Find me in our chair. [Ness] on Library

Evelyn Stones

August 08, 2020 6:01 PM

Find me in our chair. [Ness] by Evelyn Stones

Evelyn had left Professor Wright's office with a buoyed sense of hope. Buoy might be the perfect word, actually, because she was absolutely still out to sea on this, but at least she wasn't actively drowning. She'd spent a lot of time debating whether she wanted to talk to Ness or Heinrich first, and eventually settled on Ness. Now, waiting in the library for her friend to come out of the Aladren common room meant there was also a good chance she would run into Heinrich, or even Gary, first, and that was fine. She had made up her mind to be more honest and she would tell Gary at some point. But her goal was Ness, so she wandered through the library until she found their squishy chair. It was a little out of the way, but not so out of the way that Ness wouldn't happen upon it by accident and Evelyn was prepared to wait. She was also prepared to nap. That was another thing she didn't generally do where people might stumble upon her - MARS room excepted apparently - but today, she didn't care. She had been at school long enough to trust that probably no one would mess with her, and she also was tense enough that she would wake up and scream and hex someone if they tried. She was confident she could do it now if she wanted.

The letter that Evelyn had been writing to her father was not with her, only the one she'd received from the prison. She was not about to whip it out like she had last time, because she wasn't feeling as horrifically bad as she was last time. What did that say about her that she had been more of a mess over the idea of having to see her father again than she was over news of his death? Still, she knew Ness would want to see it. The letter she'd been writing, however, was deep in her pocket, ready to be tucked away in the back of a book or something in her room. Someday, she thought she'd probably like to look back on the last thing she'd ever said to her father, even if he hadn't gotten to see it.

She took a seat in the chair, feeling small even though she was a chair-sized adult almost now, and settled in to wait for Ness. Her guts were in knots, and she rested her head against the back of the chair so she could close her eyes and work on some meditation exercises Professor Wright had assigned her. She only did that for a moment though, as she didn't want to risk missing Ness go by. So she waited. And breathed. And she didn't cry.

22 Evelyn Stones Find me in our chair. [Ness] 1422 1 5

Ness McLeod

August 09, 2020 5:17 AM

I did. Now I go hide? by Ness McLeod

Ness was actually heading back through the library from the outside world. This was a thing that happened when you socialised outside of Aladren, apparently. Not that Ness had ever been Aladren-exclusive. There was Evelyn, after all. Also literally - there was Evelyn. Sitting in their chair.

Ness approached, noticing that Ev’s eyes were closed and she was breathing very deliberately. Did that… mean something? It was hard to assume that it didn’t, when Evelyn was involved. With anyone else, Ness’ first instinct would have been to creep up and get as close to the other person’s face as possible to surprise them when they opened their eyes. That wasn’t a good idea here. Ness took a moment to silently be angry at all the tiny little normal things that Evelyn’s life, and their friendship had been robbed of. The fact that Ness was a giggler and could rarely pull such stunts off was a moot point. It still wasn’t fair.

“You can stop wishing. I’m here,” Ness teased instead, hoping to at least have some sense of fun and levity where it was possible. “Whaddup?” the Aladren asked, the tone and generally concerned head tilt enough to signify that Evelyn was welcome to treat that as a serious question if need be.

13 Ness McLeod I did. Now I go hide? 1419 0 5

Evelyn Stones

August 09, 2020 8:43 AM

You might want to after this. by Evelyn Stones

Evelyn smiled a little at Ness' comment and folded her hands together, muttering as if praying to a shooting star, before opening her eyes wide and acting surprised. "Ness! My wish came true!" She smirked a little before the expression faded and she scooched to make room if Ness wanted to sit. "You can join me if you want," she said, just to be explicit about it.

"I have some . . . news," she began, not sure whether she could say it was bad, and especially not sure Ness would think it was bad. For all the Aladren's strengths, being sad for people who were sad about something that Ness thought wasn't something to be sad about wasn't one of them. Sometimes it happened, and Ness definitely tried, but there wasn't always space for two people's Big Emotions. Evelyn didn't usually mind because she would usually rather go with what Ness felt about a situation, and there was definitely a balance when it was a different topic. Ness was excited about Lyssa but there was a Big Sad that Evelyn needed to share? Ness would listen. Evelyn was maybe sad about her father's early demise but Ness probably thought this was great news? Well, they would see whether the latter would listen.

She sighed and gave herself a moment to breathe, determined not to cry. She wasn't even sure how hard she had to try not go, considering the given value for grief-stricken. "My dad died," she said finally. It was the first time she'd said it out loud and the words caught in her throat. She wanted to laugh and she couldn't tell if it was one of those 'laugh at a funeral' things, or if she was actually happy. "I guess a venomous snake got into the prison. So he's . . . he's dead." Tears made her eyes damp and she blinked them away, pleased when none of them came out. "I don't know what to feel," she added softly.

22 Evelyn Stones You might want to after this. 1422 0 5

Ness McLeod

August 12, 2020 5:51 AM

I don't know by Ness McLeod

Ness smiled, glad to have both been wished for and invited to chair time. The Aladren took... half-ish of a seat. Maybe a little more. It was considerate of Evelyn to be so small but even her attempts at space conservation were not totally cutting it any more. It was hard to say whether Ness was taking up half or more than half when the seating posture in question involved draping over parts of the chair that had never been intended as the seat. But anyway, Ness sat.

“Oh?” Ness queried, somewhat warily when Evelyn stated she had ‘news’. She didn’t sound happy or excited which usually meant it was bad news. Ness had practically heard the epenthesis in Evelyn’s voice.

Then she delivered it. And it really was ‘...news.’ Emphasis on the ‘...’ (Could you emphasise a ‘...’? Ness was pretty confident right now that you could, and that this one was going to get that treatment repeatedly). This was… news.

At first, Ness wasn’t sure whether or not to assume Evelyn meant it literally. Like… people were like ‘ooh, you’re dead!’ when they were pissed off with you. Or you talked about someone being ‘dead to you’ if they did something beyond forgivable (which Mathias Stones had done, several times). But Evelyn had said he ‘died.’ Evelyn was talking about snakes getting into prison cells. So… literally. Dead.

Ness knew a lot of words, and knew what a lot of words meant. ‘Dead’ should have been one of them. It was a pretty common word. But Ness didn’t know anyone who had died. Why didn’t it feel like anything? Was it because Mathias Stones was a sack of stale turds and no one could be sad that he was gone? Was it because it was invisible? He wasn’t someone Ness ever saw. Occasionally saw the results of his actions, sure. Heard about. But it wasn’t like they could see this death. He wasn’t suddenly missing where he had been present before. It didn’t feel like a thing that could have happened, and it was hard to say what difference it made. It meant summer was decided. It meant Evelyn was free. But none of that felt tangible and real because nothing seemed different.

It also felt weirdly like cheating. They’d been looking at all the ways possible to beat him, to keep Evelyn away or to keep her safe and now it was just… non-existent. How did you win when someone else just quit playing? Why did that matter when the end result was Evelyn was safe?

“Oh,” said Ness, when Evelyn stated uncertainty about how to feel, “That was going to be my next question.” Because normally people were sad, but none of this had ever been normal. “Do you have any guesses?”

13 Ness McLeod I don't know 1419 0 5

Evelyn Stones

August 12, 2020 9:01 PM

Same, though. by Evelyn Stones

Evelyn was torn between the thought that they should really just transfigure the chair bigger and the feeling of happy warmth that came from being close to Ness. For a moment, everything seemed a little less awful. Or... maybe it didn't? She couldn't tell.

She watched Ness' face as the Aladren did what Aladrens do best and contemplated the situation at hand for a moment before finding out that Evelyn had already answered the first question on the list. A soft, wry chuckle managed to come out at Ness' next question though. It was a legitimate one and Evelyn thought it might really help her, but it amused her both that she was guessing at her own feelings, and that Ness was as much in a whirl of thoughts about this as Evelyn was that the best option seemed to be guessing.

The nice thing was that Ness knew basically everything and Evelyn knew she didn't have to be worried about sounding like a bad person. She was grateful that Ness hadn't immediately jumped up to celebrate or something though. "Sad," she said first. "But . . . I'm not sure whether it's because I'm supposed to be sad or whether I really am. I'm sad that . . . Hmmm. nothing will ever get better," she decided in a small voice. "He'll always be who he was for the rest of my life, in all my memories. That sucks. And I'm really pissed off about it. I think I'm also . . . happy feels like the wrong word. But I think that . . . like, I'm not going to get hurt again. Not by him. I can live now," she said softly.

That aside, the rest of her mind was a mess. "I'm anxious about some of the other stuff. Like the funeral. Getting him from jail. The house." There was a lot left unsaid there but it was the best she could do. She looked at Ness a little sideways, not sure how her best friend was going to take this next bit. "I want to ask Heinrich to go to the funeral with me," she said quietly. She couldn't explain all of why and she hoped desperately that Ness would understand. Heinrich needed to be there, needed to be by her side at the end of a chapter that marked the beginning of a new one for the two of them. If Mr. Carmichael did go, Heinrich would make a better companion than Ness. Also, Professor Wright, of course. "I talked to Professor Wright and he said that I should be able to get a pass to go if an adult goes with me, and he said he'd go," she explained, knowing that Ness was aware both of their friendship - for it was - and sessions together. "And that I could probably ask to Professor Skies if I could bring somebody." She cocked her head. "Is that . . . okay with you?" Please understand, she begged silently. Please please don't be hurt.

22 Evelyn Stones Same, though. 1422 0 5

Ness McLeod

August 16, 2020 1:57 AM

Decisiveness is over-rated by Ness McLeod

"I don't know if you're supposed to be sad. I mean, I know what you're saying," Ness added, because Ness wasn't trying to split hairs over semantics, at least not in an unhelpful way. "I'm just saying you're allowed to feel whatever you want to feel about it, even if isn't 'normal' or 'appropriate' or whatever," Ness gave the words the scorn and air quotes that they warranted. "Feel how you want. They're your feelings." Admittedly, Ness thought that if Evelyn felt too sad in a woe-but-he-was-my-father sense, it would be very tempting to point out all the ways he'd been a human turd who didn't deserve tears. But that didn't seem to be the direction this was going.

"Yeah, I get that," Ness nodded, when Evelyn said about how nothing was ever going to change now. "I wanted us to solve things. Maybe not fix him, I don't know if that was possible," it felt super weird to use past tense, "But now..." Ness shrugged. Evelyn already got it.

"Yeah, you can," Ness confirmed with a small smile when Evelyn talked about being able to live now. It wasn't a big raucous cheery grin, because that wouldn't have been appropriate, but amongst all the other feelings, some degree of happiness definitely was warranted. Ness could feel various clouds, various sources of stress, just evaporating. There had been the jolt of inertia, the sense of being cheated, and of not knowing where to direct the energy that had been dedicated to keeping Evelyn safe, but overall, that was a nice problem not to have.

And then Evelyn was talking about stuff like funerals and houses. Did Evelyn technically own a house now? Ness supposed so. That was weird. Like, really weird. Partly because Evelyn was too young for that to really be a logical thing to be happening (but then, dealing with things she was too young for really seemed to be the universe's specialty when it came to Ev) but also... Sure, Ness knew theoretically that people passed on stuff when they died but like... Death = funeral. That was kind of dizzying as a thought, just in terms of that being a process to have to engage with, but it made sense. Death = house. It sounded like there was a step missing there. That also assumed that he had left it to Evelyn, which didn't seem guaranteed. To CJ maybe though, who was even less capable of dealing with it. Or he hadn't made a will at all because he was young and didn't expect to die and it would go to Evelyn by default.

This head spin was cut short by Evelyn explaining who she wanted to take to the funeral and all the passes she would get from teachers and stuff and asking if Ness minded. Ness had to refocus a second to work out why that was even a question. It wasn't like it was a fun day out. And then the Aladren realised the implication Do you mind that I'm choosing him instead of you? If it had come with any other context, Ness might have had a different answer. Ness didn't want to be left out or left behind. But Ness also didn't want to go to Mathias Stones' funeral. There were some situations where not being chosen was honestly preferable. And something about whatever Evelyn needed being the right thing and blah blah blah - presumably, in your own head, you were allowed to be selfish. And Ness was glad to be given a pass for once.

"Of course - that's fine," Ness nodded. "When is it likely to be?" the Aladren asked just for lack of anything else reasonable to say. How did you make conversation about this kind of thing?

13 Ness McLeod Decisiveness is over-rated 1419 0 5

Evelyn Stones

August 17, 2020 3:43 PM

I think so too. by Evelyn Stones

Evelyn took the opportunity to snuggle into Ness' shoulder, fueled both by the Aladren's support and validation, and the little smile that made Evelyn feel like she wasn't a minister. It felt sort of nice to see a thousand thoughts running around after each other in Ness' eyes because it made Evelyn feel like she hadn't gone bonkers. She had a thousand thoughts in her own head and they were warring for center stage. So far, it was just an ensemble production and she had the distinct feeling that it would exhaust her if she didn't pick a direction soon. For now, her to-do list involved talking to Heinrich and then talking to Ms. Heidi. Probably sending a letter to her mother. That was a crappy thought.

"Thank you," Evelyn said, breathing a sigh of relief. She hadn't realized she'd been holding her breath but there was a woosh that came out all at once and she suspected she'd been holding her breath a lot recently. She wrinkled her face into a frown when she couldn't answer the next question though. "I'm not sure," she admitted. "Probably soon, right? I don't know how wizarding formaldehyde works but I'd guess that sooner is better than later for these things." She grimaced. There was a big huge morbid cast member in the back of her ensemble who was trying to make her think about things like death and decay, but she did not at all want to think about those things and was doing her best to give him the boot right out of the theatre. "I sort of hope it's soon so I can get it done. I was going to ask your parents if I could maybe stay the night that weekend? Or if Heinrich and I can, I guess, if he comes. Just so that I can . . . like . . . I dunno. Reboot before everything goes back to 'normal'. Is it . . . can I call it home there?"

22 Evelyn Stones I think so too. 1422 0 5