silver thaw
On her homecoming, Blue discovered that she had died.
The words for an explanation had hung in the air but were not grasped until much later. Her parents had led her out to their landscaped garden and shooed the pet Meowth, seating her on a slab amidst all the decorative stones and trailing yellow vines. Hands intertwining, their eyes had shyly glanced at her with that same unsteady amazement that had greeted her return. Then they had broken into legalities, her father awkwardly thumbing a closing flower as her mother's lips quivered over the term 'in absentia'.
After much deliberation they had taken her into half an embrace, as if trying to figure out what part of her they ought to hold.
After her homecoming, Blue discovered her doppelgänger.
It was in early August that she saw its bright form flit up the flight of stairs, shrilly complaining about summer camps and screeching as it accidentally tore a nail off its manicure. Though its Butterfree had given a squeak and fled, the ghost itself hadn't noticed Blue among the gallery of statues.
Naturally Blue had wondered about this spring-colored shade, so later she caught her parents in the garden and posed the question. They had been about to answer when the bushes rustled, and careless ghostly feet turned into the Rose Circle. Their owner stopped then, allowing Blue to take a good look at what she had mistaken for herself.
The ghost, indeed, was in Blue's likeness: largish hands unsuited to a pretty face, auburn hair like Blue's when its ends went un-straightened, and temperamental lips that clearly liked to pout and grin in equal measure. But then the resemblance seemed to blur, and the ghost proved more corporeal: harder, sturdier, and more angular, with dark eyes, black eyes—autumn eyes.
"Oh, sorry, didn't know there was company. I'll be in the kitchens, then," she rudely smacked at her gum and twisted around and away, boyish hand on boyish hip.
Wiping away the tea her mother spilled onto Jiggly's head, Blue didn't need to be told that they hadn't ever mentioned her.
Blue has come home, and she has the ivory crown that she fought for.
She gets used to her family, and they, her. She comes to know everything about the Irises—which icons the family treasures and which brand of cigars her father likes, which callers to turn away and which step creaks on the attic stairs. As for her family, it too comes to know her: Father spoils Blue with mountains of lace and garlands of heavy jewelry, Leaf lauds the fashion and womanly sense of their new houseguest, and Mother prescribes melatonin for Blue's nightmares.
But Blue can never explain herself to her family. She cannot say why she takes little precautions with the house, with Leaf's room. She cannot explain why she flinches a little at the sight of bird Pokémon, nor why she knows enough about technology to make a weapon out of it. She cannot excuse the cynicism which ruined that one tea party. And she cannot introduce her dearest friends because then Leaf would know everything and trust nothing.
Blue is home, enthroned and bejeweled in an alabaster castle that she knows like the back of her hand (poorly, blindly, with every shadow of a doubt), and sometimes she thinks of snow.
~x~
Props if you get the references.
So this gloomy idea struck me in school one day: what is it like for Blue when she gets back home? She was kidnapped at five and supposed to meet her parents eleven years later, but got turned into stone right after their meeting. (Also, logically, Blue took some psychological damage after her kidnap; thus my head canon imagines her as secretly cynical, somewhat vengeful, and untrusting.)
Not really sure if I succeeded in doing what I aimed to, but I'm happy I got it out, finally.