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⠀ SELENE ⠀
There was this perception amongst the nobility at Cogworks that anyone born to Voxthain was better off than all those from Asterath, like poverty was constrained to the caverns beneath their sparkling city. Selene knew firsthand that this was not true. Cave runoff, they called her. Coal stained worm. If only they knew she was one of theirs, if only they knew she was just as rejected by the free-spirited Asterath kids as she was by them. If only they knew the state of the lower city–trash in the streets, people sitting on every street corner begging for scraps, families squeezed into too-small apartments with paper thin walls. But no, they were too preoccupied with their sparkling manors and endless palaces to ever think about those living in squalor in the city their families were supposed to protect. They could never imagine how their perfect little families created the situation Selene had to live with.
Selene hated the nobility.
That day, Selene had been feeling that ever-present hatred more than usual. It pooled deep into her stomach, turned her veins molten, boiled up into her throat. She had arrived at Cogworks that morning to find her desk scribbled with obscenities and her textbooks missing from her locker. Her homework for Astronomy had been tucked into her notes in her locker to turn in that morning, and she’d had to search the grounds around the building for her things for the hour leading up to the start of classes, covering her already frayed clothes with mud. As if they needed more ammunition to hit her with. All of her things had been torn to shreds and scattered around a pond near the school, the homework assignment unrecognizable. Great.
As Selene picked up the last of her things, the last bell rang from Cogworks, signalling the start of classes. She raced back towards the building, seething with rage. If she were younger, she would have been heartbroken and blubbering, but the nobility would get no more of her tears. She was twelve years old and already hardened by the constant bullying from her peers. As she entered the school, she shouted an apology to the staff for her tardiness and raced down the halls to her homeroom. Unluckily for her, she was in Pearl, making Astronomy her first class of the day. Not only was she late, but she no longer had her homework to turn in. Ms. Krulla already didn’t like her, seeing her asocial tendencies as a character flaw instead of a result of her classmates’ torment.
Whatever. She didn’t need Ms. Krulla. She didn’t need anyone. Missing one assignment wouldn’t tank her class rank, even if she hated herself for not taking better care of her things. She should have seen this coming. Even though the nobles had done this, Selene couldn’t help but blame herself.
The day continued on its downward track from there. Oliver and Esmeralda had snickered at the dirt under nails, clearly behind the textbook stunt, and Galian Ellington of all people had tripped her in the hall between classes, having the gall to spit on her while she was down, kicking her fallen books further from her. Selene wanted to burn the school to the ground, wanted to scream and pull out her hair and hit something. But instead, she remained impassive. She was a statue, more stone than flesh and blood. They couldn’t hurt her, couldn’t get any satisfaction from seeing how their words and actions continued to tear her down after all these years. They were nothing to her, just how she was nothing to them.
On her way to lunch, Selene finally put together why there had been a target on her back all day. Class rank had been posted, and her classmates were outraged to see the ratty, malnourished trash girl at the top of the list. Selene felt a twisted satisfaction seeing her name above all of theirs. With all of their privilege and power, not a single Delacroix, Seavey, or Calico could knock her off of her throne. Each of the other grade levels was topped by a noble: Esmeralda and all of her cunning put a Calico at the top of her grade, and Katarina was unsurprisingly at the top of the grade below that, showing off Hayden might. But the twelve-year-olds were led by a nobody from the poorest corner of Voxthain. She had crawled her way to the top, had poured blood, sweat and tears into her studies. It felt good to see just how much it impacted them to be stuck beneath her in ways they could never control. It didn’t make her day good by any means, but it brightened her mood considerably.
There was a spring in her step as she made her way to the lunch hall, a smile almost grazing the corners of her mouth. Her head was held higher than usual, and for once she felt like all of her hard work was paying off. But this was a day sent from the deepest pits of eternal suffering, any momentary joy forcefully crushed the instant she felt it.
A group of the worst of the nobles were waiting for her outside of the cafeteria, like a pride of lions licking their chops as a tasty gazelle approached, unaware of the danger before it. Their eyes were vicious and cruel, as if they could sense the change in Selene’s demeanor and wanted to crush it. Selene’s steps stuttered as she noticed them, but they were blocking the sole entrance to the room, and she would need to pass them if she wanted to eat. Her stomach gnawed at her angrily, urging her forward for the first and likely only meal of her day even as all survival instincts told her to run.
“Not so fast, Altan,” one of them tutted at her, stopping her in her tracks with a hand gripped around her forearm like a vice. Reginald Ellington, the cruel older brother of the weasley little Ellington that had tripped her earlier and one of her cruelest bullies. “We have things to discuss.”
“I don’t have anything to say to you. Let me go.” Selene’s voice was icy fury. She didn’t even look at him as she spoke, eyes trained forward at the meal she was slowly realizing she would not eat.
“She thinks she gets a say in how this will go!” A different voice spoke up, female, hidden within the group where Selene couldn’t identify her. Several of them laughed, as if she were an animal they were handling instead of a full person.
Reginald’s grip tightened, and a familiar burn pulsed in her arm. There would be finger-shaped bruises in her arm for days. Another noble grabbed Selene’s other arm, this one an older boy she didn’t recognize. There were too many of them for Selene to slip away. She was weak from a lifetime of malnourishment and didn’t hold enough magic to force them away. Fear tingled in her fingers. They could do whatever they wanted to her and she would be powerless to stop them.
Could she scream, get the attention of a teacher? Selene’s throat was swollen shut with panic, but even as she tried to open her mouth, she found that she was frozen in place. They were using magic on her. In all of her years of bullying, there was one line that the nobles had never dared to cross. Magic was volatile, untamed, potentially lethal, and while they did not care for Selene’s safety, they knew the consequences for getting caught using magic against another student would be severe. It seemed they no longer cared, and that scared Selene more than anything.
“Here’s how this is going to go,” Reginald hissed in her ear as the nobles dragged her towards the bathrooms. “You’re going to apologize for thinking you could ever be of note in this world and grovel for forgiveness. And then maybe we will let you go back to your pathetic little life. But you will never ever have your name on that list again.”
Magic kept Selene from responding, but if she could, she was sure her words would have done nothing but make her situation worse. Fuck them. Who did they think they were? They weren’t better than her. They didn’t deserve accolades just because they were born with a silver spoon in their mouths. She had worked her ass off for this. She had earned this, and they could rip that number one spot out of her cold, dead hands.
Maybe they would, she realized as they stopped in a secluded corner at the entrance to the bathroom. They could do anything to her and it was unlikely that anyone would stumble upon them until after the lunch hour ended.
“Not going to say anything?” It was a new voice, another Selene didn’t recognize. She couldn’t even turn her head to look at her new oppressor.
“She can’t,” another spoke up, voice proud and full of mirth. “She’s frozen in place.”
“Wait, so how is she supposed to grovel if she can’t move?”
“Lantas, shut up, Eddie. We’re going to have some fun with her first.” The last voice she could see, Reginald front and center in her field of view. “Mel, at least let her control her face. I want to watch her cry.”
Feeling returned to Selene’s face and she blinked rapidly, realizing just how dry her eyes had been after minutes of not blinking. After years of torment, Selene was a master at remaining impassive in the face of adversity. She would die before giving them the satisfaction they yearned for. They could hurt her, they could break her bones and bleed her dry, but they could not touch the girl she hid deep inside her fleshy prison. Her vocal cords were still locked away where she couldn’t reach them, but she could move her mouth and tongue to form the shape of the words she couldn’t speak.
Fuck you, Selene mouthed, now staring daggers into Reginald’s eyes.
Rage flared in his eyes, and he backhanded her across the face with a resounding clap. The force of the blow bit into her neck even as her head remained still and statuesque. Blood pooled inside her mouth where her cheek had cut into her teeth and Selene spat it at Reginald, staining his pristine clothes with her filthy commoner blood. One of the nobles beyond her vision gasped in horror as if Selene had just kicked a puppy. As if she were the one doing something wrong.
“Oh, you’re in for it now.” A female voice spoke up, the same one from earlier. “You show her, Reggie.”
Fire sparked at Reginald’s fingertips, matching the burning rage in his eyes. He pulled her left arm up from where it was hanging limp at her side and positioned it within her field of view. It seemed that while her flesh was stone to her, it was pliable to all of the others, open for positioning like a doll. As Reginald moved his flaming fingers closer to her arm, heat licked at her skin, singeing away the hairs on her arm. He slid his finger down her arm, his touch leaving a scorching trail of blistering skin. Once, when Selene was young, she had tried to help her dad with dinner by taking a pan out of the oven when the timer went off and he was busy in the other room. In her naivete, she hadn’t thought to grab a rag or oven mitt. The pain she felt in that moment–the burn in her fingertips, the rush of heat, the jolt to her brain telling her to drop and scream–had been the worst pain of her life. That is, until now.
If Selene had access to her vocal cords, she didn’t think she would have been able to stop the scream that rumbled deep in her chest. Everything in her bucked against the control. She was sweating with effort, pulling at every muscle, teeth gritted in frustration and rage and pain. Nothing. She didn’t move an inch. Whoever had hold of her body was too strong, too powerful. She was stuck, a doll helpless to fight against the violence she was faced with. And the realization scared her.
Reginald traced a second line of fire after the first, then another and another. Selene squeezed her eyes shut against the onslaught of pain, fire lacing through her arm. She could feel the flames rubbing against her bone, scorching her veins. The magic of it stuck against her skin, the pain lingering. It was endless and over in moments, Reginald leaning back on his heels with a satisfied smirk smeared across his face. Selene’s breathing was labored, huffed breaths that couldn’t fill her frozen lungs. It was a fight to keep her forehead smooth, her lips still and unpursed. They couldn’t know, they wouldn’t see how much this hurt her. There would be no satisfaction for them if she could help it.
“How is that feeling? A little warm for you?” His voice was so smug that it made bile rise in Selene’s throat. “No, it looks like you haven’t had enough yet.”
A girl giggled from the back of the group as Reginald wrapped his hand around Selene’s wrist, flames flickering to life against her skin. Her eyes widened in shock and pain, mouth widening in a silent scream. It was too much, too hot hot hot hothothothothothot. All control she had held vanished in that instant, her face scrunching in agony. Another kid laughed. Someone poked her in the cheek and she barely felt it. All nerve endings in her body were focused on her wrist, the rest of her body fading to the background.
How much time passed with his hand held against her? Long enough that the crowd around her grew restless and bored. They shuffled their feet and whispered to each other, barely concealed yawns hidden behind open hands. Selene’s eyes flitted between each of them, silently begging them to save her from her eternal torment, to release her from the prison she was trapped in. Not a single pair of eyes met hers with pity, much less compassion. She lost herself to the pain, crawling into the recesses of her mind for any relief.
“When can I have a turn with her? This is so dull. You promised we would all have our turn with her.”
What? Selene’s eyes snapped open, searching for who had said that. They’re here to take turns torturing me? No. No no no no, please no, I can’t do this. I can’t.
Reginald finally released her from his flaming grasp, and it was like she was doused with water. Relief loosened her bones and unclenched her teeth, that roaring, screaming agony replaced by a dull thudding ache. “Fine, fine, Foxie, you can have your turn if you really want it.” Reginald stepped back, allowing a new presence to take his place. He whispered one final cruel “Good luck, Altan.” in her ear before slithering away into the crowd.
The new girl was not someone Selene recognized by sight or name. She had perfectly wound black curls and deep brown eyes hidden behind long eyelashes. She would have been pretty, if not for the cruelty in her smile and the absence of life in her eyes. That look in her eye scared her more than the rage that had been painted across Reginald’s frame. While he had been fairly easy for Selene to read, Foxie was a blank canvas. She had no way to prepare herself for what was to come.
“So, Selene Altan, what are you afraid of?” As Foxie spoke, the whites of her eyes filled with black, the deep nothing slowly overtaking her irises. Her words were accentuated by a thick black smoke that curled from her lips poking into Selene’s nose and mouth. The smoke choked her, forced her body to convulse against her invisible restraints. It seeped into her very being, rifled through her thoughts, extracting her worst fears to return to its master. Foxy breathed her smoke back in, her smile growing wider. “Ahh. Delicious. Inadequacy, dying alone, poverty, blah blah blah. Oh, this one is fun! Not a fan of shadows in the dark, are we?”
Humiliated beyond belief and terrified of what Foxie would do to her, Selene struggled even harder against the hold on her mind. The iron walls keeping her in place still weren’t budging, but she could feel cracks forming in the foundation. There was a heft to her chest that had been absent, and she could almost feel movement in her toes. Just a little longer, she just had to endure a little more and she would be free.
Before she could feel hope, Selene’s vision blacked out. This time, she knew that her eyes were still open, blinking wildly against the wrongness of the dark. The longer she was trapped there, the more she felt that the darkness was less encompassing. Was that a figure–no. But–there it was again, movement against the curtain of black. Another shadow flitted across her vision, then another and another. They circled her, drawing closer and closer. From beyond where she could see, someone stroked Selene’s cheek. Everything in her tried to flinch away from the touch but she was still, just as statuesque as ever. Another hand pulled at her hair, a third poking her leg. Hands poked and prodded at her, grabbing at her from beyond her vision.
It was too much. Selene could feel her mind fracturing. Tears welled up in her throat and pressed against the back of her eyes. Crying was weakness and failure, but she could only take so much. For how much of a fighter Selene tried to be, she was still a twelve year old girl.
Footsteps clacked down the hall, pulling Foxie’s attention away from her enough that Selene regained her vision. The nobles were swarming around her, scratching her skin with their nails, yanking at her hair, ripping at the holes in her clothes. The cracks in the iron will holding her in place widened, allowing Selene to jerk her head to the side towards the sound. There was a girl walking down the hallway. Not just any girl but Katarina Hayden, the heir of one of the most powerful families in Voxthain. Three years Selene's junior but already holding more status and power than Selene could ever dream of. She halted in her tracks when she noticed the scene before her, making shocked eye contact with Selene. She was never one to plead, but in that moment, her eyes were begging the girl to do something, to save her from the hell she was trapped in. The look she sent to Katarina was accentuated by a mouthed “please” and a single tear that escaped her faltering restraints. Confusion morphed to horror as Katarina took in the scene before her.
When asked about it later, Selene wasn’t sure what happened after that. It was all a blur, the control leaving her body, allowing her to thud to the ground in a mess of limbs and heaving sobs. Presumably the nobles scattered, but Selene didn’t have enough awareness to watch them go. She was a twitching mess of pain and fear, curled into a ball as if her arms could shield her from the world. What Selene could remember was the kindness on Katarina’s face, the concern she held for Selene as she helped her up from the ground.
Her guardian angel, sent to protect her at her lowest moment, saving her life in more ways than she would ever know.
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⠀Late in the night, when the world was soft and still, Selene lay awake in her bed. Shadows stretched around her like ink pouring in from the corners of her room. Her eyes traced their path across her ceiling, like phantom hands still pulling on her skin and hair. She absently traced her fingers over the raised mark on her arm, counting the grooves of the handprint seared to her flesh.
One. Two. Three. Four.
Again.
One. Two. Three. Four.
Pain laced up her arm with every pass of her fingers. Healers could have repaired the damage with ease, but she had been too embarrassed to ask the nurse for more than an ice pack, too proud to mention the shame of her day to her parents. But in the night, when she was left with her thoughts and the imprint of her suffering welded to her skin, that embarrassment and fear and shame twisted under her skin, stretching and coiling into something more primal. Rage. Selene sank into the feeling, the comfort and familiarity of it. It wrapped around her, the warmth protecting her from the creeping shadows and chill of the night air blowing in through her window.
Anger gripped at her, filling her mind with flames and the smoky scent of hatred. Her rage was an old friend, nestled deep within her chest, helping her to get through each and every day, but it burned with a new fervor, soaking in all of the pain she had been dealt. Each swipe of her fingers over her arm fanned the flames higher and higher until every muscle in her body was clenched with the sheer force of it, nails biting down into rough flesh, sizzling blood tracing a path down to her sheets beneath her.
One. Two. Three. Four.
Fantasies of revenge filtered in through the blaze, a gentle breeze to sate the burn. Dunking Reginald’s head in a bucket of water while he struggled beneath her until he felt the air leave his lungs just as she had. Blinding white lights flashed straight into Foxie’s eyes as she held them open. Punching and kicking and biting at each and every nameless, faceless hand that had dared to touch her. Giving them the hurt that they had bestowed upon her tenfold.
It soothed some of the tension in her muscles, imagining their deaths over and over and over, but it did nothing to lessen the depth of her rage. She had no outlet for that heat, no place to rest her anger to keep it from consuming her.
So she burned.
One. Two. Three. Four.
They could rot, the lot of them. They could burn in hell. Nobles were all so haughty, it made her sick. They were disgusting, a plague upon the human race. She wanted them gone, wanted them erased from history. Their tittering and shiny shoes and perfectly coiffed hair. Maybe she would piss in Reginald’s locker. Maybe she would spit in Foxy’s face and rub her dirty low-born fingers through her hair.
Not a single one of them deserved the status they held. It wasn’t fair it wasn’t fair itwasn’tfair! Why were they allowed to be born with so much when they were barely even human? Maybe the nobles weren’t human, instead a race of lizard people that ascended from the sewers. Yes, Selene liked the thought of that–prim and proper Calicos and snooty Delacroixs with scales hidden beneath their frumpy clothes. That must have been why they cared so much about holes and worn-down clothing.
One. Two. Three. Four.
On and on and on, she went. Rubbing that mark over and over and over, teeth clenched and grinding.
One. Two. Three. Four.
There was no reprieve. That rage festered, it burned to the touch, it hurt.
One. Two. Three. Four.
One. Two. Three. Four.
One. Two. Three. Four.
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⠀The following is a letter sent to James Laughlin as soon as news of his engagement to Katarina reached Selene on her assignment in Mezd Kathir. The script is sloppy and hastily written, the page torn in places with the weight of her pen on the parchment. Anger can clearly be read in the shakiness of the letters.
James Laughlin,
I have received word out here in Mezd Kathir that you are set to wed our lovely Katarina Hayden, and I have but one question: who are you, again?
I am not sure what you said or how much you paid off Laurellia, but from where I’m looking, you are not relevant. You do not matter in the grand scheme of things and you are not fit to be Katarina’s husband. She may have agreed to your engagement, but I do not have to be present in the city to know that it was not out of love or desire for you. So let’s just get this all over with now before the wedding and figure out what you’re really after here. Is it power? The Hayden militia? A place at the table with the true nobility?
Just so you know, this is all a power play from Laurellia. She doesn’t actually want you of all people to marry her only daughter. You just happened to be available. How fortunate for you. But things can change. Laurellia can be such a fickle beast like that. Watch yourself. You have no power here.
And I may be gone right now, because even I have more importance to Voxthain than a measly little creature like you, but I will be back. And I will be watching you. Step out of line, say the wrong thing, even think about touching Katarina, and I will know. And you won’t like it.
There are no threats in this letter. I wish you no harm. Laurellia, when you read this, because I am sure that cowardly little James will submit this letter to the Militia as a threat, know that I have my eye on you, too. I am aware of your opinion of me, and you know I feel the same (kisses!). You will not be getting away with this.
BACK. OFF.
𝓢𝓮𝓵𝓮𝓷𝓮 𝓐𝓵𝓽𝓪𝓷
Militia Investigator
