#and I couldn't pass up the chance to quote Kermit

[starsandauras]

Prompt 13: Confluence

FFXIV 30 Day Writing Challenge Prompt 13: Confluence

HEY. READ THIS. Welcome to The Hereward Fic for this year. For the new folks, this means the following CONTENT WARNINGS are in play: Parental death, parental abandonment, and emotional abuse. Please take care of yourself if you choose to read this.

Oh, and Will’s Accent, even if Will isn’t the one talking.

“Life is made up of meetings and partings. That is the way of it.” — Kermit the Frog, A Muppet Christmas Carol

Meetings

Brigid’s first memory of her father, the first real clear one, was of being carried in his arms along a beach. She must have been two? Three? She wasn’t sure, so many years on. The sun was setting, full of beautiful colors reflected on the water.

She’d flung her arm out, pointing at the water, shouting something, though she couldn’t remember what anymore. She couldn’t remember the exact thing her father had said in return, but she remembered that it was happy, and warm, and had a laugh mixed in. It was safe, he was safe, and would always keep her so.

He had held her closer, dropping a fond kiss on the top of her head, and they’d walked on, likely to meet up with her mother and brothers.

Partings

Brigid’s last memory of her father was of standing at the door to their house, herself and William on the threshold while their father stood on the stoop. Llewellyn was somewhere behind the twins, and Arthur and Connor somewhere else. She was thirteen, nearly fourteen, and nearly a year without a mother.

It was raining. The ground outside their home was almost sandy mud from the wet, and her lungs ached. Their father kept his eyes on William, on Llewellyn, anywhere but on her. She’d noticed, after a few weeks, how he never looked at her anymore. She tried not to think about why.

“When will you be back?” Llewellyn had asked, in that quiet way of his that *radiated* disapproval if one knew how to listen.

“Few sennights,” their father had replied, shrugging his shoulders. His voice was flat, and he already stank of drink. Llewellyn hummed softly, nodding as he did. None of them believed him.

“Are ye havin’ tae leave?” Brigid asked softly, and tried to ignore how he just looked over her shoulder as she spoke.

“Havin’ tae gae whaur th’ work’s bein’,” he said, shrugging again. A moment of silence passed between the four of them, before he sighed, focusing instead on Llewellyn. “Look after ‘em, ye’re th’ man ay th’ house now.”

Llewellyn nodded. “I will.”

There was an awkward moment, where their father tried to hug each of them, Arthur pushing him away almost instantly and Connor clinging, not understanding. Brigid wanted to cling, wanted to keep him there. But she couldn’t, and didn’t. And then Hereward O’Donnell turned and went into the rain, leaving his children behind.

That was the last time Brigid looked at her father.