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 Posted: Thu Apr 06, 2017 9:54 am
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D E V E L O P M E N T A L x S O L O
The Last Summer
"How can you afford it?"
Talori blinked up to her mother and then to the Oban woman who had spoken. She'd paid little attention to the first part of their conversation, as the tavern's foodstuffs had been more immediately important. It was the kind of oozey, cheese-filled bread that Daddy didn't let her eat, which meant whenever she was with him, she had to go without. It was only when Mama brought her into her job that Talori could eat her favorite things. She didn’t know why her father was so weirdly particular about what she put in her mouth, but at least her mother didn’t care. Malila loved greasy tavern food more than Talori, and she wouldn’t tell her daughter she couldn’t do anything Malila would do herself. Which seemed perfectly sensible to the six-year-old girl.
She plucked another bite of bread from the basket on the countertop and refocused her attention back to her mother.
“Dunno what I’ve been saving for if not for this,” Malila replied with a shrug. “It’ll be the most coin I’ve ever thrown at anything, and if I hadn’t started saving a decade and a half ago, I doubt I’d be able to pull it off. But it’s important, I think. I want the best, and if that means shelling out money to Oban nobles to make sure she’s got it, then that’s what I’ll do.”
The statement immediately piqued Talori’s interest further. Never once had she witnessed her mother ‘shell out’ more than two or three coins at a time. Not on food, toys, clothes, or anything. Their home wasn’t even furnished in the same way Dris’rynne’s was. It was occasionally disheartening when Talori wanted something fun, like the other girls in the market had, but not usually a big deal. Daddy would get her anything she asked for, so long as it fit under his shirt. Besides, there was only one ‘she’ her mother could be talking about.
The young Waterling popped her bread bite into her mouth, then scuttled from her place near the counter to thread her arms about Malila’s legs instead. ”Mama?” When the woman tipped her gaze downward, Talori prompted, ”Are you talkin’ ‘bout me?”
The grin her mama shot her was more telling than her words could be. “No. Nosey girl, if it had anything to do with you, I’d tell you, don’tcha think?”
”Who are you talkin’ ‘bout, then?” Talori asked as she raised her hands upward toward her mother’s face, curling and uncurling her fists as she did in silent demand. It was a pain to be looked down on all the time. Even her sisters were taller.
Malila hesitated only an instant, then reached down to bundle the young girl up in her arms and raise her to the same level as the adults and their conversation. “Not talkin’ ‘bout a ‘who’ at all. Just a ‘what.’” She hefted her daughter, settling her so that Lori’s weight rested at her hip and her little fingers curled back into the short tuft of hair at Lila’s nape. “You’re getting a bit too heavy for Mama to carry, ain’t ya? Adenah and Annatha don’t make their mother carry them around, far as I can tell…”
Lori scoffed and rested her head against her mother’s shoulder. ”Well, they would if they could get away with it.” And if they were trying to get closer for more information.
The woman who’d been talking to her mother a moment prior, Savara, propped her hands on her hips and sent Lori a stern look. “You ought to be more grateful, little girl and be careful of doing things just because you can ‘get away with them.’ Your mother tries very hard, and she deserves…” She went on like that for at least two full minutes, not that Talori expected anything less. By this point, she was familiar with most of her mother’s workmates.
All the tavern ladies knew her and didn’t mind her joining them when Malila was scheduled on and Lori was with her mother, but that didn’t mean the young Waterling liked or wanted to be near any of them. Savara in particular was especially annoying, and Talori had quickly learned to tone out the Oban woman.
She waited until Savara had quieted, then piped up, ”So what’s the ‘what’ you’re talkin’ ‘bout? That’s what I want to know.” They'd gotten a bit off topic near the end. Her initial query hadn't been answered, and Lori wasn't one to be distracted for long. It probably wasn’t anything too important, but the fact that she hadn’t gotten an answer yet lent itself to seeming like her mother was dodging the question. That wasn’t a very ‘Lila’ tactic.
If Talori had thought as much before, it only escalated when her mother hesitated. Malila ran a hair through her daughter’s fluffy bob and grunted. “Things… are gonna be changing, soon. You’re gettin’ to be old enough where you’d do better to learn from other people, instead of just your mama, and I might-”
”Oh!” Talori beamed and leaned far enough back to smile at her mother. ”Daddy said I could learn with Ade and Ani.” Mama must be talking about that. ”I think I don’t mind. That could be fun. Sometimes other girls are mean to them because they look funny, but if I’m there, I’ll make those other girls keep their mouths shut.”
Malila’s lips quirked in amusement, but she shook her head. “That’s not going to happen, baby girl. I’ve been planning for a long time, and saving whatever I could. I think it’d be better if you went to school and learned proper from someone who knew how to teach you good.”
‘School’ was not something Daddy talked about. To be fair, she’d never heard Mama talk about it either. Not her sisters, not Dris’rynne, not anyone. She knew very little about school, and that sent a chime of warning bells ringing through her mind. She blinked, tipped her head, and tried again, ”But Daddy said-”
“And you know how often that man says dumb things,” Lila scoffed. “I never got to go to school, and he never got to go to school. We just got to watch all the other children grow and learn and become better than us together, while we stayed behind.” Teslaron wasn’t a fool, but he was dumb as a sack of xaraan dung. Talori would have better. She would have the best Malila could afford. She tousled Lori’s hair. “I think you’ll like it, if you give it a chance. I always kind of wanted to go myself, but I’m too old now. You’ll have to go for me and tell me all about it.”
There were still arguments to be had on the matter, Lori knew, but her mama sounded convinced for the moment. She wasn’t worried, it was nothing she couldn’t break down with a few pushes of her own. It wasn’t as if Lila told her ‘no’ very often. And the decision wasn’t immediate. It wouldn’t affect her now. So rather than fight back, she grunted and shrugged noncommittally before clambering to remove herself from her mother’s hip and return to her cheesy bread meal.
x
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Results: Talori is uncertain how she feels about the idea of school.
Word Count: 1207 |
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Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2017 3:15 pm
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D E V E L O P M E N T A L x S O L O
Competitive Field
There were few things in her country that Talori found she ought to be 'impressed' over. Not the tall buildings made to accommodate ten families, not the finery of nobles, not the sheer number of people she saw on a daily basis, and certainly not the broad expanse of schoolhouse laid out before her. Rather than span upward, like most Oban buildings, it instead had the audacity to think itself so important that it could span outward and into areas that would be more suitable for family homes. It was ornate in a way that the apartments on Lori’s street weren’t, with long slated rooftops and unnecessary golden filigree around the outer edge. It was the type of thing you’d design a cake after, not learn in.
It was ostentatious and ugly, and she didn’t want to go to school here. Talori crinkled her nose in distaste just as her mother let out a low whistle of appreciation. Malila squeezed her daughter’s hand where they were intertwined and glanced down to the young Waterling with a smile on her face. “Looks real nice, don’t it? And lookit all these other kiddos going in.” With her free hand, Lila pointed to the few stragglers outside of the building, hurriedly making their way through the doors.
Immediately Talori noticed that none of them, even those who appeared close to her own age, weren’t with their mothers.
Initially, she’d thought to comment that it was just a building. There was nothing so special or great about it, and it didn’t deserve her mother’s praise, certainly. But instead, the realization of her situation hit her full force, and her small fingers clasped tightly around Malila’s hand. ”Am I supposed to go in alone?” She questioned in a muted murmur.
Did she want to go in alone? She didn’t want to be strange, being the only girl with her mother tagging along, but she’d also never been without Malila, her father, Dris, or her sisters, ever. Going into an unfamiliar place full of strangers sounded… quite unwise.
“It’s all you, baby girl,” her mother assured. She dipped, layered a quick kiss to the top of Lori’s head, then disengaged with such abruptness that it must have been unwanted and forced from Lila’s side just as much as Lori’s. Malila reached into her leather knapsack, produced a folded slip of parchment, and held it out. “You just go through that entryway there, and hand this to the woman at the desk. I’m sure she’ll take care of you. She seemed very nice when I came by to pay last week.”
Lori took the scrap of paper, and that was that. After a few quick assurances that Malila would be right here once classes were over, Talori was nudged in the direction of the front entryway. She looked back once, a quick, nervous, over the shoulder glance to be sure that her mother hadn’t left yet, only to see Malila smiling back at her. The youngling didn’t know if it was intentional or not, but Lila looked as nervous as she felt.
A bad sign.
They would discuss this later, once they were both in the safety of their own home. Already Lori was sure that this was a terrible idea. Sending her to a place like this was never going to work out. She should be going to school with Adenah and Annatha. Anywhere Daddy thought was good enough for them was surely good enough for her, and at least then she wouldn’t be alone. If Malila hadn’t already put forth her coin for this endeavor, Lori wouldn’t have gone through with it at all. She’d made complaints earlier, but she tried to be a reasonable girl. Since her mother had paid for it, she ought to at least see what it was all about. Maybe it would work out.
She looked up to the top of the large, heavy double doors as she stepped up to them. But it probably wouldn’t. Today would be endured for her mother’s sake, but once it was over, they’d surely decide mutually that her sisters’ school was the better of the two, and she would be allowed to go there. Talori was hopeful.
The dull thrum of activity was all around her as she entered. Children, some older than her and some even younger bustled chatterlessly toward their designated rooms. She stepped up to a desk nearly as tall as she was, slid the piece of parchment as far across its surface as her arms would reach, then peered up warily from beneath her lashes to the woman seated there. She was an Oban, unsurprisingly, plump, with wild frizzy hair tamed back by a ‘simple’ golden clip. Despite Lori’s initial uncertainty towards the stranger and this task she had to undertake alone, the Oban smiled warmly.
She seemed to recognize Lori without needing to open the paper, though the young girl had never seen this woman before in her life. “Ahhh, yes, you must be Talori, is that right? I remember your mother coming in here. I was anxious to meet you.”
Talori swallowed and tipped her gaze back to more fully meet the Oban’s gaze. ”Y-yes… Yes, ma’am.” She didn’t trust anyone who was ‘anxious’ to meet her. Didn’t this woman have anything better to do? She ought to mind her own business and not be ‘anxious’ for the presence of one little girl.
If the Oban sensed Lori’s negativity, she didn’t comment on it. Instead, she stood, stepped around her desk, and offered the most peculiarly delicate-looking two-fingered ‘handshake’ Talori had ever received and a very slight dip of her head. Nobles were a strange people. “My name is Philia. I’m the administrative aide here. Since it’s your first day, I’ll see you to your first class and make sure you’re set up with an older student ‘mentor’ to help you along if you have any problems. Don’t worry.” She settled a hand on Lori’s back and guided her down a long hallway. “They’ll be gentle with you, until you’re more situated.”
’Until?’
Talori cast a squinted gaze up Philia. What would they do to her once she was situated? Most people who could afford to go to a place like this were probably naturally nasty, snooty-patooties. Not the type of kids Lori knew from around her apartment building. None of them went to this school, either. She couldn’t tell this Oban any of that, though, and if she looked weak now, they’d be on her like a janarim to its prey.
In these unfamiliar circumstances, she couldn’t afford to make any mistakes or to look as they these others could impact her. She notched her chin up, straightened her shoulders, and strode ahead with as much confidence as she could bolster. ”Thank you for escorting me. Before we get there, can you tell me how many people attend this school? Are there very many my age…?”
Philia looked delighted for the conversation, and she nodded enthusiastically. “Oh, yes, there are many children here your age. They usually start a bit younger- You’re seven now, aren’t you?” When Lori nodded, the Oban continued. “Most of our children start at four, and if they prove to be unable to learn quickly enough or if they can’t keep up with their classmates, they’re dropped from our school.” Dropped. Lori’s eyes widened. “So there are fewer older children, less and less as their studies become more difficult. It’s very important that you do your best, understand? Your mother doesn’t have as much coin to waste as some of the other parents. It would be a shame for her to lose it because you didn’t try hard enough.”
Did the other children her age feel an impending sense of doom as they stared at their classroom door for the first time? Probably not, since they were apparently only four years old when they started. She hadn’t feared much of anything at that age. But Talori felt overwhelmed already, and she hadn’t even started.
Would her mother be very disappointed, if she did fail…? Would Malila be upset that she spent her hard-earned-and-saved coin on something of no use…? WOuld she be angry-?
“Oh! Here we are, darling!” Talori looked up at the closed entryway into what she assumed was her classroom. She blinked at the door, then back up to Philia. The Oban smiled and gestured for her to open it and go on in. “Don’t worry, child. I’ll be back to retrieve you once this class is over, and I’ll find you a mentor to help you through the week. It’s only the first day, it’ll be easy.
Talori wasn’t so sure, but she couldn’t leave now. Taking a breath and bolstering her courage, she turned the handle and pushed the door open.
x
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Results: The first day of class has more risk than Talori initially bargained for.
Word Count: 1473 |
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Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2017 3:05 pm
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D E V E L O P M E N T A L x S O L O
Tailored Army
Dark skin and red eyes.
That was all the room consisted of as Talori stepped past the threshold and into the classroom, just a dozen and a half children with the entirety of their attention solely focused on her. There hadn’t been any chatter when she entered, and there wasn’t still. The other students were silent, but the area buzzed with the muted energy of curiosity, intrigue, and blatant unacceptance. All of her courage from moments prior drained out of her. Not one of them was a Matorian like her. They were all Oban. All smooth-skinned, well-kept, and dressed in the crispest red-brown-and-gold-threaded fabric that she’d ever seen.
Oh.
That was Talori’s next observation in the first second that she entered her new classroom. It wasn’t that the students all looked similarly, it was that they were all dressed exactly alike, in neatly short-cropped sleeves for desert heat and glimmering buttons down the fronts of their vests, tailored pants, and shined shoes. Even the other girls, who must have felt especially disgusted by Lori’s own attire, a short dress and sandals, wore trousers and boots.
“Ah.” Talori’s gaze snapped toward the front of the room, where the woman who likely served as ‘teacher’ for this bunch was rising from her desk. This Oban was taller than Philia, significantly thinner, and older. She stood straight, and it made her shoulders and face look like sharp edges and generally unpleasantries. The teacher approached Lori, but seemed intent on keeping at least an arm’s length of space between them. “Someone said something about a young Matorian joining my class, but I wondered if you’d have the audacity to show up.” Her sharp brown eyes scraped down Lori’s frame, seeming to peel away any defenses. “It seems you do.”
Talori didn’t know what ‘audacity’ meant, but this woman’s voice and tone made it sound like a distinctly unwanted thing. She was pretty sure that summed up her entire presence. ‘Unwanted.’ Whether intentional or not, Lori’s arms moved up to cross in front of herself, a protective barrier between her and the Oban female. ”Audacity..?” She repeated softly.
The woman quirked a brow at her. “Impudence.” The tight pucker of Lori’s frown must have been obvious enough that the new word didn’t make any more sense than the last. “Unacceptably disrespectful behavior.”
Disrespectful. Talori had never claimed to be bold, intelligent, strong, or better than anyone at most things, but her presence was not disrespectful when her mother had paid for it just as any of these other students’ parents surely had. A spark of anger ignited a fire in her gut that had her fling her arms down to her sides and glowering up at the Oban. ”I didn’t do nothing!” She snapped. What she did know was that she didn’t want to be here anymore than this lot apparently wanted her here, but now that they’d made those wants clear, she couldn’t just leave.
There was a beat where they stared at each other, then without another moment on the thought, the teacher went on, “You will be a distraction to the other students. In your first minutes in here, you’ve proven to be a mannerless, loud slob of a girl, and it is disrespectful and intrusive of you to believe you have a right to be here. These children have been studying for years already. You’ll waste your time, mine, and theirs trying to catch up. We’ve never taught Matori children. Never. Your way of learning is different than ours, and placing you amongst Oban children is a slight to them. You don’t belong here.”
Did they all feel that way?
Lori’s small lips parted in confusion, and she did not know how to immediately respond. Did she learn differently? Would she be burdensome? She didn’t know what the learning process was here, and it wasn’t as if these kids had every done anything to her such that she should make their lives more difficult…
Well, they hadn’t, but their teacher had. This woman made her pulse race, made her blue-tinted skin darken to a plum purple, and made knots twist about almost painfully in her stomach. There wasn’t anything more to say on the matter. If they continued their back and forth, they would only get angrier. Lori would do something that was disrespectful and worth regretting, and she didn’t want that. She wanted this woman to be wrong, but there was probably no way to immediately prove it.
With her heart still thrumming wildly in her chest, she stopped gaping and turned away, toward the classroom of students before her.
She didn’t know them, and they didn’t know her. But moments ago, Talori had wanted to quit this school and attend the same one as her sisters, someplace where she would know someone and feel at home with her family. That desire was still there, but dampened beneath a swell of pride and anger. She bowed, as properly as she knew how toward the other children. ”My name is Talori,” she informed them, voice short and clipped. ”And I am grateful for the chance to learn beside you. I will not be bothersome.”
There would be no apologies for starting a scene in her first few minutes in the room, no apologies for being different, and none for disrupting their learning practice. Lori strode to the nearest empty desk, four rows back from the front of the room, and took her seat. While she usually would’ve slouched, she perked her posture up to more closely match that of the others, with her fingers folded atop the desk, her back straight, her chin up, and her shoulders back.
‘No’ was not often a word she heard. She didn’t like to lose, and she didn’t like to be refused things, even if she didn’t want them to begin with. If staying in this school was a competition, than she would win, even if she had more ground to cover than anyone else. They didn’t need to like her, but they would respect her and the effort she put forth.
The teacher, later known as Misses Vemelli, did not appear enthused. She turned back toward her desk, snatched up a book, and flicked it open. “If you come to class without your uniform again, Miss Talori, you while be excused without another warning.” Lori’s heart still thrummed. She stared the woman down unflinchingly. “Let’s begin.”
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Results: An argument on her first day sparks Lori's competitive nature.
Word Count: 1072 |
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Posted: Thu Apr 13, 2017 10:05 am
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D E V E L O P M E N T A L x S O L O
Unpleasant and Unfavorable
It was all very unpleasant. The whole first day was unpleasant. The whole first week was unpleasant. The whole first month― Well, once she got used to the ordeal, it wasn't as bad as it was at first, still pretty awful, but just bearable. All of her classmates looked down on her, and Misses Vemelli continued to insist that Talori ought to spend her time elsewhere, somewhere more 'suited' to her needs. Her mother had purchased her a hand-me-down uniform and even a textbook, which was the heaviest (and probably most expensive) possession she owned.
It was good for squishing bugs but not much else, and was a real pain to carry back and forth between home and school.
But so long as Talori didn't look for comfort, companionship, or support in the classroom, it wasn't too bad. She also tried not to complain to her mother once she returned home in the afternoons. Malila always seemed so pleased that Lori had agreed to put up with this torture, and hearing negative things made her weirdly unreceptive to anything else the young Waterling had to say on the matter. She did not want to hear her daughter's complaints over the school she'd paid so much coin for and wanted even less to hear how Talori thought she would be much happier with Adenah and Annatha.
'Not gonna happen.' That was what Malila said, and so it hadn't. By the time she was three full cycles of the moon into her courses, Lori gave up on that route, same as she'd given up trying to make friends earlier.
It wasn't as if the students ganged up on her or really treated her especially different from anyone else, besides. The competitive nature of the school, the fact that no one knew for sure who would be around next year, how anyone could be good enough to kick you out... It made for a terse environment, where friendships weren't really encouraged. The students here were just generally unpleasant to everyone, so while Lori's differences made her unfavorable, everyone was mean to everyone else, and that was just how it was.
There was a strange sort of solace in that. They didn't hate her because she was 'worse' than them or because she 'didn't belong,' they hated her because even if she was those things, she could still be a threat, and no one here was about to make nice with the enemy, particularly when everyone was the enemy.
Once she accepted that, things became easier. Their subjects were numerous and difficult, but not all unpleasant. There were history, maths, and scripture lessons (all boring, lengthy, and with pages upon pages of work to complete at home), but there was also music, combat, riding, and crafting. She’d once been bold enough to ask what nobles needed any of this for, since they made money just by sitting around, right? After a healthy session of raucous laughter from her peers, she’d been informed that her class didn’t consist of ‘nobles.’
Maybe it hadn’t been so surprising once she thought about it, since her mother probably could not ever afford to send her to a noble school… But they’d all looked so pretty, and they’d all sat so straight, and even the building was the most ornate thing she’d ever seen…
No, though. These children weren’t nobles themselves, just high middle-class brats who hoped to one day be good enough to catch the attention of someone higher up. Maybe Misses Vemelli was right. The whole thing made Lori wonder if she ought to be going to this school at all. Talori didn’t care about marrying well. Even if she wanted to, she wasn’t dumb enough to think any Oban noble would want a poor Matori girl for a bride, even if she did learn how to sing beautifully and could recite the Fire Anthem in the old tongue.
She still wasn’t ‘one of them,’ and couldn’t even pass for one like the others could.
So unfortunately, her studies didn’t mean the same thing to her as it meant to them. Malila surely knew as much as well. It wasn’t a chance for ‘better things,’ which meant it probably wasn’t worth all the trouble Lori had to go through to keep up with it. All it was was an exercise in self-betterment, for herself, and not anyone else.
And that meant that if she got kicked out early, what was the harm? She still would’ve learned more than she would have otherwise, and being removed from school before completion would save her mother loads of coin. Talori didn’t need to feel the same pressure as the other students. She wanted to keep up with them to prove that she could achieve whatever she wanted, but it wasn’t the end of the world if she fell short.
That made it easier. It meant she could do this and still come out sane in the end, one way or another. It was unpleasant, but it would be fine. She would be fine.
x
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Results: One way or another, gonna make it through this.
Word Count: 843 |
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Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 10:28 am
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D E V E L O P M E N T A L x S O L O
The Letter From Jauhar
During her earliest years at school, when Talori had still been very small and very young, her mother had come to pick her up every day. They'd walked home together, and Malila had spent the rest of the day at Talori's side. When she'd become a little older, Lori had been granted the privelege of walking home on her own, without supervision. Her mother had been at home waiting for her arrival, but at the time, it'd felt like a great concession, for Malila to allow her such a thing.
Now that Talori was into her teen years, she would walk home alone and enter their apartment to find that her mother was still at work, or perhaps shopping for their groceries, or as Talori had recently learned was a possible alternative, tossing a few drinks back at the tavern with her work friends.
This was all perfectly acceptable.
If her mother wanted to enjoy her time with her comrades while Talori adamantly refused to entertain the idea of friendship with 'those people' until she could reestablish a bond with her actual family, Malila could do as she wished. But since her father, her sisters, and Dris'rynne had left Oba, Talori wanted nothing to do with anyone here. She longed for Jauhar's forests, where her family lived, but Malila continued to insist there was 'nothing for them' there.
It had driven something of a wedge between them. Not so much that they were cold to each other, and not so much that they didn't communicate. But there was enough of one that neither felt the need to share finer details of their day, and certainly enough of one where Talori felt inclined to bottle her feelings and hide them from her mother.
While it had been somewhat distressing to be left to her own devices when she'd been younger, now it was something of a gift to have their little apartment to herself, where she could come home, relax, and do whatever it pleased her to do until Malila's return.
It usually involved a nap.
By the time Lori made it home in the afternoons the sun had risen such that the sand would burn her feet if they were bare and the air inside her apartment was stifling and still, even with the curtains pulled. It wasn't an ideal environment for any type of activity, and if Talori tried to make progress on her school work, she became quickly frustrated and foul of temper. In the quiet of day, with no one about to bother her, there was no reason not to rest.
On this particular day, Lori woke from her nap and opened her eyes to the dim orange lighting of early evening. Clanging from the kitchen was either an unwanted intruder, or more likely, her mother trying to prepare dinner. It wasn't one of Malila's strong suits, but Lori appreciated the attempt just the same. Scrubbing her eyes with the heels of her palms, Talori pushed herself into a upright position and blearily cast her gaze around the room.
It was then, as her eyes landed on her wooden nightstand that she spotted it.
A letter.
An opened letter. The seal was broken such that the folded message lay open right atop the nightstand, facing upward so that any passerby could see what was written. Talori had never spoken aloud that any such thing bothered her, since the only people who ever wrote to her were family members. But the letter was addressed to her, not her mother, and for once Talori wished she could've seen its contents before anyone else.
She picked it up with no verbal complaint and read it through with slow deliberateness. As each word registered in her mind, a smile started to blossom on her lips, so much so that Talori was grinning by the end of it and practically shaking with delight and excitement.
"Mama!" Lori yipped as she scrambled from her bed and bolted for the door. "Mama, Mama, Mama! Did you see?" Talori demanded as she rounded the corner to their kitchen and promptly shoved the parchment beneath Malila's nose. Of course she'd seen, Lori realized once the words had already left her mouth. Lila had read the letter even before she had. "They're getting married! And Dris'rynne is pregnant again. I'll have a new little sibling, and- oh, we must go. We must!"
For the first time, Lori's golden gaze found her mother's face, and the expression she saw there was nearly enough to make her recoil. She drew the letter back to herself, close to her chest as though protecting it and said in a more controlled tone, "We can't miss it," Lori murmured. "Or maybe you can, but I can't."
The way Malila's milky eyes narrowed and the way her lips pursed spoke of refusal before she even opened her mouth. "You can and you will," the older woman muttered. Lila wiped her hands on a rag, folded it over the counter, and turned her cloudy gaze to her daughter. "It is too great a distance, too long of a time, and too dangerous of a journey. Our home and our lives are here. We can't just drop them the moment your father sends for you."
This argument. This argument again. It cropped up every time Lori so much as mentioned Teslaron and his new home and his new family. The older Water woman refused to let her daughter see them, visit them, explore their new home... Tes visited her on occasion, but he'd also spoken of wanting to take her back to Jauhar with him, for just a little while.
Malila always refused.
Malila looked as though she'd been ready to refuse this time as well, and Talori wasn't aware of how much that expression offended her until her own words exploded off her tongue.
"Why?" She spat. "I want to see my sisters! I want to see my dad's home and meet my new sibling! No one even said you had to go. If you are frightened, you can stay, but I won't! I'm not a little girl; you can't tell me I'm 'too young' to make the journey when Adenah and Annatha have already done it! I don't like it here. I don't care about school, and I hate these people! Dad will take me with him, if I ask, and you can stay behind, and live here by yourself-"
The sound of Malila's palm cracking across her cheek reached her before the sting of it even did. And by the time the heat of it struck, her eyes were already burning and glossy with unshed tears. Not from any amount of pain, but from frustration. Her mother very rarely struck her, though never across the face, and only when her temper got the best of her.
Even so, Talori didn't fear pain. What she wanted to scream about, what she wanted to make Malila understand was how helpless the woman made her feel.
She wanted more, and the opportunity for it was right there. Right there, in her father's latter. But Malila always stood in the way of it, and she'd never given Talori a good enough explanation as to why.
"I. Said. No." Malila's words shook, and her curled fingers tucked close to her chest as if she was frightened she might lash out again against her better judgement. "They will visit. You can see them then. But I've worked too hard to build us a life here to allow you to run off whenever it pleases him. He left you-" Talori's heart lurched. "And I ain't inclined to change our schedule because he asked." Malila turned from her, picked up the folded rag and scooted with a peculiar stiffness toward the stove. "Dinner will be ready soon... I'm sure you have homework to work on until then..."
Seconds ticked by and Lori was rooted to the spot. There ought to be more to say. There ought to be some kind of understanding they could come to, if only they listened to each other. Lori rubbed at her cheek and rifled through her disoriented thoughts because she knew she was in the right, and there was a way to make her mother see.
"Go on," Malila grunted a bit more forcefully.
With an almost dazed frown, Lori did as she was bid. She couldn't come up with an alternative in that moment.
x
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Results: Talori and her mama have a disagreement.
Word Count: 1411 |
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Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2017 10:10 am
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D E V E L O P M E N T A L x S O L O
Native Exchange
She kept to herself.
More and more, Talori was starting to think that was the way to approach everything in her life. She couldn't speak to her mother without inciting argument. She could't speak to her classmates without being sneered at. She couldn't speak to her teacher without expecting a condescending answer. She couldn't speak to her father because- Well, he wasn't there, was he? Lori was alone in everything she did. That was just the way of things.
And then, as Talori glanced up from the beginnings of what would blossom into an essay about how the Oban military should have gone about invading foreign lands, she spotted him.
Him- A boy. Seconds prior, she would've slapped herself for this strange and unwantedly immediate sense of enthrallment. Misses Vemelli introduced him as Zynell and claimed that he came from their 'sister campus' in Jatine. What was even worse was that there was nothing truly remarkable about him; he didn't look different than any other Oban, with his golden flame eyes, dark hair, and bronzed skin.
Lori supposed that the only reason she felt any type of 'jolt' at his presence at all was because when he scanned the room, his gaze didn't linger anywhere but on her. Zynell glanced across the room, saw everyone in it, and then stopped to stare at her.
She wouldn't have initially thought anything of that, either.
Because truthfully, she saw nothing but shock in his eyes as soon as their gazes met, and there was nothing peculiar or special about that. It was what came after that stunned her. The expression melted off of his face. He looked at her and rather than spite or disgust there was only curiosity and what Lori could only describe as 'wonder.' He looked interested in her and her peculiar predicament, and while she held suspicion for that as much as anything else, Zynell looked so open and honestly intrigued that she didn't think it was faked.
Talori Elendel did not believe in any of this 'love at first sight' nonsense. At her age, boys were the last thing that could be trusted, and she'd long since decided that she wasn't prepared to take on any extra difficulties in her life. Which was what she'd always decided boys were: difficulties.
But the way Zynell looked at her was something she'd never experienced, and it felt so long since anyone was interested in her, particularly in this place. It wasn't reason enough to make a new friend.
He took up a seat next to her, whispered a soft greeting, and Talori ignored him. That ought to be the end of it. If Zynell was here in this class, he wasn't stupid. He'd understand that none of them had any business making friends with each other, and among all of the students here, Lori wanted friends less than anyone else.
Except it wasn't the end of it.
For all that Talori ignored him, Zynell seemed insistent on making himself known, first with spoken pleasantries and sheer presence. Then, after Talori adamantly continued to refuse to acknowledge him (and she did. She never gave him verbal rebuff or refusal, only tried to make him understand that he was a nonfactor in her life by simply pretending he did not exist at all), with invitations.
"Wait! Talori, hey!" He'd managed to catch her as she fled the school grounds for the day. There wasn't usually any harm in ambling, but lately Talori felt as though the quicker she escaped, the better off she'd be. But he caught her today, with his fingers curled around her arm as she retreated and his pleas for her to wait in her ears.
This was the first time he'd reached to touch her, and on an impulse decision, Talori decided she would not stand for it.
She twisted her arm, catching his wrist in her fingers as she spun to face him and used that momentum to jerk the taller boy toward her. The sound of his stunned, sharp intake of breath reached her the same instant she raised her fist and he staggered in. "Wait, wait!" Zynall yipped and desperately lurched away.
Lori stilled, glowered at him, then tossed his offending limb away from her. "You keep your hands off me," she spat.
Despite the still-stunned look on the boy's face, she thought there also might have been something like gratitude in his relieved sigh. Gratitude for not knocking his pretty teeth out, most likely. Zynell held his hands up in surrender. "Sorry, I wasn't trying to... er... make you mad? I suppose I just really wanted you to look at me, you know?"
"There are plenty of other girls who would've 'looked at you' had you asked them."
Hesitantly, a smile was starting to form on his face. He kept his hands up. "But I already know about those girls," he informed her matter-of-factly. "I know what they're doing here, and I know what their families are like, and some of them, I actually know from experience of my family working with theirs personally."
Talori whipped around and away from him again, slinging her bag up and over her shoulder as she continued her march home. "If you know them so well, then bother them instead. I don't have time for you-"
"But I'm not interested in continuing on with things I'm familiar with!" He asserted as he trotted to catch up. "My parents wouldn't have made me come here, if they thought I was content doing the same thing I'd been doing in Jatine. Besides, I like you. There weren't any Matori girls in my classes back there, and you're the only one here. It's so weird and different! So I don't really want to talk to them. I want to talk to you."
'Weird and different.' Zynell said it like it was some sort of compliment, but it made something like distaste boil at the back of Lori's throat. It seemed like he thought she was some kind of interesting subject to study, and this stupid boy needed to learn there were no lessons on 'Talori.' "Unfortunately for you, I don't have any interest in telling you-"
"You can come to my house." He took a quick step forward and spun sharply so that he was standing directly in front of her. Talori stalled, and the look of suspicious disbelief on her face must have been invitation enough for him to continue. "Yeah, yeah," Zynell said quickly. "I'm a little behind in the lessons we're learning, so if you want, you can come to my house and help me get caught up. My dad's got a noble aunt, so we're staying with her. There's a library, and a pool... I can provide snacks too."
She couldn't say for sure exactly what her face did, then, but it must have inspired a bit of confidence in this Oban boy because he had the audacity to take her arm again. "Not today, if you want to think about it," Zynell assured. "But I promise no one in my house would have anything against it. I really do need the help, and you must be just as smart as anyone else."
Talori was inclined to believe she was smarter than everyone else, and that alone should've been enough reason to refuse.
But she'd never been inside an Oban household. She'd never swam in a pool, and if his snacks were anything like what Arima had purchased at the teahouse... Gods, damn it all, she couldn't possibly miss out on that. Lori stepped to the side of him and nudged his shoulder on her way past. "I'll talk to my mother," she grunted on her way by. "And just so you know, this isn't a 'yes.' I'll think about it, and that's the best you're getting today."
It seemed enough to satisfy Zynell for the moment, since he beamed and didn't try to stop her from leaving again.
x
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Results: Talori meets Zynell, an Oban boy from Jatine.
Word Count: 1333 |
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Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2018 7:33 am
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C L A S S x A F F I N I T Y x S O L O
A Variance of Needs
She'd told him yes.
After no less than a week of internally debating the pros and cons of trying to make a friend and trying to help him succeed in a place where only few could, curiosity won out over intelligence. Talori knew the standard at her school. When she'd first arrived she'd been told 'less and less' children could attend as they grew older and the work became harder. There was a limit to how many people could progress to graduation, and realistically, it was in her best interest to see as many fail as possible. Even if she hated her school and her peers, she wanted to be one of the ones that went the full distance. She wanted to prove to these snobby Oban brats that she could be better than them, if it pleased her. So the more of them that failed, the better off she'd be.
It didn't make sense to visit Zynell's home and help him get 'caught up' to where they were in their lessons after his move from Jatine because Talori wanted him to fail. If he couldn't work hard and overcome the change on his own, he didn't deserve to pass.
But she'd never been to a noble's house. She'd never eaten noble food. She'd be hard-pressed to say she'd ever even had a friend, and Zynell was very friendly, if perhaps not the most charming. Talori knew she didn't like this stupid boy from Jatine, who was more interested in her than even her own mother, but he was persistent in staying at her side when he could and making sure she remembered that he'd invited her over, and he needed her help, and 'oh, please, please, please.'
If she wanted him to fail, she could always teach him incorrect material... If Zynell was as far behind as he claimed, he probably wouldn't even realize until it was too late. But that would be very improper of her, extremely mean-spirited, and if he really was trying to be friendly, Lori didn't want it to be her fault that it fell through.
So there wasn't a way to see his house, eat his food, and ensure his demise.
The only alternative was to be proper, friendly, and sweet, to see things done right. And Talori Elendel could be proper and sweet, given the right incentives. Admittedly, Zynell seemed to understand how to incentivize.
Snacks were brought to them by a pair of very confused-looking Matorian servants. Neither of them asked why they were serving a young lady of no higher rank in Oban society than they were, and Zynell didn't seem to even notice the peculiar look his servants (or rather, his aunt's servants) shot Talori as a tray of ripened and peeled fruit paired with some kind of sweet dip was set before them. Talori decided not to acknowledge it either, and instead kept most of her attention on the boy at her side.
Zynell's exasperated gaze was pinned on a book set before him. "But what do their names matter?" He complained. "I don't want to memorize a bunch of names of dead people, and most of these achievements feel frustratingly irrelevant, like it's just there to be more useless information to cram at us. 'Lord Fenzal Kyhenjir was the first to cut tile and use it in a pattern in his foyer.' Why do I care?" He huffed irritably, and Talori had the distinct impression that he wanted and may have even been about to knock something over petulantly before remembering she was there.
"To display an understanding and appreciation for classical design style?" Lori prompted. "Nobles are supposed to really enjoy a healthy interest in superfluous subjects."
If it were true, though, maybe it should have been more obvious to the boy with her than it was even to Talori. She leaned forward in her chair, propping her chin in her hand before casting another gaze around. The pair of students sat outside at a small circular ceramic table, surrounded by more greenery than Talori had ever seen in the desert and a fountain large enough for swimming. Nobles were ostentatious. But Zynell had noble relatives who he was currently residing with. He should understand more about what needed to be done to please and satisfy them than anyone else. Lori hummed thoughtfully and collected a piece of fruit to munch on. Her school was one designed to mold young children into intelligent and interesting beings that would be coveted by a noble suitor, in efforts to raise their ranks.
As far as Lori understood it, Zynell and his parents weren't nobles, but his aunt was. There was someone close to him already within the elitist establishment. Why should he have to bother with all this trouble? Particularly if he wasn’t even good at it or interested in it?
"Can’t your aunt make some kind of arrangement for you to be more well positioned for your future without the need to go to this school?" Talori queried. "I’m not even convinced that you want to be using your time in this way."
Zynell’s fiery gaze lifted to meet Lori’s. He sent her a crooked little grin, then rolled his shoulders and glanced away. “I’m sure she could,” he admitted. “But my parents don’t want any arranged partnerships for me, and I’m pretty sure they don’t care if my future looks ‘better’ than my life right now. My mom and dad are happy together. They live a comfortable life that affords them many opportunities for excitement without being rich, and I’m a part of that. We don’t feel like we’re missing out on or lacking anything.”
"Then I don’t understa-"
“Except-” Lori quieted and tilted her head inquisitively. Zynell’s fingers tapped against the pages of his book. He looked to it again, then sighed. “I don’t really have much an idea of what to do with myself, by myself. I’m kinda a ‘content to do with others what they like to do when they do it’ type of person. There’s not really much that I enjoy enough to turn it into a job, so they’re worried about my future in that regard. It’s not about setting me up so I won’t have to do much; it’s about helping me find what I want to do. They were already… a bit past their prime when I was born, so they’re worried I’ll feel purposeless once they’re gone. So actually completing my studies doesn’t really matter. It’s just an avenue to let me explore a handful of subjects and see if something clicks.”
Parents seemed to be the reason everyone went to this school. It offended Talori, who didn’t care anything about these subjects or the prospect of marrying well, and she was fairly certain her mother wanted her to attend ‘just because.’ She did not have the same problem as Zynell. Lori didn’t not have motivations. So why would Malila force this upon her when she would have been just as happy with the same material as Ade and Ani…?
With that thought in mind, she could almost forgive the Oban boy’s mother and father… The way he spoke, even Zynell must not have been too miffed at them. Even though he was behind and must be doing reasonably poorly, he wasn’t angry, like Talori was.
He shot her a quick smirk. “Does that mean you are here only to find a respectable husband-”
Talori chucked a piece of fruit at him, and he laughed as he ducked out of his chair to avoid it. As he righted himself, Zynell’s grin softed to more of a smile. He stood before her, hands propped on his hips, gazing at her with- with something unidentifiable in his eyes that Lori couldn’t tell if she appreciated or not. Then he spoke again, and whatever had been there was lost to her forever. “Have you found a subject that interests you? Maybe that’s what I need, someone to show me the merits of why they enjoy what they enjoy.”
It turned out that Talori did know what she enjoyed. She mirrored his smirk from earlier, rose to her feet, and stalked toward him. "As a matter of fact, I think I do know an activity we can partake in together."
Talori found that Zynell was agreeable to virtually anything. After she explained the area of her interest, he led her further from the main house, away from the gardens and fountains, to an area of open desert sand, wind, and sun, where a small clay building had been erected with seemingly no value to it. It was too small to be a residence, too far from the main house to be a storage, and seemed to serve a function for only one activity.
“Do you have your own-? Er, not that it would matter in this[ instance, I suppose, since it wouldn’t really make much sense to go get it now, but if you don’t-”
"I don’t."
Zynell nodded. “You can use one of my aunt’s bows,” de decided as the pair of them entered the little structure.
Archery had been- and still was- an aspect of her study that Talori didn’t understand the need for. In addition to art, crafting, history, and maths, there also came the studies of swordplay, riding, and archery. The only reason Lori could think of that they might need such skills was to make the students well-rounded people, capable of performing in any situation. She didn’t mind the swordplay and xaraan riding aspects of her studies, but the boys tended to dominate their female counterparts when it came to the blades, with their intrinsically superior height and upper body strength. Maybe it couldn’t be said for all the boys, but Lori was in a lower tier of that skill.
Riding was at least manageable, and something she thought the ladies in her class tended to be more adept at, since they didn’t have any extra bits between their legs to jostle. Still, a lot of that seemed to depend on the very unpredictable temperament of whatever beast an individual had been assigned that day. Talori didn’t really appreciate the unpredictable.
Archery was her favorite class. It didn’t require half as much thought as books, nor half as much speed as swordplay. There was still a physical element to it, and one that relied on that upper body strength she’d complained of earlier, but it didn’t feel like it was anywhere near the same extent to her. Even though Talori considered herself to be fairly weak as compared to many of her classmates, so long as she didn’t pick a bow with a draw that was more than she could manage, the actual aiming, even at flying target disks, wasn’t too much for her to handle.
"Your aunt really needs a whole shack set aside for target range supplies?" Talori scoffed as she peered around the little room. She wondered if it was something all rich people had just because they were rich and could afford it… Surely no one actually needed more than one bow-
That sheepish smile Zynell wore sometimes returned to his face alongside the lightest of flushes. “You know how people can be with their hobbies,” he replied. “And she’s been doing it long enough that that it is sometimes nice to purchase something newer to compensate for any added strength and skill she might have gained. We can probably use some of her older ones, since they’ll be smaller and easier for someone at our skill level to manage…”
Talori wanted to argue that between her and him, they were certainly not at the same skill level. She’d seen Zynell’s marks in class, and she imagined that he didn’t have much ‘skill’ in practically anything. He selected a weapon for himself from along the shelf, one that didn’t look like it had any more or any less capabilities than what they used in school, before he turned to face her. “You probably don’t need anything bigger than this one, I bet,” he said, gesturing to his own selection. “But why don’t you pick one out, and we’ll get it strung up and head out to the range.”
"Just pick any one?" She asked incredulously.
He shrugged nonchalantly.
So Talori set to inspecting the options before her. She still didn’t know Zynell’s aunt very well, or basically anything about her, but the Oban boy had said that archery was a ‘hobby’ of hers, and it turned out she did have several bows of varying sizes. Some were clearly well beyond anything she could wield. Talori wasn’t so large or so familiar with the activity that she could pull and carry some of the larger ones. And some of the others looked more for ornamentation than for any type of actual practice. Then there was another set, hung up near the corner and unlike anything Talori had ever practiced with. "Have you ever used a crossbow?"
“Er… No? Have you? We’ve never practiced with them in school, so if you don’t know how, we probably shouldn’t-”
"But it can’t be that hard," Talori argued. "And since we haven’t done it in class, and may never, now seems like the most opportune moment to try." And it was already strung, unlike most of the others, so that seemed like the most difficult aspect of learning about it already taken care of. She picked it up from the shelf and angled it in such a way that she could look down the barrel of it, as though actually preparing to shoot.
Zynell was still clearly hesitant. “It’s not really as sexy as a recurve, though…”
If that was supposed to be an argument against her giving the crossbow a try, it instead only solidified Lori’s decision. She swung a quiver of arrows over her shoulder and notched her head in the direction of the door. "I just want to give it a try. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll put it back."
“But there’s something about using weapons you aren’t familiar with that seems…”
"Dangerous? Do I feel like a danger to you?"
“Yes.”
"Good."
It was the first time she’d ever seen his face heat in what she was sure was frustration, but Zynell didn’t pose anymore argument than that. He collected a string for his own bow and then led Lori out of the shack. Their target range was hardly more than a few paces from the storage shack. The targets were weathered from their days spent out in the sun, but they seemed sturdy enough. While Zynell strung his bow, Lori set to the task of inspecting her selection more fully. The whole thing seemed simple enough. It didn’t look as though it used arrows different than any other. Nock one, pull the string back as usual. There was a guideline groove and some sort of weird pin that held it in place before it could be fired by pulling a trigger.
Easy day, Talori decided. Perhaps even easier than the usual. She collected an arrow and laid it into the groove. "I’m going to give it a shot." She received a scoff in response. The first thing Talori noticed was that despite her initial assumptions, drawing a crossbow was much harder than she’d expected. It felt heavy in her hands and awkward to try and load, completely different than what she was used to.
Zynell had taken a shot and notched another by the time she was ready.
But once she was, she found the holding to be much easier. Nothing shook or wavered as it did when she tried to hold steady on a target with her usual bow. Aim was easier, and once she fired, proved to even be reasonably accurate, regardless of how long she held her string pulled for. Zynell was clearly faster with his, and Talori realized he wasn’t as bad with it as she’d initially assumed. Maybe he just didn’t appreciate having as many people around as there tended to be during class.
“I hope I don’t ever have to rely on your speed to save us,” he snickered. “If you’re ever trying to save me from being stabbed, I’ll be cut and already bled to death by the time you get to shooting.”
She would’ve thought she’d be annoyed, but actually, she found herself smiling. "I’d get him while he’s running off," she retorted and loosed. The bow made a pleasing ’schtik’ of a sound as it fired, and her arrow lodged itself into the target, right amidst a tiny cluster of her other arrows. "Get him right in the skull. Lookit it! Same place every time."
“But too slow for precision to be necessary against an adversary… They’d either be dead or moving around too much to lock onto the same spot, depending on where you hit.”
"Why are you so worried about adversaries?" Talori huffed with a quirk of her head. "It’s just for sport! And I like it. It’s different, sleek, controlled. ...Not really easier, though. I would have liked for it to be easier."
“Neither easier nor as sexy! You were supposed to be telling me about something you enjoyed, but I hardly see the merits- Ow!” She punched him, scoffing at his stupidity as he grinned. “Though I am glad it went half as well as it did. I was kind of afraid you’d shoot me, since you didn’t seem to know what you were doing…”
With her crossbow fully empty and waiting for another, she turned to face him, angling the weapon toward him as though it were loaded and she did have plans he might not enjoy. "Believe me, there’s still time in the day."
x
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Results: Talori and Zynell practice bow shooting.
Word Count: 2966 |
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Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2018 7:38 am
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D E V E L O P M E N T A L x S O L O
Two in the Bush
Although Talori had spent the entirety of her school life dreading all forms of interaction with virtually anyone, struggling with feeling cut off from the people who cared about her, and resentful for decisions she’d had no part in, once she’d been presented the opportunity for camaraderie, she realized how much she’d missed it. She was still angry at her mother, still spiteful toward the other students, and still determined to outshine everyone despite her heritage, but it was easier somehow. In her early teens, Lori had contemplated fleeing or perhaps something more drastic, but Zynell was something of a lifeline against that.
Neither of them realized what exactly that meant, and Talori didn’t dwell on what she might have done. All she knew was that she appreciated this variety of ‘easier,’ and it was somehow now bearable to continue on doing what she’d thought was impossible.
She and Zynell studied together. But more than that, they visited each other’s homes for purely recreational purposes. Talori would swim in his aunt’s pool or drink tea in the gardens, and when Zynell visited her home, she’d cook for him, with the assurances that her father could do better, but she had learned one or two things from him.
They delved farther from topics concerning school. Zynell’s parents (after their brief visit during his transfer) had returned to Jatine, leaving him alone with his aunt and her husband. They apparently had mixed opinions on whether he should be staying with them or not- his aunt had married into the noble family, and so had very little pull to her decisions. She loved her nephew and wanted him to stay, but her husband was less enthused by the idea, leaving Zynell to feel as though he shouldn’t really be in their home too frequently.
And Talori had explained her frustrations- about how most of her family lived in Jauhar. She knew she couldn’t travel alone, but she missed them, and her mother’s stubbornness had driven a wedge between them. She didn’t especially feel as though she wanted much to be in her own home, either.
So, even though there were occasions that they spent together at places that served as more of a house than a home, there were at least as many opportunities to not. Sometimes, they would walk out through the market, sometimes down to the oasis, sometimes they would leave the city entirely and slide down sand dunes or look out over rocky crags to a stunning gold landscape below. At some point, during their myriad array of adventures, Zynell had started to hold Talori’s hand.
She had, initially, been most unamused.
Fortunately, the Oban boy was familiar enough with her fluster and pride and general malcontent with any too obvious displays of interpersonal development that he wasn’t too put-off and instead remained as persistent as he’d ever been.
When Talori was alone to think about it, she supposed she didn’t really mind. What bothered her most was that Zynell was a very friendly boy, one who’d probably had at least one or two relationships back home in Jatine. Maybe not necessarily relationships of the type that required much wooing, but he’d certainly had friends, she was sure. He knew how to tend to people’s needs in that specific manner that made such things blossom. He was good at it. Caring, genuine, funny, and persistent (that word again) in making her feel wanted.
Talori had never had a friend. She’d had sisters, to some extent, for a short while… But that felt like eons ago, now. She’d never had a friend, and she was afraid that because she hadn’t, she wouldn’t know what to do if Zynell should want even more than that.
It felt like something she was more likely to fail at than to succeed in, and that made it daunting.
But neither could she simply cut everything with him off in her fear. Talori couldn’t go back to feeling alone and struggling and trying so hard to be better than everyone else and worth the coin her mother put into her without anything to balance out her frustrations. She still needed something to feel pleased about, and Zynell must have thought she was doing at very least adequately… But ‘friendship’ was still something she needed to work to better herself at. It was like another area of study, but one you needed companionship for to even practice at.
There was no studying of friendship alone, and Zynell at least, seemed to be one of the easier branches of it to learn. She feared failing him, or doing something wrong or not being enough, but she couldn’t simply not try. And if he wanted more, she wasn’t entirely sure that she didn’t.
The whole matter was confusing, uncertain, and rife with too many possibilities. Friendship- or was it romance? She wasn’t sure- was an uncertain science, a math problem with no answer. It was frustrating, unnerving, and thrilling all at once, and it made Talori feel more alive than just the competition between her peers ever had.
She did like Zynell, but she liked how she felt even more.
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Results: Time with Zynell has led Talori to feel like she can call their continued proximity a ‘relationship,’ though she’s still uncertain as to what kind it really is.
Word Count: 861 |
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Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2018 7:51 am
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G R O W T H x S O L O
An After-Haze
”So…” Zynell sat at Talori’s side, his legs swinging off the balcony of the upper level of his aunt and uncle’s manor while he leaned forward against the lowest beam of the railing that separated him from the drop immediately before them. “What happens after- Well, after all this?”
Initially, Talori did not understand his question. After what? After she’d finished eating this surprisingly soft cheese she’d been handed? After she left his house for the day? After Zynell returned to his home in Jatine, since he was only here for classes, and they were reaching an age where their instruction at their current school would be coming to an end-?
Oh. Well, yes, probably that last one.
She took a minute to process the question, the options she had, and what it would mean for the both of them to be ‘finished’ with school. ”I don’t know,” she admitted finally, and it felt like no amount of moments of consideration would change that. Suddenly, it felt as though there was too much to consider, and though she’d always had much to say and even thought she had an idea of what she wanted, now that she was approaching an age where she would be able to do something else, she had no conceivable idea how to go about it.
The mood before he’d asked that question had been light. The pair did what they always did in each other’s company: chatted and wished and complained, mostly. Or Talori complained, anyway. Zynell often preferred to listen and laugh.
But now, even the Oban boy looked muted, as he leaned against the railing with his chin on his arms and his eyes focused out toward the horizon. The sun was still bright, with no trace of dusk in the sky, and it painted her companion in its image, making his dark hair shine and his skin appear lighter. Somehow, the radiance only managed to make him look… sad, and to Talori nothing could be more absurd than seeing Zynell upset.
”It isn’t an issue for now, is it?” she prompted, giving his shoulder a nudge with her elbow.
Unless, of course, he was withholding something. His expression didn’t look as though it was only a simple curiosity, so she found herself wondering if there was more he needed to share. Lori swallowed thickly and went back to picking at the cheese. ”Do you have some idea of what you’d like to do?” She hedged a bit more uncertainly. He’d always said he was just ‘content to do whatever,’ but she had difficulty getting over just how not content he looked at present.
She failed to see the way Zynell’s gaze flickered sharply to her before he rolled his shoulders, puffed out a resigned sort of sound, and slouched forward a bit more. “I… I suppose not,” he admitted. And the Matorian girl had no idea how to even perceive this answer.
There had to be more to the conversation that she just wasn’t picking up.
Like some peculiar nuance with wording and emotions that Lori, with her rather sparse communication and relationship skills, wasn’t adept enough to decipher. She decided to focus instead and what she did know how to do and study and think and figure out. Talori pulled her legs in to cross, then leaned her cheek against the same railing Zynell had his arms settled atop of and stared at him. This boy was a friend, a good friend, even. Perhaps more than that, though they hadn’t yet classified it as such. She knew more about him than she did most other people. He knew more about her than anyone else did. They were friends. Talori should be able to figure this out.
”Did you make plans that fell through?” She demanded after a moment. Zynell’s turned to shoot her a confused look, but had no time to give an actual response. ”Was there something you’d hoped to be able to do, but can’t?”
“That’s not-”
”Are you not actually going to pass all of your classes?”
“No, it’s something-”
”Your grades have never been the best, but-”
“Talori.”
”I did think you were improving a bit every day, with me.”
Zynell reached, palms skittering across the ground and fumbling to find her fingers and wrap them within his own. "I am," he assured hastily and adamantly enough that Talori thought it bordered on offended. She sat up a notch at his proximity and blinked at the sudden heat in his eyes. "I am," he repeated firmly. "Improving a bit every day..."
He squeezed her fingers, and though she was still confused, confused and unsure about this strange, sudden passion, she returned the grip. ”Then can't you tell me what you're on about? I just don't... really know...”
But as the words slid past her lips and as she gazed back at him, she thought she did know. It'd flit across her thoughts just moments earlier, when he’d posed his first question. What are you going to do after all this? Talori didn’t know what she was going to do, but Zynell’s home was in Jatine. Her shoulders sank a bit, and her expression must have registered some kind of realization because the Oban boy looked at her like she’d kicked a perzi kitten. He would leave. Once they were ‘finished’ with classes and were deemed adults suitable enough to marry off, he would leave.
Talori knew immediately, in the same instant that the full weight of the knowledge landed on her that she didn’t want this.
She had a friend. Her only friend, a good friend, with his fingers curled around hers and gaze on her, and- Zynell didn’t think she was less, like the others did… If he left, if she was alone again… What would happen to her? What would she do? What would she become?
It wasn’t any pressure that she wanted to put on him. She wouldn’t ask him to stay if he knew he wasn’t going to- Was that what this was? Had the conversation become so serious because he’d known she wouldn’t want to hear it? Had he tried to block it back after she’d answered so nonchalantly? Talori didn’t know when her face had started heating, but it had happened quickly and without warning or care for her own wants.
Nonchalant was probably still the way to go, she tried to reason with herself, because the topic still wasn’t one that needed addressing right now, and to think about it only invited the possibility-
But her expression must have betrayed her. Zynell’s hand untangled from hers. She grasped desperately to draw him back, but too late. Though instead of away, as she’d feared, his arm found its way around her, physically guiding Lori’s body to press more snuggly against his own. He rubbed her shoulder reassuringly, and she thought she caught the tiniest ghost of a smile on his face from the corner of her eye.
“C’mon, now. Hey, Talori, aren’t you going to yell at me?” He leaned closer to her, nudging his nose against her cheek. “What are you even making that face for, like you’re about to cry… You’ve hardly said anything, and if anyone should be upset, I think it should be me-”
”Why should you be upset?” She demanded tartly It had never cost so much willpower to not do something regrettable. She’d never considered herself one for hysterics, but it had come on so suddenly, and now her face was warm, her heart was thrumming, her eyes burned, and her throat felt tight. She might cry, and if anyone had asked her why, she didn’t think she’d be able to put a cohesive reason together.
She didn’t want him to leave, but she’d always known he would. Nothing in this conversation was even news… It had no business affecting her like this.
Zynell had been sad just now, as well. Although he did seem to be trying to conceal it a bit better, after Talori’s expression tightened. At her question, he looked more uncomfortable than outright distraught, though, and she felt a peculiar tension sweep through him as though he might recede from her. Her fingers pinched hard in the fabric of his shirt, and he stilled ever-so-slightly.
“It’s…” He fidgeted and glanced toward the horizon again. “I suppose I just… hoped for more.”
”More?” She spat the word, her thoughts and emotions whirling much to fast for their conversation to keep up with. After she’d just praised him on not thinking less of her, he had the audacity to say there had to be more.
Zynell knew at once that he’d said the wrong thing and there was no hope of taking it back. He could try and say anything else to counteract it, but the damage had already been done. What use would it be to cover it up? So he said nothing. Instead, Zynell caught her at the nape of her neck and held her while he leaned in and touched his lips to hers. There had been but a fraction of a moment for Talori to even begin to register what was happening- to go from terrified sadness to dissatisfied rage to-
Her cheeks flushed anew for an entirely different reason, nails still digging into the boy’s shirt.
And then that was it.
Zynell didn’t press hard or long, but only just enough to make Talori aware and confused and… pleased in place of all that she’d been before. “‘More,’” the Oban boy tried to explain, though he’d never really been the most articulate… Still, whether he’d helped Talori achieve completely understanding or not, he had managed to win her silence and rapt attention. After a nervous swallow, he continued. “I just wanted you to want me to stay, but it seemed like you didn’t care, so…”
For what felt like hours, but really could have only been a matter of seconds, Talori’s tongue felt too heavy to speak. And whether it was capable or not said nothing of her mind’s ability to decide on something to say. It felt like she was pulling a blank from all angles, lost, confused, horrified delighted, offended… And everything in between such that it amounted to a resounding nothing.
His finger’s, still at her neck, dusted up to brush over her cheek, and Talori blinked. ”Of course I want you to stay,” she murmured, and the words somehow tasted of actual paper. She tried not to let it deter her. ”And I care, but I suppose I thought you were an adult who could make your decisions without outside influence.”
The smile he shot her was light and easy, cheeks flushed and skin still radiant in the sunshine, though nothing quite so much as that expression. “S-so it didn’t… bother you too much then…?”
Talori’s gaze narrowed to a squint. ”Bother?” She repeated inquisitively. But at the hot blush on his cheeks, she could only assume he meant one thing. ”There wasn’t really much to be bothered by,” she retorted. ”Hardly anything worth noting at all… Perhaps with practice.”
He laughed. “Practice, right! One more lesson for us to work on together…”
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Results: Sweet Talori has lived a very guarded life, first by her mother, who shelters her simply by having a very strict control over her day-to-day life, and then, because of that, by Talori herself. Her mother's meddling has put Talori in an uncomfortable social situation, being that she is the only Matori girl to attend classes at an Oban-dominated school. For years, Lori felt the strain of this- of being different, disrespected, and unwanted, despite the capabilities she displayed. She's always wanted for something a bit better, but is too frightened of backlash to try reaching out.
Fortunately, she didn't have to. In her still-young years, a boy transferred to her school who took interest in her despite her status. Talori remained guarded. Though she has considered Zynell a friend and only reliable companion almost since his arrival and their initial meeting, she has neither expected nor been entirely comfortable about the idea of something that may be more than that.
Zynell's home is in Jatine, away from her, after all, and she has never wanted to ask too much of him. She'd never wanted to ask for much of anyone, preferring to be self-reliant and dependent only on herself.
But here, Talori admits to herself that she does need that companionship, and she does need him to stay, and obviously he is all she has, and what would she do if she were left alone again? Not only does she realize she may need support from him (and potentially others in the future), but it is also the first real acknowledgement she's made toward a relationship, in the form of her first kiss.
Word Count: 1869 |
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