Say Spote Rune (Open)

[Kiet Chamnansatoliukuk]

The sun was shining merrily in the sky, accompanied by but a few clouds that had lazily drifted in from out of town. The weather was hot enough to send out the masses in tanktops and shorts in the search of ice cream and cool summer breezes. It was a kind of day meant to be enjoyed among friends breathing in the fresh summer air and enjoying all that the outdoors had to offer.

Kiet had never been much of a fan of the outdoors. He had spent most of his life confined inside walls with a roof over his head. The outdoors made him feel open, exposed. But the mess hall seemed like there would be too many people to study properly, and he didn't want to disturb the people in his cabin while he struggled through the books. The lake and the beach made him too nervous, but the strawberry field seemed like a pleasant enough place.

Some other campers were surely doing summer reading as well. Shakespeare and Tolkien, Dickens and Dickenson. Kiet's reading material was of a...slightly easier nature. Namely, he was alone in the field with a pile of "my first readers" that had been provided to him and one particular book that had buttons for noises. This particular one was helping him sound out the letters of the alphabet as he read. It wasn't perfect, and it left him confused sometimes as sounds the basic book didn't cover were needed, but slowly he was getting the hang of it.

"Thyse eyes spote." He sounded out quietly and carefully, concentrating on the page, "Say Spote rune." He translated in his head from the sounds- This is spot. See spot run. Okay, he was getting the hang of this.

[Talia Winchell]

If you asked Tal Winchell to describe the strawberry fields at camp, she most likely would have either gone silent or quietly admitted they reeked with painful nostalgia. Oftentimes, she would avoid the place with a determination one ordinarily could not find in the daughter of Hermes; all her motions nowadays were seemingly devoid of purpose should you not look below the surface. And who did? She had shut herself out these last few weeks, not saying anything of significance to anybody. Nobody had looked below the surface, because nobody had an idea that there was anything there. And she would not expect them to, despite the fact that there was always a little something lurking below the repeated nothings. In some ways, she would prefer it that way, despite the fact that she did wish she had someone to spill her stolen heart to.

Technically, she did have that someone. But he wasn't here, and she still wasn't sure if he was still sane or if it was just those vivid hallucinations she so often worried about. And she kept telling herself that there was not any way he could return to her. The Underworld was a closely guarded prison. How likely would it be that her boyfriend would be the one escapee in existence? Though she loved him, thinking of him hurt. As it happened, most of the things she thought of when he came to mind were the things that were undoubtedly over. She would never again feel his hand in hers, nor that pleasant shock to her system when their lips pressed against each other. How likely was it that he was alive and communicating with her? The more Tal mulled it over, the more likely it was that her mind was playing tricks on her the way it always did. But this time, much more cruelly.

This was all she thought about as she made her way to the fields she so often tried to avoid. Perhaps it would be more pleasant than she thought to make her way back to the land of declarations of love and strawberry kisses. By the time Tal arrived at her place, she was slightly red-faced from the heat; it was midsummer, and she still wore her usual attire of long pants and a hooded sweatshirt that would shield her face from the rest of the world. She had, truthfully, expected the place to be empty; for it often was. But today, words floated through the air. Reluctantly, she caught them.

"Say Spote rune."

Tal's eyes followed the sound until they set upon a boy with short dark hair who was concentrating fiercely on some sort of book. For some reason, she could not bring herself to look away from him. The intense concentration and determination etched into his eyebrows reminded her of so many things that had since evaporated. It didn't so much as cross her mind that staring was impolite and something she wouldn't normally do.


word count: around five hundred. muse:
painfully being resurrected, but it's
getting there. notes: aah, sorry, this is
kind of bad. hopefully later posts will
be better. listening to: adam's song by
blink 182. tagged: kiet chamnansatoliukuk.