erhaps in my child’s mind I made my mother into far more than what or who she truly was. I was probably all of four years old when she died. My mother was everything that I am not. She was so young, innocent, and full of life. Like me she had dark hair, but unlike me she had blue eyes. Perhaps it was her blue eyes and sweet song that attracted my father, Gan Ceanach. The things I do remember is that she was the one who taught me about the plant spirits. She taught me to interact with them and listen to them. Perhaps it was her innocence that made such a thing natural to a child. In that world, what little I remember of it, I felt safe and loved. The world was full of things that begged exploration, and there was nothing anywhere within it that was not exciting and wondrous to me.
Then, all of that ended.
My mother put me to bed as she always had. Although this night, she was attired in the garb of a Priestess. She was giddy, excited, as I am sure now she thought at last her moment had arrived. She would admitted at last to the High Lady, Morgienne’s inner circle of Priestesses.
“Get some sleep, Lamb, “she breathed a kiss against my brow, “and in the morning when you awake we shall go into the forest and you will at last meet your father.”
Morning came, but my mother was not there. Instead there was Morgienne. Her face was always a cold mask, even when on anyone else pleasure, or displeasure would have shown. There was no compassion there. She informed me that I was to look upon her now as my mother, since my real mother was dead. There was no explanation to the child that I was. There was only the cold, hard truth that my mother was dead. I didn’t understand. All that I know is that I didn’t even cry. I was too stunned to cry.
I took Morgienne’s hand as she led me from our cottage. We went to the funerary grounds and there, dressed in the robes she had been wearing the night before was my mother laying on a pyre of carefully stacked wood, flowers bedecked her body from head to toe. Morgienne led me beside her and took her place on the dais, her dark blue robes rustled softly, punctuating each of her steps. When we stood in front of her throne, she looked down at me and then turned her gaze toward the grounds below where every other priest and priestess had gathered. Some were openly weeping, Others whispered quietly and stared numbly. At last Morgienne nodded to the priest that stood next to the pyre with a lighted torch. He lay the torch against the wood that had been bathed in some sort of aromatic oil that caught fire immediately.
As the flames consumed the pyre and my mother along with it, the tears of the people below turned to wailing, others who had been stoic and not wept now dried their eyes. Was it from the sting of the wood and oil smoke, I wondered, or was it from true emotion? Why wasn’t I weeping? Was I, even then, just as cold as Morgienne? Was the woman whom I had known as my true mother just a dream that I woke up from? To this day, I still have no answer to these questions.
Perhaps I never will.
Muse: Fanny Fae
Fandom: Original Character / Folklore /Mythology
Word Count: 583
Crossposted to
Life Belongs to Sekhmet 
You never did see things clearly, did you, Lass? Aye, your mother was a sweet and loving woman, but you never saw how much like her you truly were. I suspect if you look at your daughters, rather than the mirror, you can see that there’d be no cruel bone in their fair-skinned bodies.
*Locked to Fanny.*
This is only from my perspective, mind you. I am no doctor. On occassion I am guessing, and I am certain this sometimes happens to children as well, the body simply becomes incapable of grieving. There is a blinding moment of distress that even the strongest man cannot hold so the body shuts off the emotions. A defense mechanism, perhaps? It would explain that feeling of numbness and emptiness one feels. It was the only way that I was able to reassure myself that I wasn’t soulless when I noticed I did not even shed a tear even within my most private of moments.
I will express now that there is nothing you can say that will convince me you are anything like Morgienne. I’ve never met a woman in my period of existence more full of life until I met you, Fanny. I speak these words with my utmost honesty. Listen to your husband. I never had the honor of meeting your mother, but I do believe Monsieur Ringo is correct. She is within you … you just cannot see it.
Re: *Locked to Athos*
*smiles* Not every doctor is a wise man, and not every wise man even needs to be a doctor. I would trust your guesses, Athos, more than I would trust some men’s irrefutable science. I think that you may be right about being so much in shock at the time of my mother’s death that I didn’t know how to react. I understand then, a little of what you mean about not shedding a tear even in your most private moments. We have touched on this from time to time with regard to your own life’s events.
You are a dear, sweet man for saying such things to me. I will trust you, and John to be the eyes for me with regard to my mother. Sometimes when you are so close to something, truly the inability to see clearly is definitely a factor. If that is the opinion of two of the most important men in my life, the only exception being my son, Ethan, then I am truly honoured by what you say.