dahlia wolfsbane — district nine (fin)

She's got a serpentine heart - machiavellian and clandestine. Blood like cyanide, a velarium of hemlock and nightshade. A girl cradled by chaos. Umber fingertips coated in soil, so delicately plucking their vivid leaves. This was her garden of bones: oleander, snake root, and belladonna. 

This was her mother’s sport—the fine art of poison. But she was courted by death and the gentle rises of her chest as she breathed ceased. The poisons were her memories, her mother’s faint whispers and her mists of breath in the winter air.

Then there was ash and caskets of bone. Days were dark and nights were even darker. Houses shuddered and gunshots echoed like a clap of thunder. A war raged—streets became anarchy and these glass cities shattered under the pressure. Wayward sons arose with roars and painted the skies red. Raiding arms factories wasn't enough for these mavericks - soon they came knocking at her doorstep with proposals in hand. Protection for poison, it was a done deal before the final words left their lips.

But they could not deliver - a war against tyranny and tyranny had won, burying district thirteen with it. Their protection did not last, men dressed in ivory busting down doors and pulling rebels out of their crooked houses. Her name was synonymous with rebellion so it was only hours before she was behind metal bars. Disheveled midnight curls and puffy hazel eyes—it was a performance of a lifetime. Words flowed off her tongue, a cognet tale. The rebels had lied and they would pay with their lives for it.