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 Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 2:59 pm
{prologue 1}
They came in the night.
It wasn't entirely unexpected. The priests were ravaging the territories with merciless abandon, since their warleader had fallen in the battle of the City of the Dead River. Nahedathal was angry, and he was taking it out on everyone in reach.
Levsali Ahminoo hid in her family's overturned wagon, cradling her son Anmisu to her and watching in cold horror as the caravan was ravaged. The rava'jii, the headman of the caravan, lay broken and crushed on the ground alongside the bludgeoned bodies of priests and other Ularna. Levsali flinched at the horrible sounds of cracking and smashing bodies, of cries of pain and rage.
"Mother, what do they want?" Anmisu asked, trembling. Levsali hushed him urgently.
The raid went on for another hour more, and Levsali never moved from her hiding spot, nor let go of her son.
When the priests had at last taken their pick of the living and abandoned the ruins of the caravan, Levsali staggered out into the open, Anmisu in her arms. She looked for her husband among the moaning wounded, fear making a knot in her belly.
"Jhosa?"
Ularna shell crackled under her feet as she walked through the dead and the injured, looking for her husband. For her mother. For her family.
"Mother!"
Levsali stumbled as she whipped around, falling on top of a dead priest. A Kojj, missing his nose and covered in mutilations. Levsali was repulsed - the priesthood did these horrible things to themselves on purpose.
Anmisu's anguished shouting drew her up and running again, and she slipped and slid over the bloodied ground. As she looked at the body Anmisu had found, she ground up the scream aching to get out of her and picked up her son, forcing away despair. Her husband Jhosa lay broken and hollow on the ground, a two priests dead underneath him.
Levsali stumbled away, clinging to the thrashing Anmisu. There was no time to grieve. Find the other survivors, and flee to safety, that was all she could keep in mind.
But when she found her mother and sister among the dead as well, Levsali could not keep up her bravado. Stumbling and falling, she clung to her son and sobbed, listening to the pained cries that poisoned the night.
---
"Mother, I hear sounds in the dark."
The straggling remnants of the caravan staggered through the rocky wastelands towards their destination, their trading goods left behind so they would have room to transport the injured and dead. Levsali rode empty-eyed on one of the few yuweh's left alive, hugging her son to her. She looked out into the misty darkness, listening. There was nothing she herself could hear.
"Do not worry," she said, planting a kiss on her son's head. He looked up at her anxiously, spots of white circling his eyes just like his father's had. Levsali smiled for her son, trying to ignore the anguish that threatened to choke her. "I am here. I will keep you safe."
The yuwehs lowed and grunted as the sad little band traveled, drowning out the noise around them of foul skittering things and the ones that controlled them.
---
It was the sound of a child screaming that woke Levsali that second night. She bolted upright, grasping for Anmisu. She let out a wail when she found he was not in the bedroll beside her, and ran out of the makeshift tent.
"No!"
A priestess had Anmisu by the throat, examining him like he was an animal to slaughter. He screamed again coarsely, thrashing against her and weeping gaseous tears. Levsali shrieked in rage and ran headlong at the priestess, only to be barreled into by a withered, slavering creature that snapped its teeth at her and clawed at her face, talons skidding over the hard shell.
"Why?" Levsali screamed as the survivor's camp was raided, women and children pulled away by nightmare creatures and men beaten and shattered. "Why?!"
The priestess who held Anmisu smirked, her mutilated face a horror to look on.
"Because we didn't finish the job the first time," she said, shrugging carelessly as she walked away. Anmisu gave a long, shrill scream of terror that rang in Levsali's head, even after the second wave of raiders had gone and left the caravan in further ruin.
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Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 8:58 pm
{prologue 2}
Levsali was running. She sped over broken rocks and ancient bones, through underbrush and icy water. She ran.
The trail she followed placed the priests at least a day ahead of her. She had left the caravan behind, sneaking away when the attentions of the scant survivors had turned to the ever-growing problem of dead and wounded. The carnage the priests left behind was a simple enough trail to follow - they hated life, and did everything in their power to end or corrupt it to their own ends. Each time they camped they salted the ground, and took especial care to kill any people or animals they could get their hands on. Levsali discovered broken shells of her fellows at each camp, unfortunates who had succumbed to their injuries or had simply been murdered for sport. Levsali regretted she didn't have time to burn the remains as tradition dictated.
She ran.
The priests were making their way back towards the ruined eastern territories, home to the foul brooding presence called Nahedathal. His story was mostly unknown, only that he used members of his own family as slaves in some perverse notion of vengeance. Levsali had grown up listening to the stories of his evil; the priesthood that served him were devoted to the worst excesses, the vilest cruelties. She couldn't understand how anyone, no matter how low they had sunk, could ever serve something like Nahedathal willingly. But then, Levsali was rather naive. She had never even left her village until two years ago, and had only begun to learn of the world.
She sighed and wept as she ran, thinking about her husband. Jhosa. Her beloved Jhosa. He had finally convinced her to join in the caravans. He had assured her of their safety. It would be good for Anmisu, he had said. Let him see the world. Not everything is as dark as the stories say.
Poor, foolish, idealistic Jhosa.
Levsali ran until the the dim sun set and the bright moon rose. It shed pale green light over the landscape, showing the forests of the deep valleys and the distant glimmer of the sea. Levsali walked when she had no strength left to run, stubbornly following the churned and grim path the priests had left. She ignored the pain of the crack in her face, where the gods-accursed Zheh Hakin had struck her. It would scar her forever, she knew. She didn't care. Hakin, the dead slaves of the priests and the forsaken Nahedathal, rarely let something alive in their grasp stay that way. Perhaps it had just wanted to play with its food. Levsali shuddered at the though, flinching as she accidentally trod on a shard of Ularna shell. The pieces of her people were scattered over the ground like so many bits of refuse. She dared not look down, lest she see a part of someone she recognized. She just kept moving.
She was ambushed in the twilit hours just before dawn.
Exhausted, hungry and caught unawares, Levsali tried to fight off the two priests who found her. She put up a good fight, but she was no match for the Zheh Hakin who pounced her. When the creature had shaken her like a rag doll and splintered her arm, the priests took turns beating her until with a great sundering crack a gash formed on her torso, splintered and crushed and making her scream in agony. The priests dragged her along into their camp, and threw them before the lead raider.
The priestess who had taken Anmisu smiled like a carrion-eater on a fresh battlefield.
"Why?" she asked Levsali coyly, kneeling down beside her. "Why?"
Levsali, gasping in pain and tears floating from her eyes in streams of gas, spat in the priestess's face.
"Because he is my child," she hissed, a world of hatred writ on her face. The priestess wiped the spittle from her ruined face and considered Levsali thoughtfully.
"How quaint."
Levsali bristled, ignoring her pain as they regarded each other. Eventually a cold smile split the priestess's face.
"I'm thinking, maybe, that you and I could cut a deal..."
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Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 7:47 am
{prologue 3}
"Mother, you're hurt. We have to rest."
Levsali hushed her son as she carried him, blessing every god she knew for the warm comfort of his weight. The priestess had allowed her to care for Anmisu as they traveled into the mountains. Even then, there was no kindness in the act. Levsali had traded her home for her son, and the guilt of it was likely to kill her if these accursed ones did not. The paths into the Ularna village were hard to find, and the priests made it clear that if Levsali had mislead them, they would not hesitate to kill her. The other prisoners had reviled Levsali when the learned of what she had done, spitting on her and turning their backs to her. Levsali accepted her new pariah status with a dead heart, shielding her son from the whispers and curses before he could learn what they meant.
"The others are angry with you," he said as they walked the familiar paths back to the village. "Mother, you can't be taking these people home-"
"Hush, child," Levsali said with unexpected heat. Anmisu flinched and wriggled, wanting to be out of her arms. Levsali just hugged him closer, ignoring the faint shimmer of gaseous tears that streamed from her eyes.
---
"TRAITOR!"
Levsali, chained to a wall and forced to witness the slaughter she'd allowed, watched helplessly as her friends and fellows were taken by the priests. The horrible mournful howls of the Zheh Hakin rang inside her skull. Anmisu chained beside her screamed in anguish, kicking at his mother when she reached for him.
"TRAITOR, TRAITOR TRAITOR-" he screamed at her, his beloved face contorted with rage. Levsali wept and cringed, her heart breaking. She slapped Anmisu and then clung to him, sobbing.
"I did it for you, you foolish child," she said, her voice a thread. Anmisu butted his head against the still-aching crack on her cheek, making her gasp in agony. He wrenched away from her and pulled and pulled at the chains, breaking his wrist but coming free. He ran away from his mother, picking up a discarded torch with his uninjured hand and waving it like a club. Levsali screamed in horror as she watched him disappear in the tumult, pulling desperately at her own chains.
"Anmisu! Anmisu!"
Her voice was lost among the dreadful noise, and Levsali collapsed into a sobbing heap against the wall.
---
"It seems our trade wasn't so even."
Levsali looked up, squinting. The priestess, her face spattered with her own blood and radiating foul joy, smiled.
"Here. Let me get that for you."
The chains fell away from Levsali's wrists. She uncurled and stood unsteadily, the pain from her wounds a distant ache compared to her heavy heart. She looked out into the ruins of what had been her home, stumbling forward. The priestess made no move to stop her, choosing to walk beside her instead.
"You think you're better than us, don't you?" she asked Levsali in an undertone. "So righteous."
Levsali, stepping over a dead Ularna woman, made no reply. The priestess gave a sighing laugh.
"Do you know what we have to give, when we enter our master's service?" the priestess asked. Levsali stayed silent. "What we love most. I gave up my brother. I crushed his skull myself."
Levsali halted, looking at the priestess with dull eyes.
"To what purpose?" she asked, voice rusty from disuse. The priestess smiled beatifically.
"Power," she said evenly. "As much as I loved my brother - don't look surprised, Ularna, I know plenty about love - it was my calling to serve a great power. He brings order."
"He brings death and ruin."
The priestess shrugged casually, uncaring.
"Go find your son," she said. "Have a care; if you're so willing to sacrifice this much for another person, what will you sacrifice for yourself? You'd make a good acolyte, if not for that unseemly pride of yours."
Repulsed, Levsali staggered into the carnage and away from the priestess. The raiders were in the village square, taking stock of her people. Those who were too injured to serve a use were killed on the spot. The survivors all looked at Levsali, and by their expressions she realized they knew of her betrayal. She looked down at the ground, and they all turned their backs to her. She wandered through the ruins, searching and calling Anmisu's name.
When she found him, she was unsurprised to find she had no tears left.
Anmisu lay shattered and hollow on the ground, eyes open. A Zheh Hakin, bludgeoned and burned by a torch, lay twitching and growling beside him. Levsali knelt beside her dead son and kissed his face. Her broken heart splintered into a thousand pieces as she closed his eyes and took up the smoldering torch. She couldn't even give him a proper funeral; the torch had nearly gone out. She covered his broken body with her cloak and stood.
Everything she had known and loved was gone. Her mind shattered with her heart, and Levsali began to run. She ran through the square, past her prisoned friends and neighbors. She ran past packs of Zheh Hakin who snarled and howled at her. She ran past the hateful priests, and their quiet, cruel leader who had sacrificed her own brother.
Levsali ran down the twisting mountain trails, numb and beyond grief. And she ran right into the path of the ragged remains of her own caravan escorted by a grim troop of Kojj and Yesii soldiers.
She skidded to a halt, caught like an animal in a trap.
There was no where left to run.
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Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 8:27 am
{prologue 4}
The journey to Kahuvet City was a blur. Levsali had been taken into custody after the troop of soldiers had fallen on the village and skirmished with the priests. They were dead now, that hateful band. The priestess's head was mounted on a post, left to rot outside the village walls to warn off anyone else who would dare attack.
The villagers had wasted no time informing the troop's captain who had betrayed them.
"Your wounds pain you still?"
Levsali blinked, looking up. An elderly healer Ularna looked down at her, loathing writ all over his aged and cracked face. She shook her head silently, touching the terrible crack that spanned her torso.
"It is a deep scar. It will never fully heal."
"Yes."
"You have eaten?"
"Yes."
"Are you cold?"
"No."
The elder stared at her a moment, then slapped her sharply on the uninjured side of her face. Levsali's head snapped to the left but she showed no reaction. The elder muttered darkly under his breath, making signs to ward off evil and leaving the tent. Levsali rattled her chains quietly, testing their strength. They were made of iron, and very strong. Alone in her tiny, dark tent, Levsali curled up on her side and slept the sleep of the dead, feeling nothing at all.
---
As she was marched through the wide stone-cobbled streets of Kahuvet, Levsali found she still had a spark of her old lively curiosity. She had never been in a city before; the great walls of the ancient city soared into the sky, impossibly high. Buildings of wood, wattle and daub, metal and stone stood clustered in organized blocks. The Senate house lay at the heart of the city, nestled in an impressive sprawling garden. Levsali breathed in the scent of flowers, listening to the wind as it hissed through the leaves of the ancient trees. She was mildly impressed.
---
"...we happened upon the caravan. A scout had spotted them from a distance, and we rode in to investigate. We had been tracking a war party of Hakin with a company of priests, we weren't sure what we would find."
Levsali listened to the testimonies of the soldiers quietly, standing chained before a council of senators. She had heard of these upper class Ularna, and looked at them in fascination. They wore fine clothes and stern expressions, looking hardly at all like real Ularna. Levsali herself wore only her usual loincloth, and some rags on her feet in place of shoes. She felt naked and primitive, and could not meet the eyes of those fine-made people.
"Thank you, captain. Will the prisoner come forth."
Levsali raised her head, stepping forward as her Mejta guard gave her a slight push. The councilmen looked down at her from their raised platform, considering.
"In terms of Ularna tradition, you should have been executed," a soft-featured man said. "You betrayed your people for your own gain. You assisted in a methodical genocide of your fellows. Your own caravan was so repulsed by your actions they demanded you be tried in front of a full court, to exact the punishment you deserve. What have you to say before sentencing?"
Levsali looked at the soft-faced Ularna quietly. She doubted he had ever been outside this walled city, had never worn anything but his fine clothes and experienced anything outside the norm of his comfortable life.
"What I did," she said, voice rusty and slow. "What I did, I did for love of my son. They told me I could have him back, if I would lead them to my home. I agreed."
The council muttered amongst themselves, looking grim. The soft-faced man steepled his fingers, leaning over his desk to look at her better.
"Levsali Ahminoo, how do you plead?"
"Guilty."
The council again muttered and whispered, and the soft-faced man nodded.
"Council will take a brief recess."
Levsali paid no more attention to anything around her as she was lead away back to her little stone cell, her broken heart an agony with each breath.
---
"Given your confession to the patrol captain, to your caravan, and in front of the court, it has been voted unanimously to negate your death sentence."
Levsali looked up, puzzled. The soft-faced councilman continued, looking stern and forbidding.
"Levsali Ahminoo, you are hereby sentenced to exile. You will be transported off-planet, and are forbidden to set foot on Azhumian soil again in your lifetime. May the gods have mercy upon you."
Levsali blinked, swaying as though she would faint.
"Kill me," she whispered. The councilman blinked.
"What?"
"Kill me. KILL ME!" Levsali screamed, the numbness receding and grief swallowing her. "WHY WILL YOU NOT KILL ME-"
"Take her away," the councilman said, shaken and unmoving. "Prepare her for transport."
"I want to be with my son! KILL ME!"
The guards dragged Levsali away as she screamed in grief, reaching out to the councilman. He held her gaze for a moment, then shook his head and turned away.
{end prologue}
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Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 5:50 am
{ Meanwhile, on Gaia - part 1}
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Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 10:07 pm
{ Meanwhile, on Gaia - part 2}
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Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2008 7:14 am
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Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 7:29 am
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Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 7:43 am
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Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 8:05 am
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Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2010 6:27 am
{Part 5 - the art of letting go}
It had been a long year for Hisoka and her unexpected charge. It had had ups, but more often than not it had had severe downs. Rosie had been a difficult baby, and a miserable toddler. She cried almost every day, and when she didn't cry she was brooding or sleeping. Hisoka doggedly interacted with her and bought her toys and cared for her, but it never seemed to do anything positive. It seemed as if Rosie wanted to suffer and be ignored.
The night was balmy and gorgeous, and Hisoka was going out with friends. She'd hired a sitter and told the girl to just let Rosie cry herself to sleep, warning her that comforting or acknowledging her very existence was apparently despised. So Rosie sat in her play pen while a cartoon played on TV, the babysitter sitting in one corner doing a crossword puzzle.
Rosie watched the television silently, easing the pain of her cutting teeth by chewing on her hard, nerveless fingers. She was thinking.
It had been a hard season....year. Hisoka did not call them seasons. Rosie...no, Levsali. That was her name. She was Levsali Ahminoo of the mountain clans, who had helped murder her village. Wasn't she?
Levsali took her hands out of her mouth, holding them up. Too many fingers. How many were proper? Two? Three? ...yes....yes, it had been three. Three fingers, two toes. Levsali looked down at herself. Her flesh was soft. She had thick, golden fur that Hisoka liked to put up in plaits. She had caught sight of herself in mirrors more than once. She did not look like a normal person, like an Ularna. She looked...like Hisoka. A little bit.
Levsali leaned back against a large soft stuffed toy like it was a pillow, considering. Hisoka was kind to her, and gentle. She endured the nights when Levsali's crying seemed endless and unbearable. She was almost a mother.
Perhaps she was a mother.
Levsali paused, then slowly sat up straight again, eyes wide with the realization.
Hisoka was trying to be her mother. Sacrificing everything to make her child happy and safe at the cost of her own personal feelings. Even when Levsali rejected her, she still tried. Levsali bit down hard on her unfeeling fingers, the nubs of her teeth skidding across the bone. She had first considered herself hideous, a punishment to fit her terrible crime. But now as she grew into her body, she began to feel more comfortable. Like she belonged.
A second realization began to bloom in Levsali's mind. Levsali Ahminoo was dead. No trace of her remained. Her carapace was shattered and hollow, the ether of her spirit freed. Somewhere, some time during that terrifying journey in her exile, she had died and be reborn. This wasn't a punishment. It was a gift. Levsali was gone, and Rosie had been born.
It was time to let the past go.
Tears sprang into Rosie's eyes, but they didn't explode out of her in a nightmare of grief. She rubbed at her eyes awkwardly, mindful not to hurt herself, and laid down to sleep. It felt like a terrible weight had been lifted off her chest, and there was deep relief in it.
---
"How was she tonight?"
"Not a peep," the babysitter said, packing her things into her bag and pocketing the twenty Hisoka gave her. "I was expecting a night of crying-til-she-puked, the way you were talking about it."
"That's usually what happens," Hisoka said dryly. "She in bed?"
"Yep, tucked her in at eight on the dot. She was sound asleep in her playpen anyway."
Hisoka nodded her thanks and locked the door behind the babysitter, dropping her purse on the side-table. She went about her usual nightly face-washing and changed into her pajamas before even bothering to go check in on Rosie.
There was a sound of snoring coming out from the room, which gave Hisoka pause. Since when had her tiny little slip of bones and misery ever snored? Maybe she was coming down with something.
"Rosie? You feeling okay, bones?"
She opened the door, flicked the light on...and screamed.
"JESUS MOTHERAGOD."
"AAAAAAGH!"
Rosie fell flailing out of her bed, stuck in pajamas several sizes too small and tangled in her own hair.
"I'M TRAPPED! I'M BEIN' STRANGLED! MA, HELP!"
"Ma...?"
Hisoka rocked against the door, unable to do anything but gape at Rosie - Rosie, who had apparently grown to age thirteen in the space of four hours.
"You see anybody ELSE who wipes my nose and puts food in my big mouth when I'm hungry?" Rosie asked sardonically, rolling her eyes and trying to flail her way out of her constricting pajamas. "Come in an' get me outta this crap already!"
Hisoka, still dumbstruck, complied.
This was too goddamned weird for words.
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Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2010 11:59 am
{Part 6 - dog days are here again}
"I WON'T. I WON'T DO IT."
"That's too bad."
"YOU CAN'T FREAKIN' MAKE ME, MA."
"Can. Will. Just did."
Rosie struggled to open the car door even as she was entangled in the seatbelt, eyes wide with horror. Hisoka was evil. A devil. An evil devil queen.
"I am NOT. GONNA. GO. TO. SCHOOL."
Hisoka was unmoved by the protest, and there was an unapologetic smirk on her face.
"Bones, you have to go. It's the law."
Rosie gave a raspberry, fuming.
"What the hell am I gonna learn? How t'do math'n crap? C'mon, Ma..."
"What's five times eight?"
There was a brief silence.
"Thirteen."
"I'll pick you up at two thirty. Try not to burn the science lab down."
"But MAAAA-!"
---
"Everyone, we have a new student today. I'd like you all to say hello to Rosie Kumo."
Rosie felt like she was on display, standing in front of the chalkboard in the classroom. She didn't know the meaning of self-consciousness, and her chin was in the air as her fellow students took in her fleshless arms and legs, her purple skin, her odd, ember-like eyes. Seeing as some of the kids were just as weird-looking as her, they couldn't exactly throw stones in this particular glass house.
"Hi," she said confidently. There were a few smatterings of 'hellos' and 'hi's back, but nothing overly friendly. The teacher sat back down behind his desk, shuffling papers.
"Rosie, go ahead and take a seat in the middle, next to Alda."
Alda was a skinny girl with a pimple on her chin and downcast eyes, looking at the empty desk beside her plaintively. Rosie marched through the rows of desks like she owned the place, slouching into her seat and taking out her notebook solely so she could start to doodle. She noticed Alda looking at her out of the corner of her eye, and glared in response. Alda flinched, and looked away.
Rosie smirked slightly, turning her full attention back to her doodles. Schoolkids weren't that tough, were they? Give her a week, and Rosie'd be running this place with an iron fist.
---
"So, what, does your mom starve you or something?"
Rosie looked up from her school-lunch taco, its tempting processed meat smell filling her nostrils and a carbuncle of orange grease hanging like a drop of amber off the soggy shell. Who the hell was interrupting tacos? Who could possibly be that stupid?
"What?" she snapped at the boy looming beside her, a bullying smirk on his face.
"You're literally skin and bones. Does your mom not like you 'cause you're such a freak?"
"Says the boy with a pig nose and a grease-mullet," Rosie said, taking a bite out of her taco. Oh, sweet gods of Mexican food, this was exquisite. "Shoo fly. Don't bother me."
The boy didn't shoo. He sat down right in front of her, and took her lunch tray.
"I think you need to learn something about how this works, kid," he said, grinning as though Rosie hadn't insulted him. "You're fresh meat. You're one of those abnormals. And you don't get to talk back to someone that's better than you."
Rosie took another bite of her taco, rolling the crunchy bits of hamburger around in her mouth.
"Well, lemme know when that someone shows up. And gimme back my tray, Pig Face."
She snatched the tray back, stuffing the rest of her taco into her mouth and beginning to attack her pudding. The boy's grin was replaced with an ugly grimace, and he leaned forward as though he was going to try and steal a kiss. Rosie recoiled in pure reflex, but that wasn't what Pig Face was after - with one deft motion, he flipped her tray over, splattering her with taco grease and green beans.
"I'm gonna teach you who's-"
Pig Face never got to finish what he was saying, because Rosie swung back and belted him right in the mouth. It was the equivalent of being hit in the teeth full force with a hockey puck, and Pig Face fell to the floor holding his mouth and spitting out a tooth.
"SHE BROKE MY TEETH! SHE BROKE MY TEETH!"
---
"I saw what you did."
Rosie was slouched in the chair outside the principal's office, scuffing the floor with her sneakers. She glanced up and her mouth twisted as she noticed it was wimpy, flinching Alda that was speaking.
"Shouldn't you be in class?"
"We sit next to each other. In Mister Bertram's class that means we're partnered up," Alda said faintly, looking down at the floor.
"Partnered...wait, what? I don't want a freakin' partner."
"It's for classroom chores and projects and stuff like that," Alda said uneasily. "We change twice a year when he redoes the seating arrangements. He sent me to see where you were."
"Well whoopty-freaking-doo, ya found me," Rosie snapped, slouching further in her chair and scowling at nothing in particular. "Whattaya want, a prize?"
Alda flinched, shoulders sagging.
"No," she said. "I was kind of hoping for a friend, but I can see that isn't going to happen. I'll ask Mister Bertram for a copy of the homework for you, he's strict about missing assignments."
She turned on her heel and walked away. Rosie sat there examining her knuckles, stained red with Pig Face's blood, and sighed.
School already sucked.
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Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2011 11:03 am
{Part 7 - long division is for suckers}
There was no justice in the world. Forced to go to school, grounded for two weeks for breaking Pig Face's nose, and homework. All Rosie wanted to do was go outside and play baseball. Hisoka had not only restricted her from that, but the woman had had the GALL to take her radio away so she couldn't listen to games.
"No baseball," she'd said. To Rosie, she might as well have said 'no breathing'. She sat at the kitchen table doodling T-Rexes and pterodactyls all over her math homework, bare feet scuffing the floor and leaving deep scratches in the linoleum.The only thing that made school worthwhile was science class - they had been studying volcanoes, but Mister Bertram had a fun concept on Fridays called Free Science Day. Everyone took a vote during the week about a subject they wanted to know more about, and at the end of the week the topic with the most votes got covered. Alda had put forth dinosaurs, and everyone had swarmed on the topic like flies on roadkill.
"Long division doesn't involve dinosaurs, Bones."
"It does the way I do it."
"Rosie."
"Yeah, yeah, sorry..."
Rosie erased her doodles and stared hard at the problems. They blended together like words in a foreign tongue, and she wrinkled her nose. If she tried hard she could remember something about counting on three fingered hands, but the memory was too fuzzy. And anyway, she had FIVE fingers, not three. T-Rexes had three fingers.
"Hey Ma, didja know T-Rex arms are too short to reach their mouths?"
"Long division."
Rosie made a rebellious noise, letting her head thump against the tabletop.
"Rosie."
"I'm DOING it!"
"You've been doing it for two hours," Hisoka said from the living room, her laptop on her lap as she edited a new submission for Arctic. "If I come in there and you're not done in the next hour, no dessert tonight."
"Why are you being SO MEAN?!"
"Because you broke a kid's nose and almost got me sued by his dad, Bones. I'm allowed to give you a hard time about your homework."
"It was just a hairline fracture," Rosie muttered.
"Homework."
"GAHD, I'M DOING IT!"
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