Work Text:
Mother Dust smiled as she walked up to the Ymbrynes door. Gently, she knocked on the door with her stump and waited for an answer.
Miss Bunting came to the door only a few moments later. "Ah, Mother. Lovely to see you. What brings you here?" She asked softly.
Mother smiled, quietly handing over a piece of paper. "I wanted to deliver some dust." It read for her.
"Oh" Miss Bunting's face fell. She had been considering contacting her, but never got that far. "You know you really don't need to do that. You're not our prisoner. We don't require you to give us your dust. We've been over that."
Mother nodded, confirming that she knew. However, she still insisted on pushing the bag of dust into the Ymbryns hands, giving her another note along with it.
"It's my choice. I heard your sisters had been injured." This one read, explaining her motives quite clearly.
Miss Bunting read it, and felt touched. Mother truly cared for the Ymbrynes that freed her. "Thank you Marianne. Thank you." She said, taking her hand and her stump in her own two hands. "I appreciate it greatly."
Mother nodded, smiling with the same seren smile, the only thing her thin line for a mouth would really allow her.
"Do you want to come in?" Miss Bunting asked then, not really sure how the repay the ultimate act of kindness, knowing the woman was slowly killing herself for their sake.
Mother shook her head. Her good hand trembled, struggling as she reached into her pocket for something. She pulled out one last ragged piece of paper, double-folded, and handed it over, putting both of Miss Bunting's hands around it.
"Later" She whispered in her hoarse, gravel-like voice when the other woman tried to open it.
Miss Bunting nodded. She was surprised Mother could communicate without the notes, but she knew that whatever the note said, it had to be very important. And so, she takes the dust and goes inside. Once behind closed door, she hurries to the hospital room to give Miss Treecreeper the much needed healing substance. No matter how much she hated taking it, it was very much needed.
All three cots in the small room are filled, one injured Ymbryne curled up in each of them. A brick wall had fallen over them, barely avoiding the children they were protecting, and Florence had been hard at work healing their injuries since.
"You asked Marianne?" Miss Treecreeper gasped, wide-eyed and staring at the dust held within the tiny satin bag.
Miss Bunting shook her head in response. "Of course not. I wouldn't. She heard what happened and offered it herself."
Florence sighed. "Sharon won't like it. He tells me she hasn't been well, he's borrowed medication from me." She argued, feeling the weight on the bag in her hands.
Rosemary frowned, unnerved by the news. "What medication?" She asked, suddenly hurrying to unfold and read the last note that she had been left by the other woman.
"Mostly pain medication. She can't ingest most medications anyway, so there wasn't much else I could even offer him." Miss Treecreeper replied, walking over to the nearest cot to start utilizing the expensive gift.
Miss Bunting didn't hear her. Her eyes were trained on the note, and the note only. The handwriting was abysmal, shaky and smudged, but Miss Bunting still could tell what it said.
"Take care of my family"
"Rosemary?" Miss Treecreeper came back to her, concerned. "What is that? Did Marianne..." She falls quiet as she, too, reads what it say. The message is as horrifying as it is clear.
"Yes. I need to find Sharon!" She exclaimed, going to run.
"Hurry!" Miss Treecreeper called after her, deeply concerned. The note indicated a reality she didn't want to face.
With her stomach feeling unsteady, she returned to administering the dust where it was needed.
"Sharon!" Miss Bunting had her breath in her throat as she came running down the narrow street, banging on the old wooden door. "Sharon, open!" All she can think is Sharon will never forgive her if she fails to warn him.
After a few precious minutes, Sharon's door does open.
"Rosemary! What in the world is going on?" He asked, clearly shocked by her sudden appearance at his door.
It took her another few precious seconds before she regained her breath and could talk properly.
"Do you need more dust?" Sharon asked while he waited. "Is that it?"
"No" Miss Bunting said. "Where is Marianne?" She asked. "It's important Sharon."
The man sighed. "She's with your lot. She went to offer her services." He explained. "It was maybe half an hour ago now."
Miss Bunting felt her stomach drop, shaking her head. "She's not! She came to deliver and bag of dust and note and then she...she left." Miss Bunting swallowed, looking for the words to tell the truth. "The note said to take care of you and Ronaldo."
Sharon was nothing but a skeleton, and yet, in that moment Miss Bunting was sure he paled. "No." He said. "No no...Shareefa wouldn't...We have to find her!" He exclaimed.
"Shareefa?" Miss Bunting asked, confused, but was subsequently distracted as he ran straight out the door to look for her.
She runs after him, trying to catch up and find out what the plan is. If there is a plan.
"Sharon, wait! Do you know where she is going?!" She calls after him, half not expecting a response.
"The water" He, however, responds quickly and calmly, even going as far as to stop so he can face Miss Bunting. "She dissolves in water. If she was to kill herself that would be the way she would do it." He explained seriously. "We've talked about it."
Miss Bunting couldn't believe her ears. "You talked about it?!" It sounds impossibly scary and she knew she would never have such a conversation with Esmeralda.
Sharon sighed, looking away. "Things are tough in the acres. It's just one of those things that come up. I didn't mean for her to carry through with it!" He defended himself.
Miss Bunting nodded. "Let's find her" she decided, pushing the rest of her thoughts to the back of her mind. "The dock is just down there."
They walk in silence, nervously glancing at the other person.There didn't seem to be words enough for the thoughts contained in their heads. The fears, the hopes, the opportunities. All things that could go right and could go wrong.
At the end of the dock, a woman wrapped in scarves and foreign fabrics sat, her feet mere inches above the water.
"Shareefa!" Sharon breaks the silence, screaming as he runs down the length of it, wanting to get to her before she drops.
"Stay away!" Shareefa holds out what remains of her hands, trying to stop him. The words are mumbled, but the message is clear even to Miss Bunting.
Sharon doesn't care, doesn't notice, his arms wrapping around her body and holding her tight. He lays his head on her shoulder, making a noise like he was crying.
"You can't scare me like that, Shareefa!" He protested. "Never!"
Miss Bunting approached from the other side, taking Mother's hand to look at it. She'd recognized something when she held them out.
Each finger is wrapped in thick bandages tinged with red. And where there should be dusty stone, she sees dry, cracked skin.
"Sharon..." She says, and first then does Miss Bunting look at her face. The scarf over her missing eyes lies on tightly, clinging to her face. There's a dark stain spreading where her eye should be. "Sharon, her eye!" she warns him, frightened.
Sharon blinks, then reaches out to move it. Her face is streaked with blood like tears, stone giving way for skin around the bleeding eye socket.
Sharon blinked. "You're...you're turning human." He said, cupping her face in his hands. "Shareefa that's wonderful! Why would you want to die?"
Mother tries to look away. "Sharon...please don't question it...I'm bleeding out either way"
"But we can stop the bleeding" Miss Bunting interjected, picking up the end of Mother Dust scarf to try and push it into her eye socket.
"Shareefa I have to! This is amazing and you're throwing it away!" He shook her gently, wanting an answer that made sense.
Mother started to cry, salt tears streaking the red blood further down her face even as Miss Bunting tried to stop the bleeding.
"Without my healing dust I'm nothing! Noone wants me if I can't heal them!" She exclaimed.
Sharon's face dropped like a rock, shock settling in at her explanation.
Mother started to cry more violently. "I'm sorry! I never knew all of this would happen!" She said. "I didn't want to turn back!"
Finally, Sharon snapped out of it. "Shareefa no...no no no. You're amazing. We need you with or without your healing. We need you, not your dust. You hear me?"
Mother kept crying blood. "You promise?" She asked.
"Yes yes I promise!" Sharon insisted. "Please, please let me take you to see Miss Treecreeper" He begged softly. "You're sick!"
That seemed to be enough to take the fight from her. Mother more or less collapsed against him then, the last of the colour draining from her skin. She nodded, smearing blood on his robes as she tried to cling on to him with the last of her strength.
Sharon looked at Rosemary, alarmed. "Help me get her back to the house. She needs help!"
Miss Bunting hurried, helping the woman up on her feet between them. It was heavy, Mother drifting in and out of consciousness and unable to take her own weight.
"I can't believe she's turning human! She's losing her peculiarity!" She informed Sharon, still shocked.
"I know!" He snapped back. "That is what ambrosia does to you!"
Miss Bunting kept quiet then, focusing on dragging their heavy load over to the house the Ymbrynes occupied, desperatly knocking on the door.
Miss Finch opened the door, starring in confusion at the other ymbryne and her two guests, before quickly stepping aside.
"Get Florence!" Miss Bunting ordered sharply, watching as Sharon suddenly lifted mother into his arms, carrying her all by himself.
"Where do I lay her down?" He asked, his voice strained. Clearly, though he could carry her, it was a great burden.
"Up the stairs, to the left. We have an infirmary there." Miss Bunting explained, leading the way to where they need to go, praying it was not too late.
Miss Treecreeper is waiting, needle and thread in her hands for the coming assignment of having to stitch up the many wounds on Mother Dust's poor body. “I’ll take over now”
Hours ticked by before Sharon and Miss Bunting had any more news, finally seeing Miss treecreeper return. Her appron was stained red and her hands the same.
“How did it go?” Sharon asked, terrified.
Miss Treecreeper sighed. “She’s alive.” she said. "I can't exactly perform a transfusion on her in this state, so I'm a bit worried about blood loss…but I did my best." She sighed.
Sharon swallowed. "She needs to live" he whispered. "I can't lose her. I can't let her kill herself."
Again, the Ymbryne sighed. "I did what I could Sharon. I'm sorry, but there is no more I or the bonemenders can do now. You can go to see her if you want."
Sharon nodded, hurrying inside. "Dear!"
Mother laid wrapped in blankets, her humanoid face pale and lifeless. Most of the facial features have turned, replacing stone with skin and bones. She looks so thin and frail, but all he cares for is that she is alive.
"Sharon?"
She opens her good eye, her head moving slightly to the side to watch him. Her mouth moved wordlessly, chapped lips having burst out of the stone.
"I'm here. I'm always here" He promised, coming closer to touch her face. "Always"
Mother looked at him sadly, and sighed. "I failed," She said. "I was going to dissolve myself before I turned too much. Now…I'm useless."
Sharon shook his head. "Shareefa please…Don't you know I love you?" He said. "Don't you know we are free? We don't owe the Ymbrynes anything. We don’t have to pay any dues to them."
Mother shivered. "But I…it's all I am. It's all I've been since I was a young girl" she cried. "A normal human…will I even be peculiar anymore?"
"Of course you will!" Miss Bunting interrupted, having snuck in to see how they were doing and unable to stay quiet. Seeing that they didn’t seem to mind too much, she approached Mother Dust. "Marianne…or Shareefa, whichever it is. A peculiar person has a soul that is different from that of a regular human. Your soul is still that of a peculiar, whether you are stone or flesh." She paused. "I can't say I've seen a case quite like yours…but undoubtedly being peculiar is something that no one can lose. You may not have an ability, but it means little."
Shareefa smiled softly. "Thank you…" She whispered. "I…I didn't know what to think. The wights would've killed me for less, and if I'm perfectly honest…It all feels quite unreal."
Miss Bunting nodded, while Sharon pulled her bandaged hands to his chest. The adoration in his eyes was clear, as he kissed them and said. "I am just happy you are alive"
Mother chuckled. "Not so frail now." She commented, wiggling her hands. Without the cracking and grinding of the stone it was an unfamiliar feeling for her remaining digits, but it delighted her.
Sharon laughed
"I love you." He said seriously. "Always have, always will. "No matter what."
Mother smiled serenely. "Oh, I know."