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 Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2008 6:49 am
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Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 9:18 pm
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Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 8:13 pm
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Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2009 8:50 pm
{ Jessabelle's Diary }
Captain's log, stardate 25-6-orion-delta-alpha-potato
...yeah, I'm on a Star Trek binge. Don't judge me, inanimate notebook. Don't judge me.
So Maira's been a major handful. She's met a couple other kids over the past few months and it's pretty amazing they didn't have to go for therapy afterwards. The goth-lolita kid was a favorite of hers, she wouldn't shut up about how great this 'Malice' was. Alice or Malice? Can't tell, Maira's mouth was full of crayon at the time. Kid needs to stop talking with her mouth full. ...and eating crayons, sweet Jesus.
Kirby's been helping out a lot keeping track of her. He seems to get along with her okay, that one shaving incident aside.
((*note to self, never let Maira near Danny's electric razor and Kirby's eyebrows ever, ever again. Even if the result was awesome. There is only so much dignity that can be damaged at one time.))
Anyway. Danny's still abroad, studying the arts and the local culture and local bars and I hope not the local women. ...God, I sound like such a possessive freak, don't I? Well, I suppose I should, he is my boyfriend. Gah, I don't know. I still haven't told him about Maira. How can I? "Hey Danny-boy, remember that gift you gave me before you split? Turns out it spit out my very own little psychoactive basket-case, thanks!"
I suppose I should tell him at some point, he'll be back sooner or later.
Hopefully not later.
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Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2009 9:07 pm
{ Maira's Diary }
my nAme iz iss IS maIRa aND i meT nys nyse nise NIce peOple
maLIce is daRk aNd bad but thats OkaY
coRpse-giRL smeLLed Like sEmatarY shAde buT she wuz wAS niCe to me wHen i was haVinG a vERy bad bad bad bad BAD BAD BAD dAy. i STill doN't knOw what haPpeneD to PreTTy and I DON'T CARE i hOpe hE's aLl eATen up
i DreEmed aboot abOut the silVer sEa laST nyte nait nite
i MiSs it aND sumtIMes I Am maD at jeSs for bUrnIng it bUt shE didn'T meen mean to sO it's oKay
nOt rEAlly okAy
iT wAs qUiEt in thE seA aNd it wAs brIGht
It iS hARd tO be mAIrA sumtimeS aND I fEel lIke I mite bREak iNTo biTs aNd pieCes bUT i doN't want to. it Is hARd buT i LiKe beinG alIve and not maIRa-coNfetI shaRDs GLITTER I WOULD BE MAIRA-GLITTER
bUt noT stuPId-glitteR that wOULd be dumB
tHerE is nO moRE sNow
floWers aRE coMing oUt of the grOUnd
iT is nOT the sILver sEa heRE but tHere arE stIll nicE thiNgs nOW and thEn.
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Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2009 6:07 pm
Maturity Prompt (Required To Teach Teen Stage) Learning how to be responsible is an important part of growing up. In order for your scent to mature into a teen, they need to prove that they are capable of taking responsibility for themselves and/or others. That said, your scent comes home one day with an amazing story that shows how responsible they are. They have rescued a cat, saved up enough money to buy themselves something nice, or saved the world from an evil wizard that tried to divide by zero. Whether it was ultimately to serve themselves or others, your scent's tale will show traits of maturity that will let them blossom into angry, hormone-driven monsters that act nothing like the sweet children that you fondly remember having. Be as creative as you'd like with their story, and remember:RESPONSIBLITY, DO YOU HAS IT?!
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Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 6:46 pm
{ chrysalis - teen quest prompt }
Maira hadn't meant to step on the little slug. Truly, she hadn't. And now it was curled up on its side in the grass, and Maira was in tears because she just knew it would be screaming in pain if it had a little slug-voice.
"I am sorry mister worm-slug thing," she wailed, poking the tiny thing with a bony finger. "I didn't mean to squish you, please don't be angry and die and haunt me and crawl in my ear and be a ghostslug in my brains!"
The slug, or worm, or whatever it was, slowly and painfully uncurled. It wasn't very interesting looking, though its rear was distinctly flattened. Maira felt an unbearable twitch of guilt - she'd squished him with inattentive feet and he hadn't done anything mean to her at all. She wailed and sobbed for a good ten minutes before Jess opened the back door and called her inside for dinner.
Instantly cheering up, Maira bolted inside. She paused, smelling the scent of chicken and potatoes and good things to eat. She had a mother who cared for her and fed her and gave her somewhere nice to sleep. What did that poor little wormslugthing have? Nothing at all, just a big empty lawn where he was in danger of being squished and splattered by rogue dancing Mairas.
Chin jutting out and expression set into resolve, Maira took a bowl of peas off the table, dumped them in the sink, oblivious to Jess's bewildered protests, and ran back outside. The little wormslugthing was still where Maira had left him, trying to creep back among the grass.
"I will be a nice mama to you mister slug-worm," she said importantly, throwing him into the bowl and ripping up blades of grass and leaves from an abused rhododendron bush for him. "I will be nice to you because I almost killed you and that is not a nice thing."
---
The wormslugthing, which Jess had since identified as a caterpillar, grew fat on the constant diet of leaves and sugared water Maira fed it loyally. Jess had deemed it a good test of responsibility for the lunatic child to keep a pet, and caterpillars were about as easy as animal-rearing got. Maira kept the bowl next to her bed, and would watch the little creature inch about, eating leaves one minuscule nibble at a time.
"You are a good baby," Maira said to the caterpillar each night. "And I am still sorry that I stepped on you."
The flattened bottom, to Maira's continual chagrin, had still not re-inflated to match the chubby proportions of the rest of the caterpillar. She knew Jess was just humoring her in her attempts to care for the little creature, but Maira was on a mission of penance. One did not just step on other people. It was just plain rude.
As weeks passed and became a month, then two, the spring slipped into the comfortable warmth of early summer. Maira often went out to play and did not come back until later and later each evening, and was then so tuckered out by her activity that she often went straight to bed. She still loyally deposited leaves and a soda cap-full of sugar water into the bowl, but one day got an unpleasant shock.
The leaves in the bowl had piled up until they spilled out over the rim, and the sugar-water had sat undrunk until it evaporated. Maira let out a horrified shriek and dug frantically through the bowl, looking for the caterpillar. She wept fresh anguished tears when she couldn't find the little creature - she had sworn she'd take care of it, and she'd killed it!
Her fingers touched something warm, yet hard and unyielding as she dug through the large leaf-pile. Maira blinked in confusion and picked it up, head tilting to one side like a cat's.
"Buh...?"
It was a strange little thing - green as a new leaf, with a thick, waxy shell about it. It reminded Maira of a seashell or an acorn, something with life hidden away inside.
"Mister wormslug?" Maira asked the little life-shell. It didn't answer her, though to be fair the caterpillar had never said anything either. Maira looked at the life-shell with something close to reverence. Maybe the caterpillar wasn't dead. Maybe he'd made himself a house!
"I am sorry, I made loud noise and tipped the bowl upside down and made a mess and you are obviously trying to rest in your nice new tiny house," Maira said solemnly. She carefully lined the bowl with fresh, soft new leaves, and laid the life-shell in it with utmost care. She placed the bowl on her nightstand again and laid a handkerchief over it, to keep it quiet and peaceful. Maira understood well the desire for solitude and peace - she wished she could make her own life-shell to have time away from the bright, hard noise and light that came from the big, big world outside of her room.
It was a few weeks later when Maira noticed the life-shell had become dull and flaky and cracked. Intensely worried that the caterpillar's nice house might be broken or that she had done something to disrupt it, Maira took the bowl into her lap and sat staring at it for hours, afraid to touch it and afraid to leave it on its own.
The cracks gradually became bigger and bigger, a faint crinkling audible from time to time. Maira, hardly blinking, watched as something very large moved around inside. It was a black blob of sorts, completely unlike her chubby, flat-bottomed caterpillar. Thin legs poked out and broke through the life-shell, and a wet, large Something finally dragged itself out and lay exhausted on the bed of leaves Maira had patiently changed almost every day.
"Ewwwww," Maira said, face wrinkling like an old prune. "You are not mister wormslug, you are a gross wet lump and I do not think I like you."
The creature said nothing, though wet antennae flicked at her as though listening intently. Maira blinked in confusion as the thick, crumpled bumps on its back slowly lifted and fanned out. Over the course of an hour, then two, the little creature became less like a black shiny lump that looked like a misshapen poop and more into something soft and bright and pretty. Maira gaped as the crumpled bits dried into wings, beautiful papery thin wings of black and splotched oranges and yellows. The wet black body had become slick carapaced and slender, spotted with white.
She had no idea what it was, but it was very beautiful. It had a thin curly thing on its face that uncurled from time to time, the tip of it testing the capful of sugar water Maira had laid out next to the life-shell just in case its occupant had gotten hungry. Maira gave a shriek of delight as the creature drank the sugar water bit by bit, and then fluttered about in the bowl to find more.
"MORE SWEETWATER FOR FLY-THING," Maira shouted over and over as she ran to the kitchen, coming back with the sugar bowl. Pretty Wing-Thing liked sugar, clearly, and so she had dumped water right into the sugar bowl. The creature tested the offering and Maira was disappointed when it seemed to reject it, fluttering back onto the bowl's lip.
"Um um um," she said, turning about in a tight circle. What did it want to eat? Clearly the little spiral thing on its face was its mouth, and it didn't want the leaves like mister worm-slug had. She stopped spinning when she got too dizzy, and watched the creature flutter awkwardly from her night stand to her open window. It landed on the screen and fluttered about anxiously, as though starving for the open sky.
Maira crept up behind the creature and cupped it in her hands. She could feel frightened wings beating against her palms, soft and frightened. She pitied the creature, and knew that if she clapped her hands together she could make it stop being scared in an instant, and why shouldn't she because its fear was infecting her....
...but she didn't. She looked into the cage of her hands and saw something that needed her, and had trusted her. It needed her now, and she wouldn't let anything happen to it, even her own impulses.
Holding her hands close to her chest, Maira went downstairs and pushed the back door open. Jess lived in a nice little house in a nice little neighborhood, with a wild, not-so-nice-and-more-very-very-wild untended garden in the back yard. There was a towering lilac bush that dominated the little yard, and Maira gave a gasp as she saw other winged creatures flying and fluttering about the fragrant purple flowers. They didn't look like her creature, but Maira understood.
"Home," she whispered to the frightened thing in her hands. She stood on tip-toes until she could feel the strain of muscles in her legs, raising her hands as high as she could reach.
She opened her hands, and the creature, that beautiful, delicate, strange thing she had accidentally raised from a half-flattened caterpillar, flew free.
Home.
Maira watched the little thing fly crazily from flower to flower, hungrily eating up the nectar inside. She watched with pleasure and pride as it flew around the yard, already so natural in the air, looking like a scrap of silk floating in a breeze.
Maira laughed and smiled and danced around in a frantic circle, the powerful spectrum of her unstable emotions perfectly set in joy. She had done a Good Thing, and because she had helped that little worm-slug-caterpillar, there was something beautiful in the world. And if that wasn't something to be proud of, nothing was.
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Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 7:22 pm
{part 14}
Jessabelle had been called into work early that day, and Kirby, being the loyal friend that he was, had once more taken over Maira-sitting duty. The girl was subdued the last few days, sinking deep into herself and drawing picture after picture of butterflies. Jess had expressed initial concern, but had since had to accept it as another of Maira's unpredictable moods. Kirby in all honesty was glad for the quiet - Maira was an okay kid, but her mood swings could be a little overwhelming sometimes.
As it grew nearer and nearer to Maira's bedtime, the girl seemed to completely withdraw into herself. She stared blankly at the same sheet of paper for nearly fifteen minutes, and barely reacted when Kirby touched her shoulder.
"Maira?" he asked, more out of curiosity than concern. "Hey, you all there, kiddo?"
Maira blinked as though waking up from a blow to the head, shrugging her shoulders.
"Mmn," was all the sound she could muster.
Kirby frowned. Maybe she wasn't feeling well? He pressed a hand to her cheeks and forehead, looking for a temperature and a reaction both - Maira hated to be touched. The girl gave a moue of displeasure and jerked her head away fast enough to crick her neck. Kirby gave a nod.
"Alright, so you're not sick, you're just being moody, huh?" he asked the taciturn lunatic-child. Maira just looked up at him with her sharp, strange eyes, as though she knew something he didn't.
"Baff-time," she said clearly, the first real communication in days. "I want bubbles."
Kirby just sighed.
"Alright, squirt. C'mon then."
---
"OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT."
Kirby gave a curse of indignation as Maira threw her dress at his face, knocking his glasses askew and making him fall with a thunderous thud right outside the bathroom door.
"JESUS, MAIRA," he said as the door slammed in his face. "I wasn't gonna ********' WATCH you bathe! You know that's really...oh what the hell am I doing, any lecture I give'll be forgotten in what, ten minutes?"
There was no reply but for a sudden click of the bathroom doorknob's lock being pushed firmly into place. Kirby cursed once, then again, rattled the knob once, and then threw up his hands in despair and went downstairs, shaking his head.
"Fine. FINE. Christ, I'm no good with kids..."
Inside the bathroom, Maira unwound the bandages from her otherwise unclothed body and kicked them aside. Jess had asked many times why she wore them, and Maira had offered a different explanation each time. Today, for example, she was certain that the bandages kept her together where her skin was weak - if she had taken them off, surely, surely, her blood and her bones and her soul would have broken out and left her empty and hollow. Maira shuddered at the prospect. She didn't think she'd like being hollow, like a blown egg, like a bottle, like a shell. Empty hollow things broke too easily for her liking.
Jumping into the deep tub with a splash, Maira sat in the bubble-clogged water and scrubbed religiously until the grass stains were gone from her elbows and knees, paint and marker and pencil vanished from her fingers and palms. She liked being clean. Her skin was snowy white, blank white, and she liked it that way.
Despite the heat of the water, Maira suddenly began to shiver. She frowned - this wasn't the Shudderies, when suddenly she slipped into those quick little awake-dreams and then found herself disoriented and confused. She was oddly....cold. She fumbled with the faucet and turned the knobs, and warm water gushed into the brimming tub. She watched water slop over the sides and onto the floor, and sank like a hippopotamus underneath the bubbles. She braced her arms against the sides of the tub, submerged and floating in the dark quiet.
She was reminded so suddenly of the peaceful warmth of the silver sea that homesickness shot through her like pain. She squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them a moment later - she actually was feeling pain.
What?
Lucid, startled, and worried, the single thought echoed in every corner of Maira's mind. It wasn't agonizing pain, but something subtle, a steady ache in her bones. Maira thrashed but remained submerged - oh, no, no no god no she shouldn't have taken her bandages off, she had killed herself oh god oh god jess will be so angry that she was dead oh it hurt why was she dying her bones were going to break in her flesh and turn to so much dust -
Downstairs, Kirby heard the water running and frowned. He didn't want to have to clean up a small lake in the bathroom once Maira's bath was done, and he was getting the feeling that's exactly what he'd get stuck with. He sighed and shook his head with all the long-suffering patience of a saint, and trudged upstairs. Water was pooling out from under the door as Kirby knocked sourly.
"Maira. Open the door," he said. "You're making an ocean out here."
There was no answer. Kirby's irritated expression deepened and he knocked on the door harder.
"Maira Kingsley. Open this door or I'll tell Jess what you did."
The only reply was the gentle sloshing splash of water hitting the bathroom tiles. Kirby started to become nervous, and jiggled the doorknob. It was still locked.
"Maira?" he called, forcing his voice into cordiality. "I was joshing you, kiddo. I won't tell Jess, but you really have to open the door now."
Silence.
Oh, god, Kirby thought, going cold deep in the pit of his gut.
"Maira. Open the door. Now."
Splish, splash. Drip, drip.
The cold knot in his stomach spreading up his spine, Kirby elected for Panic Mode. He threw his shoulder against the door, cringing at the pain it sent up into his neck. He did it once, then twice, then three times, and finally with one last hard push the elderly knob's lock gave way with a dramatic snap. Kirby gave a yelp as the door swung out from under his weight and he slid into the bathroom, falling heavily into hot water that streamed out from the steam-wreathed tub.
"Jesus, Maira!"
He plunged his hands under the thick bubbles, searching for a scrawny, tiny drowned body. He hoisted the body up from the suds, trying frantically to remember the CPR lessons from high school health class so many years prior.
He froze mid-swear, staring at the unconscious girl in his arms.
It was Maira.
But....older...?
"...Maira?"
The girl had Maira's bright red-gold hair, her snowy skin. The bright red bindi-like mark stood out on her forehead like a wound, like a drop of bright red blood. She coughed once, head lolling in Kirby's arms, and she murmured something. Her voice had deepened a little, losing the reedy quality of a child's. When her eyes opened drowsily, they were Maira's own mad, inhuman eyes.
And they held no recognition of Kirby at all.
"Oh god, Maira," Kirby said lamely, in a state of growing shock. "Maira, what happened to you?"
He smoothed straggling hair out of her eyes, trying to get her to speak, to react, anything at all. Her ghostly silence was frightening him.
Maira leaned into Kirby's concerned touch, still not recognizing him. She understood he was worried and anxious about her, though she didn't know why. She could see the distress in his face and it infected her like a poison, making her heart pound. She was scaring him. She was causing him pain. She felt unaccountably guilty and tears made her eyes liquid. How could she apologize for making him feel so badly?
She mimicked his concerned touch, running one hand over his cheek like he had her. She had liked the touch, maybe he would too.
Poor Kirby was uncomfortably aware of the streak of water Maira's hand left on his cheek. What the hell was wrong with her?
Maira flinched as her apology seemed rejected. He was still holding her, though...the barest of ideas flickered through her foggy mind, and Maira leaned in close, lips brushing against Kirby's. Vague memories of seeing it somewhere had occurred to her...people who liked each other did it, didn't they? Did he like her? She couldn't quite recall.
Kirby froze, shock making him go numb. She was kissing him. Why....how...what?
And to his horror, he realized he wasn't pulling away. What on earth was he, a pervert? She was a child! Well...alright, no, not anymore, but....oh god, he still wasn't pulling away. He was not this desperate for a girl's attention. He wasn't.
...but Maira's scent, so often hidden under the odors of spilled juice or mud or god-knew-what-she-had-gotten-into-this-time, was making his head spin. Soft musk and a sharp smell of strawberries that made him think of bright, hot sunlight and thick, hazy summer afternoons...
And suddenly, in a moment Kirby would hate himself for later for may days afterward, he kissed Maira back like a lover.
Maira smiled under the kiss. She had done a Good Thing - he was happy now.
"Hello," she said after he'd finished, breaking away slowly from her lips.
Kirby had gone gray, repulsion with himself making him jerk back sharply.
"I'm sorry," he croaked. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, looking horrified. "Maira, god, I'm so sorry."
Maira blinked once, then again, then squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed them like she'd gotten a camera-flash straight to the face. When she looked back at Kirby, her face was guileless, aware, and shocked that he was some how back in the bathroom.
"I'm TAKING a BAFF," she said clearly, splashing indignantly. "GET OUT OR I'LL TATTLE."
"I'm gone, sorry, sorry," Kirby said hurriedly, getting up and slipping and sliding out of the bathroom. He bolted downstairs and headed straight for the kitchen, splashing brutally cold water on his face from the tap and hyperventilating.
"Oh, god, I'm a sick, twisted pervert," he said to himself, revolted and unaccountable tired. Jess would never forgive him, if she found out.
...IF she found out.
Creeping back to the living room, Kirby stationed himself resolutely on the couch and listened as Maira sang and splashed in the tub upstairs, seemingly unaware of her alarming growth spurt. He sat back on the cushions, and thought long and hard how he was going to explain the events off the evening when Jess got home. He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling world-weary.
"Dear sweet baby Jesus, why me...."
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Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 3:08 am
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Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 10:22 am
{ Maira's Diary }
i am taLler thAN I uSed to BE
it haz hes HAS beEn a loooOOOoooOOOooOooOOOOOOOOoooooong tiMe siNce i wRote last
i haVe bEen busY BuSy bUsy
i PlAnteD a gardin gardEN anD buTterFliEs liVe in it aNd jess saYs "MAIRA it iS goOD FOr you to hAve an ouTLet"
whaT is An ouTleT anYWay?
i WoNDer iF i GRow uP aGAin iF i'lL Be a giANT
i WouLD sQuiSh eveRYonE wHo evER MAde me MAD
sqUisH
squISh
SQUISH
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