Wednesday, September 26, 2007

   Yay
Hay everyone! What is up? Nothing much here just hanging with some peeps. I am felling good right now so yeah and here is the rest of the story.

Apparently all nuns did squeak alike, when they slipped and fell on cobblestones.
“Sister Esther! Are you all right?” The priest knelt beside her quickly, taking quick note of the angle at which she had landed. Her feet had not completely gone out from under her, and she’d caught herself with one arm as well, which was good because she hadn’t fallen backward and hit her head, but bad because it could mean a broken wrist. “Esther? Talk to me, Esther…” Her expression was blankly stunned, and for a moment he replayed the fall in his head, wondering if she had indeed hit her head and he’d somehow overlooked it.
She blinked, and shook her head vigorously like one trying to clear figurative cobwebs from the brain, setting the candle down carefully on the snowy ground. “Ow,” she pronounced in a faint voice, before her blue eyes turned up to meet his worried gaze.
“Esther? Where does it hurt?”
The little nun began to open her mouth, and one hand crept towards her posterior. Then, her face flared bright red and she twitched all over in something that might be interpreted as a full-body huff, folding her arms together across her chest. “Never mind!!!”
Abel choked back a startled laugh and raised his eyebrows innocently to try and clear his expression. “So, your hand is all right then? No sprained wrist? No sprained ankles?”
Esther looked at him suspiciously, but it was obvious that he really was worried, and not simply having a joke at her expense. “No, I don’t think so… just surprised,” came the thoughtful reply as she pulled her legs back underneath her in preparation to stand. Her eyes flew open suddenly, and she shot him another glare as he held out a hand to give her support. “Why didn’t you catch me?”
It was his turn to blush, because he knew that he could have – if he’d been paying attention. “I – well – I just remembered the loose cobble - ” And he’d been daydreaming, enjoying her presence, even if it did involve her ranting on about things unimportant – but she didn’t have to know that.
“Oh… never mind,” she sighed bleakly, as he pulled her to her feet. “It would have only meant we’d both have fallen.” Abel noticed that she rubbed her bottom surreptitiously when she thought he wasn’t looking. Then her words registered.
“Hey! Wait a minute, are you implying that I couldn’t catch you?”
“Not at all,” the Sister sniffed with asperity. “I’m implying that you couldn’t have kept us both out of trouble in the process.” And with that, she turned on her heel and continued stepping carefully back up the walk, adjusting her skirts with little sharp motions that let him know that indeed, she was upset, and embarrassed, and that she would probably be stomping off if the footing wasn’t so treacherous.
“Sister Esther! How could you think such a horrible thing…” Abel stood there for a breath, dismayed, trying to determine how many levels of meaning her comment had held. It could have been quite literal, and he should probably take it as such – but the sharp pain in his heart wouldn’t let him. It was Esther, after all; the woman had more layers than Caterina’s lasagna. Did she truly have that little faith in him? Hadn’t he been there for her, more often than not? Hadn’t he kept his promise this time? Frustration rose bitterly in his throat, as he started to trudge up the path after her, boots sinking down into at least three inches of pack-able snow…
Esther tossed her head and waved a hand carelessly – too carelessly – over her shoulder. “Oh, it’s all right, Father Nightroad, we’re all used to i-IIIIHHH!!!!”
It was quite interesting how many different sounds Esther could make, Abel mused to himself with an odd detachment, watching as the nun frantically worked to scrape the remains of a snowball out of the neck of her habit before it melted. He was certain that she might have cracked glass with that last shriek, given a bit of training. It was too bad the Vatican choirmasters were still rather stodgy about keeping their choruses male.
“You!”
Ah, it seemed that she’d recovered.
“Yes?” he drawled with an arch look over his glasses’ frames, casually tossing another snowball in one gloved hand. “Was there something?”
Normally he would be retreating behind the silly façade right about now. In fact, normally he would never have thrown a snowball at her. But something about the way she’d responded just then – it had dredged up a deep-rooted obstinacy that he’d thought long-buried.
Her little mouth opened in a pink “O” of anger. “FATHER NIGHTROAD, YOU THREW A SNOWBALL AT ME!!!”
“Why, so I did.” Good Lord, this was entertaining.
“WHY did you throw a snowball at me???” Bright sapphire eyes blazed at him in accusation.
“Ah, well, now that is an interesting question,” he remarked, blithely pretending to ignore the rising color in her cheeks, and trying not to snicker as she squirmed at stray chunks of melting snow sliding past her shoulders into warmer areas. “Do you really want to know?”
“YES!” Esther stomped her foot in frustration, her head tossing furiously with the motion. Then she scrambled to stay upright as the jolt disturbed her precarious footing.
Now it was time to really push her buttons. He leaned forward conspiratorially. “It ASKED me to.”
Esther’s expression froze, shading into bewilderment, disbelief and then outrage. Her voice, when she managed to speak, was deceptively calm. “It… asked you to?”
“Oh yes,” he nodded, with an innocent, serious expression. “Because, you see, you’ve forgotten Lady Caterina’s candleholder. And we can’t possibly allow you to be so irresponsible.”
To his dismay, rather than flying into a tirade, Esther actually considered that for a moment, looking back at the candle flickering forlornly on the walk, and then sighed. “Oh, heavens, I suppose I should pick that up.” She started back down towards him, watching her footing to the seeming exclusion of all else.

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