Flashback Alive -- Two-fold

[Philomena]

Summer 17, 497 AV
Philomena Lefting's Garret, Zeltiva
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Minnie's flat was a paranoid mother's nightmare. It was on the second floor, up a narrow, rickety wooden staircase, with a door Minnie often left open to create a cross-breeze - the cross breeze went through a broad, low garret window in the front, the casement's thrown open and swaying in the breeze in a way that murmured sweetly in a child's ear: "Play with me... play with me... grab me and swing on me...". The bed was safe enough - a low cot more suitable to a monk (or an orphanage) than a university professor, but the the other furniture was most decidedly not. At one end of the room was a case of book-cases, and a heavy wooden box, the shelves covered not only in manuscripts, but in pots of ink, in feathers, blotting powder, heavy wood-and steel blotters, and a tinder-candle kept lit almost continuously. Then there was the desk - an old, unfinished door set atop four sugar barrels, with a rush chair in front of it, the whole thing covered neat stakcs of papers and books, and the little altar table, covered in candles, a glass bowl, and a very shiny framed icon of Qalaya, pretty and appealing to a child, but which Minnie immediately informs any visitor that they MUST not touch. Finally, a rod in the corner - slightly askew - holds a colelction of clothes, including a set of Academic Silks that would be rather expensive to replace.

And yet it was, that Minnie oomphed the door open, crossed the room, and threw wide the casements this particular summer afternoon, with a little girl atop her own tiny arm, chattering away - it was the little girl's first time in Minnie's flat.

"Yes," Minnie responded, her face a strange mix of the desperate and the adoring, "Yes, darling, Auntie Lefting has lots and lots of books. Do you like picture books? Auntie Lefting has some lovely picture books. Do you like animals? Or fashion plates? Or maybe ships? WE shall learn how to hold a book, you and I today, while Mummy is busy, hmm?"

[Shiress]

"Animals, Auntie!" exclaimed Shiress as she was placed in a chair, her legs instantly begin to swing back and forth. She looked around Auntie Minnie's flat. Her eyes found many treasures that a little girl of such a young age could finger and play with. Shiress was a pro at mess'n and a gom'n in things she ought not to. Her inquisitive young mind just couldn't help herself, but -for now- she sat still, watching her Auntie dart about the room. Shiress was a happy, energetic little girl with long, soft curls of amber colored hair . Her face was round with rosebud lips and bright green eyes. She never met a stranger and always offered a helping hand no matter what the task. The sound of a casement closing with the breeze stole Shiress attention. The sunlight flowing into the room gave the dust floating about a dazzling and enchanting show. Three scoots and little Shiress was off her chair heading toward the window, stopping midway picking up a quite pretty and colorful feather quill. She twirled the feather in her hand has she strolled toward the sunlight. Stepping up to the window, she leaned slightly over looking far down to the ground below. She placed a small hand on the window seal to steady herself for a farther out, all the better look. Suddenly, she stepped back in a huff glancing down to the palm of her hand. It was covered in ink. Red ink. She glanced over her shoulder and again to her hand. Her shoulders shrugged as planted her hand against her chest and wiping her hand all the way down to her waist leaving blotches and streaks of bright red colored ink. With that, she grasp the window seal again leaning further out this time. She lifted the pretty feather out in front of her and watched as it flipped and fluttered about in the warm Spring air. Leaning out a bit further, she opened her hand and watched the feather glide through the air as it floated toward the ground...

[Philomena]

It took precisely eighteen seconds for Minnie to doff her coat, undo her satchel, lay out a pot of ink and a book, two wax tablets, and to take a last book and carefully place it on her shelf. By that time - before she had a chance to un hook the buttons on her boots, her young charge had managed to steal an inky quill, swipe the ink all over her dress, and then drop the quill out the front window. And, lean dangerously far out herself.

Minnie turned, and viewed the scene with a tap of the tooth, then spoke in a soft, teasing voice, "Tut, now. My little Shearsie wishes to learn to fly out the window instead, hmm?"

She came forward while saying this, gripping a hand carefully to the waist of the girl's dress, before, herself, leaning over casement, to peer at the feather, which now was just landing.

"Hmm… my red-ink quill…"

A cautious peer over at the girl confirmed the provenance of the quill, and its interaction with her fresh linen shift. Minnie tutted, and frowned, "Oh, mummy will be upset with Auntie LEfting over this, won't she? Come, come in here…"

She tugged the girl in by the tail, and went to the corner to open the box.

Oh, no. The box.

The box was mostly dull to a little girl's eyes - some books, and little ones without pictures, some bags that might be fun to empty, a few pots of ink, that perhaps would give a moments pleasure to dump on something. But in the corner, rolled up carefully were an array of scarfs and ascot in bright, shining colors - green, blue, white, red, grey, checks, stripes! Minnie pulled these out to set on the floor a moment, then from underneath, drew out a carefully embroidered pinafore, perhaps just a size too big for the girl. The front is embroidered with the image of a man in a black hat, praying before two half-dressed women.

*cough*

Yes. Well. Perhaps the child will not notice this. Minnie certainly took no heed.

"Now then, my vixen. Up with the arms! A little girl needs an apron in this house, there is ink pots and such everywhere, and then, you and I, we are friends, non? I must tell my little Shearsy the rules!"

[Shiress]

Shiress watched as her Auntie fumbled about in the box. Her eyes catching a treasure or two as they were placed on the floor. Auntie stood pulling, from what Shiress could tell, a beautiful long dress with people playing stamped on the front.

Her arms lifted and the long dress glided neatly over her head, flowing down to the floor. She ran her little fingers across the embroidery on her chest. Her head twisting about as she tried to get a better, straighter look. The dress instantly transformed her into a magical Goddess, or so she thought. She took a slight step back and twirled around quickly, stopping just in time to watch the skirt twist around her legs and fall back straight. "I love it Auntie! Can I have it? She asked with a smile and upturned bright green eyes. Another twirl in the opposite direction brought a giggle only this time she missed the grand finale of the skirt twisting in front do to a slight stumble.

Shiress held the sides of the dress with the tips of her fingers, rocked backward slightly on her heels and stretched the cotton out gently. [b]"Look, I can bow." [/b]She said proudly as she flung her upper body nearly to the ground, her soft curls catching her Auntie Lefting right in the face just before poring over her boots. She flung herself upright again her face wearing a smile from ear to ear. "Did you see my bow?"

Shiress jumped forward and flung her arms around Auntie Lefting waist. "Thank you for letting me where your pretty dress." She said as she looked up and smiled sweetly. She moved to the chair just beside where her auntie stood. One knee, both knees, turning and finally she sat down and straightened herself. She brushed her hair out of her eyes as her legs began to sway. "Auntie" she said as her legs moved back and forth. "Im hungry. Are you hungry?"...

[Philomena]

Something... only fleeting and unfamiliar to most children passes over Minnie's face as she watches the girl spin, and bow. It mixes with a gently laugh, and a 'pfft' as her face is swatted with curls, obscuring it further. Its very mild. Perhaps a child who has grown up in the Infirmary would know it: Pain. Specifically, something like mourning, or regret, or shame. But it is passing, and mostly the woman's face smiles. She reaches a hand and fingers the soft cotton, with melted eyes behind her spectacles.

"You like it, hmm? My landlady made it a very long time ago, for a little boy, not much bigger than you. You will take care of it for me? If you will do that, you may keep it. If your mother lets you."

She smiles, though at the mention of food, and stands, her boisterousness returning. She claps her hands together and rubs them, "We are hungry, are we? Yes, of course. Lets see..."

She turns, but keeps an eye on the child, hoping the dress will distract her a moment - but she doesn't (foolishly) think to close the chest or put the little treasures back in. She reaches into the top shelf of her book-shelf - up on her tippy-most-tippy toes to do so - and pulls out a little wooden box.

"Here we are, come. This means, I must tell you the first rule, hem? When we eat, we eat in the bed. Do you konw why? Because our fingers, they would hurt the books - they would make them cry, the books. Do you know that books can cry, Shearsy? Come, sit."

She pulls out a cloth napkin, and inside of it, three greenish brown, cold kelp fritters.

"There we are, just from breakfast. How is this?"

[Shiress]

Shiress became quiet and still as she noticed her aunties change in demeanor. She had become slumped and far off in memory as she looked at Shiress in the pinafore. Shiress could sense her sadness, but didn't understand where it had come from.

"You like it, hmm? My landlady made it a very long time ago, for a little boy, not much bigger than you. You will take care of it for me? If you will do that, you may keep it. If your mother lets you." Her words sounded distracted as if she still pondered the memory as she spoke them. Shiress didn't answer her immediately. Her young mind twisted and turned as she tried to come up with something to make it all better, but before she had a chance to speak, Auntie Lefting stood, obviously pushing this memory back and composed herself.

Shiress slid to the middle of the bed, her legs twisted under her as she watched her auntie reach for the top shelf. She placed a napkin on the bed and unfolded it and handed Shiress her snack. She paused a second then took the fritter and slid it in her mouth. Being a child from Zeltiva, Shiress knew not to complain. If it were edible she knew to be thankful and she was.

"Thank you." she said, spraying a few crumbs from her mouth. She sat quietly enjoying her snack, glancing about the room. Her eyes fell on a beautiful, rather thick book lying on a desk. The sunlight coming in from the window gave the cover a magnificent shine. The tree with shiny fruit and shiny silver leaves sparkled as the sunlight found them. Shiress gently laid her half eaten fritter back to the napkin and scooted off the bed and headed toward the desk where the book lay.

She pulled the book off the desk and moved back toward Auntie Lefting and placed the book in her lap just on top of her fritter. "Can you read to me?" She asked as she scooted back to the middle of the bed

[Philomena]

Minnie turned back after putting the little box back up on the shelf... just in time to see a book entering the young girls' lap.

It would be entirely appropriate, perhaps for her to redirect this behavior. The book in question - "The Fruit of a Bitter Tree, by Llena Hawserope, is a book, about 60 years old, of erotic poetry, with a few... choice illustrations that perhaps would not be best bestowed on the eyes of a five year old girl. That would be a reasonable rsponse, to snatch the book back, to gently redirect the girl to something else. But what draws Minnie's eye is not the title - her books are like her children, she does not need to think of which is which, after all. What draws her is that it is plopped down on top of a greasy kelp fritter.

The reaction is immediate, startling, and powerful. Her breath, which she was in the middle of exhaling flies back into her breast with an audible gasp. Her eyes fill with tears, just barely kept back, as she leaps forward to take the book - she doesn't snatch it away - on the contrary, she quite consciously leaves it IN the girl's hands. She only lifts it enough to keep it form the fritters, and meets the girls eyes.

Minnie's own face now, glasses disarrayed by the sudden movement, on braid flown over her shoulder to brush the book's cover, is filled with something almost like fear. And then for a moment there is an utter, frozen silence, just the hint of a moment, just long enough to be uncomfortable, but not long enough to allow for response. She pulls out the fritter, gently, then, and drops it on her bed - it rolls across her own unkempt bedsheets, and into her sheets. Then, she speaks very quietly, her voice strange and changed - higher in pitch, with a strange whistling nasality, and the outlines of a low street accent.

"Ah… come on, 'en, Shearsy… I'm s'sorry… I have na' taught you the right way yet. Books are… we must be kind to them, come, come. 'salright, dun be frightened, you and I, we hev to go learn, is all."

She even, with a tenuous, shy sort of tenderness, manages a tiny smile to the girl - not the matronly smile she was displaying before, something else, more like one smiles to an equal. More vulnerable. The sudden wide-eyed humility of the gesture makes her look even more like a child, makes the wrinkles seem strange and foreign and wrong around her eyes. She stands from her crouch, and gently turns the book over in the girls hands, to show the small greasy smear across the leather. Then she extends a hand, hair and glasses still awry, to guide the child to her feet, to guide her over to the desk.

[Shiress]

Shiress' bright green eyes flooded with tears as the realization that she had done something very wrong set in.

Shiress stood with her aunties help, her chin started to quiver as her fist rubbed an eye.

"Im so sorry, Auntie Lefting." she said as the slow moving tears turned to an out right sob "I love you, Auntie! I love your books. Please don't tell mother." she begged as her voice jumped with quick huffs.

[Philomena]

Minnie frowned, and squeezed the little girl's hands, shaking her head in a tense, child-like way, "Shush, shush... come, come..."

She guides the girl over to the desk, and helps her set the book down, then reaches beneath to pull out a small box. From it she draws first a soft rag. Taking the child's hand in her own, gently, and holding the rag in both their hands, she begins to dab gently at the grease smear.

"You have t'dab first, an' get the worse of the stain up. See how we turn th'rag? That way, y'doan dab the grease you jus' picked up right back on. You see? Now..."

She sets the rag down, and reaches into the box again, drawing out a pestle and mortar, and some soapstone, which she crumbles into the bottom. She takes the girls hands again, standing behind her, "Now, this is the talcum. It draws out wet things, like oil. We crush this up, now, come, can you help me crush this up?"

And she guides the girl's hands in slow, grinding movements with the pestle, rotating and pressing, breaking the stone into fine powder, slowly.

[Shiress]

The tears in Shiress' eyes began to dry as she became enthralled with the mixing and smashing of the soap stone.

She wasn't accustomed to such attention. Her mother Lorna, loving enough, wasn't one to show much affection and her father, Zachia, wasn't home enough to offer his. So, as it was, Shiress and her older brother of two years were to be seen and not heard and spent most of their 'playtime' together. They were very close and loved each other deeply. So, to have such attention from an adult gave little Shiress a loving and accepted feeling.

Shiress devoured her aunties direction even though it was in lesson form. She glanced up and over her shoulder into Auntie Lefting face. Peering past the spectacles into her aunties eyes giving her an admirable stare. A loving expression adorned her little face as a smile slowly spread from ear to ear.