AU: Hope you enjoyed the first one! Here's the second part. Drop me a
review to let me know what you think! :)
***
Her most vivid memory of early childhood is not a happy one. She is a girl of no more than three years, standing alone on a darkened street, frightened, and cold. She is crying-desperately calling out for her mother. She reaches up towards the black sky, straining her little arms as if she wants to be held, embraced, kept warm against the bitter cold, flexing her tiny fingers to grasp something that isn't there. In her clouded memory, the small child screams until she collapses from exhaustion at the side of the road, and sleeps, unaware of the dark abyss that has opened beneath her. Should she move at all, stray too close in her unconscious state, she will be swallowed up by the hungry blackness, and she will be missed by no one. She has been abandoned, orphaned, and left utterly alone in the world.
She is still there in the morning, curled into a tight ball at the side of the filthy street. She is discovered, eventually, but she does not remember that part of the story. She was feverish and undoubtedly delirious at that point, and the next thing she remembers is being in an unfamiliar place.
Hushed voices carry on an indecipherable conversation somewhere nearby. It is not so much that the voices are cruel, or threatening, but that they are strangers' voices, and that frightens her. Before this, she has been accustomed to hearing only the comforting and familiar voice of her mother, and she is certain that neither of these unseen strangers are the woman she knows. She cannot make out individual words, but she understands their tones. They seem to be arguing, but very quietly, as if not to wake her. She wonders what they are fighting about. Her? She does not think so, because she has yet to hear her name spoken. But maybe its because they don't know it, she is positive she never told it to them-never told anyone her name. She had been plainly instructed never to tell a stranger her name by her mother, and she has always listened to her mother.
Later, when she is fully awake, and alert enough to be more afraid, the strangers ask her name. She is reluctant to tell them, but they simply explain that they would like to help her, that they will not harm her. She notes that they do not have kind faces, not faces she can easily trust, except the woman. There are three men besides the woman, and she can't help but feel intimidated by them. But the woman-Corinne was her name-smiles kindly. Her face is not the prettiest, but the warmness of it makes the girl feel that she can trust her.
She tells them her name, shyly, in a trembling voice, half because it is not much warmer inside where they are than it is outside on the street, and half because of her fear.
"Satine." She whispers, so that they must strain to hear her.
The woman says something to the effect of 'what a pretty name' and proceeds to ask many more questions than the exhausted and weak child cannot answer. Where is your mother? The woman asks, and she remembers thinking, that if she knew where her mother was, she wouldn't be here. She simply shakes her head. She really did wonder where her mother had gone though, and felt hot tears spring forward at the thought of being left alone.
Afterward, they bring her to another new place, and though she hadn't thought it possible, this one is even more terrifying than the last. There are children there, some her age, and others much older. They seem to loom over her ominously, peering down like vultures, as she clutches at Corinne's hand. She has an awful feeling in her stomach that Corinne will leave her with these children-these strangers-and retreat back out into the cold with the men. She wants to scream just as she did when she had been all alone in the dark the night before, wants to cry for the kind-faced woman to come back and to stay with her. But she fights the tears even as her only glimmer of hope disappears out the door, with only a wave goodbye, and a glance backward over her shoulder.
But she finally does cry once Corinne has gone, as she lies in bed later that night, staring up at the dark ceiling, trying to imagine her mother's face. She is in a large room, whose walls are lined with little cots, all exactly like the one she herself occupies now. Each one holds a sleeping child, all exactly like her, alone, afraid, and very cold. They have all been abandoned, left to their own devices in a world that cares nothing for stray children.
And so, for the second night in a row, she cries until she sleeps, her hot tears burning her icy cheeks. They fall back onto the pillow, mingling with her crimson hair, which is a great tangled mass of ringlets spreading out around her face, like the terrible sadness that was beginning to spread quickly around her heart.
***
Her most vivid memory of early childhood is not a happy one. She is a girl of no more than three years, standing alone on a darkened street, frightened, and cold. She is crying-desperately calling out for her mother. She reaches up towards the black sky, straining her little arms as if she wants to be held, embraced, kept warm against the bitter cold, flexing her tiny fingers to grasp something that isn't there. In her clouded memory, the small child screams until she collapses from exhaustion at the side of the road, and sleeps, unaware of the dark abyss that has opened beneath her. Should she move at all, stray too close in her unconscious state, she will be swallowed up by the hungry blackness, and she will be missed by no one. She has been abandoned, orphaned, and left utterly alone in the world.
She is still there in the morning, curled into a tight ball at the side of the filthy street. She is discovered, eventually, but she does not remember that part of the story. She was feverish and undoubtedly delirious at that point, and the next thing she remembers is being in an unfamiliar place.
Hushed voices carry on an indecipherable conversation somewhere nearby. It is not so much that the voices are cruel, or threatening, but that they are strangers' voices, and that frightens her. Before this, she has been accustomed to hearing only the comforting and familiar voice of her mother, and she is certain that neither of these unseen strangers are the woman she knows. She cannot make out individual words, but she understands their tones. They seem to be arguing, but very quietly, as if not to wake her. She wonders what they are fighting about. Her? She does not think so, because she has yet to hear her name spoken. But maybe its because they don't know it, she is positive she never told it to them-never told anyone her name. She had been plainly instructed never to tell a stranger her name by her mother, and she has always listened to her mother.
Later, when she is fully awake, and alert enough to be more afraid, the strangers ask her name. She is reluctant to tell them, but they simply explain that they would like to help her, that they will not harm her. She notes that they do not have kind faces, not faces she can easily trust, except the woman. There are three men besides the woman, and she can't help but feel intimidated by them. But the woman-Corinne was her name-smiles kindly. Her face is not the prettiest, but the warmness of it makes the girl feel that she can trust her.
She tells them her name, shyly, in a trembling voice, half because it is not much warmer inside where they are than it is outside on the street, and half because of her fear.
"Satine." She whispers, so that they must strain to hear her.
The woman says something to the effect of 'what a pretty name' and proceeds to ask many more questions than the exhausted and weak child cannot answer. Where is your mother? The woman asks, and she remembers thinking, that if she knew where her mother was, she wouldn't be here. She simply shakes her head. She really did wonder where her mother had gone though, and felt hot tears spring forward at the thought of being left alone.
Afterward, they bring her to another new place, and though she hadn't thought it possible, this one is even more terrifying than the last. There are children there, some her age, and others much older. They seem to loom over her ominously, peering down like vultures, as she clutches at Corinne's hand. She has an awful feeling in her stomach that Corinne will leave her with these children-these strangers-and retreat back out into the cold with the men. She wants to scream just as she did when she had been all alone in the dark the night before, wants to cry for the kind-faced woman to come back and to stay with her. But she fights the tears even as her only glimmer of hope disappears out the door, with only a wave goodbye, and a glance backward over her shoulder.
But she finally does cry once Corinne has gone, as she lies in bed later that night, staring up at the dark ceiling, trying to imagine her mother's face. She is in a large room, whose walls are lined with little cots, all exactly like the one she herself occupies now. Each one holds a sleeping child, all exactly like her, alone, afraid, and very cold. They have all been abandoned, left to their own devices in a world that cares nothing for stray children.
And so, for the second night in a row, she cries until she sleeps, her hot tears burning her icy cheeks. They fall back onto the pillow, mingling with her crimson hair, which is a great tangled mass of ringlets spreading out around her face, like the terrible sadness that was beginning to spread quickly around her heart.