They told Royse that yellowmane stems were full of milk, but to Royse, they were full of yuckiness.
Adults didn't understand anything, especially not mother. How strange to call her mother; Royse was certain she would never use the word again after her mother died. But father had met Eda, and despite Royse not liking Eda and Hrodohaidis (who Royse would always call 'Hodie' because her actual name was impossible to say, what WAS mother thinking?), father believed Royse needed a new mother and so they had wed. Royse had resisted mightily, as much as a seven year old could, but Eda was nice and eventually Royse had realized she did like having a new mother. She didn't really like Hodie, but maybe that would change too.
At least Hodie believed in fairies. Mother and father kept telling her they weren't real, that they were just in her storybooks, but Royse knew she was wrong. Fairies just didn't show themselves to those who didn't believe, so mother and father couldn't see them even if they were flapping in front of their noses. But Royse believed, and one day, she'd find one. She would open her hands, and the fairy would dance on them, and they would fly into the sky, to dance among the stars.
Which is why she was out, even though it threatened rain. Hodie might be cross, but Royse could tell she wanted to be inside with her nose stuck in a dumb book that didn't have stories about fairies and other special things Royse wanted to find one day. She could outrun Hodie anyway, and Hodie always got so weird when she tried to scold, not like Eda. So Royse, in her battered dress and shoes, dirty black hair tied loosely behind her, crept through the tall grass. Sometimes she found bugs, what humans called dragonflies, but she knew they were not fairies. But sometimes she heard things, things she knew were just not the wind...and one day she'd find them, dancing and laughing, and they'd fly together...
The blast of thunder startled Royse so much that she fell down, mud squelching beneath her hands and her rear. Her mother would complain again...but she'd complain more if Royse came back soaked to the skin. She'd fall ill, like Hodie had years ago, mother had mentioned it more than once, how close it seemed that Hodie had come to dying. She could ignore when Hodie was mad, but not mother. She had to get home.
The grass parted around her as she ran, heading for their house. She was some distance away from the bridge over the river, but that was okay. The river was shallow, even Royse could easily pass it, the bridge was for ease in getting the wagon over...
But the rainfall had fallen in great amounts in the distance, and its legacy had even touched the river. Royse had not noticed it when she'd gone into the fields over the bridge, but coming back in a more direct way, she could see how swollen it had gotten, how much fiercer it flowed. Rocks she easily jumped across were barely visible...
The rain was starting to fall. If she went for the bridge, she'd be soaked to the skin by the time she got home...to a young child, the choice was obvious.
The river raged around her as she began to hop across the rocks. Slick with water, she did not feel as balanced as she normally would, but she'd always been good at climbing things (the closest thing to flying), she had a strong sense of how to stay on her feet. She just had to focus on the rocks and make a few more hops. One, two. One. One, two, one...
The tree standing by the bridge had been there since her father was her age, or so he said. One can hardly blame Royse for its time of death, as lightning struck it in mid leap, a blast of fire and brilliance that seemed to slap the girl, cost her her vision, her surity of foot.
Royse was pretty sure she heard someone calling for her, but that fact was swiftly consumed by the cold water. All sense of the world was rapidly torn away. She couldn't breath. She didn't know which way was up. She couldn't find the surface, the water running into her mouth, and it wasn't like drinking, it hurt...
The hands seized her, Royse spitting water and gasping for air as she was finally freed from the river's cruel grip, her gulps mixed with sobs as she was pulled away from the rushing, crushing rapids. She was vaguely aware of solid land under her feet, and she turned around to see her rescuer.
"Hodie..." She whimpered. "I'm sorry...the tree exploded..."
In a better mood, Royse would have said Hrodohaidis would have belonged in the water, as she more looked like a fish. But now she was too scared, and glad...
But that wasn't enough for even her child brain to pick it up, in its depths. Hodie's silence. That look in her eyes.
Royse would have spoken of it, but she never got the chance, as Hrodohaidis shoved her back under the water.
It would be many, many years before the Star Festival came to Ardea. The knowledge of the many ways a mind could be hurt, curdled, made bad, was countless generations away. Eda had always had a small feeling, deep below, that something was not quite right with her daughter, but no one in a thousand leagues had the understanding of what drove Hrodohaidis and how the severe illness had broken something inside her. Perhaps if Royse had just taken the bridge, nothing would have ever happened. Maybe not. But the chance had come, and no sooner had Hrodohaidis had the realization then she'd acted.
Poor impulse control. Another sign Ardea was not ready to understand. And it didn't help Royse as she struggled under the water, the water flowing back in, it hurt, what was she doing, I'm sorry I made you mad, I won't do it again...I just wanted...fairies...
The darkness was cool and quiet, in a way the water wasn't. A darkness mirrored in Hrodohaidis' mind, and heart.
Mother belongs to me.
When she let go, the water picked up Royse again, slowly carrying her away. Hrodohaidis watched, water dabbling on her face, at the cold eyes watching her drowned stepsister being taken away, out of her life, no longer a bother.
Then she turned, fell into the water, dragged herself through the mud, and screamed.
By the time anyone else joined her, Royse's body had long vanished away from the home she'd been cast out of.
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