three.

[ohmykethe]

Comments

[ video ]

[slatebreaker]

...How about a friend? I can bandage a cut as well as the next schoolmistress.

[ her concern is evident. ]

[action.]

[ohmykethe]

[Mildmay assumes she says nothing out of kindness, which is a level of restraint he finds admirable and a great relief. As if it weren't obviously, the scar isn't a topic of discussion he enjoys.]

[Mildmay takes the basket and puts it gingerly on the card table in the living room.] Yeah. This, uh, this looks great. Thanks, Anne.

[action.]

[slatebreaker]

When you said you lived with Kay...did you mean Mrs. Eaton?

[ she takes a bold step into the room. ]

[action.]

[ohmykethe]

Yeah, her. You met her? [Mildmay wonders if he should close the door behind her, and decides ultimately not to, despite the risk. He shouldn't like to frighten the poor girl.]

[action.]

[slatebreaker]

[ oh, no need to fear. anne will quite happily shut that door herself. ]

We've spoken, and I did see her earlier today in the shops.

[action.]

[ohmykethe]

Oh, uh, good. She's right nice, her. [Mildmay cannot recall ever wanting to manage smalltalk before, and the desire is strange and odd within him. The knowledge that despite that want, he is surely failing, is however quite familiar.]

[action.]

[slatebreaker]

[ anne stood with her hands clasped in front of her. ]

Did you find her very quickly? Because it took an awful long time for me to find a place to live. I was stay at that dreadfully empty Welcome Centre for months.

[action.]

[ohmykethe]

I could'a never standed that. [A shrug.] Naw, she said she'd show me around this place, and then up and offered me a room. [He has a few theories as to why, but none of them are proper conversation topics with polite company. At least, that's what he's figuring.]

[action.]

[slatebreaker]

Oh, I barely survived. But I was so very disinclined to live alone and a stranger might have been even worse. I stayed very briefly in an apartment with a Miss Jacky but she -- oh, she was sent home very soon after and I returned to the centre. It was just as well, really...these apartments are very sweet and convenient but I am ever so used to living in a great big house.

[ green gables. she misses it so. ]

[action.]

[ohmykethe]

[Mildmay is half-inclined to offer her a room, if it were his place to do so or if he thought such an offer would at all be appreciated. Dial back a bit, Milly-fox.] I lived in places with lots'a folks crammed in before; it ain't something I'm exactly looking to repeat. Then again, that's basically all there is, where I'm from. [You know, definitions pending.]

[action.]

[slatebreaker]

Crammed in? Oh, yes. That would be like the orphanage.

[ no discomfort or ire as she says it; anne has long ago become accustomed to the fact that she is an orphan. ] People always coming or going. No, I do not suppose it would be the sort of thing I would want to repeat, either.

[action.]

[ohmykethe]

[Gingerly (har har), Mildmay sits on the edge of the sofa, hands folded in his lap. How much does he want to reveal about himself? Then again, aside from past professions, if Anne doesn't mind the scar (or at least cares enough to pretend she don't), she won't care about some other details, right?]

Never been to an orphanage, but Kethe knows I should've. Always looked like debtor's prisons from the outside.

[action.]

[slatebreaker]

[ with a straight back, she sat on the opposite extreme of the sofa. they probably looked an awkward pair. ]

I don't believe I had the choice, really. Three months old is far too young to make choices like that. [ what an understatement! ] But it wasn't so bad, Mildmay. Some of the foster parents could be worse.

[action.]

[ohmykethe]

[To Mildmay, at least, he does not notice; he's used to things being a little awkward.]

Oh. I weren't saying it were awful, sorry. I got sold at one or two, myself. [Just old enough to remember being called his full name.] Probably would'a ended up inna bedlam otherwise, so it ain't like I'm complaining.

[action.]

[slatebreaker]

...Sold?

[ she glances over at him. ]

[action.]

[ohmykethe]

Couldn't have kids where she was. Had to get rid of me. [Which is entirely the truth, if not the entire truth.]