caelum hargreeves, district two | finished

'You're not special.'

She tells herself that often — and so does her father.

But every kid has some story that fucked them over, that made them less than they were at the start; she tries to remind herself of that, too. 'I'm not special.' Because all careers have bled, and all girls have suffered

— and there has never been a daughter
who hasn't hated her dear ol' dad.

( He's always the first man
to strip away her self-worth. )

There will always be someone better than her, there will always be a boot against her throat — and she'll always stand up again. She'll wipe the blood from her mouth. That's what counts. She looks at the scars on her knuckles, the stains she can't wash away. It's pointless to let them heal. Ten fresh wounds for each bone.

Call it a blood sacrifice;

she'll bide her time

until the price has been paid.

That's what gets her through the day. The anger. People like to call her numb, a machine, but there is nothing in her not fueled by rage. By emotion. The fire never dies. She went up in flames years ago, and she still burns. All pain can become armor. Agony is just another kind of forge.

And there was a girl, once, who was gentle — and there was a sister who was loving, and a family that was whole. But memories are cruel, and children are stupid little fools, and they never see the shadows for what they really are. They only see shapes, never the faces. Not the real beasts. She didn't realize who she was supposed to fear until they broke her.

'All careers have bled.'

She's not special. Her father, like all fathers, expected the best from her. He did whatever he needed to achieve it. When a child is old enough to learn, they are old enough to know. That's the death of innocence. The knowledge. Because one day you learn the shadows are just the absence of light.

There comes a day you know

that your father and your sister

have always been the monsters in the dark.

He called it training. When he put his daughters in a room and told them to fight. And she believed him, on the first day, but never again. Not after Kaelor levelled her with a left hook, and she didn't get back up. Not when her father said she'd learn not to fall.

She will always know the punishments;
there are memories the fire cannot destroy.

And she will always remember groveling at her sister's feet, begging for mercy. 'Please let me win. Just this once.' Swollen eyes, a crooked nose. A fractured wrist and a pulled shoulder — because he made her hold a concrete slab over her head for six hours, for the six minutes it took Kaelor to defeat her. She begged like a child. Because she was one.

Kaelor did not yield. She did not invite the wrath of their father. And it wasn't fair, she knew, to ask her sister to reject his favor — but she was hurting, and she was afraid, and she still had her memories. The good ones. Before the shadows, before the monsters. When a big sister's job was to protect.

At the end of the day, all they could be asked to do was survive. They did. One by never failing, and the other by crawling out of each hole their father dug. There were moments she considered giving up, not learning her lesson. Even if it meant abandonment. Even if it meant disappearing.

But it was better to be close to her enemies; even if she had to bleed. Like all careers. That didn't make her special. She isn't. But she is resilient, and she is furious, and there is nothing more mighty than a girl who has crawled out from the belly of the beast and lived to tell the tale.

She has many stories — and she has many scars.

( That's the good thing about all the torture.

The more you learn about pain,

the more you know that you can survive.

And she will. She has. )