeared as though she was destined to stay there for this duel.

"So are you", was all she managed to get out, as her fall to the floor had hurt quite a bit. She really was impressive. Just for fun, Camira threw a twitchy ears hex at her, followed by a knee-reversing hex. That ought to be interesting. If it worked. She hadn't practiced that one much.

"Ooooh are you okay?" Cela asked before shrieking slightly as her ears started to twitch so much that her eyes began to water, "Protego!" Cela got her shield up and it fizzled out as it got hit with a hex.

"Duro!" Celandine demonstrated her ability with that spell by taking a leaf from her brother's book and casting it at Camira's shoes. Immediately she followed it up with a toenail-growing hex; that would prove uncomfortable with stone shoes if both of those hit.

Ears still twitching furiously Celandine dropped to the ground again and scuttled to the side, trying to make herself a harder target while she found a moment to get rid of the twitching.

Camira couldn't help it. She burst into laughter. The twitching...it was hilarious. This proved to be a bad idea because she lost focus and all of a sudden found herself with stone feet and they were hurting more and more by the minute. "Ouch. Ouch" Oooh, it really hurt. She quickly cast Finite Incantatem and was relieved that the stone slowly morphed back into her regular feet. Oooh, but her shoes still felt weird. She cast Furnunculus, one of her personal favorites quickly, more as a distraction than anything else and pried off her shoes. Ohmigod, how disgusting. He formerly perfect toenails were 2 inches long. ewwww.

She ignored it for now as she flicked her wand at Cela once more. "Densaugeo." If she was going to have long toenails, Cela could have long teeth. How was she going to get rid of them? And suddenly she had an idea. She pointed her wand at her toes. "Diffindo". Excellent.

Cela's dodging put her out of the line of the furnunculus but she was hit by the Densaugeo and she opened her mouth to reveal her teeth growing like woah.

She made bunny rabbit noises and collapsed into a heap of giggles, "I yehhhh! I yehhhh!" She attempted to tell Camira that she was yielding, but it was impossible to speak around such giant teeth. And impossible to clearly speak the incantation to reverse it. She continued giggling and made a show of pocketing her wand, looking up at Camira and pointing to her teeth, "A lih-ih helff?

Camira looked over at Cela. It looked as though her Densaugeo had hit. Wow. Camira giggled as Cela tried to talk. She had no idea what she was saying. Which probably meant that she couldn't cast a spell. It seemed safe to help her. "Finite", she said first, to stop the growing. Wow. They were so long. She stared at them a moment. They were a bit distracting, after all. Right. Counterspell. "Densalienum", she said firmly, focusing on holding the spell until Cela's teeth had shortened to the proper length.

"You are one great duelist", she said sincerely. It wasn't all that surprising, considering, but then it was. She couldn't imagine what she'd be like when she was Camira's age. Scary for sure.


OOC: Densalienum = Dens = teeth and Alienum = to shorten, narrow, contract, reduce =D

Cela ran her tongue around her teeth, checking all was normal before throwing herself at Camira and wrapping her in a hug, "Oh that was fun, and no bruises!" Cela always got bruises practicing with Nico. "I have so much to learn!" Celandine responded to Camira's compliment which phased her not at all. "You know so many spells." Cela added thoughtfully, "Most of them I only know through theory." She walked over to the stands and picked up her notebook, making a list of all the spells they had used in their duel and what had resulted from each and in particular from the combinations they were used in. Once she had finished she stood up and offered Camira a little wave before skipping out of the arena, humming to herself happily.