It felt like it hadn't been that long ago since the Easter party had been held in that very location. Another Easter had come and gone since then, but the grass was still as green and the blossoms were beginning to bud again.
Lorelei had been a child then, and had met new people and met up again with old friends. However, one of her oldest friends was not at that party. She had seen the pheasant at a beach outing with Jan, but it had been too brief and Lorelei could barely say a hello.
The duck Sin'aeis looked down at the baby in her lap, who was once again fussing. She was such an angry baby, her hands always clenched into fists or yanking on anything she could reach. Her caretaker, Ophelia, had been practically mad with exhaustion, so Lorelei had offered to take the bleu cheese baby out for the afternoon.
She was starting to regret it.
Ancelin didn't think much back on the holiday events that the sin mansion had held. She remembered the year when she was a fish for halloween, but other than that.. Meh. She'd meet a new sin every now and again, but it had been forever since she had seen one from her past that wasn't Jan. She was begining to wonder if they where still alive anymore.
It was then the pheasant girl walked down the concrete path with Erik, her Lady Amhert's Pheasant, following behind. She stopped for a moment when she saw familiar forest green hair, before she called out.
"Lorelei, is that you?"
Lorelei tilted her head to the side and offered a wave-- or at least tried to before an angry hand snatched out and pulled on her stola. With a firm hand, Lorelei took the fabric away from the baby and handed her instead her favorite starfish chewie. It was already worn from much chewing (Bebe's teeth were already showing up in her gums, the rate of her teeth's development baffled the whole family), but Bebe was satisfied with her prize and stuffed one of the starfish's arms in her mouth.
"Yes, yes, it's me," Lorelei finally managed to say, her eyes wandering over Ancelin. She still appeared somewhat dazed, but Bebe had interrupted her quiet contemplation quite a lot-- indeed, Lorelei was very frazzled.
Ancelin walked over to where Lore was sitting and looked down at the child in her arms. The strange apearance.. It had the physical qualities of one like them. Ancelin rose an eyebrow. She wasn't sure how.. well.. reproduction worked among other sin. Tenshi had given her the sex talk assuming she was the same as humans. So it would only natural that An would be bound to get confused.
"Is.. Is that your child?" She asked as she tilted her head to the side. Erik, who had satisfied himself to just stand beside his owner, looked up to the two people with his small feathered head cocked to the side.
"Coo?"
"Oh, no!" Lorelei shook her head from side to side, causing Bebe to reach up and try to grab the green locks. Lorelei put the starfish back in Bebe's grasp, and she was once again satisfied. After a moment of gumming on the starfish, she let out a yawn wide enough to show two pearly buds in her mouth-- her front teeth! However, her mouth was closed as quickly as it was open, and Bebe started to drift away into a (thankfully calm) dream.
"No, Bebe is the child of our live-in maid, Ophelia," explained Lorelei, her wide smile appearing on her face once again as Bebe fell asleep, "Chaco needed someone to take care of this little girl, so..." Lorelei ran a hand through her hair, her eyes still darting over the grass for the sigh of an elusive dustbunny.
"I haven't found anyone like THAT yet..."
Ancelin nodded her head and let out a quick and light sigh of releif.
"Oh, I see.. Well she's very adorable." Ancelin said as she adjusted her bangs. She felt silly for asking such a question, but when it came to those sort of things Ancelin was very, very, very naive.
"I know the feeling." She said, she wasn't going to get into her 'love' endevers though.
"So how have you been doing? You look a little stressed.. But I assume it's from Bebe." the girl admitted before she took a seat on a free spot on the bench. She then pulled a small sandwich bag from her purse, and began tossing peices of grain to Erik to keep him entertained.
"I guess I'm lucky enough to say that Bebe is my main source of stress right now," Lorelei gave a quick nod, "But a part of me is a little bored. I really want to get back to the library and start reading again."
She shrugged.
"But last time I did that, I got sucked into ye olde England with Flitch. It's not that I don't mind his company, but I'd much rather be in a place less... er..." Lorelei tilted her chin up, "...Unscrupulous?"
She let out a nervous laugh, but was silenced when a dragonfly started to flit about her nose.
Ancelin flicked another peice of grain to the small pheasant as he pecked about the ground. She nodded her head slightly.. She thought she might of understood.
"I saw Flitch recently myself." She said, just lightly noting on the subject of the young.. er... man?
"There are book stores that have chairs so you can read while drinking coffee. That might have an atmopshere more to your liking? And you'd be able to read in peace." she said with a nod. Ancelin liked to read.. but she was more into those romance novels that people often poked fun at, so she wasn't too vocal about her fondness of them.
Lorelei looked over at Ancelin, the dazed look completely gone. With a smile not so wide as her unaware one, but still wide enough to betray her intentions, she asked: "Flitch? Really? How is he doing? I didn't really get to see him after the incident..."
Her smile faded as she looked back down at Bebe. The dragonfly, which had been flitting about only moments before, was now being mauled and crunched by Bebe's newly-forming teeth.
"Bebe..." The glossiness appeared back over Lorelei's eyes when her usual dazed reactions came about, and she carefully started picking wings and legs away from the baby's mouth.
Ancelin turned her head and frowned as she watched Lore's reaction to the child. It was obvious the child was the soarce of her apparent unhappiness. She could understand, before she moved out, Damien and Dominic drove her to the point of insanity. She was so glad she was out and living in her own apartment now.
"Oh, he looked really well. He was at the mansion reading in the library." She said, giving a quick chuckle at how predictable that was.
"I talked to him for a little bit about theatre.. And then I gave him a card with the address to my pet store before he had to go take care of other things." She explained.
"There was an incident?" she asked.
"We were sucked into The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Jolly ol' England, I wasn't kidding..." Lorelei smiled a little bit, "It was rather cute having to protect him from a robber." Lorelei turned her smile back to the blue-haired woman, "He wasn't expecting me to be carrying a cleaver in my garter."
She went back to fussing over Bebe for a moment until she was sure that all dangling organs of the once dragonfly had been removed. Still, a smile that showed that her mind was elsewhere was still there.
Ancelin began giggling loudly, holding a hand up to her mouth in an automatic reaction to muffle her voice.
"Oh man, does that bring back memories." She said as she was reminded of Akilah and also the time when she and Jan where sucked into a vortex in the Sin mansion.
"Well, since you two seemed to come out unharmed, it had to be a fun adventure yes? I miss doing those out of this world things like when I was a child.. Being stuck in a pygmy village being mistaken for a sun goddess sounds so much better than the terrors the real world has to offer." She said, musing to herself as a faint frown covered her lips.
"But we have a little bit of the other worlds inside of us, Ancelin," Lorelei stood up, trying to rock Bebe into some sort of calmness, "We may not be able to remember anything, but we did come from someplace very different from here. With each step we take towards adulthood, we become closer to finding out..."
It was a cricket that stopped Lorelei from waxing poetic. She bent down towards it, keeping Bebe's greedy hands away from it. It let out a little chirp before hopping, and Lorelei's blank, yet content expression returned.
"So, what kind of books do you like to read?"
Ancelin's attention perked up at what Lorelei had begun to say. So, she knew about their pasts too? About the jobs, and Illessi? She had so many questions she wanted to ask. She knew she wasn't ready to go see him yet, but she still felt so confused over the whole matter.
However, Ancelin's thought process was distracted as she blushed slightly as she looked away. That was am embarrasing question to answer.
"Well.. It's kinda silly. But I like reading romance novels.. Not just the pure smut kind. But I'm really fond of Anne Rice novels and Severna Parks. Although I admit I do own a few of the kind of books that would have Fabio on the cover." She said as she twiddled her thumbs, getting light glares from Erik since she stopped feeding him.
"I have my own collection of paperback romance hidden under my bed," Lorelei laughed, "If my mom ever found out that I like stuff like Laurell K. Hamilton, I think she'd disown me." Lorelei tilted her head, "Well, after she stole my girl love collection."
Lorelei cleared her throat, "So I guess we all have our secrets. I just told Flitch that I like the classics, which I do. I don't know what he'd think if he found out that I read schoolgirl romances."
Ancelin smirked and nodded her head as she began chucking bits of feed at Erik. Who had began pecking at a small common brown bird as it had aproached in interest. Ancelin began throwing of the feed, that way there would be enough for both.
"I love Hamilton." She said with a smile.
"You're mother took away your books? How terrible." Ancelin said with a firm frown. "Shi-shi would never do something like that." She said, although Tenshi had a female lover and would often read those books herself. "Then again.. Shi reads much much worse when it comes to 'porn on paper' as she puts it." Ancelin said with a sneer, remembering the time she came acrossed a 'hentai manga' when she was cleaning.
"Oh no, she didn't! I'm saying she WOULD if she found them," Lorelei shook her head again, "... For her own enjoyment. It sounds like we both have perverted caretakers."
She let out a laugh before setting Bebe on the ground. She let out a rather loud grumble before kicking free of her blankets and crawling forward on her diaper, looking for things to chew on.
"So, which boy is your favorite?" Lorelei nudged Ancelin, "Of Hamilton's troupe, I mean. I don't really care for Richard that much... but Jean-Claude is too flamboyant..."
"I'm fond of Anita, personally." Ancelin said with a smirk. "I don't know though, Jean-Claude does have his own sense of charm. Then again I kinda like those suave types." she babbled. An watched the small baby crawl around on the ground idly. She certainly was a cute infant, even if she seemed to give Lorelei greif.
"I have to admit I stray towards the more lesbian oriented novels. I think it's because I always end up thinking of Jan." An said with a faint flush over her cheeks.
"I thought I sensed something when I saw you with her," Lorelei let an impish grin stretch over her face, "I'm glad to know that I wasn't off."
Bebe was reaching out towards a butterfly, her mouth opening and closing like she was dying to chew on its wings. Lorelei was thankful that the baby didn't have wings of her own. She cast a glance towards Ancelin-- it was a little odd to see her without her wings, but it was something that she'd have to get used to.
"Think sometime I could borrow one of those love stories? I don't have many involving two women," she shrugged.
Ancelin's blush got even deeper as she gave a nod. Yeah, it was kinda hard not to notice her unrequited obsession towards the potato woman. Ancelin then reached down and gently shooed off the brown bird that was giving Erik so much stress, knowing that their little squawks and chirps where actually threats and that a fight would soon break out between the two.
"Oh yes, of coarse. I'll get together some of my favorites for you to read. I've got shoe boxes full under my bed." She laughed. She then reached into her purse and got out a pen and paper, jotting down a series of numbers.
"Here, this is my cell number. Feel free to call me anytime."
"I don't have a cellphone yet," Lorelei admitted, "But I'll call you when I get the chance." Carefully folding the paper up, she slid it into one of her stola pockets.
"If you don't mind, Ancelin..." Lorelei let out a sigh, "I think I'm going to deliver Bebe back to her guardian and take a nap. I have to be ready to make dinner tonight!" Lorelei glanced up at a few traces of dust that glinted in the sunlight before bending down and picking up the fussing baby.
"It was great to see you again, though. I'll be sure to call you. I've never really talked to anyone on the phone before. Not for conversation, anyway."
Ancelin nodded her head and smiled.
"No no, I understand. Erik here would probably like it if I started moving again. I promised him I would take him to the ice cream stand." She said as she stood up and smoothed out her dress.
"You take care, and try not to let the baby torture you so much?" she smiled. Ancelin was used to talking on the phone ever since she moved out. It was always how she would converse with her old housemates and often times Jan.
"I'll do my best," Lorelei said with a wave, "You and Erik have fun." She offered a nod to the pheasant-- like he would understand-- before turning and walking in the direction that her feet happened to be in. After a few steps, she turned around and waved again before retreating towards her home on Bass'ken Lake.
