![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
- character: captain jack sparrow,
- character: dhaos,
- character: fenimore xelhes,
- character: ginia solana,
- character: grune,
- character: helios sola sprensonne,
- character: hubert oswell,
- character: norma beatty,
- character: rupert giles,
- character: sophie coolidge,
- character: walter delques,
- genre: fluff,
- media: buffy the vampire slayer,
- media: luceti,
- media: original,
- media: pirates of the caribbean,
- media: tales of graces f,
- media: tales of legendia,
- media: tales of phantasia,
- rating: g,
- series: grune and the bitties
Luceti AU - Series: Grune and the Bitties - 01. Fenimore
Title: Grune and the Bitties - 01. Fenimore
Fandoms:![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
luceti, Tales of Legendia, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, original works, Tales of Graces f, Tales of Phantasia, Pirates of the Caribbean
Genre: Fluff
Rating: G
Words: 2452
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the above fandoms.
Summary: Luceti AU: After seeing Dhaos fly, Fenimore decides she's going to one-up him.
Author's Notes: So, one day, I thought to myself, "Grune sure runs into a lot of bitties. What would it be like if she had encountered them all at once?" And thus the Grune and the Bitties series came into being.
I'm hoping to eventually write one fic for each bitty she's encountered, although at the rate she runs into them, it's going to take a long time. But that's okay. These are as fun as hell to write, so I don't mind. :D
Some notes for understanding:
* This version of Fenimore is the Luceti Valley version. She's somewhat spunkier and more adventurous than her canon counterpart--but not completely so. Regular Fenimore was fairly mischievous when she was younger, too. ♥
* Fenimore is a Ferines, a water- and air-breathing species from Tales of Legendia whose hair glows blue whenever they're breathing water. So, well, don't be surprised when that's referenced.
* "Eres" are what spells are called on Melfes. A "teriques" is, in short, the projection of a Ferines' soul that can be used for numerous purposes. Walter uses his teriques to fly and Stella has used her to stop a giant laser. (Seriously!)
* The bitties involved and their ages: Sophie (3), Dhaos (6), Fenimore (7), Hubert (10), Helios (12), Ginia (12), Rupert (12)
And that's all! Enjoy the fluff, and try not to drown in it. ♥
More often than not, whenever Grune had company on her daily chores, it was in the form of at most two children. Strict turn-taking was voluntarily enforced; after all, nobody was willing to tolerate someone hogging Miss Grune’s attention.
On occasion, however, a significant excursion was necessary and all seven children went out together. These were simply large-scale versions of a typical outing, with the older children taking care of the younger and everyone looking after Grune. Usually, the youngest children claimed Grune’s hands, being at the age where pride was not yet a force stronger than the need for affection.
Sometimes, these excursions were just a little long for the youngest children. That was the case on this particular day. Everyone had gone on a trip to the clothing shop to replace some of the fall clothing everyone was growing out of (especially, to Rupert’s disgust, Ginia). Everyone had waited their turn patiently, but these things took time, and on top of the job of hunting down decent, well-fitting clothing, it was quite a walk for short legs.
In the end, the three oldest children—Rupert, Ginia, and Helios—carried back the shopping bags. On Grune’s back was a half-asleep Sophie, and clinging to one sleeve with a slightly grubby hand was Fenimore. Hubert was left to look after Dhaos, who was trudging along without complaint, but who was also lagging farther and farther behind.
It was a sudden, gasped “Oh!” from Hubert that made Grune look back. There, hovering a good foot off the ground and abruptly looking far happier than he had been for some time, was Dhaos.
Amidst exclamations of amazement, wonder, and envy from the other children, Dhaos flew forward and took hold of Grune’s other sleeve.
“H-How are you doing that?” Helios asked, peering forward like a tiny professor.
“It looks so cool!” Rupert added.
“I bet I could learn how to do it,” Fenimore declared loudly, tugging on Grune’s sleeve for emphasis. “It probably isn’t hard.”
“U-Um, I’m the only one who can do it, back home,” Dhaos said shyly. “I’m sorry.”
“My turn!” Sophie said, stretching out a small hand in Dhaos’s direction.
He rose in the air, wobbling slightly, until he was level with Sophie. “Maybe I can give you a ride when we get home. Is that okay, Miss Grune?”
“Oh, yes, of course. Just be careful,” she told him with a smile.
Dhaos beamed right back. “I will!”
“Sanks!” Sophie said happily and hugged Grune around the neck.
A quiet “hmph” at her side was enough to draw Grune’s attention. Fenimore was looking cranky, and she wore a small pout. Oh dear. Grune would have to make sure to give her lots of hugs when they got home, since she was much too big for Dhaos to carry. That would make her feel all better.
Satisfied that she had solved the problem before it had properly arisen, Grune cheerfully led the rest of the way back, Dhaos floating by her side the entire time.
*
Fenimore was in a bad mood.
Oh, she’d had some nice things happen to her. Miss Grune had given her a really good cuddle before supper, and she’d even been allowed to take an extra cookie at dessert (and then so had everyone else when Rupert complained, but the fact remained that she’d gotten the extra cookie first). But she was still in a bad mood. Somehow, the universe had decided to let Dhaos fly, but not her.
It wasn’t that Dhaos was a bad person or anything—he was pretty fun to play with, even if she privately thought he could be a little wimpy—but she was sure she’d get way more use out of flying than him. After all, they’d been living with Miss Grune forever and this was the first time anyone had seen him do it. Flying was wasted on him.
Well, that didn’t matter. She’d just learn how to do it and be even better at it than him. How hard could it be if a little kid like Dhaos could do it?
She started her work that night, in the room she shared with Dhaos and Hubert. Once she was sure Hubert was absorbed in his book next to Helios and Dhaos was playing with Sophie under Miss Norma’s watchful eye, she shut herself in her room. Then, seated on her bed, she squeezed her eyes shut and thought super-hard about going up. Up. Up!
Slowly, she squinted her eyes open. Nothing had happened. She tried again. Up!
. . . Nothing.
This flying thing was harder than she thought.
Okay. Okay. Maybe she just needed a little boost. Once she got going, then she’d start flying.
She bounced once on the bed. Up!
Again. Up!
Again, again, again, up up up!
“Fen Fen, you’d better not be bouncing on the bed in there!” she heard Miss Norma yell.
She immediately stopped. “I’m not!”
“Good, ‘cause if you break your bed, we’re not getting another and you’re gonna have to sleep in the wreck!”
Fenimore stuck her tongue out at the wall, since she knew Miss Norma couldn’t see her. Geez, how was anyone supposed to learn to fly in a place like this? No wonder Dhaos had learned it back where he came from and not here.
She started looking for a really quiet way to bounce on the bed, but before she had any luck, she heard Miss Grune say, “Fenimore, it’s storytime!”
“Coming!” she shouted back and ran out of the room, abandoning her plans altogether.
*
The next day, however, she was back to plotting. She watched with narrowed eyes as Dhaos happily chattered at Ginia during breakfast. She was definitely going to learn to fly today—and she was going to do it better than Dhaos!
Since it was Sunday, as soon as breakfast was finished, she could start her work right away. The minute her dishes were in the sink, she shot outside into Grune’s garden. She secreted herself behind the sunflowers where no one could see her and got to work.
Up. Up. Up! Up!
But no matter how hard she thought or how high she jumped, she didn’t get one speck closer to flying than she had last night.
. . . Oh right. Last night she’d realized she needed a head start, right? She was positive right before Miss Norma had messed up her concentration, she’d been on the verge of a breakthrough. She just needed to find something to jump off.
She wandered around the garden for a while, but nothing stood out to her. Everything seemed pretty flat around House 34—or maybe not. Over there in the forest was a fallen tree. She was sure jumping off that would give her all the lift she’d need.
But . . . she wasn’t supposed to leave the garden by herself. She supposed she could get Helios to come with her and make him not tell anyone what she was doing, but probably Rupert or Ginia would get it out of him. And she definitely didn’t want those two to find out what she was practising until she was perfect at it. Maybe she could ask Miss Grune, but. . . .
. . . Fenimore squinted at that log, thinking hard.
Miss Grune loved trees almost as much as she loved flowers. She’d seen her taking care of trees loads of times. So that meant the forest was kind of like her garden. So if she went to practice on that log, she actually wouldn’t be breaking the rules at all. She’d still be in Miss Grune’s garden.
Decided, Fenimore scampered over to the log, moving quickly so that no one would see her not breaking the rules and make her go back.
Unfortunately, although the tree that had fallen down was pretty big, she was still having problems. She could jump really high off it and land with a really satisfying crunch in the autumn leaves underfoot, but she didn’t want to land with a really satisfying crunch. She didn’t want to land at all.
She had to go higher.
She looked about, but there were no more fallen trees. Probably Walter had chopped them all up for firewood. Still, she’d better be sure.
She wandered through the forest for a while until she came to the bridge that crossed the river running nearby their home. It was empty at the moment, which Fenimore was particularly glad about. Sometimes there was this really weird guy who hung around the bridge, and he was pretty much the last person she wanted to run into by herself (not that she’d ever admit as much to anyone else).
It was a little harder than she anticipated, but she managed to haul herself up on the railing and balance carefully. Okay, this time for sure!
She squeezed her eyes shut. One, two, three—up!
Fenimore landed hard on the bridge with a wooden-sounding bang, then unbalanced and stumbled to her hands and knees.
"Ow!"
She bit her lip hard. She wasn’t going to cry, wasn’t, wasn’t, wasn’t . . . !
She examined the heels of her hands and couldn’t stop a sniffle when she caught sight of how skinned they were. N-Nerifes, it hurt.
She got to her feet, gritting her teeth. She wasn’t going to let a few stupid bruises stop her, though! Probably Dhaos had gotten tons of scrapes when he was learning. She was probably doing really great only to have a couple right now, so there was no way she was giving up when she was doing better than him.
Once more, she climbed up on the railing, but this time, she turned around to face the river. Water was a softer landing, right? Not that she needed to know, because she was totally going to do it this time.
Right: One, two, three—up!
Splash!
“Gah!” Fenimore yelled and shot to the surface. The water was cold this time of year!
She swam to shore and climbed out, then danced around and rubbed her hands on her arms. Once she was pretty sure her teeth weren’t going to chatter themselves out of her head, she wrung out her twintails, the glow from her hair making her fingers look even bluer than they already were. She needed to go home and change before she froze to death!
*
Luckily, the only person who saw her sneak in was Hubert. When he started to ask how she’d gotten soaking wet like that, she’d shushed him and glared. That stopped his questions very nicely, she noted with satisfaction.
Once she was back outside, however, she was at a bit of a loss. She’d tried jumping off all kinds of high things, but none of them had worked at all. Either she needed to think of a new strategy, or. . . .
Her gaze landed on the open door of the shed Walter had spent all summer building. (She’d learned all kinds of new words from his frustration that she was saving for a special occasion.)
Maybe she just needed to go higher.
It took a lot of work to find the ladder in the shed, and even more to bring it outside. Walter could do it no problem, but he was really strong and an adult. She was seriously proud of herself for being able to drag it from the shed to the side of the house—although she hoped Miss Grune wouldn’t mind the marks in the lawn.
It was time to go big or go home, she decided as she steadied the ladder against the side of the house. There was no way she was going to fail now!
She climbed up the ladder with her usual bounce. She was getting a little tired—she’d done a lot of flying practice that morning—but she wasn’t about to let that slow her down.
What did make her pause, however, was catching sight of Ginia and Rupert walking along the path to House 34, their hands just flying away. Uh-oh—if they saw her, they’d definitely tell on her.
She scrambled up the rest of the way, but she must have made too much noise, because as she turned around from crawling up the roof, she caught sight of Ginia pointing directly at her, eyes huge.
“Huh? What’s—holy cow, Fen, what are you doing?” Rupert yelled.
“Nothing,” she yelled back and stood up. . . . Her home was a lot taller than she’d thought.
Ginia pointed emphatically at the ground as Rupert answered, “So if you’re not doing anything, then get down!”
“I will in a minute!”
She inched just a little closer to the edge. Ginia clapped a gloved hand over her mouth, then scrambled to unhook the strap of her whiteboard from her shoulder, and Rupert made some desperate “stop” gestures.
“Not like that! If you jump off, you’re gonna break your neck!”
“I’m not gonna jump off,” she informed him. She might as well just tell them if she was caught already. “I’m gonna fly off!”
Instead of looking impressed, Rupert and Ginia stared at her, like she was some know-nothing little kid.
“Are you stupid?” Rupert demanded. “You can’t fly! Only Dhaos can!”
Ginia held up her board. Even at this distance, Fenimore could make out what she’d written: “USE THE LADDER.”
“I can so!” she argued. “I’ll use my eres! Or make a teriques!” Never mind that she hadn’t ever made a teriques before—she’d manage it. It’d be do or—
She looked down at the ground again.
. . . Um.
Suddenly, she heard Miss Grune call cheerfully, “The cookies are done!”
. . . Maybe she’d try this another day.
Carefully, she sat down on the roof and crawled back to the ladder, then climbed down, with Rupert and Ginia steadying it for her all the way. They entered the house together, saying nothing about what had just been going on, and Fenimore was more than happy to let the deliciousness of the cookies drive all thoughts of her flying practice from her mind.
*
She never did get around to learning to fly. She was always “too busy” to work on it, or else the conditions just weren’t quite right. But that was fine, she told herself; she’d do it someday. In the meantime, she tried not to be too envious of Dhaos those times he flew and her feet stayed firmly on the ground.
Fandoms:
luceti, Tales of Legendia, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, original works, Tales of Graces f, Tales of Phantasia, Pirates of the CaribbeanGenre: Fluff
Rating: G
Words: 2452
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the above fandoms.
Summary: Luceti AU: After seeing Dhaos fly, Fenimore decides she's going to one-up him.
Author's Notes: So, one day, I thought to myself, "Grune sure runs into a lot of bitties. What would it be like if she had encountered them all at once?" And thus the Grune and the Bitties series came into being.
I'm hoping to eventually write one fic for each bitty she's encountered, although at the rate she runs into them, it's going to take a long time. But that's okay. These are as fun as hell to write, so I don't mind. :D
Some notes for understanding:
* This version of Fenimore is the Luceti Valley version. She's somewhat spunkier and more adventurous than her canon counterpart--but not completely so. Regular Fenimore was fairly mischievous when she was younger, too. ♥
* Fenimore is a Ferines, a water- and air-breathing species from Tales of Legendia whose hair glows blue whenever they're breathing water. So, well, don't be surprised when that's referenced.
* "Eres" are what spells are called on Melfes. A "teriques" is, in short, the projection of a Ferines' soul that can be used for numerous purposes. Walter uses his teriques to fly and Stella has used her to stop a giant laser. (Seriously!)
* The bitties involved and their ages: Sophie (3), Dhaos (6), Fenimore (7), Hubert (10), Helios (12), Ginia (12), Rupert (12)
And that's all! Enjoy the fluff, and try not to drown in it. ♥
More often than not, whenever Grune had company on her daily chores, it was in the form of at most two children. Strict turn-taking was voluntarily enforced; after all, nobody was willing to tolerate someone hogging Miss Grune’s attention.
On occasion, however, a significant excursion was necessary and all seven children went out together. These were simply large-scale versions of a typical outing, with the older children taking care of the younger and everyone looking after Grune. Usually, the youngest children claimed Grune’s hands, being at the age where pride was not yet a force stronger than the need for affection.
Sometimes, these excursions were just a little long for the youngest children. That was the case on this particular day. Everyone had gone on a trip to the clothing shop to replace some of the fall clothing everyone was growing out of (especially, to Rupert’s disgust, Ginia). Everyone had waited their turn patiently, but these things took time, and on top of the job of hunting down decent, well-fitting clothing, it was quite a walk for short legs.
In the end, the three oldest children—Rupert, Ginia, and Helios—carried back the shopping bags. On Grune’s back was a half-asleep Sophie, and clinging to one sleeve with a slightly grubby hand was Fenimore. Hubert was left to look after Dhaos, who was trudging along without complaint, but who was also lagging farther and farther behind.
It was a sudden, gasped “Oh!” from Hubert that made Grune look back. There, hovering a good foot off the ground and abruptly looking far happier than he had been for some time, was Dhaos.
Amidst exclamations of amazement, wonder, and envy from the other children, Dhaos flew forward and took hold of Grune’s other sleeve.
“H-How are you doing that?” Helios asked, peering forward like a tiny professor.
“It looks so cool!” Rupert added.
“I bet I could learn how to do it,” Fenimore declared loudly, tugging on Grune’s sleeve for emphasis. “It probably isn’t hard.”
“U-Um, I’m the only one who can do it, back home,” Dhaos said shyly. “I’m sorry.”
“My turn!” Sophie said, stretching out a small hand in Dhaos’s direction.
He rose in the air, wobbling slightly, until he was level with Sophie. “Maybe I can give you a ride when we get home. Is that okay, Miss Grune?”
“Oh, yes, of course. Just be careful,” she told him with a smile.
Dhaos beamed right back. “I will!”
“Sanks!” Sophie said happily and hugged Grune around the neck.
A quiet “hmph” at her side was enough to draw Grune’s attention. Fenimore was looking cranky, and she wore a small pout. Oh dear. Grune would have to make sure to give her lots of hugs when they got home, since she was much too big for Dhaos to carry. That would make her feel all better.
Satisfied that she had solved the problem before it had properly arisen, Grune cheerfully led the rest of the way back, Dhaos floating by her side the entire time.
Fenimore was in a bad mood.
Oh, she’d had some nice things happen to her. Miss Grune had given her a really good cuddle before supper, and she’d even been allowed to take an extra cookie at dessert (and then so had everyone else when Rupert complained, but the fact remained that she’d gotten the extra cookie first). But she was still in a bad mood. Somehow, the universe had decided to let Dhaos fly, but not her.
It wasn’t that Dhaos was a bad person or anything—he was pretty fun to play with, even if she privately thought he could be a little wimpy—but she was sure she’d get way more use out of flying than him. After all, they’d been living with Miss Grune forever and this was the first time anyone had seen him do it. Flying was wasted on him.
Well, that didn’t matter. She’d just learn how to do it and be even better at it than him. How hard could it be if a little kid like Dhaos could do it?
She started her work that night, in the room she shared with Dhaos and Hubert. Once she was sure Hubert was absorbed in his book next to Helios and Dhaos was playing with Sophie under Miss Norma’s watchful eye, she shut herself in her room. Then, seated on her bed, she squeezed her eyes shut and thought super-hard about going up. Up. Up!
Slowly, she squinted her eyes open. Nothing had happened. She tried again. Up!
. . . Nothing.
This flying thing was harder than she thought.
Okay. Okay. Maybe she just needed a little boost. Once she got going, then she’d start flying.
She bounced once on the bed. Up!
Again. Up!
Again, again, again, up up up!
“Fen Fen, you’d better not be bouncing on the bed in there!” she heard Miss Norma yell.
She immediately stopped. “I’m not!”
“Good, ‘cause if you break your bed, we’re not getting another and you’re gonna have to sleep in the wreck!”
Fenimore stuck her tongue out at the wall, since she knew Miss Norma couldn’t see her. Geez, how was anyone supposed to learn to fly in a place like this? No wonder Dhaos had learned it back where he came from and not here.
She started looking for a really quiet way to bounce on the bed, but before she had any luck, she heard Miss Grune say, “Fenimore, it’s storytime!”
“Coming!” she shouted back and ran out of the room, abandoning her plans altogether.
The next day, however, she was back to plotting. She watched with narrowed eyes as Dhaos happily chattered at Ginia during breakfast. She was definitely going to learn to fly today—and she was going to do it better than Dhaos!
Since it was Sunday, as soon as breakfast was finished, she could start her work right away. The minute her dishes were in the sink, she shot outside into Grune’s garden. She secreted herself behind the sunflowers where no one could see her and got to work.
Up. Up. Up! Up!
But no matter how hard she thought or how high she jumped, she didn’t get one speck closer to flying than she had last night.
. . . Oh right. Last night she’d realized she needed a head start, right? She was positive right before Miss Norma had messed up her concentration, she’d been on the verge of a breakthrough. She just needed to find something to jump off.
She wandered around the garden for a while, but nothing stood out to her. Everything seemed pretty flat around House 34—or maybe not. Over there in the forest was a fallen tree. She was sure jumping off that would give her all the lift she’d need.
But . . . she wasn’t supposed to leave the garden by herself. She supposed she could get Helios to come with her and make him not tell anyone what she was doing, but probably Rupert or Ginia would get it out of him. And she definitely didn’t want those two to find out what she was practising until she was perfect at it. Maybe she could ask Miss Grune, but. . . .
. . . Fenimore squinted at that log, thinking hard.
Miss Grune loved trees almost as much as she loved flowers. She’d seen her taking care of trees loads of times. So that meant the forest was kind of like her garden. So if she went to practice on that log, she actually wouldn’t be breaking the rules at all. She’d still be in Miss Grune’s garden.
Decided, Fenimore scampered over to the log, moving quickly so that no one would see her not breaking the rules and make her go back.
Unfortunately, although the tree that had fallen down was pretty big, she was still having problems. She could jump really high off it and land with a really satisfying crunch in the autumn leaves underfoot, but she didn’t want to land with a really satisfying crunch. She didn’t want to land at all.
She had to go higher.
She looked about, but there were no more fallen trees. Probably Walter had chopped them all up for firewood. Still, she’d better be sure.
She wandered through the forest for a while until she came to the bridge that crossed the river running nearby their home. It was empty at the moment, which Fenimore was particularly glad about. Sometimes there was this really weird guy who hung around the bridge, and he was pretty much the last person she wanted to run into by herself (not that she’d ever admit as much to anyone else).
It was a little harder than she anticipated, but she managed to haul herself up on the railing and balance carefully. Okay, this time for sure!
She squeezed her eyes shut. One, two, three—up!
Fenimore landed hard on the bridge with a wooden-sounding bang, then unbalanced and stumbled to her hands and knees.
"Ow!"
She bit her lip hard. She wasn’t going to cry, wasn’t, wasn’t, wasn’t . . . !
She examined the heels of her hands and couldn’t stop a sniffle when she caught sight of how skinned they were. N-Nerifes, it hurt.
She got to her feet, gritting her teeth. She wasn’t going to let a few stupid bruises stop her, though! Probably Dhaos had gotten tons of scrapes when he was learning. She was probably doing really great only to have a couple right now, so there was no way she was giving up when she was doing better than him.
Once more, she climbed up on the railing, but this time, she turned around to face the river. Water was a softer landing, right? Not that she needed to know, because she was totally going to do it this time.
Right: One, two, three—up!
Splash!
“Gah!” Fenimore yelled and shot to the surface. The water was cold this time of year!
She swam to shore and climbed out, then danced around and rubbed her hands on her arms. Once she was pretty sure her teeth weren’t going to chatter themselves out of her head, she wrung out her twintails, the glow from her hair making her fingers look even bluer than they already were. She needed to go home and change before she froze to death!
Luckily, the only person who saw her sneak in was Hubert. When he started to ask how she’d gotten soaking wet like that, she’d shushed him and glared. That stopped his questions very nicely, she noted with satisfaction.
Once she was back outside, however, she was at a bit of a loss. She’d tried jumping off all kinds of high things, but none of them had worked at all. Either she needed to think of a new strategy, or. . . .
Her gaze landed on the open door of the shed Walter had spent all summer building. (She’d learned all kinds of new words from his frustration that she was saving for a special occasion.)
Maybe she just needed to go higher.
It took a lot of work to find the ladder in the shed, and even more to bring it outside. Walter could do it no problem, but he was really strong and an adult. She was seriously proud of herself for being able to drag it from the shed to the side of the house—although she hoped Miss Grune wouldn’t mind the marks in the lawn.
It was time to go big or go home, she decided as she steadied the ladder against the side of the house. There was no way she was going to fail now!
She climbed up the ladder with her usual bounce. She was getting a little tired—she’d done a lot of flying practice that morning—but she wasn’t about to let that slow her down.
What did make her pause, however, was catching sight of Ginia and Rupert walking along the path to House 34, their hands just flying away. Uh-oh—if they saw her, they’d definitely tell on her.
She scrambled up the rest of the way, but she must have made too much noise, because as she turned around from crawling up the roof, she caught sight of Ginia pointing directly at her, eyes huge.
“Huh? What’s—holy cow, Fen, what are you doing?” Rupert yelled.
“Nothing,” she yelled back and stood up. . . . Her home was a lot taller than she’d thought.
Ginia pointed emphatically at the ground as Rupert answered, “So if you’re not doing anything, then get down!”
“I will in a minute!”
She inched just a little closer to the edge. Ginia clapped a gloved hand over her mouth, then scrambled to unhook the strap of her whiteboard from her shoulder, and Rupert made some desperate “stop” gestures.
“Not like that! If you jump off, you’re gonna break your neck!”
“I’m not gonna jump off,” she informed him. She might as well just tell them if she was caught already. “I’m gonna fly off!”
Instead of looking impressed, Rupert and Ginia stared at her, like she was some know-nothing little kid.
“Are you stupid?” Rupert demanded. “You can’t fly! Only Dhaos can!”
Ginia held up her board. Even at this distance, Fenimore could make out what she’d written: “USE THE LADDER.”
“I can so!” she argued. “I’ll use my eres! Or make a teriques!” Never mind that she hadn’t ever made a teriques before—she’d manage it. It’d be do or—
She looked down at the ground again.
. . . Um.
Suddenly, she heard Miss Grune call cheerfully, “The cookies are done!”
. . . Maybe she’d try this another day.
Carefully, she sat down on the roof and crawled back to the ladder, then climbed down, with Rupert and Ginia steadying it for her all the way. They entered the house together, saying nothing about what had just been going on, and Fenimore was more than happy to let the deliciousness of the cookies drive all thoughts of her flying practice from her mind.
She never did get around to learning to fly. She was always “too busy” to work on it, or else the conditions just weren’t quite right. But that was fine, she told herself; she’d do it someday. In the meantime, she tried not to be too envious of Dhaos those times he flew and her feet stayed firmly on the ground.