Bookworms at the ready! (Tag Mara or Morgan) on Aladren Commons

Josephine Clyde

October 09, 2020 7:29 AM

Bookworms at the ready! (Tag Mara or Morgan) by Josephine Clyde

Another year had begun at Sonora and Josie was maybe super excited. Summer had actually been rather fun. She’d spent so much time with Minnie and even Samuel that she’d barely had a moment alone. They’d gone to the library, the book store and a bunch of library book sales and she spent the summer devouring books left and right. She’d even brought the best of the bunch with her!

As Josie unpacked her clothes and other necessities she brought out the lucky few that had made the trip with her. One book was bright orange and used to have screaming faces all over it before Minnie had done something to make the faces disappear. The second book was blue with stars and two fairies in cheerleading uniforms glaring at each other with the words ‘Fairy High’ in eye-smarting gold in between them. The last book was her favorite in that it was the worst one of the bunch. A genuine romance novel. It had so many different kinds of kisses that Josie had had no idea that there were actually so many different ways to kiss someone.

She couldn’t wait to tell Theo about that one. With all the gross sloppy descriptions of kisses he’d hate it for sure. Mara would absolutely despise the fairy high school drama book and she was pretty sure no one would like the fiery orange death book. Her friends had realized early on that her hobby was pleasurable only for her. No one had flat out run away from yet, but, she eyed the orange book wickedly, this year might be it.

Might as well get an early start on things! The feast could wait. Who was in the room right now? Josie looked around for Mara or Morgan, trembling with the evil desire to torture them with her latest books. She made eye contact with one of them, flopped onto her bed next to the books and started chatting.

“So I read this book over the summer and I can’t wait to tell you about it!”

44 Josephine Clyde Bookworms at the ready! (Tag Mara or Morgan) 1477 1 5

Morgan Garrett

October 12, 2020 9:46 AM

All for one...! by Morgan Garrett

Morgan had not managed to grow much taller over the summer, but she had also managed not to grow too much wider, so she reckoned that was a fair trade-off. Probably. Realistically, she knew that if she was ever going to have a real career on the stage, she was going to have to give up eating foods that actually tasted good – La Audrey might have been able to eat pasta once a week, but La Audrey had had a metabolic problem she’d acquired by nearly dying during the second world war. Still, Morgan was young enough that it still wasn’t impossible that she would abruptly grow taller and find herself with an instantly acceptable figure without doing the work for it. Technically, it wasn’t.

For now, though, she was back at school, and her career therefore on hold. On the upside, though, she thought she could actually reasonably say she had one now! She had played tiny kids’ roles a few times in the playhouse back in Industry, before Anna had died, but over the summer, Dad had apparently worked a few minor miracles and figured out where a long-form improv set of summer classes was held (a rather tricky thing, according to the man himself; he had seemed rather proud of himself, admitting that it was almost the first time he'd used a computer at all in the years since he had married Sage), scraped together the tuition, and worked everyone’s schedules around Apparating her back and forth each day. An extended birthday present. It had been fab, except for when Morgan had had to admit that her school didn’t have a theater program (though she had quickly changed the topic, subtly she hoped, to how her DnD club worked kind of like one!), and when she had had to talk around what the school actually was. She figured that part, though, had counted as extra practice.

She was in a good mood as she walked into her dorm room, grinning at Josie when she saw that the other girl had beaten her to it.

“Oh yeah?” she asked, glancing, just a touch warily, at the books beside Josie. Josie had…interesting tastes. To put it mildly. Morgan rolled with it more easily than she thought Mara did, but sometimes Josie could take even her aback with some of the stuff she came up with. “What sorts?”

16 Morgan Garrett All for one...! 1470 0 5

Josephine Clyde

October 14, 2020 8:50 AM

And one for none! by Josephine Clyde

The briefest hint of wariness slipped into Morgan’s eyes and Josie greedily, giddily drank it in. The long awaited hesitation had come at last. Two, three years. Hmmm. She was losing her touch. True, Morgan was a bit more willing to listen to her stories than Mara usually was, but this time she really had read the perfect book for her fellow Southerner! Well, Josie glanced back at her modest pile, maybe two.

She wiggled a little from her spot on the bed in anticipation or maybe nerves. The new room caught her off guard and she couldn’t for the life of her pinpoint why. They’d been told in their first year that their rooms would change as they got older and she’d adjusted just fine to last year’s room, so what was it about this one that made her feel so jumpy?

The weird unease was part of the reason why she’d unpacked in such a hurry, making sure that all of her things were where she wanted them to be. Josie picked up one of her trio of books and absently flipped through the pages so that it fanned her. She just needed to fill this new room with memories of their previous ones and she’d be fine. Besides, she’d left Morgan waiting long enough.

“Well,” She began as she pointed at the book in her hand, “I’ve read the perfect book for you! It’s got romance and teenagers and oh so much drama.”
Josie sang the last word, stretching it out for a few seconds. Morgan would definitely appreciate drama with a capital D.

“So it’s about this girl named Kayleigh and her best friends, Tina and Isabelle, and their shenanigans throughout their sophomore year as high schoolers, but,” Josie showed off the cover with a grand flourish, “They’re fairies. And they go to Fairy High School, the most prestigious fairy high school in the entire world.”
She flipped the book to the middle to make it seem like she was looking for a certain page or scene, but she definitely remembered everything that happened.

“Isabelle wants to try out for the fairy cheerleading team and Kayleigh and Tina go to support her, but then this total mean girl, Head Cheerleader Aria, fails her. And she uses the word ‘fail’ even though they’re supposed to say ‘unselected’ instead.”
Actually, Josie had been super curious about the difference between the two words and she’d spent a good ten minutes looking both of them up. ‘Unselected’ was a tad bit more neutral in general, but it was definitely nicer than just saying ‘fail’ and especially if you say it just to be mean like Head Cheerleader Aria did.

“Then! Kayleigh and Tina try out for the team and they both make it because they’re ballet geniuses and the coach saw them. They got ‘super selected’, which is apparently really hard to get, and they get so good at cheering that they both become Co-Secondary Head Captain.”
Which was definitely a weird name, but that’s what made it so fun!

“But that’s when the drama starts because Tina gets jealous of Kayleigh and then tries to steal Kayleigh’s boyfriend. And then—” Josie cut herself off, maybe she was giving too many details. She looked Morgan in the eye, “Actually, would you rather have a more general version? It’s just that the details are so good, so juicy that I just kept blabbing without realizing.”

44 Josephine Clyde And one for none! 1477 0 5

Morgan Garrett

October 21, 2020 1:41 PM

That's our room: Josie, Morgan, Mara, and None. by Morgan Garrett

Morgan grinned, too, at the emphasis Josie put on the word 'drama'. Was it about a drama club? That could actually be a cool book! And now that she had been to drama camp, maybe she could assess it for accuracy based on what she had seen from the other kids, kinda....

"You're starting out with words I like," she agreed, sitting down cross-legged on her bed and encouraging Josie to go on.

Kayleigh, Tina, and Isabelle, high schoolers, so far, that sounded ok. She blinked at the twist. "Huh," she said, tilting her head a little. "You got me there. I would not have guessed fairies with those names." She grinned. "Though, you know, if you'd asked me what witches and wizards are named before I was seven...." She shrugged, philosophically accepting the quirks of the universe.

Technically, she had sort of known what she was before she was seven. Anna had told her. Anna had seen her Vanish snow with her foot when it had unexpectedly fallen on flowers they had planted; she had been in preschool then. Anna had told her about trying to always be in control of her feelings because that was what a lady did - all with many allusions to Jackie, usually - but also because that would be better, because she didn't want anyone to see her Doing Things. It wasn't good for people to see her Doing Things; it was like picking her nose in public, nobody wanted to see that. Or so Anna had explained it to her at the time. Morgan had been older when she had realized that manners were probably not the things Anna had really been that concerned about - more about angry mobs - but even then, she hadn't known there was really a wizard culture that properly included people with totally normal names. Wizard cultures in books didn't tend to have a lot of normal names; even King Arthur had a bunch of weird names among their wizards along with their Morgan.

Josie's fairies, though, sounded a lot more normal than even wizards had turned out to be. They had cheerleading squads and knew ballet (though heck, maybe wizards had ballet too, who knew). In any case, Morgan wasn't quite sure why there were weird terms and fairies when they could have just told this story about any high school, but was prepared to roll along with it for the promised Drama, which came soon...only for Josie to then cut herself off!

"No, no," she said. "Go on, this sounds good. I might have to read this one - if you don't mind loaning, of course."

16 Morgan Garrett That's our room: Josie, Morgan, Mara, and None. 1470 0 5

Josephine Clyde

October 25, 2020 8:03 AM

Too bad for None cause our room is rocking. by Josephine Clyde

She had her hooks in Morgan now and she definitely wasn’t letting go. Josie would have done her best evil villain laugh, but she hadn’t gotten to that part of the story yet and she wasn’t any good at scary laughs. As a peace offering she held the book out across the divide to give something for her friend to hold on to. Maybe she’d flip through it a bit, but the best bits of the story were coming and Josie just knew that Moran would be absolutely fascinated. Much too fascinated to peek into the book.

“Well, if you’re sure.” She trailed off, giving her friend one last chance to experience the drama for herself.
“Where was I? Oh! Tina steals Kayleigh’s boyfriend Tyler because she wants to be the only Secondary Head Captain and she thinks that doing that will affect Kayleigh negatively.”
Josie frowned when she recalled that particular scene. Definitely not a friend thing to do! Even if it had been true love there were no excuses for ruining someone else’s relationship. Besides, if it was really true love then they would have been together from the beginning.

“But Kayleigh and Tyler totally see through it and turn the tables on Tina instead, making her lose the co-captain position. So now it’s a war between two ex-best friends on the same cheerleading team and half the team sides with Kayleigh, ‘cause she’s the nice and perfect one, and the other half, with Aria, sides with Tina.”
Josie could feel her arms flapping around in crazy directions, she was maybe getting too excited, but this was a good part!

“The next chapter is about dress shopping for the Winter Ball and Kayleigh is supposed to go with Tyler, but then Tina gives Tyler a love potion and he ends up falling in love with Aria!”
And she thought that was really smart. Because if Tyler had fallen for Tina then it was obvious that it was Tina’s plan, but since Aria already hated Kayleigh she was the better choice. Plus, no one would think that Tina had any part in it.

“At the Winter Ball Kayleigh is crowned as the Winter Fairy Queen, but she’s too sad to think about anything else and she’s just standing up on the stage super depressed. She doesn’t even hear them announce the Winter Fairy King until he’s next to her on the stage and they need to take a picture for the magicbook.”
Josie took a breath; she got all swoony whenever she thought about the next scene and that would not do. The real romance book had had a lot more…steamy descriptions, but this one just made her flutter. She spread her hands wide to introduce the Winter Fairy King.

“His name is Peter Paul and he’s on the fairyball team and popular, but extremely mysterious. All the other girls love him, but he’s not interested in anybody. But then, right as they take the picture, he kisses Kayleigh! On the mouth!”
The crowd had gasped and she had gasped when she read it. She’d gasped so loudly that Samuel had looked at her, rolled his eyes when he saw that she was reading and went back to watching TV.

“Kayleigh’s so shocked that she just lets it happen and when he pulls away he whispers that he did it to break the spell on Tyler. And it works! Somewhere in the crowd Tyler has pushed Aria away and is shoving through people to get to the stage. Then Peter Paul kisses her on the cheek and then walks away.”
Josie put both hands over her heart and sighed happily. Mysterious indeed! And he’d done it because he could see that she was upset and he did it to make her feel better.

“Kayleigh should be happy because now Tyler is up on the stage next to her, apologizing and begging for her forgiveness, but now all she can think about is how nice Peter Paul smelled.”
Why couldn’t there be a mysterious boy like that in her life? Theo was so happy and goofy and nice and…why was she thinking about Theo? Josie shook her head wildly. No more of that! She focused on Morgan.

“I really want to go on, but I really, really think it’ll be so much better if you read it yourself. I’ll happily lend it to you. I thought of you when I read it.”

44 Josephine Clyde Too bad for None cause our room is rocking. 1477 0 5

Morgan Garrett

November 05, 2020 10:35 PM

I think so! by Morgan Garrett

“Oh, that’s low,” said Morgan with a wince of sympathy when told about boyfriend-stealing shenanigans. Her eyes widened at the bit about the tables being turned, wondering how that had worked – she had always wondered how people did stuff like that, turning so-and-so against so-and-so and things. She had no clue how to do it, and all the books she had read about how to be charming and compelling for Dungeons and Dragons games had not helped her figure that stuff out….

Love Potions, however, did sound like something that could totally help. It occurred to Morgan that those could really cause a lot of problems, especially if, like, someone involved was a jewel thief, or wanted to murder someone, but get someone to do it for them – she could practically picture the fedora-and-trenchcoat-clad detectives and spies of the old movies she had watched with Anna trading witty remarks with coldly beautiful femme fatales who controlled men like pawns on a chessboard. Creepy in real life, but in a movie, it would be…creepy, actually, but in an awesome way.

She had been thinking about stories a lot over the summer. She had always expected to act out roles created by others, making them her own but taking the words from others, but…when Valentine Duell had been DMing last year, Morgan had had to think a lot about her character, which had been her, inside the body of someone else, with that someone as a background in her head, all while trying to save one of their professors and fighting and creeping into buildings…all while still supposedly being Morgan. Which had been…weird to think through – it was one thing to occasionally lose her head and chant ‘die, die, die’ over a sufficiently durable enemy, but what if she really had been there? What would that be like? She had even started scribbling a little over the summer, trying to frame a story…not that she could really use that, of course, it had been Val’s story, but it had been fun. She wasn’t sure if she was going to try anything further with that, but seeing someone even younger than her run a story last year had been inspiring, she guessed. But now she needed to pay attention to Josie and all the twists and turns of this book’s story.

“Oh?” she laughed when she was told that Josie had thought of her when reading it. “I…think I’m flattered?” She turned the book in her hands. “I’ll take good care of it,” she promised, accepting the loan. “No spills, no dogearing,” she added with a smile. “Did you do anything else fun this summer? I didn’t read much, because I got to do a drama camp! Dad figured it out for a thirteenth birthday present.”

16 Morgan Garrett I think so! 1470 0 5