"I sometimes wish I was small enough to drink from a thimble~"
Group
Senior Member
Posts
274
Application
Status
Offline
|
Post by mrslayton44 on Oct 27, 2015 1:09:28 GMT -8
The musty smell of old books, silverware and clothes permeated the air of the dusty old antique shop Sienna was meandering about inside of. It had become a thing for her to peruse stores like this in search of items she recognized from her previous life. Her era had been quite popular and even now people reenacted moments of triumph form the war. It seemed odd but she kind of enjoyed watching them. Like going back home for a moment. There was one going on today actually. Not to far from where she used to live and work. She always wandered back this time of year to watch the reenactments and literally haunt her old home. It was still in tact and was now a museum where people could come in ad get a taste of what life had been like.
But that was for later, right now she was looking at some silverware and kind of hoping she might come across an old spoon from her Master's estate. or just any trinkets she might recognize. In one hand she was turning over a fork to eye the handiwork. The other hand held her drink. A cup of hot cocoa, southern style which as far as she was concerned was the only way to drink it.
The store was empty at the moment save for an older woman working behind the counter. But she was much too busy and not sensitive enough to even realize she had a guest. And this was fine with the house maid who could look and stare and investigate to her liking without feeling like a bother. And she could laugh at the realization that she was older than a lot of these items.
|
|
Hope you've got insurance.
Group
Member
Posts
45
Application
Status
Offline
|
Post by piepiper on Oct 27, 2015 1:42:16 GMT -8
One of the best parts about being dead so far, in Harvey's opinion, was all the roaming he was pretty much totally free to do. The world was huge, and there was always somewhere new to explore. Today's impulsive adventure brought him down a quaint little lane, quiet at this time of day, but undeniably peaceful. So far there had been nothing particularly interesting about it aside from its relaxing atmosphere, but soon the glint of a glass window from across caught Harvey's eye, and he found himself looking into the glass pane of an antique shop.
Sweet! Antique shops were always an intriguing find. Harvey couldn't say he was particularly fond of purchasing some dead guy's used belongings, but looking at them could always be telling. Stuff on display in stores like these always had a story behind them, or at least it was fun to make one up.
He pushed open the door to the shop and was met by that musty smell that antiques tended to carry; he coughed a little to himself as he navigated the narrow aisles between the assorted knickknacks for sale and noted the store's singular customer, who was examining a spoon, her back turned to him. There was something familiar about the back of her head, and a brief check for lack of thread confirmed his suspicions. He grinned. "Hey!" he called out a bit too enthusiastically. "Sienna, right?"
|
|
"I sometimes wish I was small enough to drink from a thimble~"
Group
Senior Member
Posts
274
Application
Status
Offline
|
Post by mrslayton44 on Oct 27, 2015 1:55:37 GMT -8
Sienna was a bit lost in thought as she studied the spoon. At first glance it had looked like one she' recognized. But after really giving it a thorough check up it was not. She placed it back where it belonged and took a sip of her drink. it was at that moment that a voice cut into the silence, startling the poor mousey woman who not only choked on what liquid she had in her mouth but had the added bonus of squeezing her styrofoam cup and splattering the steaming contents all over herself.
She yelped in pain as she tried to valiantly free her hands of the hot beverage. It burned and now she had a brown watery stain all down her new shirt. With a soft whine she turned back to see who had called her name as she wring her hands out in an attempt to cool them. It was him. The one form that mad haunted house. Harvey. She'd barely interacted with him but he remembered hr name. However she couldn't imagine what he'd want with her. She wasn't exactly interesting to speak to. "H-h-hello." She greeted back looking hesitant and nervous and also pained from her injured hands. "I-is there something I c-can help you w-with?" She asked looking at a spot just past his head. He'd been fairly decent to her before, but her usual habits of being extra shy around strangers was never going to go away.
|
|
Hope you've got insurance.
Group
Member
Posts
45
Application
Status
Offline
|
Post by piepiper on Oct 27, 2015 17:35:52 GMT -8
Sienna's reaction caught Harvey off-guard as well, and he jumped back with a little swear as the coffee spurted out of the cup. Even if she hadn't exactly come off as the most serene person, but Harvey didn't forsee her reacting so violently to a greeting, either. He really should have had more foresight, considering he'd seen how nervous she'd been at that haunted house. Mentally scolding himself for forgetting to be a bit more careful approaching her, he stepped forward to apologize with a grimace. "Ah, damn it...sorry, I wasn't trying to scare you like that...Are you alright?" He motioned sheepishly to her hands, which were now dripping wet with hot coffee. That did not look fun.
|
|
"I sometimes wish I was small enough to drink from a thimble~"
Group
Senior Member
Posts
274
Application
Status
Offline
|
Post by mrslayton44 on Oct 27, 2015 18:13:52 GMT -8
Sienna continued to wave her burned hands in the air while managing to look apologetic, as if it was her fault she'd spilled the beverage on her hands and that this had somehow hurt him instead.
"I-it's fine." She replied quickly as she looked around for something to clean the mess up with. The old woman at the counter had heard the noise but made no moves to deal with the noise.
The quiet house made scooped up her cup and it's lid and headed to the trash can to throw it away and came back with some towels to mop the mess up. She worked slow and steady, being sure to clean up every drop. She had to leave it just as she'd found it. As for Harvey she'd expected he'd wandered off to something more important.
|
|
Hope you've got insurance.
Group
Member
Posts
45
Application
Status
Offline
|
Post by piepiper on Oct 28, 2015 0:41:17 GMT -8
Although she insisted on being fine, Sienna's waving hands still gave Harvey an impression of some sort of injury. Now there was a puddle of coffee on the ground and over a part of the display as well; it's a good thing it was silverware. Books or old currency would be impossible to clean. A brief glance at the saleslady confirmed that she had actually noticed the noise, but quickly returned to counting money or whatever it was she was busy with. Thank goodness for apprentice invisibility; they might've almost gotten in trouble for spilling coffee over some antiques.
"Are you sure? Those hands look..." Harvey turned back to Sienna and found that said hands were now scrubbing the ground. "H-hey, is it okay to do that?" Ouch, didn't that hurt? "Um, here, I'll help." Granted that he hadn't even seen her run off to get them, it took Harvey a few moments to figure out where Sienna had gotten the towels, and by the time he found them, the puddle on the ground was mostly reduced to a brown stain on a towel. Unwilling to allow the jumpy girl to do all of the cleanup herself, he picked up the fork she'd been holding as he entered the store, hurriedly wiping it down. The silverware was meticulously crafted and covered with intricate carvings; getting into all the nooks and crannies was harder than he anticipated.
Growing a little frustrated with the task, he looked down at Sienna as she worked. Man, she'd gotten it done so fast. Maybe she was part of HQ's cleaning crew or something. Now he felt kind of bad for not being able to help out enough...Geez, he felt kind of bad for Sienna in general. Was it okay to just watch her? "Uh, hey, should I go out and get some ointment for your hands or something? That coffee was steaming."
|
|
"I sometimes wish I was small enough to drink from a thimble~"
Group
Senior Member
Posts
274
Application
Status
Offline
|
Post by mrslayton44 on Oct 28, 2015 4:59:12 GMT -8
It did hurt actually, cleaning the mess up with her scalded fingers. But she'd worked under worse conditions so it was barely registered. She'd just been much to mortified at having spilled her drink inside the store. Now she was one of those bumbling mess making people. She felt awful! This was the price she'd paid for allowing herself to be so distracted from reality. So working with sore hands was payment enough.
Finally the area was once more as it had been if not shinier and she sat back on her feet to sigh. Only to look over at Harvey with an obviously surprised expression. He was... still here? And he'd cleaned the fork she'd been holding? Oh well that was kind of him. And also embarrassing since he'd had to help at all. Her gaze flicked down at his question. "Ah n-no it's fine." And it would be, eventually. It was just a little pain she'd be okay. The fact that he'd cleaned the fork was enough for her. It was more than most would've done back home where she usually moved about unnoticed, like she was in another dimension.
Remembering she'd spilled a good deal on her self she looked down at her soiled clothes. Nothing too bad but still it sucked being in wet things. But what a waste to go home to change after just getting here. So she'd just tough it out. And then she remembered that Harvey had called out to her in the first place which meant he might actually want something and again she felt bad for having just ignored that. Well not entirely she'd just been so frazzled. "Oh um you w-wanted something?" She asked hesitantly as she found a spot on his shoulder to look at while he spoke.
|
|
Hope you've got insurance.
Group
Member
Posts
45
Application
Status
Offline
|
Post by piepiper on Oct 28, 2015 22:41:39 GMT -8
Now shinier than a brand new sports car, the floor of the antique shop reflected the doubt on Harvey's face as he shrugged reluctantly. "Well, okay then. If you say so." The plain look on Sienna's face suggested she was, in fact, "fine," but Harvey was still a bit iffy about how quickly she'd had the mess cleaned up with no trouble at all. And her hands hadn't bothered her at all. The look she'd given him, too. If anything, she almost seemed accustomed to servitu--wait, that made sense, actually. There've been crazier life stories told at HQ. Damn, okay, maybe he was overthinking things, but great; now he just felt worse over surprising her so badly.
Harvey checked over the fork; it looked clean, more or less. He wasn't a fraction as good as Sienna when it came to cleaning stuff, but hey, most of the items in the store looked decades old, so a teensy coffee stain in the nuances of a single fork wouldn't set off any red flags, would it? He discreetly put the fork back where he found it and turned back to Sienna and her drenched clothes. She didn't look too pleased with that. He shifted his weight and opened his mouth to say something about it, but her question cut him off. "Ah...Not really. Sorry about that. I just wanted to say hello; you know, maybe talk a bit. Like, 'antique shops are pretty cool, aren't they?' or 'I wonder where that fork came from.'" Now he knew the fork just came from being splattered with staining coffee, but he wasn't about to bring that up again.
"That's not really all too important, though. Do you need a change of clothes?" He motioned to the front of her shirt, then, catching the focus of her eyes, followed it to his shoulder. "Is there something on my shoulder?"
|
|
"I sometimes wish I was small enough to drink from a thimble~"
Group
Senior Member
Posts
274
Application
Status
Offline
|
Post by mrslayton44 on Oct 29, 2015 5:41:58 GMT -8
Oh right of course, sometimes people did wish to speak to her, but she was always so awkward about it that the chance usually never came back around again. This was why she was trying to get better though. It had been nearly two hundred years, she needed to get over this stuttering mess she had always been.
She dipped her head once as a sign of acknowledgement when he inquired about her clothes. "I don't h-have any thing to c-change into." She stated simply. If she had she would though, it was quite unseemly and her slightly ocd inclined mind was not dealing with it well. Although it was a far cry from the eyesore her room was so while it was annoying it wasn't overly so.
She blinked in surprise and suddenly looked embarrassed as he called her out on staring at his shoulder. She'd been slacking of on her usual practice some and it was showing it seemed. She was just too shy to make long periods of eye contact. It had always been a fear of hers that if someone could see her eyes straight on that they'd know everything about her in one go. And that made her so uncomfortable. Not just the knowing her thing but also someone staring so intently at her she lost her nerve and ran off.
"S-sorry. I um... there's nothing there." Ugh, why was she like this?! She hated it so much sometimes being this way. She was ashamed to admit that she spent a bit too much of her time hating herself for being the way she was but was honestly unable to do much about it.
|
|
Hope you've got insurance.
Group
Member
Posts
45
Application
Status
Offline
|
Post by piepiper on Oct 29, 2015 22:11:37 GMT -8
"Huh? Alright, then," Harvey muttered, brushing his shoulder off just in case. Sienna seemed to have a shifty gaze in the first place; he guessed he wouldn't have any reason to call it out in the future. He wasn't sure he'd ever met anyone so shy. Was it better for him to leave her alone? But still, he felt responsible somehow. He knew it wasn't his fault she was so damn jumpy, but he didn't want to just walk out and leave her with a huge coffee stain on her shirtfront, either. It figured that she didn't have an extra shirt on hand. Harvey didn't exactly carry a change of clothes everywhere he went, either. "Are you headed anywhere after this? We could go back to HQ for a change of clothes if it bothers you." He hadn't pictured himself heading back so soon, but he could always leave again afterwards, or maybe find something else to do. Right now he was primarily concerned with making it up to Sienna and maybe getting her to be a bit less tense, if that was even possible...
|
|
"I sometimes wish I was small enough to drink from a thimble~"
Group
Senior Member
Posts
274
Application
Status
Offline
|
Post by mrslayton44 on Nov 1, 2015 9:42:43 GMT -8
Sienna glanced up to him as he speak again still surprised to see him there. Most would've wandered off by now so she was unsure of what to do with him. "Go back?" She asked looking shocked now. Why one earth would eh travel all the way back to HQ just so she could change her shirt? The maid was certainly perplexed but shook her head.
"N-no I want to stay." She insisted softly. No way would she have someone doing that just for her. How ridiculous to even think of it. "I can b-buy a n-new one around h-here." And she could there was indeed a few antiquish looking shorts on the far side of the store she could just buy one and replace her soiled one with it and bag the stained shirt up and take care of it once she got back. And so she did just that, walking over to grab a shirt, a pretty antique white one with lacy details and then stood in line at the counter to purchase it.
|
|
Hope you've got insurance.
Group
Member
Posts
45
Application
Status
Offline
|
Post by piepiper on Nov 2, 2015 5:12:38 GMT -8
"Okay...Suit yourself, then." Harvey followed Sienna to the counter, watching her cash out. He silently mused about how different it was to be dead; in any other pre-death situation, he would've raised eyebrows at anyone buying "antique" clothing just to make up for a soiled shirt. He supposed a good chunk of clothes at HQ were actually "antique," so it didn't make much of a difference anymore. Maybe if he were a bit more gentlemany, he would have even offered to pay...More like, maybe if he had the money to be gentlemanly. He'd already spent most of the month's budget on obligatory new releases and a bunch of rare artbooks.
Would it be too shameless if he tagged along with Sienna wherever she was headed next? She gave the impression of not returning to HQ in a while, so it wasn't like they needed to go their separate ways. He couldn't really tell if Sienna was uncomfortable with him or just uncomfortable in general, but personally, he'd get pretty bored if he just left to go on his own now. It never hurt to get to know fellow apprentices. "So, what brings you outside in the first place?" he ventured. "Personally, I just like roaming around. HQ is cool and all, but sometimes it's even cooler to just teleport wherever you want."
|
|
"I sometimes wish I was small enough to drink from a thimble~"
Group
Senior Member
Posts
274
Application
Status
Offline
|
Post by mrslayton44 on Nov 2, 2015 23:15:28 GMT -8
Sienna purchased her shirt, scampered to a nearby dressing room and changed. stashing her stained shirt in the bag she'd bought her new one in. Wandering back out she was surprised to find him still there. Did he feel that guilty? Was it because she was so quiet and skittish? She hated to think he was sticking around cause he felt bad it really wasn't a huge deal. But it would be ruder to just outright ask so she didn't.
Once more he struck up some conversation and now that she was no longer soggy she felt a bit less defensive. And it was a subject she could get into as well. "Ah um I like to y-yes." She admitted with a nod and a small smile as she tried to be less of a scared creature and more a person. She nodded more as he continued. She loved traveling and seeing places she'd never dreamed existed. Glancing back to Harvey she wondered what he was here for, While she thought having company around for what she planned to do might be awkward it certainly beat being alone. "Are um... you h-here for something?" She asked. "If not... um you can c-come along... if you like I m-mean." She asked, hoping an invitation would make him feel better about her earlier actions.
|
|
Hope you've got insurance.
Group
Member
Posts
45
Application
Status
Offline
|
Post by piepiper on Dec 5, 2015 18:23:04 GMT -8
Now that Sienna had changed into a fresh shirt, she seemed maybe slightly more comfortable, though Harvey supposed that the rest of her awkwardness was something that didn't depend on what she was wearing. Either way, her invitation was a good sign, and was a sure cure for any boredom that might have surfaced otherwise. Wandering around was sweet, but it was even better when there was someone who could see you...and hear you. Harvey wasn't all that great at shutting up when there was something interesting to talk about. "That's okay with you? Awesome!" It honestly surprised him a bit that Sienna was inviting, but hey, he wasn't complaining. He started for the door already, eager to see if there was anything more exciting in the seemingly quiet area. "Have you been around here before? I don't really know my way around, but that's the best part."
|
|
"I sometimes wish I was small enough to drink from a thimble~"
Group
Senior Member
Posts
274
Application
Status
Offline
|
Post by mrslayton44 on Dec 8, 2015 22:20:39 GMT -8
Harvey seemed fine with tagging along which was a surprise really. She really wasn't good companionship on a general basis but he didn't know this. Or he simply didn't mind which was fine as well. Wringing her hands together nervously she glanced to him as he asked about the area and what she knew.
"Ah well..." She started and stopped as they exited the store and now stood out on the front lawn as she stared over at the house she'd lived in and the surrounding property. The buildings still held their old form and style but had obviously been restored. "This was w-where I lived... w-when I was alive." She explained softly and gestured to the house a hundred yards or so away from their position.
|
|
