Eco-Mania

The freak incident of a heat wave that had stuck Magnolia a day ago had vanished come nightfall, just as inexplicably as it had appeared. The citizens of the busy town breathed a collective a sigh of relief at this. They could go about their lives with greater ease now. Vale too was happy about it – even if she had had a better day than expected, relaxing at the lake. She had come back to the hotel soon after the little boy had left with his parents and promptly flopped onto her bed on her back, arms and legs stretched out like a starfish. Her beachwear had poofed away to be replaced by a nightdress patterned with little yellow ducklings on it before her body hit the mattress. It was so convenient, being a ReQuip mage. She lay in this position for a few, silent moments, staring at a water stain on the ceiling that looked suspiciously like Galuna Island. Or the head of a goat. She couldn’t decide which.

“What are you even doing, Vale? Go to sleep already.”

She sighed, reluctantly agreeing with herself. She might as well go to sleep since there was nothing to do at the moment. Spending a whole day doing pretty much nothing was a lot more tiring than people would believe. A yawn overtook her then, further proving that point. Slowly, very slowly, Valerie drifted off to sleep.

Valerie’s dreams were usually what other people would consider chaotic and just downright weird. Tonight was no exception. She dreamed about lounging on a giant tangerine when someone began calling out her name in a long and drawn out way. Except, they pronounced it as whale instead of Vale. The dream then turned into one where she became a giant whale – which she was perfectly fine with – and spent the rest of it floating around in the ocean. The only thing that upset her about this scenario was that she’d be stuck eating nothing but krill. And that she couldn’t use guns anymore. That last bit upset her enough that she found herself swimming closer to consciousness.

The first thing she did after waking up was to check if she was still a whale. Once she confirmed that she was back to her normal self, she yawned and stretched languidly. She had slept quite well. It was time to begin the day and see what she could find to amuse herself with.

Valerie rolled out of bed and walked to the small bathroom, critically eyeing herself in the mirror. Her hair looked like it had been put through a hurricane, for some unfathomable reason. It was going to be annoying to get the knots out the old fashioned way. She had used up all of her hair products and forgotten to buy another one. She wondered idly if there was a way to ‘ReQuip’ her hair as she did for her clothes. That would save her a lot of time. But for today, she was stuck doing things the mortal way.

The train of thought about her hair had led to her picking out the outfit for the day. Though brushed and untangled now, she’d left her hair in disarray on purpose. It went really well with her current outfit. Valerie was dressed up as a tree. The dress she was wearing had bits of bark and leaves magically woven together to create a skintight gown in shades of green and brown. She’d artfully stuck small twigs with leaves on them into her hair for dramatic effect. As far as her clothing went, this one was average. Satisfied that she looked odd enough to shock people, she headed outside. After walking around for a few minutes, she noticed that people weren’t giving her as many weird looks – hardly any. They acted like this was hardly anything new. What was going on?

“Oh! What are you doing all the way over here? Its almost time. Come on.”

Before she could protest, the woman who had spoken had dragged her all the way to a group of girls dressed pretty much in the same theme that she was. Valerie rubbed her arm and glared at the woman whose grip had been strong enough to leave bruises. It turned out that Sorcerer’s Weekly was doing a photo shoot regarding Eco-friendliness. They had mistaken her for one of their models and dragged her there, to be made photo ready.

“Yes. Yes! This girl is perfect for the shoot. She could use a bit more polish, but her features are exquisite. Plus, she actually looks comfortable in the clothes unlike the rest of them.”

Valerie was still looking around at the rest of the models, clearly annoyed that her day had turned out like this. She made a mental note to burn the outfit as soon as possible. The stupid photo shoot was going to make the clothes popular and have every trendy girl looking to dress up that way. That simply wouldn’t do for her.

“Ow! What are you doing?”

She protested as the makeup artists swooped down on her and attacked her face and hair with lots and lots of cosmetics. They worked fast, she had to grudgingly admit. They finished pretty soon and moved on to the other girls, leaving Valerie standing there looking disgruntled.

The photographer started shooting as they had already set up the scene prior to the models’ arrival. Blinding flashes of light caused Valerie’s eyes to water slightly, adding her already upset mood.

“Perfect! You really do look like you’re upset about the state of the environment and the damage done to it.”

“No, I’m not upset about –“

“Shh! No talking.”

They snapped a couple more photos and announced that they were done. Sorcerer’s Weekly crew was efficient and some of them began packing up while the others saw to the girls. Valerie was told that she did an excellent job, and to come back if she wanted to model again sometime.

“Well. At least I got paid.”

1007 words total.