Apples to Apples

Participants:

delia_icon.gif tania_icon.gif

Scene Title Apples to Apples
Synopsis The Brickhouse girls meet to discuss their possible futures over zombie apple heads.
Date April 15, 2011

Eltingville Blocks — The Brick House


The kitchen at the brick house is busy today, as the women (or woman and girl) of the house have taken over. With apples. Tania sits on the floor, back up against the counter, knees folded as she very carefully peels the skin off the apple in her hands. She chooses to use a knife, and is ignoring the safety rules about always slicing away and such. But she's methodical, making sure as little of the meat of the apple is lost in the process.

Her tongue is even sticking out in concentration.

While Tania is peeling, Delia is brushing them with lemon juice and dabbing off all the excess liquid. "They're really selling, you wouldn't believe how well. I can't believe it…" the older of the two ginger's smalltalk is just that, nothing personal or in depth. She's been avoiding such things since coming home. Her long sleeved t-shirt has the remnants of tear stains wiped off on one cuff and as soon as she stalked through the door, the cardigan was discarded.

"Did you see how the other ones were doing? Are they dried yet and ready for hair and eyes?"

"I think, they are just different enough to get people to be interested," Tania says, her gaze never leaving the apple. Right now, she's working on one long strip of peel. Each one's gotten her a little closer to perfecting the technique.

"Plus. They are cute," she adds, lips curving into one of her slight smiles. While they might have seemed distant or cold when they all first moved in, it's since become clear that the girl just doesn't do big expressions. But then, she's a subdued girl in general. "I think," she says, glancing up from her work to check the other batch, "I think the early ones are ready, da."

For lack of a food dehydrator, they've been using the oven to dry out and wither the fruit. When Delia looks up from her own job to peek through the window, she grins and gets up off her chair. "They're sooooo tiny! I'm glad I picked the littlest apples, I think the smaller heads are cuter." Placing the apple she's working on the table, she pushes herself up and crosses the room. The oven mitts are pulls over her hands and when she opens the door, the heavenly scent of apples fills the room.

She doesn't take the little heads out right away, instead she lets her eyelids drop down halfway and lets the smell fills her lungs for a few breaths. "Do you think when you have daughters, you'll make pies and things with them?"

Tania closes her eyes to take in the smell, too. It's so nice, having things like this to savor. There wasn't much to savor in St. Petersburg. Not for her, anyway. But that question gets her eyes to snap open. Surprise is followed quickly by uncertainty, but the girl's expression levels out after a moment.

"I think, if I am to have children, I would like to do many things with them like this. And pies. And I think I would like not to yell." Maybe she plans on leaving the yelling up to the father. Or, perhaps going off the dream, where her girls were so well behaved.

"Someone told me that your children act like they're addicted to him."

The quick sentence is accompanied by the flit of cornflower blue eyes in her direction. Rosy lips are set into a thin line as she watches the girl's reaction to the news. The gaze doesn't last for a split second longer than it takes for Tania to look at Delia, before the older of the two looks away in shame. "I'm sorry, I was looking into the dreams. You seemed really happy… Then I went to see the man with the metal hand and lost my heart."

Literally.

She didn't fall in love.

"I'll stop, if that's what you want. I won't try to help or change anything. Compared to what my dreams were like… yours seemed like a cakewalk." An easy life on a leash, like a dog. Like Delia is now. "I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to live like that. I just wanted you to know."

Tania's reaction is, at first, a whole lot of silence. Like a mimicry of the elder Kozlow, almost. Her gaze goes back to her apple, starting to peel again. Slower.

"I am sixteen, Miss Deliya," she says, and for a moment, it seems like she's going to stop there. As if the comment should explain her opinion on all this. She peels a little more, before setting the naked apple aside and picking up another. "I think, I do not know what I want. And I think that is… okay. To not know."

She picks up another apple, knife held lazily in the crook by her thumb as she rolls the apple from one hand to another. "I know my brother would not stand for any addiction, though." Which either means… Delia's someone is wrong or that Sasha is no longer around, by that time.

"It's fine— to not know," Delia says quickly, in agreement to the girl. She keeps forgetting that the younger one is still only a girl, without parents around to scold and chastise the dreamwalker ends up treating her like one of the other room mates. Probably a little better since quality time is spent with Tania and neither the frightening brother or Mister Logan. "I just wanted to let you know that I found out why you felt happy in the dream but didn't know why."

The apples are pulled from the oven and laid to rest on the burners. Once one of the mitts is removed, Delia tests one of the little shrunken heads with the quick touch of a finger. "Can you keep a secret?"

"Perhaps it is nothing so dastardly. Maybe I was just happy. But I think, people think it is impossible with Mister Logan, yes?" Tania tilts her head a little, looking over at Delia. "They look for reasons why this thing could happen. But maybe it just happens. Or maybe I am just naive. No— optimistic? But I think, too… that is many years from now. We will see what happens." It's spoken a bit like one's life philosophy. Something she's lived her whole live. Sometimes, it was we will see if she lives until tomorrow. We will see if there is food. We will see if your father dies. It makes it easy for her to ignore planning for the future.

"Da, yes. I am very good at secrets." She's almost a little sad when she says that, but it's only because she feels bad for keeping things like… oh, her real name from the woman she considers her closest friend. But it is good on a secrecy resume.

"I— I know who is making the dreams," Delia almost whispers, a guilty look is cast to the younger one and a few of the tiny shrunken heads are plucks up and placed on a piece of news print. "You can't tell anyone, no one. Not your brother or Mister Logan or anyone… please."

Catching Tania's eye, the dreamwalker's gaze lingers in a long stare. The tip of her tongue darts out to wet lips that aren't quite dry but allow a nervous habit to start. Delia begins to chew on her bottom lip. She'd do it all day until it was raw and bleeding if she could, but eventually something always distracts and stops her.

Tania looks back at Delia, her brow furrowed in concern. But she holds a hand out to Delia. Handshakes, after all, are how grownups promise things, right? "You have my word, Miss Deliya. I will not tell anyone. Not even my brother. Not even Miss Ebby, if I see her again." Which might be a stretch, since Tania hasn't even tried to leave Eltingville.

Long pale fingers stretch out toward Tania before their hands meet. They're the sort of hands built for playing a musical instrument, wasted on a tone deaf woman that can't even play the cowbell. The handshake, the seal of a promise, seems to appease the older of the two and she gives the other a shy and somewhat bittersweet smile. "I have something to show you…"

Then Delia disappears from the room, racing upstairs only to reappear within moments, out of breath from running.

When she returns, she's carrying a sheet of paper that seems to be covered in crayon. A spot is swept clean on the table and some clean newspaper is laid down, just to make sure there's nothing on its surface that might mar the precious slip in the dreamwalker's hand. Laying it flat, she glances to Tania and nods toward the name and date. "My daughter… Sable found a box full of things from the future. This is my daughter's grave."

When Delia rushes out, Tania sets the apple aside and pulls herself up to stand. It's not to follow, but it is spurred on by curiosity. So when Delia gets back, she's there by the table already. "A box from the future?" Lifted eyebrows mark the moment when Tania looks from Delia to the paper. "You said you had a daughter— I did not know she was… to die, Miss Deliya. I am… I am so sorry." She doesn't touch the paper, gathering that it's valuable to Delia, but she does give it a look over before her gaze returns to the dreamwalker.

There's a slight jerky nod from the tall redhead, confirmation that the I am so sorry isn't wasted. "She's going to be born, small and sick… And she's going to die the same way. Before she turns one." Delia's head doesn't move from its bowed position when her eyes flicker toward Tania for a moment. When she looks back down at the delicate treasure, she traces her fingers lightly over the name, ignoring the date. "It's just like it was in the dream, it's the gravestone that Nick brought me to… It was in the box that Sable found. The dreams are real."

Taking a long breath in, she lets it out slowly as her index finger traces the first letter of the baby's name. "And I know who is giving us the dreams, and I don't want them to stop… because the more we can see, the more we can stop these things from happening."

Things like small and sick are familiar concepts to Tania. she survived her own childhood, but it was a close call any number of times. So the frown that comes to her face at that news is more sympathetic than anything. "I did not… see much that was awful," she says, of her own dreams, "but I think there is a lot that is bad happening around my… safe haven. But I think even Mister Logan was trying to survive."

She looks up to Delia again, frown tugging her lips down. "I know how this feels. To think only about making it to tomorrow. And I think… it would be good to stop the bad… but I wonder how much good we will lose with it."

"What if it's worth it? Losing the good to lose the bad?" She slides a chair over and takes a seat in front of the paper. The dreamer turns to glance at Tania and lifts one shoulder in a slight shrug. "Did I tell you about my first dream? We were trying to convince people in the ghetto to leave— because they were starving and cold. The government stopped taking care of them and just started taking them to be killed."

She chews on her lip for little while before finally folding the piece of paper again. "She's born a year from now, I know who her father is now. It's not Mister Logan." A fact that might make the young girl feel better about the ordeal, after all, she hasn't witnessed anything untoward between the dreamwalker and their mutual host. "It's someone that I hurt very badly, I don't think she's possible— I don't even know if I want her to be possible…" Unless she was thinking about someone else— and maybe drunk.

"The problem with these dreams? Now we will know. If it ends up not worth it." Tania lets out a little sigh there, but when she looks over at Delia, she manages a sad little smile. "But we cannot see what will happen… and just let it come. Not something like that."

If Tania feels any better, it's really hard to tell. But her concerns stem from someone losing a child that early, not so much with whom the child was made. "Then we have already changed at least one thing, yes? There will be more things. It will be different, Miss Deliya. Maybe less sadness for you."


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