adapt{wes

[Maria I. Sanchez]

941 WORDS	@fluffything
---	crappy and ugh -flail-

nothing but time to kill

Maria was a good little mutant. That was what they said about her. She was disciplined. She was calm. She wasn’t one of the ones that caused a lot of fuss. Every once in a while, and this was increasingly rare, she would get scolded for talking in class. It had been worse when she had first arrived. She hadn’t understood any English or Russian and tended to tear up when they tried to focus on it. It had taken her forever to learn the proper wordings, but she had tried. She had never minded school before. She knew that being a mutant was bad - had known since it had happened. The reactions of her parents had told her as much. But, she had never let it get in the way of her schooling. If she ever made it back home to Mexico, at least she would be comforted by that fact. She could tell her parents that she wasn’t like countless of other students that dropped out. She had tried!

Although, if she were being fair, the classes here were so different from the classes in Mexico. Everything was different from Mexico. Except Santa Muerte; her skeletal guardian angel had remained the same. It was the small comfort she had had. Well, that and that she was scarily good at some of the classes. She had particularly excelled when she had first arrived. There had been so many tests - how far behind was she in education? (Not very.) How good was she at chores? (Very; it was easier here than it had been at home. There had been less to do.) Could she speak correctly? (Yes, but only in Spanish. She tended to leave out words in Russian and English.) Had she any control over her powers? (Kind of; she just tended to avoid a lot of contact. The instructors and students had learned that it was better not to touch her.)

She missed affection. She missed someone patting her head, pinching her cheek, or even holding her hand and guiding her somewhere. The last time anyone had guided her anywhere had been when she had first arrived. She hadn’t understood what they had been telling her. She had no idea that they were leading her towards the dorms. She just stood there and stared at them, feeling very much like she wanted to cry. (Maria had only just learned how to properly reign in her emotions.) Even now, the accent tended to mix in with her words. There were times when she would lapse back into Spanish. These moments were the ones that she alone with only the closest memories being closer to her. She blinked and paused in her walking, shaking her head. One of the things that she was best at tended to be the household chores. She had baked, cooked, and cleaned while living at home. Following the recipes they gave her wasn’t too hard. She just had a trouble with the words some of the time.

Making friends, though. It was hard for her to make friends. She thought she had, maybe, two or three since she had gotten here. Friends weren’t encouraged at Weeds of Tomorrow. She had learned that by watching everyone. You could make some, sure, and you were could talk to one another. But, making friends was different. Most of these kinds hadn’t grown up like she had; loved. That had been the biggest thing she had picked up on. (It wasn’t hard. Sometimes, kids didn’t listen when the instructor told them not to touch her. She was so happy when they did, but then the memories came. Most of them hated her.) Some of, but not all, the kids had been lucky that they had been picked up by the boarding school. Maria was fine with that. She wasn’t fine being made to come here.

“Stop it.” She scolded herself. Somewhere, someone snorted at her.

She didn’t turn around to scold them or even acknowledged them. She stared from her spot ahead firmly. They had to fit the different classes she had missed into her time before she left. She was nearly 18. Nearly done with the Weeds of Tomorrow and onto...whatever it was that happened afterward. Most of the other mutants knew what was going to happen to them. She knew there was something, and that that something wasn’t particularly good, but she had been afraid to ask. At least they were going to learn how to make sweets today.

Maria could do sweets.

take me away

HAYANA OF CAUTION 2.0

[Deleted]

{tags} {word 724} {notes}
i just want to start this over

To be quite honest Westley despised Weeds, not that it was much of an unpopular opinion in his mind. Who could like such a place where he was stuffed into a box that only served to degrade him. Yet he still had his pride, whatever little scraps that he could salvage from the daily torments. How did the students [read prisoners] simply allow it when in his mind they could overpower the guards with ease. What were they ever to do to him? Slap him? Withhold meals? Scream at him until their throats were hoarse? 

He wasn't afraid of allowing his reactions to the lack of human rights in the facility show clearly on his face. Lips pursed and brow furrowed in anger and annoyance at what he was being taught. Lessons were spent primarily examining his fingers or tapping rhythmically on his thigh. Participation was the farthest thing from what was on his mind most of the time, that being thoughts of the one that he missed the most. How much he yearned to see him, how he wanted to simply wanted to press his face into one of his ratted shirts and weep for himself to be normal. It was all he had ever wanted. 

Unlike most of the other students he had attended a proper school for normal children, far into secondary school even. He knew maths, sciences, literature, and music. Especially Music, it was why he had sought admission to Parmiter's School in the first place, why he had spent night after night working calluses into the tips of his fingers to play his pieces perfectly day after day. School was something tangible, that he could visualize his progress and receive praise from his teachers and peers for his accomplishments. Weeds in a small comparison was like a never ending seat outside the Headmaster's office, waiting to be seen for some small transgression. 

Yet, there was nothing waiting inside to fear besides for his future, nothing besides for that. Or so it was thought. 

It was with dim eyes that he stumbled into the cooking class, heart a flurry in his chest as he moved to a station and stood there stunned into silence. He couldn't quite cry, there was no sadness nor remorse that he felt that he needed to express. Although, here had been something wrenched from his chest the moment that he observed a bullet travel through another student's skull. The guards had done it quickly, no warning, no humanity. Like the way a child imagined his father behaving as he took the dog back behind the barn for the last time. Most of all there was the smell, the thick metallic scent of blood that had been permanently burned into his nostrils all that he could focus on. 

It had almost been like he envisioned himself as the protagonist of a novel, seemingly safe no matter how dire the circumstances. In easier terms, he considered himself invincible. Bending like a willow in the wind to survive whichever the weather offered, as it was a juvenile idea that he would be so simply plucked. Yet now that the seed of such a simple concept was sown he was afraid, Fear filled the little crevice that the incident not twenty minutes before had torn open. 

As the instructor explained how to make Pastila Westley was only half listening, comprehending even less. It was something with jam? He didn't quite know what a puree was, but it seemed similar enough. Water, sugar, fruit, and whipped egg whites from what he was able to piece together as everyone around him sprung to action while he stared blankly and stood like a statue. 

It took a few sharp words for him to begin moving, fingers trembling as he set a bowl up on his work space and paused once again. He was confused, reciting the fragments of instructions that he could recall repeatedly under his breath as if it would help his jellied legs spring further into action. 

Instead he stood there, gripping a mixing bowl so tightly that his knuckles turned to bone. He stood with blood still splattered on his sweatpants and his eyes muddled swamps. Everything was still in his mind, hardly blank as he was distantly aware of a thought that grew with every moment. It was just still. 

MADE BY KIROUKO OF GANGNAM-STYLE

[Maria I. Sanchez]

865 WORDS	@fluffything
---	hope this is okay!

nothing but time to kill

If she closed her eyes and really listened to the noises going on around her, she could almost imagine that she wasn’t at Weeds of Tomorrow. She was in a small, overcrowded kitchen. There were too many voices around her - too many kids pulling on her shirt and on her hair. They were trying too hard to get her attention. If she didn’t pay attention, the tres leche cakes - or the flan, or the crullers, or the sopapillas - would disappear under their grubby little hands. Every once in a while, she would want to tell them off. She wanted to get them in trouble for eating what she had taken so long to make. But, then she would look into the eyes of her little cousins and let them get away with it. Did the littlest ones even remember her anymore. It had been almost too long since she had last been in that little kitchen. How many new, little cousins did she have? Did her parents have any more kids, or were they too afraid that they were going to turn out like her? She didn’t particularly like to dwell on such things. Not because she felt terrible thinking that her parents moved on without her. She wanted that to happen. She didn’t want them to be afraid to have another child. She just didn’t like to think about her not being there.

She tried really hard to remember what she had been taught in primary school - at least, what would be considered primary school here. She would recite the national anthem before she would go to sleep. She had a lot of trouble adjusting to the schedule that they had wanted her to, here. There were no breaks to eat snacks and go outside - not when she had been younger. Even now, she tended to get tired and worn out a lot faster than some of her classmates. Classes had been for four hours a day in Mexico - even when she had gone on the run, she’d stray near some schools and talk to some of the students. It worked in the sense that they kind of told her about some of the group work, but the teachers would always get in the way. Here, it was different. Their activity was too closely monitored - there weren’t the constant small breaks. The classes didn’t focus on science, mathematics, geography - nothing. There were no straightforward curriculum. Instead, there were cooking classes. Maria tried not to mind too much - tried not to raise a fuss or look like she was defying the world. It wouldn’t help. It wouldn’t show them that she was a good little student. It wouldn’t reward her with more time in the sun or the library.

It earned her nothing but a sharp reprimand she only really half-understood. It was fine. Life at Weeds wasn’t great, but it wasn’t the worst. There were no drug dealers threatening everyone who got behind on a payment. There were no bodies hidden in the corner of allies away from everyone, hidden. There weren’t people sitting down with hats in front of them, playing broken instruments - broken guitars, accordions, bent trumpets and coronets - in an effort to earn any pesos. Maria wasn’t dumb. She knew better than to think that she was safe; that she would be safe once she graduated or turned 18. If she would be, then some of her friends would have written her to tell her exactly what happened. She had gotten no such thing, and so she was a bit wary. Still, when she opened her eyes, she got to making Pastila. It reminded her of the little cakes that she once enjoyed making. She sat, albeit a little too primly, on her stool and got to peeling the apples they had given her carefully. She quite liked eating the skin, herself, and it wasn’t like the recipe called for any of it. She wondered what this would actually do for them, later. Were they going to have to always cook Russian recipes? Maybe she was biased, but she found that sopapillas were better.

Maria didn’t normally pay much attention to what her classmates were doing - she wasn’t really friends with any of them. There were a couple of conversations here and there, but most of her friends were either older than her or younger. That’s why it startled her that some of the kids kept looking over their shoulder. She couldn’t tell who they were looking at - had she done something silly? She was following directions as best she could, right? There weren’t any mistakes. Maybe she was going to slow. She glanced over her shoulder herself, hoping that they were looking at someone else. “You have peel the fruit.” She whispered quietly, gesturing towards them. “They’ll scold if you don’t move. You know what you need to do?” She could maybe try to help him. She wasn’t entirely sure why he wasn’t moving.“I can help?”

take me away

HAYANA OF CAUTION 2.0