a totter'd weed of small worth held

[pixietea.livejournal.com]

Characters: England and all of you!
Setting: Floor fifteen, the workshop or floor thirteen, the cathedral.
Format: Starting prose. Have action? Will match!
Summary: Everyone has different ways of dealing with stress. England's chief outlets are consumption of tea, and a seam well-sewn.
Warnings: None yet (aside from England having girly hobbies and me writing tl;dr), though as always, most likely language later.

Floor 15;;

The nation heaved a sigh as he smoothed the fabric out over the work table. It was nice to have woken up one morning and not felt the pull of hopelessness that had kept him buried beneath the covers for the past month -- to actually have stood up out of the weight that had been dragging him down. He had motivation to do things again.

The problem was, he didn't know what to do. Some things didn't even feel right to be doing. In the back of his mind, he kept wondering if the surgery victims were back to normal too; that was a niggling enough thing to be worrying about without him being antsy all the time.

He stared blankly at the uncut fabric, unsure of what to make of it. A shirt was too much measurement and precision than he felt he could deal with at the moment (though he did make note of the possibility for a later pastime and reminded himself to look around the workshop for a sewing machine). And heaven knows he had enough pocket squares lying around (at home, anyways, but they were probably destroyed with the rest of the world now).

Well, he needed to do something with this cloth. So, England reached for the ruler and pencil he had previously put aside, and set to measuring and cutting out a perfect square.

Floor 13;;
He sat somewhere just off the left of the center in the rows of pews, trying to hide himself somewhere inconsequential amongst the invisible masses where none could place him as out of the ordinary. He was alone, of course, but that didn't stop him from feeling like he was being watched-- judged, even.

England could count on one hand how many damns he truly gave about what strangers thought of him. Still, he preferred not to be distracted by scorn while he was trying to make himself relax.

The kingdom pulled the poppy-orange thread taut through the white fabric stretched by his embroidery hoop. His mind was still leaden with thoughts of October's experiments, evident in the way his normally deft fingers were sluggish and lazy with his stitching. Still, he devoted the majority of his attentions to his needlepoint. After a whole month of doing nothing but lie around and feel sorry for everything, he needed to be productive in some aspect.

Comments

floor 13!

[latomatetas.livejournal.com]

Someone was sitting a few pews in front of her spot, Spain noticed as she walks back in to pray after a long search in the tower. She hasn't given up hope on finding Romana, but it was starting to take a toll on her, and she spends more time in the lounge floor or the cathedral to rest and pray.

She approached him, her footsteps muffled, her curiosity fueled when she saw what he was doing.

"Hello there... don't think I've seen you around before?"

[pixietea.livejournal.com]

The stifling nature of the church swallowed up the woman's footsteps, so England didn't notice her presence until she started speaking. Of course, said notice came with a bit of alarm, seeing as it seemed that she had appeared behind him from out of nowhere.

He turned quickly in his seat to look at her and narrowed his eyes a little, brows furrowing. She looked dreadfully familiar. Maybe he was just getting old (hah, and people said he had no sense of humour). "I don't doubt that such is the case," he agreed. "I have not bothered with putting myself out in the open as of late, and this place is certainly large enough that it's sometimes difficult to find familiar faces."

Unless you keep track of room assignments or network posts, anyways. England, however, does no such thing.

[latomatetas.livejournal.com]

Spain nodded. The tower was expanding, and more often than not, there were new people that Spain might have missed, this man included.

"May I have a seat?"

[pixietea.livejournal.com]

Did she mean next to him? He didn't mind, but, it was a huge room; surely she could conduct her intended business in one of the other pews? Or did she really intend to converse with him?

"Of course," answered England after a moment. He shifted following that, turning to face front again so that he could bow his head over his embroidery once more and let the woman choose her seat without worry of scrutiny.

[latomatetas.livejournal.com]

She nodded again, sitting down a comfortable distance from the man. Silence befell them for a long while, Spain doing her prayers quietly while the other occupant did whatever it was he was doing.

[pixietea.livejournal.com]

He quickly fell back into a rhythm of stitching -- over, under, over, under -- with the woman's prayers in the background as what could only barely be called white noise. She wasn't too terribly far away, and yet he could barely hear her voice. The impossible acoustics on this floor were eerie.

He wasn't troubling himself to listen, though. Her business was her own. England continued his work at a steady pace, his silence broken only occasionally by a mumbled curse whenever he overestimated the needle and ended up sticking it into the pad of his finger.