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Two prompts in one story! Woo!
Story title: Dusty Memories
Author: Ingvild
Word count: 694
Rating and warnings: Safe for everyone
Characters and/or pairing: Sylvia
Summary: Sylvia cleaning out her grandfather’s office.
The sun was shining directly into her eyes.
Sylvia Noventa peered out the windows before grunting angrily and pulling the curtains shut. Finally able to see properly again without being nearly blinded, she sat back at the desk. It had belonged to her grandfather. She had begun to clear it right after he died, but had been interrupted and forced to flee. Now she was back.
No-one had touched the desk since she left nearly three years earlier. A mobile suit had exploded in the doorway, the military had fallen into disarray, and the building had been standing empty all this time. Now, however, the new ESUN government wanted to use it as the headquarters of their Department of the Environmental, and all who had been connected to the building had been asked to come clean it out.
With her grandmother away on a vacation to Maui, Sylvia had agreed to go through her grandfather’s effects. After all, she had been trying to do just that three years earlier as well.
She remembered all too well the day she had been forced to flee. A truck had nearly run her over, but the driver, a boy too young to actually drive a car, had managed to swerve. And then he had asked her to take him to her grandfather’s grave, and told her that he was responsible for the old man’s death.
Her grandmother had later told her that he had come to see her as well. Sylvia could have punched him for putting more weight on the old woman’s shoulders, but her grandmother had apparently handled it well. She was not nearly as frail as her outwards appearance suggested.
Sylvia had seen the boy once again, on television, where he was walking ten steps behind the Vice Foreign Minister and generally trying to seem unobtrusive and failing altogether. He had looked older, a little taller, and, despite the cameras, more at peace.
Sylvia scratched her neck where the sun was hitting it even through the curtains. The room was dusty and dry, and she didn’t want to be there. Perhaps that was why her thoughts kept running away.
In this drawer was nothing but writing supplies. Her grandparents had both been fans of writing with actual pen and ink. It had been a great source of frustration for the people who were trying to reach them fast, when messages had to be transcribed rather than put directly on the wire. Perhaps that was why they had done it, to weed out the impatient ones.
In this drawer, locked with three different locks that she had been given a special tool to override, outdated confidential papers. Sylvia scanned them with her handscanner for later review and burned the physical papers. She doubted there was anything on them; indeed, that was why she had been given the clearance to see them, but you never knew.
In this drawer, old news clips. Sylvia did the same thing as she had done with the papers.
In this drawer, photographs of her, her late parents, her uncle and his family, and several of her grandparents as young people. Sylvia sat back in the chair and stared. They had been very young, very pretty, and obviously very in love – it was even visible on fifty year old photos.
One photo showed her grandmother standing in a field of flowers. From the position of the shadows, Sylvia guessed that it was at noon – more or less the same time as right now.
She wondered how the flowers smelled.
Sylvia stood abruptly. She swept over the room to make sure that nothing had been left behind, put her scanner and the photos in her shoulder bag and left. She handed the keys to the Preventer waiting outside the door.
“I’m done,” she said. “You can have it.”
She walked out the front door, pulled out her sunglasses and put them on. A bus arrived on the corner, and she jumped on it, not even knowing where it went, but wanting to go there anyway. Away from memories and nostalgia and all the things that could bog you down.
Going someplace new.
Author: Ingvild
Word count: 694
Rating and warnings: Safe for everyone
Characters and/or pairing: Sylvia
Summary: Sylvia cleaning out her grandfather’s office.
The sun was shining directly into her eyes.
Sylvia Noventa peered out the windows before grunting angrily and pulling the curtains shut. Finally able to see properly again without being nearly blinded, she sat back at the desk. It had belonged to her grandfather. She had begun to clear it right after he died, but had been interrupted and forced to flee. Now she was back.
No-one had touched the desk since she left nearly three years earlier. A mobile suit had exploded in the doorway, the military had fallen into disarray, and the building had been standing empty all this time. Now, however, the new ESUN government wanted to use it as the headquarters of their Department of the Environmental, and all who had been connected to the building had been asked to come clean it out.
With her grandmother away on a vacation to Maui, Sylvia had agreed to go through her grandfather’s effects. After all, she had been trying to do just that three years earlier as well.
She remembered all too well the day she had been forced to flee. A truck had nearly run her over, but the driver, a boy too young to actually drive a car, had managed to swerve. And then he had asked her to take him to her grandfather’s grave, and told her that he was responsible for the old man’s death.
Her grandmother had later told her that he had come to see her as well. Sylvia could have punched him for putting more weight on the old woman’s shoulders, but her grandmother had apparently handled it well. She was not nearly as frail as her outwards appearance suggested.
Sylvia had seen the boy once again, on television, where he was walking ten steps behind the Vice Foreign Minister and generally trying to seem unobtrusive and failing altogether. He had looked older, a little taller, and, despite the cameras, more at peace.
Sylvia scratched her neck where the sun was hitting it even through the curtains. The room was dusty and dry, and she didn’t want to be there. Perhaps that was why her thoughts kept running away.
In this drawer was nothing but writing supplies. Her grandparents had both been fans of writing with actual pen and ink. It had been a great source of frustration for the people who were trying to reach them fast, when messages had to be transcribed rather than put directly on the wire. Perhaps that was why they had done it, to weed out the impatient ones.
In this drawer, locked with three different locks that she had been given a special tool to override, outdated confidential papers. Sylvia scanned them with her handscanner for later review and burned the physical papers. She doubted there was anything on them; indeed, that was why she had been given the clearance to see them, but you never knew.
In this drawer, old news clips. Sylvia did the same thing as she had done with the papers.
In this drawer, photographs of her, her late parents, her uncle and his family, and several of her grandparents as young people. Sylvia sat back in the chair and stared. They had been very young, very pretty, and obviously very in love – it was even visible on fifty year old photos.
One photo showed her grandmother standing in a field of flowers. From the position of the shadows, Sylvia guessed that it was at noon – more or less the same time as right now.
She wondered how the flowers smelled.
Sylvia stood abruptly. She swept over the room to make sure that nothing had been left behind, put her scanner and the photos in her shoulder bag and left. She handed the keys to the Preventer waiting outside the door.
“I’m done,” she said. “You can have it.”
She walked out the front door, pulled out her sunglasses and put them on. A bus arrived on the corner, and she jumped on it, not even knowing where it went, but wanting to go there anyway. Away from memories and nostalgia and all the things that could bog you down.
Going someplace new.