Theodora, Theo to most, Teddy to her friends, and Dolly to her on-again off-again boyfriend Marcus- was running late for work.
"Crap, crap, crap." She muttered as she quickly grabbed her eggshell white blouse, and pulled her black slacks on whilst a brush- enchanted, that is to say- tried to detangle her red hair as she ran into the bathroom and scrubbed at her teeth quickly before washing her face.
"Late, again," she murmured as she grabbed her jacket that was hanging off the corner of her bed and tried to slide it on as her eyes flew frantically around the room to see if there's anything going on around her.
Like maybe a good excuse as to why she was late?
As she slid her shoes on over her socks, careful not to slam too hard on the heel of the shoes, she heard a noise just outside the window. She ran towards the window – though mind you, the brush had a trouble keeping up with her as she did so – and unlocked said window.
An owl flew into her bedroom with a letter addressed to her as she began to pull her hair back out of her eyes, "No, not now Millie." Theo fluttered a hand at the owl as she skittered around her kitchen, looking for her wand. "I have an interview today," she continued to the nocturnal bird, "and I just know that that letter is bad news and it will probably slow me down- and that's the last thing that I need right now." The owl hooted and placed the letter in the dish that already held her bills, junk mail and other assortments of letters and postcards that she pretended didn't exist until the last moment.
If you can't already tell, Theo was a very last minute person.
Finally finding her wand, which had rolled under the dining room table, she quickly de-enchanted the hairbrush before finally apparating herself into her office at the Daily Prophet - only running a few minutes behind. "James!" Theo cringed at the sound of her superior, "You were supposed to be here ten minutes ago."
"I know Alexis but I overslept and-"
"Don't want to hear it." Alexis Mane said, holding up a hand in a violent 'shush' gesture. "Now, we've got you an interview with someone from a place in America," She waved her hand in a 'I-don't-really-care-where-they're-actually-from' signal, "since the vampire's came 'out of the coffin'- as they so humorously put it- a few months back, people have been going ga-ga for their bars." She looked at Theo in that moment with her pastel blue eyes, "I want you to get a look around, talk to a few vamps, some of those… fang-bangers and get me a story. If you do this well, it'll be our cover story and that can be a major boost in your career, can't it James?"
Theo nodded, she had been trusted with something epic in the department, though, honestly, she didn't know why she out of all the writers and journalists had been chosen to do the story- maybe she wasn't expected to return? Ha-ha-harde-ha, she thought sarcastically.
"You'll leave tomorrow, you'll be taking a port key and we expect you to return," She shuffled through a few papers as she spoke, "in a weeks time exactly." Alexis continued as she flickered a stray strand of caramel hair behind her ear.
"Why so long in… where am I going?"
"Shreveport- and you'll be there for so long because we want a good story, and vamps only come out at night, don't they?" Theo nodded. "Good, now did you finish that story for me for tomorrows issue?"
Theo shuffled through her own papers on her tiny desk before finally pulling out her edited (and re-edited) story, and handed it to her superior, whom then took it without a glance to the actual papers and placed it in a paper folder.
"Excellent, now finish what ever you're supposed to be doing and then go back home and get ready for tomorrow. You'll come to work at around seven tomorrow and you'll get the port key which will leave at seven thirty, no later." Theodora nodded before she watched the woman leave her office with the sway in her hips that showed she was in a good mood.
Letting out a sigh she sat down in her chair, Theo relaxed and lent back in the leather seating. "Hey," a timid voice said as the blonde head of Sandra Browning popped in the doorway, "heard the news from next door, sounds exciting."
"Oh Sandy, the last thing I want to do, is to meet vampires, let alone one that owns a bar- or whatever- honestly," the frustrated writer ran her fingers through her red waves before continuing, "you know, soon enough Muggles will find out about us and all the other things and then we'll have another witch hunt on our hands!"
"Yeah, exciting isn't it?" Sandy walked into the cramped office that could barely fit in two people with a desk and grinned at her stressed friend and co-worker.
"How is it exciting?" Theo sat up properly and looked at her friend closely, "they're vampires."
"Well, I'm not all for vamps, but were's and shifters are pretty cool." Theo stared at her insane friend, "hey, don't look at me like that, we're not much better then some of them you realise, they're still a lot stronger then most of us and you know- lots of our magic doesn't work on them, so they're kind of safer to be with then Muggles."
"No," Theo said as she sat up straighter, "they're not."
"Well aren't you miss "honestly-I'm-not-prejudice-at-all."
"I'm not prejudice, I'm fine with any sexuality, religious beliefs or colour-"
"As long as it's not supernatural-" Sandy rolled her eyes as she spoke, "we aren't exactly human ourselves Teddy." Theo glared and swerved her chair to face her desk as she pretended to shuffle through her papers. She heard Sandy sigh and leave the room, closing the door behind her as she did.
Breathing out harshly, Theo thought over what her friend said, she had a right to be prejudice against them- didn't she? After all, vampires were 'blood-sucking-freaks' and Shifters and Were's were 'freaks-of-nature' witches and wizards were magical and mystical, the other's were just… accidents. Mother earth did not want them to exist as she had for the humans, the witches and wizards of the world.
She stood in front of her bed, wondering if sleep was a good idea. Her bag was packed, though she refused to wear any of those 'costumes' that muggles normally wear to the bar, she was professional, not some tourist or fang-banger trying to be a 'rebel'. She had double-checked that she had everything and all ready had an idea of what she wanted as a story. Her idea did not put the vampire's in good lighting, but if Mane wanted a story that was for vampire sympathy, she hired the wrong girl for the job.
Theo's fingers tapped on the bedpost. The sub-conscious act was a habit she had started in the middle of school and had never tried to actually stop, besides out of all the other bad habits she had, this one was the least of her worries. "Hoot," Millie said from the tiny kitchen/dining room/lounge room.
Theodora currently lived in a tiny three-roomed apartment. The main room was an open kitchen separated by a bench and a sudden change from flooring to carpet that led to the lounge room that held a small- understocked bookcase, a couch and a desk covered in books, paper, parchment and currently spilt ink that she would clean up after she attended current business.
Current business being the letter that Mille was indicating to.
The slim fingers of Theo reached into the handmade by a friend blue ceramic dish and pulled out the letter that Millie was bobbing her head at. "Yes, yes, I've got it," she said as she slid a clear-polished nail under the letters fold and ripped it open, before she pulled out the parchment and flicked it open with a sharp movement of her wrist.
"Dear Miss James, we are sorry to regret… blah, blah, blah, you're book 'Tattling Tales' will not be accepted- aw, for Merlin's sake." She threw the letter into the dish and groaned. She had spent ages literally, ages on that book and no publishing house would accept it. And she'd tried a lot.
Placing her head in her hands as she lent onto the table, and dramatically began to grumble incoherent vulgar language towards the publishing houses. After a few minutes of fumed anger, she lifted her head up and petted her owl.
"It's just not fair, I don't know what I'm doing wrong!" She made a noise of frustration before she relaxed her body and stood up again. "Screw dinner, I'm going to bed, I can't take this crap any longer." And with that, Theodora James stalked back to her bedroom, stripped off before putting her sleepwear on and crawled into the comfort of her bed.