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+---- Thread: Up Like A Weed [Jisra] (/showthread.php?tid=930)
Up Like A Weed [Jisra] - Ellaira - 09.Oct.12
Ellaira shook out the top pair of pants in the basket Vijeraten had brought over and stared at them, aghast. The pants were stretched, much-mended, and threadbare in a number of places. The hems had obviously been let two or three times, and without much skill. And they were all of six months old. "Boys will be boys", she thought dourly, But that doesn't mean they should do quite this much damage.
"So I'm to take care of these?" she asked aloud, giving her son a sidelong look. He ducked his chin and scuffed the ground, muttering something. Ellaira clucked at him. "Ten, I know you know how to speak," she said, the sternness in her voice softened by the laugh behind the words. He shrugged and kept his eyes pinned on the ground.
"Ma'am says I get new clothes once a turn, only these are disreputable. So they're to come from my marks, only!" he looked up and met his mother's eyes with pleading ones of his own. "I don't GOT no marks! I can't run around nekkid!" Ellaira sighed. It was just like that woman to hold to the letter of the law, without bending at all. Vijeraten was growing, just as fast as any weed which ever tried to choke a garden, and he needed clothing for his chores and for his craft-shadowing. Ten-turn-olds shouldn't be expected to buy their own clothing, no matter how hard they used it.
"I don't have any marks," she corrected absently, draping the pants over her arm and picking up a jacket that might have fit a small eight-turn-old. "Are they all like this?" Vijeraten nodded, and Ellaira sighed again. She reached over and touseled his hair, making him duck away and make a face.
"Moooom!" he protested with all the dignity of a young boy, fluffing his hair back into an identical mess. She grinned at him.
"I have mother's rights. If I'm dropping a sack of marks to clothe you, little colt, I get to ruffle your hair." He made a face. "How's your nice jacket look?" Vijeraten shrugged and scuffed the ground. "You probably can't fit it over your shoulders, hmm?" He looked up at her, then dropped his eyes and nodded. Ellaira made a wry face and blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. Lovely. "Alright, you scamp. Run off and I'll take care of these for you. But you better take good care of them!" she called out as he dashed off. His "yes mum!" came drifting back, and Ellaira shook her head. Her boy was growing up half-wild, it seemed, but she hardly had the time to discipline him. That was why he lived with a foster mother.
Picking up the basket, Ellaira double-checked the fence she was working on to make certain that it was secure, then headed off for the crafthall. There was almost always someone working on something there, and perhaps she could get the clothing taken care of under her rights as a beastcrafter for the Weyr. Counting marks in her head and pondering exactly how to clothe her son - and Morallina was getting in need of some new frocks, too, though her housemate might take care of that - Ellaira reached the hall in short order. She knew its layout by heart, and strode to the section where the seamstresses worked. Pausing, she knocked on the doorframe.
"Anybody home?" she called. "I've a rush order of boy's clothes."