"So this is what it's like living on a star?" She queried, looking at the child in front of her.
His hair was white, his face was white, even his eyes were white. He was clothed in white silk that had been embroidered with silver thread in intricate patterns. His pants faded from blue to black, dotted with silver sequins to look like the night sky.
The landscape was gorgeous, coated with the soft, feather-like down of snow. A few trees were scattered here and there, with black trunks grained with purple and pure white leaves. The buildings were purple, and everything had an ethereal quality to it. After all, this was where children came from in this galaxy. She was here to see the Prince of Stars.
Some said he was impeccably kind and gentle as a lamb, while others said he was as ferocious as a rabid animal. She happened to think it was the first…after all, she was treated with nothing but kindness.
A girl stepped towards her, her hair pulled back in a deep purple ribbon, her body clothed in a wispy dress. She noticed the girl wasn't wearing shoes. "Oh, Miss… You are so pretty…"
Her heart skipped a beat. "Why thank you, little one. That is very kind of you…"
"Cassie! Come on, it's time for dinner. We're having your favorite tonight."
She sat up, pouting. "I–I can't eat right now! I have to do my homework." That was true– she had a bunch of it piled on her desk.
Her brother laughed behind the closed door. "Alright. Just make sure you don't get any bad grades in those other classes. I don't know what I'd do if boys started living here just to help you with your other subjects, Cass."
She giggled as she heard him trod down the steps. After a moment she lay back down, putting her hands behind her head.
"So tomorrow Peter comes to tutor me…"
She blushed.
"Maybe I can entice him to stay and chat after he's finished tutoring with cake… I hope he isn't allergic to chocolate…"
She sighed happily and went back to her daydream.
–––––––––––––––––––
The next day, Thorne was sitting in Geography, bored off his ass. So, he was intent on pissing Craig off again. Miss Caroline had gone off to her desk to grade papers and left the class studying, giving him the perfect opportunity to cause a scene–paper balls.
Henrietta shot Thorne another look as a paper ball went hurtling towards Craig's head. She leaned over to her Goth friend. "Thorne, I don't think it would be wise to do that…"
Thorne ignored her, snickering as Craig glared at him and crushed the paper ball. If Craig was pissed off at that, he'd be downright murderous when he saw the picture of Cassie all decked out in Goth clothes inside of it. And she was making out with him, too, trying on her own pair of purple shoes.
After a few moments, the class was continuing in quiet study. However, when a loud scream erupted everyone looked up and gasped. Craig was storming over to Thorne's desk, cracking his knuckles. Henrietta put a hand over her mouth as the football player's fist collided with her friend's jaw.
The teacher looked up, shrieking, but Craig didn't stop. After twenty minutes of savagely beating the Goth kid with everyone watching with surprised expressions, Officer Barbrady and Coach Barnaby, the track coach, came into the classroom.
They pried Craig off of Thorne, who nearly resembled a piece of meat in the blender by this point. Henrietta gasped and nearly shouted at Thorne for being stupid as Coach Barnaby helped the boy to the nurse's office.
"Just a moment, class. I'll be right back."
Miss Caroline stepped out and stormed to the Principal's office to encourage a suspension or, at the very least, a detention while the class erupted in heated whispers. Henrietta gathered her things and ditched, making her way to the nurse's office to figure out why Thorne was being so reckless lately.
–––––––––––––––––––
Light was shining in the window when Thorne opened his eyes groggily. The stench of iodine and gauze assaulted his nostrils and, after focusing his eyes, he noticed Henrietta sitting there next to him.
She was quick to lash out at him.
"Thorne! Honestly, what are you trying to do!? He was going to kill you! Oh, when I figure out what–"
"Pete's got his chance, now."
She stopped, asking for him to repeat it. "Wh-What?"
"If Craig has detention, he can't walk Cassie home and keep Peter away from her."
Henrietta smiled. "Thorne, that is very sweet…" Thorne gave a crooked grin, ignoring how much his face stung, but Henrietta's face hardened again. "But if you ever do something like that again, I will kill you myself. For your information, I wandered past the office on my way over, and Craig has a week of suspension for that little attack. Suspension. Today he just has detention since it's so close to the end of the day, but for the next four days he'll be suspended. What will Peter do the next four days?"
Thorne's grin faded. "Oh, shit. Really? Well… I…"
Henrietta nodded. "That's what I thought. You never think these things through. It'd do you good to think before you act…"
After a while Thorne sighed, sitting up a little. "How's Nicholas these days?" Henrietta looked at him quizzically, evident concern on her face. 'Is this really relevant to the current situation?' her eyes seemed to say. Thorne rolled his eyes. "This is a change in subject so I can figure out how to help out Peter… I know Nicky doesn't want us talking about it, but we all know he hates going to his father's house every other month. Didn't he get a new wife or something?"
Henrietta nodded. "And his mother's dating again. Her boyfriend's pretty cool, though. Nicholas is actually pleased with this one for once. Geoffrey's a big fan of Blauhaus. Nicholas is ecstatic."
"But his father's new wife?"
"She was a cheerleader in high school and is fresh out of college…"
Thorne rolled his eyes. "Poor son of a bitch…"
"Tell me about it. I'm glad my parents are still married."
–––––––––––––––––––––––––
Jessica put her hand on Cassie's shoulder, petting her best friend's blonde head with her other hand. "Come on, Cass. Craig's going to behave just fine. You'll get through this."
Cassie sighed. "I hope you're right. For once there's some guy genuinely interested in helping me… Peter is such a gentleman, even if he's a year younger than us…"
"Be careful, though. You know if you start hanging out with one of the Goth kids your brother's going to freak. So will all the other girls in class. Things'll be worse off than they are now…"
Cassie pouted. "Should I really care about what they think…? They're all a bunch of perky bitches anyway… If there's one thing my brother's right about, it's that I shouldn't hang around shallow girls like that…"
Jessica patted her on the shoulder as Peter walked up, staring at the ground in front of him. "Well, best of luck!" Cassie smiled, turning to the little Goth boy.
"Hi, Peter. Should we get going?"
Peter just nodded, looking around anxiously for Thorne. He couldn't do it without some sort of encouragement. He just couldn't. He was too shy for something like this.
His worries melted away when she grabbed his hand and started dragging him down the steps of the school building. "Come on! We should get home before Craig does, or else he'll be all over you like a moth to a flame!"
He could worry later. Right now, he had enough encouragement on her part to get there without breaking down.
––––––––––––––––
"That's weird… Pitch and Cocoa haven't been walked yet… Craig's usually home by now since he gets let out earlier than we do… I'll bet he has detention again…" Her green eyes flashed onto Peter's shoe-gazed face momentarily. "Um, Peter…I'm terribly sorry to ask this of you, but would you mind helping me walk my dogs?"
Peter looked up, big hazel eyes practically glowing with delight. "N-Not at all…"
Cassie giggled, pointing to the couch. "Alright, you can put your bag down there and come here so they can get used to you…"
Peter placed his book bag on the couch and went over to the dogs. Cocoa nearly jumped on him in her excitement and Pitch began to bark violently. A swift smack to the nose from Cassie stopped his howling, and a yank on the tail caused Cocoa to yelp and jump back.
To most it would be considered animal abuse, but in the Harris household it was considered kind.
1) Blauhaus
Yes. Blauhaus. Any of you watch the Raisins episode? (Of course you did. If you liked the Goth Kids enough to read a fanfic about them, you've probably gone out of your way to watch it at least two or three times.) Yeah, on the back of Henrietta's door there was a Bauhaus poster; however, Stone and Parker added an L in there. Hence, Blauhaus was a parody of Bauhaus, probably one of the big "Goth" bands. Almost every song has to do with death in some way, shape or form. Speaking of Henrietta's wall, did any of you notice how she talked about how her parents wouldn't let her go to the Skinny Puppy concert, yet the Skinny Puppy poster on her wall said SkiPPy Puppy? HA. Yes. Oh yeah, and something bothered me after I was going back and reading Mr. Brightside. - I wrote this, describing Henrietta: "She likes Skinny Puppy, as mentioned in the show, which is a relatively new band." Now, I have NO idea what crack I was smoking, but they're not relatively new. I guess I must've been thinking of Nine Inch Nails or something. However, the fact that she had that skull-cat pillow in her room pretty much says she's been to Hot Topic, and Hot Topic is definitely one of the whole "modern" Goth shops.
In short, whenever I mention the bands the Goth kids like, in the South Park universe that is, I say Blauhaus instead of Bauhaus. Why? Because I'm weird like that. (Plus Blauhaus just makes me giggle.)2) Cocoa
Heh heh. When I was little, there was a guy on the end of my street that had two dogs. (He got married, and his step-daughter grew up into a real BITCH. D:/ ) One of them was a Lab-Doberman mix, and the other one was some other kind of mix that had to include a sheepdog or something. The male's name was Spuds, and the female (the Lab-Doberman mix, which was a chocolate colour) was named Cocoa. So, I added in a little piece of my childhood in there. Huzzah.