Forever and Today

Konichiwa; soy Mini! Hoy, hablamos del amor y soulmates:
(Yes. That was japanese--> spanish--> english >.<')

Life:
Summer school part one--complete! Yay! Now I have a week off and then summer school part two begins. :P

Writing:
For NaNoWriMo 2014 I'll be working on Zephyr, the tale of Alina Zephyr. Between working out the details of that, I'll be working on a fanfiction for AshMac's novel Island Prophecy and on Sorcerer, a collaboration between Forsaken and me.
Next week I will be posting about some summer reading/ gaming.

Forever and Today:
Another soul-mate related concept, continuing off the Maze from last week. This concept is a little different. For the same microfictions group that brought you Irregular Orbit and Nothing and Nowhere, I wrote Forever and Today to the theme of "Forever".

On her 60^th birthday, Cerine Notalwaski looked no older than 20. At nearly 16, Jira aimed to be like her Aunt Cerine: forever young. 

“Sweetheart, Emily made it.” Jira’s uncle, who’d also remained immortal, announced the arrival of their close friend—one who’d sacrificed her youth for her love. He crossed the room and helped Jira up, naturally avoiding his wife even as he spoke to her. 

At the foot of the tower, Emily Evvans—looking exactly like her fifty years, introduced her teenage son. 

Jira and Ethan didn’t need the introduction. The moment they were in the same room, they started watching each other with stunned fascination. All the light in the world shifted, making the other the focal point of their existence.  

The adults didn’t notice the change until Jira slipped. When Ethan reached forward instinctively to help her, she screamed, warning him away. But what everyone else was oblivious to was absolutely certain for them: they were soulmates. 

At first, keeping away from each other was easy. But as the months passed and their relationship grew stronger, so did the temptation to move closer, just as their hearts had. Pair by pair, their friends traded immortality for the freedom of physical contact. 

“I’d give up forever to touch you,” Ethan whispered. “To be able to hug you when you cry.” 

Across the room, Jira dried her tears and didn’t move. “I’d give up that warmth today to spend forever at your side.”

Process/ Inspiration:

The concept of the story came from an old story idea that a high school writing club member prompted: Everyone is immortal until they touch their soulmate. Once you meet/ see/ are in the proximity of them, you'll know, absolutely and certainly, who they are. But once you touch, even accidentally, you'll start to age. 

I wrote a short, incomplete story to the concept back then, which appears to have been lost in the computer crash in Christmas 2011. In that original version, Jira and Ethan meet as kids, neither of which can fly or do magic very well yet. In that one, both of them are curious about each other, but also very resolute to not give up their magic and immortality. In the end, Ethan falls off the edge of the cliff of Jira's oceanside mansion. He's hanging on to the side, but when Jira tries to help him up he warns her back. She runs back to get help from the adults, but it's too late. Jira is heartbroken and goes through life miserable and unwilling to be optimistic or whatever, but no one believes that soulmates can meet so early and try to convince her to regain hope in life. 

For this microfiction, I started with the same idea, but with the intention of letting them get to talk for a bit so that they could talk about the concept of forever. I ended up trimming everything down to what you see, hoping to preserve the main points of the soulmate concept and illustrate it, instead of just tell. I realized in retrospect I could have cut out some of the unnecessary stuff about their interactions with the adults. XD

For 250 words though, I think it's decent. I don't know if this story in particular or this concept will be elaborated more, but we'll see.