Rhea Dais // District 6

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born to be a queen

In most families, the cry of a female babe is one that is not hoped for. In a world ruled by men, beneath their boot, your family seems is out of place, set apart from the rest. For when a girl is born into your family, there is cause for celebration and trepedation. 

It has been the case for decades, that the eldest girl in your family would be the one to inherit the family fortune while boys are cast aside, almost forgotten about. When a girl is born, the boys grow jealous, for their hope for the crown becomes ever so more out of reach. And for the sisters? For every girl born marks another one who could attempt to dethrone the other. 

And the day you were bought into this world, your brothers and sister who came before you felt the blood drain from them when they heard your cry.

Because even then, they knew you would grow to be a force to be reckoned with. 

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beware the patient woman

You grew up knowing you were not to become the Queen of the railyard. You would watch your family fight for the crown your grandmother and grandmother before them had fought to weave, drenched in their blood, sweat and tears as they thought to get to the very top. Your sister Phoebe saw herself in your mothers shoes before her time had even come to take the throne, she saw herself above you and your siblings. She would pull your hair, push you to the ground, spit words of spite at you- 

she even held a knife to your throat when you were 9, threatening to slit your throat and watch you bleed out in the bath tub when you refused to listen to her demands

-despite the fact she had everything she could possibly wish for. For years you suffered at her hand and words- you could not turn to your mother in fear that Phoebe being reprimanded would in turn cause your downfall. 

For years, you let her do as she pleased. 

Until you had enough. 

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every blessing ignored becomes a curse

You fell in love with a man you had only just met. He was a supervisor at the Factory and you met him completing your rounds one afternoon when your sister was absent. You forgot your own name when he smiled at you, and he forgot his when you laughed at his joke. You knew in that moment you had found the man you wanted to be with for the rest of your life- your mother cautioned you that you should not be so rash, but also said things like this are rare and should be cherished.

You did not listen to her- you married him and you should have been gratful for him coming into your life but all you could think of was the crown and how it could be yours. 

And so slowly he drifted from you and in turn you drifted from him. 

It still broke your heart when he told you had been with another woman.

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a queen will always turn pain into power

For years you felt as if you would shatter. Almost three decades of words, posion, seeping into your skin, you felt weak. You had somehow survived being reaped, survived illness, those years where you first became a woman, a broken heart and survived a pregnancy and given birth to your first girl. But the day your sister went into labour while she was in your care  was the day it all changed. When your sister had first told you that she was with child, you'd felt sick to your stomach. You knew that it would be a defining moment in your life- which what it would go would be down to a trigger, a fine line, no way to predict which way it would go. 

And as her screams echoed through the house, you stared at the phone, hand pausing as you went to pick it up and call the factory to tell everyone to come home because the baby was coming before hanging up and calling the Doctor too. It only took a second for you to lower your hand and return to your sisters bed side; her labour was progressing quickly and you needed to be there for when the baby came into the world. 

And the next thing you knew you were craddling a babe in your arms, bloody and screaming, as it took its first breath. It was then your sister uttered those words which would cause your world to crumble. They were not like those before, they were not venomous or bladed edged, they were simple words, only three but they were enough to cross that line and make a decision that would change your fate.

"What is it?" 

You could not answer, you stared at the babe in your arms, her little cheeks puffing and red. She was the heir to your sisters throne, the wearer of your childrens crown- in that moment you decided you would not let it stand. Hurrying downstairs you wrapped the baby in a muslin cloth and hid it in the basket you'd brought with you before returning to your sister. At your sisters bedside, you found her moments away from birthing a second babe and for a fearful moment you worried that the second would be a girl too but were relieved when she then gave birth to a boy. It was not ideal, because regardless of whether he were boy or girl, he could still inherit that very crown you were now so very hungry for.

As you took the newborn boy in your amrs, you realised that fate seemed to play its cards in your favour- your sister was losing blood and a lot of it, very quickly. You knew you had to react quickly- else your sister would lose her life but you knew if you left now to dispose of the children in one way or another, that by the time you returned a call to the Doctors would come too late to save her. And so that is what you did. 

From the house you fled, the twins tucked into the handheld basket, keeping to the backstreets where no one would see you and moving as quickly as you could without waking the now sleeping children. You knew you could not kill them, they were only children. It was not their fault that they stood in your way- and so you went to a woman you knew, a woman named Leto, and you offered her to raise the children as her own in exchange for keeping quiet and a large sum of money evey month for the rest of her life. 

The woman agreed and took the twins from you, and you returned to the house where you sister lay, screaming, her sheets red with her own blood. You called the Doctor but by the time they arrived, you both knew it was too late. You lied, saying she hadn't given birth to the baby yet, that she just bled out onto the sheets and there was nothing you could do. They believed you -

only after you paid them further to keep quiet

- and so they put the unborn babies name down on the certificate too. 

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my skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel

You wore black twice in the next decade- once for your sister and then once for your mother. Your mothers death, unlike Phoebe's, took you by such surprise that it left you breathless. When you went to bed that night you were your mothers daughter, then by the tine the sun rose over District Six you wore the crown she had worn for almost 7 decades. And despite you having no hand in her death, the peacekeepers still questioned you. Something suspcious about your mothers death and all fingers pointed at you- you were afterall in line for the throne and not getting any younger.

They didn't go further than questioning- satisfied that your answers were truthful. At the funeral, you could feel everyones eyes on you and you hoped that they were looking to you for wisdom but you saw the hungry and dark look in their eyes and you had only ever seen those gazes in one place in your entire life-

- looking back at you in the mirror above the bathroom sink -

but as you watched your mothers coffin lower into the dark earth, you vowed three things. 

1) You would leave this Earth on your own terms with Death, by no one elses, 

2) You would rule your family with the iron fist your mother never had the heart to,

3) That they would remember your name- not just your family...

But the whole of District Six. 

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quotes by unknown, 'a little wicked' by valerie boussard, paulo coehlo, george rr martin, unknown