sunny le roux. one.

sunny le roux.

She knows why her father named her for the Sun. That it might have called Malachi's soul back to this world, a fourth attempt at birthing the next king of the rebels. Reincarnation was for fortune-tellers and religions now lost to the war, yet still John persisted. One more, he'd begged his lover. Just one more.

Sunny Le Roux was a rebel alright, just not in the way her father intended her to be.

No, Sunny wasn't there to throw herself at Peacekeepers and fight for the broken and damned. She was there for herself and only herself, running from the men in white instead of at them, brandishing her fists and words and eye-rolls rather than a sword or a gun. No crown on her head, no bravery, no bravado - but she had inherited shackles at her wrists unlocked more than once by a Keeper who needed the money. 

Throw her in the first games and she would have come out of it, not looking to the sky and begging her father to admit she was brave. In her eyes Malachi was a bit of a wet rag, all five minutes of footage that she'd bothered watching. Le Roux was a name buried in the history books or in the skulls of Peacekeepers by a bullet. They hibernated, emerged after a long winter and birthed children of summertime with gold hair and skin and hearts - though Sunny's heart was more copper than gold. No legacy but that of disappointment, whispers and shadows, Sunny became what Malachi's ashes had left behind.

In childhood she and her siblings had been trained the hardest of them all. Sweat, tears, blood - it was more than just the culture of One that drove their father rampant. It was his duty, he explained, to raise them fierce and unstoppable. A duty they would pass to their children, and their children's children, and so on and so forth until forever. Sunny had just rolled her eyes and longed to spend time with her cousins - she'd always liked Silk and Harper the most. Wit and pride and skill, they had it all, and Sunny wanted to be more than just lethal. She wanted to be clever, too -  just like her cousins.

In secret crevices of the Le Roux mansion and under the cover of hide-and-seek did they whisper and giggle at their bookish relatives, discussing reason and plans and what they'd do with their power were it up to them. Sunny had confessed to exploring the night and her older cousins never once chastised her, nor shamed her for having free-will. They encouraged her, told her to take her fate into her own hands, helped her explore her passions and desires.

But as she got older and the mirrors throughout the mansion began to look back at her, Sunny noticed that her hair wasn't as golden as she'd thought it was. Her skin held a summer's tan in the dead of winter. Eyes not brown, nor hazel, but green. Her nose was wider, chin rounder, lips fuller than those of her brothers and sisters. Different. The same, but different.

Holding Harper's hand the two would sneak into their uncle's encyclopedia rooms and the books taught her of recessive genes and dominant traits but naught of her father's unfaithfulness, of the siblings she had never seen before, of her roots past the likes of John and Malachi that had sowed in her head.

So she sat on her doubts and her differences, defying her father's wishes to train harder, longer, more often. She grew distant and uncaring, taking after Silk and deciding what she wanted to do with her inherited skills. At night she sneaked out of the mansion, old emergency exits now her tunnels to freedom, and met her matches in fists and somersaults.

It took time, and a few concussions, but she beat one of them eventually. And then two, and three, and four. After five she got arrested and for the first time in her life Sunny thought she was going to die -- but then John did what John did and made sure his family wasn't going to fall apart. 

She was scolded and banished to her room for a month, save only for school and training. But the thrill of the chase and the sound of coins in her father's pockets just drove her back to the streets and they cheered on her return, a long, deep bow with her arms spread wide and a shit-eating grin on her face. Sunny Le Roux could outrun Peacekeepers. Sunny Le Roux could outrun death. But Sunny Le Roux could not outrun her own doubts, growing with time and age - and she could not outrun the truth of what happened to Silk, nor her cousin's redemption.

Sunny loved two people in this world: Harper and Silk Le Roux. And when they had told her what had happened to the girl she loved so much she had shouted and hollered and punched a hole in the red-and-gold walls of her home. She cursed his name and screamed bloody murder, picked up a knife hidden in a floorboard, swore black and blue that she'd bleed him dry. It was only the grip of her father's hand clutched around her wrist and the promise that Silky had already done what she so desperately wanted to do that could stop her, sobbing on the floorboards of her bedroom in her father's arms.

After that, she learned not to trust anyone outside of the walls of the Le Roux home. Girls at school would whisper and laugh, crowd into the bathrooms and talk about Sunny and her fucking ugly face while she hid in the cubicles shaking with rage. After they'd finished gawping she would storm out at the last second, glancing at their reflections just long enough to look them in the eyes and snarl.

If she was to be ugly, fine. Let her be ugly. Disgusting. Right to the core. From then on she imagined slamming their heads so hard into the bathroom sink that porcelain white turned blood-nose red, but beating them in hand-to-hand combat at the training centre just had to suffice. Mistrust and deceit lay everywhere. It was up to Sunny to learn how to spot it before it was too late.

Peacekeepers turned up dead in their homes and fifteen year old girls would run home with black eyes and bruises fingers. Like father, like daughter, like cousin, like a Le Roux. Sunny of the light turned to the dark and now she conquers both day and night, night and day.

Malachi begged for mercy. So do the boys and girls of One.

"You belong to me now," she smiles as she twists her wrists, breaks their fingers, takes her destiny into her own hands and makes them scream.

They belong to the Sun.