Rain And Flames
The Before
I opened my eyes to the glow of the fireplace. Voices swirl around the room like the scent of pine, raising and pitching in the dim firelight that warms my toes. My parents aren't happy, they are fearful. The smell of that fear is almost over bearing. They didn’t know about this, but I did.
I felt it.
I knew that even though I was born first that something was wrong, My sisters were born and their training was very different. For some reason I was the spare and they the heir to this dark and desperate community….I was taught how to be an assassin, and then assassinate myself.
“She is too weak to continue here anyway, a pact was made and must be followed.” I listen as my grandmother pushes her chair back and makes her way to me, her hand curls into my hair and spins my chair away from the flames to look at all the people at the table. She doesn't harm me, my mother would not allow it. The light of the fire embedded in the creases of her face cast horrific shadows on her worn scowl. This makes her look terrifying even without the ice like blue eyes staring down at my throat. She snaps her fingers as I lose myself in thought again.
“Honestly, we couldn't have been luckier that the first born daughter of this clan has nothing special to want for ourselves. You have a spare and an heir, you don't need Soraya and you can't break the contract set all those years ago." She pulls me by the hair to stand in front of a window. My eyes glow like the moon, hiding the freshly spilled honey color they normally are. For a moment my inner voice studies the features of my face and rumbles in approval as if it knows something is about to happen.
"She is special, she isn't like other females." My mother whispers softly in defeat. Her obsessions with the piece of me that I am missing have always upset me, we both look at her as gooseflesh raises uneasily. My mother would damn me to stay here and be abused my whole life rather than complete the task that my cold grandmother so lovingly bestowed on my infant soul. I pull away from my grandmother's claws like grasp and move to stand by the fire once again. The heat barely penetrates the jeans i am wearing, it can't possibly warm me up inside as my whole world has been cold. I hear the breath leave my fathers lungs, causing me to turn and watch him touch the scars along his hairline. I pause to witness the strongest man we have known… break. He has given up so much for the war and now he must give up his oldest daughter to the enemy.
"Think of the other kids....we aren't sure if they are right yet." By other kids, he means his other kids. My grandmother convinced him that after two daughters he should have a mistress in case the mutation in me was because of my mother. My full sister holds her breath at the top of the stairs. She will run for the first time this evening and I will not be able to join her. My half sister, sharing Quartz birthday, Vitani, chuckles. The floor above us creaks with the children trying to eavesdrop on the conversation. They desperately worry if they too will be sold off. My mother stares him down with cold eyes and throws her chair back, causing the creaks to rumble as the children panic. This time I move so that I am in the middle of everyone. As I go to open my mouth, pain shoots through my head and my mother grabs my hands. I look at them and watch the nails smooth back out to the pink color they were before. She looks into my eyes and her guard slips for just a moment, long enough to tell me that she is sure I will die. In my heart I always knew that when I turned 20 that they would find a way to get rid of me, but until tonight I had held hope. I wouldn’t show that this had defeated me tho, I would meet this fate with a smile.
"I will get the Kiiya' sizini ...They will be here momentarily." My grandmother whistles, she knows that she has won. My grandfather says nothing as he and my father leave. They have already come to terms with what was going to happen and closed themselves off. My mother however was going to hold on for as long as she could.
"Promise me that you will be smart, and cunning, that you will DESTROY them from the inside." She gripped my hands hard. I nodded slowly and pushed her hands away. She sighed and threaded her fingers together in front of her. I imagined if she had furry ears they would be back in shame, as this was not how she was supposed to act. "You are special no matter what anyone says, okay? Bring honor to your people, you are a princess." I scoff and walk away, kneeling in front of the fire so it burns everyone off me. My mothers breathing continued behind me until there was a slight knock on the door.
We won't cry.
The door opens and sadness fills the room as the Kiiya' sizini enter. I cringe inwardly as they begin to pull at my clothes and hair. I clench my teeth as my heart begins to ache. I try to close my eyes at the pity that I hold for them. A rustle to my left, my grandmother comes into my peripheral vision, slowly and teasingly.
"You are...." She pauses and then smiles to herself. "A wavelength, my dear. One minute you are nothing more than a helpless child, and then you surprise us with your wise womanly manners. You have brought a weakness to our community and my son's bloodline and therefore must be passed on to the next. This is the last honor that you can provide for your parents." Her dress drags along the floor in front of me as she inspects the girls work on my hair.
"Then it is this community's loss, Grandmother." I whispered and met her eyes. She blinked and then regained her composure before smiling again.
"Your tongue gets you beaten here, it will get you killed there. At least pretend that you are normal." She left then, no longer feeling up to tormenting me. I bite my tongue to hold back the tears and heartache from the hatred I have felt all my life. Nobody ever loved me, cared for me, or cherished me...and yet they want me to make this terrifying sacrifice. They want me to infiltrate the enemy, make them weak...but I want to destroy this community. I feel the beast under my skin pulsate, but I push her down. I need to control the urges now more than any. If they were to find out that I have a weakness....i may be killed.
"For what it's worth, I don't think that you are weak." someone whispers. I look at the girl in front of me as she mixes makeup. She smiles shyly as she meets my eyes and then looks away respectfully. I remember her light brown hair and soft expression, she only became Kiiya' sizini a week ago. She was incredibly beautiful, all the men were enamored with her. I remember the smell she gave off that day and I knew that because she did not come from money, or power how she would end up. I then remember her trying to defend herself against my father only to get marked on her cheek instead of her stomach.
“It is hard to believe that you have it bad when I know what my clan does to you…” I said. She laid a dress infront of me. It was not a dress from here, no one would be allowed to wear such a dress, not even my sisters. It was shaped and revealing, but black in color. I knew now that the plan was to make me irresistible. Marie of Silence wanted me to kill the man tonight. I let them put the dress over my head and slide it down my body, naked is how I felt on the outside, but in the reflection of the windows my eyes burned into my skin. My chest rumbled in approval, making the girls wince. My primal side. Predator. Carnivore. ME.
“Is it true that you don’t have a separate conscience?” The girl asked, seemingly unfazed by my outburst of energy. I chuffed. There was something about this girl that made it feel warm in the room again, like my life wasn’t changing.
“Yes…to an extent. I don’t think the same as the rest of the clan, I never met my other soul because there isn’t one…she is me, and I am she. What is your name?” I asked, the girl was suddenly shy. I smiled gently.
“It's Mia.”
I felt it.
I knew that even though I was born first that something was wrong, My sisters were born and their training was very different. For some reason I was the spare and they the heir to this dark and desperate community….I was taught how to be an assassin, and then assassinate myself.
“She is too weak to continue here anyway, a pact was made and must be followed.” I listen as my grandmother pushes her chair back and makes her way to me, her hand curls into my hair and spins my chair away from the flames to look at all the people at the table. She doesn't harm me, my mother would not allow it. The light of the fire embedded in the creases of her face cast horrific shadows on her worn scowl. This makes her look terrifying even without the ice like blue eyes staring down at my throat. She snaps her fingers as I lose myself in thought again.
“Honestly, we couldn't have been luckier that the first born daughter of this clan has nothing special to want for ourselves. You have a spare and an heir, you don't need Soraya and you can't break the contract set all those years ago." She pulls me by the hair to stand in front of a window. My eyes glow like the moon, hiding the freshly spilled honey color they normally are. For a moment my inner voice studies the features of my face and rumbles in approval as if it knows something is about to happen.
"She is special, she isn't like other females." My mother whispers softly in defeat. Her obsessions with the piece of me that I am missing have always upset me, we both look at her as gooseflesh raises uneasily. My mother would damn me to stay here and be abused my whole life rather than complete the task that my cold grandmother so lovingly bestowed on my infant soul. I pull away from my grandmother's claws like grasp and move to stand by the fire once again. The heat barely penetrates the jeans i am wearing, it can't possibly warm me up inside as my whole world has been cold. I hear the breath leave my fathers lungs, causing me to turn and watch him touch the scars along his hairline. I pause to witness the strongest man we have known… break. He has given up so much for the war and now he must give up his oldest daughter to the enemy.
"Think of the other kids....we aren't sure if they are right yet." By other kids, he means his other kids. My grandmother convinced him that after two daughters he should have a mistress in case the mutation in me was because of my mother. My full sister holds her breath at the top of the stairs. She will run for the first time this evening and I will not be able to join her. My half sister, sharing Quartz birthday, Vitani, chuckles. The floor above us creaks with the children trying to eavesdrop on the conversation. They desperately worry if they too will be sold off. My mother stares him down with cold eyes and throws her chair back, causing the creaks to rumble as the children panic. This time I move so that I am in the middle of everyone. As I go to open my mouth, pain shoots through my head and my mother grabs my hands. I look at them and watch the nails smooth back out to the pink color they were before. She looks into my eyes and her guard slips for just a moment, long enough to tell me that she is sure I will die. In my heart I always knew that when I turned 20 that they would find a way to get rid of me, but until tonight I had held hope. I wouldn’t show that this had defeated me tho, I would meet this fate with a smile.
"I will get the Kiiya' sizini ...They will be here momentarily." My grandmother whistles, she knows that she has won. My grandfather says nothing as he and my father leave. They have already come to terms with what was going to happen and closed themselves off. My mother however was going to hold on for as long as she could.
"Promise me that you will be smart, and cunning, that you will DESTROY them from the inside." She gripped my hands hard. I nodded slowly and pushed her hands away. She sighed and threaded her fingers together in front of her. I imagined if she had furry ears they would be back in shame, as this was not how she was supposed to act. "You are special no matter what anyone says, okay? Bring honor to your people, you are a princess." I scoff and walk away, kneeling in front of the fire so it burns everyone off me. My mothers breathing continued behind me until there was a slight knock on the door.
We won't cry.
The door opens and sadness fills the room as the Kiiya' sizini enter. I cringe inwardly as they begin to pull at my clothes and hair. I clench my teeth as my heart begins to ache. I try to close my eyes at the pity that I hold for them. A rustle to my left, my grandmother comes into my peripheral vision, slowly and teasingly.
"You are...." She pauses and then smiles to herself. "A wavelength, my dear. One minute you are nothing more than a helpless child, and then you surprise us with your wise womanly manners. You have brought a weakness to our community and my son's bloodline and therefore must be passed on to the next. This is the last honor that you can provide for your parents." Her dress drags along the floor in front of me as she inspects the girls work on my hair.
"Then it is this community's loss, Grandmother." I whispered and met her eyes. She blinked and then regained her composure before smiling again.
"Your tongue gets you beaten here, it will get you killed there. At least pretend that you are normal." She left then, no longer feeling up to tormenting me. I bite my tongue to hold back the tears and heartache from the hatred I have felt all my life. Nobody ever loved me, cared for me, or cherished me...and yet they want me to make this terrifying sacrifice. They want me to infiltrate the enemy, make them weak...but I want to destroy this community. I feel the beast under my skin pulsate, but I push her down. I need to control the urges now more than any. If they were to find out that I have a weakness....i may be killed.
"For what it's worth, I don't think that you are weak." someone whispers. I look at the girl in front of me as she mixes makeup. She smiles shyly as she meets my eyes and then looks away respectfully. I remember her light brown hair and soft expression, she only became Kiiya' sizini a week ago. She was incredibly beautiful, all the men were enamored with her. I remember the smell she gave off that day and I knew that because she did not come from money, or power how she would end up. I then remember her trying to defend herself against my father only to get marked on her cheek instead of her stomach.
“It is hard to believe that you have it bad when I know what my clan does to you…” I said. She laid a dress infront of me. It was not a dress from here, no one would be allowed to wear such a dress, not even my sisters. It was shaped and revealing, but black in color. I knew now that the plan was to make me irresistible. Marie of Silence wanted me to kill the man tonight. I let them put the dress over my head and slide it down my body, naked is how I felt on the outside, but in the reflection of the windows my eyes burned into my skin. My chest rumbled in approval, making the girls wince. My primal side. Predator. Carnivore. ME.
“Is it true that you don’t have a separate conscience?” The girl asked, seemingly unfazed by my outburst of energy. I chuffed. There was something about this girl that made it feel warm in the room again, like my life wasn’t changing.
“Yes…to an extent. I don’t think the same as the rest of the clan, I never met my other soul because there isn’t one…she is me, and I am she. What is your name?” I asked, the girl was suddenly shy. I smiled gently.
“It's Mia.”