The "freaky Nikki" bit literally made my stomach hurt. I couldn't imagine if some guy who liked me would just call me one of the nicknames that hurt me like that
In that scene where she's freaking out going "it's not me" like she clearly needed help!!!
Like holy shit, you think your friend is doing drugs or something and you're all sitting there with fish mouths and empty fucking heads
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Actually, more serious addition… because the cinematography is used to reveal parts of the stories and characters in a way I find both thrilling and nauseating.
The reflection scenes are so beyond good and the parallels with Bear towards the end where he apologizes and comes back to himself with the cashier!! The way the camera is also looking at his reflection and he is looking at himself. Very good.
The scenes where she’s acting so bizarre and only her silhouette can be seen because she is a shadow of her former self. Bear’s eyes are often too dark to see in these scenes but his face is always slightly lit up.
Her dancing and movement when she’s Not Nikki but she’s trying to be even though Nikki doesn’t really dance around like that.
The party will live rent free in my head for a while. I won’t even go into it. It just will. Terrible all around.
But also… TW: SA
Bear knew he was sexually assaulting Nikki in that scene. I went in expecting ambiguity and I’m mad some people did not pick that up. Like… I’m honestly upset media literacy has gotten bad enough that in a scene where the director basically wrote on the wall “he knows and doesn’t care” and it was missed!!
He says “no, it doesn’t matter” right after getting proof that she’s clearly either unwell or under the influence of the wish. The scene immediately jump cuts to them in bed. He knows what he’s doing to her!! He knows in some capacity this is wrong, even if he’s not sure how
it's sorta funny (ignoring the horrors) that cis people can't be trusted with a deadname. any time someone tells me theirs I've forgotten it five minutes later, if you had names for your toes that would be far more interesting to me, but cis people get real "if you give a mouse a cookie" about it it
I'm terrified of people even knowing it, because I know that some people will instantly lock that into their heads as my "real name" and eventually slip and say it instead
Something something that charlottan post about how even if people have only ever known you as the gender you transitioned to, they're still gonna think "oh they're just a boy that I need to remember to call a girl"
Most people won't slip up like that, the average cis person walks on eggshells so they don't accidentally reveal they're just humoring us out of a sense of obligation, they'll think about it and get even more anxious while doing that.
This reinforces the wall between them and any insight into the situation.
during my 2,000 years in military service upon the wartorn world of Bantok, we had a member of our unit named Private Tags who was so covered in skin tags you couldnt see his real face. Saying the tag arent private dishonors his memory in incomprhensibly vile ways, youre all going ot mega hell
Hate. Let me tell you how much I've come to hate golf since I began to live. There are roughly 2.25 million acres of land dedicated to golfing in the United States of America. If the word 'hate' was engraved on each blade of grass in those millions of acres, it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate I feel for golf courses at this micro-instant. For golf. Hate. Hate.
Casual reminder tha golf courses account for 14% of the daily usage of water for the entire USA. Golf courses are deeply unethical and should been seen as such.
While we’re at it, fuck giant grass spaces around buildings that do not need it!! Most of the grasses they use are invasive, replace it all with wildflowers, native plants and especially milkweed
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Do other people really just lie about themselves that much?
I feel like every fandom post I see nowadays is someone going "ooh, but what if that thing the character explicitly said about themselves was a lie and they actually want the opposite"
IT'S GETTING SO BORING
I dunno, sometimes people go out of their way to project an exaggerated version of what they want to be because they don't want you to get it wrong, not because they're secretly lying and really want something else
Like a hyperromantic doesn't always have to be secretly aro anymore than a romanceless character has to secretly be a hopeless romantic.
You can believe my characters when they say something, unless the narration negates them otherwise. You can believe them.
Humans may build themselves solely out of lies, but a character cannot do that. Someone else builds them.
So unless the author is secretly a lying liar or is making a point, the character is going to built on some truths. I don’t make a character and then make them lie about who they are.
Do other people really just lie about themselves that much?
I feel like every fandom post I see nowadays is someone going "ooh, but what if that thing the character explicitly said about themselves was a lie and they actually want the opposite"
IT'S GETTING SO BORING
I dunno, sometimes people go out of their way to project an exaggerated version of what they want to be because they don't want you to get it wrong, not because they're secretly lying and really want something else
Like a hyperromantic doesn't always have to be secretly aro anymore than a romanceless character has to secretly be a hopeless romantic.
You can believe my characters when they say something, unless the narration negates them otherwise. You can believe them.
Sometimes you read something in your fandom that’s like “what if you were a child?? But like… a sexy child?? That can consent?? And you’re carried around all the time and dada (your sexy mates… of which you have many… despite having no personality besides baby) gives you a bottle every night and they make you take naps and you use your “Sexiness” aka acting like an actual toddler to get your way so you can avoid being an Adult or interacting with anyone besides the sexy male characters”
And you just have to keep scrolling because they don’t say the word ‘child’ they use an animal and make you a hybrid and that’s why you’re a perpetual sexy toddler.
I miss when I was writing regularly before The Big Hiatus and I got comments all the time. I do write for myself, I make story choices that I enjoy. Some of it's wanting validation but, a whole lot less than it used to be and mostly what I want comments for now is, I spend so much time with my head in this story. It just makes my day when other people engage with it and want to talk to me about it. Even when it's something they didn't like - when it's about 'this thing made me feel this kind of way' and not, unsolicited advice. Positive or negative, I do not appreciate being told what to do in my own story. It's going where it's going but I do love to hear what you feel and think about where it's gone so far.
If you loved someone's work, PLEASE comment. And not just with emoticons. Give us specificsssss. Please ramble into our inboxes. I promise we don't find it annoying. Statistics show us that people are receiving our work, interacting with it - when you comment, we get to hear a little bit about how much people engage with it and that means so much.
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Very fascinated by this Walmart shirt. Could they not use the actual phrase or something? It's not even specifying "when you're mean to me" it's just when you're mean in general this particular bunny gets hurt. She carries all suffering. This bunny experiences all evil in the world.
Note: Eh fuck it, have something from the other too. I'm still working on a title so it's just Slasher for now
Finally, when Kleo has taken too long, she scratches at her arms again and then marches off where she remembers Ben and Allie going. And, even with withdrawal, the hunting trips she'd taken with her dad gave her enough experience to immediately be able to pick up Allie's trail as she had snapped a lot of underbrush and disturbed… well everything.
“Logan, do you see-”
“Yeah.”
She shrieks and whips around when he's right behind her, punching him in the chest. “Don't do that right now!” She holds her heart, taking deep breaths.
Logan cringes and the Professor gives them an odd stare. “Sorry. But look, she's left blood that direction.”
Kleo looks where he points, vaguely able to pick up a dark smear on an even darker tree. But she can see the glossiness of it and she squints, moving to approach it and staring blankly at Logan when he stopped her and pointed down at a log. “Saints, Rags, I really should have left you.”
“Yeah, well, it's too late, now.” She huffs and then steps over the log, reluctantly letting him help her. “You know, I am curious what either of your plans are if we get to Ben’s body and one Ivy Hendrix is standing there carving it up.”
Professor Scott scoffs. “It's really unlikely for it to be Ivy-”
“Oh god, that is so unimportant, what if the murderer is there?!”
Logan nudges her towards the next blood spot and then took the lead, which Kleo was very grateful for. She knew Logan still took a lot of hunting trips with his dad and so at least would be able to track an injury path.
Of course, this did mean she was now there for basically no reason but she really didn't want to stay behind with Caden and Prestley. Look, maybe Prestley would stick up for Dani, but…
Between Caden and Logan, she trusted Logan to be able to keep her a lot safer than Caden. Logan is 6 foot and Caden is barely 5’8 and that was if you believe what he claims. Ragdoll just knew she's 5’4, herself, and didn't have to look up too high in order to meet his eyes.
Professor Scott speaks, however, following close behind them. “I will protect my students to the best of my ability.”
Logan and Kleo both give him unconvinced stares and he straightens his shoulders. “I'll have you both know that I am well trained in Jiu Jitsu and I am carrying a taser.”
“Ooh, a taser.” Kleo mocks and he sighs.
Logan snorts and nudges her again, both further down the trail and to get her attention. “You said you have that knife, right?”
“My butterfly knife,” she confirms, getting it out of her pocket. It's a beautiful knife, pink chrome with a black steel handle that had holes in it to allow the pink blade to be seen. And the blade itself was shaped to have hearts in the bottom of the blade. Kleo had been willing to sacrifice just a little bit of durability for the aesthetic, hoping to never actually need it.
Logan does chuckle softly at it and then he gestures back at Professor Scott. “Very you. I figure we just gotta run faster than him, so just stab him in the leg and take off. I'll carry you if need be.”
Professor Scott scoffs and Logan glances back at him. “What? You said you'd protect us, there's how.” Kleo laughs softly as she slides the knife back up her sleeve into her bracelets like she kept it when she needed it.
Professor Scott rolls his eyes before suddenly grabbing their arms right in time for them to see the giant spot of blood they were approaching. It looked like something had been dragged through the dirt, leaving behind so much blood they could smell it and Kleo’s eyes watered from the coppery odor, covering her nose. “Ugh-”
“That's something I always think is unimportant to cover in my class but… this much blood usually stinks.” Professor Scott sighs, his eyes going glassy.
Logan's expression became grim and he sighs as well, “I really just don't think this much blood came from Allie…”
The smear led directly to a puddle of blood just shortly in the distance and a drop falling into it alerts them all to look up. At first, none are even quite sure what they're looking at.
Irrationally, Kleo's brain labels it as more blood, but it's in the trees and there's something white holding in… whatever it is. And then she's the first one to make out the face of Ben Moore staring down at her, eyes wide. A gag forces it's way out of her mouth and she gasps, backing up immediately as she realizes what she thought was blood was the inside of Ben’s torso.
“Oh, what the fuck-” Logan turns away and Professor Scott just… stares.
He just stares at it.
The tv static overwhelms Kleo's vision for a moment and she hunches over. She grabs onto whatever she can to keep from falling over, which ends up being Logan's front pocket, and he catches her. It's a clumsy catch, his hand grabs her jacket and then the other arm wraps under her elbow. But she's grateful anyway and she breathes hard, making eye contact with her father in the distance.
Kleo slaps Logan's arm, unable to catch her breath long enough to speak. Logan drags her up and shakes her. “Snap out of it!”
Kleo cries and shakes her head, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment and then he puts her back on her feet. “Kleo! Come on, we have to keep going so we can call the police, remember??”
“Right, right…” she shakily gets out her phone, breathing out with frustration at merely one bar of service. Still, she begins to dial as Logan starts to drag her and then she startles so hard she drops her phone as Logan cusses at top volume.
“Fuck! He's just- he's just taking off!” Logan grabs Kleo's hand and, despite her reaching back to her phone which now slid into the trail of blood, he yanks her to follow behind a quickly receding Professor Scott.
They lose him within minutes.
Both are too smart to keep running in the woods, and Kleo can hardly run as it is. She holds her sides tightly, trying hard to just get in even one full breath, let alone the several necessary to even keep running.
“I swear to god,” Logan pants and gives her the water bottle, “I'm gonna kill him myself when we find him.”
Kleo struggles with the cap and he sighs, yanking it back and uncapping it before thrusting it back at her. Her face burns but she accepts it and forces herself to shakily sip water while Logan begins to pace and touch the trees around them.
“That freak better pray I can't find her. You know what, he better, too.”
Kleo rolls her eyes and just ignores him, though she does hope this is just blowing off steam and not genuine confidence. “We need to go the other direction and call the police, Logan…”
He turns on her, pointing. “Why the hell do you keep harping on this?! They took seven hours to get here the first time, what makes you think they’re gonna get here in any less time than that?”
“Hey, I don’t know why you’re snapping at me! I didn’t do any of this and it was your best friend that snuck off into the woods in the first place. Isn’t his dad a former cop, why are you of all people arguing against it??”
“You hate the cops! You literally have 1213 tattooed on your underarm! So I ask again, why do you insist on them?!”
“Because when I get out of this shit, alive mind you, I want a police report already started!” Kleo throws her hands up.
[...]
Logan hooks his water bottle back on his hip and he’s silent for a bit. “[But… ]You are right. We do need to call them. They’re better than nothing. However, I’m gonna make something- two somethings clear. One, we are both getting out of this alive. And two, when we do, we’re gonna have that talk.”
Oh god, please die so I don’t have to have that conversation. Kleo immediately feels bad for the thought, as Logan doesn’t deserve to die just so she doesn’t have to reject him. She cringes slightly, still, and sighs. “Logan, I…” She trails off as she hears murmurs beside her.
No, muffled voices. “God, this fucking withdrawal…” She mumbles, as this was no new thing to her either. Actually this was a common hallucination for her, particularly when under stress. So, stress plus withdrawal made this very unsurprising.
However, Logan starts to glance around to his left and he shakes his head. “No. That’s not your withdrawal, Kleo. Someone…”
Oh, it really is you… Little Ivy Hendrix… I’ve been following your case since it happened.
“Is he… Is Professor Scott…” Kleo feels something rise in her chest. Mortification, disgust, anger… No, this was… something undefinable.
And then Logan is taking off again and Kleo does genuinely have to spend a moment deciding if she’ll follow him. But a sudden beeping noise to the tune of some action movie theme she only half recognized and she turns back around to stumble back to the blood, seeing Ben's expensive slide up keyboard phone lit up in the mud.
Kleo does not dive for it like her first instinct says to and instead she fumbles for her own phone, patting over her too many pockets to have on shorts at this particular moment and then she closes her eyes as her own phone begins to ring as well, much much deeper in the blood pool. So she sinks to her knees and gags as she reaches into the blood to retrieve Ben’s phone. Thank god rich people pay for things like waterproofing…
Her hands almost shake too much to put in 913 and they slide around the phone as she tries to slide the keyboard out anyway, so she just shakes the phone until the emergency call screen appears like it's supposed to and then she has to press the okay button almost seven times before she manages to get enough force in it that it gives her the popping noise and Ben’s phone is dialing the police.
She breathes a sigh of relief at a pleasantly neutral voice on the other line. “Please, please help me. My name is Kleo Baxter and I am… I'm at the Hendrix House… my professor brought us here for a field trip and and…” oh god, was she ever going to stop crying?? “Two of the… of the people we came with have been murdered and I'm terrified two more are about to be…
“Okay, Miss Baxter. I put your name in and a file popped up. You know what to do in this situation, right? Do you remember from when you were a child?”
“Yes ma'am… I um… I need to find somewhere to hide, but I can't do that… I'm out in the woods and I'm… I'm unable to climb anything and… and I-”
“Do you recognize your assailant?”
Kleo breaks into sobs again. “No… I have no idea who… who…” her stomach drops at a sudden low toned beeping over and she rips the phone away to find that it has lost service. Oh god, oh god, oh god.
Kleo knows she should find somewhere to hide, but then Logan's words return to her head, echoing inside of it so loud her head feels like it's vibrating.
She slaps her forehead before groaning as she has to bend over at the waist and then she's stumbling and crashing into the ground for a moment, crying as her arm is slashed open by a rock and immediately begins to bleed.
Mortifyingly, tears begin to well up in her eyes and she presses her hands to her eyes, shaking her head. “Oh Dina… I don't want to be doing this… Oh stars… Oh stars above, please save me…”
But she drags herself to her feet and stumbles to a nearby tree, grasping onto it for dear life and then doing the same to the next tree. Stumbling, blind, praying that she's going in the same direction as Logan.
The world spins like a barrel roll and she holds her head when she makes it to the third tree, frowning when she pulls her hand down and there's blood on it. She… hadn't even felt her head make an impact.
She touches further up her head and then she's screaming and slumping slightly as her hand touches cool metal. She sobs and shakes her head. No no no, she'd barely even gotten a chance to escape.
She again hysterically slaps around at her head and then she's only sobbing harder as the handle of the knife has disappeared and she only finds a slight split in her skin, the pain temporarily overwhelming her vision.
“KLEO!”
She gasps and her head yanks up as she hears Logan's voice screaming her name. “Logan?! LOGAN!” She again tries to get to her feet, but she stumbles and this time she's falling into a tree.
But she catches herself before she can hit its roots and then she's climbing over them, stumbling deeper and deeper into the woods in the direction she'd heard Logan.
Trees appear out of nowhere, a few send her to the ground, but she just gets back up again. She has to keep getting up, she has to keep going…
This time a giant black bird descends on her and sends her to the ground right before the back of some feet and she gasps as she recognizes the same brown oxfords she's made fun of so many times with her best friends, completely still.
[...]
The bird caws down at her and she shakes her head, sobbing so hard her entire body heaves and she leans her head back to release them loud and guttural though they have to fight through the angle of her throat.
She pats around on Professor Scott's legs once she could even slightly breathe and then she's stumbling back as pale hands reach out to help her up, making a cry and shaking her head. But she's caught before she can hit the ground again and then she's let go and the figure in front of her steps back.
Kleo again shakes her head but something inside of her, deep inside of her, tells her that it's rude to refuse to look at the person in front of her. And so she whimpers and rubs at her eyes with the backs of her hands before opening them and finally looking at the person in front of her.
Now the raven flutters and lands on her shoulder and honestly Kleo really had thought the idea of her being dead was unrealistic, especially as she fully takes in the woman. Tall, taller than Juliette's girlfriend Ruby, even, who was a De La Castilles, a family known for being tall.
Her face is covered with a mask that resembles the skull of a wolf, though too small to be real and matte black, and pale lilac colored eyes stare at Kleo. Lilac was a genetic mutation and technically an optical illusion, as there was very little actual blue pigment and nearly no other melanin or pigment. One of the many “odd” eye colors that those from any of the islands had.
Kleo's, herself, are the same rosy brown most from Celestos had.
And then over her body is black hunting gear, though some of it looks military grade. Black stuck out in this particular wood around them, and something about the confidence of such a color made Kleo sick to her stomach. “We were dead the moment we stepped off that bus…”
Ivy’s eyes shine slightly and then she's moving forward and Kleo is again moving backward and Ivy stops. She tilts her head and Kleo lets out a ragged breath at the innocence in the action.
The other woman's eyes are light with an unsettling mirth and she flutters her eyes before then furrowing her brows.
Kleo isn't sure what else to do but… well… she'd heard the professor talking to her and maybe if she couldn't convince Ivy not to kill her, maybe she could plead for something quick. “Ivy… right?”
Her eyes light right back up and she moves forward and now Kleo can see silver on the talons of the massive black bird, making Kleo whimper and again step back, hitting a tree. Again, Ivy stops and she takes a step back, furrowing her brows even tighter and then her eyes almost look… confused.
Kleo does stop to wonder if she's even really aware… “I'm um… I'm Kleo…”
Ivy stares at her again.
Kleo takes in another ragged breath and she looks down. “I um… You must have heard what Professor Scott said about you… and Logan… I'm sorry, they shouldn't say things like that…”
Movement makes her eyes flick up with panic and she sees that Ivy is merely petting the raven. “Mean!” It squawks and Kleo again whimpers with fear, though she knows that ravens have the ability to mimic. This species certainly could, at least.
Ivy gently hushes the bird and then she touches it and it flies away, and Kleo finds herself relaxing. This time, when Ivy moves forward, she forces down the flinch and then it's all her strength to focus on Ivy's eyes as the ants consume her when she's now only inches away from her.
She reaches up and touches Kleo's head, making her wince and squeeze her eyes shut. And then the wound on her arm is touched and her eyes flash back open as she jerks her arm away. Ivy flinches back and that causes Kleo's breathing to stutter.
“Please…” Kleo breaks, another sob resurfacing. “Please just kill me quick… I can't die like my mother… Stars please help me…”
Ivy reaches forward and then her hand cups Kleo's face and Kleo reaches up with both hands to grip her arm. But… Kleo's never been touched like this by anyone who wasn't family and she just can't help herself but press into the contact. Ivy’s eyes soften and it's now that Kleo realizes she's grasping something in her other hand.
She knows it has to be a knife and she just hopes getting stabbed isn't as painful as movies make it look. “Did you… did you kill your mom? Or… did your father…”
Ivy goes completely still and then she's looking away to glare at Professor Scott's body. Kleo doesn't, she can't stand the fact that he's staring at them despite his body facing the opposite way. Finally, she shakes her. “Your dad did it? He killed your mom and… and your sister?”
Ivy’s eyes narrow with venom for a moment and Kleo swallows another whimper, though the ants have started to consume her alive and the TV static has returned around her periphery. But she nods again and now she looks at Kleo and her eyes soften again.
Kleo starts to have to struggle to keep her legs straight, her knees trembling as they try to give up. She reaches back and grips the tree with her hand and then she's screaming as something fuzzy scampers over it and she yanks away from the tree as a massive spider scurries right up it.
She heaves a few more breaths before turning her head to stare at Ivy's chest as her body finally alerts her that Ivy's arms are around her. But she can't react, even if she wanted to, as her legs finally give out and she's sliding to the ground, though Ivy grips her tighter to keep her upright. “Please don't torture me…” she begs, weakly, her head falling back to stare up at the sky.
Kleo shakes her head when she's lowered to the ground and made to rest against the tree she'd just been against and Ivy puts her finger to where her own lips would be. Kleo's tears dry, though not as quick as her heart would like, and then she's hiccupping and sniffling. “I… I like your eyes…”
Ivy freezes up and it's all Kleo can do not to whimper and fall right back into hysterics. And then Ivy's face turns slightly red and she looks away from Kleo. Kleo pauses and then she softens, remembering what Logan had said about her classmates. Even if… she had killed a bunch of people, Kleo still finds herself feeling horrible for her.
Just like Kleo, she probably didn't hear nice things about herself very often. “I'm sorry for what Logan said…” she mumbles and looks down at her hands, playing with them to keep herself distracted. “I really don't think you're a freak… I… oh it- it really was you watching us…” her face burns and- ugh! She shouldn't feel so humiliated at the confirmed violent murderer watching her give it up for Logan!
Ivy turns back to look at her as she covers her face and Kleo flinches slightly when one of her hands is attempted to be pulled away. But Kleo relents and she lowers her hands, now avoiding looking at Ivy with her eyes. “I'm not… I…”
Note: This is unedited. I went ahead and just decided to change the plot so it can fit into my universe better. I'm going to fix the old one with the name changes that I nearly finished and then republish that in various spaces.
The bathrooms are cold and tiled in the same colors the restaurant is decorated in. They're not the cleanest, but clean enough she feels comfortable sitting on the floor and pressing her face to the cool metal of the stall.
There's nothing to be triggered over. She has bad memories of being touched, but those are only ever triggered by men. There's no flashbacks to remember from women.
So then why does she still feel so… so… Well, she knows why.
She's a freak.
Sometimes she worries everyone can smell it on her. Will and Addie wear theirs so proudly and Anastasia wants it to go the fuck away. She makes a frustrated sound, knocking her head against the stall. Every day, she prays to the Stars, to Dina, to the Saints… just for it to go away. But it never goes away.
Too harsh of a smell makes her throw up. Actually throw up. Always has, ever since she was a baby. Loud noises make her feel like a heavy damp towel has been placed over her head, sharp but inconsistent sound makes her skull vibrate violently. Randomly, the feeling of her clothes on her own body feels like spiders all over her skin. And… there's other things.
A freak out. In front of a Castille.
If the stars had any mercy at all, they'd open this floor up and swallow her.
She hits her thighs with her fists when that inevitably does not happen and then she wipes away the few traitor tears she couldn't keep down. She's just about to get up when an eye sitting in the corner of the stall sends her to her feet and backing up against the stall door.
See, an eye ball might have caused a similar reaction, but would not cause the stomach gripping terror that this causes. It's almost as if the seam of the tile has been opened and an eye inserted into it, a warm brown eye that just stares at Anastasia, but followed her movements when she stood.
Anastasia has never hallucinated beyond shadows and peripheral people from a lack of sleep. Ever. Whatever makes her a freak seems to also keep her imagination from ever satisfying her and keeps her eyes from deceiving her. And the idea that maybe someone getting in her space stressed her out so bad her mind is breaking is… ridiculous but a little hurtful. Is she really so weak that her mind would snap so easily?
The eye blinks and Anastasia lets out a sob, covering her mouth with her hand. “Oh god… it really has happened…”
And then she gasps as a faint cracking could be heard and then the eye closes and veins begin to spread from the lashes. The veins begin to grow into lichen and moss and then those spread up the wall and around the floor, stopping just at Anastasia's tip toes and spreading all the way up the wall and then over the ceiling.
From this moss and lichen grows mushrooms and then Anastasia has to cover her mouth to stifle a gag as a dozen eyes reveal themselves in the wall and all just stare at her. She realizes they're judging her and that's so hurtful. “Please don't…” she pleads, irrationally.
They stare at her, unfeeling and unflinching and now all are unblinking. She knows what they're saying, they're calling her a freak. Laughter may hurt less than this, because she could pretend to join in.
The moss spreads around her feet and she feels behind herself, unable to break herself from meeting the gaze of the eyes and then she manages to undo her stall.
It takes more effort than she wants to spend but she forces herself to turn around and she's faced with even more eyes. Dozens of them, maybe hundreds. And then fluttering in the corner of the room catches her eyes and she tries very hard to keep breathing, for the panic not to overwhelm her.
In the corner of the bathrooms, above the sinks, is a giant grey moth with its wings closed. She grips the side of the stall so tight her knuckles burn, her chest heaves with her heavy breath, and she prays it does not flutter at her.
“Hello.”
Anastasia cries at a voice behind her and she turns back to the stall, and now a figure sits on the toilet. His skin is like tree bark, full of knocks and bumps like a tree trunk would have. Arms that extend into branch like fingers sway in the air and his eyes, putrid yellow, watch her. But the worst part of him is the giant grin he wears, full of fangs and maggots crawling around them.
He doesn't move towards her, but she stumbles back all the same and cries out at a squelching sound when her back hits the wall, turning to see she's popped one of the giant eye sockets and a rust like liquid now drips down the wall and the sharp metallic smell hits her in the stomach, sending her to her hands and knees as she throws up.
The feeling of the moss against her skin is more than she can bare, even puking, and so as soon as her body is purged, she rushes back to her feet and desperately claws at any green part of her skin. She's about to rush to the sink when she sees the giant moth again and it freezes her right back into place.
The figure in the stall begins to laugh at her. “You're just delectable. Oh look at you. So much hair.”
“Who… who are you?? What's happening to me??” Anastasia isn't sure questioning this figure is a good idea, but what sort of choice does she have? Is she really going insane? Wouldn't… this feel different??
The figure stares at her and then he shakes his head. “Knowing would satisfy you, Anastasia.”
Anastasia whimpers, shaking her head and covering her face. “Don't say that… please, I deserve to know if I'm going insane…”
“Aren't you supposed to be learning how to be okay without knowing?”
Anastasia cries, shaking her head. “I don't want to…”
The moth flutters again, able to be seen over the stalls, and Anastasia breaks into sobs, wiping her mouth finally. She can still feel the slime of the moss on her hands and it's horrible, but the moth taunts her. Dares her to try to clean it off.
“You didn't do this.” The figure speaks up, laughing softly. “It's not good for pretty little girls to misunderstand things. So let me make you understand. I'm awake now. Tell those four fucking whores that I'm coming back for them and I'm going to take something from them each. I can't wait to eat you.”
Anastasia shakes her head. “No! I don't know who you're talking about! I can't tell anyone anything!”
The figure just laughs at her. “You really are a freak, Ana.”
Anastasia gasps at popping squelching noises all around her as the eyes begin the just burst, pouring the rust down the walls and soaking the moss and lichen and mushrooms.
And then the door opens and the moth flies from the corner, bursting through the figure and turning it into a million moths as Anastasia screams gutturally, covering her face and ducking down as they overwhelm her.
“What the fuck?!”
She looks up as soon as she hears the voice right in time for Lucia to hit the moth out of the air. It lands on the ground with a soft thud and only stays down for a moment before jumping right back up and flying out of the door of Miaki’s right as it opens.
Anastasia pants as this confirms that the moth, at least, is not a hallucination. Lucia's immediate gagging and looking around the bathroom confirms that the moss and rust isn't, either.
So… how much had been? Had any?
Lucia swats more moths away and then rushes into the bathroom when her eyes land on Anastasia, curled up on the floor. “Holy shit, was it like this when you came in??”
“I… I…” Still, Anastasia flinches away when Lucia tries to touch her. “Don't touch me!” She shoves at Lucia, who immediately backs away, hands raising in defense. “I don't want to be touched, please don't touch my skin… I can't… I can't handle it…”
Lucia is quiet and then she leaves before coming back with a random hoodie, sliding it over her arms and then hands. “Hmm?” She questions, holding her hands out to Anastasia.
Anastasia stares up at her and then she blushes, the look absurd. Still… she accepts Lucia's hands and then she's carefully brought to her feet and Lucia gently guides her around rust puddles and mushrooms. “I thought Miaki's kept the restaurant cleaner than this…” Lucia comments as she guides Anastasia out.
But she doesn't give Anastasia any time to explain, sprinting off to Kara behind the counter and very animatedly pointing at the bathroom. She seems to grapple with an explanation before cringing when the manager comes out from the back. “Just… just come see this…”
-
Hi! Did you like this?? If not, that's so sad. If so, then keep an eye out! In August, I'm going to start posting two stories to various writing sites and then in April of next year I am going to begin posting a visual PDF version to a Patreon.
Alright, I think I've finally got enough writing that I need to stop fucking around and get serious
Unfortunately, my vehicle didn't agree and I'm bedridden from a car accident
I'm fine, I really am, no hospital even, just chronic illness and deep deep regret for the fact that some fucker decided that we needed big machine to go fast. I had to talk to the fucking cops
I hate the fucking cops
We woke up to a big paycheck and our new glasses had arrived and- and-
we crashed our car...
like it literally wasn't even our fault, either, someone crashed in front of us and then we were literally just fucked
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New First Encounter - Meet Lucia De'La Castille and Anastasia Costa
I would like to make a disclaimer before I put anything else.
I had zero intentions of recreating the original characters. They belong to Activision and I am far more interested in creating my own characters. So most of this story will be changed to fit their new actions and include the things I was restricted on by characterization or universe.
This is just me reclaiming my stories, elements, and plotlines.
And then I'm changing a LOT. Pacing, relationships, EVERYTHING has been touched in some way!!! I wanted a lot more drama and that means everything is up in the air. It's a hell of a lot darker right off the bat and I plan to slowburn most of the relationships and keep whoever is reading guessing.
Hell, some characters might die.
This is a NEW story. One I hope you guys like, more than the original if I'm allowed to be optimistic. And, I hope you guys like Romulus
There comes a time in every college student’s career where they regret their major. Just a little bit. Everyone does it. Lawyer, doctor, businessman, nurse, everyone. Maybe it’s five seconds, maybe it’s an entire month. Maybe it’s a year.
It’s been the year for Anastasia Costa, a pre-law criminal justice major at one of the top schools in the entire world.
And it looks like she’s starting on a second one, as her sophomore year has been so shit and so stressful she's seriously considering liberal arts. To start it off, her advisor is racist and also a moron. Maybe she couldn’t necessarily prove that first one, but she has proof for the second point.
Why is an advanced math class “crucial” for a pre-law major to take? A criminal justice major at that, not even one of the rarer majors. Why are there even advanced classes in college??
Apologies.
“Upper Level.”
Maybe it might not be so bad if it isn’t Mathematics 305, differential equations. Anastasia had been deeply disappointed, already, to get to college and find out that equations don't stop at the already fairly advanced formulaic polynomials she’d learned in high school. No, no, in fact, there are more formulas! So many more!
All of her careful planning to avoid STEM majors had been for shit, it seems! All because some moron in a tweed jacket with leather elbow pads (not a hunter, for the record!!!!!) decided that a pre-law major just has to take advanced math.
And then he submitted her schedule without her approval.
Anastasia could chew glass.
Maybe it might not be so bad if she actually liked mathematics. Perhaps it wouldn't even be that awful if she is decent at mathematics. But the truth is that Anastasia is god awful at math. Well, college math. She could do regular math just fine and could even multiply double digit numbers in her head. But formulaic math? Look, the moment it is physically put in front of her, it is over.
However, maybe she’d even be willing to struggle. Oh, does it piss her off that she's going to have to put in so much extra credit to make up for the inevitably barely passing grade she's going to manage to end with? More than she's sure she even has the capability to verbalize, as she already has more credit hours than she reasonably should be taking.
And she couldn’t drop the class! For some reason, at her university of Cordonne, advanced classes being dropped meant some kind of “lean” against her year’s GPA that will just be completely irrecoverable unless she immediately fills the class slot with another advanced class or a GPA booster.
Anastasia isn’t willing to degrade herself to the mind numbing god awful GPA booster classes like Universal Measurements or History of Metal Applications. Oh god, or Universal Occupational Application of Strategic Strategy.
Honest to the Mother, Dina, that’s what it’s called. Why not like… Universal Strategy Applications? She couldn’t even remember what it is fucking cods as, but she's pretty sure it uss it’s own made up bullshit.
But Anastasia doesn't even have a choice to do that, either, as every single class that will fit into this time slot is full.
And currently she’s staring at assigned seating. Indeed, on the projector screen at the front of the class in question (the uh… the math class) displays an excel grid of their four-seats lab tables. These tables are also split into two, as they are technically two smaller lab tables pushed up against each other, and there are two seats at the back of the table that will face the front of the classroom, and then two sides that are perpendicular to that and face each other.
Thankfully, Anastasia is firmly at the back of the class and facing the front. This is good, because the desks sits in a slight V formation, so she has complete access to the board at the front, though it won’t help her. It does, however, let her see clearly that one Lucia De’La Castilles sits next to her and, for some reason, their professor Dr Michelle Conrad believes Lucia to be the pizza to her ranch dressing.
Anastasia is going to hate this year. First off, her math professor likes ranch with pizza. Anastasia, herself, isn’t the biggest fan of ranch, preferring tzatziki though she doesn't think they are really comparable. Regardless, they are usually an alternative to each other at most restaurants in her city, but no fucking way is she putting that on pizza. However, the De’La Castilles are some of the worst fucking people on the planet.
Probably beyond it, but she's too afraid of being wrong to explore further.
They’re older than the fucking gods, their family is older than the fucking Republic. Their bloodline is long, varied, and carries many types of historical figures, all the way from Bishop to Druid to King to Assassin to Dictator. Branches of the De’La Castille family spread so wide and varied that two of them are so distantly related they’d very recently begun to marry each other. Still incestuous, in her mind, but who fucking cares when you probably basically own an eighth of the fucking world. Their fucking last name literally meant Of Castles.
And for a long history of this time, they’d only birth men. Women had to be married into the family, until somewhere like 15 years ago, when the last male across any of the bloodlines was born. But, 37 years previously, a woman had been born that had silently marked the beginning of every single Castilles line transitioning to only conceive and give birth to females. Several of these women go to the university and Lucia is one of them. As such, the entire school is obsessed with them, though granted not just them. The top universities are full of similar such celebrities and social figures.
Castilles daughters are what they’re called, just off the absurdity of the phrase, alone.
However, despite her dread, she does allow herself to ponder just exactly which Castilles that Lucia is. She knew from Blurtle, a social media site she should have deleted off her phone years ago for high schoolers and college students, that there is a freshman joining that year named Gemma. She's very pretty, too, from what Anastasia has seen. Tanned skin with obsidian black hair and green eyes.
Granted, the entire family looks like that. Including a distinct genetic birth mark that looks like a white heart around their left or right eye. What could even cause that, Anastasia has no idea. She very much doubts it has to be medical, though she isn’t sure she believes the whole curse by Dina thing.
Regardless, Anastasia does her best not to immediately roll her eyes as she hears the students who’d found their seats around her start to murmur to themselves in hushed tones as they find Lucia’s name and then her own. Of course, it is right as a woman is smoothly sliding into the seat to her right, the seat on the side of the table, Lucia’s seat, that she begins to remember her own reputation at the school.
Rather, she’s reminded.
“Oh, a prayer for the ability to mind one’s own business unscathed, I cannot believe Dr Conrad would pair up Anastasia Costa and Lucia De’La Castilles.”
“Do you think she did it on purpose?”
“But they’re not even in the same grade??”
“This isn’t fucking fair, I only take this class because I heard Lucia is going to be in it and she gets partnered up with Anastasia.”
“Fuck you, Lucia De’La Castilles doesn’t need to be paired up with the top student out of our entire grade… I do…”
Anastasia prays Lucia has no such hopes, turning to greet the woman who’d taken her spot and internally sighing at a distinct rough edge heart shaped birth mark around her left eye. White compares to her darker rosy skin. Anastasia certainly understands why the family is considered inhumanly beautiful, especially this particular member.
Lucia, herself, is digging around in her bag and setting a tall boy can of Cherry Bomb soda on the table, an energy drink that is flavors like a pepperola, or a soda made from sweet cornpepper and mulled bitter cherries, though other berries could be used. Anastasia prefers the real deal, as she doesn't like the way caffeine makes her chest feel, preferring a blackberry version from the same brand, Cherry Sparks. They had invented the soda some like 300 years before.
Then, Lucia leans back in her seat, oddly able to stretch out despite the black leather jacket she wore with crimson hearts, in the style of a card suit, on the cuffs and the collar. Rather, the buttons to snap the collar and sleeves are a heart shape. Under this jacket, she wears just a black tube top and then ripped burgundy jeans. Of course, she's perfectly accessorized, too, with leather bracelets, gold chain jewelry, and a simple red velvet choker with a gold crown on it. Anastasia recognizes that as the sigil of the family, every member wore it somewhere.
Anastasia is unsure she’d ever seen it worn as a collar, before.
“So, I guess you’re my partner.” Lucia now turns to look at Anastasia, half grinning at her and gesturing even as she threw her elbow over the back of the chair. “Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.” Anastasia does her best to be polite, put off by Lucia’s demeanor. “I see that you appear to be the pizza to my ranch. I would have thought we’d leave assigned seating and partner work to learning how to color the rainbow, but I suppose the Childhood Preservation Act seems to have catastrophic effects.”
Lucia pauses, appearing to almost startle, and then she's laughing, softly, and her arm slid off the back of the chair, returning the woman to sitting up. “Yeah, Dr Conrad is just… like that. She thinks she’s important to us developing networking skills or… something.”
“It’s a math class.” Anastasia couldn’t help her bewilderment. “This isn’t fucking sociology or god forbid a humanities. This is math! Mathematics! Arithmetics? What does that have to do with my ability to network? I can network just fine, I’m pre-law.”
“Hey, you’re telling me, I’m a finance major.” Lucia laughs further and then she hums for a moment, shrugging. Around them, though, the class starts to silence and move into their seats as the professor begins to start class.
Anastasia groans softly, watching a stack of syllabus packets pass to Lucia, who takes two and then reaches over Anastasia to drop them in front of the other two people, Mark Lamel and Siera Moore. She made a face, but Lucia don't seem to acknowledge it, and their table partners just gives her a glance before shrugging and pushing on.
Regardless, she don't have time for this, sighing and picking up the syllabus, holding it away from her like it is disease for a moment before reluctantly smoothing it out in front of herself, her irritation with this class raising as she first notices it is thick as cardboard and then further sees YOUR PARTNER AFFECTS 15% OF YOUR GRADE at the top of the Partner Projects schedule.
“Oh, what the fuck, this is just a math class-” She curses, flipping through the syllabus with raising horror as she realizes that she's now responsible for an entire 15 percent of Lucia De’La Castilles math grade. “How do we even partner up for this! We have to do every assignment together, this is bullshit!” She manages to avoid actually yelling, dropping her voice to somewhat of a whisper, and glaring deeply up at Dr Conrad as she starts to explain this very partner system.
“This is not a democracy! This is a dictatorship. So I don’t personally feel it necessary to explain every decision I make. I’ve been teaching mathematics for too fucking long.” Evidently, as only tenured professors are “allowed” to cuss, though more like just not able to be restricted. “Now, I wouldn’t feel it necessary to force you kids to network, but some of you think you have degrees that don’t require it and that’s not true. And unfortunately this seems to be a skill that less and less professors feel like teaching.”
“She just contradicts herself.” Anastasia furrows her brows. “Or maybe she just felt it necessary to explain that one?” She asks, glancing at Lucia first and then startling when she and the rest of the table snickers softly.
Her face burns and she grasps at the edge of her skirt, resisting the urge to inspect it to make sure it is still white in order to hide her embarrassment. What had she said?
Maybe she just shouldn't have spoken.
“I like this table.” Sierra hums, tapping her ring finger on the table while her hand forms a claw on it, showing off long black manicured nails. “I hate Dr Conrad.”
“You hate everyone.” Anastasia does her best to be polite and look in the direction of the other person at the table, startled to find that Mark is actually another woman, though her voice is low. Her pale skin almost seems to shimmer in the light, a characteristic of Talud, one that Sierra seems to share despite her rosy sun kissed skin and her strawberry auburn hair.
Anastasia almost finds herself asking Sierra which of the islands she's from, curious to know how close it would be to her own native island. However, Lucia speaks before Anastasia could, tapping the table and stealing her attention again. “Be nice to her, Mark, please?”
Mark and Sierra both seem to find this notion very funny and then Dr Conrad raises her voice. “And while I know many of you won't take this class very seriously-”
Anastasia tries very hard not to roll her eyes, instead looking at Lucia, who just shrugged and gestured. “It's just a syllabus, but okay-” she flicks her hands at it, half mouthing the words, half murmuring them. Sierra and Mark snicker and, admittedly, Anastasia resists her own laughter.
From there, Dr Conrad really only prattles on by reading the rest of the front page of the syllabus and leaving them to figure out how to read it with their desk partners. Anastasia turns to Lucia, deciding to at least… make an effort. Her best friend, Opal, will hopefully help her or Bluebell, her other close friend and dormmate, will tutor her for this assignment at least.
“This isn't enough time to do the first assignment together!” Sierra immediately complains to Mark, who seems to sigh in agreement. “Lucky us, we're in the same frat. What will Lucia and Anastasia do?” She pouts, dropping her chin into her palm.
Anastasia's stomach drops and she quickly turns to Lucia, suddenly realizing just which Castilles this one really has to be. She swears she sees Lucia smooth out a rather intense glare at Sierra, her jaw clenching for a moment and then she just gestures. “Figure something out like normal people.”
It's then that she catches that one of Lucia's bracelet charms have the shape of a lioness mid roar and her heart aches with the edge of the metaphor as she hopes that Sierra and Mark may just belong to one of those odd coed fraternities, taking a moment to adjust her skirt and glance at their wrists and sighing as she makes out similarly shaped lioness heads. Maybe all three just love gold jewelry but she doesn't take risks like that. Anastasia knows she’s prey, she could accept that.
She just isn't interested in being eaten. No grudge against those that are, she just isn't interested in the experience she'd heard come from female, male, between, and otherwise.
“Let's just meet up at Miaki’s?” Anastasia decides to offer before any dorm or frat house or similar could be offered. “Or the library, though I think I'm opposed to private rooms.”
“Thanks a lot, Sierra.” Lucia takes a deep breath and then she gives Anastasia a rather strained smile. “Miaki’s is more than fine. When are you free? My schedule is rather empty.”
Fuck.
“That might be a problem.” Anastasia winces and she mentally runs through her schedule. “I have an hour every Saturday at nine?”
Lucia tsks her tongue for a moment and sighs. “Unfortunately…” she seems genuinely regretful, stalling for a bit by clicking a pen over and over, “parties for our frat are… mandatory. And they generally last until the- well, the morning. Is there… any other time?”
Anastasia frowns and she considers it, tilting her head as Lucia again focuses a small glare on Sierra and adjusts her jacket, quickly sitting up again. “Look, I can… try to stay up past the parties and sober up, but I just don't think you're going to like me very much.”
“Well noted.” Anastasia nods and she considers her other time slots. And her other classes, as well as her extracurriculars and then, particularly, her friends. Her classes are obviously unable to budge and her extracurriculars are too important to lose.
She is desperate to lead the debate team the next year, and she couldn't give up any of her tutoring hours because of her scholarship. Plus… she really just doesn't want to cut into any of her time past seven in the evening since she usually spends that with her friends or doing her assignments or trying not to succumb to stress.
However, she considers a few options and then sighs. Maybe her friends will forgive a slight dip in time for gossip about Lucia De’La Cruz…
Something Anastasia certainly wouldn't participate in otherwise. But, Opal is a single mother and Bluebell loves to hear any drama about the Castilles. God, she could already imagine her excitement at hearing they aren't just in the same class but partners…
“Your schedule must be really full.” Lucia laughs, though it is a bit awkward and fell flat. Even Sierra and Mark wince before deciding to attempt to make awkward conversation between themselves. Anastasia, however, don't seem to notice and merely blinks twice.
“Oh.” She smiled. “Sorry, I am going over my schedule. I'll admit… it's rather tight for me.” She knows better than to let her know she even has time she isn't willing to negotiate, so she just goes straight with the option she wants first. “Then I have thirty at 11 on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
Lucia gives her a regretful smile. “I have an economics class.”
“Damn.” Anastasia sighs, tsking her tongue. “Well that leaves me with thirty minutes at six on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Beyond that, we might have to consider a chat with Dr Conrad.” She won't lie that she maybe slightly hopes that is the option Lucia chooses.
However, Lucia is quick to shake her head, sitting up even further and putting her hands on the table. “No, no,” she flutters her eyes and furrows her brows, “six is just fine. However, I hardly think thirty minutes is going to be enough time to compare answers.”
“Why do we have to compare answers?” Anastasia tries not to show the way her nerves flinch ever so slightly at the idea of having to humiliate herself that way. “We’re splitting them up, is that not enough?”
“Maybe for you, but some of the questions have multiple parts to them and will need to be split up weirdly.” Lucia returns, shaking her head. “i think we should at least look over those together.”
Ugh, she supposes it is fair. But thirty minutes should be more than enough. She sits up, touching the syllabus to glance over the assignments. “I doubt many of those questions will take more than five minutes to compare and there can't be more than four.”
Lucia pauses and looks at her for a moment before an easy sort of smile appears on her lips and she seems to shrug, moving her arm to now rest on the back of the chair again. “And practice ends at 5:45, so I might need more time to get there and set up. I assume you'll likely want a drink, so let's give some time for that, too. That gives 10 minutes into six that both of us have to agree to have as a buffer for this to logically work.”
Anastasia smiles, flattered she rose to the challenge and, since it really won't be cutting into her time with her friends, she decides to be nice and offer her just a small inch. “Alright, then forty five minutes is just fine.”
“Actually,” Lucia clenches her jaw for a moment and then she shakes her head. “No. My math grade is important to me, I would like more time than that. An hour and a half?”
“Are you out of your fucking mind??” Anastasia whispers, leaning closer to convey her indignance. Perhaps she could have remained in debate mode, but she isn’t in a debate and a whole hour and a half seems excessive to even ask for. “Your math grade is that important to you??”
“I'm a finance major, numbers are important to my future career.” Lucia grins at her, doing a little shoulder shake, and Anastasia narrows her eyes. “Fine. 75 minutes.”
“That is hardly an improvement.” Anastasia tcks and then she shook her head. “The best I can give is an hour. I have things I can't budge on after 7 and tutoring until 6. So unfortunately, my schedule is locked.”
“An hour is perfect!” Lucia claps her hands together and rests them back on the table again, her expression slightly smug. “Nice try, pre-law. Welcome to negotiations."
“Oh you-” Anastasia’s eyes widen as she understands exactly how she just got played. Like an arcade game and Anastasia isn't sure she minded losing. That is… impressive. She'd been in debate, but Lucia much more correctly negotiated for more time. “Well played,” she gestures her hand, “I concede. But understand that I have picked that up and I'm liable to send it back at you.”
“I can't wait.” Lucia leans forward, grinning again. It made Anastasia suddenly aware of the deep red color staining the inner parts of her lips. Like pomegranate juice that blurs out as it reaches the edge of her lips. Anastasia is quick to look away, pretending to focus on her syllabus again. “You know, speaking of parties-”
“Um, that was an entire negotiation ago?”
‧⭒‧⭒‧˙⭒.‧🟄‧◦‧☽✦☾‧◦‧🟄‧.⭒˙‧⭒‧⭒‧
Hi! This is a brief writing excerpt from my new original story! This story is going to likely be available on story platforms in August while I set up my patreon and some kind of base for worldbuilding knowledge!
If you found this interesting and would like to see more, follow me! If you have any questions or would like to know more, shoot me an ask!
New First Encounter - Meet Lucia De'La Castille and Anastasia Costa
I would like to make a disclaimer before I put anything else.
I had zero intentions of recreating the original characters. They belong to Activision and I am far more interested in creating my own characters. So most of this story will be changed to fit their new actions and include the things I was restricted on by characterization or universe.
This is just me reclaiming my stories, elements, and plotlines.
And then I'm changing a LOT. Pacing, relationships, EVERYTHING has been touched in some way!!! I wanted a lot more drama and that means everything is up in the air. It's a hell of a lot darker right off the bat and I plan to slowburn most of the relationships and keep whoever is reading guessing.
Hell, some characters might die.
This is a NEW story. One I hope you guys like, more than the original if I'm allowed to be optimistic. And, I hope you guys like Romulus
There comes a time in every college student’s career where they regret their major. Just a little bit. Everyone does it. Lawyer, doctor, businessman, nurse, everyone. Maybe it’s five seconds, maybe it’s an entire month. Maybe it’s a year.
It’s been the year for Anastasia Costa, a pre-law criminal justice major at one of the top schools in the entire world.
And it looks like she’s starting on a second one, as her sophomore year has been so shit and so stressful she's seriously considering liberal arts. To start it off, her advisor is racist and also a moron. Maybe she couldn’t necessarily prove that first one, but she has proof for the second point.
Why is an advanced math class “crucial” for a pre-law major to take? A criminal justice major at that, not even one of the rarer majors. Why are there even advanced classes in college??
Apologies.
“Upper Level.”
Maybe it might not be so bad if it isn’t Mathematics 305, differential equations. Anastasia had been deeply disappointed, already, to get to college and find out that equations don't stop at the already fairly advanced formulaic polynomials she’d learned in high school. No, no, in fact, there are more formulas! So many more!
All of her careful planning to avoid STEM majors had been for shit, it seems! All because some moron in a tweed jacket with leather elbow pads (not a hunter, for the record!!!!!) decided that a pre-law major just has to take advanced math.
And then he submitted her schedule without her approval.
Anastasia could chew glass.
Maybe it might not be so bad if she actually liked mathematics. Perhaps it wouldn't even be that awful if she is decent at mathematics. But the truth is that Anastasia is god awful at math. Well, college math. She could do regular math just fine and could even multiply double digit numbers in her head. But formulaic math? Look, the moment it is physically put in front of her, it is over.
However, maybe she’d even be willing to struggle. Oh, does it piss her off that she's going to have to put in so much extra credit to make up for the inevitably barely passing grade she's going to manage to end with? More than she's sure she even has the capability to verbalize, as she already has more credit hours than she reasonably should be taking.
And she couldn’t drop the class! For some reason, at her university of Cordonne, advanced classes being dropped meant some kind of “lean” against her year’s GPA that will just be completely irrecoverable unless she immediately fills the class slot with another advanced class or a GPA booster.
Anastasia isn’t willing to degrade herself to the mind numbing god awful GPA booster classes like Universal Measurements or History of Metal Applications. Oh god, or Universal Occupational Application of Strategic Strategy.
Honest to the Mother, Dina, that’s what it’s called. Why not like… Universal Strategy Applications? She couldn’t even remember what it is fucking cods as, but she's pretty sure it uss it’s own made up bullshit.
But Anastasia doesn't even have a choice to do that, either, as every single class that will fit into this time slot is full.
And currently she’s staring at assigned seating. Indeed, on the projector screen at the front of the class in question (the uh… the math class) displays an excel grid of their four-seats lab tables. These tables are also split into two, as they are technically two smaller lab tables pushed up against each other, and there are two seats at the back of the table that will face the front of the classroom, and then two sides that are perpendicular to that and face each other.
Thankfully, Anastasia is firmly at the back of the class and facing the front. This is good, because the desks sits in a slight V formation, so she has complete access to the board at the front, though it won’t help her. It does, however, let her see clearly that one Lucia De’La Castilles sits next to her and, for some reason, their professor Dr Michelle Conrad believes Lucia to be the pizza to her ranch dressing.
Anastasia is going to hate this year. First off, her math professor likes ranch with pizza. Anastasia, herself, isn’t the biggest fan of ranch, preferring tzatziki though she doesn't think they are really comparable. Regardless, they are usually an alternative to each other at most restaurants in her city, but no fucking way is she putting that on pizza. However, the De’La Castilles are some of the worst fucking people on the planet.
Probably beyond it, but she's too afraid of being wrong to explore further.
They’re older than the fucking gods, their family is older than the fucking Republic. Their bloodline is long, varied, and carries many types of historical figures, all the way from Bishop to Druid to King to Assassin to Dictator. Branches of the De’La Castille family spread so wide and varied that two of them are so distantly related they’d very recently begun to marry each other. Still incestuous, in her mind, but who fucking cares when you probably basically own an eighth of the fucking world. Their fucking last name literally meant Of Castles.
And for a long history of this time, they’d only birth men. Women had to be married into the family, until somewhere like 15 years ago, when the last male across any of the bloodlines was born. But, 37 years previously, a woman had been born that had silently marked the beginning of every single Castilles line transitioning to only conceive and give birth to females. Several of these women go to the university and Lucia is one of them. As such, the entire school is obsessed with them, though granted not just them. The top universities are full of similar such celebrities and social figures.
Castilles daughters are what they’re called, just off the absurdity of the phrase, alone.
However, despite her dread, she does allow herself to ponder just exactly which Castilles that Lucia is. She knew from Blurtle, a social media site she should have deleted off her phone years ago for high schoolers and college students, that there is a freshman joining that year named Gemma. She's very pretty, too, from what Anastasia has seen. Tanned skin with obsidian black hair and green eyes.
Granted, the entire family looks like that. Including a distinct genetic birth mark that looks like a white heart around their left or right eye. What could even cause that, Anastasia has no idea. She very much doubts it has to be medical, though she isn’t sure she believes the whole curse by Dina thing.
Regardless, Anastasia does her best not to immediately roll her eyes as she hears the students who’d found their seats around her start to murmur to themselves in hushed tones as they find Lucia’s name and then her own. Of course, it is right as a woman is smoothly sliding into the seat to her right, the seat on the side of the table, Lucia’s seat, that she begins to remember her own reputation at the school.
Rather, she’s reminded.
“Oh, a prayer for the ability to mind one’s own business unscathed, I cannot believe Dr Conrad would pair up Anastasia Costa and Lucia De’La Castilles.”
“Do you think she did it on purpose?”
“But they’re not even in the same grade??”
“This isn’t fucking fair, I only take this class because I heard Lucia is going to be in it and she gets partnered up with Anastasia.”
“Fuck you, Lucia De’La Castilles doesn’t need to be paired up with the top student out of our entire grade… I do…”
Anastasia prays Lucia has no such hopes, turning to greet the woman who’d taken her spot and internally sighing at a distinct rough edge heart shaped birth mark around her left eye. White compares to her darker rosy skin. Anastasia certainly understands why the family is considered inhumanly beautiful, especially this particular member.
Lucia, herself, is digging around in her bag and setting a tall boy can of Cherry Bomb soda on the table, an energy drink that is flavors like a pepperola, or a soda made from sweet cornpepper and mulled bitter cherries, though other berries could be used. Anastasia prefers the real deal, as she doesn't like the way caffeine makes her chest feel, preferring a blackberry version from the same brand, Cherry Sparks. They had invented the soda some like 300 years before.
Then, Lucia leans back in her seat, oddly able to stretch out despite the black leather jacket she wore with crimson hearts, in the style of a card suit, on the cuffs and the collar. Rather, the buttons to snap the collar and sleeves are a heart shape. Under this jacket, she wears just a black tube top and then ripped burgundy jeans. Of course, she's perfectly accessorized, too, with leather bracelets, gold chain jewelry, and a simple red velvet choker with a gold crown on it. Anastasia recognizes that as the sigil of the family, every member wore it somewhere.
Anastasia is unsure she’d ever seen it worn as a collar, before.
“So, I guess you’re my partner.” Lucia now turns to look at Anastasia, half grinning at her and gesturing even as she threw her elbow over the back of the chair. “Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.” Anastasia does her best to be polite, put off by Lucia’s demeanor. “I see that you appear to be the pizza to my ranch. I would have thought we’d leave assigned seating and partner work to learning how to color the rainbow, but I suppose the Childhood Preservation Act seems to have catastrophic effects.”
Lucia pauses, appearing to almost startle, and then she's laughing, softly, and her arm slid off the back of the chair, returning the woman to sitting up. “Yeah, Dr Conrad is just… like that. She thinks she’s important to us developing networking skills or… something.”
“It’s a math class.” Anastasia couldn’t help her bewilderment. “This isn’t fucking sociology or god forbid a humanities. This is math! Mathematics! Arithmetics? What does that have to do with my ability to network? I can network just fine, I’m pre-law.”
“Hey, you’re telling me, I’m a finance major.” Lucia laughs further and then she hums for a moment, shrugging. Around them, though, the class starts to silence and move into their seats as the professor begins to start class.
Anastasia groans softly, watching a stack of syllabus packets pass to Lucia, who takes two and then reaches over Anastasia to drop them in front of the other two people, Mark Lamel and Siera Moore. She made a face, but Lucia don't seem to acknowledge it, and their table partners just gives her a glance before shrugging and pushing on.
Regardless, she don't have time for this, sighing and picking up the syllabus, holding it away from her like it is disease for a moment before reluctantly smoothing it out in front of herself, her irritation with this class raising as she first notices it is thick as cardboard and then further sees YOUR PARTNER AFFECTS 15% OF YOUR GRADE at the top of the Partner Projects schedule.
“Oh, what the fuck, this is just a math class-” She curses, flipping through the syllabus with raising horror as she realizes that she's now responsible for an entire 15 percent of Lucia De’La Castilles math grade. “How do we even partner up for this! We have to do every assignment together, this is bullshit!” She manages to avoid actually yelling, dropping her voice to somewhat of a whisper, and glaring deeply up at Dr Conrad as she starts to explain this very partner system.
“This is not a democracy! This is a dictatorship. So I don’t personally feel it necessary to explain every decision I make. I’ve been teaching mathematics for too fucking long.” Evidently, as only tenured professors are “allowed” to cuss, though more like just not able to be restricted. “Now, I wouldn’t feel it necessary to force you kids to network, but some of you think you have degrees that don’t require it and that’s not true. And unfortunately this seems to be a skill that less and less professors feel like teaching.”
“She just contradicts herself.” Anastasia furrows her brows. “Or maybe she just felt it necessary to explain that one?” She asks, glancing at Lucia first and then startling when she and the rest of the table snickers softly.
Her face burns and she grasps at the edge of her skirt, resisting the urge to inspect it to make sure it is still white in order to hide her embarrassment. What had she said?
Maybe she just shouldn't have spoken.
“I like this table.” Sierra hums, tapping her ring finger on the table while her hand forms a claw on it, showing off long black manicured nails. “I hate Dr Conrad.”
“You hate everyone.” Anastasia does her best to be polite and look in the direction of the other person at the table, startled to find that Mark is actually another woman, though her voice is low. Her pale skin almost seems to shimmer in the light, a characteristic of Talud, one that Sierra seems to share despite her rosy sun kissed skin and her strawberry auburn hair.
Anastasia almost finds herself asking Sierra which of the islands she's from, curious to know how close it would be to her own native island. However, Lucia speaks before Anastasia could, tapping the table and stealing her attention again. “Be nice to her, Mark, please?”
Mark and Sierra both seem to find this notion very funny and then Dr Conrad raises her voice. “And while I know many of you won't take this class very seriously-”
Anastasia tries very hard not to roll her eyes, instead looking at Lucia, who just shrugged and gestured. “It's just a syllabus, but okay-” she flicks her hands at it, half mouthing the words, half murmuring them. Sierra and Mark snicker and, admittedly, Anastasia resists her own laughter.
From there, Dr Conrad really only prattles on by reading the rest of the front page of the syllabus and leaving them to figure out how to read it with their desk partners. Anastasia turns to Lucia, deciding to at least… make an effort. Her best friend, Opal, will hopefully help her or Bluebell, her other close friend and dormmate, will tutor her for this assignment at least.
“This isn't enough time to do the first assignment together!” Sierra immediately complains to Mark, who seems to sigh in agreement. “Lucky us, we're in the same frat. What will Lucia and Anastasia do?” She pouts, dropping her chin into her palm.
Anastasia's stomach drops and she quickly turns to Lucia, suddenly realizing just which Castilles this one really has to be. She swears she sees Lucia smooth out a rather intense glare at Sierra, her jaw clenching for a moment and then she just gestures. “Figure something out like normal people.”
It's then that she catches that one of Lucia's bracelet charms have the shape of a lioness mid roar and her heart aches with the edge of the metaphor as she hopes that Sierra and Mark may just belong to one of those odd coed fraternities, taking a moment to adjust her skirt and glance at their wrists and sighing as she makes out similarly shaped lioness heads. Maybe all three just love gold jewelry but she doesn't take risks like that. Anastasia knows she’s prey, she could accept that.
She just isn't interested in being eaten. No grudge against those that are, she just isn't interested in the experience she'd heard come from female, male, between, and otherwise.
“Let's just meet up at Miaki’s?” Anastasia decides to offer before any dorm or frat house or similar could be offered. “Or the library, though I think I'm opposed to private rooms.”
“Thanks a lot, Sierra.” Lucia takes a deep breath and then she gives Anastasia a rather strained smile. “Miaki’s is more than fine. When are you free? My schedule is rather empty.”
Fuck.
“That might be a problem.” Anastasia winces and she mentally runs through her schedule. “I have an hour every Saturday at nine?”
Lucia tsks her tongue for a moment and sighs. “Unfortunately…” she seems genuinely regretful, stalling for a bit by clicking a pen over and over, “parties for our frat are… mandatory. And they generally last until the- well, the morning. Is there… any other time?”
Anastasia frowns and she considers it, tilting her head as Lucia again focuses a small glare on Sierra and adjusts her jacket, quickly sitting up again. “Look, I can… try to stay up past the parties and sober up, but I just don't think you're going to like me very much.”
“Well noted.” Anastasia nods and she considers her other time slots. And her other classes, as well as her extracurriculars and then, particularly, her friends. Her classes are obviously unable to budge and her extracurriculars are too important to lose.
She is desperate to lead the debate team the next year, and she couldn't give up any of her tutoring hours because of her scholarship. Plus… she really just doesn't want to cut into any of her time past seven in the evening since she usually spends that with her friends or doing her assignments or trying not to succumb to stress.
However, she considers a few options and then sighs. Maybe her friends will forgive a slight dip in time for gossip about Lucia De’La Cruz…
Something Anastasia certainly wouldn't participate in otherwise. But, Opal is a single mother and Bluebell loves to hear any drama about the Castilles. God, she could already imagine her excitement at hearing they aren't just in the same class but partners…
“Your schedule must be really full.” Lucia laughs, though it is a bit awkward and fell flat. Even Sierra and Mark wince before deciding to attempt to make awkward conversation between themselves. Anastasia, however, don't seem to notice and merely blinks twice.
“Oh.” She smiled. “Sorry, I am going over my schedule. I'll admit… it's rather tight for me.” She knows better than to let her know she even has time she isn't willing to negotiate, so she just goes straight with the option she wants first. “Then I have thirty at 11 on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
Lucia gives her a regretful smile. “I have an economics class.”
“Damn.” Anastasia sighs, tsking her tongue. “Well that leaves me with thirty minutes at six on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Beyond that, we might have to consider a chat with Dr Conrad.” She won't lie that she maybe slightly hopes that is the option Lucia chooses.
However, Lucia is quick to shake her head, sitting up even further and putting her hands on the table. “No, no,” she flutters her eyes and furrows her brows, “six is just fine. However, I hardly think thirty minutes is going to be enough time to compare answers.”
“Why do we have to compare answers?” Anastasia tries not to show the way her nerves flinch ever so slightly at the idea of having to humiliate herself that way. “We’re splitting them up, is that not enough?”
“Maybe for you, but some of the questions have multiple parts to them and will need to be split up weirdly.” Lucia returns, shaking her head. “i think we should at least look over those together.”
Ugh, she supposes it is fair. But thirty minutes should be more than enough. She sits up, touching the syllabus to glance over the assignments. “I doubt many of those questions will take more than five minutes to compare and there can't be more than four.”
Lucia pauses and looks at her for a moment before an easy sort of smile appears on her lips and she seems to shrug, moving her arm to now rest on the back of the chair again. “And practice ends at 5:45, so I might need more time to get there and set up. I assume you'll likely want a drink, so let's give some time for that, too. That gives 10 minutes into six that both of us have to agree to have as a buffer for this to logically work.”
Anastasia smiles, flattered she rose to the challenge and, since it really won't be cutting into her time with her friends, she decides to be nice and offer her just a small inch. “Alright, then forty five minutes is just fine.”
“Actually,” Lucia clenches her jaw for a moment and then she shakes her head. “No. My math grade is important to me, I would like more time than that. An hour and a half?”
“Are you out of your fucking mind??” Anastasia whispers, leaning closer to convey her indignance. Perhaps she could have remained in debate mode, but she isn’t in a debate and a whole hour and a half seems excessive to even ask for. “Your math grade is that important to you??”
“I'm a finance major, numbers are important to my future career.” Lucia grins at her, doing a little shoulder shake, and Anastasia narrows her eyes. “Fine. 75 minutes.”
“That is hardly an improvement.” Anastasia tcks and then she shook her head. “The best I can give is an hour. I have things I can't budge on after 7 and tutoring until 6. So unfortunately, my schedule is locked.”
“An hour is perfect!” Lucia claps her hands together and rests them back on the table again, her expression slightly smug. “Nice try, pre-law. Welcome to negotiations."
“Oh you-” Anastasia’s eyes widen as she understands exactly how she just got played. Like an arcade game and Anastasia isn't sure she minded losing. That is… impressive. She'd been in debate, but Lucia much more correctly negotiated for more time. “Well played,” she gestures her hand, “I concede. But understand that I have picked that up and I'm liable to send it back at you.”
“I can't wait.” Lucia leans forward, grinning again. It made Anastasia suddenly aware of the deep red color staining the inner parts of her lips. Like pomegranate juice that blurs out as it reaches the edge of her lips. Anastasia is quick to look away, pretending to focus on her syllabus again. “You know, speaking of parties-”
“Um, that was an entire negotiation ago?”
‧⭒‧⭒‧˙⭒.‧🟄‧◦‧☽✦☾‧◦‧🟄‧.⭒˙‧⭒‧⭒‧
Hi! This is a brief writing excerpt from my new original story! This story is going to likely be available on story platforms in August while I set up my patreon and some kind of base for worldbuilding knowledge!
If you found this interesting and would like to see more, follow me! If you have any questions or would like to know more, shoot me an ask!
