an estate sale

[namesthesky]

Damn the old lady. Damn her into whatever creative torments have ever been invented for priests to wish on their theological opponents, all simultaneously, for ever and always, let it be done.

Aya is quite aware that she'd revise this opinion if her opinions had any power over the fate of the old lady. Since they do not, she will stand here and silently call down curses.

She was supposed to be willed to herself. She had plans. She was going to sleep in the temple attic and work for the post office and save up enough to go to Carthapane. She was pretty sure she could be enrolled in a college by twenty-five, doing something useful by thirty - she was undecided pending her more formal education between illegal human export and working within the system for debt relief or purchase-to-manumit programs -

And now she'll just count herself lucky if she gets bought by someone with loose enough security that she can flee over the border without falling into a magic, attempt to teach herself Tsopixi, and do - she doesn't have a plan after that, now. Her plan went up in smoke when the old lady's will was read and she was left to the idiot grandson and the idiot grandson traded her to a reseller for enough to cover his bad investments. She can't go work for the post office with marked heel and no papers.

And she is keenly aware that she is sixteen going on seventeen, which is a much different situation than she faced when she was on the block a decade ago being advertised for her literacy, assessed for her ability to take dictation.

She shifts position. The chain between her collar and the wall jangles. She watches people going by, browsing, reading the sign posted in front of her.

"Ayabel" - 125 seo
16 yrs, healthy
Reads & writes (Esevi, some Ancient Sudre)
10 yrs housegirl experience, previously farming
No history of rebelliousness

Yeah. No history of rebelliousness, because the old lady was old and coming up on the end of her life, the old lady let her read books and left her enough free time to think and draw, the old lady was going to will her to herself and then she could get started on her life.

This history won't last long, Aya doesn't think.

Most especially if anyone looks at the second line and brings her home for the obvious thing.

Comments

[namesthesky]

Aya wraps him up in enough layers of gauze that she doesn't expect him to ruin the next shirt he changes into, tucks the end in, and sits back on her heels. With the last of the clean water she rinses her hands off.

[anotherbreeze]

"Thanks," he mumbles, more or less. It's hard for him to enunciate. Or see. The crying gets in the way.

[namesthesky]

"You're welcome. Are you hurt anywhere else? Do you need anything else?"

[anotherbreeze]

He shakes his head again. Although it has been established that this signal may not be perfectly trustworthy.

[namesthesky]

"Are you sure?"

[anotherbreeze]

...That is a question he does not feel qualified to answer right now. No response.

[namesthesky]

Aya sits right where she is, and waits.

[anotherbreeze]

And he curls up slightly more comfortably on the couch and cries some more.

[namesthesky]

"Do you want me to leave you alone?"

[anotherbreeze]

He shrugs. Which, in his current condition, is quite a ways to go to express indifference.

[namesthesky]

Aya crosses her legs, collects the various supplies remaining in the bucket to consolidate them, and doesn't go anywhere.

[anotherbreeze]

If she sticks around, she is going to see him spend a while crying. He doesn't seem to be remotely self-conscious about it; he makes no effort to cry more quietly, or hide his tears, or stop.

[namesthesky]

After a few minutes, Aya finds herself reaching to put a hand on his knee. Her hand makes it all the way there before she looks at it without quite knowing what she's doing; she considers retracting it and fleeing.

[anotherbreeze]

It's hard to tell, in context, whether he's shifting slightly closer to her as a reaction to the comforting touch or curling up tighter as a continuation of the general trend of unreserved weeping.

[namesthesky]

Aya... elects not to move her hand.

[anotherbreeze]

So. The crying. That will continue.



It does wind down eventually, though. And then he just... sort of lies there, curled into a ball, half-dressed in his ruined formal outfit, sniffling occasionally.

[namesthesky]

Aya considers trying to formulate another question.

She doesn't come up with one. She sits. She leaves her hand on his knee.

[anotherbreeze]

He stays where he is for - much less time than he spent crying. A few minutes, maybe.

Then he uncurls and sits up, rubbing at his tear-streaked face.

"Thanks," he says again, much more clearly. "You didn't need to do all that, but it helped."

[namesthesky]

"You're welcome," says Aya, attempting an encouraging smile.

(She never told him what she'd do after the part where she saved up enough to go to school and got herself a formal education, namely: help people. He's the only one in reach; what else was she going to do?)

She lets her hand fall back into her lap.

[anotherbreeze]

He smiles back. A little.

"I'm gonna go to sleep," he says. "G'night, Aya."

And, more slowly than he might under ideal conditions, he gets up.

[namesthesky]

"Good night."

She disposes of the things that need disposing of, and then she goes back into her own room to wind down for the evening.

[anotherbreeze]

The next morning, he does not emerge from his room. At all. (He never bothers to shut his own door behind him when he leaves; this is not a matter of Aya having missed him going off to some day-engulfing event.)

[namesthesky]

Aya ignores this fact until it's about noon.

Then she goes to get lunch, and brings up an extra little meat pie for him, and knocks tentatively on his door.

[anotherbreeze]

He opens it.

He does not appear to have changed clothes since last night, or indeed done anything but lie in bed and weep intermittently. His hair is an awful mess.

[namesthesky]

Aya holds up the meat pie.

"I brought you some food. If you're hungry."