Flashback [Orphanage] Inflections of the Pen

[Philomena]

Fall 17, 477 AV
Wright Memorial Library, Zeltiva
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Minnie had grown up with gods her entire life - in a building where the inhabitants have no family, perhaps, a God is even that much more appealing. And the children at the orphanage had a... unique relationship with the gods, even beyond that. Some of the tougher girls would, surreptitiously, play at worshipping Yshul. Someone had two dolls that all agreed represented the twins of lost causes. They were evil omens, though, the dolls: they ended up on the pillows of whoever was the shunned member of the little community, placed by whichever girl had been angered as a cold, cruel sign to the recipient of to whom they now needed to pray. And a very kindly woman-visitor from West Street who came to work sometimes in the orphanage, once took Minnie aside and taught her the fundamentals of worshipping Priskil. She hadn't taken much interest. There was little enough light to worship in the filthy hovel of the Kennel. And then, one of the boys had a bird, that he said would speak to him, and give him messages from Eywaat, but Minnie, like the other girls, assumed he was a bit cracked.

Most of the girls, though, had their secret patrons, the stone mothers and fathers they muttered to at night when everyone else was sleeping, with rough, unlettered prayers. There was a girl, Lanie, a younger child with fierce, silent eyes, who Minnie had one night even caught snapping the neck of a live mouse, then tearing it open to smear the blood on the bedposts, and the hollow of her malnourished belly mumbling something strange and foreign sounding. She had given Minnie a look that brooked no questions, and Minnie had made sure never to observe her at it again.

But Minnie had never found a God: she had only played with them. That was not so odd as it sounds. Religious instruction in the orphanage was spotty at best, and many of the girls, as it were, flirted with gods, sometimes to gain the patronage of other girls, sometimes to find what suited them. Sometimes, simply because it was something to do. Minnie flirted, because she could not find one she thought that she deserved. The great mystery of the Gods, to her, was wondering what they could possibly want from her - and perhaps, subconsciously, an orphanage teaches one to never accept favors from someone who wishes nothing in return. So for Minnie, the quest for faith was not a search for a patron to supplicate. It was the search of a master to whom she could offer some useful service. And she could find nothing that any god could wish of her.

It was the age of seven when this changed. It was at the age of seven, when the Doctor came and took them to visit the university. It was a grand tour, the university came through and did it every few years, to remind the children what to be in awe of - the university one year, the docks the next. The children, hardscrabble as they were, generally preferred the docks, with the burly sailors and scrappy guards that, perhaps, one could almost imagine growing up to be - no captain of the great families, perhaps, but one could imagine finding a place. The university, on the other hand, was torture for most of the children - full of great people they couldn't relate to, and worst of all - they had to stay quiet for most of it. Noone cared if you shouted and larked at the docks. The University... there were people studying there.

But not Minnie: Minnie loved the university.

That year, when she was seven, was actually her second trip, but the first had been when she was three. She remembered only a vague air of the smell of books. But at seven, she was old enough to remember. And oh! Oh, the library! From the moment she walked in, she was in love with the books, their heavy colored bindings, the scent of old leather and saddle soap, the gilt edges of the Great Books, the quiet men and women drifting in and out like ghosts. The library felt like a temple. She could not bear to leave it, almost, at the end - and so she didn't.

There is considerable challenge in keeping a herd of disinterested, parentless children in one place, and it was easy to slip out of line and disappear. Jecca had done it at the docks, it was a famous story now - she'd slipped atop a bale of exotic cotton, and been carried, unbeknownst onto one of the ships by a crew of jaunty stevedores.

So, with a shaking hand, and a feeling of triumphant risk, Minnie did it. She slipped off to the side of the group, and back behind a shelf of philosophy books (many gilt edges, but no good pictures), and watched, then listened, as the gaggle of children's voices drifted away, away, away, and with the heavy thump of the doors shutting, was gone.

She slipped out, then, quietly, skulking close to the corners of the library. staring at the locked stairwells to the second tier with the painful jealousy of one denied a secret, staring at the titles, trying to pronounce them. She found a bench in an isolated place, beside a few desks full of students, and simply looked around her then. It was a little alcove, at the end of a shelf of foreign language texts, and before her was a semi-circular opening, with three painted stone statues - the three patrons of the Library: Eyris, Gnora, Qalaya, there names engraved in plates at their feet.

"You like them, child?"

She started, looking up. An old man stood beside the bench, an eye traveling between her and the statues, "Oh... they are... really nice, sir."

HE laughed gently, "You seem lost. But, I am not sorry that you are: you looked lovely just now. Were you thinking about them? About the gods?"

She shrugged, "Kinda. Sure."

"You are a servant of one of them? I think perhaps not Gnora, from the state of your braids," the words were barbed, but only playfully.

She giggled, the tiniest giggle, "Naw. That's who they tell us to, sometimes. Maybe she would help us get the scrubbing done sooner."

"No... no, I'd think not, you are not her... type. Perhaps Eyris: you are after all, so wise as to sit quietly and think on the the goddess's with no one here to scold you into it. But no... no, I think you are for Qalaya, you are."

"The writing one?" she laughed, now, a scornful laugh, "But she wants writers! There's no books in here about little girls. Just heroes and stuff. And I don't know nothing worth writing!"

The man smiled, a strange, quirking smile, and said, "None, do you think? Are you, perhaps at your leisure to walk with me? No previous engagements, I hope."

She frowned, the suspicion of the street now piercing through the fascination of the place, "Where you want me to go?"

He smiled, a wink of the lips as much as a smile, "Have you been to the second floor?"

She went wide-eyed, "The second floor?"

"Come on then."

She stood, now, followed him, to one of the stairwells, where he unlocked the door to it with a heavy key at his waist, and led her up the stairs, "Now, you shall have to keep hold of my hand, child. Can you do that?"

She nodded, reverently, her eyes bedazzled. The man led her through the books. Downstairs they were beautiful, but here, they gleamed, and rested reverently on exotic wooden shelves. Some of the books were so old she could not read the letters. He led her through a narrow passage where all the books seemed to be in the same series, then through an area with no shelves at all, only locked boxes. Then, to a locked glass case. Here the man stopped, and drew up a smaller, silver key, and unlocked the door. He pulled out a little brown book, no labels, no title, only inexpensive brown, soft leather, old and a little cracked. He bent to his knees, and dropped Minnie's hand, so that he could, very carefully, very gingerly, open the book. On the first page was a very childish hand, reading:

"Feeld Notes: Hannah Edgetower
------------------------------
An ackount of her observashuns"

"Do you see this, then? Does this look like it was written by an adult?" he smiled warmly.

"Who is... oh! Hannah Edgetower? Like from Kenabelle Wright?"

"Indeed, child. This book was her first in her 'Field Notes'. This whole case is full of them, she started this one when she was six years old."

He flipped a few pages. A very crude picture of a bug was displayed. Beside it was blocky, children's text: "Blue spots. Papa calls: Singing Beetle. Nursie calls: Whirbeetle."

Minnie stared, wide-eyed, a little reverent. She'd never paid much attention to Hannah Watchtower, she seemed so big and... quiet next to the plucky captain that you always learned about first. But now... she was a person. A child who had once had to learn to spell 'field'. Minnie realized she KNEW how to spell field. She knew something that Hannah Edgetower, the famous, wise Hannah Edgetower, did not know at her own age. She reached forward to touch the page.

The man, firmly, but gently, snapped the book shut, and gently replaced it on the shelf, "No child, not yet. You are not old enough. Perhaps, one day, you will learn how to care for this, and you will be wise enough, then, to touch the words of a six year old girl. In the meantime, though..." he was locking the case now. He snapped the lock in place, and then reached into his robes, and drew out a brown book, itself of pretty cheap leather, "Here. I always keep a spare."

The girl stared at the book, then at the man, "For me?!"

He smiled, "Young servant of Qalaya, it is for you. Don't write field notes, you are not Hannah Watchtower. Write what you know."

She took it, reverently. He led her down the stairs, and outside.

That night, she waited until the other girls had gone to sleep, and took out the book, and a nub of graphite she had snitched from the schoolroom. She opened it to the front page... and stared. Stupidly. The man had told him to write what she knew, she didn't know anything, not really. She started making lists:

"Things I know:
Zeltiva is a city in Mizrahar
Kennabelle Wright sailed all the way around Mizrahar in her boat
There is lots of sailors in Zeltiva
They are in a gild"

She went on at this for a few minutes, and sighed. This seemed silly. There were probably lots of books that said this. It felt like a waste, a waste of those beautiful pages of smooth, creamy ivory. She wanted to write something only SHE knew, something she'd found out, something no other book would hold. Very softly she murmured, "Qalaya, what would you want to get a book about?"

The answer was in that strange, echoing of the mind that one can never quite tell if it is one's subconscious, or from revelation herself: "Everything."

In the manner of fact way of children, it hardly mattered, though, what the source of the words was. She thought of them, and shivered through pulsing echoes of the voice in herm ind. So, she lay down on her belly, and pulled the blanket over her shoulders, and turned the page of the little brown book.

"Dear Qalaya,
This is my book of all the people I know. They are not very inportent, but noone else is writeing this book, so I am writeing this book. I will write one thing every day, so you can have a book of some things. Today I will tell you about --"

She stopped, and looked around her a moment.

"Lanie. Lanie is a little girl. She is probably only fore. She catches mice, and tries to prey with them, but I don't know who she preys to..."

[Paragon]

Philomena

Experience

Skill	XP Earned
Observation	1
Writing	2

Lores

•	Lore Earned
•	Searching for a Deity with Cause
•	Small Gods for the Faithless
•	Library Patrons: Eyris, Gnora, Qalaya
•	Wright Memorial Library: Second Floor
•	Hannah Edgetower's Field Notes
•	Servitude through Memory
•	The Book of Everything

Legend Becomes Reality

Your threads always leave me gushing, you capture childhood so very well. If you have any questions or concerns regarding your grade, please send me a PM and we can work from there.