Hera Malachei ✯ capitol done

[minie]

Hera Malachei

Granddaughter of Mallory Malachei

36 years old - late night show host - d2 high council liason - media is her weapon

[minie]

Grandma never talked much, but she carried a tension in her stance as if she knew something no one else did. I am certain her silence had killed her. In her will was a clear instruction: "My granddaughter Hera is to inherite my personal files and my very first camera. I am sure she will know what to make of the them."

Grandma was always so proud. I could never bring myself to tell her I had been expelled from University even though she was long dead. I still visit her grave every saturday morning to bring by some flowers, always updating her on my life. The only one I ever felt comfotable enough with to say exactly what I mean. My parents never found out about my expulsion, they thought I dropped out to be a glorified party girl that attracted papparazi like flies. My first ever secret that was just for me to know.

Her files became a constant reminder of her unconditional love in the most unorthodox of ways.

There was a lot missing, pages out of order, some to torn to be able to read while others were covered in coffee stains. Parts of her life that will never be accesible to anyone ever again, I guess she still took some secrets to the grave. Still there was enough, just the right mount for me to piece the pieces of complicated puzzel to make the outline. A frame for what could have been and what I will never know.

Not once in my entire life could I have had imagined what she had found out after all these years. She had lived an entire different life and it was now my own.

My beloved Hera,
My life was atrocious, but you gave me a hope I thought I lost forever. Maybe you will find yourself in my words, hopefully you will understand why I could never show you the love I wanted. Pave your own path and never forget who you are. One piece of advice, there is no man in this world that will ever support your dreams…do not make the same mistakes I made. Make sure you are the only one who ever see’s these files otherwise it just might be your doom.

December year of the 9th

I am to never mention the games again, my name has been erased from all the files. I am sure dad paid everything off. He won’t acknowledge it, no one will. It is as if nothing has ever happened. Jovis is dead, suicide I heard but something doesn’t feel right, if my involvement can be erased with money and donations….I am certain the capitol can wipe a person from existence in a manor far worse than death. Mom and dad have given me money, enough to start my own business. I’m expanding MalloMedia so that everyone can upload their own videos….share their experience. A collective of those fighting to make the Capitol a safe place…will it ever be safe for me here again?

March year of the 12th

MalloMedia is expanding, the video platform has taken off and a new generation of teenagers and college students have taken over my video diary format. No one cares anymore for the life of an executive. There is a new generation and I need to learn my time is up. I am debating an extensions…somewhere people can share ideas and expand on them. Little thoughts that form in their minds and watch them grow as a community, a way to come together in the Capitol. This could be the future of developing a way to come together, more powerful than ever. A unit ruling over the districts. The name is still in the works, maybe I’ll call it ThinkTank.

November year of the 12th

ThinkTank has been a hit, but it's getting out of hand. The board warned me it would not be used for what I intended it to...they are proposing a censor in line with goverment regulations. I agree, but I need to push it back. Someone, an account I can't track reached out...pictures of my name on government files of the 9th games. I do not know who they are or what they want. But...what if...if they could find out my involvment I am sure they must know if Jovis is dead.

April year of the 13th

The censorship is being imposed sooner than expected…in 14 days from today. That’s fine, I have an image to uphold as long as I play along no one will ever know what I am planning. I met up with a man, I call him Pallas and he calls me Styx. It started out as business, but I fear I might be with child. It is fine, mom and dad have arranged for me to be married. Some sons of one of Dad’s old military buddies. Good for the family, good for me. A public affair of unification, no one will ever know.

May year of the 13th

I am a married woman now and a successful capitol business owner in strong compliance with the government. Everything my parents ever hoped for. I hate it. I hate this life, I never wanted to be a wife or a mother. Why didn’t I just pay some doctor to allow me an abortion, I for sure know a few willing to do the procedure. Pallas opened my eyes to another world, one that would have sent pre games me into shock. How things change when you know the truth is the last thing the government wants. Journalism is a crime now if it does not uphold the government’s agenda…I still am not sure how I feel about it.

Feb year of the 14th

I had to cut off contact with Pallas. Augstus, my husband, has been becoming suspicious of my late nights in the office. Says I need to focus on being a mother now that you are born my dear child. I named you Cratos. The old god of strength, the son of Pallas and Stxy…an homage to the woman I could have been if only I had the guts to do what was right. I can’t, I am too afraid for your life you sweet child. I have to put it behind me, but I cannot forget the curiosity that brought me into my situation. It is who I am, and I apologize that you will never have the mother you deserve because of it.

June year of the 17th

I have found Jovis in district two. Alive with a new a family, the rumors are true…the man I knew is long dead but so is the Mallory he became acquainted with. My husband and brother now run my business using my name as the face of the company. All I do is watch my son grow up and wish he was never born. I am certain he feels his mother’s resentment…I have tried to love him the way I loved the thrill of being apart of something greater than myself, but I simply can’t. I am no mother, just a surrogate. This life is draining my soul in a long torturous way. Maybe I would have been better off disgraced like Jovis, free from expectations.

July year of the 46th

Cratos has become the CEO of my company, I should be proud for he is successful and married to a beautiful woman. The kind my father wished I was, humble and caring. Pathetic if you ask me, I see no resemblance of me in my son. Augustus’ nurture had won over the nature of his mother and biological father. I despise him for he was the death of me. His wife Daisy is pregnant with their first child, I am to be a grandmother. What a horrible fate this is, I hope she miscarries.

July year of the 57th

Cratus has three little clones running around the house as brainwashed as their father and my husband. Pallas has reached out numerous of times; I consider answering and running away to be with him. He has fled the Capitol and started a new life in district 5 as of his latest update. My heart aches for the truth, to dig deeper and never stop. An old habit, one I am certain will never die but I suppress it for I am coward. I try my best to be there for my grandchildren, to do better than I had with my son…hoping they carry some of Pallas’s spirit inside.

July year of the 61st

My last grandchild was born today. Another boy. Out of the five children my son had only one was a girl. Hera, she is 3 years old now. There is something different about the last two, their skin is darker, and their hair is thicker. Freer spirited than their older siblings, I have no concrete proof, but I believe Daisy cheated on my son. No, I am certain. I may have underestimated her, or maybe she is just a miserable whore who can’t keep her legs shut after a few drinks. She did always like attention and so does Hera. Constantly putter herself in the spotlight, she may not be related to me biologically, but I am certain se carries a part of me inside her unlike the others. I can see it in her eyes. Unfortunately, this means I must never show any love towards her. The others can never know my affection of the girl for it would only put her in danger.

July year of the 71st

Hera has been sent to boarding school, the kind for girl that like to cause trouble.Of course, this was my suggestion…send her away to be fixed when she is the only one who is not broken. My son was too quick to agree, he could not wait to cast a dark shadow on my granddaughter hoping to snuff out the light inside her. I hate him more than ever for that. My hope is that if she is out of her parent’s reach, she will be able to learn to think for herself. I am ill, the doctors gave me a month. All those cigarettes finally catching up, I died a long time ago. I died the day I got married but Hera brought me back to life even if it was just for a bit. Always asking questions, never satisfied with an answer. She thinks for herself, a dangerous thing for a girl. I hope she can achieve everything I never was able to. I hope she is stronger than me, one day able to support herself without her youngest brother always on her trail. The two are inseparable but she’ll need to shake him loose if she ever hopes to become her own person. I am betting on her, even on my death bed. She just might be the only child or grandchild I have ever loved.

I held onto those files for they were as valuable as any holy text. Read them page for page every night with a flashlight under my blanket. My mother and father pressed to know what was inside, but their questions were met with a sly smile and a shrug. Her secrets were mine now, and at the young age of twelve I had vowed to keep them for myself. My grandmother lived on in my spirit, long forgotten by the world she despised so much. Her story is mine and mine is hers. Intertwined at the roots of the very essence of who we are.

[minie]

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"Mr. Malachei, I am sure you know that your daughter is beyond exceptional. There is no question of her capabilities. My concern is that she has no respect for authority.”

My father smiled, but I knew it was one filled with annoyance. His presence always seemed diplomatic, collected, and consisted well through thoughts before he opened his mouth. He timed his responses well so there was never a moment to many between sentences. Always the right amount, a devil in sheep’s clothing.

My eyes dared not meet his for I was never fooled by his charm. I saw the man he was in his green eyes worthy of a serpent. He did not need a forked tongue to hiss his enchantments.

“I assure you that Hera very much so respects authority, have you considered her misbehavior is a sign that she is simply not challenged enough with the current curriculum? How can you expect her to respect authority when she feels she is above their understanding?”

An argument that it was not my fault, at least not in front of the principal, never in front of outsiders. Questions answered with questions, the years of media training he has undergone seeps through his words. Lie after lie because I felt it in my gut that he did not believe what he was saying.

My lips curled to match his smile.

For he might not believe his own words, but I thought them to be true.

***

The door slammed hard with my father’s fearful force.

His smile replaced with tension stirring between his lips once we were in the privacy of our own home. Hand raised in rage as he brought it across my face. Not for this first time and most definitely not for the last time. I saw my mother peek her head from the kitchen into our penthouse’s reception room. A noble entrance which guests would be greeted by with an exceptionally comfortable sofa and performance level hospitality.

All I was ever greeted with was cruelty, each time my foot passed the entrance no matter how light my step was.

I did not flinch. I did not scream. I did not cry.

My eyes met his tension as I thought to strike him back, right hand loaded with electricity enough to shock him dead. My youngest brother, Hermes, grabbed my wrist as he pulled my body close to his. For a moment I saw our three oldest brothers lined up on the stairwell watching with hawk’s eyes, or maybe those of vultures. Ready to tear my dead corpse limb for limb.

“This is your third school! Every time is the same story with you, a clever girl too stupid to know when to keep your mouth shut. Where is she now? Show me just what your principle claims to have running rapid in his school.”

Hermes squeezed my hand tighter knowing I was ready to answer his rhetorical question. My brother warning me that now was exactly the time to stay quiet.

My teeth clamped down on my tongue, harder with every second until I could taste the blood mixing with saliva. There was nothing more I wanted than to bite it off completely and throw my severed muscle in his face. He wanted a silent girl who never spoke back, I could give him just that and more.

The circulation in my hand grew short. An escape back into the reality of the situation. Nothing would come of my manic rage, and I would only hurt myself more than my father already had. Quickly I retreated, storming up the stairs and shoving my eldest brother, Heracles, against the wall.

My bedroom became my refuge as I opened up the top drawer of my nightstand pulling out the pages my grandmother had left me. Her words, her rage, her pain becoming my comfort.

Her silence was protection.

My silence would become a weapon.

[minie]

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Against all odds and five different private schools on my record, I had graduated top of my class at the ”Capitol Academy of Fine Arts”. A school my father had refused to send me to until there was no other willing to enroll me.

Once you are labelled trouble and unteachable the only ones who would see that as a strength are the ones willing to ignore boundaries and destroy them with paint only to rebuild them out of clay. A school for those willing to see the world in color for all of its glory. Weaving a web of a new world with words worthy of the muses.

Aestheticism and decadence, my dears, were the very foundation of that peculiar bubble of society. Creation in the name of art and art for the sake of art. So simple, yet incomprehensible to the most. A place where I had learned to put pen to paper and turn it into a weapon as deadly as a spear. My unwarranted comments and observations were encouraged. My grandmother’s camera became the glasses that corrected my vision, capturing the little things others were unable to notice.

Exposure of the unseen and ignoration of the obvious. Make of it what you want, for the interpretation always lied in the soul of the beholder. Art for art’s sake, but the sake of art was the truth.

Or whatever we believed to be true anyway.

The next step was manipulation of perception. A skill my father valued most of all and I had finally mastered. My grandmother saw me an extension of her, but I had transformed myself into a reflection of my father. One so distorted from the original, yet a narcissist with tunnel vision would never recognize it. My heart hoping he would drown in my success, gasping for air while I would thrive in the world.

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"Ms. Malachei, considering your status and of course your outstanding performance the university is willing to ignore your reckless behavior in exchange for your family’s gratitude.”

What cowardly way to ask for money if you ask me. There was not a cell inside my body that doubted my father would not mind forking up the cash if it meant there would be a library or lecture hall with our name on it. I never asked my father for a favor, and I was not about to start now.

The reckless behavior in question? A drunk idea that I turned into reality. An expose of the human body, the very nature of creation. A grotesque capture of our greatest sin and purest of forms. Connection through euphoria, returning to our primal nature. Lust over love on the search of expression driven by our need to survive in spite of the horrors of everyday.

The dean called it a sextape.

I called it art.

“Sir, with all due respect (I had absolutely non for the sad excuse of a man sitting across of me) I am not sure what I did wrong in this situation. The assignment was to create a piece on the topic of human nature. What is more human than intercourse?”

I assumed the old man’s wife refused to touch his shriveled-up dick. Who could blame her, unfortunately she had turned him into a prude ashamed of his own desires. I would bet a large sum of money on the fact that he probably frequented prostitutes in absolute humiliation.

The dean left my questioned unanswered, but I recognized the anger in his face. The same kind found deep in my father’s eyes when he was confronted with a woman secure in her own body. A young mind fathoming an understanding of the world on a plane far beyond his reach.

Truth hurts and truth was, there was no place for me in academia.

“Thank you for your time sir. This university has taught me more than you can imagine, and I am grateful for that. I am sure you will shape some brilliant minds as you have in the past, but I am certain it is not a place for me.”

I never looked back on that dusted old building. Tradition has its place, a valuable one at that, for without tradition we have no improvement. My tradition was outgrowing places faster than the most, teaching me quickly to recognize when to move on.

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I lost my self to booze and provocation.

The bars became my home, the flashing lights of cameras from the tabloid papers became my source of vitamin D. Anger of being misunderstood and belittled turned into an uncontrollable rage bouncing from one weeklong binge to the next.

Uncontrollable was my scarlet letter I wore since the day I was born. Bursting with potential without an outlet of creation. I created a hurricane instead, unpredictable and thriving off of vices. The very ones I deemed the basis of human nature. Sin was my gospel and horror my religion. The darkness of Tartarus lived in all of us if you were willing to push yourself over the edge to find it.

I balanced along the line of creation and destruction until I found peace in the later. My nights were spent in places most dared not to go and my days writing of the experience. I uploaded recaps of the lives without boundaries onto the very platform my grandmother founded to display the angelic humanity of the citizens of the capitol.

I think she would be proud. Her bitterness grew inside of me, fueled me to continue on my path until my own implosion was deemed uninventable. Still my candle burned somewhere deep inside my soul, a gift from Prometheus. Fire distinguishing us from those lost to primal nature, a part of me held on to it even when I tried my best to stomp it out with sheer violence.

Fire burned bright in the capitol even when the districts did their best to extinguish it. Demon’s luring us into our own misery. A reminder of what we stood for, holding on to our humanity when the monsters came calling.

My grandmother’s suffering made sense.

Her fire was put out and replaced with darkness. I had glorified her demise, finding hope in what I had mistaken for free thinking.

Hermes found me on the pavement.

Head buried between my shaking legs crying all alone in the cold. Lonely had a new definition in my soul. The terror of never feeling loved, never feeling good enough. I was content walking the world alone, terrified of dying a lonely death.

My brother wrapped my arm around his shoulder, hoisting me up into an embrace worth a thousand words. The rain poured down as his love washed away all of my regret.

“You are staying with me until you pull yourself together. This is not the unapologetic sister I saw growing up, we are going to find her together.” He paused for a second. “God, you need a shower. You reek of alcohol and misery.”

We both laughed until I started sobbing once more.

[minie]

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I pushed open the doors to Malachi’s bar far to early for a Thursday afternoon. Not a soul but myself and the barkeeper I now deemed a close and personal friend. Or maybe he was just my underpaid therapist.

“Malachi, pour me a double gin…the good kind actually the best you got. We’re celebrating today!” I gushed with excitement hardly able to contain the news to myself.

Earlier before I had met up with Hendrix for tea, an afternoon of planning my future for my grandmother’s secrets may now be my burden but it did not doom me to follow in her footsteps of misery. Journalism has always been my calling, the art of exposure; searching for the truth in desperate need of being set free. My own emancipation from expectations I would never meet lied in my natural born curiosity. To have control was to be informed thus being able to control how informed the population was.

Hendrix had supported me through university, a person to run ideas by. She knew my thought process better than myself, able to watch the gears turn in my head. Mor importantly she knew how to get the gears back up and running despite the rust making it more difficult than ever.

“There is an opening at Fen Ent. A late-night show spot. What would you do with it?” She asked with poise. An idea and nothing more, but one I could run with, promising her a proposal by the end of the week. An idea, something real to hold onto set something in motion. A feeling long forgotten but was of second nature.

I took my laptop to the bar that shared some of my worst and best moments. I could not ignore the lows of my life if I were to get anywhere but I could take them back. Transform them into a place of safety. Learn from my mistakes, proving to my father that I would make something out of myself. What made me a liability would also be just that would open up a new door.

“My grandmother knew that media could influence people’s view of our society. What if I interviewed those deemed as controversial onto my show. Take their experiences and twist them to promote a message. My new image, one that encourages those who are exceptional and think outside the box to embrace tradition. A lethal combination, forces to be reckoned with because we see progression within the old values. An idea that can capture the attention of the old and new generation. Promote unity in the Captiol through our differences.”

I had my idea, and I had my platform. The values of my family melting with those of myself. Never forgetting the people who helped me when I was at my worst, a firm belief that we are only as strong as the community we surround ourselves with. Our nation strengthened in foundation and enhanced in evolution.

My family sat in the audience of my first show, my oldest brother as my first guest. Together we highlighted how our family always intended the media to be an extension of the government. Promoting their beliefs and provoking change when we saw fit. A balancing act I quickly learned to master. For I had to play a strategic game to get my message across.

Then my father suggested over dinner one night.

“If you want to play politician, why don’t you just run for high council?”

A remark filled with snark for everything I have accomplished he still had his doubts.

I might never be Heracles, a picture-perfect husband with two darling children. I would never be a good wife taking care of her kids and that is all he ever wanted of me. To shut up and submit like my mother. A woman insecure in every aspect of her life, my heart ached for her. I wanted more for my mother, but I knew the best I could do was ensure her that I would never be her.

The next day I announced my campaign on my show.

Hera Malachei; High Councilor. Has a nice ring to it.

[minie]

here she is!

dars admin kay

[dars]

"It started out as business, but I fear I might be with child." me reading that:



Absolutely love how much effort you put into filling out her history and tying her to the past! So excited to see what the future holds <3