43: Beneath the Surface
The class evacuated with haste, their opinions of Faye replaced by jubilant thoughts of getting an extra five minute’s break, reaching the front of the canteen queue, and relieving their swollen bladders. That they were losing valuable education time did not bother a single one of them. Even the would-be poets and writers were desperate to get away. Aside from Faye, only Phantasia remained seated, quietly packing her books away. She was embarrassed, but now was not the time to question her social connections with these people. As the students bustled outside in the corridor, planning their lunch break activities, Tes Anderson approached the two faeries.
“They warned me about you,” she said, faking a chuckle as she repeated what every other teacher has said to Faye. Tes Anderson’s thoughts betrayed her true feelings, however: Maybe I need to make some kind of charm to give to the students. Most aren’t able to protect their thoughts yet and we can’t have this girl tearing them apart because she doesn’t understand human etiquette. Question is, do I have the power? I have no idea how deep this girl can see without even focusing.
“Your proposal is a reasonable and sensible decision,” said Faye, snapping Tes Anderson out of her thoughts, “I am only a third-instar faerie, so my powers are still in what you would call their ‘adolescence’. Although you yourself are still young, your own powers of enchantment are sufficiently advanced enough to create charms capable of repelling my unintended hearing of thoughts. However, judging by the records of your ability I have examined, your magical capacity would require you to spend several weeks of dedicated enchantment to create enough charms for all your students. If we add your everyday activities into the calculation, as well as the potential for unexpected occurrences, it is more accurate to suggest it would take you several months,”
“Sounds like ah’ll need one for myself as well,” said Tes Anderson with a genuine giggle.
“That is no so,” said Faye, “You are more than capable of protecting your thoughts from me, or else you would not have been chosen as an instructor at this academy. You are, however, both young and free spirited. Your carefree nature means your thoughts are louder when you are relaxed, as you are now. In a threatening situation I know you would not be so ill-defended,”
Maybe I should still watch what I’m thinking though. I’m sure none of the other teachers have this problem.
“Only humans who are excessively paranoid keep their mental barriers up at all times, excluding of course those whose thoughts are protected by magical means,” said Faye, “This excessive paranoia and maintaining of barriers at all times only serves to drain a person’s spiritual power. I would not recommend you worry about this situation, and instead continue to concentrate on finding ways of teaching your students the things they need to know,”
Tes Anderson blushed at Faye’s truthful revelations but, against her recommendation, shielded her thoughts.
***
“I must now report to Rembrandt Payne,” Faye announced, “We have discovered information that is of vital importance to your organisation and the safety of both this academy and the town itself.”
Phantasia winced as Faye left the classroom, absolute in her decision to complicate things further by involving the Academy staff.
“She’ll be causing trouble, no doubt about that,” said Ms Anderson. Phantasia found her relaxed aura a surprise given the lesson’s events.
“I’m sorry if Faye was a problem,” she said, wishing her ethereal cheeks could flush to show just how embarrassed she felt, “I dunno if maybe it’s coming to a new world or something, because she’s not always this bad even though she does like telling people the honest truth! I don’t think anyone likes her…”
“Ah, don’t worry about it,” said Ms Anderson, “You think we don’t know everything she’s broadcast already? Amber Thorburn’s every bit as good a seer as her, ye know? I’m sure Faye realises that just as well as we do, too. Wouldn’t be surprised if she’s acting like this on purpose – never trust a Faerie Seer, they say, for they always see you five steps ahead of wherever you planned to be,”
As Phantasia left the classroom and chased after the diminishing group of students heading for their break, she wondered just how many steps Faye was ahead of her.
~ Can you trust someone who never lies? Next: Mind games! ~
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Yet another chapter that far exceeded its original draft! If things had gone that way, you’d have found out the secret behind the illusion – that’ll have to wait until next week now! Most of the extended scenes will be in that chapter too, including the meeting between Faye and Mr Payne and a conversation about the meaning of ‘love’. Sometimes these characters write scene themselves, you know?!
So yeah, this wasn’t exactly how I wanted to start 2010 – there’s a lot of exposition and set up for the next couple of months, and not many answers! But then this is the start of a fairly big arc, which will continue through to chapter 60 (in the previous draft, this chapter was #24 – that should tell you how much things have expanded!)
The illustrated ‘lecture’ from Faye came about because I was having trouble trying to convey what the hell she was trying to explain through words alone. Maybe it makes more sense now. Or maybe not. At least I have Faye around *to* explain these things!
Speaking of which, writing scenes from her perspective is really quite difficult, because she hears thoughts as you or I would hear people talking. I was contemplating non-italic methods of displaying thoughts, but haven’t come to a conclusion yet. And of course it also means she hears what people are thinking at the same time as what they’re saying… Let’s just say it’s hard to write well. And it was bad enough with Phantasia and her aura-vision!
Actually, here’s something I deleted from the current revision. I wanted to show what everyone thought of Faye and, as would be natural to her, wrote it as a list. It just didn’t look right on the page, though, and writing the thoughts out with more emphasis on being nice and literary betratyed Faye’s character imo.
*Tennyson still doesn’t have a surname. He’s a minor character, but leaving him out wouldn’t have fit Faye’s logical mindset. Note that, of the Sapphire-Ruby class, neither Lyra nor Dante had their thoughts read…
As for the thought problem, why don’t you use the method I found from an older (from when I was a kid) series called “Animorphs”? It involves using “” like this: .
Okay, that was odd. I simply used the “arrows” that point left and right. I have no idea why everything in between was deleted. The method involved enclosing the thoughts between the “left arrow” (You get it by pressing Shift on “,”) and the “right arrow” (Same thing, but with “.”).
It was probably considered an improper use of HTML code, and dismissed as unimportant. After all, what’s the point in trying to make use of unusable code?
Anyway, I’ve seen those arrows used to make things bold or italic in things like this, forums mostly, and that might be the problem, too. That function being a mimicked HTML-like interface, itself.
Of course, I’m only just learning about this stuff in my interactive media classes, so I could very well be wrong. : /
That would explain a lot. The books I’m talking about that use this method came out before the internet really got developed. It was before even Windows 2000/ME. It makes sense to me. But then again, it shouldn’t have any problems with a word processor.
To get an html symbol to display that has a use you need to place an ampersand-pound sign before it along with the ASCII reference number. For the two signs you meant it would be 60 and 62. & # < and & # > Remove the spaces.
and that didn’t work….I think it would need to be in a tag to do it. Been awhile since I messed around with HTML. <&# >
That crazy internet, ruining everybody’s fun! Future Year 2010 and we can’t even use half our keyboard symbols for fear of apocalyptic HTML blundering!
Do your story entries exclude HTML? Because then you would be able to use them.
I’ve got html in the story entries. I’m sure I could work around it, but it would require more effort than is worth it just for an alternative method of writing telepathic thoughts!
Could you use an alternate font, or do what Mercedes Lackey does and write telepathic thoughts :Like this.: and non-telepathic thoughts like this? When Faye is hearing other people’s surface thoughts, I think it would make sense to write them the way you write thoughts normally, and only emphasize them when an attempt is being made to communicate mentally. You’ve set it up well enough that at least for my part, I’m going to assume if Faye is in scene when someone is thinking something, she’s going to hear it unless a mention is made that she can’t. I don’t think you need to write out all the details anymore than you’d write every word heard in a busy cafeteria.
I’ve been happily reading this, and look forward to more!
Will give the semicolon method a try-out, see how it looks. Thanks for bringing it up!
Like the username btw
(Also, for anyone wondering, wordpress doesn’t like threaded comments to go higher than ten for some bizarre reason!)
Great chapter! (Though I was kind of expecting Faye to be barefoot too, seeing as how she’s a water elemental.) I’m kind of ambiguous about Faye’s treatment of Doyle. On the one hand, Doyle *does* act the right git most of the time; on the other, he’s also a hormone-ridden teenaged (or thereabouts) boy who’s probably thirty kinds of passion looking for an exit. I guess that, in my eyes at least, she was a tad harsh on him; but she’s also served to humanize him a bit as well.
Faye’s more adaptable to the environment, so she’s prepared to wear shoes to fit in. Phantasia is just…Phantasia. To be honest my illustrations haven’t captured her sometimes…questionable dress sense. I think I edited out a mention in an earlier chapter to her showing up to school in underwear…
“I think I edited out a mention in an earlier chapter to her showing up to school in underwear…”
Well edit it back in! (Just kidding…maybe…
)
I remember there was something about her walking around streets in her underwear, but that was just a side-thing in a list of strange stuff Phantasia does. Is that what you’re thinking of?
A very well written chapter! Personally I was laughing my ass ff at Doyle’s discomfort XD
Thanks! Especially since I spent far too long agonising over the whole chapter XD
I think that while she was harsh on him, he needed it and in the long run it will do a lot of good for him. No one wanted to hurt him by making him confront it and thus he never would have dealt with the problem. Now he will and become a better person than our sometimes overly-sensitive protocols of behavior would allow.
It’s the start of a change for him, at least. Whether its a change for the better, who can tell? Well, obviously I can…but that would ruin his story!
Can’t we both feel sorry for Doyle AND know that it was good for him in the long run?
Like you feel sorry for you kids when you have to punish them.
I was totally sniggering along with Lysander and Angelo
also, typo:
““That is no so,” said Faye,”
“no” oughta be “not” here, right? >_>