Conveyance (pre-Yamaku Lilly, also Akira in boxer shorts)

[WorldlyWiseman]

My version of the Couch to 5k plan, applied to my writing hobby. My plan is to do 52 pieces of fiction in a year, probably more words then I have ever typed outside of a classroom. Here's the first!

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#1 - Conveyance

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Her fingertips slide along the metal body. They trace the gas cap and then the edge of a door. Her slippered feet give the pavement tiny rubbery taps as they inspect the pavement. Keys jangle curiously from the ring around the pinky of her cane hand. There is a handle, about waist high, but it's not the right one. She is unfamiliar with this side of the car, the one her sister steps to after buckling her in. She understands that cars are symmetrical, and that this side should be much like the other, but she finds that she is uneasy with how things are placed on the car itself. She has stopped entirely, not wanting to overshoot the driver door. Her hand reads ahead of her as though she were walking into a giant book. She touches a flat protrusion. Cold to the touch, and nothing like a door handle.

Akira had described the car to Lilly in the past. She understands mirrors much like she understands the nighttime around her, as a change in the temperature, as a thing to be more careful around. This thing is a a mirror, cooling the palm of her hand, and it should mean that this is the driver's door. She takes the handle and attempts to turn it. it doesn't budge. Of course it doesn't, she smiles to herself. It's locked. She centers herself before the handle and plays with the keys around her pinky. She has a door key of her own, of course this one is that, but there are a number that she doesn't recognize. She hadn't thought to ask Akira what all of these shapes might mean, and of course she couldn't ask now. She had taken the keys as quietly as she could while Akira had been busy upstairs.

She plays with the keys and finds the largest thing on there. It has buttons. Akira had always unlocked the car from some distance away. It always made a noise when she did. This thing must be it! Her small hands clench in a flush of excitement as she presses the first button she finds. The car responds. She turns the handle again, but it doesn't budge. It's unlike any doorknob she has encountered. Brow furrowed, she tries a number of movements. The door pulls towards her, but she has not braced herself.

The world tilts wrongways and Lilly plops onto her bottom with a squeak. It's grassy here, thankfully, past the edge of the driveway. The keys are still around her pinky, she still has her cane. She exhales in relief and rights herself. The door feels more powerful than a door in the house, as though it might push back and deny her. It doesn't, and she feels her way into the seat.

---

Akira is wearing her boyfriend's boxers and is otherwise clothed in moonlight from the foyer window. This is not her house, it is her parents', but for now she can pretend that she rules all she surveys. She and Lilly have been here alone for a year, and Akira has managed to keep it all together. Lilly's thirteenth birthday has come and gone and she hasn't run out of money. She might just be able to handle this. She was even able to get Lilly a gift, a book about a princess who was also a motorcycle racer. It had a love triangle. Girl should read something other than stuffy old classics.

A hand on Akira's waist. "Hey, honey..."

He knows to keep his voice down by now.

"Hmm?" She tilts her head into his chin.

"I couldn't find my boxers anywhere."

"You're lucky I didn't steal your pants."

"It'd be fine if you did. I stole your bathrobe."

She turns herself around in his arms. "Whaaat, the fuzzy one? With the birds? You did!" She laughs, and tips over a bit. She is tempted to lie down again.

Her bare foot is up against the wall, her bare back to one side of the window. She puts a hand on his chest, her alabaster on his night blue.

His eyes flicker to the window. "Did your car just beep?"

Akira turns. There are leaves moving across her view of the driveway. She kneels and peers out into the night. Her car beeps its horn. The inside light is on. "Give me the robe."

"What? What about-"

Akira yanks the robe off of her boyfriend, nearly spinning him to the ground. "She can't see you, and she's asleep anyway. I need to go punch some thug."

---

Lilly remembers going sledding once. She had been between her sister's legs. She could remember feeling the hard plastic of the toboggan through the seat of her pants. It had begun to move, the illusion of its solidity rippling and waving as the ground beneath the snow pressed into it. She remembers the moment the world tilted wrongways, and how the air whipped at her face and exposed bangs. It had been more than like walking on a windy day; the world had plunged and waved beneath her. She may as well have been in freefall in that moment, but she was not afraid. Akira's arms had been around her, tugging at something. A shift in her arms had brought their slide in a new direction, the blood in Lilly's veins responding to the new gravity, icy powder specking her cheeks. Akira had told her later on, while they were being lectured by the nanny, how they had dodged trees and exploded through snowbanks.

Lilly's hands move over what must be the steering wheel. There are more buttons along the edges of it. It doesn't move, but it doesn't need to. They keys are still looped to her left pinky. They tinkle as she moves a hand past the wheel and touches glass. It's like a window but not. She can feel the cool of the night through it, but not the breeze. Wind-shield. A shield from the wind. It extends above her head until it touches fabric, and then a plastic bulge. It clicks when she presses, but does nothing.

There are more things here than there are in the back seat. She had asked Akira to talk about it, once. There's a clutch, somewhere, and there's the gear shift. Her fingers feel another handle, close to her waist, but Lilly doesn't dare play with it. It might set the car off. Any of these things could. As long as she kept the keys on her hand, she should be fine.

Akira drives her to most places. Lilly rolls down the windows, sometimes, but not often. She likes to feel the wind in her hair, and Akira says it makes it look messy. Akira says that it's fine, whatever, but Lilly prefers to not be messy. She will, however, poke her fingertips out a crack in the window, perhaps on a particularly long drive. She might imagine the road beneath them, the way it waves and ripples, wondering just how much ground passes beneath them while they ride. Akira moves her arms in one direction, and Lilly can feel the car follow, pulling her along. Akira sometimes mentions the crowds that move alongside or across the street. She will not explode through them, even if she jokes about it if she's running late.

"-like fuckin' bowling pins!" she might grumble.

Lilly knows that it's terrible to joke like that, but it still makes her giggle.

She puts her hand over the gear shift. It wobbles in her hand a bit. She puts her other hand on the wheel. Her feet keep tapping into something that won't move as long as she doesn't use the key. She drags her small hand across the vinyl edge of the steering wheel. It doesn't move, but that doesn't stop her from revving the imaginary engine.

"Vvvvvvroooom! Vvvvvvvvvvvvvvv-"

She stops abruptly, and giggles. She's thirteen now. Only babies make car noises! But imagining it is too fun...

She grips the wheel to adjust herself in the seat, and her finger clamps one of the buttons on the edge of the wheel. The car's horn sounds in her ears, making her jump and cover her ears in surprise. She waits a few moments. Could she have woken someone? Sounds outside the car are muffled. She can't hear anyone approaching. In under a minute she's back to revving and steering down a rocky dirt road in the back of her mind, sending the world below this way and that on a whim.

"Hrrrmvvvvvvv...eEEr! Eerrrrrr-"

---

Akira creeps out the front door with one of dad's golf clubs in hand. She joked about the thug upstairs, but she honestly doesn't know what to expect. This was a good neighborhood, hardly anyone outside after sundown, didn't even need to use the garage to park most of the year.

She's about to call out to whoever it is when she sees Lilly in the halo of light inside. Her mouth hangs open for a moment. She stands upright and pulls the robe closed around her, the embroidered birds flapping in the breeze. Little Lilly, her baby sister, in her nightgown, sliding her hands across the wheel like the car is a giant toy.

How did she even get out here? Hadn't Akira told her not to go out at night? She only could have slipped out if Akira wasn't keeping an eye on her. Was Akira supposed to check on her when she was sleeping now? What about when she was at work? Was Lilly old enough now to go out on walks by herself?

"Vrrrrrrrrrr-"

Lilly's hair glinted in the overhead lamp, falling across her face as she moved this way and that on her imaginary drive.

She's a teenager now, she might demand all sorts of changes now. She's becoming a tiny person. No, she always was a person, but now she'll have things like opinions and wishes, at least more substantial ones then kids have. Or had she had these things all along? Had her Big Sis just failed to notice?

Akira gives a long sigh. "Lilly."

The engine noises stop. Lilly's hands are frozen to the wheel.

Akira steps towards the car and opens the door. "Lilly, honey, I came this close to clubbing you like a seal." Akira plays it cool, more than she would like to. She bites back the chiding and lecturing that hides under the tip of her tongue.

Lilly's hands are in her lap now, clutching her retracted cane. As always, her eyes stare off into the middle distance. Akira reaches in and clicks the overhead lamp, plunging them both into darkness.

She takes one of Lilly's hands in hers. "C'mon." It's much like leading her out of the car at any other time.

Lilly begins to stammer an apology. "Akira, I-I'm sorry about this..."

"You don't need to say anything, sis. It's late. We'll just write it off as sleepwalking for now, okay?"

Lilly nods her head slowly and allows Akira's arm to lead her across the ground and back into the house.

---

[BlackRockHanako]

That was cute, and well written too.
Looking forward to your other pieces.

[nemz]

That was just excellent. Really. Bravo, good sir/madam. I look forward to a wonderful year of reading if this is just the first taste.

[WorldlyWiseman]

That was just excellent. Really. Bravo, good sir/madam. I look forward to a wonderful year of reading if this is just the first taste.

Sir will do.

This is good? It doesn't feel too long or redundant?

[Mahorfeus]

You promised Akira in boxer shorts. And you delivered. I think you're good.

Anyway, the premise and writing were excellent. Looking forward to these 51 other thingamabobs you mentioned.

EDIT: Evidently, "thingamabob" is an actual word. Huh...

[nemz]

This is good? It doesn't feel too long or redundant?

As a slice of life piece it is quite good. A bit long perhaps, but that just furthered the impression of how carefully and intently Lilly has to navigate through the world only to reveal a truely charming moment.

It does raise the question though of just how much older Akira is than Lilly and how old she was when the parents left her in charge of the house and her sister. That's a huge responsibility, and the fact that she made this work while still quite young herself is just another reason Akira is awesome.

[Mahorfeus]

Suriko commented here that Akira is seven years older than Lilly. It was a few years ago, but I see no reason to doubt that it's canon.

So unless I suck at math, Akira would be about 20 here. I think.

[Bagheera]

Mmmm, Akira in boxers. Hard to go wrong with that.

I was hoping for more at the end once she found Lilly, though. A lecture, some alarm ("Holy crap, you scared the hell out of me!"), something. But apart from that it was pretty darn nifty.

[WorldlyWiseman]

Mmmm, Akira in boxers. Hard to go wrong with that.

I was hoping for more at the end once she found Lilly, though. A lecture, some alarm ("Holy crap, you scared the hell out of me!"), something. But apart from that it was pretty darn nifty.

Well, the seal-clubbing comment was meant to indicate surprise, but looking at it now it doesn't seem really excited.

There isn't much of a conflict to wrap up in the end, so the line about being led by Akira's arms was kind of a callback to the description of Akira's arm movements in the sledding flashback.

I shouldn't get into the habit of defending my stuff after-the-fact, though...