ArchivedLogs:Vignette - Flights of Angels

Vignette - Flights of Angels
Dramatis Personae Lia
In Absentia	1 November 2013 One of Lia's wanderings around the city.
Location Around NYC
Painted eyes find button eyes and button eyes find glass. The glass eyes find stone and the stone finds sight. Little stone fingers flutter from stillness and rounded stone arms slide down for rest at last from their eternal graceful wide-stretch. Dimpled stone legs lift and bend knees that only ever knew straightness. Plump stone feet lift away from colder, lifeless stone beneath. The plump feet taptaptap across damp stone, reaching the little fingers up to stroke lightly against another arm. The stony eyes blink, regarding the other form--frozen yet in its perfectly sculpted Botticelli cherub features--kneeling and serenely pouring water from an urn into a fountain basin in an endless burbling stream. The fingers reach over a shoulder to pet at their own matching set of stunted, feathered wings. The wings are still and heavy, stiffly rising from between the shoulder blades. Lia expands to fill her new container like a gas, gaining ease of movement as the form fully awakens. All but the wings--they travel behind her like a solid shadow. Her arms lift over her head in the fifth position, raising up on fat little feet in a pirouette that is surprisingly graceful for a chubby toddler with wings. She bends to gather up the discarded rag doll that had carried her this far, tucking it in the crook of one pudgy arm, and straightens once more. With a giggle, she waves to her frozen-stone companion in a coquettish waggling of fingers, then clambers down to scurry along the ground where there is less risk of eyes following her. The pitter-patter of little stone feet through the park's gardens and low-growing foliage might be a cat or a particularly obese squirrel, if one does not investigate further. The people of the park seem largely inclined not to do so, even when a pet dog or two shows interest in the rustling. Lia approaches a playground, drawn by the sound of children laughing. Its occupants seem to consist largely of nannies and stay-at-home mothers sitting and chatting on benches while the young children play, their numbers sparse around mid-day. She comes as close as she dares, peeking out from amongst the branches of a decorative shrub that has yet to lose its greenery to the increasingly insistent chill of autumn. Lia watches, still and quiet save for the occasional stretch of limbs or titter of amusement that could not be suppressed fully before it escapes past the cupid's bow of her stone lips. There is no cause to give her any notice, save for one preschool girl's sixth sense for Strange and Interesting that comes with being a preschool girl. She creeps up so very near the small garden where Lia hides, with her deep brown eyes staring out from a lighter brown face. She turns so suddenly that the pair of gathered top-of-head puffs that are her hair bobble with the force. The stone cherub finds herself quite enchanted with the youngster, watching as she flees back to the park to retrieve a taller girl, too old for pre-school, perhaps one of the small group of homeschoolers in the park. The taller girl's hair is a wealth of braids and bright beads that glitter in the sun and clack when she turns her head. Lia has to remind herself to stay back rather than going out to touch them. The smaller girl gestures the taller one down, whispering into her ear. The taller one scoffs, looking where the smaller one gestures. “That's not a monster. That's just a stone /baby/,” the girl declares with a shake of her head and a clatter of her beads. When the older girl stalks forward with her fearless school-aged warrior's stride, Lia abruptly realises it may be time to go. She tucks the rag doll into the bush, perhaps as a present for the smaller child or simply a distraction, and flees in another rustling of foliage. When the girls finally come up to the bush, the elder /dives/ on it with a triumphant, “Got ya!” Though when she rights again, her hand contains only a dirty rag doll with chipped glass eyes and yarn hair. “Oh.” The girl's nose scrunches as she looks at the doll, then she half-hands, half-chucks it at the younger girl. “Just a /doll/. Don't know what you were so worked up over, no-how.” The wide-eyed child grips the doll tight and runs back to the playground. Lia giggles as she makes her way through the gardens to safety, the effect no doubt /fey/ to any looking too closely at the shrubs and plants. When she pauses for breath, her eyes close and she casts her senses back to her body where it rests, curled up in a corner behind a beanbag back at the Lofts. She notes two people near her, even touching her arms, and frowns. With a nod, she makes the decision to return her borrowed stone form to its fountain, though her progress on this last leg of the journey is slower and less playful. At last, she climbs back up to her pedestal, her fingers brushing the apple-cheek of her brother cherub with a familiar fondness as she passes. Her arms stretch, her knees lock, and the stone eyes watch nothing. Lia slips into her own body as if into a pair of well broken-in shoes, filling the accustomed shape effortlessly. Her eyes flit open and her ears process sound again in time to note a teenaged boy declaring, “She's dead,” rather flatly. The older woman shaking her by the arm frowns at the boy. “She's breathing. Stop being dramatic.” The woman draws a deep breath, at once surprised and relieved when Lia's eyes open. “Sugar, you wouldn't move or answer for some /while/ now,” she accuses softly. “Not dead,” Lia declares with a knowing smile. She stretches her arms up, up, up and out like a person just waking from a long night's sleep, though the stretch lacks an associated yawn. Instead, she hops swiftly to her feet, turning and gliding a few steps toward the apartment's door to head off who-knows-where. “Just dreaming.”