I might have messed up. [Nathaniel] on Library

Evelyn Stones

August 26, 2020 9:18 PM

I might have messed up. [Nathaniel] by Evelyn Stones

It was the whirlwind of bad news and planning that had kept Evelyn from doing what she ought to have done, right? It was because she was pretty sure that Ms. Heidi would say something, even though she knew she probably wouldn't or couldn't, right? It wasn't just because Evelyn was a coward?

Truth be told, she wasn't used to having a brother who was old enough to have to tell anything like this to, and she hadn't even told her real brother. Or whatever brother. What was the distinction to make? She hadn't told her full brother? That sounded bad. But it was bad. Alexander was her brother, sure, but only technically. They hadn't even talked more than once or twice since they'd gotten together with Mab and Ness. Neither of them seemed particularly keen on it and Evelyn would have had an easier time if it was Mab who was her long lost sibling; at least they had some amount of rapport already. But Alexander was a wild card.

And that's the reason she sought Nathaniel. Also, she just enjoyed his company and did her best to seek him out periodically for no reason, just to make sure he had cause to think he was worth people's time and could have a family someday if he wanted. Today, she found him in the library. She hadn't even been looking especially hard, but she knew that they were both bound to wind up here at some point and it was most often the place where she imposed her company upon him.

When she found him sitting at alone at a table, she rested her hands on the chair nearest him, one which would give her the privacy to speak quietly and still be heard and also the anonymity of breaking eye contact as required. She hesitated a moment. These conversations tended to lead places she didn't want them too, although she was sure she was not alone in that preference with Nathaniel, and she was well and truly worn out from that. But that was just like her dad to do; he died and she got to clean up his chaos. Sometimes she woke up crying, having dreamt of his chaos. Other times, she found herself hugging a little too closely into the wall of a corridor, when a passing student's Cologne was just a little too familiar to her. Dr. Greene said it was a trauma response, but that required admitting that she'd experienced trauma and she'd only done that like twice so she preferred to think it was just a built-in safety mechanism born of bad experiences. Which . . . Okay so it was probably trauma.

"Hey, could I join you? I... well, I sort of screwed up and I think you're probably the right person to ask for help. It's about Alexander," she said with a grimace and an ashamed blush.

22 Evelyn Stones I might have messed up. [Nathaniel] 1422 1 5

Nathaniel Mordue

September 01, 2020 1:38 PM

Everyone does sometimes. by Nathaniel Mordue

The incantation ‘accio’ is ancient and useful as an introductory step into the world of nonverbal spellcasting. It is also interesting to consider as an example of spell construction. In Latin, ‘accio’ is a transitive verb in the fourth conjugation.

Nathaniel picked up a slim strip of parchment and wrote a few words upon it - what is a transitive verb? - before placing it on the page, to keep the place if he ever got far enough down this page to turn it to the next. He supposed that when he came back to look up what a transitive verb was, he would also remember that he didn’t know what a fourth conjugation was, if it came to that. Hopefully it wouldn’t turn out to be information he actually needed. He continued reading.

Its literal translation is “to send for, to summon (forth), to fetch, to invite.” It requires an object to function grammatically in speech. The word ‘accio’ also functions as the present indicative singular form of the verb – “I send for, I summon (forth).” In some languages, the object may be implied – it is understood that the object is ‘it’, presumably a previously established specific item. In Latin and English, however, the verb requires an object to function. As an incantation, however, ‘accio’ may be used with or without an object. When students begin learning the Summoning Charm, it is often easiest for them to pair the incantation with a very specific object – Accio charms book. Most quickly progress to effective use of ‘accio book’; some may need to be more specific yet, and cast the spell as “accio my charms book.” Most adult witches and wizards will be able to use ‘accio’ without adding any object at all, but not all will progress to nonverbal use of the spell without an object….

Nathaniel’s eyes began to slide out of focus. He shook his head a little and tried to refocus. How was this relevant to the current unit, again? He pinched the bridge of his nose, hoping that would do what the shaking of his head had not as far as jogging his brain out of its daze, and looked up, only to see hands on the back of a chair.

“Oh, Evelyn,” he said, starting to rise automatically from his chair – he had, after all, been joined by a girl, and his brain was operating as predictably as a universal model under glass. He could not, however, exactly pull out a chair for her when she already had her hands on the back of it, so now he felt a bit stupid bobbing up like a cork. He frowned in concern, though, when she explained she had ‘messed up’ and needed help with something concerning Alexander. “Of course,” he said, gesturing to the chair she was holding as he sat back down in his own. “What’s going on?”

16 Nathaniel Mordue Everyone does sometimes. 1412 0 5

Evelyn Stones

September 01, 2020 3:15 PM

The stakes were pretty high though. by Evelyn Stones

Evelyn took a seat and a breath and a moment. She wanted to make everything okay, and she was pretty sure she was making this worse in her head than it was actually going to turn out to be, but she still felt bad. She also felt bad going to Nathaniel about it, but she was pretty sure that it did the least damage to Alexander, if not the least damage to Nathaniel himself. Perhaps if her fellow prefect wasn't comfortable actually being in the middle, he could at least advise her on doing the least damage herself.

"Good news and bad news," she began, although it was one piece of information. She would let Nathaniel work that out - or not - for himself. "My . . . uh my dad died. In prison." She paused again to let that sink in because it probably needed to sink in. "And . . . well the funeral was a couple weeks ago. I didn't think too much about it at the time, and I don't think Alexander will have wanted to go, but . . . well, I haven't told him." She frowned, trying to be sad and contrite and not irritated. Mathias Stones was her father, and he had hurt her, and it was her life that was going to be filled up with repercussions from his actions, but yet here she was, picking up after him again. She was glad Alexander existed, sure, but she would have preferred the circumstances be different. "I don't know how sad he will be, but I'm not sure . . . " Another breath and another moment; she should've thought about this more before she sat down. "I'm finally safe," she finally admitted. "And I'm not sure I can handle someone being sad about the reason for that. I should probably be more sad than I am." She rubbed her hands across her face, willing blood to flow there and make her cry or make her look grief-stricken or else just make her seem a little bit more human.

Her 'conversation' with Sylvia floated back to her mind and she glanced at Nathaniel a little sideways. Was this the kind of thing his snobby cousin meant? She hadn't said as much, but there was no doubt that Evelyn was not good enough for Nathaniel. That wasn't an issue as she had no interest in being anything for Nathaniel, but she thought they were an alright pair of friends and teammates, and classmates next year. What if Sylvia only came to talk to her at all because Nathaniel had complained, and he was just too polite to say something? "You got put in the middle of my life without really meaning to be and I'm sorry," she said quietly, if a little harder than she meant to. "I know I don't have the blood status or the background or the personality or anything else to be worth your time on paper, and I appreciate you being there for me."

22 Evelyn Stones The stakes were pretty high though. 1422 0 5

Nathaniel Mordue

September 01, 2020 4:04 PM

Family things always seem to be. by Nathaniel Mordue

Good news and bad news. That was not normally a phrase immediately followed by the announcement that one’s father had died in prison. Nathaniel blanched, wondering – as nothing he’d consider good news occurred immediately – if the good bit was that her father was dead, or that he had died in prison specifically. He supposed it would be far more embarrassing to have one’s father die in prison than anywhere else, really…one reason he was almost glad not to know what had ever become of his was because he couldn’t imagine it was anything that would be less humiliating than what his father had already done to the family. Still, if, say, Elphwick murdered his mother, Nathaniel thought he’d be less concerned with how his mother had died than with the fact that his mother had died….

She felt safe now. Oh. That might be the good news. He thought back to the first time he’d spoken to Evelyn, how she had reacted to the mere sound of her father’s name, and he grimaced a bit. Some people, it seemed, actually might get what they deserved in life, or something roughly proportional.

“I see,” he said as she finished explaining why it was a problem, the prospect of explaining it to Alexander, who might feel grief for whatever idea of a father he had had. Nathaniel knew from bitter experience that it could be harder to lose an illusion than the real person, but an illusion whom Alexander had never met…. “Are you – do you want help speaking with him about it?” he asked, feeling odd, volunteering to involve himself in something so personal within a family. Still, none of this would be an issue if he hadn’t helped Alexander find his biological parents. He had a responsibility, if Evelyn chose to have him exercise it.

He flushed at Evelyn’s blunt acknowledgment of the social imbalance in their odd friendship, or whatever it was. “You have a lovely personality,” he assured her. This was true. “And I kept involving myself in things – I was the one who brought you into things, actually, if I recall correctly. I’m happy if I can help anyone make – difficult – family things a little easier.” He would have been loyal to anyone who had ever performed such a service for him for the rest of his life. More recently it had been Uncle Alexander and Jeremy and Sylvia who had put him in impossible, painful positions, but a tiny part of him, too, remembered just as vividly how terrifying it had been when Mama had told him that she needed him to be strong and to help her take care of Jeremy. When he had realized that he was supposed to become an adult all at once stroke, at the age of nine, taking care of both his mother and his brother. He loved his mother, and acknowledged she might not have had much of a choice – she couldn’t take care of herself, she never had been able – but it was still a hell of a thing, he thought, to ask a nine-year-old to do, and probably an impossible one – or at least, it had proven to be an impossible one for him. Jeremy was getting a little better now, but one only had to look at the way their lives had gone in the intermediate years to grasp some glimmer of how thoroughly he had failed to live up to the task his mother had put before him after his father had left.

16 Nathaniel Mordue Family things always seem to be. 1412 0 5

Evelyn Stones

September 03, 2020 11:36 AM

It does, doesn't it? by Evelyn Stones

Evelyn breathed a sigh of relief when Nathaniel offered to help. Whatever else was true, she was glad he was on her side. "I don't want to drag you into the middle," she said, although it wasn't very convincing. She would love to pass the baton on this one, but that felt wrong somehow too. "I just . . . I don't know him very well," she admitted. She had at least two brothers and a sister and she didn't know any of them hardly at all. Plus any other rando siblings any of them had. Didn't her mother say there were others in her new family too? She had step siblings. What was she supposed to do with all these siblings when she'd grown up an only child? "I'd love your help, whatever that looks like, if you're sure you don't mind."

Surprised was not a strong enough word for how she felt when Nathaniel . . . complimented her? She blushed, not used to being complimented by people who weren't within her very close circle of friends. It felt good and warm and she pressed her lips together to stifle a shy smile. "Thank you," she murmured, searching his face. She suspected that, in another lifetime where she was a proper pureblood and she'd never gotten to know Heinrich because they wouldn't have had their initial crises to bond over, she would have been very interested in Nathaniel. As it was, she could hardly imagine the life he intended to lead and didn't think she would find a place for herself in it unless she really held on to the rough outline of their 'friendship' box. Heinrich was the world to her and it was easy enough to ignore these sorts of thoughts, like the tendrils of smoke that rise from a fire burning out of sight, in favor of the vivid reality she had the honor of living in this lifetime instead. "You're a good, kind human, yknow that?" she asked, smiling a little more openly. "I think you'd make a good knight in shining armor if we all lived a thousand years ago. Just take care of yourself too, okay? The last thing I want is for my friends to go burning themselves out trying to help me with my problems."

22 Evelyn Stones It does, doesn't it? 1422 0 5

Nathaniel Mordue

September 05, 2020 10:13 PM

Yeah. I'm not really a fan, honestly. by Nathaniel Mordue

“I placed myself in the middle last year,” said Nathaniel graciously with a slight shake of his head. “And I am Alexander’s prefect, after all. I have responsibilities,” he added with a hint of a smile to indicate that this was not really why he was willing to assist.

Truly, he didn’t know the answer to that question himself. Why had he gotten involved in all this, anyway? His memories of his fifth year weren’t as unclear, even at their worst, as his memories of the later half of his fourth, but he found large-ish patches of fifth year enveloped in greater or lesser degrees of fog just the same. He remembered meeting Alexander at the Feast only vaguely; later, he clearly recalled their next meeting, but struggled to recall his own mental state during it. Odd, the way it was. Since his wits had undeniably been scrambled at the time, though, he could only make educated guesses about why he’d made any given decision.

He wanted to believe it had just been that he related to the boy. He knew what it was like to be abandoned, after all, to have a deeply disappointing parent. Giving someone else the chance to shout at theirs, maybe, didn’t take away the desire to scream at his if he ever got the chance, but it helped. However, he could just imagine what Dr. Greene would say – about his need to be in control, to avoid feeling as powerless as he had when his father had abandoned him or when his mother had remarried – and, unfortunately, he couldn’t actually dismiss the idea, regardless of its source. It felt good, dealing with other people’s problems, however absurd it was to believe himself capable of that when he couldn’t deal with his own at all….

Nathaniel felt his face heat when he was called a good and kind human, was compared to a knight in shining armor (he suspected the romantic stereotype was meant, rather than the historical bits with fifteen-year-old dukes leading armies against armies commanded by their grandmothers and whatnot; the strangest bits of history did tend to stick in a person’s head), and was then encouraged to look after himself. “I’ll do my best not to do that,” he said, amused, when she spoke of him not burning himself out taking care of her own problems. “So far, though, you really haven’t been unreasonable in your requests,” he assured her. “Especially considering how much you’re going through – all this, and it’s your CATS year, isn’t it? Really, anything I can do, don’t hesitate to ask.”

OOC Note: Nathaniel’s offhand remark about medieval armies being led by fifteen-year-olds is based on facts! Arthur of Brittany, a grandson of Eleanor of Aquitaine, did it; while it’s unlikely that Eleanor herself, being both a woman and elderly even by modern standards at the time, took the field against Arthur, summaries of the relevant events essentially parse the event as “teenager gets pwned by Grandma”. The practice was still not unknown over two centuries later during the Wars of the Roses, with mixed results.

(This has no relevance to the post whatsoever, I’m just on a medieval kick again and enjoy sharing facts)

16 Nathaniel Mordue Yeah. I'm not really a fan, honestly. 1412 0 5

Evelyn Stones

September 10, 2020 4:49 PM

I prefer the ones you make yourself rather than the ones life comes with. by Evelyn Stones

Evelyn nodded with mock seriousness, accepting Nathaniel's dutiful fulfillment of obligation. "Very well," she smirked. The expression gave way to a skeptically raised eyebrow though when he said that she hadn't asked too much. Her whole life asked too much of everyone it touched, whether or not she made any verbalized requests. She supposed Nathaniel only knew bits and pieces, bite-size chunks that hadn't yet made him choke, but that was still more than he really needed to know. They'd become friends through some twist of circumstance - she wasn't sure she could pinpoint the process - and now her he was, telling her that the messy life that had brought them together wasn't asking too much of him.

"Ohhh," she said playfully. "So you're good, kind, and a liar! Well, if that's the case . . ." She laughed. "No but really. I know I do sort of put a lot on people just . . . I bring a lot of baggage with me. You're nice about it though." She wrinkled her nose at the rest of his comment. "CATS, yes. I'm trying to get into law school," she told him, not sure whether he already knew that. "Probably community college first. And honestly, I don't know how much they care about CATS when I have RATS in a couple years too. But I feel like a lot is riding on these tests."

Her consistent companionship with Aladrens was helpful in that regard, but they all seemed to have a much higher tolerance for studying than she did, and much of the material clicked easier for them than for her. Except Charms. Somehow, over the course of everything, Charms had become her best subject. The practical side was coming together but the theory was where she really excelled, and she found herself staying up late just to read up on one idea or another. It was tempting to try to follow that down some rabbithole instead of thinking of law school, but she wasn't sure she had any right to throw away who she could be for something she was interested in like that. What would she do with it? Perhaps . . . would Nathaniel have ideas?

"Honestly though . . . I really love Charms. I'm not sure what I could possibly due with them, especially since I'm not so stellar at the practical side . . . but Charms is my favorite."

22 Evelyn Stones I prefer the ones you make yourself rather than the ones life comes with. 1422 0 5