Alec headed back to his desk and looked down at the list of instructions. ... So... he had to decorate the Gandr now, yeah?

The sixteen year old looked up at Botros's desk and scanned it. THERE! Right there were some colourful ribbons and what looked like beads, too! So... was he allowed to just... use some? It was for his Ancient Runes project and not for... well... anything else. Like making a random banner.

Deciding that this was a good enough reason, Alec headed back to the front again and looked down at the ribbons and beads. ... Right... he'd just... select this blue ribbon here. And maybe tie it around the Gandr? There was a small section that didn't have any rune carvings on it. A very... very small section. As for the beads, though, he might just give that a pass. A ribbon might be enough for now.

Smiling he headed back towards his desk again, the ribbon clutched in his hand. He placed the Gandr down on the tray and started tying the ribbon around it tightly. He wasn't exactly an artist so this was probably the best Botros was going to get in the decorating department. ... There. All done with the decorating.

He's got this! Oakey removed his wand and set it down on his desk beside him. Intaglio was now a simple spell to him. Maybe he could even attempt it silently if he focused hard enough.

For now he'll just use speak the incantation. He'll have a lot of concentrating to do for this next part, and concentrating on performing the spell silently ontop of the chanting and concentrating he had to do just to carve the rune into his gandr. He was not leaving this Room with a Headache.
"sowilo sowilo sowilo"
s s s s s s s s s
Merlin he sounded like a studdering snake
"s s s o o o l l l
su sa si se so
sul sal sil sel sol
us as is es os
si se su sa su
s s s s s s s s s"

Sounded about right aside for the studdery snake. Oakey picked up his wand and turning his gandr around until he found the right spot with his Gut-Energy-Sensing Oakey spoke "intaglio Sowilo"...

"sowilo sowilo sowilo
s s s s s s s s s
s s s o o o l l l
su sa si se so
sul sal sil sel sol
us as is es os
si se su sa su
s s s s s s s s s"

The surface of the wood almost seemed to be fight back as Oakey carved into it. He should have expected as much from the toughest tree ever. He'll need to concentrate more to get his runes carved into the gandr. So Oakey cleared his thoughts on anything but Sowillo, and carving, and the Whomping Willlow as he chanted. Once he felt finished Oakey picked his wand up from the gandr and inspected the rune. "Perfect"

He. Was. Nearly. DONE.

Grinning to himself, Alec looked down at the last set of instructions. Last. LAST. After all that struggle and awkwardness with the tree and the communication part and the Dementors, he was nearly done! And his Gandr didn't look as bad as he had thought it would. How AWESOME was this?

... Except... he needed a holster for this, first. Holster... Holster... which kind should he select? Maybe not a blue one since the ribbon was blue and the decoration needed to stand out, yeah? There was only one way to choose,, really. He raised his hand, closed his eyes and let his hand wander along the row until...

STOP.

He opened his eyes and smiled over at the holster his fingers stopped at. Black it was, then. He grabbed it and gently placed his Gandr inside before heading back towards his desk. Tag. Note. THIS. WAS. IT.

Quote:

Name: Alec Summers
House: Hufflepuff
Year: Fifth

The Hufflepuff headed over towards the front and placed his Gandr-in-the-holster down on Botros's desk before securing the tag firmly on there. There. He was done! Now he could go and make himself something to eat because... he needed that.

Kat had chosen a pretty holster for her Gandr. Of course, a pretty Gandr should also have a pretty holster for it to have right? It only made sense that it was a match made in Heaven. After choosing the holster, Kat slipped the Gandr inside slowly but surely. Now it was safe. After all the time they shared together, those MONTHS... finally, it was complete. It had been an awfully long experience but definitely worth it.

Writing her name, house, and year on the parchment, Kat then placed it on Professor Botros' desk. SHE WAS DONE. WITH THIS. OKAY. FINALLY. The effort and sweat had paid off. WOOH.

Slightly out of breath and looking all sort of... ruffled, Tobias skidded back into the classroom. He'd managed to make it to his dormitory and back in only a few minutes, which was impressive even for his standards. Mainly he was worried that someone might take his Gandr, or even just accidentally knock it to the floor or something, and he'd worked too hard on it to see that happen.

In his hand, Toby held a piece of milky quartz that he'd found on the beach once. They lived right near a beach, but it was a shingle beach, so really it was JUST stones, and his grandfather said he'd had quite the eye for finding the quartz. Apparently milky quartz was the most common, but Tobias was proud of himself nonetheless.

Heading back to the front of the room, Tobias looked at the ribbons. He was torn between the scarlet one and the dark blue one, and bit his lip as he tried to decided.

In the end, Toby went for the thin dark blue, shiny ribbon, and went back to his Gandr, which he had already noted was still on the desk where he'd left it. The Hufflepuff prodded it experimentally, and it seemed dry enough, so he picked it up very carefully to check. The intructions said that he needed to use his wand to dry it out, but Tobias didn't know any spells for that, and was sure that THOSE types of spells were certain to be the kind of ones where his wand would decide that a fire would be more fun.

Instead, Tobias blewwwwwwwwwwww on the beeswax coated Gandr just to make extra super duper sure it really was dry, and then set to work in mounting his tiny, treasured piece of milky quartz into the tip. He wasn't supposed to make anymore permanent marks in it, so Tobias used a teeny tiny bit more beeswax for his teeny tiny piece of quartz in order to affix it.

Once that was done, Toby the got the long and thing piece of blue ribbon and wound it all the way down the wand, leaving a significant gap in between each loop and the last one so you could still actually SEE plenty of the Gandr. Then he kind of stopped and looked at it. Tobias COULD hand it in now, but it didn't seem finished. He glanced up to the front of the room.

The red ribbon. He needed it.

Tobias when and grabbed the ribbon that was identical to the one he had just used in every way other than colour, and went back to the Gandr. Then he wrapped it around the wand in the same way, and also re-wrapped the blue ribbon, but so that the strands crossed over each other.

It was a fiddly job, and even more fiddly when he had to neatly tie it so it wouldn't slip off. When he was done, Tobias put a teeny bit of beeswax in the knot of the ribbons just to ensure it would stay tied. If ever need be, the ribbon could always be gradually shimmied off, but it was generally rather tight and secure.

Not bad.

Elise was finally done with all that fuss and muss about carving the runes. It had taken a lot out of her, that's for sure. And if she didn't know the runes back then? Well, she sure knew them now. It was painfully obvious that you would have to eventually memorize them after chanting them for way too long. Well now it was just the reddening and accessorizing and beeswaxing to do with her Gandr, so it was to the Ancient Runes classroom.

There, she picked up a paintbrush and very very delicately started to pigment all the runes with a deep blood red. Absurd amounts of concentration right there, people. No accidents would happen. This was house points.

Once she was done, she squinted to make sure nothing was missing and then beamed proudly. Okay, that was it. Next step was the beeswax. Right? Right.

His next Rune was Kenaz, read this one specific rune over and over while he waited and smoothed his gandr over during that whole Moon Cycle thing. He especially liked this Rune. He understood what it was like to fully defeat something, but only to banish it. His luck, he was talking about his luck. In case that wasn't clear enough.


He moved his gandr around to a side that was not yet covered in a rune and placed his wand down on the surface of wood. This time he did not practice the Chant "Intaglio Kenaz."
"kenaz kenaz kenaz
ku ka ki ke ko
kun kan kin ken kon
ok ek ik ak uk
kaunnnnnnnnn"

The wood was just as tough as it was the first time, so Oakey really pressed down on his wand while chanting.
"kenaz kenaz kenaz
ku ka ki ke ko
kun kan kin ken kon
ok ek ik ak uk
kaunnnnnnnnn"

Finished, he looked over the finished product of the Kenaz rune and smiled. This one he could feel something with. This was his Rune.

Carrying her dry and painted Gandr back to the classroom, along with the Tiver and her paintbrush, Alice found her desk and set her things down. She replaced the reddening materials before returning to the seat with her name on it and regarding the large glass cylinder with great interest. So that was what beeswax looked like? She'd never actually seen any of it, and Merlin, did it look weird. That yellowish stuff was going on her Gandr?

There went all her hard work.

The fifth year approached the tank with caution before carefully plunging her Gandr into it, trying to turn the runic wand so all parts of it were completely coated in the substance. When she pulled it out, Alice spotted a portion of the base she'd missed, so the Gandr was dunked back in. There. Did that look evenly covered and yellow?

She held it over the tank and let the excess wax drip off before carrying it back to her desk and allowing it to set. And while it did, she'd go gather decorating materials, yes?

Lastly was Raidho, and one more side on his Oh-So-Close-To-Being-Done-Gandr. He flipped it around and eyed the spot where his Energy Sensing Gut told him to start engraving. Placing his wand on the said spot Oakey spoke the incantation " Intaglio Raidho"
"raidho raidho raidho
r r r r r r r r r
ru ra ri re ro
rudh radh ridh redh rodh
rut rat rit ret rot
or er ir ar ur
r r r r r r r r r"

Oakey moved his wand on the wood, and now entirely used to the force he needed to press down on the piece of Whomping Willow had no trouble carving the Raidho rune into the Gandr. He picked his wand up from the Gandr and looked at the nearly completed piece of work. This was looking good

So, decorations...Dylan was a dude, okay? And because he was a dude, he didn't know if he felt exactly settled about putting them on his galdr. Like...what would he put on it, even...? That would be manly! and dude-like? Jewels wouldn't do...Ribbons wouldn't do...

Dylan pondered on it a while...wondering if it was a requirement to add things to the runic wand...or 'personalizing' it.

Sigh.

Okay, he hadn't thought this far ahead...so...he summoned a ribbon and made it work. It was a manly!black ribbon, though...and none of those girly!colors like pink or purple. Nope...nice and black...He started by lacing it around the bottom and then securing it (with magic, of course)...The Snake used seeker-speed to then braid it up around the end, having summoned another ribbon in green. He had a little sister, okay? There was nothing wrong with him knowing how to summon ribbons...

There...

Now at the end of the galdr was an entricately woven braid...It was sudden, yet totally Slytherin. Just like him. Couldn't get much more personalize than that.

Was she dreaming, or was Alice actually done with her Ancient Runes assignment? It seemed like she'd been working on this Gandr for a century rather than a year, but it was finally done. As she entered the classroom again and made her way over to the holster options, the fifth year had no trouble picking one out. It was easy to tell that she was going for a simple look for her Gandr, what with the little decoration. A boring leather holster would do.

Selecting one from the wide range, she gently slid her runic wand into it and admired it for a few seconds. Lovely, wasn't it? The quartz definitely completed the whole image, in her expert opinion. Beaming at it, Alice chose a plain tag to finish off the unadorned look of her project before setting it on Botros' desk.

Ta-daaah. Did she get a shoulder pat for this, professor? She deserved a shoulder pat.

Oakewy came back into the Classroom after painting his gandr. He could no longer twirl the piece of Whomping Willow in his hands without getting flinging splotts of Red Paint anywhere. Botros probably would not like having his Classroom colored red. Oakey waited a few minutes for the Paint to dry then moved over to the Beeswax. He slowly lowered the Gandr into the vat and waited again.

This part of the assignment required A LOT of waiting didn't it. He'd say it's like watching paint dry, but HE ALREADY DID THAT a few minutes ago.

Satisfied with how long he's had his Gandr in the Beeswax Oakey pulled it out and let the wax harden around it. While he waited for that Oakey went to grab a few decorations. Once he had done so he picked up his Gandr and headed back out into the Hallways again.

HE WAS FINISHED.

OH friggin' snap.

Welp, it had been a tough journey...what with having to visit the forbidden forest so much...and then having to spend so much time at the study tables...and then having to do all the meticulous carving and etching work...but all that stuff had been worth it. Dylan had done it. It was completed and he got the feeling of SUCCESS.

He quite liked success. Totally did.

After selecting a rather ordinary looking holster for the runic wand...but that felt so soft to the touch...Dylan went about finished things. With a special parchment he'd drawn up for the occasion, the Captain got a tag and put his name on it, fancy in his special green ink he used for occasions like this...

Quote:

Dylan C. Montmorency
Slytherin Seventh Year and Quidditch Captain / Rune Enthusiast

There. Perfect.

With a smirk, he carefully laid it on the Professor's desk and left...He hoped Professor Botros liked it!

Coming back into the Classroom Oakey felt like he could take very small steps to Botros' Desk. He wanted to spend more time with his Gandr. His completed Gandr that was. He had been through so much with this little piece of wood he now held in his hands.

He braved the Whomping Willow, Befriended it, and also Braved Alexa Cambridge too. All three seemed impossible to him, but he came out on top.

Also how many could say that the Whomping Willow willingly let him take a piece of itself, and create what he hoped would be an Epic Gandr.

In all of these thoughts Oakey eventually reached the desk, much to his dismay. He looked over the Holster and found a nice Black Leather one. Oakey slipped it into the Holster then labeled it

Now it was personalised, all he need to do was add a name tag and hand it in.

But first the holster. Tobias went ahead and picked a black one, just because it contrasted with the wood and the red runes and the ribbon and the quartz. It just looked nice, y'know?

Beaming with pride at his creation, Tobias went to collect a name tag and wrote down the information the professor had asked for, before affixing it to the Gandr and putting it on the professor's desk.

And with that, feeling extremely accomplished, whether he did well or not, Tobias left the classroom.