literature

Roheline: Caseibrian - XV

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I opened my eyes and realized that I was back in the bed. I don’t know how I got here because I know for a fact that Titan didn’t bring me back here. He doesn’t have that kind of kindness in him to do that… Samson was here, so did he bring me back here? I looked around and started to panic. Where was my ring?
“Looking for this?” I look over and find Jupiter sitting there holding up my ring.
I hold out my hand. “Yeah… can I have that back?”
Jupiter sighed but got up and handed me the ring. I put it on and saw my green skin changing back to a normal peach color, although now I could see where my skin was hot.
“Titan almost threw it from the parapet but I choked him until he dropped it.” Jupiter said softly.
I sighed because I knew what this was about. Not many people wanted to stay my friend once they looked at me in my frog form. The adventure I had outside of the castle walls taught me that I was able to make friends quite easily… but I could lose them just as easily if they found out that I was cursed and turned into a frog every time I got cold water put on me. Everyone was alright with it in theory but when you really see it happen…
“I’m sorry.” I looked up as Jupiter looked down at her knees, the most humble I’ve ever seen her.
“What… are you doing?” I asked.
“If I had just done my job right and finished the game, we could have won and you would be saddling up to go and save your brothers right now in a grateful mood… but that’s not the case. I got too cocky for you and caused this to happen. I’m so sorry, Caseibrian…”
“Don’t worry about it. I shouldn’t have gotten too cocky myself… Besides, I get it.”
“What do you mean?”
“You were okay with being my friend but then you saw me change and now it’s different and you would like to just not be friends anymore, right?”
“No… Nothing of the sort.” I look at her as she looks at me with a strange expression. “Just because you turn into a frog doesn’t mean I’m not going to be your friend. If that’s all it took for me to stop being around you, don’t you think I would have turned tail and run when I saw your skin was green?”
“That’s a little different… my skin changing colors is not exactly a hazard. Well, it is in a sense but that’s beside the point.”
Jupiter makes a face at me. “You really don’t seem to understand how different I am from these common folk around here and your hideous mother, do you? Do you think I’m that petty to care about you turning into an animal?”
“It’s not the fact that I turn into an animal, it’s the fact that it’s a frog. It’s not even a helpful animal and not even a big frog. It’s a little bitty frog, like a real one, and it’s a poisoned one at that.”
“And I’m supposed to care?”
I stared at her as she stared at me and I just couldn’t understand this girl. I know she saw me change and every other person who has seen me change has dropped me like a hot plate… but then again, should I really expect the expected from her? The whole point of her character has been nothing but completely different than anyone here.
“Caseibrian.” I looked back at Jupiter. “Are you not going to go and find your brothers and the Witchblade now?”
“I… I don’t know… I mean, what use am I going to be? If we have to cross a river, if it suddenly rains, if we walk into town and someone throws out a bucket of water… If I hit anything that’s cold water, I will shrink into a frog immediately. What if one of our trials has to do with being at sea? What if-“
“What if, what if, what if. That’s the problem with you. You think too friggin much. So what?” Jupiter says with a sarcastic laugh. “That’s what you need to be thinking. So what if we have to cross a river, so what if it begins to rain, so what, so what, so what. When we get there, we’ll think of something. Rivers usually have bridges, we have coats to keep us warm and dry, and if you stay away from the edges of buildings, I don’t think you’ll get a bucket of water thrown on you. You fought hard and long for the right to go on this journey and to show everyone that Prince Caseibrian of Huntington Ridge is not just the Frog Prince; he’s a badass that will show everyone in this kingdom how much of one he truly is. If you’re going to let this one little incident make you backtrack on some major progress in your psyche, then what the hell am I doing here? What purpose was it for me to come here?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
Jupiter seems surprised by the answer and then nods a little.
“I see…” She turns to the door and puts her hand on the knob. “It looks like you’ve already given up before we even get started. Sorry to have pushed you too far out of your comfort zone…”
She left and I watched the door close. I ran my fingers through my hair and got out of bed. I was stark naked, as usual, but headed to the showers to gather a bit of my thoughts and to get the dirt off of me from the tournament.

I was hungry after I took my shower and headed down to the kitchen when I saw Samson and Mother talking heatedly in the middle of the hallway.
“And what use would he have in your kingdom, Samson? You taking him in will cause problems, I guarantee it.”
“Shove it, Mother. You’ve condemned him long enough. I let you talk me out of keeping him safe and loving him once, I’m not going to do it again. The boy is old enough to start looking for a wife-“
Mother spat out a spiteful laugh. “A wife? Have you seen him, Samson? What woman would ever want someone like him? He’s green, poisoned, and turns into a frog. What part of any of those traits would woo a woman?”
“That’s the attitude that makes him feel unworthy.”
“Don’t act all high and mighty to me, young man. You may own your own kingdom but here, this is my castle and you are under the guest registration. You will treat me with respect, boy.”
“I treat rulers with respect that deserve it, woman.” Samson snarls. “I can’t treat someone who throws their own son in the back of the castle to try and forget about a deed that was done to him that he can’t even help with any type of respect. Who would have known that Monorn would do that to him and it’s a sad shame that Brian was throw into the mix of a feud between Fairies. Why do you not get that he’s suffering because of something he can’t even control? You just make him feel worthless when all this time you could have taught him to combat his issue and be a man. True, he’s as humble as anything and he’s a beautiful kid, but at what cost? It’s like you suddenly forgot how to balance love and punishment and abandoned him to the wilds. Him being humble and kind is not a bad thing at all, but he could have learned that through you and Father if you had just given him the chance…”
“You act like you would have given him hope and confidence but you’d have eventually done the same thing. Everyone who meets the boy does. When he was adamant about coming out of the back and into the world, we told him not to do it. You don’t even understand why we put him back there… it wasn’t to punish him, it was to protect him.”
“And yourselves.”
“I won’t deny that, but the harsh reality of the world is that people are disgusted by someone like him. Exposing him to the world would have been a mistake. He was already so different, why should we allow the world to make fun of him even more?”
“I think he could handle the world. The world is fleeting and passing, not necessarily seeing the same people all the time. His family is different though… you are closer to him than any human being in the world and you all rejected him.”
“I don’t recall you stepping up to the plate immediately either.”
“I won’t deny that I was a little weirded out, but once I realized my wrong thinking, I began to change it and realized the real situation. I have wanted to rectify the situation for a long time but you won’t let me. Since he’s probably not going to go on this journey anymore, let me bring him back to my kingdom with me.”
“That decision is one you father will have to make.”
For some reason that last part pissed me off and I walked around the corner.
“That is not a decision any of you should be making about me.”
“Brian…” they both said in shock.
“I can make my own decisions.”
“They all seem to cause issues for you, us, and the kingdom.” Mother growled. “Your lack of experience in the world makes you make the wrong decision.”
“And whose fault is that?”
The two were silent and I realized that for once, I had one upped my mother. It wouldn’t last long, so I cleared my throat.
“The point is that even though they may end up bad, I should be able to make my own decisions. You can’t just cart me off to Samson’s because you’re tired of looking at me,” I say to Mother. “And you can’t just try to take me in because you feel guilty over something.” I say to Samson. “If there was some genuine feelings going on here, it would be different, but it’s because of selfish reasons on both of your parts that you’re doing it. Different sides of the spectrum, but selfishness all the same.”
“Do you truly believe that that menace of a girl is the direction you need to follow?” Mother asked, crossing her arms.
“I believe that ‘menace of a girl’ is the one who helped me understand a lot of things going wrong around here… She’s always believed in me from the moment she stepped into my room and even when Titan showed her my skin, it just made her that more determined… and now I’ve made her think of me the same way you two do…”
I turned around and walked off, going to find Jupiter.
“If you want to go on that journey then I suggest you get supplies and meet at the gate tomorrow morning!” Mother called out. I turned back to her. “You are to start the journey in the morning or someone else will. I will not leave my perfectly normal sons to the exposure of the land any longer.”
I bristled at her choice of wording and felt tears prick my eyes. ‘Perfectly normal sons’… I laughed, realizing that for some reason I thought I would be included.

I went to go find Jupiter to tell her we were going after all but she was no place to be seen. I asked the maids and everyone working in the castle but no one had seen her. I even asked the guards and they said that she wasn’t to be seen. Great, now I’ve run her off. I mean, I guess I don’t exactly have to have her to go on this journey but… she made me feel good about myself. She made me feel like I really could do anything and that nothing was impossible. I went back to my room and sighed, wondering what I should do next when I heard something that sounded like snoring. I made a face and went over to my bed, where I found Jupiter bundled up in the covers. I poked her and she mumbled something, opening her eyes.
“What the hell?” I asked, putting my hands on my hips.
“Hello to you too…”
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you and here you are in my bed? When did you get here?”
“I just went to go get a snack and when I came back you were gone. I got tired and since you weren’t here, I just crawled into bed for a quick nap.” She sat up and scratched her head. “What time is it?”
I looked over at the clock. “Ten.”
“Oh, oops… You’ve been looking for me for that long?”
“Well the tournament lasted until at least six and then the fiasco with the frog and everything so…” I shook my head. “The point of the matter is that we’re going on this journey.”
Her eyes lit up. “We are?!”
“Yeah…” I sat down on the bed and she crawled over to sit next to me. “I overheard my mom and Samson talking. Even though Samson’s one of my better brothers, hearing them argue made me realize that although his intentions are good, the motive is selfish, just like my parents. They put me in the back of the castle to keep me from the evils of the world but they also didn’t want to have to deal with me. Samson wants me to come with him to make up for guilty feelings towards me but he also wants me to be free of their stress. I realized that I didn’t want to be passed around and felt sorry for or ridiculed… You were right. I tried hard to show everyone that I could do this, that I could go and find my brothers and the Witchblade in a quest just like every other prince sometimes has to do. I won that right fair and square, so why give up?”
Jupiter smiled and put her hand on my leg. “I’m glad you’ve finally gotten it through that thick head of yours.”
“You’re still coming, right?”
“Shit, I don’t have anything else to do with my life right now. Besides, I honestly don’t know how to get back home even if I wanted to, so I’m sure doing this would be a better way to pass the time. Anything is better than having to deal with a psychiatrist who milks my parents for money and parents who can’t seem to grasp that…”
I looked at her as she made a face at nothing, thinking about the issue perhaps. I decided to delve a little deeper into this supposed anger issue she has that I don’t really see.
“Why do you have to go to a psychiatrist? You say you have anger issues but you don’t seem that way to me. I mean, you’ve had a few spats and you fight pretty well…”
Jupiter smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes. She laid back on the bed and swung her legs.
“My name is the problem. I happen to like it but when we learned about the planets in elementary school, some kids discovered the relation of Jupiter being the largest planet in the solar system and that it was also my name. They started making fun of me and even though I’ve been fairly skinny all my life, for some reason that added to the teasing. Then the whole Big Red Spot thing and gravity and just all these things about my name. Then my last name doesn’t help and it just added to the ‘oddity’ that my last name was a folded pizza and my first name was a giant planet, so how come I wasn’t fat?” I made a face at her and she did the same to me. “I know, right? How retarded is that? But it seemed to make for a good argument… The teasing became relentless but I was okay until middle school… That’s where the anger comes in. When we studied Greek and Roman mythology, someone realized that Jupiter was a god, a male, and a promiscuous one too. It added a whole new layer to the odd teasing and rumors began to spread. Guys would make off handed comments about me, girls spread rumors that I was giving myself away… Then one day I was cornered in the bathroom by three guys. They were mad at me because I supposedly gave my vagina away like water to an Olympic runner and when I didn’t want to put out, they felt dissed. So, when they tried to touch me, I lost it. My sight went black and when I opened my eyes, I was choking one of them and the others were on the ground.”
“You were defending yourself…”
“At first.” She sat up and leaned back on her hands. “At first I would only use this newfound rage to defend myself physically against rumors but after a while, I literally just punched anyone who dared to say anything about me. If I heard about it, I’d find out who the source was (usually after punching the spreader) and then beat the source to mush. Thus, anger management and psychiatrists.”
“But you seem so calm and collected.”
“Because the sessions actually work. The problem is that my current psychiatrist is milking my parents’ money by sending them false reports about my status. When I ask them to stop seeing him, they say I’m still bad, which I know I’m not, and then I get angry that they believe him more than me and then cycle starts all over again.”
“All this because your name is weird?”
“Strange how idiocy molds people, huh?” She looked at me with a smile. “Kind of like how your life was molded by the simple act of keeping you in the back of the castle instead of embracing your curse as an opportunity.” I looked away from her. “All around, our parents are a majority of the blame. My parents were hardly around and when I tried to talk to them, I was brushed aside and then scolded for my outbursts. Your parents wanted to hide you away, ashamed of a curse that you had no control over and didn’t try to even make you feel better with their comfort.” She nudged me with her arm. “We’re a couple of fucked up kids, huh, champ?”
“I guess so…”
“So, let’s prove all these people wrong.” She stood up and stood in front of me with her hands on her hips. “Let’s show this world what we can do and tell them to go suck it.”
so i thought i'd update this one since I haven't updated like any for a while. work is still being an ass and i'm also going to be moving soon.
anyway, it may seem a bit petty for jupiters teasing but you'd be surprised at what kids tease others about and bully them about nowadays. either way, the adventure starts here! :w00t:
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