Writing: Abnormality, Not Prodigy

    I feel rather pleased with myself at the moment. I added a whole new tag to my tagging system on my blog.

    Sad, right?

    Here I am, though, with the obligatory once-a-month post. I was hoping this was the second one this month and was going to make vague allusions to the possible end of the world because there were two blog posts in one month, and then realized this was the first. So. Never mind with that.

    As for the title, the kinks are still getting worked out. That was the first thing that popped into my head when I sat down and scrawled down five pages one evening for Jaz.

    Yes, we're going back to Jaz. But this time, back to the beginning. 

    Truth be told, I am really pleased with all the background development that occurred during the course of writing these segments earlier this month. It's a bit more summary than I usually write, because I was aiming for quantity and not detail. 

    Before we begin, I would like to note a content warning for somewhat mature themes. Nothing too major, but it's better safe than sorry, ne? Also, this is just a portion of what I wrote, because I didn't want to leave it as a total cliffhanger. Not that it was the worst one I've pulled, but still. I'll see how this goes over then post more.

    Let's go, then, and you can leave your confused questions in the comments afterwards, as my brain is rather scattered today.


    She wasn’t yet thirteen when the yearly trials rolled around. She didn’t know if she had a snowball’s chance of making it past even the preliminary round, lacking not only the gender, but the pedigree and public face that usually came with those who made it into the final fifty candidates. 
    Jasmine had to push her hung-over and malnourished father out of bed and from there to the bathroom. She hadn’t explained it to him. She wasn’t planning on it. All that was needed was his presence and his name, and if she got him sobered up enough, then he would be able to provide both. 
    This was her only chance. If she couldn’t get through this and make something of herself, then she may as well just give up and follow in either of her parents’ footsteps right now, because there would be no other options. She had more street smarts than book schooling and that lack meant that she would never receive a penny of financial aid to continue her schooling. She could work for the money, but the positions available to her would mean working for years—maybe even a decade—just to scrape up enough for the first few years of higher education.
    Plus, the entity that was the elite force of highly trained soldiers that protected their city-state of Busan had been her hero since she’d been small. Well, smaller. She wasn’t much more to look at at almost-thirteen than she’d been at seven. 
    The trials were a big thing for Busan—probably were no matter what city-state one was in. The streets that she’d grown up running through were alive with activity, festooned with banners and flags. Anyone who had a uniform was wearing it, and everyone else was dressed up to the nines for the occasion.
    Jaz got her uncooperative auburn hair up in a high pony-tail, made sure there was no dirt on her face or hands, and tugged on a too-large shirt and cropped off pants that she’d been saving for this day alone. They weren’t new, but they were clean, and that was what mattered right now. 
    Her stomach, empty since early yesterday evening, churned despite that fact. She’d only been able to manage water, her nerves were so bad. This wasn’t done. What she was attempting didn’t happen. It wasn’t a case of “no one in history” but it was still going to be difficult for her to even get a foot in the door. Busan’s societal rings were far more lax than other city-states, but there were tendencies and prejudices not easily overcome, and considering how many candidates would come from families with innate abilities going back centuries… Jasmine O’Haire, daughter of a drunk and a prostitute, had her work cut out for her. 

//

    Jaz hurried along at her father’s side, having to pull him along by the arm while trying to keep his attention long enough to tutor him in what she needed him to do. Get them in the front door, present the official documents held tightly in her free hand, put his name and hers down on the dotted line, and then let her do the rest. The cold flask in her back pocket, hidden beneath the long hem of her black shirt, was his incentive. 
    Nobody paid them much attention as they wound their way through the gathering crowds early that morning, following the path that Jaz had stalked out four or five times over the past three days. Only a third of the masses of people would end up in the actual audience for the physical portion of the evaluation later in the day. Most were just taking the opportunity to escape work for a day and celebrate with their friends. 
    When they neared the testing building outside the city walls along with a small trickle of other people, Jaz steered them right. Candidates had an alternate entrance than those who were coming to watch. Now they got some looks. Her father’s halting stagger combined with her significantly less decorously attired appearance made them stand out.
     Jaz just held her chin a bit higher and made sure to straighten her back. She had a right to be here, just as much as any of these other candidates. She had not only the capability, but the desire to perform and perform well today.
    Maybe not as well as everybody else was going to, but they had a leg-up in that their families would’ve been grooming them for it since a young age. Jaz had had only herself and the offhand comment of a black-ops captain to push her to try and manifest an ability she could feel in the pit of her stomach, the tips of her fingers.
    There was a strength inside of her, one that Jaz had never dreamed she’d have, and she was determined to unlock it, even if she had to go head-to-head with every privileged and gifted kid her age. 

    The academics were the difficult part. 
    After making it through the initial identity check and verification, whereupon she had found a side door to let her father out after slapping the alcohol into his hand, it was onto the educational examination. But because her nerves had gotten her out the door so early, Jaz found herself ushered into an empty classroom, instructed to sit at any desk she wanted, and was left alone. 
    Over the following hour and a half and a twenty minute nap at the beginning, other candidates trickled in. Jasmine had taken a seat next to the far wall, two rows from the end. The rest of the examinees—mostly boys who eyed her with either curiosity, disdain, or disinterest—filled in the rest of the space. 
    Jaz knew that the volume of these trials meant there were likely to be three or four other classrooms just like this one that would be filled to capacity. 
    Almost two hours after her initial arrival, one man and one woman entered the room, he carrying a stack of folders and she with a clipboard under her arm. The conversations that had been carrying on ceased in seconds as everyone became aware of the two proctors.
    It took work for Jaz to keep from shrinking in her seat. She knew she stood out like a sore thumb. She wore her poverty as those around her wore their fortune. No doubt, all their mothers had spent hours fussing that morning, combing hair, fixing pants, cleaning off that last vestige of breakfast.
    Jaz had no mother to do that for her and felt the loss badly as the expressionless adults surveyed the classroom. The girl could’ve sworn that the graying woman’s gaze rested on her for a beat longer than it did the boy ahead of her or behind her. 
    The instructions were simple. They would all get a folder, and they had exactly fifty minutes to answer, solve, and fill out the contents. Those caught cheating would be escorted out immediately. There was to be no conversing, no movement, until the time was called. Then pens were to be dropped and their papers returned to the folders to be retrieved by the proctors.
    Jaz wondered what happened if you threw up on the floor while the uniform-clad male started to walk through the rows and place a single gray folder on each desk followed by an equally non-descript pen.
    The proctors then each took a seat at the head of the class and the woman just said, “Begin.”
    Then the mad scramble to survey the contents of the files began and the race was on.
    Every day of missed schooling weighed more heavily on Jasmine’s shoulders in those fifty minutes than she’d ever known them to. There was so much she didn’t know, so much she could only guess at an answer for. The study help that the little old man on the corner had given her when she’d whispered in his ears that she was going to enter the trial was the only thing that kept her from drowning. Those long afternoons crouched in his alley, writing in the dirt, on the walls, came back to her and Jaz tried to recreate those moments as she wrote. Removing herself from the tension in the room was the only way to manage a clear thought.
    All too soon, the woman called, “Finish.”
    Jaz dropped her pen on the edge of her desk and watched it clatter to the floor. Relieved to have it so far out of reach and thus temptation, she shuffled her papers into her folder, closed it, and then held it in her once more sweaty palms to be picked up by the male proctor. 
    After their written tests were received and transported from the room, another, younger woman came into the room and proceeded with an oral exam. Jaz hadn’t been expecting that and had to endure snorts and titters when she stumbled over her words. 
    Her face burned when she was allowed to sit down again and she had to remind herself why she was there. 
    If she wanted to make something, someone of herself, this was it. This was her chance. If she didn’t succeed here and now, she might not be past the age-range next year, but her spirit would be broken. She wouldn’t be able to make herself endure this a second time. 
    An image of her mother’s heavy make-up and her father’s drunken haze flashed before her eyes. Jasmine sat up straighter. Forced herself to look straight ahead. She was not them. She would not be them. 
    She couldn’t be them. 
    That weakness wasn’t in her and Jaz refused to let herself fall prey to the idea that it was.
    It went better, after she built up her own courage again. 
    The following lunch hour proved a curious experience. She got the sense that it was another test, and remained wary of what was going on around her, while many of the other candidates got caught up exchanging remarks with each other about the trials thus far. 
    Jaz did have the slight advantage of her stomach still being too knotted to eat much anyways, ending up munching on the end of a loaf of bread and taking in a glass of water. This left her time to watch the comings and goings of the proctors. She watched the two that had led her class’ written examination, keeping an eye on their whereabouts. No one she’d talked to had had quite an idea of what happened in here and so she wanted to be prepared for anything. 
    If it was a test, they were never let in on it. They continued to physical examinations after that, filing through a small office for a ten minute session with an experienced doctor in groups of twenty. Jaz found that, while she was quickly learning the faces of the proctors that were in constant attendance, the appearances of her fellow examinees was lost almost as soon as she caught sight of them. There were too many, too similar, in her opinion.
    The majority was mentally filed away in the same folder anyways. Rich, proud, talented.
    Which Jaz didn’t really hold it against them, it did set them apart. 
    No one tried to address her directly, but there were whispers about who she might be, where she was from, that she ignored. Jaz did try to keep track of how many other girls there were, and was disheartened to only count five others among the countless candidates. They took only a cursory interest in her in return. 
    The physical capability was the next portion and at least this Jasmine felt good about. She’d spent her entire childhood running, hiding, ducking, and climbing, for fun, to escape trouble, or just to flee. The reason didn’t matter. It just meant that maybe she’d get a slight advantage over her blue-blood compatriots because she had real-life application of skills they had—hopefully—only groomed in controlled training sessions.
    There was no rule against preparing for the trials if you were planning on entering. Strength was gained over time and foresight was a valuable tool. Those who were weak of mind and body would wash-out eventually, one way or another.
    Jaz kept to the back of the groups she found herself in, remained watchful of everything that happened around her. There was a distant awareness of growing sound that echoed through the cavernous rooms she found herself in. 
    They were all gathered at what must’ve been the halfway point, just before the physical trials began. The names called were to stand and move towards a nearby door, where they would be escorted out to their waiting parents and guardians. If you were called, you hadn’t made the cut. 
    Jasmine sat with her fingers clenched together, knowing the starting letter of her surname would mean she was going to have to wait to know whether or not she continued into the half of the trials.
    The air was tense, strained, as one name after another was called. It felt like they were going to dismiss everyone, so many stood up, though in reality, it probably wasn’t very many. The real cuts would occur after the next portion of testing, where they decided whether or not you had enough raw talent to be worth the time.
    Jaz had almost gnawed through her lower lip when the final name was called and she’d made it through to the next phase. The urge to shout in relief was easy to curb, because she knew that it just got harder from here.
    Taking in a shaky breath, she kept focused on the proctor standing on the platform at the head of the room, waiting for their next directive. 


    Little Jaz is just... adorably earnest. So different from the confident woman we see she grows into.

    It was impossible to miss, but I did incorporate a new aspect into the story world as a whole. The "flicker" technique that Jaz is more than a little excited to realize she possesses is similar to a watered-down form of teleportation. Less spontaneous disappearing and reappearing and more instantaneous opening of a passageway through space that they "step" through and come out on the other side in a different spot than before. It creates the illusion of teleportation, but flickering requires more bodily movement.

    As you could tell, it is also not an easy technique to master. Jaz, being our spunky heroine, possesses some innate talent for flickering, but others were barely able to flicker a few feet, and some not at all. It takes a chunk of stamina to flicker and it requires consistent, aggressive training to keep the ability in "good working order", for lack of better terminology.

    To give a brief explanation of the title, if you haven't guessed it already, Jaz is going to learn quite quickly that, despite her before-stated innate ability to flicker, she is not a prodigy. She is not going to get special treatment--not in the good way, at any rate. She is an abnormality, coming from the gutters and making it through the trials. A variable in the statistics, a blip on the radar. Thus, an abnormality, not a prodigy. Anomaly, not a genius.

    So yes. I haven't come back to this cycle through Jaz's childhood quite yet, but I look forward to doing so because she meets some pretty awesome people on her path through life. Mostly her mentor dude, who is... fantastic, but you get the idea.

    Her love life is still something of a gray area, though. Which bums me out. Haydn's okay, but I'm not sure I see her ever working something out with him. We'll have to see.

    Anyways. You know where the confused questions go. 

    Thank you for reading and, as always, your patience means the world to me!

    Ad astra per aspera.
    To the stars, through difficulty.