25th Fall 517 It was several days before she had her second reporting with her 'employer', the first day wasn't but it was long bells the girl was not use to doing something that didn't involve scrubbing, dusting, or otherwise manual like labor. This was all mental work and it was exhausting. It was here and now that Tierra was about to regret her lack of attention to her surroundings since her introductory meeting with Sayana last season. It was still early in the morning – a bell past breakfast – and Tierra had her notebook in hand, but it was just there. The girl was not reading it, writing in it, just holding it. She had some downtime between breakfast and her class time and as such wanted to go and sit down in her bed and just think. Tierra could hear the usual shuffling and talk coming from her fellow orphans, so overall she ignored them, this was the start of her mistake truly. If she wasn't so tired and mentally exhausted Tie might have spent more attention of the talking and movements of the other orphans. One of the larger orphans came to the forefront of her attention, knocking it out of the haze of exhaustion, it was a typical tactic of bullies that emerged. He reached out and knocked the notebook from the hand of Tie. It hit the ground and skidded away. As such, Tie did the typical response, she dropped to her knees trying to grab a hold of her precious compilation of knowledge. Granted it wasn't all that spectacular in notes, but it was her's. As her hands reached out to grab a hold of it, the tips of her fingers managing to take a hold of the edge with little stretching effort the bully's shoe came down on her hand, the grinding impact of his shoe's treading rubbing aggressively into her hand made Tierra yell out in pain and attempt to pull it back out from underneath his shoe – forgetting her notebook in the pain. That is when the next act came, one that Tie was completely unaware of – this one came as a blow to her back from behind. Right between the blades of her shoulders. This was accompanied by a cry of pain, a brief arching of her back to remove the source of the pain from her back before she crumbled forward. From here it became a flurry of shoes and fists all around her body. The little girl could catch the small talk that came. It didn't make sense, it was bully talk for something, of what though Tierra had no idea. She didn't understand their native tongue, even when she wasn't the one being targeted by hands and feet. Feet pelted at her back, sides, chest, legs, arms. Tierra did her best to protect her face though, curling up in a ball and covering her face with arms as the blows fell on her. She was no longer crying out in pain now, now it was just yelps and grunts, cries and please to stop. It seemed to have taken forever though. Sometime during this one of the large boys sat over her body and with his meaty hands pummeled at her hands and face, hitting hard enough to press and smash her protective cocoon of her arms against her face. She could hear him asking someone to pull her arms away so he could teach the little wanna-be city worker a lesson. It was when her arms were being pawed at to yank them from her face is what grabbed Tierra's attention back into the here and now. She struggled against her assailants, Tie couldn't stop the feet and blows against the rest of her body but she could fight against the arm-puller and the oaf that sat her. It was too late though, as soon as her arms were yanked away enough to provide entry to her face the fist came down. With eyes closed as a results of protecting her face though Tierra couldn't see the fist as it came. As is came smashing in Tierra could feel the boy's knuckles shifting underneath his flesh as it came in contact with her right eye. She cried out loudly, as he pulled the first back, releasing the tension between source and her face Tierra tried frantically to pull her arms away, it was struggle that she nearly failed at, though she did manage to get one arm pulled down at her face. It took some effort but without opening her still good eye she blindly leaned up and bit at the arm of her arm-captor. It was covered by a sleeve – a note that Tie would fail to remember later on, but the retaliation was enough to cause a yelp of pain and the subsequent release of her hands. She was nearly free, at the very least she now had a chance to defend herself. “Sum one comin'. Sum one comin'.” Tierra heard the call, it was a lookout. This was something Tierra was well versed in knowing about: be it for stealing desserts from the kitchen around mealtimes or other such moments as this. What happened next left Tie in a blur of confusion as the blows ceased to stop immediately, the weight on her body had vanished – not without a final thud of a foot against her stomach though. And then she was left in silence. Groaning she sat up, it hurt to breathe, it hurt to even sit up. Whoever the lookout thought was coming had showed themselves yet. Breathing heavily though Tie opened her good eye, looking around for her notebook. It was kicked, stepped on, battered and flung to a far wall. She didn't have the energy or will to stand up so instead she did her best to crawl over to it. As she reached out her hand to move herself forward Tierra could see the red going purple shoe stamp on the top of her hand. It took the girl several ticks to reach her notebook. Picking it up even caused the girl to wince and whimper in pain. Grabbing the flimsy bundle of paper she pulled it close. Tears ran down her face as she huddled there. Finally, she could hear the foot falls of whoever it was that was noticed before that dispersed her attackers. It was another orphan, one of the older ones that Tierra didn't know. They just kept going though, ignoring the little orphaned girl against the wall as they went on their way. Struggling to stand after some time though Tierra made her way back to her bed, just wanting to crawl under the covers. When the adults came to rouse her for class time Tierra would ask to stay in bed, not wanting to face the other kids right this moment. All it took was a brief look at Tierra's face and body to see the blossoming bruises. “No infirmary. I just want to stay in bed.” It took several more ticks but final the caretaker just left Tierra be. Still clutching her notebook the girl watched the adult leave her alone... In her bed... In a room all by herself. “I will find those that did this and they will pay.” She whispered as tears rolled down her face. WC: 1230 |