(This story is about my farm girl Ruthanne, who resides at @ruthanne-winter. For the ease of organization for @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast, however, I will be posting this here to my main blog and simply reblogging it to Ruth’s, where it belongs.)
Ruthanne darted inside the Winter family home just in time, only a handful of huge, inky-dark droplets of water having planted themselves heavy and hard onto her shirt. She shrieked and shoved the door closed behind her, breathless and smiling. “Gods, the sky’s about to rip open!” She’d run from the chocobo stables, knowing she was in a race with the rain.
“Told you to stable the ‘bo’s sooner rather than later,” replied Finneas from somewhere in the living room. A low rumble of thunder punctuated him, and a moment later a sheet of rain crashed into the roof of the house. Ruthanne gasped, wide eyed at the sound. “Land sakes alive!” She was grinning though, high on adrenaline from outrunning the storm. “Where’s dad?”
“Card night, dumbass. He’s at Royda’s”. Ruthie’s brother was sitting on the couch with their newest (and first) niece, Hattie, reading to her from a shiny cardboard picture book.
When Ruthie poked her head into the living room, she gasped. “Finn! Don’t say those words around her!”
“What, card night?” He grinned, knowing of course exactly what she meant.
She groaned and let it go. “Why’s she here, anyway?”, Ruth asked, pointing her head in the direction of the wee one beside Finn. Hattie looked up at her and cooed, lifting her arms up and babbling.
“Date night, dum…” Finneas was cut short by fist meeting his shoulder, Ruthie having crossed the room to slug him. He chuckled and rubbed his arm while his sister scooped up Hattie and bounced around the room with her. “We’re under strict instruction not to call her Hattie, by the way.”
“Huh? Why not?” Ruth pretended to dance an elegant ballroom sequence with a giggling little girl in her arms, humming stanzas here and there and peppering the lines with raspberries against her chubby cheeks.
Finneas cleared his throat and put on his best exaggerated Clara voice. “Her name is Harriet, not Hattie. And certainly not Harry! Don’t even start giving her nicknames. It’s Harriet. Harriet!!” Their older sister, Clara, had always fancied herself a bit above her station; she hated getting dirty, never laughed at the off-color jokes overheard from the farm hands, and certainly had never tasted a drop of ale or wine. Proper and prim, though kind at heart, Clara was bound and determined her daughter grow up to be quite the same.
Already Ruth was groaning and rolling her eyes. “She knows she’s gonna lose that battle, right?” *Harriet* grinned at Ruth. “You’re Hattie, aren’t you? Little Miss Hattie!” Hattie screeched and laughed, clapping her hands clumsily and happily in Ruth’s arms.
Finn had swiftly taken the opportunity to stretch out on the couch and grab some dime store detective novel he’d been reading. “She’s definitely Hattie.”
“Watch her for a minute?” Ruth plopped her down on a blanket beside the coffee table where a few of her toys had been placed. “I’m gonna run get some cookies and milk from the kitchen.”
“Mhmm,” came Finneas’ reply, and he rolled onto his side for a better view. He could just lift his eyes from his book and see right over the top, straight line of sight to Hattie. “Are there any of those cranberry ones left? With the orange and nuts and stuff?”
“No, you shoved all those in your pig mouth the day I made them!” Ruthanne was still disgusted by that. She’d managed to save a few for Mrs. Abernethy and the stable hands, but every single one that was left over was demolished by her trash compactor of a brother.
“Nuh-uh, dad had one too!”
Ruth was already in the kitchen by that point, but made her way back out with a single finger pointed straight up. “One! I know you had at *least* half a dozen! I made thirty six all together, gave a dozen to Mrs. Abernethy, a dozen to the farm hands, *I* ate one, Navigator forfend, and daddy had one. That leaves ten.” Her eyes narrowed and she pointed that finger at him. “Did you really eat *ten* of them?” Ruthanne groaned. “Ugh, you are such a pig!!”
Finneas had rolled onto his back again and was craning his neck up to snicker at his irritated sister. He was guilty as charged, but gods be good those cookies were amazing. “I mean, it’s why you made ‘em, right? To be eaten? It’s not like anyone was deprived or anything.”
“Least of all you!!”
The laugh that slipped past Finn’s lips was a little too jovial for Ruth’s liking, pricking a nerve, but at the same time the silliness of the entire argument washed over her and she cracked a grin, chuckling. Soon the bubbling chatter of baby laughter joined in, and the siblings glanced over at Hattie with beaming faces.
There she stood, on her own two feet, one hand holding onto the coffee table Ruthie had sat her beside. The sounds of her aunt and uncle’s laughter had her excited and bouncy, little knees bobbing her up and down. One little foot kicked out and back down, then another.
“Holy shit,” they whispered, both Finneas and Ruthanne staring at Hattie in awe. She was *walking*. Well, sort of. They were undeniably her first steps, though, unsure and wobbly, toddling toward Ruth.
In a flash Finneas sat up, ready to catch her if she tumbled, and Ruthie had rushed to kneel down in front of her, hands out. “Yeah, Hattie!!!” She clapped softly and cheered, glancing back at her brother to see the look on his face and share the joy. Hattie bumbled along as best she could, reaching out for Ruthanne’s hands just as she teetered back and landed on her butt. A second of silence passed before she burst out laughing, a peal of baby giggles as she rolled around on the floor.
“You know we can never tell Clara, right?” Finneas’ voice was grave, knowing his oldest sister would pitch a fit if she thought she wasn’t around for her first-born’s first steps. “Never in a million years.”
Ruth looked back at him again, then to Hattie, who was already pulling herself up to stand once more. “Shhhh. Not a word, okay? This’ll be our little secret, Harriet.”
(This story is about my farm girl Ruthanne, who resides at @ruthanne-winter. For the ease of organization for @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast, however, I will be posting this here to my main blog and simply reblogging it to Ruth’s, where it belongs.)
Thick, grey fog hung almost suspended in time, muting the light, the horizon, and the sounds of the morning like a wet woolen blanket. Unseasonably warm rain the night before clung to the earth stubbornly, even as cold winds breached the La Noscean shore and swept across the landscape. Nasty morning to be sure, and Ruthanne was happy to be toasty warm inside, humming as she flitted about in the kitchen trying to ignore her brother. Her mother’s old recipe for lemon pound cake was clipped to a board on the counter, and she was taking her time to check and double check all the ingredients she’d laid out before she began mixing.
“So how you s'pose it is she’s pregnant, anyway?” Finneas was cocked back in a wooden chair, leaving only the back two legs on the floor. With his socked feet kicked up onto the table and a bowl of grapes in his lap, the position seemed rather precarious; Ruth was just waiting for him to fall on his ass.
“Ugh, don’t be daft, Finn!” The subject of her sister’s pregnancy had been much talked about since she announced the news, but leave it to the mouth of the family to be so blunt. "I’m pretty sure you know about the birds and bees, seein’ as how I damn near walked in on you and Marla Westwood last week.“ Ruthanne made a disgusted noise and wrinkled her nose. "Gross.”
The memory brought a grin to his face, and he somehow managed to toss a grape in the air and catch it in his mouth without collapsing in the floor. "If you’d just knock…“
“I’m not talking about this with you.”
“I’m serious though! Clara’s a huge prude. How’d she even know what to do?? Do girls just come programmed to know how to make babies?” Finneas finished chomping on his grape and swallowed before plucking another one off the stem.
“Finneas Winter! That is sexist and shitty and daddy would snatch you bald-headed if he heard you talk like that!” She scowled at him, her perpetually pink cheeks turning even pinker with irritation. The huge messy bun of mint-colored hair bobbed atop her head as she scolded him. "What if I were to ask you if boys were just born knowing how to be idiots and jerk off?“
That time he damn near did fall, throwing his head back to laugh. Finn was getting more handsome and manly by the day, but that grin on his face was all boyhood. "I’d say you’d be just about right on that one, Annie.” He chuckled and set down the front two legs of the chair, then put his bowl on the table. "I didn’t mean it as an insult, I’m just sayin’! Clara’s straight-laced, you know? Prim and proper.”
Ruthanne rolled her eyes and blew an errant lock of hair away from her face. “Then maybe she did it with her clothes on.” As soon as the sentence came out of her mouth, she groaned. “Quit bein’ so dang blue and come help me with this.” Ruthie glanced up to the pot rack hanging from the ceiling above the butcher block. “Grab me that bundt pan, would you?”
“What are you making, anyway?” Finn did as he was told, popping up from his chair and grabbing the pan before peering over Ruth’s shoulder to look at what she was stirring in the big mixing bowl. “…Looks like brick mortar…” With another circle of her arm the spoon sent a lovely whiff of lemon floating upward, and Finneas’ eyes went wide. “Momma’s pound cake?? Can I lick the spoon??”
Ruthanne laughed and popped him lightly on the nose with it, leaving a dense blob of batter there. “Maybe.”
This is so good, I love the brother sister dynamic.
