not meek nor obedient

fortuitoushost:She was right, of course. What with her coming to the print shop, young Ian being kidnapped by pirates and then being washed up upon the colonies, they had been a little preoccupied with life in general and building shelter on Fraser Ridge to be mindful of anything other than the basic turn of season. Jamie understood why she had come back — was happy that she was with him again, selfishly admittedly — but that didn’t mean that Claire didn’t miss their daughter. Where Jamie had never known Brianna and could only dream of what she was like from the stories that Claire told, she was as real as Willie was to him. Jamie could understand that pain and longing, though he knew it was all for the best.

Running a hand soothingly down the back of her corset, he sighs. Forget-me-nots — yes, Jamie could see Claire tending to her garden, much like she did here, but with a bright haired beauty at her side to help. It settled Jamie’s soul to think of such a picture and he nodded in reply.  ❛  Aye, it hasn’a been quiet since ye returned.  ❜  Pulling back, he offers a rueful smile to the lass before hugging her close again.  ❛  Brianna’s a strong headed lass, is she no? Ye said so yourself, Sassenach, and ye wouldn’a have left her so if ye dinne ken she’d do well enough on her own.  ❜

Words of comfort were easy enough to offer, though that wouldn’t quiet Claire’s yearning for their daughter. Forget-me-nots — Jamie didn’t know where around them he could find such a flower, but he did know something that always looked the same; from what he’d heard from Claire, anyway. Pulling back, Jamie offered his wife a hand, blue eyes sure, knowing what he could do to ease his wife’s mind.  ❛  Will ye come with me, Claire?  ❜

A laugh comes after a wide smile, “How could she not?” Brown eyes find themselves on blue, lost in a familiar hold. “We are her parents and I do believe rock solid heads are genetic.” She presses a kiss to his temple and already she can feel her muscles releasing at the release of an invisible weight. There would always be a piece of her that longs for her daughter. The bond between mother and daughter is unlike any other she had experience, nine months spent intimately together and feeling her grow from the very start and then to see her grow into her own person after that. It’s not something that can ever be replicated, even with the rate medical science was advancing in the 60′s.

oftheridge:he thinks… perhaps… that he’s been knocked on the head. he can feel the slick of blood, cooled and drying in a viscous sticky trail, running from temple to chin. it smells like copper, and his mouth tastes of it as well. but… how he’d gotten here, sitting on the ground in the eye of the storm… he can’t quite recall. 

he does feel the pain shooting out of his shoulder in hot jagged spikes, his other hand coming up to gingerly touch the joint. a gasp of pain leaves his mouth, though he doesn’t realize he’s making a sound.

movement from his left makes him jerk, reaching for his sword that’s lost somewhere in the melee, but the sound of a woman’s voice makes him start. he blinks up at her, hearing her speak, but the muddled mess of his mind won’t quite let the words form. she gestures to his shoulder, and he looks down at it and then back up at her. she’s got a bag, perhaps she’s a healer…

and so he nods, assuming that she’s offered to help him. if she’s not and is in actuality hiding a blade beneath her skirts, well. it can’t quite get much worse for him, can it?

Fingers open up the bag and the woman quickly shifts into her work. A pair of scissors is placed on the skirt of her dress. She stops to assess what supplies she will need before putting his shoulder back in place. He’s not coherent enough and she’ll need another set of arms if she’s going to tie his arm up before it pops out again. She pulls the bag up to her face.

Claire takes a root shaped plant from her bag and lets the bag fall to the muddy ground. She breaks away a piece of it and presents it in front of the soldier’s mouth, “This is going to be painful, but I need you to wake up. This should help.”

With her other hand she picks up her scissor and cuts away at the cloth connecting the sleeve to the torso of the shirt. Once free she works at the straps holding his armor up. A hand moves to his under arm while the other unsnaps and slips off what she can.

She looks around her. If anyone is around to hear, it’s possible they will think that the sound of a man screaming is the sound of death taking him. “Okay,” she exhales, “This is going to be the worst part, but you’ll feel a lot better once it’s done,” she promises. Her scissors are put away and she props herself by the man’s side. “I’m going to put your arm back in its joint.”

fortuitoushost:He had seen her out the window, staring up at the sky as if God Himself might give her the answers she sought, written in the stars before her. He didn’t disturb her for some time, instead putting new kindling on the fire and sitting down with his dirk and some wood, cutting and shaping it to his will. Once a fair amount of time had passed however, and Claire had not yet returned inside, Jamie thought that perhaps something was troubling her more than he had thought. Standing, he made his way silently outside, as not to disturb her, and stood patiently at her side as she spoke.

Mothers day – Claire had mentioned the day before and what it would come to mean in her time, though none such celebration of mothers occurred yet that he knew of. Of course, two hundred years in the future, people were changed and so was society as a whole – he had learned that much from what Claire had told him of her time. Of course, she would be thinking of Brianna on today of all days and (not for the first time) Jamie wished to be able to have her with them, if only perhaps for one celebration in her life. Though such a thought was selfish, he would never wish to uproot her from everything she knew and deposit her in his time, with such uncertainties surrounding them. This time was dangerous and she was safe in the future.

Stepping toward her, the Scotsman wrapped his arms around his wife, holding her for a moment and turning his own gaze skyward.  ❛  Aye? Do ye still celebrate such days when parted from ye’r bairns, Sassenach?  ❜  How had Claire celebrated the mothering of their first born, despite her being in God’s embrace and not with them? He was sure it was usually the children that celebrated their mothers, though he thought perhaps it would also be inclined to be a day for mothers to celebrate the gift of their wee ones, in turn.  ❛  Do ye find a quiet place to remember?  ❜

She allows her body to fall against Jamie’s shoulder. A weight eased off her chest. It was easier for her to get past the heartache of what she left behind if she could talk about it. She had tried the other way and it only drove her further away from the people who needed her most. She understood why people kept journals.

Claire’s head nods, “I did. I kept a small garden with forget-me-nots in them. Brianna would help me tend to it. That’s what her and I did, she’d arrange other flowers to go with it as well.” The 20th Century wasn’t in need of many herbs, not after the invention of penicillin but tending to plants kept her connected. “She loved them as much as I did. Small and blue. They made me think of her, of Faith. I couldn’t tell Bree about her, not without telling her everything before her. Growing up, she wouldn’t have understood why she was an only child if I had.”

But now she wasn’t so sure what to do. There wasn’t a store where she could pick up a packet of seeds, and even if there were such a thing there was much better uses for the money they had. The photographs she held in her hands were bittersweet to look at and it would be a better use of her time to try chopping down some wood for the fire instead. Brianna was safe and she knew that even though her mother was not with her anymore that she loves her with all her heart. But still, she cannot keep from thinking how hard everything must be. She was orphaned, Claire Randall missing and in the 1960s Claire Fraser had been dead for over a hundred years. The thought Claire is left with is if Roger and her still keep in touch. A time-traveling mother is not an easy concept for most of her friends from college to understand, but Roger took it with great stride all things considered.

MUN MEME

I wanna make a quick correction first, because I’ve had this blog for a while but I haven’t actually written all that much.

Anyway, first things first, why do I want to write Claire. This is pretty easy for me. Claire is this just otherworldly character to me, not because she’s like a dragon or anything, but because in the current age of literature she is so vastly  different. I’ve said this to a friend of mine, who knows nothing about Outlander (looking at you @khruseos) and have gotten onto the near verge of tears describing Claire.

She’s one hell of a woman, strong and independent but in all of the ways that are feminine. She’s not this physically strong and capable woman. She’s very traditional in her characterization but so ahead of her time for the time periods she is put in. Her strength lies in her mouth and it’s her wit that gets the men of Leoch to start liking her “i’ve never heard a woman tell a joke before” like it’s not frowned upon, it’s just different to what they are used to. They encourage it, even if they give her the strangest looks for her sailor mouth.

Claire feels like a person and that’s HUGE to me. Pop culture is full of women who can kick ass and take names, which there’s a place for that, but something is loss when you take away the feminine. You can watch a movie with that type of character paired alongside a man and it’s really just a movie about two dudes, one of them just happens to have full-functioning breasts.

Claire is human and such a product of her time, but ahead of it and there’s so much to dig into to get inside her head. What made her so gosh darn stubborn, you can’t tell me it was her upbringing because her uncle bowed down to her when she was growing up. She didn’t want to go to boarding school and she damn well made herself heard.

The amount of time that had passed since Claire began her gaze up at the sky would only be considered normal if she were an astronomer or perhaps an explorer or fisherman. But the stars were the closest thing to seeing where her daughters might be now. How was Bri handling the loss of not just one but two parents, and knowing she lost one of them to a completely different time. She had thought those thoughts had stopped bothering her, but then someone reminded her of the date. The second Sunday in May, it would be Mother’s Day in America. Children would be making their mother’s breakfast in bed and their husbands might be taking them somewhere nice. A relaxing day.

There was too much weight in it for Claire, a mother of her own gone, a daughter who never had a chance to take her first breath. It made her pensive until she heard Brianna’s little feet stomping around the house as she came to hug her and present her with a flower. It was her reminder that she was a mother, and a mother to a living, breathing child who needed her.