clarenceandannabelle

[clarenceandannabelle]

Chapter 3. A Long Walk

    The Forest was always very peaceful in the mid afternoon. Clarence walked steadily down the path with Annabelle sitting in the palm of his hand. Surprisingly, his arm was not getting tired like he had expected. His eyes followed up the trunks of surrounding trees. Some were massive; taller and wider than him. Others were much smaller and thinner. The variety of plant life worked in unison to create a darkness that covered both sides of the path, even in broad daylight. Some found this threatening, as if looking in would make you vulnerable enough to have your soul stolen. Clarence and Annabelle however, being frequenters of The Forest, felt protected by the darkness, as if it were a blanket.

    There was a silence between them that Clarence felt would still exist even if he could understand Annabelle. It made him a little uncomfortable, as if it shouldn’t be there. For the first time in his life, Clarence wished very badly to strike up a conversation with a stranger.

    “I-It’s uh, it’s really n-nice out today.” he said out of nowhere. Clarence felt stupid for talking about the weather of all subjects, but he couldn’t think of anything else.

    Annabelle looked up at him and nodded thoughtfully. It was a beautiful day. There were birds singing in the trees, rays of sun passing through leaves and making shadows on the forest floor that danced with the breeze, which was slow but cool compared to the warmness of the day. Flowers were blooming in little patches all over the place. Most were light shades of blue, pink, yellow or white. They added to the beauty of The Forest tremendously.

    Annabelle looked down and spotted a particularly lovely group of daisies. She crawled to the edge of Clarence’s hand and pointed to them.

    “What is it? Oh, the daisies. Yeah, that’s the flower I drew earlier,” Clarence stated, with a teeny hint of pride that wouldn’t have been there if Annabelle hadn’t expressed her admiration of his art. She looked up at him and smiled sweetly. Clarence continued to walk along the path. They were about halfway to The Healer, and Clarence wanted to talk with Annabelle more before they got there.

    Clarence was not one to try new things or go to new places. He enjoyed life just the way it was, and didn’t see any point to changing it. He figured there was a chance he could ruin it’s perfection if anything went wrong in doing things differently, so why try to fix something that’s not broken. This meant that he did not have any friends. The only people Clarence actually felt comfortable sharing things with were his mothers. Of course, he did not mind this at all. It worried his mothers, but he was unaware of this. Annabelle falling on his notebook changed his perspective on life. The world was full of people, each one unique in their own way. Spending a lifetime alone was bound to get dull at some point, and Clarence did not want to find out when. He realised that she may be the only chance he has at making a real friend, and he did not want to waste it.

    “So,” he began, a little nervously. “How come you were in the tree?”

    Annabelle felt a hot wash of shame move through her whole body. How am I supposed to tell him that I’ve been spying on him for two weeks? She was panicking a little, but she didn’t let Clarence notice. Then she remembered her original reason for going out to the oak tree. She pointed to the ground, wanting to be put down.

    “Y-you want to get off? D-did I um, do s-something wrong?” Clarence was worried that he had asked a bad question, or she suddenly felt uncomfortable with him. Still, not wanting her to get any more upset with him, he put her down, and was relieved to find that she only wanted to draw in the dirt. She drew an acorn with a tiny twig as her pencil, and looked up at him.

    “Is that… an acorn?” Clarence asked, kneeling in front of her. Annabelle looked up and nodded. “You needed acorns? Why?” Annabelle wrote in the dirt:

    USE AS CUPS

and looked back at him. He had a puzzled look on his face, and Annabelle giggled a little and grinned. She was used to the fact that few people understood why she did odd things, like using acorns shells as cups instead of regular glasses. She didn’t mind of course. Being weird brought her joy.

    “I see,” Clarence spoke slowly. “A-alright then, haha.” Clarence out his hand out in front of her, and gradually stood up once she had climbed on. They began to make their way again, and Clarence made a mental note to not ask many questions that required a long response, or it would take them hours to get to The Healer if she had to stop and draw on the ground to answer each time.

    “Uh, d-do you like to draw?” Clarence asked nervously. He felt like he was bugging Annabelle with all the questions, but he really wanted to get to know her a little better. Even if he was being annoying, she was at least remaining polite and cheery throughout their conversation. Annabelle nodded after a moment of thought. Clarence asked if she thought she was good at it, and Annabelle laughed and shook her head no while giving a thumbs down. She was about as good at drawing as a seven year old. Clarence giggled a little, too. “Oh okay, haha. Looks like I don’t have any competition, then.” Annabelle looked up at him and smiled, then began to laugh again. Clarence felt happy and warm inside. He was starting to really enjoy her company.

Art by @hottest_legs_ on Instagram

[clarenceandannabelle]

Chapter 2. A Minor Inconvenience

    Clarence was now sitting cross legged, with Annabelle about a foot in front of him, looking up and smiling cheerily while she wrote and drew on his notebook. He didn’t mind, because he could just tear out the page later. Clarence was still quite puzzled about the whole situation, but Annabelle seemed nice, so he was willing to humour her for a while, and then when she left he could get back to drawing quietly.

    For a lady of few words - in this scenario at least - Annabelle surprisingly had a lot to say. Especially since she had only just met Clarence earlier today. Annabelle had complimented Clarence’s artistic skills, and asked if she could see more of his sketches. He was a little apprehensive at first, but eventually gave in and let her take a peek at some of the pages that were before today’s sketch of a daisy.

    Annabelle grew more and more impressed with each drawing she saw, and was certainly not afraid to express this. She clasped her hands together with glee, her eyes filled with wonder and awe, and a huge grin spread across her face. She clapped her hands after Clarence had returned to the pages with the daisy and her scribbles side by side.

    “Y-you, really think th-they’re good?” Clarence asked, a little surprised. Annabelle nodded her head intensely. She thought they were absolutely marvellous. She wrote this on the page and Clarence blushed a bit. He was dumbfounded by how nice Annabelle was being to him.

    “Th-thanks. I um… your uh… w-wings are pretty. Heh,” Clarence attempted to repay the compliment, which unexpectedly worked. Annabelle’s face turned a light pink, and she twiddled with her hair while her feet twisted around each other. She posed to fly up, but could barely get off the ground before a soreness made its way through one of her wings.

    “Woah, are you alright?” Clarence asked her. “H-hey, wait a second… I think one of them is bent!” Annabelle turned her head to look at her wing and gasped when she noticed a near ninety degree bend in it. It had hurt when she fell out of the tree, but she hadn’t realised that she had actually injured herself.

    “Can you fly?” Clarence asked, immediately regretting it. Obviously not idiot, he thought to himself. She just tried and couldn’t because it hurt. Where you even paying attention? Clarence frowned at his intrusive thoughts, but he didn’t disagree with them. Annabelle shook her head no with a frown, which brought Clarence back to attention.

    “Do you uh, need me to take you to the Healer? I-I bet she could fix it. I’m pretty sure I know where she lives.” Clarence offered, immediately regretting this decision, too. He didn’t really want to take her, but he felt like he should, because she had no way of getting home in a reasonable amount of time without wings, and she had been so sweet all afternoon. After thinking for a moment, Annabelle nodded yes. Clarence began to get up, avoiding the branch above his head. After he stood up all the way, he turned around and looked at the ground behind him, where Annabelle was sitting quietly looking up at him. She smiled and waved, reminding Clarence that she couldn’t fly.

    “O-oh yeah…” Clarence was a little worried. “Should I uh, p-pick you up?” He did not want to have to hold Annabelle. What if I drop her? What if my hands are shaky and sweaty? What do I do when my arm gets tired? All of these troubles and more ran through his mind. To his dismay, she nodded again, and he slowly knelt down before her with his hand out. She carefully climbed on top. Clarence stood up, and held her out in front of his face, and looked at her more closely than he reasonably could before.

    She was pretty. Really pretty.

    Clarence was looking intently at her. His eyes quickly traced over everything they could, and he was at loss for words. There is a girl. In my hand. A girl. My hand. Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God she’s pretty oh wow what do I do! His mind was racing with panic and excitement. Annabelle cocked her head to the side and smiled with a face that implied she was politely waiting for him. This snapped Clarence out of his trance and he lowered his hand while stuttering.

    “Oh s-sorry I just uh…” he began, not wanting to finish his explanation. “Um, h-how ‘bout we g-get going, yeah? I d-don’t want to be late coming home.” Annabelle smiled sweetly up at him, and giggled a little, the soft sound of sleigh bells jingling in place of a voice. An uneven, squiggly looking smile spread across Clarence’s face. He found the sound quite pleasant. He tried to hide the smile from Annabelle, but she still saw.

    “It’s about um, a half hour walk from here.” Clarence tried to make casual conversation to cover up the fact that he had essentially been staring at Annabelle, which seemed to be working. She nodded, and sat cross legged in the palm of his hand.

    “H-has anybody ever c-carried you like this before?” Clarence asked. Again, his inner thoughts told him he was stupid for asking, because she had already said he was the first Giant she had ever met, and Giants are the largest race so nothing else could reasonably carry her. He frowned at these phrases unwillingly forming in his mind and taking control of how he felt. He always wondered if other people had thoughts like these; the ones that sound like there’s a separate person aside from yourself who hates you that lives in your mind and refuses to leave. He wouldn’t dare ask anyone if they knew this struggle, out of fear that they would judge him for it.

Annabelle politely shook her head no, then held a thumbs up for Clarence. So far, she was enjoying herself. It was sort of fun to be carried in a giant hand.

“Does the thumbs up mean it’s good? Like, you like it?” Clarence asked, generally curious. He wasn’t entirely sure if that’s what she meant until she nodded a second time and showed a toothy grin. “Oh, a-alright, haha.” This made Clarence somewhat happy. He was starting to enjoy Annabelle’s company. She was a lot nicer than the majority of people he knew, and she seemed like an interesting person. She was also pretty, which gave Clarence a weird feeling whenever he looked at her for more than a few seconds.

Clarence wasn’t sure, but he began to think that this feeling was going to start to cause problems for him. He was more or less correct.

Art by @hottest_legs_ on Instagram

[clarenceandannabelle]

Chapter 1. A Good Example

    Everyday Clarence came to the same tree. And everyday he sat underneath its leaves and read from his book, drew nearby objects, or simply closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of nature. He often needed a quiet place to go to escape from reality and relax in the tranquility. A few months ago, while taking a walk through the fields beneath his home, he stumbled upon a large oak tree with a thick trunk and a healthy bushel of leaves growing overhead. Immediately, he knew it would be the perfect place to get away from any stress he wanted to leave behind him.

Clarence was a Giant. Not the loud, angry, violent type the majority of his peers seemed to be, feeding into the negative stereotype, but a shy, quiet one with a passion for literature. This of course, made him somewhat of an outcast to the rest of the Giants. Aside from his two mothers, Beatrice and Darby, with whom he was very close, he had few people who he could safely call a friend. This however, never seemed to bother Clarence. He liked to be alone. Alone was where he could read for hours and have no distractions. Alone was where he could draw without criticism. Alone was where he could feel okay.

And so, despite living in The Giant Village and working on a farm with his mothers, Clarence prefered to roam the fields past his property located closer to The Forest , or stroll through it along the many twisting paths.

Clarence did not know this, but for the past two weeks he was being spied on.

Two weeks ago, Annabelle flew from her home in The Forest to the oak tree in the field to see if she could find any acorns for her latest project. The Forest had many types of trees, none of which were oak, unfortunately for her. She had spotted it a while back on her way to The Human Village for supplies, and remembered it when she realised she was out of acorns. She wanted to hollow them out and use them instead of regular cups. She had plenty of these kinds of ideas; the spontaneous ones that probably wouldn’t last, but were fun to act upon short term.

Annabelle was a Fairy. Unlike her parents, who were the calm and reserved kind, she was full of energy and enthusiasm. She spent very little time at home, preferring to be out exploring and flying rather than cooped up in a tiny tree with little to do. Her parents did not mind this though, because if she was at home she was usually trying out some crazy idea in the kitchen, which meant they couldn’t sit and read the news or complete their accounting work without flinching everytime they heard an explosion, crash, or shouts of excitement coming from Annabelle.  

    Once Annabelle found the oak tree again, she landed in its branches and began her search, excited to hollow out and decorate the acorn shells. She flew through the leaves and twigs, searching for a few acorns to bring home. She could only reasonably hold two, but this didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try to hold more. She reached the other side of the tree, and sat on a branch that jutted out and stretched forward for about a metre. Annabelle hadn’t seen any acorns, but she also didn’t look very hard out of excitement. I’ll look around more in a sec she thought to herself. She was rather tired from flying over so fast. She looked down, and gasped quietly.

    Annabelle saw a very large person sitting beneath her. He looked about her age, except that he was about a thousand times bigger. She assumed he was a Giant, although she had never seen one up close before. Why isn’t he in The Giant Village? What’s he doing all the way out here? She wondered. And he seems really quiet… I thought Giants were supposed to be loud and dangerous... She didn’t dare speak to him. Partially because she didn’t want to disturb him, incase he really was loud and dangerous, and partially because secretly watching him was kind of exciting. After a what felt like - and was, frankly - hours of him doing nothing but reading, he checked a pocket watch and stood up. Slowly at first, as to not hit his head on the branches above him. He walked through the fields, each step making a loud thump. Annabelle followed behind. She followed him across the entirety of the fields, until she could see a large farm with huge cottage; at least it looked huge from her point of view. She stopped, not wanting to trespass. Once he was out of sight, she left for home.

    “Awfully long time out just to get some acorns,” Her mother said as Annabelle entered her house. She barely looked up from her paper.

    “Oh, I got a little distracted. Sorry,” Annabelle replied. She knew her parents weren’t angry with her.

    “That’s fine, dear,” Her father joined in, barely looking up from his.

    Annabelle went up to her room and flopped onto her bed. She was extremely giddy to go out the next day and visit the oak tree, to see if the Giant would be there. Watching him had been strangely fun, like the rush you get when thinking about a good secret someone shared with you. Her mind raced with questions, and the only thing that would satisfy her curiosity would be to see him again

    And so, Annabelle had been coming to the oak tree everyday for two weeks. And everyday, Clarence was there, sitting quietly and reading his book. Today however, he decided he was going to draw. He looked around, and finally decided on sketching a daisy which was a few feet in front of him. With a gentle hand, he worked at replicating the flower onto his notebook page. He was quite skilled with a pencil.

    Of course, Annabelle was watching attentively from above. Ugh! I can’t see what he’s drawing. She leaned over the edge, squinting her eyes. She leaned in farther, and momentarily forgetting that she had wings, fell from the branch and onto Clarence’s notebook.

    Clarence jumped, dropping his notebook on the ground and scrunching his legs to his chest. The notebook landed upside down, with the intruder of his solitude trapped underneath. Slowly, he moved his pencil, which he was holding by just the very end, using the tip of the lead to lift up the notebook. His head was shrunken into his neck and one of his eyes was squeezed shut. To his surprise, looking up at him was Annabelle, who was laying on her back with her head tilted towards him. She waved, and smiled sheepishly.

    “Um, hi… sorry for falling on your book..” Annabelle spoke up after a few seconds of sudden, awkward silence.

    “..What?” Clarence replied, extremely confused.

    “I SAID SORRY FOR FALLING ON YOUR BOOK!” Annabelle shouted back, assuming he couldn’t hear well..

    “Uh… I don’t know what you’re saying,” he responded. “You sound like… bells..” Clarence spoke slowly. He was still trying to recover from the initial shock of this very tiny girl falling on his notebook.

    Annabelle smacked a hand on her forehead and sat up. She had forgotten that to an untrained ear, a fairy’s voice was so soft it sounded like sleigh bells. She stood up and turned around, brushing bits of dirt and grass off of herself. She looked up at him, thought for a moment, then made a writing motion with her hands.Clarence assumed she was asking to write something down, and pushed the book so it would fall flat behind Annabelle. It landed with a thud, which caused her to fall down again.

    “Oh! S-sorry,” he apologized quickly. He hastily handed her the pencil, which was much too heavy for her to even hold up. He took it back, broke off the lead and gave it to her carefully. She climbed onto his notebook, and wrote on the blank page beside the one where his flower was. In big letters, she wrote:

SORRY FOR FALLING ON YOUR BOOK

She paused, then added:

YOUR DRAWING IS VERY PRETTY

    “Uh, t-thanks.. I guess,” Clarence stammered a little. He wasn’t used to sharing his sketches. Especially with strangers who appeared out of nowhere.

    Annabelle stuck out her arm, and Clarence looked at her puzzlingly. She took her other hand and shook it, then stuck her arm out again, in an attempt to convey that she wanted to shake his hand. Gingerly, Clarence put a finger in her hand, and she shook it politely. He couldn’t help but think this gesture was kind of cute. She then turned to the paper again, and spelled out her name, standing proudly above it.

    “Annabelle. T-that’s a pretty name,” Clarence muttered the last part, hoping she hadn’t heard it. “I’m guessing you’re um, a fairy?” She nodded enthusiastically, and pointed at him. “Oh! Y-yeah sorry. I’m uh, C-Clarence,” he answered shyly. He didn’t like his name very much, but Annabelle’s smile was a little reassuring. “If you haven’t guessed already, I-I’m a Giant. Heh,”

    Annabelle began to write something again. When she finished, Clarence leaned in to read:

NEVER MET ONE. YOU SET A GOOD EXAMPLE

Clarence was a little pink, and had to turn his head for a second to collect his thoughts and attempt to hide his smile. How could a complete stranger be so casual and nice to him? This was a mystery he would not understand for a long time.

Art by @hottest_legs_ on Instagram