Nathaniel Mordue
May 21, 2020 2:58 PM
Don't hex the messenger (Alexander) by Nathaniel Mordue
As he looked around places he thought his attache might be, Nathaniel's face was set into the specific vaguely pleasant expression he tried to maintain on prefect rounds and such things. It was, after all, a very useful mask at the best of times, never mind times when his mind was reeling a bit behind its artificial contours.He was aware that no family was as perfect as every family wished to seem, but he really had thought his was particularly bad. Compared to the picture he was putting together of the Stones family, though, his family was downright enjoyable. His father had been chronically unfaithful to his wife, but he had at least shown a semblance of guilt, with the gifts, and had...well, he hadn't loved his children, obviously, if he had, he wouldn't have abandoned them or their mother, but he had at least made a show for a few years, until he got too bored to bother further. All the injuries he'd inflicted on them all had been strictly emotional and psychological; even now, Nathaniel figured that if he and his father were ever in the same room again, it would be his father whose physical safety was in the most danger. He couldn't even fathom - well, there were a lot of things Nathaniel thought he would never understand how anyone could do, but - Nathaniel could imagine being angry enough to attack someone, preferably magically because he was not some Muggle without better options, but he could imagine hitting someone too. He had been driven to the point of wanting to do violence often in his life, in fact. Nathaniel could not, however, imagine attacking someone who was physically or magically weaker than him. It wasn't proper, it wasn't right, it was actually even worse than the oath-breaking of adultery or the irresponsibility of getting children from said oath-breaking....
He also didn't know how much he should say to Alexander, or if he should say anything at all beyond that Evelyn was willing to interact in some fashion. It wasn't his place. This wasn't his family. Which was where the shame came in - in that he was deeply, deeply relieved that it wasn't his family, and that he derived satisfaction from trying to help them.
Well. From trying to help Alexander, anyway. Somehow, things kept going wrong whenever he so much as spoke to Evelyn so that he ended up feeling guilty and incompetent. With Alexander, though, he did think he was helping, and he enjoyed that. It was a relief, to actually try to help one of the people he felt responsible for and then seeing results. It was so much easier, too, than it was with Jeremy, even now that he thought he was vaguely getting somewhere with Jeremy - which wasn't fair to either Alexander or Jeremy. He was, as Dr. Greene kept reminding him, Jeremy's brother, not an official authority figure the way he was for Alexander. He could not - or should not, anyway - blame Jeremy for not seeing him as something he wasn't, at least in the context of Jeremy's world....
He eventually made his way back to Teppenpaw and found his favorite, somewhat secluded, corner chair, waiting, keep eyes on the door leading out of the dorms and out of the common room. When he spotted Alexander, he caught his eye and gestured for him to come over.
"Hello. Have a moment? I've just spoken with Evelyn," he said. "She's willing to speak with you, but she isn't sure what...kind of meeting to have?" He thought that was an adequate way to summarize it. "She doesn't mind if you just approach her, if you want to do that, and she said she might eventually approach you if you don't. Or she might get in contact with you beforehand. She was - well - a bit upset, for other reasons - I didn't realize when we started speaking," he said with a touch of open guilt. He hesitated, then said, "she asked if you had contacted your father. He's lost the right to see his other children - her and her brother. There seem to be legal issues, Alexander. I didn't ask for details, of course, I didn't think it was my place." He watched the younger boy for a reaction. "Are...you all right, hearing that?" he asked awkwardly, unsure of his footing here.
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Nathaniel Mordue
Don't hex the messenger (Alexander)
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Alexander Pierce-Beales
May 21, 2020 7:28 PM
I wouldn't know how yet. by Alexander Pierce-Beales
Alexander had mostly been in a blur since returning to Sonora. Even his time at the feast had felt surreal and certainly his conversation with Nathaniel before that had been. It was weird to have gone his entire life without a family, find out that maybe he had one, and then actually get one in time to realise that his definition of "family" had been wrong this whole time. When he was called over to talk with Nathaniel again, he found that he wasn't the only one with a skewed example of such things. In this case, it was the same family even.He blinked, not entirely sure what to think. "Do they have to go to a group home?" he asked, imagining it. He'd grown up in one, sure, but that was all he'd ever known. A younger boy but one who had known his parents, and then being a teenager nearly done with Sonora and going to one would be much worse. Or, if what Nathaniel had said last term was true, it might be better. What a terrible thing that was to think about.
"I'm not sure what to think," he admitted, looking at his hands. "I don't really know what sort of meeting to have either. It's not like . . . well, we won't be family, will we? Do you think I should meet her formally anyway?" There was a part of him, not a small part, that wanted Evelyn and her brother and her father to go far away and not impose on the family Alexander had been lucky enough to have now. If she screwed this up for him, he'd be the first to hex her. But at the same time, it probably wouldn't be her fault. At least there was probably no need to worry that he'd be placed with his biological father. "You said she's nice . . . I don't know what to do."
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Alexander Pierce-Beales
I wouldn't know how yet.
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Nathaniel Mordue
May 25, 2020 4:48 PM
I'd rather not be jinxed either. by Nathaniel Mordue
"A grou - oh. No, no," said Nathaniel, glad that he could convey some - as far as he could tell, anyway, at least from the perspective of the person who was involved - unambiguously good news to someone. "They're staying with friends of Evelyn's. The McLeods - if you were listening to the prefect announcements, one of them is the new Aladren prefect," he added, considering prefects in a family the sort of thing that might seem reassuring, at least to someone who was not so aware, as far as he could tell, of the political angle of things.He hesitated, then added, "I knew one of them, too, who's left school now - he was a prefect here in Teppenpaw - and he was...a bit strange, but twice he went out of his way to be kind to me, when he really had no reason to." He made the admission reluctantly, but it was true, even if he had not seen it that way at the time of the second incident. Try as he would, though, he could not convince himself that Kir had somehow secretly been mocking him, at least not when he was in a more or less reasonable frame of mind. A lot of things made sense when he was very low, but they didn't now that he was - somewhat - better. "I...think they're good people. They mean well," he concluded finally, feeling that last statement, at least, was definitely correct. People could have bizarre and wrong beliefs, after all, and still mean well; it was not their fault exactly that they had clearly been poorly brought up. "For whatever that's worth."
As Alexander asked his next questions, Nathaniel rather wished that his old self could be part of this conversation instead of the current version. The old Nathaniel, after all - to the extent Nathaniel could remember anything about the boy - had had very definite ideas about family, and right and wrong, and responsibility, and all those ideas. The old Nathaniel's world had been very simple in some ways, really. Not so the current version. But he tried his best.
"It's important to remember that it's not - entirely - up to you anymore," he reminded Alexander quietly. "Now that Evelyn knows that you're a second year in Teppenpaw, she has the option of approaching you if you don't approach her. Beyond that - it's difficult. I think you probably should, though. If I know you at all, I don't think you'll have any peace until you do," he added, thinking of last year and Alexander's drive simply to know - approaching Nathaniel, approaching outside agencies, writing to Stones and Mason...it seemed inevitable to him that curiosity would get the better of his small friend again, sooner or later.
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Nathaniel Mordue
I'd rather not be jinxed either.
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Alexander Pierce-Beales
May 26, 2020 2:42 PM
Since you asked nicely. by Alexander Pierce-Beales
Alexander nodded, happy that Evelyn wasn't going to be in a group home. They were terrible. At least his was. He supposed that Evelyn and her brother - his brother - would be sent to a magical one, and that would probably be a little less awful. It was good to know that the McLeods were good people, even if Alexander couldn't quite remember which one the prefect was. He was pretty sure he'd seen stuff about a McLeod Foundation, and he wondered whether they were "staying with friends" because of the foundation or because of the friendship.He blushed, feeling admonished when Nathaniel pointed out that this wasn't just up to him anymore. He had rather enjoyed having the power in this situation, not because of the power itself but because of the control it came with. Everything was different for him and he felt rather like he'd been getting the bum end of the stick for a very long time. The idea that he had enough power to finally not get the bum end of the stick was great, but he had to recognize that Nathaniel was right; he wasn't the only one in this anymore.
"You're probably right," he said flatly, not sure whether he wanted to laugh or scream at the idea that his curiosity would get the better of him anyway. "But what do I say to her? 'Hi, guess we're related, have a nice life'? Like . . . I guess I don't know what I want from this. Or what she wants. What could even come from this?"
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Alexander Pierce-Beales
Since you asked nicely.
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Nathaniel Mordue
May 27, 2020 4:02 PM
Thank you kindly. by Nathaniel Mordue
OOC: Allusions to past suicidal impulses. BIC:There was part of Nathaniel that couldn't help finding it sort of fascinating, trying to figure out how the world must look through Alexander's eyes. There were a lot of painful, difficult, even impossible questions which Nathaniel turned over in his head, but the one Alexander asked him was one that he couldn't imagine having ever thought of.
"She's your sister," he said. "I...I suppose I've always had a brother...and my cousins. Family is...you have connections. You look after each other...if she's in trouble, you help her. If you're in trouble, she helps you. Potentially, anyway," he said, remembering that Alexander and Evelyn didn't have a relationship yet. "I usually think of it as...automatic, but I suppose it does depend...there are limits, if someone's a terrible person. But I don't think either you or Evelyn are terrible people," he added, realizing his rambling might not make any more sense to Alexander than Alexander's question initially had to him. It made more sense now that he had thought about it, but at first....
A wave of something like recklessness washed over him, and he clarified. "For example, both of our fathers can go to hell with my compliments," he said bluntly. "But I couldn't imagine not having Sylvia and Jeremy." This was not quite the truth - he had, after all, more or less experienced that exact thing, two years ago. He hadn't known what to do with himself without a family, had seen no purpose to living. He didn't feel that taking advantage of how very many poisonous things there were in an average potions kit was one of his better ways out now, but for a time - a long time...the only thing that had forced him to keep going had been the knowledge that his family needed him. "Family is...complicated, but not all of it is so bad," he said. "You can have your new family now and still accept your sister and brother, if you want. I'd think, anyway. I won't tell you it's sure to go well, because I have no idea if it will or not, but it could."
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Nathaniel Mordue
Thank you kindly.
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