Zara's Academy Life
#1 of Leisure Writing
Here's the first of what will be the collection of short stories / segments of what I write in my journal whenever I'm bored or such. This first one revolves around a character I've recently created and have taken quite a liking to. He is a very introverted and very anti-social Zoroark-morph named Zara who is living in an academy meant to prepare morphs to live in the human society. He's a very experimental character of mine who I'm still playing around with.
And for the record, I don't write this all in one sitting. I come back to different stories and leave them very randomly, so it tends to vary on how much I manage to write in one sitting.
Zara's Academy Life
Zara sat quietly in the library, earphones stuffed in his ears and his eyes fixated to the screen of his laptop. He wasn't really watching anything; he just wanted to avoid having eye contact with any of the other students who were also here at the library today. It seemed to be working; the other morphs were walking right by him. Though some took a little bit longer to pass him than he would've liked, they were at least leaving him be. Really, that was all that mattered to him at this point, especially considering the fact that he picked today of all times to go to the library. Saturday, the day when most morphs would be off class and looking for stuff to do that didn't include their mate(s).
While it would've been the smarter decision to go someplace more excluded, he had realized this fact too late. Besides, he had already dedicated himself to the decision, so he would've felt weird doing otherwise. Plus, he was getting rather sick of that garden. The dang pollen made his allergies act up... As the next song in his playlist started up, he dared a glance around him. In the instant that he looked up, he noted that the place wasn't too terribly packed. Sure, there were a good amount of students walking around, but not very many seemed too keen on staying. That meant that, while the place was rather active today, it was still fairly empty, at least in the sense of those staying here.
Now if only the place could get a little quieter, he thought to himself, then this would be a near perfect day. At least compared to the rest of the week so far. Stupid laws class... Literally everyone else in the class knows the answer, yet I'm the one the professor calls up. Doesn't even make sense. And of course I'm called when I'm daydreaming. Couldn't have waited for like...a minute? How long do I usually daydream again? How long do others usually daydream? Hmmm, maybe I can look it up here? There's gotta be a book about this somewhere in here. I mean there are more books here than there are actual stude--
A light tap at Zara's back made him jump in surprise. By Ho-oh's disciples, if the physical ed classes he was taking didn't kill him, he was sure that another scare like that would. He turned around to face the mystery tapper, who appeared to be a Grovyle morph. "Oh jeez, sorry," the grass type said in a light voice, "I didn't mean to scare you..." 99.9% of things that scared Zara didn't mean to. It didn't make him feel any better about it though.
"It...it's fine," he replied softly and quietly, removing one of his earphones from his ear. Glancing at her, Zara realized that he recognized the female. She was one of his classmates in his human customs class. He wondered what she needed him for.
"I just wanted to come over and ask if you could help me out with yesterday's assignment," she explained, answering his question, "There are some problems that I really don't get, and I could use your help in answering them." Zara bit his lip; he remembered that giving a fellow student answers to a question was defined as cheating. At the same time though, she just needed help, and he didn't wanna seem like an ass for not helping her out.
"Umm...sorry," he began, "but it's against the rules to just give you the answers..."
"Oh, no-no-no," the grass type replied, shaking her head and hands, "I don't wanna just copy off of yours. I was hoping that you'd just help me in answering the questions. You know, like telling me whether or not I'm on the right track, pointing out the places to look for in the book, that sort of thing." Zara nodded thoughtfully; that definitely sounded better than what he had thought. Helping her without breaking the rules? Now that was something he could get behind.
And behind her--DAMMIT there goes my clean thought streak for today... All dirty jokes aside, the grass type certainly caught his eye. If he was going to be stuck talking with anyone, he was glad that it would be with an attractive individual like herself. ...Gods, there was just no way of making that sound less creepy, was there? Shaking the thought aside, he nodded to her before whispering, "Sure. That sounds good." The Grovyle smiled.
"Thanks," she said, "I'll try not to take up too much of your time." Zara nodded again before sitting up in his seat and scooting over to allow her space to sit in the chair next to him. "What's your name, by the way?" she asked as she sat down, "I hear it during roll call, but I always end up forgetting."
Zara couldn't blame her. Besides, he had forgotten hers too. "My name's Zara," he said gently, "Nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you, too," she replied, "My name's Gwen." Knowing himself, Zara guessed he'd forget the name in a week.
"Nice to meet you too, Gwen," he replied, blushing brightly after realizing that he had repeated himself. Biting his lip, he pulled his backpack out from under his table and opened it up. "What assignment was it again?" he asked as he fished out his binder.
"Assignment three," she answered as she did the same with her bag, "There are just a few questions I don't really understand." Zara let out a slight sigh as he placed his binder on the table. Closing and setting aside his laptop, he opened up his binder and slipped out the mentioned assignment. "Like...for number two: Over recent years, what has been the humans' main mode of transportation?" She looked over to him. "What does the word 'transportation' mean? It's just one of those words that I never learned." Bot it felt weird to be the educated one. Having been raised in an English speaking household all of his life, Zara had forgotten that pokemon had originally spoke in "poke-speak." So much so in fact that he had only now noticed that she was speaking to him in that language. "'Zara?'" she spoke up, snapping him out of his thoughts, "'should I repeat myself?'" Oops; he had been caught drifting off. Shaking his head, he spoke up.
"T-transport means...like...moving to places, or like...travelling..." He glanced at her to see if she was catching on. Sadly, he was unable to tell much from the way she was looking at him. "Um...migrating? Getting from one place to another?" She nodded slowly.
"'Yeah, I think I get what you mean.'" Gwen looked back at her paper. "'So then...what other ways do they get around besides swimming or walking? They can't fly or teleport, can they?'' Zara had to think about his answer to make sure he didn't end up sounding like some human elitist snob.
"...Well...they can," he began, "just...not on their own." Gwen tilted her head. Zara scratched the back of his head awkwardly. Just how much did the Grovyle know about the human world exactly? "You see...humans need to travel far, so they built things like cars, bikes, trucks, trains... They're machines that move you around so you don't have to walk all of the way to your destination." Gwen nodded as she followed along. Thank the disciples that I don't need to explain what those are... Licking his drying lips, he went on. "They also build stuff like boats, which are swimming vehicles that help them travel across the sea."
"'Sea?'" Gwen said with a confused tilt.
"You know..." Zara thought for a bit, "like...a pond? The ocean?"
"'Oh, ocean, ok,'" said Gwen, "'I didn't know it by that name.'" Zara nodded before moving on.
"They also build things like aircrafts, which are flying vehicles. But now a days, humans just have their pokemon fly them places." Gwen pursed her lips at that. "Yeah...I know. I don't feel very good about that either, but not really much I can do about it..."
"'Okay...so I think I get it now... Humans don't enjoy walking on their own two feet very much.'"
Zara bit his lip lightly. "Well...sometimes there are cities that they need to get to, and it would take a long time and use a lot of energy to get to."
"'Cities?'"
Zara paused. "Um...a group of homes? Like the ones we're put in, here at the school."
"'Oooh,'" Gwen nodded, "'So the humans built them, right?'" Zara nodded. "'So then...why not just build them closer to each other in the first place?'"
"Well...um......" Huh...she had a valid point...