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rainbowfic2020-04-28 09:46 pm
thisbluespirit) wrote in rainbowfic2020-04-28 09:46 pm
Acanthus #5
Name: Please and Thank You
Story: Divide & Rule/Heroes of the Revolution
Colors: Acanthus #5 (dart)
Supplies and Styles: Seed beads
Word Count: 748
Rating: PG
Warnings: Mentions of death and dystopia at the end.
Notes: 1927, 1935, 1961. Caroline Sheldon, Diana Foyle, Julia Graves. (It really was about time Caroline got a piece of her own. Poor Caroline.)
Summary: Caroline’s problem is that she’s always been too keen to try and keep everyone happy. It never works.
***
1927
Caroline gazes out of the window, letting her sewing fall in her lap. It’s sunny, but there’s little other sign of spring yet; the tree branches outside still bare.
“Penny for them?” says her friend Diana, biting off the end of her thread. “Caro?”
Caroline shakes herself and picks up the garment, setting back to work on stitch in a dart in the waist of the new skirt. “Oh, nothing. Thinking of the future, I suppose. Where I’ll end up – who I’ll marry. How about you?”
“I don’t know if I will marry anyone,” says Diana and pulls a face.
Caroline can’t imagine that. In her world, you grow up and get married, that’s how it works. “Someone nice,” she says, building cloud castles above her head. “Maybe a doctor or a vicar.”
“Not a vicar, surely?” says Diana, wrinkling her nose as she finishes securing the loose button on the blouse in her hands. “All the vicars I know are awfully old, and they’d probably have to practise their sermons on you. What a horrid fate.”
Caroline shakes her head. “They can’t all start old.”
“Hmm,” says Diana, unconvinced. She sighs and searches around in her mending basket. “No need to worry about it yet. You don’t meet anyone in a prison like this. Not men, anyway.”
Caroline imagines her future – neat, like her sewing, careful stitches in a row, all leading to a comforting end, as planned. “After school, I meant, silly.”
“Yes,” said Diana. “I know. But Mother talks about it often enough as it is, and she always has such beastly ideas. Let’s pretend we’ll never leave.”
Caroline laughs. “I thought you said school was a prison?”
“Exactly,” says Diana, poking out her tongue. “Prisons never let you go, do they?”
“I won’t mind,” Caroline says. “I’m looking forward to it.”
1935
Caroline wakes, pressing her face into the pillow that’s still damp with her tears. She wishes the nightmare will go away but knows it won’t. If only she could live in a world where she hadn’t married Edward, or one where she loves him, and not Jack. She so nearly had.
She holds her breath at the thought of Edward, not wanting to wake him, and lies there with her eyes closed; rigid. She pretends to be asleep for hours, until it grows light and he gets up and leaves. Only then can she breathe and move again; the immediate weight of her guilt lifting enough to let her rise.
She’d wanted to please her parents; she’d wanted to make everyone happy, and somehow all she’s done is made everyone unhappy – Jack, Edward, herself, and Mother and Father too. It should have been so easy. Her parents know Edward’s family, the Longs; they live in the next village. He’s perfectly nice and respectable – everything she thought she wanted.
Jack, on the other hand, is not quite the thing. He’s only a police sergeant. She doesn’t even know how it happened, how love’s dart hit its mark at a village dance Nancy Long dragged her to. She’d worked so hard to persuade herself to believe what she felt matched the pattern she wanted, and now here she is. She’s ruined everything.
She can’t go back; to leave Edward for Jack would be a shocking sin, and yet every day she stays and works at making herself believe she loves Edward kills more of her soul. She’s cold all the time, she feels sick, and there’s a sharp sting in her heart, right where love’s inconvenient missile left its mark.
Caroline weeps.
1961
The world is falling apart. Arrows might as well rain from the skies. Parliament is rubble and stone, and so many people are missing or dead. Caroline doesn’t know where Jack is, but she fears the worst. The rest of her family are safe as yet. She does what she’s always done and tries her best to help everyone she can. She and shelters strays and rebels before sending them on to Diana in Birmingham.
She’s got contacts from Jack’s work, too, and that’s how she even manages to pull off a rescue. She’s always felt she owed Edward a debt. It’s a bitter thing to only repay it now he’s dead, but she’s certain he’d have thanked her for this. She does what no one else can do – she finds Julia.
Maybe it’s all only too little, too late, but isn’t that better than nothing at all?
***
Story: Divide & Rule/Heroes of the Revolution
Colors: Acanthus #5 (dart)
Supplies and Styles: Seed beads
Word Count: 748
Rating: PG
Warnings: Mentions of death and dystopia at the end.
Notes: 1927, 1935, 1961. Caroline Sheldon, Diana Foyle, Julia Graves. (It really was about time Caroline got a piece of her own. Poor Caroline.)
Summary: Caroline’s problem is that she’s always been too keen to try and keep everyone happy. It never works.
***
1927
Caroline gazes out of the window, letting her sewing fall in her lap. It’s sunny, but there’s little other sign of spring yet; the tree branches outside still bare.
“Penny for them?” says her friend Diana, biting off the end of her thread. “Caro?”
Caroline shakes herself and picks up the garment, setting back to work on stitch in a dart in the waist of the new skirt. “Oh, nothing. Thinking of the future, I suppose. Where I’ll end up – who I’ll marry. How about you?”
“I don’t know if I will marry anyone,” says Diana and pulls a face.
Caroline can’t imagine that. In her world, you grow up and get married, that’s how it works. “Someone nice,” she says, building cloud castles above her head. “Maybe a doctor or a vicar.”
“Not a vicar, surely?” says Diana, wrinkling her nose as she finishes securing the loose button on the blouse in her hands. “All the vicars I know are awfully old, and they’d probably have to practise their sermons on you. What a horrid fate.”
Caroline shakes her head. “They can’t all start old.”
“Hmm,” says Diana, unconvinced. She sighs and searches around in her mending basket. “No need to worry about it yet. You don’t meet anyone in a prison like this. Not men, anyway.”
Caroline imagines her future – neat, like her sewing, careful stitches in a row, all leading to a comforting end, as planned. “After school, I meant, silly.”
“Yes,” said Diana. “I know. But Mother talks about it often enough as it is, and she always has such beastly ideas. Let’s pretend we’ll never leave.”
Caroline laughs. “I thought you said school was a prison?”
“Exactly,” says Diana, poking out her tongue. “Prisons never let you go, do they?”
“I won’t mind,” Caroline says. “I’m looking forward to it.”
1935
Caroline wakes, pressing her face into the pillow that’s still damp with her tears. She wishes the nightmare will go away but knows it won’t. If only she could live in a world where she hadn’t married Edward, or one where she loves him, and not Jack. She so nearly had.
She holds her breath at the thought of Edward, not wanting to wake him, and lies there with her eyes closed; rigid. She pretends to be asleep for hours, until it grows light and he gets up and leaves. Only then can she breathe and move again; the immediate weight of her guilt lifting enough to let her rise.
She’d wanted to please her parents; she’d wanted to make everyone happy, and somehow all she’s done is made everyone unhappy – Jack, Edward, herself, and Mother and Father too. It should have been so easy. Her parents know Edward’s family, the Longs; they live in the next village. He’s perfectly nice and respectable – everything she thought she wanted.
Jack, on the other hand, is not quite the thing. He’s only a police sergeant. She doesn’t even know how it happened, how love’s dart hit its mark at a village dance Nancy Long dragged her to. She’d worked so hard to persuade herself to believe what she felt matched the pattern she wanted, and now here she is. She’s ruined everything.
She can’t go back; to leave Edward for Jack would be a shocking sin, and yet every day she stays and works at making herself believe she loves Edward kills more of her soul. She’s cold all the time, she feels sick, and there’s a sharp sting in her heart, right where love’s inconvenient missile left its mark.
Caroline weeps.
1961
The world is falling apart. Arrows might as well rain from the skies. Parliament is rubble and stone, and so many people are missing or dead. Caroline doesn’t know where Jack is, but she fears the worst. The rest of her family are safe as yet. She does what she’s always done and tries her best to help everyone she can. She and shelters strays and rebels before sending them on to Diana in Birmingham.
She’s got contacts from Jack’s work, too, and that’s how she even manages to pull off a rescue. She’s always felt she owed Edward a debt. It’s a bitter thing to only repay it now he’s dead, but she’s certain he’d have thanked her for this. She does what no one else can do – she finds Julia.
Maybe it’s all only too little, too late, but isn’t that better than nothing at all?
***