she's got a body like an hourglass it's ticking like a clock

Tags: @soren

Outfit

It was summer, and she should be home. She should have been lying by the pool, working on her tan and relaxing after a long year at Hogwarts. She should not be here. Not in this school just for Muggleborns, with a wand that didn’t do anything, learning how to clean and cook and everything else that the purebloods thought that they should know in order to serve them better. Or whatever. This was not where she was supposed to be at all. A part of her had thought that even being registered and back in Kolna had been better than this. Yes, it had been awful. Yes, she’d been stuck having to garden for pureblood families, which had been horrible because she hated gardening. And sure, sometimes she got tortured… in those rare, unavoidable cases. But she’d had more freedom there than she had here. They’d been able to leave as long as they were back before curfew. She could pawn clothes and get a manicure or whatever else she wanted to do--and no one cared, or paid attention, as long as she did her job and as long as she was back in her apartment if they did a head count. But now, she was stuck here. Everyone had thought that Pyxis might end up being a good thing. That maybe they would actually learn something here and their lives would be just a little bit better. Somehow, though, that had proven to be the opposite. Or at the very least, it was a double-edged sword. They were safer here. They had food that wasn’t too awful, and everyone had a bed. No one got tortured. The teachers and staff didn’t seem to be horrible purists that were just angry at them all the time. In some ways, it was better here. But for all of those improvements, they had lost just about every freedom that they had. They weren’t allowed to leave the school. At all. Of course, they hadn’t been allowed to leave Hogwarts either but this was different. First of all, it was summer. They were supposed to be out of school, not stuck here. Second of all, it was a glorified servant school, where they learned how to clean and garden and take care of animals, in order to make the lives of their betters easier. This wasn’t a real school, so it was bad enough to be stuck here at all. But not being able to leave at all made it so much worse. They were just… stuck. It was miserable and frustrating--she couldn’t leave to even get a manicure or go for a walk to window shop or anything. She felt like it was incredibly possible that she was just going to lash out at someone before the week was up, simply because she was at the end of her rope. And yet, she had another year until she’d be done with this place. Not that going back to working for purebloods sounded all that great either. Everything was just awful. Sasha knew that she had decided to be a pessimist simply so that she never got her hopes up about anything… but she didn’t know how much more of this she could take. Surely, something had to change eventually. This couldn’t be her life now. Not forever… and even if nothing changed for another year, even if she graduated this place, she’d be leaving Devin behind and that wasn’t great either. Not when she had finally admitted that she cared about him. A year was far away though, or that was what she kept reminding herself of. There was a good chance that they would be tired of each other by next year anyhow. Somehow, that seemed easier to her. Simpler for both of them. And Merlin knew there was plenty of time until she had to worry about that. Her more pressing concerns at the current time was how to get through this week without biting someone’s head off. It was like someone wanted that to happen, because she’d been pulled into the stables to help clean out the stalls. Which of course, meant scooping up horse poop. Because her day couldn’t get any worse, clearly! They hadn’t seemed to care that she was wearing a skirt and just in general was not dressed for physical labor in the stables. It wasn’t like she could say no when they’d asked. She’d just had to go into the stables without complaining. They’d at least given her the courtesy of leaving her to her own devices and not staying to watch over her shoulder--which was good, because this was not something that she was an expert at in the slightest. It didn’t take long for the heat of the day and the exertion she was putting in, to have sweat beading on her forehead and the back of her neck. “Great…” She muttered to herself, before setting the shovel down to pull her hair up into a ponytail. She was definitely going to need to shower after this.

"It's a matter of time  
before we all run out"

    Working at Pyxis wasn't as bad as it used to be. Well, it had never been truly bad, he had to admit, but it had been uncomfortable for quite a long while. The only reason he had started working here was because he'd been feeling marginally guilty for catching people and handing them over to the Ministry. It had been a good job, all right? Paid well and it wasn't all that different from what he already did. Sure, he was a smuggler, but he had been raised as an animal trader first and foremost. They took care of most animals themselves, bred them and made sure they were in pique condition. Sometimes, however, they got an order for something they couldn't produce themselves. In those cases Søren had gone off into the world to find some, either by hunting one down or by dealing with a local breeder. Usually, since they were rare animals, it was better to catch one himself. Breeders usually changed the animals to make them easier to maintain. Catching people was much like that, only far less dangerous. If he had learned to turn off his morality for that then turning it off to catch people was no issue, he liked animals better anyway. Children were an entirely different matter, though, and he had never gone after any of those. Seeing kids in Kolna had been... well, it had made something in his stomach queazy, so he'd thought to take part in Pyxis and make sure they weren't hurt there. What he hadn't expected was to feel guilty by participating as well.

    The kids didn't make it any easier, of course. Half of them hated him, the other half were either afraid or wary, and there were a few in particular that made things even harder. One of them had graduated already, that Jesse had a damn mouth on him and while Søren had found it amusing at first it had quickly gotten old. He'd been there to try to make things less horrible, it wasn't his fault they were trapped there. He hadn't even been in the country when the registry started. Another one that made things hard was Marisol, though for entirely different reasons. The girl was pretty, he didn't deny that, but he wasn't as stupid as everyone liked to think. He knew she was barely of age and that as a guard, he was in a position of power over her, even if she didn't recognise or admit that fact. When he was alone and away from that situation, he was more than aware that he should never ever give in to her overt flirtations. He wasn't stupid and he wasn't a perverse man either, he was just... he tended to make really bad choices. His impulse control was abysmal, but he had managed to fix everything. It was a genius solution, really. All he had to do was give her something she wanted more than a good shag. That was- this place had very little in the way of the lifestyle products she was used to, such as beauty products. He made a deal, she would stop flirting if he got her a regular supply of whatever she asked for. Gave him a shopping list and everything. Well, it was easier like that, he had no idea about any of the things she asked.
    
    So yes, work was better. He managed to assuage his guilt towards the kids by buying them stuff and he also managed to avoid putting himself in a very stupid and compromising situation in the same way. He may be spending a ridiculous amount of money on everything, but he was well paid in all of his jobs so it wasn't like he felt the expense overmuch. He tried to help with the little things, even if he knew almost nothing of the things they were learning in Pyxis. Household spells and weeding and all that. The only things he knew were the animal care classes that were given. It was why he hung out around the stables whenever he was free to, when he wasn't sent this way and that on the godawful rounds they made him do. They had muggle horses and some magical breeds as well, which were some of his favourite animals. Well, he preferred birds, but these were fine too. The perfect mix between the two, pegasi, were absent of the school's stables. Unfortunately. Still, he liked to pop in whenever he could, and right now he was surprised to find someone already in there. Oh, a student. Wasn't that Marisol's little friend? He couldn't recall her name... Anyway-

"Hello there, need some help with that?" He couldn't help but notice that she wasn't dressed for the work she was doing, and she wasn't all that good at it anyway. So he leaned against the doorframe and raised an eyebrow to accentuate his question.

Sasha  - 823 words - He dresses like a schmuck

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOXOGRPHY 2.0

It's a matter of time
before we all run out

❧

Sasha was not a girl for manual labor. She never had been. It wasn’t something that she’d ever had to think about or consider at all. That had all changed this past year. They had been forced to register, they had been shoved into those apartments, and they had been given a job. Sasha didn’t know how it was chosen, she didn’t know who made those decisions or how they made them. She just knew that she had to garden for Merlin’s sake and that was something that she’d always absolutely hated. Herbology had always been a dreadful class for her--trudging all the way down to the greenhouses was something that she had been ready to stop the moment that she could. And she had been awful at it anyway. So, it had just been combining a class that she was awful with, with a long trek down to the greenhouses where she’d definitely ruined at least two pairs of shoes in the mud. Which had been tragic, in her opinion. And then, after all of that, of all things, she had been told that she was going to garden. That she was going to go to the houses of purebloods or Death Eaters or whomever was good enough to get those perks, and she was going to take care of their lawns and their gardens and the like.

Joke was on them, or so she had thought, because she didn’t know how to garden. So, she would be the one laughing when she accidentally ruined an entire bush of roses or whatever else they had. Right? Then she would be the one having a laugh at whomever had stuck her in a job that she was absolutely awful at. But that hadn’t been the case at all, obviously. If she didn’t do a good job, and they noticed, then she got tortured. That was something that she had learned the hard way very early on. Enough to know that she had to actually try to keep plants alive. After that, she had managed to avoid getting tortured all that much. There were still those rare occasions where a Death Eater in a bad mood came outside while she was gardening, and just needed someone to take out their frustration on. Whatever petty frustration they could possibly have. But apart from that, she’d at least not had to worried about getting tortured all that often. Not that she was about to be happy about that. It wasn’t something that she should be worried about at all. It wasn’t something that should be happening at all, but here they were. Still dealing with this. She was not an optimist, not by a long shot.

But she still had thought this would have to end eventually. And instead of ending, they had ended up here. They had ended up at this school they weren’t allowed to leave. Even though it was summer. Even though they should be allowed to go home or… somewhere that wasn’t here. She had Devin, of course. She had him, and Mari, and Tav, but she could barely tolerate anyone else. It was a wonder that she hadn’t bitten someone’s head off by now. Her bitchy side had maybe gone a bit dormant as of late. There was no fun in tormenting people whose lives, by all accounts, were just as awful as hers was. Even she wasn’t a completely horrible human being, apparently. But she was very close to snapping. One of these days, she thought it was going to happen, and it would just hopefully be the very nervous nurse and not someone who was actually going to get pissed at her. The last thing that she needed, after everything that had happened, was to be tortured some more.

As nice as they wanted them to think this place was, Sasha thought that just about any authority figure here would curse any of them if they really felt like it. She wasn’t sure they would hesitate in the slightest--maybe a little more than a Death Eater would, but that wasn’t saying all that much. It was why she hadn’t said all that much when she had been asked to help out in the stable, of all places. But she was absolutely not happy about it.. It was hot, she was ruining her shoes, and she was closer to animal poop than she had ever wanted to be in her entire life. It was awful. Sasha had just finished pulling her hair back into a ponytail and she couldn’t stop herself from rolling her eyes. “Funny.” She answered, dryly, before she could stop herself. “Just hilarious, really.” As if anyone here was actually going to offer to help her. The voice was male, and deeper than any boy she went to ‘school’ with. It clearly meant he was security or a teacher she hadn’t met or… someone of authority, who was not going to help her shovel manure. She didn’t even bother turning around, though she did momentarily stop the actual shoveling.

@ soren

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + ADOX 2.0

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