Anastasia Thurston & Amanda James

[kabriel lilly]

YOUR LIST:
- unicorn hair
- poison ivy
- aconite
- knotgrass
- lacewing flies

[Amanda James]

Amanda left heft her tent quietly. She didn't want to wake any of her sleeping tent mates. Today was the scavenger hunt, and Amanda was determined to win. She was carrying a small backpack on her shoulder. It had things in it that she might need to get the objects on her list. She was holding her list in her right had. According to the list, her partner was going to be Anastasia Thurston. She didn't know Anastasia. The girl was probably still asleep like everyone else. Amanda would come back to the tents later and see if she was up yet. But as of now she needed to start looking for the items on her list.

She needed to find unicorn hair, poison ivy, aconite, knotgrass, lacewing flies. She didn't know where she could find any of these, so she decided to just hike around and see what she could find. After five minutes of looking, she felt an itch on her right ankle. It was probably just a mosquito bite. She looked at her ankle, but didn't see a bump like most mosquito bites. It was just a bit of red. It must be poison ivy! Amanda looked at her list. Sure enough, poison ivy was on the list. She just needed to find it.

Since it was on her leg, she knew that at some point, she had passed it. So she turned around and went back to the campsite where she would pass poison ivy and where she had itch cream in her tent. After four minutes of observing the plants she passed, Amanda saw the poison ivy. She reached into her bag and pulled out some tweezers. She pulled the plant from the ground and dropped it in the plastic bag. She crossed poison ivy off her list and went back to camp. Hopefully Anastasia had waken up already.

words: 314

[anastasia thurston]

Anastasia had never been one for early mornings and, despite the distinct difference in comfort that she was used to, today was no exception. Wincing at the thought of getting up, she grumbled to herself as she sat up in the camping bed – running her hand through her curly brown locks of hair as she glanced around the tent. The four other girls in her tent were still sleeping soundly. ‘First one awake? Sounds about right…’ Ana pondered, pushing back the blankets that had kept her warm through the night before stepping out onto the canvas floor of the tent. Grabbing a pair of jeans and a peach cami top from her holdall, the brunette quickly swapped her pyjamas for a set of day clothes behind a screen in the room – tiptoeing across and back in order not to wake any of the other girls in her tent. Adding a few finishing touches to her outfit, Anastasia made her way to the table between her bed and Kabriel’s – picking up her wedding ring from the wooden surface and sliding it back on her finger. She stopped for a moment, her eyes fixed to the band on her left ring finger and a smile appearing on her face. Regardless of the fact Ana had only been away from him for a few days, it was already starting to feel long enough. She glanced across at the entrance of the tent behind her and, with one swoop of her hand, grabbed the backpack from the top of her bed and headed outside.

Stepping out from the tent, the brunette glanced up at the sky to try and work out what time it was. Going on the placement of the sun, it had to be little over an hour after sunrise – probably around half seven. Ana rolled her eyes causally. Not one for early mornings and ends up being the first one up before eight? Typical. She slid the one of the straps of the backpack up her arm and onto her shoulder, making it easier to carry. Anastasia had packed the bag full of bits and pieces that would come in handy for collecting the items that were listed on the sheet handed out to each student the night before. The sheet also stated her partner for the scavenger hunt: Amanda James. Ana didn’t recognise the name of her partner – she had been shut away for the past two or three months with wedding planning and then the actual wedding. Luckily, a quick chat with Kabriel gave Anastasia at least an idea of who to look out for. She still didn’t understand how Kabes managed to be friends with almost everyone in the castle but sometimes it did come in handy.

Unsure of where to exactly find Amanda, Ana made her way to the centre of the camp – near to where the bonfire was held on the first night – and sat down on one of the logs that surrounded the fire pit. With no-one else around yet, the brunette felt that this was probably the best place to wait as it gave her a good view of the neighbouring tents and the woodland in which the hike was taking place. Fiddling with the end of her scarf, Anastasia looked up to see a figure emerging from in between the trees; a figure that matched Kabriel’s brief, but helpful, description. Excited to get going on the scavenger hunt, Ana jumped up from the log and, with a steady pace, walked in the direction of the figure. “Hey!” Anastasia said with a smile, raising her left hand up and waving at the girl, “Sorry in advance if I’m mistaken, but are you Amanda James by any chance? I’m paired with her for the scavenger hunt and I’m not entirely sure who she is...” Ana stood in front of the girl with a smile still on her face, hoping for the response that would avoid Ana having to give an awkward apology and then shuffle away.

[Amanda James]

Amanda watched as an older girl walked up to her. “Hey!” the girl had said smiling at her. Amanda thought she recognized her from Cossu. “Sorry in advance if I’m mistaken, but are you Amanda James by any chance? I’m paired with her for the scavenger hunt and I’m not entirely sure who she is...” the girl had said with a smile. Amanda smiled back. "Yes. You are Anastasia Thurston" Amanda said. This girl was clearly her partner. Amanda pulled the bag with the poison ivy out of her messenger bag and showed it to Anastasia. "I've already found the poison ivy. Perhaps we should look for the lacewing flies" Amanda suggested.

The two girls decided to go look for lacewing flies. Amanda had heard that they could be found within five minutes from the tents. so they went south to where Amanda thought some would be. She didn't know why, but she felt like they would be there. Sure enough, after they walked for about four minutes, Amanda heard a buzzing noise. It was just a little buzz. She looked ahead of her to see a small swarm of small green insects with large, transparent wings. These had to be lacewing flies.

"Anastasia, I think these are the flies" she said as she pointed to the swarm. She rummaged through her bag and finally found her jar. It had a liquid in it that could attract insects. Sure enough, two flies flew into the jar. Now they were 2/5 finished! They were so gonna win this.

[anastasia thurston]

She couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief when the girl answered with a smile and a simple ‘yes’ – Anastasia wasn’t one for the awkward situations but, with Amanda’s reply, it eliminated the chance of the awkwardness. “That’s me! It’s nice to meet you Amanda,” Ana replied with another smile and a nod. Since the hiking partners were chosen at random, the brunette could have ended up with anybody in the castle but the younger girl stood in front of her seemed nice enough. It was strange, to Ana’s ears, to hear someone say her new full name. The Thurston surname was definitely going to take some time to get used to. Anastasia watched as Amanda pulled a small bag from her satchel before holding it up to her. “Brilliant! One down, four to go,” Ana commented with a smile. Reaching into one of the pockets in her backpack, the brunette pulled out the piece of parchment which listed the five items and quickly scanned down the list, checking off poison ivy in her mind as she read down the list. “Good suggestion,” Anastasia agreed, nodding her head slightly, “That’ll probably be the next easiest!”

Anastasia followed Amanda as they began to walk away from the camp. She glanced back towards the tents once or twice, spotting a few students finally making their way out of the tents to find their partners. Staying a step or two behind the younger student, Ana kept walking past the trees – her eyes looking around in hope of spotting another of the items on the list. Amanda seemed very confident in where she was headed, giving the brunette hope that they wouldn’t end up getting lost in the vast woodland that boarded the camp. After about a five minute wander between the trees, both of the girls stopped after hearing a quiet buzzing noise around them. As Amanda pointed towards another tree, Ana spotted small insects hovering in the air. “I think so too…” she replied with a small smile as her partner dug out a jar from her bag and collected a few of the flies in front of them.

While her partner collected a few of the flies from the swarm, Anastasia continued to inspect the area around them – hoping something would jump out at her as one of the items on her list. She was most familiar with knotgrass, an ingredient she had seen around the potions and herbology rooms back up in the castle. She wandered slightly around the immediate area, making sure she could still see Amanda, keeping an eye on the ground for the familiar white flowers. Her eyes were drawn to a small bed of grass underneath one of the larger oak trees – small, delicate white flowers lay strewn between small green leaves which stuck up about three inches off the ground. Dropping down onto the grass, Ana pulled out a herbology book from her bag that she was browsing through the night before. She browsed through the pages before landing on the page entitled ‘Polygonum Aviculare’ – more widely known as Knotgrass. The picture on the page, in contrast to the plant Anastasia had found, was virtually a perfect match.

“Amanda!” she called, waving over to her partner, “Over here!” Anastasia smiled to herself as she broke off just less than two inches of the plant from the stem, dropping it into one of the bags she had packed in her backpack. “Three down, two left to go,” Ana confirmed to herself, standing back up after being knelt on the ground. She knew that the final two items on the list weren’t going to be easy finds, especially not this close to camp.

[Amanda James]

“Over here!” Amanda heard Anastasia say. She ran over to her and looked at the plant Anastasia was putting away. She smiled. Now they only had two left. But these last two weren't going to be as easy. Unicorn Hair and aconite. "We could go back to camp and dissect someone's wand" Amanda joked. They probably wouldn't be able to sneak into a tent and steal someone's wand, let alone take it apart and use the contents for their scavenger hunt. But it was at least funny to think about.

Amanda lay on the ground for a minute trying to think about how on earth they would come across unicorn hair and aconite. She decided to get up and look around. After walking for only a short amount of time, Amanda stumbled across a familiar plant. She had seen it in potions and herbology. She could hardly believe her eyes. Ut was avonite. She honestly couldn't believe that that all they had left was unicorn hair. "I found aconite!" She told Anastasia excitedly as she put the aconite in her bag.

OOC: Sorry for the shortness!

[anastasia thurston]

After finally finding one of the items on the list by herself, Anastasia finally felt that she was helping rather than just following Amanda through the woods. Finding things was not her strongest forte; Ana was more known for losing something right under her nose than being able to track down something she didn’t know the whereabouts of. Standing back up from the ground, she shared the same smile that graced her partner’s face. Anastasia couldn’t help but giggle at Amanda’s suggestion, knowing full well that her own wand that laid in her backpack carried a unicorn hair. “If I didn’t need my wand, I’d share,” the brunette commented, laughing slightly as she looked around the area that surrounded their current position. “Unfortunately, I think we’re going to have to find one of our own…”

As Amanda lay down on the ground, Anastasia found herself racking her brains – trying to remember anything about unicorns from her Care of Magical Creatures lessons. There had to be unicorn in the forest that surrounded the campsite otherwise it wouldn’t have been put on the list of items in the first place. All they had to do was track down a unicorn or at least its path in hopes that a hair had been deposited on the forest floor. Her trail of thought was broken as she heard her partner’s voice ring through the still woodland air – she had found the fourth item on the list. She wandered away from the oak tree where she had found the knotgrass towards where Amanda now found herself by a collection of aconite plants. “Good job, Amanda!” Anastasia congratulated with a smile and a thumbs up. The only thing that lay between the pair and the end of the scavenger hunt was a single piece of unicorn hair.

“Well, there has to be at least a unicorn living in this forest,” Ana commented as she wandered between the trees, trekking away from the camp and further into the woodland, “They wouldn’t have set it as an item if there wasn’t.” The trees grew denser the further they walked from the camp – the trees branching over and almost blocking out the sunlight from reaching the ground. How far would they need to adventure to even pick up a trace of a unicorn in the area? Anastasia stopped for a second, the snap of a branch just off of their path catching her attention. It could easily have been another pairing searching for their items – they were bound to meet up with somebody else at some point during the morning. Nevertheless, Anastasia felt the need to investigate and, avoiding anything that could make a noise, headed to her right where the noise had sounded from. ‘Please, please, please…’ she thought to herself as she peered around the tree trunk.

A small open clearing lay before them, but no unicorn. Anastasia sighed as she wandered into the clearing, only to stop once more. Hoof marks. Her face lit up as she glanced back at Amanda. “This way and keep an eye out,” Ana advised, following the hoof marks across the clearing and back into the trees before losing the trail. “Oh for-“ Before she could finish her sentence, something caught Anastasia’s eye on the ground by the tracks – a shining silver strand lay across the dry soil. “No… way…” she exclaimed, gently grasping the strand between her fingers before turning to Amanda. “This is it, we’ve done it!” Within her fingers sat a single strand of unicorn hair. The list was complete, five out of five.