Officer Coral Sumner wears a dress?!

Coral is a character of mine from a post-apocolyptic world, living in a militant Base and working as an Officer. She had never worn a dress before, but clearly someone must have persuaded her at some point in her life...

As someone who usually can't draw people for shit, I'm actually pretty pleased with this...

 And with colour.

You Push All My Buttons Down

I'm really very impressed with myself. Somehow I managed to draw a hand!

Coralt pictures

These two pictures are linked to a roleplay I'm involved in with another person, that revolves around an unlikely couple. His surname is Montagu, so when I saw the pub with the name I had to grab a picture. The other image is a bunch of lyrics that relate in some way to their story.

Esmeralda

The twirling of her skirts excited her. She spun and spun until she knew not which way was which or how to get back to the kumpania for being so dizzy. Her skirts floated about her knees, sometimes lifting as high as her waist as she spun so that she had to press her hands on them to keep them down. But that didn't impede her enjoyment, and she continued to spin until she fell down with dizziness onto the grass.

"Esma, don't go too far!"

The voice was her mother's, calling Esmeralda back to her. The girl gathered her yellow shirts up and stood, laughing. Her little brother - half-brother really - ran to her and she caught the three-year-old and held him close, spinning once more. Sabina, their mother, followed the boy in all her pregnant glory.

When Esma stopped spinning again and Brom was taken off her, she sat down on the ground and lay back. The grass was damp with dew from the night before, but she didn't care. She waved her arms and legs in the grass to flatten it, making the shape of an angel. Then she sat up to watch her momma lead Brom back to the kumpania, his father greeting them.

Sometimes she wished that man were her father too. Oh, he behaved like it and loved her like it, but her heritage could not be denied. When she was little, she'd looked into a puddle and seen her face. It wasn't the rich dark brown of her parents', but a lighter shade. Her eyes were a little different. Her features were more crude. So they'd had to explain it to her.

Esmeralda wasn't fully Tsingano. At seven years old, Esma understood more about the cruelty of men than a lot of children, but her parents hadn't explained to her in full what had happened to her mother. All she knew was that a bad thing had been done to her mother by an Alban man, and she had been born shortly afterwards.

She lay back and sighed. As she did so, a shadow fell over her and shaded her from the sun, sending a cold shiver running up her spine. She sat up straight and turned to look.

A pale face looked back at her, shrouded with dirt and dried tears. The face was curtained by thick, long hair the colour of blood partly dried. The hair was matted, the green eyes piercing but sad. The girl was beautiful, and Esma knew immediately she was D'Angeline. "Hi," she ventured.

The girl must have been about her own age. She looked hungry and dirty and scared. The mouth opened as if to say something, but no words came out. The little peach hands gripped a dirty toy dog tightly, like an anchor. Esmeralda turned back to the kumpania. "Mama! Papa! Maria!"

Maria, her mother's sister, came running at the sound of her distress, only to stop short at the sight of the D'Angeline girl. The girl stared at them with wide green eyes, even as Maria crouched down to look at her and speak to her, and even as Maria picked her up and, Esma following, carried her back to their two kumpanias.

Maria went inside her own and beckoned Esma to follow. "Your mama is sleeping and Brom with her, don't disturb them." So Esma sat down next to the girl and smiled while Maria prepared some broth for her.

Still, the girl remained silent and didn't understand when Maria handed her the bowl. Though the Tsingano tongue was not so different from the D'Angeline tongue that conversation was impossible, it was made more difficult, especially when none of their company could speak true D'Angeline. Esma showed the girl how to eat the broth, taking the spoon to her mouth and swallowing before allowing the girl to do the same, and eventually that way she got some sustenance.

They let her sleep after that, frowning and wondering what to do with her, until Esma's papa returned and her mama awoke. Then all the adults, Esma's parents, Maria and her husband, and also their eldest boy who was still only 11, talked about what to do about her.

"She must be a nobleman's daughter," Esma's papa said once they'd stepped outside. Esma stayed inside Maria's home, but from there she could hear them talking outside.

"But they're not looking for her," her cousin Dorn replied. She didn't know why he was allowed in the discussion and she wasn't - she'd found the girl, after all. Then she heard Dorn being told to collect wood for a fire, so he slouched off and left the adults to their talking.

"Perhaps they were killed by bandits and the girl got away?"

"Perhaps. But what should we do about her?"

"I suppose she must stay with us," Maria said. "I'll look after her, see if I can find out who she is. We'll just have to remain vigilant, make sure no noblemen in the area are searching for a missing daughter."

"The last thing we need is D'Angelines thinking we have kidnapped their children," Maria's husband said.

"Indeed." And then Esma heard footsteps coming back towards the kumpania and hurried back over to the girl's side in time for Maria to enter.

*

In time, though the lack of a shared language was a barrier, the girl began to look healthier. She had learnt their names and even begun to pick up some words in the Tsingano tongue, but had yet to speak a word if D'Angeline nor tell them her name. It was though a great trauma had purged the memories from her mind, Maria said. The girl began to be known as Velvette, and eventually she had picked up enough Tsingano to be able to hold simple conversations.

Velvette wasn't stupid, they quickly began to realise - far from it, she was a very intelligent child, which was clear once they could communicate fully with her. And she could dance. Esma and she quickly became very close, best friends and cousins both, especially as they both loved to sing and dance. They bonded over their not being Tsingani or fully Tsingani.

Soon, Velvette fit in perfectly in their travelling kumpania, and though she did not have the rapport with horses the others did, she nonetheless enjoyed riding and learnt quickly how to tell a good horse from a bad. Were it not for her incredible beauty and pale skin, that is to say if she looked like them all, Velvette would have easily passed for a born Tsingano.

However, Maria and the other adults never forgot that the girl was D'Angeline. They loved her dearly, but desired her to know her heritage, far more so than Sabina had ever wanted Esma to know anything of her Alban heritage. And so, when Velvette was 8 and Esma 9, they would stray nearer to towns so that Velvette could relearn her own mother tongue, which she still had yet to speak and swore she could remember none of.

"It is different though," Velvette said to Esmeralda one day, after she'd been into the nearest town with her. "You live with your family, whether you have the blood of a man who isn't your father or not."

"So do you. We are your family."

"Still, I should like to know where I am from. Really, I know nothing of my own people."

Esma understood, but it felt a little like a betrayal. Truly, they were cousins of the heart if not of blood, and the kumpania was Velvette's family. Maria had become Velvette's mother and Dorn and Tansy her siblings. But as Velvette learnt more of the people she came from, the more she began to drift away from the family in opinions.

As a D'Angeline, Velvette had no laxta - the virtue that was to be saved by Tsingano women for their wedding day, not to be shared with any one not of Tsingano birth, the virtue stolen from Sabina by a young Alban man with thick, hit blood coursing through his body. But it worried Maria that the girl delighted in stories of the D'Angeline Court of Night Blooming Flowers. Esma's aunt sat with them and paled when she recognised a D'Angeline word, while men and women, young and old, told tales of concubines, prostitutes, whores, or as the D'Angelines called them Servants of Naamah.

Esmeralda was fascinated, but not in the way that Velvette seemed to be; hers was a morbid fascination with the horrific, while Velvette's eyes lit up when she heard tales of its 'noble' calling. Until one day, Esma heard the adults talking.

"It is what is best for her," Sabina was saying, "She will never feel truly at home with us."

"To leave her in a world such as that!" was Maria's outraged reply.

"Do you not see how she lights up? Whatever we may say for the place, Velvette belongs on Mont Nuit. It is her calling."

Eventually, the adults were decided, and Esma did not know what to say to her cousin. But she did not have to, for Velvette soon realised as they travelled from the province of Kusheth and into L'Agnace that they were going to the City of Elua, and then she wanted nothing more than to see Mont Nuit for herself.

*

It wasn't long before ten-year-old Velvette was given a choice.

It was to Eglantine House that Maria and Sabina took the two girls, while the other children waited in the outskirts of the city with their fathers. Eglantine House's most fabulous feature is their performers - tumblers, dancers, singers, jugglers, musicians, and all other kinds of performers entertained the girls for an hour or more while Maria and Sabina spoke with the Dowayne, the woman in charge of the Household.

Finally, they three women emerged from the Dowayne's office, and they all approached the girls. Neither wanted to be distracted by the tumblers, but eventually allowed themselves to.

"Velvette, I have to ask you something," Maria said in the Tsingani tongue, having taken a deep breath. Esma stepped back, standing close to her mother, and watched the exchange. "You must understand this does not mean we do not love you. You were a gift we never expected and we would never change that. But it has become obvious that you wish to learn more of your own heritage, and we want you to be happy."

Velvette watched, listened, and nodded at the appropriate times. She did not glance back at the tumblers, though on they tumbled, and she did not play with the pretty, bright blue skirts around her legs. Finally, before Maria could take another deep breath, Velvette opened her mouth to speak. "I think I would be happy here," she said. Maria was visibly relieved. "You will still be able to visit me, and when I am older I will be able to visit you also."

And so it was decided. The kumpania stayed two more days in the City until eventually they had to say goodbye. Esma and Velvette cried to part, but the older girl grinned and whispered into her cousin's ear. "I will see you when you have made your Marque, cousin. It will not be overlong." And they both knew Esma had seen it was so in the Dromonde and took it to be true.

White

I've been doing prompts lately, and really enjoying it. If anyone reading this wants me to write something, send a prompt in and I will write it to the best of my ability. This was a prompt to describe a colour without using its name. It was an interesting experiment.

It's sharp, bright. It speaks of innocence and cleanliness, safety; a darker shade might seem contaminated, by the dirt or the pain or the tangy nature of a streetlight or an energy-saving bulb. No, this glimmers, refuses to be blocked out or changed. It shines, like the sun but brighter and untainted by chemicals or even distance. This is heavy, strong, it is defiant and sturdy, stiff with poignancy, as though to say 'I am incapable of sinking to your level', unable to dim or dirty even if it tried. It cannot be sullied. It is light, floaty, and cannot be touched by mortal hands. It is pure. It is the state of nature unchanged, the universe before the universe was born. But it remains predictable, like a sheet of paper, unearthly like a ghost. It is perfect and untainted. There is nothing like it. It is the purest, untainted white.

If I could hold you

I have been watching you for a while now. At first you were okay; you cried, but you called friends, your parents, sometimes even mine because they shared that loss. But slowly friends got sick of it, somehow expecting you to get over it, as though that were possible. Your parents had never understood, they thought I was just a flatmate, someone you lived with but didn't love - I won't go into their prejudice now, because really does it matter anymore? - and so they expected you to move on. "Maybe if you moved out, darling, you would feel better?" But all our memories are there, in that tiny flat where we began our lives and I understand; you just can't leave them yet.

But, sweetheart, one day you'll have to.

You sleep on my side of the bed now, head pushed into my pillow, but after three months there is no scent of me left, and really, darling, you should wash the sheets. And do the dishes. Clean that wine glass you've left on the bedside table like a macabre sculpture, my lipstick on the side, the closest thing to my lips you have left. The duvet cover really needs to go in the wash, we had others and you still do, even though I didn't pick them and they're not my favourite colour, purple.

Daylight would help. I know, I loved summer, and you loved it because I did. I know, now that spring is here you feel further away from me, from the ice that caused my car to skid, sliding, invisible hockey pitch on the road. But I want you to embrace it, the light; it really will make you feel better. Remember my smiles in the sun, not your years on my pillow.

If you could hear me, you would know I want you to be happy.

Sometimes I add my screams to yours, because your crying frustrates me. Before the accident, I would have curled you into my chest, your tears soaking my blouse, and my hands would have stroked your hair and calmed you. I long to feel the silken brown locks that adorn your head and frame your face, just as you long to be held by me again. Believe me, I miss you as much as you miss me.

My dearest love, my wife.

I wish you would get up, wake up, do something, anything. Clean the bathroom or dust in the lounge. Pack up my clothes instead of wearing them, because the only thing it's doing it causing us both pain, though you can't see mine. Get rid of that damned car. I know you think it a mockery, that it should have been so easily fixed up when my own body could not be, too broken to even bleed, to breathe. Now it stops you leaving the flat because it waits outside to mock you. Get rid of it.

How could we have known we didn't have longer? Would you have stopped me going out that day? I'm sorry, but you have to start living again, for the both of us.

I'm going to lose him soon

Three days from now I will lose him.

It is bizarre, the way this illness has hit me. I don't remember it of course; early onset Alzheimer's, I'm told, on a nearly daily basis. There is a man that visits and with him comes my son. I remember the visits but not the man.

Day 3
When the man comes, I smile. "Who are you?" I ask, and he looks at me with those blue eyes, so like my son's, and he says "I'm Tim, I'm your husband."

"Okay." I have no choice but to believe him. Behind him is my son, Timmy. "Hey Timmy." My three year old rushes towards me, arms outstretched, and I take him into my arms. I don't remember why Timmy doesn't live with me anymore. Perhaps this husband of mine is supposed to look after him.

Later, I remember, because as I gaze at Timmy I see, in my mind's eye, a time when I don't know him. Somehow I know I've felt like this before, though I have no recollection.

"Timothy," I say, to my husband who is not my husband, "can we go out, all of us? I'd like to go somewhere."

"Where?"

"A day out, like we always do." His confusion tells me I've said the wrong thing. "Picnic?"

"I don't have any food with me. Tomorrow, we'll go tomorrow." I know this is possible, because tomorrow I will still know Timmy. I nod and my almost-husband continues, "we could go for lunch? Or to the cinema? Timmy, what do you think?"

My son looks excited. He doesn't know what's coming.

So we go out. A lady comes in to help me change, but I don't know why. I can dress myself, put on my own shoes, but she insists on tying the laces while my son and the man watch. I wish they would avert their eyes.

Then we leave. I don't focus on the film we watch, only Timmy's hand in mine the whole time, except for when he reaches into the box to grab popcorn into his tiny hand, stuffing it into his tiny mouth, only to take my hand again and cover it with stickiness.

I don't focus on what I'm eating, only the mess Timmy makes at the cafe. To think I hated his mess, and now I love it because I know I'll lose it when I lose him.

Day 2
"You have some visitors," the nurse says.

In come the man who brings my son. I recognise his face, but I have no idea who he is. "My name is Timothy, I'm your husband," he tells me, as though exasperated. Timmy, my son, runs to me. "I brought a picnic," says Timothy.

The nurse helps me dress, and inside I fume, thinking 'I am not a damn child, I can dress myself.' But I don't say it, all I can think about is the day after tomorrow, when I know I'll look at Timmy and not know him. Just like this man who says he's my husband and looks enough like Timmy for me to believe him.

I lie on the plaid picnic mat and Timmy feeds me carrot sticks, too many all at once so that I almost choke. But I don't mind, it's just to great to see him happy, even when he gets bored and slams down on top of me, carrot on his face, and winds me. I focus on his body on mine and my arms around him.

I make them promise to come the next day.

Day 1
When Timmy comes, I wonder how he got here. Then I look at the man with him, and realise that's how. "Who are you? Why is my son with you?"

"I'm your husband."

"Why don't you all go sit in the TV room?" the nurse suggests, and I nod, shrugging on a dressing gown.

I am the youngest in the room, and i don't remember why I'm there. Timmy doesn't know either, because he stares at the old people before pulling me towards a sofa and sitting down with me. The news is on and he isn't interested, so he tries to get me to play, but I'm really tired today. Sometimes I look up and wonder whose child this is, until I remember.

It's nearly the day. It breaks my heart.

I spend most of the day in the TV room and watch him. He plays on the ground and I drink him in, the sight of him, my love for him and his for me, knowing tomorrow I'll look and think 'who are these people who have come to visit?'

Day 0
I wake up and wonder where I am. I know my name still, but not what room I'm in. When a nurse comes in, I think I must be in a hospital. The man and boy who follow her are strange to me, but I can immediately tell by the mousy hair and bright blue eyes they're father and son.

"I'm sorry, but who are you?"

The hurt mixed with annoyance is brimming over in the man's eyes, as though he knows a terrible secret that I don't. But he doesn't tell me what it is. He doesn't have time, before his son speaks, "Mummy, what are we going to do today?"