alchemical blurb

[mswoods]

The following day, Sadde has Transfiguration in the morning.

She is all over it at lunch.

"Okay, so, Transfig is just about the coolest thing," she says first thing to the Ravenclaws as soon as she sits at the table.

Comments

[alicornucopia]

"Turvy is not being sure how to answer, sir."

[mrwoods]

"Can you try anyway? Even an uncertain answer with lots of qualifiers is better than my utter and complete confusion. You don't need to, though, if you don't want, or if it's too difficult."

[alicornucopia]

Turvy bites her lip thoughtfully, then says, "The most important thing for an elf is being a good elf, Mr. Sadde, and that means chores."

[mrwoods]

Okay, that's something. "How do you know that being a good elf means chores?"

[alicornucopia]

"That is how elves are, sir."

[mrwoods]

"Right, I know, but like. Is this something your parents told you? Something wizards told you? Something you've observed around and learnt? Or something you just feel inside or know instinctively? Or maybe something completely different?"

[alicornucopia]

"All of those things," Turvy concludes after a moment's thought.

[mrwoods]

He thinks about it some. "Do you think you could describe the instinctive feeling a bit more? I understand the other parts, but this one is more novel to me."

[alicornucopia]

"Turvy is not so good at describing feelings like that, sir, Turvy is sorry."

[mrwoods]

He nods. "It's okay, I already got a lot of information from that, you were very helpful! My other questions are mostly cultural and I should probably go grab breakfast before class starts, but one last question: do you know another elf who would be better at describing feelings like that, and if so, do you think they'd be willing to talk to me about them? It's totally okay to say no."

[alicornucopia]

"...Turvy is not knowing if Winky is being good at talking about feelings but Winky is certainly doing it very much," Turvy says. "Turvy can be asking her if Mr. Sadde likes."

[mrwoods]

He nods enthusiastically. "Yes, that'd be great, thank you, Turvy!"

One of the other Slytherin firsties walks into the dorm right about then and blinks. "Blimey, Woods, what are you doing talking to a House Elf?"

[alicornucopia]

Turvy stands up on Sadde's pillow, bows deeply to the other boy, and then vanishes with a loud CRACK.

[mrwoods]

Sadde was looking over his shoulder at the other boy and is quite startled by the crack. In fact, he even jumps a little, and blinks at the spot where Turvy disappeared from.

"Er..." He blinks a couple of times before turning to the other boy. "I was asking her questions. About House Elves, in general, you know."

[peterxy]

"Why?"

[mrwoods]

"Because I'd never met one and was curious!"

[peterxy]

The boy scoffs. "Never met one? What are you, a muggle?"

This is not the same boy that had been talking to Sadde on the first day.

[mrwoods]

"Muggleborn!" he says, grinning, and then he laughs at the shocked look on the other boy's face. Sadde claps him on the shoulder once as he's leaving and goes to the Great Hall.

[chanuphis]

His Ravenclaw friends are at breakfast. "Did you get an elf?" Miranda wonders.

[mrwoods]

"I did! She was very helpful! I think there's a good chance a significant part of their makeup was either designed or strongly influenced by humans."

[pleating]

"Why do you think so?"

[mrwoods]

"Well, she seemed to act as if there was some sort of... strong instinctive component to their preference for doing chores. What she said is still consistent with purely social or cultural drives, I guess, but if that were the only thing I'd expect there'd be Elves who just don't want to do the same thing in spite of upbringing and society and stuff. Well, I guess it's also possible that they just have a generally submissive mental makeup that humans co-opted for their own uses, but that just passes the bucket to why they have this generally submissive mental makeup in the first place."

[chanuphis]

"I mean, you aren't wrong," says Miranda, "but I notice you aren't wondering why mustard sings."

[mrwoods]

He blinks and thinks about it for a few seconds. "Well, prodding my brain, it seems like I just assumed singing mustard must be mostly artificial, because muggles have had a lot of success creating artificial plants and not so much artificial sapient beings. I mean, the only instance I knew of of sapient beings was humans, and humans just evolved, so that's my starting point for other sapient beings, whereas it would surprise me not one bit if wizardkind made singing mustards. Actually, I'd be quite surprised if I found out we hadn't."

[chanuphis]

"Do you also think wizards made merfolk and giants and centaurs and hags and goblins...?"