Valid Theft (anyone)

[Fate]

Nalini grabbed a blanket from a random stand as she passed, and kept on walking. Even after all she had been through, here she was, back to stealing. But this time with a cause, a real cause.

Little Liona. Her daughter. The girl infant was tiny for her age, Nalini never having being big herself. Dark eyes were like Nalini's, and a light dusting of chocolatly brown hair covered the babe's head. She was a beautiful child, even if her Yamani looks did remind Nalini of the isles...

It was no matter now. She would raise Liona best she could, better then her mother had done her. It didn't matter that Liona had no father, that Nalini hadn't known the man... she hadn't wanted to know him.

She found a bench, and sat down with Liona and their new blanket. At some frest fruit she had aqquired on the way.

[Lirael]

Una lounged around the market place, taking in new stalls and new faces, her mother's stall was not far away, but for the moment she couldn't face going. The last time she had been the woman had thought she was a customer. It was disturbing that her mothers madness had increased so much in the last weeks. Una had visited the least amount of times her conscience allowed and only sometimes she seamstress had recognised her.

It was not as if she could not look after herself, Una knew she could still make everything she needed to sell- but she was fading in other ways. In Una's childhood, when her mother was angry or upset, she would first run her fingers through her hair and then count the money she had earned, or the bobbings in her sew-kit. She could count anything, but she always done it in the same way: Pointing out each one with her right index finger, touching it's top and then pulling her finger away again, as if the thing would bite. It didn't seem to matter where she started, but she would never count anything twice.
Una had watched her sometimes, in the last week and she had done it more often. Una did not know what to do, it wasn't a good sign- she was sure. But what could she do. She couldn't look after a mother who flinched at the very idea of being helped too much and she had her own life to think about too.