August 11, 1189
Of all the people Eldona might have thought she'd find at the school library before term even began, her cousin Searle had not been among them. He didn't have much particular interest in any subject. He certainly wasn't doing well in many of them. He was barely even aware of where he was more days than not, and it wasn't as if he had any friends to pull him anywhere on their days off.
Why was he here?"Searle?" He jumped. Why had she expected he'd noticed her? "Oh. Sorry, I... are you all right?"
He shook his head. "No."
Poor boy. Perhaps looking for new poems would have to wait. "Do you want to talk about it?"
Searle sighed. "I'm writing to Aunt Maeja."
"Oh."
Her father had gotten the news some days back. Their Uncle Marsden had been killed just before the end of the previous month. Eldona had never met him, but Searle had lived in Dovia. He would have known him well enough. "I see."She also saw the page: blank except for the phrase 'Dear Aunt Maeja'.
"I... I'm not good at words."
"Don't say that. You're just... unpracticed, maybe." At any rate, this was the longest they'd ever spoken. Some people who didn't talk much expressed themselves in writing, but it stood to reason that some kept their thoughts and feelings inside, in the forms they took before they were words.
"Help me?"
Help? "I don't know, Searle. Letters like that are pretty personal."
"But you're a good writer. All the poems you read in class were so..." He stopped, in search of a new word. Instead, he fell back on a familiar one. "...good."
"All right." Not that she was feeling too poetic after a conversation like this--but she sat down anyway. "'Dear Aunt Maeja'."Searle nodded. "Then?"
She thought on it a moment. But, she had to shake her head.
"I can't write this for you. Only you know what's in your heart."He bowed his head and stared at the paper, as if he wasn't quite sure he had one.
NEXT CHAPTER:
3 comments:
So apparently Blogger's adult content policy is changing at the end of next month, and they'll be making any blogs with sexually explicit content private. Now, while this is by no means a G-rated blog, I wouldn't call anything on here "sexually explicit", and I'm sure the job will either be left up to an algorithm or user reporting. I'm not worried about user reporting, but who knows what will set an algorithm off.
In any case, I doubt the blog will be affected, but if it is, then please bear with me while I get it sorted out.
The school library really seems like the place for awkward reconciliations!
Sad for Searle! He seems genuinely in shock/hurt by this family death. I think any letter he manages to write will be appreciated.
It's the place on school property least likely to have background Sims in need of posing hanging around. ;)
Searle does tend to feel things deeply, even if he doesn't realize it. Maeja does love him almost like her own; every word she hears from him is gold to her.
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