#i have the kind of luck that has a bird perfectly pooping on my hand unprovoked

[spnrocks2005]

Thanks for tagging me, @station18908 ! 😃

Rules: Describe yourself using photos from your camera roll!

[athyrabunlord]

Yoshi and Riko 16

“If you want, we could go together?” [Prompt List]

A/N: Aaaand I got carried away again XD;;; Loosely based on SIF’s Angel Set, with some Guilty Kiss tooWords: 1,610

“Checking up on Yohane-chan again?”

Riko quickly hides the binoculars under the cloud pillow, ready to deny it. One glance at Mari’s knowing smirk tells her that it’s futile to argue. Sighing, she sheepishly takes out the binoculars again and resumes her observation.

“Now now, don’t ignore me, Rikocchi~! Talk to me.”

Riko scowls but refuses to answer.

“Riko. How is she?”

Mari’s playful tone now gains a soft quality, the same concerned tone that she uses whenever she inquires about their former friend. Riko’s hand subconsciously tightens on the binoculars as she tries to keep her voice from trembling.

“Yocchan is doing alright. She seems to be having trouble with rain, and various odd misfortunes keep happening to her but overall… she’s doing alright. She’s happy.”

The pang in Riko’s heart is somewhat soothed by the sight of the raven-haired girl, grinning and chatting with her two friends.

“That’s good to hear.” Mari gingerly lies down beside her and reaches for the star pillow. Riko glances at her friend, watching the latter whimsically play with the fluffy cushion. Mari then switches her attention to the open book between them, eyes glinting in recognition at the cutesy demon caricature on one of the pages.

“You know, you could go visit her.”

“I can’t,” Riko says immediately, reflexively. She’s toyed with the idea countless times, to just enter the mortal realm and speak to Yoshiko. But no, she must not break the rules. She must not endanger Yoshiko, not when she’s already suffered because of her once.

She cannot sin again.

“Yes you can,” Mari smiles, appearing rather exasperated. She nudges the star pillow against Riko’s face, giggling when the latter blushes at her next words. “After all, you still love her, don’t you?”

“I-I…”

“It’s okay,” Mari’s majestic angel wings spread behind her as she stands up and gazes at her with resolution. “I’ll help you, both of you. Last time… I was only able to help you, while Yohane-chan…”

Riko closes her eyes, unwilling to recall the painful memories. “She’s not one of us anymore, Mari-san. She’s a mortal now. She doesn’t remember me, and she doesn’t have to. She’s perfectly fine there-”

“But you’re not fine.” Mari’s voice is low, half-pleading and half-irate. “You may think her fall from Paradise is your fault, but I’m just as guilty as you. I could not save her then, and if I continue to let you be like this, it would’ve put her efforts to waste!”

Taking a deep breath, Riko also unfolds her angel wings and gently places the binoculars to the side. “…you’re right. I should do something, instead of just moping around. I’ll go see Yocchan and… well, perhaps afterwards, I’ll finally be able to move on.”

“Don’t be so pessimistic, Rikocchi~” Mari winks, holding out her hand. “You’re going to the mortal realm, ne? It’s where life is full of shiny possibilities!”

Riko returns the smile and places her hand in the blonde’s.

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“I’ll see you tomorrow, Ruby, Zuramaru!”

Yoshiko waves her two friends goodbye as they part ways at the intersection. Humming, she skips down the road and tries not to dance along too. Today is the day! After a long time of searching, she’s finally found the perfect spot to do her ritual.

She knows that she’s different than everyone, that she’s special with hidden powers. She’s a former Angel who fell from heavens, one must have committed a terrible sin and was thus cast out from Paradise!

This is the only explanation for her string of bad luck and her dreams about this exotic realm above the clouds!

No one, not even her parents, believe in her identity as a fallen Angel. While her two best friends are supportive of her, she could tell that they do not believe her either. That’s fine, all of this shall finally come to an end when she opens the portal connecting the two realms!

Her excitement, however, is dampened by the series of misfortunes that delay her journey. A bird that flew by poops on her shoulder; when she goes to clean up the mess in the public washroom, the pipe bursts and drenches her like a rainstorm; after drying herself with a spare towel she always brings in her bag, she stumbles into a deep puddle that she swears wasn’t there moments prior.

“Why does this keep happening to me!!” Though irritated, she is also unnerved and frustrated. Her karma seems to be worse than usual today. Is the divine power really that reluctant to let her achieve her goal?

The ache in her heart, something she’s gotten so good at ignoring, churns fiercely as if to reflect her predicament. Whimpering, she crouches and covers her head with the towel.

“Are you okay?”

Yoshiko wipes her tears away as discretely as possible and pretends to be drying her wet hair before peering up at the stranger. The pretty girl appears to be her age, maybe a bit older, and she has cascading burgundy tresses and a pair of warm amber eyes. She looks oddly familiar, though Yoshiko couldn’t place her anywhere in her memories.

She wants to reply with ‘do I look like I’m okay’, yet she finds herself shrugging. “Yeah, I’m fine, I’m used to this.”

The stranger’s inquiring gaze coaxes her to elaborate. “Bad things tend to happen to me. Heh, I’m probably cursed.”

Rather than the dismissive reaction she usually receives, the taller girl simply crouches down beside her. “How so?”

Maybe it is the stranger’s sympathetic voice, or the fact she genuinely sounds intrigued, for Yoshiko finds herself sharing her life story, about her being a fallen Angel, and her theory on opening a portal that connects the two realms.

“Erm, you probably think I’m weird huh?” She folds her arms in embarrassment, unprepared to have the stranger’s complete attention.

“Not at all. I think it’s very interesting. Who’s to say it’s not true?” The girl has a distant look as she gazes at the sky. “So… you’re on your way to open this portal?”

“Yeah. I found this obscure, abandoned park in the woods over there. My instincts tell me that must be the place!” Yoshiko clenches her fists and lowers her head. “But, I’m kinda nervous. Like I said, the bad luck is worse than usual, so maybe something terrible will happen if I really go there…”

“If you want, we could go together?”

Yoshiko blinks at the girl, both startled by her kindness and a strange prick in her mind. Suddenly, images of places she has never visited before flash across her vision, like an old broken movie.

Paradise was infinitely wide, full of countless places still unexplored and unknown to even the most ancient of Angels. Therefore, she considered it an amazing feat that she managed to locate an ethereal garden, where its exotic flowers felt holy enough to purify any onlookers. As mesmerized as she was, she also sensed a foreboding aura and that compelled her to leave the area in haste.

However, she’s been unable to get the garden out of her head and her heart yearned to explore it again to her heart’s content. She was unsettled by that foreboding aura and thus hadn’t acted until now. Finally making up her mind, she sought the opinion of someone she deemed special above all others.

“If you want, we could go together?”

“Are you sure? Like I said, I sensed something off about the place-”

“More the reason to go with you.” The other Angel’s gaze was unwavering. “You shouldn’t go there alone.”

Unable to turn down her crush’s offer, Yoshiko agreed and brought the burgundy-haired Angel to the Secret Garden. They explored the breathtaking place together, admiring its beauty and relishing its soothing ambience. That foreboding aura was nowhere to be felt, for she was so blissful to be in the company of the person she loved, far away from the scrutiny of others.

There, beside a spring of crystal-clear water, she confessed to her amber-eyed companion and kissed her whole-heartedly. Before the other Angel could respond, the water abruptly turned murky and a heavy fog descended upon them. Intangible ropes, seemingly made of shadows, burst out from the fathomless spring and flew towards them.

Yoshiko managed to push her loved one out of the way before she was captured and her senses became muffled. Even then, she could see that the Secret Garden was crumbling and that several Angels have arrived at the scene. She could feel a shiny presence reaching for her.

“No, save Lily! She shouldn’t have to suffer with me!”

She acknowledged what was happening to her. She had sinned after all, so her punishment was to fall, to fall from the heavens and into the mortal realm. This was all her fault, and hers only.

Let her beloved Lily stay in Paradise.

The dark ropes pulled her down into the abyss and she knew no more.

“H-Hey, are you okay?”

Yoshiko blinks, shaking her head and breathing raggedly. “Lily…”

The burgundy-haired girl flinches, her eyes widening. “What did you just say-?”

The overwhelming sensation alleviates like a deflating balloon and, with it, the images vanish into thin air. Yoshiko furrows her brows and rubs her temple. “Nothing. I just… no, it’s nothing. Anyways, you said… you want to come with me. Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” Those amber eyes are determined and just a little bit hopeful. “You shouldn’t go there alone.”

Yoshiko grins and takes her hand. “Yoshiko. Tsushima Yoshiko. Thanks for keeping me company.”

“Riko. Sakurauchi Riko,” the girl’s smile is just as pretty as the one in the fading memory. “Pleased to meet you… Yocchan.”

[hungergames-fanfic]

Half Human, Half Squirrel pt.3

“Wow, its so beautiful miss Bilmin, just like you”, Ari says holding on to the necklace on momma Bilmin’s neck. Wrapped from its smoothed out jagged edges by a brown, stiff, braided leather necklace is a black shiny stone that glitters white like the midnight sky. She smiles and cups Ari’s hands in hers.

The girl is right, momma Bilmin really is beautiful. She has a long face but in a pretty way. Her jaw is perfectly squared and her nose is thin and long. Her upper lip looks like half a heart and her lower is thick. They make her have really pretty wide smiles. Unlike daddy and me, her skin isn’t so brown, it’s a light tan like greased wood. Her graying hair, usually down, straight and long is in a high ponytail today. For an old lady, she doesn’t really have that many wrinkles, just on her eyes which are small, light brown. Now that I think about it, daddy looks a lot like her. Maybe that’s why he’s pretty too. That makes me wonder, who do I look like? Momma? Daddy?

“Amos”, momma Bilmin says, “my little brother gave it to me. Said it brings luck”, she sighs with one of her sad smiles and grabs Ari’s head. With a thin hair comb she parts Ari’s hair and picks at it until she’s grabbed what she was looking for and wipes it on a towel sitting on her lap.

In the bathtub, wearing a shirt and our underwear, Ari and me sit patiently while the lice removing chemicals burn at our scalps. With itchy heads we take turns asking momma Bilmin to scratch with a comb. She tries to equally scratch our head for an amount of time but Ari tends to take her attention. Combing through the same section over and over she shows us what she finds. “Squeeze it with your nails”, momma Bilmin says to Ari who grabs one of the lice off the comb.

“I put your beddin’ to wash, baby”, momma says standing at the door. “Arielle, tell your momma to do the same, who knows how many are on 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴”, momma makes a face. It’s just like daddy’s at the pharmacy.

“I ain’t got any, just a pillow wrapped in a shirt”, Ari says

“Then wrap it in a new shirt”, momma shrugs making another weird face, kind of like she doesn’t care. I don’t like her tone. It’s like she’s tryna be rude on purpose.

“Anza”, momma Bilmin snaps at momma. Momma’s name is Esperanza but momma Bilmin has started calling her that.

“Momma”, I call for her. “How to read people’s minds, can you find books bout that subject?”, I ask. She smiles with her eyes and walks out the room, probably to write it down. She’s always so happy to bring me books. Says “knowledge is power”. President Snow must be extremely smart.

“Emotions and Behavior by Fenrir Berdeux”, momma reads the cover of a book when she comes back into the bathroom. “Dora, it’s impossible to read someone’s mind”, she says, I’m not happy to hear that. “𝘉𝘶𝘵, it’s not impossible to read someone’s body language and facial expressions. Understandin’ emotions and the behaviors they create is a great way to understand a person. I haven’t finished the book but”, she wiggles it in a dance with a smile that shows all her perfect teeth.

Momma Bilmin combs into another section of Ari’s hair. The girl stares at momma like she’s the prettiest woman in the world and watches her read.

“Behavior is different from emotion but is strongly affected by it, there is no simpler way to put it. For example, when we are happy we smile. This smile on one’s face is a behavior that can be read and interpreted with ease, but what of the effects of that happiness. Where will the behavior affected by the emotion take the person?”, momma reads us the entire first chapter.

By the time she’s done I’m left entranced while momma Bilmin washes the chemicals off my hair. Neither she, momma or Ari notice how deep in thought I am.

Momma Bilmin is always sad even when she smiles. The first sign of learning to read ”expelled behavior” is by understanding what causes the emotion in the first place. Well, she’s sad cause she’s lost a lot of her family. How would I approach her? How would I talk to her? How would I .. “momma whats that word to understand other people’s emotions?”, i ask.

“Empathy, to empathize”, momma answers.

I stare at momma Bilmin thinking of a question that could lead her to expressing emotion on her face but all I can think about is questions about the games. They’re coming up anyway. In just one week the 41st Annual Hunger Games are about to start. I could ask her how she feels about the games coming up, or if she’s cooking something new this year, or maybe if she’s done being sad. None I dare myself to ask. I hate to see her sad and purposely doing so just to see how emotions affect her is plain cruel. Instead I just stare at her the entire time hoping I can catch a glimpse of a facial expression. So far she just smiles at Ari and me while she towel dries us. Even chuckles when one of my old shirts from when I was little fits Ari perfectly. Her smile puts one on my face.

“Y’all ready now?”, momma Bilmin asks.

“Ready?”, I look at her with confusion.

She leads us out the house where daddy sits on a log he uses to kill chickens. He braids four pieces of rope into a stiff lazo he uses to catch runaways. Usually calf’s but I’ve seen him tackle and tie a pig with it. I’ve asked him a bunch of times when he’s gonna teach me to use one but he always says “later”. Maybe today is “later”.

“You gon teach me how to-“, “no”, daddy interrupts me with an blank look on his face. The way his eyebrows are shaped make him look mad but he stares at the ground thoughtfully. Knowing that he might be upset about his fight with momma gives me a sense of eureka. I understand where his emotions come from and the behavior is causes. Being upset has made him rude.

“You gon collect eggs”, he points at Ari who jumps with a smile on her face, “you gon clean a stable”, he points at me. I sigh. I know what’s happening, we’re in trouble for getting lost so daddy’s putting us to work.

I’d be mad that I’m stuck with the worst job but seeing how Ari dances with the bucket I know that this is the most daddy could of given her. She’s not strong enough to carry anything heavy and chances are she’s just gonna play with the chickens. Don’t chickens carry lice?

Inside the barn, shoveling horse poop into a big bucket, I take my mind somewhere else. Away from the smell.

I think about last night’s fight between mommy and daddy. They’re being quiet to each other. After Littleburg mommy ain’t even kiss daddy’s cheek. She always kisses his cheek to greet him. Today she just looked at him like he hurt her feelings by just being there. Daddy had a look on his face, like he was both sad and lonely but neither at the same time.

I can hear him trying to calm Milk out the side of the barn. This makes me think about how I always have to be cautious around Milk, I have to listen to her breathing, look at the way her eyes move and make sure she’s not fidgety. I may not know what she’s thinking, but I know it’s nothing good.

My eyebrows raise in surprise and my eyes widen. This was momma’s point! I can’t read minds but I can understand behavior!

Once I’m done, I drag the heavy bucket full of horse poop out the barn doors. Inside the chicken coop I can hear Ari counting and yelling at them to stop moving. Back at the house, through the back door, I can see momma Bilmin cleaning the table. Behind the barn I hear daddy still talking to Milk. I leave the bucket behind and walk over to him.

Here, daddy combs Milk’s hair and shushes her. Milk either likes me or she doesn’t, depending on the day. Usually, she won’t let me go near her, just daddy, she loves him.

When I get too close she neighs and huffs trying to take a step back while daddy assures her it’s okay. I get it, daddy’s the boss and she listens to him, I’m still a stranger in her eyes and she doesn’t trust me. Daddy says not to take it personal but it still hurts my feelings. This isn’t why I’m here though.

My feet flat on the ground, I keep my eyes on daddy. I’m tryna figure out the cause and effect his emotions do to his behavior. “To understand facial expressions and the emotions they represent one needs to comprehend that it’s like a varied puzzle that is never the same even after you’ve figured it out”. A line from the book.

“Daddy, is momma mad at you?”, I ask. No point in beating around the bush. Daddy pets Milk and turns to look at me. He stares for a second and then at the ground.

“No”, he lies. I ain’t need to 𝘵𝘳𝘺 to know that.

“Why ain’t she talkin’ to you?”, I ask tryna get more out of him.

“Go check on your friend”, daddy says. His tone of voice says he’s getting mad. Before leaving, I kill two birds with one stone.

“The bucket is too heavy”, I say asking for his help. Just dragging it out the barn made my hands hurt.

Daddy makes a face, he stares at me and half smiles only he doesn’t look too happy. He does this face a lot when I need help, it’s like he’s questioning my usefulness. Like it were nothing, daddy takes the bucket and walks towards the house with it. I’m in awe and can’t wait until the day that I can be as strong as him. I follow him back to the house.

“Dora!”, Ari screams inside the chicken coop. This scares a few chickens and they flutter around crashing into the chain link fence that makes up the wall of the coop. Ari runs out with her bucket and two eggs in her hand. She holds on to her stomach and giggles taking awkward strides towards me. She shows me the eggs in her hand. “I was gettin’ eggs and there was a fat one and I picked it up and it pooped an egg!”, she says between the giggles, “it fell and broke on the floor and then all the other chickens started eatin’ it!”.

“They do that”, I say. Not showing her same enthusiasm catches her attention. She pokes my face with the metal bucket in hand, hitting me with it. It doesn’t hurt but I still say “ouch” and push her hand away.

“What’s goin’ on?”, she asks hugging me tight. “You been real quiet lately, don’t you wanna be friends no more?”, she practically whispers. There’s a sad look on her face and her eyes are wide while she looks up at me. This how those puppies looked at us at the pet store earlier. To let her know I’m not mad I hug her back with a smile.

“I ain’t mad at you, Ari”, I say, “I’ve been focusin’. I’m tryna get a superpower”, I admit. Ari’s opens her mouth wide.

“Like breathin’ fire? Or killin’ bad people with your mind? Or changin’ the weather?”, she goes on and on dancing while the bucket swings from side to side. I take it off her hands or it’ll be me catching daddy’s belt.

“No”, I say with a hand on her shoulder tryna stop her from moving. “I’m tryna learn how to read people’s minds”, I admit in a hushed tone. Ari puts an index over her lips and looks back at the house. Momma Bilmin is nowhere to be seen anymore, daddy is at the side of the house dumping the bucket full of horse poop on a pile next to momma Bilmin’s small garden.

“Has it worked?”, Ari whispers at me. “Wait, ain’t your momma say you can’t?”, she asks. I shake my head with disappointment.

“The book momma read us today was really good, it said if I learn how to read people’s faces and understand their emotions maybe I can understand how they think”, I say.

“I wasn’t payin’ that much attention but if I could read your face i’d say you sad cause you can’t read minds”, Ari says. She giggles at the look on my face. I stare at her baffled at how right she is. I don’t like the idea of my mind being read.

For dinner momma Bilmin has us all sit at the dining table, today she’s made rice and egg with homemade goat cheese and a loaf of bread. I don’t talk, I only listen. Momma and daddy aren’t talking to each other and I make sure to stare at both of them in hopes to catch anything that lets me know what they’re thinking or at least how they feel. Ari is the main one that talks at the table and momma Bilmin is completely invested in what the girl says.

“Pink because it’s the color of sunsets!”, Ari states her favorite color.

“They’re orange”, I say unable to keep it to myself.

“All the time, but sometimes they look pink and it’s so pretty maybe one day I can show you”, Ari smiles at me. I’d smile back but I’m scared that she’ll be able to read my mind.

“This is nothin’ like what I eat back home miss Bilmin, I just love bein’ here with y’all, with Dora, I feel so lucky!”, Ari practically screams. Momma Bilmin, who’s sitting at the edge of the table smiles at the girl with her eyes. Momma smiles too, daddy doesn’t look up from his plate. He looks like he just wants to finish his food.

“Well, you’re welcome here any time Arielle”, momma Bilmin says still smiling. Ari turns to me and shows off her missing teeth. She truly is having a great time and her wide smiles radiate how she feels. So much so that it makes me forget I’m supposed to be reading emotions off faces, not making them. I smile back.

After dinner, in momma’s shiny car, daddy takes Ari home. “Why we always go in this car mister Polomir?”, Ari asks. She’s expressed how much she loves the horses every day after school. Daddy sighs and looks at us from the rear view mirror.

“Horses can only go so fast”, he says bluntly.

The half hour drive aint that different from every other. We play a game that involves having to guess what we see by the description given. “I see some yellow”, Ari sings and smiles. She knows that’s my favorite color so she always makes sure to point it out. Be it a flower or the way the sun shines brightly on the sand, she’ll always find a way to remind me how pretty it is.

By the time we reach the lonely dirt road that leads us to her house we see her momma run out. She trips and falls feet away from the porch steps. Daddy stops the car in front of their house and runs out to help her.

“Uh-oh”, Ari says and makes a weird face. She raises her eyebrows and shows her lower teeth. “Forgot to tell momma I was runnin’ away las’night”, she shrugs. Outside, daddy consoles the crying woman. She hugs him and holds on to his arms, fanning her face tryna dry up her tears.

“I had so much fun today, Dora”, Ari says to me unaffected by her momma’s crying. “Already can’t wait ‘till next time”, she says giggling. She hugs me, when she pulls away she has her index in her mouth, biting it with wonder. Suddenly she leans in and kisses my cheek.

My face feels warm like it’s gotten really hot all of a sudden. My chest tickles and my heart races. I wish for another wondering why I liked it so much but I’m frozen in place. Eyes and mouth wide. Why did she kiss me?

Giggling, she jumps out the car and runs up to her momma who hugs her with happiness but yells at her like she’s angry. “Don’t you ever do that to me again, you hear me!”, her momma screams hugging and kissing Ari’s face.

The drive home is really quiet, I stare out the window in a trance, looking at our dark surroundings. It turned night while dropping Ari off and I watch how we pass the run down buildings, noticing the moon. How it follows us all the way home. “Did you see that?”, I think to myself, asking the moon if it saw Ari kiss me. My face is warm to the touch. A smile almost creeps up on me but daddy speaks up.

“You knew that girl ran away?”, daddy asks. He’s mad and I can see it in his eyes. He clenches his jaw and looks back at me. I only stare at him. I don’t wanna admit I knew. With no response, daddy turns back to me and swats my leg leaving a sting that I just know is gonna turn into a bruise later. “Did you know?”, he asks again. If I lie or tell the truth he’s gonna hit me anyway. I nod and fold my leg so he won’t reach me if he tries to hit me again.

“Tomorrow mornin’, soon as I wake up you gon get up too. I’m gon have you workin’ like a damn mule”, he yells back at me. “That woman was worried sick, you knew that little girl ran away from home and ain’t tell us none, and what if y’all would of gotten stolen this afternoon?”, he turns back to me and sizes me up. “Wipe that mug off your face right now”, he says through his teeth. I’m mad. The night was going good until he decided to open his mouth.