The cat wished that it was a bee
The turtle wished that it could fly

    Octi wasn't very good with a knife, admittedly. He was good with his fingers. Playing music, drawing, gardening. All that, he could do without any issue at all. In creative things, he was generally quite good. Also when it came to baking and cooking and modelling clay, nobody could really fault his skills. But anything that involved a sharp instrument immediately turned into a failure. Whittling wood, carving decorations, even cutting ingredients for a meal took far longer than it should. He didn't know why, he didn't understand it, and now... well, now seemed like the best time to remedy that. How does one improve something they suck at? By practicing, obviously. What better moment than with Halloween coming up? He always did love decorating the dormitories but he never managed to make proper jack o lanterns. It was really a disgrace, so he figured that it was never too early to start practicing. Had he stolen a lot of pumpkins from the gatekeeper's pumpkin patch? Yes. Perhaps a few too many, but he didn't think anyone would notice. He'd just brought them with him and found a nice, quiet place on the lawns. With a knife he'd borrowed from the house elves... okay, so he'd stolen everything? Octi didn't think anyone would mind.
    Okay, so maybe he was using all of this as an excuse to not have to think about his parents. Dev was there, he'd told Octi that dad was constantly in and out of the hospital, visiting mum and keeping up with her state. So far, it seemed that her fever had started to die down, but her magic was completely gone. Oh- she would hate it, Octi knew. She so loved casting spells and making things with magic. Maybe she didn't need any of it for work, she was a playwright and she didn't need magic to write, but she would definitely feel the loss. At least it seemed like nobody was dying from the fevers, that was good. Dad also hadn't caught it, sometimes people didn't and... Octi found that weird but also not that weird. People's bodies reacted differently to external influences, right? It could be just something like that. Mum would be fine, dad would be fine, Alis' family would be fine. Right? Yeah. And for Christmas, in just a few months, he would go home and he would see his parents again and they'd all be fine. Happy. Right? So for now he would focus on improving his carving skills. It was better than studying. Octi refused to study, his mum would've survived a magic-killing fever only to die of horror. Yes, he could have been smoking to get his nerves down, but he'd been smoking a lot lately. Burning right through his stash. Besides, smoking that much wouldn't be healthy, even if it would help emotionally. Well... that could also turn unhealthy.
    Right, so he wanted to focus. He'd ruined another pumpkin, yet again. At least the birds around him were having a good time. He'd carved every inch of the vegetable and none of it had turned out right, so he cast it aside to where the birds were pecking at the guts and empty hull of the last experiment. With a sigh, he reached out for another pumpkin, taking his wand in order to open and gut it. Why did he do the carving with a knife instead of his wand? Because he was even worse with his wand, that was why. After several seconds of messing about, he finally sat back down and took the blade again. He looked at the not-so smooth surface, considering, and then started lightly tracing the face he wanted to carve. Here we go again. So concentrated was he that he didn't notice the approaching footsteps.

outfit | @angus | Note: SURPRISEE

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tree hugger

[attr="class","reasonsmallangus"]And the desert so dry and lonely that the creatures all appreciate the effort

[attr="class","reasonbodangus"]September had been a difficult month for Angus. With his parents both in the hospital down with Epidemic X, he wasn’t sure what to think. They’d closed the store for nearly a month, with no end in sight because no one could figure out what the solution to this epidemic was. Angus wasn’t sure that it was fiscally responsible, but he was sure that his parents would figure it out. They always did. He was glad that time was passing, but with the change to October, temperatures had cooled and autumn was now upon them.

Angus wasn’t really sure that he felt anything about the Halloween season other than a casual disregard. He didn’t enjoy dressing up in costume and he certainly didn’t enjoy the idea of spooking others with ghostly apparitions or maleficent creatures out of horror books. He wasn’t a fan of carving pumpkins or gorging himself on Halloween candy. No, Angus much preferred to treat autumn just like any other time of the year.

He did, however, enjoy the leaves. The changing colors brought new life to Hogwarts’ grounds. It made things feel at least marginally different from how they had been before. But they simultaneously made this difficult for his job.

He was on the hunt for a missing necklace belonging to a Ravenclaw first-year. The same first year that had come to him the night of the feast, alleging that a Gryffindor first-year had taken it and lost it while they were boating across the Black Lake. The most recent development in the case? She’d remembered she’d had it in the Great Hall during the feast because it had nearly dragged across some of the pastries they were offering for dessert.

And so, the case thickened.

Normally, leaves wouldn’t have made this any more difficult, but the necklace was a beautiful golden color…one that would blend in so entirely with the ground around it given the season. So, Angus had his eagle eyes one – perhaps one of the reasons that he had been sorted into Ravenclaw.

He trekked through the grounds with great care, keeping a watchful eye out for the necklace, but by the time he’d been out and about for an hour, Angus grew weary of the bitter weather and staring at the grass to no avail. It was around that time that he ran into a person on the lawns. Ah, what was his name? Angus always had a difficult time putting names and faces together, especially for people that he only saw sometimes. He blamed in on the fact that he had millions of other things floating around in his brain – like how to Moonwalk or follow the Socratic Method. He didn’t have time to keep names. This one…he recognized the hair. Eight. No, no that wasn’t right. People didn’t name themselves numbers, did they?

As if the number had unlocked a secret compartment in his brain, Angus remembered the boy’s name: Ocatvian. “What are you…up to?” Angus asked, looking down at the gourd graveyard that Octavian had created near his feet. Carving pumpkins? Was it already that time?
While it was clear that he was carving a pumpkin, Angus was more concerned with the failed attempts on the ground. Was he going to try some sort of Pumpkin Frankenstein?

[attr="class","reasontagangus"]@ eight | 549 | OUTFIT + HAT

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

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THE CAT WISHED THAT IT WAS A BEE
THE TURTLE WISHED THAT IT COULD FLY

    It was frustrating to not be able to do this. Octi was good at art, he'd grown up painting and drawing. His dad had carried him on his hip while he painted and danced about in the atelier at home. He was creative, and yeah- he was better musically, but he was pretty good in general at creative things. He was even pretty good at impressionist and surrealist painting. So why could he not cut a damn pumpkin right? That made no sense. It was just hard. He made the first shallow carvings, more or less marking everything that he wanted to cut out, but then when he started everything would go crooked or he'd cut too far or the edges would be ugly and he just- it was frustrating and it was a real pity about all those pumpkins. He knew he'd gather them all and take them to the kitchens so the house elves would make soup out of it all. Or maybe pumpkin gnocchi, which would be a whole blessing. But he would only be able to do that once he was content with his progress, which he wasn't. Not yet. In fact he was starting to wonder wether he would ever be content with anything at all. Of course, it was good to have something to focus on while he avoided his emotional turmoil and thinking about things that would upset him. For all of that, he needed to smoke something to relax him- without actually getting high because depending on narcotics to deal with his issues was... not advisable. 
    Focus was not his friend and occasionally he caught himself looking out over the fields or the lake- but not thinking about anything specific. More like imagining what he wanted - and would undoubtedly fail- to get from his current pumpkin. Hopefully, this one would have a better result. He was about to cut into the smooth surface again when he was spoken to, which was unexpected. Only a second ago, he had been completely alone. Or had that been an hour ago? Still, he looked up at his new company with surprise in his eyes, only to spot a younger Ravenclaw. Now, Octi was a very sociable person. It was because of this that he remembered everyone's name, always. If he'd spoken to them once, he would remember them, and yes- he'd spoken to this boy before. Once, if he was not mistaken. Angus. He'd met him when he'd been coming out of the boys' dormitories in the Ravenclaw common room. Riddles were very easy to solve when one was as vague in the head as he was. Besides, he'd been there to mope in Alis' bed all night, it had been a nice night. Cozy. So now, Octi recognised him immediately and smiled brightly. "Hi, Angus!" 
    The question made him laugh, though, slightly embarrassed. He looked around him at all the discarded pumpkin carcasses and then rubbed over the back of his head. Oh, he'd made even more of a mess than he thought he had. Even his hand was completely orange. "Uhm, I was practicing? I'm not really good at the whole carving thing. I thought I'd try it out before it was actually Halloween?" Pointless, really, because it wasn't as if there was a pumpkin carving competition. Or as if the school would be decorated with any of this. Perhaps he'd put one in his own dormitory, if everyone was okay with it. But it really wasn't a very logical thing to do.  "What's up?"

outfit | Angus | Note

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