I’ve learned nothing. Apparently, I love repeating the same mistakes over and over.

Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 3rd Generation
Current Date: May 12, 2058

Character: Abigail Axl
Race: Halfling – Angel / Elf (forest) / Human
Age: 48, physically about 28
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
 

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I don’t know how old I really was when I first started making masks, I’d have to look at my first few creations and check the date on them since I used to—and still do—sign them and date them. Not that I expected much fame and glory from these masks but signing and dating them seemed to make sense. I’m fairly certain I was possibly eight or nine when I first really started.

Let me tell you, it wasn’t all that fun when I started and more than once I thought I was better off just stopping and never thinking of it ever again. Though to be fair, I think that at first, I was making the masks by hand, I was using papier maché as they did back then. I’m still doing it this way now but I have a mould and a press at this point, so I can focus on the decorating of the masks themselves.

It took me a few years to figure things out, I won’t lie. The eyes always looked all around and more than once I felt like giving up. Feeling as though I was learning nothing from my mistakes and just repeating them over and over again. I overcame these feelings, of course. I got better with time and quite a good bit of practice but that’s just the way things are, isn’t it?

When I started making yarn out of Glacier’s fur, it was a mess. I’d read up a lot about it, I’d watched plenty of videos, I’d gotten all the equipment I thought I’d need but it was horrible at first. It was just so complicated and frustrating. I struggled hard.

I did almost give up but, again, on that same note, I reminded myself that I’d struggled too when I’d started with the masks. It had taken me years to get to the point where I was now and if I wanted to manage with the yarn-making, I’d have to take it slow and slow I did.

Am I perfect in turning this beautiful fur, mixed in with Angora, into yarn? No. But I’m certainly getting better to the point where it doesn’t look lumpy when I’m done and I’ve been able to spin it into a fairly even weight. I’ve even made a few easy things with it but she loses so much fur overall that I’ve been able to drop several skeins into the system and I’ve even had a handful of bags of fur from other folks sent my way to try and make into skeins of their own.

Of course, they asked me if I could and I was willing to, it was bound to be an interesting experience and you don’t get better at something if you don’t broaden your horizons, right? So that’s been an experience too and one I have no regrets about attempting.

There’s plenty out there that I’m not going to be good at but if I can find a few different things that I might just be great and possibly excel at? You can bet that I’m going to see these very things out, try my hand at them, and work to better myself until I’m more than just a little proud of the results. I’ve realized that I like having a bit of diversity in my life.

Don’t get me wrong, I love making the masks but there are only so many masks you can take before you have a collection bigger than anything anyone might want to look through—on that note, though, I do have them on display in a room that is accessible through the system should anyone want to; they’re free for the picking unless they’re marked as such but, for the most part, all of the masks I’ve ever made are there and fine for someone to take home if they want to.

I’m not skilled enough quite yet with the yarn side of things to start doing that with the skeins I’ve made and that’s fine; I don’t know that I’ll get to that point though I could be wrong. I mean, I have a whole lifetime ahead of me as is to get to that point and now that I’ve gotten better at spinning the fur into yarn and then into skeins, I’ve dipped my hand into learning the dyeing process to make other things and while that has been messy, it’s been a journey in and of itself and I’ve loved every second of it.

I’m not leaving mask-making behind, not permanently, but I won’t lie, my new focus really has turned to yarn at this point.

Final Word Count: 779

Staying up this late is a bad idea, considering you didn’t get much sleep. Didn’t I tell you to take care of yourself?

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 3rd Generation
Characters: Abigail Axl
Race: Halfling – Angel / Elf (forest) / Human
Age: 47, physically about 28
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
Final Word Count: 788 words
 

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I don’t know why this has left its mark on me recently, but I think it might have been through watching a documentary. I’ll do that at times while I work my way through putting together another skein made from Glacier’s fur. I mean, it’s not just her fur, while it certainly was long and thick enough to manage to get working with it, I learned that working it up into yarn with a bit of Angora works wonders.

It’s been a learning experience and I can’t say I mind. Felting the fur so that I could get started, wasn’t easy at first but, you know, like everything else, you sort of pick up the motions as you learn and eventually it becomes so much easier. That’s the way it was with making the masks. I struggled at first, it was hard to make them look like they hadn’t been made by a toddler but with plenty of time and patience, I eventually learned how to do them in a way that made it possible for me to offer them in the system. At this point, I mostly only do them when there are requests. I still have a wall full of items and trinkets that I used to use for them and nearly another wall full of colour-separated feathers.

I’m not going to lie, the arts and crafts room is one of those bigger-on-the-inside type rooms; we had to, considering how much stuff I’d accumulated though I cleared out a lot of that very stuff a couple of years ago. Donated it back into the system for anyone that might have a use for it. Hoarding things that I don’t need isn’t really something I’m all that fond of. Well, except feathers. That’s another story altogether.

Anyway. I know I was working on a skein on that particular day because it had been rainy and dark outside, even Glacier was settled not very far, and I was watching a documentary on big cats just like her. I’m not sure why I picked that documentary; I’ve had big cats in my life from the time I was a baby and they’ve just always been there, but I never really had been interested in deeper learning about what they were like before.

What I did learn surprised me. I mean, I know they’re big cats and I know that even smaller cats are predators in their own right but the things I saw in that documentary sort of sealed the deal on that knowledge. I do look at her in a new light, but it hasn’t changed the love I have for her. I mean, I guess it makes sense that grandpa, somehow, in his quest to discover all of these things and make them possible for us, has found means of changing their temperament a little.

Then again, from the documentary, I got the feeling that big cats—tigers, at least—didn’t normally attack humans unless they were being territorial or unless they really were starving. Here, the big cats are fed plenty, so maybe it’s just the territorial thing that had to be worked on some. I mean, I have faint memories of Hades being a big butt and being territorial, but he was also a very old idiot. I did love him, just not the way I love Glacier but that’s something else entirely, isn’t it?

I do recall that on that particular morning, before I did feed her, she was being a grumpy butt and I remember saying that I’d warned her about staying up late. Not that I think she understands me, but she’s like a child now and again. I know she’d roamed for a while after we’d gone to bed; a few different times in the night, she’d been at my side of the bed, bumping my arm somewhat with her nose before she left again. So, of course, she hadn’t gotten much sleep.

This silly girl needs to take better care of herself. We do all we can for her but there are times when we just can’t do certain things and making her sleep, so she won’t be a grumpy baby is one of those things. I mean, she’s a cat, she usually sleeps a good chunk of her day away but there are certain days, like that one, when she just has more energy than not and falling to sleep is just difficult, in the long run.

I know that, very likely, though her life has lengthened like ours, we might have to let her slip off into a forever sleep and I’m not quite ready for that yet but, if it happens, I know we’ll get to it.

It’s okay that you have feelings for me. I’m just that amazing.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 3rd Generation
Characters: Abigail Axl
Race: Halfling – Angel / Elf (forest) / Human
Age: 45, physically about 28
Final Word Count: 705 words
 

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Romantic movies are way overrated. I don’t know why I thought they’d be any different though I’m sure it’s just because I picked this particular one. Others might not be half as bad but I don’t know that I can give this one, or any others, a watch any time soon.

Now, I know that this is a movie; I know that the guy was an actor; I know this was all planned as a script but if I’d had someone come up to me, telling me that it was okay that I had feelings for them just because they were that amazing? I think I would have punched them in the face and that’s not even something I’ve ever really considered before. The idea of someone so self-centred that they think they’re better than sliced bread just sits really wrong with me. I can’t help it.

If you’re anything like me and putting emotions into words is actually relatively difficult, then you know that some jerk telling you that it’s normal for you to like them is going to make you feel like you’re less than important. Like you’re just one of so many other girls—and guys—that might have gone up to this moron to tell them that hey, I think I might really like you.

‘Oh hey babe, that’s normal! Everyone likes me! I’m just that amazing!’ Ugh, what a douche.

Wow. I can’t believe I just thought that. I don’t think I expected that word to ever be in my vocabulary, it’s one of those things and it’s just not a pleasant mental image to deal with. That movie really rubbed me wrong and I know I’ll need to spend a good bit of time in kitty-company to forget about it all.

I’ve been trying my hand at making yarn. Glacier sheds enough that I have more than my share of fur to work with and while it wasn’t pretty to look at, at first, I think I’ve slowly gotten the hang of it. If spending time with the furball isn’t enough to remove the memory of the movie from my brain, I imagine that carding the fur and spinning it would do the trick; it requires so much of my attention, getting it spun. One moment of inattention and I have to start all over again because that’s just a thing.

I figured, after so long making masks—though I still make them if they’re requested—that I could try my hand at something else. I have two skeins so far, the pattern in them is interesting due to Glacier’s colours but I haven’t decided if I wanted to try to make something with them or if I should let someone else have them. Someone who might know what they’re doing so that the whole point of making the yarn doesn’t go to waste.

In a way, I think that if I wanted to really take up knitting in some shape or form, I’d have to opt for acrylic yarns to begin with, they’re easier to get and even if I screw up, it wouldn’t be that much of an issue. It still wouldn’t be fun but that’s the point of learning something new.

I wasn’t instantly great at making the masks, back then. It took a lot of work to get to the point where I am and even now and again, I look at my finished product and I have to undo it and start over because it isn’t to my standards. That being said, it doesn’t happen very often anymore, I’ve taken to sketching out detailed information on what I want for the mask and that has helped me along something fierce.

Yeah, I have plenty of options to get my mind off of the douche from the movie, I just need to decide on which direction I’d like my day to go and from there, I know I’ll be able to do something with the rest of my day and forget about everything that was wrong with my mid-morning movie trial. At least I didn’t watch it in the evening like I’d meant to. Let’s just say I was wonderfully side-tracked.

They know how to do this.

 
Timeline/World: Atheria – 3rd Generation
Characters: Abigail Axl
Race: Halfling – Angel / Elf (forest) / Human
Age: 44, physically about 28
Final Word Count: 688 words
 

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It’s surprisingly fascinating to watch nature work its magic. It seems like it might be a strange thing to think but it comes from spending so long just watching animals just… do their thing. Not that I spend hours upon hours just sitting there, staring at the world outside my window and doing nothing, I have plenty to keep myself occupied with but, I’m not going to lie, there are days when I’ve lost a little while of my time because I got caught up in watching the mystery of life as it unfolded in front of me.

This statement applies to most species. I’ve gotten lost in my own bubble watching birds prepare their nests for eggs, I’ve watched spiders in their webs, I’ve watched squirrels, I’ve watched a lot of whatever roams in and out of our yards and, though I’ve only witnessed it once, I’ve watched tigers prepare for the birth of little ones. That was as fascinating as it gets.

It’s clear to me that the animal kingdom, for the most part, has an innate knowledge of what it must do when preparing for little ones. They just know how to handle things because it’s a matter of survival, as I see it. Preparing a nest, for instance; how they gather items here and there to prepare a little home for the protection of the lives they will be bringing forth.

I don’t know how to put it into words, it’s just a strange sort of fascination to be had, I’m sure. The thing is, when I spot one such thing happening—usually, at this point, it’s birds or squirrels or other small mammals though not so much at this time of the year—I feel the need to assess my own living situation a little. Not with every instance, certainly not but now and again, I watch them build a little temporary home for themselves and I look at our home and I ask myself questions.

If we were to have little ones—I’m not sure I’m ready, would I be?—would the house be safe for them? Would they grow up with everything they’d need? Would they miss out on anything because I didn’t think of it? I’m sure it’s a strange thing to be thinking about but it’s one of those things. The mind can wander a lot when making things that are slightly repetitive. One of those things is when I spend hours going through all the feathers I’ve gathered for a while to separate them into piles that I might or might not be able to use.

Even after so many years of making masks with these feathers, there are no two that are identical. Some are similar because some themes will always repeat but no two are absolutely identical and since I mostly only ever make them to give, or per requests, I don’t make quite as many as I used to. Maybe that’s why I’ve spent plenty of time lately just watching nature as it happened.

Mind you, I’m not bored. I love my life the way it is and watching nature as it does its thing is a good source of inspiration for new themes for the masks I love making. Though, looking back, I’m not even sure why I got started on this so-called business. It’s not a business since I don’t have a storefront but others are aware of what I do and I’ve had times when I had more orders than I thought I could handle.

Masks have always fascinated me and I suppose it’s rather helpful that one of my biggest fans is so enamoured with them and the feathers I use for them. I’ve lost count of how often Seraphiel has asked me to make something with his own feathers for Raiden, it’s just the sweetest thing but it’s always a challenge because I don’t want to repeat myself and I’m getting pretty good with dream catchers, too.

So, at this point, I don’t think I want to change anything with how my life is happening, I’m happy with it.

You couldn’t have waited ten more seconds?

Timeline/World: Atheria 3rd Generation
Characters: Abigail Axl
Race: Halfling – Angel / Elf (forest) / Human
Age: 43, physically about 28
Final Word Count: 550 words

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I remember when these two were just the tiniest of things. They got Iceberg first and despite being just a tiny kitten as far as baby tigers go, he still was this big bundle of love.

I didn’t get to help with Iceberg as he grew up but I did hear a few horror stories about missed letting-out and potty messes. About how ten seconds could likely have made all the difference in the world but at least messes are usually not such a chore to clean up. They’re unpleasant but that’s just one of those things that come with having a pet, they’re responsibilities and all.

Glacier came in later and Iceberg didn’t know what to make of his new friend at first. That they let us take Iceberg with us when we moved out warmed me. I suppose, in a way, it shouldn’t have been surprising since he was Greyson’s pet, in the end.

Raising Glacier and making sure she was potty-trained was a shared effort and we made sure to avoid accidents as much as possible. It still happened once or twice but that’s about it. Within a handful of weeks, she slept through her nights and letting her out before going to bed allowed us a full night of sleep before she required to be let out in the early mornings, it was a nice thing.

I think, the one situation that remains with me the most, isn’t even one that happened when either one of these two were cubs. It happened just three years ago, Glacier had been under the weather in a bad way and we honestly were a little worried about her pulling through. We switched nights spent with her so we could at least manage to get some sleep while the other stayed awake. At one point, she was just… it was one mess after the other, as though she no longer could hold anything inside. She’d eat a little, it would come back up one way, if it somehow stayed down, it came back out in liquid form from the other end.

She pulled through, thankfully, but Faith was never able to actually find out what had been wrong with her. We hadn’t fed her anything different from the norm, no one else had shown any signs of sickness, be it in other people or other animals. There were no other cases so we were both frustrated at not knowing what it had been, to avoid it happening again but at the same time, we were relieved that no one else had been sick in the way she had.

We’ve seen more than our share of little furry ones come and go. Not always from Glacier, not always through Iceberg. There are so many big cats in this place that you wonder a little though I know there are other pets in other households. I’m just so used to all the big cats that they’re what I notice first when we’re out and about and one of them is roaming. Not all roam but quite a few do and they’re usually all friendly towards one another. Even Hades has settled down some. Just some. He’s still an asshole most of the time but that’s just one of those things.