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31_days2012-06-02 12:36 am
treeflamingo.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2012-06-02 12:36 am
[June 1] [North and South] Anxiety
Title: Anxiety
Day/Theme: June 1 - death's shadow grows
Series/Character: North and South; Margaret
Rating: G
Wordcount: 262
A/N: *sigh* Writing everyday is difficult. But this month's prompts are kind of amazing, so. Also, I'm now apparently writing fanfic for Elizabeth Gaskell? I surprise myself. Oh, yes - this is future!fic.
It was perfectly ludicrous, and Margaret knew it, but still the idea hounded her. She felt a cold sort of press at the back of her neck, toward nightfall, when she was alone with the baby, and it required all the exertion that her rational mind could summon, not to go rushing to John, wherever he was, the solid flame at the center of a pillar of bright activity.
After her mother, and her father, and Mr Bell, and the Helstone of her memories, and the softening, slowing lines of dear old Dixon, and the sudden attack that had taken Mrs Thornton just months after their marriage, leaving her now proud and crumbling like a pillar of Rome...
At dusk the dusty shadows of the factory buildings would stretch stiff fingers through the windows; Margaret would cower with back upright in the center of the room, with lights lit, with a brave smile for her child. She would watch intently, with a panic behind her great, tender eyes, that she could hide from all but he who had the power to dispel it -
- watching for shadows on her child’s face; watching for the smudges of darkness she felt dreadfully, nearly sure that her fingers would leave behind on that rose-and-gossamer cheek -
- watching, and fearing; loving, and impelling herself by force of every verse of Scripture she knew, to believe that Death did not spread out from her like a spider from the eaves -
- watching, and loving, and lighting the new gas lights against the growing shadows.
Day/Theme: June 1 - death's shadow grows
Series/Character: North and South; Margaret
Rating: G
Wordcount: 262
A/N: *sigh* Writing everyday is difficult. But this month's prompts are kind of amazing, so. Also, I'm now apparently writing fanfic for Elizabeth Gaskell? I surprise myself. Oh, yes - this is future!fic.
It was perfectly ludicrous, and Margaret knew it, but still the idea hounded her. She felt a cold sort of press at the back of her neck, toward nightfall, when she was alone with the baby, and it required all the exertion that her rational mind could summon, not to go rushing to John, wherever he was, the solid flame at the center of a pillar of bright activity.
After her mother, and her father, and Mr Bell, and the Helstone of her memories, and the softening, slowing lines of dear old Dixon, and the sudden attack that had taken Mrs Thornton just months after their marriage, leaving her now proud and crumbling like a pillar of Rome...
At dusk the dusty shadows of the factory buildings would stretch stiff fingers through the windows; Margaret would cower with back upright in the center of the room, with lights lit, with a brave smile for her child. She would watch intently, with a panic behind her great, tender eyes, that she could hide from all but he who had the power to dispel it -
- watching for shadows on her child’s face; watching for the smudges of darkness she felt dreadfully, nearly sure that her fingers would leave behind on that rose-and-gossamer cheek -
- watching, and fearing; loving, and impelling herself by force of every verse of Scripture she knew, to believe that Death did not spread out from her like a spider from the eaves -
- watching, and loving, and lighting the new gas lights against the growing shadows.