Third Strand * Action

[paintsthewalls]

[Perched on a swing at the playground, Rapunzel is about as forlorn as a girl can get. She has spent the day trying not to think of her mother

Comments

[onebluebamf]

[Eventually, whether she notices his arrival or not, there's going to be a sort of blue demon thing crouched up on op of the swing set's frame.]

Wow, you look bummed.

[paintsthewalls]

[Where did HE come from? She must be more lost in thought than she had realized.]

Oh! Sorry, I didn't know you were there. Would you like a turn on this swinging seat-hanging-from-chains thing?

[onebluebamf]

Nahh! I've got my own. [He wraps his tail around the pole, then swings down upside down so they can speak face to face. Sort of.]

And it's called a swing.

[paintsthewalls]

[He's so......blue. Blue-looking. And he has a tail. Maybe she should pretend not to notice the blueness. Oooor maybe she should be afraid of him...would he be on Mother's List to Avoid?]

I am feeling a little blue today.

...Um. Sad. I am feeling sad today, what with all the...sad things.

[onebluebamf]

[He also has pointy ears and pointy teeth! But also a concerned face at her sadness.]

Ahh, well I'm blue all the time. What's wrong?

[paintsthewalls]

[Pointy teeth! She is noticing them now! But he seems far more like one of the fanged gentlemen at the Snuggly Duckling than like one of the scary men who'd attacked her during the shift.]

Welllll you probably don't want to hear about all that!

[And false cheerfulness and deflection is a go!]

I've never seen a boy with a tail before!

[onebluebamf]

[He miiight want to hear about it. And he'll press her for it. But he'll let her have her curiosity first.]

Well I've never seen a girl with so much hair! So we're even?

[paintsthewalls]

I'm learning that most people here have never seen a girl with hair as long as mine. I'm...kind of unusual, I guess. I wonder if other long-haired-people get stared at like this.

[onebluebamf]

Ahh, maybe they do. But I think for most people, their eyes come for the hair, but they stay for the pretty face.

[paintsthewalls]

Heh. Or on my overbite, probably. Mother keeps telling me she's going to have someone in to get it fixed, but--it's never quite the right time.

[But she is...blushing, at that compliment from the Blue Boy.]

[onebluebamf]

Overbite? What overbite?

[No seriously, he doesn't see it. But he got a blush from her, so he considers his job done.]

[paintsthewalls]

My teeth? They're crooked and ungainly, like boys' teeth? [It might be noticeable that she is parroting something that someone else has told her in the past, rather than an original thought. She blushes again.]

Nevermind. You've got kind of...pointy teeth, yourself.

[onebluebamf]

What? Whoever told you that was crazy. Your smile is beautiful!

[He doesn't comment on the pointy teeth, though. Because that DOES bother him, even if she doesn't mean anything by it.]

[paintsthewalls]

Oh, Mother--she always tries to help me, you know. I fail her a lot, but she still tries. [Gently she sways the swing again, leaning her temple against one of the chains.]

I didn't want to fail her picking out a new dress.

[onebluebamf]

[Somehow he doesn't like the sound of that. He lets his tail unwrap so he can fall to the ground, landing in a crouch.]

Well, it can't be that bad. Why would your mother care about getting a new dress?

[paintsthewalls]

She just knows how to do things the Right Way.

[Curious:]

You know something? You're very graceful for a blue person.