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This story is fully © by me. This novel, as I hope you can tell, changes from the views of different groups of characters, who are in different situations and places. I've really enjoyed working on this so far. I hope you enjoy readying it...
“People always say life is full of choices, No one ever mentions fear.”
Her flight left that night. Her bags were almost nearly packed, the only things which were left were her hairbrush, toothbrush, toothpaste, mobile, the book she was trying to read to take away her nerves and the clothes she was wearing. The clothes she was to wear on the plane were neatly laid upon her made bed, her house in perfect condition for the first time since she had moved in a little under a year ago. Everything was clean. Her pets at her parents house, quite happily considering they knew their owner was going away for months. Her pets had originally grown up at her parent’s house, and then moved with her when she had moved out. They visited her parents and her parents pets Don the boarder collie and Josie the oriental Siamese kitten often, so Juliette felt safe with leaving them there, and her parents visiting her house occasionally to make it appear to be lived in. Her mother would be using her car for the time she was away.
It was 8:41pm. She had eaten her dinner, washed the dishes, put them away, and still there was hours until she even had to shower and get ready. Fed up, Juliette rose and showered anyway, just for something to do.
Slumping in her chair after contemplating unpacking her laptop to pass time by, her mind wandered to Alaxander. It was 9:01pm now, which would mean it would be about 1:30pm in the afternoon over in England. It was a Monday, so that meant Alax would probably be at work, his mobile off and either in a bag or at home somewhere.
Juliette sighed and turned the TV back on, trying to fill the silence in her life, and trying to take her mind off the future. A mix of excitement, paranoia and worry was not a good mix when you were about to board an international plane, and it was the first time you had travelled any further than four hours by yourself, one parent putting you on at one end, and another relative picking you up at the other end. Flipping to the movie channel, The Crucible was on, a favourite of Juliette from when she had studied it and performed it in year12, back in her high school years, feeling so long ago only two years previously. She lost herself in the movie which was just starting, beyond relieved to have such a distraction from the adventure she was about to embark on.
Somewhere, thousands of miles away, Alaxander took his half hour break. Taking out a cigarette, he inhaled deeply on it before searching his pockets for his mobile. Still left in his other pants, damn it. His sister had spilt her drink on him just before he had left for work, and he’d had to change…totally forgetting his mobile. Cursing, he stayed in the back alley of the shopping centre, and waited for his break to be over, so he could continue working, passing the day by faster hopefully, so he could go home, sleep, and wait for the late afternoon the next day when Juliette would finally arrive.
“Don’t ask me…”
It was a wild time in the heart of the Bnuldun’s base. Danny, the protective one, was hanging upside down from a bar in a doorway as Ivory, his younger best friend, and Aiko, Ivory’s other best friend, attacked him from either side, having both their arms and legs to attack him while he only had two flat metal bars, one is each hand. Their leader, Stefan, was out for the afternoon with Jack Murry, one of the older boys in their gang who had a hot temper. It was their turn to either busk for money, then buy the food supplies for the half week, or steal enough food for the next few days. Knowing those two, Danny would probably try busking first, but realise halfway Jack had managed to sneak off, and they’d run into each other again an hour or so later, with stolen food, and a bit of cash as well. It was a bonus to send those two out together, but it wasn’t the right thing.
With a sharp jab, Aiko and Ivory simultaneously managed to unhook Danny from his bar, sending him crashing to the ground, unfortunately managing to grab Ivory on his way down and landing on in a giggling heap as Aiko fell down onto them as well. For a while, even though they were training, and even though most of them were covered with cuts and bruises most of the time, Danny and Jack especially, they could sometimes forget the life they lived. Fugitives. No proper, real family, always in trouble with the law.
Never any money. Always having to steal or busk to survive. But they shouldn’t complain. They had their health; most of the time, and they had each other. Life wasn’t that bad at all. They woke up, they scrounged up some food and then they trained together, or went to sneak into a movie, or went and busked or did small handy-jobs which ‘never happened’ for some extra cash.
A call at the door altered the three that the other two were home, and Aiko disappeared immediately to go help them and get something to eat. Although Stefan was a good cook, Jack was terrible, and anyway, Stefan usually had ‘business to attend to’ whenever he first got home. Danny smirked at Ivory, moving to lean against the door frame, gazing at her suavely. “So…all alone we are again…”
“Oh wow, like, what should we do?” Ivory teased back, standing up and dusting off her black pants, handmade from felt they had got their hands on from an unguarded basket once.
“Wanna have a game of cards?” Danny suggested, their flirting as always just friendly teasing.
Ivory shrugged. “All my money is with Stefan, so I’ll have to bet other stuff instead.”
“Massages, songs and story telling it is from you then.” Danny grinned happily, still on the ground when Aiko came back, handing them a turkey and cheese sandwich each.
Danny inspected the sandwich. It wasn’t too often they got such a deal.
“What’s the occasion to earn us gourmet food Aiko?” Danny asked, not complaining though as he took a huge bite.
“We’re going out tonight, we have the bills to pay and we’re short.” Aiko informed them sombrely. “So you’re singing and playing your pipes at the markets tonight Ivory. Danny, you and I are pick pocketing.” Aiko grimaced, it was the job she hated the most. She was learning from Ivory fast juggling tricks, but wasn’t up to busking level just yet. “I’m also going to see if Ailith at the food stall can give me extra work in her deli over the week…or maybe a loan with the promise of a month’s work or something…I’m sure they could afford it, they’ve been getting good business recently…” Aiko sometimes worked in a food stall, she was the only one out of them who was trustworthy for such a case. The others were too wild and desperate from their years on the streets. “Jack is going to do those cheap card tricks of his, he won’t do the balancing act with Stefan no matter how hard I try to persuade him…Stefan has other places he’d rather be though. Some guy owes us money, Stefan’s going to try get it off him…”
Ivory and Danny exchanged a look. “Things sound serious then…how much are we out?” Stefan almost never got to the point where he had to go demand his money returned from his associates, it was just one thing Stefan only saved for a last resort.
“Thousand or so…” Aiko trailed off. “The money is due in two days though. We could be evicted again. Hopefully we’ll get the money on time though…we usually do.”
Ivory exchanged a look with her best friend. “Don’t worry about it Koy, we’ll get the money…” Exactly how though, Ivory wasn’t sure. That was a whole heap of money to try and get in such a short time for such a group as the Bnulduns.
“I know this is real…”
The room was shadowy, lit only by one down spotlight, the air around it heated to a surprising heat, something not everyone thought of when they thought of a stage. The black heavy curtains cloaked each wall, blocking out the light from the roof to floor series of windows which were placed in every wall, 18 sets in all, which Courtney had announced one afternoon in trying to prove she knew the most about acting.
Knowing the room you were in, in such details like that, Drennen had said, meant nothing if you couldn’t act. Courtney could act, he reassured her, he just thought of it as his duty, as the oldest male in the group, well, oldest out of all of them, to inform her little instances like that. Sinead had watched on silently, sewing a few small holes in an old Puritan style costume, while Lucen, Keiko and Melissa had worked together outside in the small courtyard, playing games to improve their impromptu ability. Shortly after, Drennen had stalked outside, grabbed Melissa by the hand, and whisked her away down to the back of the school yard far oval.
As the schools drama group, they had run of most of the place during weekends and late nights whenever they wanted, since the school was a boarding school, and there were grownups peppered ever so often around the campus, and having such a drama group got the high school extra funding, everyone won in the deal, and everyone was happy. Lucen watched the older male leave with the oldest female in tow, and they moved back into the acting area straight away, thankful for the air-conditioning, and glad the lighting rig problem had been fixed by Drennen moments before.
"So what play should we work towards this time?” Keiko asked as they sat on the worn, soft carpet, which was a funny colour between blue, green, and grey at the same time. Lucen, Sinead and Courtney sat in a circle with a pile of scripts between them, and they started sorting through them, trying to decide which play they could next pull off. They had to choose one before Monday, otherwise the schools drama teachers would invade and decide for them.
They had two year12s within their mists now, being Drennen and the quiet Melissa, and Lucen and Keiko were doing high level drama in the International Baccalaureate program the school offered to those who dared, with Sinead doing the ordinary high school certificate for their state. They had performed countless plays throughout the years, saying goodbye to old members of the drama group, and welcoming new ones, so far Melissa was the longest member to date, having been in there for a straight five years, most others either joined a few years after enrolling in the school, and others leaving when the schoolwork got too heavy, but Melissa had taken drama all her life, originally for speech therapy when she was younger, then developing into a great love of hers for her whole childhood, and now into her early adult years. Drennen however, was the quiet leader of theirs, they all looked up to him, and they all followed his word, even though he never asked for it, nor wanted it to be that way. He was glad in a way when one of the drama teachers became director, so he could relax and just be a normal actor like the rest of them.
Shortly after Lucen, Sinead and Courtney disappeared into their second script to flip through, Melissa and Drennen returned, Melissa looking a little pale and Drennen smelling heavily of deodorant. In Courtney’s mind, the two were secretly dating, while Sinead knew Drennen smoked, but couldn’t explain why Melissa sometimes looked so pale. Lucen knew the truth though, from one of his few heart-to-heart talks to Melissa over the internet one night, Drennen was indeed heavy smoker, as well as drug user, hence the deodorant, and Melissa was simply full of self hate. She often smoked with Drennen for pain as a punishment against herself, which her body simply couldn’t handle as well as most people could, being a heavy asthmatic and heavy allergies didn’t allow her to be able to breathe as freely as she should be able to. Lucen watched the two silently enter the room and join the circle, picking up a script and disappearing into them as well as if nothing in their lives were new, because of course they weren’t, this was just everyday life to them. Lucen frowned in his mind, before returning to his script. He didn’t like his friends toying with their lives in the way they did.
“Last step ‘till I fall…”
Sasha, the Tokyo born child with half British, half Japanese features, black hair, blue eyes, was in the middle of defining his art of throwing blades, when a bullet cut through the air, so close he could hear it, but not the sound of the bullet itself being fired, and growled as he saw it had hit his target directly in the bullseye.
“Luana! Show yourself!” he demanded. After a significant pause and a with a giggle, the pale blue eyed girl of German decent revealed herself, her German G98k sniper rifle now held loosely at her side.
Sasha couldn’t stay angry for long towards one of his fellow members of their small group, and gestured towards the target. “Nice shot.”
“The wind is good today.” Luana shrugged modestly, taking a seat beside Sasha, wondering when it would be time for lunch. It was Alo’s turn to cook that day, and his stir-fries were the best by far. With Alo’s quiet, soft ways, he made the unsurpassed cook of the group; everyone else was far too busy training and trying not to get killed to worry about food, although when it really came down to it, it was one of their shared loves.
Luana and Sasha spoke for a short while, before Reeve stuck his head around the door frame which lead out to their terrace to call them inside for lunch. They ran into Nique in the hallway, her brown hair again hacked shorter in different places, her otherwise sleek and long hair was in parts as short as her cheek bones, while others to her chin, and others to midway down her back. She was a destructive eighteen year old, and although tried to appear rough and tough against showing her feminine side, her musical Irish accent often gave the impression of something else.
“Hi guys.” Nique grinned before getting swept up into the arms of their leader and trusted friend Angelo, who carried her kicking and squealing to the lunch table with Luana and Sasha rolling their eyes with a grin. They may be a branch much alike to the mafia, but most of the time they just acted like the kids that they truly were.
Colter emerged from the computer lab into the hall just behind Sasha, rubbing his eyes tiredly. They were smudged with black from way too much computer work and never enough sleep, making his shockingly wide blue eyes even more pronounced, half hidden behind the messy brown hair which framed his face.
“We’ve now got the new server online.” Colter murmured sleepily, he had probably still had no sleep all night, and now it was getting to be late afternoon.
"That’s fantastic, not much trouble?” Angelo asked, he had heard them as they’d entered the room.
“Not for me.” Colter smiled wearily, sliding into his chair and gazing at the large bowls of combination fried rice, fried egg noodles and the infamous sweet chilli stir-fry.
“As always.” Alo grinned at Colter. “We wouldn’t be as far as we are without you.” The group murmured their agreement, usually all for praising their team members, but it had been a long night and day for most of them, and all they would think about was Alo’s hunger-quenching meal.
Chopsticks and serving tools were smoothly passed around, and everyone practically dived into their meals, especially when Alo’s homemade dim-sims appeared.
“Tonight everyone gets the night off.” Angelo instructed, and paused while whoops of freedom escaped half full mouths. “In a week or so we’ve got a major job coming up, I need you all, every single one of you,” Angelo paused to focus his gaze on Colter who grimaced.
“I hate field work…” Colter grumbled, much preferring to stay locked up and safe near one of his hand pieced state of the art computers.
“We need all hands on deck kiddo.” Angelo shrugged, chop-sticking some noodles into his mouth from above in a very boyish way before turning to nudge Nique who was, like always, sitting by his side.
“You and me need to go run a job after this, you up for it?” Nique was like a little sister to him, the kind he had never had, or the family none of them had now in their situation. They had all been enrolled, so to speak, into this branch of a mafia like organisation, since their families had all been slaughtered, all distantly involved with someone dangerous, in one way or another. The kids who had all been spared, in one way or another, from being at school at the time, or playing at a friends house, had all been brought together, the oldest only being five years old at the time, and trained beyond child labour laws permitted, not that anyone cared what they got up to, since anyone who knew what went on didn’t care, and those who did care didn’t know for much longer.
“Sounds awesome.” Nique grinned, curling up under Angelo’s arm to finish the rest of her stir-fry, having finished the noodles and rice quickly.
It was quickly decided that Colter would finally go to sleep, while Reeve cleaned up after their meal, since it was his turn, and Sasha and Luana could either return to weapons training, or go watch a DVD. Eventually choosing a DVD, the group disbanded, off to do their own thing, before fight fell and it became time for one of their paintball sessions, or a pillow fight before a run of movies.
“Is this real..?”
In the shadowed area of grass where they mainly sat to talk, think, play and eat, there were only four members of their small group of nine tribe of indigenous forest foke in the area. The other five were no where to be seen. Wise elder, and leader Dantè sat, his long legs folded neatly beneath him as Enid and Fabio bickered lovingly in their old age. Young Ither, only 72, just a young sprite compared to Dantè’s age of 732 (which was still fairly young by their standards) was complaining about being left behind, while his idol Oria was elsewhere, obviously at a waterfall somewhere perfecting her art of fire manipulation.
Raine and Kheran, best friends, had told the elders where they were going to be. Although their age difference was quite great, Raine a young female at the age of 150, and Kheran a slightly older male at the age of 248, they still got along like they had been born together, forever joined at the hip, and always able to understand each other within a glance. They had run off in the early morning to amuse themselves with swimming, collecting of vines, roots and berries, and hopefully discover a way of creating a wider swing they could string up over a waterfall pool, which didn’t hurt your sides as much to sit in.
Finn and Rune, on the other hand, had run off silently without telling a soul once more. Those two were strange; Finn was a dreamer, while Rune’s elements had clashed. In one hand he created fire, while in the other he created usually ice, sometimes water. Because of this, he was basically always sick, feverish and unable to eat much else than silver fish and drink pure water, no berry juices or acids added.
They were a silent and peaceful group. They lived undisturbed, and at harmony with the creatures which they shared their home with, and also with the land on which they were born. Everyone respected one another, and every creature, and every species of environment, because that was the way you had to live if you were to survive.
They wore clothes weaved from moss, cotton plants and any other plant which took their fancy, using a wide range so only a little was taken from each at a time. They ate only what the land provided, and throughout the years had discovered what cured what, what induced what and what herbs spiced up an otherwise plain meal.
It was about seventeen cloud sweeps since the sun had first touched the sky, and Raine and Kheran were discovering some water weeds they had never found before. It was springy, light and moist, and looked to be perfect for what they wanted to do. With a sharp piece of shell they started to cut a small strand away, to bring back to the Elders to find out if it were safe and they should use it. At they struggled out of the lake, chatting constantly, Finn was in the middle of making an elevation from a rock covered in soft moss as Rune had another one of his attacks, hurriedly trying to crush leaves from a nearby bush and trickly their sap down Rune’s throat as he shuddered and curled over in pain. Finn tried to hold his hand in comfort, and got a painful icy burn in return. She smoothly wrapped it into a different type of leaf, trying her best to ignore the pain before for forced her mind clear then sent a bolt of dead emotion through Rune’s body, knocking him to unconsciousness in a smooth move. His body fell still, and Finn was able to unfold the length of material they brought for such occasions. She gently rolled Rune onto the material, and started the fairly long process of dragging him carefully home, wishing with all of her heart they’d soon find a way to push one element from his soul out, and keep one in, or conduct them into working in harmony. It would have to be soon, Rune was getting steadily worse and worse as each new moon showed her light.
Keladryie. Uploaded Jan//2005. Made for 1024x768.