In This Lifetime
By TriGemini
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from Troy (the movie, Warner Brothers does, nor the Iliad written by Homer.
Chapter One
(Dream)
She could see the whole city ablaze and the smoke rising everywhere. Because of that, she had a difficult time seeing her surroundings. Nevertheless, she knew that people were running in every direction trying to find a way to escape the burning city.
As she kept running, she tripped over a body that had been left on the ground. She gasped at the sight of the dead man lying in the street. Aside from the ghastly sight in front of her, she could also hear the moans of other people dying around her, and the shouts of the enemy soldiers that were invading her home.
She should have realized that Agamemnon would not be satisfied until he saw Troy burned to the ground. Seeing as how no son or daughter of Troy would ever bend to his will than every Trojan would suffer the consequences of being conquered and left in ruin.
For this reason, she truly despised the Greeks for what they were doing.
No! That would be a complete falsehood.
She had to continuously remind herself that she didn't loathe all of the Greeks. Seeing as how there was one, she could not bring herself to hate.
Even at a moment like this when chaos was brought upon her people. No matter what was happening now, he was gone from the shores of Troy. She could never hate him.
Not now…not ever…
(Dream ends)
The young woman woke up with a gasp and realized that she'd only been dreaming again. She hated nights like these. Considering she never understood why she had these dreams to begin with. She looked at her clock and noticed that it was only two in the morning. Seeing as how it was still too early to get up, she decided to go back to sleep and hoped that she wouldn't have any more dreams keeping her awake.
A few hours later, the sunlight spilt in through the Venetian blinds of the young woman's bedroom. Indicating to her that it was morning, which meant it, was time to wake up and get ready for school. Much to Brisa Traiger's dismay morning came too soon for her liking. With that last thought, she jumped out of bed and got dressed. Given that, every morning for her was the same routine. First, she'd get out of bed; she'd then take her shower, get dressed, go downstairs to eat breakfast, and afterwards she would do whatever it is she had planned for the day.
For instance, today she had to go to school. Therefore, she had to get a move on because she didn't want to be late. Although there were times when she wished that, something out of the ordinary would happen. It didn't matter to what exactly happened as long as it was something interesting. Even if she wasn't one for excitement but even she got bored with the same old routine at times. Perhaps if she got lucky, her friends at school would have some ideas for doing something fun.
Once she was downstairs, she headed towards the dining room where she noticed her uncle and one of her cousins already eating their breakfast. She thought it best to join them seeing as how she still had some time before heading off to class.
"Good morning, everybody!" said Brisa with a smile.
At this greeting, everybody looked up to see her walk into the dining room and immediately she sat herself next to her uncle who looked to her direction and spoke,
"Morning Brisa, how are you this morning?" asked her Uncle Peter.
Peter Traiger was Brisa's uncle, her father's only brother and family. She had lived with her uncle and his family since her parents had been killed in a car accident six years ago. With her uncle lived his two sons, Henry who was the oldest and Patrick the youngest. Henry was 32-years-old and was married to a wonderful woman named Angela. They also had a son name Aaron, who was the cutest baby in the entire world and Brisa simply adored him to pieces. She often babysat him when both his parents were extremely busy. Not that she minded very much, seeing as how she enjoyed spending time with him.
As for Patrick, he was 24-years-old, still in college, and was known to be a 'Ladies man,' this reputation of his usually drove his father and older brother crazy seeing as how every week Patrick was found dating a new girl. It made them both wonder why he couldn't just find one girl and settle down. Brisa on her part was convinced that Patrick would never be satisfied with just one girl…until he'd been with them all. Fortunately, for Brisa this excluded her because she was his cousin.
Not that she wasn't pretty to look at, in fact it was quite the opposite. She had long silky chocolate brown hair that curled at the end when it came down to her shoulders with coffee brown eyes that always held a glint of mischief in them. She also had a slender figure and looked the delicate sort. Yet her attitude told a completely different story. For those that knew Brisa very well they knew exactly what they were dealing with. However, for those who didn't know her as well as the others did they usually ended up getting a huge surprise. Brisa may have looked like a mouse on the outside; however, her fiery personality always made waves that only proved that she was definitely not a frightened mouse.
Back to breakfast that morning.
"I'm fine." She said to her uncle as she looked over in her cousin's direction. She then proceeded to ask her cousin a question,
"Patrick, I was kind of wondering if you'd mind giving me a ride to school this morning. Can you?" she asked expectantly.
Patrick just shook his head and said,
"Sorry cuz' but I can't today. I met this girl Elena Winslow yesterday at the snack bar on campus and I offered to drive her to class this morning." As he continued, Brisa could see the excitement in his eyes when he mentioned the new girl he'd just met.
Unfortunately, she couldn't keep herself from rolling her eyes at her cousin's sudden fascination for this new girl. It would figure that the one day when she hadn't accepted a ride with her friend Maya, Patrick becomes unavailable. Not to mention, that Henry already left for work and Angela had gone with him, as well. Therefore, she was stuck without a ride. On the other hand, Brisa should be used to this sort of thing by now. Still she hated the fact that a total stranger took priority over her. Nevertheless, it couldn't be helped and it certainly didn't help the present situation.
With a slight hint of bitterness in her voice she spoke directly to her cousin,
"Fine…I'll just walk to school today. But you owe me Patrick."
With that said and done, she picked up her backpack and headed out towards the front door. As she got to the doorway, she yelled, "Bye!"
As she walked down the street, she finally came to the nearest corner so she could cross. Like always, she first looked both ways just to make sure that nobody was coming while she tried to cross the road. After making sure it was safe, she began to make her away slowly across the road. She never even saw the vehicle that came around the corner heading in her direction.
It wasn't until she heard the blaring music from the rolled down windows and the squeal of tires that she looked up to see the unknown vehicle coming towards her. It was also apparent to her that the driver wasn't paying much attention to the road or else he would have noticed that there was someone crossing the street.
Brisa became terribly aware of what was going on and for some strange reason she immediately froze in her tracks. Still it was a good thing for her that the driver of the vehicle also became aware that she was there, as well. For that reason, the car came to a sudden halt and right in front of Brisa.
After catching her breath, Brisa immediately snapped out of her daze and figured that whatever moron was driving the car. They obviously didn't know how to drive properly.
"You, idiot!" she shrieked loudly to the driver of the car. "You do realize that you could have run me over," she continued to shout.
It was extremely obvious to the driver of the vehicle that his 'almost' victim wasn't very happy. Unfortunately, he couldn't keep himself from rolling his eyes at the young woman's retort. As a result, he rolled down his other window and stuck his head out towards to look at her.
"Well maybe if you hadn't stopped in the middle of the road. I wouldn't have nearly run you over. So technically it wasn't really my fault was it?" he said with a smirk on his face.
Knowing that there was no way she could counter his argument. Brisa just wanted to scream and wipe that smirk off his face. Because never in her life had she felt this annoyed with someone before and the worse part was that she didn't even know him. Instead, she decided it was better to leave. In view of the fact that this encounter wasn't worth wasting her time arguing with someone she didn't know. Besides, she had to go anyways seeing as how she'd be late for school.
"Look pal! I'm going to be late for class and I really don't feel like getting into a fight with someone I'm most likely never going to see again in my life so goodbye!"
With that last comment, Brisa took off and headed to school.
The young man in the car stared after her with an amused grin on his face. He thought it was too bad that he wouldn't get a chance to see the girl again. Given that, she was the first girl who hadn't fallen for his charm right off.
'Oh well, one can't have everything in life,' he thought. He than realized that she mentioned being late for school. He knew that if he didn't get a move on as well, he was going to be late, also.
Finally, about thirty minutes later Brisa arrived at school and was lucky because there was still time before the first bell rang. However, she was still in a bad mood since the incident and wasn't likely to forget about it soon. Instead, she thought it best to go looking for her two friends Maya Baker and Victor Gomez. The three had been friends since kindergarten and have been inseparable since.
After searching for them Brisa finally found them in their first period class of World Literature. As usual, both Maya and Victor were sitting in the front row talking about something. Curious as to the topic of discussion Brisa felt the need to ask,
"Hey, guys what are you talking about?"
With that question both Maya and Victor stopped talking in order to look directly at her.
"Hey Brisa, we're talking about that new movie that's called Troy," said Maya excitedly.
"What about it?" Brisa asked dully. Since she couldn't understand why they'd want to talk about that particular movie.
"Nothing…it's just since we read the Iliad last month we wondered if anybody had done the same as well," Victor said. At this comment, Brisa had to raise her eyebrows.
"Just so you know neither the epic poem nor the movie have anything in common. The movie is completely different from the poem that Homer wrote. I wouldn't be surprised if Homer rolled over in his grave at what a travesty they made his work into," Brisa said sarcastically as she sat in the desk next to Maya.
At hearing, this remark both Maya and Victor just shrugged and rolled their eyes at Brisa. Seeing as how it wasn't the first time, she complained about not liking the movie. However, that didn't mean she had to be so melodramatic about the entire thing. As a result, they both gave up on persuading her that it was a good movie to watch.
In an instant, the bell rang. Leaving the three to sit back and wait for class to start. The teacher, Mr. Gauss began to discuss the subject for the day's lesson but as usual, nobody was really paying attention to him. Everyone knew how boring his lessons were and for that reason everybody was half-sleep during his class.
Brisa for her part was so lost in thought that she hadn't been paying attention when Mr. Gauss introduced the new student. It wasn't until the new boy sat next to her in the vacant seat on the right side of her that she noticed that he had blonde hair and icy blue eyes. At first, she didn't think there was anything special about him and yet for a moment she could have sworn that he looked familiar. It wasn't until the boy noticed her looking in his direction he gave her a slight smirk. With that one action, it hit Brisa like a ton of bricks. The guy smirking at her was the same idiot who almost ran over earlier. She couldn't believe her rotten luck. Brisa could only scowl in return and in a shrill voice said, "You!"
A/N: So was this good so far? Please review and tell me.