(no subject)
Jun. 20th, 2005 03:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sai_delgadoShe watches Bernard start back toward the bar and then turns away from Crowley's grave, toward the stables.
It's quiet there, at this point in the afternoon, or it seems to be. Susan looks around carefully, searching for any sign of Alain or Clarice-- but no one is inside right now, and the horses are all turned out to pasture.
There's an empty stall, and that's where she goes, shutting the door behind her and sinking down on the clean straw in the far corner. She draws her knees up and rests her arms on them, breathing raggedly. After a moment, Susan buries her face in her arms, shuddering.
(her uncle - her family - he's one of them)
She can almost see Aunt Cord, a gaunt scarecrow of a woman, face twisted with madness and hate. She can still hear the voices of the townspeople chanting, and the sharp crackle of the fire as her aunt's torch sails through the air to land at her feet.
(the longer she's gone - the more I know they've done to her)
She can hear Eldred Jonas, telling the rest to "make what use of her ye would," even as she glared defiantly at him with a bruised face and bloodied lip from his blows. A darkened room and a door that she couldn't open, no matter how she tried, knowing what was planned -- Olive Thorin had saved her from that, but it hadn't been enough. Sai Thorin had been killed for it, shot while she tried to defend a girl she had no reason to like, falling to the road at her feet-- and Susan had died anyway--
(Tonks is having a baby too)
-- and she had been carrying Roland's child when she burned. And now-- oh, ka is cruel, for now the face she sees and the voice she hears in her mind is not from the past, or not the far past, say true. It's Cuthbert she sees, telling her
(you would've made a wonderful mother)
that it doesn't matter, that they have each other, and he's glad of what they do have, despite what they can't.
(I dunno what to tell Sunny. I keep telling her that she'll be back soon, you know? And Crowley too. But they're not back.)
She knows too well what loss may still be to come. And now, where she doesn't have to be strong, where Bernard can't see her-- where no one can see-- Susan Delgado weeps, sobbing until she has no more tears left. And after that, she stays there for yet a while longer, golden braid fallen over her shoulder, silent and unmoving.
But eventually, she stands up and brushes straw from her jeans, preparing herself to
(time is a face on the water)
move on, to do what needs doing. One last look around the stables, and Susan goes back to the bar, to face whatever's yet to come.
It's quiet there, at this point in the afternoon, or it seems to be. Susan looks around carefully, searching for any sign of Alain or Clarice-- but no one is inside right now, and the horses are all turned out to pasture.
There's an empty stall, and that's where she goes, shutting the door behind her and sinking down on the clean straw in the far corner. She draws her knees up and rests her arms on them, breathing raggedly. After a moment, Susan buries her face in her arms, shuddering.
(her uncle - her family - he's one of them)
She can almost see Aunt Cord, a gaunt scarecrow of a woman, face twisted with madness and hate. She can still hear the voices of the townspeople chanting, and the sharp crackle of the fire as her aunt's torch sails through the air to land at her feet.
(the longer she's gone - the more I know they've done to her)
She can hear Eldred Jonas, telling the rest to "make what use of her ye would," even as she glared defiantly at him with a bruised face and bloodied lip from his blows. A darkened room and a door that she couldn't open, no matter how she tried, knowing what was planned -- Olive Thorin had saved her from that, but it hadn't been enough. Sai Thorin had been killed for it, shot while she tried to defend a girl she had no reason to like, falling to the road at her feet-- and Susan had died anyway--
(Tonks is having a baby too)
-- and she had been carrying Roland's child when she burned. And now-- oh, ka is cruel, for now the face she sees and the voice she hears in her mind is not from the past, or not the far past, say true. It's Cuthbert she sees, telling her
(you would've made a wonderful mother)
that it doesn't matter, that they have each other, and he's glad of what they do have, despite what they can't.
(I dunno what to tell Sunny. I keep telling her that she'll be back soon, you know? And Crowley too. But they're not back.)
She knows too well what loss may still be to come. And now, where she doesn't have to be strong, where Bernard can't see her-- where no one can see-- Susan Delgado weeps, sobbing until she has no more tears left. And after that, she stays there for yet a while longer, golden braid fallen over her shoulder, silent and unmoving.
But eventually, she stands up and brushes straw from her jeans, preparing herself to
(time is a face on the water)
move on, to do what needs doing. One last look around the stables, and Susan goes back to the bar, to face whatever's yet to come.
