cleolinda | The care and keeping of your sparklepire

So. Watchmen mini-review and discussion back thataway. New Secret Life icons by

etod over thisaway.

So the week's almost over, and The Littlest Edward is still dazzling the girls. Involuntarily, I might add, but the girls are inexorably drawn to his cupcake marble Adonis killer self. They're still full of questions; Purple Arwen's were very practical, like where he got his coat and how his sparkle actually functioned--

"Just direct sunlight? Not any kind of daylight? What about artificial light? Like a spotlight? That's really bright, but it's not natural light, do you not sparkle under that? What does it look like, anyway? Like diamonds? How big are the facets on the diamonds? Are we talking like single carats? Emerald cut or princess or what?"

--whereas Eowyn just wanted to know anything and everything, although I'm not really sure she was actually listening to the answers. You know, tiny fuming velvet voice, etc. I mean, she asked him what his favorite animal to hunt was, even though she already knew from her reading it was mountain lion, so clearly she was just trying to keep him talking, even as he grew more and more irritated by the whole enterprise.

"Do you have to chew extra hard to get through their fur?"

Back on The Shelf, Faramir One was giving Edward a run for his emo, but the Aragorns just seemed straight-up baffled.

"I don't get it. I don't get what's so great about this kid at all. I mean, sure he's more than a hundred years old, but I'm in my eighties! It's really not that impressive!"

"He doesn't have any weapons, not even a knife--"

"Or any felt at all--"

"--just that weird medallion thing. Sure, he's got a family crest, but have you seen the banners of the Kings of Gondor? Please."

In the distance, Eowyn scootched a little closer to Edward, and Faramir One actually growled.

(Fugagorn looked back over his shoulder tenderly at White Arwen, who was absorbed in reading The Little Prince and completely unaware of any nearby sources of bedazzlement.)

"That is not a kid who likes girls," Faramir Two reassured One.

"Really?"

"Look at his body language! He's always hunched over and scowling! He's got the girls hanging all over him and he looks like he wants to die. And he's already died once, so that's saying something."

"So you think…?" Faramir One asked hopefully--a distinct preference to the contrary would eliminate Edward as his rival, after all.

"I didn’t say he liked boys. I’m just saying I don’t think he likes girls. Or that he'd know what to do with one if he did."

*grunts of manly agreement all around*

"That really is a fantastic coat, though."

"What about your hair?"

"What about it?"

"How do you get it to--do that?"

She may have been referring to the fact that it was somewhat vehemently pointing in her direction, I don't know.

"I don't--it just--it is. It's made that way, I don't do anything to it--"

"Can I touch it?" she asked, already reaching over--

"NO!"

He sort of pitched a spaz at that point and stormed off to my desk--he looked scared, actually, so I don't know what that was about. He has been getting more and more tense and standoffish as the week has worn on, though. I'm going to have to keep my eye on this.

"Come on, guys, he needs a little quiet time. You too, Lyra. Go play with knives or something."

(Anna's been teaching Lyra the fine art of self-defense.)

In actuality, "quiet time" is the last thing Edward needs--it’s a good bit of work keeping your sparklepire amused. He can’t sleep, remember? So he never "turns off," as it were—he’s always wandering around looking for something to do or read or watch. He can’t even sleep for lack of anything else to do; he’s always on. You know how a working/herding dog will slowly go a little crazy if you don’t get him a big yard to run around in and a "job" to do? It’s a little like that. Which, like many a well-meaning dog owner, I hadn't realized when I bought him.

So I gave him a deck of cards and let him play solitaire (the cards came up to his elbows, so that at least made it take longer to play).

I set him the task of opening my bedroom window, since he seems to be pretty good at that, but unfortunately our house was hermetically sealed for climate control by the elderly couple who lived here before us, so he gave up on that after about three hours. I tried to get him started learning a new language, but all I had were books on French, Spanish, German and Italian and some printouts on Elvish, and he already knew all those. It got to the point where I started double-checking on the Bella figure release date just so I could find a way to keep him entertained—they can go lie in a planter of ferns together and argue who's prettier or something. (MAY? Now she’s not shipping until MAY? That is some BULLSHIT right there. I don’t know that I can handle two more months of this.)

I hadn't meant for him to see the website, but--well, you know how quick they move, he was looking over my shoulder before I realized he was there.

"Seriously, you have got to STOP DOING THAT."

"Forgive me, I forget that I'm so fast."

I tried to close the tab before he saw what I was looking at, but--again, with the fast.

He glanced at the picture of Bella on the website but didn’t seem particularly affected by it. "Is she a vampire?"

"No, she’s human," I said, watching him closely.

When a doll (or figure) comes to me, I’m never quite sure where in time they are—does Lyra know about Will, or because she’s a movie doll, does her consciousness of the story leave off where the movie did? She mentioned "Uncle Asriel" once—she knows he’s an explorer, but does she know where he is, and that he was in trouble by the end of the movie? Where is he right now, even? When is now? She doesn’t seem to be aware that she had a friend named Roger at all—quite honestly, given how that shakes out, I’m not in a hurry for her to remember, either.

The point I’m ever so tangentially getting around to is: does Edward know that Bella exists? And apparently the answer is no: he does not. So… he came to us in a pre-book/movie state? (Oh God, are we going to go through that whole ordeal all over again? I ain’t teachin’ no biology class, if that’s what it comes to.)

"But she’s your size. She might… understand you better?"

"Don’t get her," he said, tense. "She doesn’t need to be around a monster like me. I can’t take it, I can’t take any more—people around me."

We sat there for a moment, quiet, awkwardly.

"Do they have a Carlisle? I... I need someone like Carlisle around. Or Esme."

"Not yet, but I’m sure they will," I said cheerfully (by, like, NOVEMBER, I’m sure, and a fat lot of good that does us), "but there’ll be an Alice soon and I’ll get her for you."

"That would be good," he said listlessly. "She’s the only one who would ever play games with me. Even though she always knew who would win. And I always knew who she was thinking about knowing would win. We could play a whole game of chess in two minutes. We played a lot of chess. I miss Alice."

Tomorrow, I’m going to have him organize my earrings by color. Alphabetically.

(More from the Secret Life of Dolls.)