"Those bitches!" Kylie stomped her foot on the floor and stared at her computer screen. Her character had been rejected! Rejected!!! For no good reason, either, that she could see. She read the email one more time before deleting it.
"Hi there,
We are afraid that we cannot approve your persona, Arinaylea, for play in New Heights Weyr, as the character does not seem to be based in the Pern Universe by Anne McCaffrey. If you would like to read the information on our website at .com and resubmit a Pern-related persona, we will be happy to consider that for approval.
Many thanks,
New Heights BoD"
Angrily she hit the delete key, so her failure would stop staring her in the face. What was wrong with her submitted persona, anyway? She was different, therefore she'd stand out. After all, none of the books had a half-elf female Impressing a gold egg! Hers was original! With her silver hair and violet eyes, she'd stand out in a crowd! Well, if New Heights Weyr didn't want her, there were probably many more who'd be begging her to join. She opened her Bookmarks folder and scrolled to the next Weyr on the list and clicked.
Reading the rules page, she shoved a handful of potato chips in her mouth, washing them down with a few gulps of Coke. If this Weyr accepted her, that would be a nice round ten that she belonged to. At least one of them would give her a gold, she could feel it! She highlighted her persona sheet and pasted it in the form. Before pasting, she looked one more time. Oh - this Weyr was short on males. Well, she could change her half-elf female to a half-orc male. Switching windows to the sheet for Arinaylea, she changed the name to . . . what did she want the name to be? Something that when elided would be cool. Oh, if his name was something like Kelukas, when elided it could be K'kas. K'kas would kick ass. Smiling she changed the name, then sat back, reaching into the bag of chips. She was dismayed to find that nothing but crumbs was left.
Upending the bag, she shook the crumbs into her mouth, then wadded up the bag and tossed it into her overflowing garbage can. It landed on an empty bag of Oreo cookies and a 2-liter bottle of Coke. She pushed herself away from her desk and got down on her knees by her bed. There was another bag of chips under there - this one sour cream and onion flavoured. Blindly tossing the bag on her desk, Kylie heaved herself back up. A door slammed close by, then the heavy thump indicative of his stereo began to leak through the walls. Great. Her brother, Justin, was home.
Kylie pounded on the wall. "Hey! Turn that shit down! I can't hear myself think in here!" In retaliation, the music was turned up louder and the strains of the Styx classic "Come Sail Away" filtered through. She sat back at her desk, smirking. If Justin ever found out that she liked his music, and she only complained so she could hear it better, she'd never hear another strain of classic rock again.
Back to the persona sheet. Silver hair and purple eyes didn't look good on a guy. Maybe black hair and, oh, blue eyes. But not just any blue. Midnight blu . . . .
CRACK!
What was that? It sounded like it came from outside. Laboriously she got back up and went to her window. At least she had a view of the Metroparks from her room, and whatever that noise was seemed to come from back there. She opened the window, breathing in the late spring air. An object seemed to be falling - no, flying - no, hunh. If she didn't know better . . . .
Kylie Sue Martin didn't get to finish her thought as everything went dark.