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thepainted_ladyWednesdays in autumn were, on a rule, quiet around the carnival. The rubes' children had all gone back to school, and the rubes to work, and no one wanted a show when they had to all get up early the next morning. Summers were different. During the summer they could end up having a show every night, but in the autumns a sort of serenity settled over the carnival during the week. People slept in a little later, because there wasn’t so much to do. Chores were more leisurely, and people chatted while they tended to the daily needs, or went about the maintenance of rides and games to be ready for the coming weekend.
It was still unseasonably warm, but there was a bit of a breeze where Lydia sat under a tree and looked back at the towering steel and flapping pennants that looked somehow abandoned on this rolling plain. If she closed her eyes, reached out, she could feel just how unabandoned it was, with life and emotion and hopes and fears all tangling around inside the members of the family who moved through their day. She’d finished up her work for the day, and not wanting to confine herself to the stuffy interior of the trailer, and feeling more of an urge to commune with herself than the family, her feet and heart had led her here. Keeping her eyes closed, she drifted; hearing the soft buzz of insects, the trickle of the stream; feeling the warmth of the sun on her skin; smelling the distant smoke and meat that indicated Samuel or someone had fired up the grills for dinner. That made her smile, more than a little grateful that her appetite had finally returned.
Stretching her ability, she checked in on each loved one, sensing their mood, making sure there was nothing she was needed for at the moment. Everyone seemed content enough, so she pulled back into herself, stretching a little, and then stilling abruptly as a flutter went off in her abdomen.
It tickled a little, feeling like bubbles running around under the surface of her skin. She held her breath, and there it was again. Slowly, so slowly, terrified of making the sensation stop, she slid her hand to her stomach, cradling the swell that had finally started to make itself known, pressing there in some quiet plea for further confirmation, and after a few breathless moments, she felt the movement again, inside and out.
Tears sprang to her eyes, but she held very, very still, not even letting a sound escape when they fell. When she was finally forced to breathe, the sound slid out on a sigh, and then a soft laugh. The baby liked that, and she had to giggle as the tickling increased for a moment.
“Hi there,” she murmured softly, sliding her fingers across her skin.
She needed to find Samuel, to tell him, to show him, even if the likelihood that he’d feel anything so small was slim. He was sensitive to such things, though, and she wanted to share, to at least have somewhere to spill out the incredible joy that seemed to course through her veins. That required moving, though, and movement could make it stop, ruin the quiet perfection of this here and now.
This was clearly a time when a cell phone would have been handy, even if the possibility of signal out here was remote. In a few minutes, then, she’d go, find him, tell him. For now, she closed her eyes again, and just savored the contented feeling running deep through her, her focus now completely inward, wrapped around that tiny quickening, and all the future joy it foretold.
It was still unseasonably warm, but there was a bit of a breeze where Lydia sat under a tree and looked back at the towering steel and flapping pennants that looked somehow abandoned on this rolling plain. If she closed her eyes, reached out, she could feel just how unabandoned it was, with life and emotion and hopes and fears all tangling around inside the members of the family who moved through their day. She’d finished up her work for the day, and not wanting to confine herself to the stuffy interior of the trailer, and feeling more of an urge to commune with herself than the family, her feet and heart had led her here. Keeping her eyes closed, she drifted; hearing the soft buzz of insects, the trickle of the stream; feeling the warmth of the sun on her skin; smelling the distant smoke and meat that indicated Samuel or someone had fired up the grills for dinner. That made her smile, more than a little grateful that her appetite had finally returned.
Stretching her ability, she checked in on each loved one, sensing their mood, making sure there was nothing she was needed for at the moment. Everyone seemed content enough, so she pulled back into herself, stretching a little, and then stilling abruptly as a flutter went off in her abdomen.
It tickled a little, feeling like bubbles running around under the surface of her skin. She held her breath, and there it was again. Slowly, so slowly, terrified of making the sensation stop, she slid her hand to her stomach, cradling the swell that had finally started to make itself known, pressing there in some quiet plea for further confirmation, and after a few breathless moments, she felt the movement again, inside and out.
Tears sprang to her eyes, but she held very, very still, not even letting a sound escape when they fell. When she was finally forced to breathe, the sound slid out on a sigh, and then a soft laugh. The baby liked that, and she had to giggle as the tickling increased for a moment.
“Hi there,” she murmured softly, sliding her fingers across her skin.
She needed to find Samuel, to tell him, to show him, even if the likelihood that he’d feel anything so small was slim. He was sensitive to such things, though, and she wanted to share, to at least have somewhere to spill out the incredible joy that seemed to course through her veins. That required moving, though, and movement could make it stop, ruin the quiet perfection of this here and now.
This was clearly a time when a cell phone would have been handy, even if the possibility of signal out here was remote. In a few minutes, then, she’d go, find him, tell him. For now, she closed her eyes again, and just savored the contented feeling running deep through her, her focus now completely inward, wrapped around that tiny quickening, and all the future joy it foretold.
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Date: 2010-10-12 07:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-12 07:53 pm (UTC)"I know I don't really...look built for childbearing..." Narrower hips, and all. "But..." Her gaze fell, and she started playing with his other hand against her stomach.
"I've done this before. I was...fine. The doctors said it went smoothly, and she..." Her words faltered a little bit. "She was like us, and her ability...I don't know when it manifested, but it's a very volatile one."
It wasn't exactly the same. Samuel's mother might have had an easy time of it with Joseph. Or maybe the fact that she'd had a child with a volatile ability already with a non-special actually might add to his worries. That hadn't occurred to her before she spoke, and it cut the words off in her throat that she'd been planning to go on toward, leaving her tense against him, not daring a risk at his face.
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Date: 2010-10-23 06:55 pm (UTC)Stopping short, he shook his head. It was a miracle, an act of trust, that she'd told him she'd been with child before in the first place -- neither of them were much for sharing important bits of their past -- and he realized rather abruptly that it wasn't his place to pry further. If she wanted to say more, she would; until then, he could focus on just the surface of what she'd told him, rather than demanding to know why she hadn't said anything before or where her daughter was now. Or what she could do.
He settled slowly, wiping the surprise off of his face, and traced his fingers up and down her back, lightly. "Thank you for telling me, Lydia."
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Date: 2010-10-26 08:58 pm (UTC)For a few moments she just sat, tucking her feet under her and curling into him a little bit. She couldn't just leave it hanging there like that, though, so, finally, she went on. "I was fifteen when I got pregnant. Sixteen when she was born." He probably could have done the math and figured out it was something like that, given how old she'd been when she got here, but. "I'd run away from home with this boy. Things were...I wanted to get away, and I thought he loved me. Or...I wanted to believe he did. But when we found out I was pregnant, all he wanted to do was run. I went back home, but my dad kicked me out after a few weeks. So, I went to my sister. She's seven years older than me. Normal. Married. Lives in the suburbs. Her husbands got a good job. But she can't have kids. So when Amanda was born...I could tell how much they wanted her. They thought I was just a screw up. Hell...I'd run away, dropped out of school, gotten knocked up, all before I was old enough to drive, so." She shrugged. "They could give her everything I couldn't. So, I left her with them, and I ran again, and a few months later, I ended up here."
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Date: 2010-11-07 06:15 pm (UTC)"I won't leave you, Lydia," he told her softly. She was sure she could gather that much on her own, but he also figured that it couldn't help to say the words aloud and make them real. "You're stuck with me. Our daughter, our son -- whichever it happens to be -- is stuck with us."
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Date: 2010-11-07 06:56 pm (UTC)Leaning into his touch, she gave him a small smile, turning her head to press a kiss to his palm. "That's good. 'Cause you're sort of stuck with me, too."
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Date: 2010-11-13 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-16 07:10 pm (UTC)