(This is a little spinoff about an RP, Tales from Asyre (TOA), that I'm involved in. Anyways, I had the idea that we could bring the Asyre characters from medieval-like times to modern day life, with all the modern-day characters mirroring the ones in the RP.
Warning: Not beta-ed. Be prepared for hideous punctuation and grammer. :P)
(Thanks given to all the guys on the forum, Box of Magic (the creator of the forum), Irindiglo, spearofhope, Beautifully Chaotic, Openmeadow, Invaders Becky and Clad, Sokatoa and LycanSong for creating such colourful characters to play about with. :D)
Mearad sat, almost perched, on the edge of the lumpy mattress. She stared out a window at clear, sapphire sky. This was ridiculous. She was sitting inside, the sun blazing like an airborne diamond in the prefect blue of the heavens, yet it was freezing. Mearad shivered slightly under the blanket she had wrapped around herself. That was English weather for you. Very confusing, just like the people.
Mearad forced her gaze to return the chemistry paper balanced on her knees. Why on earth was she sitting in the middle of England when she should have been revising back home? Her SAT's (GCSE's) where mere weeks away...
Sounds from normal life drifted in from an open window. A random outburst of song, a bout of laughter at a shared joke, an odd snippet of gossip. Mearad slumped against a cold metal bedpost and rested her head on it. She couldn't feel the sunlight from where she sat. More than anything, she wanted to throw the stupid papers and textbook down. She wanted to go outside and run, and keep running. She wanted to embrace normality and sense the light tickling her bare skin. She wanted to belong to the world outside the window.
Mearad wiggled her toes inside her trainers to keep the circulation going. A little trick she had learned from having to stand on parade for hours at a time. Drawing together her strength and willpower, she stood up and closed the window. That helped her focus more. Muffled sounds still sounded through it, but she could ignore them now. She flung herself back on the bed, causing it to creak in protest. Mearad shook her head at her own stupidity. What was she thinking? She'd never belong to that world. Throughout camp, even life, she had been classified as the freak. According to the doctors, she had something wrong in the 'upstairs department'. According to a psyhic, she was a 'rainbow child', but according to anyone near her, she was just plain hyper. Mearad preferred that analysis. There was nothing complicated about being hyper, and besides, being a 'rainbow child' made her sound like a packet of Skittles...
Indubitably, her gaze drifted back to the window. The sun was battling through the clouds, spilling rays of purest light around patches of the camp. Once again, Mearad found herself wondering why she was here. Sunlight pooled at the opposite end of the room, beyond the beds. The silver corner of a case winked at her through the gloom as a chilling breeze caught the curtain and tossed it aside.
That was why she was here. And the only reason she hadn't gone home yet.
Dragging herself off the bed for the second time in so many minutes, Mearad shuffled towards her locker. Four different cases lay above it. Mearad had purposely chose the most sturdy locker in the room, not counting the fact that it was the one furthest away from her camp bed. No doubt she looked weird when she first arrived, shaking all the lockers and then carefully, gently laying the boxes on top of the one that rattled least. Mearad wasn't taking any chances. Three of her most treasured possessions lay in those cases. This whole week never would have started if it hadn't had been for that blasted bugle. It lay in the fourth case, set aside from the rest. When one of her adults had found out that she could play different instruments, he prompted announced that she had to bring them all.
The biggest case contained her lyre, clearly Mearad's favourite by far. Apparently it had been handed down from mother to daughter ever since medieval times. At one time, she had pondered why the heirloom wasn't passed from father to son, like tradition. She concluded that males just couldn't play a lyre. The two smallest cases contained her clarinet and tin whistle. Of the two, Mearad preferred the tin whistle. There was something so... accented, even, Irish about the instrument. You could almost hear the boron keeping beat when you played the whistle.
Mearad's grandmother had been delighted when she found out about Mearad's talent for lyre-playing. She insisted on skipping over Mearad's mother and giving the instrument straight to Mearad. Of course, her mother had objected, but Granny came through for her, saying "It's my lyre, and I'll do what I want with it." For someone at the age of seventy, Granny had a heck of a lot of determination.
Mearad undid the clasps of the largest case while resting it on her knees. She couldn't resist a smile as the projective cloth fell off the instrument. It was divine. That was the only word for it. Very few other people ever saw such a treasure in their lives, never mind owned one. The lyre's white wood had been carved so that ivy twisted up the structure. Footsteps sounded near the door. On instinct, Mearad shut the case as quickly as possible without damaging the lyre. She hurriedly placed it back on the locker and returned to her place by the window.
"Oh. My. Goodness. Did you see him?" a blonde figure by the name of April entered the dorm and flung herself on one of the camp-beds. Ever since her first year, Mearad had taken a distinct disliking to April. The blonde fiend turned on her friends, spread rumours, ruined people's livelihoods, stirred up rows and had been with almost every guy at the camp, yet she was still one of the most popular people there. She wasn't even that pretty. It must be the blonde hair, Mearad thought as she waited for April to realise she was in the room. Mearad was blonde too, but it was the wrong sort, more white than blonde. On particular days, especially when the sun was out, there seemed to be blue through it as well. Obviously, that didn't help with her 'I'm not a freak campaign '. One of April's many 'pets' trooped into the room behind her.
"Yeah," April's 'pet' replied, putting Mearad in mind of a terrier. "And I saw the drool."
"I think that's broken the record. That was, how long, 2.3 seconds?" April asked her friend before noticing Mearad. It's taken her this long. Is she blind or something? Mearad thought silently while staring at the paper.
"Mearad!" April faked her largest smile and gave Mearad a hug. It took all of her self-discipline to stop herself from shaking off the over-sized Barbie. "You're here again this year!"
Well, I am sitting here. Mearad thought while nodding.
"This camp's gonna be so much fun!" Mearad inwardly despaired at the extensive use of exclamation marks. "And still as quiet as ever."
"I suppose" Mearad replied, if I said half the things I thought, you wouldn't know what hit you.
April's 'friend' said something about having to met someone by the cafeteria.
"Catch you later, Mea!" April swept out of the room, her friend following her at the heel.
I hope not. Mearad hated April's nickname for her. It made her sound like some kind of vegetable. She frowned slightly, then turned back to the window and tried to sort her thoughts out.
Mearad knew she saw the world differently than the people around her. She had always noticed the unusual things about people and her surroundings. She understood when people where sad, angry, or on the verge of crying and knew exactly how to change that. Someone had described or as a 'peace-keeper', whatever the hell that meant. She had always noticed when one of her few friends back home fancied someone, or when someone fancied them. What she didn't notice was when someone liked her, or have the slightest clue what to do when she liked someone. Apparently, according to others, it was blatantly obvious that people do like her, but Mearad had never noticed. There was a person she liked, well, more than liked. She treasured every moment he was nearby. When he appeared, it felt like sun was always shining. He didn't seem to mind that she was weird. He just liked, or seemed to like Mearad for who she was. Mearad could spend hours wondering about what to do. From observations, being 'in love' with someone out just caused 'heartache', and she loved their relationship the way it was. She loved the way they joked with each other, laughed, chatted aimlessly. He had some of the most amazing eyes Mearad had ever seen. A vibrant hue halfway between green and grey, most of the time. They seemed to change every day. Yet sometimes, she couldn't help but stare at his lips, even his cheek, and wonder what it would be like to kiss them, or feel his breath on her neck. It must be better than radiant sunshine or a fresh sea breeze...
Of course, Mearad knew how to manipulate people and what made them tick, but she hated doing that, whereas popular people seemed to do it with relish. Though, she could never figure him out. Just when she thought she had him judged, he would do or say something completely unexpected, which would make her see him in a completely different light. She shook her head again. She felt like an idiot. After all, she was worrying about something beyond her control.
What a moron.
Hadn't she lived through everything else with the motto "If Fate should decree it"? This 'love' was just another cruel whim of the universe. Just another trick it played on her and everyone else, but she'd be different than them. She wouldn't be fooled. Mearad often felt saddened at the sheer idiocy of mankind, always repeating their mistakes. That, coupled with the fact that Mearad didn't fit in anywhere she went meant that most of the time, she felt like she didn't even belong to humanity...
(Did you like it, hate it, wanna shoot the author for writing it? Well, tell me.)
