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rainbowfic2025-06-20 11:53 am
verylongfarewell) wrote in rainbowfic2025-06-20 11:53 am
techelet #10; zebradorite #5 | prodigal; the lover of lilith
Name: Prodigal
Story: The Lover of Lilith
Colors: Techelet (#10: mechilah/forgiveness) and zebradorite (#5: parsley / sage / rosemary / thyme)
Supplies and Styles: Graffiti (parents theme until end-june), life drawing, modeling clay, frame
Word Count: ~1000
Rating: PG
Warnings: Themes of being shunned by homophobic parents and reconciling after this.
____________________
PRODIGAL
His face bears the lines of wisdom, of course, for the Lord has shaped him, his features as he ages as well.
What sits before Mary now, in her little house, bought by him so many years ago for the worth of ten prize sheep, is indeed her father, but it is also a man of earth and mud. One is, by divine decree, deemed infallible. The other made a mistake of himself, staining the world forever in his fall. That is what it means, to be a son of Adam.
Likewise, Mary is a daughter of Eve, but more than that, she is the lover of Lilith.
The question which hangs between them, proud Joachim and her, on this hot summer’s afternoon, when Esther is helping the neighbor count his chickens, nowhere to be seen or found, is whether Mary remains his daughter still, too. Yes, Joachim’s. As well as the Lord’s.
She has been a prodigal for so long, she does not remember the answer.
It has been fourteen years now, since Mary was shown away and her daughter was born. The proof is, as always, the girl herself. Lilith only stays the night, the days are her own and Mary has seen how Esther is beginning to look to the heavens when dusk falls and the stars come out. Like a bird taking measure, ready to spread its wings and fly.
Mary knows what it means.
Perhaps that is the reason, she is not surprised that her father has come. Everything happens in accordance, isn’t that so?
It always did. It always has.
She smiles at him and looks at his offering, sitting in a basket between them. Five big musht lie in their heap of scales and still beating tails, freshly caught in the nearby Galilee Sea. He has travelled for her sake, or at least paid someone to undertake the journey; make pace, he must have told them. The fish must not have gone bad upon your arrival.
He would say, because too much else has already done so.
“Father,” she replies, taking the basket and setting it aside, “I thank you for this gift, it shall feed us for days.”
Because Lilith will bring her ten fish more by midnight, always doubling any provisions Mary receives, to make sure they are both well fed, her lover and her child, that they are clothed, safe and sound.
Her father provides the foundation, whereas Mary’s lover provides all the rest. Surely that must be the definition of ‘leaving your father’s house’. Surely, her father should be rightly satisfied.
“You have been missing from our hearts, Mary,” is Joachim’s response. He bows his head towards her, as if trying in tiny stages to bridge the distance between them, the chasm made from mud and sand and soil. The materials of man. Mary holds out both hands, reaching from the other side. Yet, there is still empty space between their bodies, their chests where their hearts have been lain into them.
“If your heart beats, I am still there,” she says. The torn curtain that is Lilith’s child in their streets, counting chickens and uttering prophesies with equal accuracy, continues to let out the truths of life, like a broken altar, a box of horrors someone forgot to put the lid back on. Her daughter has been called worse things, naturally. She has been likened to the women of legend, no one understanding how true and how false such a statement is.
She is just a girl, Mary’s and Lilith’s daughter. She is just a child. A young woman, but a child.
Nevertheless, so was Mary once, and look what has become of her. A stranger to her father, he brings her fish, like a hostess gift. She lets her hands drop to her lap, her tunic folding beneath the weight of her arms. The cover on her head feels like a layer of protection that she would desperately wish she didn’t need.
“I am not dead yet,” replies her father slowly. “Does that mean there is still time?”
Looking at him with stars in her eyes, it is no turn of phrase, Lilith put the celestial bodies there, the first time Mary was made hers, Mary smiles, bright and wide and leans forward, grasping his hands, large and coarse and weathered, in her own across the gulf that is an innate part of human existence. To always grow apart from that and from those they long to be with. Whether it is Eden, God or God’s spitting image, the figure of the father.
As she has been waiting for the day when Esther would discover her wings and fly, away, away, away, Mary has been waiting for this moment, when her father would come to her, arms open, for neither he nor Mary can spread their wings or fluff their feathers or fight with talons at the ready, what they fight with instead is time, and he would embrace her and let her return home once more.
Mary has been waiting, patiently.
Tenderly, her father folds his hand over hers, turns it into a grip that is not lonely, but shared. Joined. Mary lets herself be held. It has been since the fall of darkness that someone last did.
Thinking of the fish, she decides to use her fifteen fish, ten of them Lilith’s, to feed her family, the coming week, not just her daughter, not her daughter at all, as a matter of fact, but the whole extended body of it. She knows there shall be enough, for by the end of the day, Esther does not come home and all she leaves of evidence as to where she has gone is brown feathers in the chicken coop that do not belong to hens.
So, Mary crosses the chasm, she crosses a sea as wide as Galilee’s own, and she returns to her father’s house, bringing food, first. Herbs and fish cut into filets, cut into halves.
And bringing herself like an additional offering, in case the first is not enough.
Story: The Lover of Lilith
Colors: Techelet (#10: mechilah/forgiveness) and zebradorite (#5: parsley / sage / rosemary / thyme)
Supplies and Styles: Graffiti (parents theme until end-june), life drawing, modeling clay, frame
Word Count: ~1000
Rating: PG
Warnings: Themes of being shunned by homophobic parents and reconciling after this.
____________________
His face bears the lines of wisdom, of course, for the Lord has shaped him, his features as he ages as well.
What sits before Mary now, in her little house, bought by him so many years ago for the worth of ten prize sheep, is indeed her father, but it is also a man of earth and mud. One is, by divine decree, deemed infallible. The other made a mistake of himself, staining the world forever in his fall. That is what it means, to be a son of Adam.
Likewise, Mary is a daughter of Eve, but more than that, she is the lover of Lilith.
The question which hangs between them, proud Joachim and her, on this hot summer’s afternoon, when Esther is helping the neighbor count his chickens, nowhere to be seen or found, is whether Mary remains his daughter still, too. Yes, Joachim’s. As well as the Lord’s.
She has been a prodigal for so long, she does not remember the answer.
It has been fourteen years now, since Mary was shown away and her daughter was born. The proof is, as always, the girl herself. Lilith only stays the night, the days are her own and Mary has seen how Esther is beginning to look to the heavens when dusk falls and the stars come out. Like a bird taking measure, ready to spread its wings and fly.
Mary knows what it means.
Perhaps that is the reason, she is not surprised that her father has come. Everything happens in accordance, isn’t that so?
It always did. It always has.
She smiles at him and looks at his offering, sitting in a basket between them. Five big musht lie in their heap of scales and still beating tails, freshly caught in the nearby Galilee Sea. He has travelled for her sake, or at least paid someone to undertake the journey; make pace, he must have told them. The fish must not have gone bad upon your arrival.
He would say, because too much else has already done so.
“Father,” she replies, taking the basket and setting it aside, “I thank you for this gift, it shall feed us for days.”
Because Lilith will bring her ten fish more by midnight, always doubling any provisions Mary receives, to make sure they are both well fed, her lover and her child, that they are clothed, safe and sound.
Her father provides the foundation, whereas Mary’s lover provides all the rest. Surely that must be the definition of ‘leaving your father’s house’. Surely, her father should be rightly satisfied.
“You have been missing from our hearts, Mary,” is Joachim’s response. He bows his head towards her, as if trying in tiny stages to bridge the distance between them, the chasm made from mud and sand and soil. The materials of man. Mary holds out both hands, reaching from the other side. Yet, there is still empty space between their bodies, their chests where their hearts have been lain into them.
“If your heart beats, I am still there,” she says. The torn curtain that is Lilith’s child in their streets, counting chickens and uttering prophesies with equal accuracy, continues to let out the truths of life, like a broken altar, a box of horrors someone forgot to put the lid back on. Her daughter has been called worse things, naturally. She has been likened to the women of legend, no one understanding how true and how false such a statement is.
She is just a girl, Mary’s and Lilith’s daughter. She is just a child. A young woman, but a child.
Nevertheless, so was Mary once, and look what has become of her. A stranger to her father, he brings her fish, like a hostess gift. She lets her hands drop to her lap, her tunic folding beneath the weight of her arms. The cover on her head feels like a layer of protection that she would desperately wish she didn’t need.
“I am not dead yet,” replies her father slowly. “Does that mean there is still time?”
Looking at him with stars in her eyes, it is no turn of phrase, Lilith put the celestial bodies there, the first time Mary was made hers, Mary smiles, bright and wide and leans forward, grasping his hands, large and coarse and weathered, in her own across the gulf that is an innate part of human existence. To always grow apart from that and from those they long to be with. Whether it is Eden, God or God’s spitting image, the figure of the father.
As she has been waiting for the day when Esther would discover her wings and fly, away, away, away, Mary has been waiting for this moment, when her father would come to her, arms open, for neither he nor Mary can spread their wings or fluff their feathers or fight with talons at the ready, what they fight with instead is time, and he would embrace her and let her return home once more.
Mary has been waiting, patiently.
Tenderly, her father folds his hand over hers, turns it into a grip that is not lonely, but shared. Joined. Mary lets herself be held. It has been since the fall of darkness that someone last did.
Thinking of the fish, she decides to use her fifteen fish, ten of them Lilith’s, to feed her family, the coming week, not just her daughter, not her daughter at all, as a matter of fact, but the whole extended body of it. She knows there shall be enough, for by the end of the day, Esther does not come home and all she leaves of evidence as to where she has gone is brown feathers in the chicken coop that do not belong to hens.
So, Mary crosses the chasm, she crosses a sea as wide as Galilee’s own, and she returns to her father’s house, bringing food, first. Herbs and fish cut into filets, cut into halves.
And bringing herself like an additional offering, in case the first is not enough.
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I like the image of Esther transforming into a bird here. I guess since this is Frame, the rest is probably not about Esther, though?
There's some stuff in here that feels a lot like modern Christian ideas that I think doesn't really fit with these specific characters, but I don't know if you're taking feedback about that kind of thing.
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I'm open to feedback! I'm writing this as someone with a Christian background, even if I don't practice anymore, so I'm not surprised it snuck in there.
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Ok, cool, I just wanted to check beforehand.
I thought this might be some reference to God the Father, but on second thought, I'm not actually sure that's what you meant, but there's no real sentiment that fathers are infallible in Judaism. You might mention the commandment to honor your mother and father, though, which is pretty important.
This seems like a kind of original sin thing, which isn't really a thing in Judaism. I don't know how much this idea appeals to you, but I was sort of thinking that in this capacity of her thinking about him as her father, you could compare him to the three fathers of the Jewish people, Abraham, Isaac, and especially Jacob, since they all had their good moments and their flaws.
Generally you can't be like, excommunicated from Judaism, it's considered a permanent thing unless you specifically convert to another religion. Even if you break a lot of laws, you're just a Jew who has to do a lot of repentance. But if Joachim thought she was worshipping Lilith as a god (or if she thought he might think that), before or instead of the Jewish god, especially if she had something that could be construed as an idol, that would be Big Sacrilege and he might consider that to be converting to a pagan religion. Note that just believing in her existence as a supernatural entity isn't the same thing as worshipping her, pretty much everyone in this time period believed in the existence of everyone else's gods and that was normal. (It was also fairly normal to worship other people's gods, you know, just in case, don't want to get on their bad side, but what actually made the Jews unique here was that they were following commandments that specifically said they weren't allowed to do that. So it was a big concern of theirs back then, that people might give into peer pressure and start worshipping pagan gods out of fear, like what happened in the Golden Calf story.)
And a more minor note, but Jews don't really conceptualize God as a father figure so much. The father figure is generally Jacob (=Israel), hence "Children of Israel" and so forth.
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I also like the idea of Mary being seen as someone who has worshipped Lilith as a god (which kind of fits with the original short story, so that's a good take) and therefore experiencing excommunication. I will definitely work with this going forward!
All your thoughts were very educational, so that you for educating me. I'll keep this in mind as I write more.