Post by Eurydice on Aug 28, 2009 16:47:03 GMT -5
((Haven’t written a songfic since middle school (seeing as most of the time, I feel infantile and silly writing them), but this one started writing itself at work last night. Not yet sure how I feel about it. Not enough content in it, I think.
The song, btw, can be found here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtL9IZ-Bvgw ))
“G’bye, Michael!” the little girl yelled, grinning between the streaks of mud across her face.
Equally muddy, Michael was being dragged back to the inn by his pa, but he managed a wave anyway.
The dirt stuck between her toes was starting to itch. Alcyone found herself a perch on a nearby rock and started scraping her feet clean. Michael was two years older an’ almost a head taller, but he was scrawnier than her, even, and she could kick his butt easy.
On the other hand, she considered, Michael was gonna be a politician like his ma, who worked in the Brosna mayor’s office, and Alcyone was pretty sure that politicians weren’t allowed to tussle in the mud, and so that would be that.
The shadows were starting to stretch, and so she turned north, skipping up through Sholo Woods and humming one of her momma’s songs to herself.
A little ways from the house, she saw her poppa chopping up wood, setting it in neat little stacks, orderly as you please.
He heard her coming first, although she didn’t see him turn his head to look. Poppa could move as silent as the big direwolf that came hunting with him sometimes. When she’d been younger, Alcyone had thought that it was just a pet. Poppa had sternly corrected her—it was not some nice little puppy, he said, to sit on laps and eat treats out of hand and answer to a pretty name. It was a dangerous predator.
It never turned on Poppa, though. Alcyone wished she had a creature like that.
“You’re going wash that filth off ye, little bird” he said without looking.
“I ain't little; I’m ten,” she countered as she hopped past, even though that was what he’d called her since forever.
She yelped as she sat under the water pump and a frigid torrent washed over her. It was autumn, and the breezy air made everything colder.
Alcyone shivered and rubbed her arms, scraping the caked filth off of herself as best she could. It seemed more of a bother getting herself clean than just going about dirty, and besides that, she’d just get dirty again tomorrow.
Momma poked out the window, one of her little cooking pots in hand. “Fetch me another two full of water, won’t you?”
Happy for a brief respite from scraping and scrubbing, Alcyone scrambled over to catch the pot that her mother, smiling, extended. Momma was so pretty—girlish figure, even though she was way, way old (at least thirty), gently curling chestnut hair, sweet gray eyes, heart-shaped face. Alcyone was only ten, but she knew she’d never be that handsome, although everyone said she had Momma’s eyes.
Patiently, she held the pot under running water. Momma was singing in the kitchen.
Carrying the second pot in, Alcyone dutifully rubbed her feet on the little rug by the door, and even though she’d shaken out like a dog outside, Momma descended on her with a thin towel to wipe away the rest of the water and dirt. “I beat Michael again,” she said, pleased.
Momma rolled her eyes. “Three days until your little friend moves towns, and you’re sendin’ him off with muddy hair and bruises and suchlike… you’re a right wonder.”
The aroma of hot rabbit stew filled the cottage, and Alcyone peered anxiously toward the stove as Momma continued to swipe at her with the towel, now damp and dirty and useless. “Can I cut up the greens?”
“I’m almost done. Be a good girl an' set the table, though, will you?”
With her pretty smile gracing her face, Momma took the water to the kitchen with her. Alcyone stood on wobbly tip-toe to hang the towel to dry by the door.
Poppa came in with a small armful of wood for the fire—the rest he’d left in the pile out back, no doubt. “Wash up, Bran,” Momma said. “We’re waitin’ on ya.”
Sitting at the table, Alcyone watched as Poppa complied. Secretly, she was pretty sure that he hated to wash up almost as much as she did, but Momma was the boss, and if she said to wash up, then that’s what they were to do.
Their chairs scraped the rough floor as they settled in for the meal. Momma closed her eyes and bowed her head and said her thanks to Chauntea for all her bounty. Alcyone closed her eyes too and prayed that Momma would let her help in the garden tomorrow, so’s she could dig around and look for buried treasure, like she knew there was in the woods somewhere. Momma was ever so picky about her garden.
“Michael an’ me caught a frog today,” Alcyone boasted in between bites. “An’ he kept tryin’ to get me to kiss it so’s it would turn into something else, but that’s just stupid.”
“Little birds do not kiss frogs,” said Poppa, smiling slightly, “but some little birds do eat them.”
Alcyone’s eye widened. “For true?”
“For true. An’ besides, frogs is already something that’s turned into something else. Why would they after want to change again?”
Alcyone shrugged, her mouth full. Poppa always liked why questions that didn’t seem to mean anything important. “Can I go out after supper an’ find the frog? I bet I could.” She wanted to find out what frog tasted like. The one they had caught was all spotted and slimy and slippery, but it was big and fat, too.
Momma didn’t seem to favor the idea, though. “I thought we were to be makin’ cookies tonight,” she chided.
“Can’t I do both?”
“Nope. I reckon you can make a cookie in the shape of a frog, though, an’ that’ll taste better.”
The dish water was sudsy and gross by the time Alcyone dragged it outside to dump, with little bits of food waterlogged and bloated, all floating in the dish pan. It was dark, but she could imagine lots of little bugs and mice and birds coming to nibble on the soggy crumbs.
She wasn’t tall enough to wipe the counter on her own, but she could do the table easy enough. Momma was already starting on stirring the sugary dough.
When it was stretched out and flat, Alcyone tried to cut out a cookie in the shape of a bird eating a frog, but it didn’t really look like nothing except a big, weird blob, and Momma said that it was way too big for one cookie anyhow, so they just rolled out the dough again and cut it out in the shape of little boys and girls, like they usually did.
While they baked, Alcyone sat outside with a lantern, lazily scraping at the mixing bowl and cooking things. She heard some birds come close and threw crumbs, hoping they’d come closer, but she never saw them.
The house was small, at her back. Many times, Alcyone had asked why they couldn’t have a proper house in town, with enough rooms and all, and Poppa usually responded by telling her to shut it.
She stood and stretched. The forest all around her was ever so inviting, all shadowy and rich with the unknown, and she would have loved to just take her little lantern and run as fast and as far as her feet would carry her, just to see what she could find.
Through the windowpane, she could see Momma, who was sitting on the couch and singing and crocheting, and Poppa, who was sitting on the floor, his head resting against her lap. Momma had such a lovely voice. Alcyone sat under the window and listened.
Momma cleared off the couch and tucked the sheets in at the corners (there was only one bedroom in the cottage, and that was Momma and Poppa’s of course). Alcyone scrambled onto the couch as soon as the bed was made up on it. Bedtime meant stories. “Ghost Road,” she said immediately, before Momma had a chance to ask what she wanted to hear.
She got a funny face in response. “‘Ghost Road’ ain’t really a bedtime kind of story, honey…”
Alcyone folded her wiry little arms stubbornly.
“Oh, honestly…” Momma chuckled and perched on the arm of the couch, which was saggy and cracked, and stroked Alcyone’s hair. And she put on her storytelling voice.
“Once upon a time, there was a village to the north called Lisu, and the only road that led into Lisu was said to be cursed, if you walked it after midnight. It had a proper name, of course, but the name that everyone called it was ‘Ghost Road’…”
And Alcyone listened while Momma told her the story of the woman and her two children who met Death while walking down Ghost Road.
She wasn’t really sleepy, but she closed her eyes like she was supposed to.
“…and why does this story matter?” Momma asked when she was done, tucking her in.
“’cause,” said Alcyone, remembering what she had been told last time. “All of us gotta walk Ghost Road some time.”
“Just so,” Momma said with a strange little smile that Alcyone didn’t know or understand. “We all of us walk the Ghost Road. And we all must encounter Death.”
Alcyone propped herself up on her elbows as Momma went to put out the light, squirming. She’d made the sheets too tight, and the pillow always made her ears itch. “But we can, like, get around it and all, like in the story, right? Like the mother did with her kids, ‘cause she was good and kind, and ‘cause she loved?”
Momma paused at the door to her and Poppa’s room. “Sometimes, honey. Sometimes. They say that love is strong as death. Now be a good girl and sleep sweet.”
In the dark, Alcyone rolled her eyes. Sometimes was not a proper answer. But she yawned anyway and pretended not to care. “G’night, Momma.”
The door shut.
Alcyone lay awake, drifting in visions of mud and frogs and ghosts and falling water.
The song, btw, can be found here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtL9IZ-Bvgw ))
“G’bye, Michael!” the little girl yelled, grinning between the streaks of mud across her face.
Equally muddy, Michael was being dragged back to the inn by his pa, but he managed a wave anyway.
The dirt stuck between her toes was starting to itch. Alcyone found herself a perch on a nearby rock and started scraping her feet clean. Michael was two years older an’ almost a head taller, but he was scrawnier than her, even, and she could kick his butt easy.
On the other hand, she considered, Michael was gonna be a politician like his ma, who worked in the Brosna mayor’s office, and Alcyone was pretty sure that politicians weren’t allowed to tussle in the mud, and so that would be that.
The shadows were starting to stretch, and so she turned north, skipping up through Sholo Woods and humming one of her momma’s songs to herself.
Through the glass window shines the sun
A little ways from the house, she saw her poppa chopping up wood, setting it in neat little stacks, orderly as you please.
He heard her coming first, although she didn’t see him turn his head to look. Poppa could move as silent as the big direwolf that came hunting with him sometimes. When she’d been younger, Alcyone had thought that it was just a pet. Poppa had sternly corrected her—it was not some nice little puppy, he said, to sit on laps and eat treats out of hand and answer to a pretty name. It was a dangerous predator.
It never turned on Poppa, though. Alcyone wished she had a creature like that.
“You’re going wash that filth off ye, little bird” he said without looking.
“I ain't little; I’m ten,” she countered as she hopped past, even though that was what he’d called her since forever.
Through the glass window shines the sun
And I so young
And I so young
She yelped as she sat under the water pump and a frigid torrent washed over her. It was autumn, and the breezy air made everything colder.
Alcyone shivered and rubbed her arms, scraping the caked filth off of herself as best she could. It seemed more of a bother getting herself clean than just going about dirty, and besides that, she’d just get dirty again tomorrow.
Momma poked out the window, one of her little cooking pots in hand. “Fetch me another two full of water, won’t you?”
Happy for a brief respite from scraping and scrubbing, Alcyone scrambled over to catch the pot that her mother, smiling, extended. Momma was so pretty—girlish figure, even though she was way, way old (at least thirty), gently curling chestnut hair, sweet gray eyes, heart-shaped face. Alcyone was only ten, but she knew she’d never be that handsome, although everyone said she had Momma’s eyes.
Patiently, she held the pot under running water. Momma was singing in the kitchen.
Through the glass window shines the sun
Carrying the second pot in, Alcyone dutifully rubbed her feet on the little rug by the door, and even though she’d shaken out like a dog outside, Momma descended on her with a thin towel to wipe away the rest of the water and dirt. “I beat Michael again,” she said, pleased.
Momma rolled her eyes. “Three days until your little friend moves towns, and you’re sendin’ him off with muddy hair and bruises and suchlike… you’re a right wonder.”
The aroma of hot rabbit stew filled the cottage, and Alcyone peered anxiously toward the stove as Momma continued to swipe at her with the towel, now damp and dirty and useless. “Can I cut up the greens?”
“I’m almost done. Be a good girl an' set the table, though, will you?”
With her pretty smile gracing her face, Momma took the water to the kitchen with her. Alcyone stood on wobbly tip-toe to hang the towel to dry by the door.
Through the glass window shines the sun
How should I, how should I, how should I love?
How should I, how should I, how should I love?
Poppa came in with a small armful of wood for the fire—the rest he’d left in the pile out back, no doubt. “Wash up, Bran,” Momma said. “We’re waitin’ on ya.”
Sitting at the table, Alcyone watched as Poppa complied. Secretly, she was pretty sure that he hated to wash up almost as much as she did, but Momma was the boss, and if she said to wash up, then that’s what they were to do.
Their chairs scraped the rough floor as they settled in for the meal. Momma closed her eyes and bowed her head and said her thanks to Chauntea for all her bounty. Alcyone closed her eyes too and prayed that Momma would let her help in the garden tomorrow, so’s she could dig around and look for buried treasure, like she knew there was in the woods somewhere. Momma was ever so picky about her garden.
How should I, how should I, how should I love?
“Michael an’ me caught a frog today,” Alcyone boasted in between bites. “An’ he kept tryin’ to get me to kiss it so’s it would turn into something else, but that’s just stupid.”
“Little birds do not kiss frogs,” said Poppa, smiling slightly, “but some little birds do eat them.”
Alcyone’s eye widened. “For true?”
“For true. An’ besides, frogs is already something that’s turned into something else. Why would they after want to change again?”
Alcyone shrugged, her mouth full. Poppa always liked why questions that didn’t seem to mean anything important. “Can I go out after supper an’ find the frog? I bet I could.” She wanted to find out what frog tasted like. The one they had caught was all spotted and slimy and slippery, but it was big and fat, too.
Momma didn’t seem to favor the idea, though. “I thought we were to be makin’ cookies tonight,” she chided.
“Can’t I do both?”
“Nope. I reckon you can make a cookie in the shape of a frog, though, an’ that’ll taste better.”
The silver is white, the red is the gold
The dish water was sudsy and gross by the time Alcyone dragged it outside to dump, with little bits of food waterlogged and bloated, all floating in the dish pan. It was dark, but she could imagine lots of little bugs and mice and birds coming to nibble on the soggy crumbs.
She wasn’t tall enough to wipe the counter on her own, but she could do the table easy enough. Momma was already starting on stirring the sugary dough.
When it was stretched out and flat, Alcyone tried to cut out a cookie in the shape of a bird eating a frog, but it didn’t really look like nothing except a big, weird blob, and Momma said that it was way too big for one cookie anyhow, so they just rolled out the dough again and cut it out in the shape of little boys and girls, like they usually did.
The robes, they lay in fold
They lay in fold
They lay in fold
While they baked, Alcyone sat outside with a lantern, lazily scraping at the mixing bowl and cooking things. She heard some birds come close and threw crumbs, hoping they’d come closer, but she never saw them.
The house was small, at her back. Many times, Alcyone had asked why they couldn’t have a proper house in town, with enough rooms and all, and Poppa usually responded by telling her to shut it.
She stood and stretched. The forest all around her was ever so inviting, all shadowy and rich with the unknown, and she would have loved to just take her little lantern and run as fast and as far as her feet would carry her, just to see what she could find.
Through the windowpane, she could see Momma, who was sitting on the couch and singing and crocheting, and Poppa, who was sitting on the floor, his head resting against her lap. Momma had such a lovely voice. Alcyone sat under the window and listened.
How should I, how should I, how should I love?
Momma cleared off the couch and tucked the sheets in at the corners (there was only one bedroom in the cottage, and that was Momma and Poppa’s of course). Alcyone scrambled onto the couch as soon as the bed was made up on it. Bedtime meant stories. “Ghost Road,” she said immediately, before Momma had a chance to ask what she wanted to hear.
She got a funny face in response. “‘Ghost Road’ ain’t really a bedtime kind of story, honey…”
Alcyone folded her wiry little arms stubbornly.
“Oh, honestly…” Momma chuckled and perched on the arm of the couch, which was saggy and cracked, and stroked Alcyone’s hair. And she put on her storytelling voice.
“Once upon a time, there was a village to the north called Lisu, and the only road that led into Lisu was said to be cursed, if you walked it after midnight. It had a proper name, of course, but the name that everyone called it was ‘Ghost Road’…”
How should I, how should I, how should I love?
And Alcyone listened while Momma told her the story of the woman and her two children who met Death while walking down Ghost Road.
She wasn’t really sleepy, but she closed her eyes like she was supposed to.
“…and why does this story matter?” Momma asked when she was done, tucking her in.
“’cause,” said Alcyone, remembering what she had been told last time. “All of us gotta walk Ghost Road some time.”
“Just so,” Momma said with a strange little smile that Alcyone didn’t know or understand. “We all of us walk the Ghost Road. And we all must encounter Death.”
Alcyone propped herself up on her elbows as Momma went to put out the light, squirming. She’d made the sheets too tight, and the pillow always made her ears itch. “But we can, like, get around it and all, like in the story, right? Like the mother did with her kids, ‘cause she was good and kind, and ‘cause she loved?”
How should I, how should I, how should I love?
Momma paused at the door to her and Poppa’s room. “Sometimes, honey. Sometimes. They say that love is strong as death. Now be a good girl and sleep sweet.”
In the dark, Alcyone rolled her eyes. Sometimes was not a proper answer. But she yawned anyway and pretended not to care. “G’night, Momma.”
The door shut.
Alcyone lay awake, drifting in visions of mud and frogs and ghosts and falling water.
How should I, how should I, how should I love?