Nathaniel Mordue
September 14, 2020 5:03 PM
I'm just the messenger (Alexander). by Nathaniel Mordue
Nathaniel was not, for better or worse, a Crotalus.He had, upon reflection, been less surprised by this than Sylvia had been. Sylvia and Simon were Crotali, and so were their parents. He and Jeremy, on the other hand, had parents who had both been mercurial at best, unstable and destructive (both to themselves and others) at worst. It was frankly amazing that they had even managed to produce Jeremy, who was sufficiently like their parents that Nathaniel sometimes suspected he’d been missorted. As for Nathaniel, he thought proximity to Sylvia must have done him some good. He could comport himself like a reasonably stable person in public, and he could put together a reasonably coherent plan, when he wasn’t too actively unstable.
Unfortunately, though he was currently feeling reasonably stable, he was confronted with such unusual circumstances to plan around that he wasn’t too sure how to proceed. How, exactly, did one go about telling people that parents they’d never had were dead? Did Alexander even know the man had been in prison, or was Nathaniel supposed to leave that bit out? If he did, would that ultimately result in Alexander making a fool of himself saying the wrong thing to the wrong person? Or if he did not…
It was entirely too much, but here he was.
Finally, he had looked at purely practical matters. When he had most recently had a parental disaster, he had developed an unfortunate penchant for destroying things. Therefore, he had decided to find Alexander discreetly and ask the younger Teppenpaw to walk with him. This allowed him to steer them out into the gardens, where at least if stuff got smashed, it would be foliage, and not either Alexander or Nathaniel’s possessions, for the most part. Plus, it was less likely to draw attention, which was always a plus when dealing with things that might provoke explosions of uncontrollable emotion.
Outside, though, he remained silent several moments longer, trying to think of the right words to use. He had planned words to say, of course, but it was hard not to doubt them now that they were needed. Finally, though, he had to say something, before things got weird. Well, even weirder.
“I don’t really know if there’s a good way to tell you this,” he said, “but I’m afraid I’ve been asked to give you some bad news about your biological father.” He paused a moment to allow Alexander to let that sink in, then proceeded with, “He’s passed away.”
Such a stupid phrase, he thought. He’d always hated that kind of delicate talking-around that people did. He’d have rather just called things what they were: my father abandoned me; yours is dead. It was not, however, the done thing.
“If there’s – anything I can do to help, however you handle it,” he added, a touch awkwardly.
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Nathaniel Mordue
I'm just the messenger (Alexander).
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Alexander Pierce-Beales
September 15, 2020 9:42 AM
There's no one else to shoot. by Alexander Pierce-Beales
Nathaniel wanted to walk with him, which normally would have been cool, except that wasn't a thing that ever happened and the older Teppenpaw seemed sort of . . . off. He was quiet for a long time and Alexander had thoroughly succumbed to his daydreams about drawing pretty faces amidst the leaves in the garden when Nathaniel finally spoke up again.Bad news about his biological father, eh? His first thought turned out to be right on the money when Nathaniel continued and Alexander blinked several times, not sure how to feel. "Did he die in jail?" he asked, remembering what Evelyn had said. Of course, she hadn't really said very much. Alexander looked up at Nathaniel. "Do you know why he was in jail?" he asked; the idea of going to Evelyn to ask at this point was not ideal, for a lot of reasons and he had never gotten confirmation beyond some suspicions.
He tried to sort out how he was feeling, because he was pretty sure he was supposed to be feeling something. He was . . . not really feeling much. Some part of him had apparently been holding onto dreams of playing catch with good ole daddio in the front yard because those swiftly disappeared, but they hadn't ever really appeared in the first place anyway. Alexander didn't have a face to put to the man he played with, just a name and a reputation. He was also not sure how to feel for Evelyn. Worry was one of the first emotions there - and awkwardness, but that was a lingering feeling between the 'siblings' - and he cocked his head. "Does Evelyn know? How come you're telling me?" he asked.
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Alexander Pierce-Beales
There's no one else to shoot.
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Nathaniel Mordue
September 15, 2020 12:23 PM
Sometimes, shooting may not be the answer. by Nathaniel Mordue
Well. That answered the question of whether to mention the ‘in prison’ part.“Evelyn asked me to,” he said, beginning at the end. “She found out and wasn’t sure how to approach you with it…I think it’s…complex for her, the whole…situation.” Nathaniel grimaced uncomfortably. “He was in prison, yes, when it happened. I don’t know exactly why he’s there, but….” Should he actually say this? “I suspect it may have involved…doing some harm to your sister. Which would explain why she’s not sure what to feel about this, and why she doesn’t seem to really want to talk about it yet.”
He wondered what was going on in Alexander’s head. He knew what it was like to know one’s father was a disappointment, to know he did not comport himself like a man, but he had at least known his father. Or thought he had. As far as he could tell, though, Alexander’s contact with Mathias Stones might have extended to a letter. It wasn’t the same thing.
“It seems he wasn’t much of a man, but it’s understandable, I think, if you’re still…disappointed,” he said hesitantly. “That you didn’t get to know him. Or that he wasn’t someone to be proud of…It’s just as easy to miss someone you wish had existed as it is to miss someone who really did.”
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Nathaniel Mordue
Sometimes, shooting may not be the answer.
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Alexander Pierce-Beales
September 23, 2020 4:21 PM
Then why do I feel like I've been shot? by Alexander Pierce-Beales
For a moment, Alexander was really friggin' pissed off that Evelyn has asked Nathaniel to say something instead of doing it herself. He wondered if that meant Evelyn was like their shared parent - a coward who couldn't face up to the truth - or he was - with the darker eyes and darker hair that he didn't know for sure where they came from, only that Evelyn didn't have them. Perhaps it wasn't fair to be pissed off but that was about the only emotion he had a word for of the ones that ran through his mind, so that's what he clung to until Nathaniel finished explaining. Maybe Evelyn wasn't the problem. Maybe it was the fact that she had her own list of unidentifiable feelings right now. Maybe they had something in common that wasn't bad, as neither of them seemed entirely in the place to mourn the loss of their biological father, albeit for different reasons. Or was it bad that he thought that wasn't a bad thing for them to have in common?He felt a bit lucky and a bit guilty for feeling lucky that Evelyn had been hurt and not him. Well, he'd been hurt too, but not the same way. He'd grown up alone, and it sounded like she might have preferred that. The line between a bad parent and a bad enough parent to go to jail was not a thin one; Mathias Stones had done something bad.
He nodded mutely as Nathaniel went on. "Disappointed," he repeated. "That's a good word." He wasn't sure if it was exactly the same reasons that Nathaniel gave though. "I think I'm disappointed that that's half of me. I don't want that half of me to come out, but I'm not so sure about the other half either." He blinked, realising his eyes had glazed over at some point, and looked up at Nathaniel with a wide, curious expression; there wasn't room for worry or fear in this life. "Can I just be me? Do I have to be like my parents?"
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Alexander Pierce-Beales
Then why do I feel like I've been shot?
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