» Take Me Away, open

[Pruedence Browne]

June 1, 1882

Prue licked her lips nervously, looking down the tracks. This was the first time she had sneaked off by herself since being kidnapped, and she was determined not to get caught. She had found out since being rescued that the scary little man was a goblin, and she was determined to run off to some place where there weren't any goblins. She thought London might be a good place to start, or ... or something. There had to be some way to get there, and get away from goblins forever.

As such, Prue had a little basket filled with her favorite toys and sweets, and she was completely ready to start off and go find herself a new life ... somewhere far away from scary goblins.

[Bethan Baines]

Bethan hoped that she would be able to see Dylan during the summer. She loved her older brother, despite their huge age difference. She secretly wished she was a few years older, so she could at least be at Hogwarts with him.

Today, Beth decided to go to the train station. For no particular reason, really. She just liked trains. She didn't really remember if she had ever travelled in a train. Maybe she was just too little when that happened, so she didn't remember.

The girl merrily walked around with a grin on her face, looking for a new adventure. Maybe she could return to the town and actually search for one of her friends. Titus, maybe. They could rescue another bird from that horrible prison of beautiful animals.

Then, she spotted a girl, who didn't seem to be older than her. Bethan happily walked to the girl and smiled. " Hello! I am Bethan Baines! Do you want to be my friend?"

[Priya Sparrow]

Though one would imagine a child to be scared and shaken by the absence of their parents, Priya was, if possible, happier than ever at the fact of her mother and father's Hogsmeade Trail draft. A genuinely kindhearted and loving child with a warm disposition, it was rare that she allowed anything to truly get her down-however living with her parents was often difficult to bear. She wasn't at all sure which was worse-her mother's obsession with rendering Priya a proper and perfect lady, or her father's utter indifference.

In any case, both of those dilemmas were gone now-at least, for the time being-and the neighbor with whom she had been entrusted during their journey was not at all attentive; this meant that sneaking away on adventures was easier than ever before. The freedom of doing anything she wished without her mother breathing down her neck, correcting her posture and her speech and her handwriting and-well, everything, it seemed-was a dream come true for Priya.

And so, she had wasted no time in rising to greet the sunshine, eating her breakfast swiftly-albeit, rather impolitely-and scrambling out the first floor window. Giddy with the wonderful release of her escape-and proud of herself, for all that it had been so easy to achieve-she vaulted over the little backyard fence and padded down the street. Victory, as it happened, tasted of lollipops bought with pocket change at Honeyduke's; it was, needless to say, delicious.

Priya allowed her feet to take her where they would, and before long she had come upon Hogsmeade Station. The very sight of it brought forth a rush of Hogwarts related daydreams, and she could not stifle her growing excitement as she hurried down the stairs, swung around a corner, and drew closer to the tracks. She was just leaning over the edge, peering ahead with a hand over her eyes as though expecting the scarlet train to zoom toward her, when she spotted two children nearby.

"Hello!" she said warmly, waving a hand.

[Pruedence Browne]

Prue eyed the two girls suspiciously. They both seemed to be right around her age, but she didn't need friends right now. She was ruining away!

"I'm Prue," she offered somewhat reluctantly. "I'm running away." As far as she was concerned, that was that. As soon as she could figure out how to get on a train for London, she'd be gone and far away from goblins.

[Bethan Baines]

Another girl approached them and Bethan smiled happily. She loved being around people, especially when these people were around her age.

The first girl offered her name, which was apparently Prue. Then, before Beth could say something, she declared to them that she was running away,

Bethan's eyebrows frowned and she turned to the second girl. Why was Prue running away? Did she have a horrible fate like that parrot she and Titus rescued from that horrible shop? If so, Bethan wanted to help her! " Why are you running away?" she asked with curiousity.

[Priya Sparrow]

Priya eyed the girl before her, dark eyes round and awestruck; though she had run off to gallivant countless times, the thought of running away permanently had never so much as occurred to her; perhaps it was that she would miss her brother-and even, in some way or another, her parents too-but more likely she feared that running away would utterly ruin her chances of going to Hogwarts.

Squinting at the girl now-Prue, she had said her name was, right?-Priya wondered what horrible thing might have happened to her to convince her to run off.

"How come?" she echoed Bethan unthinkingly, lips parting in surprise. Perhaps her momma and daddy had done something awful to her! Or maybe she was simply going on an adventure-though she seemed too frightened for that, more as though she was running away from something than to something.

[Pruedence Browne]

"Because," Prue said in a low, frightened voice, "there are goblins here!" They were such horrible, scary little men, and they took children to get silver, and Prue didn't want to be anywhere near goblins, not ever again.

Shifting nervously from foot to foot, Prue continued in a loud whisper, "So I'm going to run away, and find someplace to live where there are no goblins ever."

[Bethan Baines]

Beth had never seen a goblin. Her mother once told her that they were evil and they ate children, but she always said stuff like that when Bethan didn't want to sleep or eat her vegetable soup.

" I am sorry to tell you, but goblins probably live everywhere." Bethan said, feeling mean for saying such words. Why did she scared that girl more? " If you go somewhere away from your family there may still be goblins. At least your parents are here to protect you."

[Priya Sparrow]

At Bethan's words, the little girl nodded sagely; her words made sense, after all, though it was hardly her parents to whom Priya looked when she felt herself to be in danger-rather, her governess, Brigitta, and older brother Dakota. In any case, she imagined that had she ever encountered any awful, scary goblins, she would run to one of them, seeking solace in their calm, unshakable reason, and in their arms; certainly a frightening situation would only be doubly as difficult to overcome on one's own, without one's loved ones to flee to for comfort.

Thinking of the terrible nights during which Priya had woken in a cold sweat, terrified of bashees or night ghasts, and Brigitta had soothed her with stern, no-nonsense words and a mug of warm milk sweetened with honey, the child added curiously, "I've never seen a goblin before; but perhaps the one you've met that's frightened you so was cranky because-well, perhaps he'd had a bad day!"

Priya was predisposed to grant any and all the benefit of her trust and optimism, and tried always to look on the brighter side-even when it seemed virtually nonexistent.

[Pruedence Browne]

A slight frown pulled at Prue's lips at Bethan's observation that there were probably goblins everywhere. She certainly hoped that wasn't the case, but she couldn't really say it wasn't. After all, she didn't really know anything about goblins in general.

She did, though, know something about the specific goblin who had taken her. "Nuh-uh!" she told the dark-skinned girl who still hadn't introduced herself. "He was really mean! He locked us up in his stinky little house and only gave us icky soup and wouldn't let us go until he got silver." Not that Prue knew why he'd want sliver -- it was pretty, but it wasn't near as good as candy ... although you could get a lot of sweets and toys with it. Or maybe he'd wanted a house that was less stinky.

[Bethan Baines]

Bethan frowned when Prue described the goblin she had met. So the goblin forced Prue and someone else to live with him? That meant that he had stolen her! Just like the mean shop-keeper did to Senior Fernando.

" Maybe you should go to the aurors and tell them about him so they can send him in Azgaban." Bethan suggested with a serious voice. Her mother always told her that aurors helped people so probably going to them was the best sollution.

[Priya Sparrow]

Priya was both shocked and puzzled by this piece of information, and her lips pulled wide in an 'O' of indignant disbelief. "They took you away?" she echoed, not at all pleased to hear that the stories of trolls and goblins that her governess had always told her-stories to which Priya had listened with wide eyes, trying to dismiss them as nonsense but privately believing every word-were really true.

At this second atrocity, Priya wrinkled her nose; she hated soup.

The mere mention of Azkaban was frightening; though she knew full well that it was there for her benefit, and those of the other citizens-to keep people who meant her harm from doing something awful-but the thought of anyone, even a hardened criminal, having their soul sucked dry, made Priya soften with immediate sympathy. Nobody deserved that-did they?

"Where will you go?" she asked finally, glancing up worriedly. If Bethan was right-if they really were everywhere-where could Prue hide?-or, for that matter, where could they all hide?

[Pruedence Browne]

"I can't go to the Aurors!" Prue exclaimed. "If I do, he'll come take me away again, or hurt my mommy, or something. He said I can't tell anyone or he'll come back." Well, that wasn't exactly what he had said, but it was close enough that she believed every word.

She bit her lip, turning her attention to the dark girl. "I was thinking that I could go to London. They kicked all the witches and wizards out of London, so there shouldn't be any goblins, right?"

[Bethan Baines]

Poor Prue!

Bethan started to understand why her mother always told her to stay away from the dangerous parts of the Slums. She didn't want her to be caught by a goblin like Prue.

" There are still quite a few wizards left, though." Bethan commented. Most of them pretended that they were muggles, but there were still some of them. " Besides, muggles probably don't know that goblin exists, so there is no way they could kick them out of there!"

[Priya Sparrow]

How awful-not to mention really scary!

Still, Priya wasn't entirely certain that running away to London would solve the problem. True, goblins loathed wizardkind from what she had heard of them, and likely if London was in fact empty of any magical people, it stood to reason that Prue would be safe from them there-but practicality borne of constant studies led her to believe that there was ]no way any little girl could make it on her own in the middle of nowhere.

"Probably there won't be lots of goblins in London." she agreed sincerely, "But how are you gonna live? There's all sorts of scary people in a big, non-magic city like that, and you won't have a Momma or Daddy to find you food! Plus-how will you get to Hogwarts?"

In Priya's opinion, this last was the most crucial point of all.