First Light 9, Color Party 4, Olympic Gold 4: Never Makes Sense

[bookblather]

Author: Kat
Title: Never Makes Sense
Story: Shine Like It Does
Colors: First Light 9 (Armlet), color party 4 (Phlox), Olympic gold 4 (silver)
Supplies and Materials: Graffiti (Lilith Faire Main Stage: All This and Heaven Too, Florence and the Machine), glue (There's a palpable uneasiness in the air; your heart is open and ready to reveal its truth but you just don't know how to put your feelings into words.), stain (Beware of no man more than yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us. - G. K. Chesterton), acrylic (youth), canvas, novelty beads (this picture)
Word Count: 487
Rating: G
Summary: Miranda contemplates, and maybe envies, her siblings.
Warnings: none
Notes:


Charlotte in her quinceanera dress looked like a little pink and silver doll, spinning in Papa's arms, her head tilted back and a beaming smile on her face. Miranda was only two years past her own quinceanera, and she did not remember being that happy. But then Charlotte always took things so seriously; perhaps that applied to the happy things as well as the sad. And Miranda already knew that she did not understand her sister.

Nor did she understand her brother. Jack wore a tailored suit, for all he was thirteen and soon to hit a growth spurt, because Papa never bothered about money, not when the three of them were concerned, and Jack always liked to look good. So did Miranda, but for her it was a kind of armor: Jack just seemed to enjoy the way it made him feel.

And that, she thought, running a finger along the rim of her glass, was the problem, wasn't it? Jack enjoyed life for itself. Charlotte did too, when there was something to be enjoyed. Miranda could not. For whatever fault in her character, whatever mistake in her mind, she could not stop thinking of the future, how to spin things to her own benefit, how to protect her family, how to make the best choice.

"Miracita?"

Mama. She put a smile on her face, and turned. "Yes?"

"Are you all right, mija?" Mama sat down next to her, both of them staring out across the dance floor, where Charlotte was now waltzing giggling with Jack. She was so beautiful, Miranda's little sister, her dress a vibrant pink and her hair a mass of curls, silver jewelry winking from her hair and arms. Many boys regretted not being her chambelanes now, and well they should. Not that Miranda regretted their regret. Charlotte was still so young, and so vulnerable.

"I'm fine," Miranda replied. "I'm just thinking. Isn't Carlita beautiful?"

Mama's whole face softened. That was fine; Miranda's face did the same when she thought of her sister. "She is. She will be a heartbreaker someday."

"Not of her own will," Miranda murmured. Charlotte was too kind. So was Jack. She... she would break hearts, and gladly, if it could benefit her. Not that Mama knew that, nor would Miranda tell her. "I think she is breaking hearts now, though."

Mama shook her head. "Yes. You will help us keep them away from her tonight, mija? It should be about her, not what some boys have just discovered."

"Of course, Mama." After all, she could.

And if Miranda regretted sometimes that she was not like her sister, or her brother, well. Who would protect them if she did not? She didn't need to understand them, she only needed to love them, and she did.

Charlotte laughed, and Jack laughed with her, the sound ringing clear across the chatter of the party.

Miranda never would laugh like that.

Comments

[kay_brooke]

Miranda is so much the first born, with that mixture of fierce protectiveness and an undercurrent of envy. I love how complicated she is.

[bookblather]

I love writing her for exactly that reason. She's such a bundle of contradictions and issues sometimes, and yet she's so together.

Thank you so much!