Topic: Inch by inch

Lirssa Sarengrave

Date: 2010-08-19 17:25 EST
It was a nice day. The heatwave had taken the afternoon off and left a cooler day even with a bright sun hopscotching the clouds. Lirssa sat in her wheelchair at the corner of the Marketplace and watched the bustling to and fro. What she wanted to do she couldn't just sit outside her Papa's shop and Maman's studio to do. She felt funny, not that she thought they minded. However, it was like she was a beggar sullying their doorstep when she just sat out there in the wheelchair.

So, she had taken herself off to the Marketplace. There was something she needed there anyway. It was a trade with Annie the ribbon seller: a new ribbon for running an errand.

"Won't you just take it, Lirssa" You have earned it from all the days before." Annie rolled the fat ribbon, a dark brown usually used on baskets and the like, around her fingers and offered it out.

"No, ma'am. I have to earn it. Now, you just hold on to it, and I'll get your shopping done soon as can be."

It had not been as fast as she could have, but the wheelchair did make it easier to carry the odds and ends.

Everything felt odds and ends, just out of synchronization, unable to meet up at the right moment. Her right foot she would strain to move up and down, and it would flick sideways instead. But she had new exercises now that she had some motor control, and it was for that she got the plain ribbon. None of the other ribbons would do.

With the rattling, ringing, rackety symphony of carts and people passing her by, she settled herself at that corner and unrolled the ribbon in front of her. Moving her leg, she set it down so her foot with its raspberry polished nails rested on the ground just at the edge of the ribbon. Focusing on her foot, she tried to pull the ribbon any small measure to her.

It was work that made her scowl and hold her breath. Working and working. A little slide here, a jerking sideways there all meant movement though. She would take it, whatever bit she could get.

Staring at the ribbon and her foot, she did not notice the shadow closing in on her until a foot was on the ribbon keeping it still.

"Hey!" She snapped her head up and felt a heat twice that of the days before swell up. At that moment, falling into a cold brook and hiding would have been the best thing. It was not possible though.

"What happened?" Nicholas stared at her with his hat twisted up in his hands.

Lirssa Sarengrave

Date: 2010-09-26 12:35 EST
Somewhere along the way she stopped caring. Or she cared too much. It was strange how that dichotomy could co-exist. Lirssa felt separate and yet a part of something. Alone and yet together. There was a bubble around her that contorted with the nearness of others, but no matter how close they got, the tiny film of protection was between them.

It helped of course. It helped when Ali and Lucky or Zahra or — well so many people— could not get along. It helped when Lucky kept putting himself in harm's way. It helped when she watched the new al Amat family. It helped when Zahra had been so particularly excited about the baby, or Nicholas had looked peculiarly guilty when she told him what had happened, or the High Spires children just smiled but didn't talk to her. It helped when she could not climb like she used to, or run as far or as fast, or be who she had been.

She was not who she had been. Even between her old self and the new that bubble of protection was there, making sure one did not abuse or abrade the other. The old self was a portrait, or one of those flicker show images. Sometimes she could remember who she was, and she'd try to embrace that — take on the role of herself. It no longer fit, much like her old motley.

Lirssa sat on the docks, her feet swinging out over the edge of the wooden quay. Dante was prowling all the smells nearby, and —no doubt— watching her back against the ordered chaos of that afternoon's trade. She looked out to the sea, just at the point where sky met the horizon and blues played with each other, teasing the mind and daring it to figure out who held dominance of that line.

There were places she was likely supposed to be. She had reclaimed some of her errand running, and since she did not have studies with Mister Jolly, nor did she practice her acrobatics as much as before, she had taken up running messages and packages for more than Miss Eless. Still, she probably should have been looking to finish up the youth hostel project started long ago with Kendall. She should go find Jeb and Trace. Or maybe she should go check High Spires. There were other foster homes, too.

The horizon held her there as the sun crept across the sky, inch by inch.