Post by westernsunset on Aug 31, 2018 3:49:00 GMT 10
Title: Too Much of the Same Kind
Rating: PG
Prompt: Firelight
Summary: Alanna reflects on how the men she's related to can let her down.
Notes: Based on the Bruce Springsteen song Independence Day for a series I'm now referring to as The River Drell, which takes Goldenlake prompts and songs from the Bruce Springsteen album The River and mashes them together!
Alanna peeked around the corner into her father’s study. As usual, he was hunched over an old document, lips moving silently as he translated. He leaned close to the stained pages, using a magnifying glass to read in the dying light of the fire. She hoped he would sense her presence and invite her in, pull her into his lap and give her a hug before she went to bed. But past experiences with her father told her that once he became engrossed in his work, all the horses in Tortall couldn’t drag him out of it.
Still, she wanted tonight to be different. Tomorrow, she would leave for the palace to start training for her knighthood. Training, which was dangerous in the best of circumstances, would be far riskier for her since she was concealing her gender. She tried not to think about what could happen if she was found out, but in lonelier moments, like right now, it was at the forefront of her mind. She would’ve liked to have a loving memory of her father before she left, potentially for the last time.
It wasn’t that Alanna had negative memories of her father, it was more that she had no memories at all. From the time she was young, Coram and Maude had taken charge of every aspect of her upbringing, her father’s presence relegated to an unacknowledged fog in the home, something she was always aware of but something that didn’t actually affect her life. To say he had hurt her or made her life worse was to give him too much credit. Often, she wondered if he even realized his two children still shared a home with him.
Her father scratched his nose and shook back his sleeves, and Alanna startled. She’d seen Thom do that same gesture so many times while the two of them were studying their letters, or working with Maude. Thom always huffed a little when he did it, as if he hated to be bothered by his physical body for even a second. He hated to be distracted from the academic task at hand.
Alanna backed away from the door quickly and silently. Seeing her Thom’s mannerisms on her father (or her father’s mannerisms on Thom?) scared her. Suddenly she flashed to a life where her twin was there, but not present. Where he retreated so deeply into himself he forgot about the people who needed him.
She crept to bed quietly, hoping not to wake Thom who slept in the bed on the other side of the room. Her heart worried about Thom, who could be so studious, who could forget himself in his books. What would happen to him when he had children? Would they grow up with the same cold detachment the two of them had? Would Thom make an effort to be better than their father? Or would whatever perfectionist academic streak their father had claim Thom too?
She shook off that thought. Her father didn’t love anything but his books. Thom, no matter what else, loved her. Thom loved her when it was easy and when it was hard. Her father had loved her mother, probably even loved her and Thom, until her mother died. It was as if he couldn’t take the horror of losing something he loved, so he decided not to love anything he could lose. But Thom was capable of love in all its beauty and tragedy. Or at least she hoped he was. She didn’t think she could stand to lose a brother as well as a father.
Rating: PG
Prompt: Firelight
Summary: Alanna reflects on how the men she's related to can let her down.
Notes: Based on the Bruce Springsteen song Independence Day for a series I'm now referring to as The River Drell, which takes Goldenlake prompts and songs from the Bruce Springsteen album The River and mashes them together!
Alanna peeked around the corner into her father’s study. As usual, he was hunched over an old document, lips moving silently as he translated. He leaned close to the stained pages, using a magnifying glass to read in the dying light of the fire. She hoped he would sense her presence and invite her in, pull her into his lap and give her a hug before she went to bed. But past experiences with her father told her that once he became engrossed in his work, all the horses in Tortall couldn’t drag him out of it.
Still, she wanted tonight to be different. Tomorrow, she would leave for the palace to start training for her knighthood. Training, which was dangerous in the best of circumstances, would be far riskier for her since she was concealing her gender. She tried not to think about what could happen if she was found out, but in lonelier moments, like right now, it was at the forefront of her mind. She would’ve liked to have a loving memory of her father before she left, potentially for the last time.
It wasn’t that Alanna had negative memories of her father, it was more that she had no memories at all. From the time she was young, Coram and Maude had taken charge of every aspect of her upbringing, her father’s presence relegated to an unacknowledged fog in the home, something she was always aware of but something that didn’t actually affect her life. To say he had hurt her or made her life worse was to give him too much credit. Often, she wondered if he even realized his two children still shared a home with him.
Her father scratched his nose and shook back his sleeves, and Alanna startled. She’d seen Thom do that same gesture so many times while the two of them were studying their letters, or working with Maude. Thom always huffed a little when he did it, as if he hated to be bothered by his physical body for even a second. He hated to be distracted from the academic task at hand.
Alanna backed away from the door quickly and silently. Seeing her Thom’s mannerisms on her father (or her father’s mannerisms on Thom?) scared her. Suddenly she flashed to a life where her twin was there, but not present. Where he retreated so deeply into himself he forgot about the people who needed him.
She crept to bed quietly, hoping not to wake Thom who slept in the bed on the other side of the room. Her heart worried about Thom, who could be so studious, who could forget himself in his books. What would happen to him when he had children? Would they grow up with the same cold detachment the two of them had? Would Thom make an effort to be better than their father? Or would whatever perfectionist academic streak their father had claim Thom too?
She shook off that thought. Her father didn’t love anything but his books. Thom, no matter what else, loved her. Thom loved her when it was easy and when it was hard. Her father had loved her mother, probably even loved her and Thom, until her mother died. It was as if he couldn’t take the horror of losing something he loved, so he decided not to love anything he could lose. But Thom was capable of love in all its beauty and tragedy. Or at least she hoped he was. She didn’t think she could stand to lose a brother as well as a father.
Maybe once we'd have seen it during Smackdown!