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ansu-gurleht · 5 years

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rules: what does your character keep on their person? bold for always, italic for sometimes. then, tag some mutuals!

tagging: @nerevar-shid-and-fard @orsinium @devilsworddante @ptsilenthill @sheobaby @ anybody else who wants to do this, i’m bad at this lol. [tagged by @akulorkhan. the edit-tag worked buddy!]

Ku-vastei

➳ BAG

➳ WEAPONS

➳ APPAREL

➳ HEALTH + MAGIC

➳ STEALTH

➳ TOOLS

➳ PROVISIONS

➳ PERSONAL

anything bold, (in parantheses), AND italicized is stuff i’ve personally added to this for clarification purposes. feel free to get rid of them if i tag you!

b/c i want to, im going to elaborate on this under the cut:

she has a backpack wrapped in a bandolier of potions, most homemade. the inside of the bag is....kind of a mess. she just throws things in and has to dig around when she needs something. (not fun when she needs the knife or needle. but that’s what restoration magic’s for, right? there’s no tetanus in nirn, right?) she keeps the shovel (more of a trowel really, mostly used for muck-ing about, hehe) fastened to her bag as well. on top she keeps her guar-hide sleeping bag, wrapped in kresh fiber.

on her hip she (currently) has a sparks-enchanted glass dagger she nabbed off the corpse of one of her first morag tong writs. she thinks. she doesn’t exactly remember where she got it, but she probably killed someone for it, and love it very much.

her primary weapon, however, is a conjured daedric spear. it’s very powerful, and she loves it. just a wave of her claws and it’s hers, ready to stab.

she wears minimal medium armor, just enough to conceal under her robes. right now, it’s an orcish cuirass and bonemold pauldrons. she has a scarf now, but only after having to brave the ashen wastes of molag amur for mage’s guild business, and then winding up almsivi-intervention-ing to ald-ruhn, where there was a helpful ash-scarf merchant. she brings it with her everywhere on this stupid island now. she’s got a belt just to secure her robes a bit, and a few magic rings.

one of those is the ring of khajiiti, which she got from doing a quest for mephala that she didn’t know she was doing, who it was for, or why. first guy she talks to in the morag tong base when she finds it says “go poison this guy’s food and don’t ask why.” so she did it without asking why, and when she came back, the morag tong guy said “mephala wants to talk to you now” and then she gave ku a magic ring. really nice magic ring, too.

as i said, her backback’s potion bandolier is chock full of useful little brews. restore health, magicka, fatigue, some cure blight disease, some dispel, levitation, etc. anything she might need that she might not (reliably) be able to cast a spell for. (she knows a levitate spell, but it’s really, really hard. she has one shot for it to work, and if it doesn’t, she’s out of magicka.)

she carries a mortar and pestle for on-the-go alchemy, and a lot of herbs and ingredients. she’s very disorganized, but at least she tries to keep those ingredients separated in pouches so as to avoid accidental reactions. she also keeps some of the marshmerrow + saltrice poultice she learned to make from her naheesh so long ago, for those times she doesn’t want to cast a spell or drink a health potion. if you apply it to a wound and wrap it up, it’ll heal, slowly but reliably.

she wants to get into enchanting, and so carries around a fair amount of petty soul gems, and a few lesser ones, and she knows a basic soul trap spell. but she’s constantly cursing herself because she always forgets to cast it, and ends up just killing the thing. she’s got a loose kwama forager, rat, cliffracer soul here and there, but she decided recently to stop carrying them around, because hist knows when she’ll actually use them for anything. still, she keeps some empty gems on her, just in case.

ku taught herself how to pick locks and disable minor traps long ago, when sneaking around the plantation to get or spread information, or to unlock armories to arm her revolt. now that she’s more magically inclined, she knows an ondusi’s spell, but always tries to pick it first, to try and keep the skill fresh.

she keeps a piece of charcoal to keep up with her journal and update her maps. even in her late 40s, she’s not completely literate, having been first a slave, then a revolutionary, then a prisoner. but she can read well enough to get by, and can even write in cyrodiilic enough to keep as detailed a journal as she can. (unfortunately, despite her ability to read cyrodiilic, it doesn’t do her much good in vvardenfell, since a lot of things seem to be written in daedric.)

she keeps needle and thread to sew up any damage to her robes, and to close particularly egregious wounds to maximize the effectiveness of healing magic done on them. she has a knife for utility purposes, generally gathering/processing ingredients such as plants or hides, as well as anything she doesn’t want to dirty her precious glass dagger for. and she keeps some kindling and corkbulb to start fires to keep her warm during the cold nights.

she always carries food and a slaughterfish-gut water bag whenever she’s on a trip for business. usually she eats salted slaughterfish, mudcrab meat, saltrice porridge, and scuttle. she also never turns down any tasty bugs she comes across. she boils her water (and cooks her porridge) in a small cast iron pot, and has a similarly sized pan for grilling meat. she keeps some sujamma on her, not for recreation, but in case she ever needs a bit of a pick-me-up.

as a child, she spent a lot of time with her khajiit friends, who always seemed to have a way to occasionally get a hold of moon sugar, despite the harsh punishment if a slave was caught with it. as a result, ku developed something of a sweet tooth, and occasionally like to treat herself to some.

she also carries extra food and water, just in case she ever runs into a situation where she needs to escort a slave to safety.

her money never seems to exceed about 3000 drakes, mostly due to having to bribe so many people for information, since she’s not always so good with words. now that she’s got a semi-stable job with the morag tong, though, this might change soon. and if she ever gets around to selling some of the junk she’s got holed away.

she keeps the journal and map she obtained from arille’s tradehouse in seyda neen in a front-pocket of her backpack, and tucks any books she finds interesting in her travels in the bottom of her backpack. currently, she is carrying one regularly: "a pilgrim’s path,” just in case she is close by to one of the shrines, or forgets what offering to leave.

she carries her sadrith mora hospitality papers, as well as her current morag tong writs, in a separate pocket from her journal and map. she’s also been collecting these strange, glowing, singing plants she keeps finding along the water with no discernible alchemical uses. she’s shown them to other alchemists, as well, but none of them knew anything about it. some, however, told her there was an alchemist in caldera who studies these plants. she has yet to visit caldera, though.

around her neck she carries a sentimental comfort item: a fire-proof twig from a hist tree (given to her by her naheesh, it is a small fragment of a branch that fell from a hist tree) bound tightly to a small pearl ku’s mother once found in the soil at the bottom of a marshmerrow paddy. both of these women are now long dead, lost either before or during her revolt. they’re all ku has left of them, and constant reminders of the futility of her actions as a young adult.

#tes #tesblr #teslore #argonian #morrowind #nerevarine #akulorkhan #nerevar-shid-and-fard #orsinium #devilsworddante #ptsilenthill #sheobaby

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shidiand · 5 years

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How do you imagine Tenco's Story ending in your head?

that is a GREAT but UNEXPECTED QUESTION freshlybaked "spider" bread and i'm really happy to have the opportunity to try and answer this ageless question that has burned within all of us in the tenco's story iv waiting room community since 2013. it is an incredible coincidence (or is it? 👀) that i was just talking to Risa about tenco's this (edit: yesterday) morning so i am extra double super in the mood to talk about Tenco's Story today. so excellent of a coincidence is this that i am tempted to refer you to them in case you wanted to hear their thoughts on the matter that would probably turn out super cool, but that is neither here nor there; let us talk Tenco's Story.

i of course must mention my unadvertised and modestly detailed commentary on tenco's i-iii at https://shidiand.tumblr.com/tencos, presenting slightly interesting facts in an unwieldy and difficult-to-use format, but as it dates back to june 2017, i want to take some time to understand my feelings about the series once more.

tenco's story is a series that has a lot of meaning to me.

i took on my current name of shidiand in november of 2013. i was still in 11th grade at the time, 4th year of high school, and a very socially isolated person. i should say i was introduced to touhou in 7th grade, 2010, so i was still working through a 3 years-strong phase of trying to simultaneously both find an outlet for and bottle up an endless wellspring of awkward weeaboo-gamer nerd energy at the time.

i had my first real foray onto the internet in 2010, tried out twitter, followed some RPers and other people who had Cool Touhou Usernames. didn't really go anywhere. i had maybe 50 followers, i dont really know the count but it was definitely a) double digits and b) pretty low. didn't know what to tweet about. didn't know how to hit it off with others. i think there was basically maybe only 3 other people i ever properly interacted with. oh shit i was playing league of legends at the time. oh my god. i really did play league of .. oh my god. let's move on.

aw shit im super digressing amn't i. well.

this is just how it goes when i write essays on tumblr.com.

i'm afraid you're just along for the ride at this point so please do your best to enjoy it.

i got kind of tired of twitter at the time because i didnt know what to do with it. didnt know how to interact with people and didnt find the people i was following interesting, so i ghosted on out of there by the end of 2012. didnt deactivate it until like 2015 but at that point that was just burning away my dark history. anyways. november 2013.

--im taking a lot of time here trawling through old files on my computer, my tumblr blog, notification emails still lying around in my gmail inbox from twitter, the dropbox i didn't actually use but it had several tenco's story pictures on it but i deleted them so this was useless, ... to trace the timeline of this story and im really seeing a lot of remnants of dark history here you know? did you know i wrote a letter to a girl i had a crush on valentine's day 2014, slipped it into her locker, and anxiously hung around nearby at lunchtime to see how she reacted at lunchtime? i certainly didn't, or at least i made darn ass sure to forget about this incredible virgin incident and not remember it, ever, until i came across the records of it that i thoughtfully preserved for the me of 5 years later today. ok well now i have to read the letter to see if it was as bad as it just sounded there brb

ok so the good news is that it was actually very focused on being positive and full of admiration for the cool things she did instead of being a confession letter so i am very glad i was able to be a respectful chad 5 years ago, but the bad news is that the jokes, the actual sentences i put together. oh my god. but i mean. well. at least i got the spirit. its certainly a step up from this other person in my grade, WEEABOO ANDREW, YOU MAY RECALL THIS STORY AND HIS NAME FROM PREVIOUS STORYTIMES, THE MAN THE MYTH THE LEGEND who came to school on halloween once cosplaying kirito from sword art online and got very possessive about people asking if they could hold his black replica plastic sword, and probably worse, dropped a "will you be my girlfriend" letter into the locker of my homie and fellow trombonist samantha, who was a little bit nerdy, hung out with the anime-likers who were actually sociable and fun to be around so you can imagine why weeaboo andrew was into her, which had i) a direct quotation from SAO chapter 16.5 (origin of the famous "glopping noise" line), and ii) a condom. jesus christ. i dont want to talk about this any more. next topic.

i also put this drawing of iku nagae and her skarmory (actually an albinoss from 18 DRAGONS) on the other side of the letter because it was the coolest thing i could think of drawing at the time. and i completely agree with 2014 me because it IS super fucking cool. hell fuckin yeah

https://shidiand.tumblr.com/post/76301993387/iku-nagae-ft-that-thing-that-supposedly-is-a

alright that was a fun little trip down memory lane but lets get back on track. november 2013. i started anew as shidiand. still awkward, still learning how to express myself and looking for my place among others. i followed some touhou bloggers, hung around r/touhou a lot as well. in december i got my first tablet for christmas, a wacom bamboo splash. i still use this thing! the usb cable disconnects if you bump it so i have to find just the perfect position to sit in whenever i want to draw, but its served me well. anyways. i was just starting to play around with digital art but i remember, probably just before new years, for some reason i wanted to find out more about tenshi hinanawi (i don't remember why. tenshi wasn't even one of my favourite characters at the time) so i went googling and right there on zerochan i found this:

https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=23525572

this was during my dark souls phase so i just went BANANAS at the sight of this. this was literally the coolest image i had ever seen in my internet life. That image alone made me want to draw in hopes that I could make something as cool as that someday.

it wasn't immediately after but i soon discovered tenco's story, and it was love. kannnu was my very first artistic inspiration, and for a long time, my only one. i absolutely idolized them at the time. since then, ive found other artists to look up to, in a more healthy manner, but to this day i still look up to kannnu, still admire their work a lot.

i played around with drawing, followed the lives of people on tumblr, started reading touhou fanfiction, made a new twitter. i met a lot of new people along the way. some people i havent stuck with, some i cut ties with, and some people i still keep in contact with today. over those long 5 years of being shidiand, i found a name (i used to use shidian and then shid, but someone called me shidi once and i realized that was a lot better), how to reach out to others, how to express myself, places that i could feel included in. this is why i owe a blood debt to evelyn, who permitted me to kneel at her throne and was like "yea ok you can join my discord server u seem cool". evelyn, if you were confused by me ominously mentioning this blood debt/blood oath in a tumblr reply 1-2 years ago, this is the context. those 5 years were like a coming of age of sorts, that i never had when i was in high school.

and my love for tenco's story, that inspired me to draw that day, has been with me since almost the very beginning of my time as shidiand. from the beginning, i have always encouraged people to READ TENCO'S STORY, like the kin of those who cry PLAY MELTY or WATCH SYMPHOGEAR. i think my very first sidebar description was something akin to a prayer, written in very choral language, hoping for the day tenco's story iv was completed, ..., "meanwhile, furious shitposting". kannnu's work, finding delight in whatever they chose to draw, has been at my side, all along. my true mentor, my guiding moonlight...

so that's why i still to this day love tenco's story so much.

let's talk about tenco's story.

tenco's story is a story told through single pictures. the plot is vague, and details are sparse. dialogue is rare. we only know what has happened; we seldom know why. furthermore, there are many gaps between scenes that the reader is left to fill in for themselves; we see only snapshots that form an hazy outline of the events that occurred, and must imagine the rest. motivations and explanations fail me. but even with a barebones plot, tenco's story has themes, and if nothing else, those have to be carried through.

the main theme, of course, is journey and travel, but there are also other ideas, too. i actually think they start to change as the series goes on:

book i, where tenshi runs away from home, is about striking out on your own. it's a very fun and unpredictable journey, together with a friend.

book ii, where tenshi and iku are separated, forces tenshi to find and rely on companions of her own even more. but they do so, and they are able overcome hardships, and there is food and festival.

book iii marks a climax, reasserting tenshi's goal of finding the sword of hisou. i feel like the journey shifts from a travel (visiting) to a path forwards (making your way through). perhaps this is just something i get from knowing the locations from dark souls (Anor Londo, New Londo Ruins, the Great Hollow), but the locations start to give more of a sense of verticality, like they're emphasizing tenshi's climb to the summit. the hardships and enemies are the greatest they've been yet, and right when they near the top, tenshi and iku start to bleed. the book ends on an uncertain note.

if i had to describe the type of journey and travel that tenshi and iku undertake, there's this sense of wonder at discovering new places, wandering from vista to vista in delight, but also a sense of conquering, making it through a difficult patch. the sequence from pages 2-44 to 2-51, taken together, convey this sense of overcoming the best. it's one of my favourite parts. again, although the tone definitely starts to lean towards struggle in book iii, i think tenco's sense of wonder really is the heart of the series. there's no map of the world, no predicting where tenshi and iku will end up next. and through their travels, though they come across many enemies, they also find friends -- places of refuge, places full of life, people who will look after them for a few days, companions who will stay with them for the rest of the journey. at the end of book iii, we see a long haired tenshi with purple hair being impaled by the sword of hisou (3-33, see also this extra illustration that risa pointed out to me http://sinnnkai.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-195.html), and regular short haired tenshi continuing on her journey (3-42). if we ignore the out-of-story images where tenshi has the sword of hisou, tenshi has actually only ever used her sunlight blade (2-24, 3-26, etc), so i think that the long haired tenshi on 3-33 is a different person altogether. (if i had to guess, she might be the purple haired woman in the top left of https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=35443328 as we have never seen that woman appear anywhere.) she probably has something to do with the flashbacks at the end of book ii and she might somehow be short-haired tenshi at the same time, but this is just speculation.

however, in 3-43, tenshi's hair is rather blue, so i don't know if this is the purple haired woman or not. if it is, tenshi is probably still fine and closing in on the summit, but if it isn't, then it's very worrying to see a picture of tenshi without any of her companions. it's very ominous.

meanwhile, iku, while climbing the red carpeted corridor, is stabbed, and disappears for a few pages. there's a black page, a shot of a shrine that strongly resembles the hakurei shrine, and a picture of iku standing behind someone in a tux, with the line "In the past, I was saved by the lady I was serving, you see?". and then iku wakes up in a field of flowers.

i think what this scene makes clear is a theme that has continued to appear and reappear throughout every book of "being saved, being aided by someone's kindness".

i think another theme that is implied and has to be addressed by this story of running away from home is "return". something im imagining is that the reason tenshi makes finding the sword of hisou her goal is because she wants to have something to prove herself with, to vindicate her when she comes home. but i don't think she needs to prove anything, and i ultimately think that she would be happier spending the rest of her life exploring.

so i think this should be what happens in the ending.

open on iku's journey, and give her a long sequence of travel without seeing tenshi. underline her newfound resolve. she climbs to the summit with albinoss, and finds the rest of tenshi's companions fallen. and in the last room is sword of hisou tenshi, who has lost herself, and it comes down to iku to bring her back. after a difficult battle, when both of them are on their last legs, iku is unable to stand any longer. but at this moment tenshi sees her companions struggling to get back up and reach her, and that's what brings her to her senses. and iku gets to see how many friends tenshi's been able to make on her own, and they finally and properly reunite. together, tenshi and iku carry each other out of the last room.

i don't think it's necessary to return to heaven. as a conclusion, dedicate some time to tenshi and iku travelling together. they're on their way back, revisiting old friends who helped them along the way, enjoying the journey. their last stop is the house of the elderly nawis (1-42). tenshi shows off the sword of hisou; she decided to keep it not as a trophy to show her family but as proof of the bonds of her companions. surrounded by friends, tenshi and iku decide to part ways with each other, knowing that the other will be alright. iku drifts among the clouds once more, and tenshi sets off for the horizon.

that's the plot that i'd write/just wrote. i don't really expect tenco's story iv to ever come out, though. i mentioned my first sidebar description earlier in this essay, but of course, you can see that it's been changed. 2 years ago, i read my hopeful prayer once more and was struck with a terrible melancholy, so now it reads this: "having come to terms with the fact that tenco's story iv will never be released, i can still live, knowing that the spirit of the journey will live on through kannnu's original works [...] meanwhile, furious shitposting".

on one level, tenco's story is a story, but in the process of following it, i came to think of the work itself as a journey too. you can constantly see kannnu's improvement between and even within each book. they have always drawn whatever they liked; what plot matters in the face of "I wanted to draw a beautiful sky." "I wanted to draw a fantastic battle." "I wanted to draw Dark Souls and Monster Hunter and Pokemon and Brave Fencer Musashi and Bokura no Taiyou and Touhou."

its not really kannnu's style to go back and tie up old ends. they just draw whatever makes them happy. so as i watch them continue to draw beautiful places and fantastic creatures, new characters heading out on journeys of their own or just enjoying their everyday lives, it's as if tenco's story never ended. the limits and consistency of that world ignored, and a new one springs up; in a way, the world of tenco's, which had such thin boundaries, just gets bigger.

but even so, having said all that, i still see them draw that short-haired tenshi from time to time. it makes me happy to see them remember tenco's story with such fondness. often crossing over with orion or roar or elweiss, you can see tenshi on another journey.

#tenco's story #freshlybakedspiderbread

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cashmierathoughts · 6 years

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Riley 'Nem pt. 7: The Virgin

"Did you cum?", whispered a deep, immature voice.

"Yea", I lied.

"Good. Me too. I love you, baby", he said.

"I love you too", another lie. Then I hung up the phone.

I sighed deeply, rolled over, and headed for the bathroom to wash my hands. The floorboards were old and creaky so I tried to walk as softly as I could so that I didn't wake my folks up. I wasn't supposed to be up this late on a school night, let alone, be talking on the phone.

"Keeshaaaa?!", rang a stern voice.

"Yes, ma'am", I answered.

"Why aren't you in bed? And I KNOW I didn't hear you on my telephone a few minutes ago".

I rolled my eyes, "No, ma'am", I answered and continued on my way to the bathroom. "I know I didn't hear you on my telephone...", I mimicked to myself. Boah she killed me. Ain't paid a bill since she moved in here. "Nigga dis my daddy house" -- I laughed.

I got back to my room, shut the door behind me, and turned on the lamp by my bedside and picked up my tattered copy of 'The Coldest Winter Ever'. It was one of my all time favorites. My cousin Riley and her bestfriend Jordyn and I were sharing this one copy and it was my turn to read it. I'd read it once before in eighth grade, then again sophomore year, but it was senior year now and my boyfriend, Mike, was pressuring me to have sex, so I thought it was appropriate to revisit the storyline.

You see, I was a virgin. Most of the guys I dated assumed I would fuck because of how developed I was. I guess they thought that just because I was built like a grown ass woman, that I was ready to do grown ass woman thangs. And every time, they were left with a hard dick and hard feelings.

I did like Mike, really, I did. But did I love the nigga? No. Did I think that he loved me? Hell nawl. He just be sayin' that shit 'cause he thinks it sounds good. Not to mention, he thinks saying, "I love you, baby" is gone get him some pussy. But if he can lie about lovin' me to get what he wants, so can I. What did I want, you're probably wondering... I wanted status! Mike was the shooting guard for our school's team and was ranked top five in the nation amongst high school ball players. I was gonna make sure that I was on his arm when the time came.

I scanned the pages of the novel, skipping past a few words here and there because I'd read them so many times that I was able to finish the sentences without having to actually read them. My daddy never touched no dope, and we didn't live some unimaginable lavish lifestyle, but somehow, I could relate to Winter's dumb ass. She was a go-getter and so was I. She used niggas for their money and status, but unlike Winter, I wasn't giving away my body for trinkets and designer threads. Shid, I was barely giving out my time. But that was more of my parents' doing than my own.

I couldn't do shit. Couldn't go on dates, couldn't have people over, couldn't go to parties. None uh dat. It's a wonder that I wasn't fast and bussin' it already. People always talking abut how if you keep a teenage girl locked up in the house, she gon' be the biggest hoe of all. But I liked to prove people wrong. Yea, I snuck out from time to time. Got caught a couple of times and got hands put on me for it, but it was worth it. Most times though, I'd just go over to Riley's and go from there. My aunt and uncle were real cool and didn't mind us going out. I'm pretty sure that they were hippies in their day. Every time I go over there, they're playing old Isley's records and burning sage, tryna mask the funk of the weed they smoke in the basement. Riley thinks it's embarrassing, but I think it's cool.

It's funny how the same thing a man loves, is the same thing that he hates. What makes me stand out as a woman is that I have non negotiable principles, strength, and faith in my people. From the time that we shared that, you seemed to love that, admire it, even. Now you hate it because my ways have isolated you. The truth is, you've isolated yourself. --- (Sistah Soulja Excerpt TCWE)

And on that note, I passed out, book resting on my chest and all.

The next day at school, I skipped homeroom to meet up with Riley to copy the trig homework. Riley was super smart and good with numbers. Jordyn was the chem wiz and me; I wrote all our papers. We had the whole school on lock; charged $25 for book reports, $10 for trig worksheets, and $15 for chem homework. I don't know if the kids were dumb or just plain lazy, but either way, we was eatin'.

I found Riley all caked up against the lockers by the gymnasium. She and Rod had been going out off and on since freshman year. She was holdin' out on him too but every day, I could tell she was getting weaker and weaker. They had the "real thing" though. Equally crazy about one another. Inspiring.. if you believed that your high school sweetheart was really the "one". But as for me.. you already know where my head is.

"Ahem", I cleared my throat, hoping it would catch their attention and interrupt them. Nope. They were still swallowing each other's tongues. So, I got a little louder the second time..

"AHEM, got dammit", I joked.

"Oh hey Keesh", said Riley as she wiped the corners of her mouth, never even looking in my direction.

"Wassup girl", followed up Rod, also not breaking his gaze from Riley.

"Well I hate to interrupt BUT, Riley, we got somewhere to be..", I reminded her. I didn't want to say out loud that we needed to meet up with Jaron to make a drop 'cause Rod wasn't Riley's biggest fan when it came to her doing homework for students. You would think he'd be proud that his girlfriend had a hustle hand. Guess not, though.

"She's right. Get to classsss babe. See you later."

They kissed again, then we headed for the back of the auditorium to make the drop and so I could copy her homework.

"Wassup, Jaron?", he was waiting for us by the bleachers.

"Wassup, Keesh? Wassup Riley? Aye, Keesh, when you gon' stop playin' and fuck with a real nigga?"

"Jaron, do you have the money or what?", I said, getting straight to the point.

"Dang, it's like that? Bet. Yea. I got yo money".

He dangled the wrinkled bills in my face, snatching them away every time that I reached for it; then he finally handed the money to Riley.

"She isss the math wiz, right?", he teased.

"Whatever nigga, here..", I said as I handed him the paper. Me and Riley left and headed in the opposite direction.

Riley gave me her homework to copy and disappeared down the hallway. I hurried up and copied it, then met up with Mike in the stairwell to "talk". I already knew what he was gonna want to talk about. Senior prom was coming up and according to the rumor mill, he had a suite downtown that night.

"Hey, baby", he said, greeting me with a warm hug and a bag of M&Ms. He knew they were my favorite.

"For me?", I asked, knowing damn well they were.

"Anything for my baby", he said.

Okay nigga, cut the theatrics. Now he was doing the absolute most. He was really trying to butter me up. I liked it though, so I let him continue to do his thang.

"Okay, Mike...wassup? What's all this for?". I can be a bit direct at times.

"Soooo..after prom...I was thinkinggg....that you...and me... could spend a romantic evening at the Westin downtown. My cousin George got the hook up on the rooms and said he would look out".

"You want to spend the night there? You know my folks are not going for that, Mikey. I'm sorry, I can't".

"So that's it? Just like that? A flat out no? You not even gone TRY to think about it or come up with a plan or a lie like you usually do?".

"It's PROM, Michael.", my tone got a little more defensive. "My parents are gonna be on the defense about my every little move and be noided about everything. There's no way they're gonna let me break curfew or "spend the night" at Riley's on that night. They might be old, but they're not stupid."

"Alright, fuck it then. If you not even willing to try, that tells me you don't love me like you say you do and you're not willing to take this relationship to the next level."

I couldn't even argue with him saying I must not love him like I said I did.. 'cause truth be told, I didn't. So instead, I said,

"Nigga, what!? So because I won't lie to my parents and sleep with you, I don't "love you like I say I do"? Yous a clown, Michael."

Like I said before, all the while, I knew damn well that I didn't love this boy, but it was the principle of the matter. I felt I had to take a stand for all the virgins and girlfriends out there who weren't ready to give it up!

"You damn skippy", he shot back. "And as a matter of fact, gimme my hoodie back. Oh yea, I'm taking Tasha to prom. It's over, Keesha."

And just like that, I'd gotten dumped and left in the stairwell. For whatever reason, hot tears fled my eyes and ran down my face like lava down the side of a volcano. I was heated. I was sad. But I was not heart-broken. I cried, gathered my shit, wiped my face and headed to class and pretended nothing had happened. At least I still had the M&Ms. I was starving.

It was the end of the day now and by this time, damn near the whole school knew that me and Mike had broken up. Probably because we didn't sit together in the commons at lunch and more evidently, he was all hugged up with Tasha at the pep rally. I immediately started going through the mental list of niggas that I'd turned down. I couldn't think of one available guy that was up to par. In the middle of my brainstorming, I got a text from Riley saying she had to tell me something and to meet her at her bus.

I followed orders and went to bus 938 and waited. It wasn't too long before I spotted her through the crowd of kids. She looked...different, somehow.

"Wassup? What you gotta tell me?", I asked, getting right to the point.

"Dang, what's wrong witchu? Why you shitty?", Riley asked.

"So you haven't heard?", I said dully.

"Heard what?", she asked.

I could tell that she really had no idea.

"Mike broke up with me because I wouldn't fuck. He's taking tacky Tasha to prom", I blurted out.

"Big booty, Tasha??".

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, nigga".

"Aw damn. I'm sorry Keesh. Well that makes me not even wanna tell you my news now...".

"Girl, I'm coo. Two tears in a bucket won't fill it so fuck it. (My dad always says that) What's going on? And why you lookin' all...different?"

"Wellllllluhh...", she said hesitantly. "I did it. Well, we did it! Me and Rod...made looovvvee".

I was secretly disappointed but I didn't want to make her feel bad about her decision so I went along with it. In the back of my mind, all I could think was that she had given away her power.. something I vowed not to do for as long as I could. It was that moment there that I told myself I would never have casual sex.

#KeeshTheVIrgin

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