Gabriel Montgomery and Uriel Dawoud, both staying up past bedtime to put ink to paper, encounter one another to converse about first drafts, plot twists, and anything else that springs to mind.
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2025 5:30 pm
ＧＡＢＲＩＥＬ ♫ ＭＯＮＴＧＯＭＥＲＹ ＤＵＫＥ ＯＦ ＭＵＳＩＱＵＥ
It was 10:47 PM. Gabriel was in the library, working on a short story to keep his novelist's skills intact. If you don't use it, you lose it and all that. He found himself in the drafting stage, of which he had gone through many. But none of them were really clicking. Guy meets girl? Girl meets guy? Forbidden love? Meet cute leads to romance? Nothing was really pulling him. The idea of two lovers from rival families getting together only for the story to end in tragedy came to mind, but it'd also been done ad nauseam. Surely he could think of something better than that. Tapping his pencil to his forehead, Gabriel got back to it...and then again...and then again. After each draft, his head hung a little lower from the table. Before finishing the first sentence of the thirtieth draft, Gabe had fallen fast asleep...
It was now 1:22 AM. Gabriel woke up in a panic, shuffling his arms around and making papers and writing utensils fall all over. It was another nightmare about Arioso; a recurring terror that had once been quelled once again had started to haunt his eves. But now that he was awake, it was a passing fear. Frantically collecting his things and keeping his cup of mocha from spilling over, Gabriel felt like a complete mess. On the other hand, between the nightmare and his rude awakening, he was definitely up again now.
The library was one of the few spots he camped out in when he wanted to focus on writing. On that particular night he wanted a change from the scenery that made up his living quarters, and he took his usual spot toward the back. The ink was flowing a little more freely that night, now that he had a slightly better idea of how airships worked. Cylinder blowouts were a real thing for those masses of metal and air, serious enough to need emergency landings if such a thing happened. Fortunately for the main characters their landing would only result in minimal damage added to the rickety old thing’s list of problems. Uriel ended that chapter with the Rogue Prince and his Lady Knight exchanging troubled looks. It would be in the next chapter that everyone else would learn what that was about.
Uriel put the completed pieces in his bag with the intention of depositing them to the rest of his manuscript under the floorboards in his room. That moment wouldn’t come as soon as he expected it though. As he was making his way out, the sudden movement from one table within the vast hall caused him to yelp, jerk backward, and flail his arms in a fright. It was enough of a scare that he felt his spirit leave his body for a second. After some much needed breaths through gritted teeth he turned his head to see another man that he knew to be a classmate. With a girl that had dark hair. At least, if he remembered right.
“Hey, are you okay there? That must have been a super deep nap if you woke up like that.” Uriel leaned his head to one side as he asked. He was likely not okay but he still wanted to ask. As he stepped closer, the things scattered around the table caught his attention, but he instead offered a friendly warning about one of his favorite spots. “The chairs under the big window get warm and if I sit there too long I sleep the afternoon away.”
ʟᴏᴄᴀᴛɪᴏɴ: Utopia - Library ★ᴍʏ ᴄᴏᴍᴘᴀɴʏ: Gabriel ★ᴍᴇɴᴛɪᴏɴꜱ: Anika, he thinks ᴀʟʟ ᴅʀᴇꜱꜱᴇᴅ ᴜᴘ:sweater, shirt, pants - minus the cat★ᴛʜᴏᴜɢʜᴛꜱ: 'I thought I was the only one in here!'
Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2025 11:24 am
ＧＡＢＲＩＥＬ ♫ ＭＯＮＴＧＯＭＥＲＹ ＤＵＫＥ ＯＦ ＭＵＳＩＱＵＥ
For a moment, Gabriel thought he was in the clear. Working quickly, he’d gotten most of his stuff up from the floor. There was some ink spilt, but luckily he still had enough to keep going. Wait, what time is it…? Through hazy vision, he was able to find a clock to find it was almost 1:30 in the morning. Sighing, he had half a mind to pack up and head to bed. But as he re-read what he’d written previously, he found himself slowly getting engrossed all over again. It was mostly a lot of stray thoughts; a lack of approval from the one side’s older sibling here, an argument over the efficacy of chainmail versus platemail there. Nothing was too substantial, but each could easily be fleshed out.
Oh, this one might be worth going a bit more into before I pass out properly. Yes, cat people! Why didn’t I think of it before? Ones with superhuman abilities, quick like thunder…cats…thunder…maybe I can call them the…Cathunders. Yeah, that’ll be g-
“Hey, are you okay there?”
Gabriel nearly jumped out of his seat. Turning to the source of the sound, he found someone he recognized as a classmate of his coming up to him. As he went on to comment on how deep of a sleep he must’ve been in, Gabriel flashed a toothy grin and scratched the back of his head. ”Aha, gotcha. And yeah, I’m fine. Toooootally fine,” replied Gabriel, smooth as ever. Way to go, Monty. Now you’ve made yourself look a complete mess twice over. Turning to face his peer properly, he crossed his leg while the guy came closer. “The chairs under the big window get warm and if I sit there too long I sleep the afternoon away.” Nodding along, Gabriel let out a short laugh.
”Yeah, don’t think I’ll be picking this spot again anytime soon.”
Letting out another laugh as if he was totally smoothing things over, the current time came to mind again for him. Casually knitting his fingers together in front of him, he adjusted his stance to a more casual position and raised a curious brow. ”So what brings you to the library at this hour?” The guy seemed nice enough; might as well strike up conversation.
It turned out that his fellow classmate was okay after all. At least until he asked about it and startled him in the process. Uriel smiled sheepishly as he offered an apology. “Sorry about that, guess we’re both a little skittish tonight.” He didn’t know about him, but Uri seemed to hover around the ‘easily frightened’ scene more than he cared to admit. The other male insisted he was back to being fine after the jump scare and at least by all appearances looked to be.
He laughed a little as he made a cursory glance about the immediate space. As much as he liked naps, it felt a good idea to follow his lead and make a mental note about picking that place in the future.
“So what brings you to the library at this hour?”
He was aware that it was past midnight, the hours where Hisada ruled and projected his silence across the lands, and the time he most often found himself ruling over his writing. He was just leaving to go to bed, or to pretend to go to bed, but the earlier shock and the beginnings of conversation had him forgetting all about that. The question felt deserving of more than a simple answer, and its upbeat, outgoing questioner more than a passing glance.
”Time got away from me. I think I settled in sometime around nine— may I?” Uriel asked himself aloud while following up with a question to his classmate, motioning to a chair. He hung his bag over the back then slid into it. It was a thing that happened plenty and he gave a shrug of his shoulders to the habit. “And I lost track of it. But I wanted a break from being cooped up writing in my room too.”
Uriel glanced down at what surrounded the man, careful to look but not look too hard if the materials there were not quite ready for sharing. He could only guess, so he made an ask of his own. “What about you, are you in here a lot? Maybe we just miss each other, until now that is.”
Yellow eyes blinked as he had a small realization and his hand lightly dropped to the table top. “Mm!” He’d seen this guy around in classes and around the halls but did not know his name, and he was talking to him while forgetting his manners. There was no better time to remember them then. “I’m Uriel, by the way.”
ʟᴏᴄᴀᴛɪᴏɴ: Utopia - Library ★ᴍʏ ᴄᴏᴍᴘᴀɴʏ: Gabriel ★ᴍᴇɴᴛɪᴏɴꜱ: none ᴀʟʟ ᴅʀᴇꜱꜱᴇᴅ ᴜᴘ:sweater, shirt, pants - minus the cat★ᴛʜᴏᴜɢʜᴛꜱ: 'Don't chat his ear off to death Uri!'
Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2025 8:45 pm
ＧＡＢＲＩＥＬ ♫ ＭＯＮＴＧＯＭＥＲＹ ＤＵＫＥ ＯＦ ＭＵＳＩＱＵＥ
”Time got away from me. I think I settled in sometime around nine— may I?”
Nodding as his classmate motioned to a chair, Gabriel looked upon him with a welcoming smile as he sat down beside him. As the man went on to explain what he’d been up to, the duke of sound’s eyebrows lifted in curiosity when he heard that this guy had come to write as well. Was it a project given to him by Professor Beckett? Something more official for his kingdom? By how casually his fellow classmate was acting, he imagined it wasn’t the latter. Or at the very least, not that he wanted to show.
Besides, what Gabriel found far more interesting was the prospect of his peer working on something for his own leisure. Might it be poetry? A longer prose? A statement piece? Gabe couldn’t help but wonder, but quickly found himself distracted by the embarrassment he felt when the other gentleman’s gaze went down towards his scattered drafts. ”I’d, uh, say so. Yeah. It’s almost like my second home at this point, so excuse the mess,” responded Gabe sheepishly after being asked about how often he found himself in the library. Getting his papers together, his head perked back up as his classmate made a noise.
“Mm!”
”Hm?”
Confused at first, he watched as his classmate gave him a look of casual realization. With that, the man introduced himself as Uriel. The duke of sound would offer the humorous guy a hand to shake. ”Gabriel. Pleasure to meet you, friend,” he stated with a slightly amused, yet still warm smile. Gabe would then turn a way to let out a quick yawn which he stifled quickly. ”Sorry, guess my power nap wasn’t as great as I’d have liked. How’ve you been doing with staying up?” Unlike him, Uriel seemed fairly awake. Maybe Gabe could learn a thing or two from him.
Uriel watched as Gabe collected the papers that were scattered over the tabletop, lending proof to what he was sharing about the library being his second home. A little messy at first glance sure, but he could only think of it as the chaotic nature of projects. He could never claim to be as organized as he wished he could be when he was working on something, but at least he knew where things were. Well, most of the time. Maybe it was time to sort through and consolidate some of his notes. A lot of it were things he wrote down so he didn’t forget, like ideas or great opening sentences. But he also had some ballads and diagrams to reference back to. He smiled lightly and nodded his head. Whatever he had going on, it had to be worth the time he was spending in the library.
His smile only grew at learning a new friend’s name and matching hand he offered, which Uri took and shook it with ease. “It’s a pleasure to meet you too.”
The urge to yawn spread to him and he pressed his lips together to suppress it. He felt a little tired but not so tired that it constituted a yawn, but who knew? Maybe he was more tired than he felt. It had been several hours since his nap. “I took a nap right after our last class ended – oh and I did have a couple cups of tea when I woke up too… must have let it steep longer than usual.”
Uriel put a couple fingers to his chin. “But some nights I rest my eyes and end up power napping too.” There didn’t seem to be a discernible pattern that he’d looked for or picked up on. Thinking back to the papers, he leaned his head to one side with a curiosity for what was on them. “If you don’t mind me asking, what are you working on?”
A nap before class? Gabe would have to take note of that. After all, it wouldn’t have been the first time he had to get bits of rest when he could. Then again, that was in the service of something far more valuable than a simple work of fiction. It could also be said that I’ve gotten a bit lax since reintegrating into high society. Gabriel didn’t know how to feel about that. Or tea. Coffee was more his speed. But like Uriel’s brew, the duke would have to let the former thought steep before tending to it properly.
For now, he was fine with conversing with Uriel. The young man seemed friendly and making connections was what he’d come to the school for. That he could do that and explore his passions at the same time was a luxury he shouldn’t let go to waste.
“If you don’t mind me asking, what are you working on?”
”Oh, this? It’s, well…”
An epic fantasy tale involving a band of anthropomorphic cat people with advanced technology and a magic sword fending off the forces of a zombie-like, mummified creature who sometimes becomes inexplicably buff. Also, I was thinking of giving the cat people a pet but that feels weird. Thinking it’ll be like really out there so it’s not as weird. Like a cat/lizard sort of thing.
”Ah, I don’t even know myself. Nothing too put together just yet,” continued Gabriel sheepishly, a soft, nervous chuckle escaping his lips as he scratched at his scalp. Glancing back at his papers for a moment, Gabe sighed as he lifted his papers up and stacked them against the table. ”What you see before you is a sea of rough drafts. I usually don’t try to make them so vast that a Stilicidian might be reminded of home, but here we are.” Now a far neater pile, he set the pages back down. Looking back to Uriel, his smile remained.
”How about you? Anything riveting you’re working on?”
Uri hummed with a more than understanding nod of his head. It wasn’t an unfamiliar place to be for him, having only a fragment of something not yet identifiable. His primary piece was an amalgamation of them. But it was also just as plausible that his new friend wasn’t wanting to give anything away. Micah knew more than anyone about his work, not to mention a point of inspiration and a cheerleader, but he’d kept some details under wraps from him. If his brother had figured out what parts he’d been the basis for, he wasn’t aware.
Like a paper Poseidon, Gabe brought the choppy waters of his rough drafts some calm and stacked them aside. Uriel laughed a little at his remark, imagining the very picture of someone from the Water Kingdom being drawn to it, hopefully without the dangers of ink splotches and papercuts. “That’s half the fun of it though, right?” He crossed one leg over the other. “My desk — or one of the tables in here too, I guess, can really start looking like a conspiracy board if I’m not careful.”
“I have something I’ve been working on for a while. I think it’s a quarter of the way complete so far.” It was his turn to be a bit sheepish, but he did believe it to be riveting and he loved it like a child. An adventure fantasy about two siblings that set off on an unexpected journey in their grandfather’s famous airship after narrowly escaping danger at home. It was his third rough draft, but his longest and most developed manuscript thus far. A lot of people took issue with Utopia but being there had allowed some room to stretch out and breathe, unlike the ever watchful eye of Funkazan. Like writing, or meeting other writers like Gabe and others with adjacent passions. “But I have a couple of shorter stories here and there too. Things from when the inspo struck.”
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