#straywodtba

“Give me the burden, give me the blame.              I'll shoulder the load, and I'll swallow the shame.”

THE VERY IDEA turns to dead weight inside of her, settling into some emptiness inside of her where tradition was meant to take root. It was a slow torture she had not considered before this moment. Mother’s Day was always a time of absence in her home, a void that rolled around the chambers of her heart like a black marble. The salutation, in turn, becomes almost as shocking as the Usurper’s uprooting. Looking into his bloodshot eyes, rheumy with age that would never match his face, she is frozen to the spot.

His offering could soothe her. His offering could be made something separate from herself, a gilded voice and the warmth of an arm around her waist. Roses, her mother had said, from Tenebrae. Later, the queen would present the world to her only daughter, put the globe before her eyes and point out where the strange land was located. A land of flowers, Aulea had said, and gods. Mother held the world in her hands, and her shadow fell over it as she leaned forward, her painted lips like fire against a pale temple.

Her mother had loved the hearty flowers, reaching towards the sky with petals soft as innocence. They had been guarded, too, drawing red blood that stood stark when compared to those colorless blossoms. Stray had not been careful when introducing her brother to Aulea’s favorite, had watched his careless fingers be pierced by the thorns.