Synopsis: The two swimmer children Nishir and Takari couldn't be more different but, regardless, they're very close friends. Living in a small, sheltered valley near the coast with their small herd, their life is full of games, laughter and ridicule for those two. Nishir hates Takari because of her passion to make fun of him whenever physically possible. She's always pranking, teasing or embarrassing him as well as winning most of their games, however he is also enticed by her ways and her good looks. Too shy to admit his feelings and too afraid to be the center of the girl's ridicule, their relationship stalls despite Takari's obvious hints and Nishir reluctantly accepts the frequent humiliation. However, things change dramatically for the two swimmers when, suddenly, they lose everything they ever cared about. Left with only each other, their despair and a faint hope of a new land across the Big Water, they set out on a journey not only to find a new home but to find themselves as well.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Prologue:"Where do you come from?"
"Where are your parents?"
"What happened to your tail?"
"Are you two siblings?"
"No, they look much more like lov...""Hey, not everyone at once, alright?"
Kids... The only thing greater than their energy is their curiosity which knows no boundaries but their own fantasy. I am being cornered with questions - no, bombarded! Four little swimmers are gathered in front of me, little rascals, let me tell you! The moment I saw them for the first time, I knew they'd be trouble. Although a few seasons younger than me, they remind me of my brothers and sisters and of the fact that, in spite of all that happened in recent times, I am still a child myself."I'm Nishir," I introduce myself, trying to get a good first impression on these younger children and trying to look cool in front of them but I think I butchered my expression and pose. Ignoring their perplexed looks, I look to my right. "And this is..."
"Takari, nice to meet you!" the girl next to me says with a kind smile, waving cheerfully in greeting.
Darn, why did they buy that but not my introduction?! Ah, I guess I should be glad to see that smile of hers again - although it also means she's back to her cheeky, annoying self, ugh!You may wonder; why are we introducing ourselves to a bunch of children we don't know? We, that is Takari and me, Nishir, just got adopted and we've been through a lot, let me tell you that. These guys are going to be our new siblings and, for better or worse, we'll have to get to know each other and those goofballs are already excited!
"I know y'all are super-duper excited to get to know your new siblings," I proclaim in a dramatic fashion, waving around with my arms. "I bet you got lots of questions so how about..."
"Storytime!" My expression freezes over as Takari steals their attention with frightening efficiency.
Darn that girl, I bet she does that just to annoy me! She ALWAYS does that kinda stuff! And now she's totally spoiling my first impression on our new siblings!"We'll tell you how we ended up joining your family and..." She makes a dramatic pause and, quite unlike my attempt, she absolutely absorbs the kids with her words.
"... and after story time, you can ask until your beaks fall off! Does that sound good?"The roaring cheers are a testimony that Takari captured their attention excellently -
well, maybe I would have made it too if she hadn't intervened! Anyway, I think I shouldn't complain, especially since she seems to have them wrapped up which also means that they will probably not interrupt too much and listen. I take a deep breath, clear my throat, exchange one more glance with Takari. She nods; I nod as well. Both of us still haven't fully digested what we had to go through - Takari still cries when she goes to sleep and I am still haunted by sleep stories. Neither of us are quite comfortable with reliving the horrors of the past but this is also our chance to move on and start anew.
"Mind you, this isn't a happy story but it has a happy ending. It is the story about how the two of us lost everything we had... And how we ended up coming to this island..."
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Hi all
The fanfiction prompt challenge is entering its next season and while this is once again going to put a hiatus on my ongoing longfics, I couldn't resist writing a story for the first prompt as it has so many possibilities that I actually had to filter what kind of ideas I wanted to use. I'm going to be using the dialogue prompt but it'll take a while for the line to appear. What expects you in this story? A completely original story, probably around 50k words or a little more, based on the two characters who just introduced themselves. It's my first attempt writing 1st person POV so bear with me if it doesn't work and let me know if something needs fixing!
This also challenges me with a new system of formatting as you may have noticed in this short prologue. While writing, I noticed that it often wasn't very easy to tell who is talking so I had to come up with something.Normal text: Nishir is narrating, either in dialogue or narrator-style prose.
normal italics: Nishir is thinking or having an inner monologue.BOLD: Someone other than Nishir is talkingI hope that avoids any confusion
I'm going to upload chapter 1 along with the prologue as it is so short. Let me know what you think
PS: I think you can tell that formatting this story on the forum would be hell. Therefore, I'm making an exception and will be linking to the chapters on ff.net for this story.________________________________________________________________________________________________
Link to ff.net: Chapter 1: When everything was still good