[thd/ddc] shoot across the sky [freya]

The evening was going splendidly. She and @Jari Trickett had been successful, and her portion of the treasure was gathered around her, ready to be thoroughly inspected and documented. Janne had no intention of leaving the booty behind: there were so many secrets that could be wound up in the mysterious objects. These would easily fill her time in the remaining weeks before heading off to Hogwarts, a necessity given that she had already worked her way through most of the textbooks she needed for her classes. Plenty of recreational reading was ahead of her!

Janne ran her hand over the pile, spreading it so that she would be sure not to miss a single object. Her eyes landed on something a bit odd, something that stood out from the rest of the items: a dark brown candy, wrapped in a bright pink wrapper. It was unlabeled, though this didn't phase Janne much: perhaps it was a famous candy 100 years ago, so recognizable then that it needed no further identification! She pulled the wrapper back carefully and held the candy up to inspect it more closely. The large magnification provided by the glasses she donned revealed a very fine texture, broken up only by the occasional lump of white nougat. Having missed the serving of the cake while on her earlier expedition, Janne was tempted by the sweet smell. That, combined with the idea of testing out a candy from a century past, made the treat irresistible.

It only took a few seconds for Janne to sense that something wasn't quite right. It felt that each chew was more difficult than the last, as though her mouth were growing heavier by the second. She spat the candy out, but the damage was done: the movement was out of control, as though her tongue no longer new how to help. She looked down in terror as her tongue expanded more and more, easily visible without a mirror as it hung out of her mouth, dragging her head down with it. "Helf -- " she managed to whimper, looking around for a sign of her brother or parents, but the only person in sight was a teenage boy peering out at her from behind a large limb of the tree, his fist stuffed in his mouth as he giggled.

@Freya Trickett

Freya was filling every possible role tonight. She was the key holder, social butterfly, toast-maker and now she was playing babysitter. By this part of the night, the blonde had already had a couple of drinks, so she wasn't entirely sure why her father had asked her to be in charge of getting some of the kids to their parents but hey, she was only following orders. "Váli!" she called, rounding the corner out onto the main deck. The blonde dodged a drunk uncle and skipped around a few more laughing relatives to head out to the second deck, where things were a bit quieter. Honestly, sometimes Freya thought this boy needed a bell around his neck so they could track him down. He was like a puppy on steroids...

Freya made her way across one of the bridges but by now there wasn't anyone around. The blonde was about to turn back when she heard a weird sound... "Eija?" she said, frowning as she tried to make out the shape of the person in the distance. A small person. Blonde. "Janne?" she said, getting a little closer. "Oh shit." The words slipped out before she could stop them, but swearing in front of younger cousins was low on her list of worries at the moment. "What did you eat?" Freya said seriously. She remembered being one of many Gryffindor underclassmen who the older Weasley twins tested their ridiculous concoctions on. She remembered this one in particular. "Uhh..." the girl scrounged her pockets for her wand, but found nothing. "Janne do you have your wand on you?" she said seriously, locking eyes with her baby cousin.

The weight in her mouth was continuing to grow, her tongue pushing out as it swelled and lengthened like something from one of Janne's worst nightmares. The fleshy, bumpy, pink thing that was insistently pushing its way out was hardly recognizable as her tongue anymore, and if it wasn't for the horrid pressured and tingling sensations that were coming from it, she wouldn't have believed it was part of her body at all. Janne hardly knew what to do, her eyes turning frantically as she tried not to move in case she worsened whatever curse had been on the deceptive sweet she had tasted. She had hoped for something interesting and unusual, but if she had known this would be the effect, she surely wouldn't have done it.

When she saw Freya approaching, Janne could do little more than whimper and fidget uncomfortably under the weight of her magically-magnified muscle. The moment that she thought she was saved dissipated into a further panic when Freya asked for her wand. She shook her head wildly, thinking of the wand that was still wrapped neatly in its paper back at home. Her mother had specifically told her not to take it out without permission, for fear of what she and Jari might get up to, and bringing it with to the party had hardly been a thought when she had the magical rune and her textbook to use. Janne pointed at the cousin who was now hiding completely behind the limb, clearly not wanting to be of any help in the situation. "Mehbeh yeh should ashk him," she managed to get out, trying to hold some of her tongue with her hands so as to make moving her jaw a bit easier.

Freya followed her cousin's gaze, not really understanding a word from the weird my-tongue-is-too-big sounds she was making. She spotted a head of blonde hair, and when the person who the hair belonged to spotted her, they ran. "BRANDON TRICKETT YOU GET BACK HERE!" Freya took off after him, her usually happy-go-lucky features twisted into something much more stormy. A heavy frown graced her pretty face. Oh no. Nuh-uh. There was no getting away from her, with her longer legs and quidditch training. Did he realise how much running she'd done in the past year? Obviously not, because he was still trying to outpace her.

Freya caught him in a matter of seconds. "Wand," she demanded, glaring at the puffed pre-teen with her open palm outstretched. When he'd given it to her, Freya turned around and stomped quickly back to Janne, a picture of both grumpiness and practicality. "You're gonna be fine," she said, swapping her grouchy demeanour out for what she hoped was a much more soothing one as she swooped down to her knees beside the other blonde. "Here we go..." Freya moved the wand in small, circular motions and uttered incantations under her breath. Sure enough, it wasn't long before her cousin's tongue began to recede into her mouth and return to its normal size. Freya didn't really like watching, it made her feel a little weird. "I'm going to kill him," she said sympathetically, internally sighing a sigh of relief that it had worked.

Even in her panic, Janne had to admire Freya's boldness. Her older cousin was so sweet and smart and on top of everything else, athletic and valorous. When Freya had returned with the wand, Janne tried to hold still, not wanting to mess up whatever complicated spell it was that Freya was doing. The sensation was odd, rather like there was an enormous balloon deflating in her mouth. As she felt pound after pound of pressure lift from the fleshy mess of a tongue she was still trying to carry in her hands, the weight of the situation seemed to bear down on her. Freya's comment made her giggle, but she also felt a few tears burning at the corner of her eyes.

She pushed her glasses out of the way with the back of her hand, wiping away the tears that were threatening to spill over her cheeks. It was just a joke, right? Janne looked over at Brandon, who was peeking out again from behind his post, obviously hoping to get his wand back. He didn't look sorry at all, but he also didn't seem to be laughing anymore. Maybe it was just the tongue-thing he had been laughing at, and not her. Janne picked up the wrapper that the taffy had come from and handed it over to Freya wordlessly, not really sure if she could explain how it had all happened. "I thought it was from the treasure," she said quietly after a minute, blushing even more as she realized her cheeks had turned red in embarrassment. Freya was so clever, she never would have made such a stupid mistake.

"Thanks for helping me," she added, glancing up to make eye contact for a moment before letting her gaze fall back to the floor and letting out a quiet sniff. At least her cousin didn't seem to think it had been funny.

Freya watched with relief and satisfaction as her cousin's tongue slowly returned to normal. "The treasure?" Freya repeated blankly. The blonde pocketed Brandon's wand without much thought. She didn't check if he was cowering in the corner or not, but the grumpier side of her hoped that he was.

"Come on, it's time for the fireworks," Freya said, shooting one glare over her shoulder with all of the intensity and I'm-watching-you that she could muster. The blonde led her little cousin back inside at a jog, not wanting to miss a thing. Lots of families brought all kinds of fireworks for these kinds of things - there were Tricketts in the firework-making business, she was sure of it. The best ones, in Freya's opinion, were the ones that were let off indoors. Indoor fireworks really were something amazing. Once the pair made their way back to the great hall, Freya's honey-brown eyes searched for someone with small indoor fireworks. Valda might have some, she thought. Or Sigmundr.

Scouting the hall quickly, Freya found what she was looking for. "Excellent," she said, grabbing Janne's hand and leading her over there. Freya took one of the smaller fireworks with some glee and handed one to her cousin. "Point this bit at the ceiling, do you remember these from Christmas last year? Just pull that bit..." Freya pointed at a dangly ribbon hanging from one side of it. Pulling the string somehow started a spark and the firework would go off. Freya took her own one and pointed it skyward, tugging on the string with concentration. From the pointy end, a sparky gold rabbit burst out. It fizzled and crackled as it hopped up in to the air, hopping a few more times in space before fizzling out. Many people in the hall looked up to watch it go. "Your turn," she said, turning to her cousin. Soon everyone would be letting the things off, better get in quick.

The little artefacts were still scattered around Janne, though some of them had been a bit crushed by her tongue debacle. "Jari and I found this out in the forest," she told her cousin, cheering up a bit at the memory. "It's a century old! And we have to decide what things to put in the box so that someone else can find our things in one hundred years!" The magic of it was fascinating to Janne. She loved history and the idea that someone could find things of hers down the line and understand what her life was like was amazing.

Janne followed Freya back into the huge tree house, glad that Freya was including her. She didn't need to be friends with people like Brandon when there were plenty of other other wonderful Trickett cousins and grandmothers and uncles and brothers to keep her company. Janne pulled on the string that Freya had indicated and the firework burst up and away. The girl let out a shriek of delight and excitement as a bouquet of flowers made of light and sparks exploded over their heads and littered the wooden floor with sparkling petals. "Do they have these at Hogwarts?" She asked excitedly, pulling another firework from the basket that Freya had shown her. Janne knew bits and pieces about the school, but she never seemed to exhaust all her questions about the place.