[[ Rhetoric Anadiplosis ]][[ District 8 ]]

part one

Kingdoms are places where men rise and fall. Fall past the lies of the king and his disciples, for they are only out to lie. Lie to those who would lie to you. You are the only one who can take your life in your own hands, you are the only one who can give your life to another. Another time, perhaps, you might have said that you were not in control but I know better. Better that I tell you what is really going on here, for maybe then you can open your eyes and see. See how the king lies, see the way the kingdom stands on the brink of collapse. Collapse the wall of deception built around you, find the way to kill the king and then we can bring down one of these so called kingdoms.

She is the twin of a boy who leans on her for support. He envies her but she can only love him. They are so much the same in so many ways, and yet there are stark differences between them. Sometimes, it seems as though they can’t be told apart, and then, in moments, as though they could never have been related at all. She is the confident one, the speaker, the charmer. She is the one that holds her own in the face of arguments. Decided and perhaps a bit self-important, she always pushes to get her point across.

Some know her as arrogant, some as intimidating. Others still have whispered names like manipulative bitch behind her back. Their opinions don’t hurt her, for they are right after all: she is a manipulative bitch. Having worked hard to gather a large vocabulary, and learning to speak persuasively, she uses her nurtured talent whenever she can. There is a thrill inside her each time she convinces someone that she is right, or when she guides someone along a path of her choosing so that things turn out just as she wants them to.

The only person whose arm she doesn’t twist is her brother’s. He, with his overhanging sour mood and glum demeanor, is like a soothing rain to her. When he makes a choice, she trusts him to make the right one. There is no need for manipulation when there is trust. After all, she wants him to trust her too.

part three

Carcasses are the things that bind us to reality as securely as they bind us to being human. Human is a strange ideal, the thought that a soul and a body can come together and form something that is living. Living is a difficult thing to do, but it is something we can share with family. Family eases the journey from birth to death. Death claims us, turning our living, breathing, thinking bodies into what they are without a soul: carcasses.

Her family is large, perhaps larger than is comfortable. With two parents, two uncles, five siblings, and six cousins, there sometimes feels as though there is no breathing room. She doesn't have much time for her siblings and cousins, or at least not to the same level as she gives to her twin, but she doesn't turn them away either. Family is family, after all, and for all their flaws she was still related to them; for all her flaws, they still love her.

Her parents and her uncles, yes uncles - the entire family is secretly proud that they are one of the few families that can say they have a gay couple as a major part of the family - act like they are all parents to all of the twelve Anadiplosis children. Parental duties are passed around like chores between siblings, but secretly each is happy to do them. She never made life easy for any of them, always attempting to get the most attention and doing anything to achieve that. Demanding, dramatic, and loud, she would cause problems until someone responded. Depending on who was looking after them, the amount of effort needed would change. Her father was the easiest to manipulate, then her blood uncle. Her mother and Uncle Gerry, the married-in, took the longest to bother into reaction.

She always did her best to manipulate her cousins as well, trying to get them to always play the games she wanted to play, or to let her have the best toys. This worked with the youngest ones, and when the older ones were a bit younger, but most of them - being adopted - took a lot of effort to convince since they were used to being lied to. So, she turned to her siblings, with marginally more success. The one person she didn't have to manipulate, and didn't ever want to, is her twin brother, Adynaton. Nat always understood what she wanted and was always happy to give it to her - or was as happy as he ever could be. Because of this, the twins caused a good number of problems in their youth, some of which continues on.