Hello guys! Wow, I didn't think this would be so well liked! Okay, a note for the story as a whole, there will be no singing. Sorry, it would be too hard for me to parody.
"198, 199, 200!" Elizaveta counted. "Ready or not Gilbird here I come!" She opened her eyes and looked around her tower. "Hmm," she said wonderingly, "Where could Gilbird be?" Looking around carefully, Elizaveta knew Gilbird only had about four hiding places, and only one of them had ever stumped her. The first time.
First she looked around in the rafters.
Nope.
Then she looked behind the curtains. "Gotcha!"
Nope.
"Hmm..." Then she spotted it. Three yellow tail feathers sticking out of the bowl of fruit on the kitchen table.
She walked over to the table and leaned back against it. "Well..." she sighed, "I guess he's gone," She reached a hand back grabbing for the bowl,"And I'll never find him," she snatched him out of the bowl, swinging her arm around to bring him to her face.
"GOTCHA!"
The little chick tweeted shrilly, frightened.
Using a single finger, she petted the soft down on the top of his head, giggling. "It's okay Gilbird! Chill out!"
The little bird looked at her reproachfully.
"Awh come on!" she said imploringly, "It was funny! Your cute little face was all panicked and scared!"
He gave her a look that said if he'd had an eyebrow, he'd be raising it.
She giggled again, as the clock struck noon. She abruptly turned serious saying, "Awh man! Papa will be come soon, and we still have to clean up!"
After almost 18 years Elizaveta had cleaning the tower up down to a science. First she washed the dishes from breakfast, tossing the dirty water out the window and watching the sparkling drops fall the whole 70 feet to the ground. Then she swept the stone floor, stairs and landing leading up the the two bedrooms. Continuing the circuit, she made both hers and her fathers beds, and grabbed the dirty laundry out of both hampers, setting the basket down in the kitchen before feeding Gilbird and getting back to work. She did all of the laundry, hanging the clothes out on a platform - built off the tower only for this purpose - to dry. While the laundry dried, she dusted, even giving Gilbird a mini duster so he could fly around and get all the places Elizaveta couldn't conveniently reach. She swept the ashes out of the hearth and onto the rug, which she then rolled up and shook out in the window before replacing in front of the fireplace. Lastly on her daily checklist, she cleaned and polished her father's piano which she was otherwise not allowed to touch, before collapsing into a chair.
However, she only had about a minuet to rest before the familiar call came to her from 70 feet below, "Elizaveta! Let down the rope please!"
Elizaveta sighed again, sticking her head out the window calling "One minuet Papa!" before turning to Gilbird. "Get in my room! Go! Go!" The little chick flew off quickly, disappearing behind the curtain that closed off her room. She grabbed the long and heavy rope, looping it over the bar outside the window, and watched as it traveled down to her Papa who looped it around, put one foot in the loop and tugged on the rope. As Elizaveta began pulling on the rope, she chewed on her lip nervously.
Gilbird and she had been playing hide-and-seek obsessively over the past week in a vain attempt to try and distract her for the date that was tomorrow. Her 18th birthday. Well, okay, she always looked forward to her birthdays, but this year she was finally going to ask for something that she had been aching to ask for as long as she could remember.
The floating lights.
Every year, at precisely 10 o'clock in the evening (an hour after Papa went to bed) on her birthday, lights floated up from the horizon. A few at first, then a whole seeming cloud of lights floated up, up, up, before going down, down, down, never to be seen again until the next year. And every year, for the past five years, she had been yearning to ask Papa to let her leave the tower and take her to see them.
But this was it. This was the year she was going to ask. But as she pulled Papa up the tower, her resolve began to fade with every inch closer he came. No, she told herself sternly, I'm going to do it. Today I'm going to ask him!
"Hello Papa!" she said cheerfully as he arrived in the window.
"Hello Elizaveta," He said in his normal cool, formal, tone. "How was your morning?"
"W-well enough." she got out, "Papa, I-i w-wanted to-" but he wasn't listening. His cool formal voice always frightened her, and made it sometimes difficult to speak.
He walked over to the piano and inspected it. "Elizaveta." He said calmly.
"Y-yes Papa?" Her stomach was a giant ball of nerves.
He peered at a point on the piano over his glasses. "Come here for a moment."
She walked over to him, standing two steps behind him as he always wished. "Y-yes Papa?" She hated how her voice always wobbled and stuttered around him.
"Elizaveta what have I told you about how a lady will speak?" He asked.
She closed her eyes and gulped, before opening them and answering: "A lady must be soft-spoken but clear, never loud and imposing but speaking with presence."
He turned to look her up and down. "And were you speaking as such?"
She looked down at the floor. "No Papa."
"Speak clearly Elizaveta and-" he grabbed her chin and forced her to look him in they eye. "Make eye contact when speaking."
"Yes Papa." She spoke in the tone and way he wished, and he removed his hand, moving on to inspect the kitchen. "Uhm... Papa?" she asked, following two steps behind him, as he said a lady should walk.
"Yes Elizaveta?" He asked, without emotion.
"I wanted to ask you something." Spoken calmly and lady-like.
"What is that?" Inspecting a dish.
Deep breath she told herself, Here goes. "Papa, would you take me to see the floating lights?"
He stiffened slightly, then relaxed and turned around, setting the dish back. "The what?"
She bit her lip and said, "For my birthday. Tomorrow? Every year on my birthday, lights float up from the horizon! Thousands of them! And their so pretty!" her voice grew louder in excitement, and she felt a grin bloom on her face, "I know you said it would be bad for me to leave the tower, but if you came with me, you could protect me, and they just come up from the horizon and-"
"Elizaveta!" He said sharply, and her mouth snapped shut as if on command, the grin dropping from her face and the excitement leaving her eyes. She knew what was coming next. "So what you're telling me is this: You want to leave this tower, the place where I have kept you safe from the dangers of the outside world, to see these lights that you can see any old night, just because it's your birthday?"
"But Papa-" she started, but he cut her off.
"The world out there is dangerous!" he cried, "Horrible, terrible things that would tear a girl like you to shreds! I mean look at you!" Elizaveta looked down at herself. "So thin and tiny and weak! How do you ever expect to go 'off on the horizon' when you could barely make it out of this tower? The trek just to leave here would be too hard on your fragile feminine body, not to mention all the dangers out there. Ruffians, thugs, illnesses, monsters-"
"But Papa-" she tried again, but he was on a roll and wasn't going to stop.
"I've kept you up here to protect you! I knew, one day, you would want to leave, but really Elizaveta, be sensible! The only reason you're here, alive and well, everything safe and sound is because I go out there everyday and protect you!"
She tried for a third time, "Papa, please, just listen-"
"No! You listen! I bring you food, I teach you well, I keep you healthy! Have I ever steered you wrong?" he asked, and Elizaveta sighed.
"No Papa..."
"See dear? Papa knows best! Just trust me, and you will always be safe. You're not strong enough to handle yourself out there."
She sighed again. "Yes Papa."
He looked at her for a moment, then sighed himself and took her in his arms. "I know I don't always show it the best, but all I want is for you to be safe. I love you very, very much."
She hugged him back. "I love you too Papa."
"Forever?" he asked.
"Always." she replied.
He smiled and said, "Good. Now how about some lunch?"
An hour later, he descended the rope calling, "I'll return for supper my dear!"
She smiled down at him, "I'll be ready!" she withdrew from the window, and Gilbird landed on her shoulder. "Just as I always am." she murmured, stroking the top of his head.
Well then. Ain't he a douche? Please review and tell me how it is so far!
NEXT CHAPTER: We meet our Flyn character. I'm pretty sure you all know who it is, but Who will be his two buddies? Okay, you can prolly guess that too. OH WELL!
