Her name is not Izabelle, not yet, this is the name they give her, not the one she is born with. She does not remember her birth name.
WAKANDA APRIL 28TH 1950
She is six when she is taken from her home.
The men come in the night, they are after the metal but they find her. This is the first time she has seen white men; her country is secluded, closed off, safe from the outsiders, or it was.
She is six, and meant to be asleep. Her mother is asleep in the next room and her father is still at the palace. The air is warmer tonight, and something feels wrong. She rises from her bed, quiet as to not wake her mother and creeps out of their home.
Outside, nothing seem out of place yet something still feels off. The girl circles her house, quietly, keeping her sleeping mother in mind, she makes it back to the entrance when the source of her paranoia shows themselves.
Six strange men enter the space outside her house, they are dressed in black, their white faces being they only things shown. This is what alarms her the most. White men have not been in her homeland in many years, and even then they were not meant to be there, they had come to steal the countries metal, small teams and groups. A man brought an army once, the King and the people had killed their leader and banished the rest. These strangers were not welcome here, and she knew she was in danger.
"Ungubani?" She asks the stranger, slowly stepping backwards towards her home. They do not reply, instead they look to each other, seeming to communicate non-verbally, they seem to come to an agreement. It does not sit well with the young girl.
"Как вы думаете , что она понимает по-английски" One of the men says to another, who shrugs in response. "We, err, we mean you no harm." The man says as he walks forward while the others stay behind. "Do you, err, speak, err, English?"
The girl does not reply. Fear fills her eyes, and her hands begin to shake.
"дерьмо," another one whispers, "he said no witnesses."
The girl is close to her house now, she should call to her mother, she would know what to go. One of the men seems to realise what the girl is thinking as he says, "быстро кто-то схватил ее , прежде чем она плачет."
Two of the men rush forward, to fast for the girl to react in time. One grabs her arms and places a hand other her mouth, the other grabs her body. She begins to squirm as much as she can, she scratches and bites as the men carry her away into the trees.
She bites the man's hand and manages to yell out, "Nceda! Umama! Umama! Nceda!" The man grabs her mouth again, as they see her mother ran after them, screaming for them to stop.
The leader of the group stops and waits for her mother to catch up to them. He says something to her and she seems to plead and beg in response. She is on her knees now, crying, begging, she is desperate to get her daughter back.
The man shoots her mother in the head.
The men take her with them.
She does not see her home again.
They take her to another country, it's cold and confusing and she can't understand their language. She doesn't want to be here.
She tries to escape one night, once the men had gone to sleep and the one keeping watch had wondered off. She climbed out the bathroom window and from there she ran as fast as she could. But the cold got to her faster than she was prepared for, having come from a warm climate she had never experienced the cold this extreme and her body gave out sooner than she would like to admit. The men found her a few hours later collapsed besides a tree and on the verge of death.
She was punished for the attempt.
She did not try again.
MOSCOW RUSSIA
Sometime later they part ways, the men bring her to an 'orphanage' and it is the last time that she seems them. The man who runs the orphanage makes her learn two new languages, Russian and English, he tells her that she is being trained to become a ballerina, he tells her that she is an orphan that she was rescued, he tells her that her name is Izabelle, and she begins to believe him.
There are twenty seven other girls at the orphanage, they all come from Russia and they all share similar complexions, she is the odd one out and this worries her handlers.
She does not fit in with other girls, socially. Her Russian is barely understandable and her English is worse, she is clumsy, and her hair takes longer to brush. The handlers take her away a lot; more than the other girls, they teach her languages, and punish her when she speaks in her mother-tongue. She quickly begins to think in English and speak in Russian; she begins to forget her own language, there is no room for here.
They begin to experiment on her, they tell her that she is too noticeable; that she needs to be able to fit in to her environment; her skin is too dark and her hair is too big, so she begins to adapt. She can change her facial feature by the time her is twelve, she can change her skin tone at thirteen, and she can reinvent her whole body at fourteen.
She is the perfect weapon.
But she is not their favourite.
She meets Natalia after their dance class. They are in most of the same classes but had never actually interacted before. The girls are packing up, Natalia was stood by her guardian, a tall man called Ivan Petrovich, Izabelle watches as they interact, she knows that they are close, he is her guardian after all; but she can see it in the way that they stand together, close enough to talk but far enough away so that they can see behind the other. Natalia is rarely seen without Petrovich, but Natalia is rarely seen as it is. She is their favourite; she is smart and fast and the best at seduction, she is what the rest of the girls strive to be.
The pair eventually notice that Izabelle is still in the room, they nod to one another and Petrovich leaves the room while Natalia approaches her. The red head stops about a foot away from Izabelle, looking down the brunette. Izabelle is one of the shortest of the girls, standing at five foot four, the rest see it as a weakness, but Izabelle knows how to use her height to her advantage.
Natalia holds her stare for a whole ten seconds, Izabelle knows that this is a test for Natalia to see if Izabelle is worth her time, no one messes with Natalia, no one dares to try.
"Hello," Natalia speaks after a while.
"Hello." Izabelle replies.
"Kristina is away at this moment, and I need someone to spar with. Would you spar with me?" Natalia's voice is almost monotone and her eyes hold a challenge.
Izabelle takes a moment to gather her thoughts. She knows that Natalia is dangers - all of the girls are - and she knows that Natalia only ever spars with a selected few girls, girls that she respects. "I will spar with you."
Natalia holds her eyes for a few moments after before she finally nods and a small smirk appears on her face. As she turns and leaves she calls out "Meet me in the training hall at eight. Do not be late."
Once she's gone, Izabelle finally releases the breath she didn't realise she was holding.
Translations:
1. Ungubani - "who are you?" - "who is there"
2. Как вы думаете , что она понимает по-английски - "do you think that she understands English?"
3. дерьмо - "shit"
4. быстро кто-то схватил ее , прежде чем она плачет - "quickly someone grabbed her before she cries" - "quick someone grab her before she cries"
5. Nceda! Umama! Umama! Nceda! - "help! mother! mother! help!"