anneoftheisland | (no subject)

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ariel,
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Anne discovered, after going swimming with Ariel -- though she'd suspected it long before -- that she really liked to walk barefoot on the beach, to feel the sand between her toes and the waves lap up over her ankles when she walked close to the ocean. She might not go swimming in her underthings where anyone else could see, but she could go without her shoes and stockings, and no one would chide her for it.

"This is lovely," she said, splashing up a little water with one foot and laughing softly. "Oh, this is just what I needed, Ariel, thank you."

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"There really are all different kinds, aren't there?" she said wonderingly. "There weren't this many different shells on the shores back on Prince Edward Island." Their fingers brushed when Ariel gave her the shell, and Anne felt a secret little thrill.

"I wonder why...you know, the seashells you can find here aren't even a quarter of the sort you can find in deeper water. Have you ever seen coral?" Ariel asked, giving Anne a smile before continuing her search for more shells.

"Only since I've been here on the island," Anne told her. And she'd only seen bits of coral, not the sort that she was told you could find if you ventured out into the water. "There are so many things that you've seen that I never could."

"Maybe someday," she said, looking hopeful. Anything could happen, she was convinced of that now. "I wish I could see Green Gables, too." Anne hadn't told her a whole lot about her land, but Ariel was sure she would in time.

"Oh, I do wish I could take you back to Green Gables and show you how truly wonderful it is," said Anne, but her excitement was tempered with a bit of sadness. She knew that she could never bring Ariel back to Green Gables as her girlfriend, no matter how much she might wish to.

Ariel sensed the sadness, but not it's source, and reached out to touch Anne's cheek. "I'd love to hear more about it..."

"Of course," said Anne, imagining it was the perfect sort of thing for a bedtime story. It almost felt that way for her now, like a story. "I'll tell you everything I remember."

"Were there horses?" Ariel asked, still strangely curious of the large animals. She continued walking and looking for shells.

"Lots of horses," Anne told her with a wistful smile. "And we kept cows, as well. Cows are terribly stubborn, you know. Though not, I've since discovered, quite so stubborn as goats."

"Are cows the animals that give you milk?" she asked, trying to remember from the things she'd read.

Anne smiles widely at her, not amused, precisely, but delighted at having something to teach her, at Ariel's curiosity. "They are," she told her. "Or at least, they're the ones we used most commonly at home. Here on the island we use the goats instead."

"Cows and goats give milk out of their...udders, right?" Ariel asked for clarification, doing her best recall. She remembered the photo, those dangly pink things on the cow's stomach. "I like the goats, they're really cute. They've never given me milk before, though."

"Well, they don't precisely give the milk. Or rather, we have to encourage them. We have to milk them. Would you like to help me one day, when I'm milking the goats?" Anne thought that might be fun, for them and for the goats.

"Sure! You know how? I didn't know you did that," Ariel said, looking both surprised and impressed.

Anne blushed at the flattery. "I make the butter that we use in the kitchen now," she told her, "and that comes from the milk from the goats. There is a cow now, too, but she belongs to somebody and so I'm not entirely sure yet whether we can use the cow's milk."

Ariel was so impressed. Despite Anne's age she was doing such important things for everyone. "Oh, I would love to see the cow. Someone told me there was a rabbit, but it hid before I could see it," she said with a hint of disappointment.

"Oh, I hadn't realised!" said Anne. "Though a single rabbit would be hard to spot again, and not really useful as livestock. I'm sure we could go see the cow, though, if you really wanted to."

"Of course I would," Ariel insisted, unable to understand why someone wouldn't want to see a cow. "I want to see all the land animals, especially a giraffe. Have you ever seen one of those?"

"No, I've only ever seen a giraffe in a book," said Anne, "and even then it was a drawing of a giraffe and not a photograph, so I'm not positive that's what a giraffe even looks like."

"They have very long necks and spots," Ariel said. It had been one of her favorite photos. "I'll try to find the animal book again so you can see it, they have really sweet faces."

"That's what the illustration looked like," agreed Anne, "though I don't remember the illustration having a particularly sweet face, so I'll definitely have to look at your animal book." Anne moved a little bit deeper into the water, until it covered her ankles, drawing Ariel along with her. "I wish all days could be filled with this kind of contentment."

"You don't think they can?" Ariel asked, resting a hand on the small of Anne's back.

"Well, I think that sometimes unhappiness and anger and other such things are inevitable," said Anne, "but we must believe that if we didn't have the bad things, then the good things wouldn't seem quite so good."

"Yes, that's true...but I have a hard time believing I could ever be angry at you, Anne," Ariel admitted with a small smile.

"Oh no, I hope we are never angry at each other!" said Anne fervently. "Or that we never ever make one another unhappy. But there are always things outside of each other that might make us feel that way."

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