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+--- Thread: heart made of glass — oneshot (/showthread.php?tid=1279)
heart made of glass — oneshot - tinsel - 05-12-2018
[div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; line-height: 20px;"][align=center]major tw for murdering children,
mentions of past murders, and mentions of torture.
mentions of past murders, and mentions of torture.
winter was coming.
maybe to the rest of the world, this would be a fun sort of joke. winter is coming, they’d say, and have a grand debate about who’d win the iron throne and what the state of inbreeding was. but this statement wasn’t a pop culture reference to bianca, it was her reality. a harsh reality that hurt her.
“they’re starving.” matteo’s words were a harsh reality to the blonde. she sat beside him in the dirt, picking carrots from the soft earth, brushing them off. she wanted to steal one so badly, slip it beneath her clothing. it was one measly little carrot, hardly anything, but it was one carrot that could go into a dozen hungry little bellies. bellies of starving children, infants, babies. but they were watching her too closely now, and the fresh scars stung at the thought. starting just below her ribs, parallel cuts ran the front of her form down to her ankles. the punishment for stealing.
“matteo,” she said quietly, setting the carrot in the basket between them and retrieving another, “what you’re talking about is-”
“horrible.” he finished for her. she risked a glance at her twin brother, but he didn’t look at her. no, he couldn’t, she knew this. he hated this truth as much as she did, the harshness of the reality they lived in. “yeah, bee, i know that. you think i want to have to think this way?” he added his carrot to the basket and turned his face, so much like her own, to face her. “we’re doing them a favor, though. sparing them.”
she felt her lip curl in disgust. “murder, matteo.” she said the words slowly, setting her carrot in the basket. “they’re babies. you’re talking about murdering babies.” but she knew he was right. she knew well, so fucking well, that he was right. there were too many of them, not enough food. the kids - they ate, but they couldn’t produce. she hated that either of them had to think this way, that either of them had to play god like this. decide who was valuable enough to live. but they’d all die if they didn’t do this, didn’t thin the population.
he didn’t rise to her. she was angry, and he sensed this, and he knew she wasn’t angry at him. matteo, he was always good for that. for understanding that the truth hurt her, and when it hurt her, she just wanted to hurt everyone else. she didn’t want to believe the truth, but she had to. they both knew that.
“i can do it, if you want.”
“no. i will.”
she didn’t want to kill them. she was decent, kind, she liked kids. she liked these kids, they were like her own. she liked to think that one day, she’d have children of her own. little babies with her golden curls and her husbands eyes. she thought she’d name them after flowers, maybe. rose, lily, daisy. or maybe something more traditional, like alexander or william. she didn’t want to do this, but someone had to, and she wouldn’t let it be matteo. her brother, for all of his strength, was too good for that. he was a good, decent boy. they were hardly eighteen, she’d killed before and she could do it again. but she couldn’t let this weigh on his conscience, because it would weigh on hers more heavily. she saw it in his face. that he felt weak, felt like a coward. seeing him like that hurt, too, because she didn’t want him to feel like he was letting his sister kill because he couldn’t. she wished he could just understand that she was different. she took no pleasure in what she did, but she did what she had to. for herself, for him, for everyone. she wanted to pull him in and hold him like their mother used to, she wanted to tell him that one day, they’d live free. they’d go and meet the world out there, and they’d never have to remember the things they did in here.
but she didn’t. she just inhaled sharply, shoved herself to her feet, and lifted the basket. trailed her way through the paths between the rows of crops, hung her head low, ignored the chill of the breeze on her skin. she found her way towards the crop house, full of food that they couldn’t eat, stored by starving slaves. khalid stood patiently at the counter, something pained in his eyes when he looked at her. khalid shared no blood with her, his dark skin and nappy hair completely unlike her own, but he was family. one of the few people left from her village still alive, just a few years older than her. she’d loved his brother, kendrick, once - but kendrick had tattled on her for stealing food for children. in return, kendrick no longer worked in the fields, and he no longer worried about starvation. part of his terms in ratting her out were that khalid would reap these benefits too, but khalid understood loyalty. he refused, he suffered with the rest of them because he was her friend. it was a shame, really, that she’d loved the wrong brother. part of her wanted to love khalid, and she thought part of him wanted to love her. but there was a nineteen year old traitor between them that made it impossible.
her eyes met his, and she realized he knew immediately. no words were spoken, guards around them too watchful, but she passed the basket forward, and he passed one right back. this one, however, wasn’t empty. within were a few dirty cloths that would be the weapon. she understood what these meant, because she’d received a basket like this once before, when she was twelve. when their people were dying of sickness in the heat of the summer sun, when they’d had no choice but to kill the sick to prevent it from spreading. when matteo had drawn the short stick and she’d taken it from him. she hadn’t let anyone else perform this sort of thinning then, and she wouldn’t now. she understood that this was, perhaps, her place among the three of them. matteo was smart, he could do the math they needed. khalid could lie and hide food the best he could, give the slaveholders a little less and their people a little more. and this was what she brought to the table, the ability to kill when it was necessary.
she took the basket from the counter quickly, tilted it a bit to keep the guards from seeing it as she rounded the building. her eyes found the makeshift nursery, outside of which cosette stood. an older woman, one of the ones who didn’t speak english. tears streaked her face, and though bianca had never really looked at her before, she decided that cosette was pretty. with her soft blue eyes and the gray streaking her hair, she looked soft and kind, and it was no wonder the babies liked her.
cosette didn’t look at her, just at the ground, a thin hand reaching out to open the door. bianca paused for a moment, let her eyes linger on cosette, and she wanted to say something. she understood that cosette cared for these infants every day, that she loved them. she must understand why bianca had to do what she did, but it didn’t lessen the blow. the blonde knew that this woman would probably always hate her for it, for killing these children. bianca wished she didn’t have to do it.
she walked in without a word. her eyes stretched across the children, all fast asleep, of varying ages. newborns, toddlers, some as old as four. the older ones, they’d live. they’d be useful soon. but nine babies had been seperated, lain on the floor on a soft pink blanket, and seeing them there caused the eighteen year old to cry. silently, tears running down her cheeks as she surveyed them, she knew what she had to do, what she’d never forgive herself for doing, what she’d never forgive james, the man in charge, for driving her to do. they’d have enough food if everyone took a little less, if their captors rationed their meals. but that would never happen, that wasn’t the world they lived in.
elsewhere in the world, eighteen year old girls acted like eighteen year old girls. they kissed their boyfriends and snuck out of the house, they had friends and went to dances and argued with their parents. they gossiped about who was being a slut and tried to perfect their eyeliner.
but in that small encampment, an eighteen year old girl killed nine babies to save six hundred lives.
( 1466 words. pretty much a small glimpse into some of the things bianca had to do while a slave,, and a part of the reason she get's a little emotional around babies. )
Re: heart made of glass — oneshot - Beatles. - 05-13-2018
b eeeeEEEEE