tiggy libertine ✶ district four ; finished

[d7f amber bosch 🌿 tris]

t i g g y libertine / e i g h t e e n ^{✦ sixth games}



❝ There is an ancestral hum /
of suffering we cannot escape, /
cannot speak to, /
cannot pull from the maggots of time. /
Its name is the silence; there is no language for it. /
We are not the shore, we are the tide. ❞

— LISA MARIE BASILE, from “I Put the Coffin Out to Sea”

[d7f amber bosch 🌿 tris]

✴ think of me as a sunset,
paint all my tragedies red ;

^{( biography )}

The only child of a bastard son and a runaway daughter, it didn't take Tiggy long to make her peace with being unwanted. Growing up with parents who were treated like the neighborhood joke, there came a time when she had to choose between resenting them for their shortcomings, or accepting them for what they truly were. However disappointing that might be.

As much as things would have been easier if they had tried to put an actual effort into their lives, it would have stolen one of the small joys of Tiggy's childhood. To be a Libertine was to be a businessman of sorts. If her family taught her anything, it was how to strike a deal even with a losing hand. Trade a fistful of sand for a hot meal. It was all about the illusion.

" Make them think you have something worthwhile,

even if you're worthless, yourself. "

She remembered all the nights their landlord would come knocking, demanding the month's rent, and the awful things he'd say about the people who raised her. How they were so much like rats, and how just being around them seemed to taint the energy in a room. Like a black cat running across a broken mirror. Misfortune seemed to follow them everywhere.

In most of her memories, her father wore a bruised eye with pride. He was a menace, and a conman. But he taught her how to swim when she was three, and how to name the stars by their shape alone. Just the important ones, but he'd tell her those were all she really needed to know. "Isn't the north star enough for you, Tigs?" The night was quiet, then.

Unyielding.

Her mother had been in an affair with a liquor bottle for half of Tiggy's life, but she tried not to judge the woman too harshly for it. As much as she loved to look up at the sky, she had a knack for people watching, too. She often noticed the way her father would take panicked breaths when he thought he was alone, and how her mother would disappear for days at a time.

The leaving was never frowned upon, so long as she returned with treasures. And a sadness in her eyes that never seemed to go away. Tiggy loved her mother, in the quiet way where she accepted that she'd never be able to help her. She'd keep disappearing, and drinking, and her daughter would only watch. As she always did, and always would.

"Kid, if you're ever gonna amount to anything, you need out."

Tiggy wondered why so many people were desperate to escape their own lives. She could recall her parents loosely telling her to at least try for a good education, but it was her teachers that insisted she could have gone on to do better things. It was so important to them that she avoid the inevitable. If she was going to succeed, she could be nothing like her family.

So, in her cheeky way, she came to terms with the fact that she would never be respected. Not in a way that mattered. She spent years listening to the community mock her father to his face, spreading rumors about her mother's drunken antics. That feeling never really left her as she aged; that rage from watching the people she loved be treated like they were nothing.

They unraveled in front of her, but it wasn't scary — and it wasn't beautiful.

A tapestry of black silk, fraying at the edges; a family tree with rot in the roots.

"What are you still doing up, Tigs?" She knew when her father had been crying. She had learned how to spot it earlier than she should have. "You've got school in the morning, right?" He rubbed his face, and it did nothing to mask his exhaustion. Tiggy just smirked, and lowered herself into the chair beside him. It was nostalgic in a way that never changed.

Like a memory that was still in the making. She felt young, and old, and oddly certain of the world. If she could have, she would have stayed like this for a long time. She didn't mind being a lightning rod for negativity. Sad as her life might be, it didn't feel like any of the grief belonged to her. To be a Libertine meant to steal other people's tragedies from them.

"Nah, Pops, the weekend just started."

They both knew she was lying, but no one challenged it. The good thing about being raised by people who liked to ruin their lives was that it was never a problem when she did the same. It was a birthright, if anything. According to Tiggy, she knew just enough about the world. That it was unfair, and often cruel, and she couldn't blame her parents for never making their peace with themselves. It couldn't have been easy for them.

"Well, alright." She could see the stars through the open window, and she knew them — and she was grateful for that. "Then I guess there's no harm in a story or two, hmm? Would you like that?" She could hear the sound of glass clinking in the kitchen, something pouring out. But she only smiled, and hugged an old throw pillow close to her chest.

"Maybe." She was used to losing, but that was just another way of saying she was always playing a game. And how miserable could that be, really? "Only if it's a good one, though. Something wild." 'And even if you have to lie to me,' she thought quietly to herself, 'it's okay. I'll believe you.' Because that was the real trick.

That was how the Libertines kept moving forward; this is what they were digging up from the graves when no one was watching them.

'Tell me a tragedy that is not ours, and I'll make it a treasure.'

^{( summary )}

coming soon.

[d7f amber bosch 🌿 tris]

L△LIA ♥

[L△LIA]

Accepted! <3