Solo Cleaning Up

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The Diamond of Kalea is located on Kalea's extreme west coast and called as such because its completely made of a crystalline substance called Skyglass. Home of the Alvina of the Stars, cultural mecca of knowledge seekers, and rife with Ethaefal, this remote city shimmers with its own unique light.

Cleaning Up

Postby Madeira Dusk on May 29th, 2020, 4:14 am

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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
Last edited by Madeira Dusk on May 29th, 2020, 4:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Madeira Dusk
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Cleaning Up

Postby Madeira Dusk on May 29th, 2020, 4:15 am

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Around her the house rumbled long and slow. It had been in a much better mood ever since they had brought a live-in servant to give the second hand structure the attention it deserved. Even now, as it licked along the edges of her consciousness, as if asking politely before stepping inside, it brought a level of contentment with it that couldn't help but relax the overwound Spiritist too.

"What is it?" she hummed aloud, running the broom under the kitchen stove, and finding not a single spider.

What is it?, it hummed back.

Madeira leaned on the handle of the broom and let her breath out in a noisy guff. "Why are you all ganging up on me? I'm making an effort to take a more active roll in your upkeep, is all. Besides, it's Spring! Spring cleaning in a thing people do.”

She was met with stony disbelief, but somehow it was less caustic coming from the Infinity Manor. Madeira licked her teeth, tucking a loose lock back under her handkerchief.

"Do you remember what we did this day, last year?”

The manor mentally shook its head. She could almost hear the gears turning as it flicked through its few short years of memories looking for the answer. Madeira chuckled, scrubbing the back of her hand over her face.

"No, I didn't expect you to. This time, last year, I meant to send my family back home a letter. We have recovered from the Desolate One attack, you were livable again and the twins and I had come back home. I sat at that desk upstairs, staring at that piece of paper forever, remember?”

It did remember. The scene played back in that broken way memories often do, but she was outside her body, looking down on herself as she painfully scratched out a short letter in perfect cursive before tearing it up and throwing it away.

You never sent it.

"No, I didn’t."

She hadn't talked to her family in years at that point. Sentimentality had been bred out of the Craven line centuries ago, so it wasn't a burning desire for reconnection that had her fidgeting with the handle of the broom.

"Infinity, they don't know about the twins.”

That was the crux of it. The simple truth that had been gnawing at her for over a year. There are Cravens that exist in the world that the family doesn't know about, and they were a black mark on the legendary legacy. Their genealogical records were overseen by a family Scribe and meticulously kept. To even consider not telling them about Amelie and Moritz was unthinkable. Every single person with a drop of Craven blood from the beginning of the new world was recorded in that book.

But they would be recorded as bastards, written in Uncle Cartiff's careful hand beneath hers with a dotted line that would hang like a noose. Their mother was an unmarried whore, their father a mad monster, and they would forever be known as the beasts who introduced dirty Kelvic genes into the pure human lineage. The thought made her ill. She couldn't imagine what Madara would do, holding the letter that held such foul news. Burn it, maybe. Let nobody speak of it again. Or maybe she would have it preserved forever, to be read like a cautionary to the next Craven generations. How their most promising daughter left the fold, consorted with beasts and tragically whelped creatures who's very existence doomed them as Cravens.

WC: 586
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Madeira Dusk
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Cleaning Up

Postby Madeira Dusk on May 29th, 2020, 4:16 am

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It was clear the house didn't understand, as it's mind brushed worryingly over her taut shoulders and the knuckles of her ghost white hands. But of course, it had never met the family before. It didn't understand how much they still occupied its creators mind, even from half a world away. Madeira brushed a hand over the countertop like she was soothing an anxious dog.

"I know, it's a strange thing to be so stressed out over, isn't it? I just thought I'd distract myself with house chores for a little bit, before I finally finish that letter.”

But she wasn't distracting herself, she was stalling. She had been stalling for an entire year. And damn it all, damn everything, she would send it today.

The house detected her sudden change in attitude and pulled back as if distance itself from the blast zone. Even Spooks, having no such insight into her mental state, stopped pretending to sleep to silently watch.

"I hate cleaning anyway" she muttered for their benefit as she pulled the handkerchief out of her hair and rolled down her sleeves, lastly balling her apron in her fist and throwing it into the sink as she crossed the room. She left the broom to lean crookedly against the wall, where it would stay until Maro tidied up.

The stairs clanged as she stomped up past the second floor, throwing open the ceiling door into the third story where her master bedroom was kept. Where her writing desk lurked like some great oak beast. A fresh sheet of paper, a fresh pot of ink and a grey feathered quill. She arranged everything in front of herself and paused for the first time since her sudden burst of determination hit, waiting for the necessary words to flow.

But they wouldn’t.

Words she had been choking on for a year stayed lodged in her. She cracked her knuckles, dipped the nub of her quill, and with almost painful precision began to write in her spiked, slanted script.     I am proud to announce the birth of the okomo kelvic Moritz Rune Craven, and his sister, the kelvic misty fox Amelie Minerva Craven, on the first of Spring, in the year 520. Born to Madeira Leto Craven and her deceased bondmate, Allister Useless, in the city of Lhavit.

Madeira stretched her already cramping hand. The damning words swam before her, but now that they were out she felt almost lighter. No more hiding, no more distractions. Just this once, she was going to face her family with her head held high. She was going to show them exactly they she had done, and how proud she was of what she had made.

She dipped the nub in the pot of ink, full of fresh determination as she began the body of the letter under that weighty announcement. There was a chance they wouldn't even read it, dismiss whatever this failure of a daughter said next in disgust, but she could only hope.

[/font]Dear Madara Craven,



WC: 505
[/font]
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Madeira Dusk
long may she reign
 
Posts: 1774
Words: 1599220
Joined roleplay: October 11th, 2016, 7:45 pm
Race: Human
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
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Medals: 11
Featured Contributor (1) Featured Thread (3)
Mizahar Grader (1) Overlored (1)
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Cleaning Up

Postby Luminescence on April 14th, 2021, 4:37 pm

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✧・゚: *✧・゚:* *:・゚✧*:・゚✧
YOUR GRADES HAVE BEEN GIFTED
ENJOY!
✧・゚: *✧・゚:* *:・゚✧*:・゚✧

Madeira Dusk

Skills
✦Cleaning +2
✦Intimidation +1
✦Singing +1
✦Planning +1
✦Writing +1


Lores
✦Intimidation: Threatening with a broom
✦Cleaning: Has to be done while singing
✦Madeira: Didn't tell her family about her children
✦Madeira: Black sheep of the Craven family
✦Madeira: Worked up the courage to write to her family
✦Madeira: Proud of herself and her children



As always, please don't forget to edit or delete your grading request in the queue! If you have any questions or concerns regarding your grades, don't hesitate to shoot me a PM; I'll do what I can to fix whatever the issue may be!


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