Irrepressible Perserverence

This was totally based on the hell I went through tonight (irony!  I was actually out of damned milk!) and what I think happens to the crazy people in the stores.

( Fancy some milk? )

"We should go away."

I looked up from the cramped kitchen table that held court in the middle of an equally cramped kitchen. It was an island of bills, text books from classes that ended at the start of the summer, a plate of donuts and three cats.

"What?"

"Go away.  Us.  Somewhere."  He scrubbed at the side of his head and I watched as the cowlicks made a determined run for freedom.  My hands itched to smooth it back down but they were sticky from pen ink and kitten tongues.

I had a billion reasons to say no.  I had work.  We had projects half-started and forgotten on the apartment.  My mother had forgotten who I was just last week.  The cats would form a cabal and eventually take over the world while using the petsetter as their puppet.  Money - god, always money.

But I found myself saying yes because of the smile that peeked around the carton of milk as he carefully drank from.  Because the city had been stifling me for weeks.  Because my mom had forgotten my name just last week.

"Just us?" I asked, sitting back in my chair, all long legs and arms that I'd never grown into but for some reason that he adored.

He crinkled at me and I knew he'd age into his father.  A thousand wrinkles and adorable as any baby.  "Just us."

I might be doing November event this year - at the very least, I can pretend - and I think I'm going to scrap my original fairy tale idea and rework it with this new premise:


As a member of elite House of White, Rose Bramble should have had a very set and well-known path to walk throughout her years - a sister white as the snow, a bear in the woods, the evil dwarf, the whole deal.  But having a brother instead of a sister, being able to sense magic (something nobody saw coming), a missing father and a mother determined to have them see their own way in the world would mean that the path Rose would walk was one of her own making.

Making her living by helping others break curses, run away from the prince/princess and generally give the finger to Tradition, Rose has inadvertently set herself in the sights of some very powerful people who want to use Tradition for their own goals.  When the bodies of well known Houses start to pile up, she must seek out the mysterious Bear, a long time contact she has never seen or met outside of correspondence, a man she's longed to avoid due to association with her own legend and House.

But it's either that or end up like poor Cora, a Sleeping Beauty, murdered in her sleep with a spindle.

And why does E., Inc, the human corporation, seem unusually interested in the goings on?

The mug is rough against her hands; the formerly vibrant blue has faded into a softer, quieter color from years of use, years of being cradled in palms almost as rough as the mug itself.  Callouses formed from a life time of hard work have worn the color down.  She finds she rather likes this newer color.  She's outgrown the garish colors of youth and this older color suits her now.

It is in that state of being almost too hot to hold but it feels good in that painful sort of way.  The tea warms the mug up and, in turn, it leaches into her hands as she leans against the window.  The sun's been struggling to rise even as she stomped around the farm - move, move, keep moving, ignore the cold that eats at the strength in old limbs and creaking bones - to do morning chores.  Still smelling of horses, she pauses to watch life slowly blossom across the farm, as she savors her morning brew.

Hands that have been weathered by time and sun bring the mug to her mouth but she doesn't drink yet.  She breathes deeply as her eyelids dip slightly and she ignores that rattle in her chest.  Tendrils of steam rise like ghosts under her mouth and nose, fogging up her glasses but she doesn't mind.  She's not really looking at anything, anyway.  Scents swirl against her senses as she breathes in deep, sharpening her sense of smell even as her mouth waters in anticipation. 

The cold falls out of her skin and bones like ice thawing from a tree, leaving behind a tingling warmth that spreads sluggishly up from her hands.  The woman tugs the mug closer to her chest as she seeks out more of that warmth - the farm house takes forever to warm up and the kitchen feels like a freezer.

Finally she raises it to her lips and takes a cautious, careful sip.  It scalds enough to bring tears to her eyes but she simply blinks and swallows.  This is a pain she's grown accustomed to.  In her throat the tea has transformed itself from liquid to a burning lump of coal.  She can feel it slide down her back and it scorches as it falls, burning a path from tongue to gullet.  There it sits and she shivers as it unfurls in her stomach, stretching and expanding.

Perhaps, she thinks as she takes another sip, she will take a thermos of tea out with her to visit her husband's grave.  Sit in the watery sunlight of winter with a belly full of liquid fire; she'll tell him how the farm is going.  Maybe she'll complain about the children, maybe she'll cry a little and wonder when she'll finally be able to join him.

She taps the mug with hands that look older than she is and finally turns away from the window.

Or maybe she will simply sit in the kitchen that will never get truly warm again and quietly drink her tea before starting her rounds again.

It is a decision she'll make once she's done, she decides, breathing in deeply once more and lets the steam play against her cold pinched cheeks.

This one should amuse deathpixie  and some of the other Aussies.


( Death by Hasenpfeffer )