Written for Goldenlake's Advent Calender Event Prompt: #2 Family
Lady Tilaine, my mother was been teaching me basic needlework. Me. At the age of 8. I'd been so excited I could barely wait to get out of the nursery and start my extraordinary lesson.
"Melanie, do you remember your Aunt Keladry, the knight?" She'd said quietly to me in the sitting room whilst we were alone, ushering me closer so as to speak softer.
"Yes, mother."
"She knew from very young that no one would have her as a wife, the way she's built. Like a working Cow." Mother's voice was low and conspiratorial and I knew without a doubt that she was telling the truth, after all she was Mother and never wrong. "Her manners!" She exclaimed with a horrified look on her face, "I don't think I've met a ruder, more active girl in my life! She affronts me with simply her very presence. I can't stand her, and neither should you Mellie."
Mother was looking me directly in the eyes now, a fierce light shining out of them. "She needs to stay in battle with all those men and hopefully get herself killed, instead of coming to our home to lord it over us [i/]decent[/i] women how much disgrace she's bought to the family, with her wicked ways of consorting with men from all over. Oh, what would the Gentle Mother say? Sometimes I think she should have been born a boy." The last of this had been mumbled from Mothers mouth, and it was obvious she hadn't meant for the last to escape.
Abruptly she straightened, and composed herself. "In any case, my dear daughter, I wish to warn you against consorting with her incase anyone comes to think the same… undesirable things about you, and we certainly wouldn't want that, now would we?" She said this patronizingly with steel in her eyes. I was scared of what might happen if I didn't listen to mother. The Gentle Mother looks down kindly on her own and I would continue to follow the teachings faithfully.
"Look, there she is! Oh boy, oh boy. Come see everyone!" My younger brother Connie shouted through the nursery, pointing out the window at something, or someone in this case.
The other children in the nursery crowded around the window vying for the best position to watch as our famous Aunt rode into Mindelan. I grudgingly admitted to myself that she made a striking sight riding home on her horse with the sun to her back, but I still remembered what Mama told me not too long ago.