[House of Lives Lived] Not Precisely Knowing Not

Minnie set to her work as a Geldescrier

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[House of Lives Lived] Not Precisely Knowing Not

Postby Philomena on May 3rd, 2015, 10:59 am

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Minnie lay in the water with her eyes closed. The sun, though underneath the hot horizonalread had its fingers interlaced with the dawning sky The air was hot and rough with sand, but the water was cool, for the bath that she lay in was just underneath the tumbled statue, and fed by the second fall from the spring itself. It was half buried in the statue’s rubble, and, in fact, had been constructed of one of the statues cupped hands, so that her head now the bottom knuckle of the thumb and breathed slowly, her eyes drooping. It had been a long day of work, moving her things, and then winching them up the narrow shaft into the office (and now here home) in the House of Lives Lived, and she had slept fitfully, nervous at being in a bed with someone else, in spite of the utterly chaste nature of the arrangement. Towards the end, Minnie had tentatively taken Semiyr’s hand, who had squeezed her own hand back, and thus, she had finally been able to gather some real rest, but still, she was tired enough that the slight current beneath the pool lulled her gently towards sleep. She had already washed and had come to the point where her skin felt soft and rich with the water, and her bare hips rested cradled by a wrinkle of the palm. It was a langorous, lazy moment.

But.

The sun was breaking and today, after all, she would be working. As lazy as the water made her, she was excited at the idea, the same sort of excitement that came at home with the first day of a new semester where she had prepared a new class to present. She stretched now, standing in the pool, the water clinging to her crevices, as she shook the droplets from her skin as best she could. She wrapped the binding cloth around her breast, for she was used to it now, and pulled a skirt over her legs. Shoes, she did not bother with: her boots were now repaired, but they rested by her trunk unheeded. She pulled her hair up with a ribbon, pinned on a straw hat, then slid her dark gloves onto her hands. Then taking up her walking stick, she began to pick her way up the rocks.

She clambered over the last of the stones and saw Semiyr seated at the far edge of the pool, pulling a shining brush through her hair in long strokes. Minnie sat on her end, and tied a ribbon round her ankles, then plopped (perhaps a bit gracelessly) into the water, holding her skirt down, and arched her back kicking again into a float. She began to stroke slowly toward the far end of the pool, closing her eyes in the slowly expanding sun, and concentrating on the feel of the water itself, and on the queer undulation from shoulder to toe that the kick entailed, trying to keep straight. She made little corrections with her arms, a bit awkwardly, and found herself peeking just a bit to find the edges from the corners of her eyes. IT was not a short pool, and halfway she stopped a moment, floating motionless to catch her breath. The queer stroke that she had learned worked a number muscles of which she had previously been unaware existed, all of which now telegraphed their concern over being stirred from their long dormancy. She breathed, deep and low, keeping her eyes shut.

Finally, she filled her lungs to the utmost, beat her tail, and on she went. She moved her arms now, as well, though this she had not learned, mostly in the hopes of going some relief from the exhaustion of her body. She cupped put them out straight from the body, finger splayed pulled short, mostly ineffectual circles at her side. She scrunched her eyes up tighter, trying to feel the water around her hands. It rushed between her splayed fingers, so she pulled them together, more like a seal’s fins. This was better, but still not a particularly life changing discovery, and her wrists were growing tired, as most of the movement was isolated within them. The arms also had to kept in sync with each other, or she felt as if she would roll, which ended up contributing to the misery in her wrists, as she did not want to make long sweeps that might tip her over.

Finally, her hands growing more tired even than her belly, she simply pulled them to her sides, thinking simply to give up on them - which of course pulled her with significantly more force forward, more noticeable now as her abdomen in particular was beginning to fail, making the beating of her tail much weaker. She tried again, lifting her arms - but she did this in the water, which frustratingly sent her backward a little. She pulled them to her sides again, and this time lifted them out of the water, so that the whole movement felt like she was outlining the hoops of a ball gown. This proved, at least, a little more effective, and let her wrists rest in favor of her shoulders, which now worked both in the rotation, and in little tugs to keep her face upright. She bit hard on her lip, trying to stay determined, then stopped herself, remembering Semiyr’s words about pain as a meditative aid. She instead felt each element of her, again, slowly, starting at her toes. She felt the quivering of her muscles, and felt an emotion she could not quite place - forgiveness was the best she could come up with, not towards herself, but towards her calf, ankle, knee, thigh, belly, on and on up to her neck, which had grown stiff with the nervous effort of keeping her mouth above the water.

A hand touched and pushed back against the crown of her head, stopping her, for she had reached the pool’s far end now, and she opened her eyes to find Semiyr’s smile above her, a little bemused, but kind. She panted, and felt terribly sweaty.

“Sorry… I am slow.”

“Not at all! Thou improvest quickly. I should be slower than thee should I have need of walking, Philomena,” and she reached grabbing Minnie’s bicep, to help pull onto the pool side, then gently unbound her ankles. Minnie’s hat and pins, and her walking stick and gloves sat by the pool’s edge atop a rock.

“You’ve brought my things from the other end.”

“Well, I did perhaps have a bit of time, waiting, friend.”

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[House of Lives Lived] Not Precisely Knowing Not

Postby Philomena on May 5th, 2015, 9:14 pm

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A workman had come and rigged the little basket so that it was on a pulley secondary to the winch, so that Minnie could pull herself up and down the shaft. Minnie simultaneously felt both gratitude at that favor and a stark horror originating from the ache in her shoulders. But she managed the winching, insisting that Semiyr let her do it herself, even as the Akvatari hovered fussily over the ropes, wincing over each creak and groan of the contrivance. Pulling herself to the ledge and stepping out, she stumbled into the sealed door and curled into her side of the bed-desk exhaustedly, sinking into the deep nest of pillows behind her.

“Tschut!” Semiyr came up, shooing her out of the bed, “Not in those wet things! Thou hast, I am sure, sufficient energy to scurry off behind the screen and slip into something dry, so as not to muck my bed, then!”

Minnie groaned but pulled herself back up to her feet. Semiyr had set up a paper screen, on account of Minnie’s sense of modesty (as outlandish, Minnie was sure, as the Akvatari must have thought the habit). Minnie had felt a bit unnerved at the translucence of it, for it seemed to her that her silhouette likely showed through it with an unpleasant clarity, but the gesture had been so kind, and Semiyr had not even teased her about it, so Minnie felt it would be impolitic of her to ask for more than this. She slipped out of the long skirt and binding, and into a dress, this one looking more than anything like a Guild uniform, with white broadcloth and navy piping on it's seams. She grunted just a bit hooking the latch behind her back, and loosed the stays a bit to let her breathe. She reemerged and climbed into the bed, collapsing again, and mumbled, “There.”

Semiyr laughed, “Well, that will do. Poor thing!” She leaned over and pulled a thin blanket up over Minnie’s shoulder’s, and Minnie burrowed into it with a soft sigh. Semiyr chuckled softly and pulled her desk over her lap wordlessly. She was, with careful delicacy, pinning the splayed wing of what seemed to Minnie an overgrown cardinal into place across the back of a box, her lips pursed as she considered the arrangement of the pre-existing elements.

Minnie sighed softly, and smiled ruefully from her nest, “I’m not sure why you would have hired me, Semmy-mae, I’ve no art in me—“ She stopped abruptly, hearing the affectionate diminutive come from her lips with a deep blush, and a kind of sickness about the stomach. Things moved too quickly here.

Semiyr gave her an eye that spoke understanding, and a lip that voiced discretion, leaving Minnie to her thoughts on the slip, “It is a skill that thou couldst learn. Thou hast more art in thee than thou supposest. But thou hast a skill in pen and ink that I do not hold; the exercise of this I would ask of thee, first. Once, my dear, thou art rested, from the morning’s efforts, of course.”

Minnie pushed herself up in the bed, at this, and with stiff arms began to pull the desk over her lap, “Writing? I am… I would be glad…”

Semiyr smiled and nodded, “I had supposed as much I have seen the mark on thy hand, Qalayin. Thou thinkest thyself unqualified, but I think that if the Lady of the Eldest Eye bringeth unto me such a gift as one of her servants, it is for me to make place and give thanks - I have done the first, and shall do the second each day that I have thee.”

Minnie blushed as red as her pillows at this, “What is it that you would ha’ me write?”

Semiyr smiled a little ruefully, and handed Minnie the book, the ink, and the quill. Minnie opened it. The entries were written in a calligraphic script with great, beautiful swooping curls. The sheer decadence of it took her breath - Minnie would never have been so prodigal in filling her paper. She read a few of the entries, turning the pages:

Galdamir, Spring ?? - Sand vial, bl. glass

Ipshpolie born! Spring 13, cloudy. Rygella looks well.

“Ah, I see.”

Semiyr laughed long at this, “Please judge me gently. I have not the gift of record-keeping, and while I have a great love of the Lady of the Eldest Eye, I have perhaps not given her such service as she might wish.”

“What is the… rules around this? Is there things we are supposed to collect that might need auditing?”

At this Semiyr looked confused, “Rules?”

Minnie nodded, solemnly, “I see.”

Semiyr laughed again, “Thou DOST judge harshly!”

“No! No! Just… I am glad… that I can be of good use, I think.”

Semiyr smiled, “I shall be the artist, and thou the archivist.”

Minnie nodded, “Very well… then… tell me about this one, yes? While you work, I mean.”

Semiyr spread the wing out a bit more, “As I work? That will be new! I’m usually several days behind. Very well. This wing came just yesterday evening, from Fodriw Tod, an older gentleman.”

Minnie nodded, “We have an index catalog somewhere, yes?”

Semiyr blinked, “To what end?”

Minnie looked up, “Well… what if I wished to find entries on, let us say, that… is that a thimble?”

“In the box, here? Yes, a thimble.”

“Very well, that thimble. How would I find the entry on it?”

Semiyr thought, “Well… I think… it would have been about 484, if you really wished to find it. But I see how that is not a particularly reliable guide.”

Minnie frowned, setting the pen down, “What exactly would you think the purpose of the book ought to be?”

Semiyr frowned peckishly, “Well, I’d THOUGHT, perhaps, they might… let you see a particular year, perhaps, a little bit. That you could see, sort of… sort of the color of the year by reading the entries.” She laughed, coloring a bit, the first blush Minnie had seen on the woman. It was lovely on her high-apple round cheekbones, “Its a bit silly I suppose—“

Minnie burst in quickly, putting a hand on Semiyr’s, “No! No, no, not silly ‘tall! No… no, I just… we could make an index, and then you could look at many things. Say… the color of a person’s life, or… or the way people remember births, or by subject, even! Like…like a list of ALL the bird's-wings we have, like this one. What a story that could tell! ‘One Thousand Wings of a Bird.’”

Semiyr said nothing, but she looked closely at Minnie who by the end stared into the distance past the glass windows, thinking of all the ways one might wish to look up boxes. Semiyr spoke more quietly, “Very well. What would you need?”

Minnie started and turned, “Need?”

“Yes. To… make a proper index.”

Minnie blinked, “Oh! Oh… we would… we would need drawers, little ones. And some books, blank ones. I've already a wax tablet... And time, I would need much time. Or help, I suppose, I could teach it-- Oh, and cards! Then we dunny have to be forever printing addendums and supplements. Little cards that fit in the drawers, they need not be large, but stiff and strong at least. It is such a work, it is! I wish I could draw, just a little bit.”

Semiyr smiled, her eyes looking queerly at Minnie, “Qalaya, Qalaya, Lady of the Eldest Eye, I give thanks to thee.” The words were half-murmured, but Minnie blushed, hearing them, and wished Lanie was there. Lanie would have known how to return the compliment; Lanie would have known who to pray back to.

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[House of Lives Lived] Not Precisely Knowing Not

Postby Philomena on May 7th, 2015, 4:07 pm

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Minnie sat crouched in the shaft-basket, leaning over the edge in a manner that, normally, she would have thought rather perilous.

“512… 513, yes… Spring… Wait that’s… that’s 512 again! How, by the sun’s teat, are these petching things ORDERED?”

She muttered the words, and that only because the utterly desiccate air assured her that both of the door-seals were cranked tightly shut. She sighed a bit, and marked the discrepancy on her tablet, then pulled the pulley to let herself down another few inches. She peered again at the boxes, counting, slowly.

She heard the hiss of a seal opening behind her, as she compared the labels on a row of boxes to Semiyr’s logbook, and murmured out, “Sorry, I’ll be just a moment.”

A child’s voice answered her, from below her, “As thou wishest, Geldscrier.”

Minnie stopped abruptly, having assumed that the door had been Semiyr, and crawled to the other side of her basket peering down, where she saw in a faint shadow-light the face of Belslea. In her arms, she carried two large glass jars, the sort that would have held brined hen’s-eggs or salted lemons on a Zeltivan ship. They glowed with a queer blue light.

“Bella-child? What are you doing here?”

Bella, with the solemnity of a grand doyenne, but the scrawny arms of a prepubescent girl, bowed deeply, “Mother Semiyr summoned me. I am to serve thee in trust of learning thy arts.”

“My arts?”

Bella’s nodded solemnly, “Thou art a Geldscrier.”

“Oh! Oh, but I… I am not doing the pretty parts. You will find it very boring, I think.”

Bella cocked her head, fluttering her wings solemnly as she began to rise up the shaft, “IF thy work is tiresome, why dost thou not work at something else?”

“Oh, its not boring to ME.”

“Then why thinkest thou that it shall be boring to me, Geldscrier?”

Minnie frowned, a bit perplexed at this question. She almost said, “You are a child,” but then, when she was a child, she would have given an eye tooth and three meals to hang in a basket in a hall of beautiful secret things, and to be asked to record them all. Who was she to judge?

“Alright… if you like.”

“How may I serve thee Geldscrier?”

“Oh, don’t call me that,” Minnie laughed, “We must be friends if we’re to work together.” She leaned out of the basket, holding the handle, and extended her arm to shake the fluttering child’s hand. “I’m Minnie. Shall I call you Bella? Or Belslea? Or something else?”

Bella cocked her head again. Zeltivans, she had clearly decided could be quite perplexing, “Thou art my mistress, now, until I have learned. I cannot cut slivers of thy name.”

Minnie frowned, “Oh. Alright… then you could call me… you could call me Auntie?”

“Onti? What is this?”

Minnie knit her brow back, now, “IT is… well, let us say it is a thing a young girl might call a grown woman.”

“It is a love-word? Or a fear-word? I do not think it is a cold-word.”

Minnie blushed, “Well, a love-word, I suppose.”

Bella nodded with decision.

“Very well then, Onti,” she spoke the word gravely, and set one of the jars into Minnie’s basket. IT sloshed about - the light was a liquid of some sort. She then took the hand and bowed very deep. Minnie nodded, a bit uncomfortable with the whole affair, but not wanting to offend.

Minnie looked to the jar, then, “What is… this, if I could ask?”

Bella nodded, “Mother Semiyr thought that if we were to be spending time in here, that maybe the lantern-flame would not be safe, with so much dry.”

Minnie found the answer a bit frustrating since, in truth, it was not so much the purpose as the provenance which left her curious, but she did not press, instead turning to take the lantern down and snuff the wick. The blue light grew brighter with the flame’s absence. The balls had a round eyelet on one end, wrought in brass. She set it upon the lantern hook, and turned back to Bella, who looked in the pale light like nothing so much as a child’s ghost, Minnie startled a bit, but regained herself, “Thank you, then.”

“What wouldst thou have me do?”

“Well… I am trying to order these boxes, so that we can begin to list them.”

The girl frowned at this, with some confusion, but nodded, “How wouldst thou order them?”

“Very carefully, mostly, for they are irreplaceable.”

The solemn nod again, “Of course, Onti.”

“ERm… and the easiest perhaps would be by date.”

Onti frowned, “Which date, Onti?”

“Well. the birth date… no… no, yes, by the birth date, but.. but lets put those which have no death date all in one place at the beginning, since those we would have to retrieve to work with still, hmm? Maybe that’s a first step, lets find all the boxes which have no death date, and put them first, on… on the shelves which are at the topmost of the shaft, hmm? We can start with the lowest and go upwards.”

The girl nodded, and Minnie drew her bag to her, from where it sat on the floor of the basket. She withdrew a pair of white gloves, then, and gave them to the girl. The girl’s eyes grew wide, and she bowed - an odd gesture, Minnie suddenly realized, as she stood more or less in midair, “I give thee thanks, Onti Geldscrier.”

Minnie smiled, mildly bemused, “Well, you are a libra— sorry, a geldscrier, now, you must have the right tools.” She grew more serious then, “You must always care for your gloves, and you must never touch the items with your hands without them. You must clean them carefully each day, and if they grow dirty or oily, you must change them. I have some extra if it is during the day, but you must also learn to care for them so they do not grow dirty, yes?”

The girl’s eyes were as big as saucers, now, and her voice shook a bit, “Yes, Onti. They are art, the boxes. We must not make it dirty, I understand."

“Good. Then you start at the lowest boxes that have no death date, and I shall start a tally, yes?”

The girl nodded then, and her wings stopped, rather abruptly. She began to tumble downward in the shaft, down, down, until she was only a pinprick of light, and a wavering one at that. Minnie frowned to herself, and peered over the edge, her eyes frightened now, “Bella? Bella are you alright?”

There was no answer.

“BElla?”

Very faintly, so faint she hardly picked up the sound, she heard a fluttering that echoed up the shaft, now. Then, she saw the light approach, closer and closer. She called out, “Bella? Bella are you hurt!”

The blue light continued to grow brighter , but no voice returned. The specter grew closer and closer, the gleam of its eye-sockets vivid now. It looked just like Bella, but it carried a bundle of cloth, the tails of the bundle fluttering behind her. IT came closer, and Minnie had a moment of real terror, “Bella, Bella!” She put a hand to her stick then, and held it close to her, “Where is Bella?”

The spirit grew closer, and the light showed the eyes were eyes. It set the clothe bundle down carefully, and then spoke, “I’m here Onti. They light, is it too dim?”

The specter was no specter at all - it was simply Bella in the pale blue light, who looked a bit bewildered now. Additionally, her body was naked - the cloth around her torso was wrapped into a bundle and lay now in the bottom of the nest.

“Bella! Why dinny you answer? And why are ye name wearing clothes?”

The girl looked positively frightened now, “I am! I have my gloves, I cared for them as thou wish of me, did I muss them?”

She held her hands out, then, and Minnie confused, blinked, “Your… other clothes.”

“Thou spakest to me that thou wishest me to get the lowest that I could that had no death date, only it was very, very old, and it seemed that it would be precious, and I thought if I held it on my tummy, I would get it dirty, and I had to wrap it up, and that was all I had, and then you were shouting, but I did not want to drop it and I did not shout, I’m sorry—“

Minnie shushed her and laughed, a few tears coming at the same time, She hugged the girl, “Its you who is the Geldscrier here, my duck. Next time, I shall send thee with a bag to keep it in, yes?”

Bella sighed with relief at this, and said, “Woudlst thou unwrap it? I was very worried lest I damage it.”

Minnie took the bundle up then and began to unwrap it. When the cloth uncovered the box inside, Minnie gasped. The box was larger than those Minnie had seen, and hewn with rough tools carefully applied from what looked like driftwood. It was unpainted, and and had no glass fronting, and inside, it had its objects tied on with twine. The first of these was a lock of hair, rich dark blue in color, the color of the sea on a starless night. Beside it was a dried knot of something - it took minnie a moment before she realized it was an umbilical cord. On the side it bore a legend painted in a Middle Common script of great age. Minnie read it, translating it aloud:

“Enola, of the Spring’s First Flowering, The Year of Awakening through _________”

Minnie stared at it dumbfounded, “But this… would be from the very beginning!”

Bella blushed, “Onti, you said the oldest box…”

Minnie looked up at her and blinked, frowning, and finished unwrapping the box, handing her her clothes, “But, Akvatari do not live so long as that, it is—“

Bella looked confused, “Oh no. She must have gone away and not come home and no one knew when she died. There are lots of them probably.”

Minnie nodded, “Hmm… I should have thought of that. P’haps we’ll make their own row. For people who’ve gone away.”

Bella nodded, “At the very tip-top, Onti?”

Minnie frowned, estimating in her head, “Maybe… just five or six rows down. But… not this one. We should… we should take it Semiyr, so that she can preserve it.”

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[House of Lives Lived] Not Precisely Knowing Not

Postby Liminal on June 11th, 2015, 9:49 pm

Beautiful, as always.

+2 Swimming
+3 Research
+3 Organization

Lore: The Contents of the Oldest Box
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