I often congratulate myself on my minor characters in Senta and the Steel Dragon.  I flatter myself that some of them are very creative and interesting.  One of my favorites is Honor Hertling.

Honor Hertling was dressed in the same sturdy brown and white clothing as her neighbors.  Her sleeves and the front of her dress were stained with dirt, and she wore a beat up pair of men’s work gloves.  Twenty years old, with large, sad eyes, a small nose, and raven hair, she was not classically beautiful, and not just because of the ugly scar that ran across her left cheek to her chin.  She was cute though, in an indefinable way.  Yuah reached out to take her gloved hand.

“Oh, sorry,” said Miss Hertling.  She pulled her hand away and removed the glove, then grasped Yuah’s hand firmly.  “What a lovely dress.”

“You like it?  A little bird told me that you might not approve.”  Yuah was suddenly aware that she was using one of Iolanthe’s expressions.

“Mein sister and her friend.”  Miss Hertling’s accent suddenly became thicker.  “I am thinking that the Drache girl likes to stir up trouble.  Would you like to come in for some tea?”

“Thank you.”

Tossing her gloves onto a potting bench near the garden, the young woman opened the door.  Yuah parked the blue baby carriage in the yard and lifting little Augie out, followed into the house.  The structure was very small and consisted of three rooms.  The front room, only about eight by twelve feet, served as parlor, dining room, and kitchen, as well as any number of other functions for which the Dechantagne household would have had individual rooms.  From the cast iron stove at one end of the room to the shelf filled with canned goods at the other, the room was impeccably clean.  A single bookcase contained a dozen volumes and was home to two small porcelain vases holding cut flowers.  Bright light shown in through the lace curtained windows.  Augie began to fuss as Yuah stepped inside.

“He’s probably hungry again,” she said.

“If you would like to nurse him now, you may sit in the rocking chair, while I make our tea.”

Yuah set the swaddled baby on the chair as she went about the fairly arduous task of freeing her breasts from the many layers of her clothing.   Though two of her three undergarments had been fashioned with breast-feeding in mind, the gorgeous teal dress had not.  By the time Augie was able to begin suckling, he was red-faced from crying and his mother was nearing exhaustion.  Yuah pulled the suddenly quiet baby close to her body, now bare from the waist up, and reached with a free hand to accept the cup of steaming tea.  Miss Hertling turned the lock on the door, which consisted of a small piece of wood with a single nail holding it to the doorjamb. 

 “I wouldn’t want Hertzal walking in on you,” she explained.  “I think he might faint.”