Title: Oh, Memory
Summary: Things to remember, things to forget. All things must move on after events pass for Miss Field Mouse. One-shot.
Disclaimer: I don't own Thumbelina and make no money from writing this, nor do I seek to do so.
Warnings: A brief mention of death, but nothing important.
Why did I write this? I don't know, but perhaps it has to do with how much I loved Miss Field Mouse in the movie and how annoyed I was that nobody writes anything for her.
-:-
You always stop at the best part, when it's very beautiful… and interesting.
-The Fall.
She remembers being born. Long grass, an empty tea kettle, the scent of rain from the day before; three other bodies beside her and all of them looking for a teat to drink from, hungry.
She remembers her family being killed by a housecat from the big farm on the hill. A Calico with one bad eye and a bobbed tail, claws digging into her parents' hides first and then setting her jaws to grind and devour her brothers; the last thing she saw of them as she hid among the reeds of the river was her deep brown brother's arm dropped to the ground while the cat considered whether to spit him out at the taste flooding her mouth when she bit into his stomach and tasted the wheat he'd eaten for breakfast.
She remembers how long it took her to dig three feet underground and begin building her own home right next door to a rather rich aristocrat of a mole. Three months in dry heat and then a flash flooding thunderstorm, mud encasing her clothes and then her fur; water entrenching her lungs for days after contracting pneumonia that had nearly killed her.
She remembers meeting Mr. Mole for the first time. His big hands offering up a golden hairpin with a white pearl on the end of it for a welcome gift to the neighborhood, his blind eyes unable to see just how bad she looked wracked with a burning hot fever and swaddled in as many blankets as she had in her possession after finishing construction of her house, his nose alerting him to the fact that she barely had warm coals in her fireplace and that she was really very sick; all leading him to haul her up clumsily to his own house, set her down in front of his roaring fire and made her a poor excuse for tea, but after the days of sickness it was almost like heaven for Ms. Field Mouse. He kept her there until her cough was gone and all the while told her stories of his youth and discovering his fortune through mere curiosity and luck.
She remembers finding Thumbelina. Poor thing from all the rumors spread around about the hub-bub at the Fairy Court and then the Beetle Ball asleep and half frozen in an old shoe on the hill. She'd hate to think of what might have happened if she hadn't gone out that morning looking for ingredients for her corncakes and dry wood for her fireplace.
She remembers feeling so very bad about being the one to tell her that her prince was dead like it was nothing at all and then trying to brush it off with a visit to Mr. Mole. No young girl—odd tiny human-thing or fairy or field mouse—wants to visit an old man after hearing from a complete stranger that the love of their life is dead and gone; but really, Miss Field Mouse had nothing else to go on. She couldn't think with Thumbelina writhing in agony of loss in the mouse's comforter and she'd never been good with any company other than Mr. Mole's and a few of the Jitterbugs. It was the best she could do under the circumstances and she defied anyone who thought that they could do better.
She remembers feeling oddly betrayed by the mole when he asked her to find a way to get Thumbelina to marry him when the girl was looking over the dead bird he'd taken them to see. She took his money, of course she took his money, but it didn't help and, if anything, made her prod more than forcefully to get Thumbelina to consider over the proposal. If it had been anyone else, Miss Field Mouse may have given up after the first hour of prodding and given the money back—disappointed old man or no. But, in a strange way that a mouse should not feel for most creatures (other than other mice, of course, she wasn't a savage), she felt obligated to get Mr. Mole what he wanted. When the girl accepted the next day, Miss Field Mouse put on a happy face, but was more irritated underneath her skin (the wedding dress she'd chosen for Thumbelina more than revealing her true feelings of the event; disgusting grey thing that it was).
She remembers calling out Thumbelina's name in admonishment when the girl had gotten to the altar and told Mr. Mole he would never marry him because she didn't love him. She crossed her arms, ready to march up there, haul the girl out to the hall and give her a good talking to about what they'd talked about (marriage had nothing to do with love; it was just a partnership of two consenting parties where they would take care of each other until one of them died) the other night, but felt something odd other than surprise and fright when Mr. Toad crashed the party. Something akin to excitement rose up in her as they chased the girl and then the toad and then the beetle and then (wonders!) the prince down the tunnel that lead to Up There.
She remembers after the tunnel rained down Mr. Mole's treasure and the days following. She and Mr. Mole had been astounded to hear of Thumbelina marrying the Prince in a grand ceremony in the Veil of the Fairies. Mr. Mole had shrugged it off and said that there would be other girls—always.
They are all fond memories that Miss Field Mouse dare not forget, because those shining shadows in her mind that bring up such emotion that she often cannot give names to on most days keep her visiting her dear friend in not-obligation but in the attempt to rectify something she'd told Thumbelina the night before her crashed wedding.
"Love? Love is what we read about in books, my dear."
She had been proven wrong by Miss Thumbelina marrying through that divine love that had brought the Fairy Prince back from death and beyond to find his love in the young woman. It stood to reason that, maybe, a simple kind of love from a friend to a friend could exist somewhere not in story books, but in a tunnel shared between a mouse and a mole.
Maybe she would remember that as she finished up a batch of corncakes and tucked them into a basket, the shawl she'd pressed the day before wrapped professionally on her shoulders as Miss Field Mouse smiled and made down the tunnel. She hummed a song she'd heard on the wind a few days ago while out near the river looking for herbs and such; a large French swallow twittering-twittering-twittering.
"…You don't need a chart to guide you…Close your eyes and look inside you…"