http://bane-6.livejournal.com/ (![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
bane-6.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
31_days2007-03-11 09:37 am
bane-6.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2007-03-11 09:37 am
March 11: The Three Ravens. "Three Years, Three Months, and Three Days"
Title: Three Years, Three Months, and Three Days
Day/Theme: March 11. once the words are spoken, something may be broken
Series: : The Three Raven
Character/Pairing: various
Rating: PG
The step-mother had eyes like frozen venom. Pale green and cold as a wet winter, they clung to the daughter-in-law. The girl felt them and pretended not to. She bit the inside of her lip until the taste of copped filled her mouth and went on at her work.
She sat and twisted her creations, only stopping to sleep. Occasionally, the prince would find one of the shirts still in her hands, under the blanket. He had sent her ladies-in-waiting to knit with her when she wouldn’t give up her project. The ladies had tried to talk to her, to ask about what she was making, why she used the nettles, and to offer her every skein of every beautiful material in every color. She had smiled at them, but hadn’t spoken and gone on with her own work.
The step-mother had questioned each of the ladies, and had bitten her own tongue in frustration when they all came to like the new princess, despite the girl’s strangeness. When the children disappeared and the princess would not even speak to grieve, the cry of witchcraft went up. The ladies-in-waiting had gone to the prince to beg for mercy for the princess. If there was evil enchantment, they said, then the princess was as much a victim as the missing children.
“She would speak if she could,” the oldest of the them said. “She longs to speak. You can see it in her eyes, if you aren’t looking for evil.” She glared at the step-mother, whose poisonous eyes went even colder.
“She would stop making nettle shirts if she could,” the youngest wept. “Her poor hands blister and bleed and she makes no sound. Even her tears falling make no sound.”
“Something is making her do this,” the third added. “It keeps her silent and keeps her working. It isn’t her fault.”
The prince’s step-mother said that the maids had been deceived as well and sent them away. She told the prince of the blood she had seen on his young wife’s lips the mornings after each of her children had disappeared. She whispered of the ravens that flocked around the princess’ window. Not doves, not nightingales, but three black and staring ravens. That was unnatural, surely.
The step-mother reminded him of her first husband, who had withered away and died when his children had been magicked away. She did not want that to happen to the prince too, she said, hugging him.
The silent princess kept her scarred lip clenched between her teeth. She could feel the trouble coming. She had recognized the prince’s step-mother as her own step-mother, the one who had turned her brothers to ravens, the one who had sent her own father to his grave from grief. She had no doubts why the prince’s father had died so young. But she couldn't tell. And she wouldn’t. Not until the shirts were finished.
Day/Theme: March 11. once the words are spoken, something may be broken
Series: : The Three Raven
Character/Pairing: various
Rating: PG
The step-mother had eyes like frozen venom. Pale green and cold as a wet winter, they clung to the daughter-in-law. The girl felt them and pretended not to. She bit the inside of her lip until the taste of copped filled her mouth and went on at her work.
She sat and twisted her creations, only stopping to sleep. Occasionally, the prince would find one of the shirts still in her hands, under the blanket. He had sent her ladies-in-waiting to knit with her when she wouldn’t give up her project. The ladies had tried to talk to her, to ask about what she was making, why she used the nettles, and to offer her every skein of every beautiful material in every color. She had smiled at them, but hadn’t spoken and gone on with her own work.
The step-mother had questioned each of the ladies, and had bitten her own tongue in frustration when they all came to like the new princess, despite the girl’s strangeness. When the children disappeared and the princess would not even speak to grieve, the cry of witchcraft went up. The ladies-in-waiting had gone to the prince to beg for mercy for the princess. If there was evil enchantment, they said, then the princess was as much a victim as the missing children.
“She would speak if she could,” the oldest of the them said. “She longs to speak. You can see it in her eyes, if you aren’t looking for evil.” She glared at the step-mother, whose poisonous eyes went even colder.
“She would stop making nettle shirts if she could,” the youngest wept. “Her poor hands blister and bleed and she makes no sound. Even her tears falling make no sound.”
“Something is making her do this,” the third added. “It keeps her silent and keeps her working. It isn’t her fault.”
The prince’s step-mother said that the maids had been deceived as well and sent them away. She told the prince of the blood she had seen on his young wife’s lips the mornings after each of her children had disappeared. She whispered of the ravens that flocked around the princess’ window. Not doves, not nightingales, but three black and staring ravens. That was unnatural, surely.
The step-mother reminded him of her first husband, who had withered away and died when his children had been magicked away. She did not want that to happen to the prince too, she said, hugging him.
The silent princess kept her scarred lip clenched between her teeth. She could feel the trouble coming. She had recognized the prince’s step-mother as her own step-mother, the one who had turned her brothers to ravens, the one who had sent her own father to his grave from grief. She had no doubts why the prince’s father had died so young. But she couldn't tell. And she wouldn’t. Not until the shirts were finished.