A Memory
January 18, 2021 4:44 AM
[Corridors] What Parents Do by A Memory
OOC: Posting here but can be found in any classroom area corridor BIC:
What do parents do for us?
Give us stupid names. Control us. Make us take endless pictures.
The answers had all floated through her mind but gone unshared with the class, obviously. She never put her hand up. Never drew attention if she could help it. And she wasn’t about to admit to any of those being the first things that came to her mind when asked that question. They clearly weren’t supposed to be the answers.
So, she had kept them inside her head. And they had stayed there, playing on a loop in her brain, until somewhere between classes they had fallen out into the corridors. Now, as someone passed by, a swirl of mist resolved itself into a young, glamorous looking woman. Depending on the background of the person viewing her, she was either holding a weird and mysterious rectangle (with which she appeared to be obsessed) or a mobile phone - specifically, the incarnation of the iphone that had been the latest and swishiest five years ago (and with which she appeared to be obsessed). Any student could have been forgiven for assuming she was talking to the device - after all, that was where her gaze was directed, and those who knew what it was would know that was not an unreasonable thing to do. However, between the way her head jerked up from time to time, and the fact that she was issuing commands which sounded much more like they were meant for a person, it seemed much more likely that she was talking to someone else in the room, whilst paying the screen more attention than them. Her fingers clicked, in an action some would recognise as taking photos, whilst she talked.
“Shorten your name?” she asked, sounding mystified, “Why ever would you want to shorten your name - chin up, look left, no my left, this way, that’s it. It would sound so plain - hold that pose. We gave you a special, unique name so everyone will know you’re special and unique. Rest your chin on your hand - no not like that, gently, so it doesn’t squish your cheek up, you’re too old for chubby cheeks to be cute. Sorry darling, things change fast. Okay, look like you’re having fun please. No, actually,” this said with a sharp stare up and a roll of the eyes. “If you have a boring, forgettable name, everyone will think - look at me - that you’re a boring forgettable person. That’s not what you want, is it?”
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A Memory
[Corridors] What Parents Do
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A Memory
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Philippe Delachene
January 18, 2021 11:02 AM
I think mine might actually be better? by Philippe Delachene
Philippe walked along the corridors of Sonora, not quite dragging his feet as he headed in toward Cascade Hall. There was no reluctance about heading in to pick up some food, there just wasn't really any cause to hurry. For a twelve year old, he was oddly not that hungry today, and he wondered idly if he was coming down with something. He felt kind of tired, too, despite having slept later than normal this morning and having gone to bed even a little early the night before. Then he sneezed, and saw mist swirl around a bit then formed into a ghost like woman before him. He remembered the recent announcements, and wondered if maybe this was some kind of new magical plague like the one Daniel had brought home to them a few years ago.He didn't think this was accidental magic this time though, because this was not a lady he'd ever seen before, and he didn't think she was something his subconscious was likely to dream up, either. It looked like she was maybe FaceTiming with somebody, which Philippe really only knew about because sometimes his cousins did that with their other grandparents during Christmas At The Greers, to spread holiday greetings to them as well.
He gathered that she was probably talking to her kid, but it wasn't at all like how Mom talked to Jasmine, or him, or even Anya. Honestly, he thought she sounded more like the photographer Mom brought them to to get their family portraits done, but with an even less friendly shutter side manner. Mom wouldn't have stood for anyone calling any of her kids chubby. And as uncompromising as she could be, Mom did limit her own criticisms to style and decorum rather than physical traits that could not be readily changed with a few minutes' effort. Brush your hair, You are not leaving the house in that ratty old shirt, Oh dear sweet Merlin, don't either of you move until I cast six cleaning charms on you - each! - and don't you dare even think about wiping those hands on my favorite kitchen towel.
And as reluctant as Mom was to call Anya by her nickname, Philippe had always figured that had more to do with her just liking the name Anastasia better, and not being able to comprehend that anyone could disagree with her on the matter, that Anya was only arguing with her about it for the sake of being argumentative - which, frankly, was not exactly something Anya had never done before - than because she felt being called Anya would make Anya any less unique or more forgettable. Or rather, more reckless and wild, which was probably more the difference between "Anastasia" and "Anya". He was pretty sure even Mom realized that just calling Anya by a princess's name couldn't make her younger daughter appear any more princess-y.
Philippe decided he didn't really like the lady he had sneezed out of his nose. "You should be nicer," he told the misty form as he walked past it. "You tell your kids they're special by making them feel special."
It was a criticism he wished he had the bravery to tell a different mom, a real mom, one who hadn't just popped into existence because he had a wizard's cold. But he did feel a little better for saying it. And he felt a little better, too, that all his mom did was forget he existed more often than not. When she did get startled by the fact that she did in fact have a third child, she at least acted like he was her child, not some random kid posing for next Christmas' photo card. She talked to him and with him, not at him. She pulled out her wand to get the smell of manure out of his clothes before he walked into the house. She licked her finger and wiped the smudge off his cheek. She kissed his head and shooed him away to 'go have fun - but remember to not leave your cars out in the middle of the hallway this time, young man!' with both serious chiding and real affection in her voice. She smiled at him across the dinner table and asked about his day and listened to his answer. She opened the mail and sounded genuinely impressed that his progress report had come back with so much higher grades than either of his sisters' ever had.
She had mastered quality time.
He just sometimes wished she gave him a larger quantity of her time.
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Philippe Delachene
I think mine might actually be better?
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Grayson Wright
January 30, 2021 7:28 PM
There's a mystery, and I'm...somewhat closer to solving it. by Grayson Wright
When the mist rose up and began to take the shape of a young woman, Gray’s automatic response was to recoil in a mixture of surprise and alarm. At first, this was just because of how sudden its appearance had been – he knew these things were floating around the school in some way, knew others had encountered them, but he had not known how suddenly they could appear, or at least, how suddenly they could seem to do so when one had been walking quickly with one’s mind as far as it could reasonably get from the scene without careening into walls. After a moment, curiosity began to reign supreme, but it was still tempered with some alarm, or at least caution, because the young woman’s behavior was…bizarre, at least to his eyes.Was she holding a rectangular compact mirror? That almost made sense to him, save for one thing: the mirror wasn’t talking back.
He didn’t own a talking mirror because he could think of enough self-deprecating remarks without any assistance in front of a cheaper, inanimate one, but he was familiar with them. He’d seen them in other people’s houses, and on occasions when he wandered around shops, looking for either unusual items or encounters with items that could give him something to write about. He had, in fact, written a hyper-critical mirror into Chessmen at one point; the mother had bought one for the son, which the son had taken to sneaking into the living room where the chess set was, causing havoc when it started criticizing the Queens. It had been an end-of-season finale, in fact, with the cliffhanger coming in when it was revealed that the son had deliberately done this, aware that the pieces would eventually declare war on it because he was aware that they did not always ‘sleep’ when not in use by a human. That had been a flight of fancy, but he knew mirrors like that one did exist. There were also mirrors that allowed communication over distances, and mirrors used for spying; that was a plot point he planned to use in the third Charlotte installment. One thing all mirrors of that sort had in common, though, was that they talked back. Nobody logical would talk to a mirror that couldn’t talk back, and anyway – why was she moving it about like that, and…poking it?
”We gave you a special, unique name so people will know you’re special and unique.”
She sounded as if she was lecturing and directing a child, not speaking to a mirror – who named a mirror? That was just asking for trouble, at least in other things he’d read. So, she was waving a mirror about strangely while lecturing a child…and was a woman who, as he continued listening to her, he found himself liking less and less. It was not only the implication that sharing a first name with his father made him somehow unspeakably dull – he couldn’t say he appreciated that at all, either, but by the time she was done, it was not the primary cause of his dislike for her anymore. He was rather more upset then by the way she was speaking to – whoever she was speaking to.
Pieces spun through his head, assembling themselves spontaneously. The images he had heard about before had involved one living person and one dead person. The live person had been Leonor De Matteo, a student; the dead one, Mathias Stones, a student’s poor excuse for a parent. Both, though, had a connection with someone in this building right now, which made it seem fair enough to tentatively hypothesize that the woman was also somehow associated with either a student or staff member. And she was being terribly inconsiderate to an unseen figure who wished to ‘shorten’ their name –
“Sadie,” he said out loud as it clicked.
Sadie Chalmers was a quiet little thing, fairly average abilities – not someone to stand out, except for what had happened during Orientation in her first year. She had been very anxious that nobody should call her by her full, hyphenated first name – which was indeed unusual. He couldn’t quite recall what it was, as he knew the faces well enough to no longer call rolls from the official lists anymore, but she was the one with the strange name, which she chose not to use. It fit. He couldn’t say it with absolute certainty, but it fit terribly well.
He glanced back at the offensive apparition, just in time to see it start sinking back into fog. “No – “ he protested, reaching for his wand, but he had, as was often the case, thought for too long; by the time he was in a position to capture the thing, it was gone. Still, this was interesting. Forgetting his prior errand, he looked for the nearest empty room with a flat writing surface in it so he could add to the little book of notes in his pocket, which he had started keeping when he and Osvaldo had been asked to check the school enchantments. Perhaps he had just been writing Charlotte too long, but it felt like a mystery, and – well – why shouldn’t he be the one to solve it? Or at least provide crucial information to whoever did…had he accidentally partially based Charlotte on Selina Skies? Double reason never to mention That Matter to his colleagues, if he had….
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Grayson Wright
There's a mystery, and I'm...somewhat closer to solving it.
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