#scarsdale

Near Alabaster Hollow, a young childling shivers. Melia Furchtengarb is not that unique. Little girl sluagh aren't unheard of. To their frustration, they're often seen as cute rather than terrifying. But Melia herself gets scared, and tha'ts fine. Being frightened lets her know she is alive.

For almost a year and a day, she has gotten 'odd looks' at her constant trembling (But her hands are sure). But she is not scared, not JUST scared. She's worried.

She'll be sained soon. She'll have her true name. But so will the sidhe she's been directed to.

She may not be fully to her power, but she IS a sluagh. And sluagh ,even childlings, soon learn how to find out things.

The last sluagh she spoke to was not cheap, not even for a kith sib, but she looks again at the chimerical letter.

And a small map of a neighborhood in Scarsdale, though the street names are smudged. She'll have to find the match to get the right house

She shudders again, but it has nothing to do with the lingering winter

There IS a namer among the sluagh. Melia paid too much for it to be a lie and it would insult the elder's reputation to lie in such a matter. She is shaking because she might not find her. She is shaking because she might end up having a non sluagh know her name. It's not her favorite sort of fear. It's about the intangible, thus all too real.

spot and bother she thinks in a fret. she has fretting down well.

And so, in the snow and cold, bundled up like a dark cocoon, she wanders the neighborhoods of scarsdale.

Furchtengarb looks pathetic, and she's rather proud that she's doing the starving urchin look well; she really IS hungry. She hasn't eaten in... well, twelve hours.

Smells pipe from a kitchen - fresh cookies, which do not appeal to a sluagh, but then a whiff of something else airing on the back porch.

It catches her off guard, that last smell. In the cold, rot doesn't work as it should...moving lightly, so lightly that she's on TOP of the snow with only the tiniest impressions from her boots. She makes her way around the back, though squriming through a fence will be tricky in all these layers.

But she manages, and peeks at the back porch, even if she has to stand on a larger snow pile to SEE

Some kind of apple pie, but OLD. It's collapsed on itself, with spatters of white and green fuzz on the crust.

She licks her lips, it smells SO good.

manners war with hunger, and so she compromises. folks can't hear her, but ... is that her fault? trembling, she asks "pardon, may i have a slice?" And sure no one heard her, and manners attempted, she reaches for the pie

and, as no one stops her, she eats, using a sleeve as a napkin.

it is BLISS! Not only was she hungry, this just tasted delicious.

"Jacob, bubbe, I don't care what you have to say about it - you will wash your hands! I have some of Zara's pie for you!" A warm woman's voice - middle aged, bright and loving.

a flash of guilt consumes the girl, and she reaches into a pocket and pulls out some of the money she has. She's down to her last three dollars. She puts one wrinkled bill up there, then goes back to eating.

SOOO good.

and then, next to the dollar, goes the now empty pie plate.

"OH!"

That warm motherly voice is RIGHT THERE.

Hannah stands in the doorway, looking at the girl.

When you're a sluagh, no one can hear you eep!

the little sluagh girl trembles and tries to shrink.

that's not one of her powers.

And curse this snow for making her stand out

"Bubbelah. Well. It looks like we'll need to take out another tupperware."

"Now come in, come in. It's too cold yet. I'll make you some tea."

She isn't yelled at? she's not told to get out of here? no one is calling the police, or the thanes? she looks up from her huddle with hopeful eyes to get a better look at the owner of the kind motherly voice. And, slowly, she goes in, shivering with worry and yes, the cold

"wonderful pie, goodwoman" she adds

"Oh no, you call me Hannah. You look just like my little Zara, when she was your age." She steers Melia towards a chair.

Hannah putters, putting on a kettle for tea and retrieving some purple tupperwares from the special cupboard.

"I do? I didn't mean to steal her face. is she okay?" A beat "I'm Melia Furchtengarb" no no, she told her use name. what if folks come after her? Oh drat

"More than okay, dear. But far too grown up, these days. She said she would visit for shabbos, but travelling can always be complicated." A tut. "Wilders."

Hannah does not appear to be a kithain...

A squint, this woman isn't cold at least, not banal. Far from it but she knows of wilders? Melia covers one eye, which makes kenning easier

for a time, Jaccob was occupied. How to 'wash' his hands with the least contact with water and soap? And he only used the fronts, did he have to wash the backs of his hands?

She hums softly, checking dates on the containers. "How about soup?"

"i like soup but when it's.. older?" the woman left out the perfect pie. She knows about slaugh. That's exciting, and terrifying.

"Well, of course."

"My Zara, she wants at least a month of aging, if we can."

She perks at that "that pie was so filling. I do not wish to be a bother...." A beat "But... yes please?"

Jacob decides to risk it, coming in and showing the perfectly clean PALMS upraised

"Her brother? Two weeks is usually enough." A tsk. "She can be picky, but I do love my little spiderling."

"Jacob! We have company. Be a dear and please fetch an extra place setting."