Sacrifices
Mar. 10th, 2009 04:12 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
lanfykins.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
zg_shadowsWell, that answered the question of why she hadn't seen AK around.
Ash's next few sentences were an irrelevant buzzing in Sulien's ears as she pressed her lips together against the sob that choked in her throat, gritted her teeth against the burning in her eyes. All eyes were on Ash. Nobody would notice. Or understand, even if they did.
She sat with her back against the ridged and cracked bark of the oak, one foot swinging free, half-hidden by the leaves. Gaelen assured her that these bouts of emotion would subside, along with the residual cramping in her ravaged womb, but until they did, this was the safest place to be.
A ball bounced off the trunk by her elbow and she looked sharply down, prepared to be furious. But the little metis form that appeared below her never even looked up as it searched with increasing desperation through the leaf litter for one of its few toys. It searched for half an hour before giving up and throwing itself into the hollow of the tree roots, sobbing like the poor bereft child it was.
AK had been fine when she left. A year or two from First Change, perhaps; it was hard to tell with metis. And safe, she had thought, on the Caern.
"Tell me again how shops work?"
A number of strange objects were laid out on the ground behind the eager child. After a moment's staring, Sulien realised it was an attempt at a shop counter, with feathers and snail shells for sale.
One corner of her mouth twitched. "It's really not that exciting, you know."
"Maybe it isn't if you've ever seen one," he replied disconsolately.
Sulien stared at the pitiful display for a few seconds longer.
"You've arranged it wrong," she said at last. "It needs to be like this..."
They hadn't been close. They hadn't even spent much time together. And what time they had spent together she had largely spent beating not leaving himself open in the attack into his thick little skull.
They had been closer than she would ever be to her daughter.
A week ago she had run to Celyn; but Celyn wasn't in Anglesey anymore. There had been nobody to keep an eye on Rosalie. Nobody to defend her.
"Ow! Sulien-rhya, that wasn't fair!."
"Yeah. And the day the Spirals fight fair will be the day I do. Now let's try that again, and this time don't bloody overextend..."
Anything that had happened to Rosalie... had already happened. There was no time left. None to travel to the Heart of Albion after Celyn. None to grieve.
"Stop daydreaming, AK. You'll see the world soon enough."
Far better to believe that her daughter was still alive.
Someone had to be.
Ash's next few sentences were an irrelevant buzzing in Sulien's ears as she pressed her lips together against the sob that choked in her throat, gritted her teeth against the burning in her eyes. All eyes were on Ash. Nobody would notice. Or understand, even if they did.
She sat with her back against the ridged and cracked bark of the oak, one foot swinging free, half-hidden by the leaves. Gaelen assured her that these bouts of emotion would subside, along with the residual cramping in her ravaged womb, but until they did, this was the safest place to be.
A ball bounced off the trunk by her elbow and she looked sharply down, prepared to be furious. But the little metis form that appeared below her never even looked up as it searched with increasing desperation through the leaf litter for one of its few toys. It searched for half an hour before giving up and throwing itself into the hollow of the tree roots, sobbing like the poor bereft child it was.
AK had been fine when she left. A year or two from First Change, perhaps; it was hard to tell with metis. And safe, she had thought, on the Caern.
"Tell me again how shops work?"
A number of strange objects were laid out on the ground behind the eager child. After a moment's staring, Sulien realised it was an attempt at a shop counter, with feathers and snail shells for sale.
One corner of her mouth twitched. "It's really not that exciting, you know."
"Maybe it isn't if you've ever seen one," he replied disconsolately.
Sulien stared at the pitiful display for a few seconds longer.
"You've arranged it wrong," she said at last. "It needs to be like this..."
They hadn't been close. They hadn't even spent much time together. And what time they had spent together she had largely spent beating not leaving himself open in the attack into his thick little skull.
They had been closer than she would ever be to her daughter.
A week ago she had run to Celyn; but Celyn wasn't in Anglesey anymore. There had been nobody to keep an eye on Rosalie. Nobody to defend her.
"Ow! Sulien-rhya, that wasn't fair!."
"Yeah. And the day the Spirals fight fair will be the day I do. Now let's try that again, and this time don't bloody overextend..."
Anything that had happened to Rosalie... had already happened. There was no time left. None to travel to the Heart of Albion after Celyn. None to grieve.
"Stop daydreaming, AK. You'll see the world soon enough."
Far better to believe that her daughter was still alive.
Someone had to be.
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