lux bellisario | two | fin

She was born under a blood moon, but that’s not the most fucked up thing about her. Lux had read about blood moons when she was old enough to string words together on a page. She’d read about the days in which man would worship the ebbing and flowing of the tides and the rotations of the orbits. Blood moons were harbingers that signaled the beginning of the end of times. But that couldn’t be it. Her birth was no auspicious thing. Because she was the fourth rung in the Bellisario ladder, the fourth link in the chain.

And the strongest of all of them.

Maybe it was a sign of things to come.

Sure, Vanya was off doing whatever the fuck Capitolites did. Dye their hair and snort stimulants and model clothing for other wealthy, self-absorbed assholes, probably. And Lux, well she really couldn’t look down her nose on that. It was the fucking Capitol after all. And Vanya always brought her the best clothes. Especially that little number that was fashioned off of Ex Oh’s wedding dress to the trailer trash that is Stella Blakesley. Whatever, Stella did what she had to do. Lux sure as shit wouldn’t go back to District Twelve after winning the Games. No thanks, man.

Her name is Luxuria, Lux for short. And when Love gets in one of his moods, silver-tongued and itching for a fight, he calls her Luxuria, rolling his tongue around the R like a fucking idiot. She had to hand it to Emerson Le Roux—that dead blonde idiot could really sink her teeth into the silver prince. It’s a shame she died. The banter in the games between the two was absolutely delicious. It’s a pity, really, when shit like that happens.

Anyway, everything’s a fucking tradition in the Bellisario family. It’s family tradition, after all, to take that which you’ve been named and make it into something that’s your own. You earn your name, just like everything else is earned as a Bellisario. Birthdays are earned through formations and your prize once you’ve limped your way home, bloody and bruised and probably pissing red for a week, well, that’s a family secret. Appraisals are demanded throughout childhood and tests are used to measure worth, shaping and molding the clay of youth into forged steel, iridescent platinum, into diamonds.

Lux refused to shatter under the weight of it all. Sure, they were fucked up. They had to be to survive under Mom and Dad’s roof, but they were better for it. They were stronger, faster, quicker on their feet than the rest of the pampered Careers in District Two ever could be, pumped up with pride and steroids, their blood singing for fights that the Bellisarios would win time and time again.

Mom and Dad encouraged an outlet from all of the sin and sweat and carnage. Lux would sketch, her hands coated in charcoal. Her room is littered with white all around the walls, black shapes and lines tracing through the pages that are stitched together across all of them, constellations and lines tracking across the night sky. It wasn’t until Love saw what she was sketching—scenes of fights and blood spattering that he turned and said, “That’s pretty fucked up, Lux.”

“Hey, they encouraged my extracurriculars. Far be it from me to deny them that.” A shrug and a wink and Lux went back to reading the magazine that Vanya had left behind, some kind of gossip rag all about the Capitolites and their webs of corruption and sex. Love says nothing, turning out of her room like the fucking apparition that he is.

So, she was a little messed up, but weren’t they all? Diamonds form under pressure and even though the golden boy had shone the brightest, Lux was right behind him. It’s in her name after all. Lux, like Lucifer, the bringer of light. She was constantly nipping at his heels like a wolf, never far behind despite the three years between them.

He’d once caught her with a guy in his class, his head between her legs behind the gym, her mouth occupied by whatever the hell her name was, and just shook his head before grabbing the dude by the neck, tossing him against the wall and throwing just one punch before the guy hit the ground. Honestly, one punch? Lux should’ve known better and Love says as much before he kicks him in the balls. Which, was fine, but she was having fun. And Love didn’t have the monopoly on charm and charisma, after all. And well, why not have your share of fun when the options are presented to you? Existing in binaries and dualities is so ten years ago.

During one of the more fucked up Formations, Mom and Dad had dropped her by the lake that they would go to for Career Camp, a knapsack, a piece of bread, and a broken shard of glass as her only tools. She had killed a fox before the day was done, slitting his throat with the shard, the red staining the brilliant shine and dulling her reflection.

She’d found her way back four days later, tossing the skin of the fox on the front porch, blood on her face and around her mouth. She'd just turned twelve.

It’s almost too poetic to think of herself as that shard of glass, that piece of a mirrorball, showing you exactly what she wants you to see one second and then a totally different picture the next, but that’s what she had been taught after all. Never show your cards, always show them your teeth, and don’t you dare ever give away who you are and what the game is.

Her name’s Lux but she isn’t the light bringer. She's darkness and wrath, wrapped in a saccharine smile, her blue eyes turning to ice, her smile winter.

And she was whatever you wanted her to be, babe. That’s the best part of all of this. She’s light, refracted, bending and arcing, always changing.