Earth (S)kills

[blake]

Octavia Blake

---

I don't want to survive. I want to live.

---

Octavia watched as the other kids paired off, quickly moving toward their friends. Normally they came in and sat here while the teacher Mr. Pike, explained to them how to make a fire, or cook food. Not many of them paid attention, but as this was the first school experience that Octavia ever had she wanted to learn. She would watch him and try to remember how things were done. Why this was their only class, she wasn't sure, but she had learned to watch the faces of adults and know the unspoken. Her Mot--her mother had gotten this look on her face when she had to tell Octavia to do something. Bellamy got this look on his face when he had to make her get under the floor. Pike often had this . . . too serious face on. She wasn't sure what was happening, but she knew enough to know something was wrong.

O didn't move to pick a partner, or even look around. Either someone would brave it and come up and want to be her partner, and ask about hiding under the floor; or whoever was last would be paired off with her . . . and they'd ask that hated question about being under the floor. So instead of trying to head off what she knew was coming, she sat there silently, waiting to see who the unlucky person was that would have to be paired with her. Sometimes they would get paired with her and she could tell they thought her stupid. They would read aloud to her, or speak slower. But she showed them. She could read, write, and keep up. She had a damn good teacher after all.

Thalia Tait

[Thalia Tait]

Thalia sunk into herself when Mr. Pike said that everyone should pair off for today. She knew some people, but she wasn't all the sure of being paired off for anything. They weren't going to learn fighting skills or anything right? She hoped not, but in this class who the Fusion knew. Why were they even taking these classes anyway? Were they all going to be blasted into the void of space anyway? She chewed the inside of her lip, hesitant. 

Thalia liked classes well enough. She loved the distraction. She loved learning about the place she'd only ever get to see in her dreams. Earth. Their true home. Something she wouldn't get to see in this short life of hers. Not with what happened after the 18th birthday to anyone in the Sky Box. Floated. Ugh, she didn't WANT to think about how her lifeless body would float through space, frozen and ugly and destined to turn to nothingness should it get caught in the stronger grips of gravity.  Her home would reclaim her corpse. How cruel was that, getting sent to Earth only after she was dead? 

The pale girl got a bit paler. Her wild hair was around her face in a messy cloud of deep darkness, her soul-reaching eyes sliding nervously about to each delinquent without a partner. Murderer... Assaulter... Molester.... Ah, there. Standing still amidst the swirling activity. A girl obviously her age, with skin that was pale, but that could be called caramel if only she were allowed to bask in the sunlight. Her face was perfectly smoothed with well balanced features. She reminded Thalia of a sorrowful angel statue, like the rare images in old books forgotten on market stall tables. Or was it stone-cold stoicness that she saw, that made her think of angelic statues from old Earth religions? Well, either way she was the best option and the way Molester was looking at her made her feet get to getting.

"Hey," she put up a hand awkwardly, beating Murderer to the girl, with a friendly but nervous smile, "No partner? S'okay if I work with you?" Thalia lowered her hand when the wave wasn't seen and rubbed her throat. Oh. This was the girl everyone had mentioned when she had first entered the Sky Box. The girl who was a 'sister'. A 'sister'... How special, to meet someone who gave true definition to that foreign word. She looked at the other girl with curious eyes. "So..." she started off slowly, trying to find the least pressing way to ask her question, "What's it feel like to be a 'sibling'? I mean... like, to be a 'sister' to someone? Is it...like being 'cousins' or...more like 'friends'?"

[blake]

Octavia Blake

---

I don't want to survive. I want to live.

---

Sure enough, someone walked up to her. O didn't move, even when the girl walked up and begin talking. "No partner? S'okay if I work with you?" She seemed nice enough, so O tried to smile and offer something back. Talking to strangers was a foreign feeling, but she liked it. Sometimes. "Yeah, it's fine." She offered, not sure what else to talk about. With Bellamy it was so easy, but with others she wasn't sure what to talk about. "I'm Octavia." Everyone knew who she was, but she tried to be normal. Sort of pointless here.

"So..." she began, and O turned to face her, ready to work and prove herself. "What's it feel like to be a 'sibling'?" Which apparently they weren't about to do. She didn't even pay attention to the rest of the question. While it was a lot better then asking about living under the floor, it was an awkward question all around. That was who she was. The sister. Not a person or a daughter or herself. "Wouldn't know." She bit off, but her tone was quite, "Don't know what the other two are."

Thalia Tait
OCC: Sorry! She just gets touchy about that!