Cages
He's walking through the garden, boots tip-tapping against cinderblock diamonds that make up the white-and-gray checkerboard path that snakes through the trees and bushes and flowers. The air is crisp and, although the chill of it soaks him to the bone, it refreshes him a way that the frigidness of the manor could never hope to. The cold of the manor is still and oppressive as it freezes him. The cold of the wind stirring the remnants of last night's snowfall into swirling patterns and miniature snow banks is wild and invigorating as it fills his lungs.
He shivers slightly into his coat, gloved hands shoved deep into his pockets and scarf secured snuggly around his neck. He breathes heavily in the air and watches his breath form as steam, then fall apart into nothing. He does this a few times, feeling a bit childish as he tries to make the evidence of his heat last as long as possible and reaches a hand out to grab the steam. There is no one around to see, though. He walks alone in what may be his favorite place in the entirety of the manor grounds.
He moves on from his little game, walking deeper into the tangle of frost-covered trees that flank the trail. Light from the rapidly setting sun shines through the trunks and branches, making the snow and frost glitter like gemstones. Snowblooms, one of the few species of budding flowers hardy enough to thrive in the Atlas weather, grow in clumps all throughout the garden despite never having been planted here, and he stops now to pluck one from its spot at the base of a giant evergreen. He twirls the stem in his clothed hand, and delicately fingers the white petals streaked with a rich royal blue.
The flower is considered to be a bit of a pest. A weed plant, the gardeners and landscapers call it, like dandelions. He however finds them beautiful. Strong and resilient against the harshness of the landscape and the best efforts of a legion of weedkillers and trowls. He carefully tucks it in one of his pockets, careful not to crush the bud; there are a few books in the library that he is sure no one would notice missing that he could use to press the flower in.
His boots scuff the edge of a raised stone, and he steps up onto the dais that sits in the middle of the circular clearing he has wandered into. Short benches carved from grey stone surround the centerpiece: a white marble fountain that is hardly ever running and so fills up with loosely packed snow. He rubs a coating of frost aside from a silver plaque seamlessly attached to the marble, and reads for what may be the hundredth time about how, on this very spot, his grandfather Nicholas Schnee, proposed to his grandmother Wanda Cerulean. The fountain had been a gift from Jacques and Willow on an anniversary, to commemorate the occasion. How poetic, he thinks, that the gift is exquisite and expensive, yet is unable to even function.
He moves on, unwilling to stop and sit, sure if he does he will simply freeze to the stone and be stuck until a servant is sent out to bring him back. He takes his time traipsing along the path, stopping to smell a flower here, brush a hand through a bush and knock off its snow there. He runs his hands across tree bark, imagining what it might be like to simply grab on a branch and hoist himself up to the very top, where stick-thin branches sway in the wind and look as if they are about to give and fall. He doesn't try; he knows what it would be like. He would fall.
At last, he reaches the end of the line. The path leads him to a limestone brick wall that stands 10 feet tall and at least a foot thick. The trail takes him right to an iron gate, made of thick bars kept clean of rust and tightly sealed by a lock he has never seen the key for. His fingers clench around the handle and he gives the bars a strong rattle. They do not move. They never have.
He does not know why he bothers, why every stroll he takes leads him here, why he tries the gate every single time to see if this is the one day where someone was careless and left it unlocked. There is no point. Even it was, and if it did open, he does not know what he would do about it. He does not think about what he might do because there is no point. It has never happened and most likely never will.
Still, he gives the lock one final yank before he concedes defeat and turns around, returning to a different kind of cold than the one of the garden.
Mother
He is on the way back to his room, long after the sun has set and the moon has risen. His stomach is soothed with warm tea freshly brewed in the kitchens, and he is half-tempted to ask Klein to bring the rest of the kettle to his room. As far as things go, he feels almost content, and the feeling is light in his chest.
He hears a voice call his name from down the hall, and as he turns that feeling dies. Automatically his back straightens, and nerves begin to coil like a snake inside him. There's no reason he should be so tense - it's not him coming down the hall to meet him - but he can't help but secretly dread these encounters.
"Whitley," she calls again, gliding towards him elegantly, her beautiful dress making the slightest swish where it briefly kisses the ground. Her hair drapes down her back, shiny with evidence of a thorough brushing, and glimmering silver streaks through the natural white. She stands tall and poised as she stops in front of him, and he quells the spark that threatens to become hope.
"Yes, Mother?" He answers softly. He never knows how to act, how to speak. Who is it that stands in front of him?
"Oh, darling." A frigid hand brushes the ends of his hair and cups his cheek. "You used to call me 'Mama', don't you remember?"
He feels like sobbing. He doesn't, and he doesn't press her hand against his cheek with his own like he wants to, either. "Yes, Mother. I remember." And he does; he remembers long nights around the fireplace reading storybooks, walks through the garden on the warmer days, and late night cuddles when he woke up with nightmares about the White Fang. He remembers happier times when the graying woman in front of him was once "Mama".
But then the fighting started, and with it came the shouting and the drinking and the forgetting. Forgetting the days, forgetting his name, forgetting that she was his Mama. So he doesn't call her that anymore: he calls her Mother. Why does she remember only now? That small spark flickers in him again, but he can't bring himself to let it catch. Not again.
"Oh, my darling." She frowns sadly up at him, and although she is tall, he realizes that he has grown even taller. Why does that hurt him?
Words he never expects to hear fall out of her mouth. "I'm sorry."
He blinks, the words a punch to the gut. "Wh-what?"
"I'm so, so sorry. I've left you and Weiss and Winter all alone, haven't I, darling?" Her old name for him, something he has not been called in years, Unbidden, pinpricks of heat well up behind his eyes.
"N-no, no, Mother -" A finger to his lips halts his protests, and he can do nothing but look at her.
"You've gotten so big, darling. I've missed it all." She cups his face in her hands, and for that one moment, he almost takes the plunge. For a second of clarity that his mother has not shown in years, he almost believes that she may be back, that his Mama has finally returned.
But then she pulls him close, wrapping her arms around him and burying her head in his chest, and he can smell the alcohol on her breath and feel the shakiness in her stance. She's drunk, like she always is, except for once instead of blinding her it has opened her eyes.
It can't last, he thinks as he stands stiff in her embrace. Soon either the drink will leave her system and she will forgot, or she will chase down the stark truths with another bottle and lose the memories of tonight forever. She may know now, but she won't tomorrow. She won't be sorry tomorrow. She won't be his Mama tomorrow.
"Darling?" She rubs his back like she used to when he was sick. "Oh, please say something, darling."
His vision blurs, and without thinking, he raises his arms and grips her tight. He shakes, and she coos softly and cards her finger through his hair. The shoulder of her dress grows damp, but she says nothing about it as she clings to him just as strongly as he clings to her.
She won't remember this tomorrow, he knows. Tomorrow, she will be Mother again. Right now, though, she's Mama, and he cries.
