Vehicles
Atlanta shows me her display cases, placed prominently in the house’s vestibule, with one of her arms laden with a trayful of croissants and me picking the said croissants off of it regularly to eat under her urgings. The first case shows her badges, decorated cups – “trophies,” she calls them, and they are not the results of a successful hunt – and pieces of paper with writings and her name on it which she calls “awards and certificates.” She tells me their stories, through a mixture of signage and texts, but her heart does not seem to be in it, so I urge her to move onwards to another case.
And she transforms back into her animated self.
`If I were she and my parents displayed my achievements so prominently, I would be so proud and happy.`
I pay close attention to her explanation of the miniatures of vehicles displayed inside the case, letting the private thought remain private, wishing to repay her latest care of me thus.
It becomes far easier to do, the longer I listen, as I am honestly awed by the sheer number of variety of vehicles that Midgardians alone have invented throughout the decades – not centuries.