I've seen the light

it's in my daughter's eyes

i can see the future

When Liam had first asked for her permission Anička had laughed. Of course, she had said yes, but she had had to laugh, because they had actually managed to make something stick. She and Arista had thought that it would last for a little while, that it would help Constance to get over the breakup of last winter. But she didn’t think either one of them had thought that they were going to end up here. She didn’t mind though, Liam Flint was a good choice, and she would support her daughter if that was what she chose. Perhaps even a little more fitting than Elliot had been for Ella. And that match seemed to be working out well enough.

All that she wanted was for her children to be happy, and if that meant that she was going to support them getting married, then that was what she was going to do. She could handle weddings. But she also knew that there hadn’t been a whole lot of talk of weddings, and she didn’t know what it was that her daughter was actually thinking in that sense. If she had any ideas, Anička had not been informed, and as the maker of wedding dresses, she thought that she would have liked some sort of heads up.

Pushing them though wasn’t going to do any good, and so she thought that she would just, casually suggest, that they look at some of the sketches she had done. And since they had gotten engaged in September, she had amassed quite a few options for her daughter to look at before they started taking anything too seriously. For all that she knew, they weren’t going to get married for years yet. Somehow, she doubted that was the case. If she wasn’t sure that her daughter didn’t do things simply out of pettiness, she thought that she would marry before the Bulstrode boy. Just to say that she had.

Kissing the top of Izák’s head as she headed for the kitchen, Anička thought that she couldn’t have even asked for this. She wouldn’t have asked for this much. The twins. Pippa. Malcolm. This was everything that she hadn’t even known she had wanted, and she was so lucky to have them. And she was so lucky that her older children were growing into strong, and confident people. She was proud of them, all of them, for going to school. For being healers, and lawyers, and professionals in their fields. They were smart, and they were applying themselves. And she didn’t think that she could have been prouder.

Scooping Eve up off the floor, she deposited her in Malcolm’s lap as she went to get the door for her older daughter. They were almost a year old, and incredibly mobile for the fact that neither one of them had really mastered walking yet. Eve hadn’t grown, she had, she wasn’t in any danger or anything, but Anička thought that she was going to be little, like she was. She was her smallest baby, out of all seven of them. She was going to be tiny, and that was okay. Matka had said that Anička was barely any bigger when she was that age, and until Ella, or the pediatrician seemed to worry about it, Anička was going to try not to.

Pulling her gaze away from the little girl that had gotten her daddy’s coloring, the witch focused instead on the daughter that looked more like her. “Ahoj, zlatíčko moje.” She had invited Constance over here, and she hadn’t known if it was going to be just Constance, or if she was going to have Liam in tow. But she thought that Liam and Malcolm got along well enough that that wouldn’t have been an issue either. They had all blended together into this family. And for the most part, she thought that they were happy. “I’ve missed you.” Seeing her older children had to be a priority for her, or she thought that she would never see any of them.

---

“Ahoj, zlatíčko moje.” - Hello Darling

Constance Leysa Mountbatten • 676 •
anička's outfit - no shoes!

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[nospaces]

[attr="class","cbg"]

[attr="class","cbgtop"]

[attr="class","cimg"]

[attr="class","clbox"]

[attr="class","ctopline"]In my daughter's eyes

[attr="class","cscriptmisc"]everyone is equal

[attr="class","cline"]

[attr="class","clyrics"]Darkness turns to light[break]
And the world is at peace

[break][break]

[attr="class","cbody"]For the first time since the epidemic had hit, she felt like there was a chance that they were really going to be okay. She knew that she wasn’t one to talk—she hadn’t lost her magic. She couldn’t assume that she knew what that was like or say that she thought that everything was going to be okay, because it wasn’t something that had happened to her. She knew that. She wasn’t going around saying to everyone that she thought that it was all going to be okay, but she did. For some reason, she really did think that they were going to eventually be okay again.
[break][break]
They had gotten through so much in the last few reasons that there was no reason to believe that they wouldn’t get through this too. They would. That was all there was to it. It would be hard, but nothing was impossible—and she really did believe that.
[break][break]
Constance knew that there were some choices that she needed to make soon too. Liam had proposed, they were engaged. It was still hard to believe that had even happened, even though months had passed. He had said that they could wait as long as they wanted, that they could be engaged until she graduated school if she wanted to wait that long. But she didn’t think that she did. That wasn’t something that she thought would come to a surprise to… well, anyone. Especially now, she had started to wonder what the point really was in waiting around. Why wait three more years to be married to Liam, when she could be a Flint by the end of this year if she really wanted to be? September, maybe—or okay, maybe August, if they wanted to have a honeymoon before she went back to school. Though she supposed she could take summer classes this year, and then take the autumn term off. There were definitely options.
[break][break]
She kind of thought that she was ready to figure all of that out. If he was, anyway. He was the one that had said they could wait if she wanted to wait, but she didn’t know if any part of that statement had been because he wanted to wait. If he did, that was fine too, but she thought that she should really figure that out before she started planning a wedding for autumn of this year. Making sure that he was on board with that was definitely necessary.
[break][break]
Maybe she would talk to her matka about it tonight. She didn’t know. There was still a lot going on, she knew that. It was almost weird to have to have good news when there was just… a lot happening. Ella and Elliot, for one thing. Constance was worried about them near constantly and she knew that she didn’t get up to see them as much as she should. She needed to. She really, really needed to, but she hadn’t been as much as she’d liked. It had been hard. Constance had been there when she had woken up and having to give her bad news after bad news hadn’t been easy to do.
[break][break]
Yet, with all of that bad news, she’d also had a new ring on her finger and she had almost wished she’d moved it to her other hand or something, so it hadn’t looked like she was rubbing good news in her face after everything that had happened. She had felt awful about that.
[break][break]
But she knew that it wasn’t going to do her any good to think about that now. She told herself that she would visit Ella and Elliot sometime this week but for now, it was her matka that she had come to see. “Ahoj, matka,” she said with a small smile, trying to push all of the bad thoughts from her mind. “I’ve missed you.” Constance added, coming into the house, “Liam said he was going to come later, if that’s okay.” There had been something at work that had happened—she hadn’t gotten the full explanation, but she figured he’d be along before too long.
[break][break]

[attr="class","cnotes"]687 ● @ matka ● outfit - no shades, no hat

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + ADOX 2.0

[googlefont=Dancing Script]
[newclass=.cbg]width:400px;background:#262626;padding:30px;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cbgtop]width:400px;height:120px;text-align:left;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cimg]float:left;width:100px;height:100px;padding:10px;border:1px #aaa solid;[/newclass]
[newclass=.clbox]float:right;height:100px;margin:15px 5px auto auto;text-align:justify;width:257px;[/newclass]
[newclass=.ctopline]font-size:9px;letter-spacing:2px;text-transform:uppercase;font-family:verdana;color:#aaa;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cscriptmisc]font-size:23px;margin-top:-3px;font-family:Dancing Script;color:#ae81e7;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cscriptmisc span]color:#ccc;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cline]height:1px;background-color:#888;margin:3px auto;[/newclass]
[newclass=.clyrics]font-size:8px;letter-spacing:1px;text-transform:uppercase;text-align:justify;font-family:verdana;color:#999;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cbody]font-family:verdana;color:#999;font-size:10px;text-align:justify;line-height:14px;letter-spacing:0.5px;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cnotes]font-size:9px;letter-spacing:1px;text-align:center;opacity:0.8;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cred]text-align:center;font-size:6pt;color:rgb(132, 132, 132);letter-spacing:1px;font-family:verdana;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cred a]color:rgb(132, 132, 132);font-size:6pt;letter-spacing:1px;font-family:verdana;[/newclass]

I'VE SEEN THE LIGHT

IT'S IN MY DAUGHTER'S EYES

I CAN SEE THE FUTURE

Watching her children grow, and learn to be happy, and healthy adults… It was all that she had wanted for them. She wanted them to be happy, and she wanted them to have full lives. She wanted them to grow up, to learn who they were, to marry if they wanted to marry. To be whomever they wanted to be, because she wanted them to have that freedom. She wanted them to know that they were going to have everything that they needed. That they were going to be fine. After everything that had happened, she worried after them all. But they were going to be okay. They would learn. They would learn to be okay.

She felt so terribly when she thought of the things that her family had lost. When she thought of what Ella and Elliot had lost. When she thought of the pained looks on Malcolm’s face when she didn’t think, and just banished something from being. She felt terribly that she had retained something that they had lost. And there was no explanation for it. There was no reason for her to think that she was going to be fine, and yet, every time that the healers had tried to make her leave Ella, and Delilah, when they hadn’t been paying attention, she hadn’t listened.

Anička hadn’t listened when she had seen to it that her children were taken care of either. Gwen had watched over the five at Pyxis, and she knew that Constance had tended to Liam as well, but he had been in Anička’s list of people to care for. Ares and Issa had been there too, and she had asked Gwen to check in on them, she had checked in on her children, on LJ, on all of them herself as well. Anička had worried so much. And to have Malcolm sick at home. She had worried about him so much. She hadn’t wanted to leave him alone, but she had spent a few nights in the nursery anyway.

Her core body temperature was naturally hotter than others, she didn’t think that sleeping next to him while he had had such a high fever had been the smart thing to do. And so, she had slept in the other room, as much as she had hated that. She had wanted to be there, if he needed anything. She had worried about him. Staying home had been for her, and she knew it. It had been for her, and for making sure that she didn’t start taking potions to prevent herself from sleeping to try and take care of everyone. And she loved him for it. But she had still worried.

Still, that worry was gone now. Everyone was… Well they were starting to be okay. They were going to be alright, in time. And Anička thought that it was time to start thinking about happier things. It was time to start thinking about what it was that they were going to do now. What it was that needed to happen so that they could all move forwards together. Right now, she thought that the thing that was going to push them forwards was Constance and Liam getting married. They had gotten engaged in the thick of everything that was going wrong, and it had been a bright spot. It had been something happy to hang on to when they had been so worried about everything else. Now it was the bright spot that was pushing them on.

If her daughter had any plans, she thought that she would have told her about them. But she didn’t know if there was anything at all in her mind yet. With the crazy feeling of everything that had happened last autumn it was no wonder that no one had really said anything about any of it. “Of course, you all know you can come here, always.” She closed the door behind her daughter, and she nodded towards the living room. “Pippa's playing, so I’m sure that Malcolm would like someone other than the little twins to talk to after all. They aren’t the best conversationalist yet...” Neither one of them said anything with real consistency yet. The occasionally ‘Dada’ much to her chagrin, but ‘Mama’ was harder, and none of the ‘Dada’s had actually been directed at Malcolm yet, so she wasn’t too upset by it.

@ dcera • 732 • anička's outfit - no shoes!

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[nospaces]

[attr="class","cbg"]

[attr="class","cbgtop"]

[attr="class","cimg"]

[attr="class","clbox"]

[attr="class","ctopline"]IN MY DAUGHTER'S EYES

[attr="class","cscriptmisc"]everyone is equal

[attr="class","cline"]

[attr="class","clyrics"]DARKNESS TURNS TO LIGHT[break]
AND THE WORLD IS AT PEACE

[break][break]

[attr="class","cbody"]Even though no one was sick anymore, Constance knew that everything wasn’t just going to go back to normal. It couldn’t just go back to the way that it had been before. Not when so much of their family was without magic, not after what Ella and Elliot had been through. She knew that it was going to take time, but she did think that they were eventually going to be okay again. She wanted to think that they all would, actually.
[break][break]
There was no way of knowing when a cure was going to be found for epidemic X. She didn’t know if it would happen next month or next year. She certainly didn’t want it to take another year, but she also didn’t know much of anything about medicinal magic. This was something that had never happened before. Reasonably, that meant that it was going to take a while to cure—they barely knew what they were up against. How long had it taken for them to find a cure for dragon pox? And even then, there were new strains that were still fatal. Advances in medicine took time. She didn’t know much more than that, but she did know that it wasn’t something that happened overnight.
[break][break]
But she wanted to think that they could all be okay without it, eventually. She knew that was easy for her to say, since she still had her magic, but she was trying her hand at being optimistic. After all, there was a chance this would take a year to cure, or longer. If worse came to worse, if it took a decade for them to find a cure—and Merlin, she definitely didn’t want to think it would take that long, she wanted her family to be okay. They had to figure out a way to be okay without magic, because they didn’t know when it would be back. Waiting for that wasn’t an option. Being okay without it was the only chance that they all had.
[break][break]
Constance wanted to do anything that she could to help with that, even if she wasn’t sure just what she could do. She wanted everyone to be all right again. A part of her thought that getting started on wedding plans might help with that, but she didn’t know if that could have the opposite effect. If it would be rubbing her good fortune in everyone’s faces. She had her magic and she was getting married. She didn’t want to be that person.
[break][break]
She also knew that she couldn’t get married just because it might help everybody feel better. If that was the only reason that she wanted to get married, then they would have a problem. But it wasn’t. She loved Liam. If the epidemic hadn’t hit, and he had still proposed, she thought she probably would have been further along in wedding planning by now than she was currently. She wanted to be married to him—and she didn’t want to wait until she graduated, like he’d offered. She didn’t see much of a reason to wait.
[break][break]
They were already living together. She was ready for that next step too. Not kids, though. Merlin, she didn’t know when she was going to be ready for kids, but she couldn’t even imagine that right now. Not just because of everything that Ella and Elliot had gone through, but also because… well, she didn’t know. She knew she wasn’t too young to be a mother, technically. But she didn’t feel like she’d done enough yet. Whatever that meant. “Would he like it enough to bring out the cigars?” She asked, wrinkling her nose. Men and cigars. It was such a boy thing, and she didn’t mind it really, but that smell definitely lingered.
[break][break]

[attr="class","cnotes"]629 ● @ matka ● outfit - no shades, no hat

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + ADOX 2.0

[googlefont=Dancing Script]
[newclass=.cbg]width:400px;background:#262626;padding:30px;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cbgtop]width:400px;height:120px;text-align:left;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cimg]float:left;width:100px;height:100px;padding:10px;border:1px #aaa solid;[/newclass]
[newclass=.clbox]float:right;height:100px;margin:15px 5px auto auto;text-align:justify;width:257px;[/newclass]
[newclass=.ctopline]font-size:9px;letter-spacing:2px;text-transform:uppercase;font-family:verdana;color:#aaa;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cscriptmisc]font-size:23px;margin-top:-3px;font-family:Dancing Script;color:#ae81e7;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cscriptmisc span]color:#ccc;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cline]height:1px;background-color:#888;margin:3px auto;[/newclass]
[newclass=.clyrics]font-size:8px;letter-spacing:1px;text-transform:uppercase;text-align:justify;font-family:verdana;color:#999;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cbody]font-family:verdana;color:#999;font-size:10px;text-align:justify;line-height:14px;letter-spacing:0.5px;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cnotes]font-size:9px;letter-spacing:1px;text-align:center;opacity:0.8;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cred]text-align:center;font-size:6pt;color:rgb(132, 132, 132);letter-spacing:1px;font-family:verdana;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cred a]color:rgb(132, 132, 132);font-size:6pt;letter-spacing:1px;font-family:verdana;[/newclass]

I'VE SEEN THE LIGHT

IT'S IN MY DAUGHTER'S EYES

I CAN SEE THE FUTURE

There were plenty of times when Anička truly felt like the world was against them. That there were some divine consequences playing out for crimes that she knew that she had committed. That there were things that she wished weren’t true. Things that she would, but wouldn’t, take back, if it meant that she could stop this. If it meant that she could keep them safe… Still, she knew that it wasn’t just them. Not this time around anyway. This time around it was not just their rodina that had been struck by this. It was everyone. It was the entirety of the United Kingdom. And she was well aware that her bratr was not pleased.

She knew that he had tried to bargain to get her out of the country. But she knew that he wanted both of them, and she knew that they couldn’t go. Ella couldn’t go, she had gotten sick, and Anička would not leave them all here now. She couldn’t. Getting the two of them out of the country would do him no good. And would just risk everything if Ella’s illness spread to someone else. They couldn’t do that. And technically, he would have wanted Thea and Constance too. They rounded out the top five. Sylvestr was there already, he was safe. Then her. She was two. Ella was three. Thea was four, and even Constance was five.

If they would have done that, they would have had to leave before it struck any of them, and Ella had been hit early. She worked in the hospital… Instead, he had sent the guards here. Mercifully, they didn’t spend the night at the house, and Anička had already promised not to leave again for the evening. They had nowhere to go, and she was sure that they had some sort of monitoring system on both her, and Ella, anyway. She knew that it wasn’t their fault that her bratr had sent them, and she did try not to be hostile, but sometimes she felt that it was entirely unnecessary.

Yes, she had asked for them to look after Ella when she had been in the hospital. But no one was in the hospital anymore. And yes, no one was exactly fine either. But she still had her magic. There was no reason for them to be protecting her. Except that her bratr had told them to, and so they did. There hadn’t been Czech guards in the UK since Thea was born. But now there were two. And she was sure that there would be more, if she hadn’t been insistent that they did not need more. That they were fine.

All she could do was do her best to ignore it. And that worked a good majority of the time. It would work tonight, because Vlasta was not here, and she could focus on Constance, and talk of a wedding dress. Because even if they didn’t have a date yet, she was going to have to start getting to work on a dress. And she thought that a little nudge in the direction of planning might not be a bad idea. Anička knew that there was a time and a place for things to be easier, or harder. But she thought that they were in a good place to think about a wedding.

Maybe a wedding would help lift everyone’s spirits. Lord only knew that they could have used that. It would have just been tedious last fall, after he had asked, and they were trapped in endless cycles of depression, and melancholy after what had happened. Everything that had happened with Ella and Elliot. Thea, and Tempe and Philip, and Malcolm all getting sick. Out of all of her family, she, and Constance, and Talia, and Athena seemed to be the only ones that were unharmed.

Shaking her head, a little bit Anička rolled her eyes, “Probably.” She didn’t truly mind the cigars, but she’d be damned if she caught Philip with one around her. Or any of the girls. If Izák grew up thinking that that was okay, just because Daddy did it, she would burn them all. Cigars were fine if you were Malcolm, and you came to bed smelling like them. They were not fine for her babies. “I honestly do not see the appeal, though I do have to admit, I like the smell of some of them.” On Malcolm. But she didn’t think that it was necessary to add that part for her daughter’s sake.

@ dcera • 757 • anička's outfit - no shoes!

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[nospaces]

[attr="class","cbg"]

[attr="class","cbgtop"]

[attr="class","cimg"]

[attr="class","clbox"]

[attr="class","ctopline"]IN MY DAUGHTER'S EYES

[attr="class","cscriptentertain"]everyone is equal

[attr="class","cline"]

[attr="class","clyrics"]DARKNESS TURNS TO LIGHT[break]
AND THE WORLD IS AT PEACE

[break][break]

[attr="class","cbody"]It was a little easier to go back to normal now that the people she cared about weren’t sick, but she knew that it was harder for them. They were trying to live without magic, and she knew that couldn’t be easy. She saw firsthand that it wasn’t easy for Liam, since she lived with him. It wasn’t just that magic was required for his job, and he was left doing desk work. She knew that it was more than that and she saw that at home too. It was an adjustment. She tried to do everything that she could to help with that, and it felt like it was getting easier with time, but she knew that it wasn’t fair for her to even make that judgment. She was not the one that had lost magic. She didn’t know how difficult it was.
[break][break]
But she did feel like life was slowly going back to a relatively normal schedule. It had calmed down enough where she thought she could actually think about the wedding, which was good. She didn’t know when they were going to get around to actually having it. Constance knew that picking a date was actually one of the most important things to do, but it was also a decision that she was having a surprising amount of difficulty with. Did she want it to be this year? She felt like they were quickly running out of time to send out invitations for a wedding this year. It would definitely need to be in the autumn, and they would need to send invitations relatively soon. That didn’t seem too bad.
[break][break]
Waiting until next year was an option too, though next summer seemed like an exceptionally long time away. She really didn’t know what to pick. It was something that she really needed to talk to Liam about, but it just hadn’t come up yet. Even if things were slowly starting to feel more normal, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to bring up wedding planning while he was still dealing with the loss of his magic and figuring out what he was going to do with his life now. She’d have to figure that out eventually. She didn’t think he had any desire to necessarily be involved in the planning, but there were still parts that she needed his okay on. They would have to talk about it eventually.
[break][break]
For now, she would just talk to her matka about it. There was a lot more that she would be able to help her on than Liam could, if she was being perfectly honest. And she could talk to her about it without feeling too bad about it, too. That helped. “No, they’re not too bad,” she agreed, with a laugh. It wasn’t like Liam smoked them all that often, but she definitely didn’t think that it was the worst smell in the world. She actually kind of liked the smell on him most of the time.
[break][break]

[attr="class","cnotes"]499 ● @ matka ● outfit - no shades, no hat

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + ADOX 2.0

[googlefont=Dancing Script]
[newclass=.cbg]width:400px;background:#262626;padding:30px;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cbgtop]width:400px;height:120px;text-align:left;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cimg]float:left;width:100px;height:100px;padding:10px;border:1px #aaa solid;[/newclass]
[newclass=.clbox]float:right;height:100px;margin:15px 5px auto auto;text-align:justify;width:257px;[/newclass]
[newclass=.ctopline]font-size:9px;letter-spacing:2px;text-transform:uppercase;font-family:verdana;color:#aaa;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cscriptentertain]font-size:23px;margin-top:-3px;font-family:Dancing Script;color:#d4af37;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cscriptentertain span]color:#ccc;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cline]height:1px;background-color:#888;margin:3px auto;[/newclass]
[newclass=.clyrics]font-size:8px;letter-spacing:1px;text-transform:uppercase;text-align:justify;font-family:verdana;color:#999;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cbody]font-family:verdana;color:#999;font-size:10px;text-align:justify;line-height:14px;letter-spacing:0.5px;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cnotes]font-size:9px;letter-spacing:1px;text-align:center;opacity:0.8;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cred]text-align:center;font-size:6pt;color:rgb(132, 132, 132);letter-spacing:1px;font-family:verdana;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cred a]color:rgb(132, 132, 132);font-size:6pt;letter-spacing:1px;font-family:verdana;[/newclass]

I'VE SEEN THE LIGHT

IT'S IN MY DAUGHTER'S EYES

I CAN SEE THE FUTURE

No one was safe from this. Or at least, almost no one. She didn’t think that both she and Constance being fine was a coincidence, but if genetics were a factor… Anička didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t have any medical knowledge really. Enough to scrape together some quick magical stitches, and maybe heal some broken fingers, but not enough to really do anything to save anyone’s life, or to understand this illness. No, there was only one person in this family that was capable of understanding, and Anička was well aware that Ella didn’t want anything to do with it.

It made it harder, or at least it made her feel guiltier. That she hadn’t been able to protect the rest of them. That Constance was fine. That she herself was fine, and yet, nearly everyone else was ill. Talia was fine. Her mother-in-law, mercifully, was fine. But she didn’t think that anyone else had known what was coming for them until it hit. And it had hit Ella and Delilah first. It had meant weeks of hospitals, and healers, and doctors that couldn’t tell them anything. It was miserable. But she knew that it had to have been worse on Constance.

That all of this had to have been weighing down on her daughter, and Anička didn’t think that there was anything that she could do about it. There was never going to be anything to do about it. Because they couldn’t help that they weren’t sick. They couldn’t help that for some unknown reason, it had spared them. There was no link, no commonality. If there were, she thought more than one out of five of her of age children would have been fine, and if she would have had to put bets on which one, it wouldn’t have been Constance to start with.

They were all so different, all of them so unique in their own ways, and she didn’t know if they even knew it. Ella was the regal one. The motherly one. The one that watched over her siblings. Thea was the wild one. The free spirit. The artist that was going to go where the wind blew her. Constance was the structured chaos. The one that seemed like she had it all together but was set to blow at any moment. And Tempe… Tempe was all of that. She was poised, and stoic, and calm. But she was artistic, and open, and caring. They were everything, a complete set.

The boys were, of course, part of the equation too. Philip, and now Elliot and Liam. She was gaining sons as she went along. And the little children. Pippa, and the twins. She had more people in her life to worry about now than ever before, and she knew that she couldn’t do anything to protect them from this. From a lot of things, yes. She was sure that she could protect them from so much. But not from this. This was beyond her protection. This was beyond her fixing it, and Anička didn’t like problems that she couldn’t fix. Which was partially why she had called her daughter here in the first place.

Waving her into the house, and up the stairs she whistled for Medici and Cooper, both of whom came running from the living room at her call, and headed for her studio. “Do you have any ideas about what you might want?” She meant in general, for the wedding, but she had more than a few ideas about the dress itself. She wanted to know if there was anything that she did, or didn’t want, any of the sketches that she wanted her to go ahead and throw out now because they were not what she was looking for in the least.

Anička had made Ella’s wedding dress on short notice. The end of June to the first weekend in September was not a very long engagement, and she knew that there had been plenty of opinions about that. But she was glad that Constance was taking her time. She wanted her to have exactly what she wanted. “We can do anything, since you guys don’t have a date yet, you are limitless at this point.”

@ dcera • 708 • anička's outfit - no shoes!

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[nospaces]

[attr="class","cbg"]

[attr="class","cbgtop"]

[attr="class","cimg"]

[attr="class","clbox"]

[attr="class","ctopline"]IN MY DAUGHTER'S EYES

[attr="class","cscriptentertain"]everyone is equal

[attr="class","cline"]

[attr="class","clyrics"]DARKNESS TURNS TO LIGHT[break]
AND THE WORLD IS AT PEACE

[break][break]

[attr="class","cbody"]She wasn’t entirely sure that she was in the right mindset to plan a wedding. In the slightest, actually. With everything that was going on, it didn’t feel right to have anything to be happy about. Maybe it would have been different if she had gotten sick. If she had lost her magic too, then she could have gotten married and it wouldn’t have felt like she was rubbing her good fortune in everybody’s faces. She would have lost something too, she would have deserved something good to happen to her.
[break][break]
But in this case, she didn’t. She had already not gotten sick. She had not lost her magic. She had been able to go about her life as normal, albeit with a lot of worrying about her family and how they were doing. Constance shouldn’t get to be happy. She shouldn’t get to plan a wedding and go right along with her life as if nothing was wrong. But here she was. The dust had settled enough for actual planning to take place, and now she just had to do it. She had to stop worrying that everyone was going to be mad at her for doing something that made her happy. It was a good thing, maybe. She wanted to think that everyone would be happy for her, but she wasn’t all that sure anymore.
[break][break]
It had been a difficult couple of months. Everyone getting sick, her being one of the few that hadn’t. She had been worried that they would come to resent her for it and a part of her thought that they already had. She didn’t think that Liam had. She didn’t think that her stepfather had. But she was less certain of everyone else. It was so hard to tell these days. Moving in with Liam meant that she wasn’t around her family as much anymore. She felt the barrier growing. It felt like a wedge, and it felt like it was only growing. Her sisters, her brother, everyone that she cared about. It felt like she was just existing on the outskirts of her family, and the wedding would be the final nail in that coffin, in more ways than one.
[break][break]
She wouldn’t be a Mountbatten anymore, after all. She would be a Flint. That wouldn’t help matters. And then she still worried that her siblings would think that a wedding was rubbing all of her good fortune in their faces. Everything felt strained enough. The last thing that she wanted to do was make anything worse. But it just felt like an inevitability at this point. She felt so far away from her entire family, and she didn’t know how to fix that. She wasn’t sure if it was something that she could make better. Constance had always been closest to Ella, but that didn’t feel like the case anymore. Ella had her own life, and it seemed to involve finding other sisters to confide in that weren’t her. Thea had always been a free spirit. She adored her, but she was not the person that Thea confided in or talked to either. And she had never been that person for her twin.
[break][break]
Maybe that was just reality now, and she should stop stalling the wedding and the inevitable. Maybe it would be easier that way. She didn’t know. Constance wanted to be happy that the wedding planning would soon be well underway, but it felt more like the end of something than the beginning of anything else.
[break][break]
Pushing the thoughts from her mind, she put a smile on her face as she followed her matka up the stairs toward her studio. This was a good thing. It was going to be a good thing. She loved Liam. Of that, she had no doubt. It just felt like everything was sullied by what had happened. The epidemic, the way that Liam had proposed, the way she was feeling about her family. Constance knew that she needed to stop thinking about the bad and she needed to focus on the good. It was the only way that she was going to get through this at all. “Honestly? I don’t know. I thought dresses might help jumpstart some ideas, maybe.” It would help give her something, hopefully. She thought that it would. A dress might give her some kind of idea for a theme, or a location, or even a time of year. That was the hope anyway.
[break][break]
Constance didn’t know if it would end up being this year or not. Maybe in the autumn. Or even the winter. She didn’t know. Merlin, it felt like she didn’t have a single clue what she wanted to do. “I guess that’s a good thing,” she said, quietly, more to herself than her matka. It was not as enthusiastic of a response as she would have given if she was actually thinking about it.
[break][break]

[attr="class","cnotes"]818 ● @ matka ● outfit - no shades, no hat

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + ADOX 2.0

[googlefont=Dancing Script]
[newclass=.cbg]width:400px;background:#262626;padding:30px;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cbgtop]width:400px;height:120px;text-align:left;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cimg]float:left;width:100px;height:100px;padding:10px;border:1px #aaa solid;[/newclass]
[newclass=.clbox]float:right;height:100px;margin:15px 5px auto auto;text-align:justify;width:257px;[/newclass]
[newclass=.ctopline]font-size:9px;letter-spacing:2px;text-transform:uppercase;font-family:verdana;color:#aaa;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cscriptentertain]font-size:23px;margin-top:-3px;font-family:Dancing Script;color:#d4af37;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cscriptentertain span]color:#ccc;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cline]height:1px;background-color:#888;margin:3px auto;[/newclass]
[newclass=.clyrics]font-size:8px;letter-spacing:1px;text-transform:uppercase;text-align:justify;font-family:verdana;color:#999;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cbody]font-family:verdana;color:#999;font-size:10px;text-align:justify;line-height:14px;letter-spacing:0.5px;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cnotes]font-size:9px;letter-spacing:1px;text-align:center;opacity:0.8;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cred]text-align:center;font-size:6pt;color:rgb(132, 132, 132);letter-spacing:1px;font-family:verdana;[/newclass]
[newclass=.cred a]color:rgb(132, 132, 132);font-size:6pt;letter-spacing:1px;font-family:verdana;[/newclass]