Random Untitled Prologue 15 (long one!)
Posted July 11th, 2011 by Rainbowbubble
 | by
Ninja Cat in the flesh >:) |
AN: This is really, really long. A whole twelve pages in word.
Please read it all if you don't mind! I'm really proud of this one! I think I probably rewrote four times...and the last half at least six times.
This is how this thing came into existence...
1) Go to South Dakota, black hills reigon
2) Find that all the wavy grass on the hills reminds you of the movie Nausicaa (go see that movie if you haven't, 'tis a Miyazaki)
3) Get inspired by this awesome movie to write about someone with a glider
So yeah...I'd love it if you commented! And yes, this is a prologue, despite it's obscene longness, not a short story :)
P.S. KP deleted my indents again! GRR!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
RANDOM UNTITLED PROLOGUE 15
“…aleb.”
Hmmm, too early.
“Psst, Caleb!”
That voice is familiar…but why so early?
“Caleb…Caleb, wake up!”
The boy with the dark brown hair finally opened his eyes, since the noise had become far too loud and insistent to stay asleep. He recognized the voice, but it certainly wasn’t something he was used to hearing so early in the morning. And as the room came into focus the boy found that his view of the bedroom ceiling was obstructed by a face.
A familiar face.
The voice came again, dangerously quiet and so close to his ear that he could feel their breath.
“Caleb…get up, now.”
The boy was now alert enough to be more than mildly surprised.
“HOLY—”
Before Caleb had a chance to finish his exclamation a warm hand was clapped over his mouth. He had practically jumped out of his skin, and nearly fallen of the bed in the process of scrambling away from the face so close to his own. He would have been on the floor by now if not for the sturdy support of the wall.
“God,” whispered a familiar, girlish voice, “Just wake up the whole valley, why don’t you?” The boy shook his head like a dog clearing water from its ears, and the girl gently removed her hand.
“Nadia?” Caleb finally choked out incredulously; blinking hard, as if he could not believe the identity of the girl in front of him. “Nadia…what are you doing here?”
“Waking you up, what does it look like I’m doing?” she said simply.
Caleb took in the familiar appearance of his friend, he would say his best friend but at the moment she was annoying him too much to earn that title. Her straight, rust red hair was, as usual, slightly disheveled from lack of care. She was standing in the center of his bedroom like she owned the place, hands on her hips and giving him a disdainful look as if he had disappointed her. Her green eyes sparkled mischievously, and Caleb was suddenly thankful that she hadn’t sabotaged his room while he was sleeping.
Still not fully awake, he rubbed his face in an effort to dispel the sleep from his muscles. “Yes, I can see that,” he said finally, “But how the heck did you get in here without waking anyone up? Please don’t tell me you picked the lock.”
Nadia smiled, “I climbed in through the window, of course.”
Caleb rolled his eyes, unwilling to be impressed. “Of course,” he thought “You just scaled the side of my house and managed to slip through my bedroom window on the third floor. Simple.”
“Anyway,” she continued briskly, “That’s not important! You need to get up, we’re wasting time!”
“Wait! Wait! Wait!” Caleb said hastily as Nadia tried to drag him out of bed, "I’m not going anywhere until you tell me exactly what you’re doing!”
Nadia sighed exasperatedly, and sat down on the rug cross legged, looking up at Caleb with annoyance. She cast a glance around the room suspiciously, as if she was making sure no one else was around. “Well,” she said quietly, “You know that…thing I’ve been working on?”
Realization dawned on Caleb’s face, only to immediately be replaced by a look of distress. “Oh no,” he said firmly, pulling the covers up to his chin, “No. No way. I am not coming with you. Your dad would kill me if he found out.”
This, as Caleb suspected, did not help the situation at all and Nadia only stared up at him with more annoyance than before. “I’ve already planned for that!” she exclaimed, “He’s not going to find out if we leave now and get back by noon!”
“Forget it,” he said obstinately, rolling over and facing the wall, “I’m not going.”
There was an insane, hopeful moment where Caleb thought if he lay still enough Nadia would simply go back out the window the way she’d came and leave him alone. The silence did not last long however, as he started to hear a pitiful sniffling coming from her direction.
“Oh god,” he thought as he rolled over again.
Nadia was still sitting on the carpet but tears were dribbling from her eyes. She sniffed again and rubbed her face. Caleb had seen this act set up for the grown-ups a thousand times. It was pathetic really, and it didn’t help that she was really good at fake crying. She was still only nine, young enough to be babied and that was her trump card when trying to avoid trouble.
“Cale-eb,” she whined, her voice rising, “Why are you so me-ean?” She stretched out her words into loud wails that Caleb knew would only get louder if he didn’t agree to come along. The last thing he needed was for his parents to come up and discover her in his room.
“Fine, fine, I’ll go! Just, please, shut up!” He said finally.
Immediately the sniffling stopped and a smile broke out across Nadia’s pixie-like face, she rubbed the tears from her eyes quickly and jumped up from her place on the rug. She was already off like a shot. “Great, let’s go then! You can climb out the window, right?”
She was practically hanging out the window already as Caleb slowly got out of bed. “No, Nadia,” he said, struggling to stay calm, “I can’t climb out the window. I’m not even dressed yet.”
Nadia rolled her eyes as if the very thought of clothes made her impatient. “Fine,” she quipped, hopping over the window sill and standing precariously on the wall outside, “Hurry up, I’ll meet you down there.”
And she was gone.
~*~*~*~
Outside the air was cool and fresh and dew made the grass sparkle in the first sun rays reaching the valley over the hills beyond. Caleb had picked his way carefully down the spiral staircase in his house, passing the rooms of his parents and many siblings on the way. He shivered as he stepped outside; the air being colder than the well-heated confines of the house.
He knew exactly where Nadia wanted to go, and had dressed accordingly with a sturdy pair of shoes, thick trousers that cut off at his knees, and a simple cotton shirt. His mother probably would have frowned upon his clothing choice, but he was too preoccupied to care about that now.
Nadia was waiting around the back of the house and Caleb finally caught the first glimpse of the thing she had been working on for so long. Despite himself, Caleb was impressed. Very impressed in fact, but he still did have a reputation to upkeep, so he kept it to himself.
The thing in question was a glider.
A glider that was hand-made by a nine year old.
She stood next to it proudly, a hand propped up on its tip as it balanced on the handle bars. “Well,” she said, giving Caleb a wide grin, “What do you think?”
Caleb shrugged, not sure what to say. “It’s…good,” he stated finally, “Very good.”
Nadia laughed, a sparkling sound the filled up the silent morning, and Caleb couldn’t help but smile back at her, his annoyance momentarily forgotten at the thought of the pending adventure. Nadia was the only person who could make him smile like that. Something about her love for thrill and adventure was contagious, even to a boy like himself.
The two had always been a strange pair; the wild-child daughter of the council’s most loved member, and the quiet, shy son of a farmer. They were practically inseparable, and quarreled and laughed with each other in equal amounts.
Of course, his close friendship with Nadia did not exactly help his image with the other boys of the village. At this age, it was particularly shameful to be even remotely associated with girls, besides teasing them. But to befriend a girl, heaven forbid a girl younger than you, was more than enough to earn a ten year old some reproachful looks.
But in truth, Caleb couldn’t care less. He looked on as the girl red-haired hefted the glider awkwardly into her arms, craning her neck to one side as she tried to find a comfortable way to carry it.
“It doesn’t fold up like a regular glider, though,” she said from around one side of it as the two of them started making their way east towards the hills. “I was afraid the wind weed would snap if I bent it too much.”
While they walked Caleb had a chance to look at the glider in more detail. It was a hang glider, old technology by far, but it was rather well made considering the small amount of material Nadia had to work with. All the supports and even the handle bar was made out wind weed, a hollow, stick like plant that was flexible and light. A good choice.
As if Nadia could sense her friend’s eyes examining the contraption she called back, “The fabric is what I’m worried about. It’s nice and hardy but probably too thick. If I took anything nicer my dad would have gotten suspicious.”
Again Caleb was reminded of the dangerous aspect of what they were doing. They were already a fair distance up the first hill, and getting farther away from the village every minute. He wasn’t exactly worried about getting lost, since Nadia had an amazingly good sense of direction and a phenomenal memory, he was worried about getting caught.
Nadia’s father was on the second highest position of the village council, but was the most liked out of all seven of the members by far. There was no family resemblance between father and daughter, and Caleb figured Nadia took off from a distant relative or her mysterious mother.
Her father was a tall, imposing, broad-shouldered man with a serious face and raven hair. His eyes were a deep blue that showed his true emotions. Despite his caring nature on the council, Caleb had seen him give Nadia and earful more than once, and was more than a little scared of him. But he knew, like the rest of the village, that there was nothing that man loved more in life than his daughter.
Nadia was well known around the village, both for her charming personality and her reckless adventures. She was just as famous among the children. No one really knew about her love for flight; no one except Caleb.
This glider had been her project for the past three months, and most of it had been kept secret even from Caleb save for the quietest whispers. She had been gathering materials from all over; sneaking out in the night to get what she needed and assembling the glider whenever she had a spare moment alone.
And now that it was finished Caleb couldn’t decide whether to be elated, cautious, or just annoyed that she was forcing him to participate.
“So,” he said, breaking the silence as they reached the edge of the sparse forest that covered the windy hills. “You’re perfectly fine with spending hundreds of hours working on this thing, sneaking around at night, and breaking into my house…while just sneaking your dad’s glider out of the closet would have been so much easier?”
“My dad’s glider…the one from the army?” she asked over her shoulder, although the question was completely rhetorical. For a moment she let herself imagine flying on such a beautiful contraption, made out of pure white sylium plastic and light as a feather. It was a fairly new model and worked liked a dream. But, she quickly dispelled the thought.
“Are you crazy?” she asked, “If I broke that thing I’m not sure what my dad would do to me. Besides, he keeps it locked up in a closet in his bedroom.”
“You could easily pick that lock, right?” Caleb asked. But the fact that she didn’t respond told him that she had probably tried.
Gliding was a common thing in the hills of Scaila where wind was more than common. However, it wasn’t legal for anyone under the age of fourteen to ride one, but that didn’t stop Nadia. She had cleverly weaseled around that particular obstacle by making her own.
They arrived at the top of the hill, entering the sparse, fresh green forest, which covered some of the Hills. Caleb helped as Nadia tried to maneuver the bulky glider between the thin, tightly packed trees. He had never seen her so quiet and focused on anything before, and eventually Caleb’s thoughts began to wander.
It always surprised him to remember that the kind, diplomatic man who was Nadia’s father had once been better known for his actions as a soldier. But, it wasn’t that shocking. In small villages and towns, such as the one nestled between the hills that Nadia and Caleb lived in, becoming a soldier was one of the few paths a young man could take.
But, becoming a soldier had never appealed to Caleb, not in the slightest. He wasn’t built for that sort of thing, he was small for his age, still healthy and muscular, but not as much as was standard. Unlike the other boys, who played soldiers on the cobbled streets all the time, Caleb did not plan to join the army when he was sixteen.
He was so lost in his own thoughts that he ran into Nadia who had stopped silently at the end of the forest. “Hey!” He exclaimed, backing up and readjusting the glider in his arms; craning his neck around the bulk shape only to gasp at what he saw beyond.
Every child in Scaila had been to the Hills at least once, and this included Caleb.
This, however, did not make the sight any less amazing.
As far as he could see, there was just hill after hill covered in tall, green grass that waved in the wind. The wind ripped along the landscape that held nothing but grass and the occasional grouping of trees, creating ripples in the grass that resembled shimmering waves across the hills. The scene was made even more awe inspiring by the soft morning light rising in the distance.
Caleb felt as if he were standing on the edge of an endless, green sea.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it? Even though you’ve seen it a thousand times,” Nadia said quietly.
He only nodded.
The awestruck moment was gone in an instant as a ferocious gust of wind came at the pair, catching the glider and threatening to carry them both away. Nadia’s tinkling laugh rose above the wind as she helped ground the contraption again, she pulled her wild red hair behind her ears and caught Caleb’s eye with a smile.
“We better be careful!” she said over the wind as the two tightened their grips on the glider, “This wind could blow us right back into the valley!”
She stopped for a moment before descending the hill, looking over the sea of grass with a critical eye. At last she pointed out into the distance, and Caleb followed her finger with his eyes. “That hill over there would be good for a takeoff, don’t you think?”
The hill in question rose above all the others not too far away from where they stood, like a white cap on an ocean full of gently lapping waves. It was long, with an almost flat top and dropped steeply at the end. He had to agree, it was perfect, but Caleb was becoming increasingly nervous as they began making their way through the grass with the glider tightly in their hands.
It was a long, and slightly dangerous, trek across the rising and falling hills to the one that Nadia had pointed out. The wind could rip the glider from their hands at any moment, but that was the least of Caleb’s worries.
Being older, he felt more than a little bit responsible for Nadia.
Actually,
He felt a lot responsible for Nadia.
There was no denying how dangerous something like this could be; she was about to jump off a cliff for crying out loud. So maybe it wasn’t a cliff, but it was just as steep. Still walking behind her, Caleb wondered if Nadia felt just as worried as him, or if she was too excited to even register that emotion.
They had finally reached the hill, and as the pair carefully made their way up the steep side Caleb felt like he was coming to his senses. There was no way, absolutely no way, that he was going to let Nadia do this. There was no telling what her father would do if she came back with a broken limb, and Caleb wasn’t sure who would get the worst of it; him or Nadia.
Standing at the top of the hill was amazing; even Caleb could appreciate the view despite all his worries. He relinquished his hold on the glider in a daze as Nadia began fixing everything up for the takeoff, and it was only until she started backing up to make space to run before he started protesting.
“Uh, Nadia? Is this safe?” He asked concernedly, as he looked on curiously at his friend who stood a good few yards from the edge of the hill.
“Of course not,” she responded, checking the handle bars.
“Look…I can’t let you do this. Your dad would kill me if you got hurt,” he said hurriedly, noticing his words weren’t having any effect as Nadia prepared to run.
“I’ll be fine,” she called distractedly.
Caleb felt his heart beat rising, feeling desperate as his friend’s small, muscular body tensed as she positioned her feet to run. “Nadia?” he called.
She ignored him.
“Nadia…don’t you dare…Nadia! NADIA!”
His friend took off sprinting, her wiry, strong legs carrying her past Caleb in a blur. There was a moment where he thought about making a half-hearted attempt to follow and stop her, and he even took a few steps forward before he knew it was too late.
Shielding his eyes from the sun he watched with momentary horror as his friend reached the edge of the hill and simply leapt off. Caleb’s breath froze in his throat as Nadia seemed to be suspended in midair for a few terrifying seconds.
Then those seconds were over.
It was very ungraceful; probably the most humiliating thing she had ever done and Caleb would agree. Her legs flailed and she looked like she was contemplating letting go of the handle bars. She was forced to when she finally hit the ground, making a sound that was halfway between a squeak and a scream. She rolled the rest of the way down the hill and the glider landed beside her, rocking forlornly on its back.
For a moment there was silence, just the rush of the wind.
But it didn’t take long for Caleb to start laughing.
Maybe it was because until that moment he had been strung as tight as a violin string, or the fact that the crash was to terrible that it was hilarious, or a combination of both, but he was consumed by roaring laughter.
Above the wind Caleb could hear a muffled, but fierce, “Quit that!” from the bottom of the hill as Nadia hastily stood, trying to regain some dignity by brushing herself off and hastily examining the glider for any damage.
He tried to stop laughing, really, he did, but…he just couldn’t.
Nadia had made it to the top of the hill and was glaring at him ferociously as he was consumed by giggling aftershocks. When he showed no signs of stopping she sighed, put on her best I-couldn’t-care-less-about-what-you’re-doing face and focused on the problem of her hair, which had managed to pick up an impressive amount of debris on the way down.
Pulling the more noticeable pieces of grass from her hair she began pleating it down her back. Her fingers moved quickly and deftly as each piece of hair crossed over the other forming a pattern that swept cleanly down her back; she hastily tied off the end with a piece of the long grass at her feet.
Caleb, who had finally regained enough control to stop laughing, smiled inwardly at this simple action. If there was one thing he had to give Nadia credit for, she certainly did not suffer from vanity.
She was still glaring at him, but he was too lighthearted to care. “You hurt?” He asked with a smile, knowing she wasn’t.
“A bit bruised but fine, no thanks to you,” she answered tersely, turning away and starting down the length of the hill again.
It took Caleb a minute to realize what she was doing and trotted after her in confusion. “You’re not actually going again, are you?” He asked nervously, already suspecting the answer but being optimistic anyway.
“Yes, I actually am, Caleb,” she answered icily without looking at him, again checking the glider for any damage.
He stepped out of the way hastily as she prepared to run, gripping the handlebar tightly and taking off with the same explosive speed as the first time. Again her small figure whisked past him and he watched as she leapt off the hill.
The crash wasn’t as spectacular as last time.
She didn’t roll all the way down the hill, and managed to catch the glider before it blew away with a gust of wind. Caleb didn’t laugh as hard either as she trudged back up the hill, pulling the glider behind her un-ceremonially. He was, however, a little alarmed by the harsh expression on her face and the fact that she not stop to tell him to shut up.
He had seen that look before, except on her father’s face.
That shut him up quicker than anything she could have said aloud.
Nadia took off again, and this time wasn’t much better than the first two. She wasn’t flailing her legs as much anymore, which was a good thing, and was actually taking the time to waiting for some wind to come up at her back. But, she crashed again.
And again.
And again.
So went the rest of the morning.
After a while Caleb stopped watching, preferring to lie in the tall grass and stare at the sky. Anything would be more excited that watching his friend repeatedly throw herself off a hill, no matter how hard she had worked on the glider.
He knew that she would give up, eventually, but that moment would not come anytime soon. She would probably go past her deadline to be back at the village by noon, but the winds were really fierce at that time anyway, they’d blow away before Nadia left willingly.
He also knew that no matter how strong Nadia seemed she was slowly cracking inside, and if this experiment failed Caleb was going to have his work cut out for him in order to cheer her up.
There was only so much a ten year old boy could take though, and at last he shouted over the wind that had begun to blow more fiercely as noon approached. Nadia was again trudging determinedly up the side of the hill.
“Come off it, Nadia. Just face it, the glider doesn’t work. Let’s get out of here before you hurt yourself,” He said, trying to sound concerned but coming off mostly as bored and annoyed. She had gotten a few bruises of the course of her innumerable crashes, and was looking rather worse for wear.
She ignored him, as she had the last few times he had tried to get her to quit.
Again, she ran, jumped, and fell like a stone.
Caleb exhaled sharply, sitting up at last and stretching. “Look,” he said finally, directing his words across the hill where he knew Nadia would be getting up from the crash, “Why don’t we just go back and go fishing or something? We’ve been out too long anyway, aren’t you afraid something bad is going to happen?”
Nadia was trudging up the hill but had stopped halfway to give Caleb an unfathomable look that was tinged with defeat. The expression was so earnest and heartbroken that he couldn’t help but feel honestly sorry for the girl.
She was just staring at him in that heartbreaking way when an enormous gust of wind rushed over the hills behind them.
Caleb heard it before he saw it. It was a rushing sound like some enormous animal gliding through the grass at impossible speeds. He could remember watching as it seemed like every blade of grass on the Hills bent at the passing of this wind. It was terrifying and amazing all in the same moment.
Then he was hit by the full force of it and was knocked onto his back, ironically knocking the wind out of him. He was dazed for a moment, seeing stars sparking across his vision across the clear blue sky, before he was alerted by the sound of Nadia’s scream.
It was a real scream, not like the little squeak she had emitted earlier.
Immediately Caleb jumped up, head spinning as he tried to locate the girl on the hills. The gust had probably picked her up, what with the fact that she was holding onto the glider too. And as he scanned the hills, he saw her.
She was running.
Somehow, Nadia had managed to get up another hill and was running as fast as she could across it, the gust of wind nipping at her heels. Her expression was one of absolute joy, and Caleb suddenly realized that the scream had been one of excitement, not fear.
Then, in a moment that would forever remain frozen in Caleb’s mind,
She jumped.
Right off the edge of the hill and into the great wind at her back, and it pushed her up, up, higher and higher, faster and faster. He could only stare up in wonder as his best friend was lifted up into the blue sky like a bird.
She soared, riding on the wind, looking as light as a feather. And Caleb suddenly felt a strange elation and utter happiness rise in his heart.
“Nadia!” He cried out as loud as he possibly could, “Nadia, you’re flying!”
~*~*~*~
The second her eyes detected the wind rising up behind her friend up on the hill, Nadia Wrest knew there were only two possible outcomes of this situation.
Just two.
She could either stand her and cling to the glider for dear life, hoping that her three months of hard work and planning wasn’t ripped out of her hands, which there was a high chance it would be, and be thrown halfway across the Hills where she would never reach it again.
Or, she could run. Run, in hopes of catching the gust as it reached the edge of the hill behind her. That could be potentially dangerous, and she could still lose the glider in the process, but there was still the glittering, elusive prospect that she might actually fly.
The decision took less than a second, but really, that was all she had.
The red haired girl turned on her heel and ran faster than she thought possible up the hill. It would have been nice if she could have caught the gust as it hit the other hill, which was much higher and longer, but she was too late for that.
She could hear the gust coming up behind her, and Nadia imagined all the grass on the Hills flattening as it passed and whispering almost indignantly in its wake. Part of her wanted to turn and watch the amazing sight as this legendary wind ripped over the Hills, but a stronger impulse kept her sprinting to the top of the hill.
Her thoughts came in bursts; everything was down to the wire, no time for complete sentences during a moment like this that required every ounce of her attention.
Run. Run.
Breathe.
Run. Run.
Breathe.
Don’t stop. Never look back.
The edge of the hill was fast approaching, and for a terrifying split second doubt slipped into Nadia’s thoughts. There was no end to the danger of this stunt, she could fall, break a leg, or very possibly die. But, strangely, she didn’t feel afraid.
Perhaps a little concerned, yes, there was that. There was concern for her safety and concern for Caleb who had to be watching from the other hill. What would her father say to him if she got hurt? But there was no fear.
Was she supposed to be afraid?
Wasn’t that what you were supposed to feel when you were doing something dangerous?
But she didn’t feel fear.
Just thrill.
The thrill that comes when your dream is just within you grasp; when you dream is just a breath away and if you reach a little farther you’ll be there. It was now or never.
The edge was coming closer and closer.
And when that moment came to grab that dream, Nadia reached out with both arms.
There was a terrifying, thrilling moment when there was nothing beneath her feet, and Nadia found herself treading air. Then she felt the rush of wind in her ears as the gust finally caught up with her and lifted her up light a feather.
She couldn’t stop the scream that escaped her throat.
She was going higher and higher, higher than she’d ever dreamed of going on this patchwork glider made out of wind weed, an old tablecloth, and a good amount of elbow grease. But, here she was.
The girl was flying.
Nadia Wrest was flying and it felt amazing.
Suddenly the voice of her friend rang out across the Hills, loud and clear despite the wind all around here. Nadia wanted to look down at him, but was afraid that seeing the ground would somehow taint the picture of the pure blue sky in front of her that she wanted to preserve forever.
“Nadia!” came the voice, loud and full of pride and excitement, “Nadia, you’re flying!”
And so she was for another euphoric five minutes. Soaring on the wind like the birds she envied so much. She had never felt freer, never been more alive in her life of nine years then she was at that moment.
She laughed out loud as she finally turned off the huge gust of wind, knowing full well that it could carry her for much longer, but afraid she would end up too far away. Sure, she was in heaven, but at the moment heaven had its limits.
Gently leaning, she managed to bank a wide left, riding on the smaller breaths of wind that still filled the Hills. Feeling the wind all around her she moved lightly from gust to gust, dropping lower and lower as she made to land on the hill she had started on.
“This is gonna be the hard part,” Nadia thought as she centered herself to the hill, smiling slightly at the sight of Caleb jumping up and down toward the back and shouting things she couldn’t hear.
Carefully, she pulled back on the handlebar as the glider neared the ground, sticking her legs out beneath her as the nose of the glider tilted upwards. The combined air resistance of her legs and the raised nose helped the glider slow down considerably.
She made a smooth landing.
Well…almost.
She had hit the ground and had started running, only to be pushed over by all her forward speed and do a summersault over the handlebar and onto the grass. The glider was left behind her as she flopped down on her back, staring at the blue sky.
The landing was smooth enough for Nadia; nothing could bring her down right now.
Her laughter cascaded up and she felt like every part of her body sang of joy and she wanted that sound to reach to everywhere. Everyone must hear, everyone must know.
Nadia Wrest had flown and it was amazing.
She heard Caleb as he ran to her and he lifted her light form off the ground with ease. He was laughing with her as he spun around in a happy circle with her clutched close to her. They were both talking at the same time, probably saying the same things but neither was listening.
Laughing he set her down and gripped her in a tight hug, both laughing into each other’s ears as if they would never stop. But suddenly, in the flurry of hugging and laughing and twirling, Caleb pulled away for just a second and leaned in again, planting a quick kiss on Nadia's pale lips.
The boy seemed not to have noticed, and went on laughing and talking immediately after. The gesture was almost lost in the excitement. A quick kiss between two so young was not uncommon in play, and Nadia had been dared to kiss other boys many times. For some reason this felt different though, like fire had course through her veins for just a second.
She allowed herself to be confused for a moment before she dismissed it like Caleb had, joining him in laughter a second time. But the feeling still remained in the back of her mind to be examined and thought upon later.
The two chased down the glider which had been blown away and was rolling down the hill. They retrieved it easily and began making their way back towards up another hill and back into the forest as if on some silent signal.
There would be no more gliding this day.
Caleb was holding the glider this time but when he reached the forest, their laughter finally quieted; he stopped and turned, extending his hand to the sky.
“Look,” he said softly, and Nadia turned with him, following his gaze, “Birds.”
She watched with him as the birds were silhouetted against the sky, rising and falling in the wind of the Hills. They were merely black shapes from this far away.
Nadia suddenly felt something she had never felt before. It was a strange feeling that made her want to laugh and cry all at the same time. It was bitter and sweet, but quite indefinable. She couldn’t pin it down in her heart to know truly what it was, but a single tear slid down her cheek as she smiled at the birds.
“It won’t be the last time,” she said suddenly.
The brown haired boy looked at her curiously, but said nothing. The girl only continued to stare out towards the sky, her rust red hair slightly ruffled by the wind. He couldn’t imagine what was running through her head, but slipped his hand into hers and they clasped together tightly. It seemed like the right thing.
She had tasted the sky once, and it wouldn’t be long before she wanted it again.
It wouldn’t be long at all.
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Wow, that was absolutely beautiful.
I love love love you as a descriptive writer, you always manage to put me exactly on the scene, and the scene is always so dang pretty. The characters are great in this too. I think sometimes the characters are your weakest suit, but when you get them, you REALLY get them, and this is one of those times. Awesome job!
P.S.: on KP deleting your indents.
I think what it is is, when you're in word, you have to hit tab the first few times, and then it starts to indent them automatically. You can tell when it's doing that because up at the top where you can control the margins, one of the little triangle things comes out. And it automatically shows on word, but since the indent isn't part of the text, it doesn't register when you copy and paste it to another program. So if that' really bothers you, you just have to watch for when the computer does that, so you can move the arrow back, and hit Tab.
That said, usually it doesn't matter anyway. But every once in a while I feel like the indents are important, and that works for me.
Hope that helps.
With Windex and duct tape, you can conquer the world. And several other dimensions as well. --Me
That's a good point! I'll try that next time to fix the indents, since I think it makes the writing look too...uniform? IDK but thanks!
I'm really glad you liked it and I was afraid the characters were going to come off as weak, so yeah.... :D
"There is a cow mooing somewhere in the depths of the forest behind my house..."~ME
Wow. I agree with Clarissa… That was epik. Epik. Epik. Beautiful. Amazing. Epik. I loved it. Epik. Epik. *Repeats self for a day* *Explodes*
Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say.
NO I EXPLODED LST D:
I'm sorry XD
"There is a cow mooing somewhere in the depths of the forest behind my house..."~ME
NOOO HOW COULD YOU!
With Windex and duct tape, you can conquer the world. And several other dimensions as well. --Me