Word Count: 709
For Amber's Dauntless Competition: family fic
She is twitching fingers and mumbled words tumbling out of the corners of her mouth. She rocks in her seat in the parlor, a book in her lap. Some days you can get her to read to you but not today. No matter.
"Ariana," you say, your voice an excited whisper, not too loud to startle her, but not too reverent to make her hate you. She hates being treated like the invalid she is. So much so that she can sense pity on a person's breath.
She looks up wide eyed with a smile that is too big but oh, so sincere. So innocent.
"Ariana, let's go feed the goats."
She whispers something unintelligible back and takes your hand.
It's a good day.
Her face is beet red and she tries so very hard. It makes you sick to watch her struggle with whatever inner demons have possessed her. That is what her magic has become. It is no longer a gift but a curse, destroying her slowly from the inside out.
Her knuckles white from gripping the seat of her chair, she meets your eyes for a split second. And then it happens.
The plate of food in front of her flies across the room shattering against the wall. Potatoes and gravy drip down the dining room wall. She cries out in fury before running to smear the food across the wallpaper, pounding it with her fist and scraping her nails against the pattern of daisies on a background of blue. She tries to tear them from the wall and she can't. She just can't.
Your mother does nothing. She sits and stares at her own food that she hasn't touched, defeated. She has long since given up. Albus would scold but he's upstairs in his room, too busy for family dinner. Too busy to deal with this mess.
"Ariana," you say. It's not a whisper this time, but still she responds to your voice. She chokes on her tears, hands splayed on the wall breathing heavily. "Ariana, let's get you cleaned up."
Breathe in.
Trembling she turns to you, eyes overflowing. She doesn't say so but she is sorry. She truly is.
Breathe out.
And she is falling, but you catch her. You always catch her.
Until you don't.
The letter arrives at an ungodly hour. It's too urgent to wait until morning. Albus' owl pecks at the window of your dorm until you groggily pull yourself out of bed and let him in.
And you read the news in Albus' loopy writing, such a steady hand held fast in bitterness and anger and his goddamn self righteousness.
You crumple the letter and toss it across the room. It hits the wall but it doesn't make a sound, no satisfying crash against the stone. You want to break something but you've come to accept that picking up the pieces is what you do.
If only you'd been there. You would have put a stop to it. Ariana always listens to you.
When you arrive at home and you see your mother's body laid out on the parlour sofa, you don't cry. And you don't apologize because it's useless; there's no sense in talking to those who can't hear.
You catch the swish of your sister's skirt in the corner of your eye. She is tearful and afraid, her fingernails scratching at her arms with worry.
You get up and hold out a hand.
"Come on, Ariana," you say. "Let's go feed the goats."
The last time you see her she is in a box. A lifeless porcelain doll laid out to be admired. To be pitied.
She'd hate this, you think. This shouldn't be happening. This is wrong.
And then he's there, solemn and overbearing, and you can't contain yourself anymore. He opens his mouth to speak of his little sister that he never gave a damn about and so you satisfy that need. The need to break something. To hear the satisfying crash.
Fist meets bone and there's blood everywhere and you're not sorry. Not at all.
You turn your back on him and walk away, muttering under your breath like a madman, but you don't care. "Come on, Ariana. Let's go feed the goats."