roslyn vivuus | twelve | fin

You've always loved words. Well, that is, to say: you've always loved learning how things work, and words are a good way to do that. Often times, you fell asleep with dictionaries and thesaurus on your chest, lists of root words and definitions fallen to the floor in your slumber. You guess it just did a good job of reminding you that everything always came from some place, always went somewhere.

For instance, your surname, Vivuus. Most likely from the root, Vivus, meaning alive, or animated. Which is ironic, considering that your family owns a graveyard. Everything comes from somewhere, always went somewhere else in the end. Someone has to be the guiding hand, you suppose.

The thing is, your family isn't some kind of pillar of the community. They aren't even close. With roots that intertwine with the Mortuus family, there hasn't ever been a point in your life when your life wasn't plagued by dark secrets. Your parents closed the caskets of bodies that were missing pieces they were not supposed to be missing. Your parents demanded that all loved ones leave before they lowered the caskets into the ground. Your parents opened the caskets one more time, took anything precious that had been dropped within, and sold it for profit.

Between the Vivuus and Mortuus families, by the time a person got to rest, they were little more than bones picked bare and tossed into a wooden box. It was always sickening, despicable. But it ensured food on the table, and it only took a couple nights of not eating for you and your siblings to suddenly grow accustomed to it.

You were all lending a hand by the time you were old enough to haggle for a good price; sometimes you kept the prettiest jewelry for yourself. A wedding ring with a ruby stone inlaid among a circle of diamonds. You're sure they aren't real diamonds, but that's what you tell people when they ask. That, and that it's a family heirloom.

"Been in my family for generations," you say, holding it out over the lunch table for them to see in the light, "It was left to me instead of Sigrid or Terrance because I'm sensible."

That was your designated title. You all had one and you had to admit, yours wasn't your favorite. It carried with it a certain expectation, which you weren't a huge fan of. But perhaps the thing you hated most about it was that, ultimately, it was true.

Sensible. From the root sensus. Practical, functional.

It was a nice way of saying you don't have much of a life, and when you do have a life, you make sure you're home by bedtime and up early the next morning to make up for any chores you've missed out on. You do, though, wish to have more of a life. Being surrounded by death so often is such an unsettling thing to go through. But, as it happens, your parents consider you sensible and so when your brothers and your sister are nowhere to be found, that's okay. Because at least Roslyn is dependable.

Roslyn. From the root Rosalind. You'd think it meant something to do with floras, right? Wrong. Gentle horse was the original meaning. The beautiful rose meaning didn't come until much later. You wonder if people named Rosalind before that knew they were named gentle horse, or if they were blissfully unaware.

You've tried being ignorant, tried playing innocent, tried letting go of control and seeing what happens, but then there's only so much you can do with a dead man's watch in your back pocket. There's only so many questions you can feign indifference toward when people wonder how your parents can keep four children so well-fed with such a peculiar job in one of the poorest districts in the country.

You aren't, by any means, stupid enough to bite the hand that feeds you, but you also are entirely aware of the truth. So you're just going to do your thing, find a new pawn shop to sell a pretty necklace you claim you found on the sidewalk, and enjoy the comfortable life that has been afforded to you.