Plans of Escape

Title: Plans of Escape
Author: SilverInk
Writing: Randomness/ Continuation/To-be-continued story
Word Count: 817
This starts at the end of the encounter described in "The Overdue Check": Adrian, one of Mariah's old boyfriends, has just settled scores with her and left. Mariah is watching him leave from her bedroom window.

I guess I'm free then, Mariah thought, taming her hair into braids. No more of them. She finished packing her duffel bag with clothes and other necessities. Finally, she opened a antique jewel case that was secured behind the mirror.

Grandfather's zeinband. The one Mother rejected. She turned to a photo of her long-gone grandparents on the dresser. Don't worry, Grandpapa...I won't disappoint you the way Mother did. I'll restore the family honor...

Mariah took a long at the dull colored stones connect by a band in their centers--like a hair band with flat, round ornaments--and examined the curved symbols in the centers. Sye-niar. I still remember your prowess in the stadium...I still remember the way Grandfather launched you two little ones into the battle and dominated the court, every single match. I still remember. And I'm going to bring you back to your former glory. 

She left them in the rosewood case, put this case back into the secret vault behind the mirror and turned towards the heavily curtained corner she had been sitting in for too long. Books were piled all over the room, covered by hastily made book covers. Mariah sighed and began neatly stacking the books and straightening the book covers that boasted titles such as "Modern Fashion," "The Housewife's Guidebook to Survival" and "101 Things You Need to Know About Marriage," only to be interrupted by a loud woman calling her name and bursting through her door.

"Mariah!" Her mother repeated, exasperatedly. "I saw that young man walk out just now, you know. You rejected him too, I bet."

"Mother, I'm 19. I don't want to get married."

"But you must! Or soon there will be no one good left!"

“Need I marry?”

Her mother broke into a rage and fished out a remote from the pocket of her large dress. She spun a dial and hit a button. Long snakelike wires that were connected to a ceiling socket in the hidden corner slunk out and chased her down, the inconspicuous tethers on her feet keeping her from moving in this situation. The first few tendrils secured around her waist, wrists and knees and the remaining sludge dumped themselves around her, draping over her back and coiled down her arms and legs. A few even slunk down the two loose braids.

“Mother!” she cried, the wires obviously uncomfortable.

“You disobeyed me. You read all these books, but you have no intention of ever marrying. Why do you do this to me?” He mother spun the dial again and hit a button. A light shock trickled through the wires, making her twitch painfully. The thirty-some year old woman continued, “You know I am getting old. We need to find you a suitable husband as soon as possible. Then you can conceive for me a grandchild. Do you hear me?”

She turned the voltage up a notch and hit the button again. “Do you understand me, Mariah? You must marry. Or if you do not, you must produce a child. Otherwise your existence is meaningless. I do not care if you like anyone or not. It is not that hard to get pregnant.”

She hit the button again and Mariah cringed, biting back a scream. “You are useless! Pointless! Stupid! Disgrace” She jabbed the button with each exclamation and finally stormed out.

Still entangled in the electrocuting wires, Mariah crept to the corner and worked her way slowly and painfully up the wall, using the windowsill and pile of books as props. Finally, with much difficulty, she hit the high, hidden  switch that retracted the wires. As they slunk back into their socket, messing up and tearing off bits of hair and skin.

She crashed on the floor and knocked over a stack of books. A few of the book covers tore or fell off and revealed the true books underneath: “History of Zeinbanding,” “The Beginning Zeinbander’s Guide” and “Zeinband Maintinence”.

I have to get away, she thought, stowing the duffel in a hidden location and crawling into the adjoining bathroom. Vision still clearing from spots, she turned on the water in the bathtub and found her secret bottle of healing lotion. She poured a small quantity into the water and started to put it away but stopped. Instead she crawled back into her room and stored this bottle, as well as a few others like it, into the duffel. She finally returned to the bathroom and relaxed in the water, letting the healing lotion take effect, scheming how to escape.

Father would help me, wouldn’t he? He did save Atesia from being sold…

When the water had cooled and Mariah felt considerably refreshed, she climbed out the tub and dressed quickly. She would need a good excuse for her mother to grant her audience with her father. Staring out the window at the city below, and thought of an idea.


Artist's Note: Hi...Yea, this was totally random because I was sick of writing character background stories. Sorry for the late update.


Terms to define in case they were confusing:
~Zeinbanding is a sport involving hair-band like objects. Mariah's grandfather's zeinband parts were called Sye and Niar, so collectively the tool is called Sye-niar.
~Atesia is Mariah's horse.


This is not supposed to be considered a character background story because it's not her entire life thus far, only a small segment. And it starts when she's 19 anyways :P 


Yea. Totally random, I don't know if I'm actually continuing it... and since I'm having trouble with Tsiyone's part right now, I don't know when the next normal character background thread will continue...and because I have SAT/ College Essay stuff to deal with too :( :( 


EDIT: I added a bit of expository information at the beginning. Yea, she kinda is a prisoner >_< @ Minsat-- :D <3
~SilverInk

The Overdue Check

Title: The Overdue Check

Authors: Silver Ink and Lewis Spiel

Writing: Unrequited Romance... (?)

Word Count: 843

You probably intended to scrounge up a proper reply when you returned home from your trip, but you never got to it. Maybe you were ready to apologize, but you didn't really mean it. What ever it was you meant to do, what we have here is the result. Don't expect another chance. I gave it to you the moment you left me.

---

"One more chance! Just one more!"

"I've already invested too much in you. From now on, you're on your own."

"Mariah!"

She stopped for a moment to draw up a dark hood over her head. "Maybe. " Over her shoulder she tossed a small bag of coins. Let's just see how long it is before you come crawling back.

---

"I'm sorry, I'd--"

She turned around to face him but kept her face in the shadows. "What is it this time?"

He tried to speak but again she cut him off tacitly. She slid a thousand dollars across the glass table. "More?"

"Mariah...I don't need money..."

She glanced up, piercing amber eyes slicing through him. "Oh?" she snickered amusedly. "Wasn't that what this was about from the beginning?"

He fell silent, momentarily struck by a past memory. "It never was," he insisted. "Believe me, I loved you."

"Don't give me that nonsense. If that were the case, what were you doing with that other woman? Socializing?"

His tone changed and became defensive. "She was a client! Honest!"

"Which proves my earlier point about the money." Mariah laughed scornfully. "Not that it means anything to me. You're just an experiment to me, Adrian. An experiment. And a rather failed one at that." She twirled a strand of pink hair. "I must admit, though-- keeping you around has been rather... interesting."

"Mariah.... you...You said that you'd never leave me. You broke that promise." Adrian pressed on, determined to emerge from the argument as a victor. "Me, dating for money?You're one to talk. Wasn't that man you were seeing the CEO of some bigshot company?"

"You need your eyes checked, pet. I hadn't left the building for a month." Her sly smile was gone, replaced by a firm line of ambivalence. "I have little time for you to waste, Adrian. State what you are here for and begone."

Realizing that he would be unable to gain any ground in his argument, Adrian conceded defeat. "I don't want your money, and I don't want you back, either. Don't misunderstand that. I just wanted to make my stance on what happened clear." The fight seemed to evaporate from his posture as he slumped against the back of his chair. With an awkward- almost ashamed air- he stumbled to his feet, ready to leave the room.

She turned her back to him again, spinning in her lavish seat. She almost breathed a sigh of relief. If he didn't want her, then what would his purpose of coming? Our relationship ended years ago. He better just go away. Him and all those other boys. I've have about enough of them.

Adrian stepped back and closer towards the door. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry. You should know that I always have loved--love--you...enough to let you go. Goodbye, Mariah."

He opened the door and the guard escorted him out the structure. Goodbye Adrian, she thought as she watched his small figure walk out of her estate.

---

Adrian returned to his hotel room feeling a sense of loss, as well as an innate relief after speaking with his ex girlfriend for the last time. When their relationship was at its best, he'd spoken highly and sweetly of his significant other to his gossip-hungry friends and relatives. They were all waiting for him to fall from his temporary high. He was aware of it, but he had no intention of falling. When his relationship finally, inevitably soured, those same friends and relatives gathered him close to their breast as if they thought he hadn't known they'd been waiting for this.

But backstabbing friends were still backstabbing friends. In the years following, they tossed him an offhand comment: (Hey, Adrian-- how's that ex of yours? Weren't you going to marry her? Father and Mother are still ever so disappointed)

Still even worse were the inquiries of his old high school classmates, who wanted him to "pay for what he'd done to Mariah." One of the things that followed him from high school was the common knowledge that he'd been the one to make the first mistake.

But what was the point? They'd both erred. He, in not paying enough attention to her. She, in taking him back. Perhaps it was only his own folly that ruined their relationship beyond repair. He could never apologize enough for what he'd done, and no one would- could- forgive him.

If he tried to claim (like Mariah, was the painful reminder) that the whole affair meant nothing to him in the end, he'd be a liar still.

Finally, tortured by accusation and guilt, he'd turned up on Mariah's doorstep, yearning for forgiveness.

Artists' Notes:

Green text= Lewis 

Purple text= SilverInk

Collaboration piece, as can be inferred by the changing colors. Originally Lewis's idea; I just helped expand it a tiny bit. I have an idea to continue Mariah's story and may or may not post that.

(If you've seen the Beyblade cartoons, yes, I did copy Mariah's name and hair color off of that >.< I don't have any ownership or affiliation to them and I'm not trying to claim any :) )

~SilverInk