I was going to wait until Thursday when I leave, but my heart’s just not in it after some drama in another ring, so I’m putting all of my muses on hiatus until I return from San Japan on Monday.
She wrote down his name with excellent penmanship and gave him another smile, “I’m Marianne Bonnefoy.” She giggled, “Local amnesiac and coffee enthusiast… though people have told me not to introduce myself that way.”
“Well I am Cristian - local fabulous being” He laughed “I am a coffee enthusiast as well - so hey! We have something in common now!” He flipped his hair
She laughed lightly at his introduction, “You have even more reason to try this coffee, then! It truly is great!” She sped up her walking slightly, but turned back to ask him, “what makes someone a fabulous being?”
It was embarrassing. He didn’t want to say that it was because he wasn’t being mindful of the books and accidentally dropped a bunch of them from the top shelf. Consequently they directly hit his head. A mistake Arthur felt he should have been immune to, since he’d been working with them for a long time.
“I wasn’t being conscious of myself…” He muttered as he absentmindedly rubbed the back of his head, which evidently still smarted. “R-really, it’s all my fault, you shouldn’t concern yourself too much…”
She shook her head with a small laugh, “I’m glad it’s nothing major. I hate seeing you hurt.” She was definitely more at ease with that. He’d know more about the symptoms of a concussion than she would, despite having had one for a while herself.
Her eyes lit up as he accepted her offer, “Really? I can tell you a story?” her perceived innocence since her accident made another appearance. “Hm… let me think… oh! I know!” She pulled out her journal where she had been working on her story for some time. In the book was her interpretation of everything around her and sketches and names of people she met. However, in the back of the journal that Agatha had given her, she had been formulating her own children’s story.
“Don’t laugh at me, but it’s a kid’s story. My writing in English isn’t developed enough to write an adult story… but this one is very important to me.”
Arthur became even more intrigued because of her enthusiasm. “Of course you can–if you’d wanted to do so earlier, I would have gladly listened.” His eyes followed her motions as she produced a well-used notebook. He’d seen her take it out a couple times before, but just like now he never dared to try and look inside out of respect for her privacy (and partly his sanity as well).
“Why would I laugh?” He asked without a trace of sarcasm. Then he elaborated. “Children’s stories take a certain skill, therefore they would merit respect. Aside from the spirit of innocence and wonder that must be captured, there is a rhythm required to make it sound pleasing to young ears, almost like composing lyrics.”
“But, ah…don’t let that pressure you either. I’m sure you’ll do just fine.” He smiled earnestly.
“Oh- I... wouldn’t have thought to ask. Sometimes I think I talk too much, and I’m really still learning to read as well, so I wouldn’t want to embarrass myself reading something difficult.” She blushed slightly at the thought.
“I thought you might laugh since... I don’t know, writing a children’s story isn’t exactly something a former pirate would be known to do... it’s...” she trailed off as he elaborated, “oh, it’s nothing so romantic as that, I don’t think.” she was truly humbled by his words, though, and she found it hard not to beam at the implied compliment that her writing was a skill rather than a fault of her not knowing English enough.
“I- no, I’m not pressured, I just hope it lives up to your expectations. You seem to have a good knowledge of such things.” Opening the notebook to the correct page, Marianne began to read her story. She occasionally stumbled, but managed to capture a child’s point of view quite well. She would turn the notebook to show Arthur her sketches as she came across the words that matched the pictures she’d drawn. She became slightly embarrassed when she got to the present and began to speak about her perspective of Arthur.
Marianne had thought that maybe Arthur would have fallen asleep by then, but she blushed and kept reading, holding the notebook closer to her face so that she wouldn’t have to look him in the eye.
As she closed the notebook, she looked anywhere but Arthur, on the one hand hoping that he wouldn’t comment on her story, but on the other hand seeking his approval. Truly, she hoped he’d fallen asleep so that he missed her embarrassment, but she was conflicted because she wanted him to know what remained of her memory.
I’m not a storyteller, so sometimes this is more of a description of her story than what it says word-for-word, but this is a general idea of what I think the subject matter would be like.
Marianne’s story is a blend of fiction and reality. It’s sort of about her life and her memories, sort of about her trying to fill the gaps in the places she doesn’t remember, and sort of a fictitious tale. It consists of what Marianne dreams about as well as the memories of others, as she interprets them. For example, the things Arthur told her about her past, and how she imagined that it occurred, but pieced in with her memories and what she thought she might have been like.
Of course, she wrote this story over time, so learning that she might have been a bad person came into play after she was well over halfway done with the story, and she came to terms with that in her own way as well.
It starts with a young girl in a house with high walls and locked doors that was very lonely. Marianne wrote that the girl’s parents were made of ice and stone, but all of the warmth in the world came from a baby boy: her brother. The girl struggled with wanting to leave the cold walls she’d been raised with, but not wanting to leave the light and warmth behind.
Eventually, the girl escaped the land of stone and ice, but the boy remained. The girl still cried over having to leave him, but she made friends with the sea and those that loved sailing. Still, the ice and stone prevailed in her heart and she grew cold herself. She grew greedy, and the pain of leaving her brother behind left an ache that grew and grew until it was visible from the outside.
She began to attract not only those that loved the sea, but those that had been burned and scorned by their own life situations and their own bad luck. They built a ship, and the girl who was not so young anymore became the captain. They sailed the sea, sometimes filled with love for their freedom from the pain of the pasts they’d left behind them, but much of the time filled with greed.
Her greed began to affect those around her, and she began to hurt those that had joined her on the sea. Many had been hurt so often before that they didn’t even realize how much pain she was inflicting on her crew, friends, and rivals. The love in her heart was almost gone, and she was overcome with greed and paranoia that someday someone might come to take her riches or bring her back to the life of ice cold walls. She didn’t even notice the cold walls that she’d built around herself, simply by letting her greed consume her.
Soon, the girl had corrupted even the sea with her greed. It was broken into slices of who owned what piece of the water and was no longer a place for freedom from pain. As the greed consumed the girl, she heard about a place holding great riches that nobody had touched so far, and she called upon the other owners of the sea, not for help or share, but to brag.
All, except one, met her call by attempting to reach the riches themselves. Their fate was met by crashing sea waves. The place where innocence still reigned and where the corruption of greed had not yet touched remained in this place. Those that owned the sea were not welcome in such an innocent place. Their sails failed, and so the lonely girl attempted to reach the riches on her own.
The water crashed and the wood on the ship creaked. Soon, she tumbled into the cold water and was surrounded by the familiar ice of her childhood home. She was lonely and she cried for help, but nobody was out on the sea, for they knew the dangers of the corruption and greed that had spread over all of the oceans.
Then, the girl saw only darkness for a while. She woke up later on a sandy beach in an unknown place. She remembered nothing of the pain and greed that had corrupted her and the sea, but also remembered nothing of the light and warmth of her friends and crew. She slept on the beach for days, with only the sand and sky, until she was rescued.
At first, it was only one person from a nearby town that took care of the girl, but soon she began to make friends with the whole town. The town was filled with a friendliness and warmth that she had seen in her baby brother, but didn’t remember. She learned that one of the owners of the sea had abandoned his post and came to rest here, leaving the greed and corruption behind. She relied on him and his stories to bring her comfort and stories from the sea for a time, until the corruption returned to his mind. She wanted to make him happy, like the rest of the town, but didn’t know how.
She noticed that the times when he was happiest were when he was with his close family. She couldn’t relate because she couldn’t remember her family, and didn’t know how to help. Still, it was the first time since she left her childhood home that she’d thought about helping others rather than helping herself. She began to help anyone in town that she could. She fell in love with the town’s doctor, because the doctor helped so many people. The girl was no longer lonely, but neither the doctor nor the formerly lonely girl could figure out how to help the man who had owned the seas.
Unbeknownst to the formerly lonely girl, the doctor and the man who owned the seas were family. They loved each other very much and the man who owned the sea was afraid that the girl would corrupt his family like she had corrupted the sea. The man was afraid that the girl would take the doctor away from this happy town.
One day, the man and the girl fought. He claimed that he couldn’t let go of the past. He claimed that the corruption of the sea still followed him, but the girl hadn’t seen the corruption since she’d been rescued by the town. She knew in her heart that the man had left the greed behind him, and suddenly she remembered the greed she had left behind as well. She knew that he could overcome it, because she had already done so herself. All he needed was help from the townspeople.
So, she gathered all of the townspeople together and told them that they needed to bring the man as much happiness as they could so they could feel the light and warmth that she knew they were capable of and so everyone could be happy.
Somewhere along the way, her brother had grown up. He had moved to this town, away from the ice and cold, and brought his light with him. Some pieces of him were left behind and replaced with stone and cold, just as the girl had experienced when she left the cold walls, but he was healed by the town, too.
The girl wanted her brother to bring the man joy, but her brother claimed that the man needed to find it for himself or it wouldn’t work. The townspeople could be as nice as they always were, but the corruption would only grow until the man sought the warmth himself. The boy and the city had brought warmth to the girl, but they could not bring warmth to the man. He would need to find his own light. Luckily for him, his light lived in the town as well.
His light was harder to see, because the light of the town and the light of the girl’s brother was so bright. The man thought the light wasn’t there at first, but rather than going on a journey across the sea as the girl had done, the man’s light found him instead.
That’s where Marianne stopped writing from the perspective of the girl, but wrote a foreword about how she has more that she wants to tell about the girl’s adventures in the town and on the sea; how the man came to find his light; and all of the stories that the doctor has about her family. She couldn’t continue writing these stories, however, because many of them haven’t happened yet, and many the girl has yet to remember.
It was embarrassing. He didn’t want to say that it was because he wasn’t being mindful of the books and accidentally dropped a bunch of them from the top shelf. Consequently they directly hit his head. A mistake Arthur felt he should have been immune to, since he’d been working with them for a long time.
“I wasn’t being conscious of myself…” He muttered as he absentmindedly rubbed the back of his head, which evidently still smarted. “R-really, it’s all my fault, you shouldn’t concern yourself too much…”
She let out a small sigh of relief. He seemed to be fine, though time would tell for sure. “I don’t know as much about head injuries as Agatha, but I hope that ice helps. If you’re concussed and not sleeping, maybe you should go to her and make sure it’s okay?” She was still worried about him, though not as much as she had been. He did know how to take care of himself, generally.
“Anything I can do to help? With your head or sleeping? I could lend you another pillow or read a story or something…” she frowned. His laughter still echoed in her head, though she knew he didn’t want to worry her. She couldn’t help it.
“I don’t know much either.” He answered mechanically, as he had calmed down a bit. “Though none of the other symptoms of a concussion have come up, so it’s probably not much.” He said, hopefully to put Marianne a bit more at ease.
Her second offer amused and intrigued him. “Sure; I’m a bit curious about what kind of story you’d tell.” Even though he wasn’t sure if it would help his problem.
She shook her head with a small laugh, “I’m glad it’s nothing major. I hate seeing you hurt.” She was definitely more at ease with that. He’d know more about the symptoms of a concussion than she would, despite having had one for a while herself.
Her eyes lit up as he accepted her offer, “Really? I can tell you a story?” her perceived innocence since her accident made another appearance. “Hm... let me think... oh! I know!” She pulled out her journal where she had been working on her story for some time. In the book was her interpretation of everything around her and sketches and names of people she met. However, in the back of the journal that Agatha had given her, she had been formulating her own children’s story.
“Don’t laugh at me, but it’s a kid’s story. My writing in English isn’t developed enough to write an adult story... but this one is very important to me.”
“Sure, let’s go get coffee~! Maybe you should grab a bite to eat, too, before your shift. I could chip in and buy something since you’re being nice and buying my coffee.” She gave a cheerful smile and gestured down the street to begin walking.
“Cool. You lead the way I guess..” Hs gave a small smile, flicking his black fringe over his eyes, trying to act nonchalant and cool as he always did “Well, if you’re sure that you want to buy me something, go ahead. There’s nothing stopping you!” He laughed
She grinned, enjoying his laughter as she lead the way to the coffee shop, “It would be no good for anyone to go hungry on my watch!” She stopped for a second to pull out her notebook, “How do you spell your name? Sorry if this makes you uncomfortable. I write down people’s names so I don’t forget them.”
“My name? It’s spelt C-R-I-S-T-I-A-N. And no, of course. I didn’t catch your name actually?” He said , turning to her so that the sun wasn’t glaring into his eyes as it had been previously. He should have dyed his hair bleach blonde if he knew that this would be the sort of suffering that he as a black haired man would have to go through.
She wrote down his name with excellent penmanship and gave him another smile, “I’m Marianne Bonnefoy.” She giggled, “Local amnesiac and coffee enthusiast... though people have told me not to introduce myself that way.”
“Sure, let’s go get coffee~! Maybe you should grab a bite to eat, too, before your shift. I could chip in and buy something since you’re being nice and buying my coffee.” She gave a cheerful smile and gestured down the street to begin walking.
“Cool. You lead the way I guess..” Hs gave a small smile, flicking his black fringe over his eyes, trying to act nonchalant and cool as he always did “Well, if you’re sure that you want to buy me something, go ahead. There’s nothing stopping you!” He laughed
She grinned, enjoying his laughter as she lead the way to the coffee shop, “It would be no good for anyone to go hungry on my watch!” She stopped for a second to pull out her notebook, “How do you spell your name? Sorry if this makes you uncomfortable. I write down people’s names so I don’t forget them.”
“I haven’t seen you around here before… did you just move in? That coffee shop down the street does have really good cake.” She decided to keep babbling rather than focus on the fact that he ate a crumb from his face. “I’ve been to all of the coffee shops in Gramina, now, and that one is one of my favorites.”
“I moved in a couple of weeks ago but haven’t really had the chance to explore the place yet… I have literally no free time which sucks” He laughed. He was feeling nice and decided to offer her “Hey, what do you say… we could go down to said coffee shop if you want?…. It’s on me.” He smiled, aware that she was trying not to focus on the crumb, finding it hilarious how she babbled to lose the focus
“You have no free time, but you’re offering to buy me coffee?” She stifled a laugh, “I’m not going to turn it down, but if you’re busy…” Marianne trailed off with a shrug, “Well, I suppose you just shouldn’t have offered, then!” She giggled.
“My shift at the grocery store starts at 3:30…” He said before looking at the watch on his wrist “I have about an hour and a half…. an hour and forty minutes so I am in no particular rush I guess.” He shrugged “Today I have just been a bit busy you know with cleaning the house and sorting out bills and that … do you fancy grabbing something then?”
“Sure, let’s go get coffee~! Maybe you should grab a bite to eat, too, before your shift. I could chip in and buy something since you’re being nice and buying my coffee.” She gave a cheerful smile and gestured down the street to begin walking.
“I haven’t seen you around here before… did you just move in? That coffee shop down the street does have really good cake.” She decided to keep babbling rather than focus on the fact that he ate a crumb from his face. “I’ve been to all of the coffee shops in Gramina, now, and that one is one of my favorites.”
“I moved in a couple of weeks ago but haven’t really had the chance to explore the place yet… I have literally no free time which sucks” He laughed. He was feeling nice and decided to offer her “Hey, what do you say… we could go down to said coffee shop if you want?…. It’s on me.” He smiled, aware that she was trying not to focus on the crumb, finding it hilarious how she babbled to lose the focus
“You have no free time, but you’re offering to buy me coffee?” She stifled a laugh, “I’m not going to turn it down, but if you’re busy...” Marianne trailed off with a shrug, “Well, I suppose you just shouldn’t have offered, then!” She giggled.
He raised his eyebrows before sticking out his tongue and trying to catch the stray piece of crumb that was supposedly on his face. He was victorious in securing it as he felt if on his tongue
“Thanks I guess…” He nodded. “Better now than I never I suppose aha..”
She blinked a few moments, shocked that he’d eaten a crumb from his face, “well… hope it wasn’t a booger, I guess…”
“It wasn’t… I can assure you that!” He laughed, smirking at her “I had cake before from this coffee shop so it must have been from then, I guess” He wasn’t to go into such “interaction with his face” and it would have been pretty embarrassing if she had thought so. Would be pretty disgusting if it was.
“I haven’t seen you around here before... did you just move in? That coffee shop down the street does have really good cake.” She decided to keep babbling rather than focus on the fact that he ate a crumb from his face. “I’ve been to all of the coffee shops in Gramina, now, and that one is one of my favorites.”
He raised his eyebrows before sticking out his tongue and trying to catch the stray piece of crumb that was supposedly on his face. He was victorious in securing it as he felt if on his tongue
“Thanks I guess…” He nodded. “Better now than I never I suppose aha..”
She blinked a few moments, shocked that he’d eaten a crumb from his face, “well... hope it wasn’t a booger, I guess...”
Marianne laughed lightly, happy to have those embarrassing photos. “okay! well, get a journal and I’ll teach you whenever you have time~ are you busy during the summer? I know there are no classes…”
She was still blushing from her previous embarrassment when Isabel called the couple adorable, causing Marianne to flush even more. “Ah, thank you,” she bumped Isabel’s shoulder back. “You think? Maybe I could… I just need to practice. This journal is a good way to practice, though. Maybe I need… hm… to take drawing lessons?”
“I’m free this summer, of course!” Isabel grinned, mentally jotting down a reminder to purchase a journal or find one somewhere in her house. “Although—did you hear? I might be switching out. Teaching is all fine and good, but I’ve always wanted to be self-employed, so it’s possible I’ll be buying a few sheep of my own and doing some threading and weaving.”
She shrugged, eyes still tracing over Marianne’s graceful, pencilled lines. “Maybe? I don’t know too much about art, if I’m being honest,” she admitted. “It might help with ah…process?”
“Oh, if you do, could I meet your sheep? I never get to see any of the animals in Gramina up close. I try to draw them from far away, but...” she flipped to a page that looked like tiny clouds on a mountain, “they just look like puffs of wool, you see. I’m sure they have faces, but I don’t know what they look like.” She hummed a moment, “won’t you miss your students, though?”
“Maybe... I just keep waiting for inspiration, but I write like a child. The drawings fit the writing, but they’re so much better... or maybe... I should write a children’s book? Then I could draw all sorts of colorful pictures and not worry about the words...”
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