Okay, here's where sh** gets real, so those of you who have seen/ know the musical should have started groaning the minute you saw the title of this new chap. Those of you who are inpatient to get to Jack, and Shiz, and all that, don't worry we're coming down the home stretch! Just a few more chapters of 'Part 1' to go! (The rest of you: shame on you! Savor these chapters—you know better! ;) )
Also, I know that I update a lot on Wednesday instead of what I originally said: Thursday. This is because I'm afraid that I won't have time the next day (my schedule is currently very hectic and unpredictable), so I post it ahead of time. Please note: this will *not* be a permanent habit after March 8! So please, don't depend on Wednesdays or expect new chaps on Wednesdays. The 'official' update day is Thursday. I just happen to be posting stuff on Wednesdays more often lately.
With that being said, enjoy the new chapter!
~Beth
Chapter 6: Milkflowers
After that special night, Mama seemed unable to play as much as she had before; she was always too tired or couldn't play for long. She tried to hide it from Elsa as best she could, but Elsa still noticed and worried all the more. She hoped that Mama was alright. When asked, all her mother would say was she felt a little 'under the weather,' whatever that meant. But they both tried to ignore Mama's decrease in energy, and act as if nothing was wrong. For the most part, it worked; but still, there were moments…
Mama and Elsa were playing a game they liked to call 'story time.' That was when Mama would bring out a pair of dolls that she herself had sewn from their special box in her closet, and she would tell Elsa a story, using the dolls as characters. They sat on the floor of the nursery, Elsa leaning on her hands, Mama kneeling with a doll in each hand as she spun a tale for her daughter. The dolls (whose names were Ika and Aztryzz) hopped across the floor within the clasp of Mama's hands, slowly but surely making their way across the floor to the Pile of Damask Sofa Cushions. Mama was halfway through her story when she stopped her narrative suddenly. Her face was nearly as green as her daughters'. She dropped the dolls she was holding and ran for the water closet.
That was the third time that day, and Elsa was a little worried. She hoped Mama wasn't getting sick; when Mama was sick, that meant that they couldn't play until she got better. She turned her attention back to the dolls. She picked up her favorite one, holding it in her tiny hands and bouncing it against the ground as if it was walking. Perhaps it was going on one of those other adventures Mama had told her about. Mam loved telling Elsa stories from her youth. Her favorite doll was the one with the reddish hair and the green outfit. Meanwhile, Mama's doll (a slim little thing with a blonde braid of flax hair with a blue dress) lay on the floor where she'd dropped it, forgotten.
Mama returned a few minutes later, looking a little unsteady on her feet and still a little pale, but smiling bravely just the same.
"Now," she said, taking a deep breath, "where were we?"
"Ika and Aztryzz were about to explore the forbidden caves of the Gilikin!" Elsa supplied cheerfully, holding out both dolls to her mother. Mama smiled, took the dolls from her toddler daughter, and story time resumed once again, guided along with Mama's captivating voice.
A month later, the cause of Mama's distress came to light. It was dinner at the Governor's household, and he, Mama, and Elsa were currently eating the soup course of the meal. Mama was unusually quiet, staring down into her indigo wyziju (pronounced 'whiz-EE-joo') soup with a subdued look upon her face. Over the course of the last month, dark circles had grown under her eyes, enhancing the unnatural paleness of her face. Her mouth was turned down, and she stirred her spoon through the thin pale blue soup listlessly, barely eating a thing, never looking up at anybody, not even Elsa. Elsa noticed her mother's odd behavior but barely thought of it—she was only three, after all, and was currently more preoccupied with her empty stomach.
The Governor set down his spoon and wiped his mouth with a napkin before replacing it in his lap. He looked up at his daughter and fought the urge to wince. She was his daughter, technically speaking, Unnamed God-bless her, but looking at her and seeing her skin was still, to this day, a shock that he still could not adapt to. To make things worse, Elsa had happily began to slurp her soup. Elsa glanced up, met her father's gaze, and stopped her noisy eating when she noticed his face. She made an effort to continue eating carefully by sipping in patient spoonfuls. He watched his daughter for a few minutes, waiting for her to near the end of her bowl, before he reached for his wife's hand. She gave him a strained smile in return as he took her hand, and set down her spoon as well, still shiny with cleanliness. They turned to look at their daughter, who was still eating her meal with gusto.
"Elsa," the Governor began, "your mother and I have something to tell you." Elsa's blue orbs swiveled upwards to meet her father's hazel ones. Then she looked back at her food and continued to eat, not wanting to finish her meal just yet. The Governor cleared his throat; Elsa continued eating. Finally, predicting that her husband would explode with impatience soon if she didn't do something, her mother reached forward and gently took the spoon away from Elsa's hand before she could take another 'bite.' She placed it to the left of her plate, atop her napkin, still a neatly folded triangle of cream upon the tablecloth's surface.
"Ahem. Now," continued the Governor, "I am sure that you find yourself lacking company in our mansion from time to time; that is why your mother feels that she must play with you to appease your boredom." Elsa frowned slightly, missing how her mother stared at Papa, shocked that he would say such a thing to her daughter. Mama was her playmate—she wouldn't play with her because she thought she had to. They had fun together. Papa must be mistaken. She refocused her ears on the Governor's 'sales pitch'.
"…so, to summarize, you will no longer have to worry your—ahem—green," Mama's gaze at Papa's face soured and pinched, "head about that, because in about 8 more months, you will have a new brother or sister. Now, doesn't that sound nice?" he asked, giving a too-wide smile at the little girl.
"I'd rather play with Mama," Elsa admitted as she hoisted herself onto the top of the table, reaching across it on her stomach in an attempt to retrieve her spoon from Mama. Her mother hid a smirk at her eldest's response with the hand not currently occupying one of the Governor's palms. The Governor's face turned an interesting shade of mauve before he retorted
"Well, with the new baby, I'm afraid that your mother won't have the time to play with you anymore." There, that should stop this nonsense. Elsa was now halfway across the polished oak table, both feet dangling over the edge, as she stretched as far as she could to get that utensil back. Her mother finally relinquished the spoon before Elsa could accidentally stick an elbow into the creamed corn, or before her father lost it. Whichever came first really; the order didn't matter.
"But if Mama's busy with the baby, then wouldn't the baby's busy with Mama? So wouldn't I be alone again?" Elsa curiously asked, slowly sliding back into her chair, her skirts riding up as they caught on the edge of the table and tablecloth. Her mother reached for her drinking glass, taking a sip to hide her snort of amusement. Even at the very tender age of three, Elsa, bless her verdant hide, was very clever and could outwit her father easily with the simplest of child logic. Meanwhile the Governor's face had passed mauve and was approaching the rich puce of a Gilikinese noble.
"I…you—" the Governor spluttered, floundering in the three-year-old's logic, before answering impatiently "that's not the point. The point is your mother is going to have another baby, a baby that will someday be your playmate. However, after some time, when it has grown up, you will have a new playmate, and you can finally stop this nonsense of bothering your mother when you want for company. But until then, do not bother either your mother or the baby; your mother is busy and cannot play the way you wish anymore. Do you understand?"
"Yes Papa." Elsa nodded, looking down at her soup. She wasn't happy, and she'd rather have her mother than a new playmate, but she knew better than to start an argument with her Papa.
"Good, now eat your corn." He gestured to her plate with his fork before taking a bite of the vegetable himself. Though only three (nearly four) years of age, Elsa couldn't resist the opportunity to release some of the annoyance she felt over something trivial as food.
"I don't like corn, it's slimy," she said, knowing that it would get a rise out of Papa. At her comment, her father spluttered and nearly chocked on his bite of food. Elsa glanced at her mother and was able to catch the small smile hidden in the shadows of her face and the slight exasperated shake of the head as the woman widened her eyes and glanced first from her crimson-faced husband to her eldest in a playful gesture that could only mean 'oh, now you've done it.'
Elsa's reply to her Papa, unfortunately, spawned a long, boring lecture about the history and the importance of corn in Munchkin economy, lifestyle, and culture. It lasted through the salad course, main course, and didn't show any signs of stopping until the desert course, when the Governor's voice started to rasp and crack from overuse. Then, at last, he shut up. Thank Oz; otherwise he would have ruined the pearlfruit sorbet.
All throughout the Governor's rant, Elsa and her Mama had exchanged glances and other signs of amusement at the Governor's expense, and for the first time since that night of play, Elsa had felt like she truly had her Mama back again. They would get through this set-back together, she could feel it. They'd play with the baby, the three of them, once it was big enough. She smiled. She could get used to the idea of a sister or brother. Well, she hoped it was a sister; it would be fun to play with another girl, and she and Mama could teach it their secrets and their ways together.
Elsa's excitement and bonding moment opportunity with her mother were short-lived, however. After the announcement at dinner Elsa and her Mama tried to keep on playing as they always had, in spite of the Governor's warning, but it quickly became harder and harder as Mama became weaker and weaker. It was the end of an Era, loathe as either of them were to admit it.
The dinner of The Announcement (as Elsa thought of it) was also one of the last milkflower-free meals the family would have. After that, Mama's diet consisted of barely anything but milkflowers or milkflower-based foods. At one point, Papa even asked Cook to make a milkflower milk for Mama to drink. It didn't work, thank Oz—after Mama tried it, she barely said a word before bolting from the dinner table with her hands pressed to her mouth. Soon, all meals (even snacks) involved some sort of milkflower-based food that Mama was supposed to eat. Papa insisted that it was for her and the baby's own good, but sometimes Elsa wondered if the Milkflowers helped at all. If anything, they just seemed to make Mama sicker.
There was also something…off about Mama that she couldn't quite name. She was sadder most of the time, and her mind and eyes sometimes drifted off to a place where Elsa could not follow. Sometimes she'd stop whatever she was doing and just look off into space, as if she were searching for something, or someone. Other times she'd pause, frowning confusedly; she'd stop suddenly from her walk down the hall, and look for all the world like she didn't know where she was, like a lost puppy or a girl as young as Elsa. Her confused face would transform into one of tears, as she tried to rationalize her surroundings. Just before it looked like the dams of her eyes would break, she would shake her head like a dog with water in its ears, and resume walking on, frowning once more.
But still, they tried to be happy. Elsa did her best to awaken Mama from her 'bad spells,' as Elsa called them. Her presence did help, to an extent. It was as if Elsa was a spot of green sunlight that illuminated Mama's world with contentment and soothing feelings; in the presence of her, all was happiness that chased away the saddening quiet. However, when the bright spot left, the long shadows of Mama's unnamed sadness lengthened until they held her strongly in their grasp.
But still, their life was okay…until the day that Mama collapsed.
She and Elsa had been playing in the hall, just walking calmly to the nursery. Elsa had skipped circles around her mother, trying to burn energy to compensate for her mother's depleted supply. Mama had seemed just fine, fanning herself with her hand, and complaining about the heat in between her conversation with Elsa, like flecks of dark amidst a light-colored painting. Suddenly her eyes had rolled back into her head and her frame went limp. Her legs twisted around themselves and bent slowly under her weight, gaining momentum until she collapsed on the floor. Elsa had fell to her Mama's side, holding her hand, and screamed and screamed for help in panic until the servants came running. They had circled the two, the group overpowering them, surrounding them on all sides. A few of them gingerly picked up Mama and carried her to bed, one of her arms dangling limply from their grasps, similar yet completely different from the special Night a month ago. Elsa trailed listlessly in their wake, nipping at their heels uselessly, begging to help in any way. They outraced her, reaching the master bedroom and closing the door in her face. They didn't mean to; they were too busy attending to their Mistress and the crisis at hand. The doctor was called. He stepped lightly into Mama's room, stayed for a handful of tiks, and eventually left. Elsa heard voices murmuring through the closed door, but they told her nothing. The door, for the first time in Elsa's life, did not open whenever she tried it.
She tried to visit her mother, but they always shooed her away, insisting that she wait for Mama to wake up first. As a pair of maids tried to nudge her out of the room from her last attempt, Elsa had glanced over her shoulder to look at her mother. Mama had looked so small and pale and weak, her eyes closed against lily-white skin, thin networks of veins showing at the corners. She was lying on her back, her arms limp on top of the covers. Elsa had turned back around as she was gently yet sternly pushed into the hall. The door closed behind her with a low slam, echoing the frightened thuds of her worried heart.
That was the last time Elsa saw of Mama, and the last she would see of her mother for a very long time.
So, yeah things are starting to go downhill in Elsa's little world. I cannot tell you how sad I felt writing this part. Can't wait until we hit the fun/ happy stuff! (Sadly those days will not be happening for a while .)
Love me? Hate me? Really don't give a sh**? Leave it all in the comments! Heck, tell me what you think is going to happen next, or share with me what you'd like to happen next. Citizens, countrymen, lend me your ideas! ;)
Oh, also, as a heads-up: next week I will be posting on Wednesday instead of Thursday, since i will be way too busy on Thurs. Okay? So you guys all get an 'early' chapter! Yay! (*Whoo-hoo! BEASBeth is the greatest author ever, you should, like, totally review her story in gratitution, whoo!* ;) )
'Til next time, ta!
