ONE
She turns her head to keep the institution in her sight until the car pulls out of the parking lot.
She's feeling a lot of things: relief, anticipation, nervousness, and even a touch of anxiety.
"The estate's in the countryside, so I'm afraid it'll be a couple more hours before we get there," Mrs. Maria says, then, smiling at her. "We're going to have to entertain ourselves until then—Tsubasa isn't one to talk while she's driving, which is surprising, given her reckless behavior on a motorcycle."
"Mrs. Tsubasa drives a motorcycle?" She glances at Mrs. Tsubasa in the front, who is smiling faintly but looks more concentrated on the road than on them.
Nodding emphatically, Mrs. Maria elaborates, "Her preferred mode of transportation at our old job was her motorcycle, which had to be replaced regularly because she kept performing dangerous stunts on them.
"You wouldn't think it, looking at Tsubasa right now, but she's very reckless when she's alone. Luckily, her manager usually forced her to take a helicopter or car, which I'm very thankful about, otherwise who knows what might've happened to her! Now, Elfnein," and here Mrs. Maria looks very seriously at her, "I hope you don't grow up to be as reckless as Tsubasa."
"O-okay, I won't," she answers, though she's certain they're never going to have to worry about crazy stunts from her; that's more Carol's thing.
"Approximately one hour left until we reach the estate," Mrs. Tsubasa announces as she pulls into the expressway. "Toll prices, humph."
Elfnein looks to Mrs. Maria for clarification.
"Well, the Kazanari family estate is far roomier than most houses in and close to the city, so we decided to relocate there. Unfortunately, it's farther into the countryside, so it's a rather long commute by car. Still, it doesn't matter at the moment because Tsubasa works in a town near the estate, and from there you and I can take the train to the city."
She nods along, absorbing the information, though the locations of everything are really vague in her head—not that she's ever been that good with keeping track of where she is and stuff, since Papa used to take care of all that.
As long as the adults know, Elfnein's content with simply tagging along for the ride.
But, there is something she'd like to know: "Am I going to go to school soon?" she asks Mrs. Maria.
Humming thoughtfully, Mrs. Maria says, "There's only about twenty or so days left before winter break, but we'll meet with a teacher to se e what our plans will be. All you need to decide over the next few days is whether you want to go to school in town or in the city."
"Oh." She had assumed she'd just go to a city school, but she wonders if she might like going to a smaller school—where most kids probably already know each other, and she'll be the odd one out again, without even Carol to join her.
Mrs. Maria pats her hand. "Don't worry," she reassures, "we'll visit the school in town to give you a sense of what it's like, and we can check out some schools in the city, too. There's no pressure."
"Okay…." She's thinks she's already leaning towards going to school in the city. It'd be a big adventure, and besides, she's already spent most of her life in the countryside.
Mrs. Tsubasa interjects, "Today will be spent settling in at home. The rest can wait until tomorrow; little steps." She smiles at Elfnein through the rearview mirror.
She smiles back, relieved. She can work with little steps.
a/n: Hello! I am back!
It's the first day of Arc II and the first day of winter quarter. The professor didn't show up to class this morning, but at least I kept my promise, heh.
Eh, some information, I think, is in order:
1. I will try to update daily; however, I've learnt my lesson from last quarter, so I have to say that there will be days (or weeks, but hopefully we avoid that) with no updates. I'll give warning ahead of time when I know for certain that I won't be posting anything.
2. This is the one where you can send in prompts/chapter ideas, since I've built up the background and now it's pretty much the daily lives of TsubaMari with their kid, Elfnein. I do vaguely recall that someone suggested a continuation of that one chapter about a compromising video of drunken Tsubasa at her 21st birthday party; that's one prompt that will show up in a few weeks. Any others, don't hesitate to drop me a line!
3. Speaking of dropping me a line, I've a writing tumblr: .com. Please also leave comments here! Tell me how I'm doing, what you liked/didn't like about x chapter, what you'd like to see, questions, concerns, all that. I'm always pleased to get reader feedback ^^
And that's it. If I think of anything else, I'll append it to chapter two's author note.
Please review!