Summary:
Bellona longs to fulfill her demanding mother's expectations, and become the bloody war-wreaking incarnation she's named for. If only her irritating twin brother would stop hogging the spotlight as heir... Ah, well, 'accidents' can always be arranged, can't they? [Fem!Bel] [AU] [Semi-SI]
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Disclaimer:
I don't own KHR! or the cover picture.
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Reviews:
Thank you, 'awesome', for your review. I'm glad you liked it, then. :]
Thank you, 'VanillaMilkshake18', for your review. I think I'll make them more or less equal, constantly locked in a power struggle, with their parents urging them on to find the 'stronger' heir/heiress to the throne. Sorry, the stabbing-Rasiel scene will have to come a little later. Bell and 'Jill' (though I've never understood why canon!Bel called Rasiel 'Jill') are separated by their parents, and they even live in different parts of the castle, so they rarely cross paths, and are usually accompanied by a caretaker. For info on what has happened between age 1 (last two chapters, a.k.a. their first meeting) and age 4 (her current age, as of this chapter), just go to the last chapter and read the front part. As for the Varia, well, we'll see what happens when we get to that arc.
Thank you, 'Theta-McBride', for your review. I really appreciate you favoriting a lot of my stories. ;]
Thank you, 'Caterina', for your review. Hopefully, you still liked this chapter. :]
Thank you, 'JackFrost14', for your review. It's always nice to hear from a reader.
Thank you, 'Guest', for your review. Sadly, the Varia Arc isn't happening for several more chapters. We still need to go through the build-up to the massacre, then the massacre itself, then Bel somehow finding her way to Italy and finding the Varia/get herself recruited. And Alina still needs to teach her about knives, and all that.
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Quotes:
"Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood." - Friedrich Nietzsche
"Whether the knife falls on the melon or the melon on the knife, the melon suffers." - African Proverb
"If any man says he hates war more than I do, he better have a knife, that's all I have say." - Jack Handy
"Sometimes when I feel like killing someone, I do a little trick to calm myself down. I'll go over to the persons house and ring the doorbell. When the person comes to the door, I'm gone, but you know what I've left on the porch? A jack-o-lantern with a knife stuck in the side of it's head with a note that says "You." After that I usually feel a lot better, and no harm done." - Jack Handy
"A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it." - Rabindranath Tagore
"Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt." - Lao Tzu
"I do not weep at the world. I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife." - Zora Neale Hurston
Bellona scowls fiercely at the squawking chicken she is holding upside down near her head, her fingers tightly grasping the furiously flapping bird's claws.
"This is stupid," she mutters mutinously, contemplating the prospect of carelessly tossing the chicken back into the pen of it's kinsfolk, a prospect that grows more welcome and gained attractiveness with every passing second.
She tosses the chicken, and derives a spiteful satisfaction from the startled squawking that ensues in the suddenly roused flock.
Footsteps come closer, ones that slide softly on the chilly stone flagstones, the ones paving the outdated kitchen of the equally outdated castle.
(Perfect for an outdated kingdom with outdated ideals and an outdated philosophy...
Perfect for teaching her what not to be like.
That is, not to be like those complete fools-)
"My self-forged bell, what have I told you before?" a lofty woman's voice rings out imperiously, just on this side of waspish, gently judging and playing at kindness and vibrating with tightly contained rage, constant rage, eternal rage.
Rage and ambition and lofty leanings indeed.
Glancing up through her fringe, a trick she finally masters after turning 4 a few weeks ago, the princess scowls petulantly and crosses her arms.
"A princess does not complain obviously in public. If they must, they must do it subtly and snidely and with sophistication, phrased in such a way that politics will not allow for any retaliation. Resorting to crude cursing is crass, and only befitting of peasants. Of course, it is different for insults," Bellona recites flatly, in a droning monotone that borders on 'eye-rolling mocking'.
Then she frowns abruptly, discarding layers of decorum carefully beat into her with words and whispers, disregarding all that in favor of what came most naturally:
Whining.
"But this is stupid, mother. Didn't you say that raising livestock was a peasant's duty? Why should a princess have to do this?"
Her mother stops, sudden, in front of her, and stares coldly down, somehow conveying her intense disapproval with only her eyes, her tone soothingly serene, the rage locked up being fed freedom in bite-sized burns.
"Are you questioning me, Bellona? Have you forgotten the other rules?"
Catalina pinches her daughter on her cheek, sharp nails dug in, squeezing hard, hard enough to leave a bright white crescent-imprint that'll fade like all the others did, before abruptly letting her hand fall slack by her side again, smiling thinner than the tips of the poisoned needles in her hair.
"Royalty answers to none but those above them. A princess answers to a queen, a queen answers to the gods. And the gods are simply terrible, terrible humans who have surpassed what humanity dictates as 'possible'."
For a moment, the queen looks vaguely ponderous, her disapproving (not good enough never good enough why aren't you good enough damnit i will craft these edges onto this bell of mine myself if that is what i must do if that is what it takes if that is all that it takes i will do it myself) eyes misted over with distant thoughts, gilded glorious thoughts of staircases to royalty and pathways to godliness...
Then the moment passes and she is talking again, talking, talking, talking.
"A princess acts with maturity and elegance and grace. She does not allow herself to be so easily read. That means, Bellona my bell, drop the petulant scowl, uncross your arms, back straight, eyes forward, no sulking or griping. As for the peasant task of raising livestock, you know very well why you have been bestowed with this task, and what you must accomplish before… your godmother's next 'visit'."
A brief expression of vexation flashes across the Russian nobility's fair face, and then slides off smoother than oil on water.
The child sighs, but accordingly does as her mother commands, and mechanically picks up another chicken, unable to resist scrunching up her nose distastefully at the futilely struggling fowl.
"Yes, mother," she agrees compliantly, dipping her head respectfully, a sign of submission she'll only show to her caretaker and crafter, causing her long locks to brush lightly across her forehead as they shifted with the motion.
Catalina's sharply aristocratic features soften ever-so-slightly, pleased with the proof of her project's progress, and the woman gives a wider smile in return.
"Good, my little herald bell."
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(We always trust those we raise from birth.
'Who else?' we reason.
Ah.
But you forget.
A betrayer raising one to be loyal is only raising a betrayer in the end.
Those we raise are far too similar to ourselves, after all.)
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After the queen exits the room, sweeping dramatically out the door with her thick, rich purple fur-lined cloak, Bellona picks up the giant cleaver lying on the wooden counter next to her.
She experimentally feels out the heft, calculations blitzing through her mind's neuron highways, adjusting her grip accordingly to compensate for the extra weight.
A considering look is leveled thoughtfully at the chicken still struggling madly in her hands.
(Not that anyone can tell, not with her eyes doubly covered, first by slick bangs, second by nebulous spiderwebs sprawling over the windows to her supposed soul.)
The chicken, having enough of a brain to realize that it's fate is going to be bad, ending rather quickly, and brought around by the hand of it's captor, screeches apprehensively in suddenly acquired fear.
Through desperation and genetic biology, it manages to twist and squirm upwards suddenly enough to surprise Bellona, landing a stinging peck on her perfect porcelain skin during that split-second of hesitation.
A tiny droplet of blood, darker than garnets and finer than rubies and far thicker than wine, wells up.
It glistens innocently at her.
Mocking her.
Seconds later, the cleaver is embedded into the wall in front of her with a dull thud, the disemboweled head of the feathery bird frozen mid-croak on top of the flat side of the blade, slowly dripping down the infamous scarlet fluid of life and death and all that nonsense in-between.
Underneath the cleaver is the headless body of the chicken, running around frantically with wildly beating wings, before gradually decreasing in motion, twitching spasmodically, and finally flopping down stone-dead on the frigid slate tiles paving the floor.
When it's heart is forced to admit that it's mind is gone, and, lacking further instruction, stops, in the manner of those accustomed to orders and facing the frightening unknown of independence.
Calmly walking over, with only a mild wrinkled nose of distaste at the smear of coppery-scented pink on the back of her left palm, Bellona wrenches out the cleaver from the wall in one surge of strength, letting the head drop.
Unheeded, it eventually rolls to a stop near it's former body.
Some inclined towards the more fantastical flights of fancy just might say that it's glassy eyes are staring mournfully at it's neatly severed spinal cord.
She examines the quickly drying stains on the blade, wall, and floor, then clicks her tongue twice with irritation, grumbling, "kaching," resorting to bringing the knife to the corner-sink.
It's rusty and creaks loudly, but it works, and soon a thin but steady stream of icy water is plunging bravely into the only basin to pass her keen inspection.
After a pause, she freezes mid step and turns back, picking up the chicken corpse and unceremoniosuly plunking it into a large tin pail, one that had been set onto the floor for specifically that purpose.
Task done, heading back to the sink is her next action.
With a glance over at the coop full of panicking fowl, another sigh slipped out from the four-year-old's lips, as she absently swishes the cleaver around in the cool basin of washing water, watching the red from the knife bleed the clear liquid into a blushing rose.
"This is going to take a while," Bellona reflects aloud, staring up at the dank kitchen ceiling.
The chicken in the pail gives one last, shuddery twitch; the blank eyes of the decapitated head film foggily over, now forever unseeing, not even to mourn.
And as the little girl wearing a dainty silver tiara and a frilled white dress keeps swishing the cleaver, leaving swirls of a pretty pale pastel undulating like eels, she even begins to hum, hum a jaunty tune that her mother often sang as a lullaby in her younger days.
Often sings now, as it is.
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Rain, rain,
come to play;
sift through sins
and make them pay.
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Soothe the bloodlust,
the thrill, the kill;
cleanse the crimson
enough to fill.
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Storm, storm,
come destroy;
vengeance wreck,
and with them toy.
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Quickly you come,
swiftly you go;
give us clear heads,
to murder our foes.
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Cloud, cloud,
come cover-up;
hide the blood,
and on them sup.
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Drifting idly by,
dashing madly past;
smash through bars set,
let none of it last.
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Thunder, lightning,
rage on 'till dawn;
bare bodies grim and glee,
are they all gone?
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Slash the air,
no cares of who's there;
drum the berserker hymn,
survival is rare.
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This is our song,
that is not wrong,
for we are alive,
and for now we will thrive.
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(Unincluded Verse):
- But not
for long.
Since though we throng
in insanity
and pull along
only gore to see,
in the end
death is strong,
stronger than us,
so we leave without fuss.
... well...
overly much.
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It all starts because Bell wants to stab people.
Preferably her brother.
Or, y'know, the sperm donor she is forced to acknowledge because of DNA and scientific reasoning as her father, despite the relative primitiveness of Sangevechi's advancements in knowledge.
Really, that's it.
Just one eensy, teensy stab.
Okay, well, maybe not too eensy and teensy.
Some pain and screaming will be appreciated, too.
Unfortunately, her mother is apparently quite strict about not handling weapons before the handler can use them properly.
Her mother admits that she herself isn't much of a direct fighter; she uses trickery and poison and these 'illusions' churned and spat from the prettily dancing fire she makes lick at her fingertips like a tamed nest of vipers.
Illusions that she promises to demonstrate for her when she's 'old enough'.
However, that means that she can't teach her.
Therefore, Bell is banned from sneaking any more cutlery, and has her precious gifted dagger confiscated mere months after receiving it, aged barely 2.
That stirs outrage, of course, though the Voice in her head seems to think it's too dangerous for her.
Anyway, anyhow.
Bell even fights back, viciously trying to claw her mother…
… who rapidly ends that little uprising, with a sharp command and a sharper slap.
When the little girl recedes back into docility, and is willing to listen to facts once more, her mother's harsh lecture soon sets her straight.
And if that hasn't, then being sent to her room without dinner and having her room service rights revoked for a week certainly does.
"You shall simply have to wait for your… godmother to come and visit you. She is more than capable of tutoring you, and I… trust her to be the best choice. The most elite, highly skilled option, anyway. If you are really so determined, then I would advise you to invest your free time in researching knives and knife-centered combat in the Royal Library. Physical conditioning would be a wise idea as well. As females, we are naturally built for speed, so you should focus somewhat in that area. Knife-throwing typically takes care of power for you, and you've proven yourselfto be a prodigy so far, so trajectory calculations should be fairly easy to understand. Accuracy will only come from practice and built-up muscle memory. Perhaps, Bellona, this shall breed some patience and foresight into you. Mayhaps we will see about procuring an IQ test for you one of these days."
Her mother smiles a bit broader than usual, her eyes crinkling around their crisp, smooth edges, but the smile is bitingly proud and her eyes are bitterly pleased.
"And perhaps this will be the edge you need over your brother, my little bell of death."
So she listens (to her mother) and she reads (to learn different knife types and fighting styles) and she trains (for arm muscles) and she runs (for stamina and speed) and she plays darts with a variety of sharp pointy stabby things until she can nearly always hit anything stationary or moving, using anything from a sewing needle snuck from the seamstresses to studiously carved sticks snagged from nearby branches.
Her godmother even sends several shipments of highly advanced books on equations and formulas, detailing how to get the most out of every exercise, every throw, every movement.
A note from Alina is sent along as well, explaining that she is busy on a long-term undercover infiltration mission, but expects Bellona to be proficient in knife-handling basics by the time she finally visits after her 5th birthday.
'I have much faith in you, killer kitten. Grow those claws and sharpen those fangs for me, yes? Just like your mother and I. Ah, how this brings the memories back...'
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She also, as a result of trying to carve simplistic arrowheads, a.k.a. the carved sticks, is given a tutor to teach her how to whittle.
Bell eagerly soaks up all of the lessons, and soon becomes a master woodcarver, if only so that she could be cleared for the practical hands-on portion.
It is lovely to use a blade, skimming and shaving and smoothing over wooden curls, and so easy to create masterpieces with her unparalleled genius, even if she privately thinks it'll be lovelier to create masterpieces with soft creamy skin so easily pierced and gushy pink-red-blue ropy tangles so easily sliced...)
Pleased with her progress, her mother rewards her, (a master rewarding a good dog with a bone, a good cat with a loosened collar, a good bird with unclipped wings) handing back the special knife on her 4th birthday.
"You are clever enough to not injure yourself unduly, nor let anyone see you injure others. You may borrow the kitchen knives again, so long as you have permission."
In other words, do whatever you want, just don't get caught in the act.
It is excellent advice.
Life advice to not be dead.
(Bell doesn't get caught.)
Unfortunately, her mother seems to have gotten the idea that she is squeamish around blood, somewhere around the month after her 4th birthday.
Which is totally, utterly, unfailingly unacceptable for a princess of both Volkov and Sangevechi lineage.
According to her mother, anyway.
"Two of the greatest advantages granted to the you will be your inherited Volkov and Sangevechi genes. The Volkovs are- were known for their ruthlessness and ability to think logically and calculatingly in even the fiercest, most heated of battles, giving them the advantage of wits unclouded by emotions and 'ethics'. This also lead to them being feared and hated, however, and past purges have left you and I as the last Volkovs. And your brother, I suppose," she reluctantly tags along, quickly moving on.
"Meanwhile, the Sangevechi are known for their bloodlust and ability to enter a sort of 'berserker' stage in combat, giving them the advantage of extreme endurance and drive, keeping them going until they simply collapse when drained of any more energy. Some call it madness, but it is a very useful madness nonetheless. To be able to ignore wounds and run on pure, primal, animal instincts is indeed a quite fearsome ability.
"Coupled with your Volkov genes, you and your brother will likely dominate any battle you enter… as soon as you have been trained up to beyond par. Thankfully, you two are genii; the IQ tests are certain. Might I add that you scored higher than him? Higher than anyone recorded in Europe... but in order to fully access your Volkov and Sangevechi abilities, a trigger is often needed for the latter, and being afraid of bloodshed will defeat the purpose of activating either."
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Her protests fall on deaf ears, as do her increasingly agitated explanations.
"But I'm not afraid of bloodshed, mother, I just-"
"No excuses, Bellona. Princesses don't make excuses, they make solutions."
She really isn't afraid of shedding a little blood, though.
Or even shedding a lot of blood.
Blood just seems so… distasteful to her, up-front.
Messy.
Hard-to-clean-up-after.
It stained and was a nuisance to erase.
(to erase: to wipe: to forget)
And that is that.
Really, it is.
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(It has nothing to do, nothing at all, with the dreams of the same sickly girl in the hospital, constantly hooked up to machines that dripped in drugs and bled out blood, the sickly girl who often has no energy to do anything but stare at the clear plastic pouches of scarlet liquid sluggishly drawn from her veins, the scarlet liquid that glinted carmine reflections and is stealing her life because she needs it to live and she already knows she is going to die no matter what the doctors and nurses and her parents say because they are all lying and what did they think she didn't know her own body her own limits and I don't want to die just yet I haven't even began to live help me help me HeLp mE I CAN'T SEE AND EVERYTHING'S GONE TO BLACKBLACKBLACKw-h-i-t-e-
…
…
… the Voice in her head screams and Bell's mind throbs with the ache and the echo but she can't do anything about something she didn't understand or remember except scream along and cry blindly all blind and all deaf and mugged of senses and-
…
…
… the Voice in her head is quiet like usual, although Bell has the most curious sense of having forgotten something important.
Really rather important.
Now what is it…?
… Eh, if she forgot it, then it must not have been important enough to be worth remembering in the first place, because of course princesses never forget anything truly crucial.)
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(Except when they do. But then it's always too late, now isn't it? Isn't it? ISn'T iT NoW!?
...
...
... The Voice in her head just doesn't know what to think anymore.
Did it ever have thoughts to begin with?
How do you know?
How can you know except by thinking?
How to validate an existence you aren't sure is yours you aren't sure is real you aren't sure if you ever existed in reality?
Except what is 'reality,' really?)
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She is simply too lazy to bother expending such effort, for something that can be avoided in the first place.
Slothful at such a young age is normal, right?
But it's not like she ever cares much about being 'normal'.
If anything, she wants to be abnormal, be better than normal.
'Royalty is superior to peasantry,' as her mother often says.
When stated with such confidence, who is she to argue?
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(Children are so impressionable, aren't they?
If a child is raised from birth listening to someone spew propaganda about 'loyalty to your mother' and 'hate your father and brother' and 'you are above the rest'...
… it'll be very, very easy for it to become an ingrained reflexive train of thought.
'Of course I should be loyal to mother, of course I should hate father and brother, of course I am above the rest.
… Because after all, what else do I know to believe?')
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"Which is why you'll be undergoing a 'blood desensitization' program. Quite simple; you will raise a flock of chickens in the old Royal Kitchen near the dungeons. After two weeks, which should be enough to 'bond' with your flock, you will slaughter all of them. I expect neat, precise cuts, mind you. We will be eating these for dinner later. You have three 'killing days', and by the end of every day, the kitchen must be clean, the equipment must be clean, and the dead poultry must be washed and plucked and skinned and put into the freezer. Or else you're staying in the kitchen until it is."
"But I'm really not afraid of-"
"Question?"
"... kaching."
She ungracefully admits defeat, knowing it will be useless and futile to attempt to persuade her mother into having a change of heart.
"How many chickens must I raise, mother?"
"50. At least. Or until you get over that silly aversion of yours to blood."
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And that is the story of why Bell is currently in the old kitchen decapitating fowl with a giant cleaver and muttering complaints about 'cleaning up the dirty blood like a commoner peasant'.
Thud.
Plunk.
A sigh, a swish.
"That's the 11th chicken, I believe. I still have to pluck and skin all of these!? Tch, princesses shouldn't have to do peasants' work. But princesses must answer to queens, and those stronger than they are, blah blah blabbity blah blah blah…"
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Then, of course, Rasiel just had to ruin all of her hard work.
"That scum-eating traitorous cowardly lying deceiver-backstabber trash-of-the-earth unsightly copycat creepily-laughing cheating underhanded son of a double-crossing anger-management bastard and a slave-driving coldhearted acid-tongued bi-"
"Bellona, are you not focusing on your duty?"
"-ahem, that is, queen."
The Voice in her head emits a sense of amusement.
Bell wishes that she can stab it.
If only everyone just stabs their problems, the world will be ever so much more efficient.
The Voice in her head emits a sense of disapproval.
Bell really wishes that she can stab it now.
Still, there are more important matters at hand to be concerned about.
Staring at the scene in front of her, the blond princess snarls furiously.
'He is going to pay for this...'
Dozens of glassy eyes stare mournfully at her, lolling up from messily severed heads.
"They were mine to kill."
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This has been hinted at heavily before, but Catalina is actually a really bad mother who treats Bell like this combination of a trained pet and a loyal puppet, constantly teaching Bel propaganda and reinforcing it with psychological, physical, and Mist manipulation, until it's practically instinctive to think that way.
The 'Mist' part isn't touched upon yet, but she has been messing with Bell's mind since basically her birth, with the 'lullabies' embedded with certain subliminal messages.
You don't just grow up with megalomania and a superiority complex and obsess about royalty and blood and speak in third person and have fratricidal as well as patricidal urges for no reason.
The Voice that's referenced has more morals than Bel does, even if they're still rather more bitter and twisted than an 'average' person's, so it's kinda her conscience (because she doesn't really have a natural conscience telling her what not to do and what to feel/react), but it's shifting and changing and developing with her.
You can probably guess what the Voice is by now, if it wasn't already obvious in the first chapter.
Also mentioned in the first chapter, it didn't really 'stir' that often, or speak coherent words that often at the start. It's 'waking up' as Bellona ages, and now is a constant 'resting' presence in her, occasionally chipping in with urges and feelings of caution or what to expect, based on it's better understanding of human behavior, motivations, and general 'emotional' stuff.
Sorry, no Alina yet, so no happy stabby fun times. Next chapter, maybe.
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