3 posts tagged “jaden”

Before I begin, I would just like to say that I did not shower today.  That is all.
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(I've actually decided to change the second half of this, but for now, I'm leaving it as is.)

"Do you have a knife?" Jaden asked Zip, walking beside him on the way back to the little house.

"No.  Mama does."

"Yeah?  Do you think I can use it?"

Zip looked at him wearily.

"Not for anything bad," he assured the boy.  "I want to cut my hair."

"Oh!  Okay.  I'll go get it," Zip ran ahead of him, turning the corner.

Jaden smiled, but followed after at a slower pace.  He frozed as he rounded the corner.  Outside of the house, the man with dark green hair--the middle aged man from the forest--was face to face with Whisp.  He ducked behind the corner fence.

"The boy with the brown hair... where is he?"

"He left," Zip's mother said, holding Zip against her.  "He left yesterday.  Heading south."

Jaden felt a wave of affection and relief towards the woman.

"Did he now?" the man asked.  He pulled a dagger from his belt.  "Then you won't mind if we take a look around." He motioned to the two men behind him--one with fire-engine red hair, the other's the color of bricks.

They shoved their way past Whisp and Zip, and into the house.

"Keep him alive!" the man yelled after them.  "Melba needs him alive!"

Jaden heard Whisp gasp.

"Oh?  The boy didn't tell you who was after him?"

Zip looked towards where Jaden was hiding, and Jaden ducked out of sight.

"Get away from her!" Zip yelled.

Jaden popped his head up over the fence to see the boy trying to shove the man away from his mother.

The fist knocked the boy flat on his back.  "Maybe we should cut up the boy and teach him to hold his tongue.  Better yet, why don't we hand it to him?"

The man with brick hair was holding the crying woman.  "No!  No, please!"

"Where is the boy!?"

Whisp didn't answer, her mouth shut tight.

"Very well."

Jaden couldn't watch this.  He jumped up.  "Stop!  I'm over here!  Let them go!"  And then, he froze.  His legs wouldn't move, his heart thudded in his ears.

The green-haired man stood from where he'd been kneeling over the boy.  He said something to his men and the man with bright red hair started walking towards Jaden. 

Don't run, Jaden told himself, even though his legs twitched with the urge.  Don't run.  They aren't safe.

Something slammed into his side, hard, latching onto his arm and dragging Jaden, stumbling, in its wake.

"Treven!"  Jaden gasped as he tried to regain his footing.  "Treven!  Wait!  No!"

"Are you completely mad?  Do you know who they are?"

Jaden planted his feet, jerking his arm away.  "NO!"

Treven stopped.  "Jaden, those are Melba's men!  They want to kill you!"

"No, they're on orders to keep me alive... But they'll kill Zip and his mom if I don't go with them."

For several seconds, the blue-haired boy stared, then sighed.  "Give me your bag."  When Jaden hesitated, he hurriedly added, "If they take it, you won't get it back."

The brunette handed over his shoulder bag.  Treven took it, then handed Jaden a dagger.  "Hide this.  I'll follow you and get you out as soon as I can."  He watched Jaden hiding the dagger.  "Be safe, Jaden."

Jaden nodded as they heard the footsteps behind them, the heavy pounding of two men running.  "I will.  I'll see you soon."  He watched Treven jog off, then turned as the two men caught up to him.

"Sorry about that," Jaden told them with a grin.

They each grabbed an arm, looking disgruntled, and tugged him along between them, back towards the small house.
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Jaden sat on the windowsill, one leg crooked, the other dangling.  His arm was draped across his crooked knee and his head was tilted back against the frame, his face sad and serious.

"Silver for your thoughts?" Treven asked from where he was folded up on the bed, sharpening his dagger.

"Hm.." Jaden said lightly, not looking away from the sky beyond the window.

"Do you miss your home?"

Jaden smiled a little.  "No, not really."

"What are you thinking about?"

"It's nothing."

"Nothing seems to make you awful melancholy."

Jaden frowned.  "If it were any of your business, I would have told you."  He pushed himself from the windowsill.  "I'm going out for a walk."

"No.  It's night.  Even if there weren't dangerous creatures about, if the night watch catches you..."

"I won't be caught.  If, after all these years, I still can't dodge the cops, then I wouldn't have been in the apartment you found me in."

Treven blinked at him.  "Cops?  I'm assuming that's your night watch... but... why would you have to dodge them?  What were you doing?"

Jaden gave a wry smile, tucking his own dagger into the arm sheath.  "I think I'm entitled to my secrets.  Don't wait up."

"Jaden!"

The door closed behind the brunette and Treven scowled.  "I am not bailing him out.  No."  He went back to his dagger, focusing his attention on the blade as he pulled the sharpening stone along it.

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By the time that Jaden reached the thinning-out trees and saw the first roofs of the houses, he was starving.  He'd found a few nuts and berries occasionally, but had been hesitant to eat it, not knowing what was poisonous and what would be good.

He put on his shirt as he approached, trying to keep from standing out too much.  And he was a mess.

His body was nearly covered in cuts and scrapes, his clothes were torn and dirty, and his hair was tangled.  He wished he could be invisible, but the looks coming from the people in the village told him that wishing wasn't enough here anymore than it was back home.

Jaden turned his eyes down, clutching his bag and jacket to his side as he made his way through the crowds.  He had serious misgivings about entering the village now.

A child came running up to him.  The small fire-engine red-haired boy skidded to a stop and Jaden stopped and blinked at him.

"What's your name?" The boy asked. 

Jaden smiled to him.  "Jaden, what's yours?"

"Zip," the boy smiled shyly.  "You look weird."

Jaden bent over until he was eye-to-eye with the boy.  "Wanna know a secret?"  The boy nodded.  "I feel weird."

Zip laughed to Jaden.  A moment later, a larger woman came towards them and gently grabbed Zip's shoulder.

Jaden straightened immediately and blinked at her.

She looked the stranger over, her eyes lingering on his hair, his eyes, and then his clothes.

"Mama, he's funny," Zip announced.

Jaden felt his lips twitch a little.

"He looks like a walking stick," she said, brushing a few purple locks from her face.  "Ye got any money?"

"No, ma'am," he said softly, looking down.

"Well, then, you'll just 'ave to work it off.  Come with me.  I'll get ye somethin' to eat, and I'll bet my older boy's clothes'll fit ye about right."

Jaden blinked, then smiled brightly.  "Really?  Thank you."

Zip ran ahead and Jaden fell into step behind the robust woman, his eyes on the back of her heels to avoid the stares he was getting.

They ended up in a small house, roughly the size of Jaden's one bedroom apartment.  The woman, who informed Jaden that he could call her Whisp, sat Jaden down at a table with Zip and gave them a bowl of thick soup and a large hunk of bread.

Whisp left the room while the boys ate.

Jaden ate the soup gratefully.  He felt that it could have tasted like toes and he would have devoured it, but it didn't.  It tasted very similar to a dish that one of his old friend's mother used to make: a combination of tomato soup, basil, chicken, onions, and garlic.

He and Zip finished their meal just as his mother reentered the room, holding a set of tanned clothes.  "Ye can put these on in the bedroom," she told him.  "If ye want to keep them," she indicated to his clothes, "we can wash 'em with the next set."

Jaden stood and accepted the clothes.  "Thank you so much, ma'am."

She waved him off.  "I told ye, call me Whisp."

He smiled.  "Thank you, Whisp."

Exhaustion was surrounding Jaden.  It was dark, chilly, and his whole body ached.  He pulled his jacket around him as tightly as he dared, wincing as the fresh wounds on his torso pulled taut.

He needed to find a safe place to sleep.  He was already lost, but if the things Treven told him about the woods were true, it could get much worse.

The brow-haired boy found a tree with low-hanging branches and pulled himself up.  He climbed until he found a thick branch, two body-lengths off the ground.  Using his bag as a pillow, Jaden made himself as comfortable as possible on the branch, bracing his back against the trunk.

It wasn't long before he stopped hearing the sounds of the night and drifted off to sleep.

He didn't hear a man trip over a root.  What he heard was the curse that followed.

His eyes jerked open, but something warm and soft clamed over his mouth, and a pair of huge brown eyes stared straight into his own.

Their eyes held and he read the danger in them.  The unspoken command: Stay silent.  Don't move.

He didn't move.  The hand dropped from his mouth.  Still, Jaden did not look elsewhere.  He didn't want to know what there was to be scared of.  As far as he was concerned, there was nothing but those huge brown eyes.  And they seemed to read the thoughts directly from him and would not look anywhere else.

Now he could hear them.  Three men.  Full grown.  Angry.

Jaden wished for Treven's stories to be true.  Let people really be terrified to light a light here.

No spark lit.  No flashlights clicked on.

They were directly below Jaden and the brown eyes.

His heart pounded.  They paused.  He forced his eyes not to budge.

An eternity later, they moved on.  No words, just a tiny rustle of feet in leaves.

Jaden smiled.  They eyes softened, but remained alert.

Neither of them moved.  The brown-haired boy's eyes felt heavy, but stayed focused.  There was safety in the brown eyes.  He could feel it like a warm blanket. 

He didn't remember falling asleep, but he woke to the bird songs and the whisper of rain through the thick branches.  He was damp, stiff, and achy.  His eyes opened and the brown eyes were gone.  Had they ever been there at all?

Deciding that he didn't have time to doubt his sanity, he started climbing down, his body begrudging him every step.

A bed, he decided, is what I need.  A bed and about three days to sleep myself out of this nightmare.

He was hopelessly lost.  He realized it now, in the pale morning.  He should have stopped ages before he had.  Haden had been attempting to double-back to the tree he'd been left at, but now, after a night of wind, and a morning of rain, his former path was gone.

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Treven perched high in the tree, looking for Jaden.  Had he really run off?

He won't survive a single night out here on his own.  The werecats will use his bones as toothpicks.

That wouldn't do.  Gregor would kill him if he came back without the outlander.

Well, I warned him.  It would serve him right to be eaten alive.

Treven sighed.  He'd at least need proof that the stubborn boy had been eaten.

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This one is part of a story that has yet to be written... and might never be.

The last division of the list: Hopeless Loves.

Hopeless loves.  Yeah.  They're the people I love even if I don't want to--even if they do everything they can so that I won't.  They're the ones who make my heart pitter-patter even as they're letting kids use it as a dodgeball.  Hopeless because they'll never love me, or even consider me.  They're hopeless because I'm hopeless.

And yet... I feel a certain sense of accomplishment when I write her name beneath the heading.  Maybe a part of me is letting go.  Maybe.

Or maybe that's my heart's pitter-patter over seeing her name in my handwriting.

Madison Riley Griffin

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This one is a snippet from my first ever conceived of novel, which has not been finished.

"As with all children born to fae, each of the four elements was flaunted in front of you when you were born," the old woman said slowly to him, remembering the day he was born and the exhausted look on her daughter's face as she watched her two boys.  "Your brother, as you have probably figured out by now, latched onto fire.  The only one you reacted to at all, was earth."

"What did I do with it?" Blaine asked, biting his lip to keep himself from getting too overly-excited about the prospect of actually having magical abilities.

The woman was quiet for another moment, then, "You ate it."

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That's all my dribblies and snippets.  Now you can stop reading if you want, but I'm going to write a little more to try and get some things straight with myself.  :-D

My friends have always been smart.  And I honestly didn't do that on purpose.  Truth be told, I envied stupid people.  Everything was so easy for them.  Like professional swimmers, things just moved along and they never thought about the future or consequences or anything like that.  I have never been like that.  Consequences, what-ifs, buts... they've always stopped me from being as spontaneous as I'd like.  And sometimes I feel like I missed out on a lot of my childhood because of this weird fear of punishment or of making the wrong decisions.

But that's beside the point.  My point: when I was in school, my friends were always smart.  And not always book smart.  Alex struggled in math and science, Erin couldn't do history to save her life, and Mark was just plain-out lazy when it came to school.  Karin is one of those people who's good at everything--sports, languages, band... if she ever struggled with anything, I never heard about it.  But my friends that weren't book-smart, were smart in other senses.  Alex is one of the deepest thinkers I've ever met, Erin was street smart....

And I miss smart things.  I miss deep conversations with Alex.  I miss study groups with Karin and her friends.  But really, I just miss being around people who think. 

The people I see most often now, are my "work friends".  I see them at work, then we don't talk to each other until I work again.  And, to put it mildly, they're just a bunch of fuck-ups.  Druggies, drop-outs, and people that never had any real desire to make anything out of their life.

I read about this game, called Truth.  And basically, all it is is people asking each other questions, and you have to tell the truth.  And when I read about it, I was thinking, "This could be a really deep, very interesting game."  But there's a problem.  I can't play it with my siblings, because they wouldn't know the truth if it fucked them up the ass, the two people I could play it with around here (Alex and Karin) I never get to see, and the people at my work are just... well, they're them.  But I did tell one of the girls at work about the game, and she said she wanted to play.  So I agreed.  We played during work the other night, and I was disappointed.  For one, her questions were tedious, at best, and annoying at worst.  For two, she never took one second to think about her answers before she said them, so her answers were flat and baseless.  The one profound question she asked me ("Do you believe that there is just one person that is made for each person?"), she got angry that it took me several minutes to get my answer in order, and then, when I'd finished answering, she stared at me for two seconds, then launched into a story about her boyfriend trying to push her to marry him, after they just got back together a week ago...

I don't know.  Maybe I'm too picky.  Maybe there are people that just aren't that deep.  Or maybe, she's just done so many drugs that her thoughts don't go much further from the surface of things. 

Anyway.  That's all.

So, this is a new story/novel I'm working on.  Jaden is my main character.  They aren't in order yet.  And there are pieces missing.  Oh well.

Jaden turned his back to the hallway and the commotion around the corner from his door.

Geezus.  Don't they ever shut up? he asked himself.  He didn't even bother trying to listen.  When they were this angry, they always ended up speaking in their native tongue.

He pulled out his key and pulled the door shut behind himself, locking it.

"GET DOWN!"

Jaden looked up to see a blue-haired boy come barrelling around the corner.  Before he could consider the situation, the other boy was tackling him around the waist.

They hit the floor as something dark red and round connected with the door jamb, splintering the wood and plaster as it exploded.

"Holy shit!" Jaden wrapped his arms around his head to shield himself from the debris.  No sooner had the pitter-patter of wood chips stopped hitting his coat, then he was grabbed by the arm and dragged to his feet.

"Come on, we gotta go."

"What?"

"Go.  Now.  They'll be here any second."

"Who?"

"Melba's men."

"Who?"

"I just told you.  Did the explosion rattle--"

There were grunts from the stairwell.  Scraping noises.

"That's them.  We gotta book."

"Huh?"

"Oh, for crying out loud!"  The blue-haired boy grabbed Jaden's arm and pulled him into the door next to his apartment.

"This is the storage room," Jaden told him in the dark.  "The only way out of the building is down the stairs... which this Melba person is blocking."

"Not her, her cronies," the boy said, shoving aside the artificial Christmas tree that belonged to the people across the hall.  He broke off the lock on Jaden's storage cupboard.

"Hey!  I could have just unlocked it!"

"No time.  They've reached the floor by now."

"If it took them that long to climb three flights of steps, I really think we could take them..."

"If you want to keep that," the boy indicated to Jaden's shoulder bag, "then I'd hold onto it tightly."

"What?"

But the bluenette didn't answer, just grabbed Jaden's arm and flung him into the cubby.  Rather than hitting the back wall, though, Jaden stumbled and fell onto a path.

"What the hell?"

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"Oh my god..."  Jaden's heart was hammering so hard against his chest that he was certain it would leap out at any moment.  He didn't dare move, suspended as he was, three stories off of the ground.

"What are you waiting for?  Let's go.  They're not complete imbeciles, they'll find the tunnel sooner or later."  The blue-haired boy walked past him, as easily as if he were on the ground.

Jaden didn't budge.  When he had gone rock-climbing at a local gym recently, he'd spoken to his spotter about real climbing.  And about falling.  The man had laughed.

"It's not the fall that kills you, man.  It's the sudden stop at the end."

Three stories wasn't a huge fall--definitely not a mountain--but it was enough.  He just couldn't bring himself to move.

The other boy was almost twenty meters ahead before he realized that Jaden wasn't behind him.  "What are you doing?"  He looked at the terrified look on the other boy's face and blinked.  "What's the matter?"

"We're thirty feet off the ground, floating in midair--I can't float!"

The blue-haired boy laughed.  "We're not floating.  Your fet feel something solid, yes?"

Jaden forced his fear aside for a moment, taking a second to evaluate where his feet were.  It did feel solid.  "I--yes."

"We're in an air tunnel.  It's perfectly safe.  Come on."

But Jaden didn't look quite so sure.  Air was not something solid in his experience.

The boy anxiously looked past Jaden, then hurried back to him.  "All right, let's try this.  Hold onto me.  You saw me walking on it okay, right?  Hold onto me and you'll be safe."

Wide-eyed, the terrified boy hesitated, then gently took the other's arm.

"All right.  We have to move fast.  If those things see us... well, it's not good."

"Won't they see us anyway?"

"No, the tunnel curves up ahead.  Once we make it around the bend, they won't see us."

"But..."  they started moving at a fast pace away from the building.

"Can you see around the corner in an earth tunnel?"

"Well, no," Jaden said.  "But underground tunnels are solid."

They rounded the bend.  "Look back."

Jaden glanced back, but couldn't see his building.  "....How?"

"I'd say this tunnel is pretty solid.  Come on," he gently tugged him.  "I want to reach the end before nightfall."

"I'm all for that--the sooner we reach the end, the better."

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"You can't go into the village in those clothes," Treven said, taking in Jaden's jeans, studded belt, and sneakers.  Jaden had already had to remove his t-shirt and stuffed it into his bag in the warm afternoon sun.

"You're wearing jeans," Jaden objected.

"Yes, but I had to.  To come and get you.  I have my clothes hidden in a tree just over the hill."  He studied the pale boy with him.  "Well, there's nothing for it.  You'll have to wait here and I'll go buy you some decent clothes."

Jaden thought about explaining how durable jeans were, but decided against it.  He'd read books about what happened to outsiders, and he had no interest in being tortured or killed.  "Fine.  I'll wait by the tree for you."  At least he'd get to sit down in the shade for a while.

Treven nodded and looked over Jaden.  "You're a bit smaller than me.  I'll try to get something a bit too small for me if I can."

Jaden gave a small nod and plopped himself down between the tree roots while Treven started changing.  He leaned back against the tree and shut his eyes.

"I'll be back before sunset."

Jaden grunted quietly and listened to the fading footsteps as he drifted into a light doze.

Some time later, a twig snapped.  Jaden's eyes jerked open.

"Bastion!  Is that you?"

A jolly-looking old man stepped our from behind a tree nearby.  "Bastion, we've been searching all over for ye!"

Jaden blinked.  He had a sudden double-vision of the man.  The old man and a strong-looking middle-aged man overlapped.  And then it was just the old man.

Jaden pushed himself to his feet.  "I'm sorry, sir.  You must have me confused with someone else.

The old man had dark green hair.

Hell with my clothes, he thought, my hair is going to give me away.

The man stepped closer and Jaden felt uneasy as the double-vision flickered before his eyes.

"My grandson, Bastion... he came out a-wanderin' some time ago.  'Ave ye seen him, lad?"

He was five feet away and Jaden felt like he was in one of those 3D films.  He felt dizzy and his heart was pounding.

"I'm afraid not, sir..." Jaden bent to get his bag, and the old man leapt.

Jaden rolled out of reach and straight onto his feet.  He ran.  Slinging the bag over his shoulder as he went, Jaden ran.

He heard the heavy footsteps on the ground behind him, but didn't dare look back as he dodged through the trees--slipping on fallen leaves, stumbling over roots, jumping brambles.  A fallen tree lay in his way ahead--too big to jump, too long to run around, but there was a small gap under it.

The labored breathing was getting closer.  Jaden put on an extra burst of speed, running full-tilt towards the tree.  At the last second, he slid, like a baseball player stealing home.  He was on his feet again as soon as he cleared the tree.

Behind him, he heard a yell, followed by a string of curses.  He fought the urge to look back as he skidded and ran through the trees.

Jaden didn't stop running until his feet slipped a final time on the thin layer of leaves, and his aching body refused to leave the ground.

Twilight surrounded him as his eyes followed the rather-obvious trail of his slips and stumbles.  He tried to quiet his heaving lungs, straining to hear footsteps or breathing, but there was nothing but him and the creeping darkness.

His eyes were fixed on the route he'd taken.  Fantastic.  You left them a road map straight to you.

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Jaden breathed a sigh of relief when his feet touched onto solid, or rather, visible ground.  He leaned against the tree at the entrance to the tunnel.  They were in the middle of thick woods, richly colored with the changing of the seasons.

"Oh man.  I think I'll have to change all my answers on those online surveys now," Jaden laughed.  "I'm not sure flying would be my first choice for a superpower anymore."

Treven looked at him with a confused smile, then shrugged.  "Flying isn't so bad.  It's better than the tunnels.  I always get a little turned around in the tunnels."

Jaden smiled.  "Oh yeah?  You do a lot of flying, then?"

"Not so much as when I was younger."

Jaden laughed, his dark blond hair ruffling in the wind.  "Yeah, me either."

"You already know how?"

He laughed again.  "With faerie dust and happy thoughts, everybody knows that."

Treven's brow furrowed.  "What good does faerie dust do?"

"You never read Peter Pan?"

"Who's he?"

"The boy that never grew up."

The blue-haired boy stared at him blankly.

"Nevermind.  It's just a story parents tell to little kids.  So, anyway, why are those Melba people chasing you?"

"Melba is a woman.  She doesn't trivialize herself with the hunt.  Her lackies were at the inn where you lived."

"It's an apartment building.  And anyway, it doesn't matter.  Why are they after you?"

"Me?"  Treven laughed.  "They aren't after me.  They're after you."

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"What I wouldn't give for a cup of coffee..." Jaden mumbled, trudging towards... well, he still didn't know where they were going.  "Hey!  Treven!" he called to the boy ahead of him.  "Where are we going?"

"To your home."

Jaden was frustrated, achy, and chilled with the oncoming darkness.  "You drug me away from my home, remember?  And that's back in the other direction.  Speaking of--how am I going to explain my exploded door to my landlord?"

Treven gave a sly smile over his shoulder.  "Not that home."

Jaden ground his teeth.  "Alright, enough!  I'm going home--my home."  He turned on his heel and stalked back through the trees.

Footsteps came behind him hurriedly and grabbed his arm.  "You mustn't!  Melba will be waiting!"

"Good!  She can tell my landlord why my door and half the wall are missing!"