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 Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:14 pm
 Last May, Aurabelle had made a promise. Okay, she—or as she’d identified herself back then—they had made three promises. Two of those promises had been to her friends. She’d promised her friends that she would take them on a roller coaster this summer, and she had promised her friends that she would convince her guardian (or guardians, in the unlikely event that her stupid parents would kiss and make up in the course of four months) to let her return to the Academy two weeks early so that she could spend a couple weeks with her friends—and fulfill that promise to take them on a roller coaster!
The other promise was a promise she’d made to herself. Her friends—well, okay, just Vederat, who was one of those creative types who let his imagination run just a little too wild—had described her as honorable. She liked that—she liked the idea of being the Honorable one, the one who never made promises she didn’t intend to keep. She wanted to be like that for her friends—there for them, honest, never deceptive. That was going to be a challenge, but hey, you have to work hard for titles, right?
Aura shouldered her bag higher up and looked out the bus window. The freshlings were going to a carnival today in honor of the upcoming school year. Aura could hardly wait for the signs of the carnival to swim into view.
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Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:15 pm
 Summer had been dull without Aura around. It had felt like they were missing an important part of themselves—Ved had kept finding himself looking around, trying to figure out where Aura was. Every time he’d done that, he’d had to remind himself that they hadn’t left them—her—behind. She just wasn’t there. She was literally a world away, doing…stuff, whatever, with her cennend. It had been disconcerting.
That wasn’t to say that he and Sound Lee hadn’t had fun over the summer—quite the contrary! They’d spent hours discussing important things like music and lyrics and why fish are the best (or almost the best) animals ever. They’d gone to summer classes together and explored nearly every inch of campus, including the very fringes of the forbidden forest! But it hadn’t quite been the same. Ved had found it difficult to shake off the horrible feeling that they were excluding their Daydream friend from all of their activities. He hated the idea that he might be growing further apart from Aura by growing closer to Sound Lee (never mind that he and Lee were closer to each other than either were to Aura anyway). All in all, it had been a relief last week when Aura had finally returned. Their wanderings turned to exploring shops off-campus and going stargazing at night (when their caretakers would allow it, of course!).
Ved looked out the window, past Aura. “Do you see it yet?”
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Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:16 pm
 Sound Lee’s summer had been…odd. That wasn’t to say that it hadn’t been fun, of course—he and Ved had gone to the library, they had surfed the web (which was a pretty scary adventure in itself!). They had made plans for the upcoming school year, as well as organized treasure hunts for each other. But while Lee valued the opportunity to bond with Vederat, it was nice to have Aura back. He’d been a little worried about her, to be honest—her parents didn’t sound like they were the best people, and if Aura was spending time with a jerk, then she might not actually be safe. Aura talked a big game, but for all her aggression, he couldn’t imagine her being the sort to be able to defend herself against abuse…
Lee needn’t have worried, of course. The Elf had returned to campus bright-eyed and, while not bushy-tailed, then certainly ready for the school year and seemingly happier than she had been in a long time. Since he’d first met her, in fact—while her grumpiness was still there, she seemed…softened by her experience over the summer. He wasn’t sure if it was the extra sunlight in Above (which sounded heavenly to a Bakeneko, even if it might be too bright for his eyes) or whether it was just being reunited with a family member.
Either way, he was glad that she was back, especially since she seemed more whole now than he had ever seen her before. “We shouldn’t be seeing it for a while,” Lee murmured. “There’s still a long way to go, I think.”
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Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:18 pm
Aura looked back at Ved and shrugged. “Not yet,” she said. “I think it’s closer than you think, though, Lee. It’s not all that far away.” She decided not to mention that she had a better perception of distance than either of her friends. And how could she not? She came from another world—she’d traveled way more in her life than either of them had (even factoring in that Sound Lee had been awakened in Auster). She should know better than either of them how far away the carnival was.
Even if she had no idea where the carnival was. She snuck a glance at her friends as she dug around in her purse for a stick of gum. It was good to be back in Below, even if it was darker and even if it meant being away from her cennend. It was good to be back with her friends. They had accepted her back with scarcely a ripple, inviting her to join their games. They were pretty fun, she had to admit—scavenger hunts and riddles and stuff. Yes. It was good to be back.
If she was honest with herself, she’d been afraid that her friends were going to abandon or forget about her during the summer, and that she’d come back to another September without friends or comfort in this strange world. But nope! Both boy and dude were back at her side, and they were ready to face the future year together.
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Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:22 pm
Aura turned out to be right—no sooner had she said that it wasn’t far away than the bus was pulling into a parking lot and they were creaking to a stop. Lee grinned at her, then turned his attention to the caretakers giving them instructions. The rules were clear—they were to stick together with friends and report back at regular intervals to their caretakers. Each caretaker would take their charges to a small area; while they were there, their charges could play at any games or ride any rides they liked. Once the caretaker decided to move on, though, they all would move on to the next area. Ved wasn’t sure if he liked that plan or not—he’d rather have gotten free range of the place, but if that’s what they were going to do, well, that was what they were going to do. There was no point in fighting it.
Luckily for Ved and his friends, they shared a caretaker. As their caretaker gestured them off of the bus, loudly shouting that they were group two, Ved grabbed his friends’ hands and dragged them along with him. “Come on!” he said. “Where should we go first?”
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Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:23 pm
Okay, so Aura had been right after all! Sound Lee was surprised, but not rudely so. He was glad to get off of this stuffy bus and into the open air. He listened to the safety and organization lecture closely. He liked this—it allowed everyone to stick together so that there would be no panicking. Panicking adults were a pain in the butt that Lee would much rather avoid if at all possible.
When Ved grabbed him by the hand, Sound Lee squeezed it back to reassure the Imp that he was there and that he was following. Getting separated now would do them no good at all. Sound Lee accepted the free tickets each freshling got with a grateful smile and tucked them into his pocket. “I think we should explore the carnival first,” he murmured. “Or at least the area we’re in. That way, we’ll know where everything is.” Lee looked over to Aura. If anyone was going to object to that plan, it would be Aura—Ved agreed with anything anyone else said. In the end, it was up to Aura and Lee to make the decisions, which really just meant that Aura made decisions and Sound Lee made adjustments to them. It was the way their group worked, and it was a strange mix of comfort and vague frustration that filled Lee as their private system kicked back into gear. The comfort was normal—but where had this frustration come from, anyway?
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Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:24 pm
Aura hated this nannying. Mind you, she wasn’t so hot on the whole caretaker system in general. She wasn’t a child! She was a kid, and she could take care of herself. If there was one thing she had learned at the Academy, it was that she could take care of herself without any adults holding her hand or forcing her around. She knew how to work, she knew how to take care of herself, she knew how not to get hurt and not get into trouble, and she knew better than to trust strange adults! The only reason for this sort of hovering was so that the really little kids and the dummies didn’t get hurt. None of her friends were little, and as for dummies?!
…Okay, Veddy. Veddy was kind of a dummy. But that wasn’t the point! The point was that Aura could take care of herself and she could take care of Veddy. Especially since Sound Lee could also take care of himself, and he could help her take care of Vederat. See? Problem solved! But nope, they had to hang around with a babysitter all day instead of fun stuff.
Oh well. “We should go to the roller coaster first,” Aura said firmly. “The roller coaster is always the most popular attraction at any fair, so the line fills up really quickly. We want to get done before our caretaker shoves us along to the next place.”
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Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:27 pm
Aura had a really good point there. “Okay,” he said, pocketing his tickets. “Let’s go to the roller coaster first, then.”
Ved led the way through the fair, which was thick with people even at this morning hour. The smells of funnel cakes and popcorn filled the air, and the ground grabbed their feet with a strange stickiness. Music came from everywhere, and the rides were noisy—people screamed, machinery creaked, and rails rattled with the forces that moved along them. Ved paused to watch one go past. It was going very fast, and it was going upside down! His ears flattened back and he could feel his tail fluffing out. He pointed to that ride. “I don’t want to go on that one,” he said weakly. It looked terrifying! Why would anyone want to go on a ride like that?! Who had invented it? He sincerely hoped that wasn’t the ride Aura wanted to take them on. If it was, he was going to scream. A lot. Just like the people on that ride! He began hurriedly compiling reasons not to go on that ride.
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Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:28 pm
Sound Lee liked the smells of the fair—the sugar, the fat, the smell of butter on the air—and the sounds were pretty enjoyable, too. There was music playing at a bandstand a long way away, and it seemed that every ride and funhouse had its own musical accompaniment. The screaming and the chattering of the people wasn’t so bad, even if it grated on the ears a bit, because it meant that people were having fun. Lee hoped to be joining those people soon. He wanted to have fun. He’d been looking forward to this field trip for a while! He didn’t want to waste it hanging around, being dour and not having fun. Sure, he would have preferred a quiet walk on the beach instead, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to have fun.
But there were two things that were not fun here. The first one was how every few steps his paw stepped into a sticky residue on the ground—did people just not know how to not spill soda all over the ground?! Didn’t they have respect for people who walked barefoot?! Rude!—the second was that ride. It looked awful. Upside-down at high speed? Heck no! “I’m not going on that,” he said flatly.
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Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:30 pm
Aura ignored the sounds and the smells and the sights. She was way more interested in the rides. Carousel? No, even if it looked like Lee’s jam. Besides, their group wasn’t next to the carousel, Group One was. Group Two would get there last. Swings? Tempting, but not right now. They could do that after the roller coaster. There were teacups as well, and a tilt-a-whirl, even a centrifuge ride! Awesome, Aura hadn’t been in one of those for a while!
But her friends seemed obsessed with the Titan, a ride they were passing. Aura looked over it with the eye of a fairground veteran. She could see why they were afraid of it—it went upside down, it went in loops, it went fast, people were screaming on it. Not that screaming was a bad thing, mind you—she would be disappointed if Veddy and Lee weren’t screaming on the roller coaster. But the way they were screaming on the Titan was different, and she could see why they wouldn’t like it. Personally, it looked like a lot of fun to Aura, but then, she was more experienced than her friends—and more adventurous.
She shook her head. “No, we’re not going on that one,” she said impatiently. “Upside-down ones are no good for your first roller coaster. Maybe your fifth one. By then you have enough experience to know that they’re not that bad.” She sniffed. “Besides, Veddy’s too short to go on that one.” Which reminded her of something… “Oh, yeah, there’s a size limit on a lot of these rides. It has to do with what’s safe for you to experience and what’s safe for the ride and stuff. I looked up the height limits last night online—there are plenty of rides here that the rest of us can ride.”
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Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:31 pm
Wait, there was a size limit on that monster? Ved didn’t know whether to feel relieved or insulted. Relieved because that meant he didn’t have to go on that horrible thing, or insulted because that meant that he was being excluded from something?
Before he could make that decision, Aura had led them to another ride, one that boldly called itself The Tidal Wave. Ved looked up at it. It was blue and white—Lee would like that—and while it went in big curves, never once did it go upside down. Lots of people who got off of it were going straight back on. He looked at the height limit—he was just barely tall enough for it, even if you didn’t count his horns. And while it required more tickets than almost any other ride they’d encountered—five of their precious tickets!—it wasn’t as many as the Titan (which cost six tickets to ride).
All in all, it looked like Aura had made the right choice for them, with one possible problem. To get onto the ride, they had to walk up a series of ramps—metal ramps. It was early in the day, but still… “If the metal’s too hot for you, Lee, you can stand on my feet,” Ved said. He was willing to make that sacrifice for his friend.
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Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:34 pm
Lee breathed a sigh of relief. Aura’s impatience aside, it seemed that Aura had done some research on the rides here, and she had made considerations for his and Ved’s inexperience with the faster rides in life. She wasn’t going to force either of them to go on a monster of a ride that he was willing to bet both ears she wanted to go on. The fact that there was a height restriction had never occurred to Lee, but now that Aura mentioned it, it did make a lot of sense…
Lee looked over this other ride. The color scheme was awesome, and the name was awesome, too. The detail, with the struts painted blue and the rails painted white? Genius! And the paintjob on the cars was pretty nice too, with waves in a different shade of blue for every train. But that metal ramp…
He tested it with a paw. It was mildly warm, but not yet hot. He smiled at Ved. “Thank you for the offer, but I think I’ll be okay,” he said. “If not, I can just hop onto the railing. I think that would be better than standing on your feet.”
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Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:35 pm
“Standing on his feet might be better, Lee,” she told him. “The ride operators get pretty jerkish if they catch you sitting on the railings. They’re afraid that you’ll break the railings or something, which is pretty stupid, but hey, smart people can get better jobs than this.”
With that, Aura charged up the ramp to the end of the line. They didn’t get on the next train, or the train after that, but the line was short enough that they did get onto the train after that. Aura opted not to tell Veddy and Lee that this was why she had insisted that they go here first instead of exploring. They wanted to get on as early as possible, and they had—the wait in line for a train notwithstanding.
Aura chose to sit in the front seat with Veddy, while Sound Lee sat behind them both with another freshling from Group Two. Aura didn’t want to leave the most excitable member of their crew alone on this experience—sitting next to him she could remind him not to do anything stupid, and she could set a good example by having fun. Lee would be better sitting with a stranger than either she or Veddy would be. As the train lurched into life, Aura gave both of them a grin and a thumb’s up.
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Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:36 pm
The experience…
The experience was…
It was electrifying. Up! Down! Around, down, up…and then down, down and around, and around and up and down and then lurch back into station. Wow. He could see why Aura had insisted that they go on this ride!
He didn’t want it to end, but it had ended. The lap bar went back up, and Veddy stumbled to his feet—or at least, he felt like he stumbled. To judge by the way people were reacting all around him, he could walk just fine, but he wasn’t sure if he would ever feel the same quite again… He wanted to run. He wanted to run, and jump, and climb things, and run…
They had to do this again. And again and again and again. They had enough tickets for that, right? Ved began counting his tickets hurriedly, they had to do this again…
Aura was suddenly beside him, putting a hand on his and forcing it downwards. “Adrenaline junkie, huh?” the Elf said. “I take it you liked it?”
“I freaking loved it!” Ved said. Why wasn’t he more hoarse? Weird. “I want to do it again!”
Aura nodded. “We’ll need more tickets, then. Let’s see what Lee has to say, though.”
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Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:37 pm
Wow.
Wow.
Wow.
Worth it. Definitely worth it. It had taken all summer, but yep. It had been worth it. Definitely something to recommend. Definitely something to thank Aura for. Definitely something to do again. Sound Lee turned to look fondly at the Tidal Wave. It had lived up to its name—he’d felt like he had been riding a mighty wave on the ocean, breaking on the shore with titanic force…
“That was a lot of fun, Aura,” he said. “Thank you for insisting that we ride it.” He looked at the growing line and smiled. “And thank you for insisting that we get on as soon as possible. I’d still like to see more of this area, but…” he shrugged.
“You’re welcome,” Aura said. “So would you like to explore some?”
Lee looked at the smile on Aura’s face and the wild grin on Ved’s. His own tail was fluffed out to a ridiculous degree, and he quite liked the way it looked. “I think we should get some more tickets if we can,” he said. “I saved up some allowance. When we have more tickets, we’ll come back and ride it again. How does that sound?”
“It sounds like a plan,” Aura said. Vederat whooped. Sound Lee grinned.
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