Challenge #00826-B095: One Guaranteed Angel
[AN: Love and props to tkki
who does amazing art. Go follow them. Give them moneys. Also apologies
if this counts as unauthorised reproduction. Image shows a humanoid
figure in black with a skull for a head. Clinging to one leg of the
large, black figure is the tiny white figure of a child]
Halloween.
Ghouls,
gosts, and lingerie-themed outfits ruled the streets. Az had put on a
cheap rubber skull mask and pulled his hood up to hide the seam. His
companion for the evening was too portly for the usual array of
one-size-fits-nobody rental costumes and had resigned herself to Santa.
Sort
of. There was rather a lot of ill-spirited and out-of-character
grumbling coming from underneath the snowy white, fake beard.
At least until they saw the kid.
She
was dressed head to toe in white. She had pale skin. So pale you could
see the tracery of her veins. White hair, kept short, escaped a white
ribbon. Her white dress was made for summers, not October’s autumn
chill.
She was so tiny.
“Santa!” She smiled.
Az
kind of faded into the background as Lyn put on her jolliest “Ho Ho
Ho“s for the kid. Say what you like about her vocabulary, but Lyn was an
angel in disguise.
Tiny White’s name was Claire, and she wanted
an angel to take her away so her mother wouldn’t put her in the box, any
more. Claire went into the box every single time she got her clothes
dirty.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Lyn sighed. “Santa doesn’t make angels with the elves. We’re toys only. You only get one guaranteed angel, I’m sorry.”
Az
carried her home so she wouldn’t get dirt on her clothes. Poor kid.
She’d been adopted by some super-famous Mommy-Dearest type who skated
away from Child Services on a cloud of money, fame and privilege. She
wasn’t even home.
So Az packed up Claire’s favourite things. All her clothes were white… and left a nastygram in the box.
Children are not toys. If you want Claire back, tell the world about what this box is really for.
Az
told the staff who were there that he was taking her to some party in
the town. They were so used to this nonsense that they just let it
happen.
The party of the rest of her life, by sheer comparison.
Mommy-Dearest
put on a nice sob for the media. And there was a whole bunch of ruckus,
trying to find Claire. You’d think an albino kid would be easy to find,
wouldn’t you?
Not after Lyn and Az were done with her. They gave
her colour. A little spray-tan here. A little hair dye there. A little
makeup… And a lot of rough-and-ready clothes.
Claire looks and
acts just like any other kid, now. They let her get dirty, and bath her
at night. And her health has improved for it.
Lyn and Az got
married to solve a lot of questions. Traveling on the road and some
shady people producing some less-than-legal documents made certain
no-one would link their Claire to the one stolen from the
fame-and-fortune Mommy Dearest.
And anyway, all the fuss died down
five seconds after she got herself a new accessory. A large and fluffy
white rabbit. Which is much quieter and matches her decor.
People
look at Az and Lyn as they walk down the streets with Claire eagerly
holding their hands. Him, all over in tattoos and piercings. Her,
overweight and more artistically inked.
They say, “Some people just shouldn’t ever have kids.”
They don’t know how right they are.
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