Hello to all! I am Again With This, welcome to my newest story!

Enjoy.

-The Young Lady-

Trianna, or Tia, is planning. Eighteen years old. Combing through her prospects. Sights set on propelling herself into life's uncertainties. "Small town girl in a lonely world", as she often enthusiastically says. Not about the money now, not about her parents, and not about her small town: This is the beginning of Tia's glorious rise to her plotline, her building of her road, the culmination of wasted days spent daydreaming!

"Tia, fuck's sake girl, get a move on!'

The young lady squeaks as the jarring reprimand pulls her from her daydream about college. Tia clenches the blue sponge and returns to the stains on the walls around her little nook. She briefly glances back at the manager that just chastised her, who is at the front ordering around what food he needs from table and dictating who needs to go where. She huffs a little in a mild show of indignation.

"Soon I'll be out of your way, dickhead."

After venting some frustration out on cleaning the walls, her thoughts cease from bashing her manager and turn back toward her future. While she's going to pass her summer days mostly working at McDonald's, she can't complain too much. It's a good wage in the bank for later. Tia didn't really get any scholarships for school. Every bit helps. If she hadn't taken up work, her parents would have refused to help send her in the first place.

Those fights with her parents had been nightmares, but Tia knows it was out of concern. After all, nothing is guaranteed in the way of careers after college, and student loans are a nightmare. She lobbied fervently, sending out applications and receiving several promising acceptances. Eventually they gave in, and just like that she got to swagger around in a brand-new hoodie from the big state university a few hours from her hometown. All her peers are getting to go to college, and now she has the pride of joining them.

With the strike of noon, Tia's shift ends, and she heads on home to a neighborhood a few miles away. These days, she takes in her drives more. Sure, she'll visit home for holidays, but… It'll never be the same. Once home, she shoots her mom a text and changes into well-worn black basketball shorts and a light blue tank top. With only her two cats for company, she turns on her computer to watch a comedy YouTube channel and grins lazily.

"Three-day weekend from work, kitties. It's gonna be lit," she coos, swaying her head to peer around the one cat headbutting her face. Before long, she drifts to sleep to the sounds of light cat snores, Arin Hanson raging, and the gentle breeze wafting through the window.

... ... ...

After an hour siesta, Tia gets pulled from dreamland by her phone ringing. She drags it across the bed sheets to her face groggily to scan and immediately sighs in exhaustion. It's Carly.

"Hey Carly, what's up?" Tia greets, knowing that a tirade is about to begin. However, not answering would be too mean for her conscience to bear.

"You have to help me Ti this assignment totally sucks."

Carly isn't quite Tia's best friend really, but she's a pretty good one. She's in the year below Tia's, so they never really had classes together during school. One day Tia sat with her at lunch and they bonded over their mutual love of Marvel. Carly was new, and Tia couldn't help but sympathize. Takes one to know one.

"Carly you still have like two months until it's due just gather your sources and then write it. Not that difficult."

"But I'm not good at English papers like you are," she whines, and Tia can practically see the frustrated pout on her face. "Help me at least start, be a good senpai."

Tia groans over the phone to signal that she's given in but unhappily so. While annoyed, she still can't refuse people. The guilt gets too real. If she didn't cave now, she'd do so later. In her head, she imagines herself as an old cartoon character whose head turns into a sucker. Or maybe a jackass fits better?

"Fine. What's the assignment exactly? You're taking the regular English class and not the AP one right?"

And so, after Carly's muffled guffaw of delight, they get down to brass tax. Tia's sort of surprised that the non-AP course assigned summer homework. While she never thought of herself as above people taking the regular class, Tia didn't think the regular courses for any subject ever assigned summer projects.

The assignment is about fairy tales, sort of a "find one in history and do analysis" type thing. While Carly notes liberally how dull it is, Tia feels the gears in her head begin turning. What a project! She hates schoolwork as much as the next person, but this sounds like fun! Fairy tales, fairy tales… Tia can't believe Carly is having issues getting one together considering how many exist in modern culture.

"Carly seriously just choose Cinderella; it has a long history and it's easy to follow."

"I guess. I bet you everyone is going to do it though," she mutters, Tia rolling her eyes in response.

"She's going to fight one way or another. Though I guess I was the same way with that bio project…" Tia ruminates to herself, pulling her lips back in a sneer at the thought of her sophomore year class. She had been fighting with someone else over it, but the similarities are stark.

"If it's that important to you to be unique, Google around a little for something different and then see that Cinderella really isn't that bad," she chastises, internally grateful that she's graduated now. "College will be different."

"Okayyyyy, I get it Ti. I gotta go though, so I'll text later when I get back to the house. It's tractor day," Carly sighs through the phone, dread set in her voice. Tia winces sympathetically as she says goodbye and hangs up. Tractor day is a nightmare. Tia silently praises fate for not putting her into a family of farmers. Just hearing of Carly's various troubles makes her shudder.

Now Tia sits. Gears still turning. Mind moved from Carly. Fairy tales, fairy tales… What an interesting prospect.

"Y'know what Loafus, I might have to look some of those fairy tales up myself for fun," she says aloud, looking to the cat curled up next to her. She doesn't get any response, causing her to forcefully exhale into her bangs. A small pang of loneliness hits her chest.

It's right as that empty feeling sets in, that a drawn-out peal cuts through the fuzzy silence. Tia snaps up, disturbing her cat, eyebrows furrowed in panic and confusion. She can hear the flapping of wings, and notes while peering out her bedroom window that neither the cat next to her nor the one on her desk chair have taken notice. The sound of the bird still rings in her ears, and it's almost as if there's something else entwined with it, a graceful warmth that immediately fills the cavity of feeling alone.

It calls to her. It's to her.

"That didn't sound like any bird I've heard before. It was really… Beautiful. Huh. I must be really tired still," Tia mumbles, shaking her head to clear it and scratching the ears of her cat in apology.

Her stomach growls.

She can search on those fairy tales later.

... ... ...

"So what did you do today, 'As The Burger Flips?'" Tia's dad asks over his dinner plate, catching her eye with a cheesy grin. She sticks her tongue out at him and his soap opera joke, as she tends to complain at length about the petty drama of her workplace.

"It was pretty dead today. Worked the same five to noon shift, scrubbed the walls to prep for inspection. Dylan was being an extra heap of dickhead though, dunno what that was about. Don't really care," she rounds off, shoving a heaping glob of mashed potatoes into her mouth to signal she didn't want to elaborate on much else. Her dad wins out in the end as she chokes slightly while trying to swallow.

"Eat much?"

Tia's mom shoots him a wistful glare before smacking her back to help her breathe properly again.

"I'm good, I'm good!" Tia sits back in her chair and waves away any further help. She stares at her half-eaten plate after wiping the pained tears from her eyes. She grabs it as she stands, appetite gone.

"Done already? Sometimes you make me worry," her mom comments offhand, watching Tia with concern as she traipses around the table to the kitchen, "You could get sick if you don't eat more."

"I'm fine, I eat plenty. I gotta help Carly with a school project: she refuses to leave it til the last minute."

"Sounds like Carly," her dad snorts, and her parents let her go off back to her room.

"So I fibbed a little." Tia shakes off any mounting guilt while heading back. She doesn't need to help Carly anymore, and while she loves her parents… Her day has been filled with talking to people. She's still a bit drained. "Now it's about that time to look up some old fairy tales for some funsies."

Carly has given her an excellent reason to not need to communicate with anyone for the next couple of hours at least. On entering her room, Tia keeps her door open for the cats to come and go, and moves one said cat from her computer chair at the desk where she's been napping.

"Sorry Poobah it was my chair first."

Setting her grumbly fluffiness on the floor, Tia takes her spot and turns the laptop on. Within moments Google Chrome is open and she's typing in the search bar for "ancient fairy tales."

Tia hums with intrigue at all the pages, knowing that just the first page would be enough to satisfy.

The first link that pops up in the search is The Universe of the Four Gods, with a small synopsis beneath it:

"Herein contains the tale of a young lady and her quest to gather the seven constellations of Suzaku together. And if you, the reader, should read to the story's end, the spell contained within this [scroll] shall bestow upon you the powers of the heroine, and grant you your wish. For indeed the moment the first [line is read], the story will become reality."

"Oh hey, I've heard of Suzaku before, they throw that name around in anime a lot," she mumbles, her interest piqued at the connection while also a bit mystified as to how and why this is the first thing to come up on the search. If Carly hadn't ever sat her down to watch several Japanese shows she never would've really paid attention to it, but…

"Ah what the heck, it's something I don't know already. Better than reading about the true gruesome endings of German fairy tales for the umpteenth time."

Tia clicks on the link and immediately shrieks, jabbing her hands over her face protectively. A strong, hot blast of red light is erupting from her computer screen. Although she feels no immediate pain, Tia gets too dizzy to stay awake, and forfeits her consciousness to the feeling of flight.

Warm. Too warm. Like she's been sitting in the sun too long. "How can I be sitting in the sun?" She was inside, wasn't she? It's been cloudy and rainy all month. Where is this heat coming from? "Now I'm just plain old hot."

Tia cracks open her eyes carefully, trying to avoid blinding herself in the light that's already leaking through her eyelids. She tries to lick her dry lips as she sits up, groaning as her muscles and joints protest the action. "How long have I been out? This is all kinds of weird."

Blinking rapidly, she finally gets her vision to the point that looking around is feasible. The only feeling Tia gets from her survey of the desolate mountain landscape is one of deepest dread.

"How did I get in Utah?" she voices aloud, hoping that whatever this dream or hallucination is will perhaps answer. Her hope dims when she's given silence. She's never been to Utah; this place is just reminiscent to pictures she's seen. Tia stretches as she stands, mind still whirring with ideas on what her next move should be.

The sound of footsteps appears to decide for her.

"Well well, lookee what we got here! Not very often we meet up with a stranger in the mountains out here! Especially such a beautiful lady."

A damning shiver runs down Tia's back and her brain goes into fight-or-flight at the sound of the predatory snickers that follow the gruff man's voice. Surrounded by five dirty men, all in ragged clothes with unkempt hair and scraggly beards, Tia recognizes hunger and desperation in their eyes. It instills a deep-set fear in the pit of her stomach. She swallows, not recognizing their clothing style but attempting to memorize their features. If she gets out of this alive, she'll tell authorities what they look like.

"Scruffy Asian men with weird robe-tunic-thingies. Is this really Utah?"

"Whatsa matter babe, yer awful quiet," their apparent ringleader jeers, his eyes still roaming up and down her figure. She swallows, trying to remove the uncomfortable feeling of her heart beating in her throat. Tia narrows her eyes and clenches her fists.

"There's no way I can beat five fully grown men no matter how bad of shape they're in, but I can't let them take me without a fight!"

Thoughts start forming into a somewhat rational battle plan, well aware that she is at such a horrible disadvantage that she'll be lucky to get even one hit in. This is something Tia's always feared, always been wary of. All she hopes for is the infinitesimal chance that there's someone else around to come to her aid who doesn't desire the same thing as these men.

"Why don't you come with us down the mountain? We know a spot where we could get comfortable…"

"No," Tia forces out, breathing in through her nose slowly to bolster her resolve. The leader leans forward, head tilted with a mocking hand to his ear.

"What's that? No? You prefer the outdoors?"

Tia glares as best she can and readies herself for the repercussions of what she's about to do. Sights set on the talker and steel in her veins, she takes one last clearing breath before springing to action.

Dashing forward, she catches the men by surprise. Tia lowers her head and shoulders to tackle her target so effectively she can hear football coaches back home applauding her in her head. The hit audibly pushes the air from his lungs, and he sputters curses with what little air he has left. Tia sets aside any pain from the blow to raise her right hand while leaning over his face with a snarl, ready to scratch his eyes out with her fingernails.

She's stopped by a rough grasp on her wrist. A violent wrench from behind removes her arm from its socket in her shoulder. With a screech of pain, she's roughly dragged off the leader, her wrist twisted until she feels even more pain at the sound of a nasty snap. Once clear, she's dropped to the ground and kicked by several feet while being showered with a variety of harsh insults. All Tia can do is scrunch up into an incomplete defensive ball, her arm in too much pain to move. She tunes out the things the men are yelling and begins praying to any form of higher power that might be listening.

"Please don't let it end like this, I don't want to die this way!"

"Is that any way to treat a lady no da?"

The abuse stops as the men all turn from her startled. Tia keeps herself rolled up. She catches her breath, tears still draining from her eyes due to the pain and from relief that the beating has paused. She peeks out with one wary eye. Although she can't see much of anything, the men are yelling at someone. There's something jingling, something metallic that she'd never be able to place. Unable to catch a glimpse, Tia deigns to turn her attention back to calming down.

Before long, it quiets. A lone person, accompanied by that jingle, sidles up to her.

"I'm sorry I didn't get here sooner no da, but you're safe now."

Tia unclenches a little and takes a big gross sniffle before daring to look up at her savior. She is met with an unnatural, pleasantly smiling face. Yelping and jerking up, she winces at the action and swats his outstretched hand away. Afterwards she clasps her left hand to her right shoulder, tears leaking out from the throbbing pain. Tia fights through wanting to keep her eyes squeezed shut because of the harsh beating she's endured. Squinting, she eyes the stranger carefully, her pained grimace loosening to slight confusion at his appearance.

"I've never met anyone with hair fashioned like that, and what's up with his face? And his clothes?

… This definitely isn't Utah."

The strange man kneeling before her, with the same unnaturally smiling face, keeps his hands up in nonaggression to reassure her. Tia glances around at the five men who are all soundly knocked out.

"What's happening?" she whispers, everything becoming too strange, too unbearable for her mind with the aches she feels. Tia teeters, and within moments her mind fades to black once again, putting all her trust in her strange-looking savior.

Pretty standard for FY, isn't it? But it's just so fun to write, I had to throw my name in the hat on this classic.

Any form of feedback (review, follow, favorite, etc) is greatly appreciated. I always respond to reviews.

Til next time,

-A