Editing Ghosts of Rage (Warhammer High) (section)

===Convincing Faith===

The coming months proved to be a challenge for the medicated teenager. Furia had to suddenly convince her peers and authorities that she was actually changing for the better. She still remained on the medication for the most part, making the transition from troublemaker to a model student much easier.

Some of Xelaratin’s side effects disappeared, yet she still remained nauseous from time to time. New ones came up, like forgetting where she placed her car keys or a simple chore she usually did. And if she would ever felt the reason to get really angry, her arms would shake and twitch instead, while she remained totally calm otherwise.

However, more important side effects began to show slowly. Her mind drifted from topics more often and she became apathetic to causes around her. Her relationship with Simon began to suffer as well, but both knew why it was happening. Even her libido took a dive, but that didn’t stop her to try. She tried her best to seem like she cared, but deep down it was only a matter of time before she stopped altogether. It might be a few months, might take a decade, but eventually she would stop caring about them.

In the time since the plan’s inception, much had happened to the Royal family as a whole. In particular, Morticia was shot, making it one of the biggest news stories of the decade. She wasn’t sure if it was the event or the pills, but Furia nearly had a mental breakdown in the following week. A part of her wanted to go and hug the shit out of her weak cousin, while the pills tried their best to keep her apathetic. So instead, her mind began to fracture under the tension, making her have adverse effects against the pills. She began to stress out instead of remaining calm, and knew only one escape from it all: more drugs.

It didn’t last long before Simon and her father found out. Simon was one of the few things that kept her stable, so him threatening to leave her was enough to make her stop. And her father could smell it easily enough in the house, so he threatened to stop her from going to Kourtney, something that she couldn’t let happen.

The only thing that she focused above all else was the plan. It drove her through her to perform well in her studies and keep her as friendly as possible to people around her. And she told no one. Other than herself and Isis, no one else knew about the plan. She couldn’t even tell Simon, not because she didn’t trust him, but how it would break his heart to hear the idea of her leaving him. That would be one bridge she wasn’t ready to cross.

Instead, she began to tackle the most direct one: making her enemies trust her. Between all of her cousins, there were three she would have to talk to personally in reconciling with as Isis had named. That was the plan before school ended.

Faith was the first on her list, as she knew full well the devout girl was more scared of her than anything else. She already had a plan on how to get the girl to trust her a bit more than normally.

It wasn’t hard to find her, as every morning she was always in a lonely corner near in the back of the library, reading something or another that had to do with her beliefs. The area was quiet that school morning for apparent reasons. Furia walked softly till she arrived at her destination, finding the religious girl reading deeply into a large book.

“Faith,” she said, startling the girl. She looked up, having not noticed her till she announced herself.

“Wha- uh- Furia?!” she mumbled, seemingly confused by her presence. “I’m sorry, you scared me.” It was quite obvious that she was still scared around Angron’s daughter, but didn’t say so.

“Not sure how. This place is so quiet I can hear the entire room,” Furia commented, and Faith could only nod silently. “So, you have a moment?”

“About what?” Faith asked, actually curious on why her angry cousin would be talking to her so early in the morning.

“Well, I just came by to make a truce really.”

“A truce?” Faith repeated, a bit surprised by the notion,

“Yeah. I’m figuring out lately that this hatred between us is just stupid. I don’t want that feeling around anymore. You are family so I’m going to try to be nicer, alright?”

Faith stared at her for several moments. “I’m sorry to say I don’t really believe you.”

“Well, shit,” Furia commented in return. She actually didn’t expect that response at all. “Why not?”

“You are really asking? With our history, you are probably just trying to plan out a huge prank on me, starting by making me trust you. I need some proof of this change of heart.”

Furia grumbled for a moment before responding. “Alright, what do you want me to do?” she asked, ready for anything.

Faith thought for a moment then nodded. “Stop freaking out if I talk to Simon.”

Furia paused, then grinned at her. She could live with that. “Fine. You can talk to Simon and I promise I won’t get mad.”

The smaller girl stood up and brought her arm forward. “Shake on it?”

Furia stared at the smaller hand and grasped it tightly. She shook it carefully, showing full well that she could hurt Faith right now, but chose otherwise. The entire event didn’t last more than ten minutes, yet Furia left with feeling successful overall.