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bellatrixobsessed1 · 8 months ago

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The Hemorrhaging Aether

Nerissa had never cared for crowds but she has never hated them either. On one hand they are too loud, they drive her mad with the overload of sights and sounds and smells. On the other hand, if a crowd is large enough, then she can get lost in it, slink to the back of it. Blend in and go unnoticed and that is precisely what she is looking to do. Especially today.

Earthy tones had been a good choice. They keep her out of mind even if she is not out of sight. They keep her inconspicuous in a building full of people who seem to be doing their very best to stand out, to become the center of attention.

She has heard that about America; the people value their freedom and by extension their individuality. And she supposes that that isn’t a terrible thing in moderation. America overall is terribly different from Greece; everything and everyone seems so…sensationalized. Everything is so forward driven—a rejection of tradition in favor of what might and very well could be. The fashion is daring and different, the hairstyles are showy. They do however seem to be as friendly and welcoming of strangers as she is used to.

More than anything else though the school itself is strange; there are no split in their secondary schooling—no gymnasium and no lyceum. Instead there are freshmen, sophomore, junior, and senior years. There is no 20 point grading system; they stick to letters past primary school.

The layout of the school is different. Different and larger than her old school had been. The hallways are mostly empty now, save for the uncaring stragglers and several people looking frantically from the sheets in their hands to signs on doors. People like herself, who have no idea where to go.

Truly, how hard can it be to follow signs to a classroom.

She finds that it is much easier than actually entering the classroom. Even if she enters at the very moment another student does.

At least the teacher has two people to choose from now.

“Charlie and Nerissa, I assume.”

“Yes mam!” Charlie declares. Nerissa simply nods.

“I do not know how educators handled tardiness at your last schools, but this one does not tolerate them.”

“It's our first day, cut us a break, man.”

“Does life ‘cut breaks’?”

“It should.”

“You seem very opinionated…”

“Charlie.” She fills in.

“You seem very opinionated, Charlie. Perhaps you would like to taketh class through the icebreakers. And Nerissa, you may introduce yourself next. I'm certain that the class will be intrigued to hear about Greece. You are the exchange student, yes?”

And so her inconspicuousness expires.

“I'm not an exchange student, I've moved to this country.”

“Well then, you should pay extra close attention to how tardiness and discipline work here.

Things are going splendidly already.

.oOo.

The new girl, she concludes, is shy. Shy and quiet to a point where Cassidy wonders if she only speaks Greek with a sprinkle of English phrases here and there. She touches her hair a lot, and she has an abundance of it. She runs her fingers through it or wraps strands of it around her pointer. And so far their conversation hasn’t gotten much further than.“You’re from Greece, right?” A lowering of a novel—just enough to peak over it and a nod. An “I’m Cassidy.” And one more nod.

But she has closed the book and put it to the side.

“Do you want to come eat lunch with me and my friends?” She jabs her thumb in the direction of her usual lunch table, the one under the ash tree.

The girl follows the direction of Cassidy’s finger with her eyes, seeming to study the rest of the group. She locks eyes with Yan Lin who flashes her a huge grin and waves. Hesitantly the new girl lifts her own hand and returns it.

“See, they’re friendly. We’re basically this school’s welcome committee. Unofficial.” Cassidy declares. “It’s better than sitting all by yourself.” But maybe the girl likes it that way—Lisa Paige Allan prefers to be alone with her paintset.

The new girl presses her lips together and stares at her book. As quietly as the rest of their conversation has gone, she gets to her feet and Cassidy is certain that she is going to pick up her book and skitty on out.

Instead she makes her way towards the ash tree.

Kadma, Yan Lin, and Halinor are already quite deep into looking over each other’s class schedules. Something that Cassidy had been trying to get them to look at well before the school year actually started. If for no other reason than to open a discussion about the school's state of the art copy machine and how far journalism has come in such a short time.

She slides her own class schedule onto the table skims over the papers. “Oh! Looks like we have literature and history together too, Yan Lin. And Halinor is with us for literature.” She peers at Kadma’s schedule. Aside from lunch, it would seem that she only has one class with them. And it is the only one that she doesn’t share with Halinor—math.”

“Well I guess that lunch is the only class where all of us will be together.” Kadma shrugs.

Yan Lin frowns at her own schedule. “None of you signed up for band!”

“That’s my favor to this whole school.” Kadma crosses her arms.

“Well I’ll be all alone. Bummer.”

The new girl reaches down and into her bag, fishes out a fair sized wooden case, and puts it onto the table. Cassidy watches her fumble with the latches for a few seconds before she turns the case around to reveal a flute.

“Oh! You signed up for band?” Yan Lin asks.

The new girl nods.

“That’s a flute, right?” Kadma asks.

“It is.” She replies, brushing her fingers over the metal as though it is some fragile thing. Cassidy watches her dig around lunchbox. Cassidy isn’t sure exactly what the dish is but it is wrapped in grape leaves, contains rice and some type of meat, and it smells rather amazing.

Cassidy’s own lunch isn’t particularly impressive aside from the sandwich that her mother cut for her in the shape of a star. Other than that she has whatever packaged snacks that she had swiped from the pantry in her rush to get to school.

“I’d love to learn to play an instrument. I don’t know which one I would be good at though.” Cassidy muses.

“Would you even have time?” Halinor asks curtly. Cassidy doesn’t think that the girl means to be so cutting, it just sort of happens now and then. Sometimes she realizes it and softens it with something like, “I mean you said that you were interested in trying both journalism and an art extra-curricular.” Most of the time she just makes it worse in the end. “You have so many interests, it would probably be a good idea to just focus on one. Ya know, so you can master it.”

“Maybe I don’t want to be a master. Maybe I want to be the journalist with the best painting skills.”

At this Yan Lin laughs. And the conversation carries on like that. With each of them discussing their extra curricular goals. Each of them save for the new girl who seems more interested in her meal and the swishing of the tree canopy. If she has any goals of her own she doesn’t cut in to mention them and she has nothing to say of their choices.

Maybe she really hasn’t learned English yet; Η φόνισσα is scrawled on the cover of her book. But that can’t be it, she seemed to follow the conversation just fine.

So maybe that is just how she is; a quiet woman who would rather be silent sitting next to someone or several someones than sit in perfect quietude by herself.

Or maybe she is trying to learn the mechanics of their conversation and the dynamics of their group before deciding to part take.

It could be simpler still; nobody had expressly asked the new girl for her opinion. It could be that the girl is just trying to be polite.

Kadma takes one last bite of her apple and tosses it into the wastebin. “I suppose we should start heading in.”

“Oh yeah, I can’t be late for Mrs. Sharppa’s class again. “She said that I would lose a whole letter grade if I did.” Halinor grimaces. One glance at the watch on her wrist puts a haste into the gathering of her belongings. “Thank you for lunch, Yan Lin, you’re the best and your parents are amazing cooks.” She shrugs her bag over her shoulder and sprints towards the school with a “Peace, love, and granola!” from Yan Lin to send her off.

“See you inside, Cassidy.” Kadma says.

“For sure!”

Yan Lin is the next to stand. She tucks her orange-tinted sunglasses back into their case and puts it in the breast pocket of her overalls. “After school?”

“Usual time.” Cassidy confirms. And with that it is just she and the new girl who has already tucked her flute case back into her bag and has taken to fidgeting with the charm on her necklace, watching it slide back and forth on the chain.

“Well thank you for having lunch with us.”

The new girl parts her lips.

Cassidy gives her a little nod. “Well I’m heading to class then.”

“Can I sit here tomorrow?”

Cassidy grins. “Of course!”

And maybe tomorrow Cassidy can ask her what her name is.

#w.i.t.c.h.#c.h.y.k.n.#w.i.t.c.h. nerissa #w.i.t.c.h. cassidy #w.i.t.c.h. kadma #w.i.t.c.h. halinor #w.i.t.c.h. yan lin #fanfiction

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bellatrixobsessed1 · 9 months ago

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The Hemorraging Aether

Summary: Nerissa never wanted to be anything more than what she was. Just a girl with no goals and no intention of forming any. But she has been given remarkable powers regardless. Powers that have enamored her so fully that she can't imagine going back to an ordinary life. And so she consumes quintessence, becomes quintessence.

She was normal back then.

She was quiet.

Mostly she kept to herself.

The evening is quiet, charming, tranquil. Most of them are in her little corner of the world. Usually they close in watercolor shades of orange, yellow, and pink. Back then, when she was just a little girl, she had a bedroom that gave her a view of the Aegean Sea. She had always liked watching the boats pull into Katapola’s port, liked imagining from where they had come and where they would go next. Her father liked to ruffle her barely tamed curls and mutter, “Rissy you tell quite a good story.”

And then one day he had gone out to sea on a ship called ‘Glaucus’ and never came back. It isn’t that he hadn’t wanted to come back. In fact, she imagines that he was desperate to do so.

She had written a lot of stories about a lot of ships. Where they had gone, where they will go, what the crew looks like and how they interact with each other…

She knows where the Glaucus was heading, her father had told her. But she does not know where it had gone to. The rescue crew couldn’t figure it out either. And so she had written a story and then another and another after that. The endings were tragic.

Her mother simply couldn’t take it.

Now she has a meadow facing bedroom, somewhere in America, with billowing magenta curtains and a plush bay window cushion. Beneath which was a shelf full of books and an arrangement of art supplies that her aunt had gifted her to lift her spirits.

Mostly the brushes and pencils had go untouched in favor of the music sheets and her flute. She likes to play with the window open and the breeze in her hair. Something about the wind sweeping up the notes and carrying them down the hillside, through plumes of dandelion seeds is enchanting. On these days she can imagine dancing in the clouds with mother and father. On these days she is able to imagine touching the skies, can picture herself in worlds distant and parallel. If only she could know that she will get to those places in due time.

.oOo.

Yan Lin smells like home, Cassidy thinks. Like smoke and her family’s restaurant and Cassidy couldn’t imagine her smelling any other way. She wouldn’t be Yan Lin if she didn’t smell like takeout—it is her pride and joy. And she is a master with a kitchen knife, a real culinary genius with her own sense of style and it is absolutely radical, as far out as fashion gets. She loves her peace sign necklaces and flower crowns. Her bell-bottom jeans and her very daring crop tops. Her hair beads and bright colors.

Cassidy is a fan of vivid colors herself. Vivid colors and shimmery fabrics, anything that can catch the disco lights. They’re a good team, she and Yan Lin. Just two space cadets with heads full of dreams and hearts full of love.

Yan Lin dreams of running away, being free like the wind. Going to a place where conflicts can’t reach and, perhaps, don’t exist at all. Cassidy dreams of success, of becoming one of those pop girls singing through a spinning vinyl. She doesn’t just want to listen to cassettes, she wants her voice on them. Wants her voice playing through speakers at the discos.

This, she decides, will be her year. She will no longer be a closet disco queen, but the real deal. A fab, funky gal who won’t be forgotten.

“I think that we should just cut out and leave right now.” Yan Lin suggests.

“Oh come on, you don’t even want to give high school a try?”

“Not at all.” Yan Lin replies. “There are better things to do. We can fight for the New Right, the environment. We can continue what our parents were fighting for when we were in grade school.”

“They were in college, Yan Lin. We’re fresh outta’ middle school. What are we going to do to save the world?”

“Well nothing if we trap ourselves in that joint.” She sighs. “We barely made it out of middle school. We were dorks then…”

“Exactly!” Cassidy delcaress. “That’s just us, a putz and a spaz.” She throws her arm over Yan Lin’s shoulder. “We survived middle school, and we’ll survive high school together.”

And then they’ll change the world. Somehow, they will. She just knows it.

.oOo.

“Check out these threads, Kadma!” Halinor exclaims. The girl is practically vibrating with excitement. She has been planning her outfit for weeks now. And she has settled on a wide-sleeved mini-dress with a soft floral print. Oranges and golds have always gone nicely with her hair. But today she picks something soft pink and brown to match those fuchsia gogo boots that her mom used to wear. Gold hoop earrings and small, round-framed sunglasses—rose-tinted to complete the look. “Out of sight, right!?”

“Who are you trying to impress?” Kadma asks. “The new girl?”

Halinor crinkles her nose. “What? No! I’m not trying to impress anyone…” She pauses to apply her lip gloss. “But if I were trying to impress someone it would be Charlie.”

“Buckthorn?”

Halinor flops down onto her bed and swoons. “The one and only.”

Kadma rolls her eyes. “He’s so generic though.”

“Maybe I like generic.” Halinor replies.

“I’d feel better if you were trying to impress the new girl.”

“Yeah that…we’re all going to be new girls. Hello, freshmen, remember.”

Kadma shrugs. “Okay but, I heard that one of our classmates is from Albania or Malta, or Greece or something.”

“And you moved here from India three summers ago, what’s your point?”

“Just that it’ll be nice to not be known as the new girl, you dig? I’ve been here for three years and I’m still that new girl from a ‘strange’ foreign country. I get tired of hearing it. The only reason they stopped making fun of my accent is because…”

“Your dad’s a famous astronomer?”

“Because I talk to you and no one wants to mess with Halinor.”

Halinor cringes. “That was middle school, Kadma. This is high school that we’re talking about. They have their own popular girls who are probably…I don’t know…”

“Well I’m just glad that I won’t be the new girl anymore.” She picks up a large crystal necklace. “How does this look?”

“Groovy, Kadma.” Halinor smiles. “Just slammin’.” She leaps off of the bed. “You know, that’s what I like about you, Kadma. You know how to rock the hippie look.”

Hopefully it’ll be enough to take them through high school and beyond. Halinor has never been good at with thinking in the long term, anything beyond high school seems so fantastical. Unreachable.

.oOo.

Back then, when she was still a girl standing on a Katapola dock, Nerissa hadn’t really any wishes for change, no higher goals, nor a need to move on. Frankly she had been content to remain stagnant, to keep her spot by the window and her view of the Aegean Sea until the day that she would die.

She still doesn’t long for something grandness. Truth be told, the pressures of grandness and extravagance are daunting. Enough is almost more than enough, is almost too much.

She picks up her flute.

She brings it to her lips.

But there is nothing that she’d like to play.

Sometimes—most of the time these days, she stares blankly at the rolling fields wondering what Katapola looks like now, what kind of ships tether to its docks. She props her chin in her hands and imagines the Glaucus. Dreams of it sailing gently towards New York City. Mostly because that seems more likely than the ship pulling up to Rhode Island of all places. She dreams of her father stepping onto the pier. She thinks of anything but her first day of high school. American high school.

And now that the day has arrived, she regrets having put no thought into it at all. She could have at least thought of what to wear. Something that won’t have her spending lunch alone for the rest of the year. Bell bottoms, fringe, and bright colors are in, at least that’s what the magazines say, the ones that talk about disco and boho-chic.

But Nerissa is more for earthy tones and high-waisted pants, hair beads and mood rings.

And she isn’t sure that she is even reading the right magazines.

She bites the inside of her cheek, just how different can’t American fashion be? She plucks a pair of high-waisted pants from a hanger, the ones that happen to be bell bottoms too. She holds them against her waist and frowns. Maybe she should go for the boho-chic look; she isn’t certain that she wants to have a run in with the hippie crowd, her aunt has made it quite clear that that lot is troublesome. “It’s all those drugs and all of that ‘free-loving’, if you know what I mean.” Nerissa had nodded yes but, truthfully she only had a faint idea or two. “And that music! Oh, it’s God-awful. Isn’t it, dear?” Nerissa had nodded her agreement to that as well, despite never hearing a single ‘hippie’ song. Her aunt likes swing music and old patriotic wartime tunes.

And what does she like?

Sometimes she doesn’t know.

She used to want to be a sailor like her father. She also, at one point, wanted to be in a soap commercial. Perhaps she simply doesn’t have any dreams. No ambitions at all. And maybe that is why her aunt isn’t so fond of her these days.

More than anything, Nerissa just wants to get by. She wants to pass through life so quietly that she eludes its cruelties. Yes, Nerissa decides, that is what she wants…

Nothing at all.

Simplicity.

To be entirely unremarkable.

And so she dresses herself in those earth tones, those high waisted pants, and the most unremarkable, perhaps unflattering, linen blouse that she can pair with them. The blouse that reminds her the most of home in its threadwork and pattern. She grabs her flute and her over the shoulder bag, and the lunch that she had prepared the night before–a sandwich with raspberry and peach jam, a bag of grapes, and a danish ring or two—and she makes her way to the door.

The sun is shining but it is cloudy and the clouds are peculiar. There is something electric in them, perhaps the making of the storm. The way that they are haloed, prismatic with pastel rainbow outlines. The birds are lively this morning and she can smell sea-salt in the air, carried miles upon miles inland from the coast. Nerissa calls a goodbye to her aunt and uncle and closes the gate behind her.

She wishes that they would drive her instead of leaving her to bike for several miles, on roads and sidewalks she is far less than familiar with. She spares one last glance back at the gate, it has come open again but she doesn’t go back to shut it. And so it flaps in a breeze that is steadily intensifying. There is a hum, a soft vibration that seems to set the world off-kilter. It is something that she can’t quite place, etched into the insides of petals and hidden within the rustling of the canopy. A soft song that she finds herself humming along with or playing on her flute when she gets home.

She supposes that she has always felt it, ever since she was little. Ever since she had taken a fall from father’s boat and caught a glimpse of something else. Something higher. Something strange and incomprehensible that sometimes resurfaces in flashes in the dreamscape. Something that she only understands for the duration of the dream.

Dreams.

She would like to stay there. To create a world of her own.

Where nothing hurts and everything is soft.

She pedals harder. Faster. But she can’t outpace that subtle frequency. That dull charge in the air. That feeling that something is amiss. She rounds the corner. Suddenly, immersing herself in the clamor and chaos of high school seems much more pleasant. Much more in line with her desire to remain lackluster and unassuming.

Sometimes the world hums and vibrates.

Sometimes the world talks to her.

She can’t quite make out what it wants to tell her.

What it wants to show her.

The wind whips through her hair as she pedals over puddles, wheels distort a reflection that is already in a way distorted. By the time it settles, her wings are gone.

Nerissa is good at ignoring signs that she does not want to see.

#w.i.t.c.h.#c.h.y.k.n.#w.i.t.c.h. nerissa #nerissa #cassidy #halinor #kadma #yan lin #fanfiction

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