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 Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2013 11:31 pm
She hadn't tried hard enough to keep them together, but she can try hard enough for this. She is the best god damned thing her program has ever seen. Her instructor refuses to acknowledge it, but she knows it. She can do any routine on command with her eyes shut tight. She works the uneven bars and the mat and the bar and she works harder than anyone else, because it is all she knows. Her body is a tool, her body is a weapon, her body is a work of art. They mention olympics in hushed voices and she thrums with excitement, but that's not what she wants. She wants something more than just once every four years. She wants to fly every day, draped in red and glitter. She wants to be the star, and her dad just doesn't understand. Posters of the circus cover her walls, doodles cover her journal, she signs her homework with a chosen stage name. She has a dream and she refuses to let the shadows touch it. She has a dream, and it is within her grasp. Nothing in this world is freely given so she hatches a plan to take it. [ 2 / 16 - blessing of the great ]
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Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2013 11:36 pm
She looks up at the house with its dark windows and drawn blinds and she knows that it's almost empty inside. She's lived there nearly all her life but it hasn't been a home for almost as long. She rests her hand on the fence (white picket, of course, of course it is), fingers clenching tightly around the post. All she has is stuffed into the duffel bag slung over her shoulder: a couple hundred dollars and a fake ID, a few sets of clothes and her birth certificate, pilfered from the family files, a few days rations in the form of poptarts and granola. All she has is a decade of training and determination to succeed stronger than most people's will to live. "Goodbye, daddy," she says, and she's sixteen and running away from home in the Autumn of 2003. He will never hear from her again. [ 3 / 16 - blessing of the strong ]
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Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2013 11:38 pm
********* watched her mother. Serena had been sewing for hours, working on a shirt for *********'s father. The father she had never met. The father her mother had not told her anything about. The father that her mother obviously loved more than her, because why else would she completely ignore her filly? Finally, Serena finished the shirt. She had lovingly decorated it with complex embroidery. Thinking she had placed it out of reach of any inquisitive filly, she then went to catch some fish for supper.
As it turned out, that was a big mistake, because this time her filly was not inquisitive, she was vindictive. How dare her mother ignore her to work on something for someone she never knew? Angrily, ********* tore down the shirt and dashed off into the forest to shred it. That man did not deserve the shirt her mother had made, so she was going to destroy it.
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Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2013 11:42 pm
The circus raised her. She had been angry and young and nonetheless, they took her in under their wings, sheltering her from the outside world. Few of them had finished school and fewer of them cared. There were tattooed and pierced lizardmen and bearded ladies and animal trainers. There were fortune tellers and midway con artists. There were ticket sellers and the resident expert cotton candy spinner. She worked hard, training on the bars, catching and throwing others, flying through the air as the one needing to be caught. She grew from lean and angry into muscular and ferocious. She rarely smiled, the curl of shadows behind her at all times, and the exception was if she was flying. (In the air, she smiled from ear to ear, red hair fluttering where it wasn't pulled back, and she had never known anything better.) The exception was the day the Ringmaster had told her she'd earned her own act; she was all smiles for at least a week after that. [ 4 / 16 - blessing of the gifted ]
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Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2013 11:44 pm
Fayre felt arms around her, even as she faded away there on the gold pedestal. She never got to say goodbye. But he knew.
Didn't he?
Didn't he?
Didn't he?
---
"GET OUT OF THIS HOUSE WITH YOUR MUDDY SHOES RIGHT THIS--"
Shattering glass. So much glass. It was all over the floor, tiny little slivers just begging to slide under the skin of a bare foot, now wedged in the wood of the floor, waiting..
A dog barks, running through the room. Whimpering fills the air - it's found some of the glass in it's tiny paws, and it can't get them out, it writhes, it makes it all so much worse-
A giant man picks the dog up off the floor, bringing it into the other room. He settles it down, holding it still with one hand. He keeps it from wiggling away, and he calls for a pair of tweezers. The sight of blood makes her cry, revealing her hiding place. The muddy path her shoes had created when she hid under the couch after breaking the bowl gives her away. He's too busy with the tweezers, but when he's done, she's next..
She tries to pick the glass out of her hands while she waits.
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Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2013 11:45 pm
She's singing. She's singing, and it's so beautiful, it makes her feel beautiful to hear her own voice. She knows she is the best singer in the whole world. She hears someone crying in the other room - one of her sisters. She must be jealous of how beautiful her voice is. She sings louder.
She looks outside the window, and she holds out her hand to try and call a bird to it. Her song makes the bird fly, but instead of landing on her hand, it slams itself into the wall of their house. It falls - why would it do that - why -
Her voice made it want to die.
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Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2013 11:46 pm
For some reason, *********'s was much shallower than normal. It seemed as if the stream was not depositing as much water as before. Perplexed and apprehensive, ********* traveled up stream to find out what the issue was. One mile, nothing. Two miles, nothing. She was about to give up in searching for the problem when she found it. Three miles up stream, someone had decided to build a dam, depleting her home of its much needed water. She would have none of that. She temporarily switched to her human form, to loosen what ties on the dam that she could. Then, returning to her natural form, she planted herself firmly on the bottom of the stream next to the dam and kicked it with all of her might. She kicked it again and again, until finally it tore apart, freeing the water. ********* vowed that, if they ever tried that again, she'd destroy every dam they made.
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Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2013 11:46 pm
The paperwork is in her hands. It's the morning after; he's still there. He assures you you did not have sex. He plucks it from her hands with a crooked smile, the scar over his eye (clearly visible, now, in the weak light of a cloudy Denver morning) crinkles. "What's done is done, my dear," he says, smooth and predatory, and presses a hand to the small of her back, guiding her out. "It's time, now. I've been waiting quite long enough." He is conniving and a little bit skeevy, he is charming like a use car salesman with a deal that's too good to be true, he is handsome and none of it matters because he said there were others who could see like she could. She wasn't so alone in this world, after all. Her heart flutters at the thought. [ 5 / 16 - blessing of the hopeful ]
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Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2013 11:46 pm
Everyone is quiet. Something's gone wrong. Why won't they touch the baby? Why won't anyone touch the baby?! It's just a baby, it's beautiful and rare and nothing like her and her sisters. She's just a little thing herself, but she toddles forward, despite all the hushed no's and the demands for her to stop. She reaches in, she takes the tiny little black and white baby in her hands, and she's never seen anything so wonderful in her entire life. She never wants to let go. She loves her already, so much.
"She's beautiful, mama."
Her voice breaks the spell.
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Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2013 11:47 pm
She can do this, she tells herself. She's not too young. She's sick of seeing her sisters in the air. She knows --- is watching. Those tiny little blue and red eyes are watching her. She has to do this, because it's time. And she will.
Papa pushes her off the roof before she's ready. Her little, untrained wings flutter as they try to keep her up, and they do, they do-
And then they don't.
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Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2013 11:47 pm
Such a pretty little thing. She's heard that so many times by now, that she believes it with all of her heart. Such a pretty little thing. Just a kiss. Just a little longer. Don't leave me now, he says. I need you. I want you. If you go now, I'll die.
But they never die, do they?
She knows there are rumors. The word cocktease is a joke to her. It's nothing. It's a word men make up when they don't get what they want. And she never gives them everything they want. Only a taste. Just enough to want more. But she's determined to make sure they never get too far. That's reserved for him alone. And a wedding night. That's when all the insults will stop.
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Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2013 11:48 pm
She's dressed them all up in the same outfit in a row. It's absurd, how much mama loves to do this. Eight almost identical valkyrie sisters; blonde, blue eyed, white winged, full figured women. Most of them of marrying age, to their customs. And she's dressed them all up like dolls, in matching outfits -
--- bursts out laughing when she sees her last sister leave the house. She's wearing the same dress as all of them, but she's altered it. Her black and white skin is now matched by a black and white dress, somehow inked with something halfway right down the middle. She looks comical, and --- knows that was the point. Mama looks disappointed. Her sisters are furious. But ---, no, she's proud.
She's so proud.
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Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2013 11:49 pm
Nobody knows how much she loves jewelry. They don't have the kind of money to sate her desires. She's always scrimping and saving, picking out a piece so perfect she knows she has to make enough to get it - but secretly, she tries her hand at making some of her own. Little beads, stones, tiny things put together with string to make something that looks like it could be jewelry..
If you were blind.
She throws it away and tries again, picking out a tiny blue waterstone this time. It's too beautiful to ruin. She keeps it in her hand, letting it warm in her palm for a moment. When she opens her hand again, it's changed color. She's never seen a mood stone before; it's beautiful.
She glues it to a tiny hairclip, and wears it for a week straight, until the stone falls off. She never did find it.
But by then she'd seen a crystal necklace in the store...
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Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2013 11:50 pm
She can tell he still wants her. He's only just made the announcement, about how he's going to marry Sif. She looks so smug, holding his arm delicately with one hand. Her other sisters are fauning all over him - Fulla looks almost upset. Idunn and Eir are trying to get his attention, but she can feel his eyes burning into her. Even Sif knows it, but she's too proud to admit it. She's already making wedding plans, and all of her sisters now focus on the whirlwind of excitement a wedding brings.
But his eyes are still on her. He isn't even trying to hide it. She's moved on, and it shows in the way she stands tall, head held high even as he and Sif announce their wedding. She's moved on, and he's never wanted her more. His eyes are hungry, devouring her with a look.
And in the back of her mind, she knows he'll never want Sif as much as he wanted her.
And she likes that.
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Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2013 11:55 pm
Her mother was staring off into the distance again, with a look ********* knew well. She was thinking of *********'s father again. Why did she think of him so much? Why did she not think more about her own daughter? Huffing angrily, ********* knew that she would not be able to get her mother's attention for a while, that she would not be able to show her mother the embroidered celtic knot she had finally perfected.
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