fearless

[ASTRID ALVA ABRAHAMSSON]

Early March 2028

Years had passed since Astrid had last set foot on Magizoo island. She'd dreaded coming back, especially with how disastrously her relationship with Kal had ended. She'd met him here, years ago, the first person she'd ever loved. Though the pain of their break up had mostly passed with time, Astrid had still avoided places that reminded her too much of him. And naturally, his former place of work was riddled with memories of their first meeting. However, Astrid had made a deal with herself to take back her life, to focus more on herself and to keep romance out. The only love she needed was that of the dragons she studied.

Astrid had sent her first draft of her research to a publishing house - for the past two years, she'd gathered substantial evidence on the mating patterns of Swedish Shortsnouts. She'd compared her findings to similar papers on Ridgeback mating rituals, and had found that they were less similar than initially thought. In fact, the Shortsnout had more in common with it's Ukrainian cousin, despite the distance. She wondered if perhaps the Shortsnout preferring wide expanses of forests as opposed to the Ridgeback's mountainous homes was another indicator to their differences. But now that Astrid had sent away her research, she could only await their decision.

Magizoo island had never been high on Astrid's priority list for many reasons. First, she didn't really believe in captivity. But Astrid knew that this was more of a rehabilitation centre on a grander scale than that of Hogsmeade. She'd considered dropping by MacFusty's after this, and probably still would. But she had to conquer her fear. Sweeping her long blonde hair back from her face, Astrid tightened her cloak around her from the bone-chilling March air as she slowly made her way around the zoo. She was grateful to see no familiar faces - though she supposed the bundled up chins and noses in scarves made it difficult to pick anyone out of a crowd.

Open!

[honey satheesh varma]

Early March 2028

Honey knew that she wasn't exactly the type of person who would be most interested in visiting Magizoo Island. She didn't have any children, for example, nor was she a teacher from the new Hogwarts primary school taking pupils on a trip. While some other adults would find her strange for that, she wasn't concerned about looking childish. There were plenty of perfectly valid reasons to want to visit the magical zoo as an adult, and not the least of which was because it housed all sorts of creatures. Some of them, Honey assumed, were creatures that she would never get the opportunity to see in that part of the world outside of captivity. From Erumpents to Jackalopes, it wasn't as though she lived the kind of life where she might just stumble upon them.

The decision that she had made to go to the zoo that day ended up being a poor one, though, at least where the weather was concerned. It was bitterly cold outside, and Honey could hardly see half the creatures at first for how badly her eyeglasses were fogging up from her breath as it got trapped in the scarf around her neck and drifted upwards.

As she continued on to the next exhibit she wanted to see, Honey found herself having to step out of the way of a small child carrying a particularly sticky-looking lollipop. That wouldn't have been so bad, but doing so put her directly in the path of another woman who looked younger than she but who—just as she was—definitely wasn't a child, either. "Oh!" Honey exclaimed as she realized that she might have made a misstep. By some miracle, she narrowly avoided a head-on collision with the second stranger, though she did feel immediately guilty about the close call.

ASTRID ALVA ABRAHAMSSON

[ASTRID ALVA ABRAHAMSSON]

It was just as well that Astrid recognised no one, especially since the last time she had been here she'd partook in unspeakable deeds in the private enclosure. Luckily, it didn't look like Kal had resumed his employ here. She suspected that he'd sequestered himself back in his kommune up in northern Finland. Astrid took a steadying breath before trudging onwards, promising herself that she was being brave and all this would be worth it because perhaps she would learn something new.

As wound up as she was in her own thoughts, Astrid bowled straight into a very solid person that she did not see. Her head snapped up and she eyed the woman critically. It looked like the woman had swerved to avoid her, but as fate would have it, Astrid had walked into her anyways. "There is enough space on the pavement," said Astrid cooly, assessing the woman. "Though I am at fault. I apologise," she added rather formally. There was a beat of silence before she added, hesitantly "They do rehabilitation work here. For dragons. With MacFusty's." For most, it would be an offhand remark, a random question. But it was something that had drawn Astrid's interest in the first place.

honey satheesh varma

[honey satheesh varma]

Early March 2028

The saying went that there was no pleasing some people, though Honey liked to maintain enough optimism to think on the brighter side of things. Unfortunately, the blonde woman with whom she had avoided colliding told her that there was enough space on the pavement, only to apologize and say that it had been her fault instead. Honey was slightly puzzled. She could see how she might be seen to be the one at fault—especially if the other woman hadn't seen the kid with the lollipop—but she also didn't want to end up in an argument with someone she didn't know about which one of them needed to say that they were sorry.

Being British (and also a bit awkward), Honey was inclined to apologize regardless, but the blonde changed the subject before she could express that she had been merely attempting to avoid a literal sticky situation. Instead of the back and forth of apologies that likely would have ensued if Honey had spoken up sooner, she heard the stranger mention, "They do rehabilitation work here. For dragons. With MacFusty's."

Honey wasn't sure what had prompted the blonde to bring up that fact in particular, but she hadn't known that. She imagined that it would have been harder for the wildlife rehabilitation center in Hogsmeade to manage Hebridean Blacks, all things considered. "Really?" Honey asked, not just feigning interest in that little tidbit. She took the opportunity to clean off her glasses with her sleeve and put them back on. "I didn't realize that."

ASTRID ALVA ABRAHAMSSON