estdeus_innobis | We're coming through the rye

The time we have been waiting for. After sunset.

I put on a purple dress, to help me be brave. I grew out of my favourite one - I grow out of everything so fast - but Mama got me a new one. It's meant to be for going to parties, but I won't be going to any more of them. But I don't want to think about that right now. It makes my stomach hurt.

Mama made me go to bed not too long ago. She says that even though I'm a big girl now, I still need lots of sleep. I always argue with Mama about bed time, so I made sure to argue this time too, so she wouldn't think anything was strange. And I made my mind quieten down when I was lying in bed, so she'd think I was falling asleep. Mama's clever. But I know lots of tricks now. I can hide my thoughts, if I want. So I got up, and I got dressed, and I snuck out. Father told me I would know how to, when I needed to, and he was right.

So I go out of the house, and I go towards the tower. I have to walk through the field to get there, and the grass is so high. It looks creepy in the dark. But I know nothing will happen to me, because Father is watching. He wouldn't let anything happen, not before I do what he wants me to do. But I'm still scared, all the same.

~~[Open to Iblis]~~
[closed]

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It is time. I have been waiting for this moment since my Fall. The breath in this body shudders, its heart fluttering. I hear her footfall on the stairs.

"Hello, daughter."

She looks up at me, and her bottom lip trembles. Then her eyes narrow.

"Don't wear that body."

"I thought you might find it comforting," I say, and she shakes her head firmly once. And so I put aside the Kent shape and wear Tanwen instead, who is not so very much taller than Rose is now.

"You've grown again," I say sweetly, and smile at her, pinch her cheek gently. "And you came. You are a good girl, Rose."

"I'm not. But I'm Mama's girl, and so I'm going to save her." She looks at me very seriously. "You have to promise you won't hurt her after, not ever."

"Cross my heart," I say, and she shakes her head.

"A real promise." She holds out her hand, palm up, and I nod, surprised but pleased. She is my daughter, truly, for all her human weakness. I scratch my nail along her palm and blood springs up. She does not cry out, and I nod, approving, then cut my own palm. I press them hand-to-hand.

"I swear," I say, "I will not harm your mother." I feel the flicker of blood between us like flame.

I breathe out, relieved. At least that's okay. I know he can't break that promise. I can feel it in the blood. I hold my hand out, trying not to get blood on my dress, though I guess that won't matter too soon.

"Do you understand why you are doing this?" Father asks, in that sweet voice he's got when he's being Auntie Tammy.

"Because... Because you own Mama's death, and so you could use her as a sacrifice. And you need a sacrifice. But I can give you my death instead." My chest feels tight and strange.

"And this is your own choice? You know that you could say no, and I would let you go away unharmed?"

But you wouldn't let Mama go, I think. I don't know if it's a free choice if you'd hurt her, because I can't live if he'd hurt her when I could save her. But I just nod. Father looks at me for a while, and nods.

"The maiden sacrifice is usually older... Your mind is so far advanced of your body, darling. But for this ritual, appearance matters, too. Things should look as they have been foretold. I thought perhaps to wait a little longer to do this, a year or two, and you would have aged enough, but matters have changed."

I think about having another year with Mama, and I almost start crying, but I make myself not. I don't want Father to see me cry.

"Would you like to grow up, Rose?" Father asks, quite nicely, and I nod, suspicious.

"Of course I do," and she puts her little white hand on my head and -

It hurts a lot. I can feel things changing inside me, growing and stretching, and I scream, I do. And then suddenly I'm taller than Auntie Tammy, just a little.

"There," she says, smiling. "That looks right."

Rose is an adolescent girl now, blossom-fresh and untouched, the kind of maiden who would be sacrificed to dragons, once upon a time.

"I feel strange," she says, running her hands over her face and neck. She moves them down, and her eyes widen in a comical fashion as she finds her breasts.

"You'll get cold like that," I say sweetly. "But I think you'll fit into something of mine," and I find her a simple white dress (http://cache.theoutnet.com/images/products/62711/62711_in_l.jpg).

"We look like sisters," I say, tucking her arm in mine, and I conjure forth a mirror so she can see us, both pale and black-haired, small and pretty.

"I'm glad I got to see what it'd be like to grow up," Rose says after a time.

"And now you'll be this age always," I say, and kiss her cheek. I feel her tremble. "It won't take long," I comfort her. "But we should go now. It's time."

I feel strange on my new longer legs, walking. But - It feels like I was - meant to be this way. My thoughts feel sharper, somehow. Is this what it feels like to be grown up?

I'm still scared, though. That doesn't go away.

A breeze has come up as we walk down to the river, and the hairs on the back of my arms stand up. It's too dark to see them well, but I think there are more of them now. I pinch underneath my armpit and find there's a little bit of hair there, like fuzz on a baby's head. It feels strange, too.

"The wind's changing," says Father. "You can feel it too, can't you?"

I nod. I can. It's warmer, and it smells of - sand and salt.

"I wish you didn't want to do this," I say, as we get to the bridge.

"If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride," says Father brightly, then looks more serious. "I know, dear child. But it is what I have always wanted." She pauses and looks at me, cocks her head. "If you believe I am beginning the end of the world, why not just let me kill your mother? Since all this will be ended soon anyway."

"Because - you might not succeed," I say. My skin shivers, afraid of what she'll say, but she just laughs.

"You get your optimism from your mother. Here." She lifts her skirt, and untucks a knife (http://pirates.missiledine.com/images/daggers/arabdagger.jpg) from a belt around her waist.

"It's very beautiful," I say, looking at it. It is. "Is it - is it sharp?" I don't want it to be blunt, because it'll take longer.

"Sharp and true as love," says Father, and kisses me on the mouth. "You know what to do."

She walks to the other side of the bridge. I'm glad. I don't want to look at her. Instead I take a breath and walk across to the carnival side. Father's making a point, I think, having me do it here. A message.

"I'm sorry, Mama," I whisper. I have to hold the blade for a while to stop it shaking, and then I lift it to my throat.

I feel it when she cuts, even before I smell her blood. It is like a long sharp pain through me like a sliver of glass pressed into skin.

There is a silence after her body crumples, and the night is darker than it has ever been, all the lights in town and across the carnival briefly extinguished. I walk across the bridge, keeping my steps quiet to match the silence of the night. Rose is Snow White, crimson staining her white dress and her black her fanned behind her. I take the knife from her hand and fold her hands across her chest, shut her eyes.

Out of that heavy silence a great peal of thunder rolls, and then the ground beneath me shakes, and shakes, and the bridge rattles and collapses into the river. Excolo's first earthquake; but perhaps not its last.

Across the meadow, a single light goes on in what I know is Management's wagon.

"Come, reap," I say, and walk away.

We're coming through the rye

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