The writing has been a bit slow lately, but since I’ve got several chapters already written, the writer’s block will hopefully be out of the way before it becomes an obstacle. Happy reading!
Vicki_Turner -Thanks!
ponypetter - Thanks!
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A Light In Dark Places – Chapter VII
It had not been difficult for Pippin to find Diamond at all, though he never actually approached her during those long sessions she would spend in the library – she seemed able to read a great deal of books, though, in a very short amount of time. During the next week he would often watch her through the doorway, not saying anything – he never stood for very long, wary not to make anyone think he had a sudden fascination with Diamond.
In the time that he watched her, which was no more than a few intervals at a time, each of which lasted only a couple minutes in which he would pretend to have just been passing by, he saw her read no less than twenty books – and, he reminded himself later, that was only what he counted in the time that he had watched her. No doubt she had read many more than that, many more than he himself had ever or would ever read in his own lifetime. It was staggering to think about, and he preferred not to.
For the most part, he spent his days with Fosco, not all of which were filled with the playing of pranks on unsuspecting victims, but they were by no means lazy during this time – Amethyst and Garnet, as well as Pervinca Took were the sufferers of most of their high jinks, though they were never anything at all terribly embarrassing. Mostly pushing them down when they weren’t looking, and when they turned around in a fury of anger there would be no one behind, so they were left to wonder what had happened and whether or not they had just tripped. These were simple tricks, but Pippin and Fosco always reminded themselves that the best – or in the view of the lasses, the worst – was yet to come.
“I have a feeling that Merry would be most upset if he were to see me now, for once going easy on my sister,” Pippin said to Fosco, “Though it’s perhaps for the best – after that talk my father gave me, I think it’s best to keep my head down for now.”
“Don’t want to get in too much trouble, of course,” Fosco said in agreement, “Although we’ve always had a talent for getting ourselves out of it just as easily.”
And always when tormenting Pervinca became boring, Pippin would be content enough to watch Diamond from afar – however, it wasn’t long until another became aware of this.
“Why do you watch me constantly?” Diamond said one day, look up at him from her book as it often did.
“Well, I thought it would have been obvious,” he said, entering the room with a grin on his face.
She blushed a deep red and smiled. “Why you’d want to watch me I haven’t the slightest. I’m not very interesting.”
“Well, what if I said I think you’re quite interesting – what would you say?”
“I’d ask what was wrong with you to think such things as that that no one – save for my brother Fosco – has ever thought before.”
“Only Fosco? I find that hard to believe,” Pippin said with a grin that matched the one he saw on her own face, “A spirited lass such as yourself should have quite a few more friends than her own brother.”
“I wouldn’t call myself spirited – but you’re welcome to think that about me,” she said grinning, and giggled to herself as she spoke. Pippin only took it perhaps as a good sign, one that meant she might have been opening up to him. However, in the open doorway of the library stood Fosco, a similar grin upon his own face as he watched Diamond and Pippin. She grinned once more as she looked past Pippin to her brother. “Most people think I’m just a strange lass who has no friends.”
“Well, why would they think that? I understand if your sisters Amethyst and Garnet would say that about you, they’re quite scheming after all.”
“Well,” Diamond said nervously, putting down the book she had been reading, “Of course I read quite a bit, which turns most people off – and also –” She lowered her head, afraid to speak further.
“What? What is it?”
She looked up again. “Everyone has dreams – I’m sure even you do. But they never amount to anything, mostly just the nighttime ramblings of our minds, benign desires that go ignored during the day,” she said, “For me, though, I think it’s different. My brother admits to rarely remembering his dreams at night, and those that he does remember are incoherent – falling through space into a bottomless hole, or having all his teeth fall out. Mundane things like that.”
“I’ve had a few dreams like that,” Pippin admitted.
“So have I, a few times – but sometimes, I have real dreams, involving real people. Me, my brother – even you,” she said, her cheeks blushing a light red, “Sometimes they’re just little pieces of everyday life, like I’m sitting in the dining hall, eating dinner – my mother asks me to pass the salt, and I do – but in handing it to her, I let go of it too soon, it falls on the table and some of the salt spills onto her lap.”
“That’s nothing out of the ordinary. That’s happens often, and is sometimes the cause of the feeling you get when you think you’ve lived a certain moment of life before.”
“I know – but I dreamt it one night, and thought nothing of it the next morning. Then a few days later, it happened, exactly the way I had dreamt it, down to the last detail. And it’s not just everyday occurrences – my brother, when he was fifteen, fell off his pony and broke his arm. I dreamed it a week before it happened – that was the first instance I can remember of it occurring. I was only four years old then.”
Pippin pondered her words, his hand upon his chin. “So you have – intuitions, perhaps, if I may call them that?”
“Yes, you might say so – I can’t control them, though, and I can’t decide what I see – sometimes I see benign things, and sometimes not. My sister Amethyst was involved in that same accident with my brother, on another pony – she injured her leg, but I don’t remember seeing that.”
“Perhaps because you feel contempt for her.”
“Perhaps – but I have seen other incidents involving my sisters. I don’t tell them, of course, they wouldn’t believe me anyway. Fosco does, but they always seem to happen, no matter if they’re warned –” She broke off, a faraway look in her eyes. “You probably think I’m weird, don’t you? I shouldn’t have told you that, I shouldn’t have told you any of that,” she stated nervously, standing up to leave.
“No! Please don’t go!” Pippin said, standing up as well and grabbing her by the arm – he whirled her around to face him, “Whatever you have, whatever this – intuition of yours means, it is not weird. By all means, I’d think it was a blessing, to be able to see things before they happened.”
“Oh – um, thank you,” she said strangely, not quite sure how to accept what he’d said, “I’d better be going then – um, bye.” And she left the library, leaving a confused and bewildered Pippin behind her.
“Well, he took it well, I suppose,” Fosco said to her once she was out in the hallway, “See, not everyone thinks you’re weird.”
“Yeah, sure,” Diamond said, punching him gently on the shoulder.
“I noticed you didn’t tell him about the dream you had, concerning him.”
“You mean the one I told you about? He doesn’t need to hear about that,” she said, “He doesn’t like to talk about where he and the others went – it’s a sensitive subject for him, I’d rather not bring it up.”
“Well, you’d be the one to sense that, I suppose,” he said, placing an arm around her shoulder, “My little sister, the clairvoyant.”