Here's chapter 3! Enjoy... also sorry for the late update however I've been busy and whatnot :D
You looked upon me with disgust and hatred when you first came here, and don't try to hide it! I might not be able to see with my eyes but I can see in other ways, making it nearly impossible for you to hide anything from me. It doesn't matter to this old woman here whether you're a master of Occlumency or not it's the heart that sees things and your heart is as connected to mine as it is his past.
I also would like to tell you that you will look at me with much more disgust than you already have. I was no human in my younger days, I even doubt my humanity now. I was a disgrace upon man and I am not proud of what I have done, but I do not regret it. I do not regret anything in my life, as those points have all led me to this very point and all points in my life, whether they be good or bad.
My lack of regret does not mean I have a lack of care though, for I have a heart and a conscious, perhaps those things make me human, but in the state of my soul, I doubt it. I shall be forever damned in this world and the next and I know of it. Perhaps one of my only solaces it that when I finally do depart this world I'll be reunited with the very people that helped me become who I am, who I was and who I'll never be. Whether I enjoyed the company of those people matters not to me anymore, I'd simply like to see each of them once again. I'm the only one left you know, they've all died off, it's awfully lonely knowing you're the only one left out of a family or an organization, it's even sad knowing that the ministry still has a wanted poster of me with a picture on it from when I was twenty-five years old and that they don't have pictures of anybody else anymore.
You have made me reminisce boy, and today I am changing what I would have told you because of that. Today I will tell about my memories.
As we are still in my youth and you know next to nothing about me, I find it fit that I tell you the most prominent of memories from my youth.
The first memory is indeed the very first thing I can remember. I'd have been about four or five at the time at occurred and it is a most pleasant memory indeed. Let's take a step into the Pensieve then shall we?
There was a small little girl walking down a hallway that seemed entirely too large for her. She was dressed completely in white, making her look even paler than she already was, the golden-blonde of her hair did nothing to help the extremely fair tint of her skin either.
As she walked her tight curls bounced and her dress flounced. She would stop ever so gracefully every now and then to do odd little things. Once she sang, another time she screamed at the top of her lungs and giggled afterward. The very last time she did this is was to call her mother, by her full name no less.
"Morrigan Elodia Cheri!" She had called out, and the woman appeared looking down at her daughter disdainfully.
"I am your mother, call me by such!" The older woman demanded. Both ladies looked nearly the same at this point in their lives, as Morrigan too had curly blonde hair( though hers was considerably lighter), glowing pale skin and it seemed that she too dressed in all white. That was all except for the sleeves of her ever extravagant dress, which were the darkest black. It was as if the little girl were a funhouse mirror image of her mother, a miniature doll, or a picture taken long ago that had come to life.
'"I will call you what I like! Besides, 'mother,' you don't act very much like what everyone else says a mother is like."
"And how would you know what other mother's are like my child? You have never been outside the grounds of this house, nor have you ever been allowed any friends others than your own siblings, have you not? "
"But who's fault is that for treating me so frailly? You won't even let me stumble without sending our Healers to be with me at all times for a week! I've never been outside our grounds but it's not as if I'd die if I were to do so! We all breathe the same air you know!"
"My, my, for only five you have a venomous little tongue. I'll admit that I sometimes forget how intelligent you are, my love." The small child glared at her mother ever so evilly, and then, putting on her very best smile, grabbed her mother's hand and proceeded to drag her down the hallway.
Looking upon the scene one might find it humorous that against the child's violent dragging her mother remained graceful, floating across the floor with ease.
They reached a door, taller by far than even the mother, and the child opened it.
"This is my favourite place you know! I don't want you in here to ruin how pretty it is with how mean you are to me, so you can't come in!"
"I find it hard to believe you are as eloquent as you've proven to be in public by the way that you're acting now." With that the older woman turned and left her daughter to go to her 'favourite place'
And when that golden-haired child finally stepped into the doorway she was enveloped in the lightest, brightest light that could ever be found. Left with nothing but a feeling of pure serenity, the child could be heard giggling as she closed the door.
I love that memory most of all those when I was a child, it's not perfect but I don't really like perfect anyway.
She never once called me by my name you know, she named me and forever after that I was 'child' or 'love' or 'dear,' or any other name she could come up with to avoid the one she'd given me. It's also true that I never had any friends, not until I went to school that is, she never let me leave. My brother's and sister's got to go out of course, but I was the golden child, the flame to rekindle a burnt old torch, to restore the family honor. It took me years of speaking to her like that before she even let me out of the house. I actually think a week or so before that had been the first time I'd been allowed out in the gardens.
Despite being so sheltered and friendless I managed to have wonderful people skills, to be honest I'm not too sure how, but they helped nonetheless.
Unfortunately those skills haven't always helped me, they do most of the time but not always.
Which my boy leads me to my second memory. No, you can step away from the pensive now, I keep this one in my head. It's a reminder to me of the terrible things I've done, and what happens to me when I do them. I keep this one in my own head, and I shall 'til the day I die. So sit down, it's a short memory but it's important, so listen well.
I was eight at the time and my hair by then had turned it's silvery color. My eyes had brightened into an even lighter blue, they were so very light that it looked like they were turning white. The Healers told me I was slowly going blind and there was nothing they could do to fix it. In the end my sight was taken from me at the age of thirty, it's safe for me to say that I didn't miss being able to see.
Because I was already partially blind by that time one might guess that I had some trouble seeing things that were either too bright or too dark. Even in normal light things seemed to blend together.
I was walking down the hall, dressed in my usual white attire, trying so desperately to see in front of myself clearly. I knew where I was, I'd been kept in the house so long that I'd memorized my way. Even if I was completely blind I would be able to tell where I was.
I had come to a set of stairs and begun to walk down them. It became apparent to me that something was on one of the stairs as soon as I stepped on it. Time has forgotten what it was but, I slipped on it and fell.
To what I can only count as a miracle, I twisted my body into a strange position. This caused the sharp object that was lying in wait for me a few stairs down to slash my back rather than stab or injure any other part of me.
I'm not sure what it was that slashed me, or even how such a thing happened anymore, but I do remember the maniacal sound of my dear sister Elysia, laughing at me. It was quite obvious that she had set some sort of trap for me, and she claimed that she thought the healers could make everything perfect again.
It was after that day that I stopped bothering to pity her, and that very same day that I decided to seek a non-violent sort of revenge against her. It was my own attempt to beat her at her own game, to show her the only those who are inferior would resort to violence to exact their hateful revenge.
It wasn't many years later that I would eat my own thoughts and follow someone who did just that, though I myself never resorted to such things.
I know that telling you my memory like this is boring, and I know that it is vague, but I don't wish it to leave my head.
When it is there it is foggy and there are parts I can't remember. It is also one of the few memories that I see through my own eyes, which only further fogs the details.
I keep it in my head because it is easier to forget this way. If it were in the Pensieve I could be free to view it as if I were an outsider. I could get all detail and know exactly what happened and perhaps even why. I do not wish for this, I want my memory to remain what it is, broken and confusing. It is one of the few parts of my life that I never wished to clarify.
I do not wish to know what gave me such a long scar down my back, nor do I wish to know the look on my sister's face, or the horror and pain my face must have shown. I don't want to watch it over and over again, as I know I certainly would.
It is the only pain that I run from, the only one that I refuse to admit exists.
There is one more memory to share with you, and if only it had been realize how very foreshadowing that memory was, perhaps we'd be in different places right now.
Perhaps I would have been normal.
"And the answer is ?!"
"Thirty-seven!"
"Correct my little student, how very good of you."
"Why thank you teacher!" The little blonde child brimmed with happiness at being complemented for getting something correct. Her smile was ridiculous, wide and gap-toothed, it was a face that made her look oh so absurd at ten.
"You'll grow up to do great things Nevena, with your talents anything is possible," the teacher said to the blonde child, who looked up eyes filled with curiosity and adoration.
"Thank you," she said more humbly this time. She had no open-mouthed smile, no bright happy eyes. Her face was cool and collected in a face that did not belong on a child as herself. It was the face of a woman, one who was trying to seduce another no less. But this was not the case, it was just the child smiling in the smile she was composed to do.
"Do not smile like that little one, you are but a child!"
"To look every so seductive and yet ever so innocent, that is what the smile of a lady is meant to be. That is what Morrigan has told me to do with the face I have been given. It's charmed enough people in this world, why should I not use it?"
"You should not smile like that, for your potential is too vast. There are those who would exploit your smile and your talents. You should do good things Nevena, never do bad."
"And what if I wanted to grow up to do the most horribly terrifying things ever to be done?!" A twisted smile now contorted her absurdly mature face, and the young teacher blinked in an odd surprise.
"If it is what you want I urge you to go against your will."
"But if I have this power why should I go against my will with it? I only wish to let the world know of my powers! Perhaps then somebody important will call me by my name!"
"Your mother has corrupted you beyond my repair. To use your power in whatever way you can demonstrate is not wise, for the first things that come to mind are always evil deeds. You must think before you act and commit deeds of valor and good! Do you want to be evil, child?"
"I don't want to be anything in particular, I just want to be! If simply being means that what I would do is evil in the eyes of others, then I care not for their petty thoughts! If I use my power and people see it as evil, well, then they are the evil ones!'
"How terribly naïve of you."
"Someday I'll be great and all the world shall know me! I will be Nevena, the greatest of all! I'll do whatever it takes to become great. I won't be like you, so very smart but sitting here teaching a child! I'll astonish the world, and your pathetic values will be crushed!"
"Stop this nonsense Nevena! You will calm down and forget this talk or horrify deeds of evil!"
"I will forget only until you leave!"
"Then that is good enough, come it is Saturday, you may play outside today." The child looked up at her teacher with a most bewildered look.
"I do not like reverse psychology." She muttered to herself before standing up and brushing off her white dress. She lightly ran after her fleeing teacher, it was after all a Saturday, why not enjoy her only day outside in the week?
Bah! I hate her second memory. nt much I can do with it though... or rather not much that my brain-dead self can think of :P