06-17-2015, 12:52 PM
As a child you would wait, and watch from far away. But you always knew you'd be the one to work while they all play. She knows this feeling. She's felt it before, the slow creep of impending doom, a restlessness she can't quite place. She knows what it means, but she knows there's no point in running. There's nothing she can do now, no more cards to play. Perhaps she could have gone to Eight, perhaps she could have begged for protection from him – she doesn't even know how amusing that is, that she'd be begging protection from her granddaughter from her granddaughter's lover – but at the end of the day, she doesn't beg. Perhaps this time, she is ready. She watches them quietly, her daughters interacting with their father. They play at war games and relax in the shade, and she is too timeless to move to join them. She sees that Covet is dying too, and she feels sorry for him, sorry for them, that these girls will be left alone. But as she watches them together, two sides of the same bright copper penny, she knows they'll be fine. Against all odds, they're being raised well. Against all odds, they've won her weary heart. Against all odds, they know she loves them. She closes her eyes, and when she opens them again, the scenery has changed. She's not in the Valley, not anymore. She's somewhere along the rugged borderlands of the beach, where the air is hot and the sun beats down and everything smells of steady decay. Steady decay, and magic, the kind she would recognize anywhere. The kind that laces between the fragments of her own heart and keeps it steadily beating. The kind that makes her wounds heal instantly and pop out tiny eggs and impossible bunnies. "Welcome, grandmother. You must be weary." The voice speaks, and the old mare knows it has begun. Don't weep for me LIBRETTEBecause this will be the labor of my love.
Image copyright FFFiiiAA |