Ribbons

White. The ribbon was white and I knew that being able to see it now must mean that I am stronger. I knew the instant I saw the white ribbon tied around the boy's sword that it was powerful and only few got to see it, much less use it.

I wrapped the white ribbon tightly around my entire right arm, encasing it as if on instinct. I had no idea what ability it held but it seemed my body did. I grabbed a tablecloth that was lieing on the floor and twirled it around with the hand that was encased. I tossed it into the air and without looking, caught the object it now had changed into. A scythe.

The uremon was now staring at me with blank eyes, as if wondering how I had been able to do that. I smiled and then slashed at him, but the uremon was quick and jumped out of the just before my scythe could reach him.

I ran over to him and jumped off a table to get more air and then tried to slash his back but he jumped out of the way just in time again. I almost didn't see the uremon jumping toward me and took my scythe and slashed the uremon's face and saw pieces of the ribbons covering him fall away. He's becoming weaker and I.. I am only growing stronger and stronger with each attack.

"Why're you running? Afraid?!" I shouted at the uremon. "Well I'm not afraid of you anymore!"

I gripped my scythe and ran at the uremon full speed and slashed it in half. I breathed heavily and watched as the rest of the white ribbons covering it's body shed revealing a skeleton. This is how it was able to stay alive for so long. That was way too easy, I thought.

I picked up my scythe and held it against my shoulder and turned around. The boy, Tavin, was standing there just a few feet away. I could see something in his eyes, a vague familiarness.

"You killed it," he said, without emotion but I think I heard a bit of relief in his tone.
"Yeah, I've been wanting to do that for years," I replied automatically.

"Your relva valik? It's different then others I've seen," Tavin pointed out. I was just going to keep calling him that until I figured out his real name.

"Relva valik? What's that?" I asked. He pointed to his sword and my scythe.

"Weapon of choice. The white ribbon. It gives you a powerful weapon but their are side effects to the ribbon," he said distantly. "Like my hair."

"What does your hair have to do with anything?" I asked and raised an eyebrow.

"You haven't figured it out yet? Using the white ribbon, it makes your hair fade to white over time after using it countlessly. My hair was once black," Tavin said and then waited for me ti put the pieces together.

I tried imagining Tavin with black hair and then I saw it. He looked exactly like the boy who had saved me from the uremon all those years ago.

"That was you!" I exclaimed and he laughed. I was shocked. The boy I thought I was once in love with and then thought was dead was this same kid who is the biggest thorn in my side.

Sometime.. fate has a way of backstabbing you.

"So why didn't you step in?" I asked him and then referred to the pile of bones that was collecting dust behind me.

"I knew that this was a fight you had to do alone. If I stepped in, you might've just tried to beat me up later," Tavin shrugged.

"I could've died," I pointed out.

"You were able to bring out your relva valik, which only very few can do at your age," Tavin explained and then put on a smirk, "I revealed mine two years ago."

"Does it look like I give a shit whether you revealed your whatever two years ago?" I asked.
"No, but that doesn't necessarily mean that on the inside, you're not seething with jealousy," he pointed out.

"Well, it'll be pointless trying to argue with you all night so hasta la vista," I said and then marched off. I twirled my scythe around until was the white ribbon wrapped around my arm. I tried to pull it off but it was of no use; the ribbon was stuck there. Just fanfuckingtastic.

I sighed and then continued to march off out of the dining hall all the way to my dorm room, leaving Tavin to deal with the remains of the uremon.

I pushed open the door to my room and found Elise cradled up on her bed, clutching her pillow. I took the blanket and wrapped it around her so she wouldn't freeze to death.

I went into the bathroom and stripped off my clothes and nearly screamed at what I saw. A strange marking was embedded into my skin just above my waist. It had a small swirl with a line through it and three dots placed around it.

I tried licking my finger and rubbing it off and it didn't work. I tried rubbing at it with a wet washcloth but it only made my skin red there. I guess it's permanent. Great, just great.
I sighed and then took a super long shower before crashing.

**********

All anyone could talk about for the entire weekend was what happened at the Deutante Ball. Thankfully, no one noticed that I didn't run away screaming from the ballroom like I was supposed too. If it weren't for me, everyone would be dead.

Elise held onto my arm everywhere we went. Apparantly, this was a 'very tramatic event' and she was going through 'post traumatic stress disorder'. Oh please, all she did was run away after one glance at it. But, I endured it because what kind of friend would I be if I just told her to shove off.

Also, Elise was acting more like her normal self. The self she uses when she's out of the public eye and I could tell everyone else liked it a lot better. I just hope she sees this as well.

Kyle and Greg were nowhere to be found which I found a good thing and a bad thing.

Good, because then they weren't bothering me with their confusing ways of trying to get girls and bad, because well, they weren't here to confuse me about their confusing ways of trying to get girls.

I asked Elise a couple times if she knew anything and she just shrugged and said she hadn't seen them since the night of the ball.

At the mention of the ball, everyone went silent for a moment and slowly started to talk again. Well that was.. weird. Elise gasped suddenly and pointed at my hair. Oh no, did that mean it was turning white?!

I looked down and saw nothing out of the ordinary and Elise shook her head and pointed behind me. Oh.. she was'nt pointing at my hair but at the hot, new teacher that was standing behind me.

Wait, what?

I turned around slowly and looked up to see Mr. Marks. Mr. Marksa was my new english teacher and he was smokin hot in that smart way. He makes nerd glasses look hot. That's how hot he is.
Thinking of a teacher in that way was not appropriate but hey, I was so not the only girl in the class thinking the exact same thing.

"Ms. Gallows, may I have a word with you?" Mr. Marks asked me cooly, but I sensed a sort of authority behind his words.

"Uh.. sure," I said and gave a look to Elise that said 'This is weird' and 'I'll be back in a few'. She nodded and I followed Mr. Marks to the principal's office.

"I have Ms. Cai Gallows for you headmistress," Mr. Marks announced and I could hear the voice of Headmistress Kamine reply, "Send her in."

Mr. Marks held the door open for me and I entered the office. I sat in a chair that was placed in front of the headmistress's desk.

"Am I in trouble?" I asked tentatively.

"No, were just gathering everyone's reports of what they saw on the night of the ball. Standard stuff. Just tell me everything you saw that night and then you can go," she replied and then waited for me to begin.

Crap. What was I going to say? I didn't know exactly what other people saw seeing as how it was covered in the ribbons. I guess I'll just have to wing it.

"Well, I was sitting at my table and then I heard a really loud bang noise and then saw some giant monster thing and everyone running away screaming," I explained as vaguely as possible, hoping she won't ask me to go into any detail.

"Can you describe the.. monster thing?" she asked me.

"Not really.. I only looked at it for about a second and then got the heck out of there," I answered. Hopefully she'll take that as an answer.

"A couple students said the creature looked like a giant, black snake. Is that what it looked like?" she asked me then and looked at me, with a challenge in her eyes. Obviously, the uremon looked nothing like that and she was just seeing if I was lieing or something.

"No, it definitely didn'y look anything like that. If anything, it was a white color and more animal looking," I replied. She looked pleased with my answer and told me that would be all for now. For now? Did that mean I would have to come back?

I left the office and nearly ran into Mr. Marks who was bringing in another student whom I didn't know.
I resisted the urge to lick my lips at the sight of Mr. Marks. He was just so hot. I probably mentioned that about a million times but it was so true.

I made my way back to where Elise was before and saw her sitting with Kyle and Greg who had finally showed up. Took them long enough.