A new beginning (tag: first year Aladren boys) on Aladren Commons

Nicholas Pierce

December 17, 2022 8:50 PM

A new beginning (tag: first year Aladren boys) by Nicholas Pierce

The interior of the Aladren common room was very much as Nicholas’ parents had described it – an open space not entirely dissimilar to the family room at home, except that at home, he didn’t think his parents ever would have combined black chair frames and book cases with quite that dark a shade of blue. The dramatic, bruise-like color scheme made the room look darker than it really was, and almost intimidating…unless that was just because Alexander wasn’t with him and everything just seemed a little off as a result, as if that one thing which was Completely Incorrect had struck the face of reality so hard that it had sent ripples through the whole thing.

Professor Wright settled down on a comfortable chair near the fire and began punching Nicholas in the stomach repeatedly – an action otherwise known as Professor Wright sitting calmly several feet away while talking about Aladren. Home? This wasn’t home. If it was home, they would be reading with Mother and Father right now. Maybe it could have become home, if things had gone a little differently, but Alexander wasn’t here, and that ruined the whole game. Unless there was some way to get Alexander in here, or Nicholas into Crotalus….

Well, technically speaking, there was. The key was a book. Alexander could pull on a book as well as Nicholas could. It was against the rules, but that was the least of Nicholas’ concerns. More important problems would be making sure there weren’t other spells on the door to keep it from working for Alexander…and dealing with these other people. It would have been so much easier, Nicholas thought glumly, if they’d been identical, and if there hadn’t been these other guys in the room. Those things all combined to make the way he now knew about seem like a long shot, though, so he was going to have to think of something else.

Did he really have to mention chess on top of everything else?

Alexander loved chess; Nicholas had a complicated, up-and-down relationship with it. He could get as caught up in it as anyone, but – as he did with many things – he got frustrated with it easily, and that led to times where he was a grim, scowling figure at the board, determined not to quit even if he couldn’t win. Not like Alexander, who would have probably spent all his free time studying the boards or books about the boards if the rest of the family hadn’t steered him away now and again.

Alexander was the one who belonged here, not him. Alexander could have answered Nausicaa’s question about favorite fields of study in a heartbeat. Alexander did his lessons and didn’t seem to get as restless and distracted as Nicholas did. Alexander played chess really well, much better than Nicholas. There were no circumstances under which they should have been separated at all, but Alexander was the one who, by name alone, their parents had indicated they expected to live up to their own standard. Nicholas - they loved him, of course. He had his own role in the family. He, however, was just mirus to Mother - a delightful surprise, but still not something necessary, not like carus eius, her Dear One, the one who was supposed to be a great man someday with Nicholas mainly there to watch his back. And being sorted into their parents’ old House was the first step to greatness, and therefore, Alexander was supposed to be here.

And yet, Alexander…wasn’t.

When they were dismissed, Nicholas stood, still only half-able to accept that fact. This meant he stood there a fraction too long before he said, “I’m going to go find the room – “

Our room. That was what he was probably supposed to call it. ‘Our room,’ however, meant something else. It meant the bright little room, with its two beds and two little desks and two wardrobes, back in New Hampshire. In the winter, it got so cold that Nicholas had managed to play hide and go seek just by getting into bed in that room – they piled quilts and comforters and blankets of all kinds so thickly on the beds that he didn’t make a noticeable bump….

The room here wasn’t especially unlike their room, but nor was it really much like it. The beds were grander than his, a little – not as grand as his parents’ bed, but somewhere in between. The floor had more stone in evidence, not as much carpeting. And, of course, there was all the blue and black, just like below. Wearily, Nicholas sat down on the bed closest to where his trunk had been placed, pleased to find it was close to the window, and looked at his trunk as he tried to figure out what he should do next. Get his glasses and read orientation paperwork? Start drafting a letter to their parents to explain and ask advice? Start reading a book? Or….

…Or possibly act like a normal human being in society at large. He could probably do that, too.

“Hello,” he said to the roommate who entered. “I’m Nicholas Pierce – New Hampshire Pierces. I’ve only ever had one roommate before, not two, so I hope the etiquette is pretty much the same.” He forced a smile to go with the remark, because they were automatically only on semi-formal terms here - it would sound absurd to do that when they were living in the same room.

16 Nicholas Pierce A new beginning (tag: first year Aladren boys) 1565 1 5

Quillan Arcadius

December 17, 2022 9:53 PM

Full of puzzles by Quillan Arcadius

It had really happened. He, Quillan Arcadius, dyslexic disaster zone, was an Aladren. He had limited himself to a broad, triumphant grin and straightening his shoulders as he pulled his badge out, even though he felt like punching the air and cheering. His chest had stayed puffed up proudly throughout the feast, his new house badge shining out. Ms. Faulk had told him a lot (a lot, a lot, a lot) of times that he wasn’t stupid, and he believed her—with her, he didn’t feel stupid—but it was still gratifying to get this little piece of proof. He was in the smart house.

When the feast ended, he followed Professor Wrightm making note of the route they were taking, confident that he’d be able to recreate it in reverse, as spatial awareness was one of his strong suits. Plus, as their route ended at the library, it seemed like one he’d be taking often.

As they went inside, Professor Wright informed them that they had two secrets to keep - both the location of the entrance to their common room, and the fact that it was in the library. Quillan pondered this odd remark as they made their way through. They seemed like very much the same fact to him—one being a subdetail of the other. Certainly, it would be possible to describe the location of the Aladren Common Room without specifying the fact that it was within the library, and it would be possible to specify that it was in the library without giving the exact location, but that was true of every other location in the building—you could be either general or specific when giving a location (or not giving it, in this case). Certainly, if other houses saw them scurrying en masse into the library minutes before lights out, that might be a give away, but firstly they were Aladrens—they a) had more sense than to be so obvious and b) would probably be in the library anyway. And again, that was covered by the need to be subtle about the entrance to one’s house. Whatever way he spun it, it really did just feel like two details about the same secret, not two separate secrets.
These thoughts carried him through the library, and into the dark, cosy common room. He listened to the welcome speech, his eyes lighting up at the mention of chess. He made a mental note about Professor Wright’s office access, figuring he might need to drop in on him sooner or later. When Professor Wright asked if there were any questions, he contemplated asking how the location thing was two separate secrets, almost wondering whether it was some sort of test to see if they were listening and thinking… But if it wasn’t, that would probably come across as insubordinate, and that was not how Quillan wanted to start his relationship with his head of house. Especially when he would need his help and allyship. He waited to see if anyone else asked anything, but when they didn’t, he allowed it to be left at that. Perhaps he could initiate it as a debate with his roommates instead.

He followed Nicholas up the stairs and into their shared room, very aware that Alexander had wanted to be here, and be with Nicholas, and wondering if Nicholas felt the same, and what he ought to do about it if so. On the one hand, he was aware of what it was like to be entering school with a massive, glaring vulnerability. His main wish was to make sure absolutely no one saw his weaknesses. But that was because they might not understand or might make fun of them… He knew he couldn’t fully understand what Nicholas might be going through, but he knew he wouldn’t make fun of it. If he had been that assured of other people’s reactions, he wouldn’t have been half so hesitant about opening up about himself… Hiding things that weighed you down could be exhausting.

“Quillan Arcadius, of the Illinois Arcadiuses,” he replied, noting that Nicholas had referenced Alexander’s absence. “I’m sorry Alexander didn’t end up here too—he said you were both hoping for it.”

13 Quillan Arcadius Full of puzzles 1570 0 5

Nicholas Pierce

December 18, 2022 6:25 PM

Ooh, where? by Nicholas Pierce

Quillan Arcadius. Nicholas was almost impressed. That was as bad as it would have been if Diomedes had been his first name instead of just his second one. Any further thoughts about Quillan's name, however, were diverted by the mention of Alexander's.

"Yes," he said. "Um. We both expected...our parents were both in Aladren, and...we've never been apart at all. It doesn't even really make sense for us to be in different Houses, does it? I - "

I hope he's okay. That was the sentence which formed in his mind, but by some near-miracle, it stopped somewhere between there and his mouth. One couldn't speak one's mind too much with strangers. Maybe Quillan would be their friend - Alexander had seemed to find him agreeable enough to talk to earlier in the Gardens - but right now, he was still a stranger, and it wasn't hard at all to imagine what Mom would say at the mere thought of Nicholas implying that Alexander was some kind of weakling....

Other people...they're mostly harmless, but you never know which ones are the exceptions. For now, fully trust no-one but the four of us under this roof - when you make mistakes, which you're bound to do sooner or later, tell us and we can all solve it as a family, but other people - no. Not unless they earn it - and that's a high bar to meet. Not many ever will.

" - saw you two talking at Orientation," he said. Nicholas had the kind of chuckle which was ninety-nine percent an exhalation through the nose. "That girl I was talking to, Ida Stanford, she went into Crotalus. We both came that close to knowing someone in our Houses ahead of time - that's sort of funny, isn't it? But, yes - It's nice to meet you," he added, remembering his manners at last. Because now he had to have manners in his room. "Sorry, I'm still all surprised about Alexander not being here."

Standing up, he opened up his trunk and looked into it. Everything was folded and partitioned with a fanatical devotion to order which meant almost anyone would (correctly) guess that he'd had nothing to do with it. Near the top were two boxes, each labelled in his mother's clear, firm Italic writing: Glasses and First Evening.

"Reading glasses," he explained, putting the smaller box on his nightside table. Opening the second, larger box, he found it consisted mostly of his pyjamas, packed with a few other things that were, indeed, practical things to have around on the first evening: toothbrush, hair brush and comb, and...a couple of framed photographs of their family.

Nicholas swallowed hard, and put both of them on the nightstand with his glasses. One showed him with his brother and parents; the second included the same four people, plus his paternal grandparents. "Our family," he explained. "Do you have brothers? Or sisters?"

16 Nicholas Pierce Ooh, where? 1565 0 5

Quillan Arcadius

December 18, 2022 6:56 PM

All around us by Quillan Arcadius

Quillan nodded along politely as Nicholas explained things. Quillan wasn’t sure he agreed, per se—he didn’t know the Pierce twins well enough to say whether they were similar enough to each other to deserve the same house, and he knew even less about their parents or how well they reflected them. He knew, as a rule, that being born to someone or raised alongside them didn’t necessarily make you the same. Still, polite and sympathetic agreement was the expected reaction, and he had brought this up to be empathetic, not to start a debate or a research project.

“Yes, we’re going to be arch rivals at chess,” he confirmed with a grin, when Nicholas brought up his conversation with Alexander at orientation. “It’s a fun coincidence,” he agreed, regarding Nicholas’ observation, wondering what it was he had originally been going to say—it seemed pretty clear that he had changed tack halfway through. “Nice to meet you too,” he added. “Not at all—there’s a lot to adjust to,” he waved off Nicholas’ apology. He wondered what it would have been like if both the Pierce twins had been there… Would they have balanced each other out, making each other more smooth and confident, or would he have met the closed wall of a private little world that he couldn’t enter into? He suspected the latter, and tried not to find too much pleasure in the fact that he didn’t have to deal with that. It wasn’t kind, given that Nicholas was so obviously upset, but at the same time, Quillan didn’t fancy being a stranger in his own room. At least this way they were all on equal footing.

“Snap,” he smiled, when Nicholas pulled out reading glasses, his hand going to the front of his robes… and then his right pocket, and then his left pocket, from which he finally, triumphantly pulled a small case of his own, which he placed on the nightstand. He followed suit in opening up his own trunk, which had been packed similarly to Nicholas’ (i.e. by someone else, and with first night convenience in mind). He too had some family photos, which he arranged on the nightstand so that they obscured the glasses case, providing a perfectly valid reason for him to overlook it in the morning and be without it in class.

“I have a younger sister, Ursula” he said, gesturing to the family portrait he’d just placed on the nightstand. A girl who shared his shade of blonde, but in tumbling ringlets adorned with lace bows had just crept to the front of the frame and was peering out curiously. “It’ll be a few years before she’s here though. It’s just you and Alexander?” he confirmed.

13 Quillan Arcadius All around us 1570 0 5

Nicholas Pierce

December 18, 2022 9:06 PM

What kinds? by Nicholas Pierce

A real smile flashed across Nicholas’ face when Quillan said that he and Alexander were going to be chess archrivals. “Thank you,” he said politely in response to the acceptance of his apology, and then he smiled again and added, “for that, and for giving Alexander someone to make wars against besides me! I can play, but he’s much better than I am.”

He acknowledged his brother’s superior skills at the chessboard without resentment – if anything, with pride. Maybe he sometimes felt a little embarrassed for both Alexander and Mom when he felt they were too serious about their antiquitarian interests, too caught up in visions of some glorious world where things interesting enough to end up in history books still happened, but everyone admired someone who could play a good game of chess, even if it never somehow translated into Alexander winning fame, acclaim, and power in a way even vaguely similar to how his namesake had done it. And if it did, well, then that just made it better that Alexander played well, didn’t it?

Nicholas didn’t much enjoy thinking about that, though. Chess was supposed to teach battle strategy, after all – how to win the loyalty of one’s men and then use them effectively in order to win a high-stakes fight....and Alexander had been named after someone really, really good at high-stakes fights. Alexander III of Macedon had also been younger than Nicholas’ parents were now when he’d died, possibly murdered not all that long before his mother had definitely been murdered. Nicholas had spent enough time around the family ghosts to realize that ‘being dead’ and ‘being gone’ were two different things, and he had enough sense to realize the extreme unlikelihood of any direct correlations between Alexander's life and his namesake's life, but he still found those thoughts unpleasant to dwell on.

”Snap,” said Quillan, and Nicholas looked at him, becoming progressively more politely confused until the other boy came up with his own glasses.

“Ahh, you have them, too,” he said. “Have you had them for long? I was about eight, I think. When I started needing reading glasses, I mean.”

He looked at the indicated picture when Quillan explained about his sister, waving to the girl peering at him even though photographs weren’t really as interactive as paintings. “Just us,” he agreed about himself and Alexander. “It was just supposed to be Alexander, but – “ he shrugged, as if to ask what one was supposed to do about fate? “Mother calls me Mirus as much as she calls me Nicholas – it’s Latin, it means…something that was a complete surprise, but in a good way? Or, well, that’s one of the things it can mean, but I think that’s what she usually means. Did they make you do any languages at home?”

Nausicaa had asked him about how he’d learned before he came here, so apparently, one’s past education was a safe topic of discussion around here. It made sense, he supposed, considering the House reputation. He wondered, though, how long it would be before it led to everyone realizing that he wasn’t really clever as such, just…very stubborn, and very nosy. He didn’t have specific areas he was especially interested in, unless just wanting to know ‘why’ about everything counted as an interest. Somehow, he didn’t think that it did, and so he was even unhappier about being here without Alexander…

Alexander was okay, wasn't he? It…it wasn’t as if either of them was actually frightened of sleeping in a room by himself, was it? Of course it wasn't. So it was all right, and there was no reason to be apprehensive and unhappy about this.

And yet, here he was.

16 Nicholas Pierce What kinds? 1565 0 5

Desmond Brockert

January 09, 2023 5:24 AM

Challenging ones, I hope by Desmond Brockert

Although you wouldn’t know it by looking at him based on his very serious, proper demeanor, Desmond was thrilled to be at Sonora. Finally, he had entered the world of academia. Of course, he’d had private tutors growing up-well, he’d had to share them with his sisters but it was not like being in a classroom with a group of other children-but that was kid stuff, this was a real > school where he was going to learn how to use his magic. That was what mattered, after all.

However, he was quite excited to learn magical theory and whatnot as well. In particular Desmond was looking forward to Charms since Liesl had said that the professor had a tendency to go into excessive detail with historical facts and a lot of information. The first year was quite excited about this, not that it showed of course. He was also looking forward to Transfiguration, because he expected that between his intellect and his genetic inclinations towards the subject, he was sure he’d be the best in the entire class. Although, Desmond hoped to be the best overall academically.

It was what he was used to, after all. Not that his sisters were stupid , he had to admit. They did just fine, but..not as well as him. He actually wasn’t sure it made sense to compare himself to someone three years older and someone three years younger anyway. They were at different stages. It would be far more reasonable to compare himself with others his own age.

Still, Desmond did want more than to just compete with his classmates. He did want friends who he could have intelligent conversations with. He was a bit worried about this since the only other person his age who he knew to be capable of and interested in discussing intellectual topics was Olaf. And Olaf was not exactly a people person. He preferred reading on his own to intellectual discourse with Desmond.

However, the first year had been sorted into Aladren. And he felt incredibly lucky and incredibly happy to be so. Of course, he had rather expected it, but he had felt slightly worried that he’d be in Crotalus. Not that Crotalus was bad though it was a rather mixed bag of radically different types of people. Still, they were generally respectable types such as Christopher and it would be preferable to be there than to be in Teppenpaw with Liesl, who just..didn’t act right generally. There was just something not…normal about his older sister and her unhealthy interest in the macabre. Part of him wanted to pretend she was just his cousin, either Uncle Cory’s daughter-which Liesl seemed to want to be anyway-or better yet, a distant one. However, that felt wrong to him, like that was a bit too mean.

Anyway, Pecari would have been even worse than Teppenpaw. Being there actually sounded like torture to him. He really had nothing in his personality that would have put him there, but there was always that moment of panic when you dipped your badge in the Sorting Potion that things would go wrong no matter how much your rational mind told you that was unlikely.

So overall, Desmond was absolutely delighted to be in Aladren. It was what he wanted and expected and he even had two roommates who were hopefully also interested in intellectual conversations. After all, this was Aladren so they had to be, right?

He followed his roommates up to their room. This was going to be quite a change since Desmond had obviously never shared a room before. After all, he had two sisters and obviously he wasn’t going to share a room with a girl! That would be totally indecent even if they were his sisters. Possibly especially his sisters. Plus, he lived in a house with more bedrooms than people, so there would never be a reason to share one.

Admittedly, he was a tiny bit nervous about that. What if he didn’t get on with them? What if they were total slobs? Desmond liked things neat and tidy. Just because being an Aladren meant everyone was an intellectual, that didn’t mean they picked up after themselves. Like, Topaz thought picking up after herself was beneath her and she’d been an Aladren. Of course, at home Desmond had had house-elves for that but he usually kept things neat anyway, Liesl, of course, was the somewhat messy one.

He went to his trunk to start to unpack. He was definitely not the type to procrastinate. His roommates,however, began a conversation so his attention was diverted by that. Although unfortunately it was more of a get to know you conversation than an intellectual one but that was to be expected on their first night.

It seemed though that Quillan had met Nicholas’s twin and they were both into chess. Excellent. Also, they were both from proper families, which pleased him since there had been rather a lack of proper company lately at Sonora. He had really lucked out. Although he thought Nicholas might be part of the side of the New Hampshire Pierce family that was supposedly rivals of the ones that included Emerald’s husband, and therefore Emerald. He hoped that didn’t affect things between him and his roommate, he really did want to be friends with him. The whole thing was unfair to Emerald anyway, because she did nothing but fall in love with Winston.

“I’m Desmond Brockert of the Western Brockerts.” He introduced himself to his roommates. “It’s a pleasure to meet you both. I also love chess, I have two sisters, Liesl is a fourth year Teppenpaw and Krisalyn is eight. However, I don’t have reading glasses.” He rattled off his responses to the topics they discussed. “I have labeled boxes though, but I did the labels.” Desmond really liked that sort of thing, and anyway, even though Mother liked him more than Liesl, she still wasn’t exactly the sort who’d give her children reassuring notes on their first day at Sonora. “And nobody made me do languages, but I did do French and Latin.” Nobody ever had to make Desmond study.

11 Desmond Brockert Challenging ones, I hope 1572 0 5