( cw child abuse, there's also a mention of vomit fyi )
Aradia is young again here, no older than ten, lying in bed, a mass of pillows and blankets far too big for her. The curtains are firmly shut in her room, but even the dimmed sunlight that reaches her eyes is too much for her to endure - but even movement has become difficult by this point, her muscles weak, a numbness spreading through her body so thoroughly she struggles to breathe.
Accompanied by her grandmother, a servant enters her quarters with a platter in hand, upon it a silver cup. Her grandmother is a serious-looking woman who Aradia nevertheless seems to admire greatly, putting ample effort into focusing and righting herself once she hears the sound of her voice, her vision no longer all that reliable. But, though Grandmother greets her - a terse yet gentle “Good evening,” - speaking is likewise beyond her at this point.
It’s been this way for some time now. The regularity of it is the only thing that holds the memory in her mind - Grandmother, without fail, comes to visit her at this time on this day in this place, accompanied by a servant, and gives her her medicine. For as far back as she can remember. Her condition was never so bad as to leave her bedridden before, she reflects distantly, but she can’t really recall.
After all, such a thing would definitely be her own fault, regardless. She’s always spilling the medicine or vomiting it up, Grandmother has long since explained to her, and so she fails to get better, or else perhaps it is her curse that directs the course of it - what she brought onto this family through her birth.
It could be both or either, and even in this state she earnestly hopes to be good, so she drinks dutifully as the cup is pressed to her lips, even though the pain that wracks her stiff neck and swollen throat. The liquid inside is vermilion in color, viscous with a taste she has never been able to place even though it remains on her tongue long after each treatment. When she coughs she goes unaided, and the three part.
And that night, as with the night following every treatment, she drifts deeply, endlessly through the ether as if afloat in a boundless sea, brimming with light and color and life so great it threatens to swallow her whole.
NOTES/SUMMARY: - It’s Dia Small, but even considering that her grandmother looks conspicuously youthful. - She gets her 9000000th weekly dosage of Special Medicine™ for her illness, which has gone on longer than she’s actually able to remember, but for whatever reason she’s only gotten more and more sick as time has passed. She thinks. On top of everything else, her illness has also affected her memory, so it’s hard for her to know for sure. - Her grandmother’s said before that she’s had trouble keeping the medicine down, so it’s no wonder, or maybe it’s the whole “you’re being punished for being alive” thing. Who knows. Either way she always drinks it all and is quick to fall asleep after, having some nebulous spooky space-floaty dreams. - While she has no frame of reference for it by virtue of being like 9, a person watching the memory would be able to understand that the medicine tastes kind of metallic-y, but while the texture seems weird it doesn’t seem to be blood or anything. Who knows.
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10
Aradia is young again here, no older than ten, lying in bed, a mass of pillows and blankets far too big for her. The curtains are firmly shut in her room, but even the dimmed sunlight that reaches her eyes is too much for her to endure - but even movement has become difficult by this point, her muscles weak, a numbness spreading through her body so thoroughly she struggles to breathe.
Accompanied by her grandmother, a servant enters her quarters with a platter in hand, upon it a silver cup. Her grandmother is a serious-looking woman who Aradia nevertheless seems to admire greatly, putting ample effort into focusing and righting herself once she hears the sound of her voice, her vision no longer all that reliable. But, though Grandmother greets her - a terse yet gentle “Good evening,” - speaking is likewise beyond her at this point.
It’s been this way for some time now. The regularity of it is the only thing that holds the memory in her mind - Grandmother, without fail, comes to visit her at this time on this day in this place, accompanied by a servant, and gives her her medicine. For as far back as she can remember. Her condition was never so bad as to leave her bedridden before, she reflects distantly, but she can’t really recall.
After all, such a thing would definitely be her own fault, regardless. She’s always spilling the medicine or vomiting it up, Grandmother has long since explained to her, and so she fails to get better, or else perhaps it is her curse that directs the course of it - what she brought onto this family through her birth.
It could be both or either, and even in this state she earnestly hopes to be good, so she drinks dutifully as the cup is pressed to her lips, even though the pain that wracks her stiff neck and swollen throat. The liquid inside is vermilion in color, viscous with a taste she has never been able to place even though it remains on her tongue long after each treatment. When she coughs she goes unaided, and the three part.
And that night, as with the night following every treatment, she drifts deeply, endlessly through the ether as if afloat in a boundless sea, brimming with light and color and life so great it threatens to swallow her whole.
NOTES/SUMMARY:
- It’s Dia Small, but even considering that her grandmother looks conspicuously youthful.
- She gets her 9000000th weekly dosage of Special Medicine™ for her illness, which has gone on longer than she’s actually able to remember, but for whatever reason she’s only gotten more and more sick as time has passed. She thinks. On top of everything else, her illness has also affected her memory, so it’s hard for her to know for sure.
- Her grandmother’s said before that she’s had trouble keeping the medicine down, so it’s no wonder, or maybe it’s the whole “you’re being punished for being alive” thing. Who knows. Either way she always drinks it all and is quick to fall asleep after, having some nebulous spooky space-floaty dreams.
- While she has no frame of reference for it by virtue of being like 9, a person watching the memory would be able to understand that the medicine tastes kind of metallic-y, but while the texture seems weird it doesn’t seem to be blood or anything. Who knows.