Faded Threads Draft 1 - Chapter 4

 CHAPTER 4

It turned out, she had to give exams but was not a proper student. She could live with that. Private candidate, she'd been told. Rather annoying that she hadn't been told earlier, but she could live with it.

Selene flipped back a number of pages in her chemistry book. Formulas, redox reactions, ionic bonds…..what was she doing again? She looked up, trying to clear her head. She found the same black haired girl from earlier staring at her. “Do you need something?” Selene called. The girl bolted.

She put her book aside and started going through the records. Two students were a few days overdue. Time constraints, or had they forgotten?

The clock struck three. She packed up, and went outside to wait for Elena. Soon enough, a girl with light brown hair in two buns moved towards her. “Helllooooo,” Elena greeted. “Sorry I'm late, Lyra needed help with….an essay.” “An essay?” “An essay.”

Selene walked beside her. “Sooo….how are you doing as librarian?” Elena asked.

“Pretty good, if you exclude the people forgetting to return their books.” She smiled, it was only a little bit fake.

The air was warm. Too warm. Summer weather.

The younger girl laughed. “How are you adjusting so quick?” she asked.

Selene's eyebrow lifted slightly.

“I'd ask you the same question, you are treating me like a friend and have known me for perhaps four days.”

Elena's pace fumbled.

“Well……….well I make friends quickly….and also I'm a little bit excited about the fact that Animates exist so…I think you get it.”

“Of course,” she nodded curtly.

A sister. That was the closest word to how she felt about the girl. A sister. A sister who'd been missing your whole life, then shows up knowing quite well how your heart works.

A sister.

Elena said something regarding art class, and Selene probed her further to talk. Someone had painted in a fully red canvas, and unforunately had not made use of white and black to tint the shades, no difference in value, no contrast, and it had ended up looking like a crime scene.

Poor kid.

She was about to say something about red being an annoying colour to paint with when she spotted a flash of powder blue hair out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head but saw no one. Hm.

They reached Elena's house and Selene went to her room. Mrs. Chandra had given her old sewing machine to her, after noticing her fascination with fabric. She had made one piece so far. A layered, ruffly, black skirt. Not perfect, but it looked nice. If she'd always been human, she would've worn it. She tried it on and looked in the mirror. 

Quite pretty.

✦

The Luceros had admitted him and Cloud into River Heights, a school where Orion and Lyra, and a friend of theirs, went.

Clover stared at the paintbrush in his hand. Orion had an old painting set and canvases that he never touched, and had given to Clover. A tray of watercolours laid beside him, waiting patiently. Some odd feeling which he associated with dusty, washed out pink, bled its way through him.

He picked up the brush and started painting. Shades of desaturated blues, greens, browns, pinks found their way on to the canvas.

He stepped back half an hour later.

A scene of a rainy day, a bridge over a river in a wooded area.

Why can I do this? Is it innate?

✦

Cloud leaned on the windowsill, gazing out at the streets. The streetlamps were flicking on, one by one, slowly, as if dancers in a practiced recital, and the bright copper light of the sun filtered through a weeping willow outside. It was beautiful, it was bright, it really made her want to join the air like her namesake and float off. Instead, she took out a camera lent to her by Lyra, and snapped a photo. She looked at the photo on the camera screen. The camera had captured the pinkish hues outside perfectly. How? Cameras typically skew colours a little, don't they?

✦

Elena had noticed two new kids with Orion and Lyra recently. So when Lyra sat with her at lunch, she decided to ask.

“Lyra?”

“Hm?”

“Who are those two new kids?”

“Which t- Oh you mean Cloud and Clover. We took them in recently. Um. Adoption.”

“Really?”

“Yyyyeah.” She picked at a piece of carrot she held.

“Alright.”

Odd, that Mr and Mrs Lucero took in two new kids after their own children were fourteen, but she didn't question it.

Cloud and Clover. I feel like I've heard those names before.

But she didn't ask. She would be told when Lyra was comfortable with it.

✦

For some reason, she kept being given things. It was odd. Mrs. Chandra had decided to get a new tablet, as she was a graphics designer and needed a new one. She gave her old one to Selene. It still worked fine, it was just a bit old, and she needed a new one. Selene put herself to the task of learning a drawing program. It was really annoying, a lot of video tutorials were involved. But finally, she managed to draw something like how she drew in real life. She held her notebook side-by-side to the tablet. It was a rather frilly dress, one which she was sketching for no apparent reason. It wasn't exactly the same. But it was close. 

✦

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