*crawls out from hole with a 3-foot long beard*
*old person voice* is it over?
Has the raids of the Beautiful Creatures movie fans finally ended?
Hello again, Caster Chronicles fandom!
If you're one of the amazing people who were in this fandom pre-movie, you probably remember my previous works in this fandom.
But still, I did indeed leave as people -who thought that sad excuse of a book-to-movie adaptation was good- raided every corner of the fandom's digital existence. Now I'm reading To Kill A Mockingbird in class, and Boo Radley and Boo from the books got me thinking about this fandom...and here I am.
After becoming a more seasoned veteran in the Doctor Who fandom, I've gotten a lot better with writing age-gap/"May-December" relationships (*cough* Whouffaldi *cough*), and I hope this new story will do my improvements justice when it is compared between my old Caster Chronicles stories and this one.
PLEASE NOTE:
This story will not go with the movie canon whatsoever, and will try to stay as true to the book as much as possible. It will not be 100% book-canon, just due to the fact that I wanted to mix things up (for example, Lila and Macon meet earlier than at Duke, but besides a few things I am going to keep it as canon as possible. Mind you, there might be miniscule mistakes that come from me not remembering what I read over 3 years ago when I first picked up Beautiful Creatures and the Wiki site not providing enough information to completely jog my memory.
Anywho- I hope you enjoy my literary return to the fandom, and please, if you do like it: review! :)
Chapter 1- First Meeting
Gatlin, South Carolina was abuzz as it would ever be as the first day of school began for all students. Students of all shapes, sizes, and ages walked to school, their bookbags over their shoulders.
One specific girl walked to school that morning. Her brown-auburn hair and chocolate brown eyes glistening in the morning summer light. Her sneakers squeaked lightly as she walked along the paved asphalt road to Gatlin Middle School.
In her opinion, Middle School was an amazing place. She had just left the 6th grade and graduated from the Elementary to the Middle School. She was overjoyed with the idea of no more lessons on fractions, Ancient Egypt, or Peter Pan. She had previously asked Middle Schoolers from last year what they did in class, and the answers astonished her. Ancient Rome, the War Between the States, equations, and Animal Farm. No more walking in lines and everyone having the same teachers. Lockers actually had combinations and students could roam freely from class to class.
She sat in her homeroom class as the teacher took role call. "Evers, Lila?"
She raised her hand enthusiastically. "-here!"
The bell rang, signaling the end of the school day. Even though they weren't given recess time anymore, there was a playground between the middle school and the elementary that they would all congregate at before going home. The seventh graders had all initiated a giant game of tag amount the students there, making the wire fence surrounding the playground the 'base' where one could catch their breath.
With a group of 12 children who were 'it', most of the others had stood by the fence for a while. Lila was also there, but looking over the fence, across the road, and into the forest beyond. Suddenly, a bush moved across the street, a pair of eyes peering over at her. She slightly cocked her head in curiosity, making eye contact with the person. The eyes blinked, and then the person retreated back into the woods. She could tell it had been someone her age, and shrugged it off as a group of kids outside the playground playing hide-n-seek.
Lila walked home from school, her feet tapped at the asphalt. Small imprints of the soles of her shoes left on the black rubbery material that had been out down that summer to fix cracks and holes in the roads. For Gatlin, that meant that the town has going up in the world. There had been so many cracks prior to, the roads were about as green as the grass. On the way home, she decided to rest under an apple tree. It was Farmer Finch's land, which she knew meant she was allowed to sit under a tree, pick a fruit, etc.- as long as not a single finger touched his crops when the time came for planting, harvesting, and the time between.
She plucked an apple off of a low branch, shinning it unladylike with her shirt. She took a large bite into it, her loud crunch almost preventing her from noticing the movement in the nearby bushes. She looked up, seeing the same pair of eyes. "-hi again!" She greeted happily at the hiding child. "-you want an apple? They're just ripe!" She said, only to have the pair of eyes stay still, staring at her curiously. She shrugged it off once more, and looked down at the apple for a moment. "-my Momma says that the food that grows here is special. 'The sunshine and the happiness of this town gets into them and makes them taste even better' she says, but I don't believe her. It's dumb. A peach from Summersville tastes exactly the same as from here." She said, practically talking aloud to no one in particular at this point due to the fact the child in the underbrush was not participating whatsoever in her conversation.
"-why don't you play with us on the playground?"
No response.
"-I'd be happy to help introduce you to everyone, if you're scared."
Nothing.
"-do you not like school?"
Silence.
"-do you have a Daddy who'll beat 'ya if you don't come home from school promptly?"
Nothing.
She kept asking questions and telling stories- mostly stories, which were about herself since the other person refused to give even a slight nod. She got onto the topic of books. Lila loved to read. She told him of this story they were going to read in class called Animal Farm, which -according to what the back cover said- was about a farm full of animals who decide to kick out their owners and run the farm themselves. She told him tales about Scout Finch, Napoleon, and all sorts of other characters that she had read about.
Eventually she realized how late it was getting and picked up her bag. "-just lemme know if you wanna come play with us or somethin', okay? And if not- I'm always here if you wanna talk or somethin'." She said, swinging the bag over her shoulder and began to walk away.