Red Queen One-Shots

Dreams and Nightmares

A/N: Warning - Prepare for the feels ~

The voice was mumbling but insisting. She didn't know where to place it at first, her mind and the voice still enwrapped in a vivid dream. Farley needed a tug on her arm and a louder call to pull herself out of sleep.

"Mama!"

The alarm in her daughter's cry finally jerked her awake. Her eyes opened, taking in the girl's teary eyes and shivering chin in an instant. Farley half-rose, turned to Clara and pulled her into an embrace. It was all Clara had waited for. It was like she couldn't get close enough to her mother, her legs clasping Farley, face buried in her neck, as she continued to cry, murmuring for her mommy.

Farley stroked the child's head and back, whispering calming words in return.

"It's okay, dove, it's okay. I'm here."

Clara's sobs made her heart clench, a feeling she never expected to have before Clara existed.

Farley spoke again, louder this time. She had to comfort Clara somehow. "Clara, my dove," she said, cupping the girl's face with her hands. "What is it?"

Clara didn't answer and sniffed instead.

"Hmm?" Farley prompted. "You can tell me."

"...Bad dream ..." It was an effort for her to speak again, her throat strained from crying. Farley intensified her caresses.

"I'm sorry, dove. But it's over now, and I'm here, and you're with me and nothing bad will happen." She could put all her love into the words and the strokes, but there was always a kind of helplessness remaining. She couldn't protect Clara from her own mind, and there was so much Farley had no control over. That was one reason why she had decided long ago to banish her fears of not being a good mother by always trying her best.

Clara leaned against her chest again, still sobbing occasionally, but slowly calming down. So they sat embraced on the bed, until Clara said eventually, "can you tell me about Daddy?"

Farley held her breath. Shade wasn't a secret between them, but a beloved person alluded to every now and then, a memory framed in two treasured photos in the kitchen. It had stopped to hurt to look or smile at them, at the grinning young man, but the deeper Farley delved into her memories, the more it stung. She couldn't just spill out stories about him, not without feeling ready, not without preparation and without feeling the grief again.  At times, it felt like he had truly become a ghost between them, a shade haunting them. But of course she would do it for their daughter.

She hugged Clara closer and whispered, "what do you know about him, Clara?"

Clara sniffed one more time and strung words together. "His name was Shade, and he was very brave. A hero of the Guard and a Newblood, like Mare, Ada, and Cameron. I look a lot like him. And ... ," she paused, but not to sob again. Carefully, she added, "He loved you, and you loved him, you miss him terribly and so do I ..." This time, Clara stopped for good.

Farley gulped. "He was a teleporter, dove, and I hated it everytime he used his talent on me, " she confessed.

Clara blinked astounded. "Really?"

Farley smiled for her sake. "Absolutely. I always hope to avoid teleporting, but a general has to - " She interrupted herself as she saw Clara's face darkening again. Oh no.

That was the wrong thing to say, possibly what Clara had had a nightmare about, likely about the war Farley was commited to and which had taken Shade's life. "Don't - " Farley began, but then chose a different approach. "Clara, look. We're Farleys and we don't give up. We hope and fight." Clara's eyes widened. "And you're a Barrow as well, so you are, let's see, a hurricane of stubbornness and sassiness." Clara giggled and relief flooded through Farley. She smiled back, her fingers brushing through Clara's brown curls. "Remember you were born during a literal storm. That's a sign, Clara Farley. You don't have to fear anything, but if you do, I'll be there for you. Always."

For all their honesty, those words were cheeky enough to wrench more tears from Clara. But it were happy ones, drying before they asleep, laying down arm in arm.

An idea had resurfaced last night, about Clara and Shade.

Is she like him? And if she was, in what way?

The thought distracted Farley during breakfast as she made assumptions about ways to find out. They could simply wait for things to happen but they didn't have to be passive. Yet, who was to decide about that?

Eventually Farley cleared her throat. "Clara, what I said about dad last -"

"Yes?"

Clara's excitement unsettled her a little. The child was the one who lost the most of Shade. But Farley kept the sad thought at bay and went on. "Well, possibly, you are a Newblood like him. Or Mare."

"Really?"

Farley shrugged. "I don't know, yet. Would you like to find out? There is some kind of test."

"Yes!"

She smiled. She was unsure who was actually deciding here, but she had had to ask Clara herself about it. "But don't be disappointed if you are just a common and ordinary Red like me."

"But Mama, you aren't common at all!"

Farley laughed at this. "You're flattering me." She shook her head. "But seriously, dove, if you are a Newblood, and you believe you know what your talent is, please come to me, or Mare. Or rather Ada. You won't have to deal with that by yourself." She hoped to give Clara a grave but encouraging glance.

Clara grinned anyways. "You wouldn't be afraid either, Mama. I'll remember that."

Commentary:

I might have written the #Death by Cuteness overkill here >.< I hope you like it anyways.

So I have hinted at Clara fearing about her mother dying in battle. Please note that I'm not saying that Farley has to refrain from participating in the war. But the danger coming with it is a factor of their lives about which both of them think and act on. There has to be some kind of responsible balance, IMO.