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Losing her…
It wasn’t something Stella wasn’t expecting to ponder. At least not so soon.
She had expected a lifetime of… something. Something more than this, where she was given happy memories instead of an ending filled with anguish and the bitter taste of betrayal tingling her lips unpleasantly.
She stares at it.
Their coffin as it’s lowered down into the Earth. Six feet to be exact. Not an inch shorter or longer. It had to be just right like everything else about them.
She lays a careful bouquet of roses and lilies on the coffin as it descends past her feet. She hardly thinks they deserve her bending down like this. It causes a dull ache in her back as her muscles are pulled from an injury at her shoulder, still healing from the gem that once sat there.
She whispers her goodbyes and walks through the small crowd of those closest to her. They’d chosen a private burial, a public one didn’t seem fitting for her. There was too much left unsaid, the funeral would be tarnished by it.
Instead, she screams as much as she cries when she walks away.
She’s only soothed by the gentle hand that the woman she’s closest to wraps around her. She leans into her shoulder and lets her eyes close as she whispers sweet nothings into her ear. She reminds her of the complexities of losing someone you love despite the way they hurt you.
She knows this.
In her heart, she knows.
But it doesn’t change the agony that settles in her when she reads her eulogy.
The woman leads her into the house just a short way away from the garden where the woman she hated and loved is being laid to rest. After a few turns down hallways they arrive at Stella’s bedroom.
The woman helps Stella onto her bed before lying down next to her and turning so that they’re a body space apart but still face-to-face. “Stella,” she sighs. “You can’t hold onto your hurt forever.”
“But,” Stella sighs, shuffling closer to the woman so that they’re only half a body space apart. “She hurt me.”
“Stel-” the woman responds, placing her hand on Stella’s cheek. “Let her go.”
“Beatrix,” Stella begs, “She hurt us both.”
Beatrix pulls Stella to her chest and presses a kiss to the crown of her head. “And now she’s gone. Let her go.”
“How can I let my mother go?” Stella responds, her voice wavering and her eyes watering.
Beatrix runs her fingers through Stella’s hair in an idle pattern. “In the same way I did,” she pauses, letting the strands of her golden hair fall through her fingers. “You keep living.”
“You make it sound easy,” Stella sighs, pressing her cheek to Beatrix’s collarbone.
Beatrix slides her hand down Stella’s back and rubs the centre of it. “It’s not.” She shifts her hand up and down. “There’s nothing harder than losing someone. Even if they weren’t perfect, or deserving of your love. It’s how I felt about Andreas, I loved him as a father, but he made me a weapon. A scapegoat for that bullshit fight with the burning ones, Rosalind, and whatever else came our way.”
“This is the part where you say ‘but,’ isn’t it?”
“No,” Beatrix hums. “Your mother was a bitch. A loving one, but you know… An absolute rotten bitch.”
“Beatrix!” Stella exclaims.
Beatrix laughs. “You know I’m right.”
“Perhaps,” Stella responds.
“Perhaps,” Beatrix repeats.
“Perhaps you’re right,” Stella sighs. “She could be awful.” As she says it, her shoulder twinges in pain and she sucks in a breath through her teeth.
Beatrix nudges her until her back is facing her. She rubs her shoulder and gently kisses her scar. “But she could be loving. And that’s confusing.”
Stella leans into Beatrix’s touch. “It makes my brain hurt terribly.”
“And that makes sense,” Beatrix says, while rubbing Stella’s shoulders. “But let’s get out of this bed and get changed into something comfortable. I’d rather not fall asleep in funeral attire with my wife.”
“Is that not what you wore to our wedding? I remember your black dress.”
“And it was lovely,” Beatrix pouts.
“It was exquisite,” Stella sighs, turning around and looking into Beatrix’s eyes. “I’d like a kiss, however.”
“Anything my wife wants, she gets,” Beatrix grins. “Happy wife, happy life, no?”
Stella rolls her eyes. “Don’t make me rescind the kiss offer.”
Beatrix laughs. “As if you ever could.”
Stella swallows her laugh but cannot hide her smile. “I couldn’t.”
They seal the day of her mother’s funeral with a kiss. For as much as her mother loved her, she loathed the fact that she loved and married a woman. She especially found no pleasure in her status in society.
Stella cared little. Beatrix was the princess consort of the kingdom of Solaria, and now, with the Queen’s passing, she would be their second queen alongside Stella.
Long live Queen Luna, a complicated, loving, and cruel woman.