Letters Home

It was raining, pretty heavily and Velvetine sighed. She liked the rain but she didn’t particularly like being rained out. She needed to send an update to her father and she looked around the woody area before seeing a dilapidated building. She headed towards it. The roof had caved in on what had once been a second floor, half the building had fallen and even the only viable ‘doorway’ was crushed in on the upper right-hand corner and had fallen into the lower half of the right-side of the doorway. She ducked under the entrance and looked around inside and spotted a dry spot in the back, though she was careful to step around as much deris as she could. There was a whole middle room, seemingly intact… if you considered ‘intact’ a loose definition for four walls still standing upright despite parts of drywall and framing missing from them. Which she did. There was a couch in this room, it seemed to have been an office at one point but now the elements were growing up from the floorboards to reclaim it between chunks of the ceiling on the floor and the furniture. She brushed off debris and dust from the couch, took off her wet cloak and tossed it wet-side-down on a forgotten desk and sat down in the dry room as the rain poured outside. Velvetine pulled out some paper and a lead pencil and picked up a piece of drywall to write on,

“Dear Father and Mother, I am doing well. It is pouring outside; I’ve always loved the smell of rain. The clouds are dark grey so I believe it will be raining for sometime. I have a lead on a few livers, I will send them as soon as I can.” She wrote, pausing and looking out the window before turning back to the page, “I miss you two and I miss my sisters. It’s cold here, but thoughts of home before mother fell ill, keep me warm. Please ask Mother if she will bake me a rhubarb pie when I return home, she knows it’s my favorite. From a cold and rainy abandoned house with love, V.” Velvetine finished the letter and set the drywall aside, wrapping the letter up in a little wax bag in her cloak pocket, tucked the led pencil away safely, then rolled the bag up and slipped it back into the pocket before picking up her cloak and pulling it back on.

She left the home the way she came and let the rain wash off the evidence that she had ever been somewhere cold, dusty and dry.

[ WC: 440 (880 WC, 2x WC) ]

Unlike last time, when Velvetine had to huddle down into a fallen apart house, today she was in a town. It wasn’t entirely overcrowded but it had just enough people for her to feel sociable and filled walking among them. Even if she couldn't bother talking to them. She looked about for something to eat and stopped at a small restaurant that looked a bit run down. It was empty, the lighting was bad and the restaurant itself seemed dingy; but someone popped their head out and they excitedly shouted to a room behind them ‘customer’. Velvetine smiled as she realized this might be one of the rumored ‘hole-in-the-wall’ shops that her parents spoke highly of. Tucked away, forgotten, unpolished gems of great quality and value oft overlooked for glitzier, busier establishments.

Velvetine sat down at a small table with mismatched chairs, and a cute girl in a dirty apron came out, offered her a ‘menu’- a loosely used term as the piece of slightly crumpled paper offered four options for food- took down her order and went off to disappear into the back. She took out her paper and lead pencil and smoothed the paper out on the table, then took the time to write,

“Dear Father and Mother, I am well, I can’t remember what country I’m in but I am sitting in a little shop that may be a hidden gem of a restaurant! How exciting, yes? I will tell you how the food is. How have you been, Father, is business good? Are you getting the livers I have been sending? It must be hard to send me letters with me travelling, but I hope you have found something compatible for Mother. Soon, I will try to find a telephone and call you to see if we have been successful, or if I will have to keep looking. I look forward to coming home and seeing Mother happy and well enough for us to go on a picnic like how we used to; I know she loved being out in the tall grass by the large trees, protected in their shade. I will write soon. Love, V.” She wrote and as she finished the food was brought to her and she politely paid, nodded and ate, but she wrote on the paper after the plates were taken away,

“P.S. I was wrong about the shop.”

She got up and left the establishment and went on with her travels and her search for the needed parts.

[ WC: 420 (2x Event WC, 880) ]

Today was a sunnier day and it was humid. Almost unbearably so. It wasn't a particularly hot day, it was just inhumanly humid, sticking her clothes to her as she walked and Velvetine could not be more displeased. Normally she did not spend money loosely but now she was stopping into an inn and paying for a room with a bathroom and a shower specifically, eager to get the keys and go up. Once she did, Velevetine was hasty to go to the room, lock the door, pull a curtain over any windows and went to the bathroom to turn on a cold shower. When she had finished and pulled on a new pair of clothes she let out a heavy sigh and pulled her paper and lead pencil form her belongings and sat down at a small table in the room to write another letter to her family,

“Dear Mother,
How are you doing? I know Father is taking care of you and making sure your needs are met; but how are you truly? Is it hard on you that you can’t play with us as you once could? I wish I was there to help ease your burden; it must be difficult for you to be bedridden when you were once so proactive. You’ll get there soon. When we get you a compatible liver, you will have to go slow still; your muscles are weakening from you being on bed rest, we will have to do physical therapy to bring you back to the point you once were… but will you be happy? In that body? It is aging, perhaps you should ask Father to look into making you a new one and seeing ways to perhaps move your brain over? I will keep working hard to find a new liver for you, so that you will be healthy before we begin looking into those types of things.
With all my love, V.” She wrote affectionately and smiled as she tucked the paper and pen away in her belongings, then slept for the night in the inn’s bed.

[ WC: 351 (2x WC event, 702) ]