|
Post by Madeline on Mar 21, 2021 20:38:19 GMT -5
**Madeline was usually a quiet Dibbun. Shy, unless someone took the time to draw her out of her shell. Reserved, unless there was obvious fun to be had. A loner, except for when she sought companionship or was forced to be social. And definitely a bookworm. The kitten always had her nose in a book as she tried to figure out this whole reading thing. It would help, she thought, of the grown ups would read to her more. Really, what could be more important than helping her learn to read? (Nothing at all, in the wildcat's opinion, not understanding the whole thing about having to cook the food instead of it just magically appearing from La La Land.)
**Today was no different. Madeline had done all her lessons and had played with her friends for a few hours. However, the kitten had eventually slipped away. Snagging a giant book from the library, the Dibbun had dragged a pillow off a chair and plopped herself in front of the tapestry in Great Hall. Her rear protected from the hard stone floor by the cushiony pillow, the kitten struggled to understand what she was looking at.**
"M....Mar...tin...Martin th.....tha W....W....War...ri....or..." **The kitten's face showed pure determination as she struggled alone through the first words of the title page. Stubbornly ignoring the glorious Fall day outside, the Dibbun sat, striving to master this difficulty.**
|
|
Crystal M. V. Rosepaw
Loyal Dibbun
Even if I am inactive, if you need to contact me, messaging me will send me an email! :)
Posts: 439
Main: Crystal Rosepaw
Alt 1: Rikian Zarooah
Alt 2: Kaede Dawnshadow
|
Post by Crystal M. V. Rosepaw on Mar 24, 2021 16:31:48 GMT -5
((OCC;; I tell myself I'm going to make a short post and look what happens. At least I can justify it by calling it an introduction post? Maybe???)) **Redwall's esteemed libraries always saw patronage, beasts studying from its worn old tonea from dusk til dawn, or inhabitants carefully maintaining the stacks. Brothers and Sisters, warriors all in their own right, for whom dust, mold, and dog-eared pages were the ultimate evil in Mossflower. It was a rarity, however, that such a notable collection of works would be visited by the younger beasts of the Abbey, especially multiple in one day.
Well, perhaps less rare the past few seasons.
Since the arrival of the Rosepaw family in seasons passed, their youngest, Crystal, had taken up near permanent residence between the bookshelves. Her father had taken great pains to instill in his kits a healthy thirst for knowledge and his daughter had spent countless hours following him around, reading aloud whatever she could get into her voracious little paws. She had, in her mind, spent far too long listening to her elder brother's reading lessons, and had pounced on the first chance she had to take what seemed to have been a jealously guarded secret for herself. She had to admit, though, that it set her apart from her peers a bit. Though she was never one to miss out on a spot in a coveted kitchen raid - who else would take charge, if she wasn't there to instill order in the younger beasts? - she was a rarity: a dibbun who actually enjoyed Abbeyschool.
That day, she had declined, profusely, the invitation to accompany some of her more frequent companions to the pond. Rikian, Zeke, and the Goldbrush twins seemed excited over the idea of using up the last of the warmer days, planning to spend as much time as they could until inevitably being caught splashing in the shallows. Crystal, however, had declined in favor of finishing her assignments (and certainly not because she felt miserable at the mere idea of her yet winter-thick pelt being cold and wet). If she turned her ears to the windows, she imagined she could hear their joyous chatter far below. She was older than them; let the babes enjoy getting drenched and muddied.
And yet, the little fox was pleased with herself as she blew onto the bit of parchment in her ink-stained paws, self-satisfied with her own less than artful rendition of some of the more notable geographical locations in Mossflower. She waggled the drawing as she carried it over to the basket near one of the desks, an oft-neglected receptacle for completed schoolwork, dropped it in, and considered what to do for the rest of the day. She dabbed her paws at the front of her dress, staining the pale blue fabric thoughtlessly just as much as she worked the ink further into the soft white fur, and began to look around the books.
She smiled politely at a grumpy hedgehog Brother, then set out for the shelves, deciding to spend her time with some of her favorite old stories until her young hooligan friends tired of their liquid-based recreation. Mad-beasts, all of them. She, instead, peered at the spines of books older than she, tailtip twitching thoughtfully, quickly narrowing down her options to one book she had read through more times than she could count on her whiskers. As she looked up to find the old worn cover, she passed, confused. Where's the book about Mart-**
-in th-tha... W-w-war-ri-or...
'One of our Abbey's founders.' **Crystal said immediately, as if quizzed. She had read from that particular tome enough to devote the opening words to memory. She turned to peer to the voice, following it to a small kitten sitting amidst a pile of cushions.** 'And the first of our es-... E-stemmed? East?' Er, I dunno how to say that word, sorry. He's first somethin' Champion.
**The little foxmaid shrugged, unbothered, wandering over to the cushion throne curiously. She didn't see parchment, nor smell ink, only dust and yellowed pages. She peered at the kitten, deducting that, like most of her fellow DAB members, Madeline was younger than her, though she wasn't sure by how much. Nonplussed by her difficulty with reading the text - she spent too much of her time around Rikian and his stuttering, accented baby speech - she looked down at the books, kitten, and cushions.**
What'cha doin'? Work for Abbeyschool? The Brother over, uh, there has some ink if you need to borrow some.
**Anything to get her favored book back quicker!**
|
|
|
Post by Madeline on Mar 27, 2021 20:51:55 GMT -5
**Madeline had thought that coming down here to Great Hall would keep her from being interrupted, but nooooooo, of course not. However, due to this notion of privacy (in a gigantic open-air hall) and the fact that she was fully engrossed in her struggle to read, the kitten had not noticed the fox approaching until she said something. The wildcat started, her tail poufing up spectacularly as she got the heebie-jeebies scared out of her. However, things escalated when the jumping cat lost her balance. A shriek escaped her lips as she toppled off her cushion, the book in her lap very quickly moving to her stomach as she fell backwards. It was only by some miracle that she didn't hit her head on the floorstones. The wind was knocked out of Madeline's lungs, and tears sprang to her eyes.
**Part of her was angry at being startled like that. But part of her brain reached back and snatched up memories of her sister and mother intentionally frightening her, jeering as she cried and yelling at her to buck up and not be so scared. Madeline choked back her tears and decided to go with anger instead of fear. One she got her breath back, she struggled to get the book off of herself.** "You scareded me! You a meanie face!!"
**The kitten manages to get out from under the tome and plopped herself back onto the cushion, hugging the book close.** "I'm tryna read! What's it look like I'm doin'?" **She sniffled, still trying to not cry from the shock, and the pain of landing on hard stones, and the memory of her old family's abuse. Then a thought occurred to her. Madeline looked up at Crystal, her eyes wide with horror.** "Yous don't write in books, do you?!" **Some of the scholars have annotated a number of the works in Redwall's esteemed library. But Madeline hadn't noticed that, so she saw the very idea of marking in a book as sacreligious.** "'Ow could you do something that horrible!!"
|
|
Crystal M. V. Rosepaw
Loyal Dibbun
Even if I am inactive, if you need to contact me, messaging me will send me an email! :)
Posts: 439
Main: Crystal Rosepaw
Alt 1: Rikian Zarooah
Alt 2: Kaede Dawnshadow
|
Post by Crystal M. V. Rosepaw on Mar 28, 2021 16:00:22 GMT -5
**Crystal would have been amused by the startled kitten, if the reaction had been anticipated. She hadn't meant to scare poor Madeline, as funny as the prank may have been, and as such ended up mirroring the little cat's posture. Her tiny claws tapped out a quick rhythm on the stone as she jumped a pace back, pelt lifting in a rather comical imitation of cottonwood fluff in the springtime, ears flattening for a moment before lifting again to see if the nearby Brother had heard the commotion. Her attention divided, she almost missed the insult. Almost.**
You a meanie face!!
**The little fox turned her attention back to Madeline, tailtip lashing in childish indignation. She hadn't done anything wrong and she was somehow getting the blame? Whiskers twitching, she glared down at the kitten, putting her ink paws on her hips, trying to summon up as much authority as her rather diminutive stature would allow. She had gotten the stare enough times from her elders, especially the Badgermum, that she suspected she could mimic it passably. Still puffed up from the reaction to her approach, the attempt was... rather diminished.** Not my fault you gotta be a little 'fraidy fr-
**However, before she could finish her waspish retort, Madeline was upright again, clinging to the old tome, bright eyes looking up at her, slitted pupils gone wide. Crys huffed as she explained she had only been reading and bit back a smart-mouthed retort, starting to feel guilty for surprising the younger dibbun so badly, until... A surprising accusation.**
Yous don't write in books, do you?! 'Ow could you do something that horrible!!
Wha- No! **Crystal balked, suddenly confused. Kitty's got bees for brains! How had she come to that conclusion? All she had done was finish the passage that was being read, and tell her that if she needed ink for her schoolwork, she could get some from the Brother. She hadn't said anything about writing in books!** Only book I'm writin' in is my own diary. I was just doin' my work for Abbeyschool, drawin' maps, 'fore I found you faffin' 'bout. And shhh! We gonna get kicked out if you wanna yell!
**Though Crystal may have been a few seasons older than her typical dibbun cohorts, little beasts had never been good at reading the room. Her own experience of learning to read had been a close, familial thing; her mother calmly helping her with words when she had stumbled over them, or sprawled in her father's lap with a stack of colorfully illustrated picture books. In the absence of Rikian's own parents at the Abbey, they had begun to do the same for him and his younger sister, though the little todd met the lessons with far less enthusiasm. It made little sense to the fox; if she was having that much trouble, why not get an easier book, or ask her Mama or Papa for help? Or both? Forgetting her desire to take the book for herself momentarily, she paid more heed to the new mystery.** If you're still learnin', why are you hidin' down here all by yourself?
|
|
|
Post by Madeline on Apr 5, 2021 17:36:25 GMT -5
**A look of supreme confusion crossed Madeline's face.** "If you don't write in books, den why's you sayin' I needs ink? Why were ya makin' maps? I don't wanna make mapsies." **Madeline was still hugging the giant book, although not as tightly. She had only just begun learning to write, still struggling through how to shape the letters of the alphabet (in accursed script/cursive, of course). So the idea of putting her words on paper to be read like she's trying to read this book was a bit of a foreign concept to her.
**Another foreign concept to the kitten would be the idea of a loving family. Her previous life was worlds away from Crystal's. Mom and Dad, helping one learn how to read? That was something the kitten could not comprehend. The Abbey felt like a new life compared to what she was used to.
**It was good that Crystal's retort had been cut short; Madeline's tears would have poured down her face instead of drying up. The kitten did, however, accept the fox kit's admonition to be silent and continued in a much quieter tone.** "Da grown ups get tired of weadin' t' me. Dey tell me t'go play. But I did play! I played a lot! I jus' wants more story. So's I tryna teach m'self!" **The kitten looked quite pleased with her idea, but it quickly morphed to disappointment.** "But dis book ish sho hard. I wanna read 'bout Martin," **she pointed up at the legendary figure benevolently gazing down at them from the Tapestry.** "But d'words in dis book are too hard." **She set the book down on her lap and stared at the cover with its gilded picture of Martin's sword. She stroked the cover with as much tenderness as a Dibbun can muster. She understood how special books are, and tried to treat them with respect.**
|
|