The Sampler

In history, we learned that America is the most important country of the world. This means that we have the terrible duty of ruling the world even if people hate us. However, we are not allowed to call the President the “King” because “President” sounds more democratic and we are supposed to be a democracy. Actually, we are a “Democratic Republic.” This means that we are a divided country, because Democrats are liberal (that means that they put a lot of butter on their bread) and Republicans are conservative (that means they try to save the butter for later). I think we should just buy a lot of butter and give the Democrats most of it and the Republicans just a little bit, and that would solve our problems. Mom says that spread is cheaper to buy, though, but since it’s mostly made out of oil, we should probably just use it to run our cars.

===

“It’s been a while,” Black said to himself. Iria looked over at him, and said nothing about his muttering. She still had not become very tolerant of his endless ogling, but she didn’t seem to mind when he just walked alongside her and mumbled. Most of the time he mumbled about how cold it was, and sometimes about how persistent Iria was in turning him away, and now, more recently, on how he really, really wasn’t looking forward to coming back to this place.

They had walked on quietly for the while now, through the slowly-melting snow. More often than not one or the other would stop paying attention to where they were walking and would have to be pulled up damply from a wayward snow-drift, looking a little sheepish.

“Been a while since what?” she asked finally, and he managed a laugh. Her curiosity had finally gotten the better of her.

“Well,” he answered, a little more relaxed, “we’re coming up on my place in just a few hours. It’s a little nerve-wracking, you know?”

“You haven’t been there in a while?” Iria, looking at him, nearly jumped away when he reached over to hold a branch out of her way. “What did you do wrong that made you not want to come back?”

He muttered something.

“What?”

“I said…" Black put a hand on her shoulder, stopped her from walking, and whispered something into her ear.

Iria jerked back, shocked, and stared at him in horror. “You did what? And now you’re doing what? How c-“

===

The second lightning storm came down upon us harder, more furious than before. It was the day before the fair, and the entire town shivered in their houses.

Through it all, Grands sat in front of the fire, staring into it impassively, though the walls seemed to melt and fade away around her. Impassive, save for one moment, when I, barely lucid, stared at her silhouette against the fire, and she pointed at me. Amid the sound of thunder and the crash of lightning, her voice echoed shrilly in my ears:

“You - it’s you! Your fault! It should never have happened -!”

When it was all over, the house was missing parts of the wall and roof, and I had not slept for days. I lay in bed listening to the fearful murmur of the town around me, my body limp and too weak to move.

==

“But you surely realize that leaving will put you in some greater danger of losing your seat than before.”

“I,” Siren said, exaggerating the word a little, “have been proven several times over to be quite unfit for the House Seat. If I manage to succeed, it will only be because the requirements are so lax. Seventh circle, second class? I haven’t found a single House Head in any of the book so far that was below fourth circle, first class. Or are you hoping that I’ll somehow magically - er - somehow grow stronger between then and now by staying home and studying my books? Or that I’ll become any more Talented or that I’ll learn something useful?”

“Sirenia-“

“Siren. Seer-en. What were you thinking, naming me that? Yes, I’m a seer. Only a Reader, even. No big deal. There’s more of us than we let on, I’m nothing unusual. No Healer or Enhancer or Shield or anything useful. I’m not going to spontaneously discover any new Talents along the way. I’m not going to be any more qualified or special like all the other House Heads. It’s not as if by birth I can suddenly just be worthy of a throne, or a House, or a Guild - ”

“Sirenia Anna.”

Siren didn’t flinch, but she shut up.

===

I missed the bright orange “OFF LIMITS SIGN” and walked right through the one area where the construction tape had fallen down. Up ahead was one of those giant cranes, carrying a load of those cement beams. I stood below it and looked up, fascinated, up until the moment that the crane’s load decided to strategically detach itself from the cable.

A second later I gawked at the transfer student as he calmly held two cement beams, one in either hand, about a foot over my head.

===

Eventually the talk died down, and the camera continued to focus on Cal, who was walking across the parking lot to his Mercedes. One of his shoelaces on his sneakers had come untied, and one could see clearly the “NB” symbol scrawled across it in crass shoe commercialism. They focused the camera on that for a few seconds, commenting on how ‘endearing’ it was to fans that Cal was such a common kind of guy, and so easy to like for it.

Yeah, I know. Better than you do.

He got into the car, dark blue and compact, rolling down the window and giving the horn a good honk to make sure all the reporters cleared out of his way before he backed out. The camera came in for a close shot of his license plate - BE GREEN - an obscure political/vegetarian reference - before the view went back to the studio, where the perpetually smiling woman anchor was smiling even more and the male anchor smiled too, albeit somewhat confusedly.

===

Precious Vera is a child, and I am watching her romp through the grass, turning back to laugh at a tall, grey-eyed boy, somber and silent, watching her. I think a little while, and realize that I am Allegra, mother of the boy, whom I have named, but who has no name. I know that Vera is my darling, daring daughter-to-be, for I can see such things - and I can feel my smile spreading as Vera runs back to take my son's hand, pulling him along with her.

I follow them to the garden, wide and sweet-smelling within the confines of a castle wall, and Vera makes the young prince a crown from the tiny little Vervain plants that are her namesake, telling him gaily that a prince needs a crown.

===

“This is him?” My mother whispered to me, watching Michael set our poster boards down on the living room floor of our house. She’d just come back in from weeding the garden - it was fall, and I wasn’t sure why she bothered. “They have guys like that in advanced placement classes?”

I shushed her, turning red with embarrassment when he turned to grin at the two of us. Did he hear?

He grinned even wider at me. My mom laughed, and it had all turned into a big joke. I looked at the both of them, half-humiliated, half-confused. Why was that funny?

Some time later, when we were both bent over the board meticulously gluing down cardboard-backed pictures, my mom brought us drinks. She had a cold Coke in one hand, and a Sprite in the other. Of course, she offered him the drinks first, and seemed surprised when he took the Sprite with a thank-you.

“You don’t have to worry about Vera,” she said, holding the Coke out towards him. “She’ll drink any soda you give her.”

“Mom!” I protested, eliciting a laugh from both of them.

==

“Ither,” she said aloud.

In front of her, on the desk rather than the chair, a faint shimmering appeared. Dust motes coalesced and took on color, quickly solidifying into the shape of a young boy. Light brown hair tied back into a tail, and clothes of a style a thousand years old - this was Ither. He dangled his legs over the edge of her desk, gripping it with slightly translucent hands.

“You are troubled, akanasana.” He spoke with the voice of an adult, rather than a child. In truth, his voice was close enough to that of the king that the lady tensed. “Akanasanen is troubled as well, and I am willing to gamble that it is for near the same reason.”

“I will not go back and apologize to him,” she snapped, coming over and yanking her chair away. Ither had been using it as a footrest, in his insubstantial form. “It’s his fault, mocking me like that - “

“No.” Ither disappeared from the desk and reappeared beside her, his ethereal figure pulling the chair away from her. “You hold a grudge still from years past.”

“That’s - you - he knew how I felt,” she said, voice trembling a little. “He knew, and he took advantage of it - he hurt me, to be cruel to me. How can I forgive him?”

===

She crouched shivering, watching the remains of the house crumble in flames. It had been her fault, though none of them knew it. It had been her fault, and there was no one left..

No one left! To comfort her, to tell her it was all right. To tell her that her parents had not just perished in the house that she had set on fire. Zaya was alone. She didn’t cry. She couldn’t cry. It was her fault, so she wasn’t allowed to cry. No - no one could comfort her, anyhow. A girl who had killed her own parents didn’t deserve to be forgiven and consoled. A girl who had done such a thing deserved to die -

===

Allegra found the girl perched precariously on a tree branch much too high for her to climb, watching the soldiers prepare for departure.

She stood watching for long moments, letting the wind blow her hair astray, occasionally brushing an errant strand out of her eyes. The girl wouldn’t come to any harm - she had gotten herself up the tree and would come down in the same way. However, the girl seemed to be more fascinated with the soldiers than with her daily lessons, which annoyed Allegra to no end.

“Thea,” Allegra called. “Althea Aislin, come back down right now!” She stood, hands on hips, as the girl looked down, startled.

“Coming, ‘llegra!” The girl, with seemingly no apparent care, took a wobbly step on the branch, then jumped down from a height of nearly fifteen feet, landing neatly on the grass in front of her teacher.

Allegra gave the girl a fierce glare. “You should be waiting for me, not climbing trees to watch the soldiers.”

The girl looked only a little apologetic. “There was this one soldier who felt bad, ‘llegra,” she explained, “so I was watching him to see if he was going to do anything bad.” She nodded, as if this concise explanation made as much sense so as to be understood. “Someone else should watch him if I can’t, because I think he wants to do something bad, and his mother isn’t around to scold him.”

This time Allegra took the girl’s arm, and looked intently into her eyes. “He wants to do something bad, Thea?”

Thea nodded, opening her mouth to explain more, but instead Allegra began to pull her across the lawn and around the walls of the keep, towards the west gate. “Can you show me which soldier, Thea?” She did her best to walk in a dignified way across the grass, although it was hard to both run and look dignified at the same time. The girl skipped beside her.

===

The doorbell rings. She runs to answer it, her bare feet slapping across the kitchen floor, then pads across the carpeted foyer to the door. She peers out the little window beside the door, and stares: there is a police car parked on the curb, and a tall, imposing man looking in on her. Frightened, she turns on her heel, slips on the carpet, and nearly falls. “Billy!” She yells, calling her second-oldest brother down - he is four years older than she. “There’s a policeman at the door!” Her parents are not home.

===

Thou art. Contrarily, you may not be art, though society may often define characteristics of individuals such as you, a human, as art. Questions arise such as, "Art thou art?" and "Art thou skilled in an art?” These questions can only be answered by analysis of the word "art", its meanings, interpretations, and usages. I "art" not, due to grammatical incorrectness in using the second person singular present indicative of "be" in referring to myself...