Our Lady The Weaver

Our Lady the Weaver. Malorie found it difficult to cut her body down from the brambles that held it. Walking through the remains of the Palace, she was surprised by the sadness she felt. The tinderbox is on the floor and she picks it up, a memento of an easier time. The Palace, a combatant in recent weeks, was once her home, and so she supposes it must only be natural to feel conflicted.

The brambles are sliced through easily, and soon enough Malorie holds Our Lady in her arms. She doesn’t look dead, a little ill maybe, but Malorie almost lets herself believe that she’s asleep and will wake soon. But she knows that’s not true.

It was a difficult decision to cremate her, but it was not something Malorie had to go through alone. As the flames grow, Réka holds her hand and Malorie knows she’ll be able to get through this. She carries some of the ashes in a pendant around her neck, the others she will scatter across the nations—Our Lady had always despaired not being able to travel.

It’s over and Malorie should know that she should feel overjoyed, she’s won, but the happiness is tinged by sadness. Her grief wanes like the waves surrounding the Floating Market. The pain will always be there but with Réka and her friends in the market, she knows she can get through it.

Dear Ximena,

I am out of practice in using your first name. I suppose at a certain point you weren’t ‘Ximena’ anymore, you were Our Lady the Weaver, and so you couldn’t just be mine anymore. I don’t know exactly when it happened.

I took your diary from the ruins of the Palace. It feels invasive, voyeuristic to read it when you had not intended me to. But I want to know you. Ever since you died, I’ve never felt so closed and yet so distanced from someone.

I miss you, I miss you everyday. I want the world to know who you are, not just you as Fate but the you who I met during that Election. I want them to know how hard you tried. You won Ximena, fate is no longer real. The world is changing and I just wish you were there to see it happen.

Yours,

Malorie