flavour of the day and pistachio with fresh blueberries, sprinkles and butterscotch
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: Beautiful Girl
Rating: G
Challenge: FOTD: philomath, Pistachio: fuzzy/feathered friends
Toppings/Extras: sprinkles, butterscotch, fresh blueberries
Wordcount: 566
Summary: Edgar Blackledge knows what he will dedicate his life to.
Notes: This flavour of the day could’ve belonged to a huge number of my characters, but then I had this random pistachio prompt left. Philomath: A lover of learning; a scholar. Blueberries: There is no wealth but life.
They would always be one of his favourites. Edgar Blackledge stood waist-deep into the tank, running his pale fingers over the tough, wrinkled skin of the manatee next to him, which twisted lazily beneath the warm water. When she drifted to a halt in front of him, Edgar smiled and rubbed at her back again as the grey skin broke the surface.
Elsewhere in the tank, globular bodies bounded along the pebble-layered bottom, flat beaver-like tails propelling their large forms. They were big, and at first approach a little intimidating, but Edgar had stopped being scared of them a long time ago. Manatees had the most elegant and slightly sad expressions on their canine-looking faces all of the time, and despite their size they carried themselves with the dignity of ballerinas when submerged. When they moved they were sinewy; liquidy; coalescing perfectly with the water around them.
“Swim forever, beautiful girl,” he murmured, crouching with his lips against the lapping water, smiling slightly as the manatee they had named Abigail rolled over onto her back and then lolled like that a moment, hanging still, drifting ever so slightly. Sometimes he could have sworn they had a sense of humour.
He didn’t understand people who felt stupid when talking to animals. He’d been talking to animals all of his life.
“Edgar,” he heard his mother’s voice call quietly across the still air and water. The teenage boy turned, rising at the same time, water sliding from his pale skin and dotting into the water. On his back was tattooed in black, unignorable font: AD-01. The Facility-born boy’s smile widened and he waded his way out of the water, which gently sloped onto land.
“Hi,” he said simply. He was never very talkative; Blackledges didn’t tend to be, and though he hadn’t been raised amongst his clones, it seemed that the trait had carried.
“You said you’ve been wanting to learn about lizard-hatching,” she said, using the same quiet voice so as not to disturb the peace of the marine sanctum they had created; her words were framed only by the thrumming heartbeat of the water and the occasional snuffle as something surfaced briefly for a breath. “It’s nearly time.” She handed him a towel which he wrapped around his shoulders gratefully.
Edgar liked his mother and got on well with her out of more than sheer necessity-she was thoughtful, quiet and fiercely intelligent. She never badgered him for anything that wasn’t for the good of the animals-and he had grown up loving animals just like her.
“And one of the birthing tubes for the new wolf cubs is having a bit of a malfunction,” she said, strolling towards the door, out of the heated, humid air inside the marine sanctum. “I’m sure you could fix it.”
They exchanged a smile because such a task was never a chore to him; Edgar loved to fix things and had a near-insatiable thirst for knowledge. He wanted to do exactly what his mother did, someday. He’d never been sent to school-at the time of his adoption, the Blackledge Project was still in its infancy and a venture of dire secrecy, and in many ways it still was in his mid-teen years-but he felt as though he was learning exactly what he needed to know, exactly what he wanted to know.
“I’ll go change,” he said brightly.
Title: Beautiful Girl
Rating: G
Challenge: FOTD: philomath, Pistachio: fuzzy/feathered friends
Toppings/Extras: sprinkles, butterscotch, fresh blueberries
Wordcount: 566
Summary: Edgar Blackledge knows what he will dedicate his life to.
Notes: This flavour of the day could’ve belonged to a huge number of my characters, but then I had this random pistachio prompt left. Philomath: A lover of learning; a scholar. Blueberries: There is no wealth but life.
They would always be one of his favourites. Edgar Blackledge stood waist-deep into the tank, running his pale fingers over the tough, wrinkled skin of the manatee next to him, which twisted lazily beneath the warm water. When she drifted to a halt in front of him, Edgar smiled and rubbed at her back again as the grey skin broke the surface.
Elsewhere in the tank, globular bodies bounded along the pebble-layered bottom, flat beaver-like tails propelling their large forms. They were big, and at first approach a little intimidating, but Edgar had stopped being scared of them a long time ago. Manatees had the most elegant and slightly sad expressions on their canine-looking faces all of the time, and despite their size they carried themselves with the dignity of ballerinas when submerged. When they moved they were sinewy; liquidy; coalescing perfectly with the water around them.
“Swim forever, beautiful girl,” he murmured, crouching with his lips against the lapping water, smiling slightly as the manatee they had named Abigail rolled over onto her back and then lolled like that a moment, hanging still, drifting ever so slightly. Sometimes he could have sworn they had a sense of humour.
He didn’t understand people who felt stupid when talking to animals. He’d been talking to animals all of his life.
“Edgar,” he heard his mother’s voice call quietly across the still air and water. The teenage boy turned, rising at the same time, water sliding from his pale skin and dotting into the water. On his back was tattooed in black, unignorable font: AD-01. The Facility-born boy’s smile widened and he waded his way out of the water, which gently sloped onto land.
“Hi,” he said simply. He was never very talkative; Blackledges didn’t tend to be, and though he hadn’t been raised amongst his clones, it seemed that the trait had carried.
“You said you’ve been wanting to learn about lizard-hatching,” she said, using the same quiet voice so as not to disturb the peace of the marine sanctum they had created; her words were framed only by the thrumming heartbeat of the water and the occasional snuffle as something surfaced briefly for a breath. “It’s nearly time.” She handed him a towel which he wrapped around his shoulders gratefully.
Edgar liked his mother and got on well with her out of more than sheer necessity-she was thoughtful, quiet and fiercely intelligent. She never badgered him for anything that wasn’t for the good of the animals-and he had grown up loving animals just like her.
“And one of the birthing tubes for the new wolf cubs is having a bit of a malfunction,” she said, strolling towards the door, out of the heated, humid air inside the marine sanctum. “I’m sure you could fix it.”
They exchanged a smile because such a task was never a chore to him; Edgar loved to fix things and had a near-insatiable thirst for knowledge. He wanted to do exactly what his mother did, someday. He’d never been sent to school-at the time of his adoption, the Blackledge Project was still in its infancy and a venture of dire secrecy, and in many ways it still was in his mid-teen years-but he felt as though he was learning exactly what he needed to know, exactly what he wanted to know.
“I’ll go change,” he said brightly.