[color=lightgray][center] [img]https://i.imgur.com/3wGoS7n.png[/img][/center] [color=a187be]Time:[/color] Evening [color=a187be]Location:[/color] Dungeon [hr] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/u9wMDFt.gif[/img][/center] [center][color=a187be]“The first time I watched a man purchase my mother, I was small enough to fit beneath the bed.”[/color] The words fell and did not echo. [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0GJVJftchg&list=RDR0GJVJftchg&start_radio=1[/youtube][/center] Alibeth’s gaze did not drop in shame. If anything, it sharpened, as if she were giving them an educational lesson. [color=a187be]“He did not so much as look at me when he came in. He stepped over my little brother as though the boy were nothing more than a discarded coat. And when it was finished, he left a coin on the table before he shut the door behind him.”[/color] Her fingers, still folded in her lap, tightened together. It was the only sign the memory had teeth that bit into her through this very day. [color=a187be]“People would call my mother vile, and then still knock on her door in the dark.”[/color] Wulfric's expression was unreadable, his brows furrowed as if in concentration. Auguste hung his head, and Anastasia's gaze lowered with emotion. Alibeth watched them register the information and said, [color=a187be]“I'd give you all a prettier version..."[/color] Her mouth curved in warning. [color=a187be]“But you are too old for fairytales.”[/color] [color=a187be]“I was born in the Varian Kingdom...Not in a place like Breoven...”[/color] Her eyes flicked, briefly, to Wulfric. [color=a187be]“I was born in a place that swallowed us all whole... You couldn't even call it a town, really.”[/color] [color=a187be]“Towns have names people are proud to say aloud. Towns have a square, a church, a market where the bread is still bread... We had roofs that sagged like tired shoulders. A river that ran black in spring from all the churned earth, and then froze over in winter so hard you could walk across it and still not escape.”[/color] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/I7oMdWr.gif[/img][/center] She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice softened.[color=a187be]“My mother had more children than she had years of peace.”[/color] She did not say who the fathers were, and she did not need to. The implication sat like rot. [color=a187be]“Some were born already losing the fight,”[/color] she continued, gaze fixed somewhere past the torchlight, [color=a187be]“small lungs, thin bodies that seemed to resent having been called into the world at all. And some learned...far too young...that hunger will turn even a good child into a thief… not because they are wicked, but because the world will not feed them for being virtuous. There were nights we slept stacked in one bed. You learn the weight of a body when you cannot afford blankets... And you learn to hear the difference between a baby’s hungry cry and a baby’s dying one.”[/color] Anastasia’s breath hitched, and Alibeth’s eyes slid to her daughter—amber to amber. [color=a187be]“Do not make that face, Anastasia.”[/color] she murmured. Then she shifted her hands, unfolding them slowly, palms up. [color=a187be]“My mother tried... She tried to keep us clean... She tried to feed us before herself.”[/color] Her voice remained steady, but the memory rose behind it all the same: a woman kneeling over a washbasin until her knuckles split and bled into the water; a woman smiling too brightly up at looming silhouettes; a woman turning her head to cough into her sleeve so her children would not see the red splatter. [color=a187be]“She was kind in the way drowning people are kind,”[/color] she continued. [color=a187be]“Not gentle... Desperate. The sort of kindness that gives all of it itself away piece by piece, because it has nothing else left to offer the world.”[/color] Her gaze lowered, just briefly, to the iron collar at her throat as if acknowledging its bitter irony. [color=a187be]“And she was trapped.”[/color] Alibeth did not let silence grow sentimental. [color=a187be]“My father was not a customer... He was around with all the frequency of a hurricane—months of absence, then suddenly a storm at the door... My twin sister Polina and I were his alone.”[/color] She described him to them as a tall silhouette with brown hair and eyes that did not soften. [color=a187be]“He brought food and medicine when he could. He taught me to read before he taught me to pray. Not because he wanted me educated. Because he wanted me armed.”[/color] She turned her head slightly, as if seeing him in the torchlight. [color=a187be]“Words are weapons,”[/color] she quoted. [color=a187be]“Ignorance is how evil breeds.”[/color] [color=a187be]“Whenever he came, my mother became quieter.”[/color] Alibeth said. [color=a187be]“Not because she feared him. Because she feared what he represented. And I—”[/color] Alibeth’s mouth tightened. [color=a187be]“He taught Polina and me how to wield a weapon... How to keep our wrists aligned, to keep our balance. To cut cleanly and without hesitation. He trained us for the world he intended to leave us in—because he knew he would."[/color] And then, inevitably, she returned to the point that explained everything she would later become.[color=a187be]“I learned that love is not enough.”[/color] Auguste’s jaw tightened as if he wanted to argue, and Alibeth raised a hand to silence him as she assured him, [color=a187be]“I loved them.”[/color] she said. [color=a187be]“[i]Every one of them[/i]. Even the ones who stole from me. Even the ones who blamed my mother for the shape of their lives. But love did not prevent them from a life with rats in the walls and fleas in their bedding.”[/color] Her eyes lifted to Wulfric again. [color=a187be]“That is what raised me.”[/color] [color=a187be]“And then,”[/color] she said softly, [color=a187be]“Polina and I found the book.”[/color] [hr] [/color]