Envy's Heart

Brief Note: None of these characters are based of real people! These are all figments of my mind! My cousins and I actually get along very well... If you read the Grimm Brother's Story Snow White and Rose Red you'll get the reference! On with the show.

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Name: Rosemarie Nesbitt
Class: Creative WritingDate: 10/9/07
Assignment: Lesson 5 Prefab Story

Envy’s Heart

Princess Rose Redd stood leaning against an arched window hollow and watched as her sweet cousin exit a gleaming ivory carriage, gilding glittering around the entire thing like some gaudy music box… How fitting for the little white princess.
Snow White looked up at the crimson palace shyly and, even from a distance, Rose saw the younger girls pale eyes widen. The older girl’s plump scarlet twisted into a smug smirk; Red Palace crowned the top of a steep hill that overlooked gardens filled with small labyrinths made of garnet, trees pruned to look like they were burning and constantly robed in the colors of autumn. The Palace itself was carved out of gleaming, ruby stones with great warriors flanking the doors and winged gargoyles leering down from tall, twisted parapets, long crimson fangs bared in hungry smiles.
It was a place for great warrior queens… not pampered princesses.
Rose’s cousin brushed fluttering hands over a simple white dress, sweeping tresses of pale silver-blond falling over her shoulders in gleaming hanks. Rose felt a twist of envy and hatred inside her; her cousin was prettier than she was… Damn her pretty white head.
Self consciously, Rose brushed long, tanned hands tipped in shining red nails through the mass of crimson that curled from her head to her shoulders in wild ringlets. Rose herself was lovely in a very… red way but she knew that the waif-thin, delicate girls were what was considered pretty this year.
“Probably weighs ninety pounds when she’s wet,” Rose sneered, running her hands over her curvaceous body, almost reassuring herself that she was still there.
“Who ever are we talking about?” a guttural voice spoke from somewhere around Rose’s ankles. The princess looked down and saw the monstrous hound that had curled himself around her feet. The beast looked up at her with eyes that shone like two gold coins and, like the rest of everything owned by Rose, was the color of freshly spilt blood. This great beast of a dog was aptly named Bull.
“My cousin, Princess Snow White,” Rose growled, looking away from her dog to watch the other little princess pick her way delicately up the path. Rose bristled; as if the palace was uncivilized and messy!
The hound stood on paws as large as tea saucers and stretched out, wagging the tip of his sleek, red tail. He sat heavily next to his charge and watched with her as the Snow White came primly up to the door.
“And the woman next to her?” Bull asked, looking up at Rose, though he didn’t have far to look; his head came up to a few inches above her elbow.
Rose followed the golden gaze of her dog and looked at Queen Ella. The Queen of the White was a tall, slender woman with hair as straight and as white as bone, cascading down to her hips and swaying with the most subtle movement. Even paler than her daughter, the White Queen seemed to glow beneath the pumpkin-orange sun that hung low in the hazy sky. Of course she was covered from head to heel in the palest ivory and the most delicate tracing of winter blue.
“Aunt Ella,” Rose grunted, disinterested in her aunt. It was her cousin who she hated, her aunt was just a faceless enemy to hate later.
“What are they doing here?” Bull growled, so much like his mistress.
“Invading my privacy,” Rose muttered.
As dog and girl watched, the enormous black-red doors were opened and a tall, magnificent woman swathed in crimson and ebony swept out, curls of crimson flurrying behind her head in an elegant tumble. She grasped Queen Ella’s arms and the two women embraced looking like blood and snow. Rose thought her mother was the prettier of the two; with a strong jaw and a proud curl to her full lips.
Then the Red Queen turned to smile down at her young niece and Rose felt the weed of envy bloom brightly in her chest and start coiling venomously around her heart. She watched with mounting dislike as her mother embraced the tiny, white creature and dropped a kiss onto the little girls pale head.
Rose said something that she was sure would have made her mother gasp and the White Queen faint.
Then the Red Queen led the White Queen and the Pale Princess into the Red Palace and Rose swung around and pressed her back to the window, sliding down until crimson skirts puddle around her, making her look as if she was bleeding to death.
“Here for the entire holiday,” Rose muttered bitterly, “As if they couldn’t spend their Mid-Summers festival in their own kingdom.”
She sighed bitterly and felt hot, frustrated tears flood her eyes. Angry, ashamed and disgusted with herself, Rose knuckled them away ruthlessly. Tears were a weakness; the Redd Family could not abide weakness.
Bull looked down at her with his knowing yellow eyes and leaned forward, rubbing his soft, sleek muzzle against the princess’s ear and neck in comfort. Rose ran her fingers through the beast’s fur and took comfort from his warmth.
An entire weekend thinking she was second best… Rose’s teeth tightened; she would have to handle it… like she had every year for her entire life.
Rose closed her eyes, finding comfort in the darkness within her mind and began to drift through her own dreams filled with crimson.

The young girl jerked sharply, curled up on the floor, her head pillowed in her arms and her arm draped across Bull’s massive chest. At her sharp movement, the hound woke, snarling, his ridge standing up in a swath of black fur down his spine and his tail held rigid, prepared to rip anything in the room apart.
Rose smiled slightly and rubbed her fingers behind the big dogs ear.
“It’s all right, you moose,” Rose chuckled.
Bull sighed gustily and put his head back down looking around the darkening room suspiciously.
Rose sat up and groaned softly as her back protested with a series of creaking pops, sounding like an old house in a gusting wind.
“It’s what I get for sleeping on the floor,” she yawned, pushing herself to her feet and straightening out her scarlet skirts that looked black in the dimness.
Rose turned and looked out the window, searching the dark orange-brown sky for the jack o’ lantern moon. She saw it hovering just above the steeple of a church, basking the Red Palace in its Cheshire smile.
“Why do you suppose they didn’t come get us for the evening meal?” Rose asked Bull as the dog heaved himself to his feet and stretched.
“Maybe they couldn’t find us?” he asked, tipping one ear forward in thought.
“I guess we would blend in with the floor, wouldn’t we?” Rose asked with a small smile.
“We would. You don’t suppose they’re worried do you?” Bull asked, not really concerned.
“With the little white princess here to fawn over?” Rose scoffed. “For the next four days we’ll be lucky to be noticed enough to be yelled at.”
Bull snorted angrily and pressed himself against Rose’s leg, it was a moment before he said, “I’ll always remember you’re here.”
The young, red princess smiled a little sadly at that and patted Bull’s massive head.
“Let’s get something to eat and then head to a real bed for some sleep,” Rose said and crossed the dark ruby room in a whisper of crimson skirts.
The princess and her constant canine companion whispered through the darkened Red Palace until the found the kitchens. There Rose hunted for scraps of dinner without waking a soul, despite the fact that one of the fire maids had fallen asleep on her post. With out her administrations, the fire that should have constantly roared in the hearth was nothing more than a bed of glowing, ruby coals.
Rose made herself a cold chicken sandwich and gave Bull two whole rabbits, which he ate with much slobbering and crunching. Blood spilled down his chin and chest, pooling on the kitchen floor and darkening his already dark fur. Rose thought he looked rather nice with blood on his lips and imagined it to be her cousin’s precious blood.
Though it’s more likely it’s white than red, Rose thought and giggled.
When the two had fed on kitchen scraps, a fact that both of them laughed bitterly at, they returned to Rose’s massive bedchamber and in silence and in darkness, Rose slipped from her voluminous gown to a simple nightgown.
Bull settled down at the foot of Rose’s bed, spreading across the many blankets and sheets that crowded the goose-down mattress. He was long enough to have his front paws dangling off the edge and his tail waving over the other side.
Rose herself snuggled beneath the blankets, throwing her head against the mountain of down pillows and letting the darkness spread over her again, a comforting cloak of sleep and perhaps in her dreams she would be the favored child instead of Snow White.
The sun was high in the sky when Rose awoke the next morning. She opened her eyes to crimson darkness and stared up at the silk underside of her canopy bed, admiring the ripples the wind made over the thin silk.
Bull looked away from the window where he had been gazing thoughtfully and wagged his tail when he saw that Rose was awake. As if he was a puppy much smaller than he really was, Bull trotted from his post at the end of the bed and flopped heavily down near Rose, throwing himself into her side with bruising force and smiling a doggy smile at her. The young princess had her breath knocked out of her and she started laughing before she even got it back.
“Alright, alright,” Rose groaned, still laughing, “We’ll go out.”
She dressed simply and, after tying it back in a black silk ribbon, ignored her red curls flawlessly… it came from years of practice, she told Bull as they walked through the red corridors, Rose munching on hot toast that she had stolen from the breakfast table and tossing the crusts to Bull.
They entered the sloping, emerald lawns on the royal gardens and Bull bounded off, Rose following at a dreamy pace. The big dog never strayed far, too protective of his princess to leave her side for very long.
Surrounded by flowers opening shyly to the suns tender light, Rose felt a semblance of peace and dismissed her cousin for the time being. There was no point in letting a pale little waif ruin such a glorious day. Besides, the weekend would be over soon, if Rose was very clever, she could avoid seeing her little cousin altogether.
“Rose!”
The voice was just as pale and delicate as the girl herself. The Red Princess felt her spin stiffen and her lips firm together in a disapproving line. She turned and looked on the delicate girl-child gliding towards her, looking as sweet and as pretty as a snowflake.
“Not as clever as I had hoped I was,” Rose muttered to herself.
“Hello, cousin Rose!” Snow White said sweetly, “Isn’t it wonderful that we get to spend the weekend together?”
“Thrilling.”
Rose looked down at her cousin’s smiling face and curled her lip in a sneer then turned away. She made no secret of her contempt for the White Court and yet Snow continued to bother her.
Without looking to see if the younger princess followed, Rose continued on, following the oath of broken and bent grass that Bull had left in his wake.
“Where are we going?” Snow asked, trotting to keep up with the taller girl.
“I’m following my dog,” Rose said, rolling her eyes, “I have no idea what you’re doing.”
“Following you!” Snow chirped. Rose pressed her lips together.
The two princesses walked around the gardens, Snow talking insistently, Rose responding with a noncommittal sound now and again.
When Snow finally fell silent Rose looked around to see what miracle had caused the younger girl to shut her trap. The younger princess had fallen behind and was peering curiously at something a young lord was holding. Rose watched as the knight grinned at the little princess and held something up to her. Whatever it was caught the light and spun it out in a hundred different directions in a hundred different colors.
Unimpressed, Rose continued on, walking into the dim, red interior of the palace and with Bull walking beside her. Done with the outside world, Rose locked herself in her room and lost herself in her daydreams, staring over the shining city and into the land beyond without moving for hours.
The only clue that any time passed was the slow shift of red shadows over the walls. At one point a timid knock came from her door. With nothing more than annoyed glance, Rose ignored the intruder and soon they walked away, sure that no one could be so rude.
Rose smirked.
In her darkness and solitude was where Rose spent the day, lost in a wonderland of her own design and only when the church tolled midnight did she realize that she was hungry.
“Sneaking kitchen scraps again,” Rose said standing and stretching her fingers up towards her ceiling. Bull woke with a start and a yelp and then shook his head, blinking blearily at her. Rose smiled and said, “Stay here, I’ll bring you back something.”
Alone, Rose wandered the abandoned red halls to the kitchen where she collected parcels of food for Bull as well as herself and then started back towards her room.
On her way back to her haven, Rose passed Snow’s room and found herself unable to move forward. From beneath the closed door, golden-red light glittered tauntingly. Looking left and then right, Rose confirmed that she was alone and pushed the door open just enough for her to slip through.
The dancing light was coming from a small, round table set against one corner. Rose cast a clandestine peek over at her cousin who slept heavily beneath a mountain of blankets.
Silently, holding the basket of food on one arm and feeling absurdly guilty, Rose hurried across the room to study whatever it was making the taunting glow.
A gleaming pendant sat on the table, a fine, dark gold chain lay coiled like a sleeping snake above it and though the chain was lovely and as fine as spider-silk… the pendant out shone anything Rose could have imagined.
Shaped like a blooming flower with petals made of dark gold and the center made out a jewel that looked like a fire caught under glass. It shifted from deep orange to pale, buttery yellow, to a dark crimson that Rose found particularly fetching.
Completely spellbound, she reached out a tentative finger and brushed the jewel gently. The moment she caressed the face of the gem it pulsed to a deep red-black that called out to Rose in a way nothing else did.
She lifted the now pulsing jewel up by its chain and allowed the angry light to bathe her features. Carefully, she turned it over to look at the back, hoping to see more of that magnificent glow.
She was disappointed, there was nothing but that dark gold setting that, while pretty, did not compare to that blood light that came from the jewel. But… there seemed to be something more.
Squinting in the darkness, Rose managed to read the small inscription on the back of the jewel.
“To my love, Snow White, the loveliest flower in bloom, ” Rose read allowed in a whisper.
The little lord who held in his hand something that sent out beams of light and color… this must be what he had been holding out to Snow, a gift.
“‘To my love’,” Rose whispered, looking over at her cousin. She held the jewel tightly in her hand, smothering the lovely crimson glow as she stared at her cousin, knowing nothing but hatred.
I’ll take it, Rose thought viciously, I’ll take it and hide it so she never finds it again… It’s not like she’d miss it anyway, stupid girl that she is.
Rose didn’t feel the tears spilling down her cheeks, didn’t notice how her entire body trembled. Her cousin rolled over fitfully, moaning gently as if she could feel the hatred in Rose’s glare.
But then, as if she had meant to do it to begin with, Rose opened her tightly clenched hand and let the pendent drop back onto the table.
“What would I do with such a foolish thing as love anyway?” she asked her sleeping cousin. “Everyone loves you best, cousin… But I can rule better with fear.”
Rose turned and slipped out of the darkened room, taking one last look at the glittering pendent on the table and then vanishing into the dark, crimson halls of a castle that would, sooner rather than later, belong to her.

My Learning Environment: A Short Composition

My Learning Environment: A Short Composition
By: Rose Nesbitt

My learning environment is my office, down the hall by three steps from my bedroom. The walls are white and the floor is covered in white carpet. Pushed against one wall is a small, dark brown cabinet that holds all of my supplies, above it hands a poster of the world.
On another wall there is a make-shift book shelf made of bricks and boards that holds my collection of novels. Above the book shelf is a poster of the wicked queen from snow white, between her long-fingered hands she holds a bubbling goblet full of pink liquid. She stares out at the room with a coldly aloof gaze… my version of a motivational poster.
Opposite of the wicked queen is where my desk is. It’s a corner desk. On one side I have my home laptop, filled with stories, pictures, games, and downloads that I got off the internet or that were sent to me by friends. A few books keep my ‘home laptop’ company.
The other arm of the desk is my school laptop which is joined by pictures of friends and family. Above my school laptop is a poster of the green Absinth Fairy, rising from a smoky skull and smirking knowingly down at me, next to her is my Born of the Night calendar. At the moment the picture is that of a green fairy queen, gazing thoughtfully through a misty swamp, in one delicate hand she clutches a narrow wand, crowned with a pointed emerald the size of her fist.
Masks are a commonality throughout the room, smiling or glaring down at me with coldly knowing or sweetly blank eyes.
I chose this location to do my school work because it is where the laptop fits best and because it is where I am used to doing all my work. It’s my office; my little den of creativity.
I am able to focus best in this room because there is a flat surface to put my laptop and because here I can influence the entire room with my will. There is nothing in here that I did not carefully select to make the walls, floor and even ceiling my very own.
The one distraction in this learning environment is my home laptop. That is where I constantly have other programs open so I’ll never be completely inundated with my schoolwork.
To make my learning space more effective I could keep my home laptop closed… but I find the option to swing around and do something else other than my school work very helpful; I never feel the hopeless oppression of a brick and mortar school because, if I so choose, I can turn my chair slightly and talk to some of my friends over instant messaging.

Creative Writing Entry 1

This was my very first assignment from my creative writing class. I'm pretty proud of it! Please, tell me what you think of it!

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Prompt: Write a daydream in which you are the heroine who saves the day.

Whispers filled the night. From the shadows and dark, scary places, voices of the dead murmured softly, like patrons at a library. Outside, the pale eyelash of the moon offered its meager light to the earth that shivered beneath the breath of darkness that I brought with me.
In the long shadow I cast, surely too long to be mistaken for a mortal, two other girls walked. With bright, eager eyes, the looked upon the world of darkness that I had so recently introduced them to. Both smiled up at me and I smiled down at them as a mother would smile at a favored child.
We walked over uneven cobblestones and through tendrils of mist that coiled around our feet like a loving cat and I taught them how to look for prey.
“It’s in their smell,” I whispered softly and lifted my nose to the misty night, inhaling the scents of the small town and tasting the air with the tip of my tongue; it was a cool night and the air was bracing going into my warm mouth and shilling my lungs but there was something refreshing about it and I drew strength from that, as well as from the cold light of the slight moon.
The two girls looked up at me eagerly, a pair of lightning blue eyes and a pair of grass green, both laughably innocent when I considered what I was preparing to show them.
“What do you smell?” the blue-eyed girl whispered.
“I smell…” I sniffed at the air again, a blood hound on the scent of a wily vixen, “I smell a loving family… A father, mother, sister, brother… and a new baby.”
My mouth watered at the thought of the child… It would be a joy to show my two new apprentices the sweetness of young blood.
“Are they our prey?” the green eyed child breathed, eager as I had been on my first hunt. I could imagine a puppy, wagging her tail so hard, her entire backside wiggled. With that vision in mind a laugh rolled through my throat, soft, purring and dangerous.
“Yes, puppy,” I told her, “they will be our prey.”
I led them to a small cottage and stood back, studying the door, the curtained windows and the thatched roof… There was nothing there to deter me; so many had dismissed my kind as outlandish that few took the precautions anymore. There was no line of rice or salt outside the door, there were no silver bells hanging from the windows and no moving water anywhere near the house.
“Pathetic,” I muttered to myself. The two girls looked at me curiously but I simply smiled at them and ran one long, talon-tipped finger over the lock and heard the satisfying snick as the bolt drew back.
Silently, I pushed the door open, holding it for my two little shadows and then closing it just as silently behind me. If it had just been me, I would not have even bother with the door, but simply turned myself into ground mist or a spider to slid through the cracks. But neither of the little ones had yet mastered any sort of transformation so it had to be the door, as common as it was.
Silent as shadows, we slipped through the house, gliding up stairs as if we weighed no more than silk. At the top of the stairs I held up one, long-fingered hand and the two stopped, watching me with huge eyes.
I waited for a moment, straining hypersensitive ears to listen to the soft, faint breathing of the family. When all five had breathed slow, deep and even I allowed myself a moment of relaxation.
So close, I could smell all of them to an extreme that was almost uncomfortable; their skin alone was drenched in different perfumes, soaps, and colognes that did not mask their own sweat. Not from me anyway. They all slept on wood beds, a spicy, perfumed sort of wood that tickled my nose and added to the confusion, feather quilts, leather boots and soft, doe skin slippers, fur and skin all crowded my sense of smell.
“Be aware, children,” I whispered, “these people have a hundred different scents on them each… Do not breathe to deep.”
I could hear them nod and smiled.
I slipped down the hall and the two girls tip-toed after me. The green eyed girl was holding her breath and the blue eyed girl was breathing shallowly. We stood in front of a closed door that led into one of the bedrooms of the children.
I stroked the wood softly, inhaling deeply and listening to the soft movements of the sleeping child within.
“The sister,” I whispered, “Six years old and as docile as a lamb.”
I smiled a twisted smile and looked at the green-eyed child that stood next to me. She was staring hard at the door but looked up when she felt my eyes on her skin.
“This one,” I breathed, “is for you.”
She grinned and I pushed opened the door. Moonlight fell across the floor and onto the bed where a tell-tale mound indicated the little girl was indeed there.
The green-eyed girl whispered forward with steps as light as a hunting wolf, her eyes shining with feral hunger. I watched her as she held one small hand over the child’s mouth as a precaution and then bow low over the exposed neck and then slip inch-long fangs as pale as moonlight into the child’s neck.
I watched as the little child jerk slight, heard her draw a breath to scream and smelled her choking fear but then the venom that the green-eyed girl had inherited from me began to take effect and the little girl-child slumped back down in her pillow.
Transferred through saliva, our venom was deadly because it brought on a sweet sort of numb that our victims could not afford. A single kiss from any of our kind would leave the strongest of warriors smiling vacantly… he would sigh softly when fangs slipped through the delicate flesh above his jugular and he would not complain once while all of his blood was tasted, swallowed, devoured.
I know this because I had done it… a kiss and they were mine.
When the child’s breath had stopped and when she lay entirely too still, my little green-eyed daughter came back, her lips a bright crimson and her eyes glowing like little green suns.
“Better?” I whispered.
She looked up at me with the sweet sleepiness of a well fed child and nodded.
I smiled down at her and looked over at the blue-eyed girl that watched quietly, when she saw that I was looking at her, she smiled and walked across the hall to the other door.
I followed her and smirked; the smell of adolescent boy was unmistakable, I nodded to her and she opened the door, padding quietly across the floor and kneeling next to the boys bed.
There was no fear in her, no wild excitement either… simply the need to eat as anyone would have. She bent over the boy’s neck, slid her hand over his mouth and plunged her own fangs into soft, warm flesh.
The boy jerked once in surprise and then fell still, sighing softly as if he had just lain down after a very long day on his feet.
I inhaled deeply, the smell of blood made my mouth water but in all packs, the pups eat first and only when they are well fed and satisfied is the mother allowed to eat.
So I waited, still and quiet as the last drop of the boy’s blood slipped, still hot, down the blue-eyed girl’s throat. She rose and hurried quietly back over to me, grinning happily. I chuckled and ran my hand over her soft, dark hair… Now it was my turn and I was ravenous.
With the two girls in tow, I padded down the hall on the balls of my feet to the room at the end of the house. Through the door I could hear the husband’s heavy snores and wife’s soft breathing, still sound asleep while their children where being murdered a few steps away.
I pushed the door open and stepped into the darkness, following my ears to the husband’s side of the bed. I stood over him for a moment, admiring his shapely jaw, the proud curve of his nose and then I fed heartily.
His blood flooded over my lips, filling my mouth with sweet, salty life. I swallowed, drinking as eagerly as any the first time I had ever fed. I swallowed the red and felt it warm my throat, pooling in my stomach thickly like wine and felt the energy the blood contained swell within me.
The man had not even woken.
I took a small measure of pride knowing that I was skilled enough to not wake my victims, even when I fed off them. I glanced over and sneered when I saw that the woman was still sleeping deeply.
Unlike my two apprentices, who were watching with white eyed appreciation, I was still hungry, even after such a meal as a grown man. With the same ease with which I had killed the husband, the wife’s life was ended with a few pulses of crimson.
Only then did the baby start to cry out softly. I turned on the crib, my appetite, a moment ago satiated, roared back to the surface; I had forgotten about the baby.
“Now,” I said softly to the two girls behind me, “You will know ambrosia.”
I walked to the crib, not bothering to move with shadowy stealth but still making very little noise. The two girls followed me, standing above the babe’s head and looking down at him curiously. Behind them a shadow sailed over the moon and darkened the room.
“Hello, my little one,” I cooed to the little boy, who stared up at me with eyes wide with terror. One thing can be said about babies; they always know when there is something dark lurking near them.
“He’s just a baby,” the green eyed girl said with a frown, “He’ll barely be a gulp each.”
“Oh, but that one gulp,” I purred, “will be like drinking the moonlight.”
I reached into the crib, my long, dark nails looking especially sharp so near such tender flesh.
I brushed a finger along the baby’s nose and cooed to him softly, taking a malicious sort of joy at his terror.
Then bright, white hot pain exploded in my right shoulder-blade, numbing my arm and soaking my back with black blood.
I turned, snarling look something feral and looked at my attacker.
A man stood there, his dark eyes locked on mine and a grimace of hatred and concentration twisting his face into a grotesquerie. Though when he saw my face, my dark lips pulled back from a mouth full of long, sharp teeth, the hatred and concentration dimmed to terror.
The baby started to wail and the terror vanished; once more replaced by hate; he knew exactly what we were and what we wanted. Good for him; he had still brought me pain and that meant he would have to die the slowest, most excruciating death I could imagine.
And after 900 years, my imagination was very vivid.
I would have attacked him, pressed my lips against his skin and sedated him so I could have a long, leisurely time killing him but then he raised his weapon, a wicked looking crossbow, and aimed at my green-eyed child.
If my heart still pulsed, it would have stopped.
The quarrel was released with a twitch of the man’s finger and went screaming though the air. I did the only thing I could do in such an abrupt situation.
Moving with a dancer’s grace and twirled into the path of the quarrel and cried out when it lodged itself in my throat.
No sore throat could compare; every time I tried to swallow wave after wave of pain washed through me… but I wasn’t dead and I was filled with all-consuming wrath, which made me powerful.
I wrenched the quarrel from my throat and tossed it on the ground between myself and the hunter.
“Leave now, my children,” I rasped hoarsely. To their credit they both looked like they would refuse before I said in a low, dangerous voice, “Now.”
They both crashed out the window and tumbled down the roof. I heard their feet strike the concrete and then nothing as they vanished into the shadows where they would wait for me.
The main raised his cross bow but with a jerk of my head and a flicker of throat it went flying out his hands, exploding into the wall and falling onto the heads of the dead husband and wife.
“Now we are as we were made,” I told him softly, stepping forward, “You are at my mercy and that is the way it should be.”
He did not back away but stood strong, attempting to stare me down. But I had seen worse than him… I hade murdered worse than him and he did nothing to frighten me.
I was imagined opening his stomach, imagined his intestines sliding over the wooden floor, staining the rugs with his blood and I smiled.
Some of what I was thinking must have gleamed through that smile, for his eyes widened slightly and he finally took one stumbling step back. But as I was stepping into reach I heard the door bang open and a handful of men rush in, worried for their neighbors.
With a snarl of rage, I threw myself out the window, massive black wings billowing from beneath my cloak. I glided down to the ground and gathered my two little apprentices.
They wrapped strong slender arms around me and, with deep, powerful strokes of my wings, I propelled us across the sky, over the town and into the deep, dark forest that offered sanctuary.
When I landed, the girls simply tightened their arms around me and began to cry quietly.
“Oh, oh, children,” I murmured, dropping to my knees and cradling them both, “there is no need for tears.”
“Y-y-you almost died!” the green eyed child sobbed.
“Yes,” I told her calmly, “hunters are a threat, even to us… but I am still here, aren’t I? He did not succeed and I am still here…”
That seemed to calm them and soon their sobs had trailed off into soft, sleepy sniffles and then into deep, quiet breathing.
I sat still, holding them as they slept and kept watch for a dark-eyed hunter with a crossbow and a grudge but he did not come… not then, anyway. Perhaps one day I would turn around and he would be there, a quarrel aimed at my and he would succeed in his mission and send him into a flame of glorious true death… but he did not come that day and it would be a long time before any mortal caught me by surprise.

Age of Exploration and Colonization Histroy Test

I'm so proud of this test. My teacher asked if she could use my essay answers as examples for other students so they knew what to do!!!
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Name: Rosemarie Nesbitt
Username: rnesbitt
Date: 2/25/07

1. What role did spice play in the Age of Exploration?
-Spices played an important role because during this time foods were bland and tasteless and also spoiled quickly. Spices, which were very expensive, would enhance the flavor of dull tasting foods as well as keep them edible longer.

2. What role did race and class play in Spanish colonies?
In the Spanish colonies race and class played a large role; one’s race or mixed race affected whether or not one could move up in the world through marriage.

3. What were the main ideas of mercantilism?
Mercantilism is an economic theory which holds that the prosperity of a nation depends upon its supply of wealth instead of how much lad a monarch (or country) held.

4. What role did joint-stock companies play in North American Colonies?
Joint-stock companies helped fun explorative trips to North America. With joint-stock companies, individual investors would buy shares in the company and their money would help finance the business trip.

5. What African nations became powerful in the 1800s, and how did they do so?
Dahomey, Yoruba, and the Zulu were all African nations that became powerful during the 1800s by taking over surrounding tribes and kingdoms with the guns and other trade items the Europeans gave them in exchange for captured slaves.

6. How did India influence other empires in Southeast Asia?
India influenced the rest of Southeast Asia with the religions that were prevalent there (Hinduism and Buddhism) as well as architecture, art, music and other cultural thumbprints.

Essay Questions:

1. What were the goals of different colonies in North America, and how did those goals affect relations with the Native Americans?
In the North American colonies the goals of each colony, and its corresponding mother land, were different.
The Spanish were in search for silver and gold in North and South America, intending to increase their wealth. This effected the Native Americans because the Spanish often demanded tribute from the natives that lived within their colonies as slaves. Not only that but they exploited the native and sent them back to Spain in chains.
The French however were more interested in fur trade. They formed alliances with the Native American’s around their colonies and learned how to survive in the harsh winters of what is now Canada. The French kept good communication and negotiations with the Native Americans.
The Dutch simple wanted to establish trade and continues using their ‘hands off’ approach with the Native Americans they were establishing trade with: they did not wish to get involved in any issues the Natives were having with each other and left the religion card well enough alone.
The English also wanted to establish trade as well as build colonies to escape religious persecution. Colonists also came over to set up their craft or seek their fortune on top of that, some Colonies became wealthy through crops such as tobacco. The intercourse kept with the Native Americans was usually pleasant.


2. How did China, Korea and Japan react to the arrival of European traders in Asia?
When European traders arrived on the South Eastern coast of China the Chinese resisted the attempts of the Portuguese to open trade communication, considering the foreigners to be barbarians. Their resistance lasted for much of the sixteen- and seventeen-hundreds.
It wasn’t until the Industrial Revolution that Europe was able to force the Chinese to accept their trade through bigger, better guns and bigger, better ships that crushed China’s fleet. Still, China desperately tried to limit trade with the westerners.
Missionaries, however, were allowed into China and began their work of spreading the word of Christianity and conversion.
Korea was first introduced to westerner by the missionaries that came through the Chinese-Korean border which began in1789. Soon the Missionaries influence increased and, at the same time, more and more ships coming from Europe were landing on Korea’s shores.
Because Korea had been invaded throughout its history, the rulers became nervous about increasing European influences so those leaders spent much of the 1800s trying to isolate Korea by trying to stop the spread of Christianity and refusing to gran European nations trading rights.
These actions earned Korea the nickname, “The Hermit Nation”.
The Japanese, however, had been active in and exploration since the 1400s, there ships anchored and trading just off the shores of China and Korea.
In 1543 the Portuguese traders arrived in Japan, the Spanish, English and Dutch hot on their heels. For nearly sixty years trade passed between Japan and Europe.
In 1603 a new absolutist government called the Shogunate was founded in Japan, they were called the Takagowa Shogunate and they adopted the isolation policy of Korea.
The Takagowa Shogunate issued a strict set of rules that dictate morality, behavior and social roles of Japanese citizens, including the new idea western influences were a threat to their power. All westerners, save the Dutch, are expelled from Japan and nearly all trade is banned.
Not even the missionaries were exempt: Christianity was outlawed and thousands of Christians, Japanese and European alike, are persecuted.
Other laws, such as the Japanese being forbidden to travel abroad and the samurai not allowed to buy any western objects are also fiercely enforced. If one was to break one of these law it was punishable by death.

Process or Cause-and-Effect Paragraph

Name: Rosemarie Nesbitt
Username: rnesbitt
Date: 3/26/07
Assignment 4.5.1: Writing Practice – Process or Cause-and-Effect Paragraph

I chose a process paragraph.

It’s not that hard to create a fictional character, despite what everyone says. You just have to follow a few rudimentary steps and that will give you the ‘bare bones’ of your creation, after that all it takes it a bit of fleshing out; adding detail and quirks.
First, you have to start out with good, believable characters. To do this, write down a character sheet, put your creations name at the top and then start working on them. Start with their appearance; hair color, style, length, eyes color and shape, skin tone and texture, height, weight, body type… Try to picture the person in your mind and write down everything you see. And don’t worry, it doesn’t need to be organized and you can always go back if some other feature occurs to you.
After that work on your characters personality but be careful! This is one of the trickiest parts of building a believable character; a lot of authors fall prey to perfect characters what is know as Mary-Sue or Gary-Stews. Make sure that your character has flaw. And real ones, not ‘too nice’ or anything like that. Remember that even a character can be disliked by other characters and readers. Remember you can please all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time but you cant please all of the people all of the time.
After you have your characters physical appearance and personality it’s time to figure out where your character came from.
Where did your character come from? What is their family and home life like? Why are the situation that they’re in now? Answer these questions, and anymore that you can think of, until you know your characters basic history. Remember; it doesn’t have to be organized and it doesn’t have to be perfectly detailed… this is just the bare bones that will give you a basic feel for who your character will be.
Creating fictional characters isn’t that hard, just follow those three basic steps and viola, you have the rough draft of a character sheet.

The Morning Report (8-14-06)

The Morning Report
8-14-06
By:
The Rose Nesbitt Corporation

A Tattoo for Mission Impossible

Hilary Snyder, a twenty year old resident of Des Moines, Iowa had a moment of an ultra-sneak attack last Tuesday when she woke up to find that she had been tattooed while she had slept… not the very best way to experience your first piece of body art but I suppose she’s lucky she didn’t feel anything.
Snyder said she had taken a pain pill along with a sleeping pill the night before and when she awoke she found a tattoo of a pentacle on her right ankle.
The victim of this little joke might actually be Snyder’s boyfriend as he has been thoroughly dumped… he had been told by Snyder that she hadn’t wanted to get a tattoo but he had wanted her to get a matching five-pointed star to match his.
“At least he didn’t flub it up,” Snyder said.
Though their have been no arrests investigation continues; A police report accuses the now-former boyfriend of domestic assault. But Snyder isn't so sure.
"I mean it's not like he beat me up,” she said. “There were no bruises or blood or anything. I'm just not going to see him again."
Her logic is found ending an obviously non-communicative relationship.

Woman Gets Violent for Her Fix of Fries
If someone ever tells you that McDonalds isn’t addicting make sure to reference this article.
Two women, Melinda Ann Thomas, 34, and Linda Ann Thomas, 51 were waiting in line at McDonalds for their breakfast like everyone else –calmly, with bleary eyes and wishing desperately they were back in bed- when another cashier opened.
The two women sidestepped into the new line… and move which angered another customer who was waiting in line behind them.
The abruptly enraged woman started yelling and saying that she would kill the two women. She must have been placated somehow because she left before the Thomas’s but waited in the parking lot, sitting in her blue Jeep Cherokee for the two line-cutters to exit the fast food restaurant.
%2

The Morning Report (8-8-06)

The Morning Report

8-8-06

By:

The Rose Nesbitt Corporation

Bundles of Panda Joy

In Beijing earlier today a six-year-old female panda gave birth to the largest cub ever to be born in captivity.

The cub, born to Zhang Ka after a 34 hour labor, weighed in at 218 grams (half a pound) and while the doesn’t sound that heavy most baby pandas weigh between 83 and 190 grams when they are first born and are more often than not nowhere near 200 grams.

What makes this birth especially wonderful, and surprising, is that it was Zhang Ka’s very first birth and that she was born in the wild.

Two twin panda sisters, also six years old, gave birth to two pairs of twin male cubs -- with much less drama -- on Sunday and Monday in the Chengdu Giant Panda Reproduction and Research Center near Wolong.

These births brought the number of pandas born in captivity in China up to six in just two days.

It is common knowledge that the panda is one of the most exotic and endangered animals in the world today and these animals are national treasures.

It is suspected that there are only 1,600 in wild pandas live in nature reserves in Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces.

It is very, very hard to breed giant pandas in captivity as females only ovulate once a year, with a slim 24- to 48-hour window for breeding.

These little cubs are very cute, almost hairless, pink and blind their mortality rate is very high and it is wonderful to have five new additions to the panda population.

Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is raising its starting pay in about a third of its nearly 4,000 U.S. located stores by an average of 6 percent. They are also introducing wage caps and for the first time on each type of job in all their stores.

The nation's largest private employer said the changes would help it remain competitive with other retailers and meet a need for workers and managers as it continues to expand… and expand… and expand.

Wal-Mart has more than 1.3 million U.S. employees, which it refers to as associates… isn’t that just precious.

The worker’s pay and benefits have been under fire from union-backed critics, who call the wages skimpy.

Wal-Mart has defended its average full-time hourly wage of $10.11 and launched lower cost health plans this year with premiums as low as $11 month in some areas.

"We've created about 240,000 jobs in the last three years and we are continuing to grow. We need to ensure that we have the most appropriate classification and pay programs to meet our growth needs," Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley said.

The changes help in two ways, Simley said; higher starting pay makes Wal-Mart more attractive to new workers and the wage caps give current associates an incentive to move up to higher positions if they want to make more money.

The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer did not specify the new starting rates or give examples for the new pay caps. Simley said the numbers vary too much by local market conditions across the country to provide an accurate average figure.

Susan Chambers, executive vice president of the company's People Division, said in a statement that Wal-Mart remained competitive with benefits including health care, 401K plans, profit sharing and annual incentives.

Chambers said that was why "people stand in line to apply for Wal-Mart jobs."

A Dead Moose Has Gone Missing.

The 600-pound bull was shot to death by police Tuesday night after being found seriously injured by the side of Route 272, where it had apparently been hit by car but not properly killed.

But officers from the state Department of Environmental Protection could not find the carcass when they went to retrieve it the next day.

State wildlife biologist Howard Kilpatrick said someone may have taken the road kill to eat it. Quite a few people who learned of the collision called the Department of Environmental Protection’s 24-hour emergency number to ask if they could take the moose for the meat.

They were answered in the negative.

"No one had permission to take it. Our goal was to look at its general condition and gain its biological data," Kilpatrick said. "The moose population is expanding but there is no hunting season to give us a chance to examine carcasses."

It is illegal to remove a turkey, moose or bear from the road. A deer can be taken by the driver of the vehicle that strikes it after an incident report is filed with the state.