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Another small, random piece of something from a new story. |
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The door up to the Head's office stood slightly ajar, light from it spilling out onto the landing and down the old staircase. Behind it, she could hear voices, but she couldn't quite make out exactly what they were saying. She noted immediately that one of the voices--- the angrier and loudest one--- was Julian. The other voice then, which was calmer, must belong to the Head, but for just a moment, she doubted it. The Head never sounded so relaxed and serious. The mere smoothness and stability of it almost made her apprehensive as she pressed a palm forcefully to the polished oak and sent the door flying open.
The dark limestone that the entire office was made of shone indigo from the biggest feature in it, the fireplace, which stood a few feet behind the desk. Pulled up to the grate was a large chintz armchair, embellished with gold silk around the seams. Currently, there was a hunched figure sitting in it, regarding Claire as though she was a foreign object. It seemed to be slightly curled in on itself, and from its position in the chair seemed weary. As the fire crackled sharply behind the figure, illuminating the lines of its face, Claire could easily tell that it was the Head. Leaning across the desk was another figure, but in contrast to the Head, seemed powerful; confident; even cold with fury, something easily demonstrated in his posture. Julian.
"You know just as much as I do. I can't be here. My blood shouldn't allow me to be here," he said firmly, his words sharper than usual. The Head seemed not to hear him. His eyes were still glued to Claire, who felt her brovado peeling away under his gaze.
Julian turned, at first seeming to make a mockery of the Head's attention span, but then standing tall when he saw her in the doorway.
"Claire," he said without emotion, "What is it that you need now?"
What is it that she needed now? Since when was she a burden to him?
"I'm not letting you do this," she said meekly, feeling as both Julian's and the Head's staring weighed on her morale.
"I don't think I ever asked you to let me, did I?" Julian asked, his words fierce, "I don't belong here anymore. I never have. I was an invader to this place the second I stepped foot in it, and now the least I can do to help you--- to help everyone--- is to leave. To drop out."
The Head breathed a sigh and rested his elbows on the desk, looking warily up at Julian, whose hands were trembling. "Julian, I know you. I have raised you. From the second I brought you here to live, you have acted no less like any human boy I've ever seen walk these halls. If it were any other student--- perhaps one that I hadn't overseen for the past ten years of their young life--- I might doubt your blood and what nature that kind of blood might hold..." Julian's body seemed to be soothed by the Head's words. "I am your father, Julian. I love you."
Julian's chest shook with a low, sinister laugh. "With all due respect, father," he sneered, "I must argue your opinion of me. A few weeks ago, I might have been your golden boy... good grades, excellent hunter... but now?" He turned to face The Head full-on again, eyes becoming iridescent from the firelight. "I have two welts just beneath my shoulderblades, and I know they aren't just some horrible rash, or allergic reaction. The second that those welts become something else, I won't be that boy you found after the fire. I won't even be a boy, let alone the man you wanted me to become. And if, after saying all of this, you can still say those three words to me with such conviction-" he gripped the decorative cloth hanging over the edge of the desk, "-then love really is blind."
The Head's eyes looked suddenly hollow, as though Julian's words had penetrated his very being. A single tear rolled over his wrinked cheek and down into his graying beard, leaving a glittering track in its wake. "I love you."
Julian's eyebrows wrinkled together in what looked like determination to stay focused on his goal to anyone else, but what looked more like a raw sort of pain to Claire. It was the same pain in his expression when Jonathan had first revealed to him what he really was, and Claire felt her stomach sink at the sight of it.
Julian's knuckles with white with rage now, and right as they started shaking, he swung a fist straight down on the wood of the desk top, causing the wood to crack down the middle and the glass to nearly burst into powder from each picture frame and shining trinket. He raised another clenched hand, but Claire, snapping out of her slight trance, ran to him and wrapped her arms around his forearm just as he began to swing again.
riverofcausality · Mon Aug 02, 2010 @ 04:29pm · 0 Comments |
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