Spring Rains

Greetings, reader of this nonsensical cyber-text page that is hopefully of some weekly amusement!

Lithica Winski, armed with a scythe and stuffed rabbit. 

So before spring break, I was talking with a friend about what would happen if they accidentally left their apartment door unlocked over the entire break. I was teasing him that if someone did come, they'd probably just clean it for them, but it sparked a short scene in my head.

It also sparked a drawing, which I promptly scanned in and colored. It wasn't as time consuming as I anticipated, but it certainly took more time than I usually would have. So this will be the last--and only--time in a while I'll be posting original art.

Notes on the drawing:  It was just a little pen doodle on paper, but I was thought it was cute enough to scan. I didn't like the jacket though, so I edited it from a long sweater/ coat to a short jacket . I'm quite pleased actually. The hand also had to be adjusted, as it was clunky before.

The gradient on the dress is random, due to my indecisiveness on which shade of pink to make it.

The feet! :D I'm so proud of myself for drawing bare feet.  And.....I again decided not to draw actual eyes :P

Notes on the story: Since Harper had her own adventure last time, this short features Lithica Winski, the little insane girl in the group. Ion again is mentioned in passing. This is set before J.U.L.I.E.T. meets, when Lithica and Ion first encounter each other.

Hopefully everything is self-explanatory by the story itself. If not, I have a small paragraph afterwards to summarize. (Also, I'll start posting word count (WC) before each story-related post-part. I think this might help if people want a length gauge. Tell me if it's a good addition! :))

WC: 904

“Well, that’s the end of spring break,” Japhdel Alder told his brother as they climbed the stairs to their apartment. Ion Winds nodded, shifting the bags of snacks to his other hand. He had the keys to their apartment ready, but one of their roommates, Xeranthenum Teasel, should have already returned earlier that day. He had. The door pushed open easily with a little twist of the handle.  

“Hey Xen, we’re ba—?!”  

Two steps in, Ion briefly wondered if he was in the right apartment. It took him a moment to recognize that everything was exactly as it had been when they’d left a week ago, and another moment to realize what threw him off: although nothing had been moved their apartment had been scrubbed clean. Under the socks he’d left lying around, the dirt and soda-spotted carpet was light tan, cleaner than the day they’d moved in. The walls were dusted and all the plates in the kitchen were stored neatly away or sparkling on the drying rack. Oh, and the girl.  

There was a girl sleeping on the couch—14, maybe younger, with pale skin, pointed ears, and purple hair. On the green beanbag in their living area was seated a worn burlap rabbit with button eyes and long floppy ears and limbs, holding a neon-purple scythe made apparently of metal and some precious rock.  

“Ion? Why’d you stop? This is heavy, y’know.” 

Ion moved, dropping the foodstuffs in his hand on the newly-wiped down table, and let his brother by to unload their stuff in their room. The girl rolled over and told something, in a light squeak he assumed was her voice, to “shut up”. She didn’t wake up though, and the command wasn’t even directed in his direction. 

When Japhdel returned to the common area, he noticed their new guest. 

“Xen?—Xen! Who is this?” Japhdel called to their other roommate. A boy with disheveled—and unevenly dyed—black and pale green hair with maniacal green eyes appeared from the other room. He was skinnier and stranger-looking than white-haired Ion, but possessed none of Ion’s ethereal, almost feminine, beauty.  

Xen ran one hand through his hair and adujusted his broken black glasses. He yawned and scratched his stomach. He stared at the girl that—aside from the purple tint—was as pale as he was. He shrugged. “I don’t give a fuck.” He disappeared back in his room.
Ion and Japhdel exchanged glances—not at Xen’s reaction, because he was an erratic person to begin with—but at the girl still sleeping on their couch.  

Xen returned with the cooking knife in his hand. He shuffled across the carpet and pointed the knife at her head. Luckily, it was just an inquiry. Japhdel shook his head and Xen’s face fell.  

“Do we wake her?” Ion whispered.  

Japhdel leaned over and prodded the girls’ shoulder a little. “Hey. Hey. Who are you?” 

She rolled over again, and her eyelids fluttered. She yawned, revealing white teeth, with  two slightly pointed ones at each side. She sat up, blinking at her three onlookers. “Oh!” Dark amethysts lit up with understanding. “You must be the human males who usually occupy this residence. I am Lithica, of Winski. Thank you for lending out your residence to stray travelers over your spring vacation.” She stood up, twirled her pink skirt, and curtseyed in introduction.  

The boys stared, slightly dumbfounded.  

“Can we kill her?” Xen asked, shifting the knife so it was again pointing in her direction. 

Everyone ignored him. “Oh, and this is Atli,” she motioned to the rabbit. “Forgive him. He has no manners.” 

“Are you high?” Japhdel demanded. His eyes danced, uncertain if he should be concerned or amused. 

At the same time, Ion asked, “Can you help pay rent?” 

Lithica of Winski, or whatever she had introduced herself as, shook her head at Japhdel’s inquiry. She squinted at Ion. “Indeed—how many of the green papers do I owe you?” She reached for the scythe and the rabbit.  

Ion chuckled at her response. “Make it rain,” he told her jokingly.  

She lifted the scythe seriously. The edge glinted as she raised it, and her eye glimmered with madness akin to Xen’s. “Rain,” she repeated, and swiped the scythe forward. As she did, at black-purple crevasse formed through the air. The rift followed the point of her scythe as she guided it through the air; where the rift opened, bills and coins rained over them.  

Lithica skipped and spun once before dropping the spell. Her face was sanguine and unbothered—as though normal people everyday made money rain from mysterious rifts.  

Japhdel laughed, clearly concerned for the girl’s mental health. “Cool! Free money!” 

“Can we kill her now?!” Xen shrieked, slashing at the coins hailing over him.  

“Killing is not polite,” Lithica reprimanded, pausing by the shoes. At the twirl of her fingers, a gentle breeze whisked past them and rubbed off a spot of dirt one of the brothers had tracked in. As she danced out the door, she called in her eerie high-pitch, “For your information, there are ghosts haunting the water-flusher!" 

Ion noted the mildly amused and irritated expression on his brother’s face and laughed. He put enthusiasm into his voice as he picked up a hundred-dollar bill from next to his ankle. “Yay, the bathroom trips won’t be lonely anymore.”

Summary:  Lithica, a little foreign to earthling ways, finds an unlocked door while it is pouring outside. Surprised to find that the residents are not there, she makes the only "logical" conclusion: the usual residents decided to leave their door open so that anyone that got caught out in the rain would be able to take shelter XD. In exchange, she puts her wind magic to work and cleans the entire apartment without reorganizing a thing. A week later, three of the four residents have returned. Xeranthenum, "Xen" Teasel is apathetic to her existence, seeking only to kill her. Brother Japhdel and Ion are concerned for her mental health, but overall chill with the presence of the alien girl.

Comments: Believe it or not, all of the lines the guys say to Lithica are actual reactions I got from asking three guys for their reaction to the situation. (That is, all the boys' lines after "When Japhdel returned to the common area, he noticed their new guest." was actually told to me in chat or person.) Although, to be entirely honest, Xen's repeated "Can we kill her?" was inspired by a description of him actually sinking a knife through her skull.

This wasn't as good as Trains, but I did have a lot more to base Trains off of, and a lot more time to gather and reflect on emotions and observations. I will also be revising Trains after some feedback from fellow writers. That may or may not constitute next week's post, depending on how week one goes.

Thanks for following!  Good luck with classes, everyone! :)
~Minerva

Trains 2/2

Hey there everyone!

(It's still Friday! I made it on time, two weeks in a row, whoot! XD)

Winter Quarter is finally over! I think I failed a class D: (I've never actually failed any class before :( ) and I know I destroyed my GPA, but I'm done, and I'm still alive, and I'll keep holding on. This week has just been really long XD.

So I won't go into too much, but this is part two of Trains! As always, my comments trail afterwards. There aren't as many comments this time; I said most of what I wanted to last time with part one.

I don’t notice the world around me until I’ve been in a state of unintelligible self-pitying over my unrequited crush for almost 20 minutes. And when I look up from the stark plain tiled-pattern of the train, someone catches my gaze. 

He’s fair haired, with bright hazel eyes that seemed to see through everything around him rather than at it.  His hair is short, but for a long strand swept to the right side so that it falls in his eyes sometimes. The rest of him seems almost designedly simple: gray tee and a dark blue scarf over jeans and a navy-and-brown messenger bag. 

At first I thought he was average figure, a few inches short of 6 feet. But as I observe almost obsessively, I think his clothes drape over him a little too well. He raises a hand to brush his hair behind pierced but undecorated ears, and I glimpse a wrist and arm skinnier than even mine. His skin is a pale almond color, healthy, but it’s evident he doesn’t see a lot of sun. It contrasts the multicolored wristband around his wrist. 

I crane a little closer to see what the wristband says. The train is crowded, but no one seems to be awake enough to mind a stranger creeping on a fellow stranger.
“Love Project 2014”. I wonder what that could mean. It would be maybe a minute for me to look up what this means. But I don’t take my eyes off him to check. Instead I continue to watch him, mesmerized, as though if I blink he will vanish, becoming just another strange body on the train.  

He glances through the people on train again, and pulls out a phone with a shrug. His phone is bright gold. It has a small decal of a orange-haired mermaid with a trident-sized needle and thread. I don’t recognize the character. Again, I ignore the temptation to look this up. 

He taps the home button. Tap-taptap-tap. That’s his passcode. He hesitates. Swipe. Back swipe. Swipe again, tap. He waits. Then tap. He pauses, before swiping up. I watch, transfixed with the motion and slight twist of the pad of the thumb as it moves the page down and down. Swipe, swipe…swipe. He smiles, and tap. Then it is back to swiping. Another smile, followed by another tap. Swipe, swipe.  

We pass what I reckon is half an hour like this, him just scrolling down the page of whatever application he has open—some kind of social networking, I figure. At one point he furrows his eyes, the edges drawing in a little with curiosity and his thin lips sucking in and twitching to one side. He decides he likes it, or something of the sort. The post is rewarded with a tap and he pauses to look at it again before continuing.  

Then suddenly he chuckles, quietly, but audibly enough for me to hear through the quiet chatter on the train. It’s a light tenor sound, and the smile tugs the ends of his mouth and delicately thin eyebrows up. The message is responded to with a tap, but this one is aimed at the top of the screen—a text, I decide. He shifts his legs and weight, and pulls his other hand from where it was resting on the other rail. His thumbs dart across the bottom of the screen. 

I watch, fascinated, and find myself wondering who he is and what he’s like. What’s his name? Where is he going? What does he enjoy doing? I can tell he’s not antisocial because of the social networking application and the text, but beyond that, I can’t imagine.   

“Next stop, Bryka Falls.  All passengers departing at Bryka Falls, please prepare to exit.” 

He looks up and he clicks his phone off, and stuffs it in his pocket. I panic a moment—is this his stop? I want to stop him—that entire hour, just spent watching?  

“Wait,” I call out, reaching for his arm. My finger grazes his scarf before he realizes I’m talking to him. “Sorry, but I wanted to tell you. You’re cute.” 

He’s utterly confused—and probably creeped out. His hand stops halfway in his bag and I realize he was just putting his phone away to get something else. I didn’t need to stop him now. Too late.  

He gives me a bit of an awkward chuckle, and his eyebrows lift in disbelief. We both freeze, and for that moment, there is nothing but the awkward connection I’ve created in the space between us. Then he smiles, and in an instant, all the anxiety about my actually speaking with him melts away. His eyes seemed to vanish into small crescents. “Thanks,” he says. He holds out his hand. “Ethony.”  

“Harper,” I reply, shaking his hand. His fingers are long, thin, and almost delicately soft. Mine are rough from constant typing, and from working with wires and computers all day.  

As I speculated, it’s not his stop, so we talk for a spell. His voice is the color of his phone, melodic and golden, bright but not feminine. His cadence is at ease, even if he’s talking to an absolute stranger.  

“Where are you going, Harper?” he asks casually. I open my mouth to say I’d like to build video games, but realize that isn’t his question, and his question isn’t as creepy as I thought it was. We are on a train. It makes sense to be going somewhere. 

“Argentum City,” I reply honestly. “I’m moving there with a few friends. You?” 

“I’m going back to Kiveneal Springs for spring break.” 

“Looking forward to a relaxing week off?” 

“Two weeks,” he clarifies. “Yea. I’m looking forward to relaxing and getting some stuff done this weekend.” He laughs easily and suddenly I could see the weariness in the lines around his lines.  

“Hanging out with friends?” 

“Some,” he shrugs.  

“What do you do for fun?” 

He seems a little hesitant at first, but replies: “I design and make clothes. I’m into fashion.” He shrugs. “You?” 

“I like making video games.” 

“Making?” 

“And playing. I do a little bit of programming, design and art.” I direct the conversation back to him. “What kind of clothes do you make?” 

And so it goes on. We swap stories about our hobbies, and keep the conversation light and casual. It doesn’t go into feelings or thoughts; just profile information about each other. He’s so friendly, it almost covers up for my awkward introduction. Yet I can’t help but notice his expression change as we talk. When he’s engaged, his voice is energetic and entertained. I can easily hear the passion he has for his work. It’s inspiring, and it makes me feel the same about my gaming.  

But we’re on a train, and the train attendant’s voice fatefully interrupts us. “Next stop, Kivenael Springs. All passengers departing at Kivenael Springs, please prepare to exit.” 

“That’s my stop,” he tells me. He has his phone out again as other passengers push by us to leave. We swap goodbyes, and he leaves with a little smile and wave. Outside, he walks leisurely through the station, pulling his rolling suitcase along in a way that belies his familiarity with the station and area. 

“Last call for Argentum City.”  

“Next stop, Argentum CIty.” The train is considerably fuller now, headed to a much bigger location: Argentum is the techmaturgical  capital of the the country. I’m squished into the corner next to the seat the boy— Ethony— had vacated. I was so awkward. But I suppose it doesn’t matter. And anyways…he’s gone now. I’ll never see him again. Not unless chance meddles or—I sigh and silence my thoughts as though I were closing a window. That won’t happen.  

An hour later, in the shuffled quiet of the train compartment, I hear rather than feel the vibration in my pocket. I reach for my phone. 

Hi. Nice to meet you. :)

Warning: This is probably not realistic. I wanted Harper to talk to Ethony, and I wanted the result to be positive. So despite the reaction most of my friends got when I posed the situation to them ("Weirdo", "Thank you..." *walk away*, "uhhh....kay thanks?") I wrote it to be a lot more welcoming. (In my defense, one friend did say "Uh thanks. *introduce*" He mentioned he would give her his number if asked, but wouldn’t ask for it voluntarily.)

Clarifications: At the end, it's supposed to be that Ethony has found her on whatever social networking site he was on. Honestly I have no idea how he does it, because she told him her last name, but maybe  they swapped surnames/ first names somewhere in the brief conversation they had? lol XD Basically, this relationship will continue.

Also, this world is a little bit alternate universe than my usual world setting, because technology is a little more widespread and what not. Bree's abilities are tech-centralized, though, so I might be branching out a little bit. This works for now, but I don't know if the setting should be this way.

I thought I had more to say than that lol. Anyways, next post will probably be another JULIET-related episode. I'm going to be working on the next to-be-posted project over Spring Break, but I have a few ideas for JULIET episodes that I want to get down ;)

Have a safe week everyone, and for UC students: have a relaxing spring break!
~Minerva

Trains Part 1/ Trains Part 2/ Part 2--revised

Trains 1/2

omg it's a post that's actually on Friday! O_O!!!!

Part one of Trains is up today! Please enjoy! My comments and process follow below, if you're interested.

I stow my two duffels, one with Bree Harper and the other with Tsubaki Harper sewn into the sides in the overhead compartment and, too short to reach the hangers above, cling onto a pole.  

My phone chimes before the subway train doors close. I turn it to silent and check the message. It’s from Jane: Text me when you get here. :) 

I reply with as much casualness as I can put into a text: Kay, see you later! 

I know she’s worried I won’t make it to the new house in one piece. I’ve been rushing around all week, and I’ve been distracted. At least trains are fast. I couldn’t stand going slow. Everyone else in our group is already at the new place. Well, everyone but me. As Ion would put it, I’m flowing to a slower beat right now. 

Ion. I don’t need to close my eyes and immediately I could imagine him: his smiling face and his amused eyes. I could hear his soft voice, casual and calm. I could feel the touch of his skin, the relaxed atmosphere he radiates. I could imagine him, sitting in the seat across from me, one leg propped over his knee, one hand resting on the propped up foot, and the other wrapped around the latest book he was perusing.  

“Last call,” the subway voice calls. As the train pulled out of the station, I close my eyes and hang my head. Get ahold of yourself, Harper. Stop thinking about him.It’s all for another girl. It’s for Jane, I tell myself, forcing myself to forget my feelings and focus on reason. I imagine my friend Jane Exina, small and dark and the pinnacle of perfection as I know it. Despite her frail constitution, Jane manages more than anyone in the group, and she does so without breaking her calm and poised demeanor. And of course, Ion loves her.  

I can’t even get upset with him. I love Jane too. She’s small but full of wit. She’s not quite light itself, but the greatest thing in the light. Being with her is like being in a shadow, but it’s a warm shadow, and I don’t mind being in her shadow. I don’t feel it when I get back to my room and I don’t feel it when I’m coding or drawing. But I feel it when I’m with her and everyone’s eyes are on her and I’m just a bystander. I’m hardly even there.  

I don’t know what’s wrong with me; why they won’t look at me the way they look at her. Maybe it’s just where I’m from: a city within a wall, secluded from the rest of the “real” world. It makes me that much more naive, and that much less connected with them. 

Maybe it’s something I’m missing, some skill I lack. That isn’t hard to imagine. I’m socially awkward, and a little too proud for my own good.  Maybe it’s my craziness from spending too much time in games. I’m absorbed in my own world.  

The train bursts out of the tunnel and I look up to stare outside and watch the country blur past us. I like the speed. I have all this coldness in my skin and heart. All I can think is that I want to let it out in speed. Because I know I’m behind. I’m always a thought behind everyone else, and when I do say anything new, it comes out awkwardly, the right words stillborn and lost, flushed away from my conscious thought.  

I don’t know exactly what’s wrong with me. All I know is I’m going too slow. 

Comments:
A friend told me she saw a cute guy on the train and I, being the shamelessly gregarious person I am, insisted on writing and expanding it so that the girl observing actually tells the guy her thoughts by the end. I intended for this to be a simple 750-ish word oneshot, but it got expanded as I wrote it, and I went ahead and plugged my own characters into it. I ended up adding more context from my own feelings and relationships, and it got extended into what it is now. Part one is actually the prequel to the main "oneshot".

What's new about this post: I actually got a lot of the description from my own observations and from little tidbits of writing I've done on the fly. That is, if you feel any emotion from this, it's all real emotion, not something elicited by writing skill XD.

This is obviously not the first time I've written primarily from my own feelings and observations, but it was the first time I took careful conscious effort to see what I observed about people and went from observation over imagination. There was a lot of "What do I notice about the guy I like?" put into Ion's description >.< This is kinda inspired by Yukina's effort in Watashi ni xx shinasai.

Unfortunately the only experiences of trains I have are a few subway rides in Taiwan XD. So all that is made up from imagination and stuff I've read.

Bree was originally supposed to star in another work (SAO fanfiction) but I enjoyed getting into her head in a little bit of romancy fluff. I also got a bit on insight on Jane and Ion's characters. When I reread the initial draft (actually awhile now because schoolwork piles up :x) I was like "This doesn't even sound like Jane--energetic? friendly? lol." I went back and edited details, hemming the description to Jane's character, instead of the friend I was basing Bree's description of Jane off of.

Bree will be meeting another male organism next week! I haven't finalized the ending, but hopefully it will be (somewhat) realistic!

Good luck on finals next week, UC people! :)
~Minerva Wu

Trains Part 1/ Trains Part 2/ part 2--revised

J.U.L.I.E.T.

Hello!

This isn't a traditional kind of post. Somewhere back somewhen I mentioned a few characters that make up the supergroup J.U.L.I.E.T. And I'm finally going to introduce them here :)

On the team: J.U.L.I.E.T. is a group of six teenage superheroes based in Argentum City, the capital of Aquis Taerr and techmathurgical (technology + magic) capitol of the world. Operating from the second floor and basement of the popular Café del Gatito, Team JULIET serves as a policing force in Argentum. Aside from their duties to school and the cafe, they are self-proclaimed enforcers of the authority set forth by the Argentum Presidential Board.

They are mostly independent, but regard Lore Professor Calzinir Lepinski as their mentor and the retired elite military squad “the Directions” as their occasional trainers. Although they all have their own superhero alias, they share the same uniform: a brown-colored shirt-shorts combo with light brown sleeves underneath. Each uniform is accented with their distinctive color and customized tool belt. 

Jane Kuliya-Ezawi Exina grew up a quiet noble. Her father owned a popular bookstore, her mother was a dark-arts mastermind, and her uncle was an eccentric professor of lore. Which was very impressive to the academic world, but to everyone else, she was both sides freaks. And being called a freak didn't help when you had inherited your mother's gift for the dark arts and your father's photographic memory. As a child, Jane was sickly and physically weak and spent her days in bed, reading anything that came within reach indiscriminatorily. Rather than hang out with children her own age she associated with the older generation, particularly the military supergroup her mother was part of. 

As a part of the team, Shadowlight was the decided leader from the first day. The other team members look up to her confidence and firm method of directing others. She manipulates darkness and light to support her teammates and hinder her enemies. Even Uine, who constantly challenges her orders, admits that "in a tight spot or on a mission I could always count on Jane having a cool head”. 

((also the character mentioned here and profiled here. I changed her character a little from the Tea Essence version.))

Uine Efaram-Enelaizon Hazun is named after his father's dead friend and a seraph that saved his life. His mother--whose surname he takes--was a secret agent, and his father was a famed pyromancy professor. Good with music and tea, Uine often boasts that he has both of his families’ strengths; but he also has his mother's magic deficiency and his father's intense hemophobia. He cuts his losses and counts his blessings though, and uses what he can, as Ion remarks, “to annoy and protect us. Quell every trouble around us so he can be the biggest nuisance in our lives.” 

From the first day of training The Tank proved himself to be the joker and troublemaker of the team. He played devil’s advocate with Jane at every possible moment, provoked Lithica, and bothered Elen. Despite constantly teasing Ion, the two became great friends and the two could often be seen discussing philosophy or magic lore over a cup of tea. On the battlefield though, Uine is fierce and unyielding with powerful physical attacks and the ability to soak up damage. If anything, he doesn’t tolerate his friends getting hurt. 

Lithica Winski was always the oddball. She was “the insane one” among the workers and "the ghost girl" among the patients at the insane asylum. When her father became traded his first daughter for power in the black market, her mother escaped with their lives, but at the cost of both of their sanity. Henceforth, Lithica spent her life within the perimeter of an asylum, but found flight through fantasy literature and conversations with the dead. At her side is the bunny-doll Atli, whose words only she hears. 

Even in the team Aernut didn’t completely fit in, but her hard work mediates the peace between her teammates and friends. Although she sees and communes with the dead as though they were tangible, her psychic perception is very real, as are the blades on her fans. When controlling the air and fighting with fans “She's different,” Elen notes, “But so are the rest of us. For all her apparent delusion, she's more insightful and honest than anyone else could be."

Ion Winds saw depth beyond the surface of everything. Born as the son of the illegitimate heir to a fief, Ion took after his mother and and devoted himself to the Holy House, specifically the mysterious Wheel of Fortune. From his parents inherited an extraordinary pain tolerance as well as an almost feminine beauty. His quiet personality is paired with an aura of calm; he seems to directly contrast his older brother, actor and model Japhdel Alder, and his best friend, Uine.

Besting even Jane in academics, Zwitter serves primarily as the team's elementalist and researcher. Lithica, who introduced him to the group, also gave him his alias: "Intelligent yet naive, confident yet conflicted. Positive yet negative: a zwitterion. He is at once, more and less alive than even a ghost:" because, in conjunction with a deep elemental connections, his experiments with the ability to adapt his body to any material he touches leave him quite unearthly.

Elen Annora Weaver was a street rat that swore to live the life of the girl that saved him. But when "her" younger brother, Cir Weaver, displayed a penchant in the female-dominated magical arts, Elen switched again, and ended up disguising herself as a boy to train as a martial artist.  When they graduated their academies, their father left the district with them. He considers his life an act upon an endless stage, but has learned to love acting. 

Although he has abandoned his old life, Alan uses his original name as a pseudonym. Combining jinxes and destructive energy-based magic and expert swordsmanship, he is primarily a physical combat fighter, and the team's spokesperson when there needs to be one. "Girl or boy," Harper comments, "Elen is an enigma that changes to become what we think we observe."

Tsubaki Bree Harper came from a world within a wall. Within this country isolated from the magic of the outside world, she helped design, draw, and code a virtual world. And she so loved the virtual world that when her wealthy and influential parents suddenly died, she escaped to that world rather than face the international technological market that was her parents' legacy. 

Her life was forever torn between her identities across oceans as Tsubaki or Bree, but online, she was simply Cardinal. Now learning to use magic with her penchant for computers, she manages the team's headquarters and provides technical support from afar. "Harper's the force in our minds and gear that keeps us going," Jane praises. "She's not alone; she's with us."

Trivia:

• Does Uine sound familiar? He's the guy from the ECA "Future" bonus. He's also Arlin's maternal cousin. (In "Complicated" Arlin Yves mentions that her mother's name is Ionia Hazun. This is Uine's mother's older sister.)
• Most of the team calls Harper by her surname because they, like her, don't know which of her names to refer to. Uine calls her Tsubaki exclusively though, because "otherwise we'd be JULIEH."
• Elen's "father" is Lithica's maternal uncle, and his mother is the leader of the five-woman military squad Jane's mother is in, the "Directions".
• Elen is a castrato. The only person that knows is the healer who did the operation for him; ironically, this healer is also on the Directions. 
• Ion's parents' best man, who's also his godfather, is Uine's dad, Calzinir Lepinski. 
• Uine, Lithica and Elen all have their mother's surnames.
• Lithica only knows her mom, Elen only knows his dad, and Harper is missing both her parents when the team officially names itself.
• Ion and Elen get along well with their brothers, but Lithica doesn't even know her older sister.
• Harper likes Ion, and Ion likes Jane. Jane likes rooibos tea, pumpkin pie, and a good book. 

So, tell me what you think of JULIET! :)
Harper is the narrator of Trains, the first part of which will be posted next week! I might also do a few shorts with these six before actually getting to write Drive By. I'm looking forward to fleshing out these characters a little better, and so I hope you're excited too!

See you next week!
~Minerva