Life Less Ordinary.

Subject: Life Less Ordinary. Mon Nov 04, 2013 4:01 pm

Chapter One: Instructions not Included

Blythe was happily humming along- albeit off key- to her favourite country song while going about ten kilometers over the speed limit on the back way to her small village. She was desperately trying to forget the scene at her soon to be former part time job and listening to Northern Girl by Terri Clark while the wind blew through her light brown hair was the perfect relief. Blythe was a normal girl (so she wished to believe for the past three weeks despite small nudges in the other direction.), not some spaz case who had dropped the new order of Canucks’ jerseys on her fellow co-worker after hearing that aforementioned co-worker had been cheating on her boyfriend while he was up at Ft. St John doing seismic- making seismic waves to detect deposits of oil, water or minerals in the ground- for an out of province company. It didn't help that the boyfriend was one of Blythe’s close friends and none of their friends had trusted that co-worker since the guy had left.

Blythe couldn't figure out how that box had fallen since it was on the third rack from the top, nudge checked and Blythe had only started climbing ladder getting ready to move the box so it could be unpacked. Somehow right after Elaina had mentioned that she was seeing a new guy named Mick or Mack or who gives a rat’s ass behind her boyfriend, Daniel’s back that box Blythe was trying to get went flying onto the black haired girl’s head. It didn’t matter how much she’d apologized Elaina claimed she’d done it on purpose since Daniel and Blythe were friends. Adding that dropped box incident to the shoe incidents and the mannequin stuck on a thousand dollar mountain bike and Blythe’s manager decided to give her a week off with pay.

“Call it the first half of your mandatory two week holiday.” Her manager had said with a head shake and a smile. “You’ve been working since school let out and it’s mid August.”

Blythe had agreed and now she found herself pulling into the small house she shared with her aunt just outside of town. Pulling her beat up blue truck with the stylish green L magnet indicating her still new license status to all drivers behind her aunt Renee’s shinier and newer green Volvo, she cut the engine and went right inside the house. The walk was a short one, but Blyth cursed the recent strange events from her vehicle to the front door. She bent down to start taking off her work shoes, that’s when Blythe realized her aunt had company and the company was a lady with green skin and an odd purple hairdo.

“Sorry I didn’t realize we had company.” Blythe said by way of apology staring at the strange woman. She was taken aback by her aunt’s visitor’s appearance, who wouldn’t be? There was a woman who looked like The Wicked Witch of the West’s double sitting on her bright blue rocking chair sipping tea. She was even wearing an outfit straight from Wicked which could have made her Elphaba’s second sister all that woman needed to do now was start singing. The hair could be explained away by a bad dye job, but skin just didn’t turn green unless you were a frog. And the clothes, well she was an adult maybe she was helping out at some heritage exhibition for the summer.

“Can I help you?” The woman asked breaking into Blythe’s thoughts. The tone wasn’t rude, just curious as to why she was being stared at.

“Sorry.” She went back to removing her sneakers, this time more to save herself some embarrassment instead of trying to save her aunt’s new floor.
“This is a surprise visit; Minerva Griffin is a friend from out of town.” Her aunt Renee replied with a hint of a smile playing on her lips. “Why are you home so early? I thought your shift didn’t end until four and it’s only one.”

Blythe shook her head and sighed. “My manager for the day decided to start my mandatory holiday because a box I was reaching for somehow dropped on Elaina.” She confessed as she sank into the floral print sofa next to her aunt.

“Daniel’s girlfriend, Elaina?” Renee asked wrinkling her narrow nose, a feature Blythe had thankfully avoided inheriting although she did share her aunt’s hazel eyes and sandy brown hair. The nose set them apart; it was her mother’s nose after all even if it was a little crooked.

“The exact same one, only she won’t be his girlfriend for too much longer. That little witch is sneaking around on him!” Blythe’s voice rose a few octaves as she told her aunt the news.

“I wasn’t too fond of her anyway.” Renee confessed. “Always saying one thing then doing something else, Elaina Martin always blew whichever way was easiest.”
“I know, but should I text Daniel? Should I even admit I know? Maybe I should get Tegan to do it, except she’s….” Then realizing that the other woman was sitting on her aunt’s recliner watching the two of them intently she blushed.

“Sorry again, my aunt and I gossip a lot.”

“That’s fine.” The plum haired woman replied smoothly. “Now, speaking of witches, Renee, should you tell Blythe or shall I?”

“I think it would be better if she heard it from me.” Renee answered, turning to Blythe she smiled again. “Bly, you know how you’ve been having these strange occurrences lately?”

Blythe nodded. “How can I forget? It’s not every day you keep making sneakers sail at people’s heads during a six hour shift.”

“And I’m guessing that box didn’t just drop on Elaina by itself.”

“But I wouldn’t….”

“Not consciously you wouldn’t,” Renee interrupted, “but if you were a magical being who had the power to move things with her mind you could do it.”

“If I could have moved things with my mind, I would have dropped the till on Elaina’s head not those Canucks’ jerseys.” Blythe muttered darkly. “She was being a two timing sneaky whor… horrible person.”

“I see your niece has a touch of the devious and is loyal. Those are excellent traits for a witch.” Minerva Griffin announced happily. “Blythe, how would you like to start school early in a new dimension? Cloud Tower is the perfect place for you.”

“You’re kidding right? A school in another dimension, I stopped believing in that when I stopped believing in Santa.”

“Bly, she’s not joking. This is a high honour; Cloud Tower is an elite school of witch craft in the magical dimension.” Aunt Renee argued.

“I’m sure it is, but I don’t want to go play pretend. Besides wouldn’t I have to be a witch to attend a witch school?”

“Well, here’s the thing, you are a witch. Well at least the descendant of one. Your mom attended Cloud Tower as well.”

“You said my mom attended Salmon Arm Secondary with that guy in the library.” Blythe shot back.

“So I doctored a few yearbooks so it would look like you were a normal Earth girl.” Renee shrugged as if it was a minor detail. “It was for the best at the time. I had no idea your powers would manifest. And I had no idea how you would take to being told you aren’t even from Earth.

When they did I contacted Minerva, she’s the head mistress of Cloud Tower. I’m sorry I never told you at first, but Ms Griffin she knows how to control witch powers and hone them better than me.” Renee stopped to take a breath and looked beseechingly at her niece.

“I never meant to keep all of this from you if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s just really hard to find the right time to tell someone that they’re from a planet they’ve never heard of and they’re a witch besides.”

Slowly Blythe turned and looked at her aunt. “You kept who I really was from me for sixteen years.” She replied acidly as her voice picked up tempo. “And the only reason you decided to tell me that I was a witch of all things is because I started making things drop and explode!”

“Again, I felt it was for the best. I know I should have told you sooner and I’m sorry, but at least you get to go to a school to help you harness your powers.”

“And now you want me to go away to a magical school run by a woman who looks like she had a rough night on a houseboat? After being told that I’m a witch and from another planet you’re sending me away.”

Renee sighed; this was not how she’d planned the conversation with Blythe to go. She had hoped that her niece would only be mildly shocked, but agree to go anyway. Renee hadn’t planned for the temper explosion which was reminiscent of her sister Regina’s after finding out Queen Luna was banishing her from Solaria after finding out about the affair. Renee should have guessed Blythe wouldn’t take this calmly.

“That’s not the case at all.” Renee argued back after waiting for Blythe to add anything else. “You’re always saying that you want to learn more about your mom and our family, right?”

Blythe nodded not trusting herself to speak; she was still too upset about yet another family secret being kept. For all she knew she had some strange half siblings raised on that supposed planet she was from. She searched around the room trying to find something to focus her attention on so she wouldn’t have to look at her aunt or this Ms Minerva Griffin. Blythe’s eyes rested on the strange jewelry box which had always sat on the mantle. The design was very intricate with a gold sun and silver moon intertwined on the lid and Blythe knew that despite its size the only jewelry in the box was a silver necklace with a locket. The design on the locket was a sun with yellow topaz stones around it. Blythe could never decide if she found the locket gauche or pretty, and her aunt never told her where either the box or the necklace came from.

“Blythe, I asked you a question.” Her aunt said, nudging Blyth out of her thoughts.
“I said you know how you’re always asking about your mom and our family?”
“What do you expect?” She asked glowering at her aunt, “You keep too many secrets from me. The important ones at least.”

“I’ll tell you what, if you agree to go to Cloud Tower even just for a semester, I will give you that jewelry box and the necklace.” Renee wheedled.

“How will that help me learn about my mom?”

“There are books in the Cloud Tower library that can help.” Ms Griffin spoke up helpfully. “Some can only be opened with special magic objects from the realms whose history they hold.”

“Yeah, that makes so much sense.” Blythe replied forcing herself not to roll her eyes, and then she looked straight at her aunt. “So you’re black mailing me so I’ll go to this school?”

“Call it what you wish,” Renee answered stoically, “but you do have to go to school soon and you said you weren’t feeling challenged enough last year.”

Blythe thought about that, SAS was a good school and she liked most of her teachers. But even with the advanced classes for English, math and science she felt something was lacking. She had originally blamed it on being moved ahead two grades and most of her friends being a year or two older than her. However, now that her aunt had dropped the bomb about her being a witch, Blythe now wondered if it could be because she was a magical being. That idea was quickly dropped because she doubted that people with magical powers were automatically better at basic school subjects. Blythe even doubted that the students at this school she was about to agree to attend could even handle her course work.

“Are you saying that you believe I could be challenged more at Cloud Tower?” Blythe asked curiously. “Are the courses harder?”

“Just different.” Ms Griffin replied. “They may seem harder to you because you’ve lived on Earth your whole life so you haven’t learned anything about magic or spells. I feel that this curriculum would be to your liking though.”

“So are you willing to go or not?” Renee asked looking her niece in the eye.
“I guess,” Blyth answered sounding resigned. “but before I go pack just tell me one thing.”

“What is it?” Renee asked sounding suspicious.

“Why can’t you just let me stay here and you can teach me about my powers since you obviously know a bit about magic and the magical dimension. Seeing as you and my mom were born there and I have a feeling that those yearbooks were magically tampered. You are not exactly what I’d call computer savvy.”

Renee had the decency to blush. “Guilty as charged. Blythe I am sorry about lying to you really. But I’m a fairy; I attended the fairy school in Magix. You wouldn’t want me to teach you.”

“Are you sure?”

Ms Griffin snickered at that question and replied, “She’s sure alright, Renee DiLune wouldn’t know the first thing about teaching a witch how to control her magic. Even if she is good at forgery.”

End

Well, that’s done and over. I finally started a new chapter for the third time and I hope that this one goes better than my other two attempts. I feel that adding a character raised in Canada instead of the US would make a nice change. So read and give me some honest feedback.

Subject: Re: Life Less Ordinary. Mon Nov 04, 2013 4:36 pm

it's really good, i love it

Subject: Re: Life Less Ordinary. Mon Nov 04, 2013 4:49 pm

Thanks, so far I have 4 chapters finished and I'm working on chapter 5 now

Subject: Re: Life Less Ordinary. Mon Nov 04, 2013 4:55 pm

I like the chapter so far but there's one problem. You need to separate talking lines for everyone to make it easier to read. Such as:

"I need water bla bla" Said Bloom.

Aisha replies instantly "Here's some."

Got me?

Subject: Re: Life Less Ordinary. Mon Nov 04, 2013 6:20 pm

The story is very well written, and I like it. However, like Loxa suggested, spacing out the dialogue from the descriptions would make it easier to read, especially since you began spacing out early on in the fic. If there's a count limit for the posts, then perhaps, to keep cohesiveness, delete the spacing beforehand.

Subject: Re: Life Less Ordinary. Mon Nov 04, 2013 8:08 pm

Kyra_Xyrespace wrote:: The story is very well written, and I like it. However, like Loxa suggested, spacing out the dialogue from the descriptions would make it easier to read, especially since you began spacing out early on in the fic. If there's a count limit for the posts, then perhaps, to keep cohesiveness, delete the spacing beforehand.

Thanks both of you. It's properly spaced when I copied it from my files on the computer. Pasting it here makes it so I will have to go back and space everything. I wish we could still copy and paste from Fanfiction and I didn't have to do that. I guess I should write shorter chapters

Subject: Re: Life Less Ordinary. Mon Nov 04, 2013 11:32 pm

Domino_kitty wrote:: Pasting it here makes it so I will have to go back and space everything. I wish we could still copy and paste from Fanfiction and I didn't have to do that. I guess I should write shorter chapters

That's why I mostly stopped posting stories; copying it and going back to reformat it was a pain to deal with.

Subject: Re: Life Less Ordinary. Tue Nov 05, 2013 1:17 am

I like it, Meg! It's so good!

Subject: Re: Life Less Ordinary. Tue Nov 05, 2013 1:51 am

Kyra_Xyrespace wrote:

Domino_kitty wrote:: Pasting it here makes it so I will have to go back and space everything. I wish we could still copy and paste from Fanfiction and I didn't have to do that. I guess I should write shorter chapters

That's why I mostly stopped posting stories; copying it and going back to reformat it was a pain to deal with.

What if I just posted links to my stories? I hate reformatting. I also don't have a lot of the stories I wrote when I started out 10 years ago because I lived with my parents back then.

Subject: Re: Life Less Ordinary. Tue Nov 05, 2013 2:27 am

It's really up to you. As I said, while spacing would be beneficial, we can still read it; just if you want to keep cohesiveness to either space it all out, or to not space it all out.

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