The Search for Inspiration [open]

A hushed silence fell over the throne room. It took a while for my brain to process what was happening. I had only just discovered who, no what I am. A clone. A copy. A thing, nothing more. And yet, here I stood, in the presence of my original, and he looked on me not as an imitation, a doppelganger, or an imposter, but as a brother. But the sound of gunfire suddenly-

"No, no... that's just too sudden." Jeremy sighed to himself, grumbling a bit as he erased his previous sentence. "That's such a cop-out anyway... interrupting such a dramatic moment. I need another way to continue the mystery of it..." He sighed. That was the fifth time today he's erased that same sentence. He absolutely dreaded it, but he had to admit that he had writer's block.

He had hoped that walking out on this long trail would help to clear his mind, even to inspire him... but nothing seemed to help so far. He had stopped to rest about a quarter of the way around the path. He didn't want to stray too far without knowing where he was going. So he set himself up on a low, strong-looking branch of a nearby tree, with one knee raised, and his notebook resting on it. His gaze wandered up through the leafy boughs, hoping for some apple of inspiration to drop and hit him on the head.

Okay. Okay so maybe going on a hike wasn't the best or the brightest idea in the world. Her feet were already hurting and the sun was making her sweat uncomfortably. When she got home, she was going to take a long, cool shower. Up to three minutes at this point! Mom would probably complain, but she didn't care. She was too hot and sweaty for this junk.

She was relieved when she found a shaded bench under a tree, just up and to the right. There was someone else on it, but it didn't matter. Her feet were tired, and she wasn't going to take up much space. Well, at least until she looked over and saw what the man was doing.

Hmmm... It seemed that he was having trouble with a plot point. Not that she blamed him. It looked to be a rather tough story line. Something about cloning and medieval castles and guns all rolled into one. Would... would he appreciate her help? Well... it never hurt to try.

She wiped her brow with a handkerchief and put on her smile, the one that she usually used when she wanted to make acquaintances. "Excuse me sir," Nanami started, "A general rule of thumb is that the more words you put between actions, the longer it feels. Maybe you should devote a paragraph or two to your character's reaction? Anger or betrayal? Questioning his life, and if he has meaning now that he knows this awful truth? If anyone else knew, and why they didn't tell them?" She blushed and scooted further away from him, looking away now. This wasn't any of her business. "Uh... sorry. I couldn't help myself. Good luck with your story though. It... looks really interesting."

"Hmm... maybe if I bring up-AHH!" The voice down below him snapped Jeremy back to the real world. He hadn't even heard anyone approach. How long had she been down there? He didn't even realize he was reading aloud again. Reflexively, he snapped the notebook shut and hooked his legs around the branch. It took him a few moments to calm himself before looking down at her.

He hadn't seen her before. But then again, that does come with the 'exchange student' thing. He kind of sat there in startled silence for a bit. He really didn't know how to react. It... actually was a good suggestion, but totally out of the blue, and from a complete stranger. "I... Umm..." He shifted a bit. "Thanks?" He hesitated and tightened the grip on his notebook in thought. "that works... but... well it's kind of hard to explain this far in. But... I need to stall for actual time, and dialogue would reveal too much."

She seemed friendly enough, whoever she was... and certainly helpful. He managed to fight back his nerves enough to force a slight sheepish smile, though his face was still a bright shade of red.

She sighed and rubbed the back of her neck, still looking sheepish. She honestly hadn't meant to startle him, yet... gosh she was such a jerk. "Sorry, again... I... I like writing too. I'm doing a set of children's books about a dog, but I've been having a lot of trouble with it."

She looked to him and... wow, he was handsome. In an exotic kind of way. After all, he had red hair. And, unlike hers, it didn't looked dyed. Without much fanfare, she began to fiddle with one section of her hair, where she normally put the dye to make her stand out. She was sure it was called skunking? But, that was enough about her. He looked to be really interesting. Almost a complete opposite of her. Thin where she was fat, foreign where she was not, and interesting where she wasn't. It really made her want to get to know him better because of it.

"Erm... Maybe you could have him monologue? That's a way to have him stall for time without giving away too much that he doesn't know. And it would allow him to see the attack, if you wanted to. Then again, I barely know what I'm talking about, so you don't have to follow any of my advice." She laughed lightly at herself, even though she knew it was true. She didn't know what she was talking about most of the time and she was butting into his business. She shouldn't have opened her mouth.

Jeremy couldn't even fathom that someone would consider him interesting or exotic. Foreign and weird, maybe, but handsome didn't even factor into the equation, in his mind. He kept his tight grip on his notebook as he peered down at the girl. "I-It's no trouble. You.... uh... Y-you just caught me off-guard is all...." He scooted over to the trunk of the tree and slowly made his way down, maintaining a careful grip on his notebook.

"Hmm...A monologue? Maybe that could work... though I don't think it'd be him that does it....." His mind started to wander to the possibility. The scene started to play out in his head. He could practically hear the voices in his head, like his own private movie... Of course, at this point, he had lost focus on climbing down the tree, and fell the last foot, landing on his behind. "OW!"

He quickly recovered, clearly unharmed for the most part, and climbed to his feet. "No, actually that's some great advice, thanks. Uh... good luck with your kids' book... I'm sure it'll come out great."

Nanami nearly leapt out of her seat as she saw him fall, resisting the urge to ask the obvious. Though he has said 'ow' he didn't act as if he were in too much pain. Or, if he was, he didn't show it because he was too focused on his project that he had in his hand/head. She loved that look, the look of distance that transported people a million miles away, to another place, another time. She couldn't help but grin a really toothy grin as he spoke. "It's no problem. Good luck with your story as well." Should she introduce herself? Yeah, that would be a good thing to do.

"I'm Himura Nanami. It's a pleasure to meet you." She stood and bowed to him, though he probably wanted to be left alone right at this second. But who knew? They might see each other again, wandering down the roads of these cities. And he looked like he was in high school too. So they might see each other at school. Besides, it was polite to introduce yourself to strangers whom you interrupted muttering to themselves in trees. "If it's alright with you, I'd like to read your story sometime."

"I'm Jeremy Braun." He replies, hesitating a moment before returning the bow. He was still constantly second-guessing himself when it came to cultural stuff. A bow was right, wasn't it? It probably wasn't a handshake after all. He just give a sheepish smile as well, just to be sure. "It's nice to meet you."

The offer to read his story made his eyes go a bit wider. "I... uhm... m-maybe..." he tightened his grip on the notebook protectively. Normally he didn't like readers until the story was absolutely perfect.... then again... he couldn't recall any of his stories that finally reached that point.... He just decided to offer a somewhat truthful excuse. "I'd... um... have to translate it for you though..." he hesitantly gave her a sheepish look and opened up the notebook to show her a random page, which was written in perfect English.

Wait, was he saying his name in an Eastern Style or Western Style? From what she remembered in all of her English classes, 'Jeremy' was considered a first name for a boy. Generic enough. She continued to play with the lock of hair as he offered up his most precious possession: his notebook. Nanami knew how precious notebooks were, especially to writers. They held ideas, storylines, hopes, wishes, regrets, failed projects, snippets of stories, drabbles, everything. Personally, she didn't like to write all of those down with pen and paper. It was messy enough as it was in her head, why translate that onto something that could easily be burned? Better to make multiple copies on something clean. Like a computer. Though, when she was out and about, she preferred the recording button on her cellphone, so she could talk and walk at the same time without it being weird.

Okay. So some of the content she could read. She recognized a few words in English, but she was better at hearing and speaking it than reading and writing. There were so many ways to trip up the spelling that she got tense just thinking about it. The rest... well it could have been Greek as far as she knew. Ancient Japanese. Alien. What did some of this even say? Why weren't the letters lining up right? She almost smacked her forehead when she realized she had been reading it wrong. Right to left. But... then that didn't make any sense. Why would the words that she knew how to read be left to right? It could only mean that all of it was left to right. Gosh, she was so stupid sometimes.

"Erm... maybe we could translate it together sometime, Brawn-san." Nanami knew that was just a pathetic excuse to see him more often, but... she felt like she should get to know him better anyway. It might have been important and he looked to be just as much of a fish out of water as she was. "I could help you translate it into Japanese, and... maybe you could help me understand a few words. Like..." she pointed to a word on there with one fat but delicate finger, "That one." She looked to him and smiled softly.

After all of his worrying about being culturally correct, he had completely forgotten to flip his name around and didn't even notice it. It's a good thing that she noticed, or he would have quickly gotten panicky and apologetic. As he closed the notebook, he pulled it back to his chest, almost protectively. He always preferred writing, it made him really feel that he wasn't creating a story, but a whole world, full of people, places and events....

He had to stop himself from drifting away from reality again. "Translate? Um... sure... I guess..." for some reason, the thought of translating it never really seemed to occur to him. He was going to be spending the next year here... maybe more if he could help it. And yet he was still writing and thinking in the language that seemed natural to him. When she pointed to one of the words, he couldn't help but chuckle. "Well, I'm actually not surprised you don't recognize it. The Vinsairs are the name of a crime syndicate that-..." he paused and with a slight blush just waved it off. "Well, just leave it at 'it's a long story' for now." he chuckled slightly.

She could happily strangle him for all of his coyness. But, she shouldn't press her need for details onto someone else. He was barely an acquaintance after all. Instead, she would smile softly and say something along the lines of 'it's fine,' when it really wasn't. She wanted to hear the story that he was planning. It sounded so interesting and she wanted to know /now./ This was a story saved for another day. He probably had stuff to do. She didn't, but that didn't mean he could spend it all with her.

"I'll... I'll uh, leave you alone now. So you can write. It looked like you had an idea tucked away in your head, and it's the most horrid feeling in the world when you can't remember it." She bowed to him again, just to be polite. "Have a good day, Brawn-san." And with that, she began back down the hill, to get back to her home. Apparently, she felt like writing today. She felt like writing a lot about the scared dog and his brave boy. All thanks to one very exotic person whom she met.

((Nanami OUT. Unless he follows, of course.

And I just noticed in your OP, your character was up in a tree, and yet I made it sound like he was on the ground. I'm sorry.))

He felt a little bad, just letting her dismiss herself just so he could write... but to be entirely honest, she was very right. He had a ton of ideas now that he needed to get written down before he completely forgot them. "Yeah, I hate that feeling..." He gave a slightly forced, nervous laugh. "I've lost entire stories that way before..." He returned the bow, without hesitation this time. "You too...." and with that he waved her off before turning and looking up into the tree. He had left his backpack up there. He heaved a sigh and got to work climbing again.

(And he's out too. Don't worry about the first post, by the way, I barely noticed anyway.