A/n-This is my first fic so far,everything else has been poetry. I wrote this a while ago, and I've decided that I want to begin work on it again and revive it a R&R, it'd be greatly appreciated. And please be patient with it, the story doesn't begin to pick up until about the second or third chapter.
Oh, and because I said I would.
To Mrs. Seletos. Thank you for all of your help on my legitimate English business.
An Insomniac

I am Arriana.
I have no middle name; I have no last name.
I find no use for either.
I am an American citizen, transplanted to England.
I will tell you neither my age, nor the year; that is for you to discover.
And thus, I came... to the Westfold.

Trains whistling in the distance, the nightlife making its orchestrations without mercy, the wind rippling the water, making a sound uniquely its own.
It is night in this alien place they call the Westfold. I do not believe the Westfold will ever be my home, nor do I wish it to be.
There are no disturbances here, and the people know each other too well. Having exhausted the the limit of my patience within the first week, as well as the use of my handshake, I retreated to the dismal and dreary sanction of my small cottage.

The continuous chirping and howling and creaking of the surrounding country gnawed at me, invading my senses. All I could feel was damp, heavy air, all I could see was green, all I could smell was pine and citrus, all I could taste was fresh strawberries drifting over the hills,but of all these...the worst was the crickets. All I could hear were the crickets, chirping the moon into quiet contentment. Mother Nature had really outdone herself on this place.
Too much so, in my opinion.

There could only be so much solitude confined to one area, and the Westfold and surrounding country had enough for three. I dreaded the rise of the next traitorous sun. The milkboy would deliver the milk to my doorstep, stopping to "chat" for a few minutes. I dreaded it. All of it.

Now, why? Is the question I'm sure you're asking yourself.
Why doesn't Arriana just move? Because I can't.

Brilliant, right?

This is the only place my mother ever lived, and the place where she passed on to a better place of existence. In her last will and testament, my deceased mother requested my presence here for the "short" span of six months.

Ah, now we get down to it.

My poor dear mother wished me to live at the Westfold.

I prefer to express my relationship with my mother as 'older female role model', rather than my mother, but since that is too long to say out again and again,she will further remain my mother. Take into consideration, if you will, the circumstances of my childhood.

My mother was just out of finishing school when she chanced to meet my 'older male role model', reffered to as my father. They were, of course, desperately out of sorts with each other (for I hesitate to use the four letter term "love") and I was the result.

After the initial shock wore off, my mother birthed me, soon after leaving for this small section of land. My father was then left with a 'clothed burden', as my aunt so graciously pointed out on numerous occasions. I was unceremoniously dumped into the arms of afore-mentioned aunt and expected to be taken care of.

"Expected to" being the key words. My life with my aunt was none too happy. The fundamental property of love ( I still shudder at the word) was noticeably absent. She was my great-aunt, so the years spent with her were tragically boring. She lived alone in a large house in America, and it was almost as dismal and dreary as this 'hut' they called a cottage in which I now resided.

Not being overly posessed with an innate sense of direction, it took me several months to become accustomed to the long corridors and dark hallways, and when I despaired of forever being lost, I had the butler draw me a map of the place, and thus I learned to navigate the house.
My aunt was much like her house, dank and droopy, with a personality that had so many twists and turns that it would send even the best and most weathered navigator home crying like a little baby.

Although charged with all of these, I didn't have a particularly miserable childhood. I studied under the warden, for she was learned in Greek, Latin, and several different forms of reading, writing, and mathematics.. My cousins form the city would visit from time to time, and when they were over, we discovered that the monstrosity of a house was the perfect setting for hide-and-seek, one game sometimes lasting more than an hour.

But here I am, millions of miles away from all that, attempting to bore myself to sleep and failing miserably.

When I did manage to catch the last train to Dreamsville, it was filled with a large crowd of people, all talking over each other; and I was standing in the middle of all of them screaming my head off.

No one even looked in my direction.

A/n-This chapter contains a lot of background, I know, but I hope you enjoyed it anyway. And chapter two will contain more action and a new character.
Hope you like!
An Insomniac