Aelphaba looked over the letter she had just written with the old typewriter. With Galinda out with Gabriella often and Elphie reading in some place or another, the green woman had a lot of time to herself these days. She had been writing these letters often, truth be told. The contents were not something she believed eyes as young as her children's should witness, for on these pages were spilled the deepest horrors that had overcome Aelphaba in the last few months and since birth. Ever since the incident which had caused Liir's birth suppressed memories had risen in a mad influx, manifesting itself around her in multiple ways. She had been deteriorating for a long time, she was not sure, of her mind, the state of decomposure. When she saw the figures who would take her as a child, or the blood trailing down the wallpaper, it was reality. These letters were her only way of coping at the present. A cry rang out, startling Aelphaba as she became immersed in her own thoughts. She feared one of the horrors she had described was about to come for her, before shortly recognising her son had woken up. She sighed, set the letter in her drawer, and rose to tend to the infant. Realising he needed to get out to be calmed she left. Little did she realise, the letter was poking out the drawer and she had foolishly forgotten to lock it.
The younger Elphaba had, indeed, been reading. She was in her usual spot, in a secret door in the hall she'd found when she'd first moved in with Aelphaba and Galinda. She was deeply immersed in her reading and Oz knows how an Elphaba can be when she's reading. The sudden cries from her brother not only scared the daylights out of her, it tore her away from her book. She hadn't heard her mum walk past, so she went to the study to see if Aelphaba had fallen asleep. Elphaba wouldn't have been surprised if Aelphie had, the other Thropp had spent so much time in the study recently.
Little Elphie made her way out of the secret room and into her mum's study. She gawked at all the books, knowing that she hadn't ever been in here long enough to notice them. Elphaba turned towards the desk to see her mum wasn't there. She went behind the desk to see if Aelphaba had simply fallen off her chair, but instead found a mysterious note. She hopped up into Aelphaba's chair and started reading. Not quite grasping the note at first, she read through it again. After the third re-read, Elphaba hopped up from the chair and went to go find Aelphaba. "Mama!"
Aelphaba had retired, with the now calm infant, to suicide canal. Oz knows why the young Liir was calmed by this place, but if it stopped him trying to destroy the sound barrier she was not going to complain. However, in this place she would find her thoughts wander to the darker places in her mind. As she stared upon the lake, water rippling in a seeming attempt to mimic her thoughts, she began the hear faintly the sounds that often plagued her. The voices began as whispers, they always do she thought. They don't leave her alone. Not when she asks, not when she screams. She tried to shake her head from these thoughts, instead focusing on Liir. He was here, he was awake and needed her attention. That was what made the voices grow quieter. Still there, but indistinct and faint.
The youngest Thropp daughter searched the house for her Mama. After about half an hour of fruitless searching, she sat and started to think. Her parents had talked of how Liir was always calm around a certain area. She frowned in concentration, a small book started levitating in response. She blinked when she realized the book had Shiz myths and tales. She'd remembered one of Suicide Cannal or Creek or something. The name didn't matter much, just the fact that she knew where it was. Elphaba left the house and started towards the water. She felt herself cringe at the sight of the water, but she relaxed when she saw Aelphaba. "Mama?" She called softer.
At the softly calling, Aelphaba did not turn. Not at first, anyway. The mother waited for a second call, and when it occurred it was then she called back. "Liir was stirring. He likes it here, you know?" She paused... "Of course you do, clever girl. You found us." Aelphaba looked down at her son's face, smiling in an almost deranged manner before returning her gaze to the murky depths before her. They seemed so ready to take another visitor to stay, another lost soul looking for a desperate closure. It would have been beautiful.
Elphaba blinked. Her mother's face wasn't its usual self. It was almost... Demented. "Hey, Mama. What're you doing?" She asked, moving beside Aelphaba. The smaller green girl hopped up on the bench beside Aelphaba and Liir. Her mother slowly stroked Liir's head, a quaint soothing motion. The distorted gaze of her and the younger Thropps began to swirl into something more sinister. Hastily she looked back down with glassy eyes. "Liir was unsettled, little one. He was getting loud so I brought him out." It suddenly seemed to click inside her mind: Liir didn't want her as a mother. That's why he brought her out here, so often knowing who his mother was. The water was lethal, the name Suicide dubbed proving so. He wanted her dead too.
Aelphaba turned to Elphie. "Would you like to hold him?" A somewhat forced smile gracing her lips.
Elphaba blinked. Her mother's face wasn't its usual self. It was almost... Demented. "Hey, Mama. What're you doing?" She asked, moving beside Aelphaba. The smaller green girl hopped up on the bench beside her mother and Liir. Aelphaba slowly stroked Liir's head, a quaint soothing motion. The distorted gaze of her and the younger Thropps began to swirl into something more sinister. Hastily she looked back down with glassy eyes. "Liir was unsettled, little one. He was getting loud so I brought him out." It suddenly seemed to click inside her mind: Liir didn't want her as a mother. That's why he brought her out here, so often knowing who his mother was. The water was lethal, the name suicide dubbed proving so. He wanted her dead too. Aelphaba turned to Elphie. "Would you like to hold him?" A somewhat forced smile gracing her lips.
The look on Aelphaba's face reminded Ephie of when she was with Frex, and how he'd look when he'd remember her mother, or when he'd simply look at Elphie. "Mama, what's wrong?" She asked, not wanting Aelphaba to become like Frex eventually did. She nodded and gently took Liir, smiling up at Aelphaba as she did. A smile returned Elphie's, grateful the distressed mother was not to be holding an infant who so loathed her. "Thank you, Elphie. I found I also needed some air too." How dark the watery figures before them seemed to be becoming, almost as dark as the hair on the green woman's head. They twisted and turned in the corner of her eye, the voices seemed to chatter in raised whispers. Aelphaba was determined not to let them interrupt her chat. How selfish of them! She grew angrier the louder they got, more frustrated. They were so loud and repremanding, reciting her many failures and faults as though from script. The reflections also wanted to join, but Aelphaba would not turn and face what she knew was waiting for her in the lake.
Elphie watched Aelphaba, making sure to hold her little brother close. She watched the obvious internal struggle that Aelphaba was having with herself. The child leaned up and kissed her Mama's cheek. "Stop fighting with yourself, Mama." She said quietly before looking back at Liir. It always amused Elphie that Liir's skin couldn't seem to decide if it wanted to be white like his father's, or green like his mother's. She smiled and kissed his forehead before looking back up at Aelphaba.
She almost cringed back at the gesture Elphie had taken. She knew her daughter meant well, but how could the child possibly understand the intensity of the people who would not let her go? She did not, completely anyway, which was shown by her statement. Oh if only it were that easy to rid herself of them, thought Aelphaba. But whilst she asks and begs and screams out of company they do not stop. Graphic details brought up of past abuse and accounts that chilled her whilst also warming her in the rising anger all at once. She looked upon how fondly Elphie handled her brother. Were they both feeling the same? Was that act of kindness simply a ruse? It made her turn away: what she had avoided doing since the figure transformed. All the feelings rose at once; fear, anger, protective instincts bubbled over.