keeping idle hands busy

[lastofthekellys]

WHO: Kate Kelly
WHERE: The Inn
WHEN: 10th April
OPEN TO: EVERYONE
WARNINGS: TBA as needed
STATUS: Open

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Spring has arrived, warming the air and seemingly to banish all that dreadful, dangerous fog. Some part of Kate thinks that it should be autumn, but she's not in any of the Australian colonies and everything is backwards here. Backwards and strange and draining. The winter was hard for many, many reasons, and spring hasn't been off to a brilliant start with disappearances and biting insects. Not just disappearances, others have moved out of the Inn. Which she'd been expecting as the weather turned more habitable, but the combination with disappearances means Kate is feeling a little lost and uncertain.

At least she's patched things up with Benedict, thank God.

But as self-destructive as she can be (and has been, over winter, with the access to drink), Kate knows there are still things to be done. Today after the daily village lunch is cleared and the volunteers are cleaning the kitchen, she takes herself to the verandah at the front of the Inn with some sewing. For all the weather is warming and based off last year (oh God, oh God, has it been so close to a year?) it'll get hot even by her standards, clothes are wearing out. There's more farming to be done, more repairs and more building, and what they have will be wearing out.

Today, she has some of the rabbit leather and is stitching together simple fingerless gloves to help protect palms from rough work. She can make clothes themselves, as is evidenced by the fact that she sits there in a long brown skirt with a petticoat underneath and an undyed long-sleeved blouse with some simple embroidery, but those she has to be asked to make. The working gloves are a project she's assigned herself.

And, as is usual, as Kate works, she sings. Nothing more recent than 1883, and usually folk songs, traditional songs. Some sad, some sweet or sly, but all sung clearly and with the air of someone who is keeping herself occupied.

Comments

[lastofthekellys]

She's long since perfected the art of seeming absorbed in her work yet aware of her surroundings. The eighth of twelve children, with three years spent as the oldest person in the house. Person, not child, not with her ma in prison. She'd had to look after the babies and that involved a lot of springing to her feet to pull tiny hands away from danger. Not to mention listening out for trouble. So she doesn't jump as the man approaches, just looks up.

The compliment is genuine enough, genuinely given enough, that she smiles back broader than she means to, cheeks pinking slightly.

"Thank you, sir. It's a terrible habit of mine, so I'm glad I'm not scarin' people away when I sing."

[ottimismo]

"Sonny," he says, not so much a correction as an offer to call him by his name rather than sir. Not that he won't answer it, but it seems far too formal for a community like this one, so small that they always end up cooking and cleaning for each other, and tending to one another's needs.

In this place, they tend to recognize each other by sight even if they don't know each other's names. So different from New York City, but not something Sonny dislikes, by any means.

"I don't think I realized how lacking this place is in music until now," he admits. "So I think your singing is more of a blessing than a terrible habit. It's nice to listen to."

[lastofthekellys]

"Mr Sonny," she says with a bob of her head. "I'm Miss Kate Kelly." She's had to do this now, introduce herself with 'Miss' there. It's the only way she can think of to get across how she should be addressed - or rather, how she prefers. It is should in her own time, and it's one of the things she refuses to let go. It runs too deep, the weight first names alone have to her.

"I've heard somethin' of that from some of the others," she continues. "The people of the future have ways of recording actual sounds, and playin' it back. The world must sound very quiet if that's what you're used to."

[ottimismo]

"Miss Kelly," Sonny greets, choosing her last name only because it's polite, and what he's used to in his line of work. If she'd rather be Miss Kate, he's sure she'll correct him, but unless that happens, he'll stick with the nice option, what he finds himself more used to. "It's nice to meet you."

He leans back against one of the railings of the inn's porch, settling back against it comfortably. "It's really quiet here," he agrees. "And I'm from the city, so I'm used to all sorts of noise at night. Traffic and music and people yelling. It's hard to fall asleep in the silence." There's a pause, then he asks, "What time period are you from?"