[Fic] "Apple & Blue" -- original, Elsewhere

[edenfalling]

I can't remember if I ever said, but the characters Apple and Daphne Rumluck in "Secrets" didn't come from that story originally. My sister and I invented them for a different story altogether, in a different world. (It's my world, but Vicky decided she wanted to play in it a little, and I didn't mind too much at the time.)

Anyway, the Apple and Daphne of "Secrets" aren't that much different in personality from their progenitors, but there are significant environmental differences, such as their extended families.

This is a snippet about that Apple Rumluck, the heir to Ivy House and the northern third of the valley of Elsewhere proper.

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Apple & Blue
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I first met Apple Rumluck when she was three years old. She was the second cousin of my second cousin, Daphne Rumluck, and the two girls refused to be separated. Therefore, when Daphne's family came to visit my grandparents and the rest of the Turnagains, Apple tagged along. And for some reason I've never been able to fathom, she decided that I was fascinating and needed to be followed all day long.

I saw her off and on while we both grew up, though she had much more to do with my younger brother and sister, and my cousins Frost and Coin -- she was six years younger than I was, after all. But during every visit, she made time to follow me around, watching everything I did and trying to learn everything I knew.

Apple wasn't much good at using swords or bows -- she thought fighting was silly anyhow -- and she wasn't much use at fishing or hunting or riding horses. But she didn't shrink away from them like some other girls, and even when she thought my adventures were pointless -- which she never failed to say, loudly -- she was a great one for making a plan practical.

So I let her follow me and I didn't tell her off more than three or four times an hour, which, I told myself, was really quite good for a boy of fifteen or so dealing with a disdainful girl of nine. Apple, of course, tells me quite often that I was insufferable. Probably we both were.

When I was nineteen, I decided to leave home like my father had when he was young. My grandparents sighed, but my father just grinned and my mother told me to look up her parents in Abanesse if I ever visited the Far Kingdoms.

Apple was furious when she found out. "It's absolutely unfair," she told me. "If you'd only wait another three years, I could come with you. Not that I care about your stupid adventures," she added in a hurry, "but you need someone to fix up your imbecilic plans so you won't get yourself killed. And besides, think of everything I could learn!"

I laughed.

"Fine! You go off and die, Blue Turnagain -- see if I care!" She raised her hand and for a moment I thought she might actually give into her temper for once... but she only stalked off. For the rest of her stay in Briar House, she steadfastly refused to admit that I existed. She didn't even make snide comments about "hearing the wind speaking" the way my family did when we were ignoring someone. No, she just looked straight through me as if I were less than a ghost.

It was a bit lonely not to have her underfoot.

I didn't see her again for five years. On the two occasions I managed to get back to Elsewhere, she and Daphne were home with their own family, and it never occurred to me to visit them there; Apple had always come to me.

And eventually, she came after me again. Oh, it wasn't intentional at first -- she was visiting some of her other relations in Myria, the capitol of Meriwhen -- but when she learned I was in the city as well, she tracked me down to a sailors' tavern, walked in, and glared at me while I wavered, mostly drunk, at the bar.

That time she did slap me.

"You're a selfish, pigheaded, disgusting, worthless, inconsiderate, drunken imbecile," she told me as she paid my tab and dragged me off through the streets. "And I know you were in Elsewhere twice since you left home, but you didn't come to Ivy House even once, for which I'm still angry at you. But right now I need a reckless idiot who can lounge around with a sword and look threatening, and I suppose you'll have to do." She eyed me critically. "If nothing else, you can probably make people think you'd murder them for a bottle of whiskey."

"What?" I managed to say.

"My Aunt Rose -- she's really my father's cousin, but she insists that I call her Aunt -- and her husband are mixed up in some court nonsense, and I think the Cabinet wants to try bringing Elsewhere under their control. So I want someone to follow me around and look threatening, in case anyone is unscrupulous enough to think I might be politically useful."

It was classic Apple -- she would protest all the way, but she always seemed to end up tangled in somebody's adventures anyhow. And I couldn't exactly let her wander around helpless in the morass of Whenish politics.

"Fine. What do I get out of it?" I heard myself asking.

Oops.

Apple yanked a small hand mirror from her bag and threw it at me. She didn't seem particularly upset at either the bruise it left on my cheek or the way it splintered into a hundred shards on the cobblestone street. She also completely ignored the people staring at us.

"Blue Turnagain," she said, "you are going to come help me. In return, first I won't kill you. Second, I'll give you a bath -- which you need very badly! And third, I won't tell your mother that you abandoned me because you'd rather get drunk and be shanghaied onto some death-trap ship on its way to the Vanishing Isles."

Those seemed like fairly good reasons, so I went along with her.

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And there you are.

I did actually work on "Secrets" yesterday, for about 200 words, but then Tom needed to respond to Ginny, and I just flinched away from writing him. So today I reviewed all my Tom stories and parts of stories on my hard drive, to try and get back into a state of mind where I can at least write the no-good skunk.

We'll see if it worked.

Comments

[redwolfoz.livejournal.com]

she decided that I was fascinating and needed to be followed all day long

That brought back memories.

A wonderful snippet of a fascinating world. I loved this.

[edenfalling]

Little cousins are fun, aren't they? There's quite a bit more to this world and story, but I've never figured out the best way to write it. Vicky and I originally planned to play the Letter Game with Apple and Daphne -- we would write letters in character to each other, telling the story -- but that fell through as I couldn't get the first letter to work properly. She's moved on to other things, but I still want to do something with Apple and Blue someday.