[Forest] Dark and Spooky

[Thom Moen]

Thom looked over his shoulder at the distressed Slytherin darting about, desperate to remove the mooncalf dung from his hand. Thom quite liked him - he reminded Thom of how he used to be at his age. 'That stuff'll go for a fair price in the Hogshead, mate,' he called to Zack, laughing a little. 'You should -' His hand set upon something hard.

Gently Thom began to brush the leaves from the ground, and only when a small silvery glowing emitted from under the debris did he stop and stare, his lips parted slightly and his fingers twitching. 'Unicorn horn!' Thom whispered excitedly to himself. He had found a unicorn horn in the forest last year, but events had lead to it being crushed to dust. Now he had another one!

Squatting down, Thom realised it was wedge in the ground. Holding it with both hands, he pulled with all his might...

It came loose - sending Thom flying about three feet backwards, a plum of dead leaves jumping into the air around him. 'It's a beast!' Thom said appraisingly to the glowing horn, uncaring that he had landed dangerously close to the mooncalf dung. 'Oh, hello, precious, how are you...?' He held it to his chest, talking as if he'd just given birth to it.

[Helia Ollivander]

"Careful, Thom..." she said slowly, "You just tried to rip off a live unicorns horn, if I were you, I'd start slowly backing away," which was just about the very opposite of what she was doing... very... slowly... inching... forward... and then she sat down, a few feet away from the beautiful white creature, and began silently rifling through her book bag... "Never mind what I said, Thom..." she said, stil speaking in a deathly silent whisper. "Take this," she pulled her hand out of the bag, bringing with it a glowing gold apple. She carefully rolled it towards Thom, still sitting cross-legged and barely moving, barely breathing even, as she watched.

[Zachary Daniels]

"I hope there aren't anymore," Zachary said with an upturned nose. "More mooncalves mean more dung, and I certainly- Hey, what are you doing?" Zach moved toward Thom, but found the boy was too concentrated to listen to him. Making a face, he watched him pull and pull, before mentioning the Hogshead.

His eyes brightened, before he leaned forward curiously. "The Hogshead?" He knew many Slytherins traded there, buying items that one could not usually purchase at something like Flourish and Blotts. He had always wanted to try... He turned back to look at the dung, before shuddering. He didn't want to try that badly, he decided, before watching Helia who was speaking to Thom deliberately.

"Ha- hang on. A real live Unicorn?" He moved back, shuffling his feet across the snapping twigs. "They have horns you know. Sharp ones..." He looked at each of them, hoping to get a reassuring glance in return.

[Helia Ollivander]

She smiled back at the Slytherin, "Don't worry. Dear uncle Olly gave me that in case something like this happened. It's enchanted, as long as Thom feeds that to our dear Unicorn visitor we'll all be fine. Besides, unicorns are generally peacable animals. It shouldn't attack us unless something goes sincerely off hilt," why she was being nice to the slytherin instead of egging him on to create some panic attack she wasn't sure. Perhaps it was her responsibility of Head Girl kicking, perhaps it was that the moon calf dung made him so nervous that she didn't think alarming him and making him think unicorn charge him would be very nice... Either way.

[Zachary Daniels]

Zachary glared at her, though looked more relieved, nonetheless. Then his eyes flickered to Moen, before scowling at the Unicorn. "But, they.. They don't like boys, do they?" He said, a bit spitefully. "Bloody discriminative creatures, they are!"

He looked back at Ollivander.[/color]

[Helia Ollivander]

"It's true, they prefer a woman's touch... but look," she pointed to the fact that the back half of the unicorn was silver. "It's still fairly young and trusting. Besides, he's not going to touch it. Not yet at least..." she then turned back to Thom, "Now pick up the apple and hold it out at arms length, okay?" she asked, though she wasn't sure how much of it he heard. He seemed to be in some osrt of... trance. "Thom?" she asked curiously.

[roz]

Erin had been in the forest sketching some wood pixies when she heard four distinguishing voices. One she recongnized was that inbred hufflepuff Thom. She shrugged. "Why the hell not." she said to herself quietly. "I need some fun." She softly krept out from behind the trees and stood behind a random person. She soon realized it was Zachary. She smiled. "Watcha guys doing?" she asked loudly.

[Thom Moen]

(( Well, I'm quite impressed that a unicorn could hide in ten inches of leaves, and I'm pretty sure I said Thom had pulled the horn up into his hands already, but if you say so... Is it the "It's a beast!" bit that made you think...? It's just a postive British term used for saying something is very big. x) ))

Thom went pale as he realised the horn he held in his hand was just a little too heavy from experience. He had dropped his wand into the thick leaves as he had dug into the filthy deadness, and now only a small ray of light emitted from where it was burried. It shone straight up, but two watery dark eyes reflected it before him. 'Oh my...' he said when, with a tone of calm amusement, Helia cleverly pointed out Thom had tried to amputate a real unicorn's horn.

He turned to look at her and to request a little asistance, when something rolled straight at him and hit him in the face. He wrinkled his nose, feeling it ache. 'Helia!' he snapped. 'This is no time to be picking on m - ooooh...' Thom's eyes went shinny as he looked upon the golden apple. That's pretty, he thought dreamily to himself...

He snapped back to reality when Zack unhelpfully reminded him that unicorns were not fond of males - and being rather untrustworthy, Thom guess he would be no exception - and quickly picked up the apple, holding it out at arms length as Helia instructed.

'Please don't bite me please don't bite me please don't bite me...' Thom chanted quickly over and over again.

[Helia Ollivander]

(Yeah, that's pretty much what threw me, lol. Och, remind me not to have so much caffiene before I start rp'ing with Britts, makes everything hazy and confusing )

She smiled, watching as the animal stepped slowly closer, sniffing the apple, then grabbing it with its teeth and trotting a few steps backwards. Helia smiled broadly when the creature had finished its treat and walked back towards Thom and standing, patiently staring eye-to-eye with him. She stood up finally, "Alright Thom, you have a golden oppurtunity here. You can ask this Unicorn any one thing, within reason..." she emphasinzed, "And it will do it." She then said in a very non challant voice, "If I were you, and ask it to show you the unicrons shedding grounds. Whenever a young unicorn is growing a new horn, they go there to get rid of their old one. It's also where older unicorns... um, bite the dust." Ahh, listening to her uncle's 'When I went to school' stories was finally paying off.

[Thom Moen]

Thom looked at Helia indignantly. 'What do you mean, within reason? What kind of person do you think I am?!' he said hotly. Looking at the unicorn, he was relieved to see it was watching at him peacefully, almost expectantly. 'Er - you heard Helia. Take us to the shedding ground... please.' he said it sourly, hating that he was having to be polite to a bloody horse.

Thom realised his wand was still in the leaves, and strode past the glowing creature to retrieve it.

[Helia Ollivander]

She snickered, "It's not a Hippogriff, all it understands is commands, not courtesy." She began following the Unicorn off to wherever it was walking. It was amazing how well animals knew the forest, not a single tree, bush, or bramble got in the way that she noticed now that they were following the horse like creature.

[Zachary Daniels]

Zachary jumped, startled when Erin wandered up behind him, before sighing in relief. "Oh, it's you- I thought maybe..." Remembering the older students, he recomposed himself. "I mean... If it wouldn't matter if it were anything more terrifying, I can definitely handle myself." As if to prove his point, he followed Helia as the Unicorn led them to the shedding grounds.

"Are there going to be any older unicorns there? The less trusting ones who'll want to eat me because I'm male?" He piped up, pulling out his own wand and flashing the obnoxious light in the Unicorn's eyes, before turning to Moen, his eyes darkening.

"About that Hogshead..." He said in a hushed voice, looking around briefly. "Will they agree to trade with me, even though I'm a minor?"

[Helia Ollivander]

She tried to be understanding, these students didn't know as much about about wand material animals, but she still found it funny that they didn't know some of the things she considered common sense, 'And the curse of being an Ollivander strikes again!' she thoguht with a mental chuckle before answering in an entirely unbiased tone of voice, "Since we're following a Unicorn that's eaten an enchanted apple out of a human's hand the other Unicorns are bound to leave us alone until we leave the forest. Then it's like a cosmic 'reset' button is switched and we're all fair game once again." She hoped that would set the boys mind at ease, when she noticed him bothering the unicorns eyes with his lumos spell. She smirked, "I still wouldn't push my luck though. The only person the creatures really have to be nice to is Thom. Your still on rocky ground, mon frond, and forest creatures tend to be like the mafia. You irritate one of them, they all come after you; and even though I'm Head Girl, I doubt I'd slow down to save you from a herd of stampeding unicorns," she shrugged innocently.

[Zachary Daniels]

Zachary looked at the Unicorn seriously, before shining the light elsewhere, grudgingly. "All right, fine." He said finally, his voice sulky. "I still don't like the idea of following some beast who wouldn't hesitate to trample me if the situation were different, though" he muttered, stalking forward and studying the unicorn curiously.

"Hey, I hear unicorn hair is really prized in potion-making," He said thoughtfully. He reached out a hand, getting ready to pluck one of the golden hairs off the silky mane.[/color]

[Helia Ollivander]

She reached forward and slapped the Slytherins hand, "What part of 'Shedding Ground' don't you understand?" She shook her head, "If you'd be patient, we'll get to a clearing, or valley, or wherever this herds shedding ground is and there will be plenty of hairs and horns and hoofs, even, without your mortality rate going up, understand? Plenty of lovely things you can go off and gamble your own life away with without risking anyone else's necks over, hm?"