Writer Games | Masquerade of Martyrs & Family Ties

Task One: The Decision - Females

District One - Virgo Alizé [1]

Rosie didn't remember  letting go of Orion's hand. She didn't remember her father telling her  not to scream. She didn't remember the click of Jace's heels as she  tried to detach herself from the older Victor that held her back. Rosie  didn't remember somebody crying out or her knees buckling like they  couldn't support her anymore or the exact moment when she realized what  had happened. She didn't remember falling asleep, only falling down.  Everything was gone by the time her brother caught her and by then it  didn't matter. She'd shut down, she'd embarrassed herself and her  family.

"Virgo... Virgo, look at me."

"Leave her be, Dad. She didn't mean to do it."

What Rosie did remember  was waking up in an unfamiliar place, which she had always hated with a  passion. She blinked to clear the sleep out of her eyes and glanced  around. It was a fancy room, one like the room in Magnus' house that she  and Orion weren't allowed to enter. She'd peeked anyways. It was a dull  sort of room. It was pretty in a boring way but nothing special. This  one was similar but she knew that the room itself wasn't what mattered.  It was the contents that mattered.

"I told her that she needed to be calm."

"It doesn't work like that."

The room seemed to  contain only a couch, a rather ugly vase on a little end table, and her  family. The one that mattered, not the mother that had abandoned her and  the stepfather who wanted nothing to do with her. Her thoughts were a  bit jumbled but she felt less tired than before. She knew that it wasn't  going to last long. The drowsy feeling always came back to bother her.  She'd been living with it for ten years and in those ten years, it had  never gotten easier.

"How is she supposed to fight like that?"

"Don't scare her about it."

Her father and Orion  were speaking in hushed voices. Adults often did that when she was  around, like she wasn't mature enough to understand them. It had always  bothered her but she knew that they did it for a reason. They wanted to  protect her; it was always about protecting her. Her parents had  sheltered her for most of her life but they did it to protect her. Orion  always told her that it was because she was their baby but she knew  that he was wrong. They did it because she was different.

She was lying across  Orion's lap. Most ten year old girls would be too big to sleep on their  brother's laps but not Rosie. She had always been smaller than other  girls, more grown up but still childish in her own way. He was stroking  her hair idly and glancing at her with worried eyes. She'd seen him do  the same to Jace after she returned from the Victory Tour. Her brother  wasn't a nervous person but Rosie could tell that he was unhappy. It was  her fault, she was making them unhappy.

"Orion, I have to go,  don't I?" She felt left out in the conversation that was clearly about  her. If her mother had been there, she would've reprimanded her for  interrupting. But Rosie's mother wasn't there and that was the problem.  Her mother wasn't there to save her the way a mother was supposed to do.  She had left them for Magnus and his money and his stupid hair. Rosie  had tried to understand the decision that her mother had made but as she  thought about what was happening to her, she found that it was hard to  do so.

Her father looked like  he was searching for the right words to say, that's why she hadn't asked  him. She didn't want some long and boring speech about how she would  have to be brave and strong and careful. He loved her, she knew that he  did, but he would only dance around the subject to "protect her".  Protecting her wouldn't do any good now; there was nothing that he could  do. There were a lot of things that Rosie didn't know but she knew that  for sure.