Author's Notes: Read or Dream inspired. Maggie-centred. A little introspection on Maggie and her relationship to books. Used as my third person log sample for an RP application for her character.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the words. Maggie and the other Paper Sisters are property belong to the copyright holders.
No Friend as Loyal
The door closes behind Anita and the first thing Maggie does is to steer towards the bookshelves that reach from floor to ceiling like a peculiar kind of tapestry. Letting her fingers run along the spines of the many titles she knows already, in between some she still needs to get acquainted with, she looks forward to a day dedicated to reading without feeling guilty about leaving Anita to her own devices – because even though she says she doesn't mind, Maggie can tell that sometimes she feels lonely – or having to share with Michelle.
Not because she minds sharing… she's happy that she has her big sister to share her books with, but still…
Books allow Maggie to enjoy herself on her own terms. Books don't wait for her to say anything, since they have said everything of importance and now simply wait to be read, experienced, swallowed in little nibbles. Books don't expect any explanations when she feels so moved by what they have to share with her that tears gather in the corners of her eyes or a laugh escapes her lips. Books give her everything and want nothing in return. Save for the recommendation triggered by their urge to be read all over again, by someone new.
That's why Maggie, now when she's home alone, stacks them in pile upon pile until she's formed a fortress around herself; a sanctuary of books where she can crawl into their shadow and let herself forget the world outside. Be alone, but not lonely. Just for a little while. Just until Anita gets home and asks her to do something fun instead of just reading and Michelle returns with a demand of getting her stomach filled with food that Maggie has to make, because Maggie is the best cook of the three of them.
… She doesn't even need a recipe, like Michelle does, but sometimes she uses one anyway, just to let her eyes run over the lines of words and read the instructions carefully, because reading is the best pass-time Maggie knows.
Until then, though, Maggie sits down among her books and opens another romance novel or another volume of a drama series she really likes, befriending the pages one by one. Like this, it's easy to tell herself that it's not true when Anita claims Maggie has no friends, because she does.
Hemingway himself said: There is no friend as loyal as a book.
Anita would probably say that the two aren't compatible; that humans and books aren't the same, not alike at all. Maggie is well aware. Humans are much more complex and difficult to read, after all. Humans confuse Maggie in a way books never do.
Later – it be minutes or hours, it's difficult to tell when Maggie's been engrossed in her own world – Anita throws the door open with a loud "I'm home" and even though Maggie would prefer a life where she could read non-stop all the time, she's been given so much joy from the books around her that she doesn't mind getting up from her corner and focus on the chores that her everyday life with her sisters are depending on.
Her Paper Sisters. Related by books, not blood.
Patting her little sister on the head, right between her odango, and smiling gently, she takes Anita with her out into the kitchen, away from the towers of books in the living room. She won't mind a couple of hours of cooking and Anita complaining about the mess the two "adults" in her life always make of their book collection.
Because, when all comes down to it, they'll still be there when Maggie returns, ready to fill every need she has. That's the greatest thing about them. The books.