Arundel Castle - Savage Daughter || Julia/Kathryn

"That's what happens when you're feeling anxious or scared about something."

Hm?

Pale blue eyes lifted to take in the concern in her mother's expression. Anxious...? Scared...? Was she either? Could she remember a time she felt either? It was difficult to say. After Benny had left home, it all blurred into one big, black, tarry ball of indistinguishable sensations that ravaged her body. Was she hungry, or was it nothing more than another stomachache? Was it fear that drove her heart to erratic beating, or was it pleasure? Each dip of her lip had been anchored in something, but what, she couldn't say.

Disdain? Discomfort? Boredom?

Did she know what any of them were anymore beyond the dysregulation they brought to her internal equilibrium?

She didn't know.

Kathryn's chin moved obediently with the gentle nudge of her mother's fingers, her gaze expectant as she waited for the next question. It was becoming clear that they would have nothing to do with her studies, but the miracle of the previous answer provided a balm that soothed the stirring agitation that rattled around inside her.

It had been...so easy. A thought filled with purpose and nothing else. Each curve of her letters was even, the pressure applied by the pen perfection that couldn't be marred by shaky hands. How marvellous it seemed to her. Kathryn wasn't taken by the ease with which she could now express herself but by the simplicity of sharing responses — for there was a difference.

This she could do.

Standard, empirical, easily observed answers had always been her bread and butter. They required very little of her, even less without the pressure of having others wait for her to be through writing. It was a thing she'd felt in the past. When a nod or shrug wouldn't suffice, Kathryn used to draw for mundane quills – only those supplied from the stationery and oddities shop in Diagon Alley, small point, smooth, feathered with rough ridges for traction. While she prided herself on the neatness of each response, the little girl had always gotten the impression that others did not care for her diligence.

Benny in particular.

Her brother never failed to huff his impatience whenever she began writing. It was always soft and laced with some degree of restraint, but she knew. It was the same with a few of the others in the family. When she got to writing, she could feel the exasperation taint the air as they waited for her to be through.

The quill was quick without sacrificing the things she valued most.

In a word, it was glorious.

"What's worrying you, Little?"

Worry. Was she worried? Was that the pitter-patter that made her heart flutter so disturbingly? The little girl pondered the question a moment, searching for an answer that her mother might find adequate. Would she like her to be worried or frightened? She supposed she could try.

I don't know. But, if you tell me, then it can be the answer, can't it?

As was the case with her studies.

There were times – usually when new topics were introduced – when Kathryn didn't have the first clue what the answer was. At first, it used to make her shut down. The shame she held at her own ignorance, justified or not, had often left her withdrawn. With time and Julia's encouragement, the little girl had determined that it was...acceptable to ask questions as a means of gaining the correct answer.

This seemed no different.

There was a slight knotting in her stomach as her daughter's next words formed across the parchment, deliberate but swifter than they normally came when she wrote with her own hand. Tell her? Julia found her daughter's eyes again, obvious confusion on her features as she tried to make sense of the idea that Kathryn couldn't - or wouldn't - name for herself what was worrying her.

She knew her daughter had her own independent thoughts as anyone else did, but Julia was beginning to wonder what Kathryn had been subjected to at the hand of Eleanor that she pushed her own so far down she couldn't identify what they were.

"No love," she said gently, trying to decide how she wanted to approach this with a little girl who seemed to see things in such a black and white way. "This isn't about what I think is worrying you. This is about what you know is worrying you. I can't answer it because I'm not inside that little head of yours." Julia gave a gentle tap of her finger on Kathryn's forehead, before offering her a small smile.

They had been talking about names, the evidence of that now in a neat pile of shredded paper at the corner of the coffee table. Julia drew her wand and flicked it, and in a moment the torn paper had repaired itself, and settled back in front of her daughter with the name 'Kathryn Elise Cuddr' written on it.

"What is it about this name that scares or worries you?"

Perhaps it was pushing things a little, but she wanted to understand her daughter so that she could begin to help her work through some of the anxieties that were obviously holding her back. Julia understood what Kate had gone through as Katie Cuddrun. She had read both the healers' and social worker's transcripts in-depth. Her biological mother had neglected and abused her so horrifically that Kathryn wasn't thought to make it past her second night at Mungo's.

And her father?

As far as Julia knew he was locked away in a muggle jail somewhere for it all. Why her mother wasn't, she supposed she'd never know. She understood the trauma that came from Kate's earliest life had instigated much of how the little girl operated now, but...she also had a sneaking suspicion, knowing Eleanor the way she had, that the Longes played a detrimental part in much of it.

"I don't want you to tell me what you think I want to hear. I want you to tell me what you feel." She paused a moment, "You're safe. Nothing bad will happen to you."

Was that...not the right answer?

Kathryn's expression mirrored her mother's, golden brows knitting themselves together to display their own confusion. With each second that passed, it became even clearer that, no, this wasn't a situation that allowed for her ignorance. There wouldn't be the saving grace of the woman gently providing her the answer she could dutifully write down to be remembered the next time that particular question was asked.

But...what did that leave her with?

All at once, her stomach fell and the little girl felt...exposed.

"No love."

Gentle as the correction was, it stung. The delicate, burgeoning confidence that had begun to fill her chest ached and withered at the realisation things weren't as easy as she'd only moments ago believed they were. The quill floated, poised and waiting, ready to further expose her failings as it had done earlier with her name.

"This isn't about what I think is worrying you. This is about what you know is worrying you. I can't answer it because I'm not inside that little head of yours."

Her subtle horror grew monumental with the return of the parchment. Pale blue eyes grew large as the pieces put themselves back together, and "Cuddrun" (nearly all of it) stared at her with its earlier menace. She'd destroyed it, doing what she could to remove herself from a past that still filled her dreams on bad nights. It found her again, sitting before her like a noose that refused to be loosened.

"What is it about this name that scares or worries you?"

Worry and fear – neither word meant anything to the small child, who focused more on the discomfort of her irregular heartbeat and the way her breath shallowed. She caught herself sinking into the back of the couch, her frame caving inward before she snapped it back into perfection. Spine straight, eyes trained but unfocused, Kathryn pulled inward, waiting for the moment to pass.

Silence had always been her shield against the unpleasant, and she drew for it now.

In another moment, her mother would smooth the fine hairs atop her head and suggest they move to the next one. That was how many of their lessons had been before, and Kate drew for that blueprint and its familiarity.

"I don't want you to tell me what you think I want to hear. I want you to tell me what you feel."

There it was again, what she felt. There wasn't a more foreign concept for the little girl who'd spent the last three, nearly four, years of her life in an emotional stasis. Her thoughts had been untethered from her feelings, the two no longer treading common ground. One, she knew intimately. It analysed, it observed. It picked apart the world around her, drawing its own conclusions and then acting upon them. The other? Nothing more than a strange language too difficult to decipher from basic bodily reactions.

The sight of her name churned her stomach, but whether it was fear, anxiety or disgust, she couldn't begin to say.

"You're safe. Nothing bad will happen to you."

She was...safe. Benny used to say that. When he held her close while their mother raged and threw things, when he handed her some bread or whatever else he'd managed to spirit away from the corner shops. He'd always thought she didn't know where the food came from, but the children at their primary school talked. Some had older siblings who knew her brother and what he'd gotten up to before graduation.

Safe.

Her stomach still hurt when she was safe. Her mind still raced, and her tongue still glued itself stubbornly to the roof of her mouth.

The quill remained still. Kathryn didn't know what to say and was beginning to understand that 'I don't know" was not a suitable answer.

It was the silence that spoke volumes, rather than the sound of a scratching quill. It was the sort of silence Julia had grown accustomed to in the year she'd had her daughter; only this time it felt more purposeful.

Perhaps it had been too much at once, or perhaps Kathryn truly didn't know what to say. She wondered if her daughter's feelings and emotions were so stunted, so repressed that she truly didn't know how to identify them anymore. Or maybe she did, and didn't feel comfortable yet expressing them.

Julia knew at some point she couldn't keep coddling her, but she was also cognizant that no good would come of forcing the girl before she was comfortable and ready. There was the dreadful idea - that maybe Kathryn would never be ready. Was she truly doing right by her daughter if she let it go, or was she enabling her? The woman didn't know. She'd never been in this position before, and was only doing her best and what felt right moment by moment.

It was enough for now.

"Alright," she said, forcing a bit of cheer and ease into her voice, despite the stone in her stomach that warned that maybe letting it go wasn't the best idea. Another flick of her wand and the parchment excused itself, fluttering off the desk and into a notebook that sat on a nearby shelf. "Enough for now." She glanced at the clock. Nearly ten-thirty.

Free time. "Want to help with the apothecary?" she asked, a smile spreading across her lips, genuine this time, and ready to help her daughter move on. "We've got some lavender freshly dried that needs to be de-stemmed."

She stood, straightening her skirt, and reach down to take her daughter's hand. "Come on Little. If you're lucky, maybe I'll show you what witches' mummy can do."