Solo Out With the Old

[Amelia]

1st Spring 520AV

With the flaring of the watchtowers bringing in the turn of a new year, Amelia Trisswell-Barker decided something. It was a drastic, life-changing decision that was surely to set her life in an entirely new direction. Despite the severity of this new decision, Amelia would, in her typical fashion, devote her entirety to achieve it. With grit, determination and blatant disregard for the word ‘no’, Amelia had her goal set and almost within her reach.

There were a few key elements missing, of course. Although a fine specimen of one, Amelia was ultimately only human, and could not be expected to will her wishes into existence like a Goddess.

If only it was so simple…

But after waking late in the day on the first of Spring, and after following her morning skin care routine down to the expert and almost scientific detail, Amelia set about make the necessary plans to put her decision in motion. She sat at the desk in her bedroom. Usually littered with designs and sketches of different outfits, for once Amelia had set these papers to one side and sat down with a clean page and a fresh piece of charcoal.

As ever, she thought aloud as she made hurried, neat little notes.

“Right. What do I need?” She touched the charcoal to her lips gently, tapping rhythmically as she attempted to better organise her harried thoughts. “Ah, of course! A dress. White, possibly ivory depending on the season. I’ll also need flowers, and musicians. Do I know any musicians?” Her social circle was vast and varied, but Amelia tended to stick to those whose lifestyle matched her own; luxury, beautiful things, stylish outfits, and the like. The idea of spending time with bohemian musicians horrified her. There are very few times when wearing sandals is acceptable, and playing the lute for coin isn’t one of them.

She would need to find musicians, then. An entire troupe, perhaps? She didn’t doubt her ability to haggle and wager a deal out of a professional, but it was always so much easier to get people to do your bidding when they actually knew you.

Already overwhelmed by her plan so far – all three items of it – Amelia came to the decision that she needed to clear her head and deserved a break. She glanced around her bedroom, feeling suddenly very restless and frustrated. How could she even begin to plan her new life when she was so stuck in the past? Her eyes scanned her possessions, modest though they were compared to the previous life prior to her father’s sudden departure in the arms of another woman. “Well, I don’t need that anymore.” She huffed, marching across the room and flinging a small oil painting of her younger self (commissioned by her father several years ago) out of her bedroom and into the hallway. The frame clattered across the floor noisily and scraped across the opposite wall.

Feeling instantly lighter and more clear-headed, Amelia turned briskly to examined the rest of her bedroom, her green eyes flashing with dangerous purpose. A trinket box (bought by her father) was next to be sacrificed, though Amelia did investigate the contents of it first. Third to be removed was a scarf, a rather pretty peach scarf that Amelia remembered was gifted by a friend – or was it a great-aunt? Regardless: “Peach is out, and won’t be back for decades.”

[Amelia]

Amelia’s newfound energy fuelled her to continue searching her belongings for more items to throw into the hall. She ran her fingers across her outfits, but couldn’t quite stretch that far just yet. If she had learnt anything since her father’s treacherous betrayal to her and her mother, Amelia now knew a little more about the importance of saving money. One could wear all the finest dresses, but it was pointless to do so if one’s complexion was dull because of poor nutrition.

It was all about the basics, really.

Eventually the young woman turned away from her wardrobe and faced her ultimate foe. A harp, beautifully made and intricately shaped and designed out of fine wood. Five or so years ago, the harp had been Amelia’s most beloved possession. The bells she spent sat at it, strumming her fingers delicately along the strings and listening to that god-like sound that even she, a mere novice, could create. She had even taken lessons as a girl, but stopped when she realised that learning to play would require more effort than she was willing to put in.

Plus, the strings sometimes cause her fingers and broke a nail.

But still, she had adored that harp more than any other belonging she had in her name. To add to the sentimentality of it all (though Amelia hardly bought into such nonsense), the harp had once been her paternal grandmother’s. She had never met her mother’s mother, but knew stories of Dolores Trisswell, the woman who won the heart of her would-be husband by playing the harp at parties and festivals. Though Dolores died before Amelia was born, it had always meant a great deal to Amelia that her grandmother had left it to her, and not one of her snotty older cousins.

But now…

Now the thing nothing but a clothes hanger for the dresses Amelia couldn’t fit in her wardrobe. Five years ago, when her father left Lhavit to start a new family with that wretched whore, Amelia decided to burn the harp, lest it remain as a link between her father and herself. She had gone so far as to buy firewood, drag the harp into the garden of their then luxury family home, and surrounded the harp with bits of the aforementioned wood. Having never started a fire in her life, Amelia had presumed the fire wood would simply alight when she wanted it to, and was bitterly disappointed when, after forty or so chimes waiting for a spark, her mother informed her that she would need to start the fire herself.

“But my fingers will smell of smoke …” Amelia remembered saying, her rage-fuelled enthusiasm for pyrotechnics suddenly deteriorating. Eventually, she flicked a dismissive hand to the harp and told her mother “Well it can rot there then…” and flounced back inside.

Jona Trisswell had all the sensitivity her daughter lacked, and despite her devastating heartbreak (which would take approximately three years to stop killing her inside), pulled the harp back into the family home. Of course, Amelia had been furious, disgusted at this second betrayal hosted by her one remaining parent, but ultimately, she came to regard the harp with a casual, dismissive disdain.

“It’s about time I got rid you.” She muttered now, pulling the three dresses off the top of the harp to reveal the instrument completely to her. For the first time in five years, she looked at the instrument properly. On the highest point of the harp, where it had curved upwards slightly and attached to the longest strings, she noted the faint ‘D & G’ initials that her grandparents had carved into the wood some fifty years ago; Dolores and Gregor Trisswell.

She knew as well, that on the other side of the point, was an ‘A’ for her own name, that her father had carved with a pen knife, about fifteen years prior. As a younger girl, she had delighted at this uncharacteristic naughtiness from Cliff Trisswell, a man who had a real penchant for rules and expectations bred into each fibre of his being. He’d lifted a finger to his lips and smirked, confirming the graffiti was to be a secret held between father and daughter for as long as possible.

What was once a happy memory now related to nothing more than a potential reduction in the market price of the harp; “I perhaps you’re not worth much because of those.” She grumbled, hoisting the harp across her bedroom and out into the hallway. “But I won’t just dump you, I’m going to get what I can.”

But selling a harp wasn’t exactly going to be an easy thing. As she discovered earlier,