[5sentence_fics] Drabble | Animorphs:Rachel | Table 1 | Prompts 2, 5, 6, 9 and 13
First time posting to this community (after I fell in love with your prompt tables), so if I am posting anything incorrectly, please let me know!
Author: natural_blue_26
Fandom: Animorphs
Pairing: Mainly Rachel-centric, Marco/Rachel if you squint on one
Table/Theme: Table one
Rating: Teen?
Warnings: Deals with war, but nothing graphic
Disclaimer: I own nothing, and I'm just figuring out how to work lj...
Also posted at my journal here.
Table One, prompt #2 'Breaking bread/fast'
Jordan stared blearily at the cooling toast in front of her.
Mom was moving frantically around the kitchen- far too loudly, and more importantly too *awake* in Jordan's opinion- with her hair half curled, barking into the phone at someone from her office while packing school lunches. Sarah, still in her animal print pajamas, messily ate her Cheerios while happily humming the Barney theme song to herself.
And Rachel had been through the room and out the front door like a ghost. The chair across from Jordan remained empty- again.
Table One, prompt #5 'Death and Taxes'
The first year had been the hardest; well-intentioned platitudes from neighbors, coworkers, and national politicians wanting a personal piece of her family's tragedy slid off her shoulders without meaning.
Sitting alone across from the empty chair her eldest daughter had once always occupied at dinner, Naomi's gaze trailed over pieces to another life that still magnetized to the refrigerator. Report cards, team photos and school pictures she hadn't yet been able to take down- even though her daughter was gone, gone, dead and gone away oh God Rachel- still hung were they had the day her family had originally left this house at the climax of Yeerk war.
After taking a shaking gulp from her wine glass, for the first time since Sarah's birth Naomi only filled in the blanks for two dependents on her yearly tax forms. The blinding smile on Rachel's last school photo across the room made her heart hurt.
Table One, prompt #6 'Pushing Forty'
Cassie's youngest child and only daughter had "helped" her make the birthday cake this year; somehow, this seemed to involve mainly licking the spoon and getting chocolate batter all over every surface the kitchen. Clearly her best friend's namesake had *not* inherited her blond friend's ability to walk through life repelling all dirt and grime that threatened to mar her surface perfection. Had their lives gone differently, Cassie might have been taking her friend of thirty-six years out for drinks to commiserate the number of candles featured on their respective birthday cakes this year. Had their lives gone differently...
Smiling sadly, Cassie instead shook a litany of faded memories from her head and watched as her six-year-old daughter blew out the single candle. "Happy birthday, Aunt Rachel."
Table One, prompt #9 'Eclipse'
Marco remembered learning early in elementary school not to look up at an eclipse as it happens.
Rachel had turned to him laughing today- not her usual self-mocking Xena laugh, but a laugh that belonged to a younger girl; a girl not stained with blood and tears and war and a more then a touch of madness. The midday sun caught in her long golden hair before bouncing off. The light from her hair, the whiteness of her predictably perfect teeth, the very force of her happiness in this one innocent moment seemed to darken everything around her in comparison.
Like an eclipse, in that moment Marco worried that looking at Rachel for too long might very well make him go blind.
Table One, prompt #13 'White walls/yellow handprint'
When his oldest daughter had been seven-years-old, Daniel and Naomi decided to move their growing family across town to a new, larger home. With two daughters already and another on the way, their family simply needed more space. Carefully supervised, Rachel had been allowed to help paint her new room. Before the first pale yellow streaks had been crisscrossed across the the virgin white walls, she had quite carefully dipped her small hand into the cool paint and pressed it carefully to the wall, smiling at her accomplishment.
On a mockingly sunny morning nine years later, Daniel found himself blinking back tears besides his ex-wife as he laid roses in the same pastel yellow on the grave bearing his daughter's name.
Author: natural_blue_26
Fandom: Animorphs
Pairing: Mainly Rachel-centric, Marco/Rachel if you squint on one
Table/Theme: Table one
Rating: Teen?
Warnings: Deals with war, but nothing graphic
Disclaimer: I own nothing, and I'm just figuring out how to work lj...
Also posted at my journal here.
Table One, prompt #2 'Breaking bread/fast'
Jordan stared blearily at the cooling toast in front of her.
Mom was moving frantically around the kitchen- far too loudly, and more importantly too *awake* in Jordan's opinion- with her hair half curled, barking into the phone at someone from her office while packing school lunches. Sarah, still in her animal print pajamas, messily ate her Cheerios while happily humming the Barney theme song to herself.
And Rachel had been through the room and out the front door like a ghost. The chair across from Jordan remained empty- again.
Table One, prompt #5 'Death and Taxes'
The first year had been the hardest; well-intentioned platitudes from neighbors, coworkers, and national politicians wanting a personal piece of her family's tragedy slid off her shoulders without meaning.
Sitting alone across from the empty chair her eldest daughter had once always occupied at dinner, Naomi's gaze trailed over pieces to another life that still magnetized to the refrigerator. Report cards, team photos and school pictures she hadn't yet been able to take down- even though her daughter was gone, gone, dead and gone away oh God Rachel- still hung were they had the day her family had originally left this house at the climax of Yeerk war.
After taking a shaking gulp from her wine glass, for the first time since Sarah's birth Naomi only filled in the blanks for two dependents on her yearly tax forms. The blinding smile on Rachel's last school photo across the room made her heart hurt.
Table One, prompt #6 'Pushing Forty'
Cassie's youngest child and only daughter had "helped" her make the birthday cake this year; somehow, this seemed to involve mainly licking the spoon and getting chocolate batter all over every surface the kitchen. Clearly her best friend's namesake had *not* inherited her blond friend's ability to walk through life repelling all dirt and grime that threatened to mar her surface perfection. Had their lives gone differently, Cassie might have been taking her friend of thirty-six years out for drinks to commiserate the number of candles featured on their respective birthday cakes this year. Had their lives gone differently...
Smiling sadly, Cassie instead shook a litany of faded memories from her head and watched as her six-year-old daughter blew out the single candle. "Happy birthday, Aunt Rachel."
Table One, prompt #9 'Eclipse'
Marco remembered learning early in elementary school not to look up at an eclipse as it happens.
Rachel had turned to him laughing today- not her usual self-mocking Xena laugh, but a laugh that belonged to a younger girl; a girl not stained with blood and tears and war and a more then a touch of madness. The midday sun caught in her long golden hair before bouncing off. The light from her hair, the whiteness of her predictably perfect teeth, the very force of her happiness in this one innocent moment seemed to darken everything around her in comparison.
Like an eclipse, in that moment Marco worried that looking at Rachel for too long might very well make him go blind.
Table One, prompt #13 'White walls/yellow handprint'
When his oldest daughter had been seven-years-old, Daniel and Naomi decided to move their growing family across town to a new, larger home. With two daughters already and another on the way, their family simply needed more space. Carefully supervised, Rachel had been allowed to help paint her new room. Before the first pale yellow streaks had been crisscrossed across the the virgin white walls, she had quite carefully dipped her small hand into the cool paint and pressed it carefully to the wall, smiling at her accomplishment.
On a mockingly sunny morning nine years later, Daniel found himself blinking back tears besides his ex-wife as he laid roses in the same pastel yellow on the grave bearing his daughter's name.