Disclaimer: I don't own anything except my freedom, which is temporarily on
loan to the school for the next seven years.
Thank you: to all those people, you know who you are, mainly Corinne,
Sufia, Jasmin, Susan, and all those I don't have space to mention, also,
f**k you to those certain people, you know who you are.
#2
"Cecilia, it's late, please can we go back inside now?" the fox growled impatiently. She was distinctly feeling the hunger that racked both her and her friend's stomachs.
"No, please can we stay here for just a bit? This telescope is so amazing, I can see Venus!"
"But I'm hungry! It's almost three in the morning. I need some food."
"Stop complaining. If you're bored, then go drop some stones down the chimney" the girl paused to adjust her telescope so that she could focus her lens on mars. "Cook is always baffled to find them in the ashes in the morning."
"Why do we always have to do this your way?" the dæmon complained, but knew that her complaints fell on deaf ears. When Cecilia was stargazing nothing would get her away, not even the imposing threat of death by starvation. "I think I'm going to go crazy and drop stones down this other one instead. Cook never uses it; it's for the store cupboard. No idea why they would put a chimney in the store cupboard, but I once heard a rumour that they would put prisoners in there and brick it up, then slowly starve them out, using only they chimney for light and air. Except Gerald said." and it went on, Zan knew that she could rattle away and not bother Cecilia, but it was fun just to talk to herself anyway.
She changed into an owl and then decided against that and changed into a pelican. It was colder, because mid spring nights were not wonderfully warm things in London, but she would be able to pick up more pebbles. Waddling around, she used her feet to scratch out and then lift into her beak whatever stones or small hard things she could find. When she filled her beak up she waddled back to the chosen chimney and dumped them carefully around the top of the brickwork. Changing quickly into squirrel form, she picked up a small rock and jumped across the chasm, her anticipation at the possibility of falling the one storey drop into the room below sending shivers down her spine. Cecilia felt it too, and looked over at her dæmon, a grin playing on her lips. Adopting premium rock-throwing stance, she flung the small stone into the blackness, listening for the sound of it hitting the bottom. But she listened for one second, two, three, and eventually it came. But not the short sharp rickety tinkety sound that it should have made, that it always made, but instead a long bounce, bounce, bounce, echoing sound.
Curios now, she picked up another, larger stone, and flung that one down as well. Again, one second, two, almost four seconds passed before that hollow echoing sound came.
"Cecilia, I think-"
"I know, I felt your curiosity, what is it?" distinctly disturbed by the incredibly strong curiosity that her dæmon was emitting, she had packed up her telescope and wandered over to the chimney side.
"Well, it's weird. You know how the floor below this chimney is only one floor below us?"
"Yeah, what of it?" Cecilia found the revelation distinctly lacking in the 'wow!' department.
"That's not it! I was dropping stones down the chimney, and instead of the sound it should make, it makes a long hollow echo-y sound."
"And. your point is?"
"Well, it's hard to explain, listen for yourself." The squirrel picked up another stone and dropped it down the chimney. Together they waited for three seconds before the distant clatter came bouncing up at them.
"But, that's not possible! It hit the floor way after it should have. What the hell do you think is going on? I mean, that means," she paused, doin the calculations in her head. When she finished, her eyes grew wide and she slowly swivelled to face the hole in front of her. " That means, that the stone fell more than fifty feet before it hit the bottom."*
***
"Morning sweetheart."
Cecilia heard her mother, but with that listless inactive part of her mind that didn't really care what was going on on the outside. She carried on staring at her porridge, scooping some up in her spoon and then tipping her spoon so that it all slid off. Just one look at her dæmon would have told any outsider what was going on.
She was curled around the girl's neck, fast asleep.
"Cecilia, I think these late nights of yours are tacking their toll. Maybe you should think about packing in the astromology for a bit?"
"Hmm?" Finally registering her mother's presence (mostly because her mother's dæmon had just pinched her own), she looked up. Her eyes were glazed over and she had failed to notice that the ribbon holding her hair up clashed horribly with her dress, and that it was trailing half undone down her back.
"I think you're coming down with.sommeil influenza. Why don't I tell the scholars that you're desperately ill, and will try and continue your studies alone, in your room?" Even though the indulgent twinkle was in her mother's eyes, Cecilia sat up when she heard the wistful tone her she was speaking with, like someone desperately trying to sound cheerful.
"Thank you." Cecilia tried to smile, but found the action totally and utterly beyond her. It was taking up too much energy just keeping her eyes open. She got up and kissed her mother on the cheek before moving toward the door.
"Cecilia," her mother called just before she got to the door of the immense breakfast room. " can you come to my study in half an hour, stay in your room and don't leave there until then, ok? After we speak you may go and do whatever you wish for the day. Understood?"
Cecilia nodded and left, but only just got to the door in time to suppress the shudder that racked her. Her mother had given her a .knowing look, almost. Like her mother knew about what she and Zanhoriel had discovered.
***
"She told us to stay here."
"But we never listen, why should today be the exception?"
"Because today it's important!"
"How? How is it any more important than every other time we've done something she's told us not to?" Cecilia was angry. She desperately wanted to check on the chimney, but Zanhoriel refused to leave the room. She could do it alone, but she preferred to have company at all times, she didn't like being alone.
"Because this time it's not an adventure, it's real, and I think she knows. Don't you get it? She's not going to stop us. If she were going to try and stop us, she would have done it already. She practically kidnapped us when we wanted to climb the chapel roof and bungee off the spire." Zanhoriel was worried, and annoyed, but mostly worried. It had been her idea to see if they could climb down the hole in the chimney, but Cecilia wasn't taking it seriously. Where as the pole cat thought it would be better if the packed supply's, just in case they encountered anything in this hidey hole they couldn't deal with, Cecilia wanted to ignore her mother and grab the nearest rope so that the could jump down.
"How could she possibly know? There's no way she could know." Cecilia stated it with such conviction that Zanhoriel knew she could only be doubting the statement.
"I don't know. The same way she's known everything since we got here. Just motherly intuition I guess."
"Well I don't care. I'm going-"
"Where are you going?" Cecilia was cut short by her mother's voice from the door. She was leaning against the doorpost; her dæmon sat complacently by her feet.
"No-nowhere." Cecilia gulped. For all her bravado to her dæmon, she was never intending to leave before her mother got to the room. She had never really intended for Zanhoriel to take her seriously, and judging by the way the snowy owl nibbled at her ear, she hadn't.
"Good, because I have roughly an hour to tell you some things, and I wouldn't want you to have to leave in the middle." She walked across the room and sat down at the dressing table, a silver piece of furniture designed for Cecilia by one of her mother's courtiers, and loved by the child herself. Its scrolling metalwork gave her joy just running her fingers along it. Now her mother repeated the action she had seen Cecilia do so many times.
"Child, you have been told that your father died many years ago, and that his death prompted me to bring you to the college. You were not told the truth. You were told that my name is Elzabeth Parry. You were not told the truth. You were told that I am your mother," a choke caught in the woman's throat, and she turned her head so that her long dark blonde hair hid her face. Cecilia knew what the next words were, and whispered them for this woman.
"I was not told the truth." She felt as though someone had just come into her room and told her that she had been asleep her whole life, and that everything she knew had been in a dream. She covered her mouth and fled from the room into the small bathroom next door, bending over the silver sink and retching again and again. She had her eyes closed tight, and Zanhoriel, although also feeling the nausea that racked them both, changed into a black monkey and held the girl's hair away from her face.
Cecilia flickered her eyes when she felt her mothers, no, the woman's hands on her back, rubbing gently and soothing the dry hot feeling lodged in her throat. But she did not open them, she kept them shut and slid to the floor, and by the time her head lay against the floor, both herself and her dæmon had fainted dead away.
*****
*I don't know the exact calculation's, but I had to make it a big number, for reasons which will be unveiled later in the story.
All my writing luv, (To certain people, you know who you are.) Shini's angel.
#2
"Cecilia, it's late, please can we go back inside now?" the fox growled impatiently. She was distinctly feeling the hunger that racked both her and her friend's stomachs.
"No, please can we stay here for just a bit? This telescope is so amazing, I can see Venus!"
"But I'm hungry! It's almost three in the morning. I need some food."
"Stop complaining. If you're bored, then go drop some stones down the chimney" the girl paused to adjust her telescope so that she could focus her lens on mars. "Cook is always baffled to find them in the ashes in the morning."
"Why do we always have to do this your way?" the dæmon complained, but knew that her complaints fell on deaf ears. When Cecilia was stargazing nothing would get her away, not even the imposing threat of death by starvation. "I think I'm going to go crazy and drop stones down this other one instead. Cook never uses it; it's for the store cupboard. No idea why they would put a chimney in the store cupboard, but I once heard a rumour that they would put prisoners in there and brick it up, then slowly starve them out, using only they chimney for light and air. Except Gerald said." and it went on, Zan knew that she could rattle away and not bother Cecilia, but it was fun just to talk to herself anyway.
She changed into an owl and then decided against that and changed into a pelican. It was colder, because mid spring nights were not wonderfully warm things in London, but she would be able to pick up more pebbles. Waddling around, she used her feet to scratch out and then lift into her beak whatever stones or small hard things she could find. When she filled her beak up she waddled back to the chosen chimney and dumped them carefully around the top of the brickwork. Changing quickly into squirrel form, she picked up a small rock and jumped across the chasm, her anticipation at the possibility of falling the one storey drop into the room below sending shivers down her spine. Cecilia felt it too, and looked over at her dæmon, a grin playing on her lips. Adopting premium rock-throwing stance, she flung the small stone into the blackness, listening for the sound of it hitting the bottom. But she listened for one second, two, three, and eventually it came. But not the short sharp rickety tinkety sound that it should have made, that it always made, but instead a long bounce, bounce, bounce, echoing sound.
Curios now, she picked up another, larger stone, and flung that one down as well. Again, one second, two, almost four seconds passed before that hollow echoing sound came.
"Cecilia, I think-"
"I know, I felt your curiosity, what is it?" distinctly disturbed by the incredibly strong curiosity that her dæmon was emitting, she had packed up her telescope and wandered over to the chimney side.
"Well, it's weird. You know how the floor below this chimney is only one floor below us?"
"Yeah, what of it?" Cecilia found the revelation distinctly lacking in the 'wow!' department.
"That's not it! I was dropping stones down the chimney, and instead of the sound it should make, it makes a long hollow echo-y sound."
"And. your point is?"
"Well, it's hard to explain, listen for yourself." The squirrel picked up another stone and dropped it down the chimney. Together they waited for three seconds before the distant clatter came bouncing up at them.
"But, that's not possible! It hit the floor way after it should have. What the hell do you think is going on? I mean, that means," she paused, doin the calculations in her head. When she finished, her eyes grew wide and she slowly swivelled to face the hole in front of her. " That means, that the stone fell more than fifty feet before it hit the bottom."*
***
"Morning sweetheart."
Cecilia heard her mother, but with that listless inactive part of her mind that didn't really care what was going on on the outside. She carried on staring at her porridge, scooping some up in her spoon and then tipping her spoon so that it all slid off. Just one look at her dæmon would have told any outsider what was going on.
She was curled around the girl's neck, fast asleep.
"Cecilia, I think these late nights of yours are tacking their toll. Maybe you should think about packing in the astromology for a bit?"
"Hmm?" Finally registering her mother's presence (mostly because her mother's dæmon had just pinched her own), she looked up. Her eyes were glazed over and she had failed to notice that the ribbon holding her hair up clashed horribly with her dress, and that it was trailing half undone down her back.
"I think you're coming down with.sommeil influenza. Why don't I tell the scholars that you're desperately ill, and will try and continue your studies alone, in your room?" Even though the indulgent twinkle was in her mother's eyes, Cecilia sat up when she heard the wistful tone her she was speaking with, like someone desperately trying to sound cheerful.
"Thank you." Cecilia tried to smile, but found the action totally and utterly beyond her. It was taking up too much energy just keeping her eyes open. She got up and kissed her mother on the cheek before moving toward the door.
"Cecilia," her mother called just before she got to the door of the immense breakfast room. " can you come to my study in half an hour, stay in your room and don't leave there until then, ok? After we speak you may go and do whatever you wish for the day. Understood?"
Cecilia nodded and left, but only just got to the door in time to suppress the shudder that racked her. Her mother had given her a .knowing look, almost. Like her mother knew about what she and Zanhoriel had discovered.
***
"She told us to stay here."
"But we never listen, why should today be the exception?"
"Because today it's important!"
"How? How is it any more important than every other time we've done something she's told us not to?" Cecilia was angry. She desperately wanted to check on the chimney, but Zanhoriel refused to leave the room. She could do it alone, but she preferred to have company at all times, she didn't like being alone.
"Because this time it's not an adventure, it's real, and I think she knows. Don't you get it? She's not going to stop us. If she were going to try and stop us, she would have done it already. She practically kidnapped us when we wanted to climb the chapel roof and bungee off the spire." Zanhoriel was worried, and annoyed, but mostly worried. It had been her idea to see if they could climb down the hole in the chimney, but Cecilia wasn't taking it seriously. Where as the pole cat thought it would be better if the packed supply's, just in case they encountered anything in this hidey hole they couldn't deal with, Cecilia wanted to ignore her mother and grab the nearest rope so that the could jump down.
"How could she possibly know? There's no way she could know." Cecilia stated it with such conviction that Zanhoriel knew she could only be doubting the statement.
"I don't know. The same way she's known everything since we got here. Just motherly intuition I guess."
"Well I don't care. I'm going-"
"Where are you going?" Cecilia was cut short by her mother's voice from the door. She was leaning against the doorpost; her dæmon sat complacently by her feet.
"No-nowhere." Cecilia gulped. For all her bravado to her dæmon, she was never intending to leave before her mother got to the room. She had never really intended for Zanhoriel to take her seriously, and judging by the way the snowy owl nibbled at her ear, she hadn't.
"Good, because I have roughly an hour to tell you some things, and I wouldn't want you to have to leave in the middle." She walked across the room and sat down at the dressing table, a silver piece of furniture designed for Cecilia by one of her mother's courtiers, and loved by the child herself. Its scrolling metalwork gave her joy just running her fingers along it. Now her mother repeated the action she had seen Cecilia do so many times.
"Child, you have been told that your father died many years ago, and that his death prompted me to bring you to the college. You were not told the truth. You were told that my name is Elzabeth Parry. You were not told the truth. You were told that I am your mother," a choke caught in the woman's throat, and she turned her head so that her long dark blonde hair hid her face. Cecilia knew what the next words were, and whispered them for this woman.
"I was not told the truth." She felt as though someone had just come into her room and told her that she had been asleep her whole life, and that everything she knew had been in a dream. She covered her mouth and fled from the room into the small bathroom next door, bending over the silver sink and retching again and again. She had her eyes closed tight, and Zanhoriel, although also feeling the nausea that racked them both, changed into a black monkey and held the girl's hair away from her face.
Cecilia flickered her eyes when she felt her mothers, no, the woman's hands on her back, rubbing gently and soothing the dry hot feeling lodged in her throat. But she did not open them, she kept them shut and slid to the floor, and by the time her head lay against the floor, both herself and her dæmon had fainted dead away.
*****
*I don't know the exact calculation's, but I had to make it a big number, for reasons which will be unveiled later in the story.
All my writing luv, (To certain people, you know who you are.) Shini's angel.