Resentment
When she was very young, she resented him.
His parents brought him over to see her, wrapped tightly in soft cloths, tiny and pink and mewling like the animals he would grow to love so dearly, and cradled in wide loving arms. At first she was filled with wonder at the sight of him- so small! and so beautiful! His eyes opened and he blinked once, gazing silently around, melting them all with his murky liquid stare, provoking gasps and soft murmurs from everyone. Captivated, she held out her arms.
They wouldn't let her hold him, not even trying to hide their amusement at the thought of placing something so precious into her doubtful care. Young as she was, she resented that. They held him out for her to see by way of apology but she looked away, refusing to meet the gaze of this boy. They encouraged her to touch him, pointing out his downy skin and his few thin wisps of dark blond hair. She didn't want to stroke his head or mutter nothings into the gentle curling spirals of his ears as the rest of them were. They didn't really trust her to, anyway.
But then her mother took hold of her hand, opening out her fingers, and pressed her palm to his.
She gasped with astonishment. His entire hand was about the same size as her palm. She closed her fingers down over his, holding his tiny paw in her fist.
And when they moved to take her away, she didn't want to leave him.
Soon she got tired of him. He was always there, even when she wanted to be alone or play with her friends. He was inevitably brought along as well and placed beside her, round and adorable from his golden-brown head to his cotton-encased toes. She glared at him, bored of his softness and his strong milky smell and his few months of existence. He just smiled up at her as she sat there luminous in the sunlight, and raised one tiny hand, trying to take hold of her hair.
He wasn't big enough to play with the rest of them. He was barely big enough to do anything. He didn't seem to mind, though, beaming at them from his space on the floor as they laughed together. She didn't like that. It seemed as though he was trying to join in with them as best he could- but he couldn't very well, and she wasn't interested in how small and cute he was anymore.
After what seemed like forever she was allowed to hold him. He was handed carefully over to her, still swathed in material but now in the form of tiny clothes. She was placed, suddenly nervous, on a hard wooden chair, feet still dangling a long distance from the floor, and he was passed to her, limp and heavy in her lap. She instinctively wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close to her chest, suddenly terrified of him falling. They told her not to, he wouldn't fall, he could sit on his own, she didn't need to hold him.
She knew that. She had wanted to, that was all.
But she pushed him away, now infuriated at him. If they didn't approve of what she did, why had they let her hold him at all? She had wanted to for a long time, and now it had been ruined.
She wriggled on her seat. They lifted him away then, and she jumped down and ran out of the house, aggravated at everything.
Soon she forgot about all of this, losing it to the immeasurable joy of being young and living in the countryside and playing with her friends. The duo became a trio as soon as he was old enough to be let loose outside. They were unleashed upon the hills in an allied assault of blond hair and stubby limbs, wrapped in stiff winter coats or poured into anoraks and Wellington boots or dressed in light materials that threatened to fly away on the wind, taking their occupants with them. They tumbled and laughed, growing browner and leaner and tougher every year, and rivalry and disagreement was all but forgotten during that time, resurfacing only for the sake of races or competitions or when every six months like clockwork they all stood, backs to the tree trunk and books on their heads, and the measuring tape emerged.
But then the war broke out and the difficult years began.
She got through the pain of losing first her parents, then her best friends, by concentrating on her work, and the simple happiness it gave her to see something she had created with her own hands spring into life and movement before her. She hated waiting for them, of course- the feeling of helplessness pained her more than anything else- but she kept busy and distracted herself with the beginnings of a flourishing career. Every so often her feelings burst free from her, escaping in a way that usually resulted in a flash of violence or emotion, but she thought afterwards when reminded of it that overall she did quite well controlling herself as much as she did.
The pain, the frustration, the anger and worry swiftly followed by floods of relief, she struggled through it all. For in reality, behind her protests at their behaviour, she wanted exactly what he did- or maybe even just a little bit more.
She doesn't remember all of this, of course. She remembers the laughter and then the sadness and after that the loneliness of waiting for them for so long. But most of the time she manages to forget it in the happiness of the present. It is strange, then, for her now to suddenly think about when she met him, and the first time she ever held him in her arms.
And, lying on the sofa with him wrapped snugly around her, she wonders in astonishment how she could ever have resented his constant reassuring presence, or the gentle touch of his skin, or the feeling of the little bundle, tiny but heavy, lying warm and soft in her arms.
Author's notes: Damn, my children are mature. . .
Written out of a spontaneous craving for something cute and fluffy. I thought about it for ages:"What are the fluffiest things I can think of?", and eventually decided: children, and romance. So. . . this, which has both. But whilst I was writing it I constantly heard a tiny voice in the back of my head saying, "You fool. It's AlWin. That pairing is unloved. No-one will read your story." Well, we'll see. Also, I don't know if you noticed, but almost everything in it is described as being soft. --;
Dedicated to my cousin and good friend Vicky, who provided a lot of help and constructive criticism during the editing of this story, and who also was the first to read it. Love!
Reviews make me feel warm and squishy inside.