oh my sweet summer child

tyl herrlich. 19. haus gold.

[tylherrlich-blog]

Prompt #20

Name: Tyl Herrlich

  * Reason or meaning of name?: ‘people’ ‘race’ ‘powerful’ ‘rich’; ‘wonderful’

Nickname: Tyl

  * How’d they get it?: His parents.

Home: An estate in Northeastern Luxembourg

  *how do they feel about it?: While he loves his home, and his parents and his sister, in face of recent 

   *future home?: A Muggle hotel in Paris. 

Abilities:

Physical strength: Average.

Magical strength: Strong through its honing. 

Relationships:

Are they a virgin?: No.

Have they been in love?: Yes.

Do they want to get married?: Complicated.

Are they in love right now?: Yes.

Relationships:

Best friend: Adelinde Graf, Edeltraut Schoen

Good friend: Charlotte Vogt

Favourites:

Place

   *at Schluchtenburg?: The forest, and his study-spot by the river.

   *at home?: Annika’s room, or the library, or their old playroom.

   *in the whole world?: By the side of Adelor Graf.

Goals:

Short-term goals for next year: 

Figure out how to enjoy himself; enjoy himself; discern on whether to go through the summer application process to be Sun King and not let it impinge his enjoying himself; figure out how the School Year will work depending on whether he’s Sun King, on how to do well with his new subjects and with the Path of Fire, on how it will work without being able to see Adelor every day; at the same time with all of this, make sure that his family never has a reason to forget that he loves them.

   *How will they achieve them?: Magic Tyl skills. 

Long-term goals in life: Currently in discernment.

   *How will they achieve them?: 

Opinions:

On love?: The most terrifying and the safest thing all at once.

On politics?: Important. Tyl would still like to shape the world, but perhaps he has learned to take a lesson or two from his mother.

On Muggles?: Still strange, piteous for their lack of magic. However, Tyl tends to think better of rich Muggles than poor Wizards and Witches. 

On Squibs?: That they deserve a better place in the Wizarding World, subject to the same condition that they’re of the right class.

On differences such as sexuality or race or religions?: The distinction, he finds, is a Muggle one. 

How do they deal with

anger?: He has taken it both in silence and mental self-destruction, and in destroying things, in letting out rage through power - given that, of course, it’s not something he can find a fix for. 

sadness?: With much more difficulty than anger. Sadness is hard, and he believes should not be put away but dealt with, and being in the arms of someone he trusts and loves certainly makes it easier.

change?: With much more courage now.

The changes that Tyl has gone through are not as radical as they may seem. He has always been soft. His tough, icy exterior has not disappeared, either. He has not turned soft, but has only let people in. He has not grown less afraid, but more courageous. His morals and values are still a mess, and his goals in life have become a mess of things that are difficult to reconcile, yet he tries his hardest to. Touches are still difficult. Foods and fabrics are still subject to ridiculous scrutiny. Sometimes, his breath still hitches in the night, and sometimes he still needs the cold more than anything else. 

Tyl’s future is quite open. Much more free than he imagined, or wanted, but certainly a very happy one. Perhaps if he had listened to his mother more, perhaps if certain events go certain ways, Tyl might find out that some things are not so irreconcilable after all.

There are many futures that Tyl could have. He could decide to live in the faraway mountains with nobody but Adelor, he could live the rest of his days as a Muggle with him, they could find a compromise where they’re both at their happiest, with their lives and with each other. Or he could lose him, in a month or in six or in two or twenty years, whether because love was not enough, not in the face of a career, or not in the face of someone else, or any other reason, or even without a reason, as sometimes things simply end. 

There are many ways life could go, but for now, all we know is that in a small hotel room in Paris, in 1852, holding the person he loves most in the world, Tyl Herrlich is happy.

[adelor-graf]

April Moods

[tylherrlich-blog]

adelor-graf:

Adelor didn’t directly say yes, but his head moved a bit, nodding without him quite noticing it. He couldn’t be sure, he didn’t know exactly why, but yes. It seemed like Annika was afraid of losing her brother. And Adelor, out of everyone, could not have that, could not be the reason. He smiled at the kiss to his thumb, and smiled at what Tyl suggested. “I’d love to. But I can’t. Not when you’ll talk to her about that.” He paused. How badly he wanted to be there, meet her, to really meet her, to become her friend, to see her through Tyl’s eyes, to learn why he loved her so. And to, perhaps, make her understand that he truly didn’t mean any harm to both of their lives. But it wasn’t possible. If she felt the way she did about him, then everything she’d say that night would be spoken through a mask of lies, simply to veil whatever had to be hidden from Tyl when she had decided to write Adelor behind his back. So it was better that Tyl would be there alone to hear the truth and nothing but he truth. Of course there was a risk that Annika would talk badly behind Adelor’s back, would tell lies and perhaps use the fact that Adelor wrote back instead of showing the letter directly to Tyl against him. But Adelor felt that this was still better than all other options. At least that way, the peace between the two siblings could be uphold in a more sincere way. “Don’t talk about me that night, yes? Just be with her and make sure she knows how much you love her. That she has no reasons to forget.“ That she sees you will always be her brother, no matter how much you change.

And change there had been, and change there would be. But different than how it had once seemed, once upon a time, when change meant to lose friends, to lose the colour of your eyes, to lose the home you belong in, change now meant to grow into the person Adelor was supposed to be, wanted to be, needed to be. It meant to grow into arms that could hold Tyl tighter, and into a a heart that could love him warmer. Change wasn’t anymore the counterpart to certitude and safety, but merely the counterpart to stagnation. They would change, as everyone would change, but that did not mean things had to change. Not their love, not their dreams, not their hands, holding onto each other. 

Tyl loved Adelor, and Adelor knew. And this knowledge amongst all the difficulties of life, in midst of mist and dullness, was bright and enough to always draw Adelor back to Tyl. Just like it had done today. Just like it would so often do it again. “I love you, too.” he whispered. “Hold me, yes?” Hold me while we change, so I can grow and never cease to fit.

This nod, as little as it was, was enough of an answer for Tyl. He was taken aback, looking a little confused, and then sad, and then - in a way that was very much him, in the way that his eyes sharpened in focus, in resolution. Of course Annika would not lose him. It was his fault for even allowing her to think so, and it was his responsibility to make sure that she knew otherwise. In truth, he was a little bit scared, too, and he was hoping that Adelor could gap this bit of courage that he needed. “Next time, then,” he said, because there would be a next time, because Tyl - would carve out a next time, no matter what it took. He would sort this out. Tyl could not think badly of either his sister and Adelor, and it did come as a thought to him that he might be forced to, at the end of this. “Don’t talk about you,” Tyl repeated, with a frown, because the thought seemed overwhelmingly, even if inexplicably wrong. But there was another sort of overwhelming feeling that preoccupied him next, as he held him tight and kissed his forehead, this endearment at this concern, this safeness in Adelor’s arms and in his words. “I can’t promise that I won’t talk about you, but I’ll - I’ll show her that I love her, yes.”

Tyl laughed, not because there was anything funny, but because he was bursting with so much happiness that he could not keep it in. He held him, firmly, tightly, as the river water crashed against the cave wall, as it had thousands and thousands of years before they sat here, and as it would a thousand years more after they leave. This was only one moment among so many, a burst of warmth and comfort and safety and happiness, that would dissipate eventually, too. But Tyl did not fear this, Tyl could not fear anything, not even the behemoth that was change, in Adelor’s arms - not out of perfect certainty, but out of trust, and love, overflowing. 

[tylherrlich-blog]

Ehrenzeremonie

[tylherrlich-blog]

helga-bergher:

Helga opened her eyes and squinted up at Tyl. She hardly saw his face from where she was now, but she did not need to. “Yeah.” she said. “And that if that’s the case, you’ll figure out how to pick the right path. After all, I only spoke about the path that was the best choice for me, but as you listened, you probably kept imagining the one path that suited my description best, no?” She closed her eyes. Just a moment. Then they’d go back inside. Just another little moment of fresh air. “You don’t exactly know why and how, but you already know which one you’ll choose.”

“The first part, sure. The second part? No. It’s still the impulsive choice, the irrational choice. Even more blatantly so now.” Tyl said, sighing and standing once more, brushing away dirt that just could not have been on his robes. “My situation isn’t like yours. I might very well be trading my future happiness for a little bit of happiness now.” He pressed his lips into a thin line. “I think it’s time we went back.”

[tylherrlich-blog]

Ehrenzeremonie

[tylherrlich-blog]

helga-bergher:

Helga snorted out a laugh. “No.”  She fell backwards into the grass, crossing her arms behind her head and shook her head. “I doubt there’s ever going to be that one moment where I’ll suddenly be convinced of it all and never doubt myself again.” Not until she was completely done with it all, not until she had fully succeeded. Maybe. “But sometimes, from time to time, there’s something that happens, a small moment where I’m just … happy, so happy that I know that this was the right decision. That it all makes sense again. That it doesn’t mater if it’s crazy or not, because it just feels … right.”

Tyl pursed his lips when she fell backwards. He did not do the same, but he allowed himself to relax a little, reminding himself that he had enchanted his ceremony robes himself to keep them from dirtying. He tilted his head at this response. “Would you believe me if I said I know what you mean?”

[tylherrlich-blog]

Ehrenzeremonie

[tylherrlich-blog]

helga-bergher:

Helga didn’t even know why she told Tyl all this but she knew that she was too tired to come up with witty responses and anything but the truth. “Everyone who thought I was crazy for wanting what I wanted? My father, before all. But also my teachers, my grandparents, my house maid, Richard Bignose and then, once I was here, Klein and-, and Mangin and Merle and Maya and Adelger and every single fucking person who gives me that fucking look of ‘You need to relax, why are you always so intense’ when they don’t even know that if I’m not giving my very best I’m the prime example of why someone like me shouldn’t want something like tha and-…” She stopped herself, blinked, glanced at Tyl, then sighed and shook her head. “Anyway. Everyone. The only person who believes in me and my decision is my mother.”

Tyl would be surprised to hear so many truths, had he not inexplicably offered so many as well. He looked at her and considered her answer. He had an inkling of how she felt, but he was not constantly fighting to prove himself. Suddenly he understood her answer better, of wanting to be Tyl. He crossed his hands over his chest. “And are you done clearing yourself of the thought that you’re crazy for wanting what you want? Do you belief in yourself and your decision now?”

[tylherrlich-blog]

Ehrenzeremonie

[tylherrlich-blog]

helga-bergher:

Helga huffed out a laugh and rolled her eyes, motioning vaguely at everything around them. “This. Being here. Not doing what I was supposed to be. Not marrying Richard and his big nose, not forcing myself into a corset and bearing his big-nosed children, not accepting that my father never wanted me to have my own wand! Being free. Being-..” She frowned, then rolled her eyes again. “Being happy, I guess.”

Tyl self-consciously touched his own nose, before catching himself and putting his hand down. “That’s fair. And who do you have to prove to that this was the right decision, apart from yourself?”

[tylherrlich-blog]

Ehrenzeremonie

[tylherrlich-blog]

helga-bergher:

No response. Helga took it with ease. In no sense of anything was it her job to care about Tyl Herrlich. Not in the friendship kind of way, not in the Head of Haus kind of way. But she gave him a glance anyway, a brief look of seeing if, perhaps, there was something to read in his face. There was. But she could not read it. So she shrugged. “I’m you in a few years. I chose a path and now I have to prove everyone that it was the right one to take. Myself included.” She ran her hand through her hair. “Thought it would all be easier.”

Tyl vaguely recalled his conversations with Helga, the ones that weren’t all acid and glares, and wondered if it had anything to do with those. He looked at her for a few moments, wrinkling his forehead. “And what path is that?”

[tylherrlich-blog]

Ehrenzeremonie

[tylherrlich-blog]

helga-bergher:

“The fuck do I know.” Helga mumbled, voice almost toneless. But she did know, didn’t she? She had not taken many decisions in her life, but those she had taken had changed everything. So after a moment she nodded. “I think decisions, they’re taken because-, It starts with a feeling in the pit of your stomach, telling you that something is even a possibility, an option you never realised was there before. And at first you push it away, because it’s dumb and probably a Schnappsidee anyway. But then something happens, two times, three times, and it reminds you of that option again and again until you, without noticing, start assembling reasons and logical explanations why it’s not such a dumb option. Because that’s the hard part, yeah? To convince that fucker of a brain. But once you got your reason, once you got firm, logical, palpable reason, then it’s too late. The decision is taken.” She shrugged. “I mean you can ignore it and do something else. But you’ll always know it was the decision you should’ve gone with.” She would’ve always dreamt about Schluchteburg if she hadn’t gone, she knew that. “And you know, I think, if it’s really the logical, good thing to do, then in the end, one day, we always end up getting back to the path we refused to take. It’s inevitable.” Rubbing her nose, she shrugged again, then took a deep breath and puffed it out, shoulders and chest rising and slumping along with it. “Then take the path you can’t go back to if you don’t go now.“

Tyl scrunched his nose as he listened. This had all began with that, right? Rationalizing something that he ought to have stopped from the first moment, and finding in the end that he was knee deep in it already. He thought about her words. While there was truth to them, it still advocated the impulsive choice, the perhaps possibly irrational choice. He tensed his jaw a little bit. He did not like wandering. What point was there, when he could just make the right choice the first time around and waste no time? He looked at his hands. But which choice could he not go back to? That was clear enough. Without having to think about, really, with the way it made his heart beat at the thought. He took a moment to swallow, to regain his composure. “What troubles you?”

[tylherrlich-blog]

Ehrenzeremonie

[tylherrlich-blog]

helga-bergher:

Helga listened and had no intention to say anything. Maybe on another day,in another mood she would’ve commented on all this with a sharp tongue. But right now? What was she to say if she didn’t understand so terribly well? “I suppose that asking to close your eyes and listen to what your heart tells you to do is futile then. Considering that your heart is the weak spot here.” Weak and rotten, in Helga‘s opinion, as love always made it be. “Would you despise yourself if you let yourself be weak, then? You said you like yourself. Which option would change that?”

“Is that how people make decisions? Closing their eyes and listening to what their heart tells them?” Tyl said, sounding just the slightest bit bitter. Of course it was a method he would disagree with, but it made plenty of sense when he actually thought about it, given how idiotic people’s decisions actually tended to be. “I would hate that I’m letting myself be weak, that it seems as though I’m throwing it all away, but I’d be - happy. Really happy.” He paused and shut his eyes. “I don’t know. I like myself the least when I’m being dishonest.”

[tylherrlich-blog]

Ehrenzeremonie

[tylherrlich-blog]

helga-bergher:

Helga looked at him. Just looked at him.  Eventually she let her gaze travel further, over the Palatina forest. “Are there options?” And then there was a smile. A genuine smile wiht genuine amusement over Tyl’s words. But it was small and brief.

Were there options? Tyl thought to himself, for a few moments, the panic coming back a little bit, but in the fresh air, away from everything else, it did not get the chance to settle. “Tyl Herrlich, future ruler of the world, determined and ambitious and ruthless, who would not let anything get in his way. Despises mud, despises the weak.” He sat down, as well, bringing his knees to his chest. “Tyl Herrlich, stupidly heads-over-heels in love. Would throw away his plans and his future for it. Not just - would, but - about to. Breaks bread with Bronze and washes their dishes afterwards.” He scowled a little bit. “You better keep your mouth shut, Bergher.”

[tylherrlich-blog]

Ehrenzeremonie

[tylherrlich-blog]

helga-bergher:

Helga held back a question in the like of ‘you have a sense of humor?’ and ‘what friends?’ because she knew they were mostly mean and not founded, and thus boring to her right now. She was too tired for unnecessary meanness. “And who are you?” she asked instead, with a frown, and genuine confusion. Because what was someone but their name, brain and heart, which Tyl stated wasn’t why he liked himself. “Why? Don’t you want your medal and a pat on the shoulder? Are you all so rich now that you don’t care about a bit of gold more?” 

Tyl had expected those sort of remarks from Helga, too. When they didn’t come, he tried not to look too surprised. He looked to the side instead. “I'm not quite sure anymore.” He crossed his arms together, and looked unfazed at this next comment. Now this, he was used to. “Shut up, I’m in the middle of an existential crisis.”

[tylherrlich-blog]

Ehrenzeremonie

[tylherrlich-blog]

helga-bergher:

“What other reasons would you have?” Helga asked, non-chalantly but neither insultingly nor mockingly. Just a genuine question. She shrugged. “Yeah. We’ll go back in ten. I don’t really want to be there.”

Tyl pursed his lips, trying to figure out how this question ought to be answered. “I like who I am. I like my sense of humor, I like my friends, I like - my plans, the way I do things, why I do things, who I - do it for.” He paused and shrugged. Which, of course, did not explain why he was here and not inside. “Then perhaps we ought to just stay here.”

[tylherrlich-blog]

Ehrenzeremonie

[tylherrlich-blog]

helga-bergher :

“Of course. Have it easy for once.” She was aware that she was still on the luckier side of the population, and thus she didn’t talk or act like she wasn’t. This wasn’t her complaining about her life, about herself, but her imagining and dreaming about the what ifs. “Yeah.” She sat down on the mural that surrounded the water works. “I mean-…” She glanced up at Tyl, and a soft frown was on her forehead. “That’s why you like yourself, no?”

Tyl did not sit, but let his gaze wander over the mural. “Of course that’s not why I like myself,” he said. This, of course, did not need to be said, and instead he shut his eyes, and then pressed his lips into a thin line, looked at Helga, and sat beside her. “They’re probably calling my name soon.”

[tylherrlich-blog]

Ehrenzeremonie

[tylherrlich-blog]

helga-bergher:

“I don’t know.” she shrugged. The sun was indeed burning hot, and although Helga had put on proper attire and required robes, it was mostly her hair that had caused her to feel the warmest. Its - almost - black was warming up almost immediately, despite the fact that the sun was already on its way to set. “Because you have everything.” She kept looking ahead. “The name, the brains, the strength. No matter where you go, no matter what you’d say, people would never doubt you. You hold so much power in the mere way that you were born.”

It was a fair reason to want to be him. He might think the same, in her shoes. “And that’s what you’d want, if you could choose who you’d be?” Tyl asked, his hands not clasped behind his back as they usually were, hanging instead by his sides. “I do have everything, don’t I?”

[tylherrlich-blog]

Ehrenzeremonie

[tylherrlich-blog]

helga-bergher:

“And everybody else who dislikes you.” Helga replied with no spite to her voice. She was just noting it, generalizing it just like Tyl generalized that he disliked everyone else. She headed down to the water works, mostly because it was quiet there and because the setting sun was shining on it. “You.” She glanced at Tyl. “I think I’d like to be you.”

Tyl only hummed in agreement. This generalization was similarly true. He did not complain, did not comment on where they seemed to be head towards. He was thinking about his clothes, his thick ceremonial clothes, and how very hot the sun was. The panic had lessened a little now, but it was not helping. He might have snorted in derision at this answer, any other day, but at that moment he just looked confused. “Why?”

[tylherrlich-blog]

Ehrenzeremonie

[tylherrlich-blog]

helga-bergher:

Tyl gave no answer to Helga’s suggestions, and so she turned and walked to the door she had just come through. “Only if I get to choose who I want to be instead.” she mumbled as she pushed the door open and then nodded at Tyl to follow. “Don’t you?”

Tyl followed after her. “I like me,” he said, “It’s everybody else that I dislike.” It was not entirely true, but it was a good enough approximation. “Who would you choose to be?”

[tylherrlich-blog]

Ehrenzeremonie

[tylherrlich-blog]

helga-bergher:

“Urbach.” Helga shrugged, because it wasn’t far, because there were bars, because it was just far away to be ‘away’ and still close enough to be sensible. “A chimney to another country, another world, so far away that we forget who we are.” Her gaze went to the door, then back to Tyl, and while there was no particular kind of kindness or patience in it, there was no irritation or arrogance either. “Or just out for a moment.”

For one moment, Tyl began to consider the costs and benefits of Helga’s proposal. And then, without explanation, his brain just shut down. He nodded. Helga could have said anywhere, and Tyl probably would not have resisted. “Do you want to forget who you are?”