Prompt 8 : Dolls

Who bought her her first doll?

It seems like such an important question suddenly.

She thinks it was Polonius. But that's wrong. Polonius absented himself from her youth. A fond pat on the head, a snowy smile, bumbling, false Polonius. She thinks of him with an ache of love, and whirls away from the memory and the scene it paints for her, floating down the hall, humming the same snatch again and again. Do doodle oo do, do doodle oodle oo do …

Maybe it was a maid. Someone who felt sorry for the neglected demi-orphan.

Maybe it was Gertrude. Little though she had to do with Ophelia, the beauteous majesty of Denmark … Maybe a shred of pity had flowed in her veins … Unlikely, but not impossible. Who wouldn't feel sorry for her? So polite, so sweet; a flower child, a paragon of virtue. She can suddenly see the pain in the woman's eyes, closest to a mother she had and still worlds away.

Was it Old Hamlet? Who was he? Was it Claudius for the two were one and the same? Was it either of them? She thought not.

She perches the doll on the window pane and stares at it; all crimson lips and eyes, blue like his, with golden hair curling from porcelain temples. A white dress, little kid boots. In perfect condition; a baby doll, her first. She crumbles before it and whirls around as Laertes opens the door; his face haggard and pale with sorrow.

'Laertes?' she whispers, her voice tremulous, her eyes too big in her thin face. 'Who bought me my first doll?'

'It was I, sister,' he whispers, crossing to her quietly as if she were a wild animal; easily scared away. His dark eyes are hers, his wild hair his father's. They are true orphans now.

'I, from the city of fogs and mists; an English rose for my petal.'

And when his hesitant hand brushed her hair, she spun around with fear burning in her eyes.

'Laertes … am I going mad?' she whispered hoarsely, and her answer was in his sudden protective embrace.

'I'll look after you, Ophelia,' he mumbled into her hair and she sighed.

'You always have,' she answered simply.

And the doll and the prince watched from the window and the door, each as dumb as the other.

A/N: My favourite so far. :) Thanks to my lovely reviewer AGENT Kuma-chan for the support. ;) Yeah, I like this one, though, it's my first mad Ophelia and it didn't go too badly ... tried to keep the flower theme going. :) I love Laertes so freaking much.

- Wraithlike