population_ctrl | (no subject)

~

It’s a special day today, she knows. They’ve been preparing for weeks and Ninette is feeling almost jittery from it all - or that is, from expectations. Because there’s so much to expect and so little certainty. For sure, the guest is very important. They’ve practised their song (it’s called 'the national anthem’) so many times now, just to get the words right and Ninette knows them all. Not as well as big-brother Stephan or sister Augusta, of course, but well enough. And she’s got a new dress, new socks; even new beads for her hair! Like it’s her birthday (though if it were, she would have rather liked a new doll instead… if she had the choice).

“It’s almost the same,” says Auntie, tying up Ninette’s pigtails with red bows. “Isn’t it? It’s just that this time, we’re celebrating Jesus, not you.”

Ninette scrunches up her nose slightly. “But…” She hesitates, looking away from the mirror. Auntie’s reflected gaze is focused straight at her and it makes her feel a little weird. Uncomfortable. “Does he… what does he get? Doesn’t he get any presents?”

When she looks back at the mirror again, Auntie is looking at her hair instead. Brushing her fingers through it and smiling, seeming just a little amused. “His birthday isn’t just about that,” says Auntie after a moment. “His birth is a present to you, Ninette.”

“To me?” Auntie steps away, leaving her standing there in front of the mirror, her red dress and beads all matching and pretty. Like she’s someone really rich and important, too.

“Indeed.” Auntie straightens up. “All done, alright? Try not to get dirty now, Ninette, I won’t have the time to help you once they all get here.”

Ninette doesn’t answer, too busy turning her head this way and that, trying to stand like a real lady, like the woman in the picture Auntie showed her earlier. She looked so pretty, even prettier than Auntie or sister Augusta – Ninette would have liked this woman to be their special guest, instead of the stranger they’re all waiting for; she doesn’t look like a nice person, not really, but neither does he. Auntie’d told her, however, that the woman is just a girl, not a grown-up and that she doesn’t really want to live in Luxembourg even though she's born here and everything. So she can’t visit them, Auntie said, because France is very far away. It must be terrible, living in France – Ninette is very happy that she isn’t going anywhere at all.

--

Two hours later, Ninette is fighting back tears. There are too many people, people with cameras and black suits, people with sunglasses so big that their faces all but disappear behind them. Their guest is wearing sunglasses too, the red shades matching his suit. Ninette kind of wishes they’d been black as well, though, because his eyes frighten her somehow. She couldn’t even manage to count to ten before she had to look away from him earlier when they sang the song in the entrance hall. The boys are being noisy, too, and the adults are busy, running about and fixing things that aren’t even broken in the first place. Not that she can see, anyhow, but maybe she’s just too small. For all of this.

Normally, they don’t get many presents and she knows that this time it’s different; because their guest, the man in the red clothes with the scary eyes brought them lots of things, ’gifts from Luxembourg’ he’d said and Ninette has no idea how that’s even possible. The country is nice but it’s not a person. It doesn’t even have hands to wrap the boxes! She hasn’t opened hers, yet. Hasn’t really asked for it, either, because she doesn’t truly know how. If she’s supposed to ask him, she’d rather... just... have no presents this year. It’s not really Christmas anyway, not like this. She sniffles, trying to hide herself a bit behind two strange men who’re both busy talking to their guest, this really important person whose name she can’t remember. They’re asking him all sorts of questions and she can’t understand what he’s saying because it’s a different language and she doesn’t know anything but Luxembourgish (and not too much of that, either). He’s sitting in one of the comfy chairs, though he doesn’t really look all that comfortable to her. Like he might as well be sitting on the floor or on the roof.

She wants to go to bed. But Auntie is nowhere in sight and the dorms are closed off for now. Because they’re all supposed to be awake and celebrating. They’re having dinner soon, too, and she isn’t sure she can eat anything at all. It’s been horrible, this evening, though she can’t really say why. Nothing’s gone wrong and her dress isn’t dirty – but something just feels off. Auntie seems… scared, somehow and maybe that’s it, maybe that’s why Ninette is worried too. When the adults get anxious, it’s like a cold to her – she picks it all up and apparently Christmas is no different, even though it's Jesus' birthday. But she’s trying her very best to be a big girl these days. She turned four only weeks ago, she's too old to cry over nothing! Unconsciously, she grabs hold of the nearest thing – which, unfortunately, happens to be a trouser leg belonging to one of the strange men with cameras.

“Oh, would you look at that!” He crouches down in front of her and they’re suddenly eye-to-eye, so suddenly that Ninette can only freeze in place. She can’t handle other people looking at her so directly – it’s an awful feeling, the worst in the whole world. Her small hands clench into fists, her mouth tightening to hold back a sob. “Hi there,” he says and puts his camera away on the floor. “Can I borrow you for just a second, sweetie?”

She can’t answer, can’t find a single word to say (and what would she say to a horrifying man like that in any case?) - so she screws her eyes shut when he picks her up, his hands very strong and gentle. He could have been pulling her up by her pigtails, however, for all she cares; she’s ten seconds away from screaming in terror. She can’t – they’re not supposed to – oh no, and her hair is getting all messy now, the beads feel like they’re almost falling out and Auntie will be sad about it because Ninette’s promised not to be messy! Breathing so quickly that her body’s shaking, she doesn’t realise what’s happening before it’s… happened. When the stranger lets go of her, she opens her eyes and all she sees is expanses of red fabric, luxuriously soft and smooth; the suit belonging to their very important guest, naturally, because she’s been handed over to him. From one, terrible situation to another.

For a few seconds, she just… sits there. Completely unsupported, her small fists still in her lap. She can’t look up. She’s too afraid and he’s too scary and everything’s just wrong. With that, she can’t hold back her tears anymore and it’s so embarrassing (she’s four years old!) that she can’t stand it. Turning her head away from the strangers (and the lights from the cameras as they blitz right into her eyes), she buries her face in his jacket and tries not to cry too loudly. No one likes to listen to that, after all. No one likes a crybaby, especially not the grown-ups.

“Well.” For a second, she doesn’t really understand that she’s being spoken to. That the voice isn’t just coming from somewhere random, but that he’s actually talking to her in Luxembourgish, in a language she can understand. “Don’t do that.” His voice is as scary as the rest of him, low and commanding; she tries to do as he says, not because he’s telling her but because she doesn’t know what else to do. Reaching up a hand, she attempts to right her hair at least. It’s fallen all the way down her head, though, and she can’t reach…

His hand bumps against hers and she startles, drawing away so fast that she almost loses her balance. Then, she feels the slight pull as he slides her hairbands out, the beads clicking lightly against each other at the movement. Despite herself, she looks up from his jacket curiously – peeks out, just so, in time to see the sharp movements of his wrist as he tugs her hair back into place, her pigtail once again firmly set against her head. Redone in a flash, much faster than Auntie’s careful approach. She doesn’t pay any attention to the cameras snapping away at them this time; instead, she chances a quick look upwards, just very quickly, hoping that he isn’t watching her.

He’s not. Actually, he seems like he isn’t looking at anything, eyes oddly glazed over (looking a tiny bit like big-brother Stephan when Augusta says he's 'stoned out of his mind', though Ninette doesn't think this is quite the same).

Someone asks him a question that he fails to answer, hands resting very lightly against her dress and providing her with only enough support to keep her from toppling off his lap. She has time to realise that he smells really cold and unapproachable, nothing at all like a real person – then, Auntie comes out of nowhere, picking her up with a haste that even Ninette can’t help but notice.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” she’s saying, repeating herself again and again while she hands their important guest one of the white and blue kitchen towels. Ninette watches from the safety of Auntie’s arms, completely ignored once more by everyone, thankfully including their guest. He's busy wiping off his jacket. Oh! She’s cried on him.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, giving Auntie a smile that doesn’t seem right; but Auntie returns it quickly, looking decidedly worried regardless. He hands her the towel after a short moment, without looking at Ninette in any fashion, his focus very obviously on the strange man with the camera. He seems to be totally preoccupied, taking as many pictures as he can and their important guest is starting to look visibly irritated with it. It reminds Ninette of something – and she leans in, whispering to Auntie:

“It’s too bad that the pretty woman in the red dress isn’t around, she would have looked so nice in the pictures.”

She gets no response except for a light squeeze from Auntie, her embrace tightening a bit (but not too much). As she carries her out of the room, away from all the noise and the flashing cameras and the scary man in the red suit – she is almost sad that she forgot. To ask for her present. All she wants right now, though, is her bed and her stuffed pony. Tomorrow, maybe, there’ll be something left for her. And if not, she’ll be five in less than a year and that’s good to think about, too.

~