the lady of the lake || Quirk #14

WHAT DO YOU MEAN, IT'S THE LAST SATURDAY OF THE MONTH. 

...normally I play the panic up a little because I've been procrastinating (#writerlyconfessions) but I gENUINELY thought I had another week. 

What is this thing called time. so rude.

(Note: it is no longer the last Saturday of the month. It's not even the right month. alskdhaksjak.)

BUT I WROTE THE THING. EVENTUALLY.

QUIRK #14

She hasn't lost count of the children who've come to her lake. 

Each one plants a flower on the bank before they leave. It's become a tradition now, the newcomers pulled aside to be informed by children who've seen it happen before. One hundred and twenty nine years, and the children have filled her grove with flowers and kind smiles. 

They also hug her goodbye. She still hasn't learned how to accept this affection without standing stiffly and patting their heads, but they seem to find that adequate. 

Today is sunny, and that's why the current children visiting the grove clambered straight into her lake. Fifty-two years ago, a tree fell, its trunk stretching from its old home in the earth far out into the gentle welcome of the water. The bark has been worn shiny by dancing feet, and these children enjoy the path it presents as much as any of the previous generations did: they seem to find supreme joy in hurling themselves off the trunk as forcefully as possible. The shrieking and splashing are constant, but like waves, like the lapping of the water against the bank. Only, naturally, much louder. 

She's not worried about the children's safety; no hurt can come to them here.

On closer study she finds there is, somewhat, order in the chaos. One black-haired girl stands on the far end of the trunk and observes the goings-on, her dress splattered but mostly dry. The others line up raggedly along the trunk before her, pose, leap, and splash. And when their heads resurface and they've flicked the water off, the girl offers them a smile and some words which make them beam as though they've received a gift. 

The lady in the lake watches, and considers. 

Today is sunny, and as the heat swings overhead, the children retreat to the shade and damp cool of the lake's flower-covered banks. Some make their was up into the trees, hollering. Their wet hair hangs in strings down their necks. 

The black-haired girl has watched them all make their way ashore. She stretches, staring at the circle of blue that shows above the lake, then moves down the trunk towards the others. 

"Wait." 

She stops and looks across the lake to the lady, waist-deep and with hair spreading in the water around her. Then she lowers herself to sit on the trunk, slips her legs into the water, and inclines her head. "My lady."

They face each other.

"Your name?"

"Hana, my lady. I'm fourteen."

"Your parents?" 

"Mayor and Singer Marks, of Upper Diffily." The girl hesitates. "We were separated when the town was evacuated."

There's understanding in her eyes, and pain. She can't remember what happened and she knows that's telling in and of itself. 

The children here don't remember. They recover and laugh and leave her a flower before venturing downstream into the unknown and they never remember what happened to them, and this is a kindness. The lady knows this to be true, for she holds the memories for them as she watches over their time here. 

"Hana," she says, knowing the weight of the burden she is about to offer, "would you, one day, become the lady of the lake?"

The girl runs her fingers over the smoothed bark. "You look after the children."

"I do."

"Why do you want to leave them?"

The lady does not think to lie; the skill is of no benefit to someone who deals with death. "I have held so many memories, lives, that my hands will eventually be full."

A long, soft sigh. "Then for you, my lady, and for the children. So they will always have someone."

The lady discovers that Hana is slightly more skilled than she in accepting affection in the form of hugs. Even stiff hugs from someone who has watched children come and go for one hundred and twenty nine years. 

Just so you know. I had to type this up on my PHONE which I have never done before and hate. Because I'm a grandma. xD 

Also this is utterly un-beta'd. Many apologies. 

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Shout out to this month's (last month's) Quirk-writers: 

Elizabeth Hyde @All Things Trivial and Insignificant

The Story Sponge

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Now, July's Quirk prompt will go up as scheduled, but I'm going on two different holidays over the next two weeks (well... I'm in the middle of one now, actually. Thus the phone typing) so the post will be pre-scheduled and pretty short. I'll try to take some time to relax and catch up on your posts, though - I haven't been managing that very well recently 😅

One of the holidays is actually a youth worldview program in Canberra! (I fully anticipate freezing into a Solid Block of Ice. I've never lived in the cold. I don't know how to deal with it.) But overall I'm super excited - I'll be flying down and spending the week on my own, so a big adventure there for me, and I'm hoping I'll meet cool new people and of course learn cool new things!

What adventures have you been having? Or what adventures would you like to have, if you could? Do you prefer hot or cold??

...also its possible my blog is, for whatever reason, struggling with people being logged in for their comments and showing them as anonymous? I'm not sure. Pls comment regardless xD