Dawn
Probably the last oldie I'll be posting. My, for a fur, I don't seem to write a lot of stuff that deals with the subject, do I? That'll soon be rectified, so no worries.
This was just a little thing I felt like doing for a character of mine while I work a bit on description. It's not really that much of a story so much as a prologue of something that I probably won't be getting to till way down the line and will likely rewrite this by the time I get to that point. Still, I like it well enough for what it is, flawed though it may be.
Enjoy. Love it, hate it, let me know.
The first glinting rays of dawn peeked in from the window blinds, gliding over the piles and piles of disheveled astronomy books covering the floor from corner to corner. Stacks of opened textbooks on space travel and physics, both ancient and modern, lay haphazard over every flat surface available in the tiny apartment. Plastic and paper mache rocket models of all size and form glinted in the morning light as they hang from wires on the ceiling or sat undisturbed on trays and holding beams. Board after board stood in rows along the untidy bedroom wall, not an inch left uncovered with sheets of painstakingly detailed charts, maps and figures.
The strong scent of coffee lingered among the specks of dust floating lazily in the sunlight, and with it came the furious scratching of pencil and pen on paper. The girl, lanky and pale, stood bent over her desk cluttered with dishes and texts, pouring over an open physics book as she jotted down notes in her trapper-keeper, writing swiftly but lightly so as not to crinkle or rip another page. Her hazel eyes zipped back and forth between the book and her notes and never an inch elsewhere, squeezing a brace in her free hand, only pausing to wipe the fallen crumbs from the pages as she nibbled away at the just barely burnt piece of toast hanging in her mouth.
Minutes passed and she clapped the textbook shut with a hearty sigh. She stepped back, popped the toast out of her mouth as she rubbed the back of her leg with a socked foot. Giving her notes one last look-over, strode without looking to her bathroom, taking a few more bites and painfully banging her foot against another stack of books and papers as she went. The small apartment sang with the faint sound of her humming, or was she reciting her notes, as the rooms gradually filled and lit up with the glow of dawn. The bathroom door slowly opened, heat and steam wafting with her as she emerged wrapped in a towel, her auburn hair pulled back and taut into a bun with plumes of hair splaying out like the petals of a hibiscus. She padded to her bedroom, quickly slipped on a t-shirt , track pants and her favorite orange high-tops, and gave one last look in the bedroom mirror for the day.
She stared at the tall, pale lass with her dark freckles, skinny nose and tiny cheekbones, peering back at her in those wrinkled old hand-me-downs, and smiled, clapping both hands to her face. At the vanity desk laid a framed photo. She picked it up and gazed wistfully at the gorgeous older woman in the picture, posing in an austere alabaster dress outside an opulent manor, gracing the photographer with an enchanting smile. Her smile shrank just a tiny bit as she looked into it, a shade of longing in her eyes as she sat it back down. She looked back at her reflection, gave herself a determined nod, perhaps a wish of good luck, and bounded out the door. She stuffed her notebooks, charts and papers into a hefty duffel bag and, with a slight confidence in her step, headed out the door. She strode proudly through the apartment hallways, not another soul awake. The soft thuds of her sure-footed steps the only sound in the whole building.
She stepped out into the budding dawn, shielding her eyes. She returned a friendly wave from the mailman down the block, crossed the busy street to her favorite spot on the sidewalk that bordered the ocean, shimmering gold in the light of dawn and paused. There, in the distant bright haze, she saw the thin, blue outline of the Heaven Stairway, a transport elevator that stretched impossibly long into the sky, broken in places by massive round plates hovering in the clouds.
Fixed on her destination, she set herself on her morning routine. She tapped her shoes on the concrete. She brought her hand to her heart and took a long, deep breath, her grip tightening around the duffel strap. She shut her eyes in silence. And then, she bent her knees and launched herself forward on the ball of her foot. And she was off.
The girl raced along through the gleam of dawn, through the noise of rush hour traffic and the stinging wind of sea salt. Both legs shot out one after the other in long, practiced strides, her free elbow bent and thrusting her arm back and forth, propelling her forward in a marathon runners' sprint. She kept running for mile after mile, never stopping. Her body never wobbled or lost footing even with the heavy bag at her side, her pace of breath never slowed, her gaze never wavered even an inch, always fixed on that distant point on the horizon. Always looking forward.
And she kept running and running until, finally, she stood, panting and bent at the knees, at the tall, glass entrance of the Heaven's Stairway Base Center. The complex's ornately designed granite walls and architecture towered over her, huge throngs of workers cascading in and out of the many automatic glass doors. With a grunt, she willed herself to her feet when a familiar voice called out to her, a rotund Chow-Chow jogging up to her from the opposite direction with a wave and a huge grin, and she took one look at him and lit up with a warm smile.
xXx
The CrossingTech branch elevator streaked upward through the sky, the slanted metal panels enclosing the shaft streaking the room with constant swaths of shadow.
"You excited for your big day?" The Chow-Chow asked the girl as they ascended, both changed into their grey business uniforms. "Stupid question, I know." He added, his cute ears flicking.
"Can I let you in on a secret?" She said with a sly wink.
"Shoot."
"The stress is killing me." She said, slumping against the wall. For emphasis, she held out her palm and wiggled her fingers for him, calling his attention to what was left of her jagged, chewed-down nails.
"Really? Never noticed, honest."
She frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"
The chubby dog simply pointed at her, noting her suit's sloppy, wrinkled creases, sleeves and shoulders. She looked over herself nervously and huffed. "At least I can fit in mine." She said, pointing at his and noticed him it barely seemed to contain his broad, muscled frame and round belly.
"Always have to zero in on the gut, huh?" He said as he proudly patted his stomach, pretending to sound hurt. A shrill beeping noise filled the elevator and a zero-gravity LED flashed into existence above the CrossingTech logo at the door. The girl and dog grabbed onto the handle bars above them as their legs started to float weightlessly into the air.
"They always train you to aim for the biggest target." She said, poking her tongue out at him.
The big dog smirked and nodded to her feet. "And what do you call those?"
She shot him a quizzical look, peered down and nearly shrieked in horror. In her exhausting rush to work, she neglected in her jog-clouded haze to change out of her raggedy, eye-scaldingly orange hi-tops, the laces scuffed with gray and worn down to a frail thread in places. She scrunched her legs up under her where se floated like she'd just seen a spider on the bathroom floor and just stewed in beet-red embarassment.
"Ooooooh, of course! Of course I do this. Knew I forgot something."
"Too bad, this is a one-way trip. You don't want to go back and make a bad first impression by being tardy, do you?" The Chow said with a coy, amused smirk on his lips.
"Leave me alone, geez." She muttered with her eyes to the floor, keeping her milky, beanpole legs hidden beneath her. The entire shaft went dark as it passed through another plate checkpoint, the automatic lights switching on after a moment.
"C'mon, relax. I'm sure no one will notice. The bigwigs up in the Tech and Travel Branches aren't that uptight."
"You know, I kinda wish they were." She loosened her grip on the handle, letting herself droop down and rest in the cloudy sensation of low gravity, as if on a hammock of sheer air. "Least I'm used to that."
"Well, it won't be a cakewalk, but they obviously see something in you, kiddo. I wouldn't be too worried." The dog said, hoisting himself up a little. His kind, beady eyes glinted down at her and he gave her a reassuring smile. "They noticed just how much you bust your ass with all that studying and hard work, and I've got it on good authority that Chief Moria's pretty interested in your branch's project idea."
That got her attention.
"The Project Chief? Really? How'd he see it?"
The dog smiled so wide you could see his every fang and molar. "Maybe you've got someone looking out for ya."
"How did-"
"Up up up." He wiggled a finger at her. "A magician never reveals his secrets."
The girl started to retort, but simply breathed out her relief and let herself hang on the air, a look of renewed, or maybe just reinforced, hope evident in her closed eyes, slight smile and easy whisper.
"So, maybe w can still pull this off, after all."
"It's sure starting to look that way." The big dog said. He reached down to take her hand and gently pulled her back up.
"I'll see if I can't pull some strings and get some of the hardasses to take it easy on you till you get comfortable."
"What? Oh, no. You don't have to do that. I don't need any privileges. I'll be fi-" She tried to pull back to her wall but the Chow-Chow get her hand in his firm grip. His ears drooped and his wide grin turned to a small, but no less warm smile.
"You've done great, kiddo. I really can't mean that enough. I knew the second you first walked into our R&D Branch you'd be going nowhere but up, now all you've gotta do is keep it up." The dog shook their hands to accentuate his words, and she felt her facial expression slowly soften with every one, heat building around her cheeks. "Just keep focused and do your best. Like I said, I'll try to get some of those graypelts to lighten up and get the project throu-"
"Hey, what's with the pep talk all of a sudden?" She looked away, forcing a chuckle. "I'm not that scared, really. You've done enough" She felt without looking that his paw was loosening and held it back.
"But, you knew I'd come up here too, someday. I told you when you left that'd I'd be right on your tail, didn't I?" She said with a wink.
The big dog simply smirked and shook her hand even tighter. "That ya did, that ya did. Took ya a little while, though."
She smirked right back and gripped him even tighter. "That just gave me more time to learn my stuff. Next time, I'll be the one getting a sweet new chair and an office I don't have to squat in."
"Then that settles it then. The next time we move up in the company, we do it together." He leaned in real close and gave her another huge, cocky smirk. "Deal?"
The girl blushed beet red, letting her fingers glide free from his hand and rest on his fist, and she emphatically nodded with a huff of pride. And just then, she blinked against the flooding wave of brilliant dawn light that flew over them and looked out, eyes wide with wonder at the magnificent floating monolith of the Heaven Outer Symphonian Reasarch Complex stretching out for untold miles in every direction above them. It's flashing neon lights, countless expanses of towers and antennas , sprawling networks of transport tubes, and the thin sapphire needles of other elevator shafts all stood in picturesque beauty bathed in the ethereal golden light, visible shafts of light bending and draping down around every edge and shape like crystalline curtains to welcome them.
The Chow-Chow whistled at the view and felt her hand slip from hers. He looked over and saw her letting herself float, slowly, gently, against the wall, simply drifting in still, harmonious silence, her brown eyes just drinking it all in.
"We did it, Palmeppo." She finally said, forehead resting on the glass, her voice barely a whisper.
"You did it, Julie. This was all you."
A teardrop slid down her cheek and she chuckled. "Don't make me kick you."