W a r . of . the . R o s e s
Stargirl
. III Rose of Scarlet
Innocent deception hums,
Gently from a scarlet rose,
It stirs up ivy and weeds for thought,
Changing everything she knows.
North and South have flown,
These smiles seem amiss,
A bird's trill song echoes far,
Of a fleeting kiss.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Serenity stood there dumbly for moments, her school briefcase dangling precariously from her slackening fingers. A faint notion inside her stirred her to do something--anything. Students milling around still stared, whispers sprung among them like an ocean as she stepped forward. Her fingers brushed over the cool, soft girdle of crimson petals, deftly moving to tug the thin ribbon loose. The rose fell into her waiting hand and she turned, holding it loosely before her.
Her mind twisted into too many knots for it to possibly think. She had come to school, not knowing what to expect. She felt like an idiot just standing there. Perhaps, though, the one who had given her the rose would come forward? Her eyes grazed over the boys in the crowd.
Who would give her a rose? She really must have been struck dumb. She could not work her mind into any helpful thought process. The past two days had been more humiliating and degrading for her than ever before--how could that warrant some young man's affections? If anything, he would be risking the school's scorning as well…
Her cheeks warmed as she turned on her heels and fled down the hall. Student's piled out of her way to let her through, and she felt numb to their whispers.
Later that hour, Serenity sat curled in a stone nook she had stumbled upon on the school grounds, elevated and shrouded on one side by a wall of ivy. Her arms draped over her bent knees, fingers mindlessly twirling the stem of the elegant red rose. A rose apparently made a season of difference; it changed everything.
This school was a terrible puzzle. The first day she was snubbed by cold shoulders, the second day she was spurned with open disdain, and on the third… She shut her eyes, letting her head fall to the wall to her right, her cheek resting against the rough, cold stone and trapping little damp leaves. She hadn't meant to play hooky for her first class. She had held her head high despite the buzzing confusion in her mind and had hurried to the classroom. When she arrived there, however, she didn't find a haven from the staring crowds in the halls. A few of the students wished her good morning and then, to top it all off, a normally stoic-faced math teacher welcomed her with an enthusiasm that twisted in her gut from the sheer wrongness of it. She had stood in the doorway dumbly for a moment before backing up and fleeing to her current haven.
Her tired eyes squinted open, the crease of blue peeking down at the rose she tapped against her leg. Her fingers played with it more, fearlessly roaming over the thornless stem and then twirling around the velvety girdle of petals. The rose hardly held a great significance to her, so what about such a beautiful but still simple--and common, she thought--gift merited the change of the whole school?
She remembered back home all the times she had witnessed from the sidelines a girl in the hall squealing in delight at finding a rose or other such trinket at her locker to signal the presence of a secret admirer. Serena hated to acknowledge the nut of happiness burning in a small corner of her, pushed away by her confusion and muddled emotions. It was a feeling of pleasure, a soft joy at receiving a rose at her locker like all the other times she had witnessed of happening to others. This rose, however, did not seem to be an ordinary rose under her circumstances.
She closed her eyes, giving way to a weary sigh. A bird's voice trilled somewhere from the damp growth, but not even that could calm the thistles and weeds that had seemed to replace her mind. In all of her mulling, she had not yet considered how much difference a single, innocent red rose could make.
* * *
There was something wrong with this school, Serenity reflected, feeling light-headed. Something seriously wrong. She had pried herself out of her hiding spot to face the rest of the days' classes. Despite the school turning out to be such a thorn, she refused to let this new situation give them reason to expel her on account of skipping classes.
But then, things were always more complicated than she tried to will herself to believe. The whispering aside, both students and teachers alike were undeniably courteous to her. Now, under normal circumstances, it would have been a pleasant surprise, but she found it all quite disconcerting. Her insides bristled. Couldn't they make up their minds how to treat her? Would she arrive the next day to be thrown in another loop with the whims of their attitudes? No, if anything, it made the school all the more twisted in her eyes.
She dearly wanted to be invisible throughout that day--become some plant-form and sink into the courtyards' cold beauty. No one, however, was allowing for that. For the seventh time, she skirted away from a breathless greeter. "All right, Miss Blake?"
Her incredulous eyes screwed into blind, murky depths as she barreled down the corridor. Why did everyone know her name? What happened to her being some sort of insect? It had withered away, an annoying voice answered, the one that actually felt pleased with the change. 'Why not accept it as a blessing?' it told her, and she bristled at it.
On several occasions, she just barely conquered the impulse to throw the rose--that was forever dangling from her fingertips--away. She was convinced that the students were staring at it just as much as at her. In some desperate vein, she felt that if she lost it, this new complication would disappear as if by magic.
All she knew was that she wanted this day to be over. She wanted to be back in the cramped but homely town-house, sipping rasberry tea with her mum like they had done the first week they had arrived--before Irene started work and Serenity attended her first day at Whittenfield Academy… a day she was increasingly beginning to regret. Whoever gave her this flower, she vowed, would regret it.
* * *
The swords' soprano clings and clangs rang over the fencers at the end of the school day. Serenity walked through the ocean of duels by white-clad students, having only just arrived. With an artful purpose, she had made sure she was late for class. Following lunch, she had decided to prod at this new situation--test it, so to say. The way to adapt to any situation did, after all, start with knowing exactly what that situation was. She wasn't yet altogether sure of the reasoning and the details of that said situation, but was finding her results a bit intriguing if nothing else.
She thought she would higher the stakes by arriving a good fifteen-minutes late. It was, she admitted to herself warily, wondering if she was pushing it to far, a dangerous idea to challenge one of the most unfair and cruel teachers she had ever known--but she had decided to take the risk. It was all for the good of her sanity.
So, squaring her shoulders, Serenity marched across the floor towards where the fencing teacher was savagely bringing a supposedly-inept fencer to tears. Her pulse drummed, and it took her full concentration to purse her lips tightly together, ordering herself that under no circumstances was she to attempt excuses when she faced him. Her mouth was feeling particularly traitorous, tongue swelling with the need to plead forgiveness. She reacted to this split-intents in her body by clamping her teeth over her tongue--hard.
Though she could do nothing for the ashen pallor she was sure her face had acquired, she screwed up her lapis-blue eyes and hardened her expression. She needed to look… impertinent. Please no, a tiny voice in the bottom of her stomach cried, quivering at the thought and voting to forget her stupid challenge. She could feign being ill! She surely looked it. There was a happy flutter in her blood at the genius way out, but she stamped out the lit joy with an aggravated, mental scream. She was doing this!
Heart thumping, she approached the fencing teacher, clamping her heels together and waiting for him to finish with a gangly fencer with a whiny, fearful voice. Serenity felt sorry for him, but felt that he had an advantage that she didn't--a fencing mask. Perhaps she should have changed into her fencing attire first? But it would have been in vain, for she needed him to see his face. The whole purpose was how he reacted to her, Serenity Blake, and not some anonymous late-comer hiding behind a mask.
There was really nothing to be afraid of, she tried to console herself. For all intents and purposes, this was an experiment--meaning, she should be well emotionally barred from anything this man could dish out to her. How could anything he say hurt her when she was objectively analyzing it? Still, she felt whooly-headed when he finally noticed her presence and turned to her. Her back stiffened, the annoying tiny voices ringing wildly that she could still play sick and pray for mercy.
She opened her mouth to speak--but what she was about to say, not even she would know, for the teacher, who was fixing her penetratingly with alight gray, silver-specked eyes, face muscles taught, barked a flat, "Your late."
Serenity swallowed, any words that were previously leaping around her tongue sinking to the bottom of her stomach as she waited bracingly for the rest.
But the rest never came.
To her utter amazement, the dark-tanned, cruelly craiged face gave a curt nod at her, hands clasping behind his back. "Go change then and I'll pair you. Your partner will clue you in."
Serenity stared at him with a bland expression, mouth quite flapped open. She felt no inner motivation in her to snap out of this numbed state let alone retort. It felt like a raging sea inside her had suddenly changed into an airy, sandy desert. Acknowledging this later, and knowing she she might have gaped at her fencing teacher for eternity, she was very grateful when his baritone voice snapped, with an impatient edge that acquired back some of its normal tone, "Now, Miss Blake."
Scrambling to life, she nodded, still dazed, and hurried to the empty lockers. She dropped down onto one of the benches, not moving yet to change into her fencing uniform, eyes sightlessly staring in front of her.
That… was unexpected.
When she was able to clear her mind enough, she started to slowly strip and don the white cotton breeches, jacket, and socks with automatic movements, all the while thinking furiously. It was true that all of her tentative challenges to her previous teachers had shown unbelievably patient reactions, but well, she thought they could have just been pushovers. But the fencing teacher? She felt a jolt of incredulous inner laughter. Why, him being courteous and forgiving to her was as if the vice president herself was treating her nicely! As soon as she thought that, her eyes looked up to meet her reflection in the mirror, wide as forget-me-nots, a trickle of numbness returning. Really, right then she wasn't all too sure anymore that she could count on the Vice President to still be such a witch.
She dropped her gaze with a healing release of breath when she stopped short, eyes falling on the red rose she had dropped unknowingly on the floor. With a jolt, she realized she had completely forgotten its existence--which was something since it seemed to be the cause of everything and thus ingrained into the core of her mind. She had also had completely forgotten to observe whether her teacher noticed the rose. She had been too rung up inside over her split desires and then too bewildered to notice anything.
Reaching down, she picked up the deceptively innocent flower, twirling its leafy stem once with her fingers, and stared hard at it. Was it because of the rose, like it was it seemed to be for all the others? But, she reminded herself, he hadn't been too rude to her the day before when Seiya Whittenfield--she balked.
Ice coursed through her bloodstream in a torrent of revelation. She raced over yesterday's events. In flashes, she saw three terrors of girls gone ashen-faced and stuttering at the student president's arrival, saw the teacher's abrupt change when Seiya stepped forward--the class' numb stares following her to her seat, and then of the fencing teacher's own reaction when Seiya had declared that he was pairing with her.
Had she really been such an idiot? With all of her mullings and contemplations, could she really be that thick-headed? She recalled one of her own incredulous thoughts after the rose's arrival. What secret admire would have risked giving her a rose? Unless, she thought with biting clarity, it wasn't secret--and wasn't a risk.
With a willful burst, she shoved on her gloves, grabbed her mask and joined the room of duelers, trying to stop her mind from spinning the way that it was. She was too distracted to think to ask the fencing teacher, when he approached her with her sword, to further test this newfound power and request to be partner with Amy, numbly accepting being paired with the boy who she had seen scolded earlier. She wasn't distracted enough, however, to not take notice the absence of a certain student president.
* * *
"Sweetie, are you sure you're all right?" Irene asked her daughter for not the first time that afternoon with a worried frown. "Really, Lita and I can make due without you. Why don't you go on home?"
Serenity breathed deeply, swiping clean the one of the many circular tables with more vigor and focus than needed. Her vision blurred on the decorative glass vase and yellow carnation. "I'm fine, Mum," she said, a bit exasperated at having to say the words all the time when she was really not certain whether she was fine. She absolutely refused, she thought with furious determination, to bail out on her mum when she was short on help at the small downtown café.
She had decided to stop by immediately after school, desperate for an environment that would calm her. Upon finding out that both Mum's joint-owner as well as one of the young waitresses, Molly, had been unable to come in that day, she discarded her jacket, rolled up her blouse sleeves, and grabbed a toffee-colored apron, insisting upon staying. Her mother looked tired, dark hair coming undone from its bun, strained lines creasing her attractive face, and hazel eyes weary.
And her mum was worrying about her, Serena thought. But the concern touched her even as she shrugged it off on several occasions for the past few hours. Really, her mum had been coming home late and hadn't had the chance to assess Serena's change in attitude. Was it any wonder why the woman was worried? The last thing she had known was Serenity a happily, excited girl over her first day at a prestigious school.
At her mum's inquiries, she had told her that school was great in a forced happy voice. Her mother had enough problems; she did not need to know about Serenity 's own. Serenity was able to geniunely tell her mum, though, about Amy Jameson and even managed to crack a few jokes at some of her stuffy professors. And despite her mum feeling bad about Serenity helping when Serena seemed--in her view--to be coming down with something, Serenity thought inwardly that it wasn't as if she wasn't getting anything out of helping.
Being near her mum, surrounded by small tables and chintz chairs, light spreading in through the glass front where people passed by, and the intoxicating smells of hot cinnamon buns, vanilla, and coffee was very calming. She had been too bewildered and numb during the day. Sinking herself into the café's atmosphere was heaven. It was also a very high plus that it gave her something to take her mind off of besides homework--which would only serve to make her think of school and thus drive her utterly mad.
It was the times when the café was slow and her mind turned to more unpleasant matters that prompted her mother to ask her how she was feeling. The bells dangling on the front door jingled now and Serena paused, silently sending her thanks heaven-ward for the distraction before turning to the person. She had not anticipated how great of a distraction it would be.
Ocean blue eyes under a shroud of ebony hair locked with hers, dawning recognition registering in the depths before the young man's handsome lips quirked in a smile. Above the sudden silence ringing in her heart, his languid voice drawled, "Well… fancy meeting you here."
Serena blinked at him, then blinked some more. Being dazed to a stunned and bewildered condition seemed to be an annoying new habit of hers, she thought dimly in her mind, still trying to move or do something. It was him--the one who found her at the other school's campus. Her pulse was fluttering wildly. Why was it doing that? She thought desperately, attempting to make her lips to form non-existent words. She had made a fool of herself in front of him!
No, a sudden irate voice snapped at her. She was making a fool of herself now. That, like magic words, made her mouth clam shut and her head clear. "Hello," she greeted, her voice more curt than she had intended. Realizing this, it softened considerably. She grasped at a polite smile and waved at a seat. "Can I get you something?"
He raised an eyebrow. Well what, she thought indignantly, had he expected her to say? When he still made no move to sit down, she comprehended a pointed look at her appearance and then at the café and she flushed violently. She was all too aware of her blonde hair swept untidily back--more than likely looking worse than her mum's, her rumpled blouse with sleeves rolled up, and an
all-telling apron. Of course, she was realizing, coming from a school similar to Whittenfield, he had to be in the upper class--and if that wasn't a clue, than his blatant reaction to finding her working there was. Serenity suddenly straightened, chin lifting haughtily. Well, she didn't care a wit if he knew she was poor! Her voice holding an edge that was none-too professional, she said, "Sir."
It seemed to snap him out of it, but she could swear there was still amusement in those blue eyes--and, he was still not SITTING DOWN, she thought in mounting irritation. Then, he seemed to decide that she needed to be thrown for another loop that day--which she had far too many of by any person's standards. "Join me," he said, nodding to the table she had silently been begging for him to just sit down at.
"I'm working," she said promptly, and regretted it instantly for the sardonic look he gave at the clear lack of customers besides himself. "All right," she said through gritted teeth and sat down at the table, folding her arms protectively over her chest and trying not to meet his cocky eyes as he slid into the seat opposite. She would forget ever feeling bad for yelling at him the other day. He deserved every bit of it!
"What's your name?"
"Serenity," she replied shortly, still not meeting his eyes and a bit taken back that they hadn't even known each other's names. It seemed to her that if you hated someone, then you knew their name.
"Serenity," he echoed, and the way he tested the sound of it, rolling from a rich, slightly husky voice brought her to unwillingly glance at him. His expression was oddly contemplating for taking in a name.
Then, realizing that he was seeing her watch him, she sharply turned her head (which, by the way, hadn't seemed to want to budge from its stare), and asked, in a strained voice, "Yours?" more to cover her blubber than from any desire to know his name.
"Darien," he answered, and before the name could really sink in, his voice drawled in mocking tones, "Serenity then, how about a cappuccino?"
Her head turned so fast that it responded with an angry kink, but she ignored it, eyes blazing as she met his laughing gaze. Such an innocent question, upon his lips, brought her glowering in her seat. How dare he! She thought furiously. He was playing with her! After going through all that trouble to get her to sit down now he wanted her to play waitress!
She sat there for a moment, teetering between her professional duty to the café or her pride. Really, what much of a loss could his business be? But then, in greater frustration she realized, while staring at his handsome but thoroughly arrogant face and challenging eyes that he was testing her. So, she stood abruptly, refusing to look at him once again, and marched over behind the counter. She made the cappuccino in such blind fury that she ended up cursing as the scalding coffee spilled across her hand. Grinding her teeth, she concentrated on adding the sweet vanilla powder and coat of cream.
When she returned to set it before the human-looking creature, she remained defiantly standing even when he asked in his damned smooth voice, "Well--aren't you going to sit?" Ignore him, she chanted to herself. She very much fancied just staring out the window to the cobblestone street until he left. It was really a lost case knowing he was staring at her, though, feeling the heat rise from her neck to her face. So, seeing no other choice, she sat back down. Right then, she would have done anything for Raye Whittenfield's ability to be cool and aloof.
Across from her, apparently satisfied with her choice to sit, Darien took a mockingly luxurious sip of his cappuccino. His next words sent her blood curdling. "So, you work here?"
She did not trust herself to speak right then, and opted for a scathing glare… in which he laughed at. He had a very nice laugh--rich baritone with boyish mirth. Catching her own thought, she was quite aghast. Oh, why couldn't he just leave? He continued to assess her in that humorous gaze.
"And, you're attending Whittenfield Academy?" he drawled, with a tone that suggested that this was quite unbelievable.
Fire leapt to her eyes. "Yes. I am," she said, voice curt with a razor edge.
A smile--a SMILE--tugged at his lips at this. "I think you misunderstood that."
"Well, I don't," Serenity snapped. "You think Whittenfield Academy is too good for someone like me?" To Serenity's utter disbelief and frustration (what else was new?), he snorted. Ugh! He was so…. so annoyingly--cocky wasn't even a word near loathsome enough to describe him! "I don't find it funny," she gritted out, and for a first, he seemed to genuinely try and calm himself. Rolling her eyes, she demanded "Well?"
Still sorely trying to curve his smile--which, happened to be a very nice smile, not that Serenity cared, of course--he responded, "Well what?" He leaned back in the chair, folding his arms in front of him, his cappuccino, Serenity noted resentfully, forgotten and untouched since his very first sip.
"Have I misunderstood you?" she asked, impatience hardening her tone.
"Yes," he said promptly, voice light and good natured. Ha! Good natured.
"So. What. Was. It?"
He leveled her with amused eyes and said, "I don't think I'll tell you yet."
Serenity opened her mouth. She had taken all she could take! It was absurd. How could she even hold her tongue against him when he deserved so thoroughly to be lashed with every foul curse she could think of? If he wanted to go to a café, well then he would just have to go somewhere else. And all of this was to explode from her lips, when with the most rotten timing in all of history, her mother swept in from the back with Lita, a tall, oaken-haired girl, shadowing behind her--her mother with innocent mirth at seeing Serenity with a friend, and Lita with a wicked grin that Serenity did not like at all.
"Oh Serenity, honey!" Irene said, "Lita and I just finished unpacking the French croissants; I thought we'd close early. And who is this? A friend from school?" Serenity, temporarily distracted by looking outside, quite startled to find the late afternoon had long been replace by the darkening blue haze of evening, looked to her mother, not knowing what to say. She wished dearly she had thought of something fast when Darien pushed back the chair, stood, and shook her mother's hands.
"Darien, Ma'am. I'm from Bainbridge Academy but I met your--" he paused, sending Serena a quizzical glance, "daughter?--the other day."
Serenity rose from her seat warily. Truth be told, all her anger had drained to a tentative worry. It was one thing, after all, for him to see her doing what he must consider menial labor, but another for her mother. She caught his gaze, a silent pleading desperate in hers. Do not say anything to hurt my mum. Don't even crack a single joke. He seemed to pause, lingering his gaze on hers in which--for the very briefest of moments--Serenity thought he might be capable of caring.
In the least, he stood there good naturedly enough as an oblivious Irene chatted, a very naïve and idiotic Lita winked at Serenity, while Serenity mindlessly went to gather her things. In no time, the café was dark and locked, Lita and Irene starting off down the street, and Serenity left lingering awkwardly with Darien. Grudgingly, she said, "Thanks… for not, um, saying anything to my mum."
Darien however--who she noticed how tall he was for the first time--didn't react as if he had heard her at all. He nodded at something in her hands. "What's that?"
Serenity blinked and looked down blankly to the red rose. The fact that she hadn't even thought of it since Darien showed up caught her quite off guard. Really, she had forgotten all about her school woes. For some odd reason, just then, Whittenfield didn't seem like reality. Her fingers tightened over the stem, mindlessly crumpling some of the leaves. She didn't know why, but she absolutely could not bring herself to tell him the truth. And pulse fluttering pathetically, she mumbled, "Just picked it from one of the bushes at school today..."
Why, in heaven's name, was her heart thumping so hard? She fought not to believe that it had something to do with Darien leaning close to her, his warm breath billowing against her ear as he whispered, "It should have been white."
Serenity thought this was a ridiculous thing to say. She could not think of any other explanation than that he must really fancy white roses--but wasn't given too long to do so for, though he had seemed to be pulling away, his head ducked down and warm, soft lips fleetingly touched her own. In that barest, unguarded moment, something leapt in her chest and a feeling akin to disappointment tugged at her that it had left so fast. It was after he had disappeared down the street that she realized how wrong that thought was. The odd leaping in her chest was from surprise, and the disappointment had to be something else entirely.
The numbness ebbing away, fire leapt through her blood. How dare he kiss her like that! After the horrible way he had treated her. It was, she concluded, an appalling end to the most distressful day of her entire life.
______________________________________________
* * * * * * * * Author Notes * * * * * * * * *
Finally chapter three! And our beloved Darien Bainbridge is back!! Aren't you so
happy with me at this moment that you can forgive me for the terribly long wait?? I
apologize that it took so long. I've admitted to being in a bit of a writer's trench for
awhile. My latest story, Lunar Magic, helped me get into the spirit of writing I think, but
it hadn't seemed to help me for my other stories. I got out of the house on Friday though
to go to the beach and there I forced myself to scribble some stuff down for the story
no matter how horrible it was. It still felt like I was trying to walk against a river's
current, but I was proud of myself.
That evening, however, I got inspired for something… and I was up till 3:30 in the
morning writing, believe it or not, the epilogue for this story. ^__^; *grins sheepishly*
Unlike my other stories, knowing pretty definitely how this story was going to end
allowed me to do this, though there is a small gap I'll fill in AFTER I write the rest of
this story. But nonetheless, it feels great having written the epilogue… perhaps
something more concrete to aim for? If this story turns out how I imagine it, you'll
love it. This feels very much like holding a good secret * laughs*
So anyway, Saturday I sat myself down at my computer and tentatively started
typing up the page or two I had written at the beach and praying that when the time
came that there was no longer anything to copy, that I would be able to keep on
writing. I'm still quite surprised that that's what happened because I had tormented
for hours wondering what exactly to do with this chapter. I really hope you all enjoyed
the next installment for War of the Roses! All of your encouragement is greatly appreciated.
Thoughts, comments, suggestions, ideas, mindless babbling always welcome!--Star
PS-1) Does ANYONE have a CLUE why all centering formatting is being lost when I post here at ff.net??? I don't recall it always doing that. PS-2) And also, you might have noticed that I started referring to Serena as Serenity in this… I couldn't argue with inspiration and the words playing in my head were referring to her as Serenity! That's my only plead for that case. Please give your input on this, and I'll either edit the first two chapters to refer to her as only Serenity, or edit this one to keep referring to her as Serena. I leave the decision in your hands… ^_^
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