[Story] Tristyn (Chapters 1 & 2 on 6/30/08)

[CameronCN]

Here's the most recent drawing of Tristyn I have, for reference:

(the guy to the left will turn up in the story later.)



Chapter One

   It was a train like any other. As it clattered through the twilit countryside, one could see the flash of the engine passing by, its twin gyronic motors whirring and crackling with seemingly barely contained energy. While its chrome fixtures and trimmings had perhaps not been polished as recently as company guidelines advised, on the whole it was a fine example of why Varelyia was the most prosperous and envied country in the world. The lush green fields and old-growth forests of the rural areas passed by almost in a blur to the passengers as they hurtled along at eighty-six point five miles per hour: the evening express.
   In the second-to-last passenger car there sat a girl. She was trying to read a book by the dimming light, holding it up next to the window, partially obscuring her face. The way the car was set up there were private compartments on one side and a sort of long bench along the other wall, in the hall. For some reason the private compartments had reading lights, but these seats did not, and this was were the girl was sitting. The whole car was nearly deserted, as there were not a whole lot of passengers that day and everyone knew that the second-to-last car was the most difficult to rush out of upon arriving at the station. This suited the girl just fine, apparently.
   She was kind of short and looked young for her age. Looking at her, one might think she was a schoolgirl on her way home for the weekend, only she was older than that really and anyway it was not the weekend. She had subdued silvery fur with gold-tipped highlights, with a lighter shade down her front. She had dark brown shoulder-length hair, somewhat tangled and with bangs on either side of her girlish face, large pointed ears, and a fluffy brush of a tail with a slight upwards curl to it. Adding to her "cute schoolgirl" aura, she was wearing a knee-length denim skirt, a plain lavender top, and an intensely quiet expression. Not to say that she was precisely shy, just very reserved—mostly as a matter of personality, though perhaps strengthened in this instance by a desire not to attract attention to herself. She came from an old coyote family, and her name was Tristyn.
   As the sun began to dip behind the hills surrounding the small city of Havelan, the train began to slow, making its way through the outer neighborhoods until it pulled into the station. Tristyn took her time getting off the train. She was very comfortable with travel, and indeed by now stations of every kind seemed rather homey to her. No matter where you went, she had observed, stations had a certain detached but welcoming air to them, and she had gotten sort of fond of it. She collected her suitcase from the footman at the baggage car, giving him a smile as he wished her a good night. There was a small bakery to the side of the main platform, and she went and bought herself a couple of scones, then found herself a bench with a good view, but out of the way of the crowd. As she ate, she watched all the people milling around the station. She always enjoyed watching strangers in crowds, wondering idly how this stop in a train station fit into their lives. A girl coming out of one of the first-class cars caught her attention. This girl was blond, slender, well-dressed, and looked about ten. Despite her age, she radiated an air of proud superiority. Part of this was physical—her nobly cut face and trim body gave the impression of a baroness in miniature—but it was also due to the attitude with which she regarded all around her. She seemed to have more self-assurance than most adults. She was accompanied only by a man in a plain suit, probably a servant.
   Must be one of the nobility, Tristyn thought to herself. Though she doesn't look familiar at all, so maybe not... She finished her scone, and looked down to unwrap the second. When she looked up, she was surprised to see the girl looking right at her. She was far enough away that she might not be looking at her specifically, of course, but something about the way she surveyed the spot where Tristyn was sitting unsettled her. It did seem like the girl was looking right at her. After a minute of this, Tristyn was thinking she might have to casually wander to the bathroom or something to break this strangely uncomfortable stare, but then the girl's servant saw whatever he was waiting for and  indicated to her that it was time to go, and they did.
   A few hours later, the sun had set completely and the station was empty, all except for Tristyn sitting on her bench. She was reading a newspaper she'd found lying around and was right in the middle of an interesting article when the station clock struck one and the lights turned off automatically. She was a little annoyed at the bad timing, but she figured it was probably best she didn't stay up too much later anyway, so she folded the paper up and laid it on the bench to try and make the slats a bit more comfortable, snuggled into her coat, and, after a few minutes, fell asleep.



Chapter Two

   Tristyn had been traveling for a long time. Not for several hours on the train, though it had been that—no, she'd been traveling for over a year, all around the world. Nor does the word 'traveling' quite do justice what she'd been doing. Essentially, she'd been living abroad, not staying in any one place for very long, though she had stayed in Rwelan for several months, because she knew the language and needed a break, and because she could find a small town and blend in. She'd seen all the great capitals, though she wasn't in it for the tourism. Though any girl her age would dream of going on a tour of the world, this had not been a matter of choice for her. It had been fun in a way, but lonely. She'd made a lot of friends here and there, but hadn't dared give them some way to keep in touch with her, and, well, her iternary had been so confusing that sometimes even she wasn't entirely sure where she'd been. Crisscrossing the Dividing Ocean, up and down the Friendly Countries by train and airship, even once crossing the Arid Zone on camel—not an experience she'd care to repeat.
   Oddly, the only thing about her that seemed tired or travel-worn from this unusual odyssey was her suitcase. It certainly had enough in it—besides clothes, gold coinage of the five most widely-accepted countries, passports and identification papers with several different names on them but the same photograph, a worn leather journal written in the Ancient Script, and, most strangely of all, a small cube of transparent blue crystal. It was about three centimeters wide, diamond-hard, and perfectly smooth, with no ornament or marking at all. To the uninitiated, this object might have seemed merely a strange souvenir from foreign parts, but it was, in the hands of those who knew its nature, a deadly weapon. After all, you don't send a teenage girl off to travel the world alone without giving her some kind of protection. Tristyn did not like the idea of having it particularly, though, and was grateful she had never had to use it.
   She didn't make a habit out of sleeping on benches in stations, though she had had to do it a few times over the course of her wandering. This time it wasn't because of bad scheduling or delays, however. At about four in the morning, she was awoken by the roar of the overnight express passing through the station. It didn't stop, but provided the wakeup signal Tristyn had been expecting. She made her way across the tracks to the back of the station, letting herself out of a service door. At the bottom of a flight of concrete steps there was a shunting yard, at the edge of which she could see her car, waiting for her. The moons were bright that night, and she would have no problem walking across. She started down the steps—and stopped, startled.
   The little girl from earlier had just stepped out in front of her.
   "Wh-what are you doing here?!" she managed to say.
   "Oh, I think you can guess, can't you? I'm going to stop you," the girl replied. She said it offhand, as if she were talking about what game to play during recess.
   "Don't be silly! Your parents will be awfully mad that you're out wandering around the tracks in the middle of the night!"
   "My parents are quite aware. Maybe not that I'm here, but that I'm wherever you are. Now come with me, or I will be forced to hurt you."
   "You're kidding me. You—you are—um. Why is a little girl like you involved in this?"
   "Omigosh, there is no way I will be this thick when I am seventeen. Why should I tell you anything? I'm serious about hurting you, you know."
   "But—" suddenly, Tristyn stopped and took an involuntary step back, wincing. She got control of her surprise in a second, then said, "Oh. You really are serious."
   The strange girl just rolled her eyes, the way only a ten-year-old girl can.
   "You realize I can do that too, right? I'm not just going to take this laying down. You might be willing to hurt me, but I'd rather not hurt you."
   "Pft! As if."
   "Alright, be that way."
   As before, the girl made the first move, and Tristyn took another surprised step backwards.
   "Ah—"
   "Pretty stupid of you to underestimate me just because I'm little, don't you think?"
   "I'll...keep that in mind. Pun not intended."
   They were at the bottom of the stairs now, facing each other a few feet away from the tracks. To a passerby (as if there would be any, here at this time of night) it would have just looked like two girls, one ten-going-on-eleven, one seventeen-going-on-eighteen, staring very hard at each other. At least, at first glance. If you watched a little longer, you might notice this was more than a game of who blinks first. The air seemed to vibrate around the two, the moonlight concentrate itself around them. The little girl gave an "Ow!" then braced herself, hands in fists. A few seconds later, Tristyn's nose started to bleed, dripping quickly down her skirt, on her feet, on the cement. For a while, tension seemed to pile up between them, both girls sweating cold sweat. Then it all went pop, some barely-visible sparks zinging along the metal tracks and cranes nearby, and the girl crumpled to the ground.
   Tristyn stumbled over to the steps and flopped down, just sitting there for a while, panting. Once her nose had stopped bleeding, she pulled the girl out of the way and leaned her against the steps, so at least her face wasn't on cement. She then grabbed her suitcase and made one trip across the yard to put it in the car. She wiped her face off with the handkerchief and bottle of water she always kept under the front seat, then looked intently around. There was nobody in sight. Apparently the girl had come alone to this. She sighed, then walked back across the tracks. Luckily, this was a fairly slender little girl. Tristyn heaved her onto her back and slowly clomped back over to the car. Her knees were distressingly wobbly by the time she dumped the limp girl in the back seat. It was a big shunting yard.
   The car's gyronic engine started immediately, as usual. It was an older Land Cruiser, and she was kind of attached to it. Not what you'd think of as a girl's car, perhaps, but it suited her. As she drove through the empty streets of the city, she wondered how this girl was involved in this. At the time she had been more concerned with other things, but this girl had known her exact age, as well as where she was. Why would she be sent to intercept her? She hadn't seemed surprised that Tristyn had mental powers, but Tristyn had sure been surprised that she did. It was not very common, to say the least. It was a rare genetic trait present in the older, noble families, that only cropped up in the daughter of two parents with carrier genes. Tristyn was not a very strong one, for that matter, but this girl was obviously going to be very powerful when she got older. Tristyn had only won, in the end, by being more practiced, as well as simply having more physical endurance.
   Tristyn stopped in front of a hospital that she knew was on the way, dragged the girl out of the car and into the lobby, and dumped her there.
   "She's just been knocked cold," she said to the receptionist. "She should be fine, but you can do whatever you like. I just found her in the street, have no idea who she is." The receptionist didn't seem quite sure what to make of this. "Anyway, I've got somewhere I need to be, namely bed, so bye," Tristyn said breezily, then dashed back out before the receptionist could ask who she was or why she had blood all down her front. She was going home, dangit, and she didn't want to have to deal with the bureaucratic rigmarole. Even assuming it didn't leave her vulnerable to some kind of plot or other. Hadn't the whole reason she was coming home now been that it was presumably safe now? But then, maybe that was why the only force they had dared send for her was a little girl. Who would suspect a ten-year old girl of attempted kidnapping?
   After driving for an hour into the country—she had decided that it would be a good idea to take back roads and loop back, just in case someone was tailing her—she arrived at a security gate. She swiped her card at the reader and it opened. As she drove up the gravel drive, lights began to come on in the low mansion nestled slightly behind the hill. Home at last, and they'd been waiting up for her.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Hmm.

Your phrasing is a little off in spots, I think. One or two places where the flow of the story stumbles somewhat. If you want details, I'll take it out of thread, because it'll be a whole lot of back and forth and long commentary on particular sections. ;-]

Other than that, an interesting start.

[CameronCN]

Your phrasing is a little off in spots, I think. One or two places where the flow of the story stumbles somewhat. If you want details, I'll take it out of thread, because it'll be a whole lot of back and forth and long commentary on particular sections. ;-]

Since you're the second person to say this to me, I'm inclined to listen. I don't mind having it here, but if you want to discuss it via PM that's fine too.