Rivek scratched his pencil against the bridge of his nose and immediately regretted his decision. The fracture still hurt from last week. He blinked the pain away, so he could stare at the blank paper in front of him. Language was never his strong suit, and he now only had one night left to finish a five-page essay. If he didn’t hand this in on time, he’d fail the class. That would mean being back on the street again. Not that the street was much of a problem. He had survived it before.

It was Bohren he worried about. Bohren would be devastated. At least, he would be at first. Then he would be disappointed in Rivek. Then, he would probably punch Rivek in the mouth.

He wrote his name on the paper when he felt a small someone trying to spin his chair around. He rolled his eyes. Although Perrin never actually spilled a cell culture or accidentally ingested harmful chemicals, Rivek still believed eight-year-old children did not belong in research labs.

“What’re you doing?” Perrin asked, clinging to the back of his seat.

“Working. What’re you doing?”

“I want you to tell me a story.”

“I don’t have time to tell you a story.”

“Tell me a story.”

Rivek sighed and turned the chair around. Maybe he could spare a few minutes to play babysitter. Perrin jumped off. “Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess.”

Perrin sat on the ground, crossing her legs, wearing the same look as dog begging for food.

“She had lots of wavy black hair and was filled with curiosity. One day, she decided it would be a good idea to walk into the woods.”

Perrin’s eyes went wide..

“What a good idea! Because in her walk, she came upon a cave. Then, she had another good idea. She would go into the cave and see what was inside.”

She nodded.

“Inside, she found a great, big bear. She had never seen a bear so big and so black! Even sitting down, its head touched the ceiling of the cave. She decided to bother the bear. What a good idea it would be to poke it in the back! So she did. And it turned around and….”

Perrin leaned so far forward she almost fell over.

“It ate her all up!”

Rivek growled, baring his teeth and raising his arms like claws. Perrin bit her lip and started wailing.

“There. Happy?”

Willow shot him a glare from across the lab as the little girl ran towards her. He shrugged and went back to his paper. He erased his name and wrote it again.

---

“Vezmolar.” Annoyance. - 069/100 Themes.

Rivek is pretty much a jerk as a teenager. Perrin is me as a child. I was a lab baby. I used to ask my dad to draw me “flying unicorns” on his whiteboard, and I would make up stories for them. He kept a drawing I did in sixth grade, of Ginny Weasley, on the board for a decade. If it hasn’t been painted over, there is also a drawing of a stork on the wall and I wrote ‘DRACULA” by the stairs.

Oh my god, there’s a spelling mistake in the Alisan on this one. I misspelled a word in a language that I made up.

Other Artwork Featuring These Characters:


Rivek Ailinar and Perrin Maeir belong to Grace Fong,