Disclaimer: Homestuck is (c) Andrew Hussie

Your name is Aranea Serket and you've just passed the fifty-book limit of your school library.

You didn't actually mean to. It'd just happened. Then again, that's how just about everything seemed to work in the library. Real time and real limits barely even seemed to exist between the large shelves and the eye-catching titles.

Alright, so maybe you'd taken out a few too many autobiographies piled in with books on hypnosis and psychoanalysis, but it wasn't really your fault. If anything, you should have been praised for having such an avid interest in literature.

"Miss Serket, I'm afraid you'll be seeing the dean about this."

"About the books?" You put your hands on your hips, because what sort of crazy request was that? And a visit to the dean, in your senior year. Okay, that wouldn't be anything too major, but it wouldn't necessarily be a good thing.

"Yes, about the books." The librarian, who, surprisingly, is not a woman in horn-rimmed glasses but a man who looks as though he could be a participant in the after section of a vitamin commercial. "Passing the limit requires a meeting with the dean."

"I don't think I understand," you say, even though you understand perfectly.

The librarian looks down dubiously at your books. "Listen, you took out too many books. That's that. Do you really need all of these?"

"Yes," you say by default.

The librarian is about to respond to you when someone else drops a book down on the circulation desk with a loud thump. You instinctively step out of the way, and have a slight urge to run when you see how it is.

Meenah Peixes, nicknamed 'Mean-ah' in fourth grade. The name had stuck, probably because she hadn't changed too much. Peixes was famous for dumping boys and friends and basically anybody who came within four feet of her.

Your eyes wander to the books she's taken out, and then widen as you realize that she's taken out a double copy of one of your psychoanalysis books. "Hey, librarian," She looks down as his card. "Ahem, Mr. H, I'll take these." He nods hurriedly, and you find yourself just staring at her. "What're you lookin' at? Do I have something in my hair?"

"Oh, no, of course not."

Meenah looks over at you, and notices your mammoth pile of books. "That's a lot of shit you're taking out." Ordinarily, somebody would've reprimanded her, but you get the sense that with Meenah, everybody has just given up.

"Yeah," you say slowly.

"Hey, Mr. H. I'll take the kid's books too."

"You're past the limit, then."

Meenah snatches away the psychoanalysis book and puts it down in the book drop. She then sorts through your books a bit and grabs an autobiography by some actress and puts it down beside the psychoanalysis book. "Elizabeth Taylor was a huge bitch anyways. There, only forty-eight now, forty-nine counting mine. C'mon, Mr. H, check 'em out." She taps her fingers impatiently on the circulation desk.

You fumble for the large bag that you were using to carry the books and Meenah dumps all of them inside it. "Thank you," you say, always polite.

"No problem, Serket."

You're surprised that she actually remembers your last name. "You actually know my name?" You really need to work on your internal editor.

"Aw, Serket, 'course I do. You and I were fucking tight in kindergarten. I shoved sand down your dress couple times and used to steal your snacks. But we had some fuckin' intense pretend games." She laughs her raucous, rude laugh.

"I don't think I remember that," you say, but a bit of recollection comes back to you. "Oh, yes, I recall it! You stole my orange juice and got halfway to the bathroom with it before our teacher caught you and put you in time-out." You've got a bit of a problem with rambling, or so you've been told.

"Oh, yeah, I totally remember that."

You have to wonder why Meenah Peixes of all people is walking you out of the library and back to class. She doesn't seem to have any friends at all and doesn't seem to be too interested in the concept either.

You change the subject. "I didn't know you were interested in therapy and psychoanalysis, too."
Meenah grins at you. She looks awfully scary when she grins, her teeth almost look sharp, and the way her hips move when she walks gives off an air of 'don't mess with me.'

She's a small, intense-looking girl with two long braids coming from the top of her head and pink cat's-eye glasses that make her look as though she's always scrutinizing you. Or maybe that's her natural expression, since you have the same kind and you never look like that.

"Oh, yeah, I love all that crap about mental illness. Aranea, that stuff is hella useful when you've got siblings like mine."

"What are your siblings like?" You have to think of yours, Vriska, your terror a middle-schooler sister who likes to kill bugs, and your older sibling off in college who you only have very vague recollections of.

"Oh, you don't even want to know. Hell, my younger sister is like, you remember those little kid shows about nature? She's the living incarnation of the main character of some of those fucking kiddy nature shows."

"That doesn't sound too bad."

"Oh, it is. She's got a damn aquarium, three terrariums, and she's the captain of the eighth grade swim team and she made them practice in a motherfucking pond once." You can't help it, you start laughing at the image of a bunch of middle schoolers swimming around in a pond. "And my older sis...god, I don't even want to think about her. She flunked outta college and spends all her time either cooking or saying creepy little whispers about world domination."

"I can see why you would need the mental illness books," you say through your giggles. "My younger sister, Vriska, her name is, she's an absolute terror. She has a bunch of pet spiders that she burns alive if she gets mad, and she got in a bike accident when she was eight that involved her losing an eye."

Meenah raises her eyebrows. "Damn."

You realize that for the last couple of minutes, you've been having civil conversation with Mean-ah Peixes, whom everybody is afraid of so much as saying hello to. "Yeah, pretty much."

Meenah laughs again. "Hey, Serket, I really like that dress on you." She points at your cerulean-colored dress that you wear nearly every day.

"Oh, thank you," you say, blushing slightly.

"You got a prom date?"

"Of course not." You say it like it's the most preposterous idea on earth, because really, to you, it is.

"Could I have the honor?"

You blink at her from behind your glasses. "Did you just ask me to prom?"

"Do you want me to motherfucking say it again?" Meenah snaps her fingers impatiently, but you can tell there isn't really that much real negative intent behind it.

"Well, I suppose..."

"Come on, you can do better than that."

"Fine, I'll go to prom with you."

Meenah claps you on the back. "That's the spirit, and I mean, we could just go as friends. The kissin' and dancin' part isn't totally mandatory."

Your name is Aranea Serket and you're finding yourself weirdly okay with the idea of kissing and dancing with Mean-ah Peixes.

okay, well, my first Homestuck fanfic. Les8ifins is beautiful.