Freaking finally
Title: Christmas Eve at Chrestomanci Castle
Universe: Diana Wynne Jones' Chrestomanci series
Word Count: 432
Notes: For annemjw who asked for "Millie/Chrestomanci in lateish teens".
“This is our last christmas at Chrestomanci Castle as children,” Millie said as Christopher stoked the fire gloomily. Conrad had gone to visit his sister and her husband in series seven, and Christopher had been sulking ever since he’d left. Outside the blackness was mottled with rain and the wind howled through the trees in a way that made Millie shiver, even though she was warm beside the quite excellent fire Christopher had made. She and Christopher were both to turn eighteen in the upcoming year.
“I am not a child, Millie,” Christopher said haughtily. “I have the imminent responsibilities of magic-kind weighing upon me.”
“You know Gabriel’s not retiring until you’re twenty-one,” Millie said.
“Three years is a very short space of time when one has nine lives.”
“You have two lives, dear. And at the rate you’re going, you’ll need them.”
Christopher’s face settled into its vaguest expression and he picked up a textbook on magical theory. Millie knew him too well to think he was actually reading his most loathed textbook, and calmly took up her own novel. Moments later, he burst out with, “Why do you have to go back to that dreary old boarding school?”
She smiled. Hartswood House wasn’t dreary. Certainly, it wasn’t all midnight feasts and hockey games like she’d expected when she was twelve. But she liked the girls. She enjoyed being a prefect. She found Latin and Greek class soothing. And she’d just about gotten used to the teachers calling her ‘Millicent’ even though Millie was her proper name. “One more term, Christopher, and then I graduate.”
“And then what?” he asked.
Millie tilted her head to one side. “I hadn’t thought really. Travel perhaps?”
“We could travel together.”
She laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’d cause a scandal.”
“Not if you married me,” Christopher said in his most disinterested manner.
Millie laughed so hard that she snorted in a manner which would have made her etiquette teacher despair. Christopher glared, eyebrows knitting together and Millie bit her lip. “Sorry. You were serious?”
Christopher frowned. “I’m not if you’re not.”
“I won’t be serious for at least a year, Christopher,” Millie said, shrugging apologetically. “Ask me next Christmas.”
A smile formed on Christopher’s lips. “I’ve lost all confidence in myself,” he said, “and in my abilities to charm the ladies.”
Millie tucked her feet up under her and opened a novel, the book hiding the smile that threatened to beam from ear to ear. “I’ll believe that when I see it,” she said. And Christopher laughed for the first time since Conrad had left.
Title:
Universe: Greek and Roman mythology, more particularly, empiresof
Word Count: 441
Notes: Written for tormentacorazon who requested a Dido drabble.
I’m supervising at the school leavers’ ball, trying to blend into the walls. I don’t want to see anything that will further lower the opinion I have of my students. I’ve already caught Paris in the ladies with his girlfriend, whose name escapes me because she doesn’t study physics, making out against the hand dryer.
I know teenagers are highly sexed but those two take horny to a whole new level.
I sip on a glass of orange juice, attempting to ignore the acidic aftertaste. Professor Aeneas strolls the perimeter of the ballroom, looking distinguished in her suit. He sees me watching him and smiles, white teeth gleaming against his olive compexion. My knees begin to shake and I’m glad I’m wearing a full length dress. He weaves his way through the crowd towards me.
I smile, push my shoulders back and pat a loose strand of hair back behind my ear.
“Dido, enjoying yourself?” Aeneas asks.
“I’ve had better nights,” I say, and smile. “You?”
“Had to break up a fight between Brutus and Octavian, and Mesulina got sent home for drunkeness and,” he coughs, “for inappropriate behaviour towards a teacher. But otherwise it seems to be going well.”
I know Mesulina well enough to know two things: firstly, that her boyfriend, Claudius is not nearly man enough for her and secondly, she thinks Aeneas is the sexiest man to walk the earth. “I thought I’d done badly with seeing more of Paris and Helen than I was ever interested in seeing.”
He rolls his eyes. We stand in companionable silence for a moment before he says, “You’re still in black?”
I smooth the skirt of my black silk dress. “Yes,” I say, knowing what he is asking. Am I still grieving for my husband? Do I still hold to my promise to never remarry? And I am, I do. But somewhere along the way, I’ve managed to fall for Aeneas and it’s tempting to ignore my promises and grief, and do something that might fill the gap for a time. Or that might lead to something more concrete.
Aeneas’ wife died last year in a fire. He must understand what I’m going through. He simply smiles blandly, says, “If you ever need to talk…” and continues to walk about the room.
I see him stop to chat with Cato, the religious education teacher, and I want to run up to him, tell him I want to talk. But I don’t. I finish my orange juice and I make small talk with Regulus and then I go to the bathrooms and sit down in one of the stalls and sob.
In other news, have Aimee's life in list format:
1. I am teaching real students real speech and drama as of last week. This wants to be sick into my breakfast cereal, but I have taken the first lesson and it wasn't too awful.
2. I read Forest of Hands and Teeth and couldn't sleep that night in case the zombies got me.
3. I had a speech theory exam on Shakespeare yesterday morning, which was spectacularly lame. Here is the question I did not answer because it was so FREAKING pathetic: To what extent do you consider the plays of Shakespeare have changed your outlook on the way you see yourself and the world?
4. I am writing an essay on the purpose of Rhoda's continual failure in Tom and Some Other Girls.
5. In tangentially related news, I fell in love with the title's Tom. Harold was an acceptable character until he dissed Tom and then he was put straight in my bad books. I want to be Tom's secretary at her boarding school for girls and hang out in the den with her when it all gets too much.
6. I have decided to write a series about teenagers who have a supernatural grandparent. So there's Slightly the part-Banshee whose cry heralds the common cold. Melissa is part-mermaid: her legs are covered in scales but when she sings, the boys totally swarm around her. Wanda is part-werewolf: she becomes remarkably hirsute during the full moon.
7. I discovered the internet on my phone.
8. So we were talking in English about how the boys in school stories who have these intense romantic friendships always marry their best friend's sister. Harry Potter marries his best friend's sister. It's not Oedipal, it's Victorian! And slightly homoerotic.
9. Dylan Moran was a drunken Irish God.
10. I failed at playing at My Little Pony at babysitting yesterday. I can read a kick-ass story but I can no longer play imaginary games. It's kind of upsetting.
11. Our neighbour downstairs came up at three o'clock in the morning a couple of weeks ago to complain about the noise of Emily typing above her bed. I KNOW. WTF.
12. I graduate on tuesday. Looking forward to wearing Hogwarts robes.
And that is all.
Universe: Diana Wynne Jones' Chrestomanci series
Word Count: 432
Notes: For annemjw who asked for "Millie/Chrestomanci in lateish teens".
“This is our last christmas at Chrestomanci Castle as children,” Millie said as Christopher stoked the fire gloomily. Conrad had gone to visit his sister and her husband in series seven, and Christopher had been sulking ever since he’d left. Outside the blackness was mottled with rain and the wind howled through the trees in a way that made Millie shiver, even though she was warm beside the quite excellent fire Christopher had made. She and Christopher were both to turn eighteen in the upcoming year.
“I am not a child, Millie,” Christopher said haughtily. “I have the imminent responsibilities of magic-kind weighing upon me.”
“You know Gabriel’s not retiring until you’re twenty-one,” Millie said.
“Three years is a very short space of time when one has nine lives.”
“You have two lives, dear. And at the rate you’re going, you’ll need them.”
Christopher’s face settled into its vaguest expression and he picked up a textbook on magical theory. Millie knew him too well to think he was actually reading his most loathed textbook, and calmly took up her own novel. Moments later, he burst out with, “Why do you have to go back to that dreary old boarding school?”
She smiled. Hartswood House wasn’t dreary. Certainly, it wasn’t all midnight feasts and hockey games like she’d expected when she was twelve. But she liked the girls. She enjoyed being a prefect. She found Latin and Greek class soothing. And she’d just about gotten used to the teachers calling her ‘Millicent’ even though Millie was her proper name. “One more term, Christopher, and then I graduate.”
“And then what?” he asked.
Millie tilted her head to one side. “I hadn’t thought really. Travel perhaps?”
“We could travel together.”
She laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’d cause a scandal.”
“Not if you married me,” Christopher said in his most disinterested manner.
Millie laughed so hard that she snorted in a manner which would have made her etiquette teacher despair. Christopher glared, eyebrows knitting together and Millie bit her lip. “Sorry. You were serious?”
Christopher frowned. “I’m not if you’re not.”
“I won’t be serious for at least a year, Christopher,” Millie said, shrugging apologetically. “Ask me next Christmas.”
A smile formed on Christopher’s lips. “I’ve lost all confidence in myself,” he said, “and in my abilities to charm the ladies.”
Millie tucked her feet up under her and opened a novel, the book hiding the smile that threatened to beam from ear to ear. “I’ll believe that when I see it,” she said. And Christopher laughed for the first time since Conrad had left.
Title:
Universe: Greek and Roman mythology, more particularly, empiresof
Word Count: 441
Notes: Written for tormentacorazon who requested a Dido drabble.
I’m supervising at the school leavers’ ball, trying to blend into the walls. I don’t want to see anything that will further lower the opinion I have of my students. I’ve already caught Paris in the ladies with his girlfriend, whose name escapes me because she doesn’t study physics, making out against the hand dryer.
I know teenagers are highly sexed but those two take horny to a whole new level.
I sip on a glass of orange juice, attempting to ignore the acidic aftertaste. Professor Aeneas strolls the perimeter of the ballroom, looking distinguished in her suit. He sees me watching him and smiles, white teeth gleaming against his olive compexion. My knees begin to shake and I’m glad I’m wearing a full length dress. He weaves his way through the crowd towards me.
I smile, push my shoulders back and pat a loose strand of hair back behind my ear.
“Dido, enjoying yourself?” Aeneas asks.
“I’ve had better nights,” I say, and smile. “You?”
“Had to break up a fight between Brutus and Octavian, and Mesulina got sent home for drunkeness and,” he coughs, “for inappropriate behaviour towards a teacher. But otherwise it seems to be going well.”
I know Mesulina well enough to know two things: firstly, that her boyfriend, Claudius is not nearly man enough for her and secondly, she thinks Aeneas is the sexiest man to walk the earth. “I thought I’d done badly with seeing more of Paris and Helen than I was ever interested in seeing.”
He rolls his eyes. We stand in companionable silence for a moment before he says, “You’re still in black?”
I smooth the skirt of my black silk dress. “Yes,” I say, knowing what he is asking. Am I still grieving for my husband? Do I still hold to my promise to never remarry? And I am, I do. But somewhere along the way, I’ve managed to fall for Aeneas and it’s tempting to ignore my promises and grief, and do something that might fill the gap for a time. Or that might lead to something more concrete.
Aeneas’ wife died last year in a fire. He must understand what I’m going through. He simply smiles blandly, says, “If you ever need to talk…” and continues to walk about the room.
I see him stop to chat with Cato, the religious education teacher, and I want to run up to him, tell him I want to talk. But I don’t. I finish my orange juice and I make small talk with Regulus and then I go to the bathrooms and sit down in one of the stalls and sob.
In other news, have Aimee's life in list format:
1. I am teaching real students real speech and drama as of last week. This wants to be sick into my breakfast cereal, but I have taken the first lesson and it wasn't too awful.
2. I read Forest of Hands and Teeth and couldn't sleep that night in case the zombies got me.
3. I had a speech theory exam on Shakespeare yesterday morning, which was spectacularly lame. Here is the question I did not answer because it was so FREAKING pathetic: To what extent do you consider the plays of Shakespeare have changed your outlook on the way you see yourself and the world?
4. I am writing an essay on the purpose of Rhoda's continual failure in Tom and Some Other Girls.
5. In tangentially related news, I fell in love with the title's Tom. Harold was an acceptable character until he dissed Tom and then he was put straight in my bad books. I want to be Tom's secretary at her boarding school for girls and hang out in the den with her when it all gets too much.
6. I have decided to write a series about teenagers who have a supernatural grandparent. So there's Slightly the part-Banshee whose cry heralds the common cold. Melissa is part-mermaid: her legs are covered in scales but when she sings, the boys totally swarm around her. Wanda is part-werewolf: she becomes remarkably hirsute during the full moon.
7. I discovered the internet on my phone.
8. So we were talking in English about how the boys in school stories who have these intense romantic friendships always marry their best friend's sister. Harry Potter marries his best friend's sister. It's not Oedipal, it's Victorian! And slightly homoerotic.
9. Dylan Moran was a drunken Irish God.
10. I failed at playing at My Little Pony at babysitting yesterday. I can read a kick-ass story but I can no longer play imaginary games. It's kind of upsetting.
11. Our neighbour downstairs came up at three o'clock in the morning a couple of weeks ago to complain about the noise of Emily typing above her bed. I KNOW. WTF.
12. I graduate on tuesday. Looking forward to wearing Hogwarts robes.
And that is all.