{ w h o } Marjan and Lola { w h a t } Laundry. Kind of. { w h e n } Early morning { w h e r e } Near water? We'll call it a creek { r a t i n g } PG { status } Complete
Bloodstains were the bane of Lola's existence. She rarely felt a thing when it came to acquiring them, to be honest; she was numb to the common emotions of guilt and empathy, at least as far as despicable drunks were concerned, but the moment one of them refused to die neatly in a crumpled pile at her feet, Lola was miserable. Bloodstains were a genuine source of misery. She still hadn't worked out how to remove them from her clothes, and many a good dress had been burned as a result. The fact that she was stubborn was what brought her to early morning laundry attempts, crouched by a pleasantly babbling brook to scrub viciously at the skirt of one of her dresses. It reminded her why she preferred taking her clothes off before pulling a knife.
The mess wasn't her problem if it spread out across the surface of a lake, after all.
Dipping the fabric back into the water, Lola gave the largest spot another rough scrub, scowling when her efforts proved ineffectual once again. There had always been plenty to clean before she left home, plenty of dirt and sweat and other repulsive stains streaked over the clothing of all her brothers, but she had never discussed with her pious Irish mother the best ways to remove vital fluids from a garment. The first time her father came into her bed, Lola had torched her nightclothes and her sheets just to get rid of the sight of blood. That was the only time it scared her, when it was her own.
This man had staggered pathetically, wasting his last drunken moments gripping at her body as if she'd have a change of heart and magically heal his wound. And now her favorite dress was ruined. No thoughts of heaven or hell, no pit of dread in her stomach, just clear-cut annoyance; it was the most she could feel, and Lola was perfectly content with that.
Still, sometimes it was inconvenient, getting rid of the scum of the earth.