Casseiopeia
Part Twelve
A few weeks later, in early June, I was sitting with the study group. The pages were gone on the trip-thing with Segent Ezeko and a few knights, Lord Wyldon and the Shangs having stayed, so only the squires were there.
Out of the blue, I said, "You know what's weird?"
"What?" Cleon asked.
"That when I got here, there weren't any rumors or anything. Everyone just sort of accepted me. I mean, it's nice, but at my school, we didn't like like anyone, I mean *really* accept them, until they proved themselves or something." Most of the squires shifted uncomfortably. "What?" I asked, and paused. "There's something you're not telling me, isn't there? There is. Now tell me!"
"Well, Laurie," Faleron said. "There've been some rumors in the court, that--uh--"
"Faleron, honey, SPIT IT OUT!" I yelled.
"Some people think that you're not from another world or anything, and it's all a big hoax!" Merric said quickly. Faleron slapped his hand to his forehead.
"Nice, Merric," he said while I stood in shock. "Real tactful."
"Hoax? HOAX?!?! I AM NOT A HOAX! D' they want proof? I can tell you anything about the Periodic Table, how's that? I'm SO not a hoax!"
"Glad you're taking it so well," Neal muttered.
I spun around and glared at him, saw the look on his face and said, quietly, "Guys? Do *you* think I made this up?"
"No!" "Of course not!" "You're too different to be from around here!" "How can you even think that?"
They all said they didn't, but I saw their faces. They believed the rumors.
Right then, I learned a hard lesson in life.
They didn't want to believe me.
They didn't want to.
I avoided the squires for the next three weeks. In class, I had been quiet. I only said orders, and quietly. Even Numair started to notice. Of course, all this just caused more rumors to spring up, terrible ones. I started to wonder whether the squires had spread them.
First I was a street rat from Scanra.
Then I was a prostitute from Galla.
Then I was a street rat turned prostitute who was born in Scanra, and then moved to Galla.
The most flattering was that I was a princess who had slept her way around court.
I don't even want to write down the worst.
The rumors were only part of it. I was getting to be homesick. The initial amazment and awe I had felt when I arrived was wearing off. I missed my mom, eccentric as she was. I missed Jess and Juls, and I missed my other best friends, Niki and Joni. I missed Niki's angry weasel impression, and Joni's sparkling clean mind. I missed Jul's animal rights activism, protests, refusal to wear silk, leather, or wool, and all the crazy things she did when she was on sugar. I missed Jess talking about her 249 page book, and calling me in the middle of the night because she had a weird dream and wanted me to interpret it. I wanted to go home.
I fell asleep crying at night. My assignments from Numair sucked. I was less attentive when teaching the squires. I ate less. I had bags under my eyes from staying up late trying to figure out what I should do. And then I started having nightmares. At first they were smaller things, when I lost a tae kwon do tournament, when I failed a test. Then they turned into my dad dying, his funeral, Gramma telling me and Mom it was our fault Dad was dead.
Mom had been an only child, and her parents were dead. Gramma had told all my dad's side of the family not to talk to us. We were the strangers. We were Irish, unlike the rest of the German family. My aunt Penny was the only one who didn't listen to her. She helped us out. She even moved to our city so she could take care of me while Mom got back on her feet. I remembered the day she died, killed in a car crash. I had been in the car. I survived. Gramma talked to me once after that. She said I was cursed.
All of these gave me nightmares. Sometimes I woke up screaming, sometimes I woke up crying. Either way, I didn't get much sleep.
The worst nightmare I had was a few days before Midsummer. In the dream, I was watching three people. One was a boy, with blonde hair, another was a beautiful woman, also with blonde hair. The third was older than the other two, with brown, slightly gray hair, and tattered clothes. They were talking by a fire.
"I want that girl--whatever her name is--dead," the woman said.
"Don't worry, my lady, it serves all our purposes to get rid of her," the man said. "She will be taken care of, in due time."
"The spell you put on that charm of hers, and the rumors, they're working well," the boy said. "I saw her today. She's paler, and thinner, and, well, let's just say that if we can keep this up, she'll be dead by Midwinter." He grinned evily.
The man laughed. "If I have it my way, she'll be gone by the next equinox!"
I sat up and almost screamed. I stopped myself. I wasn't going to wake people up. They'd come in, tell me it was all right, ask me if I wanted to talk about it, jsut like Mom used to do.
By Midsummer, my skin was dead white. My hair was thinner and limp. Even my lips were pale. I had tearstains down my cheeks. I was about ten pounds lighter. I was so distracted by the nightmares I ran into things, and was constantly falling asleep on my homework, or at dinner, causing me to eat even less.
That afternoon, Lord Wyldon called me into his office. I thought it was about the fact that I looked like a hag. But when I got there, two things were sitting on his desk.
Jess's battery-powered radio and a map of the globe.
I almost started crying right there. Not from saddness. From joy. Here was my salvation. This would prove the rumors were wrong. And maybe, if I heard the songs, I could deal with my homesickness better.
"Uh, Laurie," Lord Wyldon said. "Do you have any idea what these objects are?"
"Hellloooo! That's a radio, and a map!" I said, smiling for the first time in weeks.
"Oh....since you know what they are, maybe you should take them."
"Thank you, sir!" I told him, and walked out of the room.
That night, after the initial happiness of finding the stuff had worn off, I grabbed the map and walked quickly toward where the study group was meeting. I was still mad at them. I knew they didn't believe me. So now I was going to prove it.
Everyone looked amazed when I walked into the room. I had barely talked to them for weeks, and here I was, with some folded sheet of paper.
I spread out the map on a table. "Here," I said, pointing, "is where I live, in Iowa. Here is where my Gramma lives, in New York City. Here's where my family went on vacation when I was six. Here's where my aunt almost got eaten by a bear. Here's Venezuela, where my Great Books teacher's daughter is studying birds. Here's Tasmania, where my pen pal lives. Here's Ireland, where my mom's parents are from. Here's Gettysburg, where a big Civil War battle was fought. Here's Pearl Harbor, which the Japanese bombed in 1942, which got America involved in World War II. Here's Ellis Island, and the Statue of Liberty." I looked at them. "Now you know I'm from another world. Deal with it." And with that, I turned on the ball of my foot, and strode out of the room.
When I got to my room, I turned the radio on max. I had found out earlier that I could for some reason get a signal from my favorite radio station. "Orignal Prankster" was playing when I turned it on.
"Laurie?" Numair yelled as he walked in. "What in the world is that racket?"
I spun around, turned the music off, and said "That would be proof that I'm from the USA."
"What in the world has gotten into you? You're pale, you're losing weight, you look awful, and you've been quiet for the past three weeks!"
"Did you ever realize," I told him slowly, "that rumors can make a person's life a living hell?"
"Oh, no," he groaned. "You heard, did you? I was hoping you wouldn't hear that. They're just rumors, Laurie. They can't do much harm."
I was getting angrier every second. "Oh, yeah?" I asked. "YOU try having people call you a slut right and left! YOU try having your own friends not believing a word you say!"
"Laurie...It can't be all that bad."
"Yes it can! My life's been a living nightmare in the day, and I then I have real ones at night! I miss my mom, and my friends, I wish to dear God that I could talk to them for even a minute...heck! I even miss that parasite of a kid Nathan! I can't take it!"
He was quiet for a minute. "I wasn't planning on doing this, but...It looks like you need it. Daine was already planning on it, and I wasn't but..."
"What?" I asked.
"Tomorrow most of the squires and knights are going to a fief up north. They've been having some problems with raiders and immortals. I think we should go. I'll talk to the king about it tonight."
"That sounds good," I said in the weak way someone talks before they cry, and I sat down on my bed, and did just that. Numair put his arm around my shoulder and said, "It's alright, it's alright," which only made me cry more. That had been just what my dad said, the night before he died.
Unheard by either of us, the door opened, and Kel, Neal, Faleron, Roald, Seaver, Merric, and Cleon walked in.
"Laurie?" Kel asked. I stood up abruptly, and Numair stood up also. "What's wrong?"
"Whad'dya think?" I told her tartly, wiping tears from my eyes.
"What?" Merric asked.
"Gee, there are rumors about me all over, I wanna go home, and my life's a mess. Everythings juuust dandy!"
"I think I'll go talk to the king now," Numair said, and left.
"So you're mad about us not believing you?" Neal asked.
"Could you guys get any denser? I'm mad about you not God-damn believing me, I'm mad about the God-damn rumors, I'm mad about being God-damn stuck here, and I'm mad about the God-damn nightmares!"
"Laurie...is it that time of the month or something?" Merric asked. I just glared at him.
"All right...." Kel said. "Laurie, I want you to tell me everything, and if any of YOU--" she looked at the squires-- "say anything, I won't help you with your asignments for a month."
So I told her everything that happened in the last three weeks, leaving out the nightmare about the three people, and she just listened. Didn't interrupt, didn't ask questions. She just listened.
When I finished, she said, "All right, now, Neal, Cleon, Seaver, Merric, Faleron, Roald, could you leave?" After they were gone, she said, "You missed dinner, like you usually do, so why don't you take a bath and wash your hair, and I'll get something to eat?" When I argued I wasn't hungry, she shrugged and said, "All right."
When I came out, Daine was there, and so was a very large tray of food. "You, Laurie," Daine said, "are going to eat. I don't care if I have to force your jaws open, but you're going to eat!" So I ate, while Kel told Daine what I had told her. After I finished, we turned on the radio, and they helped me pack for the trip. We laughed our heads off when I tried to do a BSB impression when "Larger than Life" was playing. Then Kel left to pack, but Daine got a blanket and slept on the floor of my room. She told me to wake her up if I had a nightmare. But I didn't. I fell into a deep sleep, and thanked God I had friends like these.
Author's Note: Hola! There's a nice five-pager for ya! Maybe it'll make up for the fact that I haven't posted in what, three weeks? Anyway, for the plot, I was planning to have the rumors be just a little thing and have Laurie back to her peppy self, but it sorta fit the story better to have it be a big thing. It was Evly's idea. Oh, well. I wrote it out so it still belongs to me! I told you it wouldn't be all humor, so NO COMPLAINING!!! Later!
Part Twelve
A few weeks later, in early June, I was sitting with the study group. The pages were gone on the trip-thing with Segent Ezeko and a few knights, Lord Wyldon and the Shangs having stayed, so only the squires were there.
Out of the blue, I said, "You know what's weird?"
"What?" Cleon asked.
"That when I got here, there weren't any rumors or anything. Everyone just sort of accepted me. I mean, it's nice, but at my school, we didn't like like anyone, I mean *really* accept them, until they proved themselves or something." Most of the squires shifted uncomfortably. "What?" I asked, and paused. "There's something you're not telling me, isn't there? There is. Now tell me!"
"Well, Laurie," Faleron said. "There've been some rumors in the court, that--uh--"
"Faleron, honey, SPIT IT OUT!" I yelled.
"Some people think that you're not from another world or anything, and it's all a big hoax!" Merric said quickly. Faleron slapped his hand to his forehead.
"Nice, Merric," he said while I stood in shock. "Real tactful."
"Hoax? HOAX?!?! I AM NOT A HOAX! D' they want proof? I can tell you anything about the Periodic Table, how's that? I'm SO not a hoax!"
"Glad you're taking it so well," Neal muttered.
I spun around and glared at him, saw the look on his face and said, quietly, "Guys? Do *you* think I made this up?"
"No!" "Of course not!" "You're too different to be from around here!" "How can you even think that?"
They all said they didn't, but I saw their faces. They believed the rumors.
Right then, I learned a hard lesson in life.
They didn't want to believe me.
They didn't want to.
I avoided the squires for the next three weeks. In class, I had been quiet. I only said orders, and quietly. Even Numair started to notice. Of course, all this just caused more rumors to spring up, terrible ones. I started to wonder whether the squires had spread them.
First I was a street rat from Scanra.
Then I was a prostitute from Galla.
Then I was a street rat turned prostitute who was born in Scanra, and then moved to Galla.
The most flattering was that I was a princess who had slept her way around court.
I don't even want to write down the worst.
The rumors were only part of it. I was getting to be homesick. The initial amazment and awe I had felt when I arrived was wearing off. I missed my mom, eccentric as she was. I missed Jess and Juls, and I missed my other best friends, Niki and Joni. I missed Niki's angry weasel impression, and Joni's sparkling clean mind. I missed Jul's animal rights activism, protests, refusal to wear silk, leather, or wool, and all the crazy things she did when she was on sugar. I missed Jess talking about her 249 page book, and calling me in the middle of the night because she had a weird dream and wanted me to interpret it. I wanted to go home.
I fell asleep crying at night. My assignments from Numair sucked. I was less attentive when teaching the squires. I ate less. I had bags under my eyes from staying up late trying to figure out what I should do. And then I started having nightmares. At first they were smaller things, when I lost a tae kwon do tournament, when I failed a test. Then they turned into my dad dying, his funeral, Gramma telling me and Mom it was our fault Dad was dead.
Mom had been an only child, and her parents were dead. Gramma had told all my dad's side of the family not to talk to us. We were the strangers. We were Irish, unlike the rest of the German family. My aunt Penny was the only one who didn't listen to her. She helped us out. She even moved to our city so she could take care of me while Mom got back on her feet. I remembered the day she died, killed in a car crash. I had been in the car. I survived. Gramma talked to me once after that. She said I was cursed.
All of these gave me nightmares. Sometimes I woke up screaming, sometimes I woke up crying. Either way, I didn't get much sleep.
The worst nightmare I had was a few days before Midsummer. In the dream, I was watching three people. One was a boy, with blonde hair, another was a beautiful woman, also with blonde hair. The third was older than the other two, with brown, slightly gray hair, and tattered clothes. They were talking by a fire.
"I want that girl--whatever her name is--dead," the woman said.
"Don't worry, my lady, it serves all our purposes to get rid of her," the man said. "She will be taken care of, in due time."
"The spell you put on that charm of hers, and the rumors, they're working well," the boy said. "I saw her today. She's paler, and thinner, and, well, let's just say that if we can keep this up, she'll be dead by Midwinter." He grinned evily.
The man laughed. "If I have it my way, she'll be gone by the next equinox!"
I sat up and almost screamed. I stopped myself. I wasn't going to wake people up. They'd come in, tell me it was all right, ask me if I wanted to talk about it, jsut like Mom used to do.
By Midsummer, my skin was dead white. My hair was thinner and limp. Even my lips were pale. I had tearstains down my cheeks. I was about ten pounds lighter. I was so distracted by the nightmares I ran into things, and was constantly falling asleep on my homework, or at dinner, causing me to eat even less.
That afternoon, Lord Wyldon called me into his office. I thought it was about the fact that I looked like a hag. But when I got there, two things were sitting on his desk.
Jess's battery-powered radio and a map of the globe.
I almost started crying right there. Not from saddness. From joy. Here was my salvation. This would prove the rumors were wrong. And maybe, if I heard the songs, I could deal with my homesickness better.
"Uh, Laurie," Lord Wyldon said. "Do you have any idea what these objects are?"
"Hellloooo! That's a radio, and a map!" I said, smiling for the first time in weeks.
"Oh....since you know what they are, maybe you should take them."
"Thank you, sir!" I told him, and walked out of the room.
That night, after the initial happiness of finding the stuff had worn off, I grabbed the map and walked quickly toward where the study group was meeting. I was still mad at them. I knew they didn't believe me. So now I was going to prove it.
Everyone looked amazed when I walked into the room. I had barely talked to them for weeks, and here I was, with some folded sheet of paper.
I spread out the map on a table. "Here," I said, pointing, "is where I live, in Iowa. Here is where my Gramma lives, in New York City. Here's where my family went on vacation when I was six. Here's where my aunt almost got eaten by a bear. Here's Venezuela, where my Great Books teacher's daughter is studying birds. Here's Tasmania, where my pen pal lives. Here's Ireland, where my mom's parents are from. Here's Gettysburg, where a big Civil War battle was fought. Here's Pearl Harbor, which the Japanese bombed in 1942, which got America involved in World War II. Here's Ellis Island, and the Statue of Liberty." I looked at them. "Now you know I'm from another world. Deal with it." And with that, I turned on the ball of my foot, and strode out of the room.
When I got to my room, I turned the radio on max. I had found out earlier that I could for some reason get a signal from my favorite radio station. "Orignal Prankster" was playing when I turned it on.
"Laurie?" Numair yelled as he walked in. "What in the world is that racket?"
I spun around, turned the music off, and said "That would be proof that I'm from the USA."
"What in the world has gotten into you? You're pale, you're losing weight, you look awful, and you've been quiet for the past three weeks!"
"Did you ever realize," I told him slowly, "that rumors can make a person's life a living hell?"
"Oh, no," he groaned. "You heard, did you? I was hoping you wouldn't hear that. They're just rumors, Laurie. They can't do much harm."
I was getting angrier every second. "Oh, yeah?" I asked. "YOU try having people call you a slut right and left! YOU try having your own friends not believing a word you say!"
"Laurie...It can't be all that bad."
"Yes it can! My life's been a living nightmare in the day, and I then I have real ones at night! I miss my mom, and my friends, I wish to dear God that I could talk to them for even a minute...heck! I even miss that parasite of a kid Nathan! I can't take it!"
He was quiet for a minute. "I wasn't planning on doing this, but...It looks like you need it. Daine was already planning on it, and I wasn't but..."
"What?" I asked.
"Tomorrow most of the squires and knights are going to a fief up north. They've been having some problems with raiders and immortals. I think we should go. I'll talk to the king about it tonight."
"That sounds good," I said in the weak way someone talks before they cry, and I sat down on my bed, and did just that. Numair put his arm around my shoulder and said, "It's alright, it's alright," which only made me cry more. That had been just what my dad said, the night before he died.
Unheard by either of us, the door opened, and Kel, Neal, Faleron, Roald, Seaver, Merric, and Cleon walked in.
"Laurie?" Kel asked. I stood up abruptly, and Numair stood up also. "What's wrong?"
"Whad'dya think?" I told her tartly, wiping tears from my eyes.
"What?" Merric asked.
"Gee, there are rumors about me all over, I wanna go home, and my life's a mess. Everythings juuust dandy!"
"I think I'll go talk to the king now," Numair said, and left.
"So you're mad about us not believing you?" Neal asked.
"Could you guys get any denser? I'm mad about you not God-damn believing me, I'm mad about the God-damn rumors, I'm mad about being God-damn stuck here, and I'm mad about the God-damn nightmares!"
"Laurie...is it that time of the month or something?" Merric asked. I just glared at him.
"All right...." Kel said. "Laurie, I want you to tell me everything, and if any of YOU--" she looked at the squires-- "say anything, I won't help you with your asignments for a month."
So I told her everything that happened in the last three weeks, leaving out the nightmare about the three people, and she just listened. Didn't interrupt, didn't ask questions. She just listened.
When I finished, she said, "All right, now, Neal, Cleon, Seaver, Merric, Faleron, Roald, could you leave?" After they were gone, she said, "You missed dinner, like you usually do, so why don't you take a bath and wash your hair, and I'll get something to eat?" When I argued I wasn't hungry, she shrugged and said, "All right."
When I came out, Daine was there, and so was a very large tray of food. "You, Laurie," Daine said, "are going to eat. I don't care if I have to force your jaws open, but you're going to eat!" So I ate, while Kel told Daine what I had told her. After I finished, we turned on the radio, and they helped me pack for the trip. We laughed our heads off when I tried to do a BSB impression when "Larger than Life" was playing. Then Kel left to pack, but Daine got a blanket and slept on the floor of my room. She told me to wake her up if I had a nightmare. But I didn't. I fell into a deep sleep, and thanked God I had friends like these.
Author's Note: Hola! There's a nice five-pager for ya! Maybe it'll make up for the fact that I haven't posted in what, three weeks? Anyway, for the plot, I was planning to have the rumors be just a little thing and have Laurie back to her peppy self, but it sorta fit the story better to have it be a big thing. It was Evly's idea. Oh, well. I wrote it out so it still belongs to me! I told you it wouldn't be all humor, so NO COMPLAINING!!! Later!