This is What Dreams are Made of
By BlackFeatherz29
Chapter 8: Auel
Long time no see, faithful readers! (big smile) I've been basically procrastination on everything else and focusing instead on drowning myself in total crack. That's right, a crossover humor fic. But last night, I watched a movie and suddenly got really sad. And it was one of those cheesy teenage romance movies with Hilary Duff, so as to why I got sad, it's a mystery. And I wrote this all in almost one go :D
I will edit the last chapter (Augh! I forgot it was Mayu instead of Maya! seiyuu is named Maya And I tried to speed up the plot way too fast!) as soon as this is up, since at the current moment I am typing, I have no Internet as I have just moved into a new house. Hope you enjoy! First is Auel, then it is Meer. 'Tis two weeks into the school year already.
Disclaimer: Erm… most of this chapter belongs to me except the chars' names, as I totally changed their personalities. But the J-pop song in the Meer section is Houki Boshi, by Youhna, which is one of my favorite songs. I transliterated the bit by myself, so please forgive me if it has any mistakes.
My forehead pulsed. The blood vessels underneath my skin made a rhythmic thump-thump-thump inside that just made the impatience intensify.
"What the hell is Stellar thinking spending so much time with that bastard?" I exploded, releasing the pent-up fury inside that I'd been holding in since day one. Five hundred feet away, my cousin and my life was smiling angelically and socializing with a moody Natural-hater that had no right to enjoy her attention.
Sting shot me a 'look', only causing me to snarl at him. "Don't gimme that damn look!" I snapped back, shooting a quick glance to make sure Stellar hadn't heard.
"Don't say, 'don't gimme that damn look' again," Sting told me, his voice calm and steady, only barely laced with tension. "Hold your tongue at school. If Stellar hears, it will only cause her pain. And you don't want that, do you?"
I ground my teeth loudly, knowing that it annoyed him. He gave me a warning squeeze of the shoulder and walked off toward the football field. My anger slowly drained away, leaving me in a bad mood.
What right did Shinn Asuka have to spend so much time with our Stellar? On the first day of school, Lunamaria had personally asked Stellar to befriend him. I had known it was a bad idea even then. That darn purple-haired hag had taken advantage of gentle Stellar's kindness to try and attempt to take back an enemy who was no longer her friend as if Stellar had been nothing but a fishing net cast out to sea for a shark to tear into pieces.
Lunamaria's plan had been doomed from the start. No Natural-hater ever came back to his senses, not now that the war was starting up again. Last summer had been filled with barely contained anger from both Naturals and Coordinators even though there was supposed to be peace, but ever since Patrick Zala had been saved from that assassination attempt, both of the races became violent. Zala grew to become more ruthless than ever, deliberately provoking us to feel inferior to the Coordinators.
Gentle Stellar didn't belong in that cruel world of politics and prejudice. She was too young, too free, too good to be biased against. She meant so much to Sting and me that we couldn't bear to see her hurt.
She would be cut down like a delicate butterfly with a torn wing. I had to protect her. I swore that I would never let anyone get close to her lest they betrayed her loving heart.
I didn't care if I was labeled a freak or even expelled. She meant more to me than my meager body because of what she did for me when no one else would.
I won't let anyone, not even Shinn who didn't seem to hate her, or Lunamaria who respected her, get any closer to our Stellar.
"Auel!" came that musical voice. I turned to look in her direction, and was filled with fury. She was waving me over, Shinn still at her side. I gritted my teeth. No way in hell was I going over there.
"Auel!" she said again, more persistent this time. "Come over here! I want you to meet someone!"
I gave in. How could I go against Stellar's judgment? I would hurt her if I refused. "Coming," I sighed, trying to settle my roiling stomach. Rage still made my ears burn, persisting on possessing me.
I was now right in front of her. I refused to look at Shinn, averting my eyes to look instead at Stellar.
"So what do you want?" I asked, trying to sound casual. I couldn't let the anger show.
"I want you to meet someone," she told me, confirming my greatest fears. I turned slightly, as if I had just noticed that someone else was there. I refused to look him full in the face. All I could see of him beneath my shaggy blue bangs was a thatch of dark hair and a bright red eye.
What a freakish eye color, I thought to myself.
"Shinn, this is one of my best friends and my cousin, Auel Neider."
I saw Shinn stick out a hand rather reluctantly. "Um, nice to meet you," he offered with genuine emotion, surprising me for a second. I regained my senses and closed my eyes while shaking his hand. I didn't want to look at him any more than I had to.
I heard him give out a stifled gasp as I squeezed his hand. I resisted crushing it into tiny useless pieces, but couldn't help cutting off circulation for a few seconds. This was my warning. 'Don't get too close to her, or I'll make you wish you were never born.'
I glared at him for a split second before replying to him by way of, "Hmph." Shinn seemed to have gotten my message. Mission complete. But then I saw the look in his eyes. Compared to the look in her eyes.
"Auel, this is Shinn Asuka, one of my new friends!" I grunted in reply, and then sauntered away without looking back.
I didn't want to look at Shinn again. He was stealing away Stellar's heart, I told myself. He was being nice to her only in order to betray her. He had to know that she was a Natural; he had to know that I was a Natural! Why else would a pompous Coordinator like him try and get close to her?
I hate seeing that look in Stellar's eyes. That tenderness, that kindness aimed at someone else. I knew the truth, but I tried to deny it completely, choosing to condemn Shinn for corrupting her.
The truth was, he didn't know she was a Natural. And he liked her just as she liked him. And I knew it.
My rage exploded like the Hindenburg. It was that hag's entire fault, making Stellar meet him! It was all her fault that Stellar had strayed outside her cage and became addicted to the world outside! It was all her fault that she was going to be betrayed by the Coordinators' brainwashing capabilities! IT WAS ALL HER FAULT!
I tore down the driveway, fury washing away everything else. I couldn't count how many people I knocked down. I couldn't remember anything except focusing on that one head of bright hair standing under a tree.
I grabbed her shoulder first. Lunamaria shrieked with surprise, then with fright when she realized it was me.
"Auel Neider? What are you doing here?" she asked, fear evident in her expression. I let it all out.
"You think you're God, don't you?" I screamed at her. "You think you could use our Stellar to get your friend back, but you can't! He's the devil incarnate to her! HE'S A FREAKING NATURAL-HATER!"
Now she was trying to get her wits back. "Now look here, I don't know who—"
I lowered my face until I was eye-to-eye with her. How tiny and frail she seemed to me. "No, you look here," I told her in a deadly half-whisper. "I will do anything to protect Stellar, and roughing you up a bit doesn't disturb my conscience in the slightest. You see, Naturals and Coordinators don't mix, especially our Stellar and Shinn Asuka. I don't know what we've done to twist him up so much, and I don't care. All I'm concerned with is getting Stellar out of his grasp. He'd wring her neck the first chance he gets, and he's gotten plenty of chances."
I brought my face closer, letting my emotions take over. I felt overwhelmed. "I want you and Shinn out of our lives. I don't care where you go; I just want you to get out! You damn Coordinators don't deserve to hurt her – you don't deserve –"
Dammit, now I was starting to get choked up, but by now I had no more control. I grabbed Lunamaria by the collar. "—you don't deserve someone like her! All you want to do is destroy us! Stellar is – Stellar is – she's the first person to ever show me love!"
I let her go. My tears stung my cheeks, but I didn't even care that I was crying anymore. I was beyond feeling.
"All of you… all of you! None of you Coordinators deserve to have Stellar in your lives! She's – she's – too good for any of you all! She's my life – she – she – she's just like my moth—"
My chest contracted suddenly. My head swam, the world spun in front of me through my tears like a kaleidoscope. 'Mother…!' I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think of anything except my mother. I saw those cruel eyes hidden beneath a sea of wavy hair. I saw that hand, with its red hooked claws, approaching like the claw of the Leviathan, aimed for my throat.
They seized me, and I suffocated. I gasped for air, but nothing was coming. My eyes went wide, but saw nothing anymore. I felt suspended in the air. My limbs went completely limp.
'Auel!' the voice seemed far away and dreamlike. I couldn't turn my head, helpless as I was. No one could help me now…
And then I felt her treacherous hand release me and my body fall toward the hard, unforgiving ground. My head bounced back as if in slow motion as something held me back, and my chest wheezed painfully as the ribs struck against it. And then I came to rest.
Really, I had no resistance against the addicting qualities of music.
"Atashi ga… houki boshi menareta nareba! Afureru hikari furesu yo, itsumo—"
It's hard to forget that my voice was one of the main contributors to my self-esteem when you sing such happy music. One of the main things I like about it; it keeps me going when I feel ready to stop. Depressing music like Lacus's just makes me want to plop down and cry. I didn't know how she could stand it.
"Atashi ga… houki boshi menarte nareba! Kitto soba ni ite ageru, donna toki mo…"
My mom stuck her head through the doorway, peering irritably up at me jumping on the bed.
"Meer, for God's sake!" she screeched, magazine in hand. "Keep it down! It's nine o'clock!"
I rolled my eyes and let my bottom land this time instead of my feet. Just as well, anyway. The song was ending.
"Have you eaten your dinner?" Of course she'd never remember about that with her nose buried in one of those celebrity magazines.
"Yes, mom."
"Have you finished your homework yet?" Inevitable.
"Yes, mom."
"Have you invited your friends over for karaoke yet?" What?
"Ehhh?" I asked, momentarily confused. Then I realized that she was cracking a joke, and my face started to twitch.
"Don't make fun of my singing!" I yelled at her retreating back, completely humiliated. How dare she? Singing was my only talent… well, even though I don't completely own it, it was only fair that I had at least one thing I was good at. At least, when Kami-sama programmed me for ascension to Earth, it seemed a wonderful idea, but he must have forgotten than he'd programmed Lacus with the exact same gift as well as many others.
I could still hear my mother's tittering behind the opaque white wall, and I burned with embarrassment at that, now completely sober. There was no endless energy keeping me bouncing back on the trampoline of life. The force was dead, the energy destroyed in a flash that defied the laws of nature. Energy cannot be destroyed? That was total bull. It had just been.
Who was I, really, to be so possessive of my singing ability? I was nothing but a clone of Lacus, who also had the same gift. She not only shared it with me; she had the genuine article, hers was superior to mine, and she wasn't afraid to use it. She wasn't afraid to use it…
I was back to normal. As normal as I could ever be. Old depressive Meer, that's me. And her old friend, the green monster of jealousy, reappeared cackling on her shoulder once again, having momentarily been rendered invisible during those precious minutes of joy.
I felt tired, much more tired than usually. My body had aged forty years in the span of a few seconds. I was spent, and my body could no longer support itself.
I fell back on the bed, my face looking up directly into the bright ceiling light. My pupils dilated in response, my brain protesting its discomfort, but I felt so old and tired that I couldn't bring myself to even lift that arm to block the light out from my eyes, let alone get up to turn it off.
I was so pathetic. And I had the nerve to have friends like them.
It was ironic, really, this situation. The light. It had been two weeks now since the first day of school. I basked each day in school in a warm spotlight lit up by Lacus, Cagalli, Athrun, and co. It felt good at first, the warmth and the love bursting through the circle of people, but as time went on, the light became unbearable.
It burned my skin, made it peel off and exposing the sensitive flesh underneath. It pierced through my eyes like arrows from God's angels at Judgment Day, condemning my soul to eternal suffering inside the shell of my body and blinding my windows to life. I roasted alive in my skin each day, conscious that soon it would reduce me to nothing but dust in the wind.
My eyelids sagged at the thought. Spending this much brain power on nothing but inventing creative similes sapped my strength. But though I had snapped shut the shutters on the windows to my soul, how was it that I could still see the light through them? It was bloody red now, instead of blinding white and yellow.
The phone rang. I could have easily rolled over onto my side and picked up the white plastic receiver on my bedside table, but I didn't. I opened my eyelids a few millimeters and just lay there, listening to it ring. Serves them right, calling so late and at such a horrible time, I thought.
The ringing stopped abruptly without going to the recorded message. Mom must have picked it up. I exhaled slowly, closing my eyes to the light.
Footsteps came hurrying to my doorway. 'No way,' I thought numbly. 'No way that call's for me—'
"Meer, hurry up and get off of that bed," came my mother's voice impatiently. "It's Lacus, for you."
I reluctantly opened my eyes again and sat up. My head felt oversized on my skinny neck. I groped blindly for the phone, and then asked in a thick, flat voice, "Hello?"
"Hi, Meer! It's Lacus." Big surprise there.
"Oh, hi." Pause.
"This might not be a great time to call, but…"
"No, it's fine." It was a horrible time, but she didn't need to know that, did she?
"Oh, okay! I wanted to ask if you wanted to come to the studio with me after school tomorrow for a little surprise."
My eyes flew open completely in shock. Me, at the studio? "What?"
I must have sounded really surprised, because Lacus quickly added, "Um, if you don't want to, you don't have to."
"No, it's fine!" I shook my head vigorously, as if she could see me. "I'd love to go to the studio with you."
The rest of the conversation was fuzzy, as if in a dream. I couldn't remember exactly what I said, but it seemed like I was going to the studio at 3:00 with Lacus for some song recording special she was doing in her new album.
I stared at the receiver in my hand. I couldn't believe it. It was way too good to be true, that a sister like her would find the time and patience to offer a special pass for her evil twin to come to the studio with her.
My heart pumped very fast now. Was I, Meer Campbell, going to have a chance to sing for someone besides my green monster pet?
(big gasp) I can't believe I can't write yelling! Hoiii… I'm not good at making someone sound angry. I'm not good at doing arguments. Is it a crime to have never gotten in an argument with a friend? Is it a crime to not have the guts or the fluency of speech to argue so passionately with someone? IS IT A CRIME TO NOT HAVE THE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE TO WRITE THIS? Is it a crime to not be able to put more than one exclamation point or one question mark on the end of yelling sentences because the document manager filters them out? Is it a crime to be so obsessed with English I that I am stuck using anaphora for the rest of my author's note?
Seriously, thank you for reading my horrible dramatic writing. I've been trying to get better by reading more shojo manga, like Kare Kano and Furuba, but I don't think it's working. But even though I hate how I wrote this (in K. A. Applegate's short, concise action style, nonetheless!), I like how I tied Auel's mother thing in. And yes, he does have 'attacks' when anyone mentions mother. I tried to make it seem like an asthma attack, but unfortunately I've never had asthma and I've never seen anyone suffer an asthma attack. Forgive me for my inexperience! (pause) And long author notes!
