A/N: Written for
The Drabblechap Competition
Diversity Writing Challenge, g1 - a drabble novel
tying a wildcat down
1. Elspeth Gordie
Elspeth Gordie is an odd girl. She prefers mucking out the stalls than doing her studies, and always manages to make a poor impression on the families that come to visit. It disgruntles the matron, because she's well on her way to becoming one of those orphans that stick around till they're too old and then dying on the streets soon after, but it frustrates Jes Gordie even more because he can't accept a new home that doesn't have his little sister in it.
Even if said little sister would much rather the company of animals than other human beings. And other humans feel the same way. Families say she's a bad child, able to always say the one thing that'll turn them away. Children say she's like a doll – but, behind the Gordie children's backs, they whisper that those eyes are more like a mirror than glass, peering into their desperate little souls.
Elspeth doesn't mind them at all. She tends to the horses in the barn and the squirrels that sometimes sneak in and the grumpy cat that'll hiss at anyone but her and tries not to be too hurt that her big brother dreams of another life than her.