STACKED LIKE STONES,
they taper to a pinnacle, simulate a mast. Friedrich's painting, a ship en route to the Arctic, is en route still-
The breeze drifts through her white coils of mane, but, cool as it is, it is hardly a balm to the suffocating heat. She occasionally glances past the golden girl, back towards the water, as though she is worried that something will spring from it to antagonize them – but it remains calm, despite her suspicion.
She asks her if she has children, and Locust is quiet for a moment, her teal stare glazing over. “I did,” she admits, her voice softening. She wonders if she should explain any further, if her silence or the truth will be more worrying – finally, she opts for the truth. “But my daughter died…several years ago. Her name was Maribelle.” For the golden girl’s sake, Locust does not mention the gory specifics; what new mother would want to hear of a child devoured by kelpies, her mother helpless but to watch? She is not sure if it would be better or worse if she could have done anything to stop it. The golden girl mentions that her pregnancy was supposed to be nothing more than a farewell to her mate, and, so, Locust tilts her head and asks, “Are you raising your child alone, then?”
She, of course, sees no issue with that – Maribelle’s father had been no mate of hers, but she hardly raised the girl on her own. Child-rearing is difficult, and even more difficult when one was alone.
“I was unprepared for motherhood, too, when I had my daughter. I’d never intended to….I barely knew her father. Fortunately, I had a good family, who helped me care for her.” She doesn’t mention that they, too, are dead; there is no need to impress her troubles on a perfect stranger, much less one so near childbirth. (She does not even like to think about it.) There is no reason, she thinks, to put her under unnecessary stress. Tips, then – she asks for tips. She nearly tells her that she is hardly a good role model, but refrains. “Don’t expect to sleep much for the first little while. Birth is painful, but, unless you experience complications, it is likely less painful than you’ve been told – you’re built for it, after all. The first few days afterword are terrible, though.” But maybe that was just her. Maribelle’s pregnancy was hardly easy. “Do you have any questions in particular? I can’t guarantee that I’m the best person to ask, but I can try to tell you whatever you want to know.”
The girl admits that she struggles to keep herself alive, then, and Locust exhales softly, sudden tension running the length of her spine.
A wistful smile that is not a smile creeps across her velveteen lips, and, when she speaks, there is a quiet, raw bitterness to her voice. “I think the hardest thing to accept,” she admits, “is that you can’t always protect them. I never feared for my own life like my daughter’s – and I am very used to being in dangerous situations.” She was a pirate, after all.
She says that she is a day or two away from birthing, and Locust turns to stare at her, wide-eyed and blinking. “Why are you on the island, if you are so close to giving birth?” Her brow creases in concern, and confusion – for Locust is not such a strange, otherworldly creature as Florentine, and, though the dangers and secrets of the island sing to her like a siren’s wail, she cannot fathom the idea of exploring it while pregnant. (Then again, her pregnancy was also a miserable experience; she spent a considerable amount of it sick.) “It seems a dangerous place to have a child.”
It seems a dangerous place to be at all, she means, and she tries not to think of the sea that is not-a-sea and the way that she still smells the afterthought of rotting fish the moment she allows her mind to slip to the tides.
It occurs to her, then, that she gave her name – and asked hers in turn. “Florentine – a pleasure to meet you. Call me Locust. Where are you from?” She doesn’t think that she’s seen her around Denocte, though they docked in the bay less than a week ago.
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"Speech!" ||
