FicWad

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Good girls don't want.

When she was very young Melusine thought that meant that good girls didn't have desires, didn't itch in their heads for freedom and yearn to toss aside propriety. Whenever someone told her another thing good girls didn't do she'd empty them of it entirely, until they were hollow smiling dolls.

It took her four years to learn better.

Good girls want and ache and need like everyone else. Good girls just didn't ask.

It took a long time for her to figure that out, but it was strong in her mind when Caecilia found her, mouth full of apple and hair full of sun, and looked at her with eyes bright with amusement before summoning her before the Abbess.

Melusine didn't didn't like the abbey, though she adored many of the women within, and everyone-including, she thought sometimes, the abbey itself-knew it.

She was almost famous now-the wild child dragged snarling in behind the knights. It had been the king's bastard son that had dumped her at the sisters' feet, smiled, and said, "make something out of her if you can." Then he'd rode out.

Melusine, as she grew, pried the details from the nuns as often as she could. The younger were more apt to describe his smile, or his voice, or the brightness of his hair. "Silver eyes like a shining sword," one of them would often proclaim dramatically, and swooning would pass through the room like a summer breeze, and then Melusine would leave in disgust.

All Melusine remembered of the journey here was a choking captivity, and a hatred that flared up whenever she was in too small a space-that hysteria was why they no longer tried to stuff her into wimple and stifling cloth, but let her run free. No one from the village would touch her, of course, and they considered her intelligent enough to stay out of the wild places.

Some of them feared her. As long as they let her be, she saw no fault in the status quo.

The abbess, luckily enough, was not one of those that cringed at her steps, though she was old and weary, and delicate as a tracing of frost on a window. Melusine could smell the death in that room-the icy chill that sang of impending departure, and she hated it. She couldn't count the hours she'd spent coaxing her to venture into the sunlight; just to breathe the sweet air. But she stayed in her gray bed and gray room, and the only reason Melusine returned was that she knew she was the abbess's last true connection to the living golden outside.

Sister Edith was sitting by the bed. Everyone called her Sister even though they knew she hadn't taken full vows; she was willful enough to defy that last imprisonment, but soft-hearted enough to pretend, as it comforted the aging abbess, who was her aunt.

Now, as Melusine slipped inside the dark, high-ceilinged room, she selfconsciously wiped her fingers on her skirt and met Edith's eyes. She felt like they were sisters sometimes; the same caged beast prowled behind the other girl's eyes, the same feral frustration. But it was tempered here, in this place of impending loss.

Wordless, Melusine moved to the bedside.

Though Edith was young and beautiful and the abbess aged and thin, the resemblance was strong here, especially with the death's head of grief stamped on Edith's features. They had the same smooth oval face, the same high sculpted cheekbones and straight brows, and the same long, elegant hands. Melusine vaguely remembered the abbess smoothing one graceful hand over her hair as she growled and struggled with a bone like a ferocious little beast.

She clearly remembered Edith pouncing on her to induce her to wrestle for it.

"Mother." She whispered, kneeling beside her. Melusine bowed to no Christian god, but she granted her surrogate mother both her formal title and a more emotional one. "I'm here."

Hazy eyes fluttered open, and her mouth curved in an unexpectedly regal smile. "Melusine." She greeted, and then had to stop and take in a wheezing breath. "Edith."

"I'm here." The other girl said swiftly, leaning forward.

That unexpectedly piercing gaze moved between them, and the dry lips curved. Edith nearly knocked over her chair as she turned for the water cup, forestalled by trembling fingers curving into her mantle. Face pale, clearly dreading the words, she turned back.

The abbess's stare fixed on Edith and a flicker of poignant sadness moved over her expression. "No, this was not meant for you." She whispered.

Edith froze, and the two girls exchanged glances.

The old woman's lips curved-and she was old, Melusine thought with deep and tearing sadness. She could see it in the hollow bones and trembling fingers, when before it seeemed she had not truly perceived it. "Take it off..." She rasped, still smiling. "Let me see my girls, my night and day..."

Without a word, face as white as the fabric, Edith removed the covering on her head and her fair hair spilled free, gleaming in the light. She moved side by side with Melusine, and the one small window let dim light fall on their hair, glinting blonde and dark together.

The abbess's smile widened gently. "Peace be." She breathed, and her eyes closed, and she died.

The soul came up out of the body and plunged through Melusine, making her cry out, the sound harsh from her throat, tearing itself free as her body jerked helplessly against Edith, who clamped a hand around her arm and didn't let go.

That cool wind surrounded both girls, and Edith was weeping, Melusine could hear it over the roaring in her ears and the faint, sweet chiming like of bells, the rasping, tearing feeling against the inside of her /soul/-

Then it was gone and she fell, the heavy echoing thud of her suddenly numb body, Edith's soft warmth falling over her, and she dropped helpless into blackness.