#revised!

Thorne continued to insist on a connection between the two, and as meaningless as the conversation was, Cinder appreciated the idle break.

Cinder felt her body slumping forward as exhaustion dragged on her. Closing her eyes to dispel the throb from the glaring lights, she lay her head on the desk with a feeling of loneliness creeping into her chest. Normally she was too busy to concentrate on being thousands of kilometres away from home, but in the quieter moments it was hard to block it all out. Especially not when she was talking to Kai, whose sincere smiles and crinkling eyes and habit of running his hands through his hair made her heart clench.

Her port buzzed with an incoming vidcomm and she accepted, not bothering to check the ID or turn her camera on.

“Man, it’s pretty dark on Luna. Complete blackness. Nothing to be seen.”

Cinder grinned goofily. “It’s what my brain looks like right now.”

“What, a no video engaged icon?”

“Nothingness. No thoughts, no comprehension.”

Kai’s chuckle warmed her chest. “And yet you speak. I’m honoured to witness it.”

“To you? Always.”

It was his turn to smile. “How are you doing?”

She lifted her head from the desk and sat up, turning on the video function while ignoring her probably haggard appearance. She doubted Kai would care.

His face brightened at seeing her. The throb behind her eyes subsided at seeing him, only to be replaced with a throb of longing in her stomach.

“Confused, tired, maybe delusional. How are you?”

“Torin’s telling me I need to sleep more, but other than that”—he lifted his hands in an extended pause—“alive and functioning.”

“What time is it?” She didn’t need to ask, as her display could bring it up in 2.3 seconds. But she missed him, and she wanted to believe asking it would pull them closer.

“Late. But I wanted to see you before I sleep.” He leaned forward, looking at her intently as if to memorise her face again. “I miss you.”

She settled back into the chair, her voice dropping in melancholy “I miss you. And you need to sleep, you have the state meeting tomorrow. Don’t let your prep to go to waste.”

“Ugh, Cinder, you’re being smart and rational when all I want to do is talk to you forever.”

They talked for forty minutes after that as Kai prepared for bed and Cinder ignored remaining royal comms. She spent half of it in her office before wandering out to the tall, ancient hallways, Kinney trailing dutifully behind her. The glass windows never cast a reflection back to her, but the mirrors placed at random intervals sought to compensate for its lack.

Cinder caught herself in one such mirror, eyeing the rumpled dress and shambled hair with indifference. She trusted Kinney and the other staff to hardly care what they thought of her physical appearance. Her personal estheticians ensured her skin was prescribed a perfectly tailored routine, but her forgetfulness meant she didn’t exactly adhere to it as well as they would have liked. Blemishes and dark circles and the occasional acne scar were on display in the absence of a glamour, but she was often praised for the authenticity rather than criticised by her subjects.

She normally opted for light pants and shirts (unless Tressa stepped in and completely vetoed her preferences), but today’s meeting with the Lunar Court had her in regal attire. The long lace sleeves reached her wrists and the pleated skirt, though rich with petticoats and chiffon, hung in a slim silhouette. She didn’t pay the getup much attention, but when passing through the portrait hall she spied something similar at the end. Cinder couldn’t help but pause at the flickering image of her mother, stuck in a perpetual smile that made it seem like she was about to start talking. It startled her every time she saw it.

Kai had his port positioned on his bathroom bench as he washed his face. He looked up at the drop in sound. “You all right, Cin?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah. Stuff in this place still catches me off guard.”

Kai peered closer at the screen, jumping when he noticed a sliver of the holographic Channary’s head peeking into the corner. “Ah, the creepy portrait of your mother, right?”

She flexed her jaw. “Yeah. I don’t why, but it weirds me out more than the others.” The hall was lined with kings and queens from endless generations. For as grand as the Eastern Commonwealth Palace was, its monarchy was in its infancy compared to Luna.

Kai toweled his neck. “You do look like her with your glamour. I wonder what she looked like without it.”

Cinder shifted to the left, the image changing perspective with her movement. It was eerie, to see the woman she resembled but had no tangible connection to. She felt drawn to look at it, but didn’t know why. It irked her while giving her a distinct impression of dread and longing all at once.

“I guess it’s just weird.”

“I did a double take when I saw it, but, well, it makes sense.” He buried a hand in the towel and pressed it to the bench. “She’s your mother, if anyone were ever to doubt it.”

“Dr. Erland said I looked like her,” she murmured, but turned her head to shake away the abstraction. “Anyway. The woman is dead and gone.”

Kai smiled at her. “And you are alive and well. Thankfully.”

She exited the hallway to wander the private wings and talked aimlessly with Kai. Eventually he expended his final bluffs of things he needed to do in his night routine, and finally admitted to being ready for sleep.

“You should’ve been asleep an hour ago,” she berated softly.

He glanced to the side, lips forming the slightest pout. “I wasn’t ready then.”

“Excuses, excuses.” She yawned, then slowed her steps as she watched him settle into bed. “I’ll let you go.”

His face was forlorn. “Talk tomorrow?”

She smiled. “Of course. I love you.”

He kissed his fingertips and gently pressed it to the port camera. “I love you, Cinder.”

Her heart welled up with emotion as she shut off the connection. They had said their first I love you’s months ago, and though she’d wished it had been in person, she knew they were separated for too long to conceal it.

It wasn’t late on Luna, but her heart had already gone to bed.

Feeling pensive, Cinder wandered to the door she knew she’d been approaching but pretended she hadn’t. Since the staff had first shown her here days after her coronation, Cinder had returned three times. This was the fourth, and yet she still didn’t know why some kind of magnetism attracted her back to it.

Kinney stayed by the door as it creaked open, having kept his respectful distance to not encroach on her conversation with the emperor. She crept into the room and didn’t bother to turn on the lights though the curtains were half closed. It was the same as she’d left it, in that it was the same as she’d found it the first time. Winter had told her that it used to, apparently, have a mirror until Levana stormed in and destroyed it in a fury.

Her mother, the late Queen Channary, was not remembered well in this palace. Other than being flighty, unreliable and wholly apathetic to the country’s needs, Channary was known as a selfish creature, and the memories of her outbursts on servants and merciless punishments lingered as folklore. Cinder couldn’t help it; she’d researched about her mother, scouring for details that could give her understanding.

Channary was a terrible person, evidenced enough merely by what she’d done to Levana. But whispers suggested that she had—perhaps—some sense of morality. She had taken suitors, but not through manipulation. It wasn’t fun that way, she was wont to proclaim. The same couldn’t be said of Levana, whose control over Evret had been relayed to Cinder by the Sir Garrison Clay, mourning over his dear friend. Any sympathy she’d felt for Levana’s trauma fled in her revulsion of how the sixteen-year-old princess manipulated and assaulted the grieving guard.

Cinder paced the room to the bed and sat, smoothing her hands along the untouched sheets. Though her mother was terrible, she couldn’t fight the longing in her chest for a parent. She remembered just before Dr. Erland had told her she was Selene in prison; the very idea that she could have a family, even parents still alive, had blossomed so quickly within her.

Now she knew her mother was evil, her father unknown, but she still felt the sadness of a child stripped of a loving parent.

Perhaps her hurt stemmed from what she’d discovered in examining this room. Beside the bed was the sweetest, most delicate cradle, and the realisation that her mother had cared for her personally struck a dismal chord in Cinder’s heart.

“She died of...regolith poisoning, was it?”

Kinney perked up. “Apparently so, Your Majesty. That was not revealed to the public at the time, but your freedom of information acts have made that much clear.”

She hesitated, not sure what to ask. Not sure what she wanted to know. “...Is that a painful death?”

She could let her retina display give her a full rundown on the condition, but she’d shut off her netlink. She didn’t want to know the horrible details.

“Lengthy, and painful, yes. It causes stress to the individual and their family.”

Cinder imagined her mother dying without knowing why. In pain. She couldn’t resonate with the woman, couldn’t look past her evil, but death had marked Cinder on many occasions. She knew its terror.

But Channary’s family—Selene had been her family. And according to the first hand accounts of maids and housekeepers, Channary had loved her Selene. This bassinet proved that though she may have very well been a horrible mother, she did love her daughter.

———

“Get out!” The screech reverberated off the walls, slamming into the servants as they cleared the way for the queen. She marched readily past the entourage, her face flushing red as unstoppable coughs racked her body.

Phlegm and mucus pooled into her elbow from where she was covering her mouth and soiled her sleeves. She had just reached the door of her quarters when a maid approached and extended her arm to offer Her Majesty a handkerchief.

The queen glared a thousand scalding daggers into the woman’s eyes, and with a single flick at her will, forced the woman’s hand into a choke hold—cutting off her air supply. She held it for five seconds. Ten. Fifteen.

Finally when the coughs threatened to claw out her throat, she released the maid and slapped the handkerchief from her hand. The woman sank to the floor, gasping for air and rubbing her throat.

The coughs grew in worse intensity, and the queen entered her room with a sharp slam of the door. She fell against the wall as the hacking persisted, becoming more and more uncontrollable. It was a despicable, dry sound that made her entire body ache and her lungs scream mercilessly at her. Though she did not know what a diaphragm was, the muscles groaned within her torso, hating her.

After agonising moments where she felt she would surely die, the villain in her throat subsided to stinging wheezes and then sore rasps for breath. Only when the sound quieted did she hear another frequency, just as loud but unheard over her debilitating cough.

The cry of a baby blended with the last remnants of croaks, and Channary finally opened her tearful eyes to source the sound. It was just below her, a tiny figure tugging on her skirt and digging into her feet.

Selene stared up at her mother, chubby cheeks red with tears and wails. The baby was over a year old now, and since she had been able to walk she had no issue toddling over to express her complaints with those in her direct vicinity. Still, she sought her mother’s attention the most.

Channary let her racing heart and the dull throb calm as much as it was willing to. Selene went on wailing, looking up to her mother and waiting for her to intervene. She scooped up her daughter but did not stand, hardly trusting her shaking arms to carry the weight. The cries turned to whimpers as Channary stroked the fine tufts of hair. Her breaths evened out, but were still short, and sent sharp stabs into her sternum.

“Now, now,” her voice cracked on every word, “there’s no need to cry.”

Selene didn’t care much, flailing her arms anywhere they could reach along Channary’s arms, neck and bosom. “Come on Leeny. Lee-ny,” she sung, her voice winded and fragile.

The baby soothed after a few minutes of Channary slowly swaying her. She sat up straighter and went to stand before another fit of coughs overtook her. Selene’s crying resumed, distressed at her mother’s affliction. When both of them fell back into manageable noise levels she stood and trudged across the room. Her feet were dead weights and her toes burned as they dragged along the carpet.

Selene gasped, her eyes redirecting to every point of interest in the room. She pointed her pudgy finger to the mirror where it reflected a rainbow onto the floor. Channary guided them over and Selene babbled as she pressed her hands to the surface, leaving grubby fingerprints on the glass.

Channary smiled at her baby’s infatuation with touching her reflection. She looked at her own and flinched at her sallow skin. She still thought she was irrefutably, untouchably gorgeous, but without a glamour she saw how sickly her appearance had become. Her body was thinner, her shoulders slumping and eyes drooping. Her lips were coarse from biting them and dark bags hung from beneath her eyes.

She still had the same high cheekbones, the same narrow vixen eyes and warmed brown skin that had never seen sunlight. Those features were mirrored in Selene, and she was proud people would see the resemblance between them. A beautiful queen could only birth a beautiful princess. Selene would be her mirror-image, a perfect copy and extension of her mother in looks and beliefs alike.

But even the consolation of artemisian families and numerous men who chirruped of her beauty could not evade the truth. Dr. Elliot had told her weeks ago, but she’d refused to accept it.

She would not admit it was her fault. That night she stole away to the outer sectors for an affair, and then met his friends, and their friends, and found herself having liaisons on the furthermost parameters of the domes a few nights a week. Apparently it wasn’t far enough.

“Mama,” Selene gabbled before it descended into drivel. Channary shifted Selene to her left arm, slow lest she set off into another coughing fit. Her eyes bored into themselves through the looking glass and Channary rested her damp cheek against her baby’s hair.

“You know Leeny,” she breathed and kissed Selene, “I think you’ll be a great queen.”

Selene spat, but Channary didn’t care about the drool now staining her bodice.

She flattened Selene’s unruly hair with a clammy palm. “Not the most beautiful queen, that will always be me.” Her hands rested atop the head for a moment longer. “But a great queen.”

Selene lifted her hand in a fist so it held Channary’s cheek in the softest punch. “You must remember that being queen is a right, okay? You must remember that, hm?”

Channary tilted her head to lean into the tiny hand, and Selene was surprised, eyes widening with heavy breaths. “Remember that…” A burning, sickening cough. “That it doesn’t matter what you do with it, as long as no one takes it away from you.”

Her eyes grew serious, imploring Selene to listen, to understand. Channary had never been book smart, and she knew people thought of her as academically unintelligent. Oh the queen is lovely to have around! they'd chatter. Such a doll, such a character. Her head’s certainly not all there though!

Channary acknowledged this happily. Why read and learn when you could drink and enjoy the luxuries you so clearly deserved?

But if she wished to give her daughter any wisdom, it would be this.

“You’ll be the queen because that is your right. And trust me my darling, they will try to snatch it from you.” Her expression soured. “They’ll try to grab every last thing they can from you, and you can’t let them.”

Selene’s mouth parted, gaping unknowingly. It was so charming it broke Channary’s resolve. “I wish I-I could be there to help you through it.”

She sank into the floor as she dissolved entirely into sobs. She’d denied that she was dying in every second, every worried glance of staff, each irate outburst as her anxiety grated on her. But here, with only her child and herself, there were no excuses, only apologies.

She had never sincerely apologised for anything in her life, each halfhearted condolence undercut by aggression or disinterest. This was her first apology. The first one she had ever meant.

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, hapless and pathetic in her crumpled dress on the floor. “You’ll be alone when I should be with you, and I”— a choke escaped her scorched throat—“I’m so sorry.”

It was delirious from there on out. The room, full of useless furniture and trinkets she thought she’d use one day. The bed she’d taken men whose names and faces left her mind as quickly as a fan’s spinning blade.

The queen, always perfect and flirty and gregarious, in a teary heap on the floor.

She cried until her hateful lungs took over and Selene began to cry again. It was even more heartbreaking, that her baby was scared simply because she was. The empathy Channary had never possessed so clear in her offspring.

Channary cried until her eyes were barren, until the tears fell and coated Selene’s wispy hair. She was disarmed by her own transparency, or rather, her usual lack of it. She expressed her anger, but never her fear. People received the brunt of her aggression as a result, but she was the queen. She would be adored, whether people liked it or not.

But she didn’t care about any of them, not the court, not even her annoying sister. Selene though, she loved.

Knowing that her daughter was seeing her cry worsened it all; Selene was the only person that she loved almost as much as she loved herself. She wanted Selene to know that her mother was okay, that she would be cared for.

It wouldn’t last much longer.

The light streamed in and bounced off the mirror just over their heads. Channary buried her eyes into Selene’s hair, hoping it would hide the regret, the sorrow, the shame.

———

Cinder blinked as light cast over her face, illuminating her hair. The ends were orange in the light and the sharp flooding memory of Peony’s words stabbed into her stomach. Her retina display brought back the footage of that day that, impossible as it felt, was only three years ago. The cut had been choppy and immature, but Peony had insisted and Cinder loved her sister—her family.

There was no mirror to look into, but she knew it had grown long. The bangs were past her chin and there was no fringe to cover grease splotches. Cinder’s eye snagged on a hairbrush placed on the vanity. She strode over, her dress brushing the cradle and tinkling the little bells inside.

The brush was silver and embossed with tactile markings, smooth symbols and shapes that Cinder knew were significant but held no real meaning to her. It felt taboo to touch, to acknowledge her mother’s things. Her mother was evil and she didn’t care for her.

Maybe it’d be easier if Channary had never cared for Selene. It would be easy to discard the parent that discarded her. But her mother had loved her, kept her in her room and glowed at the prospect of her motherhood. Cinder couldn’t say that her longing excused her mother’s actions, because it didn’t. She was a torturer, an abuser.

Yet Cinder knew she grieved the childhood she’d never had. She hated that the one time a parent in her life loved her, that woman was irredeemable. No matter the circumstances, Cinder would have never had a parent who loved her that she could love back unconditionally.

Before she could stop herself, Cinder was running the brush through her hair, feeling the soft swooping and wishing she felt guilty for doing it.

———

A week later, Tressa pinned up Cinder’s hair and complained about the length. “You keep pulling on your hair like this and you’ll have permanent dead ends.”

Iko nodded from in front of Cinder as she adjusted the queen’s sash. “It could use a cut.”

Tressa plucked a pin from her lips. “I’ll schedule it in. Oh, do you want bangs?”

Cinder craned her head—to the disapproval of the girls who yelled “hold still!”—and uttered thoughtlessly: “Bangs?”

Tressa listed her head. “It’s your signature look, but it’s grown out. We can cut them again.”

Cinder almost flinched, and Iko’s acute detection scanners noticed instantly. She rested a hand on her best friend’s shoulder knowingly.

Cinder exhaled a long, measured breath. “Sure. Bangs are fine.”

The bangs were cut, and Iko smiled wistfully as they examined the look in the mirror. No words were said as Tressa pottered around, packing away tools and talking to herself. Words weren’t enough for the two, and neither could shed tears in mourning for their lost family.

But they had each other, and Iko’s cold fingers were a perfect comb for Cinder’s mousy locks. The next time Cinder returned to Channary’s room, the brush was placed back and left there.

Notes -

Parts: 1 2 3 4 5

DISCLAIMER - I am in no way condoning Channary as a person. She is literally evil, and I hope I conveyed that. However, a very real experience many children have is trying to grapple with the fact that their parent is a bad person, even if they were loving.

Channary said in Fairest that "being queen is a right", so I wanted to explore that. This post is like a genius explanation so please read it.

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It catches me by surprise,

Quick as lighting, (quick as they way you’d try to

catch me off guard

and lick my face in the shower

just to hear the sound I’d make).

Your name wraps its tendrils around my fingers

and locks them into place.

Your vines swirl around my hand

and the old pen (I stole from you!) and my arm

(where you used to trace music notes as they came to you in the night)

You twist into my nostrils

and there is your scent, too.

Sweet and stale and just so.

For a moment I smile

which is new

for me

(since).

But when I glance down again

There is no pen anymore.

There is only you, spreading, invading

Squeezing my lungs 

(the same lungs

where we’d share whatever high we could afford that night).

Your shoots pierce my eardrums

and all I can hear are your sounds

(beautiful sounds, I never understood how you could do that)

I can hear your unkind hands banging on wooden keys.

And everytime I try and shake your music out of me

another song grips tighter than the one before.

(And I still hum your tunes in the shower—I try not to)

My arm is not my arm,

It is your discarded canvas and

My leg is not my leg,

it is the scar where you, carried away

with gesticulation, accidentally burned me with your cigarette

(it was the same night we were in love but couldn’t say it yet). 

My earlobe isn't mine,

it is only the place where I would wear your nibble as jewelry

And my hair is no longer mine,

it is your suggestion, your fantasy,

And I am still all yours.

Still.

But your vines on me are dead. 

They have dried up and frozen,

and you keep growing away from me, to the sky—vines do not look back,

Only up (To Jamaica or someone else’s repulsive arms).

So I have to wait down here,

Caged by your withered vines

Until they all rot away leaf by leaf

And my arm is mine again.