namesthesky | an estate sale

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Smiles! Smiles are nice.

And with everything taken care of and the conversation apparently over, Aya excuses herself to her room (door still open). She draws an embroidered cat.

He wonders why she always keeps her door open, but he doesn't go as far as asking. Instead he just... sits for a while, enjoying how relatively unmiserable he is in comparison to what he's usually like at this stage.

Eventually, he goes back into his room, and emerges dressed for dinner. He pauses to glance in Aya's door before he goes.

She looks up when he comes out in his dinner clothes.

"Are you going to be okay?" she asks.

"Sure I will," he says. "Eventually."

"I mean, is there - added risk, the day after it happens."

"Not especially, no."

"Good luck," she says wryly.

"Thanks."

Off he goes. Dinner takes a normal amount of time, and he comes back from it looking tired and miserable but still capable of walking.

Aya watches him plod back in.

"...Did something happen?"

"The usual. It's just - harder to take sitting in the same room with him pretending to be the son he wants, right now."

"How long does that usually take to wear off?" she wonders.

"Depends. A few days, most of the time."

She nods.

"I'm sorry."

"Thanks, I guess."

"You guess?"

"I guess that's something it makes sense to say? I'm not really..." He rubs his face with both hands. "I'm gonna go to sleep," he says, and heads for his room.

"Good night."

She goes down for her own dinner, once he's back in his room.

Berete is doing the very last of the post-dinner kitchen-tidying. There is a platter of steamed buns, decorated according to her usual convention to indicate their various fillings, in one of the spots where she usually leaves things for people to grab as they're passing through.

Aya collects three. "Hello, Berete," she says.

"Hello, Aya. How are you doing?"

"I'm all right. Settled in, pretty much."

"Good. So what did Hal decide to do with you?"

"He pretty much leaves me be. He lets me read his books," Aya adds.

"That does sound like Hal."

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