acidpop25: "Lighting Candles," PG-13
Title: Lighting Candles
Author: acidpop25
Rating: PG-13
Prompt Set: 100.1
Prompt: #47, "Flame"
Word Count: 434
Summary: "It was so, so, dry the summer Mum died."
Warnings: Character death, sort of.
Notes: Yay for Luna!fic.
It was so, so, dry the summer Mum died. The air was hard and stung your throat like swallowing wasps, pricked your skin like nettles. So, so hot, with a glaring-bright sun that turned the whole sky to white-hot iron on your skin and branded you bright red; "burned." Lawns became fields of miniature spears- heat turns affable turf grass into a tiny battlefield against the unwary (the barefoot). It snapped when you walked, snap, snap, crack, crunch, crinkle. Dead.
Mum died, and I was as good as an orphan. Daddy... he hid in the shady sanctuary of indoors and writing. I never saw what he wrote in those weeks, furious and desperate, the scratch-scratch-scratching of the quill carrying even down the hall to me, wondering why my Daddy hid and my Mum was never there anymore.
I never slept much, even before, and Mum always had left a candle burning in my room at night when she went to bed, and I went to sleep when it burned out. Always. But Daddy didn't sleep at all after she died, and there was no Mum to kiss me goodnight and light a candle before leaving with a whispering flutter of silk, "Luna, Luna, goodnight my darling girl, my Luna." And then I couldn't sleep at all.
"Daddy?"
"What, Luna?"
"Can I have a candle?"
"A candle? What for?"
"To sleep. Mum always gave me one, so could you, please, 'til she's back?"
Daddy slammed his hand on the desk with a Bang! like a firecracker. "Go to your room, Luna."
"But Daddy, I need a candle..."
"Fine! Have your damned candle!" he screamed, all red, and he knocked the candle off his desk.
It was so, so, dry. The floorboards, the desk, the curtains, the parchments, they went up in flames like they were matches, and Daddy picked me up and carried me outside, away to the safety of pavement as we watched our house burn. It was so pretty, every shade of gold and orange and scarlet, like sunset swallowing our house, dancing, dancing like Mum used to as she sung down the halls and her feet patted so softly on the floor. Swirls of smoke in the night sky, like eddies of water. She was dancing by the river. The fire spread, catching dry tinder-grass and newspaper leaves, shooting through the lawn like grass snakes, like the ribbons in her hair. And up the sides, licking out my bedroom window as everything went orange-red-gold.
The candle was lit, and I fell asleep in my Daddy's arms while my whole life burned away.
Author: acidpop25
Rating: PG-13
Prompt Set: 100.1
Prompt: #47, "Flame"
Word Count: 434
Summary: "It was so, so, dry the summer Mum died."
Warnings: Character death, sort of.
Notes: Yay for Luna!fic.
It was so, so, dry the summer Mum died. The air was hard and stung your throat like swallowing wasps, pricked your skin like nettles. So, so hot, with a glaring-bright sun that turned the whole sky to white-hot iron on your skin and branded you bright red; "burned." Lawns became fields of miniature spears- heat turns affable turf grass into a tiny battlefield against the unwary (the barefoot). It snapped when you walked, snap, snap, crack, crunch, crinkle. Dead.
Mum died, and I was as good as an orphan. Daddy... he hid in the shady sanctuary of indoors and writing. I never saw what he wrote in those weeks, furious and desperate, the scratch-scratch-scratching of the quill carrying even down the hall to me, wondering why my Daddy hid and my Mum was never there anymore.
I never slept much, even before, and Mum always had left a candle burning in my room at night when she went to bed, and I went to sleep when it burned out. Always. But Daddy didn't sleep at all after she died, and there was no Mum to kiss me goodnight and light a candle before leaving with a whispering flutter of silk, "Luna, Luna, goodnight my darling girl, my Luna." And then I couldn't sleep at all.
"Daddy?"
"What, Luna?"
"Can I have a candle?"
"A candle? What for?"
"To sleep. Mum always gave me one, so could you, please, 'til she's back?"
Daddy slammed his hand on the desk with a Bang! like a firecracker. "Go to your room, Luna."
"But Daddy, I need a candle..."
"Fine! Have your damned candle!" he screamed, all red, and he knocked the candle off his desk.
It was so, so, dry. The floorboards, the desk, the curtains, the parchments, they went up in flames like they were matches, and Daddy picked me up and carried me outside, away to the safety of pavement as we watched our house burn. It was so pretty, every shade of gold and orange and scarlet, like sunset swallowing our house, dancing, dancing like Mum used to as she sung down the halls and her feet patted so softly on the floor. Swirls of smoke in the night sky, like eddies of water. She was dancing by the river. The fire spread, catching dry tinder-grass and newspaper leaves, shooting through the lawn like grass snakes, like the ribbons in her hair. And up the sides, licking out my bedroom window as everything went orange-red-gold.
The candle was lit, and I fell asleep in my Daddy's arms while my whole life burned away.