Crushed Violet

[*UQT]

"I want her to suffer.  I want her every step to become harder and harder.  Make her regret every day that she lives."

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She awoke from the forced sleep of the medications and did what she always did.  She forced herself not to thrash or wince or cry out.  She looked around on pure force of will and made an inventory of the proof of where she was.  She sat up, touched her back.  There was no blood.  She touched her thigh and there was still no blood.  She gently pulled back the covers and looked at her feet. 

No blood.

She swallowed and tested the taste of her mouth... That still did taste of dry red wine.  She touched her face, and checked her hair.  No wine, no dirt. 

The weight of it all bore down on her shoulders.  She wasn't worth loving.  Not by Raphael, not by the mother who didn't visit even once when Violet was locked away to starve, and not by the man she followed and worked with for years.  Not by a single hand that touched her.  Then there was him...  Some part of her wanted to believe he had loved her, but the rest of her wondered weather you could love someone who wouldn't really tell you who they were.  Regardless, she was stone sure she'd wrecked it just like she always knew she would.  She wasn't worth loving and eventually even a good man would see it.

She had fooled herself into thinking she had been making strides.  She was opening to him little by little.  She was drinking less and less and lighter drinks like cider.  She had considered telling him of the dreams she had, and why she drank...  But she didn't, and she didn't become worth it fast enough.  She wasn't good enough...  Again.

She tore it all apart in one night. Just one bad mistake. One broken moment.  It was that easy for her to destroy things.  That's what she did.  She destroyed her mother, her family, and what she might have had with him.  Every day she lived she was at risk for destroying more. 

Something dark inside her smiled and reveled in her declining spirit.  However, violets come back from bare roots.

The pain of those past injuries would be with her for a solid half a candle mark, but she got up.  The booze was just out the door, but she had breakfast and tea.  For years it would have been easy to lay down and just die.  She could have dropped her blades and let the bounty hunters have her.  She could have drank herself to death, but she always carried those concealable restorations.  Something deep inside her remembered that night, and that poisoned milk.

She would not give Raphael the satisfaction.  

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"Have ya met me skull?"

"Aye. It's a meter thick."

[*UQT]

Hell is your life gone wrong and feeling like you are the one to blame.  A past like Violet's would leave a person crippled with traumatic stress.  Self-medication, alcoholism, drugs, self-destructive behavior, paranoia, and chaotic behavior are all to be expected.  So how could a person look at her and seen the sinister energy at play in her life?  She certainly didn't.  That was the subtle and dangerous nature of it.  It looked just like it should, kept her running, and if she dared to stop and try to build anything, it would feed her fears and her pain until she exploded and destroyed everything.  

She tossed the poisoned milk against the wall,
How many times can a person find the will to live?

She felt the lash of the whip open her back,
How many times can they be betrayed and find new reasons to trust?

She looked over the edge of that cliff and the waves below,
How many times can a person pick a direction and go on stubborn will?

She howled as he opened the back of her thigh,
How far can they crawl with their legs cut out from beneath them?

The wine she choked on, the crack of her skull against the wall, all the times people had gotten close to her just to try to turn her in for the bounty on her head... Be it Wioletta's or Marie's...  How cruel was it that life had dashed a little girl who liked to climb trees so cruely upon the rocks so many times.  

She delivered clothes to the orphanage and arranged a birthday basket for Tasha.  She made a dress for Klo, and looked after some of the new clueless.  She made food for the people that were, for whatever reason, tolerating her brokenness.  She clung desperately to their smiles.  

She loved hard, though she wasn't saying it out loud with her words.  She loved them hard and held on.  Stubborn Violet could only be pushed so far, and she had decided she wasn't going to run any more.  She dug in and even as a week passed without any decent sleep she clung to the hope it would get better. 

But even the strongest, most stubborn will is not unbreakable. With this thing inside her, making hell burn hotter, one had to wonder... How would it next manifest?  Just how long can a person walk through hell before it sinks into their bones?  It was there to sap her will to live, to make her long for death.  It was there to inflict the kind of torture that made a person willing to do anything, say anything, to make it stop. 

Her mother looked on her, reading to Marcus.  Shortly after she gave birth to Marcus she had just... Given up.  She was a ghost that haunted the halls.  Pale and gaunt, she shuffled through and looked in on Violet with those lifeless and drained eyes.  Violet shoved down a feeling of empathy for her... After all... Her mother was responsible for every hell she suffered.  Maybe she deserved some of her own. 

It's amazing how cruel we can be to others... How, in our own pain, we can fail to see the root of the pain of another.  We only blame them for spreading it, like a disease, to us.  Many times we miss something important and vital.  Like the hallmarks of a dark energy... Here to bleed our souls dry. 

[*UQT]

Nearly a week had passed without alcohol to dull her mind enough to sleep peacefully.  Nearly a week in which to sleep was torture.  She took the medicine they gave her, but it only locked her in those dreams.  It trapped her in hell.  Sleep with those dreams would never be restful.  Dark circles had set in under her eyes.  Her once cold but sparkling silver eyes had become dull and bloodshot.  

"Ready?" Klo asked.

"Ready!" Violet answered back.  

A flight...  Something to curb the desperation that was setting in.  She needed a bright spot in the darkness.  They had a target, they had a plan, and now they needed to get airborne.  Klo sprang up with a mighty push downward of her impressive wingspan and the world went fuzzy.  As she got higher, a spinning sensation gripped Violet.  She weakly managed to say, "Klo. . . ?"

And then the world went dark.  She awoke back at Chirper's.  Klo had not found Danae or the Argent at the House of Healing, so she had sent to Frin.  Frin told her to bring Violet to their room.  When she awoke, that's where they were. 

"Is it always like this?" Klo asked before realizing Violet was awake.

"Yeah," Frin answered, "Looks like death, don' it.  Little t'be done but wait it out."

"She was totally dead wait," Klo added, "Is this normal for human sleep?"

"No," Frin answered and shook her head, "Ain't nothin' normal 'bout this."

She barely registered the voices.  There was always the surge of panic after the dreams.  She pressed it down as usual and completed the ritual to prove to herself she was out of them.  She looked around slowly, she checked her back, her thigh, her feet, the taste of her mouth, her face, her hair.  Then in spite of still feeling all the pain inflicted in the dream she sat up.

The girls looked at her with grave concern.  She figured passing out would cause that reaction, so no surprises there.  She needed to try those meds Derik offered. She couldn't go on passing out at random times. 

[*UQT]

"You didn't pay the family debt?" Madelina asked incredulously 

"The only thing I am required to pay, my darling," Raphael answered, "Is what keeps you from being indentured to the school.  Your family's debt is not my concern."

"But they are my family!" She cried, "Your in-laws!"

"The are peasants," He sighed, "The only thing they've created of value in this life was you."

"How dare you!" She shrieked and swung at him.

He caught her hand, slipping his other hand around her waist and pulling her into a passionate kiss. He kissed hard until she stopped struggling, and then smiled down at her.  She looked up at him, breathless and taken by how incredibly handsome he was.  She shivered and muttered, "I hate you.  My family will starve..."

He slipped his lips along the side of her neck and murmured, "You don't hate me.  You hate that you love me.  Forget your miserable past.  Your mother and father sold you to the finishing school when you were but a girl.  All they saw in you was an opportunity to help themselves.  When I look at you I see my sparkling jewel, my future.  I want to give you everything.  I -will- give you everything.  You are my treasure now, and I will display you in the finest silks, diamonds and gold."

She hated that he was right.  The moment she saw Raphael at the graduation ball she was defenseless.  She could not help but love him.  She closed her eyes and shook at the feeling of his breath across her skin. He turned his lips into her ear and whispered, "Say it. Say you are mine."

. . . I'm Yours. Gods, but I hate myself for it. . . 

[*UQT]

She was barely walking when the wedding procession passed them by.  Raphael and his new bride, Madelina, clothed in shimmerweave.  She was the youngest by far of her many sibblings, but young as she was she remembered that shining golden sight.  The rest of her siblings, got out as soon as they could. They left her parents with the crushing debt that they incurred to free their children one after the other.  They never looked back.  

She was 5, or was it 6? Years blend together at that age.  She was churning butter and he just dropped.  Her father dropped where he was standing.  There was nothing to be done.  Long days in the field with bare amounts of food or clean water.  The sun was high and hot that day.  Lathander himself, struck her father's death blow. 

Her mother had one child left to save. Just her.  She was all that remained, but her mother was one woman.  Only one woman.  For a year her mother slaved, but the fruits of her mother's labor barely kept enough of the debt paid to keep them from ending up in prison.  She barely survived on the scraps her mother could spare.  There was nothing left for her mother. 

One day her mother took to a sickbed, and never got back up.  Being orphaned in Sembia was almost worse than being a criminal.  A dirty, unwanted child was an ugly thing in a country of Sunites who praise beauty above all.  Many orphans ended up dead or sold but she was special.  She could see things, and hear things others could not.  She pacted with the spirits around her and lived on a mix of their guidance, and spite.  She found the with the sacrifice of her blood she could take her minor magics and turn them into divine fury.  The next logical leap was to see what she could do with someone else's blood. 

By day she was a petty thief and reasonable healer.  She even did some business as a midwife.  She used her blood curses and hexes to get her out of many a close call.  That day she looking up a the shining glory that bathed Madelina and Raphael was a distant, unused memory.  Then she found herself on the street for another parade.  Madelina, obviously pregnant, rode past in that same shimmerweave.  Beside her was Raphael, as dashingly handsome as ever.  Behind them rode their daughter, with her rich chestnut hair and silver eyes. 

Madelina looked right at her.  For a moment she froze and stared back.  Would Madelina recognize her? Recognize their mother in her perhaps?  Would there be shame? Joy? Would she beg forgiveness for abandoning them?  

Madelina's eyes passed over her without the slightest recognition.  Her eldest sister had not even realized who she was.  Rage boiled inside her.  Of course Madelina Olaundran would not recognize her baby sister, Eliza Wintermoon.  Madelina had found her way out and abandoned them all.  She probably didn't even know their parents were dead.  

A shaman fell that day.  She was already walking the line of blood magic, but that day she began pacts with much darker spirits.  She vowed her vengeance. 

[*UQT]

A bribe here... Blackmail there. The spirits see the secrets you'd like to keep. 

Eliza caught Marcus in her hands and cut the cord.  She cleaned him and wrapped him in linen, handing him to Madelina.  Birth was a bloody process.  So, there would be plenty of blood to catch, Eliza just had to be sure to catch the right blood.  She lightly tugged the cord as a contraction freed the afterbirth.  Madelina was too busy to pay attention.  Once that afterbirth was free... The blood was Madelina's.

Eliza did her the small favor of not cursing her newly born son. 

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Violet's mother looked in on her, reading to Marcus.  Shortly after Madelina gave birth to Marcus she had just... Given up.  She was a ghost that haunted the halls.  Pale and gaunt, she shuffled through and looked in on Violet with those lifeless and drained eyes.  Violet shoved down a feeling of empathy for her... After all... Her mother was responsible for every hell she suffered.  Maybe she deserved some of her own. 

==========================================================================

Perhaps if Wioletta had known what haunted Madelina's dreams, she could have forgiven her.  Perhaps Wioletta would have known what was happening when the dreams came for her.  Madelina all but stopped eating toward the end.  When Raphael announced Wioletta would starve in that cell, Madelina road her horse out along the coastline.  She had found a cave there, with a deep chasm inside it.  She dropped her torch over the edge and watched with morbid fascination before she followed it. 

I'm so sorry, Wioletta. Gods, please, if I've any grace due me... Let it fall upon her so she might escape. 

[*UQT]

A dying curse... When a soul dies with intense emotions of guilt or betrayal it leaves and echo.  It etches the weave of reality.  Madelina's chasm called many desperate women to their deaths.  If there was a heavy guilt or weight in their heart and they ventured too close, the cave would call to them.  A few that were rescued said they saw a dancing flame lighting the way and heard a woman crying.  Then the fire fell over the edge into the terrible darkness.  They felt the weight of their guilt grow heavier and heavier until they were willing to do anything to escape it; even follow the fire into oblivion.  

There was no fire for Violet, though she had a crushing guilt dammed up inside her.  There was nothing to light her way as she clamored away from the guards and the dogs.  She had been away from Selgaunt so long that she didn't even know the local whispers about the cave's curse... The cave of the crying maiden. 

Every curse has a condition that can break it.  Madelina's guilt was for the horror's visited upon Violet's life, so when Violet entered that cave the scene was perfectly set to bring many twisted fates to an unexpected conclusion.  Violet fell into the darkness, but the echos of a mother's dying wish broke the dying curse.  The energies ripped open reality and whisked Violet to the farthest place she could go from Raphael Olaundran.  In essence, Violet became the key for one unstable portal that sealed shut as quickly as it was opened.  It squeezed Violet through space and time like toothpaste in a tube, depositing her on a bench in Sigil... Unconscious.  

The last graces of a broken woman protected Violet from certain death.  Fate, you might call it.  



I love you... Wioletta. 

[*UQT]

Lorenzo carried Marie into the hideout bleeding heavily and out cold. 

"Eliza!" He cried, "Hurry! She's hurt bad."

Lorenzo and the others had a few open wounds themselves. Indeed, as group healer, Eliza had access to all their blood many times over. 

She couldn't stand the way Lorenzo looked at Marie.  Eliza had loved Lorenzo almost the moment she laid eyes on him.  She had run with him for years before the daughter of Madelina showed up.  When Eliza heard of horror Marie had been subjected to because she wasn't Raphael's true daughter, Eliza had tried to forgive her, but every time Lorenzo looked at Marie all Eliza saw was Madelina in her place.

Madelina's daughter would take everything from her, just as Madelina had. She was going to take Lorenzo away.  They talked more and more of the bog score that they could retire on and then Eliza was going to be on her own again.  Worse was the fact the Marie wouldn't let him bed her.  She resisted him at every turn.  She held back from him, and towards the end it seemed like Marie would leave him. 

That was worse somehow.  Marie could have taken Eliza's world like her mother.  Instead she was rejecting it.  The life Eliza desperately wanted wasn't good enough for Madelina's daughter.  Eliza waited on the shoreline for Lorenzo to appear.  She was not going to be denied a moment longer and she was not going to let that -wretch- stick her nose up at Lorenzo. 

"What did ya want to talk on," Lorenzo asked as he walked up.

Eliza turned, vial of his blood in her hands. He looked oddly at the vial of unknown brownish liquid. She smiled, "I've been patient. I've been loyal, and yet you throw yourself after that spoiled princess.  Time we changed that."

That was how and when their relationship really started.  That was when Lorenzo became Eliza's slave.  He would have told you with complete honesty that he loved Eliza.  He just had no memory of this meeting or his enslavement. 

That was also when Marie's nightmares started, and she began turning to the one thing that gave her rest; alcohol.

[*UQT]

Eliza's Theme (click to listen while you read)

She watched and waited while Marie's curse started to exert it's affects.  Eliza watched as Marie's eye became distant, cold, or glazed by the alcohol she was burying herself in.  Eliza had been denied the pleasure of watching Madelina's suffering up close.  With Marie Eliza could experience the disease she had set to work deep within Marie's veins and Eliza bathed in it.  

Not so smart or beautiful now, are you Wioletta Olaundran?

It was a truly cruel curse.  She knew that Marie already had nightmares, and so this curse just looked like an evolution of her trauma.  By the light of day it was set to whisper to her, and make her doubt.  Paranoia would lead to chaotic and self-destructive behaviors.  She would push people out and push them hard.  If they got close it was only a matter of time before the curse would make Violet take meaning where there was none and react with wild swings at the darkness.  No one would see how desperately Marie was fighting for her life or her sanity against this unseen foe.  She would eventually destroy any bond of friendship that might save her.  Slowly the agony of her wretched life, both what she was born to and that which the curse manifested in altering her behavior, would sap her will to live. 

It all worked on guilt.  Beneath every innocent's suffering is a question. 

What did I do to deserve this?

As a child Marie had blamed herself for her dark hair and not being lady enough to earn her father's love.  She blamed herself for her mother's decline as fiercely as she ever blamed Madelina herself.  She blamed herself for leaving Marcus there.  She blamed herself for every misfortune since, and every time she dared to trust someone. 

I'm not worth it. 

Those words rang loud and vibrant in her ears.

I want to be worth it.

But she never could stop making a mess of things. 

Eliza only had to wait.  Weather Marie's chaotic behavior pissed off the wrong person, the booze poisoned her, or her will to live was finally crushed, Eliza made sure Marie had only one destiny. . . 

To die alone, forgotten, and completely, utterly broken.

[*UQT]

She was 12 as she waited outside her mother's chambers.  The screaming suddenly went still and a baby cried. 

Wioletta poked her head in while a runner went to fetch her father.  Her mother was cradling her new brother arms.  Wioletta moved in close and gently touched the soft, blonde fuzz on his nearly bald newborn head.  Wioletta smiled, Madelina smiled, and Madelina opened her mouth to speak when Raphael all but charged into the door.  

"Let me see him!" He shouted excited, "Let me see my son!"

Wioletta had never seen him so excited, and for a moment she was excited with him.  Then Raphael shoved her out of the way, knocking her on her rear.  Madelina frowned as he snatched back the linens and ran his head over Marcus' soft, blonde head.  The midwife had just finished gathering her things.  Her cowl was up.  She politely and silently left the room without making eye-contact. 

Raphael smiled and ran his hand over that near bald, but absolutely golden head.  Over and over... And then his eyes met Madelina's.

"Surely you will not insist on continuing to lie to me now," He voice was cold and warning.

Madelina's eyes became wide and fearful, "My love?"

His eyes narrowed.  His expression went dark.  He strode over to violet and yanked her over to Madelina's feet by the hair. Wioletta whimpered and cried, "Father? Ow! Please! What did I do?"

"Raphael!" Madelina cired, "Let her go!"

"What color is this?" He barked, yanking it up in Madelina's face as Wioletta struggled, "Tell me what color it is!"

"Brown!" Madelina cried, trying to shield Marcus as she kicked at Raphael's arm to get him to release Wioletta. 

He yanked Wioletta up and tossed her back hard as he screamed, "Tell me the truth you filthy wench!  Tell me or so help me-..."

He drew his sword.  Madelina's eyes filled with panic, as did Wioletta's.  Wioletta scrambled back against the wall bawling as she begged, "Please! Please! What's going on? What did I do? I'm sorry! I'll leave! I'll be good! Please!"

"Raphael? Raphael! Put the sword down!" 

Wioletta heard her mother begging, but all she saw was the light off his sword as he slowly stalked closer.  She was 12... She folded over herself, impotently holding her hands above her head and begging as she sobbed. She looked away as the sword rose.  She closed her eyes and braced for the end. Madelina howled, "ALRIGHT! Alright...  You're... You're right.  She's not yours."

He sheathed his sword and muttered, "Good... Finally some honesty."

That day Wioletta's things were moved out of her large room and into a smaller study.  Most of her favorite things were thrown away.  Her hawk, which she had personally trained, was sold, as was her horse.  There foreword, Wioletta was not part of any grand parades and was made to sit in her room during parties or when important guests were over. 

As an abuse victim, you always believe it will get better...  So Wioletta could say in honesty that she didn't foresee what would happen or that she would end up in that tower after 50 brutal lashes at a few days past 18.  It's so easy from the outside to see the writing on the wall.  It's so easy to forget how misleading hope and love can be.