One Girl's Angel...
I leaned my head against the cold surface of the fridge to try and ease the throbbing behind my eyes. Ever since I managed to avoid whatever dark deeds Emma and Sophia, if I was honest Madison never struck me as smart enough to come up with anything on her own, had planned with my locker thanks to the cape fight that knocked out the power in that part of the city, the trio had been going out of their way to make my life as miserable as possible.
Sophia was the worst of the three. Sure, Emma's words hurt, deeply, Sophia had made it her personal crusade to cause me as much pain as she could physically get away with. Getting knocked down stairs, bumped into walls and lockers, having doors closed in my face, all of that and more. I was just thankful that most of the bruises were in out of sight places, though I suppose I could lay that at Sophia's feet for her trying to avoid leaving visible signs of her campaign against me.
Today's trip to the museum was a welcome relief, for all of an hour until Sophia tracked me down and tripped me, again. This time I ended up falling and slamming my head against some jeweled mace-thing that was on display, which really should have been behind glass or some kind of fence or something. Of course Sophia was gone the moment I got up clutching my nose, thankfully it wasn't broken even if it was bleeding a bit, so I had to listen to the teacher's lecture about being careful and not getting blood on historical treasures like it was my fault, but I did get to spend the rest of the trip alone with my growing headache.
Once we got back to school I headed home as quickly as I could grab my backpack, which meant that I was off as soon as I stepped off the bus. Perk of having all my stuff with me at all times I suppose.
I sighed and opened the fridge, grabbing the milk and pouring into a glass before putting it back inside and closing the door. Dad had left a note telling me that he had a meeting tonight, so I had the house to myself for a while yet. Now if only I actually had a friend to come over it would be different from any other door.
I walked over to the living room and grabbed the remote off the table before sitting down. Which is, of course, when someone knocked on the door. I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath. I put the remote and my glass on the table as I got to my feet. Whoever was at the door knocked a second time before I reached it and opened and holy...
"Hi!" came the vision's melodic voice. It was the kind of voice Tolkien would have imagined his elves spoke with, and it took me a moment to realize it was still speaking. "My name's Cassandra, Cassandra Moira. I'm moving in across the street so I thought I'd go and greet the neighbors while everything is getting moved in. And you are?"
"Uh, stunned, I mean," I blink and close my mouth. Then open it again so I can say, "Hebert Taylor, I meant Taylor Hebert, pleased to meet you."
Jeeze Taylor, nice going. Way to make a fool of yourself in front of your new neighbor.
I honestly had no idea why I did that. Well, maybe some idea. It wasn't everyday you open your door and find an angel standing on the other side. Okay, angel may have been pushing it, but she was beautiful for sure. Emma had taken me along to one of her model shoots once, introducing me to some of the other models at the studio, and the woman - teenager, I corrected myself, she looked probably my age - had them beat hands down.
I was tall for my age, thanks to my dad, so I was used to towering over pretty much every other girl in my grade. The girl in front of me came up to about my chin, a rather pleasant surprise, which gave me a perfect view of her long hair, so blonde it looked almost like silver, and all of the white and light grey feathers woven into it. She let out a soft tinkling laugh, I swear it almost sounded like bells ringing, and smiled at me. I relaxed a bit. At least she thought I was funny.
"That's a nice name. Do you mind if I come inside and stay a bit? The movers said they'd be a couple hours."
I tilt my head slightly and peer past Cassandra's hair, and sure enough a large moving van was parked in front of the Douglas' old house. It was quite the surprise when they won that random drawing in the mail, but they decided to take their winnings and move to Denver to be closer to the rest of their family. The house had been on the market for no more than a day before it had been snapped up,
"Sure, come on in. Want anything to drink?"
"I'm good, thanks though," Cassandra said as she sat down on the couch next to me.
"So, what brings your family to Brockton Bay?"
"Family troubles mostly." I blinked and looked away for a moment to hide my embarrassment.
"Oh, sorry, we can change the subject if you want?"
"No, that's alright, it wouldn't make much of a difference anyway," she said with a knowing smile. "Dad's always busy and his job takes him all over the country, sometimes out of it too, so it's been just me and my brothers for the last while. Of course those two knuckleheads are always either lazing their butts off or getting into some kind of trouble. They're the main reason we had to move here in the first place. Some of the things they did, it's a wonder that they haven't been put on the no-fly lists yet."
She laughed and I found myself laughing too. It felt nice, laughing. It struck me then that I hadn't really laughed in far too long. That killed the humour as I stopped and frowned down at my hands.
"So yeah," Cassandra continued, either having missed my turn of mood or purposefully ignoring it. "It was a bit of surprise that we came out here, but I don't mind much. School's the only thing that bothers me, since I'm starting new pretty much."
"Where are you going?" I ask curiously. Arcadia had a line up a mile long to get in, but from the way Cassandra talked about her father, he certainly sounded like he could pull the right strings to speed up her enrollment.
"If Dad had his way, I'd have been dumped into Immaculata fast enough my head would spin. Of course, I used every last promise I had to avoid getting stuck there. And the last of my blackmail material too. "
I blink and and do a double-take, which causes her to laugh again.
"Don't look so surprised. My brothers and I are all what you might call "trouble children." For Hadrian and Jorge, it's more physical, but they wouldn't have caused have as many problems if it hadn't been for me. Of course, now that we've moved, they've gone off wherever, so I'm pretty much on my own."
Now it's her turn to frown, and I find myself mirroring her silence. A slight urge to ask about her mother rose up, but I shoved it off to the side. Given how Cassandra talked about her family, I could guess at why she hadn't been mentioned.
"Anyway, I'm starting at Winslow tomorrow, you mind showing me the way?" she asks with another knowing grin.
"Uh, yeah."
She smiles as she looks over her shoulder and out the window. "Cool, it'll be nice to know I've got at least one friend there." I'm still reeling from her declaration when she gets to her feet. "Well, it looks like everything's moved in, so I suppose I should make sure nothing was damaged during the move."
I get to my own feet and walk with her over to the door. "Uh, well it was nice to meet you," I say lamely as I hold the door open. Cassandra simply laughs again, but unlike with Emma or the other girls, it's warm, not mocking.
"It was nice to meet you too Taylor." She steps past me, only to pause and turn around with a thoughtful look on her face. "Here," I blinked in surprise as she plucked one of the feathers from her hair and offered it to me. "I saw you looking at them earlier. You can have this one until you get your own, okay? See you tomorrow!"
Before I can react she's already halfway to the sidewalk and almost out of earshot. I consider the feather in my hand carefully before shrugging and sticking over my ear like a pencil. I blink and my eyes dart from side to side. No-one's around, and I wave to Cassandra across the street before I close the door. I smiled as I sat down on the couch. Sure she's a bit odd, but I had a new friend, and I dared to hope that things were finally looking up. Although I could have sworn I heard someone say something like "Welcome to the family." Weird.
-
Elsewhere:
Dragon let out a metaphorical sigh as she finished up annotating the report on the mass-production viability of the latest invention from Boilerplate, a Tinker who specialized in steam driven technology. It was rather impressive what he was capable of achieving with enough materials, his spider tank certainly showed that, but the fact that it relied on almost no electricity or circuitry still limited it to the point on inconsequence most of the time.
She gave her 'head' a shake and pulled up her task list. Most of them were easily taken care of by rerouting some of her sub-processors to run in the background while she focused on the more important matters. The report was done; the preliminary specifications for Armsmaster's current project had been sent out to him a few minutes ago; all that was left was the hourly check on the major threats.
Quickly tapping into surveillance nets around the globe, including ones that were less than legal or moral, she began flicking through the current threat list. Ash Beast was still meandering his way through Africa, Behemoth was somewhere beneath Siberia judging by seismographic data, the Slaughterhouse Nine were in Florida abusing it's completely braindead Stand Your Ground law, Leviathan was circling Bermuda at the moment, Wissenschaft was still scouring through the old CERN labs in Switzerland, the Simurgh was missing, the Birdcage was still secure, Nilbog was still conta-wait a second.
She scrolled back through the data stream until she pulled up the relevant satellite feeds. She stared at the blank, empty space where a titanic monster should have floated with something close to pure panic, or at least as close as she could simulate. There were no words for how colossal a catastrophe this could turn into.
"Mother Fucking Simurgh!"
Oh wait, no she found some.
xxxxx
Yeah, no trigger here folks. Trolololol. Bonus points to those of you who get the references in the Simurgh's new name.
Oh, and the Wissenschaft belongs to the Anima: Beyond Fantasy RPG and well, lets just say that Wissenschaft isn't the only thing I brought over.
