Work Text:
Celine is a mother, but Rumi is not her daughter.
Celine knows this.
Rumi is a daughter, and Celine is her mother
Rumi knows this.
Celine is a mother only because of a desperate glance from the woman she loved.
A glance was all it took.
She didn't need to beg for her love.
She didn't need to plead for her to shoulder her sin.
She'd do it all, all for her. For the dead love cradled in her gentle arms.
Celine is a mother because an angel and a devil made a third worse thing and paid the penance for it.
Celine isn't a mother because she delights in the child's smiles and giggles
Celine isn't a mother because she wants to give the child a life she never had.
Celine isn't a mother
Celine isn't her mother
No, her mother is dead. The body rotting in the ground.
All that's left of her are records of an enchanting voice, played on loop. God forbid, she forgets a woman she never learned.
She never got to know her mother. The mother who defied heaven's will for a taste of sin. The taste that set our punishment in stone.
And as they say, the sins of the mother are the sins of the daughter.
So, of course, the daughter must atone for her mother's sins.
At least that's what her mother says.
Not the dead one.
The dead can not speak, no matter the cries of the living
The alive one.
Because her mother is alive too.
Her mother is alive and well.
Her eyes, full of love, formed by obligations and grief
Her touch was a chilling stroke against her face. (her face is but a mirror of the dead)
Sometimes she wonders if the dead can be warm.
For the one who breathes is colder to touch than the one who withers.
Sometimes she wonders if the dead can breathe for themselves.
They probably have excess breath.
For the living breathe for them as well
Each breath she takes isn't for the child; no, it's for when she reunites with her love. She can look her in the eye and say I did what you asked.
Celine (her mother) is devoted.
That much she can tell you
Because why else would she take the abomination in? Why else would she feed it?
Why else would she build palaces for a monster? Why else would she gift the demon her own angels?
Angels that caress her with the reverence reserved for their God.
If not to satisfy her lover's greed.
Sometimes she curses the dead for taking all the love and leaving none to spare
Sometimes she gives voice to her desires
Sometimes she damns the dead for leaving the living with the products of their ephemeral desires.
Sometimes she hates the dead for being the reason she'll never be Celine's
No matter what she does, she'll always be the product of the dead's misaligned thoughts.
She'll always be the creature that stole Celine's light from her world
She'll never be hers, no matter how much she bleeds for her.
No matter how much she pleads for her
No matter how much she needs for her
Rumi will never be Celine's, no matter how much she wishes to be so