001: Beginnings

First of my drawings for this hundred drawing prompts thing. [link] Lydia's story, to the extent that we are at all interested in it, begins when she is invited to spend a week at her aunt Clarisse's house.*

Lydia will soon be graduating high school, and as Clarisse lives near Karsidy College <strike>(where her husband is a professor),</strike>** she thought Lydia might like to "experience the college lifestyle" or something. (Well, that's what she said in the letter. Odd letter, too... Jean didn't think you could actually get sealing wax anywhere) Lydia's mother Jean has never really gotten along with her sister Clarisse, (they just don't have much in common) but it -is- nice of her to offer. So she's settled for sending her daughter off with a warning "not to take any of your aunt's weird friends too seriously."

*"House" is really an inadequate description of the place. It started out as a single house, but after they acquired the next-door residence as well, they connected the two. The tower (which is actually Clarisse's apartment) is a later addition, as is the reinforced workshop building in the backyard.

**Edit 8/31/09 - You know, I'd always thought of Jean as the younger sister, or at least not older by more than a few years, but a number of things work a lot better if Clarisse is, hmm, let's say 15 years younger than her sister Jean. Lydia is Jean's oldest daughter. Let's say she's.... nine or ten years younger than Clarisse, then? At any rate, Clarisse is closer to her niece's age than her sister's. Of course, given that premise, I doubt that any of "Clarisse's weird friends" are old enough to be college professors. Cynwyd is probably some sort of education-minion though.