inthelightoffire

[inthelightoffire]

Chapter 1:  Afternoon encounters

This would be a version of the first chapter that I made a few months back, having thought that I would actually finish the chapter before I posted it, but no. This is now an idea for how the first chapter was supposed to consist of, but not anymore.

March 27

Friday 2215

What is a girl supposed to say after what just happened?

I honest to got don’t know how to react to what I went through today, it is too much of a change, too much happening, and too shocking to have actually happened, it must have been a dream then, right?

Exept I still have the bio-fabric wrapped over the scrapes on my arm, so it has to be true.

If there was one thing that Cecilia Brandet knew how to do.

It was to simply stop trying.

She was eight years old when she stopped trying to make friends with her classmates in pree-school.

She was ten years old when she stopped trying to fit in with the other people around her, optioning to simply ignore everyone’s stares in stead.

She was eleven years old when she stopped trying to fix the ever-tangled mess that was her hair.

She was twelve when she stopped trying to make her voice heard, to not bother with anyone around her. They usually had nothing worth while to say when they talked to her anyway.

She was fourteen when she stopped trying to remember...

Now, she was waiting on her sixteenth birthday, and she had already decided to simply stop trying to survive school.

Sure, she had just barely graduated from middle-school and is currently resting up for the week before High-school would kick in and she would once again find herself swarmed with everything she had come to absolutely hate.

Narrow-minded biggots.

Also known as, hormone driven carnivores.

Also known as her classmates.

She had done nothing to them. Nothing she could remember, and yet, she was the go-to punching bag for the majority of the student body in every grade she has suffered through to this point. The useless nobody that everyone believed was only there as their stress reliever of sorts, the one to throw their worst curses and insults at when she walks through the corridor in between classes, the one to shove into walls as she passed, the one to laugh at every time her test came back and sported the typical horrid result.

She has been living with this kind of treatment for almost eleven years now, at least from what she has been told.

It was an emotionally cripling existance, but it was one that Cecilia had learned to deal with, to block out the hateful words spewed towards her, to harden her skin to the point where she no longer had to go home with her body covered in bruises of varying age.

She’d made her mind a fortress, put her heart in a cage, and turned her skin into titanium just to survive her school life.

Now she wondered if she should even bother.

Middle-school had been bad because everyone around her was pushing through the confusion of puberty, their stress over the changing of their bodies leading them to take all of said stress out on the apparent weekest being around.

And that would be Cecilia.

Now, with High-school coming up and the majority of the people in her year having long-since gotten over puberty, she just knew that, in stead of panic-stricken teens, she would be surrounded by hormone-driven ones, and she got the feeling that those teens would be worse.

Far, far worse.

Those were the thoughts that went through her head as her fingers wandered over the hangers on the rack in front of her, trying to fing the one blazer of the Fairgarden-High design that would fit her teeny tiny body.

Glancing up, Cecilia caught sight of Jenna standing a few feet away with a basket hanging over her arm, a basket carrying the rest of Cecilia’s painfully searched-for uniform, as many extras and variations of it as it was possible to get in Cecilia’s size, at the very least the cardigans were something of an exeption to the rule Susannah had set for her daughter.

Honestly, there was a reason why Cecilia never bought a school uniform her size, always optioning for one that was at least a few sizes bigger. Sure, this got the majority of her classmates thinking that she was trying to hide a bad figure but at the very least she didn’t have to stand in the store for several hours picking through hangers for the very few articles that actually matched up to her absolutely tiny body.

She was almost sixteen, and yet she had the physical stature of a thirteen year old.

Sighing, Cecilia’s fingers closed around the smallest-sized light blue blazer sporting yellow trimming she encountered, and thankfully, at least this one seemed to actually fit her without making it look as though she were a todler wearing her mother’s jacket.

Pleased with her find, Cecilia folded the blazer gently over her arm and began to turn around to make her way back to Susannah, only when she did, she caught sight of something.... quite peculear.

There was a girl around her own age standing not too far away from her. Relatively pretty with wavy chocolate brown hair pulled back into a ponytail and bright icy-blue eyes, rounded face speckled with freckles. But that wasn’t what made the sight of her so peculear.

What made her peculear was the expression on her relatively pretty face when she caught sight of Cecilia.

It was quite the amusing mixture of shock, revulsion, disbelief, and maybe even pity, all cramed up in one expression. Cecilia was even trying to pick the expressions appart in her mind to try and disipher which expression was actually which and what they would look like when they weren’t crammed together like that.

[inthelightoffire]

I found Gale's eyecolor

[inthelightoffire]

Cover for story!

[inthelightoffire]

A moment

“I don’t get you.” Gale almost yelled, grabbing Cecilia by the wrist to force her to turn around towards him, looking her dead in the eyes. “You can look at me like I’m the most harmless person in the world and still run like a frightened chicken at the sight of that pathetic piece of D.N.A?”

Cecilia bit her lip.

“It’s different with you.”

“How?” Gale demanded, Giving Cecilia a light shake.

Taking a deep breath, Cecilia managed to muster up just enough courage to look the delinquent right in those piercing olive-green eyes.

“You’ve never laid a harmful hand on me.”

[inthelightoffire]

Tryout

Alright, so I have this one scene in this story that has a rather high trigger warning over it and I have been told previously wasn’t that good on the first version of this story that I have somewhere on another site, and I want to know weather it’s good enough. So I’ll put it up here and see the reaction.

She knew that she should tread carefully, to try and be sensible, sympathetic and catious, but she knew Ben.

He’s a hard headed person, someone who doesn’t take kindly to pity, and sympathy can very easily sould like pity if you don’t know what you’re doing, or get the wrong idea of what the person needs to hear.

She knew she should approach the athlete with a calm voice and catious, sensible wording but that was already being done by everyone around her. Some of them practically shouting and the athlete only seemed more attracted to the sight of the hard ground beneath him.

It wouldn’t work.

They didn’t know him, not really.

Their words would never reach the hard-headed young man in front of her, she knew that.

He knew it too.

And that was probably one of the reasons why he was standing there at this very moment.

She knew him.

Ben was not like any other person whom needed a gentle hand to guide him out of the darkness he had put himself in.

Oh no.

Someone had to go in there, and SHOVE him out of it.

It was with that in mind that Cecilia allowed her anger to build up inside of her, letting her being wash over in that eeri calm that she now was conscious enough to take note of, before she took the first self-assured step into the croup, gathering air into her lungs.

“What in the name of everything pure do you think you’re doing!?”

The sound of her angry tone cut through the bussing notes of concern, successfully silencing the crowd till only the wind brushing over their heads and the sound of rain hitting the roof could be heard.

Ben visibly recoiled at the angry tone, but where all the tragic pleading had resulted in no reaction, the angry voice screaming at him forced his instincts into gear, and he turned toward the crowd.

The ocean of classmates parted like the red-sea for Cecilia as she stepped foreward, radiating a silent fury only a few could spot when focusing on her narrowed gace.

The fire raging inside of them was un-mistakable.

Cecilia Brandet walked up toward the railing with a purpose and poise that no one had seen on her before, Gale slowly following behind her, gaze apprehensive but just a loyal as ever, knowing to keep out of his lady’s way right now.

Ben watched the petite girl stride toward him, looking almost bigger than she should even though the majority actually had to litterally look down to see something other han her messy head of hair.

The silence dragged until the tiny girl stood just a few feet away from the ahtlete, her arms crossed over her chest as she stared at her long-time classmate. Gale having optioned to stay at the front of the crowd.

Cecilia’s voice sounded partly accusing, partly disapointed when she once again opened her mouth.

“Are you seriously this much of an idiot?”

Ben found himself flinching at her tone.

“I mean, I knew you were a little slow on the uptake sometimes, but I never took you for being stupid.”

Probably despite their better judgements, multiple of Ben’s “fans” and teemates broke out into violent outbursts and angry disagreements, screaming insults at the small girl’s back.

It wasn’t until Gale threw a nasty coment at the crowd that they fell back into silence.

During this entire time, Ben had not taken his eyes off of Cecilia, whom in turn had done little more than roll her eyes at the first outburst.

It was so strange.

Seeing the girl known for being incredibly socially awkward stand her ground in front of a large crowd of people it was a very strange sight.

Finally, Ben’s eyes narrowed to match Cecilia’s own.

“An idiot am I?” he asked, voice dripping with contempt as he looked at the girl he would have very much liked to call his friend. “Just how am I an idiot to you?”

The tone didn’t seem to phase Cecilia at all, if anything, she seemed to become all the more annoyed.

“You’re standing there.” she answered, holding up her hand to show the one finger. “You’re staring at the asphalt as though it looks heavenly soft.” another finger came up, “You’ve got that stupid dejected expression where it doesn’t belong.” a third finger joined the other two before the fest followed in the jurney up towards her head, waving the limb in front of the most expressive part of the body. “Your face.”

This was probably the most anyone had heard Cecilia Brandet speak, and with every word added to her sentence, the crowd behind her grew more and more silent.

[inthelightoffire]

A longer snippet of my writing. I just came up with this scene some time ago and wanted to share it.

“What do you want from me?” he asked, stepping up to her and looking her dead in the eyes, face twisted in fury.

The question caught her off guard.

“I’m sorry?” she asked right back, tilting her head in obvious confusion.

This only seemed to anger him even more.

Growling, Gale brought up his hands, twisting his long fingers into his bright white hair and ruffled it violently, sending shining tendrils flying all over the place.

Finally, he locked eyes with her again.

“I’m asking you what you thought you’d get out of me by doing this!”

The shove had been sudden, Cecilia hadn’t had the time to brace herself before she suddenly found her back crashing into the concrete wall behind her, Gale’s hands landing on either side of her head, locking her in. His olive-green eyes glared down at her, making use of his superior height.

Not that that was a hard feat to accomplish.

“Did you expect me to declare my lifelong loyalty to you?” Gale rolled his eyes at the apparent stupidity of his own words, silently clarifying that his loyalty was something that he himself considdered, hard earned. “Did you think that you’d be able to score a favor from me?” his eyes narrowed suddenly as he kept them pinned on her. “Or better yet...” the corner of his mouth twitched into a small, hearf-hearted smirk, and suddenly...

He leaned in.

“What are you-?” Cecilia was cut short when she felt something soft and featherlight touch her neck.

The feel of his lips against one of the most tender parts of her already sensitive skin sent a shock through her body, freezing her in place.

He was kissing her neck...

Why was he kissing her neck?!

Gale’s mouth parted from her skin, although he still kept his face hovering close enough for her to feel every single, individual breath that escaped him, brushing over her, sending shivers running down her spine.

She could feel her own breath coming out in laboured huffs.

She had never been this close to a member of the opposite gender before, one that wasn’t her father that is, and deffinately not like this.

Gale’s naturally gravely voice came out as barely more than a whisper, successfully forcing Cecilia out of her stupor.

“Did you think that in doing what you did...” Cecilia felt his breaths moving up her neck, pressing another kiss at her jaw, his hand moving her hair away from the side of her face as her own hands clenched against the concrete from the tingles flooding through her system. His mouth now hovered against her ear. “That I would feel so indepted to you that I would take you to my bed if you asked for it?”

Cecilia’s eyes widened, a gasp escaping from her lips as the meaning of the blunt statement finally sunk in, as well as the realization as to why he had reached that conclution.

He was speaking from experience.

Just how many people had he encountered that wanted nothing more than a favor or two from him, or even just to share a night in his bed?

The thought disgusted Cecilia on so many levels.

Just how low has humanity sunk?

Gale however, must have taken her gasp as a form of confirmation of his theory as he immediately pulled away from her ear, in stead opting to hover just a few inches away from her face, a dark, humourless chuckle forcing itself though his throat as he locked eyes with her once more.

For a moment, they just stared into each other’s eyes, then Gale opened his mouth once again.

“I thought so.”

Before Cecilia had the time to properly register what was happening, Cale had closed the distance between them and successfully sealed her lips with his, pressing her body even closer up against the concrete with his chest.

Shocked at the action, Cecilia’s brain ceased to function for an embarassingly long time.

Here she was, pressed up against a concrete wall in the local park, having her first kiss stolen by the school’s transfer student that had become one of the heart-throbs within seconds oppon his arrival.

This couldn’t be happening!

She didn’t know exactly what finally snapped her out of the shock. Was it the feel of his muscled chest pressing into her front? No, that had only muddled her up even further... Was it when his hands landed on her waist? Erm... no, but the burning sensation that had spread through her at the touch had been pretty close. If she had to pick one moment when she finally got her mind back, it would have to be when she felt something wet brushing against her bottom lip.

Oh no, he was NOT going to jam his tung down her throat.

NOT GONNA HAPPEN!

With as much strength as she could muster, Cecilia jammed her hands onto Gale’s surprisingly strong shoulders, only sparing one second to take note of how they felt under her palms before she violently shoved him away from her.

She must have been running on adrenalin because the next thing she knew, her fist collided with the side of his stupidly handsome face.

She was shocked when the punch actually sent him stumbling away from her.

Guess Luke was right... knowing how to throw a punch did come in handy.

This time, Cecilia wasn’t the only one shocked as Gale turned back towards her, the tips of his long fingers brushing over the fresh cut on his lip.

She wasn’t going to lie, Cecilia doesn’t lie, she did feel a sick sort of pleasure at the knowledge she’d been the one to injure the part of his body he had just assaulted her with.

Gale’s olive-green eyes were practically burning with fury as he finally looked at her again.

“What the hell, you BITCH!�� He rorared, still keeping his fingers to his lips.

Fire roared through her veins as anger took over.

“That should be MY reaction!” Cecilia threw right back at him, forcing herself to keep calm as to not loose controll over the flames.

She would NOT let them rule her again.

Her words only seemed to anger Gale even more.

He scoffed, throwing his hand away as he stalked up to her.

“You mean to tell me that you DIDN’T want that to happen!?”

“That’s ecactly what I mean!” Cecilia shoved him away from her again, starting off back to the bench where she’d left her shopping.

This... seemed to confuse Gale.

“What?” he asked, his voice now considderably lower than before, lower than she’d ever heard him speak, and the fact that he sounded so bewildered managed to help her calm down enough to answer him in a much calmer manner than before.

“Look...” she started, taking a deep breath before she willed herself to continue. “I understand that you may have been through situations where someone have wanted what you just did to me, but I am not one of them.” she turned back around, fishing up one of the three large paper bags that had been waiting for her on the bench.

“You expect me to believe that?!” Gale screamed at her back.

Bag still in her arms, Cecilia rounded on the newest edition to her class, rolling her eyes as she did.

“Why wouldn’t you believe that?”

Immitating a growling tiger, or at least Cecilia felt like he was doing that, Gale marched right up to Cecilia again, staring down at her. Only this time, there was a thick barrier between them in the form of a large paper bag.

“I am well aware that I am considdered to be very attractive in the eyes of most around me.”

“Modest much...” Cecilia really couldn’t help the comment from slipping out in the form of a breathy whisper.

Thankfully for her, it didn’t seem like Gale caught it.

Rolling his eyes, Gale gestured to Cecilia’s whole body. Thankfully, Cecilia notices that he appeared to be more focused on her face than anything else.

“A beautiful woman such as yourself souldn’t have any qualms about using any form of means to get to be with me at least ones, as it has happened on more than one occasion.” He let out a long sigh, running his hand through his hair. “Our classmates are a clear example of this.” he put his hands on his hips, turning just slightly away from her.

You’d think that Cecilia would have argued with his reasoning, but she was well aware of the actions the majority of her female classmates had taken to try and grab Gale’s attention.

At least, the actions of the girls that were well aware of their sexual appeal.

Deliberately falling in front of him to try and get him to catch them (never worked). Furiously batting their eyelashes to try and catch his attention (did indeed work in him asking them if their mascara was too heavy for them to keep their eyelids open). Or simply walking right up to his desk and talk to him (the glare they would then recieve served to shut them up).

However, that was not what had caught Cecilia’s attention.

“You think I’m beautiful?” her question came out as little more than a whisper, staring up at Gale in barely contained bewilderment.

Gale’s eyebrows furrowed.

“You don’t?”

Cecilia let out a sigh, picking up the second bag from the bench, manouvering the first one to get a better hold of the other.

“I’m comfortable with my appearance and body, I don’t really care weather it’s considdered beautiful or not.” she glanced at Gale from the corner of her eye as she contemplated how she was to get up the third bag. “It’s just that no one has ever really refered to me as much appart from my mother.”

“No one?” the confusion was clear on Gale’s voice.

“No.”

Cecilia’s attention had been locked onto the third bag. It had just been sitting there, mocking her with it’s existance as it knew, it KNEW, that she wouldn’t be able to pick it up.

Suddenly, another pair of hands reached out and grabbed that mocking piece of brown paper and lifted it up, forcing Cecilia to move her attention away from it.

There stood Gale, holding out the bag in front of him, waiting for Cecilia to take it from his hands.

“Then they must be blind.”

It took an embarassingly long time before Cecilia got to moving her hands from under the other two bags, making enough room for the third one as she kept her eyes firmly locked onto Gale’s face.

“You know...” she said, once she finally had all three bags securely in her arms. “If you don’t want to be roped into sexual favors, you really shouldn’t compliment people like that.”

“It effects you?” Gale’s eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at her.

“Who wouldn’t be?” with that said, Cecilia turned and started off down the path she knew would lead her home, only she didn’t get that far before she heard Gale calling after her.

“Hey!” he screamed, only she chose to ignore it, not wanting to know what he could possibly want this time. “You never did answer my question!” this did make her pause, turning just a bit towards him. “What do you want from me?”

“Nothing.” Cecilia sighed with a shake of her head.

“Yeah, I don’t believe that.” the growl was back in Gale’s voice, his hands jammed into his pockets as he glared at her.

“Believe what you will, but I still won’t ask anything from you.” and with that said, she turned back around and kept on walking, this time not stopping until she was at her front door.

[inthelightoffire]

A little peek on what this story is about.

[inthelightoffire]

Gale: Cecilia Brandet.

Cecilia: That's the first time I have ever heard you say my name.

Cecilia: What do you want?

Gale: To ask for your forgiveness.

Cecilia: What?

Gale: I know that I am not one of the most trusting people in the world.

Cecilia: That's an understatement.

Gale: But I do understand, now, that there are genuinely well-meaning people out there.

Gale: People that may look at me and not just see a handsome young man that they can controll.

Cecilia: Gale, you're anything but just a handsome young man.

Cecilia: I never saw you as just that at least.

Gale: I'm beginning to understand that... Now.

Gale: You helped me without wanting anything in return, saved me simply because because you were in position of doing so, and because of that...

Cecilia: What are you doing?

Gale: Cecilia Brandet...

Gale: It would do me the greatest honor, if you would allow me to serve from now on.

Cecilia: Serve me?

Cecilia: Like... Servant serving?

Gale: Of course.

Gale: MyLady?

Gale: MyLady... What's wrong?

Gale: Where are you going!?

[inthelightoffire]

Gale: Tell me something.

Gale: What's the deal with bird's nest hair over there?

Ben: Don't talk about Brandet like that, she's got enough on her plate.

Gale: What do you mean?

Ben: For the past eleven years... Brandet has pretty much been everyone's punching bag.

Gale: Why?

Gale: She's not a bad person.

Ben: You can see that can't you...

Ben: I suspect everyone was too blinded by what they see of her performances in class and what she wears to have ever truly looked any closer.

Gale: Her perfotmances are perfectly fine, just below average I'd say.

Ben: They are now.

Ben: Until the start of this term she recieved nothing but failed grades and tripped over everything, earning herself the title of 'useless' by everyone around.

Ben: Of course, we did't know she was suffering from a brain condition at the time.

Gale: You bullied a handicapped girl?

Ben: I never partook in the bullying, but I am terribly ashamed that I never did anything to try and make her life any easier until the start of the school year.

Ben: One brief conversation with her the week before school started off again and my opinion on her had been completely swayed.

Ben: She's just started to piece her life together, I don't want you to try and sabotage it for her.

Gale: She was the one who approached me, not the other way around.

Gale: What?

Ben: Brandet talked to you?

Gale: What of it?

Ben: She's made a point to never talk to anyone unless she feels the situation deserves her opinion.

Ben: She didn't talk to me until I appologized for running into her on the street and insisted on cleaning her scrapes.

Ben: If she's talking to you, then she must feel like you're a good person.

[inthelightoffire]

Gale: Watch where you're going.

Gale: Oh so you're just going to ignore me now are you?

Gale: Hey! Look at me you bitch!

Ben: Let go of her!

Gale: Stay out of this Baseball freak.

Ben: I will not!

Ben: Let go of her!

Ben: You alright?

Cecilia: Yeah, I'm fine.

Gale: Oh, so you can talk to him, but not me?

Ben: Come on, let's get out of here.

Ben: What was his problem?

Cecilia: I really have no idea.

Cecilia: He wanted to be left alone, and when I do he blows up.

Cecilia: I'm thinking he's bipolar.

Ben: That would make a lot of sense actually.

[inthelightoffire]

Cecilia: You’re telling me that you cannot believe that I am doing this simply because I want to? Gale: Obviously. Cecilia: You know… Cecilia: I have had every insult immaginable thrown at me over the past eleven years… Cecilia: And yet… Cecilia: That comment is the one that hurts me the most. Gale: Wha- Cecilia: Don’t worry. Cecilia: I won’t bother you anymore.

[inthelightoffire]

Cecilia: You do realize you stole my first kiss right? Gale: I did? Cecilia: Yes, you did. Gale: Well fuck... Gale: sorry... Cecilia: Think nothing of it.

[inthelightoffire]

Gale: I saw that. Gale: Hey, wait! Gale: What did that guy do to you? Cecilia: Nothing. Gale: Freezing at the sight of him and running away like he set your clothes on fire is not 'nothing'. Cecilia: Him and his friends beat me up a while back... Cecilia: It was pretty bad. Gale: Why isn't he expelled? Cecilia: I haven't exactly brought the situation to light. Gale: Why? Gale: Okay! Okay, you won't talk about it... But... Gale: Men like that aren't worthy of your fears. Gale: He's alone now, he's got no real power over you anymore. Cecilia: What are you talking about? Gale: The only way to get over the fear of a person, is to approach them. Gale: Beat them in a way that allows you to take back the controll they had over you. Cecilia: Why are you telling me this? Gale: Maybe I feel guilty, I don't know... Gale: Now leave me alone! Cecilia: YOU APPROACHED ME! Cecilia: Looks like I was right about you after all Nicholas Gale.