-- desdemona malay » D4 » complete

- - desdemona calypso malay
district four
female
sixteen
♕

appearance

Have you ever seen a broken doll? A castaway thing with a crack down her face, splintering her face in two? Have you ever rubbed your finger over the precious porcelain that once made her whole and beautiful and cut your finger on the edge? Did you ever wonder what she looked like before she'd been tossed away, abandoned, left to die?

No, I didn't think so. No one really does.

So stop for a minute, and just think. Think of a little blonde girl with her hand looped around her twin's waist, just where it had always belonged. Where it always would belong. Stop and take in the brightness of her eyes, how they reflect the water and the skies back at you, how they sparkle and ripple just like the ocean. Take in her gap-toothed smile and smile right back, because you'll lose the chance soon enough. No matter how hard you try, no matter how hard anyone tries, you cannot fix a broken girl, just patch together the pieces with smoke and mirrors.

Gasp for air because you're drowning, falling into the depths of blue eyes. They're glass now, not the galaxies they once were, staring back at you with a sort of emptiness that doesn't match a colour that was once beautiful. All around you blonde hair tangles, smelling of sea foam and sailors that were led into the oceans, swallowed whole by singing women that were never all there. Can you see what they see? The slim wrists that taper into slender arms, a lithe body that's been made beautiful by hours by the sea. Pale, pale, pale. The sun can't thaw this winter girl, can't touch her heart wherever it may be. Your feet are clumsy in the reeds whereas her's command the grip of the sand away; her narrow feet may as well be webbed for how effortlessly they cut through water.

Look at her lips, stained the colour of forbidden berries. Her teeth aren't crooked now, they're perfectly straight. A straight nose sits framed by soft cheeks drained of colour, winged eyebrows over now-grey eyes, all in the perfect frame of an oval face. She could be beautiful.

She almost is when she laughs.

But there's still that crack, invisible under careful alterations. There's still a place hidden where she's been broken and not fixed. She's still not quite right under the facade. She is beautiful in the way a mermaid is, right before she steals the breath out of your lungs.

personality

Shape a girl from metal scraps, knit her together with cobwebs and the boats of men that were killed by the ocean's unmerciful grasp. Take metal bullets and string them around her throat, replace her heart with that of a monster. Then go to the beach on a stormy, grey day. Lay her out on the sand with her toes being brushed by just the foam and beg for her to live. Forget that she needs a soul. Forget that she needs to be human, as long as she looks the part. As long as she plays the part.

What have you done?

She can smile and laugh, can dance with her feet floating above the sand, spinning around so fast she's just a blur. She is reckless and impatient, refusing to wait for anyone. You cannot control the weather; you cannot control the tide. She'll spin faster and faster and never fall down. Ask her to stop, go on. Look at her wrong and you'll drown. They said her temper was from being the first born in a pair of twins. They said she was high strung like her mother once was, but her mother didn't know. She just nodded. Just hoped that her second daughter wouldn't be quite so wrong.

Hear her laugh. It's hollow. She is nothing but the shell of a girl, and no one knows what lies beneath. Everyone's expectations angers her; she does not want to stay on land. She wants to float away. No, she wants to sink the world and rule the ruins. Keep trying to tie her down and she will. She'll break free of your knots and fly away, leaving you to drag on the ground underneath her, dragging you into the deepest part of the sea and letting you fall, fall, fall.

This girl does not know rules. She just knows what she's capable of.

Everything.

Don't. Stop where you are. Don't come close. She's poison, and the air from her mouth is gas. Under her pretty little mask she is nothing more than a trap.

history

Once upon a time on a night where the moon shone in a perfect crescent over the world, bathing a young couple's face in sparkling ice, the ghost of a drowned child promised them a daughter. The couple already had three sons, one for every year they'd been married, but they never had what they really wanted. A little girl to turn into a princess. Their very own goddess.

Nine months crashed by, measured in heartbeats and stolen kisses, in fallen stars and glittering tears slipping down cheeks in rivets. Then when their daughter was born, they weren't given just one but two. The oldest screamed like a banshee, the younger barely made a whisper. Still, they were happy. They went home with singing hearts and their pinkies tied together with a red string. They made promises and predicted greatness. They looked at their little girls and their little boys, and vowed to keep them all safe. Finnegan was oldest, four years older than the twins. Then came Glen, who had immediately followed Finn. They were born in the same year, one when the world was frozen and the other on the shortest day of the year, right when frost was gripping it's icy fingers around the globe's throat. Last was Rover, born five seasons later, squealing like a pig. Calla loved them all.

Loved. What a dirty word.

Desdemona did not belong. She didn't fit into the big happy family. She got jealous when everyone wasn't looking at her or her sister, and her sister was the only one she could stand. Still, it was okay for awhile. The family got older, Helix's hair greyed and Calla became thin again. They could live a masquerade, two-stepping and fox-trotting around each other's toes. Careful. Always so, so careful.

Five years passed before another little boy came along. No one cared about the twins anymore. She watched her sister crawl in on herself, hide away behind her hair and shield herself from the empty space that surrounded her. She wouldn't let her little sister disappear, wouldn't let her swallow herself whole like she wanted, fall away into nothing and leave only a shadow behind.

One day, Gage vanished into thin air.

They never found the body.

She cried. And when she was done crying, she pulled on her sister's strings and drew her out of herself, looking so proud, proud, proud. She didn't need to hide anymore. She made everything alright.

She never got caught.