Anathema sat among the trampled flowers. She made soft clicking noises as she studied them. Her sister was angry, very angry. But why? Ana wondered where she had gone.
She would come back. She always did.
So the darkling did not worry. After a time she picked up the torn remnants of one of the flowers and started to chew on it. It soothed her. The taste of her sister's anger. She would remember this.
This wasn't normal.
For weeks, Ava had been ignoring Dinah at best and downright malevolent towards her at worst.
Dinah never spoke to Daddy nor Mama about it directly — they wouldn't believe her. Nor did she bring it up to her brothers — they wouldn't understand.
She tried to distract herself, tried to pretend as if everything was fine. She sunk her head down into prayer and the study of the world around her, which, as she grew, she had begun to take more seriously. She sought knowledge about the pretty flowers and rocks she picked, the creatures who lived in the waters and sandbanks and woodlands. She grew smarter as she did taller, as little freckles began to dot her sunkissed face and the last weeks of summer began to set in.
She prayed; oh, how she prayed, and she had still received no answer.
The seedling of doubt had been planted. Doubt in Mama and Daddy and her brothers, doubt in the big wide world Gramma Towhee promised was waiting for her. Doubt in God.
When feral darkling Ana is spotted among the fields, flowers trampled beneath her and a stem lodged between her molars, Dinah thinks very little of it.
You shouldn't eat plants you don't know the name of,
she is guarded, short in her greeting. She keeps her distance and her tail low, her big blue eyes narrowed into slits. She doesn't smile, for with all she knew, this one, too, could turn on her. they can hurt you. It's not safe.
It was one of the older children. Ana looked up but did not stop chewing. She tilted her head. Hurt. Yes, she knew hurt. She knew harsh sunlight and cold looks and the silence of siblings living like shades. The flowers did not hurt.
She swallowed the petals and clicked once. Dinah's eyes were such a pretty blue, like the sea. Pretty but so cold.
Hardly even an acknowledgment is given by the darkling. Dinah's lips press into a flat line. Then, she pads in one, two circles, coming to a plop just beside her little sister. A stab of guilt dissolves and eats at the lining of her gut as those little eyes peer up at her. Even with everything between her and Ava, it wasn't really the fault of the other three, right?
She had been trying. Let her try again.
I don't want you to get hurt,
she mumbles, pushing her nose into the shoulder of the oddity. She scans what remained of the other crushed flowers, a paw ghosting over the brittle stems and pruning petals, scattered with reckless abandon. Her heart twists in her chest. did you do this?
The air around Dinah turned forlorn; heavy, and Ana was too young to know how to hold this burden. She reached for another crushed flower. This time she chewed more slowly.
When the scarlet girl questioned her, Ana shook her head, hardly noting the touch. She dug her claws under the mess of crushed flowers and lifted a few of them; they stood, within the loosest definition of the word. All bent and torn, destined to die by day's end. She stared at them, understanding for the first time what it was to break a thing beyond all repair.
Tears filled her eyes.
If there was one thing Dinah knew, it was that no matter who it was, she did not like to see others cry.
Ana's eyes now gleamed with something so heavy, so shattered, a revelation swirling in her little mind. Dinah resolutely crouches down further, nose pressing now to the side of her little muzzle. It's okay,
and she didn't know what exactly she was soothing her for, but that did not matter. what's wrong? Is it the flowers? Do you want new ones?
She reaches a paw outward in search of her sibling's, if she'd allow it.
Dinah touched her. The sensation of it was foreign, startling, but not unwelcome; Ana was unused to the touch of any but her littermates, both by circumstance and by choice. She went very still. Her tears slowed and then stopped.
New flowers. Ana clicked once; twice. Then she nodded. Flower,
She whispered, half to herself. Her nose dipped toward Dinah's paw where it was pressed against her own, and she kept her muzzle there, holding this point of contact between them.
Ana wanted new flowers! Okay,
Dinah gives a determined nod, a tiny smile cracking the reserved monotone of her features. Perhaps this meant they could bond — be sisters, girls together, where Dinah had no others.
She allows the touch of her paw and gives the crown of Ana's little head an encouraging tap with a cold nose, followed by a little snuffle as her tail begins to beat into a wag. what kinda flowers do you like, Ana? We'll go find 'em together!
Ana tilted her head at that, deep in thought for a moment. What kind of flowers did she like? Her gaze drifted down to the trampled petals beneath her paws. She touched one, then another — and another. She liked all of the flowers.
So she gathered up a few varieties of crumpled flowers and let them fall back down to the ground. She looked at Dinah to see if she understood. Then she rose to her feet, picked a direction, and unceremoniously bolted off, sure that they would find flowers somewhere! It didn't occur to her at all to wait for Dinah.
concluding this for trade purposes!
Ana makes a haphazard gesture to the crumpled flowers, and as Dinah had bent down to look at them closer — did she want more of the same ones? — she makes a break for it. Confused at first, it then occurs to her that perhaps Ana wanted her to follow!
Tentatively, she trots after her, head curiously lowered to the ground and tail thwacking her heels. You gotta slow down,
she snarks, though this time, her tone is much lighter. Playful, even, a billowing giggle fluttering from between her lips. C'mon, this way. We'll go over by the tidepools. Cool stuff grows over there.
The flowers, she thought, were what looked to be beach peas and white heathers, and so she sought the identifiable shapes as the pair toddles eastward. Through the thicket and back out into the open grassy sands, the sound of gulls squawking just overhead; two sisters, together.
Maybe things could be alright.