She left her apron at home; the woman who steps into the interview chamber is coiffed, trench-coated, and pretty; when she hangs up the coat and fedora to sit down, she looks like a 30’s screen siren. Blond-brown hair falls in perfect ringlets. A tea cup comes to hand, and she smiles at the audience over it.
“I hear you have questions of me?”
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It had started with Katydid’s Kitchen. That was ambitious enough, strange enough. They’d already started calling her the Loaves-and-Fishes girl, and, Jorge had to admit, it certainly looked miraculous. Since Katydid wasn’t telling her methods, too, people just assumed magic.
In this City, Jorge pondered, everyone was magic-mad.
The crazy thing was, however she was doing it, the girl was pulling out miracles. She was feeding people who’d been starving, weaving blankets, mending tents; this little suburban kid was taking care of an entire Hooverville, and doing so with a level of tact that the social workers just couldn’t hack.
But that wasn’t enough for the girl. She’d done something, he didn’t know what, but she’d shown up one day with a stack of paperwork, and, bam, next thing he knew, she’d moved Katydid’s Kitchen two blocks north. To the factory district. To the old shoe factory, a monument to the days when industry used to be here.
And then, then, like somehow she made sense, she’d rounded up about ten of the most stable of the Hoover-villians, and put them to work. “Go get this,” she’d tell one, “go ask for that,” she’d tell another one. Pallets. Remnant fabric. Dumpstered wood, and dumpstered food. The stuff the Salvation Army threw out. Stuff off the curbs.
“Katlyn-didn’t,” Jorge asked her, when he could get a moment of her time without being sent running like an errand boy, “what in hell are you playing at?”
She looked at him, which was a plus. She hadn’t done that in a few weeks. But the look was odd, like he hadn’t gotten the memo everyone else had.
“I’m building us a house, Jorge,” she told him. “The deep cold is coming. People die out there.”
He shook his head, not understanding, but in awe anyway. When she got like this, he was learning, there was only one thing to say.
“How can I help?”
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/256719.html. You can comment here or there.
After
Scrounging for History (LJ)
Digging through History (LJ)
Delving in History (LJ)
Part 3 of ~7.5
Fae Apoc has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ
At least they knew what to do. Karida nodded to Dor, who began plundering the area quickly.
“My home,” the girl hissed. “Go ‘way.”
“No, it’s not,” Karida answered gently. “There’s not even a blanket. You may have been scrounging here, same as us, but you don’t live here.”
“My home,” she repeated stubbornly. Karida reached out again, but she could find nothing like a nest. Even the most feral of humans made nests.
“No,” she shook her head, and carefully took the girl’s wrists. They were thin and bony, with a bit of firm muscle under the skin. “Do you have a tribe? A village, a town, a family, a people?” She stopped, because with every word, the girl flinched.
“No,” she whimpered. “Did…”
“Aah.” A sole survivor, perhaps, a runaway? Karida lead her gently back into the basement, and from there up the stairs. “Where were your people?”
The girl’s words seemed to be coming more smoothly as she kept at it. “To south,” she gestured.
“In the towers?” Those were giant buildings. They could house a whole colony in one of those, and never need to split up again.
“No, no. No!” She almost shouted the last, pulling at Karida’s grip on her wrists. “No.” Her shoulders slumped. “Further.”
“Not the towers. Okay.” Those would need investigating, probably by the whole company. “Why… oh.”
The girl folded in on herself at they reached the sunlight, but nothing could hide the finely-pointed ears sticking out of her hair, or the faintly golden shimmer of her skin. “They threw you out?” she guessed.
“Guh,” the girl sobbed, pulling her knees to her chin. How long has she been on her own? Well, she wasn’t any longer. Dor had followed them out of the hole; he handed her a length of rope now, and a small bit of bread, and their canteen.
Karida knelt down. “It’s all right. What’s your name?”
“Fiery,” she managed, still flinching down as small as she could get.
“Okay, Fiery. You know this area pretty well?”
“Little.” She was talking into her knees, but it wasn’t the first time Karida had interpreted, and, behind them, Amalie was humming quietly, helping.
“Then here.” She pressed canteen and bread into the girl’s hands. “Eat. Drink. We will feed you and give you water. We will protect you.” And clean her up. “And you will guide us around this place.”
Fiery nodded, and nibbled at the food cautiously, washing it down with long gulps of water. “I can,” she agreed, her mouth full. “Protect?” Her pointed ears perked up at that.
“Protect you,” Dor agreed. He sat down to the other side of the girl, one hand on her shoulders. “Like you were our own.”
“And teach you,” Amalie offered, working it into her tune. “Like a little sister.”
“Like a sister,” Karida agreed. It would remain to see how many words the girl could learn, but that one, it was clear she knew.
“Sister.” She ducked her head to hide a smile. “Yes.”
Continued in Singing down History (LJ)
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Last Call on the poll for this weekend’s livewriting session:
LJ
DW
If anyone has a suggestion for a live-writing program that isn’t Google Docs, I’m open to test driving something else.
Pick a character to ask questions of! Any character of mine in any setting!
(and on LJ)
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/256001.html. You can comment here or there.
The shortish black-haired woman steps briskly into the room, the silk of her formal tunic and pants rustling so very softly. The lines of the tunic show off an athletic but womanly figure underneath; the bright colours go beautifully with her dark-tanned skin.
She perches more than sits on the high backed stool. “So,” she smiles. “You want to ask me questions. So ask?”
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