There had been other wives before them, whose shadows they had grown up in, learned how to be beautiful and pleasing and delicate. Wives whose names – both that they were born with and those that Joe forced upon them - were carved into the secret places of the prison, monuments and memorials to their lives, but whose names were forgotten when they were snatched and torn and taken to be milked. There, they were not wives anymore, and even they didn't remember themselves as they cooed and cradled little rag poppets that were their only comfort in the world. Even Miss Giddy didn't remember her old name, the one she'd had before she began to record their stories.
Splendid's name had been Angharad when she was born, and she had only kept it when she was brought before Joe because she had begged and pleaded and cried before him, her pretty little child's face screwed up in sparkling tears. It was how her place was cemented as favorite among his wives, even before she had been known by him. She had been eleven, weeping for her mother, and he had named her "The Spendid Angharad" as she knelt before him. But "Splendid" was the name he called her when she delighted him, when he wanted her, when he scolded her.
So, when she heard him call her name – "Angharad" – as she ran from him, as she fell and crushed his dreams as her ribs were crushed within her, she knew that she had won. He had caved to her, as he had always known who she was. He had known that she was not his property, but he had tried to fool himself.
And so her name – her real name – was carried up to Valhalla or wherever the hell souls went when they were done.
A/N: These are basically just little dribbles and scribbles that violently crash into my brain and demand to be written while holding me at metaphorical gunpoint. So I write them down and figured I'd share them.