89th of Spring, 520
"Well, don't you look... domestic", Spook's dark face poked out from between the spokes of the floating staircase in the middle of the common room. Had he been human, rather than some beastial cat-thing, she suspect he would have been smirking.
Spinning the broom in her hand, Madeira boffed the bristled head up into his smug face. The rattle of the stairs as his armoured body tumbled down, yowling, sounded almost like laughter.
"Enough out of you!" she huffed to the cat and the house both, the tips of her ears turning red. She had thought they would be happy about her sudden fervent attempt to clean, but perhaps she had leaned into the idea of Madeira Craven, Homemaker a little too hard.
Wearing a little apron, her sleeves rolled up and her hair held back with a handkerchief, she looked like some Syrian's skinny little wife. Dust soiled the hem of her simple cotton dress and her hands were raw from scrubbing, having never worked up callouses from such menial labour. She clutched the broom to her buttoned chest and held its bent head out to defend herself against the miffed cat-thing that was just rolling to his feet.
Spooks extended his enormous clawed paw and swiped at it halfheartedly before limping away in a pained, overdramatic way. Madeira rolled her eyes, frowning at the flood of straw his dagger claws had sheared off. He hopped onto a loveseat and settled down with his ears pinned back, staring at her.
"What's with this, anyway? You have a boy slave. Get it to clean.”
"I have a boy servant", she corrected immediately, and not for the first time. Gods forbid Autumn hear him talk like that. "And am I not the master of this household? I'll clean if it suits me.”
"That's just it. You don't clean.”
"Well I do now.”
The two of them stared at each other, one in incredulous disbelief and the other with stubborn force, until Madeira made threatening motions with her significantly shortened broom bristles. Spook's eyes narrowed before his head fell heavily on his paws.
"Whatever", he hissed, before closing his eyes, curling tighter to sleep. Even at four times the size of a regular cat, with oily yellowish bone sprouting from his nightmarish body, he was still cute when he was acting like a real cat. Not that Madeira would ever tell him so.
She admired his snuffling pink nose poking out over his fuzzy bear paws before turning back to her work. Maro, or the Maro-thing that now lived with them, really was worth all the kina she spent on him. The Infinity Manor had never been so spotless. She was sweeping perfectly scrubbed floors, dusting spotless shelves, and wiping windows that sparkled like crystal. But that didn't stop her from doing it all again, singing old sea songs under her breath while she went through the motions. Not necessarily because the work compelled her to, but because whenever a maid was sweeping the floor in any play she had ever seen, the actor was singing. To her it was just what the very idea cleaning looked like.
WC: 526
