A/N:
Hello y'all.
I am just going to finish (rewrite) this story for sentimental reasons. I never finished it, it has been 5 years, and all it took was rewatching RoTG just once to make me want to relive this fiction. But it needed a serious revise, my twelve year old self was not the best writer.
faedemonn, Fangirl-4ever-and-ever, Chocolate Spirit, Extended Experience, Skylight of Windclan, Kofucu, Mystichawk, Cat Lunanoff, Polaroid Popsicle, RC Smiles, LunaSnow94, Hinata-Chan33, Kinduna, Sacred Pumpkin21 and MmeMaladroit, it's been half a decade and I am still thankful to you all for hyping my bad writing lmao. Thank you for being a part of my writing journey, this fiction is for all of you.
This world is huge and I am so, very tiny.
This world will be here long after I am gone.
This world means a lot more than I ever will.
Get it together, Claire. They are people out in this world who would kill to have the life you have. And yet the thing you do best is complain. Be grateful for once. Be grateful.
I get to live in a world that holds more meaning than me. My suffering means nothing.
The bang of a door opened too quickly reverberated throughout the house, and as much as the girl would have wanted to think the wind caused it, she knew exactly where it was coming from.
She shut the book she was scribbling in, and hid it away under her battered mattress. She got up from the worn out floor, and climbed into her worn out bed. She felt just like all she owned, and all that she had been ever since she had arrived here. So cripplingly worn out.
Claire pressed her thin pillow to her ears, it did little to drown out the quarrel that had predictably commenced downstairs. She knew that despite the fight never being brought to her, she was always the center of them.
She didn't matter more than the world, but within the small world she had created within her, she mattered most. For the first time, she felt true gratefulness, she had little that belonged to her, hence little to gather, and little to carry. It was an epiphany that allowed her to realize she was not helpless after all.
It was nearing Christmas, and the streets were slippery and slick. The lass was chilled to the bone, but it was as though the blood within her had turned into fire. If caught, she knew the consequences would be heavy, but she could not feel herself care. Right then, she was as free as she had never been, she was free even if it killed her.
The ragged schoolbag she carried contained her material possessions. A pair of clothes, mismatched socks, her journal, and the two wallets she had stolen from two bedsides, but strangely the resentment never came. She doubted it will, they had given her too many other things to be resentful about.
She was never setting foot into that cursed house again.
It had been a full day and a half and she was somehow still breathing. Her breaths came labored and raked her throat with every inhale, but she tried to see the brighter side of things. She was still here, she hadn't been discovered, and she had survived last night's snowstorm unsheltered.
Claire inwardly commended herself for her sturdiness, she had not known she was so resilient until now, even if it came at the cost of her health, she could feel a fever creeping up her spine.
An involuntary groan escaped her as she sunk into a dark corner. Hugging her arms, she drew her legs inward. Claire had always loved the winter. She loved the serenity and the snow and how it made her bed seem warmer somehow.
She sighed, strange how things she had once loved always harmed her in some way or another.
The chill enveloped her, seeming to constrict her tighter as the night went on. Claire chuckled drily, this would be such a mundane way to go out, killed by the frost in the street. A violent shudder rippled her being, and then…warmth.
She looked up in confusion, Claire could practically feel the chill being pulled away from her, and the air that took its place…was warm. She didn't want to look her gift horse in the mouth, but she couldn't help but question the happening. She cracked herself out of her cold ball and extended her hand outwards.
An electric wisp of frost curled around her finger abruptly, making her gasp and pull back into her warm space. Cautiously, she repeated the motion, felt the cold begin at a very distinct point. She moved her hand, mentally mapping the border between the chill and the mysterious warmth. With a start, she realized it really was a sphere of heat she was sitting in. and she had no idea where it originated from.
Gripped by mild fear, Claire kept her eyes peeled for any more strange occurrences. She kept herself awake for a while, but she eventually succumbed to the invisible blanket, her lids heavy, she drifted off.
Claire's teeth clacked together as did her knees knock weakly. The winter sun was clear and the sky cloudless, the sparse sunshine brought some comfort, but it couldn't fill her stomach and quench her thirst.
She had to find food and somewhere warm if she wanted to live. The biting air chipped at her nose as she hurried through the noisy streets, when a loud screeching sound stopped her in her tracks.
It was promptly followed by the cheering of a child and time seemed to dilute as she looked over her shoulder. Her reflexes demanded she drop to the ground, she would have lost her head otherwise.
There was indeed a child, holding onto a sled for dear life, speeding through the streets. But what was peculiar about the situation was the ice slide that was self-constructing ahead of him as he went. Claire's eyes widened, she was in a similar state of wonderment as other onlookers.
That's not possible…
Claire sprang up, skidded on the frosty gravel for a second before she took off after her second peculiar incident.
Weaving between people and trying to stay safely on the sidewalk, she followed the boy while keeping a close eye on the strange phenomena. It led her by landmarks she had yet to see, and finally came to a stop when the boy crashed into a statue.
"Hello there!"
She interrupted the group of kids who seemed to be having a spontaneous celebration, and the boy on the sled turned to look at her, a tooth clenched in his fingers.
"Yes, miss?"
She backed away a little, "Uh, how did you do that?"
The boy's eyes lit up, her question opened a floodgate, "I jumped on my sled, and then it flew and then it went into the street and I thought I was gonna die but then I didn't because the ice made a path for me and I did a turn and, and a loop and when I thought I was going to crash into this, this wall, and then there was snow and I crashed into that instead and then-"
"Okay, okay kid all that is really cool, but my question is, how did you make that ice, uh, listen to you?"
The boy cocked his head, "I didn't! It did it on its own!"
Claire resisted the temptation to roll her eyes. Children may be insufferable, but she saw the prospect of a roof and a meal in this child. She just had to earn his friendship.
"That trick back there was uh, splendid? Could you show me some other skills of yours sometime?" Claire tried to make her smile convincing, and she assumed she succeeded when the children started cheering again.
"I can show you my sled collection!" He squealed. Claire smiled, this time genuinely, at him. This boy was warmer than the sun.
"What's your name, kiddo?"
The child looked as though he was gonna raise an alarm for a split second before he seemed to decide he liked this stranger.
"Jamie. I am Jamie, and who are you, miss?"
"Claire," she smiled ruffling his brown locks.
"Thank you, Miss Bennett, really I couldn't be more grateful, I-'
"Oh, don't be silly, dear, I couldn't let you freeze to death out there. It is the least I can do."
"I don't want to take advantage of your hospitality, ma'am!" Claire shouted over the screeching of Jamie's younger sister. She had tossed her dinner all around her and was now bawling her lungs out.
"You aren't! Call me Olivia!" shouted Miss Bennett back as she hurriedly ladled out soup into Claire's bowl, before tending to her raucous daughter. Jamie sat vibrating with excitement as though he had acquired a new discovery, ready for investigation. Claire had let slip that she had run away from home in their conversation back to Jamie's home and now she could practically see the several questions whizzing around the little boy's head as he stared expectantly at her.
She smiled uneasily at him, she knew she'll have to satisfy that curiosity sooner or later. But in the present moment, she was learning how to be grateful again, for reasons bigger than herself.
A/N:
Whew, there it is, the first chapter, fully rewritten.
I remember when I was writing this five years ago, I was pretty much putting the entire movie into words but with my OC there between it all. I did not realize how boring it all was. This version is so much better.
I will actually shed a tear if any of my old reviewers review this again, but if you're a new reader, assuming that readers of RoTG fics still exist, please do leave your thoughts :)