Caparo

[Kamish]

Caparo - a place where life and love come together, a place where an astonishing group of people live.

Of course, with a group of any size, there's going to have to be conflict.

Before we start with the conflict, however, there are a few important things you should know about Caparo.

First of all, all of the members of Caparo treat each other like siblings. Even though they aren't related, they are really just one big family. Of course, couples are the exception to this rule, but we'll get into that later.

There are also a few basic terms that I think would be beneficial to the understanding of this society. Those are listed at the back of this work.

Now that you're aware of the special terms and conditions of Caparo, let us delve into the conflicts that would arise in such a location, shall we?

~ One ~ Too Many Birds, Not Enough Worms ~

I think that this is a good place to start, because it is the central core of many of Caparo's issues. Because the people of Caparo act as siblings, they often become very close with one another. Since the relation is psycological instead of actual blood, this often breeds feelings that sit on the knife-blade between familial and romantic.

As far-fetched as the idea seems, however, it happens more often than it might seem to.

There are 12 males in Caparo, and 35 females. Can you see where this is going? That's roughly one male to every 4 females, which just doesn't do at all. Especially with emotions running high and low and everywhere else in between.

~*~*~*~

She sits in her room at Caparo, eyeing the television warily as it shows some odd commercial about some sort of miracle drug... it doesn't seem right, or truthful, of all things. Her musing are interrupted by an unexpected knock on the door.

She stands and walks to the hallway, answering the door. A young woman stands there, fiddling with her hands a bit nervously.

"Desi," she says cheerfully, and opens the door wider to admit the young woman.

In reality, the woman is older than she, but she pays that no mind. It's never mattered before. Desi steps inside and heads straight for the living room, perching herself in the middle of the couch warily. After closing the door, the hostess joins her.

"Kim..." Desi starts, and Kim tilts her head, waiting for the other woman to continue.

There is a pause, but when Desi begins again her voice is stronger. "I have a confession to make to you, Kim."

"... what do you mean?" Kim isn't suspicious, for this woman is like a sister to her, but she's curious, and wonders just what this confession might mean for her, and in effect, them all.

"Remember... remember at the end of September, when I said that I'd try to control and contain?"

Kim recalls, vaguely. It was in a private girls-only conversation, one that it was sworn would never leave the group. It concerned the man who lived two doors down from herself.

"... yes, a bit. What about it?"

"The controlling and containing isn't working all that well." Desi doesn't drop her head, but looks to Kim to see her reaction.

If Kim had been alone when hearing the knews, she might have sighed, leaned her head back and groaned. But she had an appearance to keep up, and she didn't want Desi to know that she might have done this.

This conversation, Kim remembers, was about how Desi might have had feelings for Scott, the man two doors down. Feelings that reached beyond the realm of sisterly affection.

Kim's modimo*, Megan, had come to Kim's room two weeks before to reveal the same sort of thing, about the same person. In fact, earlier that morning, Megan had rang the phone in Kim's room to tell her (at least, that's what she thought she had been told through all the squealing) that she was to accompany Scott at the upcoming wedding (the first in Caparo).

Kim now faces a dillema, one that she has faced before. Only before, she had been looking at it in a different light.

She is bound to her modimo, in a similar fashion as twin sisters. However, she wants Desi to be happy as well.

There is only one problem.

There is only one of Scott.

Inwardly, she sighs, but outwardly she smiles. "I'm not mad at you, Desi. It's fine."

"I know, I just..." Desi fiddles with her hands again. "I felt like I was keeping something from you, and I didn't want you to think..."

Kim smiles again. "Like I said, it's perfectly fine."

The conversation dissolves into less trivial and more companionable manners, but something nags at the back of Kim's mind.

Either her modi* or her modimo is going to be unhappy in the end. The only thing she can hope for is a shifting of the tides, something that throws it off balance and, in doing so, rights it again.

She is walking back from dinner that evening when she is pulled aside by Kirsten.

"Azzy, can I speak with you?" Kim thinks it's somewhat odd to hear her old nickname used in such a fashion, but complies.

In turn, she says, "Huggs! What's up?"

"Can I speak with you?" Kirsten is completely calm and somewhat formal about the matter... Kim thinks it's got to be something important.

"Of course," Kim turns the knob on the door to her room, and leads Kirsten inside. She choses a big armchair near the fireplace, while Kim takes the left arm of the couch. She waits.

"Here's the deal. You know that some of us knew each other before Caparo, right?"

Kim nods, slowly. Although she isn't part of this elite group, she knows that Kirsten is.

"Well, about that. I've known Scott for a very long time..."

Kim thinks she very much wants to find the nearest bit of heavy furtniture and slam her head into it.

"Since 2003, right?" She says instead, although she makes a point of keeping a log of when people met.

Kirsten nods. "The thing is... he used to sit up with me and... he helped me when I needed it most. I think..." she pauses for a moment. "I think I might really like him."

Kim doesn't know what to say. She admits, she's closer to Kirsten than she is to Desi, and closer to Megan than she is to them both. She values their emotions very highly, of course, but... what does she do?

Kirsten leaves some time later, and Kim opens a blank notebook that she's found inside of one of her untidy desk drawers.

'These shall be the chronicles,' she writes, across the top of the entry, 'the chronicles of one who lives at Caparo'.

Sighing, she picks up a fresh pen and starts to write in a loopy scrawl, write of conflict and advice and love and sisters and brothers and most of all... life.

[Kamish]

~ Two ~ Abnormal Normalcy ~

Her room faces west; as such, when the sun rises in the morning it filters through her window and paints light on her blue carpet. She wonders what it's like for the people at the top of the tower, when the sun comes through their window. Of course, the sun would reach them last. Naturally.

She rolls out of bed and shifts around in her closet for something to wear, all the time thinking of breakfast. Breakfast was generally taken in the large kitchen located on the other side of the complex from where she stayed. There were few, such as couples and ones that liked to sleep in, that took it in the kitchens in their own rooms.

This brings about another point of examination about Caparo: as a whole, the inhabitants therein are not social creatures. However, within the complex itself was a whole nother story, as the inhabitants came to realize that they enjoyed each other's company greatly.

Kim heads out the door, not bothering to lock it behind her. She trusts the people here, and it's not like she has anything of value that could be stolen, or that would be stolen. She goes the next door over, to roust her modimo, Megan, and then they proceed to the room down the other side of the hallway to wake Kim's modi tysomo, Risa.

As a group, the three move across the complex. Kim smiles slightly as she hears the sounds of movement and wakefulness behind various doors here and there along the path. She loves the sounds of Caparo, how easily they sound like home.

They reach the kitchen to find that Brit is just cleaning up after her breakfast. As they settle in and start pulling out ingredients, the girl Kim once called Fox returns to her room and leaves them to it.

They chatter on about nothing, as usual, as they get their breakfast and sit at one end of the freakishly long table that sat 50, especially made to fit Caparo's dining room. Kim wonders, as always, if the table is made of one big tree or several small ones.

The day goes on as normal; Meg returns to her rooms to write, or listen to music, or do other things that Kim has classified as 'Megish' things. Kim and Risa shut themselves away in Risa's room to survey the newest video game of a long line that's been coming out ever since they were about nine years old.

Kim leaves Risa to it at about lunch time. She returns to her room to make lunch, before going and spending the rest of the day lounging by the small lake that's formed on the west side of the building; it's her luck that she gets a room with a perfect view of this natural spectacle.

As she lounges, she gaze up at the Tower in the moment when it blocks the sun. She wonders, as she always has, what it might be like to live up there, and be able to see everything... she suspects it might be like living in a fantasy realm. Being the princess locked away at the top of the tower.

And for all she knows, that's what Brandy is like. She stays up there a lot, and Kim suspects that might be because of the novels she pops out with every six or so months. They're part of a very long series that Kim is a rather rabid fan of. Living with the author, contrary to popular belief, does not give her the benefit of knowing what's going to happen.

No, indeed, she thinks there might be one person that knows what's going to happen in the series... but she has a rather successful series herself, set in a wolrd called Trycanta. Kim's gaze travels down to the next room in the tower, noted by the large window, where the famous author Anne Walsh lives.

Kim suspects she is a lucky sort of person. She gets to live with some of the most famous authors in the world, gets to be in the same creative space. Many people would kill for a place like that, a place in Caparo.

Soon, people start to join her, some of them either sunbathing, swimming, or just hanging, like herself. She knows all of them and loves all of them. Their presence all blends together, and it's hard to tell that there was a time when things at Caparo were awkward, such is the ease at which these people enjoy each other's company.

She sits out there until it gets dark, reading a book she found stowed away in one of the totes in the back of her closet. It's quite interesting, and she thinks she might have read it before, but she can't really remember. She packs it away in a big tote bag and returns inside. She showers and then heads out to meet everyone at the dinner table, where all 47 or so of the Caparator sit and converse over a meal that's cooked by a different group each day. The other groups team together and clean, and that way, the job is spread evenly.

It's a Den-night in Caparo, which means that after dinner is all taken care of, all of the people in Caparo grab pillows and blankets and sleeping bags and stuffed animals and curl up on the large padded room that they call, originally enough, the Den. Stories are told and songs are sung, and not many people actually sleep.

This is a normal day in Caparo. This is what Caparo is made for, and why Caparo will eventally become the eight wonder of the world.

[caladwen]

~ Three ~ Invisible ~

The days wear on in Caparo... the Pack fluctuates as the days themselves do, now happy, now sad, now standing on the brink of a new publishing, now resting comfortably in the euphoria that follows a book signing.

Time is a ceaseless river, always flowing, never stopping. It's ever-changing, simple, complex all at once.

Eventually, as the river of time flows through a place, it changes. Summer changes to autumn, and autumn to winter. It is winter that the Pack now finds themselves in, a time of snow-ball fights and cold, and for at least half the Pack, the joy of snuggling. For they have ones that will warm them from the cold.

Megan has found her solace in Scott. However, so has Desi. Kirsten, however, has found the one she seeks in a shy boy that's new here. Kim is grateful.

However, she knows about Desi and Scott as well as Megs and Scott. She wonders how Scott can sleep at night, thinking about which one of them he's got to eventually hurt. Perhaps he just doesn't know what to do. Kim has spoken to Desi about it, and for the most part, Desi is grateful for what little part of him she can have.

The problem isn't solved, as things like this so rarely are here anymore.

Lily often comes to her, even in the early hours of the morning, to talk about who she has fallen for. Kim thinks it ironic, that for all the good advice she can usually dish out on such a subject, she can never herself follow it.

Lexie, though she never comes to Kim specifically, feels the same for the same person. It's her worst nightmare, again. This always happens, she realizes, and she's always to the side of it.

But as the winter gets colder and Christmas rolls around, she misses that person that she's never felt. She thinks her desires have manifested in the one that guards the tower, but won't even admit it to herself. There's enough drama around Caparo without her adding to it.

Christmas passes, and the winter is still bitterly cold. Kim hides in her room most of the days now, and after a while even Risa has stopped coming to call. It's pathetic that she wishes someone, anyone, would come talk to her. She gets meals in her apartment anymore, and wonders if perhaps they think she's died.

Perhaps she has, inside, just a little.

Risa or Megs would be preferable to talk to, but the only one she feels that could bring her completely out of this depression is the one that guards the tower. But he, too, is a recluse, and it seems to the untrained eye that neither have the courage required.

But Megs is noticing something, surely as the wind brings spring on it's snow-tipped wings.

She brings it to Kim's attention as soon as she sees, because she surely knows her twin better than anyone else at Caparo. The one that guards the tower is rather warm towards the Alpha.

Kim slips deeper into her depression, for surely he doesn't care anymore? There was a time, yes, when they would talk as friends if nothing more. Even that has stopped.

Kim journeys out one day, into the halls of Caparo, to Den with them, see if the rumors are true. See if her twin is indeed right.

It isn't completely so, however. The one that guards the tower might indeed be smitten with the Alpha, but the Alpha doesn't cast him a second romantic glance. It's one-sided, from what Kim can judge.

But where does she stand, if her heart rests elsewhere and his rests with her?

Mating season approaches. Perhaps the most lewd way to think of it, but... for Caparo, it's oddly appropriate. Everyone itches to get out when spring comes, wishes to laze by the pool from their long seasons of cold. Everyone's hormones are acting up, but most hide it well... Kim tries, she truly does, but the dull ache that has settled in her chest is nigh incurable.

It's a lot like hunger, feels like hunger, only it isn't. She eats her fill. A different kind, perhaps, but one that is key to her survival as much as the one that feeds her. Affection, of a kind sisters and brothers can't offer. Yet she is surrounded by sisters and brothers, everywhere is family, and the one she wants is the one she can't have.

Nearly everyone else is paired by now... she wonders what he's waiting for. She wonders if he wonders the same about her.

She wonders if he notices she's alive.

Spring gives way to Summer. It seems that mid-winter, new cubs will be arriving.

The news thrills Kim. Perhaps the happiness of birth and cubs will kill the blackness that's seeped into her. Perhaps it will increase with the wanting of her own.

She feels the clock inside her tick, waits for the alarm, and one doesn't come for a long time. Everything will work out as it's supposed to, she's been told, and all she can do is wait.

She wishes fate would hurry up and bring itself to her door. She's grown weary of waiting.