Survival Of The Fittest

((Jacquard Broughten continued from Life is a Game))

End of school was approaching, and with that, end of school exams. Not that Jacquard was particularly worried about them, but still, preparation was better then simply assuming she would pass the way some of the other students did (and when they did pass, oh, it bothered her to no end).

Which meant that Jackie was in the library, as she so often was. Cane propped up against the side of her chair, she leaned over a table, occasionally selecting a different pen from the pencil box next to her where they lay in order of colour and size. It was a simple enough study strategy - take rough but detailed notes in class, organize them later.

Her tongue poked out the corner of her mouth as she carefully drew a straight red line under a heading, then sat back, relaxing for a moment before selecting another pen and glancing around.

((Lucy Ashmore's Opening Post))

The tower of books blocked her view as Lucy struggled to find her footing. Step by step, she continued her traversing of the library floor to make it to a table, the massive stack of literature weighing down her small arms, straining her slim muscles and throwing off her already unsteady balance. By some miracle, she managed to avoid scattering the many texts all over the floor, and dropped them heavily on the surface in front of her, breathing a quiet sigh of relief, then brushing a loose strand of hair out of her vision and behind her ear.

Shyly glancing around the room, Lucy huddled down in her chair as she cautiously observed the amount of people in the library with her. Sitting alone at the far end of the table, away from the casually hushed conversations going on around the room, she subconsciously arranged the many writings around her to obscure her from others as much as possible. Hidden behind her small wall, the recluse took her simple grey notebook out of her bag, drew a blue ink ballpoint pen, and picked out her first piece for study in the afternoon.

Whilst walking throughout the library moments before, Lucy found herself reaching for many stories and tales that caught her interest, but had to move her hand away in defiance. With examinations just around the corner, she couldn't let herself become distracted from her studies. The many famous pieces by Shakespeare and Steven King found themselves left yet again on the shelves, as the young woman moved towards the maths and science section.

Frowning: she had been daydreaming. There was no time for thinking about her favourite novels; it was still time to be studying. Resuming her lined sheet in front of her, covered in simple dark blue letters to hold the information she had been studying, she resumed moving through the pages of the book.

((Sean Carver's Opening Post))

Someone coughed. Loudly.

Sean's head snapped up at the sound, a look of irritation stamped on his face as he craned his neck to look at the girl sitting two tables behind him. Godammit, why did people always have to be so noisy when he was trying to study, and in the fucking school library of all places? If it wasn't their idle chatter -- the girls were especially bad about that, like they couldn't comprehend the basic notion of SILENCE -- it was their cell phones, their constant whispers and annoying little habits that never failed to distract him from his studies. It was shit like that that almost made him happy he didn't have a girlfriend.

"Fuck" he muttered under his breath as he turned his attention back to the assortment of papers that littered the top of his desk. He grabbed a stack of scratch paper and set it aside, trying to remember where he'd left off. As he shuffled through the jumbled piles of worksheets and hastily scribbled notes, a surge of anger came over him as he thought back to that girl sitting behind him. For a moment, he pictured himself walking back there, smiling all the while, then grabbing a hold of her hair and shouting whatever came to mind right in her fat, terrified face at an ear-splitting volume.

Focus, he told himself. There was a test tomorrow, and he had to be ready. And he would be, even in he had to stay here all night. However, as her shuffled through the assortment of hastily scribbled notes and practice problems, he found his mind wandering off, leaving him sitting and staring off with his hands resting on top of the table. Sighing, he put the stack of papers down and leaned back in his chair, fixing the ceiling lights up above with an intense stare as their low, monotonous hum buzzed in his ears. Running through what he knew so far, he began muttering all the formulas he'd memorized in the past two hours, pausing only to lick his lips as the numbers rolled through his exhausted mind.

Jackie glanced up as Lucy entered the library, books piled high in her arms. Almost unconsciously she held her breath, visualizing at any moment the stack of books crashing to the floor. When the girl made it successfully to the table and put down her armload, Jacquard let herself relax again, turning back to her studying.

It wasn't more then a few moments later that she noticed her blue highlighter (Chemistry, formulas, and English 12, titles and authors) was fading out. Another minute or so after that, and she couldn't deny it any longer - it was out of ink. Which made her frown, because she didn't want to just change colors mid-notes but she needed to finish this.

Ugh. She hated situations like this. Still, there were other people studying, and at least one would probably have something she could use. She'd try the girl, Lucy first, she seemed probably a lot less likely to be noisy and irritating. A girl after her own heart.

Getting up and retrieving the cane from where it sat by the side of her desk, she moved over to Lucy and tapped lightly on the top of the books.

"Excuse me, I was wondering if you had a blue highlighter I could borrow?"

She kept her voice quiet, remembering how the other boy a couple of tables down had looked cranky when someone had coughed. She could understand that - after all, the library was a place for silence. But there were also acceptable questions, and this was one of them.

((Aileen Borden continued from Shopper's Hell))

Aileen opened the door, quietly as usual.

There always seemed to be a group of students studying in the library, and today was no exception. This time, it was... well, she didn't know their names, either. Man, even though she was probably either going to forget or not have to use them in the future, knowing her, sometimes this sort of thing was... important, shall we say.


However, it would seem that the one named Jackie or something like that had asked for a highlighter, judging by what she could pick up in the current discussion. Aileen swiftly walked past them, and went to go see what kind of books she wanted to read today.

At first she wanted to read about domestic breeds of cats, but then she got side-tracked and started looking a bit more, eventually choosing a book about whales. On the cover it had a huge drawing of a humpback whale, just rising out of the water.

Well... I guess reading about whales could be nice, Aileen thought to herself, heading back towards the tables.

Placing herself at a seat, she flipped open the book, and looked around. There was also a guy who seemed cranky for some reason. Why, she had no idea.

Glancing at him for a few seconds, she turn back and muttered to herself, in a low voice "Well... it's none of my business why he is like that."

With that, she returned to her book, and started reading the foreword.

"YAAAH!!"

Yelping loudly in surprise; that voice came out of nowhere! She had been so deeply immersed in her studying, that Lucy failed to notice Jackie walk up right next to her, even after her books were tapped.

Lucy looked up at the girl, almost instinctively inching away from her into the chair she sat in. After composing herself, she remembered that the person had asked a question:

"Excuse me, I was wondering if you had a blue highlighter I could borrow?"

Oh, it was just a harmless request; Lucy could handle that. It wasn't like she was asking for her life history or anything, after all. Just a few words and movements, and it'd be over.

"Oh, ye-yes. I should have one in here..."

Reaching down, she found herself unable to move past the gap between the table and her seat, and so was forced to scoot back away from her fortress of books, revealing herself more to the people around her despite her desires. In response, she crouched lower than necessary to get to her bag, now using the table as cover.

After cautiously glancing back up at the figure now standing even higher over her, Lucy started to feel through her open bag for her old pencil case. Within moments its cold, metal shell was in her hands as she rapidly pulled it out.

Unfortunately for her however, the item was only half closed, and as she whipped it out carelessly, it flew open, scattering pencils, rubbers, and all manner of stationary noisily over the library floor as the clacking echoed unexpectedly around the room.

"Oh! Ex-, excuse me! I'm so sorry!"

Now bright red with the shame of her embarrassing folly, she dropped to her hands and knees and grasped frantically at the chaotic mess spewed around the bottom of her table.

The derivative of f of x is given by the OH WHAT THE FUCK

Gritting his teeth, he turned around to look at the source of the racket that'd interrupted his thoughts. He'd just barely been able to ignore that screech some girl'd let out earlier, and in the past few minutes he'd had to endure a whole litany of whispered requests for pencils, highlighters, the whole shebang. But this shit, this fucking distraction was too much for him to tolerate, especially when it was taking his attention away from the one thing he had going for him at this miserable fucking excuse for a school.

More than ready to give the source of the intrusion a hearty helping of his thoughts on where to take her sorry ass,

(far away from here if you can't manage to SHUT THE FUCK UP)

he looked around the room, his sleep-deprived, semi-bloodshot eyes glancing irritably from face to face until they finally rested upon the source of the disruption. To his disgust, it was the same girl who'd gotten startled earlier

(knew she was going to be a distraction)

and now here she was again, crawling around on her hands and knees under her desk as she tried to pick up after the mess she'd made. She kept looking up at everyone, her faced flushed with embarassment as she kept throwing out apology after apology. The quick glimpse she'd given him of her face left an impression in his mind -- nerdy glasses, big forehead, small features and more than a little pale. She was actually sorta cute, in a...

A geeky way? Really Sean, have you looked in the mirror lately? You're not exactly a prize yourself, ya fuckin' douche. Not unless some folks start finding razorburn and an empty wallet to be a turn-on. Now get off your ass and help her out.

Dammit, his conscience was starting to niggle at him now. Maybe it was the fact that he thought she was a little cute, or maybe he just felt a little sorry for her -- she did seem to be pretty embarrassed about the mess she made -- but it was enough to get to him, just a little. Sighing, he got up and made his way over the girl, who didn't even look up as he approached her, even though his Dunkmans made a squeak or two as he crossed the library floor.

Bending down, he cleared his throat, which was still a little sore from the argument he'd had with his parents last night -- about what, he couldn't really remember, but it was probably over some petty bullshit his Mom or Dad had brought up.

"Need some help?"

(( William Roger Haig's opening post))

William quietly pushed open the doors to the library and immediately headed towards the biology books, paying attention to the two students bent over a mess of writing utensils and other various, scattered items only long enough to acknowledge that the situation was already under control and that no further help was needed. "I'd just be getting in their way.." He mumbled quietly to himself, besides, it wasn't exactly like he knew them, why should he get involved?

His previous train of thought vanished instantly as he obtained the book he had been looking for, and instead his mind focused solely on getting to a table and studying for exams from this point on. Seating himself, William opened the book and began reading quietly to himself. "The liver is a vital organ necessary for survival.." He began, before his mind began wandering. "Wait, isn't liver in pate?" He asked himself, "Pate is a French food, and so is escargot…" He mused, staring blankly ahead. "The French have some strange foods.." He concluded, nodding his head.

A few seconds on musing on other strange foods in the world, William finally remembered what he was supposed to be doing. "Oh, right studying.. Ok William focus.. Focus.." He muttered to himself taking a deep breath and trying to study again, reading quietly to himself once more. "The liver is a vital organ necessary for survival. It is present within vertebrates and some other animals.."

Before the girl could even answer, he'd already stood back up and hastened back over to his table. An embarrassed tinge of red came to his face as he thought of what he'd just done, and the odd looks it'd probably earned him from some of the other kids in the room. Even he could admit that it had been an odd and even pretty dickish move to pull on someone he didn't even know, but he couldn't help it, nor could he fight back the impulse that had driven him away from her.

He'd barely even gotten his offer out to the girl before that old familiar feeling began to creep back up. As much as he'd wanted to help, even talk to the girl, it was a distraction he just couldn't afford. Time was of the essence here, and if he kept allowing his concentration to slip like it had been doing for the past few minutes, he would never be ready in time for the next test.

And then what would happen? As he sat back down in his chair, he could scarcely fight back the urge to lapse into a nervous fit as images of red X's and that hateful blaring 60% mark on his paper kept creeping up on him. Sure, he hadn't gotten an "F" on a math test since the seventh grade, but there was always that chance of failure to keep him going on.

And what happened to those who failed? Oh, he knew that well. He saw failure every time he walked under the roof of his house, sitting in a scuzzy olive green lounge chair, smelling of shit and piss and tossing back beer after beer in a effort to drink away the harsh life of a high school janitor. Everyday, he had that to come home to -- an straight F student who hadn't had the drive or the ambition to make it past his senior year of high school, and was damned to pay for his laziness through a lifetime of swabbing toilets and cleaning up after other people's messes.

Well, that won't happen to me! Sean thought in defiance as he gather up his papers. But this place... He looked around at the other students, trying his best not to look at the girl he'd spurned not a few seconds before.

"Too noisy." He muttered, not meaning to. Packing his books and worksheets into the tattered K-Mart bought bookbag he'd worn for the past five years, he zipped the pouches up and got up to leave. Not even bothering to put his chair back into place, he turned and walked out of the library, eyes cast down to the carpeting all the way. He would find another place, another study area somewhere where there weren't so many people around to snatch his attention away from what he needed to learn.

((Sean Carver continued in Simply Studying))

Jacquard barely suppressed a sigh of annoyance when the girl's things flew everywhere. Really, was it that hard to get a highlighter out of a bag? Apparently. And she was all embarrassed about it too, which just made it worse. She hated other people losing their composure. Still, the sooner they got the mess cleared away, the sooner she could get back to her studying.

As she knelt on the floor, they were approached by another student. She didn't bother looking up as he asked them if they needed help, but seen as he disappeared almost instantly afterward, it didn't matter.

Finally she spotted a blue highlighter, picking it up and gesturing with it at the girl. "Thank you. I'll return it momentarily." Without bothering to help with the rest of the clean up, she pulled herself upright, stumbling momentarily on her bad leg before catching herself (an angry flush briefly coming to her cheeks although she wouldn't admit it if you said anything) and returning to her own table.

Aileen diverted herself from reading about different species of whales, and how some used baleen to eat krill, after hearing a crashing sound.

The girl that Jackie had asked had dropped a ton of school supplies, and was now on the floor picking up various pencils and other supplies. Aileen stared as she did so, her brows furrowed.

Damn it, this was a library. It shouldn't be so noisy and so... crowded. Sure, on some days it seemed like the entire school was in the library, but others, it was entirely empty. Aileen preferred the days where very few people were there, and the only sound was the turning of a page. It seemed so peaceful most of time, even though it was a little lonely.

At that point, a thought popped into her head. Hey! Shouldn't I be helping her?

Lifting herself out of her seat, she padded over to her, and started speaking.

"Excuse me, do you need any help-"

However, the cranky boy had already asked, and just as suddenly left. Aileen turned her gaze towards him as he left for a few seconds, and then moved her eyes back towards the girl.

Aileen fidgeted on the spot. Too many people here... it was starting to get her nervous, for some reason. Maybe it was because she wasn't a people person. In any case, she kind of wanted to leave, and find someplace a little more... isolated to read.

Deciding that she should check out the book, she went back to her seat to get her things, and walked over the the library checkout area. Aileen felt kind of bad leaving that poor girl to pick up all those things by herself, but it seemed she had it under control.

Once it was checked out, she headed towards the door, book in hand. Before she completely disappeared from the library, she could be heard muttering to herself "Okay... return this book in about two weeks. Remember".

And soon, she had disappeared as quickly and quietly as she had arrived.

((Aileen Borden continued in Ice Cream, Kit Kats, and Whales))

Now burning red with sheer embarrassment, Lucy tried to focus more on the task at hand than the hoard of people moving in and out of her vicinity, some offering assistance and then vanishing just as fast. It didn't matter though; she was far too nervous and jittery to realise anyone was even talking to her, let alone reply.

She did briefly notice the girl who'd came over take one of her blue highlighters and proceed to wag it in her face before wondering off. As awkward as she felt about making the whole disruption, she couldn't help but feel a little annoyed at her rude decision to leave herself to clean up the mess. At least if they worked together, she wouldn't be isolated as the sole noise creator.

Oh, who was she kidding? It was entirely her fault to begin with, and she could hardly blame them if other people were getting irritated with her. Indeed, she somewhat forgot that two people had offered to assist her, and that the third actually had lent a brief hand.

Eventually the mess that was her writing equipment was eventually returned to its case in a slapdash manner, hastily shoved in with no regards for its previous order. Clutching the container to her chest, she yanked up her bag whilst returning to her footing, stuffing the cause of the whole situation deep into the shadows. Fuelled by shame and awkward feelings, Lucy moved quickly as she gathered up her notes, clutching them to the chest space which was occupied not moments ago, and pulling her bag up in her hands. Leaving the wall of literature out and untidy, defying her usually well kept manner, Lucy blushed her way right out of the library in a blur of embarrassment, despair and shame.

((Continued in Tending the Flowers))

William looked up at a disturbance in the group of people around the mess of pencil case fillings dispersed one by one. The first person who left was the boy who had asked if they needed help, and who left almost immediately after. "Jerk…" William found himself mumbling to himself, finding that action to be rather unkind. The next person to leave was another girl, who, from his seat, appeared to have just grabbed a highlighter and ran off. Sighing to himself, William closed his book. "Guess I should help her." He muttered quietly standing, until she ran off herself. "Or not…" He muttered.

For a moment, he stood there, quite possibly looking like an idiot as he decided what to do next. He didn't quite know what was going on, but he did know that the one girl had a highlighter that didn't belong to her. He considered sitting back down, but his desire to help people got the best of him as usual, and he decided to go confront the girl.

Walking as quietly as possible, he approached the sitting girl and cleared his throat slightly. "Don't you think you should go return that?" He asked. "Your friend just ran off you know." He added, motioning towards the door a little with his head.

Jacquard barely noticed Lucy taking off, absorbed in her studying, so when she was interrupted by William it took a moment for her to realize what had happened. It didn't help that she hated to be interrupted, especially when she didn't have a particularly long time left to study.

She looked up at the boy, narrowing her eyes and delivering a fairly passable glare of annoyance. "If she left without it, she can't be particularly attached to it. I'll return it when I next see her."

And, just in case he didn't get the hint, "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm in the middle of something."

William couldn't believe what had just happened, some people could be so selfish! Well, he wasn't going to let this stand, temper getting the best of him as usual.

"Hey, now-!" He began, raising his voice then realizing that he was being a bit too loud for a library, so dropped his voice to a more moderate volume, and continued. "Now listen here, you can't just go around taking other people's things whenever you feel like it." He said irritably. "And furthermore, you could have at least helped her a little." He added, leaning against the table as he did.