vocab_drabbles | 003: Agelast - Original

Title: Awash
Fandom: Original
Author: Apache Firecat
Rating: PG/K+
Word Count: 500
Characters/Pairings: OFC
Warnings: None
Summary: She's awash in all their lies, all their words, all their cruelty and pain cast upon her...

They think she's agelast. They've whispered behind her all her life words that hurt, words that burn, words that have made her cut herself, and done and thought so many horrible things. She's from a broken home, a home that's more broken inside than anyone will ever know. She's felt abused and belittled her entire life.

Yet all she strives for is to be accepted. All she wants is to be loved. She can't laugh, they say behind her, among so many other, horrible things. She can't laugh. She can't love. She can't smile.

Why can they not see that she wants to do all these things and more? Why can they not understand that when you're ridiculed your entire life, you stop being happy, you stop seeing yourself as a person and instead see all the differences that make a monster, a freak, based on how other people perceive you? How do you maintain a sense of humor, of all the small things one can have about one's senses, when all the jokes swirling around always aim at you?

Words hurt. They kill, though people don't understand. One loses oneself in trying to make everybody else happy. One sees all of one's faults when all they hear is ridicule and sharp, angry, acidic tongues. One loses oneself.

Sometimes they dream of being rescued, but then the rescue doesn't come or, when it does, it's far too late. It's too late for them to be saved. The glass slipper may fit, but the happily ever after is forever a lifetime away.

Don't tell her that joke. She won't understand it.

Don't play that prank on her. It'll only make her mad. She doesn't understand things the way we do.

She's too serious.

She doesn't understand, they say, never knowing they're actually the ones who fail to understand.

Don't tell her.

Don't look at her.

She's so ugly --

So stupid --

So sad --

How tragic, how her life will never amount to anything --

But if someone would take her by the hand, if someone would laugh with her instead of against her, if someone would look through all the brokenness... Maybe it wouldn't be too late. Maybe she could still be rescued, from their words, from their cruelties that have plagued her her entire life. Maybe she could still be loved. Maybe she could love in return. Maybe she could find love, and a sense of humor, and so many more wonderful things too.

Maybe she could be loved.

Maybe she could be saved.

If anyone would care to try, if anyone would dare to try...

Maybe they could save her and find within her a hidden beauty, a hidden wisdom, a heart just crying out... To love and be loved, to be raised up instead of knocked down physically, verbally, mentally, emotionally...

Maybe someone could love.

Maybe she could be saved.

Maybe they could be saved together.

The End