Faery, 9

Juniper inhaled. Even though he shouldn’t have.

“Oh, shut up,” Juniper mutters, taking another drag. “I’m a grown-up faery, I can smoke mind-altering substances if I want.”

I know, I know. I’m just not sure the hallucinogenic that’s laced with is a great call.

“Whatever. It’s not like I’m doing anything important.”

Indeed, Juniper was not doing anything particularly important. He’d been sort of bumming around the woods since his court appearance, just kind of lost.

“What am I supposed to do? The queen and Daffodil have the centaur stuff under control. I’d just be in the way.”

I think that you could be a pretty strong asset.

“They’ll be fine without me.”

Witch, 76

“You don’t have to be scared.”

“I think I do.”

“I expected you to say you weren’t.”

“But I am.”

“I can tell. You don’t have to be.”

“But I am.”

“Why?”

“Someone tried to kill you last time we were here.”

James smiled, taking Ron’s hand as they watched the centaurs prepare the table. Josephine was already sitting at the head. “He didn’t try to kill me. He only thought about threatening me briefly and then he changed his mind.”

Faery, 6

Juniper watched. And watched, and watched, and watched, and there was really just nothing to see, so it all sucked. Centaurs were boring as shit. All they did was horse around and not in the fun way.

In the racist way?

“It’s not racist if it’s true,” Juniper says, glaring down at the centaurs in a very racist way. “Stop calling me a racist. I have it hard enough.”

Stop being a racist, then?

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. That’s not how I meant it either. I meant horse around like dicking around, but with less dicking. The use of the word horse was ill-thought out and I’m sorry.”

Witch, 57

“Was that a bat?”

“Probably.”

“It seemed louder than a bat.”

“Have you ever heard a bat before?”

“I don’t know? Probably not.”

“Then how would you know what a bat sounds like?”

“I feel like I’d just know. Isn’t that the sort of thing that you just know?”

Witch, 19

“What’s on this side of the river?”

“The forest.”

“Yes, but what else?” Ron asked. “You made a point of saying we were going to walk on this side of the river today, and it made me realize we’ve never done that before. What’s over here?”

James smiled at him. “Nothing much. Sometimes I find herbs over here that aren’t on my side, but usually it’s pretty much the same.”