I'm back. Writing at all has been so hard for me for, honestly a long time, but I'm finally back in the groove, and it feels so wonderful. But I cannot promise any big epic TSOM stories soon; we might just have to work our way up there.
Also, I'm now on AO3, with the username GeorgiaWritesStuff. Everything posted here will also go up there, so if you want to look me up there, go ahead. I'd love that. I've also got a couple fics there that aren't here. I think the fandom skipped FFN entirely, but if you like Red, White & Royal Blue, I've done a couple fics for it.
At some point, my non-TSOM stuff might go up on AO3 and AO3 only, but TSOM will always be here.
Liesl was sixteen.
Sixteen and in love. Sixteen and on the verge of womanhood.
But she couldn't be either of those, because she had to be a mother. Sneaking out to see the telegram boy could only ever be a fleeting reprieve. Then it was back to ensuring her siblings were cared for.
Strangely, it gave her a sense of accomplishment. She loved her brothers and sisters more than anything else in the world.
Her father didn't want to spend time with his children, so somewhere along the way that had become her role.
She did not need a governess.
Friedrich was fourteen.
He had five sisters, but only one brother. As much as he loved the girls, he felt outnumbered. Not to mention, afraid to be himself.
He wanted to be a man. Wanted to be like his father. But instead, he just felt shy and aloof, while his father was cold and distant. Friedrich knew his father loved him, but it was hard to see that more often than it was easy.
He needed confidence. And while his new governess had that in abundance, for this, it couldn't come from her.
It needed to come from his father.
Louisa was thirteen.
She looked like her mother. So she'd been told anyway. It was hard to be sure when all her memories were hazy and her father didn't like to talk about it. Even photographs didn't help. And even if she did know she looked like her mother, she didn't really know her.
She thought, sometimes she didn't even know herself.
She knew she retreated into herself. But not much more. However, the one thing she did know for sure was that she wanted to have a good time.
Would the twelfth governess let her have a good time?
Kurt was eleven. Almost.
Everyone thought he was incorrigible. He didn't even know what that word meant, but it sounded important. And he thought if he pretended for long enough, he really would be incorrigible one day.
Because, deep down, he knew that he wasn't incorrigible at all. Behind the tough exterior, he was sensitive.
He knew that was a bad thing, because his father was nothing like that. He only really paid him attention when they were in between governesses, and he had no choice but to remember that he had children.
They had just lost governess number eleven.
Brigitta was ten.
It was hard to see at first, with her face always in a book, but she noticed everything.
She noticed her oldest sister sneaking away whenever there was a telegram. She noticed her brothers were more reserved than the boys in her class at school. She noticed the little ones didn't know what a mother was.
And she always told the truth; even when people didn't want to hear it.
Especially when people didn't want to hear it.
That had probably scared off more than half their governesses. What truth would send the next one running away?
Marta would be seven on Tuesday.
Her father wouldn't be around to celebrate with her. It was not the first time that this had happened. He hadn't been there the year before, nor the year before that. She had been told he was there for her fourth birthday, but she had been too young to remember that.
The birthdays she remembered, it had just been her siblings, and Frau Schmidt. The governesses were there; but they never lasted long enough for it to mean much to her.
But Fraulein Maria seemed excited when Marta had told her about her birthday.
Gretl was the youngest.
No one remembered how old she actually was. Well, the governesses didn't remember. Her father wasn't particularly warm with her; but he knew when her birthday was – and her siblings never forgot. But she still wasn't old enough to do what the others did. Card games were hard; chess was even harder. And her contributions to running off the governesses was near non-existent.
Their next governess would their twelfth. She was able to remember that, when none of them could remember how old she was.
She hoped their newest governess would remember that she was five.