HtH114 – Continuation
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: A strange visitor comes to the house.
"Why, so many people go in and out of the house on those days, it is impossible to meet them all."
These are the words of our local tinkerer, Mistrál. Indeed, since the opening of the Echoes Chamber, the house has seen an uptick in guests who pass by the house. Some are merely curious, and pay a small visit to see what this wondrous house is about. Others return to see the girls hold up a lamplight each Wednesday.
There are also rare, bizarre guests who stumble upon the house, almost by accident.
This is the story of one such visitor.
It had so happened that the girls had gone out to the local farm for a visit, and Eclair is staying at home alone. The girl had fallen ill recently, and with the help of the other girls [HtH111] had just begun to recover. She steps gingerly down the wooden staircase, hand on a support beam, as if afraid she might fall otherwise.
That was when she hears something peculiar.
There is someone speaking in the dining hall.
It is a female voice to be sure, but not one she is familiar with.
A guest?
She speaks with excited tones, but to whom?
Most guests come on Reading Days now, a guest on an off-day is new. Still, Eclair straightens her brown jacket, and adjusts her glasses a bit! Can't look too shabby in front of someone from outside the house, can she! She turns a bit to inspect the rest of her clothes, and satisfied, pushes past the dining room door. Before she can even get a word out, she is met with a great:
"Huzzah! Someone lives here, howbeit!"
There is a knight in full armor sitting in the dining room. Her face covered in a full helm, no part of her face was revealed save for a single eye slit and little breathing holes. She wears a red-white cloth, a surcoat, over her plate armor which covers every part of her body. It was certainly not one of the girls dressing up as a knight, for this knight is tiny, barely Piaccta's height, and that is even counting that pointy top end of her helm!
When she sees Eclair, the tiny knight moves with agility unlike someone in heavy armor and places throws both hands above her head in a bent 'U' shape. It must be a salute of sorts, for she sees the same pose printed upon the surcoat's arms.
Without thinking, Eclair throws up the pose as well!
This seems to please the tiny knight greatly, for she starts clapping both of her mitten-like gauntlets with great enthusiasm,
"Praise be, there is another sister of the cloth in these lands as well!"
"...?!?! I think there is a misunderstanding..." Eclair looks for the right words in her hazy confusion, "My name is Eclair, and this is a theatre house, not a holy house. Have you stumbled upon the wrong place by mistake?"
The tiny knight jolts upwards in her seat, like the person inside had received a lightning shock of revelation within! However, she quickly recovers, and start banging her metal gauntlets on the dining table. The table creaks a little, but holds!
"There is no mistake, for my esteemed fellow from The Continental Society of Anomalous Phenomena, is right here!"
Eclair looks around the room.
There are no other humans aside from the two of them.
"Me? Why me?" Eclair points to herself, wondering what this is about.
"Ho! Given enough curiosity, you too can join our society! Althoughbit, I speak of my esteemed companion, he's right here!"
The knight puts mittens on a small, furry object camouflaged behind the flower vase on the kitchen table. Pip is brought out, in all his plush orange fox glory, sitting on all fours like this is the most natural thing in the world!
Naturally, Pip is completely still.
He's just a plush fox, after all!
Eclair looks intently at Pip, as if he would suddenly pop alive and explain everything. But since Pip is just a plush fox, he doesn't say a word.
"Oh, a fellow at an external society. Aren't we going places, Ser Pip." Eclair gently shakes Pip's front paw. She could have sworn the fox's mouth curled just a little, but it might have been a trick of the morning light. "You never tell anyone about the friends you make on the outside. Could your fellow here be some sort of questing knight? The kind that searches for lost grails and mythical scabbards?"
A flash of an eye's twinkle appears behind the tiny knight's eye visor,
"Indeed I am! I have embarked on a pilgrimage across the continent to seek sites of magickal confluence!"
"How did you get here, then?"
"I arrived by train."
...
...
The tiny knight's frank answer causes Eclair to raise an eyebrow and look towards Pip. There are no answers to be sought from Pip, who remains conspicuously mum throughout. Still, she looks like the straightforward sort, so it wasn't like there was anything missing from the knight's answer from their point of view. Having already taken a seat across the knight, Eclair's skill at small talk lets her nudge a lever that changes the tracks of the conversation.
"Well, Ser Knight, as you can see, there is nothing overtly magickal about our theatre house. All we do is take care of the girls that pass through this house. Each week, we read stories to the public. That's about it."
"Is that not something magickal in itself, already?"
"What is?"
"Continuation." A mittened gauntlet rubs the top of Pip's head, not explaining further.
"...Continuation?" Eclair ponders.
The knight nods in her visor.
Eclair follows the knight's gaze towards the window.
Outside the house, the morning sun shines upon a patch of roses in the garden.
A small family of swans rest on the shaded banks of our island home.
Already, the park is beginning to fill with visitors.
Recall
[HtH111] Lumi and Ablam take care of Eclair while she is lying in bed!
We are trying something different! This is a simul-posting at the same time as the Scribblehub release! Go check out the entire series at this link!
