A Cry for Help

Writers: Yvonne
Date Posted: 31st December 2019

Characters: Elana, Sellimere
Description: Elana does a good deed
Location: Emerald Falls Hold
Date: month 1, day 15 of Turn 10

Elana was on her way back to the laundry with a pile of neatly mended trousers in a large basket over her arm when she heard the crying. She paused at the end of the hall, debating whether to go left and see what was going on, or go right and skip having to deal with someone's messy emotions.

But it was the middle of the sevenday and a bit of drama sounded more interesting than doing more mending. Elana signed, then turned left. The source of the sobs turned out to be a young woman about her own age who was sitting in an alcove and weeping. She looked up as Elana approached and dabbed her eyes on her apron. "Oh! I didn't know anyone was here…"

"What's the matter?" Elana asked. Another drudge-- **Sellimere.** The name popped into her head with a vague memory of an introduction over a month ago. Sellimere was often around the laundry but Elana had quickly dismissed her as she wasn't smart enough or pretty enough to make a relationship with the girl worth the effort. All Sellimere was, was _nice_. And Elana had no use for nice.

Sellimere offered a watery smile. "Oh… nothing much. I'm just being silly." She looked down at her lap as her chin began to quiver again. "I don't want to bother you."

Elana set down her basket of mending and sat next to the other drudge. "Oh dear. Problems with a man?"

Sellimere shook her head. "No… I... " Her chin began to quiver again. "I'm going to be in so much trouble," she whispered. "I was supposed to clean a ring for Ambra. My father is a jeweller, you see. And it's a pearl ring, you can't just clean it any old way without damaging it. But now I can't find it, and Ambra's saying that if I don't give it back by the end of the day today then she'll tell the Headwoman that I stole it. And I don't know what to do!" She turned her large, watery brown eyes on Elana. "I'm not a thief. I'm not! But it was in my room last night and when I went to fetch it just before lunch, I couldn't find it!"

"Well, isn't that the oddest thing." Elana narrowed her eyes. Ambra she knew. Ambra was a bit older than she was, a pretty, thin woman with dark curly hair and elegant wrists. She worked in the laundry as one of the Overseers, and while she was efficient at her work she could also be incredibly vindictive. When she'd first arrived at the Hold, Ambra and Elana had quickly taken each other's measure and deliberately steered clear of each other.

That uneasy truce couldn't last forever, and Elana was bored. Tweaking Ambra's nose sounded like fun. She put on a bright smile. "I know! I'll help you look for it. Maybe it rolled under a table or something."

"Oh really, would you?" Sellimere looked pathetically grateful. "I would really love some help. I don't know what to do!"

"We'll start by searching your room." Elana stood and picked up her basket. "I promise we'll sort this out, Sellimere."

Sellimere dabbed her eyes with her apron again and stood as well. "Thank you so much. I thought… well, never mind."

"Thought what?" Elana asked.

The other girl shrugged her shoulder. "Some people say that you're a bit snobbish. I never said that. It's just what people say. But I can see now that they're wrong-- you're being so kind!"

**Snobby?** Elana's smile grew a bit brittle. Those dimglows. Half the laundry was dull as dishwater and not worth spending her time with, and if they had their feelings hurt by it, then they shouldn't have been so stupid as to spread untrue rumors. Elana knew that she was incredibly kind. **Just look at how nice I'm being to this simpering idiot!**

To prove her point, she gestured at the hallway with her free hand. "I'll follow you," she said, injecting as much warmth as she could into her voice. "We'll have this solved well before dark."

But the ring wasn't in Sellimere's room. She and Elana shook out the rug and went through each and every dress and handkerchief in the little room. They tore off all the bedding and upended the straw mattress to look beneath the bed. They even felt along every seam in the wooden furniture to see if the ring had somehow jammed itself into a crevasse, unseen. By the end of it, Sellimere was crying again and Elana was thoroughly irritated.

"If it's not here, where can it be?" she wondered, sitting back on her heels and pulling her long, red braid over one shoulder to play with the end as she thought.

"I swear it was on my table last night, so that I wouldn't forget it. Someone must have stolen it-- and I'll be blamed for it!" Sellimere started to cry again. "I swear to you, I'm telling the truth!"

"Hmm." Elana sighed, then did her best to smooth her expression into something resembling compassion. "We'll figure this out. Why did you say you'd clean the ring for Ambra anyway?"

"She-- she asked me to." Sellimere dabbed at her eyes and hiccuped. "She brought me the ring and told me to, and I said yes because-- because--"

"Because?" Elana prompted. **Silly idiot.**

Sellimere smiled, a bit sheepishly. "Well, I… I'm sort of seeing her cousin. And she said that now that we're practically family, I should help her. And if she said that, then maybe Redmin is planning to step out with me more officially. It felt like the right thing to do, you know?"

Elana blinked. Redmin was one of the understewards, and the only reason she remembered him was because he had a fine looking face and it was rumored that his mother was a second cousin to the former Lords of Garnet Valley. Who knew if it was true or not… but between the gossip about his possible heritage and his position within the Hold, he was a fine candidate for marriage. Although maybe not so fine if he truly was seeing damp, weepy Sellimere.

A funny little idea crept into her head. Elana patted Sellimere's hand and stood. "I should really get this back to the laundry. But don't worry… I'll come back before dinner and we'll sort this out, all right?"

Sellimere looked up at Elana and nearly started to cry again. "Oh would you? Ambra's so awful when she's mad, and I don't want to face her alone…"

Unsurprising. Sellimere had a backbone like a wet noodle. But Elana was bored, and finding the ring would kill the rumor that she was snobby by proving to everyone just how kind and generous she was. Even if she didn't find it, standing up for sweet, useless Sellimere would still make a point about how good of a person she was. Either way, it gave her something to do that afternoon. She smiled at Sellimere. "We'll sort this out, just you see!"

And with that, she put the basket of mending back onto her hip and left Sellimere alone to clean up the mess they'd made of her room.

Last updated on the January 4th 2020

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A Cry for Help