don't say i didn't warn you Who: Esmeralda and handful of NPCs Where: Glen Cove, New York when: Mid-May 2009 Warnings: Magical violence, racism.
Hell was not full of fire, nor ice like some theorized. There were not demons and devils dancing around to torture the souls of the damned in all sorts of terrible ways that mortals could never even dream of. No, no that would be too simple and too easy, especially if it only happened after one died. Hell was not fire and hell was not ice: hell was listening to the gossip of human teenage girls who thought their outfits or which boy did or did not flirt with them was actually important. For Esmeralda, who had grown up going to a school surrounded by other witches like herself, it was enough to make her want to walk around with ear plugs in. Again. She had actually tried that for her first week and had ended up with detention for it. Apparently they wanted you to listen to them. Apparently they thought that they were important... or at least that they were to be respected. It made Esmeralda laugh, it really did, to think that they thought they needed to be listened to just because they were older than her. Which one of them could do half the things she did?
Maybe hell was not just listening to the teenage girls, but the whole experience of public school with vanilla humans. Or a scattered mix of mutts; a were here or there who stole furtive glances around, looking extra wane or psyched up after the full moon or an elemental who thought they were sneaky but was really so obvious. It was actually better for them that the Light of May had happened so that they could stop thinking that they were sneaking around. Maybe no one else had noticed, but no one else had grown up the way that she had. Not that she felt any connection with those supernaturals, oh no, not even at all. They were really just a half-step above the humans, except occasionally worse because they thought they were better than them and on a level with witches.
Esmeralda snorted a laugh when she heard a girl a few sinks down bemoan the fact that the boy who had taken her to homecoming had not asked her to prom. Oh the woes of my life, she thought, crinkling her nose as she always did at the generic smell of handsoap she had to use here. I have to find some other dull New York boy to go to the prom with or my social status will just die. New York. God she hated New York. She hated the North as a whole, as a general rule that was inscribed when she had been born in Georgia, but actually living in the place had only reaffirmed what she had always been told. Yankees were terrible and their accents were dreadful.
"I hope you're not laughing at me."
As she was flicking the drops of water from her hands - paper towel was risky to touch before she had her gloves firmly in place - Esmeralda realized that she was the one being spoken to. Her eyes actually looked into the mirror and she saw that it was the brunette from three sinks down. Oh her. They had had several run-ins and each one had ended with them in the principal's office and Esmeralda in trouble, but not enough trouble because the girl - Jenny? Alicia? Amber? Amber! - could never prove that Esmeralda had done something to her. Magic was wonderful like that. But now the Light of May had happened and Esmeralda had specifically been warned about that sort of behavior. Not that warnings had ever stuck well with her. So she just rolled her eyes and patted her hands dry.
"She's talking to you, freak." There was one of her friends, a blonde. That was the thing about girls like Amber: they were popular and popular girls were just incapable of going anywhere alone and they could not handle their own problems. Esmeralda may have had plenty of friends back home, but she had never let them fight her battles for her. She had just let them help sometimes if they had been good lately.
Esmeralda arched an eyebrow and reached into her back pocket to pull out her gloves. "I heard her," she drawled, extra slow and heavy, knowing that it irritated them. "Just don't feel like answering, now do I?" She had started to pull on her first glove when they were snatched away from her.
"I don't get this glove thing," the blonde was saying as she held the gloves - her gloves - in her hands. Esmeralda's eye twitched. Filthy little human hands all over her gloves. What sort of memories were going to be attached to them now?! "Is it like you're afraid to touch the same things as us Yankees? Afraid we might rub off on you?" They all laughed and one of the gloves was tossed to Amber.
The redhead put her hand out, palm up, and waited. Theresa had specifically told her that magic was a last resort at this school, and doubly so now that they knew magic existed. Did she really want to get expelled? Where would she go then? "One chance," she said, voice amazingly level. "One chance to give me back my gloves and get out or else I'll make what happened last time look like a Sunday ice cream social."
Amber paled, but with her friends there she could hardly stand to back down from the school freak. So she took a deep breath, clearly steeling herself, and sneered. Sneered! At her! Like she had the right! "Were you laughing at me? Huh, freak?" She had stepped closer in an attempt to be intimidating, pressing Esmeralda against the sink. How she thought she was scary was beyond the witch - she was shorter than her and just human besides. Had she not been on the verge of slapping her then she would have laughed again. "Well?"
But Esmeralda had slipped her hands behind her back. In her back pocket was a thin needle that she used to prick her finger, working at the cut until she felt a warm smear of blood on her fingers. Last time she had just used a little black magic curse, nothing that was really visible, child's play really. This time? This time she was done. Theresa's warnings had faded away to nothing and all she could think of was that these humans were trying to bully her. They were acting like little boys in the school yard playing keep-away with someone's toy. Had a teacher magically appeared they would have given it back, all sullen apologies and muttered assurances that it was all in good fun... but had a teacher appeared then Esmeralda would still have done what she was about to: she had already started the spell and there was no taking it back even if she wanted to. The backlash would not be worth it.
"I warned you," she whispered, hand lashing out to deliver a ringing smack to Amber's cheek. The brunette stumbled back and cried out, something about how dare you bubbling up, but it cut off when her hand touched her cheek and felt the blood. Esmeralda smirked, sticking her bloody finger into her mouth - there was another spell, but it mixed better with her own saliva - and gave a little crook of her pinky in a mock wave.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" That was a third girl who had seen that it was blood. "What- Amber!" The little ringleader had collapsed on the floor, screaming as she clawed at her face. Esmeralda liked this spell especially because it did not do anything besides make the affected person feel like they had something crawling around underneath of their skin. True, they tended to start tearing themselves apart to get it out oh god GET IT OUT, but now was that really her fault?
"I warned her," Esmeralda said around her finger, one cheek puffed out and voice a little slurred when she pulled it out. "One warning, that's all y'all deserve. Is it my fault that humans don't know how to listen? Is it? No. It's your own. Stupid, blind fodder stumbling around... wasting space." Blood was starting to well up around the fingers that were digging into Amber's face and her screams were mixing with cries when the door flew open - the fifth and final member of the group darting out and shouting for a teacher - and Esmeralda tipped her head before she let out a giggle. "I like that one."
Suddenly there was a pressure on her shoulder. Esmeralda was horrified when she looked down and saw that the blonde had grabbed her. Her hand was on her. Thank the gods there was fabric in the way to keep her from getting flashes of this waste of space's life. But she was still touching her and no, oh no, Esmeralda did not do being touched. Blonde was speaking, but Esmeralda could not hear it over the thud of blood in her ears and the words of the spell, ended when she spat the mix of blood and spit right into those oh-so-pretty blue eyes. Blonde released her with a scream, actually falling to the ground and thrashing around, her hands clasped over her eyes as she screamed and screamed and screamed... Esmeralda started to laugh - full-body laughs that started to hurt after a minute and when the principal and a janitor showed up it was to find two girls writhing on the floor with blood spattered about them and Esmeralda holding onto the sink to keep herself upright, cramping from the laughs that just would not stop.
Two days later she was seated in the principal's office, already bored out of her mind, with Theresa. Theresa who was so disappointed with and worried about her - like I care, join the line-up, y'all have a reason - and was trying her hardest to spin this. There was no spin. Esmeralda had cursed her classmates and she had cursed them good. Everyone back home would have been as proud of her as they had been that time she had sent that silly vanilla boy to the psychiatric ward after he tried asking her out. She wondered if her grandparents would hear about this one and send her another pet. She had always wanted a second cat...
"Esmeralda." The clipped, irritated tone of someone in authority who had been talking to her for some time and thought it was just disrespectful for her to dare not to listen.
Esmeralda rolled her eyes and sighed heavily as she looked at the principal. "What?"
"Have you heard anything I've just said?"
The witch shrugged her shoulders and studied her nails. "Not a bit. I was thinking about dance practice."
He turned red. Gods I hope I don't do that when I get mad, I'd look like a tomato! Once again she was not showing him any respect and this time it was serious and he had proof... Esmeralda hardly cared. "Two of your classmates are still in the hospital with the injuries you inflicted on them. Amber is going to be... scarred and the doctors don't think that there's even a chance Kelsey will ever see again."
"Kelsey?" Esmeralda interrupted.
There was a vein throbbing on his forehead now. "The girl who you... spit in the eyes of."
"Ohhhhhhh, that's her name."
"Not to mention the other three who likely need extensive counseling after what they saw." Esmeralda rolled her eyes. "Do you have something to say?"
Esmeralda shrugged. "If they're scarred over a few spells then do you think they'll do really well in the world now? Vampires, were-wolves... I'm just a witch."
"Esmeralda," Theresa hissed, but Esmeralda ignored her as effectively as she always did.
"After speaking with your guardian," the principal continued, vein throbbing away as he pretended that Esmeralda had never said anything. "We've decided that we'll allow you to return to school at the start of the new year provided that you offer apologies to the girls and their parents, and that you never engage in... magical practices on school grounds again."
"Is her serious?" Esmeralda was thoroughly ignoring the principal now. "No magic? That's not even reasonable! How can I not do magic at school? School is supposed to teach me and if they won't give me lessons, I'll experiment." She was out of her chair now, and at some point her glove had come off. A needle was in her hand. Or had been in her hand because Theresa had just tackled her to the ground.
Shortly after they were escorted off the grounds and told not to return under any circumstances.
"Well," Esmeralda said, dusting her gloves off and ignoring the curses and death glares her cousin was directing at her. "I think that went well."