Simon Mordue
October 30, 2019 6:02 PM
Working out my feelings. by Simon Mordue
At one point, Simon had spent a considerable amount of time on the Quidditch Pitch. Practices, games, private practice...when the Crotalus Quidditch team had been a thing, this place had been as much his home away from home as the dormitory he shared with Winston and Victor. Maybe even more than that room, really, as out here, he didn't have to be as constantly conscious of propriety as he did with his best frenemies or anyone else in Crotalus. On the Pitch, all he was really expected to do was hit things.Recently, however, that hadn't been expected of him, and that was unfortunate, because right now, he really, really needed to hit something.
They were supposed to act as though everything was all right, as though everything was normal, and he had gone to some pains to keep up that facade for the past weeks. The longer things went on, however, the harder it got. Jeremy was underfoot, Nathaniel was running out of time to come to his senses, the whole school (or at least, everyone who mattered) surely knew by now what had happened to his family, and - worst of all - his baby sister was hurting. Simon was inclined to make the specific thing he hit Nathaniel for that reason alone; he was sure they all would have somewhat mourned Aunt Cynthia, but he was equally sure that Sylvia would have been past it by now if it had just been their aunt who had been the source of her problems. No, it was Nathaniel's stubborn refusal to do what was proper that was causing Sylvia's distress, and that was something Simon could not forgive.
It was also something Simon could not fix. At first, he had assumed Nathaniel would fold within a week. With Sylvia right in front of him while Aunt Cynthia was far away, surely the soft little Teppenpaw would respond to Sylvia's clear anguish and reconsider his position. Even if Nathaniel was too stupid to think of his own position - which Simon truly didn't believe that he was - then there was still that: the almost twin-like bond between Nathaniel and Sylvia, which Simon had always resented but now had expected to minimize the degree of scandal which their family had to face. As the weeks dragged on, however, and Nathaniel began to look even worse than Sylvia, it was beginning to occur to him that it was possible that Nathaniel really might have taken such leave of his senses that he might actually allow himself to be disowned. And if he did, Simon would be hard-pressed not to kill him for real, and not out of any sense of family honor. Sylvia was not coping well with just this preliminary, warning shunning of her precious Nate. If they lost him altogether....
Resentment flared as he enchanted the practice dummies to hit the air and floated the crate with the Bludgers out to the center of the field. He strongly suspected that if Sylvia had any say in it, she'd rather bury him than lose Nathaniel, even though Simon was her actual brother. He tried to suppress the feeling. Those two were almost the same age. They had spent practically their every waking moment together since birth. Of course they were closer to each other than anyone else, including their own brothers - he wasn't looking forward to having Jeremy as a brother either, if he was to be honest, and Simon knew he simply had never been in a position to be as close to Sylvia as Nathaniel had been. It was the burden of being the heir. He did love his sister, though, and watching her have to go through this, even before he thought about how he wondered every time he saw someone if they had just been talking about him...
He really, really needed to hit something.
The Quidditch Pitch was still neatly kept up by the prairie elves, but unlike MARS, he thought it was mostly abandoned these days, which was why he had chosen it as the place to slip away to and take out some of his frustrations on a Bludger and some dummies. The first hit he made flipped a dummy upside-down; the second folded another in half. He didn't hesitate, flying after one Bludger, trusting the other to try to follow him in the meantime so he could hit it once he re-directed the first Bludger. Eventually, he reasoned, he'd either exhaust himself so much that he would be able to sleep untroubled, or else he'd come up with a plan to make things better for Sylvia, or at least come up with a plan for how to punish Aunt Cynthia and Nathaniel without resorting to hitting them with Bludgers, tempting though the idea was. Right now, though, he was just living wholly in the moment, focusing on not getting hit, and felt better than he had in weeks.
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Simon Mordue
Working out my feelings.
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Jeremy Mordue
November 28, 2019 4:58 AM
How do we do that? by Jeremy Mordue
Jeremy had no idea what to do. Everything was… fine? He was trying to tell himself it was. He didn’t feel lost or insecure because those feelings were pathetic, and he had never wanted to be pathetic, and everyone kept telling him he had to be fine, so it was like… currently doubly frowned upon.He had picked up his broom because that seemed uncomplicated. Quidditch was something he had always been really good at, and it was the thing where he fulfilled that most basic but often unadmitted to need – people liked him, most of the time, when he played. Okay, sometimes the other kids got snotty with him but they were just jealous because he was the most important one on the team, and the best. And anyway, he didn’t mean them. He didn’t acknowledge it much because… like, obviously it was pretty basic and stuff, and she’d be a terrible mother if she didn’t but mother didn’t miss his games. Not the important ones. She came and cheered and she was proud of him when he won. And she told him it didn’t matter when he lost, even though that was bull and it totally did. He was the Seeker, and he was supposed to win, and usually his coach had a couple of harsh words if he hadn’t done his best, and the rest of the team were always really pissy. So, it was stupid to say that it didn’t matter, and to take him for a milkshake whether it was celebration or consolation, and sometimes he got really cross when he’d lost and he refused to go and got mad at her for acting like it didn’t matter-
He wasn’t going to admit that it was sort of nice, or that he was worried that Uncle Alexander and Aunt Avery would just expect him to be a winner, and would accept it when he did and be disappointed when he didn’t, and never bother with the milkshakes either way. He was a big boy now anyway, and he didn’t need all that. His Uncle usually said nice things about his flying. It was like the one thing everyone actually seemed to agree he could do. So, there was that. It would still be good to have that. He wasn’t sure whether, outside of that, they had anything nice to say about him. He thought maybe they didn’t. No one ever really seemed to want him around. The gap between him and Simon had always been so big that he was just a little kid. Mother didn’t want him to bother her, and he didn’t care or need that anyway. Nathaniel had Sylvia, of course, and Sylvia had Nathaniel, and they had their treehouse and he wasn’t allowed in.
Thus, when he arrived at the pitch and found it already occupied by Simon, he hesitated, unsure whether he was welcome to take up the same airspace or not.
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Jeremy Mordue
How do we do that?
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Simon Mordue
November 28, 2019 10:19 AM
I’m trying violence. by Simon Mordue
When one played Beater, it was impossible to think too much, at least when you were in the thick of the Bludgers with no support in sight and especially with the Bludgers also focusing on him and him alone. It was impossible to worry much about the future beyond the next few seconds, beyond the next move to keep himself safe. His muscles aches from the shoulders down already - he had not had a workout like this in some time - and his mind was off his troubles and he wished he never had to come down.Another thing that happened when one played Beater, though, was that one developed very acute peripheral vision. He saw the movement near the ground, and, not wanting to be seen behaving like a madman, he slowed down, bashed a Bludger as far as it would go away from him, and flicked his wand to disengage the mannequins and balls.
“Afternoon,” he called to the faraway figure. Flying lower, he was startled to recognize the slight figure. “Jeremy?”
His first instinct, seeing a member of his family, was to assume something was wrong, but Jeremy had a broom in his hand. Which was normal. Jeremy has always been particularly talented as an athlete, more naturally inclined that way that Simon or Nathaniel, despite his ever-eerie resemblance to the latter. Of course he would practice still, even without a formal team to play on - with Winston on his way out, Jeremy was a strong contender for school Seeker next year.
Simon was comforted by the normality of that. Glad to see that one of them, at least, was possibly not completely falling apart. He didn’t know if Jeremy quite had the imagination to fall apart, but he wasn’t going to examine a gift Abraxan’s teeth too closely.
“Out here for a little practice?” he asked. “Care for any help?”
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Simon Mordue
I’m trying violence.
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Jeremy Mordue
November 29, 2019 3:40 AM
Sounds good by Jeremy Mordue
Practising. Yes. Right. All just carrying on as normal. He wasn't sure that was the word he would have given to why he was out here, yet nor was he able to articulate the idea of just desperately clinging to the one thing that had made him feel good about himself whilst his world fell apart. He didn't really have a word for what he was doing right now, and he didn't want to open up the box where all the related words about Nathaniel and mother and feelings were because that was stupid.If Simon was out here doing this, and it was practising, then clearly it was the right thing to be doing right now, so Jeremy nodded.
"Yes," he agreed, "Got to practise. Are you all done or did you want to... do some together?" and it might have just come off as a normal question if he had managed it without the slight hesitation, and the fact that he sounded almost hopeful as he said it.
And then, if Simon said 'yes' they could fly around and hit things and dive perilously and none of it would need words and it wouldn't be stupid. And he wouldn't be alone.
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Jeremy Mordue
Sounds good
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Simon Mordue
November 29, 2019 9:06 AM
Better than nothing, anyway. by Simon Mordue
Jeremy almost sounded like he was asking a normal question. Almost.There was, of course, always the possibility that Jeremy was merely doing what Jeremy did - playing tagalong, especially to Simon's family. He had always seemed to want to be one of them - always having his moods and coming to the house to stay over.
Now Jeremy was one of them, more or less. And he still clearly wasn't happy.
Father had always told Simon about the burden of leadership. How they were doomed to a lifetime of making hard decisions and sacrifices just because of the places where they'd happened to be born. Father had always said that they were fortunate in this, in a way - that it was lack of responsibility which had allowed Father's younger brother to stray so far from the right and proper way, until eventually he had simply taken one step too far away from them.
Simon had always seen a problem with this, of course - namely, that Uncle Nicky had had responsibilities. He'd had a sickly wife and two young children. It just...hadn't changed his behavior, and so the sword had fallen. Or had he cut his own throat with it? And why would someone do that?
Simon, however, liked his own throat just like it was, even with recent...cricks in the neck, so to speak. Which meant he had responsibilities.
"Sure," he said. "Want to chase some Bludgers with me, or do you want to grab a Snitch?"
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Simon Mordue
Better than nothing, anyway.
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