The Garden, Saturday Afternoon

[glacial_queen]

Karla wasn't surprised when she woke up and couldn't find her Mommy or Daddy. They were often gone for hours and hours and hours, doing important Court stuff. What was weird was that she didn't recognize anyone in the castle, and there didn't seem to be any servants around to feed her.

So, rather than stay in the room she'd woken up in (also not her room--had they caught the Winds after she'd fallen asleep?) Karla had decided to go looking for people. Someone had to be taking care of her, right?

Her search had lasted right until she'd gone outside and found the garden. It was a good garden, filled with lots of healthy looking plants and deep, rich soil.

The perfect kind of soil for mud. Specifically, mud pies.

Karla forgot all about trying to find someone. Instead, she was sitting in the center of the garden, spattered with mud, patting the mud into rough pie shapes and decorating them with pretty rocks and leaves.

[Open! Come and get dirty!]

Comments

[anarchist-queen.livejournal.com]

Florida started, but didn't flee. Which was progress for her. She shook her head to answer the question about talking.

*What's your name?* she thought hesitantly.

[glacial_queen]

*'M Karla,* Karla sent. *I'm makin' mud pies, if you wanna.*

She added that last part, since no one from around here seemed to understand the concept of mud pies.

[anarchist-queen.livejournal.com]

Florida studied Karla for a moment, then nodded. *Kay.* The concept seemed simple enough. *I'm Florida. Is it safe around here?*

She sat down, and began to attempt her very first mud pie.

[glacial_queen]

*Course!* Karla scoffed. *Like my Mommy an' Daddy would bring me anywhere it wasn't safe.*

[anarchist-queen.livejournal.com]

It was kind of a silly question. Mickey and Goldie likewise wouldn't have sent her some where that wasn't safe. Though she did kind of live in constant awareness of being hunted.

Her mud pie fell apart when she tried to make a mud tray for it. Hmm.

[glacial_queen]

*Pickin' 'em up doesn't work so good,* Karla explained, a little late.

[anarchist-queen.livejournal.com]

*Maybe if I let it dry a bit first?*

[glacial_queen]

*Gonna take awhile,* Karla said, eying the mud critically. "I just watered it."

Sometimes Karla switched back and forth between real speech and mindspeech indiscriminately.

[anarchist-queen.livejournal.com]

So long as Karla had no problem with Florida forgoing the real speech, she had no problem with that.

*So they're sort of on the ground decorations?*

[glacial_queen]

Karla nodded, busy eying the sides of her pie to figure out the perfect configuration of stones. "Or you just let 'em dry in the sun for a really long time," she said. "But that takes forever."

[anarchist-queen.livejournal.com]

Florida thought maybe she'd figured out a way to approximate a pie plate. She made a ring of twigs and leaves around her pie.

*Have you ever made a snowman?*

[glacial_queen]

*Of course!* Karla sent, switching back to psychic threads. *Glacia gets lotsa snow in the wintertime.*

[anarchist-queen.livejournal.com]

*Is it fun?* Florida had never done that. It did snow in Bordertown during the winter, sometimes. But no one in Castle Pup had ever taught her how. Not even Mooner.

[glacial_queen]

*'Course! I like to dress them up in my cousin's clothes, cause then he gets all mad at me,* Karla said, giggling.