#🪶 • interactions | frstwomn •

[withinkandquill-aa]

“Don’t move, I’m getting a first-aid kit.” // Anya & Tamsin // @frstwomn

Anya, so prone to tears when it comes to emotional hurts, simply stares at the blood filling her palm from the laceration at its center - the unfortunate result of a frantic attempt to clean up a shattered glass. The tears that had welled in response to the initial guilt still clung to her lashes, but the child remains still and silent as she sits amid the glass shard, legs folded to resemble an uncomfortable looking ‘W’ she actually finds preferable to most other positions. This does not scare her despite the pain. This is simply another scar to add to those that painted pale lines across so much of her skin.

The only thing that stirs her from the trance is the drops that fall from her hand, splattering crimson on the tile below. All too suddenly, the unnerving calm slips from her shoulders like a discarded blanket and the other hand moves quickly to catch the overflow.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice sounds again, never acknowledging Tamsin’s words. It’s weak and hoarse and it breaks on the syllable but it sounds nonetheless, restarting the flow of her tears. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I-I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to. I-I’ll clean it up. I promise.”

Small fingers reach for another large shard of glass, halted only as the movement spills more blood on the floor. A horrified cry sounds as her good hand moves to cup the other, both drawing in towards her chest. This is it, she cannot help but think. She has broken the glass and ruined the floor. She cannot help clean it up without doing more damage either. Tamsin won’t want her after this. She won’t want a daughter that destroys everything she touches the way Anya does.

“I’m sorry,” Anya sobs again. “I’m so, so sorry.”

[withinkandquill-aa]

Ze’ev’s hand finds the president’s upper arm, grip firm as he claims her full attention. Dark brows lower over bright green eyes. The look is a warning, but the intensity is heightened by his frustration. He knows Tamsin’s word is law and he does not doubt her intelligence and capabilities, but he wishes she would be a little more cautious.

“And if you don’t? If you die out there?” His voice is stern but level. Despite his feelings, Ze’ev speaks with his head, not his heart. “You’re the only one who could possibly hope to unite everyone. Later. When it is safe to do so. But if we lose you…we lose hope.”

"I couldn't keep hiding away in my bunker." The PRESIDENT, a machete on her right hip and gun on her left, settles her gaze upon the other, lip curling slightly. there's nothing REMOTELY presidential about her, except for the flag pin still upon her shirt. "There's pockets of civilizations left. D.C. is still one of them, albeit underground. If I can work to unite us, we might very well still make it out of this as a nation."

OPEN STARTER ( general apocalypse au )

[withinkandquill-aa]

Inspired by this. // Anya & Tamsin // @frstwomn

Anya has never celebrated Christmas. She has never received a Christmas gift. And until recently, until Tamsin, she did not even know what Christmas was. It took some time for her to understand it, to process the lavish decorations strewn around her new lavish home, but now that she understands the purpose - family - she wants more than anything to participate.

She has a problem, though. At five years old, Anya has no money and no way to go shopping without Tamsin, which means she cannot gift her anything. The thought is nearly heartbreaking and the guilt of the realization is immediate and overpowering, bordering on panic as she sits alone in her room on Christmas Eve, thought to be sleeping but sitting perpetually awake by the light of her nightlight. She has to get her something. If Tamsin has gifts for her and Anya has none to give in return, her new mama will think she doesn’t love her. She’ll be angry, no doubt. She won’t want her anymore. Where will she go if her new mama doesn’t want her anymore?

Amber eyes land on barely illuminated craft supplies. Yes! Yes! She can make something! It won’t be much but Tamsin seems to enjoy her colorful scribbles and formless creations. It’ll be better than nothing. It’ll be her best shot. So, she sits up all night, markers and crayons, googly eyes and glitter filling her lap as she creates. Finally, by morning, with several ‘failed’ creations filling up her trash bin, she holds in her hands the most beautiful thing she can bring to life. It truly isn’t much - a discarded toilet paper roll wearing a glittery rendition of one of Tamsin’s suits, googly eyes and marker features making up a bright and smiling face, yarn for hair. She feels proud of it…for the moment. By the time she makes it to Tamsin’s bedside, she has begun to doubt. Tears already well in her eyes as images of being not good enough creep their way into her mind.

She blinks them back, rests a hand on Tamsin’s shoulder, and whispers, voice warbling with the cry she intends to hold back.

“Mama?”

[withinkandquill-aa]

❝ do you want to bake cookies with me? ❞ // Anya & Tamsin // @frstwomn

Bake cookies?

At five years old, Anya has never baked cookies before. Up until a few weeks ago she had never even had a cookie. She was a debilitating and tragic case of abuse and neglect, new to just about everything social workers and foster parents had to show her, and bounced around several homes before coming into Tamsin’s due to the aggression she shows when her emotions flare. She doesn’t hide the fact that almost everything - Tamsin herself included - scares her in some way but she is also eager to please. It’s almost pathological. ‘No’ has yet to leave her lips without panic.

This, though. This sounds like the kind of thing little girls are supposed to do with their mamas, new or old, and she does like cookies. Anya wants to do it.

She gives only a few hesitant nods as if afraid too much enthusiasm will get it taken from her.

“Can…” Her fingers twist the hem of her shirt. One of the seams pops under the pressure. “Can we maybe make…um…the…the ones with the chocolate chips?”

[withinkandquill-aa]

hi !! I just wanted to let you know that I just ! love our threads, love our interactions and I love talking to you. You're an amazing individual and I appreciate your companionship on here <3

//Oh my god! Thank you so much for saying this!! Words can’t describe how happy this makes me so just know I’m sending all this back at you and so much more!! 💕💕💕💕

[withinkandquill-aa]

She's hidden away in the back of the crowd, guards stationed at various parts of the room in common clothes, just as tamsin was. In an old sweatshirt and jeans, she blends into the crowd as well as she can, wearing a ballcap to pull her blonde hair up into. This is dangerous and the Secret Service very nearly forbade it until she all but PLEADED with her head of her detail, Fred. Anya's smile when she noticed Tamsin there all but made up for all the measures. It's only afterwards that Tamsin pulls her daughter into a tight hug, kissing the top of her head. "You did so great, my love. So great. I'm SO proud of you." // @frstwomn

Even if Anya wanted to conceal the joy filling her chest, she could not help smiling and laughing in a way she never had before Tamsin. It still felt strange and new but it was good. Like Tamsin herself, who Anya had begun to truly see as a parent as the months went by. Almost a year now. She had come a long, long way from the child Tamsin had once accepted into her home. Now, her small arms reciprocated the hug with ease where once any contact had made her flinch with fear.

“I was scared you weren’t going to come,” she admits.

It was her first show and she had not been sure what to expect. All she knew was that everyone else’s real parents were coming and she had sensed something off when she had asked her foster mother if she would come too. Anya wanted her to see. She had worked hard and she wanted Tamsin to be proud, even if it was nowhere near perfect yet.

“Did you see my cartwheel?” she asks. “I think it was the best one I ever did. They’re really hard and I always forget to point my toes but I think I got it this time!”

[withinkandquill-aa]

" we're in this together . " // Anya & Tamsin // @frstwomn

Anya looks up at the woman, eyes shining with emotion. The pipeline connecting the murder of her mother and assault on herself to this moment with Tamsin, her foster mother, had only been months long but it felt like lifetimes. Almost five years at home with her parents, always fearful of her father but adoring of her mother in their many good moments; several weeks in the hospital recovering from the damage her father had done to her small body, a birthday passed without much notice; a month or so in a group home, struggling to trust or connect to anyone there - child or adult; and finally to the White House, clinging to Tamsin’s hand as she took her first steps into what felt like a whole new world. But she had eventually arrived here. To this moment. To her new mama and together.

Little arms wrap tightly around Tamsin’s neck, small nose and warm breath nuzzling into her neck as Amber eyes squeeze against the tears that come far too easily now.

“Thank you,” she says softly.

[withinkandquill-aa]

For a child so young, Anya is acutely attuned to the emotions of others. Her gaze is constantly assessing for signs of unease, of fear, of anger in the people around her and even the smallest sign of it too often has the child in a near panic. But she has not yet mastered the art of determining real versus perceived emotion. They look the same to her and they all promise either harm or abandonment.

She was not always this way. As a very young child, barely more than an infant, she had not been afraid of loss. If her father’s violence had any effect on her, it was only to make her violent in turn. Too small to understand the hurt and knowing nothing else, little hands had mirrored her father’s actions, taking out anger and sadness and jealously on her mother’s skin, hitting and hurting the way both Anya and her mother regularly fell victim to. And then Anya watched as Aris Calwyn murdered his wife. Then she faced his herself wrath right after, punishment in advance for the secrets she would eventually spill within the sterile walls of a hospital, machines beeping in her ears as her heart rate rose. Then something changed. It did not erase nearly five years of violence from the healed cracks in her bones. When anger or fear overwhelm, she still lashes out. But now, the guilt of any perceived wrongdoing or failure lasts days if it even fully goes away at all.

It makes Tamsin’s tears of joy all too visible despite her attempts to hide it. It makes them too difficult to interpret. Happy words, sad eyes. Which was the truth? Not words. Never words.

Little hands hurriedly rise to Tamsin’s cheeks, thumbs brushing across wet lashes as if to wash away the sadness before it can take root. It has taken some time but Anya no longer fears physical retaliation from Tamsin, only the ever present possibility of losing her love forever.

“Don’t cry, Mama. It’s okay.” Her hurried words break, unable to carry the weight of her own emotions and the ones she thinks she sees in Tamsin. “I…I can make another one. Or something else. I can make something else too. I can make a good present. I really can. I promise. Just don’t cry. Please don’t cry.”

Before Anya, Christmas was nothing. It was another holiday to be alone, something she had quite enjoyed in her recent years, but it wasn't anything special. She typically had a small Christmas dinner before binge-watching her favorite television series again. This year, it was very different.

This year, she had Anya to have Christmas with. When the young girl had come into her care, it'd been for a short time. A short time had turned into months which had turned into Tamsin filing for adoption paperwork. Everything else was still in the works, but she hoped the paperwork would be finished by the New Year (being the President had SOME advantages). In the few weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the White House had been transformed. Typically, it would be the First Lady who would decorate the building; however, Tamsin didn't have such a person. She had instead requested her staff find someone to decorate while still keeping it simple. It had not been kept simple and plain but she supposed the designer had gotten influence from Anya and her childlike innocence.

Tamsin had poured days into finding gifts for the young girl and the sitting room, which held the largest tree in the building, had been taken over with Christmas decor and presents alike. Tamsin wanted Anya to know that she was loved and to experience the Christmas that Tamsin never had ( or couldn't remember ). It's in a daze of sleep that she awakens to the sound of her daughter's voice, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes as she stirs. She reaches over for the bedside lamp and for her glasses upon the bedside table.

her eyes focus first on her daughter's expression, worry, panic filling her for a moment. What had upset her so much that she was going to cry? Had she a nightmare in the night? Tamsin reaches out to pull Anya into her lap but stops at the sight of the gift in her hands. To some, it might have been a child's silly craft. But to Tamsin, it was the first gift she had received in a long time. Her breath stills for a moment, feeling moisture build in her eyes and before she knows it, she's crying, pulling Anya into a hug to avoid the young girl seeing her emotions.

"Is that me?" she says after a brief moment, nearly choking on her emotion. She brushes Anya's hair from her eyes. "It's beautiful. I love it. I'll put it right on my desk so everyone can see my daughters beautiful present."

[withinkandquill-aa]

Anya doesn’t know what an official egg cracker is but she likes the sound of it. It seems important like her new mommy and she wants to be like her new mommy. Partially because she admires her, and partially because she imagines Tamsin likes people similar to herself and Anya wants so badly to be liked, to be loved, to be kept.

Eagerly, she clambers on top of the stool, holding onto the counter as she stands up on it. The assortment of kitchen supplies before her instantly becomes the most interesting thing around her and her fingers readily explore it all - a bag of white powder, bowls and spoons, chocolate chips which are easily the most important component, and finally she cradles an egg in both hands. Ginger brows knit together.

“I have to break this? That’s my job?”

She only realizes now that it seems dangerously out of place amid the other rules she knows - her father’s, the group home’s, and Tamsin’s. Don’t break things, most if not all agreed. It can’t always be fixed and people will be upset and you’ll get in trouble. All of which she has internalized to believe result in pain or abandonment or both.

Her eyebrows knit as she rolls the egg in her fingers. It doesn’t look like it’s supposed to break. There are no seams. “Will it go back together?”

Her heart warms with every soft minute she spent with Anya.

The moments were very rare recently. Ever since the attack on the Capital, Tamsin was busy with the job of the Presidency. But the last thing she wanted was for Anya to presume that she didn't care about her. That she didn't want to keep being her foster mother. it was certainly a change for the both of them.

At Anya's question, she crouches to her height, reaching out a hand to gently brush a curl away from the young girl's face. "Of course we can make the ones with chocolate chips." there's a short pause. "I'll tell you a little secret, Anya." she leans in just a bit. "The ones with chocolate chips are my very favorite." She grabs the stool from underneath the White House sink, setting it up at the workstation she had set up at the floating island in the kitchen.

"I got you the stool so you can reach the eggs. I'm going to have you crack them, alright? I'll show you how to do it and then you're going to be the official egg cracker."