Overnight, my nightmares are so much less terrifying than the night before, I sleep peacefully by comparison. Before I know it, I'm woken by the sound of the breakfast whistle. I sit up, somewhat drowsy, but confused. Why were there no bells today? It only takes a moment to figure out though. It's really loud in here, the sound of rain pounding on the roof above and street below drown out everything else. Of course I couldn't hear the bells over all of that noise.
It looks like everyone else is sleeping through it though, so I shake Emily gently to wake her. She looks up at me, smiles a little, and asks, "What time is it?"
"Second bell," I answer. She sits up, stretching and yawning, then looks over at the window herself.
"Oh, that's unfortunate," she mutters sleepily, "it's been so nice out lately." She stands, going to the window. Just walking near it, the rain coming in the window begins to pelt her. Now that I'm paying a little more attention, a little is even making it over to my bed since I'm closest. Emily leans out so she can pull them closed. Like little doors, the wooden window covers swing in from each side. She spins a little piece of wood attached to the left over so it sits in a groove attached to the right, latching the window shut. Immediately, the sound of driving rain quiets, but I can still hear it clearly echoing down from the roof overhead.
Emily turns around, and shakes herself a little, spraying a little water out with the motion. Just from closing the window, she's pretty soaked, still dripping on the floor. Now looking very wet and awake, she claps her hands. "Hey girls, it's morning. Time to get up," she says loudly. Then she goes to change out of her now-wet clothes. Everyone stirs, sitting up in bed. They look up, following the sound of rain, and make disappointed sounds. Why? Do they not like rain or something?
While they all get up, Eve asks, "When do you think breakfast is?"
"It should be soon, it's after second bell," Emily says while wringing some of the water out of her shirt.
"It is?" Eve blinks at her a few times.
"Yeah, it... is?" halfway through saying so, she looks back to me, turning it into a question. "How do you know it's after second bell anyway?"
"Uhh..." I stammer, not expecting a question like that. This is the first time anyone's ever asked me how I knew the time, they always just assumed I heard the bells before, I guess. I can't use that excuse now, that's impossible in this rain. "I can't really say..." I mutter, looking away and scratching my head nervously.
"Hmm..." Emily frowns a little, and everyone else looks doubtful.
"I guess..." I search for some way of at least explaining something. "I'm just kind of... aware of when certain times of day are." That's the best explanation I can offer without saying too much.
That one just makes Emily shrug. "Ok, sure," she says simply. She really is used to me just telling her all these random things now, isn't she? Everyone else still looks skeptical though. "You think anyone else is up though?" she wonders aloud.
"Doubt it, rain days are always the best time to get some extra sleep," Eve says. Even she looks longingly back at her bed a she says it. Oh, I get it. If no one can hear the bells, no one knows when it's time to wake up for breakfast, so everyone ends up sleeping late. Even waking up at the second bell is kind of late, usually we get up sometime between the first and second.
"On the bright side, this gives us plenty of time to work on your hair, Aria!" Helen grins over at me. That's right, she said she would do it this morning before we left, so if breakfast is late, we'll have some extra time.
"Right, thank you, Helen," I smile back. Apparently she takes that to mean, 'right now,' and comes over, sitting on my bed behind me. It immediately feels like she's pulling on my hair, maybe she's taking the braids out? It hardly takes her any time at all. The next thing I know, my hair is all down again. However, it feels completely different than usual. Instead of being smooth and straight, it's all wavy now. Like, the way it was woven together just kind of stuck and now it's like that even when it's not woven.
"Uhh, it's all wavy, is that normal? Will it go back?" I ask, trying not to panic when I think that my hair might never go back to how it was. I liked it how it was.
"It's fine, it's fine," Helen pats my shoulders from behind, trying to soothe me. "No need to worry, just get it wet and it'll go right back. Actually..." she trails off for a bit, before finishing the thought. "Yeah, let's get your hair wet. I want to work on it straight like it usually is."
"Umm, sure, but how?" I ask. She just laughs and points at the window.
"It's raining, we may as well use it for something." While she unlatches the window, I pull my clothes off. I saw what it did to Emily's and I only have one other set of clothing, so I'd rather not get them all soaking wet. Then I stick my head out the window into the pouring rain, and my hair is drenched in moments. Once I slide back off the sill and the other girls close the window behind me, I shake off, my whole body soaked wet. I wring out my hair and Emily helps dry me off with some spare cloth, leaving it draped over her bed to dry afterword, before I put my clothing back on.
While I'm folding and tying up the skirt, Helen asks, "Why are you doing that? Is your skirt too big?"
"Well yeah, but it's on purpose. Skirts that fit don't feel right to me," I explain.
"Huh..." she mutters while staring at the odd, bunched up skirt. "Well, we can deal with that some other time. Let's work on your hair for now. What kind of hairstyle are you interested in?"
"I wanted something that looks pretty different than when my hair is down. Maybe something that shortens it. That's why Emily braided it yesterday, but she said it didn't really suit me." I'm not entirely sure what goes into 'suiting me,' but I feel like I have a vague idea after shopping for clothes yesterday. It's about what looks good on me, but the part I haven't nailed down yet is just what goes into that.
"I see..." She nods a few times. I run my fingers through my hair repeatedly, trying to get out any knots I can. It's not as bad as I expected, maybe because being in a braid helped keep it all from flying around and getting tangled up, but wringing it out definitely got some of the hair knotted. So I carefully pull out the knots bit by bit while Helen examines my hair.
Just like she said, getting it wet took the waviness out. In fact, it's probably more straight now than it is when it's dry. And clingy; it feels like the wet strands all want to stick to my arms and back when I move.
"Well, if we're talking about hairstyles that shorten hair, I'm assuming you don't want to cut it?" I nod. "In that case, braiding really is the go-to for shortening hair. Let's see if we can mix it with something else..." She pulls my hair one way, then another, mumbling to herself as she goes. "Even if I braid it like this... How about I twist it here...? Let's try a knot, make it sort of like a bun..."
I have no idea what she's doing, but the rest of the girls watch her with expressions that range all the way from excited to confused. Except Jannette of course, who has gone back to sleep already. All I can do is try to wait patiently while she works. Eventually, it goes on long enough that my mind begins to wander. Of course, Maven, who I'm always conscious of, comes to the forefront of my thoughts immediately. He's been active for a while now actually. It seems that he's digging at the moment, scratching into muddy dirt with his front claws. It's pretty interesting, seeing how he burrows into the ground like that. I follow along, feeling him dig like this is surprisingly entertaining.
"And... there!" Helen exclaims, apparently finished. It snaps me back to my present situation very suddenly. I have to push away my previous thoughts and feelings of muddy dirt and rain. I close my eyes momentarily and refocus.
Everyone oohs and ahhs at it, but of course I'm the only one who can't see. If only there were some way to see myself from behind or something, that would help... Since that's not possible, I give up on it and just feel around my hair to get an idea. It's braided again, but she made two braids this time. It feels like she did it so that the braids stay close to my head, going around from the front to the back on either side.
They start around my ears, then at the back, it sort of feels like a bun, with all of the hair tucked into it. But... different somehow. I can't get a mental image of it, just feeling it with my fingers. I don't know what she did, or how to describe it. I have to give up on that, so I move my hands down instead. My hair goes down, and down, and down... It's still just as long as usual. Actually, ending below my knees, I think it's a little longer because it's wet.
"Umm?" I start. But Helen jumps in to explain.
"Oh, it's not quite done yet. I just did the top part. For the bottom... I think I still need to figure it out, but having the top like that should help make the bottom shorter I think." I don't understand how that works, but if she says so, I'll let her finish first.
Helen gets to work once more, pulling on different parts of my hair. I still can't tell what she's doing though. It feels like she twists it and turns it a number of times, and everyone else is watching intently. When she finishes once more, I try touching it one more time. It feels like she... pulled the hair at the bottom of my head up underneath the two braids from earlier. It goes up and over the braids, before going down again, so now I understand what she meant about them making my hair shorter. I move from there to the rest, but once more, it feels like it's all twisted together in some manner that I can't understand from feel alone.
Whatever it does, it clearly seems to wrap and twist in some way, then my hair comes out the back, like it did with the ponytails I tried before. It's much higher up on the back of my head than those times though. I follow it down, surprised to feel it end just below my shoulder blades. Whatever she did, it really did shorten my hair a lot.
"Huh, it looks really nice, but do you think I'll be able to do this?" Emily asks uncertainly. That's right, of course she'll end up being the one who does my hair for me, won't she? My heart begins to sink, immediately guilty that I'm making Emily do my hair. And once more, I didn't even realize it until after the fact. It feels really unfair to her. If I want my hair styled differently, I should do it myself. However, I can't even see what Helen did, much less understand it. How would I be able to do it myself?
"Don't worry, it's not all that hard. I'll show you how." Emily nods seriously a few times, and I feel them pulling on my hair once more. It seems they're taking it all back out so Helen can teach her how to do it too.
"First you do this, braid it this way," she starts explaining as she goes. "Make sure to twist this part around here. Tie it up like this, and then wrap the hair around this way."
"Oh! That's so simple, but it looks really cute," Emily exclaims.
"Hehe, I saw some women doing stuff like this one time and figured out how it works," Helen boasts. She goes on, explaining things so Emily will be able to copy her work. From the sound of it, the actual work that goes into doing it is pretty simple if you know what you're doing. "I'll help you out once in a while too, as long as you let me try some new styles, alright?" Helen asks me, and I quickly nod. I'm more than willing to let her do whatever she wants if it'll take a little bit of the burden off of Emily.
They play with my hair for quite some time, while I let myself slip back into experiencing Maven digging. It's simple and comforting somehow. Eventually the girls finish, when it seems that Emily can more or less do it by herself.
"Looks like the show's over," Eve makes an exaggerated sigh while rolling back and forth on her bed. "Guess we should head down for breakfast now. Who knows when the big kids are getting up." She jumps up from her bed, shaking Jannette awake. "Hey, let's go get breakfast."
Jannette yawns a little. "Sure." She gets up then immediately looks over at me. Well, my hair most likely. She seems to stare straight at it for a few long, drawn out moments. Then, "Hmm." Just that sound, before she walks out of the room. Is that a good 'hmm' or a bad 'hmm'?!
I have no idea what goes through that girl's head...
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We all make our way out of the room pretty quickly after that. Though Mary hangs back to change clothes. We head downstairs, but it's immediately obvious that hardly any other children are awake yet. I only spot three in the halls and rooms on the first floor by the time we make it to the dining room. In there, only Jannette, two boys who kind of look like brothers, and one older girl sit at the tables. The kids are always moving around and all split up, so my best estimate is somewhere between seventy and one hundred fifty children living in the orphanage. It's an incredibly inaccurate estimate, but there's not much I can do for that.
Still, having only three children here before us, not a single big kid in the kitchen cooking, really says a lot. I guess they really don't get up on time when it's raining like this. It seems like telling time is even more important than I thought...
When we see that no one is awake and breakfast isn't even being prepared yet, we head back to our room. "Let's keep sewing until everyone wakes up," Emily says. As we sit down and get to work, the other girls come in and start sewing too. Since I'm still working on the shirt I chose, I have to take it off again to work on it. Even taking it off to save it from the rain earlier didn't help that much, it's soaked just from my wet hair sitting on it since then...
Well, at least that doesn't stop me from sewing patches onto it.
It's quiet most of the time, except for a little chatter about different things going on around the house. Apparently there are rumors about our room being weird going around though. Eve mentions that they're probably from that night when there was an explosion in our room.
I guess people have been talking about it, even though we denied it at the time. I mostly keep my mind on my sewing though, only somewhat paying attention as the girls chat from time to time. With Emily's advice last night and the continuous practice now, it slowly feels like I'm starting to get a bit better. We continue sewing for quite some time, but I don't know if there's any way to track the time passing. I can listen to my heartbeat I guess, but that changes. It gets faster and slower depending on what I'm doing, it's not like I could accurately time anything with it. I just keep working as the small thoughts at the back of my mind begin to wander.
Eventually, we hear more footsteps outside. I guess other kids are finally waking up. It really did take a long time. I don't think I've gotten that much faster at sewing, but I've already finished two of the three patches on my shirt by the time we hear movement and begin putting our sewing supplies away. In that time, Emily has finished my other shirt and moved onto repairing her own clothing. I still need to patch both my skirts myself, but it'll give me the practice I need.
After putting away our needle and thread, we head out again. This time there are actually other kids in the halls. A lot of them glance at me as I pass, but it looks like they're looking at my hair now? It doesn't look weird, does it?
We head downstairs, big kids in the kitchen cooking this time. It looks like they're already getting ready to serve the food, so we head to the dining room. This is how it's supposed to look in the morning. We sit and the food arrives shortly after. Unlike usual, the girls from our room are sitting together. They continue to chat a bit while we eat. Everyone around us seems kind of quiet and an air of doom hangs over the house for some reason. Is there something wrong? Maybe everyone is unhappy since we're eating so late? Except, they have no way to tell what time it is, so that shouldn't be it.
I eat the food while wondering about the strange state of the kids around us. Once we finish, we all put our bowls back and head upstairs. I'm a little disappointed that I didn't get a basket of my own while I turn down the hall toward Mister Fredricson's office. But then Emily grabs my arm. "Where are you going?" she asks while gently pulling so I'll keep walking with her.
"To get a basket." I say, pointing back as we walk.
"Why?" she clearly has no idea what I'm thinking. So what is she thinking? Don't we need to get our stuff to go?
"So we can head out." We do this every day. What's different about today? Because it's raining? Or that it's late?
"You want to head out in this?" she asks incredulously as we arrive at the stairs to the third floor, all the other kids glancing over as we pass. So I guess it was the rain after all?
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
"Well that's what I thought, are we not supposed to go out in the rain?"
"No," she shakes her head. "It'll soak right through all of your clothes. You'll wind up getting wet and cold and sick. Everything's more dangerous too. The ground gets muddy, you'll end up slipping down hills and cliffs, or out of trees if you try to climb them wet. Then there's the chance it'll turn into a lightning storm. And large animals that prefer rainy weather, and flooding, and all sorts of other dangers." I blink a few times, totally caught off guard by the sudden babble of information. Rain is really that dangerous? "It's also possible that, when it rains hard like this, it's because Saras is angry about something, so he creates bad weather for us. Of course you wouldn't want to go outside in it when he's already angry. It would be disrespectful, there are stories of him hitting people with bolts of lightning when he's really mad." She finishes her explanation as we reach our room.
"Oh," I have no idea how to respond beyond that. It's really that bad? And you might even make the god of weather mad enough to kill you just by walking around? That sounds a little far-fetched, but I've already experienced stranger things related to them, so I can't really doubt anything at this point. But then, I wandered around the city in the rain all the time when I was first going outside, didn't I? I just shrug away the random thought.
That decides it, of course we can't go out today. However, that doesn't stop me from sighing sadly. I really wanted to earn the money I need to keep testing with mana. I can't do any tests in our room anyway, so my plans all have to go on hold until the rain stops. For now I try looking at the bright side. "Well, I suppose it doesn't matter, we wouldn't be able to catch any hobins today anyway," I say. The rain gives Maven and his family a chance to expand their burrow, since they're in serious need of space now, with such a large stockpile of food. So even if it's not great for us, he needed the rain.
"Oh?" Emily says.
"Yeah, hobins expand their burrows when it rains. They dig while the dirt is soft and..." I trail off when I realize we're talking about this just as we're walking through our door and all of our roommates are looking at us.
Emily continues because she's still looking back at me and hasn't noticed the other girls yet. "So Maven is-" Of course I put a hand to her mouth quickly to stop her, but even that much info could be really bad. Well, it probably doesn't mean much without context, but still. Having access to a wild animal's mind and the ability to control its actions just feels so incredibly out of the ordinary, I'm sure it would freak out anyone who heard about it. Maven definitely needs to stay secret. Even just her mentioning his name makes me shudder. Of course, it only takes Emily an instant to realize where we are and turn to see the girls all sitting in our room.
However, it would seem that the bit she let slip isn't seen as the juiciest bit of information by our roommates, because they all turn to me rather than Emily.
"You know a lot about hobins, don't you?" Mary asks.
There's no use denying it, so I just nod with a pained grin. "Yeah, pretty much."
"Must be how she figured out a way to hunt them," Eve comments. "Still, knowing how they act in the rain seems like a bit much..." she giggles like it's funny for some reason. At least that's better than being creeped out I guess.
"I guess you learned about it before... That's right, you never did tell us about how you got here," Mary says, tilting her head a bit as she says it.
"Ooh!" Eve perks up, but then grimaces slightly. "Would you like to talk about it, or... not really?" She shrugs a little. She's definitely trying to say doesn't matter if I don't want to talk about it, but her excitement before kind of ruins the effect...
"I'm sorry, I can't talk about my past," I apologize. Everyone seems to understand from the looks of them. However, Jannette stands out a little when she raises an eyebrow curiously.
"It's fine, no big deal," Eve responds immediately, drawing my attention back to her. She's waving her hands, flustered. "Uhh, I'll tell you more about me instead!" she volunteers. I didn't really ask for that, but maybe she feels bad for prying? "My dad died three years ago and my mom died two years ago. My relatives all had kids of their own, so there was nowhere for us to go. That's how me and my brother wound up here," she explains very quickly, kind of rushing through her words.
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," I say. I don't know how else to respond. So Eve came to the orphanage with her brother two years ago. I still haven't met her little brother though, I wonder what he's like?
Helen suddenly chimes in, smiling a little. "My father died when I was younger, but I had my mother. She was a seamstress and she was really good at sewing," Wait, did this suddenly become story time or something? "But then someone broke into our house and killed her," she frowns. I gulp a little.
That's right, Jannette told me about this. Everyone else here is here because they lost their parents. No matter what, everyone here has a tragic story. No wonder why they usually try not to pry. "That was two years ago. I have an aunt, but she can't afford to take me in. When I get old enough, I'll show her how good I am at sewing, and maybe she'll give me a recommendation for work."
"That's really nice, I'm sure it'll work out," I encourage her. If her sewing is anything like her work with hair, she'll do great. At least she has a plan and hopes for the future, no matter what her past is.
Seemingly following suit, Mary goes next. "I never knew my father, but my mother raised me. She uhh..." she scratches her cheek with a somewhat coy look. "We did alright, but then one of her customers stabbed her. I don't think my relatives liked my mom much. They didn't want to take me in, so I came to the orphanage not long after that. That was about six months ago." There's clearly a lot she's leaving out, but it's a very sensitive topic, so no one asks any questions. I wonder if any of these girls have told each other about these things before?
I glance around a little to see everyone's responses, but the mixture of sadness and shock seems to indicate that they haven't. Then Emily speaks from beside me. "My dad died when I was really young, then my mother not long after. I don't have any relatives living in this city though. It's been four years since then." I've heard her story already, but it's still sad thinking about it again. My heart sinks when I remember what happened to her sister. Going through that when she was only three years old... I've been through more than most, but I've never experienced anything like that, it's hard to even imagine.
After Emily, everyone looks briefly at Jannette sitting over on her bed. She frowns and looks uncomfortable. It seems like she's not willing to respond, so everyone begins to turn away. But then she speaks up. "Four years." We all look back at her, but she's staring at the closed window, not meeting our eyes.
"That's right, you were here before I was," Emily comments. Now that I think about it, the other girls have only been here a year or two. Emily and Jannette have been here much longer, more than half of their lives. Jannette doesn't elaborate though, only offering how long she ago she moved into the orphanage. It puts a small thought in my head. Maybe she's hiding her past too. She couldn't also be a rail unit...? No, of course not. I shake my head a little at the thought. The other rail units in my group are fifteen, for her to be my age she would need to be broken too. I was the only broken one, so that can't be it.
There are a million other reasons she could be hiding her past. Of course, it's more likely that she doesn't have anything to hide. She probably just doesn't want to talk about it. By the time those thoughts filter through my head, I notice everyone looking to me. I'm the only one who hasn't shared anything.
I want to tell them something, but obviously I can't just tell them I'm a rail unit. I guess I'll tell them what little I know about my parents, since they told me about theirs, and how I came here. "I never knew my parents. Apparently they gave me up just after I was born. I had a really bad life since. About a month and a half ago, I left where I used to live. I got really sick for a few weeks, then moved in here. That was almost a month ago, huh..." I mutter the last part as I realize I've been staying here for twenty four days already. Longer even than the twenty days I spent at Marrianne's house.
"So... you left your old home by yourself? Why? Didn't you have a guardian taking care of you there?" Eve asks. All of the girls nod. Of course it doesn't make sense to willingly leave a stable home you've lived in for your whole life. They all came here because their parents died, they wouldn't understand me leaving intentionally.
"Yes. I hated living there." I put a hand to my head, thinking back on it. With how my emotions were quickly developing and growing stronger at the time, I'm sure I would have left eventually. But the real thing that forced me out was learning of my fate in the coming battle. "I learned something... And I knew I couldn't stay there anymore. So I left." I say it simply, but it still hurts. When I look back up at the girls, they're all frowning sadly. They don't know what I'm talking about, but they're all keenly aware of how terrible my past must be due to my nightmares.
Except for some reason, Mary is nodding like she understands? I don't know what she's thinking though as she does that. She must have gotten the wrong impression about something, but at least she's not yelling I'm a rail unit or running away, so whatever idea she has, at least it won't get me kicked out of the orphanage.
"You really do love living here," Jannette suddenly comments. It instantly reminds me of what she said the one time she came to talk to me before, about how everyone else here lost their families. Everyone looks surprised at her speaking, but I know what she means for once. Living here, for the first time in my life it feels like maybe, just maybe my life might not be completely worthless. There's at least one person here who doesn't want me to die. I know it's only because I'm lying to her, but... it still feels nice.
"Yeah," I respond. "This feels like a place where I could actually have a life." Even though it's going to end soon, this feels like a place where I actually could have made a life for myself like I wanted. The thought makes my chest hurt. I smile, wiping at my eyes as I tear up a little.
"What are you getting all choked up about? We're all friends here," Eve pats my head with a grin.
"F-friends?" I stammer at the sudden word. We're friends? I glance at the other girls, and besides Jannette, they all nod. "You'd be friends with... me?"
"Of course we would, you're great!" she laughs.
"No, I'm..." I gulp. It finally hits me. Am I really making more friends, right before I leave? Am I really going to hurt all of these girls? I look over to Emily. She knows exactly what I'm thinking, because she bites her lip and looks at the floor.
"Come on, don't be so glum, it's not like we'd get between you two," Eve grabs us and pulls us both so we press together, forming a sort of three person hug. She clearly doesn't know what we're really worried about, but it's not like I can tell her the real problem. I don't want to tell anyone else I'm leaving soon. It'll just cause more problems and hurt everyone more. But becoming friends... Isn't that even worse?
I squeeze my eyes shut. It feels like the guilt is going to tear me apart, but I can't reject all of them now. So I force the words out of my trembling lips. "S-sure. F-friends."
"That's what I'm talking about," Eve pumps her fist as she returns to her bed. Now that I'm actually watching her, I see her pick up some clothing from her bed as she sits down. Looks like she's sewing. I slowly release a breath, trying to push past the guilt. I need to focus again. I look around, noticing that all of the girls are sewing. It takes me some time, but I get my thoughts in order enough to realize they must all do their sewing and repairs on rainy days.
As I'm trying to think that through, Emily pulls me forward gently. We move over to our own beds, getting our supplies and starting on our own sewing.
Everyone is quiet for a bit, but then Emily comes over and whispers in my ear. "I'm a little worried about talking too much, can you..." She doesn't need to say any more. I give a slight nod. Trying to be discrete, I lean over to her ear, using the contact to pull out the earth mana. While I work on it, separating any of hers and pushing it back in as I go, I respond, "Sure, just a moment..." I try to make it quick, taking enough of the mana that she probably won't be that heavily affected by what remains. However, I had to remove quite a bit for that, so I immediately get to work absorbing it.
The other girls eye us curiously for a moment after we whisper to each other, but don't say anything and return their attention to their sewing. Since now I have too much earth mana, I try to keep quiet and focus on my work. But for some reason, it feels like Jannette's eyes are drilling into me, even though any time I glance up, she's not actually looking at me. So I try to ignore it and keep working. Unexpectedly, time passes quite quickly as we work. I jolt in surprise a little when the lunch whistle sounds without warning. I don't know if anyone notices my reaction, all I can do is just keep working.
I try to occupy my stray thoughts by keeping track of what Maven is up to. It seems his burrow has expanded pretty significantly. They have multiple tunnels heading downward, with a few different underground levels. It all goes pretty deep underground. It's far enough that they need to deal with a lot of tree roots growing everywhere. They've even hollowed out a good area for all their extra food now, so they can stockpile far more of it before running out of space. For now, it seems they're in a pretty big open area somewhere in the middle levels of their burrow. Maven has been trying to explain how to climb up trees and get fruit up above the ground to all the other hobins in his burrow for a little while now.
I get the feeling most don't understand, but at least a few seem to get what he's saying. I guess it's hard when they don't have a really defined words and can't exactly speak, not like people do. Still, it seems he's gotten a few more hobins up to speed. These really are going to be the best fed hobins ever, aren't they?
Thankfully, the day passes with little more than idle chatter from the girls after that. Emily gladly joins in since she can finally speak mostly freely again. It takes quite a while, working on the earth mana while I'm actually focusing on sewing, but I eventually do finish converting it all. I'm getting a little better at sewing too. I manage to finish patching my shirt and one skirt by the time the whistle sounds one more time.
That would be the last bell. I wonder when dinner is, since no one can hear the bells, and we even ate breakfast really late. "Is something wrong, Aria?" Emily asks quietly.
"No, I'm just wondering when dinner is."
"Probably not for a while, right? We didn't have breakfast all that long ago."
"Well, it has actually been quite a while," I mutter. It really is hard to tell time at all without the bells everyone relies on...
"It's been that long?" she asks, shrugging to show she has no idea.
"Well, the last bell already rang, so yeah," I say.
"Woah, I had no idea it was that late," she scratches her head. Though the other girls seem skeptical, Emily just accepts what I say. I guess it's because we've just been inside sewing all day; even though I heard the whistles, it doesn't feel late to me either. We haven't done anything, so we aren't tired. I just shrug and keep sewing. Dinner will be whenever they make it.
It really does end up taking a while longer. I'm getting a bit faster, but even at my speed, I finish a whole patch on one of my skirts while waiting to hear everyone up and about for dinner. Thankfully, it does finally come and we all go down to eat.
Despite not getting to study or make money today, it was an interesting day. I got to learn a lot more about my roommates, and became friends with them, even if I'm conflicted about it...
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After dinner, we go back up to our room. Emily and Helen take my hair out of the braids they put it in and wet it one more time. Since I'm already wet, I use the opportunity to rub my hair with my hands and wring it out, leaning out the window to get a little dirt out of it before dropping back off of the windowsill. Emily helps dry me off, then I get dressed again. Remembering what she said earlier, I've worn this pair of underwear for two days now, so I should switch to the others tomorrow and wash these. I guess I'll have to do that when we get back home tomorrow night.
We all settle in. I don't know how late it is since all of the bells have passed already, but it's definitely later than usual. I run my fingers through my hair, still damp despite wringing it out. It's much easier to get the knots out when it's wet. When I'm satisfied, I look back to Emily. She said she was going to tell me bed time stories, but I don't really want to be the one to bring it up since it must be hard on her...
She definitely notices me looking and returns an awkward grin.
"Hey Aria, are you thinking what I'm thinking?" she asks.
"U-umm..."
"Bed time stories?" asks Eve. So even she caught on...
"Yeah, we got sidetracked after, well, everything that happened." Emily looks away a bit, but soon shakes herself and turns her attention to me once more. "But I still want to tell you more bed time stories."
"Alright," I agree, though I still feel guilty.
"Good. Now, tonight I was thinking... Well, with what we talked about today, is it alright if I tell Little Billy?" She turns her question to the other girls. They all grimace, but nod anyway. "Alright, the message might be a little..." she trails off, "but it's a story everyone should know. I mean, we'll have children one day, so we should all know it, right?" she asks no one in particular. With some uncomfortable, mumbled agreement from the other girls, Emily presses on. She sits up at the end of her bed, and we all lie down like we did the other night.
Emily takes some time, preparing herself. What is this story about? Why does it make them all so nervous and uncomfortable?
Finally, with eyes closed, she recites the story.
It's like the last one, a rhyming story about a boy, this one named Little Billy. Emily tells it at a steady pace, she must have heard the story a lot if she can remember it all perfectly like this. Unlike the last one, there isn't an old man this time. It's about his parents telling him to do things. First it's his father telling him to stay close when they go into the city. When Little Billy doesn't listen, he gets lost and the guards have to bring him home. In the next part, his mother tells him not to go into the forest alone. Again, Little Billy doesn't listen, goes into the woods on his own, and is chased by animals. Somehow, he gets brought home by the guards again.
Next after that, his parents bring him to the river and tell him not to go in without them. Of course, he doesn't listen again and nearly drowns, before Shana ends up saving him. She scolds him for not listening to his parents, and when he goes back to them, he makes sure to always listen from then on.
And... apparently that's the whole story. I guess that's how these stories are. Short stories about kids just... doing things? Well, this kid was clearly acting badly because he didn't listen to his-
Oh. I sit up a little as I look over at Emily. Now I understand what she meant, and why no one wanted to hear this story. It's all about how children should listen to their parents... I mean, it's a really good story to learn things like these, I've run into two, arguably all three of these situations myself at this point. If I'd heard this story when I was younger, I probably could have avoided them. Not to mention, I learned very quickly when I was living with Marrianne to do what she told me or I would get hurt.
I get up and go over to Emily. "Thanks for the story," I say quietly as I hug her.
No one says much as we all get to sleep for the night. Emily eventually moves over to my bed and I slip under the blanket with her, and fall asleep soon after.
Unfortunately, the rain doesn't let up at all, and we spend the entire next day inside again. I finish patching my clothes, and Emily lets me help her repair her blanket, even though my sewing still isn't that good. At least I'm getting a lot of practice. Not that it'll save my life...
That night, Emily tells the story of Jay again. I guess I was right about needing to hear stories repeatedly to remember them well enough to recite from memory.
The sky finally clears again the day after that. It feels like I should curse Saras for missing two whole days, but that's probably a really bad idea, so I just try to focus on what I need to do instead.