Author's Note: Hey, it's me! Well, I had to go through all sorts of crap to get this chapter published. Yeah, I had a brunette moment. But, anyway, I hope you enjoy this story of mine. It might not be the best (heck, it's definitely not), but enough of my talking.
Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts or its characters. If I did, I would buy a house in Tokyo!
Chapter 1: Temper
Autumn leaves toppled gracefully onto the forest floor below their former wooden homes. Reds, oranges, yellows, and browns flooded the ground with color, creating a fall scene with their grandeur, which surpassed any other aspect of the season. The golden sun streamed its solar light through the halfway leafless trees; its luminescence filtered throughout the forest, even reflecting in a minute brook flowing downstream.
Overall, the day promised to be beautiful, much to the apathy of one eighteen-year-old girl, who deftly raced between ashes and oaks and maples. Her bobbed blond hair streamed behind her as the gentle wind blew its strands with a most gracious air, her spindly legs pumping swiftly up and down rapidly, and her teal eyes sharply searching for any intruders. For, the one thing that Lenera detested above all else was to be followed.
She claimed the woods as her refuge, adamantly refusing to share it with any person she deemed an outsider. Residing in a cabin with her mother and younger sister, she embraced private life near the forest and despised most other people, excluding her family and the few friends she did have. Lenera had trust issues, to say the least; her father had abandoned the family when she was only a child of six. Ever since that day that had stiffened her heart, she vowed that solitude was the best remedy for her and that the woods offered her consolation, not cruelty. The teenagers scoffed at her at school, labeling her an "obsessed environmentalist", as well as a "hippie".
Lenera, in turn, spurned them, accusing her peers of not understanding the true beauty of nature. Yes, she could smell the enticing aroma of nature at that moment, hear it as her shoes mercilessly crushed the defenseless leaves, and see it all around her. Songbirds chirruped blissfully as she sprinted by their homes, some of them even greeting her by flying in front her.
However, Lenera was in a particularly foul mood this morning from a fight with her sister and muttered under her breath, "Go away, you stupid rats with wings."
The birds hardly felt the frigid reception from her, merely distracting her even more with their illustrious songs.
The girl muttered even more, this time uttering every curse word and expletive in the English language; however, she no longer had to deal with the soaring, careless birds as she managed to escape the forest to a well-trodden footpath to her high school. Wearily, Lenera ceased her jogging exercise and trudged onto this path, all the while memories of that morning coming back to haunt her.
"I got eggs for breakfast," her mother announced cheerfully, transferring them from the skillet to a chipped china plate on the counter.
Lenera yawned, stretched her arms, and picked up the plate apathetically. Another day of pointless education awaited her, she figured. Why should she care?
"It looks good, Mom."
"Thank you!"
The teenager shuffled to the kitchen table and joined twelve-year-old Sylvia who was currently in the process of gulping down her ham and cheese omelet she had ordered of her mother.
The younger girl was what one would call "high-maintenance." Lenera found it difficult to tolerate Sylvia, due to her impudent, condescending attitude toward others
"So, flower child, are you ready for another bad day?" the dark blonde inquired smart-alecky as she gulped down her glass of orange juice.
"Shut up! Look, at least when I'm in a natural environment, no stupid little sisters are around to bother me."
"Oh, really? What about birds and bugs and the general—"
Lenera promptly grabbed Sylvia's half-finished plate and hurled it against the wall; it hardly took much to rattle her ever delicate nerves.
"SHUT UP!!! Do you ever listen to whatever I have to say?!? Or are you just like those insufferable idiots at school?!?"
Her mother, busy with the dishes, sensed a conflict between the older and younger and sharply turned around. At this point, Lenera had aggressively gathered her intelligent, scholarly, yet spoiled sister's hair in one hand, which she had clenched into a white knuckled fist. Sylvia yowled in pain.
"Lenera! Release your sister's hair at once. Don't make me ground you for a week."
Cruelly, the eighteen-year-old knocked her sibling's chair down before she finished her silent tirade.
Sylvia moaned agonizingly, but managed to wobble to her feet in a most awkward fashion; she pressed her hands to her temples, inwardly hoping her mother would witness this display and punish her sometimes most detested rival: her sister.
"Sylvia, are you all right, honey?" Riana, the single mother of the two adolescent girls, rushed to her favorite daughter to check for any potentially severe wounds. Meanwhile, Lenera selected the option of pretending that nothing had occurred between her and Sylvia, so she resumed munching on her sunny side-up eggs; she also endeavored to ignore the heaviness of her heart at that moment. Why did every person in the known universe test her short patience like this? She could even recall a time in her life in which she acted friendly and sociable to score a few friends. In light of that minimal success, however, the vast majority of her peers still mocked her and treated her as though she was no more than an outcast. How Lenera hated that!
Because of this unprecedented annoyance of obtaining enemies in relatively peaceful kindergarten, childhood innocence had faded to unyielding, cruel behavior much too soon on her part. Now, she teased and mocked and hit other seniors in her class whenever she judged it necessary with the five other female members of her clique, her only colleagues. So, in retrospect, Lenera's constant masquerade as a bully hardly ceased in her own home, what with the way she treated Sylvia, whom she used to be nice to. But, most of the time, no such love existed.
Her somewhat oblique teal eyes drifted to her blond headed mother utilizing a damp washcloth to treat a miniscule gash on Sylvia's left temple.
Witnessing this caused another metaphorical knife stab to Lenera's heart. Determined to remain unnoticed, she sipped her glass of orange juice to the very end and finished off her eggs. Once finished with that task, she retreated upstairs to her room to retrieve her knapsack and two textbooks that she had used the previous night for studying.
Just as she thought her mother would scarcely detect her, Lenera felt Riana's sharp brown eyes resting on her, hard as flint.
"You need to control that temper of yours, Lenera, I swear." The normally sweet, doting voice dropped its temperature to subzero, chilling Lenera to the bone. Nonchalantly, however, she draped the strap of the khaki knapsack over her bony shoulder and gave her defense. "I can't help it if people have been jerks to me all my life, Mother. Dad was the first one I ever knew."
"You know we don't talk about your father in this house, young lady!"
"I get it. You want to move on with your life. But, remember what I just said."
Lenera's cold, even tone of voice was almost equivalent to that of Riana's in frostiness. Sylvia held the wet compress to her head, which dodged back and forth to determine who would win this icy battle of words.
As soon as Lenera's boot exited the threshold of the open door, her mother vindicated herself with words that would upset her daughter in the future.
"You may be eighteen, Lenera, but you don't boss me around like that. And as for people being jerks to you, have you considered the fact that you might just be a 'jerk' yourself?"
"How dare you!" Lenera displayed her vulnerability by this high-pitched shriek. "You don't know what it's like!!! Just go away!!"
And she ran like the wind, not looking back once.
"Damn her," Lenera cursed in present time, wiping hot, angry tears away with her black shirt sleeve. "If she went to my high school, then she'd see! The same goes for my idiotic sister!!"
"You called?" a familiar voice cheerily asked as its owner joined her on the two mile path to the two schools.
"Ah, Sylvia!" she groaned as she faced her freckled faced sister, who was all smiles as she strode beside her.
"Yeah, it's me. So...Mom wasn't too happy with you was she?"
"Of course she wasn't! She always disapproves everything I want to do, but you wouldn't know what that's like. You're the favorite."
Sylvia contemplated a way in which to placate Lenera's temper, no matter how soft it was now compared to half an hour ago. Even though she despised Lenera when she was at her most impossible, the twelve-year-old still loved her like family; the problem that she scarcely returned the love, however, presented itself full force every so often. Today was one of those trying days that started on a sour note, continuing to digress in a downhill fashion, and finally ending with the furious explosion to end all explosions. However, this explosion had already occurred this morning, so the chances that Lenera would display another one were slim.
"You know," Sylvia began as she tapped her chin with one finger, "I may be the favorite, but that doesn't mean Mom loves you less."
"Sure it does!" Lenera scoffed. "Have you seen the way she looks at me? Look, I'm starting to think that it's all because I act too much like Dad."
"You're not like Dad. He was a jerk who had an affair, finalized the divorce, and just up and left one day. You're fine, Lenera."
The girl addressed scoffed at this critique of her behavior with a poisonous laugh that scared her younger sibling; it sounded rather like a witch's cackle.
"Didn't Mom just call me a jerk this morning?!? You can try sugarcoating this all you want, Sylvia, but the fact of the matter is that she hates me, and I should just move out of the house before senior year ends."
After this meager attempt of brightening the overall emotional atmosphere, Sylvia remained quiet the rest of the walk to school.
Gazing at fields of alfalfa and wheat swaying in the slight breeze dully, the two sisters soon glimpsed the two school buildings that lay side by side after a declining slope to them. Both the high school and junior high school were constructed of brick, which appeared baked from the sun's luminescent beams from a distance. Apathetically, Sylvia and Lenera descended the slope and faced each other before separating to add a few more words to their bland conversation.
"Well, see you later!" Sylvia called over her shoulder once she spotted her clique standing idly by the junior high building, yawning wearily from arising at seven o'clock.
"OK!" Lenera called back as she briskly strode toward the main doors of her own school.
Once inside, she heard the customary excited chatter of the students floating and echoing in the enormous foyer; they stood in circles, away from other teenagers, whether they be foe or stranger.
Scanning with her eyes to seek out her group, Lenera occasionally glowered at other seniors, the ones who called her all sorts of vile, detestable names and "accidentally" tripped her in the extensive corridors of the facility. Luckily, no one would taunt her today, for she was greeted by a certain girl with dyed black and red streaked hair down to her waist.
"Hi, Lenera! You know, the weirdest thing happened to me yesterday that you will not believe."
"What was it, Willow?" She coolly folded her arms across her chest, her teal orbs glinting intriguingly.
"Well, do you know Fawn Woodsworth?"
Scratching her chin, Lenera felt an ever present smirk curl itself onto her tight, pallid lips. "I only know her as an acquaintance, nothing more and nothing less. I can't stand her anyway."
"Get this! Yesterday, Fawn shoved me to a nearby locker, and it was Damon Ocean's!!!" Willow squealed joyfully as she spun around in enthusiastic circles.
"Are we talking about the guy you have a huge crush on?"
And thus, Lenera discussed with her friend the frivolous, girlish gossip that only young female people lust after whenever the opportunity presents itself, though the blonde was normally not one to spread rumors. Once the conversation ceased, she serenely went to her locker, the morning's events eroding away from her memory.
Author's Note: Well, I hope you guys will review. Constructive criticism is accpeted and appreciated, but no flames. Or death threats, grenades, or any of the like.
Yes, I do have a very dark sense of humor if any.