Blue Ridge is a fictional town located deep in the heart of Kentucky. It is home to one of the most well known equestrian academies in the United States. Students and staff from all over the world join the academy for what it has to offer. Do you have what it takes to join us and learn from the Academy?
Smilys were made by Sapphire Heaven of LiveJournal.
The mini-profile hover follows a tutorial by Kagney of Adoxography.
Photos in the skin used under CC from Flickr.
Amber had never kept a journal before. She had never had a reason too. She had always told her brother everything, or almost everything, so she had never seen a reason to unload in a journal. She sudden kind of wished that she had one but she didn't say anything about it though.
"It is?" she asked in surprise. She knew that some people probably knew that she was close to her brother but she had never consider that it might be well known enough to be considered common knowledge. She did not want anything about her being considered common knowledge. She wasn't completely sure why but it made her feel uneasy to think that there might be anything about her that was known by a lot of people.
Amber thought about the question for a little bit. She was kind of stuck between a horse and a bird. The only thing she really thought would be cool about being a bird was that they could fly, or at least most of them could. She thought that she would like almost everything about being a horse, and she had tried to imagine being a horse many times in her life. "I guess I pick horse," Amber replied, "unless I can be a mythical animal, then I pick Pegasus. You?"
Post by Athena Achilles on May 21, 2015 1:34:10 GMT -8
Athena shrugged. "There aren't a lot of secrets in a small school when it comes to who people seem closest to in their family, who they miss the most and all that." She replied. "Though people think you are as close to your brother as Serenity and Tommy are." She was often jealous of how the twins acted with each other, realising all the things she had missed out on while she was growing up; a real family, love, siblings. There again though, she had always thought that brothers and sister fought like cats and dogs, but that was quickly proven wrong when she had started at the Academy.
She thought about her own question as it was turned back to her. "A phoenix." She replied with a smile. "The chance to burst into flames whenever things goes wrong and then to rise from my own ashes and start all over again. Though I think it would be a lonely life." She rolled on to her back and sucked in her lower lip as she stared at the ceiling. "My life hasn't exactly been what I would have picked, had I the decision, but I guess it's never been lonely; even when I had wished to be left alone to sleep at night without someone squeezing into my bed. If I could have picked the way my life went though, I don't know what I would have changed, because that would change everything else." She had just finished reading The Time Traveller's Wife, which she'd found in the library, and had thoroughly enjoyed the book, though the ending was sad.
Amber thought of Serenity and Tommy. She didn't know them very well but she had seen them together and even talked to them a few times, so she had some idea of how them were with each other. "That would be nice," she replied. "When we were younger we sort of were." By sort of she meant that, while they used to be more like friends, he had still always had a dominance over her.
Amber cringed, when Athena talked about someone squeezing into her bed at night and she wondered who had hurt Athena. It sounded like they were people who were mostly strangers, but Amber wasn't sure if that would be worse or not as bad. After being raped by her brother, Amber would quickly switch from being scared of him to seeking comfort from him and feeling protected by him. If it were anyone else then she would just continue being scared afterwards. She suddenly realized that if anyone else did to her what her brother did to her then she would call the cops, and not just because no one else was allowed to do what her brother did to her except for him because she belonged to him. He was her master, and she had never really thought of him as being her master before but she suddenly realized that he was and he always had been, and the word "master" had an effect that the phrase "belonging to him" did not.
Amber sat up, hyperventilating. She was surprised that she wasn't crying, but she was not sad or scared. She was angry. She wasn't angry at any one thing, but all of it.
Post by Athena Achilles on May 22, 2015 21:34:13 GMT -8
"Sort of?" Athena repeated. "But he's always demanded that you be submissive and he is the boss?" The younger girl's brother sounded like her foster fathers and brothers; where she always had to be submissive toward them, it just hurt a lot less if she didn't try to talk them out of what they wanted to do, what she knew would happen no matter what she did or didn't do.
She drew in a small trembling breath as tears slid out of the corners of her eyes. So many memories had been brought back since she had started Amber talking; though she cried silently because she didn't want the other girl to think it was her fault that she was crying. because it wasn't. She was crying in result of what they had been talking about, not because of her.
She rolled over onto her side as she heard Amber sit up, she pulled her phone put from under her pillow should she have to call for help. She slowly sat up herself as she studied the other girl as she tipped her head to the side as the corners of her lips turned up in a smile. "I'm going to guess that the light bulb has just clicked on. And from the looks of it; you're not happy about what it has enlightened?"
"Not all of the time. Sometimes he was just my friend," she said, sadly. Those had been the good old days, but they certainly had not always been good. Maybe that was the cause with life in general.
Amber was mad at a lot of people, but this included her brother. She had been upset with him many times before but she had never really been angry with him and she wondered what she would do if he were here right now. Amber heard Athena's words and realized that she was right, but Amber was too upset to say anything. She also felt that it was not fair to Athena to be getting all angry in front of her. Amber was not sure about her but she always hated to see anyone angry, not just her brother but especially him.
Amber took a few deep breaths, trying to calm down. She realized that she was more sore then she was a little bit ago, probably of a result of bolting up like she had. She clenched he fist and took one more deep breath before she quickly crossed her arms and pouted. She felt tears starting to come. She looked over at Athena. "I'm sorry," she told her, quietly.
Post by Athena Achilles on May 24, 2015 15:48:23 GMT -8
Athena smiled, pleased to know that Amber's brother had once been her friend, and only a friend, even though it was probably a long time ago now. Athena knew that that was the one area she had missed out on the most, the ability to make friends, though that was probably her own fault as much as anyone else.
She threw another box of tissues toward the other bed and shook her head. "You don't need to be sorry." She told the younger girl. "You have every right in the world to feel as grumpy as you look right now, as long as they anger doesn't turn internal. As soon as you become angry with yourself, you need to go an find an adult to talk to." Curtis had taught her that, as Athena had been so mad at herself for being silent for so long, for continuing to allow the men to hurt her, even though she knew what they were doing was wrong and she should be speaking out against them, though knowing one thing and actually doing it were two completely different things, and she had been; and possibly still was, too weak to speak up for herself.
She yawned as she lay back, she actually felt drained. "We should probably get some sleep." Though she wasn't sure if she wanted to turn the light off.
Amber felt a little better after what Athena said to her, except for the last part. "How can I talk toan adult?" she asked. "I can't tell anyone about this, except for my mother because she already knows and I know that she's not going to be any help. She hasn't blamed me yet but I fear that she will." Her voice took a bitter tone, when she spoke of her mother.
She was angrier with her mother then she was with her brother. Amber was sure that this would not have happened if she hadn't encouraged it, or taught her children then her son was better then his sister, or if she had loved her daughter.
Amber wanted to talk to her father about this and she had for a long time, but she knew that that would be a bad idea. Back when he had first started going away on business trips she had told him that her mother was kind of mean to her when he was gone and he told her that lying wasn't going to make him stay home more often. She feared that that was what would happen now, or maybe not because he knew that she would never try to get her brother in trouble. If he did believe her, she feared how he would react and she feared that he wouldn't be able to handle it.
"Okay," she said, quietly. She knew that it was late and that they should probably get some sleep, but she was a bit nervous about the idea of going to bed angry and she hoped that she would be able to sleep.
Post by Athena Achilles on May 25, 2015 18:04:21 GMT -8
Athena gave a soft smile. "Ok, I hadn't thought that far through." She confessed. "It's not like you can tell an adult that you feel and unwarranted anger toward yourself and not have them asking questions."
She glanced over at the other girl's quiet agreement to them getting some sleep. She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and rolled out of her bed. She stepped over to her wardrobe, pulled the door open and went through a box down the bottom. She pulled out a spiral bound notebook and stood up. Grabbing a case full of gel pens from her desk, she walked over to the bed Amber was in and placed the notebook and pencil case on the nightstand.
"Do what I do then." She said softly as she walked back over and fell down onto her own bed. "You can't talk about it, so write it out." She sat up and pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her chin on her knees. "I found that when I put it all on paper, it got it out of my head. I don't have a lot of the papers anymore; the really bad ones, I ripped out and got rid of them: burned, buried, soaked, any way I could get rid of them so no one could read what I had written." She closed her eyes as she turned her head away from Amber, resting her cheek on her knees, as the pain of her being caught flashed through her eyes. "My writing became my outlet. I now just use my journal to jot down the good things about each day."
Amber was relived when Athena agreed with her on talking to adults. She was a little confused when Athena got up and got the notebook and pencils, but not after she explained it. Amber picked up the notebook and opened it up to look at the first blank page.
Amber had never kept a diary before, but she liked the idea of writing everything down and releasing it. She especially liked the idea of burning the bad stuff, but then she realized that burning the bad stuff would be pointless unless it waited until it was all over and would never happen again and Amber was sure that that would never happen. It may be all over for Athena, and thank goodness for that, but for herself it was just going to keep on happening. At least, she couldn't see any situation where it wouldn't.
A minute ago Amber worried that she would never be able to get to sleep, but now she suddenly felt tiered. She looked at Athena "Thanks," she said. "I'll try it tomorrow." She let out a small yawn, as she placed the notebook back on the nightstand. "Goodnight?" she asked. Strangely, they had both mentioned the idea of going to sleep but they were both still awake and talking and not even attempting to sleep. Amber wondered if this is what happened at a normal sleepover, except that they would probably be talking about more fun topics.
Post by Athena Achilles on May 28, 2015 16:20:21 GMT -8
Athena pulled a pillow to her chest. "Nothing of mine was private, ever. I knew that as soon as I was at school, skating, the gym, dance; my room would get torn apart by my foster family. None of them were exactly discrete about it. So I knew that I couldn't have anything in my journal that would get me in trouble. Thus why no one will ever find anything in my journals to implicate anyone else... Well, not my early books anyway."
She nodded her other head when Amber suggested that they actually turn the lights out and try to get some sleep. Athena flicked the lamp beside her bed twice. The first time turned on a gentle glow down the bottom of the lamp, the second time extinguished the lightbulb. It wasn't exactly a night light, but it left the room in a gentle glow rather than pitch black. She wasn't afraid of the dark, not in the sense that most children feared it, but she knew that bad things happened in the dark, so she didn't leave herself in the dark when she could help it.
"Good night, Amber." She said, knowing that the words sleep well, would be pointless as she didn't think either of them would be sleeping well that night.
Amber had never really had privacy either, at least not at home. She could never hide anything from her brother at home. She would definitely be keeping her journal at school. Still, it was hard to imagine someone outside her family invading her privacy, or living with some other family or not having a family at all. She couldn't think of anything to say about it, so she didn't say anything.
When Athena turned the lights out, Amber laid down on her side. She laid there, awake, for a while and wondered if she would ever get to sleep.
Amber was holding up her left hand and looking at a shiny silver wedding band around her finger, when a young girl, who looked to be about eleven or twelve-years-old and looked a lot like her, came up to her. "Mama, Daddy keeps on asking me to take my clothes off and the way that he looks at me, when I do so, is scary." Amber gasped. She looks at the girl and pulled her into a hug.
"Next time he ask you to take your clothes off, get me right away. Okay?" The girl nods.
Amber picks up the telephone and speaks into it, angrier then she could ever remember sounding. "Jackson, why are you doing this to our daughter?"
"Because she's my daughter and she belongs to me. Don't me jealous. Your still as much mine as you always were."
"I'm not jealous. I'm mad at you."
"It won't last."
Amber woke up, breathing heavily. She had had a lot of nightmares in her lifetime, but never one as scary as that.
Last Edit: May 29, 2015 14:16:50 GMT -8 by Deleted