Author: Gin
Pairing: Ivy/Lucius, obviously
Summary: The day Ivy Walker married Lucius Hunt he could not dance with her.
Notes: This doesn't have much of a plot, I'm sorry to say. I watched the movie and expected a definitive ending and didn't get one; I wanted to close the proverbial book but I can't seem to do it myself. So instead of an ending or sequel, we've got a small piece of character depiction.
-
Ivy Walker was just a little girl when her sight started to fade into nothing. Victor told her Papa it was Cataract, a word she could scarcely pronounce, and there was nothing to be done. Ivy tried to squint around it at first, but her eyes were filmy and everything blurred as if she were running very fast. Ivy remembers being very sad, very uncomfortable indeed as Victor and his wife kept peering into her eyes, serious and cheerless in manner.
When Ivy could not go far enough to simply milk the cows, she was fashioned a cane by Papa. She still could not milk them without practice and so Papa or an impatient Kitty, who declared she had better things to do, would grab her tiny elbow and lead her across the green, green grass, grass that was only as vivid and clear to her as a three day old dream. Ivy would milk the cows, her hands fumbling around like babies trying to walk, until she got it into her pail and could wait to be guided back to her house again.
Ivy can milk the cows on her own now, now that she has naught but memories of sight. She is glad she can see those scarce colors; else she would be scared and forever locked in her little sightless world. Without the guiding, comforting glow of peach her Papa emitted, Ivy imagines she would be wary of trusting a silent presence in her home, should there be one. Ivy imagines she would be less likely to love Lucius Hunt with abandon, if she could not see the jade enveloping his person.
As Ivy said, before she could feel and recognize his eyes unflinching on her, Lucius Hunt used to guide her around. While she didn't need it – no, certainly not! – Ivy happily acquiesced to Lucius' gentle, quiet help. Over slippery mud, tricky rocks, dirty paths she knew like the worn grooves in her cane, Lucius kept his strong fingers locked around her arm. "I would not have you trip and dirty your dress," he muttered, the first time she brightly asked him to explain and got real words in reply. (Well, if you want to know, she asked why he wasn't causing trouble with the other boys, even though she knew the answer well enough without being told).
And as Ivy also said, Lucius stopped. And she played her silly games, tripping in front of him, acting as helpless as a new wobbling pup. But he didn't come to her side, though his green seemed to waver in hesitation. Disappointed, Ivy resolved to wait until such a day when Lucius might fix his hands upon her again, even though a despairing voice inside her head said she would be waiting until death or beyond.
Sometimes, on bleak days while it may rain, Ivy wonders if she imagines these colors of hers. She can't be sure she remembers them correctly; they escape tangibility, after all, dancing across her mind and perhaps changing nature during the course of time. The little girl might not have seen things as they were, or remembered them wrongly; any number of panging maybes. She buried the bad color with everyone else but sometimes felt panic: "I do not even know if I would recognize the bad color if I saw it!" But then Ivy will catch Lucius Hunt in the town meeting hall, and she will recall his vibrant green. And she will know, it does not matter if she even knows the colors as they truly are, so long as she knows colors.
During her walk through Convington Woods, Ivy thought she saw vast amounts of the bad color. It was silly, it was so silly. How could she have? Her own Papa told her of the hoax; Those We Do Not Speak Of and their fictitious origins. But she knew as she knew Lucius and her own heart, she knew when she hid behind the tree… There it was. The bad color. Red, angry red, the bad color. The Creature she killed, she saw its color clear as you please. It surrounded her just as the Creature did, panting its ugly sounds.
The day Ivy Walker married Lucius Hunt he could not dance with her. The scars painting his pale chest restricted his every movement with crippling pain. Lucius was aggrieved by this, she sensed, and pictured an older version of the face her memory knew screwed up in melancholy. She breathed a whisper to him; "I will have my dance yet, husband, so long as you still draw breath." His hand shakily squeezed hers and she moved to kiss his cheek but caught his temple in her giddiness of the day. Lucius' green thrived in that moment until her Papa came to take her away for a dance of his own.
"Father," she asked, waiting until her skirts stopped twirling about her ankles. "What color are the flowers in my veil?" She did not feel the want to ask what kind; Ivy only knew their names and perchance the stray impression of a daisy or wildflower in their village.
"They are purple," he answered, voice gruff with something she could not place. She dipped and swirled in his arms, smiling in the direction she anticipated his face lining up with hers. "You wear ground ivy."
She smiled to herself, lips curving slowly. "What dear person decided it was to be ground ivy?" Her left hand was free and she directed it towards her veil, fingering the blossoms and leaves she did not previously know delicately.
"Lucius," her Papa replied. "Your husband picked the ivy."
Kitty had dressed her, pinched her cheeks until they blushed, arranged Ivy's diminutive waves until it all resembled something any man would want to marry, would want to look upon and remark "Why, that's no tomboy after all." Several of the men did, Ivy felt even their heavy eyes on her as she married her Lucius.
Their song ended and Ivy felt a little heated. She kissed her Papa on his cheek, grasping his calloused hand in hers for a small moment. He led her over to where Lucius was sitting and passed her hand from his own to her husband's.
"Hello," Lucius said quietly, when she took the seat beside him.
"I have this extraordinary feeling you will say it to me every day we are married. 'Hello!' In the morning when I wake, 'hello.' Will you say it in the evening, too? Do you think I will—"
"No, I shall say 'good morning, my Ivy,' or 'good night, my Ivy.' I will say 'hello' when you have been gone and return to me, even if it is for a moment."
She laughed. "I shan't be going anywhere, if only to save myself from all your hellos."
"No, I do not think you will go anywhere." From his tone she assumed he was smiling. She lifted her fingers to his lips to be sure. "Ivy—"
"Good evening, my Lucius," she said. "Your color is particularly fine today, are you happy?"
"Ivy—" Lucius kissed her fingers briefly before returning Ivy's hand gently to her lap.
"Do not even bother with asking, I still shan't tell you."
If Lucius were any other man he would have been impatient with her. Lucius Hunt was a good man, Ivy knew. There was not a bone of impatience in his body. "So you say." His tone was still pleased and warm. Ivy pictured the scar upon his mouth lifting with his grin.
"You are awfully impertinent!" she teased. "Always asking, asking and asking. I tell you now, Lucius Hunt, you will get your answer when I get my dance." She sniffed and smoothed out her skirt. "Which is to say—"
"Tonight, then."
His meaning was clear. Ivy stilled. "Impertinent" she repeated. "Ever so… impertinent."
"Yes," he agreed. "Tonight."