Hollow (Summer Challenge, Kiwi-Strawberry, Chocolate Chip Mint)
‘Verse: ☼ The Sun, Radiant ☼
Challenges/Toppings/Extras: Summer Challenge ‘14: Special Brownie #21 (Don't sit crying over good times you had), Kiwi-Strawberry #21 (chant), Chocolate Chip Mint #4 (hollow) + Whipped Cream
Rating: PG-13
Title: Hollow
Summary: Queen Ashvani left a rift behind.
Notes: If Jalenashi seems a lot older than six-ish here, it’s because a) she’s something of a tactical prodigy and b) I’m stuck making the sisters only 5 years apart.
Last Kiwi-Strawberry!
Madhav, King of Arambh, held his elder daughter in his arms and thought, through her echoing sobs, that the world would never be the same. Little Ruhana, barely a year old, was nearby, being soothed by her wetnurse; she was probably fussing over the low chant of the priests, but thinking she was mourning too made Madhav feel better. She couldn’t understand, so young as she was, but Jalenashi’s crying told him the elder did, sharply.
It was so quick. Queen Ashvani, vibrant and tireless three days before, had fallen to the Redhand Plague. Mere hours spanned between her first symptom and the maid finding her unnaturally-cold body in her bed. But that was their luck, wasn’t it? Though most people were immune to it, those the Plague did grasp were all dead within such a short time, and of their family the queen was the one.
He’d rather it had been him. Always, and forever, he’d rather it had been him.
Gods, watch over her, he prayed as Jalenashi pulled back to look up at him with a tear-stained face.
~☼~
Her mother. Her mother. Gone, just like that. She felt absolutely wretched staring up at her noble father with teartracks on her face, but his hollow expression as he looked back was worse than the hole in her existence where her mother had been. Was it not proper to cry now? She was supposed to wait until she was alone, wasn’t she?
She broke away from her father and turned away, rubbing furiously at her face to make the evidence disappear. Her eyes ached after she had done it, and she felt such a fool. She was a princess. She was the High Princess, to make it worse. Princesses did not cry.
She was to be the next queen, the next in line to carry on the war, and a regent in wartime could not be as pathetic as her. Her mother and father had never cried.
Queens did not cry.
Challenges/Toppings/Extras: Summer Challenge ‘14: Special Brownie #21 (Don't sit crying over good times you had), Kiwi-Strawberry #21 (chant), Chocolate Chip Mint #4 (hollow) + Whipped Cream
Rating: PG-13
Title: Hollow
Summary: Queen Ashvani left a rift behind.
Notes: If Jalenashi seems a lot older than six-ish here, it’s because a) she’s something of a tactical prodigy and b) I’m stuck making the sisters only 5 years apart.
Last Kiwi-Strawberry!
Madhav, King of Arambh, held his elder daughter in his arms and thought, through her echoing sobs, that the world would never be the same. Little Ruhana, barely a year old, was nearby, being soothed by her wetnurse; she was probably fussing over the low chant of the priests, but thinking she was mourning too made Madhav feel better. She couldn’t understand, so young as she was, but Jalenashi’s crying told him the elder did, sharply.
It was so quick. Queen Ashvani, vibrant and tireless three days before, had fallen to the Redhand Plague. Mere hours spanned between her first symptom and the maid finding her unnaturally-cold body in her bed. But that was their luck, wasn’t it? Though most people were immune to it, those the Plague did grasp were all dead within such a short time, and of their family the queen was the one.
He’d rather it had been him. Always, and forever, he’d rather it had been him.
Gods, watch over her, he prayed as Jalenashi pulled back to look up at him with a tear-stained face.
~☼~
Her mother. Her mother. Gone, just like that. She felt absolutely wretched staring up at her noble father with teartracks on her face, but his hollow expression as he looked back was worse than the hole in her existence where her mother had been. Was it not proper to cry now? She was supposed to wait until she was alone, wasn’t she?
She broke away from her father and turned away, rubbing furiously at her face to make the evidence disappear. Her eyes ached after she had done it, and she felt such a fool. She was a princess. She was the High Princess, to make it worse. Princesses did not cry.
She was to be the next queen, the next in line to carry on the war, and a regent in wartime could not be as pathetic as her. Her mother and father had never cried.
Queens did not cry.