❛ A homecoming hadn’t been in Arnaut’s plans for years. Yet, had he imagined one, it never would have been occasioned by tragedy. The newspapers and evening news struck a grim chord as he arrived with his foreign children and foreign wife in tow: the queen’s heir was dead, and now her spare was recalled to fill the role. It need not be said aloud that this was its own calamity. While it was factual, the coverage eclipsed a deeper truth. Arnaut returned to Uspana with a hole in his life—one large enough to step through, large enough to become lost in, large enough that he could attempt, as she had, to drown within it. It tempted him. He could already hear the countervailing appeal of Safya’s voice in his ear. Duty wasn’t meaningless to him, but it was paper-thin compared to his iron reverence for her.
𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭 ↓
❧ i think this is my favorite scene of the episode, maybe just because i love arnaut and love him getting screen time. i had planned to write something poetic about the sharp contrasts between arnaut and lorri’s respective relationships with their sisters, but i had to sacrifice prose on the altar of exhaustion yet again. if anyone wants to ask questions, that’s a good one. & lorri is, as always, @funkyllama's baby.
TRANSCRIPT:
{Shuffling, wheels, doors opening and closing}
[L] Germán! Walk, please.
{Indistict children's voices}
{Abelina laughing}
[L] Well? A “stroll” before we go inside—?
[A] Are you okay?
[L] Am I okay?
[A] Lorraine, this is it. We’re home now.
[L] I know that.
[A] I’m sorry.
[L] May I be honest?
[A] About how you’re feeling? Please.
[L] Leaving isn’t hard. The reason for it is …
[L] What I want to say that I will not be grieving anything else.
[L] We don’t have a life in Iona to mourn. Or, I don’t. If I can put an ocean between her and myself, why would I be upset about that?
[L] You can’t worry about me. Not on top of everything else.
[A] {Sighs}
[L] I mean it.
[A] She isn’t here, but there will be others. Different isn’t better.
[L] I know.
[A] Germán and Abelina? He isn’t ready. We made sure of that. They’ve been training Leonor since she was old enough to walk—or before, even. They won’t be kind or fair to them.
[L] It’s my responsibility now. In a sense, I was born for it. I can be myself and grow into the role I have now. We all can; we all will.
[L] All I’ve ever wanted is to be of service. If that’s what will be asked of me, then I’m home now.
𝐍𝐎. 𝟐 ❛ 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐛𝐲𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐦𝐚 ❜ | VARIOUS LOCATIONS, DECEMBER 1990
❧ 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 / 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭.
❛ Leonor lay awake most of the night, but her mother visited the dream permitted by a fitful couple hours of sleep. This dream, hazy and running with color, was not quite a nightmare. Still, fear seized Leonor’s body—not as she is, but as she was. Safya lounged on the sand and watched while she called for her. ' Mama. Mama. Mama! ' The day was sunny and serene. Gently, the water moved around Leonor’s shoulders. Waves crashed inaudibly. The dream silenced everything except the sea breeze, her jackrabbiting heartbeat, and the child’s voice she did not recognize but understood to be her own. She wasn't afraid of going underwater. What she feared was how her mother’s unchanging and unseeing smile lingered even as she sank beneath the surface.
Leonor awoke, her cheeks dry but salted, to cry again.
𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐞𝐝 & 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭 ↓
❧ i've had a version of this drafted for months, but i revised it this week because i finally dreamt of my grandma. it was bittersweet. in a way, the fact that my past self envisioned this scene was prescient ... revisiting it now helped me. ♥️
Dreams had power in Uspana. Like caves, they possessed a thinness that allowed one to perceive, to touch, the underworld. Dreams took on a special power in death's aftermath. They carried messages. Relatives waited, mad with grief, to be visited in them by the lost. Some such dreams were fantastical journeys. Some were nightmares. Others meandered through ambiguity. Worse than any nightmare was no dream at all—to be abandoned, as it were. Leonor’s death dream came to her before her mother’s funeral. She could acknowledge it was a blessing to be contacted so soon, but the message was unclear. Through the haze that dreams became as they turned to memories, she recalled her mother’s indifference. It made her heart ache. Safya would have given her life for any of her children; they all believed that without reservation. Yet, had she not sat on the beach, massaging sunscreen into her skin, gazing out as her firstborn succumbed to a watery death?
Leonor squeezed her eyes shut as confusion burst into pain.
Mama had dreamed of drowning.
Mama had died in the water, struggling and spluttering and suffocating.
How would her mother, whose good faith was bottomless, have interpreted the dream? The better question was what she would have wanted to say. This was what Leonor contemplated as she held herself and shook with sobs. Although her dream self felt only abandonment and fear, she had gone to bed already caught in that undertow. The initial glimpse of her mother’s face gripped her heart, and in the dream she wanted to only watch her. Safya’s travel painting set was at her side. On her hand, she wore the first of several rings Rodrigo bought her. This one had been her favorite. Mateo played in the sand nearby, and Safya leapt to her feet periodically to slather him with her sunscreen. Gil was unborn, but he was there, too.
The details were like colors on a canvas, coming together as the portrait of a day Leonor remembered well. She recalled waving to her mother from the water. How adult she had felt, having been allowed to swim out so far by herself ! Safya usually denied the request. That day, she told her in no uncertain terms: “I trust you, but be safe.” Then Leonor was running, feet flying so fast that her heels barely sunk into the sand, arms out like a seagull's wings, laughing like mad, into the frothing surf.
“Mama. Mama. Mama!” she soon shouted with triumphant impatience.
Safya’s grin had been wide and toothy and anything but indifferent.
❛ Blanca never compared herself to her sister. Some, many even, would argue that was the problem. Their myriad differences had revealed themselves early on. They bickered and squabbled, not infrequently because Blanca found Safya too willing to forgive her younger sister’s insults. What sort of girl—a teenager, basically an adult—allowed herself to be bullied by an eight year old? Blanca had admired Safya’s virtues but struggled to envy them. Every day, she had walked around vulnerable, earnest, so visibly pure of heart. Safya was soft and gentle. Those traits made it easy to hurt her. Indeed, Blanca found it just as easy to be impatient, to hold grudges, to be selfish. Safya had been their father’s child. In her worst moments, Blanca resigned herself to being their mother’s.
𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐞𝐝 & 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭 ↓
❧ for absolutely no reason, beatriz’s story starts here, if anyone is curious :^)
Like Beatriz, it wasn’t in her nature to be a caregiver—that was why Safya raised her sons, as she would freely admit. Her reaction to the news had nonetheless been rushing to their mother’s side. It was a blessing that she and Ramon were still in Uspana, having just played a show by the ocean when the call came. While Blanca immediately felt alienated from everyone else, it was the deafening silence of their mother’s grief that spoke to her. She never reacted well to commands. She did this time. Beatriz chose to let her in, and Blanca tried to care for her. She folded her bathrobe. She ran her water and scented it with oils. She combed her long, wet hair. She lathered her skin with soap that smelled like rum, oranges, and thirty years of memories.
As she draped a towel over her shoulders, Beatriz stared up at her. No kind or grateful word left her lips. Blanca, nonetheless, saw something in her eyes. It was enough of an invitation that she could gather her into an embrace without worry. She comforted herself, knowing that her mother would have never permitted it had she not wanted it, too.
Still, with a heavy sigh, Beatriz drew away first to ask, “Is Arnaut here?”
Her voice was so small and low. Blanca closed her eyes as she heard it, but Beatriz expected a steady gaze and an immediate answer.
“No mama,” she replied, “But Leonor is waiting downstairs for you.”
It was Beatriz who possessed the steady gaze, although she said nothing in response. Blanca had offered that information in hopes it would console her. Yet, she knew that every minute Arnaut was absent carried more injury. Beatriz’s attitude toward him was inexplicable and always had been. She hounded him for years, then all but banished him from Uspana. She also treated him at times with more tenderness than she did anyone save Safya. They were her “twins,” which everyone knew, even—especially—her lesser children. What Blanca did understand came from her own experience with Beatriz’s love. It was deep as the ocean, but it was just as unknowable, just as perilous.
Gathering her mother wished to be alone, Blanca turned to leave. She imagined she would find Ramon somewhere in the palace and sob into his shoulder. He always accompanied her home without complaint, knowing that she was tethered in ways beyond his comprehension. Yet, she could see the quiet confidence and unshakeable assurance drain from him once they passed any gilded threshold. She would find him later in the kitchen chatting with the cooks or borrowing cigarettes from staffers unloading deliveries by the back porte-cochère. Locating him had never been difficult for her. Even in the early days, she knew he sought refuge in the same places she once had. That didn’t inspire warmth, though. When she interrupted, the unfamiliar staff who knew her only as “my princess” would fall silent, avert their eyes, hurriedly resume tasks even if they were on a break. Ramon was one of them, but she only pretended to be.
She was grateful that he had seen through her all those years ago and never looked away.
Craving Ramon’s attention and care reminded her of another shame. Despite her best efforts, she hoped Damian and Julian would not seek her out for the same comfort. It wasn’t that she didn’t miss them. Invariably, when the music quieted and the distractions ended, she longed for them. Safya had always kept photographs for her in fat manila envelopes; the pictures documented her boys’ lives, but they also showed how integrated into their aunt’s life they had become. Looking at them was bittersweet. ‘Hold onto them for me,’ Blanca would say. ‘I don’t have anywhere to keep them safe right now.’ Who would keep them—the photographs, the two little boys who smiled and laughed in them—now that Safya was gone?
Her thoughts gave way to wordless hurt, but her mother’s voice halted the spiral she had plunged into. Blanca turned back and waited.
“Get rid of that polish on your hands,” Beatriz commanded. No longer small and low, her firm words were harsh. “It’s disrespectful.”
Once the bathroom door closed behind her, Blanca broke into a run through her mother’s chambers. She stopped only when she heard her name again—this time as a pleading chant from a concerned Ramon, waiting for her in one of the concealed servant’s corridors Blanca preferred to take.
TRANSCRIPT
{Gentle water splashes}
{Beatriz sighs}
[BE] Is Arnaut here yet?
[BL] No, mama, but Leonor is waiting downstairs for you.
[BE] Blanca?
[BE] Get rid of that polish on your hands. It's disrespectful.
❛ Leonor had been a silent observer of her parents’ marriage for as long as she could remember. Endlessly, like an infinite spool, it unraveled. That was how she understood it: her mother spun, but she never reached an end. Leonor hadn't wanted to cast her father as a villain, but she knew his fingers were the ones tugging and yanking and pulling the thread. Those parental arguments were integral to the soundscape of her childhood. She could close her eyes and hear their voices still locked in a discordant, overlapping loop—muffled, underwater. Of course, sometimes they did argue in the open. They all behaved in a choreographed fashion when that happened. The children shrunk and quieted; the parents grew loud and frenetic. The setting didn’t matter. Her parents could fight over breakfast, in the gardens, in cars and planes, on the telephone, as they arrived at events or departed them. They bickered in public on rare occasions. On the most infamous of such occasions, they shouted, shoved, slapped.
𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐞𝐝 & 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭 ↓
❧ can you believe it ????? that's a wrap on episode one !!!!! come sunday, we're moving on to episode two .... of twenty, lmao. sure this is very unfortunate and sad but i think it's also very fun and cool that leonor broke up with her boyfriend in this room then had a romantic evening with her other boyfriend in this room many years later
The causes for arguments varied, but Leonor suspected an underlying flaw: they were meant to be apart but couldn’t escape each other. Her mother had ritualized throwing away her ring. She would rip it from her finger and send it clattering. A new fight began, invariably, because she made a show of it. Still, it would come back. ‘ It’s a piece of you, ’ Rodrigo would say, somehow earnest in his self-satisfaction. ‘ It has a piece of your spirit. It will return to you like your animal. ’ Safya had not been a true believer all of the time, but that resonated with her as it did with Leonor, ever an eavesdropper. Marriage was sacred and, anyway, they shared blood. Safya’s spirit was in the ring she wore, and it would—like any animistic entity, a dog or a monkey or a vulture—find her wherever she went. And, even if the ring lost its power, their children never would.
Her father accepted desultory exiles away from the estate when the ring went away and yet, within a fortnight, with the children who bore their blood as witnesses, it returned. They reconciled. Her mother had her own saying during those reunions: ' I loved you once. I'll love you again. I'll always love you. '
On the night Safya died, Rodrigo called his daughter on a police telephone. He wept as he spoke. Leonor would have demanded to come to the marina, but he asked it of her first. It was his devastation that greeted her upon arrival. Standing in the doorway of the car, he shielded her from the flashbulbs. They walked with arms interlocked toward the silent crowd at the harbor’s edge. At the time, Leonor had been in a daze as she heard his voice in her ear. It occurred to her later that he had been murmuring, broken and desperate, ‘ I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Nora. I’m sorry. I’m sorry— ’
TRANSCRIPT:
[L] There you are.
[A] I came as fast as I could.
[L] I want to talk, but I’m not sure what to say.
[A] Nerves? We don’t have to talk.
[L] No, we do. Before the funeral.
[A] Sure.
[L] I’m grateful for you. Really, I am. You’ve been so kind.
[A] You don’t have to thank me. I love you.
[L] Don’t tell me that.
[A] What? It’s true. I—
[L] Can I continue?
[L] Last night, this morning, whenever it was, I was thinking about my parents—about what I would have changed in mama’s life.
[L] Please don’t.
[L] Thinking about them made me think about us. I decided that I don’t want there to be an “us” anymore.
[A] I don’t understand. What does that mean?
[L] We have to break up. I need to be alone.
[A] What? Why?
[L] Please don’t make me repeat it.
[A] Leonor, this doesn’t make any—
[L] {tearfully} Please.
[A] Okay.
[L] You’ll go?
[A] I won’t argue with you. Certainly not today.
[A] And, I won’t attend. If you want to talk later—
[L] I don’t think I will, but thank you.
[A] I’ll pray for you. For her.
❛ Matias tucked Leonor into bed as if she were a little girl. Her overnight stays at Nakawe Palace had always been infrequent—that was a line Safya drew, a division that mattered to her—but he tucked her in when she did until the passage of time inverted their respective bedtimes. Some nights, she and Safya had stayed together. That was on evenings when dinner was late, and they all talked in the family dining room until going home made little sense.
Like her ancestors, Safya planned to live elsewhere once her mother’s time had ended. Tonacatec Palace or simply the estate where she raised her children would do. Nakawe Palace would become, as it had been under Alfonso and Fernando, a strict hub of state business. The residential wings would go unused. Safya joked they could be a private museum, although Matias understood it wasn’t an insincere sentiment. She would have walked the halls and talked to the ghosts of loved ones while she stroked Beatriz’s clothes hanging in the closets, flipped through Matias’ books, allowed herself to sit in their favorite chairs. It would have comforted her. Instead, now, she would be one of the ghosts.
𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭 ↓
❧ merry christmas eve to those who celebrate :^) this post is, actually, a massive spoiler !!!!! however, there are so many twists and turns on the road to these fellas standing here, in 1990, together, lovingly discussing their Wife™ ... tune into part iv, coming to a screen near you in 2026 or w/e
TRANSCRIPT:
{Door closing}
[M] Is she still awake?
[S] She said she wants to be alone.
{Footfall}
[M] This was not out earlier.
[S] She finished it while everyone was at dinner.
[S] We lit the candles, too.
[M] Yes, I recall she wanted to wait.
[S] That’s what she was doing when I came upstairs. Or, trying.
[S] You know what happened to the stool?
[M] I can guess.
[S] She’s so small. I don’t know how she can throw that hard.
[M] Is there an attendant coming? For the candles?
[S] I thought I might sit here for a while. You should try to sleep.
[M] Not until she does. Perhaps not even then.
[S] You’ll both crash after tomorrow.
[M] I … have never been so exhausted.
[S] Grief does that. So does carrying the entire family through it.
[S] You’ll have to rest for the entire period.
[M] Eighty days.
[S] And the nights, too.
❛ Matias suggested the family dinner. It was a harebrained idea from someone who, under normal circumstances, read any situation well. Regarding the family, he rarely miscalculated. No one except Beatriz had been able to tell him no—that it was, in her words, "purely stupid”—and so a gathering commenced at seven on the evening before the funeral. No one ate. Food made it to a couple plates, only to be pushed around and abandoned. Always on time, Prissy and Mateo sat in silence. Martin, Blanca, and Sebastian arrived late and together. They stewed at the bar, slamming bottles and cups, angry and confused. Olalla came later. Arnaut, later still. Leonor entered the dining room, unwittingly, next to last.
When he at last recalled there were evening plans, Matias rushed downstairs to find an almost empty room.
𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭 ↓
❧ this is actually take two :/ tumblr shadowbans posts arbitrarily from time to time, altho i discovered in this case it was because ... leonor's clothed breasts are just to obscene for anyone to see !!!!!!!!!!!!!! anyway, tried to fix, can't fix, added a sticker, please ignore. my original note was that this one is shorter, so i figured i'd do three posts this week rather than two. new one sunday.
TRANSCRIPT:
{Quiet, overlapping conversations}
[O] Oh, good. I can ring them to—
[L] Not hungry.
[M] Leonor?
[L] Where is everyone? Where’s Mother Beatriz?
[M] You must have fallen asleep. They have all gone to bed.
[L] I wanted to wait for her.
[M] Of course.
[L] She was never going to come, was she?
MATIAS | Let me walk you upstairs.
[L] Tomorrow is going to be miserable.
[M] Most likely.
[M] We have a job to do, and we will do it—all of us, together.
[L] If you say so.
❛ Priscila’s career had taken her all over the world before she retired to Uspana. Here, she was just Prissy again—or, in the papers, Princess P. Mending her relationship with Beatriz had been uneven; it remained incomplete to this day. Reconnecting with her sister’s children, adults as they were, was itself in some cases painstaking and in others a pleasure. With Safya, it had been easy. She even suspected Beatriz resented what closeness they cultivated. It wasn’t, of course, because she and her daughter were ever distant. No, it was more simple than that: Beatriz was a possessive creature. That it was her little sister taking something of hers (on shopping trips, to the beach, for a late-night movie in a theater they rented out just to sit in the middle in their pajamas) made it worse.
“Mama understands me,” Safya had told Prissy once. “She loves me. Sometimes I don’t know if she likes me.” This had made her laugh, and Safya fell into nervous chuckles in response. Finally, Prissy nodded heartily, replying, “We’re the same in that way, Safy.”
𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭 ↓
❧ alfonso’s death will happen in part iv of the main story, a million years from now, but here’s a taste of beatriz being destroyed by it :^) additionally, no real prose today. having a remarkably bad one. maybe next week. [insert me shrugging so hard i dislocate both of my shoulders]
TRANSCRIPT:
{Miscellaneous cooking noises}
[P] Have you tried the cookies?
[L] What? I, uh … No.
[P] I told Olalla they wouldn’t help—on the telephone, while she was baking—but she was in a frenzy. No stopping her.
[L] I can’t …It’s …They were mama’s—
[P] Her favorites, I know.
[P] Not a bittersweet reminder yet. Just bitter
[L] {Sighs.}
[L] I didn’t know you were here already.
[P] Birdie always pretends I’m not. I decided to let her this time.
[L] It doesn’t feel very good.
[P] What, is that how you feel? Ignored?
[L] I waited all morning for her. She walked right past me ... I just don’t know what to do with myself.
[P] Of course. It feels like the end of the world.
[P] You know, that isn’t fully a bad thing. The People wouldn’t exist if the world had not ended—and ended, and ended, and ended. We’re destroyed, and we become something new to survive.
[P] The last time this happened ... Mama, I would think. That destroyed me. For Birdie, this is worse. This is like when papa died.
[L] I just thought we would be together. Now, her and me. She hasn’t even looked at me since we saw mama at the marina.
[P] You’re not getting any comfort from her, Nora. You know that.
[P] You don’t need to beg her for it either. You have an entire family that will comfort you. I’m here. Your grandfather. The rest of them. Just let things run their course.
[L] I know that. It just ... doesn’t make it hurt any less.
[P] It rarely does.
[P] Now, how about some coffee? That’s what everyone comes in here for.
[L] Sal’s self-serve station. That is what I wanted, before …
[P] We’ll skip the cookies and save our appetites for dinner.
