Elicia Hughes

[[Nighttime; June 23rd]]

[Elicia had had a tough week.

Shuffle, shuffle—the sound of turning blankets and small feet moving back and forth through them. She's been rolling in her sleep for a few minutes now, flipping her hidden journal into a little book tepee, while it records the buzzing air and soft incoherent murmurings of a child dreaming. They're not happy dreams, after a while, and it takes but a moment before she's wide awake and horrified and crawling under her blankets with her mouth in a shaky near-crying line. The journal. That's right.

She reaches over and opens it up all the way, unable to see anything in the dark. Her voice is watery and lined with a sort of innocent, hurt desperation when she speaks.]

[Voice]

Please tell me a story. I wanna hear stories, if anyone... wants to talk... I like them a lot. I—I promise I'll go back to sleep, but I just wanna hear one...

[Pretty, pretty please...

But despite stories, sometime in the night, she rises up from her bed and patter-pitters quickly into her parents' room. Scary, they're too scary—and they could be real. Because she's seen scary real things like it before. And the last thing she wanted was a blue-eyed woman slowly creaking out of her closet, like she kept imagining, over and over and over again...]

[[Daytime; June 24th]]


[It was a cold snap, today. Elicia wore her poofy pink jacket for the occasion. Truth be told, she's had a very tiring night of trying to sleep, and she'd failed at it fairly well. There were a mesh-up of things. Scary things. She didn't want to draw any of them, so she decided on focusing her attention to playing. By the end of her short-lived playtime outside, she's laying on her arm on the front steps of her house, the fake pink sword Law gave her still clamped in her hand.

A good nap. There was nothing scary... Just good. That was important. It's a good thing children bounce back well enough, even if only for a while, because she's got a content air about her later on in the day. Anyone who wants to visit, now's a great time to; she'll be drawing funny circles all over the ground outside with a stick. Clapping her hands and smacking them. And nothing happens. :|

But she sure as hell is pretending something's happening.]
( WHAT'S UP, ELICIA? )

((ooc: Just make it clear which day you're replying to and all that. I have faith in you. |Db))

[Elicia sits near the school like she usual does when it gets out, but she's got a new book in her hands—a fairytale book, given to her by Derek (unknowingly, the sneaky vampire hunter). She's already had quite a spike in energy when it comes to writing storybooks, as you can very well see if you were involved in her hideous log.

Forgive her, she's trying to read.]

"Puh...oor little ugly d—duckling..." she wooould sss—say. "Why... are you so di—

di-fir-eant from the others?"

And the... ugly duckling felt worse than ever.

[She lowers the book, frowning. Probably thinking 'this book is just mean and cruel and WHYYY'

When she returns home, she spends some of her time riding up and down one little stretch of hallway on the brand new bicycle the Malnosso for some reason was kind enough to gift her. Training wheels are on it, but just wait until she decides she's gotta man up and take those suckers off. Which will probably be in another week.

But of course, she can't control herself from making a video entry—it's been a long time since she got to sit and make a normal one, of course!]

Hi, guys! Did you have nice Christmases? I did, definitely. I got a cool book, and a bike, and a polar bear teddy! I read about those, y'know! They live in snow, just like how it is here, and they can sit on floaty ice in the water. It's really cool...!

[She holds up said polar bear teddy as validation for her chat.

A beat, while she collects her somewhat limited thoughts. Hey, her mind works 100 miles a minute, you know.]

I wonder what else lives with the polar bears... they're not all alone, are they? That'd make them real lonely!

And that's not good at all...!

[Looks like stuff is relatively back to normal, for her. |D]

[ooc: replies in a few hours! Just getting this up while I'm lazily free with time at the moment! 8Db]

[Oh, most of you should know what time of the week it is. That's right, it's time to rain Elicia News all over the journals. She's just sitting with the usual happy expression~~]

It sure was scary before, but I was really brave—so don't worry, 'cause if you're brave, too, you're gonna be fine! I'm sad we didn't get to go get candy, but I got to make funny pumpkins with Winry and Al and papa, so that's okay! I had a lot of fun~!! ...B-but if you still have cool costumes... can I have them? I mean, only if you're throwing them away! I don't like seeing cool costumes going away when you can play pretend in them after Halloween!

Mr. Tsuzuki, can we still plant candy trees? That'll be a lot of fun! Ah—and he's gonna teach me flower names, and I got a book from Mr. Bob that'll help; we're gonna draw all types of flowers, so I can learn them~!! If you want, I'll teach you guys how to draw special flowers, after I do!

[But she shall not mention learning the 'flower language', because that is top. secret.]

And I got something—um, um, I heard there's new people! Hiii, I'm Elicia, and I'm five years old! I made you something special, like how my teacher at home did for me and my friends!

[And after some scuffling around, she holds up her marvelous banner!!

Beautiful! A+! :D]

[A relatively normal day, so far. Elicia'd been coloring up pictures of pirates (fire-breathing lions were soooo last week) and was generally relaxing in her new setting. Lots of new friends and happy times! But as she finished up Mr. Pirate's peg-leg, she happened to notice, by chance, something out the apartment's windows...

A small bird limping across the grass outside!

Well, leaving it certainly wouldn't do... It'll only take a second to go see and it's close by, so it'sokay!—besides, it looks like it could rain in a little bit... She has to make sure the little critter wasn't stuck out during a drizzle...

So Elicia leaves the apartment and rushes down the stairs, slip-on shoes click-clacking all the way. She can see the bird in the distance trying to flap a mangled wing, and runs toward it... which is, in hindsight, a bad idea, because it just darts into the brush. She continues for a few seconds until she's in a little clearing, where soft frenzied chirps meet her ears.

A tree! Over there~!

She climbs its jutting roots and looks into a hole to find baby birds, all chirping and fat... like their mama? Aaah, but that means mama bird was missing! Was it really the one she'd chased earlier? Well, she'll just sit and admire the babies for now while waiting for any sign of said mama birdy, whenever you feel like bumping into her.]