Aurelia's thrashed bum and preparations to visit the Sterlings

Ms. Sterling grimaces as the Nurse salves the red stripes on her buttocks.

Miss Wormwood sniffs, her head full of snakes all flickering their tongues. "The Housemaster was present, too, I can tell."

"Yes," Aurelia says. "Hawk gave me an energetic thrashing with the cane, which was dreadful enough, then Whiplash took over, and after two hard strokes, I couldn't hold my wee and he couldn't contain himself. Not often that he gets to see an instructress chastised."

"One would think an instructor might be more exciting for him?" the Nurse says, dabbing away the traces of the Minerval Housemaster's seed. She takes a second moist flannel and sponges over Aurelia's womanly lips, then between. You catch a hint of urine as the Nurse withdraws the flannel.

"Whiplash is not particular when it comes to bums," Aurelia says. "Any thrashing excites him, whether there are balls under his favorite hole, or lips. Or both or neither."

"I am not particular myself," Miss Wormwood says. Her snakes wriggle and stretch, and several bare their fangs. "But I am well acquainted. Professionally. Although I do look forward to the taste of some bums more than others."

The Nurse would know. She administers immunizations via snakebite upon the bare buttocks of every first-year scholar.

Aurelia laughs. "Miss Wormwood, tch, tch, playing favorites?" she pretends to scold. "Glad Whiplash didn't last long. Ah, that feels better, that's starting to work."

"Attend, Mr. Mothwing-Marshall," the Nurse says. "It shall be your duty to see to Ms. Sterling's comfort in this way, as in all. See how I am spreading it? Cleanse your hands and we shall work together."

As Miss Wormwood works one side, and you work the other, spreading the Nurse's salve over the Enchantments Mistress's buttocks, Ms. Sterling sighs, her shoulders relaxing.

"So much better," Aurelia says as four hands smooth the salve into her bottom. "Hawk had the rod coated with stinging oil. My bum has been burning for hours."

"You'll have a few days to recover," Miss Wormwood says, her snakes dipping their heads in a bow. "You should be fit to travel before then. Mr. Mothwing-Marshall, I leave the Mistress in your care."

At the end of the evening, as you smooth in another coat of the Nurse's salve upon Aurelia's buttocks, you see the stripes are fading, the welts are smoothing out, and the cuts are knitting. She lies prone upon a set of carefully arranged soft cushions, as she has been since your visit to Miss Wormwood.

"Ah, thank you, Eric," she says. "Did you have a good study session earlier?"

"Catching up on review with Nadia," you say. "Things we struggled with on the term examinations. What's coming up after term break. Beavertail was rather quiet. A lot of scholars already gone. I didn't know you could arrange that."

"Depends on your family," Ms. Sterling says. "My auntie would pull me out of Boarbristle on a whim, but my family had pull and I was my instructors' darling, always working ahead. Or their pest, perhaps, for the same reason. So the instructors didn't mind having me gallivanting off now and again."

"What, ah, House were you in?" you ask.

"Came in Minerval," she says. "Changed to Draconis between second and third year. Once I made it clear that I wasn't going to start a clique or take any grief, I was everybody's friend. Mostly." She sighed. "Both houses made a lot of fun of the Boarbristle Babies. Especially in Beavertail."

"Is that Boarbristle Bastards?" you say.

"Well, yes, that's the word they used," Aurelia says. "And now look at me. How the mighty have fallen. Perhaps like Housemistress Beeblossom, I should make a virtue of it."

"My Housemistress?" you say.

"Yes," Aurelia says. "She's birthed two and a set of twins since I've been at Boarbristle. Doesn't seem to slow her down at all. Used herself as a demonstration for divinations and blessings."

"But she's not married? Partnered?" you say. "Who's the father?"

"Fathers. First two, each fathered by a wizard who visited for a term," Aurelia says. "Rumor is that at least one of those was a love potion mishap. As to the twins, she came back in the autumn after an exchange term with them ready to pop. Though she hasn't carried any for a few years, since she took over as Beavertail's Housemistress."

You raise your eyebrows. Your Housemistress certainly presents herself as motherly, but you thought that Beavertail's scholars were where she directed her motherliness.

"Anyway, Eric," Aurelia says. "My family -- whimsical auntie and all -- will be waiting to greet us. Any other time, I'd hop on a broom, but Auntie has sent a gondola for us. You said you're interested in enchanted creatures, so you may enjoy our little menagerie. Auntie's, properly, but my brother Argent has become as much their keeper as Auntie. He's a homebody -- well, he is now -- and she flits about. There'll be time enough on the gondola for me to let you know who is who and what is what. That's enough on my bum. Now, would you come round the side and raise your robe?"

Ms. Sterling's thanks is a slow, knowing oral caress with lips and tongue. Especially tongue. She keeps you on the edge for minute after minute until you're whimpering and begging for release.

"Ms. Sterling, Ms. Sterling, Aurelia, please, please!"

When she touches a finger to the arch of your warding ring, your member discharges, hot and electric, into her throat. She gently caresses your balls as your seed spurts out in little spasms.

You're dizzy, your head swimming with pleasure and sleepiness.

"Very good, Eric," she says. "Very good. You had better lie down beside me."

And that is the end of your evening.

Over the next few days, you busy yourself with end-of-term tasks and packing for your visit to Aurelia's family. Miss Hemstitch is the most forthcoming with advice. They're old and rich and eccentric, and Aurelia was going to take on some big important position, but against every expectation, a rival candidate had been installed, and Aurelia had come to be Enchantments Mistress at Boarbristle.

"A big fish in a small pond," Miss Hemstitch says. "Have care, Mr. Mothwing-Marshall. And if you should be at need of assistance, open this locket all the way..." She demonstrates that the halves swing all the way round to meet each other again. The inside surfaces are mirrors. "...look through the mirror on one side, and point the other side at the sky. I shall know."

"Am I in danger?" you ask, frowning.

Miss Hemstitch takes a deep breath. "Ms. Sterling does not mean you ill," she says. "But your circumstances are highly irregular, and you are in my duty of care, Eric. Remember that." She closes the locket and hands it to you.

Nadia sees you carrying your travel sack. She gives you a crooked smile and wishes you good luck. "I'm staying over," she says. "Miss Hemstitch will keep me busy, either chores at Boarbristle or she'll lend me out to the Nurse." She laughs when she sees the look on your face. "Miss Wormwood isn't such a terror. Anyone would think she'd put a fright into you. I thought she liked you."

"She does," you say. "That doesn't mean she doesn't frighten me."

"Try not to shred everyone's clothes at Castle Sterling, or wherever she takes you," Nadia says.

"Well, I've got the, ah, warding ring?" you say. "That ought to do it." And Miss Hemstitch's locket, if it should come to difficulties.

"Ta ta, daddy!" Nadia says. She looks at you more seriously. "Don't let the Sterlings eat you up. Old families are mostly attitude. Humor them and you'll be fine."

Roll +CUNNING(+3) (+2 Cunning: Aurelia in House Minerval, +2 FRIEND, -1 HANGER-ON) to ENCOUNTER Aurelia during the gondola ride to her family. On the ride, Aurelia will tell you about her Auntie, her brother, and whoever else you might likely meet and how to greet them. On a 10+, you may take +1 Forward to meet the Sterling family. On a MISS, she gives you some misleading advice, take -1 Forward. If there's a gondolier, that may figure in in what you learn.

Roll +DILIGENCE(+1)* (+2 Diligence: not in a House, -1 awkward circumstances: you made Aurelia pregnant. Apply any +1 or -1 from above) to meet Aurelia's family (ENCOUNTER). On a 10+, they welcome you warmly and show you around. On a Miss, they don't think much of you, and things get off on the wrong foot. GET OUT OF TROUBLE with them, take a CONSEQUENCE, or DEAL WITH YOUR HANGER-ON.

Ms. Sterling is your FRIEND and may assist you to develop your special talents, and still your HANGER-ON, from your responsibilities to care from you during of PATERNITY.

You have 1 XP, Ambition -1, Bravery +1, Cunning +2, Diligence +2.

Miss Wormwood the nurse owes you a FAVOR.