Welcome to Gaia! ::

The tip of Tanarah’s tongue peeked from between her lips, her eyes narrowed in concentration as she carefully maneuvered the edges of the piece of parchment before her into precise angles. If folded properly, the sheets could be angled and flown — like sky ships — halfway across the room or better. A favorite means of communication and pestering among her fellow classmates. Once satisfied with her creation, she tucked the ship into her grip in preparation for launch and watched the teacher, awaiting an appropriate opening.

In the weeks that had followed their first day, the lesson content had not improved much. Tanarah’s familiarity with her peers, however, had increased dramatically. Over the course of their lessons there, her circle of acquaintances — and friends, even, in some cases — had spread from just Jasce, Danaiu, and Evano,n on and out to include a much broader list incorporating most all of those near to her and her sister in age.

When the teacher’s back turned, Tanarah launched her ship, innately pleased with herself as it sailed smoothly and on course, pinning her target — the back of Danaiu’s head — with its tip. After his initial yelp, he turned, tossing a narrow-eyed squint at her before retrieving and unfolding it to study what was written inside. Upon finishing, he shot her a look, frowning and shaking his head as he gestured to the paper with a, ‘What’s this?’ look. Tanarah rolled her eyes, and then glanced to the teacher. When she turned her attention back to him, she made a tossing motion towards the front of the room and proceeded to follow it up with a charade, silent enactment of something hitting her head before commencing an impersonation of their teacher furious, complete with arm flailing.

The instant the teacher turned back, she folded hands into her lap.

Across the room, Danaiu coughed, but his smile was worth it. Tanarah watched him re-fold the plane, following her lines of design — much to her satisfaction — before waiting on an opportunity, angling, and firing towards the instructor.

Needless to say, it was not until class was dismissed entirely that either of them were ‘allowed’ to leave. But that did not stop a personal recess from transpiring inside, and out, of the classroom despite what was bid. By the day’s end, Tanarah was in a good mood, and after a minute or two spent lingering in the room to speak with Danaiu, she emerged, stretching and looking about for her sister. When she spotted her, surrounded by two of the older kids in their cluster, Tanarah frowned, and approached.

“Are you givin’ out reasons for me to scream at you?” Tanarah asked, approaching at the tail end of whatever conversation was going on. She skimmed the two girls as she did: older, each of them probably fifteen or sixteen, dovaa, ysali and gaili from the looks of things, most notably their eyes. “Maybe if you didn’t walk around pickin’ on little girls, you wouldn’t have need to be screamed at.”

This earned her two stares, and then a snort. “You are very little girls…”

“We’re ten.”

“It doesn’t make you immune to what your ‘fathers’ have done. There’s no excuse for that. You shouldn’t even be schooling with us. There are places for traitors and unwanted children.”

“They’re called jails,” the second of the two said. “And orphanages.”

“We’re not orphans—” Tanarah asserted, but then the first was speaking again.

“No? And where do you think you came from? Both of your fathers?” The way she snorted in follow up made Tanarah itch to move—to punch, or perhaps scratch her face off. “Do you even know how that works…? I suppose you don’t, young as you are…” She paused. “That in mind, let me put this simply: obviously your mother, wherever she is, didn’t want you—”

“Our mum comes to see us most every week,” Tanarah snapped, the statement obviously coming as a surprise to both of their ‘chatting’ companions. “She comes and helps teach us to fight—don’t see what that has to do with anything…”

A pause.

Then: “Do you even know what a mother is…? If she was really your ‘mother’, she would be there, raising you, not letting a couple mix-blood, fetishist, traitor degenerates make a mockery of an honorable race—”

“You wanna fight about it?”

The two girls blinked, staring her down, each over a head and a half taller. Finally, one laughed. “Are you jokin—?”

“I said,” Tanarah snapped, “do you wanna—fight—about it? ‘Cause otherwise you’re just a couple of stupid, ugly, weak, angry little coward, mean, nasty and uncreative wanna be Plane brats stuck in the desert with th’ rest of us and takin’ out the fact that you got your knickers in a bunch on a couple o’ ten year olds. Did your daddies die in the war? You jealous that we have two, ‘stead of one or none?”

Evidently, the girls did want to ‘fight’ about it. Or, if they hadn’t, that response changed their mind, because a moment later, Tanarah’s back was in the dirt.

Whatever anger Tanarah felt at the fight’s outset, it was just that: anger. It may even have been less than that—some undetermined combination of irritation and anticipation of a scuffle. Excitement, even, in some small portion, at the opportunity to rile their antagonizers up and work off some steam.

When Talanah hit the ground, and one of the girl’s boots buried into her stomach, Tanarah forgot everything else. She couldn’t have been sure how long it lasted, in total, before four of them were physically dragged apart, but that was what was required by the end of it: her nose bloodied, lip busted, and knuckles bruised, but her still screaming at them as adult arms wound their way around her gut and peeled her off of her target. She paid zero mind to what was said to them after that, her pulse still so loud in her ears that it seemed to conveniently drown out half of the words anyway.

By the time they made it home, it was approaching evening, and thunder clouds roiled on the distant horizon, a warm wind gusting over the open beach and bringing sand with it. Lithian met them at the front, though his expression rapidly shifted from disapproval — likely at their being as late as they were — to shock, and then concern.

“Tana, Tala…what in the gods names happened to you, are you alright…?” he asked, bending to a knee before them as a frown pinched at his brow. Before either could answer, though, he was glancing back over his shoulder and into the house. “Cas—Casseth, come here! Look at these girls…did this happen at school?” he asked, attention turning back to them with the question. “What took you so long?”

Lithian frowned, mentally bristling as the story unfolded.

On some level, he had expected this, eventually. If not in regards to the nature of his and Casseth’s relationship, then in regard to their adopted state or hybrid blood. One way or another, his daughters were ‘different’ in ways that begged the mockery and cruelty of schoolchildren. It contributed to making him reluctant to send them to a public schoolhouse to begin with, but in the end, he did not approve of Detraeus’ absolute-exclusion method, either, and he did want to keep open the opportunity for them to meet others their age. That said…

His brow was still pinched in a tight scowl as he cleaned and gently worked his magic over Tala’s scrapes and bruises. “Shhhhh, come, don’t cry, sweetheart…you’re home now and safe here. Perhaps…if it is so violent there, you should return to being schooled here. I do not want you being hurt like thi—”

“But I like our friends there,” Tanarah butted in, frowning. “We shouldn’t have to stay here just because some kids are stupid, and—” She cut off briefly, though her scowl didn’t disappear, as Lithian turned his attentions to her, cleaning her face and nursing away the worst of her hurts with gentle pulses of magic. Truth be told, she barely felt them anymore. Her anger in particular made it easy to ignore everything else. “They were just dumb, and sad, and jealous…” Tanarah trailed off for a moment, and when she spoke again, it was quieter and through a grumble. “But they shouldn’t have hit Tala. If they hit Tala again, I’ll really break their face next time…”

“Tana.”

“I will!”

Lithian sighed. “You should try not to get into fights…even when others are cruel—”

“And deserve it…”

Tana blinked, and then grinned, beaming up at her father. “Everything,” she answered.

So, the evening progressed. By the end of dinner and fall of night, thunder rumbled overhead, but no rain, yet. After they had been set to bed, however, the winds were at a peak, moaning about the house and wailing over the open sea. Tanarah stirred atop her sheets, eyes still wide and thoughts far too loud to let her sleep. At length, she twisted in her cot, glancing over through the dark towards her sister.

“You alright?” she asked.

She couldn’t say why precisely the question came to her, other than a nagging, gut instinct. She knew their father had healed the outer scrapes and bruises, but she also knew just as surely that Talanah spent a lot of time in her head, and on more than one occasion, looked lost in her thoughts after the fight, and not for the better. Tanarah could only imagine that whatever she was spending her time processing, the situations she contemplated were not pleasant.

Tanarah blinked. Not ‘want’ them? “What do you mean?” she asked, shifting and sitting up to stretch her legs out and lean her back against the headboard. “She comes by often enough. And helps teach us to fight and stuff…” Tana grinned. “I like her. If she didn’t like us, she wouldn’t come by, right? She’s just not a mama like…” She considered for a moment. “Not like Araceli is. She’s a mama like daddy and papa…but Miss Takhi can’t be a mama like that ‘cause we’ve already got daddy and papa.” She wrinkled her nose. “And it’d be gross if she tried to kiss them.”

The other part of Talanah’s questioning took more thought, though. Did she feel like they were strange?

“I dunno if we’re strange or not. Maybe so. Strange like Papa. But I like it. I wouldn’t wanna be like everyone else anyway…and what we got, it’s a good thing, I think. Some people just don’t understand good when they see it if it’s different than the good they’re used to. But I know we belong. Anyone who doesn’t think so is just wrong, that’s all.” She shrugged. “People are wrong lots of the time…”

Tana snorted and shook her head. “Nah. Nothin’s wrong with us. We’re great. She probably just knew Daddy and Papa would be best. She doesn’t seem like a ‘mommy’ mama anyway…she goes places all the time and doesn’t stay with anybody like Daddy and Papa stay together. Maybe she just decided that it would good like this. I’m glad. I like it this way better. Though it might be fun to travel with her sometime…”

At the end comment, Tanarah shot her sister a look.

“Normal isn’t even a real thing,” she said, huffing. “It’s just a made up idea that people like to say when they wanna make you feel bad for bein’ something they're not. But everyone is all different in some ways. It’s just certain kinds of different get noticed more…doesn’t make it bad, though. I think it’d be boring to be too similar to anyone…and if that means I get in fights sometimes…” She shrugged. “I don’t mind fighting for you or Daddy or Papa. We’ve got a good thing. It’s worth lettin’ people know they’re dumb to think we don’t.”

Tanarah eyed her sister, and after a moment of silence, grinned, slipping from her bed in a fluid motion and darting up behind her. Catching her arms around her sister’s waist in a tight hug, Tanarah propped her chin on Tala’s shoulder, eyes dancing with mischief. “I know,” she said. “And me.”

After leaning around to peck a kiss to her sister’s cheek, Tana slipped past her and out onto the balcony, eyes shut and face upturned to the storm as the wind tousled her hair and groaned low over the near sea. As another roll of thunder churned and then clapped loud across the open sky, her smile stretched back into full bloom, the hairs on her skin bristling with some instinctive anticipation of the unknown. Storms always invigorated her, and the wild wind — darting between and over and into anything it pleased, as light and quick as it could be fierce and destructive — was an element she considered as strong potential for her future clan choice.

A moment later, hoisted herself onto the rail, propping at the corner in order to have a balanced ‘seat’ that looked out over the coming storm. “Even if you don’t know your weapon yet…do you know what clan you’ll pick?” Tanarah asked.

Over the sea, a crack of lightning lit a distant cloud, followed several seconds later by a boom that seemed to travel through the skin as a physical force. Then, she felt the first drop of rain.