Nathaniel Mordue
February 25, 2021 4:27 PM
One more bit of advice (Alexander) by Nathaniel Mordue
It was the last week of term, and Nathaniel had no idea how. It had seemed, for the longest time, as though he would remain in school for months more, and now, all of a sudden, it was nearly over. In a week, his childhood would officially, in every sense of the term, be over. In a week, he would leave Sonora and quite possibly never come back.First, though, he had to set his remaining affairs here in order.
He had thought for a long time, even before Sylvia had confronted him with her concerns about certain of his acquaintances, about what to do about the matter of Alexander. The boy looked up to him, relied on him for advice, and while Nathaniel had to leave, he didn’t want to just do so without…anything. That was no way to leave…anything. It was bad form. Inconsiderate. Wrong.
Sylvia, he knew, regarded the whole association as probably more wrong, but – Sylvia simply didn’t understand certain things. She couldn’t. Alexander and Evelyn, however, did, whatever else they were – which really wasn’t, he thought, as bad as Sylvia made it out to be. Evelyn’s mother was a Squib apparently, and her parents thoroughly badly behaved figures, but she couldn’t help that, any more than Nathaniel could help his own parents’ behavior, or than Alexander could help his illegitimacy. Evelyn’s other acquaintances admittedly meant she was really unlikely to rise in society, but Alexander was a good lad, smart, efficient – it was not beyond the realm of reason to imagine he might establish himself in business or the civil service, marry someone of his own status, or perhaps a well-to-do shopkeeper’s daughter, end up a useful connection….
Not reasoning he would present to Sylvia, of course, or anyone – not least because he knew he was simply rationalizing sentimentality on his own part. But so it went.
“Alexander,” he flagged the younger Teppenpaw down one evening. “Have a moment?” When approached, he proffered a thin, flat parcel wrapped in white tissue paper. “For you,” he explained. “It’s more of something you’d give someone going into a job than into fourth year,” he added with a gleam of humor, “but since I’m leaving – “ he shrugged. “I hope we meet again, but in any case, I wanted you to have this.”
Inside was what appeared to be a thin, hinged wooden box with a lock on the front, the key of which was taped to the top. It was unlocked now, and opened to reveal a sort of shallow rack for letters on the inside of the lid and a flat writing surface, with spaces at the top for resting a quill and inkwell, attached by smaller hinges. Beneath the writing surface was a shallow storage space stocked with a handsome eagle feather quill, a packet of good writing parchment, a rocker-blotter, several sticks of sealing wax, a wooden handle for attaching seals to, and the bit of the fairly basic kit which Nathaniel had had personalized for his protégé: a circular brass seal imprinted with the ciphered monogram AM.
“You might not have gotten your name from the – best people,” he said, “any more than I did, but it’s yours. What you do with it – that’s up to you. I think you’ll distinguish it, if you want to.”
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Nathaniel Mordue
One more bit of advice (Alexander)
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Alexander Pierce-Beales
March 02, 2021 7:44 PM
Don't say goodbye. by Alexander Pierce-Beales
Alexander had only received a few gifts in his life, most of them since being taken in by Bel and Mab, so that was about the last thing he would've expected to be given by his hero. He was more moved still by Nathaniel's apparent desire that they meet again someday."Really?" he asked, a bit dumbstruck by the thought that he hadn't just been a burden for the older Teppenpaw all these years. He moved with nervous, flitting fingers to open the package and reveal the gift inside. The implication, that not only did Nathaniel hope to see him again but even to hear from him in the meantime, was overwhelming. Alexander mattered to someone he didn't have to matter to. That was true of everyone he mattered to, but there were only like two of those. Or, apparently, three. Nathaniel knew that Alexander would look at his messy stacks of paper and wonder if he should write a letter or not and had gone out of his way to make sure that Alexander knew he should do it? It was hard to believe, not because it seemed uncharacteristically thoughtful of Nathaniel - far from it - but because Alexander just hadn't realized anyone but Mab would want to hear that badly from him. He wrote to and received letters from Bel periodically but she was his guardian and it wasn't the same.
He looked up from his gift as Nathaniel explained the significance of the seal. There had been many times Alexander had wondered if either Mab or Bel or both would be okay with him changing his name to match one of theirs and he suddenly didn't feel like that was what he wanted anymore. He wanted to be Alexander Mason, not because of who gave him the name but because of who it was that bore the name now. It was him. And he mattered to someone. And that someone thought that he could do something amazing with his name. There was no denying the obvious fact that Nathaniel came from a line of wizards and witches who cared a great deal about status and bloodlines and things that Alexander had no claim to, but yet Nathaniel seemed to think highly of him anyway. Just because of who he was. It wasn't quite enough to make his ego swell but it gave him a glimmer of thought that maybe he was due to fan it a bit. Spark a flame.
"Thank you," he murmured. "Thank you so much." He blinked despite the fact that it was his voice that was getting wet and not his eyes, and cocked his head at Nathaniel. "I'll miss you very much." He wanted to reach out and hug his mentor but wasn't sure whether the older student wanted that, so he tried to be good and proper, the way a growing young man with potential should be. The way he, Alexander Mason, could be.
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Alexander Pierce-Beales
Don't say goodbye.
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Nathaniel Mordue
March 04, 2021 3:24 PM
Not permanently, anyway, I hope. by Nathaniel Mordue
Nathaniel cracked a hint of a smile at the rhetorical question from his protégé. “Really,” he confirmed. “All yours.”He had not been altogether sure how the gesture would be received, much less the gift specifically, so it was a relief to see a positive reaction, however quiet. He smiled kindly at the younger boy, fairly sure he could imagine at least part of what Alexander might be feeling…
In some ways, their lives had been so different that they really couldn’t fully understand all of each other’s experiences. No matter what else had happened, Nathaniel had always had the comforts and sense of security which had come with money and property, something Alexander had yet to know at all. On the other hand, though, Nathaniel had once been happy, or something like it, and as a result, had had to go through the agonies of losing first his father, and then his understanding of the world, and then his mother, and then his home – heartbreak after heartbreak, to the point he wasn’t sure he had enough of a heart left for anyone else to hurt again. Pressure, he had once read, turned some ancient artifacts to stone; he wasn’t quite to that point on the whole, maybe, but he thought the bits that had really trusted other people, at least, were pretty thoroughly fossilized, and there wasn’t much left to lose that could hurt the remainder as much as all those things had. Those losses were things he’d have not had to go through, had he never had those things at all, and he could imagine it might be easier, to just know the world was cruel and the world was wicked and base, corrupted at its core and speckled with geysers of visible putrefaction and swaths of rot here and there, from the point at which one knew anything at all, and not to have to learn it the slow way, bit by bit.
In other ways, though….
In other ways, they were very much alike, and not just in appearance or House. They both knew what it was like to desperately want to know why things were what they were. They knew that knowing and not knowing could be equally horrible things. They knew about being alone, both physically and emotionally – though Nathaniel hoped Alexander, at least, didn’t know the full extent of just how isolated it was possible to feel, because as bad as feeling detached from the rest of humanity at any level could be, the full extent was horrific. Regardless of the numbers in that equation, though, they had enough in common that Nathaniel felt it wasn’t unreasonable to speculate that Alexander might be feeling another thing Nathaniel was familiar with – how it felt when someone did do something for you, and even if they couldn’t bring you back into the full fold of life, what it was worth that someone was trying to reach across the gap.
It seemed absurd, somehow, to think that he, of all people, could have done that for someone else – but was it really that absurd? Maybe it was natural – all the lost boys, seeking out each other to build a sort of…if not family, at least network of mutual sympathy.
“You’re very welcome,” he said, and, only slightly hesitantly, allowed himself to be demonstrative enough to reach out and pat Alexander’s shoulder. “Keep in touch, hm, let me know if you need anything.”
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Nathaniel Mordue
Not permanently, anyway, I hope.
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