[Wild Roses]
Title: goodbye
’Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Arianhrod, Madeleine
Prompt: 60B "dull"
Word Count: 500
Rating: PG
Notes: first war; second in a set. After Jasmine died.
In that first moment, she had a shameful thought--thanked something nameless that her husband was gone today. With no warning, he'd have been . . anything, really. Wearing a stranger's face to make her react, wearing nothing at all--and that worse, because even grieving, her daughter wasn't stupid.
Small guilty secret as her daughter bent to give her a crushing, hurting hug of greeting, that her first thought was not 'my daughter looks awful', but 'I don't want you to know what my husband is'.
Madeleine's normally bright hair was dull and dry, matting together where it wasn't fraying out of the remains of once-neat tiny braids. She'd been smoking too much, too, allspice and smoke hanging heavily about her like a second darker-dusky skin.
She didn't ask about the braids. Didn't really need to--in long ago days she'd watched her blonde niece twine together strands of her daughter's hair, and Jasmine had been gone weeks, now. Half a season, or just short of it, and small liars' gods knew what she herself would be doing in Madeleine's place, now.
Instead, she sat her daughter down, unpicking the ends of the braids, trimming off the knots she couldn't untangle, building up a small mountain range on the arm of the chair as she went. Her daughter didn't say a word to stop her, and it seemed almost a ritual, eventually, and she found herself running her fingers down each new-freed section of hair, twisting in a small spell her own mother had taught her in teenage years to repair dry-damage. When she ran out of once-braids, she pulled back the hair from around her eldest child's face, tying off tiered series of fox-tails bundled one into the other.
She sat down on the lounge half-opposite her daughter, at a loss for words--of comfort or otherwise--and met her daughter's eyes. Madeleine burst into tears, and she found herself petting her daughter's newly groomed hair as Madeleine cried.
She gave her daughter water to fill her eyes again afterwards, and a clean soft cloth to mop her face. Made tea, mostly for the ritual. Ridge-tea, instead of her own preferred flatlands--there was no place for harsh-edged, waking leaves here, while her child grieved a lover.
After her daughter had finished her tea, claimed another hug and left, she found herself settling into the chair she’d sat Madeleine in, poking at the abandoned hair on the arm. Thought of the charms she could make, as she gathered up the cut-away knots, heart-easing or goodbyes. Madeleine need never know where her hair had gone.
Stirred the hair together in her palm with a fingertip, thinking, then stepped out of her home, forward to the side of newly-grown-over dirt.
She knelt, tucking the hairs between the roots of the sapling and the stone carved with flowers, then sat on her heels a moment, contemplating the stone. Laid a hand on it, almost wishing the face was rough against her palm, and whispered "Farewell, niece. You are missed."
’Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Arianhrod, Madeleine
Prompt: 60B "dull"
Word Count: 500
Rating: PG
Notes: first war; second in a set. After Jasmine died.
In that first moment, she had a shameful thought--thanked something nameless that her husband was gone today. With no warning, he'd have been . . anything, really. Wearing a stranger's face to make her react, wearing nothing at all--and that worse, because even grieving, her daughter wasn't stupid.
Small guilty secret as her daughter bent to give her a crushing, hurting hug of greeting, that her first thought was not 'my daughter looks awful', but 'I don't want you to know what my husband is'.
Madeleine's normally bright hair was dull and dry, matting together where it wasn't fraying out of the remains of once-neat tiny braids. She'd been smoking too much, too, allspice and smoke hanging heavily about her like a second darker-dusky skin.
She didn't ask about the braids. Didn't really need to--in long ago days she'd watched her blonde niece twine together strands of her daughter's hair, and Jasmine had been gone weeks, now. Half a season, or just short of it, and small liars' gods knew what she herself would be doing in Madeleine's place, now.
Instead, she sat her daughter down, unpicking the ends of the braids, trimming off the knots she couldn't untangle, building up a small mountain range on the arm of the chair as she went. Her daughter didn't say a word to stop her, and it seemed almost a ritual, eventually, and she found herself running her fingers down each new-freed section of hair, twisting in a small spell her own mother had taught her in teenage years to repair dry-damage. When she ran out of once-braids, she pulled back the hair from around her eldest child's face, tying off tiered series of fox-tails bundled one into the other.
She sat down on the lounge half-opposite her daughter, at a loss for words--of comfort or otherwise--and met her daughter's eyes. Madeleine burst into tears, and she found herself petting her daughter's newly groomed hair as Madeleine cried.
She gave her daughter water to fill her eyes again afterwards, and a clean soft cloth to mop her face. Made tea, mostly for the ritual. Ridge-tea, instead of her own preferred flatlands--there was no place for harsh-edged, waking leaves here, while her child grieved a lover.
After her daughter had finished her tea, claimed another hug and left, she found herself settling into the chair she’d sat Madeleine in, poking at the abandoned hair on the arm. Thought of the charms she could make, as she gathered up the cut-away knots, heart-easing or goodbyes. Madeleine need never know where her hair had gone.
Stirred the hair together in her palm with a fingertip, thinking, then stepped out of her home, forward to the side of newly-grown-over dirt.
She knelt, tucking the hairs between the roots of the sapling and the stone carved with flowers, then sat on her heels a moment, contemplating the stone. Laid a hand on it, almost wishing the face was rough against her palm, and whispered "Farewell, niece. You are missed."