Children of the First

So if you were following the twitter, you might have heard that I was on schedule and this chapter would be up yesterday. Well, I was half right. I was on schedule, and even though I wrote this yesterday, my new two-chapter-a-week schedule dictates new chapters will be on Tuesdays and Fridays (or the early morning of Wednesday and Saturday). With that in mind, I restrained myself and saved it for today. I am keeping to the schedule. It is good. Expect it to continue. Woo.

Thanks for reading, everyone, and special thanks to those of you who have reviewed CotF at the Web Fiction Guide (I will update the bonus points shortly).
Rock on. m/

“Oh, Shawn, I almost forgot,” Retis said. “I called Fallon while you were napping and told her we were here.”

“You got her on your psylink?” I asked as we left the health center.

“Yep. Quick, too—apparently she made a pretty strong impression last night because it had no problem finding her. She said she’d be by soon as she got off work at five… which is about now, actually.”

“And there she is,” said Roo, pointing.

Fallon was jogging toward us, her hair bouncing off her head like rubber. I smiled; she wasn’t the most graceful runner, but she was very… bouncy.

She ran straight up to me. “What happened? Are you okay? Give me your hands.”

I smiled and pulled my hands out from her grasp. “I’m fine,” I said. “Really. Thanks for coming to see me, though.

“Thank Retis for calling me—I really appreciate it.”

He waved it off. “No problem,” he said.

“But you.” She pointed at me. “You had me worried sick! What actually happened?”

“It was nothing,” I said, shaking my head. “Just a little scram accident.”

“Nothing?” she exclaimed. “Retis said you fell off a mountain!”

I shot him a look. “Heshould have told you I fell off a mountain but that I was okay—all I got was a concussion and a broken wrist.”

Retis shrugged. “Hey don’t blame me,” he said. “She was at work.”

“And you were still unconscious when he called,” Pebbles pointed out.

“I’m sorry,” Fallon said, turning on Pebbles. “I don’t think we’ve met. Who are you?”

“Oh, sorry,” I said. “Fallon, this is Pebbles and her friend Derrick. Pebbles is captain of the scram team.”

“Nice to meet you, Fallon.” Pebbles said, shaking her hand. “Derrick and I were meeting the boys for some practice when Shawn had his little tumble.”

“Is that right? Well if you’re captain, shouldn’t you have kept him from hurting himself? Isn’t that your job?”

Fallon’s tone surprised me, but Pebbles was unfazed. “Yeah, right,” she laughed. “Like anyone could keep Shawn from hurting himself. Still, it would have been good bit worse if Derrick hadn’t been there.”

“Wait, really?” I looked from Pebbles to Derrick. “I didn’t hear about this, what are you talking about?”

Pebbles looked at Derrick for a second. “Oh come on, if you don’t tell them, I will,” she said. Derrick shrugged. “Alright fine, I’ll tell them,” Pebbles said in exasperation. “You kept going after you hit your head, but Jarn and I couldn’t get to you fast enough. You rolled down the rockslide and over a ledge sticking out of the mountain. You would have fallen a good forty feet and landed on pointy things if Derrick hadn’t been there to catch you.”

“You… caught me?”

“Well not with my arms,” Derrick said with an awkward smile. “Telekinesis. I just helped you fall slower and onto the grass.”

“Wow,” I said. “Thank you—I didn’t even know.”

“Don’t mention it,” he said. “If it had been hard I wouldn’t have done it.” He smiled again.

“Well thanks anyhow,” I said. “I owe you one or ten.”

“I’m glad somebody was looking out for your well being, since you sure as hell don’t,” Fallon said.

“I know, right?” Pebbles laughed. “Not only does he not look before he leaps, he doesn’t even bother to land first. You know, Shawn, for a smart guy, you can be dumber than dirt.”

Fallon laughed. “We just have to watch out for clumsy lil’ Freckles, don’t we,” she said, pinching my cheek.

“Alright, that’s enough Shawn-bashing,” I said, slapping her hand away.

“Yeah, I’m bored,” Retis said. “Let’s head back.” He started walking with Roo and Jarn, but stopped. “Hey Pebbles,” he called. “You and Derrick wanna walk with us? I can tell you about my plan to usurp your place as captain.”

“Uh, sure,” Pebbles said, looking from me to Fallon.
I looked at Retis and mouthed, “Thank you.” He smiled knowingly and gave me a little nod.

Once they were out of earshot, I turned to Fallon. “You wanna take a walk? I’m still stiff from that rock they call a hospital bed and I need to move a bit.”

“Sure,” she said with a sly look. “And then you can explain what possessed you to go prancing off a mountain.”

“Alright,” I laughed. “Fair enough.”

We walked until we found a bench in the garden behind the Alchemy building where the Chem students grow most of their materials. It’s a pretty nice spot as long as you don’t wander into the garden’s “splash zone” (which should really be called the splash, stab, strangle, bite, poison, hypnotize, and/or impregnate zone). The stone bench wasn’t exactly comfortable, but the garden was shady and secluded, so I wasn’t going to be too picky about it.

“Believe or not,” I said, “I think this bench is softer than that bed was.”

“Well you’re doing it wrong,” Fallon said, sitting down on the grass and leaning against the bench.

“Ah yes, silly me.” I slid down next to her and tried to think of something to say next, but she closed her eyes and leaned her head back on the bench, so I did the same.

We sat there for a few minutes, listening to the floriflies buzzing and the steady gurgle of a ratcatcher digesting its last meal. I was thinking that the ratcatcher sounded almost exactly like a stream, and how disgusting it was that I was enjoying the sound of a rodent being dissolved in acid. I was about to tell Fallon about it, but she spoke first.

“So, how about telling me what’s up with you?”

It took a second before I remembered what she was talking about. “Oh, that ‘prancing off a mountain’ thing?”

“Yeah,” she said, opening one eye to look at me. “That.”

“Well, it’s really what was up with me. I got over it a few minutes before the concussion.”

I told Fallon everything that had happened, starting with my morning’s fuck-you, take-no-shit attitude and going to Nedrak C&R expecting a fight with Verris. I told her about the Nagiri and the story I replayed in my head—how sad it was to see them in class.

We were sitting up now, and I could tell she was starting to lose her temper as I told her about Chris Eavesdropping on my thoughts during class. I asked her if I should stop. “It’s really okay,” I said. “I can just stop there.”

“No.” She shook her head and spoke through gritted teeth. “I want to hear everything.”

She nearly lost it when I told her how Chris had asked if I had horns, but she managed to keep her cool while I told her about Verris’ two-minute class. In the back of my mind I knew I shouldn’t tell her everything—that it was just going to make her angry—but at the same time, I felt like I had to tell her everything. Maybe I just wanted to justify my reaction by sharing it with someone who would get as angry as I did; maybe I wanted her to understand how I felt so she would know why I acted the way I did. Maybe I just wanted to see what would happen.

When I told her about Chris’ little “You sure showed him/don’t take no shit” routine, she snapped.

“Ooo,” she growled. “Where does that little fucker live? I’m going to murder him.” She was already on her feet, but I caught her wrist before she could storm past me out of the garden.

“Hang on,” I said, smiling. Why was I smiling? I hadn’t been trying to upset her, but I knew this was going to happen if I told her about him and I did it anyhow—and now that I’d gotten her all riled up, I wanted her to calm back down.

“Listen, if that little shit thinks he can just go around—“

“I know,” I nodded, “believe me. But there’s nothing you can do about it right now.”

“I can kick his ass, is what I can do,” she shot back.

“If you could find him,” I agreed, “sure. But that wouldn’t stop him. Pebbles is going to teach me to block him out—“

“Oh she is, is she?” Fallon broke in.

I laughed. “Yes, she is. Besides, if anyone’s going to kick his ass, it’ll be me. I can’t have you fight all my battles, now can I? First in the cafeteria last night, then this guy who’s giving me a hard time—I mean, let’s not forget who the damsel is here.

She smiled a little. “Well, yeah… But I can hit harder than you can.”

“Oh yeah?” I teased, standing up and giving her shoulder a little push.

“Yeah,” she grinned, and gave me a quick jab in the stomach.

“Oomph,” I grunted. “Okay, I give up, you win.”

“Good. I’d hate to have to kick your ass.”

“Sure, beat up on the injured guy, that’s great. I see how it is.”

“Oh quit whining, you big baby, you’re fine.”

“I fell off a mountain.”

“Pshh,” she teased. “Barely. More like a hill with rocks, really.”

“You weren’t even there!”

“And whose fault is that?”

“…What?”

“Exactly. But it’s okay,” she said softly. She leaned in closer and gave me a soft kiss on the cheek. “I forgive you.”

My expression changed from confused to confused-surprised to confused-happy-dopey. “I’m, uh… you too…”

She smiled and backed away before turning to leave the garden.

“See you in class tomorrow,” she said, pausing at the gate on her way out. “Try not to hurt yourself between now and then, mmkay?”

“I’ll try,” I said, still in a daze. “Goodnight, Fallon.”

“Goodnight, Shawn.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 at 5:01 pm and is filed under Chapters, CotF Main Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.