Topic: No Net

Lirssa Sarengrave

Date: 2009-12-08 19:12 EST
"No nets" "No ropes" "You can't stop me," she whispered. He murmured, "Watch me."

The lunch hour was still hers. It was hers to do with as she wanted even when grounded. In that short hour she often ran. She ran to run deliveries if she could, or she ran to the square where even in the cold she would pull off some small performance, to the aid of a local vendor.

Lirssa's strength was returning along with her energy. Dizziness afflicted her from time to time if she tried several acrobatic tricks in a row. Endurance was also difficult. Tiring far too easily for her liking, she pushed and pushed and pushed against the groping hands of weariness until she had to simply collapse back at the Eye or in a chair waiting for her lessons to begin.

It was on one of the delivery runs back towards the Eye, that Lirssa noticed the warehouse. More importantly, she noticed the rope and pulley system associated with the warehouse. The warehouse was obviously in use. Its sign was well tended, painted fresh as needed to look ever sharp. Wood was treated against the weather and only showed the hazy edges of age to a close eyed examination. Ropes and pulleys whispered motion, not creaking from neglect.

Voices tumbled from the large rolling doors pushed open to the cold of the day and the business it expected. But it was lunch hour, and they were all sitting in the warmth of the inside taking their meals. The rope and pulleys swung in the winter air above sacks of goods still waiting to be brought inside. They beckoned her towards them.

"You can't stop me." She had warned Mister Ali. If they would not put up ropes, she would find some. Or ropes would find her. Her hand slid up the rope and pulled to see what the give and movement would be. In counterpoint to its companion, it rolled down at her tug. She took the other rope in hand, pulling on one and the other to balance out her weight and her strength so neither rope would move up or down.

This took some time. A little adjustment there, and another over on that side while her arms worked to keep from trembling at the strain. She held herself up by her arms, her booted feet pointed as much as they could swinging leisurely back and forth over the sacks.

Confident in her abilities, Lirssa grinned, flexed her feet and wrapped the ropes about her ankles and toes, creating knot locks, so she stood there and drew away her hands out to the sides.

"Hey! You there! Kid! Get down!" One of the workers shouted from the door. Lirssa had not realized she had climbed high enough for the workers inside to see through the window where her hands had been on the ropes. Them being there had been alarming to the men enough. To have them just pull away twice so.

Lirssa grabbed the ropes, unlocked her ankles from the bindings, then transferred to just one rope and let it glide her down to the stack of fluffy, must be cotton or something like it, sacks. "Sorry!" She ran with a big smile and a wild wave. Oh there was plotting and planning to do. ((The opening and further reference is pulled from some live play with Ali al-Amat and Fio Helston))

Lirssa Sarengrave

Date: 2009-12-09 16:23 EST
Snow scented the night air. Lirssa and Dante padded along the streets in the deep night. There were ropes to climb and confusion to release in the effort.

They had left straight after. Lirssa heard the door close when she changed into her sweater and corduroys. She placed the pinned churidar in Rekah's room as she was told and left a note in case they got back before she did. She didn't think it likely. They had that look. That escape through drink look she's seen on lots of adults faces in her time. Mister Lucky had that look a lot, too. She was surrounded by it, and it made her sick to her stomach to think about.

"That's one thing about Bubber," she patted Dante's head as they came to a stop at the warehouse. "He didn't drink." Well, not much, and not to escape. "Guess everybody's got their ways."

Hers was to climb. There was no place to do that at the apartment, and she could not at the Eye, not without feeling twenty times more guilt than she did otherwise. It had to be done away from them, because they didn't understand. With a pang at that sick feeling belly, she doubted they ever would.

The warehouse was dark except for a few low lights in corners to help the watch keep an eye on things. The ropes swung to and fro in the breeze. A soft swish of sound as the rope ends drifted across the street, little whispers of life.

Lirssa walked up to them, testing one then the other in her hands, finding their give and her little mind working in ways she could not explain as physics and athleticism. It was just natural to her. She just knew. Dante came up and nudged at her side. "Don't you snitch." Lirssa scolded. "I'm not going up high without a mat."

Still, she looked around to the empty surroundings. Empty for now. No place was ever empty for long. There would be people walking by, going places the shouldn't or wouldn't if others saw them - much like her. She had left off her coat and hat just for that reason. Too fancy and fine. This way, no one would pay attention. Just another street kid playing at life and death.

With a firm grip of a rope in each hand, she pulled herself up and slowly inverted, feet to the top, hair touching the cobbles much like the ropes had before with a soft swish of sound. One leg, then the other, wrapped about the rope, drawing tight, firm cords to support her when she drew herself back up to sit, almost split like, one leg and the other each bound by a rope, balancing the tension so they did not slip in the pulley.

"See," she grinned to Dante. "No worries."

A slight figure, rakish cap and a dirty face, slipped out from a shadow. "Lirssa?" He cracked out of a changing voice.

Turning about to see, she let the balance go a little too far, ended up sideways, one leg sliding free of the knot, the other kept tight in it, she hung upside down for only a moment before the balance went the other way and she came fast to the ground, arm slamming against the ground and protecting her head. "Butter and beans!" She scowled.

"Caw, you busted up?" It was Jeb, rushing over.

Lirssa flung the ropes free of her leg and scrambled to her feet. Dante barked a few times. "Hush up, Dante. I'm alright." Her arm ached and her leg stung. There would be a bruise and burn coming, that's for sure. "What are ya doin' Jeb?"

"Whatcha mean, what am I doin'" What are you doin'" Think you a spidery girl now?" He had a cold, it dribbled out of his nose and he used the back of his raggedy coat sleeve to wipe it away.

"Shush you." She stomped and started walking. "What cause you got come creepin's out startlin me?"

"Questions, questions." Jeb snarked back. "Oh so many questions. Those hoity-toities you livin' with got you all bee sting. Ouch me!" He laughed. "When you comin' back to us, eh?"

"Don't know. Got a debt to pay. Big one." She did not want to answer. It was too confusing. They didn't trust her. They didn't understand her. Did she understand them' What did they want' What did he want' Miss Fio, she knew what she wanted. She wanted a little girl. She wanted someone to fill a hole she had in her heart. It wasn't a Lirssa shaped hole though. Mister Ali" He wanted rules. He wanted to control her. He wanted to keep her safe, he said.

They worried. Isn't that what she wanted" Yes - and no. She felt like she was back in those ropes, swinging, but nothing underneath and the ground so far away.

Jeb shook his head, the smirk all shark and eel. "You ain't comin' back, Lir. Not like before. Why should ya" Why'd ya want to' Those folks, they ain't perfect. I hear stuff about them. You ain't perfect neither."

"What'dya hear?" Flame bright and fists clenching. It was instant and the revelation came like as fast as the crash from the rope. She was going to defend them against anyone.

"Whoa there, keep your guns holstered. I don't need another shiner from you. Just sayin', Lir." He gave his own shrug, then like the spin of a penny Jeb grinned. "Ruckus happenin' between Creek's gang and Old Joe's. Wanna come see the shakedown?"

"Nah, you tell me about it next time. I got some place to be." There was a residence to get to and animals to check on, and adults, too. She knew she'd wait up until she heard them safe home.

Jeb gave a jerk of his chin and took off, rubbing cold dirty hands beneath the puff of his breath. Lirssa wanted her coat and hat.

Lirssa Sarengrave

Date: 2009-12-11 17:24 EST
Nobody went to the parks. That was not entirely true, but nobody who was going to be worried or try to stop her went to the city parks, and particularly not in winter. Those smaller cloistered ones where nature was walled off from the crawling mass of stone, brick, steel, and so many other constructions. Snow covered the grounds with brown pixie size spears of grass prickled up through the icy crust. Few leaves, browned and shriveled clung to snow and ice clothed trees. Only the evergreens boasted the broad green speckled with white, flaky ornaments.

In this time between lessons and dinner, Lirssa visited the quaint city park closest to the path from the Teas n Tomes to the Eye. It was just on the edge of the West End, snuggled in its walls between two residences of matronly staunch brick edifices. Findelay Park stated the tired brass plaque on the wall near the tall ironwork gate. Sunlight winked a greeting off the edge of that plaque as Lirssa pushed her way inside, hitching the treasured find from earlier on her shoulder.

Cloth. One huge ream of cloth she had found. On her lunch hour, she had run a delivery for Miss Rena, and then another on for Miss Eless that had taken her near the fabric and fashion district. Shortcuts were the best way to get these things done in that short amount of time, and alleyways happy providers of such short cuts. That delivery run though had also yielded the find of the season.

Lirssa could see why it had been thrown out. Someone or something had made a catastrophic error in the dying process. The indication it was to be a luxuriant teal was splotched all over the cloth, but its separate parts to make that color were also everywhere to be seen in wide strokes and spattering speckles. The natural fiber had been transformed into a ghastly, unusable parade of color.

Unusable to fashion, but not to Lirssa. She had scooped it up out of the garbage bin and ran. It was not easy to carry. All that much fabric was heavy, so running was done in gleeful spurts all the way to the Tomes where she hid it back in the stacks under a table.

Studies done and secrets kept, she now had a new plan in hand. The pulley system was far too unpredictable. Dante snuffled along the bushes and feeble flowerbeds of the park while Lirssa strode to the sturdiest looking tree in the park. The first thick branch was a little low for her taste, but the next level had just what she needed. Flopping the cloth down, a crater made in the snow, she hunted for the end and tied it around her waist.

With a deep breath, she pulled off her gloves, stuffed them in the coat pocket, and began to climb. Dante yipped up after her, but she only grinned over her shoulder. It was a balance of pressure and speed, getting up the trunk, finding places to grasp, and finally reach that lower branch. A moment's respite and she was off again to that perfect branch just above. It was just a little too much of a stretch, but with a springing jump, she reached out and caught the next branch, swinging her legs up and pulling about to sit straddle upon it.

The sight to the ground was clear straight down. Dante turned about in circles, front feet prancing as he yipped again. "Just quiet down, Dante." She smiled and waved, then untied the cloth and began to pull it up. It was heavy and knotted a little, making a large clump of it come up to the branch. With a huff, she worked at unknotting. In the end, that had actually shortened the time it was going to take to get enough cloth. The end still pooled on the ground beneath her, but Lirssa lay against the branch and worked the cloth about to make a knot beneath. This would secure both ends and she would not have to worry about making sure both sides remained stationary. Once it was done, she tossed the cloth down to create two color spangled curtains dribbling to the snowy ground.

Dante barked again as Lirssa just sat there on the branch, looking over her new practice area with feet wiggling anticipation. She ignored the greyhound, which must have displeased him. There was not going to be any of that going on apparently, and as Lirssa looked from one side of the park to the other, she came nose to snout with a winged Dante. "Yipes!"

Startled sent her off balance and she began to fall sideways off the branch, but a twist of her leg, and a snatch of the cloth, she steadied herself and sat back up there. Dante settled on the branch behind her. If a greyhound could look pleased, this one certainly did. "I knew there was somethin" fishy about you, Dante. You run too much." But she giggled and patted his head. "Guess they can't say I ever get out of your reach, huh?"

Another look around, she sighed, "Best go ahead and get down. Took too long gettin" this set up to practice now. Gotta pull it up and tuck it away up here. We'll come back tomorrow." And so she pulled and pulled getting all the length of cloth up and tucked snug against the branch and the tree trunk. Dante flitted back down, going as Lirssa climbed back down and hopped into the pillow of snow. "Race ya home, and no flyin!"

Lirssa Sarengrave

Date: 2009-12-17 12:20 EST
It was cold. Lirssa felt the bite deep in the bones of her fingers. She could not wear gloves. In fact, practicing upon the voluminous streams of cloth she could not wear hat and coat either. She let her fingers slide over the cold fabric as she pushed it over the side of the tree limb where she sat.

As the weight of the fabric fell and halted to its length, feet of it puddling on the ground beneath her, the limb shuddered but held strong. Hooking her legs over one side of the limb, she hung upside down, reached to the cloth and twisted each side around a wrist. From toe to head, the muscles in her body became taught. Flexible tension, every muscle awake and alive, she swung her legs over her body and off the branch.

The cloth held as she hung there. Her fingers ached and she relaxed them a little, giving way to slowly side down the cloth and then gripped again stopping her body two feet from the ground. Dante sat watching her as she hung in thought, figure out just how the cloth would have to go to do what she wanted to do.

A loop here, a twist there. No, that didn't do what she wanted, but she would remember what it did do. That was not unlike other things in her life. Puzzling them out, trying to work through what the right reactions are and just which way to move so not to get tangled or drop completely.

Loop, twist, turn. Catch, tangle, untangle. Again. Climb a little more, loop, loop, twist, loop. Catch, untangle, fall.

The cloth ends pooled on the ground softened the fall a little, but the wind was knocked out of her and a sting bright and sharp twitched her right eye. She blinked up at the tree, the river of mottled cloth that poured from it. Again. She heard the crusty voice in her head. Do it again.

Standing, she slid hands up the cloth, gripped, pulled, climbed. Flip and turn, swing and twist. She would learn. Learn which way to move, to contort her body, her thoughts, her feelings into a new way of being.

She fell more than once that night, and kept going oblivious to the dots of red added to the cloth from the cuts, the blisters forming of cloth burns, or the eyes that joined Dante's watching her.