Fic: Harmless - Chapter 3
AU: Belle arrives, bruised and bleeding, on the doorstep of a lame spinner and his son. On the run from the war and its causes, her short stop-over becomes something else entirely.
Marchie prompted: There is something moving upstairs; Belle helps Bae with his homework.
Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 14
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Harmless
Chapter 3
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Bae stares out of the window through most of his lesson. He’s interested in learning - papa cannot read, not really, and it’s useful for getting anywhere beyond the village - but he’s easily distracted, his mind on other things, these days.
Morraine’s mother, Mistress Maisie, says he’s away with the fairies. Papa says he has a head full of sawdust, but he smiles when he says it, and Bae knows he wishes he could read too.
It’s just more interesting today to look out of the window, to where papa and Rose talk by papa’s lanolin barrel, and watch them smiling at each other. They look like the older boys and girls used to, before the war took them, right before the village elders would have them married and children would come.
