May 8th, Marine Garden Party — Padmore Park/Black Lake

Henri had tried to like plants, honestly. It was one of the few Hogwarts subjects that her mother had thought was perfectly appropriate for a young lady, unlike transfiguration (which had a hint of dishonesty to it, transforming a thing into something it wasn't) or defense against the dark arts (which Henri had only been allowed to continue with at NEWT level because she needed at least three classes and she hadn't many other options based on her OWL scores). She'd taken Herbology all seven years at school, and had tried to feign an interest in the greenhouse at the Pendergast School, but really she had never seen the appeal of flowers. If she were to have a garden, it would only have contained carnivorous plants, she thought — so that anyone who intruded would be eaten. She could sit all alone in the center of her garden looking lovely and serene and if anyone tried to approach her and talk to her, they would die a painful death before they could reach her, and she would just keep sipping her tea.

Of course, these were not things she mentioned to anyone else. She didn't say anything about plants to anyone, unless pressed to make conversation about them, and as a result everyone assumed she must be just as interested in flowers as most young women her age — case in point, the absurdity of primroses at her debut. They were going to stay for the ball here tonight, even though the society was probably beneath them, according to Mama. Henri just knew there would be another corsage, or a flower headdress, or something along those lines which she would be forced to wear. Dreadful, but she would endure it.

Right now they were walking through the tunnel — Henrietta trailing behind her mother and sister as much as she dared, so that she wouldn't be called upon to contribute to their conversation, though hopefully not far enough behind to be called out for dawdling. They had just gone around a corner, and Henri was enjoying having just a moment out of their sight, slowing her steps deliberately. As she did so, the water at one side of the tunnel rippled slightly, then began to part. Henrietta watched with wonder as a new little bubble of the pathway opened up, a divergent path. She hadn't known the tunnel's magic was equipped to have multiple routes, but — if she went left when her family had gone right, she might have several minutes to herself, and when she reunited with them she could claim she'd taken a wrong turn. That prospect was too tantalizing to pass up, and Henri took a few tentative steps out into the new pathway. The heel of her shoe caught on a bit of rock — they hadn't prepared the ground here to be smooth as they had in the main tunnel, and Henrietta frowned at the ground, wondering at the difference.

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Note: the tunnel is not supposed to open up new pathways and Henri is wandering off into the Black Lake. This will become relevant in a few posts!

The following 1 user Likes Henrietta Cartwright's post:1 user Likes Henrietta Cartwright's post
   Elias Grimstone

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Rune made this! <3

Noble didn't want to be here.

He especially did not want to be here after having talked to Daff yesterday for the first time since they had broken things off in March. He would have tried to come up with an excuse to avoid it, except he was worried that Clem would have caught on and brought up the thing from the Teapot Trials. And if Clem brought up that he'd been flirting with Miss Potts, and then Ford remembered that Noble had said there was a girl, — (never mind that Ford was clearly hungover, he was also generally at least a little observant, so) — and then what if everyone connected the dots, and that was a fucking nightmare. So. He would go and he would try to avoid his family a bit, which was in character because they'd already been at a party yesterday, and he wouldn't have wanted to be here even if it hadn't been an event that seemed designed to make him lose his mind. He would go and try to avoid Daff more effectively than he had yesterday. This would be — fine.

At least the plants were interesting.

He'd taken a chance opportunity to wander back through the tunnel after catching up with a schoolmate, and was caught off guard by the appearance of a tunnel he hadn't noticed on his way in. It was possible — likely, even — that he'd been too focused on either the underwater plants or on thinking of ways to avoid getting caught in conversation with any of the Potts.

He turned down it. His family wouldn't miss him for a few minutes, surely — and after a few steps, Noble stopped short, having spotted a familiar blond. "Good afternoon, Miss Cartwright," he said. Hopefully nothing would burst into flames this time.

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set by Bee

Henrietta startled at the sound of someone's voice. She had made the conscious decision to put some distance between herself and the family members that were intended to serve as her chaperones this afternoon, but had failed to recognized the consequences of doing so: she was now defenseless when confronted with conversation from a stranger. Or someone slightly less than a stranger, because he had called her by her name, but it took Henri half a second of blinking at him in the strange bluish light of the underwater tunnel to recognize him in turn. Holden's friend, whom she'd talked to at her debut ball, and whose name she still wasn't entirely sure of. Drat.

There were worse people that she could have happened upon while alone, but this certainly wasn't a fortuitous turn of events. She shouldn't have been alone with a gentleman at all, but a young gentleman seemed particularly egregious (she didn't know why, but she thought everyone was always quicker to let their mind jump to scandalous conclusions when the age gap between man and woman wasn't so large as to make an appropriate match). This might be salvaged if she managed to make some conversation with him and part ways without anyone observing the pair of them together, but that left her with another problem: that of having to make conversation with him. She didn't enjoy talking to men, but usually she could rely on one of her sisters to interject a few comments here and there to keep the conversation moving along at a steady clip. No such refuge here, since she'd taken the divergent path. This was her just desserts, she supposed — she was going to be ruined, either swiftly as she was discovered alone with a gentleman and torn apart by vicious rumors, or slowly as she made a terrible fool of herself and his opinion of her leaked through all the eligible bachelors in England and made her uniformly undesirable.

Maybe if she only knew his name she could figure some way out of this. As it was, matters seemed quite hopeless.

"Good afternoon," she returned, tone slightly stilted. Somewhere behind her right shoulder the magic keeping the tunnel open started to wear a little thin, causing a quick drip drip drip of water from the top of the tunnel towards the ground.

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Rune made this! <3

Noble was perfectly comfortable with awkward small talk, but decidedly less comfortable with the sound of water dripping in the tunnel. He moved one hand to the pocket of his jacket and felt for his wand, although he was not sure what good it would do him. "Where's that sound coming from?" he asked, tone still measured but — a little audibly concerned, sure. "The dripping." He squinted — the tunnel was poorly lit, so it was hard for him to pinpoint exactly, but maybe it was a hole and he would be able to plug it?

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set by Bee

She hadn't noticed it until he pointed it out, but as soon as he did Henrietta felt a flash of panic rise in her. She ought to have known better than to wander through a magical tunnel, because magical was always malfunctioning in the most inconvenient ways, and it always seemed to happen at the worst moments, when she was already flustered or otherwise beset. Possibly this was because Henrietta spent more time feeling flustered than the average young woman, but if that was so, it wasn't as though she could help it — the world was a frightening place, especially when magic kept doing unpredictable things.

Don't! she thought frantically, whirling to find the source of the noise. It stopped as soon as she turned, but behind her (directly over the young man's head) a whole crack began to open, sending a thin little waterfall down towards the floor.

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Rune made this! <3

Noble stifled a swear as a crack opened above him; good breeding wouldn't let him curse in front of a lady, even if she was sort of weird. He jumped, away from the falling water and towards her, and drew his wand from his pocket. It wasn't like they were under attack — they certainly weren't under attack — but he was increasingly worried that the Black Lake was going to fall on top of them.

"Can you swim?" he asked; his tone was measured, but he didn't feel calm.

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set by Bee

"Of course not," Henrietta said, slightly aghast that he would have even thought to ask. When and where would she have learned to swim? Since the moment she'd turned fifteen, Henrietta had barely been allowed to leave her bedroom without a corset on, and certainly no one was going to go swimming in a corset. The very idea of Henri wearing a bathing suit probably would have caused her mother to have a conniption.

It took a second for her to realize why he would have asked, and when she did the panic was obvious on her features. "You don't think we'll have to?" she asked, but she already knew the answer. Why ask the question if he didn't think it might become relevant? It was hardly as though they were in the middle of an engaging conversation in the center of a ballroom. Henri had never been in the middle of an engaging conversation in her life, but she knew enough to know this wasn't it.

The crack that had opened up in the top of the tunnel behind him grew wider. The waterfall pouring in was now creating enough of a puddle that Henri felt obliged to lift the hems of her skirts to avoid getting them wet. This wasn't looking good.

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Rune made this! <3

Noble wasn't surprised by her answer, but he was a little disappointed by it, because this wasn't looking very good. Unlike Miss Cartwright, he could swim — but he wasn't necessarily an expert on it, and had never before tried to help someone else out while he was swimming. He swallowed and didn't answer her question, because he wasn't sure he could sell a lie right now.

"Come on," Noble said, "Let's try to go back the way we came." Surely the main tunnel — with the smooth floor — had been better enchanted? He offered Miss Cartwright his free hand, hoping that he could speed them both along.

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set by Bee

In any other set of circumstances Henrietta might have hesitated before taking his hand (and the thought did occur to her to be fairly anxious about it even now), but this was hardly the time to dally. She placed her hand in his and hurried to follow him, still holding her skirts up with her free hand. She managed to make it several feet down the tunnel (with water seeming to follow hot on her heels, or was she only imagining that the crack was growing bigger to chase her out?) before the rough ground got the better of her heels, and she went tumbling towards the lake floor.

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Rune made this! <3

They weren't moving fast enough. It seemed like the crack in the ceiling knew they were leaving — which maybe it even did, magic could be weird that way. And then she was falling, tumbling towards the lake floor, and Noble wanted to catch her — but instead of catching her he was falling too, landing in the water on the rough ground of the lake.

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set by Bee

They were all in a jumble on the floor, which Henri assumed meant she was about to die. Although he had never explicitly said so, this fellow had implied they needed to leave or she needed to swim. They were making no progress towards leaving, and Henri couldn't swim. She was going to die. The tunnel would collapse, the water would crush in around her, and she would drown. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, as though death might be more palatable if she didn't know exactly when it was coming. She also curled into him, mostly on instinct — even in a moment of distress Henrietta was far too well-bred to ever knowingly cuddle up against a stranger's chest — and let out a slight whimper.

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ooc: feel free to do whatever you want with the tunnel/water!

  

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Rune made this! <3

They were so close, was the thing, and Noble had landed on his back and could see the roof of the tunnel above them. The crack in the ceiling expanded and it was right over them, and he had a strong sense of foreboding — there wasn't anything he could do, was there? They were going to drown here and his family was going to be utterly fucked, and he didn't want to die, and he certainly didn't want to die with Holden Cartwright's weird sister.

Except — they were so close, weren't they? The water rushed towards them from the ceiling and Noble reached for his wand and put one arm around her and focused on apparating to the real tunnel with a crack!

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The following 1 user Likes Noble Greengrass's post:1 user Likes Noble Greengrass's post
   Henrietta Cartwright

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set by Bee

The water was trickling down and soaking through her skirt, and probably would be reaching her chest through her corset any minute now. She wondered if it would hurt, but it didn't. She was more disoriented than anything. She felt as though she might throw up, but there was nothing in her stomach to throw up. It took Henrietta a moment to realize that this wasn't actually the feeling of death at all, but rather of side-along apparition. She didn't apparate herself, and avoided side-along as a general rule since it required a degree of closeness that was improper, but she'd done it often enough to know what it felt like.

Oh! Except if he'd apparated her away then that meant they were close enough to be considered improper, wasn't it? With a squeak of surprise and confusion, Henrietta went to push herself away from the man — and in doing so, smacked her palm directly against his cheek.

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Rune made this! <3

Noble was out of breath, but — he didn't feel water anymore, except where it had soaked into his clothes. He'd barely had time to process that before Holden's weird sister was pushing away from him and — slapping him, for some reason, and Noble squinted at her in confusion. He'd saved her, hadn't he, at least to some extent?

He pushed himself up on his elbows. "Alright," he said, sounding somewhere between confused and exasperated.

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set by Bee

Henrietta didn't realize where her hand was going to land until she'd already hit him, but then she let out another squeak of alarm. If there was anything her mother would consider worse than being alone with a man, it was being close enough to said man to cause a scandal, and if there was anything worse than that, it probably would have been assaulting him. How had she managed to make such a muck of this? Why did these sorts of things always happen to her, and no one else? Some of her friends were the very picture of grace and beauty, but not Henrietta Cartwright.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she said in a rush, as she scrambled to a sitting position. "I was — you startled me."

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Rune made this! <3

"I startled you," Noble echoed. He pushed himself further up into a sitting position. If they weren't at the Potts' party, he might have been startled into laughing — instead, he grinned rather helplessly, because he couldn't help it. This was objectively ridiculous.

He supposed that he ought to go back to checking on his sisters. Noble sighed and finally stood up. "I'll see you around, Miss Cartwright," he said.

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set by Bee