TELL ME WHAT TO DO, , Nell

Nell had worn her nerves down to an edge. Her body felt jittery but her mind just wanted to shut down into sleep. They were battling it out with each other as she tried to distract herself by using her powers to bloom a flower from nothing, like she used to do when she needed their reassurance after her mother beat her. But her mind was twisting in so many ways, and she wished she could just sleep. She needed to go home and get away from this school. Nell didn’t know exact details of what was going on outside, since she’d been hiding the entire day, worried about heading straight into what would be hellfire. They were after her. Every time she thought of it, she felt a jolt go through her skin. It was terrifying, to say the least, that half the school was out for her blood now. Sighing, Nell picked herself up from the couch and sat upright. She hated this. She hated war. She hated war that was caused because of her. She stood, dragging her hands down her face as she walked. The girl really needed to go home and relax. But there was one thing she wanted to do.

Nell walked into the girls’ dorms and saw Ari on her bed. Smiling brightly, she said, ”Good, you’re here.” She walked over and sat down next to her on the bed. ”I have to head home soon, but I wanted to talk to you.” Shifting a bit, she folded her legs underneath her and looked at Ari, her smile no longer on her face. She was just a bit too exhausted for that. ”Thank you…for being on my side. I think you’re the only one who honestly knows I didn’t do it since I was actually with you.” Nell sighed, mussing up her already frizzy hair from doing it the entire day. ”Unfortunately, the enemy alliance doesn’t care about alibis—all they want is revenge.” Sighing once more, she fell back onto the bed, feeling the full weight of her exhaustion and knowing she had to drive home tonight. ”I wish you guys didn’t have to fight.” It just wasn’t fair.

Nell let herself at least relax into her friend’s hug. Even smiled back when Ari smiled at her. The best thing was that her friends could always cheer her up no matter the situation. Especially when they were safe. Which is why she looked down when she started picking invisible fuzz off the bedspread when she answered. “As morbid as it is, part of me was fearing that some people already ended up in the medical wing.” She didn’t know if the violence had already begun or not, but she sighed in relief when Ari said she’d been hiding out with the earth student here, too. ”Good. But…we can’t do this forever. We’re going to have to go to classes tomorrow, unfortunately.” They couldn’t hide out from the world—not for long, anyway. As said as it was, there was also truth in it.

”Nah, that’s okay, Ari,” she said when Ari mentioned her brother. ”I wouldn’t want to be a burden on anyone. Besides, I’m much better off on my own that anything.” Downtown definitely wasn't the safest place to live, that was for damn sure, but it was better than nothing. If she knew his occupation, she'd have been even more reluctant to stay with him. She was a criminal, in more ways than her friends knew. She'd told most that she worked as a bartender, but she also hadn't mentioned that she was an illegal in every possible way, with a fake ID, fake license, and fake identity. She was a matricide for Christ's sake. She had a feeling if her schoolmates knew that, they wouldn't have been so quick to defend her. Yeah, her brother definitely would not protect her.

Ari herself seemed really distressed about it all, proven as she absent-mindedly grabbed for her teddy bear. Nell smiled softly, though it wasn’t as bright as usual. ”I think they mostly just want a scapegoat, no matter who it is. Which is why they readily believe I did it and don’t really care about sleuthing around for the truth. As long as someone is paying…well, they don’t care.” Her stomach twisted a bit, but it was the truth, no matter how much either of them wished it weren’t so. She sighed as the girl seemed to be forgetting what went down the night before. ”We were hanging out here as Earth kids do, growing flowers.” Nell snorted at the irony. Here people were accusing her of murder when she was doing something so completely harmless as that. ”And I guess there may have been others here to serve as witnesses, but as I said, I don’t think they really care. It’s probably dangerous of me to even think of parlaying with the enemy leaders.”

Nell was more thankful than she’d ever been that she had people on her side for this. Back in America, it wasn’t the same. Everyone was her enemy. Her family managed to twist the truth so much that she came to be thought of as a cold-blooded murderer, and she was having a hard-time convincing herself that it wasn’t true. After all, it had all been in self-defense. ”I know…” she murmured. A strong part of her felt like crying, but she hadn’t cried in years and so she was sure that she’d forgotten a long time ago. ”I just…I don’t want anyone to get hurt. Promise me you’ll stay out of trouble as much as possible.” She pushed herself up and extending her pinky to Ari. ”Pinky swear that you’ll stay away from the Fire and Thunder students as much as you can. And tell me if you ever get seriously hurt, okay?” Nell could be amazingly vindictive, something she’d inherited from her father’s side of the family. But she wasn’t violent, at least. More like tricky.

Nell put her arm around Ari’s shoulders as the girl clutched onto the teddy bear. Even though the college student was older than her, she felt like the big sister right now. ”You get used to it,” she said lightly, even though the situation was anything but light. Sure, Nell knew how it felt to have people out for her, but this was in a different way. Her family wanted her incarcerated—these people wanted her dead. There was quite the difference. ”Of course they’re rushing into things, which is why it’ll be hard to deter them. Which is why we’ve got to stay strong.” That’s what Nell’s been doing her entire life, anyway. Staying strong. "Ya know, I heard about you giving the Thunder and Fire leaders the verbal middle finger in the mess hall. Wish I had stayed to see that."

Nell's smile was wry when she replied: ”I know what it’s like to be under attack. Calm is my defense mechanism.” She pulled away, and was about to open up in a way she never had before. But she trusted Ari, the girl was her best friend and it was something Nell believed a best friend should know. Pulling up her shirt, she showed up her pale white scars on her tan midsection and the prominent pink slash angling from her hipbone to her naval. Of course, these weren’t all of the scars and some of the worst psychological wounds didn’t show up on skin. ”My mother physically abused me for ten years,” Nell said quietly, feeling her stomach twist up in knots. It was hard for her, that much was apparent by the way she looked down at her stomach. With the exhibition over, she pulled it back down feeling very self-conscious because of the marred skin, and looked Ari in the eye. ”I wish I could tell you more about my past, but even that’s something I’ve never told anyone before. You see...most of my life has been spent surviving attacks. My life has been spent in a war. I know what it’s like to have people after me, too.” But she also wouldn’t tell the girl about the fact she had killed her abuser. ”I’m…desensitized, I guess. I only lasted so long because I was calm. This is no different.” Besides, she was pretty exhausted.

With the comforting gesture, Nell could have almost cried right there and turned the whole thing into a Hallmark moment. But crying was something she had forgotten how to do a long time ago. And so it was just this painful ache in her chest, pushing up into her throat. Did Ari know how much this meant to her? Probably not. But she knew more than anyone else in the Academy, and that was something of a privilege. Most people didn’t even know where she had come from, or where her parents were, or anything personal. Nell just didn’t let others in like that. But she’d let Ari in. ”Thank you, really,” she murmured with a broad smile. ”I’m not used to this kind of support. I’m glad I have yours.” And there was the ever-present feeling that she did not deserve Ari or the rest of the Earths and Waters. Nell had said that her mother had physically abused her for ten years—she’d been psychologically abused her entire life. Which is how she ended up with her self-esteem saying that she didn’t deserve anything good. That in a way, she deserved this war because it was karma’s way of paying her back for her true murder.

Sighing as the girl paced, Nell felt very guilty that she had to be caught up in this war. Not only because of the whole self-esteem issue, but because of the fact Ari would get hurt. Nell’s friends were all in danger, and that was the worst thing about it. But she had to admire Ari—after all, she was looking determined with her fists clenched and her stance hard as if she were ready for battle. Thankfully, the older girl didn’t think Nell immature for her pinky swear. It was what she always used to do with her sister, and it was an example of how she wasn’t completely grown up. It was a paradox in the way she lived—she had been forced to mature too soon, but she was still very naïve in the ways of the world. ”Good,” Nell said. ”And I’ll make sure to protect you guys whenever I can.” Of course, physically and elementally she was a wimp. But when it came to trickery…well, she was a clever girl. She knew how to defend the ones she loved without engaging in outright combat.

[now she does! Trololo~ xD I guess Ari can tell her past now or something.]

Nell snorted at her friends words. Yeah, she had quite a bit of sass. Especially good for a time like this. Unlike a lot of Earth students, Ari had a bite with her bark. Nell merely barked real loud and viciously then curled up in a corner to sleep.

She was surprised by this reaction. Of course she was, she’d never told anyone this before so how could she predict any sort of reaction? But she hadn’t been expecting comfort because she had never gotten any when it came to her past. The people who knew even the smallest bit of her history were twisting it into their own version of the truth. Nell didn’t expect her words to have such an effect, either, to where she saw her friend’s eyes glimmer with tears. And no, she didn’t expect to be pulled into Ari and she could have crumbled right then. As a matter of fact, she eyes instinctively widened, and she buried her face into Ari’s shoulder. It felt nice to be comforted, even though she felt selfish for the confession. Ari didn’t need to know. She didn’t need this. Nell was supposed to be strong here, but she revealed how vulnerable she truly is. Still, she let herself have this one bit of selfishness so that she could feel comforted for once. Staying silent, she recovered from finally admitting something that she never thought she’d speak aloud.

’…messed up as mine?’ Nell blinked as she watched the girl. She gazed down at the flower, hands in her lap. She never did know why Ari was so attached to the plant. But she stayed silent as Ari explained. There couldn’t have been more physical pain if the girl had punched Nell in the gut. No. Rape was something very unforgiveable to her, especially when it was her friend, especially when it’s done by a father, someone you’re supposed to trust. Her own father now seemed like a fucking saint. No, nothing about that was right. It was barely something she could understand. Ari wouldn’t even look her in the eye, which was understandable. If she were any other person, she’d be dissolved into tears right now. But that’s not how she responded to pain. There was simply an expression of destitution on her face as she wiped the tears from Ari’s eyes with her forefinger.

Nell didn’t like hearing the girl call herself dead and withered, but at least it helped her with something. The concept of rebirth. It was perhaps why Nell burned the paper cranes she and her sister had made after Tilly’s death—because it represented lost hope and sickness, and she might have been thinking of the phoenix rising from the ashes as she torched them with a lighter. But that wasn’t what happened there hadn’t been any sort of strength coming from that. Burning those paper cranes led to the first show of physical abuse by her mother. ”Everyone has at least one secret that would break your heart,” Nell murmured. She didn’t realize how true it was until now. ”I don’t think anyone had a perfect childhood, unfortunately. But you’re right. We can’t focus on the past if we want to get stronger.” But first one needed to reconcile with the past, and Nell had far from done that. ”It sounds horrible, but I’m glad I have someone else who understand what it’s like to have shitty parents.” They both had been betrayed by the people who were supposed to care for them. And they both refused to go around pitying themselves, it seemed.

Another hug, and Nell felt a lot better about the entire situation in general. Like she could face this war and give it the middle finger. Maybe now her strong façade wouldn’t have to be a façade. ”The underdog,” Nell said with a light snort. She guessed that’s what she was. Less so now, though. Before—when absolutely no one had been on her side—she was a true underdog. She watched Ari sit in her chair and side as she laid flat on her stomach, taking a moment to bury her face in the blankets and think. Then, she lifted her head and said with a half-smile, ”Form a war council?” More seriously, she added, ”I honestly don’t know, Ari. This is my first war. I just enrolled, after all. I don’t know what we’re supposed to do.”