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rainbowfic2019-12-17 09:20 pm
thisbluespirit) wrote in rainbowfic2019-12-17 09:20 pm
Acanthus #3 [Divide & Rule]
Name: Pins & Needles
Story: Divide & Rule/Heroes of the Revolution
Colors: Acanthus #3 (pin)
Supplies and Styles: Seed beads
Word Count: 932
Rating: PG
Warnings: Some references to period attitudes to divorce and homophobia.
Notes: 1924, 1937, 1949: Isabel Andrews/Nancy Long
Summary: It takes some time for Isabel to find herself.
***
1924
Isabel stands with the dress-in-progress hanging around her as her grandmother pins the fabric into place.
“Stand still now,” Nanna McAllister says, the Scottish lilt muted but audible even after all her years in England. “That’s right.”
Isabel barely nods, lost a hundred thousand miles away in a dream of knights and ladies and wise magicians, stories forming in her head. Her fingers itch for a pencil to write them down with before they melt away, and she shifts, despite Nanna’s instructions and is paid for it by the accidental prick of a pin.
“There,” says Nanna, putting a hand to Isabel’s cheek as she straightens up slowly. “Done and you may run away – off to your books again, I’ve no doubt!”
Isabel laughs, but it’s her notebook she goes to find. She’s tales of her own to tell.
1937
Isabel sits in the living room, sewing up a loose hem on an old but favourite blouse, needle in hand and the pin cushion beside her. But her hand shakes and she lowers it again, ceasing to sew as tears prick behind her eyes.
She stares ahead, into the slowly dying flames of the fire, and feels detached from all of it. It’s someone else who married her brother’s friend James, not her. How else was she to live? Writing a short story or two is hardly enough to grant her security. It’s a perfectly nice little hobby, of course, but no more. She doesn’t remember now exactly why she agreed, because it couldn’t have been her. It wasn’t her who failed so badly, who couldn’t be the wife James wanted. He’d been such a jolly friend till then.
She puts her needle back in the pin cushion and raises her hand to her cheek, but there’s no mark there now, of that one time he hit her, how it shocked them both. It happened so long ago, and it was someone else, not her. James is safely gone, with another girl now, one who loves him.
Isabel tightens her grip on the cuff of the blouse in her lap. It isn’t her family who won’t talk to her; she isn’t an object of curiosity to the neighbours. A divorced woman, such a strange creature.
She shakes herself and sets to her mending again, replacing pins in the cushion one by one. Their silver heads gleam in the light from the lamp, and she tries to tell herself another story – a simpler happier one.
It something she finds, here at her very worst, that she can do well.
1949
Nancy rummages through the closet, disarranging things, distracted by more than merely her search. Isabel walks over as Nancy sends a little tin full of drawing pins falling to the floor, sending them scattering over the boards.
Nancy curses, and Isabel crouches down beside her.
“What is it?” Isabel asks as she helps her gather up the errant pins, plucking one out from the fibres of the old rug next to her. “Are you still worried about Edward?”
Nancy shot her a glare. “I’m not worried! I just don’t understand why he didn’t tell me sooner, and I don’t understand what he’s doing – or worse, what she’s doing. And I wish you were coming.”
“Oh, Nan, love, you know I can’t,” Isabel says, unable to put an arm around her, not with a handful of drawing pins. “Even if I didn’t have a deadline looming, you know that your mother prefers me not to be there when it’s such a public affair.”
“That isn’t true,” says Nancy, her brows drawing together again. “Isabel. You know Mother is very fond of you.”
Isabel smiles and shakes her head, depositing her small collection of pins back into the tin. “Oh, yes, of course. But I do have that deadline.” She doesn’t say any more. If she’s honest, she agrees with Anne Long, Nancy’s mother. Like Isabel, even if she married into the Longs years ago, she’s got an outside perspective. The Longs are too comfortable with such unconventional arrangements as these, and that isn’t safe. It’s as well to have someone being careful, in these days when people seem to be getting worse and not better about such things.
“It’s only,” says Nancy, turning back to the original cause of her distraction, “that you’d think someone who’d already had one disastrous marriage would be a bit more careful over the next, wouldn’t you? But I suppose he is a man!”
Isabel bites back a laugh. “Yes, and so, what can be expected of him? Nan, love, I don’t know any more than you do, but if you calm down and let me help you pack, you can go to Kent and ask Edward himself, which will be much more to the purpose." She kisses Nancy’s cheek and narrowly misses kneeling on a stray drawing pin. “See what a nuisance you’re being here, love? I have a pair of lovers stranded on an island and I must finish them off before the week is over.”
She’s rather good at making pretend happy endings, and that in turn, has brought her to Nancy, and her own, far more real, happiness.
“I’m sorry,” says Nancy, getting to her feet, while Isabel runs her hands over the rug and the boards, making one last check for pins. “But, honestly!” She shakes her head, giving up on words.
Isabel gets to her feet and squeezes Nancy’s arm. “I know, I know, but for now we have other places to be. Time to stop fussing and leave.”
***
Story: Divide & Rule/Heroes of the Revolution
Colors: Acanthus #3 (pin)
Supplies and Styles: Seed beads
Word Count: 932
Rating: PG
Warnings: Some references to period attitudes to divorce and homophobia.
Notes: 1924, 1937, 1949: Isabel Andrews/Nancy Long
Summary: It takes some time for Isabel to find herself.
***
1924
Isabel stands with the dress-in-progress hanging around her as her grandmother pins the fabric into place.
“Stand still now,” Nanna McAllister says, the Scottish lilt muted but audible even after all her years in England. “That’s right.”
Isabel barely nods, lost a hundred thousand miles away in a dream of knights and ladies and wise magicians, stories forming in her head. Her fingers itch for a pencil to write them down with before they melt away, and she shifts, despite Nanna’s instructions and is paid for it by the accidental prick of a pin.
“There,” says Nanna, putting a hand to Isabel’s cheek as she straightens up slowly. “Done and you may run away – off to your books again, I’ve no doubt!”
Isabel laughs, but it’s her notebook she goes to find. She’s tales of her own to tell.
1937
Isabel sits in the living room, sewing up a loose hem on an old but favourite blouse, needle in hand and the pin cushion beside her. But her hand shakes and she lowers it again, ceasing to sew as tears prick behind her eyes.
She stares ahead, into the slowly dying flames of the fire, and feels detached from all of it. It’s someone else who married her brother’s friend James, not her. How else was she to live? Writing a short story or two is hardly enough to grant her security. It’s a perfectly nice little hobby, of course, but no more. She doesn’t remember now exactly why she agreed, because it couldn’t have been her. It wasn’t her who failed so badly, who couldn’t be the wife James wanted. He’d been such a jolly friend till then.
She puts her needle back in the pin cushion and raises her hand to her cheek, but there’s no mark there now, of that one time he hit her, how it shocked them both. It happened so long ago, and it was someone else, not her. James is safely gone, with another girl now, one who loves him.
Isabel tightens her grip on the cuff of the blouse in her lap. It isn’t her family who won’t talk to her; she isn’t an object of curiosity to the neighbours. A divorced woman, such a strange creature.
She shakes herself and sets to her mending again, replacing pins in the cushion one by one. Their silver heads gleam in the light from the lamp, and she tries to tell herself another story – a simpler happier one.
It something she finds, here at her very worst, that she can do well.
1949
Nancy rummages through the closet, disarranging things, distracted by more than merely her search. Isabel walks over as Nancy sends a little tin full of drawing pins falling to the floor, sending them scattering over the boards.
Nancy curses, and Isabel crouches down beside her.
“What is it?” Isabel asks as she helps her gather up the errant pins, plucking one out from the fibres of the old rug next to her. “Are you still worried about Edward?”
Nancy shot her a glare. “I’m not worried! I just don’t understand why he didn’t tell me sooner, and I don’t understand what he’s doing – or worse, what she’s doing. And I wish you were coming.”
“Oh, Nan, love, you know I can’t,” Isabel says, unable to put an arm around her, not with a handful of drawing pins. “Even if I didn’t have a deadline looming, you know that your mother prefers me not to be there when it’s such a public affair.”
“That isn’t true,” says Nancy, her brows drawing together again. “Isabel. You know Mother is very fond of you.”
Isabel smiles and shakes her head, depositing her small collection of pins back into the tin. “Oh, yes, of course. But I do have that deadline.” She doesn’t say any more. If she’s honest, she agrees with Anne Long, Nancy’s mother. Like Isabel, even if she married into the Longs years ago, she’s got an outside perspective. The Longs are too comfortable with such unconventional arrangements as these, and that isn’t safe. It’s as well to have someone being careful, in these days when people seem to be getting worse and not better about such things.
“It’s only,” says Nancy, turning back to the original cause of her distraction, “that you’d think someone who’d already had one disastrous marriage would be a bit more careful over the next, wouldn’t you? But I suppose he is a man!”
Isabel bites back a laugh. “Yes, and so, what can be expected of him? Nan, love, I don’t know any more than you do, but if you calm down and let me help you pack, you can go to Kent and ask Edward himself, which will be much more to the purpose." She kisses Nancy’s cheek and narrowly misses kneeling on a stray drawing pin. “See what a nuisance you’re being here, love? I have a pair of lovers stranded on an island and I must finish them off before the week is over.”
She’s rather good at making pretend happy endings, and that in turn, has brought her to Nancy, and her own, far more real, happiness.
“I’m sorry,” says Nancy, getting to her feet, while Isabel runs her hands over the rug and the boards, making one last check for pins. “But, honestly!” She shakes her head, giving up on words.
Isabel gets to her feet and squeezes Nancy’s arm. “I know, I know, but for now we have other places to be. Time to stop fussing and leave.”
***
no subject
That middle section hit home where it hurts, though. Great job.
no subject
/yeah, my canon. sorry...