Medowlyn/Story: Difference between revisions

|s1_title = Before the Ball, Not a Strand Out of Place

|s1_text  = {{Neighbor Stories/Image|Medowlyn Before the Ball, Not a Strand Out of Place Image 01|right}}

It was the day before Medowlyn's coming-of-age ceremony.

When the maids pushed open the door, they found her already at work, putting the final touches on her preparations for the Coiffure Ball.

As the tradition required, her hair was styled to perfection—

Not a strand out of place. Neither one too many, nor one too few.

The Coiffure Ball was the traditional coming-of-age ceremony of her kind, renowned for its exacting standards of perfection. From a young age, children were taught to tend to their hair with the utmost care. The strict grooming rituals required them to sit tall, move with grace, and maintain flawless composure at all times.

<i>No trace of impurity,

Thus it is flawless.</i>

And Medowlyn was the finest among them — or rather, she was about to be.

 

 

Medowlyn didn't notice them leave. She was too caught up in her frustration — Once threaded through the beads, her hair would slip loose again, refusing to hold the full, petal-like curve she was trying to shape.

Nor did she notice the sound that had begun to fill the room, a soft gurgling, as if something were slowly rolling somewhere nearby.

|s2_text  =  

At first, it was just a round, fuzzy little ball rolling past her in a blur.

Medowlyn paid it no mind. She figured it was just something her tired eyes had made up after staying awake too long.

Before she could even react, they had spread to every corner of the room. They bumped and tumbled into one another with rolling sounds, throwing everything into disarray!

 

The yarn balls, like mischievous little sprites, rolled about as they snatched up the delicate hair accessories scattered around the room, perching them on one another as makeshift hats and mustaches...

Before long, they had turned into a collection of lopsided little figures, crooked and absurd, adorned with hairpins, sporting tiny mustaches, and dressed up like grown-ups!

 

 

 

Everything was a mess. Medowlyn lunged for the troublemaking yarn balls, but they gave her no chance.

One after another, they rushed the window, bumping it open and bouncing out into the open air. In their wake, they carried off her delicate tools, combs, scissors, and curling irons, all swept away as they tumbled after them.

Medowlyn rushed to the window and leaned out. Beyond it stretched a sea of clouds, soft as a bed of cotton.

Without a second thought, she jumped.

At last, she landed on something soft — a cushion of floofalicious grass.

|s3_text  =  

"Where did a kid that big come from?" voices chirped somewhere in the garden.

Medowlyn opened her eyes. Towering above her were flowers, so tall they seemed to stretch far beyond her.

<i>The flowers here... could talk?</i>

She pushed herself to her feet and brushed the dirt from her dress. Thankfully, her coiffure was still intact.

As her gaze wandered, she realized it wasn't just the flowers. Everything in the garden seemed to be watching her: a tiny clay pot, a single blade of grass, a little trowel, a clump of mud, even a patch of soil! They all stared with wide, curious eyes and wore friendly, if a little odd, expressions.

They were far from perfect. Far from refined. Each of them was rough and earthy in its own way. And yet, Medowlyn felt a strange, familiar warmth.

With a startled shriek, she turned and ran down the path.

The garden seemed to stretch on without end, while somewhere in the distance, a school bell rang.

Medowlyn dashed toward the only classroom in sight, whose windowsill loomed far above her, and, with a burst of effort, she leapt up and pulled herself onto it.

 

 

 

 

 

The other children burst into laughter, pointing at the dirt smudged through her hair.

The girl looked a little embarrassed. She mumbled, as if to explain, "Miss, I just thought that flower I passed earlier... kind of looked like it was smiling!"

"But that's okay, Miss!" The girl pulled the same playful face as her flowerpot. "It doesn't have to be perfect!"

"What I really made is..."

<b>"a moment of happiness turned into something that lasts!"</b>

Outside the window, Medowlyn found herself speaking the words at the very same time.

So that was it. The little girl, and the garden, were both pieces of who she used to be.

And that was it. It didn't have to be perfect, as long as the memory was a happy one.

|s4_title = The Runaway Plushie

|s4_text  =  

"Medowlyn from the Lucerne family's taking the Golden Comb this year, isn't she?"

"I mean, obviously. I heard the council's already saved her a seat, just waiting for her to claim it!"

"Ugh, I can't wait to see it..."

As the chimes sounded before the Golden Hall, the ball commenced. Young debutantes, each with a flawlessly arranged coiffure, entered the ballroom in pairs and trios.

Meanwhile, outside Medowlyn's room, her lady's maids were in a panic. The bell had rung three times, and at last the head maid, steeling herself, forced the door open.

 

A faint glimmer flickered at the windowsill, and as the maid stepped closer, she saw a fall of golden hair slipping softly down from the edge of the window, silken, luminous... and severed.

 

 

 

Three days later, Judge Lucy sat at her desk, snapping her ruler and protractor apart, piece by piece, along the precise markings once used to measure the length and curve of every coiffure.

 

 

 

For those who had already come of age, the PuffPost Boxes by their doors had been filling up lately. From time to time, a soft, fluffy gift would arrive from the Starsea.

"Ms. Ellie, a floofy violin won't snap, right? Shh... that lullaby is our little secret."

Ellie, the maid, smiled at the parcel. Even with one string missing, little Lynn would always play along, drifting off with a grin to the off-key tune.

"Cecily, the funny-faced bread tastes good too! After eating it... you'll get a funny face!"

Cecily of the Tulip family glanced at the bread plushie in the corner, remembering that camping trip with Lynn, when they burned the bread and hurriedly ate it all before anyone could notice.

Anna, Medowlyn's former deskmate, carefully opened the plush clam in her hands. This time, soft little pearls nestled inside, giggling quietly.

Out in the Starsea, a small figure walked on, her eyes wide with wonder. Her once-cropped curls had begun to grow back, and this time, she no longer felt the need to keep them so carefully in place.

The open wind slipped freely through every soft strand of her hair. And somewhere in the distance...

<i>There must be even more beautiful memories waiting to be found, right?</i>

How lovely it will be to tuck them away in something soft and floofy.