The Dead Dove Locker -- "I don't know what I expected."

[Mamorien]

On today's Headless Over Heels, Seth has had enough of Anna's crap, and Annalise has to make up for it as best she can.

Once they’d waded out enough into the plain that the carriage was out of earshot, Annalise found a brake of limestone high enough to sit atop and perched heavily on it, elbows on her knees. She took a deep breath, head in her hands. “Hang on a sec. Two changes in two hours. Bit knackered.”

He folded his hands behind his back. “Sure.”

She caught her breath and looked up from the stone. The dark bags beneath her eyes were heavier than usual. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“I know,” he said.

Pretending You're My Mother

“I’m really sorry, Seth. Really I am.” She sighed. “When I’m Anna I can be a…” She lapsed into silence.

“An asshole?” he offered.

“Cunt, I was going to say.”

His lips quirked upward. He forced them back down. “Is that really how you see me? A coward and a stray?”

“No, Seth.” She shook her head so rapidly he wondered if this one would fall off too. “Saints, no. I just… you know how sometimes when you’re hungry, or tired, or real anxious, everyone seems like a dickhead until you’ve eaten or slept? Even people you think are grand?”

Seth, who’d been hungry, tired, and anxious for most of his life, gave this a shallow nod.

“That’s sort of how it is with Anna. That’s how her donor was in life, so it’s me filtered through her. I forgot how she can get with new people. I didn’t think she’d have the reaction she did to you.”

“So a piece of you does,” he said. “See me like that, I mean. If what you’ve been telling me is true.”

“I don’t—It—” Annalise sighed again. “Yes. All right, yes. A piece of me. But it’s like I told you. You’re… scruffy. You know you are. You’ve had a life where nobody’s taken care of you right, and you’ve got some scratches to buff out.”

“You lied to me.” He folded his arms. “I didn’t lie to you.”

“I know you didn’t,” she said. “But you took something really important from me—”

She held up her hand as he started to respond.

“Just let me for a second, okay? You took my head, and I’m fretting about it, ‘cause I don’t know who wanted it, or why they’d want it. I’m trying not to make a big thing out of it, because that’s no help, and I know it was a mistake, and you’re helping to fix it. Anna has trouble with that and the rest of me doesn’t. That’s all this was. Not your fault. I thought I was over it, and I am, really, when I’m in my right mind.”

“Why didn’t you take the time to talk to me before you switched heads?” he asked. “To warn me?”

“I should have. I know. It’s—It was the kids, okay? Not mine. The dead ones.” She saw his reply forming and gestured again for an uninterrupted moment. “This isn’t a guilt trip. Right? You don’t need that; you told me and I believe you. It’s just… it’s my stuff. My problem. I told you I’d take care of you, and I meant it. But I fucked up. I heard she’d taken a family and I—” She laughed sheepishly. “I lost my head. And when I’m upset enough that Annalise is keyed up, Anna’s surely a fecking nightmare about it. All she really cares about is killing seraphs. You were put in the way, and I’m sorry.”

“Well,” he said. His heart closed its fist around that anger he’d squirreled away; he expressly forbade himself an I forgive you. “All right,” he managed, instead, which didn’t count, and when Annalise gave it a weak grin he tried very hard not to be gladdened by the sight and mostly succeeded.

“All right,” she echoed, still trying valiantly for a smile. “If this ever happens again—if Anna tries to take you on a seraph hunt—don’t let her. Not until she’s turned back to me and I’ve given it the okay. I’ll tell Tiago and Feeli the same thing; they’ll back you up.”

“Fine.”

“And I’ll figure out how to make it up to you, yeah? Just give me time.”

“Money would help,” he said.

“Money’s something, sure. I travel pretty light, I’m afraid, but as soon as I have any to spare, we’ll get you an advance on that bonus I promised you.” Her smile went strange around the edges, then, and she wrung her hands. “Meantime, though. Uh—I had an idea. While we’re away from the kids. Would you let me give you a haircut? Just a trim, I mean? I know that’s a funny turn coming from a Verdugo, but, uh… yeah. Just a trim.”

This threw him into sudden self-consciousness. He wished he didn’t care what this woman thought of him anymore. “A haircut? Why?”

She sucked in air through her teeth. “So when I change heads, they turn into skulls. Right?”

“Right.”

“My hair all falls out of ‘em. You saw.”

“I’ve had it replay a few times in my head, yeah.”

She laughed, an abashed and huffy little thing far from the warm chuckle he was accustomed to. “Sorry about that. Uh—but what I’m saying. That night we shared a tent.”

“Yeah?”

Annalise chose her words painstakingly. “I noticed when I changed heads that there were… some nits on my Annalise skull. Lice.”

Seth’s stomach hollowed out. His hands balled into fists.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” Annalise hurried to soften the blow. “All right? When you travel the countryside you deal with ‘em all the time. I have some stuff. Some gunk I got from an apothecary. If you’d let me, I’d like to help.”

His face burned. He turned from her in a belated effort to hide the color he knew was rising in his cheeks.

“I don’t have to cut it,” she said. “Just a comb, maybe.”

“No.”

“I want—” Her voice thickened. He heard her swallow. “I want to make it up to you. I want you to feel safe. What can I do?”

“How about you just stay away from me,” he said. “And stop pretending you’re my mother.”

In the silence that followed, he could hear the shallow saw of her breath, drawn slowly in and out. Then she said, “I’m sorry, Seth,” and he heard the rustle of her clothes and the squeaking of her boots as she stood and walked away.

He waited until he couldn’t hear her anymore before he moved, and then he waited a while longer, and watched the ribbons of bowing grass as the wind wended its way through the plain.

When he finally turned back, the stone upon which Annalise had sat now bore a fine-tooth comb, a coarse terrycloth, and a stoppered glass bottle full of something amber that smelled like apple cider vinegar and spearmint.

Seth went down to the river and scrubbed his head until his scalp was raw.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/173313...-my-mother
https://www.scribblehub.com/read/2385004...r/2398249/