Down the rabbit hole. on Library

Julian Umland

April 23, 2014 5:03 PM

Down the rabbit hole. by Julian Umland

Decrescendo smooth low Barnacle subspecies yodel…wait, what?

Julian jerked upright, propping her elbow more securely on the library table again, and blinked her eyes until they no longer felt quite as glazed when she realized she had just read a paragraph about ducks and thought it was about singing in the Alps. She rubbed her forehead and wondered whether the material was worth a fourth attempt or if she should just give it up, considering that, almost no matter how she looked at it at this point, she was trying and failing to wade through it over and over again for no real reason.

She bit her lip, then wrote, but most ducks dont quack, just female mallards, and some of them – ducks in general, I mean, not female mallard ducks, they just quack, I think – yodel instead. Since you probably already know that, can you tell me if it sounds like something Heidi would do or is it just a word? Then she closed the book and pushed it away, deciding it wasn’t worth it to look at it anymore, at least not today. Tomorrow, maybe, if she felt like it, but she was not going to look at it again today.

She considered writing the conclusion to the letter in front of her, but she was tired, and she might try to find out more about duck communication tomorrow and write it down, to make up for doing such a very poor job of figuring out anything from experience. She had really not heard, as far as she could remember, a lot of differences between the sounds she’d tried to make for different words the hour she had spent quacking, what felt like an awfully long time ago now, but had not yet found out if that had anything to do with it being a prank spell which made her quack, apparently like a Mallard hen, or if the things she’d been trying to say had just not worked with how ducks talked, or what. Normally, she never would have written home about this at all, but….

Julian thumbed a rapidly-thickening stack of parchments on the table beside the book. Coming to boarding school had been hard from the beginning, but she had never gone a week before without getting and sending letters from and to home, and she thought the separation from her family was starting to drive her insane. Or at least bringing out a lot more latent Aladren tendencies than she’d thought she had, which was much the same thing. On top of this thing, she had also tried to relate the school’s situation to the bits and pieces she remembered of the fractions of The Republic her mother and older brothers had dragged her through, metaphorically kicking and once almost literally screaming, over the summer. She thought she might still qualify as slightly sane, though, until she started enjoying it.

She wasn’t there yet, and wasn’t sure she would ever show them to anyone if she even had the chance, but she worked on her letters every day, usually while sitting, as she was now, in the library, still playing at taking care of it. She didn’t know how much longer she could keep doing that, though, unless something else weird-but-not-completely-above-her-level happened, because she thought she was going to run out of things to write about. Until then, anyway, though, she could feel a little less cut off from everyone this way, and maybe, when she did get home again, she would even have an easier time following the discussions than she usually did….

She loved her family, but she had never understood how passionate they all were about something. She couldn’t think of a single thing which interested her the way almost everything seemed to interest her mother and brothers, sometimes, or even the way Charlie was with his beauty products. With all of them, she listened, and remembered some because it mattered to them so much, but she didn’t really have anything to give back.

The point of a library is to find what interests you and follow it, her mom had said a thousand times at least. It had never really worked for Julian, though. She read to pass the time, but never really seized onto anything. She just read and then moved on, on her own and in school, usually. Maybe that would change, too; she had, to her surprise, found a copy of Through the Looking-Glass last week and had read it three times already. It made no more sense than it ever had, but she kept picking it up when she wasn’t doing anything else, so maybe eventually it would.

She picked it up now, opening it back up to the scene on the train. She had not gotten far, though – 'Now then! Show your ticket, child!' the Guard went on, looking angrily at Alice. And a great many voices all said together ('like the chorus of a song,' thought Alice), 'Don't keep him waiting, child! Why, his time is worth a thousand pounds a minute!' – before she saw someone nearby from the corner of her eye and looked up from the scene with a smile. “Good afternoon,” she said, closing the book around her finger instead of putting the ribbon back in it in case the other person planned to move along quickly.

16 Julian Umland Down the rabbit hole. 254 Julian Umland 1 5

Anonymous

May 01, 2014 11:26 PM

Through the tiny door. by Anonymous

Atlas had been feeling a little homesick recently due to the lack of contact with his family and needed something nostalgic to comfort him. He originally planed to go to the MARS room to get some much needed drawing done, however it wasn't giving him the atmosphere he was pinning for. He contemplated staying in his room, but he felt that he was being to feel a little stir crazy with the recent cancelation of Quidditch, a fact that only made him feel more upset and in need of some drawing-therapy. He opened the massive doors to the library, taking in the fresh scent of books. A flood of memories of his family came over him. The trips to the university with his father, the rustic smell of the bookshop near his mom's coffee shop, everything about it reminded him of brighter days, literally now with the purple clouds blocking out the light.

He walked quietly through the library. The first time he had come here last year he had met a rather odd library aid. He wondered how she ever got that paint out of her hair. He knew from experience it was no easy task. Although he liked to paint as well, he was much more comfortable with drawing, it was a lot less trouble. After walking through a couple aisles he noticed a older girl sitting at one of the tables. He wondered if maybe he could sit there as well. He wasn't really what you would call a socialite, but he didn't mind the idea of another person at the same table, as long as they didn't have a problem with him. After all, the idea of sitting alone in a giant library seemed pretty sad, even to him.

He took a short breath and walked over to the table.

She looked up from the book with a smile. “Good afternoon,” she said, closing the book around her finger.

"Oh," Atlas said a little surprised. He wondered if she had noticed him before. Even if she did, she didn't seem to indicate she was bothered by it, from what he could tell from her greeting. "Good afternoon," he said after a moments pause forgetting that he hadn't responded yet. "Do you mind if I sit here? he asked. Atlas then noticed the book an paper and wondered if he had intruded on her personal time. "I won't bug ya, I just wanted to do some drawing," he said gesturing to the pad under his arm. He took a closer look at the book and realized it was the sequel to "Alice in Wonderland". "Oh, I know that book," he said inquisitively, "thats the book all the hippie type people like." He had never read it himself, but it was pretty popular in the shops in Santa Cruz.

0 Anonymous Through the tiny door. 0 Anonymous 0 5

Atlas Primred, Pecari

May 01, 2014 11:28 PM

OOC: Oops! by Atlas Primred, Pecari

My computer messed up. This is a post by Atlas Primred of Pecari. My apologies for any confusion.

0 Atlas Primred, Pecari OOC: Oops! 276 Atlas Primred, Pecari 0 5

Julian Umland

May 02, 2014 1:39 AM

To play croquet with the Queen of Hearts. by Julian Umland

“Not at all,” Julian replied to the inquiry about the seat. She didn’t really recognize the boy – maybe they had passed in the hallway before, but that was surely it – but it was a public place, he could sit where he liked. She thought, though, that she was more likely to bother him than the other way around; it was hard not to talk when someone else was around at all.

He, though, was the first to speak, and Julian blinked at what he said. “Is it?” she asked. “My mom really likes it, but she’s…not really a hippie.”

Not remotely, really. “Just Muggleborn. And her name’s Alison, so when she found out….” Or at least that was how the story went, sort of like the one about her brothers John and Paul being named after Beatles which irritated John so much. Admittedly, since all Julian could remember about John Lennon was that he was one of the ones who got shot….though, everyone famous ended up dead sooner or later, just like everyone else, so that wasn’t very logical of him. She reminded herself to call him out on it sometime. Julian shrugged. “She felt a lot like Alice, I guess.”

She looked around and was glad not to see a window from where she was. Julian did not like looking outside at all now. “It seems kind of appropriate to me, too, now, but my name’s Julian,” she said. “There was a famous girl Julian in the middle ages or something, and that’s what Mom studied in graduate school,” she added before the question could be asked. Julian never imagined for a moment that she’d ever be considered one of the great beauties of Sonora, or anywhere else, but at fourteen, she couldn’t be easily mistaken for a long-haired boy even when she was in the rougher classes and wearing trousers and old shirts. At the moment, she was wearing an old dress, so she thought it was especially obvious that she wasn’t exactly what most people who didn’t know her thought of when they heard the name Julian.

Next year, she was supposed to finally read the book whose author she had been named for. She was supposed to do that and more on top of getting ready for her CATS, which sounded about as fun as the idea of a trip to the dentist with only John along for moral support on one of his really out-there days did, but she was sort of curious about that one book she had waiting for her anyway, especially since Mom had finally accepted that Julian was not going to learn any form of English older than Shakespeare and so she was going to read it in a modern translation, or whatever they called it when something was technically English but completely unreadable to anyone who wasn’t into that kind of thing. All she knew was that the Lady Julian had defended a woman’s right to talk about revelations from God and had said everything would be all right - all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

Comforting, but not, Julian thought, very practical. Not enough to name her after, anyway. So she was a little curious about the rest, if it explained it at all, or if there were things she just wasn’t meant to understand, or…what. She really did want to know why that name, of all the mystics Mom liked, had been chosen, even though it felt a little ungrateful, since the alternative had probably been Hildegard.

16 Julian Umland To play croquet with the Queen of Hearts. 254 Julian Umland 0 5

Atlas Primred, Pecari

May 02, 2014 7:02 AM

Only after painting the roses red. by Atlas Primred, Pecari

“Not at all,” Julian replied.“Is it?” she asked in response to Atlas' statement about the book. “My mom really likes it, but she’s…not really a hippie. Just Muggleborn. And her name’s Alison, so when she found out….” Julian shrugged. “She felt a lot like Alice, I guess.”

Atlas was a little surpassed that her mother was a Muggleborn he hadn't meet many people at the school who where anything other than Pureblood. Maybe thats why he was drawn to her table, she seemed a little more down to earth than some of the Purebloods he had in his classes. A small smirk spread on his face, they type of smirk that you would miss if you weren't paying attention. He sat down in the seat across from her, and placed his tools on the table. He brought a few soft pencils, a fine-tipped quill, and pot of ink for inking. He positioned the sketchpad on his lap, leaning the top against the table so only he could see what he was drawing. He didn't really like having an audience while drawing, it made him a little too self concious. "Oh, thats cool. Im a muggleborn too. I guess your mom and I have that in common." He felt a slight tinge of homesickness resurface, however it was more bitter sweet this time than just bitter.

She looked around then said, “It seems kind of appropriate to me, too, now, but my name’s Julian. There was a famous girl Julian in the middle ages or something, and that’s what Mom studied in graduate school.”

Atlas opened up to the first unused page of his bristle board paper. He looked around thinking about what to draw. He looked back to his senior. Atlas nodded intently at her words. He wanted to show his senior respect and show he was listening intently and not just ignoring her now that his hand was scribbling on the paper. She was talkative, but that made it easy to carry on a conversation. He thought about the name Julian for a moment. He couldn't remember learning anything in history about someone with her name. Perhaps she was another figure that was not known in the muggleworld. To him, Julian sounded like a boys name, then again Atlas had no right to judge, seeing as he shared the same name as an index of maps. At least she looked like a girl, he thought to himself. Although Atlas had cut his hair over summer, he still felt a little worried about how feminine he looked, especially because his face could be mistaken for a Japanese girl at times. He kicked himself in his head for admitting that, before he finally realized that there had been a lull in her chatter.

"I don't really know who the historical figure was but your mom must have named you Julian for a good reason," he stated bluntly, barely looking up from his drawing. He was trying to work on hands and was actually using Julian as a secret model. Finishing her right thumb he finally looked up from his paper. "Im Atlas by the way. I was adopted though, so I don't really know why I was named it. My Adoptive Dad said that maybe it was after the Titan from Greek mythology, but who knows." He thought he may as well give an explanation to his name as well. Even though it had already been so many years since then, thinking about his birthparents still made his blood boil with anger. Unfortunately he took his frustrations out on the paper, scribbling hard onto the surface to make the shadow of the hand. He blew on his paper making the excess graphite fly off the page. He took another quick peek at her hands and continued scribbling. Drawing always calmed him down, he supposed that was why he practiced so often.

0 Atlas Primred, Pecari Only after painting the roses red. 276 Atlas Primred, Pecari 0 5

Julian

May 05, 2014 3:56 PM

If we can stay out of court that long. by Julian

“I suppose so,” agreed Julian with a small smile.

Her mother was proud of her heritage. So much so that she’d all but left the magical world for a while after school, studying history, literature, and languages at a Muggle university. She had only come back to magic because she met Dad – proof, she said whenever she told the story, that things happened as part of a pattern, that some things were just meant to be. Then she’d start trying to explain something about Aquinas and the Lady Julian and predestination and Dr. Lewis until Dad laughed and make a joke about it or it became painfully clear that Julian and Joe weren’t following her and that John was only faking it.

Muggleborn mother, one Squib brother, the rest of the family likely too mixed up, over generations, to figure out what in the world they were. The Muggleborn and the Squib were probably the smartest. Mom said they were supposed to be examples of whatever they believed in, and she used that to push them all toward excellence, so no one would ever be able to use the five of them as evidence for theories about background - being poor, being Muggleborn, being illegitimate, whatever - being destiny, about background making one a better or worse sort of person or wizard. Julian wasn't a bad student, but she wasn't a very eager one, either, and so the expectation often made her feel guilty.

If things will just go back to normal, I'll work twice as hard to do my part. Just...

She made herself stop trying to bargain again. “I don’t know much about what she wrote about, but Muggles think she was the first woman who wrote in English,” she said about the reasoning behind her name. Witches had written earlier, and done lots of other things Muggle women generally didn’t for a long time after that, but on some level, she thought her mother never really had left the Muggle world, the Muggle way of thinking. Certainly she kept them all involved enough in it, when they were at home; Julian was less comfortable with Muggles than she had been, but she could still walk through one of their cities, she thought, without incurring a blink of suspicion. Which was a good thing, she thought; a lot more of the world was Muggle than was not, and only the very rich could avoid it completely. “So Mom admires her for that.”

Atlas of the Titans. Julian didn’t have much of a head for mythology – lots of long genealogies of names she couldn’t even pronounce, and most of the stuff was really dense and poetic in translation, not like the story versions, which Mom said were usually inaccurate – but she did remember Mom saying that Atlas was supposed to have held up the sky, really, not the globe, because that one had surprised her. She noticed, too, that this Atlas’s hands seemed less calm after he said it.

“I like to think it could always be worse,” she said. “I could have been Hildegard, and you could have been one of the ones whose name is really hard to say.” The Titans, she thought, were really kind of weird to name someone after, since they’d all lost, but then, technically, Zeus and Hera must have been the same thing and just renamed themselves, was all…of course, Zeus was also a shapeshifter, so how much they would’ve been like anything was a question. Maybe they could change their – biology, or whatever – to not-Titan at will…she decided to tell John that one, it would keep him occupied for hours and so out of everyone else's hair.

If she ever saw him again, of course. Every day made the promises that they would be out soon seem a little thinner, and Julian wasn't fool enough to imagine they could live here indefinitely. That, though, wasn't a cheerful thought, so she opted not to mention it and to try to forget it.

16 Julian If we can stay out of court that long. 254 Julian 0 5