a/n [This is kind of sugary sweet and horribly bitter all at the same time. Uses Caesar's Palace's prompt mellifluous.]
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She was born in late spring, crowned by flowers and surrounded by the honeyed songs of meadow birds. Her hair was small tufts of white and her eyes were the soft blue of the morning sky.
Her mother cried. Her father smiled. And her sister pressed her nose to the baby's curiously.
"This is her?" the sister asked, her voice mellow and sweet.
"This is her," the father answered.
They named her Primrose, after the little yellow flower in the woods. The flower that looked like a drop of the sun, fallen from the sky and caught by curved leaves. The flower that swayed in the wind but refused to be trampled into the ground.
Her muted cries hit the warm air and dispersed with the wind, seeding new hearts like new flowers in their wake.
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She blossomed as she grew. From crawling along loose floorboards to waddling through uncut grass to jumping on stones. The young Primrose was unstoppable, a small force to be reckoned with, a little worn dress with gangly limbs.
And she walked in her sister's footsteps, literally.
They were quite the sight. The pretty girl with the wide grey eyes and the two black braids and the fair child with the long lashes and even longer hair. They walked hand in hand from Seam to the Town and back again.
Young and under everyone's feet, they were noticed, and if one stopped to say hi they'd have a lot to hear about. Because the meadow birds were humming louder than usual and the daisies had started to spring up and the days were getting hotter and the bread they were sent out for cost five coins now instead of four—and they only had four.
It was a busy life, being six and two, respectively, of course. Someone had to run the forest while the fairies were away.
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If there was ever a king, it was her father. And he was the king of the forest.
She, in all her four-year-old and gap teeth glory, asked him one day, "Daddy, you're a king, right?"
"If you're my princess," was his response, and it made her giggle and all the meadow birds sing.
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And if there was ever magic, it was in the possession of her mother. For when people were bustled into their small wooden house, her mother came to them and soothed them. She was all hands and green plants and brown plants and stained cloths. And in the end, there would be some smiles and a shaking of hands and some words, and a person would walk out of the room with something in his or hand while Primrose's mother held something in hers.
But sometimes, the hands would stop too soon, and grim faces would turn away. A body would be carried out on a board, and before strong hands turned her away, Primrose would find tears streaming down others' cheeks.
"It didn't work?" she'd ask, her voice meek.
"What didn't work?" her sister would answer, already turning to a different task.
"The magic."
There was a scoff and a head shake and no answer.
Primrose looked at her hands and wondered if she had magic, too.
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She found a cat in the meadow, wounded, blending into the buttercups by the big oak tree. He was small, a kitten, a prince. Her prince. She took him under her wing and taught him to fly.
She helped heal him, with magic fingers and her mother's guidance. It was a little bit like a miracle, and a little bit of too much hoping, but the cat made it out fine with a hiss and a glare.
Her sister leaned down in front of it, until she and him were eye level, and scowled.
"You should've let it die."
"His name is Buttercup," she said in response, her arms crossed.
"That's a beautiful name," her father said.
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Alone in the meadow, with bright colors and a shining sun, she didn't know about the horrible world around her. She didn't see the poverty in the streets, just the smiles. She didn't see the crease lines on everyone's faces, just the way their eyes lit up.
She did see that when her sister was upset, she ran, and she wouldn't let Primrose follow, which made her upset. So both girls hid away, separately, only to cling to each other later on.
But with the light and the stars and her mother's humming, the world seemed all right.
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The world was not all right. The king was gone and the world was loud. There was yelling and sirens and falling dirt clumps and machinery that clanged and clanged and clanged.
She knew what was happening but she didn't.
Her mother was crying. Her sister was not.
Everything was happening much, much too fast.
And then they left, and her father wasn't coming with them. He always came with them. Her sister held onto the child's hand tightly, even when Primrose started to cry. And pull. And scream.
The world was misery and the sky was misery and she couldn't hear the meadow birds at all.
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From then on, mornings were spent brushing her mother's hair and holding her mother's hand and bringing the spoon to her mother's lips. Weekends and afternoons were spent helping gather herbs and mending bruises and sending bodies home on boards. Nights were spent crying silently and having nightmares and thinking.
Magic was stupid. Kings were stupid. She was stupid, all useless hands and gangly limbs and just another mouth to feed.
Months were spent growing up too fast.
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On the day that she used to listen to meadow birds sing, she sat inside learning to sew while rain dripped lightly, sporadically, from the sky. Her sister was out of the house. Her mother was resting behind a closed door.
Then, the door opened and a figure stepped in, water drops looking like sparkles in her hair.
"Wake her," her sister said, in regards of their mother. "I've got you a gift."
Primrose stood, sewing set aside, and roused her mother with a quick shake and few mumbled words before running back to the front door.
"What—" she started to ask, cut off by her shock, "—oh."
Her sister's friend stood in the doorway. He held a goat, a young one, with a bloodied shoulder and a face of pain. She was being held incorrectly.
"Oh," she said again, her voice strangled by tears. "Oh, Katniss, is she for me?"
Her sister nodded once with a small smile; the first one Primrose had seen on her face in a very long time.
"Bring her here," her mother said, cleaning up the kitchen space.
"Will she make it?" the child asked, placing her hands, slowly and gently, on the table.
"I've been wrong before," was the answer, given with a long sigh. "Get some water, will you?"
Primrose stood by, assisting when needed, but mostly being a mess of saltwater cheeks and bubbling laughter. Her cat strode in, looked at the sight, and tried to scurry to the exit, but he was caught and hugged to a flat chest. "You've got a sister, sir. And isn't she just gorgeous?"
When the rain lit up again for good, the birds came out to sing.
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The forest is full of whispered secrets from little lips to little ears as fairies zip back and forth through branches and under leaves and in and out of dots of sunlight. She was mesmerized, walking on the soft soil with the whole world alive around her. A smile danced over her lips.
Then her sister handed her a bow.
The forest didn't like it much when their woodland creatures were shot down. Primrose didn't like it much either.
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She was never a princess of the forest. She should've known, really, that the duty falls gracefully onto the backs of the eldest child, and they're granted wings and a crown and unfaltering beauty. Her sister had everything, was everything, made Primrose look like nothing.
The light never shined on her anymore, and the meadow birds were really only ever singing for her sister, their voices sweet for the huntress and sour for the fledgling. They could tell that she wasn't worth the glamour.
And she felt plain, standing in front of a broken mirror with broken wings in a broken world.
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Her name echoed through the town square, carrying softly in the wind, and she was surprised anyone still remembered it all. Eyes turned to her, many of them, in varying shades of blues and greys and feather light browns. Everyone knew her name now. She was the martyr and soon, the forgotten.
She stood up straighter, chest out, chin high, and tucked her shirt in forcefully, wanting to part her home as great, not weak. For the real king didn't have a crown of leaves, but of gold. And if he wanted her to fall, she'd fall.
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She didn't fall at all. It was sitting, actually, that she'd be sitting at home, guarded, while the forest's princess defended her territory. The fairies cheered her along and the meadow birds followed her success and the trees bowed to their victor as she emerged, trailing flames and setting fires. The princess was powerful, and Primrose was a fragile flower.
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What was a princess without a prince? She'd sit with him sometimes, while her sister played with the woodland creatures outside. He'd weave her stories made of inked words and flowery images. He'd bake with her, show her how to make little men and women in the dough. And he'd paint portraits of the fairies she described, which she insisted he keep. And he did.
"Until next time, my lady," he'd say with a bow and a smile that pulled at his cheeks.
"My prince," she'd say with a curtsy and a sweet giggle.
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They sat together, sister and sister, both of them not the girls they were.
The grass was tall around them, with tiny, white flowers bursting between the stalks. It was fall, and the meadow was starting to die, along with most of the Seam.
The princess came out here often, followed by Buttercup, her trusty steed. Primrose liked staying in the Village where the sun shone a little bit brighter and the birds sang a little bit louder. She was too sick of seeing so much death.
Meanwhile, her sister seemed to bring it with her everywhere she went.
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She thought the forest falls because the princess was away again, playing more games, following the king of gold. The fire fell from the sky, in bursts and sizzles, and she was lucky she was out buying another dress with her mother because they never would have made it out alive otherwise. She was pushed through the crowd, and she followed the pounding feet as she was led past the fence and into her old hideaway.
"Is it safe yet?" a boy asked his mother, tumbling over his feet.
"It'll never be safe," his mother answered, and Primrose's lips pulled down.
The mother was right; the fairies were gone for good this time, and no one would make it out alive.
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There were no meadow birds underground.
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He climbed out of the bag as if it was a mountain, with strong paws and a fierce howl and a stiff tail. He ran to her immediately, into her lap where it was warm and safe, and she wrapped her arms around him because yes, everything was going to be okay now.
"You didn't get into trouble now, did you, sir?" she asked, her voice still sweet but muffled by the cat's fur.
He purred, and she took that as a no. Her sister scoffed and muttered something under her breath.
"Of course you didn't," Primrose soothed.
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The world was a rush of white and lab coats and written words on lined paper. She stood in the middle of it while a smile crept up on her slowly until it lit up her face.
"Are you ready to be a doctor now?" said an official looking man with a pencil behind his ear and a furry, uncomfortable looking mustache.
And her two spoken words changed her life: "I am."
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The end of the world came in a metal package falling from the sky. There was a flash and a bang and a bright light, but no meadow birds' songs to send her away.
They named her Primrose, they did, on one glorious morning in the late spring when flowers shined and skies were blue, and they said she'd be bright, she'd be strong, she'd be smart, she'd be beautiful.
She was gone.
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