Tawdry Quirk Shop

It’s not that he didn’t like Holly. On the contrary, he enjoyed her company immensely — much more than he would or could ever admit to her.

Sometimes when he woke in the middle of the night, unsure whether or not he was dreaming, he would curl his fingers and wish for her soft hand to rest on his sweaty, matted hair.

He liked the sense of whimsy she brought to the castle, with her rustic folk songs she was always whistling off-key, and her spinning about when she thought no one could see her. It made the empty prison feel full again. Full of— something. Life, perhaps.

No, it wasn’t that he didn’t like her. He just liked her at specific times. And disliked her at other times.

He disliked her when she was impatient and left the table because of his alleged bad manners. He disliked her when she refused to come when he called her, just because she “wasn’t his slave.” (And no one ever said she was, either.)

He disliked her when she dug up the old begonias (so what if they were half dead? He liked them.) and planted petunias there before he could argue.

He liked her when she told him stories. She would sometimes tell war stories, ones her father told her, but only ones with sad endings. She said war stories could only have sad endings.

He liked her when she tried to cook, because she was bad at it, but he could barely taste it so it didn’t matter. And she always looked so proud when she brought it to him.

He liked her in the middle of the night with his nightmares. He liked her in the heat of the day on a blanket in the shade. He liked her in the morning with his coffee.

He supposed that he liked her more than he didn’t like her, so that was probably why she was still alive.

He perched on his new bike, licked his lips, and hoped that the gentle slope in front of him would not prove too steep for his inexperienced balance. Before he could talk himself out of it, he took his feet off the ground.

And fell over without moving an inch.

“It’s just your first time,” he coached himself, pushing the bike off of his legs and getting up. “Little further forward on the hill.”

Archie had three goals for the summer: bike riding, rollerblading, and whistling. He wasn’t going to enter 4th grade without knowing how to do all of those things — he just knew that all the other kids would know how to, and they would all make fun of him if he didn’t. The last thing they needed was another reason to make fun of him.

(“Bald, bald, Archibald!” had followed him up from 2nd grade, which is why he started opting for “Archie” by the end of the year.)

He didn’t have much time to master these three skills, since his family always took an inconvenient and long vacation right after school got out to visit his Grandma in Wyoming. Now it was the end of June: just 8 weeks until school started again in August.

He started with the bike, since that was the most important; everyone would be able to see if he still had training wheels since he biked to school. Thankfully, he had a gentle hill in his front yard.

…Apparently a little too gentle.

“And, go!”

He decided to lean forward as he lifted his feet from the ground, and was rewarded with some slow forward motion on the part of the bike. This time, he lasted 2 feet before he fell over.

“I did it!” he shouted from a heap on the ground, thrusting his fist into the air.

“Yayyyy!” cooed his baby sister from the living room.

Whether or not she was looking at Archie, the boy felt heartened.

Clar rubbed his thumb on the corner of the law absently as he read it. The paper was soft, pliant. It had clearly seen many hands before it reached his desk, where it now awaited only his signature and seal before it became official. The penmanship was flawless, clearly the work of the new palace calligrapher. The old calligrapher had been given a new job when his hands began to shake so much that it affected his ability to write clearly.

Clar didn’t like having to release the old man, but he took comfort in the fact that he’d hired the man’s son to take his place. The old man’s new job didn’t pay as well, but Clar knew the unmarried son would help his aging father and mother, so they would be taken care of.

Funny that he cared so much about them, and he didn’t even know their names. Well, he knew them — he’d signed the old man’s job transfer himself, actually — but he didn’t remember them. McCloud, MacAlwain, something like that. But even if he couldn’t remember their names, he still cared about them.

His father would say that he had more important things to do than care about the welfare of the palace workers. His father probably would have gone the fairer route and hired the calligrapher with the most prominent history, who could do the most ornamentation and could do it quickly. His father believed in having nothing but the best; something his mother was constantly reminding him.

As if he don’t know his father’s political and economic beliefs like the back of his hand. His advisors made sure of that. Every extra expense was explained away as an “improvement cost,” and defended with,

“Well, King Leopald, rest his soul, always said we should put our best foot forward. We are merely carrying on his memory.”

At first, Clar agreed with them and allowed the palace roof to be repainted, the carriages to be stripped and remodeled, and the cobbled road into the town to be paved with blue stones (“In memory of King Leopald, rest his soul, and his searching blue eyes.”)

Then one day Clar came to a realization. It was after he’d signed off on the renovation of the palace gardens, much to the dismay of the gardener. He wouldn’t have known how the gardener felt about it, except he ran into the gardener’s wife quite by accident as he was taking some air on the side patio.

She made no apologies in telling him exactly what she thought of this newest development, and how her husband had been crushed to hear that the renovation he had done not three months earlier was not to the king’s satisfaction. It was no little wonder, she said, that no one wanted to work at the palace if they could find somewhere more welcoming and appreciative.

Clar had not realized up until that point how much his mindless updates were affecting his staff. Further research into the matter showed that the new Chief Baker he hired was a surly, argumentative man that made working in the kitchens a nightmare for everyone — suddenly, the amount of serving staff that had left made more sense. Even though the baker was the best in his league, the envy of many other palaces, Clar fired him without remorse and hired a pleasant, yet firm, baker with a slightly less illustrious reputation. No one noticed a difference in quality of rolls and cakes, and the serving staff suddenly began smiling again.

His advisors nearly fell out of their seats trying to convince him to rehire Master Gavin, but Clar just smiled and said exactly what he’d told himself in the mirror that morning.

“But, King Clarence, your father would—”

“Then it is a good thing I am not my father. Now, what are the plans for the Midsummer Festival, Hawking?”

She seems like she’ll be interesting. In that way that she reminds me a bit of my sister. >__> Not sure if that’s good or bad. XD

Haha, probably good for a character at least. XD

Cuuute. And awkward, but in that cute way.

Haha. Thanks, I think? XD Not sure what I think of Raven. I might drag her into an actual story sometime, because her character intrigues me. o.o

Can my fanfiction count until I finish it? D: Then I’ll drabble! If I manage to finish it in July by some miracle. >__>

Since this isn’t really a thing, there aren’t really any rules. So yes! :-D Haha.

P.S. Where are you posting “the smell of farewell and gasoline” so I can read it as you post also? Because you’re changing big things and then I see some chunks again and I’m starting to get a tish confused. XD So having access to the actual timeline of things would be nice.

“Scoot up — I can barely fit!”

Raven turned around and addressed Harrold impatiently.

“Well, it’s only meant to seat one, you know. Do your best.”

“But my, uh, stuff needs more space,” he insisted, wincing as Raven bounced over a crack in the sidewalk.

“Gross,” Raven said, but she moved forward another inch, to the point where she almost couldn’t pedal properly.

Harrold heaved a sigh of relief, then yelped as she went over another bump.

“Geez, Ray, slow down!”

Raven didn’t acknowledge the exclamation except to pedal faster. She wasn’t in any particular hurry, but she’d show Harrold to complain about her bike-driving skills. If he felt so strongly about it, he would find the money for gas. Or beg a ride from one of the other med students heading to the hospital.

But she knew he wouldn’t — he liked her. She saw it in his blush, his fidgety eye contact, and in his nervous habit of biting his lip whenever he talked with her. (It was kind of cute, she had to admit — in a high-school way.) The fact that he subjugated himself to her, in the form of riding on the back of her one-person bike every morning, was an interesting way to show his affection, but Raven didn’t question it. She was just glad that he did that instead of doing the normal male-impressiveness routine.

Although she didn’t really like him (sorry, Harrold, but with a name like that, you shouldn’t be surprised) she was selfishly pleased to have a man(-ish) at her beck and call were she ever to need one. And he was of the personality that he’d probably still be sweet to her even if she never gave him hope of a date. He was just that kind of an all-around good person.

It was a little unsettling, if she thought about it too much, so she didn’t.

Being voraciously independent, the idea of being willing to be someone’s call girl (or boy) was unfathomable. It required far too much altruism — more, perhaps, than was actually healthy.

She wheeled into the hospital parking lot, waving at Sadie who was just locking the door of her Sedan as LeAnna, Nicole, Carolina, and Garrett scrambled to get out before she locked them in (again). Garrett started singing “A Bicycle Built For Two,” until Nicole put a hand over his mouth to stifle the off-key screeching.

“Keep your day job!” Raven shouted at him, although she and Harrold both laughed.

“How does he keep his night job with a voice like that?” Harold chuckled as they rolled up to the bike rack and dismounted.

“Either Anton is deaf or he’s not picky,” Raven replied in turn, although they both knew that Garrett had a beautiful tenor voice if he chose to use it properly. He just chose not to, most of the time.

“I can’t afford a carriage, but I can afford a marriage,” Garrett bellowed somewhere behind them, clearly having escaped Nicole’s silencing hand.

“Shut up,” Harrold shot over his shoulder.

Raven didn’t wait for the others; she pushed open the door and breathed in the familiar smell of sickness, healing, life, and death.

but I’m doing it for myself and my sad, sad writing habits. Because nothing is worse than getting out of the habit of writing. I’ve done that a few times, and it takes a lot of work and low self-esteem battles to recover myself.

So since I’m working crazy long hours and have ridiculously busy weekends, I’m going to force myself to write a oneshot/drabble every day for the month of July. Hopefully by the end of the month I’ll have regained my momentum and can actually get to work on Charlie again. Assuming I have the brain power for that. We’ll see.

I’ll probably be posting these from my Still-Unnamed-iPod, so I can’t use the Read More feature. I hope they don’t bother you all too much.

And if anyone wants to join me, that would be awesome, and inspiring. I’ll put my prompt/inspiration in the title line. :-D