Inadequate: A Meilin POV One Shot

By: Ciuline Ihmenjo

Pre-fiction...

Okay, so I was waiting calmly for my shift to begin at work and sat down at a computer to play spider solitaire. And then, without warning, this fiction burst onto a word document. I don't even remember opening MS word to type it. I just sat down at wrote… and wrote… and wrote… until I had all the words I think I needed to describe her plight. I love Meilin as a character because I just feel like I know some of her inner nuances. I hope you enjoy my characterization of her.

Anyhow, I felt the need to write another Meilin fiction and also needed to atone for such crappy work on Fallen Neo lately.

o()o Inadequate o()o

I know that I'm far from perfect. Since the day I was born, that fact has been drilled into my mind. The one and only desired trait in the family I was born into was absent from me. I know that I am not the first case of this occurrence – and I certainly won't be the last – but there is something to be said when an entire population of people ignores a little girl's pleas for attention.

I think that one day (perhaps, even before I was born), it was decided that I would be the perfect daughter. I would have the abilities of the clan and make many magical babies. I'm sorry, then, that I seem to have failed in that respect. I don't know why, after finding out that their own daughter would be of little 'use,' that my parents decided to stop caring. Perhaps, it was my own inadequacies. Moreover I suspect that they no longer knew what to do. I was not and, in all likelihood, could never enter into the world of magical arts in which so many within my clan were skilled.

Instead of idly waiting for fate that would never come, I trained myself. Day after day, I trained myself to be stronger and faster to make up for the talents that genetics forgot to give me. Instead of wishing for the end, I sought to make my own beginnings. And even then, my hard work led to little more that further exclusion.

I learned the clan's style of martial arts, though I was never thought to be good, even when I knocked down challenger after challenger without even so much as a scrape. The elders claimed it was luck. I knew otherwise. I relied on the skill they may never possess. They were so reliant on their gifts that they thought I would be a cakewalk. I definitely sought to prove them otherwise.

My training gave me certain abilities. The ability to tolerate what went on around me. The fleeting chance existed that I might prove that my existence was not the miserable failure that my family made it out to be. I pitied them for not seeing me for who I was instead of viewing the image that I could never become.

Of course, that isn't to say that I have never tried to reverse my ill fate. I dug through tomes of magical script, seeking answers. I poured my soul into texts and languages that had been long forgotten. This led to a drastic drop in my grades, but the cure for my 'disease' meant more to me than third grade math and Chinese grammar ever would. I continued my research until my parents sat me down and lectured me.

As a child reared on the belief that the black sheep of the family was not important in the least, this talk surprised me. Though I never thought that they would even care about me, I shunted energy from my research and back into my studies. Of course, looking back on the entire process, I think that they just did not want to have to deal with me once I was thrown out of school

I think my own family, even the entire clan, would be surprised that I know just as many, if not more spells than Syaoran could ever imagine. Of course, without the necessary magical talent needed to perform them, these spells are little more than useless slips of paper and pathetically uttered words.

Of course, Syaoran was not like the rest of my family. In retrospect, I had disillusioned my self to believe that this was truth. He was not like the rest of them in the sense that he saw me as a human being, but I feel that I placed too much pressure on him and he began to see me as little more than a nuisance. In all honesty, I wanted to help him in ways that I could not. I never could do things for him other than stand in the background as he found my lost bird or sparred with me as an equal. His progression was far greater than mine. It helped to have someone to look up to as an example of what I desired to become. I wish that I could have his strength and patience and especially his magical talent, but I know that that will never come to pass.

At least, at the time we were in middle of grade school, he seemed to be the only one to care. That was true then, and still is true now, at least when it comes to the clan. He helped me when I was much younger than during my adventures in Japan, and at least, was one of the few people who showed me kindness. His mother even provided me with some shelter from the harsh words thrown at me because of my status as a black sheep. With his family, I did not feel like I was still failing at the tests that life provided me. I no longer felt like the black sheep, even though I certainly still held that position. Syaoran was the lifeline that kept my head about the water. His family was the strength that I leaned on to stay afloat in my cruel existence. It was a natural thing for me to attach myself to him in the way that I did. I claimed his as my fiancée because of the security that he could grant. I did not want to lose him because I feared that my security would disappear with him. He was like a shining beacon of hope that claimed: Yes, Meilin, you can be accepted.

In the time of limiting my research for a way to gain the powers my clan sought, Syaoran disappeared. He didn't disappear so much as left China. My family told me it was some sort of mission from the elders. I didn't believe them. Despite my pleas to run after him, they ignored me. Of course, being ignored was something that I had long become accustomed to. So, I ignored them instead. I 'scrounged' up money (the elders would never miss it) in order to fly to him. I would go to my beacon and determine the best course of action from there. I did not care how much I could interfere with his so-called mission as long as I could still cling to him as my security blanket.

Despise the fact that I had no plans and little more than a single address and despite the fact that my Japanese was rather lacking, I thought that everything would fall into place once I got there. I had neither the need nor the desire to plan ahead for the endless possibilities of the future.

I had reached the end of the cliff and leapt. I never bothered to look ahead of me, knowing only that I did not wish to look back. I did not care to know what was ahead because I knew that everything behind me was just as worse.

I don't think a single person in the history of the world has packed her bag faster than I did. I raced to the airport before any of my family could create a fuss and boarded the flight I had neatly conned one of the family butlers into arranging (and then covered my own ass with every thread of my being) with the money I had 'scrounged' up.

The plane ride was uneventful, much as any other plane usually is. Throughout the time in the air, I could not help but feel a sense of foreboding. It was like I was stepping out of my old life and into a new one, but at the same time I felt like something drastic was about to happen to change everything about me forever. I landed and rushed out of the airport. All my important belongings had fit into one red suitcase. It felt strange to me that everything I held dear to me would fit in this small red bag. I flagged down a taxi and threw my bag into the backseat. He asked where I was going so I handed him the sheet of paper. I didn't trust my mouth to speak the words written there correctly. I knew that somehow, someone had managed to write his address in Japanese rather than the Chinese script to which I was accustomed. The ride was uneventful, though I skimmed through my Chinese-to-Japanese language book, trying to learn more of this very foreign language in this even more foreign land. The cab pulled to a stop before a large yellowing building. I stepped proudly out of the taxi and marched towards the apartment complex. The elevator would not stop me either. Without even pausing to knock, I flung open the door.

"Nihao!" I shouted cheerfully.

Perhaps, in this new country, I would prove to be something other than the useless and inadequate child of the most powerful clan in China.

Post fiction…

Okay, so I guess this is my way of apologizing for such a crappy update for Fallen Neo.

No plans to continue this, but I could do a chronicle of her "adventures" in Japan. I dunno… that just doesn't seem like a good idea to me, though.

I'll see you guys in my next update.

Until, then: Ciuline Ihmenjo