World Walkers: Rhiannon’s Story (part 1)

[k_a_webb]

Rhiannon stepped into the classroom. From the moment her right foot crossed the threshold she could feel his eyes on her. It was beginning to make her feel uncomfortable. She did her best to ignore him as she went to sit in the window seat she had chosen at the beginning of the year, when she had been the new girl, again. Every time she started a new school she wished that they had chosen a better age for her, an older age so she didn’t have to spend most of her time learning the same things repeatedly, but it was their way of making sure that she was under their control. They were scared of her in a way that none of her previous owners had been.

Sighing, Rhiannon took out the book they were studying. It was the same book she had studied in the previous three schools and she hadn’t enjoyed it the first time. Her eyes focused on the cover for a moment as she tried to stop thinking about her life. There was nothing she could do to change what was, and there never had been, so all she could do was make the best of what she had. Of course that meant playing nice with the idiots in her class, looking up to the teachers who were all centuries younger than her, and trying to act as though she really was sixteen years old.

The book was followed by her notebook and pen. Instead of paying attention to the woman who was teaching her, who seemed as irritated by the book as Rhiannon did, she doodled runes and other symbols on a clean page. As long as she didn’t make them into anything that could be used as a spell she wouldn’t be punished. Having them there, knowing that she still remembered them even though it had been years since she had last used them, was reassuring. She was terrified that some day she might forget everything she had been taught.

Her attention was caught by the teacher’s voice. “Today I want you to work in pairs.” Rhiannon shook her head because she hated working in pairs or groups. “I chose the pairs last night, so when I call your name out I want you to sit with the other person.” Sighing, she dumped her bag on the floor, listening out for her name. “Rhiannon Marshall and Osbourne Clark.”

Marshall was the family name of her owners, which apparently made it Rhiannon’s too. Whenever she heard it she wanted to scribble it out of whatever record book it was in and put down her real family name, even though it would make it obvious what she was, but she always managed to push that feeling to the back of her mind. Over the years she had gotten very good at pushing feelings she didn’t like to the back of her mind. Like when her ‘brothers’ talked over her in a language they knew she couldn’t understand. Then she realised who Osbourne Clark was.

When he sat down next to her Rhiannon focused on her doodles, because she didn’t want to talk to him. “It’s going to be hard to work together if you don’t say something,” he said, and she could hear the smug grin in his voice that made her want to turn her doodle into a spell.

“I don’t want to work with you,” she replied, keeping her voice level.

“That’s unfortunate, because I know what you are.”

The last time she’d heard that phrase the boy in question had told her that she was a lesbian. Raising an eyebrow, Rhiannon looked at Osbourne for the first time. He smiled at her, a smile she knew to be one of those that asked her whether she could be patient for as long as he could, so she turned back to her doodles. She wasn’t going to play stupid games with a child.

“Do you enjoy being a slave?” he asked.

A shiver went down her spine. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said coldly, knowing that she had to keep up the act.

“You’re lying.”

Rhiannon looked at him again, trying to seem nonchalent and having a horrible feeling she was failing. “Really?” She smiled. “Exactly how are you going to prove that?”

The way he smiled back caused another shiver to go down her spine. It had been a long time since someone had truly known what she was, nearly fifty years, and she didn’t want to deal with it again. If someone knew she had to tell them, which almost always ended in a death order. She hated death orders. They made her feel dirty.

“I don’t need to prove anything.” He stared into her eyes, still smiling. “If you look very carefully in second hand bookshops then it’s possible to find some very interesting books.”

“Is it?” Rhian felt her heart sink. “I’ll have to look some day.” She was sure all of them had been destroyed, but it was always possible that one or two had been missed because books moved around a lot. “Do you have a point?”

Osbourne glanced at her notebook. “Which one do you have?”

“What are you talking about?” If he knew what they were then it was possible that he really did have one of the books. “They’re just doodles.” All she could hope was that he hadn’t found the one she thought he had. “I like to doodle.”

“If you put together three of them then you have a simple destruction spell, most often used in place of an explosive.”

Rhiannon looked down at what she had drawn and realised that he was right. “Okay…” she replied, still trying to seem as though she didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.

“How long can you keep this up?”

For the first time she gave him an honest answer. “As long as I want.” She turned and smiled at him. “You’re not going to get me to say what you want me to say.”

Osbourne smiled back. “I don’t really need to, Rhiannon. No one in this room apart from me has any idea what you really are and I’d quite like to keep it that way. I dread to think what one of these morons would do if they owned you.”

Rhian sighed, because it was obvious that he really did know something, and she needed to know exactly what it was her knew. “What do you want, Osbourne?”

“Full possession.”

She shook her head. “It’s not going to happen.”

“You really don’t have any say in what’s going to happen.”

“I have to tell them.”

“Do what you want. The process has already been started. It should only take another couple of weeks and I know I could hold you off until then.”

Feeling suddenly tired Rhiannon rested her forehead on the desk. “A death order is not that simple,” she explained, knowing that she shouldn’t and not caring. “I don’t have to be anywhere near you in order to…” She sighed. “It’s not going to be much fun for either of us.”

A finger touched her arm. “You don’t have any idea who I am, do you?”

“To be honest I’m really not sure that I care.”

“I thought your kind always knew the blood of those who created you.”

“Blood can get weaker through the years.” Rhian lifted her head and looked at Osbourne. “What do you mean ‘my kind’?”

“There are a few of you.”

She shook her head. “You have very little understanding.”

“Explain it to me.”

“Until you make the spell work, if you can, I can’t tell you anything.”

“The spell will work.”

“You’re a child.”

“Age isn’t a sign of power.”

“True, but I can’t feel anything from you.”

“Do you really think that I would be stupid enough to let you know anything before I was ready for you to?”

Rhiannon laughed. “So you’re saying this is all a part of some grand scheme of yours. That’s hard to believe.”

“Maybe it is.” Osbourne shrugged. “You really shouldn’t look down on people simply because they’re younger than you.”

She opened her mouth to say something just as the bell went to signal that it was time to go to the next class. Rhiannon put everything into her bag and left the room without stopping to look back. Dealing with Osbourne had made her feel on edge, because she knew that once she told them she’d be under a death order. It wouldn’t matter then what he knew or didn’t know. One thing she would have to do was go searching for those books again, just in case one of them fell into the wrong hands. She sighed, pushing open the door that led into the corridor between two hallways full of classroom doors. After she’d taken a few steps in a hand grabbed hold of her left shoulder and she was pulled backwards, her back hitting the wall hard as a body pressed against hers lightly. Her eyes met Osbourne’s.

“What are you doing?” Rhiannon asked, when the second bell went to tell her that she was late for her next lesson.

“We didn’t finish our conversation.”

“There was nothing to finish. In a few hours time you’ll be under a death order. You can’t stop that from happening and once it does you’ll have a couple of days at the most.”

“Don’t you want to have a change of ownership?”

Rhiannon rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t matter what I want.” Part of her would never stop being angry about that. “I have to tell them that you know something. Knowing anything, even what those symbols do, is enough to get you put under a death order. They don’t like people knowing.”

Osbourne smiled. “So they wouldn’t like me to know how you were created or exactly what you are?”

“No, they really wouldn’t… and that isn’t something you can learn from any book.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“I know I destroyed every record of how I was created.”

“Apart from the one that has been passed down in my family for the last sixteen hundred years.”

She shook her head. “No… that just… it’s not possible.”

“Why isn’t it possible?”

“I don’t like you.”

“That doesn’t make it impossible.”

Breathing deeply, Rhiannon closed her eyes. The only thing worse than a death order was when she had to deal with two conflicting orders. One had been given to her almost two millenia ago and that meant it had precedence over all the others. Knowing that didn’t stop the pain. Trying to ignore the newly created headache she opened her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Osbourne asked.

“It doesn’t matter. The spell will take two weeks.”

He nodded. “That’s what the book said.”

“Great.” She sighed. “You’re in luck, Osbourne. Prove to me that you really are related to my creator and I can’t actually tell anyone that you know anything. I was ordered a long time ago not to do anything to ever hurt his family. As it was never rescinded I am still under that order.”

“How do I prove I’m related?”

Rhiannon stared at Osbourne. She wasn’t sure she wanted him to prove he was related to her creator, but finding out for sure was the only way she could get rid of the headache. The headache would probably be the easier of the two to deal with.

“Saliva usually works,” she replied, causing Osbourne to raise an eyebrow. “It’s either that or I can stab you with a pin.”

“Are you sure?”

“I wouldn’t have said it if I wasn’t sure.”

Even though Rhiannon knew what was coming it was still a surprise when Osbourne pressed his lips against hers. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to just do that and she felt relieved when it was over, even though it had only lasted for a few seconds. It answered her question, so she was glad she had done it, but she didn’t know what he would read into it. Knowing that he was in some way related to her creator helped her headache, because it meant the orders no longer actually conflicted. After so long she never thought that she might meet anyone of that family again.

“I really don’t like you,” she said.

“With time you’ll come to love me.”

“I doubt it very much.”

Originally posted at dreamwidth.org as kajones_writing.

Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.

Comments

[natalief.livejournal.com]

Intriguing!