#i actually heard this on NPR hours ago but waited until i could sit down and read some articles before i posted | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hadenodom-stories · 3 years

Text

Clair’s Voyage, Part 1

Clair woke up in a cold sweat. There was no light breaking through her open window, and her heavy dark Navy curtains made no noise as they wavered in the summer wind. It was the 5th of July, and she was freaking out. Have you ever had a dream that stays on your mind and colors your mood for an entire day? Clair had just endured the second such dream in as many nights.

Regardless of the dread her dream had instilled in her, she knew she had to get up and moving. Yesterday's dream had nearly sapped her of all of her energy, and her friend Elaine had noticed at the neighborhood 4th of July cookout. "I've never seen you in such a foul mood", she'd remarked. She couldn't let that happen today. She had a very important interview, and her entire future potentially hinged on it. She couldn't be in a dour, depressed state -- 'Then I'll have to fake a smile', she thought, 'and I'm absolute shit at that'.

Despite a grim determination to force herself into a better mood, she found herself dwelling on the previous day's events as she trudged through the hallways of her quiet house towards the kitchen. By the time she was sitting down, her head full of frizzy auburn hair slumped forward beholding the sight of a depressing bowl of some "healthy" cereal that'd been sitting in the cupboards well past its expiration date, her mind was busy replaying and reliving the most traumatic part of that day. The part that she'd seen before in a nightmare just hours before it happened in real life. The part of the day that was at first clouded in a sense of Déjà vu -- a surreal "I've seen all of these events, in this exact order, before..." sense -- until it burst into traumatic realness. The pops and whizzes of fireworks zooming into the sky. The cheers of the neighborhood kids as one particularly bright, low, and loud firecracker exploded. Her younger brother looking at her with a cheeky "watch this" expression as he prepared to light a cobbled-together collection of old fireworks that he'd taped together and put into a small pipe to launch. His uncomprehending, still-excited face as the spark ran along the fuse far too fast and the pipe began to tilt back towards him. The flash and screams afterwards. And everything going black once she saw the blood and exposed bone. Once she realized how bad it might be...

She neatly placed her spoon back on the table and stood up. 'No way I can fucking eat now', she thought. As she walked out onto the back patio and tossed the now-soggy cereal out into the yard for the local cats to enjoy, she remembered her mom's instructions:

"Look, go home. Just go home. You heard the doctor, honey. He's going to be alright. They're doing their best. We won't be able to see him for quite a while. I'll stay here for now. Just go home and sleep in your own bed. Get you mind off of it and come back when you're able."

Clair slammed the patio door shut behind her, furious now. She understood that her mother wasn't exactly a master of emotional understanding or empathy, but how could she be so fucking stupid? How could her mom just think that she'd be able to go home and be comfortable knowing her brother was in surgery, having seen what happened to him? 'I'm an adult now, but goddamn, how do I even process this on my own? How do I just move on with my life? How can she expect me to just go home, forget all about it, and then get ready for this interview?"

She continued to ruminate and curse her mother's lack of empathy - or at least the kind of empathy Clair expected - as she lazily got ready for her interview. It was only 5 AM and her interview wasn't until 9, but there wasn't anything else to do and she certainly couldn't go back to sleep. She was going to put on a frightfully awful dress - she hated dresses - with a pair of shiny black businesslike pumps - which she also loathed - and apply more makeup than usual, and then go spend a couple of hours at the hospital trying to get an update on her brother's situation. 'I'll go ahead and let mom know that I can't handle this on my own while I'm there', she thought. 'She won't care, but I'll let her know'

In her old, grey Civic hatchback with the paint peeling, she barely focused on the road or on driving. The static-filled dulcet tones of an NPR reporter reciting headlines momentarily calmed her, but she wasn't processing any of the words. She was just busy thinking of what she could remember from last night's dream. It was a mess - all she could remember was some boy she barely recognized (but couldn't place) talking to her mother, and her mother suddenly displaying more emotion than Clair had ever seen from her - but she still wasn't able to actually identify the emotion her mother was feeling in the dream. Something like shock - or confusion - or betrayal - or all of those. Clair tried in vain to figure out who the boy in the dream was - his face looked very familiar, but she couldn't remember where, other than the dream, she'd seen him. And as for what emotion her mother had been reacting with or what the boy had been telling her mother, she was at a complete loss. Her eyes flashed upon a sign and her brakes squealed. Lost in thought, she'd almost missed the exit for the hospital.

The hospital was a tiny rural hospital on the edge of town, a decaying building full of old doctors and young underpaid nurses, kept alive on a shoestring budget despite the exorbitant prices it charged you for the simple privilege of remaining alive. Clair was sure that her mom wasn't ready for any of the financial burden her brother had just incurred -- at least not on the meager retirement checks and alimony they'd subsisted on since her dad had left. Walking into the main waiting room, she was mentally prepared to hit her mom hard with three questions: "How is he?", "When can I see him?", and "You're not going to make me stay at the house by myself for another night". The last one wasn't a question, but she expected, at the very least, her mother's acknowledgement. Instead, she was met by the face from her dream - the unfamiliar boy - walking out of an empty waiting room. She couldn't help but stop in her tracks and stare at him. "You're Micheal's sister, right?", the boy said, seemingly unphased by her glare. "Yes", she finally managed to respond. "He's not here anymore", the boy replied.

"What?"

"They took him to a hospital in Jacksonville. He's stable. Your mom didn't call you and tell you?"

"No..."

"Oh, well. They left about 30 minutes ago. He's stable, but your mom's kind of a wreck. I stayed to meet up with his friend Lisa who wants to ride with me to Jacksonville. He's going to go into another surgery to try to save his face and they said he'll probably be ready for visitors by later tonight."

'This is absurd', Clair thought. 'How can this random boy know more about my brother's situation than me. How could my mom be so detached as to not tell me any of this? And I'll be goddamned if anyone's going to finally visit my brother's hospital room before me'

"You can ride with us if you'd like", the boy offered.

"No, thanks, I actually have to drive to Jacksonville this morning anyways. I have an interview at 9..."

"Say no more... I guess I'll see you there"

With that, the boy walked past her. She turned and followed him outside. "So... who are you?"

"Oh, we've met before I think. I'm Cavill, Micheal's... we're friends. I've been here since last night worried sick about him. I guess your mom wanted you to be home so you wouldn't worry yourself sick like her."

"Fat lot of good that did", Clair replied drearily. "And yeah, we have met... Micheal just never bothers to introduce his friends to us. I guess he gets that from mom, the habit of keeping everyone at a distance"

"Cigarette?" Cavill was holding out a crumpled pack of smokes. It was odd to think that anyone Micheal hung out with smoked -- to Clair, she couldn't think of her brother as anything but a kid. Hell, she had a hard time calling herself an "adult"

"No thanks", she replied, waving sheepishly.

"I quit like a month ago - most on your brother's insistence. But sitting here waiting last night and stressing out... I just couldn't do it. I went and bought a pack of smokes. Micheal would be ashamed of me."

"Don't say that. I've never known Micheal to be anything but supportive"

"Yeah, but he..." Cavill's voice trailed off as he began to choke up. "He's the only person that really ever cared, you know? And I care about him too. I don't want to let him down." A single tear ran down his cheek.

Clair was at a complete loss. She always came to a complete loss when anyone cried or became vulnerable around her. 'I guess I'm not too unlike my mother', she thought.

"You won't. You know he talks about you sometimes? The other day he told me that you're learning guitar and that you're pretty good"

"I'm not, and he knows it. He just..."

She wasn't sure why Cavill was trailing off now. She'd met friends of her brother's before, but something was different in the way Cavill talked about his bond with Micheal. What was it?

Suddenly, some neurons firing in her brain or some semblance of emotional intelligence came to her, and it made sense. Months before, Micheal had confessed to her that he was in a relationship but said it was a secret and refused to give her any more details. It'd annoyed her at the time - she hated secrets in any form and saw them as puzzles or riddles that she needed to solve - but now, with her brother's somewhat-secretive friend quietly crying over a cigarette in front of her, an uncomfortably vulnerable figure, she felt like she was close to unraveling this particular puzzle. She eyed Cavill again, taking him in. He was a bit taller than her brother, and thinner. His hair was golden-brown and jettisoned out from his head at odd angles, like some sort of anime character's. His face didn't quite match it - soft angles, a small button of a nose, and thin lips. Blue eyes. He looked absolutely sad, and she couldn't stand to leave him here on his own.

"You're going to Jacksonville, right?", she said.

"Yeah, but I'm waiting for Lisa, remember? She's my ride"

"Well, you can ride with me if you want. I'm going right now."

"That's probably more convenient. Lisa lives between here and Jacksonville and hasn't even left her house yet".

"Well, I'll make some room in my car. And I have an interview later on, so I won't be able to give you a ride back until after lunch"

"That's okay, I'm staying at the hospital for the day if I can help it"

Clair looked at Cavill, who'd extinguished his cigarette between his fingers and was starting to walk behind her towards her car. "Go wash you hands and splash some water on your face", she said. "I don't want the smell of cigarettes in my car, and besides, you look tired"

Cranking her car, her head disappeared in thought again. What was the meaning of the dream she'd had the night before? What kind of secret life had her brother been living? Who is this Cavill kid she's seen around who's suddenly very attached to her brother? Why would her mom not tell her that her brother had been taken to a hospital an hour's drive south for surgery? What was Cavill telling her mom in the dream she'd just had, and why did it make her mom so... upset?

She couldn't sit there with her thoughts for a second longer, so she reached for the pair of pliers in the center console and used them to twist the metal stub on which her car radio's volume knob had once rested. The dulcet tones of the NPR announcer now filled the silence:

"Next on NPR: We talk to an experimental psychologist about a new study on the phenomenon of apparently precognitive dreams. Can dreams predict the future?"

Not even NPR was going to give her a moment of escapism.

=============================================

This is part one of my unfinished series about a girl named Clair whose dreams begin to mirror reality (sounds fun until it happens to you!), which for now is going to be titled “Clair’s Voyage”. I started writing a story along these lines, with much less detail, a few years ago until it was apparent that I was writing a longer story than I’d set out to write. At that time, I just saved the draft but left it unfinished. Now, I’m adding more details and breaking it out into different parts. It may become a book by the time I’m done. Clair, you see, is an aspiring psychiatrist - she loves studying the mind and how it works - but right now she’s just trying to struggle through community college and get a job as a secretary at the local psychiatric hospital. She’s also trying to struggle with the traumatic events surrounding an eerie July 4th, on which her brother was grievously injured in a scene that played out exactly how it had played out in her nightmare the night before. With her brother’s boyfriend, Cavill, at her side, she’s about to embark on a journey of discovery and empowerment filled with ups and downs and unspeakable trauma. So be sure to tune in for the next Part of Clair’s Voyage.

#Clair's Voyage #short story #tumblr fiction #writeblr #writing #creative writing #psychology #dreamscape #dreams #nightmares #amwriting #ya #hadenodom stories

13 notes · View notes

rwbyvein · 4 years

Text

Firen Lhain: Chapter 011: I Am

Note: This runs parallel to the Checkmate arc, (Stray to Black and White)

* * *

RWBY were walking through Vale, "Oh, this is absolutely wonderful!"

"I don't think I've ever seen you smile this much, Weiss." Ruby said to her, "It's kind of weirding me out..." she mumbled.

"A festival dedicated to the cultures of the world! There will be dances! Parades! A tournament! Oh, the amount of planning and organization that goes into this event is simply breathtaking!"

"You really know how to take a good thing and make it sound boring." Yang depressingly said.

"Quiet you!" Weiss admonished her they approached the docks.

"Remind me again," Yang voiced, "why we're spending our Friday afternoon visiting the stupid docks?"

"Ugh," Ruby exclaimed, "they smell like fish!", causing Blake to roll her eyes.

"I've heard," Weiss said to her, "that students visiting from Vacuo will be arriving by ship today. And, as a representativeof Beacon, I feel as though it is my solemn duty to welcome them to this fine kingdom!"

"She wants to spy on them," Blake added, "so she'll have the upper hand in the tournament." This caused Weiss to scoff.

"You can't prove that!"

Ruby stopped as, looking down the street, she saw a dust shop with broken windows, a police line, and police officers. "Whoa!" she exclaimed, and walked up to the tape to talk to one of the officers, "What happened here?"

"Robbery." the first detective said to her, "Second Dust shop to be hit this week. This place is turning into a jungle." At this, Blake looked away with disgust while Yang sighed.

"That's terrible."

"They left all the money again." the second detective added.

"Huh?" Ruby asked.

"Yeah," the first Detective asked, "just doesn't make a lick of sense. Who needs that much Dust?"

"I don't know, an army?" the second one asked.

"You thinking the White Fang?" the first detective asked.

"Yeah," the second one replied, "I'm thinking we don't get paid enough."

"Hmph! The White Fang." Weiss exclaimed, crossing her arms and pointing her nose in the air, "What an awful bunch of degenerates!"

"What's your problem?" Blake asked.

"My problem?" Weiss asked, "I simply don't care for the criminally insane."

"The White Fang is hardly a bunch of psychopaths." Blake stated "They're a collection of misguided Faunus."

"Misguided?" Weiss asked, "They want to wipe Humanity off the face of the planet!"

"So then they're very misguided." Blake exclaimed, "Either way, it doesn't explain why they would rob a Dust shop in the middle of downtown Vale!"

"Hmm... Blake's got a point." Ruby interjected, "Besides, the police never caught that Torchwick guy I ran into a few months ago... Maybe it was him."

"That still doesn't change the fact that the White Fang are a bunch of scum." Weiss exclaimed, "Those Faunus only know how to lie, cheat, and steal."

"That's... not necessarily true..." Yang voiced. 'oh, come on, Ice Queen.' she pleaded internally.

"Hey, stop that Faunus!" a man shouted.

RWBY rushed over to the boat, and Weiss sighed. "Stuff like this must make it tough to be a Faunus..."

"There are... far worse things..." Blake stated. "Have you seen how Humans treat... them?"

"Seeing this?," Weiss asked, "are you at all surprised?" and Blake looked down dejectedly.

* * *

Jaune knocked on RWBY's door, and got no reply.

"Maybe they are in town." Pyrrha said from behind him, and he shrugged.

* * *

JNPR opened their door and looked out as they heard shouting coming from RWBY's room.

"Uh... maybe we should just..." Jaune voiced, as he stepped back into their dorm room and closed the door.

* * *

They heard someone storm out of RWBY's room, and JNPR just looked at each other nervously.

* * *

Weiss tried to stand at attention as she looked out into the moonlight, and sighed. More than one secret hangs by a thread.

* * *

Jaune knocked on RWBY's door. Ruby opened the door, and saw NPR's heads sticking out of their room. "You guys alright?" Jaune asked, and Ruby sadly looked down.

"Weiss and Blake... had a bit of a..."

"Blowup." Yang said from inside the room.

"What about?" Jaune asked, and again, Ruby looked down, nervously. "Can I come in?.."

* * *

Jaune stood in the middle of RWBY's room, looking about. Yang was sitting on her bed, Weiss was laying on hers. "Okay, so... it turns out... Blake is with the White Fang..."

"The what?" Jaune asked.

"How could you possibly not know about those ruffians?" Weiss asked, "Those terrorists?" Jaune simply blunk at her in reply. "HOW COULD YOU?!.."

"EASY!" Yang shouted, and Weiss looked at the bed hanging above her. "The White Fang were a Faunus protest group... but something changed, and now they are starting all the fights."

"Do you have any idea what the White Fang have done to me?!" Weiss exclaimed. "To my family?!"

"But you..." Jaune said. He stopped as she looked at him starkly. "I think we need to talk." Weiss sadly nodded.

* * *

Jaune carefully worked his antlers into JNPR's dorm room. "Could we have the room?" he asked, and Nora stood up and saluted.

"We'll see you in the cafeteria." Pyrrha said with glee.

* * *

Jaune sat on his bed and gestured to Nora's. Weiss moved over and elegantly sat on Nora's bed, eyes still downcast. "Why... how does the White Fang have something against you?"

"Perhaps?.." Weiss nervously asked, "my father's... questionable... business choices..."

"But you are..." Jaune tried to say, but Weiss' look of anguish caused him to trail off.

"You swore you would not tell anyone about that." Weiss admonished him.

"I know... I mean... unless they already know about it... and you know about it... I mean..." he tried to say. "Are you saying... your family... discriminates against..." he then trailed off, gesturing to Weiss.

"Yes... well... they are... nothing but brutes and rapscallions..."

"And how does that work?" Jaune asked her.

"It... does not..." Weiss nervously replied, "If I do not have complete and utter control over my emotions, the colours of my plummage show themself..." She was nearly hyperventilating.

"You're safe here." Jaune stated, "I already know.

With this Weiss' breathing started to even out, and her plummage flushed dark blue... though... with hints of light...

"How can your father... do that to you?.." Jaune asked. "Make you deny such an important part of yourself."

"Quite simply, it seems." Weiss nervously, tersely, tensely replied, and then finally seemed to ease a bit, "Our entire lives we have been... heavily encouraged... to be good little scions of the house of Schnee... and nothing else..."

"I didn't know that Atlas had great houses?" Jaune asked.

"In truth, it does not." Weiss replied, "But that does not stop my father from having a talk with General Ironwood whenever he needs to. If you do not know, General Ironwood has two seats on the Atlas council. We do not have noble families, but we have families richer than nobles ever were, who effectively control the course of the kingdom from the shadows. The thing Father is most afraid of... is our house... falling..."

"And what do you want?" Jaune asked, and Weiss' eyes grew wide with shock. "Are you just going to let your father make you feel ashamed for existing? Seriously, if your father can't accept your for being a Faunus, why?.. just why?.."

"And just what, pray tell, do you expect me to do?" Weiss asked him.

"I don't know, accept that you are the beautiful Faunus I know you are?" Jaune asked. Weiss' dark blues largely turned to light. Her depression seemed to turn to hope. "You'll certainly have our support."

"And my family?.." Weiss asked, and Jaune simply shrugged.

"If they can't accept you?.." he said, and once again Weiss looked down.

* * *

"Look Weiss," Ruby quickly said, "it's not what you think, she explained the whole thing. See, she doesn't actually have a bow, she has kitty ears and they're actually kind of cute..."

Weiss simply ignored her, pushing her way past as she approached Blake, seated after her ordeal.

"Weiss," Blake quickly said to her, "I want you to know that I'm no longer associated with the White Fang. Back when I was with the-"

"Stop!" Weiss exclaimed, "Do you have any idea of how long we've been searching for you? - Twelve hours. That means I've had twelve hours to think about this. And in that twelve hours, I've decided..." Yang, Sun, and Ruby look on, worried. "I don't care."

"You don't care?" a surprised Blake asked.

"You said you are not one of them anymore," Weiss said to her, "right?"

"No, I-I haven't been since I was younger..." Blake tried to say, but Weiss quickly cut her off.

"Ah-bah-bah-bah-bah! I don't want to hear it. All I want to know is that the next time something this big comes up... you'll come to your teammates. And not some..." she said, and looked at Sun, "Someone else."

Blake looked between a grinning Ruby and Yang and wiped a tear from her eye, "Of course."

The four were having a wonderful moment until Ruby had to scream, "Yeah! Team RWBY is back together!"

Weiss pointed at Sun, "I'm still not quite sure about how I feel about you!"

Ruby looked around, "Hey, wait a minute... Where's Penny?"

Weiss breathed in deeply a few times before speaking. "There is something I must say to you."

Ruby, Blake, Yang and Sun all gathered around. Weiss used her glyph to launch Sun backwards, "Not you!"

Sun just shrugged in reply.

* * *

Ruby, Blake, and Yang all sat on their bed. Weiss stood in the centre, breathing deeply. "I guess I will just come out and say it... though you are all sworn to secrecy." Ruby, Blake, and Yang all nodded. "I... am a Faunus..."

Ruby's tail wagged eagerly.

"You're a WHAT?!" Blake exclaimed, and Weiss dropped her head.

"Blake!" Ruby admonished, and Blake looked down nervously.

"S... sorry..." Blake voiced, "But how does that make any sense?.."

"My father..." Weiss voiced, "is not exactly... a gentleman..."

"So?," Yang asked, "Dad's an asshole, but how this make you change colour?"

Blake glared at Yang through the bottom of her bed.

"If you must know?," Weiss asked, "I suppose, when stressed, your hair stands on it's end?"

"Uh, yeah?" Yang asked.

"For me," Weiss continued, "my plummage has colours..."

"Whatage?" Ruby asked.

"Her feathers." Blake stated, "Feathers?!"

"My plummage is light enough to be invisible." Weiss continued, "You are familiar with raven as a colour, correct?"

"Yeah?" Yang asked.

"It's through light refraction that gives it a blue hue." Weiss stated. "My feathers do the same. The higher the angle, the greater the refraction."

"So?" Ruby asked, "the more stressed out you are, the more blue you become?" and Weiss nodded.

"So, why the change of heart?" Yang asked, and Weiss developed a light blue hue, clutching her heart.

"Do I need a reason?" she asked.

"We - are - a - team!" Ruby exclaimed, and Blake shyly smiled and nodded.

"Unless anyone else has a deep confession they'd like to make?" Yang asked.

"I do... kind of... have a bit of a thing..." Ruby said, "for Jaune..."

"Good you can finally admit it." Yang stated, and Weiss' light blues darkened.

#rwby #firen lhain #faunus au #pollinated knight ending

24 notes · View notes