Cosgrach glared at her intensely. "Sorry to wake you up, but tropical islands have sand, sun, sea." They had NONE there. Sure there was sun, but that wasn't even heating. Not his cold, stony sweet heart anyway. He opened his mouth to announce that he was done here, but didn't, and instead, just followed her at the pace she set.

"Do you know the symptoms of a heart attack?" In case he had one.

Meeeeeeeeerlin. What a grump, he was. "Sure. Yes. Take everything I say super literally. How's that workin' out for ya?" She snorted, shaking her head at his currently gruff exterior and continued walking at a very brisk pace, pleased that he was keeping up just fine so far. What was he even worried about?

But what he said next made her burst into laughter. What a drama king. "You're not going to have a heart attack. Really. But if it'd make you feel better, y'can walk me through the signs of a heart attack," she replied monotonously, rolling her eyes but actually quite amused by him.

Really, if he thought he was so out of shape that he might REALLY have a heart attack, he needed this exercise today, the nerd.

Cosgrach cracked a grin, then, and looked at her somewhat with mischief. "It's worked perfectly, so far, because picking on ya is my favourite pastime." HEHEHE. No, he really meant to be grumpy, but she barely let him do that, and when she snorted and answered back at him, it usually was funny.

"It's actually not obvious till I fall dead, I think," he said in a more cheerful tone, "so we stop and run to our sweet healer if I don't feel well." Okay?

Okay.

"Ahhh, what a lovely weather!" He peeked at her to see her reaction.

What a giant nerd.

"Shut up," Sophie told him with absolutely no malice in her voice, the smile growing on her face as she checked her watch. Oop, ALMOST TIME TO RUN. THEN we'd see who was laughing! Eheheheh.

Seriously, though. Could he HEAR how dramatic he was? Was he aware? Because he sounded awfully sincere, but... Merlin. What a hoot. "Yes, sir, of course. I won't let you die. Not on my watch." It sounded playful, but she meant that, though, did he know?

Weather, yes, sure, small talk was great - but it was TIME. "Five minutes is up. Let's go." Without waiting for him to express his opinion on the matter, she started into a slow jog, but gradually sped up to a medium-paced jog. He could do that, couldn't he? Hmm?

Cosgrach shut up... or at least, didn't answer, but he laughed at her. He knew she didn't mean it maliciously, and nodded in approval at her. "I knew I could trust ya, Ms. Brown." Dramatic, him? NO WAY. He even liked this walking now. Opened his lungs and -

Let's go where?

Oh, sure, he could do that slow jog thing. "This isn't -" okay wait he was falling behind, because she SPED UP and this meant HE had to speed up too.

"Sophie wait!" he called as he started outright running.

AIR. HE COULDN'T BREATHE.

Sophie was enjoying herself, even though her current pace wasn't even close to the pace she usually kept when she went for her morning runs, but before she could even get too comfortable, he was ALREADY DYING.

MERLIN.

"Come ooooooooon, silly." She slowed down, back to her originally slow jogging pace before she had sped up before, and gave him an encouraging nudge with her elbow. "Okay. We'll go slow. Try breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth, if y'can. That'll help your heart rate. But if y'feel like y'can't breathe that way and y'aren't getting 'nuff air, go ahead and breathe through your mouth. Just work on sloooowing your breathing down and taking slow, deep breaths instead of quick, short ones. Listen to your body. We should jog at a pace where you can still breathe and talk." So... she was going to let him control that and follow along with whatever he did.

Unless he tried to be cheeky and stopped completely. No, then she'd pull him along. Hehehe. Un...less he was dying, but he was not allowed to die today, nope.

Grabbing her running shoes and putting on her workout outfit, Bianca decided to go out from the damp dungeon and left her study for a while. It's time to take a small jog since she was in a good mood for that. Though November was slightly cold enough for exercise, the brunette girl didn't care much and still did it. Didn't exercise make the body become warmer in this cold weather?

Gathering her hair and made a ponytail, the brunette girl then started a fast walking from the courtyard, then she did a small jog to the pathways. Her heartbeat became faster and her respiratory rate increased too. She did read once on muggle article that exercising makes the body release a chemical substance that could reduce her stress since she was a bit stressed out because of NEWTs and uni application.

Just. keep. running.

'Silly'? He opened his mouth to retort, but she cleverly slowed down as if to compromise, and he figured that he would prefer this pace and could put up with 'silly'.

He breathed through his nose, but because of the cold,it felt stuffed. So he switched to his mouth, but ewwww he hated that.

"You know when I can slow down my breathing?" Wait for iiiiit! "If we stop and enjoy the nature on where we sit." Obvious, right?

Any kind of apple? Kind of weird for a feline, but then again it wasn't like he craved it when in human form, so yea. Tia wondered if he craved milk too, but decided against asking this time at least. Maybe she'd just drop off some milk for him with the apple ... "I'll keep that in mind," she smiled, stretching on her toes to knock a few down from the tree. Bending down to pick them up - yellowish-red ones - she inspected it carefully before handing it to Quigley. "I'd wash it first though, you never know what kind of ycchy stuff is lurking around these parts."

Animagus was the same as patronus? But it didn't have to be, did it? What if she had two innate creatures? And your patronus could change, couldn't it? Tilting her head at the older man, she frowned, not sure she liked his answer but also not sure she wanted to argue with him either at that moment, at least.

Perhaps a visit to Bellaire would be better. Bellaire had been at Hogwarts for sometime and if memory served her right, she'd been a charms professor too. She sighed, "I think I will have to do so." and apparently he didn't seem all that interested in helping her with advanced charms. But he had brought up one and even though it was technically defense, it was a charm nonetheless. "My patronus." she said without hesitation, and then glanced at her wristwatch. "But I should really be heading back to the castle now. Good seeing you, Professor."

Sophie watched him carefully, pleased that he did seem to work hard at slowing his breathing down, but then he was talking and -

Snort.

"Nooooooo. No pain, no gain, professor," she lightly nudged him with an elbow, grinning cheekily and still jogging at a slow pace alongside him. She wasn't going to let him stop, no. At least not yet. "We've only been jogging for like a minute. Let's shoot for a few more. Would it help if I talked a lot? Distracted you? So y'don't think about the total agony of doing this?" She was JOKING, even though she wasn't sure that he would think she was - he probably was in agony, the drama queen.

Such a nerd.

Cosgrach shook his head. He didn't even know how his lungs had shrunk so much - he had spent 6 years outside on hard terrain. However, it didn't matter. He could do this. Yeah, yeah. "C'mon, then," he said and sped up.

"I'm not in agony." Just for the record.

Wait, was he - was he SPEEDING UP?

Sophie's grin doubled in size and she sped up right along with him, a bit surprised, but glad that her slight taunting seemed to have struck a chord in him and motivated him a bit. She snorted at what he said, though, and shook her head. "I'll believe that if you last more than thirty seconds at this pace. You're not gonna give up on me, are ya, old man?"

Hehehehe. WELL. It seemed to have worked on him before, didn't it? Maybe she just needed to give him a hard time to keep him motivated.

The big puff decided to go on a stroll down the pathways. He needed to find something to do. He didn't want to be stuck in his room on the cold winter day. Granted he might go play in the leaves. Yeah he might do that. He saw a huge pile near one of the trees. He grinned and decided that pile would be perfect! He ran to the pile of leaves and plopped down on it.


He was making leaf angels and just having fun. He smiled to himself and he looked around and didn't see anyone he knew. Whew...that would be embarrassing to explain to someone walking through.

'old man'? PFFFFT. Cosgrach wanted to retort and roll his eyes. Actually, he did that. He puffed, looked sideays at her, rolled his eyes, opened his mouth to give her a good reply -

"WHAAAOOO!"

He fell. On his face. With his right foot still entangled in the stupid roots or something, which he didn't see while rolling his eyes.

He spit out some mud that got into his mouth, and whimpered while he rolled back. "My wrist!" He'd fell on his arms not to completely hit on his face, and this time, he wasn't even exaggerating. His left wrist was sprained.

This settled it: she was trying to kill him with these 'exercises' and 'ice-skatings'.

If anything he had said had amused the Astronomer, Toby was totally oblivious to it. And even if he had noticed, it was doubtful that he'd be even the slightest bit offended; making other people smile was, like, Toby's whole entire purpose after all. He bounced his pogo sick against the ground again and simply nodded as he caught it on the rebound.

"Definitely interested, Professor. It sounds ace." Space Camp. Really, from the mental images Toby was getting, there wasn't any part of that notion that didn't sound cool. Admittedly, camping IN space would be, like, the pinacle of all things cool, but that was pretty impractical, right? One day. Hopefully in his lifetime.

BUT BUT BUT yeah. The pogo stick. Toby was eyeing it almost reverently as Airey twirled it around.

"That's, like... genius. Wow." He MADE it? WOW. Toby wanted to take hold of it, to turn it over in his hands and get a good up-close look at it, see just what had been used in its production. When Airey mentioned maybe probably not snitching on him to anyone, Toby looked up at him and broke into a grin. "'Course not, Professor Airey." EhEhehehe.

Toby moved his own pogo stick now so it was leaning against the floor, one foot propped up on the thing, ready to go whenever, and nudging it in that kind of pre-bounce way. "I can't wait to see what yours can do though," he said, looking back it the fascinating contraption. But Airey had a point there. Toby's pogo stick took him unbelievably high and it was honestly one of the most freeing experiences outside of riding a broom. "I am. It's one of my favourite things ever. Prized possession. Right up there with my skateboard and my broom and my wings." Toby always tried very hard to look after those belongings, and generally succeeded. There had been that unfortunate incident with Phillip, of course, but he'd all but wiped that from his memory. "I still don't know who gave this to me, but I wish I could tell them how much I love it." Even after... was it three years, now?

Still with a big, animated grin on his face, Toby easily hopped up onto the footholds of the pogo stick and began bouncing on the spot. Nothing too high or extravagant, just something to work out that energy of his, yep.

Everything was FINE and GREAT and he was even accepting her taunting well and ROLLING HIS EYES in good humor at her, when...

Tragedy struck.

A few choice curse words slipped from her mouth, but not out of anger or frustration - they were formed more on the basis of fear. She immediately halted and was kneeling on the ground next to him in the blink of an eye, checking him over for sign of injury - she made a face at the dirt he spat out of his mouth, then saw the cause of his injury and that his foot was still caught in the blasted thing. In a few additional seconds, Sophie had freed his foot from the roots, then sat beside him, suddenly a bit out of breath when she hadn't been before.

She was worried.

"Your wrist? Lemme see." Her tone was surprisingly gentle and she reached for his wrist to see, but she knew unless there was bone sticking out or something, she wouldn't know the difference between a healthy wrist and an injured one anyway. "D'you need the Healer? Or - no, I would never take you to her, we can go see C-..."

...No, her PRIMARY choice of injury-fixer was the one HURT right now. Ugh. Merlin. "Uhhhhhh you have a potion to help this??!" It was a question, but mostly a HOPE AND A PRAYER.

SPOILER!!: The Tobsteeeeeeeer

Quote:

Originally Posted by Felixir

If anything he had said had amused the Astronomer, Toby was totally oblivious to it. And even if he had noticed, it was doubtful that he'd be even the slightest bit offended; making other people smile was, like, Toby's whole entire purpose after all. He bounced his pogo sick against the ground again and simply nodded as he caught it on the rebound.

"Definitely interested, Professor. It sounds ace." Space Camp. Really, from the mental images Toby was getting, there wasn't any part of that notion that didn't sound cool. Admittedly, camping IN space would be, like, the pinacle of all things cool, but that was pretty impractical, right? One day. Hopefully in his lifetime.

BUT BUT BUT yeah. The pogo stick. Toby was eyeing it almost reverently as Airey twirled it around.

"That's, like... genius. Wow." He MADE it? WOW. Toby wanted to take hold of it, to turn it over in his hands and get a good up-close look at it, see just what had been used in its production. When Airey mentioned maybe probably not snitching on him to anyone, Toby looked up at him and broke into a grin. "'Course not, Professor Airey." EhEhehehe.

Toby moved his own pogo stick now so it was leaning against the floor, one foot propped up on the thing, ready to go whenever, and nudging it in that kind of pre-bounce way. "I can't wait to see what yours can do though," he said, looking back it the fascinating contraption. But Airey had a point there. Toby's pogo stick took him unbelievably high and it was honestly one of the most freeing experiences outside of riding a broom. "I am. It's one of my favourite things ever. Prized possession. Right up there with my skateboard and my broom and my wings." Toby always tried very hard to look after those belongings, and generally succeeded. There had been that unfortunate incident with Phillip, of course, but he'd all but wiped that from his memory. "I still don't know who gave this to me, but I wish I could tell them how much I love it." Even after... was it three years, now?

Still with a big, animated grin on his face, Toby easily hopped up onto the footholds of the pogo stick and began bouncing on the spot. Nothing too high or extravagant, just something to work out that energy of his, yep.

ROGER THAT! At least that was the message he was conveying when he gave Mr. Tempus an eager salute.

Airey gave his homemade (or was the better term castlemade?) pogo stick another idle twirl in his hands. "Always been a habit of mine, building things. Taking them apart as well to see how they work and then trying to put them back together," he chuckled. Hadn't gone over so well with his grandfather's pocketwatch...especially when he hadn't been able to put it back together initially. And then there had been that unfortunate incident when he had been first introduced to a muggle laptop computer. It was just too BIZARRE NOT to take apart and try to figure out the magic behind it! "Mechanics and robotics, both muggle and wizarding, is quite the fascinating study."

Airey was quite sure that Mr. Tempus would be disappointed in his pogo stick. Really, it was not all that fascinating nor special. Hogwarts kitchens were not exactly the best source of pogo building materials. Although...perhaps with a few adjustments while they went pogo-ing around he might be able to work something wondrous. Just as long as it didn't end up throwing him off the stick and into a wall...or the Black Lake.

"I am sure they are aware," he winked as he set the pogo stick to the ground and placed one foot on one of the pegs. "I personally guarantee it."

OH! Jumping right into things then was it? Or perhaps a warm up? Following suit, Airey kicked off the ground and got his other foot on the peg just in time to begin bouncing about. Metal scrapping against metal, which was a sound that was just about as pleasant as nails on a chalkboard, the professor followed behind the Hufflepuff in a two person parade of bouncing.

So far so good.

Had the situation been lighter, Cosgrach would have laughed at her reaction, but now wasn't the time. Now, everything hurt. He tried to lie still on the ground while she freed his foot. He would have thanked her, but he was busy trying not to whimper. Cullodens didn't whimper. No, he would be fine, as soon as...

Right, the Healer was Cece. He wouldn't go to her anyway, so he sighed dramatically. There wasn't a soul in this school that they could go in an emergency (no, actually, there were many, but he didn't know if any of them was good in healing. He also didn't want anyone to see him like this).

"Don't you know any healing spells!?" What about 'I'm the best'??????

"Me?! What do I look like, a healer-in-training? Like I hang out with her all day?! No! I mean, I know a few simple ones, but not one that'll help your wrist, but..." She wracked her brain quickly - what alternatives were there? She could take him to see the healer, but he seemed just as thrilled by the idea as she was, which was not at all. It made the most sense to go back to his office with him and find something to ease the pain, but for now, she acted on impulse and her wand was already out -

"Gaudeo," she casted the Cheering Charm on the man, then stood up and offered him her arm toward his non-injured hand to help him up. At least if he was happy, he wouldn't be whiny and complain the whole way, would he? The pain wouldn't be gone, but he wouldn't be in complete misery anymore. "C'mon. We'll go get you a potion for your pain. Good thing your office is in the dungeons and not, like, in a high tower or something. It won't be far. You'll be okay." Optimism was good, hm?

The big baby.

Norah wasn't skipping. Not even an eensy weensy bit, NOPE. Third year had been going on for a bazillion years and TODAY she learned not to skip because that was what big kids did. Not skipping. Y'know, maybe the whole big kid thing was just overrated, because so far being thirteen had just meant no skipping, hair brushing, and people talking about capital G Guh-ROSS things. Like kissing things EW. The third year made a face at the pathway as she placed one purple trainer in front of the other like she was walking on a tightrope. A tightrope on Mars! A tightrope on Mars that went ALLL the way to Pluto that WAS a planet because calling things dwarves just 'cause they're small was plain old mean. She grinned at her shoes but immediately frowned again, 'cause she was being mopey, remember? Apparently that was in the 'big kid' job description.

But it was a lot harder to be mopey than Norah had thought in the vicinity (she had learned that word, UH UH!) of so many ickle flowers. Heheh flowers. WAIT, no. Ughhh flowers. That was good, right? Teenagers said things like 'ughh,' she'd heard them at it before. The Hufflepuff sat down and scooted herself to the edge of the path, crossing her legs in a way that EEEVERYONE could see her sparkly shoelaces, and leaned down to say hi to all the ickle flowers. Giving one a little pat with her index finger, she whispered "Hii flowers. Let's talk about all the non-kissy things." Because who needed kissy things when you had flower friends and sparkly laces? THAT was the real question.

Nature was great sometimes? Really, it was great when you wanted to get fresh air and to run. Sure it was December wasn’t it? But hey it was magical here not like they were stuck in the tundra somewhere that all the life seems to seize to exist in the fall or winter. Her hair was pulled into two tight French plaits and her trainers fit just perfectly. Yeah sure she was wearing long running pants and her hoodie yeah she looked very muggle today but really how else were you supposed to look when running.

Her wand was securely tucked into the handy arm holster. Her lungs were screaming from the colder air as she slowed down she couldn’t help but notice purple laces visible from the edge of the path.

“H-hello?” She paused and glanced at the younger girl sure she was younger but she looked like she was only a third year maybe? “Why are you talking about kissy things?” She asked as she had misheard the girl as she slowed down from the run she had just finished.

It wasn't as helpful as she had hoped with her stress though...still it was a way to avoid studying for just a bit longer.

Of course she looked like a healer in training! She looked like everything with that Ravenclaw brain of hers. Didn't Ravenclaws know just everything? Why didn't SHE - oh, that 'but' promised treatment, he knew it! He looked at her hopefully. Sweet, she even got her wand out! Now, let the relief come -

"Oooooohehehehe." He smiiiiiiled at her as she helped him to get up. "Thank you, Soph!" Thank her! What a beautiful day to run! He followed her with a smile on his face.

"My wrist hurts but not so much. It's nothing to be worried about, I'm sure." Nodnod. "But it's reeeally fortunate, yes! Because once we take care of it, we can just be haaaaappy for a longer time!" Not that he wasn't happy! His wrist hurt, but, life was too short to be angry about it!

Oh... phew. Okay. So... he was good, then, yes?

She briefly wondered if Culloden was going to be mad at her for putting the Cheering Charm on him, but really... she was helping. She was absolutely making the situation better by putting him out of his misery, at least until they could get him proper help. As long as they didn't run into anyone on their way to his office and end up with him embarrassing himself, the whole situation was totally going to turn out okay, right?

"Things could be much worse, y'know?" Sophie nodded, leading him back up to the castle. "You could've broken something or be dead. A little wrist sprain is easily fixable. You'll be feeling all better in no time." Hopefully then he wouldn't murder her, yeah?

DID THE FLOWER JUST SAY HELLO? AFTER ALL THIS TIME TALKING TO FLOWERS ONE WAS TALKING TO HER, IT WAS! Norah leaned put her nose even closer to the petals and whispered "Watcha say?" when oh. It was a person. Hi person. The third year paused to say, "sorry," to the flower friend she was abandoning, before raising her eyebrows at the girl NOT flower who had spoken. "Wha--oh. I wasn't talking about kissy things, that's the entire point. I was talking about all the NON-kissy things in the whole wide universe." She looked down at her trainers and then back up at the girl, coming to a decision and standing up. Once she had dusted herself off, itched her nose, and inspected her hands to make sure they were all clean, she stuck out her right hand to the girl to shake. "I'm Norah. THIRD year." Did the girl hear that? She was OLD. That didn't mean she had to talk about gross stuff, okay. It DIDN'T.

Norah's eyes travelled over the mysterious girl and began to grin in spite of herself. Moping was HARD work, apparently. No wonder teenagers always looked so tired. "I like your plaits! They're super duper pretty." Was that too enthusiastic? That was too enthusiastic POOP. "Wait! Lemme try again. Your plaits are like cool like yeah I guess. Like. Um." WOOOH, that was SO GOOD. She could be a professional teenager one day. Maybe the older one could give her lessons. The girl definitely looked older. And although the Puffer had already made it very clear that she didn't want to talk about kissy things, when she opened her mouth to say something totally cool and mature the question, "Do people ever stop talking about kissy things?" somehow slipped out. "Like, um, you know. Like. Whatever. Ugh. Hang out." Somebody really needed to teach her some more teenager words, she was running out veeeery quickly.

Oh….wait did she honestly think that the flower was talking? That wasn’t normal but that was cool right? Talking flowers would be awesome except talking toadstools were annoying and gah she ended up wanting to smack hers in class because it was non-stop-sassing her.

Sassing Toadstools was more like it.

“Sorry I misheard you then,” Puck chuckled and moved off of the pathway so she was out of the way of anyone else. Aw the girl was so precious really. “thank you I had to charm a bit into play with a sticking charm to make it not look all frizzy” she chuckled and grinned at the girl. “Hi Norah – I’m Puck, fifth year.” She grinned. Oh…she wanted to know what people talked about.

“Honestly my best friend Bianca never kissed anyone till her fifth year and we hardly even talked about it – she basically told me about it…then went on to talk about how awesome bread is” she grinned to Norah. “Honestly I’ve mainly only had time to barely even hang out with people this term which is sad but…studying and Prefect things?” she shrugged her shoulder. “My friend Zander and I don’t kiss we just uh really we talk about super heroes, what we wanted to be when we were younger…and just really anything to get out of studying for OWLs” she admitted with a beam.

“I like watching movies and relaxing and doing absolutely nothing of any importance at all” she laughed and grinned. “Mind if I sit?” She asked kindly.