Trying to make peace (tag Ness) on Aladren Commons

Heinrich Hexenmeister

January 30, 2020 7:33 PM

Trying to make peace (tag Ness) by Heinrich Hexenmeister

It was a few days after the introductory Dungeons and Dragons meeting. He had asked Gary to borrow the rule book - the Player's Handbook as the title declared it - so he could read up on what he was getting into before his English slowed down game play once they really got started. The first meeting had been all about characters, and he was still pretty set on a Good Lawful Dragonborn, but he hadn't completely settled on a class yet, and he wanted to read more about those, too, before he sat down with Gary sometime to really hammer out his character before the next session. The book had much longer explanations than the quick cheat-sheets Gary had handed out, and he had hoped one of those would inspire him with a motive and maybe even a personality for his character. They hadn't, and he was still mostly undecided, but he hadn't read through all of the spells and feats yet, which might yet give him a brilliant idea.

The role playing aspect was the one part of all of this that he was most doubtful of his ability to do correctly. Ness had gotten right into it, which had taken him aback more than a little, but Gary had seemed pleased by how the fourth year had been acting, and Heinrich didn't think he could match that very well. He wasn't sure he'd be a very interesting person in the group. He could roll a die and add a modifier, he could solve puzzles, or figure out combat tactics if he knew the rules, but he had trouble understanding and expressing his own feelings. Making up and acting on a fictional character's was not exactly in his comfort zone.

He wasn't sure how to fix that part, but he could at least get the technical parts of the game down, so that's what he was doing now, reading the chapters about how the game functioned mechanically. He'd chosen a chair in the common room, partly because he thought he should make himself mildly accessible to the younger Aladren students in case they needed a prefect, and partly because he was watching for Gary in case he wanted to assist Heinrich in actually building his character now that he'd had a few days to look over the classes chapter. He was also watching for Morgan in case she wanted to talk about her Healer, and how much she would or wouldn't mind if Heinrich did healing, too. He was mildly leaning Cleric, but he could easily be argued into going Paladin, too, or even Monk.

He was also kind of hoping to see Ness, because with Ness being an anti-social War Forged who was played strongly in character, D&D wasn't looking like it was going to be the best venue for getting to know Evelyn's other friend. Maybe some time spent talking about it out of character would be a good opening. It seemed an easier topic than Quidditch, which really didn't have a lot of intellectual stimulation, or Evelyn's Wretched Excuse for a Father, which he thought might be common ground but not really something to discuss in the middle of the Aladren common room.

It was Ness he saw first. He closed the book, marking his place with a finger, and holding it so the cover could be easily read. He waved at Ness with his other hand, making it an inviting gesture rather than just a greeting. "Ness," he called, so he wouldn't be completely missed him if Ness was too focused on something internal or ahead. (Heinrich had this failing himself, and he had noticed other Aladrens seemed prone to it at times as well, though he wasn't sure if it was one Ness shared as well. Best not to risk being overlooked now that he had this opportunity.)

1 Heinrich Hexenmeister Trying to make peace (tag Ness) 1414 1 5

Ness McLeod

February 01, 2020 3:41 AM

Try not stealing by Ness McLeod

Heinrich was doing homework for the game. That was not totally surprising, given that he was an Aladren but it did earn a grudging brownie point from Ness. On the surface of it, there wasn’t so much to object to about Heinrich…. He was an Aladren. He had never been overtly obnoxious to Ness. He had never been overtly anything. He was one of those people who Ness could have gone through school without really registering if it wasn’t for this whole Evelyn thing. If he hadn’t joined DnD. But both those things had happened. And now he was waving Ness over.

Evelyn did not have the most stirling history when it came to choosing People Who Weren’t Ness to hang around with. There was Malikhi, who thought that fart noises were the height of sophisticated humour and that Ness was some kind of killjoy for not sharing this opinion and/or for wanting to get good grades in class. Then there was Julius, who had a ginormous rod up his backside and clearly was the kind of person who thought Ness and the rest of the McLeods were dirt. It sort of hurt that Evelyn couldn’t see how trash Julius was and that she was willing to continually entertain his friendship just because his bigotry didn’t touch her personally for some reason. It didn’t mean that he wasn’t vile or bigoted. Ness clung to that. To the fact that Julius was demonstrably a butthole and that Malikhi was immature because the other option was far less fair… Evelyn was easy to like. Evelyn was pretty and looked how people expected and was quiet and kind. Evelyn was vulnerable, and bad with her wand and therefore non-threatening. Ness was substantially harder to like, and this many years into the schooling system, it was impossible for that not to be incredibly noticeable to someone with an analytical Aladren brain. People generally liked quiet little blonde girls. People generally did not like Ness.

Evelyn’s terrible choice in friends had been galling but it had been tolerable. It had been tolerable because Ness didn’t want to tear Evelyn down or make her doubt her herself. It had been tolerable because it had to be, because if Ness was the one who started a fight and made Evelyn choose then that might piss Evelyn off enough that Ness would not be the one to be chosen. There had been a degree of security in being The Best Friend, but it had not been firm enough to risk an ultimatum. It had just been a balm to soothe - yes, Evelyn liked some trash people, but she also liked Ness best.

That wasn’t true any more. Evelyn wanted to go out with Heinrich. Evelyn really liked him. She thought he was special. And it was clear from DnD that the possibility that spending time with Ness wasn’t as special as it had been - now Evelyn wanted to bring Heinrich into everything. Ness wasn’t really sure what to do if Evelyn went off with Heirnrich. As noted, plenty of people liked Evelyn, and Evelyn was easy to like…. Ness played DnD. Ness played Quidditch. But outside of the orgnaised times in which those happened, the Aladren didn’t really socialise with those involved. Occasionally maybe for classwork - it meant there was at least a degree of familiarity - but Ness wasn’t regarded as a friend by anyone except Evelyn.

The evening plan had been writing a letter home but as Ness crossed the common room, Heinrich waved and called. In a way that could not be reasonably ignored. Admittedly, Ness was curious about this person who was So Freaking Great. Also, if he was anything like Evelyn’s usual choice of company, it would be prudent to curtail any ideas about dating him. I trust you about as far as I could throw you, definitely applied to Malikhi and Julius. Again, Heinrich had not done anything to place himself in that category yet, but Ness was cautious. And, even he didn’t turn out to be a terrible human all round, there was no guarantee that an interaction with him would be pleasant for Ness.

“Hi,” Ness stated neutrally, before asking “You need some help with that?” with a nod to the book in Heinrich’s hands. That, after all, seemed the most likely reason he would want to talk to Ness. The fourth year had not actually played this system before though. Which meant that there was a distinct possibility that whatever Heinrich’s questions were, they would be unanswerable. Ness’s arms crossed subconsciously and defensively. Questions that the Aladren didn’t know the answer to were pretty low on the list of things Ness wanted to encounter. Boys who stole your best friend were a step or two below that.

13 Ness McLeod Try not stealing 1419 0 5

Heinrich Hexenmeister

February 01, 2020 7:55 AM

I am lawful good. I don't steal. by Heinrich Hexenmeister

Heinrich wasn't sure what kind of reception he had been expecting. He probably should have assumed awkward, because most of his initial interactions with Evelyn had also been awkward, but he had somehow gotten it into his head that since they shared a mutual friend maybe they could skip that stage. He was wrong.

It wasn't as bad, of course. Neither of them had been unconscious in the other's conscious presence, so there was that. He'd just expected . . . something less guarded maybe? Unless if Evelyn hadn't told Ness how much Heinrich knew, and she was feeling protective of her friend's secrets, which was totally fair. Not that Heinrich would ever press anyone to share their own secrets nevermind someone else's. He valued his own privacy far too highly to ever encroach on another's. But Ness wouldn't know that because Heinrich valued his privacy and didn't share that kind of information with, well, anyone but Evelyn. And he trusted Evelyn not to share his secrets either. So, impasse.

Still, Ness had come over instead of ignoring his invitation, so she was willing to take a chance on him. Best not to talk about Evelyn too soon then. Let them make their own baseline outside of their mutual friend, until Ness felt she could trust him not to pry. Which meant the D&D game was definitely the safest topic to begin with.

"Hi," he returned carefully, trying out a small smile that looked about as comfortable and natural on his normally serious features as the informal English greeting sounded on his tongue.

"The mechanics seem logical enough," he commented in answer to her question. There was a wide swing of probability on a twenty sided dice, but that introduced uncertainty and randomness rather than lack of logic. "I am more concerned about the role-playing aspect," he admitted. "You seem good at it," he added. "How do you do it?" He doubted there was an easy answer, but maybe Ness could give him a hint for how to fake it.

1 Heinrich Hexenmeister I am lawful good. I don't steal. 1414 0 5

Ness McLeod

February 02, 2020 7:36 PM

We'll see by Ness McLeod

Ness couldn’t help but crack a slight smile at the phrase ‘the mechanics seem logical enough.’ It was just… so very Aladren. He seemed more concerned about the acting side of things, which Ness supposed sort of made sense. It wasn’t something you could learn quite so well from paper. Still, it had always been the more fun element to the fourth year. In some ways, Ness could be a bit of an outlier as an Aladren. Smooth game mechanics and well-ordered systems were appreciation-worthy, sure, but there wasn’t somehow that feeling of automatic sense from them that other Aladrens seemed to experience. Ness liked them, and wanted to be good with them, but things like acting a part came more naturally than understanding a system. Heinrich’s compliment was therefore pleasing because it was the element of the game that Ness enjoyed and prioritised, though there was a little bit of worry that this was going to lead to be exposed as some kind of weird, feelingsy non-systematic Aladren. At least Heinrich wanted help with what Ness was good at though, which was more comfortable ground to be on.

“It can get frustrating. Or like… it’s difficult when you know your character would know something but you don’t know it,” Ness sympathised, “Like, our last game had a lot of non-magical technology. I had to break character sometimes to ask questions. It’s okay if you have to do that, but it’s better if you don’t. I guess the only advice I can give is just… go for it. Like, even if you’re not sure. It’s better to just try. Gary will stop you if you get something fundamentally wrong about how the world works, so it’s not… unfixable, if you do make a mistake.” Whilst Ness wasn’t totally convinced about Heinrich as a person or a potential party member, it also did not occur to try to sabotage him with bad advice. That would have been both mean and bad for the game. Plus there was the usual Ness-ism of feeling that demonstrating competence was a direct route to being liked, and giving bad advice would easily show itself and then lead to Heinrich perceiving Ness’ advice as incorrect. That was failing. Ness disliked failing.

“So… You are interested in the game? You didn’t just… join because Evelyn asked you?” Ness queried.

13 Ness McLeod We'll see 1419 0 5

Heinrich Hexenmeister

February 03, 2020 5:03 PM

I am not the rogue. I hope. by Heinrich Hexenmeister

Heinrich nodded as she spoke, though reservations showed clearly on his face at the idea of pushing ahead with any idea that had the potential of making Gary step in with corrections. He didn’t like making mistakes, even less so in front of other people. He was far more inclined to not try rather than to try and fail, though learning English had burned out a lot of his pride in that respect. He wasn’t nearly as adverse to it now as he had been at eleven. He still didn’t like it.

He was contemplating how to respond to this advice - whether he could seek an alternate method or if that would be rude - when she asked a question he was not expecting at all. He blinked at her in obvious surprise and his response came out without even thinking it through.

“I joined so prove Hilda I know fun.”

He wasn’t sure whether to be pleased that his language was fluent enough that all the words were in English, regretful that he was far enough removed from Germany now that she could probably understand what he meant when he hadn’t actually wanted to share that motive, or embarrassed that his grammar was completely non-existent, either by German rules or English ones.

Deciding the best course of action to deal with this situation was to just pretend he hadn’t actually uttered that and compose a real answer that his brain could approve of.

With much better diction and grammar, he stated, “I did not know Evelyn was coming. I joined to learn Gary better. We are prefects together.” He hesitated, unsure if it would sound weird to say he wanted to get to know Ness better, too. Was it normal for friends to seek out their friends’ other friends? Or was that stalking? Stalking was definitely bad wolf.

He decided maybe it would be best to leave that out until he could research stalking definitions.

He wanted to leave it there, but he knew he had already looked like he had been about to say something else.

So he adopted an expression of put upon annoyance that did not require any acting and shared the secret Ness already knew. “Also, my sister has accused me of being ‘a stick in the mud.’” The quote marks were audible, not because he was repeating Hilda’s exact words - her grasp of English metaphor was even worse than his, and his was still newly emerging and untested - as because he was trying out a new idiom and it still sounded awkward and like he was repeating something he’d read rather than like a natural part of his language.

1 Heinrich Hexenmeister I am not the rogue. I hope. 1414 0 5

Ness McLeod

February 05, 2020 8:39 PM

Got a problem with rogues? by Ness McLeod

Ness never knew whether to try correcting people’s English or not. On the one hand, it was an opportunity for learning, and learning was good and useful and Ness wanted to be helpful. On the other, telling foreigners that they didn’t speak English well was what right wing people did, and they usually meant it rudely. Even though Ness didn’t, it would probably come across badly. It was just frustrating because Ness wanted everything to be correct, and was sure Heinrich did too, and just wanted to help…

But, after his mangled sentence, Heinrich was clearly Still Thinking, and even though it practically involved tongue-biting to not say anything, Ness managed, because it was rude to interrupt someone when they were trying to think. He managed to more or less revise the sentence himself, which was good and also solved Ness’ dilemma.

The content of what Heinrich said was also distracting. Evelyn hadn’t invited him. He had come by coincidence, completely of his own volition. And for fairly decent reasons.

“I joined because Kir was having fun without me,” Ness admitted. It was not exactly the same circumstance, but it was amusing enough that their siblings had both prompted the decision to join. “I will be sure to defend your honour should Hilda impugn it again - I will tell her you’re fun,” Ness paraphrased. A year of being on a challenge team with Tatiana had not broken Ness’ habit of using long or peculiar words (it was fun to use such words, and to let other people get to know them) but it had generated a habit of paraphrasing, at least when Ness’ realised an esoteric vocabulary choice had escaped. “Quidditch doesn’t count?” the fourth year questioned, surprised by the idea, as the younger Hexenmeister seemed very enthusiastic about the sport.

13 Ness McLeod Got a problem with rogues? 1419 0 5

Heinrich Hexenmeister

February 12, 2020 10:10 AM

Only assassins by Heinrich Hexenmeister

Heinrich didn’t quite understand what Ness said about defending his honor, because honor was a good wolf thing but Ness followed it up with a promise to tell Hilda he was fun. So either Ness thought fun was a good wolf thing, and was prepared to lie for him so he looked more good, or they were misunderstanding each other somehow. “You will need to roll a deception check to tell her that,” he told Ness very seriously, which was the only way he knew how to deliver jokes. Some people smiled when they joked. Heinrich was not confident enough to risk that. Also, he was not any better at smiling than he was at joking. So dry humor was much safer when it inevitably fell flat. Then people didn’t know a joke had been attempted. “That does not seem honorable to me.”

He grimaced slightly when Ness questioned Quidditch’s value of fun. “That was the spark,” he explained, in something close to a grumble. “Hilda signed me up without asking me if I wanted to join. When I accused her about it, she said I do not know how to have fun unless she makes me.”

He grimaced in annoyance and held up the player’s handbook. “So I am learning fun.” Unspoken, but left clearly implied was the fact that he saw Hilda’s accusation as accurate, and he was determined to fix the failing or die trying, and he was attacking the problem in the most Aladren way possible.

He remained entirely unaware of any irony in his approach.

1 Heinrich Hexenmeister Only assassins 1414 0 5