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Tiletta Flores was described by a lot of people differently—
A tempest of a woman, Mithra offers. She was the most unpredictable witch that Mithra ever met (it was endearing, as much as Mithra hated to admit) and even more unpredictable as a mentor. She’d drag Mithra to the warmest places, sing under the sun, laugh as she listens to young Mithra’s blunt words. She’d be the personification of happiness and beauty… and the next moment she’d bite the head off of a snake.
Reliable, White chimes in. At every beck and call, Tiletta was always there to respond. She’d do this with a smile too, and in a sing-song voice that delighted the twins. She was the fresh breath of life within the new generation of witches. (a promising woman, White thinks) She was kind, the one who was willing to listen to anyone, no matter what they said.
Sympathetic, Snow adds. When White left, Tiletta was there. She’d accompany Snow as he reminisces of days spent with his brother. (she’d rest her chin on her hand, call on the warm summer air when the nights got too cold for Snow to bear alone) She never once complained at how the tales seemed to never end; no, in fact, her eyes seemed to shine the more Snow told her of the twins’ tales.
Strong, Oz bluntly says. She sometimes held a fearsome gaze. She’d stare down at the foolish wizards who dared go against her… as if they were nothing but an annoying itch. (her gaze held majesty and it was something Oz had always admired) With a snap of her fingers, pathways cleared for her no matter where she went. She could take the world in her hands if she wanted to but she was never cruel enough to do so— or maybe her attention span didn’t allow her to, Figaro interrupts.
Beautiful, Figaro answers sheepishly. She had long, wavy blond hair that fell past her hips; she had beautiful green eyes and they always sparkled with something— happiness, fury, sadness. Once she trusted you, she’d show her emotions, clear as day. She’d laugh whenever she wanted to, cry because she felt like it. (it was quite a pain sometimes) It didn’t matter, because no matter what mood she wore for the day or the moment, she was as stunning as ever. Figaro thinks that she was full of life… until she wasn’t.
Figaro’s words made Rutile pause.
That’s right; Tiletta had a life of her own before her sons Rutile and Mitile came along. She had her own hobbies, her own friends, her own power. Wizards spoke highly of her, may it be out of fear or pure adoration.
Tiletta Flores was herself.
With that, Rutile Flores looks around the house… and lets his gaze stop at the embroidery on the wall. Delicate details sewn with love, colors handpicked from a certain scene she couldn’t get out of her mind. Rutile remembers his mother telling him the story.
“It was beautiful,” Tiletta once said as she embroidered the very same thing hanging on the wall. “The grass was a very vibrant green, like the green in your eyes! And it was spring, so the flowers just bloomed and it kind of made me sneeze a lot but it didn't matter because it was so pretty! They bloomed in different colors and it just made me pause and think to myself… How glad I am to be here and see this with my own eyes.”
Her gaze softens and she drops the needle in her table to run her fingers through Rutile’s hair. Her touch tickles his scalp and he starts to laugh. Tiletta’s eyebrows shoot up in response and she smiles mischievously as she wraps an arm around Rutile’s torso and starts tickling him. After a while, she stops. She looked at Rutile with something in her eyes— something that the young Rutile didn’t quite understand. Only now did he know that it was sadness.
She spoke after a while, “Listen, live as kindly as you could. Who knows if you can afford to mess around for long. Appreciate what you have. Look around. Breathe in, out. Enjoy everything you want to, love what you want. All that matters is that the people dear to you will remember you. They’ll carry on your legacy. So you take care of your future little sibling, keep them safe. Remember that, alright?”
(How funny that Tiletta told him this a couple of months before she died. Had she tried to give Rutile a piece of advice before she passed away? There wasn’t any way to know now.)
A young Rutile nods his head. Tiletta smiles and mutters silently, “That’s my boy.” She ruffles Rutile’s hair and sends him outside to play.
Yet this memory of Tiletta didn’t seem quite right. Mother’s eyes didn’t sparkle that much and her hair wasn’t that wavy… and her voice wasn’t like that either, Rutile thinks. Every little detail about Tiletta felt a bit off— she looked like a mish-mash of all women that Rutile encountered. Like a sad imitation of what she truly was.
Remember that, Tiletta said. and with that, Rutile freezes. If he could not remember his mother, what kind of son would he be?
(He remembers his last memory of Tiletta. She held Mitile, Rutile’s younger brother, in her arms. He remembers the foul smell of blood in the room. The light starting to leave his mother’s eyes.
“Rutile,” Tiletta managed. “Listen, you can only save one of us.” Her voice wasn’t angry or demanding— even in her last moments, her voice remained gentle. But even here, in this memory, even her voice wasn’t truly hers.
“Please save him. You’re his brother, so take good care of him, okay?” Tiletta reaches out with one hand to cup Rutile’s face. Her touch was reassuring, as it always had been, but the touch didn’t feel like it was truly hers.
Rutile hesitantly takes the newborn in his arms. It feels as though acid started to eat through his stomach as he realizes... he has his magic. He is the son of the strongest witch within the last thousand years.
But for a moment, he doubts his mother. Is she truly that powerful if she couldn’t fight this fate? What kind of mother tells her child that she’ll leave them behind and expect her child to just nod to that?
Shaking the thoughts out of his head, he breathes in deeply, ignoring the scent of death, and he closes his eyes. The child in his arms starts to get warmer. At the cost that his mother got colder.)
In his blood runs the very same blood that once was Tiletta’s. His eyes were a reflection of hers, his hair just like hers, a smile just like hers, everything… hers. Nothing Rutile had was truly his. He looked at the hourglass sitting in his desk, where a warped reflection of himself was. If he were to take a few steps back… he could faintly see his mother.
But it didn’t feel right. He didn’t look quite like her. Yet at the same time, he looked too alike. Was that even possible? Could you even forget someone who looked like you, a person you hold close?
You mean a person that you honestly barely knew, said a traitorous part of Rutile’s head.
So Rutile reads books about his mother. After all, it is the most orthodox way to learn, isn’t it? The words of those wiser than you, written down on a piece of paper for you to enjoy and learn from. Rutile is a teacher for a reason— he believes that books aren’t enough but they are somewhat substantial. If no one else could tell him about his mother, why not turn to the books that sing praises for her?
Those books that Rutile managed to get his hands on illustrated a Tiletta that Rutile never knew or heard of. A woman who held great power. A woman of beauty. She sounded familiar yet she felt too distant from his memories. Could the Tiletta he remembered be a fake?
Fake or not, Rutile still searches for the Tiletta in his memories. She had to be somewhere there in the books, right? The mother who held him close and sang to him when he couldn’t sleep. The mother who would wave her hand and make flowers bloom when young Rutile wanted to draw the scenery. The mother who pressed paintbrushes and canvases in his hands when Rutile expressed interest in painting.
Instead, he finds a picture of his mother, donning the same cruel glare that Mithra wears whenever he faces an opponent. Rutile finds stories of Figaro, Oz, and Tiletta mercilessly slaughtering one wizard after another. In a picture beside a paragraph in this story, Oz had the same expressionless face he still wears up to this day. Figaro can be seen smiling and slinging his arm around Tiletta. Rutile doesn’t even care about the fact that this story was allegedly set a few hundred years ago, a time where Doctor Figaro couldn’t possibly be alive. He could only stare at his mother’s smile.
(Rutile was smart enough to know. Of course, he knew of Figaro’s past. How could he not? The nervous laughter, the avoidant gaze whenever Rutile asked for more stories of his mother, knowing that he is a part of it...
“You wouldn’t be interested,” Figaro tries to wave off Rutile’s request. “It’s nothing a kid would wanna hear, you know?”
“But, Doctor Figaro...! Are you hiding anything from me?” A young Rutile pouts.
Figaro’s eyes widen and his hands fly in different directions as he tries to reassure Rutile, “No way! I would never! I’m a friend of your mom, of course, but there are some stories better left off for someday when you’re older!”)
Rutile laughs at this memory. When, exactly, is this ‘someday’ that Figaro speaks of? He’s old, alright— he’s twenty now. But Rutile doesn’t mind. He thinks that Figaro has all the right and reasons to hide his past. After all, he hides it for the same reason that Rutile chooses to love the mother he remembers rather than the mother he sees in the books. But there is one question that is bugging Rutile...
Figaro doesn’t take him for a fool... right...?
Almost as if the winds that his mother once held control over were willing him back to reality and out of his thoughts, the book’s pages start to flutter, quickly moving past the story of the northern wizards. The wind halts and the pages cease to move in Rutile’s grip— and in the pages, he finds another portrait, one where Tiletta is covered in blood from head to toe, her clothing barely clinging to her and wounds stretching across her stomach and her face. In her hand, she holds a chopped basilisk head.
Despite that, there’s a bright smile on her face— the same smile she’d give to Rutile whenever she’s proud. He finds descriptions of Tiletta sparring with countless wizards and witches, winning each one and mercilessly taking the essence of those who lost against her.
Rutile closes the book. All he found was the faces of his family and the souls of a stranger within the pages.
...Fake or not, Rutile misses the Tiletta in his memories.
(Owen once asked him if he ever missed Tiletta. Of course, he did. Yes, he did. All the time. He wanted her beside him, to help him—
“You only want her back for that reason? Why, how selfish! You don’t want her back for her to live her own life? What a pity too, I heard that she died giving birth to this one over here… Don’t you think she’s upset—” Owen was interrupted by Mitile.
Mitile sneered. “He is not selfish! Besides, you got your answer! Why are you picking it apart?”
No, no, Rutile wanted to say. Owen was right. He wanted to be babied a bit more, to know her a bit longer. It wasn’t fair that he had to shoulder the responsibility of being the eldest brother alone. It wasn’t fair that he had to take care of Mitile alone. It wasn’t fair that he had to live up to his mother’s reputation when he never truly knew her in the first place.
Why did he have to live up to the expectations of others? Why did others look at the brothers in disdain as they realize that their mother is the famous Tiletta Flores? Why did other people look for the Tiletta in Rutile?
But then, he stole everything that Tiletta should’ve had. The same eyes, the same hair, the same laugh, the same smile. All he is… is a sad reflection of who she once was.
Don’t wear another person’s skin unless you want to be mistaken for them.)
Rutile starts getting uneasy, panic settling in his stomach. And he realizes that he left his pen hovering above the sheet of paper. Ah, the ink seeped in.
Rutile pinches the space between his eyes with one hand. He closes his eyes… breathes in, out. just like what mother said.
He gets a new piece of paper from one of the drawers and starts rewriting the records he’s collected about his mother. Like tempest... yes, Mithra did say that. Strong… pretty high praise coming from Oz. Reliable and sympathetic... said the twins. Beautiful… shallow description, but Figaro said it would please Tiletta.
While writing, Rutile grabs the paper practically drowning in ink, crumpling it. Ignoring the ink getting in his hands. He'll deal with that dirt later.
And deal with that feeling later as well.