FIC: Fade to Silver [Maera]
Title: Mother Verse: Fade To Silver Characters: Maera Notes: I wanted to write for a different character and I do have a very strong soft spot for Maera. Written for chibify's prompts "last year's wishes", "stars" and "regrets"
Summary: Maera, before anything else, is a Mother.
She’s hums, the melody of a thousand lost lullabies sung to an empty cradle rocking and a room so small is somehow larger with the whisper-sweet cadence of love that spills from her lips. Her hands are busy with strands of brightly spun thread and as she hums she weaves, the practiced fingers with a spider’s talent turning silk into a masterpiece of careful patience and intrinsic craft. Purples and ebonies…like the petals of a thousand crushed violets bleeding shadow spill over her lap and her fingers play the threads like a harpist plucks strings. She rocks like the empty cradle, on a rocking chair made-believe, a soft smile, a warm smile bestowed upon that cradle as the threads become more than what they are alone. A blanket as soft as that smile and as warm as the mother’s love woven into it’s creation forms from those talented fingertips and every so often they pause…a delicate brush over the pattern. It’s not an inspection simply a delight in watching the craft, in watching the imaginings waltzing through her mind.
She weaves and her melody becomes song, the empty cradle filled only with last years wishes as they fall trembling and happy from the Weaver’s mouth. She sees more than what is reality, hears the small sounds of a baby breathing, sleeping, living in an empty cradle. The blanket grows, the cradle rocks as her mind is lost to the future…distant stars on the horizon that long since winked out of her line of sight but still burn too bright in her memory. Too bright the reflection is mistaken for light when all that left is the empty shadows of the regrets she cannot bear to acknowledge.
“You’ll be warm, little raven.” She coos, eyes bright as her fingers pause to brush the edge of the cradle with a mother’s gentle touch. Adoration is the song on her tongue and she sings it to her room filled with the soft strands of a lullaby for a child that only remains within the reflection of the stars as they dance past her eyes.
“Warm and loved.” She drapes the blanket over the cradle, tucks the edges to ward off the night’s chill and hears the soft stirring of the child as he turns towards the warmth of her making.
Nothing can contain the love in her heart and it spills forth…in a smile, a whisper, a touch. Lips press against the echoes of a child’s face and she believes the downy hair raven black under her kiss is as real as the threads that lay at her feet.
“Sleep sweet, Ceallach.”
She hums and she does not recognize the strange droplets of water even as they trace their paths down her cheeks to leave salt tasting bitter on her lips.