Grief-stricken

She screamed out her anger, her rage and her grief.

The winds ripped around her, destroying whatever they could grasp in their wispy fingers and shredding anything that stood against them. Ice spiked out from her and were reduced to hard needles in the whirlwind.

She doesn’t look up to view the destruction she has caused, is causing. She doesn’t care.

In her arms lies her child, his eyes blank and his features slack.

Rigor mortis has not set in yet.

---

Written because when I’m tired and my head aches a certain way, this scene will not go away.

This was also written quite a bit ago and couldn’t decide if it would settle itself into my Former Guardian universe or not. It just sort of floats around my head from time to time and is incredibly depressing.

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Beautiful Accident

Whenever you get involved in something with children, no matter the age, there is bound to be one (or several ) who are different. A lot of times this difference can bring about teasing, taunting and bullying. When that child (or children) go their parents and ask about it they are told that they are beautiful, special, important in a way that the others can’t understand, don’t want to understand or are envious of.

I had this happen to me as a child as well as having watched it happen to children I babysit and to my nieces and nephews. It’s not likely to be something that will go away at any point in the future, near or otherwise.

It’s going to keep happening no matter what.

But consider this:

Minecraft, which has become very popular from what I can see (and what I have played and watched on YouTube…) has an original mob (monster/non-player character) known as a ‘creeper’ or scientifically Creepus Explodus is an accident.

It was originally supposed to be a pig mob, but something went wrong with the coding and instead the creeper was created. Originally going to be taken out of the game, when it became so popular it was decided to leave within the game.

It is now the icon for Minecraft.

Even a defect can be beautiful, special, important.

Don’t let anyone tell you differently.

Blood Family

“What is the point of this?” he asked, his voice low and even. “Why did you come here?”

She looked down, but did not answer, not yet.

In her arms was a small child, pale all over save for his eyes which were a crimson as dark as her freshly spilt blood. The child looked back up at his mother, quiet and assessing, recording her image into his mind as if he knew even at his young age that this would be last he’d ever see of her.

Finally, she spoke, her voice as soft as the wind on a clear night.

“I need a place, a place for my son, where he will be safe and can learn and grow.”

The man in front of her was silent as he thought over her words, understanding what she was asking.

She did not know his name, did not even know the name of the place they were in nor the name of her child. It was safer this way, safer for the child as well as the one she was leaving him with. Names were power in more ways than most humans were aware.

She would give anything, pay any price for the safety of her child and the man knew it. A part of her was worried, worried about what the man would ask for, but another part of her, a small part that had long since grown silent in her own home, knew that her son would be safe no matter what here.

The ritual she had performed to send her here for this short amount of time had made certain of it.

“Very well,” the man said, “I will take the boy and raise him as my own. I will never speak of you to him, never hint that he is anything but my own. You will not exist within his life if I am able to help it at all.”

She nodded to his terms. He understood and for that she would be forever grateful. Another of her family would be safe.

She hugged the child to her chest once more before handing him over to the man in front of her.

She disappeared without a trace, the blood that had been placed on the boy vanishing just as silently.

---

Written for this week’s Weekly Prompt from suzie81speaks: http://suzie81speaks.com/2014/04/27/weekly-word-challenge-family/

 

Bittersweet Heroes

In the end, she couldn’t have completely saved her children by herself.

The places that she sent them to, the people that were there were the real heroes for her children. There wasn’t always someone there to give her child to, but more often than not there was. Some of them spoke a language that she knew, but most didn’t. It didn’t seem necessary most of the time.

She would push her child forward, sometimes scooting the small bundle of pink across the floor carefully, so very carefully, and then look up into their eyes. Sometimes it was a man, sometimes it was a woman, different ages and races and sizes and all kinds of other things. most would look into her eyes long and hard and then down at the snuffling and mewling child either in her arms or on the floor.

Their eyes would invariably pause on her wrists and ankles, taking in the manacles there, fastened with no lock. The skin around them was scarred and inflamed and it was obvious that she would lose her hands in any bid to release her. The look in her eyes told them that even then, she would likely never be free. All she was asking for was the freedom of the child she was holding out towards them.

They were heroes because they took the child even though it was likely that whomever held the mother would search for the child as well. They did not know that he would be searching for too many children and would likely find not even half of them. They would be safe insofar as the people who took them in would see to.

These people that she did not know, would never know, would be responsible for her child, for her children, for each part of her soul that she was able to send away. They would be parents and she would likely never be mentioned to the child that was now their’s. That was fine for her; the less her children knew about where they had come from, the less danger they would be in. The magic that she’d used to send them away worked better when there were fewer who knew the details.

Ignorance was rarely a protection for anyone, it certainly hadn’t been for her. The irony that she would use what the sire of her children had used against her in order to stop him from harming her children (and they were hers, never would they be his no matter what their genetics would say) made this sweet enough to drown out the bitter.

“Thank you.” she would always whisper, even to those who would never understand her words.

She would lean down over the child, some would awaken in order to see her one last time (or a first time) and she would mumble a few words in her own language. The language of the Phoenix.

---

Written for this week’s DungeonPrompts.

http://theseekersdungeon.com/2014/01/16/dungeon-prompts-season-2-week-3-role-models-and-the-molding-of-personality/

I’m only an aunt

A hand wrapped around my finger,

A walk that’s more a dance.

A cheerful smile when changing a foul diaper.

Won’t sleep unless they are with you.

 

Somehow manage to bring up enough fluid,

It covers you completely yet misses the couch.

“Again! Again!”

They want you to swing them just one more time.

 

Never enough energy to keep up.

Loves the cat, sentiment not returned,

In spades.

Chases and holds and ignores the scratches anyway.

 

You hold more than just a future in your hands,

You hold a life that trusts and trusts and trusts.

There is nothing more beautiful and yet terrifying

Then the moment when you know you’re lost.

 

It can drive you crazy.

No, it WILL drive you crazy.

You want to keep them locked up tight.

Never let a hint of the world in.

 

Somehow this will happen,

It will happen more than once.

But only if you are lucky (unlucky) enough.

I’m not even a mother.

 

I’m only an aunt.

---

Not written for a prompt at all. Written as the only way to get anything out after finding out my eldest niece almost accidentally electrocuted herself while listening to her iPod in the shower. I never want to know what it’s like to crack open a door to check on someone (she always forgets to make sure she has a towel) and find an plugged in electronic in a large puddle of water.

It was funny in the movies and in the cartoons. I think it will be a while before I find it funny again.