Trading My Yesterday // Morgan Heights

[Quill]

Of course Alianna knew that her mother was busy- it was simply a fact of the job that she had, to take care of Morgan Heights and all its occupants. Of course, that didn't mean that Alianna couldn't try helping her from time to time, but most of her mother's work was, well, her work. Annie knew well enough when not to impose on some large task that didn't need a set of extra helping hands, so she occupied herself with trying to help elsewhere. Or, goofing off. Usually, it was a healthy mix between the two- a mess up that turned into a great idea so she pretended that the goofing off had never happened at all.

Thankfully for Annie, when Eliora approached, it was when the girl had stooped down for another bit of paint, where her non-deaf side (her left) was facing her mother. Looking up with a bright grin, and bouncing back up to her feet to face her. She paused in any response as her mother spoke first, watching her speak, or ever so slightly flicking her gaze down to her hands and her signing if there was a word she hadn't been certain on at the distance. When she was done, however, Annie bounced forward to hug her, mindful that she didn't get any of her painted hands on her mother's nice clothing. "That'd be great, Mama!" the answer came, carefully spoken. Since she had use of her hearing still, though she had to grow accustomed to one deaf side (or being rather unable to hear much at all if she were in a crowded room), she had the luxury of learning how to speak and hear her own voice.

"See, I had an idea! We paint a tree on the wall, just the branches and the boughs and not all the other stuff; its our meeting area, so its even better!" she paused a moment, realizing she was getting sidetracked as she gestured to what mockup she had created on the tarp while she had been left to her own devices, still grinning from ear to ear as she kept her gaze mostly on her mother to judge her reactions. "Anyway, we put our handprints on the wall with our names underneath or on them, like the leaves of the tree- just an explosion of color! And the new joiners would do it too, like a welcoming ceremony to be forever part of the Morgan Heights!" Her words were followed by idle gestures with her paint-covered hands, at one point smudging a bit of a brown streak of paint onto her cheek. "What's more is I was thinking- paint will sorta fade, right? So we can watch the generations of color spread across this wall-- the Morgan Heights living tree- and I was thinkin' it could start with us." She ended her words with a grin, beaming hopefully at Eliora and waiting for what she had to say.

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