[The Witches, 10. Ice]
Title: Glazed Over
Group: Elphaba and Nessarose Thropp, G(a)linda Arduenna
Theme: 10. Ice
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Wicked, characters, concept, etc, aren't mine.
Summary: She is frozen. She cannot move, she cannot feel. She has often heard those who care for her exclaim that she is forever cold to the touch.
Notes: Bookverse.
There is a child in her arms, one that looks up at her through eyes that are still unable to focus. She wants to shove the child away. But she can’t. She doesn’t know why. The child cannot be hers. She has been told it is a boy, and, for some reason, it was said as if it should mean something to her. The child means no more to her than any of the women who shuffle carefully around her night and day, watching her. Making sure she doesn’t do away with herself.
She is frozen. She cannot move, she cannot feel. She has often heard those who care for her exclaim that she is forever cold to the touch. She can never bring herself to reply. She has been silent these past twelve months and sometimes wonders if she has lost the ability to speak. She was never so good at communication anyway, she absently muses, and she has no use for words now.
The child waves an arm and emits a cry, begging for attention. The noise only annoys her. Why have they placed some brat in her arms? She just wants to sit and be left alone. She twitches, a movement that somehow shakes her whole body, and tries to release her burden, expel the child from her arms. She glares down at limbs that refuse to function and is forced to look at the baby. It has dark hair and blue eyes. She refuses to think of it as a person. It is a thing. Someone else’s at that.
There’s something in its features, in the shape of its eyes, that stir a name in her mind.
Fiyero.
No. No, no, no, no, no. Blood and tears that burn, a harsh scream she realises is her own, blood, blood, too much blood…
She retreats further into her mind. She barely thinks these days. She simply is. She breathes and she stares and she stays perfectly still until somebody forces her to move. She sleeps. She sleeps a lot, a dreamless sleep that is less comforting than she would like. Sleeping and waking are much the same. Silence and darkness, darkness and silence. No comforting embrace.
She relaxes and cares not when the child slips from her arms and onto her lap, slipping further, its startled cry at the sudden motion the only thing that alerts a nearby maunt to its peril. The baby is retrieved and she is scolded, as if she should care. She stares blankly ahead, as unable to focus as the child. The green skinned, young, for she is still relatively young, woman, smiles absently, disturbingly.
There is Nessie. In those wonderful, dreadful shoes, chastising and loving her in the same moment. She waits for her to catch up, if only for her help to support her as they go on their way.
There is sweet Glinda. Studying her, speaking words she cannot hear. The blonde’s mouth moves and she makes certain she is going to reply with something scalding about that horrendous pink outfit she’s in, how it must have cost what would feed a family of seven for a year, but she can’t find the words.
She smiles and she sighs, as if content.
She is a young girl again, Nessa waits for her and Glinda reaches for her hand to pull her along, wondering what keeps her when it is she who usually harasses them into a faster pace. She hides and she remembers love that cannot be torn from her by that pool of blood in the darkness and the stains on her wrists that wouldn’t fade and become a lie.
They love her. They do. They will never leave her. She loves them. They can never be taken from her. Nobody has known love like this before. She can keep them safe. Never move, never speak. They will stay together and she will love them.
The women around her try to drag her from her world. Make her acknowledge whoever’s child it is, make her speak with them. She is content in the reality she has created, where she locks the trauma out and lives through the only lasting love she remembers. They insist on dragging her from it, they do not realise she doesn’t want to live the same sorry life every other being is forced to endure.
She is frozen. She is ice to the touch.
She fights them at every turn.
Fin
Group: Elphaba and Nessarose Thropp, G(a)linda Arduenna
Theme: 10. Ice
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Wicked, characters, concept, etc, aren't mine.
Summary: She is frozen. She cannot move, she cannot feel. She has often heard those who care for her exclaim that she is forever cold to the touch.
Notes: Bookverse.
There is a child in her arms, one that looks up at her through eyes that are still unable to focus. She wants to shove the child away. But she can’t. She doesn’t know why. The child cannot be hers. She has been told it is a boy, and, for some reason, it was said as if it should mean something to her. The child means no more to her than any of the women who shuffle carefully around her night and day, watching her. Making sure she doesn’t do away with herself.
She is frozen. She cannot move, she cannot feel. She has often heard those who care for her exclaim that she is forever cold to the touch. She can never bring herself to reply. She has been silent these past twelve months and sometimes wonders if she has lost the ability to speak. She was never so good at communication anyway, she absently muses, and she has no use for words now.
The child waves an arm and emits a cry, begging for attention. The noise only annoys her. Why have they placed some brat in her arms? She just wants to sit and be left alone. She twitches, a movement that somehow shakes her whole body, and tries to release her burden, expel the child from her arms. She glares down at limbs that refuse to function and is forced to look at the baby. It has dark hair and blue eyes. She refuses to think of it as a person. It is a thing. Someone else’s at that.
There’s something in its features, in the shape of its eyes, that stir a name in her mind.
Fiyero.
No. No, no, no, no, no. Blood and tears that burn, a harsh scream she realises is her own, blood, blood, too much blood…
She retreats further into her mind. She barely thinks these days. She simply is. She breathes and she stares and she stays perfectly still until somebody forces her to move. She sleeps. She sleeps a lot, a dreamless sleep that is less comforting than she would like. Sleeping and waking are much the same. Silence and darkness, darkness and silence. No comforting embrace.
She relaxes and cares not when the child slips from her arms and onto her lap, slipping further, its startled cry at the sudden motion the only thing that alerts a nearby maunt to its peril. The baby is retrieved and she is scolded, as if she should care. She stares blankly ahead, as unable to focus as the child. The green skinned, young, for she is still relatively young, woman, smiles absently, disturbingly.
There is Nessie. In those wonderful, dreadful shoes, chastising and loving her in the same moment. She waits for her to catch up, if only for her help to support her as they go on their way.
There is sweet Glinda. Studying her, speaking words she cannot hear. The blonde’s mouth moves and she makes certain she is going to reply with something scalding about that horrendous pink outfit she’s in, how it must have cost what would feed a family of seven for a year, but she can’t find the words.
She smiles and she sighs, as if content.
She is a young girl again, Nessa waits for her and Glinda reaches for her hand to pull her along, wondering what keeps her when it is she who usually harasses them into a faster pace. She hides and she remembers love that cannot be torn from her by that pool of blood in the darkness and the stains on her wrists that wouldn’t fade and become a lie.
They love her. They do. They will never leave her. She loves them. They can never be taken from her. Nobody has known love like this before. She can keep them safe. Never move, never speak. They will stay together and she will love them.
The women around her try to drag her from her world. Make her acknowledge whoever’s child it is, make her speak with them. She is content in the reality she has created, where she locks the trauma out and lives through the only lasting love she remembers. They insist on dragging her from it, they do not realise she doesn’t want to live the same sorry life every other being is forced to endure.
She is frozen. She is ice to the touch.
She fights them at every turn.
Fin