-note- this chapter began when I just had a random thought about nuns last week. Now don't ask me how it got to what this chapter is about, but all I'll say is that my mind runs off in tangents when I don't pay attention to it… so this is where I say: my, my, darling, aren't we feeling quite ducky to've 'ad a couple reviews? Then just forget about it and keep on randomly typing. So, now it is time to carry on. There will be an open story quiz at the end of the chapter and a couple polls, so make sure you're good at paying attention! Enjoy!
-note- (READ THIS BLOODY MUFFINS!) There was some confusion as to the Achilles character in the last chapter, and, after conversing with my colleagues (ie Vesta and Rayne) I realized that I had not been clear enough to who he was. To get a clear picture, watch the episode: Sisters. In the scene where they are at the party in the abandoned warehouse, raven says "this party is pointless," when a dark boy comes up behind her and says, "everything's pointless. Wanna talk about it?" This boy is Achilles, or at least the model for Achilles, as they do not really show him talking ever in the series. So now are you happy that you know?
disclaimer- I know that I already said that I was only doing the disclaimer that once, but I must let everyone know that I do not own Goosentaffen or Katie's language (the same thing, actually). I am saying right now, and forever more, IT FLIPPIN BELONGS TO KATIE! So if you wish to use this word, give credit to Katie! Good! I don't own it! And also I do not own Truth or Dare, and I do not own Barbie or GIJoe, and I think that's it.
Chapter Five (part one)
As the girl sat at her normal table this Wednesday night she browsed the fanfiction. She had decided to do all of her writing ahead of time this week, because of her early inspiration, and had only to upload the next chapter for her work tonight. Strangely she seemed to be back to her old routine though - no friends sitting at the table, waiting for their turn to read aloud their poetry, none to help her write the next chapter, and no crazy psyche attacks. She just kept reading come good or come bad couplings or writing; giggling and groaning and drinking her water.
Tonight she was especially dark. Over top of her pale yellow tee-shirt she wore a large, black hoodie and her hair was down. She wore more make-up than she normally would as well. It seemed that less people than normal were giving her weird stares at her strange behaviour tonight as well.
When John came to collect her empty bottles and give her a new one, he commented on her attire.
"You seem especially… dark… tonight."
Looking up at the boy her eyes glistened as if she were about to cry. John became suddenly very nervous.
"You see, I'm mourning."
Relief flooded through John as he realized this wasn't just something stupid Winter was overreacting about. But then, he was, as the saying goes, "counting his chickens before they hatched," for Winter was not quite
as normal as he would think.
"Oh-I'm so sorry," he said, trying to think of something comforting to say, "What happened?"
Winter sniffed wistfully, and looked at him. "Well, you see, it's a long story. But," she paused for a second and regained her composure, "At fanfiction dot net, they've always been such a good site to me… And up until recently everything was normal. And now… oh I just can't say it! It's too dreadful!"
John still seemed a bit awkward as he put his hand on her shoulder to try and comfort her. "Yes?"
"Well… They used to use the movie system to rate their stories but now… My story's rated K plus!"
At this she broke out into a fit of sobs, and John inched away with a comical sweatdrop falling down the side of his head. But before he could get away, he could distinguish one sentence from her heap.
"(hic)John - can you (hic) get me another water?"
The afternoon came more quickly than Rayne and Winter would have liked it to. Before they realized it the final bell was ringing its dreaded toll and the two of them were still unpacking Rayne's belongings into her new dorm.
"Why couldn't Anna have just given us super powers or something?" Winter was asking her redheaded companion, "I mean, the Titans have them in the real world, why can't we have them here?"
Rayne nodded her head, looking completely serious and thoughtful, with an almost stoned expression on her face. "Yeah."
After a moment of just staring at each other with the expression that Rayne was carting still plastered on her face, the two just exploded into bouts of laughter.
"But really," Winter went on to say, "If we don't get this done soon we'll miss all the action!"
With a release of a grunt, Rayne retorted, "Or lack-thereof."
Winter rolled her blue eyes and threw the tee-shirt she was folding into the drawer of Rayne's new wardrobe before closing its doors and turning around. "Come on." She stepped around a now almost empty suitcase in front of her and made her way to the door. Rayne's roommate had not shown up yet so they had the room to themselves. "We'll finish this later, then."
The room they were headed to was not in the same building as Rayne's, but the walk was still not long; all of the dormitories on the Harrisfield campus were grouped together.
Even before the two opened the door to Victor and Dick's dorm room (the two of them boarded together) Rayne and Winter could hear the hoots, hollers, and amplified background music and sound effects from behind it. They opened it quietly and poked their heads in to see what was going on inside without drawing attention to themselves.
Dick and Victor had scored quite a room for themselves. It had originally been meant for four people, so it was made complete with two separate bedding spaces (both for two people each) and a common room. This was either for lack of better housing arrangements or a little extra green on their part, but since I suppose that bit of detail is not important to my lack of plot so I will not mention it again. Inside the common room was a large grey half-circle couch and in front of it sat a large (probably plasma screened) television hooked up with gaming consoles, video and DVD stuff and many other additions namable by probably only Victor, who was a genius when it came to anything electrical related.
On that couch was seated all four of the boys; Vic and Gar battling out seemingly nothing important in a racing game, and Dick and Speedy subtly fighting for Kori's attention. The redhead who was seated in between them was animatedly speaking of her home, and the boys would seem excited about what she seemed to say.
Raven sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the two video-gaming boys. Her eyes were glued in front of her to the large television with race cars moving at breakneck speeds, but they were not watching. Her eyes seemed bored and her expression proved to be dazed, as if she were only there in body; her mind far off in the land of imagination. Beside her sat Betty, who also had her legs crossed, but unlike Raven, she did not even pretend to be interested in the game. Instead she held an open notebook on her lap and was furiously doing her Geography homework.
Vesta loudly cheered for her green friend from her seat beside him, a soda in her hand, even though his winning streak was completely nonexistent and Victor was kicking his virtual racing bum. Her eyes turned toward the slightly open door but almost immediately looked away as if nothing was there and she did not want anyone to know that she had done something stupid.
Winter turned to her companion and put her finger to her lips, signaling quiet and they both, as if planned, dropped to their hands and knees. After sneaking in and shutting the door behind them as quietly as possible, they crawled across the blue carpeted floor as stealthily as possible. The blonde and red haired girl had to scold herself many times as they went not to begin to hum the James Bond theme song, and the two of them stopped when they were behind the center of the half moon couch.
"Okay," Rayne whispered, "What's the plan?"
Winter grinned a goofy grin and was silent for a moment. And then was silent for another. This loop of events was broken when she whispered back, "We jump out really fast and yell "hi" in Katie language."
Katie language is not a set language. To be a language something must have set rules for grammar and at least enough words to have an intelligent conversation. Katie's language has neither, and most people don't even know all of the few words in her language. So it was only natural that Rayne didn't either.
"Which one?" Rayne said, still quietly.
Winter leaned over and whispered her response of the word directly into Rayne's ear, and they both exchanged thumbs up signs to say that they were good.
"On three," Rayne said, as she crouched in a ready stance, "One," Winter crouched as well, down low on the balls of her feet. It was taking every ounce of self control she had to control the laughter bubbling inside of her. "Two-"
The count was interrupted as a grinning face reached over the back of the couch. Dirty-blonde hair framed the face that was almost immediately identified as Vesta's.
All of the work that Winter had put into holding in her laughter was wasted. Without even a word from anyone she burst out laughing. Before even a moment had passed Rayne and Vesta had joined in with her and they just sat there, laughing for no apparent reason.
To the others in the room, Vesta's antics would prove to appear adequately strange. She was leaning over the edge of a couch, and laughing at absolutely nothing with what sounded like many voices. Vesta was known to be loud sometimes but not quite this loud.
Large beads of sweat appeared on each an every other head in the room as they turned toward Vesta. Dick spoke first.
"Um, Vesta?" When the question was spoken all laughter came to a sudden halt and the dirty blonde haired girl sat back down, face looking contentedly at the television screen as if nothing had happened.
"Yes?" she replied in a light and fluffy tone as if he had not just asked her a question in a tone that implied a lack of sanity on her part.
Two figures jumping up from behind the couch at that very moment interrupted the uncomfortable conversation between Dick and Vesta and the silence from the others watching. Vic and Gar's video game was still running, and it seemed like both of them would be getting a low score this round. As they jumped up they yelled "Goosentaffen!" before they could be identified as Rayne and Winter. Their sudden appearance brought a high pitched screech from the throat of Gar and a gasp from Victor and Kori, but Raven simply rolled her eyes, Betty shrugged and returned to her homework, and Dick and Speedy sat stock still, watching the scene.
"Let me guess," Raven asked first, "German?"
Vesta intervened by holding up her last two fingers. The gesture would seem as if she were trying to proper by holding up her pinkie with the exception that she also held up her ring finger as well. "Goosentaffen!" she said as if it just explained everything, "It's Katie language."
The following conversations and/or actions are just boring "how are you doing," "what are you playing" "blah" conversations so I do not believe I feel obliged to write them down, type them up, or make you read such hideous material. So I will just skip to about ten minutes later, at which point Rayne has made her way to sit next to Kori, Dick, and Speedy, and Winter has now sat herself down with the little group in front of the television except on the floor with Raven and Betty.
"I used to play Barbies!" Winter said, laughing, "We never had enough guy Barbies, though, so we'd always use, like, one of my brother's GIJoes or action figures."
Raven shook her head with a slightly bemused smile on her face. The three of them, Winter, Betty, and herself, had long since abandoned watching Garfield and Victor racing their virtual cars against each other on the television and were now talking about the most random thing - activities they performed when they were wee lasses. "I never enjoyed them," she said apathetically, her nearly violet hair falling into her face, "Everything about them is fake and they are out of proportion."
Betty shrugged at Raven's half-hearted addition. "When I turned nine I used mine as wiring for some device I'd made. Their insides had metal so it sent the electricity to where I wanted it to go and their outsides are made of rubber so it didn't catch anything on fire."
"Does everything you do have to do with electricity?" Winter asked.
"No, it's just a big hobby," Betty was grinning when she said this, "That I use with everything."
Winter grinned back before looking up at the ceiling in a thoughtful manner. "I gave most of mine makeovers. Now I have Goth Barbie, skater Barbie, ghetto Barbie, all under my bed."
Raven raised an eyebrow to this last comment. "How'd you manage that?"
Eyes going wide with a sort of reminiscing goofy happy expression on her face, Winter replied, "I sewed them all new clothes and tattooed makeup on their faces with paint. It was fun."
After a moment of still staring happily Winter began to laugh again. You will find that this girl has a bad habit of laughing at completely random moments, some being appropriate and some inopportune. This was just a random moment with no good or bad about it.
Vesta released herself from her perch beside Gar on the couch and moved onto the floor with the other girls. It seemed that everyone was just having a normal day and the girl was getting bored, so she decided to try and find something more interesting to do.
"So Rae," Vesta said as Winter began to quiet herself down, now laying on her back, "How'd Gar get you to come?"
Sometimes Raven can get angry, other times she just blows things off. Sometimes, like this, she just becomes slightly irritated. Her eyes narrowed into smaller slits and any traces of smiling that had graced her lips before could no longer be found.
Before any words could be spoken and probably so that no fights could break out, Betty intervened. "You know what else I used to play?" she was trying to move the attention of Vesta and Raven towards her. "Truth or Dare."
Winter sat up at the sound. "How did you play?"
The dark girl looked at her a bit strangely and replied, "Uh, by asking truth or dare and then either making them do something in dare or making them tell you something in truth?"
"BLOODY HELL!" Winter's outburst caught a couple people's attention outside of their 'group' for a moment, but she was not interesting for long as they all turned back to whatever it was that they were doing. "You never played it the good way?"
Betty scratched the back of her neck and Vesta and Raven, seemingly forgetting their little clash, watched her, "I didn't know there was one."
Eyes big as saucers, Winter stood up suddenly. Vesta feared for her life. Betty feared for Winter's sanity. Victor feared for his score.
"Hey!" he complained loudly, "Sit down! I'm gonna beat Gar!"
Winter turned to the dark skinned, very buff boy sitting on the couch and said, slightly as if she were insane, "No…"
Rayne spoke up, "Um… Winter, what are you doing?"
"We're going to play a game."
Vic was still annoyed at her standing in front of the screen. "But we're already playing a game!"
"Oh, shut up," Betty said to him, still worrying that if she didn't let Winter speak that the girl would go crazy - literally. "Just let 'er talk."
Neither Vic nor Gar were happy about it, but they pressed the "start" buttons on their controllers to pause the game and looked anxiously at the blonde and red haired girl, who's face was more relaxed now and she seemed more like a commercial person than a crazy woman.
"Well, I've just been informed that you guys haven't played the real version of truth or dare." The faces on everyone in the room were blank, "So I am going to teach you how."
"No thank you," was Raven's immediate response as she pulled a book out of her bag and began to read it.
"Oh come on, Rae," Gar whined and came inched down onto the ground so he was sitting beside the pale girl and said quietly behind his hand so only she would hear, "If we all have to play you do too."
Raven rolled her eyes and closed the book once again. She crossed her arms and closed her eyes, but everyone took this as her consent.
"So how the game goes is, you ask the person 'truth, dare, double dare, promise to repeat, asparatuckle, fire house, bottle." No one interrupted her, though a few faces looked a little bit confused, and she continued, "For truth and dare it is the normal rules. You get asked a question in truth and you get dared in dare. If you don't want to do the truth or dare then the person who picked you gets to choose another category and you have to do what you have to do in that category.
"Double dare's the same as dare except anything goes. You can be dared to do absolutely anything without hurting someone or anything too extreme, and you guys pro'ly know what I mean. If you don't do the double dare then the person who picked you can only make you do asparatuckle or bottle.
"In promise to repeat you have to say exactly what the person tells you to say to whoever they tell you to say it to. You can't back down from it. In asparatuckle-"
Winter's speech was interrupted by Raven raising her hand and speaking, "What is the choice if we don't want to play?"
"There isn't one, love. Now where was I? … Asparatuckle means that you have to eat whatever concoction that the rest of the people make for you, and by the way the rest of them you can't back down from.
"In fire house you get a choice of two scenarios, and you have to act out one of them. It's sort of like having two dares and being able to choose from them but you have to act them out as if it were real life and not a dare. And lastly, in bottle, it's just like spin the bottle. If you're a girl then all the boys sit in a circle and you close your eyes while they move around and you spin the bottle, and vice versa. Any questions?"
Kori asked the first question. "So, if I would like to become an actress I pick dare, and if I -"
Betty intervened. "Maybe you should have printed a cheat sheet with all the rules on it."
"We'll just remind you if you get confused," Winter shrugged, "You guys ready to play?"
Exchanges of looks throughout the room and no objections proved to the girl that everyone was ready.
"Okay then," she scanned them all then her eyes landed on someone, "Speedy. Truth, dare, double dare, promise to repeat, asparatuckle, fire house, bottle."
Being the first picked did not seem to faze the boy, but it was apparent that he did not catch everything about all of the categories besides just truth or dare, so he went with something easy. "Truth." He said as he shuffled his position beside Kori.
"Okay, now everyone besides Speedy come over here and we'll come up with something good." Kori and Dick reluctantly made their way over to the other teens and they immediately struck up a quiet conversation. Within moments Winter looked up at Speedy and told him his Truth.
"What is your real name?"
Speedy looked incredibly shocked and he did not seem to be able to speak for a moment. "Uh-uh-um…"
"Yes?" Winter asked, seemingly amused.
"Pass."
A joyous grin spread across Winter's face and she turned to Gar. "Do you have access to an overly large jar of pickles?"
Strangely, Gar did not seem as if this was an odd question. "I could if I tried hard enough. Why?"
"Because if someone refuses to do a truth, the person who'd picked them gets to choose a different category for them to be under. And I think that asparatuckle is as good as any, don't you think?"
TO BE CONTINUED
Gubba-Gubba: thank you thank you thank you v. much for the giant hamster (lol!) thank you for reading my story it is always great to get reviewers!
Rose: Achilles is "everything's pointless dude." For more information scroll up to the top of the story and read my second note. Thanks for the review!
Tidus'luvr: I heard about the chuck e cheese thing from Katie. Oo this is going to be a fun chapter to write! Email me if you have any more ideas, please!
Fevered Dreams Cannot Login: (I'm guessing that when you said "fevered dreams cannot login" you did not mean for that to be your whole screen name but I'm strange like that) thank you for reading my story! I hope you read it in the future!
Serve the Abbalah: As long as you are not a rob/rae fan I think I can be your friend. Lol. Thanks for the review!
-note- ummm… I cannot guarantee that the next chapter will be on time, but I will do my best; I do have a study hall that day but I also will be spending all of next week's waking hours either in school or sleeping (with an occasional youth group floating around in there) because of the upcoming play; guys and dolls, that our high school drama club is putting on… I have to help with the set! So I'll PROBABLY update on April 7. See you (hopefully) then! And thank you, Vesta, for giving me the pickles asparatuckle!
(QUESTIONS TO ANSWER IN YOUR REVIEW) ((ANSWER THEM!))
1. What was the first thing I thinking about when I got lost in a tangent and got the idea for this chapter?
2. What religion/faith do you believe most strongly in/participate in?
3. In the prologue of this story, someone is reading a poem at the time that Winter decides what she's going to do for her fanfiction. What is this poem about?
4. What is your favourite coupling? What coupling do you want to see more of in future chapters?
5. Which of the following episodes is 'everything's pointless' dude (also dubbed by me: Achilles) not present in:
A. Revolution
B. Can I keep him?
C. Episode 257-325
Sneaky Peaky: "Chapter Five (part two)"
Based on a slightly different point of view, it begins with Speedy, Dick, Kori, and Rayne and their conversation. Then how goes the wonders of truth or dare? I hear that it will be good from very reliable sources. I think you'll like it too.