Having spilled tea all over the carpet, Jacob apologized profusely while Irisia used the nearby napkins to soak up excess tea. Alister, after assuring his friend that he didn’t mind, prepared himself for the jump. Jacob, however, noticed what he was about to do. This shows that he has either jumped in front of him before, or heard of Alister’s mental preparation. While I cannot tell what Alitser is feeling, the look on Jacob’s face as he realized what was about to happen was very telling. While Jacob might not mind the jumps in theory, he might be having issues with the idea that what he just did might be changed, and he would not know once it had happened. Quote from after the jump:
[Ray] ‘Be careful with that cup, Jacob.’
[Jacob] ‘Oh, thanks.’
A few seconds of silence.
[Irisia] ‘Did you jump to stop him from knocking over the cup?’
[Jacob] ‘You did? I guess it is a bit hard to tell if you’re not thinking about it. Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on Phelps.’
[Ray] ‘Ah, yes, sorry. I should probably announce it when I do.’
[Jacob] ‘But give me a second to figure it out, first. Although now that I’m on the lookout, I might be guessing you’ve jumped every few minutes.’
Unquote. What is more of an issue is that even one of Alister’s friends, who already knew about the time jumps, had such a strong reaction when he knew that an incident of his causing would be undone. While after the jump he did not seem to mind the idea of it, that did not seem to be what he was thinking before the jump. There is little doubt in my mind that if knowledge of this ability reached anyone not related to Alister, the world and its view of abilities would change radically.
The rest of the afternoon passed without further incident, and the three had dinner before leaving. I should be able to follow Irisia and Jacob, although they will likely not tell other people about Alister’s ability, or meet him again for another few weeks. I will focus on Alister this week, and perhaps follow some other people of note.
—
This is a fragment from about 3,000 words in. There are a lot of things I need to change (the format, the verb tenses, etc etc), but hopefully it gives a better idea of what the story is shaping up to be.
Would you like some tea with that? 
2 responses to “NaNoWriMo 2013 – Excerpt”