A Brief Recollection of (Leahndr Aspont's History)

Week Three... brought a startling revelation. Admittedly, Leah had never been passionately gung-ho (not to the point of being overzealous, but merely determined) about modeling. Still feeling rather stiff around the idea that it was in fact an entire industry, how astonishing was it that she had no inkling of the fact that models are as frequently male as female? (Someone's never had to shop for a son or boyfriend through catalogs.) #RIPForeverAlone. Following her not-so-disastrous attempts to function during a photoshoot, the redhead and her fellow female competitors were permitted Saturday to recuperate and eliminate the constant worry of eyebag formation. Color correcting those pesky buggers and concealing them was far too much exertion for the makeup artists to go to on behalf of a wannabe supermodel.

On Sunday, the group was led to a room they had scarcely even been aware of; strange this was, really, for it was a prodigiously vast affair, complete with vaulted ceilings that shone with gold lacquer. Corinthian pillars littered the outskirts of the room. Bleached wood dining room chairs were scattered around the area. And prepossessing young men loitered in varying locations, looking extraordinarily bored with life as they sipped wine and rum and other nighttime substances from thin-stemmed wineglasses or crystalline tumblers. It seemed the stage was set for an elegant dinner party: the sort that kept the buffet-like freedom of dancing and faring according to personal desires.

Having had limited interaction with handsome men before, many of the female competitors were completely bedazzled by their allure, along with the general glamour of the ballroom itself. Rather than swooning, as some actresses are prone to do on film sets, some burst out laughing, while others sniffled back tears or brought up guarded eyes and skeptical sets to their mouths. Leah was hardly suspicious of the gig, but she wasn't interested in fraternizing with male models. (Partly because she believed them to be well-dressed waitstaff, and the girls had been scolded before for unnecessary contact with serving crews.) After just this brief interaction between the two parties, the female competitors were ushered out of the room and the rest of the week proceeded normally-- but with an occasional thought lingering on their attractive counterparts.

The concept of "free stuff" has persisted throughout the ages, a fact Leah has always been particularly grateful for. When her belly was rumbling up an earthquake, market samples had relieved the immense hunger gnawing at her gut. If her garments were so frayed at the seams that they slipped off her thin frame, often a kindly citizen would outfit her with used, but quite serviceable garments. No one wants to be a beggar for life, but pride is just another emotion.

Another emotion to be fought down and nestled under a pile of pleasant, accepting fluff, where it can't possibly rise up as a biting retort that might cause trouble.

Besides, iLacs were prototypes, almost... a novelty, and soon to be widely spread. If she couldn't find a use for the technology, surely she might happen on a buyer looking to procure such a device without venturing into the unnerving territory of the Neutral Grounds.

That was a perfect way to describe the small cluster of cities, on dreary and almost lifeless land. Unnerving.

Leah's fire-engine-red tresses spiralled everywhere uncontrollably as the girl yanked a silver scrunchie of her hair, releasing the tightly curled bun she had slept in. Right. Now was the time for business- the business of acquiring an iLac. As the skinny figure slunk through the gates, a smattering of onlookers took note of her dark-themed, metal and spikes outfit-- and also her possibly-dyed hair. They labelled her a troublemaker, the kid whose mouth is the gateway for foul language and whose skin crawls with tattoos underneath the tight, shiny leather.

Eh. They were wrong. Leah disliked causing noticeable trouble.

The mage straightened up a few paces past the gates: long enough after passing through that all the guards and many fellow city goers had finished their examinations and deemed her a bit odd, perhaps someone to be avoided, but hardly a threat to be wary of. That suited her.

A pale hand with scarred, slim fingers fished a crumpled paper from a deep inner jacket pocket. The wrinkled paper was pressed against a nearby signpost and smoothed out so the blocky poster letters could be read. Forty-ninth Street. Her sole purpose for entering this grey and rather mundane city (despite all the mechanical and electronical advances). It was the site of the iLac factory, at which the manager had made the generous decision of distributing the devices for free at a local scale. Meaning, if one strode past, workers were handing them out in droves to teachers and party masters and just about any person who could halfway form a coherent sentence on his or her own. All that was needed was "I wanna iLac," after all.

Her bangs dropped over her right eye, but Leah didn't make an effort to brush the clumpy ruby mass away. As she strolled turned into Forty-ninth Street, a heavyset man with a rubicund complexion waved a white cardboard box four centimeters from her sloped nose. He garbled a bunch of meaningless chatter about the factory and the manager's desires for more implements such as this in the future. Eyeing the package, Leah jerked her chin in a swift nod and snatched it away, a grateful tilt to her head plain to see as she ambled away contentedly. Free stuff. It sure was nice.

Leahndr had considered many times the way she wished to die.  Old age would be preferable, and if that failed, she wouldn't mind some kind of painless, quick acting poison.  Anything, really, for she wasn't too picky: anything aside from drowning or being roasted live on a spit over a campfire by cannibals.

There were no savages here, but there was a swimming pool.

The girl stared chlorinated water with a hefty scoop of disbelief plopped almost visibly on top of her head, what with the potency of it.  Chemically blue with all the fancy salts she had poured in-- salt makes a body float, and hopefully before it was a corpse, she thought-- it made for a rather deceiving peaceful sight.  Thirty-four bags' worth, she recalled with a  satisfied grin.      She was thankful that the brat's parents were drowning in gold...

Ha, wasn't she funny?

...so that their son wouldn't, in the local rec center's pool.  Magnolia was a lovely city with a decent reputation; Leah doubted she would be allowed to remain in town if a kid died under her 'watchful eye,' as she had promised his parents.

That's actually not quite right.  I probably COULD stay, just... In the local prison, or the like.

"Hey, l'il lad, how many swimmin' lessons have ye 'ad afore?" she called out curiously to the pudgy child, who was tentatively dipping his toes in the water.

He screeched back a number that was unrecognizable beyond the keening 'ee' sound near the end.

"Fourteen, ye say?" she muttered, taking a stab at the figure.  "Or sommat the like."

Returning to a shout, she warned him, "Well I've no patience for a fool, so's by that I mean like ye'd better put on em floaters that yer momma brought."  If ye aren't wanting to die, she finished in her head.  Truly, the tight-faced businesswoman had instructed Leah to have her son trained out of them by pickup time, but that would require her to go.near the water.  And that was... well, it was really out of the question.  Doubtless the kid would need saving if she let him be alone without the safety precautions, being how he couldn't swim and all.

"Missus!" the girl winced at the loudness of the cry and glanced over at the pool.  Joy, he had hopped into the water already, and without the floaters to boot.

"Boy, why'd ye hafta go an' do sommat stupid like that?" Her scathing bark echoed sharply in the empty room, and the annoying boy's face crumpled at her tone.  A bit of regret lit in her heart, but Leah swept it to the side and rolled her eyes.  The redhead went to check the time.  An hour and twenty minutes left.

"Look, y'aren't even wearin' yer li'l buoyies, so c'mon out here afore ye-"

A soft splash redirected her attention to the water.  Joy.  The kid was doggie paddling straight on course for the deep end.  Murgle's beard, but she wasn't going anywhere near there.  But hey, at least he could halfway stay afloat, using that method.  Leah glanced at the clock again.  Sooner or later, he'd have to give up on this foolishness...

Gurgling, just barely audible from where she was standing a good four meters away from the shallow end, grabbed at her ears.  There was no brat in sight, but there was a rather large dark mass resting on the bottom of the pool.

Ye've made me into a liar, boy, she recognized as her feet leaped from dead stillness into a dash, carrying her of their own accord to the edge of the pool.  As a giant splash rippled waves across the surface and stung Leah's cheeks, the girl slipped under the water.

But I was one already.

After swimming enough of a ways horizontally, she leaned down towards the boy and found that she could reach him easily.  It was odd that the buoyant force wasn't propelling her up at least a little bit especially with the salt dissolved.  But oh well.

Leah gathered the curled up ball of boy into her arms and pushed up against the gravelly floor of the pool.  Shooting towards the surface at a relieving speed, she heaved the kid into the ceramic tiles and hacked up a quart of water before her soaked garments dragged her under.

Leah...
What a grating voice.

Leah...
Really, couldn't it go away?  Some people were trying to sleep around here.

"LEAH!  Missus, wake up!  I'm sorry, I didn't- I can swim.  I thought- I tried to rescue you!  Miss Leah, please wake up!"

Green eyes were peeved under tired eyelids, and the redhead raised up her sword arm to thump the boy solidly on the temple.  "I told ye not to go in the deep end."

798 Words.

As it turned out, the bags held colored blue crystals that added nothing but the smell of blueberries and a subtle tint of the same.  RIP floatation.