A Deep Breath

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

That was most definitely a change of subject and Dare's brows drew together at the absurdity of it. "What?" he chuckled. "You're messing with me, right?" He might have heard the word Gloucestershire at some point, but he'd never heard anything about rolling cheese down a hill. It had to be a Muggle thing.

[Willow Wenlock]

"No, I'm dead serious. For hundreds of years they've been rolling cheese down the hills once a year. Someone sits at the top of this hill and sends a wheel of cheese rolling. The contestants roll, slide, or tumble down the hill trying to catch the cheese." She chuckled as she remembered going one year with her father to see it. "Whoever wins takes home a wheel of handmade cheese." It was crazy, off the wall, and genuinely British.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

"Like, one that's been rolling down a hill?" Dare asked skeptically. His eyes laughed at the entire thing, trying to imagine a bunch of tight-laced Brits bouncing down a hill to catch a cheese wheel. "And Americans are the weird ones?" he teased.

[Willow Wenlock]

It was true in a lot of ways, that Britain had a rap for being strict and proper, dot i's and cross t's. "It's because you're loud." She pointed to Dare's hair, "not just vocally. And secretly, I think we're jealous. The height of English styles was cod pieces and maybe empire waists." Not entirely true, England had it's own style, but it's styles tended to a bit more demure than America's.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

"Jealous, right," Dare said. He tossed his head, sending his multicolor hair flipping back from his face a moment. "You all wish you had the guts to dye your hair like this." Mentally, he was laughing. He didn't for a moment think that the British in general were jealous of anyone. The ones he'd met thought he was more than a little off-balance, though Michael, for one, liked him that way. For the most part. Willow didn't seem to identify with her country as strongly as some did, probably because she'd spent so long out of it. "The U.S. is a colorful place, rainbow hair all over the place. They just edit it out of the pictures so we don't scare the rest of the world off."

[Willow Wenlock]

That got a laugh out of Willow, her eyes dancing, sparkling at the idea of eternal rainbows. "Well it's a good thing so many of you are starting to transfer here, that way we get a chance to experience the rainbows too." Her fingers brushed some of silvery hair behind an ear, after years of having people stare at her hair she wasn't going to point out to anyone that theirs didn't fit in. "I think if I had the chance I'd like to visit America." If given the chance she'd like to visit the world she thought, get to know every culture, their secrets and practices.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

"It's worth seeing," Dare said. "At least, the parts I've seen." He had no interest in the Midwest, but he might have wanted to visit New York at one point. "Where have you been? Here and France?" He'd thought more about traveling since he'd been with Michael than he'd probably thought about it in the rest of his life. He couldn't say he'd never been anywhere before he moved to Britain, but he hadn't left California.

[Willow Wenlock]

"Pretty much." Willow thought about some of the other places she had been, but they were more vacation than truly a learning experience. "I've visited other places. Spain, more of Scotland than just the school, but I really want to go to Egypt. Rome." She leaned her head back against the tree, "can I get a ticket to fly anywhere I want in the world? I'd use it and never look back." She didn't have roots tying her here, she was the last of her line, and when she married one day, her name would disappear with her, not that Wenlock's were high society any longer.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

Dare tilted his head. Ticket to fly? It took him a moment to pull his mind away from brooms to figure out what she meant. "Like, in a Muggle air-plain? Have you ever been in one?" He knew what they were, and he'd seen enough of them in movies, but he didn't know if he'd ever think to travel in one. The point of flying was the wind in your face, and air-plains were like a room you sat in. Apparently they moved too fast for the air to be safe if you opened a door, but they took way longer than Portkeys.

[Willow Wenlock]

Willow shook her head, "no, but they seem more climactic than a port-key. A port-key you touch it and you've made it to your destination, a broom and you see your destination as you arrive, a airaplaine, and well I've heard that you don't see it. You wait for hours and anticipate, and then when the doors open," she shrugged, "I guess that makes me a bit daft, but traveling seems like a good way to...explore who I am, who we as humans are. To put the past behind and find a new place to be for a while." She could recognize the need to be on the move, to not let reality settle in that she had, knew she would eventually have to deal with it.

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

"I'm all for traveling," Dare said, "but I've seen too many movies to ever go on an air-plain. They always like, lose cabin pressure and the door flies off and... you probably don't want to hear that," he said, catching himself. He had a very solid idea of what flying was like, and it usually went horribly, horribly wrong. He'd rather ride a broom and risk an assload of splinters or Floo and inhale the Floo Powder than die in some Muggle box because they were all screaming in the aisles and there was no room to apparate out.

[Willow Wenlock]

Movies were something that they talked about in Muggle studies once, but she hadn't ever seen one. Her eyes glittered, "see, you've had a chance to see movies. Do you know that sometimes they play movies on an airaplaine? I suppose though that a movie isn't a good reason to risk dying in an airaplaine." She narrowed her eyes on a thought, "wait can you help me with a bet for muggle studies?"

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

One of Dare's brows arched with interest at the suggestion. "What kind of bet?" he asked. He didn't see why not, but who knew? He'd seen some pretty crazy bets. In fact, he might have been part of one or two at some point, before he'd moved and settled down. Come to think of it, outside nearly being killed a few times, he'd become pretty damned boring. "You know what? I'm in, just tell me what you need."

[Willow Wenlock]

Willow let her legs stretch out in front of her and she touched her toes to stretch out the kinks, her back rounding for a moment, before she turned towards Dare conspiratorially. "So, I made a bet with your brother. Stakes are, I win, he writes me a poem, he wins, he gets a first edition Bridget Wenlock chocolate frog card. The bet is that who gets the better grade in Muggle Studies." She pulled a face, "I feel like he has an upper hand, so I don't mind getting help." She smiled, "knowing it's your brother, will you still help me?"

[Dare Blackwood-Hardt]

Dare's lips spread into a knowing grin, and he couldn't help the chuckle that followed. She wanted him to help her up her grade in Muggle Studies so Silver would write her a poem? That wasn't like any of the things that had been running through his head. "It's a sucker's bet," he told her, still grinning. "He's better than me in about everything that counts, and I'll bet you he's got a couple of pages of poems already waiting. You're seriously risking a first edition card on that?"