Last ask (sorry for bombarding you) once the grandkids collect themselves (or at least try to), they have a change in style. Go here for inspo, and they're personalities are a mix of Harley Quinn and their old selves. Like comedic villains but you can see the pain and insanity in their eyes.
Dolores - went back to being silent and reserved but all willing to execute, if need be. Listens for information on Alma and the other adults. Blackmails the town for supplies, she knows everyone's secrets so she can get anyone to do what she and her siblings want.
She blackmailed the local seamstress into letting her siblings stay in her house and allowing Mirabel to use all the fabric and thread she needed to give them new outfits/wardrobe.
While in the seamstress's house they all act like it's they're house and SHE'S the guest. But she knows better than to speak up about it and is always polite to them...hoping they spare her life.
Camilo - Comedic, funny, joker vibe. He's taking an interest in theater and pranking people of the village with...not so safe pranks. that includes his and others' parents. He's also the bomb guy, he makes bombs out of fireworks and unsafe chemicals.
He also cooks and bakes, he's the main cook in their small little family. Dolores easily blackmailed some poor soul into giving them free meat, herbs/spices, and whatever else he needs to cook with.
Mirabel - Bubbly, "sweet", always with a smile, main one with ideas, Harley Vibe. She's all of her siblings' seamstress but sometimes when she's tired Dolores and Isabela will help.
The designs of the clothes are very colorful and spontaneous. All with their respective favorite colors, which aren't magenta, yellow, orange, Blue, violet, dark blue, or any color that resembles the family they used to be in.
The outfits are usually knee length skirts, colorful pants, or pantsuits for the girls. Suits, dress shoes, and other types of boyish clothing for Camilo and Antonio.
Isabela - more prone to lash out, poison ivy vibe, more hateful but kind to her hermanitas and hermanitos, "calm", stoic, also the main one with ideas.
Luisa - "Calm", trying to be more fun, Harley and Spinel vibe: Goofy, unhinged, outbursts (not toward her family), intelligent, cunning, still emotional. She's usually the one
Antonio - He's going back to be shy and quiet. All his older siblings give him animal books to read and coloring books to color while they scheme. Dolores also blackmails the toy store owner into giving her free toys for him. At this point they are all putting their effort in to raise him themselves.
He knows what they are doing, he's not a stupid kid, thanks to Alma. He's been raised to be very aware of his surroundings and to notice every single detail in things. So, he knows his siblings are plotting to make the madrigal house crumble, he just doesn't care.
"To hell with them"
All madrigal kids have a small portion of their gifts. Isabela can make small plants appear here and there. Luisa can still lift some heavy stuff but not anything close to houses. Camilo can shapeshift but only for five minutes at a time and the scar in his face makes it hard for him to blend in.
Thankfully makeup exists in Encanto.
Mirabel can still make diamonds and crystals, but they are break pretty easily. She can't make much jewelry anymore but she something new.
She can make beautiful weapons for her to use when the time comes. The only she has to do is to sketch a few ideas on paper and concentrate more on what she wants to make. In the past, she didn't have to concentrate all that much.
It gives her a headache, but she can withstand it. in the end she has the pretty glass/crystal weapons she wanted.
But of course, these are just suggestions and you can edit things to your liking.
Literally love all of these. I probably won't get to this AU for a long while, I have a story I promised someone back in April that I'm posting tonight, along with finishing all my other stories. I will let you know when I've got something written out and I'll run it by you before posting
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Chapter Contents
(Arranged Marriage Fic) Read on Ao3
Rated M
It was often said that memories need to be shared, but Satoru was fairly certain that phrase wasn’t meant to be taken literally.
He would have to ask Shoko about this later.
For reasons unknown, whenever he held Hannah’s hand as she dreamt, he saw into what could only be her memories. It’d been going on for the past few nights and he still had difficulty reconciling with the fact nobody could see or hear him. His body walked through everything like a ghost.
So, where’d she take me this time?
The jujutsu sorcerer blinked and spun around.
Ormolu furniture. Colorful Savonnerie carpets. Curio tables showcasing topaz medallions, chunks of uncut aquamarines, and magenta spinels faceted to metal rods. A chimney fire burned brightly in its hearth, lighting the office space. Satoru spotted a man, studying what looked to be a raw sapphire under a magnifying glass. The gentleman was impeccably bespoked in a slate-grey suit and gold cufflinks. His raven black hair was perfectly coiffed and un-receding. His waistline didn’t show signs of a glutton. However, his many jeweled fingers, one of which showed a gold siren wrapped around his pinkie, gave him away. Satoru grimaced.
It was Lord Jacob Thames, albeit a younger, much slimmer, and far more handsomer Thames than Satoru remembered. Practically unrecognizable.
There was a knock at the door.
A lanky butler entered the room. Satoru could see the mounds of sweat collecting above his brow. His gloved hands shook. He was beyond nervous and had every right to be.
“Collins,” barked the earl, still looking through the magnifying glass. “What the devil took so long?”
“M-My sincere apologies, milord,” stammered the butler, stooping low into a bow. “The girl only just arrived.”
The earl’s expression became shrewd, magnifying glass clanging to his desk. “Well, don’t just stand there,” he huffed, rolling his eyes. “Send her in.”
The butler dashed aside for a tiny auburn haired girl, no older than four, to step into the room. They’d stuffed her in a mustard colored jumper three sizes too big to adequately fit her doll-like frame, giving her the appearance of a ruffian. Her eyes were equally as apprehensive as the butler’s.
“Leave us.”
The head servant scurried out and closed the door, leaving the young girl and earl alone.
“Do you know where you are?”
Hannah’s hazel-green eyes deferred from the rubies glittering in a display case, and glanced up at the earl. “W-Wasserton, sir. Wasserton House.”
“Did the nuns tell you that, or the house staff?”
Abashed, the girl looked down at her tiny shoes and bit her lip.
Lord Thames observed this and hummed, nodding. “Then do you know who I am?”
The girl looked up. “You’re Lord Thames, ninth Earl of Graivmor and current owner of the estate,” she swallowed the lump in her throat, “They say you’re my uncle.”
Lord Thames unveiled the lighter in his pocket and casually lit a cigar as though he hadn’t heard her. Pretty well spoken for a four year old, he thought. How irritating. The earl exhaled a thick cloud of smoke and sneered.
“I didn’t want to bring you here,” he said, giving the cigar another puff. “But laws are laws, and God knows I have enough shit to worry about than arguing with a bunch of meddlesome priests, who feel it is their job to lecture me on ‘mercy’ and ‘forgiveness’ on behalf of my whore excuse of a sister.” The earl grew more impassioned as he said this, speaking ill of his deceased sibling as though she were an apostate. There was no remorse in the brother’s eyes, Satoru could see. This was a man unwilling to forgive and punish his own niece in the process. “So let me be clear,” he continued, getting his nose right up to the girl. Satoru felt the urge to reach out and pull her back. “During your stay, you are to remain in the servants quarters. At no point are you to step foot in the upper rooms, unless I bid it,” his voice deepened, “You are not to be seen. You are not to be heard. These visits are out of obligation and nothing more,” he paused for a final moment, “Do you understand?”
Hannah‘s frightened eyes stared into his, her lips quivering. It wasn’t really a question.
“Y-Yes, sir. I understand.”
The earl smiled. “Splendid.” He walked behind his desk and pressed a button. The butler re-emerged from the door. “Now, get out — and Collins.”
Collins stood at attention. “Yes, milord?”
The earl flicked his fingers, indicating he wanted a word in private. Both Satoru and butler came forward, bending their ears to listen. “If you or the staff notice anything…off about the child,” Lord Thames grumbled, glancing briefly at the girl waiting by the door. “Do let me know.”
The butler dipped his head. “Of course, sir.”
The servant swiveled around and guided Hannah down the hallway to the servant’s quarters. The fire crackled in its hearth and the earl settled back into his chair, puffing away on his cigar. He studied the signet on his pinkie for a moment longer and muttered something before the first memory faded to black.
“You’ll be the death of me, Elizabeth.”
The office dissolved into smoke.
As if watching a film reel, Satoru suddenly fast-forwarded to when Hannah was lodging at a boarding school in Germany. She looked to be about seven years old, so small you’d think her growth had been stunted. She was easily the smallest of the children and routinely bullied. From what Satoru could tell, she was the only living soul who could see cursed spirits.
During this particular memory, Satoru witnessed Hannah becoming too afraid to step inside after recess because a curse, grade 3 or above, was hovering above the entrance, a rarity in Europe. She wanted to warn the other children to get away, but they didn't see anything other than a petrified girl, staring wide-eyed at thin air. So they laughed.
One older boy laughed louder than the rest and got right in Hannah’s face, taunting the girl in high-pitched German while spitting on her cheeks. Satoru didn’t know what the kid was saying, but he would’ve loved nothing more than to hoist the snot-nosed brat up the highest flagpole by the seams of his underpants and watch him cry like a baby for someone to get him down. Yeah, see if he’d be laughing then, the prick.
Meanwhile, none of the other children rushed to Hannah’s aid, gawking and circling around the little girl like vultures. If he were in her place, Satoru would see to it that these losers couldn’t speak to him like that without gaining a black eye because the only way to deter a bully was to make it clear they couldn’t bully you. Satoru was lost as to why Hannah didn’t fight back, taking their insults the way sorbothane absorbed shock waves; No retaliation. No snide, witty comeback, her fearful eyes too focused on the curse preparing to lunge at any given moment. Why was she showing kindness to people who didn’t deserve it?
A teacher entered the fray, putting an end to the torture session. All the children were assembled inside, but Hannah was sent to her room for some inexplicable reason, which almost had Satoru crying foul. The curse had flown off.
Satoru trailed Hannah to her room which was kept separate from the others, likely due to the terrible screaming brought on by the visions. Originally a janitor's closet, the lonely bedroom still shelved outdated cleaning supplies, coated in dust. The sun was starting to set. The ceiling lamp hanging above them emitted little to no light, but Satoru’s Six Eyes saw the twin-sized mattress stationed in the far corner below a small arching window. Forming a line along the windowsill were several seashells and rocks collected from the beach, and underneath the bed Satoru spied three heavy textbooks: The Lost Book of Herbal Remedies, Exploring Creation with Botany, and Basilius Besler’s second edition of Florilegium. Not exactly light reading for a seven year old. Wonder how she got them.
While sent to her room as punishment (supposedly), Hannah was in no mood for repentance. She was too busy fussing with a bundle of blankets and rags knotted together to form a long rope. Looping one end of the rope over the bedpost, Satoru watched her pry open the latch and throw the other end out the window along with an empty rucksack, letting it wave outside like a victory banner. She gave the rope a good tug.
It held.
With relative ease, Hannah crouched through the open window, held tight to the knotted rags, and planted her feet on the brick wall to support her legs, and like a spider attached to its spinneret, she carefully lowered her tiny body down the rope, one step after the other, and dropped to the ground when the blankets went no further, opting to land on her side and roll several times to lessen the impact. Suffering no broken bones, the little girl flew to her feet, grabbed the empty rucksack she had haphazardly thrown out the window, and ran for the coastline up ahead. Never more than a couple steps behind, Satoru witnessed his young wife trip a grand total of five times before they neared the beach, hearing her soft giggles ringing in the blustery air at her own clumsiness, glad to be free from that penitentiary excuse of a school.
As they reached the coast, a flock of seagulls were feasting on some helpless crustaceans washed ashore by the tide. Little Hannah charged at the seabirds, breaking into a bellyful of laughter as they scattered, her smile positively infectious. There’s a gap between her teeth, Satoru thought.
Approaching the water, the seven year old knelt to remove her worn leather shoes and bloodied socks.
Hold on. Bloodied?
Satoru failed to hide his unease at seeing the cuts, some of which were still bleeding. He didn’t know it then, but the other kids liked to put glass shards in her shoes and sometimes Hannah forgot to check before slipping them on. Why hadn’t he noticed them earlier? Though she didn’t seem the least bit concerned about the lacerations and welcomed the salty waves to fold from blue to white around her toes and wash away the blood. Satoru winced. Salt water and open cuts didn’t exactly mix well. Didn’t that hurt?
Evidently not.
When the waves receded, Hannah’s feet were looking a lot better - Actually, scratch that - They appeared almost fully healed. Weird. Maybe it was all that excess dried blood. Satoru wasn’t sure.
Anywho, once cleaned, Hannah stuffed her blood-stained socks inside her shoes, placing them both in her rucksack. Her hazel eyes then darted animatedly from left to right, scouring the shore for anything valuable she might find. Using her bare hands she began digging holes in the wet sand, sifting through the many fish bones, bird feathers, and plastic bottles, until she unearthed what looked to be a round husk the size of a baseball; an old abalone from the looks of it. The shell was rough and ugly, like the jagged rocks buffering the waves, but hidden inside the shell lay the covetous mother-of-pearl found on dish cabinets and lacquered furnishings. Whether Hannah knew this was anyone’s guess, but the fact she dropped the abalone into her rucksack implicated as much; Another addition for her windowsill.
Husband and wife spent the remainder of that evening digging for seashells. Well, Hannah dug and Satoru watched, using his Six Eyes to spot the better looking ones.
“No, here, Hannah,” he would laugh, pointing to the ground. “There’s more over here. See?” But the child walked right through him. This was a memory, after all. He wasn’t actually there. Never had been, though he was enjoying this excursion more than he should’ve, watching the smiling girl loot the beach for buried treasure. As Hannah found new sand to plunder, the world's strongest sorcerer took a moment to appreciate the view, taking off his shoes for the heck of it.
While these weren’t his memories, Satoru could easily imagine the ocean spray hitting his face as wave after thundering wave pounded against the rocky bluffs up coast. The sun sparkled atop the water and clouds creamed the sky in hues of gold and pink from the oncoming sunset. Wow. Which part of the Atlantic was this again? The Baltic? If given the chance, Satoru would stare out at it for hours, contemplating the deeper meaning of life. He felt a presence standing next to him and turned to see who it was.
Time skipped. Hannah was no longer a care-free seven year old with a gap between her teeth, but a beautiful woman yet to be his bride. She was still short, of course, barely reaching his chest. The setting sun picked up the red in her braided hair. He could see the green in her hazel eyes and the cute freckles dotting across her nose, but something wasn't right. Like him, she too was staring out at the sea, except she wasn’t smiling anymore. The rucksack carried around her shoulders was gone. Her expression held no emotion, as if all the happiness she exuded from earlier had been sucked right out of her.
He couldn’t distinguish the twisted feeling in his gut when that first tear fell. No, don’t. His hand lifted to wipe it away. I hate seeing you cry. Just as his fingers brushed against her cheeks, however, a panicked voice called out from afar.
“Hannah!”
Satoru froze and pivoted to see a middle-aged nun hobbling up the beach, her brown veil flying every which way in the breeze as she frantically called Hannah's name.
Meanwhile, Hannah hurriedly dried her eyes. “Hier drüben, Schwester Hilda,” she called back, raising her arm to get the nun’s attention.
Hearing her voice, Sister Hilda turned and placed a hand over her heart. “Gott sei Dank!” she exclaimed in relief and raced to them as fast as she could, her brown veil billowing in the wind, “Wir haben dich überall gesucht. Wie oft haben wir es dir schon gesagt. Kein weglaufen.”
Satoru saw the way Hannah’s shoulders slumped. “Es tut mir leid,” she answered apologetically.
The nun waved her over, shaking her head. “Schnell, schnell,” she placed an arm around the young woman, ushering her back inside. “Es ist nicht sicher.”
Hannah obeyed like the good girl she was and together they walked back the direction they had come, taking no notice of the jujutsu sorcerer standing near.
Satoru didn’t understand a lick of German, but the desperation ringing in the poor nun’s voice unsettled him. Surely, Hannah was just wanting some fresh air. What could be wrong with that? Why the urgency?
He caught one last wisp of auburn, before the two women disappeared beneath the sand dunes and tall sea grass. A storm loomed beyond the shore. The sun dipped below the water. And the memory faded to black.
Satoru then found himself standing outside an old farmhouse. The air was chilly and a dense fog overtook the acres of forest as night became dawn. It smelled of mulch and aging wood. A rooster crowed in the background. Nope, definitely not the Baltic.
A teenage Hannah emerged from the farmhouse, equipped in a plaid button-down flannel and denim overalls. Her rubber boots squeaked atop the dew covered grass as she carried an empty tin bucket up to the barn, a bright red bandana covering her hair. For a shortie she was hightailing it pretty good. Satoru had to break into a light trot. Why so fast?
“Salut, Charlie. Clyde,” she greeted quietly upon sliding the barn doors open, almost completely out of breath.
Two of the most humongous looking draft horses Satoru had ever seen, each strong enough to pull a freight car, stuck out their heads from behind their stalls, ears perking at the sound of their names. The young girl stood on her tiptoes and offered her knuckles to one of the gentle giants, looking like a fairy as its massive muzzle nudged her hand and sniffed. The creepy thing about this was when the horse’s eyes followed Satoru as he walked by. It could see him, but Hannah was too busy to notice and returned carrying a large bale of hay. She broke down the hay-bale and loaded the grass into Clyde’s trough, doing the same for Charlie. Lifting the lid off a long plastic bin, Hannah scooped some grain for each horse and observed the geldings munching away as she checked their water supply and shoveled their manure before opening the neighboring stall on the right.
“Désolée, Bertha,” she whispered.
Bertha, a brown dairy cow getting on in years, mooed lowly at the girl, unhappy she hadn’t been milked at her usual hour. Hannah quickly fed the cow similarly to the horses and grabbed the empty bucket she’d brought up the hill and set to placing her rear on an old wooden stool. She slid the empty bucket underneath the cow, strapped on a pair of latex gloves from her back pocket, and commenced to milking. It was quite the exercise, applying just the right pressure on the udder with her thumb and index to squeeze, but Hannah handled it like a pro. Satoru was so absorbed by the fact that his wife knew how to milk a frickin’ cow, he didn’t notice the tiny grey kitten attempting to eat his shoelaces, only to come up short.
“Oi, quit it,” he muttered, kicking the little beast away with his shoe, which did absolutely nothing. These were limited edition. “Scram.”
The kitten peered up at the Six Eyes wielder with big round eyes too large for its small fluffy head and released the tiniest “mew.” Hannah stopped milking.
“Well, there you are,” she cooed in English, having discovered the feline wallowing alone in the corner. “Que fais-tu là-bas, hmm?” She took off one of her latex gloves and lowered a hand for the baby to sniff. “Where are the rest?”
The rest? Satoru’s Six Eyes were drawn to the stacks of hay-bales lining the wall to his right. Suspicious, he transitioned to infrared and spied four orange blobs hiding amongst the bales.
Knowing what to do, Hannah stood up from the wooden stool, grabbed an empty bowl from a shelf nearby, and crouched under Bertha, squirting some milk into the bowl till it filled halfway and placing it on the ground. “Bon appetit,” she sang.
The kittens came scampering, toppling over each other like furry rollie pollies to see who could get to the bowl first, their fur matted with straw and dust.
“Heathens,” Satoru chuffed, shaking his head and watching the siblings fight over their food like a pride of lions at the zebra kill. Obviously Hannah didn’t hear this comment, but giggled as though she had. A bell alerted them to the changing of the hour. They had thirty minutes.
Quickly, Hannah covered the milk bucket with a cloth as best she could, locked Bertha’s stall door behind her, and rushed out the barn, leaving the animals to eat their breakfast in peace. The way she maneuvered down the uneven slope, it was a miracle the milk didn’t slosh everywhere. She reconvened inside the motherhouse and inadvertently led Satoru to the kitchen. He watched her hoist the bucket over a marble countertop, cracked in the center from an accident gone awry - either that or the surface was too old - and began raiding the cupboards. Finding a metal strainer, she whipped out a clean glass jug from the bottom drawers and (shakily) poured the raw milk into the jug to be pasteurized later, leaving the strainer to trap all the excess fat used to make cheese and butter. Satoru didn’t see her pause to take a breath. Twisting a lid on the jug and plopping the fat in its own container, she placed both produce in the fridge next to the fresh eggs. The dirty bucket and strainer were left in the sink. Hannah washed her hands and eyeballed the clock. Ten minutes.
Trying not to make too much noise, she tiptoed up the stairs to her bedroom, a monastic cell less than premium, and quietly shut the door behind her with a soft “click.” Now, it was at this point Satoru should’ve known better. He should’ve known women need their privacy, but since he could see through clothing anyway, the message failed to register. Hannah was already shimmying out of her overalls, naked in only her bra and underwear, till the Six Eyes wielder got the hint and turned to face the wall. Whoops. He could already envision Utahime landing a scathing slap across his cheek. “Pervert.” All he was missing was a dunce cap.
Waiting to recover his wounded sense of pride, Satoru focused on the rustling of fabric as Hannah changed and the sound of tiny beads rattling against each other. He glanced over his shoulder.
His mouth parted.
Her red bandana had been replaced with a white coif and veil, hiding her auburn hair. The plaid flannel and overalls were now a long black robe, poncho'd in a sleeveless tunic. A belt of rosary beads cinched her waist as she strapped on a pair of velcro-laced shoes typically worn by old people. The novitiate standing before him gave Satoru pause.
It could’ve been so different, he thought, struggling to wrap his head around the blatant concept; Hannah? A nun? He wasn’t sure he liked that idea. Not that he felt entitled to criticize the lifestyle itself. How people choose to live their lives was their business, and if it left them fulfilled, then more power to them, but he couldn’t picture Hannah as a nun. Like so much about these memories, it felt…wrong.
She didn’t belong here.
In those clothes.
In that veil.
You’re mine.
No mirror to check her reflection, Hannah flattened the creases in her habit as best she could, sighed a deep breath, and opened the door.
Having been following the Eightfold Path since he could crawl, Satoru had only stepped foot inside a church twice. Once when he was sent to retrieve (kidnap) Amanai from school, and the other on his wedding day. He and Hannah were the last to arrive at the chapel, joining the other twelve or so nuns praying solemnly in the pews. Their veils weren’t white like Hannah’s, Satoru noted, but funeral black. A priest sauntered in shortly afterwards, wearing green vestments while holding the Gospels over his head as the nun’s lead a processional hymn.
The Mass was terribly dull and lasted way too long. He was bored through most of it, not knowing French or Latin, though Hannah’s singing rang out like soft chimes in the small church, which was pleasant enough. He resorted to counting the cracks in the ceiling as the service dragged on and on. When the priest held up the offerings for the consecration and everyone got on their knees, Satoru walked right in front of the altar, leaned real close, and squinted hard. So this was their God, eh? Some flat bread and fermented grape juice. Yup, Christians sure were weird.
The end of Mass was followed by the Abess reading from the pulpit along with a short sermon and more prayer. He was glad when it was over.
Released from their purgatory, Hannah was allotted a quick breakfast - a baguette slice with a dollop of freshly churned butter and a soft boiled egg - which she devoured ravenously. Then on to lessons.
The teenager went back to her room for a satchel and trudged up a flight of stairs to the attic, where a nun welcomed her with a smile, gesturing to the vacant desk centered in front of a large chalkboard. Geometry. That was the lesson for today it seemed. Good, a subject Satoru actually liked. It would be Medieval History at one o’clock, however; Mmm, not so good. He peered over Hannah’s notes as she jotted everything her instructor wrote on the chalkboard. Aha, so she’s a leftie. Interesting.
Hannah was scrubbing floors next. Although the brush she was given looked more like a brick and washed like one too. The bristles were dense from re-hardened soap, effectively becoming a thick block of lard. Kind of gross really. The sound the brush made as it scraped along the floorboards had his skin crawling, but Satoru didn’t want to mosey off somewhere and leave her. What the hell were these floors made out of anyway? Finishing her scrubbing, Hannah tucked any loose strands of auburn back under her veil and glanced up at the clock above the door mantle. The bell rang. Time for, you guessed it, more prayer.
After the office of the None, Satoru was willing to theorize whether bashing his head upside the wall, really, really, hard would help wake him from this snooze fest, but naturally no wall was impenetrable. He walked through every solid object, every person, lurking anonymously wherever Hannah went like an invisible shadow. Seriously, where’s the exit? All this loitering about was making him hungry and some deep-fried manju would be really good right about now.
At three o’clock following lunch, Hannah was tending to the vegetable gardens outside: carrots, potatoes, cabbage, turnips, other bulbs and tubers. She had to change back into her overalls and rubber boots. The sun was sweltering down on them (her) like a tanning bed, but the heat didn’t seem to affect her none. Satoru watched the teenager parse a handful of dirt between her fingers, testing the fertilizer and de-weeding the ground, making sure the cabbages were watered by their roots so the leaves wouldn’t catch a fungal infection. A sweet smile graced her lips. She looks natural, Satoru thought; Gardening.
The evening slowed to a snail’s pace once Hannah changed back into her habit and communed with the other sisters inside the chapel, which Satoru gathered was meant for, what, choir practice? The nuns formed three rows, opened their hymnal books, and began singing in unison before breaking into separate harmonies. Hannah’s sweet soprano came out like distilled water, crisp and clearer than the rest. The Abbess would stop them if the piece was sung even a little out of key and force them to repeat the verse. This went on for roughly an hour, ending the day with a perfect “Salve Regina.”
Hannah returned her hymnal on a shelf with the others, waved goodbye to the nuns, and made the silent pilgrimage back to her cell. Under the aid of candlelight, she spent her last waking hours finishing homework and repairing the holes she’d torn in her overalls with a thread and needle, pricking her fingers a couple times as she stitched. She didn’t change out of her habit and veil. Instead, the teenager blew out her candle, slipped off her shoes, and crash landed onto the bed with a resounding ‘whop,’ knowing it would start all over again come break of morning and there’d be no escaping it. Not once had she complained. Not once had she tarried or refused the work.
Her lids slowly closed.
A bell tolled in the distance.
Everything faded to black again.
A few seconds passed and soon the cold stench of antiseptic stung Satoru’s nose and tongue like salt inhalants, along with a sharp tang reminiscent of something metal. The black void surrounding him materialized into placid white ceilings above placid white walls on placid white floors. The window outside showed a wintry scene with snow falling to the ground, while a skeletal figure slept on a bed beside beeping machinery, an IV dripping into a vein that wasn’t blown. His skin looked as though it hadn’t been washed in days, growing dry and leathery with patches collecting on his bedsheets like dandruff, and his face was so gaunt from weight loss that Satoru could see every protruding bone jutting around his cheeks and eye sockets. Although, he was most alarmed by the man’s jaw. It hung in such a grotesque angle that it was likely impossible for him to close it, making him appear as though he were left permanently screaming in a Van Gogh painting. The dude was in rough shape. Satoru estimated he didn’t have much longer.
“Good morning, Richard,” Hannah chimed, wheeling in a cart topped with a meal tray and towels. She was still in a white coif and veil, except she wore a white knee-length dress and tights with a Red Cross on her chest. The makings of a hospice nurse.
Richard initially didn’t stir or open his eyes, enticing Hannah to lean over the bed and gently tap his arm. “Richard,” she whispered. “It's morning now. Time to get up.”
The man opened his eyes in a panic, looking utterly confused, not knowing where he was. Hannah rushed to comfort him. “My name’s Hannah, Richard, remember? Han-nah? I’m the one taking care of you.”
For a moment Richard managed to make eye contact, but he was incapable of seeing the woman. The cataracts clouding his vision were too thick, and judging from his odd behavior, his hearing was probably deteriorating as well. Hannah eventually succeeded in settling him down, his mouth still hanging agape.
“Alright, we’re going to lift you up now,” she said as another woman in a veil and dress entered the room, and together the two caretakers worked to carefully flip the man on his side. Richard moaned in pain, his emaciated body too weak and feeble to do anything, no muscle to pull himself up. He was bare underneath the hospital gown. Satoru could see the bedsores blotching his heels from being confined to the mattress for so long and watched Hannah gingerly remove the soiled underpad from him and wipe his bottom and drain the collection bag from his catheter before changing the bedding. The smell alone would’ve left Satoru gagging, but like two well-oiled machines, neither hospice nurse so much as coughed. Fully cleaned, they placed the man back down on the hospital bed. The other nurse took the dirty sheets to be washed and entrusted her colleague to finish the rest.
Keeping him warm, Hannah draped a new blanket over the man. “There, that’s better, isn’t it?” she soothed, tucking in the edges like a mother would her child. She was so patient. “Are you hungry?”
A vacant look in his eyes, the cripple responded with a gurgling noise from the back of his throat. What that meant, Satoru didn’t know. Hannah brought the cart over to his side and parted the lid off the tray and — Aw, man. What the fuck was that supposed to be? Oatmeal? Who in their right mind would eat that?
From there, Satoru found it very difficult to watch Hannah try and spoon feed the dying man. He couldn’t chew or swallow the porridge correctly, wearing most of the mush on his chin, but Hannah cleaned it up with a napkin and threw the plastic spoon away after four small bites. That was it. The man would eat no more and quickly shut his eyes and fell asleep, fatigue winning over.
I’d rather they put a gun to my head, Satoru thought grimly, moved with pity for the man. The youth always think they’ll live forever, quick to forget that all things must come to an end. Would this be his, he wondered. A slow, agonizing death, with no one but a sweet orphaned nurse to care for him? Afterall, when you die, you die alone, right?
As her final act of kindness, Hannah wheeled the meal cart to the corner, washed her hands and arms in the sink, and made herself comfy in the closest chair near Richard’s bed. Crossing her legs, she flipped open a little pocket book from her skirt, and stayed by his side until the moon’s pale face shown out the window, falling asleep in the chair.
The hospital room faded from view.
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