myra / district 2.

You have always been a plague upon House Hastings, a plague composed of insolence, impetuousness, and privilege. An abrupt contrast from the pristine courtyards and opulent furnishings, the freshly manicured lawns and pompous residents of the estate you were meant to call home. A strong contradiction from your parents – one of the, if not the most powerful couple of Two – you were all bite and bark while they were revered in the District, beautiful and sophisticated and haughty. Everything you wanted to be, but always seemed to fall short. Because of your bladed tongue and affinity to snap at anyone who caused you a mere ounce of displeasure.

Still, it wasn't as though you were raised with arms wrapped around you in a tender embrace or gentle kisses placed upon your forehead. Avyndria and Rymir Hastings weren't the caring or the loving type. It was often said, had Ripred himself knocked on their front door, it was more likely than not that he would have been denied entrance upon arrival. After all, it was not kindness which had afforded them their little palace, but malice and greed, ambition and precocity. Their world was cut from glass, carved from marble, forged from greatness. No time for frivolities such as affection or consideration.

Imagine, then, their surprise when out came you. Their damned wailing babe, with warm, pink cheeks and big dark brows. Not fair-skinned or with eyes of green and hair of gold as was to be expected of another Hastings girl. Instead, you looked as if you had been hewn from the blaze of a wildfire, made of earth and metal and everything real, rather than stars and supernovas and everything celestial – angelic. It would be two years before your parents would achieve their divine intervention. In the form of a second daughter, prodigal and only merely dreamt of until her birth. Made of pure cane sugar and molasses, sweet as candy and the bane of your existence.

Who would want a child that did not look as if she kept company with the heavens? Who would want a child that looked like you and not Lyarra, or behaved like you instead of her? Certainly not your parents. To them, you were a nightmare. And she was the picture perfect dream made flesh. You as their first, their heir by blood, was a fate worse than a tarnishing rumor or an irrefutable scandal – worse than death. You weren't perfect like you needed to be. You did not fit in; you stuck out like not just a sore thumb, but an open wound. You were merely a daughter who needed someone to raise her, love her, and show her what it meant to survive in this world, but instead you were treated like something ugly and utterly miserable to look at. And that, you poor thing, was simply unacceptable from a Hastings.

Your mother always knew, though, as did most despite her best efforts to keep it quiet. To hide her darkest shame, she merely buried her head in the sand, so to speak. A bastard was never part of the plan, and by all accounts, you were already a blighted little thing. There was no need to add fuel to the fire of gossip. Let Two think what they want; you still carried the Hastings name regardless of the color of your hair and shade of your eyes. You were talented, to say the least. Excellent in every possible way, exceeding expectations left and right, but you had long ago learned the faults of your parents and, even without your proclivity for books and cleverness, you knew this: a bastard is still a bastard. The label which had once been your curse, had been a large cross for her to bear, will soon become the key to your freedom.

Your parents can put all their eggs in one basket if they wish, put all their stock into your younger sister's perfection, but it will be you who carves a new legacy. With no expectations comes the absence of pressure, the vacancy of burden. There's just you, and what you make of the hand you've been dealt. You'll be the bastard, sure. For now. Let them live in blissful ignorance. It'll make the day you tear it all down that much more satisfying.