the {blood} of the {dragon} south

on the first page of our story, the future seemed so bright
then this thing turned out so evil, i don’t know why i’m still surprised
even angels have their wicked schemes
and you take that to new extremes
but you’ll always be my hero even though you’ve lost your mind

When I was a little girl, maybe five years old, my mother and father bought me a magnificent golden harp. Taller than I was, even taller than Victor was at the time, it towered over both of us, resplendent in all its detailed glory, gleaming flowers and the figurehead of an angel taking flight. I used to think it was a gift from Heaven until I saw the little "Lightwood Music Co." stamped into the curve at the bottom. I almost cried, but Papa said I was still an angel, so I smiled instead. They hired a lady from across the District to teach me how to play it, and twice a week for a few years she was one of the select few people outside the Drake family who ever walked through our red door and intermingled with my life.

I don't remember her name, but my fingers will carry the memory of humming strings beneath them until the day I die.

The harp died along with everything else in the fire, the strings snapping from the heat and the gold dissolving into a pile of formless metallic shine. The only things Victor and I took to the community home were the clothes on our backs, my geckos, and whatever we managed to salvage from our parents' safety deposit boxes. Of all that original material wealth, the only things still left are the geckos. Balerion is perched on my shoulder as I fiddle around with my somewhat-sad creation, lips pursed in speculation.

Kendrick dropped by a few hours ago and tossed a handful of boxes of guitar strings on my desk. When I'd asked for them, he hadn't even asked me why, just assured me I'd have them by the end of the day. I smiled, and it felt real for once. Sometimes I feel like I could stay here with him at the bottom of the world and still manage to get by on smiles and the rare feeling of security. Now the metallic strings are scattered all over my bedspread, slowly being pulled by my careful fingers across a cobbled-together wooden frame. There are salvaged tuning pegs from a million different instruments set into it, about half of them strung already. It won't be as grand or beautiful as my first one, small enough to hold in my lap and with only a two-octave range, but a harp is a harp, and I feel a stupid sense of pride in making it from scratch. Halfway through trying to get a smaller string looped through one of the pegs, Balerion hisses on my shoulder, making me jump.

"Stop that," I chide, tapping him gently on top of the head with one finger, but he continues to glare at the empty doorway intently, a high-pitched, sound of wheezing fury blooming in his little throat. It's another few seconds before I hear the familiar footsteps in the hall. "Dammit!"

The pitch-black gecko hops down from his perch, curling up defensively on my bedspread as I scramble for the unassembled parts of my makeshift instrument. It's not that I think seeing it would make Victor mad, it's that I don't even know what will make Victor mad anymore. He could think that I've been holding back money to build it even though I've either salvaged or been gifted every single string and peg, could even come up with some delusional rage that no sister of his was going to sit around plucking at a ghetto-rigged picture frame. Safe is better than sorry (the bruises aching all-too-fresh along my torso remind me of exactly what sorry feels like). I have no desire to wake the Dragon today, so I hastily shove the half-finished harp and wad of strings under my threadbare bedspread, hastily picking Balerion back up and flopping down on the edge of my bed just as my brother slithers sidles into the doorway. "Dany, sweet sister. How are we?"

The door clicks shut softly behind him, but to my ears it sounds like cannon-fire, making me flinch against my will. In another time, I used to keep my eyes glued to the floor, praying for it to all just be over already and be left in peace. But now Kendrick's voice whispers in the back of my mind, a stalwart You gotta look people in the eyes, Dany. All this lookin' at the ground you do makes people think you're some kinda doormat. Don't let 'em walk all over you. You're better than that. But I'm not. I'm not the kind of better that he finds a way to see in me, because although I can be brave in the face of anything else, Victor finds a way to be the terrible exception. I'm not brave when my eyes meet his across the space between us. I'm not brave when I see how it would be impossible to slip around him and escape into the depths of the community home where there would be people watching and I would be safe. I'm not brave.

I'm terrified. But my eyes don't lower, if only because Kendrick thinks I'm better than that.

"Fine. Bored. You?" I manage to force out, my voice holding the smallest of tremors that match the ones shooting down my limbs. The futile urge to protect his Mother renewed, Balerion scrambles up my arm and back onto my shoulder, hissing in all his ten inches of righteous fury. Laughing in a deranged, nervous sort of way, I swat him on top of the head with my finger again. "Stop it, you! Sorry, Victor, he's been kind of cranky today. Took him out of the terrarium, thought maybe some fresh air would cheer him up."

A beat of silence. Two. He's not leaving, and if Victor comes into a room and isn't gone in under ten seconds, there's a big probability that there's either pain or psychological trauma in my near future. Making a concerted effort to not look at the spot in my blankets where the harp is buried, I repeat an endless reminder-mantra to hold his gaze, to look away is to submit within the confines of my head. With a stilted, mechanical sort of effort, I manage a plastic smile. "Is there something you needed?"

just gonna stand there and watch me burn
but that’s all right, because i like the way it hurts
just gonna stand there and hear me cry
but that’s all right, because i love the way you lie
i love the way you lie, oh, i love the way you lie