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Consider


The Hydrus Rreign
Owner: Classy

Age: 2 years, 6 months, 1 week

Born: November 9th, 2010

Adopted: 2 years, 6 months, 1 week ago

Adopted: November 9th, 2010

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Statistics


  • Level: 1
     
  • Strength: 10
     
  • Defense: 10
     
  • Speed: 10
     
  • Health: 10
     
  • HP: 10/10
     
  • Intelligence: 0
     
  • Books Read: 0
  • Food Eaten: 0
  • Job: Unemployed


Pet Info


Abi moves with a sort of gracelessness that only a girl her age could have the capability to. She shoves pencils off of her desk when reaching for a clean piece of paper. They scatter precariously underneath her single wooden desk. These, she thinks, are trying times. She picks up the pencils quickly, scuttling under her chair as her classmates translate short passages,

"They overcame him
by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
as to shrink from death."

each of them writes a line - their small class looks up and down from the chalkboard, back and forth from paper to book to paper. Abi writes, "by the blood of the Lamb". Her pencil snaps. An ugly, gray wound carved without life into her artwork.

The Beginning

The way they moved was awful. I only remember this. They stalked like ragged shadows into our doorway and took my father and the 'middle child', one of my older brothers. It happened so quickly that I went unnoticed - a small, dark figure crowded into a corner, melding with the walls. They waved their guns and puffed their chests out, harping "move" and "this way" so loudly that you could hear them clearly over the continuous gunfire of the village being raided.

My mother had been dead for several years - she perished in a fit of screams that I was returning, too young to hear. When a mother dies in birth, and you are the child that remains, you are filled with sorrow and you have no choice. Before me she had two brothers: Abassi and Sekayi - God and Laughter. I am Abikanile. I am Listen.

Abassi says the day I was born a dragonfly lay dead in our doorway. It had just dropped there, he said, in mid-air.

When they came to take the men from my village - when they came to steal our loving soul, our brothers and children and fathers - I was only six. Abassi had traveled from our home in the Congo to the homes of our kin who had suffered our fate before us. We were merely mirrors, sad, bleak, and broken.

The day they came they took Sekayi and my father. And I watched.

Time passes

Abassi stands in the front courtyard, one which is shared with chickens and a fenced yard for goats. He leads three scarred men to the back. They walk through packed dirt, scattered feathers, dry mounds where corn will soon grow, and into the shed in the back. Abassi will not let me in there. He says that I would not understand.

He is putting me through school, this I know, and whatever is in that shed is his way. We left our village after the raid, though stayed in the Congo. The violence never ceases here. Four years and I am ten years old. I am dressed in white shoes and stockings, and a soft white dress, and Abassi walks me in the morning to the church where school is held.

I can say things in English like, "Nice to meet you." and "Where are you from?" but I don't know why. I will never meet an Englishman. Abassi says they are not special, and they do nothing to help anybody but themselves. He says they are greedy and ignorant. I do not know what those words mean.

Our teacher, she is mis Ally, is white. She is what she calls blond and I have never seen anything like it. She has brown eyes like us, but she is clean and wears glasses. She shows us pictures of where she is from, Canada she says is right above The United States of America, except for one part Alaska. She shows us maps, and pictures of her home and family. I wonder why she is here and not there. Who would choose this place over a husband and child?

In class she calls me Mariella. She calls Abassi John. Why does she make us white, but we cannot make her black? I am not Mariella and I do not know that Mariella is who I will become.

Time passes
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Pet Info


Mari shifted her weight on the ground, sliding one arm farther forward as she leaned over the ditch. The loose rocks and dirt, the pattern from the roadside, all pushed into her soft palm - and slowly ate away at the thin fabric of her stockings, covering her knees in red dust. "Is it dead?" she asked. Her lip quivered quietly, already in mourning.

"Yes, Mariella. It's dead." He bent down beside her, one knee on the ground, and scooped up the fragile creature from the dead grass and leaves. He flipped it over in his hands; the glass wings sparkled, despite the minute layer of dust. He stood slowly, staring at the dragonfly lying, motionless, in his hand. "Come now, stand up, you'll mess your dress."

It was a cooler morning, though the world of afternoon was already coming in on sultry waves of air. Mari stood, shook the dirt from her white dress, and looked at her brother in deep, dark set brown eyes. "You've been late every morning this week, bokkie, I think your teacher might be angry," he lectured, and Mari looked at him with a slight sigh. "Can I see it while we walk?" He nodded, and grabbed her small hand as they made their way to the schoolhouse.

"Who do you think it was, broer?" her voice purred as she softly pulled the creature into her hand and studied the green and black lines down its slender body.

"There's no telling, Mah." He took small steps so as not to leave her behind. Around them the smell of fermenting mangoes leeched through their clothes and skin. "There are so many people in the world, we'd never know for sure." She stumbled along beside him.

"But we knew..." she trailed, and her brother's heart sank.
"Yes, we did, but that was different, liefie." Mari sighed, not only for the moment, but for the pet names. She could feel his grasp tighten as they turned into the village. The sound of schoolchildren bounced back against the sun as they filed into the small building that was their classroom. They walked to the door, and Mariella passed through and began the usual morning bicker. "Don't be late." The words managed to sprawl back to him over her shoulder - and she was gone amidst dark faces and heat.

"Hello." He stuttered, the word sounded foreign from his lips, but the teacher nodded in response. "Is... she late, today?"

"No... right on time, this morning," the woman responded. She seemed clean, her clothes pressed firm and gray, her hair pulled back, her brown eyes and pale skin wildly out of place. He blushed, nodded quietly to Mari, and stepped out of the classroom.

Time passes.

The day passed, chalk was wasted, lunches with lukewarm water were consumed or thrown at one another. Mari sat on the concrete step outside of the building, her weight being tossed from one side to the other nervously, uncomfortably. They had all gone; even now, the pale teacher with a gray suit came stumbling over the door frame, locking it.

"He's late again, mis Ally." Her voice sounded obviously disappointed. She stood and let her teacher pass.

"I'll walk you, until we see him on his way, at least."

They walked. It was a long stretch to Mari and her brother's home, and they did not see him on the way. Mrs. Alley stood on the edge of her yard. "He must have forgotten again, Mari." She said her name like it was coming out of a tin can. "I will see you tomorrow morning." She knelt down and fixed the top of the little girl's dress before smiling, nodding, and turning away.

The front seemed empty, dirty, as it always seemed to feel. Black and emerald insects flew between the windows, glass wings tilted towards the sun. She stepped across the silty pathway and into the house. "Broer? Broer waar is jy? I can't believe you forgot about me again." She looked into the house, only a small shanty separated by a wall; one side, the kitchen and dining room with a small space for Mari to do her homework, the other side their room - small and stuffy, but what they had always called home. "Brother?" she called into the empty house.

She paused in the rooms, changed out of her school clothes, and stepped into the back yard. A small wave of scraggly corn, a square fence for goats - their attempt to make a living. Mari blinked the heat away as the door creaked slowly closed behind her. She glanced at the empty goat pen, then glanced at the corn. She stepped towards it, knowing he was back there, probably picking away beetles. She stopped at the first row. A dragonfly lay, glistening red, curled into the loose dirt. She picked it up gently, a feeling in her chest lurching her to the side. She almost felt the world crack and break around her.

"B... rother.." she choked out, "brother I have no work today, I can help you with the beetles." She clutched the ruby insect, shakily, in her hand. "Brother, where are the goats?" She walked through each slim row of dry corn. "Brother, I can help you with the beetles." There was no sound. Her eyes glistened, tears fell slowly down her cheeks. "Brother, why were you late today?" Her breath came staggered, she coughed and wiped her nose, she sunk down into the ground next to a crumpled figure whose eyes were closed, whose skin was dry from sun, whose body leeched, crimson, into the already stained ground. "Brother..."

She took his face in her small hands, above her the constant flutter of paper wings sank down with the sun. "I found another dragonfly."

---

I am a broken soul. I have not one thing left to me but an orange blanket that was my mother's. I am thirteen, and I am without love or hope. How does a girl become this? I seldom reach into myself and find darkness, despite all of which surrounds me. Despite it, as I walk into the city and stare into the threshold of an orphanage I am caught in the moment - and the creased, dirty foreheads of those who share a similar fate as mine.

War is everywhere. War is in my bones, and the blood it has destroyed me, my home, and my heart. I am remorse. Listen.

Abassi, my kind brother, helped them - these people that killed my father, Laughter, and God. He helped them for me. Abassi said, sometimes, that I would only know the color green when I found it for the first time, on my own.

I cannot fathom what he expects of me, now.
I no longer believe in the sounds of the Congo.

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Pet Info


I remain in the same village where my brother was killed. It is where the missionary is. It is where the orphanage is. School is no longer what it was to me, before. There are no more walks with Abassi. God is dead. God is dead.

The orphanage is deemed, "Saint Joseph's" and there is a large cross at the end of the entrance hall. It is surrounded by candles - unlit in the day, but burning fiercely at night. We have a curfew, though none of the children here seem to even get far enough along in the night to pass it. We have no truth, we have no motivation. When dusk comes and the sun sinks low, the darkness overwhelms us and we drown in it.

There are perhaps thirty of us. Some are mere infants, others older, like me. We have a routine that involves chores, schooling, bible-study, mass, eating, sleeping, and breathing. We are kept busy at the cost of the workers of Saint Joseph's, who all seem kind, but tired and estranged. No one knows another's story, but we can't help but understand, that in this time of fear and lovelessness and hatred, it is only a shadow of our own.

War wages around us. Each day there is some one new. Some child. The remnants of love.

---

Mariella woke early, early enough to where there was no sun. Sundays were the hardest days for her, and probably many of the other children, though they were the easiest for the workers at Saint Joseph's. The reason was simple: Sunday didn't have much of a regime. As long as everyone was accounted for at Mass, everything went smoothly, but slowly. There were no chores to be done, no school or schoolwork. There was nothing monotonous to keep a child's mind at bay.

Dark mornings like these always fell emptily onto Mariella. It was calm and warm, but nothing moved. When she rose from bed, none of the other girls in the room stirred. As she stepped through the hall there was no echoing of footsteps or voices through the tiny corridors.

She walked into the back courtyard, making a line towards the outhouse that had been situated far from the central buildings. The sun had yet to peak across the endless horizon, though a small sliver of its coming light began devouring the stars above her. Still, silence. She was very aware of her own footsteps on the dry ground, and was startled by a rogue hen nesting in the bushes by the outhouse wall.

She stepped in sleepily and got settled inside. The smell, which was the reason for its great distance from the halls, was much less antagonizing when it was cooler. There weren't flies to bite at her skin, and there were no constant knockings from one of the many other children, waiting for her to come out.

Still, the stench made her dizzy, and her sleeplessness had only contributed to it. She rested her head in her hands, rubbing her eyes and face, trying to gauge whether she was still asleep or not.
Outside silence of the world was broken by the frantic mooing of cattle. Mari listened to their chaotic speech, wondering, for a moment, what it would be like to have a life as simple as that of an ox. The thought, however, was inturrupted by a shrill scream, the sudden, fast movement of the cattle, and blistering of gunfire. Suddenly the world was alive, and Mariella was terrified.

The scream was close, just off the edge of the village, no less than four huts down from the missionary. Mari was stuck in her skin, which had suddenly become raised and hot. The main buildings were far away, possibly too far for her, but the outhouse was no protection against what she knew was coming. As the gunfire grew louder, and the thunder of stampeding hooves and heavy boots consumed her, she panicked.

---

I jumped from the outhouse. My legs had grown long and awkward, and I tripped. My face filled with dirt, my nose with blood. A girl alone when the militia comes is doomed.

I stood only to see them passing by quickly, swarming like wasps and ants, covering every inch of ground they could. The building was so far. I ran.
Beneath my feet rocks and dirt ground into my skin, and slid up in heavy puffs. My lungs burned, my legs ached. I had not eaten, and was hardly awake. My fate lay blindly wishing it wasn't what it was, and I screamed as a man caught me from behind - his arm wrapped just under my chest.

He picked me up easily. I screamed. My tongue let loose, "Abassi! Help! Moet my nie seermaak!" Don't hurt me. Please, please don't hurt me. Don't hurt me like I've been hurt so much. I writhed, and he stuck a knife to my chest, just under my heart. The blade was cold, and I twisted in his grip, pushing myself away from him. The blade cut deep into my skin, down my side, just underneath my hip on my back. I screamed again, this time from pain, but jumped and tried to get away.

It was no use. He easily caught up with me again, and pushed me down. My head hit a large, dead log, and got cut around my eye. He held me there. He ripped my night dress off. He ripped my life apart.

---

I am dead to me, like I am dead to any man that walks this earth. I am a broken woman.

They found me hours later, once the men had gone. They unlocked the doors to find me lying, shaking on the ground. They had taken many young men with them, forced them with their guns like they had my father and brother.

For many weeks after I was sick, in so many ways. I found more grief, and pity and sadness. I was torn. The cuts on my side and eye scarred badly, and within a month I was doubled over, ill, every day.

We all knew what it was. By the time I could no longer see my feet under my distended stomach I was just past fourteen.

We named him Mwanyisa. Accept defeat. My own war raged on.

Beginning
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To be continued

Consider the Hydrus Rreign
Name: Abi is her given, Mariella is her English name.
Gender: Female

Mariella has a son, he is about 9, now, whereas she is now 23. They're currently living as Refugees in Canada.

She definitely has not had the easiest of lives, though she was lucky enough to be educated (despite the role of religion in that education, she remains without faith due to her experiences).

Mari is not up for any roleplaying

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