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 Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2006 6:25 am
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Posted: Thu Mar 02, 2006 6:17 pm
Day 50~ Three days or so after the events of Gael and Sanar's first meeting in which they had the ability to talk to each other in any way that Sin and Chao could understand, Sin was at her whit's end again. She wanted desperately to impress the value of books upon Gael, and as far as she knew, she had done a very good job instilling a love of learning - if not books. But the incident at the lodge plagued her. Gael had risen up in defense of something she hardly understood, and yet Sin worried that Gael had just been looking for a reason to protect something.
She seemed, at least to Sin, to have that sort of personality.
Sin was sitting, musing in the corner of the living room, nestled into an armchair, Sir Thrusday propped open on her knees. She had been deeply interested in the concept of the novel series by Garth Nix, called The Keys to the Kingdom as she thought that it would be a good way to integrate Gael into a well-known series - one that was not Harry Potter.
Sin wanted Gael to understand books, so, for the first book that she choose to read to Gael as a child, had to be one that she could understand and relate to. The flavor of fantastic adventure had always been something that Gael had reacted well to, so Sin assumed that it was a wise idea to have Gael begin to read on this story, as they'd read the previous three novels while she was still a gryphon.
Gael, incidentally, was not present as Sin inspected the first couple of pages for words that might prove challenging for the child. Having chosen to take the time while Sin was checking the book over to go through and sort the collection of beach glass that she had picked up on one of her morning walks into piles of similar shape and color. A long, tedious process that left the child drained.
Sin raised a hand, and beckoned to Gael, who had stopped her sorting to stare at Sin, "Come on, I'm ready, are you?"
Gael's face cracked into a grin, "Yeah!" She responded, using one of the new words that she had mastered just days before, soon after her meeting with Sanar. She stepped gingerly over her piles and came to sit in Sin's waiting lap.
"Okay, Gael, we're going to be working with letters again today." Sin began, cursing the fact that she had never thought to take a University class on teaching reading while she had still been in Dur'em, and had had those resources available to her. She pulled the letter key that she had made up two days previously, and handed it to Gael, who now understood what letters made what sounds.
"Read?" Gael asked, as she had every time Sin had handed her the book, she wanted to be able to read, now, as she was beginning to understand how to read, she found books the most fascinating thing that she could encounter that was human-created. She wanted to understand, but the letters and the sounds that they made were very difficult for her to connect the characters of the alphabet with the ones on the page. Sin said that that had something to do with the font of the books, but Gael wasn't so sure.
Maybe she was just stupid. She balled her fists. She didn't want to be stupid. "I..." she struggled to find the right words. "don't... understand..." She said, a violent click at the end of the word, like she had wanted to say something else as well.
Sin smiled. "Gael, you've been at this for three days. It took me three years to learn how to do this at any aptitude. It doesn't just fall into place the way that walking does - you have to build up to it." She propped the book open on Gael's lap. Pointing to a longer word, she said, "Now, you're good at this, picking it up very quickly. What's this word say?"
Gael squinted at the word, not knowing what it means. She stared at the letters, her frustration building. Eyes flicking from the key that Sin had made her to the word.
"First is 'Deh,'" She said, sounding out the first part of the word. Another few minutes of flickering had left her with the sounds, 'deh' 'pre' and the combined sound of 'ssss'.
"Depress?" Gael asked, not knowing what the word meant.
"It means to make sad, miss pessimist, you were able to do it, even when you thought that you wouldn't be able to." Sin smiled, "What does that show you?"
"I have to not get depress?" Gael ventured.
"Exactly, only in the past tense, you'd say 'depressed'."
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Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 9:04 am
[ Message temporarily off-line ]
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Posted: Thu Apr 27, 2006 3:59 pm
Day 69
"When life gives you lemons, the best option you have is to make lemonade out of them."
It was a strange creed, but one that Sin had long since resigned herself to following. She really had no choice in the matter, as her life, up to the point at which she was now at, had been full of very little besides the odd lemon.
It bothered her that she, at eightteen was expected to know how to care for a child in the way that not even her god-parents were able to do. She was not meant for this world, she was supposed to have died. And now, the concept of leaving Gael alone in the world was just too tramatising for her. She couldn't leave Gael alone - and the added threat that her Uncle had warned her about really wasn't helping her rest any easier.
As it turned out, Sin had no idea how to make paper, she'd just guessed and failed, much to Gael's dissapointment. It was that sad look that the child gave her that made Sin feel more like a piece of crap that anything else. Letting your kid down is one thing, but they make damn sure that you know you're really letting down yourself as well.
Gael had been quiet the past week, retreating off into the woods, presumabally looking for some way to continue her war with Sanar. Not that her once-friend knew anything about said-war, but it was better to leave certain things unsaid, for the good of all parties involved.
Sin sighed and turned on the gas stove, setting some water in a fry-pan to boil. She wasn't sure what she was going to make yet, but she wanted there to be food for when Gael returned from her exploits in the woods.
---
Gael had left the house early that morning intent on finding what had been eating the tulips that Sin had planted some time ago, back early spring. They had been growing up quite nicely, but Gael had found neat bite marks on the bases of several flowers, one of which was also missing it's top - something that Sin had mentioned as the best-tasting part of the flower.
The woods were cool early in the morning, the deep dew covered everything, and the feeling of damp-coolness was not lost. Gael was looking for some tracks, but was having no luck finding them. She was not a tracker by nature, she was observant, however, and with her nose pointed downwards toward the ground - she soon found was she was looking for.
The tracks were small, like a cat's - or something closely related to one. Gael had seen tracks like this in books, and carefully took note of the surroundings - the dew covered leaves brushing against her cheeks as she got closer to the ground.
The tracks lead through the undergrowth, a winding path that lead Gael deep into the woods. After a while, though, Gael found herself less interested in finding the tracks again - and more concerned with the surroundings. The leaves from around here were unlike any that she'd ever seen before, and Gael made a point to collect several to look up in the book that Sin had on leaves.
As she climbed further into the woods, a serene sense of calm took her over, leaving little to bother her already rather vacant mind. Gael liked to not think about anything, and yet it filled her with a sense of not existing - like she needed to be thinking of something in order to feel like she was really there, not just floating up above the rest of the world.
Behind her, a branch snapped, alterting Gael to a small creature crouched in the undergrowth, conceiled by a large, fallen, pine branch.
Instinctively, Gael's skin prickled, her instincts telling her to both fight and to fight - as the creature wasn't that big.
Gael squinted, this must be another of the mini-gryphs that Sin had mentioned, they already had Lucas at home, his cat-like nature made him a big hit with Gael, who enjoyed the warm body next to her when she slept at night.
She wondered Lucas liked to live around their home so much because he was part house cat anyway, but, she realized, there were far more pressing matters at hand.
Turning back to stare at the bushes, Gael held out her hand tennatively offering some of the nuts that she had found on the ground around the bird feeder. She assumed that they had been cast off by their thief and, if this little guy was the one that had been stealing the bird seed, he'd want to eat it.
---
When Gael returned home that night, Sin found her with long scratches across her nose and arm, they weren't bleeding, and the girl seemed to be shaken rather than anything else. "What happened?" Sin asked, putting a plate of pasta down in front of the girl.
Gael couldn't meet Sin's eyes, "I fell." She said simply, knowing how bad it must have sounded as she spoke the words.
"Into some briars?" Sin asked, wondering if Gael was truely telling the truth about falling, for, she'd done that many times herself - right into the pricker bushes.
Gael nodded and busied herself with eating, Sin left to wonder what sort of a lemon life had thrown at the girl durring her adventure in the woods.
Lucas, ever the wonderful house-cat/mini-gryph, curled up in Gael's lap, and promptly went to sleep, a contented purr rising from his chest every few moments.
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Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 7:03 pm
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Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 7:06 pm
Day 75 ~
Sin was bored with the book that she was reading. She had picked it up in the community center, thinking that it was just another one of those word tomes that seemed to be far happier when just left to their own accord. Almost every island that she had ever visited had their host of them.
On top of the fact that this story was just awful - with very little development to the characters or plot, in the first two hundred pages of writing, it annoyed Sin greatly. Sighing, she threw the book down in disgust, and peered out the window. The sun was shining, it's bright light catching the wind chimes on her porch in just the right way - setting the light to shine right into her eyes, successfully blinding her.
Grumbling, she tuned her sweaty form to more pressing matters. Gael had been sitting at the coffee table, sandwiched between the couch and the table�s wooden form for some time now, scribbling away on what looked to be, from Sin's half-obscured vantage point, a ransom note.
Gael had mentioned, during her time playing with Makai, that she had wanted some help with something - but she had not specified what. Sin could only assume that this was what she had been referring to that rainy day almost a week ago. Gael had been distracted since that day, taking long walks in the woods, not telling Sin where she was going - returning late in the day with a weary but satisfied smile on her face.
Sin could only determine that her child had taken up demon worshiping or something equally horrid.
Leaning down, she plucked the paper out from under Gael's pencil, intrigued as to what she was doing. "What are you writing, oh miss busybody?" She asked, scanning the paper in her hands, eyebrows growing steadily higher as she did so. "A declaration of war, complete with mutual grievances and a tentative territory split? Gael, I know that she wasn't very nice to you, but you can�t just let Sanar get to you like that."
Scowling, Gael yanked the paper back, "It's not any of your business what I choose to do with my time."
Sin nodded, "But I don't want to see you hurt." She touched the amulet around Gael�s neck. Tracing it's symbolic pattern as she did. "This is meant for protection, but you have to follow the rules of it - you know that as well as I do. My family is not a group to be trifled with. If they know you exist, they will find some way to exploit you."
Gael blinked, the paper remaining on the table as she moved to stand up, her hand on the amulet. "Why do they not like you, mommy?" She asked, her curiosity getting the better of her. "What did you ever do to them?"
Sin closed her eyes. She had known that the question would come up eventually, but she didn�t think that Gael's insufferable curiosity would get the better of her this fast. Sin was a private person for a reason, she did not like the feeling of laying herself bare for someone else to know all of her secrets. That was not her way. Even if it was Gael, she felt as though it was important for some things to remain unknown.
No longer.
Taking a deep breath, Sin began, "When I was born, my family had angered the gods. I was chosen to be a sacrifice to appease the easily inflamed gods. My life - was forfeit at that point, if it were not for one of the goddesses of home, who noticed my plight. She begged with her sister and her father to stop the sacrifice, telling them that a child's life was not worth winning an argument with a mortal.
"My aunt and grandfather did not agree with the goddess, and told her to silence her errant tongue - for it was not her way or her place to interfere with their affairs. But the goddess appealed to a higher deity, and fled her godly home, taking with her me, as an infant - spirited away right under their noses.
"My mother had no place on earth that would welcome her, so she eventually found an island, not quite attached from top to bottom, just floating in the sea. The people there were friendly and welcoming, and my mother made her home there - but not before the vendetta on my life was filed against she and I. I am now the product of that conflict.
"My family, as you are my child, want you because they can use you to get to me. To finally kill me like they wanted to, many years ago.� Sin finished, pulling the paper off the table again, �Perhaps now is not the best time to be sending this 'declaration of war'�"
Gael shook her head, pulling the paper back, "Some things must take place, no matter what."
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Posted: Sat Jul 29, 2006 4:35 am
Holdpost for pre-Gael/Sanar ARPEE
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Posted: Sat Jul 29, 2006 4:38 am
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Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 5:06 am
Day 83
Gael was never prone to doing things in a way that would be most beneficial for her. She liked to take the round-about route and make herself, inevitably, suffer. Such was why she was organizing her notes. By date and then by subject. The tedious process was enough to make her head want to explode, but she did it in good faith, as the pile of notes in the corner of the living room was starting to annoy Sin.
The notebooks had started to overflow ever since Gael and Sanar had first encountered each other, some two weeks before. Gael was still seething about what had happened, but she had half of her rock and she was working to translate it.
Not that that was getting her very far, however. It seemed that the rock was quite content to remain indecipherable for the time being, thank you very much.
Looking at her pencil echings of the rock, Gael wondered what it could say.
.... this post isn't doen yet.
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