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last online Mar 29, 2024 3:22:16 GMT -7
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Dec 31, 2018 6:52:07 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Dec 31, 2018 6:52:07 GMT -7
Dec. 24th It was Christmas time at the Slaters and both Grey and Claire had come to spend it with them. Addilyn had fun staying at Claires over the summer, but all her stuff was back home now and she was staying with their parents over the break. She was a little jealous of her siblings living out of the house and all - but she was almost graduated and would be doing the same soon anyway. Plus, all of her magical experiments were at her parents house. Before she could do magic outside of school she wasn't able to work on them as much as she would like, but since she was seventeen now and on break she had gotten a little obsessive over her projects. She was currently in the living room, messing with a little contraption on the coffee table, sitting on the edge of the couch. grey xavier slater
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grey xavier slater
HOGWARTS ALUM DAILY PROPHET QUIDDITCH REPORTER
688 posts
played by Colin
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last online Mar 28, 2024 19:39:46 GMT -7
WIZARDING ADULT
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Jan 20, 2019 19:11:37 GMT -7
Post by grey xavier slater on Jan 20, 2019 19:11:37 GMT -7
@addilyn 12.24.2024 Moving out a little over a month earlier just to have to come back to the family house for Christmas was odd. His bedroom was exactly the same but with very few personal belongings left in it. He had stripped everything from it to bring to his new place. By his parents’ protests, he was going to be staying the next few days, because ‘having to go home during the holidays would waste family time’. Grey absolutely loved family time. His apartment wasn’t even far away either, so it didn’t make sense to him. Regardless, he was staying with his family tonight and probably Christmas night as well. The days following would be up for debate. He had to see how these next two days went first. So far everything had been fine, but that also had to do with the fact that Claire had taken up all of their parents’ attention and he had been left to do whatever he wanted. Which wasn’t much considering he didn’t live there anymore. Sitting and watching television all day had already bored him to death when he did live with them, now there wasn’t much to do other than socialize. And he hated that.
Leaving the stuffy conversation that Claire and his parents were caught up in, Grey grabbed a glass of water and headed into the living room. He had expected Addi to have left her spot on the couch, but there she was, still tinkering away at one of her projects. Sitting down on the opposite end of the couch, he placed the glass down on the coffee table, quietly observing whatever it was that his sister was working on. “What does it do?” he asked, his own voice breaking the silence in the room sounding like it came from someone else. There hadn’t been much talking on his end while he was in the kitchen.
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last online Mar 29, 2024 3:22:16 GMT -7
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Feb 11, 2019 17:18:40 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2019 17:18:40 GMT -7
Grey sat down, but she didn't look up. She leaned in closer to her design, using just her pointer finger and thumb to address an incredibly small gear on the inside. She reached for her wand to complete it when Grey asked the question. She still didn't answer right away, pointing her wand at it and messing with it a little further. Then she set her wand aside again, going back to just using her hands. "It creates moisture in the air. Like... adding humidity to a room. Or rather, that's what it's supposed to do," she explained. She didn't look over at him, as she was so focused on it. The creation was made from copper and was a about the size of a cup turning upside down. "It probably won't be much use in around here, but... it's basically a humidifier," she noted. "I'm thinking you'd hang it from the ceiling," she shrugged, finally taking her hands away from it for a moment. She turned to look at him, "were they boring you?"grey xavier slater
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grey xavier slater
HOGWARTS ALUM DAILY PROPHET QUIDDITCH REPORTER
688 posts
played by Colin
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last online Mar 28, 2024 19:39:46 GMT -7
WIZARDING ADULT
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Feb 28, 2019 21:13:21 GMT -7
Post by grey xavier slater on Feb 28, 2019 21:13:21 GMT -7
@addilyn 12.24.2024 Addi was focused – lasered in on her little contraption – enough so that she didn’t respond to his question immediately. He knew that she liked to fiddle around with her contraptions, but never really understood what the purpose of it. Did this lead to some sort of career as an inventor? Were there whole scores of witches and wizards out there into this sort of thing? It certainly caught his interest because it took time and patience to get the objects working, and Addi was (what he assumed) working quickly and efficiently on it. A few pokes and prods with her fingers and then a zap from her wand, probably putting some unknown gear or piece into the correct place. Those were skills that he didn’t have, and it seemed way too tedious to spend hours building something so small. At the same time, he was sure she thought the same way about his silly newspaper articles, so it evened out in the end.
Eventually she seemingly got to a point where she could explain the thing; it was a humidifier of sorts, and one that could be hung from a ceiling at that. He nodded his head to show that he understood, “That would probably work great in the dorm rooms…never did like the coal furnaces they had.” Even with how drafty the Gryffindor tower could get during the fall and winter, the dry air created from the furnace in the middle of the dorm rooms was like entering the gates of hell. Numerous times over the years he managed to bump into accidentally, scalding his arms or hands, or causing an article of clothing to start smoking.
The conversation was shifting back to the rest of the family though, and their silly chat going on in the kitchen. “Putting me to sleep,” he admitted, rolling his eyes at the thought of being pulled back into the middle of it. “The Daily Prophet doesn’t interest them like the Aurors do.” Addi had to have known that already. She had missed the harsh criticism they had slung at him the first time they heard he had dropped out of the training program, never mind having the internship at the Prophet within a week. His own happiness mattered over theirs at this point in time, and he was more than happy to let them know.
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last online Mar 29, 2024 3:22:16 GMT -7
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Mar 11, 2019 18:38:15 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2019 18:38:15 GMT -7
He said that it would work great in dorm rooms to counter act the furnaces. She nodded, "exactly. I'm sure there are plenty of spells one could do to combat the dry air but who wants to wave a wand around all night when they should be sleeping? Something like this would be better. I think it's ridiculous that we use those archaic furnaces anyway. I'm sure there's a way to keep a room warm for longer without it. But no, the school board would rather focus on what fabric to use for the school ties next year," she suggested. She didn't have anything against the school board really but she did feel she was smarter than most of the people on it. To be fair, she thought she was smarter than most people. He said the family was putting him to sleep and she chuckled once, nodding and looking back at her invention. He said the Daily Prophet wasn't interesting to them like Auror work was. Yes, Addi was well aware of his decision... and hadn't decided how she felt about it yet. On the one hand she didn't think it was her business, on the other hand she felt Aurors were more useful to the world right now than news writers. But they had their place too. Plus, it wasn't her business to tell Grey what he should or shoudn't do... even if she did enjoy telling people what to do when it came down to it. "Well maybe you could write about aurors. That seems like a decent compromise. If you feel like compromising for them," she suggested. She moved another piece into place and then clapped her hands. "It's done. Do you mind?" she asked pointing at the ceiling, implying that she wanted to test it. grey xavier slater
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grey xavier slater
HOGWARTS ALUM DAILY PROPHET QUIDDITCH REPORTER
688 posts
played by Colin
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last online Mar 28, 2024 19:39:46 GMT -7
WIZARDING ADULT
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Apr 28, 2019 12:20:21 GMT -7
Post by grey xavier slater on Apr 28, 2019 12:20:21 GMT -7
@addilyn 12.24.2024 Grey couldn’t recall if Addi was always so concerned about the students of Hogwarts prior to her Head Girl stint. She probably was and he had ignored it, which reflected poorly on him in his head even if that wasn’t the case. All of his time over the last few years had been spent emitting his angst and selfishness. “Like electricity?” he offered up rather obviously, cracking a small smile at the joke. Addilyn had said it perfectly: Hogwarts was archaic. Very little of what the school did these days made sense, and he had always figured that they would at least make the switch to electricity at some point in time during his tenure there. Candles were great and all, but they were a huge strain on the eyes after a few hours and nobody wanted to maintain a lumos spell in the dorm common rooms for more than a few minutes. There were always the old bats in the portraits catching wind of the student complains too, arguing that they were lucky they had running water and plumbing now. The mere thought of a time without those always made him shutter.
He wanted to respond to her statement about writing pieces on Aurors, but he didn’t have the time to because Addi asked him to help get the humidifier thing onto the ceiling. “Levitating it would be easier,” he grumbled, grabbing the mechanism and standing up on the couch, his arms holding it far enough above his head that his shirt started to untuck itself. “Just hold it here, or do you want it hooked in?” While he didn’t care what his parents had to say about jabbing a nail into the ceiling for Addi’s experiment, he also didn’t want to draw ire from them on Christmas Eve. They would never let him live that one down.
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last online Mar 29, 2024 3:22:16 GMT -7
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May 2, 2019 7:12:12 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on May 2, 2019 7:12:12 GMT -7
He asked about electricity and she roled her eyes, not at him - at the obviousnes of the answer and how it wasn't being pursued at all. "Exactly," she agreed, her tone severe and low. Her voice was also slightly exasperated, considering how she felt about the board not doing what was really best in the modern world. Granted, a lot of 'pure'-blooded parents had serious issues with trying to modernize Hogwarts to work better with muggle things. "I use pens to do homework," she added, "I think people have started to make that change at least," she explained. The quill and ink thing was an even bigger joke than the electricity thing. It was a simple mechanism that magic didn't interfere with. Plus, there were magic friendly music players and cell phones now. Hogwarts needed to catch up. He suggested that levitating would be easier than hanging it. She shook her head at his grumble, "that defeats the point. I just said who wants to stay up all night using magic," she countered. He stood, taking the contraption and standing on the couch. She stood too, watching him, "just hook it in, it's easy to take out," she suggested. It was really nice of him to help, even if he was doing it begrudgingly a bit. She'd be worried some body snatcher had taken over her brother if he was all cheery about it. grey xavier slater
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grey xavier slater
HOGWARTS ALUM DAILY PROPHET QUIDDITCH REPORTER
688 posts
played by Colin
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last online Mar 28, 2024 19:39:46 GMT -7
WIZARDING ADULT
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May 6, 2019 20:30:00 GMT -7
Post by grey xavier slater on May 6, 2019 20:30:00 GMT -7
@addilyn 12.24.2024 The great debate war between the effectiveness of quills versus pens. There really wasn’t a correct answer to which was better, at least in his opinion. They each had their pros and cons and he had found uses for both at his job, which probably should have had a dedicated charmed quill and notepad for max effectiveness. Despite that, Grey tended to enjoy the feeling of pen on paper – ink ran out relatively fast and having to carry around supplies for that when he needed to go somewhere quickly was a hassle. Shoving pens of varying colors and sizes in all of his available pockets and pouches periodically played out better when he needed to write something down immediately. As for official documents and exams in school? Sure, quill and ink was the way to go. “I still have ink smudges on my hands no matter what I use,” he said. Being a journalist was a sordid business. The amount of times he got home from work and found that the entire sides of his right ring and pinky fingers were covered in splotchy black ink was immeasurable by now. “Not having to constantly dunk pens in an inkwell is a lifesaver too. But leave it to Hogwarts to not understand modern changes.”
Maybe levitating the way she was thinking defeated the point, but Grey was sure there were a handful of charms that could keep the thing going for a few days at the least. That was one of the nice things about being away from Hogwarts; he could learn and test more complicated spells without the watchful eyes of professors staring him down. Now he had Addi staring up at him, wanting him hook in her contraption instead of trying his hand at a high-level levitation or stick charm.
“Like this?” he asked down to her, afraid to take his hands off of the invention. The last thing he wanted was to break something she had spent time on, especially if it was going to drastically improve student dorm life at Hogwarts. “Is there a switch on it I need to flip so it starts going?”
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last online Mar 29, 2024 3:22:16 GMT -7
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May 21, 2019 7:04:39 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on May 21, 2019 7:04:39 GMT -7
He said he still got ink smudges on his hands and she shook her head, "I bet you do it on purpose so that people more easily recognize that you're a writer," she guessed, amused. "Hogwarts takes pride in not being modern. There's a whole club about protecting old magical things. I'm a part of it, but I want to protect it, put it away safely, and move on," she explained. "As for the dunking of ink, it definitely is safer if you're in a hurry to use a pen," she agreed. You didn't want to be splashing ink everywhere. She nodded when he asked if the hanging spot was good, but shook her head at his next question, "no, if I did it correctly it should sense if the room air is dry and turn on... that means we have to dry this room out," she rolled her eyes, "you really don't have to stick around since I'm making this so complicated. I'm sure you have better things to do," she offered, but she still hoped he'd stay. grey xavier slater
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grey xavier slater
HOGWARTS ALUM DAILY PROPHET QUIDDITCH REPORTER
688 posts
played by Colin
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last online Mar 28, 2024 19:39:46 GMT -7
WIZARDING ADULT
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May 29, 2019 23:17:46 GMT -7
Post by grey xavier slater on May 29, 2019 23:17:46 GMT -7
@addilyn 12.24.2024 “I wish it was because of that.” Addi had probably never seen the amount of work he did at school – the daily re-writes of terrible pieces he decided were just worthy enough to grace the pages of the school newspaper or the editing nightmares that they originated from. Marking up a dozen of those was enough to warrant a smudge down the side of his hand regardless of whether he used a pen or a quill. “Recently I’ve had them replaced with burns from spilled coffee and paper cuts. I’m not quite a writer in their eyes yet.” Even when he was finally bumped up to a full time position from being an intern, he was still going to be the lowest on the totem pole. While he probably wouldn’t be doing nearly as many coffee runs for his superiors, he would continue with the grunt work of whatever division he ended up in. From there it was only going to be an upward climb.
She explained that there was a club dedicated to protecting the old ways, and Grey furrowed his brow at it. “But that’s what History of Magic is for. All they have to do is expedite the course load so they can touch on modern events. Then it wouldn’t be a problem.” He hadn’t recalled there being a club like that before, but it also didn’t surprise him. There was probably even more participation in it than the newspaper club had. Figured that students were more worried about long dead things than what was happening right then and there.
Nodding his head to show that he understood the function of her device, Grey stepped back off of the couch, not taking his eyes away from the thing the entire time. He wanted to see it activate, even though Addi just said they would have to change the environment it was in to get it to work. “Like going back into the kitchen?” he said, pulling his wand out. “No thanks. You’ve got me booked for today and tomorrow now. Any specific spell you have in mind?” There were a few he could think of though they weren’t exactly suited to be cast inside a house, let alone their parents’ living room. He was very out of practice with any spell that wasn’t large, an explosion, or possibly lethal in nature. The Aurors certainly gave the best crash course in ‘things that go boom!’
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last online Mar 29, 2024 3:22:16 GMT -7
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Jun 28, 2019 6:28:18 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Jun 28, 2019 6:28:18 GMT -7
He said he wished the marks on his hands were because of doing it on purpose, and she tilted her head to the side a little in question. But she didn't press the issue further verbally just yet. He said that he wasn't quite a writer in the eyes of the paper yet and Addi nodded firmly. "You will be. Hard work always pays off," she wasn't exactly sure if Grey worked very hard in his life. She always pictured him as being kind of lazy, but she never had classes with him or was on the school newspaper so she had no idea if he really kicked into gear when it was a passion involved. He spoke of history of magic and she shook her head, "History of Magic is for learning about things, not actively doing something to preserve them. The club is important too, Grey," she countered. Sure, he was talking about modern events, but she took it as a hit against the club even being useful. "Newspapers are for modern events," she added. He mentioned going back into the kitchen, stepping off the couch and watching the device. She shook her head with a chuckle as he said he wasn't going back in there, saying she had him booked now. He asked about a specific spell and her brow furrowed. "I honestly have no idea... fire dries out the air, but I'm sure that'd be pushing it... maybe... is there an opposite to augmenti? Something to collect all the water in the area?"grey xavier slater
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grey xavier slater
HOGWARTS ALUM DAILY PROPHET QUIDDITCH REPORTER
688 posts
played by Colin
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last online Mar 28, 2024 19:39:46 GMT -7
WIZARDING ADULT
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Jul 20, 2019 21:26:51 GMT -7
Post by grey xavier slater on Jul 20, 2019 21:26:51 GMT -7
@addilyn 12.24.2024 Hard work and being the weird new intern that started at the end of the year. That meant he was the target for every journalist that wanted an errand boy. But he had put hard work into the auror training too, and that didn’t pay off in the slightest. Grey understood what she meant though. So far, he was putting as much effort as was humanely possible into his new job. That had to count for something to someone (aside from himself). “That’s what they say,” he shrugged. “I’ll let you know if it is or not. I’m sure there are plenty of lazy journalists out there that hardly work and are at the tippy-top of their game.” He had never been like that with the school paper since it was basically just him running the whole thing, but the Prophet was an animal of a different size and magnitude. Departments had head journalists that only wrote the giant pieces but were able to stick their names onto all of the smaller ones since those were their junior journalists writing them. It was a strange distribution of credit.
“Right, but not everyone reads newspapers anymore. Muggles have had to go digital with theirs, and even then it’s hard to get people to read them when things like social media are instantaneous,” he sent back. “Obviously our world is a little bit different because we don’t have those things, but still. History of Magic is outdated no matter how you look at it. And they haven’t had an interesting professor in decades.” Hell, according to school records they had a ghost teach it for the longest time! That didn’t make any sense to him at all, considering it wouldn’t have any concept of time or what was going on in the world. Ghosts were unaffected and never changing. They were useful for ancient history and that was about it.
Addi proposed using a spell to zap the air of its moisture, like an opposite of aguamenti. “I’m sure there is, I just don’t know one…” He sat back down on the couch and stared up at the humidifier device. Fire wouldn’t work, obviously, and they couldn’t cast anything obvious without pissing off the rest of the family sitting around the corner. “What about a massive hot-air charm? Like the one we use to dry off our clothes? I’ve never cast it on anything larger than myself but it could work on the room if we both do it at the same time.”
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last online Mar 29, 2024 3:22:16 GMT -7
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Jul 23, 2019 12:25:15 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Jul 23, 2019 12:25:15 GMT -7
He didn't seem to believe her about hard work. This just further proved in her mind that her brother didn't know how to work hard anyway. Did he admire these lazy journalists he spoke of? She rolled her eyes, unable to contain herself. "Well, be better than them," she said a tad harshly. Almost like she was a mother reprimanding her son for having some stupid movie star as an idol. He said not everyone read newspapers and went on about how muggles were dealing with it. He reiterated that History of Magic was outdated, and her expression grew a little flat. "I think the Professors were interesting because I find the content interesting. Anything can be if you want it to," she countered. He didn't know a spell for what she needed, but his suggestion about the hot-air charm wasn't the worst idea. She shrugged, "worth a shot," she agreed, moving to grab her wand again. She aimed up upwards, "on three."grey xavier slater
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grey xavier slater
HOGWARTS ALUM DAILY PROPHET QUIDDITCH REPORTER
688 posts
played by Colin
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last online Mar 28, 2024 19:39:46 GMT -7
WIZARDING ADULT
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Jul 23, 2019 20:28:19 GMT -7
Post by grey xavier slater on Jul 23, 2019 20:28:19 GMT -7
@addilyn 12.24.2024 “That’s the plan once I’m not an intern anymore,” he snipped back. Hopefully that acted as a reminder that he wasn’t technically hired past that position yet. “There’s a limit to what I’m allowed to do right now. Overly ambitious interns don’t last long because the journalists get their egos bruised.” Being their little errand boy and picking up the slack on note taking during interviews was literally the extent to what he could do before he started stepping on the wrong toes. Obviously there were powers inside the Prophet that had his back, and Beatrice, whom he had been sticking to for the most part, was fairly relaxed about letting him do his thing when it came down to it. But he wasn’t going to be out there writing breaking stories from day one like his family seemed to think. That was, once they got over the fact that he was bringing dishonor onto his name or whatever. Living up to Claire’s legacy as a paid killer wasn’t really sounding that great anymore.
Addi’s response about the professors was fair; though what he had found interesting were the media’s representations in history of magic, or lack thereof in the class’s discourse. There weren’t newspapers made during the goblin wars or whatever, so his interest was out the window immediately. All Grey could do to answer his sister was shrug his shoulders. To each their own, really. They could go at it all day and neither of them would end up content with the other’s answer once they finished.
Twirling his wand around in his hand as he waited for Addi’s countdown, Grey pointed it up at the ceiling and cast the hot-air charm. “Good thing hot air rises,” he said idly as he watched the stream of air rise up towards the contraption. He gave it a little extra push to try and enlarge the amount being produced from his wand, but heatwaves apparently liked to take their time when it came to forming.
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last online Mar 29, 2024 3:22:16 GMT -7
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Jul 24, 2019 5:05:24 GMT -7
Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2019 5:05:24 GMT -7
He said he couldn't do much without bruising the journalists egos and Addilyn shook her head. "Jerks," she muttered. What was wrong with people not being able to root for other people? Everyone in the world always made stuff a big competition, and that just seemed silly to her. Sure, she liked to get ahead, but that didn't mean that she wanted other people to fail. She just wanted to do well. She was Head Girl, not because she brought others down, but because she lifted others up, made friends, and did well in school. Was it that hard to be successful and be nice to other people? But she figured a lot of others didn't feel the same way. Life was a race to them. They cast their spells, and she attempted to keep hers going for a little longer than normal. He suggested it was a good thing that heat rose, and she just nodded, waiting. Finally, the thickness in the air did feel a little dry and she looked back to her invention. It's spun around slightly, sputtering a little until some small squirts of water shot out right towards them, not in a nice mist form at all. She squeaked, blocking her face with her hands. grey xavier slater
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