Two ficlets
Sep. 3rd, 2010 02:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mari4212Both of these were written for the Awesome Characters of Color meme that medie held. Both are also tiny and unbeta-ed.
First Times, Bride and Prejudice
The first time she fell in love, it was with James Wickham. He'd followed Lalita home, like so many other young men did, but for once, he paid as much attention to Lakhi as he did to her two oldest sisters. He laughed with her, teased her, and when he left, he wrote to her, long chatty e-mails that seemed to confide everything.
The first time Lahki had her heart broken, she was in London, and James had just told Lalita that everything he'd done was because of her, that she was the only one he'd loved. Lalita had slapped him, and Lahki followed suit before bursting into tears. She didn't really stop crying for days, even with the news about Jaya's marriage.
The first time Lahki grew up, really, was in the aftermath of everything, when Jaya and Lalita left with their respective husbands. She spent more time paying attention to the family farm, because Lalita wasn't there anymore and Maya was hopeless at maths. She found out that she could do something besides flirt and pay attention to men.
The first time Lahki loved herself for what she was, instead of the girl the boys liked and her mother's pet, was the first time she had the strength to stand on her own two feet.
Fairy Tales, 1632 series
All her life, she's had to live by or against the stories other people have made up about her.
To her classmates in high school, she was the uppity girl, too good for her roots, because she wanted to follow in her father's footsteps and go to college, to get a degree and got into the medical field.
To her teachers and her guidance counselors, she was the great hope of the year, one of the few students they thought would make it all the way through. So they paid all the attention in the world to her and maybe two or three others, because they'd written off the rest of the class.
For most of her friends in college, she knew she was their one black friend. They expected her to be black and sassy, whatever that meant, and had problems adjusting their vision from black girl to Sharon Nichols. One of the reasons she got along so well with Rita was that the girl had precious few stereotypes that she wanted Sharon to fit into, and was far more interested in listening to what Sharon actually said.
When the Ring of Fire happened, she'd really expected the worst. Blame American history classes that tended to assume that it was Victorian views all the way back through time, but she'd half expected someone to try to take both her and her father captive for a good chunk of their first year downtime.
She loved Hans so much because he was uncomplicated. He didn't have any preconceptions about her based on her skin, just that she was one of the Uptimers and thus wonderful. He loved unselfishly and cleanly, and she couldn't help but return that.
After his death, she was swept up in yet another story told around her. She didn't recognize herself in the story of the Moorish princess, but then, when did anyone else's story about her ever fit who she actually was?
medie held. Both are also tiny and unbeta-ed. First Times, Bride and Prejudice
The first time she fell in love, it was with James Wickham. He'd followed Lalita home, like so many other young men did, but for once, he paid as much attention to Lakhi as he did to her two oldest sisters. He laughed with her, teased her, and when he left, he wrote to her, long chatty e-mails that seemed to confide everything.
The first time Lahki had her heart broken, she was in London, and James had just told Lalita that everything he'd done was because of her, that she was the only one he'd loved. Lalita had slapped him, and Lahki followed suit before bursting into tears. She didn't really stop crying for days, even with the news about Jaya's marriage.
The first time Lahki grew up, really, was in the aftermath of everything, when Jaya and Lalita left with their respective husbands. She spent more time paying attention to the family farm, because Lalita wasn't there anymore and Maya was hopeless at maths. She found out that she could do something besides flirt and pay attention to men.
The first time Lahki loved herself for what she was, instead of the girl the boys liked and her mother's pet, was the first time she had the strength to stand on her own two feet.
Fairy Tales, 1632 series
All her life, she's had to live by or against the stories other people have made up about her.
To her classmates in high school, she was the uppity girl, too good for her roots, because she wanted to follow in her father's footsteps and go to college, to get a degree and got into the medical field.
To her teachers and her guidance counselors, she was the great hope of the year, one of the few students they thought would make it all the way through. So they paid all the attention in the world to her and maybe two or three others, because they'd written off the rest of the class.
For most of her friends in college, she knew she was their one black friend. They expected her to be black and sassy, whatever that meant, and had problems adjusting their vision from black girl to Sharon Nichols. One of the reasons she got along so well with Rita was that the girl had precious few stereotypes that she wanted Sharon to fit into, and was far more interested in listening to what Sharon actually said.
When the Ring of Fire happened, she'd really expected the worst. Blame American history classes that tended to assume that it was Victorian views all the way back through time, but she'd half expected someone to try to take both her and her father captive for a good chunk of their first year downtime.
She loved Hans so much because he was uncomplicated. He didn't have any preconceptions about her based on her skin, just that she was one of the Uptimers and thus wonderful. He loved unselfishly and cleanly, and she couldn't help but return that.
After his death, she was swept up in yet another story told around her. She didn't recognize herself in the story of the Moorish princess, but then, when did anyone else's story about her ever fit who she actually was?