Work Text:
To Falerin -
It is never a sin to love. But it is a sin to love selfishly.
I loved your father, I love my husband, and in my youth I loved many others as well. Love is my weakness and my downfall.
I resented that your father did not love me back. In hindsight, I think I resented that I loved him at all.
In him I saw what I thought I wanted to be. His intelligence freed him from his emotions and his attachments, and as a result he had only himself to answer to. Whereas I listened to my heart and had to answer to its every quickened, lustful beat.
He left without a goodbye, and returned with scarcely a hello. By then I had found a happy life, with a husband I loved and children who were my pride and joy. My husband offers none of the excitement your father did, but he is gentle and kind. Sometimes I want to cry when he embraces me because I love him and lean on him now more than ever, but he never deserved to be betrayed so terribly.
I am a sinful woman, and what I did that night was out of pure selfishness.
The feelings I had for him were never really love at all.
I could tell that he was inexperienced even after all those years, and that thrilled me. That I could show him something new and unique, something that brought me great joy that I could share with him and guide him through. When we were young, I was always the wide-eyed waif who needed his guidance, hanging on his every word. But this time, I was the teacher and the keeper of the wisdom.
I hope for your sake that you take more after your father than after me. That you will always be convinced that you have the right of things, and will ever move onward in the same direction, only waylaid by the simple inconveniences of having to sleep and eat and breathe.
If you take after me, I fear your path in life may be more difficult. And I am so, so sorry.
Your father and I first bonded over valerian tea. Odd that such a humble plant brought us together, for better or worse.
When I sent you away, I wanted to give you a name, as if a name could capture some part of you that I could keep forever. Once again, my heart asked for something that only caused me pain. I should have never given you a name at all, much less a name I am reminded of every time I look through my garden window.
I deserve this pain.
Perhaps you have abandoned your name by now, or it was never told to you in the first place… The thought of it breaks my heart, but gives me hope that you may have freed yourself from the burden I so callously put upon you by bringing you into this world.
The apothecaries of Arcita still say that the valerian I grow is the finest in the city.
I see much of myself in my children. Your sister has curly hair and is as gregarious as I was at her age, and your brothers are olive-skinned and prone to flights of fancy. I often wonder what of my features you inherited. I want to see you, see how tall you’ve grown, touch your hand, see the color of your eyes, hear the sound of your voice, even if all you have to say is what a horrible mother I was.