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A Girl Hates Squirrels (Bianca)

Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2021 10:29 pm
by Cazaria
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Ash 58, 121

She woke up in the darkness of the closet she stashed herself away in during the previous night. It was safer in here. There weren't any of those people from before in here. It was warm, there were furs to lay upon. There were spiders to eat when she was hungry. So many spiders, more than even back home in the comforts of her forest. But she had a new mother now. Her last mother was dead, though not gone. But she had always told the girl that everyone needed a mother to watch over them, to guide them, to make them strong.

So the girl accepted her new mother.

But the girl hated these worlds she'd been thrust into. She didn't like these big buildings of stone, she didn't like these big open roads with no trees, the feeling of the hard dirt and stone beneath her feet. It was cold, it didn't feel alive, not like back home. But she mostly hated these people here. They were loud, they smelled. And there was too many of them. Before her new mother found her, she had only ever known her first mother.

Life goes on, and as the girl snuck out of the closet in Nnerka's quarters, she looked around. She didn't see the large mother anywhere. She wanted out of here. She looked around the dark room, sniffing at the air, finding it a bit musty, with strange herbal smells lingering. She was quiet, unmoving, her ears listening. There were strange noises from the other side of the wall. She was told this was a place where pay money to have sex. She had no idea what that meant. She'd never even heard of the words 'money' or 'sex' before. But she'd been told that if there were strange noises or sights, it would likely be that.

There had been a couple of rules that Big Mother had had to explain to the girl. Multiple times. Speaking slowly. Very slowly. The girl did not like the rules and threw a fit each time that her new mother had said it. The girl had to be placated with food each time, and still she stared daggers at her mother. Even now, as the girl thought about the rules, she was considering ignoring them. And she was getting angry. Stupid rules. 'Don't break anything.' & 'Try not to kill anyone."

In the forest, if she tried to do either of those things, she would've died. Many times over. But she had trusted her First Mother. She followed her rules without question. But her rules made sense to the girl. These did not. The girl walked over to the closet she had slept in, grabbing her spear that was tucked inside and with a loud, angry snarl, she thrust it deep into a pillow and out the back of a chair, and left it there.

She crept over to the door to the room, pressing a hand to the door's surface, seeking to feel vibrations. Finding none, she slowly turned the handle, peeking through the crack into the hall. She saw no one. She edged open the door, and peered out around the door jam, seeing no one in the other direction either. She pulled the door open fully now, looked both ways again, then running with her light feet pattering against the carpeted floor, she made her way to some stairs at the end of the hall.

She climbed the stairs higher and higher, as high as they could go. She eventually found a ladder, and she climbed it too, pushing open a door that was at the top of it. She heaved herself over the edge, finding herself on the roof. She closed the door quietly, and looked out at the wide open sky. The sun was rising, the air was cool, and the sky was clear. The girl took a deep breath, and immediately crinkled her nose. It stunk here. It smelled of smoke and urine and other smells she did not know but did not care for.

Soon, there was a large raven in the girl's place, and it squawked as it took flight off the roof of the Velvet Cabaret, flapping its wings, staying high overhead. It scanned the world below it as it flew, feeling a rumbling in its stomach. The spiders last night had provided some midnight snacking, but were not enough to sustain the girl on. As she flew, her eye caught sight of a tree, tucked secretly away in the middle of one of these buildings she so despised.

She flew in closer, circling about, now seeing a squirrel sitting on the branch of the tree, chewing away at a nut. The temper within her ignited further. She hated squirrels. Every time she would hide food away, a squirrel or a rat would come along and steal it. It angered her so much. And before she knew it, she was diving down toward the tree, wings tucked back, body following beak.

To the squirrel, she appeared out of nowhere, coming from just outside of a tuft of branches. The especially large raven pulled up at the last moment with a flap of the wings to slow down, claws reaching out. Using her larger size, she grasped the squirrel and with a quick peck of her beak, ended its life. She flapped a few more times to keep going, working to maintain her flight with the momentum still being carried. The branches disappeared and suddenly there was a wall. A startled squawk, she flapped her wings to break, pulling up a bit.

And soared right into an open window in the empty guest bedroom of Bianca Faust's home above her work. The raven dropped the dead squirrel on the floor as she got control of her wings, squawking loudly in the room, turning tight curves until she landed with a hop on the floor, happy to see the squirrel was still there, bleeding out in a small puddle.

Soon, she was there in her Zoan form, tearing into the flesh with her teeth, her hands tearing away the fur and tossing it aside. She ate flesh and organs, crunched on the bones, and she was content. This was a nice breakfast for the girl. Especially because she hated squirrels.





Re: A Girl Hates Squirrels (Bianca)

Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2021 11:34 pm
by Bianca
Bianca was not accustomed to finding people in her house. She was not accustomed to finding people in her house so early in the morning, either. Considering she made her home on the second floor of her place of work, and that the doors were locked and her office was closed, the sudden thump of something in the largely unused second bedroom of her apartment was no little bit surprising. She had left the window open because she favored the cool autumn breeze, and strange creatures had come inside before. At first, she assumed a bird had flown in.

She was not entirely wrong.

Perhaps she should have been a bit more surprised that she found a strange, naked, and wild-looking child eating a squirrel - raw - on the floor. She stood in the doorway for a moment, said nothing, and then retreated to the kitchen. She wasn't a mother, and had little parenting experience, but she knew enough that children weren't necessarily supposed to be eating raw wildlife. Who knew where they had been, and in the city? That squirrel could have any sort of parasites. She was no chef, and her kitchen was not fantastically stocked, but she returned to the doorway with a glass of water and a small bowl of assorted nuts. Judging by the decimated squirrel bits and the pool of blood, the floor in that room would have to be mopped later. It didn't seem that the child was injured at all, at least.

"Eat this, too." Bianca sat on the floor at some distance from the child, and placed the glass and the bowl within grabbing distance of her. Upon closer inspection, and judging by the feathers that grew in her hair, Bianca determined the child was Rathari. There was no small number of orphans in Kalzasi, but she seemed too young to be wandering around by herself in the city otherwise. She didn't want to operate entirely on assumptions, however.

"Where are your parents?" She made no move to get closer to the girl than from where she was on the floor. Like one would with a shy pet, she would wait for her to approach. If she were to reunite this child with whatever was taking care of her — or to find someone that could, she would certainly need to avoid scaring her off.

Re: A Girl Hates Squirrels (Bianca)

Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2021 11:57 pm
by Cazaria
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A door opened and the girls' eyes snapped upward to see a woman with hair the color of flowers standing there. The girl just watched, confident that if this woman was a threat, she could flee out the window in time. So she watched. And chewed on some squirrel meat. Then the woman left.

The girl went back to chewing on the squirrel, and when she had finished the meat, was licking and sucking the blood from her fingers noisily. She looked up as the woman returned. The girl's whole head moved as her eyes dashed about. First she was staring at the glass of water. Then the nuts. Then up to the flower haired woman. Then back to the water. Then to the window. Then back to the water.

She understood when the woman said to eat. And she could see it was food. She liked nuts. She ate them as often as she could find. They were plentiful back home. The woman sat nearby and for a long time, the girl simply stared at her. Then slowly, while still staring, she reached forward. She grabbed the glass gently, eyes locked on the woman's, even as she raised it to her lips, held clumsily in both hands. The girl drank greedily, finishing it all.

She then tossed the glass aside, just as she had done with the fur scraps and remnants of the squirrel. And the glass shattered loudly, and the girl let a squawking scream out, instantly on her feet moving the opposite direction of the sound. This drove her further from the window and the door, deeper into the small room, seeking the shelter of the corner. She hated that sound. They didn't have that sound in the forest. Her first mother had taught her that new sounds were to be feared and respected until she knew what they were.

The girl was huddled in the corner of the room, trying to make herself small, just as mama had told her to do when she wanted her to hide.



Re: A Girl Hates Squirrels (Bianca)

Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2021 12:20 am
by Bianca
Bianca was no detective. While she would often have to investigate cases and evidence on her own, she was no expert in the matter. Luckily, she didn't have to be an expert to realize this girl had so little experience around people, or things, or really anything that the lawyer had taken for granted as completely usual. The glass shattered, and with it, the girl fled to the opposite corner of the room.

"Oh," Bianca said, but she saw no use in scolding someone for the act of not knowing, especially a feral little girl. Instead, she left the room and retrieved a broom and a dustpan and a wet rag and slippers and a bag to dispose of everything in, and she started cleaning. First went the large pieces of glass into the bag, and then she swept up the small, broken pieces and the bits of squirrel and everything else. The blood was next, and she cleaned it up with the wet rag, and then folded it in half and used it in hopes that whatever tiny fragments of glass stuck between the cracks in the wooden floors would stick to it. Everything went into the bag, and when she was done, she tied it up and she brought it back to the kitchen.

And then she returned to the room, two more glasses of water in hand. She didn't quite know how to deal with fear, or fear in a child. She still didn't quite approach, but she sat back down with the glasses and placed one closer to the girl again. Bianca felt that the least she could do was teach the girl how to drink. She took her own glass of water and lifted it to her lips, and after a few healthy sips, gently placed it back on the floor again.

"If you don't throw it, it won't break. If it doesn't break, you don't have to be scared of it."

Re: A Girl Hates Squirrels (Bianca)

Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2021 12:33 am
by Cazaria
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The girl peered through the gap in her arm as she made herself small in the corner, watching as nothing dangerous happened from the thing that made the sound. As the woman with flower hair left, the girl turned a bit more. The cup that held the water was broken on the floor. Broken. Big Mother told her not to break anything.

But Big Mother wasn't here. She wouldn't know. The girl's eyes followed the woman who returned, cleaning up the glass fragments. She came with water again. The girl watched her drink, then set the loud-noise cup down softly. It thudded quite softly against the wood. No loud noise.

The girl reached out for her cup, grabbing it in both hands. She sipped at it as the woman had done, then set the cup very carefully on the wood, eyes focused to do it just right. And when it didn't make a loud noise, she relaxed. She looked up at the woman who was speaking the language she had spoken with her first mother. The girl didn't quite understand the nuances, but the woman's soft voice and cadence of her speaking soothed the child.

The girl learned that throw that cup, cup breaks, loud noise. No loud noise, no scared. The girl moved her head to the side, peering around the woman at the nuts she had placed there earlier. She gingerly picked up her cup of water, walked a wide circle around the flower haired woman, never turning her back to the woman, keeping an eye on the window.

The girl sat down by the nuts, carefully setting her cup of water next to it, away from the window, just in case it broke again. She reached into the bowl of nuts. As she looked closer, she realized that these nuts had no shells on them. A smile grew on her face. She stuffed a hand into the bowl and grabbed as man as she could and shoved them all into her mouth, making happy little chirping noises as she chewed, spilling fragments all over the place, not bothering to close her mouth as she ate.

And all the while, she kept her eyes on the woman.



Re: A Girl Hates Squirrels (Bianca)

Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2021 1:38 am
by Bianca
Bianca still avoided sudden movements and just observed, like one would to wildlife they saw at a park. There was a great deal of room in this bedroom - a bed was tucked into the corner, and an empty dresser sat with a basin on top pushed against a wall. There was even a closet. It had been a part of the building when she had first purchased it, but she had nothing to put into it, and so it stay mostly empty. On the occasion she had guests or friends in need of a place to stay, it was put to use. Perhaps if the child could not be properly relocated, she could put it to use.

Then again, she didn't know if she had any family, or belongings. Bianca was not anywhere near the wilderness, and how this girl ended up inside her apartment — past "through the window" — was still up for question. She didn't respond to any of her questions, but at least she seemed to be enjoying the nuts. She'd have to sweep those up, too, before mice decided to take them. Not that she usually had a problem with rodents; Seventh Finger of the Bureaucrat liked to eat them long before they became a problem.

"Don't eat too fast," Bianca cautioned, though at this point she wasn't sure if the girl could understand everything she said. She really did seem more like a wild animal than a person. "You'll get a tummyache."

"Do you have a mother?" She tried again with the line of questioning. She hoped the girl understood something, or it would take a greater deal of effort to figure out which - if any - languages she knew. "A father? Who takes care of you?"

B also hoped that these questions even had any answers. Even if they didn't, she wouldn't just leave a little girl to fend for herself. She was not so cruel as to abandon a child in need, and perhaps it was lucky that she had already taken the day off. She had plenty of time to get to the bottom of this.

Re: A Girl Hates Squirrels (Bianca)

Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2021 11:38 am
by Cazaria
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The girl swallowed down the nuts, coughing a bit as she did. She took a drink of her water, grabbing it with one hand now, and placing it back on the floor with more confidence. She heard the woman's words, but didn't quite understand them all. But when she asked her questions, the girl certainly understood them.

The girl spoke without emotion, nonchalant, "First mama dead. Father dead. Big Mama care me." The girl now picked at the nuts slowly, one at a time, with a belly full of squirrel and nuts and plenty of water. There was a flavor on them she didn't recognize. She held a nut up before her eyes, focusing hard down the bridge of her nose on it. There were little specks of white on them. The girl stuck her tongue out, touching it, tasting salt.

A smile came over her face and she chomped down on the nut. The girl, hunger and thirst now sated, stood up, wiping the blood from her mouth onto the back of her hand. She looked down at the bits of squirrel and nuts on the floor. Then her eyes went to the broom the woman had been using. The girl walked over, grabbed it from where it had been leaned against the wall. The girl moved it around in her hands, getting a feel for it, at one point holding it like a spear with the appearance of someone who actually knew what they were doing with it.

Then she moved over to her various mess piles, and began to mimic what she'd seen the woman do before. She swept up all the little bits into one little pile. She stood behind her pile proudly, looking up at the woman, waiting.



Re: A Girl Hates Squirrels (Bianca)

Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2021 9:10 pm
by Bianca
Bianca was not one to confuse intelligence with education, and it was clear that the girl was smart enough to make connections and do things. She also understood some Common - good - but she either wasn't fluent, or she wasn't used to speaking. She leaned over and grabbed the dustpan from where it lay on the floor and held it next to the pile that the girl had swept up.

"Thank you for sweeping up. Where's Big Mama?" She offered a friendly smile along with the question. "Do you need help getting back to her?" There were other questions that Bianca held onto — was she being fed? Was she given water? Her own place to sleep? Was it safe? But she didn't want to overwhelm the child.

"What's your name? I'm Bianca." She gestured to herself for emphasis along with her own name, just in case she needed more context. As an afterthought, Bianca realized it was a bit chilly in the room. Ash was in full swing, and with an open window that brought in the cool air, the warmth afforded by the hearth was not winning the fight.

"Do you want clothes? A blanket?" Bianca stood up regardless of her answer and disappeared again into the hallway and down to her room. She wasn't a large woman, but any sort of shirt she'd have would be more like a dress than anything on the child. She came back with an older shirt. Soft, long-sleeved, oversized (even on Bianca), and dyed black.

"You can have this." She wasn't sure how Rathari worked, but the girl wasn't currently clothed, and she never wore the shirt anyway - so why not? Then again, if she didn't take the shirt, she wasn't going to be upset, either. She had no idea of her routine or what was normal for her.

Re: A Girl Hates Squirrels (Bianca)

Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2021 9:32 pm
by Cazaria
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As the woman held the dustpan, the girl swept the pile into it. At the question about Big Mama, the girl pointed back in the direction she'd flown in from. "Big Mama there. I no need help." It was stated matter-of-factly. The girl knew where her home was.

As the flower haired woman said her name, the girl grew into a big smile. "My name Caz'aria Rosedove!" She beamed proudly at this. She liked her name, a lot. She liked names in general. "Bianca prettyful name." To the girl, it sounded similar to this one time when she dropped a stone down a hollow tree to get the bees out of it. The sound of the stone bouncing on the wood. A pleasant sound.

At the offering of clothes and blankets, Caz'aria nodded, "Yes."

It was coming up on the colder months soon, Caza knew, so she would need clothes. Even now, it was a bit chilly. Bianca returned with a dress and Caza took it, tossing it on backwards, getting her arms through it. It quickly became warmer. "Thanks you." Caza began sniffing at the shirt, she tasted it, running the fabric between her fingers. She wasn't familiar with this material. Most of her clothes had been furs or woven feathers. This was nice too. It was soft. She liked soft and she smiled at the touch.

Caza now fed, watered, clothed, and introduced found her mind wandering. She walked up to Bianca, grabbing gently at the clothes she wore. She wanted to see if they felt the same as the dress she now wore. She did not pull or tug or try to take, simply grabbed to rub the material between her fingers. She nodded, lips pursed as if deep in thought. Yes, it felt very much the same. And she liked it.

She was now looking around the room, spying the bed in the corner. More fabric. She walked over to it and began the rubbing process again. This one felt different. But still nice. But not as nice. Remembering the closet in Big Mama's room, she walked over to this room's closet and opened it up. It was empty. An annoyed look on her face and she closed the door. She walked back over to Bianca, standing a few feet away and looking up at her, waiting.


Re: A Girl Hates Squirrels (Bianca)

Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2021 11:46 pm
by Bianca
Bianca did not correct her when she put the shirt on backwards — the buttons in the back looked kinda cute, anyway. And she was a strange child, with the way she felt the fabric and her lack of personal space, but Bianca was growing a bit fond of her already and she didn't mind. At least she liked being dressed, and at least she had a name, and a mother whom she knew how to return to. She straightened up the bed after Caza rumpled the blankets, but otherwise she just let the girl do as she wanted to explore the room.

"No one sleeps in this room, so there's nothing in the closet." She sat on the bed. It only had a light blanket covering it for show — while she had warmer blankets stored in a closet in the hallway, they didn't usually get taken out unless someone was staying over. She gave Caza a once over, her gaze ending on her feet.

"Do you have shoes?" She didn't have anything suitable for a child, but she wasn't entirely against finding the girl a pair if she needed them. "Where are you from? Are you from here? Or somewhere else? And are you safe right now?" Bianca pulled her legs up on the bed, and even with her questions she was thinking. There were processes for being a citizen, and if she was going to be staying in the city, it was important that she followed them sooner rather than later. She didn't know who Big Mama was, or how much that woman knew, but perhaps she could meet her and they could figure out how to help Caz'aria through the legal processes. It was her job, after all. She didn't always defend in the criminal courts; sometimes people just needed a bit of help navigating the bureaucracies.