Notes
This was written for Phmonth18 Rainsworth Trio Prompt 1: Tea! (I know this prompt comes before the other Rainsworth one I posted, but the first two went together)
Shelly sat across from Sharon at the low table in her daughter's room, sipping tea.
They often traded off with these tea parties; Shelly would come to Sharon's small table, looking like a giant, towering above the little chairs and toy company. Then Sharon would join Shelly and Sheryl at the adult-sized table, looking like a doll herself, learning etiquette and how to act like a lady of a famous dukedom. Sometimes they each invited friends, Shelly and Sheryl would introduce Sharon to other ladies of aristocracy, (and Rufus would often show up uninvited and spend the time grandly reciting poetry, or speaking of adventures they doubted he went on—and Shelly would make faces at her daughter across the table). Sharon didn't have a lot of friends her age, but at least they could dress up Reim and force him to play along.
Today Sharon was staring down into her tea, as if reading her fortune in the un-drank leaves, and seeing that it wasn't good.
Shelly cocked her head to the side, "Is the tea not to your liking, Sharon?"
With a jerk as if she'd been pulled her from a trance, Sharon stared up at her mother, her eyes like round pink flowers, then she looked back down. "That's…not it."
"What's wrong honey?" she set down her own tea.
Evidently it was too painful to even mention.
Shelly moved to the ground and knelt down beside her daughter. "It's okay; you can tell me."
"I'm… sorry, Mother." Sharon squeaked, her lip quivering.
"What are you sorry for, sweetheart?" she rubbed her shoulder. "It's okay if you don't want to have tea today."
"No…I…"
Tears welled in her eyes as she raised a shaky finger to point at the empty chair on the other side of the table.
"Oh!" Shelly straightened up. "I can't believe I didn't notice! Where's Neko-san?"
Sharon burst into tears.
Shelly hugged her.
"I…I-I didn't mean to, Mother!" she sobbed into her shoulder.
Shelly ran her hands through her daughter's hair. "I won't be upset, I promise." She lifted her head. "How about you show me?"
Shelly took her daughter's hand, and it seemed to take all of Sharon's strength to trudge up to her bed, still sniffling, and pull a limp stuffed cat from beneath it.
With difficulty, she lifted it to her mother's outstretched hand, still shaking with sobs, still avoiding her gaze.
Shelly looked at the plushie, noticing that, otherwise unharmed, one of its eyes was missing.
Shelly smiled and knelt back down. "Oh, is this what you were so worried about?"
Sharon's eyes widened as she looked at her. "But….he's broken! I-I-I broke him!" she started crying again.
"Shh," Shelly cooed, rubbing her shoulder. She didn't ask how it happened, or why. She didn't scold her, or say she'd been bad. Her voice, gentle as a bird, landed in her ears, "It's alright. These things happen."
The relief washing over her daughter was visible.
A few moments passed before Sharon, twisting her foot in the rug, murmured,
"S-So…does that mean you'll buy me a new one?"
Shelly gave the kind of knowing smile adults sometimes give when children say things they don't know are funny.
"I'm sorry honey, I can't do that."
"W-Why not?!"
"Just because he's broken doesn't mean you should get rid of him."
"…Why not?" she repeated, her cheeks starting to turn red.
Shelly sighed, setting Neko-san down and taking Sharon's little hands on her own.
"These things happen, but it doesn't mean that he should just be replaced. He's still your Neko-san, right? Just a little worse for wear. If I bought another kitty toy for you, even if he looked the same, and had the same name, he wouldn't be your Neko-san, right?"
"I…guess." She glanced sheepishly at her toy.
"And you know what? These things…they even happen to people."
"People can get broken too?"
She nodded. "Uh huh. Usually it's not that they're missing an eye…or anything so gross as that." She stuck her tongue out and Sharon giggled. Then she continued seriously. "But people do get broken. And usually? It's in here," She tapped Sharon's heart.
"How?"
Shelly shrugged. "Lots of things. An unkind word. A thoughtless action. A well-timed mistake. You're broken in here now, about Neko-san right?"
"I…I guess."
"But the things is…when people get broken, you can't just buy a new one."
"So what do you do?" she asked more earnestly.
She brushed her daughter's hair behind her ear, cupping her cheeks in her hands.
"You love them. That's the only way to fix someone who's broken."
Sharon pondered it.
"That's why the one thing I will scold you for is that a little brokenness is no reason to disinvite someone to a tea party. I think you'll find that when you give Neko-san more love," she picked him up again, holding him out for her daughter, "if you try harder to invite him to our tea parties, even if he doesn't want to come," she pinched her cheek, and Sharon giggled, "the less broken, and the more beautiful he'll become in your eyes."
"Please come quickly, there's a man covered in blood!"
"He may be dangerous, Sharon-sama!"
"DON'T EVEN SO MUCH AS LOOK AT ME!"
"So you want to die?"
Sharon half-hid behind the doorframe, staring warily at the man sitting on the windowsill.
She and Reim had found him a few weeks earlier at their door, and there was red where his eye was meant to be, and there was pain where his heart was meant to be.
She looked down at Neko-san in her hand, at his own missing eye. She pulled him into a hug.
"Is he broken, mother?" Sharon had asked about the man in black and red.
Shelly had smiled and said, "Very observant."
"Here?" she put her hand over her left eye.
She nodded. "And here too." she put her hand over her heart.
Sharon did the same, looking down at her chest, pressing hard, as if trying to feel when he was feeling.
"Remember what I told you?"
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Reim pulled her from her memories, asking from behind her. "Remember what he did last time—?!"
"I know," Sharon brushed him off, then murmured, "but Mother said…"
"What if he says no?"
"Then we come back tomorrow!"
"Sharon…."
Sharon screwed up her courage. She put her foot down, held her eyes high, and marched into the room.
Reim, still blubbering questions before he realized she was gone, reached out to stop her, then sped after her, striding firmly into the room to hide his apprehension.
She had the words all lined up perfectly. She was going to ask politely, properly, with the utmost sincerity.
"A little brokenness is no reason to disinvite someone to a tea party."
As she arrived, he looked down at her like she, and not he, was the gross thing. The red in his gaze had the force of a blade, and might have knocked her down if she wasn't careful.
She felt the bravery slipping from her grasp.
Still, she wasn't going to give up. She took a deep breath, strung the words together behind her tongue and—
"What do you want?"
At the sound of his voice, her own neat line of practiced words stumbled over each other and got mixed up on the way out. Still, that didn't stop her from speaking them, instead, her confidence blew out of her, like a deflating balloon, in the form of a high-pitched demand:
"Come to my tea party!"
The sneer on his face shifted into an expression of shock.
"Excuse me?"
"Please." She cleared her throat, realizing how improper she'd been.
He scoffed, turning to look out the window, as if that was an answer.
Shelly walked in at this point, concern lining her eyes when she saw that the kids were in the room alone with their resident creep.
"What are you two doing here?"
"Inviting Xerx-niisan to my tea party, Mother!"
"Oh, is that so!" the fear turned to joy in a second, then she turned to Break. "Well, what do you say?"
He didn't answer. He took in a breath, but before he could speak, Shelly walked up and whispered something in his ear.
His expression shifted too, his eye widening, then he glared at her mother.
"I think Xerxes would be much obliged." She beamed
"Ooojousamaaa!" Break sang, running into his mistress' room without a second thought.
First he noticed her standing there, holding something.
"I was just thinking—"
Then he noticed her crying.
"Ojousama!" worry traced the word as he came up behind her.
He looked over her shoulder to see she was holding…a toy.
He had expected it to be a beloved book, perhaps a letter from an old friend—she wasn't usually one to cry over old toys.
"Ojousama?" he repeated, more softly.
She looked up, seemingly pulled from a trance.
"Oh! Break!" she turned, then, as if just noticing what she was holding, she whisked the toy behind her back to hide it. "What is it?"
"Better question; what is this?" he sang as he reached beneath her arms, grabbed one of its legs and pulled it from her grasp.
"Break!" she shouted.
He held it up high for her to try to catch, laughing at how she hopped up to try to get it.
"Give that back!"
He turned, holding it out in front of him, dodging, stepping, and spinning out of the way as Sharon kept reaching around him to get at it. In this little game he found his way outside the door, leaning against the other side to keep her from following him, though she did make a racket against it.
He didn't seem to notice, and murmured, "Now what sort of a toy could make my lady cry?"
His eye grazed what appeared to be a stuffed cat. The way that its once-pristine fur had lost some of its softness told him it was well-loved. As he examined it, he noticed that it was missing an eye.
His breathing sharpened and his gaze moved to the wall, mind spinning, trying and failing not to think of his own missing eye, and what connections she may have been making.
After another moment, he removed his weight from the door, causing Sharon to spill out onto the floor.
She shook her head, shouts sitting on the tip of her tongue. But seeing his change in demeanor, the word was now soft:
"Break?"
"What is this?" he repeated, gently now too.
She stood, trying to regain some dignity, smoothing out her skirt. "It's a toy I had when I was little."
He raised an eyebrow as if to say And?
She cleared her throat. "One day... I broke him. I was so upset. I wanted to get a new one. But because of him, Mother taught me a valuable lesson about broken things."
"Oh?" he seemed intrigued by the mention of her mother, "And what did she teach you?"
She shook her head, blushing. "It's nothing really."
Break leaned forward so his face was closer to hers.
That eye could still be like a blade sometimes.
She sighed. "She told me that I needed to keep inviting him to my tea parties…that the only way to fix broken things…broken people…"
"Yes?"
"I-Is… to love him more. Maybe I couldn't fix his eye, but I could fix his heart."
Break's mind flashed to all those times she and her mother had been kind to him, all those times they had invited him to their tea parties, brought him flowers, and out into the sun.
He clicked his tongue, giving a wry smile, "You really think a little bit of love is enough to fix something beyond repair?"
Sharon took the toy back from him, her eyes scanning it again. Then she looked up at the man who shared its plight.
"What do you think?"
"I think…"
He paused.
"That we should have tea!" Emily twittered.
Sharon rolled her eyes as Break ran out in front of her, saying something silly about tea and toys.
He never would let her know what he was thinking.