What? It's the day before Valentine's Day and I should upload something happy and fluffy? No I'm sorry I'm afraid I can't do that for you.
It happens for a reason. Some sort of destiny was set up for you, and you only, and your obstacles are there for you to learn from and to persevere. At least, that was what Ria's mother had always told her.
And Ria's mother was a single parent of six children - father and older brother had gone off to fight in the war, never to be seen again, still leaving four girls and two boys on one poor mother's meager paycheck. They didn't live well. But they did their best, because that was their destiny.
These things this "destiny" kept setting up for her was only going to make her a hardened old biddy, she had thought to herself. Poor little Ria, she's got family issues and money troubles. She mocked herself to make her feel better, horridly downsizing her problems, making her feel even worse about it all.
So when she was attacked, she did the same thing. She played it off as nothing and told no one. It wasn't important enough for anyone to know. It was supposed to happen, but it was still her fault, and not a soul would ever hear.
Pulled aside roughly in the alley, on her way home from an awful day at an awful job, barely making enough money to buy bread for the night for her growing siblings.
She was only nineteen when it happened. Too young, she had thought to herself. Too young and too ugly, too utterly trivial for this to have happened to her of all people.
She didn't go home that night. She reeked of the man's sweat and his ale, her stench was of his semen and his sex. The only part of that smell she claimed was the gore, the metallic, sickening smell of blood. She fought to think of a way to pawn the blame of the blood off to the man as well, but it ended back up on her shoulders.
So did the rest of the smells. One by one, she found a way to blame herself, not destiny, and to drop herself into a pit of self-loathing.
But the smells could be bathed away, and the scars will be faded soon, and the pain would ease itself off, yet her mind kept them there for her to always see. She always saw the blood running down her legs and the scratches on her abdomen and she always smelled the pure sweat of the man, and it haunted her for days and months and years.
And she figured no, mother was wrong. Destiny had nothing to do with it. I'll claim the blame.
Some scars lasted longer. Eventual infertility, from roughness and rejected fluids, gave her more reason to bear the weight of the world. And the nightmares, too, the horrible, dark dreams where she was being smothered by smells of sweat and ale and blood, and the weight on her chest was slowly caving her inside out, where she was forced to face her own terrible black monster of hate, the nightmares where she never jolted awake in a cold sweat and screamed and writhed straight through them. Those are what haunted her the longest.
The consequences were there, but the cause is still questionable. Was it really her fault? Larsa had to convince her otherwise. He absolutely had to. She couldn't survive on only cat naps, dozing until a nightmare began to creep its tendrils on her, then violently shaking herself awake. She couldn't survive with this unsurprised hatred and hopelessness in herself.
And he told her it was unfair destiny, just as Ria's mother had said before.
Alright, here's my PSA. Rape isn't okay. It's something gross and awful and horrible that too many people have to suffer through. If it makes you sick, good, because it is sickening (and I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't feeling well at all when I was writing this). Rape jokes and going "OMGSSSKNDSNS I TTL"Y GONNA RAPE HIMMMM~~~~~~~" is so not okay. Rape is a trigger. Rape is bad. Very bad. I'm understating it a lot. Rape shouldn't be used as a plot device and there are ways to make a strong female character without incorporating assault, but unfortunately, little me didn't realize that when she laid down the basics for Ria. I think I'll leave it at that, because otherwise I'll babble longer than the actual chapter is. End PSA.