I was lounging on the sidewalk, pressed in the mid-morning shadows of the building behind me when I felt rather than heard someone sit beside me. I cracked open an eye and found a familiar young officer dressed in his street clothes sitting beside me.
"Well, hello again, Officer," I greeted him, stretching out like a cat and closing my eye. "I was wondering when you would talk to me." The officer was a common sight over the past month. He would often pop up in random places, sometimes in a uniform, sometimes not, but always watching me. It was slightly creepy, but sometimes he would talk to me and then it was a little less creepy.
"The time was right," he replied. He was probably in his mid thirties with a wife and a family to go back to. I wondered why he was sitting here with me instead. "I come with a peace offering."
"Oh?" I sat up, opening my eyes and observing him in his jeans and hoody. "Well now you have me just fascinated. Tell me, officer, what is this peace offering?"
"Let me buy you something to eat first." He stood up and reached down a hand which I stared at with dislike and suspicion. The promise of food was tantalizing, but was it worth it? If I accepted his help, I then owed him something in return. I hated being in people's debts. It gave them power over me, power which I so desperately needed to be my own. Out in the real world, no one was there to hold my hand. And I loved the sharpened sense of independence it gave me.
The officer smiled. "Come on, Amythest. I know you blew through whatever money you had three days ago. You're starving and I don't want to tell your mother that you were too proud to accept food when it was given to you."
The words "your mother" got me. I remembered a flash of disappointed eyes and winced. I accepted his hand, hoisting myself to my feet, waiting for a moment for the light-headedness to go away. After a moment of swaying, I motioned to the officer. "Lead on, Smokey."
"I do have a name, you know," he said, leading us down the street. "It's Collier."
"But Smokey is so much cooler."
Collier chuckled and we walked together in silence. He opened up the door to a nearby diner, and the mouthwatering scent of food wafting out nearly sent me to my knees. The officer caught me by the arm and hoisted me up.
"Hey now, don't pass out, you don't even know what the peace offer is yet!"
"Food," I moaned, staring longingly at a plate of the fluffiest pancakes I'd ever seen headed towards another customer. Again Collier laughed. I was beginning to get annoyed at how easy going he was. I almost wanted a cop that wasn't so easy to like. We sat down at a booth and the waitress brought over the menus. I felt the drool gathering in my mouth as I looked over everything on the paper, convinced I would order one of everything.
"What can I get you to drink?" The waitress asked, a notepad in her hand.
"Milk!" I shouted, desperate for something rich and tasty instead of the bland, stale or sour things I had been shoving in my mouth. "No—a sundae!"
She shot me a bizarre look and Collier spoke up. "A coffee for me, she will have water."
I shot him the dirtiest look I could muster in my half-starved state and he shrugged. "At this stage of starvation, your body has probably made you somewhat lactose intolerant. Best to go easy on the dairy for now."
We barely chatted until the food came, and when it did, I inhaled it. Bacon, eggs, pancakes, an omelette, more bacon, toast, even an egg sandwich found it's way down my throat.
"So, Amythest, what's your story?"
"Not much to tell," I mumbled, crunching on granola with the tiniest bit of yogurt and lots of berries. "Holy sweet mother of God this food is amazing"
YOU ARE READING
Children of the Stars
FantasyVERY MUCH UNEDITED!!! 18 year old Amythest's life gets turned upside down when she is sent to Horodiac University for unNatural Talent, a school where magic thrives. There she will face a year like she never has before, experiencing a colourful cast...