Tag: Dahlia

Tea time

“Did you come up here to see my son?” the Baroness asked.

Dahlia nodded, even though it wasn’t true. Not that she didn’t like to see him. She came up often enough to do so. But sometimes she had an ulterior motive. And that was the real reason she was up here today. Though she hadn’t expected to be found out so quickly.

“I think he is with Fletcher in his chambers. You know where that is?”

Dahlia nodded again. The Baroness smiled at her, then returned to her drink and papers. Dahlia swallowed.

The woman looked up again. “Would you like some tea, Dahlia? Yellow chrysanthemum.”

Dahlia nodded a third time. Nemissa gestured to another seat as she gave Dahlia her cup.

Completely comfortable, Dahlia took a sip.

A man of many hobbies

“Look what I’ve found!”

The Baron’s son held up some sort of insect. Dahlia wasn’t bothered by it, though it didn’t interest her too much. Winter looked disturbed, though all she did was frown. Summer gasped, gripping at her sister’s skirts. The gasp was high pitched though. That was more likely to make Dahlia wince.

Golden looked outwardly disturbed. “That’s gross. Put that down.”

“I’m not hurting it.”

“But I will if you don’t get it away from me.”

“I think it would be happier on the ground,” Winter added, pushing some of her hair out of her eyes.

The Baron’s son frowned, but then walked off with it to put it somewhere else. Dahlia got up and followed after, to watch as he put it back on a plant. “Why do you like bugs so much?” Dahlia asked.

“I like a lot of things. But showing people fish is harder to do.”

“Fish?”

“This is the fishing capital of… well, everywhere.”

That was true. “Could you show me fish?”

She wasn’t sure what made her ask, but he smiled and Dahlia decided she didn’t really mind having asked.

Hand out (part two)

“Why don’t you talk?” Summer asked, blunt as ever. Winter scowled, swatting after her. But Summer had already run off to look at Dahlia.

Dahlia stared back blankly. “I talk.”

Summer gasped, like it was some big shock. Maybe it was to her, Winter barely understood it. She was certain Dahlia was closer in age to Summer than to her, but Dahlia didn’t act like Summer at all.

“Summer, stop bothering her.” Winter got to her feet, slowly walking over to Summer to be able to grab her hand. If she ran, then Summer would run. Chasing her wasn’t where she wanted to spend her energy today. She looked over at Dahlia. “The Baroness says there are apple trees behind the castle. They pick them occasionally. She wants to know if we want to try to get some before other people do. Apparently they’re ripe now.”

Dahlia shuffled in place, then looked up at her. “Apples?”

Winter held out her hand. “Apples. They’ll taste really good, I think. First ones of the season. What do you say?”

Dahlia didn’t take her hand, but when Winter took Summer to go, she noted that Dahlia followed after.

Hand out (without being literal)

There was a reason that Dahlia didn’t want to go anywhere.

Her head swam. There were people, people everywhere. And that was okay, it really was. But between how many of them there were and the fact that they were moving and she was not… Dahlia didn’t remember where she was. Where she had come from. Where was the orphanage? Where had she thought she was going?

The desire to curl up in a corner was overwhelming, but Dahlia knew that wouldn’t get her back home. She took a few steps forward and tried not to veer into the darkness.

“What are you doing?”

She gasped, wheeling about. There he was, Golden. The boy who pretended he didn’t want to be around them. That didn’t stop him from always being around.

He stared down at her with those sharp eyes. “You’ll be late for dinner if you keep going that way. Suit yourself.”

Golden walked away, likely back to the orphanage. Dahlia trailed after. Part of her wanted to reach out and grab his sleeve. Part of her never wanted to do that, because it reminded her of the travels to get here.

Despite his gruffness, despite not caring, he led her home.

Dahlia could breathe.

*poke*

She couldn’t help it. She reached out an poked him.

At first, he might not have noticed. Then Dahlia was extremely aware of how much he had noticed. He looked down on her, the tall and sturdy form he had, despite having no blood rushing through his veins. He had been cold.

And she had poked him. Dahlia’s blood decided to decorate the insides of her cheeks.

“Did you need something?” he asked. Kindly, maybe.

Dahlia’s mouth worked around air. Then she nodded.

“Don’t be shy.”

He probably didn’t mean that like she acted he did. Even she knew that. But she reached out and poked the undead man once more.

To be one of them

What Golden should have done was say no.

“Here we are!” the heir to the barony exclaimed, throwing the doors open. Or trying to. He didn’t have enough strength to make it impressive, but the large door still creaked open enough for the five of them to get in.

Winter kept her sister under the most amount of control that seemed possible. Why was Golden here? He would leave as soon as the others entered the room. Winter bit her lower lip. Summer followed suit. “This is…?”

“Where we have our lessons.” The Baroness’ son moved in. “Or do other things. If I wait for him here, he usually shows up before long.”

He gestured for them to come in. Or, mostly, Dahlia to come in. Dahlia skittered forward, eyes big (as normal). Winter and Summer followed.

“Coming, Golden?”

He could leave now. But there was something about being called Golden and knowing that no one knew to call him otherwise that made him think he could stay a little bit longer.

And so Golden did.

Punishment for being

They held his head. He tried to flail, he tried to pull back, but he didn’t have the strength to take on the adult which held him down. Because he was a child and this was what happened because of what he was, because of-

Golden’s eyes snapped open. Had he screamed? He hoped not. In case he had though, he got up and left the room before someone might react, before someone might come for him. He didn’t want to go outside, it was still too cold.

He nearly walked right over Dahlia in the dark. She stared up at him with those wide eyes. Her eyes almost always seemed wide, even when squinting. Her hands gripped at her sleeves, fists so tight that her knuckles had gone white.

It was like she knew.

Golden walked by, leaving her as alone as he wanted to be.

Without a reason

“She’s the Baroness of Castlehaven.”

When the children realized this, most actually comprehended what that meant. The fact she kept coming here didn’t make sense, because she was the Baroness. Glad found it suspicious. What could she want with them? She kept coming here, she kept bothering them all, she had to want something, she had to be expecting something from them.

“Why do you think she bothers with us?” asked Winter. Maybe it was to herself and he had just managed to overhear it. She wasn’t talking to him. He didn’t have to respond.

Winter’s sister wasn’t listening, she was playing with a ball. It bounced up against the wall and back towards herself. If she missed it, Winter caught it to toss it back to her.

“Does it matter?” That was the girl he didn’t know the name of. She tended to hug herself and stay in corners. She never bothered him. For a little girl, she was okay.

Winter stared at her sister. “She’s too nice.”

He hadn’t expected that from her. He glanced over, accidentally catching her gaze.

“What do you think, Golden?”

He wanted to retract, to move away, to pull his eyes out and throw them away. But there it was, a name that wasn’t Gladiolus. Something to distance himself from who he used to be.

He wished he had thought of it before. His golden eyes kept on her icy blue ones. “Never trust someone who seems altruistic.”

However, perhaps he should have kept his vocabulary closer to the level of children younger than ten years old.

Washing hair

“That won’t do at all. Did no one offer you a bath?”

Someone had, but Dahlia had made sure to avoid it. There were plenty of other children around. It was easy enough to be overlooked as long as no one saw her.

The woman made a tutting sound with her tongue, looking her over. “I refuse to see hair like this. We will fix it. Come.”

Unfortunately, unlike the adults who watched over the children normally, the woman who would come down to see them, who would come down with that boy with the longest of hair, was harder to be overlooked by. Dahlia followed the woman to the baths despite her hesitance.

The woman with the abundance of hair had her scrub herself down first before she began to work on Dahlia’s hair. Dahlia waited for the tugs, used to them. However, even as her scalp became sore, she felt as though the tugs became less and less painful. The woman was able to put her fingers through it without catching against anything. Dahlia wondered how long they had been in here.

“Much better. Where I come from, hair is a symbol of your life. Make sure to take care of it and it will show the world who you are.”

That didn’t make any sense to Dahlia. All she knew was that she hadn’t been dragged here by her hair and that it didn’t feel like a handle on her head anymore.

She felt new.

When he doesn’t know better

Dahlia hugged her legs to her chest and buried her face into her knees. She stayed like that, hoping no one would find her today. There was nowhere else to go, not that she wanted to go anywhere. She didn’t know what to do anymore.

“Hello?”

Her fingers pressed into her arms, almost to the point where it hurt. Then she peered up in the darkness. The boy that stood before her looked like that woman who was always coming to the orphanage. The woman seemed nice, but adults were like that. Adults always seemed nice. Then you got to know them.

She swallowed. “‘lo.”

“What are you doing?”

The way he spoke made her feel like he came from an entirely different world. Like he was an adult. She didn’t like it. “Sitting.”

The boy nodded. “Oh. Okay.”

Just like that, he sat down next to her. She wanted to tell him to go, but she wouldn’t. She never did anything like that. Because that was always the opportunity others took in order to tell her what she was or wasn’t allowed to do.

For a while, all was quiet but for the sounds of the children outside of the closet. The thin light that came into their crevasse lit upon the string wrapped around his fingers. It was made of rainbows. He held out his fingers and the string attached to them.

“Pinch the x’s.”

She couldn’t stop herself. She reached out to play with the string.