Post by rosallora on Feb 26, 2019 21:45:34 GMT -8
(Two shortfictions from Toast's past ^^ feel free to comment here OR on the discord if you please!)
Hardly Original Sin
Sister Toustain is drunk on church wine. She is thirteen years old and giggly, Sister Angelique shushing her hurriedly as Toustain clutches a holy chalice to her chest. Angelique, two years her senior, is rushing the two of them through the catacombs underneath the church, the crumbling dirt walls soaking in the sound of their near-screeching laughter. Toustain is trying not to stumble. Angelique supports her, the neck of a bottle grasped in her other hand.
The wine is splashing on the floor alongside their sloppy footsteps. Everything about them is loose. Toustain loses the cord around her middle somewhere mid-run, her robes flowing more around her. Angelique’s head wrapping is gone altogether - she hadn’t had it on when she’d slipped into Toustain’s quarters with her intentions.
They finally run into a dead end after a few turns, not caring how lost they are. They press up together, giggling and talking about nothing. There’s no light down here aside from the torch Toustain remembered, the flame thin. The two of them feel around on the wall until they find a sconce and mount it before dissolving into their laughter again, sliding down the wall to sit side by side. Angelique pours more wine into the goblet. Toustain raises it to her lips and drinks until she needs breath.
Angelique doesn’t try to stop her, taking it in turn and tossing the rest back in an impressive show of sin. Toustain watches her, cheeks flushed with alcohol. She grabs for the chalice again, only to find it empty. Angelique is drinking out of the bottle, not waiting to get it back.
Toustain has lived in the abbey five years. Five years of work, prayer, dedication, and devotion. She believes in the Light. She believes in doing good things.
She also believes that sister Angelique is sinful, and kind of amazing, and that her slightly insidious way around the rules makes her untouchable. She watches her throat as she drinks, and addled as she is, she even thinks the look of her drinking is… almost good. Angelique smiles and wipes her mouth off with her bare arm, her lips stained from the wine. Evidence.
Toustain is past fear. She’s been past fear for a good forty five minutes. The torch is still burning and she feels warm in her stomach, a kind of odd vibration that’s traveling to her limbs with time. Yes, this is wrong. But she’s wanted to do this with Angelique and hadn’t had the spine to do it yet. And yes it was sinful and wrong but she was good, she was right, she’d confess later and be forgiven. Right now she had Angelique’s attention and she was warm from the wine, and it was all its own reward.
Her toes are scraped from running on stone and stumbling. There’s a small gash on her knee that doesn’t hurt. Angelique looks much better than she does, she thinks. She didn’t fall. She’s done this before.
She has this golden hair in waves down to her mid-back that would inspire vanity in others, but Angelique never bragged about her looks. And she wasn’t a glut, either, despite the wine. No. Toustain knew that this was Wrath. She knew Angelique was angry, angry that she was here,angry that she was the second daughter of a nobleman, angry that she had no dowry - same as her. She didn’t want to be a sister, nor a vestal, eventually. She was similar to Toustain, that way; perhaps in a few years Toustain would be the one sneaking into the off-rooms where the holy wine and wafers were kept, and eat and drink out of spite. But she likes helping people and she likes serving the Light.
Angelique is giving her a look and Toustain turns her head away, pressing her hands to her flushed face. The other laughs, scoots closer. Toustain turns slowly, watching those light blue eyes like heaven’s sky boring into her, asking her some unspoken question. Toustain rests her head against Angelique’s shoulder, a silly smile on her face. Angelique takes another swig from the bottle. The chalice is long forgotten.
There is a long period of silence. The giggles have subsided, and all that remains in the catacombs is the torchlight, and two girls. Everything in all creation felt warm. Angelique’s shoulder felt warm. Her breath, though soft and distant, felt warm.
Toustain finds her eyes closing, and she falls asleep slumped against her co-conspirator.
-----------------------------------------
Yuletide Cheer
“I’m surprised that they even let us have a tree,” the girl beside Toustain Royer says grumpily. She has bouncy hair like spun gold and eyes like the sky - so different from her. Toast folds her arms next to her, looking at the pine that had been brought indoors for the church’s yuletide season. Six years had passed since she had first come here, but it as the first time that the nuns had allowed something so strange inside of the sanctuary - a tradition from another country, they said, to help lift spirits. Something new. Candles in fluted glass casings had been set in the branches, small baubles and trinkets adorning it. The scent of the outdoors was swept inside with the tree, especially when the older girl rolls one of the strange evergreen needles between her fingers. “It’s not like we get much of anything else.”
Toustain turns to look at her classmate, still shuffling her socked feet. “…It’s pretty, Angelique. I think that it’s nice.” she states.
“Yeah well. Sure, I guess.” Angelique inclines her chin, betraying the stature of a nobleman’s daughter. “It’s sad for a tennenbaum though. The nuns can’t even get that right. Back home, they were ten times taller. And ten times fancier, too.”
The vestal feels her shoulders cave inwards a bit. She’d thought that it was a rather grand display.
“And they’re making us do something for it, so I can’t be happy with it. Tennenbaum aren’t work. They’re fun, crumb. And this?” She holds up a homemade ornament. “This isn’t fun.”
Toustain handles her own in her hands - a rather bad representation of a horse, made of sapped together sticks stripped of their bark, and a few lengths of ribbon and twine. She’d enjoyed making it well enough - it was a break from the cleaning and praying and endless, endless lessons - but if Angelique didn’t think it was fun, well. How could it be?
“Yours turned out kinda nice,” the blonde admits. She eyes Toustain’s stick-horse with a judgmental eye. “Maybe I made a mistake with going for a wreath.”
They both look at Angelique’s rather sad looking thing, splotched green paper ripped into fake leaves with unconvincing black berries - they hadn’t been able to find any red ink, rare as it seemed to be.
“I like it,” Toast says, weakly.
“Wow, you liar. Go say a rosary or something.”
Toast flashes a bashful smile, looking at her horse instead. She felt more proud of it by the moment. She wishes she had found some scrap fabric for a saddle, or maybe some nicer string for a bridle. But this is what you got for waiting until the very last moment. “Not a rather nice thing to say so close to Yuletide.”
“We’ll be saying Yuletide rosaries all through the night anyway,” Angelique sighs, turning away from the tree. “And working at dawn Yuletide morning!”
Toustain doesn’t say anything against that. it wasn’t like she enjoyed working on yuletide, but… there were just so many people to help. “I hear that Madame Greir is having her child tonight. Sister Harriet went with a few of the older girls to help out.”
“They’re going to be wishing they were at home saying rosaries when they’re covered in birthing blood.”
Toustain shudders at the thought as she puts her horse ornament in the tree. “Is that why you didn’t go?”
“What do I know about birthing children?” Angelique throws her arms up to the sky, as if expecting the answer to rain down on her. “What does anyone, really, until they do it. Sister Harriet’s never had a child. Sister Margareta should’ve gone.”
“Maybe, but… Sister Margareta never goes to birthings.”
The two look at each other with a question that isn’t answered. The two of them stand in a strange silence, the light of the tree cast over the two of them. Toustain bends down and pulls up her woolen socks until they nearly reach her knees. “Ah, Angelique… the wreath.”
“Right,” Angelique steps back to the tennenbaum, and shoves the ugly decoration somewhere in the middle. She sets her hands on her hips and grimaces a bit. “Smells weird.”
“I like the outdoors smell!” Toast asserts. “Reminds me of home a bit. It was a different smell, but. Warm? Dirty. It’s… uh…”
“Reminiscent.”
“Yes,” she replies, not understanding what that meant at all.
“Miss it?”
The girl blinks. Does she? “..I mean. I guess.”
“But not really. Crumb, it’s better that way. It’s better, not to miss things, I think.” The blonde is decisive as she puts a hand on Toast’s head, ruffling a mop of brown hair. Beneath, the other finds a laugh, pushing at her playfully. Angelique looks away, gaze darting to the heavy, oaken doors of the Chauventry sanctuary. “We should probably get back, before we’re missed.”
“No,” Toast says quietly. “Let’s just… stay a few minutes longer. It’s nice. We haven’t even looked at all the other decorations yet.”
Angelique rolls her eyes, but says nothing against it. Toustain steps around the tree, admiring it from every angle, and eventually, her friend joins her.
=
Toast lights the last few candles, stepping away from a well-lit tree that stood in a front corner of the sanctuary. Carefully trimmed, decorated with small wooden carvings and baubles from the nomads, it looked like something to be enjoyed. Something to be shared. Lights refracts through blown glass spheres and reflects off of shiny metal tokens.
Sister Josephine smiles, arms clasped behind her back. “It looks lovely, Sister Toustain.”
She nods in reply, “it does, truly.”
Hardly Original Sin
Sister Toustain is drunk on church wine. She is thirteen years old and giggly, Sister Angelique shushing her hurriedly as Toustain clutches a holy chalice to her chest. Angelique, two years her senior, is rushing the two of them through the catacombs underneath the church, the crumbling dirt walls soaking in the sound of their near-screeching laughter. Toustain is trying not to stumble. Angelique supports her, the neck of a bottle grasped in her other hand.
The wine is splashing on the floor alongside their sloppy footsteps. Everything about them is loose. Toustain loses the cord around her middle somewhere mid-run, her robes flowing more around her. Angelique’s head wrapping is gone altogether - she hadn’t had it on when she’d slipped into Toustain’s quarters with her intentions.
They finally run into a dead end after a few turns, not caring how lost they are. They press up together, giggling and talking about nothing. There’s no light down here aside from the torch Toustain remembered, the flame thin. The two of them feel around on the wall until they find a sconce and mount it before dissolving into their laughter again, sliding down the wall to sit side by side. Angelique pours more wine into the goblet. Toustain raises it to her lips and drinks until she needs breath.
Angelique doesn’t try to stop her, taking it in turn and tossing the rest back in an impressive show of sin. Toustain watches her, cheeks flushed with alcohol. She grabs for the chalice again, only to find it empty. Angelique is drinking out of the bottle, not waiting to get it back.
Toustain has lived in the abbey five years. Five years of work, prayer, dedication, and devotion. She believes in the Light. She believes in doing good things.
She also believes that sister Angelique is sinful, and kind of amazing, and that her slightly insidious way around the rules makes her untouchable. She watches her throat as she drinks, and addled as she is, she even thinks the look of her drinking is… almost good. Angelique smiles and wipes her mouth off with her bare arm, her lips stained from the wine. Evidence.
Toustain is past fear. She’s been past fear for a good forty five minutes. The torch is still burning and she feels warm in her stomach, a kind of odd vibration that’s traveling to her limbs with time. Yes, this is wrong. But she’s wanted to do this with Angelique and hadn’t had the spine to do it yet. And yes it was sinful and wrong but she was good, she was right, she’d confess later and be forgiven. Right now she had Angelique’s attention and she was warm from the wine, and it was all its own reward.
Her toes are scraped from running on stone and stumbling. There’s a small gash on her knee that doesn’t hurt. Angelique looks much better than she does, she thinks. She didn’t fall. She’s done this before.
She has this golden hair in waves down to her mid-back that would inspire vanity in others, but Angelique never bragged about her looks. And she wasn’t a glut, either, despite the wine. No. Toustain knew that this was Wrath. She knew Angelique was angry, angry that she was here,angry that she was the second daughter of a nobleman, angry that she had no dowry - same as her. She didn’t want to be a sister, nor a vestal, eventually. She was similar to Toustain, that way; perhaps in a few years Toustain would be the one sneaking into the off-rooms where the holy wine and wafers were kept, and eat and drink out of spite. But she likes helping people and she likes serving the Light.
Angelique is giving her a look and Toustain turns her head away, pressing her hands to her flushed face. The other laughs, scoots closer. Toustain turns slowly, watching those light blue eyes like heaven’s sky boring into her, asking her some unspoken question. Toustain rests her head against Angelique’s shoulder, a silly smile on her face. Angelique takes another swig from the bottle. The chalice is long forgotten.
There is a long period of silence. The giggles have subsided, and all that remains in the catacombs is the torchlight, and two girls. Everything in all creation felt warm. Angelique’s shoulder felt warm. Her breath, though soft and distant, felt warm.
Toustain finds her eyes closing, and she falls asleep slumped against her co-conspirator.
-----------------------------------------
Yuletide Cheer
“I’m surprised that they even let us have a tree,” the girl beside Toustain Royer says grumpily. She has bouncy hair like spun gold and eyes like the sky - so different from her. Toast folds her arms next to her, looking at the pine that had been brought indoors for the church’s yuletide season. Six years had passed since she had first come here, but it as the first time that the nuns had allowed something so strange inside of the sanctuary - a tradition from another country, they said, to help lift spirits. Something new. Candles in fluted glass casings had been set in the branches, small baubles and trinkets adorning it. The scent of the outdoors was swept inside with the tree, especially when the older girl rolls one of the strange evergreen needles between her fingers. “It’s not like we get much of anything else.”
Toustain turns to look at her classmate, still shuffling her socked feet. “…It’s pretty, Angelique. I think that it’s nice.” she states.
“Yeah well. Sure, I guess.” Angelique inclines her chin, betraying the stature of a nobleman’s daughter. “It’s sad for a tennenbaum though. The nuns can’t even get that right. Back home, they were ten times taller. And ten times fancier, too.”
The vestal feels her shoulders cave inwards a bit. She’d thought that it was a rather grand display.
“And they’re making us do something for it, so I can’t be happy with it. Tennenbaum aren’t work. They’re fun, crumb. And this?” She holds up a homemade ornament. “This isn’t fun.”
Toustain handles her own in her hands - a rather bad representation of a horse, made of sapped together sticks stripped of their bark, and a few lengths of ribbon and twine. She’d enjoyed making it well enough - it was a break from the cleaning and praying and endless, endless lessons - but if Angelique didn’t think it was fun, well. How could it be?
“Yours turned out kinda nice,” the blonde admits. She eyes Toustain’s stick-horse with a judgmental eye. “Maybe I made a mistake with going for a wreath.”
They both look at Angelique’s rather sad looking thing, splotched green paper ripped into fake leaves with unconvincing black berries - they hadn’t been able to find any red ink, rare as it seemed to be.
“I like it,” Toast says, weakly.
“Wow, you liar. Go say a rosary or something.”
Toast flashes a bashful smile, looking at her horse instead. She felt more proud of it by the moment. She wishes she had found some scrap fabric for a saddle, or maybe some nicer string for a bridle. But this is what you got for waiting until the very last moment. “Not a rather nice thing to say so close to Yuletide.”
“We’ll be saying Yuletide rosaries all through the night anyway,” Angelique sighs, turning away from the tree. “And working at dawn Yuletide morning!”
Toustain doesn’t say anything against that. it wasn’t like she enjoyed working on yuletide, but… there were just so many people to help. “I hear that Madame Greir is having her child tonight. Sister Harriet went with a few of the older girls to help out.”
“They’re going to be wishing they were at home saying rosaries when they’re covered in birthing blood.”
Toustain shudders at the thought as she puts her horse ornament in the tree. “Is that why you didn’t go?”
“What do I know about birthing children?” Angelique throws her arms up to the sky, as if expecting the answer to rain down on her. “What does anyone, really, until they do it. Sister Harriet’s never had a child. Sister Margareta should’ve gone.”
“Maybe, but… Sister Margareta never goes to birthings.”
The two look at each other with a question that isn’t answered. The two of them stand in a strange silence, the light of the tree cast over the two of them. Toustain bends down and pulls up her woolen socks until they nearly reach her knees. “Ah, Angelique… the wreath.”
“Right,” Angelique steps back to the tennenbaum, and shoves the ugly decoration somewhere in the middle. She sets her hands on her hips and grimaces a bit. “Smells weird.”
“I like the outdoors smell!” Toast asserts. “Reminds me of home a bit. It was a different smell, but. Warm? Dirty. It’s… uh…”
“Reminiscent.”
“Yes,” she replies, not understanding what that meant at all.
“Miss it?”
The girl blinks. Does she? “..I mean. I guess.”
“But not really. Crumb, it’s better that way. It’s better, not to miss things, I think.” The blonde is decisive as she puts a hand on Toast’s head, ruffling a mop of brown hair. Beneath, the other finds a laugh, pushing at her playfully. Angelique looks away, gaze darting to the heavy, oaken doors of the Chauventry sanctuary. “We should probably get back, before we’re missed.”
“No,” Toast says quietly. “Let’s just… stay a few minutes longer. It’s nice. We haven’t even looked at all the other decorations yet.”
Angelique rolls her eyes, but says nothing against it. Toustain steps around the tree, admiring it from every angle, and eventually, her friend joins her.
=
Toast lights the last few candles, stepping away from a well-lit tree that stood in a front corner of the sanctuary. Carefully trimmed, decorated with small wooden carvings and baubles from the nomads, it looked like something to be enjoyed. Something to be shared. Lights refracts through blown glass spheres and reflects off of shiny metal tokens.
Sister Josephine smiles, arms clasped behind her back. “It looks lovely, Sister Toustain.”
She nods in reply, “it does, truly.”