shiera, district one | finished

She's got honey in her mouth, poison on her tongue, and her heart is hungry — not cruel. A bastard of humble beginnings, she made a vow to become everything but a reflection of her deceased mother. Family friends spoke of a fair face that once conquered many suitors, but all Shiera remembers having seen is something withered and sad; and it's such a tragedy when a storm quells itself for the sake of a man. Child of a tombstone without a name, Shiera's is spoken of in whispers. Legs wrapped around a torso and hands clutching a throat, there's grace in her form of thievery. Innocence and breath, it's all an empty space, but it's hers to claim.

There's a thrill in completing the legacy her mother failed to maintain. She stays long enough to bring madness, lips making promises down the length of a jawline, but she always leaves. 'I am not ruined,' she hisses, white lace and diamonds taking the place of a vulgar and overly greedy gold. 'I am ruination.' Aegor hadn't been the first, and Brynden won't be the last, but she loves them all in her own way. Her glass menagerie of broken men. And maybe they could make her happy, but she keeps seeing a corpse in her mirror. Her mother had been smiling in her casket.

So in the mornings when the sun is pale and Shiera has her head resting on a chest, she touches her face to check for a grin. If she falls in love, that's when she knows it's time to go. Her magic is a blood sacrifice. But she'll never fall through the looking glass. Raven's Teeth is as much her home as the Golden Pack once was; her words as sharp as the blades and whips she trains with. She'll stay until a better option appears. Somewhere else, or back to the start. Damon's a beast she's not opposed to taming. If he ever builds himself up from the devastation she helped to bring upon him, that is. It's in her nature to go where the most power is available.

What is a girl?
She's a wildfire.

---

Aphrodite raises her — but it's Athena who trains her; kisses her lips and shows her what it means to have a silver tongue. A blizzard lives in her bones, ivory skin stretched over a war-zone, but her face is a garden. No one ever sees the death when they go to pay their respects at a cemetery. Just polished stones and white roses. You see a serpent's scales before its fangs are flashed, so who is at fault when the poison sets in? The beast for sating its hunger, or the mortal for being a fool? There is no order in this world.

She's learned to make her own — paints her lips and cheeks and she's the closest thing this district has to a true warrior. Not all destruction is brought by a blade. What sword could launch a thousand ships? Call her Helen; she'll call you 'baby.' And it's okay to love her, she'll hold you to her chest and stroke your hair, whispering sweet nothings into your ear and claiming that you're her king. Just a regent, true, but better to sit at the queen's feet than to never be near her throne at all. It's in her blood, surely. To be such a cruel and starving thing.

Her mother had been just the same, but much too innocent. She dried up when all her lovers sucked the life out of her, and then they tossed her away and went to find something sweeter. More alive. She tries not to think about that ghost, about a father who left before she could make her entrance, and it's okay. All of the tragedy. She doesn't care. The path she follows has been worn to the bone, but she's wearing a sharper pair of heels. No one's going to take her power away — but she'll be a thief.

And, more than that, she'll make empires crumble while building a fortress of her own. It's nothing personal; Aegor had been handsome and gentle and she enjoyed the feel of his heart in her hands, but he had nothing left to offer her. Not as much as Brynden could, regardless. Just look how loyal he is. Losing an eye just to win her favor? How enticing. She wonders how much else he's willing to give her. A dynasty, it seems, but even she had played a hand in the Darkfires' destruction. She's ready to scheme, to look to the future and to file her nails. Brynden's temporary, all of them are, but she isn't.

When nothing is left but ash,
she'll be the ruler of it;
and she'll come to her coronation
wearing a dress of black satin.

Let gold melt.