specialtantei's prompt! Sorry for the wait.
"I'm not marrying anybody."
That did it. Her daughter, that wretched daughter of hers. The one that wore her gown the wrong way, the one that refuses to fix her hair, the one that refuses to sit still and proper and raises her legs to cross then like a man's when she sits. The one that carries knives with her instead of flowers and gifts.
"You--" The older woman slapped the white-haired lady across the cheek, but she garnered a sly grin from her instead. "You shameless woman! I had it of pairing you up to the highest of the estate owners in this city. No wonder no one wants to invite you to court; you're such a manner-less--"
"And I don't care," the snow-haired girl said, standing up. Proper, probably to piss her mother of... and it did. Because she had taught her for many years how to be a proper lady, but she never followed.
She never ever followed. Until now.
"If you would know, mother," the snow lady neared her mother's face in a sly grin and giggled cruelly, "marriages aren't the only good thing in this world. I'd want something else. Something... better."
"Nothing is better than having a man's influence at your grasp," the woman argued back. "I wanted the best for you, my dear. Don't say that. I--"
"Being someone's wife just to be pushed around is definitely not a good thing!" the snow lady looked at her mother, and she smiled manically. This was so unethical, so disrespectful and so rugged, she cannot help but feel pissed, but the look in her daughter's face creeps her out. "I don't want to be an instrument of your greed. I don't want to be your bridge to money. Don't use me to get money. Don't use me to get that wretched influence of yours, mother. Don't make me atone for your wretched mistakes, mother. Don't make me do things you didn't do, mother."
"Mother," the woman repeated the word to herself. "I did make those mistakes. marrying the wrong man, doing the wrong things, being such a greedy person..." She sighed under her breath, not knowing how to deal with her daughter laughing maniacally. "Do you think of me that way? Did you ever look at me as a mother...? After all I did?"
The response didn't take the snow lady a long time to spit out.
"You making me as a payment for debt? Making me a gold digger? Never in my life I did...
...mother."
-
"I never wanted to be a payment for debt."
The lady, with blood all over her snow-white clothes and hair, muttered the statement to herself. She disposed of her clothes in her room, hiding the evidence and later on changed to cleaner ones. She stepped in the tub to rid of the blood on her skin and hair, and while scrubbing herself, she started thinking up of any alibi she needed to say so that she'd pass out clean when the officials come.
"She deserved that," she muttered to herself.
The smell of the soap became suffocating. Getting annoyed with the odor, she stepped out of the tub, with the scent almost choking her. What was that..? The smell was strangely familiar...
"Roses."
She hated roses. Her mother would like it everytime she was covered with the blossoms everywhere her outfit -- her choker, her hair, her clothes, her wrists -- and it made her feel ashamed. But it was maybe because she was proud of the flowers she tended to herself. Roses, beautiful white ones, covered almost every corner of their garden. She hated the smell, the look, the way the petals blow away when it started wilting and... the thorns. She hated it when she found one that actually looks pretty, but ended up being pricked.
And now, it reminded her too much of her murdered mother.
She frowned to herself.
After getting herself dressed in pale clothes, and adorning her hair with ornaments, she stepped out of her room. As expected, officials are roaming around the estate to find evidence. One came near her, and asked her questions.
Of course, the snow lady lied, taking note to get rid of her blood-stained clothes and the dagger she used as soon as the official mentioned about the "murder weapon" and if someone saw the murderer. She told them that she was in her room the entire time, telling her father to testify with that, but she actually snuck out without him noticing.
Quite the guard he is.
She also had to made the show that she was, in fact, mourning for the loss of a parent. The performance was quite realistic. She was later joined with her sisters, who were crying with the same intensity as she did, but they actually matched it with the same emotions and not just mere acting.
After her "performance" with the guards, she told her sisters that she'd take a walk to the nearest park. But beforehand, she took the dagger, held the white gown, and cut it up to smaller pieces. She took great care for the entire outfit not to be able to be assembled again. Putting the cloth pieces and the dagger in a bag, she left the estate.
She left the pieces of cloth to different places, and she let the dagger get carried away by the current in a nearby river. It was a beautiful dagger, but she doesn't want to get traced by having it in her room. She wanted to thow it away too, mainly because the dagger was owned by her mother. The dead woman didn't see that coming.
But when she was making her way home, she thought about her act. If she isn't to be married... then what should she do? Study? Only men work. Go outside town? She'd go hungry. Get engaged? Heck, that's why she killed her mother in the first place. The better condition for herself is harder to think about than she thought. She pondered about it for a moment.
Then, before she entered their estate, she saw a scholar walking to the writing school. He had a face of a woman. He definitely looks like a woman. But he is dressed as a man, as a writer. Writers are paid very highly for their works. One can raise a family with the income as a freelance, if you're good enough.
She made her way to her room, thought about it, and smiled. Maybe she can find that better condition after all. But then, with the case at hand...
-
"You... you what!?"
"Okay, fine, father," the snow lady said passively after admitting such foul actions to her father. Trying her best to sound apologetic and regretful, she said, "I'm sorry."
"Whatever you say can't bring her back, anyway," the man, seated on an upholstered chair, rubbed his temples and cringed at the news. Her daughter... a murderer... He just can't imagine the sight. "I guess you did hate your mother. I didn't like your latest suitor as well, I admit. That pompous man deserved the rejection. But..."
"Sorry," she said, sounding a little more regretful than her first apology. "I want to make up for it, though."
"What are you talking about?"
"Let me in the writing school," she said. "Let me make up for this... sin."
"Aren't the only ones allowed to study in there are men...?" He asked, confused with her daughter's announcement. She nodded in reply.
"Please, father," she said, gripping her father's hands. "I don't want to be passed around for a stupid debt."
The man was silent for a while. But a few moments later, he shook his head. The snow lady teared up with the answer of his father. Her temporary insanity was lost. She was mad at her mother. But she cannot hold a grudge at her father. He took care of her, stood up for her. Did everything for her.
But not this time.
-
The next day, officials were, once again, back at the estate. The snow lady wasn't a snow lady anymore, but her color became the color of red roses. The flowers were sprinkled around her body, the once white petals dyed red, failing to cover what was underneath. Her hair looked no more like silver. The smell was as choking as the strong smell of the rose soap she bathed with long ago.
The man who was her father, looked sadly at her daughter. He saw her sisters, whose tears are in the verge of running out due to excessive crying for the past few days. But after a moment, he shook his head, and when no one was looking, he took out a beautiful dagger from his pocket. He stared at it for a while, and smiled. He went to the nearby river, and let it be carried away with the current. He did not want to be traced with it.
But when the officials interrogated him, he cried. And it was genuine.
The characters are Sho and Chloe, but you already know that. Warning for Crimson Rafflesia spoilers though. (But I thought it should be okay since you can't really tell the context.)
