Archive | February 5, 2012

Glass and Steel, a story of the Aunt Family for the Mini-Giraffee-Call

Feb5

For Friendly Anon’s prompt

Aunt Family has a landing page here on DW and here on LJ

Zenobia is just-after-the-US-Civil-War.
“It should not be nearly this difficult,” Zenobia muttered, staring at the glass furnace. “The principles are sound, the materials are pure…”

“And your hands are shaking.” She paid no heed to the voice; if she turned to look, the darn tomcat would be grooming himself or something. “The caster must be as strong as the casting.”

“You’re not helping,” she snarled. “You’re making me angry.”

“And what is it you are trying to make?” He sounded, today, like a man in his fifties. Sometimes he sounded like a child. He was always rather irritating.

“A tiny, delicate glass horse,” she snapped. “And a glass duck.”

“And why are you making those again?”

“Charms for my sisters’ blasted obnoxious sons,” she snarled.

“So perhaps,” the cat purred, “you could use some anger? Or if not anger, perhaps… steel?”

“Steel.” She reached behind her, grabbed the tom’s whiskers, and pulled out two with a quick yank. “Yes, thank you. Steel.”

The tom yowled and lept to a high rafter to watch her. “You are a cruel woman, Zenobia.”

She dropped the whiskers in the furnace. “I am, of course. I’m the Aunt. And thank you for reminding me of that.” Staring at the furnace, she began drawing out the glass again, twisting it into the shape of a horse. Steel, indeed. And guts. Her nephews could use some of that.

And, she was thinking, so could she. Perhaps she needed to make more than two figures.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/260582.html. You can comment here or there.

Visiting an Uncle

Feb5

For lilfluff‘s prompt.

Evangaline was doing interesting things.

They’d had a feeling she would, of course. She was strong, had always been strong, hadn’t fought the spark, the way some of them do, did, and she was still young. It helped to come into it young.

Rosaria approved. Asta had been an engaging woman, certainly, but she hadn’t been that flexible. They’d felt, not that any of them would have said so, that she was filling the time, filling the place until her successor was ready. And now that Evangaline was there, well…

…she was shaking things up a bit.

She was asking about boys. Rosaria understood, especially with Stone showing more and more of the spark, much as he was trying to hide it. But when she started asking about the boys, they started running into questions that they weren’t certain they wanted to answer. Especially her generation. Especially Ramona.

They would have to tell her eventually. So Rosaria volunteered – the girl trusted her, and she trusted the girl. She visited Evangaline one Sunday, and invited the girl to go driving.

“We’re going visiting,” she told Eva, as she directed her down the old backroads. She got lost, sometimes, on the new highways. The old roads were safer.

“Family? Eva asked. “I thought we’d covered every cousin in a day’s drive by now.”

“We have,” Rosaria assured her, “and we’ll save those further out for next summer, or let them come to us. No, today,” she sighed, “we’re going to visit an Uncle.”

Eva stopped the car. “An Uncle.”

“An Uncle,” Rosaria agreed. “Or someone that could have been. Ramona’s son Willard.”

Eva started the car again. “Ramona only has a daughter, Aunt Rosaria. She had a son?”

“She did,” Rosaria sighed, “but he left the family.”

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