HISTORY!!!!!!! La la la la la la...

'Kate, PLEASE...'

Heh, sorry.. It was my favorite period of the day, so far anyway. Our unit on the Destined Cycle was supposed to last for a long time. That was okay, I thought it was pretty interesting. I took my seat beside the window and got ready for class.

'Im about to head out now. I'll tell you what it's like when it's done.'

K. With Tellka fighting during school hours, I was left with no one to talk to. My mind began working on that. I need some friends...

The only problem was the fact that my only -friends- were Janet and the crowd she would drag me to. I sighed at that thought. Would everyone I met at this school be like her? I really hoped not. The ring of the bell knocked me back into the classroom and I glanced up as class started.

"Today we're oging to start our first class project." Mr. Jamerson stood up, a large pile of papers in his hands. "Each of you will be assigned a specific clan to research. I want you to write a paper about their roles in the Destined Cycles."

A lot of muttering rumble through the class. Mr. Jamerson waited quietly for the noise to die down. "Now then.. There are enough clans out there to study, and this is a small enough class, so I don't want any more then one person per clan. I'll call off your names in order and you can tell me which clan you want to research." Mr. Jamerson grabbed the roll sheet and began reading off the names.

"Jack? What do you want to study?"

"Windian."

Predictable... The class exploded into moans. Appearently a lot of people wanted that subject.

"Lucy?"

"Highlanders."

Mr. Jamerson smiled plesently at that. "Kate?"

"Uh.. Woren." I figured it would be interesting enough. Maybe I could even interview Katt if Frank gets back in time...

"Ray?"

"Dragon." He answered quietly. No one commented.

"Brandon?" The class continued on like this. By the time each studen was assigned a clan, the class was almost over. This was beacuse of the fact that a huge arguement came up over whether or not Bo, Bow, and Scias were all if the same clan, and if they were why did Bow look like a house dog, Bo look like a fox, and Scias look like a long-haired otter. After a while the subject was dropped completely and Mr. Jamerson forcefully assigned the forest caln to one of the the guys in the back of the class. The rest of the class time went bye pretty slow. We had to write out a paper on what we already knew about that clan. It would be compared to our final paper after we studied our clan more closely. Oddly enough, I was having fun with the assignment.

I'm going to be a bit late for practice. I need to run by the library for a moment after school.

* * *

BLAM

My ears folded back at the usual noise of Ray getting rammed into. I ignored it and continued walking through the outer cafeteria. I was looking for a place to sit.

Actually, I was looking for Diane. I wanted to talk to her. I figured if I was going to try for some friends, she would be my first try. I finally spotted her sitting at a table.

"Hey." I walked up to the seat across from her. Diane glanced up for a moment from her lunch.

"Sup?" She took a bite from her sandwich. I shrugged.

"Can I sit?" I motioned to the seat I was standing behind. Diane smirked.

"I dunno, can you?" She chuckled at her own joke and nodded. "Sure, why not?" I sat down. "You're Kate, right?"

"Yea."

"Yea... PE.." She took another bit of her sandwich. "I'm Diane. This is Alex." She motioned to the woren who just sat down beside her with his own lunch tray. Alex looked up at me, studying me quickly, then nodded and opened his milk carton.

"So," Diane continued, talking behind clenched teeth and a mouth full of food. "Howl ong have you been coming here?"

"One year."

She swallowed her bite. "Really? Where ya from?"

"Well... I was born in Cottland and my parents moved the family out to a small cabin in the woods. We were trying to raise wild herbs and fruit."

"Really?" A spark of interest flashed in Diane's eyes. "Me and Alex are from Cottland. Dad has a weapon shop there and mom's a seamstress. She used to take Alex to work with her. The guy's great at sewing." Alex's face went red and he ate a bit slower.

"What about you?" I asked Diane.

"Me? I helped Dad out. Never could stitch out those little patterns like Mom, but I can tell a sword by the tip of its blade."

"Yea, with all that information you have in your head it's amazing anything else can fit in there." Alex chuckled. Diane punched him in the arm.

"Shut up. I'm better in PE then you and you know it." Diane turned to me. "You like sports?"

I shook my head. She gave me a quick look. "Nah, you don't look like you would anyway."

"Huh?" I looked at her oddly. Diane took another bit and began explaining.

"I can usually tell what a person likes by how they look. You just don't have that sports build like athlets do. Here, stand up." Diane got up and walked over to me as I stood from my seat. She looked me up and down.

"Yea, see," she pointed to my arms. "It shows that you don't use upper body much, so you're not into things like weight training." She circled me around a bit. "But it looks like you'd be really good at running."

"Huh?"

"With legs like that, you can see they have muscle there, but it's long and flexible, like a runner or something. Say, how fast can you run?"

I shrugged.

"You ever been in track?"

I shook my head.

"You ever even practiced running?"

"Nope."

Diane gave me an odd look. "Wow, couldn't tell. I'd like to see you run sometime, see just how good you are." She snickered and sat back down at her seat, motioning for me to sit. "I think it's kinda neat. You'd be like one of them worens who's born with some naturally good quality." She took another bit of her sandwich.

"Huh?"

Diane looked up at me. "Oh, you never heard of 'em? Mom always told me stories about actual worens who had like, some kind of natural skill in certian areas. Like this one story, about a woren who was like, the best fighter." Diane leaned close to me, her eyes sparkled with excitment. I was kind of curious to hear watch she had to say.

"Yea?"

"Yea." Diane nodded. "Mom would like, talk about this one woren, it's a story her parents knew see, it's been like, passed down the family. I'm bettin' that if this is a true story that like, I have a relative that knew the girl. Anyway, there's like this story, about an odd woren that like, was different? You know, it was odd. She was like, completely different. Didn't think woren or look woren or act woren... well, I mean she did, but not in the same way."

I tried to follow as Diane began explaining with her hands a bit as she told the story. "See, she like, was really different in looking. She looked just like a woren, but she like, didn't have the strips and the tail was different and all. No one knows why, she just was. Mom said that she was some sort of guardian or something, because she was so tough. It was like a natural thing. Clan tried to get rid of her, didn't, and they started calling her the 'fighter cat' because that's like, what she would do."

I nodded. "But what was so odd about it? All worens fight."

"No no no." Diane shook her head. "See, the odd thing was that she died when she was little, or atleast they thought she did. See, one of the guys didn't like her living there when she was a baby, and they tried to kill her, and as far as the clan knew she was dead. Then, it was like one night she was there, like she had come back from the dead or something. Even our toughest fighters couldn't beat her, it was odd.."

The sound of the bell cut Diane off. I sat thinking about what she said for a moment.

"Hey, I gotta get to class. Say, Kate, we're doing some team stuff today in PE, see you there?" Diane grabbed her back and empty lunch tray. I nodded to her and she waved as she and Alex headed towards the school. I didn't feel so lonely any more.

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