Revamped!
[I know that you've been waiting our favourites. Now, the're finally here … as children.]
Burned to Cinder: Part Four
After a few months, people assumed that Selene Blackburn was no longer in Artemisia. Nobody knew where she went. Her "disappearance" ignited rumours that slowly dimmed down as months turned into years. Selene was no more than an urban legend, a ghost of the Blackburn regime and dynasty.
Now, the Blackburn girls were three-years-old and running around. Evert was occasionally deployed for a two months periodically and during that time, Levana had to lessen her workload to be able to take care of the kids since she didn't trust nannies. She usually let Cinder and Winter do whatever they wanted as long as it wasn't dangerously ridiculous. Levana believed it taught the kids how to have a good sense of judgment which it surprisingly did.
Whenever Evret was overseas, Levana and the kids would be invited to country clubs by other military wives whose husbands were overseas or soldiers who didn't get deployed this round. Levana would prefer to say no but she always ended up going. She was lonely without Evret but she went to the country club so Winter and Cinder could play with the other children who would come, meaning that she didn't have to keep her eye on them.
Like today. They were outside on a sunny day. The women were sipping their rosé while the men were practising their shooting with rifles and flying plates. The children were in the distance, playing with their imaginations.
Levana wishes the rosé would take an effect on her but after her third glass and still being able to hear the other wives talk, she knew there was no hope for her. She didn't fancy most of the other soldier wives since they were typical Artemisia women who fancied President Blackburn, cosmetic surgery, and the status their war hero husbands gave them. As a woman continues talking, Levana can't help but think about what a motor mouth she is. Maybe her plastic surgeon did that and she can't help but brag about it.
Out of the women here, Levana only likes Clarissa Clay because she was a very humble and classy, tributes which she passed onto her son who loves to play with Winter; and Jade Kinney, mother of a young boy named Liam, who was a straightforward woman who always speaks her mind and never made Levana lose hers.
"No woman should get dirty like that," one of the plastic women says. "Don't you agree, Levana?"
Levana knows that they're talking about the fact that Cinder likes to play and build things in the dirt, like boys typically would, although they overtly mean the men shooting plates in the air as a masculine sport just to show how ladylike they are. There was one thing that Levana would reject more than the mind-numbing conversations she often had to endure and it was insulting the Blackburn name. That was the final straw. But Levana decides to react calmly as the other women wait for a response from her. Instead of badmouthing them in return, she puts on a fresh coat of lipstick before striding away from the women. Red lipstick is an external sign of an internal fire. She approaches the men and takes one of their guns, loading and cocking it.
The men look at her skeptically before starting a new round. Plates fly out from all directions and Levana shoots them all, making it rain porcelain pieces. Once she's out of ammo, everyone is silent as she blows the smoke from the gun and slings the empty gun over her shoulder and walks right through the crowd of women.
The fact that she did that so perfectly shocked the men whereas the women were more focused on how she didn't smudge her lipstick, chip her manicure, or break her heels. She gives the other wives a smile that makes her look like a beauty queen serial killer.
"Those cutthroat Blackburns know how to slice their way to a Hayle's heart," a man comments as Levana blows them all a fake kiss.
-o-
"Ahh!" Winter screams. "Jacin, save me!"
Winter flails on the grass, staining her costume princess gown as she lies helplessly. A distressed hand lands on her forehead as she continues to cry for help. A shadow forms over her and it's Liam Kinney (or simply Kinney), standing above her as he acts like a monster. He wears a sign that says dragon around his neck (some letters were written the wrong way, all in crayon and glitter) and makes fire-breathing noises which sound like dry heaving.
"Jacin!" Winter continues to call.
Jacin gallops over as if he were on a horse. He stops in front of Kinney who continues to play like a dragon. Jacin pulls out his stick-sword from his belt and starts prancing towards Kinney. Kinney jumps at him and the two boys start wrestling each other. Winter fawns and it all stops when their mothers yell at them. Kinney and Jacin stand up and brush the grass stains off their clothes so their mothers won't get any more angry with them.
"Jacin!" Winter yells, still playing the princess role. She runs over and throws herself at him like any other old damsel. "You saved me!"
"I would rescue you from any trouble, no matter what it may do to my life."
Winter bats her lashes. "Aw, Jacin, that's so romantic!"
"I got it from one of my mom's soap operas."
"You're so resourceful."
"Where did that big word come from?"
"Stepmother's paperwork."
"What does it mean?"
"Don't know."
Jacin finds his face getting hotter with colour as he puts his stick sword back into his belt. Winter continues staring at him with an adoring toothy smile. Kinney looks back and forth between them, slowly backing away.
-o-
Across the grass, far enough from the fairytale re-enactment sits Cinder and her friend Linh Iko building Winter a princess castle out of popsicle sticks, glitter, and tulle. Linh Iko wasn't directly a military child per se but she was the adopted child of the Linh family who had their ties with Luna's military. They lived down the street from the Blackburns and that's how Cinder and Iko became close.
"There's glitter all over my hands!" Cinder exclaims, rubbing her hands on her shirt which makes her glitter problem even worse.
"We need to make a stable for Princess Winter's horses!" Iko says, grabbing more popsicle sticks.
Out of nowhere, Kinney comes out of nowhere. Continuing his not-really monstrous dragon act, he stampedes through the popsicle castle, demolishing it. Iko screams and Cinder continues to try and rid herself free of this glitter issue, not even noticing what Kinney did.
"Kinney!" Iko screams. "We worked hard on that!"
Kinney laughs. "Clearly, it wasn't dragon-proof."
Kinney continues to laugh as Iko resorts to dumping all the glue and glitter on him. Kinney throws some of it back on Iko and they start fighting each other. Some residue lands on Cinder and she whines.
"You just ruined a castle built by the one and only Selene Blackburn!" Iko exclaims at Kinney.
"Selene Blackburn isn't here and she's not a princess!" Kinney yells back.
"She's right there!" Iko points right at Cinder.
Kinney looks over at Cinder and can't believe that the girl sitting flat with glitter all over her and pieces of grass in her hair. He can't believe that the messy girl he's looking at is the missing daughter of the late President Blackburn but at the same time, he believes it. He heard that President Blackburn was a disaster and looking at Cinder at the moment, he has a new understanding of the phrase, like Mother like Daughter.
"I can't believe you're famous!" Kinney tells her.
"Me neither," Cinder responds. "But if Levana asks, I never told you."
Cinder waits for a response from either Iko or Kinney but they're silent. They're suddenly covered by a growing shadow, stopping mid-fight and staring up in fear at something. Cinder looks over her shoulder and sees an angered Levana. Before Cinder could run, Levana grabs her and drags her away.
"You're not supposed to tell anyone about Selene!" Levana scolds.
"But Iko and Kinney are my best friends," Cinder argues innocently. "They told me their secrets."
"What secrets could they possibly have? They're children."
"I can't tell you. They're secrets."
Levana groans in frustration as she rolls her eyes. The reason she told Cinder about Selene at such a young age was because Levana knew that if Cinder found out as a teenager, she would possibly go through an annoying and unnecessary rebellious phase due to an identity crisis. Levana couldn't take that chance. That and a fetus Cinder couldn't talk back as much and preferred the name Cinder anyways.
Levana is about to punish her but as Cinder looks up at her, she almost instantly tenses. She sees Channary's face except younger - those same sharp features and unspeakable beauty. And those eyes - those dark brown eyes. Levana was glad that all Cinder seemed to inherit from her mother was her face. So far, at least.
"Go back and play," Levana says.
Without questioning Levana's sudden change, Cinder runs back before Levana decides to scold her for real. As she stares at Cinder and the phenomenon that is her genetics, about how she could inherit basically every physical trait from Channary which makes her father an even bigger mystery. She should look into that.
Levana snaps back to reality when she feels someone tugging at the hem of her shirt. She looks down and sees Winter looking back up with her big round eyes. She smiles at her stepmother and Levana rests a hand on the top of the curls she got from Evret.
"I'm hungry," Winter tells her.
"Fine," Levana says.
As they walk over to the table with the food, Winter skips ahead and Levana can't help but keep her eyes on Cinder. She regains her attention once again when she sees Winter holding a small plate out for her. Levana takes it and starts scooping some fruit pieces out for her.
"Having fun with Jacin?" Levana asks.
Winter nods happily. "He's my Prince."
"How charming," Levana smirks with no pun intended.
"When's daddy coming home?"
"Next week." She stabs a fork into a piece of honeydew melon before passing the plate to Winter. "Why?"
"Why does Daddy always leave?"
"To serve the country."
"Like dead Auntie Channary did?"
"Not even close."
[Don't sass me that Levana is too nice because she's not winning the mother of the year award. But her cynical unorthodox parenting has some pretty legit logic in it.]