Logs:Shame
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| RL Date: 11 October, 2013 |
| Who: Madilla |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Vignette |
| What: After her evening with Leova, there's something Madilla needs to do. |
| Where: Madilla's Quarters, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 17, Month 13, Turn 32 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: B'tal/Mentions, Devaki/Mentions, Dilan/Mentions, H'kon/Mentions, Leova/Mentions, Lilabet/Mentions, W'chek/Mentions |
| Two glasses of the liquor she kept around for emergencies was enough that she was - mostly - able to enjoy the performance, though she would have been hard-pressed to say much about it afterwards. She'd had another drink during the intermission, which helped and didn't help; she was melancholy, by the time they went home, and the likely emptiness of her quarters felt hideously terrifying. She could have asked to be dropped off on Arekoth's ledge. She could have crawled in beside H'kon and been safe and warm and not-alone, but... she didn't. She wasn't even sure why. Instead, she went home. At first, she just walked around the rooms. She tidied up some of Dee's toys; she found it soothing to put the dominos back in their box, one by one, each in its place. She shook out Lily's abandoned skirt, folded it, and put it away. Then she sat down on her daughter's bed, and wrapped her arms around the pillow. It smelled of Lily - like lavender, of course, and soap-sand, but also that scent she couldn't define and couldn't describe except that it was Lily, and that's all it needed to be. It always reminded her of when Delifa put Lily into her arms for the first time, and she'd looked at her, and felt... Everything. Lily would be ten, in the spring. In another turn or two she'd be gone: to the dorms, to live with girls her own age, or perhaps further, to live in some other set of dorms, somewhere else. She'd grow up, and one day she, too, would have decisions to make, temptations to decide on. She'd have to decide how to live her life. And Madilla would have to watch, and not interfere, and... hope that everything she'd done prepared her for that world. For those decisions. For that life. She closed her eyes. It was inevitable, she supposed, that she would end up thinking of her own mother. It didn't matter that it had been more than a decade since she'd seen her last; she would likely always think of her, at moments like this. She'd stopped visiting because of shame. It hadn't - at first - been the same shame she'd imagined for the unnamed girl, earlier. It had been the shame of being different, of seeing things different. Of knowing she was no longer the daughter they'd expected her to be. She'd stopped for their sakes; she'd made them uncomfortable. She'd felt ashamed, for that. And then there'd been Lily, and that was it, really. She didn't feel shame for the fact that her daughter had been born outside the bonds of marriage; she'd chosen that path, chosen it deliberately and with foresight and planning and determination. But her family... If she'd gone back, they would have made her feel shame. It wouldn't have been intentional, it wouldn't have been cruelly intended, but it would have been there. They'd make her feel shame because they would feel shame, and they would feel shame because their neighbours and their friends and everyone else around them would expect them to, because that is what happens when your daughter has a child out of wedlock. She couldn't allow that. Her children should never feel shame. Not Lily, who had been planned, and not Dee, who had not been, but had been so wanted all the same. She'd done nothing wrong, in having them, and neither had their fathers-- though it seemed to matter less for them. And most of all, they'd done nothing wrong in being born. It didn't matter so much, at the Weyr. Not much at all, really. But in a Hold... she still fretted about Tillek. And now... Now, her thoughts floated back towards Leova, and all the things she knew - knew without having had to be told - about the greenrider, about all of this. Part of her had wanted to say something, but what was the point in that? They both knew; words wouldn't change it. Nothing she had to say could change any of it, no matter how much she wanted it to. She thought about the boy, too. Even if he couldn't be convinced to do the right thing, he'd be all right, she supposed. The man usually was. He'd get a new posting at some point, and likely as not no one else would ever know or care. But the girl... She felt for her. Don't let them shame you, she thought, willing those thoughts at the unnamed girl. The unnamed woman, whoever she was. Don't let them do that to you. Not to either of you. She should have gone to bed. Instead, she got up, straightening the covers on Lily's bed, and went back into the other room. The quilt was folded up in a chest - she got it out, spreading it out on the table, using the bottom of one of the glasses from earlier to try and smooth out the wrinkles. It was a nice piece of work, she supposed. It would have been better if she'd been able to make something especially for this little girl. That would have been nicer - something that was hers, made with love, even if she'd never know it. But there was no time for that. Or... She hesitated. No one said she had to start from scratch. It was hours before she went to bed, her neck and back stiff from all the leaning forward she'd been doing, shoulders lowered towards the quilt as she worked on it. It had been easy enough to cut out the letters, one by one, from a roll of fabric she had stowed away for some later project. It had been easy, too, to lay them out on the backdrop of the quilt, sewn in place, one by one. It was a long time ago that she'd made her first quilt, pouring heart and soul, dreams and wishes, into each patch of it. She'd embroidered those things deep inside-- she'd hoped that it would make them stick. She didn't know where that quilt was, now. He'd offered it back to her, afterwards, but... she'd refused to take it. This time, she sewed a different set of thoughts and wishes into a far different quilt. You are loved, she'd thought, as she sewed. You are wanted. You belong. Do not feel ashamed. Never feel ashamed. |
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