Summer reading is done!

It is now five twenty something in the morning, and I'm finally done with my summer reading. I would be a bit more excited about this, but excited is for people who aren't about to fall asleep on their keyboards. More importantly, though, I've just completed my first schoolwork all-nighter! I wanna make a badge that says I did it. I can't do it now, of course, because I have a killer headache from staring at the monitor, alternated with the book, all night.
Plus, I'm pretty sure i'm starting to hallucinate. There's what appears to be a orange rubber band ball in the corner of my vision, and it's been there for a while now. What really bothers me is that it's moving like it's alive. Maybe it's an alien, come to Earth to steal my essay. You can't have it, alien! Write your own! This one's MINE!

Yeah... I'm gonna go sleep now.

Lesson for the day

Lesson for the day: CD's don't taste like anything special, just plastic. Fairly clean plastic, but plastic none the less.
On a try this again scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is Ow that hurt and 5 is totally fun, I'd give cd tasting a three. It isn't unpleasant, but it's not anything super fun either. Plus, it might ruin the cd.

Story Sharing

I think I've noticed something about writing stories. It's happened to me before, and generally turns a healthy story (You can tell it's healthy because it's eating. It eats free time) into one of those word documents that I only look at when I'm thoroughly bored and wanting to hate myself for my previous lack of writing abilities. (The curse of the Jellybeans? What was I thinking?)
What happens is I start running out of ideas for the story, then I get stuck on ideas I already had, then I just lose the will to keep writing it. I might write another story based on the story, but that one generally dies faster than the first one did. But a while back, I figured out how to prevent this.
I have to let other people read my stories. Not just for constructive critisism, though that is appreciated, and not just for suggestions either. I have to let people read it for the sake of having them read it. If I just keep the story to myself, I'm the only one that knows about the characters, I'm the only one that cares about them. And that's not how stories are meant to be. Stories are meant to be shared, the whole point of writing is for someone to read it. So if I keep a story to myself, it dies without fail.
Recently, I've found some confirmation of this theory. I'm writing a story for a contest, you see, and all the people I generally let read my stories are either writing for the contest or judging. Either way, I can't let them read it. They read this blog too, so I can't put it here. Anyway, I've been doing pretty well so far. I'm on page twenty. (out of a twenty five limit. I'd better hurry up and finish.) However, it's been getting harder and harder to keep writing it. It's not that I don't know what I'm going to do, it's just that I can't work up the willpower to do it. I need someone reading it so I can write it. It's kinda annoying...
Anyway, I'd better get back to writing it. It's due tonight... I am SO dead.

Whitewater Rafting!

Note to self: Don't go whitewater rafting with unsecured glasses.
Another note to self: Forget first note, you lost them already.

I'd better explain that. See, I was whitewater rafting with my girl scout troop. Perfectly normal activity; we do it every year. However, this year the water was way higher than it usually is, so it was a bit more exciting. We had just passed one of the big rapids when we saw the boat my brother was in (he's not in my girl scout troop, by the way, but he was there) stuck on a really big rock.
My natural tendancy would be to avoid the rock, but apparently we had to rescue the other boat. And by rescue, I mean run into as fast as possible and hope not to get stuck ourselves.
Guess what?
It didn't work!
Our boat not only got stuck on the rock, it highsided (think wheelie, but sideways) so we all had to climb to the high side (name explained!) in hopes of the boat going back into the river and us not falling out. The boat didn't go back into the river, but instead filled with water and sank. I almost made it into the other boat (which was still stuck on the rock, and only got pushed further up by our rescue attempt) but failed miserably.
So I fell in the water, and my glasses got sucked off by the current while I was actually under our mostly-sunken boat. I noticed they were gone, but I couldn't look for them because of one very important reason: breathing. So I swam towards the light, also known as the surface. Then I sat in the water until I could swim ashore, and waited with my friend Sara (who also fell out of the boat) for the boat to come and get us. I still had my paddle, though. She didn't.
So our guide came in our now-unsunken boat, and we were the only ones not in the other boat
so I got to help paddle the thing until we could pull it ashore somewhere and everyone else could get back in.
I was pretty much blind for the rest of the trip though. I think I saw a unicorn, but no one else saw it, so I'm probably wrong.

White Butterflies

“Mama, what's this?”

The white haired woman looked down at her child, taking her eyes off of the shining silver necklace she was making, and smiled. In his cupped hands rested a tiny butterfly, as white as the downy feathers that still covered his wings. She bent down, her own golden wings spreading out on the dusty wood floor behind her, and carefully examined the miniature insect that rested in her son's hand.

“What do you think it is, Micheal?”

He thought for a minute, his brow wrinkling as he stared down at the butterfly. Finally, he looked up.

“I think it's a grown up feather!”

She laughed a little. “A grown up feather?”

He nodded. “Yeah! All of my feathers are baby feathers, but when they fall off they grow up and then they look like this!” His blue eyes sparkled. “Right?”

“Not quite,” she said with a smile. “This is a butterfly.”

“A butter-fly?” He sounded just as confused as he looked. “It isn't butter!”

She laughed. “No, it's not.”

“And butter doesn't fly anyway!”

“Right again! But this is still a butterfly, even if the name doesn't make sense.” She shooed him out of the little wooden house. “Now go find a flower to put it on.”

He looked back at her. “Why?”

“Because butterfly food comes from flowers. That one's probably hungry.”

“Do flowers taste good?”

“Butterflies like them.”

“Hmm...” Micheal thought about this for a minute, then wandered off towards the meadow. His mother stood in the doorway, watching him, until he disappeared behind a tree, and she turned back to her work.

Five minutes later, Micheal was back.

“Mama,” he said with a grimace, “Flowers taste bad.”

A/N: Yep, another one not even remotely related to continuity. But, I felt like writing it, so here you go!

Doukutsu Boss Yell

Ok, so I was playing this game called "Doukutsu Monogatari," which is Japanese for "Cave Story." (The translation is lame, I know, but the game is fun.) Anyway, I was fighting the final boss before the next final boss before the bonus level's boss which I've never beaten or actually even reached, and I noticed that when you beat the boss's almost-final form, which is this crazy sort of mad-scientist guy who's hair makes Einstein look like a tv anchor, he yells "Aiiiigh!"
This isn't a normal yell. For example, try saying it out loud. "Aiiigh." Sounds dumb, doesn't it? I mean, I could understand if he said "Augh" or "Aaaaah!", "Argh" or even "Aiii!" because those are all noises that humans make. But he's trying to roll them all together! It's like a frustrated screaming pirate ninja all in one!
So, not only is he deciding to make this noise, he's deciding this while his body is dissolving into a bizzare red smoke after a little amnesiatic robot's been throwing knives at him repeatedly for the past three minutes or so. I don't think that's something he came up with right then and there. No way he could do that under that kind of pressure. He must have planned it beforehand, though I have no idea why.
That brings up an interesting point. If I ever die at the hands of an amnesiatic robot after becoming evil and using massive amounts of deadly chemicals on myself, what do I want to scream? Not something cliche, like "I'll get you yet," and I'm certainly not going to mention a little dog too, as funny as that may be. Maybe something enigmatic about "You fool, you know not what you do," and then things start blowing up.
Or maybe I'll just go with "Aiiigh." It certainly caught my attention... And yet, because I was inspired by this almost-final form of this almost-final boss, it still wouldn't be original. I'll have to give this some thought. Suggestions are appreciated!

Rum!

“Hmm... and that should go there, and I certainly can't leave without that. Oh, and that needs to come too. Goodness, I don't remember needing so much the last time I left town.”

Jacques looked up from his packing to the empty walls of his house. Dust blanketed every surface, with the occasional random sketching denting the brown powder. A single window cast its silhouetted light across the floor, which was covered in all manner of junk, from cast-off pen tips to ink spills to crumpled up maps that didn't work right, and of course the occasional insect corpse. In the corner rested a messy pile of twigs and map bits that might have been a nest of mice, or perhaps chipmunks, but Jacques didn't particularly care unless they started eating his maps.

The table was slightly better than the floor, in that it didn't have mice living on it. Most of the time, anyway. Scattered across the table lay pens of every shape and size. Some rolled across and off the table at the slightest bump, and others wouldn't move if the table had been attacked by a madman with an axe, thanks to the thick black ink that glued them there. The only thing that seemed remotely cared for were the maps, carefully rolled up in leather cases until he took them to a seller.

The only other pieces of furniture, besides the chair, he owned rested in a corner. A bed that he never bothered to make, and a tall wardrobe that he'd inherited from some relative or another. Normally, the latter was filled with his few clothes and a great deal of random souvenirs, but at the moment it's contents sprawled across the floor as he stuffed them into the far-too-small pack.

All in all, the room screamed but one word: bachelor.

Jacques took a swig from the bottle he'd borrowed, meaning stole, from Marie when he left to pack and stared down at the overfull canvas bag. His eyes wandered from one thing to the other, from the thirteen semi-usable pens that he'd managed to pry from his desk to a brick that he wasn't quite sure why he had in the first place. He thought for a moment. Ah yes, he'd gotten it from an irate bartender who'd thrown it at his head.

“That wasn't really fair of him,” Jacques mused. “His prices were outrageous. How was I to know that I couldn't pay?” He took another drink, then shook his head and smiled. “Ah, well. He missed anyway.” Momentarily, he wondered why he'd put it in his pack. “Self defense!” He smiled, took a long swig from the bottle, and stuffed in a drinking glass on top of the brick.

“Jacques? You ready to go?” Marie's voice sounded from outside the door, snapping him out of his rum-happy daze.

“Um... just a minute!” he said, stuffing most of the mess under the bed.

“Well, can I come in and help you pack?”

“Er, no. I'm...” He considered several things to say. He couldn't say he was naked, he had no reason to be naked, and he wasn't. He couldn't make the excuse of not being there either, she knew better then that. Finally, his semi-drunken brain kicked in and came up with what was quite possibly his worst excuse ever. “I'm on fire.”

“You're what?” The door started opening. He pushed it shut again and shoved the table against it. His brain started working overtime, but still wasn't working quite hard enough for common sense to start functioning.

“Yeah, I'm on fire. Burning. Little accident with a candle. It's very hot.” He gathered a good portion of the mess up and shoved it into the wardrobe, but the door wouldn't shut. He started slamming it while still talking. “It's not that pleasant, you know, being on fire. There's a few downsides, though you really wouldn't think it. Like... the smoke! The smoke smells really bad, and you tend to catch other things on fire while you're trying to put yourself out.” He stepped back from the wardrobe, and, satisfied that it would stay shut, started trying to close his pack. A crunch followed by a tinkling noise told him that perhaps the drinking glass was not the best thing to put next to the brick. “I mean, sure, you're warm and all, but...”

“Jacques, I'm coming in there, whether you like it or not.” The table started inching across the floor as the door opened. He glanced around, doing one final check to see if the room was clean enough. Something caught his eye. The rum! He couldn't let her catch him with the rum. Jacques scooped up the bottle off the floor and glanced around for somewhere to put it. Just as he spotted the perfect place, the door opened all the way, and Marie stepped into the room.

He stared at her blankly, holding the rum in one hand. He made a vague attempt to hide it behind his back. Behind him, the wardrobe opened and everything fell onto the floor with a resounding thump. Marie gave him a look.

Somewhere, in a very small part of his mind that he didn't usually listen to but usually turned out to be right, it registered that he was as good as dead.

“Well,” she said slowly, looking around the room judgmentally, “you don't look on fire to me.”

“Um...”

“No, no, don't bother explaining. I don't want to know.” Her eyes wandered to his hand. “Where'd you get that rum? It looks suspiciously like the bottle that went missing just after you left.”

“Um...” His brain churned furiously, trying to think of an excuse. “It was in a tree. The squirrels gave it to me as a thank you gift for... um... chasing away that dog that wanders around here sometimes.” He wasn't doing so well with excuses today. “They told me to keep it.”

“The squirrels talked to you?” Marie gave him another look, this time one that he fully believed could be used to start fires.

“Yep. They were talking squirrels, with a whole civilization in the big oak tree over by the tailor's shop. They have water that comes from inside their houses, and devices that make it daytime at night, and even something that lets them communicate with other squirrel civilizations all across the land without hardly lifting a finger! Maybe they were the ones that took the rum from the tavern. It wouldn't be too hard for them, you know.”

She put her head in one hand. “Jacques... You're either drunk or insane. Maybe both. I'll come back later.” She moved towards the door. A the last minute, she turned around, looked him straight in the eye, and said, “And you're still in trouble for taking that rum.”

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday Dana!

Romance is HARD!

Even though I haven't posted any stories in a while, I am still writing them. In fact, I've got about seven stories ready to post, but I can't because I can't figure out how to get from here to there. So just be patient. I'll figure this out eventually.

One thing that I might not figure out anytime soon is this one romance scene. I've been banging my head on it for a little more than a week now, and I've learned a few things about my writing. Such as: I have a very hard time talking about how people feel. It works better for me to tell how they show how they feel, but for romance, that just doesn't work. It's all... emotion-y. That may not be so hard for some people, but for me, its like a brick wall with a moonlit glade painted on it and I keep trying to walk into the glade and it seems like it should be so simple, but I can't because it's really a wall.

Oh well. I wrote in some violence, so that should make up for the stupid romance scene. Maybe I should just kill them both now, Romeo and Juliet style. Except that whole stupid play was a romance scene... Nevermind.

Justice League returns in all it's unruined by horrible plot twists glory!

That's right, folks, Justice League, greatest tv show in the history of ever, is back, and they're showing the good episodes again! That's right, the good ones, with the theme song done on the violin instead of the electric guitar, the government not out to destroy them all (most of the time), and the original space station before it got exploded! And the giant robots actually have motivation, and it's not just a "who's in love with who" festival, and the dialouge actually works! Thank you Boomerang for showing actual good taste in what episodes to show! The 48 of Justice League are so much way better than the 52 of Justice League Unlikeable! (Ok, so it's really called Justice League Unlimited, but unlikeable is the best insult I can think of right now. I'm hyper.)
Anyway, not only is it airing on tv again, the first episode that they showed was In Darkest Night, which was the first episode of Justice League I ever saw! Major deja vu! The only thing missing they could have done cooler would have been if I'd seen it on May 12, my Justice-versery! (The day I first saw it. And first became obsessed.)
I'd forgotten a lot of the really really great stuff in the show, actually. that's what happens when you don't see it for over a year... Like the background music? Wow. I'd totally forgotten it. And the space shots? They actually look like space. Think that's amazing? Look at any other cartoon. I totally don't know how I've been watching other cartoons all this time... JUSTICE ROCKS!


Ok, I just realized that I sound kinda like Sarah when she's hyper.

Calming down now.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday Ivy!

Sunset (Poem)

The sun has set in clouds asunder

The moon regrets to rise from slumber

And the peak’s a shade of umber

I will never soon forget.

Golden eagles swoop and soar

High above the valley floor

Rising upwards more and more

Far beyond the treetop's net

Reds and yellows cross the skies

And seem to dance before my eyes

Above the birds with trilling cries

Who themselves these skies have met.

The final beams of brilliant light

That come before the starry night

Color clouds like children’s kites

And now at last the sun has set

The internet and you. And me. Me reeeeally bored.

So today the internet went down. This wouldn't have been a problem, except all of my stuff that I normally do when the internet's down was in my brother's car. So I got really bored. In fact, bored really didn't even cover it. It needed a new word all it's own to describe how bored I was. Now usually when I get bored, I do really stupid things, like light my hair on fire, or play with static. This time, I made a list of what I did. Here goes:

Things I did while waiting for the internet to go back up

• Held a sing-your-own-disco dance-a-thon.

• Checked to see if internet was up

• Wrote poetry

• Wrote blog post

• Checked to see if internet was up

• Washed my lava lamp

• Did sit ups

• Checked to see if internet was up

• Ate dinner

• Did dishes
  

• Checked to see if internet was up

• Organized desktop items

• Decided I didn't like the new arrangement and changed it back

• Read old word documents

• Checked to see if internet was up

• Practiced voice acting

• Did voice acting into audacity

• Listened to voice acting

• Deleted voice acting

• Checked to see if internet was up

• Wondered if an empty tissue box could work as a hat

• Hit computer monitor with an inflatable microphone

• Hit self with inflatable microphone

• Held drumming jam session with inflatable microphone

• Checked to see if internet was up

• Wrote this list

• Checked to see if internet was up

THE INTERNET NEEDS TO WORK NOW!!!!! GAH!

So, I was kinda bored. But voice acting is fun. I'm just really bad at guys voices.

Finals!

Finally over! Yay! No more chronic algebra overdose! Summary of finals:
History: Pretty easy, but I still hate essays.
Speech: It went better than I expected, but it would've been nice if I'd been able to make my visual aid big enough to see.
Algebra: Non calculator portion: easy. Like pie, only easier, and less edible. Calculator portion: Beware the madness of the Bruce! Agh! My brain hurt SO BAD!
Band: What final?
Bible: Easy. I didn't even need my notes. That's good, because I lost my notes.
French: Easy, but the guy behind me wouldn't shut up! He was talking the whole time, reading the test aloud, making commentary, and generally being so annoying that I wanted to remove his vital organs with my fists. Unfortunatley, that probably would have made me fail (and go to prison), so he lived. I'm not sure if he passed, though.
Study Hall: Yay for no final!
and finally:
Biology: Yay for finals that aren't mindlessly easy! Still really easy, but I enjoyed it. I like knowing the big words. The majority of photosynthesis takes place in the palisade mesophyll!

Anyway, Finals are over, summer has begun, and I'm probably gonna get a job this year. I hope I do, anyway. You can never tell with jobs. But, I heard that the place I'm applying to is really shorthanded, so they'll probably accept me.
Oh, and yes, I am still writing, but continuity is temporarily lost. I'm working on the rest of the story, but the obvious follow up to the last continuity related story that I posted just isn't happening. How come it takes Anna thirty seconds to think of a message for Micheal, but it takes me like three months? Oh well.
Anyhoo, today I got into a conversation with some random person using a friends account. We're pretty sure it was a member of her family, but we don't know which one. It wasn't just me, there was a couple other friends in the chat too. Anyway, we scared them pretty bad. And then I sent a voice clip of me laughing, which made it worse. They were pretty fun to talk to though, I just wish I knew who it was.
Quote!
"A halo has but a foot to fall before it becomes a noose." - Someone

Quote!

"Oh yes, something I've been kinda wanting to tell your viewers for a while is 'I look forward to killing you soon.' And then, additionally, I look forward to killing you right now."
-Askaninja.com

The sink is missing...

Well, I haven't posted in a while. Mandatory excuse list: Band trip, bus ride, just plain lazy. Ok, on to the bizzare happenings in the land of me!
First, I've mangaged to break the fire alarm; on Easter, no less. Word of advice: don't play with static. And if you do play with static, don't use a metal object to play with it. And if by some bizzare circumstance you wind up doing this, whatever you do, don't use two metal objects at the same time. And especially don't cross them. It doesn't hurt any less, and the fuse blows and breaks the fire alarm. I have no idea how the screws in that light switch were connected to the fuse, but they were. So the fire alarm broke. Not my fault. It was the fuse.
Second, the band trip happened. We went to California. I'll probably post more on this when I feel like it. Oh, and I bought a stupid hat. I've always wanted to do that.
Third, the sink is missing. It really bothers me. Don't ask me why, it's just something about having a gaping hole with pipes in it where the sink that had been there since forever once was creeps me out a bit. Apparently we're supposed to get a new sink in there because the old one was cracked, but then my dad didn't have time to finish it before he went to Louisiana, and now we have no sink. I found it's shattered remains in the garden. Creepy.

Flight Feathers

“Mama, mama, where are we going today?”

The woman smiled down at her child, who looked up at her expectantly. His white hair matched her own, along with the smiling blue eyes. She took the tiny hand offered to her, and responded in an excited whisper.

“The overlook, Micheal. We're going to fly!”

He wrinkled his brow. “But mama, I don't know how to fly.”

His mother stooped down and picked up one of the fuzzy white feathers off the grass around their little home as they walked. “I'll teach you. We'll fly together.”

“Where will we go then?”

“I don't know, Micheal, where do you want to go?”

“The river!”

“Alright, we can go to the river.” She smiled again. They walked in a happy silence for a while, while she contemplated the feather in her hand. Innocence, in the form of a firstfeather. The downy fluff covered the wings until a child became old enough to fly, and then fell to make way for the new feathers. The flight feathers.

“Mama, how are we going to fly?”

“It's easy. You already know how.”

“But mama, I don't. I don't know how to fly.”

“Yes you do. You know it in here.” She pointed to her chest.

“In my shirt?”

“No, dear, in your heart. That's where flight comes from.”

The little boy giggled. “Mama, you talk funny sometimes.”

She laughed with him, just a little.

Soon, the overlook loomed before them, tall, rocky and steep, but easy to climb from the other side. To her, it seemed monstrous, waiting for blood, and a pang of doubt surged through her veins. Was Michal really ready to fly?

Micheal seemed to share the same doubts, though not as strongly as his mothers. “But what if my wings don't work right?”

“Then I'll catch you.” She spoke against her own doubts, her own fears, fighting to keep her voice calm against the rising urge to protect her child from danger, including this danger of falling.

“But what if your wings don't work right?”

She tried to laugh. “Micheal, my wings work fine.”

“Prove it,” he said defiantly. His diminutive form, boldly standing with his hands on his hips and his wings spread out behind him, the way that she acted sometimes, made his mother smile, despite her fears.

“Alright,” she said with the same defiance. “I will. Watch me.”

She jumped up to the top of the overlook, far higher than any human could, feeling the rush of air around her. Upon the top, she looked down to the ground far below, and for a moment she remembered her own first flight.

A calm spring day, much like this one, with her parents flying over her, and her looking down and wondering what it would be like to fall. The fear that she felt, the overwhelming urge to back away from the edge almost caused her to turn and run, but she couldn't. She had to fly. Simply jump from the edge and let her wings catch her. How long did she stand there, staring at the ground below, as her parents waited patiently for her to jump? It felt like an eternity.

One thing she learned from that first flight. Once you jump, there's no turning back. You have to fly.

A cool breeze brought her back to the present. She still had to fly, but now, she was not afraid. She calmly pulled the thin cloth from atop her wings, letting it drift to the ground far below, feeling the sun warming her, and watching the light refract from each golden flight feather. Almost unthinking, she leapt into the sky.

The wind lifted her immediately. She soared high above the overlook, getting higher and higher, her joy growing with every passing moment. Then she swooped low, almost touching the ground with her wingtip, as she shouted to her son. “See? My wings work! Flying is easy!”

Micheal needed no second urging. He ran to the top of the hill, eager to jump. But then he paused for a moment. He stared down, just as she remembered doing, wondering if he really could fly. Then, he jumped, and time seemed to stand still. She watched him tumble in the air for a second, and she started to swoop down to catch him, but then he spread his wings. The golden flight feathers flashed as the last of the downy firstfeathers blew away.

“Mama, look! I'm flying!”

“I knew you could do it, Micheal!”

They wheeled in the sky as Micheal quickly learned the basics of flight, flapping, turning, and finally landing. Once they were back atop the hill, she kneeled down to his eye level.

“You did great! Better than great!” She hugged him, and he hugged her, with a smile that seemed bigger than the sky. “Well,” she said proudly. “Do you want to go to the river now?”

“Mama,” he said, looking up at her with his smiling blue eyes reflecting the sky, “Can't we stay and fly a little longer?”

“Of course we can.” They leapt together from the overlook. She smiled as a thought occurred to her. Once you have flight feathers, you can't turn back. And in all honesty, she wouldn't want it any other way.

A/N: Yes, this is set in the same world as my other stories; no, it's not in the same plot line. It might come up later, but it's not technically in the series. Yet.

Wasting Paper.

Today, I ran out of paper in my blue drawing notebook. It's been a couple months since I emptied it, so I went ahead and dumped all the drawings out onto my desk. I know exactly where I was when each drawing was done, so I went through and threw away the really bad ones, and the commentary went somthing like this:
"Wasting paper on the youth retreat!"
"Wasting paper in study hall!"
"Wasting paper after tennis practice!"
"Wasting paper during biology class!"
And so on, until I sorted out the extremely bad ones, wrote stupid comments all over them (The shirt of no return! "Mmm, pillow!") and threw them away. So now I'm gonna reload my blue notebook with fresh paper and draw more things! (Aka WASTE MORE PAPER!)

Departure

“Absolutely not.”

Anna crossed her arms resolutely and looked defiantly at Marie. Marie ignored her glare and continued throwing dried food into a pair of brown canvas packs.

“It's for your own good, Anna. I can't keep you here knowing where you belong.”

“She's right, Anna,” said Jacques, pouring himself another rum while Marie wasn't looking. “You have to go home.” He sipped from the glass until Marie turned around, then hid it behind the bottle with an expression of mature authority on his face.

“But...”

“No buts. We're going.” Marie grabbed a loaf of hard crusted bread and turned back to her packing. Jacques pulled the glass out again. “And Jacques, that's your last glass of rum. No more.” He disappointedly sipped it as he listened to their conversation.

“What about the tavern?” Anna protested, hoping to appeal to Marie's business sense.

“It's not going anywhere. We are.”

“But who'll take care of it?”

“Jacques.” She wrapped a pair of candles in thick cloth, completely ignoring Jacques as he sputtered through a mouthful of rum.

“Me? Marie, be reasonable! I can't take care of a big place like this, I'm no good at cooking, or cleaning, or...”

“You'll learn. There's no substitute for practice.”

“Let's discuss this, please, think about what you're saying!”

“Marie, do you really trust Jacques with a building full of ale?” Anna pointed out, smirking.

Jacques suddenly became a great deal more interested in the job. “I suppose I could take care of the place for a few weeks, sacrificial and all that.”

Marie stopped short in the middle of folding a blanket. “Good grief, no. No. I don't.”

“Come on, don't you trust good old Jacques?” Jacques pleaded, setting his rum down on the table.

She looked him straight in the eye. “Do I really need to answer that?”

“No,” he said, after some consideration. “No, I don't suppose you do.”

“Exactly.”

“So who will take care of the tavern?” asked Anna, self satisfaction in her voice.

Marie thought long and hard. “No one.”

“What?” Jacques and Anna said in dismayed unison.

“I said no one. We'll close the tavern while we're gone.”

“But...”

“I said no buts, Anna.” She grabbed a canteen and tossed it to Anna.

“But...”

“You too, Jacques? We're going, the tavern's closing. You'll survive.” She paused for a moment. “On second thought...”

“Yes?” the other two blurted expectantly.

“You're coming with us.”

Anna put her forehead in her hands while Jacques tried to talk his way out of it.

“But... It's such a trip, and... I just got back into town. Er... I need to put the finishing touches on those maps I did on my recent travels.”

“Oh, come off it. You don't have anything better to do, you never stay in town long anyway, and you told me that you finished those maps yesterday after you left.”

“But I was in such a state after hearing the news about Anna, I might have made a mistake!”

“You're not that much better now. Besides, we need a guide. There might be some free rum in it for you when we get back.”

“Oh, well, in that case,” Jacques stood and gave an elaborate bow. “Jacques Q. Redstone, expert guide and mapmaker at your service, madame.”

Anna sighed. Two against one again.

“I heard that, Anna.” Marie turned from her packing and looked Anna straight in the eyes. “Really, what reason do you have not to want to go home?”

“Well...” she stammered, looking at the floor. “Um...”

“Yes?” said Marie expectantly.

“Micheal.”

“Oh... Well, that would explain it. You're afraid he'll come looking for you while you're not here?”

“Who's Micheal?” asked Jacques confusedly.

“Later, Jacques.”

“Yes,” said Anna in response to Marie's question. “I have to stay here, or he'll never find me...”

“So who's Micheal?”

“It's not later yet,” said Marie, not taking her eyes off Anna.

“It's kinda later...”

“I said later, I meant later. Not kinda later, later. Now be quiet.”

Jacques sulked. “Fine, madame grumpy.”

Marie ignored him and placed a hand on Anna's shoulder. “Anna, think about it. Where's he most likely to check, someplace he's never been and never heard of, namely here, or your home, where, as you tell it, you were going when you were separated?”

Anna thought about it for a moment. “He... would probably go to Red Grove.” She looked up, tears welling in her eyes. “But what if he does come here?”

“We can't live our lives waiting for what ifs, Anna. We have to do something, or we won't live at all.” She waited a moment longer for a response, then sighed, and offered another option. “We could leave something here to tell him where you've gone, just in case he does show up here.”

“Really?”

“Yes, I'll leave that to you. Why don't you go figure out something while I finish packing.”

She thought for a moment. “I know what to do.”

“Good.”

Anna watched Marie stuffing the sacks full of rations for a moment, then spoke up. “You probably shouldn't put the bread there, it'll get flattened the instant you set the pack down.”

“Really? Where should I put it then?”

“Right here.” Anna placed the bread on top of the mass in the pack. “It's easier to reach there too.”

“Well,” Marie smiled. “I suppose you know more about this than I do. Carry on, then.”

The two continued packing in silence for a few moments longer before Jacques finally piped up.

“Is it later now?”

The Bloggage Returneth!

Finally! I'm officially not a spammer again!
I know I haven't posted in a bit, but I have a good reason. It involved a lot of panic, some links that I didn't quite understand, and a spam prevention robot. Yep, my blog got marked as spam, though I have no idea why. It's weird. I almost just switched back to Xanga. But, here I am, not on Xanga, and a working blog. So it all turned out ok.
Oh, and my brother's knee surgery went great. Yay!