Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Distorted Cages - A Poem

Title is kind of crappy :( Ignore it, I couldn't come up with a better one. Here's another poem. I swear I'll have a happy one up soon! But read this for now. Haven't been able to write poetry since my poem spam last month. It feels good to write like this again.
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Rusted, locked up bird cages
Breeding places for old rages
The glowing light seems so surreal
Death has already closed the deal
While broken hearts steadily bleed
Betrayal plants a sullen seed

The pressure tears at happy minds
And individuality meets its binds
Heartless jailers stand alone
Trapped in silent jails of their own
Humans are sheep, with gods as herders
You never forget the eyes of a murderer

Good reasons don’t exist anymore
The only ones given are sad and poor
There isn’t anything worth anything left
“Death” will always rhyme with “breath”
The clock is running out of precious time
And everyone is guilty of the same crime

The longest word used to be “smile”
But now it doesn’t stretch a mile
It doesn’t stretched out of sight
And crumbles under the weakest might
A pathetic, worthless, melancholy gesture
It only helps old wounds fester

It’s ridiculous how pathetic we are
We don’t take care of the land we scar
So many now have nowhere to go
Choking to death in the endless snow
Even if tears are shed
Blood will still always run red

Cruelness is so easily shown
Nobody has a good thought to loan
There is no significance in a single tear
And every day is lived in fear
Mechanical laughter and brainwashed thoughts
Has anyone even considered the cost?

Is this what we are, so blatantly conceited?
The human spirit is so defeated
Is this the definition of a good world?
It’s a place where evil plots are easily furled
Rain and petals float softly to the ground
Just cover your ears – block out the sound

A broken person doesn’t speak
Once strong thoughts become weak
There is no border between hope and despair
Dreams are torn down without a care
The gates have finally swung tightly closed
The final song has been composed

Through a distorted lens, a perfect world is seen
People go on what they just barely glean
Incorrectly, a criminal is hung
The dead sing what can’t be sung
It doesn’t matter how loud you cry
We still don’t know what it takes to fly

Sunday, November 6, 2011

The Adventures of Holly Quill and a Penguin: Part One

Well, here's the first part of a side fanfiction revolving around my OC, Holly. She doesn't get much love. I mean, Soot at least had a cameo appearance in "Pushing Up Daisies", which Thalia is featured in, but NO HOLLY. So I decided to introduce her with a bang. Well, not really a "bang", more like a rampaging rhino and a crazy penguin. In Australia.
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For some odd reason, Holly wasn’t very surprised when she found herself clinging to the back of a rampaging rhino for dear life on a Tuesday.  There was just something about Tuesdays.

All the zoo-goers were running around screaming.  Or, at least the adults were.  Holly felt sorry for them, somewhere under her feeling of ‘Holy bananas I’m riding a rhino oh my God oh my God.’  The kids were all either laughing like maniacs, standing there like idiots with their mouths open, or bursting into spazz dances of terror.  It was amusing.

The rhino, which Holly had named Rick Riordan the Raged Rampaging Rhino (Tiddlywinks for short), roared.  It sounded like a freight train.  A very angry, rhinoceros-y freight train.  Holly wasn’t entirely sure it was a real rhino.  Tiddlywinks may very well have been a monster in the disguise of a rhino.

“Should’ve listened to Sharon and bought that book on magical beasts,” Holly grumbled to herself.  “Then I’d know if this stupid thing was real or not.”

Apparently, Tiddlywinks did not appreciate being called ‘stupid’.  It came to a sudden, screeching halt, bucking its rear end into the air.  Holly was too busy thinking about what books she should read to find out more about magical creatures when she got home and didn’t notice herself go flying into the air.  Only when she reached the height of her arch and was upside down did Holly realize that she was no longer clinging to Tiddlywinks’s armored back.  The next realization was that she was flying.  Holly just had time to think ‘Look Ma, no hands!’ before she went crashing into the icy water of the penguin enclosure.

Anyone who has ever gone flying face first into the pool in a penguin enclosure knows that it feels rather like belly-flopping onto concrete.  Very cold, wet concrete.  But as most people had probably not ever done such a thing and didn’t know what it felt like, Holly considered herself to be special, as only a couple unlucky souls in all of history had probably been doomed to share her fate.  In fact, she might have even been the only one.

“I’m the Chosen One!” Holly shouted, but the fact that she was still underwater made her ridiculous claim sound only like a bunch of bubbly gurgling.  Realizing her mistake, Holly used the water to guide herself to the surface.  Her head broke the surface, and she gulped at the air ravenously.  Holly let the water push her to the edge of the pool, as her hair was plastered all over her face and made seeing rather difficult.  If she just tried to swim, she’d probably end up drowning.

Holly dragged herself onto the dry, rocky, blessedly solid ground.  Tiddlywinks was still causing anarchy, but that could wait until Holly had caught her breath.  After she had regained feeling in her limbs, Holly moved her hands around ridiculously in the air.  The water evaporated from her clothes and hair, leaving her contently dry.  She didn’t need to move her hands like that, but it was fun nonetheless.

Her hand suddenly flew to her face, and she successfully punched herself in her nose.  Sometimes, she wondered if her IQ really was 208.  Maybe there had been a smudge on the result paper and Holly’s IQ was only actually 8.  Sharon always said that whenever Holly managed to get her foot stuck in the leaf blower.  But then again, Sharon was the one who had run screaming around their house with a butcher knife, trying to kill a fruit fly.  Holly’s aunt was strange.  But punching herself had revealed that, yes, Holly was wearing contacts and had left her glasses at home – she hadn’t lost them.

A penguin walked over and pecked Holly’s head.  Holly twitched and glared at the penguin.  “Go away.  I’m not a fish.”

Peck.

Twitch.

Peck.

Twitch.

Peck.

Twitch.

Peck.

Twitch.

Pe-

Raaahhhh!  Stop pecking me!”  Holly flailed back and forth, waving her limbs around like she was having a seizure.  After a few minutes of spazzing, Holly flopped back onto the ground and looked triumphantly at the penguin.

It pecked her again.

“You,” Holly hissed, “are one persistent penguin.”

Peck.

Twitch.

Holly pushed herself to her feet and started looking for a way out of the penguin enclosure.  The persistent penguin followed her around, occasionally pecking her hand.  Holly found a latter, then looked at the penguin and sighed.

“Oh alright.”  She picked it up, tucked it under one arm and scampered up the latter.  She jumped the little fence around the enclosure and walked off whistling, as though screaming people, random penguins, angry rhinos named Tiddlywinks were part of her everyday life.

The ground in front of her exploded.
Holly screamed and fell over as a large chunk of concrete hit her head.  She felt the blood run down her already bruised face, dripping onto her shirt.  When the loud, offending noises and flying bits of road seemed to have come to an end, Holly warily pried her eyes open.  The sky was very blue.

She dragged herself to into a sitting position and held the penguin – which was somehow completely unharmed – in front of her.  “You okay?”

The penguin nodded, which was rather creepy.

There were footsteps – not running footsteps, just footsteps.  They were coming towards Holly, but quite honestly, contemplating the nodding of her penguin was far more interesting than looking up at the person approaching.  She was probably going to get killed like that someday.

“Are you alright?”

The person talked funny, like all the people here in Australia.  Holly looked up and gazed at the person blankly.  It was a young man, probably around twenty five years in age.  He needed a shave, had brown hair, bright green eyes, and a long brown jacket.  He looked completely normal.

Then again, he was holding a gun and was the only person besides Holly who wasn’t having a heart attack right now.

“Are you a mage too?” she asked.  Holly already knew the answer, but she figured asking was politer.

The man smiled.  “Yes, I am.”

Holly nodded.  “Cool.  I’m an Elemental.  I don’t think you are.  Not sure why.  Call it a women’s intuition.  You exploded the road.”

“Of course I did.  It was awesome, for one thing, and there’s a rhino running loose for another.”

“Tiddlywinks.”

“What?”  The man looked confused.

“The rhino is named Tiddlywinks,” Holly said, standing up.  “Well, that’s short for Rick Riordan the Raged Rampaging Rhino.”

“The zoo named a rhino Tiddlywinks.”  The man shook his head.  “What is the world coming to?”

“No, I named the rhinoceros.  What’s your name?  Mine is Holly Quill.  I’ve been referring to you as ‘the man’ in my head, and it’s getting rather troublesome.  I want to know your name.”

The man looked at her skeptically.  “How do I know you aren’t trying to kill me?  Hell, it may well have been you who set ‘Tiddlywinks’ free.”

Holly rolled her eyes.  “I risked brain damage by the road you exploded to protect this annoying penguin, and I’ve just gone for a rodeo ride on the rhino that landed me in a pool of water.  No, I won’t kill you.”

“So we’re on the same side here.”

“Yes.”

“And if I just walk away?”

“I’ll follow you around, singing in horrid Spanish.”

“You’re not leaving me with any choice, are you?”

“That’s not how I operate.”

“Damn.”  The man shook his head and held out his hand.  “Israel Elysium.”

Holly shook Israel’s hand.  “Holly Quill.”

“I know that already.”

“And now you know it again.”

Tiddlywinks roared, surprisingly close.  Holly jumped in the air and screamed, still somehow clinging to her 
penguin.  Israel just whirled around.  The rhino roared again, probably mad at being ignored, and charged.
Israel obviously had more sense than Holly did.  He realized that shooting the horn of a rhino would probably have little to no effect, and that it would take some time for a charging rhinoceros to change course.  He sprinted around the giant hole in the road, well out of Tiddlywinks’s way.  Holly, however, stood there gaping at the rhino and did what most people would have considered to be the stupidest thing in the world – she closed her eyes and held the penguin in front of her for protection.

Surprisingly, the rhino skidded to a halt.  Israel’s jaw dropped.  The rhino seemed to the staring at the penguin and shaking in fear.  Holly opened her eyes, wondering why she hadn’t been impaled yet.

“…Tiddlywinks is scared of my penguin,” she whispered in awe.  She slowly circled around the rhino.  It turned with her, keeping its eyes trained on the penguin.  When Holly advanced, it backed up.  In her peripheral vision, Holly noticed Israel waving his arms back and forth crazily and mouthing something at her.  Unfortunately, he was too far away for her to see what he was trying to communicate.

What?’ she mouthed back.

Israel spazzed some more, mouthing the same thing to her.  She still didn’t get it, never halting her advance on the rhino.  Holly didn’t have to wait long to find out, though, as just then Tiddlywinks fell in the hole in the ground with a loud crash.

Holly blinked in surprise.  “Oh.”

Israel walked over, dragging his hand down his face in a comical manner.  “I was trying to tell you to watch out for the hole.”

“Well, we caught it, didn’t we?”

They peered over the edge of the hole.  Tiddlywinks was unharmed, though it did look rather angry to be in a hole.

Holly looked up and noticed some people in uniforms hesitantly approaching them.  “Uh oh.  Zoo keepers.  They’ll deal with Tiddlywinks.  Time to scram, Israel.”  She wrapped her arms more firmly around her penguin as they walked away.

Israel frowned.  “Are you going to put the penguin back?”

“No.  It’s my penguin now.”

“The rhino was scared of your penguin.”

“That it was.”

“Why?”

Holly snorted.  “That’s like asking ‘What the hell is a Hufflepuff?’  There is no answer.”

“True.”

“Was the rhino a real rhino?  I thought it might be a monster.”

“No, Tiddlywinks wasn’t magic.  It was just a really pissed off rhino.”

“Cool.  By the way, why did you blow up the road?”

“Because I was…” Israel’s face fell.  “Oh crap.”

“What?” Holly asked.

“I was chasing a serial killer.”

“Ah.”  Holly nodded like this happened every day.  “And now he got away?”

“I do believe so.”

“Then let’s go find him!”

“…You want to spend your Tuesday chasing a serial killer?” Israel asked incredulously.

“I don’t exactly have a social life,” Holly replied.

“Do you need parental permission?”

Holly shook her head.  “My parents are in Alaska.  I’m here with my aunt.  She won’t really care.  I’ll call her, but all she’ll say is something along the lines of ‘Don’t die.’”
I
srael nodded.  “Alright then.”  An explosion sounded from somewhere past the zoo gate, accompanied by a large dust cloud.

“Was that your serial killer?” Holly asked.

“Probably,” Israel said.  “Go put the penguin somewhere, then we can go.”

“No way.  Harry Potter is coming with us.”

“…”

“What?”

“You named the penguin.”

“Yes.”

“You named it Harry Potter.”

“Yes.”

“That’s the best you could come up with?”

“Yes.”

“We should probably go get the serial killer now, shouldn’t we?”

“Yes.”

“Is that all you can say right now?”

“…Yes.”

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Pushing Up Daisies - Part Three (OLD VERSION)

This is a part of my fanfiction. Nothing really happens - Mir, Kallista and Israel are just pulled into this whole thingy. I don't like this part much. It isn't written well. The next part will be better and longer, I promise.
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Israel Elysium leaned against the counter of the kitchen of Elysium Asylum.  The morning was quiet – it was early, and most of the residents here hadn’t woken up yet.  That was nice.

There was a sudden loud yowling noise, causing Israel to jump.  A crash followed, and then silence.  Israel looked around the kitchen in confusion, wondering if a drunken mage had trodden on Mar while she was in cat form and if it was worth investigating.  After a few more moments of silence, he shrugged.  Mar was able to take care of herself.

Israel frowned suddenly.  Now that he thought of it, he hadn’t seen Mar in a few days.  Sure, Elysium Asylum was huge, but Mar usually sought him out to yell something random at him, and then dash off before he had even processed what she had said.

Mirtil Lucifer trudged into the kitchen just then.  Israel hadn’t known Mir for long.  She was Mar’s friend and had been escorted to Elysium Asylum by the flaming haired shape shifter a month or so earlier.  Today, her normal grumpy morning expression was replaced by a slightly disturbed look.  Her eyes were wide, eyebrows drawn together, and her mouth was twisted into a sort of half-grimace.

“Morning,” she said distractedly to Israel.  The short girl plopped down into a chair, staring off into the distance.  Israel raised an eyebrow at her.  Mir didn’t notice

“Did you hear that cat yowling?” Mir asked after a moment, the creeped-out expression fading from her face.

“Yeah.  I think someone stepped on Mar.”

Mir looked at him with an odd smile, like she was concerned for his mental health.  “Mar hasn’t been here for a few days.  Anyway, the cat was right outside my window, scratching at the screen.  It woke me up.  I threw something at it.  Are there any stray cats on the property?  It didn’t look like one of the shape shifters.”

“Well, no, I don’t think there are any- wait.  Mar isn’t here?”

Mir shook her head.  “She went to go get Thalia.  Said she needed her for something.”

“Thalia?” Israel asked.

“Our friend.  She’s a mind reader.  I think you’ll get along with her.  She likes baby chicks, though.  A lot.  I don’t know how that will work out.  And she always knows where people hid their cookies.”  Mir smiled at the confused look on Israel’s face.  “Oh, and I want pancakes.”

“What?”

“Pancakes.  Me.  Want.  Now.”

“Mirtil, I’m not making you pancakes.”

“Oh yes you are.”

“Hell no.”

“Language, Israel.  There are children around.”

“What children?”

“The one hiding under your bed.  His name is George.”

“What are you on about?”

“What?  You don’t know George?  For shame.  I’m shunning you now.”

Israel regarded the girl with a mix of awe and annoyance.  “I don’t really care.”

“I’ll stop shunning you if you make me pancakes.”

“It’s not happening, Shorty.”  A butter knife flew by Israel’s face.  He scowled.  “Hey!  What was that for?”

Mir started cackling madly.  Her brown eyes turned a murderous red.  “Don’t…call me….SHORT!”

“Good morning sunshine!  The Earth says hello!”  And with that, Kallista Pendragon bounded into the room and tackled Mir off her seat in a hug.  “Who wants a morning noogie?”

“No!” Mir shrieked, struggling against Kallista’s death grip.  “Don’t touch my head!  You’ll make me shorter!”

“Aw, c’mon Mir!”

“NO!  I will eat your hand!”

Kallista paid no attention to this warning, however.  When she brought her hand close to Mir’s head, the smaller girl reacted on true animal instinct – she sank her teeth into Kallista’s hand, growling like a dog.

“Ouch!”  Kallista pulled her injured hand away.  She spotted Israel and grinned, proceeding to do the same thing to him.  The only difference was that he didn’t bite her.

“Good morning Kallista,” he greeted calmly.

“HEY, I’M HOME!”  A small blur flew into the room and tackled Mir, who had just stood up, back to the ground.

“A little warning next time would be greatly appreciated,” Mir muttered grumpily, but she hugged March Pathway back nonetheless.

Mar bounced up, grinning like a lunatic.  She gave Kallista a hug, then came up to Israel and poked him in the face.  “I forgot you had stubble.”

“Okay.”

“You need to shave.”

“No.”

Mar pulled a face at him.  “Suit yourself,” she said, the suddenly spazzed.  “Everyone!  Guess who I brought with me!”

Kallista looked at her hopefully.  “The ice cream man?”

“Nope!”

“The muffin man?”

“Nu-uh.”

Kallista puzzled over this for a moment, then her face lit up.  She snapped her fingers.  “The muffin ice cream man?”

“N- hey, that’d be awesome.”  Mar gave Kallista an approving nod.  “But unfortunately, no.  I brought Skyril!  Guess who we found together?”

Mir spoke up.  “Sanguine?”

“Nope.  We found Thalia!”

And Skyril and Thalia walked into the room.

Israel was pretty sure the second girl was Thalia.  He knew Skyril very well.  Thalia was someone he had never met, but who else could the other person be?

“You need to rest,” Skyril was saying sternly.

“Did the soldiers of the American Revolution rest?  The answer is no!  They took no time off, and neither shall I!  I need to find my brother and kick his ass all the way to Polaris!” Thalia exclaimed heroically, just before she tripped over one of the laces on her combat boots and fell on her face.

Mir walked over and poked Thalia with her foot.  “Smooth, Thal.”

Thalia looked up at Mir.  “I’ve never seen you from this perspective.  It’s odd.”

“Someday, Circe, I will be taller than you.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“Um.  Okay.”  Kallista nodded, like this all made perfect sense.  Israel just thought they were all insane.

“So what happened?” he asked, trying to ignore the fact that Mar, Thalia, and Mir were all making weird faces at each other.  Israel looked back and forth between Skyril and Mar.  “It shouldn’t have taken so long for you to get here.”

“Mar said something about ‘finding’ Thalia.”  Kallista looked at her friend in concern.

“Thalia got kidnapped,” Mar said simply.

Mir groaned.  “Again?”

Thalia dropped her face back onto the ground and proceeded to start dragging herself across the floor with her arms.  “I don’t want to talk about it.”  Her voice was muffled by the floor.  “Skyril, you tell them.”

Skyril looked at her friend in amusement.  “You’re lazy.”

“I will neither confirm nor deny that statement, Miss Oblivion.”  Skyril rolled her eyes, but recounted the tale nonetheless.


“Whoa,” Mir said after the story was over.  At some point, they at all migrated to the living room and were currently seated on comfy chairs.

Kallista turned and looked at Thalia.  “I don’t like your brother.”

“Join the club,” Thalia said, waving her hand around.  “Still…there was something in that graveyard.  It was probably using the story of there being something in the graveyard to cover up its presence.”

Skyril looked at Thalia, startled.  “You didn’t tell me this before.”

“I just remembered.”

“You do you know there was something there?” Israel asked skeptically.

Thalia turned and looked at him for a moment.  “I could feel it,” she said simply.

“So you’re just going on a feeling?”  That didn’t sound very promising.

“No,” Thalia said.  She tapped the top of her head.  “I could feel it with my mind.  I am a mind reader.”

Israel leaned forward, lacing his fingers together.  “Alright.  So.  What exactly did you feel?”

“I don’t know,” Thalia said.  “It didn’t think.  Not really.  It wasn’t human and it had never been human.  Its job was to find something really important and kill anyone who got in the way.  I don’t know what it was looking for.  I only felt it for a second.”

“Then what happened?” Mir asked.

“It disappeared.  It went poof.  It teleported away.  It vanished.  I don’t know.  One moment it was there and the next it was gone.  I think my brother put it there.  He would do something like that.  Kidnap me and put something creepy in a graveyard.  I don’t like him.  Did I mention I don’t like him?  I don’t like him.”

“So what do we do?”

Thalia grinned.  Israel immediately knew that grin meant she was about to drag them all into something very idiotic and dangerous.  “We go monster hunting!”