This is arguably the prompt that has left me scratching my head the most. Also, about the chapter title—all the titles have to do with songs. This title "Take a Bow" can refer either to the Madonna song or the Rihannna song. Both inspired this chapter and both could work with it. Just a fun factoid for you. (Can you guess what songs the other chapter titles refer to?)
Another fun factoid—there's a Dark Crystal reference in here.
Oh, yeah, this takes place before the first chapters! So this should be the first chapter in chronological order. (Maybe I'll post a timeline version on my livejournal...would that help people much?
Prompt: "A box of tissues"
It was strange; her room was exactly was as it had always been before, but Moppet couldn't help but feel that the room felt…different now. Foreign, alien, just strange; was this really the same bed she had slept in for so long? Did that window also show the same view? With things around her having changed so much recently, she would have thought that her room would have felt more familiar, like a worn shoe, aged from use but contoured to her.
I've outgrown it, she decided. What else could explain it? There was something fundamental off in some way about the room, and since her room itself hadn't changed, it had to be her that did. And in a way, she had outgrown it. Toby had invited her to live at the castle now, as his friend and advisor. Toby and friend felt sure and more factual in a way that her room did not anymore. But really, she just didn't need this room anymore. Spittledrum had all but tossed her out of it, (something about being a traitor? He hadn't taken not getting to be the real ruler very well), so in a way this made the move simpler. In fact, she itched to leave.
But first, my things. At least Spittledrum had let her back in to collect her things. She began to look around for anything she might want to take. She wouldn't need the bed or the blanket but she decided to toss whatever she wanted to take on the quilt to haul her things in. First thing she thought to take was her alarm clock that still stood faithfully on her nightstand. But then again, would she really need one? If anything there would probably more than enough clocks at the castle. In fact, on looking around twice, there really wasn't much else to take. After a moment, she placed the clock on the quilt for no reason that she could name.
Very things followed it however; a tin of make-up, some extra handkerchiefs, and then the fine dress and shoes she had worn once at the party. She didn't have much in her wardrobe here and Toby had promised to provide any clothes she would happen to need (most of the lovely dress that Drumlin had destroyed had been salvaged at least, in fact she was wearing one now). She added the few books and knick knacks she had squirreled away. That still didn't amount to much.
There was only one thing else left.
With a sigh, she finally turned to really look at the wall on the far side of the room. Or at least at least, at the posters on it. She never really had enough spending money to buy as many posters as she had wanted once, but now she was glad she hadn't covered the walls with the face of the treacherous Candlewic.
Even now, she felt a twinge of admiration for the once glorious knight of the realm. But after what had happened…well, she doubted Toby, Hana, or even Stank would approve of his pictures in the castle, even if she had wanted to put them there. She faced the posters with mixed feelings.
Candlewic had been her first love, without a doubt. He had been the hero of all her adolescent (but then, she couldn't remember a time when she hadn't looked like this) daydreams, always the charming Knight in Shining Armor. She had imagined a love to rival that of Jen and Kira, (she had no idea why the two names together amused Toby so much, but he promised to tell her later), but now, looking at the posters, she felt that those dreams where shallow and foolish.
She had felt so crushed that night he practically rejected her without a word, the night of the celebration when Jareth had named Toby his successor. And then over the next times when she would meet him, how he was always so rough on Toby as they trained. And then later when he…she shuddered. She felt the irrational urge to reach up and tear them up, as if to destroy any evidence that she could be so nearsighted.
But then, another thought hit her before she could grip the paper: weren't all first loves nearsighted and shallow to a degree? She paused to consider it. If you never fell in love before, wasn't it the first time you really did the one that opened your eyes. Wasn't the pain and joy supposed mean something more important then memories you tried to bury later?
It made her wonder what Sarah would say. Sarah, her what? Her reflection, her other half, her something? Toby said she looked like her but what she mean to her other? Thinking of Toby, she wondered if he would have anything to say about it.
Finally, she reached up and gently pulled the paper and tape away from the wall. She folded the pictures up and placed them discretely in the waste bin. She wouldn't take her with her, but she couldn't find the anger to tear them up again. She looked down at them for a moment when she heard the knock a knock at the door.
"Yes?" she asked, feeling a bit strange inviting someone into a room that didn't even feel like hers anymore.
Toby stuck his head in the door. "All done yet?"
She smiled. "Yes, actually," she said, pointing to the pile on the bed.
"Awesome, let's go then—Spittledrum's giving me dirtier looks every second I'm here."
"He did pretty much the same to me," she admitted as he pulled the corners of the cover up and together to make an oversized sack. "You don't have to carry that."
He grinned. "Course I don't, but I want to help anyway. Besides, it gives something I can hide behind if Spittledrum feels like trying to take a chunk out of me."
She giggled at him and joined him as they left. They had walked to her old home and now they had decided to walk back as well.
"You do have everything in here right?" he asked.
"Yes. Why do you ask?"
"Oh, just seemed kinda light is all," he huffed, and gave the 'sack' a tug to raise it on his back.
"Are you sure? You seem a bit…winded."
He rolled his eyes and she tried not to laugh at him. They walked in companionably silence for awhile before she remembered her musings back in her old room.
"Toby, may I ask a question?"
"You mean may you ask another one?" he corrected her with a grin, despite her un-amusement with the comment. "Okay, okay, fire away!"
She raised a brow at the odd phrase but chose not to comment on it. "What do you think about your first love?"
He blinked bemusedly at her. "What, you mean like what I think of her?"
"More or less."
"Ah, jeez, pick the awkward subject…"
"You don't have to answer if you don't-"
"No, it's okay; just kinda surprised, s'all. Okay, let's see, my first love…" he trailed off, looking upward as if his memories lay in the clouds. She noticed he did that a lot. "My first love was in kindergarten."
"What's kindergarten?" she asked, frowning. The only thing that came to mind was a jail but who found their first love in prison?
"Oh, you guys probably wouldn't call it that here," he admitted. "It's kinda like…okay, in school you know how there's different grades, or years, or something? Well, kindergarten is below the first grade or year or whatever you have here. It's almost like day care really, but little kids learn about the alphabet and like numbers and stuff."
"And you found your first love there?" She couldn't help but smile at the mental image of young Toby making doe eyes like she had once.
"Oh yeah. We even held hands at nap time and shared our cookies. That's like big time commitment when you're five," he nodded seriously. Or at least she assumed seriously. "Christy Summers was her name. She had pigtails and big blue eyes if I remember her right. She moves away in the second grade. I was heartbroken."
"Ahh," she cooed. "But that's still so sweet."
"Yeah well, that's how it goes," he replied, tugging on the sack again. "What brought this on, anyway?"
"Oh…just…something I thought of while cleaning up," she explained, remembering the posters, neatly folded and tucked away in the trash bin.
"Well, there's one thing I must say."
She looked curiously at him. "What's that?"
He grinned. "Getting over your first love and falling in love with your second? So much better."
She mulled the words over in her mind and finally smiled. "I suppose…you're right."
