Soap and Sorrow

Played By:
AelKennyr Rhiano
Belenos Stormchaser (BelenosStormchaser Magic)


"Where did that girl git?"  The old woman swivels her head toward the solid wooden door, tilting her head once again, straining for the sound of light footsteps on the stoop.  Nothing. Nothing but the sounds of crickets, rubbing legs together in a soft song heralding the coming of late evening, the coming of darkness.  A bird gives a lazy trill and then the sound, lonely, fades away.  The old woman shifts in her rocker and struggles to her feet.  Looking about her cottage, she spies the front room with a critical sharp eye. Shuffling across the wooden floor, she winces, as the day spent in the garden, rising and kneeling, pulling at weeds and digging up roots and tubers and potatoes has left her with swollen joints; swollen knuckles, swollen knees, and swollen ankles.

"Where did that girl git?"

She had sent the girl out for more water from the stream, and while the befuddled young woman was gone, she had hobbled out and around to the back of her cottage, fetching the washtub.  Today, it seems the tub was made of stone, and she had to stop often, carting it back inside.   The sweat stained the back of her undershift and a thin tickle sill rests between her sagging breasts.  It has been a long time since she has used this wooden tub.  After the death of her man, she put it out back, and left it there, preferring the river water and the stream bank to bathe herself and wash her clothes.

She gives the wooden tub a hard stare, noticing how the seal between the wooden planking has worn thin through disuse, and some water was squeezing out.  She crosses the room to the now empty kettle. "That girl best be here soon," The old woman mutters.  "The water be plenty hot half a crow's song ago, and I will be having her bathe proper here...tonight...whilst I watch.  Daft child!  Skin gone gray and hair seems all lank from dirt and sweat.  Who gone and let her run wild and without a care like that, all growed as she be?"  Once more she turns to the door.

Yavanna stares up through the forest canopy at the soft purple of the twilight sky, the bucket forgotten at her feet. Something.. something about this time of day pulls at her. At times it seems this is when she feels most herself, whoever that self is, yet also sometimes unbearably sad. Around her an early evening breeze stirs the forest, and the trees seem to rustle and sigh sadly as they behold the one who is Yavanna Kementari, Queen of the Earth, for there is nothing majestic about the woman standing daydreaming at the stars.

Yavanna lifts a long finely-shaped hand to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear.  Hair that had once floated about her in a silver halo, seeming to dance with a life of its own now hangs lank around her shoulders, dull, dark and heavy as her heart.  The face she turns to the sky, once so fair as to outshine the very pearls of Alqualonde for sheer beauty is now dull, the skin darkening more each day, the exquisite tracery of artwork upon it becoming blurred and shadowed.

Yavanna shakes her head as though to shake the feeling in her heart and, sighing, stoops to lift the bucket to return to the cottage.  As she walks the path her once sure and strong footsteps are heavy and awkward as the weariness of her spirit reflects upon this mortal body she wears.  At last the cottage is before her and with a last heft of the bucket, she pushes the door open and steps into the soft glow of the fire-lit room.

The old woman hears the sound of weary footsteps scant seconds before the sturdy door opens in, and the girl, the object of the old woman's fretting, steps in, her hands wrapped around the handle of the bucket.  Birdlike eyes take in Yavanna's appearance for a moment before the old woman's lips form a round "o."  There is not a spot of grime or a speck of dirt on the girl's garments, yet her skin is an ashen grey, as though the younger woman had been with the menfolk, toiling in the fields. And the hair!  The hair which had been so golden, a halo of sunlight framing a face that both is youthful and aged at once, the hair is now dank as though with sweat and oil, drooping around a face that seems to grow more melancholy in mood daily.

Each morning, the old woman watches as the younger one takes herself and a load of soiled linens and clothes down to the riverside, and hours later, the girl dutifully returns, clothes damp upon her body, a little bit of water about her face and nape of her neck, her hair half wet.  The laundry, too, has the appearance of being washed. Yet, daily the girl grows dirtier and dirtier.   "I'll not have it," she says aloud, unaware she has voiced her resolve aloud.  "Where have you git off to, girl? You been gone for neigh on a good part of the even, I tell you. Daylight beat you home."

Yavanna jumps nervously and slops some of the water from the bucket on the worn wooden floor. "I.. I was looking at the stars," she offers by way of explanation, carefully setting the bucket down in its place lest she spill even more. As she straightens her eyes are drawn to the large wooden tub in front of the fireplace, which was not there when she left to fetch the water. The fact the water in it is steaming with heat tells her how long she has been gone, lost in daydreams, for there was no water boiling on the hearth when she left. Flushing to realize how long she had dallied her eyes dart to Arianna anxiously.

"...I was looking at the stars."

The old woman's lips purse into a thin line as she watches the water slop over the side of the bucket and splash upon the floor.  Leaning over a little, her aged eyes are sharp enough to see a bit of dirt upon the floor.  "Watch it, girl!" she barks, her voice strident. "You near about drowned that bit of dirt you missed in your sweeping this morning!"

She straightens up, and as she does, she feels a pull across her lower back. Hand reaching around to rub at tightened and complaining muscles, she lifts her gaze to meet the younger woman's face. The blush is unmistakable in the dusky cheeks.  Heaving a large sigh, the woman nods her head toward the bucket of water. Her voice drops to a more kindly tone as she turns her head to indicate the tub. "Put that bucket yonder, near the tub. You might find that water a wee bit warm. Though, girl, you dallied long enough that I be surprised there be any warmth at all."

Yavanna stares at the old woman, her brow wrinkled in confusion. "Me? But.. but I bathed this morning in the creek when I washed the linens."

Crossing her arms across her chest, the old woman draws a noisy breath, sucking it between her two bottom teeth, and exhaling explosively through her nostrils. "You did, indeed, wash the linens, and girls half your age and a quarter your long height can do as well, girl! " She cocks her head and peers closer at the garments the other woman wears. Spotless.

She waves a hand in the air dismissively. "Na, na, it is better than you did before, I give you that.  I near about gave you for soft in the head, a pretty thing with nar between the ears."  She turns and hobbles painfully over to the table where she and Yavanna take their meals.  Breaking the home baked loaf of day old bread, she holds out the heel to Yavanna. "Gone near about all day to fetch one pail of water. Still you must be hungered. Eat, child. A bit of bread won't cramp you in the tub."  She crosses the distance back to the Vala, her eyes peering intently into the other's.

"...Eat, child."

Yavanna looks at the offered bread, but, her mood from the forest still upon her, her stomach tightens rebelliously at the thought of food. She shakes her head listlessly even as she tries to muster a small smile to show her gratitude for the old woman's rough kindness. "I.. I'm not hungry," she murmurs as she turns to the tub and slowly starts to disrobe. She knows she had bathed that morning, but she can not bring herself to argue with the kindly crone who has taken her in. Meekly she lets her garments slip to the floor, standing unselfconsciously naked before stepping into the tub and settling into the water, her knees tucked up under her chin for it is clear the tub had not been wrought with one of her height in mind.

...her knees tucked up under her chin...

With her back to the old woman, Yavanna cannot see the look that crossed Arianna's face.  Drawing in a sharp breath, the old woman forgets the pain in her lower back, the ache in her bones, and the swelling in her joints.  As the young woman complies, even without being ask, a knot forms in the woman's throat, and  her knuckles, large and bulbous, turn white as she closes her hand upon the pro-offered bread, crushing it into crumbs in her hand.  The pieces shower down to the flower, the crust making a soft sound as it hits the floor, but she does not hear it.

Instead she stares at the curved back of the Giver of Fruits. She should feel some sense of shame, at the other's dejected demeanor, she supposes, but she instead notes with satisfaction that eases her sense of guilt that the skin submerged in the water looks to be turning a healthy pinkish, even as dusky as it is. Nodding to herself, she thinks, "She will forgive me, poor faint-minded, when she has a good scrubbing. Who can feel good, covered in dirt?"  Then she remembers the bread in her hands and has the presence of mind to blush herself.

Opening her hand, she left the crumbs fall to the floor. Clearing her throat, she hobbles over to the tub and grabbing the edge, lowers herself painfully to a kneeling position on the floor. "I-I had a might accident with the bread, child," she says gruffly. "Mind you see it clean later."  And with that she reaches out a wrinkled and spotted hand to awkwardly pat the younger woman on the shoulder. "Tain't no shame, child, that nobody taught you how to proper clean.  Here, now I show you, and you knowed next time."

"...Here, now I show you.."

Yavanna stares into the rising steam as her body relaxes in the hot water.  There is something familiar about the soft firelight, the heated water enveloping her.  Familiar, yet different.  Yes, the old and faded rug shimmers and shifts to become a snowy white fur, gleaming golden in the firelight; firelight that shone from an intricately carved white marble fireplace rather than the blacked rough stone one before her now.

Yavanna no longer hears the old woman's voice as the aged wallpaper of the cottage fades before her eyes to become the richly patterned fabric of a palace wall.  The voice she hears is not rough with age, but smooth and deep, velvet upon her ears as it whispers softly to her.  His hand, gentle and tender despite its size and strength, caresses its way across her skin as it guides the honeysuckle-scented soap on its path.  "None shall bathe you, but I," he whispers softly, his breath warm against her ear as he raises his other hand to lift the heavy weight of her hair from her neck and leans forward to press his lips against the warm skin there before murmuring,"Your body is mine and mine alone to glory in, sweet wife."

...the cottage fades before her eyes...

The old woman waits a few moments, but Yavanna does not answer. Feeling the grinding in her hip and one knee, she sighs dramatically and leans over to snag the washcloth she had earlier placed on the hook that is attached to the side of the tub.  Reaching down beside the tub, she grabs the rough shaped soap, one of the last few remaining bars she had made right after the death of her man.  Wrapping the washcloth around the bar, she submerges both in the hot water and with her two hands begins to rub the soap briskly with the cloth as she brings both the bar and the cloth up out of the water.  Watching the lather foam, and breathing in the soft scent of heather and lavender, she cannot take the silence and starts talking.  "Now, girl, you list what I'm saying.  It is essential that you do not go light on the soap. Why, whilst you're here, maybe we can do a bit of soapmaking.  All we need is right here, after all. I can learn you how my gran did it, with some thyme and some oil pressed from vegetables right out yonder in the garden."

The old woman pauses, looking down at the cloth, sudsed and hanging, dripping foamy soap into the water.  She tightens her grip too much, and the soap slips out of her grasp and plunks into the water.  Frowning, Arianna turns to Yavanna, and with one hand, runs her fingers through the limp locks.  "Now, first, girl," she says and with her hand, she lifts the dulled tresses and settles the younger woman's hair across her far shoulder. "First we scrub-a-dub-dub, and then we will wash that fine hair of yours.. Awh, girl, you will shine like a new copper co--"

She stops.  She stops and the cloth grows cold in her hand.  "Scrub-a-dub-dub," She used to sing, ages, and ages ago, but not to a young woman, thin of white and near helpless. Not to another woman's child.

To her own.

She stops and the cloth grows cold in her hand.

Yavanna blinks as the falling soap splashes some droplets upon her face.  Dazedly she looks around her.  There is no palace, no fur rug and no tender hands caressing her body.  She shakes her head a little to clear it.  Has she been daydreaming again? Or is it remembering?  It is the same man, she knew.  By now his voice, his touch is so familiar to her.  Her breath catches in her throat as she recalls his words. "Wife," he had said.  Wife.  Her heart hammers painfully in her chest, and her mind skitters away from the tumble of questions that whirl through it.  Wife. Wife.  The single word hammers at her mind, at her memories like a battering ram.  "No!" she gasps aloud without thought.

There is no palace...

Yavanna blushes at her outburst, for surely the crone will think her completely lost in wits.  What has the woman been saying?  Frantically she searches to recall, trying to find something, anything to distract from her cry.  She looks over her shoulder at Arianna and musters a weak smile. "Scrub-a-dub-dub"? That sounds like something I have heard sung to children."

"No!" gasps Yavanna, and startled, the old woman rocks back on her heels, feeling the sharp twinge of pain in her arthritic joints. Clutching the cold washcloth in one hand, she grabs the side of the tub with the other for support. "No, what?" she asks, her voice made harsh by her surprise.  She stares hard at Yavanna, her shrewd eyes narrowed in concentration.  "Yes," she answers, firmly. "You be in the tub, and you and this soap are going to make an acquaintance."

Angry with herself, she shoves the cold washcloth into Yavanna's hands and struggles to bring stiff joints to obey her as she rises, with grunts and groans to her feet. "Forgot  my bristle brush,"  she mutters, and with a hand again at the small of her back, she turns her torso to one side and then the other, hearing a rewarding pop followed by several cracks and blessed relief as her back pops, and muscles relaxes.  Hobbling to where her washbowl sits, she reaches out and picks up a well worn wood brush with boarhair bristles.  "Scrub-a-dub," she then says, her back to Yavanna. "It is something mothers sing to children." She nods.  "But such nonsense. Such nonsense. My man, he used to say, 'Arianna, woman, now what's a little silliness going to harm.  Don't be daft woman, she be a wee child.'  And she do loved the silly songs. Why we...we..." She stops, and closes her eyes.

"Well," she says after a moment of silence. She slowly turns, and in her aged eyes shines tears she refuses to shed. Slowly, painfully, she makes her way back to the tub and kneels back down, biting back a gasp of pain. "Long time ago, girl," she says gruffly and dips a hand in the water to find and grab the soap.

"Long time ago, girl."

Yavanna nods mutely as she hears the pain in Arianna's voice.  Resting her chin on her knees she feels the sorrow keenly in the room.  Her mind thinks again on the man who has loved her and called her wife.  So fleeting, those glimpses, so blurred as if from some other place and time.  So.. distant.  Sighing wistfully she murmurs, "It seems much was a long time ago."

Her mind thinks again on the man who has loved her..