#mountotessa

Clémence swayed in time with the music, eyes closed, enjoying it. The beats were good - surprisingly so - and she was just beginning to think that, just possibly, this fair wasn’t going to be so bad, when a cacophonous scream pulled her from her thoughts. A young child in full face paint (was that supposed to be Spiderman? Oh bondye mwen, if that’s what she was up against, her rotation at the Face Painting booth was going to be easy) had apparently decided they didn’t like the music currently playing, and even worse, had decided to show it in the form of an unearthly wail. Clémence was quick to move, honing in on the mother and child with little delay.

"Excuse me." She adopted a sweet smile, the one she usually used to beguile the occasional man that caught her interest. "I’m sorry to be a hassle, ma’am, but I don’t think your child likes the music, and I’m afraid they seem to be putting off some of the other listeners." Clémence couldn’t discern whether the child was a boy or girl or both or neither, but the gender-neutral pronouns came easy to her - after knowing and talking about Mel so often, it would be almost insulting if she’d struggled with the concept.

The mother, young and frail and flustered, flapped her hands about in meek apology, fussing around her bawling child in a futile attempt to get them to stop blubbering. When this surprisingly didn’t work, Clémence stepped in, bending down to the child’s level and whispering in a quiet voice so that only they could hear. The child quietened down almost immediately, the screams becoming great hiccuping sobs that wracked their whole body in silence, before stopping altogether as they stared balefully at Clémence. She smiled at them before fishing in her pocket and pulling out a hard homemade candied sweet. She gave it to the child with a flourish, watching as they shoved it whole in their mouth, sucking on it without even a thanks. She straightened up to face the mother, who was looking at her as though torn between saying ‘thank you’ and demanding what she had given her child, and handed her a sweet, too.

Evidently the mother couldn’t decide what to say, because she rushed off just as silently as her child had been when given the candy, and disappeared quickly into the crowd. A few people nearby murmured their thanks, and Clémence accepted it, knowing she had been smart to make some sweets with valerian root, ashwaganda and passionflower . They had, of course, been made with Clémence’s own sanity in mind, but if they helped knock a kid out and calm down a stressed mother, who was she to deny them that?

Feeling pleased with herself, Clémence turned back to the music stall - just in time to catch sight of a couple of pre-teen thieves taking advantage of the confusion and snatching several CDs.