tea for two (closed RP for Wolfram and Waltorana von Bielefeld)

[waltorana.livejournal.com]

Waltorana von Bielefeld had no trouble at all adjusting to the presence of house-elves. He simply wished they were not so hideous. He preferred the Bielefeld staff look their best always, all the Bielefeld staff, from guards to valets to plumbers. This might explain why the soldiers who sometimes escorted Wolfram between the Bielefeld castle and Blood Pledge Castle were practically a bishounen brigade.

Waltorana liked to surround himself with beauty.

Aside from the ugly little house-elf servants, Hogwarts did not displease Waltorana. It had a feudal ambience that suited him. He deemed it classic.

He had ordered house-elves to place bouquets of flowers all around the Hufflepuff common room -- the part of the common room that still looked like a common room and hadn't been repurposed into a "foodlibraries" under the aegis of former Puff prefect Toki Wartooth, that was. The concentration of bouquets was largest around the sitting area where Waltorana had ensconced himself for the afternoon. He had ordered a tea tray to be prepared, using the maryoku-fortified china he had brought from Shin Makoku (fortified in order to prevent breakage; this was not merely a measure against travel damage, but had been done long ago during Wolfram's childhood to protect most of the dishes). Plates of animal crackers and frosted cookies awaited Wolfram, along with some tea sandwiches of the sort Waltorana preferred (watercress). There were napkins embroidered with the Bielefeld crest.

As he awaited his nephew patiently among the flowers, Waltorana enjoyed a copy of Hogwarts: A History and some music. The music was played by a device of Anissina's invention, something like a portable phonograph, but with weird tubes running along the sides, and with the music embedded in crystals rather than wax or vinyl discs.

Currently he was listening to Shin Makoku's equivalent of Yanni.

Comments

[wolfram-jyari.livejournal.com]

Wolfram had left Yuuri in their rooms to meet his uncle in the Hufflepuff dorms. He shared his uncle's distaste of the house-elves, although he would not confess such a thing due to his older brother's warning. And, while he was not aware of this, his distaste towards the house-elves had its source in aesthetics as well, though it was exasperated by Wolfram's unhealthy sense of paranoia.

"Hello Uncle!" He called as he came into the common room. He frowned. "Did you order that musician you so like to travel alongside you?" He frowned slightly. "Uncle, did you shrink him or turn him invisible to make him more portable?"

Yuuri taught him that treating servants that way was wrong!

[waltorana.livejournal.com]

"I considered doing that, but Lady von Khrennikov had devised a thing that would be better. Besides, shrinking people and turning them invisible would not be a natural use of my maryoku."

Waltorana's maryoku, like that of his nephew, tended toward slash-and-burn applications.

"It is playing the sound of my musician. I cannot say how," he waved an arm in airy dismissal of matters scientific. "When it runs out of power I will have to hook it up to a stationary bicycle for recharging. How are you, my dear nephew? Has the Maou been treating you as befits your station?!"

[wolfram-jyari.livejournal.com]

Wolfram blinked at his uncle. "You are using one of Anissina's devices? Willingly?" His uncle truly was a courageous man, and the blond felt himself swell with pride - with a slight twinge of worry. He wouldn't put it beyond Anissina to have shrunk his uncle's favorite singer and keep him in a box, but he did not wish to trouble his uncle with childish fancies.

He sat across from his relative, elegantly mimicking his posture, though normally the blond stood even in casual settings. His mention of hooking it to a stationary bicycle made him nervous. While Gunter or Gwendal were normally Anissina's victims, he was concerned that his uncle might try to power the device himself. His older brother had much more experience, Wolfram decided, looking undignified.

"I am well," Wolfram answered smoothly. As he was still smarting from Yuuri attending a party without him by his side, he did not answer the latter question. "I am learning alongside Yuuri and we hardly ever travel overseas to befriend despots and have adventures while at Hogwarts." He did not like befriending despots, but he truly hated sea-travel. "And have you found a room respectful to your stature?"

[waltorana.livejournal.com]

Waltorana sniffed. "No rooms here are befitting to a lord of Shin Makoku. I would not house a sand bear here. The yellow and black decorations offend my eyes. How have you survived so long among these wretches, dear nephew? The Maou is truly strong, if he can resist the ugliness of Hogwarts Castle."

He poured some tea for Wolfram as he spoke. "You must drink of this fortifying brew. Bearbee nectar and proper forest flowers have been added to it." By proper flowers, he meant flowers not grown by your mother the wannabe gardener. "I am pleased by the house of Hufflepuff, which struggles bravely to uphold true greatness under such ugly conditions. Some people told me that most Hufflepuffs have not even seen a real badger!"

[wolfram-jyari.livejournal.com]

Someone had dared to insult the House of Hufflepuff! Normally this would have resulted in a tantrum stern chastisement, but considering the speaker, Wolfram could only twitch his eyebrows in outrage and speak sternly: "Black and yellow are among the colours of the bearbee, and thus symbolize love in all its forms. Furthermore, would you rather live in a House with unsubtle red and gold? Clashing blue and bronze? Gyllenhaalian green and silver!?" Hmph! The blond turned his head and crossed his arms. He disliked that lord far more than he suspected his uncle did, but the idea of wearing another family's colours turned his stomach no matter which family it was.

"The architects were only human, after all. They couldn't even design a castle which stays still. I imagine that the building has more sense than its makers, and is thus realigning itself to a more aesthetic model. But a building has no eyes and no judgment of aesthetics, so it is taking a very long time." He pouted a bit longer over wounded Hufflepuff pride, but settled down when Waltorana payed his house a compliment.

"Never seen a badger? We should invite one as a guest. I imagine the creature stays away due to the number of humans in the halls. Hogwarts has hardly any dragons anymore," Wolfram said with a frown. He lifted his tea and gave it a tentative sip.

[waltorana.livejournal.com]

"Yellow and black are harmonious colors for a bearbee to wear. They are not colors for interior decorating," Waltorana decreed. Wolfram's impassioned defense of the Hufflepuff colors did not offend Waltorana, nor did he feel that his nephew hmphing at him was a mark of disrespect. He had always been tolerant of Wolfram's outbursts -- perhaps too tolerant, some might say, for the boy's own good.

(Lord von Gyllenhaal might have been among those who thought so. But we will not go there, for that bit of backstory is slightly brain-breaky and confusing. The fact there is a lord of Shin Makoku named von Gyllenhaal is weird enough in itself.)

"Colors do not make a House, dear nephew. If we wore the colors of the Gyllenhaal or Khrennikov houses, our name would still be von Bielefeld! Never fear, your loyalty to the Bielefeld lands cannot be compromised by your drapery and neckties. We are von Bielefelds in our hearts! Why have you not tried any of the biscuits yet?! They are your favorite!"

[wolfram-jyari.livejournal.com]

Just looking at his artwork would show that Wolfram's tastes (and perceptions) of colours are shared by few. "We are displaying our spirit and pride in our House. If the Gryffindors or Ravenclaws were to show their colours, but not Hufflepuffs, people would think that we don't know how superior our House is to theirs. They would not know to be jealous!"

He took a biscuit and gave it a chomp, but only to emphasize his point!

[waltorana.livejournal.com]

One might be surprised that a man so haughty and regal as Waltorana von Bielefeld would allow his young nephew to speak to him in such a bold and contrary fashion.

One would then need to be reminded that Wolfram must have gotten this way somehow. If Waltorana had not been insanely indulgent in his childrearing philosophy, perhaps Wolfram would have turned out less petulant, less loud, less ready to let his temper have free rein.

Less like Waltorana, perhaps?

"Hufflepuffs should have pride," he said with fond tolerance, and daintily nibbled at a biscuit himself. "They should especially take pride in their noble emblem, the badger."

[wolfram-jyari.livejournal.com]

"Exactly," Wolfram agreed. "Badgers would also be far better behaved than any of the other mascots. I imagine that lions and snakes bite more often. Or in the case of the Ravenclaw's animal, peck." Wolfram frowned at the mention of Ravenclaw; he was glad that Meg stopped stalking him when he demanded, but still found her troubling.

"I believe the reason we don't have Mascot Days is because once the Gryffindor mascot ate the Ravenclaw's, and the Slytherin's went missing in the piping." Wolfram believed this, but this was not true.

[waltorana.livejournal.com]

Waltorana had mostly forgotten about Meg. That incident did not recall itself to him. Instead he said: "It's true that lions are very greedy! The school should be more strict with its mascots. It would be best if a badger were kept in a place of honor, so that every student could learn its grandeur. Instead, I will have to organize an expedition to the forest, to find and view a badger! You cannot do that with a flighty bird, or a secretive snake, or a lion who must live in a hot climate because he is not manly enough to survive the cold! Only the noble badger may be readily found, for he will stand bravely forward."

[wolfram-jyari.livejournal.com]

It would be at this point in the conversation that Yuuri would have been likely to come forward and defend the other mascots, though he might have still encouraged the expedition for the sake of securing friendship between Hogwarts and the animals of the forest. The Maou was rather like Snow White in this manner, though he was not quite so freaking intense about hygiene.

Wolfram was encouraged with the belief that Yuuri would approve of the mission, if not the overarching goal (glorifying the Hufflepuff house... Yuuri would have insisted that they look for all the mascots, and next Yuuri'd be climbing trees), and eagerly said, "It will be a courageous expedition! We must go shopping for bold expedition hats!"