Sand Castles Fall • •

[brechan clarissa braswell]

New York City was a big place and a long way from home for Brechan. The bright lights and non-stop atmosphere was fun to a certain extent but she missed the wildlife that she had grown up around. The zoo in Central Park didn't even come close to the life Brechan had left behind to come to school in America. She had wild animals she knew by name, lions who could put The Lion King to shame and cheetahs who would be in view from her bedroom window some evenings. Growing up on a safari reserve definitely had its perks, but it also made the rest of the world a stranger place to be. Brechan wasn't used to the sounds of traffic or the bright neon lights of the city. She missed laying in the long grass and staring up at the stars while she read a book or listened to her favourite music. Even living in her grandparent's condo made her miss the bustle of the family home. The retired couple spent most of the year travelling the world or on cruises to cross things from their bucket lists and enjoy the golden years. It meant Brechan was often alone in the spacious home and there was only so many Youtube videos and television a girl could watch before she became bored.

That was why when it came time to go to the campus and make herself at least look busy, Brechan took up camp on one of the atrium sofas. It was a lively place since most of the amenities branched off from the modern building, including the dining hall and most of the little shops. It was only a short walk from her classes to there and the general hustle and bustle of it all kept her from driving herself crazy with homesickness and thoughts of everything she had given up to come here. Peeling open a bag of M&Ms and dropping a sports drink to the floor beside her crossed legs, Brechan opened one of her books for class and skimmed over the required reading for that week. She had already done it and made notes three days earlier, but Brechan liked to refresh herself before a class; her next one being in a few hours.

Stretching herself out and hogging as much room as a girl of five foot could, Brechan tossed M&Ms back into her mouth while she read over one of the most boring passages her mind had ever encountered. She knew making dreams come true could be hard work, but there were times when she really did just want to bash her head against a brick wall and beg for something more exciting to happen. Freshmen had to learn basics, a lot of it was common sense, and even more of it was tedious to set to memory, even though she knew she'd be able to call on it in later years as a simple base for those things much more complicated. That didn't mean any of it had to be fun though, and Brechan dropped the textbook over her face and let out a loud groan as she decided she had had quite enough of boredom for one day, if not for the rest of her life. New York was the city that never slept and yet Brechan just wanted one brief moment of unpredictable excitement to give her a swift kick of life. Was it so much to ask for?

• • •

TAGGED! @satchel 
WORDS! 580!
OUTFIT! Comfortable Cutie!
LYRICS! You Be The Anchor That Keeps My Feet On The Ground, I'll Be The Wings That Keep Your Heart In The Clouds - - - Mayday Parade
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Deleted]

It was Satchel's fourth year in New York city, and it was almost the longest amount of time she had stayed in one place. She was used to moving around every few years. In fact, the only other place she had stayed longer at was Africa, which was where she considered her birth place, even though she was technically born in Finland. Since it had almost been four years in one town, she had been thinking about where she was going to go next. She had the itch to travel just as her parents had. There were so many places she had yet to visit, and there were so many more that she wanted to visit again. 

But as much as she wanted to focus on the future, she had to focus on the present. She had to get through this last year of school before she could decide anything. She had to write a music piece for the piano by the end of next week, and she still had a long road ahead of her until it was complete. So, she decided to go to the atrium and see if she could seek muse. She first had to grab a cup of coffee, though. One thing Satchel would miss when she went away to whatever country she choose in the future would be how much sugar American's put in their coffee. It was something Satchel had grown to adore during her time here. 

As she sipped on the french vanilla ice coffee, she walked towards the atrium, humming a tune that came to her head. It was a bit of the bridge for the piece she was composing for class. Her humming wasn't loud, and it was actually barely audible. The only reason it was considered humming was because her vocal chords were vibrating to cause a sound. As she found a table and couch to sit at, she sat the folder with her music sheets on the table, moving to set her coffee next to it. Her bag sat next to her on the couch, and when she went to move to get a pen out of her bag, she knocked the coffee over, dumping it all over the score she had been working on. She stood up quickly, gasping at the cold.

"Net my geluk!" 

She frowned, reaching into her bag to see if there was anything she could clean up the mess with. 


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For:
brechan clarissa braswell
Outfit:
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Words:
407
Notes:
She said 'Just my luck' in Afrikaans. 

[brechan clarissa braswell]

Brechan wouldn't say she hated New York, but if she had a choice she would have preferred to stay in Africa for college. Her parents had worked themselves into a panic though after what she had seen, and there were too many horror stories from their corner of the world. On their reserve they were safe from harm, but the world was a big scary place and Brechan had seen too much. She liked to think that nothing would of happened to her if she had stayed in Botswana, but her parents wouldn't hear of it. She had been shipped off with everything an airline would allow in a suitcase and that was the end of that. She had hoped they might have let her stay home when she flew back for Christmas, but it was a big no and just plenty of tears when they drove her to the airport in January. Two months later and Brechan was still pouting about all the things she missed. She wasn't built for the cold and spring was hardly proving itself to be much better.

She knew she ought to be doing something a little more productive than flopping on one of the atrium couches with a textbook covering her faces. It was just so damn difficult when she was bored out of her skull. Brechan wasn’t totally adjusted to city life and she wasn’t really lured in by the bright lights or the shiny buildings. She just saw a whole lot of clutter and mess, and missed her free spaces. Still, none of that really stopped her from studying. That was just her way of making petty excuses when she reached a boring passage. With her grandparents on another long cruise it wasn’t like there was anyone around to keep her on track either when she was vegging out with Netflix rather than putting in some extra reading time.

Hearing the voice, and a language she had never heard come from any mouth other than her own since landing at JFK, Brechan lifted her book and peeked. Spying the trouble, Brechan reached down to her bag and grabbed the pack of tissues that had been sitting in there since the first day of school, untouched. She tossed them over, sitting up properly in her seat and tucking her short hair back behind her ears. “Luck has nothing to do with it. I’m pretty certain this building slopes; you can feel it.”

• • •

TAGGED! @satchel 
WORDS! 411!
OUTFIT! Comfortable Cutie!
LYRICS! You Be The Anchor That Keeps My Feet On The Ground, I'll Be The Wings That Keep Your Heart In The Clouds - - - Mayday Parade
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Deleted]

<sub>Satchel's favorite place in the world was Africa. She had been raised there, for the most part, and she loved the energy the place had. She especially loved the poorer parts of Africa; the tribal parts. She loved learning their cultural traditions and languages. She loved knowing how they got food and water. How they got their clothes clean. How they raised their children. She often spent her time playing with the children and eating new foods while she was in Africa. Sadly, she wasn't able to visit there as much as she wanted, but she always made an excuse to go whenever she could. Luckily for her, her family had moved back to Africa, which meant that finding an excuse wasn't hard. She often talked her parents into getting a plane ticket to come visit them, and since they had more money than their college student daughter, they eagerly agreed to do so. Satchel and her family were very close, too. They just all liked to travel. They never stayed in one spot for too long, so it was rare when they ran into each other. It had to be forced, most of the time, but none of them minded too much as long as they got to see each other. 

When she heard someone speak, she wasn't surprised that she understood what she said. She actually didn't realize that she was speaking another language. She knew too many, and they ended up coming out whenever she got flustered or frustrated. No, she was more surprised that someone was talking to her. She looked up and over at the girl, then she looked back at the floor when she was told about the floor being unlevel. She then looked over at the stranger once again, then smiled. 

"I've never noticed before, but it would make sense. I always seem to have the worst luck in this building with my drinks."

She told the girl. Once she finished cleaning up her mess, she looked at Brechen again, grinning. 

"You understood Afrikaans."

She told her. 

"That's not something that happens everyday in New York."


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For:
brechan clarissa braswell
Outfit:
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[brechan clarissa braswell]

Brechan missed home. She hated knowing that troy would most likely be doing all of her old jobs around the reserve, poking his nose in places she would have chased him from. It was ridiculous to think that they might forget about her when she skyped with her family twice a week, but it was still not enough. The internet they had wasn’t high speed like in most places, and it wasn’t like they could throw a laptop into one of the jeeps and take it out with them so Brechan could see how everything was doing for herself. No, the best she got were stories from her dad about the new lion cubs, or how they were going to put in another water source because there was too much of a territorial fight breaking out down at the lake. These were all things Brechan would have been involved with if she had still been there, getting her hands dirty. She loved the hard work, even with her mother screeching at her to remember the sunscreen. The slightest hint of sunkissed skin had gone once Brechan had landed in New York. She rarely tanned thanks to how they slathered her in protection anyway, but it also never seemed to last long once she was out of the sun – something she had noticed during Christmas trips to London to visit grandparents, aunt and uncles. Though she noticed they seemed to have more fun when they were the ones flying out to visit them. It was probably more of a vacation for them when it was the other way around, and they were hosting three kids and two earthy parents.

Brechan shrugged. “Sit on it long enough and you notice these things.” She usually did park herself in a small corner of the linoleum. Her grandparent’s apartment by the water was very nice, but she hated the way she sunk into the couches there. Sometimes sitting on the floor helped Brechan fix that in her mind. Not everything she did could be explained with words, but little things like that made sense to her. She gave a small, short smile and shrugged again. Brechan shrugged a lot; it was her way of not making a big deal out of something. “Yeah, well, not all of us are from around here.” She had never truly felt like New York could ever be a home for her, but she had only been there for several months. Her first year was closing in, but it hadn’t really felt like that long.

• • •

TAGGED! @satchel 
WORDS! 430!
OUTFIT! Comfortable Cutie!
LYRICS! You Be The Anchor That Keeps My Feet On The Ground, I'll Be The Wings That Keep Your Heart In The Clouds - - - Mayday Parade
NOTES! <3 <3 <3