Also decided to include Sophie's POV throughout the story. I feel like she was never included enough in the old story despite being a main character.
Arc I, The Heart of Cresselia
Chapter Two:
Where the Land Ends and the Sea Begins
Sophie lifted the sign into the air. "Homemade brownies for two dollars!" she shouted into the crowd of students. Her arms were sore. Thankfully, the weather had bestowed clemency upon the city today, and the cool breezes coming from the ocean had tempered the summer heat. "Get yourself a brownie for two dollars and your generous donation will help fund the Environmental Club!"
Two students paused by the table.
"Environmental Club too?" the girl asked, smiling.
"We thought you had your hands full with Women's Rights Club," joked the boy. He nudged Sophie, as if reminding her that he had no intention of being impolite.
Sophie grinned wearily, her arms still in the air. "Yeah, but who's counting?"
"I am!" chirped Marney from behind the table, peeking her head above it to announce to the world that she was, in fact, alive back there. She was flipping through the bills she had collected. "Money, that is. We're not making as much as I had hoped. Everyone wants their stupid air conditioning."
"Maybe we should have done this in the gym or the cafeteria?" Sophie said, finally lowering her arms. She glanced at her phone, wishing desperately that she wouldn't unlock it to a brutal text from her aunt. Her notifications were unbothered, thankfully. "We can still move the tables…"
Marney wiped her forehead. "No, if we stay out here, it might drive in the point about global warming! Oh hey, Ben's headed your direction."
Ben threw his arm around Sophie's shoulders. "My two favorite girls!" he exclaimed.
She looked up at him. Marney had always contended with Sophie, her platform being that Benjamin was single handedly the most beautiful person that had set foot into Lilycove. Marney's tastes, however, seemed to swing in the opposite direction. She sought boys who were tall, dark, and handsome — who had large white smiles and large strong muscles, whose lives were scripted by filmmakers and whose transcript screamed, "University ready!"
But when Sophie stared up into Ben's upbeat green eyes, she felt unmoved.
He planted a chaste kiss on her cheek. She forced a smile. "Hi, Ben!"
"I was kidding about the two favorite girls, by the way," he said, smiling apologetically at Marney's, "Hey!" He inspected the table at which they had organized their set-up. "If I help you advertise, will the both of you come to my game tonight? The team loves you especially, Sophie. They'll perform better if you're around to cheer us on."
"I wouldn't miss it for the world," she responded.
"Here, give me a sign then," said Ben, picking one up. He made off with it across the courtyard, shouting something about how he would dye his hair blue if the Environmental Club reached five-hundred dollars.
Marney watched him go. "You're a lucky bitch," she said irritably.
"He really is a wonderful person," agreed Sophie.
She regarded him as if he was an alien from another planet, and all of the others people around him were too. The school courtyard had become alive again with his presence. She felt a strange stirring in her chest, the kind of rousing feeling that she only felt when something was wrong. Marney's voice was faint in the background, "Well, that too. But you're missing my point." But Sophie hardly heard any of these words.
Perhaps she was the alien in this situation.
"Need a donation?" asked a man, snatching her from her thoughts.
Sophie peered into the rose-red eyes of a handsome stranger, who was much older than her — maybe nearing his thirties. She glanced back, wondering if Marney knew him, but the other girl had already turned around and was discussing homework with someone else. I wonder if he's a teacher, she thought curiously.
Tall and lithe, like a swimmer — even more so with his glistening blue hair (blue?), damp from what she assumed was ocean water. It stuck out in wet strands. But he didn't smell like sea salt, like so many of the swimmers who patrolled the beaches at dawn. He smelled like — dog.
"We could use one," she said appreciatively. She held out the basket.
The man dropped a few bills. He had a knowing smile on his face that she couldn't decipher, as if he had a secret that he was desperate to tell her. "Most prestigious private school in Lilycove," he remarked, looking up at the building. "I am impressed. You are good with academics?"
He had such a strange accent that Sophie was thrown off. He spoke eloquently — slow, proper, and well-thought — like he had been raised and taught in a castle. And his voice rolled like thunder, powerful and deep.
"Decent."
"How good?"
"I was offered a full ride to over twenty universities across Kanto, Johto, Sinnoh, and even the foreign language institutes in Kalos," said Sophie hesitantly. She wouldn't have offered that information if he hadn't pressed for it. "I'm in lots of clubs. I take all advanced courses. Not very interesting. There's a hundred other students at this school in the same boat as me."
"That is wonderful, Sophie. I would have gone to school in Kalos too if I had not — well, taken the path I did. I woke up one day and I was a completely different person, fell in love with a girl, and now I have a family that specializes in martial arts. And that is only the gist of it."
Sophie furrowed her brows. "How did you know my name?"
The stranger tapped his head twice. "I can read minds." Then he smiled. The sincerity in his face made her blush. "I am joking. It is written here on the sign. Sophie and Marney's Homemade Brownies, ₱2. That is your friend, Marney, over there?"
Marney was still occupied with something else. Sophie desperately tried to send mental signals to her friend, trying to influence her to turn around and make this conversation less bizarre.
"That's her," said Sophie, facing him again.
Her eyes drifted upward. Upon the man's head, she had failed to realize that there were two dark blue ears protruding straight up from underneath his hair. They were long and pointed, and they attentively rotated at the base, listening to the chaotic collection of school courtyard sounds. She had opened her mouth to say something, but the words were now slowly trailing out of her, a monotonous drone of, "Uhhh—"
Well, he's not a teacher, that's for sure.
She couldn't handle the absurdity of this conversation any longer. "Hey, Marney—" she began falteringly, grabbing her friend's hand.
But when she had pulled Marney over to meet the strange man, he had disappeared into the Lilycove wind, either imagined or undetected. She stood there with her arms limp at her side, the memory of his presence and outlandish mannerisms already fading. When she glanced down into the donation basket, his money was still there.
Sophie hoped there would be something else. A vague note. A clue that she could pursue. But the mysterious man was gone with no remaining traces. For a brief moment, she had been able to forget her life — the Environmental Club, Ben, Marney, her aunt and uncle, and even this silly private school.
She stared out across the sea, disappointed that — wherever the man had gone — he had not taken her along with him.
End of Chapter Two
