when tragedy strikes ☾ shirbert

chapter 13: french culture

a/n: 🕯summoning all shirbert fans to this fanfiction until eternity🕯

it would be brave of you to think i'm joking.

(( psa: if you got another update notif from this, it's because i went back to edit the last section!! you can ignore or reread the last bit, do what you will. ))

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An earthy aroma of vegetables wafted up from the kitchen, steam rising into the cracked upstairs window. Cabbages, radishes, and... another green— a leafy one— Anne could tell by how the smell mingled with her nose.

Sat with her thoughts and the old wall clock, she felt a story protruding from so deep in her mind, so very deep, that it was practically running in her blood. Her lips, wanting to part and give way to poetry, did not. This story would be better shared with a friend.

Anne stood from her seat that spanned the back gardens, and went to the front window, hoping for a familiar someone. Yet, there was no sight of Diana as long as she could see. Granted, she couldn't see far at all, since the paths were hidden in the forests. She assumed Diana got caught up in chatter with Ruby.

With nothing left to do that wasn't repetitive to her days before, and a head begging for an escape wider than the four walls she was surrounded by, she ultimately decided—

"Marilla, Matthew!" Anne called from the stairs, hand riding along the banister with her descent, "I'm going for a walk, I won't be long!"

The former appeared from the sitting room doorway, to see the girl grabbing her boots out of the closet where they were kept. Marilla paused in the hall, face still contorted from the situation earlier.

"I'll bring Diana back with me," Anne said, tying her laces, "I'm succumbing to you being right, that fresh air would do me good."

The unsurmountable qualms Marilla had with Anne's rude behavior, were somewhat diminished after a stern talking to. The first half between the locked bedroom door when Anne claimed she was too much on the verge of fainting to open it, and the second half, after Marilla asked Eliza Barry where she kept the room key.

"That's certainly in agreeance," Marilla responded, "Make haste for dinner, Anne."

"Mhm," She hummed, tightening the second shoe's knot, and leaving out the front door.

Finally, April was around the corner. Anne silently pleaded every day for the branches to fill with leaves again. The beginning of the year always seemed to drone on, like the flora's longest beauty sleep.

Joining the dirt path, Anne knew that going right led to the fork connecting Green Gables, and the only way she knew how to get to the Gillis household. However, heading left, was unknown in almost every sense. According to the map in her head, surely somewhere along it was the schoolhouse. If that was right, when the school came into view, she could turn around and meet Diana on the way (or at the dining table).

'I wouldn't be an adventurer if I didn't take the path less traveled,' She thought, and went left.

The surrounding forest ground held dry brush and speckles of moss, the roots of maples and oaks blending with the abundance of brown throughout. Anne glanced above as she maintained a stroll, empty branches reaching over each other, shielding the sky from her eyes like caring hands. Her ears noticed the occasional flutter of a finch's wings or scattering of a rabbit but otherwise noticed nothing.