Lightning-Dono: Here's the next chapter. And for all of you that celebrate Christmas (like me!), Merry Christmas! :D
Answers to the Reviews
Forest – Thanks for the compliment! Yes, poor Nami...I feel her pain and sorrow. I'm married to Celia though. The one girl with the limited dialogue.
Guest – Thank you! Hope you enjoy this chapter, also!
Krazie4Christ – Jack is a weirdo. o.o Okay, no, he's not, but he's just...Well, I guess he had multiple interests. He didn't give her the feather though. He just showed her it.
Kirjava Deamon – Thanks! I read your fanfics and they're good. o.o Don't really know what you mean because they were in-character! Oh...I'll fix that sometime. xD;
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That was my past. My present was what seemed to be an impression of what could be better through a window frosted over with ice. Everything in my life was sugarcoated – love no matter how fake, the people around me, and how I tried to think of myself. I eagerly longed for the truth to come and tell me that life isn't really as great as others make it out to be. Or perhaps I was all too miserable to understand.
I was now in a new, prosperous city one hundred miles away from Forget-Me-Not Valley. I sorely hoped that it was far enough away for me to just rid myself of the feelings I had kept deep inside for so long. Maybe I would find a new man, a man who would stay by my side instead of betray me. Ever since I had arrived at Forget-Me-Not Valley, I felt like I had been running a constant race between my anguished feelings and other's pressure. They told me I had potential to be someone better, a person who didn't mope all day and hang around making nothing of herself.
But it had been five years now, just running and escaping from the people who had pretended to care for me. Now I was about to make my way back to the past.
I was boarding a legendary ferry that had been rumored to play host many of the prosperous mayor's honeymoons after divorcing and marrying at a rapid rate. It was to take me to a familiar spot called Po-Po Valley, which was a place that Murrey back at Forget-Me-Not Valley claimed his family lived. However, after checking all address lists, I have failed time and time again to find a family that even sounded like his. In a sense, I felt sorry for the poor young man. All he wanted to do was return to his family, stealthily creeping along and robbing people of their possessions to survive until he could. Murrey meant no harm, yet others inflicted harm upon him, stationing vicious animals at their doors to chase away someone who wouldn't steal if only you would generously give him the gold to live by. At times I would sneak him a few pieces of gold, to not seem as shallow as I acted. He would grunt, and thank me with such a heart-warming look that made me feel like such a privileged, rewarded person. Often, I would linger nearby, just to see if anyone had a heart like mine. No one bothered to cast an eye upon him as he lay their helplessly, his small tin can filled with an airy substance, my given gold at the bottom – barely making the mark. It just goes to show how awful the people really were while they acted as nice as one could be. Either that, or they were just blind, which I supposed would be a valid answer.
All in all, I felt like Murrey. Ignored and ridiculed.
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Po-Po Valley was as hot as ever. The fresh smell of cow dung hit my nostrils like missiles aimed toward the senses. The hardened blue eyes searched the crowd for any familiar faces, but then I remembered that I wasn't even there yet. Forget-Me-Not Valley was miles away and I would have to spend another stinking day on a ferry that carried sweaty, bored and restless people.
As vigorous as I felt, I half-heartedly hiked up the steep hill that was strewn with upturned dirt from digging expeditions families in the valley often took to try and discover something. However, the hill remained looking like a prairie dog nest while the only thing that they had ever uncovered was the home of a swarm of very upset ants. I had only stayed a few days in that horrendous, poorly maintained town previously, yet I knew so much. Sometimes it paid to be silent and hear with your ears and not your mouth. I lived by the one saying I had made up. "Your mouth can get you into more trouble than your ears." My life had been wrecked because of that hole that gaped in my face whenever I opened it on rare occasions to reply to pestering people or to eat. If I hadn't ever confessed my undying flame of growing passion for Jack, maybe I wouldn't be hurt at all. He'd never know and I'd just feel the anger of not telling him earlier instead of the rejection that I often felt washing over me.
The next ferry was going to Forget-Me-Not Valley in an hour. As I slumped against the solid tree that sprouted boastfully from the hill, a speech was formulating in my mind. Something I could say to Jack to win back his heart and send Celia packing to her plantation next door. As far as brilliance went, I was the top of the list. If I would allow myself to speak out more, people would see me as a prospering psychological expert and not an anti-social redhead whose artistic ability surpassed others but didn't really have anything to say for herself. Therefore, I was pushed aside like Muffy did with the many men that she had killed the trust of back in the city in her days of being a secretary, slaving away at endless piles of paper work. But, unlike Celia, she didn't set her love interests on a taken man. She knew it when she first saw me padding proudly by Jack down the peaceful roads of the valley, arms hooked and often exchanging amused glances. But those days were over when my love had chosen a hard-working girl with no knowledge of the world outside of farming over myself.
Then, I knew exactly what I had to do.
This time, I wouldn't run away from them, the people who didn't bother to consider my feelings. Now I would get back at Jack for making the last five years of my life hell and steal him away from the girl who had seduced him into a lying puddle.