NaNoWriMo Day 3 - 6,085 words

[thewhitelily]

Still doing it tough on the word count, but... oh, boy, today's words are some fine verbiage. Worth sharing a small sample, I think. :)

When Cassie was a little girl, Peter had taken her to Barrington Park every Saturday afternoon. He’d insisted that while he understood the importance of the Ether to her, it could never truly replace the physical world – and that there was more to it than just the insides of their cluttered flat.

Barrington Park itself was a tiny spit of green surrounded by a forest of glass and concrete skyscrapers. Between the ruffled colour of the floral gardens in the centre and the wide-spreading shade of the trees along the southern rim was the grassy patch that they called their own. It was close enough to the main part of the park that the sounds of the children playing football or tag carried clearly on the wind from the other side of the park, but their chosen patch of grass was hilly and uneven enough to provide a haven from any of the more boisterous activities.

He and Cassie would lie on their backs, side by side, looking up at the sky through the kaleidoscopic frame of reflections from the windows of the buildings ringing the park, like a massive telescope looking into a distant world of rolling hills and forested valleys and strange enchanted creatures.

Between them, they would pick the most grandiose formation of clouds and make a castle out of them, sculpting the tumbling towers and wispy moats with hushed conferences, convoluted gestures, and mutual imagination. They would take it in turns to point out this elm tree or that duck pond, and then Peter would make up stories about Princess Cassandra and her Charmed Chair, who defeated the evil wizard who had tried to cast a terrible curse upon her, for no curse had the power to make her unhappy unless she let it.

Cassie would fall asleep long before Peter was ready to leave, at least in those early days. But long after she was too old to take an afternoon nap, she continued to feign sleep at the end of their excursion. Peter never lost the opportunity to hold her close for an extra moment as he lifted her back into her chair and wheeled her home.

It was no surprise, therefore, that when her teacher set the whole class the project of creating their own TI home space, it was Cassie’s castle which received the highest marks. Of course, she’d only shown off the outside and the gatehouse room; Miss Bateman had no idea that any more of it even existed. The rest wouldn’t even reveal itself to anyone without the proper digital signature, but fitting out the remainder of the castle quickly consumed Cassie’s life.

She took particular pleasure in putting in the stairs, wide oak steps covered with sumptuous red and blue and purple patterned carpets and intricate carvings on the banisters, terraced halls with multi-level daises for the dining tables, tiny spiral staircases that wound in a circle so tight that she couldn't move even an arm’s length away from the central pole without hitting the wall; stairs that would have stood in her way in the physical world, but in TI were a treat beyond what any other child could have imagined.

Back in the physical world, at dinner every night, she would regale Peter with stories of her adventures in her castle. Stories of mundane things made extraordinary, as she ran delightedly up and down, grasping the chill metal of the spiral’s central pole beneath her palm as her legs propelled her around and upwards, crushing the plush carpet beneath her bare toes as she flew down the main staircases with her arms spread wide to caress the air, or sliding down the massive banisters with the carved ridges vibrating past her knees and collapsing in a heap at the bottom of them all, laughing until her breath was gone and sure that no physical world could ever compare to her castle.

Now, if only my muse would let these prettypretty words out just a little bit quicker. And in shorter sentences. :P

@ the_zaniak: At first I was worried, because the character I named after you for this year's dare was once again randomly turning out to be a complete bastard. Now he's milk-soppy father-figure. Oh well, since he seems to be both, I'm sure I'll hit some middle ground eventually.