07-22-2021, 09:45 PM
Life changes you. Things that once hurt so deeply eventually do not, at least not more than an old phantom pain in sour weather. On the other side of the acrid clouds of suffering, when one sails far enough from them, a long look back can offer glimpses of beautiful and wondrous things. Cherished memories that can be recognized only after the passage of time and through the lens of the pain that followed them. There are some things that will never heal, and some old grudges that will not be set aside but usually the latter are the kinds of things that do not require forgiveness by another as well as of oneself. Some grudges are almost a pleasure to keep. The trouble is, far more things do in fact require forgiveness and must endure going without it.
She hopes that she has gotten better at recognizing her own guilt, and shame does not easily make her into a stranger to herself anymore. At least not for long. She may be too deficient of dignity to ever earn it back but she does her best impression of someone redeemed. Only when someone can see, for when she is alone there is a beautiful melancholy in her carriage, loneliness so long-lived that there is no more feeling it. Kensa only wears its weight and does so beautifully because it is physically impossible for her to do otherwise.
There are no more affairs, and many seasons have passed since she last felt a quickening, but a God will have who he might and she makes no objection. So a babe grows and makes her fat and splendid as the spring ages away.
Kensa has not always been a good mother. She will not seem like a very good mother this time, but she cannot raise this child. One day she may live again and raise her beautiful babes in sunlit pastures, but this will not be the summer. She will abandon the girl knowing it will leave a bruise on the child. Like the damage done to Brunhilde and Kelynen and Aloy, it is something she cannot help but will always carry the shame of.
None of her children have ever been so dark, even Valek had clearly been a rich bay at birth and still very obviously her child. Anath-- she repeats the name over and over that the girl might learn it-- is black and gold and touched with just a little white. Flashy enough to be one of Kensa’s daughters and still very different from the others. Do they know how loved they are? Will she?
She hopes that she has gotten better at recognizing her own guilt, and shame does not easily make her into a stranger to herself anymore. At least not for long. She may be too deficient of dignity to ever earn it back but she does her best impression of someone redeemed. Only when someone can see, for when she is alone there is a beautiful melancholy in her carriage, loneliness so long-lived that there is no more feeling it. Kensa only wears its weight and does so beautifully because it is physically impossible for her to do otherwise.
There are no more affairs, and many seasons have passed since she last felt a quickening, but a God will have who he might and she makes no objection. So a babe grows and makes her fat and splendid as the spring ages away.
Kensa has not always been a good mother. She will not seem like a very good mother this time, but she cannot raise this child. One day she may live again and raise her beautiful babes in sunlit pastures, but this will not be the summer. She will abandon the girl knowing it will leave a bruise on the child. Like the damage done to Brunhilde and Kelynen and Aloy, it is something she cannot help but will always carry the shame of.
None of her children have ever been so dark, even Valek had clearly been a rich bay at birth and still very obviously her child. Anath-- she repeats the name over and over that the girl might learn it-- is black and gold and touched with just a little white. Flashy enough to be one of Kensa’s daughters and still very different from the others. Do they know how loved they are? Will she?
