Oaria's knees buckled and the stack of laundry slid sideways a few inches. She grit her teeth and tilted it gingerly the other way before setting it down a moment. She huffed, trying to catch hold of her breath again.

Why did I agree to take their loads? She wondered, chiding herself for not standing up for herself. You're such a pushover... They're taking advantage of you.

I know.

So do something about it.

I can't.

Why not?

I... I don't know.

She sighed and rolled up her sleeves further, taking the wicker basket by its handles and heaving it up with a hup! She staggered sideways a few steps, overbalanced by the heavy pile of dirty clothes. She ran shoulder-first into the wall. She rolled with it slightly, to where she was leaning against the basket, its edges trapped between her weight and the wall.

Foo.

She slowly leaned back, taking the basket with her. She moved forward a few steps. Then a few more. And a few more. Then she was at a flight of stairs. Oh dear.

She thought a second before leaning (well, controlled falling) over and setting (or rather, dropping) the basket on the second step up. She took a glance around before heaving it up one step and taking a step up herself. She repeated the process. She could feel heat rising in her dark cheeks, well if this just isn't the silliest...

Scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub... it was a methodic, thoughtless undertaking which had almost obtained a rhythm similar to that of beating drums to the passive who dutifully carried the deed out. The floor was looking grand, in his opinion, and if the gollies weren't pleased with a mirror for a floor (or what may as well have been with the sheen that had formed at this point) then they could stick their it up their tight little, self-important arses. See how clean it would be, then. Not very. A half-smirk wrinkled the passive's left cheek at the rather odd, vaguely humorous image that wormed its way into his mind to stubbornly sit there without any inclination of removing itself when he was distracted by a small, feminine umph from somewhere down the hall. Glancing up, he saw a tiny passive lady busying herself with a rather massive hoard of dirtified clothing and trying desperately to work her way upstairs with it.

Lucien tutted under his breath and got to his feet, his right knee cracking audibly in the process. I'm too young for this, The thought was fleeting as he leaned on his walking stick and hobbled over to where the lady was struggling with her load. "That looks like quite the excruciably encumberous load, there, especially for a beautimous young lady as yourself. Would you like some aidance with that?" He grinned, apparently under the impression that his attempt at using big words (succeeding only in a load of jabberwocky) would impress the lady.

"Oh!" She squeaked. She hadn't heard the man approach, and he caught her by surprise halfway between one step and another. She latched onto the stair rail, but the basket tilted dangerously, letting loose a good heap of clothes. They tumbled down three or four steps, the basket saved from further losses by Oaria's outflung foot.

Her hands flew to her mouth, covering up her fright. The man, who appeared in his fifties, was babbling at her. She wondered if the old man had taken leave of his senses, considering the odd words he was using. She heard some diseases and age did that to you. He was mussing up words left and right. But she got the gist of it.

"I-I think I'm alright," she said, hands shaking a little. She looked down at the vestments at her feet and glanced between them and the old man before darting down to start collecting them, trying to keep the stack from tipping over again.

Mopping, mopping.

It seemed like she was always mopping. Either mopping, doing dishes, weeding some dirt filled garden, or some more mopping. She was beginning to really hate the boring job, and slacked off and cut corners a lot; matrons would find puddles of mud in the corners, or a hallway with a streak of clean down the middle from Moira just dragging the mop behind her and then saying she was done. The girl just knew that she shouldn’t be the one cleaning, maids should do that, and she most certainly wasn’t a maid. Er, didn’t used to be.

The girl rolled her eyes and balanced the bucket and the mop, before carefully stepping down the stairs. Did you mop stairs? Would that be dangerous? Well it didn’t matter because she most certainly wasn’t going--



Moira froze. She recognized that voice; it was the nice woman who was teaching her to sew. She hadn’t noticed her and the man speaking until Oaria's voice surprised the girl and she looked up from the bucket and down at the two. She raised an eyebrow; there was laundry. On the floor. In her way. She wrinkled her nose, this was a problem. Now she had to help pick up the laundry so she could get by. If she didn’t then she couldn’t clean, and if she wasn’t at least pretending to mop soon, she would be in big trouble.

She took a few steps closer and then set the bucket down, reaching out and picking up laundry at the same time.

"Hello again," she smiled at Oaria, "you look like you could use some help." she was just going to go with that, and pretend she wasn’t just helping herself. She looked up at Lucien, too, as she put a shirt on the stack of laundry in the basket. "Hello to you, too." she said, still smiling.

Oaria looked up at the newest arrival and smiled. It was the wee one with the knack for sewing. Then she remembered that she was cleaning up a mess of clothes. She glanced back and forth between the girl and the old man. She was getting all these offers for help out of seemingly nowhere. It was odd for one so used to being invisible.

The heat rose in her face again, "I-I... if you... w-well, if-if you want...."

She bowed her head, hoping they wouldn't notice her nerves and let her be on her way. Although, being on her way meant having stacked up all the clothes in the basket again and hauled it off and away... She looked up at the stairway again.

Well, maybe you should just accept.

She bit the inside of her cheek, "Y-yes. I would like help... please?"

Her face was hotter than ever. She had asked for help from a little girl and a stranger. What would she do next? Flee Brunnhold for Old Rose? Her shoulders pinched in at the thought. Well... small steps...