Grey #1, Jade #6, Ivory #10

[shadowsong26]

Name: shadowsong26
Story: Daisy Petals
'Verse: Feredar
Colors: Grey #1. shades of grey, Jade #6. Towards evening my thoughts became uncomfortable, Ivory #10. I love you just the way you are.
Supplies and Materials: miniature collection, photography, oils, stain, modeling clay, novelty beads ("Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it." -- Mark Twain), yarn (viewed without 3D glasses), beading wire, glitter
Word Count: 389
Rating: R
Characters: Fera
Warnings: Genocide and turning a blind eye to it, murder of a child, Tana
Notes: Constructive criticism welcome, as always. I'm not sure this turned out quite the way I wanted to. Last Grey


I love him.

She places the petals on the floor,
putting them in neat little stacks--
she has a whole bouquet to work through.
She'll keep sorting until she runs out,
or one of the stacks falls over.

I love him not.

She isn't sure why she went there,
went to the prison, the prison where
they're kept before execution. She even
watched one of them die, with a sort of
bleak fascination and horror.

I love him.

But he came to her last night,
and he was kind, and gentle--he always is
with her, anyway, and he leaves her
breathless, and kisses her with such softness
that she could forgive him anything.

I love him not.

She can't, however, erase what she saw--
his favorite sister, cutting that poor child's throat,
smiling, licking the blood off the knife,
and she knows he ordered it. Maybe not how,
maybe not the cruelty, but he wanted it done.

I love him.

And yet--and yet, she knows why he does it.
Even if he never talks politics with her, she knows.
She's not as oblivious as they think. She understands
his fears, his rage--uncles, grandparents, mother gone.
That makes it easier to stomach.

I love him not.

She shreds her stacks of petals--
she can't decide this on a whim, a little girl's fortune-telling trick.
She is a woman grown now, a Queen,
and her husband--her husband has done such terrible things,
things she is powerless to stop, even if she wanted to.

I love him.

He is glorious in victory, gracious in defeat,
he is charming and kind behind closed doors, if cold,
he is passionate about his beliefs, and
he believes he is doing the right thing.
How can she condemn him for that?

I love him not.

Is a Cause enough to justify him?
Are soft looks, soft kisses, soft embraces
apt recompense for hot blood licked off a cold
hard knife? Is it her lack of a child that--
that pushes him to this, to slaughtering others'?

I love him.

But he has always been so warm, so forgiving,
so patient with her. If there has never been love,
if there has never been...
what there has been, has been good.
He is good, he must be.

I love him not.

Good men can do evil things, though,
and that's the question, isn't it. Not if he is
good, which she knows, not if the Purge is evil,
which she knows but which she values more.
And, in the end, she knows, there is no question at all.

I love him.