Chapter Text
I once loved a tailor who took eager care of me
It’s but a small tear they notice one day in their concert attire. Raine had been testing their older outfit on to see if, perhaps, they’d be able to save a few snails and get away with the decade old look.
There was, however, a tear among the top’s side seam. They wouldn’t dear perform with their hands in the air, ready to breathe with the symphony they’d conduct, with such a noticeable flaw. No matter its size.
They think for a moment. The mint-haired witch wonders. Couldn’t they fix it? They, however, knew no sewing skills.
But Eda did, wear and tear to their clothes would be fixed the day after they had commented on it being worn down. It was how they’d saved money, back when Lydian was little.
The clock chimed, reminding them they were not in their former home. That they were in a completely new apartment, with Lydian alone, and no Eda in sight.
Sorrow tore at their chest, dragging it downwards as they dropped their arms back to their side. Raine hardly dared to think of the ginger haired witch. Too distressing for them, they’d told themself the last few months. Was it worth wasting the thought when they needed to keep their chin up? To waste the energy, energy they’d only recently just restored after having wallowed in sorrow for as long as they had?
Raine bit the bottom of their lips. Perhaps purchasing new attire would be better. After all, this was the start of a new beginning.
I once loved a gardener with his dirt-smudged face and hands
It was stupid. Having so much of something she didn’t even want. Selfish when she took into consideration her financial status. Half the income, half the monthly budget. Yet it went to this. These peppers, ones that Eda hated.
But they reminded her oh so much of them. And as much as she preached aloud how she loathed them now, she couldn’t remove the part of her heart that ached for their presence. The part of her that longed to hold onto the very end, just before their bridges all burned.
If she was smart, she’d sell the peppers to make extra money. Maybe she could sell them to a shop, and that shop would then sell them to Raine. Eda knew, though, that they would never buy these peppers.
They were best home grown, after all. In whatever fertile soil one could find on the Boiling Isles.
The image of them in their gardening apron still shown clearly in her mind. The paisley gloves Eda had scoured from the human realm, just for them. The trowel they’d used, the handle carved by Eda with an intricate design of matching flowers.
She should be rid of them, the peppers, to make certain that no one could ever realize she was still clinging onto the memory of them in the former garden in her backyard.
I once loved a carpenter who carved a smile for me
Alto was a fine carving, one Raine can hardly give credit to themself for.
That would have to go to Eda and her dad.
It becomes less and less frequent the sting crosses when they stare at their precious fox (whether that is because they themself see Alto less or if it’s because they’re used to the idea of Alto being Alto out of the context of Edalyn, they’re unsure).
Lydian, ever curious she is, asks about palismen. Raine gives her fine answers, ones that satisfy her, but does it matter if she is unable to connect with that part of her heritage? The countless generations of Clawthornes, the skilled carvers that created the finest palismen in all the Boiling Isles?
It’s not Raine’s place to share that with her. And even then, mentioning Eda made that notion of Alto’s origins feel too heavy for them. Their hands had been so deeply intertwined that day, that if the two hadn’t had a child together Raine would be unsure if they’d known a moment closer.
The origins of Alto remain a memory Raine shifts their focus from often. One they try not to think about.
After all, they wish to follow the present, and future, not the past.
I once loved a man who kissed me once before he left
She remembers the last time their lips touched so clearly. Or more so, the feeling of nothing that came within her.
The first time they’d ever kissed, Eda had been on cloud nine. Raine’s lips had been sticky then, they’d been sharing an ice scream sundae after all.
The last one, though? It was hardly anything. Hardly real. One last selfish action from her before she decided to break the desperate staring contest between them.
Lips so sweet in taste, yet nothing more. Could she even begin to comprehend herself in that moment? The person she had stumbled down to? Even if she wasn’t exactly on cloud-nine now she was also not in the deepest, darkest pit of rock bottom she’d started in.
Was it fair then? To either of them? To try holding on so desperately to something that had so miserably failed?
Of course it wasn’t.
It was selfish. So miserably selfish. A final act of it, to cling while she spiraled down further.
Down.
Down.
Down.
And down.