open RP, corridors: Camilla as a child.

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

(( Camilla has eaten some magical chocolate and is now seven years old. ))

It's a make-believe place, isn't it? She's in a castle. She must be dreaming. It's a beautiful dream, Camilla thinks.

She seems to know where things are, here, in the way of dreams, even though she doesn't remember any of it really. That way's the Great Hall, not knowing what the Great Hall actually is, only somehow knowing its name and if she follows that particular turn in the corridors that's where she'll end up. That's the way out to the courtyard, though she's not sure what's in the courtyard.

Inquisitive, she wanders, that first exuberant skipping long since slowed to a sedate walk.

Comments

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

Camilla looks at him sideways. He's Silas and he'll protect her. Those are the things she's certain of in the same way she knows where the Great Hall is. Beyond that, she's not sure what to expect. She's a wayward little thing (plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose) and she might otherwise be inclined to wander off. But there's that certainty she's safe with him, and a dim unpleasant suspicion she's less safe without him (where does that come from? just the way things are in dreams, the things you know without knowing why). Anyway she hasn't found anything interesting on her own yet.

"I'll stay with you," she decides. "This isn't a very exciting castle. I had a book but it didn't make any sense. Do you know how to play any games?"

[ghostorangel.livejournal.com]

Silas smiled at her, inwardly relieved. He didn't know what he would have done if she hadn't decided to go with him--not only was he severly touch-phobic, he had no idea how to pick up a child, and he had a certain hazy idea that you weren't supposed to touch angels anyway. This Camilla might or might not be an angel, but he thought it best to err on the side of caution.

"I do not, little Camilla," he said, wholly unaware of just what he was getting himself into. "You will have to teach me."

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

Camilla stands on tiptoes to peer over the windowsill. She's not a short child, as children her age go, but it's quite a high sill. "It's too gloomy out to play croquet," she says, a trifle pouty. Little does Silas know the bullet he's thereby dodged. "The ground will be all mucky." She turns back from the window to Silas again. The child's eyes are the same pale inscrutable gray as the adult Camilla's, and the child's gaze the same odd mixture of curiosity and serenity.

"Uncle Hilary reads to us sometimes when it's gloomy out," she tells him. "Would you read to me?"

[ghostorangel.livejournal.com]

It was indeed to gloomy to go outdoors, and Silas was glad of an excuse to stay inside. Her question startled him, however--he had never been around small children, and thus had never read aloud. Little!Camilla--whoever she actually was; he still hadn't figured that out--was somewhat unsettling to be around, but her question was oddly...endearing.

"Certainly," he said. "What would you have me read?"

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

Camilla chews a fingernail and thinks. "The book in my room is in a language I can't read, so even if you read it to me I won't understand." Then she remembers: "This castle is magic. If you want something you only have to ask for it." Which makes perfect sense, for a dream castle.

She raises her little voice: "I want the Blue Fairy Book (http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/LanBlue.html). Please."

Sure enough, a house elf materialises with the book.

"There," says little Camilla, with a satisfied smile, and hands the book to her guardian/babysitter.