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Mother had always been a pillar of safety. A tall tower of marble dressed graciously in red.
She had always stood above Haeddi, too tall for the young thing to peer up at her face more times than not. Still, the girl did avoid looking most times, in fear of seeing her mother's usual unhappy expression. Rather, the girl would follow quietly at her mother's heels with a fistful of the woman's dress in her hand, like leashing herself along in order to avoid being lost.
On those rare walks through the gardens and into the city, her mother would sometimes get her a treat as they went. Those were the best of their days together, ones that Haeddi recalled happily, compared to many others. There were few and they were far in between, and they only lasted until she was eight (for she had spilt chocolate down her dress at nine, ruining the front of her gown and the side of her mother's. After that, her mother didn't buy her treats on their trips anymore.)
In recollection, Haeddi was often with her mother. She always trailed along like a lost puppy, and her mother would correct what she did. It wasn't cruel to correct her, she only wished to make a perfect lady, after all.
"Stop slouching, you look like a pig." Yes, that was only a mother wanting a child who could sit proper.
"If you've nothing relevant to say to me, then shut your mouth and don't waste my time, you stupid girl." Wasn't that what all mothers said? A child must learn to hold her tongue, anyways.
"Get out of my sight." Just… a mother wanting her alone time…
… When her mother finally left, when Haeddi was a decade old, the day was so incredibly odd that the girl could hardly remember it, even after only a year since the event. Whether she cried or not, she often cannot decide. All she knows for sure was her older sister celebrated the leaving.
So her sister swept her into care once her mother left. She didn't tell Haeddi to stop slouching, but then again she had learned not to long ago. Her sister didn't tell her to be quiet, well not for a long time after the leaving of her mother when she finally broke out of her anxious shell. Agatha never told her to go away.
After Vivienne had left her children and their father to fend for themselves in the world, Haeddi didn't truly know how to act. To be completely honest, she had been so young that on most of her mother's vacations into Ithania and wherever else, she would bring the little girl along with her for simplicity's sake. Now left with her siblings and father at all times in Anglia, she couldn't help feeling rather awkward.
Still, Agatha reached out to her, offering a hand that her mother never had. Haeddi had always had to go to her mother for protection and for a hand- but here was one… just… out for her to take. How odd. Despite the older daughter's initial attempts to break through the ice that surrounded Haeddi, it would take a few weeks for the girl to warm up.
Agatha brought her to festivals in the city for fun, rather than just looks like her mother had. Her sister had allowed Haeddi to try using a bow, unlike Vivienne ever had in fear of having to deal with her daughter injuring herself. Agatha even took her on trips through the gardens and into the city, where they held arms rather than Haeddi being tugged along by the sleeve or hopelessly chasing after with a fist curled around the other's skirts.
It was on that first trip that Haeddi finally opened her eyes that perhaps she was finally being treated as she should. It was the moment that Agatha offered a smile as they stopped outside of a street-side bakery.
"Would you… like anything, Haeddi?" Her sister had asked with a rather content expression, smoothing her younger kin's hair fondly.
"- Can I?" Even with weeks of having the chance to say anything, the hesitance was still clear in Haeddi's voice, though she turned her head up, resting her gaze on her sister's own. She wondered briefly if Agatha had the same colored eyes as Vivienne, for the color of her mother's was such a vague memory. She had rarely looked her in the face, after all.
"Well, of course you can!" The sincerity of the statement was more than the girl could bare and rather suddenly she had dove against her sister to wrap her arms around the woman's waist, as she could barely reach higher than that. The embrace took Agatha by surprise, but she barely budged from the small frame of her sister, instead lowering herself some to wrap her arms properly around Haeddi to return it.
Oh, the girl longed to know if her mother could hug as good as this. But, she supposed she never had to find out.
Haeddi knew, she knew then that Agatha would never call her something cruel. She was nothing like mother, why would she be when they despised each other, after all?
