Grass between my toes on Labyrinth Gardens

Angel Jareau

January 16, 2013 9:49 PM

Grass between my toes by Angel Jareau

Humming softly, Angel kicked off his shoes. While he’d reluctantly agreed to wear the light weight foot gear, the Teppenpaw still refused to wear socks. Shoes were hard enough to tolerate. Angel sighed in contentment as he stepped out onto the cool grass. The soft paths of grass tickled the soles of his feet, as he walked silently away from his abandoned shoes. He’d already learned the summoning charm, so he wasn’t worried about losing the awful things. Not that losing them would stop Kiva from making him wear shoes, it was a tactic that the albino had tried a time or two over the summer. It always failed, and he had four more pairs in his room, just in case he ‘lost’ one or two of them.

Outside wasn’t one of Angel’s usual haunts, especially on such a sunny day. The albino had taken his sun protection potion, and had two more in his pocket if he needed them. Dark sun glasses protected his sensitive eyes from the unkind touch of the bright light, and a wide brimmed white hat that would look more at home on a lady’s head protected his face and neck. Pure white robes finished his outfit, and Angel looked like a lost ghost who didn’t quite realize that it was day time and not the time to be drifting about.

Angel turned down a new path at the exact moment someone else attempted to turn onto his path. “Ooph!” The sound escaped his startled lips as he crashed into the person. The collision sent his glasses flying and skewed his hat enough for the bright light to blind him. Angel hissed in pain as the world went white and his blood red eyes instantly began to water in protest.

0 Angel Jareau Grass between my toes 0 Angel Jareau 1 5

Jade Owen

January 26, 2013 8:15 AM

Sun in your eyes by Jade Owen

She had rolled up the sleeves of her red and blue plaid shirt, and rolled up the legs of her jeans, to feel more comfortable in the soft warmth of the labyrinth. When she wasn't eating or sleeping, Jade liked to spend time out in the gardens. Often she would watch Bella chase butterflies and gnomes, but her cat was having a lazy day and couldn't be shifted from her favourite snoozing spot of Jade's pillow. So the Pecari had eventually given up and opted for a stroll. She'd done a couple of cartwheels and twisted her wrist a little in an awkward landing, so had given that up again almost as soon as she'd started it, and eturned once more to simply walking on her feet.

As well as for exercise and fresh air, jade was happy to contemplate the scenery the gardens offered. She thought she might like to try her hand at photography, but knew she'd never be able to afford a camera. She was pretty good at drawing, but landscapes held no real challenge for her; the fourth year much preferred portraits and pictures of animals. Care of Magical Creatures always gave her plenty of inspiration for pictures, which is why it was currently the only class she actually looked forward to attending. Plus they still sometimes got to handle creatures that were just plain cute, no matter which way up you held them.

With her mind on Puffskeins and her feet marching to a melody of their own, it was perhaps inevitably that Jade would round a corner and collide sharply with another body. At first she thought it was a ghost, until she realised that she had connected with something solid, not passed right through it. She looked up to recognise one of her yearmates. "Oops, sorry there, Dexter," she said with a laugh as she bent to retrieve the glasses that had flown off his face as a result of her impact. She handed them back to him with the question, "Did you know you're wearing a girl's hat?"

0 Jade Owen Sun in your eyes 221 Jade Owen 0 5

Angel

January 28, 2013 8:46 PM

…hurts… by Angel

“Oops, sorry there, Dexter.” A familiar voice chimed. Angel felt the hard familiar press of his glasses placed in his hand and with the sleeve of his other arm he wiped at the tears that slipped down his bone pale cheeks. The pain that came with having his eyes exposed to the sun was never pleasant, but to Angel what was worse was the blindness. Bright light overwhelmed his vision, turning everything a blinding white.

Slipping the dark lenses back over his now bloodshot eyes, Angel readjusted his hat and gave a small sigh of relief. “Did you know you’re wearing a girl’s hat?” Jade’s words caused Angel’s head to tilt slightly in confusion. He wasn’t sure what to make of the words, and hadn’t been aware that hats had gender. Over the summer Kiva had taken him and the other kids to get new clothes for the new school year and he found this hat. He liked the way the brim went all the way around, and it was comfortable, not tight like some hats were.

“My hat is girl?” He asked quietly, still not really sure what that meant. Were other objects male and female? It wasn’t something he’d heard of before, but that didn’t mean much. He hadn’t realized he was colorblind until he started staying with Kiva and her family. He’d just thought that he wasn’t intelligent enough to identify the shades like everyone else. When Angel started school, he believed everyone saw the same way he did because no one told him differently. So, maybe chairs were male and female, and tables, and everything else and no one had bothered to tell him about it before.

0 Angel …hurts… 0 Angel 0 5

Jade

February 02, 2013 4:42 PM

It doesn't matter; it's in the past by Jade

Dexter - Jade had since learned his actual name, but she prefered his original (in her mind, at least) title - didn't seem to be too damaged by their collision. Even though she thought he might be crying a bit, which was pathetic for a guy, he wasn't flailing his arms or dropping to the floor or anything, and instead was just asking about his hat being a girl.

"What?" Jade said instantly, before her brain caught up and she understood the logic behind his question. "Oh, no," she laughed, side-stepping round him to stand in a relative location better suited to a chat with her yearmate. "I mean it was designed for a girl to wear." Not that Jade viewed that sort of thing was important. "I mean, it's okay, if you want to wear it," she hastily added. "These were designed for boys," she admitted, pulling at fingerfuls of fabric on both her shirt and her jeans. "Who cares if they're comfortable, right?" This last statement wasn't really a question, but sounded a shade more frustrated than the rest of her recent stream of utterances, which had been spoken as her dis-jointed thoughts bubbled merrily from her perpetually motional lips.

"Anyway," she heaved a sigh and aimed a gentle kick at a protuding root near her ankle. "Sorry for bumping into you and everything. Hope I didn't hurt you?" This time, although it wasn't phrased as such, her final statement was spoken as a question, the pitch of her voice rising at the end in a manner that clearly indicated she expected an answer from him. Hearing him declare that she hadn't hurt him would clear up her earlier confusion about his tears, not to mention wipe clean her conscience. Then she would be able to make her mind up whether or not to tease Dexter about crying. She knew he was a bit different from the other kids their age, but in Jade's mind, everyone was different, and she wasn't going to make exceptions just because he'd been dropped into a pot of colour-stripping potion as a baby.

0 Jade It doesn't matter; it's in the past 0 Jade 0 5

Angel

February 05, 2013 8:23 PM

... by Angel

“Oh.” Was all the albino had to offer at Jade’s declaration that his hat was meant for girls. He accepted her assurance that it didn’t matter either way, and decided not to worry about it. The hat, like her jeans, was comfortable, and that was what mattered. “Yes, it is comfortable,” he chose to add. The shift in her tone had caught his attention, and he gave voice to agreement out of habit. Angel had no opinion over matters of clothing, or which gender wore what. The only item of apparel that he had any strong feelings about were his shoes, and those he could simply do without.

In fact, if he’d been asked what he hated most in the world, Angel would say shoes. Even then, hate was far too strong a word for the pale boy. His emotions were as faint as his pigment, washed out things that rarely dipped above or below an emotional flat line. Unlike other children, he’d spent his first four years locked in a room with no emotional stimulation what so ever, and just as a child who is rarely fed wont grow, a child’s emotions that aren’t fed for good and bad will remain stunted. Happiness for Angel was mild contentment, anger a low thrum of disquiet. He was untouched by hate…and by love.

“I am better. Sun is…hurt on my eyes, to much bright. I need glasses to protect my eyes from the sun’s light.” The pain of the brief exposure had dulled to a low ache that was easily ignored. A small spike of worry flared and died away, would the contests be held out in the brightness? He would rather they weren’t, but if they were there wasn’t much he could do to change what was, so it wasn’t worth thinking about.

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