Arrie

Once upon a time, there was a girl, a magician. She wasn't just any plain ol' high-levelled magic user you could find on the street. No sirree. She was a master of magic, able to use every spell, skill, or buff from any magic class that ever existed. It didn't hurt that she was drop-dead gorgeous and had the body of a supermodel.

As you may have guessed already, I am this girl. Though I may have lied a bit. I knew next to zero magic and was certainly not a supermodel (though I'd like to think that I was anything close (to a magician or a supermodel)). I came from a conservative, old fashioned family that believed that if you wanted to fight, only warriors or archers would do. Apparently, thieves were too "rebellious" and "new-age"—filled with teenage girls that wore tiny tube tops that exposed far too much cleavage and guys who took off their shirts to show their "rock-hard abs" to the world. I'm not kidding, my father actually said that. I gagged at just the concept of any parental figure saying "rock-hard abs". Magicians were too abstract, he had also mentioned. They weren't reasonable. My father had compared them to university art students. That's quite an insult from my father. Don't even get me started on pirates. Or the Resistance. The snobbish Cygnus Knights, mutinous dual blades, whatever. Anything that wasn't a plain warrior or archer had something wrong with it. Instead, they wanted someone like my younger brother. He wanted to be a businessman when he grew up. Or like my older brother. Martin, one in a pair of twins, was a skilled warrior. My sister, on the other hand, who was the oldest child in the family (beating her twin by eleven minutes), had left to art school after a huge fight with my parents a year ago and I never heard from her since. That may explain the magician-art student analogy.

James was the typical youngest child. Bratty, restless and slightly spoiled (but I thought that of every single kid under the age of ten). He's quite a big dreamer for a seven-year-old. Sybil and Martin both played the role of the oldest child well, but in different ways. Sybil was patient, contemplating, and an observer. But most importantly, calm. I've only heard her raise her voice once in my whole life so far. And it scared the living daylight out of me. Martin was louder than her (when she was normal, aka not in a rage about why she couldn't go to Orbis School of Design). He seemed to take more up space with both his body and his energy. He always had a hint of authority in his easily-projected voice and always quick to love his family. He had a big laugh, a big head, and a big heart.

So where did that put me? The wannabe mage who was far too cowardly to stand up for own dreams like Sybil had done. Sure, I fought with my parents, I did things to make them angry, but I was afraid to do anything that would really hurt them or things that they frowned upon. I had missed my very first concert with my friends (petty, but sad and true) when I saw how much my parents hated the band (thinking back, I should've gone anyway). Sybil had never fought with the parents, never fought with anyone, actually. Sybil had never made them angry. But Sybil had gone to art school. She wasn't afraid of doing that.

I was already 15 and I had taken beginner warrior training to level 26 (pathetic, I know. Shut up). My parents expected me to make a job advancement soon.

I looked beyond the window in my no longer shared room at the navy blue sky. It was a slightly lighter shade of night near the horizon where the sky met the rooftops and urban pulse. The stars were visible from Perion and Ellinia, but in Henesys, the most anyone could see was a plane or two flying across the wide expanse of blue.

Then I looked at my window. It was closed. Why was it closed? I got up to open it. If I looked through the think summer air hard enough, I could see the forest at the edge of the city. A small twinkle of yellow and white amidst the trees marked the presence of beautiful and forbidden Ellinia.

"What are you looking at, Awwie?"

I turned around to see James standing in my doorway with his toothbrush in his hand and the foam of his bright blue fluoride-less toothpaste clinging to the edge of his mouth. He called me Awwie when he was little because "Arrie" (pronounced /'erē/ as in airy) was too hard for the brat to pronounce. He continued calling me that simply out of habit.

"Nothing," I responded, a bit more hostility and annoyance in my tone than I had been meaning to let out. "And the name's Arrie," I enunciated my name a bit meanly. James just shrugged and left. I never really liked kids and kids never really liked me. Like Lady Godiva and clothes. "Oh, go wash your face, James," I called after him and shut my door.

I belly-flopped tiredly on to my teensy twin bed, exhaling loudly. I reached over on to my desk to turn on the radio, fiddling with the tuner knob for a few seconds before getting a station.

"…causing Orbis Station to close down. Due to this, flights to and from Orbis will be temporarily—"

I switched the station.

"…upcoming Balrog Expedition is leaving next week led by one of the most experienced warriors on Victoria Island, Collingwood, and they will—"

"…listening to Henesys' number one hit music station…"

A music station. I could listen to that. Maybe.

Annoyingly poppy pop songs came on and drifted around the room. Being their pop song-selves, they found their way into my incredibly dense head and didn't leave, even when I turned the radio off out of pure pissed-off-ness. I also tried to get some rest.

As I was about to get up to go to the washroom, I heard my door open creakily. I pretended to be asleep.

"Arrie."

Martin, I thought, imitating his voice in my head.

"Arrie, I know you're awake."

Martin, why do you have to be such a bother?

"Arrie, get up."

Martin, go away.

"Arrie."

Why did he keep saying my name?

"Arrie."

I hate it when he does that.

"Arrie."

He did it again, with his brotherly persistence.

"Ar—"

"Will you shut up?" I snapped at him, sitting up in my bed. He seemed slightly satisfied. "You know I hate it when you say my name like that." (It's true. That was the only thing I didn't like about him.) More satisfaction.

"Guess what?" Martin said chirpily.

I didn't want to, but I gave it a spin anyway. "Um, you had a sex change, pierced your belly-button, and decided to go to an art school in Kerning City where you can mingle with the 'girls wearing barely-there skirts' and 'dangerous shirtless guys'?" Clearly, I was in no mood for guessing games.

"No, but Sybil did," Martin replied. "Well, except the sex change part," he added thoughtfully.

"Okay," I said. I wasn't exactly sure what reaction he was expecting, but I have to hand it to him. That took me by surprise.

"She wants to visit us, but I told her that it'd be a bad idea unless she's coming armed with a crapload of apologies for our parents."

"Mhmm," I said, just to show him that I was still listening as I lay back down in my bed.

"So I told her I'd bring you to visit her with me tomorrow."

"Great."

I tuned Martin out for a while as I processed what I had just heard. Sybil, the serious, calm, and rational child in the family had gotten her belly-button pierced. What a… un-Sybil-like thing to do. I don't think I've ever even seen her belly-button. She was way too modest of a person. And Kerning City? Did she want to give our parents a heart attack? What had brought on this new Sybil? I was tempted to fly over and check her old dorm at Orbis School of Design to see if the real Sybil was tied up and stashed in the closet with duct tape covering her mouth (I couldn't because flights to Orbis were down). That would make sense, except, unable to move in the closet, what would real-Sybil do if she got hungry? Or needed to pee? This was a cruel new-Sybil.

"Oh and one last thing," Martin said, breaking me away from my thoughts of duct-taped Sybil and peeing.

"Yeah?"

"Arrie."

I rolled my eyes. Martin.