blood, guts, and angel cake (circe's summer post 95th)

[Hafen d4 ⚓︎ minie]

Circe Murdock had failed.

One thing you could say about the promising young bastard was the only thing she ever did halfway was her parents’ custody.

Not only did Circe fail, but she had also failed like her father had never seen his children fail before. Perhaps she had approached the simulation with an amount of narcissism that would make even the namesake himself worrisome. She was once so convinced of her own greatness, she forgot to ever doubt her own hard work was not enough to beat anything close to raw talent.

The failure at first was numb. There was nothing left for her to feel as she roamed the world in an altered state so close to death. Circe would have opened her arms wide embracing death as she struggled to understand the horrid feeling of empty. Glassy eyes as she walked past her fathers piercing stare, not once looking up to meet his gaze. He must hate her. She was sure of that; the idea was planted in her head growing slowly as it leeched its way through her suffering.

Is this what her mother had felt?

Oh, how she hoped the feeling would go away, to sympathize with her mother might have been a crime she would have never forgiven herself for (wretched bitch).

In the end after all was said and done, she would board the train alongside the rest of her siblings with her tail between her legs. Her return back to four would be far less victorious than she had planned. In her mind there was a world where Nicky would have been standing at the platform with flowers in his hands. She should have known better than to think Uncle Nicky of all people would bring her flowers, but the little girl he tried to save still existed in her purest of forms. Thinking about it made her want to puke. Then stab herself. Then puke again.

Pull it together.

There was no warm greeting awaiting her. Instead, a bark from her father to quickly get moving (of course only when no one else would be able to hear).

The summer would soon come, and Circe would find herself trapped in a tavern filled with drunk sailors unable to tell left from right. Her half siblings would take the heat of their miserable performance while she would escape to the sea. Her sweet voice leaving the glass halls of the mansion ringing with her siren song.

When days became short, she would return once again.

Circe’s father never forgetting the shame she had brought to the Murdock name. Her mother’s scent all over her clothes would only add fuel to fire that would be her father’s fury.

How long could she hold her breath this time?

What if, just for once….she would be enough?

There was no time for such silly thoughts. If only she could switch it all off, the regret, the shame, the self-loathing, the misery, the embarrassment. Oh to feel numb once more.

”Tienes que mantener la cabeza en alto”

No one would believe a pretty girl too busy staring at the ground. Her mother taught her well enough that the shiniest of treasures were not found rotting in the dirt. She had to reach for the sky, aim to drink wine out of golden chalices with the gods.

That is the real meaning of immortality.

[Hafen d4 ⚓︎ minie]

Circe was convinced her mother loved the other girls more than she was capable of ever loving her own daughter. Time and time again she watched as she came back from the pier with a little girl, ones with fire in their eyes. Circe knew there was no flame reflecting in her pupils, they carried an emptiness with them, inexplicable to the young girl. With every new bright-eyed face that turned up in the Kraken’s Cove, the darker Circe’s eyes would get.

How long until the darkness was all that was left of her. Had there ever been any light in her eyes to begin with?

No matter how often she argued her mother meant nothing to her, nothing could stop the sharp sensation of betrayal when she embraced another girl. Only once had her mother ever taken her into her arms like that, not a single time had her father even come close. Everyday she would wake up convinced of the conviction she believed to be the truth; for all the pain Adriana had caused her daughter, Circe did not care for the wicked woman.

Even on the Friday she watched another girl take the name she rejected; Circe could not admit to the hurt in her heart. Betrayal not yet a word in her vocabulary, there was only survival.

Young girls falling victim to Adriana’s promise of the pirate life, came with a ceremony. One that was never held for Circe. The tavern was alive in the early morning before the sun had risen with the women who called this place their home willingly. Decorations the same color as the murky green of the sea pinned up on the walls, turning the tavern into Atlantis…a lost place filled with lost people at the bottom of the ocean. The dampness of the building almost mimicking the weight she felt beneath the crashing waves. Turbulence replicated perfectly by the very chaotic nature of the crowded population.

“Whose birthday is it?” Circe questioned her mother as she pulled herself up onto a barstool way to tall for her. Adriana had hardly turned around from her occupation of sorting through glasses older than time. Against her own will, Circe had become accustomed to the strange traditions and terminology of the pirate clan. Birthdays were no longer celebrated on the day you were born; Circe had learned it was because most girls here do not know when they were born. Instead, your first birthday was the day you officially became a part of the crew. The spirit of ‘ol Drea Dieu-Le-Veut welcoming you into her arms, accepting you as one of her own the daughter.

Your birthday was the day you had earned that captain’s trust.

Adriana Dieu-Le-Veut only trusted her daughter as much as she trusted the girl’s father. Not at all.

“Lorraine, she came to us last year and has proven herself better with rhyme than anyone else.”

Circe felt the insult burning up on the inside. Rhyme being the generalization of song, lyric and storytelling…all of which Circe had surpassed everyone else in the Kraken Cove. Her voice smooth with enchanting undertones, almost magical the way she could pick up a tone with little effort. Her voice always convincing of the story she would tell, the only medium in which Circe fully understood how to express her own emotions. When she opened her mouth and wore down her fingers on the guitar strings, a bridge would collapse, and water would drown her in a whirlwind of sensation she was so used to bottling up.

Circe’s rhyme was a privilege, one only Lore had garnered enough trust to truly experience. Her mother often forcing it out of her with violent threats, stealing her voice for her own good. There was nothing that left the little girl more exposed and violated. A part of her felt relief if Lorraine was all that much better than her. Hopefully Adriana would stop stealing from Circe the one thing that allowed her the sensation of humanity.

“I’ll be down by the pier today...wish Lorraine a happy birthday from me” she muttered as she ungracefully pushed herself off the barstool. Circe understood when she was not wanted and there was no reason for her to stay when the liberty of the Kraken’s Cove allowed her to leave whenever she pleased as long as she brought enough gold back with her to pay her way back into the good gracious of the fearful pirate queen; Adriana Dieu-Le-Veut.