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rainbowfic2020-04-24 03:47 pm
greenling) wrote in rainbowfic2020-04-24 03:47 pm
Oliphaunt Gray #7/Ice Water Gray #13, Proper Terms Purple #1
Name: Greenling
Story: Juniper Ridge
Colors: Oliphaunt Gray #7 (Near is the hour when the Lost should come forth)/Ice Water Gray #13 (And if it takes shit to make bliss, then I feel pretty blissfully), Proper Terms Purple #1 (Gaggle)
Supplies and Styles: Bichromatic (Oliphaunt Gray/Ice Water Gray), Brush (obstinate)
Word Count: 1766
Rating: G aside from warning
Warnings: Vague mentions of backstory child abuse and transphobia.
Hello. I restarted a thing. It's weird fantasy schoolfic. There aren't tags for Ice Water Grey or Proper Terms Purple yet.
Custody of the state.
He was alone dragging his suitcase behind him in the parking lot, duffel bag and a trash bag over his shoulder, everything he had in the world carefully balanced between the three so a scrawny fourteen-year-old wouldn't faint in the desert heat. Joel was wearing two coats of sunscreen and he could already feel it sweating off him in thin gooey sheets. Other kids and their parents hauled themselves out of cars and a couple of busses, some of whom he sorta recognized from the plane trip even, all heading towards the big stack of concrete slabs with satellites and generators sticking out that was clearly the administration building. That was first, and it'd have air conditioning. Then take a left as he headed out, keep the sports building on the right, and Dorm Vermillion would be the first one on the right, painted dark red. And then... he didn't know what. He still wasn't used to having time to himself. The social worker here wasn't Mandy, the lady he'd gotten at least used to for the past half a year, it'd be someone else, someone specifically assigned to the chunk of the kids from the foster system or whose parents decided they wanted nothing to do with them when they tested positive.
There weren't many. Mandy had told him the numbers: about five hundred students total, and "a handful" in his situation. He wasn't great at subtlety, but he still got the impression that meant something around three or maybe zero. Not a lot of people trusted what the government was doing- hell, his parents hadn't either- and were just keeping their kids in normal school. The rich ones sent them to one of the fancy private ones popping up- the ones that were supposedly more like normal private schools, but safer and more disciplined, rather than some science experiment like people were saying Juniper Ridge must be. This hadn't been a choice on Joel's part. He hadn't tested anything- he'd been homeschooled- he'd just straight up and mutated. His parents said he'd been possessed by a demon, tried to exorcise him, tried to medicate him back into being a girl, tried worse when he wasn't sufficiently willing to play along. It wasn't easy for a kid with antlers to run away without being noticed. Then... stuff. Legal stuff he didn't want to think about.
Fifteen minute walk. There weren't a lot of windows in most of these buildings, and the ones there were were dark green with double-pane insulated glass. Someone had gotten the idea to paint lines and geometric shapes around the bottoms of the buildings, but it just made the damn place look like a colorful bunker. Colorful past the layers of razorwire fences and guard gates on the outside. There were three long lines inside and a whole bunch of people sitting around in a waiting area that stretched from right beside the front doors around a corner to a side door maybe fifty, sixty feet away. The actual windows were a column in the center, flanked on the left by a set of open stairs and some random closed doors. For the most part it seemed that there were single adults in the line and all the kids and their luggage got to sit down. How fun. He was just gonna stand there and wait then, maybe memorize the giant campus map on one wall. It was simplified and color-coded, green for the dorms, yellow for the classrooms, blue for the cafeterias, club rooms, sports courts and such, and gray for the teachers' apartments and administrative stuff. It was a big, well-appointed place he'd be trapped in.
Long minutes later, he found himself watching the people around him, and his attention was more than anything drawn to a group in the line ahead of him: a big group, all standing together rather than finding a place in the waiting area, of five adults and three kids. The oldest kid, a boy with tanned skin and a ponytail, looked a few years older than Joel, while the other two were young enough that he wasn't sure they were students. The group was mostly chatting to each other quietly in some language he didn't recognize, but after a little bit he realized the older boy wasn't participating. He was just standing there, staring ahead with a flat glare on his face.
Time passed.
Time passed some more. He arranged his suitcase so he could sit down on it while the line wasn't moving.
He got up to the front of the line and the lady took one look at him and said: "We're going to need your parent's signature, hon."
He bristled, stomach dropping. "Uhm, I'm here alone."
She looked at him over her glasses. "You're here alone? How did you get here?"
He opened his mouth and his jaw hung there for a second, unsure what the right words were. "I'm in the system? I uh had a social worker, and I got enrolled, and uh..."
"Who's your guardian, hon?"
"Well- I was supposed t'get that when I got here."
The woman sighed deeply, and he cringed. "That's not the way they're supposed to do it, but hold on, I'll call the Chaperone Office."
It took another hour for them to 1) get the right person, 2) get them to the right place, and 3) finish filling out the paperwork that technically had to be filled out before the signatures on the release forms and medical information forms were valid. Once that was done and Joel had been given a packet of information and a key for his room, he leaned against the wall and took a minute, exhausted from the mental and social effort.
"So, sorry about all that," said the new guy they'd called in. He was tall and lanky, black, with straight and slightly long black hair; he extended a hand to Joel. "Robert Venkatesan. You can call me Rob or Mr. Venkatesan, whatever you're more comfortable with." Joel shook the man's hand out of pro forma, grabbing the backpack and the trash bag.
"Want me to help with all that?" As he said it, he was already picking up the suitcase, so Joel just nodded.
They started out the door just as the lines were starting to thin out. Joel could see people off in the distance, mostly walking down the same way they were going, and if he squinted he thought he could even see a red-painted concrete building that was the one they were heading to.
"Is there anything you don't have that you're going to need before the end of the night? Food, toiletries, clothing?"
There was a hollow pit in his stomach; he'd had to have been at the airport at 5 in the morning so he hadn't eaten since before he'd slept. "They gave me a meal card."
"Yes." The lanky man pressed his lips together. "Though they're still getting the computers working, so I don't think they'll work until dinner. If you want something before that, I can help."
Joel groaned. He'd taken long enough to be okay with taking charity, and he was tired. Tired of dealing with bureaucracy, moving, walking... he just wanted to go home.
Not that that was a thing anymore.
"I wanna get my stuff unpacked an' see if I feel like doin' anythin'."
"Fair 'nough! Let's get you into the dorm."
By the time they got there, Joel had taken off the backpack as way too hot and his arms were aching from carrying both it and the trash bag. He felt a little faint, to be honest, but once he hit the AC again he felt a second wind. After a short elevator ride, they made it to the room- or outside the room, as the door was open and that gaggle of people he remembered from the line was there. Well, partly there; there was a man carrying in boxes and a woman just inside holding the littlest kid, the one that couldn't've been more than three. As they walked up, the man narrowed his eyes at Joel and, leaning himself against the doorframe to shift the weight of the boxes, crossed himself.
"You're not my nephew's roommate, are you?"
"Oh come on, man, you ain't even met me!" Joel whined.
"Marcus!" called the woman from inside, stepping out. She took a breath when she saw Joel, but was firm. "Don't be rude to the poor boy. You know where you are!"
The man grumbled under his breath in that other language (presumably the same one, anyhow) and headed inside.
Mr. Venkatesan stepped forward then and offered the lady a hand. "This does seem to be the right room. Would we be in your way-?"
"Oh come come," she said, cutting him off and waving her free hand in a come-in gesture. "If it's his room, it's his room."
Inside were two long bunks on the far wall, each recessed into a space big enough to sit up in; there was a wall seperating the feet of the beds and large shelved cupboards both above the space and below the mattress. Against the other two walls were desks and bookshelves, both bolted into the wall. Everything was identical and there were no windows. Well, identical except for the Godzilla and Batman posters being put up on the right wall and the boxes. Joel guessed the left side was his by default.
The boy Joel had guessed was older turned to him with sharp, bright violet eyes. Unnatural eyes. He'd started changing too. Joel gave him a nod and sat his bags down next to the leftward bed, opening the garbage bag and shoving his clothes in various shelves.
"Would you like some help?" said Mr. Venkatesan.
"Nah, bag's the only thing really."
"What about what's in the suitcase?"
"That's bath stuff an' my guitar," he said, throwing a grin behind his shoulder. Within a couple minutes he was done, and... well, he already felt better. Standing up, he unzipped the suitcase and took out his guitar. He checked it over for any damage or stuff-spillage, hugged it, and laid it on the bed. He noticed the violet-eyed boy watching him while putting boxes in the upper cabinets and decided to cut the tension.
Joel walked over and offered his hand. "Hey, I'm Joel."
The boy stared for a moment, expression blank, then turned and shook firmly. "Dmitry."
"Nice t'meetcha."
"Yeah," Dmitry said with a little half-smile. "I hope so."
Story: Juniper Ridge
Colors: Oliphaunt Gray #7 (Near is the hour when the Lost should come forth)/Ice Water Gray #13 (And if it takes shit to make bliss, then I feel pretty blissfully), Proper Terms Purple #1 (Gaggle)
Supplies and Styles: Bichromatic (Oliphaunt Gray/Ice Water Gray), Brush (obstinate)
Word Count: 1766
Rating: G aside from warning
Warnings: Vague mentions of backstory child abuse and transphobia.
Hello. I restarted a thing. It's weird fantasy schoolfic. There aren't tags for Ice Water Grey or Proper Terms Purple yet.
Custody of the state.
He was alone dragging his suitcase behind him in the parking lot, duffel bag and a trash bag over his shoulder, everything he had in the world carefully balanced between the three so a scrawny fourteen-year-old wouldn't faint in the desert heat. Joel was wearing two coats of sunscreen and he could already feel it sweating off him in thin gooey sheets. Other kids and their parents hauled themselves out of cars and a couple of busses, some of whom he sorta recognized from the plane trip even, all heading towards the big stack of concrete slabs with satellites and generators sticking out that was clearly the administration building. That was first, and it'd have air conditioning. Then take a left as he headed out, keep the sports building on the right, and Dorm Vermillion would be the first one on the right, painted dark red. And then... he didn't know what. He still wasn't used to having time to himself. The social worker here wasn't Mandy, the lady he'd gotten at least used to for the past half a year, it'd be someone else, someone specifically assigned to the chunk of the kids from the foster system or whose parents decided they wanted nothing to do with them when they tested positive.
There weren't many. Mandy had told him the numbers: about five hundred students total, and "a handful" in his situation. He wasn't great at subtlety, but he still got the impression that meant something around three or maybe zero. Not a lot of people trusted what the government was doing- hell, his parents hadn't either- and were just keeping their kids in normal school. The rich ones sent them to one of the fancy private ones popping up- the ones that were supposedly more like normal private schools, but safer and more disciplined, rather than some science experiment like people were saying Juniper Ridge must be. This hadn't been a choice on Joel's part. He hadn't tested anything- he'd been homeschooled- he'd just straight up and mutated. His parents said he'd been possessed by a demon, tried to exorcise him, tried to medicate him back into being a girl, tried worse when he wasn't sufficiently willing to play along. It wasn't easy for a kid with antlers to run away without being noticed. Then... stuff. Legal stuff he didn't want to think about.
Fifteen minute walk. There weren't a lot of windows in most of these buildings, and the ones there were were dark green with double-pane insulated glass. Someone had gotten the idea to paint lines and geometric shapes around the bottoms of the buildings, but it just made the damn place look like a colorful bunker. Colorful past the layers of razorwire fences and guard gates on the outside. There were three long lines inside and a whole bunch of people sitting around in a waiting area that stretched from right beside the front doors around a corner to a side door maybe fifty, sixty feet away. The actual windows were a column in the center, flanked on the left by a set of open stairs and some random closed doors. For the most part it seemed that there were single adults in the line and all the kids and their luggage got to sit down. How fun. He was just gonna stand there and wait then, maybe memorize the giant campus map on one wall. It was simplified and color-coded, green for the dorms, yellow for the classrooms, blue for the cafeterias, club rooms, sports courts and such, and gray for the teachers' apartments and administrative stuff. It was a big, well-appointed place he'd be trapped in.
Long minutes later, he found himself watching the people around him, and his attention was more than anything drawn to a group in the line ahead of him: a big group, all standing together rather than finding a place in the waiting area, of five adults and three kids. The oldest kid, a boy with tanned skin and a ponytail, looked a few years older than Joel, while the other two were young enough that he wasn't sure they were students. The group was mostly chatting to each other quietly in some language he didn't recognize, but after a little bit he realized the older boy wasn't participating. He was just standing there, staring ahead with a flat glare on his face.
Time passed.
Time passed some more. He arranged his suitcase so he could sit down on it while the line wasn't moving.
He got up to the front of the line and the lady took one look at him and said: "We're going to need your parent's signature, hon."
He bristled, stomach dropping. "Uhm, I'm here alone."
She looked at him over her glasses. "You're here alone? How did you get here?"
He opened his mouth and his jaw hung there for a second, unsure what the right words were. "I'm in the system? I uh had a social worker, and I got enrolled, and uh..."
"Who's your guardian, hon?"
"Well- I was supposed t'get that when I got here."
The woman sighed deeply, and he cringed. "That's not the way they're supposed to do it, but hold on, I'll call the Chaperone Office."
It took another hour for them to 1) get the right person, 2) get them to the right place, and 3) finish filling out the paperwork that technically had to be filled out before the signatures on the release forms and medical information forms were valid. Once that was done and Joel had been given a packet of information and a key for his room, he leaned against the wall and took a minute, exhausted from the mental and social effort.
"So, sorry about all that," said the new guy they'd called in. He was tall and lanky, black, with straight and slightly long black hair; he extended a hand to Joel. "Robert Venkatesan. You can call me Rob or Mr. Venkatesan, whatever you're more comfortable with." Joel shook the man's hand out of pro forma, grabbing the backpack and the trash bag.
"Want me to help with all that?" As he said it, he was already picking up the suitcase, so Joel just nodded.
They started out the door just as the lines were starting to thin out. Joel could see people off in the distance, mostly walking down the same way they were going, and if he squinted he thought he could even see a red-painted concrete building that was the one they were heading to.
"Is there anything you don't have that you're going to need before the end of the night? Food, toiletries, clothing?"
There was a hollow pit in his stomach; he'd had to have been at the airport at 5 in the morning so he hadn't eaten since before he'd slept. "They gave me a meal card."
"Yes." The lanky man pressed his lips together. "Though they're still getting the computers working, so I don't think they'll work until dinner. If you want something before that, I can help."
Joel groaned. He'd taken long enough to be okay with taking charity, and he was tired. Tired of dealing with bureaucracy, moving, walking... he just wanted to go home.
Not that that was a thing anymore.
"I wanna get my stuff unpacked an' see if I feel like doin' anythin'."
"Fair 'nough! Let's get you into the dorm."
By the time they got there, Joel had taken off the backpack as way too hot and his arms were aching from carrying both it and the trash bag. He felt a little faint, to be honest, but once he hit the AC again he felt a second wind. After a short elevator ride, they made it to the room- or outside the room, as the door was open and that gaggle of people he remembered from the line was there. Well, partly there; there was a man carrying in boxes and a woman just inside holding the littlest kid, the one that couldn't've been more than three. As they walked up, the man narrowed his eyes at Joel and, leaning himself against the doorframe to shift the weight of the boxes, crossed himself.
"You're not my nephew's roommate, are you?"
"Oh come on, man, you ain't even met me!" Joel whined.
"Marcus!" called the woman from inside, stepping out. She took a breath when she saw Joel, but was firm. "Don't be rude to the poor boy. You know where you are!"
The man grumbled under his breath in that other language (presumably the same one, anyhow) and headed inside.
Mr. Venkatesan stepped forward then and offered the lady a hand. "This does seem to be the right room. Would we be in your way-?"
"Oh come come," she said, cutting him off and waving her free hand in a come-in gesture. "If it's his room, it's his room."
Inside were two long bunks on the far wall, each recessed into a space big enough to sit up in; there was a wall seperating the feet of the beds and large shelved cupboards both above the space and below the mattress. Against the other two walls were desks and bookshelves, both bolted into the wall. Everything was identical and there were no windows. Well, identical except for the Godzilla and Batman posters being put up on the right wall and the boxes. Joel guessed the left side was his by default.
The boy Joel had guessed was older turned to him with sharp, bright violet eyes. Unnatural eyes. He'd started changing too. Joel gave him a nod and sat his bags down next to the leftward bed, opening the garbage bag and shoving his clothes in various shelves.
"Would you like some help?" said Mr. Venkatesan.
"Nah, bag's the only thing really."
"What about what's in the suitcase?"
"That's bath stuff an' my guitar," he said, throwing a grin behind his shoulder. Within a couple minutes he was done, and... well, he already felt better. Standing up, he unzipped the suitcase and took out his guitar. He checked it over for any damage or stuff-spillage, hugged it, and laid it on the bed. He noticed the violet-eyed boy watching him while putting boxes in the upper cabinets and decided to cut the tension.
Joel walked over and offered his hand. "Hey, I'm Joel."
The boy stared for a moment, expression blank, then turned and shook firmly. "Dmitry."
"Nice t'meetcha."
"Yeah," Dmitry said with a little half-smile. "I hope so."