A simple afternoon in the park - one that's had every week.
Meredith’s daughter, the edge of eight, stands at the height of her hip, her bright-blue eyes pleading the four-foot difference up to meet her mother’s grey. Their white hair, the same as her other mother, is braided down into two pigtails that happily swing with her excitement. The gentle markings of her people lay across her lightly-freckled face, the paint applied by gentler hands.
Not hers.
The half-giant woman could never. Her hands are bigger- too big. Tougher, more calloused, and half-burnt. Lacking the softness of her wife. Stained with deep reds and ashen marrow, even when they aren’t.
“Do not go far from me.” Comes a soft relent, low rumbling from her chest- serious, but as caring as she could make it.
“I won’t, Mom!” Happily promises her daughter, before running to join the group of children that eagerly await their final playmate.
Her attention only moves from the girl once their lookalike enters her sight, a calming smile from her side. Her wonderful wife, a few feet shorter than Meredith’s towering nine, stands Anastasia. Her hair’s braided back - a poorly done job that she didn’t seem to mind. Crystal-blue eyes like the ocean that edged Meredith’s home, and tiredness beneath them that only she could notice. A sundress of whites and yellows, open-chested as to let the sun bless the layered handprint tattoo with its light. The same as Meredith’s. Carried precariously are three cones, a Neapolitan spectrum shared between them.
“What’s wrong, love?” Anastasia offers, followed shortly thereafter with the cone of vanilla.
“Everything is perfect.” Meredith plainly accepts.
“Love,” gentle, as is her, but prodding. Dissecting. “Talk to me.”
Anastasia moves to take a seat, waiting for Meredith to follow suit. She kneels, crossing her legs to avoid the embarrassment of another chair broken beneath her denseness. Even still, Meredith is taller.
“So?”
It’s spoken expectantly, but she knows she has the time to find her words. “Nyssa.” A few moments pass, watching their daughter play. “She does not look like me.”
“Darling...” Whatever Anastasia was expecting, that wasn’t it. “...I’m sorry. But, she’s still so much-“
“-It is a good thing. I think.” A partial-truth. Anastasia calls them lies.
A bead of confusion that she’s thankful Meredith can’t see. “Why would you say that?”
“Because she is like you.” Meeting her beautiful eyes. “It is better this way.”
“Meredith, darling, I disagree. We… we give her your markings, for starters”
“My people’s markings.” She’s quick to correct. “You have them too.”
“And you are your people, love. We are.” Balancing the two cones in one hand, she extends her other to Meredith, only satisfied once she takes it in hers.
It’s not dainty. Not weak. The grip is firm and the skin is perhaps just as calloused as Meredith’s, from the days of adventuring that were welcomingly buried after Nyssa’s birth. But with her hand laying in Meredith’s palm… it’s tiny.
“She has your fearlessness,” Anastasia continues. “When have you ever seen her scared?”
“…she gets it from you.”
“From both of us, then.”
The children speak in circles and decide with carelessness, that a game for game’s sake, that’s all that matters. One is named chaser, the slowest of the boys. And then, they part. A countdown chorus, the pair watching the children kickstart into action, jumping over hedges and weaving through families with a fervour that Meredith can’t ever remember having. Desperate to escape, as if being caught was the end of the game.
Perhaps it was. She doesn’t know the rules.
“Her wings,” Meredith mutters, a half-whisper to change the subject. “When do they come?”
A conversation Anastasia would rather not have in the open. But she accepts. “Mine first came when I was twelve. My mother’s, when she was fourteen.” A tight squeeze of their joined hands. “We have plenty of time. That’s if they come at all.”
“How do we know if they will?”
“…We don’t, I think.”
But then there’s a crash, a firm thud, and gasps from all around. A child, a girl- their daughter, face down in the dirt. A boy one step away.
”Nyssa tripped!~” Some children shout in tune, their laughs giving birth to tightness in Meredith's chest. She stands quickly, tearing her hand from Anastasia’s and losing her uncared-for scone in one fell swoop. Fists form quickly, glaring at the boy that, just maybe, pushed her over. Was too rough. Hurt her.
She’s four steps into a heated stride before she’s brought to a halt. Not physically - no one could do that.
It’s the joyful laughter, the one that reminds her of her wife. It overflows out of the girl picking herself up from the soil, her cheek caked in dirt and hints of scratched skin beneath that she doesn’t seem to mind.
Meredith glances around, her eyes meeting those of the other parents. There are looks of surprise and concern towards her daughter, looks she’s thankful for. But then, there are glances of uncertainty and stares of disapproval, pointedly toward her. Her cautious meeting of eyes doesn’t dissuade away from their wordless judgement - unbothered by the half-giant. A look back, a gentle ‘it’s alright’ found in Anastasia’s blue.
The laughs lower into giggles, Nyssa offering a happy surrender before returning to her mother. To Meredith. She clings to her leg, her arm barely wrapping all the way around. “Mom, mom!” A boisterous excitement that’s all her own. “Did you see? I almost won!”
“…that you did.” She says quietly, taking her by one hand and lifting her to her chest, supported by an arm underneath. “You hurt yourself.”
“I didn’t!”
“Let’s go back to your mother.” One of her fingers, almost as big as the girl’s arm, runs itself across the peeled skin, bringing a sharp inhale from the girl. “She can make you feel better.”
“I’m okay!” As she rubs away at her cheek. “It doesn’t hurt!”
“...Promise?”
“I promise! I’m strong, just like you!”
A look back to the smiling Anastasia, dutifully hiding the chocolate surprise, with a smile that shouts in loving agreement.
“...” If she had to be something. “Come along, little bird.”
