The Unbearable Burden of Being Buxom (A Magical Girl Story)

[JimmyFingus]

Spoiler: Important Note

Not porn, but definitely a lot of bust. Sorry to get anyone's hopes up!

A Long Day I

September 4, 2008

Intro to Composition

'Man, wouldn't it be awesome to pick a bunch of late classes and be able to sleep in everyday?'

When Eleanor picked her classes for her first semester at Costello State, she remembered thinking something pretty much exactly like that. After a life defined by having to be on the road by 7:40 every morning just to get to where she needed to be on time (for twelve years to school, then one extra to McDonalds), the thought of getting to sleep in until ten (or later!) on weekdays felt almost sinful. But that was one sin that she didn't mind dabbling in, because… well. Duh. Sleeping in!

Sadly, the machinery of the university system (or possibly her overworked orientation advisor) had other plans, and when she finally got her schedule, she saw that she had two 'early' days. Tuesday and Thursday, First Year Composition at nine AM.

It was still better than her year at Micky D's, and since she was in the dorms, she was going to be able to sleep longer than she ever did in high school and still get to her classes on time. Not quite as good as she'd been dreaming about, but not too shabby either.

All of which was cold comfort to her on the morning of her first day of classes, when she rolled over in bed and saw 8:50 shining brightly in green on her dad's old alarm clock.

Luckily her new roommate was already long gone, so she could bumble around their shared room and tear apart her suitcases with reckless abandon. In her frenzy, she only managed to find her second and third choices for any one piece of clothing apart from her trusty purple and black zip-up hoodie, which her past self had helpfully stashed across the still-empty dirty clothes hamper. After a brief, and nonsensical, mental war over whether it would be better to wear the Converse she'd bought over the summer or her old combat boots, she realized she was wasting time and slipped on her boots (it would take way too long to lace up her Converse). A quick eyeliner rush job later, and she was still exactly where she hated to be: late.

Because to someone with as much respect for the social contract as she had, being late only led to something even worse. Rushing.

And for Eleanor, rushing was a problem.

Backpack fastened securely over both shoulders, she exited her dorm room and all but fled down the internal hallway of the dormitory complex, hoping against hope that there wouldn't be anyone standing around to gawk. Her dorm's entrance was furthest from the exit proper, so it was a longer walk than she'd have liked, but, miraculously, she escaped down the hallway without a door flying open to smack her in the face and really make her morning memorable.

She managed to get all the way to the lobby without running into another human soul and approached the glass door to the open air campus. Then, just as she thought she'd momentarily managed to avoid the facts of her life, the door opened from the outside. Behind it was a patchily bearded dude in a a blue-and-red Obama "Yes We Can" shirt and jeans. He had the distinct air of someone who'd forgotten something and was coming back to get it.

There was a solid half second delay between him seeing her and him fully realizing what it was he was seeing. His eyes widened comically, but, to his credit, she only saw his gaze flick down once.

She debated complimenting his shirt, but instead decided on old faithful.

"Sorry," she half-mumbled as he retreated backwards and held the door open for her to come through.

"No problem," he replied as she passed him by.

Keeping her eyes steadfastly ahead of her, Eleanor kept walking and did her best to put him out of her mind. The whole campus would know about her soon enough, and maybe in a few months she'd stop getting reactions.

Maybe.

She hoped.

"Dude, holy shit," she heard someone gasp. To her right, down the stone path that led to the cafeteria were two guys. One was tall and tan, and the other short and blonde. The short blonde one was pointing at her, and the tall tan one was staring flagrantly at her chest.

Her chest.

Her boobs.

The two massive heaps of flesh that God had decided were her cross to bear. They were the curse puberty gifted her with, and they were the source of all of her woes. They were the reason why the whole school would know her, and probably even the whole dinky town.

She was "that one girl".

To be more specific, she was "that one girl with the boobs."

To those who knew her well, she was Eleanor Garcia, lover of black clothing and studded belts, amateur guitarist, frequent doodler, and part time McDonalds cashier. To everyone else, she was a pair of great big tits on too-skinny legs.

And she was late to class.

Ignoring the stares, Eleanor kept walking, taking the fastest pace she could manage while keeping her jiggle to a comfortable (and minimal) level. She had long ago learned that running was her enemy, and so she avoided it in the vast majority of cases. Not only could it be painful, but it attracted even more stares, and there was a certain point where that could become pretty much impossible to ignore.

This was going to be her year, she'd told herself. She was a grown ass woman! She'd worked a job! She was going to be the first person in her family to graduate! She wasn't some shrinking violet hiding beneath her eyeliner!

(Honest!)

One of the nice things about the campus was that apart from the paths and the immediate areas surrounding most of the buildings, most of the grounds were covered in greenery. There were a number of large trees providing shade all throughout, and even large streams and ponds criss crossing the various paths. Just outside her dorm (and on the way to the Humanities building) was one of the larger ponds. A large fountain shot water into the air, and rocks surrounded much of the shoreline. There were all kinds of ducks swimming, sleeping, and sifting through the grass for their meals. She knew there were Canadian Geese here sometimes too, but so far she'd only seen ducks, pigeons, and a few campus cats.

Sadly, as cute as the ducks could be, they also came with one of the bad things about the campus so far. Ducks, it turned out, didn't really care where they pooped. Which meant the sidewalks nearest the ponds were filled with landmines. And since she couldn't easily see her feet without twisting her torso while walking like a weirdo, it also meant she had to take extra care and look well ahead.

She didn't want to be late and track duck crap into the classroom too.

The paths themselves were fairly free of people at least, as seemingly almost everyone else was either still asleep or knew how to properly set their alarms. Ahead of her there were a few people heading in the same direction, though the paths split off at numerous points and there were a number of buildings between her dorm and the Humanities building, so it was anyone's guess if they were heading to the Humanities building or not. They were moving quickly at least, so she probably wouldn't overtake them. Which was nice!

Eleanor deftly avoided a fresh looking (and smelling) duck landmine as she approached one of the cute little bridges that littered the campus, congratulating herself silently on her dexterity as she did so. She was stepping onto the bridge with a little extra spring in her step when she heard something move in the rocks on the left side of the bridge, and that same something darted out across the path and right under her chest before she could even react. She suppressed a squeal at the shock of it and lost her balance in the process. She was close enough to the blue metal railing of the bridge that she could grab hold and catch herself, but it was a definite scare that left her temporarily breathless.

After a few moments to catch her breath, she pulled herself up straight and looked over to the right side of the bridge, trying to find whatever the hell it was that nearly made her eat shit. She couldn't see it when it passed below her, but she'd caught a glimpse of it scurrying into the rocks. She hadn't seen any fur, and she was pretty sure it was grey, but she could almost swear she saw some blue too. And not just any old blue, but, like, bright blue.

'Some kind of lizard?' she pondered as she continued walking. 'Maybe a pet? Or some kind of prank?'

Sure, she wasn't from this town, but she'd spent her whole life within 100 miles of it, and she was pretty sure she'd have heard of a bright blue lizard if they had one. They had lizards aplenty though, and all it took was one drunk asshole with a paintbrush to give an unfortunate reptile a makeover.

But even as she accepted her hypothesis as fact, she couldn't quite shake the tingle in her spine.

And no, it wasn't that kind of back pain.

The rest of her walk was far less eventful. She managed to avoid stepping in any duck poo (to her knowledge), and the people ahead of her both ended up going down paths to different destinations, so she had the sidewalk all to herself.

She crossed the quad without incident, and after passing the library, it was only another forty-five seconds at her quick-but-low-bounce pace to get to the Humanities building, otherwise known as the Oliveira-Sharp Hall (in honor of a prominent local dairyman and an almond magnate). The lobby was thankfully also clear of people, so she was able to pick up the pace a bit as she sped past the various photos and plaques that detailed the history of the building.

Eleanor was glad that she'd taken the time to figure out where all her classes were in the last few days, because at least she wasn't wandering around hopelessly lost. She was late, but she knew where she was going. Small victories.

She turned right down the white walled hallway and passed several classrooms, catching snatches of teacher introductions as she went. Finally, after another couple turns in the surprisingly spacious building, she was outside the classroom that she knew was hers. 121. Sure enough, she could hear a voice through the door.

She rubbed her elbow nervously.

Should she wait for a pause in the talking? Or was waiting longer just making her look even worse?

She'd always been so punctual in high school! Lateness to class was relatively uncharted territory for her, and she didn't want to give her teacher a bad impression of her right off the bat. Her mom had really harped on about making sure her teachers liked her because "you never know when you might need a favor".

Well, her first impression was pretty soiled regardless at this point, so there was really no reason to wait. She didn't want to miss even more than she already had and end up digging her own grave at the starting line.

Steeling herself for the stares she knew she was going to get, she adjusted her backpack straps so they cut her slightly less, pulled at hoodie wherever it clung too closely, then gripped the door handle tightly and swung it open in a clean, quiet motion.

Because she'd checked out all her classrooms beforehand, she knew that this one was a tiered setup. Each row of seating was a little higher than the one in front of it, and the professor's desk was down low so that the entire class was facing down at them and the whiteboard behind them.

Of course, both doors to the classroom that opened out to the hallway were on the professor's level. This meant that when she opened the door, what had to be over thirty pairs of eyes zeroed in on the intruder.

She was used to people's first reactions to her, by this point in her life. Bug eyes. Whispered comments. Stares of veiled disbelief and hunger in equal part. It was old hat to her, and yet, it still made her feel like she wanted to crawl somewhere dark and quiet, curl up, and die.

The professor was a light skinned black woman who couldn't even be thirty. Her curly hair was pulled up into a bun, and her sleeveless floral blouse and beige slacks gave her a professional, yet approachable air. Eleanor caught her eyes widening too, but she squashed it quickly. "There's still a seat up there," the Professor said calmly, gesturing to the second row from the back on the far side of the room.

"Sorry," Eleanor said lamely, her heart thrumming in her chest. She kept her head down as she walked in front of the professor's desk, willing herself to imagine that a whole classroom full of adults wasn't currently staring at what her hoodie failed to ever fully hide.

To make matters worse, the professor waited for her to take a seat before resuming from where she'd left off, so there was nothing even distract them while Eleanor found her seat. She felt the eyes as she walked up the three tiers with deliberate steps, then took a seat right where the professor had pointed. She had to scoot the chair a bit further back to sit comfortably, but luckily, the person next to her was a girl about her age. Not that it stopped the quick glance downward when Eleanor offered her a tentative smile.

"As I was saying," the professor continued, "the major assignments in this class will, of course, involve writing…"

Eleanor slipped her backpack off her shoulder and placed it beside her feet. Looking around below her, she could see that many of her classmates had either a laptop or a notebook out already, which made her feel like she should probably do the same. After all, it showed you took the class seriously, right?

Opting to take out her computer, she quietly unzipped her backpack and withdrew the sturdy gray laptop that she'd managed to snag on ebay. She laid it out gently and cracked it open. After briefly admiring the wallpaper she'd spent an evening finding, she opened up Microsoft Word, ready to take any notes she might need.

Which wound up being a waste of time, because everything she needed to know was on the syllabus that the professor eventually passed back to her after she laboriously explained the plagiarism policy (don't do it, or you're dead).

Eleanor's next moment of embarrassment came when the student in front of her turned around to hand her the syllabus, and Eleanor accidentally pushed her laptop almost to the point of falling off the long shared desk desk. She managed to shoot a hand out and catch it, but she also didn't miss the snort from the girl next to her.

She did her best to make minimal movements after that.

The professor methodically went down every line of the syllabus, elaborating smoothly as she went. Grade weightings, late work policies, textbooks, email addresses, Professor Summers went over it all, and by the end of it Eleanor really didn't feel like she'd missed anything too important after all.

Still, it would've been nice to sneak into the back of the classroom before anyone else had even shown up. Maybe she'd have had a few blissful class days of anonymity; she found that social situations for her were often a lot easier if no one even knew she was there.

But that ship had sadly sailed, and so Eleanor did her best to not mourn its passing.

"Alright, I think you guys have heard enough of me talking for now. I know most of you probably thought you were done with this in high school, but it's time to break a bit of ice." The professor clapped her hands. "Turn to someone nearby. Get to know them a little bit, and be ready to share with the class one good fact about your classmate!

Her professor was right. She had thought she was done with this kind of thing. She'd always hated icebreakers, even if she understood in an abstract sort of way why teachers liked to break out with ice breakers in the first days of school. Some classes involved discussion and group work, so obviously you'd need to be able to talk to people.

For most people there was some value there. But for her, it was painful awkwardness eighty percent of the time or worse.

Thankfully it wasn't a guy next to her, at least. That lowered the odds of embarrassment somewhat.

Eleanor offered the girl next to her another smile. She looked to be of similar age to her, though she could've been fresh out of high school or maybe even a little older. The girl's (woman's?) somewhat preppy outfit of a striped blouse over a denim skirt wouldn't have been out of place at Eleanor's high school, and in fact would've immediately marked her out as someone for Eleanor to avoid. Her sandy blonde hair was somewhat past shoulder length, and held back with a green headband.

She regarded Eleanor the way one might regard a visitor from another planet. Guarded but curious, and more than slightly horrified.

Perhaps to prove to herself that she'd grown well past the high school cliques (hard to maintain when your coworkers are twenty years older than you), she broke the silence herself. "Hi. I'm Eleanor. Garcia. I'm from Almond Creek."

Her eyebrows quirked almost imperceptibly at her last name, but that was another thing that Eleanor was primed to look for. "Almond Creek?" The girl asked, taking the more obvious route of questioning. "I've never heard of that."

Eleanor could only chuckle nervously. "It's a bit north. And east. We, uh, do have our own high school at least. Kids from the next town over have to come to ours."

The girl grimaced, and Eleanor realized her fun little anecdote probably just made her hometown seem even more rinky dink than it really was.

"How about you?" Eleanor asked quickly.

"Hannah Johnson," the girl answered flatly. "San Francisco."

For Eleanor, the obvious follow-up question was 'What brought you here, then?' But considering that the answer was most likely 'I didn't get accepted to any of the awesome beachfront Bay Area schools,' and Eleanor preferred to minimize conflict in her life, she stashed that question away for now.

"Pick your major yet?"

Hannah rolled her eyes. "Nursing, but still gotta do these dumb GE's." She snorted. "When the hell am I going to have to write an essay in a hospital? So stupid." After a long moment of silence, she seemingly remembered that conversations involved two people. "How about you?"

Eleanor could only shrug and try not to feel too down on herself. "Not sure yet. Since I gotta get these GEs out of the way anyway… I've got a bit of time to think about it, I guess."

She'd been thinking about it since her sophomore year of high school, and she'd really been hoping her time off from school would have given her the time to give it a nice long ponder. A year later though, and she was still just as lost as she had been. Maybe more!

"Are you rooming on campus? I don't think I've seen you around."

Hannah flicked her wrist dismissively. "Apartment nearby. The dorm rooms are too expensive if you don't get affirmative action money."

Eleanor's experience in fast food kicked in, and she managed to keep a smile on her face despite how little she now wanted to talk to this person. She even threw in a slight chuckle to really sell it.

Hannah flicked her chin at Eleanor's laptop. "What was that picture?"

"Picture?"

"Your wallpaper."

Now she really had to fight to keep her smile steady. "Oh, that?" She squirmed. "That's uh…"

It had taken her forever to find a nice background that was exactly the right resolution; it seemed like her laptop had the least common screen size in the known universe, and she refused to let her wallpaper be stretched or zoomed and look gross. Not after she'd spent good money on this laptop. She'd trawled more sketchy looking anime wallpaper sites than she could count over the summer, braving her considerable fear of viruses in the process, and finally managed to stumble upon a gold mine of stuff in her resolution. Most of it was fanart for anime she didn't really know much about beyond a name or a character design, but there was one that caught her eye.

Well, to make a long story a bit shorter, it was Kagome and Inuyasha in a state of tender, romantic embrace.

It wasn't in an anime style though, but something a little more realistic and painterly. She'd thought that might help her hide in plain sight.

Alas.

"...just some art I found."

Apparently unsatisfied with this answer, Hannah reached across the desk and opened up Eleanor's laptop without even pretending to ask for permission. Inuyasha's flowing red robes and snowy hair greeted the world once again but fortunately, Kagome lacked her typical school uniform, and was instead wearing an old Japanese kimono. Hannah squinted at the screen. "Isn't this one of those… annie mays?"

Eleanor blanched, and seriously considered feigning ignorance. But she couldn't. "Uh, no," she half-mumbled. "It's called Inuyasha."

Hannah nodded in vague recognition. "I think I've seen that name on tv guide."

"It's pretty popular," Eleanor said, as if it were just an interesting factoid and not a defense of her own watching habits.

Hannah eyed her, adding a bit of scorn to the already existing mix of curiosity and horror.

There was a loud clap at the front of the room, and the conversations still happening gradually petered out. A girl on the far side of the room kept talking for a full five more seconds, but after she finally trailed off, there was silence. Professor Summer gave a brief mock applause. "I'm glad to hear some genuine conversations," she said warmly. "Last semester it was like pulling teeth to hear someone other than myself." She clapped her hands again. "So, how we're going to do this is you'll stand up with the person you talked to and take turns introducing each other to the class, then you'll sit down and we'll move to the next pair. Nice and simple." She pointed to the front row, and two students promptly rose to follow her instructions.

Eleanor tried to pay attention, but it was a lot of new names and new faces (or to be more accurate, the sides and backs of faces from her vantage point in the back row), so she quickly lost track of who was who. Most people just shared where their partner was from or what their major was, and Eleanor was a little relieved to hear plenty of "...and they're not sure what their major is yet."

At least she wasn't the odd one out in that regard.

Like a slowly encroaching bathroom mold, the metaphorical baton passed its way through the classroom, and Eleanor's partner was clearly bored out of her mind listening to it all if her tapping on the desk was any indication. When it finally made it to Eleanor and Hannah. Eleanor stood up first, taking special care to not accidentally push anything aside with her boobs. Hannah rose a second later, but it was obvious she thought the whole thing was stupid.

Eleanor tried to pretend like more of the class weren't tuning in for them than they had for the last several pairs. She gestured to Hannah. "This is Hannah Johnson. She's from San Francisco and she's going into nursing!"

Hannah didn't even bother to look personable to the rest of the class. She limply flicked a wrist in Eleanor's vague direction. "She's Eleanor Garcia. And she…" She stopped and visibly thought about it. "... she watches annie-may."

The mispronounced word leaving her partner's lips felt like a bomb going off in her ribcage, but Eleanor grinned and bore it. She sat down in a rush as soon as the teacher pointed at the next pair.

Eleanor spent the rest of the class alternating between deep despair and righteous fury. Who the hell did this chick think she was? Everyone else had picked the obvious stuff to share, but her bigot partner of course latched onto the thing that might cause her to get some grief.

And it's not like she'd ever been seriously bullied over it, even way back in middle school, but she already got enough snide comments as it was! If it wasn't her chest, it was her love of Hot Topic, and if it wasn't either of those, it was her being into "weird stuff". Which included anime, to most people's estimation.

'She could at least pronounce it correctly. This is an English class.'

By the time class finally ended, Eleanor was so deep in her spiral of despanger that she had long since stopped paying attention. She heard the professor talk about something at the student store before she heard the blissful words, "Until Tuesday!"

Eager to be literally anywhere else, Eleanor was out of her seat almost instantly. She cut past several of her classmates attempting to descend the tiers and raced for the door. She took the left exit, dodging the professor's surely disappointed gaze (Last to show up and first to leave? And so distracting!) and raced out of the Humanities building before anyone could corner her.

'I'll show up early next time and apologize. '

She was sure she'd bounced up a storm as she left, but she didn't care about that just then. Let them get an eyeful, she had places to be.

But since she didn't actually have another class for a while today and it was still a little too early to justify going to the cafeteria for lunch, she wasn't exactly sure what places those were. There wasn't much reason to hit up the student store just yet, since she still had a few more classes before the weekend and she might as well try to shop two birds with one stone. Which really only left her two options.

'Dorm? Or library?'

Her dorm was an attractive option, but it also harbored the considerable risk that was her intimidating roommate Simone. The library had the alternative risk of running into a whole bunch of other people, but it also lent her a certain anonymity, provided she could find a nice spot with a bit of privacy.

From the humanities building, both the library and the dorms were on the same path, so she had a bit of time to figure it out. Sadly, many more people were walking the campus by then than had been in the morning so she had to slow her pace to something much more balanced.

When she reached the quad, she decided she'd rather face the uncertain judgment of the library than the slightly less uncertain judgment of her dorm room, and so turned right to cross it. The quad was nice in part because its size allowed her to keep some distance between herself and any onlookers, but when she got to the library she had no such protection.

The bottom floor of the library building was in fact devoted mostly to classrooms, and the library proper began on the second floor and went up to the third. Which brought her to one of her many mortal enemies: stairs.

(Once, as an energetic child, she had made a game of sprinting up the stairs of a family friend's two story house, but those days were a distant dream to her. Biology had separated her from stairs, and now it was all she could do to preserve some mild sense of dignity any time she had to ascend them.)

She only had to pass one gaggle of slackjawed guys in gym clothes (one of whom at least seemed suddenly infatuated with the wall as she closed in) and a pair of middle aged women who made no bones about where it was they were staring before she made it to the stairwell. A white haired man in dress clothes was on his way down, and, after looking behind her, she saw that at least one other person was making for the stairs.

Sighing, she reached across her chest with her left hand and grabbed onto her right shoulder, pressing her boobs down in a vain attempt to hold them somewhat firm. She grabbed onto the railing with her right hand, and climbed the stairs carefully but quickly. Going up wasn't as bad as going down, but the movement could still be painful if she didn't hold herself down. And even with her arm where it was, the discomfort was still noticeable.

Not to mention it made her feel like a total joke.

She avoided the gaze of the old man as she passed him by, and recalled the words of a sorta friend she'd had back in junior year.

"You're gonna give some old geezer a heart attack one of these days."

So far, she'd kept manslaughter off her conscience, which was good because her conscience had plenty of other stuff to worry about.

The library area proper started with a large desk that everyone coming in would have to pass, behind which library staff was busy with whatever it is library staff did when they weren't rearranging books or checking them out for students. A woman who couldn't be more than 25 sat closest to the entrance, but Eleanor had already seen her the first time she toured the library, so her reaction was more muted than most.

Eleanor made a beeline for her.

A flicker of annoyance crossed the woman's face, but then she put on her best customer service smile. "Good morning! Can I help you with anything?"

"Hello," Eleanor replied. "I was just wondering about those study rooms? Do we have to reserve them? Or can we just walk in if they're free?"

The woman (whose nametag said "Linda" with "library assistant" beneath it) gave her a conspiratorial look. "Technically speaking, all use of the study rooms is by appointment." She looked around to the next nearest Library staff member and lowered her voice. "But it's the first day back, and I really doubt anyone needs them that badly. Go to 202. It's next to Philosophy."

Eleanor smiled widely enough that her lip briefly caught on her braces. "Thank you!" she half-whispered, lowering her voice similarly. "And, uh, I don't know the Dewey Decimal System super well. Can you point me to the… animals section? If you have that?"

Linda thought about it for no more than a second. "That's 590. Last section on this floor."

Eleanor bowed her head slightly. "I really appreciate it."

Then she was off to find 590 in the mysterious depths of the library, passing the glass doors that opened out into the computer lab, which took up about a quarter of the floor. As early as it was, it was already full of people making use of the boxy beige computers, while the actual library part of the library was comparatively empty. The shelves were all labeled, so it wasn't a particularly perilous journey to find the section she was looking for, but dodging people as well as their eyes kept her on her toes.

Once she'd found the 590s, it was only a matter of perusing the one shelf dedicated to it and finding something that looked like it would point her in the right direction. The space between shelves wasn't particularly wide, so it was physically a little awkward for Eleanor, but as long as she had it to herself it wasn't the end of the world.

It would always be obnoxious, of course, but she was pretty well used to working around herself.

Initially, she thought to look at reptiles specifically, but after taking out and flipping through a few of the reference books available, she realized doing it that way would be about as bad as looking for a drop of sweat in the ocean. She changed tack, and instead looked for anything about local wildlife. After about five minutes, she found something that looked promising. Flora and Fauna of the Central Valley.

Thick tome in hand, Eleanor left the confines of the shelves and went to where she remembered seeing the study rooms. Each study room had large windows facing the main library floor (probably to prevent adventurous college students from getting up to a different sort of extracurricular activity, Eleanor figured), which meant that she couldn't hide per se, but it would at least be a door and a wall between her and anyone else. And sometimes that's all she really wanted.

She only had to awkwardly dodge out of the way of one other library-goer (a mousy girl whose eyes went saucer-wide behind her glasses) before Eleanor found her study room.

The sound of the door closing was heavenly, and Eleanor released a long heavy sigh.

She fell into one of the chairs that surrounded the long table at the center of the study room. The far wall was devoted to a blackboard, upon which a note was written in pink chalk.

Have a wonderful year at Costello State!

Eleanor wasn't especially happy with her start so far, but seeing the note brought a smile to her face despite herself. It could've gone worse, she supposed.

So what if some people knew she liked anime? It wasn't the only thing she liked; she contained multitudes! And who cared if she'd been late one time? She was punctual! She'd be on time the rest of the year! Her teacher wouldn't even remember that by the end!

Properly psyched up, Eleanor flipped the book open with a little more energy than was strictly necessary. She flipped past the foreword and other legal publishing mumbo jumbo until she found what she was looking for; science may not have ever been her most favorite of subjects, but tables of contents had never once failed her.

Flora? Nope.

Fauna? Most certainly!

Reptiles? Perfect.

Once she was in the proper section, it took her not even ten minutes of flipping past photos of a wide variety of scaled critters she had no idea existed to discover that she was in fact a complete fraud.

Not only was there a wild lizard that lived in the Valley that happened to have bright blue on it, but it was one of the most common lizards in the whole state!

Two photos of a Western Fence Lizard stared up at her. From the top, it was your standard lizard-y color, that brownish greenish whatever tone. The second photo, however, showed the same lizard flipped onto its back, its legs flopping helplessly to its sides. Its belly was a blue so bright that it was shocking. The writing beneath the photos detailed the fact that the blue could vary widely in both the intensity of the color and in the amount of blue on the belly.

Well. Guess she didn't know the area nearly as well as she thought she did; where had that unearned sense of confidence even come from? It wasn't like she'd ever been a girl scout or anything, and her family only ever occasionally went camping along the coast.

For the next twenty minutes, she idly flicked around the book, enjoying the various photographs but taking special care to avoid the sections about the creepiest crawlies (especially spiders, ugh).

When she started getting bored, she flipped out her purple Razr and checked the time. It was barely past noon and her next class wasn't even until six.

It was so much time to kill that it made her a bit nervous. Instinctually, she felt like she was putting something off, which usually manifested in her as a consistent anxiety that she nevertheless refused to address by taking care of the problem.

…but it was only the first day of school. And she really wasn't putting anything off yet.

Eleanor shut the book and pushed it to the edge of the table, then grabbed her backpack and moved over to the other side so that she was facing the window. She removed her laptop, a specially marked thumb drive, and her earbuds from her backpack, and, after a bout of furious detangling of cords, she was ready to kill some serious time.

Courtesy of a friend she'd rather avoid thinking about, she had every episode of Bleach as of a year and a month ago. She'd been putting it off out of sheer negative association… but it really did look pretty cool, and there was quite some distance between them at this point anyway.

'As good a time as any,' she decided.

Before she knew it, it was time to get to class and gone were thoughts of lizards painted blue; in their place were wonderings of just how she could get her hands on a sword like Ichigo's.

She snorted as she shut her laptop and got ready to go. As if she could even swing it!

Spoiler: AN

It's my first original story, so hopefully it's not too wonky. Going from fanfic to original stuff is a pretty scary transition. She's an OC of mine I've gotten some art done for over the years; I have a cast of characters built around her, and hoping to write a half decent story for her.

Eleanor (and several of her eventual friends) are characters I've spent the last few years dreaming up ideas for. Initially, I wanted this to be a VN, then I wanted it to be an RPG Maker game, then I thought maybe a quest. As just one guy with few artistic talents, I sadly had to bow out of the RPG Maker game, and while I know people love quests, and that would probably do the best in terms of interaction, I just don't think I could handle the story going in a direction I wouldn't like.

If anyone would like to beta, I would appreciate it considerably. Please just let me know.

Next part will be up soon!

 

[TacticallySuperior]

neat. you write well, hopefully you deliver on that promise of an update soon.

 

[JimmyFingus]

A Long Day II

Conflict in US History

Professor Clark ended up being the complete opposite of Professor Summers, in pretty much every way he could be. Old, sour looking, white, and ready to go from minute one.

"There will be no busywork in this class. Attend the lectures, and pass the tests. If you miss the lectures, do not be surprised if you fail the tests. If you fail the tests, you fail the class. It was good enough for ancient Chinese bureaucrats, and it's damn good enough for you too."

She'd gotten to class early and managed to find a spot in the deep corner in anticipation of some kind of icebreaker (maybe she could simply hide), but it ended up being totally unnecessary. Professor Clark sped through the syllabus inside of five minutes.

"I don't check my email, so don't even bother sending me any. If you need to talk to me, my office hours are right there on the sheet. The test dates? On the sheet. Everything you need is either right there or right here."

(He'd pointed at his temple just then.)

"Now, I bet you're expecting some kind of chit chat with your classmates. But you're not here to learn from each other, you're here to learn from me. So listen close, and take some notes with whatever you care to take notes with. If you have any questions, keep your damn hand down. I'm not wearing my glasses, so I probably won't even see it. Your question will probably be answered anyway, because I've been doing this longer than most of you have been alive"

"You only see me once a week, so you'd better be listening."

And then he'd launched straight into lecture mode, and Eleanor had little time to worry about the pothead looking guy a few seats over who kept glancing aside to get a better look at her.

She'd never been the fastest typer, owing primarily to the fact that her family computer saw frequent use growing up and she was typically the bottom of the pecking order when it came to getting to use it. She'd tried to make up for lost time after she'd bought her own finally, but work had kept her pretty busy. All this to say, it was a struggle to keep up Professor Clark's lecture, and after years of hand-written notes, she was at loss with how to properly organize her notes on Microsoft Word. But ask her to set up an MLA formatted essay? She could do that, no sweat!

Stamp Act, Intolerable Acts, Boston Massacre. She'd at least vaguely heard of it all before, but never with as much detail as she was getting now, and definitely not without the teacher having to stop and quiet the class down every so often. The pace felt blistering, and it was all she could do to type up some of the key words and highlights.

Her sister Rosa had told her it was sink or swim, and she was determined to swim, dammit. Everyone in her family had sunk, but she wasn't going to. She could do it.

(And no, it wasn't because of her floatation devices. She'd already heard that one.)

Professor Clark's rare pauses seemed to exist solely for him to take a healthy swig of Coca Cola.

"Don't try to tell me it's bad for me. There's nothing any of you can say that my doctor hasn't already."

Three cans of it sat on his desk at the start, and by the end of class all three of them were gone.

His lecture drew to a close without incident, and Eleanor had been so busy taking notes that she somehow missed that the vast majority of the class was either asleep or halfway there.

Bleary eyes and slow blinks abounded, and when Professor Clark said, "You're free to go. Make sure to get the textbook," barely anyone even moved. The professor didn't seem to take it particularly personally, because he only chuckled at the state of the class. "Kids these days!" he griped half-heartedly, as he dropped his empty cans of coke into the trashcan beside his desk. "Can't even appreciate the foundation of their country." He caught the gazes of the few of them that were somewhat awake. "Any questions from you proud few?"

Eleanor shook her head when his eyes met hers, and was pleased to note that the professor didn't even glance at her bust, but she couldn't discount the fact that he might just have poor vision on account of his age and not be able to see her very well from his position.

The others had no questions either, and so with one final nod at each of them, the professor picked up the few papers he'd brought with him and left.

A few students (including the pothead looking guy who she'd caught staring a few times) shuffled out of their seats and ambled toward one of the available exits as soon as he was gone, but most of the class was well and truly out, and it made Eleanor's decision to sit in the back corner slightly awkward. Despite this classroom being much larger than her composition class', because it was a true stadium seating setup it would be a challenge for her to even find her way to an exit. The walking paths were narrow, especially with a bunch of crashed college students and their bags taking up extra room.

Nothing was more mortifying than accidentally brushing against (or worse) people with her boobs, and the layout of the room definitely made that a much greater possibility. She ended up having to carry her backpack by hand to minimize her profile as much as she could, but even then, she had to twist rather severely to avoid any bust related accidents with her slumbering classmates. Potential crises successfully (though painfully) averted, she descended the steps and made her way toward the exit the professor had used.

But once she got to the bottom, a familiar feeling stopped her in her tracks. A tickling in her spine that felt the way ice being poured into a metal cup sounded.

She turned back to look up at her classmates.

Instantly, she knew she never wanted to be a college professor. If her classmates were awake, their eyes staring down at her would have felt like physical pressure. Even with half of their heads in their laps and the other half slumped to the side, the thought of staring up at that and trying to teach made her a little nauseous.

But more than any of that, the whole thing felt a little… off to Eleanor.

'It wasn't that boring of a lecture, was it?'

She'd had worse lectures in high school, and she could never remember a reaction like this. One or two slackers falling asleep? Okay. But this?

Had there been some kind of party they all attended? Some drugs passed around?

College was where all that stuff was supposed to be happening… so maybe the pothead guy had sold some laced brownies while she wasn't looking. Maybe that was why he'd been glancing at her; he was trying to see if she was buying what he was selling.

That sounded about right, didn't it?

A fat guy with a too-thin chinstrap in the second row snored loudly all of a sudden, and for some reason Eleanor nearly jumped out of her skin. But no one else reacted. She looked from face to face: a reedy dude with a lot of acne and a green baseball cap for some team she didn't know half keeled over, a sporty looking girl with a tight brown ponytail whose head was on the shoulder of the drooling woman wearing scrubs who sat next to her, a man in a striped button up with his head tilted back over his seat, and the three dozen others who were all in similar states of stupor.

Her feet told her to move, and so she listened. She didn't even keep track of how quickly she was moving.

Why?

She wasn't sure.

It was almost 9 o clock, so the Bettencourt Building being emptied of people shouldn't have felt strange, but somehow it only intensified the tingling in her spine. She passed quiet classrooms, willing the lack of lecturing to not bother her.

For once in her life, as she turned a corner she was vaguely hoping to run into someone, but the next hall too was empty. The only sound was the buzzing of the yellow fluorescent lights.

Where had her professor gone?

'He didn't look like he could move that fast.'

She picked up her pace even further, strangely desperate to reach the building's lobby and its many couches and chairs. When she'd gotten to the building before class, there had been several people occupying them and already working on their laptops or scrawling notes into their notebooks.

'But they were probably waiting for their classes. Are there even any classes past nine?'

When she got to the lobby, she was relieved to see two other human beings, but her stomach dropped when she realized that one of them was the pothead looking guy. He was in one of the two large plush chairs, and he was now in a deep sleep. His head was hanging back, so his almost shoulder length black hair was splayed out enough that she could spot gold dangling earrings.

She felt a little bad that she didn't have some other way of thinking about him, because she knew damn well she hated when people passed judgment on her based solely on her appearance, but even asleep he still reminded her of the stoners she knew in high school. His backpack was at his feet, and the main zipper wasn't fully zipped. The thought of digging through his backpack to look for pot brownies momentarily crossed her mind, but then she just felt even worse.

The other person in the lobby was a young woman about her age with bleach blonde hair and a little too much makeup, and she was fully conked out laying across the lobby's one uncomfortable-looking couch.

Through the glass doors, she could see that it was now well and truly night.

In fact, it seemed even darker than it should be.

Eleanor pulled her Razr out of her pocket and checked her contacts.

"Don't forget to add campus security," her mom had warned. Fruitlessly, it turned out, because "C" was completely empty in her contact list. Half annoyed at herself and half ever-so-slightly worried, she put her phone back in her just barely deep enough pocket.

Eleanor glanced around the walls as she approached the doors, hoping to see some kind of poster for the campus security phone number; she saw no such thing, but it looked like there was going to be a performance of Hamlet in October. So, small victories.

(She'd had a lot of fun with Hamlet her senior year.)

She briefly considered waking up the girl on the couch, but her natural tendency to avoid conflict won out. Gripping the door handle tightly, she looked out into the darkness. She looked in the direction of the dormitories, glad to see that the lights along the path were at least working. Even still, she couldn't shake the feeling that it hadn't been this dark the previous night.

Before she left, she checked behind her one last time in the hopes of seeing someone else leaving the building. But the two lobby sleepers still slumbered, and there was no one outside either.

'Deep breaths. It's just a college campus.'

The slightly chilly bite of early not-quite autumn welcomed her outside, and Eleanor was glad she'd worn her hoodie today after all. Some part of her had wanted to move past her hoodie wearing tendencies now that she was in college, but her hoodies hadn't failed her in the past, and they were proving their worth once again. The outside of the Bettencourt Building was helpfully lit quite well, but everything past about twenty feet was shrouded in darkness. She checked the outside walls for any helpful posters, but again came up short.

In front of the Building sat several of the food bowls for the campus cats. But no cats, and no food.

Originally, she'd meant to hit up the student store tonight and pick up her textbooks for her first pair of classes (the store was open late for the first two weeks). Looking around the shadowy quad, she was certain that she'd much rather just go back to her dorm. Simone's judgy looks be damned.

Taking off past the several food bowls, she carved the most direct route through the grass to the nearest light post on the path back to the dorms, not even caring if she stepped on duck poop this time around.

As she stepped into the light of the first post, she felt herself begin to calm slightly.

Sure, it was dark, and everyone falling asleep was kinda weird, but it was just a college campus. A campus in a little "city" (technically) that most of the world probably didn't even know existed. Safety was one of the reasons she'd decided to come here; she'd never seen a headline about Abottin, even on local news.

Looking up at the light post, she realized something that made her feel rather foolish.

'Duh! It's a new moon!'

She'd never really been one to follow astrology much, so she wasn't sure if Mercury was in retrograde as well, but it certainly explained the darkness at the very least. Her breathing slowed, and she was surprised she hadn't noticed how hard she was breathing until then.

She let a hand rest on her chest for a moment, and slowly something like confidence returned to her.

Just a new moon and a bunch of sleepy college students! They'd probably all been partying late last night. Only a small portion of students actually lived in the dorms, so the fact that she didn't remember hearing any parties last night didn't mean that there hadn't been parties somewhere. For all she knew, there'd been some all night shindigs in one of the nearby apartment complexes.

It was with springer steps (and more concern about unwanted movements) that she resumed her journey back to the dorms. She contemplated going to the student store after all, but at this point she was ready for the day to be done.

But she was brought to a stop under the third lightpost between the Bettencourt Building and the dorms. Underneath that lightpost was a bench, and on that bench was a petite girl in a very cute blouse that Eleanor would murder to be able to pull off.

Yet despite her flash of jealousy, she wasn't just going to let a girl sleep on a bench in the middle of the night without at least trying to do something about it.

Eleanor grabbed the girl's shoulder and shook her lightly. "Hey, I think you should get up," she said. The girl didn't so much as budge. Eleanor shook her a little more harshly and raised her voice. "Dude, it's not safe to just sleep outside like this. There are creepers!"

The girl's eyes were moving wildly behind her eyelids, but Eleanor's warning went otherwise unheeded.

Eleanor tried one last time. "Hey!" Shake. Wake up!" Shake. "Not safe!" Shake.

Nothing. The girl kept right on sleeping.

Eleanor's right foot bounced nervously.

She couldn't just leave her, could she? But what else could she do? 911? Was that something she could do? Would she get fined for misusing emergency lines?

The thought of her parents getting some kind of fine in the mail was mortifying, and not only because it was yet another expense to feel guilty over. She'd kept well out of trouble thus far in her life, unlike her sisters, and she probably attached a little too much of her self worth to keeping that up.

Eleanor looked around for anyone coming down (or up) the path, but both ways were decidedly deserted. As far as she could see, they were the only human beings within screaming distance. She bit her lip.

"Okay, just stay right here then. I'll call campus security when I get back to my room." If that wasn't posted somewhere in the dormitories then she figured there was some lawsuit potential.

Eleanor hurried along, and threw her concern with embarrassment to the wind with an arm around her chest. As she walked, she found her gaze returning to the sky again and again, but she couldn't figure out why. The stars were twinkling, but the absent moon was like a gaping wound in the sky that raised hairs on the back of her neck.

She stopped and turned.

The girl was still laying there on her side, her face toward the back of the bench.

Eleanor kept walking. Even more quickly; she had to hold herself tighter.

'I probably look so dumb.'

But her usual angst subsided quickly, and when she came to the next light post, the absence of people began to bother her even more than the missing moon.

'It wasn't like this the past couple nights. Was it?'

She felt like she couldn't stop to think; something nameless inside her was telling her to keep moving, and she saw no reason to ignore it. Her dad always told her to trust her gut, and her gut was saying go.

She just needed to get back to her dorm and find that number. Maybe Simone even had it on hand, considering this was her second year here. She'd call it and tell them about the stupid girl whose parents apparently never told her she shouldn't fall asleep in a public place. She focused on that. She definitely wasn't growing increasingly anxious about how empty the campus was, or how quiet the crickets were being.

Under the light of the next light post, she checked one more time. The girl was still sleeping, and Eleanor still didn't see anyone coming up the path. She didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

Her thick boots scuffed against the sidewalk as she walked in the darkness. Step, step, step, duck poop but oh well, step, step, step. One foot in front of another. Eyes in front.

The next light was just past the bridge. The same bridge she'd seen that stupid fence lizard that she'd thought someone had spray painted.

She was halfway across it when a chill went racing up her spine that stopped her in her tracks. She felt a prickling sensation on her arms and legs, and her eyes were all but pulled upward. Eleanor stared up at the sky, at the little pinpricks of light called stars, and the moon's absence once again caught her attention.

She figured it out rather abruptly, but the small sense of victorious elation was quickly eclipsed by a cold wash of fear that drenched her from head to heel.

When Simone had scolded her for forgetting to take out the trash the night before, she'd trudged outside in her baggiest pajamas and somehow struggled to locate the massive dumpsters. On the way back she'd indulged in a bit of stargazing. And she'd seen it. A thin, but visible, yellow crescent. A child's ideal moon.

There wasn't a cloud in the sky right now, but there was no moon

That wasn't possible, was it?

The chill in her spine shot down her limbs, and then she felt it.

A force. A weight. Light. Barely there, but definitely there. And somehow she knew the source was behind her.

She didn't want to turn around; her brain was screaming at her, begging her to just keep going and get the hell out of dodge. And yet something else was in her too. Something she couldn't quite identify. She wanted to believe that it was just concern for that girl on the bench, but that didn't feel like all of it.

Eleanor felt insane for even letting the thought of turning around cross her mind. It went against every survival instinct she'd ever nurtured.

Perhaps that was why she was disappointed when she turned around and saw nothing.

It was still a dark, somehow moonless night. There were still several light posts between herself and the Bettencourt Building. The girl was still totally asleep. There was still no one else that she could see.

There was still a weight pressing lightly against her mind.

You have to look more closely, a voice said suddenly.

Eleanor screamed and whirled back around, looking wildly for the source of the voice, but that side was still empty too. Shadows. Shadows and light posts and trees and a stream that wasn't making as much noise as it should.

Peel back the layers, it continued.

It was a woman's voice; not a girl's, but the measured tone of a mature woman. Eleanor looked back to the far side of the bridge for anything even close to a woman, then back. She even looked up and down. Nothing.

Not me. The girl. Look at the girl.

Despite herself, she listened. The girl was still just laying there. She didn't look any different.

That weight you are feeling. Feel it in your hands and not just your mind. Imagine peeling it back.

Okay, so the voice was crazy as well as disembodied.

"A-Are you in my mind too?" she asked tremulously, fighting to keep her voice steady.

No, I'm here. You know me. The voice returned to its refrain, more insistently this time. Peel it back.

"What does that even mean?"

I have already told you.

Shakily, Eleanor lifted the hand she hadn't noticed had held her chest in a vice grip; she immediately breathed more easily, but that was it. Her hand hung lamely in the air, and her mouth was so dry she had to lick her lips to even speak again. "Feel it in my hands?"

Then peel it back.

She wanted to yell at the voice that she heard it the third time but was too frightened to actually do it, even though she was pretty sure she remembered something in Mass about not listening to voices in your head. Maybe if she did what it wanted, it'd leave her alone and she could wake up from whatever insane nightmare this was.

Eleanor stared at the girl on the bench again, and then squinted her eyes and tried to focus on the weight she still felt. She imagined it as a comforter. One of those thick ones her mom would throw on the beds whenever family was coming over; they were huge and cumbersome, but not exactly heavy. They were covered in flowers.

She closed her hand, and pulled ever so slightly. Less like peeling off a blanket, and more like pulling aside a curtain to get a peek of the neighbor taking their new puppy for a walk.

Only through this window, there wasn't a little Rottweiler waiting on the other side.

Can you see it now?

Standing over the girl on the bench was a figure. A tall, thin figure with long, slender arms. One of its hands rested on the back of the bench, while the other hung at its side. Its long neck was forward, so that it was staring directly down at the sleeping girl at an almost right angle from its body. Long, shimmering silver hair blocked her view of its face.

Its body was covered in tight, purple and teal patterned clothing that brought to mind medieval jesters.

And at its back, two great butterfly wings. Almost transparent. Almost a trick of the light. But there.

"W-What is it?" She whispered to the voice, knowing that she did not want whatever that was to notice her.

The voice didn't reply immediately. Eleanor felt tears of horror stinging her eyes as she stared at the thing, and she silently begged the voice to say something. She was about to ask again when she heard a scrabbling on the railing of the bridge.

She instinctually jerked away, but froze just as quickly, terrified that her movements might attract the thing's attention.

It wasn't a new monster though.

It was just a lizard, standing on the railing and staring up at her.

A little brownish greenish lizard that looked remarkably similar to a certain local variety of lizard.

Well. Apart from the bright blue feathers that sprouted around its neck. And its piercing purple eyes.

Sometimes your people call them fae, the voice said. The lizard's eyes bored into hers, and despite the fact that its mouth stayed closed the entire time, she knew without a doubt that it belonged to the lizard.

Eleanor stared stupidly.

I am sorry to be blunt. Might I ask a favor? The lizard flicked its tail, and Eleanor saw that it had a few blue feathers at the end there too.

She may not have gone to Mass very often, but she was pretty sure she remembered a certain feminine progenitor getting into a bit of trouble with a small reptile. But the lizard didn't seem devilish at all, really. And if it was between the lizard and whatever that other thing was…

"What… kind of favor?"

The lizard blinked slowly. One eye and then the other.

I am going to need you to kill that fae.