You never told me! (tag Jasmine). on Cascade Hall

Tatiana Vorontsova

September 12, 2019 2:52 PM

You never told me! (tag Jasmine). by Tatiana Vorontsova

OOC: O the Fuzzytime!

Tatiana walked into the Cascade Hall, a long station necklace around her neck swinging carelessly across her chest as she walked rapidly, gold bracelets jingling merrily on her wrists, earrings flashing as she turned her head to look here and there for Jasmine Delachene. When she spotted her, she hurried yet more, all but bouncing over to the table where the other girl was seated and plopping down gracelessly in a chair beside hers.

"Your sister, I hear her name is Anastasia!" she exclaimed with little preamble. Small talk was not her favorite thing even when she was speaking her best language, and she rarely bothered with it at all in English. Her tone was more delighted than offended as she announced this fact which Jasmine was presumably already very familiar with to her, then continued, "And you call Anya! Why do you never tell me this before, that you have Russian family? I thought you all French!"

Anastasia was not, however, a French name. The fashion for speaking French at one point in Russia's history meant that it wasn't unheard of for some Russian girls, especially in Peterburg, to be called Anastasie instead of any of the traditional forms of the name, but that was as a sort of strange diminutive - one of the things Tatiana would never tell Dorian was that she always thought all the '-ie' sounds in French made it sound rather childish to her half the time, and especially in girls' names.

However, Jasmine's sister (though she was called 'Anya' for some reason - odd thing! Perhaps it had been a while since their family had been Russian properly; perhaps something had gotten confused, because 'Anya' was a name for Annas, not Anastasias) was not called Anastasie, and was named Anastasia, and used a Russian diminutive, even though she did not use one of the traditional ones associated with her name. This was an exciting revelation to Tatiana, even if it was almost certain that Anastasia Raoulevna (stupid French name, hard to properly convert) did not speak Russian because Jasmine did not speak Russian.

"We might be cousins!" she added, to explain some of her excitement, beyond just being happy with the thought of another tie to her home culture here.

16 Tatiana Vorontsova You never told me! (tag Jasmine). 1396 Tatiana Vorontsova 1 5

Jasmine Delachene

September 12, 2019 3:28 PM

Oh, no, Anya’s not Russian. So far as we know. by Jasmine Delachene

Jasmine was more or less accustomed to Tatiana’s propensity to arrive and immediately launch into conversation without any kind of greeting or pleasantries. When the other girl showed up today, Jasmine couldn’t have said what she was expecting the topic to be, but her sister’s name wasn’t on the top ten list, and it took a few seconds for her to work through Tatiana’s accent enough to figure out that what what they were talking about today.

Once the onslaught of words ceased, Jasmine sat there blinking, trying to figure out what part of it she should answer first, and how gently she should let her friend down.

“Anya and me are both adopted,” she began with, “so maybe we’re cousins by birth family?” Jasmine knew very little about who she had been before she was a Delachene. This was at least in part by choice. Paperwork might exist providing details about where she came from but as long as she didn’t know, she could still believe some small country would come looking for their princess some day.

“But,” she shook her head regretfully, “my adoptive family is only American and French. Well, I don’t know what mess of a lineage I might have on Mom’s side, actually, but I don’t know of any Russian ancestors, though that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. We’re probably mostly Spanish though? California was settled by Spain first, and we’ve been there for as long as I know of.” Admittedly, her knowledge of her family history only extended back as far as where her grandparents had been born: France for the Delachenes; California for everyone else.

”But Anya’s name came from the Dreamworks movie. It’s not Disney, like Aladdin where my name is from, but it’s close enough. Anyway, it’s based on the Russian story, but Anya’s not actually Russian herself. Oh, and don’t ever call her Anastasia. She hates her full name. She likes Anya much more.”

1 Jasmine Delachene Oh, no, Anya’s not Russian. So far as we know. 1397 Jasmine Delachene 0 5

Tatiana

September 12, 2019 7:32 PM

Oh. That's too bad. by Tatiana

Tatiana listened carefully, but understood less than half of what Jasmine was saying. Very little of this problem had much to do with English, though she didn't immediately realize this.

Dream-works. Those were two English words she knew, but they didn't...go together, not like that. She thought that German sometimes did stick words together like that to express concepts, but she didn't speak German - attempts to teach it to her had only ever taught her words, but not how to put them together properly; it just had refused to stick properly, somehow - and had never had any reason to think Jasmine did either - otherwise, they should have had her in Club of Tongues.

Then the rest of it got even weirder - Al-lah-din. Din, that was English, yes? Was it something about alcohol? She had little use for that word in English, but she thought it did sound similar in English and Russian, and people who drank too much alcohol could produce a din. Diz-nee? Knee? Like the body part?

"I am sorry," she said. "I do not know some of your words - movie? Disney? Dreamwork? Maybe I just do not know them when they are here, about names?" she suggested, in case the terms were things she should have known by now.

16 Tatiana Oh. That's too bad. 1396 Tatiana 0 5

Jasmine

September 12, 2019 8:31 PM

I know. You'd be a good cousin. by Jasmine

For a moment, Jasmine was confused for why Tatiana was suddenly having trouble with English or, at least, more trouble than she normally did. Then the penny dropped and Jasmine remembered she had just slipped into MuggleSpeak and Tatiana, if she knew MuggleSpeak at all, which Jasmine doubted, she would know Russian MuggleSpeak. Dreamworks and Disney would probably sound roughly the same, though, as they were names, so it was definitely a lack of muggle knowledge at fault. It still kind of baffled her a little that most witches and wizards were not raised on a steady diet of animated films.

"Right," she said in realization. "It's muggle stuff," she explained. "My mom is muggleborn. Disney and Dreamworks are companies that make movies. Movies are like portraits, except they only follow the same plot over and over. It's . . . a portrait of a book. Like, a portrait of what happens in the book, not just its cover. It plays out, and then you can watch it again if you want. And the characters talk to each other and there's sound effects and music. So if a portrait did all of that, it would be a movie. My movie was called Aladdin, like a book, that was its title. Disney made that one, they painted it and enchanted it with Disney Magic, which is different from real magic, but just as amazing. Disney makes all the best movies. Anya's name is from the movie titled Anastasia, made by Dreamworks, and it has a lot of the same elements that make Disney movies great, like really good animation and beautiful songs."

1 Jasmine I know. You'd be a good cousin. 1397 Jasmine 0 5

Tatiana

September 12, 2019 9:02 PM

I'm loyal and I give decent presents. by Tatiana

Companies made movies. Movies were like portraits of book plots. Tatiana looked at her friend in awe.

"Truly?" she said. "This is a wonder! And you say Magly have invent this wonder? Magly know art?" Art was a good thing to know. Tatiana enjoyed beautiful things, but had always heard this was not enough to constitute the artistic appreciation a young lady should have; merely finding it lovely wasn't enough, though nobody could explain what would be in a way she quite understood. It was enough for her that things were bright and beautiful....

She tried to imagine this use of art which Jasmine was describing. She saw pictures in books, line drawings, which moved fairly repetitively, to demonstrate things like wand movements. That, however, was a long way from portraits that were not portraits, which walked through a story over and over again. She could grasp the idea of somehow convincing portraits to carry out a play, if they were easily convinced portraits, but to just be able to watch a play whenever as though it were a book, and over and over the same? This was fascinating!

"And they made story about Russians, eh? We always hear that Americans do not know about us."

She shook her head slightly over the diminutive thing again. "My sister is also Anya," she said. "But her big name - it is Anna. At home, if a girl is Anastasia, we call her Nastya, Nastenka. Usually we do. I have not heard of anyone saying 'Anya' for 'Anastasia.' Where did Anya come from with you?"

16 Tatiana I'm loyal and I give decent presents. 1396 Tatiana 0 5