Okay fine...so I decided to re-post this up here. It's been edited and many things have been added, so for those of you who have read already, I would advise reading it again. I don't know how often I'll be posting but I'm hoping to do a chapter a week. (fingers crossed that I can actually keep to that) But since I work 80 hours a week, writing has sort of been placed on the back burner of the wonderful stove in my brain. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it and please please please Read and Review. I'm hoping to try and publish this and I want to make sure that it is good enough for that so all comments are welcome.

The Real Fantasy

Chapter I: The Assignment

The water rushed down the waterfall, crashing down into the river before sweeping downstream. The surrounding forest was full of trees, all of them lush and green, creating somewhat of a surreal atmosphere. On the other side of the river was a man, staring across at something. He had dark brown hair that was really long and deep brown eyes that penetrated everything they came into contact with. He gazed at her, his eyes pleading for help.

Lexa looked down and saw that she was wearing soft tan leather pants, a forest green top, and boots, while her hair was pulled back from her face. A bow was slung across one shoulder. The other shoulder held a quiver of arrows. Looking around, Lexa began to wonder where she was. Everything around her felt so real.

Lexa turned around and saw a woman in a white and gold dress walking up leading a horse. She had long dark hair and dark eyes. The woman gazed across the river towards where the man was and gave a small smile. Lexa turned to see what she was smiling about; the man had disappeared and in his place was a crow that turned into an old woman, who reached down in the river and began to pull things out.

On closer inspection, Lexa noticed that the old woman was pulling bodies out of the water and then washing them of all of the blood on them. She gasped as she saw the old woman pull out the body of the man that had been staring at her.

“Darrion!”

Lexa turned back to the woman. “This can’t be happening,” she said. “What’s going on? It’s not his time…it can’t be.”

“Then you must change it Alexandra. His fate is in your hands,” the woman responded.

“I had the strangest dream last night Sukari,” Lexa, said. Around them people milled about the room, crowding and jostling to get to their seats. A few desks behind them, a fellow classmate had his head down on his desk, snoring, a thin line of drool coming from his mouth.

“I was in this beautiful forest and there was a river and waterfall nearby; it was absolutely gorgeous. There was this handsome man standing on the other riverbank, staring at me. He had brown hair that fell past his shoulders and these deep brown eyes… I don’t know what it was about him, but I felt drawn to him.”

“It could have been his shoulder-length brown hair and ‘deep brown eyes,’” Sukari interrupted drolly, her head propped up on her hand and her almond-shaped eyes gazing at her friend with evident amusement.

Lexa gave her an irritated look, “Oh, thank you, Sukari, because I really needed to be reminded of my dateless status at this current point,” she said sarcastically.

Sukari waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “You’re welcome,” she replied in a deceptively off-hand manner.

“So, anyway, I looked down at myself and I was dressed in soft tan leather pants and a forest green top. It definitely did not feel like anything around here…” Then again, “here” was a college campus, and while it was a nice one, it did not have the… mythical feel that the dream had. Lexa turned her head and her wavy chestnut hair fell down around her shoulders.

“Did he do anything other than stare at you?” Sukari asked in response, her violet eyes glinting with interest, despite her artful attempt at looking bored. They had been discussing their dreams for weeks now, to see if they could actually decode what the dreams symbolized. So far, all it turned out to be was wishes for a meaningful relationship—and cookies. Since coming to college a couple months before, neither of them had had any luck with a guy, well at least a guy that wasn’t anything more than a friend.

Sukari flipped back her long straight black hair, which was in two braids, one on each side of her head and bound in yellow scrunchies. She was grunging today, as much as someone as much into their culture as Sukari was could grunge, anyway, in red silk pajama pants, green tank top, and blue kimono. Over this ensemble she had thrown on her baby pink winter jacket, causing Lexa no little amount of amusement, especially as her coat matched her bunny slippers.

“Not really…though he did seem to be searching for a way to get across the river. It was like he wanted to get to me for some reason, and it did seem like he wanted help.”

“Yeah, he was probably trying to get to you so he could have his way with you,” Sukari teased with a wicked grin, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively, causing Lexa to blush a deep red.

“MULAN!” Lexa exclaimed using the nickname she had given Sukari at the beginning of the school year, just to get her friend back for that last remark. Hearing the nickname, Sukari immediately stopped giggling, flashing Lexa an aggravated look. She hated being called Mulan, mostly because she was Japanese, not Chinese.

Just as the professor walked into the room, Rommie entered briskly behind him. He was out of breath as he sat down near the girls, his red hair tousled and his shirt obviously slept in. Why he was always almost late for their Fantasy Writing class was beyond their understanding, as it was one of his favorite classes. His ideas were usually so vivid and interesting that they demanded to be written and read immediately.

“Alright, class, we’re going to get started,” the professor said, as he opened his briefcase and pulled out many packets of paper.

No one did anything.

Mr. Walman looked up at the chaotic mob of sleepy, sleeping, and hungover students, and cleared his throat, to no avail. “Excuse me. Class?” When once again nothing happened, his face went slack in annoyance. “EXCUES ME, I’M TRYING TO TEACH HERE!”

Silence.

“Starting today and continuing for the next several weeks, we’re going to be getting into groups and preparing a paper and a presentation on mythological and fantastical creatures. You will be working in groups of six. Please choose your group quickly and get to work.” He passed out the grading rubric for the project and returned to his desk.

Lexa, Sukari, and Rommie quickly grouped together before looking around at the rest of the class. “Zahira, over here,” Lexa said to her roommate. Zahira was a very smart girl; her thoughts followed a more logical pattern and she always did a lot of research for class. She had hair that could only be described as silver in color, though no one had yet figured out how her hair had turned out that color naturally. Along with the strange color of her hair was the color of her eyes, a rich turquoise. That, accompanied with her tan skin, and relatively skinny body made her one of those girls that the guys were always after.

Mr. Walman noticed that some students hadn’t found groups yet and started calling them out. “Jesse, go work with Lexa, Sukari, Rommie, and Zahira.”

Sukari stopped as she heard Jesse’s name. “Oh, God, not that guy!” she cried in mock despair. Sukari and Jesse had gone to high schools in the same district, and Sukari had always thought he was such an obnoxious jerk. It was hard to concentrate with him around. He walked around campus as if he were a Godsend and he could get away with everything just by staring someone down with his eyes. Yet none of it, his personality, his short curly brown hair, or his deep chocolate brown eyes would persuade Sukari into actually liking having him around.

Lexa looked around the class, realizing there were a few other students who hadn’t picked groups yet and their group was still one member short. Noticing Hector, a Latino who came from the inner city, she gave a very small unnoticeable grin. He was known as one of the biggest slackers on campus; he was also one of the known druggies and was even rumored to have been a member of a gang. Despite this, she knew that he could be a huge asset to the group, providing she could actually get him to help.

The group all sat together and Rommie pulled out his notebook to take notes. “I think we got the best group of everyone in the class,” he stated, his green eyes shining as he looked over at Lexa.

“Why?” Jesse asked, folding a paper football.

“Because Lexa loves Mythology and Fantasy.”

“So you’re saying that this is going to be an easy ‘A’?” Jesse asked, obviously relieved as he turned his gaze to Lexa. “All right! Who would have thought?”

Lexa and Sukari rolled their eyes at the same time. The only way he couldn’t have realized that was to have completely ignored every other class in the semester; Lexa was pretty much the sole answerer of the professor’s questions. “Okay, so according to the rubric, we have to pick at least fifteen people and/or creatures from mythology and fantasy. I’ll get to work on a list of some of the more interesting ones, you know, other than like Zeus and Heracles, considering that everyone already knows about them.”

She considered herself lucky because she read up on Mythology all of the time. She had delved into practically every branch of Mythology: from Greek and Roman to Celtic, Norse, and Asian, even Egyptian, Mayan, and Aztec. And on fantastical creatures, as she, Sukari, and Rommie were all very fond of them, having discussed vampires, werewolves, etc. many times over the past couple months.

They started discussing who would be working on the paper and who would be working on the presentation, consisting of a slide show and a class discussion. It was decided that Rommie and Jesse would work on the slide show, and Zahira and Sukari would be working on the paper. Sukari would write the paper, Zahira would check for grammatical errors, and Hector would apparently stare at the ceiling. Lexa would go between both groups, giving content information and editing mistakes on the Mythology and Fantasy.

By the end of the class Zahira and Sukari had the entire paper laid out in brief, hoping to have a more detailed version the following week. Hector was, as usual slacking, and seemed to be close to falling in sleep. Rommie was red in the face from trying to keep Jesse on track with the presentation, as he seemed content on just complaining about needing to be there when the rest of the group was perfectly capable of handling it all.

“Hey, I’ll see you guys later for some group discussion,” Lexa said to Sukari and Rommie as they walked out of the classroom.

“When are you meeting?” Zahira asked.

“After dinner, so probably around six or so.”

“I have an Honors class then or I would come too.”

“It’s alright,” Lexa reassured. “You’ve done a lot of work already. Besides, I think we’ll spend most of our time talking about random story ideas we have. I’ll see you later, back in the room.”

Seeing that Zahira still looked upset, Rommie suggested that they all meet after dinner the next night.

Zahira nodded then walked off to her next class. Hector had disappeared, and Jesse walked up beside Lexa and Sukari and threw his arms around them. “So, when are we going to all get together?”

“Jesse, you may think that you can just coast by on our work, but you’re wrong,” Sukari snapped. “You will be helping out with this project or Mr. Walman will hear about your lack of participation.”

“But…but what about Hector? He doesn’t do anything.”

“Mr. Walman will hear about him. You need to worry about your participation, not Hector’s.”

“Let me worry about Hector,” Lexa answered.

Jesse looked at them, shocked that they had actually not done something he had wanted them to. Why couldn’t they just do the project without him? It wasn’t like he actually knew what was going on in class anyway. What impact did Mythology and Fantasy have in his life? It wasn’t like it had any importance in life now…After all, Mythology was stuff that people had made up thousands of years before, and none of that interested him. “Fine, geez. Have a cow, will ya?” then he walked away from the girls, muttering and casting dirty looks back at them.

Sukari looked at Lexa and groaned. “God, I can’t stand him. Why does he have to be such a jerk all the time? I don’t think I’ll be able to tolerate him in our group for the next four weeks.”

“Relax, Sukari, it’ll be fine. Just take a few deep breaths. If he acts up in class, I’ll be right there to hold you back until class is over with. Then we’ll both go after him, alright?”

Sukari let out a deep breath. “Thanks Lexa. Well, I’ll see you after dinner. We’re meeting in Rommie’s room right?” Lexa just nodded in response. Then they waved to each other and went their separate ways.

On her way back to her room, Lexa ran into Hector. “Hey, so are you going to help with this project? I know that you’re getting good grades in that class; I saw your last test score. I, uh, I could use your help with the Mythological information,” she said.

“I…uh….I guess….maybe….as long as the others don’t know.”

“Okay, so I’ll see you later then.”

Hector just nodded then walked away.

Lexa went back to her room and dropped off her heavy book bag and picked up her smaller messenger bag. It contained several of her in-progress stories and her Mythology encyclopedia. Then she left her room and walked towards the library. It just seemed like she had so much to do, even if she didn’t have a lot of homework. All she had was a chapter in her English class and the project in Fantasy Writing. Then of course, there were the quizzes and tests to study for. But none of it added up to a lot of work, as it was all fairly easy.

A couple hours later, she walked over to Rommie’s room and knocked on the door. “Come in,” Rommie called. Lexa entered to find Rommie sitting on his computer, the glow coming from it highlighting his green eyes. His wiry red hair was kept short, and was being set off by his red shirt.

“Sukari should be here in a few minutes. So, how has your day been?”

“It’s been fine. I have quite a few assignments for my classes, so I may have to cut this meeting short.”

Lexa sighed. It was usually always Rommie that had to shorten and/or cancel their weekly meetings. “It will be fine as long as we can meet next week.”

Rommie nodded. Just then Sukari walked in. “Hey guys, sorry I’m late.” She plopped down on his bed, pulled out her art book, opened it, and started to draw.

They spent the next hour discussing their fantasy stories and ideas. Then they separated and went back to their rooms to do homework and go to bed.