(This is a nice little page. It has a plot and a character in it, with a link back, a stat page, and it appears to have been spell checked. Stuff like this will probably earn you a dragon.) Jessica fretted miserably to herself as she shoved her school binders and books roughly into her backpack with her left hand. Notepapers stuck out haphazardly, edges getting caught and mangled in the zipper. Her other hand had her full attention, held up at eye level while her red and sore fingers wibbled uselessly in one failed attempt after another to snap. Such a simple thing, it shouldn't be such a problem, but for her it was. And it was about to cause her a very bad day. "Blaaast iiitt," she whined, still trying even though she couldn't actually feel her fingertips any more at this point. "When my parents were in arcanist school the elemental tests didn't even start until they were like sixteen! It's not fair that they moved them up to fourteen!" Thud, thud, thud, went her fingers. Jessica made another pathetic whine-groan and stomped reluctantly out to wait on the sidewalk for the bus, dragging her lumpy backpack behind her. She could hear everyone cackling at her already. They'd all been waiting for her to mess up, too. For good reason, she had to admit. I guess I shouldn'tve laughed at those girls for looking stupid when they were stomping around trying to trigger their earth summonings. But they really did look like they were being attacked by ants. I suppose at the very least I shouldn't have said they looked like a bunch of Godzillas having a holiday.... Or those boys when they were trying to wave their arms gracefully to manage water. But she couldn't hold back a snicker at the memory- they really had looked like complete idiots. 'Flex and wave your arms in front of you in a graceful, sinuous motion,' the instructions had said, and that particular knot of muscle bound boys had arms that were definitely never intended for graceful waving. They'd looked more like a bunch of extremely inept and confused hula dancers trying to shoo or scare somebody. And the week they did air. Oh, dear. She'd made a mess of that one too, hadn't she, with her constant loud giggling behind her hands as her embarrassed looking classmates one by one had to stand up in front of the class to try and whistle through stage fright-dry lips. At least a third of them had taken another week to get the hang of whistling, another tiny useless talent that most people took for granted. Fortunately bubble-gum-blowing had nothing to do with anything and would never be on a test. But they really had all looked SO stupid... The only thing that kept her from busting out laughing anew was her own bad mood. And now, there she was, waiting at a bus stop on the day of the fire-test with her fingers hidden between her back and her coat, still trying to figure out how to snap. In her desperation she ignored the fact that it would actually be a very bad thing for her to get right now, with her hand so close to herself and her rather flammable clothing. Her cheeks were already starting to burn in a way that had nothing at all to do with fire. Really, really, really shouldn't have teased everybody so much.... The bus was as always over crowded, had uncomfortable seats with springs that poked you in the back, creaked ominously as it turned corners, and smelled kind of funny; but for Jessica the ride to school couldn't last long enough. Finally she gave up on her efforts and folded her tired hands in her lap. Lighting the bus up would look rather worse on her record than failure. She pouted out the window, sighing overdramatically every now and then, having the mental image that instead of a dingy yellow bus she was actually in a giant herse with a fat raincloud hovering overhead. Every now and then she saw a bright orange flicker reflected in the glass as someone else's excited practice went much more successfully. Jessica let her head fall to thunk moodily onto the glass. With a jerk and a hiss as the doors opened, the bus stopped in front of the school. Jessica groaned again and gave the window one last thunk with her forehead before pulling herself to her feet and dragging her backpack along the isle behind her. Head down, shoulders hanging, sour look on her face... she was being a complete spoiled brat and didn't really care. Finally she came to a stop at the foot of the dingy white concrete stairs up to the front doors of the school, standing obstinately in the middle of the walkway while loud people shoved their way past her. She looked back over a shoulder at the bus, almost expecting it to look like she'd imagined, and nearly hissed to herself at the happy yellow sight. Stupid yellow. Stupid nice weather. The crowd thinned out as the morning ticked on into just a few stragglers hurrying in, checking their watches to see if they were late yet. Just go in, Jessica. There's nothing you can do about it now. You'll just have to get laughed at. You can survive getting laughed at a little.... But her mental pep talk didn't help, since it just ran on into a little mental movie of herself standing red faced in the front of the room and making lame little thud noises with her fingers. I'm being such a big baby about this... The school's first late bell rang. Jessica froze like a deer in headlights and then, dropping her backpack to the ground, turned and ran. -------------------------------- Half an hour later, huffing and even more red in the face than she's expected to be today, Jessica came to a stop at the edge of a waist high wire fence. On the other side, a grassy field that slowly built up into a thinly tree grown five acres of completely undeveloped land. In other words, private property. The girl looked guiltily at the rusted 'No Trespassing' sign mounted on the fence. She was sure that she wasn't the only one that occasionally hopped the fence and went wandering in the mini forest, looking for some peace and quiet, and she'd never gotten in trouble for it yet. And there was a nice relaxing little stream running through the middle of it that she could practice by safely, and she was sure that it would help cheer her up and make her relax so that she could get it right. Or I could just ask someone for help, she thought for a moment, pausing with one leg already up to step over the fence. ...No. I can do it myself, I know I can. The no tresspassing sign made guilty little metal pinging noises from bumping against the fence as she brushed against it, but Jessica didn't hear them, already making a run for the trees. It wasn't long before Jessica realized that something was wrong. She was sure the stream had been right here just a few weeks ago, but now she was standing on a rock in the middle of a lot of grass and dry dirt and pine trees. Definitely no water. With a shrug she decided that she must not have walked as far as she thought, and that the stream must be just a little ways ahead. So she kept walking. And walking. And walking. A sick feeling of unease grew and grew in her gut. "What the heck!" she finally shouted out loud, stomping a tired foot. "I've been walking in a straight line for like an hour! This property isn't even supposed to BE this big!" She whined, groaned, yelled, flailed, and eventually just slumped to the ground with her back against a tree. "Okay. Fine. Whatever. I'll just go... home...." It was at this point that Jessica realized that she had been a giant idiot and gotten herself lost. "Ookay, no big deal." She stood up and made a nervous laugh, brushing bark and pine needles off her clothes. "I'll just summon an earth spirit to help... with... the class notes... in... my backpack... that I left back at school...." With a defeated sigh flopped to lay sprawled out on the dirt to stare up at the sky. "Mmm. Great." Suva Stat Page Suva Adopted From Return to the rules and examples