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Post by KNOX CAESAR KETILL on Jun 21, 2012 6:49:45 GMT -5
 Knox was not fond of water. His experience at the beach when he’d been young still haunted him in his dreams sometimes. He could still feel the burn as the water rushed into his throat, attempted to overtake his lungs. As the blackness filed in, so neat, so easy… he’d wanted to let go. It had been easy to let go. Was that what frightened him? He was never quite sure, and he did his best to avoid the memory when he could. Nonetheless, his morning jogs took him to the lake, where he usually allowed himself a short break. He uncapped the water bottle and gazed over the water, his eyes only about half-focused as he did so. The chill wafted off the waves and rushed into his face, cooling the heat from the exercise away. The breeze was pleasant while he was running, but he enjoyed the break just as much. Inhaling the cold air refreshed him; giving his heart a moment to beat relaxed him. The heart rate would jump again in a few minutes anyway. His breath had a moment to calm, too, though by now he was fit enough that his breathing came more easily than it had when he first started jogging. Endurance.
He had better endurance when it came to jogging than when you approached his ability. Hazel eyes fell to his hands, palms splayed upward as if expecting a present. The scar seemed angry and red on his left hand, probably from the frigid cold that curled around him. It didn’t hurt anymore. It hadn’t in a long time. Scars did not necessarily heal, but they faded. His eyes lifted again, finding the water’s edge and tracing it. It wasn’t as dangerous as his dreams liked to suggest. He was taller now, stronger. If worse came to worst and he really was drowning, he could always find a bit of help from his element—if he wasn’t unconscious yet. A shake of the head tossed slightly sweaty hair into his eyes, which he quickly brushed away again.
With a deep breath to allay any remaining anxiety, he approached the edge of the water and plopped down on one of the rocks that pushed out of the sand. Bits of white surrounded him, remnant of the last snow, some left to melt away thanks to the sun that sparkled weakly in the pale sky. No one could mistake the season for anything but winter, not that he minded. He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. The cold air brought goosebumps to his arms, lifting the little hairs as part of an instinct that was probably over a million years old. He’d never been particularly interested in biology or evolution. Any research he did regarding the topics usually remained necessary to whatever project with which he was currently occupying himself. His current project had nothing to do with either, and so he hadn’t spent much time in the library looking up Darwin or anything along those lines.
The boy finally let the water touch his lips—he felt dehydrated more suddenly than he expected and let the water rush down his throat. It was as cold as the air outside, or at least seemed to be, most likely because he’d been carrying it by the cap rather than full in the palm of his hand. His morning routine was usually uninterrupted. He liked it that way. He liked his schedule. He wasn’t OCD; he knew without testing, simply because his organizational tendencies weren’t very extreme. Though he disliked disruption of his routine, it didn’t bother him on a larger scale. A friend was always welcome, to be honest. A small crack accompanied his shutting the water bottle again as he rose. He dropped the bottle onto the floor and began stretching. Pulling a muscle was not fun. Nor were cramps, when he though about it, and though he did this every day without fail, he couldn’t be too safe. His mind wandered again as he stretched, visiting topics too broad and too fleetingly for him to bother focusing very much on any of them. Arms up. Arms down. Roll your neck.
He bent and picked up the water bottle again, gaze browsing the lakeside for anyone else who was taking a morning stroll. Was there anyone to avoid? Anyone to smile at, greet politely, and back away from, using his routine as the perfect reason to leave him or her behind? Surely no one would absolutely insist on joining him.
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Post by ASHTON CAMDEN RALEIGH on Jun 22, 2012 3:52:18 GMT -5
The cold winter air was like a slap across the face as he stepped outside of the house that morning and Ashton screwed up his expression as the breeze caressed his cheeks. Jack Frost nipping at your nose, was that how that song went? It was accurate right now at any rate. It took him a moment adjusting to the chill but he had never minded winter all that much. He didn't like that the cold and frost killed all of the plants and worked against his powers but he loved snowboarding, building snowmen and having snowball fights with friends. It was a fun season provided you didn't get sick and that you could handle the cold. He was used to it by now since it was February and the Canadian winters tended to hit in mid to late November. "Where are ya goin', Ash?" The Earth graduate turned to glance over his shoulder and saw his younger brother Cameron practically hanging off the door handle as he swayed back and forth against it. Their mother would not approve but Ashton was not going to say anything against it. Mom doesn't approve of anything. He loved her but that was very true. "Just for a bit of a walk, Cam. Wanna come with?" He and his brother were pretty close and so he figured it would be nice to ask. They hung out together the most during autumn because of Halloween but they were still brothers and could be seen together during most seasons. His brother shook his head. "Nah, it's too cold," he complained. "I'll see you when you get back." Ashton waved his hand in farewell and started off down the driveway, deciding that it might be a good idea to walk around and maybe go down to the beach or something. It was usually quiet there and a quiet morning walk was what he was going for, after all.
As the Raleigh residence was a farmhouse, it was situated like other such houses on a long road without a sidewalk. He was therefore forced to walk along the side of the road, skirting puddles of slush and hoping that none of the cars that passed by would splash him with the horrid mixture of water and dirty snow. He twitched his lips into a smile and waved at whatever neighbours he passed as they shovelled their driveways or read papers on porches. Ashton was a friendly fellow and would greet most anyone no matter who they were. He came across a road that branched off from the one he was on and led deeper into the city but ignored it, instead continuing straight. He was headed to the beach today and the lake was not in the middle of the city but instead tucked out of the way where there would be some peace. The place was busy in the summer months with cars filling the large parking lot before the main street that ran parallel to the beach, lined with shops and a single hotel. Now it was nearly deserted, the cars probably belonging to the people who worked the places that were still open. He figured it would be a pretty boring job and sympathized for a moment before turning his attention to the beach itself. It was nowhere near as picturesque as usual during winter, with snow freezing the sand and spotting the landscape. He did see someone down there and wondered what it was that they were doing, not recognising them from such a distance. Curiosity drew him closer and when he was close enough, the Earth elemental's lips split into a broad grin.
"Hey, Knox!"
The greeting rang out clearly across the near-silent beach, a prelude to his arrival as he picked up his pace and jogged slightly across the sand until he drew close, slowing down and exhaling. He didn't jog every day but he was still in decent enough fitness that he wasn't panting. "What're you doing out here in the winter-time?" He laughed, for a beach was sure a strange place to come across a friend. "Then again, guess you could ask me the same thing, huh?" Ashton might have been oblivious to some things but there was a difference between being oblivious and being a total dumbass. He was not stupid. "I just wanted a walk, mostly. It's cold, though, brrr!" He tended to be an endless fountain of babble most days and you could count on Ashton to talk your ear off about his life experiences no matter how long he'd known you. And Ash had known Knox for quite some time. It had never bothered him that his friend was shy so he'd just acted his normal self and that had worked out for the better. "It's pretty quiet out here, eh? I kinda like it. I mean, you come down here in the summer time and you can never get any peace!" He was actually a people person, he thrived in large crowds no matter whether he knew everyone or not, he was merely pointing out the facts. Stating the obvious as well but that was alright. He didn't mind pointing out things that everyone already knew, it was habit. "How's it going?" He'd gotten so carried away by his babbling that he'd forgotten to ask the typical catch-up question.
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Post by KNOX CAESAR KETILL on Jun 22, 2012 18:45:34 GMT -5
The sky was cold and gray. He wasn’t sure why he wanted to apply the word “cold” to it, excpe thtat the air around him wanted to choke him with the chill. No, not “choke,” but something along the same lines. It wasn’t unpleasant, it was just there, with every inhale His exhales left little puffs in the air, gray like the clouds that blended in with the atmosphere above him. He was still waiting for another snow to come. The flakes would float lazily to the ground, as they always did. Back and forth, like leaves did in autumn, but much slower, depending on the wind. They also didn’t usually possess the imaginative colors of turning leaves, but they had their own identity. He still wondered whether ti was true that every snowflake had its own particular shape. It seemed a little unlikely, considering how many there on Earth when the cold season came around. How could anyone be sure? Just because you photographed a hundred out of trillions, you couldn’t judge that they would all be different. And how did you photograph a snowflake anyway? They melted with the slightest bit of warmth, and he would be surprised if a camera was strong enough to pick up on those tiny little details anyway.
He heard his name. It drew his attention away from his snow-concentrated thoughts. At first, he thought it was that odd trick your mind could play on you in which your heard things that hadn’t actually sounded—like your cell phone or your name—just because you were expecting it. He wasn’t expecting his name, though, and although he hadn’t spotted any figures on the beach through his first search, he turned again swiftly, looking for the origin of the sound. He found the face from which it had come to be a familiar one, which turned out to be not quite as bad as it could have been. He smiled at the approaching friend, waiting for him patiently. He took the moment to have another swallow of water. If his friend had been panting, he would not have been surprised. Sand tended to force the muscles in the legs to work a bit harder than pavement or cobblestone did. It worked the calves, mostly, and it liked to remind him whenever he took a day away from the jogging with a painful soreness in his legs. That was why he generally preferred his daily routine—it kept the soreness at bay, and even skipping one day mad eit hard to motivate himself for the next. Sleep in today, and you’re tempted to sleep in tomorrow. Knox liked to avoid temptation.
It was generally a good idea when you had such an addictive personality anyway. He was glad that he was underage when it came to alcohol—the threat of breaking the law kept any interest he might have had in alcohol at bay. If he was offered some after his birthday, he didn’t know how he’d react. His better judgment would want him to say no, like all those commercials suggested about smoking (which he had to avoid as well), but his occasional curiosity would still consider it. He’d be fine as long as he literally kept his mouth shut. After all, he could always fool someone like that, and satisfy them in the same point. Stupid idea anyway. He should just say no, whether he was pestered or not. Ashton didn’t usually pester. The barrage of speech when his friend arrived was not an unexpected one, nor one that displeased him. Maybe he’d invite Ashton to jog with him. He wasn’t sure if he’d accept or not, considering he seemed dressed for something more relaxed.
Knox, for one, preferred the emptiness, the quiet, because he didn’t like it when the beach was full of large groups. It made jogging uncomfortable for him, solely because he always felt like someone would step in his way at exactly the wrong moment and he’d have to start a conversation. He dislike running into people because it was incredibly impolite, but also because it required at least some conversaiton to avoid being even more polite. After all, apologizing and then running off was nearly as rude as running off without an apology. At least he hadn’t run into anyone this time around. And he dind’t mind the cold too much himself. The exercise kept him relatively warm, though now that his break was dragging on longer than he’d expected, he was starting to notice just how chilly it was out here. And the water wasn’t helping. He capped it again and placed it on the floor at his feet.
He never knew how to answer the question, or ones like it, such as “What’s up?” He knew it wasn’t meant literally, but his mind always darted to the literal answer, which usualyl happened to be the sky or the ceiling. As to going, he was, or at least had been, for a jog. It wasn’t something he regarded negatively so much as he considered it with mild confusion. An answer became hard to encounter, but he usually answered, as much as he could, with a reply that seemed worthy as being questioned for his state of being, and then being as honest as he could. “I… I was on a break. From my… jog…”
[/color] Though he managed not to stutter, the extra spaces acted as interjections to replace the usually repeated sounds. He cleared his throat, but continued, taking care to speak clearly for once, “How are you?”[/color] He even placed a smile on his lips, hands digging into the pockets of his jacket so he could acquire some measure of warmth for them.[/size][/blockquote][/justify][/blockquote] |
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Post by ASHTON CAMDEN RALEIGH on Jun 24, 2012 3:49:41 GMT -5
Ashton was so excited when it came to talking to his friends that he often neglected to slow down enough to give them time to answer or keep up with him. Most got used to it after a few days of hanging around him, though, because it was his usual personality and if others didn't adapt they usually drifted away from him instead. It was sad to see people he'd considered friends starting to distance themselves but he often let them go. He wasn't going to try and force someone to like him or to enjoy hanging around him if they made it clear that they did not. It was sad, of course, and he wished he could have it some other way, but he knew that it was impossible to avoid. Not everyone was receptive to his bubbly and persistent personality. Knox had been kind enough to tolerate his incessant babbling, though, and thus began a friendship that had lasted. His smile was a tad breathless as he slowed to a stop near his friend and his cheeks were flushed red from the cold and exertion but he looked happy and enthusiastic as usual. In his excitement at running into a friend he forgot that bombarding Knox with ramble and then asking him a question that could be taken too literally was not always the best of plans.
He was patient with Knox's pauses, guessing that they were to prevent the stuttering and so acting as if his friend had said everything in one flawless breath. He was such a tolerant and easy-going person that it was nigh on impossible to make him judge you negatively. "Yeah, you jog all the time, don't you?" In years of friendship you learned things about a person. He admired Knox's ability to jog daily and keep up with a routine because Ashton was scatter-brained and did not do too well with constant organization. He preferred to go with the flow and apart from school and work his days never had much of a plan. "It's gotta be a pain in this cold though, huh? Doesn't it hurt your lungs and stuff?" He was honestly curious, bright green gaze fixed on his friend's. "I mean I just ran a bit to catch up and I'm already feeling it!" He grinned, laughed at himself. It was easy to take humour in things for Ashton. If he was miserable all the time it made for a boring life and he did not want to be boring. "At least I'm not interrupting your run too much if you were on a break, yeah?" He didn't like to bother people or get in their way and so he asked this question with some concern, adding the 'yeah?' at the end to make it clear that he was looking for confirmation. He liked to be well-liked, especially by the people he considered to be close and long-time friends.
His friend asking how he was doing and that snapped him out of his train of thought. He was the type of guy that could go on for hours without talking too much about himself but it didn't bother him to and he was very open, so he thought about the question, rocking back on his heels slightly. They would have sank into the sand deeper than they did if it was not partially frozen from the cold. "I'm good!" He was always good, pretended to be even when he wasn't for the sake of others. "I was bored so I decided to walk around for a bit, see if I could find something to do, someone to talk to. And I did, so!" He grinned. He was glad that he'd come across his friend because it gave him something more productive to do with his time than just walking around. He liked nature and walking and all but he much preferred having some kind of company. It was why he'd invited his brother along but Cameron hadn't wanted to brave the snow and so here Ashton was hanging out with Knox. That was not a bad thing by any means. "How much longer do you usually run for?" He wondered how close Knox had been to the end of his routine before Ash had oh so kindly interrupted. At least his friend didn't seem to mind said interruption. That would be sad, if he did.
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Post by KNOX CAESAR KETILL on Jun 25, 2012 5:29:28 GMT -5
He’d left his music at home today. He’d wanted the quiet rush of air in his ears. He’d wanted to listen to the chirp of early morning birds. He’d wanted to notice the sounds of nature around him—the soft crash of the half-frozen waves on the shore, the pad of his feet no the ground, his breath as it became labored, the sound of cars or people on the street. The ambient music of life would be quite beautiful, if one only listened. Some people simply weren’t good at listening. They preferred being listened to, whether or not they had anything worth saying or singing. Some just liked to hear themselves, and even Knox would say they were not good at listening. Listening had to do with others, though listening to yourself could be equally important. You had to think about what you said, be careful about what you said, and think about what noise you made. A person’s voice could be harmonious, like make-believe angels playing on make-believe harps, but the melody could stink like a fire if it were used for the wrong words. Words, unlike in the common saying, could hurt. They could do so much damage. People had killed over words, whether others or themselves. It was a horrible thing, how powerful words were—and Knox found himself sometimes wishing his words would never drive anyone to do something like that.
Perhaps that was why he feared being published, or at least avoided it for the time being. Why share his words when they could so easily be taken in exactly the wrong way? He didn’t want to hurt anyone. There was no point, for him, in causing pain. It seemed like an unnecessary thing to hurt someone just because they disagreed with you. If they hurt you first, why hurt them back? If you exchanged an eye for an eye, you would both end up blind eventually. Besides, pain was rarely pleasant. Sadists found it so, he knew, but at the same time, he felt they should realize what pain really was. Pain said there was something wrong with your body. Why not leave ‘right’ then?
Knox shook his head minutely, rushing the thoughts away, and ran a hand through his hair, then down his face, to avoid it. He didn’t want to deal with while talking with a friend. It seemed a bit unfair to Ashton, to be honest, so he turned his face up and brought a tentative smile to his lips. He nodded to confirm the question as to his routine. He didn’t think of the routine as a bad thing, though the pain in this case was apparently meant more literally. How to explain? He considered for a moment. “It… it bothers a little… at first. But… uhm, after I’ve done it… jogged for a while, I mean.. In the cold. It gets better.”
[/color] He wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to anyone, honestly, because his lungs had been working on it for quite a while. How long had been jogging daily? A year or two at the very least. He’d done it in high school, every morning before school. He remembered telling someone, and how they had thought him insane for waking as early as this would require. “And n-no,”[/color] he answered quickly, too quickly as the stutter found its way out again, so he slowed down to finish the statement, “You aren’t.” He didn’t find that friends could interrupt very easily. A jog, at least. He wouldn’t want to be interrupted if he were writing, to be honest. But Ashton hadn’t interrupted his writing, so there was no issue. He rarely had issues with his friends. That was why they were his friends, after all. Why trust someone with whom you have issues? Those people tended to stay a bit farther away from his heart, more along in the lines of acquaintances than friends. His problems trusting people usually related to… he wasn’t even entirely sure. Maybe he just hadn’t been around people enough as a child. His early childhood, before high school of the elements came around, at least, had been rather devoid of most other children. The only ones with whom he’d really interacted had been those of the people with whom his parents regularly met. Thinking back on it, it had been odd. He’d kept no close friends from back then, and now part of him was almost glad for it. It seemed a bad place to make friends, if they were spoiled. If he were being fair, though, he had to admit that he could remember them all too well and was therefore a bad judge if they had been spoiled or not. He’d just always been quiet. “I… I’m about…”[/color] he considered for a minute. He rarely timed his jogs, so it was almost a bad question to ask, but at the same time it was understandable that Ashton would ask. Anyway, the beach… the beach was somewhere in the middle. I think… “Half-way. But… I can cut… it short… if you’d rather… do something… else…”[/color] More pauses, carefully timed when he felt like he couldn’t say a complete word. He hated his stutter. It was so stupid that he could just talk. It was easy for almost everyone else, after all. Why was it so damned difficult for him? He took a deep breath, feeling the cold air rush into his lungs, though it wasn’t as painful as Ashton seemed to expect. It was just breathing. Just breathing. As long as he was breathing, life wasn’t over. His stutter wouldn’t end his life anyway. It was stupid to get so frustrated over the stupid stutter, and though he was intelligent, he could still be pretty damned stupid.[/size][/blockquote][/justify][/blockquote] |
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Post by ASHTON CAMDEN RALEIGH on Jun 25, 2012 6:14:22 GMT -5
Ashton definitely didn't see Knox's routine as a bad thing, either. He was actually kind of envious of people that could be so dedicated to a lifestyle choice that they stuck with it day after day. He couldn't count on both hands how many times his mother had done the diet thing or how many times his father had said he was going to start hitting the gym to take off a little extra flab. They could keep it up for about a week or so and then it flopped. He did precisely the same thing with school. He didn't tell Knox that he felt those occasional pangs of jealousy, though, because jealousy was never something that he wanted to bring into a friendship. It made things far too uncomfortable. Instead he merely smiled and nodded at the words, not affected in the least by the pauses. He was used to it by now.
"Well that's good, at least! I don't know if anyone would keep jogging if it never got better." That would be subjecting oneself to constant torture, wouldn't it? It didn't seem all that fair. "I tried it once but it didn't work out so well. I had pains in my calf the next morning and I was done." He chuckled at himself and shook his head. There had went his dreams of running marathons and stuff to stay in shape. Ashton was a person of many phases. He would try new things because he thought they looked cool or that the people who were doing them on a regular basis were friends of his. If his friends all started up on a new habit or hobby, he tried to follow along with them. He was a people-pleaser. Drugs might have roped him in if he hadn't ended up huddled in a closet and shaking after the first time he tried them. The experience was enough to convince him never to go down that path again.
He sighed in relief when Knox told him that he wasn't interrupting anything. "Okay, good," he said with a smile. "Cause, y'know, if you wanted to get back to your run I wouldn't stop you." He was never the type of person that would bitch and whine to his friends about how they should ditch what they were doing to come and hang out with him instead. Oddly enough, Ashton was very susceptible to peer pressure when others tried this on him. If a friend called him up while he was busy doing something he enjoyed and begged him to come and hang out, odds were he would end up going so that they didn't get upset with him. He'd had a couple of his more selfish friends get angry when he wasn't at their beck and call 24/7 because his parents made him babysit or he opted to try and get homework done and Ashton was too much of a pushover to snap at them.
He didn't like confrontation and he didn't like when his friends were upset with him. That was probably why he didn't try to convince Knox to abandon his morning routine right away and come join him. "Well I dunno," he said doubtfully, seeming concerned when Knox told him that he could cut it short. He was hesitant and he made it clear by his voice, his expression. "You do this every day and all, I'd hate to mess with your routine." He didn't know what it was like to have a daily something that you had to accomplish but he could guess that it was something that you got used to, something that you didn't exactly welcome others barging into. Not that Ashton had barged or anything like that but, eh, you get the point. He didn't want to be a bother. "I mean, unless you're really sure or something." He rubbed at the back of his neck, a classic sheepish and nervous gesture.
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Post by KNOX CAESAR KETILL on Jul 3, 2012 5:07:35 GMT -5
Music was an interesting thing. You could listen to it in countless languages, and, even if you didn’t understand it, it could betray emotion. Of course, some were misleading. Music could be very upbeat although the song was actually meant to be sad, or angry, which was communicated only through the lyrics. If you didn’t understand the lyrics, and didn’t bother looking up a translation, you could be left in the dark for as long as you listened to it. Why did people outgrow music anyway? He’d read a study that the music one listened to while one was an early teenager, say 13 to 15 years old, was the music that one listened to throughout life. He wasn’t too picky about music himself, so he couldn’t sympathize too explicitly. He listened to many types of music on a regular basis, because he liked having something in the background, especially when he was writing. In those moments, he was rarely listening explicitly and usually ended up not even noticing if his music player lost power because he got into the rhythm of actually writing. Some music, though, he preferred to others when writing. Rock didn’t work so well unless he was writing some sort of action scene; classical worked best if there was some sort of romance, though he usually avoided it. Music for dancing was his favorite, like tango or Paso Doble songs. They were incredibly powerful.
Dancing was a physical expression, where music was auditory. Of course, music could be just as physical, if you held your instrument one way or bashed it too pieces, which he’d never quite understood. Instruments could be fairly expensive. Why break them? Sure, the richer of artists could always buy a new one, but still seemed a waste of money of such. Besides, they could sell the guitars and such to fans for way more than they were worth simply because the artists had used them, touched them. He’d ehard that even tissue papers with the snot of someone famous could go for a nice price on ebay. It was disgusting. Why would someone pay for another person’s boogers? He shook his head. Dancing made more sense, to be honest. Paying to dance with a celebrity made more sense than paying for their chemical excretions anyway, even if the moment was limited. You could hold on to the memory, the experience. Sometimes, that was worth more than a material object like a used tissue. Seriously. He didn’t get celebrity worship anyway. They were just people who managed to make a talent—or lack thereof—noticeable enough to get money for it.
Writing was sort of like that. Anything could be, to be honest. You could earn money doing pretty much anything. You just had to get noticed. Knox wasn’t one to be noticed—he preferred it when he wasn’t being noticed. And at the same time, there was the desire to do something that would gt him noticed. There were who spent their whole lives being told they couldn’t do something, even though they desperately wanted to. They were told their dreams would not come true and that they should stop dreaming. Some of them gave up. Some of them actually achieved their dreams and got to spit in the faces of those who had put them down. What he thought was worse, though, was the opposite. What if you kept being told you could do this? That you were going to be great? And then… you weren’t. You didn’t do anything. What would that be like? He imagined it as humiliating and heartbreaking and embarrassing. It was the sort of thing that kept you from trying. You could bounce back from a failure, but… was it really just a failure if you had been convinced you would succeed—if everyone else had been convinced you would succeed?
And then you failed. What did you do then?
You listened. You listened to your friends and waited for the right moment to come back. He didn’t comment on the pains that jogging once could cause if you were out of shape or hadn’t used the muscles. Besides, Ashton didn’t need an answer for everything. As he didn’t when he commented on not interrupting his jog, which he wasn’t doing anyway. If he had been interrupting, Knox would have told him so because he was an honest person. He usually went with what he felt was right, though he didn’t always explode with his opinion. In fact, he usually kept it to himself, so he sometimes looked like he was submitting to the opinions of others. He respected them, sure, and he did not feel he needed to disagree openly unless it was really important to him, and few things were important enough for him to argue with people. He didn’t much like arguments, after all, so avoiding them was good. He, like his friend, liked pleasing people, even if it meant interrupting his routine (sometimes) or cutting short his jog.So he smiled at the other and replied simply, “I don’t mind at all.” Was the honesty why that came out so easily, in comparison to everything else he seemed to say?
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Post by ASHTON CAMDEN RALEIGH on Jul 4, 2012 10:42:41 GMT -5
Though he was still insistent on not interrupting anything and not being a bother to his friend, Ashton knew when to stop arguing and take another person's word for it that they didn't mind. He trusted Knox enough that he believed the other boy would tell him if it was really any trouble to cut his jog short and so he opened his mouth to say something, closed it, nodded, then said something different to what he had been about to. "Alright, then!" He'd been about to ask if Knox was sure out of habit but that would have been repeating himself and he knew that it would get annoying. People who constantly apologised or sought reassurance on a too-regular basis, such as every other sentence, were irritating. Not to Ashton, who had the patience of a saint and then some, but to others. Would it be irritating to Knox? Of that he could not be sure and he did not want to take his chances. His fellow graduate had said that he didn't mind cutting the jog short and that was that. If Ashton had not believed him he likely still would have ended the back and forth there to save any awkwardness but he did believe Knox and so he felt a lot better about his 'intrusion' now than he had before.
Unfortunately, the agreement that Knox would cut the jog short so that they could do something else together led to another dilemma: what was that something else going to be? Ashton was usually good at coming up with plans and spontaneity was a strong point as well so he didn't feel too worried. Still, he wanted to make sure it was something they'd both be comfortable doing and he gave it thought, smiling rather than frowning in thought. He always tended to look happy even when he wasn't, a stark contrast to those who looked murderous when their thoughts claimed them. He didn't tend to feel intimidated by many people like that. He was such a friendly fellow that only the most obvious of rejections would repel him. He patted his hand against his thigh as he mulled over possibilities, a helpful rhythm. "Well, is there anything you feel like doing?" He figured that this might be the best way to start things off. Ashton was agreeable and so it wasn't often that he would reject doing something that a friend suggested. It was how he'd ended up trying drugs for the first time, alcohol, cigarettes. He found smoking and drugs to be very unenjoyable habits but though he didn't drink often. he still did on occasion. He was a very emotional drunk, getting overjoyed instead of happy and depressed instead of mildly upset. He didn't get angry, though, because Ashton wasn't very good at feeling anger.
It was a bit chilly and so he started walking in order to stop from getting too cold, though he kept his pace slow and relaxed. He did not like to get where he was going too quickly, provided he was not in a rush for some reason, because even in the winter Ashton liked to enjoy his surroundings. Perhaps it was all a part of being an Earth elemental but he had a fondness for scenery and didn't like to pass it all by. He was that guy who would spend a car ride gazing endlessly out of the window whilst chatting the ears off the person next to him. Not the driver, though, because he wouldn't want any accidents. "Indoors or outdoors?" he wondered, deciding that he himself did not have a preference in this case. He'd come outside to walk around but he wouldn't mind the warm and welcoming interior of a Tim Hortons or anything. Maybe the hiking trails would hold something of interest outside, or the park. There were a lot of possibilities to be had. Once they'd settled on where it was they were going, he maintained his easy pace and cast around for conversation. It was an easy thing for him most of the time since he was so damned friendly. "How have your classes been so far?" he wondered curiously, for their differing majors (Botany and Linguistics were very different things) meant that the classes they had together were core classes only, for the most part. "I thought I knew everything there was to know about plants but apparently not," he joked, chuckling. He'd read a lot of books on them out of interest.
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Post by KNOX CAESAR KETILL on Jul 9, 2012 5:40:03 GMT -5
Knox hated being asked what he wanted to do because it made him feel awkward. It was an open-ended question, so it required more than a mere shake or nod of the head. He could always sign an answer, if he knew sign language which he considered learning but hadn’t yet mastered. He could mime an answer, but he felt he’d make a spectacle of himself if he tried that, and it was equally humiliating to signing it when he could just answer verbally. His words were mangled, of course, but he could speak. The thing was, saying what he wanted to do always made him feel demanding, and if that became the plan, he tended to feel guilty for taking charge of the situation. He just really wasn’t that sort of person. He didn’t like being in charge or telling other people what they should be doing. He preferred it when others told him what to do, though he like his independence just as well. It was just that being told what to do was a lesser evil than telling what to do, in his opinion. Besides, if you were telling people what to do, they were paying attention to you, and that wasn’t very appealing for the shy boy either.
God, to have people looking at him, waiting for him to decide for them how they should lead their lives. He was glad he was no king or other political official. It didn’t even have to be political. There were a lot of positions in which someone was telling their employees or those beneath them in the hierarchy what they should be doing. Knox didn’t want any of those jobs, though that would likely mean he’d end up with some sort of menial job once he did enter the workplace, and that didn’t appeal to him. He didn’t want to clean up after someone else’s mess either. What a predicament. He’d rather just sit in a quiet room and do what he loved to do: write. But even a journalist had to have some sort of power, not that he was in the loop enough to become one of them either. He was hopeless.
Relief flickered through him when the other started walking and posed another question as well. He didn’t know how to answer that one, but it didn’t make him feel as dictatorial as the other one. He was also glad to be moving. The warmth returned to his limbs as the exercise got his blood moving. He didn’t mind the cold by any means, but he considered the warmth of his home a tempting welcome after his jog. When he took the slower pace into consideration, though, he decided that he should perhaps keep moving so the jogging time wouldn’t be entirely wasted. “Wh-why don’t we… t-take a wa-walk? The… the scenery is-is nice, if you-you ignore… th-the c-cold.”
[/color] The stuttering could be mistaken for shattering teeth, but he and Ashton both knew better. Even without people watching, he wasn’t good at talking. Sure, Ashton was watching him, but he didn’t necessarily feel watched. He felt more as though he was just… he didn’t even know that, to be honest. Maybe he did feel watched and just didn’t want to admit it for fear his friend would take offense in the truth. If Ashton was as easy-going as he seemed, that would be unlikely, but the unlikely still happened. People were still struck by lightning. People were still attacked by sharks. People who were ninety years old were still adopted by loving parents. The earth elemental knew not to rule things out just because they were unlikely, but he did consider the chances of something happening, and of it not happening, when he made a decision and had to think about the effects of that decision. It was another reason, among many others, why decisions weren’t his favorite. Among his classes, he had his favorites, though. His math-based prerequisites weren’t on the list by far, but he liked some of his literature courses. He supposed it was like anyone who was studying; some things were good, some were bad, and a lot were just tedious. Knox liked learning, though, and he was good at it. He didn’t often need to ask questions that weren’t asked before he forced himself to open his mouth, and he rarely had to work with others unless he missed a day because he’d fallen ill, which happened just as infrequently. Did that make him antisocial? Maybe. At least he wasn’t at a level that begged the diagnosis of a disorder. “Well,”[/color] he put out finally, deciding that mentioning grades and such would probably end up not being too wonderful a subject to discuss. “Yours?” The monosyllabic answers came more easily, especially since they didn’t require much thought. He felt bad for thinking that, even a little lazy, but it was easier for him when he didn’t need to try to form longer sentences and then force them out without being completely nonsensical due to his stutter. Great. “There is… always… m-more to know,”[/color] he added after a moment, in response to his friend’s comment about plants. He didn’t think anyone would ever know everything there was to know about any subject on Earth. There would always be secrets. [/size][/blockquote][/justify][/blockquote] |
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Post by ASHTON CAMDEN RALEIGH on Jul 9, 2012 12:44:31 GMT -5
Though he enjoyed doing fun things like going to carnivals and hanging out at the movies with a group of his friends, Ashton was amiable and adaptable enough that he could easily adjust himself to anyone's idea of a good time. Knox suggested a walk, mentioning the cold, and Ashton smiled. "Sounds like a plan to me!" he said cheerily. "That's what I came out here to do, actually. Walk and stuff." He really hadn't went out the door with much of a goal in mind other than to wander around and look for something that caught his eye. He hadn't found anything until he'd come across his friend and that was fine by him. Spending time with a friend sounded much better than walking alone anyway. He was a social creature, he thrived shamelessly off the company of others.
As for the cold, well, he'd come prepared for that. "It's not so bad," he said, to be fair to the situation. "I mean it's cold, yeah, but it's nothing I can't handle. Wouldn't have come out here otherwise!" He loved nature but if it was one of those days he was more than happy to bypass leaving the house. He'd sit around and play board games with his brother, text his friends, let Lilith out of her tank for a while. Lilith was his huge Burmese python, his baby.
The silence was something he had long since become accustomed to with Knox. He babbled away endlessly to any of his friends and after a while in their company he learned to recognise who would talk back in another fountain of words and who would simply smile and nod, say a few things back. It made conversation a little hard sometimes when he didn't want them to think he was trying too hard but he was Ashton and he managed. It even smelled cold today, he noticed this as his shoes tapped out a steady rhythm on the snowy sidewalk, a sort of crunching sound as they struggled to sink into the hard-packed snow. Crunch, crunch, crunch. "Winter's one of my favourite seasons," he told Knox for the sake of telling someone. He didn't care whether the things he told his friends had a point. It was probably why he was able to talk so much. "Next to fall, 'course. It's really good for snowboarding. Did I ever tell you I could snowboard? I think I must've, right?" Ashton talked so often and to so many people it was not unlike him to forget who he told to what people. He hoped Knox wasn't too offended by his slip in memory.
He was glad to hear that Knox's college experience was going well, even if he could not confidently say the same thing about his own. Seemed he was going to have to prove that, too, because his friend questioned it a moment later. "It's, ah..." He thought of ways to put it lightly without making himself sound like an idiot, then ducked his head and laughed to himself. "Well, I'm not failing anything I don't think," he started, the silver lining on the cloud. He could find that lining on anything, even the storm clouds of pessimists. Getting said pessmists to agree with him was another matter entirely. He didn't understand how some people could remain so negative all of the damn time. "It's pretty tiring, though. So much work. And I hate college algebra." He made a face. Math had never been his friend and he would not miss it much if it decided to go jump in a lake. Not that subjects could do that. "I mean, it's Math." When talking to Ashton, that was explanation enough. He made no secret of his loathing for the subject.
He supposed that was true. It might be disheartening to some that sought to know all there was to learn in the world but to Ashton it made things exciting. "I guess you're right! Kinda wish I could speed up the learning process in time for the assignment that's due next week, though." He was able to laugh at himself much as he allowed anyone else to laugh at his short-comings and failures. He really needed to stop procrastinating, he knew that, but he'd been telling himself the same thing since high school and things had not changed. They likely never would. Oh well. "Does it bother you?" he wondered curiously. "That you're never completely caught up in the world, like?" It did bug some people. He wondered if his friend was one of them.
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Post by KNOX CAESAR KETILL on Jul 18, 2012 3:54:06 GMT -5
It was a sense of relief that touched on him when Ashton declared he’d been intending to walk anyway. As much as he wasn’t fond of interrupting his own schedule, he wasn’t interested in interrupting those of others either. He liked having a schedule. A schedule kept things organized and kept them making sense. He supposed that things could still make sense if they weren’t in a schedule, if they weren’t organized, but things were usually harder to make sense of if there was little order in them. So, Knox preferred order. He preferred when everything was in its place. If something didn’t have a place, you had to make a place, find a place, whichever worked. In his room, everything had a place. Each book had a place on his bookshelf (these were ordered alphabetically by author’s last name, then alphabetically by title or series name within that). On his computer, his word documents were impeccably organized, whether these were homework assignments or pieces of writing. His schoolbag was just as organized, with his notebooks in a particular order for his classes so he didn’t even have to look anymore when he reached within the bag to retrieve one. He could find a pen, pencil, highlighter, or other writing utensil without looking when he was at his desk—not because he spent so much time there, but because he kept his belongings in the exact same place, always returning them after usage. It kept him from losing things. When he lost something, he usually attributed it to outside reasons. He didn’t like to think that there was something wrong with organization and systematic approach to space. It kept him from having to clean for extended periods of time, at least. No one ever had to ask him to “clean his room” simply because it was always neat.
He’d always found it odd how “neat” could mean “cool” or “interesting” as well as the original meaning of being organized. The growth and development of language was fascinating, and he loved the subject he studied, although he knew very few others would be even the slightest bit interested in his program. Similarly, he wasn’t very interested in things other people did, like snowboarding, as Ashton mentioned. He nodded absently in reply. He’d never been snowboarding himself. It looked and sounded so dangerous that he was immediately put off from the idea. He didn’t want to break any bones or hit his head hard enough that he’d be a vegetable for the rest of his life. He liked vegetables—he just didn’t want to be one.
On the other hand, there were also things he disliked, such as mathematics. Numbers… numbers were disgusting. They never worked for him the way they seemed to for other people. He could definitely sympathize with Ashton on the subject, and frowned in mild disgust with the idea. He was glad he didn’t have to deal with very much math, considering his major, though there was certainly mathematics when studying language. You had to deal with patterns and terms of frequency, but it wasn’t necessarily at the same level as other sciences, and he was relieved for that. It was much less a double-edged sword than it could have been. “I hate math,” he agreed softly, after a moment, “Though I think algebra can still be pretty friendly in comparison to the others.”
[/color] Wow. He’d actually managed to sound smart without stuttering. Probably because he hadn’t been over-thinking what to say. Language, as it so rarely did verbally, had actually come naturally to him for once. Wonderful. Did he want to know everything there was to know in the universe? Did he want to lose all the mystery, all the doubt and the questions? He’d never really thought about it before. Now that he was, he found the idea just as daunting as it was not to know. On the one, you knew everything. On the other, you knew only some things. To be honest, he considered ignorance to be quite blissful, depending on the notion. If you knew exactly how and when you would die, would you still want to live? Knowing seemed like ti drain the adventure from life, even if he took so few risks. They wouldn’t be risks anymore. Knowing everything would take the interest out of life, the weight of choice. Life would be boring. He shook his head decisively. “I would never wish to know everything,”[/color] he replied quietly. “Consider the consequences.”[/color] It wasn’t a picture he felt he needed to paint for the other. Know everything… why would you want to know everything there was to know in the world? If anyone else knew about your knowledge, you’d become a headline in a second. You’d be pressed to death among a million questions from people wanting to know. Aside from that, knowing everything might drive someone insane. Though perhaps an alternative reality in the form of insanity could be quite pleasant for some people, protecting them from a much harsher reality, there was so much in insanity that made it just as uncomfortable for him. He didn’t want to lose who he was, even if he wasn’t the most amazing of people out there. No, that spot was reserved for someone else.[/size][/blockquote][/justify][/blockquote] |
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Post by ASHTON CAMDEN RALEIGH on Jul 18, 2012 19:33:08 GMT -5
Ashton was the type of person who tended to get invested in most everything about his friends. If they found it interesting then he was inclined to ask them about it, inquire after their interests and try to get to know them better. It was all part of friendship in his eyes. He did not notice that Knox was disinterested in what he was saying for this reason and so was thoroughly unaffected by the fact. He noticed the nod and smiled. "I need to get a new board though, my old one's like, done." It still worked but it wasn't in its prime any more. His fault for getting into several boarding accidents, he supposed, but he didn't mind too much. He was lucky to never have scarred in any of these, really. He'd never broken a bone, either. His mother didn't approve of the sport and always insisted that his luck would run out eventually. He was too optimistic to consider it. "Is there anything you like about winter?" He was clearly in a good mood for all his smiling and cheerful questions. Then again, it was rare that one would ever catch the Earth in a bad mood. He was very bright and very friendly.
It was always like finding a kindred spirit when someone said that they hated Math. There were a lot of number-haters out there and so it wasn't a difficult endeavour but it really did cheer him up to find anything in common with people. Even dislikes. Ashton was very optimistic and tended to be a happy guy but that did not mean there were no things that he hated, no things that made him cringe or shake his head. Math was one of those special things. "You, too? So you understand." He smiled, gladdened further by the thought. He liked when people could relate to him for it made conversations a lot easier to handle. "Algebra is the lesser of all the evils that are Maths, yeah," he agreed with a nod. "I still don't like it, though. I have a calculator on my phone, all the Math I'll ever need." Technology really was a god-send, Ashton thought. He hated having to try and calculate things in his head and so he allowed Mr. Calculator (or, well, his phone) to do all of the work for him. "Sometimes I wish we could go back to the days of fractions being the stupid stuff." Fractions had always struck him as rather pointless, or at least the improper fractions and multiplication of them did. He couldn't think of a time where he'd ever applied it to his real life.
Brightening a little, he said, "Well, botany only has the one Math course, at least! No need for numbers when you're studying plants." As a florist, Ashton knew a lot about plants. Less so about numbers. The only thing he needed to know was how to count out change and since he was not two years old it was not that difficult of a job. "I don't imagine your courses involve a lot of it either, do they?" Linguistics hardly seemed like a math-related major. Good thing for Knox if it wasn't. Math haters unite.
Ashton blinked at mention of consequences, seeing none. He did not look at the word in the same way as his friend and Knox had not explained his reasoning for not wanting to know, so Ashton couldn't try to relate just yet. He was very good at attempting to relate to people if they explained their standing on a situation. He liked to be empathetic, it came naturally to him. "Like what?" he asked honestly, blinking. "I'd never have to study for a test again. I'd know everything about Math, I'd know a lot about people, and the world, and just... everything, really! I think it'd be nice!" He wasn't a logical person in the pursuit of knowledge and so it didn't sadden him to think of learning all that there was to know about something. Instead he liked the idea. So optimistic was he that he didn't think about the fact he'd know all the bad things, too. He'd know about criminals and violence and evil. He'd know how the world would end, who would die in wars, what illnesses would strike family members. He did not look at it in that way. Eternal optimist. "It'd be nice to know what my mom was thinking, too," he joked. "I can never tell with her. She's scary!" He said it in a light-hearted manner because that was how it was meant to be taken. He loved his mother. She was intimidating as hell but she was 'Mom'.
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Post by KNOX CAESAR KETILL on Jul 30, 2012 0:04:47 GMT -5
Everyone had interests of one sort or another. They were an integral part of a person’s personality and relationships. People were drawn to others who shared their interests, agreed with their opinions and political views, and enjoyed the things they did. Knox, however, had no one with whom he talked about writing. He didn’t go looking for people who wrote. This was mostly because he kept to himself that he had the interest in writing in the first place. He wasn’t embarrassed about his writing—no, not at all— but it was private. It was his business until he was ready to make it public, and he just wasn’t ready to do that yet. That was why he was glad that Ashton hadn’t asked him about it. He didn’t know if Ashton even know (he didn’t remember whether or not it had slipped at any point) but he wouldn’t have been comfortable talking about it. Sure, he got passionate about it, but that had nothing to do with actually… well, talking about it. There was a big difference between thinking, writing, and vocalizing. He could usually think and write just fine. When it came to talking, however, he succeeded in stutters galore.
That was why he didn’t really like open-ended questions. They required more than a shake or a nod of the head. They required words. They required elaboration. Sometimes, he could get away with just one or two, but otherwise he was a little screwed over. Like when people wanted explanations. He just wasn’t good at those, partially because they required the speaking part (He expected that it would be much easier to writing an explanation of something, especially if he expected the explanation never to see the light of day). He’d never make it in drama even if he wanted to. Well, maybe if he got passionate about it. Maybe he’d overcome the stutter then, but… it was only a “what if” and those were rarely good for anything expect preparation. They’d do no good in answering this question. Winter. Winter and what he liked about it, if anything. Relevant. Asking for understanding. Not too personally. He couldn’t pass it off as an issue of trust. It was a rather simplistic question, after all. Not was it ability. It was just renewed embarrassment. He didn’t even have a reason to dwell on it. That was what made him feel pathetic. Lots of people stuttered. There were a lot of people out there with speech impediments.
But why did he have to have one? He inflated his cheeks and then let the breath out as he mulled the thoughts over in his head with his usual dissatisfaction. “Th-the cold. And… and… the s-s-snow.” Saying the words was harder than it should been.
Especially because Ashton didn’t seem to care about the stutter. He appreciated the patience the other earth elemental showed him, whether it was with the stutter or just having to wait for an answer or the almost endless pauses between the words themselves. It helped when people didn’t comment. It made him less self-conscious, though the feeling never went away together. It only got worse when people said something. When people snickered because they thought it was funny. He hated asking questions in class for that very reason, among others that irked him just as much. He hated attention. He hated waiting for the inevitable giggling when he couldn’t get the words out without stuttering. He hated the inescapable feeling of utter mortification. He could feel the blushes, the rise in temperature as the blood touched his cheeks. He always felt so small in those moments. Small and insignificant as anything but the momentary amusement for someone more socially impressive than he.
Man. He could be really depressing.
Like math. “Statistics…” he murmured after a moment, trailing off at the end of the incomplete thought. “F-for the… the analysis p-part.” It wasn’t too in-depth, though, unless they were saving the hard math for the later years, which he was hoping wasn’t the case. He needed to check in with his adviser about that one. Sure, math was more important to analyzing language than he liked to admit. The average number of syllables in common words. The frequency of letters, symbols, and sounds used. The rises and falls in pitches. The rhythm and speed of spoken words. In analysis, they all had mathematical values with which he’d need to deal. It wasn’t immensely appealing to one of many math haters, but that was where the passion again came into play. He was passionate about language. He wanted to understand it, its secrets and its intricacies, so he could have an even deeper appreciation of the words he loved to use so much as it stood anyway.
He loved his parents, too, despite their endless absences. He knew they loved him, too. His dad had saved his life. His mom had cried because she’d been so afraid for him. Though they rarely spent quality time together as a family, he wasn’t angry at them for it. They were busy. That was okay. Maybe it was due to this that he wouldn’t say the same about his mother being scary. Maybe Ashton was more prone to misbehaving. He couldn’t know. What made parents scary (other than abusive tendencies)? What it could have been, Knox was glad he didn’t see it. He couldn’t imagine fear of one’s parents as a good thing. Living at home would such a tense, uncomfortable situation. Home was supposed to be safe. Home was supposed to be a place you liked being. He was really glad he had that. He was glad he really did have “home” in the sense he understood what it was supposed to be. “But… think… y-you-you’d know the bad-bad stuff, t-too…”
[/color] All the bad stuff in the world. It would be overwhelming to a greater person than himself. Knowledge was power. Power made people crazy.[/size][/blockquote][/justify][/blockquote] |
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Post by ASHTON CAMDEN RALEIGH on Aug 10, 2012 19:03:05 GMT -5
Ashton couldn't really say that he hated any of the seasons when he thought about it. He liked snowboarding in the winter and Halloween in the fall, the lack of school in the summer and the beauty and freshness of spring-time. One thing he did not like, though, was the cold. He could appreciate that Knox enjoyed it since he had an open mind about things but it was not his cup of tea. "I'm not its biggest fan," he admitted with an easy smile. "It kills all my plants and it's really hard to walk through. Sometimes I wish I were Fire." He didn't really. He'd dated two of them, was still dating the second actually, but he had no desire to give up his Earthen powers. It was a common thing at the Academy to joke about the other elements and their many benefits and setbacks. No one liked to be an Earth in the winter or a Water in the drought-inducing heat of the summer months.
As he'd never taken a course in linguistics, Ashton didn't exactly understand why you would need statistics for it. Words had nothing to do with mathematics, right? He scrunched up his expression in distaste at the thought, imagining what a state he'd be in if English and Math were ever to go hand-in-hand. He'd never been the greatest in English but it was a fairly average subject for him. He was good at some things and bad at others. "Do you hate it because you're bad at it or just... because?" Ashton's curiosity was genuine, as most things about the boy were. "I'm just bad at it but I think I'd dislike it even if I weren't because it's so boring." He liked things that could capture and not to mention keep his attention. Math was not one of those things.
He thought, then frowned. "I don't think I'd like that quite so much." Ashton was an optimist who liked to believe that everything in the world was sunshine and rainbows but at the same time, he understood that it wasn't. Just because he wanted everything to be happy and golden didn't mean that it ever would be. He put his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders while he walked in an attempt to block out any cold. It didn't work without failure but it was better than not working at all, he supposed.
His mind went to a darker place as he considered what it would be like to harbour all of the world's troubles. All of their fears, regrets, sufferings. It made his throat tighten for a moment as he realised how frightening the prospect really was. He did not often consider such dark things as suffering unless there was a direct reason to. Show him a commercial about starving children in Africa and he'd want to help but without some sort of an instigator, his mind was a blissful place. An ignorant, peaceful existence. "But then, wouldn't you know how to help, too?" Every cloud had a silver lining, you just had to be patient and look for it. That was how he saw things. "I mean, if you knew everything that's problems as well as solutions. Every issue has an answer." He refused to believe that any disease was incurable. Instead he simply put his mind to the fact that a cure was out there, it was only a matter of finding it. "If I could help people like that then I think I'd be able to deal with the troubles... maybe. I don't know. Guess I never will, huh?" He flashed a smile. Answers to questions that weren't even possible.
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Post by KNOX CAESAR KETILL on Aug 29, 2012 15:34:20 GMT -5
If Knox were more into the gardening aspects of his abilities, perhaps the cold would concern him more. As it was, he wasn’t really big on the plants aspect. In fact, he was rather hesitant about his abilities because he was nervous about losing control. He rarely used them outside of class, largely because of that. It just seemed too dangerous, even if he wasn’t very powerful as it was. He wasn’t powerful because he didn’t practice much. He didn’t really consider it an academic thing, though it was a class and he received grades for it. It wasn’t really an extracurricular either. He wasn’t sure what to call it. He was only sure that he sometimes wished he didn’t have to continue with it, though he figured it was smart to do just because it would hopefully keep him from accidentally causing an earthquake if he ever had that bad a temper tantrum—but then, he wasn’t likely to ever have a temper tantrum because he just didn’t get that irritated with people. He just sort of slid away from them.
Similarly, he wished he could slide away from math. He didn’t enjoy working with the numbers. He found it frustrating because he was bad at it. Numbers seemed to take on a life of their own and just misbehave whenever he tried to make sense of them or use them for his homework. Ashton put it well. Math was boring, too, when it wasn’t being so attention-capturing because it was so irritating. He wasn’t sure what he needed to say, except that he agreed, though he felt he ought to say more. “I… I’ve no t-talent for it,” he admitted after a moment, then added uncertainly, “But I have n-no f-fond-fondness for it other-otherwise.”
[/color] He shrugged, trying to put less meaning to it, failing or succeeding or neither. He was no mind-reader. He was glad for that, too. He didn’t really want to know what was going on in other people’s minds. They could keep their perverse, shallow, gleeful, frustrated, complaining, satisfied thoughts to themselves. He preferred being preoccupied with his own thoughts. His thoughts helped him develop his stories. Sure, hearing others’ thoughts had the potential for material, especially considering his own social awkwardness, but the downsides outweighed and overpowered even that small side of positivity. It just wasn’t worth it. Nor did he think it would be worth it if he ended up knowing everything there was to know in the universe, too. Even if there were solutions to the endless problems the world experienced, he didn’t think that people would actually be able to achieve those solutions. He was just about to open his mouth to disagree when his cell phone rang. He reached into his pocket to check the caller, and would have just turned off the phone, had it not been his mother. His mother never called unless something important was happening, so he gave Ashton an apologetic glance and a quick, “Just a sec,” before he answered and listened. They weren’t good news. When he hung up, he apologized swiftly to his friend and jogged back down the way they’d come to get home as soon as was possible.[/size][/blockquote][/justify] finished[/blockquote] |
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