Central High

18. A New Start

Smoke was startled awake by a banging in the next room over. Her drowsy mind jolted awake as she tried to recognize the sound as she sat up, long red hair draping over her face, making it hard to see as she fumbled with the lamp by her bed. She pushed her hair back, eyes blinking blindly at the assault that the light wrought, the sleeve of her night-top dipping over to reveal her shoulder, the collar of the shirt pressed against her throat on one side and her upper arm, pale skin breaking out in goosebumps at the cold air's hug. 

There were no sounds of panic.  

There was no silence.

There was only the echoes of the occasional voice drifting down the hall, feet shuffling on the floors, and rustling in the adjacent rooms. 

The loud banging had been no threat. No soldiers forcing quartering. No refugee running from the law. No armed men forcing entry. It had been harmless; Smoke breathed a sigh of relief. Her pounding heart calmed, breathing slowing from the adrenaline rush that being ripped from the realm of sleep just as a band-aid from a hairy arm. Anxious. Fast. Hard. She yawned and sat back, easing up. Her wandering eye caught the blurry image of the clock displaying the truth of morning. School began in an hour and a half. Reaching up, Smoke rubbed her eyes, soft skin meeting wet crust that her fingers and knuckle wiped away in irritation, evicting it from it's place of origin. The early morning sun peered through cracks in the brown fabric blinds that hung over the window, the golden rays bathing the dark wooden floors in gorgeous sunlight. 

Smoke glanced around the room, running her fingers through red dyed hair, mindlessly brushing through the tangled strands. She sat there, untangling her hair as her vision cleared as sleep lifted it's smokey veil off her. With her vision up to par, she stood up, making her way to the bag that now sat next to the dresser in her room, still not unpacked. What was the use in unpacking in a prison cell? She knelt down next to it and rummaged through the full bag, searching for an outfit. Her rummaging provided a pair of ripped up jeans, the knees missing from breaking in the labor stallion for her neighbor whose horse had been taken by the troops that had forced quarter in her home, an old grey v-neck shirt, and a sash for a belt. It was an unimpressive outfit, she knew, but living in war-poverty didn't provide more than was needed; her precious journal was her birthday present, a luxury. The money was meant for getting her mother new sandals, but it was spent on that leather-bound notebook, an intricate design of a yellow-swallow tail butterfly faded onto each page. Smoke cherished the gift. 

She shrugged off her night clothes and pulled on her day clothes, the grey dirtied by her days in the field, tending the garden her mother had to try to save money, even though it ended up being left to die when it began to be more costly than sending Smoke down to barter at the market for groceries. She sighed and brushed her hair, sitting at her desk, weaving the chunks of cherry red through each other, a braid forming as she continued, using her only hair-tie to keep it in place. She stood and tied her black sash around her waist as she headed for the door, hearing  Ái kasai and Riza in the hallway, or at least their voices. Did the house really echo that much? 

"C'mon Ái! Hurry up sweetie!" The call echoed down the hall from where Riza had shouted it from the kitchen, her daughter calling back in response from the open door of her bedroom, brushing her long black hair as she stepped into her black ballet flats to match her black dress that had a white sash that had blue roses printed on it's surface, the pattern matching her very well, lighting up her eyes brilliant and Smoke was stunned at how bright they were despite being closer to a sapphire gem tone than an iceberg or even azure. Innocence, that is the only real way to explain how such a dark blue gleamed so brightly; they shined with the happy innocence and naivety of someone who hasn't experienced the evils of this world yet. Smoke's amber eyes had dulled that naivety when she learned what the constant noise in the distance meant. She lost that innocence to the gunshots ringing in the dead of night, the soldiers forcing quarter, and women being oppressed that plagued most of Drachma, but not at the fault of the emperor. The military is acting on it's own from the emperor and it concerns the common folk who were pleased by the young ruler coming to power as they held the good of the people as the first priority, having told the troops not to go to attack Fort Stratus, but everyone knows that they did not listen and declared war upon Amestris, but it was only known to the Drachman citizens that the ruler did not want war. Amestris only saw an outside threat, but Smoke could not bring herself to blame them, not with the way the Drachman people guard everything about their country.