A loud groan sounded and several pairs of eyes looked through her as she drank her freezing tea as if she hadn't drunk anything for a year. Her short cherry hair was a mess. Stormy grey eyes closed, refreshed and pleased, and she sighed.
She moved quickly, crashing around, never spending too long in one place or with any one person, as though she didn't wish to acknowledge where or what she was.
The groan got louder; for a split second she saw a flash of anger in another person's eyes.
That's nothing like me, her mind sobbed. It's not. It's not!
Either people lived here under the sparkling illusion that they could manage and would someday be all right, free to live normal lives – sadly very few fosterlings did – or remained here for years, hating themselves for having to live as they now did; neither with family or with friends; with people who'd never be either.
She too hated that part of herself; the part that had made her taut and selfish, the part had made her parents cry and frightened her dog; but having always known the day would come when she would be Chosen and would leave her childhood home, she saw little point in extending that hatred to other people.
Thankfully the other fosterlings came together for whatever they wanted and needed then dispersed, which she preferred.
Another lady was crying & shaking.
A hand was reached out; her own. How dare a fellow fosterling be left this way. She was sure someone would be on their way soon. No one was that callous, surely …..
“Leave me alone!” was the growled response, far too deep. This wasn't the crying woman talking; this was from the pain that got all fosterlings, driving them insane, and ruled their entire lives, including her own. In a normal person with a normal body, the toxins causing the pain would drain away. Here they didn't.
The other fosterlings – there were twenty-one others – who were wrapped up in what now passed for their lives, did not know she had countless companions she could call on at a moment's notice.
She called them her spirit guides, dressing it all up as a lifelong love of mythology and Paganism, suspecting, no – knowing that none of it was real, and she just had a good imagination, but for the sake of her sanity keeping it up anyway. She was kept sane by their advice, their songs; by their whispers and warm smiles, by the touch of their hands, of their mouths.
Her stomach roiled. Thin bangles rattling, she pressed the necklace that was one condition of her time here and the mark which by all fosterlings were known. Proud to wear hers and yet unsure why, she waited.
If you were a character in a novel......?
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A loud groan sounded and several pairs of eyes looked through her as she drank her freezing tea as if she hadn't drunk anything for a year. Her short cherry hair was a mess. Stormy grey eyes closed, refreshed and pleased, and she sighed.
She moved quickly, crashing around, never spending too long in one place or with any one person, as though she didn't wish to acknowledge where or what she was.
The groan got louder; for a split second she saw a flash of anger in another person's eyes.
That's nothing like me, her mind sobbed. It's not. It's not!
Either people lived here under the sparkling illusion that they could manage and would someday be all right, free to live normal lives – sadly very few fosterlings did – or remained here for years, hating themselves for having to live as they now did; neither with family or with friends; with people who'd never be either.
She too hated that part of herself; the part that had made her taut and selfish, the part had made her parents cry and frightened her dog; but having always known the day would come when she would be Chosen and would leave her childhood home, she saw little point in extending that hatred to other people.
Thankfully the other fosterlings came together for whatever they wanted and needed then dispersed, which she preferred.
Another lady was crying & shaking.
A hand was reached out; her own. How dare a fellow fosterling be left this way. She was sure someone would be on their way soon. No one was that callous, surely …..
“Leave me alone!” was the growled response, far too deep. This wasn't the crying woman talking; this was from the pain that got all fosterlings, driving them insane, and ruled their entire lives, including her own. In a normal person with a normal body, the toxins causing the pain would drain away. Here they didn't.
The other fosterlings – there were twenty-one others – who were wrapped up in what now passed for their lives, did not know she had countless companions she could call on at a moment's notice.
She called them her spirit guides, dressing it all up as a lifelong love of mythology and Paganism, suspecting, no – knowing that none of it was real, and she just had a good imagination, but for the sake of her sanity keeping it up anyway. She was kept sane by their advice, their songs; by their whispers and warm smiles, by the touch of their hands, of their mouths.
Her stomach roiled. Thin bangles rattling, she pressed the necklace that was one condition of her time here and the mark which by all fosterlings were known. Proud to wear hers and yet unsure why, she waited.