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 Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 2:52 am
Astraea had decided to enroll Tamaura in to the daycare, deciding that she was finally old enough to be indoctrinated with the rules of "sharing" and "playing nice". But these things seemed to come as naturally to Tamaura as smiling, and Astraea thought she would have no trouble at daycare. But all Tammy did was cry the entire time, ill used to being around others not her mother.
Finally, after about 15 minutes of solid sobbing, Tammy got up, rubbing her eyes with her sweater. The room was far different from her cottage, brighter and more colourful, and Tammy took a liking to it. Forgetting why she had been crying in the first place, Tammy sat down next to another toddler, and looked around for something to grab.
"One fish two fish red fish boo fish," Tammy chanted to herself, giggling at the end. She grabbed a couple of blocks and started stacking them haphazardly.
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 2:57 am
"Hi-i," said the other toddler automatically, turning to look at the newcomer and finding her face unfamiliar. Tamaura might have been uncomfortable around strangers, but Grayson was always happy to make a new friend. "'M Grayson." He stuck out one hand, his wrist ringed with soft grey feathers.
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 3:04 am
"Oooo," Irelia cooed, grasping Grayson's wrist. The feathers were so soft! Tammy smiled happily, and patted them absently.
Remembering that he had introduced himself, Tammy looked up and smiled sunnily at Grayson.
"I'm Ta-Mau-Ra. But mommy calls me Tammy."
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 3:31 am
Grayson smiled. "It's nice to meet you!" he said, just like the adults always said to him. Then he noticed the redness around the eyes, the leftover damp saltiness on the cheeks. He had seen people who had cried before. Had he been there when Tamaura was crying, he would have gone to try and help her, but the best Grayson could manage was to try and help her now. "Are you okay?" he asked, concerned, big black eyes offering compassion.
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 3:36 am
Tammy nodded, itching to feel his feathers again. They felt nice, just like the little feathers that came out of her blanket at home.
Once, she had made a pet out of one of the feathers, and cried sorrowfully when she had lost her feather. She screamed that it was her "best friend". Astraea had decided that Tammy was sorely in need of other human contact at that point.
"I'm good!" Tammy said, smiling brightly. Grayson was nice and his feathers were pretty. All thoughts of loneliness were gone, absolutely erased from her mind as if they had never been there. Humming drolly, Tammy picked up a block, and handed it to Grayson.
"Do you like blocks? I do!"
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 3:44 am
Grayson was happy Tammy seemed okay despite the crying. Sometimes people could get like that, he knew. Crying helped you work out your emotions and stress level. Or, to put it in Grayson terms, sometimes you had to be sad now to be happy later.
"Blocks are good," agreed Grayson. He picked up the toy he had been playing with, a green wooden car, and, pressing the block to the floor with one hand, he shimmied the little wooden car back and forth on the floor next to it. One moving point, one nonmoving point. Stellar cartography at its simplest. He asked Tamaura about the wooden blocks: "Do you know the letters?" he rolled the little green car towards her.
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 4:03 am
Tammy nodded, and plucked several more blocks out of the pile.
"A B C D," She hummed, putting the letters "P Z R T" in order. She wasn't exactly the brightest crayon in the box, but she did try hard.
Smiling at Grayson, she pushed the car back and forth, making vrooming noises, as expected from a toddler. What was not expected was that instead of pushing the car back to him, the car floated back to him.
Tammy clapped her hands excitedly.
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Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 12:15 am
Grayson's face lit up with happy amazement. "Ahh!" he exclaimed, and reached out to touch the hovering car. It abruptly fell from the air, bouncing on the floor, and Grayson's gasp of excitement turned to one of dismay. "Aah..." He looked at Tamaura apologetically. He hadn't meant to mess up the floating car.
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Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 12:23 am
Tammy continued to clap, ignoring that her magic had fizzled out. Looking around, she focused on a stuffed animal another girl was holding on, and it zapped in to her hands.
This... probably wasn't going to go over well.
The girl began to wail, but Tammy seemed to have forgotten where she had gotten the stuffed animal, and hugged it happily.
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Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 12:31 am
Grayson immediately forgot the car, shocked that Tammy had done such a thing. He stood up. "That's not yours!" He reached his hand out for the toy, hoping she would let him return it to the other little girl. "You hafta give it back."
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Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 12:47 am
"Oh no," Tammy said, looking from the crying girl, to the stuffy, and back to Grayson. She didn't really realize what she had done, as she wasn't really in control over what she did, but she did recognize someone mad at her, and she sniffed. She made someone sad, and it made Tammy sad too!
Sniffling, Tammy got up, and toddled over to the girl, tightly holding the stuffy. She felt really bad, but didn't know what to do, other than hold it out to her limply.
The other girl looked up at her and shook her head.
"Dun want. You scary,"
Tammy plopped back on to the ground, her eyes wide.
"I'm not scary! Grayson, I not scary?" The last was directed to Grayson.
She wasn't scary, was she?
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Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 1:11 am
Grayson, whose appearance was easily ten times as scary as innocent little Tamaura and who could have been just as responsible for the weird occurance, looked at the other little girl firmly and said, "That's not nice. She was being nice. You should be nice, too." Then he took Tammy's hand and tugged her back towards where they had been playing. "I dun think you're scary, but don't steal other people's toys!" He wasn't sure how Tammy had done it, just that there was something a little different about this little girl, even if she looked human enough.
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Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 1:15 am
Tammy nodded. She liked Grayson, she even liked the girl who wouldn't take back her stuffy, because Tammy didn't have a mean bone in her body.
Walking back to where they were sitting, Tammy picked up some blocks again. They were in front of her, they were safe, and she was the one who had been playing with them before.
"Want to make a castle?" Tammy asked Grayson hopefully. There wasn't anything she liked more than to play pretend.
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Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 1:23 am
Grayson was still a little concerned about all this, but... he couldn't hold it against Tammy. "Okay!" he agreed, and started rounding up some of the more wayward blocks to put them all together for the construction project.
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Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 1:31 am
"Red orange yellow blue, red orange yellow blue," Tammy chanted, grabbing any blocks that she could find.
Every so often, her glance shifted to the girl at the other end of the room, still not taking back the abandoned stuffy. It made Tammy's heart hurt. She understood the concept of sharing, and she knew that if Grayson wanted a block of hers, he could have whatever block he wanted, but she didn't mean to take the stuffy from the other girl. It just... happened.
Like all the other stuff that liked to happen around Tammy.
"We build castle... for her?" Tammy asked. She wanted to do something to make it up to the other girl. She just didn't know what.
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