The Nexgen Cursor

Chapter Two

I danced barefoot on the cold grass while waiting for my father to find his keys. I held up the front of my long dress with two fingers so that it didn't brush the ground. The sun had just set, and darkness was creeping in from the east. 

"Come on!" I called through the open window.

The window slammed shut in reply. My father quickly came down the front porch steps, his suit jacket draped over his arm. He turned the key in the door and pocketed it in his vest, a disgruntled look on his face. I was so used to seeing his moods change so quickly that I'd almost begun to ignore it.

"Why do you look so unhappy?" I asked.

"I'm not unhappy," he said. 

"Is it because boys don't get a chance?" I asked again. 

"Get on your shoes now, or we are going to be late." He picked up my shoes and held them out for me to slip my foot inside. 

"Coming," I chirped.

The two of us exchanged no words as we continued up the road. His attitude hung over me like a veil, I couldn't explain it. I stopped jingling my Cenera and did my best to focus on other things.

"Kirra!" my father snapped suddenly. The seams of the beautiful dress popped as he yanked me by my collar to the side of the road. A rider galloped by on a horse, carrying a large white flag with the crest of the Meridian emblazoned on the front.

"You're ruining it!" I cried, readjusting my dress.

"You need to be more careful. What if you were struck?"

"It isn't my fault," I grumbled, "I didn't see him."

"You need to pay more attention. It is very important that you take notice of your surroundings."

"I already do," I said stubbornly. Turning red in the face, my father swallowed his words and shoved his hands deep in his pockets. I strayed away from his side, running my fingers along the sweet green grasses growing at the edge of the road. I popped my lips, sweet with the sticky red lipstick from my mother's vanity.

I spotted a puff of smoke rising over the tops of the evergreens, and took off for the very first splitting path I saw.

"Jax, Jax!" I cried over the Cenera clinking in my dress pocket, "the ceremony is right now!"

"Kirra?" came Jax's tiny voice from the depth of the trees where his small cottage sat. 

I came running around the corner and down the path, where I spotted Jax Thornton sitting on the top step of his porch, dressed in thick, overflowing clothing fit for courting. 

I ran up beside him and tugged playfully at his baggy clothes, teasing him until the blood rushed to his cheeks. I loved to tease my poor friend, and all the mockery I'd forced him through probably left quite the jagged scar on his soul. Although my father warned against it many times, I couldn't help myself. I pushed, shoved, nitpicked, and teased to no end, and without an ounce of guilt or regret. I considered boys to be rather strange creatures, Jax included. 

"Look at you, picking on my son again!" Mr. Thornton boomed from inside the house. He flung open the front door and scooped Jax into his bulky, bare arms. I turned and looked longingly at my father coming up the drive, whose scrawny arms, good for drawing maps and tracing compass lines, could barely support me any longer. Mr. Thornton's arms, on the contrary, were very large and very powerful. Lines of jet black ink swirled up and down them, and whenever he moved, his muscles made the ink snakes slither and the ink wolves appear to part their jowls to howl. I considered it the closest thing to magic anyone possessed in the small town.