Art was excited.  It was hard to tell when he was excited, because of his normally doofy smile, his excited doofy smile was hard to distinguish (except to those who knew him quite well).  Celene, his little grand-niece, was coming to stay for the summer and he wanted desperately to show her a good time.  She was interested in the care of magical creatures (unlike the rest of her branch of the family) and he wanted to fan that flame.

He was waiting anxiously on the dock (wishing there was a better way to get her onto South Uist) and saw her ferry come past rocky coast.  As they pulled up he could hardly contain himself.  When Celene walked out of the sitting area he started waving his hands (probably too frantically) to get her attention and shouted,

"Hey!  Celene!  It me, yer Uncle Arty!  Hello!  Celene! Hi!  Heya!"

Though a non-native would have called the boat ride rough, these grey waters between the isles were home to Celene. As the ship rocked and rolled, she gripped the handle of her suitcase a little harder. This was not her first time meeting her great uncle, in fact, the two went way back. The Oglesbee clan had a long history of hosting family reunions here at their ancestral home in the hebrides, and while her parents no longer lived here, they often attended family functions. In fact, one of the most notable encounters she had had with her uncle was when she lost to his over-grown beard in a family longest hair competition. (It should be noted that this made quite the impression on an easily embarrassed 10 year old Celene, and is the reason she keeps her hair short to this day.) But this was bound to be an all-together different encounter.

This would be the first time that she would be visiting her Uncle without the company of her parents. Not only were there not going to be any adults around to protect her, but she had a strong suspicion that between the two of them, she was going to have to be the adult for both of them. She was about to be subjected to the full force of Arthfael Cunubelinus Oglesbee's personality (and his hygiene).

She shook the thoughts from her mind as the boat pulled into port. She had asked for this. She had approached her uncle of her own accord. If her goal was to come back to school all "cultured" and "interesting" , this was the way to do it. And she was killing two fwoopers with one stone. She'd arrive back for the start of term with a new story and new magical creature experience. The trouble she had gotten into with her cousin Niobe during previous summers was all fine and dandy, but do to the nature of Niobe's work, most of her friends had already read the story in the paper before she had to chance to tell it.

She picked up her case and began to disembark. Even before she had rounded the corner, she could already here her uncle's tell-tale roar. It was still a bit before the crowd cleared enough for her to lay eyes on her uncle, and when it happened, she almost immediately regretted it. His hair was a chaotic grey mass on the top of his head, and his robes were a color of brown that was unclear whether they had started out that color, or turned that color after literally decades of wear.

"Good morning, Uncle" she said cheerfully. "It's lovely to see you. I appreciate you coming to pick me up."

She scuffed the toe of her boot along the floor. She was all of a sudden very nervous.

"So...whats the plan?"

"Plan....yes, the plan"  Arty said fumbling around a bit for what to tell his niece.  He didn't want to be disappointing, so there is no plan was out of the question.  Thinking quickly, he hunched over and gave her a big bear hug, saying

"It's so guid tae see ye! How've ye been?  How're yer folks?"  He'd bought himself some precious seconds to come up with something.

Releasing her from the hug, she looked a bit red-faced and he "listened" to Celene's reply, catching him up on her family's comings and goings.  Perfect he thought, now what could he busy them with for the next few weeks?  I don't have to come up with the whole plan, he thought, just something fun to get us started.  Maybe he could take her to see the Herbridean Black that was nearly mature at Loch Druidbaeg.  But a dragon might not be a good place to start with such a young one.  Banshees?  No, don't want to scare her off immediately.  Perhaps a giant squid? No, no.  AH HA!  Let's start small.

His eyes focused in to see a confused Celene, who had likely finished talking well before he began to pay attention again.

"Right, right, guid!" he said, trying not to let on about his brilliant ruse or his utter lack of preplanning.  Snatching up her luggage for her he started off and said

"Well come on, we've got tae get some guid warm food in ye first.  Have ye learned about gnomes yet?  I thought we might start there.  What year are ye again?"

Celene was rather taken aback by her uncle's lack of response to her question, as well as by the inescapable tidal wave of a hug that followed. Once recovered, however, Celene obediently answered her Uncle's question. Before she could completely answer, however, she noticed her uncle's gaze slide upwards and substantially to the left. After making absolute certain that he was, in fact, looking at absolutely nothing, she returned to looking at her Uncle, resigned to wait until he was paying attention to her again.

When he did eventually notice her again he looked rather sheepish, and Celene considered reprimanding him, but thought the better of it. It would probably just lead to her repeating that story about her parents again.

Upon her Uncle's suggestion of food, her stomach growled. She was rather hungry. So as they began to step away from the boat, she threw her head back and whistled for Cricket. The cat trotted up from whatever mischief he had been getting into, and Celene scooped him up in her arms as she answered her Uncle's questions.

"I've just finished my fourth year at Hogwarts." She answered. When he asked the question about the gnomes, her heart sank a little."Yes, I've learned about gnomes already, Uncle. They teach gnomes and other garden pests to third years "she said, disappointed.  If this trip was going be spent ridding her Uncle's garden of a gnome infestation, she might as well go home now.

"There's always a chance he has something else for me to do" she thought. "It would be a shame not to ask him."

 "I don't mean to be demanding" she started cautiously, "but I was hoping I could get some experience with something a little more exotic then gnomes?"

She watched closely the panic that swept across her uncle's face as he gave her yet another one of his non-answers. After the initial rush of guilt that came over her for putting her Uncle out, it dawned on Celene that there probably was not, nor had there ever been, an actual plan. Which meant that she could probably pretty easily steer her Uncle away from this gnome idea he was currently going on about.

Her Uncle was still mumbling about nothing when she asked cheerily "What about the Loch by your house?" We've just learned about all sorts of water beasts. There has to be something interesting in that Loch of yours?"

"Fourth year, ya o' course ye know gnomes, just a...quiz. "

Well that idea had bombed quite spectacularly.  Time to improvise a bit more...

"We'll just get along tae the house.  I've got all kind of different things we could throw together for dinner, did ye have anythin' in mind?  Did you tell me how yer parents were doing?  And how are ye? "

Exotic...that wouldn't be a problem.  Keeping his book-worm of niece from getting swallowed in one bite by a Hebridean Black, however, might prove to be more of an issue.

"There are many different kinds of exotic magical creatures out in these parts bonnie doo.  We have pretty much everything, even some less common creatures, owed tae our relative seclusion.  Have ye been around the islands much?  Or did ye and yer parents mostly just come for family functions?  I do love those family reunions and all, but they leave a lot of the fun of living out here to be experienced.  So I was thinking maybe some nice hearty onion stew and some crusty bread, how's thae strike ye?"

The loch.  Of course there was plenty to do there.  He wouldn't even need a plan until they arrived.  He could just see what the staff was up to!

"Ya, the loch!  We'll head there straight away in the morning.  Come hop in!"  Art gestured to his niece as he climbed into a rusty and beaten down brown vehicle and opened the passenger door for her.  It too looked like it may have started out a color other than brown and may have actually been an agile off-road transport before it's years of obvious abuse and disrepair.

A soft mist was falling as Celene and Art stepped out of Art's sorry excuse for a car. Celene had traded yesterday's olive hoodie dress and fashion boots for a no-nonsense gray wool sweater, baggy jeans, and wellington boots. There was no way that she was going to get her nice clothes get ruined doing whatever it was that her uncle had planned for them at the Loch today. 


He had been pretty unclear on it the night before. They'd arrived home to her uncle's house the following evening and unloaded Celene's things before tucking in to some delicious onion stew that her Uncle had made. Many wouldn't know it by looking at him, but Art Oglesbee was actually a very good cook. Once they'd eaten, they'd stayed up way too late drinking scotch and arguing very loudly about the finer points of bowtruckle rearing. (It should be noted that it was highly inappropriate for Art to allow Celene to drink any alcohol, especially scotch, as Celene was only 14 years old and well under the legal drinking age.) She'd gone to bed that night hoarse and happy, and woken up less so. She now had a headache, she was exhausted, and still had no idea what her uncle was up to.

Celene wrapped her arms around her. The breeze blowing in off the loch was light, but it was also chilly. It may be summer, but this was the isles, and the warmest months of the year were still to come.  She turned to her uncle, wiping her damp bangs out of her face. "So what are we doing today, Uncle Arty?"