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rainbowfic2021-10-27 09:37 pm
thisbluespirit) wrote in rainbowfic2021-10-27 09:37 pm
Vienna Orange #16 [Divide & Rule]
Name: Twice Around the Cabbage Patch
Story: Divide & Rule/Heroes of the Revolution
Colors: Vienna Orange #16 (This is where you come from, the anchor that you can't leave behind
Supplies and Styles: Miniature Collection Paint-by-Numbers fromshadowsong26 (change is hard; change is sometimes maybe not worth it) + Graffiti (For October Bingo square “leaf”)
Word Count: 4 x 100
Rating: PG
Warnings: mentions of loss/death, hints of a dystopia.
Notes: 1960s/1970s; Julia Graves.
Summary: Julia finds her solace in both life and death.
***
i.
Julia sows and tends the vegetables and herbs. Everyone has their allotted tasks here, and it’s good to have something constructive to do.
Is it freedom, though? She’s out in the fresh air, whipped by salt wind strong enough to banish every painful memory. But she’s trapped on this tiny remote island, as much as she was in a cell.
Still, this is different. Easier. Her choice is made. She can’t run away, or rebel or conform. She’s here and there’s work to do; good work. That’s all.
Roots grow and shoots break through the unfriendly earth. Julia breathes again.
ii.
Cabbages are not sufficient to keep one sane. Julia decides that almost immediately. The solidity of earth alone is not enough to ground her. So, she summons a ghost – takes him with her to the cabbage patch.
It’s partly Edward’s fault, anyway, so it’s only fair. Nobody can keep their mind entirely intact in this nightmare. Julia thinks it’s better to choose one’s madness.
“I’m not sure that’s a sensible attitude,” Edward says.
Julia lifts her head, seeing him only through the mist of a spring tide. She shrugs. “It works for me.”
What does he know anyway? He’s dead.
iii
“What about Emily?” he asks. He’s invisible today, barely a wisp of white under an unrelenting blue sky.
Maybe she should have talked to the plants instead. Julia scowls at the dandelion root she’s fighting. “I tried.” She pushes hair back from her face, leaving muddy streaks on her cheeks.
She did; she even left the island to go and see, but the Cardews had moved elsewhere years ago. “I was locked up, you know.”
She kills her weed with the trowel; mutters, “And whose idea was all that anyway?”
When she looks up, he’s gone; burnt away by sunlight.
iv
Julia can’t always mourn.
The island is all rocks and sky – grey, wet and windswept or cold and crystal bright; then summer with its endless days. It’s beautiful, too – wild, unspoiled. She tastes salt in the air.
She’s not locked in the dark any more. Her vegetables grow and flourish; she’s a useful member of her society. It feels good – and it tires her enough that she sleeps better than she deserves.
She’s still enough her old self to laugh – and in this last warm glow of autumn, to dance around the cabbages with a ghost of her own making.
***
Story: Divide & Rule/Heroes of the Revolution
Colors: Vienna Orange #16 (This is where you come from, the anchor that you can't leave behind
Supplies and Styles: Miniature Collection Paint-by-Numbers from
shadowsong26 (change is hard; change is sometimes maybe not worth it) + Graffiti (For October Bingo square “leaf”)Word Count: 4 x 100
Rating: PG
Warnings: mentions of loss/death, hints of a dystopia.
Notes: 1960s/1970s; Julia Graves.
Summary: Julia finds her solace in both life and death.
***
i.
Julia sows and tends the vegetables and herbs. Everyone has their allotted tasks here, and it’s good to have something constructive to do.
Is it freedom, though? She’s out in the fresh air, whipped by salt wind strong enough to banish every painful memory. But she’s trapped on this tiny remote island, as much as she was in a cell.
Still, this is different. Easier. Her choice is made. She can’t run away, or rebel or conform. She’s here and there’s work to do; good work. That’s all.
Roots grow and shoots break through the unfriendly earth. Julia breathes again.
ii.
Cabbages are not sufficient to keep one sane. Julia decides that almost immediately. The solidity of earth alone is not enough to ground her. So, she summons a ghost – takes him with her to the cabbage patch.
It’s partly Edward’s fault, anyway, so it’s only fair. Nobody can keep their mind entirely intact in this nightmare. Julia thinks it’s better to choose one’s madness.
“I’m not sure that’s a sensible attitude,” Edward says.
Julia lifts her head, seeing him only through the mist of a spring tide. She shrugs. “It works for me.”
What does he know anyway? He’s dead.
iii
“What about Emily?” he asks. He’s invisible today, barely a wisp of white under an unrelenting blue sky.
Maybe she should have talked to the plants instead. Julia scowls at the dandelion root she’s fighting. “I tried.” She pushes hair back from her face, leaving muddy streaks on her cheeks.
She did; she even left the island to go and see, but the Cardews had moved elsewhere years ago. “I was locked up, you know.”
She kills her weed with the trowel; mutters, “And whose idea was all that anyway?”
When she looks up, he’s gone; burnt away by sunlight.
iv
Julia can’t always mourn.
The island is all rocks and sky – grey, wet and windswept or cold and crystal bright; then summer with its endless days. It’s beautiful, too – wild, unspoiled. She tastes salt in the air.
She’s not locked in the dark any more. Her vegetables grow and flourish; she’s a useful member of her society. It feels good – and it tires her enough that she sleeps better than she deserves.
She’s still enough her old self to laugh – and in this last warm glow of autumn, to dance around the cabbages with a ghost of her own making.
***
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