Nihil~

I'm still falling. The ground is much closer. It couldn't be more than a hundred feet away. I snap my wings open, curving into an air drift. It spirals my close to a beach. The sand is soft under my feet, and the water sparkles. I hear someone approach.

"Who are you?" the gentle voice inquires.

~ 

Sage [CONTAINS ENDGAME SPOILERSISH]~

Something I have learned within my lifetime: you can only beat Super Mario Bros so many times before it gets boring. Also: if you barge into your touchy introverted sister's room while she's reading the end to a sad book, she will likely scream at you and throw something at you. So!

"SOREN! Do we have any cookies?" I yell through the backdoor (Soren went down the hill and to the Chatterbox section of her brain, where we can make posts.)

"NO, you ate them all yesterday!" she screams back.

Right, I did.

GAH! 

I wanna do something FUN, something I wouldn't do every other day I want fun. 

...And then I just get this crazy idea.

I run to my room, grab my white Converse (I have a neon rainbow of converse, because if you don't wear Converse, you don't have a life.), and get a black Sharpie. I plop down on my bed. As I think, I put the Sharpie cap in-between my teeth, and then my brain just starts thinking about Marvel.

Marvel! Comics? Books? Something deep? Nah. I don't do deep. 

Far From Home. Endgame.

**GASP!**

ENDGAME.

I fumble with the left shoe. On the left side, the side that faces out, I carefully write "I am inevitable..."

Then, on the right shoe, I write in big, bold letters, "AND I AM IRON MAN."

I'm gonna wear them every day.  

Sea Glass~

It is time.

I don't know what to wear. Would the things I wear to the beach be appropriate for the forest? I try on far too many combinations of various garments before giving up and seeking out Viola? for help.

"Try this," she says, pulling out a soft green shirt and capri pants the color of tree bark from my closet. "You can probably go barefoot--you do that a lot anyway, and the path to the beach is sort of like the woods."

She exits my room while I change, and looks me over upon re-entering. She smiles suddenly, looking directly into my eyes.

"Let me braid your hair!

"A-all right...?"

She waves me over to the center of my carpet and sits me down before moving behind me to gather up my hair. She murmurs softly as she begins.

"I think it'd be cool to have a braid of three braids, so I'm going to be very careful with dividing your hair this first time... I'm not going to make it too tight, but you let me know if something's pinching, okay?"

It does not take particularly long, but it is exceedingly strange. I move my head experimentally when she finishes, pull the braid over my shoulder, peer at my reflection in my mirror. 

"It'll probably start to come out in a few hours, so expect a few stray hairs, but the elastic should hold the better part of it," Viola? tells me. She pauses, smiles again, and adds, "You look great."

With those words of confidence, I walk out of the house. The familiar grasses, weeds and wildflowers greet me, bobbing tall above twigs, dirt and stones. Clumps of trees rise above them, scattering the ground with leaves and cast-off seed husks. As I approach the forest proper, however, I am unable to bleed the uncertainty out of my step. 

~Sea Glass is following up on that invitation! It's been considerably longer than three days out here, but whatever. 

Eden, Koi, and Riley would love to join you on your beach adventure, Fleet! And Artimerrx! 

Oh that’s right, Sebastian and Jericho are joining the beach party too. I’ll see you all soon! Have fun. 

Eden- 

Beaches are mostly nice, it’s just the last time I went to one, I burned all these diaries that were really important to me. Though, I haven’t regretted the choice, it lingers with me from time to time.   

Trying to push the negativity away, I go to my closet to pick out a bathing suit. My winter clothes, (which I have a lot more of), are still at the front of the closet so I have to shove my way through the tiny space and find where I keep my bathing suits.

   Finally, by the time I find them hanging up way in the back, I’m pulling some sort elaborate stretch that involves my torso inbetween two very large plastic boxes and my legs are just hanging out of my closet, feet are almost touching the ground and my tail is sort of moving everywhich way as I try and find a comfortable position for my bottom half.  

I blindly grab at what feels like a bikini and a one piece bathing suit, but before I am released from the grasp of my closet, I hear footsteps, a familiar laugh, and Riley says

“I guess you could say you’re in the closet” Riley chuckles at his own terrible joke.

I reply with “I couldn’t say the same for you.”.

Riley goes quiet and leaves my room. I worm my out of that wooden prison and I lay the two bathing suits out on my bed.  I didn’t realize how small the one piece is, plus it’s neon green. Not something I want to wear to today. I snatch up the black bikini and get dressed.

   Once I’m dressed I put my hair up in a high ponytail and grab a pastel yellow towel. When I get down stairs my brothers are already dressed. Before I can say anything, they both attack me with spray sunscreen.  “We got you so good!” Riley says then high fives a very guilty looking Koi.

“Sorry, it was R-Riley’s idea”. 

“It’s fine buddy, you’re only 13 and Riley’s an extremely controlling 18 year old over lord.”I say, I smile at Koi and give Riley a death glare.

Riley~ 

Eden gives me a death glare that could terrify any villain for years. Once her amber glare lets me free I open the door and feel the sun touch my chocolate skin. The weather hasn’t been this nice since last May. Eden follows me and her tan skin shines in the light, most of the shine is coming from the sunscreen Koi and I drenched her in, though.  

Koi timidly emerges wearing a red baseball cap which hides his face even more than his hair. He’s wearing a white and blue striped swim shirt and blue swim trunks. He has to be as protected as he can his skin is so pale.  

“Shotgun!” Eden yells and jumps right into the passenger seat.

“You need to practice driving as much as you can Eddie.”.  

“Oh shush!”, she replies taking out her phone and taking a series of seflies and trying to sneakily taking pictures of Koi and I.  Koi ducks around Eden’s evil phone aim by jumping, sprinting, and doing a series of stretching and leaping maneuvers.  He safely lands in the back seat and hides himself with a blue towel.  

Koi-~ 

When we arrive, I gulp and stare into the ocean, “it can’t be that bad” I think. I can feel my eyes get bigger. The ocean is beautiful, it reminds me of someone I can’t really think of  who.  “AH!”, I’m jumpscared by WILD CARD jumping out of the water and shooting Enigma with a water gun.  I walk onto the beach and weakly kick the sand into the ocean. 

“HA! Watch out nerd!”  I hear Eden attack someone, I turn around and see that she’s successfully tackled Sebastian into water. 

Jericho was next to them in the water when the attack took place and was now complaining about being splashed and cursing under his breath.  

“Take a joke” Sebastain says to Jericho while lifting up Eden and throwing her into a oncoming wave.  

I’m having a wonderful time watch this play out, but then I feel strong wrap around my waist and them lifting me up, I look down and see Riley carrying me over his head and running into the water. “OH MY GOSH PUT ME DOWN YOU DARN DOG I HATE YOU I NEVER ASKED TO BE YOUR BROTHER I SWEAR-“ . I’m thrown into a huge wave and get a a huge amount of salt in my nose. 

When I’m washed up onto the shore I’m in tears.

I hate waves. 

Hey, Nihil is also on the beach, go bother her! *Looks around to make sure Nihil doesn't hear* That post is three posts above yours.

Nihil~

I look up. Jericho, Artimerrx's AE, stands before me, an inquisitive look in his eyes. I also stand. For a second, my eyes focus on something past Jericho. "Watch out." I point. Jericho turns just in time to cause his brother, Sebastion, to barrel past him at full speed. Sebastion trips and rockets into the sand. Jericho looks back to me.

"Thanks for that." He smiles, the rainbow half of his face alight in the sun.

~

Nihil may be indifferent, but she is not cruel. :) 

Topping with a post

Levana~

Luna started a chat thread. I think her goal is to torture me. Tantilizing, with a hand wagging a deecent social life above my head.

And then there's the issue of my attitude of late. Why have I been so snippy? I 've been shaming myself for the past few days, but the words that tumble out of my usually ever-so-cautious mouth are sharp. They cut my tongue. The pain makes me see what I've said. Oh Claaws, why is it so hard to deal with other AEbeings?

True, when I thinking of them, my instant reaction is to recoil. I want nothing to do with big gatherings- far too easy to be judged. Yet Dewdrop usually feels the same way, but she has a perfect attendance record for AE Balls. 

I've convinced myself that the larger portion of the AE population would think of me as "unpopular", but really, I should start reminding myself that most AEs don't look around a room and sort out the tiers of the social hierarchy. And that I am not necessarily at the bottom, even if this did exist. Truly, the way I see the interactions of us AEs isn't quite how it really is.

I blink. I've been sitting on my bed, staring at a lilac-colored wall for several minutes. Lost in my head again- this happens extremely often, just when I'm not doing anything, or when I'm trying to write a poem. Or just anytime, my brain is rather fond of internal tangents and detours. 

But. Back to the chat thread. I should really try to... seize the chance to converse when the opportunity presents itself. I'm not very keen on it, not because I wouldn't know what to say, or because I would stutter. Rather, I feel that keeping in my 'zone' is safer than venturing into the thickets of interpersonal conversation. I mean, I've been fine with only Dewy, Luna, Boo, and my own head as friends. And perhaps Sage, too. Perhaps. When she's not making me lose my mind.

I get up, hardly even noticing that I do. I run a finger gently over a string on my violin (I named her Rosalyn, but Sage mustn't know that she has a name at all, I'd be teased dreafully). 

Really, it's not bad. I dramatize this whole petty predicament. I doubt many others would obsess over a chat thread this much. I sigh. I need air.

I pop open the door to my room, stride down the hall and through the living room, then throw open the sliding back door. I breathe in deeply, looking out at a sinking golden sun. I'm so usedto this spectacular, verdant view that I don't quite apprectiate how gorgeous it really is. 

I lean against the door frame. My eyes wander to the path leading to our Chatterbox section. I sigh again. I'll make a post on the chat thread later.

~Kudos to you if you read this all, I'm looking at this and I can totally tell that she's my AE with all of that disorganized ranting about lacking good social skills. 

Rhaksha~

I lay on my bed, feeling bored, which isn't like me usually. I grunt and get up, digging through my dressar drawer to find a swimsuit to go to the beach. Finally I manage to unearth a black tankini patterned with white swirls. I grab a huge gray towel and a pair of black flip flops and head downswtairs. I find Nyx, Vivian and Khione in the living room, looking even more bored than I was.
"I'm going down to the beach, are you guys coming?" I ask. Nyx gives me a quizzical look, but then she nods, and the three of them dissapear into their rooms. a few moments later, the come back down, Nyx wearing a magenta one-piece swimsuit and carrying three huge gray towels, Vivian wearing a blue-and-aquamarine tankini patterned with swirls, and Khione dressed in a glaring rainbow one-piece with no apparent pattern. Vivian and I unearth our surfboards from the closet, and Nyx and Khione, being not as good at swimming, bring out their boogie-boards, plus several mega-waterguns. We pack the towels, waterguns, and some snacks and water bottles into a big red bag, and tie it all to a small trailer that we hitch to the back of Nyx's bike. Rid ing down to the beach, I notice that Fleet and her AEs Glass, Enigma, and WILD CARD, Nihil, Rogue Wildling's AE, and several others I don't recognize are already there. We drop our bag and boards well back from the water, and head towards the other AEs.