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Raven Among Crows
This is something I wrote forever ago for a class but I figured I could put it here, It may not be the best, but I’m satisfied with it.
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Lourraine unconsciously shrunk in on herself, the jeering laughs around her seemed like they were concentrated on her, instead of the poor soul her friends had targeted. This constant fear was starting to get tiring.
“P-please.” The pixie pleaded. A little thing really. Pale, with some of the brightest red hair Lourraine had ever seen. “Don’t hurt me.”
The pixie’s bright blue, diamond shaped irises alighted on her’s and Lourraine had to tighten her fists. She comforted both herself and the pixie by reassuring herself that her friends wouldn’t hurt the pixie. Pixies were highly empathetic, so the bullies could think as many violent thoughts towards her and overwhelm her, but so long they didn’t cross any lines she would be fine.
“I don’t know,” Nickolas, the unspoken leader started, “I heard that wings cost a pretty penny these days.” He rested a foot on the small girl’s back, directly between the delicate wings.
Lourraine’s heart seemed to stutter in sync with the wings, the thought of that beautiful kaleidoscope being forcefully ripped off the girl’s back momentarily knocking her out of breath.
“Guys.” Somehow, she kept her voice steady, so much for those aforementioned lines. “It isn’t worth it. Leave the thing alone.”
Nickolas and the rest of the group turned to her, and Lourraine resisted the urge to hunch in on herself, or to check on her ears. Instead she held their gazes unflinchingly.
Nickolas sighed. “I suppose you’re right, come on guys.”
The pixie seemed to be saying thank you with her eyes.
---
Lourraine didn’t often fall asleep in class, but when she did, it was always suddenly and heavily. She had always likened it to an enchanted sleep.
It was cold in the forest, or at least what appeared to be a forest. It was so realistic, Lourraine had to remind herself that this was just a figment of her imagination, the chill settling into her, bone deep.
“If you believe in yourself, the cold might prove to be less of a problem than it actually is.”
“Who’s there?”
Lourraine felt a tap on her shoulder and she whirled around. She was expecting to find a lot, but for some reason coming face to face to a man that couldn’t have been older than her didn’t include itself in the list of possibilities.
“You can call me Kura.” He gave her a warm smile, despite the harsh weather. He was pale, and his dark hair only served to intensify it, his dark clothing seemed to have the same purpose, all blues and purples and the occasional red, though he was wearing nothing that could be counted as warm in the winter. His eyes were the palest blue she had ever seen, almost white in their intensity, it made Lourraine self-conscious of her own brown eyes
“Hi?”
Another warm smile. “You can be quite fierce when you want to be.”
Lourraine gaped at the man, Kura, momentarily. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about your independency.” Like that was the most obvious thing in the world. “It’s obvious you can support yourself, you are your own person with your own personality and values and yet you decide to depend on those you call your ‘friends’. Like a sheep following the herd because it doesn’t know any better.”
“That’s not…”
“Not what? The truth of the matter? We mythological creatures have been oppressed by humans the entirety of our existence, we have learned to put aside our differences and stand together for our rights and yet here is a Fae. Half-human you may be, Fae blood still runs in your veins and you are standing with the humans despite your own desires.”
“What do you know of my desires?” An admittedly stupid question to ask a figment of her imagination, but she could care less at the moment.
Kura shrugged. “Perhaps nothing or maybe I know more than you’d think. My only role here is to help you be truthful to yourself. To acknowledge the person you want to be, instead of the person your ‘friends’ want you to be.”
Lourraine clenched her fists, this guy was so annoyingly cryptic and yet… ”Why do you even care?”
“All snowflakes fall under my domain, it`s my duty to help them, it brings me pleasure to see them thriving.”
Her brows furrowed in confusion. “I’m not a snowflake.”
“No. But like them you’re unique, and I would hate for that to be stripped from you.”
“Thanks for caring, I guess.” She said aloud, underneath her breath however, “what a weird dream.”
Kura chuckled. “Whoever said it was a dream?”
“What?” Lourraine abruptly shot up in her seat, the wintery forest gone from her senses. All that remained was the hard seat of her chair and the sudden attention of her classmates and teacher. She sank back in her seat. “Sorry.”
---
Nickolas was bullying the poor pixie again. It was becoming worse, Lourraine could tell. When she had shown up, she could spy a bruise staining the delicate skin of the pixie’s cheek.
Nickolas laughed uproariously. “How weak, and to think that humans once feared your kind.” Lourraine glanced away at the remark, she was ashamed to admit that sometimes she wished for those days again.
Lourraine gritted her teeth. Those days were long gone and yet the words of her manifested dream persona kept ringing in her ears.
Nickolas suddenly grinned and planted his foot in the middle of the pixie’s back, to both of their surprise, and gripped one of the colorful wings. “How about this? A sign that humans have nothing to fear and my next allowance.”
The pixie cried out. “No! Please, anything but that! Please, I’ll do anything!”
But to Lourraine’s mounting horror, Nickolas only grinned wider and started gently tugging. Thankfully, pixie wings were stronger than they looked, but that still must have caused incredible pain.
“Stop! Nickolas, she gets it! That’s far enough!” Lourraine almost surprised herself by shouting in defense of the pixie, but her words rang true in her own heart. It was enough.
He only chuckled in response. “I’ll decide when it’s enough.”
The pixie screaming only worsened her anxiety and within the next second something within her had snapped.
“Stop!” Her shout, augmented by sudden wind was nearly deafening. Nickolas was pushed away violently from the pixie by a sudden flurry of hail.
Nickolas gaped at her, eyes shooting to her revealed pointed ears before meeting her glaring eyes, ignoring the sudden downpour of rain indoors, a fact neither seemed to notice or care for at the moment.
“You?” He matched her glare with one his own when recovered from the shock. “I trusted you and all this time you were one of them?”
“That’s right. And now I’m telling you to back off, before we both do something we’re going to regret.”
Nickolas faltered, looking up at the indoor storm and suddenly scoffed, stomping away. “Whatever.”
Lourraine sighed, before turning to the crying pixie. “Hey, are you okay?”
The pixie suddenly launched herself at Lourraine, burying her head into her chest and sobbing for all that she was worth. “Thank you. Thank you so much.’
“Don’t worry, it’s going to be okay now. My name is Lourraine, what’s yours?”
“Nala.”
It was a bit difficult to understand at first, with the sobbing, but she understood well enough. “Nala. That’s a pretty name.”
When Lourraine looked up she could have sworn she saw a pale shadow with dark clothing.