Thursday, June 18, 2015

Lubna


Lubna:  My mother.  What can I say about my mother.  Her name, Willow Green.  Her hair, red flames licking the sides of a funky hat like a fedora with a peacock feather or a floppy, pink straw one.  She is short and round and has a smile that lights up my world.

When she smiles.  If she smiles.

For all her flowery caftans and floppy hats, bright red hair and hippie name, my mother is not happy.  I'm afraid it's my fault.  She doesn't say it but if it weren't my fault, why wouldn't she say that, why wouldn't she say, "Lubna, you are the light of my life, I love you and I'm proud of you and you make me want to live."

Why wouldn't she want to live?

The scars criss-cross her arms and even her legs.  Once she tried to cut off her own belly fat, or so it seemed she was trying to do.  I saw her in the bathroom, tears streaming over her cheeks as she drew a circle on her stomach and then went at it with a razor until I screamed.

Scars, red, white, brown with scabs.  She says she's not really suicidal, that the cutting is just a release.

She has never said that it's not my fault.

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Leilana

Leilana (thanks to visual prompt by illustrator @WillowRaven):


Leilana stopped short of the towers, awed by their beauty, their power.
Yes, they still held sway over her, even twelve long years after she'd gone.  Now, as she hovered over the dunes on a stolen helioboard, less than a parcel from the towers, she wondered if she even had a place there anymore.  Would they even let her in?  Did they dare?

Leilana licked her chapped lips to no avail.  Her mouth was too parched, gritty with sand.  Her guide had abandoned her many parcels ago, taking her provisions with him.  Ethan's threats had gotten to the poor bastard, probably.  And the copter in the distance?  No doubt it, too, belonged to Ethan and he was looking for her.  Ethan had promised—threatened—never to let her go without a fight.  Fucker. 

As she saw it, Leilana had but two choices:  turn and rush over the sands as fast as the helioboard would carry her, away from the towers, away from Ethan, away, away…  perhaps to burn up in the desert heat or to be eaten by the wandering Heglans or to perish from a thousand other dangers.

Or onward.  To the gate. 

Home.