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rainbowfic2025-04-21 04:52 pm
wallwalker) wrote in rainbowfic2025-04-21 04:52 pm
Side B Blackstar 15, Vienna Orange 16
Author: Wallwalker
Story: A Poisoned Olive Branch
Colors: Vienna Orange 16. This is where you come from, the anchor that you can’t leave behind, Side B: Blackstar 15. I'm happy. Hope you're happy, too. I've loved. All I've needed: love. Sordid details following. →Ashes to Ashes (Scary Monsters)
Supplies: Parchment, Resin (Day 1 of 7 Days, 7 Stories forgetyourwordsout.)
Word Count: 1032
Rating: T
Content notes: Refers to past death and potential abuse from families. Also, a story in an Earth-like society where Sedoretu marriages are normalized, though it mentions same-moiety romantic relationships as well.
Summary: Shirya receives something she never wanted to see again... a letter from her mother.
Note: I've written a few more pieces for this universe, mostly for an event last March - if you're curious, the link is here on my personal DW.
---
Sorting the mail had been one of the hardest parts of handling Rich's death. The whole idea of looking for mail that had been meant for their dead husband had left her unwilling to check their P.O. box for days. It wasn't until Marcus came in one day with a plastic bag full of paper and a pained expression that she stopped avoiding it; she wouldn't let her spouses go through that alone.
She'd felt so numb for the past few days, and went through the piles of mail on autopilot. One pile to shred, one to answer - Marcus had quietly volunteered to go through that one first, probably out of guilt for bringing the mail home - and one to throw away.
The shred pile had started growing high enough to tempt Shirya away to start the shredder, when she heard Kris clear their throat. "Hey, Shirya," they said quietly, and when she glanced over she saw them looking up at her. "This one's just addressed to you. Looks personal."
"What? Let me see," she said, and reached out for it - a soft pink envelope printed with stylized roses, covered in stamps. The color told her who it was from, even before she saw the address. It was a letter from her mother.
Shirya stared at it, not sure she believed it at first. But it was her name, and the address hadn't changed at all. It even smelled of roses when she brought it closer to her face. Her mother had always loved roses.
She'd never told her husbands and wife any details about her family. Not after what her mother and father put her through - their own blood, their only full daughter. They'd raised her, alone at first, then with her cousin after Shirya's aunt and her partners had died in an accident; she still called him cousin, but he was really more of a brother to her. And as their children, her parents - especially her mother - had expected them to do as family tradition dictated.
She knew that her mother had only been doing what her family had always done, but it didn't make being expected to follow those traditions less difficult. Her mother had had her entire life planned out since she'd been a little girl. She might've been able to live with it if her mother had been willing to give her any choices in the matter, or had listened to what she'd had to say. If she'd let her say why she hadn't wanted to marry them after meeting them, if she'd trusted her to be able to see that something was off... but even after the scandal had broken, even then, she hadn't been able to accept that she might've misjudged the pair of Evening cousins whose family she'd wanted them to marry into.
Her cousin - the Morning husband in that prospective marriage - had hated the idea of being married into their family too, for his own reason. She'd been the first person whom he had trusted to tell her that he was in love with a girl he'd met in college, a girl that he couldn't marry, not there where the moiety system was so heavily enforced. That had made them allies, even if they didn't agree on everything.
It was only years later, shortly after the wedding where Shirya's only guest had been her best friend from work, that she'd heard from her mother - and that not directly. One of her more distant cousins still talked to her from time to time, though not to her cousin, and she'd sent her the quote from her mother's post, telling her family exactly how she felt about them: "My children are a disappointment to me. I cannot disown them because I cannot forget that I raised them, and that I carried my daughter in my womb for many months... but I also cannot condone what they have chosen to do with their lives."
As much as she hated to admit it, she had to admit that her first reaction had been fury that her mother was treating her the same way she'd treated her cousin - how dare she compare her, with her Morning partner and Evening spouses, to him, who'd married his Morning sweetheart and lived in a place where foreign marriages were tolerated? Just because she'd wanted some control over her life - it had filled her with rage, then shame, because she'd always promised herself that she wouldn't judge him. He'd wanted the same thing she'd wanted - to live the way he had wanted. And she didn't have the right to be angry just because what she'd wanted was closer to what her family might've accepted, because in the end, she hadn't wanted to accept anything but her plans for them.
She took a quick breath, realizing that the others were looking at her. Some of what she'd been feeling must've shown on her face. "It's from my mother," she said, taking another look at the letter.
"Your mother?" Kris's face went sour, forehead wrinkling under candy-apple red hair. "The same mother who wouldn't even send a card for the wedding?"
"Maybe that's the card," Marcus said tentatively - apparently it was his turn to be the optimist. "Maybe she just... took a while to come around."
"No," Shirya said, keeping her voice as steady as she could, reading the postmark. "It was sent after Rich died."
She could feel their eyes on her as she stared. Maybe they didn't understand what this meant. Maybe they didn't realize that her mother was the sort of person who'd send a flowery letter about how sorry she was... then offer a chance to be back in her family's good graces, by breaking off what was left of her marriage and coming home to marry someone else who met her family's approval. It was an olive branch, but it might as well be poison to her, because if she let her mother back into her life, she'd never be free of her again -
"Sweetie," she heard Kris say, "seriously, are you okay?"
"I'm... I'm fine," she said, and put the letter to the side - to where the pile of mail to destroy went. "I gave up on Mother when she told me she'd given up on me. She doesn't get a second chance."
Marcus put a hand on her shoulder, and Kris scooted next to her and wrapped their arm around her waist. She did her best to smile. She missed Rich horribly - she knew they all did - but she still had a husband and wife who loved her. If her mother thought that she was going to just walk away from them and crawl back to do whatever her family wanted, then Shirya was happy to continue to disappoint her.
Story: A Poisoned Olive Branch
Colors: Vienna Orange 16. This is where you come from, the anchor that you can’t leave behind, Side B: Blackstar 15. I'm happy. Hope you're happy, too. I've loved. All I've needed: love. Sordid details following. →Ashes to Ashes (Scary Monsters)
Supplies: Parchment, Resin (Day 1 of 7 Days, 7 Stories for
getyourwordsout.)Word Count: 1032
Rating: T
Content notes: Refers to past death and potential abuse from families. Also, a story in an Earth-like society where Sedoretu marriages are normalized, though it mentions same-moiety romantic relationships as well.
Summary: Shirya receives something she never wanted to see again... a letter from her mother.
Note: I've written a few more pieces for this universe, mostly for an event last March - if you're curious, the link is here on my personal DW.
---
Sorting the mail had been one of the hardest parts of handling Rich's death. The whole idea of looking for mail that had been meant for their dead husband had left her unwilling to check their P.O. box for days. It wasn't until Marcus came in one day with a plastic bag full of paper and a pained expression that she stopped avoiding it; she wouldn't let her spouses go through that alone.
She'd felt so numb for the past few days, and went through the piles of mail on autopilot. One pile to shred, one to answer - Marcus had quietly volunteered to go through that one first, probably out of guilt for bringing the mail home - and one to throw away.
The shred pile had started growing high enough to tempt Shirya away to start the shredder, when she heard Kris clear their throat. "Hey, Shirya," they said quietly, and when she glanced over she saw them looking up at her. "This one's just addressed to you. Looks personal."
"What? Let me see," she said, and reached out for it - a soft pink envelope printed with stylized roses, covered in stamps. The color told her who it was from, even before she saw the address. It was a letter from her mother.
Shirya stared at it, not sure she believed it at first. But it was her name, and the address hadn't changed at all. It even smelled of roses when she brought it closer to her face. Her mother had always loved roses.
She'd never told her husbands and wife any details about her family. Not after what her mother and father put her through - their own blood, their only full daughter. They'd raised her, alone at first, then with her cousin after Shirya's aunt and her partners had died in an accident; she still called him cousin, but he was really more of a brother to her. And as their children, her parents - especially her mother - had expected them to do as family tradition dictated.
She knew that her mother had only been doing what her family had always done, but it didn't make being expected to follow those traditions less difficult. Her mother had had her entire life planned out since she'd been a little girl. She might've been able to live with it if her mother had been willing to give her any choices in the matter, or had listened to what she'd had to say. If she'd let her say why she hadn't wanted to marry them after meeting them, if she'd trusted her to be able to see that something was off... but even after the scandal had broken, even then, she hadn't been able to accept that she might've misjudged the pair of Evening cousins whose family she'd wanted them to marry into.
Her cousin - the Morning husband in that prospective marriage - had hated the idea of being married into their family too, for his own reason. She'd been the first person whom he had trusted to tell her that he was in love with a girl he'd met in college, a girl that he couldn't marry, not there where the moiety system was so heavily enforced. That had made them allies, even if they didn't agree on everything.
It was only years later, shortly after the wedding where Shirya's only guest had been her best friend from work, that she'd heard from her mother - and that not directly. One of her more distant cousins still talked to her from time to time, though not to her cousin, and she'd sent her the quote from her mother's post, telling her family exactly how she felt about them: "My children are a disappointment to me. I cannot disown them because I cannot forget that I raised them, and that I carried my daughter in my womb for many months... but I also cannot condone what they have chosen to do with their lives."
As much as she hated to admit it, she had to admit that her first reaction had been fury that her mother was treating her the same way she'd treated her cousin - how dare she compare her, with her Morning partner and Evening spouses, to him, who'd married his Morning sweetheart and lived in a place where foreign marriages were tolerated? Just because she'd wanted some control over her life - it had filled her with rage, then shame, because she'd always promised herself that she wouldn't judge him. He'd wanted the same thing she'd wanted - to live the way he had wanted. And she didn't have the right to be angry just because what she'd wanted was closer to what her family might've accepted, because in the end, she hadn't wanted to accept anything but her plans for them.
She took a quick breath, realizing that the others were looking at her. Some of what she'd been feeling must've shown on her face. "It's from my mother," she said, taking another look at the letter.
"Your mother?" Kris's face went sour, forehead wrinkling under candy-apple red hair. "The same mother who wouldn't even send a card for the wedding?"
"Maybe that's the card," Marcus said tentatively - apparently it was his turn to be the optimist. "Maybe she just... took a while to come around."
"No," Shirya said, keeping her voice as steady as she could, reading the postmark. "It was sent after Rich died."
She could feel their eyes on her as she stared. Maybe they didn't understand what this meant. Maybe they didn't realize that her mother was the sort of person who'd send a flowery letter about how sorry she was... then offer a chance to be back in her family's good graces, by breaking off what was left of her marriage and coming home to marry someone else who met her family's approval. It was an olive branch, but it might as well be poison to her, because if she let her mother back into her life, she'd never be free of her again -
"Sweetie," she heard Kris say, "seriously, are you okay?"
"I'm... I'm fine," she said, and put the letter to the side - to where the pile of mail to destroy went. "I gave up on Mother when she told me she'd given up on me. She doesn't get a second chance."
Marcus put a hand on her shoulder, and Kris scooted next to her and wrapped their arm around her waist. She did her best to smile. She missed Rich horribly - she knew they all did - but she still had a husband and wife who loved her. If her mother thought that she was going to just walk away from them and crawl back to do whatever her family wanted, then Shirya was happy to continue to disappoint her.
no subject
In this case I went with the original way of assigning moiety (assigned at birth, same as one's biological mother,) although I'm toying with the idea of a trans-moiety movement. In terms of parents, Mother and Father are for birth parents. The canon name for the other parents are Othermother and Otherfather but I haven't decided whether to use that or another term; I think some kids would just use the same word for both, depending on how they were raised, but I do think there would be official documentation using a different title somewhere. Likewise I'm still deciding if I'm going to use the terminology used for children (siblings for the other children of one's biological mother and germanes for the children of their Othermother.)
Shirya's cousin in this case is actually her cousin - her mother's sister's child, whose family died in a tragic boating accident. Shirya's mother was close enough to her sister's family (and wealthy enough) to push for custody. She never adopted him, which is why he's her cousin and not her brother. I went back and forth on that idea a bit. (Also Shirya's biological father is dead, as is her mother's evening wife... her mother and the Morning man that was in their marriage are still registered as part of a marriage, but legally they're in a weird grey area, and how families handle that sort of situation varies a lot. In this case, he didn't have much say in raising the kids after their Evening spouses died.)
Anyway, the rules about gender - two husbands, two wives - are pretty set in the classic sedoretu form, although even Le Guin plays with it a lot. But at some point in this world, thanks to a lot of activism, the "husband" and "wife" roles of a sedoretu were divorced from the actual gender of the people in those roles - which allowed Kris to register as an Evening Wife despite not being a woman. I went into some more of the impact that could have in some of the stuff I wrote last year. I'm debating whether or not to post some of that somewhere; I probably should've used some prompts from here, but at the time I was working on another project. :)
Anyway. Thanks very much for the comment!
no subject
Ahh, thank you for explaining! It is pretty interesting to think that in a sedoretu context, it might make sense to advocate for "husband" and "wife" becoming gender-neutral terms, since they do really define specific social roles in the sedoretu and don't just mean "male spouse" and "female spouse" in that context.