ok I was bored in class and wrote a short story w/ my OCs so here it is. sorry
Marcus Delenitor’s brains were sluggishly spilling out of his head and onto his desk, much like his chocolate milk.
Katie Marrows frowned and righted his thermos. “You seem very snail-like today (almost as if your brains have been sluggishly spilling out of your head, much like your chocolate milk).”
“I don’t know, man,” Marcus said, from where the side of his face was still being decidedly squished into the mahogany polishing (his was the only doodle-free desk in the room). “Deities and Dragons 101 is just especially boring today.”
Katie laid a ginger hand on his shoulder, and Marcus shifted slightly, to let her know that he was listening. “That’s not like you,” she said. “We haven’t had a game day in three weeks because you said it’s more fun to rewrite your textbooks from memory.”
It was fun to rewrite his textbooks from memory. Marcus dragged his head up from his desk with a massive sigh. “Well. I guess I’m just feeling kind of down.”
“Down?”
Marcus felt his fire magic thrumming unhappily in his stomach. “…To the mantle,” he muttered.
“Maybe you’re hungry?”
Katie was humming as she thought. It was her favorite song, Marcus realized. Far from her typical tastes of revolutionary rock music, or tongue-in-cheek absurdist joke songs, or lyrical wordplay accompanied by hyperactive pop, this was a slow, soulful ballad that had your heart marching in tune with your tear ducts. Marcus knew it well. Katie had learned it at a birthday party in their childhood, introduced to her by…
The ring of the bell shrieked through Marcus’ skull, and he toppled from his seat. Ignoring the laughter of his classmates and the worry of his teacher, he shot out of the classroom. Katie was right! He hadn’t eaten anything that day, apart from some disappointingly wretched burnt toast – he’d been too preoccupied with his schoolwork!
Maybe he was just hungry, after all.
Marcus bought three servings of stale cantosdillas (quesadillas that sung – Marcus generally preferred them over the cafeteria’s other magicial food items, such as “Mac n’ cheese that danced” or “broccoli that tried to sell you car insurance”) and jogged to the courtyard, where he liked to eat in the warmth of the sun.
By the third quesadilla, Marcus was no longer hungry, although curiously his mood had failed to improve. Mostly he was distracted by the taste of the quesadilla, which suggested that the cafeteria had once again neglected to add any spices. Marcus scrunched up his face as he bit into another mouthful of bland and stringy beef. Why cook bland and stringy beef? Why not kill someone, while you’re at it?
Although his friends sometimes disagreed, Marcus had always thought that the ideal quesadilla, like most foods, was best had when comfortably coated in a good layer of passionate peppers. In particular he was used to eating meats with peanut-based spices, or habañeros, or at the very least some well-handled seldom peppers.
Marcus frowned. The throbbing of the heat in his veins became a race. Selim peppers were the favorites of…
“Rosebush!” Marcus jumped, choked on his quesadilla, and had to chug his chocolate milk. The quesadilla went into a jaunty yet particularly freaked-out bout of la-la-la’s.
Marcus took a second to get out another cough before turning to his side. “Addiel!” (He coughs again). “I hadn’t seen you there.”
“Yeah? Well, I wasn’t using my invisibility, if that’s what you’re thinking. I hope you don’t see me as that kind of prankster,” said Addiel. His mouth was peeking out just above the handkerchief blanketing the bite mark on his neck. His fangs glinted in the sunlight. Amusement hummed through his voice. And looking down, Marcus could see the thick coat of mud and grass hugging the knees of his jeans. “I was just – “
“Gardening?” Marcus said, smiling. “But then, where’s – “
A hefty burlap bag came hurtling towards Addiel, who slid lazily to the right. A graceful dodge. Marcus was mildly impressed.
“You TOLD me you’d help me carry the fertilizers.” Chester Boxwood came running from a secluded section of the courtyard, which was strategically hidden behind a line of trees. Secluded sections of courtyard, which are often strategically hidden behind lines of trees, are particularly useful when you don’t technically have permission from the principal to be cultivating your own private two-person secret garden on school grounds. Chester paused. “Oh. Hey, Marcus.” Marcus waved hello back.
Addiel picked up the fertilizer bag and floated to the stack in Chester’s arms, setting his on top. “Don’t fall off the bus, Gladiolus. I was going to help, I just wanted to see what Rosebush over here needed to wolf down a hundred lunches for.”
Marcus laughed. “It was only three quesadillas. It’s just that I’ve been feeling kind of – kind of bad today. Like. Like there’s… a pain, somewhere. Um. And I thought I might be hungry.”
“And were you hungry?” Addiel poked Marcus’ stomach.
Marcus felt himself wince. There was nothing in his stomach now, but the flames were still there, elsewhere, and he didn’t know where. “Well, I’m guessing that wasn’t the problem.”
Addiel ‘hmm’d’ and inserted himself much farther into Marcus’ personal space than he was comfortable with. “Then what about…” A poke in the arms, in the chest, in the shoulder pads, in the neck…
“Stop that,” said Marcus, starting to get annoyed, and then…
Addiel poked Marcus in the temple. He hiccuped. There was this inexplicably gaseous, suffocating feeling in his earlobes, as if his nerves were being strangled. With a FIZZ-pop-DING! completely against his will, a spark went off in Marcus’ ears. Fire sprung out and soared into the sky.
There was silence in the courtyard.
“Uh,” said Addiel. “You probably have a headache.”
“Maybe you need more sleep?” said Chester.
Chester was fidgeting with the ends of his cloak while he thought. He was, Marcus realized, touching a patch of fabric that was different from the rest of his cloak. The cloak had been a rare gift to him from the throne of Grimalthall in recognition of his potential as a Guardian, and it was pulled close to him even now. He had torn it after following his older sister to a deep forest, wanting to watch her examine the ancient ruins underneath, and had been too distressed to bother getting it repaired professionally. Marcus remembered the personal flourishes that had been sewn into the new patch, which Chester had gotten from…
Thunder crashed through the sky, and rain drenched the courtroom below. Chester shouted and Addiel hissed, and everyone scrambled to reach the dry land of the school doors.
When he was able to, Marcus took a nap at home. He did wake up feeling refreshed, but the disturbing presence of the burning hum behind his eyes had not dissipated. In irritation, he rolled to his side, but found that he had rolled the wrong way. The room he slept in was split in two. Facing his side of the bedroom was his twin sister’s, and staring his bed in the eyes was her own. Unlike his side of the room, which was always neat and rather plain, but filled with treasures, curiosities, and all his other valued possessions, hers was complete chaos, with clothes tossed to the floor and every inch decorated with stickers or posters or painting she’d made, but little-to-no personal items to be seen.
The sight of his sister’s things intensified the fire, so Marcus heaved a groan and got up to go downstairs.
Marcus sat in the kitchen and decided to make himself some Chai. He liked to take his tea with honey and biscuits, but the biscuits were kept in his personal stash in the study, and the honey was kept in his sister’s personal stash, to be drizzled exorbitantly over tooth-rotting bowls of ice cream. Her stash was in the hallway just adjacent to the kitchen, so Marcus decided to stick with honey, for now.
Reaching into the delicately sculpted clay pot for the honey, Marcus’ hand brushed against the selim peppers, and he stopped, unsettled. The fire prickled against his palm as he brought the honey to his tea.
As he went back to the bedroom holding the cup, Marcus stubbed his foot and grunted. Looking down, Marcus rolled his eyes to see that it was his sister’s sewing box. Of course. Nina had been using it before she’d gone, and Marcus had never gotten around to putting it back in its rightful place.
Part of that was the incorrigible scatterbrained, but part of that was the fact that he didn’t actually know where it was supposed to go. He carried the box back to their room, and attempted to find a clue in the decorations. It was incredible, Marcus thought, that Nina could come up with so many things to hang on the wall. All that was hanging on Marcus’ wall was a clock from a bygone century and a calendar from the current year.
He squinted at a sticker on the sewing box of some famous songwriter known for her slow, emotional ballads, and observed that there was a wardrobe in the corner of the room drowning in posters of the same songwriter. Ah. A likely match.
Marcus stepped up to the wardrobe, but noticed with some dismay that every section of the wardrobe seemed to be divided into several different mechanical compartments, and each of those compartments divided into more so that the wardrobe could really just be considered compartments of compartments, or a great many compartments in a trench coat.
“My God, this is one of Nina’s crazy person inventions,” Marcus said aloud, and then he remembered that he was alone, and there was nobody else in the room to hear him. The fire cried for attention.
Marcus scowled at the wardrobe, but conceded that there was nothing to do but give up. He picked a random drawer to set the box in and dropped onto his bed facedown with a baleful sigh.
If Nina was here, she could help him. Nina wasn’t here. She was somewhere gallivanting off on a distant shore, off on a solo mission, because the kingdom had needed her sword and her tide. And it hadn’t needed Marcus.
It’s not like they hadn’t known this would happen. When they’d bound themselves to the magician’s code of ethics and inscribed their names to the contracts forevermore, there was no special clause that required they be kept together. Far from it. Every magician under Grimalthall’s roof, the Delenitor twins included, was aware of and accepted the optimization of their assignments and their obligation to provide their services to the crown, in whatever way necessary. Marcus himself was even excited to go on his first solo mission as a fledgling Archivist. So he couldn’t complain. He laid in the empty room, staring at an empty bed, and told himself this. He couldn’t complain. He couldn’t complain. He couldn’t complain.
Well. What did it matter. Nina was coming home soon, anyway.
…Wait.
“Soon”?
Marcus jolted up and looked at his calendar. It was the eighth.
It was the eighth?
IT WAS THE EIGHTH!
Marcus streaked out of his house, fire on his heels like wings. Quickly, quickly – out the door, down the driveway, past the open market, through the streets, stopping to apologize to Mrs. Pine as she spilled her groceries, beyond the neighborhood, and all the way across the path to the docks.
Breathlessly, he had one thought – I’m going to have to make some Chamomile to go with my Chai.
There was only one little sailboat approaching the dock, but Marcus knew the sailboat. He had helped make the sailboat.
Marcus Delenitor was waiting there when Nina Delenitor came home.
Completing the last few steps of his run, Marcus threw himself into her arms.
Nina stumbled back with a wheeze, and Marcus ignored the sisterly smack to the back of his head. “Holy – “ she steadied herself and her bags. “Hey – hi! Wow, um. So. How’ve you been?”
The fire was quiet now.
“Nina!” he shouted, laughing. He gave her a toothy grin. “I’ve been missing you!”
