Ai's Stories

[Ai]

These are just a bunch of random short pieces I've written. I won't be posting anything major here... just small things. Some characters will be familiar to you, others won't.

The first one is a piece I wrote as an IC exercise before doing a fantasy RP with a few friends of mine. Oddly enough, I've written RP posts here that are longer than this...


“With all due respect, I must object.” Eirian’s voice was raised quite a bit more than anyone had heard before and she stood up. She and an unidentified human male were in the highest tower at the castle in Cynelic. They had been discussing important matters for nearly three hours; every time the man offered a proposition, the female refused. Time after time, arguments started again until at last, Eirian felt like she had enough.

Grey eyes darted to glance out the window, the only portal into the outside world from the Tower. The sun was ready to set and within hours, the twin moons – Lunn and Carn – would appear. The Annuviel felt sick to her stomach; she knew what happened when the moons would align as they would tonight. Far off into the distance, she could already hear the chanting and she thought she saw a flicker of flame out of the corner of her peripheral vision. Another raid. Not even the most foul words in her native tongue of Archia would suit for the moment and she swore under her breath in the common speech.

“Consider it.” The man’s voice was insistent and even Eirian couldn’t ignore the pleading tone that was infused so deeply into his emotions. His offers were tempting; she could do as he asked and still gain revenge upon at least one of the enemy simultaneously. The corner of her eye twitched and there was a brief flash of a devious smile; her ears pricked back and she met the man’s eyes after a brief moment of recovery.

“Alright then, I shall.” There was a slight smirk playing onto her face as she thought through what he had said. A hiss came from inside the shoulder bag she was carrying and a teal head popped out. Nioko glared at the man, suspicion shining through his sulfur-colored eyes. Though the moons would align tonight, there would be no more Annuviel blood spilt over senseless raids by the enemy. She now had the means she needed to exact her revenge.

Little did she know, one action of hers would set off a chain reaction that would involve a major political crisis and another betrayal in her life. Nor was she aware that during the next few months, she would come to discover with whom her true allegiance rested. All she understood was that she had been given a task and she would carry it out like every other time, only placing her signature twist on the assignment.

Instead of deterring the company, she would find them and kill him.

Disclaimer: Eirian, Nioko and everything in this particular land belong to me. Lunn and Carn are the twin moons that orbit this particular planet they all live on. Nioko's her pet snake and Archia is the name of the native tongue of the Annuviels.


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This was actually the origin of Lucius Touchstone, if you remember him from the other site. It takes place in the same land as the brief piece about Eirian, though quite a few many years later. Cynelic is basically the capital city of the Free Kingdom.


“Hurry up!” A loud voice called from downstairs. Lucius Touchstone opened his eyes, blinked a couple of times and gazed lazily out the window. The sun had long since risen and was already high in the sky; he was late again. The boy groaned; it was the third time he had been late in the last fortnight. If Alem was not as kind as he was, Lucius would have expected a firm whipping.

He rushed down the spiral stairs from the very top of the tower. He had been fortunate enough that Alem persuaded the king to allow a seventeen-year-old sleep in the top of one of the Western Tower; most other youths would not be allowed to do that. After slipping his light blue tunic over his head and tying his silvery-blonde hair out of his face, he reminded himself that he was no longer a youth, but a young man. He was nearly finished with Healer’s training, a rigorous apprenticeship to none other than one of Cynelic’s finest Healers.

He thought fondly of home for a moment. Ajax, one of his closest friends, still lived in Olmo. The last time he had heard, Ajax was training as a blacksmith under Orlando, his own father. Since Ajax’s parents had died when the Great Plague swept through the land just two years ago, Orlando and Imogen Touchstone had adopted Ajax as a second son.

Of course, thinking about home occupied Lucius’ mind and prevented him from watching where he was running. He crashed into Emilia, one of the servants, on his way down to the training field. She smiled, then picked up the dirty linens off of the stone floor. “Now you be careful,” she shook her head slowly. Only a year older than Lucius, she would never scold the young Healer.

Lucius nodded. “Okay,” he replied. Quickly, he turned around and ran the opposite direction, his cheeks flushing. Of all the servants to run into, why did it have to be her?

[Ai]

One when Sharpe is in high school... I know the timeline and years are a little out of sync for this site, but I write him elsewhere and he has a definite birthday complete with a year.


Sharpe trudged up the last few steps towards Maplewood Academy in hopes that school would be better today than it had the previous day. As soon as he saw Tetsuya Takahashi’s glinting eyes, he should have known better.

“Hey Jedediah!” Sharpe glanced over to see Kiyoshi Sato, Takahashi’s best friend, and much to Sharpe’s chagrin, partner-in-crime. Sato was much shorter than Takahashi was, but he was very strong. He hurled a tennis ball towards Tetsuya, which narrowly missed Sharpe’s head. Sharpe was almost pleased; had Sato’s aim been even half-way decent, the ball would have pelted Sharpe in the face. As if he didn’t have enough problems already!

Unfortunately for Sharpe, Takahashi – who was the star pitcher for the school baseball team – had caught the ball. Tetsuya had a much better aim than Kiyoshi did and he was just as strong. There was a rumor spreading around their senior class that after graduation, Takahashi would be going to Japan to play professional baseball.

Takahashi had just released the ball when Sharpe’s reflexes finally chose to react. He ducked out of the way, but the ball never reached him. Someone had stepped between him and Tetsuya and that someone had caught the ball.

“Coward!” Sato sneered from behind where Sharpe was standing. Sharpe tried to glare in Sato’s direction, but this was practically ineffective. For, at that moment, there was a girl standing directly in front of Tetsuya.

The girl could not have been more than an inch above five feet tall. She sported a khaki skirt and grey sweater, complete with the insignia badge that showed that she was from the class of 1991, or a freshman. Both of her hands were resting on her hips and she was clutching the tennis ball in one hand so tightly that her knuckles began to turn white.

“You just leave him alone, Tetsuya!” she ordered. “Or I’ll have to report you.” Sharpe finally obtained a better look at her. The girl’s Asian features looked strikingly familiar and definitely more Chinese than Japanese. She also wore a lot more make-up than Sharpe had ever seen anyone else wear before. “And I mean it!”

The girl threw the tennis ball back, hitting Tetsuya square in the stomach. He winced, pain – probably fake, Sharpe guessed – written all over his face. The girl smirked and strode off. As the bell rang to start school on that Friday in the middle of February, Sharpe’s dark eyes followed her. Smiling, he realized that his day had gotten slightly better. Perhaps there was still something good left about high school after all.


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First person POV exercise with Sharpe's narration. Frankly not very good... and he's teaching chemistry here.


The classroom is finally quiet after a full week of classes that I have taught and it is time to work on grading the acid-base labs that my AP students turned in this morning. During first period, Thompson kept asking questions that even Flinn should have been able to figure out on his own and things just got worse from there. Usually I am anything but melodramatic, but this was quite true of the day. The honors students in fourth period earned themselves yet another lecture over the correct use of the Latin naming system for ionic compounds. After savoring a few moments of cherished silence, there was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” I sighed audibly. There is only one person to whom that knock could belong. Much to my chagrin, Laura Clarkson entered the room, her shoes making the same unpleasant clicking noise that they always make. “And you want what?” Before she could say anything, I caught a glimpse of a pink envelope in her hand: di immortales! “No!” I hissed at her, not unlike Arrhenius does at Nernst when provoked. Through all insanity that grading labs and writing new exams has caused, I nearly forgot about the all-staff Valentine’s Day dance next Friday. “Do not even think about asking me.” I summoned up the strongest glare that I could and sent it flying in her direction. ‘The glare of death’, as many of my students have named it, has been worth the practice.

Thankfully for both parties involved, she took this seriously. “Fine then,” she replied, clearly hurt. Right now, I could hardly care. “You’re just an arrogant twit, you know that?!” After that comment had been spoken, she turned and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her. This nearly caused one of the volumetric flasks to tip and fall over; fortunately this particular flask only held a dilute solution of cupric sulfate, still shining blue in all its glory. Half-sighing and half-fuming, I sat back down to finish grading labs, but it was no use. I was far to annoyed.


Feel free to comment if you'd like.

[Ai]

Yet another piece with Sharpe in it. Again, he's a teenager...


The sixteen-year-old shuffled up the steps that led to the entrance to Maplewood Academy’s main building. It was the first day of school, junior year. This year, Josiah Alton had explained earlier, was the most important year. Colleges would be looking at grades, extracurricular activities and standardized tests to decide who would make the cut. Sharpe honestly didn’t care. His grades were good enough to get him into almost anywhere, despite the fact that he rarely tried.

“Sharpe!” a voice called from across the courtyard. The lanky teenager turned to find a smiling boy running towards him, his book bag flying behind and his uniform in a general state of dishevelled appearance. Sharpe calmly collected himself and waited for Mac O’Brien to catch up. “Hey, I knew I’d find you.” Sharpe arched an eyebrow. Was it just his imagination, or did Mac get even more freckles over the summer. “Listen,” Mac’s voice dropped down to a whisper. “Rumor has it that they’re picking an entirely new squad this year. That’s right, no seniors.”

The squad, or the Rule Enforcers, were students who assisted teachers by patrolling the hallways. These juniors and seniors were handpicked by the staff members and announced within the first week of school starting each year. Usually, there were about seven or eight total and oftentimes, all of them were seniors. Although these students could not give out detentions without staff approval, their words carried more weight than anyone else’s did.

“And you want to be on the squad,” Sharpe replied, shifting his book bag to a more comfortable position. For many of their classes this year, students were required to pick up their books before classes started and Sharpe was carrying around his physics text book, his Latin book and dictionary, calculus materials and AP US history books. All of this made for a very heavy bag.

Mac grinned. “Yeah,” he replied. “Don’t you?” His eyes brightened. “Think of what Tetsuya would say…” Tetsuya was the member of a gang of rough Asian kids who took joy in bullying others. Sharpe had always been one of their main targets.

“None of them will care of you’re on the squad,” Sharpe snapped back, beginning to walk back towards the eleventh grade lockers. “The only person they listen to is Mr. Smith.” Mr. Smith was the physics teacher at the Academy, an older man who was once in the Navy and had a school wide reputation for being strict. He had been teaching physics for the past twenty years and the rumor was that he had been one of the original teachers at Maplewood.

“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes,” Mac muttered under his breath, flicking his sandy hair towards the side. Sharpe followed his glance to find their physics teacher strutting towards them.

“O’Brien, a word with you in my room,” Smith ordered. Mac exchanged a brief glance with Sharpe, who forced a smile. “Sharpe, Callahan’s office immediately.” Sharpe waited until Smith was out of sight and earshot before letting out a sigh. He headed over towards the assistant principal’s office, wondering what Ms. Callahan wanted with him.

Once he got there, he straightened up his uniform, including the burgundy and grey tie he wore, and knocked quietly on the door. “Please, come in,” he could hear the assistant principal’s voice coming from inside. He entered slowly. He had never felt this out of place before, except for on his first day at Maplewood, yet he couldn’t explain it. “Please sit down.” He let his bag of books drop to the floor and sat as he was told. Aside from the principal and from Smith, Ms. Callahan was the person he least wanted to be in trouble with at the Academy.

“Do you know why you’re here?” she asked, pulling out a manila folder from the filing cabinet with Sharpe’s name on the front. He assumed it contained his student records; it was very well thick enough to cover all of his classes the past two years. Sharpe shook his head. “Well, Mr. Nicholson needs a student to assist with his sixth grade science class twice a week and Mrs. Pruitt suggested you.” Mrs. Pruitt had been his chemistry instructor the year before. “Now, you don’t have to accept, but I think you’d enjoy it.” Her voice sounded entirely too cheerful for Sharpe and it was beginning to irk him. His dark brows wrinkled together and his ears pricked backwards, a sure sign of annoyance.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Sure. I’ll do it.” He shrugged. He glanced down at his schedule. In addition to taking English, AP US history, Latin, physics and calculus, he was also taking a physical education course and a free elective. Working with Mr. Nicholson would take up his elective, but when he had glanced through the list of electives being offered, none of them excited him much, anyways.

Ms. Callahan smiled. “There,” she replied, closing the manila folder. “Oh, Mr. Nicholson asked me to give this to you if you accepted. You’ll be needing it on your first day in the classroom, but he didn’t tell me what it was for.” From one of the drawers in her desk, she produced a long stick, about fourteen inches in length and made of kaya wood. “And you’ll want this.” She gave him a small bag of assorted items. “And now, you must get to class before the bell rings. Sorry about keeping you so long. If you need an excuse, just let your teachers know to ask me.”

Sharpe gathered up his things. Upon leaving her office, he raised both of his eyebrows and lowered them. He walked through the halls, still carrying his book bag and trying to find his locker. It took him three times to open the combination and he was nearly late to physics as a result. Just before the bell rang, he slid into a seat next to Mac O’Brien, who was grinning widely.

“Guess what?” Mac whispered, careful to lower his voice so that Tetsuya and Kiyoshi, Tetsuya’s partner in crime, could not overhear. “I’m in! And you?”

Sharpe opened up the bag of items. Inside was a lesson planner, notes from Nicholson and a special badge. “Student teaching assistant,” he whispered back. “I’ll tell you more in Latin class, where–”

However, he was cut off by Smith, whacking his pointer against the chalkboard. “Sharpe! O’Brien, pay attention!” The bell rang and class had officially started for the school year. Mac exchanged a knowing glance with Sharpe, who couldn’t help smiling because now he knew what the stick would be useful for. He could hardly wait for Thursday, when he would go and meet the sixth grade class he would be helping.