[location | visual] Morning at Mattie's Apartment

[saucyspinster]

Mattie awoke with the sun as she always does, washed and dressed, the empty sleeve of her left arm pinned up neatly, read her Bible and checked the contents of her larder. Now it's time for cooking breakfast (there's an art to doing it one-handed that she mastered years ago, and carries the burns to prove it), and only now as she sets the table

Comments

[ visual ]

[ironfright]

[ he stares ]

Minnow?

[ visual ]

[saucyspinster]

[She frowns back. Her memory of Taxon is a quarter century old, but the faces are all there.]

I recall your face but not your name.

[ visual ]

[ironfright]

Wynn.

[ visual ]

[saucyspinster]

You knew me when I was a child.

[She hasn't discovered yet that in the eyes of Taxon, she was that child only yesterday.]

[voice]

[rose_tainted]

The breakfast does look good from Rose's point of view. However, she doesn't know the woman and wouldn't intrude upon her hospitality. Still, it doesn't stop Rose from saying.

"That looks really good."

[voice]

[saucyspinster]

It would taste good as well if you had a mind to try some.

[voice]

[rose_tainted]

Oh, I couldn't. It's okay. You don't even know who I am.

[voice]

[saucyspinster]

And whose fault is that? Have some manners and introduce yourself, then I shall know who you are and you may have some breakfast.

[visual]

[justaddmarbles]

...huh. Someone who was distinctive but unfamiliar but who seemed comfortable in the city. Glitch decided to go with "friendly" as a response to see if he'd remember her.

"No need for it, no, b-but I kinda wish I did. That looks fantastic."

[visual]

[saucyspinster]

"Thank you." Like the other man, he looks familiar to Mattie, a face from part of her past that seems like a dream. "I am Miss Ross. You will excuse me, I am sure, for the presumption of introducing myself, but I do not think I have been here in a very long time. It seems therefore prudent to do so."

[visual]

[justaddmarbles]

"Oh, you're completely excused, I was just trying to remember if I knew your name, so...thank you, Miss Ross." He inclined his head politely, then decided to return the favor of an introduction. "I'm Glitch, by the by. It's...been a long time, you say? You left a-and've come back?"

[visual]

[saucyspinster]

"It has been twenty-five years." Mattie would call that a long time, it certainly seems so to her, especially now, faced with all of these cloudy memories from her past. "It appears that for some reason I have, though it is not my preference to go to sleep in one bed and wake in another. I find it troublesome."

[location]

[honoraryhobo]

He enters the room almost noiselessly and lingers a moment just inside the doorway, breathing in the smell of the food. While Miss Ross speaks to her tablet he pulls back a chair and takes a seat, back straight, hands folded neatly in his lap. Only his eyes move, his gaze swinging back and forth from the meal laid out on the table to the conversation on the tablet.

[location]

[saucyspinster]

When the boy sits down (somehow she expected him, although she isn't sure yet why), Mattie puts the tablet aside and pulls out her own chair. She sits, then fixes him with an assessing gaze before speaking.

"We have met before but I think it was a long time ago. You may call me Miss Mattie. Would you like to say grace?"

[location]

[honoraryhobo]

Dick has no practice in the art of concealing his thoughts: as Mattie joins him at the table he stares, looking at the woman but for traces of the girl who shared this table with him yesterday. He stares at what's left of her arm, his mouth twisting into a pensive grimace.

He doesn't correct her. He doesn't ask if she remembers his name or how she prays with only one hand. "Yes, Miss Mattie," he says, clasping his hands and bowing his head and closing his eyes. He recites, in his timid melodious voice, the same grace he's heard her say.

[location]

[saucyspinster]

Twenty-five years ago, Mattie had a crisis about one-handed prayer, but came quickly to the very reasonable conclusion that if God loved all His creatures, that included the ones with missing limbs, and He would hear their prayers all the same. So instead of folding her hands she places her one hand over her heart, and bows her head to listen to the child's recitation.

"Very good," she says, when he finishes, with an approving nod. One of the hazy things Mattie remembers about Taxon is that it was by all accounts a godless place, and it's good to see that's not completely true. "Give me your plate, and if you can do it without speaking with your mouth full, you may tell me what you have been lately doing."

[ visual ]

[allthefunever]

"I'd know that tone anywhere." Morning, Mattie. Have a half naked Damon peering at you. "The voice is new, though. Grow up overnight, Tiny?"

[ visual ]

[saucyspinster]

And Mattie would know that one. Have a highly disapproving glare, Damon. "Mr. Salvatore, have some decency and kindly put some clothes on before you appear in public. And some respect for your elders would not go amiss either."

[ visual ]

[allthefunever]

"I have pants on." Which is entirely helpful, really. "And you should know me by now, I avoid decency whenever possible."

...Oh, this is too good to pass up. "Yes ma'am." Mocking and somehow vaguely sexual: a Damon Salvatore specialty.

[ visual ]

[saucyspinster]

"Well it is good to know that you are capable of that much without instruction," Mattie snaps back.

She's not (has never been) sure what to do with that kind of tone, however, so she presses her lips together tightly and looks away. Score one for the insolent ne'er-do-well. "Since you have asked a question and to leave it unanswered would be impolite, no. I grew up as is the general process, one day following the next. While I am sure it seems overnight from your point of view, you will perhaps learn in time that the world is not ordered according to your perception of it."